Love and Freedom (Book 1 in the Finding My Way Series)

Answer me!

Answer me

Tristan had my back pressing firmly against the pole behind me, now not only did my arm hurt from him holding it so tightly, my back was too.

“Please let me go.” I begged tying to get away from him.

“Answer me.”  I stopped struggling for the moment and met his gaze, why was he so angry with me?

“Answer what?”

“I thought I told you to stay away from here.”

“I don’t answer to you.” I said before thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have. This man was much stronger than me and a flash of the women on the beach holding her face went through my mind.

“You will tonight.” I didn’t know what to say to that!

So instead, I searched his face in hope to find the reason he was being so abrupt. I could just see the outline of it; here in the dark he seemed so much worldlier than I was. The hard lines on his face from hours in the sun made him appear older than I first thought, but it could have been the shadows of the night playing tricks with his features. My memory of Tristan, the man that helped us escape was not this angry one before me. Essentially there was a reason I came here tonight, and at this moment I felt completely out of my depth, defenceless and at his mercy, but yet somehow I found the courage to speak what was on my mind.

“You’re wrong; talking is not what men like you want from someone like me.” Tristan took my other arm and held me up against the pole till we were almost eye level with eachother.

“How often have you come here?”

“That’s none of your concern.” His stare was so intense I almost felt him in my head trying to find the real reasons that drew me here tonight. “Please let me go.”

“No.” And then in the dark of night pushed roughly up against a pole I received my first kiss from a man, not knowing what to do as his mouth ground into mine in a way that made the experience painful, and not anything as I imagined a kiss would be. His breath smelt like rum and his mouth tasted of it. It wasn’t over quickly, he took his fill of me, and held captive in his vice like hold, I had no choice but to let him.

When he finally pulled away he was panting, and he looked angry with himself. He let go of my arms and my hand flew to my mouth. Shaking as I wiped my lips of his taste, I didn’t take my eyes off him, I needed to make sure I was prepared if he decided to advance on me again.

“I told you to stay away from here, why didn’t you?”

“I have no choice.” My voice was shaky too, and I knew it just betrayed me; I didn’t want him to know how much his kiss disturbed me. What did he want me to say? And what had he expected us to do? It was either this or starve he must have had some idea what it was like for women here, and I didn’t owe him a thing, it was partly his fault I was in this position to begin with.

“There’s work.”

“I’ve been looking for days there’s nothing. Are we done here?” I felt sick I didn’t like tasting the rum in my mouth I didn’t know why people drank it, and it didn’t improve the way I was already feeling. My stomach was painfully twisting, and I needed to rinse my mouth out. I watched as he rested his hands on his hips and looked out into the darkness.

“You’re not going back there.” This only added to my anger, how dare he presume to tell me what to do. I pushed off the pole and started walking back to the tents, but again he grabbed my arm and stopped me. “No!”

“I have no choice and if you are done here?”

“No I’m not done.” He pulled my back up against his body and he spoke into my ear, low and threatening, the sound of his voice vibrated through my whole being. “You came up here to earn some money.” I started to shake again as he placed a kiss on my neck, then my shoulder. My heart was beating so fast I knew for sure, he could hear it, especially because his grip loosened and he turned me around taking hold of both of my arms the same way as before. “How many times have you been here?” He asked in a soft almost tender voice, the complete opposite of what he was using with me before. I looked up into his eyes, I couldn’t see their colour properly in the dark, but I knew they were grey, then, on their own as if I had no control my eyes wondered down to his lips and I was momentarily lost in the thought that they were just on mine. I decided to tell him the truth there was nothing else I could loose now because he was right I did come here to earn money.