I tried to figure out where he was taking me. We were headed toward the mountains and I just figured he’d have taken us straight to an airport to get me back to Philadelphia as soon as possible in order to hand me over to my stepbrother and collect the money.
I thought about telling him about the million. While he filled out the check-in form, I questioned whether or not it would help me to do that. He would turn me in for a quarter of a million dollars but he’d also be taking a chance that Jason wouldn’t pay him at all. Jason would just as easily kill him, in my opinion. I made a note to mention that, although it would have surprised me if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind already. Julien was a professional killer. I had a feeling he’d be able to handle my stepbrother.
My other option, the one aside from escape, was to tell him about the million. Maybe if I offered to pay him half, he’d help me get it. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Julien could, if he wanted to, keep me safe. If there was half a million in it for him, would he do that? But then, what would stop him from just taking all of it?
Well, it wasn’t like it was being handed over in a big bag of unmarked bills. That latter worry wasn’t one at all. I’d transfer the funds to his account once I got the million and then I’d disappear again. This time for good.
Although it would be a hell of a lot easier to disappear with a full million dollars than half.
“Ready, honey?” Julien gave me a mocking grin, holding the key up in front of my face. “Got us a king size bed.”
I simply glared at him, and somehow, it managed to wipe that grin off his face as he steered me toward the elevators.
Our room was on the ninth floor and the elevator crept along, the doors opening at every floor along the way for some reason.
“Think it’s haunted?” Julien asked.
If he was trying to be silly or casual, it wasn’t working. I saw his hand slide into his coat the first time it happened, ready to pull out his pistol if he had to.
“I guess you have to walk around with your hand over your gun all the time, given the type of work you’re in.” I looked straight ahead, watching the doors slide closed on the eighth floor with a now familiar squeak.
Note to self: take the stairs if you can manage to get out of here.
“I’m cautious, that’s certain — but no more than you. Difference is, I’m better at it than you are.”
I gave him a sideways glance as the doors opened once more, and Julien led us out into the corridor and to our room, which was just a few doors down. Once there, he let us inside and switched on the light. It was a standard room in a cheap hotel: one king size bed, a TV, nightstands on either side of the bed, and a bathroom.
“I bet the police are looking for me,” I said, going to the window and looking out over the highway at the lights of passing cars.
“I’d say so, but I think you’ll do what you can not to be found.”
I drew the curtains closed and turned to him. He was right. I did not want the police to find me. I didn’t want anyone to find me. I wanted to disappear. I needed to disappear.
“Have you considered the fact that Jason may not pay you once you deliver me? I mean, what’s to stop him from killing you?”
“I can take care of myself,” he said easily, folding his coat over the back of a chair, tucking the revolver into his jeans and setting his wallet, the handcuffs and a few coins onto the chipped wood of the TV stand. “You want to have a shower?”
I nodded.
“All right. I’ll let you go first,” he said. “Undress.”
“I’ll undress in the bathroom.”
“I’d rather you did it in front of me so I can be sure you’re not carrying any sort of weapons.”
“I’m not carrying weapons,” I said, folding my arms across my chest in an effort to remain casual, or at least to appear so.
“Well, I’d just prefer to be sure,” he said, grinning again and leaning against the wall. “If you want to have a shower, you’ll get undressed now. Otherwise”—he picked up the handcuffs and held them up for me to see—”I’ll get you cuffed and have one myself. Of course, I’ll have to strip you anyway, but you’d probably prefer doing it yourself. Besides, you’ve seen me naked and you’ve watched me fuck — more than once — and I haven’t so much as seen a little tittie.”
My mouth dropped open.
“What’s it going to be?” he asked, taking a step toward me.
“I hate you,” I said, reaching to slide my raincoat off my shoulders.
He shrugged a shoulder. “If I gave a fuck, that would matter. Besides, I don’t actually think you hate me.” He walked toward me with that grin on his face, the one that said he knew me better than I knew myself.
I took a step back, my fingers frozen on the button I was undoing at the top of my blouse.
“I think, actually…” he said, taking another step closer.
I swallowed, looking up at him, the sound of my heart pounding against my chest almost deafening.
He drew so close that our bodies touched. “I think I make you wet.”
My breathing came shallow and quick as he brushed my hair over my shoulder. “You think wrong,” I lied, turning my attention to my now trembling fingers.
“That so?” He brought his face close to mine, the scruff from his jaw scratching my cheek. Placing his hands against the window, trapping me, waiting until I looked up at him. “You smell good.” He inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the hair at the top of my head, before once more scratching his face against mine, bringing his mouth to my neck. “And you look good. You look different.”
“Different than the waitresses who let you fuck them bent over the hood of a car in public?” My brain was telling my mouth to shut up at every word, every syllable, but my mouth would not obey.
“Mmm…” He grinned, inhaling at my ear, sending chills down my spine.
I thought he was going to kiss me. Kiss my neck. I didn’t even know if I wanted that, or if I wanted him to leave me alone, but when I put my hands against his chest, my effort to push him away was weak at best. As crazy as it sounded, he was right. Having him like this, so close, his breath on me, his scent around me, his big arms caging me in… it made me wet. Even though I knew what he was, what he had done, it made me wet.
But when I felt his tongue on my ear, tracing the contours of it, I jumped to action.
“Stop!”
He traced the outer ridge of my ear and when he reached the lobe, he took it between his teeth and pulled, his bite just hard enough to send an electrical charge straight to my clit. I wasn’t the only one affected. I knew it from the steel bar of his cock pressing against my belly.
I made a sound. I wanted to believe it was the sound of my struggle against him, an effort to make him stop, but I wasn’t entirely sure if that was the truth. I didn’t have to think on it though because he did pull back then, just far enough away that he could look at me, his arms still on either side of me, a cocky grin on his face that said he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
“I think you want me to lick much more than your ear, Mia,” he said in that rumbling whisper, staring me down for one more moment before finally releasing me from the cage of his arms and stepping back. “But that’ll only happen when I want it, not when you want it,” he said, his tone flat as he stepped back and adjusted the crotch of his pants. “And I’m suddenly feeling generous.”
The look on his face screamed danger, but all I could do was stand there and wait.
“I’ll give you the option of undressing in front of me so I can see that you’re not hiding a weapon, or you can turn around, put your hands on the windowsill and spread your legs for me to pat you down. What do you think? Which would you prefer?”
I stared at him, my body doing strange things, the fluttering of my belly, the heat at my core not what I expected to feel. Not what I should feel. I was here against my will, I had to remember that.
His eyes or his hands.
I could strip naked for him to ogle me, or I could let him frisk me over my clothes. I figured naked would leave me at my most vulnerable, so, without taking any more time to dwell, I turned, placed my hands on the windowsill and waited.
“I’ll be honest,” he began, nudging my legs wider. “I wasn’t sure which I preferred, but either way, it’s a win for me, isn’t it?”
“Get it over with, you prick.”
“Such foul language from so sweet a young lady,” he said, with a tsk. Then he began his search.
If I’d expected a simple pat down, then I was hopelessly naïve. There was nothing simple about this man, and I should have known he’d make full use of the opportunity. He started with his fingers in my hair, at my scalp, almost massaging as he checked me for weapons. What did he expect, a deadly hair clip?
Once he was satisfied, he moved down over my neck and to my shoulders, then down my arms and up along my ribcage before moving all over my back and toward my belly. I tensed when his hands slid upward, and when he cupped my breasts, I jumped, reaching to stop him.
“Hands on the windowsill, or you get naked. You chose this, Mia. Remember that.”
“I’m not hiding anything. You know you’re not doing this for that.”
“I don’t know anything. Now, what’s it going to be?” he asked when my hands remained over his.
“Asshole.”
He chuckled, but when I pulled my hands away and lay them flat on the windowsill again, he pinched both nipples hard, hard enough for me to cry out and try to pry his hands off again.
“When you talk to me, you will be respectful.”
“I wasn’t talking to you! Get off, you’re hurting me!”
But he only twisted harder, seeming satisfied at my whimper.
“When you talk about me, hell, even when you’re thinking of me, you will be respectful. I don’t have a problem punishing you, Mia,” he said, still twisting, tears now slipping from the corners of my eyes.
“Please! You’re hurting me!
But he wasn’t through yet because he came to stand against me, his cock pressing against my back, letting me know just how much he was enjoying this. “I should spank you for having spied on me at all, but I’ve let that go. Don’t make me regret my decision to go easy on you.”
“Easy?”
“Because I can assure you, I will enjoy punishing you. I’ll enjoy seeing you squirm when I turn you over my knee and spank your bare ass.”
“Okay, please… just stop.” His breath at my ear, the scruff of his jaw at my neck, his body too close, his words… shit. I didn’t want to think what those words were doing to me. I couldn’t think about how wrong my reactions to him were.
“Put your hands back on the windowsill and say you’re sorry,” he said, easing his hold a little.
I turned my head just enough so I could see him from the corner of my eye.
“Do it, or I’ll make good on my promise to punish you. And I mean really punish you.”
I hated him, hated how his perfect blue eyes mocked me, but I knew I had no choice. He was in charge here, there was no getting around that, so I turned away from him and set my hands back down on the windowsill before saying the words he wanted to hear.
“I’m sorry you thought I was disrespectful.”
He took his right hand off my breast and smacked my ass so hard, my body jerked forward, my pelvic bone colliding against the windowsill.
“Ow! God! I said what you wanted!”
“Not nearly. Try again. Last chance before I bare your ass and make you truly sorry.”
“Fine! I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was rude to you!”
He eased his hold on my nipple then and stepped back just a few inches. “That’ll do. You’ll find I’m not unreasonable, Mia.”
“No, obviously not,” I couldn’t help saying, squeezing my eyes shut in anticipation of his response. But he simply chuckled and carried on with his search of my body, hands moving over my hips, my buttocks. He took more time than he needed there before he slid his arms along the outsides of my legs and brought them back up my inner thighs, squatting down as he needed to, and rising again just as he cupped my sex in his right hand.
I don’t know why I wasn’t prepared for that, why I didn’t expect it, but I didn’t. So, when it happened, I stood there, my breath caught in my throat, staring straight ahead at the dusty curtains inches from my face.
Julien began to move his fingers then and even through the thick fabric of my jeans, I could feel his touch as if we were flesh to flesh, biting off the sigh that threatened to spill from my lips.
I looked down at his hand, feeling his breath on me again.
“Please stop,” I whispered, my plea barely audible.
I looked at him, saw how the blue of his eyes had darkened. What caught and held my attention though wasn’t how arousal had changed them, rather, it was the look on his face, the fact that he no longer grinned, no longer mocked. When those eyes met mine, the only way I could describe what I felt was that he saw me, and, for the briefest of moments, I saw him.
He dropped his hand and stepped back abruptly.
“Go have your shower. Door stays open.”
I looked after him but he didn’t look at me then. Instead, he sat back on the bed, his arm splayed over the headboard, and switched on the TV. It took me a minute, but I walked to the bathroom and did as I was told. I left the door open and climbed into the shower stall and had the hottest shower I could stand, not allowing myself to touch between my legs… even though the urge to do just that was almost unbearable.
Chapter Nine
Julien
I flipped through some channels, not paying attention to anything I saw until she was out of the room and the shower went on. Closing my eyes, I sat up and rubbed a hand over the scruff of my jaw.
Why had I told her what I’d told her in the car? I couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t figure out why she bugged me. I wasn’t used to feeling like this — or feeling anything at all. I was a hit man. An assassin. A killer. As many jobs as came from society’s unsavory, there came an equal number from sources thought to be good, law abiding. I didn’t care who booked my services, as long as they paid. And besides, good or bad, they all died the same. Scared fucking shitless when they figured out what was about to happen to them.
Was it that she was an innocent? Is that what was fucking with me?
No. No one was innocent. It wasn’t humanly possible. It would be best for me to remember that the next time I looked into those big green eyes.
I glanced at the bathroom, watching steam pour from the open doorway, and rose to my feet. “Hope you’re not using all the hot water.”
The sound of my voice must have startled her because she jerked, the outline of her body visible through the fogged up glass door. I collected her clothes from the bathroom, picking out her panties, and tucking them into my pocket.
“Wrap it up,” I called out over my shoulder as I exited the bathroom. I tucked her things into a dresser drawer and set the handcuffs on the nightstand.
The TV was still on and I turned up the volume before returning to the bathroom to open the shower door and switch off the water myself when she hadn’t yet done what she was told.
“Hey! I still have shampoo in my hair. And get out!”
I shook the water off my arm and looked her over before holding out a towel and gesturing for her to step out.
She grabbed the towel and covered herself as best she could, trying to shield herself from my view. Her hair hung all the way down her back and looked black now that it was wet. She did this thing with her mouth and I saw the one dimple on her right cheek. I hadn’t seen that yet. Mia hadn’t smiled once.
Shifting gears, I looked her over. She had a cute little figure, petite for her height but a little too skinny in my opinion. Still, I appreciated the glimpse of her ass before she got the towel around herself. It was the cushiest part of her, more generous than I expected given her sligh
t frame. That was a plus. I turned her, making her walk in front of me, thinking how nicely the little mounds would bounce when I spanked them. And I was sure she’d give me ample opportunity to do just that often — and soon.
“Let go of me.” She struggled against me, but I held tight.
“To the bed, come on.”
“Why? You said you wouldn’t…”
“Relax. I need a shower. I have a feeling you might wander off while I’m in there.” I sat her down and pulled both pillows out to rest them against the headboard. “Lie back.”
“No.”
“Lie. Back.”
“At least let me get dressed first.”
I smiled as I let my gaze travel over her, taking in toned arms holding that scrap of a towel tight to her chest, her sleek, wet thighs nicely muscled, her feet small, delicate… fragile.
“I prefer you naked. Gives you less incentive to try anything. Now lie back, Mia, arms over your head. I’ll even leave the TV on for you.”
She looked around the room, then at me, and I knew that she knew she was out of options.
“I’ll tell you what, do this without a struggle and I’ll uncuff you before we go to sleep tonight.”
“I promise, I won’t…”
“Last chance before I make you.”
Although reluctant, she laid back and extended her arms over her head. I slid the cuffs around one of the bars of the headboard and linked her wrists.
“Why aren’t we going to the airport yet?” she asked. “I thought you’d want to get me back to Jason fast. You know, collect your money.”
I looked at her, her eyes not quite defiant, but clever, trying to read me, to figure me out, looking for weakness. It’s what I would do if I were her. She wasn’t a coward, even though she was afraid.
I looked away from those eyes and picked up the remote to switch the channel, making a show out of going through all seven of them.
“Only Italian TV,” I said, tossing the remote on the foot of the bed. “Be quiet. If you’re not, first thing I’ll do when I get out here will be to roll you over onto your belly and whip your ass. Got it?”
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