Kept Safe

by Lucy Wild

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  EPILOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  JACK

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  DADDY DOM – SNEAK PEEK

  LUCY WILD

  KEPT SAFE

  LUCY WILD

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  JACK

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  DADDY DOM – SNEAK PEEK

  LUCY WILD

  The whole town’s looking for her…

  No one knows where she is…

  Except me.

  I’m a respectable man, everyone says so. I lead an ordinary life. But I’ve got a secret, one that I’ll do anything to protect. Down in the cellar, away from prying eyes, she’s waiting for me.

  Whatever she needs, I provide. I keep her clothed, I keep her fed, I keep her safe. The only thing I can’t give her is the one thing she wants even more than her freedom…me.

  © Copyright 2017 Lucy Wild

  All characters in this book exist only in the imagination of the author and bear no relation to anyone with the same name or names. They are not inspired by any individual and all incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part. Excepting in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or distributed without the express permission of the author.

  This book is intended for mature audiences and may contain explicit language and scenes which some readers may find disturbing.

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  PROLOGUE

  JACK

  She was waiting for me. I had to be quick. I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. I picked up the knife and sliced through the sandwich, dividing it into quarters, the way she used to like them. I hoped she still did. Two types of cheese, grated, not sliced, ketchup not mayo, no butter. I made the same for myself but left mine on the counter. I’d eat after I’d made sure she’d had hers.

  I walked through the house, thinking how different it was now I had her company. It looked the same as ever, there was no sign of another person anywhere. But I knew she was there, and that was what mattered. She was there with me, where she was meant to be. The loneliness I’d felt for so long was gone, vanished as if it had never been. I had a purpose for the first time in years. It was my job to keep her safe.

  I carried the plate carefully, balancing it in my left hand while I rummaged in my pocket with my right. I found what I was looking for after a few seconds.

  Sliding the key into the lock, I turned it slowly. With a quiet click, the door opened. The stairs on the other side descended into the darkness. I felt a sense of excitement. She was down there. In the dark. Waiting for me.

  I had barely taken a single step down before she began to scream. I quickly shut the door behind me, locking the sound in the cellar with us where no one else would hear it. As I began to walk down the steps, her screams grew in volume and pitch, muffled in the bag but still loud enough to make my ears ring.

  “Cut that out,” I said as I reached the bottom of the stairs. She was there on the bed, just where I’d left her, making such a racket. Naked, limbs bound, bag over her head, squirming and fighting to free herself. She continued to scream, thrashing about like a fish out of water, her delicious ass pointing towards me. She looked sexy as hell. “I said cut that out.”

  A new pitch to her screams.

  “You either stop screaming or there’ll be trouble.”

  She ignored me. What choice did I have? Sighing, I put the plate down on the cabinet next to the bed. Twisting on my feet, I raised my hand and brought it slapping down onto her ass. It sure stung my hand so it must have stung the hell out of her. At once, two things happened. A bright red palm print appeared on her buttock. She also stopped screaming.

  It was only a momentary silence but it was enough to tell me she was starting to pay attention. She began with the noise again, tugging at her bonds, as if she’d be able to get free from my knotwork. I spanked her harder, whipping my hand down on her ass as she struggled to get away. Sinking onto the bed, I knelt on the back of her legs, holding her in place so I could swat her ass more easily. Then I went to work.

  By the time she finally stopped screaming, my hand was aching from spanking her for so long. Her ass was burning hot, something I could easily tell as I let my fingers remain on her for a few more seconds, brushing downwards towards her thighs, my cock hardening at the slight flash of what dwelt between her legs.

  I wanted her so badly.

  I wanted to shove her legs apart with my knees and ram myself into her. Then she could scream all she liked. Instead, I stood up. “That’s better,” I said, taking advantage of the bag over her head to stare at her body without her knowing I was doing it. She looked incredible. Her legs were slender, pale in the sickly glow of the cellar light. Her ass was perfect, curved and flawless. I wanted to kiss my way up her back, twist her round and make her mine.

  She was in more danger than she realised. The first time I’d seen her, she was in danger too. She was three years old then, playing in her backyard without a care in the world. It was the middle of the day. The sun was high in the sky, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. But to me when I arrived, she looked like was playing in the dark, an oncoming storm rumbling in the distance that she couldn’t see but I could. She was blind to the danger, oblivious to what was building around her.

  I could hear her mother and father arguing through the open window. Could she hear them too? Or was she concentrating so hard on lining up her dolls that it washed over her, the yelling growing louder as their fight grew more vicious? She was singing quietly to herself. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”

  I knew she was in danger, that much was obvious. I didn’t know that fifteen years later, to keep her safe, I’d abduct her from her house, carry her naked to the boot of a car, bring her here, tie her up in the cellar, leave her screaming for her freedom. Back then, I had no idea any of that was going to happen.

  All I’d wanted to do back then was protect her from what was happening in the house. I usually didn’t give a shit about kids. But there was
something about her. I still remember the argument. Her mother was demanding he back off, yelling at him for wanting to take her away. “You can’t stop me seeing my own daughter.”

  “I can if you’re drunk when you turn up. You stink of booze, Zoe.”

  “Fuck you. You don’t get to tell me how to live my life anymore. I’m taking her.”

  “Try it.”

  It wasn’t my place to take sides. I knelt beside her in the garden. “Hi,” she said, smiling up at me. “Want to play?”

  From playing in the grass to bound in my basement in fifteen years. Life is pretty strange sometimes.

  She began to scream again, bringing my attention back to the present. “If you keep quiet, I’ll take the bag off,” I said. “Scream and I’ll spank you again. I can do this all day to an ass like yours.”

  She kept quiet. She might have been crying. It was hard to tell. Her shoulders were hitching but she was silent. I reached down and took hold of the bag on her head, pulling it upwards, sliding it off her messed up hair.

  She twisted her neck round as her head came into view, glaring at me with such venom that I almost fell backwards. She hated me. Sheer, unadulterated hatred. I didn’t mind. When she realised why I’d brought her here, she wouldn’t hate me, she’d thank me.

  She looked beautiful, even with her features twisted in a mixture of rage and fear. The fear enhanced her innocence. The rage made her look sexy. It was an intoxicating mix. As I looked at her, her eyes widened, her brow furrowing as she opened her mouth and said quietly, “I know you.”

  ONE

  BELLA

  When I first set eyes on him, I was naked. It feels strange now to think that my first reaction wasn’t fear. But then, why would it be? I had no reason to suspect what he was going to do to me, that he was going to kidnap me and do all of those things to me.

  It was another beautifully sunny day. The spring had been hotter than usual and it had turned into the hottest summer in as long as anyone could remember. By the time August came around, the grass in my garden was dying, yellowed and parched, no matter how often it was watered. The flowers were wilting and so was I. I’d been inside all morning, working on my book.

  Procrastinating would be a better way of putting it. The work had consisted of everything but typing. I’d rearranged my desk, organised the bedside drawers, swept the kitchen floor, the open laptop shouting at me to come and start actually hitting the keys. I finally succumbed after every item of crockery I owned had been washed up, dried, and put away.

  I managed to get halfway through chapter seven before the heat inside the house got too much for me. “Just an hour,” I told myself as I went upstairs to change into my bikini. It wouldn’t kill me to sunbathe for an hour. I’d get the rest of chapter seven done afterwards. What was the point of working from home if you couldn’t enjoy the sun from time to time?

  I was in my bedroom when he arrived. Having removed my clothes, I was just reaching down to pick up my bikini top when I caught sight of movement out of the window. It was a removals van. I paused to look, watching as it pulled up outside next door. Behind the van, a red car stopped and a man climbed out of it, arching his back before he turned towards the van. He glanced my way and I ducked out of sight, not wanting the first impression I gave my new neighbour to be that of my tits flashing him through the window.

  He had to be my new neighbour. The way he was directing the removals men couldn’t be interpreted any other way. A new neighbour. And a handsome one at that. Once my top was on, I looked out less shyly, watching as he walked up the path to the front door and unlocked it. He looked hot, very hot. Six foot at least, solid looking, tidy black suit, dark brown hair over a face that screamed mature, confident, all the things a man should be. I felt a fluttering deep inside me and I became very aware that I was wearing nothing on my bottom half.

  The height of the window meant at least no one outside could tell but I felt as if he knew. Even without him looking my way, I felt he was judging me, seeing me as nothing more than an underdressed child. I shook my head. Why did I even care what this stranger thought? I was eighteen. I was an adult. If I wanted to bend over and moon him, I could. He wasn’t the boss of me. No one was. Apart from my agent. I could flash my ass and press it against the window. Now that would be a way to break the ice. And the window.

  He did look my way just as I thought that and I found myself blushing. Our eyes locked for the briefest of seconds before he vanished inside the house. I was frozen to the spot for a long time afterwards. He had looked so damned sexy, the way he’d looked at me, in that second, I thought I’d happily flash him if he told me to. I’d have done anything he told me to.

  Not that it mattered. He was about twenty years older than me. Probably married. No doubt the wife and kids would be following on to join him. The house was far too big for one man on his own, especially with a removals van that size. It was a family moving in. It had to be.

  The word family caught in my mind, sticking in place as if it was coated in glue. I felt a flare of jealousy. I had never had a proper family, not really. An aunt doesn’t count.

  I turned away from the window and began tying my bikini bottom in place. Once it was done, I grabbed a towel and the sun cream and then headed out into the garden. The sun lounger was waiting for me in the middle of the lawn and I sank onto it, enjoying the feeling of heat soaking into my skin already. Bees droned in the flowerbeds, somewhere in the distance a lawnmower was starting up.

  I rubbed sun cream into my arms, humming quietly to myself as I did so. Once I was sufficiently covered, I closed my eyes and lay back, letting my mind wander.

  It wandered back to him. My new neighbour. What was he like? Would he be friendly? The suit he’d worn told me he was a professional, maybe a lawyer. The car looked expensive. The house was expensive. He had to be earning enough to pay for both. Would he hate living next door to a creative type like me? Would he even notice that I existed? Or would he be too busy making big bucks and screwing his secretary?

  As I thought about him, my mind drifted in on itself until I was daydreaming. I was upstairs again only this time I didn’t put the bikini on. I came down and went out into the garden naked, feeling him watching me from his house. I laid down and he tiptoed over, staring silently whilst I pretended to sleep.

  I felt myself getting hotter, though I told myself it was just the effect of the sun’s rays on me. He’d watch me. I’d let my legs slide apart and feel his eyes on me, staring hungrily as I flashed him, pretending I didn’t know he was there. Then he’d…

  God, I was like a schoolgirl with a crush on one of her teachers. I had seen him for about ten seconds and already I was fantasising about him. It was ridiculous. I told myself to stop. No one that old would be interested in someone like me. No money, no prospects. Just her aunt’s house and a quarter finished book that would probably get panned anyway. If it wasn’t for the last dribbles of my advance, I’d have been working for minimum wage somewhere, not sunbathing. I should get back to work. I should get the bloody book finished and stop mucking about. How many eighteen year olds managed to even get a publishing deal? But then how many eighteen year olds have an aunt working for the publisher in question? I should be grateful for the opportunity and get to work.

  In a minute, I thought to myself. The sun felt just too nice to leave. I didn’t want to sit inside in the gloom and until someone invented a laptop screen that worked outside without turning into a mirror, I couldn’t sit in the garden and type.

  I think I drifted off for a while. If I’d been awake, I’m sure I would have heard him approaching. But the first I knew of his presence was when a deep voice next to my ear said, “Good afternoon.”

  I bolted upright, blinking away the fuzz from my brain as I turned in the direction of the voice.

  There he was, further away than I’d thought, leaning on the top of his fence, smiling over at me, the leaves of the trees behind him waving lazily as if they were saying he
llo as well.

  “Hi,” I said, thinking again how hot he looked. “Hi.” I cursed myself for sounding like a parrot, wanting to remove the grin from my lips but being unable to. “I’m Annabelle. Bella.”

  “Good afternoon Annabelle Bella.”

  His voice was like honey and gravel combined, the kind of voice that wrapped around you like a warm hug. It made my insides melt.

  “Just Bella,” I said with a giggle.

  “Enjoying the sunshine just Bella?”

  “Yep.” My mind went completely blank. I could not think of a single thing to say. My mouth opened but all that came out was a strangled nothing. My toes curled as I fought with my brain. All the while he stared at me with an amused expression on his face, though his eyes spoke of something else, something that at that time, I didn’t understand. I understood later what it was, though of course by then it was too late to realise it was hunger. He wanted me.

  TWO

  JACK

  I wasn’t moving far but it was still a hassle. Moving always is. The problem with a quiet life is that you tend to accumulate things. An empty house and an empty life were more my style but both those things would invite suspicion. The last thing I needed was anyone starting to wonder about me. They’d find out far more than they needed to know if they began to look. Under every stone is darkness, down there you find a lot of things that only grow in the shadows, things nobody wants to see, things nobody needs to know about, things that would get me locked up for a very long time if they were found out.

  So I had stuff. Stuff was normal. Stuff kept everyone thinking good things about me. It was stuff that no one needed. I had ornaments and pictures in frames, I had a perfectly ordinary house full of perfectly ordinary things, things that said nothing about who I really was. And now I had to shift them all.

  All of the things I owned were crammed into the truck in front of me. Boxing it all up had taken far too long even with the removal firm helping but at last I was on the move. It felt like a very long drive, the air conditioning doing its best to battle the overwhelming heat of the day as I crawled away from Griffin Street for the last time.