Into The Fire

“Kitten’s got claws,” he murmured. “Open your mouth when I kiss you.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Tough. You’re playing with grown-ups now. This is how we do it in the big leagues.” He pushed her back against the seat and forced her mouth open before she could come up with another protest. He kissed her, using his tongue, slowly, thoroughly, and she felt a heat begin to pool in her stomach, radiating outward. Dillon Gaynor definitely knew how to kiss. What had been wet and sloppy with Jimmy was slow and mesmerizing with Dillon. She hadn’t even realized he’d released her hand, and she was slowly caressing the warm skin of his stomach, until she felt his hand on the waist of her jeans, heard the rasp of her zipper as his hand slipped inside.

She panicked. It didn’t do her any good, he was too strong for her. His mouth silenced any protest, his body pressing against hers kept her from escaping, and his hands, his fingers, slid beneath her plain cotton panties to touch her.

She had the strength to wrench her mouth away from his. “Stop it,” she whispered. “Let me go.” She could have screamed, maybe. But she didn’t want to.

He pushed her face against his shoulder, his mouth by her ear, and he took a small, wicked bite of her earlobe. “Just relax,” he said. “Consider this a graduation present.”

“But I didn’t graduate,” she murmured in a dazed voice.

“You’re about to.”

One of her hands was trapped beneath their bodies, but she wrenched the other free to grab his shoulder and try to push him away. He didn’t budge.

“Close your eyes, baby girl,” he whispered. “I’m about to show you a very good time.”

There was nothing she could do to stop him—he was too strong, too determined, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He pushed his fingers inside her, and she wanted to die of shame. And he was rubbing her, using his thumb, and she knew what he was trying to do, but she couldn’t even do it on her own, much less with a stranger touching her, inside her, rubbing her until she moaned.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he whispered. “That’s what I want to hear from you. Just a little bit louder.”

She bit her lip to keep from making any sound, but it didn’t do any good. She felt a spasm of reaction wash over her, and she shivered, her voice choked.

“Better,” he murmured. “But I think I want to make you cry.”

“Dillon,” she said in a cracked voice. Begged, though she wasn’t sure what she was begging for.

But Dillon knew. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, how to make her shiver and teeter on the very precipice, and then draw back, only to bring her forward again, stronger than ever, and she wanted to weep.

“Come on, baby girl,” he whispered in her ear. “Let go. Stop fighting me, stop fighting it. Come for me.”

She didn’t have any choice. It washed over her like an explosive force, as her body arched, rigid, and she wanted to scream, to cry, to make it stop, to make it last forever. It was too powerful, too overwhelming, and she let out a low, keening cry that he swallowed with his mouth, keeping her silent as he prolonged her orgasm past human endurance.

And then she collapsed beneath him, in a boneless, quivering heap, lying against his strong body in the front seat of the old Caddy, shaken and tearful.

He pulled his hand free and fastened her jeans again, pulling up the zipper and snapping the snap with experienced ease. Her face was wet with tears, but at least it was too dark for him to see, until she felt his fingers wiping them away in the darkness.

“What’s going on in there?” Nate’s slurred voice rang out in the darkness. “Are you corrupting my little cousin, Killer?”

“Of course not,” he said in a lazy voice, pushing her down on the seat, out of sight. “I tried to talk her into it but she’s too prim and proper. She just got tired of waiting for you and Rachel.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Nate said in a careless voice. She couldn’t see anything from her vantage point on the cracked leather seat of the old Caddy, but it sounded as if it was just as well. Nate and his girlfriend climbed into the back seat, and she could smell the sickly sweet scent of marijuana permeating the air, mixing with the smell of liquor. Not the beer that Dillon had been drinking, something stronger.

“Drive on, Jeeves!” Nate ordered in a lordly manner.

Without a word Dillon started the car, the headlights spearing the darkness. It had to be late—the sky stayed light till almost ten that time of year. Would her parents wonder where she was when they got back from their cocktail party? No, they’d assume she was at the prom, safe in the care of a good boy who’d look out for her and keep her safe.

But that good boy had dumped her. And even her beloved Nate was doing a piss-poor job of seeing to her welfare, leaving her in the hands of a…a…she couldn’t even think of the word for Dillon.

She tried to sit up, but Dillon simply put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her down again. “You need your rest,” he said, pushing her head down to rest on one hard thigh. She couldn’t have sat up if she tried, but then she heard the telltale sounds from the back seat and realized that Nate and his girlfriend were doing more than necking. And she definitely didn’t want to be seeing that.

She stopped resisting, letting her head fall against the soft denim that covered Dillon’s leg. “That’s right,” he murmured, so quietly that the two in the back couldn’t hear him. Not that they were paying attention. “Just stay put and you won’t see anything you don’t want to see.”

Dillon had pulled out of the parking area and was driving down the tree-shrouded back road, fast, with one hand holding the steering wheel, the other draped casually on her shoulder. He was stroking her, absentmindedly, she assumed, his long fingers brushing against her arm, trailing up the side of her neck to brush her hair away. She had no illusions that he’d let her sit up—every time she tried he simply exerted enough pressure to keep her down. She gave up fighting, letting out her breath and letting her head rest on his thigh.

“That’s better,” he said, softly enough that the words were torn away by the wind rushing past them. And she closed her eyes, breathing in the night air, the smell of beer and denim and spring flowers. The scent of her on his hand as he slowly stroked her neck.

She almost fell asleep. She could hear the noises from the back seat, but she didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about what Dillon had done to her. Didn’t want think about anything but the quiet sense of calm that surrounded her as Dillon stroked her neck.

She heard the music first, echoing through the woods, loud and insistent. Dillon pulled the car to a stop, and this time when she tried to sit up he let her, let her scurry over to the far side of the car, while he showed nothing more than a faint smile.

At least Nate and his friend had resurfaced, flushed, half dressed, but finished with whatever they were doing. Nate scrambled out of the car, leaving his girlfriend to follow after him, but he paused to give Jamie a hand. A good thing, too, because her legs were still shaky. People surged around them, all of them strangers, most of them drunk or stoned, and she turned back to look for Dillon.

He already had his tongue down the throat of some girl who’d plastered herself against him. Except that he was holding on to her, holding her hips against his, and she’d already managed to unfasten the final buttons of his shirt. The shirt he’d unbuttoned for her.

She knew she hadn’t made a sound, but he broke the kiss for a moment, turning back to glance at Jamie. She couldn’t read his expression, and she knew she must have looked totally pathetic. “Hey, Pauly,” he said to somebody standing nearby. “Nate brought his little sister along. Look after her, will you?”

She didn’t even bother to correct him. Nate had already disappeared into the crowd, and Dillon had his hand on the huge breast of the girl who’d greeted him so enthusiastically. Totally forgetting about her.

“Hey, there, Jamie.” And she realized with a shock who Pauly was. Paul Jameson, quarterback of the football team, president of the student council, tall, gorgeous, every girl’s dream. He was slightly drunk, and his dark hair was flopped over his forehead in an endearing tangle. “Wanna drink?” He had a bottle of tequila in his hand.

She looked back toward Dillon, but he’d disappeared, without a backward glance. “Sure,” she said. And he handed her the bottle.

Jamie wasn’t accomplishing a goddamned thing, remembering that night. She’d put it out of her mind long ago, with a combination of determination, a good therapist and the judicious use of tranquilizers. Whenever the memories hit her she usually just popped a pill and the clawing anxiety would pass.

But the pills were in her purse, and her purse was gone. And the couldn’t spend the day in her room, hiding.

She sat up, then froze in horror. The door was open, and Dillon was standing in the darkened hallway, watching her, that same unreadable expression on his face. He was so different from the boy in the Cadillac all those years ago. He was exactly the same.

“Someone took my purse,” she said.

He looked neither surprised nor shocked. “Did you leave it in the car?”

“No. I brought it up here. Someone came into my room and took it.” She wasn’t certain of her ability to get to her feet with complete grace, so she stayed where she was, sitting on the thin mattress.

“And you think it was me? Not likely, sweetheart. I have no particular interest in keeping you around here, and the lack of your purse is going to slow your departure considerably. I know you like to blame me for everything that’s ever gone wrong in your and Nate’s life, but this time I’m innocent.”

“For some reason the very notion of you being innocent of anything is beyond my comprehension. And don’t call me sweetheart!” There was no question that Dillon brought out the worst in her. She’d spent her life trying to be compassionate, calm and forgiving, and Dillon made her shake with anger.

“What do you prefer I call you? Baby girl?”

It was like a punch in the stomach. He hadn’t forgotten that night. She didn’t even have that small comfort. At least he’d been too out of it to remember details.

She ignored it. “So if you didn’t take my purse, who did? The dead rat? Nate’s ghost?”

“You never can tell.” He made no effort to come into the room, but it was little comfort. He still loomed over her, and she decided it was better to scramble to her feet and risk looking clumsy than to keep staring up at him from such a subservient position. She knew enough about body language and politics to know this was only making her sense of powerlessness worse.