Page 39 of Damaged

When the thing finally clicked into place, I remembered where we were going. I could feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes as I thought about what I’d have to do to make money. The idea of letting a stranger put his hands on me had me closing my eyes.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know what it would be like to sell my body. I didn’t expect it to be any more degrading and painful than the many things Ivan had done from the moment he’d led me through the huge double doors of a house bigger than I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t help but remember those few precious seconds I’d forgotten to be afraid because I’d been so excited about the thought of having food in my belly and a warm bed to sleep in.

I wanted to go back in time and rail at that version of me.

The opening of the driver’s side door had me flinching, but I kept myself together and focused on what was to come. My eyes were practically glued to the windshield but there was no missing the sounds Dalton made as he carefully got into the driver’s seat.

Sounds he was making because of me.

I could tell from the way he’d handled himself at breakfast that he wasn’t as affected as he had been by whatever kind of pills he’d taken the night we’d reached his house. God, had it really only been yesterday that I’d made the mistake of touching Dalton during a nightmare and suffered the consequences?

Funnily enough, his attack that morning no longer bothered me. It was the events that followed that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

The little sounds he’d made as I’d rubbed my body against his after I’d all but flung myself into his lap. The feel of his big hands closing around my ass so he could help me increase the friction as I’d ground my dick against the tight muscles of his abdomen. My own cry of relief when he’d touched that place on my body that had only ever known pain. He’d sent me flying as pleasure like I’d never known before had taken over my entire body. Hell, I couldn’t even remember having known what any kind of pleasure felt like.

Cartwheels.

I did remember those. I did remember what it felt like to laugh so hard that your stomach hurt.

My first kiss.

I’d never forget that no matter what I had to do to earn money going forward. I wished there was some way to thank Dalton for that. It was too late, though. I’d missed my chance.

Chances.

He’d given me more than one opportunity to speak those words to him and I had squandered each one. I had to turn my head to the right to look out the window so Dalton wouldn’t see me struggling to bite back the tears that were threatening to fall.

No words were spoken as Dalton got settled and started the car. I wanted to ask him if he was taking me to a busy bus station in or near a city, but I couldn’t find my voice. Even if I’d been able to, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get the words out anyway. Now that I had the memory of Dalton’s touch, his kiss, in my head, all I could think about was how wrong it would feel when some guy fucked me against the stall of a dirty bathroom.

Or made me get on my knees so he could shove his dick so far down my throat that I couldn’t breathe.

Pain speared through my chest as Dalton backed up and then drove past the little red house. I tried to convince myself that the pain was because of what was to come, not what had happened in that small, strange, beautiful red house.

I began rubbing my chest as I tried to think of what I would need to do after I’d earned some cash.

Find someplace to stay, I guess.

I wasn’t a stranger to living on the streets because my parents had shot every penny they somehow managed to scrape together into their arms. I’d fished through garbage cans when the hunger had become too much to bear, but my parents had rarely ever eaten the food I’d brought back to them.

Not your parents.

It was all I could do not to respond to the insidious voice in my brain. Dalton’s suggestion had hit a nerve, but it had also planted a seed of doubt that was both terrifying and thrilling.

A loud ringing sound had me jumping in my seat. I realized it was a phone call that was coming through the car. Ivan’s cars had had that, but he’d only ever answered using his phone.

The large screen on the dashboard lit up with a name and two circles, one red, the other green. I shivered when I saw it was Jace’s name on the screen.

To my surprise, Dalton hit the red button on the screen and everything went silent. A moment later he was doing something on his phone to make the screen in the car go dark. The phone itself began to almost immediately ring again but as before, Dalton didn’t answer it. Then he held down a button on the side of the phone before setting it in one of the cupholders. The screen on the phone was dark, too.

Had he turned it off?

Had I made Dalton so angry that he didn’t even want to talk to his friend? If he’d turned the phone off, did that mean that I didn’t need to worry about any of this being a setup that would put me back in Jace’s hands?

I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t. I was scared shitless. I’d wanted my freedom so badly that I’d been paranoid about being taken captive again, even by Maggie’s brother. But a couple days with Dalton hadn’t felt like I was being held prisoner.

When the time had finally come for me to earn the money he’d promised me, I’d thrown myself at him first. I’d touched him first. Even when I’d been so certain he was going to fuck me up against the sink this morning, Dalton hadn’t laid a hand on me. If anything, he’d been angry with me, yet he’d still tried to give me the money.

“Closest big bus station will be in Baltimore,” Dalton said, his voice breaking the silence. “That okay?”

---