Page 27 of Blood Ties

“What about our bags?” I asked as I turned in my seat to look at the car we left behind.

“They’re in the trunk already.”

“Like by magic?” I pursed my lips at him.

“Oh, the sarcasm is strong with you today.”

“Guess I’m not very witty,” I drolly replied.

After that, whenever I tried to engage him in conversation, he remained silent or I got the one-word grunted answers. The entire time, he was watching that rearview mirror.

“You never told me. Where, exactly, are we going?” I asked for about the millionth time as I watched out the window. There was a lot of nothing that we went past and after about all I could stand of utter silence, I spoke.

“I told you. A friend’s place.”

“Vague much?” I huffed.

“You don’t know them.”

“No shit.” I rolled my eyes. This was not the man that had fucked my socks off several nights ago. Hell, by now, I pretty much lost track of time.

It was almost midnight, and I was tired, cranky, and hungry. True to his word, we hadn’t stopped once since the rest stop. “I need to pee.”

He sighed. “Can it wait another forty-five minutes?”

“No.”

He grumbled under his breath, but he got off at the next exit that said there was a gas station. “Stay in the car.”

I rolled my eyes. He efficiently got gas, then came around to my door. When he opened it, he held his hand out, and I almost spitefully ignored it, but I was stiff and not in the mood for a fight.

He firmly held my upper arm as we walked inside the older building.

“Bathroom?” He asked the woman behind the counter who had been doing something on her phone.

She grabbed a key hooked to a flyswatter and handed it to him without looking away from her phone. “It’s outside, around back,” she told us, still without making eye contact.

Together, we made our way around, following the signs. When we got to the chipped and rusting door, I curled my nose.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he chided.

Was that a smile I heard in his tone?

When he unlocked the door, I stepped in. It smelled like mothballs, but it seemed clean at least. The door shut, and I turned, letting out a squeak of surprise. “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“There’s no one in here but me! And there aren’t any windows!” I squawked.

“Not taking chances. Your father was explicit in his instructions that I not let you out of my sight for anything.”

“Well, at least turn around,” I sputtered.

He gave me a smirk that, with my bladder about to burst and his nearly mute behavior for the last several hours, shouldn’t make me clench at the apex of my thighs. We were in a rundown public bathroom for fuck’s sake!

“Not like I haven’t seen it,” he purred.

My eyes narrowed as I glared. He chuckled, but thankfully turned around.

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