Page 8

8

FAWN

M y face blazed with heat the entire time I was in Otis’s room, getting him ready for bed. I read him a story with my neck on fire, and then sang his favorite lullaby, but I wasn’t as present as I normally was.

My mind was still in that bathroom, gaze connected to Zane’s, while I battled with my body to get it to do something that had once come so easily. But now Eddie had taken everything away from me. Including my ability to have an orgasm, apparently.

I said good night to my sleepy boy and slipped out of his darkened bedroom.

The bathroom door opened at the same moment, a billow of steam wafting out around the tall, toned, half-naked man. Water droplets clung to his pecs and abs. The towel I’d left in his room was tight around his waist, but it did nothing to hide the V lines that ran either side of his hips.

He shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat, and I snapped my gaze up in horror, realizing I was staring.

“Sorry,” I blurted out. I practically lunged for my bedroom, needing to be anywhere but right there with him.

He was Eddie’s brother, and my brain screamed warnings every time he was near. I knew he was probably reporting back to Eddie. I knew whatever was going on here was a test. Just one of many Eddie liked to inflict on me, forever testing my loyalty to him, just like he did to his men. Zane had never helped me, and I didn’t trust him at all.

And yet that didn’t stop my body reacting to him like I was starving, and he was a main meal.

Zane was beautiful.

But dangerous things often were.

Zane’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I froze. His touch was warm. Soft yet firm. And I stared up at him, silently begging him to just let me go, because him touching me felt like an inferno beneath my skin I couldn’t put out. One I didn’t want to feel because it only fed the frustration that had led to me putting my fingers between my thighs, only to realize I was broken there too.

Just like everywhere else.

“Wait, Fawn. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…for earlier…”

I shook my head. “You have nothing to apologize for.” I bit my lip, debating whether to beg for his mercy or not, but ultimately deciding I didn’t have anything to lose. “Just please don’t tell Eddie. I know we haven’t been friends in a long time, but we were once. If that meant anything to you, just please, don’t tell him.”

He blinked. “Why would I…” His surprise turned into a frown. “What would happen if I did?”

I opened my mouth to tell him I’d be punished. That Eddie didn’t allow me to touch myself because that was a man’s job and my only pleasure would come from him.

Not that anything he’d done to me had ever caused pleasure. Only pain and hate and disgust.

But fear caught my tongue. And Zane’s question suddenly felt like a trap. Eddie wanted Zane to think we were a happy family, and I wasn’t willing to risk Otis’s safety on the hopes Zane might feel differently. “Nothing. Never mind.”

Zane’s lips pressed together, but he let the subject drop. “Could I borrow some of Eddie’s clothes, please? I didn’t bring any.”

That gave me a moment’s pause. Had he not expected to stay long?

But I just nodded and pulled my arm from his grip.

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or if there was truly reluctance in him letting me go.

I moved into the bedroom I shared with Eddie and opened the closet doors. Eddie was at least two sizes bigger than Zane, but I took out a few older shirts from the back that Eddie never wore anymore because they’d become too tight, the more he worked out. I found a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring, then took them to the spare room and handed them to Zane. “Just a shirt and pants. I figured you wouldn’t want to borrow underwear.”

Zane gave a small half-smile. “Definitely not.”

In the silence that followed, all I could think about was that he’d be bare beneath the sweats. The room suddenly felt too small, too hot.

The bed too big.

“I’ll leave you to get changed. Let me know if you need anything else.” I took a step backward to leave, but Zane’s soft voice stopped me.

“Is there anything you need, Fawn?”

I swallowed hard. His question didn’t sound like a trick. It sounded sincere.

But then Eddie was the best liar I knew.

And he and Zane were cut from the same cloth.

“I’m fine. Good night.”

If he mumbled a good night back, I didn’t hear it. I was already halfway down the stairs.

I forced my feet to the living room and picked up the tray Eddie had left on the coffee table for me. He hadn’t moved from the recliner since he’d first sat in it hours earlier.

His gaze followed me around the room. “Where have you been?”

I picked up the empty beer cans and added them to the tray. “Upstairs, putting Otis to bed.”

“I heard voices.”

I nodded, knowing better than to lie. “Zane asked me for some clean clothes. I gave him some of your old things. I hope that’s okay?”

Eddie’s lips twisted. “That all you talked about? My clothes? You weren’t reminiscing about the good old days?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what good old days he meant? The days where I’d been a stupid teenager and he’d taken advantage of me? Or the days he’d kept me prisoner in his basement? Or maybe he meant every day of the last five years where everyone I knew thought I was dead, and he threatened my child every time I so much as thought about trying to escape?

There were so many ‘good old days’ to choose from.

The sarcasm burned my tongue, but I was smart enough not to let it out. Instead, I stroked his ego. “I’m really not interested in making small talk with your brother, Eddie. I thought I’d make some of those cookies you like.”

Eddie nodded in approval. “Yeah, do that. You’re a good woman, Peach.”

He closed his eyes again, and a minute later, his snores filled the room.

I made his cookies slowly, not wanting to go back upstairs and risk running into Zane again. They were ones I’d once only made at Christmas, cutting them into pine tree and Santa shapes in the strip club kitchen because the tiny kitchen in the home I’d rented from Eve had been too small for the mass batches I’d needed to give out to my friends and their families. But ever since Eddie had brought me here, I’d started making them at all times throughout the year, shaping the dough into regular circles instead of festive shapes, but the smell reminding me of being back where I belonged.

I sucked in deep breaths, wishing with everything I had that one day, I’d make these cookies in the club kitchen again. Sometimes, that was the only thought that kept me going.

I missed Eve. I would have given up almost anything to have her pull me into one of her warm, motherly hugs. I missed Lyric’s sass and attitude. I missed Augie and Phoenix always watching out for me.

I thought about the four of them all the time, wondering what they were doing. Wondering if they still thought about me the way I thought about them.

But the reality was that they’d had closure. They thought I was dead, so they’d likely moved on.

I had none of that. All I had was the waning hope that one day, my chance would come, and things could be different.

I cleaned the kitchen until it sparkled, and when the cookies were finished, I wrapped a few in a napkin and slipped them into my pocket.

I needn’t have bothered hiding them though. Eddie was still sleeping in his recliner. I left him and went upstairs, tucking the cookies into the small plastic box I kept hidden behind piles of my old clothes. It was empty. Otis and I had eaten all the food I’d already stashed in there while Eddie was in the hospital. Now I’d have to start over, taking what I could, when I could, preparing for the days where Eddie decided I wasn’t worthy of food.

With the cookies safely stashed away, I puttered around the bedroom, enjoying the freedom of being able to move without the chains. I stopped at the window, ready to draw the curtains closed so the early morning sun didn’t wake me up before Eddie bellowed for my attention. But something outside the window caught my attention.

It was dark in the yard, and the trees cast shadows over Zane’s shiny blue truck. With all four tires flat to the ground. There was no way that had happened accidentally.

Shock rippled through me.

Zane was just as much a prisoner here as I was, apparently.

A little of my anger and distrust disappeared. And for the first time all day, I considered that Zane’s eyes hadn’t changed in the years since I’d seen him.

They still held kindness.

I got into bed and pulled the covers up over my head.

I didn’t want to consider that Zane wasn’t like his brother. Because if I did, my heart would break. It was bad enough Eddie had Otis and me stuck here. I wouldn’t wish this fate on another person.

Suddenly the gentleness in Zane’s eyes was all I could see. The soft grip on my wrist all I could feel. The ridges of his bare chest and the strong set of his biceps all I could remember.

That tingle between my legs that had gone unsatisfied in the shower returned, and I tossed and turned, trying not to think about it. But it was like an itch I wasn’t allowed to scratch, and the more I ignored it, the more I wanted to do something about it.

I hadn’t wanted to touch myself in the entire time I’d lived in this house. And then Zane turned up, and twice in one day, I found my fingers rubbing against my clit.

But just like earlier, the frustration inside me only grew, rather than released. Sweat beaded across my skin, and the long shirt I wore to bed stuck to my breasts unpleasantly, until I wanted to rip it off.

Except I didn’t dare.

I flipped over onto my belly, pressing my knees into the mattress and riding my fingers from that angle, but it didn’t help.

I stifled groans of need into the crook of my arm until they turned into sobs of frustration I cried into my pillow.

Eddie had taken so much from me already. It was a bitter pill to find something new he’d robbed me of.

Angry tears fell down my face, and I rolled onto my side, punishing my clit in a way that hurt more than helped. What did it matter now? All I knew was pain.

A creak on the landing outside my door froze my muscles. The door opened silently, and I desperately yanked at the blankets, praying it was Otis and not Eddie.

But the man who slipped inside the room wasn’t either.