Trust in Me (2 page)

Once inside Carlos’s room, I studied it through Tyler’s eyes. Shiny surfaces and gaudy mirrors left no doubt as to what sort of acts they normally reflected. The leather wall paneling and black silk sheets cinched the deal—this room was for sex.

Tyler whirled on me. I could tell he was going to say something, ask something, so I kissed him. It was only to stop him, but I enjoyed myself anyway. Be thankful where you can, that was my motto, and I was thankful for this. His lips were soft and warm, and shockingly, he responded to my kiss, pressing his lips back and tangling his tongue with mine. He wasn’t chilly or slimy. He didn’t taste bad.

When we parted, we were both panting. With my lips only an inch from his, I breathed, “There’s cameras.”

His eyes widened for a second, then he nodded slightly. His arms came around me and pulled my body into his. He understood. Don’t act like we know each other, don’t say anything incriminating. From the moment we’d pretended not to know each other, it was me and Tyler against Carlos.

How had he come to work with Carlos? How had he ended up back in the old neighborhood? I had imagined him somewhere with a great family and a good job. I didn’t like that he was back here in Shitsville, mixed up with dangerous people.

“So Carlos just gives his girlfriend to anyone who asks?” he asked in a low tone.

From somewhere deep I pulled a careless laugh. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

He raised one eyebrow. “That’s not how it looked to me.”

God, the innocence. He really wasn’t cut out to be working with a guy like Carlos. “I’m whatever he tells me to be,” I said, infusing myself with a sexiness I didn’t feel. “I’m a whore.”

Tyler’s eyes darkened. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat,” I said lightly. It wasn’t even a lie. That had been the reason once. I stroked a finger down my neck because it seemed like something a whore would do, and because I wanted to.

His fingertips tightened on my hips, and he shook me slightly. “Damn it, Mia.”

I sharpened my gaze in warning.

“Isn’t that what you said your name was?” he murmured.

Then he kissed me. It was an act, like my kiss had been, but just as quickly it became real. He tasted me, caressed me, and I’d never had it like this. I’d never been kissed by a man who treated me gently, who knew who I was, and at least for the moment, wanted me anyway. I’d never been kissed by a man I liked. I’d never liked a man that wasn’t Tyler. I didn’t deserve it but I took it anyway, which made me just as bad as Carlos.

“How long do we have?” he asked between breaths.

“As long as you want,” came the automatic reply.

He nipped at my lips. Not the right answer.

“Maybe an hour,” I whispered. Any longer and Carlos would get anxious. Much less and he’d know I hadn’t properly pleased Tyler. “Are you going to…?”
Fuck me.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I wasn’t counting on cameras. What happens if we just kiss? Make out?”

Pain. Tears. Blood.
“Nothing,” I said. “Do what you want.”

He scowled.

I widened my eyes. “What?”

“You’re not as good a liar as you think you are. What happens if we don’t fuck?” he asked.

His voice held a command, and that, at least, I was used to. Damn. I didn’t know if I could trust this guy, but somewhere deep inside I already did.

“I’ll get in trouble.” I shook my head to show him it didn’t matter. The last thing I wanted to do was pressure him into sex.

“What kind of trouble?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he pulled me tighter against him. I went limp, a reflex. “What happens when you get in trouble?”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t explain about the pain. The terror, the agony.

“Christ,” he said. “Tell me.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
It’s everything. Please, just fuck me.

“If he hurts you then why…?”

I knew what he’d meant to say. Why did I stay, then? The irony was that I had the same question for him. Working for a guy like Carlos had “bad idea” written all over it. Why would anyone want to stay in this shithole if he had the option to leave? But both of us were here. The better question was, what was holding us prisoners?

Chapter Two

Tyler sighed, resigned. “Okay. Come on.”

And really, isn’t that just what every girl wants to hear from a guy agreeing to fuck her? But I wasn’t like every girl. This was a job, that was all.

He led me to the bed and pulled me down with him. But I didn’t want him, not like this. I didn’t want him to have sex with me, not if he didn’t want me. I only remained here to protect those girls from forced sex, from rape. I couldn’t do the same thing to Tyler, not even to spare myself pain.

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. Please don’t.”

“I have to,” he said, his teeth gritted.

This was all wrong. “You don’t want this,” I whispered.

He pulled my hand to his jeans where I felt his hardness pushing against the zipper. “Does this feel like I don’t want it?”

I already knew the body had nothing to do with the mind. “No,” I said. “I can tell you don’t. It doesn’t matter about me.”

He pushed me onto my back and loomed over me. “This is happening. Are you going to fight me?”

I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—fight Tyler, not ever. No matter how I pledged my allegiance to Carlos, I couldn’t help but fight and resist every time he hurt me. With Tyler, it hurt just to be near him, but I’d endure it, if only to pretend a few minutes more.

He kissed me again, and it was almost real. Like a real kiss between two people having sex, as if I knew what that felt like. Both of us were doing this for business or to avoid pain or whatever reason, but none having to do with passion or pleasure. Still, I felt a long-buried stirring of passion. And, too, I felt pleasure as his lips molded over mine and his body lowered.

The weight of him, the heat of him, was delicious. Somehow I felt safe with him, which was a stupid error to make after working so hard and so long to be careful. He was working with Carlos—I couldn’t forget that. If Carlos ever found out I was double-crossing him, he wouldn’t kill me. He would keep me alive and make me wish I were dead.

Tyler’s hands found my breasts and easily slipped under the small halter top. He looked down at my breast in his hand. I knew I had beautiful breasts. Not because they looked beautiful to me—I hated the sight of them—but because I’d been told so. From very young, I’d been told how pretty they were—large, despite my lanky body, and pale with dark, hardened tips.

He groaned, just staring. “So beautiful.”

I hated that he said that, that he noticed what all the other men had noticed, that he was like them after all. At the same time, I almost preened. At least I had pleased him in some way. One of these days my contradictions would tear me apart.

His fingertip, blunt and rough, traced from the top of the slope to the tip.

“Why are you doing this?” he muttered, and it didn’t sound like he was talking to me but to himself.

Why
was
he doing this? Why did he need to get mixed up with Carlos? It would only end badly for Tyler. I had seen enough of Carlos’s business partners disappear to know that. God, but I didn’t want to think that Tyler would even want to be involved. Carlos had lots of different businesses, but they were all bad—drugs, guns. And my personal crusade, my curse, human trafficking. Which was Tyler involved in?

“You shouldn’t be here,” slipped out on a moan.

“I know,” he said, still mesmerized by my hated breasts.

“It isn’t right.” Why couldn’t he see? I wanted him to be good, but if he couldn’t do that, then at least I wanted him to be safe.

“I can’t stop,” he said. Then he looked up at me. “I won’t hurt you.”

Too late for that. “Just do it,” I said.
Get it over with, never let it end.

He bent his head and kissed my nipple. Not sucked, not bit, just kissed. “I shouldn’t.”
He bared my other breast and kissed that nipple. “Want you.”

Pins pricked behind my eyes. It was sweet, too sweet. “No,” I whispered.

“Shh,” he said. “It’s okay.” His hands caressed my breasts as his erection pressed against me below, fitting perfectly.

I needed it to be over before I did something embarrassing, like cry or orgasm. I drew on every seduction I’d ever attempted, which wasn’t many. I wasn’t used to enticing men to have sex with me. Usually they wanted it badly enough to pay me or force me, and if they didn’t, I had no desire to change their minds about that. But for him, I would.

I squirmed first, just an awkward jerk of my body, but he groaned and pushed his hips onto me. I eased his shirt up and sucked in a breath of my own at the feel of his hard body. I’d had sex with strong men before, big men. Carlos, though getting older, was no slouch. He couldn’t be in his business or he’d be dead, but his muscles were like all his power—bulky. Powerful in a domineering way. And whenever he’d given me to one of his “business partners” he’d been like Carlos. A thick, beefy man.

Tyler, though, had lean, ropey muscles. Not like a bully, like an athlete. Long contours defined his back and deep ridges stacked his stomach. It was a scary kind of strength, that he could use to hurt me so precisely. It wouldn’t be a careless, blunt-force pain with him, but precise. Assuming he was into pain. In my experience, all guys were, if they thought they could get away with it.

I reached down and rubbed his erection through his jeans. His whole body tensed, like he’d just stuck his finger in an electric socket, but he let me. He let me touch him, explore his shape as he held himself above me in a parody of a push-up. A whim overtook me, and I reached up and kissed his nipple, just as he’d done mine. So sweet, so strange.

I swallowed hard. What was I doing? Making this count as if it meant something? God, I was a fucking idiot. I was a
whore
. Not even Tyler’s whore. I belonged to Carlos, who had given me to Tyler for a quick fuck. This only meant something in my own mind. I’d meant nothing to Tyler before today, just some distant memory of a dumb little girl, and his opinion of me would be even worse after this.

I fell back onto the bed. The silken sheets were cool against my heated skin, the cold fingers of reality cradling my weary body. I waited, waited for the inevitable. That was the good thing about my profession, that I could mostly just wait around and get fucked. Sure, sometimes I had to suck or thrust or something, but that was only my body. And my body, bless its dirty, shameful heart, had an auto-pilot function.

He’d undone his pants. My skirt had flared up at my hips, exposing my bare sex. A wrapper tore and then he fitted his covered dick into me.

It was all happening so fast, thankfully. Whatever monster lay at the bottom of the lake had dragged me under, and I could only watch the proceedings with a drugged sort of detachment.

His hands on my body. His weight pressing down. His cock inside me. A sharp intake of breath as he entered. It was all about him and what he did to me, and not about me. It wasn’t about what I felt.

It was his sounds that distracted me. The silence of a breath held as he withdrew slightly. Then a low groan as he plunged deep. The rustle of silk.

His harsh breathing blew across my face, waking me from slumber like a kiss from a prince. Small wet sucks marked each stroke, filled the room, and reflected back to me in stereo. The shuffle of skin against fabric, the rasp of his stubble against my shoulder, his soft grunt as he pushed his way inside. They were timeless sounds, ancient sounds, but they were new to me.

I’d never listened to sex before, never wanted to. I’d always tuned them out, but now they beat at my eardrums, demanding my attention. What was he doing to me?

Then he held himself above me, inside me, and released a masculine sound of pleasure. More a vibration than a sound, and it filled me, wound its way through me like smoke in a glass.

He pulled out of me and none too soon, collapsing beside me on the slick, damp sheets.

“Christ, Mia,” he blew out on a breath. “Fucking Christ.”

Did that mean he liked me? Why did I care?

It made me angry all of a sudden, the contrast. Today he slung his naked thigh over my legs, his hand over my ribs while his thumb swept the undercurve of my breast. Today he swore at me, and I didn’t know what it meant.

Ten years ago, he’d held himself apart. He’d held himself away from me, and I’d thought he had deserved that higher position, and probably he did, but I still hated it. The memory came rushing back to me. Ten years and so little had changed really.

Suddenly I was there on that sticky summer night…

“Hey, little girl,” he’d said, hanging his thumbs in his jeans pockets. That’s what he called me, even though he knew my name. “Whatcha doing out here?”

I flicked a pebble across the lawn. “Nothin’.”

He smiled at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “You should do nothin’ inside then. It’s not safe out here.”

I looked across the row of backyards. All of them were small and stark, but ours was the worst, filled with trash and weeds. It wasn’t particularly safe, no. Sometimes I’d hear a crash or a scream at night, but I knew better than to go outside and see what it was. It wasn’t safe inside either, not for me.

Maybe I had some crazy idea that he would care. Maybe I thought he would protect me. “I don’t want to go back in,” I said. “Not ever.”

“Aww.” He sat down next to me on the old semi tire, giving me a nudge. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

But he didn’t understand, he didn’t
know
. No one knew. Even though he lived right next door, right there, he had no idea what went on in my house.

“It’s horrible,” I told him with the kind of complete honesty only a child can muster. “Like hell.”

He frowned. “You shouldn’t use that word.”

“Everyone else uses it,” I said with a petulance that should already have worked its way out of my system, considering the circumstances. But even then I’d felt safe with Tyler. Something about his quiet intensity, his regard when no one else noticed me, made me feel that when he was next to me, no one could hurt me. Not that everyone hurt me. Only a parent can really hurt a twelve-year-old girl. I had one parent, a father.