Local woman killed in plane crash 12 page

She loved his kisses, his confidence, his stubbornness. She loved every goddamned thing about him. He only had to glance in her direction, and the floor dropped away. She was freefalling, riding the wind of his breaths, hoping he’d catch her.

She rolled her hips forward, the hard heat of his desire jabbing her hip. “Reed,” she breathed. “Liv Reed.”

His lips floated along her cheek, his smile tickling her jaw, one hand returning to her breast, curling fingers beneath the binding on her corset. “Are you worried, Liv Reed?”

By using her name, he was prodding her to say his. But she needed the designations to resume her role. Just needed to get through the meeting.

She stepped back, chilled by the distance she’d put between them. “My worry is none of your concern, boy. Stand straight. Shoulders back. Eyes down.”

He bent his knees to meet her eyes. His grip on her hips was hard and soft all at once. “Then whose concern is it?”

Her heart fractured. Think about Mom and Mattie. “If the buyer is satisfied and doesn’t back out after tonight, Mr. E will send new videos.” She left out the part about watching them with Van. She would deal with that detail later.

His jaw slackened, and his arms fell to his sides. “All right.” He straightened, squared his shoulders, and lowered his eyes. “Will you explain why you just whipped me?”

She clicked through the room in her thigh-high boots, the stiff leather mini-skirt pinching her legs and shortening her strides. “The buyers aren’t just purchasing slaves. They’re paying for the training of their property.” The cold words shivered through her.

“And the marks on my body show you’ve been beating me properly?” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, unabashedly nude.

A swallow dragged down her throat, her skin tight with a strange, intense emotion. With the others she’d delivered, she experienced remorse, regret, self-hatred. With him, she burned with a sense of possessiveness.

She grabbed his jeans from the trunk and tossed them to him. “The slave’s obedience during the introduction proves the validity of the training.” She moved to the cabinet. “Since the sale is not final until delivery, Mr. E claims fresh welts are…a marketing tactic. Seals the deal.” Mr. E’s words. She unlocked the door and removed what she needed, avoiding his eyes. “Sadists get excited seeing a body marked up.”

Her breath strangled. She couldn’t tell him how cruel these buyers were at these meetings. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons to run.

Clothing rustled, sounding his approach. “Look at me.”

She raised her chin, fell into his eyes.

“We’ll get through this.”

His affirmation gave her strength. She rubbed arnica into his welts and gave him Tylenol, something she’d done for every slave after every beating. Then she held up the long rope of chain in her hand. “Ready?”

He answered her in a heady, tongue-swirling, toe-curling kiss.

Ten minutes later, he followed her into the outer chamber. The girl lay on the cot, her eyes closed. Liv suspected she feigned sleep to avoid attention. The thought didn’t help the knot in her belly.

Josh walked beside her, wearing only his jeans and boots. Chains wrapped his torso from neck to waist and locked his forearms together. Metal cuffs secured his wrists to the links on his chest.

The restraints she hated most forced his hands into fists against his sternum, encasing them in a tangle of strong wire. The strands of metal twined in and around his knuckles and thumbs, preventing him from straightening his fingers. He couldn’t clasp a door handle or squeeze the trigger on a gun. The gun she would carry and hoped she didn’t have to use.

Van was waiting in the kitchen with lunch. She ate her burrito in silence, feeding her prisoner between bites. Van watched with panic straining the edges of his eyes. He feared these meetings as much as she.

Van wasn’t allowed to join them. The first time they met a client together in her role as a deliverer ended with Van’s fist in the buyer’s face. He hadn’t liked the way the man was gaping at her. Fortunately for Mom and Mattie, the transaction went through despite the misunderstanding. Since that night, she was the only face of the operation.

But without Van’s overbearing protection, she was on her own. And given this buyer’s expressed hatred for women, the clench in her stomach was threatening to double her over.

She forced resolution into her knees and stood. “Time to go.” With her phone, a hood, and a long scarf in hand, she snapped her fingers and walked to the garage and the waiting van.

The van’s only two windows and windshield were tinted to conceal the interior but not enough to risk getting pulled over. She and Van restrained him on the floorboard in the cargo area. He lay on his back, eyes on his boots, retractable tie-down straps holding him in place.

She wedged a ball gag in his mouth and covered his body and face with a sheet, smothering her unproductive emotions with long, deep breaths. Then she climbed behind the wheel and rolled down the window.

Van opened the garage and approached her door. “I put the cooler in the back.”

“Thank you.” She meant it. She hadn’t remembered to pack dinner, wasn’t thinking past the meeting.

He handed her a small LC9 handgun and a disposable phone through the window. “He’ll call at seven o’clock.”

The clock on the dash read 3:58 PM.

“Take 35 south until he calls. He’ll tell you where to go from there.”

She nodded, gut churning.

He placed a hand on her jaw and a kiss on her opposite cheek, over her scar. She held miserably still as he kissed the corner of her mouth then fully on her lips. The skin around his mouth was colder, harder than Josh’s smooth complexion. The movements of his lips forced, pried, and dug in. The scent of his breath wasn’t unpleasant, but it was…wrong.

His hand fell away. “Come back in one piece.”

“I always do.” Key in the ignition, she started the van and backed out. He stood in the driveway, hands in his pockets, his expression tight, worry rimming his eyes. If she never returned, that would be the last look she saw on his face. Her chest hurt, a complicated pain.

Ten minutes outside of Temple, she pulled into a vacant parking lot, tucked the gun in her thigh-high boot, and climbed into the back. A whisper in her head begged her to not to deter from the routine. Slaves always rode in the back. Would he cause her to wreck in an attempt to escape? What if she was pulled over by a cop?

She didn’t listen as she yanked back the sheet and removed the gag. “I can’t…I don’t want you back here…like this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. What the hell was she doing? She raised her eyes, clung to the calm strength in his. “Will you try to run?”

Chapter 28

“Not going anywhere without you, Liv.” The intensity in Josh’s eyes slammed into her chest, knocking her shoulders loose and freeing her lungs. She hadn’t trusted another person since Mom, and experiencing that feeling again was thrilling. And stupid.

She released the straps and waited, frozen beneath the gravity of her decision.

He rose, sidling past her, the chains straining across his back and arms, his jeans molding distractedly to his ass. He dropped into the front passenger seat. With a glance at his wired hands, he faced the windshield and let his head fall on the head rest. “Will you buckle my seat belt?”

Her heart hit the floorboard. More restraints. More trust she didn’t deserve. Maybe some day they could drive to an unknown destination without shackles and stomach-curdling anxiety. They could sing along to music on the radio and talk about the future. They could dine together in a restaurant, and maybe he would hold her hand.

Her hopes died in her chest. She’d surrendered her chance at love the day she roller-bladed to Van’s car. There would be no carefree car rides or dreams about the future. There was only her videos and his chains and the man who awaited their arrival.

As she drove, he sat sideways in his seat, arms locked to his chest, watching her with a maelstrom of thoughts turning behind his eyes.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “What are you thinking about?”

“Why does Mr. E require ten weeks of training?”

This would be difficult to explain to a guy who didn’t fit the hostage mold. “He allows the stages of captivity to run its course. Panic and denial consume the initial seconds to hours. Hostility and escape attempts happen in the first few weeks.” She swallowed. Never had she considered allowing captives to ride up front on their way to an intro meeting. Two weeks into their confinement, and their eyes burned with a desperate need to escape.

The pale green eyes studying her were patient, thoughtful, and nothing she was accustomed to dealing with. He rolled his lips. “And after the first few weeks?”

She stretched her neck, eyes on the cars zipping along beside them. “True acceptance is gradual and doesn’t fully materialize until the first couple months. Acceptance is necessary for the kind of slave Mr. E is selling. One who can follow his Master around without noticeable restraints.” Complete and total submission. Broken and hopeless.

“Eight slaves in seven years, if you count me.” His steady gaze warmed her face. “Nine, if you include yourself. That’s little over a captive a year. What do you do the rest of the time?”

“We hunt. Our selection process is based on the buyer’s requirements, family and social situations, but most importantly, the captive’s ability to conform. The latter takes months of surveillance to determine the ideal candidate.”

He shook his head. “You watched me for weeks and—”

“I knew.” Her stomach clenched, conflicted and lost. “I knew you weren’t the right choice for this.” She met his eyes and found her way. “You were the right choice for me. When I saw you, I couldn’t walk away.”

A smile tipped the side of his mouth. “There’s my girl, honest and open. Was that so hard?”

Her chest lightened, her pulse pumping in an untroubled rhythm. “You’re easy to talk to.” And easy to love.

As she drove, she explained what she knew of Mr. E’s network, how he never had contact with the clients, and how he’d created a referral system for new buyers. “Each buyer must pass along a reference at the intro meeting. It’s Mr. E’s requirement in the contract. Since I’m the only one who meets face-to-face, Mr. E preserves his and the clients’ anonymity. Once the delivery is made and the transaction is sent, we never hear from them again.” There was so much more to that last part.

His silence pulled at her skin, scratching with unasked questions. No doubt he was thinking about how impossible it would be to find her previous captives. If he asked where they were, she would lie to him the way she lied to herself. They had to be dead to her, because the truth was too risky, for him and everyone involved.

When he finally spoke, his question surprised her. “Are there female buyers?”

She imagined him growing hard beneath another woman’s whip, and a double knot of jealousy tightened her tone. “What? A female buyer would’ve made this easier for you?” It was unfair to accuse, and she immediately wanted to take it back.

He sucked his teeth at her, his voice low and aggravated. “I’m struggling to understand how I’m supposed to be a straight guy who hates women.”

She flicked the blinker and changed lanes. “There was one female buyer. She wanted a male slave.” A corporate, power-charged bitch with a chip on her shoulder. “I don’t know what prompted the unusual demand of misogyny with this one, but it’s imperative you give the impression that you despise me and any other woman who might be present.”

A miserable silence followed as they watched the open pastures blur by. How would someone make a person hate women? It was an impossible requirement, but she’d known that going in.

She grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the console, cracked the window, and lit one. “Recite the requirements. The better you know them, the easier it will be for you to embody them.”

He narrowed his eyes on her cigarette. Oh, he wanted to scold her, and if they were on their way to somewhere…normal, he probably would have pulled out his preachology. Instead, he smirked and dictated the rules. Listening to him practice the loathsome words, knowing he was doing it for her, made her want him with a ferocity that burned the backs of her eyes and swallowed her destination.

He repeated the twelve requirements with fewer and fewer errors, until he relayed them perfectly. His body molded to the words, his chin dropping, thighs opening, no hint of resistance in his voice. She knew he wasn’t losing himself. He was acclimating. For her.

Her body heated and tightened. He was the strength and heart of the most dangerous jump. He was the soul of bravery wrapped in chains. He would never fall, no matter how much metal weighted him down. He was a man who loved selflessly and honestly, and she was taking him to a monster who would slice him open and fuck the incision.

She gripped the wheel with two fists, unable to steer off course, unable to save him from herself.

An hour into the drive, flat fields tumbled into the scattered tower blocks of Austin.

“I grew up here.” Her voice sounded distant to her ears. Memories could tear her apart, but they were there, gathering in the clouds that hovered over the metropolis. “Just a few miles that way.”

He turned to face her. “What was your childhood like?”

“Spent a lot of time up there.” She pointed at the blue sky that spanned beyond the reinforced concrete and steel. “When I wasn’t at school, I was jumping with Mom.” She smiled past the burn in her throat. “I used to sing to the first-time jumpers. Mom said it calmed them, but it’s so noisy on the plane—”

“Sing to me.” His gentle tone competed with the hard set of his jaw.

She wanted to, desperately needing the distraction. She began with “Pretty Face” by Sóley, letting the misty notes rise to her lips and carry them out of her hometown.

When she hummed the song to a close, he regarded her as a lover might, affection softening his eyes and lips, his shoulders curling forward as if reaching toward her. “Gives me chills, Liv. Every damned time. Your beauty isn’t just an experience for the eyes. It breathes through the ears and evokes a reaction so consummating, it claims the soul.”

Her boot slipped off the gas pedal. She regained her footing but not her voice. It was flattened somewhere beneath her galloping heart.

“I can feel you.” He leaned back, inhaled deeply. “Inside me. Everywhere. You own me. You will always own me, and I will walk through hell to keep it that way.”

Eyes on the road, her breath shivered from her lungs, cracking her voice. “You own me, too.”

“I know.” He pinned her with those mesmerizing pale eyes. “Sing another one.”

She shuffled through her favorite atmospheric tunes, serenading him, drawing out every minute they were side by side, beyond the prison walls, speeding in the same direction.

An hour south of San Antonio, her phone buzzed in her lap. They both jumped and stared at one another until it buzzed again. She lifted it to her ear.

“Take 85 west toward Asherton.” The buyer’s voice was suave, smooth, and thick with a Latino accent. “There’s an abandoned railway station.” He gave the address and disconnected.

She entered it into the GPS. “One hour away.” And minutes from the Mexican border.

How easy it would be to disappear. She could toss the phone Mr. E tracked her on. Maybe he wouldn’t try to find her. But she couldn’t escape the news coverage. His promise to punish her with national headlines of Mattie’s death made her hands shake. Her fingers turned to ice on the steering wheel.

Josh’s gaze was tangible, pressing into her skin. “You okay?”

“It’s just a meet and greet.” She angled her head to see his sharp expression. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Muscles contracted in his arms as he tried to pull his hands from his chest. “I can’t repeat those words to you, Liv. Not when I can’t use my arms.”

“You don’t need your arms. Focus on the requirements and remember to hate me.”

He reclined in the seat and stared at the roof. “Right.”

An hour later, she stopped a mile outside the GPS destination on a vacant gravel road. “Bathroom break.”

She released her nervous bladder into the dust-covered weeds. Then she pushed down his jeans and held his cock so he could do the same. No words were uttered when he returned to his seat in the van, when she unlaced and removed his boots, or when she stripped his jeans and left him bare.

With a tremble in her hands and an ache in her chest, she covered his trusting eyes with a black hood. “This is for both of us.” An accidental glance between them could be fatal if the buyer was perceptive.

As she stepped back to close the door, she hesitated for one heart-clenching second. She didn’t deserve him, but goddammit, Joshua Carter was hers.

The black shroud of night held still and patient, coaxing her to risk a stolen moment. She climbed onto his naked thighs and lifted the hood just enough to expose his lips.

The first kiss was for him. A brushing of lips, a promise of protection. The second kiss was for her. A deep-reaching dance of her selfish tongue, a curl of love with a man who deserved so much more.

She lowered the hood, slid off his lap, and left him panting.

“Liv?”

“The requirements begin now. Who am I? Say it.”

“Mistress.”

She shut the door on the hiss of his breath through his teeth, wrapped her hair, nose, and mouth in a long scarf, and drove to the red dot on the GPS.

A single story building squatted, tired and alone, beside overgrown railroad tracks. Surrounded by shadowed fields and woods, no one would stumble by this end-of-the-road depot. A black sedan parked in the empty lot. No license plates. It looked outrageously sleek and out of place beneath the sagging gloom of the unkempt property.

She checked the handgun’s concealment in her boot, tucked her phone in the other boot, and guided Josh to the door. Her strides glided over the crumbling sidewalk with precision, shoulders cut back, lungs regulated, her thoughts beating to the seditious hymns of “Ghostflowers” by OTEP. She was a deliverer, a killer, a soulless captor. She shoved through the door.

Chapter 29

Over the years, the intro meetings had instilled certain expectations in Liv’s mind. The buyers were paranoid, often armed and protected by bodyguards, and always masked. As Liv led Josh inside with a hand behind her, gripping the chain at his waist, her sphere of preconceptions evaporated, along with the air from her lungs.

The door creaked closed, and she tried and failed to shield his too-large frame with her smaller one. He bumped into her back, his head hooded and his body tight with tension.

A man reclined in a dusty chair at the center of the room, seemingly unconcerned with the grime rubbing onto his expensive suit. He wore no mask, and there were no obvious bulges marking concealed weapons. Even more unnerving, there were no bodyguards. He was either stupid, confident, or planning to kill her. Maybe all three.

Fifty extra pounds lolled over his belt and tested the button threads on his shirt. Late-forties, round nose, bald head, his oily gaze greased through the air, slicked past her, and clung to Josh’s nude body.

But what made the hairs on her neck bristle was the naked woman restrained to the ceiling. She stood off to the side, in the shadowed edge of the room, staring out of twitchy, unfocused eyes. Her arms stretched over her head, tethered to the rafters, her feet weighted to the floor with chunks of broken sidewalk.

Thank fuck for the hood over Josh’s head. He was temporarily oblivious to the depravity she’d led him into.

A ring gag held the woman’s jaw open, secured in place with straps around her tangled black hair. Her tongue rolled in her mouth, pushing saliva through the ring and down her chin. A reflective orange collar cinched her throat. Belts fitted around her waist and upper thighs, connecting a wide strap that covered her vaginal and anal entry points. To fuck her, he would have to remove the three padlocks dangling between her legs.

If he hated women, why did he have a female slave? Most likely, misogyny was the reason he kept the woman confined in a chastity belt. So why did he want Josh?

Her stomach tightened painfully, but she forced her most dominant voice through the scarf on her mouth. “This is an introduction only. You will view what I’ve brought. If you approve, your down payment is required in the form of a phone number. As you know, we operate on referrals only. Call me Deliverer. What do I call you?”

“Traquero.” His accent slithered with his gaze, his neck arching so he could steal a better look at Josh.

A yellow bulb drenched the wood floors and plaster walls in a dirty glow. At the perimeter of the light, the bound woman began to writhe. A moment later, she shrieked, muscles convulsing, drool stringing from her gaping mouth. Behind Liv, Josh’s breath hitched. She tightened her grip on his chain, a silent command to remember his role.

The woman’s chin fell upon on her chest, and she drooped in her restraints. Traquero held up a remote, pushed a button, and the woman screamed again.

As Liv made the connection to the shock collar, images assaulted her. Josh collared under the hands of this man, his beautiful face shattering in agony, his faith in humanity shredding with each press of the button. No fucking way. Not while she still sucked air. She jutted out her hip, creased her eyes with a calloused smile, and laughed. “Who the fuck is she?”

“My wife.” His nostrils flared. “She used to be my life. Until I found out she was just a fucking whore.” He stood, yanking the tie loose at his neck, his accent clotting with long i’s. “Fucking all my colleagues. Making me a goddamned laughingstock, the filthy fucking bitch.” He strode toward his wife, rolling up his sleeves, and backhanded her face.

A normal person would’ve regretted asking the question. Hell, a kind person would’ve ran for help. But she was neither. She needed Traquero’s commitment to the deal to ensure her family’s safety, and she couldn’t leave without it.

Marketing 101. Know the customer’s needs and use the information to influence him. “You want a lover who won’t” —can’t— “undermine the dominion you’ve worked so hard to establish?” Fucking lowlife.

“Yes.” He folded his hands behind his back and swaggered toward her. “Move. Let me see him.”

She didn’t want that motherfucker anywhere near Josh. The thought alone spindled around her lungs, tightening its oxygen-depriving tendrils. But she couldn’t shove her gun down his throat and pull the trigger. She could not. She could not. She breathed through it, focusing on the reason she’d stripped Josh of his clothes. He was there to be viewed. Seal the deal.

She stepped aside and exposed Josh to the man’s sickening gaze.

“At last, I see you, mi belleza,” he said, and she knew he was referring to Josh’s cock. Traquero’s attention was fixated and slack-jawed. “Out of the way, whore.” He shooed her with a hand, his voice thick with spit.

“It’s Deliverer, you sexist cunt.” Her lashing tone was a pitiful attempt at maintaining her position. Didn’t matter who she was. She had a vagina. He considered her no more important than the woman he strung up and electrocuted, and he glared at Liv now like he might hit her.

She backed up, hands at her sides, fingers resting on the edges of her thigh-high boots.

He circled Josh, his gaze scouring the flexing muscle encased in chains, and paused with a hand over the raised welts. “Magnífico.” He reached up and yanked off the hood. “Face me.”

Never had she expected to become so overwhelmingly possessive of a man, and it terrified her. The fear of losing him was as painful as her loss of Mom and Mattie.

Josh kept his eyes down, but she knew he could see the woman hanging in his line of sight. Other than the twitch in his shoulders, he kept his reaction to the horror behind an empty expression. When he turned and Traquero cupped his lowered jaw, her heart pounded wildly to smack the touch away. She locked her knees, forced herself to wait it out.

“Has your dick been corrupted by pussy?” he breathed. “Speak. Give me your eyes.”

Josh was several inches taller and regarded the sweaty, suit-clad man with a calm expression, his tone admirably smooth. “I’m a virgin, Master.”

“Good. Good. Muy bueno.” He caressed Josh’s bicep and followed the chains over his chest. An unmistakable erection bulged below the girth of his gut. “The slut I married will watch me fuck you. She will see honor and respect as you accept my dick, my rules, my power. Then she will know what her cunt has lost.”

So fucked up. His requiting desires should’ve made his twelve requirements more plausible. Instead, the perversity of his oath and the lust smoldering in his eyes magnified his madness.

When he palmed Josh’s cock, she grappled for an excuse to stop him. She hadn’t told Josh that fondling was acceptable at these meetings. Stopping it would raise suspicion.

Josh held still with a heavy-lidded expression and intense patience, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t cracking beneath his stoic exterior. Her helplessness was an agonizing knot in her throat.

“Your limp pecker pleases me.” He cupped Josh’s balls, weighing them in his hand. “Not interested in men, no? Since I only employ men, you won’t fuck my colleagues? My servants? Answer.”

She shook her head, inwardly. Traquero liked the idea that Josh wouldn’t be tempted to fuck his colleagues, but what the megalomaniac wasn’t considering was that also meant Josh wouldn’t willingly fuck him, either.

“No, Master.” Josh’s voice was soft, but a vein pulsed in his forehead.

“No, you won’t.” Sick satisfaction congealed in the crook of Traquero’s grin, his eyes locked on his groping hand. “I want him.”

The three words she needed to hear and had dreaded with every fiber of her existence. Time to get the fuck out. “Delivery will be in eight weeks. Do you have the down payment?” His referral would be her next client. One with a new list of requirements and a new captive. An endless cycle she couldn’t break.

“I said, I want him.” The force of his declaration punched through her, stealing the strength from her legs. Did he mean—

“Right now.” He continued to molest Josh’s cock, his audacity slicing through her rising fear.

She brightened her eyes with the vicious smile he couldn’t see beneath the scarf. “He hasn’t been prepared for you, and he’ll fight like hell.” She hoped she hadn’t misunderstood his desire for a willing victim. With her hands on her hips, she rolled her head on her shoulders and stretched her mouth in a yawn. “He needs more conditioning.” She yawned again. “Hence, the eight weeks.” Now get a fucking clue.

“He’s not leaving until he gives me something. No deal without this.” He squeezed Josh’s cock, stretched it from his body. “I want you to come for your Master.”

Her heart skipped a beat. How would she stop this? Mr. E didn’t care what happened during these meetings as long as she secured the deal and the contact info for his next client.

He grabbed the chair, scratching the legs across the floor, and slammed it down in front of his wife. He pointed at the seat and frowned at Josh. “Sit.”

Josh’s muscles strained against the chains as he paced to the chair, head down. His wire-wrapped knuckles were bloodless, his jaw a hard line of anger. She stayed on his heels, the weight of her promise to protect him a splintering pang in her chest.

When he sat, she stood in front him. His heavy exhales rushed against her back. He was pissed, probably scared, but he hadn’t done anything to foul up the meeting. She needed to wrap this up by any means possible. Strike that. By any means but one. “You will not fuck him tonight.” Or ever.

Traquero removed his suit jacket. “Then I’ll fuck you.”

The room was fetid, reeking of desperation, the air thickening every second she hesitated. Vibrating through the stench was the silent wall of rage behind her. Josh’s knees tapped against the backs of hers, bouncing violently, begging her attention. It was a terrible reminder of the horror she’d subjected him to. At the same time, she found comfort in his jostling presence. He didn’t want this for her, and his concern was a fiery spark in her chest, a pulsing light that energized her with so much warmth.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 497