Now, in one swoop, without barely thinking at all, Andreas wanted to add another woman to our household. Difficult enough keeping Kat in line. I still didn’t completely understand her. Zoe was an unknown. We didn’t know her past, or who she truly was, or how she’d react to us.
I only knew how she’d been with Kat and her behavior for those one and a half days – like a mouse cowering in a corner with the shadow of a predator fallen on it, waiting to get eaten. Except when Kat calmed her down enough. Then…the two of them together, kissing, licking, wriggling, and coming. Fuck, they’d made me wonder if my balls could explode into flame.
Her and Zoe. Her and Andreas. Anger simmered at the edges of my brain. Andreas I’d learned to handle. Her and another woman was setting me off again.
“Fuck.” I scraped back the stool and stooped to grab Kat’s hand. “Come with me. I’m going out to have a talk. You good with this?” I jerked my head toward the mess in the kitchen.
“Sure.” Andreas raised his eyebrows. He looked like I’d announced I was launching a moon rocket or something.
“Really sure?”
He only nodded and said, “Go.”
I don’t know what he thought I meant to say to her. Hell, I didn’t know. I just knew I wanted to. This was strange territory for me.
Out on the deck, the big round chair beckoned me. We’d both fit in there. I wanted this up close and personal. But not equal. I made her stop before it and I sat. “Take off all your clothes, Kat.”
She blinked at me and licked her lips. Nervous?
I nearly laughed. Even she saw that this was odd behavior for me. But she pulled her dress off over her head then went to undo the clasp on her red bra top.
Be gentler. Andreas had advised that when I’d mentioned my curiosity about how he handled her. I wasn’t sure, but…
“Wait. Let me.” With my hands at her hips, I turned her then I unclipped the top, slipping the straps down her arms. I made her pirouette again and admired her breasts with her standing there waiting. I never got tired of this, and I let myself smile as I caressed her.
Her breathing grew heavier, her nipples perked up. I hooked my fingers in the sides of her matching panties and shuffled them down her legs while I kissed the top of her slit.
“Mmm.” She swayed.
It would’ve been nice to be skin to skin but I’d kept my shorts and T-shirt on. I wanted to emphasize how mine she was, how vulnerable too. I liked having her naked while I was dressed.
I licked her once, tasting her, and when I looked at her, the warmth in my eyes was for more than just the sex. I wanted more. I’d seen it for days in myself, but sometimes it seemed like I was blind while her and Andreas had perfect vision.
I pulled her onto my lap and arranged her until we were both comfy with her head on my shoulder. Weeks ago she would’ve been spitting and scratching. Not that I was telling her that.
The shape of the chair made her cuddle in.
“Pretty woman.” I let my gaze travel down her curves, lingering on the best bits, which was most of her.
She opened her mouth to reply and I put my finger across her lips, pleased with how she halted and waited for me, even if she also made a small strangling noise.
“Don’t talk yet.” I nodded as I went on, thinking out what I meant. “I’m not a touchy-feely sort of guy. Though I always thought I communicated well with women.”
Her eyes grew big, disbelief evident in every line of her face. I frowned.
“Watching you and Andreas made me want to punch him at first, until I figured out I needed to do something.” I pulled her ankle in closer, arranged a strand of her hair on her cheek. “Then I saw you with Zoe.”
Damn, why was this so difficult? Pressure pumped up in me, squeezing higher. I was going to crack any moment.
And she waited. I hefted her a little higher on my lap. Procrastinating. Shit.
“You want to know why I took you, Kat? Because you’ve been an obsession for me since I first saw you getting spanked. Yeah, what a lie that was – you an easy pushover submissive.” I smiled at the way her eyes had fired up and tapped her nose. “I can read you. I know you haven’t given in.”
That pressure was still there. I watched her breathing, stroking her throat with my fingers and marveling that even if she didn’t realize it, she was close to submitting to me. I just needed some key.
Blind man. Blind man in the land of the seeing. I still couldn’t put my finger on it.
“When you were with Zoe I was almost as angry as I was when I saw you with Andreas. I wanted to take you away. Except she made you happy. You made her happy too, I guess.” It was true. Their happiness was like a bubble with me on the outside. “If we get Zoe, you have to let me in. Hear me? You have to submit. Fully.”
She shut down. One instant all open and accepting. Next, simmering resentment. I’d been so close.
“Not going to say it yet? I’m not ever freeing you, little Kat. You’re mine and Andreas’s. Once you admit that to yourself your life will be much better. Happier.” A thought surfaced and I grabbed for it, committed myself. “I do want to make you happy. If you need Zoe or whatever to be that, it’s done.”
Fuck. Wasn’t that easy. But though she didn’t exactly look one hundred percent in my court, she reached up and touched my chin.
I quirked up an eyebrow.
“Thank you. Though I know it’s selfish of me to want her safe when there are other women here too.”
It seemed I’d said something right.
“Don’t feel guilty. You can’t save the world. One thing at a time.” Her and Andreas were the same – wanting to be do-gooders. “I didn’t hear a Sir. Bend over my lap.”
“What? Oh. Bugger. I was distracted.”
“By?”
“Your sexy muscles?”
Tsking, I drew a fingernail down her neck, scoring it lightly, reminding her. I added more than a touch of threat to my tone. “Kat…”
We had a battle of wills until at last she wavered and dropped her gaze. Her reply was a whispered, “Sorry, Sir,” then she squirmed off me and lay down across my knees on her belly.
I decided to take it a step further. “Kiss the hand I’m going to spank you with.” I offered the back of it to her. She looked up at me.
Her pupils reflected the liquid darkness that signaled a submissive giving in. She kissed my hand. Her lips were so soft. With the palm of that same hand, I brushed down over her hair, to her back, to the swell of her bottom.
I circled the sweet spot on her ass with my palm. Her eyes closed and, as I watched, her lips parted – the sweet power rush of a victory.
I wanted to fuck her so hard right then. Nail her. Make her know who was the master. I reined it in.
“Extra swats for the swearing, Kat.”
Some things needed to stay the same.
I took my time and made it hurt.
A half hour later when I judged it likely Vetrov would be available, I took Andreas into the study and sent off the email.
I want to buy Z. The gift. What is the price?
We waited for a reply. Andreas on the upholstered chair while I stayed on the hard metal one. Kat was inside the cage in the bedroom. One day I prayed I could allow her out without one of us watching her.
“Going to say what you talked about?” His ankle was on his knee and he jiggled his foot as if nervous. I understood that. Vetrov made me nervous too.
“Should I?”
“Your call. If I can help?” He shrugged.
“Smug bastard.”
“Heyyy! I was only guessing. You seemed like you were going where no man had gone before. Or no Chris. Though the spanking looked fun.”
I glanced at the screen. Still nothing.
“I was trying to get to know her a little more.”
“Hmm.” He waggled his head. “Did it work?”
I thought back. “I don’t know. I told her I wanted to make her happy.”
“An
d then you spanked her so hard she cried?” Silent laughter made him shake. He put his head in his hands. “Oh shit.”
“Fuck you.” The laptop dinged. Email.
You want to buy? You can try gift one more time. This time do as I ask. Then we see about price.
I sat back. What was he on about?
“Bad news?” Andreas was at my shoulder, reading the screen. “What is this guy? Foreign?”
“I don’t know. I always assumed he was Russian.”
“Uh-huh. What does he want? Us to fuck Zoe? Why?”
Good question. It bothered me. Why not just sell her to us if he was willing to?
“This is a mindfuck,” I muttered. “He’s making us wonder if he’ll refuse to sell her after we do what he asks. Then he has your hands dirtier. Mine too, I guess, though that’s hardly needed.”
“How does he know we didn’t do as he asked last time?”
“Scrim. If he asked her, she’d have told him. I doubt that girl would hold anything back if asked directly.”
Andreas drew in a big breath. “Yeah. True. And you know what…”
“What?”
“Zoe is scared shitless of men. I saw how she reacted around us. Doing this to her on command from your boss, I don’t know if I could stomach it.”
I twisted my mouth. “Me neither.”
We were slightly fucked. Par for the course with Vetrov.
“Say yes. We have to try.”
I nodded. “Okay. I was going to anyway.”
Telling Kat we hadn’t even tried to buy the girl – that scenario had left me feeling empty.
What I’d found yesterday while jogging in the forest came back to me. After tripping over a tree root and sliding into some dirt with my knee, I’d levered myself up only to spot a bone sticking out of the earth. I’d found a couple more. Nothing conclusive but they were from something large, maybe a human. It had sent a chill through me. I wasn’t a forensic pathologist and there was no way in hell I was going to phone the cops and ask them to come look.
Whether human or not though, the find had reminded me of how potentially nasty Scrim and his colleagues were. I didn’t know how far they’d go but I was pretty sure it was a long way past anything I’d done. Kicking someone’s ass in an MMA bout wasn’t the same as killing and martial arts expertise sure didn’t stop bullets. I knew I was bad, different from the average man, but I didn’t kill. I’d sanitized the human trafficking in my mind for so many years, and these men were far closer to evil than I ever wanted to go, if they’d killed. Deep down, lurked a certainty that they had.
Wrong, I must be wrong. Had to be. But maybe I was right? I couldn’t decide and it was fucking with my head.
“So was Kat right? Had that been Zoe screaming?”
“Huh.” I stared at him uncomprehending for a second, jarred by the jump from my horrible memory to what Zoe might be suffering. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“I figured that.”
“Bear in mind that she’s stock to them. Money. As long as they can sell her they won’t hurt her too much.” If they thought they couldn’t sell her, though?
“She’s so scared of men.” Andreas scrunched up his brow.
“Seemed so, but I think some men would pay for that. There’s a market for most things.” I hoped there was for her anyway. Her fear might make her easier to sell, or harder.
“Now I’m feeling really dirty. And that’s saying something, considering.”
“Yes.” I leaned back into the chair, resting on my shoulders. “I’m hoping her fear will make it easier for us to buy her.”
“If Scrim comes near me parading any of the other women, I may not be able to stop myself punching his teeth in.”
That made me sit up. “No. Don’t even think about it. The man is armed. So are his friends. It’s not worth it. Stay the fuck away.”
He pulled a disgusted face. “Shit. Okay. I won’t touch him, but I’m still thinking it.”
Chapter 28
Kat
They allowed me to wait, kneeling, by the door when Zoe was brought back. I could see her past Chris and Scrim, like a frightened animal caged in by men’s legs. This time, she only wore a blue bra and panties. Her brown hair stood up in little wild curls but her lipstick was bright and fresh. I wondered, sickly, if Scrim had a lipstick fetish. I had a disgusting moment where I imagined him forcing her mouth onto his cock.
Then they let her through and the new small cuts on her body became obvious. Fresh blood leaked in tiny spots. So small they’d not be dreadful wounds but seeing them, knowing they came from the time of those screams, I wanted to get the nearest lethal instrument and hack Scrim to death.
I seethed, hatred leeching into my bones, my fingernails, but I held it in, only clawing crescents into my thighs with my nails, and I smiled at her. She crawled toward me, peeked around at the men, and when no one gave her instructions, she lay on me, with her head and the top half of her torso on my lap.
“Shh.” I stroked her trembling body while I tried to hear what the men were arguing over.
“We’re not fucking her,” Chris was saying again.
They seemed to be going round and round arguing.
“Hang on.” As if he were finding out about something trivial, like a pizza delivery, Scrim punched a text into his mobile.
While we waited, Andreas came over and squatted nearby, studying Zoe. When she didn’t look up at him, he rose again and backed away to lean on the wall. Good man. Again I was slightly stunned at how nice they were being to her. Where the fuck had all the caveman attitudes gone?
“Okay.” Scrim tucked the phone in his pocket. “Here’s the deal. You fuck her one way or the other or you don’t get her. He says fucking in his definition incudes this slave of yours fucking her with a strap-on. But he wants a pic as proof. Email it. Faces are to be on the thing. You’re all to be in the picture.”
Chris stared at him, rock still.
“That’s it, gentlemen…ladies.” Scrim mocked me, inclining his head and grinning. “So what’s it to be. Yes? No? And it’s one hour only, then she comes back to me while the boss decides about the purchase. Take it or leave it. No further discussion will be entered into, the man said. Got that?”
Shit. This was asking Chris and Andreas to hand over proof of a crime to whoever this boss was. My heart rebelled, aching and pounding away. They’d refuse. They would. And even if they agreed to this…me, use a strap-on with Zoe?
She was pretending none of this was happening and had her arms loosely around my waist, her face up close to my stomach while I patted her hair. I bit my lip, thinking. If it was the price of keeping her safe, I’d do it, as long as she wasn’t traumatized. It wouldn’t have to be more than a second for a photo anyway.
No one had spoken. When I checked, Chris was turning back after having looked to Andreas. He nodded. “Deal.”
I bowed my head and whispered to Zoe, sure she had been listening. “Don’t you worry about this, okay? Do you know what a strap-on is?” I hoped she wasn’t as innocent as she appeared to be.
She nodded. With her face on my leg, one eye was hidden but she was sneaking a look at me.
“I’ll make it like it’s nothing more than…” What? Trying on a dress? It was sex for god sakes.
“It’s fine,” she whispered. Her hand at my back poked my waist lightly, tapping with her fingertips, like she was checking I was still me. “If it’s you, I’m good with it. I trust you.”
“Okay.” I frowned down at her, trying not to tear up.
If this happened, we then had to give her back to Scrim for a while. I prayed the men could buy her afterward. If not, there was nothing I could do. Absolutely fucking nothing. Be positive, at the least that will make her happier. She’d heard what was happening, the agreement. There was hope.
“Thank you.” I kissed above her ear. “You’re brave.”
They hadn’t even asked my opinion of all this. I wasn’t that surprised
– for Chris it would be something I was told to do. With Andreas I wasn’t sure. Disappointment niggled at me. I think I wanted more from him. Maybe I’d imagined him as something he wasn’t?
But I considered what this meant. The picture they had to take directly involved them in this slavery operation. This wasn’t just money they had to spend. It was far more dangerous.
When the door closed, Chris approached and crouched beside us. “You heard what you have to do?”
“Yes, Sir.” I kept patting Zoe.
“Sit up, Zoe. I want to hear you say that too.”
The girl climbed to her knees and managed to meet his gaze.
“You know we’re aiming to buy you.” He glanced at me. “And that Kat has to use a strap-on with you while we take a picture?”
“Yes, Sir.” No hesitation there. If only she knew what Chris could be like. So far though, he’d treated her gently, like she’d disintegrate if pushed.
“Okay. Let’s do this then. You’re in charge of her, Kat. I’ll be watching you both. Come.” He clipped a leash to Zoe’s collar and climbed to his feet.
Ugh. Thanks, Chris.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he reached around her and caressed my cheek. For a second I connected with him, paralyzed by…an awareness of Him as my master, wanting more of his touch, but he turned away.
I shook myself and followed them. Slipping, Kat.
One hour, we had only one hour. This was insane. Who was this person Scrim was arranging this through? The boss would be the man deciding if Zoe could be sold to us…to Andreas and Chris. I searched inside myself, wondering at the joy I’d felt thinking that. I’d have someone to share this existence with, someone to talk to. Maybe to play with.
Someone who should be free. Was I that bad a person that I wished her here with me rather than free?
I didn’t know anymore. The chance of Zoe ever being free again was remote. This was a good outcome for her. It was. If this went wrong, she was going away somewhere unknown to be sold to god knows who, probably someone who liked making innocent little girls scream.
I squeezed my eyes closed. Shut that out, damn you. Shut it out. This is what’s happening now. You will have a pretty girl in your arms soon and you’re going to make her enjoy what happens next. That’s the responsible nice thing to do. Because then, maybe, she gets not to be fucked by some depraved man who wants to feed off her terror.
Make me Yours Evermore Page 21
