Tight (19 page)

The first girl I’d ever saved was Marcia. She was a tiny brunette who was on heroin when Joel and Chris brought her in. I’d stood in the kitchen of a Bahamian rental and looked at the girl before me, her jaw working, her eyes dull and vacant, ribs showing, and felt my chest tighten. Wanted a Xanax. Wanted to walk out of that kitchen and never see another woman ever again. That life was not one I’d known. I knew butlers and Italian marble floors. I knew lobster in Tahiti and Miami Heat skyboxes with my name on the door. I hadn’t known what to do with a strung-out girl who had spent the last sliver of her life servicing the needs of animals.

I had chewed at my bottom lip as I leaned against the edge of the fridge and stared at the girl. “How much did you pay for her?”

“Three thousand.”

I’d closed my eyes at the sum. Wondered, in the moment before I opened them, how much her parents would have been willing to pay. Her boyfriend. Her husband. I would have paid a hundred million for Elyse. I’d wondered, as my gaze found the girl again, her teeth chattering in the quiet room, how much Elyse sold for, how much the man who’d killed her had paid for the right.

“Buy as many as you can.”

6 weeks before

My first visit to Fort Lauderdale began in the middle of a storm, Brett’s plane circling the perimeter of the city for ninety minutes before our gas levels forced us to touch down. I closed the window shades, gripped the armrests for dear life, and gave a sermon-worthy prayer in the four minutes it took us to descend.

When the wheels touched down, it was rough, the plane slamming onto the runway, my shoulders jerking forward as if I’d been yanked. I didn’t care. We had landed, I was alive, and I wanted to get off that freaking plane as fast as humanly possible.

When the door opened, he was there, wetness plastered to his face, rain pelting down, his arms gathering me into his soaked chest, his mouth desperate against my cheek, my neck, my mouth. “God, I was worried,” he ground out, stepping back and helping me down the steps, my magazine held over my head doing a piss-poor job of protecting me from the rain. When I hit the ground we ran, through the heavy rain, toward the hangar.

I was laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, my blouse plastered to me from his wet embrace, our run through the rain pointless, the downpour one of the soak-your-bones variety. I hiccupped, a slight chill passing through me in the form of a shudder. Brett noticed, pressing a button on the side of the wall, the hangar door sliding shut. I looked around, the large, empty space big enough to hold my house. “Doesn’t the plane need to come in?”

“It can wait.” He pulled me closer, dragging us both down the side of the space until we reached the small kitchen. His hand was quick and efficient as he popped the front button on my jeans, my purse falling from my hand as he unzipped my pants and squatted, peeling the wet fabric down my legs, my feet lifting to help, his fingers tickling when they pulled off my sandals. “This is purely in concern for your health,” he murmured, opening the dryer and tossing in my jeans, the appliance door hanging open as he returned to me, his eyes traveling from my feet, up the length of my legs, lingering on the white triangle of my panties before he shook his head, a small smile crossing his lips. He stepped closer, his hands shaking a bit as he unbuttoned the front line of my blouse, his hot mouth along the line of my neck as the shirt was carefully removed.

“Nervous?” I teased, my own words shaking slightly as he ran a hand over my newly exposed cleavage.

He smiled, his eyes pulling from my chest to my face. “With you? Always.” He wrapped his palms around my waist and lifted, setting me onto the counter, his presence lost for a moment as he added my shirt to the dryer and then - my eyes glued to every movement - stripped himself, the actions quick and fumbled, a laugh coming from my mouth when his feet got tangled in the soggy jeans. By the time he slammed the dryer shut and started it, his glare only made me laugh harder, a hand over my mouth doing nothing to muffle the sound.

“Easy,” he growled, stepping forward, grabbing my knees and forcing them apart, the laugh dying in my throat as he leisurely slid his hands up my thighs, his thumbs slowly moving back and forth in their travel. His fingers crawled over my hips, hooking in the edge of my panties, a cheap pair I had picked up in the grocery store, white and plain, his eyes glued to them like they were crotchless lace.

“God, Riley,” he breathed. “You are every man’s wet dream.” He pulled at the edge of the underwear, as if testing their strength, then left them on, his fingers running over the thin fabric, my breath hissing as the pads of his fingers ran down and over my clit, his eyes finding mine when he did the first brush. I leaned back, my hands supporting me on the counter, my legs opening wider, giving myself to him, my confidence growing in his eyes’ raw and needy devour of the view. His other hand pulled at the underwear, stretching it tight, the wet press of it against me cold yet stimulating,
everything
stimulating in this moment.

He uttered a curse, his right hand continuing the sweet torture of my clit as his left moved higher, pulling down the top of my bra, another simple white item, anything sexy in the luggage on the forgotten plane. I wondered about the pilot. Did he sit outside these doors, still in the plane, waiting? Is there a chance he’d come in? Push a button and raise the doors, exposing this moment under the bright fluorescence?

My thinking stopped when, with my breasts gently pulled free, hanging out of the top of my bra, Brett’s palm scraped over their surface, his hand rougher than normal, a sharp contrast to the gentle play of my clit that was already making me literally pant before him. He ran the back of his nails along my nipples, squeezed the weight of my breasts in his hands, gently tweaked the points as my hips involuntarily twitched, wanting more, his hand responding, a finger sliding under the fabric and moving deeper, into me, the single digit causing a wave of response that had me moaning in his hands.

“You see what you do to me, Riley?” He nodded down, his cock thick and ready, bobbing out and bumping against the counter’s edge, just a few inches from me. Shrinkage was a phenomenon that, apparently, didn’t affect this man. The knowledge that it was that hard, that ready, without him even touching it, with just him
looking
at me,
touching
me ... I couldn’t stop the wave of arousal, the tilt of my need as I reached forward, gripped his shoulder, my scream muffled by my bite into his skin, the thrust of my hips shameless as I ground against his hand, unable to control myself as I came right there on the counter.

His hands didn’t stop, carried me through, the moment of his cock’s shove into me coming as I fell, my body limp as he held me to him and pounded out every bit of his craving, one of his hands bracing on the counter, his hips a blur, the sound of our slaps and moans and pants echoing through the cavernous space, my body reawakening beneath him, my nails digging into his back, voice begging him for more, a second orgasm so closely behind the first that it felt as if they were tied together with string.

When he came he yelled my name, his hand fisting in my hair, his other hand digging into the cheek of my ass, almost pulling me off the counter in his frenzied need to be as deep and connected as possible. He fully buried himself, his last few fucks short and deep, his voice cracking as he held me to him, his chest heaving, breath ragged against my cheek, his hands holding me in place as if he couldn’t bear to let go. “God, Riley.” He exhaled. “God, I love you.”

It felt strange to be in a big city with Brett, his Porsche SUV taking us through downtown, skyscrapers lining either side, a homeless man staring at me through the window while I glanced nervously away. This was his home, his city, a place so far away from Quincy it might as well have been on a different continent.

I’d never seen him drive before. I watched his hand as it rested on his thigh, the other one hanging off the steering wheel, the glint of his watch red in the reflection of the streetlight. His face in shadow, his movements on the road calm and in control. He was always in control. His need for it was almost OCD, our plans structured around my wishes, the implementation details controlled, to a science, by him. The only break was during sex, when his arousal would blur his control, giving me a wild animal that took with greedy hands and gave with raw passion. I loved those moments, that feeling of power when I had pushed him to the point of breaking, and he turned over all control to me.

“We’re about twenty minutes away. Are you hungry? There isn’t much to eat in the house.”

I shook my head. “I packed a sandwich for the plane.” I looked out the window and wondered about his house, if it matched the accommodations we’d always enjoyed on our trips.

Brett’s wealth was still a mystery. I remembered Jena’s initial research - her estimate of Brett’s income. I didn’t know how many boats he sold, but couldn’t imagine that it was enough for his spending - his exotic vacations every weekend, the plane, the tiny details that lay along every thread of his lifestyle. Brett had never really hidden his money from me; I didn’t think he knew how to. It sat in the cut of his suit, in the easy way he settled into a seat and ordered a thousand-dollar bottle of wine. In his casual step into a beachfront mansion in Cabo without even a glance around in appreciation.

A half hour later, he pulled up to a gate, the guard waving him through, the neighborhood one of mini-gates and ivy, the car bumping along cobblestones as we wound through private estates until he came to a stop in front of an iron gate, lions’ heads inlaid in the metal.

“Fancy,” I remarked.

He glanced over at me. “It’s a family house. I didn’t earn it. My parents moved to a condo ten years ago, deeded it over.” I looked out the window, the house coming into view, and lost a little of my breath.

I didn’t care about money. Truly I didn’t. But I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t trip a little at the mansion that came into view. It was the house I would have dreamed of if I knew what could exist. A Spanish-style white home with a red tile roof, the enormous size warmed by the planters underneath every window, vibrant flowers spilling from them, putting bursts of color everywhere I looked. Up the walls grew tiny ivy, inset lanterns setting lively shadows over their textured surfaces. “Wow.” The word popped out, collecting a chuckle from Brett.