Captive (Social Experiments #1) Page 3

  Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. The half-closed door afforded me a partial view within the brightly lit chamber. Yvonne wore her favorite jeans again, denim hugging her curves in all the right places, worn thin and white just beneath the pockets.

  The contents of her purse littered the vanity, strewn over my clean counter space.

  “Are you going out?”

  Yvonne jerked and dropped the small cap balanced on her palm. Flesh-toned powder scattered across the counter and into the porcelain sink.

  “Holy shit, Jake, you scared me!”

  “Sorry. I called out, but I guess you didn’t hear-” I stopped, my gaze locked on her reflection. Cold, unbridled fury seized me and chased away all my other thoughts. A hard nudge opened the door with a bang, slamming it against the wall. Yvonne ducked her head and tried to hide her face behind her dark hair. Too late. I took her by the arm and whirled her around to face me.

  “What happened, Yvonne? Did that asshole hit you?”

  She tugged away from me, but my grip held firm. “It’s… it’s nothing Jake. I had too much to drink and walked into a door.”

  Bullshit. “What the fuck happened?” Her artful application of foundation and powder concealed about half of the shiner blooming around her left eye.

  “I told you… C’mon, Jake, I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

  “The hell were you planning to do? Sleep in your makeup for a week?” I demanded.

  “Maybe…”

  A glitzy top clung to her upper body, hanging from the shoulders and bosom to reveal plump cleavage. Yvonne knew how to dress to enhance her best attributes. She’d worn her shoes into the bathroom in her rush to hide the damage. Five inch stilettos brought her up to my height, and we were nearly eye to eye.

  “Did you even put some ice on it? He hit you wicked hard, sweetheart. Come on. Let’s wash this shit off.”

  Instead of judging her or losing my cool, I applied water to a washcloth and cleansed her face. Each tear she shed made me want to pound Greg’s face in. I counted them. Every single silent drop. By the time I’d finished wiping away the makeup, I was a master of my emotions. I put on a phony smile and gestured to the pizza on the dinette table.

  “You up for a bite to eat?”

  “Yeah… thanks.”

  I carried the goods to the upper level, balancing pizza on one hand and a pack of hard cider in the other. The brownstone was a four level building, five if you counted the extensive basement system. Like my grandmother and grandfather before me, I kept the first and second floor for my use. The third and fourth floors were individual apartments rented out for a tidy sum to two different families. Nice people. They paid on time and didn’t complain too much. Ms. James, the single mom, always baked and brought Christmas cookies every year. The elderly couple on the fourth level kept the lobby filled with green life and flowers.

  The nearly identical building sharing our east wall was a four family unit and also mine. Gramps said that our building was the exception to the usual floor design. He remodeled it in the sixties and combined the lower two floors into a single apartment. The spacious basement stored a bunch of the stuff my grandparents had owned that I couldn’t bear to throw out. Their old belongings occupied the rear section of the sublevel, but my workout equipment filled the front.

  Our living room occupied the second level beside Yvonne’s bedroom. When I moved in five years ago to live with my grandparents, I originally settled in her bedroom. I helped them around the building, did some of the repairs, and enjoyed the rent-free lifestyle. Things changed after Gram died. My grandfather lost his will to live and eventually I inherited most of the financial responsibilities.

  Our relatives came out of the woodwork each demanding their fair share of my grandparents’ holdings. Gram and Gramps owned five other buildings around Boston, and my uncle expected to receive all of them in the will since my father, their only other son, died during a stint in the Army.

  Gramps had his own plans. About a year after I moved in to help them, he signed the deed over to my name and donated the remaining three properties over to a low-income housing project for people like Miss James upstairs. People who couldn’t afford 2000 dollars rent a month to keep a roof above their heads. Uncle Will didn’t receive a dime. He tried to buy me out, offering 10,000 dollars for my trouble. I closed the door in his face. He’d turn the tenants out and try to charge a fortune for the space.

  Shortly after Gramps was gone, Yvonne came to me in a jam. The decision to allow her to move in seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “You wanna talk about it?” I asked after we settled on the plush microfiber sofa.

  She clearly didn’t, favoring the decision to ignore my question and stuff her face instead. So we made the best of a shit situation with cooling pizza and warming hard cider. We watched movies, Yvonne’s head on my shoulder and brown hair fanned down my t-shirt. I breathed in the fresh scent of cucumber and melon amidst her dark curls, held her close, and wished things were different.

  Around midnight, I realized she’d fallen asleep. She snuggled against me and turned her face against my throat. Honey-cider sweetened her breath and her parted lips beckoned me. Teased and tempted me. I risked a touch and stroked her hair away from her face. My fingers skimmed the curve of her ear and traced down her throat. As I had a hundred times before, I adjusted her bra strap. Only this time I wished I was pushing it off instead of pulling it back up.

  Then her lips touched my skin. At first I thought it was her shifting again in her sleep, but then her hand slid up my chest and her kiss firmed. Yvonne nestled upon me, sliding over my lap into a straddling position. I held my breath.

  This kind of thing didn’t happen to guys like me. You don’t pine after a woman for years and finally get her in a dumb stroke of luck after her boyfriend’s dealt her a raw blow. That kind of luck belongs in fairytales.

  I didn’t dare to speak a single word, petrified I’d shatter the moment or awaken from my dream. It couldn’t be anything but the kind of dream that always resulted in a raging morning hard-on until I stroked off in the shower.

  Yvonne fit in my lap perfectly. She belonged there, and I’d needed her for so long. With my hands sliding down her back to her ass, I nudged my hips upwards to show her exactly what she did to me.

  Her breathy gasp was a reward all its own. And it got better.

  Yvonne unzipped my jeans and boldly drew my cock through the opening. Before I could utter a word of surprise, she curled her fingers and pumped the length in her hand. Her fingertips barely touched. I’ve never claimed to have the biggest dick on the block, but this discovery made me feel damned good. She slipped her thumb over the sensitive head, smearing the clear drop of precome she coaxed with her efforts.

  “Yvonne…” How many nights had I dreamed of this?

  She silenced me with a finger to my lips and another pistoned stroke of her hand.

  I accidentally popped one of the strings on her glitzy top, too eager to realize it unfastened behind the shoulder. Without a bra beneath it, her bare breasts spilled free into my hands. I kissed her hard. Cider flavored her tongue and laced every kiss, while her responsive body writhed beneath my attentive touches. I pinched her nipples until they stiffened and tore my mouth away from Yvonne’s lips only to suck from a pink tip.

  She expressed her pleasure with a throaty moan.

  Fuck it all, but I wanted to be inside her. If her fingers were this good I could only imagine how right her body would feel. My fingers dealt with the button on her jeans and I bumped up with my hips. Yvonne rose without complaint.

  “These need to go.” I didn’t care if my jeans stayed on but hers only created an intolerable barrier between us. I dragged the frayed denim down her thighs and pulled her panties down next, revealing bald skin. She’d waxed recently, leaving only a smooth plane for me to explore. I didn’t wait. I leaned in and kissed the sensitive flesh, my hands holding her steady at her hips. She threade
d her fingers through my hair and tilted her head back, moaning.

  Yvonne didn’t stop me from exploring the slick apex of her thighs. My fingers slid between her legs easily, parting her glistening folds first with a teasing stroke. I plunged two digits into her harder the next time, until she rocked back on her heels and rolled her hips to the rhythm of my touch.

  “I want to fuck you so bad, baby. C’mere,” I urged her. I wanted to pump inside of her, make her mine, drive out any lingering memories of her shithead boyfriend and make her realize what she’d missed all along.

  She spoke my name out loud on a husky breath and squeezed my shoulders with both hands. Yvonne rocked against my fingers and her vocalizations only made me want her more. They were for me. Mine.

  “Oh god don’t stop. Deeper.”

  “Shit. I don’t…” Normally keep a pile of condoms laying around in my bedroom and I didn’t carry them in my pockets either. My days of having cavalier, wild sex with any pretty girl ended around my senior year of college. Casual sex has never been my thing, but I indulged heavily when I moved away from home, eager to meet the expectations of my peers. I wanted to fit in. During my slip with Gloria she had provided the protection.

  “Don’t what? Don’t wanna stop? Good, then don’t.”

  “I don’t have any rubbers, baby. You’re on the shot though, right?”

  “We should probably use a rubber...”

  “C’mon. I’m clean, you know I am.” I twisted my fingers and stroked her insides until Yvonne shuddered around my touch. My thumb flicked her clit, teased the little button, and mercilessly stirred her closer to ecstasy. I finger-fucked her until she cried out and only my name on her lips could have made it better. Eventually, my wet fingers withdrew and traced down her quivering thigh.

  “Come here, baby.” Resistance met my attempt to tug her down.

  “Jake… Jake, no.”

  “No? No what?”

  “You really don’t have a condom?” A backwards step took her out of my reach. It was torture, plain and simple. My rock-hard dick throbbed for the release she denied me. I hadn’t endured a case of blue balls so brutal since high school.

  “I swear I’m clean. I can run downstairs to look for one.” Didn’t she keep a couple in her purse like most girls these days? Maybe it was irresponsible of me, but I had become accustomed to Gloria supplying them.

  “Wait, Jake, okay? Maybe this… this was a bad idea. I don’t want… to make a mistake.” Yvonne secured her panties around her hips again without making eye contact with me. She ducked down quickly to gather her top and hold it over her breasts, too embarrassed to let me see her.

  “Now you’re changing your mind?” I was baffled. “What the fuck, Yvonne?”

  “I’m sorry,” she cried. “But… it’s you and this… We shouldn’t do this, Jake.”

  “Me? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why not?” I wish that her rejection could have soothed the erection jutting from my crotch, but it didn’t. The dull throb continued relentlessly.

  “It’s just… I mean… You’re... you. Jake. We’re fucking friends.” She shook her head and retreated from me. “I don’t know what I was thinking... why I even…” Her breath shuddered out. “Let’s forget this happened. I’m gonna go to bed.”

  “Just like that?” I stared at her incredulously until pride finally took hold. Taking her cue, I looked away from her and shoved my dick back into my boxers first. I zipped up and folded my arms against my chest.

  “This feels like a mistake. I’m sorry.” And just like that, she scurried off to her room. The cracked door was as much of a tease as she was.

  Maybe one day she would realize running away from me was a step in the wrong direction.

  Chapter 4

  Four strikes slammed against the building’s door. I groggily shambled out of bed in my underwear and stepped out into the entry landing. I felt like crap. The cold shower following a bitter jerk-off barely alleviated my needs. My dick still throbbed.

  The sight through the peephole woke me up fast and I yanked open the door. Greg’s hand almost caught me in the face but I moved to the side and he staggered forward.

  “Man, it’s…” I glanced over my shoulder at the old cuckoo clock decorating the entrance foyer. “It’s six in the morning. What do you want?” He reeked of strong liquor, the kind of booze that could substitute for paint thinner. No wonder he’d lost his shit and cuffed Yvonne one, even if it didn’t excuse his barbaric behavior in the slightest.

  Greg barged in past me like he owned the place, stumbling over the door’s threshold. A quick glance out the window confirmed what I already suspected. I didn’t see any sign of Greg’s sporty red Charger.

  “How’d you get here?” I closed the door and hoped the noise didn’t wake anyone.

  “Walked. I crashed at the party a few blocks over… Where’s ‘Vonne?”

  “You sure you wanna talk to her like this, dude?” To top off the rest, he also smelled like weed, as if he’d bathed in the sickly sweet scent all night long prior to guzzling a keg of beer all on his own. “You’re fucking toasted.”

  “The fuck’re you now, dude? Her dad? Where the fuck is she? Is that cunt upstairs?”

  On any other day, I would have told Greg to blow me and sent him packing out of my house. After my night, I lacked the patience to deal with his bullshit.

  An impulsive answer parted from my lips, uttered without actual thought. “She’s downstairs in the crawlspace getting her luggage. Said something about going home for the rest of the weekend. She’s only planning to come back for grad and her pinning ceremony, Then she’s gonna leave with her family again. You know Yvonne. Daddy’s girl.”

  I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have any plans, any big ideas, but I blurted out the first response to come to mind. As far as I knew, Yvonne was in her room. If she knew he was here she would let the bastard inside, fuck his brains out, and forget that anything occurred between us.

  “We were supposed to go back together to Salem. She leaving now?”

  “Looks like it, man.” I smiled, but it didn’t touch my eyes.

  Greg liked to slap his girls around. As far as I knew, he’d gotten into trouble for it and nearly kicked off the team once already last year for knocking around a freshman.

  That’s when the idea flit through my mind. If I wanted Yvonne, if I wanted to ever have a chance -- Greg had to die. I couldn’t stop shy of teaching him a lesson, I had to remove him entirely from the picture. I couldn’t allow her the chance to accept him back into her life after his fuck up.

  It wasn’t the most ridiculous plot that ever came to mind, but it was a close runner up. I couldn’t kill a man, but I sure planned to fuck him up while he was wicked drunk and unable to tell the cops what happened once I finished.

  “Basement’s that way,” I directed him patiently. We kept a lot of stuff in the lower level, including the gym equipment I gradually collected over the months. I clicked the light on at the top of the stairs then we descended into the dim chamber. He didn’t even think to ask why the lights were off. Stupid bastard.

  “Where the fuck is she?”

  I didn’t think; I struck violently at him with a fist to the back of the head. First he screamed profanities at me, and then he stumbled forward into an inelegant face sprawl on the floor. Before he could get to his feet, I kicked him hard in the balls. And I kicked him again. I kicked him for Yvonne and all of the times he humiliated her in public. For all the times I heard him call her a vapid bitch. For all the times he left her high and dry while I had to inconvenience myself to give her a hand. At the end, I kicked him again for me: because he had the woman I wanted.

  “You motherfuck--FUCK!” he screamed when I kicked him a final time.

  Down in this basement, no one could hear us. I’d drop his drunk ass out on the stoop and lock the door again once I finished. Greg was a big guy and my physical superior, but my sober mind and reflexes had the advantag
e. In a fair fight, he would have pounded me into paste. I had no doubt that his pride would never allow him to fess up to the identity of his assailant.

  But this wasn’t a fair fight. This was stone cold vengeance.

  “You fucking fag, when I get off this floor I’m gonna kill you!”

  “When you get off the floor? You could barely walk down the fucking stairs.”

  Greg shambled to his hands and knees, then he lunged at me. I’d underestimated the pain-numbing effect of alcohol, so that was my downfall. The ground jumped up at me.

  “Fucking pussy. I always knew you’d try some shit like this.” He punched me once, his fist a sledgehammer to my face. I blocked the second, but he drove his knuckles into my body instead and crushed all of the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, but I recovered enough to tussle with him on the workout mat.

  I reached for the nearest thing at hand.

  A ten pound barbell I’d bought for Yvonne crashed into Greg’s skull and promptly ended the fight. He jerked once, and then his body became limp weight. I rolled the bastard off of me and to the side.

  Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, I relaxed and savored the moment’s reprieve. I even inhaled a few relieved breaths, aware of how absolutely quiet the basement became. I ignored the explosion of pain in my ribs and sat up for a look at my rival. “Dumb asshole.” Greg didn’t respond. His chest didn’t move either.

  “Shit,” I whispered. I quickly scurried onto my knees and touched two fingers unnecessarily to the side of his neck. Greg didn’t even have a feeble pulse. A finger beneath his nose confirmed a lack of humid air escaping his lungs. I’d hit him too hard, evident by the dark, gooey blood seeping from his open head injury.

  I had a dead man in my basement. “Fuck!” My fingers shook as I ran them through my hair. Darting my gaze around, I tried to think what I needed to do. I had a dead man in my basement. I’d killed.