* * * *
By Saturday afternoon Dillon realized that both their nerves were getting frazzled as they waited for news from Morgan Court’s people. Mikaela thought he didn’t see her checking YouTube on her phone every few minutes. He wished there was something he could do for her. He was becoming crazed himself.
While Mikaela was sunning at the pool with her Kindle in one hand and her iPhone in the other, he went to meet Jamie Devereau and Dane Dunross in the bar for a beer. “I have to tell you guys, this is really getting to me. I think the waiting is worse than the actual posting of a new video. Mikaela is checking her phone every few minutes.”
“She told Anne that she was more worried about you and your campaign than about herself. She doesn’t want to be responsible for a blowup between you and your father. She feels she’s a free agent with no one to answer to, but that you have a lot of family obligations.”
“Well, there will probably be a blowup. I can’t say I want one, but I’m getting damn tired of Joe Cavanaugh thinking he runs my life. I love my parents. Joe has good intentions, but he can be a royal pain in the ass.”
“I think you can say that about a lot of parents who have big ambitions for their kids. Thankfully, I don’t have that problem. My old man is dead and unlamented.”
Dane said, “Hopefully you’ll hear something from Court soon. Maybe a good session in the dungeon will help you both work out some frustrations. Do you want me to reserve a theme room for you?”
“Yeah. How about that French Bordello Room for five o’clock with champagne and hors d’oeuvres? I think that would be good for both of us.”
* * * *
Mikaela knew Dillon was trying to distract her with a trip to the dungeon, and she appreciated his efforts. She hoped she would be able to relax enough to enjoy it. Waiting for the other shoe to drop was really taking it out of her. She had a rental car in the parking lot, and an overnight bag and her stash of money were locked in the trunk. If she needed to leave, she only had to pick up her handbag and walk out the door. She thought she would drive to Orlando and pick up a flight to Chicago. She could stay in Chicago for a day or two, and then go on to San Francisco. She had plenty of cash and untraceable gift cards so she should be fine for the amount of time she would need for the first rush of media excitement over the scandal to die down. She dreaded hearing her name and seeing her face on all those celebrity news shows if the second video hit YouTube.
She didn’t plan to disappear forever—just until after the special election. Of course, she didn’t know if Dillon would ever forgive her or if his parents would be able to get past the scandal. That all remained to be seen. But first and foremost she had to know what the blackmailer intended to do and what his demands would be. Although tantalizing flashes of memory continued to go through her mind, she still was not able to recall the incident or the people involved. She thought maybe she would have better luck if she stopped trying so hard and just let her subconscious do the work. Actually doing that was very difficult however. She wanted to just keep worrying at the memory like a sore tooth until something substantive popped up.
She followed Dillon down the hall to one of the theme rooms. She loved the view of his muscular ass encased in the tight black leather pants. She had glimpses of his smooth, muscled chest when the black leather vest with the embossed pattern opened. He swiped the key card and opened the door. She hadn’t seen this room, and she was amazed. The room was opulent in a French style with a luxurious bed made up with silk bedding. The BDSM equipment was on a smaller scale than in the main dungeon but had just as many bells and whistles. The hotel’s staff really went the extra mile in everything they did. There was a bottle of champagne on ice and a tray of hors d’oeuvres on the credenza.
Dillon turned to her as soon as they were through the door. The scene was on. She dropped into the slave position and waited for his instructions. “Sub, disrobe and put on your cuffs.”
“Yes, Master.” She stood gracefully and went to the closet. She was grateful for the flexibility her yoga training gave her, or some of the positions required would be difficult. She particularly enjoyed the Shibari bondage, but hanging by ropes and pulleys from the ceiling could be taxing. She put her clothes and shoes in the closet and pulled the cuffs from Dillon’s toy bag. She donned the wrist and ankle cuffs. She stood with her head bowed and her hands clasped behind her back as he walked around her in inspection mode. That always made her a little nervous no matter how long they had been doing it. But then it was supposed to do that. The whole idea was to up the sexual tension and anxiety.
“I think you need that cute butt of yours warmed to start, subbie.” He sat in the armless tapestry-upholstered chair and gestured for her to lie across his lap. Her pussy clenched. She loved the vulnerable feeling that crawling into his lap always elicited. She loved the feel of his big hand on her bare butt and the hot, stinging sensation when he brought it down on her bottom. He didn’t stint. When she got her butt warmed, it was warm. The first smack was always an eye-opener. Sometimes he made her count strikes, and sometimes he just paddled her ass until he was satisfied with the degree of heat and redness. If he didn’t tell her to count she knew she was in for a good, old-fashioned spanking that would leave her bottom sore until the next day and her pussy hot and ready for his hard cock. The flip side of that coin was that she always felt a lessening of anxiety or tension in her body afterward. It almost felt like a tranquilizer. She knew she needed that now. She didn’t understand why she loved it so much. She hadn’t been spanked often as a child. It was just one of those mysteries of the human mind and body.
When he was done, he pulled her up into his arms and hugged her against his chest. “Better, baby?”
She gave a huge sigh. “Much better, Master.” They rested that way for a while before he stood up and carried her to the hanging chains. He had her arms bound above her head. Since he left her ankle cuffs free, she had an idea of what was coming. Of course, she would never admit that to him. He did totally surprise her sometimes though.
He slowly opened the front of his leathers, and his erect cock sprang out at attention. That he had not allowed her to touch him yet told her he planned to make this an epic encounter. He stood in front of her and looked down into her eyes, as though he searched her soul. “What are you not telling me, Mikaela? I know there’s something going on with you—other than the obvious, of course.” When she didn’t answer him, he crushed her mouth with a brutal kiss that took her breath away. His tongue drove hard and deep. His hands wandered over her body, skating over her hard nipples down her stomach to her pussy. He fingered her clit. She groaned, and he plunged two fingers into her center. “You’re ready for me, sub.” He boosted her up until her legs were wrapped around his waist. He adjusted himself and entered her in one swift, sure plunge while his big hands cupped her hot butt.
“Oh, Master. This is what I need. Fuck me. Fuck me hard.” He didn’t do the usual of starting out slow and easy and making her wait. He plunged in hard and fast, and the velvet walls of her vagina clutched his iron cock. She tightened her legs around his waist since she didn’t have the use of her hands to hold on. Her body arched against him. She took him deep and tried to hold him as though she would never let him go. He was hard as steel and pulsing with life. Who knew? This might be the last chance she had to make love with Dillon—her friend, her love, her Master.
* * * *
Dillon groaned as she rolled her hips to take him deeper. A shaft of intense pleasure speared through his body, but he fought it off. He was going to take her hard but not fast. This had to last. For some reason, he knew this was important—not just a trip to the dungeon for a good, hard fuck. Her moans were sweet music in his ears. His hips pumped with wild abandon as the urgent need rose up in him. At last white hot pleasure rushed through his veins as with a final powerful thrust his semen pulsed in her. Her dam burst and he felt her orgasm rip through her body. Her head dropped back, and he reached forward
and nipped her neck, marking her as his. The relentless throbbing continued as he powered back up and pushed them both to a second climax. It was a perfect moment as his hot gaze caught her eyes. The maelstrom of hot emotions whirled through his mind as his body calmed and a haze of satisfaction settled over him.
“Will you trust me, Mikki? I can’t promise to stop bad things from happening, but I can promise to stick by you when they do. I love you, and you are everything to me.”
“You’re everything to me, too, Dilly. I trust you, but you have to trust me to know what the right thing to do is as well.”
“What does that mean, Mikki?” He was puzzled. That comment just seemed out of context. “We have to stand together on this. We can’t let anyone—blackmailers or family—call our shots for us.”
“No, you’re right. We each have to call our own shots.”
He unfastened the cuffs above her head and carried her, still connected by the most intimate embrace, to the bed. He laid them down on the center of the comforter. He didn’t want to lose the bond a second before he had to. He didn’t know where this emotional vulnerability was coming from, but he knew he needed this connection with Mikaela.
After they had rested for a while, Dillon got up and opened the bottle of champagne. He poured the golden bubbles into two crystal flutes and brought them to the bed. Then he went back for the tray and put it on the bed as well. He handed her a flute and they clinked glasses. “To us, and to the perfect scene and to the perfect way to end it—with a champagne picnic in bed.”
Chapter Five
Offices of Court Industries, New York City, Monday morning, December 28, 2015
Morgan watched his beautiful, black-haired, blue-eyed, pregnant wife, Harper, walk into his office and casually pour two cups of coffee from the carafe on his credenza. He knew she was watching him sift through the mail, reports, and miscellaneous items that had piled up on his desk during the Christmas holiday from the corner of her eye. He let her get one of the cups of coffee almost to her mouth before he said, “I hope you aren’t planning to drink that. You know caffeine is not good for the baby.” He lifted one eyebrow, an expression guaranteed to get her goat and take her mind off her coffee craving.
“Ugh. You are so mean. I don’t know why I agreed to put myself through this torture. Morning sickness, big belly, no coffee. It’s not fair.”
“Come here, baby.” When she approached his desk, he let her put down the two cups before he reached out and pulled her into his lap. “I know it’s hard. Were you sick this morning?”
“No. That’s why I wanted the coffee.”
“See? The first trimester is supposed to be the worst for morning sickness. You may be past the worst of it. The bad part is almost over.”
“Ha! The bad part is just beginning.”
“No, it’s not. The fun part is just beginning. I can’t wait to see who pops out of there.” He gently rubbed her small belly, and she all but purred.
“Do you have any news for Jamie Devereau on that mysterious text?”
“I’m waiting for John McGregor to come up and give me a report. I would like to be able to help Jamie out on this. He’s usually the one doing the favors not asking for them.”
“That’s true. He’s a heck of a great guy. Do you know the couple involved?”
“Dillon Cavanaugh and Mikaela Sexton. No. I know he went to school with Jamie and the other Harvard dudes. They just love to give me a raft of shit because I went to MIT and not Harvard. I’d love to be able to solve this thing and rub their noses in it.” He chuckled. “We have a little Cambridge rivalry thing going.”
“That poor woman must be losing her mind over this. I can only imagine waiting every day to see if something is going to pop up on YouTube and ruin your life.”
“Jamie says she has absolutely no memory of the incident and doesn’t know the man. That would suggest the use of a date rape drug.”
“If I can be of any help, let me know. I’m going back to my own office since I can’t get any coffee here.”
“Love you, baby.” He gave her a squeeze and smacked her butt before she scrambled out of his lap.
“Love you more.” She blew him a kiss.
“Not possible.” He smiled at her slightly bigger-than-it-was-three-months-ago butt as she walked out the door. He had to admit he was loving every minute of this experience. Well, almost every minute. Holding her head over the toilet hadn’t been that much fun.
John McGregor knocked on the doorframe. “Boss? Got a minute?”
“Come in, John. What do you have?”
“YouTube is not an easy nut to crack. The team is still working on it.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t Devereau have asked us to crack the Pentagon or something else easy?”
Morgan laughed. “You know Devereau—nothing easy about that guy.”
“Ms. Sexton wasn’t able to give us anything much to work with. She is an only child and apparently very wealthy. Her parents were killed in a plane crash last year, and she was the sole heir of their estate, which was extremely sizable. She doesn’t have any close family—just one cousin who lives in New York that we are going to look into. She had no memory of the incident or the man involved. I am going to run a deep background check on her and see if anything jumps up and bites me.”
“Keep on it, John. I know you’re a little shorthanded due to the holidays. Let me know immediately if you get anything at all.”
* * * *
Maggie Sexton’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York, Monday morning, December 28, 2015
Maggie Sexton sat on the slightly tatty sofa in the front room of her third-floor walk-up apartment. Here it was fifteen years later and she was still in fucking Brooklyn while her cousin, Mikaela Camille Sexton, lived in Greenwich and was featured in magazines and newspaper articles as the society girlfriend of a congressional candidate—and a fucking gorgeous one at that. Mikaela was the head of a charitable foundation for which she took a dollar-a-year salary. She was a paragon of all virtues. It wasn’t fair.
Maggie had had as good an education as Mikaela. She was as good looking as Mikaela. Why had her life gone nowhere? Well, this little caper was going to set her up for life. She couldn’t believe she’d had the foresight, or maybe it was just dumb good luck, not to throw that old video cassette away. She had transferred it to a DVD and uploaded it to her computer and then posted it to YouTube. She would have loved to see Mikaela’s face when she saw her naked butt with the heart-and-roses tattoo riding that dude on the bed in her old apartment.
Now she just had to decide what to do from here. She thought she’d text Mikaela again and demand a cash settlement. She didn’t want to think of it as blackmail. After all, she was entitled to her share of the Sexton fortune. Just because my dad was a loser doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my share of the Sexton pie—with ice cream—thank you very much. Mikaela could well afford to make a contribution to Maggie’s future. How much should she ask for? Maybe three million? No, make that five million. There was probably only going to be one trip to the well, so she had better make it count. She had opened an account at the Bank of Switzerland on Fifth Avenue under the name of a shell corporation. It was ready to receive a deposit. Once she’d had the Bank of Switzerland account, she had been able to open another account at their branch in the Caymans. Once the money was transferred there, it would be gone forever.
* * * *
Mikaela and Dillon were enjoying their week in the sun while they waited for the New Year’s Eve cruise on the Golden Dolphin. They had spent their time in bed, in the dungeon, at the pool, and on the beach. It turned out that Mikaela had loved the parasailing. There was no rough takeoff or landing, and she had really felt like she was flying. Despite the fun they were having, the YouTube video was always in the back of her mind like a curse. She would shove it back into its little corner, but it always managed to push up into the forefront of her mind again. Dillon did his best to reassure her that everything would be all ri
ght. She hoped and prayed it would, but in the meantime she was making arrangements for her disappearing act should it become necessary.
Mikaela had transferred a large sum of cash into untraceable gift cards that she could use to pay for day-to-day expenses without using credit cards or accessing her accounts. She’d made arrangements for the apartment in San Francisco to be opened and stocked so she wouldn’t have to go out and shop immediately. The title to the apartment was held in the name of a land trust, and did not bear the Sexton name in any way. If the proverbial shit hit the fan, she would be able to lay low for quite a while without having to confront paparazzi every time she left the apartment. She could alter her appearance and be totally off the grid. She knew she would feel like hell for having abandoned Dillon, but she was sure he would be better off if he didn’t have to constantly defend or make excuses for her.
While she waited for the other shoe to drop and for further communication from the blackmailer, she checked YouTube incessantly for another posting showing her face or name. Nothing had surfaced yet. She didn’t know what was worse—waiting for the video to surface or having to confront the aftereffects when it did.
In the meantime, they’d had no news from the Court organization in New York. She hadn’t expected that they would be able to track the text or video. The Internet was a big and dangerous place. She knew they were doing their best to help, but she really didn’t think help would be forthcoming.
* * * *
Maggie Sexton’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday morning, December 29, 2015
Maggie sat at her kitchen table with the prepaid iPhone in front of her. She took a mouthful of the coffee that had gotten cold in the cup. This was it. Should she go ahead? She hadn’t actually done anything illegal yet. If she made a demand for money in exchange for not posting the other video, she would have crossed that line. Of course giving Mikaela a roofie and making the tape in the first place might have also been crossing the line. But that had just been a bad joke, right? Mikaela hadn’t even remembered it the next day. She sat there staring into space. If she had five million dollars in an off-shore account, her life would definitely change. She could quit her crappy job. She could get out of this crappy apartment and say good-bye to the roaches she couldn’t seem to get under control. It was probably true. If there was a nuclear attack on New York City, the only survivors would be the roaches.
Michaels, Skye - Mikaela's Debut [The Black Dahlia Hotel 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) Page 5
