by Vivian Gray
Either she didn’t want to admit she was a prostitute – he’d met a few girls like that, still ashamed that they’d found a way to make money that society absolutely did not approve of – or she was afraid of telling him the truth.
“I’ve definitely heard that story before,” he said, and she joined him in a little laugh. “The problem is that I’m pretty sure your version of it is bullshit.”
She froze, her eyes flicking up to him in what looked like panic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What’s your name?” He kept his voice as gentle as he could. It didn’t come naturally to him, but he did his best.
She started to say something, then winced. “Laurie,” she said after a moment. “Laurie Dimaggio.”
Jacob was pretty sure that was true. “I’m Jacob,” he said. “Jacob Lee.” Sticking his hand out to shake hers, when his erection was still throbbing, and she was very prettily naked with his bruises slowly darkening on her ass, was a kind of awkward he’d never experienced before. No wonder his boner wasn’t calming down in the least. “I’m the president of the Black Talons. You’re at our clubhouse.”
She nodded, shaking his hand, but he wasn’t sure she was taking any of this in.
He took a deep breath. “Laurie,” he said, feeling like he was on more solid footing now that he knew her name. “I want to know how you got to the Devil’s Weapons’ building. Are you willing to tell me that?”
She went still and silent again, and he bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted answers, wanted to slap some sense into her and explain that if she wanted something to change she was going to have to fucking make a move to change it. But that wouldn’t help, wouldn’t get him what he needed. He was sickeningly afraid that he had done a horrible thing to this girl, and he wanted to make it right if he had. But even more than that, if the Weapons were – he’d put a fucking stop to it. He’d do it himself, with his own bare hands.
She shook her head and buried her face in her hands.
He forced himself to take another slow breath. “Okay. We’re going to play a game then. Alright?”
She looked up at him again, and that flirty smile was back. Seeing how hollow it was made his stomach twist up even harder. “Sure,” she said again. “What do you have in mind?”
She reached out and ran her palm over the length of his cock, and it was harder than he liked; he wanted to stay focused on the conversation he needed to be having right now, not pushing her into the mattress and fucking her while she begged for more. But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that until he understood what was happening. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer with yes and no. Alright?”
The flirt faded out of her again. “Sure. Okay.”
“Did you choose to be at the auction last night?”
She paused a long, long time, and he wasn’t sure he’d get anything out of her at all. “No,” she said, eventually. Her voice was low and desperately sad.
“Did someone threaten you?”
A nod. He let it go without her actually vocalizing the word.
“Was it one of the Devil’s Weapons’ guys?”
Another long wait. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “A guy that Delilah called Whip. He’s the only one who spoke to me, other than the other girls.”
There was that rage again, threatening to boil up and over. This time, the anger spread out to cover more than just him. He was going to have to pay a price for what he’d done here, even if it had been unknowing. But he was going to spread that pain around. Delilah would answer why she hadn’t said something, and Whip was going to pay. He and his baby club were going to be wiped off the face of the earth, or at least off Jacob’s city. He’d settle for that. Whip was the leader of the Weapons; Jacob refused to do the man the honor of referring to him as a president of anything.
“Did they give you a choice before they put you up for auction?”
“Not exactly,” she said. It seemed like now that she was talking, it wasn’t so terrifying to say the words. He tried to keep his body language non-threatening. “They – after I woke up, Whip said that if I didn’t get myself sold to someone, then I’d be put somewhere where I’d be – where things would be worse.” Her face twisted up at the words, and he elected not to make her repeat something so obviously painful. “So I did what they said. I didn’t want that other thing to happen.” She sighed, her head resting on the mattress. “I figured three days. I could survive anything for three days.”
His stomach flipped hard, and for a moment he was truly afraid he was going to be sick. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She gave him a look so angry that it looked diamond-hard. “Why would I tell you?”
“It would have made a difference.”
“Bullshit.”
She’d gotten her fire back, that was sure. As sick as it made him to realize what he’d done, the spitfire attitude she was slinging now made his balls ache. “Look, I – we don’t buy girls who—”
We don’t buy girls who don’t come willingly, he’d started to say, but had they ever asked? Really asked, making sure the girls felt safe to say they didn’t want this? He sure knew he hadn’t. He’d seen willing girls, and he’d taken what he wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said, diverting his path entirely. “I’m sorry that what happened before – happened like it did. I know my word doesn’t mean much right now, and I get that. I just – wouldn’t have pushed. If I’d understood what you were really saying. I’m sorry.”
She lay still for a while, a truly long time, and then she sighed. She rolled onto her back, her forearm thrown over her face. “Thank you,” she said, after a while. “I appreciate that.” There was another long pause. Jacob didn’t know what to say, and he waited, just wanting to give Laurie the space she needed to feel how she felt. “The thing I don’t know how to deal with, though,” she said, and he went absolutely still, “is that I really liked it.”
She took her arm away from her face. Her cheeks were bright red, and his cock jumped again. She looked at his erection, then back up at him.
“Do you think that makes me sick?”
“No,” he said, leaning down. She didn’t flinch away from him, and he pulled her in for a scorching kiss. “No, I don’t think that at all.”
She met the kiss, and to his surprise, she followed him up to a sitting position. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him back just enough that she could find the right position to sit on his cock. He groaned as she sank down on him again, but he kept his hands fisted into the sheets at his hips. He wanted this, fuck he wanted this, but he’d hurt her without knowing, even if she had gotten off on it. He was going to give her back what she wanted.
“Hold my hands,” she said, her eyes burning with need. “Hold them behind my back.”
Fuck, yes. He closed one of his hands around her wrists, feeling her groan and tense as she started to lift and lower herself down. Her eyes were closed tight, her nipples sharp points, and she arched into him, driving him into just the right spots.
“I think you like being a little whore,” he said, watching her for a reaction. She hissed and nodded hard. “You like being a whore who gets fucked whether she wants it or not?”
“Yes.” She whimpered, grinding her clit across him as she twisted her hips. Fuck, she was gorgeous, and he was on the edge of bursting, just watching her relish the contact. He forced himself to hold back; she needed this, needed to choose this release, needed to embrace this, if it was what she wanted.
“Do you want this? Want this cock? This cum?”
“Fuck, yes.” She whimpered as she ground into him, over and over again. “Tighter,” she said, wiggling her hands a little in his grip.
He bore down, as tight as he could stand, and she let out a little scream. He felt her cunt clench around him as she started to come, and he had to force himself up into her while she cried; the tight spasm of her pussy pushed him over the edg
e, and he came in her, howling in a way he hadn’t before.
She went limp over his body, sagging with relief in a way she hadn’t before. God, that felt good, so much better than when she was wincing away from him before. He let go of her wrists and tried out putting an arm around her. She let out a happy little sigh and snuggled against him. It was strange, how good that felt. He’d never really bothered with this part before. He had enough to do without cuddling some woman; sex was about getting the release he needed so he could go back to his job. But the way Laurie was curling up around him, her arm over his chest, it felt warm. Relaxing. It might be worth staying for a few more minutes. Just to make sure the girl got to sleep alright.
He didn’t realize he was going to fall asleep until he was halfway there. Then it was far too late to stop.
Chapter Six
Laurie
When Laurie woke up, she felt warm and sore in the best ways. She remembered Jacob, and the way he’d fucked her that last time, and how scorchingly good it felt. She remembered coming with her hands held behind her back while he called her a whore. She remembered admitting it felt good.
She remembered a lot, and it made her cheeks bright red to think of it. But she loved it.
She stretched; smiling. He’d curled up in bed with her at the end, holding her while she’d drifted off. She vaguely remembered hearing him start to snore before she was all the way asleep. He was gone, now, but the place beside her was still warm. She didn’t have a sense of how long she’d slept, whether it was just a short nap or a full night’s rest. God knew she was tired enough to have had the second one.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her body ached, her cunt was throbbing, and her arms were sore from all the work they’d done. Jacob had woken her up at least once more, giving her a punishing hard fuck, but this time he’d been moaning her name in her ear while he did it, and that had been what made her come, clutching at him.
She was also smelly, and badly needed a shower. The slip she’d put on in that warehouse hadn’t been brand-new when she got dressed, and it was pretty well-stained now. One of the straps had torn when Jacob was holding her down. Mmm, the sound of the fabric tearing had been magnificent. Next time someone came in with food, she’d ask about a shower. If these men were accustomed to keeping women for a weekend, they couldn’t enjoy the way they’d smell after three days of sex.
There was a clean pile of clothes on the end of the bed, she noticed. She looked through them and found they were roughly her size. Nothing fancy; a pair of panties, jeans, and a T-shirt. There was no way she was putting them on until she was clean, but it was nice to think of putting something on other than this slip.
When the door did open, she expected it to be – well, she didn’t know exactly who. Not Jacob, or at least, not Jacob carrying a tray with sandwiches and water.
“I didn’t know what you’d want,” he said, his face a little apologetic. “Ham? We have ham, I think. But everyone likes roast beef, right?”
He put the tray down next to her and pushed it towards her. The look on his face was difficult to read. Laurie didn’t think he was the sort of man that let much slip, at least not unless he meant it to. But he looked… nervous? Concerned?
“Thank you,” she said, pulling the plate of sandwiches and the bottle of water closer to her. “I was hungry. I appreciate this.”
Jacob nodded, and she could tell by his shoulders how uncomfortable he was. She’d had to spend more time than she’d liked figuring out when people were dangerous based on their body language. Jacob, however, seemed nervous. What could he possibly be nervous about?
Well, that was pretty obvious, once she stopped and thought. She’d been kidnapped, sold, and potentially forced into sex. The city authorities didn’t look kindly on sex trafficking, especially when pretty white girls were involved. If she got out of here and went to the police, he and the rest of the club could be in serious trouble.
The odd thing was that she hadn’t thought about it like that. Maybe her opinion would change in the future, but right now, all she wanted was to get back to her life. To get out of here. To go back to her apartment and her boot camp and her interchangeable roommates. She could barely remember their names.
Her entire life had focused around getting out of places like this one. It was absolutely not allowed that she feel good here.
She tried to tell herself sometimes that her parents were good people, just held down by circumstances and a society that pushed people to stay in their place instead of giving them the tools to rise up, and she also knew that they had infinitely more opportunities than a lot of people she’d met in her years – people who were hauling themselves out of hell by their fingernails. Her parents had let themselves sink. They had let her and Brian sink. She’d been angry with him for a lot of years for what had happened to her, but the truth was he was barely more than a child himself. Raising a kid wasn’t like a made for TV movie. It was harder than that, and he never should have been put in that position.
This thing with Jacob and the Talons... try as she might, it wasn’t Jacob’s fault she was here. Should the Talons have tried harder to make sure that she and any other girls knew what they were getting into? Sure. But for the first time in her life, she felt... well, real, like she wasn’t stuck. She was just comfortable where she was, like she could be still where she was, take a breath, and look around herself.
“If you want,” Jacob said after a long moment, his voice very careful. “I can have one of the guys take you to the police station? You can give a statement. Make charges. On them, on us, on whoever you need. This is…” He swallowed hard. “… This is your play, Laurie. The Talons will back it, no matter what that brings on us.”
“And all the Talons agree on that?” A club was theoretically ruled by its president, she knew that, but she’d also seen what happened when clubs or gangs had internal fallings out. It wasn’t the members who suffered the most, not ever.
He nodded, his expression sorrowful. “It turns out that you weren’t the only girl who got... taken. Whatever you decide to do, Laurie, this ends now. The Talons are going to end this operation, and make sure that no one else gets hurt like this.”
Something that had been tight inside of her unfurled, just a little. “I want to help,” she said. She didn’t know the words were going to come out until they did, and then she knew they were true. “What happened to me – it shouldn’t happen to anyone. Ever.”
“Will you tell me how they got ahold of you? It’ll help us narrow down how they operate.” He blinked fast and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I’m asking you a lot right now. You eat. I’ll free up a shower for you. Then we’ll talk. Does that sound alright?”
It did; it sounded incredible. But the way he was pulling back from her – she didn’t like that at all. She took a deep breath, then reached out and caught his hand. “You didn’t know,” she said, holding it tight for just a moment. “You didn’t know, and when you did, you listened. We okay?”
He took a deep, shuddering breath, then nodded. “Alright.” He cracked a grin that didn’t quite hit his eyes. “If you want, I can make it up to you on my cock later? You seemed to enjoy coming on it.”
Heat flooded through her and turned her cheeks bright. “I – I can’t tell if you mean that. But if you do? I’d... take you up on that. I would. Maybe it’s weird, maybe you’ll think I’m gross, but God it felt good to fuck you. It felt good to... be taken. Instead of, I don’t know, softness. Softness is good, I guess. But it’s not everything.”
His nostrils flared, and his hand moved from her wrist up to her hair, taking a big fistful at the nape of her neck. He pulled her head back, drawing a ragged little cry from Laurie’s throat. “I’m very bad at soft,” he said, his voice a snarl that sent waves of need and pleasure to her cunt. “I don’t have any use for it. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But if you want to be fucked rough, over and over, as many times as I want? I’m not going to lie, L
aurie. I’m not going to ask if you want to. I’m not going to show up and convince you of how much you really want to get laid. I’m... brutal. I’m hard. I’m going to find you, pull you back to my room, put you up against a wall and take what I need to be the man who leads the Talons.” He leaned down, his teeth nipping at her throat, and she was too breathless to cry out. “But I’ll make it good for you. I’ll make you come as many times as you want. On my face, on my cock, on my fingers. Over and over. But to get one, you have to take the other. Do you understand?”