“I need to come back for Caroline’s trial.”
“Yes, of course.” Aiden nods. The expression on his face immediately turns sour.
“You might need to testify, too.”
“Of course.”
We ride in silence for a while.
“How is she?” he asks.
“I don’t really know. She doesn’t talk much. She seems better, but she might be just pretending. I have no idea.”
Caroline isn’t much of a pretender. She’s a sharer - an over-sharer. This is the girl who told me every sordid detail about her sex life without batting an eye. And yet, I have no idea how she’s really coping with what happened in Maine. Or with the upcoming trial.
“She said she’s going to visit her family while I’m away.”
“That’s good.”
Caroline doesn’t have the best relationship with her family. Her mom is quite self-centered and I doubt that she would be much help in this type of situation. Still, I’m glad that she’s getting out of the house and doing something.
“I sort of feel guilty leaving her.”
“I’m sorry. I guess you can invite her along,” Aiden says.
I look over at him. “Really?”
He nods.
“I never considered that.”
“Well, consider it now.”
Inviting Caroline will make this whole situation much less of a fun trip. I mean, if she was the old Caroline, maybe I would consider it.
“What?” Aiden asks.
“I’m just touched by your offer.” I pick up his hand and kiss it. “I mean, you don’t have to invite her and I really appreciate it.”
“Listen, I know that she has been through a lot. And none of what she went through is fair. Tom is a huge asshole and I can’t wait to see him get convicted in court for everything that he has done. And I know that she’s your best friend, so why not?”
I pat Aiden on the knee. “I don’t think she will be into it,” I say after a moment. “Besides, I’m not sure that you really know what you’re offering at this point.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Caroline is fun, but not this version of Caroline. Now, she’s mopey and depressed and not someone who you want accompanying you on a sexcapade.”
“Sexcapade?” Aiden asks. “Did I hear you correctly? Is that what you’re doing?”
“I figure.” I shrug and flash him a coy smile. “I think we’re due for some fun. And what better place than your yacht, right?”
* * *
The town car drops us off at a private airport where two large men who look like really high-end bodyguards help us with our bags. I walk up the open-air stairs toward the door of a luxurious airplane, the likes of which I’ve only seen in movies.
“Is this yours?”
“Not anymore, unfortunately. Now, it’s just a rental.”
Hmm, a rental? I had no idea that private airplanes could be rented. I enter the cabin and my mouth drops open. The seats are wide and spacious and fold all the way back like they do in very upscale movie theaters. The floors are hardwood and there’s enough space in the place to do cartwheels.
“This plane is amazing,” I whisper in awe.
“Yes, it’s a bit different than flying coach, isn’t it?”
A flight attendant, who introduces herself as Alexa, asks us what we would like to drink.
“I’m not sure,” I say shyly. I’m sort of craving some alcohol to really kick off this trip, but I’m not sure if they have any available.
“I’d like an old-fashioned, please,” Aiden says. Alexa has long toned legs and breasts which are natural and to die for, but he barely blinks an eye. “Ellie? You want a cocktail?”
“Yes…a mojito please.”
Alexa comes back in a few minutes with both of our drinks. Taking a sip of mine, I lose myself in the moment as the refreshing mint mixed with rum runs down the back of my throat.
“This is delicious,” I say.
A few moments later, we take off. The ascent is so smooth, I barely notice a thing until my ears pop. Instead, I drink more of my mojito and stare into Aiden’s piercing eyes.
“So, are you going to tell me where we are headed?” I ask once we are cruising at thirty-thousand feet.
“Nope,” Aiden says with a wide smile across his face.
“Really?”
“Really. All you have to know is that we’re headed where my yacht is waiting for us.”
* * *
***
* * *
A few hours later, we land at a private airport in the middle of the night and take a helicopter to his yacht. Someone from the staff takes our bags to his stateroom while Aiden invites me out onto the top deck to look at the stars. I lean into his shoulder and look up. We stand here, looking up at the sparkling sky and the bright yellow moon above without saying a word.
I listen to Aiden inhale and exhale deeply and smile. He looks down at me with admiration. I close my eyes and enjoy the gaze that washes over me. I want to stay in this moment forever. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the soothing voice of Adele belting out another song about heartbreak.
I look up at him. I admire his chiseled jaw and his luscious lips. He exhales deeply, bringing me closer. Another inhale and I’m his. He pulls me toward him and presses his lips to mine. His tongue brushes against the inside of my lower lip. My hands move up his neck and bury themselves in his thick luscious hair. When I tug a little, he moans in pleasure.
His hand presses on the small of my back and I sense that familiar hardness through his immaculate gray suit. I pull his body against mine and let him hold me as if he has no intention of ever letting me go.
A cool breeze comes off the ocean, swirling around us. We are standing perfectly still, but I suddenly feel as if I’m falling. No, it’s as if I have jumped. From a very great height. I’m falling and the ground is getting closer and closer, and the only thing that can stop me from colliding with it is him. His love. This feeling of exhilaration consumes me.
Aiden whispers my name, sending shivers up my spine. There’s a longing in his voice. I feel him wanting me. Craving me. As much as I want him. Perhaps no one has ever wanted me more than he does right now.
When I look up at him, I’m faced with a familiar expression of darkness mixed with light.
Chapter 3 - Aiden
When I ask her to sign something…
I watch Ellie walk into the stateroom, leaving me alone on the deck.
She said yes. Yes. Not to the engagement quite yet. I really fucked that up, but to the trip to Caribbean. I close my eyes and imagine her naked before me. I want to touch her everywhere. I want to do bad things to her. I want her to scream my name at the top of her lungs.
My phone rings. I look down and immediately regret not turning it off. I shouldn’t answer it, of course. I know that already. But I can’t really stop myself. It’s one of my many attorneys. Neil Goss. He’s going to bill me for this phone call as if it were in person, as if we had met at his office, or had lunch at a rate of $500 per hour. There are no discounts for the fact that he doesn’t have to get off his butt or even be at his desk. He even bills me for the time he spends waiting for the phone to ring and leave a message. I know. I’ve seen one of his bills recently. But I guess I should be thankful for the fact that I’m not also paying for his food and drinks. You see, after I was fired from my job as CEO of Owl, the startup I started, that grew to be the main competitor to Amazon, I have to pay for all of my legal fees myself. Frankly, I’m not even sure if this guy is worth the money, but I can’t really fire him because my situation is quite complicated and I’d have to spend a lot of time explaining to another - new - attorney. Along with all the paperwork that he would inevitably have to read through and analyze, it would cost me at least forty hours of time. At the end of the day, this guy isn’t that bad. I mean, how different are lawyers anyway, right?
“Hello?”
“Aiden, I have some news.”
&n
bsp; What I do appreciate about Neil is that because he charges me for every minute of talking, he doesn’t waste a second of it on small talk. I doubt he’s much of a small talk person anyway, but it is a little bit of a perk.
“What is it?”
“The board isn’t happy with the new CEO. The company isn’t doing well.”
“You mean Blake?”
After the Board of Directors fired me, they set up my old friend Blake Garrison as the interim CEO before they got a chance to go through a full list of qualified candidates. On paper, Blake is, of course, as qualified as I am. He has an Ivy League education. Many years at the company working in various upper management positions. He was the guy who brought us all of the original investors. And of course, he’s also the guy who then, conveniently, got rid of those investors after assaulting Ellie on this very yacht. What an asshole.
“Are they getting rid of him?”
“That’s what they’re saying through the grapevine.” The rumors that Neil has access to are usually spot on. He’s the one who first told me that they were thinking of firing me. It gave me a day to prepare for the inevitable and not make a fool out of myself in the boardroom.
“I don’t know if you’ve checked recently, but the stock price is plummeting. From what I hear, the Board thought that getting rid of you would renew confidence in the company, but clearly it hasn’t. So, they’re thinking of getting rid of Blake.”
Whoever Neil has on the inside has access to some deep undercover shit.
“This isn’t exactly bad news,” I point out.
“They aren’t decided yet. They’re having an emergency meeting soon and putting it out to a vote. We’ll just have to see what happens.”
I nod. “I’m glad that they’re considering getting rid of him, but without a solid replacement, it will just make the company seem even more unstable.”
“Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.”
Both Neil, as well as many of the attorneys who work for him, and I are heavily invested in Owl. Even though I got ousted, most of my severance package is tied to Owl’s stock price. So, the fact that it’s plummeting isn’t exactly music to my ears.
“They wouldn’t just replace him with someone else who is not very well known, would they?” I ask. At this point, Owl needs a savior. Someone with vision and ideas. Someone who gets where the company is going and how to help it get there in the most efficient way possible. Someone like me.
“I hope not,” Neil says. He hangs up soon after, saying that he has to get back to work. This is either true or he’s just trying to save me a few bucks. Either way, I’m grateful because with the stock price dropping like a rock and all of my other money being tied up in big real estate projects around town, I need to start being careful with money again.
I look out at the dark ocean and lose myself in the past. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a big shot CEO of one of the fastest growing startups around. But it wasn’t just my job that I loved. It was what I had built, created, with my own hands. Back in college, Owl was just an idea. More like a kernel of an idea. I had an idea for a website where people bought and sold things, pretty much like eBay and Amazon but slightly different. Everything would be cheaper and the shipping would take a bit longer. I believed that despite everyone’s interest in getting things as soon as possible, they also wanted to save money. And the way that they could save a few bucks, or a lot of bucks, is to simply wait a bit longer for the shipping.
Well, as time passed and we started this site with just a few items and no listing fees, it slowly grew into a bigger and bigger marketplace. The first wave of investors helped to make it what it is now, a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. But the next wave? Well, before they fired me, I was in the middle of investing heavily into advertising. Everyone hates ads, but everyone loves them as well. When ads are targeted properly, you love them because they expose you to products that are perfect just for you. And with the right algorithm, I knew that I could properly match consumers with their ideal sellers and products. Of course, to develop this area, we needed more investment. Blake was in the process of doing that again, until he fucked me. Well, what goes around comes around, right? I had laid out my whole strategy for moving this company over to the next level. All he had to do was follow it. But, of course, he couldn’t. His ego wouldn’t let him follow any of my blueprints. As much as I want to see him fail, I don’t want his failure to fuck up everything that I have worked so hard for my whole adult life. So, I find his downfall kind of bittersweet. He’s going down and he’s taking Owl with him.
Ellie comes outside and approaches me. She wraps her arms around me and gives me a big squeeze.
“This is beautiful,” she whispers, looking up at me. “It’s even more beautiful when it’s just the two of us.”
This yacht is huge for just two people. Well, not just two people, there is the staff. But just two guests.
“It’s quite different than from the last time you were here, isn’t it?” I ask. She nods and puts her head on my shoulder. I lean my head toward hers as well. We stare up at the stars together.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Ellie looks up at me and shakes her head.
“You don’t believe me?”
She shrugs her shoulder in that shy way that makes her even more attractive.
“I’m going to do bad things to you,” I say after a moment. As much as I love her right now, I always crave her. This trip to the Caribbean is going to be so much more than a trip for us to get to know each other. No, I need to blow off some steam. Way too much shit has happened recently to both of us. And we deserve some time to…get to know each other in another way.
“Oh, really?” she asks, her eyes twinkling in the starlight. “Like what?”
“Mr. Black is coming back. With a vengeance.”
Her body quivers, but she doesn’t budge.
I inhale deeply. This is something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. But other things have come up, gotten in the way. And now, well, the timing couldn’t be better.
“I need you to sign a contract.”
“What kind of contract?”
“A contract that will make you mine for the duration of this trip.”
She looks surprised, appalled even. But then a small smile forms at the corner of her lips.
Chapter 4 - Ellie
When he explains the contract…
A contract? What kind of contract? I have a million questions and my heart starts to pound a million miles a minute. The wind comes off the ocean. My whole body starts to shiver, but I’m entirely sure that it has nothing to do with the balmy Caribbean air. No, this is something else. Anxiety, mixed with anticipation and excitement.
“What are you talking about, Mr. Black?” I ask. He hasn’t been Mr. Black for a while. I won’t lie, it’s nice to have him back. These past few months have been filled with so much complicated shit that it’s nice to step away from reality for a moment. Or evening. Or a few days.
“I want you to sign a contract to be mine for the duration of this trip,” Aiden says. His voice is lower now. More stern. He’s starting to embody Mr. Black.
“And what would that entail?”
“You would do everything that I tell you to do when I tell you to do it,” he says. His eyes are laser-focused on mine.
“Everything?” I ask.
“Everything.”
At first, I’m not sure how to respond. But after a moment, I flash him a smile. He takes my arm in his and pulls me to his stateroom. My heart skips a few beats as I follow him.
* * *
***
I sit down on the edge of his large, California king bed and he walks over to the large oak desk in the corner. A few moments later, he hands me a contract.
* * *
I will agree to any sexual activity deemed fit by Mr. Black except those previously negotiated.
I will agree to w
ear whatever clothing deemed fit by Mr. Black.
I will accompany Mr. Black wherever he wishes to go.
I agree to follow these terms for the following duration: ______.
* * *
There is a place for me to initial at every line and sign at the bottom. My head spins for a moment.
* * *
“What is this?” I ask.
“The contract. Something for us to experiment with while we are on this trip.”
“I thought we would just have fun,” I say.
“Yes, we will.”
“So, why do we need this?”
“To make it more official.”
Honestly, I have no idea how I feel about this. Make things more official? I already postponed the engagement.
“This doesn’t feel right, Aiden,” I say after a moment. He looks disappointed.
“What don’t you like about it?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure what sexual activities I’m agreeing to and which ones I’m rejecting.”
“Ah, yes.” He smiles. “Here’s the second page with hard limits that I propose.”
“Hard limits?”
“Things that you are not willing to do. Please feel free to add anything else you can think of.”
* * *
No defecation or urination.
No blood.
No medical instruments of any kind.
No illegal acts of any kind.
No acts that will leave a permanent mark on the skin.
* * *
I stare at the list of hard limits. None of them even seem like something anyone would want to do. I don’t really know why they need to be specifically outlined in a contract.
“What do you think?” Aiden asks, handing me a pen.
But I shake my head. Suddenly, a fun trip on a luxurious super-yacht doesn’t seem that appealing after all.
Auctioned to Him_The Contract Page 12
