by K D Grace
‘You are such lovely pets,’ Leo said, offering each of them a nibble of bread and honey. ‘You see how much more you are yourselves when you are pets. Is good? No?’
Elsa laid her head on Leo’s thigh, and Nick moved to hunch his body over hers so that he could do the same, but still touch her.
Leo stroked her hair and then Nick’s. ‘We forget how to play. We forget how to just be ourselves. Is lovely when we remember again. Is lovely when there is no agenda.’
And he was right. It was, indeed, lovely. Once they’d been fed, they made love once more under the watchful eyes of the Zookeeper, who then bathed them, which turned into a splashy pool-party of a romp that devolved into laughs and giggles and more playful sex. When, at last, they were tired from their play, they curled around each other on the foot of the bed, after Leo crawled down between the sheets. Nick had no idea who else was watching them, if anyone, and he didn’t care. As he pulled Elsa into a possessive spoon position, he couldn’t help being grateful to the Zookeeper for the most intimate time he’d ever had with Elsa Crane.
Leo woke them, long toward morning. He was freshly showered and dressed. ‘My fantasy is over now, darlings.’ He nodded them into the bed and pulled the blankets up over them. ‘You stay and sleep. You are tired from your play.’ He kissed each of them gently then left.
‘Sonovabitch! They took our clothes.’
Nick awoke to find Elsa standing naked in front of an empty wardrobe, and just when he braced for her anger, he realised her shoulders were shaking. For a frightening moment, he thought she was crying. But then he heard a soft snort that erupted into a giggle, followed by an actual belly laugh.
‘They took our fucking clothes! We’re naked, in the desert, with no transport, Nick.’ Still cackling, she moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. ‘But we have a whole fridge full of gourmet food. And coffee! Really good coffee.’ She turned to face him with tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘We hit the jackpot! We hit the fucking jackpot! Maybe they’ll leave us alone. Maybe they’ll forget where they put us. Come on, I’m starving.’
Still trying to get his head around the sight of Elsa Crane laughing hysterically, he watched her lovely backside as she moved about making coffee. But he couldn’t stay away from her for very long. He threw back the covers and moved to stand behind her, his cock stretching toward her in muscle memory.
She reached behind her and gave him a grope. ‘Put that thing away until after I’ve eaten.’ She flipped the coffee maker on and turned in his arms. ‘Then I’ll happily fuck you senseless. In fact –’ she leant into him and raked a sloppy kiss across his mouth ‘– I’m looking forward to it.’
They sat close to each other at the table, eating the leftovers of last night’s feast, even feeding each other tasty morsels with sticky fingers or with sticky lips. Nick was outrageously hard. But he was so much more than just aroused. He was happy! Fuck, he couldn’t remember ever being this happy. So when Elsa deliberately missed his mouth with a morsel of strawberry raked through cream cheese and licked the residue off of his chin and then his chest, he curled his fingers in her hair and held her there against the hammering of his heart.
In a move that totally surprised him, she shoved in between him and the table to sit on his lap and, though his cock was quick to respond, damned if his heart wasn’t quicker. Her kiss was long and lingering, tasting of coffee and strawberries, and the scent of lavender from the bath didn’t hide the scent of her with which he’d become so familiar. The scent of sleep still lingered on her skin, and beneath that was the scent of lust that was the core of the woman, the scent of wildness that lent itself perfectly to being a pet. Her sigh was a deep shudder. ‘I could get lost in you, Nick Chase. So easily I could get lost in you, and that scares me.’
He pulled her close, feeling as though he could never get close enough. ‘If you get lost in me, I’ll always find you, Elsa Crane.’
She stood so quickly that he wondered if he’d said something wrong, and everything in him tightened at the thought of losing her again. Instead, she paced in front of the fireplace. Then she turned to face him and plopped down on the rug, not unlike she had when Leo was there.
‘There were sand hill cranes. They were migrating out across the prairies of Nebraska when I ran away. They were beautiful, powerful, and they could just fly away, whenever they wanted. That’s how I became Elsa Crane. And Elsa – well, I just liked that name.’
Hardly able to breathe, Nick came to sit next to her and took her hand. To his delight, she didn’t pull away. ‘Edgar Terrill, he was my husband.’ She raised a hand as though clearing a chalkboard. ‘He’s dead now. I was Elizabeth Harold Terrill. I married him for security mostly. I was 19 and he was 40 and he was loaded. He fancied himself a dom, but really he was just a bully. He …’ She took a deep breath and pulled her knees up tight against her chest. ‘He beat me, I mean really beat me. He liked to humiliate me by making me take pictures of what he did with other women in his dungeon. It was an amazing dungeon. He had the money to do it up right.’
‘Fuck,’ Nick, whispered, fighting back the urge to take her in his arms, to protect her, fighting back the urge to kill a man who was already dead. He sat still and listened, not wanting to spook her, not wanting her to feel threatened.
‘I got good at taking pictures, making videos, at making them look … like he wanted them to look. I got good at telling him what he should do to make the pictures better. When I did that, when he was pleased, he left me alone. And because he was pleased, he let me spend my days researching BDSM sites and sex sites, researching anything that might make his little dungeon excursions better.’ She shook her head and her fingers tightened around Nick’s hand. ‘He didn’t want me out of the house unless we were together. He controlled every aspect of my life, and he thought … he thought I was such a little slut, such a little pervert that I was happy to stay at home locked away, that I was happy to research sex sites and how to take better pictures, better videos, find better ways for him to show what a sex god he was.
‘I got good at what he left me, that’s what I did. It was all I could do.’ She looked up into Nick’s eyes. ‘So one day I convinced him to let me tie him up. I’d been researching Shibari at the time, and I’d promised to show him what I’d learned. I told him his women would think it was sexy, what I would show him. I tied him spread-eagle between two pillars in the basement. And then I –’ she took a deep breath ‘– and then I beat him.’
Nick said nothing. He wasn’t sure he could even speak around the rise of feelings he could barely get his head around.
‘No, that’s not right. I didn’t beat him. I tortured him. I used all of those instruments he’d either used on me or I’d videoed him using on his women on him. At first, he screamed at me and called me names, told me he’d kill me when I released him. So I gagged him.’ She looked up at Nick. ‘I could have just beaten him and left, but the thing is, Nick, he got hard. And I got wet. I found I liked doing to him what he’d done to so many others, what he’d done to me, and that I had way more finesse at it than he would ever have.’
‘Jesus,’ Nick whispered.
She laughed softly. ‘It gets better. I made him come. And then I made him hold it until I wanted him to come. And when he was quivering all over, when I knew he would die holding it in order to obey me, I let him come. Nick, I’d never felt such power, such control. I don’t know how long I was there. I had only planned to give him a good, hard thrashing and leave. But when he was too exhausted to go on, I left him shackled to the bondage bed. I already had my bags packed. I’d figured out how to hack his bank account, so I withdrew enough to get me well on my way. I bought a used car from a disreputable dealer, paid cash, and then I just drove.’
She smiled up at Nick. ‘No, I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking, and I didn’t deliberately leave him there to die. Though I heard later that it took him a while to recover. I knew the names and numbers of the women he ha
d me make arrangements with. I left a message for one of them to come after I was gone. Plus, I knew the maid who always cleaned up after playtime – she played sometimes too. I knew she’d be down soon enough.’
‘And that’s how you ended up in Vegas?’ Nick pulled a blanket from the bed and settled it around her shoulders.
‘I had enough money to get me started, keep me from starving. For the first three days I was afraid to leave the hotel room, afraid Edgar would find me. But the more time passed, the more sure I became that wasn’t going to happen, the more I explored Vegas. I created a new identity, I surfed the net, I schemed. I didn’t know what to do at first, but then one night at a casino bar, I heard a couple of men talking about the sex they’d seen through their telescopes at night from the hotel room windows. They both regretted that people weren’t more creative.
‘So I bought the equipment I thought I’d need, hired a few people I’d met working in the casinos who I thought would be up for it, and put my plan into action. I’d done several fantasies and was pulling in enough to pay the bills when I met Pike. He had insights, ideas, connections. It was only later that I learned he was a member of The Mount in Houston, and that he’d been sent to me because someone in Houston heard about what I was doing.’
‘And what happened with Edgar?’
‘I angsted for a long time, not sure if I’d killed him, worried that I had injured him, and yet knowing that I’d done everything right.’ She pulled the blanket tighter around her. ‘Mostly I worried that I’d liked it so much, that I had fantasies about keeping him there bound in the dungeon, using him to learn, to push my boundaries, and his. And then I’d wake up in a cold sweat from dreams that he had found me and he was going to carry out his promise and kill me.
‘Then I got the divorce papers. They came via a very circuitous route. It was no fault, with a hefty settlement. Definitely not like Edgar. It was only later I learned The Mount could be very persuasive. He died last year. Heart failure. He left me everything. The man had no heirs, and though I can’t imagine him wishing me anything but the worst, there you go. Pike said maybe he was grateful that I helped him find his inner submissive, but I think it’s more likely that someone at The Mount … suggested he leave the money to me.’
Nick scooted close and took her into his arms. ‘So it’s over and yet you still tell me you don’t exist.’
‘I owe The Mount a lot, Nick. They’ve taken care of me, helped me heal. And for me to be given the responsibility of beginning a new coven in Vegas is an honour I can never repay. I came here as no one. I stayed no one all this time to protect myself, and until Mount Vegas is given coven status, I’ll continue to be no one. And no, they didn’t ask it of me. I felt it was best. That’s all.’
‘And what happened with Edgar is why you never take up the role as dominatrix in the dungeon?’
She stood and sipped from her now tepid coffee, holding the blanket around her like a robe. ‘I wanted to kill him, Nick. For weeks before it all happened, while I was planning, I had dreams about doing just that.’ She turned to face him. ‘And they weren’t nightmares. Oh, Pike’s tried to get me to do acts as the dominatrix, but Beetle’s good in the dungeon and so is Deb when she needs to be. Better to keep me out of there. Better to let someone who knows their limits take control. How do I know what kind of monster I’ll unleash if I turn myself loose in the dungeon at Mount Vegas? How do I know if I’ll be able to control myself? I couldn’t bear it if I hurt those I love, those who trust me.’
‘Elsa –’ he took her into his arms ‘– it was your control that kept you from killing Edgar. Surely you can see that. It was your control that pulled you back from the brink.’
She slipped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder, and the blanket fell away. He pulled her close, feeling her next to him like another part of him, a part he’d discovered only recently, a part he hadn’t known was missing until he found her. That she had told him her story, that she’d made herself so vulnerable to him, was something he still couldn’t settle his mind around.
His cock was just beginning to stretch and press against her when there was a brisk knock and Rita and Leo stepped inside. Leo pulled a suitcase in one hand and had a garment bag thrown over his shoulder.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Rita said. ‘We gave you as much time as we could. I wish it had been more.’
Elsa lifted her mouth to Nick’s and settled a soft kiss on his lips. ‘It’s all right, Rita. It was enough.’
‘Sometimes is our animal nature that can help us get in touch with what it is that’s really important,’ Leo said. ‘Now come. You will bathe. I have brought clothes, and then we will go back to the Mount Vegas offices and talk.’
Chapter Twenty
‘Not a good time, Nick.’ Elsa looked up from her laptop and then glanced over her shoulder toward the living quarters behind her office.
‘Well, that’s just too damn bad.’ He shook his BlackBerry at her. ‘What’s this message about Pagan driving the limo instead of me for Mrs Keyser’s fantasy? That’s not in the plan. That’s not a part of the deal. Now what the fuck’s going on?’
She offered a half-hearted chuckle and pushed back from her desk, shutting the door to the living area as she did so. ‘What, are you afraid you’ll miss seeing our billionaire grope his virgin bride? OK, I know Rita looks good, but I’m not too bad.’
As she rounded the desk, he pulled her into his arms and gave her mouth a good hard tongue-lashing until her knees were weak, until she clung to him breathlessly. ‘You know I’d give the hottest fantasy you can muster a miss if it meant spending time with you, Elsa, so stop playing with me. What the hell’s going on?’
‘Look, I’m sorry. We’ll talk about this later, but not now.’ She shrugged him off, then took his hand and guided him toward the door.
‘Don’t fob me off,’ he said, jerking away from her. ‘I have a right to know.’
She worried her lip between her teeth, and shifted from foot to foot, struggling to hold his gaze. ‘Look, I just … this is not your battle, Nick. You’ve already been pulled in too deep as it is. I never intended for you to get involved. I never imagined you’d volunteer to fulfil Tanya’s contract, and I just think it’s better if we do it this way. Now, really –’ She looked over her shoulder toward the door to the living quarters. ‘You have to leave. I’m very –’
‘That’s bullshit. This is as much my battle as it is anyone’s, Elsa, and you know it. I’m not leaving until we get this straightened out.’
‘Damn it, Nick!' It’s not your fucking call. I can kick your ass out of this organisation as easily as I did Tanya’s, and I will if I have to. I want you safe! I don’t want you anywhere near Mount Vegas tomorrow night.’
‘Elsa –’ he took her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him ‘– that’s not going to happen. If you keep me from driving, I’ll be mad as hell, but I’ll be right there with you and the rest of the gang in the control room. So deal with it.’
‘Elsa, if it’s not too much trouble, I need you to come and look at …’ The door to the living quarters burst open and Tanya stepped out. She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Nick still holding onto Elsa’s shoulders. For a second everyone froze, and the room was awash in prickly silence.
Then Nick stepped back, looking from one of them to the other. ‘Would someone mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’
Tanya said nothing. She only nodded to Elsa, who blew out a heavy breath and rubbed the back of her neck. Then she held him in her clear blue gaze. ‘Tanya’s working for Mount Vegas, Nick,’ Elsa said. ‘She’s helping us bring down Havers.’
Nick managed to get the sofa under his arse before he dropped like a stone. For a moment, he sat looking from one to the other feeling like he’d just fallen into the Twilight Zone.
Tanya broke the deafening silence. ‘I was the way in.’ She sat down in the chair across from him.
‘What do you mean the
way in?’
‘She broke the rules on purpose, that’s what she means.’ Elsa took the seat next to Nick. ‘We knew Havers had plans to bring us down and then give us a choice of going to prison for something we didn’t do or paying the huge price for his protection services. We just didn’t know how he would do it or when, so we decided to be proactive. We had Tanya very conspicuously gambling away lots of money, we had her having sex with people she wasn’t supposed to. We made sure one of those was Havers. We knew he’d love nothing more than to get his claws into an insider from Mount Vegas.’
‘I was the perfect insider for him,’ Tanya said. ‘I am alien here in this country and, shall we say, I have sketchy past. That means I am expendable in Havers’ eyes. That means he would never think of me as being a danger to him. I have too much to risk.’
‘Christ!’ Nick ran a hand through his hair and glared at first one of them then the other. ‘And me?’
‘You were only supposed to be Tanya’s last fuck, the straw that broke the camel’s back.’ Elsa said. ‘We knew who you were and that you were a nice guy. What we didn’t know, what we could have never suspected, was that you would follow Tanya on in, that you would volunteer to fulfil her contract.’
‘And we had to let you do this because Havers had men watching me that night.’
‘Fuck,’ Nick whispered. ‘And the part about your mother needing surgery?’
‘My mother is dead, Nick, for a long time now. It was excuse I used to make my … situation seem more heart-breaking. That I have a gambling problem that I would try to pay off with sex is not so unusual here in Vegas. Everyone has hard luck story in Vegas. When you volunteered to fulfil my contract, we all believed that once you saw what it is that it would mean, then you would go away and be none the wiser for it.’
