by Tara Brown
I nod. “Right. So that’s something. He wasn’t just a serial rapist and killer because—”
“Don’t justify him to me.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, I didn’t actually have anything to add at the end of that anyway. He’s a psycho.”
“But not a lonely psycho. He’s got connections and friends in the right places.” Dash gives me a look. “How bad is the chateau?”
“Bad. It’s got theme rooms and costumes and loads of orgies and fun, but the girls are broken at the cells first—the job that Rory seemed to be part of, in some sick way. I don’t know how long they’re meant to stay in the cells. It seemed to me they were there far longer than Old Dick used to keep them. One month is what Amanda, the adopted daughter, said.”
Dash’s eyes narrow. “So break them in, using the cell, and then take them to the chateau, which is nice, and then they’ll be grateful and work hard?”
“Exactly.”
Angie covers her face, sobbing. I hate that I have told her the story.
23. Slippery when wet
Back at the ranch in Virginia—or estate, as luck would have it—Dash’s mother’s eyes narrow. She lingers there in her hatred for a moment before she blinks and the look is gone. In its stead is a look of fake bliss, like she didn’t just tell me off with her eyes. She hugs me, again with the touching. “We didn’t expect you would be back so soon, Jane.” She says it like she means well, but I feel like we both know otherwise.
I shrug and glance about the place. “Well, I had to rush off for work the last time. I felt bad.”
Her eyes widen. “Work, was it?”
Dash wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Yes, Mother. Jane is part of a huge investigation right now.”
Her eyes widen. “Not being charged?”
I laugh and sigh. “No.” I think she’s a touch disappointed for a second before she turns and hugs Angie with fervor. “Angela, how are you?”
“Och, ya know, dandy.” She doesn’t look dandy. She looks beat. She hugs his dad and follows her bags. “I’ll just set myself up in the guesthouse then and find a bit of rest.” I’m stunned at the comfort she has in his house. His parents even wave at her as she follows one of the maids I didn’t meet last time.
Evangeline finds me with a smile and a nod. “If you wish to follow me, miss, I will see you to your room.”
I smile and lean into Dash. “I would love to.”
Dash shakes his head, holding me tightly. “Actually, Evangeline, if you want to put her things in my room, she will be with me tonight.”
His mother’s face turns red, but his father seems oblivious. He lifts his drink and tosses back a considerable amount. His mother looks at me. “What about the nuns?”
Dash squeezes. “She wrote to them and said she was denouncing the church to get married at our church and become Anglican.”
His mother’s eyes scowl, but she forces a smile across her lips. “Wonderful.” She looks behind me. “Is that a cat?” Her voice cracks a bit. It’s almost awesome.
Dash ignores her and continues talking. “And since we live together in DC, I figured, why pretend. We are both over the age when it matters anyway. Nichols, please bring the cat to the room. He needs to be fed and will require a washroom.”
Dash’s mother makes a sound I assume means she is displeased. But Dash doesn’t care. He walks away from them, leading me after Evangeline.
When we get on the stairs I shove him slightly. “You shouldn’t have done that. It was disrespectful.” I glance back to see Nichols chuckling to himself.
“Well, she needs to lose sometimes too, Jane,” Dash says like it was nothing.
“Not in her own house,” I mutter. I can’t believe I’m defending her.
“Especially in her own house.” He kisses the side of my head, and when we get to his room I can tell Evangeline enjoyed the show as well. She gives me a smug grin when she curtseys, and leaves us alone in the huge room, as does Nichols. I wave and turn for Binx, letting him out of the carrying case. He dashes under the bed, and I know he’ll come out on his own.
“You feeling sexy, milady?” Dash asks in a perfect English accent.
I shake my head. “Not so much. The amount of sex I have seen in the last week, I think I’m good for the whole year.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure I can convince you.” He squats and throws me over his shoulder. “For starters, I think you need a shower.” He walks into the bathroom, lowering me as he turns the light on. The bathroom is remarkable. I didn’t expect anything less, but I also didn’t expect this. It’s the size of a small apartment, with a large soaker tub, two sinks, a toilet, and bidet. On the far side there’s another opening that’s fully tiled. He strips me, not even being gentle. Then he smiles at me, and I forget the whole other world we live in. All I see are the dazzling eyes and wicked grin from my beautiful man. I lift his shirt off, letting my fingers drag along his chest and down his stomach. Every muscle feels hard and ready. I undo his pants and jerk them down, boxers and all. He’s semi-hard, swelling more as the cool air of the room reaches him.
I start to walk toward the tub, but he takes my hand, kissing the back of it, and pulls me into the tiled room. It’s like nothing I have ever seen. It’s a shower room. The ceiling is a grate, and when he presses a button, it pours rain down upon us.
I tilt my head back, letting it wash over me as his body is suddenly pressed against mine and his mouth is grazing my lips. He doesn’t stay long, kissing me on the lips. He’s there one second and then gone again. When I open my eyes I see he has picked up the soap and a loofah, making lather. He massages my back and arms, my breasts and stomach, and finally he drops between my legs, spreading my thighs open to wash me. The rough loofah against my sensitive nipples was scratchy, but between my legs, each soft brush on my lips is a promise of so much more.
“Going natural?” he asks as he sits back, admiring the lack of grooming.
“Oh God. I forgot completely. I am so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “I sort of fancy it, actually.” He rinses me, massaging and smoothing over my entire body until I am soap free. Then he bends his face forward, using my small breasts as a little shield from the water, and licks softly between my lips. He spreads me, licking and touching so gently I almost don’t recognize the lovemaking. That lasts but a second as he sits up, taking one of my nipples in his lips and inserting a finger into my doubly wet opening. I gasp as he works it slow and steady, getting me warmed up. I tilt my head back as the water pours over us and his teeth start to nibble at my tender flesh.
The gentle bites tug at my aroused buds, joining the thrusting finger to create something that stirs low in my belly. He stands abruptly, dragging his finger out and lifting me into the air. He carries us from the water to a spot in the shower room with jets. He lowers me facing the wall, pressing my face and hands into the wide stone tiles. He turns on a switch, and pulsating water finds its way between my legs. I cry out softly, jerking my breaths from my parted lips.
He stands behind me, pinning me with his hard body to the cool tiles and forcing my clit on the jet. His lips trail up and down my neck and back as his fingers roll both my nipples softly.
I lose the floor and the ceiling, adrift in the bliss and freedom of so many of my sensitive places being explored by hands and water and lips.
I reach around, sliding my fingers down his hard abs to his belly button. His cock greets me, standing tall and proud. I wrap around it, gripping and stroking with the water as my lube.
He squats, spreading my legs and pressing me into the wall. Pulsating water ravages my tender flesh, and he kisses along my lower back as his hands rub up and down my body. Just as I relax into the calm he has lulled me into, he spins me quickly, planting his lips on mine. We kiss as the water sprays my butt, making me jump. He looks back, smiling. “Not as amazing in the ass?”
I shake my head as he lifts me up into the air, pressing my back into the cool
tiles. He lowers me onto his cock, letting me choose how quickly he enters me. But I don’t rush it. I savor the feeling of him spreading me, and filling me up.
His fingers dig in, gripping with a slight tremor. I know he wants to take off. He wants the pounding and the brutal sex we both love. But I lower and rise slowly, lifting and falling on him. He fills me up, pulsating and twitching. A slow smile spreads across my lips. I sit on him, not moving at all, and pull back so I get a good view of the aggression inside of him that wants to release. It’s the only time where he can’t control what he’s doing.
He growls, lowering his face over mine.
I lift my face to find his clenched jaw and soaked hair hanging in his face. I shake my head slowly, keeping his intense gaze as I lift and lower again.
“Let me fuck you.”
I shake my head.
“Please?” He has never begged for real before.
I lift my hands, cupping his face, with his cock nearly splitting me, and kiss him with meaning and passion. He jerks like he might rut any moment, but he doesn’t. He controls himself, or I control him. Either way he’s calm on the surface.
“Lie down.”
He wrinkles his nose but does it, lowering us with him still inside of me, but I can tell we are losing each other. He grips the jets, shaking his head. “I’m gonna slip, and then you’re going to have to explain to my mom why I’m bleeding in the shower with a raging boner.”
I roll my eyes. We never talk like this, never joke, during sex. He drops us down, lying back but losing our connection. I get into position better, lowering my breasts down into his face as I arch my back to get him back inside of me, slowly rising and falling again.
His legs flex and his hands try to drag, but I manage to get them to the water-covered floor. I lift slowly again, dropping back like I might start to rush it, but I don’t. He grunts. “Jesus, Jane, you’re killing me.” He lifts, kissing me and pulling me down on his cock roughly again.
I get up quickly and stand under the water. “This is wasteful.”
He cocks an eyebrow, giving me a look. “Are you fucking with me?”
I nod. “I am trying to see how angry I can actually make you.”
He jumps up, but I run from the shower room into the bathroom and flee for the bed. I dive, soaking wet and giggling, into the sheets.
“You’re dead!” He jumps into the bed, pinning me on my stomach and kissing my back. He laughs for the first time during sex. It isn’t him who’s different, it’s me. I have never played with him before. I have never let him in like this.
But I see him suddenly, in a way I have never before.
He flips me on my side, entering me roughly and gripping my legs as he flings me on my back and arches it, lifting my lower half in the air by my hips and cheeks.
He thrusts, pushing me and pulling me back into him again to meet his thrust.
Something magical happens when he’s inside of me, not magical-cock magical but heart-soaring magical. He pumps, filling the room with our sounds. My whole body tenses, and I come with him. We hang on to each other’s skin, clinging and jerking as the explosion happens.
That’s when the magic happens. He lies down on me like a sack of potatoes and exhales as I inhale, like we are making each other’s air. He’s squishing me, pretty much breaking a rib, but I don’t feel the pain because I see it.
Nothing matters in this world but this guy. I see the point in it all. It’s like the house fades away and there is nothing, just him and me and the stars.
There is something I would not live without. It’s a person, not a cat like I always expected. Though I pretty much feel the same way about Binx.
But Dash is even something else. I will not live without him. I couldn’t breathe if he wasn’t the main thing in my life. He is my family. That hits me hard, in the chest.
I close my eyes and let him be bigger than everything in the world.
24. A glass of regrets
Lady Jane Spears, how are we this evening?” Henry strolls into the room, giving me a smug smile and handing me a glass of red wine.
Angie waggles her brows and lifts her champagne. “I need a refill.” She gets up and stumbles off.
“I think my mother and father are actually therapeutic for her. She is depressed in a way I haven’t seen in another human being before. Pathetic, really.”
I give Henry a look, knowing he’s baiting me. But I don’t take the bait. I bait back, and I am carrying some motherfucking bait. “Not even sad hookers or sex slaves, pardner?” I try to use a western accent like a cocky cowboy, but it fails.
“I think I’m lost.” He looks confused.
“Yeah, wear that look for a night or two, and then maybe I’ll let you know what I know.” A terrible recovery, but it’s what I have for the time being.
His jaw drops. “Kitty likes to scratch? Excellent. I just hope you like it rough.”
I narrow my gaze, again not taking shit from him. “Oh, please, I got the footage of how you like to swing. I’m not big on costumes and captive hookers—hard pass for me, thanks.” I lift a finger. “When this shit hits state’s evidence you need to hit the road. England might not let you stay when they see how fond you are of old leather chaps worn by every other guy ahead of you in the line.”
His face pales. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
“Except you do, and if it gets out that a member of this family was part of a huge, multinational sting, your father is going to disown you. Remember when I told you that your dad was a bad boy, but he was smart about where he dishonored his family?”
He swallows hard.
“You were not so smart, and there is a tech right now using face recognition to track down every person who is part of the Backcountry Brothers Society.” I get up and storm from the room. I pull my phone and send a text to Antoine.
I just warned Dash’s brother. You need to set up shop somewhere no one will ever find you. In case he calls this in and tries to get help from the big boys in our op.
He sends an annoyed face meme and a reply.
You are so good with international secrecy.
I send him a text back.
You need to listen and stop acting like this isn’t as serious as it is. Follow your own advice and RUN!
I delete it as I walk to Dash. I hadn’t intended to tell him, but I am not worrying about my partner. One of the few people left that I trust fully is possibly in danger.
Hands grab me hard by the wrist. Henry spins me. “How long do I have?”
I shake my head, jerking my hand free. “A week.”
He sighs, but I see something in his eyes I recognize from his brother’s. “You didn’t have to warn me, and I suspect no one else is getting this courtesy. So thank you.” He pulls me in and hugs me.
I step out of his grip, pushing back. “I don’t care about you. I care about the humiliation this would have brought your family—your brother.”
He laughs. “Says the main source of our humiliation.” He laughs again and walks off. He’s actually laughing at me. I turn to find Dash in the crowd of guests that always seems to be here, but when I locate him he’s standing next to an old man, chatting away. I wave, and he grins at me. I wonder if his parents know how lucky they are to have a son like him.
Angie stumbles over to me, linking her arm in mine. I hug her and pull her to the pergola, my favorite place on this whole estate.
When we get outside I lay her back on the expensive chaise and sit at her feet. I pull her shoes off.
She grins. “Wow, what is this? Touching, and she takes my shoes off? Who are you, and what have you done with my friend?”
I smile and place her shoes on the ground. “You ever feel yourself grow?”
She sighs and looks up at the lilacs and the stars. “I have felt that moment a few times. Once when my mother died. I felt her leave me, and I felt small for a minute.” She grins through the watery eyes. “Okay, a month
. But then one day I was okay. And I knew I would be okay. And I knew she loved me, no matter where she was. And it was okay that I didn’t feel like I had a mother, because I did. She was just a star watching over me.” She closes her eyes. “I am waiting for that moment to happen for me with Rory. Not because I think I can’t live without him—I can. Not because I am heartbroken over his betrayal. But because I am honestly so disgusted that I was with a monster and didn’t know. How could I be so blind, and support and love and care for a man who was that evil?” She gives me a hard stare. “I feel dirty in my soul, Jane. Dirty all the way into the fiber of who I am. To my very core. That’s a type of filth you just don’t wash off.” She shudders. “He touched me with his monster hands and his monster lips and his monster soul.” She just lets the tears fall down her ruddy cheeks and looks back at the stars. “What would my mom think?”
I reach over, wrapping myself around her. “I am so sorry, Ang.” I hug her and hold her and offer up little bits of what’s left of my soul.
Dash finds us, her sobbing and me just frozen and wishing all the good things in life on her. He reaches down and picks her up from my arms and carries her to the guesthouse where she demanded to sleep. Sitting on the chair and staring at the stars, I wait for him to come back.
The door opens, and Henry brings me another glass of wine. “Drink?”
I take it, assuming it’s a peace offering. “Thanks.”
He sits across from me. “I was invited once. I’m not a card-carrying member. The senator where we were staying invited me. He and his son and me and my friend.” He looks down. “When I got there I understood it to be a regular brothel, just a regular-girl-who-was-paid-for-her-services sort of establishment.”
I sigh, drinking the wine. “No.”
He looks up. “I went the one time, enjoyed myself like any other man, and left happy. I gave all the girls a huge tip.” He looks sincere, but I’m not an idiot. “I never went back. It’s invite-only. Surely you can help me out. You don’t want Dash to get in trouble, do you?”