Tied up With Love

by Amelia Thorne

  ‘We’re from KMW. Do exactly as you’re told and you won’t get hurt…’

  Being grabbed off the street, blind folded, tied up and thrown into a van was not what Izzy expected to happen when she stepped out the door that morning. But when an accidental kidnapping at the hands of the sexy Ethan Chase and his ‘Kidnap My Wife’ sexual fantasy business leads to just that, Izzy seizes the chance to turn her misfortune into a brilliant new job opportunity…

  Since then, life has been one big tangle of new client meetings, fake kidnapping pick-ups, and handling the temperamental, but drop dead gorgeous ‘bad boy’ Mr Chase. But, as liberating as being tied up in Ethan’s life is, Izzy knows the time is fast approaching when she must make some decisions and take charge of her future. The only question is: will Ethan allow himself to be a part of it?

  Also by Amelia Thorne

  Beneath the Moon and the Stars

  Tied Up With Love

  Amelia Thorne

  www.CarinaUK.com

  AMELIA THORNE

  International woman of mystery. Owns a goat and rides a penny farthing. May have a secret identity. Some of the above may not be true.

  Follow her on Twitter @Amelia_Writes

  Thank you to everyone at Carina who have supported me in making my dreams come true, and to my friends and family who have stood by me as I’ve slowly gone insane with self-doubt and hysterical with joy, you are all amazing and I love you all.

  To all the wonderful book bloggers and authors out there who have tweeted, retweeted, blogged, reviewed or shouted about this book, you are incredible and your support touches me every day. One day we will all meet in a big room with lots of cake and I’ll get to go round and hug you all, for now, this book is for you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Book List

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Extract

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Izzy watched as the grey van skidded round the corner and tore down the street towards her. The driver definitely seemed to be in a rush. The van had blacked out windows, a foreign plate and was being driven really badly. It careened across the empty road, mounted the pavement right in front of her and stopped just before hitting a lamppost.

  She was standing outside a recording studio and for one deliciously exciting moment, Izzy thought someone famous might step out, with mirrored shades and a huge entourage. Admittedly, the recording studio was generally used for making advertising jingles, but allegedly Chesney Hawkes had once been there.

  Izzy inched closer. Nothing exciting ever happened in her sleepy little town of Greater Chessingburyford. Maybe today…

  The van doors were suddenly thrown open and out stepped the biggest man she had ever seen in her entire life. His elf ears were huge and stuck out into comical points, his enormous eyes were magnified behind thick rimmed glasses. He looked friendly, kind of sweet, like a big puppy. So it came as the biggest shock in the world when he yanked a cotton bag over her head, threw her over his shoulder and bundled her into the van.

  Izzy heard the van door close, plunging her into darkness. As the van took off, Izzy’s brain finally caught up with what had just happened. She had been kidnapped.

  She was lying on the floor of the van – it was dusty and she could see a pair of black boots out the bottom of the bag. The legs attached to them knelt by her side.

  ‘We’re from KMW. Do exactly as you’re told and you won’t get hurt. Put your hands in front of you.’

  Izzy obeyed, suddenly feeling a sick wave of panic consume her.

  Rope was tied around her wrists, and although it wasn’t tight it immediately chafed her skin.

  KMW? Who the bloody hell were they? Like KGB or FBI? What did they want with her? More importantly, what were they going to do with her? Would she be beaten and tortured? Would they kill her once they were finished?

  Her throat was dry but she managed to find her voice. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Someone wants to see you. We’re taking you to Oakwood House now. It’s in the middle of nowhere so no one will hear you scream,’ Black Boots said.

  Izzy heard herself take a deep shuddering breath.

  ‘I don’t have any money.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s your money he’s after.’ Another male voice, which somehow Izzy associated with the huge man who had abducted her. He laughed and the lewdness of it sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘Leave it out Gizmo,’ Black Boots said.

  Strong hands were suddenly around her arms and she was pulled up and sat in a chair. ‘When we get to the house, we’ll take you in and down to the basement. It’s been requested that you’re tied to the bed. After that you’ll be left alone.’

  Izzy felt physically sick, her heart was racing in her ears, cold sweat prickled down her back.

  ‘She’s shaking,’ Gizmo said.

  ‘I know,’ Black Boots said, with a note of worry in his voice. ‘Look we’ll be there in a minute. We need to gag you.’

  The bag was pulled from her head and she blinked in the muted light, getting her first glimpse of Black Boots. He was young, maybe early twenties. He was good looking and had brown eyes and warm skin of Mediterranean colouring. He proffered the bandana and she flinched away from him. Gizmo, she noted, was calmly reading the paper.

  ‘Please, let me go. I’m rubbish in bed, your boss or client will be very disappointed.’

  Black Boots narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. ‘You don’t know what this is about, do you?’

  Izzy shook her head.

  ‘Crap, he’s supposed to tell you. We say it time and time again, they have to tell them.’

  ‘We’re here,’ called the driver and she looked over to see the back of a shaved head in the driver’s seat. Izzy felt the van come to a halt.

  Black Boots pushed his hair from his face and sighed. ‘Dave asked us to bring you here, you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘Dave?’ Izzy asked and Black Boots nodded. Who the bloody hell was Dave?

  The door to the back of the van was suddenly thrown open, bright sunlight temporarily blinding her. As she opened her mouth to speak, Black Boots slipped the bandana in her mouth and tied it round the back of her neck.

  Gizmo stood up and ducked to get out the van, then turned round and in an easy movement lifted her carefully back over his shoulder again.

  She had never been as scared in her life as she was right then. She had read about this sort of thing in the papers, but never thought for one moment it would ever happen to her.

  They were quickly inside and she had a chance to see dark wood flooring before Gizmo was carrying her down some stone stairs. He walked into a dimly lit room and laid her on the bed. Black Boots knelt on the bed next to her and lifted her arms above her head to tie them to the
headboard.

  Something snapped inside of her, there was no way she was going to let this happen. She lashed out with her feet, kicking Gizmo in the side of the face. He leapt back with a wail, she elbowed Black Boots in the nose and blood spurted from it satisfyingly. She leapt up and ran but only managed to get two feet before Gizmo had grabbed her and dragged her, kicking and wriggling back to the bed. Black Boots quickly held her feet down while Gizmo tied her hands proficiently to the headboard.

  ‘Jesus,’ Gizmo rubbed his head. ‘Anyone would think she doesn’t want to get shagged.’

  Black Boots touched his nose. ‘This is exactly why she should have been told. I don’t get paid enough for this.’

  Izzy wriggled against her restraints, pulling on the rope so hard it made her wrists sore.

  ‘Good luck to her husband, that’s all I can say, she’s going to skin him alive,’ Gizmo said.

  There were footsteps on the stairs and Black Boots looked towards them. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her? That’s part of our agreement. She’s petrified.’

  ‘I did,’ said a voice, veiled in the darkness.

  Izzy strained her eyes to look at her kidnapper and slowly he emerged into the light. A thin, scrawny looking man with glasses peered at her.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’

  ‘Your wife,’ Gizmo said.

  ‘No she bloody isn’t.’

  Black Boots looked back at her, his tanned cheeks suddenly going pale. ‘That’s not your wife?’

  Scrawny Man shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen her before in my life.’

  They all stared at her. Maybe there was some little ray of hope. They’d clearly kidnapped the wrong person and now she would be set free.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Scrawny Man said. ‘If she’s here, who the hell has got my wife?’

  ‘No one, there are no other teams. Your wife is probably still standing at the pick-up point. Or gone home, bored of waiting.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I’ve paid four hundred pounds for this and you can’t even pick up the right woman. I bought Viagra and everything.’

  ‘Look, Ethan will be in touch with you. We’ll arrange a full refund or an alternative date but right now we have the very small matter of abducting a complete stranger off the street to deal with.’ Black Boots gestured to Izzy in exasperation and Scrawny Man nodded.

  ‘Right, of course. If the press get hold of this I want full anonymity.’

  ‘The press won’t get hold of this – besides, you’re not actually doing anything wrong.’

  Scrawny Man nodded again. ‘I better call my wife.’

  Izzy watched as he retreated back up the stairs. Gizmo and Black Boots continued to stare at her.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Gizmo asked.

  ‘I can’t believe you grabbed the wrong woman.’

  ‘Me? You told me it was her.’

  ‘The boss is going to kill us,’ Black Boots said.

  ‘We could not tell him.’

  ‘How do you suppose that’s going to work? We let her go now, she’ll go straight to the police. The police will come straight to Ethan with your description, you’re hardly inconspicuous.’

  Gizmo paled. ‘I’m not going back to jail, no way.’

  Izzy moaned against her gag and Black Boots approached her like she was a caged wild animal.

  Carefully he removed the bandana from her mouth.

  ‘Please, let me go. There’s obviously been some terrible mistake. I promise, I won’t go to the police. I won’t tell anyone.’

  Black Boots looked back at Gizmo. Gizmo shook his head, ‘She’s seen our faces. There’s no way I’m letting her go.’

  ‘Are you insane? We’re not criminals. What are you going to do with her, kill her and dump her body where no one will ever find her?’

  Izzy’s heart, which had been slowing when she realised she wasn’t the intended target, started galloping again.

  ‘Please. Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’ Black Boots leaned over to untie her from the headboard. But as she sat up Gizmo marched over and pulled the bag back over her head.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Black Boots said.

  ‘We’ll take her to the boss, he’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Jesus, Gizmo, we’re just making this situation worse.’

  But Gizmo, it seemed, wasn’t to be talked out of this. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder again. She saw the stone steps and then the gravel outside, and she was back inside the darkness of the van a moment later.

  Chapter Two

  The van journey was quite short but Gizmo and Black Boots were silent.

  They surely weren’t going to kill her.

  But she had seen their faces, she knew the van’s number plate off by heart. Why would they let her go?

  How had it come to this? Her day had started so normally. Since being fired from her job two weeks before, she hadn’t had to get up too early, but her beloved cat Pete had woken her up demanding to be fed. She’d studiously ignored the first trickle of bills that had arrived on her doorstep. There were bound to be many more to come. She’d fed the cat, fed herself the remains of the cereal, gone for a run and spent three hours applying for different jobs. Bar maid, waitress, secretary, cleaner, bin man – or in her case, bin lady – sports coach, carpenter and driver’s mate, she’d applied for them all. She came across well on the phone, she had good experience and was never sick. She worked hard and most people seemed interested until they asked the fateful question. ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ Being fired for breaking her boss’s nose was not a selling point. Most people rapidly lost interest after that.

  She’d wandered down to the college to see if there were any more free courses she could sign up for but she’d already done most of them. She’d just been on her way to meet her Aunt Sophie for coffee when Gizmo and Black Boots had crashed into her life.

  The van stopped and she heard them climb out, leaving her alone in the darkness.

  ‘WHAT?’ roared a voice nearby as no doubt their boss, Ethan, was just informed they had kidnapped the wrong person.

  ‘WHAT?’ roared Ethan even louder as he was no doubt told she was still tied up in the van with a bag over her head. He sounded like a man not to mess with and Izzy found herself shaking again.

  She heard running footsteps and the van door was thrown open. The bag was yanked from her head and she looked into the fierce blue eyes of the most freaking gorgeous man she had ever seen. He was huge, not quite as big as Gizmo in height but certainly the same broadness. He had curly dark hair and the same Mediterranean skin tone as Black Boots, which made the azure blue eyes stand out even more. In fact his eyes didn’t belong in someone so dark and they made him look interesting and unusual. He stared at her for a moment. Was he checking her out? Izzy nearly laughed at this crazy thought – she was dressed in tatty leggings, an oversized hoodie and battered knee high boots, there was definitely nothing sexy about her, but the look in his eyes was undeniably hunger, as if he wanted to eat her.

  He moved forward to grab her and Izzy flinched away from him.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m Ethan Chase. I’m so sorry about all this. Let me make you a cup of tea and I will explain everything.’

  He took her arms in surprisingly gentle hands, pulled her to her feet and helped her down from the van.

  Her legs were shaking and she wasn’t sure if she could stand.

  ‘Are you ok to walk? Here, let me help.’

  Before she could answer, Ethan swept her up into his arms and carried her like a baby into his office. Gizmo and Black Boots were standing to one side, looking sheepish.

  ‘Get out, both of you.’

  They hurried out and Ethan placed her in a chair. He knelt next to her and started to undo the rope around her hands. The office was a mess. There was a big desk with a phone that was ringing quietly. Paperwork was strewn everywhere, in piles o
n the floor, even on the big comfy sofa in the corner. There was a very swish looking computer with some kind of diary on the screen and mouldy coffee cups in various degrees of decay were all over the floor, windowsills and on top of the filing cabinet.

  Sunlight was spilling through the open door and Izzy looked out at the fields and trees stretching as far as the eye could see. She tried to pick out landmarks so she knew where she was, but apart from a distant church, it was a landscape of green.

  She would escape. She was a fast runner, she knew this. When she went jogging, she could run for very long distances and barely break into a sweat. Gizmo and Black Boots were lurking by the van but she could run in the other direction, leap over that fence and be down the hill before they could get anywhere near her. She looked at Ethan. He was very strong though. The shirt he was wearing did seem to be bulging at the arms. Even his exposed tanned forearms were muscular. The element of surprise would help her. With her hands released she put her head in them and pretended to cry.

  ‘Now, there’s no need to cry, I know it was scary for you, and I’m really sorry for that…’ he leaned in to comfort her and she punched him as hard as she could in the face, sending him sprawling on the floor.

  She leapt out of her chair and ran through the door.

  ‘Jesus, not again,’ Black Boots said.

  ‘Gizmo, stop her,’ roared Ethan.

  She ran towards the fence, but her legs were shaky with the adrenaline that was coursing through her and she couldn’t run as fast as she needed to. Gizmo lumbered towards her, she swung her fist in his direction but he caught both hands and threw her over his shoulder again. She fought against him but with one strong arm round her legs she could do very little to stop him. He plonked her back in the chair again, grabbed the rope that Ethan had taken from her hands and tied her to the chair.

  Ethan had a blue ice pack pressed to his eye, making him look like an obscure pirate. With his thin lips and his dark eyebrows slashing downwards across his forehead, he was definitely pissed.

  ‘Now you will listen to me…’ Ethan started, his voice sounding like a growl.