Blindfold: The Complete Series Box Set (39 page)

Isadora sat tucked up in a fat chair in the library, blankets piled around her. There was a pitcher of tea within arm’s reach as well as several books, snacks, anything she could possibly need. Doug and the rest of the staff had been hovering from pretty much the moment we stepped inside.

I was grateful.

My bedside manner when it came to physical issues wasn't the best. I wouldn’t have thought about tucking her into a chair or grabbing a lot of blankets. For that matter, I wouldn’t have thought about taking her into a big, warm room right in the middle of the house, either. I would have helped her to her bedroom and then offered to listen if she needed to talk. That's what I was training to do. But it was clear that was what Isadora needed.

She gave Doug a grateful smile as he topped off her glass. “I’m fine. Best I’ve felt in...” Her voice trailed off. After a moment, she murmured, “A while. It’s been a while.”

Ash looked like he wanted to hit something. I leaned over and whispered, “Easy, baby. She doesn’t need to see you get worked up.” The endearment slipped out, but he didn't acknowledge it.

His jaw clenched, but he managed a terse nod.

When Isadora glanced over at us, I moved toward her and propped a hip on the sturdy arm chair. “They’ve got you set up in style here. I don’t think I’m even needed.”

“Yes, you are.” She looked squeamishly at the IV in her left arm. A visiting nurse would be by the check on it and change out the bag in the morning, but until then, it was up to me to watch it.

“Just don’t look at it.” To emphasize my advice, I reached over and caught the sleeve of her robe, tugging it down. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Ash came up on her other side. “Do you want to rest?”

“No.” Isadora licked her lips and looked over at the staff hovering around. “Actually, I want to talk to you. Alone. Can you...?”

Without waiting for Ash to say it, Doug hustled everybody out. I was on my feet, heading toward the door when she said my name. “You don’t have to go, Toni.”

I paused and looked back at her. “I don’t think you need me in here for...whatever.”

“I want you in here.” She managed a weak smile and some of the old Isadora was in it. “You seem to be keeping Ash under control, although how you’re managing it, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know about that.” I slid her a narrow look as I moved back into the room. The doors shut behind me. There was another fat, comfy chair angled not too far from Isadora and I sat there, hovering on the edge with my elbows on my knees.

“My kidnapping was never about the ransom.” She made a face and clarified, “Well, it was about money, but they chose me for a reason. Because of our parents, Ash.”

“You told me that at the hospital.” He came over to her. A few feet away, he caught a heavy table and dragged it closer, sitting on it. Now he was close enough to touch her if he needed to, but he wasn’t crowding her.

“I know. I just...” She darted a look at the door and then back at Ash and me. “I didn’t tell the FBI everything, Ash. I don’t trust them. I can’t. Not after what I heard.”

The terror trembled in her voice and her eyes widened. Her pulse fluttered visibly in her throat.

“What did you hear?” I leaned forward, drawing her attention toward me, away from the thundering look of rage on Ash’s face. She needed to see encouragement, not anger.

“They...” Her voice cracked. “Toni, our parents died in a car accident. It was years ago, but I heard them talking about it. The kidnappers. And I don’t think it was an accident. I think they planned it. I think they killed them. And this guy...the one in charge, he was going to kill me too. That was why I escaped, why I ran.”

Chapter 9

Ash

“You didn’t see anything that I can give to the cops? The FBI?”

Isadora flinched at my tone, and I knew I had to stop, take a deep breath. Her lower lip trembled and I wanted to pick her up and rock her the way I had when she'd been a child, when she'd cried after our parents had died, when the nightmares had woken her. But she wasn’t a child anymore,

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling my chair closer to hers. I went to take her hand, then stopped. It was the one the IV was feeding into. She held out the other one and I took it, twining our fingers together. “I’m just worried. We have to find answers, or we're never going to be safe.”

“I know.” She yawned and knuckled at her eyes. “I want them, too.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her gaze sliding to the door, to Toni, and then back to me. She appeared to be thinking hard. “The one guy, he...”

My heart lurched, jumped up into my throat. “What?” I forced myself to keep my voice down.

“I don’t know, not exactly. He was always vague and he never really spoke much around me. But once, somebody asked him a question about why this was taking so long. He laughed and said a few days, a week, that wasn’t long. He’d been waiting for years, and he’d keep on waiting if it got him what he wanted. Then he mentioned the wreck and...”

“It was an accident,” I said, my voice wooden. “Dad lost control of the car.”

“Maybe.” Isadora smiled weakly. “Or maybe not. I mean, it was up in no-man’s land, right? The car was destroyed. We couldn’t have an open viewing. It’s not like there was a lot of evidence. Maybe...” She sucked in a breath and then blurted out, “I’ve been thinking about this. A lot. I had to think, focus on something when I was there, or I’d go crazy. But maybe it wasn’t a wreck. Maybe it was staged to look like one by somebody. Somebody so good that the cops didn’t think to look deeper. If all the evidence was destroyed by the car exploding...”

“There’s almost always evidence,” Toni said from behind me.

I shot her a look, eyes narrowed.

She simply stared back for a long moment. Then she looked at Isadora. “The perfect crime is a crock, sweetheart. There's no perfect crime. There's always something, no matter how small, how insignificant. If this was in the middle of nowhere, it’s possible the police department–”

“Sheriff’s,” I corrected. “A sheriff’s department handled all of it.”

“Okay. Then maybe the sheriff’s department went on appearances. They aren’t supposed to, but if your parents didn’t seem to have any reason for somebody to kill them and nothing looked out of place, it seemed like an open and shut case.”

“Our parents were rich.” I laughed bitterly. “Wouldn't that have been reason enough?”

“Loaded or not, they’d only look at the people they saw as possibly benefiting.” She chewed on her lower lip for a second. I could see the mental war waging. Finally, she said, “People like a partner. Or an...heir.”

That caught me off-guard. It also shut me down flat, because I had absolutely no response for it.

A soft, sleepy sigh had me glancing at Isadora instead of trying to figure out what to say to Toni's comment. Her lashes were drifting down over her eyes.

A moment later, she jerked her head up, blinked and refocused. “Toni, if being loaded wasn’t enough, what else...” She yawned again.

“Okay. That’s enough.” Toni stood. “Isadora, you need to get some sleep.”

“But...” She looked over at me.

“Ash, come here a moment.” Toni crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me. I stared back, mostly because that pose did amazing things for her breasts, but after a second, I rose.

She turned away and headed out into the hall. I looked back at Isadora to tell her I’d be right outside, but her head had already slumped. Her breathing was slow and even, her expression more relaxed than I'd seen since she'd first gotten back.

“That girl is exhausted,” Toni said the second I looked at her.

“Are you reading my mind now?” I asked mildly. Leaning my shoulder against the door jam, I let my gaze slide back down to her chest.

Toni snapped her fingers and pointed to her face. “My face is here.”

“I know.” I grinned at her. “It’s a nice one too. There are just other parts of you that are equally as distracting.”

“You’re insane.” She shook her head and laughed softly as she glanced back in at Isadora. “She needs to rest. That was the whole point of bringing her home from the hospital, so she could rest. So...go.”

She made a shooing motion at me.

“Go where?” I raised an eyebrow.

“To bed. Or work. Go running. It doesn’t matter. Just give her some space so she feels like she can rest.”

I reached out and hooked my hand in the front of her pants, drawing her closer. My stomach clenched when I heard her breathing hitch. “I have a better idea.” I lowered my mouth to her ear and murmured, “How about I take you up to my room and bend you over the side of the bed and fuck you until neither of us can think straight?”

She swallowed hard. “I’m supposed to be watching Isadora.”

“She’s sleeping. She doesn’t need watching right now.” I reached down and cupped her, grinding the heel of my palm against her. “I, on the other hand, need you.”

Her lashes fluttered and I rubbed her again, using my body to back her up until she was leaning against the wall with me pressing into her. It never ceased to amaze me how she could be so tiny, so much smaller than me, but I never felt like I could overwhelm her.

“Say yes, Toni.” I added pressure when her breathing went ragged. Fuck, I needed her.

“Yes.” She sighed. “Yes, you bastard. Yes.” Then she pulled away and shot me a dark look. “In a minute.”

I grabbed for her again, but she'd already ducked back through the door. Following her inside, I watched as she moved to the chair and fussed with it, easing the head back until Isadora was mostly reclined. My sister half-woke, muttering something that made Toni smile.

When she came back to me a few minutes later, she had an eyebrow cocked and challenge glinted in her eyes. I suddenly decided the bed wasn’t what I wanted. It was too soft, and right now, I didn't need soft. I needed hard.

Which meant I wanted to keep her in place and I knew the perfect spot to do it.

I took her hand and led her down to my play room. I wasn't going to use toys today, but I did want the bench I had in there. It was exactly the right height and made for what I needed.

Less than two minutes later, Toni was squirming against the weight bench, her naked ass in the air, her breasts pressed flat against the padded leather, her hands bound underneath her.

“At some point,” I said, stroking her hair away from her face. “I’m going to take you to Olympus and get us into one of the VIP rooms. They’ve got toys in there like you wouldn’t believe. Even more than I have here.”

“What, you mean like a hula hoop? A Barbie doll?” she quipped, jerking on the padded cuffs I’d used to restrain her wrists.

“No.” I laughed. “No hula hoops. And the dolls I've heard about aren't really for kids.” I ran my hand down her back and over the curve of her ass. “But they do have canes. I’ve never much been for caning or whipping, but I’d love to see your ass all red and hot for me.”

She sucked in a slow breath and my stomach flipped as I realized it wasn't disgust or rejection.

“That idea excites you, doesn’t it?” My voice was low, gravelly, as I moved behind her, undoing my pants as I went. I shoved them down and kicked them aside.

“Actually, I’m just wondering if you’ll get past the talking stage – ah!”

She cried out as I shoved inside her. Her cunt was hot and wet, squeezing around me. Fisting a hand in her hair, I jerked her head around so I could see her face. “You have no idea how much I love that smart mouth of yours.”

I traced her lips with my fingers. She opened her mouth and I pushed my first two fingers inside. She bit down and I felt it in my balls, like she was licking and biting on my cock instead of my fingers.

“If I shoved my cock in your mouth, would you suck and bite it like that?”

“Yes.” She clamped down on me with the tight muscles of her pussy. “But not yet. You have to make me come first.”

It was a challenge, a warning, a dare.

I should have pulled out and spanked her. She didn’t give the orders. I did. If she'd been any other Sub, I would've punished her, then taken my pleasure. I would've left her gasping and wanting. Sent her home without letting her come.

Instead, I accepted the challenge and drove into her hard enough to make her wail.

And then I made her come.

While her pussy was still quivering, I pulled out and walked around to the front of the bench. Tangling one hand in her hair, I held her head steady as I pushed my glistening cock between her lips. Even with her eyes still glazed from her orgasm, she began to work her mouth around me. My hips rocked forward in a non-verbal warning. When her eyes met mine, I saw her consent and began to thrust into her mouth.

It was over too quickly, her mouth too hot, too skilled. I cried out her name as I emptied myself in her mouth and she swallowed every drop, continuing to work her tongue over me until I recovered enough to pull out.

Neither of us spoke as I untied her, rubbing her wrists and arms, then her legs. I'd need to clean up in here, but that would have to wait until later. We needed to sleep more. I hauled her up into my arms and started to walk, still naked, through the house.

She squirmed as soon as I opened the door. “Put me down! I need clothes.”