Chapter 9 .2
“Yeah,” he answered simply.
Twenty-five thousand? Was that all? I knew it was a lot of money, but was that all I was worth? Anger rose up in me. He saw it.
“You’re mad at your father so you’re going to take it out on me. Go ahead. I can take it.” He waved his fingers at himself, giving me a ‘give me all you’ve got’ gesture.
“Mad at him? Sure, I’m mad at him but why shouldn’t I be mad at you, too? You’re mad at him for letting you have me. But yet you took me. You. Took me. Do you realize how fucked up that is?”
“Lower your voice,” he warned.
I got up and stomped off down a trail. He followed me. I walked for a good five minutes until we were deep in the bush. Finally, I spun around to face him, almost colliding with him; he was so hot on my heels.
“You’ve played numerous mind games with me, you’ve been controlling, abusive, you’ve raped me, you have me under lock, key, and guard to keep me from escaping, you’ve threatened me with a gun, hit me with a belt, shall I go on? You hardly know me. You’re letting your father bribe you, I don’t know, into marrying someone you don’t even love. Someone you hardly know. You’ve never even had a serious relationship and you’re a sexual deviant, by your own admission, and I’ve got the welts to prove it and now I have to … I have to… argh!” I wanted to kick a tree but I had flimsy flip flops on and it would hurt. He folded his arms over his chest.
The lack of an outlet to take out my frustration made my rage level spike further. “I’ve been dragged into this with not a care for the fact that I had a life. People don’t own people. That’s so fucked.” I started to weep. I started to weep almost uncontrollably. I leaned back against a tree and slid down to the dirty ground. There were mosquitoes swarming my face. I whacked at them haphazardly. Tommy crouched in front of me.
“My life was stolen.” I pointed accusingly at him. “Stolen and given to you. You took it but you’re pissed at the man who let you take it? And now you just want me to agree to marry you. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. All while following your rules, two rules that will keep me on your good side. I think. But I don’t even know because you’re so unpredictable. Now you tell me my father is going to be forbidden from attending our wedding, a wedding I have no choice but to be in, because he had the audacity to be afraid of your family and do what your father demanded? How are you better than him?” I dashed the tears off my cheeks with the backs of my hands.
He put his palms on my knees and leaned close to my face. “I’m not better than anyone. I’m worse than most. Life with me isn’t gonna be a cake walk. Not even close. But here’s the thing. I’m crazy about you. I want that feeling I get, that beautiful feeling when I crawl in bed beside you every night and the feeling I get when I wake up beside you in the morning when you’re wrapped around me like you can’t get close enough to me. I think about you constantly. The happiest I’ve been ever since I can remember has been when I’m inside you, followed closely by waking up with you wrapped around me. I wake up in fucking bliss every morning, Tia. Bliss. This is all new for me. My sleepless nights? Gone since you. I want this.”
He touched my face. I flinched. He continued. “Don’t pull away. I know my pop had no right to give you to me, but he did, and I know it makes me a bad guy that I agreed to it. But, I’m not giving you back. And I’m not sorry that I took you. You’re the best thing in my life, baby. How can I feel bad about that? Try to forget how we got started and just…” He stopped talking for a moment and took a deep breath. “Let me take care of you. I’ll protect you with my own life. You know that’s the truth.”
I shook my head, determined not to let his sweet little speech penetrate my suit of armor. “What choice do I have, right? I have no choice.”
He stood up and reached for my hand. “How about you choose to forget how we started and just give this a chance?”
I shook my head. “Just bury my emotions and forget everything you’ve done? It doesn’t matter as long as I obey you, right? It doesn’t matter how I feel about it as long as I do it, right?”
I got up without taking his hand and started to walk past him, but he stopped me by shackling my wrist with his hand and then he pushed me back against a tree and pinned me with his hips.
“I care about how you feel, baby. We have something,” he said. “Don’t let your anger at him take away from what you’re feeling for me. Don’t feel bad for wanting to be with me because you think you’re supposed to feel bad.”
“When did I say I wanted to be with you?”
His eyes narrowed.
“When did I ever say that?”
“You’re a damn fine actress if that’s just an act. If you expect me to believe that you haven’t warmed up to me since Mexico...”
“Well you already knew that though, didn’t you? You told me how damn fine I was at acting that night we had that date! It’s your game, man; I’m just a player,” I snapped this using mock quotes in the air at the word ‘date’.
He backed up and folded his arms. “You’re trying to provoke me. You’re trying to provoke me so that I’ll do something to give you a reason to hate me. It won’t work.” He stared deadpan at me.
I huffed and narrowed my eyes. “I already hate you. Can we go? Master? I’m getting eaten alive.”
He smiled at me with a devilish, dangerous smile, flaring nostrils, but holding out his hand. I didn’t take it. I walked ahead of him.
“You’re acting like a child,” he mused.
“Well why don’t you find someone to marry who’s your own age?” I clipped.
He laughed again, but the laugh wasn’t jovial or hearty. He sounded dangerously close to the edge.
I was an idiot for provoking him. An absolute dummy. Soon we’d be alone and what’d he do then? What sort of punishment would he dole out? And his declaration? Those words were trying to melt me, but I was refusing to acknowledge that, and my chest was burning because of it.
Before long, we were back at his bike and he was putting the helmet on my head, fastening the strap. He was staring directly into my eyes and the look on his face was intimidating the heck out of me, but I was trying to not crumble. My chin started to tremble, involuntarily, and I was getting mad at myself because I knew I was going to cry in front of him. Again. I cried when I was angry. I cried when I was sad, happy, frustrated. I cried too fucking much and it never did me any good.
He went from looking like he wanted to inflict pain on me to letting out a sigh and pulling me into an embrace. I tried to pull back, to struggle, but he was too strong so I eventually went limp. He let go before I fell apart again and he got on the bike. I got on behind him and fastened my hands around his waist loosely. He revved it up and then we were off so fast that I had no choice but to hold on tighter. I figured he did that on purpose.
The drive was good for my rage, I think. I settled down a bit. My mind was still plagued with thoughts of Dad’s betrayal and I felt it in my gut, grappling with the fact that my father sold me out.
Riding on the back of a motorcycle with someone felt so subservient. Tommy was in control, just like he’d be if we were in the Jeep or a car or whatever, but we were out in the open and I had to give in, give him control, hold onto him, lean against his body, despite not wanting to. It felt weird, but I analyzed it all the way back. This way of driving was so him.
We pulled back onto the farm and he drove right up to the barn, stopped, and stepped on the kickstand. I got off the bike and he took my hand after unlocking and then opening the doors. Instead of going back to the Jeep, he led me into one of the stalls where a narrow staircase led up to the second floor of the barn.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re spending the night,” he answered.
Up there the hayloft had been transformed into an apartment. It wasn’t fancy, but it was spacious and furnished. There was a double bed, a couch, a kitchenette, small round white Formica table with two chairs, and I spotted a bathroom. I wandered in to wash my face and scrub some soap on my mosquito bites to see if it’d help take the itch out.
When I came out of the bathroom, Tommy was climbing back up from below with a large cooler and slung over his shoulder was the strap attached to a picnic basket.
“Nita packed us a picnic for tonight,” he said. “Are you hungry yet?”
I shook my head. I wanted to ask him about this place and why we were up here instead of in the farmhouse, but I was still broody. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to be trapped here with him. I couldn’t even begin to process my feelings about what he’d said about my father back there, not to mention what he’d said about how he felt about me. I knew that I’d lashed out because of that but I also knew that everything I’d said was true. He had done all those things to me. He was responsible for all of it because he’d agreed to accept me as payment and because he’d laid a claim on me from the start, playing with me like I was a toy.
But I wasn’t being honest about the acting. I had started warming up to him. But I was also confused about those feelings, too. Did I have Stockholm Syndrome? Was I just a stupid little girl falling for my crush despite who he really was because of Mexico?
I wasn’t sure how to walk the fine walk on eggshells with him. I wasn’t sure how to proceed at living in a world where you could be shot at any moment, in your own home, in your own bed, while you were having sex with someone.
And I’d thought about the fact that if I hadn’t leaned over at that exact moment to kiss him a bullet might’ve hit me. So did that mean embracing this relationship was the right thing? That it was what would save me from losing my life and maybe my mind?
Maybe I’d let him closer to me in the last few days because he’d rescued me from a fate worse than him and because of how I’d crushed on him when I first saw him. And because of the things he did to my body. I was so frustrated right now. I just wanted time alone to think, to process. But that wasn’t an option here in a hayloft in the middle of nowhere with him. He wasn’t easy to ignore.
“Why are we here, really?” I asked finally, sitting on a plush rust-colored three-seater sofa that had definitely seen better days.
He lay on the bed and crooked his finger at me, beckoning. I shook my head.
He let out a sigh. “I wanted us to get away from things for a day, have time alone. No one knows about this place. It’s mine, my safe house. We’ve all got them. I’ve never brought anyone here, but I wanted to show it to you.”
He got up and walked the length of the hayloft to the back doors and opened them wide. It was just a set of doors that I guess was for farm equipment to pull up to and lift hay bales inside, so it opened up to a straight drop. Straight ahead, though, was a huge field of wildflowers and a large pond, “When it gets dark, the sky is beautiful here. Amazing sunsets. Clear and starry. I thought you’d like it.”
“You brought me here to seduce me,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “I wanted to share this with you. I knew I’d get lucky, sure; we both know you can’t resist me. After the craziness of the last few days I thought we’d spend the night, get to know one another better. Get our relationship moving in the right direction. Let my people work on the house, on erasing what happened this morning.”
As if it could be erased.
I sighed. How could I keep my armor up with scenery like this and words like that? Not to mention those bedroom eyes. He lay back on the bed and he crooked his index finger at me again.
I shook my head again and looked out the opened barn doors out at the pond.
“Your temper tantrum is over, Tia. Do I have to come get you?” he asked and I looked over at him and the look on his face made my blood run cold.
He was used to getting his own way. When things didn’t go the way he wanted them to go, he took matters into his own hands. He looked angry with me. Then his expression lightened and he tilted his head at me and smiled again.
I guess I was being a bitch. He’d brought me here to a place that was special to him in order to get us away from the chaos and I was, in essence, poo pooing all over it. He was trying. And he’d only been honest with me about my dad, and I took that truth out on him.
I walked over, put my knee to the bed and climbed up. I sat beside him and said, “It’s nice here. Sorry I’m being bitchy.”
He smiled at me and my heart lightened because I could see that the day might be salvageable by the look in his eyes.
“Come here,” he mouthed and opened his arms wide. I crawled over and he pulled me down on top of him and held me close, cradling my head against his chest with his hand. “You were right about what you said. Let me make it all up to you. I’ll work on making it up to you for as long as it takes.”
My heart swelled. “I lied,” I said softly. “I am warming up to you. I was just…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“I know. Kiss me.”
I kissed him quickly on the lips. “The things you said were really sweet. I like it when you’re sweet.” I put my head back on his chest, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the sound of his heartbeat.
“That’s all I get?” he asked.
“Mm.” I nuzzled in.
“Looks like I’ll have to take more, if I want it, huh?”
I shrugged. “Guess you’re not feeling sweet right now, huh? Well, if you think you can…” I looked up at his face and caught my bottom lip with my teeth.
His eyes lit up and he raised his brows. “Do you think I can’t?” His grip around me tightened.
I shrugged, “Dunno. You’d have to be pretty bold...” Goosebumps rose on my skin, but I managed to hold my gaze steady.
He growled and flipped me over so that I was on my back and he was on top of me, pinning my arms over my head. He kissed me roughly.
“You wanna see how bold I am?” He looked like he could barely restrain himself.
“Yeah,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. I don’t know what made me decide to start this dangerous game with him, but I could feel my heart rate picking up tempo.
“You like provoking me? You like to play games, little girl?”
I shrugged innocently and blinked at him a few times. “I dunno what you mean.”
“You want me to take you,” he said, and his words and tone made moisture trickle down below. “I was gonna get you up here, serenade you with a picnic and be Mr. Romance. You might like sweet, but you don’t want sweet today, do you?”
I sucked in my bottom lip and shrugged, then said, “No.”
He gave me a knowing smile. “You’re perfect, Athena, you know that? You were made for me. Hide and seek. I’ll give you to the count of twenty. You’d better hide good because when I find you, I’m gonna fuck you so hard you won’t have any doubt in your mind about how bold I am.”
I gaped at him.
“1, 2, 3… better get moving. 4, 5, today sometime? 6…”
I gasped at the quickening pace of his counting, jumped up, and took off down the stairs. The barn door was closed. I knew it’d make noise when I opened it… so I swung it wide, but then ducked back in and climbed through the already opened back hatch of the jeep and got into the back seat as quietly as possible. A few seconds later I heard him leave the barn and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Wow. This was a rush. And at the end I’d get sweet release. I could see how this could get addicting, especially with how intense I suspected he’d play. A few minutes passed and I hadn’t heard anything anywhere around me. In fact it was eerily quiet. I sat up and almost had heart failure when I realized he was standing outside the driver’s side door, staring down at me with a smile on his face. I shrieked and scampered out the passenger side and ran out of the barn.
“I’ll give you an extra 5,” he called, “1, 2…”
I bolted toward the back of the barn and when I rounded the rear I saw the field of flowers and the pond up ahead. I thought about taking a run into the field, but the grass was deep and I was more than a little afraid of snakes. I didn’t know where to go, though, so I ran around the back of the barn and then up the other side thinking I’d head toward the house that was also on the property. He wasn’t behind me. My heart thudded rapidly against my chest wall. So much adrenaline!
That she’d gone from angry to wanting to play got my heart pumping. Maybe she had more in common with me than she realized.
I allowed her to have her moment, her hissy fit, because although I wanted her obedience and her submission, I also didn’t want to extinguish that fire in her that I liked so much.
I’d always been one-sided in sating my desires. Sure, I’d get the woman I was with off, too, I got off on that, but I’d never gone out of my way to make sure that beyond getting an orgasm that I cared what she felt like afterwards. Playing with Tia, playing a game that got us both going? She was showing me that this got her juices flowing. This was different. I liked it. Thrill of the chase? Fuck yeah; it was a thrill.
She’d gone counterclockwise around the barn, so I stayed out front, crouched low against the barn. As she ran past me, I watched her pass and counted to three in my head before I was hot on her heels.
She squealed at the sight of me and ran faster toward the house. She looked gorgeous. As she ran, her already loose ponytail came completely undone and now her hair was flowing freely in the breeze. She kicked off her flip flops so she could gain more speed and then as she took off faster, I quickened my own pace. She passed the house, which was on the front of about eighty-three untended acres. I knew she’d come upon stone ruins and tear up her bare feet within a minute or two of running, so I decided to catch her before she got to the rocky area of the property.
He was gaining on me and the thrill of it was making my heart race, my face flush, and my body tingle all over. As I rounded the house and got to the back, I could see it was a little overgrown with grass and some more wildflowers. I was facing a combination of open fields, stone paths, and treed areas beyond the farmhouse. I could head toward the trees if I went right, or if I went straight ahead it looked mostly clear but hilly. To my left was the barn, the pond, and the huge field of flowers.
I decided to run toward the trees. Not many paces in that direction he caught me by the waist and tackled me to the ground but yet he did it sort of gently, breaking my fall so I landed on him instead of on the ground. As soon as we landed, he flipped and was on top of me, pinning my wrists over my head. We were both heaving but I’d say I was breathing a lot heavier than he was.
“Gotcha,” he said in a low and husky voice.
The sun’s rays were right behind his head, and it was as if they were bursting from him. He looked almost angelic to me. His whiskey-colored eyes sparkled, the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile. His slightly stubbly jaw looked rugged, and his muscles looked particularly defined.
I tried to catch my breath. I wasn’t struggling, just lying limp in the tall grass with my arms pinned above my head gazing up at his male beauty. My nose itched, so I reached to move my arm and his grip tightened and his eyes, though still sparkling, had a sudden shift, like they’d tinted with a bit of a challenge. I tilted my head to my shoulder and used my shoulder to try to eradicate the itch on my nose.
“Whenever you run,” he said with a hint of darkness, “I’ll catch you.”
I felt my heart constrict for a beat and he must’ve seen my expression shift because then he smiled and nuzzled my throat, I think, trying to salvage the moment. Would it always be like this with him? Seesawing between light and dark? How could I keep up?
She’d stiffened under me, and I knew that she had gone into the darker recesses of her mind. She’d gone to that place that said she was my prisoner.
I needed her to know she was mine completely, but I wanted her to want it. She wasn’t there yet. I was pushing, probably too hard. She’d been shot at, kidnapped, and had her entire world turned upside down because of being mine. It’d take some getting used to. She was doing so good so far, all things considered, and I didn’t want a setback. I had to be patient. We’d get there. And the journey would be fan-fucking-tastic.
“Rough or sweet?” I said into her ear, wanting, for some inexplicable reason, for her to feel in control right now. I looked into her eyes and tried to show her the tenderness I felt for her.
“Rough,” she answered very softly, and it made my heart soar. Her giving me control and wanting rough when she could keep it sweet, when she could keep control of me was such a gift. She was made for me.
I gave her a little smile and she must’ve read my mind because she swallowed hard and looked like she might’ve wanted to backpedal. That hesitation, the fear in her eyes, it got me hard. So hard.
I didn’t understand why I was opting for Dominating Tommy when he was offering to be Ice Cream Parlor Tommy, but I craved rough right now. I wanted him to pound me hard, to pull my hair, to spank me. What on Earth was wrong with me?
Maybe I felt like I’d wanted to beat myself up after finding out Dad sold me down the river… again. Maybe having Tommy pull the pain out of me would help me find the release I needed, would pull it out from where it was, sitting in the middle of my gut, clawing at my stomach. I wanted to feel it fully so I could then let it go.
Was it screwed up to want the pain to be real and tangible instead of inside me? Maybe. Probably. But then I could feel it and let it out. I wanted release. And I hoped that like other times that afterwards he’d hold me and caress me. And he’d get something out of it, too. I tingled at the idea of pleasing him.
His grip on my wrists tightened and he started grinding his hard cock against me. Then he let go of my wrists but grunted, “Don’t move” into my ear.
He unzipped my denim skirt and shimmied it off my hips. He then grabbed the waistband of my baby blue cotton panties and ripped them clean off of me, tearing them somewhere. The tearing sound startled me, making this morph from hot to sordid, dirty. I reached quickly in modesty, but he warned, “I said don’t move”.
His eyes changed, got even more intense. He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and I felt so exposed out here in the open air. He undid his pants, freeing his cock and in one move, rammed it into me to the hilt. I gasped. He gathered the length of my hair into his fist and used it to pull my face to his cheek and started hammering into me. His other hand went under my rear end and he held me by it, digging his fingers into my flesh. It hurt. Plus the ground wasn’t exactly soft, and he was pulling my hair. But the sensation inside of me, the sensation of him plunging in over and over, was good. Really good. He got my earlobe between his teeth, and he wasn’t biting hard, but his hot breath in my ear sent tingles over my body in waves. I willed the tension to leave my body and when I felt that moment of surrender, that moment of just giving myself over to what he was doing, it felt like a release. Even if it was sordid and dirty it was what I needed right now.
He let go of my bottom and then his fingers were between us, rubbing my clit. I opened my eyes and saw the clouds moving over us in the sky, saw birds in flight, and my nostrils were filled with scents of grass, of loam, of my arousal, of Tommy’s spicy warm scent. I was ready to climax, my breathing getting shallow and faster, but then he stopped. Just stopped. He pulled out. His fingers left me and he looked down at me with a wicked look in his eyes. “Do you want to come?”
I must’ve stared blankly at him due to my shock.
“Do you?” he repeated.
I nodded a little. It felt like my heart rate was moving to a dangerously high tempo. How fast was it going? Double, triple? He arched an eyebrow and leaned back, breaking contact completely.
“Tommy,” I croaked out, my voice hoarse. Tears stung my eyes. I wanted release. I didn’t want to be teased right now. It was like he knew how badly I needed it and was reveling in this moment where I was ready to beg for it. He grabbed my rear end and then slammed into me once and then pulled out. A tear slid down my cheek. He kissed it away.
“What do you say?” he asked.
I tried to look past him, up at the clouds.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
I met his eyes and saw a flash of tenderness but then the hardness returned. “I’ll ask you again. Do you want to come?”
I wanted to burst into tears and say no. Because suddenly I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, somewhere alone. But I didn’t say no. I searched my brain for the right answer.
He moved his mouth closer, our noses nearly touching. “Tia,” he whispered and as much as I knew he could see the need in my eyes I could hear that same need in his voice.
“Yeah?”
“Say please.” He waited.
“Please, Tommy,” I finally whispered and then he let out a breath and his lips touched mine tenderly, sweetly. He dipped his tongue in, his lips touched mine again, and then he let go of my hair and gently caressed my cheek. But then he grabbed my chin roughly and I could see his jaw go tense as his eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
I was frozen.
“What?” he urged.
“You,” I whispered.
“You want me?” he asked, intensity emanating from his eyes.
I nodded.
“Say it,” he growled.
“I want you,” I said. And I meant it.
He seemed to absorb my words and savor them for a moment, then added, “Want me to do what?”
I sobbed and got my hands over my eyes. I couldn’t look at him. I was suddenly overwhelmed with something… I didn’t know what.
“Athena,” he asked, voice laced with warning.
“Just … whatever you want to give me or take from me.”
He gently took my hands away from my eyes and kissed my eyelids. Then he lifted me up into his arms, grabbing my skirt and torn undies from the ground and carried me back to the barn. I buried my face into his shoulder.
He carried me up the staircase and gently put me on the brass four poster bed. I curled into the fetal position and buried my face into a pillow. He got undressed and climbed beside me and then gently pushed me onto my back and got on top of me. He lined up, then entered slowly and sweetly brushed my hair out of my face, looking at me with tenderness. He kissed me softly. I waited for it to change to rough but it didn’t.
“You okay?” he asked, already inside me, and the concern on his face, it gutted me. This wasn’t dominating Tommy, not the Tommy I needed right now.
“No,” I whimpered, “not sweet.”
“No,” he said. “Not this time, baby girl.” He kissed me on the forehead.
He lifted my legs up so that my ankles were resting on his shoulders, kissing an ankle and then pushing deep into me again. His hand stroked my leg while he scraped his teeth along his bottom lip and then he set about a rhythm – slow but deep, penetrating, almost but not quite punishing. This wasn’t exactly sweet, but it wasn’t rough either.
What was he trying to do to me? He gave me a choice, but then he chose sweet when I asked for rough. Maybe he was just reminding me that he was in charge.
He pulled my ankles down so my legs could wrap around his waist and then he rained soft kisses from my throat to my earlobe, over to my chin, then his lips landed on my lips and his tongue darted in, angling with mine.
“You’re mine,” he said, leaning back an inch.
I let out a little sob.
“Do you understand me?” He took my throat into a soft but possessive grip. His eyes were suddenly fierce. His eyes searched mine as he plunged into me over and over, not breaking eye contact and I gulped in air, giving a fractional nod. When he came inside of me, I let out a huge breath, and then he collapsed on top of me.
I could feel his heart hammering against me. I let out another rush of air as if I’d been holding my breath. He rolled off me and then his hands were between my legs and he started working his fingers, working to get me off. In a matter of no more than thirty seconds, he accomplished his goal. I arched my back and let out a loud “Ah!”
Then I curled into him. I was spent. Totally and utterly spent. He stroked my hair, rubbed my back, and rained soft kisses on me until I fell asleep.