“But that’s a real possibility. Isn’t it?”
Aiden pulls back and meets my gaze. His blue eyes are darker than usual, and he gives me a barely perceptible nod. “Get some sleep,” he says as he slides off the bed with obvious discomfort, adjusts his jeans, and limps across the room to where he left the pillow and blanket. “I’ll be here. All night.”
15
Aiden
My watch ticks over to 9:00 p.m., and I’m still sitting against the wall, watching Dahlia sleep. Her eyes are sunken, her cheek swollen where Paulie hit her. I watched the surveillance video while the soup heated. And then I punched him again.
A light knock sends me shooting to my feet. Dahlia doesn’t move, and I unlock the door and motion for Sylvio to back the fuck up. “What do you want?” I hiss as I step into the hall.
“We’re leavin’ tomorrow at ten and taking the girl back to Ricci’s house.”
Cold dread snakes its fingers around my heart. “Why?”
“Mickey made contact. Through his lackey. Noah Healy?” Sylvio heads for the main room, and it’s a damn good thing Paulie’s snoring from the bedroom at the other end of the cabin, because otherwise I’d probably lay into him again.
“And?” If he tells me I’m supposed to hand Dahlia over to Ricci without a fight, I’ll kill him right here. And then take Dahlia and run.
“Mickey will make the trade. But he wants proof of life. In San Francisco. At Ricci’s place. Only then will he consider settin’ a time and place for the exchange.” Sylvio picks up a log and tosses it onto the fire. “Ricci isn’t satisfied. He still wants Mickey’s head on a platter, but he’s willin’ to let him have the girl—if Mickey brings the cash and all of his financial records for the past ten years.”
“I told you, Sylvio…Dahlia’s mine. No one else is laying a single fucking hand on her.”
He arches a brow at me. “Tell that to Ricci and see how long you live.” Before I can protest further, he holds up a hand. “Look, man, I know you want her. Hell, I don’t blame you. She’s got a nice pair of tits on her.”
I growl and start for him, but he blocks my punch with his arm and then pins me against the side of the hearth.
“You try that again and I’ll end you, Aiden.”
Despite all my training, all the rehab, how often I push my body to its physical limits, I can’t best Sylvio in a fight. I know it. And he knows it. Still, I meet his gaze. “Don’t disrespect her like that again, asshole.”
“Whatever.” He drops his hold. “She’s going back to Ricci’s. You try to fuck with that, and you’ll end up at the bottom of the bay. Enjoy the night,” he says as he shoves me back towards my room. “Because after we get to Ricci’s, I doubt you’ll ever see the girl again.”
***
When I slip back into the bedroom, Dahlia’s sitting up in bed, her knees pulled to her chest. “I woke up, and you were gone,” she says, her voice cracking.
“I’m sorry. I needed…Sylvio…shit.” How do I tell her? I can’t. Because I won’t let Ricci—or anyone else—take her. “Go back to sleep, mon jouet.” I reach over and turn off the light, and Dahlia cries out.
“No. Please. Turn it back on,” she gasps.
When I do, the panic written all over her face has my heart in my throat, and I’m at her side in three steps. “What’s wrong?”
“I…can’t…don’t like… the dark…” She’s starting to hyperventilate again, and I take her hand and press it to my neck.
“Dahlia Rose, listen to me. Now,” I say, using the voice I reserve for my nights at Whips and Chains. The one she’s responded to time and time again. “Feel my pulse. Focus on the beat.”
“Aiden.” Another wheezing breath, and she shudders. “Don’t…let…go…”
“I won’t. You’re mine, Dahlia. Always mine. I’m going to make sure you never forget it.” Surging forward, I slant my lips over hers. Her hand is still pressed to my neck, and her fingers curl, holding me closer, as close as we can be with her knees still drawn up between us.
Dahlia’s tongue darts out and teases mine, and something deep inside me breaks free. This primal urge to claim her, to have her want me as much as I want her…it’s overwhelming. She was my plaything. But now, she’s my whole heart.
Sometime in the past twenty-four hours, my obsession with her has turned into more. Much more. Her strength amazes me. But in the back of my mind, something doesn’t make sense. I break off the kiss to meet her gaze. “Dahlia, what is it about the dark? I blindfolded you at the club. Three years ago.” I link our fingers and bring her hand up, planting a firm kiss to her palm. “You loved it then.”
She seems to deflate in front of my eyes, her shoulders curving inward. “A couple of weeks ago,” she says softly, “I was mugged.”
A growl builds in my chest, and I have to stop myself from pulling her close. I don’t think she’d welcome my touch right now. “Tell me.”
She recounts every moment. How frightened she was inside that dumpster, injuring her hands so badly trying to get out, and why she came back to San Francisco.
“I’m broke,’ she admits as she swipes a tear from her cheek. “I spent all my savings on the move, and I don’t even know if I have a job anymore. If the community college administrator doesn’t approve my request to transfer to days…I don’t think I can go back there. My father’s lawyer sent me the safe deposit box key a few weeks after he died. I never wanted anything to do with it. But…I didn’t have a choice.”
She lapses into silence for a moment until she shudders and clutches at my arms. “I’m never going home to Seattle again, am I? Don’t lie to me, Aiden. Either Ricci will kill me, or…those two out there…”
“I’ll die before I let Ricci have you, Dahlia.” Despite my declaration, I know she’s right. There’s no way Dahlia Rose Ryan—or Deanna Raskins—can ever be free again. Not unless Frank Ricci is dead and buried. The beginnings of a plan start to take hold, but I can’t share it with her yet. Not until I can get access to my phone.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.” I slid off the bed, prepared to return to my blanket by the door, but Dahlia reaches out and grabs my hand.
“Stay. Here. Please.” Her plea shoots straight to my dick, and I freeze. “I don’t want to be alone. Can you just…hold me?”
Fuck, yes. I will my arousal to calm, then nod at her and round the bed. Dahlia pulls back the blankets, and I kick off my shoes. “Um, these jeans aren’t exactly…”
“Twelve hours ago, you stripped me naked and put me on display for your boss and…my father,” she says, anger and shame heating her tone. “I don’t care if you sleep in the nude or a full body rubber suit. As long as you’re close enough to stop them from touching me again.”
I strip off my jeans, then my flannel shirt. But as the light catches my scars, Dahlia draws in a sharp breath. “What happened to you?”
She ghosts her fingers over my shoulder, tracing the thick, raised lines, the slightly puckered skin.
I can’t tell her. That I was there the day her father was…thought to be killed? “Working for Ricci is…uh…” My brain chooses that moment to shut down, the connections misfiring and trapping my words behind a wall I can’t break until it wants to be broken.
“Aiden?” Dahlia kneels next to me and cups my cheek. “Talk to me.”
I shake my head, the only communication I’m capable of at the moment, and bury my face in her neck, inhaling her scent, the smell of my shampoo in her hair. She runs her hands up my back, to my shoulders, and into my hair, and then freezes. Gently turning my head, she smooths the hair away from my right ear. “What is this?”
“B-bullet,” I force out through a single crack in my damaged brain’s wall. That crack turns into a gaping maw, and I sigh. “Sorry.”
Dahlia guides me down next to her under the blankets, and I relax as I wrap my arms around her. The headache throbbing behind my right eye should fade in a few min
utes, and maybe I’ll be able to sleep with this strong, beautiful, alluring woman in my arms.
“Tell me.”
“Not a good story.”
“Well, that makes me even more curious.” She kisses my cheek and keeps stroking up and down my back.
“Got shot in the head.” I blow out a breath. “After it happened, Ricci sent me up to this cabin to recuperate. Spent six months here. Doctors. A physical trainer. A speech therapist. When I got out of the hospital, I could barely talk. Couldn’t walk or lift my left arm.”
“And now?” She settles closer to me, her lips only a breath away, our noses almost touching.
“When things get intense, I sometimes lose my words.” I slide my hand to her hip, under the flannel, and settle my fingers on the bare skin of her waist. “I’m maybe…ninety percent. With you, I’m more.”
Dahlia kisses me, and in this moment, nothing else matters but her.
16
Dahlia
I shouldn’t be doing this. Coming on to a man who kidnapped me. But I still cling to the memories from three years ago. How he bound me. How he spent every moment of our time together focused purely on me. On my safety. My happiness. My satisfaction. I want that again. One last time before…whatever happens next.
I have no illusions. I’m going to die. Either Frank Ricci will kill me, or my father is alive. And that…if Mickey Ryan lives, I’ll never be safe again.
Straddling Aiden, I let my hair fall in a curtain around us as I plunder his mouth. He tastes of toothpaste, fresh and minty. When his arms come around me, he’s careful of my bruises, but there’s nothing in his embrace that leaves me any chance of escaping. Not that I want to.
“You. Are. Mine.” His rough words thrill me, sending heat to my core, and I wriggle my hips against his hard length. “What is your safe word, Dahlia Rose?”
“Red,” I whisper, then add, “Master A.”
Aiden growls his approval and flips me over onto my back. “I need you to trust me, mon jouet. And it won’t be easy for you.”
“I trust you, Master A.”
He pushes up on his right arm so he can meet my gaze. “I won’t let them watch us. Do you understand what that means?”
Darkness. He’s going to turn off the light.
Red. Say red. Or…at least yellow. Anything.
But I don’t. Because I need this more than I need my next breath. More than I need to feel safe. More than I need the light.
“I understand, Master A.”
“You’ll feel me the whole time, mon jouet. I promise.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as he flips off the light and focus on the pressure of his cock against my hip. Aiden’s protected me from the beginning, but Master A…he can make my body sing and maybe…just maybe…I’ll forget everything else for a little while. Maybe with him, I can be free.
“Hands over your head, Dahlia. Hold on to the headboard for me.”
I reach up and thread my fingers through the wrought iron whorls.
“I’m going to undress you now. And you’re going to stay completely silent unless you need to safeword.” His lips brush my jaw, then trail kisses back to my ear, where his teeth close over the shell and send a shiver all through me.
One button at a time, he exposes my breasts, and the cool air in the room makes my nipples pebble. He slides an arm under me, raising me just enough to lift the shirt up and tie it around my wrists, then to the headboard. “There we go. You can relax your grip now, baby.”
For a moment, I panic as I let go and find my arms trapped, but then he kisses me again, and I’m back at Whips and Chains, blindfolded and bound and desperate for his hands on me.
Next, he loosens the drawstring of the fleece pants and eases them down my hips.
“God, mon jouet, you smell like heaven,” he whispers against my throat. Moving lower, he sucks one nipple into his mouth, scoring his teeth along the tight flesh and sending arousal straight to my pussy. “You were made for me. Only me.”
Only you.
I don’t speak—Master A forbade me from uttering a single word—but I wriggle under him, sending a subtle signal that I want his mouth on me. Lower, down where I’m so wet, I’m dripping. He takes his time, lavishing attention on each breast, kissing a trail down my stomach until he reaches my mound.
“Fuck me,” he growls as his tongue traces a lazy path through my folds. “I should have spent much more time tasting you three years ago, mon jouet. If I had, I’d never have let you go.”
I can’t stifle my whimper when he reaches my clit, and God, I need him so badly I feel like my entire body is about to implode. One finger slips inside me, and I arch my back, needing more. Needing everything.
When he adds a second and curls them against my G-spot, I whine, my heels scrambling for purchase as I try to get closer to his mouth. He pinches the inside of my thigh, hard.
“Stay still, Dahlia. Very still. Or I’ll punish you.”
Hissing out a breath between my teeth, I do my best, and he returns his focus to my throbbing nub. “This is mine, Dahlia Rose. Never forget that. Mine. All mine.”
Yours.
He starts to lick and suck harder, faster, and as he presses against my G-spot, his teeth scrape over my clit, and I shatter into pieces, my mouth open in a silent scream as my climax overtakes me.
I don’t care that it’s dark. I don’t care that I’m trapped in a house with men who want to use me, to trade me, even kill me. My entire world is Master A and the pleasure he brings me.
As my shudders subside, he fits his body to mine and kisses me, the taste of my own release heady on his tongue. “I want you, Dahlia. All of you.”
“Please, Master A. May I speak?”
“Yes, mon jouet. Mon couer.” He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear in the darkness, and I can almost make out the outline of his head and shoulder.
“I need you inside me…Sir.”
He growls, low in his throat, and touches his forehead to mine. “I don’t have protection here, Dahlia.”
“I’m on birth control, Master A. An IUD. I’m clean. Are…?” I snap my mouth shut, unsure if I’m allowed to question him.
“I am, sweetheart. Are you sure? Really sure?” He cups my cheeks and presses his lips to mine so tenderly, I want to cry. “I’m not your Master right now, Dahlia. I’m just Aiden. And you can say no, any time.”
“I want this, Aiden. Please. Make love to me.” I don’t think I can survive another minute without him inside of me, and when he moves, I hear the rustle of fabric as he shoves his briefs down his hips and they land on the floor.
Then his tip is nudging my entrance, and I part my legs for him. As he slides home, I gasp. He’s thick and so hard, he fills me completely. “Still green, mon couer?”
“Yes, Master A. So very green.” I can’t budge, his weight pinning me down, my wrists tied to the headboard, and his arms caging me, but I’ve never felt so safe. So complete.
When he starts moving his hips, his length rasps against my clit, and my own arousal starts to build again. His scent—spicy, all bergamot and sandalwood—fills my nose and then he’s kissing me. His tongue dances with mine as he thrusts harder and faster, grunting as he drives himself deeper.
He reaches down between us to fondle my clit, and with a groan, he spills into me, and the pressure, the delicious feeling of his cock, and his fingers on my most sensitive nub send me over the edge with him.
For one, blissful moment, the rest of the world fades away, and there’s only Aiden. Perfect, strong, protective Aiden.
17
Aiden
The first hints of light start to seep around the drapes, and I’m instantly awake. Not that I slept much overnight. I spent hours with Dahlia Rose in my arms, trying to decide just how stupid my plan was. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s our only hope. If I don’t get her far away from Sylvio, Paulie, and above all, Frank Ricci, she’ll never be free, and we’ll never be together like this again.
<
br /> I tighten my arm around her and whisper in her ear. “Dahlia, sweetheart, wake up.”
She does so with a start, and her eyes fly open, panic swimming in the green depths.
“We’re getting out of here, but you need to do exactly what I say, without question. Do you understand?”
She nods slightly and wriggles closer to me.
“When we leave, they’re going to want you tied up again. Probably hidden under a blanket in the back of the SUV. But I’m going to put one end of the rope in your hands. You’ll need to work it a little, but you should be able to get yourself free with a few minutes’ work. There’s a gas station an hour down the mountain that’s usually pretty busy. I’ll tell Sylvio and Paulie that I’ve got to take a piss and they should fill up the tank. As soon as I open the door, you pop the back hatch and take off for the convenience store. I’ll be right behind you.”
“But…they’ll just come after us,” she whispers and clings tighter to me.
“Yeah, but there’ll be at least fifty people there. They’re not that stupid. You’re going to lock yourself in the women’s bathroom, and I’ll get someone to call the cops. You don’t open the door for anyone but me, you understand?”
“I understand.”
She can do this. I have to believe that. Shielding her as much as I can from where I think the cameras are in the room, I help her into a fresh pair of sweat pants and another of my shirts before finding clean briefs and tugging on my jeans and flannel. As I lace up my boots, the door slams open, the wood splintering, and I grab Dahlia Rose and shove her behind me.
Sylvio and Paulie advance on us, and Sylvio has a pistol pointed at my chest, while Paulie holds up my wallet. “You lost this. Want to tell us what’s going on?” Sylvio asks as he cocks the hammer.
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 77
