by J. D. Mason
He held her and watched as she arched her back, clamped her thighs around his waist, and shuddered. Abby held him, and then pushed away, and pulled herself close to him again, as she cried out at her release. Jordan exploded without warning, without meaning to; his cock thickened and throbbed inside her. Powerful convulsions gripped his body as he wrapped both arms around her and pinned her to him.
“Oh, shiiiii—! Fffffuck! Abby!”
She tried to push herself away from him, but he wouldn’t let go. Jordan buried his face between her shoulder and neck, palmed her head, and held on as if his life depended on it—on her.
Less than an hour later, while Jordan slept soundly next to her, Abby stared out through the open doors across the pool and out at the moon hovering over the ocean. She could hardly keep her eyes open, but Abby was worried that if she closed them, she’d wake up to find herself back in her own bed in Blink, Texas, pissed that she had to wake up from the best dream she’d ever had in her life. Jordan had mentioned that he’d wanted to get away for a little while. He’d been working fifteen-hour days, starting up a new division at Gatewood Industries, and he was exhausted.
Abby had had a bucket list of places she wanted to visit when she finally found the time and courage. Bali hadn’t been on the list, and now that she was here, she decided that it belonged at the top. They’d flown here on his private plane. It was her first passport stamp. And there was nothing about this place that she didn’t like.
Jordan had rented a villa at the Bulgari Resort in a town called Banjar Dinas Kangin Uluwatu. It was absolutely beautiful, built on the side of a cliff and overlooking the ocean, and every night they slept with the doors open. Abby was worried at first about bugs getting into the place, but they must’ve known that they weren’t welcome, because she hadn’t seen one since she got here.
He stirred a bit and pulled her closer to him. She sighed and melted against him as if it were actually possible that she could somehow blend her body into his until they were one person. Jordan’s strong heart beat steadily against her back. She loved the feel of it, the sound of it, the rhythm. Something about it made her feel settled.
Jordan loved having her close, almost as much as she loved being close to him, which wasn’t nearly as much as she’d have liked. During the weeks back home, Abby spent most of her time in Blink, while Jordan stayed and worked in Dallas. He didn’t like the two-hour distance between the two of them any more than she did, and had asked her, on more than one occasion, to pack up her life and move into his penthouse with him in Dallas. Deep down, she wanted nothing more than to spend every waking second with this man. But Abby fought hard to keep a level head about all of this—them. She had a business to run and responsibilities and if she wasn’t careful he could make her forget that there was the real world, and then there was Jordan.
Somehow she managed to ease out from underneath the weight of Jordan’s arm without waking him. Abby walked naked out onto the massive lanai and looked out at the ocean, listening to the waves ebb and flow gently against the beach below. It was okay to be naked in a dream, because that’s all it was. Just a dream.
The responsible Abby Rhodes stirred inside her.
“C’mon, Abby,” she murmured softly. “You know that alarm clock on your phone is going to chime at any moment.” She sighed. Of course it would. Abby went through an agenda cataloged in her mind.
“Wade and PacMan should be showing up at Mr. Bergman’s first thing in the morning to get started on replacing that roof. I’ll have to swing by before lunch to see how they’re coming along.”
She resisted the temptation to concede that she was actually sleeping anyplace but in her own bed.
“I need to have Patty reconcile those invoices I got the other day for the new floors we installed at Pritchard’s Fish Boil over in Clark City.”
That’s it, girl, she mentally coaxed herself. Get back in touch with reality and leave all this dreaming nonsense where it belongs—on your pillow.
Abby glanced over her shoulder at the beautiful man sleeping in that gigantic bed. Jordan Gatewood was larger than life and it wasn’t his fault. He ran a multibillion-dollar corporation. All he ever had to do was snap his fingers and every request he made was immediately answered. He was king and Gatewood Industries was his kingdom and the people working for him worshipped him. So he couldn’t possibly be real in her life. Right? And that ocean wasn’t real, either. Neither was Bali.
Abby closed her eyes and waited, anticipating the sound of her alarm. She still had some leftover pizza in the fridge. She licked her lips at the thought of warming up a slice for breakfast and making herself a cup of hot, steaming coffee to go along with it.
“Abby.”
That wasn’t her alarm. Abby opened one eye, expecting that ocean to have disappeared. But it was still there.
“Come back to bed, sugah.”
She opened her other eye and turned slowly. Jordan had pushed himself up on one elbow, waiting for her. His dark gaze tugged at her, drawing her over to the bed like she was a puppet. Abby couldn’t have resisted if even if she’d wanted to. And without protest, she crawled back into the bed next to him. Jordan pulled the sheet up to cover the two of them to their waists, lay back down, and kissed the top of her head before eventually drifting back off to sleep.
The sun was starting to come up. Abby’s eyelids were so heavy that it took all of her strength to try to keep them open. Maybe she wasn’t dreaming. Maybe she’d fallen off a ladder or something, died, and this was heaven. It was a rather morbid thought but one that she could reconcile with, at least making more sense than the idea that this was her life now, that she was in Bali, and that Jordan Gatewood was her man.
Thieves in the Temple
PLATO STOOD OUTSIDE OF ABIGAIL Rhodes’s brick bungalow thinking about how much it looked like Marlowe’s house, which looked like nearly every other brick house in this town. The truth was, Plato hated Blink, Texas, but he loved a woman in it, and considering that he was never one to put down roots or to call any one place home for too long, lately this town was where he’d felt he belonged. In less than twenty minutes, Plato could be at the place he shared with Marlowe on the other side of town. The coincidence of Gatewood’s woman and Plato’s woman knowing each other still blew his mind. The shit was just eerie.
Plato’s phone rang and Marlowe’s picture showed up. He grinned. “Hey, baby. You must’ve read my mind, because I was just thinking about you.”
She laughed. “I did, which is why I called.”
“You know I was kidding. Right?” he said, trying not to sound as uneasy as he felt. Marlowe really was psychic or something, which still freaked him the hell out.
“Oh, really?” she casually responded.
“What do you need today?” Plato asked, to hurry up and gloss over the exchange.
“You,” she said seductively.
“Aw, yeah.” He nodded.
“And eggs. Can you stop at the store on the way home and get a dozen eggs, unbleached flour, and vanilla flavoring?”
He frowned. “Vanilla what?”
“It’s in the seasonings sections of the store, where you find salt and pepper, and in a little brown bottle that says ‘vanilla extract’ on the label.” She explained it to him like he was six.
“Send me a text, ’cause you know I ain’t gonna remember all that.”
“I’m sending it now. Where are you?”
“Working.” He waited for her to ask for more detail, but Marlowe was finally learning the ropes of being in a relationship with a man like him. It was in her best interest not to ask and it was also in her best interest not to try to read his mind, or tarot cards, or bones, or …
“Okay,” she said with reservation. “But you’ll be home tonight?”
“I’ll be home soon,” he promised before declaring his undying devotion for her and hanging up.
The domesticated life was entirely too out of character for him, but despite some uncomfor
table moments, he actually dug it. Or rather, he dug her, which made everything else bearable. Plato made his living doing some unsavory things, and the last thing he wanted to do was taint her world with any of the details of what he did to earn his money. Marlowe was his light force. She was his breath of fresh air, a love song with a pretty melody, and any other corny shit that came to mind. She saved him from the abyss of himself just by being, and he’d grown addicted to her, obsessed by her. It was downright unnatural but felt so damn good.
He started his inspection of this place on the perimeter. Plato made his way down a path along the side of the house leading to the gate of a six-foot-tall privacy fence. It was latched from the inside but had a lever that he could pull on the outside to open it. Plato noted that the gate was closed. A minor detail, but every last one of them mattered.
The yard was nicely manicured with a Zen type of quality, a swinging bed hung from an old elm tree, exotic grasses, succulents, and shrubbery. He made a couple of mental notes of some things he liked so that he could do them in his own yard. His yard. His house. His woman. No. Nothing about how he lived his life now made any sense, and yet he was living it. He carefully examined areas around the windows and doors, stopping and squatting underneath one particular window located in the back of the house. Plato spotted footprints, dried in the mud directly beneath that window. He stood up and looked inside. It was a bedroom.
Making his way back to the front of the house, he noticed that the front door was closed. He played out a scenario in his mind. If he were abducting someone from inside a house in the middle of the night, would he have the presence of mind to close the door behind him? Plato tried the knob and pushed open the unlocked door. Once inside, he leaned down to examine the lock, noticing small scratches around it, and he concluded that it had been picked, not broken. Plato closed the door behind him, stood in the middle of the small living room, and without moving assessed the area.
The living room seemed mostly intact, except for the small drops of blood on the floor. On one of the end tables was a framed black-and-white picture of a pretty young black woman and an older man. They looked too much alike to not be related. Abby and a relative.
On the breakfast bar was a cup and a saucer with a half-eaten sandwich still left on it. Plato walked slowly down the narrow hallway and noticed more blood splattered on one wall and smeared on the opposite one. Every discovery was always open to interpretation, and he couldn’t afford to take anything for granted. Through the years, he’d come to understand that. Plato passed a small office and bathroom and finally stopped in the bedroom he’d looked into from outside. The struggle had started here.
She’d been in the bedroom when she’d been taken. Pillows, a blanket, and a lamp were strewn on the floor. She was a fighter. An image flashed of her at the house talking to Marlowe. Abby in her work boots and jeans, with a utility belt strapped around her petite frame. Abby was a little superhero and he wasn’t surprised that she put up a fight. Her abductor would’ve had to incapacitate her, subdue her, to control her. He’d have had to hit her. Hence the blood.
Plato turned in a slow circle, seeing in his mind how the scene might’ve played out. Abby sleeping. Kidnapper creeping. Covers her mouth with his hand. Abby scratching and kicking and swinging.
Plato left the bedroom and slowly headed back down the hallway, where he saw a wooden matchstick on the floor. He picked it up and examined it. One end of it looked as if it had been crushed. Plato looked around the house for candles. He looked through kitchen drawers for a matchbox and came up with nothing. It was just a matchstick and probably meant nothing. But he tucked it into his pocket and left the house, making sure to close the door behind him.
* * *
“Hey, baby,” Marlowe said to him as he was coming up the steps to the house, carrying a bag of groceries.
Her cousin Belle was leaving, leading their blind and mean old aunt Shou Shou from the house.
“She knew you wouldn’t be able to find it,” the old woman said gruffly.
Find what? He wanted to ask but then thought better of it. Shou Shou didn’t like him. Not that he gave a damn, but she was dangerous and spooky and knew how to cast spells and shit like that.
“It’s good to see you too, Shou,” he said sarcastically. “How’re you doing?”
“Don’t give me no lip,” she warned as Belle escorted her down the steps of the porch to the car. “I’ll sic the ancestors on you.”
He shook his head and turned to go inside. “What the hell’s that mean?” he muttered under his breath.
“Try me and find out,” she shot back over her shoulder.
“Hey, Plato,” Belle finally said, greeting him with a sweet smile.
Thankfully, the two of them left, and he followed Marlowe into the house to the kitchen to the scent of something that smelled so good it made his knees weak.
“I asked Shou to bring me the vanilla extract,” she said as he set the bags on the counter. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to find it.”
Marlowe wore a colorful cloth wrapped on her head, knotted in front, a fitted yellow T-shirt with a peace sign across her inviting and ample chest, and black leggings, clinging for dear life to those hips and that lovely ass of hers. She had a lovely golden-brown complexion, hypnotic eyes, and big lips that he sucked on like a babe every chance he got.
“What?” she asked, looking over at him. She’d caught him staring.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“Smothered pork chops for you and baked lemon-pepper salmon for me.” She smiled.
And she loved to cook? He’d kill for this woman. In fact, he had. He’d die for her with a smile on his face.
“What’s the vanilla for?” he asked, hoping that she wouldn’t put no shit like that on his pork chops.
Marlowe smiled, bent over, opened the oven, and pulled out a golden pie. She held it under her face and inhaled. “Coconut pie,” she said luxuriously.
His favorite.
Dug My Own Grave
JORDAN HADN’T SLEPT ALL NIGHT, but he arrived promptly in his office at eight, logged on to his computer, and held his customary morning meeting with his executive assistant, Jennifer, over coffee the way he did every morning to review his schedule for the day.
Routine was everything. Jordan did not have the luxury of allowing himself to become undone. He couldn’t give in to the unraveling threatening to take him apart inside. Abby needed him to be focused and strong. For her sake and for his own sanity, he needed to keep up appearances. The thought was never far from his mind that he was being observed, that whoever was behind this was waiting, watching, and expecting him to crumble under the weight of her abduction. Jordan was unraveling internally, but on the outside, he believed that he needed to appear steady and sane, to be the force he was expected to be.
Is Abby still alive?
He’d made a promise to himself not to give that question any credence and certainly not to let it settle in, but it flashed in his mind all of a sudden and immediately made him uneasy.
“Jordan?” Jennifer asked, staring at him. “Do you want me to accept the meeting notice from Mr. Miller for this afternoon?”
Had she asked him about that already?
“No,” he responded. “See what’s available for tomorrow.”
She nodded. “That’s it, then. Anything else?”
“No, Jennifer, that’s all.”
“It probably doesn’t need to be said, but no police, Mr. Gatewood,” the woman on the phone had told him. “They make things unnecessarily complicated and messy. I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail.”
Jordan clenched his jaw. “You just make sure that she isn’t hurt,” he warned. “Not a scratch. I fucking mean it.”
“I can hear it in your voice that you do,” she said calmly. “We’ll handle her with kid gloves.”
But they hadn’t. Jordan found himself staring at Abby’s picture again that the woman had sent to him. She
was bleeding and he was keeping score.
Jordan’s personal assistant, Phyl Mays, came into his office half an hour after his meeting with Jennifer had ended.
“You feeling all right, boss?” she asked, sitting on the other side of his desk. “You look a little tired.”
If candid wasn’t Phyl’s middle name, it should’ve been.
“I am tired,” he admitted.
Phyl smiled. “How’s Abby?” She winked.
The expression on his face must’ve sent a warning, because Phyl quickly wiped that grin off her face.
“Sorry,” she muttered sheepishly, clearing her throat. “Are you going to need a driver tonight?”
“Driver?”
“For the McCall cocktail party at the Eidleman Country Club?”
“Am I RSVP’d for that?” he asked, having forgotten all about it.
“You are.”
The last thing he wanted was to go to a cocktail party.
“Do you want me to cancel?” Phyl asked reservedly.
“No,” he said quickly.
Don’t bend. Don’t break. Don’t stop. The sonsofbitches, whoever was behind this, were watching, waiting for him to flinch. Don’t.
“I’ll drive myself,” he added.
“Oh, and I managed to get a few résumés together for Abby to take a look at,” Phyl casually explained. “I called and left her a message, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”
Jordan had asked Abby to consider hiring her own personal assistant. Of course, she found the whole idea silly, but he’d asked Phyl to reach out to a few agencies for résumés for Abby to review anyway. In time, he had hoped that she’d see the value in having her own “Phyl” to help manage things for her.
“Is she out of town?” Phyl inquired.
“Send them to me,” he said casually. “I’ll see that she gets them.”
“She doesn’t seem too keen on the idea, boss.”
“She’s not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good one.”
“Well, when you talk to her please have her call me. Until she gets her own PA, I’m sort of helping her navigate her way around D-town. She wanted me to find her a good mani-pedi shop and I’ve got a couple in mind that she might like.”
