Free Hard Way by Katie Porter

between the pickup and a convertible, all bathed by the sickly cast of artificial light. He was slim. Dressed in dark jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt of some unknowable color. One of his hands was behind his back.
    He didn’t say a word.
    The look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine that ended at the small of her back. She clenched her keys. On a deep, nearly unconscious level, she shifted her grip so that the pointed ends splayed forward. A makeshift weapon.
    “Dash?”
    He still didn’t speak, but he grinned. Evilly. Unkindly. Like a bird of prey.
    One that had sighted in on her.
    “Liam?” She didn’t sound like herself, slightly tremulous and uncertain. She swallowed the sharp-cornered knot in her throat and stepped back.
    Wrong move.
    He attacked.
    She kicked. The side of her foot connected with his upper leg, but he snagged her. Her sack of food dropped to the asphalt. Suddenly her mouth was filled with the taste of latex before she could gather a thought. He spun her around and yanked the straps of the ball gag back over her head.
    She slammed face first into the side of her car. It hurt. The impact jerked the breath from her lungs, or maybe that was the rough push of his body against her back. He snatched one of her wrists and twisted it up her spine. Her shoulder screamed with pain, but the keys in her other hand weren’t useless yet. She whirled around, driving the metal toward his face.
    Trying to cuss him out was mumbled and useless around the gag.
    He took the keys and used his shoulder to pin her to the vehicle. Hot metal seared the underside of her chin. He strapped her wrists in less time than she would’ve needed to wind a rubber band. Acrid dirt and the sharp tang of creosote filled the air, but over that was Dash. His scent. Male, and the same damn cologne she’d bought him five years ago.
    He’d worn it maybe half a dozen times. But he wore it to abduct her. The absurdity made her giggle, but she choked it down as fast as she could.
    This was serious stuff.
    Her body was convinced of that, even if her mind wasn’t. Adrenaline shot down her limbs and made her tingle. The breathless clench in her chest wasn’t going away, especially when he picked her up and pushed her toward his goddamn Evo. She should have seen it behind the pickup. He hadn’t exactly hidden the thing. He’d left the trunk cracked, needing only to nudge it open with one hip.
    He shoved her in.
    She screamed. The gag in her mouth muffled every bit of it. Wedging one foot in the far corner, she tried to launch out. If she succeeded, she’d probably land face first on rough asphalt.
    He didn’t give her a chance. One mean hand shoved her down. The back of her head bounced against the floor of the trunk. Her brain rang. She kicked at him but missed. Bad angle.
    “Nice try. You’ve pissed me off. Congratulations. You’ll pay for that.”
    His eyes were bright and his smile a tight rictus. Oh, he was into this. She was glad. Glad. Had she looked up and found mockery or hesitation, she would’ve died of embarrassment. Then she would’ve made him pay for the rest of his life.
    Dash slammed the trunk.
    Nothing. Alone. A pinprick of light poked in from around one of the taillights. Her wrists were bound behind her back. More zip ties. She explored the smooth but astringent-tasting gag. She’d seen one, but it wasn’t as if she had much experience with them. That Dash had, what, bought one? For this? She shivered.
    With her knees twisted, she shifted her hips to curl on her right side. That eased the pressure from her tweaked wrists. She was locked in a fucking trunk.
    Holy shit, how had this become her life?
    The details fell away. There was only her pounding heart and the way she could claw and fight and rip. And the fact that she wanted to fuck. No. That wasn’t right. She wanted to be fucked. The hot insistence of her swollen pussy reminded her she was as much a party to this game as Dash.
    She’d all but begged for