Taken Hostage (3 page)

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘Tennessee.’

‘Tennessee? Really?’ She gazed at the
generous foliage with renewed interest.

‘Yeah. The Smoky Mountains.’

She gaped out the window. So this was
Tennessee. She’d never been to the south before.

He pulled over onto a gravel turn-around spot
on the side of the road. ‘There are no restrooms.’

That much was obvious. There wasn’t a
building in sight. ‘That’s OK.’ She opened the passenger door
herself. Her bladder was too full to have any qualms about going in
the woods again.

He swung out of the driver’s seat and
stretched.

She stepped into the forest, but not before
she stole a look at his arms, bare beneath the sleeves of his
T-shirt, and the narrow but tantalizing strip of muscled belly that
was revealed as he raised them over his head.

The sound of his voice caught her attention
again. ‘I’ll wait right here,’ he said, leaning against a tree just
far enough out of the way not to be seen by anyone from the
road.

Really?’

‘Yeah. There are a lot of bears in these
mountains, so you’d better not go too far.’ He grinned at her.

She picked her way to a private place,
relieved not to have him within hearing distance and slightly wary
of any bears – or worse, snakes – that might call the woods
home.

He was waiting where she’d left him when she
returned.

She made to step past him, toward the car,
but he grabbed her wrist. She turned to face him. They were so
close she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. His blue
eyes met hers, locking them in a hold that seemed more real than
the grip he had on her arm. ‘Want to go for a hike?’ he asked.

Her heart skipped a beat, and then sped up
dramatically, as if to make up for the lost time.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He moved
forward instead, maintaining his grip on her wrist. She trailed
close behind him, filled with a strange combination of trepidation
and excitement. Flash-fantasies peppered her mind in a rapid
assault, and she stopped trying to hold them back, promising
herself she’d resume her practicality momentarily.

His palm was hot against the flesh of her
forearm, and she remembered, not for the first time, the feel of
him pressed against her. His heat had been faint then, masked by
the barrier of their clothing. What would it be like to feel his
cock pulsing against her again, in time with his heart, and maybe
even hers too, with nothing between their skins? And his hand –
where would it venture if it weren’t clenched around her wrist as
solidly as a steel manacle?

These thoughts warred with a sense of dread
that was perhaps more appropriate, given the situation. Did he
still have the gun?

She hadn’t seen him without it since he’d
robbed the bank. Was he taking her out into the forest to shoot
her, where no one would see or hear? Was he going to ensure that
there would be no one to tell the police what kind of car he was
driving, or what direction he was headed in? Would her body be
discovered by unsuspecting hikers, or by a bear?

She broke into a sweat as she followed him,
trampling undergrowth and small saplings. Though they’d seemed
sensible back at the bank, her work heels were hardly suitable for
the activity. She stumbled several times, while sticks and plants
pricked her feet. She vacillated continually between the urge to
break free and run, and the urge to seize her captor and do
something that would have both shocked and filled Alicia and Cindy
with livid jealousy.

Finally, they stopped in a small clearing and
the gunman released her wrist. She regretted the loss of contact
and longed to reach out and touch him, to establish her own grip on
him, for the first time. Instead, she reached down and pulled a
twig from one of her battered shoes. ‘What are you going to do to
me?’

‘That’s up to you,’ he replied.

She arched an eyebrow, much as he had the day
before – that seemed ages ago.

‘You have a choice.’

‘Well, what is it then?’ she asked,
uncharacteristically blunt. She was panting slightly, and her
wrinkled work clothes were now sweat-stained in places. Her feet
were bleeding where they’d been pricked and scraped, and there were
leaves stuck in her hair. On top of it all, she was hornier than
she’d ever been, and it was all his fault. She was in no mood for
playing games.

‘I can leave you here. You’ll find your way
back to the road, but not before I do – not in those shoes anyway.’
She scowled at him. ‘Then you can wait at the turnaround and flag
down a police car, or anybody who’ll let you use their cell phone,’
he continued.

‘Gee, thanks,’ she spat. She was glad he
hadn’t mentioned shooting her, but she wasn’t about to remind him
that was a possibility. ‘What’s my other option?’

‘You can come with me,’ he said, ‘not as my
hostage, but my partner.’

‘What?’ His words sent her heart racing and
her eyes bulging as she tried to comprehend the enormity and
absurdity of his suggestion. Was he serious?

‘You heard me.’ He looked serious. His blue
eyes glittered, daring her to ask again.

Being kidnapped at gun point and held hostage
for a day had taken its toll on Tiffany, and she did something she
never would have imagined herself doing the day before. She drew
back her hand and slapped him hard across the face, thinking of how
he’d thrown her against the Mustang.

He grunted. The palm of her hand burned as
she drew it back to her side, but she refused to show any sign of
pain. He had no such reservations, and raised a large hand to
cradle his cheek. She smiled smugly, and regretted it almost
immediately as she realized that
she
wanted to comfort him.
For one brief second, she was tempted to pull down his head and
hold it against her chest, as she’d imagined earlier. And then, she
realized she wanted to hit him again.

‘Was that supposed to be an answer?’ he
asked, rubbing his jaw. ‘If so, I think I’m going to need you to
translate.’

She glared at him. ‘You want me to come with
you as your
partner
?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Like Bonnie
and Clyde or something?’

He shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Are you serious?’

‘Look,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s a reason I
took you as my hostage instead of one of those bimbos you work
with.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Because you wanted to go. You wanted to get
out of there. I could tell. And,’ he paused dramatically, ‘it
seemed like there was a spark between us.’ He glared at her
defiantly, daring her to deny his assertion.

She didn’t. Instead, she stared back at him,
open-mouthed in her surprise.

‘You don’t have to go back,’ he murmured, his
voice softer than before.

Her anger had slowly begun to seep away.
Without it, her desire for him expanded and filled her to the
extent that it scared her. What he was saying was crazy. But it was
also true. She
didn’t
have to go back to her mundane life as
a bank-teller in rural New York. She didn’t have to fill out
another deposit ticket or listen to Alicia and Cindy’s incessant,
shallow chatter ever again. She could leave all that behind and go
with him, the impossibly handsome man she’d been fantasizing about
since first seeing him on the bank steps. It wasn’t practical, but
it
was
tempting.

‘I don’t have a gun.’ He pulled back the
sides of his jacket to demonstrate his claim. His sides rose and
fell steadily beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt as he
breathed. ‘I’ll walk away right now if you want me to,’ he said
calmly. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

She rushed forward and shoved her arms
beneath the sides of his jacket before he had time to lower them.
As she pressed herself against him her breasts flattened beneath
her dampened shirt, compressed by his washboard stomach and hard
chest. Several outraged voices of reason in the back of her head
demanded to know exactly what she thought she was doing, but she
ignored them, reaching up instead to grab the forelock of hair
that’d fallen into his eyes again. It was surprisingly soft between
her fingers. She pulled down on it, forcing his neck to bend and
his mouth to meet hers.

He responded as if he’d been expecting her
reaction, or at least hoping for it. His mouth tasted faintly of
the sandwich and Coke that had constituted his last meal, but that
had been hours ago, and he behaved ravenously. His tongue probed
deep into the recess of her mouth, sliding hard against her own.
She pushed back, and he withdrew. She brushed his lips with her
tongue, preparing to push past them and give him a taste of his own
medicine, but he stopped her by denting the soft flesh of her lower
lip with his eye tooth.

She exhaled sharply. It stung. No, it
hurt
. But not so much that she didn’t like it. Immobilized
from the neck up by his bite, she resorted to exploring with her
hands. She tucked a few fingers in the waistband of his jeans,
where he’d kept his gun the day before.

His fingers were at the neckline of her
blouse, fumbling slightly over the small top button. She willed it
to cooperate, anxiously anticipating his touch, but it
resisted.

He sighed in frustration, causing his tooth
to burrow deeper into her lip. She gasped, a sound born of pain, or
maybe pleasure – even she was unsure. He gripped either side of her
collar and pulled, parting her stubborn blouse in a spray of
buttons.

‘It was ruined anyway,’ he muttered as
buttons skittered across the leaves below and disappeared.

Finally released from both her shirt and his
bite, Tiffany tasted blood. It dribbled from the small puncture
wound he’d created in her soft flesh, reddening her lower lip.

He pressed his mouth against hers, covering
the wound and moving over it with surprising tenderness. ‘Sorry,’
he breathed.

Her heart fluttered. She sighed against his
lips and dipped her fingers deeper into his jeans. As their tips
brushed against the smooth, rounded head of his cock, her core
tightened in anticipation.

He buried a hand in her hair, cradling the
back of her head as his other hand pressed against her back,
negotiating the hooked clasp of her bra. He defeated it quickly and
her breasts sprang free. After finally ending their kiss, he drew
back to look at her. She reluctantly pulled her fingers from his
jeans so she could shake her bra completely off, and he groaned at
the sight.

Free of her bra, she turned her attention to
the single brass button that gleamed above the tented fabric of his
jeans, restraining him. It came undone easily, eager to be free of
the strain, and she pinched the zipper between her thumb and
forefinger.

The thin fabric of his underwear did little
to veil his erection. It stretched the material, every bit as
mouth-wateringly sizeable as it’d felt. She gripped the elastic
waistband and pulled down. His cock rose and extended to bridge the
gap between their bodies, the thick tip resting against her belly.
Butterflies exploded into flight in her stomach, and her skin
seemed to burn where the head of his cock pulsed against it. The
heat spread quickly from her head to her toes, tightening her
nipples and dampening her panties. A shiver of delight ran down her
spine as his hands skimmed her sides.

He cupped her breasts, raising them and
letting them spill over the edge of his palms. Then he bent,
lowering himself to the level of her chest, and pressed his open
mouth over her nipple. His tongue flicked across the tight bud,
sending another shiver down her spine. When she moaned he closed
his lips around it, drawing it in, reducing it to a hard little
pearl in the soft flesh of his mouth.

She quivered, and her knees buckled.

He’d been prepared. He settled to the ground
with her, cradling her as they descended.

She didn’t resist. Instead, she buried one
hand in his hair, cupping the smooth curve of his skull while her
other hand dipped below his waist again. It wasn’t hard to find his
stiff cock. When she grasped it he raised his head to meet her
eyes, leaving her nipple to gleam wetly in the morning light
filtering down through the forest canopy above. It was too soon –
her breasts tingled, aching for more of his touch. She gripped a
handful of his hair and guided him back to her chest.

He favored her other breast this time,
tracing a circular pattern around the edge of her areola with the
tip of his tongue, warming it with his breath. ‘Tease,’ she gasped,
and he lifted his tongue from her skin, only to descend again and
lick her breast roughly, dragging the smooth expanse of his tongue
over her nipple. She arched her back against the ground, and one
corner of his mouth turned up into a devious smile.

‘Oh,’ she gasped. It was almost a whisper,
but it was as if her small sound had driven him to the edge of
restraint. He pressed his mouth against her nipple again,
abandoning any pretense of delicacy. He was persistent with his
tongue, both rough and soft at once.

She arched her back again against the forest
floor, forcing it deeper into his mouth. ‘No,’ she groaned when he
stopped, biting the end of her nipple sharply before releasing it
altogether, ‘don’t stop.’ She tightened her hold on his hair and
pulled, but he was stronger than her. He silenced her by popping
off another button – the one that secured the waistband of her work
pants. He made short work of the zipper, yanking it down and
folding back the corners of the parted fabric like origami paper to
expose her pale pink cotton panties. The sight of his fingertips
against the material triggered a flashback from the wet dream she’d
had in the car, and heat flooded her cheeks as her clit throbbed,
aching for his touch.

She kicked off her shoes and wiggled
helpfully as he seized the folds of fabric around her ankles and
pulled, anxious to shed her clothing and let him cover her instead
with his body. When her pants lay in a rumpled pile, she flung her
arms around his neck, pulling him down on her. He ground his hips
against her, rubbing his cock against the exquisitely sensitive
mound beneath the scant fabric of her panties. His own pants and
underwear had fallen down past his ass, and she slid a hand down
his back to cup one muscular cheek. It was firm, and it was
impossible not to think of how good it would feel moving
rhythmically beneath her palm.