Captive (Social Experiments #1) (14 page)

I phoned Cassie at a quarter after five and agreed to meet her and Sam for dinner. The night was promised to Yvonne, of course, but I filled my belly and played a couple hands of UNO. Sam bounced around his room and showed me all of his toy brick models. The colorful creations ranged from spaceships to robots. He had to use his rescue inhaler three times while I was there until Cassie finally got him settled around 8.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked from the bedroom door.

“Yeah, we have an appointment tomorrow. They’re gonna try him on some new meds.” Her smile was strained.

“Maybe I should go…”

“I’m sorry.” She bit her bottom lip, brow furrowed. “I’d hoped to see if you wanted to watch a movie but I should probably get set up in his room. Usually when he has a bad day like this he wakes up wheezing.”

“Hey, it’s all good. We’ll hang out another time. Thanks for having me over to dinner.”

Her expression lightened and her smile bloomed in full force. “I’m glad you joined us.”

I turned the lock on my way out and jogged down the steps to my floor. After a shower, I warmed up leftover pizza. Yvonne complained so often about her thighs gaining mass, that I was tempted to let her up into the main level to cook for us. Frequent rounds of sex probably didn’t count as exercise.

“Happy to see me?”

Yvonne hurried to meet me at the entrance. She took the plate of piled pizza slices and kissed my cheek. “You’re late.”

“Sorry.” In the past I would have texted her, but that wasn’t an option. Her disabled cellphone waited quietly in a disused electrical outlet upstairs. One day she’d get it back.

Once I settled in my chair, I leaned back and rubbed the bridge of my nose. My exhausting day took its toll. I could barely keep my eyes open, but I didn’t want to miss the chance to enjoy Yvonne’s company for the night.

“Not eating?”

“No, I had dinner.” Chester leapt into my lap and kneaded my thigh with his paws. I stroked him in return until he had enough and abandoned me. He was a good cat, and he had gradually changed my opinion about the troublesome little jerks.

Yvonne set the plate of pizza against the small table I brought down to her room. “You were having fun with her again, weren’t you?” Yvonne crossed her arms. “Is this how it’s going to be?”

I sighed. This was the last thing I wanted, but it was time to lay down the rules. I couldn’t keep Yvonne down here forever, but I couldn’t just release her so easily either. Her jealousy wore thin on my fraying nerves.

“No, but I did come down to have a chat with you about the way things are going to be in the future.”

Yvonne gave me a scathing look, jealousy bright in her green eyes. For as long as I had known her, I was the envious friend who wanted more than what she gave. I sighed as she joined me on the floor but didn’t take her favored spot on my lap. Fine. Be that way, I thought to myself. I shook my head again.

“First, when it’s time for you to get out of this room, you’re going to get a job. I want you to put your nursing degree to work.”

“Of course I am,” she snapped at me. “I put in too much work.”

I ignored her petulant behavior and continued. “No more shopping sprees. If you want something, you will come to me. Do you understand? We’ll discuss it together before you blow a grand on a miniskirt and a pair of boots.” I didn’t want to treat Yvonne like a child, but I couldn’t bear the financial burden any longer.

“It’s my money.”

“I cut you a cheap deal on rent, Yvonne. You hardly pay anything, and you don’t have any bills. I love having you here, baby, you know I do. But you’re going to have to help this time around. I can’t keep covering your costs.” My tenants paid 1500 hundred dollars a month and handled their own utility bills. Yvonne paid a flat four hundred to share our water, power, and cable.

“I know,” she said in a small voice. “Jake, I know I haven’t been the best roommate. I’m sorry, okay? I’m really, legitimately sorry.”

The apology was huge and it meant a lot. “Okay then. Once we’re both settled into new jobs we’ll sit down together and budget everything out. You’ll have spending money, I promise you that much. We’ll share the chores.” I paused to consider her tendencies to allow the chore assignments to fall in her favor. “Most of them.”

“I know, I know… I’ll make it up to you.” She reached for my hand and moved within reach until we were pressed intimately close and side by side. Yvonne lowered her cheek to my shoulder and closed her eyes. “Not only with sex, I mean. I’ve been a shitty friend to you.”

“That makes two of us. I’m sorry things came to this, but I’m not sorry, too.”

“You showed a new side of yourself, Jake. I like it.” She turned her head and kissed my neck. “You make me so wet when you get bossy like this.”

Keeping my mind on track was difficult when she talked this way to me. I managed it though. Somehow.

“There’s something else.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I’ll do my best to work my schedule around your shifts, but you need to accept that I have a life. I’m going to hang out with Harrison and the guys. I’m going to accept dinner invites up to Cassie and Sam’s apartment because they’re friends and my world doesn’t revolve around you. And when you’re out of here, you’re also going to be with your friends again.”

Her kisses dropped away and her body tensed. “So… what? I’m just your fuck toy? You’re ashamed of all this?”

“Of course not! I’m not ashamed of you.” I rubbed her shoulders gently and appreciated the way she melted beneath my hands.

“But you don’t want to be seen with me?”

“You’ve been gone. Everyone knows you and I were never a thing. So we have to look that way when you come back, otherwise it’ll raise suspicion. We both need to be seen having lives. My friends already wonder where I disappear to so much.”

“What am I going to say?”

“You’re a grown woman, Yvonne. You have every right to go where you want, when you want. Your boyfriend hit you, skipped out of graduation, and you were a mess. Just say you took the cash your family gave you and spent some time up in Canada. Not a thing they can do about it.”

“What would I be doing in Canada?”

“I dunno. Visiting that hockey player you dated a couple years back. It doesn’t matter, Yvonne. Your mom doesn’t control you anymore.” I did.

“When can I leave?”

“Soon, baby, soon.” I needed a few more days. I
wanted
them. To have her all to myself for a little bit longer.

Chapter 11

My grandfather never complained about the tenants. In all of the years I knew him, the man never had a cross word to say. Even when they phoned in the middle of the night about the overflowing toilet, a lack of hot water, or an electrical socket that quit on the job. He served them with a smile on his face.

Whenever a tenant beat on my door at two in the morning, I tried to live up to Gramps’ expectations and provide the same friendly service. Tired, sore from a legitimate workout routine, and barely capable of opening my eyes, I stumbled into my front door and squinted out. The grandfather clock in the hallway claimed it wasn’t quite nine in the evening. I’d gone to bed early for once.

“Whaaaa?”

Cassie stood on the other side, hair and clothes wet.

“Jake, I am so sorry,” she blurted out before I could say much. “I came in to get a drink and the faucet handle snapped off and water spewed everywhere and I can’t get the shutoff valve to turn,” she babbled in a frantic rush.

Once her predicament set in, I gradually began to awaken and regain a functioning mental state, even if my body loathed me. I had nobody to blame but myself, dumb enough to believe I was fit enough to run five miles with Bobby. Yvonne’s encouragement had tipped the scale and given me the inspiration to go for the dream of training for next year’s marathon. Now I hated myself and wished I’d never stepped outside onto the Boston streets. It must have been pure masochism.

“There’s water everywhere. I really tried my best to stop it.”

A visual snapped into my mind, her screaming and flailing as water shot like a geyser from the faulty kitchen plumbing. “O...kay. Let me get dressed.” I paused to reconsider her words. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. It’s leaking right
now?
”

“I couldn’t budge the shutoff valve under the sink. I threw as many towels down as I could and ran right down.”

Cassie soaked in water and screaming as she fended off the traitorous faucet was one thing, but water damage and ruined floors was another. I couldn’t afford it.

I kept a toolbox beside the door, so I grabbed the handle and sprinted past her, sobered by the threat of losing money. Barefoot, in my boxers, and a little too shameless to care.

Thanks to her quick thinking and the towels, the floor wasn’t the disaster zone it could have been. I slid across the floor, ripped open the toolbox, and removed a wrench. Even I had to put in some muscle and really grit my teeth to turn the knob. Meanwhile Cassie tried to hold a fresh towel over the spraying water. The others were saturated.

“Almost got it,” I called up to her. The pipes in the building were old, another thing I’d need to have replaced eventually with our renovation funds. I gave another forceful turn, ignoring the comical scene directly above and behind me. I worked quickly, ignoring the water that sprayed my own face, or the river of it spilling over the counter edge. Once loosened, the water turned off and the furious geyser ceased to douse us with frigid water.

“Well. I think we’re both damned lucky that I’m a homebody who never leaves the building.” I didn’t think Mr. McMillan, the old man who lived in the topmost level with his equally elderly wife, would have been able to accomplish the task. Sighing, I rose and set the wrench aside on her kitchen counter. “I’ll buy you a new faucet tomorrow. Don’t worry about this, okay?”

“My hero,” she laughed, turning to look at me. Our faces were close. Water dripped from her hair down over her cheeks and her lips trembled from the cold. I wasn’t any better, soaked and chilly.

And then she kissed me.

I don’t know what came over me or why I didn’t pull away. It was electric, shy and tentative at first, her lips a soft presence over my mouth. She gave me every chance to pull away, but instead I took it and met her with equal yearning. I sought her tongue and claimed the sweet interior of her mouth with an exploring sweep, aware that little more than wet cotton separated us. Without her modest jacket over the soaked nightshirt, I was free to palm one small breast. Her nipples could have cut glass, pebbled and hard long before I dared to touch one.

A confident firecracker stole the place of my shy neighbor, emboldened by my returned attentions. With my hands, I mapped out the curves she always kept hidden away beneath her work uniform and bargain clothes. Her fingers were just as busy, tracing down my shoulders and arms. Her appreciative groan boosted my ego considerably.

I wanted to hike her nightshirt to her waist and have her on the living room floor where the results of her kitchen mishap hadn’t reached the rugs. I gathered Cassie against me and took her that far. The confident stroke of her hand down my throbbing dick ruined any thoughts of travelling farther, like to the couch. We fell together on the floor in a tangle of limbs and hungry kisses. Cassie’s legs rose around my waist and guided me close, she squirmed to meld against me, and her very position revealed the bikini cut, pale pink panties beneath her shirt. Its hem gathered around her hips.

I needed only to remove them and dive right in. Seeming to read my mind, she claimed my hand and encouraged me to make the first intimate exploration. I touched her boldly, slipping two digits past the elasticized leg opening and curling my index finger against her wet snatch. Not as ready as I wanted, but it would do. Not completely bald like Yvonne, but closely trimmed and groomed. I’d always wondered if the carpet matched the drapes - it did.

Cassie responded beneath my touch. Her cries and moans were soft but her pleasure was evident in the way she pressed into my touch. She tore her mouth from mine and closed her lips around my ear. I prepared for a slobbery onslaught, but Cassie didn’t have that downfall. Her playful nips, tiny licks, and hungry suckles sent electric tingles racing down my spine. The more I worked her the slicker she became and her breathy pants against my ear turned me on. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to dive between her thighs and bring her to climax before my cock ever entered her. It would take time, but the results were always worth the effort.

Yvonne would have been screaming by now and reaching her orgasm.

I compared her to Yvonne again. For the second time, my subconscious seemed to remind me that another woman awaited my return at home. That I needed to be faithful to her and ashamed of my actions. Groaning, I tore my lips away from Cassie’s throat.

“Cassie… wait.”

Her hips lifted in an effort to follow my retreating fingers. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t - we can’t do this.” My hard dick disagreed, distorting the front of my boxers and stretching the opening to the limit. One shift, one little shift would free it entirely. I could dive inside of her hot little body and have my way with her for the rest of the night. The temptation lingered, opportunity mocking me each time I glanced down over the shape of her dark nipples against the thin wet cloth.