by Hannah Ford
I ordered blueberry pancakes, Landon a ham and cheese omelet.
The waitress stared at him as she took our order, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she recognized him, or because he was just so damn good looking. When she left, I noticed two girls in their early twenties sitting on the other side of the diner who also kept throwing glances his way.
“I think you have a fan club,” I said, taking the mug of coffee the waitress had poured for me and sliding it back and forth between my hands.
He stayed silent, taking the straw out of his water and drinking right from the glass.
“Aren’t you going to look?”
“I’m looking at you.” He stared at me from under the rim of his hat, and our eyes locked.
I squirmed on the seat under his intense gaze.
“So, um, what are we going to do when we get to Vermont?” I asked. “If Conner and Violet are there? Like, is there a plan?”
“You mean you haven’t thought this through?” He infused his voice with faux shock and took another pull of water.
“Will your brother be mad? That we’re just showing up?”
“I don’t give a shit,” Landon said, which didn’t really answer the question. “Have you heard from your sister?”
I shook my head. “No.” I’d intentionally refrained from texting Violet since last night, not wanting to tip her off that I might be coming to find her. I didn’t want to give her a chance to run if she was hiding out in Vermont with Conner.
“You and Violet are close.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Our parents are dead, so she’s the only thing I have. And I’m the only thing she has.” I frowned and chewed at my bottom lip. “I thought we were close, anyway. But the way she’s acting isn’t the way you act with someone you’re close with.”
“Maybe she’s afraid to tell you something you don’t want to hear.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
He shrugged and leaned back in the booth, stretching his long legs out underneath the table. He hit my foot and tangled his legs with mine, another gesture of possession and ownership.
“Like anything.”
“Violet’s not like that.”
He didn’t say anything, and something about the way he was looking at me made me uncomfortable. It was like he knew the answer to a puzzle I was trying to figure out, and he knew I wanted the answer, and he wasn’t going to give it to me -- instead he was going to make me figure it out myself.
I looked away and grabbed another packet of sugar and dumped it into my coffee. The one drawback to diners was the coffee, but I was going to have to choke it down as best I could – I needed the caffeine boost.
“Are you and Conner close? You’re both adopted, right?” I’d read about it in the article about the two of them. They’d been adopted from different families by their adopted mother and father, Jasper and Camilla Sheer. Camilla had died when the boys were young, leaving Jasper to raise them on his own.
Landon didn’t answer.
“What, you’re done talking?” I teased.
“No personal questions.”
“Excuse me?”
“No personal questions.”
I didn’t have time to process this, because at that moment, one of the girls who’d been sitting in the corner approached our table. She was a bubbly blonde with long wavy hair, her breasts pushed up under her t-shirt, her black skirt short and tight.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sheer?” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your, um...” she glanced at me, seizing me up, “…your meeting, but I was wondering if I could get your autograph.”
“No.”
“No?” She laughed, faltering, obviously not used to being told no. “Just, um, on this napkin. I’m not going to sell it on eBay or anything if you’re worried about that. “ She glanced behind her at her friend, who was watching with interest.
Landon sighed, grabbed the napkin she was holding, and scrawled his signature. “This isn’t a meeting, it’s a date. And you’re interrupting it. Now go back to your table.”
The girl scuttled off.
“That was rude,” I said.
“Most people are these days.” He shook his head and readjusted the brim of his hat.
“I meant you. She just wanted your autograph.”
“She was interrupting my time with you.”
I blushed. His legs were still wrapped around mine.
“Anyway, why no personal questions?” I asked. The way he was looking at me was making me warm, so I gathered my hair up into a ponytail, using the elastic I always kept around my wrist to secure it.
“You have the most perfect cleavage,” Landon said. “And when you wear your hair like it, it shows if off and makes me want to take you into the bathroom and fuck you.”
“I don’t fuck people who won’t answer personal questions.”
He leaned forward, amusement playing on his full lips. “Is that so?”
I nodded.
“Then I may have to make an exception.”
“Then answer my question.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not without something in return.”
“Like what?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in anticipation.
“I’ll give you three questions,” he said. “But in return, I get three things from you.”
“Like?”
“You won’t know until you ask the questions.” His hands reached under the table and took my thighs, his palms spread out as he exerted gentle pressure.
I waited a beat. “I’m in.”
“Conner and I are close,” he said. “He’s the only person I’m close to. And yes, we are both adopted, but we have different birth parents.” He cocked his head to the side, his hands moving higher on my thighs. “That was technically two questions, Ms. Courtland, but since you’re new to this game, I’ll let it slide.”
“Thank you, that’s very magnanimous of you,” I said sarcastically.
“When you make smart comments, it makes me want to shove my dick in your mouth,” he said. His thumbs were making slow arcs on my thighs, sending searing shockwaves of need straight to my pussy.
“Shh,” I said, glancing around. “You can’t talk that way in public.”
He smiled, amused at my embarrassment, then cocked his head again. “Now,” he said. “I answered your question. Now it’s time for your … consequence.”
I waited, not moving my eyes from his, not wanting to show weakness, or that I couldn’t handle this, even though my pulse leapt.
“Tonight I will tie you spread-eagled to the bed,” he said, his thumbs inching even higher. “I’ll tie your legs and your arms so that you’re completely at my mercy. And then I will eat your pussy until you scream and beg to come, and even then I won’t let you.”
My body was on fire.
“Next question,” I said quickly.
“Yes, Ms. Courtland.”
“Have you talked to Conner since I came to see you last night?”
“No.” He smiled. “That’s it? What a foolish question, Ms. Courtland. Now I’ve got the right to spank you with my whip while I’ve got you tied to the bed. I’m going to whip your pussy this time, whip that tight little cunt until you scream with pain. I’m going to humiliate you and make you beg.”
His thumbs were between my legs now, pushing against my jeans right against my pussy.
I swallowed, and then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Why did that reporter say that you were convicted of stalking if you didn’t do it?”
He froze.
His thumbs stopped moving just a little bit, and then he started again, slowly, the pressure building as he pushed against the fabric, making me so wet I was sure he could feel it through my pants.
“I already told you I’m not a stalker.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
His jaw set in a hard line, and I could see him weighing the benefit of not answering my question vs. what
he could do to me if he did.
I saw that same look on his face, the one that he had last night, torture and pain and demons.
“Landon.” I reached down and grabbed his hands, held onto them, pulled them up further in between my legs, pushed him into my pussy, closing my eyes, letting him know that I wanted this, that I wanted him.
I opened my eyes and looked at him across the table.
“I took the blame for someone else,” he said, and he yanked his hands away from me. “And that’s why that reporter said I was convicted. Because I was.”
The waitress returned with our food then, setting the plates down in front of us, then returning with a pot of coffee and refilling our mugs.
When she finally left, I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Who did you take the blame for?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer. Please don’t say Conner.
“Sorry, angel.” He reached for the hot sauce and poured it on his omelet. “But you had your three questions.” He looked up, mischief and something dark glinting in his eyes. “That one’s going to cost you.”
“What?”
“That question. It’s going to cost you. Tied up. On my bed, your skin red and raw from my whip. And then I’m going to fuck you. Hard.”
“Oh.” I let out the sigh I didn’t realize I’d been holding, until he said his next words.
“Right in that tight little ass.”
We ate the rest of our meal in relative silence. The mood had shifted somehow when I’d asked him about the stalking. I wanted to press him, to ask him about Conner, if he was the one who’d been the real stalker.
But I was afraid that any mention, any pressure, would make Landon rescind his offer to take me to Vermont. And now that there was a possibility that Conner could be dangerous, it was even more imperative that I get there.
So I kept my mouth shut.
We’d be there in just a few hours, and then I’d have more information, then I could find out for myself.
After we ate, we stopped at the gas station next to the diner.
I stared out the window of the car as Landon pumped he gas, watching him in the side view mirror. It had started to snow very softly, and the snowflakes swirled around the car and landing on the window, where they immediately melted.
It wasn’t the kind of snow that was nice.
It was the kind that hardly stuck, the kind that turned gray and wet as soon as it hit the ground.
Landon had left the car on while he pumped the gas, ignoring the signs that told him to turn off the engine. I knew he’d left it on to keep me warm, apparently deciding it was more likely I’d get cold than it was that I would die from some kind of explosion.
But I wasn’t cold.
I was hot.
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window, enjoying the way it felt against my skin.
The sound of a phone ringing echoed through the car, and I reached for my bag before I realized it wasn’t mine.
It was Landon’s.
He’d left it on the seat, and it was hooked up to the Bluetooth, the ringtone coming through the car’s speakers, surrounding me.
The screen mounted in front of me flashed, and a robotic female voice read the text that was scrolling on the screen out loud – “Incoming Call From… Conner Sheer…”
Conner was calling Landon.
I wasn’t sure what to do – I wanted to answer it, to ask if he was with Violet. But I wasn’t sure if that would scare him away. I could answer it, call to Landon, have him ask Conner.
Just when I’d decided to answer it, the call ended, sent to voicemail.
I’d missed my chance.
Landon would call him back, I decided. He’d call him back and he’d ask him about Violet. I would make sure of it.
But a second later, that same robotic voice came floating through the speakers.
“Playing voicemail from Conner Sheer.”
Conner’s recorded voice began to echo through the car. He sounded a bit like Landon – the same cadence -- but Conner’s voice was slightly higher, scratchier.
“Hey,” he started. “It’s me.” His voice sounded labored, like he was walking. “Listen,” he said, and then he began to talk.
And so I did.
I listened.
I had no choice.
And with every word Conner Sheer said, my blood ran colder and colder until it felt like I was frozen from the inside out…
The End of Part Three
Look For Part Four, Coming Soon!
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