“Yes, sir. She’s upstairs in her studio.”
“Good. Don’t tell her the kid isn’t here. If she asks, say we ran into traffic issues.” Gabe eyed Richie, who was still writhing in pain on the floor. “Find the owner of A-1 Cleaners.”
“Yes, sir. Will do.”
“Dude, you’re insane,” Richie said between moans. “I’m as surprised as you. That kid was supposed to come here. Monica’s been here for the last week. I’m telling you, I don’t know where the hell he is. Man. I can’t breathe.”
Gabe picked up a trash bag full of clothes. Dumped it on the floor and kicked through an assortment of rank, grungy garments. Glancing at Richie, he said, “If I’m wrong, then I’m sorry. Dude.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
Andi
On the night after they found her friend Collette’s body, Andi had been alone in her family’s Florida beach house. Sleep had eluded her. That night, when Victor Morrissy came for her, she’d been in bed, focusing on the rhythmic crash of the nearby surf.
No! Not now. I can’t afford to slip away to the world of terror. Not now.
As pain lit fire once again to the scars on her back, Andi, alone in her studio, fought to keep from succumbing to the rollercoaster ride of flashback-driven fear and horror. Inhaling deeply, with relief, she heard the thud of Gabe’s footsteps rounding the second floor landing.
She focused on the doorway, where Gabe would be coming in. Soon. With the sleeve of her sweatshirt, she rubbed the liquid fear off her cheeks. Though she was sitting on the floor in her studio, her mind had been in the exact moment she had awakened to find Victor Morrissey standing over her bed. Though her fear was inspired by what she’d endured in the hours she was missing, her worry was all for Pic. Because that’s what Pic was. Missing. Just as she’d been.
There was only time for her to draw a deep breath before Gabe appeared in the doorway. He caught her trying in vain not to look like she’d been crying. The floor around her was littered with sketches of Pic. She’d been torturing herself, bargaining with God, swearing that if/when Pic was found…she’d do anything.
She stacked the sketches into a neat pile to give herself time to brace for the bad news that Gabe’s grim expression carried. She gulped for air as Gabe dropped to his knees beside her. “He wasn’t there,” she said.
With his arms wrapped around her, she felt his chest rise and fall with a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”
“Monica?”
“No sign of her. Didn’t look like either of them had ever been there. But the place was such a pigsty, I can’t tell. Richie’s swearing Monica was there, and Pic should have been. I’ll find him, Andi.” Shifting so that he could cradle her face in his hands, he held her gaze. “I swear it.”
Just as the man typically emanated light and warmth, the concern that he now conveyed was palpable. It was inky dark concern, cloaking all the deep golden goodness that was Gabe’s essence and carrying a gravity that was wrong.
All wrong, because his concern was for her.
In it, she saw a future. His future. Their future. If they could possibly stay together. It wasn’t a future he deserved, because he deserved better than someone who would suck every ounce of radiant warmth from him. And unlike the past that had caused her life to be a constant struggle against torment, the future she glimpsed was one she could prevent.
Pic first, then Gabe leaves. For good.
“I fired Tyre.”
“I saw the camera footage, after you left. I made the agents show me. Reality is, Pic did a great job—”
“Reality is, it is unacceptable job performance. As agent in charge, you have legitimate cause to fire me.”
“Good to know,” she said. “But I’m not firing you. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to work as hard as you will to find him.” Softer, she continued, “Use these.” Breaking away from Gabe, she shoved the pile of sketches of Pic into Gabe’s hands. “For a flier. Paper the streets. Shelters. Alert any authorities who will listen. We’ll fix whatever went wrong in his past. I’ll pay to fly him out of the goddamn country, if I need to. Black Raven can do that for me, can’t you? Let the world know Lucas Tanner McShane was here. And he’s missing—”
“We don’t know that he’s missing. Not yet.”
She saw the lie for what it was. An attempt to help her hold onto hope.
“Don’t. Ever. Lie. To. Me. Again.”
A pulse beat at his temple. He nodded, reluctantly. “Understood.”
“Now go. Do whatever you can do to find him. Because…” she gulped for air, trying to hold it together as she sat again. With his eyes on her, she found a momentary strength not to succumb to the pull of her personal horror, “…I damn well know what happens when people go missing. GO!”
Message delivered, she gave in to the mind-suck of Victor Morrissey’s legacy. Placing her head on her knees, hugging her legs to her chest, she gave in to the darkness cloying at her. This fear was too big for tears, this terror too enormous to voice.
Been there—God—done this. I can fight it. Fight it. Fight it. If I concentrate, I can.
She sensed when Gabe stood. Heard him moving about her studio. But the reach of darkness that pulled her back to the world of trauma was strong. She ignored his movements.
After some time, she felt him again at her side. “Andi,” he whispered. “Lifting you.”
Powerless to stop him, she felt his strong arms under her knees and at her back. Felt when he stood with her. He walked a few paces, as she turned her face into his chest and drew in a deep breath. After a long minute, where he stood still while his warmth and strength seeped into her body, she looked up. He bent his face and held his lips to her forehead, smoothing the concern and fear from her brow. “Ready to stand?”
“Yes.” His warmth had oozed into her very core, and she now understood that even if she wasn’t okay, even if she was anything but fine, she needed to act strong. Or he wouldn’t leave. And he wouldn’t find Pic, if he stayed there, trying to make her better.
I’m stronger. Because of him.
He steadied her on her feet, placing her in front of one of her easels. He’d placed five blank canvasses on each. “Focus on something good. I know you’ve got the images in here.” Cradling her head in one large palm, he lifted her chin with the other so that she looked up at him. “In your mind’s eye. You told me that’s how you get through your rough days and nights. Do it now. Paint. Fill these canvasses with something beautiful, something good.”
“Your eyes. They’re all wrong,” she whispered. “I don’t want them looking at me like that. Don’t want you all concerned for me. I’m fine.”
“I know you are. And you will be.” He gave her the slightest of smiles. With it, a glimmer of the luminous light she’d come to associate with him shone through. “Paint my eyes however you want them. I’ll find him, Andi. I swear it.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
Pic
Pic jerked from unconscious to conscious, between one erratic heartbeat and the next. Icy wetness sluiced his head and shoulders, hitting his skin like shards of ice. He blinked water from his vision. Confusion remained.
What the fuck!? Goddammit. So cold.
His hands were pulled taut and stretched over his head. Cold water pounded his bowed head. When he tried to step out of the water, shackles bit cruelly into his shinbones.
Soapy fingers and hands clutched his balls, switching his focus from goddamn that's freezing, to what the hell? Again. Seriously. What in the name of hell was happening and how the hell had he gotten wherever the hell he was?
Hell. Hell. Hell.
The fingers squeezed harder. He let out a long groan. Confused again, because it felt kinda good, but kinda painful. Ouch! But it was good pain. And then there was no kinda about it.
Because I’m that goddamn hard. I’m lit up like a ramming rod, by this sick dream? When the hand squeezed his balls again, his head shot up and an indignant oath sprang to his lips, even as nausea welled
in the back of his throat and the watery view blurred and spun.
Gotta be a dream.
It felt like a million years ago when he’d asked Gabe to turn around so he wouldn’t see him without clothes. Not being covered was now the least of his goddamn problems. With a filter of water poured over his vision, he made out two butt-naked women and two bare-assed men hosing him with sprinklers as they lathered him with their bare hands and shampooed his hair.
“What the fuck!? Get your fucking hands off of me!”
One of the women moved her face close to his. Wide, scared blue eyes held his gaze for a second. “Sh. They watch. They won’t feed any of us if it doesn’t look good. And I’m starving.”
Young. Dear God. She’s so skinny. She looks like a kid. WTF! And I’ve got a raging hard-on. From this! Men are fucking rubbing their hands, and Jesus Christ—themselves—on me.
Help.
Me.
Despite the water, the harsh scent of soap, and their hands and their bodies on him, Pic drifted in and out of consciousness. Two were fair-skinned blondes. The others were darker. Limbs were so tangled and bodies were so close, he couldn’t make out features, as his thoughts swirled. They left the hair on his head, but shaved his face. They shaved every inch of his skin. Even his pubes. His ass.
There was something familiar about one of the guys. Something…about the ink on his neck. Birds. But Pic was too woozy to focus, drifting in and out of consciousness as they worked on him.
It was easier not to focus, anyway, because when he did, all he could think of was that he was naked, chained, and he shouldn’t be turned on. But he was so inexplicably hard that each touch of fingers on him, female or male, had him getting harder. Longer. Bigger than he’d ever imagined he could be.
Without a doubt, if I could reach my cock, it would take me about ten seconds to jack off. What in the fuck is happening here? Am I gay?
Lips grazed Pic’s cheek. Blue eyes that he suddenly knew looked into his, as the guy planted a kiss on Pic’s lips. As Pic flinched away from the kiss, it registered why the ink on the guy’s neck had looked familiar.
Jake.
“Pic. Wake up.” Jake’s lips were at his ear. “We’re in hell. Do what they want. It’s the only way you’ll eat. Cameras. They watch. They’ll dose you more if you don’t. The more they give you, the crazier you’ll get.”
But what do they want?
Pic drifted off without asking his question. He woke up again, and realized the water was turned off. He was dry, but still shackled. He felt hands slathering his skin with lotion, and he groaned. Pressure and pain had taken hold of his body, all emanating from his groin.
One of the girls backed slightly away from Pic. The blond girl. She rubbed her breasts as she did a slow drift down to the floor, arching her back all the while.
Woozy unconsciousness took hold. When he opened his eyes again, the darker-skinned guy—not Jake—was holding onto her hips as he rammed himself into her. She was on her elbows and knees, with her ass high. Her mouth was open. She moaned as he thrust, her boobs bouncing with the action. Through it all their focus was fixed on Pic’s cock, which was jutting straight up in front of him.
He’d never done anything with anyone after Clarence. No sex, no blow jobs. But he knew how to use his hands, because all guys did that, right? And what he needed, more than anything, was to release some of the pressure that was rising into his back. He felt as if a goddamn horse was kicking him there. But he couldn’t, because he was tied up.
I’m going to shoot off into the air.
Before he drifted off again, Jake pressed a kiss on his lips, then bent his head to Pic’s ear. “We’ve gotta get out of here. Try telling them you’ll screw without the drugs. Fight to keep your mind clear.”
Huh?
His eyes closed and his mind escaped to woozy oblivion, as snakes of pain coiled around his thighs. He felt hands on his cock and then she put her mouth there. Or his mouth. Pic froze for a second, at that thought, and then wondered whether what had closed around him was a mouth. And if the body part belonged to a guy…
Oh. No!
Panic subsided, slightly. He knew it was a mouth, because Clarence had taught him what teeth, tongue, and a throat felt like as somebody sucked him.
So maybe there’s a silver lining there, right?
Too scared to look down and see whether the mouth belonged to a male or female, Pic kept his eyes shut tight. Reality was—he was so goddamn horny he didn’t care. As whoever it was flattened their tongue along his shaft, Pic gave up resisting. There was only one way he knew to satisfy the urge that now burned a trail of fire from his groin, throughout his entire body.
He groaned, jerking his hips forward, instinctively going deep to assuage the cloying need. All he could do was jerk his hips forward, trying to release the pent-up energy. Hands cloyed at his balls. Fingers slipped between his butt cheeks. Bodies rubbed over him. Tongues licked him. And still, he kept his eyes closed, thrusting and praying for it to end.
Eyes closed. Eyes closed. Jesus. Please. Don’t let me see this. Help me.
Finally, as he exploded into the mouth, his stomach roiled with bitter nausea. Before his orgasm ended, he felt tears running off his face.
The next time he awakened, Pic had no idea how much time had passed. Hours? Days? He was dry. His stomach was rumbling with hunger. That wasn’t what worried him, though. He’d been hungry before. He could go days without eating, if he needed to. He hoped though, that what he was remembering hadn’t actually happened.
He hoped that he’d lived through the worst wet dream ever. Hope that it had only been a goddamn nightmare and that he’d awaken in Andi’s guesthouse, flittered through his brain. His hope faded, though, as hopes always did. His hard-as-a-rock, pounding like a steady-drumroll cock, told him that he was still living a sick fucking nightmare.
Literally.
He was naked and uncovered.
Yeah.
That hadn’t changed. Flipping to his stomach, to give whoever might be watching a view of his ass rather than his hard-on, he tried to get his bearings on what he was going to see when he opened his eyes. He was on a floor. He felt wooden slats under his searching fingers. Spaces where planks joined.
Goddammit, but my balls are aching.
He stilled his breathing. Tried to listen for recognizable sounds. There was nothing he could make out. Something was wrong with his hearing, anyway. Blood was rushing and pounding through his head—the one on his neck—with the same force that it was pounding through the head that had taken control of his body.
His groin felt like it was a tire that was filled to the point of blowout. He had maybe two more minutes before he started humping the floor. His hand. Anything.
He opened his eyes. A naked girl was in the corner. She had long blond hair, big blue eyes, huge boobs, and she was leaning against the wood-paneled wall, with her legs stretched in front of her. She gave him a slight, sad smile.
“Where am I?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What do they want?”
“For us to fuck.”
Oh.
Now it made sense.
Like none at all.
“Sex slavery?” He’d heard stories. Of people getting kidnapped, sold to rich old men. But thrown into a wooden cell so that he’d screw some girl? What kind of creeps were watching?
“Come here. It’s time. Make it look good.”
“I don’t even know you.”
She laughed. It sounded bitter. Like the hopeless, sad kind of laugh that came from the old homeless people in the shelters. “That’s…sweet. Don’t matter, though. I’ll see you again in a few days. Unless you…disappear. Best I can tell, they keep a rotation of you guys going. And then you…go. Away from here. Don’t know where.”
“A rotation?”
She shrugged. “Only thing that matters is getting to eat. Don’t ask me more, because I’ve got no clue. All I know, is some roo
ms are different. Sometimes there are props, and sometimes there’s more than one of you.”
“Of me?”
“Yeah. Like three guys lined up to fuck me. It goes on like that, for days. Then it stops. Then it starts again.”
He read acceptance in her eyes as she relayed the facts. “How long have you been here?”
She glanced upwards at the ceiling. His gaze followed hers. Cameras. Directly overhead and in the corners.
“Come here,” she said, her voice low and urgent.
He stood. Felt like covering himself, but couldn’t. He walked over to her, with his goddamn hard cock on display like a flagpole. He sank to the floor with a heavy thud. She turned to him, and wrapped herself around him so that her huge boobs were smashed against him. One pressed into his arm, the other slipped forward, caressing his chest.
Her mouth was on his ear. “I’ve lost track of time. A few months. Three. Four? I was living on the streets in San Francisco, then woke up in a hospital bed. They gave me these tits. Do you like them?”
Pushing back, without wanting to react, he did, because her tits were huge. Hard and soft at the same time, and her nipples were stiff peaks that stole one hundred percent of his attention. Hell. He didn’t think he could get harder, but he did. Pain shot from his balls, down his legs. It was only a matter of minutes before he’d be unable to resist what was so obviously the direction he needed to go.
“They fixed my nose,” she continued. “Took off a tattoo. Some of the guys start off like you. Nice. Hesitant. But you all get mean. Then it takes longer and longer for you to get off. I think it’s the drugs they give us to keep us horny.” Louder, she said, “They’ll give us food if we make it look good.”
“Good?”
She glanced into his eyes. “They like creative. Not missionary. They’re watching. I’m hungry. Please. I need to eat. Here. Will this help?”
She spread her legs wide and gave him a smile that seemed real. As she touched herself with one hand, his attention became riveted on what she was doing. One finger. Then two. Slipping inside of herself. In. Out. Faster. Faster, and he was mesmerized, because he’d never watched a woman do that. Never seen that part of a female, so close. Her lips formed an o, while her eyes were on his cock. As she panted, she lifted a hand to him. He slipped his hand in hers, letting her guide him, so that his fingers replaced hers.
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