by Lane Hart
“Nah, I doubt it,” he replies. “If anyone sees us, I’ll tell them you’re a stubborn, out-of-control brat. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“You’re not funny!” I yell to his ass. “And I’ll scream until someone stops you!”
“Hmm. I almost forgot.”
Now he tosses me down on my bed closest to the door. Pulling his backpack around, he digs inside and says, “Good thing I have this.”
It doesn’t take me long to realize the red ball and black strap is a gag.
“You can’t do this to me!” I scream at him as he leans toward my head with the device.
“Sure I can,” he says with a grin.
I manage to flop over onto my stomach to try and get away, which only makes it easier for him to fit the damn thing to my face and fasten it at the back of my head. Once the ball is lowered into my mouth, I know I’m fucked. Definitely not in the good way.
“That’s much better,” Conrad says.
Clutching the bedspread in my fists doesn’t do much good. He’s able to heft me up and over his shoulder again, and then we’re out the door.
Not a single soul is in the parking garage to see me being abducted. If there are cameras, then it’ll be too late by the time someone watches him carry me out. All too soon he’s fastening me to the middle of the back seat of the rental car with the seat belt.
He stands in the open door to admire his handiwork.
“I should probably remove the gag for the ride. Otherwise, how will you tell me if you have to go to the bathroom?”
I keep glaring at him until he finally undoes the fastening. Then I try to bite his hand but fail when he quickly pulls away. He tosses our bags in the back seat beside me and then climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Eight hours in the car for five days. Nothing to it,” he remarks while cranking the small sedan.
That’s what he thinks. My plan is to make his life hell for the next five days until he lets me go or I escape.
I’ll be damned if I step foot in Myrtle Beach again. I may miss my mother and sister, but since they refuse to remove my father from their lives, I’ll just have to go on without them in my life.
I’ve survived the last four years without them. I can survive the rest of my life alone too, if necessary.
Chapter Nine
Conrad
* * *
“I have to pee,” Hannah says before we’re even out of the hotel parking lot.
I consider finding a place to stop for a second out of guilt but then shake my head in refusal.
“You should’ve said something before we left. After all, you were in the bathroom for hours, so you’ve got no one but yourself to blame if you didn’t actually use the facilities,” I reply, glancing at her briefly in the rearview mirror before focusing on the road in front of me again.
I need to keep my head on the plan, driving eight hours a day for five days to get her ass back to her father. I cannot and will not think about how hard I was when I was restraining her and she was moaning and begging for more. I only put my mouth on her body to manipulate her the same way she tried to seduce me. It was nothing but a ploy to get her wrists strapped to her thighs. A cruel trick that I should be ashamed of, instead of being proud of myself. I didn’t actually enjoy the way her neck or stomach or thighs tasted salty and sweet. It was nothing but a biological reaction that I got even harder when I was close enough to her pussy to smell her arousal. I can’t let my mind wander so far that I think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t stopped when I did.
From the corner of my eye, I watch her squirm for several miles, and then I hear the click of the seat belt buckle. I knew she would be able to reach it eventually.
“Now what are you going to do? If you jump out in the restraints while we’re speeding down the highway, you may survive if another car doesn’t hit you, but you’ll probably smear your entire face across the pavement.”
Hannah huffs indignantly as if she was contemplating doing just that but has reconsidered.
“There’s something seriously wrong with you for doing this to me,” she says a few minutes later.
“No shit,” I mutter to myself without looking at her again.
“So why are you doing it?”
I keep my mouth shut after that question too.
“Did he threaten to arrest you or something?”
“No,” I answer.
“And he’s not paying you,” she goes on to say. “Which must mean that he’s blackmailing you with something else besides prison…”
My jaw ticks, but I don’t admit she’s hit the nail on the head.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Hannah asks. “What does he have on you?”
I change lanes, following along with the GPS voice guidance on my phone.
“Come on. Tell me what’s so important that you would kidnap me and take me home against my will.”
I wince at her wording. I’m not the kind of guy who ever does shit to women against their will. So why am I selfishly sacrificing her freedom to cover my ass? “This is for your own good,” I tell her. Part of me really does believe that. I don’t think most normal twenty-year-old girls drink as much as Hannah or act out as salaciously as she does, living with and sleeping with men who are old enough to be her father.
“My own good? You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know that you drink way more than you should,” I remark.
“That’s none of your business! Or my father’s! And why does he give a shit about me now all of a sudden? Huh? Well?” she demands when I don’t respond. “Tell me, Conrad!”
“He’s just worried about you.”
“Nope. I don’t buy that,” she huffs. “There has to be another reason, one that is all about him.”
I grit my teeth, intending to keep that part to myself. For some reason, though, I feel compelled to tell her, “He also said something about running for mayor.”
“Of course! An election next year. That’s why he can’t have his oldest daughter halfway across the country getting arrested for stupid shit. How could someone possibly run a city if they can’t even control their own kid, right?”
“I guess.”
“He’s just a self-centered asshole.”
“I can’t argue with you on that.”
“So why help him?” she shouts.
“Because he didn’t leave me much choice. It was either kidnap you or lose everyone I care about.”
“Sacrifice one for many, huh? You’re a dickhead too.”
She’s not wrong. I don’t exactly feel good for what I’ve done to her. Well, my dick enjoyed restraining her, but deep down I don’t like being a part of this. I can’t help but wonder what Cannon would do in my position.
Most likely he would just come clean to everyone and tell the police chief to go fuck himself. He wouldn’t put up with being blackmailed for a second.
And everyone thinks I’m the good twin. They’re wrong. Cannon may run his mouth, but he wouldn’t intentionally hurt someone like I’m currently doing.
“So why don’t you want to go home?” I ask Hannah, wishing I could pull the truth about why she hates her father from her. Maybe then I could find the balls to change my mind about helping the asshole.
“Because I’m a grown-ass woman and I don’t want to.”
“You sound like a whiny-ass baby,” I tell her. “Try again.”
“It’s none of your business or anyone else’s!”
“If you say so. Just seems to me that if I hated someone as much as you claim to hate your father that I would be shouting out their mistakes from the top of my lungs to turn everyone against him instead of running away.”
I catch her slack-jawed look in the rearview mirror a second before she responds with “Fuck you!”
“If he did something awful to you, why haven’t you ratted him out in public and tried to get him fired?”
“Because it’s personal and no one else’s busine
ss!” she yells.
“What did he do? Did he ground you when you were a teenager? Take away your phone? Your car? Not let you date a douche? Come on, it can’t be that bad. He would never risk losing his badge.”
“Just shut up about it,” Hannah huffs. “Please.”
“If you don’t tell me, then I have no reason to not drag you back there, you know?”
In the rearview, I watch her shoulders sag as she visibly deflates.
“How many hours is this gonna take?” she asks.
“Forty.”
“Forty!” she exclaims.
“That’s not counting the time we stop to eat and sleep.”
“Oh my god,” she groans, throwing her head back. I really should pay more attention to the cars in front of me than the woman restrained in the back seat.
“We could’ve just hopped on two planes and been there tonight, but you were uncooperative with that plan.”
“You’ll never get me all the way there. I’ll find a way to run.”
“You can certainly try,” I concede. “But I promise you will fail.”
Chapter Ten
Hannah
* * *
For hours and hours I watch as the world passes by from the windows of the car. I try to close my eyes and nap, saving up my energy until I can make a run for it, but it’s not easy to sleep sitting up straight. I could try lying down but probably wouldn’t be able to sit up again. I can’t even scratch my nose if it itches!
“I’m hungry,” I say for the fifth time in ten minutes.
“When we hit the four-hour mark, I’ll look for somewhere to stop,” Conrad replies calmly.
“Why can’t we just stop now?” I whine.
“Because I’ve got us on a schedule. One to make this god-awful drive as bearable as possible.”
“You better be glad I haven’t really had to go to the bathroom or you would have a nasty mess in the back seat of this rental.”
“I knew you were lying,” he says.
“My head hurts and I can’t even rub it!” I complain.
“Rubbing it wouldn’t make it any better,” Conrad tells me. “Probably alcohol withdrawal. I looked it up online during those long hours you were in the bathroom at the hotel. Apparently, the withdrawal period could make you nauseous, vomit, anxious, agitated, and irritable. Guess the medical professionals left off whiny and an enormous pain in the ass.”
“I don’t drink that much,” I tell him honestly.
“No?”
“I just have a few glasses of wine at night.”
“When you say glasses, I think you mean bottles, like the one you were guzzling from at Bob’s house.”
“Fine, a bottle or two a night. That’s it. I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t have to drink to excess, I just like doing it once in a while.”
“Why?” Conrad asks.
“Because it’s nice to be numb for a few hours.”
“And how long have you been numbing yourself nightly?”
“I don’t know. A few years.”
“A few years?” he exclaims, his blue eyes meeting mine in the rearview to maybe see if I’m telling the truth or exaggerating. “Are you twenty or forty years old? You shouldn’t have even been drinking for a few weeks yet.”
“I feel older than twenty, that’s for sure,” I admit.
“You don’t act older.”
I don’t argue with him on that comment. I haven’t been living my best life. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve been living at all for the past four years. I’ve been angry and grieving, dwelling on the past, on things I can’t change but that I wish I could.
“You ever wish you could have a do-over with something big, something that changes your life?”
Conrad barely lifts one shoulder. “I guess there are some things I would do over if it were possible, but it’s not. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I guess.”
“Does your do-over have something to do with your father?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“He turned you into a seductress and alcoholic at the age of twenty?”
“No, he did that when I was sixteen.”
“So you’ve been drinking to numb yourself since you were sixteen?”
“Yes.”
“And your dad let you?” he asks.
“Well, he wasn’t around after he shipped me off to an all-girl boarding school, then right to an all-girl Catholic college.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
“My mom isn’t so bad. Then there’s my little sister, a few aunts and uncles and grandparents that we only saw during the holidays.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen your mom and sister?” Conrad asks.
“Four years.”
“You haven’t seen them since you were sixteen either?”
“Nope. I mean, we talk on the phone maybe once a month. I’ve seen them on video chats. But they didn’t visit, and I wasn’t going to go home.”
“That sounds pretty shitty,” he says.
“It is. But they insist on letting my dad be in their life like nothing happened, rather than have me in it.”
“They can’t have you both?”
“No.”
He doesn’t ask any more questions about them, and I blink away the rogue tears that well up in my eyes as we ride in silence for several more minutes.
Finally, Conrad says, “There are a few fast-food joints on the next exit. Probably a good place to eat, use the restroom, and fill up the gas tank.”
“Sounds good,” I agree, already thinking of how I may be able to run or flag down a bystander.
But Conrad is way ahead of me.
He goes through a drive-thru for burgers and fries first, then stops at a gas station to fill up the tank before pulling up to the bathroom door that’s on the side of the building and not inside of it.
“What are we waiting for? I really do have to pee now, and I would like to eat.”
“Once those two cars at the tank pull off, I’ll release one of your hands while you use the bathroom, but the rest of the restraints stay. And the locks are unbreakable, so no point wasting time trying to get them off. My foot will stay in the door to make sure you don’t lock yourself inside for hours again.”
“But…” I can’t believe he’s thought it all through to the last detail of how and when I could get free.
“All right. The cars are leaving.” Conrad unfastens his seat belt and then turns to look at me from the gap between the front seats. “The faster you finish your business in the restroom, the quicker you can eat. I’ll be timing you. After five minutes I haul you out, so don’t dillydally.”
“Dillydally? Do you know how ridiculous you sound saying that?”
“Don’t fuck around,” he snaps. “Is that better?”
“Yes, it is.”
Shaking his head, he climbs out of the car and comes around to the passenger door closest to the bathroom to open it for me. He pulls out a tiny key on a keychain to pop the lock on the cuff on my right wrist.
Conrad grabs me by the bar between my ankles to pull my feet out to the ground and hurries me into the nasty women’s bathroom.
“Tick tock,” he says when he shuts the door almost all the way, leaving a gap only the width of his foot that’s holding it open.
It’s not easy to get my shorts and panties down with only one hand, but I manage before my bladder explodes. And of course, I try and tug and wiggle out of the restraints still latched around my thighs and other wrist, but they don’t have any give at all they’re on so damn tight.
“You about done?” Conrad calls out.
“Don’t you dare look at me while I’m on the toilet!” I warn him.
“Why not? It can’t look worse than this morning when you were puking in one.”
He has a point that I refuse to concede. I shouldn’t have drunk so much last night. I don’t usually have so much wine, but I was just on edge and annoyed with Bob.
The idea of not seeing him again doesn’t even make me sad. In fact, it’s sort of a relief that I’m done with him. Things were fun with him at first when we were sneaking around. The forbidden sex was hot. And so were his kinks of letting other men watch us at first. But I just couldn’t go along with his idea of letting me fuck other men while he watched. There’s just something wrong with that – like he doesn’t care enough about me that he wants me for himself. I never believed he loved me. I guess I just thought I would at least be important to him.
I bet Conrad would never share his women with other guys. I think a man like him who obviously has a bondage fetish would be possessive of their partners, want them all to themselves. He likes to be in control all the time, but I can tell he also has a softer side.
This whole kidnapping experience could’ve been much worse. The only reason he had to resort to restraints was because he knows I’m a flight risk and he apparently can’t fail at his assignment of getting me back home.
I’ve got my shorts and panties up and am washing my hands when Conrad sticks his head in and says, “Time’s up.”
“I’m coming,” I mutter. “Keep your panties on.”
“I have to use the bathroom too, you know,” he remarks.
“So go. I’m not stopping you,” I say after I grab a paper towel and turn around to face him. His scowl says it all – he can’t risk taking a minute to go to the bathroom because I might run off.
And while running sounds like a good plan, it wouldn’t be a very well-thought-out one. I don’t even know what state we’re in, much less the city. Where would I go? I don’t have any money or even a phone on me. Depending on the goodwill of strangers is great in theory, but knowing my luck, I’ll run into some psycho pervert who does way worse to me than hold me hostage in the back seat of a car that’s on its way to take me home to see my family.
When Conrad comes into the bathroom, I let him restrain my right wrist to my thigh again, even as I ask, “How am I supposed to eat without my hand free?”
“I’ll feed you after I take a piss.”