He kisses my face and frees the tie.
“You’re absolutely perfect, do you know that?”
I laugh, warm from the compliment. My body feels weak and useless. Luckily, Brent helps me up. He rights his pants and helps me down the few steps.
“Let’s get a drink.”
I follow in my bra, panties and heels, into the kitchen. There he gets a bottle of wine as I lean against the counter and watch him. His body is graceful and unrushed as he uncorks the bottle and takes out two glasses.
I wish he’d shed the clothes and let me see the beautiful structure of his body, but I’m content to watch the slide of muscle beneath fabric. For now.
“Try this.” He hands me a glass and I take a sip. It pops with fruitiness, then fades to full-bodied flavor on my palate. Brent reaches behind me and pops a grape from a bowl on the counter. Watching me, he presses it to my lips. I take it slowly, letting my lips brush his fingers.
“Chew, then have another sip.”
I do, and there’s a burst of flavor in my mouth.
“That’s really good.”
He grins and my skin flushes with renewed passion. “It pairs well with all sorts of treats.”
I make a small sound and set down my glass. A moment passes in which he could have easily taken control or ordered me onto my knees, but he doesn’t. He’s waiting for me to make the next move. For a second, I’m uncertain because I don’t want to read him wrong.
But as I reach for the waist of his pants and unfasten the button, I know I haven’t. His eyes close and he takes a drink. I pull down his zipper, my heart flipping when I find him hard and thick already. The man has a cock of steel and bless him for being at the ready like Superman.
I grip him lightly and stroke the length of his cock, playing at the root and cupping his balls. Brent inhales sharply, his thighs tensing at my touch. I reach for his glass and take a drink, then lower to my knees. His hand fists my hair.
Swirling the wine in my mouth, I wait until the pop of flavor has subsided and swallow, then take Brent in my mouth. Relaxing my throat, I take him all the way.
“Good girl.” His hand guides my head as I suck him in and out. Then he sharply pulls my hair and I release him. He tips my head up.
“Open your mouth.”
I do and he pours a small stream of wine down. Some of it misses my mouth, but most of it makes it in. I swallow and he pushes himself between my lips. It’s a heady combination of wine, male skin, and sex, and I’m drunk with it.
I close my mouth around him, sucking hard, drawing him in and out until he grows thick and the big vein underneath his cock starts to pulse. Suddenly he pulls me off again, pouring more wine into my mouth.
I know he’s close, so I swallow fast and take him again. His release shoots down my throat, chasing the wine with a dizzying effect that has me holding onto his pants for support. Brent braces a hand on the counter over my shoulder, his neck straining and face clenched tight as he comes.
“Insane,” he mutters. “This is insane.” He smiles, then laughs a little as he straightens and tucks his cock into his pants. With gentle hands, he helps me to my feet and offers me the rest of his wine. I drain the glass, lightheaded and giddy. Endorphins, wine, whatever is causing it, I’ll take it.
He touches where the spilled wine has dried, sticky and burgundy against my pale skin.
“Dirty girl. Let’s go upstairs and clean you up.”
“Hot shower, please. You can fuck me while you’re soaping my back.” I move to go past him, but he spins me. With a squeal, I land over his shoulder in a caveman-carry. Brent playfully slaps my ass and heads to the staircase.
“I think you’ve earned a free ride,” he jokes as he goes up the stairs.
“I really have.”
He pinches my ass and I swat at his hand. At the top, I think he’s going to put me down, but he doesn’t.
“Maybe you should have been a fireman.” I joke. “You’re pretty good at carrying—“
Brent stops in the doorway of his room. His shoulders go tense and he mutters a curse. I can’t see anything by the hallway.
“Brent? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, just steps inside and stops by the bed. His arm loosens around me and I wiggle down. He’s staring at the bed as if in a trance or something. I look from him to the bed, following his gaze.
On the pillow closest to us lies an eight-by-ten picture.
My gut sinks to my feet.
A smiling woman looks up at us, her dark hair and milky skin reminding me of a young Elizabeth Taylor. I know immediately who this is.
She’s stunning, and has Brent completely blindsided right now. His chest rises hard and fast.
I sweep the picture with my eyes, unable to look away. Her graceful left hand is holding back hair from her brilliant blue eyes. Suddenly, I go completely still. A cold chill races down my body.
It’s Liz.
And she’s wearing a ring on her left hand.
The one I saw in the box six years ago. The box I delivered to Brent.
Volume Four
1
There’s a picture of Liz on my side of Brent’s bed.
Her blue eyes bore into me and I’m so stunned that I can’t move. Brent is on his phone, yelling at someone through the line. I can’t seem to break from my stupor. Someone has been here and left behind the portrait, and an open front door. But who? Why is someone taunting us with Liz’s image?
Brent leaves the room, but his pissed off voice carries back to me. I focus on his words, trying to ascertain who he’s talking to and what he’s saying. I guess I need to know that he somehow has a handle on the situation; he’ll find out who did this. I’m fucking terrified right now, and Liz’s dead eyes that seem to follow me around aren’t helping.
I’m suddenly freezing with goosebumps all along my arms. I can’t believe this has happened. It seems the closer I try and get to Brent, the more weird stuff happens. Someone is watching us, keeping tabs on us. It’s beyond creepy. Until he opens up and tells me what’s going on, I can’t continue seeing him. I can’t keep doing this. My safety--and his-- is at stake.
Maybe it’s already too late, but I’m done taking chances with Brent Masters. The eyes of the woman who he refused to acknowledge existed in his life as anything more than an employee are burning into me.
But where the hell is she? Where is Liz?
What the hell happened to her that someone would leave her likeness like this… like a warning?
It’s a warning for me. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up as nothing more than a flat-eyed picture, too.
Shaking, I leave the room and race down the stairs. I scoop up my dress and whip it over my head, then grab my clutch where I’d dropped it by the front door. Brent is still yelling through his phone, but I’m not sure which room he’s in. I’m not telling him that I’m going. I don’t care if he knows—I just want out of here.
The drive home is a blur. It’s becoming a pattern each time I leave Brent’s house. I never seem to leave emotionally happy, just physically satisfied. Why can’t my heart and brain reconcile that epic orgasms don’t mean he’s good for me?
I don’t get far before my phone rings. I glance at my purse on the driver’s seat, but I don’t reach for it to dig my cell out. I’m sure it’s Brent and I don’t want to talk to him right now. I need space and a little time to think about what I’m going to do. I’m so wrapped up in him, in a way I always told myself I’d never be over a man. Still, here I am, falling hard.
Falling for a dangerous man.
As I navigate the road, I can’t stop wondering what happened to Liz. I delivered the box to Brent six years ago. Did he have a relationship with her before, or after, I made that delivery? Maybe they’d broken up, and she was returning the ring to him. Then she jet-setted off to an island somewhere, or another city, to start over fresh.
The rationalization doesn’t explain why Brent is so evasive whenever her
name comes up. My chest fills with a sense of dread.
No… if she was healthy and happy somewhere, he wouldn’t avoid the subject so hard. My analytical brain, the one that allows me to crunch numbers and solve accounting problems, says it’s not as simple as Liz waltzing off to start a new life.
Something happened to her. Someone happened to her. Brent? It’s the obvious conclusion. I delivered proof of death to him, and then delivered myself.
Luckily, I find a parking spot in front of my apartment building. The lights are bright on this side of the building versus the lot in the back which has only one dimly-lit lamp post. After what just happened at Brent’s, I’m in no condition to walk through the dark. Grabbing my clutch, I hurry up the walkway and into the building. I flip through my keychain for my apartment key as I head to my door.
Something makes me pause. The back of my neck prickles. I go still and listen. The faint strains of my neighbor’s television sound quietly through the hall. But it’s more than that… something else is giving me this uneasy feeling. I grip my keys tightly with the point of the key sticking out between my knuckles. It’s a puny weapon, but at least I can get a couple hard jabs in, if I need to.
I’m sure I’m overreacting.
A moment stretching a few quiet beats of my heart goes by. No monsters jump out at me, and I relax a little. This is silly. I’m just high-strung from the events of the evening. Relaxing my grip on the keys, I stride across the remaining space to my apartment door. Absently reaching the key toward the lock, I take a sudden step back. The keys drop from my hand and clatter onto the floor.
My door is open.
It’s open just a crack, as if maybe it didn’t lock completely when I closed it earlier and it bounced back open a bit on the frame. I scramble to remember if I heard it click when I closed it this afternoon. Of course I did. I locked it; I remember turning the key and checking the handle to be sure it was secure; the same way I always do.
What the hell is going on? First Brent’s place and now mine? My chest tightens as I consider someone might be hiding inside, waiting for me. It never occurred to me before that whoever broke into Brent’s house might have stayed and waited.
For all I know, the perp could have hung around, hiding in a closet or something while Brent and I fucked. I think about that for the first time with a helping of apprehension.
No. If someone had been hiding in Brent’s house, he would have known. Wouldn’t he? Or did I leave him alone in a house with a deviant hiding in the shadows somewhere?
Damn it.
I’m not doing this, all this second guessing. Brent was on the phone when I left. By now the cops were probably all over the place. If anyone could take care of himself, it was Brent Masters. And me, too. I’m tired of being afraid. This is bullshit.
Cautiously, listening for any foreign sound, I retrieve my keys and stare at my door. I hate indecision, but I despise fear more.
I either accidentally left my door open, or I didn’t. Regardless, I’m going to find out. I take out my cell phone and dial 911, but I don’t connect. With my thumb hovering over the call button, I push the door open with my foot and stay by the threshold to listen. The lamp I left on near my sofa casts a soft glow around the room. From here, nothing appears out of place. After taking a deep breath, I go inside, creeping along the wall as I look into the recesses and corners.
Nothing scary happens.
Slipping into the kitchen, I quietly pull open a drawer and take out a knife. It’s a long, sturdy blade, and I feel better with the weight of it in my hand. I’m about to go back into the living room when I hear a sound.
Oh, shit.
A soft banging. It’s quiet and I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Blood starts to rush in my ears, making it even harder to decipher the sound. I grip the knife so hard that my hand begins to shake.
The sound gets louder. I jump, then lean against the counter in relief. The sounds of a television coming from next door are clear now, louder as if the volume had been turned up.
I brush off my fear and go into the other room. Confident now that nothing sinister is at work here, I loosen my grip on the knife but don’t put it down. I check each room, feeling better when I find nothing. My bedroom is last.
I go inside and stop dead.
There are flowers on my bed. Right in the middle.
A bouquet… exactly like the ones Georgios left on my sister’s grave.
2
My pillow is propped up just enough that the flowers look like they’re laying against a headstone.
Staggering backward, I turn blindly and race for my ensuite bathroom. Slamming the door, I lock it and sweep the room, knife brandished in front of me. I’m trapped in a spider’s web. How many damn spiders are there? I don’t know who is playing me and whom I can trust. The flowers on my bed have Georgios’ stench attached to them. He was here, in my apartment. I just know it.
Who else would do this to me? There isn’t anyone else who would fuck with my head like this.
My legs go weak and the weight of everything presses down on me. Tears stream in hot lines down my cheeks as I step into my bathtub and hold the knife between my knees. My rational mind says that the intruder has left, or he would have made an appearance by now. No, someone isn’t after me to physically hurt me—at least, not yet.
He just wants to mess with my head and serve up a warning. All I can think of is that the warning is this: I’m going to die.
Nathalie is dead.
Liz? The smart guess is: she’s dead, too.
I strain to listen for any out of place sound, but nothing filters through except the beat of my heart pounding in my ears.
Liz is dead.
I can’t stop thinking about it. Brent’s anger and indifference to her name only makes me believe it more. I delivered him the box and pictures. Closing my eyes, I recall him flipping through the pictures, the name Foto Goto on the back. I’d been so scared of him thinking I was peeping and learning too much that I’d focused on the ridiculousness of that name as I dropped my eyes.
Liz’s ring was in the box—the ring she had on her finger in the picture staged on Brent’s bed. The ring was a symbol, a token, of her death. If so, I can only imagine what the pictures were of. Her dead body? He’d shown no emotion that night as he perused the images, and then later, kissed me. If he was torn up over proof of his lover’s death, he hadn’t shown it at all.
I shudder. Brent can be cold, methodical, and stoic. And though he’s never been aggressive with me without my consent, at times he radiates danger and clear threat. As much as I love how his badass attitude revs my libido, in my heart I know he can hurt me. He can crush me.
He could… he could kill me.
No!
I bring my knees to my chest and hug them. I recall Liz’s name burned into the inside of the leather submissive’s collar. She’d meant something to Brent. I picked up on that early and my intuition over it was strong enough to make me furiously jealous. But now as she runs through my mind, I feel sorry and sad for her. And so, so scared thinking I might take her place and end up the same.
I want to mean something to Brent, too. I convinced myself that I do. All this time, I knew there was a cost to getting close to him, a price to pay for his affection. But it’s a sum I can’t afford.
The strain of my phone sounds through the bedroom door. I stare at the door, as if I can magically make my cell appear. I don’t move to go get it. It chimes five more times before going voicemail.
I dip my forehead to my knees and just breathe. Time passes, though I’m not sure how much, until my phone rings again. Then again. Wiping my eyes, I drop the knife to the bottom of the tub and stand shakily. In all the minutes I was locked inside, I haven’t heard a thing to warn me that the intruder—specifically, Georgios—is still inside my apartment.
I unlock the door.
Take a breath and pull it open. And listen.
Nothing.
St
ill shaking, I dash for my phone just as it rings again. It’s Brent. I don’t want to talk to him, but he’s all I have. I could call Donetta, but she’d find out about Brent and me. After my recent promotion, I can’t afford for our indiscretions to be made public. I don’t have any family. My only real connection in Detroit is a man I can’t trust—but can’t seem to stay away from. The man who may have killed his last sub.
Answering, I cross my free arm over my body to hold back tremors. “Hello?”
“Where the fuck are you?” His voice is hard, demanding. It spurs my apprehension all over again.
“I’m at home! He was here, Brent,” I yell. “Did you tell him to do this to me? What the fuck did you do?”
I’m losing it. The small grasp I had on my emotional turmoil is gone. Gripping the phone with both hands, I try to breathe and talk and hold back sobs, and my voice turns into a pathetic mess. “I never asked for this. I never wanted to be part of your game.”
He breathes through the phone. I hear him swallow. When he speaks again, it’s with a tremor and hard edge. “Who was there?”
“Georgios. That fucking Greek mobster you’re so buddy-buddy with. The one who tried to rape me in the hotel. Remember him?” My voice is shaking so badly that I can barely understand myself. He makes a soft sound, almost as if he’s trying to comfort me. But his words are pure steel.
“What did he do?”
“He left flowers. The same flowers he… he left on my sister’s grave.”
“I’m coming to get you.”
“No! Stay away from me. I don’t want you near me.” I click off the phone and throw it on the bed. It rings immediately, of course, but I don’t answer. Fuck him. No, fuck me. I did this to myself. I should have stayed far away from Brent Masters, refused the job from the very beginning, and never, ever allowed myself into his bed. This spider web is one I helped spin and now I’m trapped in my own handiwork.
None of this anger is helping me decide what to do. I collapse onto the edge of my bed, trembling with the after effects of adrenaline shooting through my body. I catch the face of the clock next to my closet and see that more than thirty minutes have ticked by, and I still haven’t made a decision. I don’t even feel like I’ve taken a breath since I sat down.
Boss: Complete Box Set: A Mob BDSM Romance Page 15
