A Girl to Die For: A Thriller

by Lucy Wild

  She walked slowly upstairs. The rug didn’t seem as important anymore. She’d been lied to. Fiona had acted so surprised to find out she had a date, so excited for her. And all the while, she’d already met the guy. But even as she wondered if she should care more, she found it hard to summon up any real anger. It didn’t matter. What mattered was finding all the buttons on her floor and sewing them back onto the front of her pyjamas.

  It took her an hour but she managed it eventually. Once she had them collected on her dressing table, she felt a strange relief washing over her. She stripped the bedding, tossing it down the stairs. Buttons, arms. The video played once but she shook her head, refusing to engage. She was going to sew the buttons on, not watch that infernal loop. Nor was she going to think about him. She was going to finish her book. She was going to lay in bed in fresh bedding and it was going to be all right. She was going to be fine.

  The worst part, she thought when she sat sewing the buttons back onto her pyjama top, was that she was glad. That made her feel more guilty than anything else. She was glad he was dead. That wasn’t right, was it? He had only been acting, according to Fiona. She shouldn’t be happy to have killed him. But he didn’t look like he was acting. He looked like he meant it. It was wrong though. Murder was wrong. She shouldn’t have been happy to kill a human being. But she was.

  FIFTEEN

  HOLLY LASTED A WEEK before telling her parents what had happened. The story had appeared in the local newspaper by then and although her name hadn’t been used, she knew it was only a matter of time before the information got out there. She had hoped to keep it from them, as if by doing so, she might be able to deny it happened at all, sweep it under the rug, the rug that had saved her. But once it was in the newspaper, she knew it would probably get picked up by the nationals, and then they’d know anyway. Better they heard it from her.

  They cried, both of them. Anne first and then Martin when he came on the phone. They told her they would come and visit, come and bring her home, she told them not to, using the dissertation as the perfect excuse. It still needed to be finished and by concentrating all her efforts on it, she was able to distract herself from the trauma that was still weighing heavily on her mind. She wondered at night, as she lay staring at the ceiling and listening hard for any sounds on the landing, whether or not she would ever sleep easily again.

  With three days until the dissertation deadline, she was almost finished. The thing was virtually completed. But then what would she concentrate on? Fiona’s duplicity?

  Fiona was already done. She’d packed and headed back to Berwick. Their friendship had cracked, the seemingly thick ice of it turning out to be razor thin, far more delicate than she would ever had guessed. They had talked in detail about staying in touch, getting together, perhaps even doing a Master’s at the same university. But Holly saw the truth in Fiona’s eyes as she climbed into her car with the boxes all crammed into the back. Her eyes didn’t lie. They would keep in touch, for a while. But over time, they would talk less until eventually their interactions would consist of nothing but seeing each other’s photos posted on Facebook. Holly didn’t mind. She couldn’t look at Fiona without feeling a niggling sense of betrayal.

  It was probably for the best anyway. Realistically, when would they have got together? She needed to focus on getting her work done, then her sister’s wedding, the birth that was coming up all too quickly. And she needed to decide what she was going to do next.

  Knowing Joseph’s funeral had been held made her feel more secure. She finally felt certain he wouldn’t come back to the house. She still listened at night though, without Fiona there, she was more on edge than she liked to admit. But during the day, those feelings were easy to forget.

  With a day to go until the deadline, Holly was sure she’d get her dissertation done. She was working late into the night when someone knocked on her front door.

  She looked at the time. Quarter past eleven. Who would come round that late at night?

  “Miss Simpson,” a man’s voice said from outside. “It’s D.C.I Wyman. Would you mind opening the door?”

  Holly got up, trying to keep calm. Why was he here so late? She pulled open the door to find him standing there in a black suit. “Mind if I come inside?”

  He stepped forwards and she automatically moved back, doing her best not to panic. Why was he here?

  “How have you been?” he asked, stopping in the middle of the living room, turning to face her.

  “Coping,” she replied.

  “I know what you did,” he said bluntly, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “Would you mind keeping still for a moment.”

  Holly froze as he took her right arm, clicking the handcuff around her wrist before doing the same to her left arm. “Take a seat,” he said, pushing her down onto the sofa. She sat with her heart pounding, not wanting to speak, worrying she would immediately confess.

  “Am I under arrest?” she asked after he said nothing for more than a minute.

  “Not yet. I want to know the truth though. Did he fall down the stairs or did you push him?”

  “What? What kind of question is that? Why are you asking me that?”

  “I understand, Miss Simpson. A man like that, running at you, I’d be scared too, he was a big guy.”

  “Why are you here so late?”

  “Well, I’m here to make you an offer, better than you’d get from any judge.”

  “An offer? What offer?”

  “You and me go upstairs to your bedroom. Then I keep what you just said to myself. Not a word goes beyond us two. What do you say?”

  Holly was stunned. Was he really suggesting she sleep with him to avoid being arrested? “You’re coming upstairs with me,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “The only question is whether you do so willingly or I drag you up there.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re in handcuffs, Holly. I saw your body. Even in that dressing gown, you couldn’t hide it. You wanted me to see it, I know you did, letting it come loose like that. Now get up those stairs or this will get very unpleasant.”

  Holly stood up slowly, her legs weak. Could she run? Scream? Would the neighbours hear? No, they were students, same as her. They’d already gone home. “Fiona will be back in ten minutes,” she said.

  “Nice try,” he smiled. “But I’ve been waiting for her to go back to Berwick. I do my research, Holly. You have to when you’re in my position. Can’t be too careful. Now,” he paused, grabbing her cuffs and pulling her towards him. “Upstairs.”

  She walked in front of him, each step feeling like it was taking her closer to her doom. She stopped in the hallway, looking back over her shoulder at him. He was right behind her.

  “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, running his hand over her cheek. “I knew a woman once with eyes just like yours, I’d love to compare them.”

  She walked slowly upstairs. She was carried downstairs a week later when she failed to answer the phone to her mother one too many times. Her mother turned up at the house, hammering on the door. The police turned up shortly afterwards, D.C.I Wyman breaking down the door and finding the body in the bedroom. D.S Hills came up after him, shocked by the sight of her corpse with its dark holes where her eyes had been. For Wyman, the sight wasn’t as disturbing, for him it brought back pleasant memories of a perfect date night.

  Thank you for reading. I would love it if you left me a review, I’m grateful for every single one.

  Sign up to my mailing list and receive the novel, Don’t Touch, completely free.

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Contemporary titles

  Daddy Dom – Billionaire Age Play

  Daddy’s Here – Bad Boy Age Play

  Daddy Play – Millionaire Age Play

  Don’t Touch – Dominant Age Play

  Kept Safe – Dark Romance

  Last Week – Billionaire Alpha

  Playing Games – Dominant Alpha

&nbs
p; Saving Hope – Billionaire Secret Baby

  Taboo – 75 Erotic Shorts

  Historical titles

  A Little Wager – Victorian Submission

  Little Conspiracy – Spanking Age Play

  Obedience – Five Age Play Stories

  Pretty Little Rose – Victorian Spanking

  The Sting of Pleasure – Fifteen Spanking Romances

  If you enjoyed this, you may also like Kept Safe. Turn the page to sample the first few chapters for free.

  KEPT SAFE

  (SNEAK PEEK)

  PROLOGUE

  JACK

  She was waiting for me. I had to be quick. I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. I picked up the knife and sliced through the sandwich, dividing it into quarters, the way she used to like them. I hoped she still did. Two types of cheese, grated, not sliced, ketchup not mayo, no butter. I made the same for myself but left mine on the counter. I’d eat after I’d made sure she’d had hers.

  I walked through the house, thinking how different it was now I had her company. It looked the same as ever, there was no sign of another person anywhere. But I knew she was there, and that was what mattered. She was there with me, where she was meant to be. The loneliness I’d felt for so long was gone, vanished as if it had never been. I had a purpose for the first time in years. It was my job to keep her safe.

  I carried the plate carefully, balancing it in my left hand while I rummaged in my pocket with my right. I found what I was looking for after a few seconds.

  Sliding the key into the lock, I turned it slowly. With a quiet click, the door opened. The stairs on the other side descended into the darkness. I felt a sense of excitement. She was down there. In the dark. Waiting for me.

  I had barely taken a single step down before she began to scream. I quickly shut the door behind me, locking the sound in the cellar with us where no one else would hear it. As I began to walk down the steps, her screams grew in volume and pitch, muffled in the bag but still loud enough to make my ears ring.

  “Cut that out,” I said as I reached the bottom of the stairs. She was there on the bed, just where I’d left her, making such a racket. Naked, limbs bound, bag over her head, squirming and fighting to free herself. She continued to scream, thrashing about like a fish out of water, her delicious ass pointing towards me. She looked sexy as hell. “I said cut that out.”

  A new pitch to her screams.

  “You either stop screaming or there’ll be trouble.”

  She ignored me. What choice did I have? Sighing, I put the plate down on the cabinet next to the bed. Twisting on my feet, I raised my hand and brought it slapping down onto her ass. It sure stung my hand so it must have stung the hell out of her. At once, two things happened. A bright red palm print appeared on her buttock. She also stopped screaming.

  It was only a momentary silence but it was enough to tell me she was starting to pay attention. She began with the noise again, tugging at her bonds, as if she’d be able to get free from my knotwork. I spanked her harder, whipping my hand down on her ass as she struggled to get away. Sinking onto the bed, I knelt on the back of her legs, holding her in place so I could swat her ass more easily. Then I went to work.

  By the time she finally stopped screaming, my hand was aching from spanking her for so long. Her ass was burning hot, something I could easily tell as I let my fingers remain on her for a few more seconds, brushing downwards towards her thighs, my cock hardening at the slight flash of what dwelt between her legs.

  I wanted her so badly.

  I wanted to shove her legs apart with my knees and ram myself into her. Then she could scream all she liked. Instead, I stood up. “That’s better,” I said, taking advantage of the bag over her head to stare at her body without her knowing I was doing it. She looked incredible. Her legs were slender, pale in the sickly glow of the cellar light. Her ass was perfect, curved and flawless. I wanted to kiss my way up her back, twist her round and make her mine.

  She was in more danger than she realised. The first time I’d seen her, she was in danger too. She was three years old then, playing in her backyard without a care in the world. It was the middle of the day. The sun was high in the sky, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. But to me when I arrived, she looked like was playing in the dark, an oncoming storm rumbling in the distance that she couldn’t see but I could. She was blind to the danger, oblivious to what was building around her.

  I could hear her mother and father arguing through the open window. Could she hear them too? Or was she concentrating so hard on lining up her dolls that it washed over her, the yelling growing louder as their fight grew more vicious? She was singing quietly to herself. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”

  I knew she was in danger, that much was obvious. I didn’t know that fifteen years later, to keep her safe, I’d abduct her from her house, carry her naked to the boot of a car, bring her here, tie her up in the cellar, leave her screaming for her freedom. Back then, I had no idea any of that was going to happen.

  All I’d wanted to do back then was protect her from what was happening in the house. I usually didn’t give a shit about kids. But there was something about her. I still remember the argument. Her mother was demanding he back off, yelling at him for wanting to take her away. “You can’t stop me seeing my own daughter.”

  “I can if you’re drunk when you turn up. You stink of booze, Zoe.”

  “Fuck you. You don’t get to tell me how to live my life anymore. I’m taking her.”

  “Try it.”

  It wasn’t my place to take sides. I knelt beside her in the garden. “Hi,” she said, smiling up at me. “Want to play?”

  From playing in the grass to bound in my basement in fifteen years. Life is pretty strange sometimes.

  She began to scream again, bringing my attention back to the present. “If you keep quiet, I’ll take the bag off,” I said. “Scream and I’ll spank you again. I can do this all day to an ass like yours.”

  She kept quiet. She might have been crying. It was hard to tell. Her shoulders were hitching but she was silent. I reached down and took hold of the bag on her head, pulling it upwards, sliding it off her messed up hair.

  She twisted her neck round as her head came into view, glaring at me with such venom that I almost fell backwards. She hated me. Sheer, unadulterated hatred. I didn’t mind. When she realised why I’d brought her here, she wouldn’t hate me, she’d thank me.

  She looked beautiful, even with her features twisted in a mixture of rage and fear. The fear enhanced her innocence. The rage made her look sexy. It was an intoxicating mix. As I looked at her, her eyes widened, her brow furrowing as she opened her mouth and said quietly, “I know you.”

  ONE

  BELLA

  When I first set eyes on him, I was naked. It feels strange now to think that my first reaction wasn’t fear. But then, why would it be? I had no reason to suspect what he was going to do to me, that he was going to kidnap me and do all of those things to me.

  It was another beautifully sunny day. The spring had been hotter than usual and it had turned into the hottest summer in as long as anyone could remember. By the time August came around, the grass in my garden was dying, yellowed and parched, no matter how often it was watered. The flowers were wilting and so was I. I’d been inside all morning, working on my book.

  Procrastinating would be a better way of putting it. The work had consisted of everything but typing. I’d rearranged my desk, organised the bedside drawers, swept the kitchen floor, the open laptop shouting at me to come and start actually hitting the keys. I finally succumbed after every item of crockery I owned had been washed up, dried, and put away.

  I managed to get halfway through chapter seven before the heat inside the house got too much for me. “Just an hour,” I told myself as I went upstairs to change into my bikini. It wouldn’t kill me to sunbathe for an hour. I’d get the rest of chapter seven done afterwards. What was the point of working from hom
e if you couldn’t enjoy the sun from time to time?

  I was in my bedroom when he arrived. Having removed my clothes, I was just reaching down to pick up my bikini top when I caught sight of movement out of the window. It was a removals van. I paused to look, watching as it pulled up outside next door. Behind the van, a red car stopped and a man climbed out of it, arching his back before he turned towards the van. He glanced my way and I ducked out of sight, not wanting the first impression I gave my new neighbour to be that of my tits flashing him through the window.

  He had to be my new neighbour. The way he was directing the removals men couldn’t be interpreted any other way. A new neighbour. And a handsome one at that. Once my top was on, I looked out less shyly, watching as he walked up the path to the front door and unlocked it. He looked hot, very hot. Six foot at least, solid looking, tidy black suit, dark brown hair over a face that screamed mature, confident, all the things a man should be. I felt a fluttering deep inside me and I became very aware that I was wearing nothing on my bottom half.

  The height of the window meant at least no one outside could tell but I felt as if he knew. Even without him looking my way, I felt he was judging me, seeing me as nothing more than an underdressed child. I shook my head. Why did I even care what this stranger thought? I was eighteen. I was an adult. If I wanted to bend over and moon him, I could. He wasn’t the boss of me. No one was. Apart from my agent. I could flash my ass and press it against the window. Now that would be a way to break the ice. And the window.

  He did look my way just as I thought that and I found myself blushing. Our eyes locked for the briefest of seconds before he vanished inside the house. I was frozen to the spot for a long time afterwards. He had looked so damned sexy, the way he’d looked at me, in that second, I thought I’d happily flash him if he told me to. I’d have done anything he told me to.

  Not that it mattered. He was about twenty years older than me. Probably married. No doubt the wife and kids would be following on to join him. The house was far too big for one man on his own, especially with a removals van that size. It was a family moving in. It had to be.