17. 17

17

Ember

I found three damn tracker things on mum’s car! Three . My dads were clearly absolutely insane, and obsessively focused on knowing where she was at all times, and how creepy was that?

I tossed them on the pavement and stomped on them like some kind of psycho, which maybe I was, and then I hurried back into Ethan’s house. He was already in the living room, and had a bag over his shoulder. He switched off the lights and locked the door, after dragging me back outside.

“Keys,” he barked at me, and I obeyed without thinking, handing him mum’s keys.

“Where are we going?” He tossed his bag in the back of the car, and practically shoved me into the front seat, running round to get in and start the engine.

“Ethan? Where are we going?”

He shot me a glare, but focused on his driving instead, heading out into the country roads out of town, clearly with a destination in mind, although I had no idea where we even were already.

“Ethan, seriously. Talk to me.”

He steered down a lane with no street lights, and trees on either side of the narrow road. Was it even wide enough for two cars?

“Ethan?”

“Can you just shut up for five fucking minutes?” he snapped at me, turning onto an incredibly bumpy lane that threatened to rattle my bones right out of my body.

I was still smarting from that tone he’d used, when he pulled up and parked the car.

“Get out,” he hissed, getting his bag from the back seat, and opening my door when I hadn’t moved. “Now.”

I followed him down the dark lane, leaving mum’s car way behind me, safely locked up, but literally in the middle of nowhere. We’d been walking for ages in the dark, and cold, when he stopped and turned, so suddenly that I walked right into him.

“Ember?” I ignored my reaction to his use of my full name, because I couldn’t really see him, with his phone’s torch aimed at the ground, but then he held mum’s keys where I could see them.

“I don’t get it,” I said uncertainly, but then I realised he’d drawn back his arm and thrown them out there, somewhere in the darkness. Somewhere I couldn’t possibly find them! What was he playing at?

“Ethan! How will we find them again?”

He grabbed my arm and started walking again, towing me along beside him.

“We won’t.”

“What? That’s my mum’s car, Ethan. We need to get it back to her.”

“Fuck the car, and keep moving, dammit. We have a long walk ahead of us.” I had no idea what he was doing, but I knew that he was starting to freak me out. Where was the Ethan I thought I knew?

“I don’t understand, Ethan.” He stopped again, grabbing my chin and leaning close to me, which again I couldn’t really see, but I could feel his breath on my face.

“Then let me make it fucking clear, Ember. I threw the keys away so you can’t find them. You won’t need them where we’re going, because you’re not leaving. You wanted to be mine, so congratulations, guess that’s exactly what you are now.”

He started moving again, marching at a fast enough pace that I was practically running beside him, stumbling now and then on the uneven surface. Finally we came upon a small building, and he strode up to it, unlocking the door with a key he produced from his pocket. What the hell was this place?

He flicked on some lights, and I could see it was a really small cottage. It was a bit run down, and cold, like the heating hadn’t been on in years. Why did he have keys to this place? I turned to ask him a question, out of the millions rushing around my head, but his glare shut me up.

“Sit on the sofa and shut the fuck up, Ember. I need to think.” He locked up behind us, and dropped his bag on the floor by the door. I watched as he clenched his fists, rubbing at his face with them, pacing back and forth with agitation.

I was locked in a strange place with him, and I was starting to realise that I didn’t really know him at all, did I? He was my tutor, and we’d spent months working together on my studies, but I didn’t know who he was outside of that. I guess I was about to find out.

“I’m cold,” I said finally, and his pacing stopped, as he turned to stare at me for long enough that I fidgeted under his fierce gaze. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up.” I pulled my legs up and hugged them for warmth, but my short skirt was doing nothing to keep me warm.

Ethan walked out of the room, and returned a few moments later with a folded fleece blanket, which he tossed at me, and I gratefully wrapped around me.

“Thank you.”

The cabin or cottage we were in was small enough that the living space and kitchen were pretty much the same room, and there was a hallway beyond the kitchen that probably led to other rooms, or stairs to another floor. The decoration of the place was dated, and the place smelled a little musty, but the electricity was clearly connected, and the place wasn’t dirty or too dusty. It clearly hadn’t been empty as long as it first appeared.

“Whose place is this?” I asked, then covered my mouth when I realised I was risking pissing him off by speaking again.

Ethan groaned, dropping onto the chair opposite me and resting his head in his hands.

“What the hell am I doing?”

Ethan

I’D CLEARLY LOST MY fucking mind, hadn’t I? Did I seriously just kidnap a woman? The very same woman who I’d been accused of acting inappropriately with? The very same woman I lost my job over?

Oh, the very same woman whose entire family seemed to be complete fucking psychos, who’d probably disembowel me when they found me? I was a dead man. A dead man walking. Fuck me, I’d actually wondered if my life could get any worse, and then I literally went out there and made it worse.

“Ethan?” Ember’s voice was timid, and so out of character for her, that I felt like a monster for making her sound that way. I don’t know what the hell I’d been doing, but now there was no going back, was there? The car keys were lost, probably forever, so the car was useless to us.

We were out in the middle of nowhere, and I was in a borrowed house, as in, I wasn’t actually supposed to be here at all. The keys were backup copies my cousin had left with me, when they locked up to go on a cruise. They’d be back in five or six weeks, and by then, I’d be the subject of a nationwide manhunt, searching for the evil teacher who’d kidnapped his former student, after ‘grooming her for sex’.

“I’ve lost my mind,” I whispered, realising rock bottom was never really the bottom, because now look… a whole new depth below where I’d been.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, finally looking at Ember, my captive, because I’d fucking kidnapped her.

“Ethan, why are we here?” She asked, pulling the blanket tighter around her. She wasn’t kidding about it being cold in here, and now that I’d stopped moving around, I was feeling it too. I should have grabbed a second blanket from the airing cupboard for myself.

“I messed up, Em. I didn’t know what the fuck to do, and suddenly I figured if I’d lost everything else, at least I could keep you, but that’s insane. I kidnapped you, for fuck’s sake. I really am the monster they made me out to be!” I leaned my head back on the chair and closed my eyes.

Somehow I had to fix this, but I had no idea how. Even if we were able to get the car keys back, and head back to town right now, it was late enough that her family would know she was missing, and they’d be looking for her, and trackers or not, they’d start with me. My house.

I heard Em moving, but I didn’t open my eyes, because she couldn’t leave exactly, and even if she could, that was her right, wasn’t it?

My eyes flew open when she climbed into my lap, draping the blanket around me too. I could feel heat radiating from her, and the warm blanket and, almost unbidden, my arms slid around her back, holding her close to me.

“We’ll figure it out,” she whispered, as she tucked her face into my neck and relaxed against me. Her weight in my lap, her breaths against my neck, her breasts pressed against my chest, it was all just another reminder of how she might be young, but she was still all woman, and I fucking wanted her. Like the asshole I was, I wanted her.

My arms tightened around her, and I felt my cock hardening in my pants. I’d wanted her for so long, even though I’d known it was wrong, and now she was right here, in my lap, and we were alone, in a house with a bed we could use.

She said I’d given her her first orgasm, and right now all I wanted to do was give her a second one. Maybe a third. Then I wanted to bury my cock deep inside her, and drive away all of the bad things with pleasure, for both of us. To rewrite our future together, but that was bullshit, wasn’t it? There was no future for us, definitely no future for me.

I wondered if I had even days left before her family found me, and brutally murdered me for my actions. They should. They absolutely fucking should.

“I’m a monster,” I whispered, realising that there was no other word for me. A teacher who’d just kidnapped a student of his, and was getting horny as fuck with her in my arms.

“Ethan?”

I made a hmm noise in response, and Ember giggled. What could possibly be funny right now?

“Something’s digging into me.” Yeah, baby, that’d be my fucking dick, and it wanted to do more than just dig in.

“Sorry. Maybe you shouldn’t be in my lap, Em. This isn’t-”

“Don’t you dare say ‘appropriate’! Why wouldn’t anything be appropriate? You’re no longer my teacher, and we’re both adults. Why can’t this just be something good for us?”

I teased my fingers into her hair, and gently pulled her head back, and she stared eagerly at my lips, clearly expecting a kiss.

I knew I was disappointing her, but that inner asshole I’d recently discovered was out to play again. Shocking her, scaring her, maybe that was the only way to show her how wrong this all was.

“Something good? Something good like what? You want me to strip you and fuck you? Is that what the ‘something good’ would be? My hard cock driving into your tight pussy and probably hurting you, because I have a feeling you’re a virgin? It’d tear you and you’d bleed. Is that what you want? You want to be naked and held down beneath me, while I use your body for my pleasure? Is that the ‘something good’ you mean? You act like this is some fantasy, some romantic fantasy, but sex isn’t like that. It’s raw, it’s animal, it’s aggression and passion, it’s about friction and repetition, it’s about ramming a cock in a hole until it spurts cum. You want that? You’re ready for that?”