Page 21 of Trade
“But you can’t do anything that I don’t want. If I tell you that you can’t do something, then you can’t.” I’m pushing it, I know, and what leg do I have to stand on if he says no? He’s already traded for me. He’s bigger and stronger, and he unstrapped the machete at some point, but it’s back now, the handle right at his fingertips.
“Okay,” he says. “But I get to touch you.”
“What do you mean?” He says that like he’s not allowed. Like he hasn’t already.
“I want to touch your hair. And your skin.” He pauses a second. “And your belly.”
I don’t understand. “You can’t touch me now?”
The crease on the bridge of his nose appears. “No.”
“But you did.” I gesture to where his jacket is still lying in the dirt.
“I followed the rules.”
“What are the rules?”
The crease deepens. “I can fuck your pussy, your ass, your mouth, or your tits. No touching. No leaving marks. No talking.” He stops like he’s done, and then he tacks on, “No giving you things.”
“You gave me something to eat.”
He shrugs. “I held it out.” His lips quirk, ever so slightly. “You took it.”
“Is that it? Are those all the rules?”
“I leave you at the doors when I’m done.”
“There’s no time limit?”
He takes his time answering, surveying the valley, that calculating look back in his eyes. “No,” he finally says. “Just leave you at the doors.”
“So you’ll do it?” The idea isn’t a whim anymore, not an urge either. Iwantthis.
When was the last time Iwantedsomething? The head job, a baby—I can remember wanting things in the past, but it’s been so long, I’d forgotten how wantingfeelsuntil it hits me again. Suddenly, I’m wide awake. Unafraid. My little aches and pains fade.
The lake glitters in the distance. I’m going to swim in that son of a bitch. I’m going to float on my back and stare at the wide blue sky. And no one will be able to take that from me.
I turn to Dalton. His face is grim like he’s lost a fight or knows he’s about to.
“Okay,” he says and grabs his backpack, hiking it over his shoulders like he’s suiting up for war. “Let’s go to your great lake.”
ChapterFive
In the bunker, I’m in good shape. I do ninety minutes in the gym five days a week, with a half-hour session of cardio, and I’m on my feet most of the day in the atrium.
Outside, I’m weak. I can do the treadmill at maximum incline and the stair climber at a pretty high intensity, but I’m exhausted after less than an hour of walking on fairly flat terrain, even with Dalton hiking in front and somewhat clearing a path for me.
The ground is flat, but it isn’t even. Everything is trying to twist my ankle—roots, the tall grasses, loose stones. Muscles in my feet ache that I didn’t even know existed.
It doesn’t help that I can’t focus on the ground. There’s just too much nature to see. I count three species of oak, two of maple, and at least three pines. I rack my brain for the names, but then a new tree catches my eye, and I have to figure out if it belongs to a species I’ve already seen or if it’s different.
I start picking a leaf from each new species in order to keep them straight, which takes me off the trail Dalton is blazing, but I don’t want to slow him down, so I try to be quick. Coupled with squatting to check out moss and smaller plants and flowers, in no time, my thighs are burning, and I’m huffing and puffing like I’m sprinting, not trudging along at two miles an hour.
The first time I ducked off for a leaf, Dalton freaked out and jogged after me, but when he saw that I wasn’t running off, he stopped coming back to check. While I collect leaves, he slips off his backpack, rolls his shoulders, and cracks his neck.
There’s that, too, distracting me from watching where I’m going—his broad back, his ass, the way he strides along. He walks tall. I’ve read that description before, but I’ve never seen it in action. He knows his way, and it’s reassuring.
There are rustles and hoots in the woods as we pass through, and he notices, but he doesn’t startle or tense, so after a while, I don’t either.
