“I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to you,” he says. “Never. Never again.”
She doesn’t know what he means. Never again would he tie her up? Never again would he allow something bad to happen to her? As if it’s totally within his control! But she’s too terror-stricken to do anything but hang limply in his arms. She clings to him, feeling the hard planes of his tight body beneath his singed clothes. He clutches her as well, embraces her in a bear hug.
She finds her voice.
“Is th-this room fireproof?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t seem to want to let her go. “But being fireproof doesn’t mean it’s totally impervious to fire. If the fire is hot enough, it will just be a matter of hours before everything in here chars or melts.”
She feels woozy just hearing that.
“Who set the fire?” she says.
“Who do you think?” His voice is grim.
Upstairs, something massive crashes, juddering the ceiling of the dungeon. She shudders.
“Are you sure?”
“Even if it’s not him, he must have paid someone to do it.”
“I thought you went out to find him.”
“No, I went out to see a man with a lead on where he’s holed up at. I came back here and everything was on fire. Fred is dead. Shot through the head.”
Fred is dead? Her stomach turns.
“The rest of the mercs couldn’t get to you but I used one of the passages I commissioned to be built when I bought this place.”
“A passage?”
“For emergencies like these. It leads to my bedroom behind the walls.”
Her mind is whirling again. Secret passages and assassinations. A man who lives constantly on alert. Her throat is parched and sore, and she needs a long cool drink, but she doesn’t think they are going to get out of here unscathed.
He says, “I made my way here, and now we have to get out.”
“Th-through the door?”
Maybe the fire isn’t so bad yet. She envisions them having to fight through the flames and smoke to run upstairs to the secret passage. She will have to be strong. She mustn’t hold him back. Already he has risked his life to come in here to get her.
As he rightly should, a plaintive voice tells her. It’s his fault you’re in this predicament.
He says, “No. There’s a passage leading from here as well. You wouldn’t have been able to unlock it. It hidden. Come on.”
He half-drags, half-carries her to a tall fluted cage, designed for a person to be incarcerated standing up or sitting with her knees bunched to her chest. The bars are metal. He wrenches open the door to this bird cage.
He gathers her in his strong arms as they crowd into the cage. He closes the door with one hand. She’s too stunned to do anything but cling to his waist. She realizes how weak and helpless she really is in the face of adversity. How comfortable and sheltered her gilded life was – a corporate high-flyer in a gilded world. And now she’s nothing more than a chess piece.
But I am not going to be a sniveling lily, she tells herself fiercely. She doesn’t know if being with him is giving her courage, or whether it’s her near brush with death. But the blood is pumping back into her legs and her circulation is increasingly tinged with the resolve of adrenaline.
He reaches upward and grips a pendulum-like structure which dangles from the top of the cage. Before she can register what is happening, the sides rush up and they are whooshing down, down, down into the bowels of the dungeon. Her insides scream to get out of their visceral casings, and her stomach is in her mouth.
The cage grinds to a halt all too soon. Her feet are juddered off their perch with the impact of their landing.
They are in a tunnel, lighted dimly by periodic squares of slate-like lights. He opens the door and they tumble out. She is still in her heels, and she retains the presence of mind to finally wrench them off.
They run down the tunnel, whose walls are fortified concrete. He shepherds her on the level ground. The tunnel slopes upwards and there are steps leading to a trapdoor in the ceiling, pretty much like that to an underground shelter. He tears through that and the trapdoor opens into the night. They are out – free at last in the cool, cool wind and the stars and leafy night smells.
Her tresses are blown by this blessed wind as she whirls round to regard the bright yellow glow behind her.
The house, about two hundred feet away, is an inferno. They are in the midst of a cluster of trees. Channing has his arm around her shoulders as he looks on beside her. Her heart is still slamming against her ribcage. The night sky is lighted up with crimson and gold amid billows and billows of thick smoke. Two fire engines have arrived. Firemen swarm the grounds of burning manor, propelling jets of water into the seemingly insurmountable flames.
The night is punctured with the strobe lights of the fire engines and the sirens of two police squad cars. She espies fire in every window on every floor. Fire torching everything inside. Channing was right. If they had stayed in the panic room, they would have melted with everything else inside.
He says in a tortured voice, “You got a valid passport?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to get it. I need to put you someplace safe. He’s out to get you now. And I think he’s going to kill you along with me.”
She suspects as much. Dread has taken up permanent lining in the pit of her stomach.
She nods. “I know.”
He hugs her. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. But I need you to be with me so I’ll know you’re safe.”
“Yes.” She doesn’t want to be out of his sight either. “Where are we going?”
He doesn’t really answer this question, but his tone is grim as he says, “I’m going to do something I need to.”
He pauses, then adds, “I’m going to kill him.”
7
Everything that happens after is a blur. In the absence of Fred, a black mercenary named James is sent to accompany her back to her apartment. He has brought along two burly bodyguards. Channing has gone off to sort out his affairs with the police and the insurance companies. She suspects there are a lot of loose ends.
“I just need to do this quickly,” he says, “and then we’ll meet up at the airfield.”
Where a private jet has been arranged to whisk them away.
She nods.
Neither of them would be going into work on Monday. Neither of them is sure when they would ever be able to resume a normal life. There is indeed another shift in the manner of their relationship. He’s protective, anxious, worried to death about everything, including her.
He sweeps his palm across her hair and then downwards to stroke her cheek. He lingers there. The gaze in his eyes is almost loving.
“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he says for the fiftieth time since the fire.
Tears creep to her eyes. There’s so much she wants to tell him, but she’s afraid she will push him away. Her heart burns fiercely in her chest with her love with him. She lets it simmer, unquenched. He is so handsome, so steadfast in his quest for retribution.
She settles for a lame “I’ll see you at the airfield.”
“I’ll see you.” His hand falls to his side.
They do not kiss, as is their usual custom. She gets into the back of the car. Her eyes keep going back to his frame – solid and muscled and coiled with tension, like a cougar about to spring. His vivid blue eyes scorch her as the driver whisks her away.
James sits up front. He turns to regard her.
“Please pack just enough to see you through. We shouldn’t stay for more than ten minutes.”
She agrees.
They drive up to her apartment. She lives on the fifth floor of a family building. Very nice neighborhood. The trees here cast an umbrella shade. A jogging lady on the sidewalk is accompanied by a little terrier running as fast as it can on its little legs.
“We’ll come up with you,” James say
s.
She does not protest.
Her doorman greets her with a “Good morning, Ms. Chalmers.”
“Good morning, Pat.”
He eyes James and her bodyguards suspiciously.
“They’re with me,” she quickly says.
Pat says, “Haven’t seen you for a couple of days, Ms. Chalmers.”
“I'll be going away again, Pat.” Outwardly, she appears calm, but her pulse is throbbing painfully.
“Be seeing you soon then.” He smiles and doffs his cap. The uneasy look has not left his eyes.
“Yes. See you soon.”
She takes the elevator up to the fifth floor. With the three burly mercenaries with her, she feels safe.
The doors slide open with a ping. They walk out. Her apartment is the third one on the right. Her heart is strumming up a staccato beat. Why does she feel so nervous? As she slides her key in her lock and opens her door, a strange sensation prickles her back.
She breathes in deeply. The door moans open. She doesn’t know what she expects to see. Her apartment thrashed, perhaps. Her furniture broken and burned.
I’m being irrational, she scolds herself. Why would Hugh want anything to do with my apartment?
Her lounge is intact, the way she left it Friday morning. She breathes out a sigh of relief.
“Stay here,” she tells James. “I won’t be long.”
She moves swiftly to her bedroom and flings open the closets. No one has been here. Her passport is in a drawer under her hanging clothes. She retrieves it as well as a small suitcase. She throws it on her neatly made bed and begins to select some choice items. In between, she quickly sheds her much soiled dress and puts on a halter top and a pair of comfortable jeans.
She hears sounds outside. Channing’s voice! Her heart leaps.
“Go down to the car and wait for us,” he says to James as he strides into the bedroom. “We need to leave right now.”
He pauses as soon as he sees her. His blue eyes are extremely stunning in his strong face. His short hair is like a felt cap on his well-shaped skull. He is not wearing the clothes he had on when she left him.
“OK.” Her pulse races. “What happened?”
“They spotted Hugh. He’s coming for us.”
The way he says this sends a chill down her spine.
He slams down the top of her suitcase. She has hardly packed more than fifteen items. She grabs her purse with her passport in it and runs after him.
He makes to vault out of the door, but she says, “Wait. I need to lock up.”
He waits for her impatiently as she inserts the key in her lock. James and the others have already gone down in the elevator. Her palms are clammy. She doesn’t think she will see this apartment again for a long, long time. But she will be with Channing, and that is what’s important.
“Come, let’s go,” he says, taking her arm.
They take the elevator downstairs. A parked car sits at the curb in front of her apartment building – a green Audi A7.
Pat doffs his cap again. “Be seeing you soon, Ms. Chalmers?”
“Not likely, Pat. Bye.” She infuses her voice with a cheer she does not feel as she tries to match Channing’s stride towards the revolving doors.
“Where are James and the others?” she asks Channing.
“They’ve gone ahead.”
Channing wrenches the Audi’s passenger door open in a hurry.
“Quick,” he says.
All this urgency is making her stomach flutter. She throws herself in as he flings her suitcase into the booth. Then he gets in, starts the car, and they are off with a roar of the engine.
He drives like a speed demon, weaving the car in and out of traffic. She thinks they will get stopped by the police at this rate.
“How long to the airfield?” she asks.
“Forty minutes. We’ll take a short cut.”
They drive out of the city. Channing’s handsome face is terse as he navigates the vehicle smoothly onto the freeway. They delve into a turn, which then leads – through a series of narrowing streets – into a lonely woodland road. She is reminded of the first time Channing drove her to his house. His beautiful home, now burned to its foundations.
After about ten miles, he abruptly slams on the brakes. She jerks forward, saved by the seatbelt.
“What’s happening?” she says.
He pivots to her and seizes her face. Her stomach flips as he kisses her full and lush on the lips. All her senses scream with the new sensory overload. She’s too much in shock to mount a response.
His lips meld onto hers, devouring her mouth. His tongue insistently probes between her lips. She eagerly lets him in. His hands are all over her – grabbing her breasts, her waist, diving down to the mound of her pussy beneath her jeans. His tongue licks and explores the insides of her mouth sexily.
Oh, what a kiss! She doesn’t dare breathe throughout it all. What does this mean? That they have ascended yet another rung on the ladder of their strange relationship?
How she hopes!
Oh Channing, Channing, I love you. Please, please love me too.
His voice is husky as he says against her mouth, “I need you now, baby. Let’s go to the backseat.”
Her mind is still reeling from the shock. “But what about the airfield? What about Hugh?”
“It’ll be a quick fuck. I just need you so badly right now.”
He grabs her hand and puts it on the enormous bulge tenting his pants. Yes, he clearly needs her rightaway. She’s frazzled by the whole thing – the kiss, the suddenness (and inappropriateness, considering their situation) of his desire for her. But she wants him badly too. She doesn’t dare pass his blatant display of libido up for fear of putting a kink in this new level of their relationship.
Besides, she is still bound to do anything he desires, whenever he wants it.
They move to the backseat and leave both passenger doors open. He pounces on her and rips off her top, revealing her breasts in her brassiere. She’s bowled over by his passion. He tears down the zipper of her jeans and shucks them off her legs, pressing her body down against the fabric seat.
Wow, she thinks. He has never been so hard for her before.
He still has his clothes on as he pulls off her panties. He parts her legs and quickly fumbles at the buttons of his pants. He wears no underwear. His cock is ready and rock hard as he rams it into her pussy, still not fully wet. She gives a cry of pain.
He begins rocking his hips against her immediately. His body is hard and oh-so-muscled above hers, and her own lust for him starts to climb. They both grunt in concert with each jab of his penis. Her hands claw at his shirt. He has too many clothes on and she needs to see more of his delicious skin. So in her passion, she rips the front of his shirt open – just the top three buttons.
And sees something she has never seen before on his right pectoral, just above his nipple.
A tattoo of a rose.
Desert rose.
In shock, she realizes who he is.
He clamps his hand across her mouth before she can scream.
“That’s right,” Hugh Crawford says, still pumping into her, “I have you now, and I’m going to make my beloved brother regret the day he was ever born together with me.”
EROTICA BY APHRODITE HUNT
The ‘Bound and Shackled to the Billionaire’ series
His Indecent Proposition
His Indecent Demands
His Indecent Desires
The ‘Initiation’ series
Open Your Legs for Me
Blindfolded and Spread-eagled
Thighs Wide Apart
Teacher, Please Spread my Pussy
The Final Initiation
The Initiation: A Bundle of 5 Stories
The ‘Initiation 2’ series
Open Your Legs for my Family
Bend Over for my Family
Publicly Display Yourself for Me
Sex Slave at Sea
&nb
sp; Paraded before the Billionaires
Sex Slave at the Auction
The ‘Initiation 3’ series
Sex Slave to the Dictator
‘The Royal Captive’ series
Prince Miro’s Capture
Prince Miro’s Submission
Prince Miro’s Enslavement
Prince Miro’s Punishment
Prince Miro’s Escape
Prince Miro’s Final Confrontation
The Royal Captive: Vol 1 to 3
The Royal Captive: Vol 4 to 6
The ‘Naughty Nymphomaniac’ series
I was a Naughty Nymphomaniac
Officer, Please Spread and Cuff Me
Gang Banged by the Chain Gang
Tempting the Hot Navy SEAL
The ‘Delicate Piercings’ series
Her First Clit Ring
Her First Clit Ring 2: Menage
Her First Clit Ring 3: Desensitization
The ‘Undercover’ series
Undercover: Exposing the Bad Doctor
Undercover: Stealing from the Sexy CEO
The ‘Alien’ series
Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens
Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens 2
Hot, Wet and Steamy (individual stories)
When He’s Inside You
My Stepson is a Naughty Stripper
The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)
WORKS BY ARTEMIS HUNT
EROTIC ROMANCES
The ‘Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male’ series
A Virgin Enslaved
The ‘Maid for the Billionaire Prince’ series
Mysterious Desire
Forbidden Desire
Infamous Desire
ROMANCES
The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick
His Indecent Desires (Bound and Shacked to the Billionaire Erotic Romance) Page 4
