The Love Trap by Nicole French

13

2009

We toppled into my apartment, a writhing mass of arms and legs and mouths, our voices punctuating the dark through hot breaths and torrid kisses.

“Is Skylar here?” Eric heaved.

I barely managed to lock the door before I was shoved against it. “She’s in New York.”

Eric’s teeth found my neck with a sharp bite. I jumped, but he just held me tighter, his front pressed against my back, cock pressed against the curve of my ass.

“You’re such a vampire,” I teased when he nipped me again. “Ah!”

“Fair enough. I’d probably eat you alive if I could.” His teeth scraped over my pulse. “You are pretty fucking addictive, gorgeous.”

Before I could respond, I was flipped around, back to the door. With a movement that belied arms stronger than they looked, Eric picked me up and wrapped my legs around his hips.

“Not wasting any time, are you?” I asked playfully as he carried me into my bedroom. “Ahh!” I shrieked as he tossed me onto the bed.

“Get undressed,” he ordered. “You’ve made me wait long enough tonight. Do you know how hard I was, watching you dance?”

I raised an eyebrow as I rolled off the other side of the bed and stood up. “Come off it. I’m a terrible dancer.”

“You’re very…vigorous. And you sweat enough that your shirt was practically transparent by the end of the stupid concert.”

I looked down. Shit. He wasn’t wrong.

“Jane,” Eric said. “Take off your fucking clothes.”

For once in my life, I did as I was told, yanking off my boots, jeans, ripped t-shirt, tripping over things when I caught a look at him also hurrying out of his own garments. God, he was beautiful. Long, lean, fully formed. Not gangly like so many men my age, nor stacked with unnecessary muscle or bulk. He was…perfect. With one particularly perfect appendage that I couldn’t help but crave as he removed the last of his clothing.

Eric noticed me ogling, and with a smirk, pushed his hair back from his face. “You have a condom?”

I sucked on my lower lip as I knelt on the bed. “How about a box? You know I’m always prepared, Petri dish.”

He rolled his eyes, then crawled across the mattress toward me. “Don’t remind me.”

“Do you need to double up?” I teased even as my hands naturally found his waist. His erection slid between my legs, hard and as ready as I was. Lord, it would be so easy for him just to slip in with nothing at all.

For my impertinence, I received a sharp pinch at the waist.

“Enough of that,” Eric ordered as he delivered a light swat on my ass. “Right now it’s time for some retribution.”

“Retribution? For what, pray tell?”

Another nip at my shoulder. Another sharp suck on my neck.

“For making me wait. Where’s the condom?”

I reached over to my nightstand and procured said condom, which Eric promptly rolled over his cock. Roughly, he shoved me to the bed, then arranged my legs around his waist so that the tip of him just teased my entrance. I arched my hips toward him, not willing to wait any more than he wanted to.

But his hands kept my thighs in place with an iron grip. Once I gave up the fight, one slid up my stomach between my breasts. His fingers spread wide across my chest, sliding up my skin gradually until they encircled the base of my throat. Eric looked me over, like a hunter appraising his kill. His cock twitched, just barely teasing me. I moaned.

He slid inside, maybe an inch, maybe less. The hand around my throat tightened.

“Have you ever used a safe word, Jane?” Eric asked. All humor had disappeared from his face, his tone. His eyes were sharp with desire…and something else. Something slightly dangerous. Something that called to my bones.

I stilled. I was young, but not completely ignorant. After playing it pretty damn safe through high school, I had gone a little nuts, exploring the sides of my identity that would have horrified my mother and gravely disappointed my genial-to-a-fault father. Chicago was a big pool to swim in. There were so many fish. Band members, TAs, frat boys, football players. They all had a little something different to offer. And they were usually more than willing to let me take what I needed and move on.

Safe words, though? They hadn’t really been a part of those…fishing expeditions.

“Have—have you?” I asked.

I had heard about situations like this. Dominants. Submissives. Secret underground lairs where men and women explored their kinks and penchants for leather and chaps safely. But hearing and seeing weren’t the same thing. And seeing and experiencing were miles apart.

Eric was suddenly guarded. “No. I haven’t been with anyone who’s…inspired them.”

What did that mean? Not for the first time, I wondered just how experienced Eric really was. He had moves that no man under the age of forty really should know.

I cleared my throat. His hand fell away. He sat back up suddenly, palms up on his knees in a strangely meditative posture.

“What if I told you that when I’m with you, I think about shit that has never crossed my mind before. Not with anyone.” He exhaled sharply. “It makes me…distracted.”

I swallowed and eyed him back, wondering if I should just come clean. What would Eric, this clean-cut image of perfection, say if I told him I imagined him tying me up on the floor and leaving me there, just to show me he could? That more than once I’d pleasured myself in the shower or late at night with thoughts of his hand pinking my thighs, fingernails scraping lines down my shoulder, or palm delivering a harsh slap across my face? That I’d spent more time recently perusing whips and floggers on a sex toy website than studying for our upcoming final exams?

Distracted. Yeah. He wasn’t the only one having unfamiliar fantasies.

Eric leaned in so that his nose touched mine. His hand returned to my throat. He was caging me completely—assuming complete and utter control.

“I’m becoming a man obsessed.” His voice rumbled against my skin, low, and sounding much older than his twenty-three-ish years.

“Is that healthy?” I wondered, though my voice was growing weak all over again.

“Is it healthy to deny yourself a basic need?” he asked. “That’s what it’s starting to feel like. What you are starting to feel like.”

I swallowed again, this time with more difficulty. My hands were in his hair now, gripping tightly. Whether I was keeping his mouth close or holding him away, I wasn’t completely sure. But I wanted…oh, God, I wanted more.

“I think…” he said as his fingers returned to my neck, pads pressing into my skin as if testing their imprints, one at a time. “If you’re willing…we should try it.”

“A safe word?” I asked. “What are you planning to do that would require me to have one?”

He inhaled, like a predator finding his prey after days on the hunt, but still holding off the impulse to simply dive into the feed. “I’m not sure yet. But you can trust me. Just…look, you let me do…whatever I’m going to do…and if you don’t like it, you say the word. And I stop. No questions asked.” He pulled back once more, the quick movement making his blond hair flop boyishly across his forehead. His eyes were suddenly earnest. “Call it a new beginning. Isn’t that what tonight is?”

I considered the tickets. The book. The fact that he had been waiting there for me, waiting to adore me in front of everyone we knew and everyone we didn’t.

Maybe he was for real.

Maybe people like me could find happy endings.

Or one. With him.

I tipped my face up and licked his lips. Eric growled again, and his other hand tightened on my thigh.

“What’s the word, pretty girl?”

I smirked. “Erie.”

He frowned, and I almost started laughing.

“As in scary?”

I shook my head, chuckling. “As in the lake. My folks like to visit there. I have very not sexy memories associated with family vacations.”

He considered it for a moment, then nodded with a chuckle. “Erie. Okay?”

Somewhat nervously, I nodded. “Okay.”

And then, before I could say anything more, he covered my mouth with a kiss that recalled all of the ferocity with which we entered the apartment. Eric stole my breath, and it had nothing to do with the iron palm at my throat.

I was completely at his mercy, and I had never been more turned on.

“Is it fucked up how I want every bit of your pleasure?” he asked as he sat back up, though the hand at my neck held me down.

His cock found my entrance and slipped in again, just slightly. He stared at it, his fingers tightening under my jaw, his thumb finding my clit. I gasped, feeling the excitement of ecstasy and alarm flooding my system. Who knew sex could be like this? So exciting. So all-consuming?

I shook my head. He wanted my pleasure? Well, I wanted him to have it. For the first time in my life, I was actually able to give some control to someone else. Without thinking too hard about exactly why I would want that—the effects of living in a society that always wanted to control me undoubtedly had something to do with it—I could freely and safely embrace the fact that I did.

The idea was intoxicating.

Eric pushed in deeper, finding his seat within my heat. Slowly. Methodically. The hand around my throat tightened a bit more while the other one intensified its movements over my clit. He started to move, started to drive me with each thrust, each pull. Mine, they all seemed to say as his eyes traveled over me, taking in each subtle response I gave to his ministrations. All mine.

It was too much. It was almost too much to bear. I squeezed my eyes shut. And for that, I was rewarded with a sharp slap across my cheek, followed by a tingling that seemed to be linked directly to the heat emanating from where our bodies met. I jerked, my entire body arching up under his as my eyes shot open again.

“Jane.” Eric’s voice was an omen. A promise.

I struggled slightly, fighting his touch. But he held me in place, constricted me deliciously against the mattress. His hands, his body, his cock all pinned me in place. There was no escape from this. My fight was only for me.

“Don’t you look away, gorgeous. Don’t you dare look away from me when I’m fucking you.”

Eric pushed forward harder, spearing me completely. The hand around my throat tightened that much more.

“Why?” I demanded, nearly having to croak. “Why does it matter so much that I watch?”

He stilled, hand braced around my neck, cock throbbing between my legs.

Then he bent down and kissed me, slipping his tongue in to taste all parts of me. He pinched my clit and drove deeper than he ever had before.

“Because,” he whispered. “I’m going to fall apart here, pretty girl. And I need to know you’ve got me when I do.”

“Oh!” I cried as I came suddenly, without warning, like a clap of thunder in a rainstorm. “Oh, God!”

* * *

Present

“Oh, God!”

The words escaped with a tortured breath as the world swam around me, luminous shapeless figures in a sea of dusty white cold.

It hurt. Everything hurt. I was a mess of pain.

“Help her! She needs help!”

My mother’s voice was throttled, a shredded version of its normal ferocity. I opened my eyes, and a blurry figure waved from a dark lump across the room. The room was a static rendition of itself, like an analog TV set with poor reception.

I moaned again and turned over, clutching my slick belly as another round of throbbing pain seized my midsection. “Ummmmmmm.”

Footsteps slapped the tile and pounded through my head. Harsh hands turned me onto my back and yanked the blankets from me. The cold wrapped me in its frigid grip, contacting the wet mess and wracking my body with shivers.

“Noooo,” I wailed. “Stop!”

My stomach seized. Everything shook. But the world swirled together, and nausea overtook me, so I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the spiraling to stop while I focused on bearing the pain. It came and went, contracting heavily like waves. But it hurt. Oh, God, it hurt more than anything I had ever experienced.

Voices rode through my mind like on the tail end of a bad trip, diving in and out of dreams and reality.

“She’s finally losing it.” The deep voice spoke with a curious blend of regret and relief. “I’ll tell Carson. Anton, clean her up.”

There was a rattle of obstinate Korean, a woman and a man’s voice.

“Just do it!” shouted the woman finally, in English. “She will die if you do not!”

Yu-na? Eomma? Was that her name?

More hands. A cold, wet fabric. Gauze or cloth or sheets shoved between my legs.

“Ummmmmmm,” I moaned again, writhing into myself.

“Can’t you fucking give her something?” A man’s voice, the first one, hovering closer, speaking with something close to panic. “She can’t die, Anton. Carson will fucking flip out.”

“She won’t die.” The voice was heavily accented, sharp and clipped with fear. He had gotten more than he asked for. He was scared, even if he liked pain the other times.

“She better not,” said the other man, a man I knew. Hermes. A name, hanging by the wings of a Greek god, floated through my erratic brain. “Give her something,” he said again. “Calm her down, Anton. All that thrashing around can’t be good for her.”

“Go,” said the Russian, angry now. “Let me do my job.”

“Fuck. Fuck. She better be alive when I get back with the medic, Anton. Otherwise you’ll be responsible, not me.”

“Shhhhh.” I didn’t know who said it, but a prick in my elbow made the world fade away again, though the pain still remained, like a shadow I couldn’t escape.

* * *

2009

“Shhhh.”

Eric stroked the top of my head while outside, another new snowfall filtered through the streetlights. Boston was quiet, insulated by a mantle of white.

My glasses sat on the table, having been removed at some point—by me? By Eric—during one of our bouts of passion. Outside our cocoon of sex and warmth, the world was blurry. But here, in this bed, it was crystal clear. Eric and I gazed at each other with openness. Hope.

And for the first time, I examined him without looking away.

“That was…” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t want to describe it. It will just sound trite.”

“God forbid we sound trite,” I joked, though I understood what he meant. Some things, you can’t comment on. Some things just need to stand on their own.

Though in all honesty, this was the first of those things I had ever encountered in my twenty-two years. It was a little overwhelming.

“Tell me about your life,” I said instead. “Your family. You’re from the Upper East Side, right?”

Eric didn’t answer. Instead he toyed with a strand of my hair, winding it around his finger, dropping it in a tight curl before it relaxed into its natural wave. I didn’t even want to think about what I looked like at the moment, after rolling around the sheets for the last who knew how many hours. It was probably close to three or four a.m., and the effects of drinking, snow, and sex had likely not been kind. My thigh was probably bright pink, and the spot where his palm had met skin again and again still smarted in the best possible way.

“Your hair is so…alive,” he said as he examined the bright purple, twirling it again around his fingers again.

“That’s one word for it,” I said. “I probably look like a hungover hair band groupie right now.”

Eric just rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about the color. More the texture. It has its own personality.” He stopped his movements. “Would you give me a lock?”

I leaned back. “Who are you, the Duke of Cumberland? You want a lock of hair to ride into battle?”

But Eric didn’t bat an eye. “Come on, I want one. Like a talisman.” He combed through another piece. “I wouldn’t mind carrying a reminder of your bravery with me wherever I go.”

I was quiet for a moment. I had been doing things to my hair since I was old enough to sneak boxes of drugstore dye past my mother. She had been freaking about my hair my entire life, even when I was a small child and she would spend hours combing through the wavy tangles. It was so unlike her own beautifully straight black hair. Just like your father’s, she would say irritably, over and over again.

Even then, I was difficult.

The comment never made sense, though. Dad’s hair was a thin, scraggly auburn. Nothing like my thick, naturally brown-black waves.

Brave, though. Did dyeing my hair make me brave?

Crazy.

Try-hard.

Attention-seeker.

Teachers, friends, students, etc. Everyone had something to say about my penchant for out-of-the-box fashion and style.

Brave. That was a first.

“Tell me,” I changed the subject. “Your family. Do you…do you get along with your folks? Your dad, maybe?”

“Well, that would be hard, since he’s dead.” Eric focused hard on the hair between his fingers, even pulling it a little so it pinched.

“Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry for that. What…what happened?”

He stilled. “It was a long time ago. I was around ten, eleven. But I think…that’s best saved for a night where we consume at least a bottle of wine each. And maybe not a story to start at almost four in the morning.”

I shrugged, as if his brush-off didn’t sting a bit. “Fair enough. I don’t need to know your secrets to bone you.”

“I think I’m the one who does the boning, pretty girl.”

But despite the playful words, his face remained solemn. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more behind Eric’s melancholia besides the death of his father. Granted, that was no small loss, but I had known other people who lost a parent or close person as kids. Children were resilient. They never really recovered, but they bounced back better than people gave them credit for. Eric’s stolid face masked something deeper, a mark of tragedy that, for whatever reason, felt more recent.

But what did I know? I couldn’t force him to bare his soul. Not when I was nowhere close to giving him mine.

The thought was terrifying. But suddenly, I wanted to do anything I could to wipe that sadness off his face.

“Here,” I said, tossing back the covers.

“I get a show, huh?” Eric watched with open admiration as I padded naked to my desk, which was covered with scattered sewing supplies.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get too excited, Petri dish.”

“I really fucking hate that name, you know.”

“Which is exactly why I’ll continue to use it.”

I grabbed a pair of scissors and walked back to sit down in front of him. From under my mane, I pulled out a lock of purple hair and measured out a solid few inches, enough to curl on its own.

“Here,” I said offering the scissors to him. “When you need a bit of bravery. Or maybe bravado is a better word.”

“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Eric took the scissors and snipped the lock just below my fingers. He cradled his gift in his palm, rocking it slightly back and forth before he accepted the tiny rubber band I procured from my nightstand.

“Thanks, gorgeous,” he said as I wrapped the elastic around one end of the lock. He took it, then reached down to the floor to grab his wallet from his jeans. He tucked the lock between a few bills. “For safe-keeping. Now I can take your bravado with me everywhere.”

A part of me shouted that this couldn’t be real. That this was a bubble, and at some point, it was obviously going to pop. A lock of hair in his wallet? I shouldn’t fall for this, right?

But instead, I toppled right back into his arms when he returned to the nest we had made.

“You’d better treasure that,” I said as he wound the rest of my hair around his fist and trapped me under his solid, wiry form. “I just maimed my perfect coif for you. I hope you appreciate thesacrifice.”

“Ah, Jane,” Eric said before his lips closed over mine. “Haven’t you learned yet? I appreciate everything about you, pretty girl. Every single fucking thing.”

* * *

Present

“Pretty girl. Come on. Come on, gorgeous. Fucking hell, Jane, you have to wake up!”

A new voice sounded. A different voice, one that wasn’t angry or condescending or disgusted.

It pleaded with me. But this was a voice that never, ever begged. Not with me.

I was dead.

She was dead.

Maybe this voice was dead too.

I hoped he was alive, but I wasn’t sure that what I wanted mattered anymore.

“Jane! Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

I had failed us both. They were calling for me, voices through the dreams, through the memories, through days and years I couldn’t tell apart anymore.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”

“I did not do anything. I saved her life!”

“Eric, man, he’s just a medic. Ten to one, he’s a captive just like they are.”

“Yeah, but why in the fuck would they need a medic?”

The bed sank, a weight beside my body. They were back, a voice realized deep within me. Back with broth. Back with noodles. Back with fuzzying substances and impersonal, bruising hands that forced my legs apart and penetrated those deep spaces.

But the hands that framed my face were gentle, not prodding. The breath against my cheek was warm and smelled of mint, not cigarettes. A whiff of cologne. Light. Linen.

Eric’s face was a golden light, a floating, concerned mask as bright as the sun.

“Jane,” he whispered, his voice shaking with pain and emotion. His hair flopped forward. “What happened? Oh, God, can you even hear me?”

“She is going to be okay,” said the accented man.

I made a face. I knew that voice. It was the one that belonged to some of the impersonal, prodding hands. The one who whispered hushed Korean prayers as it did something down there while the others fled. Had he done this? Had the others, the ones who put something else there too?

Eric’s face, though, still consumed my vision, growing clearer with every second.

Too clear.

Too much.

“You’re not real,” I murmured, amazed at how very soft the hair under my fingers felt.

Gentle hands stroked my face.

“Shhhh, gorgeous, I’m here,” said the vision. “Don’t say anything. I’m here. And it’s going to be all right.”

“I don’t care if you’re not real,” I mumbled as I lifted my face toward his light. “I’m just glad you’re here at all.”