Wanderlust (7 page)

Scooting aside, I placed
my hand on him,
there
. The denim was stiff against my palm, no give at all. I
paused, glancing up at him.

Surprise was in his eyes, and lust
too. “Go on, sunshine. You want to see what I look like? How I’m
made? Take it out.”

Carefully, I unzipped his jeans and
opened the flaps. He wore nothing underneath, and he fell heavily
into my palm, thick and long. The skin was silky smooth against my
palm. I closed my fingers around it, and it jumped.

“
That’s right,” he
praised. “Touch my cock. Stroke it for me, baby. Make it good and
hard so I can fuck you with it.”

It was so wrong, but I let it happen.
So dirty, and it washed over me. If I went into a sort of trance,
he couldn’t really hurt me. It even felt good. Wasn’t that better
than pain? Than fear? My mother had lived in fear, and she was
safe—but she was still afraid. I was the opposite of safe here, but
I didn’t have to be afraid. Maybe that was the ultimate
freedom.

I tightened my fingers
around his length and tugged. His
cock
. That was the word he used.
Tentatively, I slipped my hand down and then up again.

He groaned. “More. Again.”

I stroked him until his hips bucked
into my hands, and I found a sort of power there. In bringing him
pleasure, I empowered myself. I could wield it in the withholding
of pleasure, hesitating before the next stroke to hear him beg. A
small rebellion, like syrup for my pancakes.

“
Get on the bed.” His
voice came out gutturally.

I lay down on my back, my legs
slightly parted. Together enough to hide me from sight, but the
small space between them was a message—I wouldn’t say no to him.
But he didn’t climb between them, not yet. He knelt astride my
body, a knee on either side, his cock resting thickly in the valley
between my breasts.

He rolled my nipples between his
fingers, setting off sparks that I felt down to my core. Harder, he
pinched. I whimpered in response, but that made him tighten
further. Only when my hips bucked up of their own accord did he
release me. He pushed my breasts together, wrapping the pliant
flesh around his cock.

With slow glides, he thrust between
them. It should have done nothing for me. They were just breasts,
and he wasn’t even stimulating them really. He was just using them
for his own pleasure. But the sight of the dark head of his cock
excited me as it peeked from between my pale skin.

The feel of the dampness in the
crevice as his tip leaked his seed. The sound of his pants above
me, growing harsher, more ragged. Heat gathered in my sex, and with
nothing to assuage it, my legs fell open, begging without words,
without thought.

He noticed, glancing back with his
cock still trapped between my breasts. “Goddamn,” he breathed. “You
are too perfect. I can’t let you go.”

It almost broke the spell, that
reference to how I’d come to be here in the back of this truck.
Almost, but I held onto the trance, to the cloud of arousal that
made this all okay.

“
Please,” I whispered.
“Help me.”

“
Yeah. Oh
yeah.”

He sounded incredulous, and why
shouldn’t he? How many captives would have been willing
participants in this? How many captives had he had? But I had
learned early on to make the best of my situation, to flourish even
under hothouse lights, within glass walls.

“
You’re so good, pet,” he
said, climbing down my body. My legs were already open to him,
already damp. He bent his head, pressing a kiss to the top of my
mound. “This is your treat.”

With unaccountable tenderness, he
licked me, first around the soft lips, and that was shocking
enough, but then he slipped his tongue into the damp crevice and
swirled higher to the tight bundle of nerves. My legs shook where
he had hooked them over his shoulders. I cried out, but he didn’t
relent, didn’t let up until another blinding light overtook me,
this one painful too, but also wonderful. There was no air in that
place, no thought or fear in the pleasure, only his tongue and my
skin and the shudders that racked my body.

He turned me over so that my face and
breasts and belly pressed against the musty mattress. I waited for
him to enter me from behind, as he had done last night. Instead, I
felt him rustle behind me, heard the quiet snick of plastic.
Coolness shocked the heated skin of my bottom as his fingers rubbed
a sort of gel. But not where I thought it would go. He was putting
it there, on a hole I never imagined could be violated.

I let out a soft cry of
protest.

A light slap hit my thigh. “Quiet now.
Just relax and it will be fine.”

But I couldn’t. I tensed against the
invasion. It felt like stretching, like burning, and I knew it
would only get worse. “Please.”

He bent his mouth to my knee, speaking
softly. “Am I shocking you?”

“
I didn’t
know—”

“
Well, now you do,
sunshine. And you know what else? I think you’re more adventurous
than you let on. You’ve been sheltered, that much is clear. Well,
you’re going to expand your horizons with me.”

I sobbed against the coarse blanket,
feeling pinned but also freed. There was nothing I could do in this
position, no way to get free.

“
You need a good cry,” he
said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think so.”

I wished he were more certain. I liked
his aggression better than his twisted consideration. I wanted him
to hurt me, not help me.

“
Do it already.” I balled
my hands into fists. “Just do what you’re going to do.”

He froze for a minute. I felt his
surprise. Then he chuckled softly. “You are perfect, aren’t you?
It’s like you were made just for me.” He shifted, pressing the
blunt head against my puckered skin. “Don’t tense or you might tear
yourself up.”

His words grated on me. I
might tear myself up, as if this were my doing, as if I’d asked for
any of this. Oh God, had I? Had I secretly longed for a cage to
replace the one I’d left? Something inside me whispered
yes
. He was right about
me being made just for him. I was an animal bred in captivity,
unprepared for the harshness of the wild.

Pressure built behind me as he forced
himself farther. I knew he’d only just started but it felt like far
too much, like he’d split me open, like he was pressing the butt of
a baseball bat inside me. I squirmed, fearful and impatient all at
once. I wished he would do it quickly, ripped off like a
band-aid—shove it in. But then I’d tear, and he cared enough about
me to prevent that. That hurt worst of all, that small bit of
respect. It showed he could feel compassion if he wanted to. It
showed me how little I really had from him.

It burned, drawing out shuddering
sighs and rasping sobs from my throat. With a burst of pressure
that brought tears to my eyes, he pushed his way inside and sank in
with a deep, satisfied groan.

“
Oh, sweetheart,” he said.
“Oh, sunshine.”

He sounded strangled, hoarse with the
pleasure he took from my body. Beneath the physical sensation, I
heard the gratitude in his voice, the awe, and I felt a perverse
camaraderie over that. Weren’t we both so surprised, weren’t we
both a little shell-shocked to find ourselves in the middle of a
felony sex act in the back of an eighteen-wheeler in the middle of
nowhere?

This hadn’t been on the
calendar.
Appease kidnapper with butt
sex
hadn’t been on my life plan, but then
I’d never really had a plan. That had been the point. I had wanted
to wander, to flit, and I’d flown right into a spider’s
web.

His hand slipped around between my
legs, searching and probing until his fingers lit upon the tight
nub that made me buck my hips and groan. It did more than ease the
pain, it swung it around and upside down, turned it into a
razor-sharp pleasure. I rutted against his fingers, seeking relief
in the form of ecstasy—they came together, a package
deal.

I felt a little nauseous too. My body
was overwhelmed, and it wanted to lose whatever was in my stomach.
I shuddered, forcing myself to swallow the muted bile, as my body
was wrenched forward and back, impaled and fondled, used and taken
in ways I had barely ever imagined, hardly ever thought of except
in my room when the blanket of night shielded even my thoughts. I
would touch myself exactly this way, face-down on the bed with my
hand underneath, rocking my hips until my mouth became dry and my
toes curled up tight and my mind exploded into white-hot
bliss.

I cried out, lost in the heat of it,
the all-encompassing pain of it as my stretched skin contracted and
pulsated around his cock.

“
Yes, that’s right,” he
muttered thickly. “Milk me. Use me. Take it all.”

A sudden warmth bathed my insides, the
salt stinging the raw flesh. I shuddered at the pain of it, the
price of my own pleasure. He rested his weight on me, and I
absorbed his contented sigh with my body, cradled him as best I
could while facing away. At length, he pulled free.

He gently rubbed the abused skin in
the crevice of my ass. Slow strokes, tender strokes.

“
Feel better?” he
asked.

I would have expected that to make it
worse. It had already been pummeled. This would be like pressing on
a bruise. But his touch was sure and knowing, and some of the
tension eased.

“
Yes. How did you
know?”

My speech came out slurred, and only
then did I realize how tired I was. Strange, since I had slept for
so long. It was a stupid question, too. Of course he had done this
before, had sex with women, some willing, some not. He was only
taking care of me because he wanted to use me again, putting away
his toys so he could play again in the morning.

Everything seemed fuzzier, softer.
He’d drugged my drink again, I realized, but I couldn’t summon up
the will to care. Here in this place there was no pain or fear, and
the whole idea seemed just grand. Yes, keep me and play with me. Do
the things I never would have the courage to do on my own and keep
me safe in the process.

“
Because it always helped
me,” he said in a low voice.

It took me a minute to realize he was
answering my question. This had been done to him. Had he liked it?
Who’d done it? But the questions were too heavy on my tongue, and I
drifted away to sleep. The last thought before I lost consciousness
was to wonder if he had been willing.

CHAPTER SIX

The longest vertical drop
is over 165 feet.

The next time I woke up, my head was
much clearer. Unfortunately, my body was coming apart. I felt every
bump and rattle of the truck from my pounding headache to the
rumble of my stomach. But that only fueled my
determination.

What was happening to me? This needy
girl, desperate to please with sex and obedience—that wasn’t me. I
wanted freedom, but freedom wasn’t worth much if I let other people
take it away with a snap of their fingers, with a
passive-aggressive threat or a pill dropped into a soda. I had
escaped once before, from my mother’s house, and I would do it
again.

This would be even easier because I
didn’t care about Hunter. It would be nothing at all to hurt him
and get away. So as we bounced in an uneasy rhythm along some
unseen highway, I tried to gather some strength into my tired
limbs, some awareness into my dark-dampened mind.

When he opened the back of the truck,
I staggered out. It was so bright. So…much. Even the air on my skin
felt overwhelming. Only a small amount of time kept away from it
had weakened me. I scanned the treeline, looking for an escape
route. His hand clamped onto my shoulder.

“
Not so fast, sunshine.
You stay with me.”

True to his word, he led me into the
bushes. We stopped at a patch of grass, and I understood this was
where I should do my business.

I raised my eyebrows at him in a tacit
plea for privacy.

His face was
implacable.
No.

Miserable, humiliated, I squatted down
and sent a warm stream of liquid into the earth. He handed me a
wipe from his pocket. After cleaning myself, I clutched it
awkwardly.

“
You can leave it on the
ground. Those are biodegradable.”

Oh great, an eco-conscious
kidnapper. I tossed the wipe against the base of a tree and then
realized his hand had left my shoulder at some point. We weren’t
touching at all, and suddenly, the air between seemed like a
question—
will you run?
I stood still, indecisive. I knew I wouldn’t get away like
this. I could never run fast enough or fight him off. It was a
question of obedience.

“
You surprised me
yesterday, being such a good girl,” he said, grabbing my wrist.
“Don’t stop now.”

For a minute, I was distracted from
his words. Yesterday? It seemed like only hours had passed. I was
losing time here. That was somehow scarier than anything he had
done to me. I had lost enough time trapped in my mother’s house. I
couldn’t afford to give away any more. I hoped he wouldn’t drug me
again. It occurred to me that he might not, if he thought I
wouldn’t run. That was when I registered what he had said about
being pleased with me. And he hadn’t led me to the back of the
truck, but to the cab.