LovingDragon (8 page)

“Okay, after that image is burned in my retina forever, I think it’s time we end this dinner,” grinned Dragon, who handed a debit card to the waiting waitress.

Later when Dragon had drove them back to their apartment he asked Cat to wait in the truck as Cutman walked Mia to the door. Cat found that there was something very intimate about sitting in a dark vehicle at night with Dragon, the air was cool the stars twinkled overhead and the very darkness felt freeing. “Want to climb into the back seat and make-out?” she asked, it came out teasing but the thought of his mouth, his hands on her body warmed her inside like no expensive liqueur ever had.

A slow smile played around his lips before he raised his eyes to meet hers. “That’s the most tempting offer I’ve had in a long time, but I’ll need to take a rain check. I was hoping to talk to you for a minute before Cutman comes back.”

Catherine took a deep breath and faced forward, since she knew what was coming. She had to protect him at all costs. She would not have this man fight for her and get hurt. She cared about him too much. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“Cat, I have feelings for you, but I don’t even know who you are. Will you trust me enough to let me in? For God’s sake throw me a bone here, or give me something?” His voice was a soft, desperate whisper in the darkness.

Cat felt his pain. How ironic when all she wanted to do was
not
hurt him. “Dragon, I just need more time. I’m sorry, just a little more time to get things straightened out, and then I promise I will tell you everything.”

Dragon ran his hand down his face, clearly aggravated. “You realize you’re asking me to trust you, when you won’t show me the same courtesy?”

Cat raised her eyes and noticed Cutman walking back to the truck after seeing Mia to the door. Their time here was ending. “Yes,” she simply answered.

Dragon had no doubt seen Cutman too, so he opened his door and came around to pull Cat’s door open and then helped her from the truck. He didn’t say anything. His jaw was set and angry as he walked her to the door. He leaned over and kissed her, and it was an achingly sweet kiss…his goodbye kiss. “Call me when you’re ready to trust me Cat,” he said as he turned to walk away.

“Dragon?” she called after him, he seemed to hesitate for just a moment, his shoulders stiff and unyielding. A spark of hope leaped to life in Cat’s heart that he would turn and come back. That he would give her the chance to explain, but then she really couldn’t explain could she? In the end Dragon just kept going, never even bothering to look back, his long angry strides eating up the distance to the truck. The slamming of the truck door, sounded like a gunshot to her slowly breaking heart. He waited until he saw her go inside, then he gunned the engine and drove away.

Chapter Sixteen

Catherine closed and locked the door. The sound of Dragon’s truck pulling away seemed so final. He was angry with her. He thought she didn’t trust him. Closing her eyes she felt as if she was lost in a fog of sadness. What exactly had she expected? That he would just continue in a kind of weird limbo, waiting for the time when she would let him into her dirty little secrets, like some middle school clique? Waiting for her to decide if she ‘trusted’ him enough to tell him the truth? Cat had asked too much of him and she knew it now. But she did what she had to do to protect him. She was in love with Dragon. Cat just hoped that that realization hadn’t come too late. “I protect those I love too, Dragon,” she whispered.

A soft knock sounded at the door. Catherine turned to opened it, her heart racing with excitement. She would tell him she was sorry, she would somehow make him understand. She would let him know she loved him and then she would show him in a hundred different ways. Dragon was coming back to her!

“Dragon I…” Catherine stopped.

“Hello Catherine.”

“Douglas, what…what are you doing here?” she asked, even though she knew, and a sick feeling gathered in her stomach. She just might lose her dinner. Her time of freedom was up.

“I’ve come for my fiancé, of course. Surely you didn’t think I would let you go that easily? Now come along darling, you’ve had your little fun, slumming it up with the bouncer. It’s time to go home where you belong.”

“And if I choose not to go with you Douglas, then what?” she asked.

Without waiting for an invite, Douglas stepped into the apartment, his eyes making a show of scanning it. “Where is your little roommate? Mia is her name isn’t it?” he asked as he ran his stubby finger down Cat’s throat and into the opening of her halter top to painfully pinch a nipple. “So soft, so beautiful, I can hardly wait until you are my wife.”

Catherine jerked away from him. Thankfully she heard the shower running and knew Mia would hear nothing of this conversation. With any luck she would stay there until they left. “She had nothing to do with this. You leave her alone.”

Douglas grabbed her by the hair. It was sudden and violent and took her completely by surprise. He yanked hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Let’s get something straight shall we, darling? I’m in charge here, so you do what I say and I won’t hurt your pretty little friend or the bouncer you’ve been fucking. Now get your tight little ass in the car.”

He gave Cat a shove and she stumbled towards the door. That was when she noticed a couple of his goons waiting by the black SUV. The last thing Cat wanted to do was go anywhere with Douglas, but to keep Mia and Dragon safe she would go, and she did.

Chapter Seventeen

Catherine moaned. Her head was pounding and the inside of her mouth was dry. She tried to muster up enough moisture to lick her equally dry lips, but even that simple act proved impossible.

“Wonderful, my sleeping beauty is finally awake,” said Douglas as he sat down on the end of the bed that Cat lay on. She forced her eyes to open and they blinked to get into focus. Douglas sat looking quite pleased with himself. The memory of last night came rolling back in and Catherine knew she was living a nightmare. Her brain scrambled trying to recall the last few hours. She had climbed into the SUV, sitting in the back with Douglas as his goons drove them to Douglas’s opulent home, and then she was taken downstairs to the basement and forced to sit on the bed and drink a cup of water, after that she remembered nothing.

“You drugged me,” Catherine said flatly.

Douglas shrugged. “I knew you would need your beauty sleep for our wedding today, so I slipped a little something in your water to make sure you were rested.”

“So you still plan on going through with this farce of a wedding? You know I don’t want to marry you. I don’t love you Douglas, I will never love you,” Cat said with a sigh of resignation.

She watched as Douglas’s eyes narrowed, the smile falling from his face like a vase from a table. “I have found in my life that love is a useless emotion, only a fool would marry for love and make no mistake, Catherine, I am not a fool. I don’t need you to love me, it matters not. You will however fear and respect me as your husband, follow my orders once given and you will at all times remember that you are my wife and comport yourself as such, especially in the public eye. I plan on making a run for the Senate next year, and I will need you to be the perfectly polished wife of the candidate.”

Douglas reached out and grasped a lank of Cat’s silvery hair, winding it around his fat fingers. “What matters to me is a beautiful wife from the right kind of family who will be an assent to me as I make my way up the political ladder and I have decided that person is to be you.”

“You are insane,” Cat hissed.

Douglas pulled her hair and kept on pulling until Cat cried out. “Catherine, do not make the mistake of thinking I won’t hurt you. I have ways of causing pain that you can’t even imagine and I’ll make sure no one ever sees the bruises. Now I am going to send in my assistant, Ashley to help you dress, the limo to take you to the Country Club will be arriving soon. But have no fear. Because you were ‘unavailable’ I have taken the liberty of hiring a wedding planner who has planned our entire glorious day. We are going to be wed at the country club, outside on the green under a specially built arch adorned with your favorite flowers, pink roses.”

“My favorite flowers are daisies,” proclaimed Cat.

“That’s where you are wrong darling. Your favorite flower is whatever I tell you they are.” Douglas leaned down to kiss her and at the last moment Cat turned her head so his cold lips landed on her cheek. Douglas eyes narrowed. “I am so looking forward to our wedding night princess.” And with that cryptic remark Douglas left the room. Catherine felt tears gathering as panic started to set in. How in God’s name was she going to get out of this rapidly growing nightmare?

Catherine came out of the shower, the hot water having done wonders to make her feel stronger, more herself. Her mind having worked through the effects of the drug that Douglas had given her was spinning with thoughts of how to get out of this mess. Maybe if she could talk to her parents one more time. Or perhaps, if the opportunity presented itself she could steal a car and go somewhere where no one could find her. Of course this would mean a life without Dragon, a life on the run, hiding using a fake name maybe. And then there was the fact she had nothing. She hadn’t brought her purse. She had no money, no clothing, and no identification. She felt as trapped as a mouse caught in the paws of a hungry cat.

Catherine was so engrossed in her thoughts that it was a moment before she realized she was no longer alone in the basement. A young woman sat on the end of the bed, eyeing her with a mixture of curiosity and something else, jealousy maybe? Anger? “Who are you?” Cat asked.

The woman stood, she really was quite pretty in a hardened kind of way. She was similar to size and height to Catherine herself. And her hair was blonde, but clearly not naturally that light. Her eyes were overly made-up and a pale blue in color. “I’m Ashley, Douglas…I mean Mr. Washburn’s Assistant. He has asked me to help you dress.”

“I won’t need your help, you can leave,” stated Cat. Turning her back on the woman to reach for the bra, panties, garter and stockings that Douglas had laid out for her to wear beneath her wedding gown.

“I don’t take my orders from you,” said Ashley.

Catherine held up the panties with disgust. “Suit yourself, stay or go it makes no matter to me.”

Ashley walked to stand beside her and gently figured a silky, milky white stocking. “You have no idea how lucky you are. To be marrying such a man as Douglas? I would give my right arm if he would only want me as his wife,” she said wistfully.

Catherine starred at her in amazement. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

A tear slid slowly down the corner of one of Ashley’s eyes and she wiped it away with her fingers before she answered. “Yes. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He buys me beautiful clothes and he bought me these.” She reached up and cupped both her breasts. “And he fucks me over and over again, making me come until I scream with the pleasure. The power and the money is something I’ve never experienced before. He took me off the streets and put me up in a beautiful apartment. Douglas treats me like a queen. He told me one night that he would marry me if only I had come from the right kind of family.”

An idea started to form in Catherine’s mind. It was crazy, insane really, but with luck she just might be able to pull it off.

Chapter Eighteen

“Dragon, have you seen Cat?” Mia asked as she rounded on Dragon that afternoon at Bubba’s.

Dragon was leaned back against the bar surveying nothing in particular. His mind lost on the woman that had left him feeling empty. Cat had broken his spirit, but damn if he wouldn’t come running if she called. He scraped his hands over his face, he had gotten no sleep. How could he when thoughts of Cat’s legs wrapped around his waist as he plunged into her wet and willing body again and again played themselves over and over in his mind? The taste of her, the feel of her, and her soft sighs as she moaned his name, all lingered in his memories. Damn but she had fucked him up good. Any other woman, no matter who she was would never compare, not even come close.

“Dragon! Have you seen Cat?” demanded Mia.

He turned and faced her. “No, I haven’t seen Cat since I dropped her off at your apartment last night.”

“Oh no, she’s gone Dragon, Cat is gone,” said Mia her voice rising in panic. Across the bar Cutman looked up, frowned and started to make his way across the room.

Dragon sighed. “It’s okay, Mia. It’s probably a good thing she went back to wherever it was she came from. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“What’s up?” asked Cutman as he joined them at the bar.

“Cat is missing, and she didn’t leave Dragon. Not of her own free will anyway. Her purse, her cell phone and her clothes are still at the apartment. He must have come for her. He took Cat. We have to help her!” Mia begged.

Dragon’s tiredness was instantly gone. His whole body seemed to tighten and go on alert. “Mia, enough already with the damn secrets. Talk to me. Who is
he
? Who took her Mia? And is Cat in danger? Tell me everything you know.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Where is she?” demanded Dragon. He had ridden his bike to the house where Mia said Cat’s parents lived. Storming up the steps he had grabbed who he presumed was her step-father, when he opened the door and now had him by the collar up against the wall in the foyer of the massive two story mansion.

Howard struggled to breath. Much less answer and when Dragon realized this he loosened his hold slightly. “I’ll ask you only one more time, where is Catherine?”

Howard sputtered his face an ugly shade of red. “I don’t know who you are but get out of my house or I will call the police!”

“Wrong answer,” hissed Dragon pulling his fist back, fully intending to punch this guy in the face until he told him what he had done with Cat.

“Stop it!” demanded a female voice behind him. Turning to look over his shoulder without releasing Howard, Dragon watched as Cat’s elegantly-attired mother descended the stairs into the foyer.