Epilogue: The Dark Duet (16 page)

My
heart beat with enough force to leave a bruise in my chest. I didn’t
understand. She wanted me to change. She wanted someone different. Didn’t she?
Why was she baiting me? Part of me didn’t care. I wanted it too much to care. I
focused on my shallow thrusts. I focused on the pressure surrounding me and the
dull scrape of every hard-earned inch I buried.

Livvie
whimpered. It was a sound born of pain. I held myself perfectly still.

“More,”
she whispered. I obeyed.

There
were tears in her eyes by the time I was fully inside. I was almost afraid to
move, but equally as determined to take what Livvie had so boldly offered. My
mind was befuddled—my body was not.

“Last
chance,” I said. I pressed my lips to her cheek and they came away wet. I
licked my lips to ingest her tears. I had tasted her sadness. I had tasted her
joy. I wondered what kind of tears I tasted in that moment.

“
Please,”
and her rocking hips were her
response.

I
was so tangled up inside, it was a relief to let my body take over. I let
myself fall: into a rhythm, into the void, into Livvie. I let her moans,
whimpers, and cries into my ears. I answered them with groans, grunts, and
hisses of breath. As my pace increased, the sound of our bodies slamming
together joined in the chorus.

Livvie
writhed beneath me. Sometimes she urged me deeper, harder, and faster. Other
times, her sounds and movements begged me to go slower and pull back. There was
no stop. Stop was unacceptable to us both.

When
I couldn’t take the heat, I pulled Livvie up onto her knees. She pushed back
against me, burying me inside. She cried out, coming and riding me hard. My
world tilted on its axis.
Mine!

“I’m
going to come,” I warned.

Livvie
was panting hard.

“Tell me you love me,”
she said.

“You
first!” I yelled and spilled inside her.

We
didn’t discuss any of it afterward. Neither of us was willing to cede any
further emotional territory.

By
the time early January reared its head, Livvie and I were starting to settle
into being a couple. Granted, we weren’t your average couple, but we were
getting comfortable with who we were. The nightmares became less frequent and
we attacked each other less often. Livvie let me put it in her ass sometimes
(grin).

Naturally,
I had to try my best to fuck it all up.

Okay, before I even go on, please let
me say I am not proud of what I did next. I was bored and insatiably curious.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not your typical boyfriend material.

It was the first time I’d ever been in
Livvie’s apartment alone. She had classes during the day but didn’t have to
work in the evening. She asked if I’d be there when she came home and I said
yes because it beat being in my hotel room.

The sun flooded Livvie’s apartment. I
lay in her bed, smothered in throw pillows of various colors and shapes (Seriously
ladies, what the fuck with all the pillows?). I felt especially dirty jerking
off in her frilly bed. I was sure to wipe up my come with a fuzzy pink pillow.
I hoped it would prompt Livvie to throw the damn thing away.

Afterward, I took a shower, made myself
a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, and perused the stack of movies Livvie had rented and
left on the coffee table. I’d never been the type of man who liked to eat
cereal, let alone kid cereal, but Livvie loved the stuff and it was often the
only thing I could find in her kitchen. I knew she could cook when she wanted
to, but it seemed the mood rarely struck her. Some nights we ate cereal for
dinner.

I decided not to watch the movies
without Livvie since she seemed to enjoy regaling me with random movie factoids
as we watched. I made the mistake of asking why we were watching “Episode IV”
instead of starting from the beginning, and what followed was a diatribe about
George Lucas and how he ruined
Star Wars
when he released three prequels. I didn’t much care, but I enjoyed watching
Livvie rant about things that weren’t me. What I didn’t much enjoy was the way
she stared at me the entire time I watched the movie to gauge my response
during “awesome” scenes.

As I sat on the couch eating my cereal,
my eyes landed on Livvie’s laptop. It was just sitting on the coffee table—daring
me! Livvie was on the thing whenever she had time. I desperately wanted to know
what Livvie had been writing and why she was keeping it from me. I remembered
the way Livvie had snapped at Claudia to be quiet. Then the way she’d avoided
the topic in Paris. It only made me more curious. I determined fairly quickly
it had to be about me, us, or better—her.

I shoveled the remainder of my cereal
into my mouth and set the bowl on the table. I scooped up the laptop and opened
it. A smile curved my lips when I saw her screensaver. It was a picture of me
asleep on her couch on Thanksgiving. I was wearing pants, but the photograph
focused on my face and naked chest.
What
a little pervert, taking pictures of me while I’m helpless.

I was prompted for a password. Why did
she need a password? Didn’t she trust me? I hope you’re smiling, because I know
I am.

Anyway, it took me the better part of
the morning, but I finally gained access to Livvie’s laptop. Her password gave
me mixed emotions: Survival. If you’re horrified, please consider that I was
fully aware Livvie would discover what I’d done. I wasn’t trying to hide my
actions. I just wanted to know what the hell was on her laptop and why she
chose to keep it from me.

There was a fleeting moment when I
considered I might be opening Pandora’s box, but it really was fleeting. I make
it my business to know what’s going on around me, and it has saved my ass more
than once.

Livvie is very systematic. Her desktop
was organized into a series of folders: FLM101, ENG202, HIS152, ART102, School Plan,
and most alluring, Captive. One guess as to which folder I opened first? No!
Not film.

There were several different documents
inside the folder: Caleb, Reed, Sloan, FBI procedures, Mexico, East, Stockholm
Syn, Human Traffick, Captive_D1_R2. My fingers began to shake as I hovered over
each file. I wondered what I would discover. I wondered if I could process what
I’d find. I wondered if I would feel different toward Livvie once I read them.
If she was betraying me in some way, did I want to know? I knew already there
would be no going back. Ignorance had never served me well.

I tested the waters by opening the
document labeled “Sloan”. It contained a description of her appearance and a
list of her mannerisms. I found Sloan interesting in a strange sort of way
(free-form knitting and interpretive taxidermy? What?). I immediately moved on
to the file on Reed.

Height:
6’2’’ Weight: 195? Desc: Pitch black hair that’s a little too long (surprising
because of his job and his obvious anal retentiveness). It curls a little
around his ears and the nape of his neck. His eyes are dark and expressive due
to his dark brows. Clean shaven (very meticulously groomed aside from the
hair). His lips (mmmmm). His mouth is warm and he tastes like coffee and mints.
Bit of an angry shit when you kiss him unexpectedly (ha!).

Rage hit me fast and hard. Why had she
kissed him? What had she really been up to when Reed had come to
“
check on her”?

I had to stop reading and take a few
deep breaths. Livvie wouldn’t betray me. Would she? She obviously hadn’t turned
me in. I forced myself to keep reading.

Livvie went on to describe Reed as good
looking and sharp witted. I’m fucking good looking and sharp witted! I bet Reed
only speaks one language. I’m sharp witted in five!

I moved on to my file. Surely, it had
to read better than the one she had on Reed. I recalled Livvie telling me in
Mexico that she hoped to write a book one day. She’d also told me the first
rule of writing was to write what you know. The thought filled me with
foreboding.

The document was longer than the
previous two—about three pages. She’d managed a great deal of detail. The
description calmed me somewhat. Livvie was very flattering, except I felt she
had transformed me from a person into a character, and I wasn’t sure how I felt
about being picked apart.

Height:
6’4’’ Weight: 210? Desc: blond hair, Caribbean blue eyes. A full mouth made for
kissing. He has a canine tooth that is a bit sharp and slightly out of line
with all of this other perfect teeth (the first time I saw him smile).
Muscular, but lean
—
not bulky or overly
muscled. His skin is tan from the sun, not a machine. He has almost invisible
blond hair everywhere (kissing his back, they stood on end
—
super soft).

Mannerisms:
Caleb always seems to think something is funny or amusing (that ridiculous
smirk). His eyes can be beautiful or fucking terrifying (peaceful waters v.
dark murky water). His mouth gets tense when he’s pissed and trying not to show
it. He scowls a lot and sometimes he does it while he’s smiling, which usually
means he’s about to do something especially cruel (that first whipping).

Livvie’s character profile went on and
on about me. She wrote down pieces of things she remembered about me. She even
went on to describe my dick, what I looked like when I came, and the way I
laughed. Had Claudia read these notes? I knew she’d read at least part of Livvie’s
story. What the fuck could she possibly have been thinking? I resented taking
instant notice of how tight my lips were as I bit down on the tip of my tongue
to help calm me down. I laughed bitterly.

I finally opened
Captive
.

Prologue:

This is not a romance. Romances are filled with valiant men
and simpering damsels in distress. Romances have heroes worthy of the title.
They slay dragons and climb towers to rescue beautiful princesses they
immediately marry and impregnate. Romances end with a happily ever after. This
is not a romance.

This is a love story. The characters are flawed to the point
of being broken. The hero is beautiful, but ugly in ways that defy the ordinary
imagination. The heroine isn’t trapped in a tower, but a dark and lonely room. There
is no prince coming to save her. While love blooms and thrives, there is no
happily ever after. Love does not always begin or end the way we wish it would.

A
love story can happen to anyone. This one happened to me.

The words stirred something inside me. There
wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Livvie was writing a book about us. Our story was
not romance. I was not worthy of being called a hero. I was beautiful on the
outside and hideous on the inside. We… didn’t have a happily ever after.

I swallowed hard. I swallowed a few
times.

I’d come too far to stop. I kept
reading:

I’m hurrying
down the sidewalk, trying to get away from the sinister man in the car behind
me, when I look up and see him. Perhaps it’s his easy stride, or the way his
gaze sweeps past me instead of over me, but for whatever reason, he seems safe.
I throw my arms about his waist and whisper, “Just play along, okay?”

He does, and
I’m surprised when his arms wrap around me. The moment of danger seems to pass
very quickly, but for some reason I don’t want to let go. I feel safe in these
arms, and I’ve never really felt safe before. And he smells good, he smells the
way I imagine a man should smell
—
like crisp, clean soap, and warm
skin, and a light sweat. I think I’m taking too long to let go, so I release
him as though he’s burned me. Then I stare up and acknowledge the angel in
front of me. My knees almost buckle.

He is the most
beautiful thing I have ever seen. That includes puppies, babies, rainbows,
sunsets, and sunrises. I can’t even call him a man—men don’t look this good.
His skin is beautifully tanned, as if the sun itself took the time to kiss his
skin to perfection. His muscled forearms are dusted with the same golden hair
of his head. And his eyes mimic the blue-green of the Caribbean Sea I’ve only
seen on movie posters.

He smiles, and
I can’t help but smile, too. I’m a puppet. He pulls my strings. His smile
reveals his beautiful white teeth, but also his sharp canine on the left side.
His teeth aren’t perfect, and the small imperfection seems to make him more
beautiful.

He’s saying something to me, something about another girl,
but I refuse to listen.

It was the first time we’d met. She’d
felt safe in my arms, never guessing, never knowing what I was about to do to
her. Even knowing all the things that happened afterward, the fact we were
having a relationship, I felt sick to my stomach over her words. Her choice of
phrases made her youth obvious. She’d compared me to puppies, babies, and
rainbows. So young and naïve—I’d ruined that.

Livvie’s first draft looked nothing
like what you’ve read. She didn’t have my perspective. She didn’t have the
knowledge of my thoughts or the things that were in play during those first
encounters. The picture she painted was of a sad, lonely girl trapped in a room
at the hands of a sadistic monster who cared nothing for her well-being. This
was Livvie’s recollection of me.