Chapter 9 #2
I take her up to my apartment, and get her settled. “There’re snacks in the fridge. I think. Maybe,” I say. “Or not. I’m sorry. I don’t often have people here and I mostly eat out of the house or protein bars and shakes.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay. I’m going to have a shower. There’s a guest bath if you want one too, and I guess you can raid my dresser for clothes if you want… I don’t have women’s clothing. I could call down to the desk and see if someone will bring some. What do you want? Some bat-themed tights maybe?”
She looks at me, then bursts out laughing. “Bat-themed tights? Sure.”
“Okay. Get whatever you want. Do whatever you want. I’ll be back in five.”
I have the quickest shower you can have while still getting all the dried blood from scuffling with your older brother off you. Then I dress in a tight white shirt and black jeans that are soft as hell.
When I come out, she’s not had a shower. She’s still sitting on the couch wearing the coat I snatched from the foyer when we left the house. She looks small and scared. She could have run away, but she’s not wearing shoes.
“What size feet do you have? Not in like a fetish kind of way, but I want to get things for you.”
“You don’t need to do that. You could just let me go home.”
“I could. Actually, let’s go there. Let’s go and get your things.”
“Go and get my things? You’re not letting me go?”
“I can’t,” I tell her. “Not now that Aiden has said he wants you. He’s going to keep taking you back.
Over and over until you just give in and do what he wants.
He’s ruthless that way. The only person he ever allowed any real freedom was Teddy, and I don’t think he’s going to make that mistake again. ”
“He really is ruthless,” she says. There’s a quaver in her voice that indicates a whole world of hurt and humiliation, I am sure.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “I know you’re grieving, just like we are. It makes people do weird things.”
She looks at me with those big doe eyes, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I have saved her from something truly terrible. Aiden’s ministrations, and then Leo’s… if she were subjected to the two of them on and on, soon enough there would be nothing left.
“Thank you,” she says. “Ever since he passed, one day has been worse than the next. It’s like living in a nightmare…”
“I know,” I say. “He was a really good guy.”
“He was,” she says, her breath hitching as she tries not to cry. “And I did love him. But that was the worst thing I could have done for him.”
“I know,” I tell her. “I believe you.”
She lifts tearful eyes to me. “You do?”
“Yes,” I say. “Grab a shower, okay? You’ll feel better. Grab anything in my closet you want to wear. I have hoodies and things. I am going to get some food for us. It’ll be takeout, but better than pizza.”
“Can’t be better than pizza,” she smirks.
She’s so cute. I know why Teddy loved her. I think I am in love with her too. I think I fell in love with her the moment I saw her at the cemetery, clocked the expression on her face, and knew right in my gut that there was someone else in the world who missed him like I did.
This time, she does as she’s told. She pads off and gets into the shower in my en-suite. I put an order through for pizza, which arrives just as she gets out of the shower.
She comes out of the bedroom wearing my hoodie. It comes down to mid-thigh. I wonder if she’s wearing anything underneath it. Probably not.
We sit down on the couch and I make sure she takes a good slice. A couple of cans of soda are cracked next to us, ice in glasses. It’s simple food, but it’s the kind of comfort we both need.
“You were in rehab?” She asks the question in between bites.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t for real this time. I just needed those other two off my back. I think you can probably see why.”
“Yeah,” she says. “They’re intense.”
I start eating too. It’s amazing. I haven’t really eaten since we left the rehab. Aiden’s men weren’t thinking about taking breaks for us. They were entirely locked in on doing as he said and getting us to him.
I notice Ella has a good appetite too. She eats a good half of the pizza before slowing. I leave another quarter of it for her. I want her fed and happy.
“Did Aiden not feed you? On top of everything else?”
She gives me a look that I find very hard to read, but which I know I should pay attention to.
“You just seem hungry,” I say.
“I like pizza,” she says, looking down and nibbling at the slice she already chewed massive bites out of.
I sigh inwardly. I didn’t want to make her feel self-conscious, but it seems that’s all I’ve done.
Ella
Why does this feel more awkward than being abducted twice before did? Luke seems sweet, but he’s not the same caliber of man as his older brothers. Leo and Aiden are unique. Luke feels more familiar.
He has intensity to him, and charisma, but it’s not the emperor energy of Aiden, or the fucking apex predator sort of vibe of Leo. Luke feels like he could set the world on fire and not care for even a moment.
When I look at him, I see recklessness, sweetness, danger.
He’s built like a Minotaur. And he wants nothing more than for me to be happy.
That should be enough, but it’s not, because this isn’t real.
Sitting here, on this couch, eating good pizza…
this is something friends do. And we’re not friends.
We are strangers, and he just abducted me.
And that, to me, is the good part.
There’s something wrong with me, I’m pretty sure. I should be so grateful to be in his presence, and to be somewhat rescued from the others. But I feel like I am being rejected somehow, or denied something I should have because we’re just making polite conversation over pizza.
Luke is hot. A hot fucking mess, but I am not anybody to judge in that regard. He has this wild energy that he’s trying so hard to rein in. It’s like watching a bull in a china shop, except I am the china shop, and in this case the bull is tiptoeing around pretending to be a normal customer.
“What are you thinking about? You look concerned.” He asks the question with a furrowed brow.
“They’re going to come for me. And they let you take me because I belong to you too according to them. So… are you going to…”
I’m basically asking him if he’s going to use me.
“Do you want me to?” He catches my meaning instantly. “Are you asking me to…”
I can’t possibly say I am asking him to fuck me, but the last week or so of my life has been one sexual escapade after another. And now it’s wearing off, I’m starting to remember things I don’t want to recall. If I were still in Aiden’s presence, my mind would be full of nothing but pleasure.
“You want to be good,” I say. “But the good brother would never do what they want him to do.”
“You’re not here because of my brothers. You’re here because you deserve to be something other than captive.”
He says that, but I don’t believe him. He is playing the good guy so fucking hard, but it’s not authentic.
Deep down, he’s the same as the others. He’s a man who is holding me captive, but he’s doing it with pizza and soda, and an intensity of expression that makes me feel like a steak on the grill.
“I’m not like them,” he repeats.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t have…”
“But I do want to eat,” he says, reaching out to me. His hands settle on my hips, and for a moment I don’t know what is happening because it seems so at odds with the almost teenage angst energy we are experiencing right now.
“We just ate…”
“I want you,” he says. “I listened to Teddy talk about you for hours. He adored you. Then I saw you at the cemetery and I just knew I had to have you. Knowing that both my brothers got to you first is…” He shakes his head. “It should have been me. That’s what Teddy would have wanted.”
I choke up a little. I know better than to cry. Nobody can be allowed to see my pain, or my guilt.
“I should have gotten to you first, but I fucked around and I got high and I fought strangers, and I told myself I was enacting a plan, but it wasn’t a plan. It was a shitty waste of time, and it meant they got to you first. I’m sorry.”
“What would you have done if you had found me up front?”
He looks at me with smoldering eyes. “I would have made you mine so completely nobody would ever have been able to take you from me.”
“Oh? More than Aiden and Leo did?” I am teasing him a little, which is a dangerous and frankly unhinged game. I know he doesn’t like how I was taken by them.
“Yes, more than them. They are brutes and tyrants.”
“But you’d do something different?”
“I would. Let me show you.”
Luke picks me up and he carries me to the bedroom.
I am about to be fucked by all four Levin brothers.
Luke
I lay her down on my bed. She’s not wearing anything under my hoodie. When she spreads her legs, I see the soft mound of her pussy, partly swollen with arousal. I hadn’t planned this, consciously at least, but where else could this have gone?
She’s beautiful, she’s vulnerable, and she has a sexual energy that begs to be claimed. I have never met anybody so absolutely ripe for fucking before. She practically begged for me to take her, and though I could have resisted, what would be the point?
“Is this what you wanted? Do you need to know that whoever has you can pleasure you? Have you decided to give yourself up to us all? One after the other?”
She lets out a little moan and grinds her hips. The non-verbal responses are absolutely screaming right now.
I haven’t saved this girl at all. She never wanted to be saved. The way Aiden was handling her and the way she was responding should have told me that. It probably did. But I wanted to take her for my own. I wanted to have the experience of being a good guy.
It hasn’t lasted long.