Free Loaded: A Bad Boy Romance by Roxie Noir

mother loves this movie, and I get why: it’s pure cotton candy fantasy about a rich man rescuing you and taking you away from your life into one where you can buy pretty dresses and sip champagne all day long.
    There’s romance, too, but I know that’s not what resonates with my mom.
    When it ends I pull it out, put it in its cardboard case, and stick it back on the pile. Tessa stirs on the couch in the sudden silence and opens her eyes to look at me.
    “Did I fall asleep?” she asks, her voice soft and sleepy.
    I nod.
    “What time is it?”
    Time doesn’t really matter here, but I glance at the clock on the microwave.
    “Almost seven,” I say.
    “Oh,” she says, and rubs her eyes. When her hands come away, her eyes are ringed by black smudges, and she looks at her fingers.
    “Shit,” she says. “Where’s the bathroom?”
    I point at a door, and she stands.
    “You need to come watch me?” she asks. She still sounds sleepy, but her words have a bite to them now.
    “You’re fine,” I say. “Just don’t take too long.”
    She swishes into the bathroom, dress trailing behind her.
    I peruse the tapes and finally grab Point Break . When Tessa comes back, I’ve already started it. She grabs her coffee mug, looks into it, takes it to the kitchen, and pours herself a new mug before coming back to the couch.
    “There’s nothing to do here, is there?” she says. “Not even a puzzle.”
    I shrug. We watch the movie.
    In twenty minutes, she’s asleep again, her head flopped back and to the side. When I get my fourth cup of coffee, I sit closer to her than she let me when she was awake and put my feet up on the coffee table.
    By the time Keanu Reeves is shouting that he’s an FBI agent, her head’s on my shoulder. I’m pretty sure she’s drooling on me, but I don’t want to wake her. Letting her sleep seems like the least I can do — and besides, from this angle I can see down her dress, just a little, her breasts swelling with every breath she takes.
    I think of her saying oh! again for a moment. Her pussy squeezing my fingers so hard I couldn’t move them, the flush that crept up her cheeks.
    I imagine that I can smell her on my fingers even over the smell of coffee, and I feel my cock stiffen.
    Well , I think. There’s nothing to do here ...
    I look down her dress again, but I’m not stupid. If there’s one girl in the world who’s not going to fuck the guy who kidnapped her, it’s Tessa, even if she’s drooling onto my shirt right now.
    I sigh, and try to concentrate on the movie.
----
    S he wakes up when Point Break ends and wipes off her mouth. She glares at me, but doesn’t say anything, even when she adjusts the dress she’s still wearing.
    I get off the couch and stretch, then walk into the kitchen.
    “How long are we going to be here?” she asks.
    I glance at the disposable cell phone in my pocket. I have one bar of service that keeps flickering in and out, but it should be enough to at least know if I’ve missed a call.
    “That depends on your dad,” I say.
    “How long do you usually hold innocent people hostage for?”
    “The only other time I had a hostage, it was under twenty-four hours,” I say.
    Back then, I’d just started. Another guy kidnapped a rival cartel boss’s wife, and it was my job to stay with her in a basement in Fullerton until the guy relented. The poor woman had been a mess, sobbing and begging me for mercy the whole time, sobbing that she didn’t want to die yet.
    I felt bad for her for a while, but then I just got annoyed. I was pretty glad when we let her go.
    “So by tonight, you think?” she asks.
    I shrug.
    “Maybe tomorrow morning,” I say.
    I open a cabinet and look inside: dried pasta, jarred pasta sauce, boxed macaroni and cheese, and lots and lots of canned soup.
    “People will know I’m missing,” she says. “People saw us together at the wedding.”
    “I’m sure the real Brent will be getting a visit from the cops,” I say. “And