“Like hell you don’t,” he said, and it was so perfect, the way she was afraid, the way she was resisting him, it was everything he always loved, everything he’d hoped it would be, and he was going to do her now, right here in the park, on the cool grass, make her take everything he had to give her, and she’d never tell anyone and she’d never forget it, either. God, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her walking into Ray’s tonight. It really was too good to be true.
He snaked a hand behind her neck and started to pull her in to make her kiss him, but she pressed her palms against his chest and pushed him away. It surprised him—she was stronger than she looked. The workouts, he supposed. Seemed they were paying off. Up to a point.
He grabbed her shoulders again and twisted suddenly and hard, bringing her to the grass on her back, coming down on top of her, straddling her hips.
“No,” she said, panting. “No, I don’t want this. Stop.”
She tried to shove him away, but Billy took hold of her throat—not hard enough to choke her, but hard enough to let her know he easily could. With his free hand he started working his belt buckle. “Don’t you be a little bitch now,” he said. “You better just be nice.”
But the pressure on her throat didn’t settle her the way he’d expected. She didn’t even try to pull loose. Instead, she put her hands on his left knee and pushed it wider, then somehow twisted and slid her right knee through the opening under his legs, all the way to her chin. He noticed her foot was bare—the flip-flop must have come off when he’d taken her down—and then he felt the foot on his hip and somehow she kicked his leg back. He almost collapsed on top of her but threw his arms forward and caught himself just in time, thinking, Goddamn little bitch, gonna make you pay for that.
He started to push himself up, but she was shoving his right knee now, and she twisted, and her left knee was coming through, the same way the right one had, the foot bare again, and suddenly both her legs were wrapped around his lower back, and he was confused because this was what he wanted, to get between her legs, but it wasn’t like that, she felt too in control, and he realized, holy shit, it was a jiu-jitsu move he’d seen guys practicing in the yard, “pulling guard” they called it, he knew the trick but it was so out of context here. Well, an Asian chick, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised she might know some jiu-jitsu or whatever. It didn’t scare him. Just made him angry that she thought she could fight him off with a few martial arts moves.
So he planted his left foot firmly on the ground and reared up, at the same time pulling his left arm back and cocking it into a fist, a fist he was going to smash down into her face and never mind leaving marks on her, he was past that now and she deserved the lesson. But she reacted so quickly, it was almost like she’d been expecting the move. She jerked his right arm across his body and shot her right leg into the air, past his left ear, crashing the crease of her knee down on the back of his neck. Billy saw stars and felt an adrenalized surge of rage. He tried to say, Bitch, but the word wouldn’t come, because now she had wrapped her free leg around the foot of the leg that had come down on his neck, and she was scissoring his throat or figure-fouring it or something. The pain was ungodly, Billy couldn’t breathe, he felt his tongue protruding, being squeezed forward by the pressure, and he tried to jerk his arm free so he could access his knife, but the bitch was holding his wrist so tightly it was like she knew the knife was there, and he couldn’t get loose, and there was a crazy ringing in his ears and he tried to reach around his back with his left hand to get to the knife, the knife, but the bitch took hold of his sleeve and stopped him, and he panicked and tried to stand but the bitch twisted and broke his balance and he collapsed on his side, eyes bulging, legs churning, lungs screaming, his brain feeling like it was going to explode out of his head, and he scratched at her leg but the material on the damn yoga pants was slippery and his fingernails grazed right over it, and the moonlight and shadows on the grass began to disintegrate into gray, and the ringing was receding now, too, fading into a quiet, dying buzz, and he felt his bladder let go, and his vision darkened, and the world shrank to a pinprick, and his last thought before everything went black was Too good to be true.
2—NOW
Livia knew less than five minutes might be inadequate, so she kept the strangle in place, breathing steadily to slow her heart rate, craning her neck from side to side to ensure they were still alone. But she wasn’t unduly concerned. At this hour, what park wouldn’t be deserted? Deserted was why Billy had wanted to come here. And what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander.