by Violet Blaze
“It ain't nothin' to worry about,” Dash said with a smile as he wet the rag in his hand and put some soap on it. “Sit and let me get that for you. It's a hard place to reach—trust me, I know.”
“Now that I think about it, how the hell did you know how to tie me up like that?”
“Honey, you ain't the only person on this planet that's got dark desires.”
“You bring women here and … torture them? Or is where you took your previous Companions after the auction?”
Dash pursed his lips and sighed, leaning against the counter as he looked at me, his expression deadly serious.
“First off, I told you—I never went to those fucking auctions. Second, no, I haven't brought any women here. This is all brand-new, and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. Like I said, this is my safe house. If I brought a ton of women over here to fuck, then it wouldn't be such a secret anymore, now would it?”
“But you do tie women up for fun?” I asked, tentatively moving into the room and grudgingly taking a seat on the bench. If Dash were out to get me, why throw open the door and reveal the room when Layla was here and unrestrained, when I could've easily maneuvered around him and gone for the gun or the front door.
Anyway, I knew in my heart that Dash was not the same as those men back at the auction. I'd seen his intentions in his eyes last night; he was not the bad guy here.
I sat down and swept my purple hair away from the sore spot on my neck. There was blood, crusted and dried from last night, still stuck to my skin like flakes of rust. Dash put the warm rag to my neck and I hissed in pain, but his touch was surprisingly gentle and the way he cleaned me up made me feel like I was safe in his care.
Maybe I was just in shock and looking for someone, anyone to lean on? I'm not sure.
“Dash,” I said, swallowing hard, “my brother is dead.”
“I know, button, and I'm sorry.” He pressed the rag to the soreness on my neck as I buried my face in my hands and cried for Maverick for the first time since his death. When Dash put his arms around me and held me, I let him.
It felt too damn good to ask him to stop.
#
After he cleaned up my tattoo and started the shower for me, Dash excused and left me alone to wash up. I think I spent more of my time in the hot water crying than I did actually bathing, but now that I had a second to think properly, my mind wouldn't stop conjuring up images of my older brother.
Maverick and I were twenty-two years apart, and he was already moved out and married before I was even born, so we didn't exactly have a lot in common, but I'd loved him. Goddamn it, but I really had. I loved all my family, even if they were sometimes selfish or overprotective or closed-off, because when I needed them, really fucking needed them, they were there.
So I sat down on the tiled bench in the shower and let my cruel brain come up with all my best memories of Maverick—the time he stood in as the princess for a play I was practicing and memorized most of the lines, the night I got drunk at a party and was too scared to call Dad to pick me up so I called him, the day his son was born and I watched the big biker in the leather vest cry.
But remembering the good times only drove the hurt in deeper, made it ache with a fierceness that I felt like I might never get over.
I stood up and grabbed the black robe off the back of the door, heading through the sex dungeon or whatever the fuck it was, and back into the living room.
Dash was all dressed up in black jeans, leather motorcycle boots, and a black t-shirt with the Pistols and Violets logo on the front. The fabric was tight, stretching across his muscles in a way that was almost criminal. I felt almost guilty for checking him out with my eyes still puffy from crying over my brother, but I couldn't help myself. I needed a distraction and Dash Buchanan was it.
He was studying his phone when I walked over to the breakfast bar and put my palms flat against the black granite surface.
“When do we start?” I asked him on the end of a deep, heaving breath.
Slowly, he pulled his attention away from the screen and up to my face.
“You really want to do this?” he asked me as his honeyed gaze took in my red rimmed eyes and puffy lids. “Because it ain't gonna be easy, and it sure as shit isn't going to happen overnight.”
“They killed my brother,” I said quietly, making sure my voice was pitched low enough that Layla wouldn't hear us. “They kidnap girls and use them as sex toys. Dash, this is an opportunity that might never come along again. Between the two of us, we have the skills, the resources and the in that we'd need to infiltrate these people, break them down from the inside out. If you're right and the FBI and the police, whoever, are paid off by these sons of bitches, then those girls are currently without hope, without a hero. I can't and won't leave them like that.”
Dash's full mouth curved up in a half-smile.
“Well, if you're serious about this then we'd best start preparing.” He lifted his phone up and turned the screen toward me. There was a text from an unknown number with a time, an address, and the digits 218231. “Because there's a party for all the new Companions—and it's tomorrow night.”
Man, you must be one dumb motherfucker, I thought as Adelaide stepped out of the guest bath off the entry dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a black tank top that I'd had brought in by a personal shopper. I'd called in the request as soon as I'd gotten Adelaide into the shower and within a few hours, there were clothes for both girls, groceries in the fridge, and an evening gown, jewelry and shoes for the party.
“How long have you known about The, uh, Sovereign …”
“Revolutionists,” I finished for her, my gaze raking that tall, curvy body of hers appreciatively. Adelaide Vaughn was long in the limbs, curvy in the hips and breasts, and cinched tight at the waist. Looking at her now, her purple curls loose and easy around her shoulders, her short straight bangs glossy across her forehead, I could easily imagine why a man might be tempted to spend five million big ones for this woman. “Since about the time I turned twenty-five. Dear ol' dad thought one of TSR's infamous parties would be a great substitute for a birthday present and rushed my membership through so I could get into one of their extravagant orgies. What I saw there scared the shit outta me so bad that I left and never went back. O' course, once you're a member of TSR, you're a member for life. There ain't no getting out of it.”
Adelaide looked at me for a long moment and then nodded, slipping into her shoulder holster and sliding the Ruger into place, like just having it near her made her feel more in control of the situation.
“I heard stories from Dad and his friends at other parties about the Block and the auctions, but I can promise you that I never once set foot in that place. If I had …” I wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Even now, I was damn near certain that I was signing both my own and Adelaide's death wish. I figured though that it couldn't hurt to attend tonight's function, show the members that I still had my 'Companion', that everything was okay. If Adelaide and her sister ever wanted to leave Las Vegas, we had to make sure that nobody suspected we weren't playing by the rules. Tonight could only help with that.
But it would come at a price.
“So what's the plan?” she asked, sitting down on the couch and putting her elbows on her knees, folding her hands together and taking a deep breath. Her eyes were all business when she looked up at me, but business between us … that was going to involve so much more than plotting escape routes or picking targets.
This whole operation hinged on one thing: sex.
“Adelaide, honey, you know what these parties are all about, don't you?”
She looked away from me as I came to sit on the velvet love seat next to her. She snapped her head back around to stare at me, like she hadn't expected me to sit so close. But if she really wanted to pull this thing off, we were going to have to get a fuck of a lot closer together.
“Based on last time, yeah, I think I have some idea,” she told me as I ran my tongue
over my lower lip and sat back into the cushions, studying her face carefully.
“I don't mean to pry or nothin', but we're going to have to get real serious here about this and we're gonna have to do it quick. Are you on birth control of any kind?”
“I have the Depo,” she said quietly, running her fingers through her hair. “The shot. I got it last month.” Adelaide glances away sharply. “And … yeah, I was virgin until about three days ago so STDs are not an issue.”
When she turned back to me, her gaze was sharp and piercing.
“I got tested last month, and I'm always safe—”
“Except with me?” she asked and I pursed my lips.
Well, fuck, she had a point there.
“I'll get tested again,” I promised as I laced my hands together behind my neck. “But at the party, I won't be expected to use condoms with you. So if you want to go, you'll have to be willing to take that risk. I'm telling you that I'm clean, but it's your choice to believe me or not.”
“These girls are more important than I am,” Adelaide said, and I could tell that she really, truly meant that. Jesus. For four years I'd let this awful little horror show go on and done nothin' at all about it. Yeah, o' course it bothered me. Fuck, it made me sick inside, but there wasn't anything I could do.
Until now.
“This is fucking insane,” I whispered as I ran my hand down my face.
“Have you ever heard of the shampoo ant?” she asked me suddenly and I raised both brows.
“I don't reckon I ever have,” I hazarded, wondering where she was going with this.
“Well,” Adelaide said, turning more fully in my direction. “Ants recognize each other by smell, using unique chemical signatures to identify one another. It'd be virtually impossible for another insect to get inside and kill the queen or invade the hill. But the shampoo ant,” she says, sweeping her hair aside and resting her fingers against the tattoo, “takes on the scent of different ant species and then rubs it all over itself, invading the colony by pretending to be one of their own. It just waltzes right into that impenetrable fortress.”
My eyebrows were still raised as Adelaide took a deep breath and kept going. I didn't know shit about fucking ants, but I did like listening to her talk. Her voice was throaty and soft, almost breathy, but it belied that wild fierceness in her, that recklessness that turned me on like nothing else. There musta been a good reason I never forgot that little nine year old girl from so long ago.
Adelaide had this fire inside of her that burned too bright to look away from. It seared the retinas, flickered white in the mind's eye long after the lids were closed.
I was intrigued as fuck.
“It happens all the time in the animal world—one little monster sneaking into the hive—and let's be honest, humans can be even less than animal sometimes. This will work.”
“If you want to take out two or three or even more members of the TSR, this could take months. Adelaide, it could take fucking years.”
She stood up suddenly and I noticed the tags hanging from the back of her jeans. I leaned forward and snapped them off as she glanced back at me and almost smiled. But the expression fell flat and she was back to this fierce seriousness that both scared the shit out of me—and made me a little envious. To have that much goddamn conviction, must be nice.
Now, if only Adelaide could carry that over to the personal side of her life, she'd be in fan-fucking-tastic shape.
“Without us, those girls have years, too, to suffer—if they're lucky.” Adelaide swallowed and rubbed her hands over her face. “I have a feeling that I just barely scratched the surface of the cruelty those people are capable of. When I was there, I felt like a commodity, a new car that nobody was willing to scratch up just in case it might lower the value. But what happens when the new car is purchased, driven off the lot, and has some miles on it? Dash, it doesn't get any better for most of those women—it probably gets much worse.”
“This thing you're proposing,” I say as I drop an elbow on the mound of pillows and rest my face on my knuckles, “this is a big goddamn deal. We can't pop in, slit a few throats, and pop out. This a commitment. Hell, this is bigger than marriage. If one of us betrays the other, we're both dead.”
“I'm willing to make whatever commitment necessary to do this. Somebody has to stand up for these women and who the hell else is going to do it? We have a unique angle to actually make a difference. Besides, if they're buying and selling and raping girls for fun, what else are they capable of? The world will be a much better place without people like the Auctioneer and his wife in it.”
“I'm not arguing any of your points, honey pot,” I said as Adelaide paused next to the sliding glass doors and watched the sun sparkle over the city. “In fact, you're preaching to the choir—I agree with you on all counts. What I'm saying is that we can't go into this as strangers. We'd be partners.”
She puts her fingers to the glass and then leans her forehead against it, purple hair falling around her face.
“I told you—I'll do whatever it takes.”
“Well, fuck, Adelaide,” I said as I stood up and she turned back to look at me. “This isn't just about you—this is an us sort of a venture. You get that?”
“You can … you don't have to stop doing whatever it was that you were doing. All I need is a place to stay and for you to get me into those parties, that's it. Keep making music, fucking groupies, whatever. At least know that by the time I'm done here, your father will be dead and you'll be CEO of Buchanan Bikes.”
“I never wanted to be CEO,” I said, and that was God's honest truth right there. The thought of my dad's world, my dad's misguided ventures, falling into my lap … well, if there was such a thing as hell on earth, that was it. Dad was indebted to men like Ingvar Dunham and Niles Calhoun. He was their pawn, and death wasn't going to absolve him of his position. No, when Xavier Buchanan died, I was going to get sucked into this rat race in his place. I'd known that for a while now, but hearing Adelaide say it aloud made it that much more real.
I'd be Dad, forced into more of these parties, my company's leash held in the hands of bigger, more terrible men.
Suddenly, Adelaide's plan didn't seem like such a terrible idea. The world would never be entirely rid of awful men with too much power, but maybe we could trim the fat? Maybe we could make this corner of this ugly little world a little brighter? Maybe, by doing this, I could alter my own future? If we got rid of the key players, there was a slim chance I could sell the company later and forget all about this shit, throw myself into playing music full-time and at least know that I'd done what I could for girls like Kelly, the dairy farmer's daughter.
“I believe that,” she said, staying where she was as I moved across the room, the buckles on my boots clinking loudly in the sudden silence. When I put my hands on her hips and leaned in close, my lips against her hair, she didn't try to move away. “You stay at the Hard Sell most of the time anyway, right? I could just shack up here; you wouldn't even have to see me most of the time.”
“Who said I was concerned about that part of the equation? Why would you think I didn't want to see you, Miss Vaughn?”
I slid my left hand under the fabric of her tank top, splaying my fingers against the warmth of her belly, feeling the muscles hiding just beneath the softness of her skin.
“If we want to pull this off, we'll have to get to know each other inside and out.”
“What are you suggesting?” she asked as my hand traveled down, popping the button on her jeans, slipping underneath the soft black fabric of her panties. As soon as I touched that molten space between her thighs, she melted, sagging back against me with a heavy sigh of relief. “Dash,” she started, putting her palms flat on the glass and relaxing against me, “what are you doing?”
“Practicing.” I put my mouth on her neck, kissed the softness of her skin as I slicked a single finger across her, testing her wetness. And hell if she wasn't all warmed up and aching fo
r me. Fuck, if Adelaide thought that I was at all put-out by the thought of having her around, she was just plumb stupid. Taking care of women, making them feel good, that was a fucking part of who I was. This girl, she was desperate for someone to free her from her own cage. “If we want to fit in tomorrow, we'll be expected to fuck each other, Adelaide. It'll have to be spectacular, too, to keep them from questioning our presence. We'll have to put on a show.”
“At least you seem to know what you're doing,” she whispered and then gasped as I slipped a single finger into her slippery wetness. “Why don't you just tie me up again?”
I felt my mouth curl into a smile as I kissed my way back up her neck, putting my lips to her ear.
“Is that what's bothering you? The fact that I knew what I was doing with that rope?” I inserted a second finger and Adelaide leaned even harder back against me, surrendering herself to the pleasure of my hand. Ultimately, that's what she wanted—to give up and let somebody else take care of all these dark needs that she thought she had, that she was so damn ashamed of. “Or … maybe it's not bothering you at all. Maybe that's why you're so damn wet for me?”
“How … where did you learn to do that?”
I chuckled and Adelaide's entire body rippled with pleasure as my breath feathered against her skin, my fingers teasing her fervent desire all over my knuckles. The room was silent but for the whir of the AC and the heady slick sound of my fingers moving in and out of Adelaide's pussy.
“Not all of us were virgins until we were twenty-five, sugar.”
“You tie girls up a lot?” she asked, putting her hand on my wrist, curling her fingers around my arm and encouraging me to move faster, deeper.
“Maybe not a lot, not as much as I'd like to, but sure. The thing is, Miss Vaughn, with something like bondage, there has to be trust in the relationship. Ain't a lot of trust to be found in one-night stands.”
I stepped back and pushed her forward with a hand on her back, pulling my wet fingers from the tight folds of her cunt and dragging her jeans down to mid-thigh. When I reinserted them, she made this sharp, wild sound that had me gritting my teeth and fighting against this base urge to be inside of her again. The way things were looking, Adelaide Vaughn and I would be spending a hell of a lot of time together.
