Witness (5 page)

“Do you really think any of that matters?” Aaron sneered. “You were there. You saw something you weren’t supposed to. You have to pay. Simple as that.”

After having expelled all the hatred I’d built up, I felt the rush of adrenaline ebb, leaving me shivering from the crash and realization that I really was facing my death.

“You were meant to be mine. That shithead didn’t know what he had,” Aaron whispered against my ear. Then he was back to stroking my hair again. “Too bad you went and touched that scum Michele sent to finish the job. You let that disgusting man put his hands and mouth on you, and for that, you will have to be punished.”

I heard the buzz of the drill seconds before I felt the yank on my hair. Except it wasn’t a normal pull, but a hard, twisting sensation. The more the drill droned on, the tighter my hair got and the worse it hurt. Within seconds, the burn was so intense I couldn’t hold back a cry, then a scream, as a handful of hair was brutally torn from my scalp.

“Mmm, yes, I think that’s a good start,” Aaron hummed as he held the drill around for me to see. The bloody locks hung from it.

Revulsion flared in my gut as I felt wetness seep down the back of my head. I wanted to cry out or scream, but I was too shocked to react.

“That’s right. See, you were made for me. Tough little thing,” Aaron said as he dragged the tip of the bloody drill bit along my cheek before forcing it into my mouth.

I gagged around it instantly.

He didn’t stop until I had a mouthful of my own hair and blood. Then he turned the drill on, making it bump into my teeth, gums and tongue.

Just when I thought he was going to break out my teeth or drill through my cheek, he pulled it out, leaving the disgusting mess behind. I gagged again.

“Spit that out and I’ll take more hair. It won’t be such a small amount next time, though.” Aaron glared at me, spinning the drill through the air with a dark gleam in his eyes as he smiled.

I didn’t want to debate what was considered a “small amount” because a mouthful was more than that to me. I wasn’t going to object or spit it out no matter how much I wanted to. The pain pulsing through my head from the first time was almost more than I could handle.

“Now, for letting that motherfucker touch what is mine…” Aaron said, moving to stand directly in front of me. He pushed my thighs apart, and I shuddered.

I changed my mind. Please let him remove all my hair with his horrible drill as long as he didn’t rape me. I didn’t think I could survive that.

“Don’t worry, baby, we have a lot more to discuss before we get to
that
part of the evening,” Aaron responded as if he knew where my thoughts had gone. He placed the drill bit to my kneecap. “However, since you wanted to run from me straight into the arms of another man, I think you should no longer be allowed to walk. What do you say?”

Before I could even respond, the drill flared to life and pain exploded in my leg as he pushed the spinning metal into my yoga pants and through my flesh.

I couldn’t keep back the scream as he made a burning hole straight through my knee. My vision blacked out as I hyperventilated. The pain was too much. Blood was pouring quickly from the wound, only adding to the lightheadedness I’d already been battling from the head wound left behind from the partial scalping he’d given me.

“That couldn’t have felt good. Maybe next time you’ll think before you try to run from me,” Aaron grunted as he ran the tips of his fingers through the mess he’d made of my knee. He lifted his hand and sucked off the blood.

“I didn’t run from you,” I gasped brokenly. I didn’t even know who he was at the time. I thought he was harmless.

“But you did,” Aaron shouted. “Don’t lie to me.”

He started mumbling to himself, then took out my other knee cap.

I screamed again as pain erupted anew. Everything blacked out again before he was finished. And thankfully, finally, I got a break from the insane monster that had captured me.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in complete darkness. I was still sitting up, very likely in the same fucking chair I’d passed out in. I couldn’t see anything this time, though. All of the lights had been turned out.

Not knowing if Aaron was still around only added to my fear. I could barely breathe from the pain pulsating and burning from both knees and the back of my head, but I tried to calm myself down enough to figure out how I could get away from wherever the hell it was that Aaron had taken me to. My pants were completely soaked, whether from blood, sweat or something else, I didn’t know and didn’t care. It wasn’t important; escaping was all that mattered.

I heard something shuffle across the concrete floor not far from where I was, and I jumped with a gasp of agony that flared from the movement.

“Shh. I’m gonna get you out of here,” Eric whispered from beside me.

I looked down and squinted, trying to see him, but was still unable to see anything in the deep darkness.

His hands were on my raw, bloody wrists, working at the rope to release me seconds after he spoke.

“Don’t speak,” he said before I’d even opened my mouth to ask the list of questions that was compiling in my mind.

Once the bindings dropped away, I moaned softly, pulling my arms around to hug my stomach. A new wave of pain washed through my arms and shoulders from having been restricted for so long.

“We need to move. Now, before he comes back,” Eric murmured, grabbing my wrist and tugging.

“I can’t!” I gasped in pain as I tried to stand on my busted knees. I felt more than saw Eric move closer to me before I was cradled in his arms, then we were moving quickly away from my torture chair.

A metal door was suddenly in front of us. Eric moved us through it and was running swiftly away from the building while I was still trying to figure out where the hell we were. A glance up at his face told me why he could see me; he had on a set of strange looking goggles that I assumed were night vision.

Once the initial shock of being saved and out of Aaron’s grasp passed, the jostling from Eric’s running started to cause agony to move to the forefront of my mind. Somehow knowing that silence was essential, I tried to bite the pain until it became too much and I dug my nails into Eric’s shoulders as I held on.

“Hang on. We are almost there. Just a bit farther,” he mumbled softly, almost to himself, but it was clearly meant for me.

I saw a car come into view over the vast expanse of nothingness. How I hadn’t spotted it sooner, I didn’t know, but it was there and it had to be where we were escaping to. I held my breath as we drew closer and closer to my salvation.

A loud roar had me jumping in Eric’s arms and looking around frantically. What the hell had caused that noise? Eric tensed as well, which only caused me to flip out that much more.

“Fuck, I wanted to get you to safety before I had to deal with that asshole,” Eric mumbled, but kept moving.

A single, bright white light was heading straight for us from where we had come from.

“Something is coming,” I gasped as I looked over Eric’s shoulder at the approaching light.

Eric sped up, but was breathing hard and he was likely exhausted from the run with me in his arms, so it wasn’t by much.

“Put her down!” Aaron barked out as the light closed in on us. It was a motorcycle, and Aaron was the driver.

“Shit,” Eric breathed and after another couple of steps, set me butt first on the ground.

The bike came to a stop in front of us as Eric pulled a gun from the back of his pants. He tossed off the goggles as the motorcycle’s light was right on us, making them useless.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Think you can come in and steal my woman right out from under me? Not fucking happening,” Aaron spat the words at Eric as he, too, retrieved a gun from somewhere. He pointed it right at Eric, while Eric kept his held at his side.

“Your woman? This is how you treat your woman? Look at her! She is bleeding and you fucking drilled out her knees. That’s not how you treat a woman you care for,” Eric retorted, equally pissed.

“She had to pay for touching you,” Aaron growled, moving closer.

“Touching me? I touched her, too, you sick fucker,” Eric said with a twisted smile. “We touched each other. That’s what happens when two people want each other. You don’t have to force yourself upon them. She didn’t even think of you at all, either. She never wanted you.”

I wanted to beg Eric to stop provoking Aaron. He was already clearly ready to explode from my escape. I didn’t think it was wise to keep poking him and reminding him that I didn’t think of him like that even before I knew he was a deranged psychopath.

“Shut up!” Aaron hollered, waving his gun wildly in the air.

“Why? It’s the truth. Can’t handle the truth? The only way you can get a woman is to kidnap her and then brutalize her,” Eric sneered. 

“You don’t know what the hell you are talking about,” Aaron roared before throwing his gun at Eric and charging him.

A sick smile came over Eric’s face just in time for Aaron to plow into his abdomen.

All I could do was watch as the two men grappled on the ground. I tried to pull myself farther from the scuffle, toward the discarded weapon, but it was useless. I was too weak to maneuver my heavy, abused body.

Watching them beat each other bloody and being able to do nothing made me feel absolutely useless.

It came to an end abruptly when Eric jerked Aaron’s head to the side with his hands and a sickening snap filled the resulting silence.

“Come on,” Eric said, bending to pick me up again. He cradled me to his chest and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

I tried not to look back at the disfigured, bleeding man left on the ground, but it was hard. Eric had blood running down his face from a cut above his eyebrow and a split lip, but he didn’t seem to notice as he walked the final distance to the car.

Once he set me in the backseat, he stood next to the open door and seemed to be gathering himself as he stared at my injuries. After a drawn-out moment, he shut the door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

He sat looking out the front window without saying a word or starting the car. Finally, he wiped the blood from his face with a hand before turning to look at me.

“You probably aren’t going to like this, but we have to go back to the warehouse,” he told me. “I’d planned on this going a bit differently; however, this is even better than what I was going to do.”

I nodded, knowing that I wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter. I couldn’t take myself anywhere even if I wanted to.

Eric started the car and turned it around before driving us to the last place in the whole world I wanted to return to. Once he parked the car, he carried me back inside and set me back in the chair covered with my blood.

“I’m sorry for this, but it’s how it has to be,” Eric said before punching me right in the jaw.

Chapter Four

It’d been one long year since that night. The night I never wanted to experience. A night I had nightmares about. The night that saved my life.

I was no longer trapped in the tiny shithole of a town, but now I was living on a plush, exotic island. How Eric had made it happen, I had no idea. When he’d told me where I was going, I didn’t question it, simply did what he said since it was his plan and he hadn’t led me astray so far. He’d saved me from Aaron. He’d found a way to save me from the Mafia, and I was indebted to him.

“Excuse me, miss?” a voice asked, interrupting my thoughts of the past.

“Yes? How can I help you?” I asked, turning around from the produce stand that I ran.

I froze. I didn’t recognize the man as much as knew those eyes. He could change everything about himself, but he couldn’t change the eyes I dreamed about.

“Well, it seems I’m lost. I’m new to the area and could use some help,” Eric said. His hair was much longer than it had been the last time I’d seen him. It was no longer dark, but a sun-bleached light brown with lighter blond streaks in it. He wasn’t as built as he had been, but he would always be an imposing man, no matter what.

“Hmm. I don’t know if I can help you. I’m fairly new myself,” I whispered, still trying to recover from shock. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. Not after the night he’d beaten me up and had me lay on the ground covered in my own blood so he could take pictures and send them to his contacts. He’d killed me, or made it appear that way. He made sure Michele had all the proof he needed in order to stop looking for me forever. That included taking my pointer finger, but what was the loss of a finger in the grand scheme of things?

“Any help would be appreciated. I’ll even take you out to dinner to thank you for your assistance.” Eric stepped into my space and glanced down at me with a tender look on his face. “I believe I have a whole lot of learning to do now that we are both free of our previous ties.”

“I could probably agree to that. You know, I do need to eat and who would refuse a free meal offered by a sexy man? Not me. I’ve been so lonely for the last year,” I breathed as he pulled me against his firm chest.

His hard cock was pressing against me, making me moan. It had been too long since I’d had any intimate contact with a man, especially this one.

“When are you done working?” Eric asked, his breath gusting over my ear. His hot, wet tongue slid along the shell, making my knees weak.

“Now. Best part of running your own stand,” I said with a smile as I pulled from his arms and started the process of putting everything into coolers and closing up the shop. It took longer than I’d have liked, but with Eric’s help it was much quicker than I normally managed on my own. Once everything was locked up tight, I held out a hand to him. “Where are we headed?”

“I thought you were showing me around,” he said, taking my hand in his, threading our fingers together.

“Ah, so ladies’ choice. Very well.” I grinned and let him lead me to the truck he was driving. Even with so much time passed, I had a noticeable limp from the damage done to my knees, but I got around well enough. Eric helped me into the passenger side before getting behind the wheel. I gave him directions as we went, keeping our final destination a surprise.

Finally, he pulled up in front of a small bungalow on the beach.

“Where is this?” He asked as we walked down the walk toward the front door.

“My house,” I murmured as I retrieved my keys. Glancing at him, I saw a raised eyebrow in response, but he didn’t speak. When we were both inside, I locked the door and pressed him back against it with a palm on his chest.

He opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a kiss that set every nerve ending on fire within me.

I started to pull back, but he wrapped a hand around my neck, keeping us connected as his other hand grabbed a handful of my ass and hiked me up until I had to wrap my legs around his hips.

He walked us farther into the house before laying me down on the couch.

“I don’t know where your room is and I can’t wait any longer,” he said as his fingers quickly undid my shorts before yanking them and my tiny panties off in one swift move.

I gasped and pushed up off the couch when his mouth came in contact with my pussy.

His fingers spread my lips apart so his tongue could flick my clit in rapid succession.

My fingers gripped his hair as I cried out, pleasure swamping my body.

“Oh God, Eric,” I gasped when he plunged two fingers into my desperate, aching vagina. That was all it took to shove me over the edge into an orgasm that took my breath away and had every muscle in my body tensing.

Before I could even start to come down from the high, Eric was climbing over me. His bare, erect cock pressed against my thigh.

“I need to be in you. I can’t wait,” he breathed before kissing me passionately. He entered me with a hard thrust that had him fully seated in me.

My nails dug into his back as I arched against him.

“Fuck. I missed that,” I moaned, tightening my legs around his waist.

“Mmm, me too,” he groaned against my neck before his hips started to grind against mine. Fast and hard, then slow and easy. He took his time making love to me in every possible way right there on that couch.

Every time I got close to another climax, he’d change speed again and make me wait. We were both covered in sweat and had forgotten everything but the pleasure we were both surrounded in and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“Stop teasing and make me come,” I demanded when I couldn’t take it anymore.

Eric growled and bit down on the side of my throat before slamming his dick into me over and over, deeper and deeper, harder and harder, until I couldn’t hold back anymore and screamed out my release.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Eric gasped and suddenly yanked out of me. The sound of him roughly yanking on his dick replaced the sound of flesh on flesh, and I slapped at his chest for having cut my orgasm short.

With a loud groan, Eric came all over my stomach then pressed his forehead to mine as he breathed hard.

“What the fuck?” I groaned, frustrated.

“I forgot a fucking condom again,” he said between breaths.

“Seriously?” I yelled, slapping harder than before. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to knock me up?”

“No, you just make me lose all control,” he admitted with a shy smile as he lifted his head enough to meet my gaze. “But if you did, I’d take care of you, because I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

“Not again, asshole.” I glared.

“Or you can get on birth control, and we can do it like that all the time without the concern,” he said with a bigger smile.

“I suppose that’s an option,” I sighed. I didn’t particularly want to have to deal with condoms, either.

Eric moved so he had his back to the couch and pulled me into his arms so we were face to face.

My cum-covered abdomen pressed against his ripped one.

“You are going to make a mess on my couch,” I said half-heartedly.

“I’ll clean it up later. I just want to hold you for a while.”

“Why are you here? Not that I’m complaining.” I asked the question I’d been wondering since I’d first spotted him.

“Well, let’s just say that I joined you in the grave,” he said with a shrug.

“Why?” I eyed him curiously.

“There was this woman, who I just had to get to know better, that lives in the area. I couldn’t get her off my mind, even though I haven’t seen or spoken to her in a year. Plus, I had to make up for hitting her.”

“Yes, I suppose you’ll have to do a lot of making up for that part,” I laughed.

“I’m not kidding,” he said, completely serious. “It’s haunted me.”

“That whole night has haunted me, but not the part where you did what you had to do to save my life,” I admitted, brushing a finger across his cheek. “I’ve already forgiven you for that, but you can still make it up to me, if you insist.”

“I do,” he said, skimming his lips against mine. “Plus, I think I owe you a couple of dates and that whole getting-to-know-you stage.”

“I think we are past that, but I won’t object to spending more time with the man who saved my life and died so he could be with me,” I murmured before kissing him more firmly.

“Then I should properly introduce myself. Hi, I’m Eric Thomas,” he said, holding out a hand.

I laughed and placed mine in his. “I’m Alice Green.”