“May I sit down?” Jillian whispered in his ear.
“Something wrong?” he whispered back. His breathy voice warmed her ear. She remembered his last moment with Susanna. Did they look that way now? Tender and intimate?
“I think it’s the smoke,” she said as she strained to breathe. The air was thick enough to sell as bottled poison.
With an arm circling her waist, Logan led her to a table at the side of the room and motioned her to sit. “You okay?”
Upon his query, she studied him closely, mistrustful of the apparently serious look of concern. “I know it doesn’t matter to you, but I’m really starved,” she replied, trying to keep her voice cool and detached.
“Why yes, it matters,” he replied, as if suddenly her thoughts and feelings should matter to him, even when they hadn’t before. “I’ll have someone bring you something to eat right away.”
While she sat alone at the table, Logan stood nearby conferring with his friends, keeping one sharp eye fixed on her. For the first time in days, she considered the possibility of escape. He might become so engaged in conversation that he’d look away long enough for her to slip through his fingers.
It wasn’t time to bolt, just yet, but maybe she should seriously consider any opportunity that the evening presented her. Minutes later, she postponed her plotting and scheming when a plate of cheese, crackers and grapes arrived, accompanied by a glass of wine.
“You rather have water, maybe?” Again, acting like he really cared, Logan moved back to the table when the food appeared.
“No, I think this will be all right.” The wave of nausea had passed, although her hunger hadn’t.
“Good. Get your bearings, Jillian,” he said. It sounded like a warning. His whispered breath caressing her ear and neck caused her body to quake again—too much. “Just remember, I may not keep you in my line of sight for the next hour, but there are plenty of people in this room who know who I am and who you are. They’ll have their eye on you. Running off would be a big mistake.”
“Why ever would I want to run off?” she returned with such innocence that Logan actually chuckled.
She smiled back at him, finding that old feeling of desire grab her in her gut and shake it. When would this ever stop!
As the hour passed, Jill nibbled on her snack, savoring the rich cheese and the clean contrast of grapes and focused on the club around her. Every kind and shape and sort of person passed by her table, some in pairs in quiet conversation, others, like Logan, seeking out friends they obviously hadn’t seen in a while. A sense of mystery and secrets and reckless sexuality pervaded the room. Some dressed quite daringly, men in leathers; women in lacy, body-revealing clothes designed to accentuate female body parts. Like having walked into an MTV video, the images of sexual promise whirled all around her, revealed in the closeness of one body to another, in the placement of hands on hips and asses and under skirts, fondling, and in the erotic look of steamy eyes, seducing prey.
Jillian’s internal pilot light flared, lighting with the whoosh of a furnace igniting. This was another first for her, being in a club like this—even though her imagination often created such places based on movies and videos and her own desire.
Toward the end of the hour, she had a sense that their presence here had a purpose beyond Logan reacquainting himself with his friends. Otherwise, why would he have brought her?
When Logan returned to the table sometime later, he brought a friend, a gentlemanly sort of formal man of fifty or sixty years. Her body warmed to him instantly, as thoughts of Monsieur were evoked from her memory.
“Isaac, this is the woman I told you about.”
“Ah! A bona fide slave?” He looked down at her, his eyes filled with amorous warmth, even admiration. He turned to Logan, questioning him, “You have a price on her head?”
“I could.”
“And I can try her out, perhaps?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Why not? Why not? Because she was going back to Christopher! She tried silently to remind him.
“So, I can have her for how long?”
“Long as it takes to properly test her, how’s that?”
“Very good.” The man reached down, offering his hand.
“What is this?” Jill asked, as her eyes suspiciously darted from one man to the other.
“Go with him,” Logan raised his voice slightly.
“But what for?” She could make no sense of this. “You plan to sell me out from under Christopher?”
“I’m just doing my job, Jillian,” Logan replied, without answering her question.
“What job?” Jill came right back. “I thought your job was to take me back to my master?” she sarcastically retorted.
“She doesn’t know?” the older man wondered.
“No, she doesn’t know. Not yet.”
She felt a sudden surge of real panic. Her body heated dangerously, while her heart pounded so hard she felt the drumming in her head pulse like a throbbing migraine.
Logan lifted her wine glass, and handed it to her saying, “Drink your wine.”
Though terrified—and wary of both men—she felt curiously alive with the bounty hunter so attentive to her every move. She thoughtlessly followed the instruction, and gulped the remaining wine. She’d spent her last days, squashing even the slightest sign rebellion in fear of another painful punishment. She couldn’t rebel now for the same reason, but this time, she knew there was a motive behind his order apart from testing her unquestioning obedience.
“Logan please, what’s going on?”
“You think I’m obliged to tell you?” he mockingly asked.
“No, but I don’t understand.”
“My job is to do with you as I’m instructed by the man who’s paying me.”
“So, his instructions have changed?” she wondered.
Logan didn’t answer with words, but his expression spoke volumes.
The wine, the smoke, the sound of a steamy, sexy jazz vibrating in the tavern’s background noise made her head swim. She realized that her body responded to the sensuous sounds, that her desire had come alive. But mulling through the last few minutes with Logan and his friend, Issac, the erotic moment changed swiftly. Her nausea returned when she realized what was happening to her. The truth crept stealthy into her mind, and then pounced with biting cruelty.
“He’s selling me!” she blurted out. “Christopher is selling me!”
Logan said nothing to dispute her conclusion.
“Go with him, Jillian; it will be okay,” he assured her in his kindest voice. “Maybe better than you expect.”
For the first time since he apprehended her LA, she actually believed him; relied on him to tell the truth.
Slowly rising from her seat, she took the gentleman’s hand and walked with him to the far side of the room where they exited through a door and continued down a hallway. At the far end of a brick corridor, they entered another room—a private room—a dank, dungeon-like space no submissive woman could mistake for anything but a torture chamber.
“I understand you’re a painbitch,” the man’s voice became instantly cold.
She couldn’t answer.
“Is that so?”
She shook her head, confused, unable to answer him truthfully.
“Answer me!” he ordered.
“I don’t know what I am!” she blurted out in desperation. “How about a slave, a fuck, a cunt, a whore? Any of those fit?”
“I don’t know.” She stared into his hardened visage, her chin trembling, her body shivering in a cold sweat that made her thin blouse stick to her skin.
“Then tell me what you do know!” He sounded disgusted.
“I’m told I belong to Christopher Hurst, that I’m his slave.”
“Is that true?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like a slave.”
The man moved on her, snapping cuffs on her wrists and stretching her arms to the side and high above
to chains dangling from the ceiling.
“Don’t feel like a slave? Why not? You behave like one. You grovel on a male cock, do you not? You take as many as you can up the ass, because you’re what? A sweet debutant? A prim schoolteacher? A psalm-singing Sunday school teacher?” He made a circle about her, his once kind face painfully accusatory. Taking her chin in his hand, he squeezed hard, and scowled at her. “You’re into denial, bitch. Anyone ever tell you that before?”
Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
He slapped her face on both sides, making it sting from the harsh burn.
“Get real, slut, you want nothing better than to open your thighs like a whore and let men in to use you. Admit it!”
“NO! I won’t admit that.”
“No? Why not? That’s who you are. I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve heard the stories. And still you deny it. Fuck,” he intoned, derisively. “Why the hell would Logan waste my time?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed in wonder, speechless.
He sneered. “Humph!” Then he moved around her body, carefully inspecting every inch. “Why don’t we test you? Just in case there might be a useful slave lurking somewhere under that soft, satiny skin. We’ll see what you say when I’m finished with you.”
Without ceremony, the man stripped her pretty clothes from her body with vicious yanks and tugs. Even Dona Maria used scissors to make her naked. Once he had enough of her body bared, even before the tatters of cloth dangling from her body were tossed to the floor, he began whipping her back, her shoulders and her ass with a single-tail whip. For several minutes, her body fought the pain as it was used to doing, while the gray-haired, stately gentleman-sadist baited her with cruel barbs that cut more fiercely than the cutting leather.
“Admit it, whore!”
He sprinkled the pain with accusations, “Admit it…” again and again the whip struck home and so did his words.
“Tell me who you are! Tell me what you want!”
“Oh, my god!” she gasped as her head fell back and the most wondrous rush of bracing passion soared through limbs.
“Yes, that’s it!” he answered her bliss, finally seeing what he wanted. “Tell me it’s so. Admit that you’re a slave, a whore, a painslut, a foul being who begs to be abused! Admit it!”
Though her body brightened to the wild feel of the whip, her mind was still in command. “No! That’s not me!” she wailed in defiance.
The master lit into her hard and she gasped again. “You lie,” he accused.
He changed implements, picking up a long braided cat o’ nine tails, which filleted her back and ass with brutal efficiency, accompanied by her zealous reply to the anguished pleasure ripping through her in torrential waves. Her endorphins burst like firecrackers, then in seconds rushed her senses like the harsh wind of November.
“Tell me it’s so,” her tormentor paused long enough for her regain consciousness. “Tell me you’re the slave, the painslut, the debauched whore. Tell me that is what you love! Tell me.”
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, it’s so.”
“What is so?”
It was Logan’s calm voice cutting through the chaos of stirred emotion with his plainly stated command. Her heart stopped beating for an instant, then raced faster than ever. “Tell me,” he ordered.
He moved in close to her from behind, his lips at her ear, repeating one more time, “Tell me! Tell me who you are in your own words.”
“A slave, sir,” she answered first.
“And you want you freedom, slave?”
“Oh, no!” She cried hard, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“And you want to be owned?” His hand squeezed her ass, as if squeezing the truth from her.
“Yes.”
“Mastered?”
“Yes!”
“You love the life as a slave slut. Tell the truth.”
“Yes, I love my life.” She was beginning to breathe more easily, to calm her beating heart as the rage in her fell away and she accepted what she’d long denied.
“You love being beaten, isn’t that so?”
“Yes.
“You love it every time you open you thighs and invite the men to take you?”
“Yes.”
“You love them forcing you, raping your ass, cumming in your face, making you scream?”
“Yes!
“And your lust never had it so good as it did with Christopher Hurst?”
Her stomach suddenly turned, and her voice changed, “No!” She shook her head. “I hate Christopher Hurst. I’ll never love him.”
“But love doesn’t matter to you. It’s all about how you feel and being controlled, isn’t that right?” He caressed her bottom with the palm of his hand, the passion behind it urgent.
“Yes.”
“And you wanted him because you needed him. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir. I needed him.”
“And you still need him?”
Her tears began again. “Yes. I suppose I do need him.” How was that possible?
“Because your master knows how to make you feel alive.” Logan answered her silent question, as if he was sitting inside her mind. His voice was soft, even as his grip on her bottom began to have the most amazing effect. A slow rolling orgasm began to build from a gentle wave into a grinding, spasmodic orgasm.
“Oh, my,” her head fell back again.
“He makes you feel alive,” Logan repeated.
“Yes. He makes me feel alive,” she conceded.
“No other man can do that for you, right?”
“No,” she shook her head, “that’s not right.”
“No? Then who else?”
“You can.” He was giving her what she needed now… with his hand and his voice, his magic like an elixir fired with pleasure.
“Me?” Logan backed off, reacting with amusement. “Me? Why, I’m the soulless pariah of the universe and you don’t want me.”
He reminded her of her loathing. “No, of course, I don’t want you.” She could hardly speak the words.
“And it’s Christopher you want and need.”
“Yes. Yes, Christopher,” she answered with a trembling voice, with more tears falling like rain from her eyes.
“Okay, then, Jillian Ingalls.” He removed his hand from her ass. She suddenly felt empty, wasted, let down. “Quit making your life so hard. I’m taking you back to him, back to the man who’s paid me. He wants you back and you have to go. You understand why now?”
“Yes. I understand why.”
Of course, she understood. The conclusion was so right and reasoned… and yet, in the same instant, the feeling behind the words was wrong, all wrong. But how wrong? Why wrong? Only the feeling, unarticulated . . . and there was no way to communicate that now.
Nearly two weeks with the bounty hunter culminated in this moment, when her awareness of herself and the experience of her true nature finally—with the artful manipulation of her captor—collided with the truth. She was left with no other conclusion than the one yanked from her defiant soul in this extraordinary scene.
Perhaps this truth about herself and Christopher Hurst, not the bounty hunter, was the source of her unspeakable rage that last several days. But the rage was gone now. Logan Dunn had washed it from her—as if he truly cared.
Chapter Twelve - The Phone Call
“I have her,” Logan announced as soon as he recognized Christopher Hurst’s voice on the other end of the phone. “We’re in Maryland. Any luck, she’ll be back in your hands in day and a half.”
“Well, yes. That’s very good. . . . very . . . good.”
Logan heard the hesitation in the man’s voice.
“Something wrong?
“Not wrong. No. But there’s just been a change in plans.”
“Oh?”
“Yes… yes.” He seemed to be thinking on his feet. “I think, yes . . . I think it would be best for you take her to the Cold River police station once you arrive. Thinking ove
r the situation, I want to make the arrest warrant stick.” The more he spoke, the more certain he was of his decision and the colder he became. “I’ve filed the charges and she’ll have to take the consequences of her actions like any good felon.”
“Any good felon?”
“You heard me.”
“This wasn’t what we talked about.”
“I know that. But it’s what I want, and what she needs. I think the incarceration will teach her that she didn’t realize what she truly wanted. I don’t want the rebellious, inconstant bitch I had before.”
“I don’t believe she is. I think I told you when we first spoke that I return runaways in a surrendering frame of mind. And in Jillian’s case, she’s come around very well.”
Even over the phone, he could sense the man stiffen. “I don’t care how much she’s come around with you; I’ll be the judge of her character and her worthiness. Until she’s been punished as I see fit, which may be a long time, I don’t have the stomach to lay my eyes on her. She’ll complete her sentence in jail; then I’ll house her in one of the sheds until I’m ready to deal with her.”
How the man had changed! He should have expected it, but Christopher Hurst was cagier than most, and a damned good actor. Now, however, Logan could see right through him.
“So, you have a replacement slave?” the bounty hunter guessed.
“Who told you that?” Hurst sounded shocked.
“No one.” He sighed, hearing the man confirm the truth. “So, Mr. Hurst, I’ll bring your recovered property to the police station in Cold River Falls and then come to collect my money.”
“That would be fine. I will see you then.”
That night, Logan watched Jillian for a time as she slept peacefully on the floor of the motel room, her head cradled on the pillow he’d give her. She seemed to smile—or maybe that was just his imagination.
When he lifted her to her feet, drawing her unexpectedly from her slumber, she stumbled against him. Like a lot of just-beaten slaves, she slept soundly after a heavy scene. Moving her to the bed, he laid her down, then climbed in behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Her bottom naturally burrowed into his crotch, even as she remained half-asleep. He wondered what she was thinking—if she was thinking at all. Roused, his maleness clamoring for physical satisfaction, he gave in to the temptation, slowly, carefully. With her natural juices swathed over the opening of her anus, he entered that dark realm of feminine wonder and moved with some urgency as the tight place milked his cock.
Bounty Hunter Page 17
