Bought (Assassin's Revenge Book 2)

by Crescent, Tara

  The fear flickered on and off. The panic wasn’t gone entirely, and I berated myself for taking her on the plane.

  She seemed surprised every single time I treated her like a person. And the question she’d asked on the plane? Of course Anne-Marie would come running if she’d heard Jenny scream. Did Jenny really think money would buy their silence?

  But I knew more than one billionaire who used money to buy them out of trouble. Sylvia. Dylan. Her fear wasn’t entirely unfounded.

  A contract might help, I reasoned. A clear definition of what I wanted from her would perhaps serve to reassure her.

  I took a deep breath. At this point, it could hardly make things worse.

  ***

  Ellie / Jenny:

  I took a seat across from him in his spotlessly clean study. His desk didn’t have a single thing on it. Everything was tucked away out of sight.

  Alexander was different this morning. Or was it just my nerves? The guy who’d fingered me to two bone-shattering orgasms before taking me with raw power was missing. Today he was acting like a cold stranger. I didn’t know if I’d done something wrong but I felt too uncertain around him to ask.

  He handed me three sheets of paper. “It’s the basic contract,” he said. “I’ve used this before with my previous submissives. Things are negotiable, of course, but this should give you an idea of what I’m looking for.”

  He’d already paid a million dollars for me. I didn’t think there would be a further contract. “What are you like with your submissives?” I asked him. “You were the topic of some gossip at the auction.”

  He blushed a little. “Was I?” He shook his head. “Awkward.”

  I grinned at his discomfiture before bending my head to pour over the pages. They were surprisingly free of legalese and resembled an employment contract more than anything else.

  I read that I was supposed to keep the arrangement between us confidential. I’d have four sessions a week in Alexander’s playroom. If I consented, I could be shared by him with other men and women. My safe words would always be respected in a session. If I was interested in trying a particular activity, I was to inform my Dominant. If I wasn’t interested, same thing.

  I tried not to think about Sylvia. I kept reading.

  I’d be asked to accompany him from time to time to social events, where I would be introduced as his friend. I would not be expected to sleep in the same bed as Alexander, but it wasn’t forbidden either. Beyond that, I was free to explore Paris and a car would be placed at my disposal.

  Once I was done reading, I looked up at him. “I thought this would be different,” I said honestly.

  “In what way?”

  “I thought it would be more prescriptive,” I replied. “I thought I’d have more rules.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a very busy man, Jenny. I don’t have the time or the inclination to do anything resembling twenty-four seven.”

  “What’s your style?” I asked him. From everything I’d seen and heard, Alexander appreciated an open discussion about my fears. “Do you get angry if I don’t obey you?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “In the playroom?” he asked. I nodded, and he looked puzzled. “You’ll get punished,” he replied. “But you have safe words. You have all the control; you decide how intense the play should be. My goal will be to discover your limits. Take you to the edge, if you’d like. Beyond, if you are interested. But you’ll always have the power to stop the play, if you aren’t enjoying it.” His eyes softened. “I’m not that formal,” he added. “No high protocol or anything. The only thing I insist on is communication.”

  “How should I act around Elodie?” I asked him.

  He frowned. “I restrict the games to the playroom, Jenny,” he said. “I don’t parade my submissives around on a leash in front of Elodie, if that’s what you are wondering. She’s not a child, but I do like keeping my sex life private.”

  “Why go to the auction? Your requirements aren’t onerous. There’s got to be many women that will be willing to meet them.”

  He nodded. “No doubt. But I’m wealthy and I’m not looking for entanglement. I like the simplicity of Lori’s arrangement. Three months is about all the commitment I want. Now, with the contract, is there anything you’d like to change up?”

  I ignored the stab of pain I felt and focused on Dylan. This was my chance to set the seeds for Hanoi. “I’d like to explore France,” I said, striving for the perfect tone of tentative need. “I’ve never got a chance to travel much, but I’ve always wanted to. All the money you paid will go towards Alicia’s illness. I’d like to see as much of the world as I can in these three months. Would that be possible while I’m in Paris?”

  He grinned. “Of course, cherie,” he replied. Those dimples danced in his cheeks. “I travel for work all the time. You are welcome to accompany me if you’d like. Anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”

  Hanoi. But that would have been too obvious. “I haven’t seen anything,” I replied. “So I place myself in your hands.”

  Heat filled his gaze. “Do you? That remains to be seen.” He patted the desk. “Hop on.”

  I obeyed, arousal seeping from every inch of my body. He positioned me at the end of the desk, facing him. My panties were swiftly removed and tossed to a corner of the room. “Lie back, Jenny,” he instructed. “Spread your legs for me.”

  I did as he asked. My mind flashed back to the last time he’d done this. Two years ago, we’d been in his backyard in a small house in the Parisian suburbs. He’d spread me on the glass-topped table in his backyard and instructed me to keep my voice down before going down on me. It had been my first time.

  He’d gone down on me once more that night. But there had been no one in the intervening two years. No one to hold my legs open with their strong grip. No one to bend their head and lick my pussy. No one to play my body like an expertly tuned instrument.

  There had never been anyone except Alexander.

  Lust filled my body with impossible haste. “Please,” I moaned as I lay spread out on his desk. “Please.”

  He raised his head to look at me. “A very tasty treat,” he muttered. His chin was wet with my juices and it didn’t seem to bother him at all. “Make all the noise you want, Jenny. When the door is closed, no one can hear you plead. But remember,” his piercing blue eyes fixed me with their gaze, “you must ask for permission to come.”

  “Yes Sir,” I breathed. “Please may I come?”

  He chuckled. “Already? Oh no, Jenny. You ate breakfast. It’s my turn to get my fill.”

  He dived into me again.

  Each stroke of his tongue sent pleasure spiralling through me. Each flick over my clitoris had me clutching at the desk, clawing desperately for some kind of hold so that I could obey his wishes and not fall into orgasm. Each rasp of his stubble against my tender folds had me groaning in uncontrolled desire.

  “Alexander,” I begged. “Please.”

  He spanked my thighs hard. “Sir in a session, Jenny,” he growled, his voice vibrating painfully close to my clitoris. “Alexander outside a session. This is a session, in case it wasn’t clear.”

  “Yes Sir,” I exhaled. “Please may I come?”

  “No. Hold on.”

  It had been two years. I’d touched myself sometimes in that time. At the start, it had been difficult. Too much of my sexual desires had fled as a result of Dylan’s systematic cruelty. But after that night in Paris when I had found pleasure in Alexander’s love making, I’d started trying to get over my fear. I’d gone out one day when I found myself in Berlin and I’d bought a dildo at a sex store, even though entering those doors took real courage. I’d fantasized that Alexander was touching me as I’d stroked myself until I was soaked with my juices. Then, I’d slide in the dildo and push it in and out of my wet, needy pussy.

  As I grew bolder, I’d even added lubricant and a butt plug into the mix. When my fingers had scooped the lube and had spread it around my tight hole,
my body had tingled in response. When I slowly inserted a finger and wiggled it around, I’d moaned involuntarily. I’d imagined that Alexander was watching me. Telling me what to do. “Push in the plug,” he’d said in my fantasy. So I had slowly lowered myself down on it, and felt each and every inch of it in my rectal passage.

  He always told me I pleased him in my fantasies. He was always warm. Firm but kind. In my dreams, I trusted him more than I trusted even myself. In my dreams, I could allow myself to fly, unafraid of falling. Because Alexander would catch me.

  “Please Sir,” I begged again. I couldn’t hold it back. “I don’t want to disobey you.”

  His tongue circled my clitoris. His strong hands moved with intent and two fingers pushed inside my dripping snatch. My hips arched off the table, but his fingers didn’t break their grip. In and out, they squelched and each thrust made me plead a little more.

  I was incoherent with need. My body was wracked with small tremors as I fought to hold off my climax. When he finally added a third finger and gave me permission to come, it was with a relieved shout that I surrendered to my release.

  ***

  Once I could move again, I cocked my head at him. “If that’s one of your four designated sessions,” I said cheekily, “I should probably suck you off.”

  He laughed aloud. “By mutual consent, we may elect to have more than four sessions a week,” he intoned in a dry imitation of a lawyer.

  “I consent,” I said promptly. I was still lying on the table, still splayed open in front of him and I didn’t have a thought in my head about covering up.

  “Good,” he said, drawing me up by my hands so I was seated on the edge of the table. “Three months, cherie. Let’s have fun, shall we? After all,” he smiled wickedly, “we still have your limits to figure out.”

  It said something about how sated I was after my orgasm that I didn’t tense up at those words. Perhaps I was a fool, but I didn’t feel unsafe around Alexander. I even wanted to see the playroom.

  If my heart was a little sad at how casual he was about our time-bound experiment, I was determined to ignore it. After all, the only reason I was with Alexander was that he was able to get me access to Dylan. That was all. The fact that Alexander was really Marc from two years ago? The fact that I was insanely attracted to him, that I had even thought the L-word? Those were distractions and I needed to remember that.

  He gave me a tour. It turned out that his apartment wasn’t an apartment, per se, not by any conventional definition of the word. It encompassed all four floors of the square brick building. We started by taking an elevator to the roof, where there was a garden overflowing with flowers and small trees with actual oranges hanging off them. An ornamental fountain trickled water in the centre of a small clearing and there was seating around the edges. “It isn’t a proper garden, really,” he pointed out. “But I like to have a bit of green space. It helps me relax. There’s a large park not too far away, if you do want to go running or something.”

  I looked up at him sharply at that, wondering if it was possible that he had recognized me. But his expression was friendly and interested. No one could be that good of an actor, I reassured myself. “That’d be nice,” I replied. “I’ll have to go shopping for a pair of running shoes though. I didn’t pack very well when I flew to Bangkok. I didn’t think I’d be running there.”

  “I’ll have the driver take you to a store,” he promised.

  We continued the tour. His bedroom took up most of the top floor and it was breathtaking. Floor to ceiling windows on three sides. Two doors were set into the fourth side. Sunlight streamed into the room and it was pleasantly toasty. In this room, there were comfortable couches, colourful rugs and a sense of warmth. “I love your room,” I marvelled. This space was similar in feel to his house in the suburbs.

  I felt at home in his bedroom. That was not good.

  He smiled at me. “I drove the decorator crazy,” he offered. “I asked for worn leather couches that I could flop down in.” He looked at me intently. “And a bed with headboards and footboards for obvious reasons.”

  I gulped. I could picture myself tied to his bed, spread-eagled on it. He would tease me endlessly and I would plead and beg for my orgasm. I would be entirely at his mercy and my body clenched in arousal at that thought.

  One level down were the other bedrooms, including the one I was sleeping in. “Elodie’s quarters are also on this floor,” he said.

  Down from that was a floor that contained a gym, a massive library that I immediately resolved to spend all day in, and an actual movie theatre. I wanted to linger in the library. My eyes kept getting drawn to the door. “This is insane,” I said.

  He laughed. “I completely agree. I bought this from a Count with opulent tastes and strained finances. It’s utterly ridiculous. But the house is conveniently located.”

  On the main level, were the bits I’d already seen. The living room and a kitchen, with a walk out patio and a tiny little back garden.

  In so many ways, this house, as large and opulent as it was, was similar in feel to the tiny house he’d taken me to two years ago. Then too, there had been a garden. Then too, there had been warmth and comfort. Then too, I had felt at home.

  Maybe he too was the person I had thought he was two years ago.

  Chapter 18

  Ellie / Jenny:

  It wasn’t until later that it occurred to me that he hadn’t shown me his playroom. I asked him about it at lunch. We were perched on the kitchen island again, eating the vegetable salad that Elodie had made. There was a baguette on the side and I gave it several longing looks, but didn’t take any. I couldn’t be skinny and eat bread at the same time.

  “Please,” he looked annoyed. “Just eat. Don’t be one of those women that never eats. It really isn’t attractive.”

  Is that an order, Sir? I bit back my snap with difficulty. It was his preference for waif-like women that had driven me to my diet.

  To satisfy him, I tore off a small piece. He frowned at me and shook his head. “You didn’t show me your playroom,” I asked him, hoping to change topics before I yelled at him. I bit into the bread and tried to stifle my moan of appreciation. God, I’d missed the boulangeries in Paris.

  “Ready to play, Jenny?” He raised one eyebrow at me. “Not afraid anymore?”

  “I’m not afraid to see the playroom,” I replied and he grinned. “Is it in the basement?”

  He shook his head. “I’m French. The wine cellar is in the basement. The playroom is off my bedroom.”

  This was an opportunity to ask him a question I’d been wondering about for two years. “You are French?” I asked him. “I thought you are American. You sound American when you speak English.”

  “I sound Parisian when I speak French,” he replied with a shrug. “That’s just an accent.” He took a sip of water and eyed me thoughtfully. “My father was American. My mother was French. I grew up in Europe; I summered in the South of France. I’m a dual-citizen on paper, but I identify as French, not American.”

  “Do you visit the United States much?” There was so much about Alexander that I didn’t know. The fact that Lucien could find no information on him was baffling. It was almost impossible to hide if you were really rich. Someone would know you existed. There were no secret billionaires.

  Except evidently Alexander.

  “From time to time,” he replied. “I have many business interests there and I travel to New York quite frequently. London as well. Any of these on the list of cities you want to explore, Jenny?”

  Hanoi. Hanoi was on the list of cities I wanted to explore.

  “I guess there’s something comforting about visiting a place where you speak the same language,” I ad-libbed furiously. “But somehow, that doesn’t seem as magical to me. Bangkok was lovely. I wandered around and I was there, but because I couldn’t understand anyone, I was also insulated from it all.” I looked at him. “Am I making any sense?”

  “Su
re.”

  Lucien would have been so proud of me for that. I’d set the stage well. I’d planted the thought in his mind. Perhaps, when the impending trip to Hanoi happened, I’d get taken along. And then I could fulfil the deepest desire of my heart.

  “So, the playroom. Why don’t you take a day or two to get over the jetlag? I’m going to be pretty busy today and tomorrow with work, but perhaps tomorrow night, we’ll try it out?”

  Heat filled in my veins at that. No fear. Just pure, untainted lust. Whatever else he was, Alexander had always managed to make me feel unafraid about sex.

  “Can I see the playroom now?” It would help to prepare myself mentally. I didn’t want to start a session with Alexander until I’d accustomed myself to the room. But if I told him that, I knew he’d put me on a plane back to Cleveland. So far, I hadn’t learned too much about Alexander, but I suspected that he wasn’t going to have a session with me until it was clear to him that I wanted to. I gave him a seductive look through my eyelashes. “Anticipation is good for the soul, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” I wasn’t sure if I’d fooled him. He could read me entirely too well for my own good. “Okay, if you are done with lunch, come on.”

  I would have liked another piece of that baguette, but I couldn’t allow myself the treat. I needed to work out. I needed to train as well but that weren’t possible when I was Alexander’s submissive. Jenny Fullerton from Cleveland would not have been seeking a boxing gym. She’d be lifting pretty ten-pound weights. That was the cover story.

  Besides, I’d lost so much weight to achieve the wispy figure that was Alexander’s preferred female form that I’d probably get my ass handed to me in the gym.

  I pushed those thoughts to the background again, where they buzzed like bees in a box. “Let’s go,” I responded. I leaned up and kissed him, swearing to myself that it was only to allay his suspicions. Not because I yearned to.

  Alexander. His lips on mine. His hand around my hips, pulling me into his body. The way his fingers entwined themselves around my hair, pulling the strands until a delicious pain sparkled all over my scalp and I moaned into his mouth. It made no sense at all, but the chemistry could not be denied.