So this had to do with her men. Some maniacs from one of their missions possibly? The tears rolled down her cheeks, she shivered and could see the slightly open window, and then her eyes landed on a woman. “Please, help me,” Harper said to her. She looked young, and pretty, too, with long blonde hair and dark blue eyes.
“You need to be quiet, or they’ll come back in and hurt you more.”
“I can’t let them touch me,” Harper said, and her voice cracked with fear.
“If you lay still, cooperative, then it won’t be so bad,” the blonde said to her, and then looked at Harper’s body. “I can cover you if you’re cold.”
“How about undoing these bindings?”
The door opened and the blonde lowered her head and held the blanket in her arms.
“Isla?”
“She’s cold,” Isla said, but kept her head down submissively.
Harper saw the older man, he was muscular, athletic looking and had a gun on his waist. He looked fierce and when he spoke it was with a German accent. What was with the German accents?
He approached her and another man entered behind this one.
“You must learn to obey quickly or I’m afraid your future will lay six feet under,” he said to her, and looked at her breasts, then down her legs. He licked his lips.
“Everything is set up. Take Isla out of here,” the other man ordered someone, and then a man appeared and grabbed Isla’s arm. She cried out and he dragged her from the room.
“No, where are you taking her? Who is she?” Harper asked, trying to look up and back to see where Isla went.
The slap to her thigh made her gasp and turn. “Introductions, prisoner,” he said to her.
“No need for that, we’ll be getting quite comfortable with her shortly, and also giving her men a bit of torture themselves,” the other one said, and she saw how he waved into the air, and then looked at what appeared to be a small camera. He was recording her. Her heart hammered inside of her chest. He got up onto the bed and then looked at the camera.
“Such a lovely young thing. A shame that you left her unattended. How long have you had this little gem of yours? A sexy woman to pleasure you in between tours. Is that what you did, screwed her after destroying our operations and killing our brother?” the one man asked, and he ran his palm along her thigh, up over her mound, stroking her there, and then up against her bra, cupping her breast.
She tried pulling on the restraints and telling him to stop. “Don’t touch me. Get away from me,” she yelled, and then other guy covered her mouth with his hand and joined in.
“How does it feel to know we have something so precious and important to you? How does it feel to know she is our prisoner and that we’re going to have a lot of fun breaking her down, and preparing her for her destiny? That surprise will come soon enough.” The man cupped her breast and lowered his mouth to it. He slid off the strap of her bra as she wiggled and tried to break free, but the other man covered her mouth still, and even gripped her inner thigh and ran it higher and higher. Then suddenly they stopped.
The one on the left had clicked something next to her. “That should be a nice first video. We’ll do another one tomorrow,” he said and then pinched her.
“Ouch.” The other one stared at her mouth and ran his palm down her throat.
“She’s lovelier then I expected, Hyzein. Let’s try to keep her face untouched or Armad might decline the deal.”
The other man chuckled. “Leave that to me.”
Harper cried after the two men touched her. She knew they were trying to anger her men. This had something to do with their professions as soldiers. It made her feel sick, and scared that these types of animals existed. How come no one was coming to get her? Were Ferrion, Broaden, Lextin, and Snipe even looking for her, or were they overseas somewhere in some remote location with no means of contact? If that were the case, she could be stuck here, tortured, raped for days even months. Oh God, sometimes their missions lasted months. The last one was six months long. Oh God, please no.
“Easy now. It will be okay. You’ll be okay if you cooperate.” She heard the gentle, sweet voice and remembered that she wasn’t alone here. That the young woman, Isla, the men referred to her as, was here, as well. She wasn’t tied to a bed, or in shackles, she was free to move around, although the windows in here had bars on them, they still opened and let in the fresh air. She tilted her chin up as she felt the hand over hers.
Isla squeezed her hand. “You need to bathe and prepare for the next video,” Isla said to her.
A hope of trying to escape passed through Harper’s mind, but then dizziness came, and her vision blurred. Her head must have rolled back because then she felt Isla’s hand caress her cheek.
“You need to do this. They drugged you on purpose so you won’t be able to escape. It will take effort to get you to the bathroom, but you have to help me or one of the men will come and help. You won’t want that,” she warned her, and Harper stared into the woman’s baby blue eyes. “Come on now,” Isla said, and helped her from the bed.
Harper was so out of it, she hadn’t even known she wasn’t restrained. What did they give her? She moaned and her body protested as Isla helped her from the bed.
“Who are you, Isla? Are you a prisoner here, too?”
Isla whispered to her. “Like your men who are soldiers, my brother was one in Germany, working for the government, ours and yours,” she said, her German accent slight but there.
Harper felt the tears in her eyes.
“He was killed by Skoens and Hyzeim when my brother Watson searched for me. I was the bait they needed to kill him, just as it seems you will be the bait to kill your men.”
“No, oh God no, they will come for me. They’re probably looking for me right now. Oh God this is why they didn’t want a relationship. They feared putting me in danger and I pushed them. I gave them no choice.” She cried and her head spun. She couldn’t even register Isla’s words, but she saw the tears flow from Isla’s eyes.
“I don’t know what lies ahead for either of us. I only know the abuse I sustained when I resisted. The threats of being sold that will become a reality soon enough.”
“No. No, we have to fight them. We have to resist.”
Isla shook her head. “You feel how weak you are? They drug you, starve you so there is no fight within you left. Then get what they want. They kill the men who come to try and rescue you, and then you’re shipped off just like I will be.”
“But they didn’t take you away yet,” Harper said, and closed her eyes and felt sick and so very tired. It was like the more energy she expelled, the weaker and sicker she felt.
“Because I’m bait, too. Your men knew my brother and worked with him to try and stop Skoens and Hyzein from succeeding in their terrorist activities and illegal importing and exporting businesses. They are evil men. Your men killed their other brother and destroyed their operations that cost them millions. They are evil, evil monsters, and the man they say will take us away, Armad, is even more evil.
Harper felt the tears flow, but also the fight within her simmer low. She was weak, hungry, unable to fully understand Isla’s words but knew the end result. Death for both of them.
“Don’t give up hope Isla, and if we get the chance, we will fight together, side by side.” Isla’s eyes widened and tears filled them as she reached out and squeezed Harper’s hand.
Harper closed her eyes, couldn’t concentrate on anything more, and accepted Isla’s help. Harper barely remembered her actions, the process to getting to the tub, Isla explaining who the men were to her, and then she was back in the bed again, this time wearing some kind of lingerie. A sheer blue bra with a matching overlay and thong panties in sheer blue that barely covered her mound. She could smell the shampoo, the body wash, it was pleasant, but made her feel nauseous. She was weak, could tell she lost weight. How long had she been here? What would they do tonight to her to anger her men? Would she and Isla make it ou
t of here alive, or were their lives over? Would Harper never see Cherry Hill and her bar again? Her friends again? Her men, or would she be the reason they died?
“Every night it gets worse and worse. I can see her ribs, she’s hallucinating and dying before our eyes. We’re running out of time. The day is drawing near of the surprise they mentioned in the videos. Why the fuck isn’t intel getting anything on these videos? On a location?” Broaden demanded to know as his brothers and their friends, all mercenaries and operatives in the military, gathered around the room. They were at a secure facility where men and women were working on dissecting the videos. They were all viewing Harper’s body, the two evil fucks touching her, egging Broaden and the team on and making them insane with jealousy, anger, hatred, and it was taking so much not to completely lose it.
“We’re all doing the best we can do right now. Give them time to dissect things. In the interim, I have men working on the money trail. If things were to go wrong, and if we can’t get to Harper in time, we need to know that we can cut off Van Buren Skoens and his brother’s complete operation. We’re getting closer and closer to doing that,” Corporal Sanchez said to him.
“We won’t be too late. We will find her and rescue her. We have to. She doesn’t deserve to be there, to be a prisoner because of us,” Broaden stated, and then looked at Ferrion.
“I got something,” one of the men who was working on one of the dozen videos said aloud. Sanchez and Stone Ryder went over along with Broaden and his brothers.
“Right there. You see it, a map on the wall, like one of those framed to indicate the location of a residence.”
“That could be just decoration,” Sanchez said to him.
The soldier raised his eyebrows up at him. “Or it could be a map and location of the house the prisoner is being held in.”
“Pull it up, work on it and get the location. We’ll look into it and the possibility. We can see what turns up,” Ryder said, and the man began to work on zooming in closer, clarifying the image as hope simmered in Broaden’s chest.
York helped Ade close up Harper’s. “I can’t believe this is happening. I just can’t,” York said to him.
Ade squeezed her shoulder. “Harper is tough, and her men are bad ass and then some. They will find her.”
“It’s insane, and the questions people keep asking me.”
“You’re doing great, and lying is to protect her and the soldiers involved. We’re lucky they even explained to us what was really happening.”
York gave him a sideways look. “Like I was going to stand for that bullshit about her going away with the Dortry men for a while and having no return date? That was bullshit and I think Kane’s way of trying to do his part of covering things up.”
“People may be asking questions here and there, but I think they know what’s going on, too. After all, when that call came in about a breakin at Harper’s home and how Anderson Hayes was hurt, it started a bit of a stir.”
“Him and Brian have been coming in and it’s obvious he hates the Dortry men and blames them for what’s going on.”
“Yeah well, no one plans for anything like this to happen. Are you okay getting home by yourself?” he asked just as the patrol car pulled into the parking lot. Ade chuckled. “Your personal escort has arrived.”
“I don’t need one.”
“Hey, give the guys a break. Finn and his brothers like you, care about you, and want to get to know you better. Would it be so bad?”
“Could be, all things considered,” she replied, and he winked, waved to Finn, and then headed to his truck. Finn rolled down the window.
“Long night?” he asked.
“Yup. Heading home now.”
“I’ll follow.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, but then he gave her a look. That superior, commanding expression and she exhaled, and turned to get into her car. As he followed her home, she had to admit that she did feel safer. She was a bit on edge, so worried about Harper and her wellbeing. She didn’t know any details and no one who did would say a word anyway, so it made matters worse. On top of it, her mom called again, saying that her dad was back in the house. She was so angry at her mom for taking that lying, cheating crook back into her home and definitely her bed. It just made York feel like no man could ever really be trusted, and especially not with a woman’s heart.
As she pulled into the small driveway by her cottage, deputy Finn McCuen pulled in right behind her. She unlocked her door and he followed her inside.
“I’m okay, Finn,” she said, and stared up into his dark green eyes.
He closed the door behind her, looked her over and she damned her body for feeling it everywhere. “Just being thorough. Things are a bit crazy around here and taking extra precautions is important.” He looked around the place. “May I?” he asked, about looking through the house, her bedroom, the closets, and it made her feel more nervous. She nodded and then crossed her arms in front of her chest and stood there waiting for him. Her mind went to the dangerous feelings, the fears of being alone. She looked at the empty living room, felt a chill over her skin and thought about a hot shower and warm pajamas, getting this skirt and blouse off of her and sleeping in bed.
When she felt the arm come around her waist from behind, she gasped.
“Easy, York,” Finn said to her, and then kissed her neck. She tilted away instinctively and he kissed her more, suckled against her skin, squeezed her back against his front, and she felt the utility belt, his gear and bullet proof vest. Her nipples hardened and he slid his hand up under her skirt along her thigh.
“You’re safe with me, with any of my brothers, always.” He nipped her shoulder bone and she pressed her hand over his just as he reached her hip bone under her dress, and his finger grazed her groin. She felt ready to come, right here in his arms, and he didn’t even stroke her pussy.
“Finn, I can’t,” she said, and he released her and she turned around.
“You feel it, so why so resistant?” She stared up at him and didn’t respond. How could she explain that she was embarrassed by her past, her family, and she didn’t trust a soul? That her father almost sold her in a deal to some guy because he needed the money, and that the guy still wanted her despite the deal falling through? That she was almost raped. Had been assaulted and her father did nothing? How could she tell him or his brothers? She came from white trash and they came from patriotic, sincere hard working people.
“Jesus, baby, what is going through your head right now?” he asked as he snagged her around the waist and pulled her close. She could fee his large, firm hand half over her lower back and ass. She liked it. Too much.
“I think you should go. I appreciate you looking out for my safety.” He pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her and it was crazy how quickly things changed. A moment later, her ass hit the granite on the kitchen island and she pressed her thighs against his hips as he deepened the kiss, and pulled her firmly against him. He plunged his tongue into her mouth then cupped her breast. She felt her pussy throb and then explode. She moaned into his mouth and then he pulled back.
“Fuck, you feel it. You’re fighting this but it’s going to happen.”
He lowered her down to the island and pressed her skirt to her hips as he held her gaze with a firm, hard expression.
Love Shouldn't Hurt Page 10
