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Sunnydale beach. Under the pier. Tomorrow at 10pm.
We’ll talk.
Come alone.
I was cursing myself under my breath the very second the sent tick showed, but I couldn’t hold back the smirk when the response pinged back mere seconds later.
I’ll be there.Chapter SevenPaigeI’d never needed a friend as much as I needed one right then. My dorm mates wouldn’t cut it, not even close, and my sister was probably in some drug-induced coma somewhere with her piece of shit boyfriend. Carolyn was the closest thing I had, even at this early stage of connection, but it would be way too soon for this kind of reveal.
So I sucked it up, took a deep breath and waited for my heartrate to calm. It took an age. Long enough that I’d read the meet-up request through a thousand times over, and still I couldn’t believe the words staring out at me.
Sunnydale beach. Under the pier. Tomorrow at 10pm.
I knew Sunnydale pretty well after a few months here, usually in the daytime with the bustle of holidaymakers and ice cream stalls at full force, but still. I’d been there at night a few times after a few drinks, huddled in my old tatty coat to marvel the moon as the wind swept across the sand. I could picture the pier so clearly – its mass of huge wooden struts and iron railings casting such awesome shadows in the moonlight.
We’ll talk.
Come alone.
I guess it was the come alone bit that gave me most of the fizzing nerves. It sounded so serious. So ominous.
It was also so unnecessary. I’d never take someone to that beach with me. I was always walking my road alone, but I guess that was from practice as much as preference. Most girls around here dragged a friend into the toilet cubicle for a pee with them on a night out, but most girls had a friend close enough to drag into a toilet cubicle with them for a pee on a night out.
I’d never been anything like that comfortable with another human being.
When my heart had stilled some way towards normal, I put my phone on standby and crawled under the bedsheets. Sleep didn’t find me, brain swimming with the possibility of being bundled into a van and stolen away for a life of slavery somewhere. But no. Carolyn Lane’s sister was fine. Maybe not fine inside her mind and out of view, but she was walking, talking and spending her huge sum of dirty cash quite happily.
Maybe they’d have different plans for me, these men. More brutality for lower rewards. Maybe they wouldn’t give me the same courtesy of advance options before they manhandled me away for sixty days of filth.
That’s where my brain eventually stayed. Sixty days of filth. Sins of the flesh every moment of the day and night.
I couldn’t stop wondering what Mr Shadowy-profile looked like under better lighting. I wondered if he’d be the one dishing out the pain by his own hand. And the pleasure. Carolyn told me that there’d been pleasure for her sister too, even at the very worst.
Pleasure in the pain.
My thoughts were blurry and mixed with terror, but I couldn’t hide it, not from myself – there was a faint little thrill, running deep, just as it had been when the prospect first tickled my senses. Only now it was deeper, darker. Now the fizz of nerves tickled between my thighs, and I clenched them tight under the covers. I squirmed and wriggled, trying to get comfortable and forget it, but my skin was clammy and my nipples were hard against my night-time cami top, and I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop.
My fingers dipped inside my knickers, teeth pinning my bottom lip hard as I let the rhythm take me.
I knew the walls were thin. Holly was just inches away in the bed next door. I’d heard every grunt, slap and tickle as she’d brought a guy in for a one-night stand a few weeks back. If I made a noise…
But I couldn’t stop my breath coming fast. Couldn’t stop the creak of the worn-in mattress springs as my fingers rocked to the groove. Couldn’t stop picturing him there waiting for me in the shadows with a proposition that could grant me everything.
A new start. He could give me and Phoebe a brand new start.
I’d pay gladly for that new start. Body and soul. He could take both from me.
But the most frightening thing of all was that right then, in that dirty moment, with my fingers grinding my most sensitive places and my breath short enough to rasp, I wanted him to.
I shouldn’t want it. Not any of it.
I shouldn’t think about it. Not now, not ever.
I’d done my best to stop. Done my best to stay good. Done my best to ignore the calling of pain, and filthy words, and humiliation. The thought of being taken by a man who’d claim my body as his. Completely. Who’d take away my choices, my inhibitions, my reservations. And I’d like it.
