by Cassia Leo
Nicely played.
“First of all,” Lizzy’s raspy voice projected over the conference table and dozens of people around it, “let’s get this out of the way. I’m not The Domme, no matter how you spell it. I prefer Domina. You’ll address me as Domina or Ma’am when we’re inside The Devilhouse.”
Georgie’s purse was tucked under her chair, the strap looped around her ankle so it wouldn’t get kicked around. She had thought about shoving one of her bug-out bags in a locker inside The Devilhouse, but the parking lot was fenced. No one was going to break into her car in that parking lot in the middle of the brilliant desert afternoon. She had cracked her windows so that her laptop wouldn’t broil.
Yet, maybe she should have brought it in with her.
But it was such a pain in the ass to tote the big backpacks around. People would ask questions. She didn’t want anyone to know that she planned to say good-bye to Lizzy and a few other people here before she bolted.
After this meeting, and she was only here to support Lizzy, Georgie was going to drive through a coffee place, buy a triple-shot latte, and drive at least as far as Albuquerque that night, about six hours.
The next day, it would take her about eight more hours to get to Oklahoma City.
She had downloaded everything that she needed to get her to Alabama on her phone, including maps in case the cell phone towers were sparse and all of Killer Valentine’s music.
If she had to leave, if she had to become someone else, she could at least hear Alex sing to her one last time.
Beside Georgie, Josephine brushed her lavender hair behind her shoulder and shifted in her seat. “Um, I did one a couple months ago.”
Lizzy, up at the front, projected, “A couple months ago. Georgie?”
Oh, crap. She cleared her throat, stalling.
Josephine ducked her head and whispered, “Blow job. Last one. When?”
Georgie flipped her hand, looking like she was dithering. “I have a new guy, so he wanted one. Other than that, it had been a couple months for me, too.”
“And how many clients do you have?” Lizzy pressed.
“Eight regulars, plus some special occasions,” Georgie said. Damn, she really needed to write them good-bye notes, too. They were all so fragile. Many of them had emailed her during the time The Devilhouse had been closed, asking her to meet with them, just for coffee, just to talk. Their lonely voices had saddened her cold, dead heart, so she had met with them at The Coffee Plantation for an hour each to tide them over, just for coffee.
They were all sweetly grateful. Only two had wanted hugs. The rest just needed to talk.
Oh, damn. What was Georgie going to do about those guys?
“And it’s been months,” Lizzy said, her gravelly voice firm.
“Well, yeah. They’re not really here for the BJs. They think they are, but, you know. They’re not.” Eight more emails. She could probably do that from Albuquerque tonight.
“Yes,” Lizzy said. “That’s the point. Dommes and Doms, when was the last time yous guys blew anyone?”
Jesus, did Lizzy want a mutiny? Georgie turned around to where the Dominants all sat behind her to watch the carnage.
None of them twitched.
Mairearad shrugged. “Dommes don’t do that, ever.”
Lizzy said, “Yes. And yet the Dominants charge five times as much per hour as the general contractors. We’re going to apply the dominants’ model to everyone. Whatever the clients do after you leave the room is none of your business, but we have no part in it.”
The Dominants looked smugly superior, like their business model had dominated.
So they were staying.
The rest of the contractors blinked, took notes (because most were college students and did that compulsively,) or stared at the ceiling, considering what Lizzy had said.
All looked thoughtful. None looked pissed.
Wow. Lizzy had turned it around.
Georgie turned back to the table and checked the time on her phone. She needed to leave soon if she didn’t want to be driving long after dark. She had even changed into yoga pants and running shoes in the locker room so she would be comfortable on the drive.
Her mind kept turning to Alex, the sunlight passing over his chiseled face and the blond ends of his hair as he rode in her car.
She shouldn’t have fucked him that last time. Five times was too much. He was tangled up in her head, and every time she thought about her car or driving or music or breathing, she thought about him.
The others started talking about The Devilhouse again, but Georgie contemplated the map on her phone and watched the clock.
RUN
Georgie
After the meeting, while the babbling mob of contractors snaked into a line to shake Lizzy’s hand, Georgie said good-bye to Lizzy, not in words but with a long hug that left Lizzy with lingering puzzlement in her pale blue eyes, and pushed open the heavy metal door to the parking lot. Afternoon heat ricocheting off the black asphalt stung her bare arms and scratched the inside of her nose with the stink of baking tar.
Everyone else was still processing after the meeting, drinking the coffee and eating the pastries in the locker rooms and hallway that Lizzy had set out to encourage mingling and conversation afterward.
The Devilhouse’s meeting had started at two o’clock, and the sun had dropped farther in the west during the hour since then, closer to the white walls that ringed the parking lot. Georgie’s white Lexus was parked near the back because the other contractors’ cars had filled the lot while she had been dropping Alex off at the airport.
No one else had followed her out, too interested in the pastries and reading the new contracts to each other.
Georgie walked between the cars, threading between the Mercedes, Bimmers, and the occasional Prius, her purse over her shoulder bumping her hip. Rows of cars separated her from her Lexus, her bug-out bags, and her ride out of the Southwest and her old life.
She turned a corner around a candy apple red Corvette.
A man stood up from where he had been crouching between the cars. He wore a black business suit and said, “Georgiana Oelrichs.”
“You must have mistaken me for someone else.” She turned to escape back to The Devilhouse, but another man, far taller and wider than Georgie, had stepped between the cars behind her. He wore a grim smile on his wide, Slavic face, and his eyes were the cold blue of the Moscow winter sky.
He said, “Tatiana Butorin sent us. She needs to speak to you.”
Shit.
Georgie jumped and scrambled over the Corvette. The sun-heated metal burned her hands as she clawed for fingerholds and her toes found the edge of the windowsill.
A hand grabbed her leg but she kicked and got free. When she jumped down the other side, the men were sprinting around to fence her in again, but a convertible with its top down was in front of her. She hurdled the side of the car and bounced off the back seat, landing on the asphalt on the other side. She held onto her purse with one hand.
The men kept running, trying to flank her, but Georgie reached the edge of the employee’s parking lot. The park-like space that filled the area between the long driveways leading from the street filled the land ahead of her.
Georgie sprinted for the trees and shrubs.
The guys behind her looked like they were in pretty good shape, muscular and broad-shouldered, and they would have been intimidating in a fight.
But this wasn’t a fight. This was a race.
Her body, accustomed to running miles from cross-country in high school and every day since, stretched and settled into a hard sprint. She dug her feet into the hard desert dirt. She could keep it up for a long time.
She ran through the park, the grassy and tree-shaded area she and Lizzy called The Garden of Good and Evil, over benches and through hedges and past an area where she liked to sunbathe in the spring and fall.
The men crashed through the plants behind her, grunting as thorns tore at them.
Georgie reached the perimeter, shoved one foot after another in the chain-link fence at the end, and vaulted over the top.
A black SUV sat idling at the curb ahead of her. The men stomped to the sidewalk behind her.
She ran hard, intending to sprint past the vehicle, but a man inside gaped at her through the side mirror and jammed his door open.
The back seat door flipped open, too.
Alex reached out, grabbed her around the waist, and tossed her into the back seat.
Georgie clutched him around his neck as he leapt in after her.
He slammed the door as the men chasing her started banging on the side of the SUV.
She twisted in the seat to look out the rear window. The bratva men chased the SUV for a few yards but pulled up, gripping their knees and gasping for breath. One reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun, but he dropped his arm as the SUV swerved into traffic, jostling Georgie and bumping her into the seat back.
Alex already had his arms wrapped around her, and Georgie buried her face in his thick shoulder. “I thought you left.”
“I couldn’t leave. You looked too frightened.”
“I did not.”
“All right. You didn’t.”
She looked behind them. Cars cut through the lanes in the thick traffic, but no one seemed to be following the SUV. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to run.”
His arms tightened around her. He said, “Gentlemen, to the plane, please.”
Georgie pointed behind them. “I need my car. My car is back there.”
“Doubtlessly, they will stake out your car and wait for you, probably for days or weeks. You can’t go back.”
She looked back. “Shit. My bug-out bags are in there.”
“Do you have your passport?” he asked, his hand stroking her braid.
“In my purse.”
“That’s all you’ll need. I’ll get you anything else.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“I believe you.”
“You shouldn’t.” Hot tears gathered in her eyes. “I already owe you a hundred Euros for the concierge sneaking us out of the hotel in Paris. I don’t want to end up owing you anything more.”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
He held her wrists, drawing her hands down his chest. He looked right into her sweet brown eyes. “Come on tour with me.”
She dropped her face to her hands again. “Oh, God. I can’t.”
“You said it’s not safe for you here. I have two layers of security on the tour. One for the band, and a private one. No one could get to you.”
“There would be pictures all over the place. They will find them, and then they will find me. They’re highly motivated.”
“No one would notice just another roadie. Travel with the crew. Stay with me in my room. Your name won’t be anywhere on our rosters until we fly to Europe. You’ll be safe for now, and we’ll figure out what to do.”
“I can’t go on tour with you. I have to get a new name, a new identity. I have to start a new life and go to law school to pay everyone back.”
“Someone is after you. You need to hide. You can hide with me, even if it’s just for tonight. Let’s go to the plane. There will be no record of you leaving the Southwest. I’ll take you anywhere you want, but you should go with me.”
Men with guns had chased her. Russian mob bosses had ordered her kidnapping. The bright desert sun glared off the cars around her, stinging her eyes everywhere she turned. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Just for now, come with me. If you want to go off on your own, we’ll buy you a car and the essentials.”
“I have money. I have my credit cards. I can buy stuff.”
“Then fine, but in the meantime, get on my plane, and let’s get into the air where these men can’t get to you.”
“Okay,” she said, hanging onto him. “Okay.”
“Who are they?” he asked.
Georgie clung more tightly to his muscular, warm body. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
ON THE GULFSTREAM
Alexandre de Valentinois
Alexandre led Georgie out of the private terminal and outside onto the warm tarmac. The jetwash from the engines blasted through his hair, swirling it around his face so that he could hardly see through the blond and brown mess. Still trailing Georgie, he bounded up the staircase to his Gulfstream. Her cold fingers worried him that she might be in shock.
She paused in the entryway for a moment, and he glanced back to see her taking a long look at the inside of the plane. Her searching assessment wasn’t the wide-eyed stare of someone who had never seen the inside of a private jet nor the calculating appraisal of a peer who was sizing up Alexandre’s social rank. The sadness in her eyes seemed like reminiscence.
He was just about to ask her if she was all right when Guillaume stepped out of the galley and drawled, “Your Grace.”
“Guillaume,” Alexandre said and glanced pointedly at Georgie behind him.
Guillaume leaned to peer around Alexandre and stiffened. He snapped back to a starchy correctness. “Your Grace, the flight plan has been refiled and we will arrive in Virginia on schedule. Will you and the lady be taking supper on board?”
“Yes, I think so. Thank you.”
“And would you like a drink?”
“Scotch for me. Georgie?”
She looked away from the plane and to Guillaume. “The same, please?”
“My pleasure, miss. Do you require anything else, sir?”
Alexandre said, “No, Guillaume.”
“Very good, sir.” He pivoted and waddled back to the small galley on the plane.
Alexandre turned back to Georgie. Red rimmed her eyes, and he took a step toward her but just held out his hand. He didn’t want to be too alpha wolf and scare her off, but she responded to a firm hand, quite well. “We’ll be taking off soon. We need to sit down.”
She nodded and took his hand, letting him lead her into the plane. When they were past the galley area, she said, “I’ll just use the bathroom.”
Alexandre pointed to the back. “Off to the right.”
She walked ahead of him, holding her hands over her face.
Alexandre trailed her, going about halfway to the back. His larger plane had been undergoing maintenance and would have taken an additional four hours before they could have left Miami. Alexandre stooped slightly as he walked, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. This plane hadn’t been made for passengers who were six feet-four. He steadied himself by touching the seatbacks of the sets of four chairs clustered around the dining table on his right.
He swiveled one out and crouched to sit in it, and Guillaume brought him his scotch while the steward secured and cross-checked the door.
The butler leaned back into the aisle to make sure that Georgie had closed the bathroom door and asked in exactly the same servile tone, “And will we be getting stinking drunk on today’s flight to Virginia, Your Grace?”
Some of the people in Alexandre’s employ had been with him since he was a small child and had seen his teenage years. They could produce an excellent pretense of decorum when the situation called for it, but when they were alone, these people had seen too much. “I don’t think so, Guillaume. Aren’t you going to join me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Guillaume swiveled the chair across from him and fell into it. His knees popped on the descent, and the chair creaked at the heavy landing. He produced his own glass of scotch from some magical pocket that only butlers had. “Did everything go as planned with the young lady? Were your ashes adequately hauled?”
“God, you’re crass.” Alexandre watched the airport mechanics remove the chocks from the wheels of the plane.
“Said the rock star to the butler.”
“The plan changed.” Alexandre sipped the scotch and watched the tarmac and blighted landscape outside the round portal.
“And this is not to
your liking, Your Grace?”
Alexandre shook his head. “Someone is after her. They want to kidnap her or something. She won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” He produced the scotch bottle and sloshed more scotch in Alexandre’s glass just as the plane lurched forward to taxi to the runway.
“Yeah,” Alexandre said, sipping the scotch whiskey. The burnt caramel fumes glided up his sinuses and became deep red smoke behind his eyes.
“Will there be another temper tantrum and midnight flight in the foreseeable future?” Guillaume asked.
Not if Alexandre could help it. He planned to keep Georgie with him rather than have to go rescue her. He shook his head.
“The mechanics will be glad to hear that, Your Grace. I’ll just make sure your instruments are properly secured.”
He waddled off, leaving Alexandre to contemplate the harsh sunlight outside the airplane’s porthole window.
Georgie came back while the plane was still taxiing and sat across from him. The afternoon sunlight bounced off the polished wood of the table and lit her face. Alexandre swiveled his chair toward her, drawn by her delicate bone structure and large, liquid brown eyes. He had noticed her before Flicka had introduced them. Her lean body appealed to him. Her trim, athletic lines spoke of rigor and commitment, not plastic implants or artifice.
He leaned forward, his arms braced on the table. “I need to know who is after you such that they would send two men with guns after you.”
“Saw that, did you?”
“Some things escape my notice, but not men with guns.”
Georgie’s mouth firmed, and Alexandre had a moment of distraction while he contemplated her full lips. She always looked like she had just been kissed, and it almost made him jealous.
She said, “As soon as we get where we’re going, I will walk off the plane and you’ll never see me again.” Pride lifted her brown eyes and chin. “I can make my own way in this world. I pay my own debts. I don’t want to involve you in this any more than I already have.”
