The door to Room 4 opened then and a doctor in light blue scrubs stepped out. “Are you here to see Miss Miller?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” Conrad stepped up and shook the man’s hand. “How is Madison?”
“Well, she was pretty shaken up when they brought her in, but, aside from some mild dehydration, she seems fine. We’re going to keep her overnight just to be sure, but I think she’ll be okay to go home in the morning.”
“Thank God,” Annie sighed.
“Can we see her?” I asked.
“Of course,” the doctor said. “It might make her feel better to be surrounded by family.”
“Go on in,” Conrad said as the doctor walked away. “I need to make a few phone calls.”
I took Annie’s arm and led the way in. Madison was dressed in one of those thin, blue and green hospital gowns that had the power to make even the prettiest girl look frumpy. There was an IV attached to her right hand and wires snaking under the chest of her gown. Her eyes were closed and, for a minute, I was afraid the doctor had been wrong, that there was something desperately amiss with her.
But then Annie said her name and Madison’s eyes opened.
“Annie!” She held out her hand to her, tears flooding her eyes. “I’m so sorry!”
Annie leaned over to hug her, crying just as hard as Madison. They mumbled something to each other, but the words were so full of emotion that only the two of them could really understand them. I stepped back, a little afraid that when Madison realized I was there, I would see accusation in her eyes.
And then Rawn burst into the room, and I knew I was only in the way.
***
“They kept asking me what Cepheus had planned for release in the next few months and what I knew about the products Cepheus released in the past six months.” Madison shuddered. “I couldn’t tell them anything.”
I leaned back against the far wall of the hospital room, my arms over my chest, and listened as Madison described her ordeal for the third time. Two plainclothes cops were standing at the end of her bed, taking notes.
“Did you recognize any of your captors?”
“No.” Madison stole a glance at Rawn, who was at her side, holding her hand, where he had been since he stormed through the door. “I told you, there were only two whose faces I saw, but I didn’t know either of them.”
“How many were there all together?”
Madison shook her head, again glancing at Rawn. “I don’t know for sure. I heard four distinct voices—”
“Including the woman?”
She nodded. “The others were all men.”
“Would you recognize any of them if you saw them again?”
Madison raised a hand to run her fingers through her hair. When she did, the bruising caused by the zip ties her captors had used to tie her with was obvious, growing more obvious as the moments ticked by. It made my stomach twist into knots.
“Probably.”
The taller of the two cops closed his notebook and made a subtle gesture toward his partner. “Thank you for answering our questions, Miss Miller,” he said. “We’ll be in touch in a few days to arrange for you to give a formal statement at the station.”
Madison didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were glued to Rawn, almost as if she was afraid if she looked away, he would disappear.
Those knots in my stomach only tightened.
The cops brushed past me on their way out the door. As they left, McFarren came inside, followed closely by Conrad. McFarren had a cellphone in his hand that he promptly handed to Rawn. “Her parents,” he said.
Madison had held it together quite impressively through all the questioning, first telling her story to Rawn and Annie, then to Rawn’s security people—including McFarren—and then to the cops. But the moment she put the phone to her ear and heard her father’s voice, she fell apart.
I turned into Conrad and was grateful when his arms came gently around me. He cradled me to his chest, his body offering the strength that had seeped from my body at the first sounds of her sobs. I couldn’t do this…I couldn’t stand here and listen to her cry when I knew that it was me her captors thought they had kidnapped.
Conrad pulled me out of the room just before my own eyes welled with tears and began to spill against the starched front of his shirt. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t judge me or try to offer empty words of comfort. He just ran his hand slowly over the back of my head and let me cry.
Annie followed behind us. She rubbed my back lightly.
“This whole thing is so insane,” she said.
I could hear the emotion in her voice, too, and that should have pushed me over the edge. What it did, however, was give me a reason to pull myself together. I rubbed at my cheeks and turned to her, welcoming the hug she offered.
“She’s going to be okay now,” I said. “Rawn won’t let anyone near her again.”
“I guess we’re lucky he let us in there.”
Annie laughed, but her soft chuckle turned into a sob. She looked away, struggling to keep her emotions under control. I felt so impotent in that moment. I wanted to have the right words, to be able to make this all better for both her and Madison. But there really weren’t words for things like this.
Rawn came out of the room a moment later.
“She wants to talk to you,” he said to Annie, holding the door open so she could go in. She glanced back at me for a brief second, a soft smile on her lips when I gave her an encouraging nod. Once she was inside, Rawn let the door slide shut.
“I’m taking her to the apartment,” Rawn said. “The doctors want to admit her, but I think she’d do better if she went home.”
“You’re probably right,” Conrad said.
Rawn half nodded, his attention moving from Conrad to me to a nurse walking along the corridor to the cellphone forgotten in his hand. “McFarren and his guys are looking for these people but…” He shook his head. “The cops are still pretty pissed that they managed to get out of the house through the cellar. No one thought to watch the alley for movement. They were too busy watching the back door.”
“These people are pretty smart.”
“Yeah, well, between the cops and McFarren’s team, they won’t be on the run for long.”
They both looked at me, as though they both had the same thought at the same time.
“I think you’re probably safe for the moment,” Rawn said. “They won’t try anything again so soon after this.”
“Do you know what they were after?” I asked.
Rawn shook his head. “They asked her a lot of questions about Cepheus, but she also got the impression that they had an insider working with them, which makes me wonder why they couldn’t get the information they were asking her about from that person.” He turned slightly, studying the door to Madison’s room, as though he could see her through the thin wood and metal. “I think they were after something else. I think they were messing with her, so if she was rescued no one would know what their real intentions were.”
“Then what were they after?”
The question hung in the air for a long moment, heavy enough that I could feel the weight of it on my shoulders. But there was no answer.
***
Conrad drove me home. The silence was heavy between us as he drove, navigating the car slower than before through the late night traffic. When we stopped in front of my grandmother’s house, neither of us immediately moved.
“I’m glad she wasn’t hurt,” Conrad said.
I sat up a little straighter and ran my palms over the jeans. “I don’t think Rawn’s ever going to let her out of his sight again.”
Conrad smiled. “I don’t think he needed an excuse to do that.”
“You knew?”
“I’ve known for weeks. I accidentally walked in on the two of them in his office a month before the launch party.”
“I guess everybody’s going to know now.”
“This whole thing is going to be a
PR nightmare. But my team can probably keep Rawn out of the fire if we stay on top of it.”
“Is that what those phone calls were about?”
Conrad nodded. “I’m Cepheus’ PR man. I had to get my team out there, making sure the press that were there at the hospital didn’t start putting out a story we didn’t feed them. It could have been bad for Cepheus if they had.”
“What? If they told the truth?”
“The truth as they saw it.” Conrad turned toward me in the small car, his shoulder nearly brushing mine as he did. “The truth is not as black and white as people want to believe it is. It’s complicated, with lots of gray thrown in. My job in PR is to make sure the press sees the most polished and gray-free truth we can possibly put out.”
“What are you going to tell the press about Madison’s abduction?”
Conrad tilted his head slightly. “That she was taken by criminals who wanted to steal Cepheus’ secrets.”
“But we don’t know that that’s really what they wanted.”
“Doesn’t matter. If we don’t give the press a reason, they’ll make up their own. And their version of things could hurt Cepheus, even if it is proven to be wrong later. People believe what’s right in front of them, so we have to make sure we give them something juicy but close enough to the truth that it won’t come back and bite us later.”
“And Rawn and Madison’s relationship? What if the press gets ahold of that?”
“We’ll spin it to make sure they don’t try to connect their relationship to what happened to her today.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I would want your job.”
“Believe me, there are days when I don’t really want it either.” He slid his hand over my thigh. “I’ll be at the office all day tomorrow, working on this. But on Sunday, I was wondering if you would let me take you to lunch.”
“Really?” I don’t know why I was surprised after that kiss we shared, but I was.
“Yes.” He smiled, his hand coming up to cup my jaw. “I’d like to spend a little time with you, preferably time that you weren’t forced into by a kidnapping plot.”
I couldn’t help but smile, too. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” He leaned closer and kissed me, a slow, tender kiss that threatened to make that small ball deep in my belly explode. “I’ll pick you up at one.”
I nodded, a blush spreading over my cheeks like I was a schoolgirl whose first crush had just finally asked her out. And then I climbed out of the car, deeply pleased that he didn’t drive off right away, but waited until I was safely inside before he gunned his engine and took off.
I knew this couldn’t end well. But for the moment, I was floating on a cloud.
Chapter Six
Madison
I walked into our secret room and picked up the remote that retracted the ceiling. I needed to see the stars, to feel less like I was confined and more like I was floating through space. I couldn’t stop shaking, and I knew it was because of the cold water that finally forced me out of the shower. Every little noise, every little movement that I caught out of the edge of my vision, made me jump. What if they came back? What if they grabbed me again and this time the cops didn’t come in time? What if…
The what-ifs were going to drive me insane.
I was wearing a satin robe from the collection of lingerie Rawn had bought for me, not out of a desire to turn him on, but out of a need to escape the lingering smells I would now, forever, associate with my ordeal. A part of me wanted to crawl into the bed and hide under the covers for the rest of my life. Another part refused to let those people win.
I pressed another button on another remote, and the wardrobe doors all slid open. I walked to the one that held the vibrators and whips and blindfolds, running my fingers over the cold, heartless metal of one of the pairs of handcuffs. Rawn’s own version of a Gabinetto Segreto. I was more excited than I probably should have been the first time I saw this room. Innocence could make a person blind.
“You should be resting,” Rawn said as he came up behind me.
“You said that the last time you brought me here from the hospital.”
“It was true then, and it is true now.”
I lifted the pair of handcuffs I had been studying, testing their weight between both of my hands.
“No, Madison,” Rawn said, as I pressed the cuff through its mechanism in order to slip it over my wrist. “Not tonight. In fact, we don’t have to do that ever again.”
I slipped the handcuff over my wrist anyway, watching as the thick metal fell into place against the forming bruises that grew brighter with each passing hour.
“Madison—”
“I need to do this,” I said quietly. “I need to take the power away from those…those freaks.”
“After everything you’ve been through tonight, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“But if we wait, I don’t know if I’ll have the courage to try.”
I turned toward Rawn, my heart torn to pieces by the emotion that played across his face. My strong, but broken hero, so afraid to love because of the potential for disappointment. All I could think of when I was held captive was how he was afraid to be with me because of his work—a career he never chose and never wanted—had the potential of keeping us apart. But here I was, the girl with MS who could end up in a wheelchair—or worse—next week, next month, or next year, the girl who managed to get herself kidnapped, stolen away from him. He was so afraid he was going to hurt me, but I was the one who was hurting him at every turn.
Life is a joke. And I wasn’t going to let it get the better of me.
I handed the other end of the cuffs to him and said, “Please.”
Rawn studied my face for a long second before he gently turned me and guided me to the bed. He picked me up like a bride on her wedding night and laid me gently on the bed before replacing the handcuffs with a soft restraint already suspended from the headboard of the bed. Then, he ran his hands slowly over my body, as he made his way to my ankles, roughly pulling my legs apart. He lifted my right foot and kissed the bruises forming around my ankles before strapping another soft restraint around it. Then, he repeated the same process with the other.
He crossed the room and returned a moment later with a long, silk scarf that he gently wrapped around my eyes. “Lie still,” he whispered in my ear.
Panic began to build in my chest. I was suddenly back in that van, a strange man’s hand over my mouth, the salty taste of his skin on my tongue. The front of my bathrobe began to separate, and my first instinct was to strike out. I pulled at my restraints and tried to smack away the threat, but it was too tight, too well secured. I cried out, tears of fear and anger filling my eyes.
“It’s just me, baby,” Rawn’s voice whispered near my ear. “It’s just me.”
He nuzzled at my neck, his scent and the heat of his breath washing away some of the fear. It didn’t disappear altogether, but it lessened. And, in that moment, that was everything.
Rawn pressed his lips to my neck, to the little hollow at the base of my throat. And then his tongue was lighting a fire along the outside edge of my breasts, against the very tips of my nipples. When he laid a blanket of tiny kisses along the outside of my ribcage, along the upper edge of my hip, my breathing began to quicken. His hand slid up the length of my thigh, meeting his mouth and then working its way back down, scouting out the trail he was taking along the outer edge of my body while my center screamed for his touch.
I had thought for a while this afternoon that I would never feel his touch again. I had been convinced that this was to be my last day on this earth, my last chance to breathe in the scents of this place, of this time. I had thought the last night Rawn and I lay in this bed together would be the end of it all. So, now, as his hand moved around the top of my knee and closer into the central parts of my aching body, I knew better than even Allison’s death had taught me to cherish every touch, every kiss, every desire fulfilled.
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“I want you,” I said far sooner than I had intended. “I want you inside of me.”
“Patience,” he said, his voice deepened by need.
I shook my head, rolling it almost violently against the pillows. “I need you.”
I felt his weight shift on the bed. A moment later, my ankles were freed. Then my wrists. When he lifted the blindfold, I wrapped my arms tight around his neck and pulled him down to me. I captured his lips with a heat I’d recognized in him, but never felt in myself. I needed this and needed to forget what it was like to be so completely out of control. I needed to see his desire and to feel it grow out of control inside of me. I needed to know that I had power, that I had the power to drive this dominant alpha male over the edge.
Rawn seemed to have no problem with the turn in our play. He buried his mouth against mine, rolling his body over me and pressing a knee between my own. I don’t know when he removed his clothes. At the moment, I didn’t really care. I needed him so desperately that I reached between our bodies and grasped him, pulling him against my wet, throbbing center. I cried out as he pressed himself inside of me, arching my hips until he was as deep as physiology would allow.
We rocked together under the stars, once again fulfilling my personal fantasy. Funny how a fantasy, when it first begins, seems like it’s all about sex. For me, it was about feeling pleasure while lying under the thing I studied for so long, the thing that brought me an intellectual pleasure that was so much more than the physical pleasure I had known before this, before Rawn. But now…it was so much more than just pleasure. It was a spiritual connection, a mingling of the souls that I had never understood was possible, let alone desired to experience. A spiritual awakening that would forever change the way I viewed the world and the stars. An awakening I could only have had with Rawn.
“I love you,” he whispered against my ear over and over again in the moment before he swelled and cried out with his orgasm. A second later, my own voice raised to join his, as pleasure moved in waves through my body, rocking me to the edge of sanity and pulling me back, only to push me over once more.
The TROUBLE with BILLIONAIRES: Book 2 Page 5
