The truck came to a stop, parking brake yanked, then the two doors opening and slamming shut. The truck rocked with the two big cops getting out; the tailgate banged again and someone grabbed her ankles and she yelped. She started kicking.
Hands slapped her bare legs, whacking her thighs with bright wet sounds. The men kept saying “Stop, stop, stop,” but she didn’t. Then they had her held, someone getting his arms around her legs and clamping them. Still she struggled, squirming in their grip, arms twisted up and bound behind her back.
Two men carried her out of the truck, walking with her, one man at her torso with an arm hooped around her ribcage, the other at her legs, an arm around her knees. The hood closed around her face, mouth and chin sticking out, and she couldn’t see a thing.
They set her down, but someone held her bound wrists. She hunched forward, trying to stretch the hood hole so she could see out.
A finger tucked into the hole, tugged it, and now she was looking at the baton cop, smiling even wider now. The blade of a knife was raised between them, shining as bright as the cop’s smile. A hunting knife, or maybe a combat one—huge and sharp, with a serrated spine.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, surprised to hear such fear in the voice of an Armbruster woman. She was afraid—but if she could turn the tables, she would make these men pay.
A familiar voice said, “Don’t be difficult and maybe we won’t have to hurt you.”
Baton cop stepped away, and she saw the man who spoke. Shackelford. He stood squinting in the glaring sun, lounging against the hood of his rental car. In his hand, pointing down against his thigh, he held a pistol.
She said, “You’re not even a lawyer, are you?”
“I was at one time,” he said. “You going to be good?”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
He ignored her question, nodded his chin to baton cop who then disappeared behind her. She struggled, trying to twist around, not wanting him out of her sight holding that knife, but whoever held her bound wrists was strong.
A deep voice behind her: “Hold still.”
She did. The knife was placed between her wrists then sawed back and forth. The zip tie snapped and her arms leapt free. Before she even had time to soothe them, baton cop had the back of her sweatshirt and he yanked it upward, pulling it over her head. She squawked and struggled, hunching forward to resist him, but it was pulled up and over, her T-shirt coming with it. It was tugged inside out, wet cop’s big bare arms wrapping around her bare tummy, his sun-heated skin hot against the cool wet of hers. She struggled and kicked as she was stripped but he hoisted her off her feet in a bear hug. Shackelford showed her the gun again, not pointing the barrel at her just wagging it and sneering like it was Show and Tell.
Her sweatshirt was tossed aside where it landed on the macadam with a wet slap. The wet cop set her down. She stood in a ring of men; three big island cops, and the man who had pretended to be her lawyer. All she wore now was a pale pink bra, her shorts and sneakers. She rubbed her wrists while all the men stared at her.
It was clear now where they were. Behind Shackelford and his car was an open-mouthed steel Quonset hut framed with ragged palm shrubs. There were oil drums inside, a desk, a motor on a jack stand; behind that, the arched ceiling of the Quonset was large enough to host the skeletal frame of a Cessna plane being taken apart or restored. The grassy field had a strip of beaten earth. It was a small island airport.
She sucked her teeth, gave Shackelford the most confident stare she could muster. She said, “Is somebody going to read me my rights?”
Shackelford flashed a smile. It faded. “Honey, you’re very far from home. You don’t have any rights here.”
Above them, boring out from the huge deep blue sky, a drone began. All eyes turned upward, and soon a white dot winked sunlight back at them. A plane approaching.
Nothing was said as they all watched it circle once, come around to align with the red dirt strip that ran the grass clearing and descend for a landing.
* * *
The side door on the pristine, unmarked plane opened downward on hydraulics, and a set of airstairs telescoped to touch the ground. A man emerged in the doorway, then descended the steps.
Last time she’d seen this guy he was crushing her phone under the heel of his handmade shoe. Now approaching them with his hands in his pockets, he wore a crisp linen suit in dove gray. But she knew what the man looked like underneath.
Julian Mann eyed her with an arrogant smile as he approached, but when he joined the group, he addressed Shackelford. With his hand held out, he said, “Bernie.”
The man who’d told her he was her lawyer shook hands, said, “Perfect timing, Julian, we just got here.”
Now Julian Mann crossed his arms and regarded her. His eyes were narrowed, but the sun lit up the gray in them; here in the tropics they almost looked blue.
Still looking at her, he said, “Why is she wet?”
Shackelford looked to the baton cop who said, “Crazy bitch jumped in the pool.”
Shackelford laughed, and Mann grinned. He approached her now, and her posture stiffened. She’d crossed her own arms over her bra to hide herself. Julian said to her, “You are trouble. Everywhere you go, you’re trouble.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about yourself,” she said, rearing her head back as he reached out to touch her cheek.
His hand paused near her, persistent to touch her. He said, “You’re the intruder in my life. Not the other way around.”
“We can agree to leave each other alone.”
“Far too late for that now.”
“It’s just a dumb picture,” she said. “I don’t know why you’re being such a psycho.”
The grin he held faded, and his expression turned serious. “That’s your greatest failure. To not see what it is you’ve done.”
“What’s thirty, forty grand to you?”
The grin returned. “Oh, you think this is a negotiation? How cute. No, I’m not here about the photo anymore. I’m not paying you a dime for it, nor will anyone. I’m here to teach you a lesson.”
As he spoke, he handled her hair, studying it. Now his hand came away, and he looked at the black smudges on his palm and fingers.
He said, “What is this?”
She hesitated. “Shoe polish.”
“You colored your hair with shoe polish?”
“It was last minute. They don’t exactly have a CVS on the island.”
“But they had shoe polish.”
“They had shoe polish.”
“You’re feisty, aren’t you?” His eyes studied her face, and she felt herself shrinking from him. He was tall, his presence was enormous; the guy exuded power and control. And wow, did he smell good.
She said, “Please, let me go. I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
“Miss Armbruster, you haven’t learned a thing, have you?” Shackelford had retrieved a rag from the desk in the Quonset hut and handed it to Julian. He cleaned the black from his palm.
She said, “I have. Really, I have. I just want to go home, please. I have classes, my friends will miss me, they all know what I did, I can’t just go missing...”
“You thought you could control me when you showed me the picture in my office.” He was smiling again, but it was unnerving, and it frightened her more than if he appeared grim.
She said, “I was giving you a chance, I was offering you a chance to buy it before I sold it to someone else...”
“Bernie?” Julian called out without looking. “What was your verdict?”
“Blackmail. Definitely blackmail.”
“Naughty girl,” Julian said, very close to her, eyes on hers and wilting her like a dying flower.
It hit her: the way Shackelford behaved, the cool confidence, the deviousness, the superiority, the way he stood hip-cocked with his aviator sunglasses...
She said, “Oh, shit. You were a lawyer, now you’re not... You went to school with Ju
lian, didn’t you? Now you’re a CIA agent or something...”
Shackelford said, “Close. But what agency I work for, you’ve never even heard of.”
Julian Mann had his hands in his pockets again, was walking backward now and smiling, saying, “Come with me, Miss Armbruster.” He headed toward the opening of the Quonset hut.
One of the island cops standing behind her tented his fingers on the bare skin of her back and urged her to walk. She stumbled forward, taking hesitant steps to follow Julian Mann with her hands tucked in her opposite armpits, hiding her breasts from all the watching men.
She stopped when he stopped, about eight feet apart. He lifted a polished shoe and rested it on the lip of an oil drum. The guy might be a billionaire and dressed in a ten-thousand-dollar suit, but he was strong; one shove with his heel and he toppled the oil drum. It clanged on the hard pack and rolled toward her feet before stopping, its liquid contents sloshing around inside the metal.
Shackelford and the three big cops came from behind and circled her.
Julian removed his suit jacket and used the hoop sewn in its collar to hang it from the airplane motor sitting on its red-painted hoist. “Miss Armbruster, would you please lay your tummy over the barrel.”
“What...? No.”
A patient smile flashed on his face, but in his eyes there was scary determination. She would lie over the barrel.
She tried a new tack. “Why?” she asked in a frightened whimper. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Miss Armbruster,” he said now, not looking at her, rolling up a shirt cuff and revealing the blades of muscle in his tanned forearm, “over the barrel, please. Now.”
“But why?” she asked, a cop’s fingers pushing on her back, her feet taking a few steps so her toes neared the curve of the rusted old oil drum. “What are you going to do?”
“Belly over the barrel, please,” he said with stern command, the edge of impatience tightening his tone now. His hands gathered at his waist, unwinding the strap of his belt from the buckle.
She stooped, mind racing with all the ways she could resist, all the snarky things she could say. She was fast; the idea she would run wasn’t impossible, but then Shackelford had the pistol. And the cops didn’t exactly look slow, either. And where would she run? Where would she go? She didn’t even know where she was, and should she get to the airport, how would the police even let her on the plane? She was trapped on the island.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she said, her eyes traveling across the faces of all the men watching as she put her hands on the sun-hot steel and lowered herself to drape her tummy over the curve of the drum.
The metal scorched the sensitive skin of her stomach and she made a soft cry she hoped none of them heard, or hoped if they did hear, perhaps it would inspire some kindness. Maybe they had daughters of their own.
Julian withdrew his belt from the loops of his pants and folded it over three times so it made a short strap. Now he went to one knee behind her and she felt his hand on her bottom. She flinched and jumped; her thighs started a funny quiver. A sudden dreadful thought came to her: this man would dominate her in front of the other men, he would fuck her from behind while they all laughed and whooped.
“Please, please, don’t hurt me,” she said again, looking straight ahead into the gritty depths of the Quonset hut, afraid to see what Julian might intend to do to her.
He said, “There is a lesson to be learned here, Miss Armbruster, and I’m afraid you are an inattentive student.”
“Please, I’m listening...”
“Good,” he said, “then I’d like you to unbutton your shorts for me.”
“Unbutton them?”
“You hear me just fine.”
“But...”
“Unbutton them, Miss Armbruster.”
Using her toes to lift her hips higher, she got her hands underneath her, found the button of her shorts, and worked it out of its hole.
Julian said, “Now gather your hands under your chin, please.”
“Okay,” she said in a timid voice and put her hands under her cheek and chin.
Julian’s hand tucked into the back of her shorts. She could feel the warmth of his skin against hers. His fingers had slipped under her panties as well.
With one sharp tug, her shorts were yanked down and her buttocks were bared. The stitching gave a quick tearing sound. A cool breeze tickled at her ass cheeks and she bit at the inside of her lip knowing all these men were looking at her bared bottom.
She whispered over her shoulder, “What are you going to—”
Snap!
A thunderclap of red-hot pain flashed across her ass cheeks. Rolling shame and wet heat rose up her back like an approaching storm. Julian had spanked her with the gathered length of his expensive leather belt.
She hollered out, loud and anguished. A strand of spit flopped over her lower lip and down her chin. The men laughed at her as she wiped her mouth. When their laughter continued, she hid her face from them, hid away in her hands as her eyes filled with tears. She clenched her knees together and flexed her thighs but it had the effect of turning her rump up for more punishment.
The belt slapped across both cheeks again with astonishing precision. The sound was high and bright and it reverberated around the inside steel curve of the Quonset hut. She cried out once more. Now her anus and sex were throbbing like a toothache, and the anticipation of another strike had her pussy quivering and trembling.
Three more times the belt struck her, coming in regular, controlled syncopation.
“Turn up your chin, Miss Armbruster,” Julian said at her side. His hand rested over the back of her thigh just above her knee, warm and somehow reassuring. “Let the men see your shame.”
She did; rested her chin on her wrist and looked straight ahead. The cops’ and Shackelford’s faces were turned to regard her but she wouldn’t make eye contact, only saw them in her periphery. She could register their snide smiles and knew they all thought this was hilarious. Her lips thinned, and she tried not to cry but her chin dimpled and then a wild tremble began that she couldn’t control. She had to hide her face again. It made them all laugh harder. More tears streamed down her cheeks but she wouldn’t let them see.
“Uh-oh,” Julian said behind her. “What do we have happening here?”
“What?” she mumbled wetly into her forearms.
“Bernie, come and see this.” Julian tugged her shorts lower as Shackelford went around behind her. Her legs shook. Julian’s thumbs pressed into the softness of her ass cheeks and he peeled her wide open, exposing her anus and vagina; cold air whisked against her warm wetness.
“Hey!” She kicked her feet, but Julian moved his body against her legs and pinned them. She struggled, but not enough to get away. Her calf pressed upward and into Julian’s crotch; his hardness pressed against her leg.
When she looked around, she saw the two handsome men examining between her thighs; looked down and saw Julian’s huge arousal pressing out the fly of his expensive linen suit pants.
Julian said, “She’s not wet from pool water. This little blackmailing brat is in heat.”
Chapter Four
Bent over a barrel in the hot tropical sun and surrounded by men who had so much power and control over her, a billionaire discovered that she was wet.
“She really is,” Shackelford said.
When Julian’s fingers touched her pussy, she just about died. Her heart jumped a beat, and it was like a kick in the chest. She gasped.
The tips of his fingers stroked her labia, guided her opening apart so they both could see her insides. Julian was right; she wasn’t wet from the pool. His fingers glided over her membranes like they were dipped in oil.
Shackelford said, “She has a nice one, doesn’t she?”
“Very pretty,” Julian agreed.
The cops wanted to see as well, and they sidestepped around the barrel to get behind her and look at her exposed pussy.
&nbs
p; Now Julian’s finger slipped up and teased a slow circle around the bud of her anus. Her toes pinched at the insoles of her Converse shoes. She moaned.
“Turn it up for us,” Julian urged, and she arched her back to raise her butt up a little higher.
Shackelford, crouched with his hands on his knees and getting a good look between her legs, said, “That’s a good girl.”
Julian slid a finger inside her and even she heard the wet sound of suction as her hot little pussy swallowed and squeezed at his thick digit.
Shackelford said, “She is so wet. You believe this?”
“And tight,” Julian said, withdrawing his finger then pushing it back in again. Her channel squeezed on him, her hands turned to claws, nails dragging on the curve of the oil drum, chips of paint wedging underneath.
She whispered, “What are you doing?”
“Teaching you a lesson,” Shackelford said.
Julian’s plunging finger worked quicker, dipping and teasing, plunging and swirling. Her stomach fluttered and, while she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help moaning in time with his thrusting finger.
He slowed, and she made a lowing sound; he penetrated her again, this time with two fingers. Her toes kicked up and down on the ground and her hands went to fists.
“It’s you who will be controlled, Miss Armbruster, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she hissed, her hips bucking backward to meet his thrusts.
“Now I see what kind of eager student you are,” he said, fingers plunging deep and fast. “I know the lessons you respond to.”
“Mm, yes,” she moaned, curling her lower back so her pussy raised to meet him.
“You can be a good girl for me?”
Her voice said “Yes,” but her face scrunched closed and she shook her head no.
“Yes or no, Miss Armbruster?”
His Captive Page 3
