Freed (10 page)

The strained, strange man who snaps at me as often as not. The woman who simmers in repressed tension when she looks at me. This is my family.

I am always alone.

Alexander:

“You took her to your farmhouse?”

Jean-Luc had been away the last week in Bangkok, overseeing the cleanup of one of Sylvia’s most profitable operations. We’d involved the Thai police discreetly, but elected to stay anonymous, of course. There were too many irons in the fire for openness.

The brothel had been shut down and Sylvia’s Thai assets frozen. With the help of an informant, the police had also succeeded in finding three of Sylvia’s Swiss bank accounts. They promised the informant protection, but he disappeared before they could do much more.

That was my doing. I could protect him better than the Thai police. I owed him. After all, I’d been the one who had persuaded him to switch allegiances and
I always paid my debts.

“How was Bangkok, Jean-Luc?” I changed the subject.

Jean-Luc’s lips compressed into a thin, disapproving line but he shrugged. “Ah well, you are still alive. I guess I should give thanks.”

I laughed. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, my friend,” I retorted. “Talk to me. What’s been happening?”

He frowned. “I also heard from Daniel Schneider. We settled at three-quarters of a million. I sent him a hundred thousand dollars as a gesture of good-faith. In return, he’s going to mail us something.”

“Mail?”

“Old-fashioned postal service. He’s afraid to send us an email, in case it can be traced back to him.”

“Dylan’s fucking powerless,” I snapped. “He can’t track anything and he doesn’t have allies anymore.”

“Don’t underestimate him, Alexander,” Jean-Luc replied. “Yes, Sylvia’s not helping him anymore and Durov is dead, but Dylan’s had a lifetime to accumulate favours. There are still a few bridges he hasn’t burned. Schneider’s right to be cautious.”

“Did he tell you what he was sending?”

Jean-Luc’s expression was of acute distaste. “Did you know that Dylan tapes his training sessions?”

I felt sick. Of course the old pervert would.  

“I told him you needed anything on the identities of the women he’d taken. So he’s sending photos and video, and maybe copies of paperwork if he can find it. Evidently, Dylan’s been shredding a lot of stuff. The hounds are baying at the door and Dylan’s cleaning up.”

I knew that. My window of time for finding an informant had almost closed. Then, Grace Olusola, Schneider’s former lover, had taken a bullet in her shoulder. The instant Daniel had heard that, he had been mine. Under that hard mercenary veneer, Daniel had a rudimentary beginning of a conscience.

“Did you tell him I needed to find Ellie Samuelson?” I asked.

“I hinted,” Jean-Luc replied. “At the very tail end of the conversation, I mentioned her name and that of Claire Bectell and Wendy Zhang. Daniel told me he remembered Ellie, but before he could say anything else, he had to go.”

I felt a prickling sense of anticipation. I had searched for her for so long. She was the only reason Dylan hadn’t been apprehended by the law yet.
Soon
. I would be able to find her and make amends.

“So we wait for the post now?”

Jean-Luc nodded. “We wait. A week, maybe two. Will you go to Hanoi before that?”

I shook my head. “I’d prefer not to. If Daniel gives us enough to finally find Ellie Samuelson, I won’t have to go to Hanoi. I’ll have everything I’ll need to throw Dylan to the wolves.”

The expression in Jean-Luc’s eyes was mingled pity and understanding. I knew that I would prefer to avoid Hanoi entirely. I didn’t have the stomach to kill Dylan myself. I never had, right from the start and I hated this about myself.  

Ellie / Jenny:

“What do you do, Alexander?” My voice was curious. “For a billionaire, you seem to work some very
fluid
hours.”

He laughed aloud. We were sitting in the library after lunch, a week after we’d returned from Provence. For the last week, I had been occupying myself by playing tourist in Paris. Unexpectedly Alexander accompanied me on many of my sightseeing trips. In Paris, as he had been in Provence, he was a fascinating guide. He took me to see parts of the city that I would have never discovered on my own. The catacombs. The best ice-cream store. Vegetable markets filled with locals, with nary a tourist in sight. A private tour of Versailles, arranged after the Palace had shut down for visitors for the night.

But we didn’t go anywhere near Saint Denis. It was as if that house in the suburbs didn’t exist. It was as if that night two years ago had never happened.

I was reading a book and Alexander had been typing something on his laptop. “I’m working right now,” he replied. “I told you. I dabble in finance.”

I gave him a dry look. “You dabble in finance,” I repeated. “Does
dabbling
pay well then?”

He looked amused. “I’m sensing some good old-fashioned Midwestern disapproval emanating from you, Jenny,” he replied. “Since we are in the twenty-first century, I don’t have to work from nine-to-five in an office to make money.” He got up and moved towards me, sitting down on the couch and inclining his laptop towards me. “I’m a glorified stockbroker,” he clarified. “Primarily, I invest in the stock markets around the world. That’s where the bulk of my money comes from. About ten percent of my wealth is actively invested in new ventures. For those companies, I provide finance, advice, connections, that kind of thing.”

And Dylan?
I wanted to ask.
And Sylvia? How are they connected?
But I could guess. He was rich enough that a portion of his wealth had to appear legitimate, even if the vast bulk of his fortune came through more unsavoury activities.

His phone rang at that point, cutting off further conversation. He glanced down at his screen and an expression of distaste crossed his face as his fingers swiped the screen. “Dylan.” His voice was cool. He rose to his feet and walked to the window. “What can I do for you?”

My heart started pounding. Dylan McAllister was on the other end of that line. This had to be concerning Alexander’s upcoming trip to Hanoi.

He saw me stare at him. “Hang on,” he said into the phone. “I’m going to put you on hold and take this call from my office.” He looked at me. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Work beckons. I’ll be right back.”

I watched him walk out of the room. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The man on the other end of the line had kidnapped me and raped me and tortured me. In order to avenge these wrongs, I had trained for six long years, sacrificing everything that got in the way. Now, my long quest for revenge was coming to an end.

***

Alexander:

There was a vague sense of unease in me as I continued my conversation in the study. There had been something troubling in Jenny’s look. Some fixed emotion that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“What do you want, Dylan?” I asked into the phone.

“Is that the way you talk to me now?” he demanded.

I sighed. “Did you call me to chat about manners?” I inquired pointedly. I had made it clear to Dylan many years ago that I had very little to say to him. If I wasn’t actively engaged in making amends for his actions, I wouldn’t have even kept in touch with him.

“I need you to free up some money for me,” he said. “I need to move from Hanoi soon.”

“As your financial advisor, I have to tell you that your living expenses are bankrupting you,” I told him.

“You are the genius,” he said. There was a tone of desperation in his voice. “Sell some assets, if you have to.”

“What assets? You have very little left to sell.”

“The collection of Ming Dynasty figurines,” he said. “Sell those.”

“You have creditors waiting for liquid assets, Dylan.” My voice was icy. “Including me, I should point out. If you are selling assets, they’ll need to be paid. I might not insist on it, but the others will not be so kind.”

Dylan McAllister had indulged in his every desire for years, never stopping to think about money. A classic mistake among those who had inherited their wealth, not earned it.
Now, the day of reckoning was at hand. For years, I’d been systematically reducing his fortune. I bought companies that he owned stock in and stripped them down, acting through shell companies so it couldn’t be traced back to me. I didn’t, in truth, need to do a lot. Dylan had been actively causing his own destruction for many years. I’d just provided a helping hand.

“When are you coming to Hanoi?” he asked me. There was a note of bluster in his voice, but I recognized the panic underneath it. “Surely we can work something out.”

The letter from Daniel Schneider was due any day now. “I’ll be there in a week,” I told him.

“Not sooner?”

“No, Dylan.” My voice had a bite to it. “Unlike you, I have businesses to run and I can’t drop everything and fly to Hanoi just because you ask. I will see you in seven days.”

Once I hung up, I stared into the distance. Hanoi was an eleven hour flight away. Dylan’s business would take a couple of days to sort out. The whole affair would involve me leaving Jenny alone for at least four days, and I found myself reluctant to do so.

I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to Jean-Luc’s warnings. I didn’t know anything about Jenny and I didn’t care. When she had cried about Sylvia, I had wanted to protect her and keep her safe. I was neglecting work and showing her around town. At night, I alternately played with her in the playroom and made love to her in my bedroom and either way, I thrilled in her sweet moans of pleasure.

Yet I couldn’t take her to Hanoi. I wasn’t going to expose her to Dylan. She was bright. She paid attention. She would see the fortified compound, the armed guards and the frightened servants. Dylan liked to show off how obedient Bethany was. She would draw the obvious conclusion and the way she would look at me would change.

More than that, if Dylan leered at her, I would not be able to stop myself from reacting. I knew that. Jenny brought out every protective urge in me. It would lead to a lot of messy complications.

It would be much better if I received the package from Daniel Schneider before I had to fly out. If I had enough on Ellie Samuelson, I wouldn’t even need to go to Hanoi.

That was the better way.

Ellie / Jenny:

While he was gone, I thought about what this meant.

The reality was, I’d been so focused on getting to Dylan that I’d failed to realize that the likelihood of me surviving Hanoi was extremely small. I might be able to kill Dylan, but there would still be guards with guns. There’d be Alexander, who no doubt would be furious that I’d just killed his client.

Outside the compound, Lucien could arrange reinforcements, but the compound itself was impenetrable. I would have to fight my way out. This would not be an easy task.

All of a sudden, I came face to face with my mortality. Yet if this was the end, then, now more than ever, I wanted Alexander. I wanted to feel loved by a man. I wanted to lose myself in pleasure and I wanted my last memories of sex to be dramatically different from the first ones.

He came back into the library. I could sense the tension radiate off him. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. He just looked out of the window for a while.

I rose to my feet and came up to him, putting my arms around his waist and pressing my cheek against his back. “Want to go to the bedroom?” I murmured. “I haven’t been spanked in a while.”

I could see his smile in the reflection in the window. “Is that what you want?” he asked me.

“Yes Alexander,” I whispered.

He suddenly moved behind me and swept me into his arms. For an instant, every bit of training kicked in and I almost fought back, before realizing where I was and who I was with. I forced myself to relax. “Don’t do that,” I chided, trying for a playful tone. “I could have kneed you in the groin, you know.”

His lips twitched. “Well, that would have been a mood-killer,” he said dryly. He carried me up the stairs in his arms, though I protested that he was going to hurt himself. “Shh,” he ordered. “Stop talking.”

We entered his bedroom and he deposited me on the bed. “We’ve got two hours before we are due at the Louvre,” he said. “What do you want to do?” He had a wicked look in his eyes and when I saw the heat in them, an answering fire rose in me.

I smiled at him, bouncing up and down on his mattress, laughing at the look of barely-concealed surprise in his eyes. “We could test the elasticity of your bed,” I giggled. My back was pressed against the soft sheets, my legs spread shamelessly wide in invitation.

He moved like a predatory wolf into the space between my legs, his body weighing mine down. His kisses covered my face, my cheeks, my neck. His hands teased and tugged at my hair. I giggled again as sheer pleasure ran through my body at his touch, and I locked my legs around his hips, pulling him closer. “Alexander,” I moaned.

He didn’t respond. His lips bit and grazed at my neck, while his body rubbed against mine. I felt the outline of his cock through his fine linen trousers and I whimpered softly and ground my pelvis against his erection.

Each hot kiss seemed to send a shock of lust to my clitoris. My pussy was wet, my panties damp to the touch. His hand curled around the back of my neck, and his lips met mine again. His touch was calm and assured. As always, Alexander was going to set the pace, and I could try to hurry him, though I didn’t think I’d succeed.

I buried my fingers in his short hair and pulled his face deeper into mine. I was panting in arousal, my eyes clenched shut in desire. My fingers tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up and over his chest and throwing it carelessly into a corner.

“Tsk, tsk,” he said, but his eyes had an amused heat to them. “Bossy, aren’t we? If you don’t watch it,
cherie
, those hands are going to get tied up.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” I asked archly and his mouth deepened into another smile, those dimples of his indenting his cheeks. I fought the urge to lick them.

He pulled me up so I was seated at the edge of the bed. My fingers went instantly to his belt buckle, unfastening it before I doubled it up and offered it to him. He chuckled slightly as his fingers closed over it, then he threw it on the pillow and his hands traced down my arms before capturing my hands behind my back. He held them together effortlessly with one hand while the other hand undid his trousers and unzipped them.

I openly licked my lips. “Yes please,” I said, my eyes glued to his crotch, but to my disappointment, he didn’t remove his trousers. Instead he pushed me back down on the bed and lay on his side, his fingers pushing aside the thin fabric of my strappy white flowered sundress to reveal an erect nipple underneath.

“So ready for me,” he groaned appreciatively as I writhed on the bed, restless with need. His mouth lowered on that nub and tremors of arousal shook my body. My fingers moved over his chest and abs, tracing each hard line of muscle. They teased his chest hair and when he growled in response, I felt a certain pride and joy at the reaction I caused.

His hands tugged at my dress, pulling it up to my waist, exposing my black panties underneath. Those were impatiently pushed down to mid-thigh, then he rolled me on top of him, my pussy hovering over his crotch. His palm made resounding contact with my ass, the noise echoing around the room. “What’s that for?” I whimpered.

He laughed. “Do you need a reason?” He looked amused. “I could pretend that you are being punished for something, but maybe I’m just spanking you because you like to be spanked.”

My cheeks grew heated.
I did like it.
I had become addicted to the peculiar absence of fear when he punished me, to the feeling of utter safety that I experienced, knowing that I could trust him not to hurt me. All I had to do was whisper my safe word and he would stop instantly. His concern was as much of a turn-on as his hard body and his erect cock.  

The dress went flying across the room. His teeth bit at each nipple in turn and I ground my hips into his crotch, rubbing against his erection, leaving a stain on his pants. I didn’t care. At this moment, his chest hair was tickling at my nipples and my entire body was suffused with pleasure.

“Lean back,” he urged in a hoarse voice. The panties followed the dress and he put a hand on each thigh, spreading me open. His eyes just rested on my pussy. “So wet.”

“For you,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said, a tone of utter male pride in his voice. His hand held my hip, keeping me pressed against his erection, while the fingers of his other hand rubbed my pussy, mashing the lips together, flicking over my clitoris just hard enough to make me dangerously close to orgasm.

I was about to gasp out a request to come when he looked at me intently. “Whenever you like, Jenny,” he said, giving me permission before I voiced my request. “You don’t need to ask today.” As he said that, he shifted me so I leaned against the headboard and he pressed up at my side. This position granted him easier access to all of my body. His fingers pumped in and out of my hot passage. His mouth pressed into mine, absorbing each and every one of my helpless moans.

I looked into his eyes as I reached out to grab his dick through his trousers. “Take these off,” I urged.

“All in due time,” he responded, exactly as I had expected. “What’s the hurry, Jenny?”

My palms slid up and down the outline of his erection as his fingers relentlessly invaded my pussy. From the hitch in his breathing, I could tell I was getting to him. Again, my lips curled into a smile.

“Brat,” he chided when he noticed my grin. “You like this reaction, don’t you?”

“I do,” I threw my head back as his fingers rubbed a slow, languid circle around my clitoris. “
Ah, fuck, that feels good.
I like knowing I can get to you the way you get to me.”

He smiled, though his eyes were serious. “
Cherie
,” he kissed my lips again, tweaking my nipples at the same time. “Was there ever any doubt about that?”

Those fingers moved again, this time, their intent clear. I shivered and my body responded instantly to the firm pressure of his thumb on my clitoris, to the push of three fingers into my pussy. His mouth covered mine, swallowing up my whimpers of pleasure. My nails ground into his biceps as the coil of desire wound tighter and tighter, tensing, clenching, until I came with a full-body shudder and a choked off shout.

He let me slowly drift back down to earth. His hands finally pulled his trousers and his briefs down, and he kicked them away. A condom was rolled on and he urged my legs apart, pushing his erect dick into my soaking wet pussy.

I was incredibly sensitive from the orgasm that had just ripped through me and each slow thrust into my passage filled me with a pleasure that was as sharp as pain. I turned into his body, my leg curling around his hips and drawing him closer to me.

We’d had sex with him on top. With me on top, with me on my knees, with me bouncing on him in a reverse-cowgirl position, but this position was a first for us. We were laying on our sides, facing each other, our bodies tightly coiled together, and our gazes locked and I couldn’t pull mine away.

His hands cradled my face as he leaned forward to kiss me. His cock moved, slowly, in and out, in an excruciatingly slow, arousing dance of sex and submission, of lust and longing.

“Spank me again,” I whispered, blushing as I asked.

He grinned, all dangerous charm and panty-melting hotness. His palm collided with my ass in a sharp slap and I groaned. “Again,” I begged and he obliged once more, before he stopped and moved over me.

“I’m going to fuck you now, Jenny,” he growled into my ear. “Good and hard.”

“Yes,” I hissed back. “Yes. Please.”

Our coupling was fierce and passionate and glorious. Hip slapping against hip. The sounds of my pussy squelching around his dick. Our groans and grunts and whimpers and choked-off curses. Our sweat-stained bodies colliding together in desperate longing. My hands fisting in the sheets. His face clenched in pleasure above me. His muted shout as he thrust in hard, fast strokes, then erupted in climax. My own sweet release, only a few instants after.

“Cancel the Louvre,” I suggested, when I was able to hold a coherent thought in my head. “And let’s do this once more.”

He grinned. “You are bossy,” he said. “But your word is my command,
cherie
.”

We showered together then we fucked again. We stopped for some food, then he ate me out while I lay tied up on the bed, helpless to resist. Afterwards, I went down on my knees, my lips closing around his dick. We fucked like two wild, crazed animals, until we both fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.