DELIVER

chapter 4

Josh sensed Liv’s huge brown eyes making furtive sweeps in his direction. Addictive eyes, the kind that tunneled through his outer shell and scrambled his mind until he forgot where he was going.

There were moments in his life when he wanted to bypass the road chosen for him. He was staring at one now. The most attractive woman he’d ever seen. In his truck. Watching him.

The scar dividing her cheek flickered beneath a passing streetlight. It didn’t distract from her beauty, but it was a delicate emblem of her life, of whatever had happened to her. He burned with curiosity to know her story.

“Take 35 south. I’ll tell you where to go when we reach Temple.” She shifted her gaze to the speedometer. “Watch your speed.”

No please or thank you. Just a quiet authority that stroked his ears and urged him to test her limits. “How ’bout you just sit there, look pretty, and let me drive?”

“The cops are all over, shooting radar. I can’t afford more delays tonight.” This girl seemed a lot less vulnerable than the one trembling on the road. Her voice was soft, musical even, but clipped at the edges as if repressing something beneath her scarred exterior, something beyond the hurt. Outside of her fleeting glances, there was a peculiar apathy in her stillness. Like a dormant animal, resting, waiting.

His discomfort swelled, feeding on all the unsaid things about her family. He merged onto the interstate. “Do you want to talk about your sister?”

“No.”

He scratched his stubble and grappled with her reserve. “It’s a good thing I came along when I did. I’m the only one who passes through there at this hour.” The wind rustled against the windows as the truck gathered speed.

This was when a normal person would pick up the thread of friendly chitchat. Her silence challenged what he knew about girls and their self-involved monologues. He wasn’t usually a nervous talker, but seriously, her lack of conversation was growing more awkward and irritating by the second. “I live just down the road a piece from where I found you.” She stared out the windshield, her fingers seemingly dead on her slender thighs. “Mm.” Pity she didn’t want to talk. He had thirty minutes with this gorgeous girl, thirty minutes to speak openly, to be himself in the company of a stranger. “I’m majoring in religion at Baylor.” A sigh whispered past her lips. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why the Jesus career?” Her lips rolled as if constraining judgment.

“I promise you, the reason is completely and wholeheartedly…absurd.” She glanced at him. Not just a flick of her scrutinizing eyes. He’d won a full-on head turn. A tousle of chestnut curls clung to her face and spilled around her… Sweet Lord, he shouldn’t have been gawking, but her chest was very, very mature. He was certainly not immune to feminine attributes, but watching her mouth part, tipping up at the corners and stretching her scar, was hell on his focus. Confusion looked seductively X-rated on her.

A low-burning fire stirred in his groin, a sensation he’d never tried to sate with a girl. He could’ve blamed his abstinence on Christian principles and a demanding workload. Truth was, he derived pleasure from the exertion that hard work put on his mind and body. The girls hanging around his practices didn’t arouse him like the bruise of a tackle, the pains of farm labor, or the mental strain that accompanied religious stringency. He’d accepted his unconventional urges long ago and locked the darkest ones deep inside. If his parents knew the kind of thoughts he entertained, it would destroy them. His chest tightened.

He moved out of the passing lane and merged into an opening between two slower cars. He’d admitted to her the reason for his career choice was absurd. Might as well tell her why. “My folks tried to get pregnant for years. When they reached their mid-forties and found God, they prayed, made promises, and nine-months later…” He gave her a raised eyebrow.

“And you are…”

“Fulfilling their promise. They’d made a deal with God. If He gave them a child, they vowed to raise their miracle to be a servant of His church in Baptist ministry.” She laughed, a sweet sound for such a glaring expression. “Absurd.”

“Told you.” And telling her seemed to dislodge it just a little from his chest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God. He just wasn’t fanatical like some of his classmates. Like his parents.

“So young to allow all your choices be dictated by a promise to God.”

“My promise is to Mom and Dad.”

“Whatever. It’s a promise that controls you. Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“It challenges me, makes me a better person. I’m good with that.” A lull settled over her, and her gaze lost focus as she stared at him. She raised her hand, tentative at first, and reached for his face, fingertips resting on his cheekbone. When she traced his jawline, it was a caress so alluring he had to put all his concentration in keeping his eyes open and his hands on the wheel.

“Your life has always been predetermined, huh?” Her words were as perplexing as her touch .

“Mom and Dad gave me life, an honest one. In return, I accept the path they want for me.” He leaned ever so slightly against her fingers and murmured, “It’s just a job. You never know, it might lead to something extraordinary.”

She yanked her hand back, and her attention snapped to the road.

The absence of her touch left a cold shock. He rubbed his jaw on his shoulder. “Did I say something—”

“Take the next exit.”

Unease burrowed in him. What the hell happened? He exited, replaying the conversation in his head. Perhaps leaning into her touch had been too forward.

“Five miles up, turn right into the Two Trails Crossing subdivision.” He passed Temple’s main drag, the emptiness of the streets seeping into the truck. His body knew she was sitting right beside him. Hell, it pulsed to close those few inches. But she seemed so very far away, lost in her thoughts.

Then she began to hum. It started with a tremor, out of the blue and shocking to his ears. Was she singing to avoid conversation or to slice through the quiet?

The fluttering harmonic built into a haunting rhythm. The tune was unfamiliar, yet the notes shifted through him as if breathed from the most secret part of his soul.

“What is that?” he whispered. “What are you humming?”

The enchanting crescendo cut off, and he immediately regretted opening his mouth.

She cleared her throat. Then he heard it. The a cappella melody of a voice so piercing and peaceful it jolted a chill through him, sparking every cell in his body. The shiver faded too quickly but not for long. Her voice pitched, and an electric surge fired down his spine. He held his breath, spellbound.

In unerring key, she sang of wishes and stars and souls that couldn’t be saved. Her octave carried a tinkling quality, profound and lonely at the same time. It transported him to the farm, to the isolated pond on a rainy day. Her voice was the pattering of drizzle on the misty surface, infused with nourishment and despair and acceptance.

She closed with a hum and a delicate exhale.

“That was…” His tongue knotted, heavy in his mouth.

“‘Lullaby’ by Sia.”

“I was going to say exquisite, bewitching.” Carnal. “Do you sing for a living?” He slowed at a stoplight and twisted to look at her.

“No.” Complex and unflinching, her eyes held his and the key to his secrets.

The light ticked green, and she broke the connection, pointing at the brick archway on the right.

Lopsided letters clung to a wooden sign in tired welcome. Two Trails Crossing. He turned in.

Massive elms darkened the rows of lower middle-class homes. Dated wrought-iron gussied up the doors and windows. A couple left and right turns led them to a cul-de-sac, where she nodded at the small single-story at the end. “That’s it. I’ll go in through the rear.” He followed the skinny driveway alongside the house, around the back, and parked in front of the rear garage. The engine rattled, and he willed it to choke and die. He didn’t want to let her go in just yet, and why was that? As the most sought-after bachelor on the football team, he had more female attention than he knew what to do with.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a girl. In fact, he was so aware of the way the female body moved with its ample curves and forbidden places that it was often unbearable to hang out with the opposite sex. He was a guy in his prime, for heaven’s sake. His restraint had its limits. So he fended off the handsy girls, accepted dates with the proper girls, and late at night, alone in his bed, he gripped his erection and gave into his primitive needs.

Something he would be doing when he got home, because Liv was the summation of all those girls, and more. What was it about her? She sang like a choir of angels and didn’t proposition him like the girls at his games, yet her eyes promised experience and indulgences that reached beyond the boundaries of his folks’ expectations for him.

She licked her lips, and they glistened in the dim glow of the porch light. “Come in.” Go in with her? Hell, he couldn’t think past the pull to kiss her. He realized he was leaning toward her when she spoke again.

“My father isn’t here, and I don’t expect anything unmanageable with my sister, but just in case?” The thought of spending more time with her sped his pulse. The uncertainty etching her heart-shaped face decided it. One thing first.

He closed the final inches and tasted her lips. Her exhale caressed his mouth, and her fingers swept through his hair, pulling him closer. He fought the urgency to work his tongue past her lips and kept it chaste. Since kissing was the breadth of his experience, he’d stolen dozens of lip-locked moments, each one growing bolder but never out of bounds. Though the sensation of her lips whispering over his went beyond that point of contact, spreading south. He cupped her cheek, holding her to him.

Shuddering waves of need heated his insides and gripped his groin. If the kiss continued one more second, his vow to his parents would be put to the test. He broke the kiss.

The seam of her lips separated, the delicate lines of her face magnifying her allure. He grabbed his phone from the cup holder and jumped out. He wasn’t a slave to his desires, and she’d asked him to come inside because she needed a friend. That he could handle.

She joined him at the garage keypad and punched in the code. By the time they reached the interior door, he’d managed to wrestle down his libido.

A dark hush greeted them in the kitchen. There was a trace of mustiness in the air, the staleness of vacancy, but the red sauce smearing the dishes in the sink appeared fresh.

He trailed her shuffling pace over the worn brown carpet to the sitting room. A single lamp illuminated dark wood panels, a paisley couch, matching armchair, and a clunky tube-style television. He rubbed his jaw. “This place is familiar.”

Creases formed in her forehead. She scanned the room but didn’t really seem to be inspecting it, her gaze more inwardly focused.

“That ’70s Show was filmed right here, in this Temple, Texas living room, wasn’t it?” Not a hint of a smile on her distracted face. “Poor people have poor ways.” A reminder he didn’t know what she did for a living, and he’d probably offended her, dammit.

He didn’t know anything about her. Except the smooth silkiness of her lips.

“Sis?” She ambled down the hall and poked her head in each of the two bedrooms. “She must be in the attic.”

The room chilled, and he shivered. “The attic?”

“She feels safe there.” She paused at the enclosed staircase that led up from the mouth of the hallway and held out her hand.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sure you don’t need a few minutes to talk? I can wait down here if you want privacy.”

Her hand remained outstretched, her rich brown eyes watching him with a pleading kind of intensity that told him his presence was important.

He joined her and twined their fingers, her palm cool and damp. What could he do to ease her nervousness? He tightened his grip and followed her up, the unlit stairwell closing in around him.

“Where’s the light-switch?”

She stopped them on the top stair, the darkness as tangible as her silence. Her clothes rustled.

Beeps followed. A small red light blinked on the wall.

Apprehension crawled over him, tickling the hairs on his arms. “Was that a keypad?” A door opened, and he squinted into the fluorescent glare escaping from inside. Her grip on his hand tugged him over the threshold, and he followed, compelled, curious…shocked.

His attention landed on the center of the room, and he struggled to process what he saw. A teenage girl knelt before them, completely nude. Her white-blond hair and fair skin looked nothing like Liv. But what sent dread through his veins was how she lowered her brow to the floor, hands behind her back, thighs spread.

The door clicked shut behind him, snapping him out of his stunned paralysis. He averted his eyes to the cot in the corner and the steel rings bolted in the wall above it. Dear God, what was this place?

His pulse roared in his ears, his voice strangled. “That’s your sister?” She cocked her head, a smirk pinned on her face.

Holy crap. She’d lied. Why? Realization sank his stomach. She lied to lure him there. He spun, yanked the door handle. No give. He slammed a fist on the door, a muffled thump. Solid wood.

Reinforced with a steel jamb. “Let me out.”

“No.”

No? She was refusing to release him? His blood drained to his legs, leaving a trail of ice in its wake. He pawed at the keypad on the brick wall. His heart rate redoubled. Surely the naked girl was there voluntarily. Maybe they just wanted to have some fun with him, and he’d given the wrong signals.

He turned, pressed his back to the door, and tugged out his phone. “I’m not into this…whatever this is.” The buttons wouldn’t respond. Black screen. He jammed his thumb against the power switch.

Nothing.

A hard swallow caught in his throat. He raised his eyes, found her watching him with that terrible stillness about her. When she spoke, the voice didn’t belong to the girl with the silky lips and enthralling lullaby.

“You will learn, practice, and become the twelve requirements demanded by your Master.” She crouched to stroke the girl’s head, who hadn’t moved or glanced up.

It had to be a sick joke. Just some swinging neighborhood debauchery. He needed to hear her admit it, because imagining the alternative was kicking his heart rate to dangerous levels. “So you lured me here for some kinky game where I play gimp boy to your…your…she-Master?” He released a laugh, and it was strained and desperate. “Sorry, babe. You’ve got the wrong guy.” She rose and stalked toward him, her stride commanding, her expression blank. “I am a deliverer.

I deliver the strikes that enforce your obedience.”

Her voice, sweet Jesus, it was so cold, so wrong. He slid to the side of the door, choking on panic, and smacked the keypad. “Open the door.”

“I deliver the sexual training that justifies your purchase price.” If he screamed for help, would anyone hear? “What’s really going on here, Liv? If you’re in trouble, I can help you. I know people you can talk to.”

She stepped into his space, the wall pressing against his back. “In ten weeks, I will deliver you to be sold.”

His breath caught. “You’re insane.”

What he saw in her eyes wasn’t insanity. Deeply-embedded resolve held her pupils immovable.

“Requirement number three. Slave will keep his eyes down unless Master requests otherwise.” The impulse to fight strengthened his spine. He was a linebacker, trained to run and tackle, so he lunged. Grabbed her shoulders. Slammed her chest into the wall beside the keypad. She didn’t fight, didn’t squeak under his rough handling. He pressed against her back and gripped her neck. “Enter the pass-code.”

Her body slouched, free of tension beneath the brace of his arms. She wasn’t fighting him, and he realized why when the door swung open. He swiveled, muscles heated to bolt, and met the short barrel of a revolver.

A hulking man strode through, his face shrouded by the hood of his sweatshirt. He kept the pistol aimed between Josh’s eyes and closed the door. “Release her.” Josh let go of her neck, his jaw clenching painfully. She’d let him pin her, knowing she held the upper hand.

He took two steps back, hands up, and searched her face in a Hail-Mary hope her rigid mouth would crack into laughter and say, “Ha, ha. You’ve been punk’d.” Her hips rocked in tight circles, slowly, seductively, as if an erotic dancer had taken over her body. She sashayed to stand beside the man with the gun and raised her chin. The chill in her voice stopped his heart. “Eyes. Down.”