Chapter 3
Alani
When I crossed the room, I had no idea how far I’d take it.
I just knew that Blaine had to understand that there will never be a chance between the two of us.
I don’t want to lose him as a friend, but fuck, the guy can’t take a hint.
Instead of thinking back to the conversation I overheard several girls having in class a few weeks ago about how it’s impossible for guys to be friends with girls because all of them are just waiting for their turn to fuck them, I lock my eyes on the side of this man’s head.
I should be terrified, and I guess I am a little, but more than that, I’m thrilled with where the night could lead.
This man could easily drag me into the darkness, only for me never to see light again. There are some days I’m so bored with my life that I don’t picture that scenario as a bad thing. I know it’s fucked up, but I can’t help the direction my thoughts take me sometimes.
He doesn’t say a word as he drives, and another thrill of danger hits me when I try to roll the window down, but pressing the button on my door doesn’t work.
His eyes slide to me in the darkness as he lowers my window two inches from his side of the truck.
It’s a power play, a way to let me know that it works, but he’s the one in full control. I can guess that if I tried to open my door, I’d find that it doesn’t open from the inside.
My heart kicks up, pounding in my ears at knowing I can’t get out without having to go through him.
My hands tremble in my lap as he continues driving further into the night.
He doesn’t stay on the highway for very long. We’re only in the truck for a handful of minutes when he pulls up outside of a motel, parking directly in front of a room rather than heading to the front office.
It ensures there will be no witnesses to see me inside his truck.
I swallow thickly as he climbs out of the driver’s side, reaching his hand across the seat instead of coming around to my side of the door.
It doesn’t give me the opportunity to run away while he’s distracted walking around the vehicle.
It’s smart, a practiced move that makes me consider he’s made that mistake a time or two.
“Scared?” he asks, the only word he’s said to me.
I nibble on my lower lip, my eyes pulling from his outstretched hand back up to his dark eyes. Stupidly, I shake my head, a part of me refusing to voice the fears swimming inside of me.
I place my hand in his, and he smiles when he notices the tremble in it. He wants me afraid.
My mind flashes to the creepy video that was sent to me, the proof of what my sister has been up to the last several months.
Every call has been a lie. I never complained to Ayla when she called.
I never let her know how disappointed I was that she took a job outside of the United States.
She sacrificed so much for me over the last three and a half years.
It would’ve been selfish to tell her that I still needed her despite being hours away.
To find out she’s been lying the whole time, that she’s been making sadistic porn rather than helping the people of a third world nation with medical care, crushed me. It’s what leads me right where I am tonight.
I’m not a virgin, but the look in this guy’s eyes as I climb out of his truck tells me that it wouldn’t matter if I was. Pumping the brakes should’ve happened before I left the party with him because it’s too late now. I can only imagine the word no isn’t in his vocabulary.
I blame this on Ayla for my being in this situation right now.
A therapist would say I’m lashing out, that I’m seeking attention because I feel betrayed by my older sister.
That may be the case, but I’ve grown weary of not listening to that voice inside of me that demands a thrill.
I’ve lived much of the last several years afraid of what could happen.
Losing your parents suddenly has the ability to do that to a girl, but no more. I’m tired of being safe.
What I saw in the video that was sent to me didn’t seem safe. If my sister is capable of living her best life, no matter how depraved it looks, then I have the same right.
He drops my hand the second my feet hit the cracked asphalt. Where I thought he’d drag me into his room, he drops my hand and walks away.
I know I have a choice. I could run and seek help.
I could just as easily be hurt by someone else in the shadows as I could be hurt by him.
There’s something about the way his legs cover the distance between his truck and the door of his motel room that locks me in place.
I see the challenge in it rather than the opportunity to escape.
He brought me here, but from the way he doesn’t bother looking back at me, it’s clear he doesn’t give a shit if I walk away or not.
He’s indifferent, and it’s too similar to the informationless calls I’ve been getting from my sister since I arrived at Lindell University.
Every time I’ve asked a question that’s gone unanswered, I chalked it up to her being distracted.
She only had so much time in town to speak on the pay phone before she had to go back to the village to save lives.
At least I thought that was what was happening when instead, she was really into some sick, twisted shit, fucking for money.
Instead of taking the opportunity to run, I follow behind him, catching the door to his room before it can close in my face. I have no doubt if it did close, he wouldn’t open it back up for me. The man doesn’t care if I come inside or not, and that’s what drives me into the darkness.
The blinds are closed, but I let the door close at my back anyway, the room in complete darkness.
My breathing grows erratic as my eyes try to adjust to the darkness.
Before I can change my mind, a hand grips my throat, my back slamming against the closed door.
He doesn’t curb his aggression, doesn’t pull back at the last minute in an effort to keep my head from smacking the wood. Instead of begging to be let go, I feel a smile turn up the corners of my lips.
Fear and arousal tangle together, making something so potent inside of me I start to crave even more of it.
“Scared?” he asks, a repeat of the same challenge he gave outside.
“Terrified,” I answer honestly, the white of his teeth flashing in the darkness.
“Smart girl,” he says, but even as he pulls his hand from my throat, he steps closer, his body pinning me to the door.
He pulls his shirt over his head. As much as I ache to trail my fingers down the sleeve of tattoos on his right arm, I somehow know touching him without permission isn’t allowed. I don’t think asking would grant it either, so I don’t bother.
His lips are warm at my throat as his hands travel the length of my body. It makes me wish I were completely naked, just so the heat of him could settle inside of me.
“Get naked,” he growls as he takes a step back. As much as I’d like for him to be the one to undress me, I’m not going to argue with him, either.
I’ve never been in a situation like this.
If anything, the guys I’ve been with in the past are more prone to ask permission than issue a command.
But with the way my body reacts to him, I’d say I’ve been missing this very thing.
Arousal becomes a living breathing thing inside of me as I pull my sweater over my head, feeling his eyes on me as if the man can see in the dark.
His palm is rough on my breast the second I unlatch my bra and let it fall down my arms.
“Keep going,” he growls when my arms fall to my side as I relish the attention he’s showing my body.
My skirt pools around my ankles, the whisper of it down my tights more sexual than it probably should be. He has every cell in my body screaming for pleasure or pain, or maybe an erotic combination of both. I don’t care what the man has to offer, just so long as he gives it to me.
He takes a step back, making me crave him even more when he pulls away. I shove at my tights, pushing them, along with my panties, down in one go.
I feel his eyes locked on me as I kick off my shoes, a thrill running through me when I hear the crinkle of a condom wrapper.
I ignore that disappointed part of me that has no business in this room, since I have no fucking clue who this man is.
There’s living dangerously and then there’s being completely stupid.
I reach for him, running my hand down his arm. Angry puckered flesh meets my fingertips, but he shrugs away from me before I can explore further, leaving me unable to determine if he’s scarred or if the tattoo marking his skin was just drilled so deep in his skin that it left ridges behind.
The only light in the room is sneaking in around the curtains and filtering in from what looks like cigarette burns.
This type of motel is the kind of place where people don’t ask questions and the clerk at the front desk is just as likely to pocket the money after renting the rooms out by the hour as he would be to put it in the cash register.
It’s the type of place where secrets go to die.
It’s the perfect place for tonight. The perfect revenge against my sister. She isn’t the only one who can be depraved after acting so fucking innocent while we were younger.
I push down the hatred, hating the taste of it on my tongue. She doesn’t get to ruin this for me, too.
His hands are on me again, the brush of his thick cock on my stomach a thrill I can’t describe.
He’s nothing like Blaine could ever be, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized it.
Blaine is safe, a sure bet for a comfortable future, but I have no business even thinking that way.
Safety and comfort mean nothing. It can still all end in a fiery crash, so why waste time being safe when things like tonight make life so much more exhilarating?
I gasp at the warmth of his mouth when it captures my nipple, moaning half in pain, half in pleasure, when he bites down on it.
I reach for him, wanting to run my hands through his dark hair, but he stops me, pinning my hands to my sides as his mouth travels over my body.
“Bend over the bed,” he snaps as he steps away. Before I can move, he shoves me in that direction, my hands outstretched to catch my weight.
The blanket is musty, but it only contributes to the depravity of tonight. I don’t want or need flowers and freshness. I don’t want a room full of light and soft words. He somehow knows exactly what I need as he kicks my legs apart, pressing against me a second later.
I wish for his mouth on me there, but he doesn’t comply. Instead, he swipes his cock up the seam of me, finding me slick with arousal.
“Fucking whore,” he grumbles as he notches himself at my entrance. “I could fucking hurt you and I have no doubt you’d beg for more.”
I moan, proving him right when he slams inside of me, not giving my body enough time to accommodate the stretch his body demands of it.
A fire-hot burn rushes through my body, the sting of his intrusion somehow too much and not enough at the same time.
He fists my hair, pulling my head toward him until my back is forced into a deep arch. It forces my chest out, my tits bouncing in a nearly painful way as he pulls back and slams forward again.
I’d question if he was feeling any pleasure from this, if it weren’t for the rumble coming deep from his chest when he finds the end of me.
I’m second-guessing every choice I’ve made that led me here tonight when he shifts his hips.
The tip of his cock brushes against that phantom part of me that, prior to now, has always been a mystery.
My eyes are unseeing as I glare across the room, the darkness and the pleasure keeping me blind to anything on this plane of existence.
I clench my hands, tangling the bedspread between my fingers as my orgasm takes me by surprise. My body clenches around him, but he never slows.
“Dirty bitch,” he grunts, sounding just as shocked by my release as I am.
I’ve always had to work so hard to come, and I’ve only ever been capable of it while solo, never with a man before.
“Please,” I beg, wanting more and more.
His hips don’t falter. He doesn’t try to replicate whatever it was that he did before to make me come. This was never about my pleasure, after all.
He stills inside of me, grunting his own release as his cock throbs. A second later, he’s pulling out of me, the flash of the bathroom light filling the room before he closes the bathroom door.
I stand, frozen in the middle of the room for a long moment, trying to decide what to do next. The smart thing would be to gather my shit and leave, but I haven’t made a smart decision tonight, and honestly, there’s really no point in starting now.
I trip over one of my discarded shoes on the way to the bathroom and shove open the door rather than knocking.
He’s standing there, his eyes locked on the mirror when I enter, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
He doesn’t say a word as I slide past him and take a seat on the toilet.
Letting a man I don’t know fuck me is one thing. Getting a fucking UTI is another.
He doesn’t stick around, and the sight of his naked back and flexing ass as he leaves the room both thrills and irritates me.
I finish on the toilet, wincing when I wipe because he was rough as hell. I wash my hands, sort of liking the way my mascara is in streaks down my face. It’s evidence of a great night, and I don’t even attempt to clean my face.
In the limited light filtering into the room, I find my panties on the floor and tug them on. I could easily ask him to take me back to campus, but instead, I climb into the same bed he’s in, even though there’s two in the room.
I keep my back to him and fall asleep like I would any other night, despite the fact that he could be a fucking serial killer.