15
Wisps of the rising sun wafted into the kitchen just as Linc finished filling a white plate full of colorful, bite-sized foods. Baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, celery, and thin slices of pita bread surrounded the plate with a small bowl of hummus in the middle. He seized the plate from the countertop, the slick porcelain nearly slipping from his grip when he grabbed the glass of water sitting next to it as well. With his free hand, he snatched the yellow stuffed bear he’d carried downstairs with him off the counter as well, before making his way out of the kitchen.
The sing-song chirp of birds in the woodland outside followed him all the way up the stairs, down the hallway, and into the only room in the house that didn’t have a window. He hesitated in the doorway, looking upon Mia’s sleeping face. Her ankles and wrists were still bound to the bed, making for what was surely an uncomfortable sleep, but with her head cocked against the arm she had locked over her head, using the crook in her shoulder as a pillow, cheek smashed, Linc couldn’t deny that she looked pretty damned comfortable. Knocked the hell out, in fact, with dried mascara caking her eyes and lips heavily puckered.
He made his way across the room and deposited the plate, the water, and the yellow stuffed bear onto the bedside table before pulling the folding chair to the edge of the bed. As he sat, his eyes narrowed to Mia’s gold dress, still pooled on the floor. Something moved him out of the chair and toward the dress.
When he bent down and picked it up, her perfume wafted off the fabric, invading his nostrils with a scent he’d already associated with her. A scent that already felt familiar. A scent that—if he ever smelled it again in his lifetime—would immediately rocket him back to that house. That minute. That second.
He was snapped away from the maddening aroma, however, when a folded piece of white paper came tumbling out of the long gown and landed on the floor. He cringed before lifting the gown up high, studying the slinky fabric, wondering where the hell she’d managed to hide a piece of paper in that tight ass dress all night. With a shrug, he slung the dress over the footboard of the bed, next to Mia’s feet—still twitching in her sleep—before bending down to seize the paper.
When he unfolded it, his heart ground to a halt.
The colorful drawing of two stick figure women had been produced in scribbled crayon, with the lack of finesse and clumsy skill that could only come from a child. He ran the bed of his thumb over the two figures in the picture, a tall black woman and a young white girl with big blonde curls. They held hands in the grass, smiling under the rays of a sun that smiled too.
Linc couldn’t help smiling back. Not because everyone else in the photo was smiling, but because he knew Emma had drawn this picture. He knew she’d drawn it because of the rose garden she’d added in the far corner of the picture. The garden he knew she could see from her barred window at the top floor of the Ali estate. He smiled even as emotion burned his eyes. Even as a wave of relief rushed over him. Relief that his daughter was still capable of drawing herself with a smile on her face. That, regardless of her terrible circumstances, she still believed happiness existed. That it wasn’t beyond her reach.
Sucking in a breath, Linc looked up at the bed, at Mia, who, he could only assume was the woman standing opposite Emma in that picture. A picture that showcased nothing but hope and partnership.
Nothing but love.
Did his daughter love Mia?
The question— the faintest possibility that the answer could be yes—moved Linc across the room. As he sat in the chair next to the bed, laying the picture on the bedside table, he couldn’t deny the fact that Mia had found a way to battle ram that drawing into the tightest dress on Earth. That it had meant enough to her to carry it all night long.
Did Mia love his daughter?
Had he been wrong about her all along?
He didn’t even feel his eyes softening as they ran her sleeping face—didn’t even realize he was staring—until her eyes suddenly fluttered open and she was looking right at him.
He sucked in a breath and sat tall, pressing his lips together while breaking his eyes away, looking toward the bedside table. As she moaned and rustled, struggling to wake up, he grabbed the glass of water from the bedside table.
The moment Mia caught sight of that water, the struggle to awaken died a rapid death and her eyes bulged wide. Chest heaving, her mouth popped open, eyes locked to the glass, the tip of her tongue laying itself on her bottom lip like a cartoon character.
He smirked at the sight, leaning forward in his chair, nearly laughing when she almost broke her neck to crane her head toward the straw he was guiding toward her lips.
“Could’ve had something to drink last night,” he chided, unable to stop his gaze from falling to her lips as she locked them desperately around the straw. Her throat bobbed as she chugged mercilessly, the music of her gulps rising into the quiet room and filling it to the hilt. “But, nah. You wanted to be thirsty. Wanted to spit it back in my face.”
Her eyes slammed closed, unwilling or unable to relinquish that straw to respond to his ‘I told you so’, even though she was surely annoyed.
“Slow down,” he laughed breathily. “Relax. It’s not going anywhere, a’ight? You can have as much as you want.”
She exhaled and heeded his words, her eyes fluttering open and meeting his, even as she continued drinking, very close to emptying the glass.
His fingers itched to reach out and push her hair away from her face—to smooth the strands that had become wild and disheveled from sleep. He fought away the urge as she emptied the glass of water, sending furious slurps rising into the air as she attempted to suck up every drop.
He pulled at the straw.
Her cheeks sank into suction cups, tightening her lips around the straw, still slurping, forcing him to yank the straw with more muscle just to free it from the tight seal of her lips.
Strong jaw. He fought his thoughts away, along with the lewd place they were bound to take him to.
Mia whined as he took the straw from her, her lips still wide open as she craned her neck for more of the water she’d already demolished.
“It’s empty,” he said, hissing out another laugh before picking up the plate. “I’ll get you some more, but you need to eat. You must be starving.”
Her chest still heaved under the gray sweatshirt as her eyes fell upon the plate he lifted from the bedside table. The way her eyes lit up illustrated that the water she’d just been begging for was now but a distant memory.
“You like hummus?” he asked softly, dipping a piece of pita bread that he’d cut into bite sized quarters into the hummus, smirking when she nodded furiously at his question, opening her mouth wide as he guided the hummus-laded bread to her lips.
Her rapid breathing wafted into his ears as he placed the bread onto the tip of her tongue, ready for her to prove that she’d learned nothing from the night before when she’d spit that water back in his face. Waiting for her to snap her teeth and attempt to bite his finger off, ensuring that she didn’t have anything to eat or drink for the rest of the day. Until he finally returned her to her husband.
His stomach turned. Not just at the thought of handing her back over to Malik, but at the sight of her, not biting him, but leaning in, her eyes locked to his, and wetting the tips of his fingers with her soft tongue.
His breath got trapped in his throat as she locked her lips around his fingers, seizing the bread before pulling back, her lips leaving his fingers with a smack.
Her eyes fell closed the moment the flavor of the bread and hummus hit her tongue, a deep belly-moan fluttering from her flared nostrils, crossing the small space between them, and entering Linc’s body. He swallowed back his own moan as he watched her, the softness of her tongue still fresh in his mind and still tingling on his fingers. As if they were still in her mouth. Still trapped under the tightness of her lips. Encased in them like a vise.
The roughness of his denim jeans scratched at his dick as it grew rock hard.
When she opened her eyes, still chewing, and let her hooded gaze drop to his zipper, seeing for herself what he felt taking over his entire body, he only grew more erect. Every inch of blood in his body charged to his dick as he watched her watching him. Growing larger by the moment until the bulge under his jeans had spread nearly halfway down the inside of his thigh.
She lifted her eyes back up to his.
He held her gaze as he seized a cherry tomato from the plate and guided it to her lips. He set it on the tip of her tongue, but she craned her neck forward, much farther forward that necessary, holding his eyes as she encircled his fingers in her lips once more. Another sharp breath lifted her chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to the flavor of the tomato… or of him. She moaned, making the wet walls of her mouth vibrate against his skin.
A frown darkened his face as that vibration moved through his hand and shot all the way down his body, causing his muscles to lose all tension.
He licked his lips.
Mia trapped his fingers with her tongue, pressing them to the roof of her mouth and then dragging her lips away, letting him feel every inch of suction between her strong tongue and the velvety warmth on the roof of her mouth before releasing his fingers completely. The tips of his trembling digits lingered on her bottom lip, however, caressing it for a moment longer before finally falling away.
She bit down on the cherry tomato, and the flavor caused her eyes to fall closed once more. Another deep moan collapsed her chest.
Linc watched her chew, picturing that tomato exploding in her mouth.
“It’s good?” His voice came scratchier, more gravelly than it had been a moment earlier—eyes still locked her lips.
She opened her eyes with a satiated frown, nodding softly with a hearty exhale.
“More?” he whispered.
She nodded again, her mouth popping back open.
His heart felt as big as his body. As if it were pounding under every inch of his skin and not just his aching ribcage. As if it were working overtime to shatter his every bone. To burst free from his tingling skin. A warm wave rolled over him as he imagined her tongue touching his skin again, making every nerve ending in his body prickle like Pop Rocks, begging for a touch of her sweet mouth. Her sweet tongue.
He cleared his throat, even as his body begged, and seized the longest carrot stick on the plate. He guided it to her mouth, just close enough for her to wrap her lips around vegetable but not around his fingers. A crunch filled the room as her teeth bared down on the carrot, taking half of it into her mouth.
Linc popped the other half of the carrot between his own lips, the crunch of his teeth around the veggie joining in with hers and making music in the room. They took a deep breath together when the carrot’s sweetness hit both their tongues, eyes remaining locked as they chewed.
Mia smiled at him.
His eyes fell to her lips, but instead of smiling back, he cleared his throat and broke his eyes away, looking down at the plate, at the picture Emma had drawn on the nightstand—at anything but her.
Anything but that smile.
The first smile she’d ever given him.
“Get a little food in her, and she transforms into an angel. For a twenty-eight-year-old, you’re hard-headed as fuck. You know that?” He cut his eyes at her. “No reason you had to go hungry for this long.”
She cleared her own throat, and for the first time that morning, her voice came, still a little hoarse from sleep. “You sound guilty.”
A stunned look crossed his face.
She squinted at him, the smile on her face growing amused. “You won’t kill me. You won’t fuck me. You barely speak to me.” Her squint deepened. “What… are you?”
He almost told her.
He almost told her that he was the father of the girl who’d drawn the picture sitting on the bedside table. That he’d barely spoken to her because there was no reason to speak to someone he was only using to get his daughter back. That, no, he wouldn’t be killing her or fucking her.
Because tonight they’d be saying goodbye.