Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair (16 page)

“Well played,” Malcolm said. I only assumed he was talking about us when I felt his hand move across my back before it moved on to the girl next me. “You’ve always had class, Channing.”

Channing sat next to him; I was sure it was his leg I felt at my side. I was on the end.

“Zee still had his balls in a wad. I didn’t see the harm in letting him make amends,” Channing said.

“Might have to play on his fear more often. These girls look clean,” Malcolm laughed darkly. “Clean enough to rev up your boy.”

I tensed, and when I did, that leg I felt at my side knocked into me. A warning.

Recovering the best I could my stare flew to the world around me. We were only one floor up. It felt like I could reach out and touch the crowd, something I didn’t want to do. There weren’t thousands and thousands like the night I’d seen Slayton fight, but the few hundred I did see were hardened, seedy. They all looked like they had the money to be, though, and were yelling as much as the fight in the center of the room went down.

I flinched, then leaned into the girl next to me when I figured out to my right I was not by a wall of glass, but stairs. The only thing between those men and me was Channing’s leg. No one bothered to scold me, if anything they laughed at me. “Very submissive, nice,” Malcolm said as his hand eased over my shoulder. It left when he yelled out to the ring, cheering for someone.

My attention went to the ring, staring down the blood-spattered faces. It took me longer than it should to realize Slayton was not there. But my fucked up mind kept telling me that I felt him, that he was hurt. I shook it off telling myself that it was just having Channing so close to me that was twisting my mind and taking me back to when Slayton was mine.

When the fight was over it wasn’t until the winner was upstairs that I realized the blond was not joking—she meant dead. Not ‘killed it in the ring.’ The man left in the ring was
dead
. And the crowd was cheering, roaring with satisfaction.

I felt myself cowering into Channing, the devil I knew, when I figured out the winning fighter had been led into the box another way. He emerged from a door in the back left part of the room, soaked in sweat, bleeding. The men in suits greeted him like a king; even Malcolm stood to say something to him.

Then I heard the darkest words that had ever been spoken near me. “Take your pick.”

The room behind me had transformed from a casual party to the onset of another orgy. Most of the men had sat in the oversized lounge chairs to watch the fight, or pretend they were; the men who had brought women with them were being seduced by them. The girls who had helped us get ready were paired off, too.

The fighter didn’t even look at me or the three I was with, he took the girl off the lap of the guy next to Malcolm, one of his guards. When the guard drew a gun on the fighter, Malcolm stopped him. “My Gladiators get what they want.” He glanced back to the room. “If you don’t want to share, leave your goods at home.”

His harsh warning was met with tense laughter.

I heard the girl being raped more than I saw it. She was bent over a chair. The fighter railed her with abandon. Some in the room watched, others played with their own ‘goods.’ Most were focused on the next fight getting underway.

All I could hope was the mask was hiding every tear I felt spilling. I could not fathom how anyone, anywhere was okay with this, any of it. How could they hear her screams, his roars, and do
nothing
? This was not okay—in no realm of reality should this be okay. It shouldn’t be celebrated or fantasized.

I’d slipped into hell, I was sure of it.

As stupid as it sounds, I prayed for that girl. I don’t remember what I asked for, mainly for it to stop—to help her. Something. I even twitched to move, might have if Channing’s hand had not landed on my shoulder. He made it seem like he was petting me but I felt his unspoken threat.

When I heard the gladiator slump to the ground, I was sure someone had come to their senses and knocked him out, but he’d only passed out.  He and the girl were taken out like leftover dishes from a fine appetizer. I clenched my jaw and balled my fists and kept to my thoughts, plead for a way out, one for all of us.

The next fight was quicker, less than ten minutes. The gladiator was brutal. He not only broke the other one’s neck with his bare hands, but gouged out his eyes once he was dead. Guards had to pull him off.

With a thundering heart, I held my breath waiting for him to come up. The next fight had started, and he wasn’t there yet. I had insane hope that he was too out of control to be around anyone and that meant when this was over, there would be at least one girl still standing. One was better than none. One was hope. Sometimes all you need to get from one second to the next is hope.

The third fight was long. It was a downright bloodbath. At one point, I was sure they’d both die. When a winner was declared, he passed out. More hope sank into me—maybe two would make it out of this room without being raped.

When the final fight of the night began, I felt Channing lean forward. Malcolm had turned his side to me. His attention was on the man next to him and some business conversation. I never got his name, but I knew from his accent he was new to English and not particularly fond of it.

When the next round of Gladiators came into the ring below Channing leaned into me more, gripping my arm past the point of pain. I had no idea what I’d done wrong until I saw him. Slayton. At least, I thought it was him. He was bigger in the shoulders and arms. His dark hair was longer, and by the way he walked alone, I knew he’d become even more lethal than he was before.

No breath left me, no clear thought registered. I couldn’t figure out how to feel. Fear was obvious, but fear of what? Fear he’d die? Yes. Fear he’d see me? Yes. Fear I’d watch him rape someone? Yes. That it would be me? Yes. All of that was a hell fucking yes. But I didn’t know what was the lesser evil. There was no hope for me to clutch. At the center of it all was my biggest fear—that the boy I knew, my savior, was gone. One way or another, I knew he was gone and the next moments of my life would destroy his memory.

EIGHTEEN

I was pretty positive I’d felt every degree of pain that could be felt. I was wrong. Seeing him again, knowing he was only one flight of stairs away from me was agony. My fuzzy head kept taking me back to our last night together. The ice, the candles, every tender touch of his.

The blissful memory was shattered, like always, when I remembered the last second I saw him. When he reached for me to come to him and I refused. When I saw his gray stare filled with shock and betrayal. What would’ve happened if I had gone with him? Would we have made it?

A knot settled in my throat when I let myself brush against the idea that not going with him had been pointless—my dad was dead. When I jerked myself away from that pain I was left asking questions. Was Slayton paying for my crimes? Was he being led to his own slaughter and Channing was a cold enough bastard to make me watch the destruction I’d caused?

The man Slayton was facing had an inch on him in height, and I was betting had more muscle mass. Size, even though he had it, had never been Slayton’s gift. It was speed. How fast he could think and act. So fast you never saw him coming and were left wondering what you missed once it was all over.

The room around me, even the orgies, stilled as the fight began. The pause was only seconds long. One hit, two, three, duck, four...and Slayton’s opponent was down. It was the same fight I’d seen Slayton work through before. But as my stomach tightened, I remembered there was only one way to be declared a winner in the ring below. And it wasn’t a knockout.

Slayton hesitated; he shook with rage and something else I couldn’t fathom. He looked at his fisted hands and squinted his eyes closed. The entire time the crowd was cheering “Slay him! Slay him!”

Slayton dropped to his knees and hit the guy who was out cold, then again...and again. I don’t know how many times, I closed my eyes and focused on the pain in my arm caused by the hold Channing still had on me. Halfway wondering if it was the only thing holding me up.

I knew victory was declared when the room cheered. Channing didn’t let me go, not until we were told to turn and kneel facing the room. Malcolm had gotten up with his guest and was mingling with the others, the ones that were not doing lines of coke or fucking.

When the doors on the other side of the room opened, my breath hitched, but it was all for nothing. The gladiator that was out of control, the one I was sure was possessed, came in with a roar. He was in the middle of getting his applause when Slayton was led in. Rage was ripe in Slayton’s stone stare as it landed on the crazy fighter.

They started to circle each other. Some in the room egged them on, but then Malcolm nodded for them to be broken up. “Tomorrow, I’m sure,” he said. “Relax now,” he absently ticked his head toward the other girls and me.

The one next to me clutched my hand. I squeezed hers back. Slayton never bothered to look where Malcolm was telling him to. At first, I thought it was just a sign of defiance, but then sickness climbed up my throat when I saw one of the men who had been in the room send his girl to Slayton, she was on her knees in a beat. Slayton had her hair fisted in his hand when I had to look away not only because I couldn’t watch, but because I had a beast charging at me.

“Only one,” Channing said so loudly I shook. “I didn’t realize he was right behind me still. That it was his legs I was pressing back against each time I flinched. “
Slayton
gets a prize, too.”

Slayton looked up at the sound of his name, the snarl that came from him told me for sure the boy I knew was long gone. His fist relaxed in the girl’s hair as his stare dropped from Channing to the line of girls he was standing behind.

The second his eyes landed on mine, terror sank into me. I felt butterflies, but they died quickly when he looked at the other girls. Slayton pushed the girl on her knees before him aside and stalked closer to us. She’d managed to get his jeans undone, wondering what else she had done didn’t help my confused state of mind.

“Slayton gets first pick,” Malcolm said from across the room only offering half his attention to what was going on—like he was only minding his pit bulls fighting over a bone in the yard.

The other gladiator protested, even with a gun trained on him, but I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was focused on Slayton looking at every girl but me, how he’d passed me over twice. The second time he left my line of sight he pounced back, and the next thing I knew he’d pulled me up and hustled me face first to the wall.

I could hear others laughing, even cheering, adding to the scramble of my thoughts. Did he recognize me? Was he even him anymore? Was he really raping me? There was no stopping the pooling tears, the whimpers as I felt him jerk my dress up, the growl that left his chest when his hand landed on my bare ass as his knee edged my legs apart.

The more aggressive he was, the more rallied the others became. At least, I assumed. The other gladiator had picked his girl; they were feet from us, and she was screaming. Slayton’s touch was painful not only because it was familiar, but also because of the trembling madness I could feel behind it.

I’d done as the blond said, I was well lubed, primed for him. When his hand moved across my hot flesh finding me that way his grip on my neck only became harsher, more punishing.

Then I felt the head of his cock. It was at the base of my spine, pressed so hard against me I was sure if I’d lived through this I’d be bruised there. His arms wrapped around me as tightly as he could. Then I felt a thrust. But he wasn’t in. To anyone behind us, maybe even to the side of us in the dim room, it looked like he was ramming the hell out of me.

I don’t know how long it lasted, just that when I felt his come across my back I felt like I’d ran a marathon with a gun at my back. Slayton jerked my dress down hiding the wetness, then gripped my neck and pulled me like a rag doll to face the others.

He grabbed the whiskey bottle from the table, then pulled me out of the room, to the sound of applause and words like, “I knew he’d give in sooner or later.”

My humiliation wasn’t over outside of that room. The halls were full. Even though he was gripping my arm, the girls lining the way reached for him. “Want a willing pussy baby, I got you!” one said when she all but stopped our progress. He shoved her aside earning laughs.

My gaze darted from one girl in the hallway to the next looking for Sugar, then to the guard that was following us. And as stupid as it sounded, I was looking for Channing. I didn’t know what I was walking into, just that this was not my Slayton.

We turned down a less crowded hall. Then at the end of it, past guarded double doors, we found an empty hall. Slayton’s grip only grew tighter as we pushed past rooms with blood smears on the outside of them, ones with the sound of girls screaming, or maybe moaning, coming from them.

The second to the last door was the one we stopped at. The guard leaned against the wall, and Slayton pushed me inside. The walls were gray, a box spring and mattress were on the floor, a lamp sat on an end table in front of a stereo. A punching bag hung in the corner. There was a table by the door, one chair; clothes were on the floor by it.

He let my arm go and went to the stereo by the lamp and turned it all the way up. Then sat on the edge of the bed and drank the liquor like it was water. I stood trembling before the closed door as tears streamed down my face soaking my cheeks beneath the mask. Long moments later, there was a pound on the door.

I gasped and flew forward only to crash into his chest. I still couldn’t read his eyes; they were far away and cold. Staring at me, he took the dress I was wearing and jerked it over my head, then pushed me toward the bed, unwittingly I sat down as the pounding grew angrier. He nodded his head for me to lay back and I shook harder as I did.

Once I was in place, he charged the door and jerked it open. There was a guy there with a tray of food. He eyed me as he put the food down on the table, when he stood he rubbed his growing erection. “Leave your leftovers outside,” he sneered knowing everyone, including me, understood what leftovers he was after. “First bout is at four o’clock tomorrow. Final right after. Flight out at 8:00 the following,” he narrowed his stare. “If you make it that far.”

Slayton glared him down as the man went outside and leaned against the wall with the other guard, crossing his arms, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere, and neither were we. Slayton slammed the door so hard I was sure it would break from its frame.

The only thing I knew for sure right then was I was locked in a room with a killer...but there were more on the other side of the door.

Slayton stood there with his back to me for the longest time, or at least it felt that way. Then he went to the tray and flicked the lid off. I could smell the steak and potatoes. He pushed what was there around then grasped a roll and moved toward me. As slowly as I could, I sat up. His hand was shaking, stained with blood seeping from his busted knuckles, but he held it out to me. It took all the courage in the world to look up at him, and when I did, I saw he wasn’t looking at me. He was fiercely staring at the wall.

When I didn’t take the bread he shoved it forward so close, it almost hit me. I grasped the bread and his hands. For precious seconds our hands trembled together, then he jerked away. He nodded for me to go to the plate and eat. Like that was going to happen. Then he went to the punching bag.

I flinched every time he struck, every time I heard his brutal growl rising over the music. When he stopped for breath and glared at me, I shoved the bread in my mouth like a scared child, praying I’d keep it down. He went on with his battle with the punching bag, with his shouting. There were a few times I thought I heard the men outside laughing, and braced myself for when they’d come in, but it never happened.

I watched as exhaustion washed over him, flinching every time his fist struck the bag. I kept thinking about how seeing him again was my only wish, my only selfish prayer for months. How I was sure it would happen—that I’d make it happen.

I was a fool...right then I was sure I was.