by Scott, Talyn
“Yeah, well, as a prelude to my audition, I had what they called a Lovely waiting for me while stretched out on a cross. Normally, I wouldn’t balk at taking her, but two things are bothering me.”
She chewed her lip, an uncomfortable pang hitting her. “Go on.”
“I won’t ever earn anything by using sex.”
She closed her eyes in relief. “Of course, you won’t.”
“And I haven’t touched another woman, Pay, not since you.” He exhaled in the phone, sounding exhausted. “I need to see you. I need to hold you. I’m in love with you.”
“I, uh, Avery and Dylan explained away Helen Savon’s death. And.” She opened her eyes, wondering how she could soften the blow, though part of her didn’t want to shut him out.
“You’re with both of them,” he said glumly.
“I’m going to take this day by day.”
“Then you haven’t checked the text I sent you.”
“Hold on.” She thumbed through her texts, missing a few from Libby. When she opened the ones from Noah, her heart stopped beating. The first picture was of Dylan walking her out of Club Saturday, helping her into the Bugatti with a flourish. The second was of Dylan standing outside Tower Amore with his hand wrapped around a redhead’s waist, pulling her in tight for a kiss. The caption read, ‘Which redhead is the real fiancée?’ Anyone could clearly see that Dylan was wearing the same set of clothes in both pictures.
“Noah?” she whispered into the phone.
“Yeah, baby.”
“Is Level 69 inside Tower Amore?”
“It sure is.”
A tremor went through her, her chest turning to ice. “It’s hard not to jump to conclusions then. In fact, it looks like he was having fun while I was being attacked.” Luckily, she didn’t spot Avery in that picture, but he could have been there, too. “Still, even if Dylan did what it looks like he did, I had dumped both of them.”
“As long as you can live with that, I’ll drop it.” She heard him jingling his keys. “I’m just sorry everything you do is posted on the internet for the world to see.”
“It sucks. I’m going to talk to Dylan about this woman,” she said, digging her nails in the palm of her hand. “Somehow, I’m going to wrangle you an audition with Stellan Hudson that won’t require a playroom.”
“I just want to see you,” he said wearily. “I’m lonely for you. We don’t have to do anything sexual, Pay. I swear it.”
“You heard what Avery said.” Payton wanted to see him, too. Maybe she wasn’t as indifferent to loving him romantically as she’d first thought. “Someone might follow you. Just go back to Hytel Plume with your security, where it’s safe.”
“If you want to see me, say so,” he demanded.
“Not at any risks,” she countered.
“Then that’s a yes,” he sounded better. “I’m going to talk to my guard dogs, and see if we can change cars a time or two.”
“Then you’ll find me at the old Easton mansion off of Vanderbilt. The one with the magnolias and the iron gate.”
“I love you.”
She hoped she was doing the right thing. “Bye.”
It took Payton fifteen minutes, to find Michael, Dylan and Avery’s head of security. He was running toward the stables, a phone pressed against his ear while he barked out commands. In the near distance, she could see a red blur across the horizon. “The horse field is on fire!” This was Florida’s dry season, when brushfires were prominent. She dialed 911 on her cellphone, but realized Michael must be talking to them already, so she slid her phone inside her pocket and yelled out for Dylan and Avery. Although there weren’t any horses, the flames were drawing closer to the house, and she didn’t want to stick around.
“Avery!” She called out again. “Dylan!”
A cold blade pressed against Payton’s throat. “Welcome to my cookout,” a woman purred into her ear. “I have a special seat for you.”
Payton rolled her shoulder to the side, trying to disengage the woman, but the blade grazed her throat. A sting and a hot splash of blood trickled down her neck.
“That was stupid,” she growled, nudging her forward. “I was told not to harm you like the last idiot did. Don’t you know he’ll damage me exactly the way I damage you?”
“W-who?” Payton grabbed the woman’s hand, settling her fingers over the fingers holding the blade, as they walked the length of the flaming field.
“You’ll find out in just a second,” she said in a singsong voice.
The closer they walked to the stables, the hotter the flames. Payton literally felt her eyebrows and eyelashes singe with each step. A horror met her burning eyes, the second she locked onto Dylan and Avery’s beaten forms, both hogtied on the tailgate of a pickup truck. The tallest flames would reach them in no time, and it didn’t take a genius to realize there was a full tank of gas in that truck. Even more horrific was the fact they were struggling against their bindings. “You w-want them to see it coming, to feel the burn,” Payton said on a choking gasp. “What kind of monster are you?” Hadn’t Avery dealt with enough fires to last a lifetime? Hadn’t Dylan dealt with enough pain and death for any person to endure?
“I was their mistress once,” she said on a deranged laugh. “I’m doing you a favor. They’ll just dump you for the next redhead who comes along.”
Realization dawned. “You tried to poison me.”
“The chocolates? You and the authorities were supposed to think they were from Dylan. He travels to France constantly. I know. I’ve been there with him several times,” she rubbed it in.
“S-so why are you trying to f-frame Dylan with murders.”
“He never paid for Helen’s death.”
Payton knew better than to argue. She looked at Dylan, but he wasn’t glancing her way. Avery, however, stopped all movements, meeting her eye to eye. He was trying to tell her something, but how could he help her while completely tied. And she had this damned knife against her throat.
A million prayers shot through her head as she dropped her eyes from Avery and searched the ground for anything that she could use to get this bitch off her back. Of all things, she spotted a broken horseshoe.
And that would have to do.
Gathering her will, she slipped her hand down the woman’s fingers and gripped her wrist. Instead of trying to disengage the blade again, she merely pried it an inch away to have a buffer. Next, Payton grabbed the woman’s throat with her free hand and pulled her forward. When they started to trip, she slammed her knees on the ground and tossed her overhead. Other than the woman’s boots clipping her sore temple, Payton was free and clear long enough to grab the jagged horseshoe.
Payton reeled back as the woman swung her blade. She turned and rose again, slamming the horseshoe right in the woman’s nose. But the woman still managed to drive the knife down in Payton’s shoulder. Barely an inch in her flesh, Payton yanked out the blade and whirled around. She made a run for it, aiming to free Dylan and Avery before the flames hit the gas tank.
The bitch was fast on her heels, blood gushing from her face, but Payton held both weapons. When she jumped the fence to enter the field, the woman took her ankle, dragging her backwards. No matter the situation, Payton didn’t want to take a life, but this lunatic was intent on killing the two men she loved, and something dark rose inside her. She pulled from the adrenalin rush, screamed her frustration, and tightened her hold on the knife. As the woman brushed against her leg, Payton drove the blade through the middle of her throat.
Blood gushed across her chest and face, but she held steady, keeping her grip. She zigzagged the blade repeatedly. When the redhead finally staggered, she jerked the knife free, kicked her dying body away from the fence, and toppled over the wooden railing in a mad dash to free Dylan and Avery.
Both splattered in blood and floating debris, Payton broke into tears when she reached them, her hands shaking as she cut the intricate rope binding away from Avery. When he was freed, he ordered her to run while
taking the blade and freeing Dylan.
“Go!” he screamed.
She realized she was slower than they were, so she took off again, confident they would follow. And they did, pulling up the rear until they caught up with her.
“We’re too close,” growled Dylan, his arm coming around her as he lifted her over his shoulder.
Payton coughed, the air clogging her with smoke and ash. Dylan tripped on a deep hole, his knee buckling, and Payton came forward. The ground shook beneath their bodies as the truck exploded behind them. Avery jumped on top of her, the heat too intense, and covered her head with his hands, her body with his body. All she could make out was a plume of smoke going high into the air, where shards of metal followed. She felt Dylan come over her, covering anything Avery missed. Payton sensed them stiffening and wincing, and she knew the jagged, hot metal must be hitting them.
Several smaller explosions went off, each smaller than the last, before Avery and Dylan lifted her and took off for the swimming pool. A roaring pounded in her head, but she couldn’t hear anything. From what she could see, Dylan was in one piece, no major burns. Avery was intact; his heavily scarred arm had a single piece of shrapnel sticking out from it.
But he was okay.
They were okay.
“Your shoulder,” she finally heard Avery say, though her hearing zinged on a high-pitched frequency.
Dylan bellowed, “I can’t believe Marla did this!”
The next thing she knew, they were jumping in the pool. They only released her briefly, when they hit the water. That’s when she realized her arm had turned to dead weight. But she refused to look at it, refused to panic at the red cloud dyeing the pool water red around her. She spun in the water, grabbing her dead arm with her good hand, and stared at the growing fire. “We have to get out of here,” she tried to say.
Dylan wasn’t staring at the fire, but at Payton. She watched his mouth forming a warning at the same time Avery’s eyes widened in abject horror. Hands wrapped around her throat, lugging her from the pool. She gripped those hands with her good arm, tugging down as her feet smacked the pool deck, but they belonged to a burly man, a man with purpose who easily lifted her off her feet and carried her over the pool deck. The more she struggled, the tighter his grip, and in seconds, her vision went completely black.
Libby squinted her eyes at the sound of a weary doorbell. Stephen's chest pressed against her back, he reached over and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. His fingers fluttered over the screen as he swore softly against the shell of her ear. That growl, his scent, and his long length pressed against her hip were stirring Libby from her sleep-induced coma. The phone fell next to her on the soft mattress as his breath evened in and out.
"How can you go back to sleep on me?" she grumbled, cupping his long fingers that had wandered around her breasts in the middle of the night.
"Mmm," he replied as a hand trailed up her thigh. Deft fingers lifted the elastic of her sensible panties and slowly explored the bare flesh that was growing slick with need. She moaned when he flicked her clitoris lazily, as though he had all the time in the world. But she didn't want lazy this morning. She wanted a hard fucking that would make her body sore and achy all day. A fucking that said someone had been there and had done her right.
She rolled over and he cupped her ass, squeezing gently. "I don't want gentle." She pressed her face on the front of his throat, nibbling, before she flipped him on his back and climbed aboard. “I want you to slam me.”
"When did you start waxing?" he asked as her old dorm shirt scrunched around her waist, her bare pussy straddling his stomach.
Her eyes flew wide in horror. "T-trey?" Flashbacks of the afternoon before clicked through her head: The old house, her having to spend the night here, her telling off Trey and Drake when they wanted to stay up for a threesome slumber party. "Oh!" When had he wandered into her bed? Hadn't she locked the damned door?
"Elizabeth," Trey complained, thrusting his hips up and swiping his boxer-clad, hard length across her pink flesh. The friction was exquisite, but he wasn't Stephen. "I should give you gentle anyway for waking me up so soon." He thrust again, wrapping his hands around her waist and flipping her over, onto her front. "When did you become such a naughty girl, wanting it rough?"
"Wait!" Her face hit a pillow and his hand came around her mouth, muffling her protests. His six-foot plus frame pinioned her to the bed, allowing no slack. His mouth latched onto her ear, licking before whispering, "I'm going to shove my cock so far up that tight cunt of yours, you'll feel it at the roof of your mouth."
She screamed behind his palm, but he laughed her off. Libby may have dabbled into a little bondage with Stephen, but nothing came close to this. The press of his unforgiving weight, and the realization he could do anything to her and she hadn't the strength she thought that she possessed was startling. Arousing, somewhat, but she was also freaked out over her helplessness. Libby gave it her all, thrashing as his pelvis came down over her ass. She tossed her head when his teeth clamped over her shoulder, leaving a crude love mark for her to find later in the mirror.
"That's it," he cajoled, "You're so hot I can't resist any longer. Fight back, Elizabeth. It'll only make your capitulation all the sweeter, when I bind you and spank your naughty ass."
Oh, that couldn’t have happened! She moaned against his hand, when a spring of moisture moved down her channel. He'd surely feel it if he would just...touch her...there. Spankings were her guilty pleasure. They heated her ass, driving her higher and wetter more than anything else, even her damned vibrator set to stun.
"And when I have you at my mercy," Trey growled, moving his hand between her ass and his pelvis to free his erection. "You won't be able to stop anything I choose to do to you." He eased off her just enough to press his wide crown against her greedy opening. "I'm going to do every fucking thing imaginable." He circled his hips, teasing her. "You got that, Elizabeth? Everything."
"You crazy kids," Drake said cheerfully from the doorway. "I can't leave you alone for..."
"Out!" Trey hissed, swiping her up and down her swollen, nether lips. "She's not ready for you."
"Well, I don't think she'll be ready for her father to come upstairs, but if that's what you want."
Trey rolled off her easily, stretching and pulling on his boxers. "Asshole's here early. I thought I heard the doorbell."
"Yes." Drake lifted his cup of coffee in way of greeting Libby. "Morning, Angry Kitten. Want me to finish what Trey started, while he deals with Daddy?"
"He's really downstairs?" she asked in horror, hating how Trey was so casual about their sexual near miss. Sure, he thought she was demanding a rough bout of sex, had entirely misunderstood her, but shouldn't he look disappointed or disgruntled that they hadn't finished what they started? She, on the other hand, was wet and achy, but not the good kind of achy she enjoyed. No, this was the achy that drove her nuts. Still, the worst mistake in the world would be screwing Trey Easton. So Libby stood with renewed resolve, reaching blindly for the skirt and blouse she'd worn yesterday. Drake descended the steps, whistling, obviously he was a morning person. This made Libby trust him even less, she realized, as she hightailed it to the bathroom with clothes in hand.
"Suddenly shy?" Trey called after her.
"When we...I thought you were Stephen," she admitted, still feeling the press of his hand over her mouth, the heavy weight of his chest against her back.
A bark of laughter left him. "Sure you did." He was dressed, slipping on his shoes. "I expect you downstairs in ten minutes, or I'm coming up here after you. And, Elizabeth?"
She had her hand on the bathroom door, when she stopped to look at him. "Yes, Sire?"
His eyes narrowed at her sarcasm. "You don't want me coming up here after you."
A thousand expletives rolled through her mind before his wide shoulders squeezed through the doorway and disappeared down the stairs. "I never repeat mistakes," she grumbled, hoping she would remember tha
t mantra and forget the size of his cock the next time he touched her.
Ten minutes on the dot later, Libby greeted her father, "Daddy?"
"Baby girl," he said, drawing her into his arms. She patted his back, instantly noticing he felt thinner and weaker. "Where's mom?"
"Still packing, but she'll be here soon enough."
Taken aback, Libby asked, "So you're really moving back into this place?"
He nodded, kissing her forehead. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
Her body went on lockdown, her knees nearly buckling. Trey slid his hands around her waist, supporting her. At the same time, he pulled her away from her father. "What do you mean, you're sorry you dragged me into this?"
"She doesn't know about the insider trading yet," Drake said quietly, sitting at the whitewashed breakfast table and looking as foreboding as she'd ever seen him. He may have been dressed in jeans and a pullover, but his stance said menace all the way.
