Finished (17 page)

She cried out, the move feeding the deepest of her needs. She struggled against his grip on her wrists, instinctively wanting to hold onto him, to pull him more deeply inside her. But he held her pinned firmly, rearing back before he stroked forward again, the force of his thrust shaking her body and hitting the bed against the wall.

He built up a hard, fast rhythm, taking her with a force and passion she’d never felt from him before. His cock drove into her deeply, hitting just the right spot, and the jiggling of her breasts and thighs and the shameless banging of the bed only intensified her developing orgasm.

Her legs bent up of their own accord, and she braced her heels on his ass to give her precarious position better stability.

Mike never looked away from her—his primal gaze shifting from her red face to her bouncing breasts and back with an instinctive possession she could hardly fail to recognize.

She squirmed and rocked, still helplessly trying to free herself although no part of herself really wanted to be freed. And she started to grunt out in time with his rhythm silly noises.

“Are you going to come, baby?” Mike rasped, looking for all the world like a caveman—primitive, rugged, and unkempt.

“Yeah. She fought to speed up his rhythm as the coiled pressure at her pussy tightened even further. “Yeah. Make me come.”

He made a noise in his throat—that sound that was almost a growl—and gritted out, “Come, baby. Come now.”

Either the delicious force of his rhythmic thrusts or the erotic sound of his voice did it. The pressure shattered and she bit off a scream as she convulsed beneath him.

He kept pushing through the contractions of her orgasm, sustaining the duration of her pleasure. Until he suddenly pulled out of her completely, her clinging pussy resisting the move.

She whimpered and tried to pull him back, but he had already adjusted above her.

Instead of getting up, as she’d expected, he’d slid down her body until he was kneeling on the floor.

“Mike?” She started to sit up but he pushed her back down. Then he grabbed her thighs in both hands and pushed her back toward the wall, so her bottom was more securely on the bed.

She tried to lean up once more, but he stopped her again, this time by prying her legs apart, exposing her wet, sensitive pussy to his view.

His eyes scanning her so intimately was so incredibly hot that she felt herself grow wetter as he stared. Then he leaned forward unexpectedly, closing his lips around her swollen clit and starting to suck.

The move was so startling and the stimulation so intense she came again, almost immediately, crying out as the spasms of pleasure surged through her.

He kept sucking, holding her thighs wide apart, until she came yet again, clawing at the thin bedding beneath her as she writhed.

She was almost sobbing when he rose up again and thrust back into her pussy, his cock penetrating her deeply, deliciously.

“Mike!” Her head flailed as she tried to process all the sensations—half physical and half emotional. “Oh Mike!”

His thrusts were faster and shorter this time. He didn’t pull out very far, just pushed against her body roughly and passionately.

He was panting so loudly she could hear it, despite her own whimpers and the loud sounds of the shaking bed. He adjusted his position then, bending his arms and propping his weight up on his forearms.

The move brought his chest down to hers, and her breasts rubbed against his, the hair on his chest ticking lusciously against her nipples. His face was closer now too, and she couldn’t look away from his intense, hungry gaze.

She’d never seen him—never seen anyone—look like him before.

His thrusts were still hard, and he grunted on each stroke. But they weren’t as rhythmic now, as his motion grew more urgent, more clumsy.

The loss of his control turned her on as much as his dominance had earlier. She tried to bite back her loud sounds of pleasure and abandon, but she couldn’t possibly stifle them.

Mike’s face was as flushed and damp as hers was, and his hair was sticking up on end, the way it always did after he made love. Since her hands were free now, she wrapped them around his neck and held onto him as tightly as she could.

“Mike,” she choked, “Mike, I love you. I love you.”

He made another guttural sound—this one less like a growl—and something transformed on his face. He didn’t stop fucking her, probably couldn’t stop at this point, but he leaned down and kissed her for the first time that day.

His kiss was hungry, open-mouthed, and clumsy, and she returned it with equal ardor. And they held the kiss as she came once more, the flood of feeling in her heart pushing her body into release.

She moaned into his mouth and clawed lines down the back of his neck as her pussy clenched around his cock. This time, he didn’t resist the pull of her orgasm. With a rough groan in the back of his throat, he let himself go, jerking a few times against her before she felt the spasms of his climax.

He came inside her—and for some reason she loved the feeling. Like she’d been claimed in a way she hadn’t been before.

His mouth was still moving against hers, his tongue stroking against hers slowly, when his body finally started to relax. He was softer now—blazingly hot and heavy on top of her—but softer. More familiar.

Still the Mike she knew.

She hugged him to her, not letting him pull away, and she stroked his back and hair with her hands.

They stayed that way for a few minutes, until Mike’s cock had fully softened inside her and she could feel the gush of their mingled fluids between her legs.

He was getting really heavy now, and she wasn’t in a terribly comfortable position.

She shifted a little and was relieved when he immediately rolled over, lying on his back beside her.

Julia closed her legs and rubbed her thighs together, her pussy feeling sore and overly sensitive—on top of being wet and rather sloppy.

She wasn’t sure quite what to say now. Wasn’t sure quite what everything meant.

Then she noticed Mike darting her little questioning glances as well, as if he felt the same way.

“Well,” she said, her voice a little hoarse, “That was interesting.”

He smiled. “That’s one way to put it.”

Feeling chilled now that the heat of arousal was fading, she reached for her t-shirt to pull it back on. “What was that? What just happened?”

“I think I, uh…might have snapped.”

She actually chuckled at his wry tone. “It certainly appeared so.”

Mike groaned and covered his face with his hands for a moment. “God, what an idiot.”

That worried her a little. What had just happened was important to her, and she didn’t want him to have any regrets. “I didn’t think you were an idiot. I kind of liked it.”

He turned over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Did you? I prefer not to cater to my barbarian side, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was pressuring you into—”

“Did it seem like I was pressured?”

His mouth quirked. “Good point.”

Unable to resist touching him, she reached over to caress his bristly face and messy brown hair. “You were quite the barbarian.”

They shared a smile, and it melted the knot of lingering fear in her heart. What had happened this morning hadn’t ruined everything. They still had some stuff to work out, but she wasn’t going to lose him.

She couldn’t lose him.

“Seriously, baby,” Mike said, his face sobering. “I meant what I said. But I don’t want you to think I was giving you an ultimatum. I know it’s not fair to expect you to suddenly make a one-eighty after being a part of a threesome with me. I understand why you still care about Drayton and why it’s so hard to cut him loose. It was really hard for me too—and I’ve been working through it for months now. And you have the biggest heart I’ve ever known. But I’d like for you to have all the facts before you move on.”

“Is that what you were showing me just now? The facts?”

“Yeah.” His smile matched the fond look in his eyes. “Just a few facts I thought you might have overlooked in the last year.”

She hadn’t had much time to think in the last hour, but she’d been able to process a few things at least. “For what it’s worth,” she admitted, “I think you might have been right—about my overlooking a few things.”

He nodded but didn’t press the issue. “Anyway, just so it’s clear, it wasn’t an ultimatum. I’m not going to go away, no matter what you decide.” He cleared his throat. “Unless you want me to.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss him again.

She felt so tender and melty she didn’t know what might have happened next, what she might have ended up saying. But, as it happened, she wasn’t given the chance.

A crack of sound slammed into the quiet cabin. Julia screamed in startled fear as a man appeared in the doorway, having just kicked the door open.

Mike was an eminently capable man. No weakling and with quick instincts. He leapt to his feet, instinctively moving into fight mode. But he was utterly unprepared, half-dressed and still overcome with post-coital softness.

The man who approached—one Julia didn’t recognize—had a gun. And Julia froze in absolute shock.

The man shot Mike, the sound reverberating more painfully than the crash of the door had.

Julia screamed again as Mike fell.

Then the man turned the gun on Julia.

“Let’s not get carried away,” a cultured voice came from the smashed doorway.

A British accent. A lilting timbre she knew.

“The girl isn’t resisting. Put the gun away.”

Alexander Darrington stepped into the cabin and walked toward the bed, where Julia was huddled into a ball. Vaguely, she thought she really should be defending herself, but the sight of Mike’s bloody body on the floor took away every instinct to fight.

“Mike,” she said weakly, staring down at his unmoving form.

Alexander stood next to the bed, shaking his head as he looked down on her. “I know you cared for him, my dear, but he was hopelessly in the way.”

Reality finally slammed into Julia, and she jumped off the bed and hurled herself at Alexander, ready to attack and fight for her life if necessary. She took him by surprise and managed to get in a good blow at his face. She’d followed it up with a kick to the groin when she felt brutal hands clamp down around her from behind.

Despite the fact that she was outnumbered two to one and both of them were stronger than her, she struggled against the man who held her. Desperately. Violently. Until she vaguely felt a sharp prick on the side of her neck.

At first, she didn’t register the sensation—since her mind was on overload. But soon, her arms and legs felt sluggish. So sluggish she drooped in the man’s arms.

Her vision glazed over until Alexander’s face in front of her blurred into a swirl of color and texture.

Then the room and the men and Mike’s body on the floor faded into safe, blissful darkness.

***

When Julia woke up, her head was pounding. She opened her eyes reluctantly, noticing first that it was mostly dark in the room and then that she was staring up at a blank ceiling.

She closed her eyes again, still disoriented and unable to figure out the time or place. The dim light in the room was flickering, the way it did when Drayton lit his candles before he turned off the bedside lamp and got into bed with her.

Shifting a little, Julia realized that both of her shoulders were sore, hurting almost as much as did her head. Automatically, she started to move her arms, to relieve some of the strain on her shoulders.

Her arms wouldn’t move.

With a gasp, she managed to lift her head enough to look over at her right hand. Her wrist was bound with some sort of cord. When she turned her head to the other side, she saw her left hand was bound too.

She’d been tied spread eagle to an old four-poster bed.

Instinctively, she fought against the restraints. The cords were soft—made of some kind of fabric—but far too strong for her to snap. She kept wriggling them, hoping for some slack in the ties.

Panic rose up in her throat, threatening to choke her, as she tried to bend her knees to get some leverage for pulling against the bindings.

Her legs wouldn’t move either. Her ankles were bound as well.

Almost forgetting her pounding head in her increasing fear and horror, Julia gurgled at the back of her throat as she writhed frantically against the cords. She couldn’t move, except to arch her back and squirm her hips. Her skin chafed uncomfortably against the bedding beneath her as she thrashed.

And the chafing of her skin told her something else—something she hadn’t registered before.

She was just wearing her shirt. No pants. No underwear. Of course, her panties had been thoroughly ripped by Mike so maybe that explained it. Either way, she felt mostly naked. Tied up and exposed on this bed like an experiment being studied by a scientist.

For a moment, her fear was so strong her vision blacked out. She was bombarded with nightmare visions of rape, torture, sadistic serial killers. She sometimes watched documentaries on predators on television—fascinated in a macabre way by the idea.

But there was nothing fascinating about this. She was exposed, powerless, completely vulnerable. And she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even begin to save herself.

Fighting against the panic, she remembered what had happened before she’d blacked out. She must have been drugged in the cabin before they brought her here.

Alexander and that other man—who was probably hired muscle or something. They were criminals, but Alexander seemed to deal mostly in stolen goods. They weren’t rapists or serial-killers.

At least, as far as she knew.

Her mouth was so dry it ached, and when she tried to make a sound, nothing but a croak came out. She cleared her throat and tried to moisten her tongue before she tried again. “Hey! Hey!”

Her voice wasn’t as loud as she’d intended, but it was the best she could manage. She had to find out what was happening here before she lost her mind from fear and confusion. She was in a bedroom, and she started to recognize it was a bedroom in Drayton’s house.

But she was sure—she was
sure
—Drayton wasn’t involved in her abduction.

A click to her right caused her to turn her head abruptly. Her vision had cleared some and she saw a door to the room had opened.

Alexander Darrington entered, looking every bit as polished and urbane as he had the last times she’d seen him. He was even smiling. An almost…welcoming smile.

“You fucking bastard,” she gritted out, completely forsaking strategy or wisdom in her absolute disgust. “What’s going on here? Why am I tied up? Where is Mike?”

The last question spilled out automatically, and for the first time she acknowledged what she’d seen before she’d been drugged.

Mike had been shot. She’d seen him lying on the floor of his cousin’s cabin. He was probably dead.

Mike was dead.

Her eyes were blinded momentarily until she brutally forced the idea out of her conscious mind. She couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t even conceive of it. Not here. Not like this.

Alexander gave an elegant shrug, a gesture whose complete nonchalance was like a slap in the face. “As I said before, he was in the way.”

Rather than acknowledge the heartbreak, Julia focused on a concern that was more immanent at the moment. Struggling against her restraints, she demanded, “Let me go! This is kidnapping! You’ll be arrested and then I’ll sue your pretentious ass off.”

 “I can see what Drayton sees in you,” he said with another leisurely smile. “You’re beautiful and still have fire in you, even though you’re so scared.”

“What the fuck do you expect me to be? Of course, I’m scared. What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m not going to rape you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I don’t take women who are unwilling.”

The appalling irony of this statement wasn’t lost on Julia. She sputtered a moment before she asked, “Then what do you call this? Why am I here? Where’s Drayton?”

“That’s the fundamental question, isn’t it? We had no choice, I’m afraid. There’s a particular job Gia and I want to take. If we’re successful, it will be the prize of a lifetime. We need Drayton, and he refuses to cooperate. He’s grown too comfortable with his domestic situation and didn’t want to take the risk. So we were forced to claim more leverage.”

“Leverage? Is that what I am?” She was confused, but she also was aware of a deep sense of foreboding. It wasn’t the slow heaviness of suppressed knowledge she’d been feeling for the last couple of months. Instead, it was a sudden, crippling weight of impending fear.

Darrington looked at her almost kindly, no trace of a smile on his face. “I’m sure you’re more than that, but for our purposes, yes, that’s what you are. Drayton cares about you. Our attempts to persuade him before weren’t effective, so he needs to know the threat we pose to what he cares about is real. As I said, the prize is worth it.”

“So you’re not going to kill me?” she rasped, somehow knowing the answer even before he told her.

“Not if I can help it. I don’t like killing any more than Drayton does. But the threat to you has to be real, which is why I have to make sure you look just right for Drayton, when he arrives.”

“And what’s happening to Mike?”

“Oh, he’s been shot.”

She almost whimpered at the words, at the realization of what they meant.

If Mike was lost, then everything was lost. It was simply the way things were.

Alexander turned his back on her then and walked away, leaving her alone in the silent room and flickering light of six candles, which must have been lit for Drayton’s benefit as well—as a kind of mockery of his lingering ties to his father.

She wondered—in an irrelevant, passing thought—why the candles had been displayed in the antique shop. Maybe it was some sort of code that Drayton did business there.

Not that any of it really mattered at the moment

Julia only had to wait about five minutes—at least, that was about what it felt to her disoriented state of mind. She used those minutes to try to work out some kind of strategy for handling Drayton when he arrived.

There was no way she could break out of her bonds, so she’d have to get free some other way.

Maybe Mike wasn’t dead yet.

When the door across the room opened, Julia took a deep breath. She had to get herself together. She had to think clearly. This was as much of a crisis as she’d ever faced, and she alone was responsible for saving her life.

Maybe other people were able to come up with clever plans at moments like these, but she had absolutely no idea what to do.

Drayton walked in then, wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in earlier that day. His hair was neat and his shirt tucked in smoothly, but she could see lines of fatigue around his eyes.

“Drayton,” she said, meeting and holding his eyes, “Drayton, get me out of here.” She wriggled her hands to emphasize her plea and was surprise to discover there was the slightest amount of give on the tether on her right wrist.

His lips parted with a sigh she could hear, even halfway across the room. “I want to. I would. But Alexander and Gia aren’t fools. You would be dead before I could get you away from here. They’re not lying about that.”

“I thought you said you’d handled this.”

“I thought I had. I’m afraid I was wrong. I honestly didn’t expect them to stoop to this…this melodrama.”

She made a weird, breathy sound and kept working at the slight slack in her bindings, discreetly so it wouldn’t draw Drayton’s attention. “It doesn’t feel like melodrama to me. Just do the job. Whatever it is they want you to do. Just do it. How hard can it be?”

“It is hard. It’s bigger than anything my father ever did, and part of me is tempted to try. The problem is, if I give in to them now, then I’ll always be under their thumb. They’ll know I have a weakness, and they’ll always be able to exploit it. They’ll turn me into their puppet. The only way out of this is for me to call their bluff.”

Her eyes widened. “So you’re just going to let them kill me?”

“Alexander isn’t going to kill you unless he has to, unless I try to get you out of here. I’ve known him a long time. He likes money and shiny things. Death is too ugly for him—especially the death of an innocent woman. It’s a bluff, Julia. He’s not going to kill you unless I force him into it.” He sounded perfectly controlled, perfectly confident, but a chill ran up her spine just the same.

“You’re willing to take that risk? My life? Just because you don’t want someone else to have any sort of claim on your life.”

He met her eyes evenly. “I told you before. You don’t live this life, you aren’t the person I am, unless you’re willing to give everything up and walk away. But I’m telling you, Julia, this whole thing is an empty threat. You’re not going to be killed.”

“What about Mike! Mike was shot.” She fought her restraints instinctively, but felt a sliver of hope when the right restraint was even looser from the way she’d been working at it.

“I’m sure he wasn’t killed either. It’s all for show, Julia. They’ve always underestimated me. I can’t let this ridiculous scheme work.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to walk away.”

The words hung in the air with a cold resonance, and Julia didn’t for a moment doubt they were true. This was Drayton. The man she’s always known. Cool and controlled and sharply intelligent and driven to make the world exactly what he wanted it to be.

Refusing to be anything but free.

Mike had been right that he didn’t really love her, and Helen had been right when she’d said that, given a choice between his needs and someone else’s, Drayton would always choose himself.

Drayton might be right, and she was in no real danger. But Mike would never willingly walk away from her, if danger was anywhere in sight.

She could never live with Drayton now. Not knowing what she knew about him. Not even if all of this drama disappeared and things returned to normal. Loyalty and care could only take her so far.

So it was with a chilly sense of fate that she watched Drayton walk toward the door. “I’ll understand that you can’t forgive me for this, Julia,” he said, turning back toward her one more time. “But it’s the only choice I can make. I told you before. Life isn’t about perfect happy endings. They’re impossible in this world.  Life is about choosing. And then about giving up what we don’t choose.”

Those were the final words. She knew it. And something was grieving inside her as she watched him close the door behind him, not quite drowned out by the fear.

Almost immediately, though, she started twisting and pulling at the binding on her wrist, working them until there was enough slack for her to pull her hand through.

It was so tight that she winced as the taut fabric scraped at her skin and caught on her knuckles, but she managed to squeeze out her hand.

Quickly, she untied her left hand too and then sat up to untie her feet. She jumped up and almost fell as her knees buckled from lack of circulation.

Straightening up, she stumbled toward the door.

She didn’t know how she would get home, given that she was without clothes, transportation, or purse. But she was definitely getting out of this house.

Maybe Drayton was pretty sure that Alexander and his cronies weren’t going to hurt her, but she wasn’t about to trust in his judgment.

Plus, Mike was still shot somewhere.

She opened the door and glanced out, but no one was in sight. So she tiptoed down the hall toward the stairs.

She saw Drayton coming back up them, and they both froze, staring at each other.

She didn’t know what he was doing here, but he’d been coming back up.

Maybe she would have said something. She had no idea what it would be. She didn’t have the chance, though.

She heard violent noises from downstairs, near the back of the house. Then a roar that was inarguably familiar.

Then Mike appeared at the foot of the stairs, pale and disheveled and with a bandage on one shoulder.

The sight of him was the dearest thing she’d ever seen in her life, but she didn’t have long to process the reaction.