Free Alive (The Crave) by Megan D. Martin Page B

sweep.
    “Again.” The word came out of his mouth in a deliberate burst, as if involuntarily spoken. Without saying anything, she obeyed, wanting to feel the hard sensation of him against her, over and over. “With your hand,” he grated out after she had moved against him several times.
    She let her hand trail between their bodies, over his wet skin and down to where his cock protruded from between his thighs. She looked down, but could barely see in the dark water. Dark. Water. She stared down to where her hand should be. Where she should be able to see it moving, reaching for Gage’s rock hard dick. She could see nothing. He was holding her up in a pond that could be bottomless. It would take nothing for him to just let go and less than minutes before she would be dead, her lungs filled with water to be nothing more.
    She sucked in a deep breath and realized how close her head was to the water. She flexed her hand on Gage’s shoulder. “Gage, take me—” Her words died in her throat at the sound of rustling grass near the shore where they came from. With a jerk of her head she saw a jenk approaching the water.

Chapter Nine
    The Before
     
    “What the hell are you wearing?”
    Eve froze at the sound of her dad’s voice as she entered the kitchen. He should have already left for work.
    “Nothing.” She looked down at her feet and moved across the room to the small coat rack where her and Olive hung their backpacks.
    “You ain’t just wearin’ nothin’. Come here dammit.” His voice raised an octave and she knew better than to ignore him. She heard footsteps behind her and knew that her sister had come into the room to get her backpack as well. The bus would be there in less than ten minutes.
    Eve walked to her dad, who stood up when she approached. She didn’t have to look up at him to know what he looked like. She saw a face so much like his in the mirror each day. He had hair a few shades darker than hers, but their faces could have been identical save for the beard he sported and the lines of age that had come about over the years.
    He grabbed her chin and jerked her face up to his. “Are you wearing make-up?” The words were a vicious growl from his throat. She wanted to lie. To tell him that she wasn’t, but it was plain to see that she was. “Where the hell did you get this blasphemous shit?” She’d had it for a long time. She’d found it in the trash when her mom threw the stuff away more than a year ago, when her dad told mom that she looked like a whore with the stuff on.
    Eve shrugged her shoulders. She’d only wanted to look pretty for Gage. Ever since he’d smiled at her and told her his name, a month ago, everything had changed. For the first time in her life she looked forward to getting up and going to school. To being alive. Even after she had fallen on her face into a plate of spaghetti, Gage had continued to sit by her.
    He seemed to be more talkative that ever before. He would lean over and whisper something funny about Mrs. Smithers’ dress she was wearing or something about the homework and how he didn’t want to do it. Some days he didn’t say anything, but he would smile at her. And that was enough. He was beautiful, perfect, and that day she chose to wear make-up because she decided she wanted him. She wanted him to look at her and see more than the weird girl who lived in a trailer with her occult-like parents.
    “I told you not to wear none o’ that stuff, you little whore! If it wasn’t a sin, I would have had your mother abort you!”
    The words would seem harsh to anyone else. Not to Eve. She was used to them. He and her mother both told her what an abomination she was on a daily basis.
    “You looking for someone to fuck you? Is that what you want? Is that why you have this whore make-up on?”
    “Daddy I—” The back of his hand smacked hard across her cheek, killing the words in her mouth and sending her reeling in the opposite direction. Tears sprung to