“She’s that pretty, is she?” Grim asks, skeptically. Although, it’s easy to see his interest has been piqued. “Maybe we should at least have a look-see, Beat Down?”
“No. Let’s finish this and leave.”
But I make no move to lift the knife again. What does my victim mean when he says he has to “keep her downstairs”? Is she locked up or something? My stomach gurgles over the possibility of that. It’s one thing to hurt men who make promises they can’t keep and get in over their heads. A woman who did none of the stealing from Frank doesn’t deserve any of the punishment. If I kill her father and leave here…and she is, in fact, trapped in the basement, she could starve to death. Apparently I’m not numb enough to let that happen.
“Stay here,” I growl at Grim, shoving the knife into his hand.
“Let me know if she’s worth a look,” calls my associate after me as I stride to the back of the shack, throwing open two doors before finding the stairs leading to the basement. I duck down under the frame and descend into the near darkness, the stairs groaning in protest of my weight. “Hello?” I rumble. “Is someone down here?”
There’s a scraping sound and then a tentative, “Yes.”
That whispering voice, that single word, plows straight into my chest. The air locks tight around me, seizing my muscles and I can hear my pulse firing, booming in my ears. Have I been drugged? What is going on here? My feet move by themselves, carrying me down the rest of the staircase, eager to find the owner of that voice. I haven’t been to church since I was a boy, but that word—yes—was like the opening notes of “Amazing Grace.” I’m teeming with anticipation. And hunger. I’m getting hard and I haven’t even seen her yet.
“Where are you?”
“Over in the corner.” A rattle of chains. The sound is like hands wrapping around my throat. “C-can you please let me out, sir? The key is hanging on a nail by the boiler.”
My vision doubles thanks to the sheer enormity of blood rushing to my cock. I’m ashamed of myself. I’ve just found a woman—young, by the sound of her—chained in a basement and I’m aroused. This never happens to me. I don’t let myself get erect for women. If there is ever one around, in the store or on the street, I keep my gaze on the ground so I don’t scare them. I don’t look at the opposite sex. Ever. No point in wanting something I can never have as a big, ugly son of a bitch.
But this girl…somehow I know if we crossed paths in town, I would look. I would fall to my knees and look. I would beg her to speak, so I could hear her voice.
Breath rattling in my lungs, I slide the key off its nail and cut through the dim basement, my heart pounding with more insistence the closer I come. Needing desperately to see her face, I take my phone out of my pocket and open the flashlight, slowly letting the beam illuminate her.
The moment I see her face, I drop the phone.
No.
Jesus. There is no way she’s real.
She’s nothing short of an angel. Delicate, hair the color of sunlight, golden eyes. No, all of her is golden. Glowing and soft and young. Oh God, so young. Not a day over eighteen or nineteen if I’m not mistaken. What the hell am I going to do?
Every once in a while, the pressure in my balls gets too intense and I have to beat off in the shower of my apartment. I never picture anything or anyone. I don’t need to. A few strokes of my oversized fist and my spend spews everywhere, the misery in my stomach finally abating in a way that’s worth the mess I have to clean up.
From this day forward, I’ll never see anything but her mouth.
Thought of those bee-stung lips might plague me so often, I won’t be able to leave the house or sleep or do my job. I have the shameful urge to unzip my pants and rub my hard cock side to side against that mouth. To watch the white milk come out and drip off her tongue.
“Please, sir? Can you unlock the shackles?”
My God, how long have I been standing here, stupefied by one little peek at her face?
Horrified at myself, I fumble for the key and kneel down, feeling for the shackle. Along the way, my hands graze her soft legs and I start to pant. I’m a bad man. I’m a nightmare for a lot of people. But I’m not a man who throws a young woman down on her back in a filthy basement and ruts her without permission. No, that would push me over the line from unredeemable to full-on monster. If she’s locked up in the basement with my victim for a father, she’s been through terrible times. Terrible. I won’t be another one for her.
Somehow, even though my hands are shaking, I manage to get the padlock sprung open and she sobs as the chains fall away.
And then…
She throws herself into my arms. Wraps her legs around my waist, face buried in my neck. “Thank you.” She scoots closer and for the first time in my life, I feel the press of warm pussy in my lap. That tiniest hint of friction causes my mouth to fall open, no sound coming out. Oh my God. How did this little angel end up in my arms? Am I having a dream? “Please, please. Take me away from here. Don’t let him lock me up again.”
Reality drops like a curtain.
Her father has been keeping her down here like a prisoner.
She’s scared.
“Never,” I growl, standing up with the girl clinging to me. “You’re safe now. And I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“No,” she whispers, take hold of the sides of my face. All I can do is stand there, swaying, totally arrested by the sensation of her breath on my mouth. Can’t she feel the shape of my dick? Why isn’t she terrified? I’d rip this tiny girl in two. “No, you’re not going to kill him. That’s not you. You’re a good man.”
I swallow, dread pooling in my belly. “Have you mistaken me for someone else, girl?”
“No.” She scrubs her fingertips through my beard stubble. Did her thighs just squeeze my waist. Oh fuck. I’m so hard, I can’t breathe. “I know who you are,” she says softly into my ear. “You’re my rescuer.”
“Yes,” I blurt raggedly. “I’m anything you want.”
Her face nuzzles itself into my neck. “What is your name?”
“Benny.” I wish I had a better name. Something more worth of a girl this perfect and sweet and angelic. Something like Francisco or Lancelot. “Benny O’Casey.”
“Hello, Benny. I’m Fawn.” Her fingers slide up into my hair and electricity flares in my bloodstream, my balls tightening painfully. “I belong to you now.”
Even as I ache like hell to believe those incredible, unbelievable words, I know there has to be some mistake. She hasn’t seen me in the light yet. I shined the flashlight at her, but not at myself. As soon as we’re upstairs, she is going to scream and possibly faint at the sight of me. I’ve only held her in my arms for a minute, yet her horror at my appearance is going to rip the heart straight out of my chest.
I better get it over with now.
Before I start to think of her as mine.
It’s too late.
With a mounting dense of doom, I carry the angel toward the stairs, feeling as though I’m a pallbearer at my own funeral. I should count myself lucky for having the privilege of holding her for even a minute, though.