Explicit Instruction (29 page)

‘Until what?’ she asked, stretching her body over his while she yawned. His lack of a response was unsettling. ‘Until what?’

Flick sat up, letting her knees part over him
, she straddled his stomach, and at the reminder of her apparel, she looked down. Flesh touched flesh. While she still wore her thong, it didn’t offer much of a barrier between them.

‘I’m not having sex with you,’ he said.

Replaying his words, she smiled at him. ‘Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?’

‘
I know what happens when you get that look,’ he said. ‘And I’m not having sex with you.’

‘Not that I’m saying I want to
, but why not?’

‘
I don’t know if they’re listening.’

As though a bug would suddenly become neon
when he said the magic words, Flick looked around. ‘Listening?’

‘It’s the only reason I can come up with that they would put us together.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Except they seem to enjoy watching us squirm.’

‘I’ve done everything I can to protect you.
I’ve played all my cards. I pushed you away time and time again, for your own good.’

‘
I know. I just want you to be honest with me. Please do that for me now. No more games, no more lies and misdirection. After tonight... we’ll never see each other again.’

‘
I’m sorry you got involved, Kitten,’ he said, dropping a hand to her hip.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said
, tentatively touching at her face to explore her bumps and bruises.

‘It is my fault,’ he said. ‘You’re here right now because of me.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I walked into Dell’s of my own free will. How many times do we have to go over this?’

‘This isn’t about Dell’s, not anymore.’

‘So what’s it about?’

‘You’re here because... because they know I care about you,’ he hissed through grit teeth.

‘That wasn’t so painful, was it?’ she said, placing a hand over his heart. ‘The walls didn’t come tumbling down, did they?’

‘I’ve never...’ His expression remained as static as ever, but she saw him swallow away the foul taste of his words. ‘I’ve never cared about anyone before. I cared about the job, but I... I didn’t know it felt like this.’

‘
I make you weak,’ she said.

‘Yeah,
and I resent the hell out of you for it but... any resolve I’ve had before, in the past... I’d do anything to keep you safe, Kitten. I might not be much use to you right now, but—‘

‘This is not your fault,’ she soothed with her words.

‘You’re here because of me.’

‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘If nothing else comes of this
, then I’m happy I got to see you again.’ Sliding her hand up his chest she cupped his cheek and leaned in. ‘You’re a good man, Rushe. If you saw yourself as I see you...’

‘I‘m not a cop.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘So whatever fantasy you have about a shining hero... you know?’

‘I know why you’re here,’ Flick said.

‘How can you possibly...?’

Flick didn’t need to know the specifics, but she didn’t have to. He’d come here with purpose, and it was a purpose greater than himself. But law enforcement was a stretch too far. Cops could smile, they didn’t hate the world like he did, they weren’t strangers to caring for others in the way Rushe was.

‘I trust you,’ she whispered. ‘That’s how I know.’

‘When I walked out of that room with Simone—‘

‘What could you have done?’ she asked. ‘I thought about fighting too. I thought about escaping, but where could I go? This is an impossible situation for both of us.’

Rushe took his hands under her hair to hold the back of her neck, his thumbs resting over her ears. ‘I want to have sex with you,’ he said.

‘That was a quick turn around.’

‘But I think it’s because...’

‘It’s the only way you think you’re capable of comforting me, or showing me how you feel.’

‘Look at what they did to your beautiful face,’ he said, and stroked over her bruises with such hesitancy her eyes misted again. ‘Am I hurting you?’

‘No,’ she said
, snatching his hand back to her cheek.

‘You’ve got a black eye, and the blood, the
—‘

‘Bruises heal,’ she said. ‘Hearing you admit that you care about me... it’s worth every single one of them.’

With almost apprehension, Rushe lifted his head and traced his lips on hers. Her cuts didn’t make for much thorough kissing, and she couldn’t let him taste her tongue for fear that he’d taste her blood too. But such a simple, gentle kiss was more than that. They’d done hungry for each other, and much as that lingered, this joining was so much more powerful.

Flick rested her lips on his
, then slid her hands between them and unbuttoned his jeans. Rushe took his head back, and she read his uncertainty, but he didn’t stop her. Taking his erection from its confines, she wriggled down. Flick nudged her underwear aside, and so very slowly let his member kiss her opening, then as her eyes closed in the ecstasy they anticipated, she sat up on him. Committing every second of the delicious slither that impaled her onto him, Flick didn’t let herself forget a detail.

Still in her dream
, she took his tee-shirt up over her head to present her full naked body for him. But he didn’t touch her, and as she moved up and down on him, Flick took her own breasts into her hands and brushed her nipples with her fingertips in a reminder of him.

Though he was here
, he wasn’t with her, and while still bouncing on his penis, she opened her eyes and let their gazes join. The very second she saw the love in his eyes she yelped out at orgasm. The arrangement of his features was foreign, because the love on his face was more than a smile. The torture of that love, and his powerlessness to prevent her pain, made fresh moisture escape from Flick’s eyes, but she didn’t let it deter or impede her.

Him in her like this, the depth of him against her most sensitive space filled her with that power she always drew from him. Flick
had found her sass in defiance of this adversity, because she knew Rushe would expect nothing less of his woman.

She didn’t care if they were listening, she didn’t
even care if they were watching. As long as she had Rushe here with her, in her, Flick would make the most of every second and wouldn’t cower in the face of their aggressors triumph. They could watch and jeer as much as they wanted because she had something they could never take away.

At the thought of it
, Rushe sat up as though reading her mind. He closed his arms around her and kept her body there pressed to his. He kissed her hair, her forehead, her temple, all on a descent to her ear. Flick tipped her head to the side, giving him all the access he wanted to her neck. But when he kissed her jaw, then the groove behind her ear lobe, she realised he was whispering something to her.

The words didn’t fully register
, but he said them again. If she’d thought she appreciated him talking in bed before, this was the jackpot, and more than she could ever have dreamed of.

‘
I love you, Kitten,’ he exhaled into her ear, while still kissing all around the area where he could reach. ‘I’ve never in my life... I love you.’

H
e brought the joyful sob out of her throat, and she snatched his head to force his mouth to hers too. Brushing her lips back and forth on his, she strangled her arms around his neck, because they couldn’t be close enough, and she wanted to exist in time with his body.

‘I love you too,’ she breathed onto his lips.

This was it, after this there was nothing but terror. Wherever she ended up, and no matter what happened to him, she needed him to know, to understand, what she felt for him. To know the bond that blazed them together no matter their physical distance.

Then with such care
, he cradled her body against his, and lifted her against him. With such tender devotion, Rushe laid her down on the bed, and held himself inside her.

‘I can’t let them have you,’ he said
, with his gaze locked on her. ‘I can’t do it, Flick.’

‘You have to,’ she said
, enjoying the mass of him occupying its home inside her. ‘If you try anything they’ll kill you.’ Flick caressed his stubbled jaw. ‘If they kill you... they get me anyway.’

‘You can’t ask me to... I can’
t let them hurt you anymore. I don’t care what happens to me. When I saw what they’d done to you, what they’ve done. I wanna kill them. I wanna kill them all.’

S
he knew the ferocity of that expression. ‘They’ll get what’s coming to them,’ she said. ‘You have to worry about getting yourself out of here. You have to gain your freedom from them. Let me go. Let them send me wherever they want to... I’ll always be your whore.’ And this time when she whispered that word she meant it as an endearment, but confusion melted into his anger.

‘
I love you, Flick,’ he breathed, though she wasn’t sure he said it to her. ‘I didn’t know I could... fuck...’

Flick didn’t know when he’d realised his love for her, but if his melancholy was anything to go by it was very recently – like since they started making love.

‘Make love to me,’ Flick said, pushing his hair up from his forehead. ‘Show me how you feel.’

W
hen their eyes met again his confusion cleared, his anger evaporated, and with stiff muscles, his cheek twitched then he relaxed and... smiled at her.

His whole face changed, and his eyes lit up when he shone that beautiful joy down on her. Their odds couldn’t get any longer
, but while they were here in this room, on this bed, joined together, the world was a beautiful place.

They’d made love again, and again, and every time he pulled out before coming. Certainly, the last thing she wanted was to find herself pregnant, when she was out there with the lowest form of life on the planet. If she found herself carrying his baby and was force to abort, or have it taken from her, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

Except she wouldn’t have much of a life to look forward to, which brought her back to the thought that kept recurring. Soon all choice would be taken from her, and she would be subjected to what
ever her “owner” chose to demand.

Lying here in the cocoon of Rushe’s body Flick knew that if she wanted her dignity, if she wanted to exercise any free will
, there was only one thing for it.

‘Do you remember...
?’ Flick said, while she spooned in front of Rushe facing into the corner. His body represented a barrier between her and the evil in this place, and while the protection was an illusion, the gesture was cherished.

‘Remember what?’ he asked
, stroking her neck, her shoulder, her hair, her back.

When they’d met he wasn’t this tactile
. Gradually it had built up, now he couldn’t stop touching her, and Flick anticipated every caress.

‘When I was here the first time, upstairs in that room.’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘You... when you found out that I’d only been with two men.’

‘What about it?’ Rushe asked. ‘You better have a damn good point to make if you’re bringing that up.’

In spite of herself
, Flick smiled at the memory of what he’d said to her in the car after she’d hand-fed him the MnM’s. But then the gravity of her decision wiped her contentment away.

‘You said something to me...’

‘What did I say?’ he asked, kissing her hair. ‘Did I hurt your feelings, Kitten?’

Still he could make her smile with his teasing
, but they were running out of time. There was no more putting this off. ‘You said... you said that you’d... rather than watch them put me through this... that you would...’

His hand stopped. ‘Yeah?’

‘You said you’d rather see me dead, than watch them put me through this.’

Rushe didn’t say anything
. Flick wasn’t very sure what he was thinking, or even what he was doing, because he remained stiff as a board behind her.

‘Would you do it?’ she whispered
, and waited through the silence. But she counted to sixty twice, and he still hadn’t said anything. ‘Rushe?’

In an
instant his body left hers, making her lurch back into his now vacant space on the bed. When she rolled to seek him out, she saw him pacing while clenching his fists.

‘You want me to...’ Flick let him pace
, in hope he’d come around to her logic.

‘There’s no way that I can do it myself
in here.’

‘N
o,’ he said, and stopped to stomp over and bear down upon her. ‘You are not talking that way. You are not going to let them—‘

‘What?’ she asked
, getting onto her knees and hooking her hands into his jeans pockets. ‘Rushe, you know what will happen to me when they take me from here!’

‘No. I’ll stop them.
I’ll find a way.’

‘You can’t,’ she said
, knowing just how torn apart he was, because she felt it too. ‘You can’t stop them, and when I’m out there in the world I’ll never be free. How long do I have? A week? A month? What if I get a guy who likes to beat, and torture, and...? Rushe, I don’t even want to imagine what could happen.’

‘No,’ he asserted
, and swiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Stop crying. I can’t think when you cry like that. Since that damn first night... stop it!’

‘You wanted me to keep my guard up, here it is,’ she said. ‘Think this forward, use that forethought of yours, what else is there?’

‘What do you expect me to do?’ he asked. ‘There are no weapons in this room.’

Flick took her grip
to his wrists and brought his hands up to her throat. The flash of repulsion pulsed through his body. Rushe tried to withdraw from her grasp, but she kept hold and brought his fingers as close as she could.

‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘I know you can do this for me... please.’

She could feel the vibration in his fingers, and see the adrenaline that pumped behind his mask. Time crackled, he set his jaw, and his dark bullet eyes detached in determination.

His finger
s tightened, and her throat constricted immediately. No air, no oxygen for her body, and nothing she could do about it. If the drowning had been bad, this was worse. The panic was primal, it consumed her with the automatic urge to kick, to get away, to beg his release. Her grip on his wrists increased, her fingernails digging deep into his flesh. But her instinct to tug his hands away was useless in the face of his superior strength. The energy in her was waning and when her palms leapt to his chest they didn’t push, they slid away.

In the
hopeless desperation, her head got heavy, and seemed to swell. Terror at being deprived her basic human need sent adrenaline coursing through her, speeding her starving organs. Dread was cold, and it glided through her from skin to bone, until the spasm of frost spiked. Without the ability to move, to breathe, her body gave up, and the fight left her.

Then with a
n unexpected gasp, oxygen flooded through her again. But she was on the bed, on her face, free from his grip. Her throat scratched with the need to restore blood flow. He’d released her, he’d dropped her, and pushing onto her hands Flick coughed, but her voice wasn’t available.

‘Fuck!’ Rushe shouted
, and punched a dent into the brick of the wall.

‘Rushe,’ she wheezed
, and flipped to her back because it wasn’t in her to sit up again.

‘Don’t ask me again,’ he said over his shoulder
, giving her only his back to address.

‘What’s wrong?’ she
rasped.

Her distressed systems
prickled to every nerve ending, but her sense was waylaid by the disorientation. Actions were clumsy, so Flick gave up trying to move.

‘What’s
wrong?’ he shouted, and spun to loom over her again. ‘You just asked me to kill you, Kitten! I almost did it! What the fuck...? How the hell did...? What the fuck am I gonna do?’

‘I asked you
to, Rushe,’ she said, lifting her hand to hook into his pocket, though there was no strength in it. ‘I asked you to do it because I don’t want any man to touch me... I only want you, Rushe, and no one touches your stuff.’

‘If I could do anything about it
,’ he said, dropping to a crouch. He ran his hands through his hair, and for the first time she saw him lost and dishevelled.

‘Did you really want me from when you
first saw me on the street?’

‘Yes,’ he answered
, but was still distracted.

‘I didn’t think that I would ever be able to...’
Rocking to her side Flick took her hand to his face. Her other hand remained in his pocket, but was now sandwiched in his thigh from his crouched position.

‘Able to what?’

Rushe took her hand off his face, and Flick worried it might be a defence. If he was turning away from her affection, it was because he blamed himself, just like she’d thought he would.

‘Pleasure you,’ she said
, trying to make as many happy memories in this dire situation as she could.

With this new revelation
Flick had so much she wanted to share, so much she wanted to say. But time would be stolen away from them very soon, and they would never be together again. She knew that finality was the only reason he’d made his declaration to her. This was the end, and they’d lost the game.

Flick spoke to him again, trying to convey her own depth of emotion in the hope it might ease his burden.
‘Until you, I didn’t... you’ve given me so much, shown me so much joy. I’m grateful, Rushe, you’re a good instructor.’

‘Yeah, class dismissed,’ he muttered
, wrapping his hand around hers. ‘We’re running out of time.’

Again
, he glanced at his watch, as he had done so many times since they’d been in here. ‘Time? When are they coming for me?’

He’d been on the inside
of the gang, and he’d been reluctant to tell her why he’d been so preoccupied with his watch all night. All of that caused her to reach the conclusion that he had more information than he was volunteering. He answered while he scrubbed his hand across his stubble, confirming Flick’s suspicions.

‘Meeting’s at four AM,’ he said. ‘Journey’s about an hour.’

‘What will happen?’ she asked. ‘Where is it? Who will be there?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘This is only the second shipment.
The first never got through.’

‘What happened to the first one?’

‘Victor’s wingman screwed him over and took charge of the merchandise. He’s not seen him since.’

‘Jansen,’ she said
, and this caught his interest. ‘I heard the conversation, in Victor’s office; I was in the next room with John.’

‘They’ll put you in a van,’ Rushe said in that deep, flat, detached tone of his, except it wasn’t the dangerous anger she read on his face. Witnessing his quiet resignation broke her heart because by breaking her they’d broken him – the strongest man she’d known in her life.

‘I won’t go quietly,’ she whispered. ‘I mean the van, the journey; I can handle that but... I won’t just bend over for them, Rushe.’

‘You listen to me,’ he said
, tightening his hold on her hand. ‘I don’t want you to give up. Don’t goad them into hurting you. You’ve got a mouth on you, Kitten, but it’s mine, and I’m telling you to keep it shut.’

‘You want me to... I can’t Rushe. I can’t just let it happen and do nothing.’

‘You are gonna do nothing,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna go where you’re told, and you’re gonna do what you’re told.’

Flick snatched her hands from him
, and recoiled against the wall behind her. ‘You want me to... Rushe, they’re gonna—‘

‘I know,’ he said
, reaching over the bed for her, but she moved away.

‘I won’t. I won’t do it. I won’t let them.’

‘You will,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Because I’m gonna come and get you, and I want you to be healthy when I get there, do you understand me? For once in your life, follow my instructions.’

‘You can’t... how do you know they’ll let you out of here alive? You might never see daylight again. They could take me out of the country,
out of the hemisphere for all I know. No, no I won’t do it.’

With her head swinging back and fort
h, Flick tried to block out the possibilities. But what was going to happen to her wasn’t as important as what was going to happen to him. Once they found out that he wasn’t law enforcement there would be no need to keep him alive. If Rushe had nothing that Victor wanted, then he was dispensable. Flick at least knew that they’d keep her alive long enough to sell her, and if she saw an opening, a chance to escape, she was going to take it.

‘We’ll get through it,’ he said
, landing on the bed. ‘I will come for you, Flick... I don’t know when, but I promise you I’ll come.’

‘No.’ S
he shook her head again. ‘No, I won’t let them touch me.’ Rushe reached for her, but Flick batted his hand away and pounced up to perch on her tiptoes in a crouch. ‘Nobody touches me!’

‘Kitten,’ he said
, shifting up the bed, but she backed up against the bare black wall that served as a headboard.

‘No! No, I don’t want their hands on me!’

‘You think I do?’ he shouted back. ‘Do you have any fucking idea—’ He punched the wall with the side of his fist, brick dissolved again, but it was the blood on him that she noticed.

In reflex
, she sprang forward to grab him. ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’ Flick traced her lips back and forth on his wound.

‘I’m going to find you,’ he said
, stroking her hair as she kissed his hand. ‘Trust me.’

‘I trust you.
I’ve trusted you from the start. Even when you told me not to. But they’re going to do things to me... things that might... if I ever got back to you, I might never...’

‘We’ll deal with it,’ he said. ‘All you have to concentrate on is breathing, ok?’

‘You won’t want me.’

‘This isn’t your fault,’ he growled with a ferocity that made her shiver. ‘You are my woman.
I don’t care how many fuckers I have to kill to get to you, I’ll do it. Do you believe me?’

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘How did we not see this coming?’

‘There is precedent, but I had no idea that Victor—‘

‘
Not Victor,’ she said. ‘This.’

Alarm flashed on his face when Flick
took his hand to her heart. ‘You’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my life,’ he said, and Flick looked up to see his awe. ‘That’s what you said to me.’