Page 8 of Rough Ride

“Why not?” she asked, looking around in confusion. Her body was craving release, and the fact that he was depriving her of it made her agitated.

“Because it’s not right,” Kye replied, raking a hand through his hair that had come loose from the ponytail. He looked up at Eliana who was sitting on the edge of the table, hair a mess, eyeliner smeared, bare breasts rising and falling with every breath.

“So let’s go upstairs,” she offered and slid to the floor. She stepped up against him and rose on her toes to kiss him, but he turned his head, not trusting himself to touch her again. Eliana stepped back in shock and scoffed at him as he rejected her. “You’re an asshole,” she snapped. Grabbing her shredded blouse and bra she held it over her chest, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Was what Max said about the scholarship true?” she asked, still trying to gather herself.

“Eli…”

“Was it?” she asked again in a louder voice. Kye only nodded. Eliana was fuming again. She walked up to him, jaw set and eyes narrowed. “Don’t think this means I owe you a damn thing,” she snarled and left the room. Kye heard her stomp up the stairs and a door slam. He groaned as he stuffed his hand down his pants to adjust his position to one that was slightly less painful. Maybe he should have fucked her on the table.

* * *

Eliana was laying on her side when the alarm on her phone chirped the next morning. The sun was just cresting the horizon, but there was enough light to fill the room. When she was a teenager, she’d always loved that her room was eastern facing because the morning light was a cheerful wake-up call, but at this moment Eliana completely hated it.

Her room had remained relatively untouched over the years. Whether that was a good thing or not, she didn’t know. They’d had to leave town with no notice so there were still a few trinkets on her dresser she hadn’t seen in years. The same bathrobe hung on the back of the door, and her end table still housed her old books. The only new addition was the bedding.

Her old comforter was a bright pink and white with matching striped sheets, but this new one was all white with blue sheets that matched the new paint on her walls. The old photographs she’d pinned to the walls and the magazine clippings of lawyers, Harvard memorabilia, and inspirational quotes she’d hung to keep her motivated in school were replaced with generic, hotel looking artwork.

The night before she hadn’t so much as turned the light on to examine anything. She’d faced enough ghosts in one day. Now that the sun was rising she couldn’t ignore the time-capsule she’d slept in. While the rest of the house looked renovated, re-carpeted and painted, this room had been touched up, but she could still see the pink stain under her desk where she’d spilled a bottle of nail polish when she was ten.

Eliana groaned as she rolled onto her back. Her body was tense from the lack of gratification the night before. Letting out an angry sigh, she berated herself for how easily she’d given in to Kye. She’d bucked and pawed and opened her legs for him like a horny teenager. But hadn’t he wanted her too? Or was he just a guy responding to a pathetically desperate and topless woman?

Shivering, Eliana remembered how he’d felt. Despite her sense of humiliation at how he’d ultimately rejected her, she couldn’t deny how if it were up to her, she would have stripped him naked and rode him like a mechanical bull right there on the dining room table. There was something so primal in the way she desired him. Ten years of pent-up sexual tension did that to a girl. Hadn’t Eliana had the same cravings for him in high school after their first kiss? Hell, the first time he’d seen her topless was in this very room.

I guess not much has changed, she mused as she swung her legs out of bed. She froze when she looked down at her bare legs and saw the black apparatus around her ankle. Tugging at it, the monitor was secured in place and the red light was blinking exactly every five seconds. Kye had obviously snuck in her room after she’d fallen asleep and slid it on.

Her indignation rose faster than a fat man’s blood pressure, and she growled as she slammed her suitcase open and dressed. Her yellow bra was destroyed, so she opted for a cream bando under a white v-neck blouse. She spent twenty minutes and burned a few hundred calories trying to get her black skinny jeans over the ankle monitor. Her loud cursing must have alerted someone in the house because she could hear movement downstairs before she finished brushing her hair, freshening her face, and leaving the room.

Eliana could smell coffee brewing even before she got downstairs, and when she entered the kitchen, her eyes immediately landed on the dining room table. Her cheeks turned pink when she saw Kye stooped on the ground sweeping up the broken picture they’d knocked off the wall only hours before.

“Hi,” he said shortly as he stood up with a dustpan in one hand and a broom in the other. Eliana stared blankly at him before turning away and moving to a cabinet to retrieve a mug. She was pouring a cup from the practically brand-new coffee maker when Kye emptied the pan into the garbage under the sink and stood next to her. She made to turn away from him when he gently placed a hand on her arm.

“Yes?” she asked harshly as she looked from his hand to his eyes. He’d obviously showered that morning because his hair was still wet, and he smelled of soap.

“Don’t be mad,” he requested, and Eliana rolled her eyes.

“Why would I be mad?” she asked sarcastically as she set her cup down and placed her hands on her hips. “Why would I be mad, Kye?” she asked again, and he braced for the impending lecture. “Oh, you mean mad because my entire life has been a lie? Mad because when I thought I was finally escaping this town, I find out my entire adult life has been funded by the people who have been wanting to kill me? Mad because I got wrapped up in a sick crime lord’s twisted game, through no fault of my own, and now I have to work off a debt I never personally incurred? Mad because my childhood sweetheart lied to me for the last ten years? Mad because rather than earning a scholarship on my own merit, I was actually the product of a scheme to ensure my law degree could be used to advance a criminal organization that said sweetheart practically runs? Or mad because despite all that, like a pathetic moron, I threw myself at him and actually asked him to fuck me on the dining room table of my childhood home that’s been commandeered for the use of a motorcycle club? Mad? I’m not mad. I’m insane,” she concluded, and Kye rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down at her.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” he tried to console. Eliana scoffed again, and when she turned away from him, he wrapped an arm around her midsection. She tried to pull away from him, but his grip was too tight. “You’re not a moron,” Kye said gently in her ear, and she stilled. Taking the cue, he slowly turned her around to face him. Her expression was unreadable, but she was clearly listening to him. “Eli, it’s not that I didn’t want you or that I don’t want you,” he corrected, “but I’m not going to have you like some hookup. I promised you once that if we were going to be together, I’d do it right. Make it special. I’m not going back on that now.”

“That’s not up to you, Kye,” Eliana said, backing up. “You don’t get to decide the wheres, whens, and hows of every detail in my life. If you want me, then you can either have me as I am or not at all. I’m not some dainty princess who wants to be coddled on a bed of rose petals,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You don’t get to decide what makes something special. In fact, from here on out, you don’t get to decide anything for me ever again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry you feel lied to and that you’re caught in this. I get it if you don’t believe me, but I was trying to shelter you from this. I’ve been climbing the ranks, waiting for Max to be out, in order to suspend the contract on you and your dad. I never forgot about you or what you meant to me… what you still mean to me.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” Eliana muttered and took up her mug again before sipping the black liquid. The brief silence was interrupted when her phone chimed.

“What was that?” Kye asked, and Eliana pulled the device from her back pocket. “Give me that!” Kye said as he snatched it from her hand.

“Kye!” she protested and reached for it. “What do you think I’m going to do? Call the police? My guess is, Max owns every cop in this town.”

“You’re not wrong,” Kye admitted. “We’ve had county sheriffs on the payroll for six years now…”

“Exactly,” Eliana continued. “In the meantime, I still have a job back home. One that was expecting me in the office an hour ago. Now, either you let me call in and tell them I’m going to cash in my bereavement leave and likely vacation time, or my boss is going to know I’m missing. Want to know how fast a law firm of nosy and concerned lawyers can track someone down?” Eliana held her hand out expectantly. Kye hesitated before handing it back to her.

“Fine, but no one else. Don’t bring anyone else into this, for their sake as well as yours,” Kye cautioned. Eliana took the phone and quickly punched in a text to her boss, Jason Nelson of Nelson, Watford, and Shier. Knowing the older man was very fond of her, she didn’t anticipate any problems taking the time off; although she wouldn’t have minded if he sent the troops out looking for her. “What now?” Kye asked as she tucked the phone into her pocket and sat at the table.

“Now,” Eliana began as she set her mug down and began pulling the first box in front of her, “you’re going to make breakfast and I’m going to get to work. The sooner I do, the sooner this nightmare is over, right?”

“Right,” Kye agreed, and he opened the refrigerator at the same time she opened the lid to the box.