Wanderlust Page 4

  At my pleading look, he shook his head sadly. "We had an agreement. You can't just change your mind. There's a word for girls who do that."

  A low, mournful sound left my throat.

  "Is that really what you want, girl? To make me angry? To leave me with this?" He gestured jerkily to his crotch, at the bulge in the denim.

  I shook my head—no, no. I didn’t want him to be angry.

  "That's right. It will be okay. You let boyfriend number one touch your tits. You let non-boyfriend number two fuck your cunt. Now you're going to let the dangerous stranger you met on a road trip tie you up and fuck you. It's a fantasy, sunshine. Just a dream."

  Though it seemed very real when he stood and took off his clothes. I couldn't see very clearly in the dark, just angled shadows and sleek lines. A light dusting of hair on dusky skin. My vision was blurry, but I felt his presence, touched by the hawk-like gaze on my body and battered by his arousal pulsing in the air.

  I couldn't move my hands. I couldn't talk. So I tried not to think either. I wanted to become a purely physical being, one who could feel and be felt but didn't have to analyze any of it. Why had I ever agreed to this? How much of this was my fault and how much his? But if I were just a body, then it didn't matter. If I were just a warm tumble of limbs and curves tacked against the bed, an unholy amenity in this godforsaken motel, then it couldn't be my fault. I could just let it happen.

  He touched his palm to the inside of my thigh, and I let it fall open. The idea of refusal was ludicrous now, with all of my power taken from me, all willingly forfeited in a game I'd been destined to lose. But he didn't enter me with that dark, thick erection that jutted from between his legs. He leaned down and breathed in deep. A soft tingle ran up my core. He lapped at me with a tenderness that hurt worse than violence. The first time a man had ever done this to me, and it was against my will. But how could this be against my will, when I wanted it so very badly? It felt so good, so right, like huddling up to a campfire on a winter's night.

  I panted into the towel cutting across my mouth. My breasts heaved obscenely, the small twin mounds obscuring the sight of him below, leaving only a half-circle of dark hair between my thighs. He pushed a finger inside me, the intrusion so stark that I grunted.

  "Ah fuck," he said. "I meant to make you come this way, but you're so tight. I need to be inside you."

  He reached for his pants and grabbed a small packet—a condom, something I felt thankful for at least. I was aroused from the illicitness of the situation and from his tongue on my cunt, but not so far gone that I lost my sense of self. I wanted to get out of this safely. That had to be my goal.

  When he leaned back over me, his cock sheathed and breathing labored, I cringed back.

  "No, pretty girl." He rained kisses over my forehead, on my nose. "You want this, don't you? You want this cock inside you. You’re all the same."

  I bit down on the towel, unable to answer. I was almost thankful for the gag in that moment, because what could I say? I may have gone along with this, but I hadn't really wanted it. This wasn't something I had chosen.

  "Please," he said.

  It was a role reversal, him begging instead of me. He wanted me to do more than allow his use of me, he wanted me to want this too. I couldn't though, and it wouldn't matter anyway. If I said no, what then? He was unpredictable even when I cooperated. I didn't want to make him angry.

  I nodded quickly.

  Unappeased, he pulled the towel down from my mouth. "Say it."

  "I want your cock inside me," I said in a deadened voice. It didn't even sound like me. I had gotten my wish. I was purely physical—a machine with no emotions. Skin with no heart.

  His face twisted into a sneer. "I don't believe you."

  "Please put your cock inside me. I want you to fuck me."

  He sat back on his heels, his cock rising between us. "Fuck. You're not even a good liar."

  Letting my eyes fall shut, I finally spoke the truth. "Make me come. Please. Show me what it could be like if a man could make me come."

  The bed rocked gently as he leaned back over me, though I couldn't look at him. I couldn't see the smugness again, the triumph. A blunt head fitted to my opening. I gasped and writhed on the bed. It felt too large. It had been so long.

  In a sudden stroke, he entered me, stretching my walls wide and far. I cried out, helpless to quiet the pain that wrenched me in half. He didn't give me time to adjust, just pulled out and slammed back in. Tears ran in rivulets down my face. Stunned, I realized it wasn't the pain that made me cry, or the violation, but the betrayal. He'd said he wouldn't be like before, but this was the same. It was hard and painful and fast.

  "So fucking tight," he said, panting. "You're going to come for me."

  I shook my head. Just another betrayal, that empty promise. I would spread my legs for him, but I wouldn't fake it.

  He wouldn't even notice if I did. Despite his words, he was far away, his gaze focused on the horizon of his own pleasure. The look on his face was pure ecstasy, his movement jerky and desperate. It stirred me, his need, enough that I felt myself twinge around his cock.

  At the contraction, his breath caught. There was a pause, a heartbeat of tortured stillness. Like a dammed force unleashed, he sped up, thrusting wildly. A long, pained sound escaped him, punctuated by his grunts as he forced himself deeper and faster.

  His mouth sought out my skin as if it were sustenance, as if it were air. He drew open-mouthed kisses along my collarbone, my neck, breathing me in. I could feel the secret muscles tightening and convulsing. In a sort of feedback loop, his harsh plunder forced them to quiver. The vibrations sent him even higher, spurred him ever faster. It turned the tables too. I was bound and spread open but he was helpless to the squeeze of my sex, to the lure of my skin.

  He rammed into me, pulling me down onto his body as if I were a toy, a tool, something to be used well and then put away.

  His eyes glazed over. "Oh God."

  He reared up over me, so that all I saw was a blur of hard-packed shoulders. His whole body was racked by the force of each entry, as if he were a ship battered up against rocks. I feared for him then, maybe more than myself. It was almost inhuman, the rage with which he fucked me, the tempest of his lust, and yet wholly vulnerable. Fierce and thick and uncontrollable—neither of us were master now.

  My pain became his, twisting his face into a mask of helpless agony. Every jolt of my inner muscles, every slap of flesh against flesh was reflected in his eyes. He stared at me, some of the intensity slipping, reflecting back fear. What was he afraid of?

  Tears streamed down my face. Didn't he like it? Wasn't this what he wanted?

  "It's okay," I whispered.

  He spoke with grunts. "Shut up."

  "Let it happen." The words were a mockery, but they were the truth.

  He barely paused in his wild thrusts, as he reached up to slap my face. I blinked against the sting. My head jerked against the pillow, and he held it there, stretching away from my body as if he could separate it, as if he could split my mind from my body, and God, if he could have, it would have been a mercy. I didn't want to think or feel—but I did. It was inevitable, and I knew what he needed with the bone-deep certainty. There were so few things we knew for sure, and mercy was one of them.

  Shutting my eyes against the dark, I whispered, "I forgive you."

  His body stuttered, halted suddenly in a harsh and rigid climax. He jerked my head back and mashed his lips against mine, sucking and biting at me with a violence that triggered my own orgasm. I came with long inner pulls of his twitching cock and a quiet cry that tumbled onto his tongue.

  As our bodies softened and cooled in the aftermath, he stared at me, almost bewildered.

  A slow blink brought awareness and a glimmer of wonder. His mouth curved in a sleek, satisfied smile.

  He bent his head and licked my bottom lip. "I liked that very much."

  For reasons I couldn't analyze, his words mad
e my sex clench around his softened cock.

  He chuckled and rolled to the side.

  With leisurely movements, he untied me. I rubbed my wrists for a moment, unsure about what to do. I could make a run for it. There would never be a better chance than right now. But it felt overly dramatic. I had my things on the bathroom counter and a fifty dollar deposit at the front desk. It hadn't hurt. It was only casual sex. In fact, it was the best sex I'd ever had. The only consensual sex, if I could call it that.

  Leaning over, I pulled the condom off, using my hand to keep it from spilling. He jerked in my hand then grunted.

  "What are you doing?" he muttered.

  I cocked my head. "Cleaning you. Isn't that...? I thought... "

  He sent me a lazy grin. "Let me guess. Boyfriend number two."

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

  "Well he sounds like one hell of a bastard, but it seems I owe him one." He gestured to himself. "Get to it then."

  I turned back to my task, licking up the salty juices from his softening cock, his balls, working my tongue down into the taint as I had been taught to. It had tasted copper with my blood then. It was the way between a man and a woman, he'd said, and I had never questioned the practice until now. Still, it seemed to satisfy this man too. He let out a small sigh as I ran my tongue from the tip of his cock to the base.

  When I had cleaned him, he pushed my head gently down against his stomach. His abs were hard and lightly-furred—an unconventional pillow. Exhausted from the fear and the struggle, sated from climax, I slipped into a dark sleep.

  I dreamed of my mother. Her face was distorted and twisted.

  She sneered at me. "Not so proud now, are you?"

  "I didn't want to do it," I sobbed. "He made me."

  "You left just so you could fuck guys like him."

  "No, no." I pleaded for her to understand, for her to absolve me. "I didn't know."

  "With that face and that body?" she scoffed. "You knew what would happen, and you wanted it."

  "Why didn't you stop me?"

  "I did, girl. I told you not to go...not to go..."

  I woke up with a cock in my mouth. I gasped, struggling to breathe. It took me a few minutes and several thrusts to get oriented. My hands were tied behind my back, arching my body up as I lay on top of them. He straddled my neck, thrusting mercilessly into my mouth. He didn't seem to notice that I was awake now, or care that I had been asleep before. He simply used me, and something subversive sent warmth to…to my cunt. That was what he called it. But there was nothing but cool air between my legs as he sawed his cock against my tongue.

  I tried to use my tongue, to find the rhythm, but it was erratic, only in his head. I could do nothing but open to him, to take him repeatedly until he grunted and filled my mouth with foamy cum. A drop spilled out of the corner of my mouth and trailed down my skin. There were no tears left, only this.

  He sighed as he slipped out. Sleepily, almost as if he were still sleeping, he scooted down my body until his head rested on the cushion of my breasts. They were soft and plump, but they couldn't have made a comfortable pillow. Still, he fell asleep almost instantly, his breathing evening out into a peace I could only envy.

  Blinking up at the water-stained ceiling, I wondered if I could pretend this night had never happened.

  I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I woke, my arms were in agony. He used me many times that night. He dragged me onto his cock, forcing me to ride him while my arms were still bound behind me. He controlled the speed of my thrusts with twists and slaps to my breasts. The next time he licked at my cunt, sucked and bit until I came with a screaming abandon I'd never felt or even imagined.

  The next time he dragged me by my hair to the bathroom where the bright light stung my sleep-dimmed eyes. He scrubbed my body with the harsh soap, as if to remove every trace of him. Then he took me back to the bed, spread me open, and sprayed ropes of cum across my breasts, ruining all his work.

  There was an inconsistency there, as if he were fighting himself just to fuck me. I started to fear that he would kill me after all. Maybe it would get to be too much. Maybe we were stuck in an infinite loop of lust and hatred, and the only way to end it would be to kill me. Which would I prefer—to spend an eternity in purgatory or take a gamble with hell? But these were only the meandering thoughts of an exhausted mind, because this would end soon. Already morning light whispered through the curtains. Our sex had turned sluggish and sloppy, though he seemed reluctant to end it.

  I knelt, my face and shoulders pressed into the coverlet as he pushed into me from behind. When he came, his groan sounded like an animal in agony, a cry for help. He jerked back his cock, and I knew it was as sensitive and raw as my own tender flesh. It didn't make sense why he pushed himself to the pain, but we weren't operating on the laws of logic here, not inside the looking glass. There was only our primal senses, a sort of ironic inevitability, like an animal who fights to the death just to prove that he's dominant.

  I dozed on the bed, too broken to move, as I heard him get up and rummage around the room. The sink in the bathroom went on briefly. There was the sound of water nearby, and then he was raising my head, tilting it up. The curve of a cup touched my lips. Cool water slid down my parched throat, following by a bitter aftertaste and powder residue.

  I made a face and tried to pull away.

  "Shh," he said, nudging the cup against my lips. "Drink up."

  My limbs were too heavy to push him and already the liquid ran down my neck. I opened my mouth and drank. Relief filled me.

  "That's a good girl." He leaned down, whispering into my ear. "I'm sorry about this. I really am. You’re too good."

  He'd really done it, I realized as my consciousness faded. He'd killed me, and now we could both be free.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the United States.

  I woke up in a rumbling, rattling darkness. My body was jolted around. I heard the hollow bang of metal, but some sort of thin padding protected me from the worst of the blows. Every time I tried to move, pain seared through my brain. As blood returned to my fingers and toes, agony followed. So I focused on staying as still as possible, eyes shut tightly against the possibility that was becoming more and more certain.

  The back of a truck. I was in his truck.

  He hadn’t killed me. He’d been apologizing for kidnapping me. It wasn’t hard to figure out what I would be used for. This was a nightmare, exactly the kind of thing my mother warned me about. I would take all of the precautions she wanted while secretly rolling my eyes because that kind of thing only happened to girls on TV. Not to me. Oh God, not to me.

  Whether from remnants of the drug or just fear, I felt exhausted, and I allowed the steady motion of the truck to lull me into a thoughtless place. Nothing so comforting as sleep, but free of the nightmares my mind drew for me. Last night had only been the beginning. There was more.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, I took inventory of my body. My hands were tied behind my back, cuffed at the wrists by something soft but intractable. My feet were similarly bound, though I couldn’t see them at all. I was lying on something mildly soft, maybe a padding or a thick blanket.

  And I was naked. Of course I was naked and damp and aching down there where he had entered me. I didn’t even know what to call that place. My vagina. That seemed wrong, too clinical. A gasping, desperate laugh escaped me. I could barely put a name to it, but he’d been inside there. Inside my cunt.

  My innocence suddenly seemed sinister, as if it were the true cause of my predicament. Maybe if I’d had more experience with men, I would have anticipated this. If I’d had regular sex, I would be able to handle this.

  It seemed to go on forever, the whistle of wind, the rumble of wheels. Occasionally we would slow and turn, but then we’d find some even road again to barrel away for hours. Untraceable hours away from my car, from my new job, from my mother’s house. She wou
ldn’t even know I had gone missing. Suddenly that seemed like a relief. At least she wouldn’t know. It would only make her more afraid. It would only make her gloat.

  I must have been dozing because the screech of brakes startled me. The long drive had calmed me into a sense of complacency, as if I could exist forever in the dark, but I knew it would end. I’d have to face him and whatever he would do to me.

  The roar of metal rushing against metal assaulted my ears before white light blinded me. Before my eyes adjusted, he flipped me over. He untied my hands and my legs, sending a rush of pinpricks into my fingers and toes. A moan escaped me.

  “It’s okay, sunshine,” he murmured, rubbing his hands over my arms briskly. “Just a few minutes and you’ll be right as rain.”

  Gradually, the physical discomfort faded and I became aware of a new sensation: hunger. Ravenous hunger that sharpened into pain and the wonderful smell of cooling fast food. He smirked, handing over a bag. I had no dignity left. I ripped into the bag, scarfing down half the container of fries before I glanced up at him. He was watching me. There was no judgment on his face, only a kind of unnerving fascination that was somehow worse. I wasn’t even worthy of his pity but some curious creature, something lower. I bent my head and polished off my fries and burger and washed it all down with the soda he produced.

  My body felt a little more solid now, but my emotional state frayed. He was even more handsome in the morning light, like someone I would have had a crush on but never would have had the guts to approach. It twisted me inside because as sick as it was, I wanted him to like me. I was still desperate for a friend. I started to cry.

  He pulled me into his arms, curled on his lap. I held myself rigid for only a minute—small rebellions—before sinking into his warmth. He smelled of musk and spice, and I turned my face into him, letting my tears soak his shirt, clinging to him as if he could save me even while his arms held me captive.

  I cried for having stayed with my mother too long, not knowing what a normal life would have been like. I cried for finally summoning the strength to leave, only to have all my worst fears prove true. Most of all, I cried because I felt relief to have been captured.