by K. T. Tomb
Natalia had found her first meeting with Robin Thorn to be dreadfully dull. Though she had done everything she could to help him relax, he had seemed to be fidgety, nervous and confused the entire time. The long pauses had been nearly unbearable and she had been extremely relieved when he had finally brought the meeting to an end and allowed her to go home.
She’d had no intention of contacting Robin Thorn again and had returned to the dating service to see if there was anyone else she could meet. After her brother had been killed in a military engagement with guerilla forces near the Colombian border, her grandparents, Nana and Buelo, were all she had left. Her parents had died in an accident when she was only seven years old; thus, her grandparents had become her parents. As they aged, she had continued to take care of them and had neglected tending to her own needs. There had been little excitement and little opportunity for her to start any type of relationship, though there were plenty of men who were interested. However, she always feared that they had a case of lust more than they did any true interest in who she was and what her hopes and dreams in life were. Those factors had led her to the higher-end dating service that she hoped would help her to find a more serious man with goals for the future.
When she returned to the agency after the Thorn fiasco, she had been shown some more photos and profiles and had received a few invitations. Reluctantly, she had chosen another gentleman and left the agency, knowing that she would be getting another call and another meeting would be arranged. With a heavy sigh, she had started to walk the three blocks that would bring her to the bus and the long ride back to her home in El Hatillo and a very run down old home that she had lived in with her grandparents since her parents died.
During that three block walk, a van suddenly pulled up beside her and two men leaped out of the sliding door. Before she was able to react or scream, they were stuffing her inside the van and closing the door as the driver accelerated down the street.
Initially, she had assumed that she had been kidnapped in order to be placed into a prostitution ring. She had heard of it happening to many other young and attractive girls and had heard how they had been kept so deeply under the influence of narcotics that they were completely unable to think clearly enough to escape their imprisonment. Some of them were even shipped overseas to other countries where Colombian, Venezuelan and Brazilian girls brought a premium price.
When she was ushered into the room with the long table and sat before the bright light for the first time, she had been bound and gagged; the gag being removed at the last minute so that she could speak to the man in the shadows.
“I understand that you were not very fond of Mr. Thorn.” The voice in the shadows was a little bit too soft and too smooth; oily.
“I’m not sure I understand.” She had no idea how her preference, or in this case, rejection of a person she had met through a discreet dating service could have become such common knowledge.
“Were you not back in the agency looking at more photos and profiles?”
“I was.” She wanted to ask how he knew, but she was much too terrified to be asking questions.
“You accepted the invitation of a Mr. Stefan VanClive, if I’m not mistaken.”
Unsure of what was taking place, her mind tried to race ahead to discover the relevance of his questions. “You are correct.”
“Well. We are going to break that meeting off for you and send you on another date with Mr. Thorn.”
“I don’t understand. I thought the agency allowed me to choose…”
“This has nothing to do with the agency.” He chuckled softly, amused at how terrified she was before him. The trembling in her voice was sweet music to him. “Listen carefully. We are prepared to pay you $150,000 if you will continue to date Mr. Thorn. In case you are not aware of the current exchange rate, 150,000 dollars are more or less equivalent to 1,000,000 bolivars.”
“I don’t understand.” She had been in fear for her life. She had assumed the worst and suddenly she was being offered a significant sum of money. It wasn’t very easy to digest.
“What is there to understand? You stand to become a very wealthy girl. Tell me what would you do with that much money. Perhaps you would buy your Nana and Buelo a new house in a more affluent neighborhood or keep it all to yourself.”
“What do you know about my Nana and Buelo?” When it came to protecting her grandparents, she became fairly belligerent and bordered on aggressive.
“Plenty.” He let the statement rest for a long moment. “Relax. It’s a simple task, really. In fact, if you will do nothing more than bring him into your confidence and ‘sweep him off his feet’ if you will, we’ll pay you the first third of the entire sum. As you deliver the other information and do the other things that we ask you to do, you’ll receive the rest.”
“If I refuse?” She wasn’t fond of Robin Thorn, but she feared that whoever it was that had kidnapped her and was negotiating with her meant to harm him. He was dull, but he didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of.
“I would hate to see something happen to Nana and Buelo, wouldn’t you?”
“You leave them out of this!” she shouted.
The door to her right had opened slightly in response to her shout.
“We’re fine,” the man in the shadows said. The door closed again. After a few moments longer, he spoke again. “So, do we have an arrangement; a contract, so to speak?”
On the one hand, she wasn’t too keen about taking money to set up, frame or provide whatever information would lead a decent man to harm, but on the other, if they harmed her Nana and Buelo, she could never forgive herself. What choice did she have?
“We do,” she whispered, crossing herself. May the virgin forgive me and go with me.
“You must speak up. I did not understand your response.”
“We have an agreement.”
She had moved forward with her agreement from that point. She had contacted Robin and everything had begun to fall into place. However, as she was blindfolded, placed in the van and then dropped off near the place where she caught the bus after her second meeting with the man in the shadows, she was carrying nearly 350,000 bolivars in her purse.
Chapter Seven
Altamira Estate,
Caracas, Venezuela
From the second story window of the master suite, Robin could look out of the valley where Caracas lay below him and watch the shadow from the night being drawn slowly back like a curtain over the city below. Though it was akin to watching paint dry, he could detect the ever-so-slow change if he concentrated on a particular landmark long enough.
He wasn’t particularly concerned about the waste of time, because he could hear the soft, steady breathing of Natalia behind him in his bed. Every so often, he would turn and gaze at her for a moment, still not quite believing that one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen – let alone slept with – was actually wrapped up in his satin sheets, lost in her dreams.
Her relaxed face and the way her hair fanned out across the pillow in the dim light of dawn had something of an ethereal feel to it, like it was the masterpiece of a Spanish Baroque painter. How had he gotten so lucky?
As he thought back to when he tried to take control of Thorn Industries from his brothers, he couldn’t help but wonder how fate had brought him a much better hand than he deserved. The laws of Karma dictated that his actions ought to be repaid by equal, evil turns of fate, rather than the incomparable bliss that had completely overtaken him.
Even his father had hinted at the change that he saw in him and had mentioned, during a quiet stroll in the garden of Stone Mountain, that he seemed to be a man truly transformed. He had gone well beyond asking forgiveness and had actually attempted to make things right, which, in John Thorn’s way of thinking, was a sure sign of true repentance. Robin’s family – even Aurora – had accepted Natalia with open arms and relished in how good she was for him. Aurora still kept him at arm’s length, not yet fully trusting him.<
br />
Rebecca had not been quite so accepting and he thought he understood why.
Rebecca had attempted to seduce him on several occasions, trying to do what he had actually accused Aurora of doing. Though Rebecca was an extremely attractive, intelligent and charming southern lady with a degree of societal connections above those of Aurora, he had turned her away, believing that being involved with one’s employees could come to nothing but bad. When he had brought her into his office as his assistant, he had done so on her merits rather than any attraction he had for her. His actions had been misunderstood and he’d had to be quite blunt with her in order to stave off her advances.
He smiled as he thought about how she must have thoroughly enjoyed gossiping about him and Natalia. Just as southern women were prone to do, no doubt she had made up plenty of juicy tidbits that completely defamed the character of his dark-eyed beauty. In the past, he would have defended himself, even fought back, but he found himself in such a state of joyful bliss that he did not care.
The shadow had drawn back a good deal further during the time he stood pondering fate and watching from his window when his thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of Natalia’s full, naked breasts pressing into his back as she wrapped her arms around him.
“Buenos dias, mi amor,” she whispered.
“Buenos dias, hermosita,” he replied. His Spanish hadn’t improved a great deal, but there were several words that he’d grown very comfortable and accustomed to.
“Are you going to waste such a beautiful morning, standing here and looking out the window?” Natalia’s accented English had improved dramatically, but the way she spoke still sent a tingle through him when he heard her voice.
“Did you have something else that you think I should be doing instead?” He turned around and smiled down at her, knowing instantly what she was up to when he saw her dancing eyes.
“It is nearly time for breakfast,” she purred.
“Are you telling me that you’re hungry?” He matched the tone of her voice.
“Perhaps.” Her hands were already rubbing him through his boxer shorts.
“What should be on the menu?”
“I might enjoy some sausage or you some bacon.” Her hands did not stop their caresses and he felt the feeling of confinement growing inside his shorts.
Initially, he hadn’t understood the connotation behind sausage and bacon until it was explained to him. South Americans had two different words for hot dogs depending on what was in them. A “perro” was a hot dog made with chorizo and a “perra” was a hot dog with bacon. The masculine and feminine forms had been carried over into a sexual connotation referring to oral sex.
“Bacon for me!” He shouted suddenly, causing her to squeal as he scooped her up and carried her to the bed.
Tossing her on her back on the bed, he instantly positioned himself between her thighs and began to make long, slow strokes with his tongue between the swollen lips of her pussy.
“Ay papi, si,” she groaned.
The response only encouraged him even more. The heat and moisture were gathering rapidly as he teased her lips, nibbling softly between his teeth. As she began to squirm, he moved further up until his tongue found her clit, making small circles around it. She brought her hips up off of the bed and thrust her mound into his mouth, delighted by the delicious feel of him as he worked on her, but she wanted to drive her bud deeper into his mouth. He sucked on it and continued to work it with his tongue as he heard her let out a long, throaty moan while her body trembled.
Though Natalia was typically more of the slow and gentle type, something had taken place that morning that had put her in a mood to get rough. Reaching between her thighs, she grasped the back of Robin’s head by the hair and pulled him on top of her, burying his face in her breasts.
With the large, erect nipples in his face, Robin could not help but take each one in his mouth in turn, sucking on them as though he were a dying man who had been given a straw to drink from a spring.
“Bite me,” she hissed.
Robin nibbled a little bit on her nipple, but he didn’t want to hurt her.
“I said bite me, please, papi, bite me harder.”
He would never understand why a woman would want such a sensitive area to be bitten, but he did as she said, mashing his teeth down hard on the swollen nipple.
“Oh, si, papi, si. Aaaaayyy que rico. Mas, mas, mas, porfa!”
He wasn’t certain if a woman could orgasm from having their nipples bitten, but Natalia seemed to be having such intense pleasure from it that he let go of the first nipple and pinched the second between his teeth with gusto.
“Ooooh aaayyy,” she squealed. “Asi es. Asi es.”
Robin didn’t know if she simply forgot English altogether whenever she was in ecstasy or what, but he absolutely loved to hear her Spanish when they were making love; it drove him even wilder with desire.
With his erection struggling against the cotton shorts, he reached down to slip them over his hips while he continued to make her scream. With the fabric sufficiently removed to allow his swollen rod to burst free, he moved up into position between her thighs and buried himself deep inside of her.
They moaned in unison at their joining. No matter how many times they had made love before, the feeling of that first moment always left them in a momentary state of breathless delight.
Having been driven into a state of near fury in response to her aggressive lovemaking, Robin began hammering deep inside of her. It was so intense that it was only a matter of moments before the two of them reached orgasm together, awakening the entire household with the sound of their release.
The moments that followed as they were catching their breath were spent in deep kisses and caresses before Natalia laid her head back with a satisfied smile on her face.
Robin simply could not keep his hands off of her. Though the desires had waned, the deeper desire to connect with her still lingered and his hand continued to stroke and caress the smooth lines of her body as he leaned upon his elbow and drank in the beauty of her from head to toe.
Before long, his worship of her delightful curves, the sight and feel of her chocolate brown nipples growing erect and the feel of her moist pussy below her puffy, bald mound started to bring him to arousal again. When Natalia was aware of his new desire, she rolled him onto his back and began a slow, sensual dance upon his swollen member.
Breakfast was beginning to get cold and needed to be reheated when the two lovers finally stopped pleasuring one another and made their way down to the dining room.
“Shall I call your car, sir?” one of his assistants asked.
“No,” he said, reaching over and taking hold of Natalia’s hand. “I think I’ll stay at home today.”
Chapter Eight
Thorn Industries,
Alpharetta, Georgia
“What are you telling me, Rebecca?” Aurora wasn’t expecting to hear what she had just heard from Rebecca and needed it to be repeated.
“I’m saying that I think Robin is being set up.” Rebecca’s face showed that she was clearly distressed over what she was telling her boss.
Though she had certainly not warmed up much to Robin since he had tried to take over the company from his father and brothers, she had seen changes that had been brought upon him by his new relationship with Natalia. It might serve him right to get a little bit of the bad Karma returned to him, but Zach, John and Will had forgiven him and she was working very hard on doing the same. “How is he being set up? For what purpose?”
“How, is that dark-eyed slut; and the purpose, I don’t yet know.” Rebecca spat out the former part of the sentence, giving vent to her jealousy.
“This isn’t just your jealousy talking is it, Rebecca?” She hadn’t gotten the full story from what she considered accurate sources, but rumor had it that Rebecca had made a move on Robin well before she became his assistant and had tried again afterward, but had been shut down. She considered th
e irony of Robin’s “holier than thou” attitude when it came to her relationship with Will. Things often came full circle, however. From what she had witnessed, Natalia was very good for Robin and was beginning to make him tolerable, even to her. She started to turn away and go back to her computer.
“It’s not my jealousy!” Rebecca snapped.
The slightly raised eyebrow and stern glance from Aurora was a distinct warning.
She was clearly agitated and took a moment to take a couple of deep breaths so that she wouldn’t say or do anything that she might regret in front of her boss. “Okay, there’s a little bit of jealousy, especially after the way he preached about you being below Will’s level. Anyway, that is not the whole story. Just hear me out please?”
“Okay, but be careful, please, and make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row before you start stirring things up. We are just getting back on track and things are smoothing over a bit. The last thing we need is more drama.”
“I understand. I really do. I wouldn’t even consider bringing this to you if I didn’t smell a rat and a really big one.”
“Alright.” Aurora sighed, turned away from the computer screen and gave Rebecca her full attention. Had it been anyone other than her brilliant assistant, she would have just passed it off as jealousy, but she had grown to trust Rebecca’s judgment. She folded her hands on her desk. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, so knowing Robin the way we do, I figured that he didn’t pick up Miss Thing…”
“Natalia,” Aurora corrected. She liked Natalia and felt like Rebecca needed to give her a chance.
“Sorry. He didn’t pick up Natalia at a club. So, I started checking into some matchmaking services in Caracas and I found two that are geared more toward high-end clients. I cross-checked that against expenditures, but, of course, he would have used cash so there wasn’t a record to track. See, I know how he thinks.”
Aurora opened her hands and nodded for her to continue.
“I did some digging into the two. The one was pretty straightforward. It is owned by a company out of Miami that has several of these matchmaking services scattered throughout the Caribbean and South America. There was nothing really fishy there. However, when I checked out the other one, things were a lot more complicated. That one is a subsidiary of a company that is the subsidiary of a company that is a… do you get where I’m going with this?”
