Burn Down the Night (13 page)

“You're so beautiful,” Sarah whispered to Joan. “Your body—”

“So are you,” Joan said with a little smile for Sarah, and then she leaned forward and kissed her. A soft sweet kiss on the mouth that surprised me with its tenderness. Joan and tender were not words I put together in my mind.

Joan didn't have underwear on and Sarah's fingers ran over her skin, down her flat stomach, over her ass, and back up to her breasts. I could hear the slight rasp of it, skin against skin and my hands twitched like I could feel it, too. I wanted to feel it.

“I want to touch you. Take off the handcuffs,” I said and then regretted it the minute I said it. She would never do it and it did no good to let Joan know what I wanted. No good to let her know that I was more invested in this scene than in getting free.

But it was too late. I revealed too much and now the power was hers again.

Sarah looked up, her eyes bright at the idea. “Yeah!”

But Joan was already shaking her head. “You've already broken our deal once,” she said. “You don't get to touch. Not tonight.”

Sarah smiled—utterly in on this fake game between the three of us.

“Then show me what I do get,” I said. “Sit back on the dresser.”

Joan walked three steps backward and sat down on the edge of the dresser. “Sarah,” I said. “Get on your knees in front of her.”

Sarah dropped down.

“Give the girl a pillow at least,” Joan said and I chucked a pillow at the two of them. Sarah laughed and put it under her knees.

Joan was not laughing. She was staring at me. Hard. And I stared right back.

“Spread your legs,” I said. “Show me what she's going to taste.”

Joan's breath shuddered, her breasts shimmying with the force of her breath. The force of what she was holding on to. Her pale legs shifted wide and I could see the pink of her. Her clit. The opening of her pussy. She was wet and gleaming in the lamplight.

So beautiful.

So fucking beautiful.

“Touch her, Sarah,” I said, my voice rough and low like it came from my belly.

Sarah's finger ran through her folds, from the clit to the entrance to her body.

“Her clit,” I said, and Sarah put her finger against it, pressing and rolling the bead between her fingers and Joan's body. Joan gasped, lifting her hips.

“Pinch it between your fingers,” I said. “That's how she likes it.”

Joan's eyes flew to mine, glowing in the shadows.
Yeah,
I wanted to say.
I noticed. I noticed how you like it the other day and I'm going to use that information to pull you apart.

Sarah did it and Joan cried out, curling forward. Sarah shifted and I couldn't see anymore.

But it didn't matter. The only thing I wanted to see was Joan's face.

“Taste her,” I said and Sarah leaned forward, burying her mouth between Joan's legs. “Suck that clit into your mouth.”

Sarah was an excellent instruction follower. Joan cried out, jerking her hips.

“Hold her still,” I said and Sarah put her hands around Joan's body, gripping her hips. Her ass.

“Oh fuck,” Joan said, one hand landing on the dresser behind her, the other pushing Sarah's face deeper into her body. “So good, baby. You suck it so good.”

Sarah made some kind of humming noise in her throat and shifted restlessly on the floor.

“She wants me to fuck her,” I said to Joan, who lifted her eyes to mine for a moment but then she shut them again, blocking me out.

Oh, this control game was fucking insane. I wanted to crawl inside her head.

“Open your eyes, baby,” I said. “Look at me.”

Joan shook her head.

“Sarah, stop.”

Sarah leaned back, resting her head against Joan's legs so she could see me. Her mouth was shiny and I wanted to lick the taste of Joan from her lips.

“You want to come?” I asked Joan.

She was silent. Mutinous. Oh, I wanted to bend her.

“Joan?” Sarah asked, running her thumb against Joan's clit. Not a fake name. Good.

“Tell her, Joan,” I said. “Tell her you want to come. You want to come all over her face.”

Joan's breath shuddered and her hand gently touched Sarah's face. “I want to come,” she breathed.

“Then you have to look at me.”

“Look at him,” Sarah said. She took one hand off Joan's ass and slipped it between Joan's legs. A long finger slid inside her and Joan's face went slack. Totally blissed out.

I'd never seen anything hotter.

“Look at him, Joan.” Sarah whispered, finger-fucking my kidnapper with long, slow strokes of her hand. “He's your husband and you're happy right now. And he's here. Right here. And that could change so fast.”

Yeah, the world was a cruel place no one knew that better than Joan and me.

And clearly Sarah, with her sad story.

“Use another finger,” I said. “Fill her up.” Sarah did. Two fingers. “Give her another.”

Sarah carefully put a third finger into Joan, pushing in and dragging out. Long and slow.

Joan cried out again, a shaking trembling thing. But she was watching me. Eyes unfocused but locked on mine.

“Suck her,” I said. “Fingers and mouth at the same time. Fast. Hard. She likes it hard. She likes it to hurt just a little.”

Yeah, I knew all that about her. I knew those dark places in her soul. I had the same bruises.

Sarah did as I asked. I couldn't see her mouth against Joan. But I saw her arm moving faster and harder. A punishing pace. Bruising even.

Joan was crying out every time Sarah pushed in. “Keep those eyes open, baby,” I murmured. “Oh God, I want to fuck you so bad. Imagine it. Imagine me pushing her hands away and sliding deep inside you. So deep. You've never been filled like I fill you. You've never been stretched like I stretch you. Imagine my cock, so hard inside of you it hurts. Just a little. Just enough. And she's still licking you. You like that, don't you. Her hot tongue. My hot cock—”

“Fuck, oh God. Oh—” Joan clutched Sarah's head, jerking her hips up into her face and fingers, fucking herself against the woman. Wringing herself out.

Shattering over and over again. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen anything so beautiful.

“Holy shit,” Sarah breathed, once Joan let go. “Oh God. That was so hot.”

Sarah got to her feet and turned toward me. All that straight black hair was wild around her and she took a step toward the bed.

Yeah, I though, come closer. Because my endgame wasn't coming, it was getting these handcuffs off. And then coming.

But first handcuffs.

“You want this?” I asked stroking myself through the cotton of my underwear. I bit my lip against the pressure building in my cock.

Sarah was at the foot of the bed, about to climb on but Joan grabbed her from behind.

“No,” she said. “That's not part of the deal.”

Sarah whimpered, sagging a little in Joan's arms.

“I'll take care of you,” she whispered into Sarah's ear. “Let's go in the other room.”

“No,” Sarah said. “Here. I want him to watch…” We were both silent. “Unless that's not cool—”

“I want to watch,” I said at the same time Joan said. “He can watch.”

Sarah smiled, easing back against Joan.

She took one of Joan's hands and pushed it between her legs. “Make me come,” she whispered.

Joan pressed kisses against Sarah's ear and the side of her face as she lifted that yellow skirt again, slipping her hands into that pink underwear. Joan was whispering something in Sarah's ear and Sarah bit her lips, her eyes shut tight.

I just watched, feeling like I was seeing something too private. Joan glanced at me and I could see the same thing in her face. This wasn't for me.

“Harder,” Sarah breathed.

Joan's fingers were a blur against Sarah's clit.

“Yes, fuck. Like that. Just like that. Keep—” Sarah was up on her tiptoes and Joan spun her around, pushing her into the dresser. She stumbled, sprawled back, and Joan used both hands. I couldn't see, Joan was in the way, but Sarah's hand came up and clutched at Joan's hair, pushing her down to her knees in front of her.

“Eat me,” Sarah said and Joan complied.

I couldn't hold back anymore. I slipped my hand into my underwear and wrapped my fist around my cock. Two strokes, hard and fast, and I was coming. Sarah was coming, too, and both of us cried out. The room echoing with our shouts and groans.

I was covered in sweat. Replete and exhausted and still somehow tuned up.

Joan stood, stumbling a little like her legs had given out. Sarah reached up and grabbed her elbow, smiling. Laughing a little, like you do when all the hard edges were rubbed away by another person's hand.

“Whoa,” Joan said.

“Yeah,” Sarah laughed. “Whoa. That was…awesome.”

“It was,” Joan said. I was silent.

Joan put on her clothes and Sarah pulled up her underwear, jumped down off the dresser and smoothed out her hair. “I should get back. My in-laws have the kids out for dinner. They'll be back soon.”

I felt my jaw nearly hit the floor.

“Sure,” Joan said. “I'll walk you to the door.”

Sarah walked by, close enough to grab and then closer still. She bent down and kissed my lips. Soft and sweet. I tasted the tang of Joan and my tongue swept out to get more. And then she stroked my face, her eyes taking me in with all my tattoos and bullshit.

Behind her Joan was wide-eyed, probably convinced that I was going to grab the woman by the throat and hold her hostage until Joan unlocked me. It's what she would do in my place.

It's what I'd been trying to make happen.

But I couldn't do it.

“My husband would have loved that,” Sarah said, her eyes unbearably sad. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I said, and then she was walking out the door.

Joan was smart enough to not get too close. I might let the sad mother leave unscathed, but if Joan got close, I wasn't sure what I would do.

“I want the number,” she whispered, her face hard.

And then she, too, was gone.

I closed the door behind Sarah and leaned my head against it, trying so hard to pull myself back together. But I couldn't even find the threads to grab on to.

Fucking Max. What a bastard.

If he gave me the number for Lagan, I would let him go. I had to. Not just for him. For me. I didn't care if he went back to his stupid motorcycle club. I didn't care if he got murdered by his brothers. I didn't care about any of it. I just needed him gone.

I grabbed the cellphone off the kitchen counter and walked into the bedroom.

It smelled like sex and I felt interest coil in my belly again.

I wanted to wallow in this smell. I wanted to rub it onto my skin.

“Where'd you find her?” Max asked, his voice a little awestruck.

“On the beach. She's here with her kids visiting her in-laws. Her husband died a year ago.”

“Fuck.”

“I think we made her happy, though. For a night.”

“You did.”

I almost smiled at him. But I couldn't. I couldn't feel any closer to this guy. I couldn't afford that. I held up the cellphone.

“Did I show you enough to earn the number?” I asked.

He took a deep breath, his lean hard body, ridged and tattooed, shook in the lamplight. “You showed me plenty,” he said and I looked away, not wanting to see anything in his eyes. Not lust. Not interest. Not kindness. Not respect. Nothing.

“Joan—”

“Just give me the number.”

I gave it to her. Ten digits that might just get her killed. And a year ago, I wouldn't have given a shit.

Everything was different now. She was walking right into disaster, and I was being forced to watch.

That creepy, insidious thought came back:
what if things were different.

Not for me, so much—because clearly shit was. I didn't fully know or understand how, all I knew was deep inside where I held first my fear and then the hot coal of revenge—it was empty. And I felt blank. Just…cleared out.

But what if things were different for her.

“Now let me go,” I said.

She held up a finger and the maniac pressed dial and put the phone to her ear.

“You have got some fucking death wish,” I muttered, shaking the handcuffs like this time they would just spring open. Like we'd hit some limit on crazy and I'd just go free.

But then she shook her head, pulling the phone away from her ear.

“The number's not in service,” she whispered and then she lifted her arm like she was about to smash the phone against the ground, and I lurched forward, straining at the handcuffs, the metal biting hard into my skin. Hard enough to draw blood.

“Stop!” I cried.

“Why? It's useless to me. Another fucking dead end!”

“No. It's not. It's the only phone number he has for me. He…he might call. You were right. He trusts me and he's got a lot of product he's got to get rid of. He doesn't have time to start from scratch.”

Her breath heaved in her chest.

“Keep the phone,” I repeated.

“You really think he might call?”

I nodded.

She put the phone in her pocket and shook her hair out of her face, wiping it away from her lips. Her eyes were red and it seemed like she might cry.

I could see every crack in her foundation. And they were wide, deep cracks. Nothing would repair them. I knew because I had them, too.

Joan and me—we were lost causes.

She watched me for a long moment and I watched her right back.

“What are you going to do if I let you go?” she asked.

“What do you think I'm going to do?”

“Kill me?”

I shook my head. An hour ago, alone in this room before she came back with Sarah, I won't lie, that had been my plan. I'd been fantasizing about exactly how I would kill her. But now…

“No.”

She scoffed.

“I swear,” I said.

“Is that supposed to convince me?” she asked. “What does a guy like you care enough about that you swearing on it would mean something? That bullshit club with all the guys who tried to kill you?”

“No. I don't swear on the patch.” I did. A long time ago. But those days were gone.

“I swear on Dylan,” I said. “On my little brother. On all the shit I did to keep him safe and out of the life. You understand that, don't you?”

She watched me for a long time, sweating despite the air-conditioning.

“Are you going to hurt Fern?”

Again I shook my head.

“Are you going to go back to the club?”

“That's none of your fucking business.”

“Then why do I feel like it is?” She was really asking me, like I had some understanding about this connection between us that she didn't. Like I had experience with this kind of shit.

“Why didn't I let you smash the phone?” I asked and then I shrugged. “Stockholm syndrome?”

She laughed, a wild strange gust. “This has to be the worst kidnapping ever.”

“I don't know,” I said, looking around the tidy and cool condo that still smelled like good, healthy sex. “I've seen worse.”

“I've done everything you wanted.”

“Except let me go.”

“Right. Not much of a kidnapper if I did that.”

I didn't acknowledge the joke. I didn't want to find her funny. Or brave. Or anything other than in my way.

“You have the phone, you have the number. You're not getting anything more from me.” Already it was too much. Already it was enough to get her killed.

“I called your brother,” she said.

“What?”

“From the pay phone across the street. I called to tell him you were safe. Okay.”

“Fuck, Joan, you made me a promise.”

“And I broke it. It's what I do. But I know what it's like to worry about your sibling. To not know if they're alive or dead. If they're okay. If they're hurt. If they're alone and scared—” She turned away and I had to look away, too. “You must have felt that way when he was in jail?”

I felt exactly like that. “The fuck do you know about it?”

“Annie told me some of it. Your Pops a little more.”

All that time Dylan was in jail, taking the years for something I got him into. And then when shit got real for him behind bars, with the Dirty Bastards club taking retribution against Pops on Dylan…and then later with the fire and what happened to his body…I felt like I was going to lose my mind. I wanted to lose my mind. I went deep into the club, taking on every batshit assignment, putting blood on my hands like it might wash away the blood on Dylan's.

Like somehow I could balance the scales.

It didn't work. Nothing worked.

“He said you could go stay with him,” she said. “That you had a place. With him. Home. That's what he called it. Home.”

I ran my finger over a scar I had on my knee. A stupid thing from when Dylan and I were kids. We'd been riding double on my bike and I hit a rock and both of us went flying. I got this rock stuck in the thick skin just over my knee cap. I told him to pull it out, but he kept gagging, because it was gross. And then I was laughing because he was gagging and then in the end, he got mad at me for laughing at him and told me to fuck off. So we walked back to the Skulls clubhouse on opposite sides of the street. Me with a rock in my knee. Him with the broken bike.

Pops pulled the rock out. Dylan almost passed out from the blood, which I thought was kind of nuts because it was my blood. There was so much even I felt a little woozy. But Pops called Dylan a pussy and I locked my legs and stayed on my feet while blood ran down my leg, into my shoe.

Because no way was Dad calling me a pussy.

I had forgotten that. I had forgotten all about that.

I had forgotten so much.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, tired of my bullshit thoughts.

She shrugged and walked over to the pillow on the floor. She picked it up and threw it on the other side of the bed.

It couldn't be more obvious that it wasn't my business, but I couldn't let it go. Jesus. And she thought this kidnapping was fucked-up. Here I was, chained to the bed and worried the woman who put me here was going to get herself killed.

“Joan? You going to stay here? With your aunt?”

“No,” she laughed without any humor. “She's made it clear we need to clear out at the end of the week. I'll go back to North Carolina and drive down every road until I find Lagan's fucked-up compound.”

“Why don't you go to the cops?” I mean I had my problems with the cops, but I was an outlaw.

“When we first arrived at his little camp, after it was obvious we bought into the bullshit and were going to stay, he gave us this little bag to wear around our necks.”

Oh fuck, I knew where this was going.

“There were three pills in it, and if the police came, we were supposed to take all three pills. He told us it would make us sleep and that when we woke up, everything would be fine. We wouldn't have to answer the questions none of us wanted to answer about who we really were. About the things we'd done. He would have handled everything.”

“Cyanide or some shit?”

She shrugged. “And the women, they were so brainwashed. Some of them came from some seriously fucked-up situations and they were just ready, you know. Ready to let someone take away all the big decisions. I mean, they're brainwashed and abused but it's the sly abuse, you know. The abuse that looks like love.”

“You weren't ready to let someone else make all the decisions?”

“It was nice for a few months. But…I have control issues, what can I say?”

This time I smiled, because she was trying so damn hard to keep her head up.

“You actually think your sister would take the pills?”

“No. But I actually think he'd kill her before he let her talk to the police. It's what he threatened me with when I left. That if I tried to come back, he'd kill Jennifer.”

There was no way to win. Lagan had every base covered.

“I'll let you go,” she said. Her voice cracked and she could not hide the fact that she was scared.

She took a deep breath and then tossed me the key from across the room. I caught it with my free hand and used it to pop open the handcuffs.

Fuck. I shook out my hand, rubbing my wrist. I'd cut the skin a little lunging for her when she was going to bust the phone.

“Two days. Two days I've been handcuffed to this bed.”

“I'm sorry.”

I got to my feet, glad I was steady. She was backing away from me, stepping into the corner between the dresser and the window. I followed her, eating the space between us.

She didn't scream, or put up her hands. She only looked at me as if she was waiting for what she knew was coming. Still, she was breathing hard, trying to shrink.

And I'm a pretty fucked-up human, with some fucked-up tendencies toward violence and fear and once I had her cornered against the wall, I lifted my hand to her chest, putting my palm right against the pounding of her heart.

Her fear shook something loose in me, some cornerstone that held up a whole bunch of shit—crumbled. How many times had I done this in my life? Had I stood over some scared person and done everything I could to tear them apart? To take what they had? To hurt what they loved?

“I've hurt so many people in my life,” I told her. Her eyes were so green. I'd never noticed before, blinded by her tits and the armor. But her eyes were the color of grass. Serious green like golf-course grass. “If you'd done this a year ago, I would have fucked you up. I might have killed you.”

Her eyes slid shut and she whimpered low in her throat. But I just stood there, feeling her heart beat.

How do I…not do this?

I remembered when I gave up on my mom. Gave up on the dream of her being clean. Of us—her and me and Dylan and Pops—being some kind of normal. Of being a family instead of a pack of dogs tearing at each other.

I remembered the exact moment I gave in to the dogs.

It was about a week after Mom had come home from the fancy place Dylan's money racing cars had gotten her into. And it had been a good week. Mom was fragile, her smile weak. But she was there. And you could see her trying. She asked about school. She asked about girls and friends. The cars. Dylan's racing.

Every day, Pop treated her like he expected her to disappear. Like without his hands on her, his arm over her shoulder, his lips pressed to her hair—she'd just…poof away.

And then—it was a Thursday. I remembered because I got Dylan to school—which was hard enough in those days but instead of sticking around for my own classes I headed home, and there was Mom and one of Pop's brothers from the club. And the spoon and the lighter and the rubber tubing. And the sound of them fucking in the bedroom.

After that—I just didn't care anymore.

The dogs could have us.

I had turned around and walked away. Walked in the opposite direction. Every time the instinct to care about her or about Pops came back—I shut it down. I rejected it. I did the opposite until all I had for Mom and Pops was rage. Because it was the only thing that would stop me from loving them.

I could do that now. Walk in the opposite direction of the old life.

The old me.

Another cornerstone crumbled. At this rate—there'd be no part of me I recognized left.

And maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Joan licked her lips and I followed her tongue with my eyes, thinking about how tenderly she had kissed Sarah. I thought about her driving all those hours with me in the backseat of her car. She must have been so scared. So tired. But she got me here.

Swallowed, if not her pride, then something to bring me to her aunt.

In my shitty life—outside of Dylan—no one had ever done so much for me.

God, her eyes were so fucking green.

“Thank you,” I told her. And I meant it.

Hard to say which one of us was more surprised.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

I dropped my hand and stepped back. “I'm going to take a shower.”