by M. S. Parker
“Geez, Toni,” Vic said. “I need to talk to you, Vic. It’s urgent. Not now, Vic. I’m tied up. Make up your mind already, why don’t you?”
“Shut it, Vic.” Tired already, I slumped against the counter and stared outside. The sky was so blue, dotted with puffy blue clouds. “So…ummm…”
Even though I couldn’t see him, I already knew I’d just made him suspicious.
“Just spit it out,” he said, sounding annoyed.
Vaguely, I wondered if I'd caught him in his early morning sneak out – his typical way of finishing a hook-up.
Rolling my eyes, I shoved off the counter and tried to find the right way to approach the subject. At twenty-seven, Vic was the youngest of my four older brothers and the one who'd been in and out of trouble since he'd been a kid. Our parents and brothers had tried to keep him out of it, but he was even more stubborn than I was, and that was saying something. I sometimes wondered if it was partially my fault, if my having passed him up in school, always being the smartest kid in the room, if all of that had somehow made him feel like he needed something of his own, even if it meant breaking the law.
After being arrested at eighteen on felony drug charges, he'd served his time and then pulled back from the life. Sort of. He still kept in touch with some of the wrong people and, more importantly, kept his ear to the ground, always hoping he’d find that one thing that would let him make it rich, somehow.
Sadly, the one thing my big brother didn’t want to do was hard work.
I loved him no matter what, but sometimes, he annoyed the hell out of me. Even though he was three years my senior, I sometimes – okay, most of the time – felt like the older sister.
Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck. He was going to be pissed, but I reminded myself of what was at stake. “You been hanging out with any of your old crowd, Vic?” I asked softly.
He started to make a derisive noise, and I knew he was going to brush me off. I could practically hear the words. He tried to make us all believe he’d left that life behind him, and for the most part, he had. But we all knew better. Try as he might, there were shadows that would always follow him, mostly because he didn’t want to let them go. He just wanted us to believe otherwise.
Too tired to argue it with him, I said, “Don't jerk me around, Vic.”
“What?” His tone was borderline belligerent.
I’d been subconsciously pacing my apartment and found myself at the microscopic fire-escape I’d retrofitted into a mini-balcony. Ducking through the window, I stared out over the streets of the city. “Don't lie, Vic. I'm not looking to lecture you. If that’s how you want to live your life, then…hell, it’s your life. Right now, I just have a question. Yes or no. Have you had a chance to hook up with anybody from that old life?”
If he was at all suspicious, he didn’t let it show. “Well, I guess I might see a few of my old pals down at the bar here and then. I don’t hassle them, they don’t hassle me. It’s easy to just kind of glide on by like that, ya know?”
I reached up to pinch the bridge of my nose. Only my brother could make hanging out at a bar with drug dealers and pimps and members of organized crime sound like he just happened to run into them at the grocery store.
I loved him, but sometimes I wondered about him.
“I need to ask a favor.” I focused on the reason I’d called. It would make it easier not to reach through the phone and slap him. I hoped.
“Yeah? Look, if you’ve got yourself some kind of bleeding heart at one of the places where you volunteer, Toni, I’m not turning on friends.”
“Vic, shut up,” I snapped. My nerves were frayed and I wasn't in the mood for his whole 'honor among thieves' bullshit. “This is important and it’s not about you or me. So listen.”
Something in my voice must've gotten through to him and Victor’s voice gentled as he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a woman missing. My boss.”
“Isadora Lang.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “Why you calling me? You know I’m out of that life, right? I might talk to some friends, but I promised Mom and Dad. I promised all of you that I was done.”
“I know that.” Swallowing the knot in my throat, I brought up a mental image of Isadora. Those stylish black curls and innocent olive green eyes. Her sweet, brilliant smile. “Look, I’ve just got this feeling she was kidnapped. You were in deep for a while with all sorts of people. I'm not accusing you of anything because I know you'd never hurt anyone, but sometimes…well, people talk.”
“Toni…” Vic’s voice was soft. “I’ve been out a long time.”
Feeling defeated, I sagged back against the crumbled brick of my apartment building. I'd been grasping at straws, I knew. A part of me had just been hoping. “I know. I’m worried about her, Victor. She’s like this…she’s sweet and hopeful. She gets excited about pretty flowers in her office. She buys toys for kids in the hospital and group homes and takes them in herself because she loves seeing the the looks on their faces. She's one of the best people I know.”
“Shit, kid.” He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I'll ask around.”
My relief was so profound that my legs almost gave out.
“I gotta be careful, though. Once the cops start really digging into things, they're going to be looking at everyone close to her and that means you. They find out who you're related to and then it gets out that I've been asking around, they're going to think I had something to do with it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Victor laughed humorlessly. “You weren’t the dumbass who thought he could solve all of our money problems by making a drug run. If anybody should say they are sorry, it’s me. You’ll get hassled a lot more on this because of me than you would if some other chump was your brother.”
I half-smiled. “I don’t want some other chump.”
Victor muttered something under his breath, but I heard him anyway and it made my heart hurt.
We ended the phone call a few seconds later, but not before I said, “You’re wrong, you know. I’ve got exactly the brother I deserve. You might still have your flaws, but you turned your life around, Vic.”
***
It was probably a waste of time, making the trip uptown. There were no police cars outside the monolith of a house, but that wasn't surprising. I was sure they'd set everything up in case a ransom call came in, but I knew the cops all thought that Isadora was just out doing what most rich twenty-somethings in New York City did and that she'd stagger home, drunk and /or high at some point.
Fifth Avenue was quieter than I could remember seeing it in quite some time and I had to wonder if maybe Ash had waved his magic wand made of green bills and somehow managed to clear the city street.
The idea amused me for some reason.
Maybe because I could actually picture Ashford Lang striding into some crowded and dim city official’s office and shaking a fist of bills in his face. See this? I’m Ashford Fucking Lang and I’m having a bad day. Make everybody go away.
Not that it would work in the real world, but he was arrogant enough to think he could control everything and everybody. I wouldn't have put anything past him.
I control things.
His voice was a hot, raw echo in the back of my memory and I had to suppress a shudder.
I still felt his hands on me.
His cock inside me.
His mouth on me.
Oh, hell.
That mouth.
Even as much as I regretted last night, I regretted not having more. Like having him completely sober so that he couldn't blame what happened on lowered inhibitions. I regretted not having him completely naked and stretched out under me as I learned his body. Then me under him as he learned mine. I regretted not having had more time.
“Stop it,” I told myself as I mounted the steps.
For once, nobody was there to open the door. I really hoped that didn't mean Ash had fired the e
ntire staff. Isadora had told me that Doug had been with her family since she was a child and he'd been the one who'd stayed with her after her parents died while Ash had been on his way from college.
I told myself it wasn’t a big deal to let myself in. I had a key. Isadora had given me one and told me that I could pretty much come and go as I pleased. I shook my head. Far too naïve and trusting.
There had been one thing she'd said though. If you do let yourself in, make sure you either find me in my wing or stay in the main area up front, Toni, okay? Don't go in the west wing. That's pretty much all my brother's.
She'd made a joke about Beauty and the Beast. I’d countered with one about Bluebeard and she’d laughed, a surprisingly loud and bawdy laugh that hadn’t seemed to fit the elegant and sweet woman.
I could see now that her joke had been much more appropriate for her brother.
Slipping into the house, I locked the door behind me and quickly moved to disarm the system. The last thing I needed was for the alarm to go off and the cops to show up.
As the beeps hushed, my skin prickled. As a soon-to-be psychiatrist, I knew all about instinct and the sorts of primal things that our species had retained despite all of our civilizing.
It was that part of me that reacted when I heard the low, guttural moan. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I couldn't even tell if it was a sound of pain, but it was enough to tell me that something was happening.
Chapter 5
Ash
I was a coward.
I had a hell of a lot of character flaws, but I had to admit that one surprised me. I'd always considered my way of dealing with sex and women as being smart, the right thing to do since I wasn't interested in a relationship. Now, I saw it for what it really was.
I was a coward for sneaking away from Toni the way I did every other woman. I was worse, actually, because those other women had known what they were getting into.
I'd been wondering what in the hell I'd gotten myself into and how I could ever face Toni again when I'd been saved by the bell…more or less.
Toni had gotten a phone call, and judging by the grimace on her face, she'd seemed to think it was important, so rather than doing the polite thing and waiting to see if she wanted to talk, I used it as a chance to get the hell out of Brooklyn.
If I'd thought that thinking clearer would be any easier once I was away from her, away from the magic of her touch or the power of her eyes, then I was clearly an idiot.
I doubted she would've disagreed with that assessment.
All day, I tasted her kisses.
Instead of the pounding headache, I had a pounding cockache, brought on by residual memories of the way she’d stared at me, daring me to try to control her.
Damn, I wanted to control her.
And it pissed me off that I couldn't.
What was worse, the more I thought about her, the hotter I got, the more on edge I got.
And then my mood did a violent slide in the other direction as I recalled…Iz.
She was still missing.
Not that it mattered to the cops.
There was a set period of time she had to be missing, I'd been told. Forty-eight hours.
It had been less than twenty-four.
I was going to kill someone if I had to wait another day for them to get off their asses and do something.
“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” I was talking to the Police Commissioner, but even his title wasn't enough to make me keep my voice down. “I’m telling you that my sister is missing. You’re the NYPD. What, you don’t investigate missing persons’ cases anymore, Dyson?”
I stared hard at my computer screen.
The man who stared back at me over the monitor was a white-haired man with the distinguished sort of features that commanded authority. That wasn’t why I’d backed him or why I still supported him though. He backed up his promises with real action.
Yet I wasn’t seeing any sign of that here.
“You’re not listening to me, Ashford. Now…listen…” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth. “I understand why you’re so angry, but before you tear me a new one, try to remember what I had to go through about this time last year.”
His jaw went tight, and I looked away. A year ago, his daughter had been gunned down in what was nothing more than a petty act of revenge. She’d only been fourteen. They still didn't have enough proof to arrest the guy who did it.
“But you need to understand, there are certain things that tie our hands for now. Isadora is an adult. She hasn’t been missing for forty-eight hours. Trust me, we are keeping our eye out, but until we cross that deadline…”
“With kids, they say the first twenty-four hours or whatever…those are the golden hours. So why is it different with adults?”
“Because adults can, and do, just…leave.”
I hammered at him for another few minutes and then hung up. I had other names on my list. Powerful names who I'd gotten to know through my business transactions…and some through my more…private life. I didn't make any other calls though.
It wasn’t doing any good.
I had my own security out in force, combing the streets for her. I'd sent them out almost immediately after I'd talked to Doug. And actually, I'd gotten proof that the cops were looking for her. Just not officially. One of my men had run into a contact of his own the force and it turned out they were both doing the same thing. Looking for Isadora. My guy had texted me to let me know.
Tearing the city apart and threatening all the contacts I had – contacts I might need soon – wasn’t going to serve any purpose.
I needed to focus.
Needed to think.
But I wouldn’t be able to do that until I got rid of some of the energy, the anger inside me. There was only one way I knew to do that.
I picked up the phone and punched in a number.
A soft, throaty voice came on the line.
“Are you available?” I nearly barked out the words.
“Just say when, Sir.”
***
Sibella Hall was a sub I only occasionally used.
She liked her play…dark.
I rarely went that dark, but today, I needed it.
The hour I’d spent tying her had done more to focus my brain than anything else could have. Yoga, meditation – that was what any number of people in my line of work did.
I had sex.
And I had it rough.
The more stress I needed to relieve, the rougher it got.
When I really needed to clear my head, I had sex with a Sub when she was bound and helpless, unable to move anything, sometimes not even her mouth.
I didn’t gag Sibella this time, but I told her not to scream, not to moan. And I’d done that only because my mood was so dark, I didn’t know if I was going to push her harder than I should. I doubted it. I’d taken plenty of subs to their limits, but Sibella didn’t seem to have one. Still, I didn't gag her, just in case.
Once I had her bound securely, I moved to her head and wrapped her long ponytail around my hand.
She rolled her eyes to look up at me and I saw a familiar dazed look in them.
If I just jacked off and came right there, or had her take my cock in her mouth, fucking it until I emptied myself, she’d be more than satisfied. For Sibella, it was all about the submission. She was probably about ready to come and the only times I'd touched her had been to tie her up. And there hadn't been anything sexual about any of my touches.
I found myself thinking of Toni and frustrated need sank its teeth into me again. I needed more than just this.
“Open,” I growled.
She parted her lips and I surged inside.
Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on the wet cave of her mouth, how she sucked and used her teeth and tongue. She was an artist, even when she couldn’t use her hands–
I could still feel Toni’s nails biting into my shoulders. See her hands as they slid dow
n my torso.
She’d never wait for a man to allow her to climax. I’d had to fight to keep her from taking it.
With a snarl, I tore away from Sibella, my cock pulsing, nearly painful with need.
She was panting. “Sir?”
“Be quiet!” I snapped. I didn't want to hear her voice.
I moved up behind her. She was bound on a specially designed sawhorse I'd ordered last year. Each leg, wrapped in red rope from thigh to ankle, was secured to the horse’s supports. She was wet, the lips of her bared sex open and vulnerable. Sibella always removed all of her body hair. Most of the subs I chose did the same.
Toni had a nice, neatly-trimmed thatch of hair, dark with just a hint of red and I…
Dammit! I shook my head, trying to clear it. I reached over to the side table and picked up the bottle of lubricant I always kept handy. I might like to get really rough with my Subs, but I wasn't cruel. I knew exactly how much preparation each Sub needed before each type of sex.
Fortunately for me, Sibella only needed a little and I knew just how to work it so that the lubricated finger slid in and out of her ass, drawing little suppressed whimpers from her as I twisted and curled it.
She was quivering by the time I mounted her. I pressed the head of my cock against her ass and paused.
“I want you to scream,” I said. Maybe the noise would pull me out of my head.
I slammed into her and Sibella’s high, needy scream echoed through the room. The muscles in her ass spasmed around my throbbing shaft. She loved taking it after very little prep and that was what I needed right now. I drove into her again, my balls slapping against her cunt.
Again, again, again…
In my head, Sibella had become somebody else. The furious sounds of her passion made it easier for that image to coalescence. Tired of fighting it, I let it happen. I spanked Sibella’s ass while I let the memories play out, let the new fantasies take over.
“Beg me,” I said out-loud.
“Please…please, Sir…Sir please…”