Chapter 17 – Amanda
Seventeen
Amanda
S aying goodbye to Deb is the hardest part of leaving New York City. I don't care for Brooklyn. I mean... I haven't exactly been outside, so no hate to Brooklyn. It's just captivity getting to me. I ask Ethan if I can contact Mallory again but he gets grouchy and says it's too dangerous.
Want to know what's not too dangerous according to this psychotic beast? Getting on the motorcycle again and riding for twenty hours to get to Joplin, Missouri.
He acts like nothing happened between us the previous night. He's all business in the morning, watching me shower with a cold, purposeful stare. He still scrutinizes my body in a way that terrifies me, but he doesn't say anything or touch me. When I watch him shower and try to engage him in conversation, he responds mostly in disinterested grunts.
I don't know what to make of him after last night. In general, men and their behavior confuses me greatly. Becoming a therapist and hearing their innermost thoughts hasn't made it any better.
Ethan doesn't answer me when I ask if this town we're going to is named after Janis Joplin. He also doesn't answer my question about if they have running water either. Nothing gets a rise or a proper response out of him.
"I live on the outskirts. You'll like it."
This man knows nothing about me if he thinks there's a chance in hell I'll like Missouri -- especially since I won't even be at a Four Seasons or some type of luxury hotel. Ethan hasn't worked a day since I've met him and I know he has a gambling addiction. For all I know, he lives in a studio apartment out there. It could be infested too. By man musk and dirty socks.
As we stand outside in the gross, somewhat muggy city, Ethan explains his plan. Well, it's as much explaining as I'll get from him.
"It would be safer but take longer to travel along the old Route 66 highway," he says as he hands me my helmet.
I ignore my shaking hands as I slide the uncomfortable thing on my head. I look like a bobblehead. Deb's leather jacket fits just fine, but I don't know if the "biker chick" aesthetic suits me as a black woman.
I know there must be black female bikers out there somewhere, but they weren't ever where I was, so I just feel out of place.
"I'll go slow for your sake. Give us three days to get out there. First stop in Ohio, second in southern Illinois. Day three, we get to my place and... the rest you don't have to worry about."
"Right. I'll have imprisonment to look forward to."
"I have a PS5."
"What an appealing prospect for a woman."
"I also get ESPN. You can work on becoming a Chiefs fan."
"I'm a Patriots–”
Ethan glares at me, and I don't bother finishing my sentence. I'm not really a ‘Patriots fan’ so much as it's the only football game I've ever been to, and it was with a Hinge date who ended up having a lizard who he let shit in his bed…
"If you want, you can look after the farm animals and learn how to cook."
"You think I can't cook?"
"Most women can't anymore."
I bite my lower lip to stop a spicy and racially charged comment from coming out. I don't know what type of women Ethan hangs around, but I don't know a single black woman who suffers from a kitchen related disability.
"I don't have to take this from a man who probably can't tell the difference between thyme and dill."
"Get on the bike, brat," Ethan grunts. "You can prove you're a good cook when we get there. I'm sure we'll both get tired of Cracker Barrel and McDonald's."
I don't know what the hell Cracker Barrel is, but the name has a strange old-timey racist vibe to it. I keep that opinion to myself, because Ethan climbs on the bike, expecting me to follow.
I steel myself for another rough ride across the country and dealing with Ethan's crabby ass attitude the entire way.
The worst part about giving in to his cross country kidnapping so easily is that... I feel a weird connection to him. I'll have to cut that shit off as soon as I can return to Boston, but I feel it and I don't entirely hate it.
He's more fun than any Hinge date and his tongue game is... sigh.
It's just not realistic. I'm a doctor. A therapist. I have a life in Boston. And I don't know anything about Ethan except that he needs fixing... and that he's so good in bed he scrambles my damn brain. This man could rip me to pieces. I just have to remember that.
If the good guys with college degrees can hurt me, the gun-wielding maniac who completely disregarded my humanity as I screamed for him to set me free can do the same thing.
I don't trust my feelings and whatever I would say to my clients doesn't work on my own damn heart.
Ethan's attitude softens when we stop for the gas for the first time in Pennsylvania. I don't catch the town name. He sends me inside for snacks and warns me to report anyone who behaves inappropriately directly to him. I nod, hiding my discomfort.
I've never been protected before. Never. I learned to protect myself, but it feels strange to now have Ethan looking after me in this bizarre situation.
It's a small gas station, so he has eyes on me the entire time I stock up on snacks. He appreciates the Zyns I bring his way too, popping a 6mg one in his lip the second he gets the new container.
That definitely calms him down. He watches me eat a few snacks, only indulging in a pint of milk for himself. When I finish up my peanuts and banana, Ethan kisses the top of my forehead. The kiss sends a strange flicker of emotion through me that I do my best to suppress. He’s a criminal, not a boyfriend.
"Much better job not clawing the life out of me," he murmurs and my heart does this little backflip for my crumb of validation as a biker chick.
Shit, if I make it to Missouri, it's not stolen valor. I'm officially identifying as a biker chick. I don't know about wearing this leather jacket around clients but... maybe I do look a little bit fly.
We head back out onto the road and I relax my stance a bit, getting comfortable with Ethan's swaying and turns as we ride along the highway. Looking at the speed limit just gets me anxious about his speed, so I rest my head against his back and cling to him for dear life.
The hours pass slowly. My mind has time to travel to so many places. There's one place I keep returning to. That bed in Brooklyn. Ethan spread my pussy lips with so much fierce desire, I thought he would lose control and spear me with his dick.
We stop outside of Columbus at a Super 8 motel in Choctaw Lake, Ohio for the night. Ethan promised a manageable amount of riding, and he was right. He pays in cash for the motel room and uses a fake name. Ruger Blackwood.
I don't know where he came up with a crazy ass name like that, but I let it slide without asking questions, especially when Ethan says something agreeable for once.
"I need steak for dinner. There's gotta be a place nearby..."
Yes... I could use some real food. We're not in a city and Ethan doesn't seem afraid of the cops or of anyone recognizing him. Shit, with his size, I doubt there's much he's afraid of at all.
After scoping out the motel room and ‘securing the perimeter’, Ethan uses his phone like a modern man for once and not like a mobster placing sketchy phone calls.
"Can you handle another two miles on the bike?" he asks. "I'd rather take you somewhere with five stars for our first date."
"First date?"
"Our first anti-gambling date."
He thinks he's so damn funny.
"We aren't dating, Ethan."
"You let guys you aren't dating put their index finger up your ass?"
"I didn't let you do that. You just did it."
"You didn't stop me."'
"How would I have stopped you?"
"Please, Ethan...finger fuck my ass," he says in a mocking voice. "That's what you said to me."
"You're an asshole."
"Yeah," he says, grinning. "And you're a brat. If you weren't my therapist, I'd date you."
"I would never date you."
My heart is beating fast as hell though. I never dated a man who brought those feelings out of me, yet here I am with Ethan.
"Yet, here we are," he says. "Going out on a date, unless you'd rather starve."
"We would both have to starve," I respond. "Because if you leave me behind, I would escape."
"If I got hungry, I'd lick your pussy clean until I wasn't anymore."
I scowl at Ethan and he laughs like he won this round of banter between us. Being so disgusting that he stuns me into silence isn't the same as winning.
"I'm ordering the most expensive steak on the menu. I hope you have money for that."
"I have all the money I need to look after a brat like you," he teases.
I roll my eyes. Brat. It's a little cuter than 'doc'. But I don't know if I should be letting this man get cute with me. I don’t want to indulge in the strange feelings of chemistry popping up between the two of us, because there is nothing romantic here in the long term. And no, I’m not in denial.
I’m not. The weird chemistry is just… a bubbling up of hormones. Nothing more.
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