Easy Sacrifice (17 page)

Ty picks me up and carries me to the bed, setting me down gently and then fucking me not so nice. He pounds into me, and I try to meet his thrusts, but his punishing pace is no match for me. When he grabs my ankles and throws them over his shoulder, I can do nothing but hang on.

“Gotta come again for me, baby.”

He licks his thumb before setting it on my clit, and when he presses down and in a hard circle, I tighten around his cock. “Fuck! Squeezin’ me so tight.” His gravelly voice pushes me over the edge, and I scream something unintelligible as another orgasm spreads through me like wildfire, every inch of my skin burning for him.

My feet fall off his shoulders and back onto the bed as he falls forward on his forearms and locks his mouth with mine. He slams into me once, twice, three times before moaning into my mouth. He stills, and I feel him get impossibly larger before he sits up and empties his release on my stomach.

When he finishes stroking himself, he collapses next to me, propping his head up with one arm. He uses the other hand to spread a drop of his cum around my nipple.

I turn to face him. I smile and so does he, then his eyes close, and it’s not more than a minute later that he begins to softly snore. My fingers itch to touch him, and I run the tips along his handsome face, tracing his brows then his jaw. When I reach his lips, he sighs then pulls me closer. Even in his sleep, he wants me near, and I love it.

Chapter 21

Ty

Jessa screams from the bathroom, and I drop the controller, grab the Glock from the coffee table, and take off, my feet sliding when I reach the door. I bolt inside, and when she screams again, I drop my head and laugh, setting the gun on the sink.

“Ty! Get it.” She’s sitting in the bathtub, and a spider is hanging from the ceiling directly over the middle of the tub.

It drops an inch, and she screams again, pushing back away from it, making water spill out of the claw foot tub.

I grab a tissue from the back of the toilet, and when I reach for the spider, she screams again. “You can’t squish it with your hands!”

“I’m not. I’m squishing it inside a tissue.”

“Gross! You can’t do that!”

I chuckle and bite back laughter. “I can’t?”

“No, you need to put it in something then stomp on it or something. Don’t squish it with— Ahhh!” It drops another inch, and I can’t hold back anymore.

I rest my hands on my knees, and my entire body shakes with laughter.

“Stop laughing. Kill it!”

“I … I tried, but you told me I couldn’t.”

“Because it’s gross to use your hand! It’s getting closer; hurry up and get something!” Her little pregnant body is half out of the tub now. I shake my head at the hilarity of her reasoning but grab a cup from the sink anyway.

With the cup under the spider, I let it crawl inside then dump it on the ground and lift my foot.

“You can’t squish it with your sock!”

“Jesus fuck,” I mutter. “What would you like me to squish it with, baby?”

She slides back down in the tub. “A shoe. Or a magazine or something. Not your sock. That’s almost worse than a tissue.”

Looking around the room, I find an empty toothpaste box. I grab it and hold it up with a quirk of my eyebrow, silently asking her if this is an acceptable weapon for killing the damn spider.

She nods and looks away when I dump the thing out of the cup. I squish it with the cardboard, and then scoop it up with the tissue I grabbed earlier to flush it down the toilet.

“Thank you.” She smiles.

“You’re welcome, baby.”

She slides further into the water, and just as I’m about to close the door behind me, I hear her say, “Don’t know how I managed before him.”

* * *

I wake up because something isn’t right. Jessa sleeps peacefully next to me. Hell, I’ve slept better than I ever have in my entire life the past few weeks we’ve been here.

A noise from outside puts me on high alert, and I reach over and grab one of my guns from the nightstand, noticing the clock reads 4:27 a.m.

“Jessa, baby. Wake up.” I shake her a little while I pull on a pair of jeans over my underwear. “Wake up.”

She rolls over, and the fuckin’ beautiful smile she has on her face wrecks me. “Again?” She thinks I’m waking her up to make love to her again … Hell, I wish it were for that reason.

“Someone’s outside.”

She sits up and starts frantically looking around for something. “What?”

“Remember where the secret room is in the closet?”

“Yes.”

“Go there and don’t come out.”

I have to help her out of bed because she is so shaky, but a car door slams outside, and she screams.

“Shh, quiet, baby. It’ll be okay.” With a hand on her back, I give her a small shove in the direction of the closet with the attached safe room. Once I hear the lock click after she’s crawled inside, I close the bedroom door behind me and tiptoe downstairs.

Footsteps pound up the front porch steps. Either the fuckin’ idiot’s being loud on purpose to distract me, or he’s really a goddamned idiot.

I take up a post in the living room and train my gun on the front door. In order to hear more clearly, I close my eyes. Metal. Keys or a lock pick. Then the turn of a doorknob. As soon as the alarm beeps, I turn the safety off, take a breath, and then open my eyes.

“Whoa, it’s just me, man.” Neil holds a hand up and punches in the codes for the alarm.

“Shit! What the hell?” I tuck the gun back into the waistband of my jeans after putting the safety on. “You couldn’t give me a fuckin’ heads-up?”

I jog back upstairs and scan my fingerprint to open the door where Jessa is. She’s huddled in a ball in the corner, rocking back and forth. When she sees me, she scrambles to her feet and clings to me, her tears landing on my exposed skin.

“It’s just Neil.”

“Wh-what?”

“Neil. Honey, it’s just Neil. You’re okay.”

She abruptly steps back from me and wipes her eyes then tears out of the room. I follow her downstairs and am surprised by what I hear.

“Why would you scare me like that?” She’s yelling at him, and his face is as surprised as mine is. “You should have called. You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry, Jessa. Some things have happened and I—”

“What happened?” I interrupt him.

“We need to sit down.”

Jessa pulls him in for a hug before she goes to the kitchen. “Coffee, Neil?”

“Thanks, yeah. I’ve been up all night.” He follows me to the table, where he sits across from me.

She pops one of those cups into a coffeemaker and pours two glasses of orange juice, setting one in front of me and the other in the empty space next to me where she’ll be sitting.

“Here.” Neil tosses a bag on the table. “Donuts.”

“Did you get my favorite kind?” Jessa reaches over and tears through it until she pulls out a twisted cinnamon one. “Yes! Thanks, Neil.”

“No problem. Got you a plain glazed, man,” he says to me.

“Thanks.” I take it out and eat a bite then cut to the chase. “What do you got?”

He sighs and pulls out a folder from his bag. “Transcripts.”

I open the folder and begin reading the papers. “Thanks, babe,” Neil says to Jessa as she hands him a coffee. I choose to ignore it and continue reading. Mindlessly, I chew on the donut as I’m flipping pages, trying to understand what the hell I’m reading. The words become blurry, and I shake my head to rid it of the fog.

“So,” I begin, “Rico’s the number one, now?”

“Yeah.”

“But wha …” I can’t seem to form the word, and the room becomes blurry. As I look at Neil, it hits me. He raises an eyebrow, and I try to move to kill the piece of shit, but my body is suddenly filled with sand. “Mothafuck …” I trail off. My head starts to hang, and I reach for Jessa to try to shield her, warn her, something.

“Ty?” she asks. “Ty!” She yells my name as I fall to the floor. The room above me spins, and the edges of my vision dance with bright light. Then flashes of dark make me even dizzier. Her beautiful face hovers above mine, and as I’m being pulled under, I tell her, “Run.”

Jessa

“Ty!” I shake him, but he doesn’t move. Why did he tell me to run? What is happening?

I look up at Neil. “Help me.”

“He’ll wake up in a bit.”

“What?” I grab Ty’s hand and hold it against my chest. “Neil, help me!”

“I didn’t want it to be this way.”

The blood in my veins pounds so loud, I can hear it in my ears. “What are you talking about?”

He stands and finally, finally reaches for Ty and removes his gun. When he lifts him up from under his arms, I expect him to drag him to the couch, but instead, he pulls him to the front door.

“Where are you taking him? Is there a hospital around here?”

He doesn’t answer me, and when he reaches his all black SUV outside, he drops Ty to the ground and then opens the back hatch.

“Careful! What are you doing?” I’m so confused right now. “Neil! What are you doing?”

He continues to ignore me and lifts Ty again, puts the top half of his body in the trunk space, then lifts his legs to shove the rest of him in there. He slams the hatch closed and turns to look at me. “Please, just shut the fuck up.”

“What?” I whisper. “What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

With a heavy sigh, he goes over and opens the back door. “In.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I screech.

He shakes his head and reaches behind him, then points a gun at me. “Get in the fucking car. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

“Neil. Oh, my God. What are you doing?”

He must be on the brink of losing his temper because he grabs me by the upper arm and pushes me inside the SUV. “Sit down and shut the fuck up.” He then slams the door, and I hop in the back by Ty, shielding my stomach to make sure it doesn’t hit anything.

Even though he’s breathing, Ty looks dead. His body is so still, and when I pry open his eyelid, his eyes are rolled back in his head.

“Ty,” I whisper, lying down on his stiff body. He’s normally so warm, so when I rest my cheek on his cool face, it makes me shudder.

“Try anything and I’ll shoot you before you have the chance to make your choice.”

I ignore Neil and cling to Ty. I’m not leaving him. The baby kicks, and I allow my tears to fall on Ty’s chest. His gray t-shirt darkens as my tears pool, and I keep a hand on his pulse. “What did you give him?” I speak up for the first time since Neil took off. I still cannot believe he’s one of the bad guys. He was in my house. I considered him a friend—a really good friend.

How could he betray me like this? Betray Ty?

Of course, I’m scared, but I’m also heartbroken for more than one reason. Aside from the nauseous feeling in my gut, I have a bad feeling deep down that whatever this is, isn’t going to end well.

“Just a little sleepy medicine.”

Ty doesn’t even groan the whole way in the car, and it’s been at least a couple of hours. It feels a hell of a lot longer, though. My bladder is stretching so much it’s painful, but I’m afraid to speak up. Every bump is torture, and when Neil turns, I grip Ty to keep him from slamming against the sides of the vehicle.

We finally pull up to a building in the middle of nowhere. If there ever was a cliché for a suspense movie where they take their hostages, this is it. Half the roof is falling off, and the glass from the windows is nonexistent. We drove on a dirt road to get here, so I know we’re too far for me to run and try to get help.

When the door opens, I’m surprised to see a familiar face, aside from Neil. I lean over and vomit, centimeters from his expensive loafers.

“We meet again,” Rico purrs.

“I have to pee.” Fuck the pleasantries; I thought that maybe I could try to talk my way out of this. Thought that maybe wherever he was taking us, I’d be able to escape, but looking into the dark eyes of the man who held me down … I realize if I’m going to die, then hopefully I can do it with a little dignity and not in my own urine.

“I’ll take you. Rico, get him,” Neil states. It pisses me off to no end that he’s so chummy with this fucker.

“No.” I cross my arms. “I’m not leaving Ty.”

Neil rolls his eyes and reaches into the vehicle to grab me. I fight him a little bit, but if I continue to fight him, I’ll pee myself, so I concede. “Fine.” I rip my arm from his grasp. “I can walk. I don’t want you to touch me. I don’t ever want you to touch me again.” Somehow, I manage to storm off without one of them holding me.

When I reach a door, Neil opens it and grabs me by the arm. “This way.”

I try to yank myself from him, but he squeezes my arm tighter this time. “Don’t.”

He shoves me into a bathroom and closes the door. I rub my stomach and look around. Of course, there are no windows. After I relieve myself, I remain seated on the toilet seat and take a second to gather myself. Last time I was in this situation, I panicked and fought. I wasn’t sure if I would be saved. But now, I know I’m not going to be.

I need to be the one to save us. Me, Ty, and our baby. So I have to play it smart. Need to save my energy. Stay calm.

The door is wrenched open, and Neil fills the frame. I look at him. Really look. He used to be attractive. His curly brown hair unique, his bright green eyes friendly and inviting. Now, he just looks like a monster.

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, really wanting to know but also trying to play on his heartstrings. “I thought you were my friend.”

“Come on.”

“Why, Neil?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Come the fuck on.”

He reaches for me, and I jump up but become dizzy with the quickness of my actions. When Neil reaches for me again, I scream at him, “I said don’t fucking touch me. I hate you. I fucking hate you!”

His jaw clenches, and before I have a chance to defend myself, he backhands me. I gasp and cover my face. Tears leak out of my eyes, and when they hit the cut on my cheek, they burn even further.

“You gonna come with me, or do I gotta teach you another lesson?”

“Fuck you,” I mutter, but I follow him.

The building is dirty and empty except for some tables. A few old boards are thrown in the corner, and random tools litter the tables. Dust filters through the barren space, and when we reach a door, Neil leans around me to open it.