Domination Inc. (29 page)

His words tailed off as Joe appeared in the doorway. Laurel was stunned to see that Joe, too, was wearing a police uniform.

‘Private fucking party, indeed,' Joe began, moving towards the bed and beginning to untie Laurel as Roger, the extinguished candle falling from his grip, struggled in Warren's arms with renewed purpose.

‘You're not the police,' Roger said, realisation dawning. ‘Clive! Louisa! Come and help me deal with these idiots.'

Warren grinned. ‘I'm sorry, but your friends are tied up with other things at the moment.'

‘Well, they may be, but I'm not.'

Warren and Joe's heads turned at the sound of the voice behind them. Nina was standing there, brandishing the brass candlestick from the dressing table with every intention of using it as an offensive weapon.

‘Fucking hell, is this turning into
Cluedo
or what?' Warren observed. ‘It's Devon Rylance, in the bedroom, with the candlestick.'

This was the moment when Laurel, her left wrist now free, expected things to turn in Roger's favour. Joe had stopped unfastening the ropes that held her, and was staring at Nina as though stunned. Roger had almost broken free of Warren's grasp, and if he managed to do that it could only be a matter of time before his roster of captives rose to four. Somehow, in all the confusion she found her voice.

‘It's not Devon,' she croaked. ‘It's my stepsister, Nina. She's the one who betrayed us all. She's in league with Roger because she thinks if she sides with him she'll get my stake in the agency. Well, don't believe it, Nina. Join with him, and if anything goes wrong he'll dump you in it, just like he did with me.'

‘You bitch…' Joe flung himself at Nina, pushing her against the doorframe. He prised the candlestick out of her clenched fist and thrust her arm up behind her, so high that it must have been painful.

‘Get off me,' Nina cried, attempting to kick Joe in the shins, but she must have sensed that the balance of power was no longer in her favour, for she soon gave up.

Laurel was working on her remaining bonds, picking at the knots with her fingernails. Warren had taken the rope which had previously bound Laurel's left arm and was using it to tie Roger's hands behind his back. When a second rope was available, Joe wrapped it round Nina's wrists and fastened it securely.

‘Shall we leave them here?' he asked Warren. ‘I mean, the police are going to be here soon enough.'

Warren shook his head. ‘I've got something better in mind for these two,' he said. ‘Come with me. Laurel, bring the rest of the rope with you; we're going to need it.'

He led Roger out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Joe followed, frog-marching Nina, and Laurel brought up the rear.

‘Where's Cindy?' she asked Joe anxiously.

‘She's safe. She helped us inflict a suitable revenge on the Lawsons,' he replied.

They paused in the hallway. ‘Stunning as you look when you're naked,' Warren said to Laurel, ‘you're going to need some clothes.'

‘My coat's hanging up over there,' Laurel said. ‘Will that do?'

She retrieved it, along with her handbag, which was still underneath the coat stand, where she had left it. Belting the coat over her nakedness, she followed the others outside, wincing at the feel of cold sharp gravel beneath her bare feet.

‘Car keys, please,' Warren said. He took them from Laurel and unlocked the rear doors of her Peugeot, depositing Roger and Nina roughly in the back of the car. Joe got in beside the two prisoners.

‘Okay, you and Joe take them to the bottom of the drive and wait for me.'

He set off down the drive at a jog. Laurel slipped her feet into the scuffed but comfortable driving shoes she always kept in the footwell. She turned the key in the ignition, and heard the engine catch first time. Executing a neat turn in front of the house, she made her way to where Warren's four-wheel drive was waiting. Cindy was sitting in the passenger seat, buffing her nails with the pad of her thumb.

‘What've you brought those two for?' she asked, as Warren caught up with them, barely out of breath from his run.

‘We're taking them on a little adventure,' he replied. He hunted in the four-wheel drive's glove compartment and found an old torn envelope and a pen. Scrawling the words, ‘Look in the copse and all will be revealed,' on the back, he tucked the envelope prominently into the wrought ironwork of the gate.

‘Okay, let's go,' he said. Laurel followed Warren as he drove the five hundred yards or so down the road to a copse of twisted ash trees. Between the four of them they helped Roger and Nina out of the car, and led them into the centre of the little wood.

‘This should do it,' Warren said. He untied Roger, and motioned to Joe to do the same to Nina. Laurel and Cindy looked on, wondering exactly what he had in mind. His next order gave them some indication. ‘Right, you two, strip down to your underwear. And don't forget you're outnumbered two to one, so don't try to do anything smart.'

Glancing nervously at each other, Roger and Nina began to do as they had been told. Soon their clothes were in an untidy pile at their feet, and Roger stood shivering in a pair of clinging white underpants with a designer name featured prominently on the waistband, while Nina folded her arms in front of her breasts, which were cradled in a lacy red bra.

‘That as well, I think,' Warren said, gesturing to Nina's bra.

‘Is all this strictly necessary?' Laurel asked, unable to conceal the thrill of pleasure she felt at seeing her stepsister humiliated in this way.

‘Nah, not really,' Warren replied, ‘but it's fun.'

Nina had removed her bra and dropped it on top of the other clothes. Her nipples stood out prominently in the cold evening air, and Laurel found herself trying to ignore the jealous thought that Joe had already seen those nipples in a far more intimate context.

‘Now go and stand against that tree trunk.' Warren gestured to a particularly gnarled old ash. Roger and Nina obeyed him, their backs pressing uncomfortably against the rough bark, and it was mere seconds before he and Joe were fastening them both to the tree with the assorted lengths of rope they had brought with them.

‘Well, hopefully once the police have sorted out your friends and their little diversion, they should come looking for you,' Warren said. ‘Failing that, shout loudly and I'm sure someone will hear you eventually. I'd like to say it's been nice meeting you, Roger, but my mammy told me never to lie.'

He turned to leave the copse, but Laurel halted him. ‘Hang on, we haven't quite finished yet.'

If they were expecting her to make some impassioned speech, denouncing her stepsister and her former partner as the duplicitous low-lifes they undoubtedly were, they would be disappointed. There were times when actions were much more effective than words, she thought, reaching down to pluck a handful of the dark, fuzzy-leaved plants she had recognised as stinging nettles the moment she had entered the copse.

With a wicked smile she pulled the waistband of Roger's pants away from his body and stuffed a small bunch of the leaves down the front. He grimaced as she rubbed his crotch through the cotton, pressing the nettles against the skin of his cock and balls.

She took a second handful of nettles and advanced on her stepsister. The men had bound Nina so that her breasts emerged from coils of rope above and below. They were too visible and tempting a target to ignore. Laurel brushed the nettles across Nina's breasts and nipples, watching the irritated skin flushing a mottled red. Then she deposited them in Nina's lacy knickers, pushing them well in to make sure they rested snugly against the folds of Nina's sex.

‘You wicked little minx,' Warren said, with a smile of obvious approval, as they observed the agonised expressions on Roger and Nina's faces.

‘Now we can go,' Laurel announced.

She kept the car window open, so she could hear the howls of frustration and annoyance fading into the distance as she drove away.

 

‘So, do you think that's the last we'll hear of the pair of them?' Joe asked, as they sat in the living room of Laurel's flat.

‘I'd like to think so,' Laurel replied. ‘They'd be very foolish to try anything else, considering how we sent them both away with their tail between their legs.'

‘Well, something between their legs, anyway,' Warren retorted. ‘God, but that was a piece of ingenuity on your part, so it was.'

‘I almost hope they freed themselves before the police turned up,' Joe said, ‘if only so they could rub some dock leaves over their bits and pieces.'

‘Yeah, but Laurel should have seen what we did to the Lawsons,' Cindy said. ‘I'd have loved to have seen the expressions on the police's faces when they saw that snooty cow tied up and shafting her old man up the arse with a double-ended dildo.'

Cindy drained the last drops from her glass. On arriving back in London, they had stopped at an all-night convenience shop close to Laurel's flat and acquired a bottle of champagne with which to toast their victory over Roger. While Laurel and Cindy had shared a long, leisurely bath, washing their hair and spending plenty of time soaping each other's breasts and backs, Joe and Warren had busied themselves in the kitchen, cooking pasta and a rich tomato sauce to go with it. To Laurel's surprise they had managed to do so without using every pan in the place and leaving the work surfaces looking like a building site. Now, the four of them sat discussing their success in keeping the agency out of Roger and Nina's greedy hands.

Cindy did her best to suppress a yawn, but Joe noticed her drooping eyelids.

‘I think it's time someone was in bed,' he said gently. ‘Come on, Cindy.' He scooped her up off the settee. In the overlong night-shirt she had borrowed from Laurel, and with her petite frame, she looked like a doll in his arms. She clasped her hands round the back of his neck, and let him carry her into Laurel's bedroom.

‘I suppose Joe and I should be leaving once he's tucked Cindy in,' Warren said. ‘You'll be needing your rest, too.'

Laurel shook her head. ‘I feel too wired to sleep,' she admitted. ‘I'm still on a high from what's happened.' She reached out for her own glass, suddenly aware that, as she did so, the neck of her dressing gown was drooping open, affording Warren a perfect view of her breasts. Despite the fact that he'd seen her naked and tied to the Lawsons' bed earlier in the day, the thought that she was displaying herself to him in this way caused a quick pulse of arousal to beat between her legs.

He glanced up, making no secret of where his gaze had previously been directed. ‘Well, there are two things that are guaranteed to help you get off to sleep. One's a hot milky drink, and the other's masturbation.'

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. ‘And which of those do you recommend in my case?' she whispered, aware of Joe and Cindy's faint conversation in the adjoining room.

‘Definitely the latter,' he replied. ‘Preferably with an audience.'

Laurel remembered the words Cindy had spoken in the car on the way down to the New Forest: ‘He'd tell you to play with your pussy, and you'd do it'. Well, now she knew that to be the truth. Still confused about what Joe really felt for her, she was at least certain that hiding her own feelings when it came to her sexual desire was no answer. At this moment, she wanted Warren to prove his dominance over her with a need so desperate it was almost painful.

‘I don't think I could go that far,' she lied.

‘Of course you could, and you will,' he replied, in the low, commanding voice she had first heard him use in the pub what seemed a lifetime ago.

‘But what if Joe comes in?' she asked.

‘Don't be stupid, Laurel. He wants to see you play with yourself just as badly as I do. To tell you the truth, he wants it more than I do. The guy's mad about you.'

‘But I thought it was Nina he was in love with.'

Warren gave a contemptuous snort. ‘In her dreams. Where would you get a crazy idea like that? No, don't tell me. She told you that, right? The devious cow.' He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You should have given her a better going-over with those nettles.'

Laurel leaned forward again, refilling her own glass and Warren's, too. Her movements were deliberately exaggerated, and when she pushed his glass back across the table to him, her left breast fell free of the dressing gown. She hooked her legs up under herself, so that the join of her thighs was almost visible to Warren where the gown was loosely belted.

‘You wanted me to touch myself,' she reminded him, her hand absent-mindedly caressing her exposed nipple.

‘I know what I wanted you to do,' he replied, ‘but it's typical of a little slut like you to distract me from my purpose. If you don't behave you'll be touching yourself while you're over my knee, getting a few slaps on that impudent arse of yours...'

‘Who's got an impudent arse?' Joe asked, coming back into the living room. His eyes widened at the sight of Laurel in her state of undress, her fingers toying with her hard nipple.