The little I could see was all blurry and rushing in circles, like I was inside a washing machine on full spin. Sweat covered my skin. My mouth watered.
I was going to throw up.
“Take some deep breaths. It will get better,” he said.
I leaned back into what must have been the headboard and sucked in mouthfuls of air before blowing it out through my nose and inhaling more. I knew the voice that kept speaking to me. Even though it had changed over the years, it was a voice I would never forget. It was deeper now. Sexier. I just didn’t understand how he was able to talk to me in person. I had a flight to take me back to Tampa early this morning, and there was no reason I shouldn’t be on it.
Maybe I was on it, and he’d decided to come with me. Maybe the spinning in my head was really turbulence. But then, why didn’t I remember checking in at the airport?
“Tell me we’re on the plane.”
“We’re not.”
“Tell me I didn’t miss my flight.”
“You missed it.”
“Shit.”
Still covering my eyes, I tucked my head between my knees and tried to take more deep breaths. “Was I that drunk?” My stomach churned. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to talk about what I drank. It hurts too much.”
“We were both pretty drunk.”
I remembered both of us drinking. I remembered ordering more drinks. I didn’t remember much else besides…him kissing me. It was a little cloudy, but I could visualize the hallway we were in. My back was against one of the walls. His hands were around my throat, and there was tongue and biting and moaning.
Lots of moaning.
Had we done more? I reached down and rubbed my thighs. I was wearing pants. They felt like the same ones I’d worn to the funeral. I wiggled my butt and felt the pull from my panties. My shirt and bra were on.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t been naked at some point.
I sucked in the walls of my pussy, trying to feel for that familiar tenderness that was usually there the day after I had sex.
“We didn’t fuck.”
How did he know what I was thinking?
“If I’d fucked you, Kyle, you wouldn’t have to try to remember it. It would be the only thing you’d be thinking about.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to dull some of the pounding. “A little conceited, aren’t you?”
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since I was fifteen years old. If I got the chance to finally be inside you, I would have fifteen years of making up to do. And it would be something you would never, ever forget. So, no, I’m not conceited. I just know what I’m capable of and how I’d want to make you feel.”
I didn’t care how much it hurt or how badly everything inside my head was spinning, I had to see the expression on his face. So, I spread my fingers slowly, letting in a little light at a time.
The sweat on my skin was starting to dry, and the dampness in the air was hitting me now.
“Why do you have the air-conditioning on?” I asked. “It’s freezing in here.”
“The air isn’t on.”
I had one eye open, focusing on him, while I gradually opened the other. Everything was hurting even worse now that I could see, but that didn’t take away from his gorgeous face. A face with long scruff and messy hair that was leaning against a wall.
A wall…not a headboard.
And beneath him was a cement floor that was the color of dirt.
“Where are we?” I asked, slowly peeking around the room.
There was a toilet just to my left with a pedestal sink, both made of rusty metal. A bottle of soap and a tube of toothpaste lay on the sink. The door across from us had a square cutout in the center, filled with thick rusty bars. On the next wall was a rectangular window directly under the ceiling.
No color, no tile, no paint. Just metal, rust, and dirty cement.
“Is this your bathroom?” I asked although he still hadn’t answered my first question.
My bathroom in The Heart was nicer than the one in Garin’s hotel, which seemed really odd.
He shook his head. “No.”
Why was I so cold?
“Then, where are we, Garin?”
“From what I’ve been able to piece together, I think we’ve been taken.”
“Taken? Taken where?” Everything inside me was suddenly shaking, including my voice. The sweat was back; the churning had returned. The whole room was spinning.
“The guy who