Abduction (11 page)

He gave her a smile to take the edge off her obvious fear of making him mad, but it didn’t seem to do much good. He beckoned her over with a few curls of his index finger, and slowly, still shaking a bit, she came to the threshold and then, at another gesture from him, out onto the landing to take her share of the rain’s soaking.

Locking eyes with her, holding her there in his sight, pale and still, slowly he came up, one step, two steps, three. A step below her he was still taller than she. He gave her a playfully disapproving look, then leaned in. With his calm whiskey buzz he took in her incredible, intense focus on him, then reached past her, and pulled the door shut. He grinned, almost ready to laugh. She deserved the soaking she was getting.

“What were you up to in there?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Why?”

“I…just…I woke up, and I didn’t know where you were…I just…I was worried about you.”

“Worried?” Truly entertaining.

“I know, it’s stupid.” She smiled momentarily, nervously. “I had a bad dream, and when I woke up, I guess it kind of stuck to me.”

Even after the way he’d startled her she was looking at him with…gratitude?

Adoration? Normally it would have irritated the living hell out of him, but for some reason, today, now, it was…endearing. He took a minute to look at her.

“Come on. Let’s get inside.”

He took hold of her arm, not roughly but, still, in a gesture completely uncharacteristic, and guided her down, past him, in front of him. Then he followed her in the direction of the main cabin. He watched her, just a foot or so ahead of him, walking, the rain soaking her clothes. His clothes. His t-shirt clinging to her shoulders, sticking to her shoulder blades, her back between, sticking and bunching slightly at her waist. His sweat pants, rolled at the waist, taking up extra length. And below, her ass, the muscles rounding with each step. Fuck, he wanted her, this girl who wanted him, who found him there in the forest, who wouldn’t take what she wanted like the others, or even ask for it.

He understood, now. She wasn’t like them. Wanting, like them, but not nasty and cruel like them.

Seeking and determined, but still human. Still warm. Warm and soft. Hot and wet.

Hot with her need, soaked in rain.

He finally got it. She’d been bold enough to seek him out, but confronted with him, with a real person in lieu of her fantasy, she couldn’t pull it off, whatever act she’d dreamt up and planned out, before actually seeing him, hearing him. She didn’t know yet, how to take what she wanted.

It was going to make him crazy, the way the rain was soaking and curling and dripping down that dark strand of hair at the nape of her neck, between the taut masses of hair gathered in bands behind each ear, swelling and dripping every few seconds down onto the dark, already drenched, ribbed collar of his t-shirt.

And then his hands were on her. Not rough. On her shoulders, pulling her to a halt. And she halted, without a word or a sound, without turning back to question with her eyes, or smile in relief. With his hands still on her shoulders he stepped close, so close his body pressed against hers. His hands still on her shoulders he bent his head to whisper,

“What do you want?”

She didn’t say anything. Too young. No. Too shy. Something.

And something in him surged. His fingers wanted to grip, but he kept them soft.

He turned her gently, walked her slowly to the big pine a few feet away near the edge of the clearing. If she wanted to be so passive, fine. He could handle that, even if it was far from his usual routine with women. He stood her a foot or so from that pine and slid his hands from her shoulders, down her arms, wet and slick with rain, to her wrists, strangely narrow in his hands. He lifted her arms and, his body pressing against hers as he leaned forward, pressed her hands against the tree, just above her head.

This wasn’t the usual thing at all, and the way she was letting him move her body got to him. Already he was breathing hard, his body ready. Still he held her wrists. He looked at her right hand, her pale fingers pressed to the brown-black bark of the tree, the backs of her long, slim fingers startlingly white, the pads pink around the pressure points against the bark. The hand pattern of pale white and pink skin against the wood, 93

all wet and dripping and glistening, should be a photograph. He let her wrists go, and her hands stayed, splayed on the tree.

He knew she would let him do anything, have anything. Anything. It was that thought—that he could do what he wanted—that made him so hard, so hot, rather than any particular thing he could think of actually doing. That this strange, quiet girl would let him touch her, take her, look at her any way he liked, and yield to any thing he might do with nothing but breaths and sighs and that look of hers.

Somehow her pigtails seemed perverse. He wanted her hair loose. Quietly, calmly, like a child with a doll who will neither judge not protest, he took one pigtail in the loose circle of his fingers and worked her wet hair free of the elastic band. Then he did the other. He put the bands around his wrist and, with both hands, combed his fingers through her wet hair until it hung heavy and wet in thick strands over her shoulders and down her back. But he missed the nape of her neck, pale and wisped with baby-fine hairs in two Vs, so he twisted her hair up in one hand and drew it up, bending her head forward, elongating the back of her delicate neck, making the pale skin go taut over the smooth rounded curves of her spine.

Christ, he hadn’t even really touched her yet, and he was rock hard. What was it with this girl?

He leaned into her, let his face brush against her neck, heard her suck in her breath, felt her quiver as his chest pressed against her back. Breathing in the smell of her skin, feeling the heat of their bodies warming the wet cloth between them, seeing the tiny hairs of the soft blond down of her ears he was momentarily aware of how on, 94

how tuned into every sensation his body was in that moment, as if he could taste and see and hear molecules of air, of rain, of her and he felt oddly happy.

It was exciting to touch, to run fingers along the bare wet gooseflesh of arms, to peel the wet, sticking sleeves back to reveal her upper arm and the first hint of her shoulder, to brush his lips against her there without kissing, to think of licking and biting her tender flesh, to feel the excitement of anticipation, the little twinge of denial.

A thousand possibilities. Strip her slowly without touching her, look her over, pale and naked in the rain, make her look at him looking at her. Tug his sweats, the ones she was wearing, down just to the tops of her thighs, so the round cheeks of her ass would be framed by the hem of the tee and the waist of the sweats, touch her, finger her, spread her, take her, finger her cunt until she came with him in her ass.

Eat her slowly until he reached the excruciating limit of his need, then stand, coax her wordlessly to her knees, and come in her mouth.

Fuck her hard and desperate against the tree, gripping her wet hair in his fists and watching her face through each moment, every thrust.

This last image made him gasp as a wave of urgent need throbbed through his cock. Slowly, deliberately, he took hold of her wrist and guided her through a turn, so she was facing him, her back to the tree, her hands in fists up by her head. Her eyes asked what he would do.

The t-shirt she had on was soaked and clung to her like gray skin, and he took in the shape of her tits, her dark areolae, her hard nipples, the vague ripple of ribs, the slight hollow of her belly. He came to her, his body pressing to hers, his thigh parting 95

hers, getting a little sigh from her as his thigh pressed against her cunt. After that little noise she turned her face away and closed her eyes, and he smiled, a little amused by her shyness. He leaned into her, her body soft and trembling, mouthed her ear, felt her panting breath with his chest, and whispered,

“What do you want, Devan?”

One of her wrists he let go, let his hand come down into her hair, feel its heavy thickness between his fingers. Her other wrist he brought down, down, and pressed her hand to his hard, aching cock.

“Is this what you want?”

She only answered with a breathy sigh, her eyes closed, her lips parted.

Still holding her hand to his groin, barely moving it over him, he mouthed her ear again, gently bit her jaw just beneath it, kissed her neck, breathing in the smell of her hair and her skin as he tasted her flesh. He heard his own excited breathing, panting against her face, her neck, her jaw, tasted his own saliva as his mouth moved back to the places it had been already, tasted the salt of her skin—salty chin, jaw, neck cheek.

Strangely so, when her ear hadn’t been, or the smooth neck beneath, under the canopy of her wet hair. Not thinking, just feeling, feeling his way around her, he tasted the rain dripping from her chin, trickling down her smooth cheek, wetting her lashes. But the rain on her lashes was all salt.

“Are you crying?”

Eyes still closed, lips still parted with no answer.

“Answer me. Why are you crying?”

“Please.”

“Please what? What is it? What do you want?”

“Please. Please…don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

He was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her. Some physical flaw—a scar, maybe, that she didn’t want him to see. That she was going to tell him not to undress her, not to look at some part of her.

“Don’t what, Devan?” he panted.

“Don’t…rape me.”

He sort of laughed, and then he started to shake strangely, and his face burned.

“Jesus fuck. Are you…are you kidding? Is that what you think this is? Is that what you think I’m doing?”

The laxness in her face went taut and when her eyes finally opened he saw that she was not kidding. He panicked at her terror.

He took his hands off her. Stepped back. She looked at him, maybe hopeful, maybe even more afraid. God fucking damn it, why the hell hadn’t she just said, right at the start, “don’t touch me,” “leave me alone,” or something equally simple? Why had she just stood there, mute and pliable, while he moved and touched and put his mouth all over her? At last he spoke to her, in the staccato syllables of a man gritting his teeth, trying not to shout.

“Listen to me. If I had thought you didn’t want this, we wouldn’t be here. I have no interest in forcing you to do anything. All right?”

She just stared at him, mute.

“All right, let’s get in, out of this fucking rain.”

She didn’t look like she was too eager to go along with him.

“Come on. I’m not going to touch you.” he said, insistently but as gently as he could manage, and she stepped away from the tree and went with him back to the cabin. On the porch they pulled off their mud-caked shoes. He still could not get over her ridiculous boots. He opened the door and held it, gesturing for her to go in when she just stood there.

“Your floors.”

“Just go in and put on something dry. I’ll mop up the floor.” He was almost annoyed at her prissy worry over his floor until he remembered that first night when he’d made her strip because she was dripping muddy water. Then he felt ashamed of himself. And it wasn’t until she’d gone in, crossed the cabin, and disappeared behind her bedroom door that he realized she had nothing to change into.

Another miserable wave of shame hit him when he thought to himself that she’d been too scared of him, just then, to ask him for something dry to wear. He went to his room and gathered up a collection of tops and bottoms so she wouldn’t have to come begging every time she wanted a change of clothes, and knocked softly at her door. No surprise when there was no answer.

“I just realized,” he said in a voice soft and contrite, “that you’d need some more clothes.” When, after a few moments, she had not said anything, or come to the door, he said, “I’ll just leave them here, by the door for you.” Before he’d stooped to set them down, though, she opened the door, and stood there facing him uncertainly.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“That’s all right.”

He handed the clothes to her through the space she’d opened the door, and she took them from him, scrutinizing his face through the entire exchange. Then, when she had the articles in her hand, and he had stepped away from the door, she looked both relieved and embarrassed.

“Hey,” he said softly, careful not to give her the mistaken impression that he was coming anywhere near her, “you’re probably freezing. Why don’t you take a hot shower? I’ll take one when you’re done.”

“All right. Thanks.”

He had the distinct impression that she’d agreed as a gesture of good will in spite of a real desire to stay hidden in her room, but he hoped that when he didn’t jump her in the hallway, or barge in on her in the bathroom, when he’d left her alone all evening and night, she would realize that the business by the pine tree was just a big, ridiculous misunderstanding.

Deliberately, he went to the kitchen to audibly busy himself making dinner. The rattling of pots and pans, the chopping of garlic and onions would tell her where he was, assure her that he wasn’t lurking around her room, waiting to pounce on her the moment she opened the door. Soon enough he glimpsed her darting across the hall, into the bathroom, and heard the water start running. He had the pot on the stove to simmer by the time she was done, and after she was cloistered in her room he locked himself in the bathroom and got in the shower, He was actually shaking with what he thought was cold, but ten minutes in he was still jittery, and finally admitted it was to do with her, not the hour in wet clothes.

How, how had he ended up is such a ridiculous situation? “Please, don’t rape me.” Good god. Yes, all right, he had a few fucked up fantasies. But Christ, he’d never, never, done anything like that. He’d never so much as forced a kiss on anyone. He was the one the guys in his first band had given shit, calling him a puritan even though he hadn’t been to church since he was twelve, because he wouldn’t fuck the high school girls who conned their way back stage after gigs.