Lost & Bound (16 page)

Callum

“Bring me a phone,” I yell. “Hand me your
phone for two minutes, I beg you.” As usual, she places the tray of food at my
feet without looking at my face.

“Fuck, Rosa, what do I have to do to make
you talk to me?”

Without acknowledging me she goes about her
business and then hurries upstairs. When I hear the door lock I let out a
frustrated cry. “Fuck.”

I look at the tray she left behind,
scrambled eggs with sausages, bacon and a croissant. It’s hardly peasant food,
but the rope fastened around my wrist reminds me that I’m still in prison. The
plastic cutlery telling me how much of a threat he thinks I am.

“She won’t talk to you,” I hear her say.

A voice has never sounded so sweet.

It’s been three days since Leila last spoke
to me. Ever since my father raped her, she has remained mute. Each night she
spends hours in the shower, literally, hours.

I assume she’s trying to wash the memory
from her skin. I can hear her sobs from the bathroom, but I can’t check on her,
my arm is still tied to the bedpost. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe she
needs to be alone. After all, there is no way I can take the pain away from
her.

For the past two nights she has slept on
the sofa, not her bed. I miss being close to her, but I understand why she’s
avoiding this side of the room…and me. When she finally speaks, I welcome her
words and can’t hide the smile from my face.

“She won’t help us, Callum,” she says.

Leila walks over to me cradling a cushion
in her arms. She sets the cushion on the floor and sits next to me.

“Hey.” I try to act casual, but I can’t
keep the enthusiasm from my voice. “How are you?” I ask the question and then
instantly regret it.
How do you think she is?

“I’m—I’m fine.” She chooses the word carefully,
her lips lingering on those four simple letters.

My body aches all over from sleeping on the
concrete for three nights straight, but if Leila wasn’t going to sleep on the
bed then neither was I.

She surprises me when she reaches forward.
Her hand lands behind me as she pulls a throw rug from the edge of the bed,
laying it over our legs.

“It’s like camping,” she tells me.

Her hair falls over her face, shielding her
eyes from me. I fight every impulse not to lean forward and tuck the loose
strands behind her ear. As if reading my mind she brushes her fingers through
her hair and flicks it over her shoulder.

“Are you going to eat?” she asks as she
gestures toward the tray of food. “You haven’t eaten much lately.”

She’s right. I haven’t been eating much at
all, my appetite diminishing with each day that passes.

“Hand me the tray.”

She passes me the full platter and I start
shoveling the food into my mouth.

“It’s good to see you eating.” She smiles.

“This is nothing. Wait till you see me eat
when I have two hands.”

I wink at her and she smiles again,
crawling over to my arm that is tied to the bedpost.

She tries to loosen the rope, her fingers
working on the knot, but it won’t
shift
.

“It’s too tight.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I know. It’s not
going to come undone.”

She looks at me with a thoughtful
expression on her face. “Have you ever wondered why he doesn’t tie me up?”

I swallow, giving myself a chance to think
about her question. “Well, I guess he doesn’t see you as a threat.”

She looks confused.

“I might fight back,” I explain. “But he
knows you won’t.”

Years of being locked down here have taught
Leila there are boundaries. She’s learned that the hard way and something tells
me I don’t know the half of it.

When my stomach can take no more I set the
tray aside and down the remainder of my juice.

“Leila,” I murmur, but she interrupts me
before I can continue.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says,
preempting my words.

“That’s okay.” I can handle that.
 

“Please just talk about something else. Anything
that doesn’t remind me of being here.” The solemn expression on her face tells
more than any amount of words can.

She scoots closer to me, leaning against
the bed.

“Tell me about the beach where you’re
from,” I say, letting my head fall against the bed frame.

“
Maceió
?”

I nod.

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what it’s like there, what the
sand feels like under your feet, what the water feels like on your toes.”

She smiles. It’s the first genuine smile
I’ve seen in days and it warms my insides. “It’s the most magical place. The
water is warm and clear and it’s so pure and blue, like the color of your
eyes.”

I glance at her. “My eyes?”

She’s embarrassed. The color of her cheeks
a dead giveaway. She lets her head fall on my shoulder, resting it there as she
continues speaking. I savor the moment, breathing her in subtly. She smells
like spring.

“Do you miss it?” I ask. I want to keep her
talking. After days of silence, her voice is what I need to hear. It gives me
something to live for.

Her words come out at the tail end of a
long exhale. “I miss the beach.”

“And you miss your home?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. She responds
without a second thought. I wish I experienced the same feeling when I was in
Italy. I wish I had an undeniable desire to return to my American life, but the
only thing I wanted was to get away from Sofia and the only way I could do that
was by returning home.

Leila brings my attention back to her.

 
“My mother works at a resort in
Maceió
. Sometimes I
would visit her at work. I would lie on the sun lounges and pretend I was a
guest at the hotel. My mother didn’t like it, but I told her I could dream.”

I sense the sadness in her voice, when she
mentions her mother.

“I can’t wait to visit,” I say.

She peeks up at me from under her lashes.
“You will visit
Maceió
?”

“Of course,” I respond as if it’s a
no-brainer. “Once we’re out of here you have to show me where you grew up.”

Leila bites on the corner of her lip. It
causes my heart rate to hitch just from that one innocent gesture. Her lips are
so beautiful, so kissable, reminding me of the night when our lips met and her
body was pressed against mine. I feel myself getting hard just from the memory.

It shocks me when she closes the distance
between us, her face just inches from mine. She moves to sit in front of me,
her back resting against my chest, the curve of her ass settling between my
legs.

I struggle to breathe for the slightest
moment, the unexpected contact surprising me. I wrap one arm around her middle
and when she doesn’t shy away from my touch, I loop my other arm around her.

She tangles an elastic hair band in her
fingers as she continues talking casually. “Why do you think he chose me?”

It takes me a moment to understand the
question. Why did my father choose her? “I don’t know.”

She is silent for a second, her words
teetering on the edge of her tongue before they tumble out of her mouth. “Do I
look like your mother?”

I feel tears prick my eyes. The question
startles me. My mother’s face pushed to the forefront of my mind. Her mousy
brown hair framed her face effortlessly. Her lips forced into a smile,
revealing perfect and unnaturally white teeth. Her skin was pale and her eyes
sad. I’d never noticed that before, the sadness in her eyes.

I shake my head. “You are very different
from her.”

“Then why me?” she asks.

I look down at her in my arms. Her deep
brown hair swept over her shoulder, her pink lips pouting without her trying,
her brown eyes looking up at me as they sweep over my face.

“Because you’re beautiful,” I say simply.

You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve
ever seen.

“There’s nothing more to it?”

“Sometimes there isn’t. It’s purely about
looks.”

She sighs and then flicks the hair band
from her fingers shooting it across the room.

“Sometimes there isn’t,” she repeats the
words and I wonder if she understands them. My father chose her and it wasn’t
the other way around.

She turns at the waist to look at me. Her
eyes are dark and her face serious. The way the subtle light hits her face
makes her skin look much darker than normal and her eyes are no longer that
chocolate brown color. They are darker and far more intense.

“The other night…” she starts, but I
interrupt her.

“Don’t.” I press a finger to her lips.

I know exactly what night she’s referring
to. That night hasn’t made me feel any
different
about her and she needs to know that.

“I need to tell you…” she
starts
, but
pauses
mid-sentence.

I cup her cheek with the palm of my hand
and she leans into my touch.

I stoop forward and she instantly stops
breathing. Her lips gape the slightest and once again the conflict begins
within.

Leila

Our noses touch. The tip of his nose
brushing against mine, freezing just before he reaches my lips.
He looks at me as if my mouth is full of poison.

“I won’t bite.” I nibble on the corner of my
lip.

I look into his eyes, the cool blue eyes
that remind me of home. Tonight I can still see the fire within them. He’s
going to consume me and I cannot wait for his fingers to trace the lines of my
body, closely followed by his lips.

I lean my body forward and press my hands
against his chest.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not enough to make me stop.”

He dips his head forward and meets my lips.
I let my eyes drift closed as if I’m in a dream, waiting for this magical
moment to ripple through my body. I breathe him in as my hands wrap around his
neck, drawing him closer. His lips move against mine as if he can’t have me
quick enough. His tongue enters my mouth, circling mine as his thumb caresses
my cheek.

His hand moves to the small of my back and
he presses his body against mine. I bring my palms up to his chest. I can feel
the tension in his muscles together with the rapid beat of his heart. If only
he knew he makes my
heart beat
equally as fast. His
tongue moves wildly in my mouth and a moan escapes from the back of his throat.
He breaks away from my lips, his breath coming in short bursts.

“Fuck.”

“Is that a good thing?” I ask.

His lips part and he smiles. “It’s a great
thing,” he says as he adjusts his pants around his arousal.

I offer him a shy smile as I feel my cheeks
blush.

“You don’t mind that I kissed you, right?”
he asks, suddenly unsure of himself.

“No,” I say a little too quickly. “I mind
that you stopped.”

He chuckles, resting his hand on my knee and
stroking my skin causing my whole leg to heat and my pussy to throb. Just from
one touch he makes me…
feel
.

I press a soft, delicate kiss to the corner
of his mouth. This time the kiss lingers, our lips melding together as I
breathe him in.

I don’t want this moment to end. I feel as though I’m falling and
drowning in the same moment.

Falling for him, drowning in him.
I’m unsure if I can stop myself, not knowing if I want to.

***

I’m spinning around and around. I try to
control the feeling inside—the unrelenting need to vomit. I take in a
breath and wait for the nausea to subside.

I can hear voices mumbling, but I can’t make
out their words.

Who are
these people? What do they want from me?

“Who are you?” I ask, but it comes out as an
inaudible whisper.

No one answers because no one hears. Fear
ripples through my body as I realize I’m alone. No one is coming to help me.

I hear footsteps. They are getting
louder—closer.

“What do you want?” I ask.

The spinning begins to slow. The stage does
one last round and then halts abruptly causing my body to jolt to attention. I
blink rapidly as my eyes adjust to the light in the distance.

The faceless figure steps forward, his hand
reaching out to grab me. I feel trapped and I panic, lashing out against him.

“Stop,” I shout, waving my arms around violently.

My forearms beat against his face, trying to
keep some distance between us, but one of his hands binds both of my wrists
together. He controls me with little effort.

He moves closer. His face slowly comes into
focus. His lips, his nose and then his
eyes
…those
familiar and haunting blue eyes.

Callum.

He grabs my shoulders and gently shakes me.

“It’s just a dream, Leila.”

He doesn’t know. It’s not just a dream. This
is my reality and I suspect, how this whole mess started.

“A dream?” I whisper, tracing my fingertip
over his cheek. “It felt so real.” I think back to my dream, was it real? “It
doesn’t matter,” I whisper.

He offers me a half-smile, as if he knows
the truth. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I just wish I knew what it means.” I sigh.

“Was
he
there?” He means his father.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so. I
don’t know.”

He exhales through his nose.

“Come here.” He pulls me against his chest
and we fall back against the bed. I toy with the rope that is fastened around
his wrist, pulling at the coarse fibers, peeling them loose one by one.

“That won’t be enough to set me free.” I
sense the humor in his voice, but there’s sadness in it too.

The words go unsaid, but we both know the
truth. We may never be free again.