by Taylor Shade
“Where is Sloane Kenner?” I say.
“She got sick about fifteen minutes ago,” Tim says. “I sent her home. She didn’t look good all morning. Very sluggish.”
I smile to myself. Poor girl. I must have pushed her too hard last night.
Unless it was something else, maybe something to do with this Ronson affair.
“That’s it?” I say.
“Yeah,” says Tim with a frown. “I hope I did the right thing. I made a judgment call. She seemed really sick.”
“Yes, Tim. You did the right thing. Thanks.”
I head back down to my office. Now I’m even more perplexed. Something happened to make Sloane Kenner leave the building. My gut tells me it’s this Ronson thing.
Back in my office, I call Trish. I get voicemail, but don’t leave a message. Next I look up the phone number for Sam Ronson. His office is on Broadway about six blocks from here.
I dial the number, but I get a disconnected message.
Fuck.
Stranger and stranger.
I dial Trish again. Voicemail again. I hang up.
That’s it, I’m going over there.
But before I go, I lock my door. Then I walk back to my desk and retrieve my gun.
Before I slip it in my coat pocket, it bonds with my hand again.
Hello, old friend.
I hate it now. I could have gotten rid of it, but it’s good to have just in case. From experience, I know that people’s pasts sometimes catch up with them.
Including mine.
I don’t want anyone to see me leave, so I duck down the stairs to the forty-third floor, which is currently empty and undergoing renovations.
Then I take the elevator down and leave the building by a side entrance onto 54th.
I turn my overcoat collar up in the face of driving snow as I walk the six blocks to Broadway.
Ronson’s office is in an old narrow building sandwiched between two other, more elegant buildings. I walk inside, the stench of staleness hitting me in the face.
There is a metal desk with a phone facing an old-fashioned elevator in the smallest lobby I’ve ever seen. Nobody around.
I take the steep dusty stairs to the second floor. It doesn’t take me long to find 225.
The door is partly open. I knock as I enter.
I can’t believe what I find inside.
FOUR
Sloane
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. All I can do is stand. I can’t even cry, even though the tears are welling in my eyes. I’m trembling inside, yet still.
I have no idea what to do. I’ve never seen a dead body before. A murdered body. Lifeless eyes looking right up at me.
“Sloane!” says Drake, appearing at the door.
At first, I’m relieved to see him.
But what is he doing here? Does he have something to do with this? Did he kill Trish?
“Don’t come near me,” I say, not sure where the words came from.
“What’s wrong? And what’s that smell?”
I don’t know how to tell him there’s a dead body behind the filing cabinet, which has been pulled out from the wall. But somehow, I see him figure it out. Something in his eyes.
He moves firmly toward me. I flinch and scream. He grabs me, forcefully pressing his hand over my mouth to muffle me.
He looks down at Trish, then spins me around and presses me down into the old rickety office chair.
His grip is firm as he glares down into my eyes.
“Sloane,” he says. “It’s me, Drake. No screaming, okay?”
Feeling some control returning to my body, I nod. Suddenly, I feel somewhat protected.
He takes his hand off my mouth, careful to check that I’m not going to scream again.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just–”
“It’s okay,” he says in a calm tone. “Now tell me what happened.”
The tears are coming out now, my voice hesitant as I sob. “I... came here... because I got a message...”
“From Trish, right?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I got one too.”
“I didn’t do it.”
Drake looks at me like I’m a ridiculous little child. “Of course you didn’t. But we do need to get out of here. Did anyone see you come in the building?”
“Yes, the guy at the desk.”
“Hm, there was nobody at the desk when I came in. We need to get out of here.”
“But shouldn’t we call someone?”
“No.”
A big black awful gun has appeared in Drake’s right hand. I gasp.
“We’re going to leave through a back exit,” he says. “Stay quiet and stick close to me.”
He yanks me up and pulls me behind him with his left hand, gripped firmly around my left wrist. Before going out into the corridor, he peeks out and looks both ways.
Before I know it, we’re scuttling down a back staircase that smells like the pits of hell. My heart beats faster as we hit the third level down.
Drake then pushes a door open and we find ourselves in an underground service corridor, rows of large storage bays all around us. A large rig is parked in front of us, several workers unloading cardboard boxes. They don’t notice us as we squeeze in front of the truck and through another door that leads into another, more modern building.
In a flash, we’re in a walkway with a ramp that leads to a door to the street on the other side of the block.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief of my life as the fresh cold and snowflakes hit my face. I didn’t realize how hot I was.
“Taxi!” yells Drake as we move swiftly to the sidewalk. We’re on Seventh Avenue. A yellow cab comes to a halt next to us and Drake pushes me inside. I don’t know where the gun went, but I assume he slipped it back into a pocket.
“Waldorf-Astoria,” says Drake to the driver, who peels out into afternoon traffic.
I look at him quizzically. He just pulls me into him, holding me tight.
I’m afraid to speak out loud. I can’t believe what I just saw. I can’t believe all that has happened to me in the past forty-eight hours. It’s like I’m living someone else’s life.
At the Waldorf-Astoria, we check in. As Drake pulls out his gold card to pay for the room, a stab of fear hits me.
What if Drake killed Trish? What if I’ve been having sex with a murderer?
The envelope did appear under Drake’s door. Trish did think he should know about Ronson. What if he got his hands on the yellow-lined legal paper with the handwritten list?
There was enough on that paper to make Drake Concord very mad at me.
I look around the lobby, planning to run. He may be taking me here to kill me.
But wait, that doesn’t make sense. He could have killed me right there in Ronson’s office. Why didn’t he?
Like he’s reading my mind, he grabs my hand firmly and leads me to the elevator.
As the doors close, I realize that whatever happens now, I’m in deep.
Plus, I don’t know who I would run to. My best friend Natasha? What could she possibly do to help me? Nothing. I have no family to whom to run.
The elevator reaches our floor and we walk swiftly to our room. Drake puts in the key card and we step inside.
It’s certainly the richest hotel room in which I’ve ever been. Elegant French Renaissance furniture with lush curtains. A writing desk and an elegant sofa.
I’m about to speak, but Drake puts a finger over my lips. Then he leads me to a chair by the writing desk and sits me down into it.
Then, he does something very strange. He takes out a device that looks a little like a smart phone, but smaller. He walks around the room, pointing it at everything... the table, the lamps, the bed, the mirrors, the wall sconces.
In that moment, I know for certain that Drake Concord is much more than a New York lawyer. Whatever he’s doing confirms my suspicion that he has a dark hidden past.
Once he’s sat
isfied that the room doesn’t have any listening devices or whatever, he pulls the other chair over to me and sits, placing his hands on my knees.
“Now tell me everything you know,” he says in a firm voice.
FIVE
Drake
I look out at the winter wonderland of white now casting a bluish glow on Park Avenue below. Red taillights on yellow cabs mix with the occasional glow of Christmas lights in windows, enhancing the warmth of the hotel room in the waning afternoon daylight.
I turn and look at Sloane Kenner, still sitting in the chair.
Her eyes meet mine, big blue globes pleading with me to believe her.
Funny thing is, I do. I don’t think she had anything to do with all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit.
According to her, a man named Sam Ronson approached her and offered her a job to steal a document from my firm.
Which is ridiculous. Meridian was a simple lawsuit that settled years ago. There’s nothing of importance in that file.
Ronson convinced her he worked for Homeland Security and that getting a photocopy of the Meridian file was a matter of life and death.
The part of her story that I’m unsure about is that she decided not to do it after I seduced her in my limousine on Monday. While I don’t doubt my own sexual prowess, it’s just a little far-fetched for me.
But maybe.
Now, as I look into her eyes, I believe her.
I pull her over to the sofa, setting her tightly next to me. I caress her while stroking her beautiful blonde hair.
“Everything is going to be all right,” I say.
She begins to sob.
“That’s good,” I say. “Let it out. Let it all out.”
We stay like that for a while.
“I can’t get that poor Trish woman lying there out of my head,” she says.
“Shhhhh. Her worries are over. They’ll find her. It had nothing to do with you. It would have happened anyway.”
“But the security guard... he’ll tell them about me.”
I put my right hand on her leg, sliding one up her inside thigh. “Whoever killed Trish did it long before you got there. The medical examiner will rule you out based on time of death. So don’t even think about it.”
She puts a hand on mine, pressing me away slightly. “I just wish I never got involved in all this. I’m not even sure how I did.”
She’s gazing down at the carpet. I put two curled fingers under her chin, moving her face upward toward my gaze, but her eyes remain looking down.
“Look at me,” I say.
Her hand clenches mine, but the downcast glance continues.
“Look at me!”
Her eyes meet mine. In that instant, a rush of electricity fills the space between us.
She almost lunges toward me, but then stops herself.
“Do you believe me?” she pleads.
I throw her a smirk. “Maybe. I think I need to interrogate you a bit more.”
My cock twitches in my pants.
God, I need to fuck her. I want to taste that sweet pussy again, lapping up her sweetness while teasing her clit with my tongue.
I sink my face down to her neck, licking underneath her ear. I move up and bit her lobe, sticking a tongue in her ear.
She mewls, her tight energy going slack in my arms. Her breathing is heavier now as her body relaxes. I sense her drifting away from her troubles, leaving all the tension behind.
I move to her face, soft and gently kissing along the way.
Then I hold her gaze.
Enough.
“You’re going to get fucked,” I say.
She gasps. “But we can’t–”
“Quiet! We are alive and as long as we are, you will do as I say!”
In one fell swoop, I pick her up and throw her on the bed. She makes a little squealing noise as I leap on top of her, straddling her with my legs.
She’s having another one of those wars inside her head. She’s had a rough day, seeing things a girl like her isn’t used to seeing.
Which is exactly why part of her body craves a good fucking... to brush away the world and all her troubles.
As I pin her down with my crotch, I take off my shirt. That’s the moment I see the shift in her eyes... the moment she gives in to the sweet relief of letting go.
SIX
Sloane
It feels wrong to be doing this right now. This is by far the strangest day of my life. First the news that Ronson is dead. Then the envelope. Then Trish. Poor Trish.
How can I be here in a fancy hotel room enjoying myself with so much evil going on out there?
I’m so stressed. My head pounds. My feet hurt. I’m a wreck, both inside and outside.
But when Drake Concord kisses my neck, licks me, and then throws me on the bed...
God, it all just drifts away.
I so want to just drift away with it.
Yes, I decide. I will.
I let go.
His bare chest is above me, the rough sinews of his muscles even more detailed in the dim afternoon light with the snow drifting outside. He moves so he’s directly over my face glaring down at me.
His eyes are oceans of white glare surrounding deep blue pools of ferocious energy, piercing me... seeing directly into me.
He knows.
He knows what I want.
He knows what he’s doing to me.
I’m not used to a man like this, someone who takes such control with such power and determination. I feel so helpless when I’m around him, like all that matters is what he wants.
God, what is happening to me? How can I be thinking like this?
And yet I do... oh, I so do.
My hands drift to his sides, probing the taut hard frame where his back meets his ribs. So hard. So manly. There is no softness as I feel his waist, sleek ab muscles leading up to two massive sheens of rock-solid pecs.
I look down, scanning the man-beast’s perfectly carved body. Then my eyes move up to his again.
That’s it. I’m done. I’m there with him... wherever he wants to be.
“I know what you want,” he says, his voice a hard sheen of commanding authority. I just stare up into his eyes, not knowing what to say. “You want to get fucked like a dirty girl. You want to get fucked raw and hard, until you come like you’ve never come before.”
Oh, God, yes! Make me come like I’ve never come before!
My legs squirm underneath his crotch, my pussy ablaze with heat.
As he slides along me, I see the tip of his cock poking out of his pants over the belt.
I reach out and strum my fingers along its length, savoring the hardness, imagining it stretching and filling me.
He leans down and bites my lower lip with a snarl, his thick black hair falling around his temples in wavy locks. My head thrashes back and I groan as his tongue dives into my neck, probing firmly into the crevice of my collarbone.
My fingernails dig into his back, my pelvis now making little back-and-forth bucks. I can feel his balls through his pants as they ride the fabric over my swollen clit.
He undoes my blouse and sinks his tongue between my breasts. I don’t know how he does it, but my bra goes flying in one swift motion. I’m truly in the hands of a professional.
His teeth graze over my hard right nipple, sending waves of delight washing through my body. His hot wet tongue swirls around, dancing atop my round firm breast.
Then he’s over at my other hilltop, swirling and dancing and biting again. I’m bucking harder now, eager to feel his warm wetness as it travels downward. I so want him inside me.
He bites my side before heading to my belly button, where his tongue presses in hard. My hands roll through his lush hair, grabbing fistfuls by the temples. I close my eyes in the sheer anticipatory excitement of his face nearing ever closer to my crotch.
I’m almost shoving it in his face now. He gets my skirt undone and it falls away, my wet panties exposed to his hot breath. He bites
down on my mound over the panties, my nub right under his top lip.
Then they’re down. Another pair for his collection.
This time, he doesn’t tease. He dives in.
Oh God.
SEVEN
Drake
I can’t help myself. I know how much she likes to be teased and taunted, but the very sight and aroma of that delectable cunt is too much for me to bear. My mouth plunges down on top of those succulent lips, sucking them into my mouth.
God, she tastes so good! Her pussy juice is steamy nectar that I devour with ravenous thirst. I place my hands under her legs, pressing them upward so her ass is exposed. Then I eat her amazing pussy with the gusto of an army.
I could eat this pussy all day, all month, all fucking year. I allow my tongue the sweet pleasure of going wild, dancing around her inner lips, swirling up to her hard nub, its little head coming out to play. Then I dart my tongue into her tunnel, pressing and probing with vigor, stretching it to prepare it for my now rock-hard cock.
She moans, body bouncing to the silent but pounding rhythm of my strokes as I tongue-fuck her. Mmmmm, so delicious.
Then I bring my index finger up to join in the fun, poking it inside and pressing on the inside top of her wall. She shudders.
That’s it, baby! Yeah, you like your G-spot, don’t you? I stroke her firmly there as my tongue lightly flicks her clit. I suck it into my mouth as I put a second finger inside her.
Her cunt clenches a little as it gets used to the stretch. It talks to me, telling me it’s getting ready to blow. I kiss it in assurance that it’s all going to be okay.
Then I press harder with both fingers, sending her G-spot into happy ecstasy.
EIGHT
Sloane
This is too much.
I can’t take it.
He knows just how to drive me wild, strumming me with his tongue and fingers like he’s playing a musical instrument. He keeps the tempo going, increasing the rhythm faster and faster, each time with a little more pressure.
