A Price to Pay

by Alice Raine

  ‘No. I swear to God.’ And it was the complete truth. We had not kissed, not even once. I wouldn’t tell Robyn that Alex had tried to kiss me, though, and the only way I’d avoided it was by upping the moves with my hand until she’d had her eyes rolling back in her head and was boneless in my arms from the strength of her orgasm.

  ‘Good,’ she mumbled. Giving a swift nod, she picked up the nail brush and gave my hand another going over until the skin was actually starting to sting a little. I didn’t complain – if it appeased my fiery little Robyn then I would take the slight discomfort.

  While she was washing me, I decided to make sure she knew that I hadn’t wanted any of this. ‘I never wanted to leave you at the wedding, Robyn, you have to understand that. I was forced by her sick video, and the threats to show it to your family. I really had no choice.’

  Robyn continued to scrub at my nails, but she glanced up at me and nodded. ‘I get it. I understand.’ She drew in a breath and nibbled on her lower lip, her scrubbing faltering slightly until she was just holding my hand in the sink. ‘And… and I satisfy you? I… I’m enough?’

  My eyes flickered closed at her question. Fucking Alex. I hated that she’d put these doubts in Robyn’s mind. ‘Fuck, yes. I don’t want or need anyone else, OK?’

  My words seemed to start to sink in because she dried my hand off and pulled us out of the bathroom before snuggling herself into my chest with a soft sigh. I matched her contented sound with one of my own and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘You are everything I’ve ever dreamed of and more.’ Robyn looked up at me from where she was snuggled against my chest and blinked, as if she were struggling with my compliment. She blushed the most gorgeous shade of red as she seemed to pick up on the depth of sincerity in my gaze. ‘You and me. We’re meant to be together. Don’t question it, and don’t ever doubt it. OK?’

  I felt her body completely relax against mine and she nodded with a soft smile. ‘OK.’

  Stroking a hand over her hair, I thanked my lucky stars that she was accepting me again after all this bullshit. After my awful confession that I’d had to get Alex off in order to buy myself some time, I’d started to doubt if she would ever forgive me, but Robyn seemed to be taking it all rather well. If she’d told me that she’d pleasured another man I think I would have killed someone. Not to mention my story of blackmail, sex tapes, and guns… It did sound completely made up.

  ‘If you need proof of any of this I have the email, and I could get one of the detectives to speak to you. Alex is being detained here while they question her.’

  ‘She’s in jail? For what, blackmail?’

  ‘That… and attempted murder,’ I added with reluctance. I’d been hoping to hide that from Robyn to save her worrying but, seeing as I had a bandage covering my wound, I supposed it would have come out pretty soon anyway. ‘They also want to know who the people in the tape are, so they can find the woman and see if she’s OK.’

  Robyn heard my words, but only focused on two of them. ‘Attempted murder…?’ she whispered, her voice high and thin.

  Swallowing hard, I nodded slowly and then pulled the neck of my shirt to the side to reveal the bandage there.

  ‘ She… she hurt you?’

  ‘She shot me,’ I clarified.

  Robyn sucked in a horrified breath and her face paled as she scrabbled onto her tiptoes and gently ran a finger around the edge of the dressing.

  I let her fuss over me, enjoying the feeling of having her touch me again, even if it was to ease her worry. ‘Yes. When I realised that she really was crazy enough to try and follow through on her plan I knew I had to do something, so I waited for her to be distracted and then I tackled her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite as distracted as I had thought.’

  ‘Oh my God… Oliver…’ Robyn now sounded as winded as I had felt when she’d kicked me earlier, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  ‘Hey, it’s OK, it only skimmed the surface of my skin. It’s barely even a graze.’ Her eyes darted to my neck and then back to the bandage. She was obviously thinking that if it had “grazed” me a few inches to the left it would quite possibly have hit my main artery and things could have been a whole lot worse, which was exactly what the paramedic had said.

  From the trembling in her lip and shaking in her hands I realised that all the stress was becoming too much for Robyn. I dragged her back into my arms and gently rocked her until I finally felt her calm and settle against me.

  Time passed slowly by as we stood like that, both of us silent and absorbing everything that had gone on, but finally Robyn pulled in a long breath and leaned back. ‘I want to see it.’

  For a second, I thought she was talking about my wound, but then she frowned and looked me straight in the eye. ‘You said you have the email. I want to see the video.’

  I shook my head. ‘You really don’t, it’s not pleasant watching.’

  ‘I do. I want to see how far she’d go to take you from me.’

  I could see from her eyes that Robyn wasn’t going to be deterred, so with a reluctant sigh I pulled out my phone. I’d let her watch a little, just enough to satisfy her obvious curiosity, and then stop before it got to the really abhorrent parts. Drawing in a deep breath, I nodded. I unlocked the phone and scrolled through my emails before bracing myself as I pressed “play”.

  The first shot started, and I knew Robyn would recognise the setting as one of the tamer rooms at Club Twist. She had never been a huge fan of using the private rooms at the club, she didn’t like the idea of how many people had used them before us, so we tended to do our sessions at home, but on the occasions where we did do a scene at the club this room was her choice.

  Robyn and I were naked and caught in a passionate embrace. Our hands were moving everywhere, lips devouring each other, and eyes burning with love whenever we broke for air and shared an intense glance.

  It was sexual, and erotic, but not perverted, and certainly not violent. To me, the love we felt for each other seemed obvious in every reverent touch and shared stare. We were making love, pure and simple, and if it wasn’t for the fact that our nakedness would no doubt embarrass them, I really wouldn’t have cared if my family and Robyn’s had seen this part of the video.

  Unfortunately, that section only lasted a few seconds, and after a moment of dimmer lighting the view cleared and the horror show began. The room was the same one, but the girl in this film was no longer Robyn. Unfortunately, with her face averted, her slim body and similar hair made it hard to see the difference. She was kneeling on all fours with her head hanging down, and the man, who looked a hell of a lot like me in his build, was standing with his back to the camera, naked and holding a whip in his left hand.

  Alex must have gone to some fairly arduous lengths to find footage of people with such similarities to Robyn and me. The editing was so smooth that it honestly just looked like a later snippet of the first film.

  On screen the man began hitting the woman over and over, throwing in hard slaps with his hand and pelts with his whip until her shoulders were shaking with her sobs and her back was reddened and bleeding in several places.

  This continued for several minutes until the woman was visibly distressed and struggling to get away from him, only to be held back by the restraints on her hands and ankles. Finally, the man dropped the whip and took hold of her hips. He dragged her thrashing body backwards and subdued her with his strength.

  Grimacing, I moved my thumb across the screen and stopped the video. ‘You’ve seen enough,’ I whispered. Robyn didn’t need to see the viciousness with which he took her, forcing his cock into both of her openings and throwing his head back in triumph when she finally gave up fighting and collapsed below him in a limp, sobbing heap as he continued to have his way with her for a further fifteen minutes.

  ‘Jesus…’ Robyn wheezed, fisting my shirt with trembling fingers and looking up at me with wide, horrified eyes. ‘You’re right… They l
ook so much like us. Fuck, Oliver…’

  ‘I know. You see now why I couldn’t let your parents see that film, yes?’

  She nodded, rendered mute from shock for a second or two. ‘My dad would have freaked if he’d seen that. We could have proved it wasn’t us eventually, but the damage could already have been done.’ She stared at me, pale and obviously thinking back over what she had seen. ‘We both know that you’re not left handed, and he had tattoos on the insides of his wrists, which you don’t, but Dad wouldn’t have realised that. He would just have seen you doing all those terrible things to me.’

  I hummed my agreement and nodded, relief pouring into my expression when it became clear that Robyn completely and utterly believed me and fully grasped how seriously I’d had to take the video when it had first arrived on Saturday.

  ‘She’s a lunatic.’ Robyn absently fiddled with the buttons on my shirt.

  ‘She is, but after the hell of the last few days I want to forget about her now and reconnect with you, OK?’

  Robyn gave a small smile and nodded her agreement. ‘OK.’ I stooped down, took hold of her arse cheeks, and lifted her up my front until our eyes were level. She wrapped her legs around my waist to keep herself steady.

  ‘Oliver! Your wound, be careful!’ she yelped, trying to free herself from my grasp.

  ‘It’s fine, Robyn.’ In truth there was a slight sting, but nothing I couldn’t cope with. ‘Hold me, please?’

  At my request she gave a small nod and then looped her arms carefully around my shoulders before she buried her face in my neck on a long, contented sigh.

  ‘Now I feel like I’m home,’ she mumbled against my skin, and those few words were filled with such emotion that I felt like my heart was going to burst.

  Totally overwhelmed by everything that had happened, I cuddled her to me even tighter, ignoring the burn in my shoulder and not wanting to ever let her go. I would never let her go, not again. I’d literally do anything to keep this woman with me until the day I died.

  ‘Fucking hell, Robyn, this week has been hideous.’

  ‘You swear in English a lot more than you used to,’ she observed mildly, pointedly ignoring my comment about the past week as if she couldn’t bear to think about it anymore. She was right in her observation, too. I’d never sworn in English until I met Robyn, but God, did she drive me wild enough to swear in every language known to man.

  ‘I’m so sorry for everything I put you through.’ Whatever hell I had been going through while I dealt with Alex, I knew it must have been ten times worse for Robyn because she’d been totally in the dark about it all. She had thought that I’d left her. For three whole days, this girl who I treasured more than my own life had thought that I had turned my back on her and gone.

  I could barely begin to imagine how that must have felt, but I tried to consider it… How would I have coped if things had been reversed and Robyn had told me that I could never satisfy her, and she was leaving me? Just thinking it made me feel sick to my stomach and so fucking vulnerable that I shuddered.

  Swallowing down a lump in my throat, I tried to settle my anxiety by losing myself in the one thing that kept me sane – Robyn – so I indulged in a deep inhale of her hair. I had no clue if it was the scent of her shampoo that I so adored, or her natural smell, but whatever it was, I bloody loved it.

  Robyn lifted her head and met my gaze with an understanding stare. It was tinged with tiredness, and I could still see the evidence of her recent stress in the blue smudges under both of her eyes and the paleness of her complexión. I’d put my girl through hell and back, and I hated myself for it almost more than I could bear.

  ‘I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the last three days,’ I murmured, adjusting my grip on her so I could rub up and down her back with one hand.

  Robyn leaned back slightly to create some space between our bodies and then, to my surprise, she dragged my shirt from within my waistband and dipped her hands under the hem. Her fingers began a slow inspection of my belly, and then moved upwards over the bumps of my abs until they were resting on my pecs. Fluttering her eyelashes at me, she nibbled on her lower lip and smiled.

  ‘You don’t feel like you’ve aged to me,’ she whispered huskily. Her gaze didn’t leave mine as her hands continued to tease me, and as I stared into her beautiful bluey-grey eyes I saw a distinctly lusty twinkle settle in them. ‘In fact, from where I’m sitting you feel mighty fine.’ She squeezed her thighs around my waist and then scraped her nails gently across my pecs before digging them in just enough to make me suck in a breath and send a bolt of blood to my cock.

  Feeling playful, was she? After the stress of my recent confessions I had not expected this at all, but Christ, I couldn’t say it was unwelcome.

  Ever since I’d laid eyes on her again I’d desperately wanted to bury myself inside her to claim her back. She was mine, and after all the rejection she must have been feeling these past few days, I wanted to make things right between us again. Needed to. As I stared at her it suddenly became of utmost importance to show her how much she meant to me, how important she was to me, and how much I craved her more than my next breath.

  Gripping her tighter so she wouldn’t fall, I spun us around and backed Robyn into the wall. In a much-practised move, I cupped the back of her head to make sure she didn’t hurt herself if my move was too hard. Which it usually was, because whenever I was pressing Robyn to a wall like this I was usually hot, hard, and desperate for her, and not in full control of my strength.

  Who was I kidding? I might play it cool and composed, but I was always desperate for this woman, had been since day one.

  Breath gushed from her lungs as she hit the wall and I was glad I’d taken the time to at least protect her head. Her eyes opened wide in surprise at our new position, but then, to my delight, she took the lead and fisted my shirt before dragging my mouth down to meet hers.

  Dios. Her taste. It was incredible, and I simply couldn’t get enough. These last few days had felt like forever. It was the longest I’d gone without touching her or tasting her for months, and I never wanted to go that long again in my lifetime. It was the most explosive of reunions, teeth clashing as our lips melded together and breaths mixed in a desperate haze of desire. It was hurried and lusty and untidy, but utterly perfect. Utterly us.

  Robyn clearly wasn’t content to leave our reunion at just a kiss, because after several minutes of our mouths melding passionately she began fidgeting against me, the heat of her core rubbing against my trousers right over my solid cock until I growled and thrust it against her.

  I wasn’t convinced that sex was an entirely sensible idea with the images of that awful video fresh in both of our minds, but like always, Robyn seemed to read my thoughts perfectly. ‘Distract us, Oliver. Good memories to wash away the bad… please? I need you back. I need you inside me.’

  Needed me inside her? Well, when she put it like that I was hardly going to turn her down, was I?

  There was barely a second to gasp a breath, because the next moment her mouth had found mine in a kiss so desperate and hungry that it was all I could do to keep up with her.

  I knew exactly what Robyn was doing; she was trying to claim me back after I’d been with Alex, reassure herself that I was hers and only hers, but what she wasn’t considering was that I wanted to do exactly the same. I felt dirty and disgusted with myself every time I remembered how I’d made Alex come, and all I wanted to do was erase that memory and claim Robyn back, too.

  Besides, she seemed to be trying to take the lead, and there was only one dominant persona in this room, so I pressed her into the wall to support her weight and then captured her hands. I pinned them above her head and attacked her mouth with a new hunger that seemed to surprise both of us.

  A low, lusty moan left her mouth at my raised tempo, but after kissing me back for a few minutes she twisted away from my kisses and made eye contact with me, her gaze filled with desire and love so obvious that it m
ade my dick swell even harder than before.

  ‘I want to touch you, Oliver.’ She briefly dropped her eyes to my shoulder where the bandage was once again hidden by my shirt. ‘I need to feel you below my fingertips.’ It seemed fairly obvious that my girl was still dwelling on my gunshot and the fact that I could have been injured far more seriously. After staring at her for a few more seconds, I nodded and released her hands so that we could unite in our desperation to reconnect.

  I would never admit it to Robyn vocally, but it had felt like my life had flashed before my eyes when I’d heard that gun go off, so I needed her touch to reassure me just as much as she needed to give it.

  Robyn ran her fingers across my body, touching and rubbing gently for a few seconds before her desperation won out and she began scrabbling at my clothing. I was craving the feel of her skin on mine, and I didn’t have to wait long, because she gripped the hem of my shirt and peeled it up until it was looped under my arms.

  ‘Off…’ she begged, tugging at the material, and as I leaned away I saw her face was flushed and her gorgeous lips were slightly swollen and moist from our desperate kisses. Possessiveness rose inside me and I nodded, shifting my stance to support her weight and raise my arms above my head.

  As soon as she could, she peeled the shirt from my body and threw it to the side. Her fingers scratched across my arms, my back, and dug through my hair, but things abruptly slowed down as Robyn’s eyes settled on my bandage again. She made a small, mumbled noise of concern as her fingertips rose and flitted across the area, and so I instantly set about easing her concerns by kissing her again and gripping her hips so I could thrust my groin against her stomach.

  ‘It’s fine, don’t worry.’ I’d had enough of being soft and reassuring. I needed her, and I needed her now. ‘I’m yours, Robyn. You are the one I want to spend my life with, the only one I want to touch, the only one I want to fuck until you scream so hard you can’t speak. Understand?’ My tone was low and urgent, and I knew she needed to hear the reassurance just as much as I needed to give it.