I sat, confused for a moment, unable to answer. “Go ahead, Grace. Just tell me what you feel.”
“Warm. It’s soft and warm in my mouth, but firm too”. I licked my lips again. “Salty. It’s delicious Kaine. I’ve never had eggs like this.”
He looked up from my mouth and smiled. I was confused, not really understanding the game he was playing, but my body seemed to understand of its own accord. He reached out and trailed his fingers over my lips, and I felt warmth and wetness flood into my core. All the desires he’d aroused in me last night roared to the surface and pushed my fears aside. He did want me.
A second later he had me on his lap, my legs spread and wrapped around his waist and the back of his chair. Even through our clothes I could feel the size and heat of his erection. My breasts were in his hands, my shirt buttons scattered on the floor. He was kissing me like it had the power to save his life…
“Fuck, Grace.” He kissed me and bit me, tasting, devouring. “Hot, delicious… fucking delicious girl…”
I arched back and his mouth found my breasts, sucking one and then the other into his wet mouth. “Oh please, Kaine… I want you to do this. I need you to.” I caught his face in my hands and felt him stiffen suddenly. I knew I’d broken the rules and didn’t care. He was so close. We were so close. He wanted me and I wanted him. I was bought and paid for. There was just no reason not to…
“I need you to fuck me, Kaine. I ache inside, and I want this. It’s okay… I’ll do anything you want. Anything you tell me.” I kissed him, my hands tangled in his hair. “Just don’t leave. Stay with me today and I’ll be whatever you need.”
“Grace…” He gripped my wrists in his hands. “No.”
“But you want me… I know that you do.” His face was close and I searched it, frantic for an answer. “If you’ll just give me a chance, Kaine.”
He stood, keeping hold of my wrists and letting my legs slide down his body. He kept his grip until my feet hit the floor and then he let go, pulling back and reaching for his jacket and his phone. “I have to go.”
“But why?” I knew I was pleading, and what little pride I had was all but gone. But he’d been so close. So close to letting go. “Why are you leaving me here alone?”
He opened the door and looked at me from across the room. It was like he was a million miles away again.
“I don’t explain myself, Grace. Not even to you.” He stepped into the hall without looking back at me. “I’ll be back when I can. Do not leave this room.”
He closed the door and was gone.
Two hours of pacing had done nothing to calm my body or my mind. What the hell kind of game was he playing at anyway? Hot and cold… here and gone. Ordering me to stay when he’s free to come and go. What the hell did he pay Mrs. S for? To use me, to get all hot and bothered, and then go off to be with someone else?
All my fears and insecurities came flooding back. Right along with a big dose of anger. Who the fuck did he think he was, anyway? He had paid for services rendered. Services he apparently didn’t even want now. After all, it wasn’t like he really owned me…
I stalked back to the bedroom and shuffled through the closet, searching for the boots I’d worn to the park. I shoved my feet into them, wanting nothing more than to get outside these walls for a while. I felt like I needed air, sunshine. I needed a walk. A long one. To clear my head. Maybe then I’d know just what the hell to do, when Kaine got back. If he came back.
I opened the door and headed for the elevator, irritated by the wait. I glanced around and noticed a narrow door at the end of a short corridor. Pushing it open, I found a flight of stairs. No doubt for use by employees like the girl who’d brought our breakfast. I paused an instant, and then headed down. It was as good a way as any to get to the ground floor, and I wouldn’t have to risk facing any of the girls or their masters. I was in no mood.
I headed down. The Citadel was on the top floor and I had five flights to go. My footsteps echoed softly off the yellow plaster. Three levels down, I stopped, turning my head to listen. The was someone else, farther down. I heard shuffling, and then a sharp cracking sound. Flattening against the wall, I crept down as silently as I could. I knew I wasn’t alone. And something just felt wrong. A few more steps and I leaned over the rail to see. Someone was breathing hard, and for a moment, I thought maybe they’d slipped on the concrete stairs.
At first I only saw the back of her head, leaning over the rail as if she was looking down. Then his hand shot forward to clamp around her mouth, just as she took in a breath to scream. I was frozen, staring against my will as he struggled to push the maid’s skirt up. I could see his cock, already out and ready.
“No!” I screamed out, bringing both their faces up to where I stood. “You bastard! You leave her the hell alone!”
19
Grace
“Keep your mouth shut and get back to your job,” he said, gripping the girl’s hair and pulling her upright. “If you know what the fuck’s good for you.”
Bastien Cole smiled up at me as the girl shot out of sight. The metal door clanged shut behind her and the sound echoed upwards. I stood my ground, outrage lending me the courage I didn’t usually have. I kept my eyes on him as he climbed up to me. “Is this the kind of man you are? You come here and buy women, threaten them. And have to force yourself on them as well?”
The slap caught the side of my face and whipped my head. I felt his hands on me as I struggled to stay conscious. He jerked my hands back behind my waist as he pushed me ahead of him. My eyes were streaming and my vision reduced to blotches of light and dark, swimming together. He held me by the wrists, forcing me up the stairs, jerking my arms up higher when I stumbled.
“I watched Kaine leave this morning,” he said in my ear. “Left his prize behind already, did he?”
I blinked hard and shook my head, fear turning my stomach over. Kaine was gone, and I had no idea where he was. Cole was shoving me down a hallway I hadn’t seen before. And there was no one around to see. La Laisse was famous for its privacy, its discretion. Shit, once he had me in his room, who the hell would know where to find me?
My vision was just starting to clear as the door shut behind us. The room around us was all done in dark shades of red. It was nothing like the Citadel. This was exactly the kind of room I’d been terrified of finding here.
On the walls were images of nude women, in every kind of position. All of them chained somehow. I looked away and shot a glance around the room. I had no idea how most of the… things… I saw could be used, but I knew one thing. None of them would be about pleasure. At least not for the woman involved… The one in the center looked the simplest, but somehow it seemed to strike the most fear in me. It was a double set of shackles, one higher, one lower. Cole twisted my arm behind me and forced me down to the floor next to it. He was staring into my eyes, unblinking. His were black and bottomless. I felt a sickening shudder run through me.
“I got bored with the other sluts, Grace. You’re the one I really wanted in the first place.”
He picked up a collar and leash from a nearby table that held an assortment of things I didn’t want to see. He buckled the collar in place around my neck and smiled. “And here you are, right when I was starting to think I’d lost my chance.”
He looped the leash through a ring in the upper set of shackles and jerked it hard. I gasped, choking as he tied it down, leaving me bent forward and unable to move anything but my arms and legs. “I’m going to get what I came for after all, Grace… satisfaction.”
“For what your mother did. For my sweet, dead Claire. But most of all, just for me.”
He had stripped me down to bra and panties, then he’d clamped my wrists and ankles into the shackles. I was bent forward, arms and legs spread wide, and completely unable to move. The shock of the slap he’d given me had worn off, too late to struggle, too late to fight him. I was helpless now and terrified of what he would do. He had all the power. I had none a
t all.
Cole sat down a few feet away in a red leather armchair and lit a cigar. The smoke drifted past me and made my throat tighten and my stomach churn. He watched me, enjoying my position. And his.
“You say you want justice for your wife,” I began, looking away to be able to get the words out. “My mother’s in jail and the case against her… She’s looking at thirty years with the witness set to testify. She’s almost fifty now. It’ll be the rest of her life.” I looked back into his cold, black eyes. “How is that not justice enough?” Cole picked up a small leather whip off the table beside him.
“What would Claire think of this? Of what you’re doing in this place? Of what you’re doing to me?” I was getting loud now. Anger and fear were working together. I knew I was grasping, to use his dead wife, but desperation will do that.
For a minute, I thought it might have worked. Cole sat frozen, his mouth open to speak, nothing coming out. I thought maybe he would come to his senses, that he’d see how wrong it was, to punish me for what my mother had done. “She’s gone,” I said softly. “This isn’t going to bring her back…”
He got up and circled me slowly, still not saying a word. From where I was chained, I couldn’t see his face when he was standing. He was too close. I felt the leather strips from the whip flicker across the backs of my thighs. That’s when I knew. That I’d gone too far. That what I’d said hadn’t worked at all. I heard the whistle of leather through the air before I felt it. Then the burning sting cut across my back and I heard myself cry out. He struck twice more and I bit into my lip.
“You think I want that cunt back?” he shot out. He came around and bent down to look into my eyes. “Is that what you think?” He stood up and unzipped his jeans, releasing his already hard cock all too close to my face. “That cold fucking bitch.” He took himself in hand and took a step closer. “What the fuck would I want that for, when I can have a sweet, hot little pussy like yours?”
20
Kaine
I heard her first. It only took a second more to know exactly where to find her. I was almost to our room when the screams reached me. It was coming from the floor below, right under the Citadel. The room Cole preferred…
I crashed through the doors, splintering the wooden frame. The light was dim, but more than enough. Cole stood in front of a girl who was bound and almost naked. I could see her only from the back. Cole held a whip in one hand and his dick in the other. He took one step back and I took five forward. I looked from him to the girl in the stocks and felt the air leave my lungs. “Grace…?”
I drove my fist into Cole’s face again and again, losing myself in the feel of it. I felt his nose break and watched as blood poured down the sides of his cheeks. Every hit was deliberate and I told myself I was still in control. I’m always in control. Then her voice broke through…
“You’ll kill him, Kaine. Kaine, you have to stop… please…”
I looked from Cole’s battered and bleeding face into Grace’s clear green eyes. I felt sick inside for having left her here alone. This was my fault almost as much as Cole’s. She was my responsibility and I’d fucking left her.
I unlocked the shackles that held her, and put Cole’s slack wrist into one of the metal brackets instead. I clamped it down too tight and felt a twisted surge of pleasure. If Grace knew what I suspected about Cole, she might have been willing to let me kill the bastard after all.
I gathered her into my arms and lifted her against my chest. Minutes later, we were back in the Citadel.
“I told you not to leave!”
Grace had emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed and was pouring herself a glass of mineral water. She spun to face me.
“And I don’t remember agreeing to obey you when you weren’t even here.” Her voice was crisp, short.
I took a step forward, hands balled into fists, the nails cutting into my palms. I exhaled hard and closed my eyes. This wasn’t what I wanted at all.
“Grace,” I said more gently, “Are you alright?” I took another step and put my hand on her shoulder. “Did he hurt you?”
Her green eyes flashed like jewels and locked on mine. “Did he take what you paid for? Is that what you mean?” She shrugged off my hand but stayed where she was, only inches away. “No, Kaine. Your investment is still safe.”
I ran my hands through my hair and examined the ceiling above us. The last few hours had taken the last of my patience. I’d come too damn close for comfort with Cole, and almost lost it. I felt a wave of satisfaction, remembering the feel of my fist making contact. It would have been so easy not to stop… I looked back down at Grace, so fucking close, and wanted to strip her bare. I wanted to bury myself inside her and erase everything but the need we had for each other. No past, no future, just the two of us, and an end to the maddening need that had brought me back to her.
“Please… Will you sit down?” Defiance was still plain on her face. “I’m asking you sweetheart, not telling,” I added gently.
She sat down stiffly in one of the overstuffed chairs. I took the sofa opposite her.
“I know I told you that I don’t explain myself…,” I began, fighting a rising sense of unease. “But I feel like I owe you… information. About why I left. And what I suspect. It involves you, Grace. You have a right to hear this.”
“How can it have anything to do with me? You have a life out there somewhere. And that has nothing to do with me, or what happens in a place like this…”
She looked away from me and I reached out, carefully, to take her hand. She didn’t pull away.
“It was all about you, sweetheart. I’m just grateful as hell that Brian had what I needed. Something told me I needed to get back here.” I reached out to stroke my fingers along her cheek. “I’d planned to be gone until tomorrow, and by then it would have been too late…”
She bit down on her lip. “What about Cole? What you did to him was assault. And sooner or later, someone’s going to find him cuffed in his room. He could press charges.”
“And open himself up to a charge of attempted rape?” I tangled my hand in her hair and cupped the back of her neck. “He’d never risk the scandal, Grace. He’ll keep his mouth shut. And housekeeping won’t bat an eye. Cole’s known for taking the submissive role here on occasion, and there are more than a few girls who’d be glad to take the credit for the bruises I left on him.” I smiled darkly at the thought. “Besides, if what my assistant found on him bears up, there may be a larger kind of justice in his future.”
“I found him in the service stairway, Kaine. He was attacking one of the maids and I tried to stop him… He took me instead… to that room.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I pulled her gently from the chair to sit next to me and took her in my arms. She was softening to me. “So help me, if he hurt you I’ll go back and finish him, unconscious or not.” I searched her face, her skin, running my hands down her back.
“I’m fine, Kaine,” she answered softly. “You got there in time… just in time I think. He’d only used the whip. He hadn’t… well, he didn’t…”
“I need to see, Grace. Where did he hit you?”
She unbuttoned her blouse and let it slip down from her shoulders. Thin red weals striped her pale flesh, but the skin was unbroken. “It hardly hurts now. It just stings.”
I ran my hands gently over her skin, careful not to touch the marks. Her skin had been so perfect. And that fucking bastard had marked her. I felt an anger start to build inside like nothing I’d ever felt. That he had done this to an innocent girl. That anyone was capable of hurting another person like this…
“God, I’m so fucking sorry. I never would have left, sweetheart. If I’d known you were in any kind of danger.” I lifted her hair from the back of her neck and pressed my lips to the soft, warm skin and heard her sharp inhale. I turned her to face me. “I won’t leave you again. And I promise you, Cole is going to pay for this. I’m going to make him pay for everything.”
“Yes,” she answered me, then she looked up through those thick dark lashes. “And I’m sorry too. Sorry, that I didn’t stay here, like you wanted.”
I kissed her then, deep and long. Her hands reached up to my shoulders and I felt her pause. “Go ahead,” I rasped out. “It’s alright.”
We kissed, tangled in each other’s arms as the water ran. We tasted and teased. Our tongues met and merged as we strained for more, both needing more of each other than a kiss could offer. My hands moved, stripping her clothes off onto the floor. I held her, warm and perfect in my arms and struggled to keep control. It was the one thing my life had revolved around for so many years, and yet this small innocent girl was challenging everything. I pulled back and shut off the water that threatened to overflow. “Here, sweetheart,” I said, working to catch my breath. I eased her into the tub and stripped off my shirt. “I’m going to bathe you.”
The water was warm, almost hot and her body relaxed as she slipped in. I watched her close her eyes and sigh, as I gathered her hair and secured it with a clip. Soft tendrils escaped around her face. “Just feel the water, Grace,” I said softly, as I worked a palmful of soap into a thick lather. “And feel my hands.” I lifted her arm and massaged it. “Keep your eyes closed and just breathe, sweetheart. I don’t ask anything of you, but that. Just let me care for you.”
I stroked and kneaded, massaging her gently, working the soft lather into her skin. She kept her eyes closed the entire time and let me move her and touch her. I ran my hands under her hips and lifted her in the water, feeling the curves of her body, the firm softness of her muscles and her velvet skin. I washed her breasts and her belly. Turning her easily onto her side, I washed the delicate skin of her back. The warmth of the water turned the marks a darker shade of red. I felt a surge of anger and guilt again, and forced it down. She was safe now. Safe with me. And she’d never be in danger again, not while I was alive.
The Baby Contract Page 26
