Kidnapped: A Criminal Deeds Novel Read online

  If he can see well enough in the dark, he’ll be able to see me blush, which doesn’t happen very often. But the memory of him reaching his climax with my name on his tongue does that to me. I can’t help it.

  “Ah,” he says, clearly having noticed the color in my cheeks. “I don’t even remember that.”

  “Well, I do,” I mumble, “and I’ll never forget it.” Even though it’s not my real name and the last thing I want him to do is call me that—Emerson—it still felt like a brand on my skin.

  His lips curve into a sexy, irresistible smirk I want to kiss off his lips. Hmm. I wonder if we’ll ever actually do that. Somehow, I doubt it, but I wouldn’t mind. Not one bit.

  While I’m in a smirk trance, he says, “It’s on your ID. Your fake ID. I found that in your pocket.”

  The reminder of my driver’s license makes me reach for that pocket—not that I can actually touch it with my hands bound anyway—but he shakes his head.

  “It’s upstairs.” He points a finger toward that floor of…whatever we’re in. A house? An underground bunker?

  “Where are we?” I ask while I’m wondering. It should have been one of my first questions, though I don’t think he would have told me then. Everything happened so fast though.

  “Why’s your ID fake?” he asks instead, dodging my question.

  If he won’t talk to me, I won’t talk to him. I bunch my lips, keeping them closed.

  “Fine. I’ll be back down with food.”

  But I stop him yet again before he’s out of earshot. “Are you going to kill me?” I ask it mostly for shock value, to make sure he’ll pay attention and not leave me alone down here. Without his heat, I’m chilled to the bone, and my body is starting to ache from having been in this position for so long.

  “I’m going to feed you, Alex,” he says at the top of the stairs.

  “It’s Ali.” My voice comes out small, so I clear my throat and try again. “I go by Ali.”

  “I’m going to feed you, Ali,” he repeats. “Then we’ll figure out what I’m else I’m going to do with you.”

  A shiver races down my spine. Not from fear—because I don’t think death is in my future. Not if he’s going to take care of me by giving me food. Well, not death by violence, anyway. Death by hot, erotic kidnapped sex? Maybe. And maybe I like the sound of that.

  But then a thought hits me. I could die from other reasons if those things don’t happen first.

  From how flat my pockets are—and from knowing he went through them to at least find my ID—I can tell they’re empty. Which means he has my burner phone somewhere. And that needs to get the hell out of here before someone traces my location.

  So I shout, “Hey! One more thing!”

  The only I answer I get is a lack of one. The lack of movement, though, tells me he’s listening.

  “Get rid of my phone. Smash it, put it in a cup of water, something. It can’t be traced or we’ll both be in trouble.” Under my breath, I mutter, “Big fucking trouble.”

  I still don’t get an answer. Instead, I hear him twist the doorknob and leave me alone in this basement, dungeon, or whatever this room is.

  I don’t even know what to feel anymore. Should I be scared that I’ve been kidnapped? Perhaps it’s not a whole scheme planned by my best friend so I can fulfill my sexual fantasy? Should I be worried that I may never get back home, wherever home will be after this? Should I fear this man, or should I consider myself fucked up for still wanting to fuck this man six ways to Sunday?

  Fuck it. If this won’t end well anyway, I should have some fun first, right?

  If my past doesn’t catch up to me and find me before I have the chance, that is. And I don’t like the sound of that.

  10

  Keaton

  Everyone likes sandwiches, right? Because that’s just about all I can make from what I have on hand here. Peanut butter and jelly with a side of stale potato chips. That’ll have to be good enough.

  When I’m at the bottom of the stairs, two plates in hand, I stare at her. At the back of her head, which probably hurts still from that blow I gave it. At what I can see of her back through the bars in the chair. That’s likely in pain too from being upright like that for so long. She’s still, unmoving, probably on alert now that I’m back down here. A pain I’ve only felt once before in my life stabs me in the heart.

  I’m hurting her. Still. Even though I don’t mean to and even though I don’t want to. For some reason, I really care about that. Not just because she sucked my dick like a fucking pro, either.

  She doesn’t say anything as I come around to face her. She won’t even look at me now, and I wonder what’s changed in the fifteen minutes I’ve been gone. Sometimes, though, too much time to think can be a bad thing, and that’s what I’ve given her. So I decide to give her something good.

  As I set the plates on the floor, I say, “I’m going to untie you, but you have to promise not to do anything crazy.”

  Eagerly, she nods, but she winces too. Tears even form in her eyes. “I promise.”

  “I don’t plan to hurt you,” I continue, “but we have to think this through before anything else happens, and I think a conversation over food is probably the best we can do right now.”

  Again, she bobs her head. So much so that she pains herself again, and I think about getting her some medicine for a headache, but I don’t think I have anything. I tell her that.

  “That’s okay,” she replies in a small, raspy tone. “Food might help. And some water if you have it?” Her eyes plead with me, and I wonder why I didn’t think of that too.

  “Yeah. I’ll be right back.” When I come back with two water bottles, I open one up and tip some into her mouth. “Easy,” I tell her.

  She takes a few gulps even though I don’t allow that much into her mouth so she doesn’t choke. “I’m so thirsty.”

  “I bet you’re hungry too,” I say as I cap the bottle and set it on the floor. Then I produce a knife from my pocket so I can release her from the chair. “But remember your promise, okay? Nothing crazy.”

  Her head moves up and down again, but that’s not enough for me.

  With the tip of my knife under her chin, I lift her head so she’s looking at me. “Let me hear you say it. I need the words.”

  “Nothing crazy. I promise,” she hurries out, flexing against the zip ties around her wrists. “I just need to stretch. And eat. And drink more water.”

  An intense desire to believe her soars through me. I don’t know if I actually do, but I have this knife and the door is locked, so I’m willing to take this chance. Not that I want to hurt her at all. All I want to do is protect her, and I have a feeling that, by having her here, I somehow am. No one in their right mind just accepts having been kidnapped. Something weird is going on, and we’ll get to the bottom of it now.

  I pull my knife away from her face and carefully trail it down her leg, where I come to a kneeling position. Once I have the rope at her ankles in hand, I lock my gaze on hers and saw through the thick cords. Just before the threads snap, I grab her ankle and give her a stern look in warning.

  Her small, rapid nods and her wide eyes give me the answer I’m looking for. So I finish cutting through the rest of the rope, and she extends her feet down to stretch her ankles. She also extends both of her legs in the air while sighing. She sounds relieved, like she actually thought I might have left her tied up here forever.

  Once she’s settled her feet back on the ground, I throw the rope into the corner and focus on the first zip tie. I have to be cautious and slow so I don’t cut the skin on her wrist. But I manage to free one hand without any damage. She yanks her hand toward her body and rolls her wrist around, and I see how red and raw her skin looks from how tight I had her secured. That causes my heart to squeeze like it’s in a vise.

  No wonder she’s so set on thinking this is some kind of sex game. I’d do anything I could to get the fuck out of this chair too, even if it meant convincing so
meone I actually wanted to fuck them.

  I move over to her other side to free her second hand, and once that’s done, that wrist flies to the other one, which encircles it to soothe the scraped skin.

  “Did you get rid of my phone like I asked?” is the first thing she says, which seems odd to me, but everything about this is odd.

  “It’s in a cup of water as we speak.” I gesture for her to stand up for the first time in hours.

  She’s slow as she rises, and she hisses through the pain before she’s fully straight. “Thanks,” she replies, her voice croaky and weak.

  “Wanna tell me what the phone thing is all about?” Though part of me feels like I already know. I can relate to the need to do that, and that makes my chest ache for her.

  Instead of answering my question, though, she points to the plates of food and says, “Is one for me?”

  When I nod, she picks both plates up and then hands me one. In no more than three bites, she demolishes her sandwich before I can even think about taking a bite of my own. As she downs her water bottle, she eyes the food on my plate. I offer it to her, thinking she needs it more than I do, and she’s not shy in taking it and inhaling it in as many bites as the first.

  “Want another? More water?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No. As long as my phone can’t be traced and it wasn’t too late, I’m good for now.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “And why would it be a problem if your phone was traced?”

  “Because,” she says, shrugging. “I have baggage. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Well, yeah,” I reply, “but yours sounds fucking serious.”

  “And it is.” She takes a step toward me. And another. Slowly, she approaches me, and once she’s right in front of me, she trails a finger down my chest. “But, now that I’m out of that chair and free to move around, talking about it is the last thing I want to do with my mouth right now.”

  11

  Ali

  He snatches my finger off his chest and squeezes it in his tight grip. “What are you doing?”

  I give him a look that says duh. “What do you think I’m doing? I know why you untied me.” And as long as no one can find me, I don’t care if I stay here forever, wherever here is.

  “Yeah,” he spits out, taking a step away from me. “So we can talk and figure out what we need to do about this next.”

  I step closer to him. “I know what we need to do—”

  “No!” he shouts before turning his back to me. “I already untied you. You don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

  The noise I make sounds like disappointment. This really isn’t part of Jane’s plan, and I’ve really been knocked out and kidnapped by my neighbor. And I’m in a soundproof room God only knows how far away from home. I’m truly fucking stuck here with a stranger who has a knife and a nearly lethal punch.

  But the bright side is that, if anyone does come looking for me—and only bad people would come looking for me besides Jane—I’m with a man who has a knife and a nearly lethal punch. It’s probably lethal if he gives it his all. I’m assuming he didn’t when he…

  When he did what he thought he had to do to protect his property.

  “Can we talk, then?” I ask his back. “I have a lot of questions. And I think I have a right to know at this point.”

  Slowly, he faces me again. I point to my head for emphasis and then show him my red, raw wrists for good measure. I’ve earned lots of answers when I was just trying to help.

  “Only if I can ask the first question,” he says.

  But I give him a look that screams you have to be kidding me, and he relents, throwing his hands into the air in a surrender gesture.

  With a hand on my hip, I say, “That’s what I thought.” Then I start to pace as I think through all the questions I want to ask and decide which one should go first. I raise a finger in the air. “Where are we?”

  “We’re safe.” He takes a seat in the chair I was in and crosses his arms over his chest. “Next question?”

  For anyone else, that probably wouldn’t have been a good enough answer. But “safe” isn’t something I’ve been in over four years, so I’ll take it.

  “Okay.” I raise another finger. “What’s so important that it needs a lock in your backyard?”

  “Next question,” he repeats, crossing his arms harder.

  “No.” I shake my fingers at him. “Not a chance. You haven’t answered anything yet.” Then I point those two fingers at the back of my head. “Remember?”

  He huffs out a long, slow breath through his nose. His nostrils flare as he adjusts his position in the chair. After a long stare down, he says, “It’s my protection. It’s how I stay safe. I have to keep it locked up so other people don’t try to take it.”

  I can’t fault him for holding things close to the vest. I’m certainly known for doing the same. Jane, though she’s my best friend, only knows what I’ve told her, and I haven’t told her nearly enough. She has no idea that growing up under my father’s oppressive thumb was beyond difficult. He wanted to groom me for the family business—officially, it was running the bar, but unofficially, it was running drugs. But I wanted nothing to do with it, loved my mom a whole lot more, and wasn’t ever scared to tell him.

  For my own safety, I can’t tell Jane any of that. Or anyone—not just her. I’m almost grateful for that. It’s not like I would love explaining to everyone I meet that I’m on the run because I witnessed a murder and don’t want to be next. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing that I can’t talk about it. Well, I can, but I don’t have a death wish.

  “Fine,” I say on a rushed-out exhale. “I’ll give you that one, but can you give me just one specific answer to a question? Please?”

  Finally, he relaxes. He sets his arms on the armrests of the chair, leans to one side, and spreads his knees. With one hand, he gestures at me to continue. “Go ahead.”

  I look at my feet, pointing my head down so he can’t see my face. I’m not sure why I’m feeling shy all of a sudden, considering I’ve already had his dick in my mouth and his tongue on my pussy. But maybe I don’t want the answer to the question I’m about to ask.

  After a few pounding heartbeats, I tug on the sleeves of my hoodie and manage to say, “Why didn’t you want to fuck me earlier?” without looking at him. Then I tip my head up a bit and meet his gaze.

  The smallest smirk tilts his lips. “You think I didn’t want to fuck you?” he asks as he leans to the other side of the chair.

  I put my arms out to my sides. “You turned me down. What was I supposed to think?”

  Suddenly, he shoots out of the chair and stalks over to me. With him this close to me, I can feel his hot breath as he breathes in the otherwise cold room. The light above us is dim, but it’s enough for me to see his chest rising and falling, the strain in his neck as he looks down at me.

  But I don’t need the light to feel him. His muscular body is pressed against mine. And every part of him is hard.

  Every.

  Single.

  Part.

  He tips my chin up with a finger so I’m looking right at him. Then he lowers his face so it’s not even an inch away from mine, his lips a whisper from my own. “What part of this makes you think I don’t want to fuck you?”

  12

  Keaton

  It almost feels strange to be this close to so much of her. To be face-to-face with her with nothing but clothes and a breath between us. To be so close that I can smell her sweet scent. I’m so used to watching her from a distance, practically spying on her just to catch sight of her. And she’s been tied up in that chair for a long time now, so to have her standing in front of me… It’s almost a dream come true.

  Even if it’s because of fucked-up circumstances.

  But it also feels strangely right, too. Like she’s meant to be here with me. Like we’re somehow meant to be together in this fucked-up circumstance. Because it’s a fucked-up world and we’re both
clearly fucked up from it. She has all kinds of secrets swirling around her eyes. If she thinks I’m the one hiding things, she has it all wrong.

  We don’t get a chance to explore that right now though. Instead, she practically rips my clothes from my body. And I don’t hesitate to help her along with the task. As long she’s willing to give, I’m willing to take.

  But only if she can’t see everything. The twisted scars no one has been allowed to see.

  Before my jeans go too far, I dig my wallet out of my pocket and remove the condom I keep in here for “just in case” purposes. This scenario was not on the list of those “just in case” possibilities, but I’ll make sure to keep it on there for next time. Who knows when I’ll have to accidentally kidnap an innocent woman again?

  Hopefully never. I highly doubt I’d get so lucky next time, so there better not be one.

  With crossed arms, she makes taking her sports bra off look easy. Her ample breasts bob heavily without the support, and all I want is them in my mouth so I can tease her perfectly pink nipples. She finishes pulling her sweatpants off while I roll the condom onto my length. When she sticks her fingers into the sides of her panties to remove those too, I stop her by shooting my arm out to touch hers.

  “I’ll do that.”

  She takes her fingers away from her hips and shrugs. So I kneel in front of her, spread her legs, and slip my fingers into the waistband. Then I tug hard enough that they break in my hands.

  Her breath hisses out as she grabs my shoulders and throws her head back, so I give her pussy a quick swipe of my tongue. That earns me a loud, breathy call of my name. She’s wet and ready—beyond wet and ready. So, as I rise to my full height, I grab under her thighs and bring her with me.

  In two long strides, I have her up against the wall and my cock nestled right at her opening. Her chest is pressed so close to mine, but I can still lean my head down a little and take one of her nipples into my mouth at the same time that I slam inside her. Her breath rushes from her lungs, and she screams my name again as her fingernails dig into the skin of my shoulders. It’s a delicious pain. One I’ll commit to memory when this is all over and she’s gone from my arms.