Salvaging His Soul

by Samantha A. Cole

  The operatives in the group were going to hit the sack for a few hours to get some much needed sleep. They’d then head out before dawn to meet up with the rest of the team at the target site. Nick and Marco would be joining Jacob on the boat. The older man was also borrowing a few toys to take along—scuba gear, harpoon guns, and Sea-Doo Seascooters, which would help the men travel distances far more quickly underwater.

  After making sure Amy was secure in her room, Jase followed Brie into theirs. Shutting the door behind him, he was surprised when she spun around, threw her arms around his waist, and buried her head in his chest. “Hold me, please,” she begged before a sob ripped from her.

  Running his hands up and down her back, he let her cry it out. He wasn’t stupid—her tears weren’t from him being an asshole earlier, they were all about Nadine, and that was okay with him. Making her mad was one thing, but knowing he was the reason she was crying would have ripped his heart out. He’d make it up to her when he could, but for now, he’d do what he should have been doing all along—being her Dom, and not just going through the motions as if playing a game.

  Jase bent his knees, put his arm behind her thighs, and picked her up, carrying her over to the bed. Placing her in the middle of the mattress, he then pulled off her sneakers, and set them on the floor, followed by his own. He climbed in next to her and pulled her onto his chest. As she continued to let it all out, he brushed his lips across her forehead, murmuring words of comfort. The words “I love you” were on the tip of his tongue, but he knew she wouldn’t accept them right now. When her tears and sobs slowed, he began to show her what he couldn’t say. Cupping her chin, he tilted her head until he had full access to her face. He kissed her swollen, red eyes and licked her salted cheeks all the way down to her ripe mouth. Sliding his lips across hers, he gently but commandingly encouraged her to open for him. Taking possession of her mouth, he rolled her onto her back and settled his hips between her thighs. Grasping her wrists, he pinned them above her head with one hand while the other traveled back down her body.

  Brie writhed beneath him, spreading her legs wider and tilting her hips upward, grinding her clit against his bulging erection. He swallowed the moan that escaped her before kissing his way down her jaw and neck. Her arms tugged against his hold, and when she clued in he wasn’t going to release her, it seemed to turn her on even more. “Jase,” she gasped. “Too—Too many clothes.”

  He murmured his agreement against her skin. Lifting his head, he nearly drowned in the desire and need raging in her eyes. “Hold onto the headboard, baby. If you move your hands, you’ll be punished.”

  Her eyes grew wide at his authoritative tone. He watched as she did as ordered, but it wasn’t good enough for him. Something was missing. Something they both needed right now. “When I instruct you to do something, Brie, you’re to say ‘yes, Sir.’ Understood?” There would come a day when he would earn the right to be called her Master, but he had a lot to make up to her before that happened.

  The pulse in her throat sped up as her breath hitched. Her pretty pink tongue peeked out to moisten her lips, her eyes never leaving his. “Yes, Sir. I understand.”

  “That’s my girl.” He brushed a few strands of her hair behind her ear. “And that’s not just a term of endearment, baby. You. Are. Mine. It may have taken a jealous kick in the ass for me to realize it, but you can be damn sure I’m never going to forget it from here on out. And neither will you.”

  He thrust his hips forward to punctuate his last statement and her eyelids fluttered shut as she moaned. Sitting up and straddling her thighs, Jase slowly dragged her shirt up her torso, reveling in every inch of skin as it was revealed. Mine. All mine.

  Forcing the shirt up onto her upper arms, he left it there, restraining her with it. His fingers found the front closure of her bra, he released her breasts, letting the lacy garment fall to her sides. Her nipples were already taut and peaked, and Jase couldn’t resist bending over to lick one and then the other. Brie’s eyelids lifted just enough so she could watch him as he suckled her breast. His hands slid down and made quick work of unzipping her pants. Desperate to know how wet she was, he shoved his hand under the waistband of her panties and moaned when he found her soaked for him. Kissing his way down her abdomen, he yanked her pants and underwear off as she lifted her hips to help him. Once he had her completely naked, he grasped the backs of her thighs and pushed them toward her chest, spreading her wide for him. Lowering his head, he inhaled her scent. Sweet ambrosia. Nectar of the gods. Using his fingers to expose her pink sex, he ran his tongue up the length of it, savoring the taste. Mine. All mine.

  Brie’s hands clenched around the spindles of the headboard, and her hips bucked once before Jase pinned them down. She was at his mercy and he was going to take full advantage of it. He licked and nibbled on the tender, wet flesh before stiffening his tongue and spearing it inside her. Every muscle in her body tightened as he fucked her relentlessly with his tongue. “Jase! Oh, please!”

  “Not yet, baby. When I’m ready to let you cum, I will, and not a second before. Close your eyes and feel.”

  Dropping one hand, he replaced his tongue with his fingers, going deep, but not hard or fast enough for what she wanted. Sucking on her clit, Jase drew her juices from her pussy lower to her puckered hole. He’d never taken her there—no one had, according to her. But, damn it, if she was his, then he wanted every part of her. It wouldn’t be tonight, but with proper preparation, he’d claim that part of her too one day. For now, though, a little teasing was in order.

  Her eyes flew open as Jase pressed the tip of his finger against her forbidden entrance, and he flashed a grin at her. “Not tonight, baby, but soon this will be mine too. Relax. I won’t hurt you.” He dipped his fingers back into her vagina, gathering up more cream, before returning to her ass. Her glutes and legs tightened, and he nipped her inner thigh, causing her to yelp, but it had the desired effect. “That’s it. Relax. You will let me in.”

  To help ease her anxiety, he returned his attention to her clit and pussy. He attacked them with his mouth, tongue, and the fingers of his free hand, distracting her. Brie’s gasping, moaning, and squirming increased as he brought her higher and higher. It wasn’t long before she was teetering on the edge of the precipice, begging for release. He fucked her with his finger, tortured her little pearl, and managed to get the tip of his pinkie into her ass. The triple assault on her most sensitive parts was taking her out of her head to where she could only feel. Nothing else mattered in their bed. Nothing but taking care of the woman he loved. “Fly for me, baby!”

  Mine.

  C

  HAPTER 17

  F lipping through the TV channels, Amy sighed in boredom. Brie and Angie had asked her to tag along while they ran into town to get a few things from the grocery store, but she’d opted to stay at the resort. If they’d been going to see any of the hunky guys from Ian’s team, it may have spurred her into going, but since that wasn’t the case, there she sat on her bed—alone. At least, the hotel room was a hundred and one percent better than that dump she and Nadine had been living in. Their move to St. Lucia was supposed to have been a new adventure—fun and exciting—but it turned out to be so far in the other direction, Amy had started to regret it weeks ago. Now, with Nadine missing, Amy was ruing the day the idea had ever entered her head.

  She was a screw up. Amy knew that. Everything she ever attempted to do in life had fallen flat. She wanted what other women had—what Angie had. A hunky husband who was smart, took care of his wife, and traveled to exotic places all over the world with her. From what Angie had told Amy, the woman had her own graphic design business—making book covers, logos, signs, sketching portraits, and all sorts of things. With Ian’s successful businesses, she didn’t have to work, but continued to do so because it was so much fun. Amy wished she had a talent like that, but she was lucky if she could learn how to work a simple cash register like at the grocery store she’d worked at before s
he and Nadine started working at the strip club.

  Yeah, that had been another mistake. One of many she’d made in her life. If her parents were still alive, they’d be so disappointed in her. Like her best friend’s mother, Amy’s had died of cancer a few years ago while her father had been killed in a boating accident when his daughter was five. She couldn’t remember him and only knew what he looked like from her mother’s photo album, which she’d loved to flip through growing up. If it weren’t for Nadine and Brie, Amy wouldn’t have any family at all. Her father’s family never acknowledged her—she’d been the black sheep born out of wedlock—and her mother’s family lived back in England. If she lost Nadine too, she’d certainly also lose Brie, since it was Amy’s fault they were in St. Lucia.

  A knock startled her. Maybe Brie had forgotten her key and needed to use the adjoining doors. Rolling off the bed, she hurried to the door and pulled it open without checking to see who it was. She was surprised to see Scott from the day before, without his friends.

  “Hey, Amy.”

  A handsome smile spread across his face, revealing his dimples, as he eyed her from head to toe and back again. She instantly regretted throwing on only a T-shirt and lounge pants, instead of one of her cute outfits. “Hi, Scott. What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged and blushed a little. “I—um—I was wondering if you wanted to go out . . . with me. I was thinking we could go for a ride and check out the island. I only have a few more days before our vacation is over, and we’ve only left the resort at night to go to the clubs. I’ve heard there are a lot of cool places to see. The guys didn’t want to go with me, so I figured I’d take a chance and ask you. So, what do you say?”

  Her eyes widened a little. He wanted to go out with her? Like on a date? Well, he hadn’t exactly said a date, however, it sure sounded like one. But Jase and Ian had told her to stay at the resort in case they needed to ask her about anything. She’d answered dozens of questions already so she couldn’t imagine what else she could tell them. It wasn’t as if she could really do anything to find Nadine, and if she and Scott didn’t go too far, they could head back at a moment’s notice. Ugh. The others had no way of contacting her, though, because she’d forgotten to pay her cell phone bill again. As of an hour ago, the only thing she could do with it was dial 9-1-1 for an emergency or call her phone provider and pay to get her service turned back on. With twenty dollars in her bank account, she’d have to go to one of the payment centers tomorrow and pay in cash with what she’d earned in tips earlier in the week. Once again, she was without a job, but at least Jase had gotten her passport back.

  “Um . . . I’d love to go, but I can’t be long. And I’d need to leave my friends your cell phone number, if you don’t mind. Mine’s dead.” She wasn’t about to tell him she’d forgotten to pay her bill, not wanting him to think she was irresponsible and immature. “They should be back soon, but they’ll worry about where I went.”

  His grin faltered a bit, and she thought he was going to say forget it, but instead, he said, “Sure, you can leave them a note with my number, and I’ll have you back whenever you want. And if you have fun today, maybe tomorrow we can go out again.”

  Amy’s heart beat faster at the thought. Scott seemed like a really nice guy. Yesterday, he’d told her he and his friends were here celebrating the sale of a computer program they’d developed in Scott’s small apartment in New Jersey. Some bigwigs in China had agreed to a multi-million-dollar contract to buy it and they’d be closing on the deal in a few weeks. In the meantime, the threesome had gotten a small advance on the sale and used some of it to take a week’s vacation after all their hard work. Scott had tried explaining the program to Amy, but it was all Greek to her. She knew next to nothing about computer technology—just enough to work her phone and laptop for social media.

  Scott was also really hot looking. Usually, Nadine got the cuter date, while Amy, who had mousy-brown hair instead of blonde and was two sizes bigger than her best friend, was left with the runner up. Not that she’d ever held that against Nadine. But this time, she didn’t have to compete for a guy’s affection, and, as much as she hated saying so, it felt awesome. “Great. Let me just change really quick and leave the note. Okay?”

  “Sure. Do you mind if I come in and wait?”

  His dimples appeared again, as he cocked his head to the side. Damn, he was adorable. Amy hesitated only a moment before pulling the door open wider. “Sure, come on in. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “No rush.”

  Grabbing the pad and pen the resort placed in every room, Amy quickly wrote a note to Brie and Angie, telling them she’d be back in a little while and who she was going with. As Scott rattled off his cell number, she carefully wrote it down and then left the note on the dresser, where it would be seen if the others got back before she did.

  While Scott walked over to the window and looked out over the beach, Amy pulled open the drawer she’d put some of her clothes in, found a cute pair of shorts and a tank top that made her shoulders, arms, and legs look good, then hurried into the bathroom to change. Less than five minutes later, with a pair of Keds on her feet, she stuffed the mostly useless cell phone, fifteen dollars, and her ID in the pockets of her shorts. As Scott held the door open for her, she strode out into the hallway, never noticing her message to the other women was no longer where she’d left it.

  Pulling into the resort, Brie found a spot halfway across the parking lot for the SUV Jase had rented. She and Angie had bought enough food for the next two days and taken it over to the house Ian’s team was staying in. While strolling up and down the aisles at the grocery store, she’d also called Daddy-O’s to check on the business. Her staff had assured her everything was running smoothly.

  As Brie shut off the engine, Angie yawned as she opened the passenger door. “Damn, I’m tired. But I’ll take needing naps over all the first trimester puking I was doing any day of the week.”

  Climbing out, she chuckled at her new friend. “I think . . . no, I know, I agree with you. I hate being sick to my stomach.”

  They met at the back of the SUV and were about to head toward the lobby when Angie’s eyes narrowed at something she saw on the far side of the parking lot. “Hey, isn’t that Amy?”

  Brie turned and saw she was right. Amy was walking toward a few vehicles with one of the guys the women had been talking to at the pool yesterday. Greg’s friend. Raising her voice, Brie called out to get their attention. “Amy!”

  The couple stopped and glanced over their shoulders. Amy waved while the guy looked away and clicked the key fob in his hand to unlock the doors to a nearby white van. The headlights of the vehicle blinked once. As Angie and Brie walked over to join the couple, the latter wracked her brain trying to remember the man’s name. Sean? Steve? Scott? Scott! That’s it.

  Amy gestured toward the hotel as the two women approached. “I left you a note upstairs. We’re just going for a ride to do some sightseeing. Scott’s friends didn’t want to go, so he asked me.”

  The hair on the back of Brie’s neck tingled in warning. Something felt off, but she didn’t know what it was. Scott smiled at her and Angie, but it seemed forced, like he didn’t want them there. Brie’s eyes narrowed slightly. She knew her sister’s best friend was a grown woman, but to go off by herself with someone she just met wasn’t wise—especially with Nadine missing. Not wanting to embarrass Amy, though, she said the first thing that came to mind. “We came back to get you. Did you forget we’re meeting Jase, Angie’s husband, and a few of their friends for dinner? They’re waiting for us.”

  Amy knew that wasn’t true because she’d been there earlier when the plans had been laid out, and Brie hoped she got the unspoken message—Amy had to come with them. Disappointment flashed in the younger woman’s eyes, and her shoulder’s slumped. “Oh.” She turned to the man standing next to her. “I’m sorry, Scott. I did forget I had plans. Can we go tomorrow?”

  Again, the man glanced at the
white van with its tinted windows. The rear passenger door slid open and Brandon climbed out at the same time Greg exited from the driver’s seat. They were both frowning, and the warning bells in Brie’s head began to clang loudly. Movement caused her to bring her attention back to Scott, and fear coursed through her when she saw the black handgun he had pressed into Amy’s side. Beside Brie, Angie gasped when she spotted it, too. Brie was about to scream for help—they were close enough to the front of the resort for people to hear them—but Greg was faster, slapping his hand over her mouth as Brandon grabbed Angie’s upper arm and held her fast.

  “Don’t fucking think about it,” Greg growled, his voice low and menacing. “Keep your mouths shut and get in the van.”

  Terror filled Amy’s face as she was forced to move toward the waiting vehicle. Brandon pulled Angie in the same direction. Flashing a silver gun in front of Brie’s face, Greg took his hand from her mouth and pushed her forward. Confusion and fear raged within her, each battling to be the superior emotion. She saw the pregnant woman’s hands automatically go to her abdomen to protect her baby any way she could, and Brie found her voice, but kept it down, fearing one of them would start shooting. “Let Angie go. She’s pregnant.”

  “Shut up!” Greg gave her another shove. “All three of you are coming. Try anything stupid and the pregnant bitch gets a bullet in the gut.”

  Before anyone at the resort knew what was happening in the parking lot, the three women were forced into the back of the van. Brandon and Scott climbed in after them, both pointing their ugly guns at their hostages. It was a utility vehicle, without seats in the back, so they had no choice but to sit on the dirty floor. The door slid shut as Brie positioned herself between a pissed-off, but quiet Angie, a terrified Amy, and the two men. She had no idea where they were being taken and why, but it sure as hell couldn’t be good. In her mind, the one percent chance this was all a joke disappeared as Greg got into the driver’s seat, put the van in gear, and headed for the exit. Nope, definitely not good.