Soul Rest

by Joey W. Hill

  You have no idea. That was true on a lot of levels. Before Celeste had met Leland, she'd never have guessed she'd be here doing something like this, and feeling so...right. She turned in Leland's arms, gazed up into his face. He had his eyes closed. It made her feel somewhat better, to see she might have tired him out as well. During their many sessions this evening, he'd edged her out on the orgasm thing, making her come too many times to count, but she'd counted at least four or five times for him. At least three of those times had been, blissfully, while he was inside her. One time he'd come on her breasts, over her pussy, and then made her rub his seed into her flesh as he watched with avid eyes.

  Her Master. Her cop. A good man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He was the first man who'd made her think about falling in love. The one with whom she had fallen in love, whether or not she was willing to say it yet. But for the first time in her life, she thought maybe there might be time for that to happen. That he would be here for the long haul, and so would she.

  When she touched his face, his eyes opened to slits before he laid his lips against her pulse. Relaxed, easy, natural. In this environment, it was easy to feel like it was real, that it would stand up to the test of time and the million other things that could challenge them. But outside this loft, could she keep believing it was real?

  She turned her attention outward again, and found Gen watching her. The woman was in her Mistress's arms on a couch now. Noah was on the floor at Lyda's feet, stroking his Mistress's calf as he laid his head against the points of Gen's folded knees. Much like Celeste, the moon-faced girl had had rough beginnings. Now Gen smiled, and that tired, content smile said it all.

  Yeah. Whether or not it lasted, this was the real deal. This was happiness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stopping at house now. Need to pick up more work stuff.

  Text me when you're on your way.

  Yes, Dad.

  Celeste rolled her eyes, then choked back a laugh when two yellow emoticons popped up, one dressed in black leather and spanking the other yellow smiley face, who was hopping up and down with a look of dismay. She shook her head and sent back a raspberry emoticon, times three.

  She told herself it was the one drawback to dating a cop--or a Dom--like Leland. He'd become overbearing in no time if she let him think he could run everything. She'd told him there was no reason to get his boxers in a twist. She was stopping by her house in broad daylight. All the intel they had said Dogboy was off in Houston somewhere, and the MoneyBoyz were focused on their drug trade rivalry with other groups, all while dodging the heat over Jai's death and the murder of Ron and Tony. She was the last thing on anybody's radar.

  Still, it wasn't bad to have someone worry about her, care about her. She could get used to it. That after-party had resolved some things, maybe. She didn't think she was going to be the world's most easy going girlfriend any time soon, but maybe there was more room inside her to trust than there'd been before. Ever.

  She glanced at the mail she'd picked up from her box and set it down on her kitchen counter. Remembering Leland's admonition, she dutifully locked the door after her, throwing the dead bolt. Good Lord, she was only going to be in here for a few minutes, but she did it because she'd promised. Twice. The second time he'd given her that penetrating stare that made her stomach do a sexual dance. Maybe she'd tell him she hadn't done it just to see if she'd earn a spanking. He'd know she was lying, because she wouldn't have given him her word if she wasn't going to do it, but lying to yank his chain could have pleasurable repercussions as well. Good thing the man had said he was okay with having a brat as a sub.

  Shaking her head when she found herself smiling again, she took her overnight bag into her bedroom. She needed to unpack the wedding-related things and repack for a few days at Leland's place. As she returned a couple unused pairs of skimpy panties to her lingerie drawer, she considered some other options, running her fingertips over them. For New Orleans, she hadn't been sure which ones to bring, and since it was possible to fit fifty scraps of sexy underwear in the side pocket of a rolling tote, she hadn't limited herself. But she was thinking of some different choices to take to Leland's. Fuck me casual versus fuck me formal occasion.

  With a grin, she gathered up the underwear she had worn, along with other dirty clothes, to dump in the laundry pile in her bathroom. She really should buy a laundry hamper before she let Leland back into the bowels of her home to see the disaster that was her bedroom. Let a man tie her up and bring her to screaming orgasm was one thing; letting him see her dirty undergarments would be beyond embarrassing.

  Going into the bathroom, she tossed them on the pile, putting her toiletry bag on the counter. She'd need to add a few things to it as well if she was going to be at Leland's for a couple days. Was this like moving in with him? No. Hell no. She pushed down a spurt of panic. She'd stay a couple days, until he realized all was well, then she'd go back to her place. It was a compromise.

  Her fingers stilled on her face powder compact, her heart skipping a beat. She swallowed, kept her eyes down, and closed her hand on her nail file. She started to move out of the bathroom, making herself take her time. She didn't bolt, the way every brain cell was screaming at her to do.

  Maybe psychopaths had a second sense for when they'd been made, or perhaps it was the time he'd intended to make his move regardless. Dogboy exploded out of her shower, the metal rings screeching on the shower bar. When he caught her around the waist, she jammed the nail file in his hand, making him snarl, but it was dull and didn't do enough. He stumbled coming out of her tub, but his grip didn't loosen. They fell together against the bathroom counter, the side of her face slamming into the mirror, cracking it. He pulled her back by her hair and smashed her face-first toward it. She shut her eyes, cried out at the painful cuts from the glass, but she lifted her feet off the ground. Since he had her around the waist, she shoved against the counter. It pushed them back against the tub edge, and he fell backward into it. It loosened his grip and she threw elbows, scrambled off of him. He was too quick, though, tackling her again and tumbling them out of the bathroom onto the bedroom floor. He pinned her flailing body facedown and wrenched one of her arms behind her hard enough to make her cry out again.

  "Shut up."

  She took a breath and screamed at the top of her lungs. He flipped her over and punched her jaw, punched it again, then seized a fallen washcloth and jammed it into her open mouth. She thrashed, but he got it in there, and then hiked her arm up again, this time sending a jolt of pain through her elbow and shoulder that put spots in front of her eyes.

  "Stop or I'll break it, bitch."

  If he broke her arm, her chances to fight would be severely limited. She went still.

  Her MMA instructor had said that once a person learned not to flinch from getting hit, they were a better fighter. They weren't worried about getting hit; instead they focused on how they would hit back. She was grateful for that lesson, as well as all the sparring she and Marcie had done where neither had held back, but this was a whole hell of a lot different.

  There was no doubt she was fighting for her life.

  Her forehead and cheek were bleeding. She saw the bloodstains on her carpet and tried not to let them fragment her mind into helpless panic.

  Dogboy had come prepared. He dragged her over to the bathroom door again by her hair. Keeping her pinned on her stomach with his knees and that arm hold, he reached under her sink and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He used it to hold the washcloth in place, wrapping the tape tight around her head. He bound her wrists and forearms together behind her back in a boxed arm position and then pulled her to her feet, shoving her down on the bed. His hands were on her ass, unzipping her skirt, yanking it down.

  No, no, no. She bit back the horror, the denial of what he was going to do to her. Focus on what's important. Yes, he may rape you, but then he's going to kill you, gut you like he did DeeDee.

  She could come back from rape. Sh
e would, damn it. She couldn't come back from the rest. She had to focus on what opportunity he would give her between the horror of Point A and the finale of Point B.

  He got her skirt off, her underwear, ripped her blouse down the back, got rid of that and her bra, leaving her naked. She shut her eyes as he fondled whatever he wanted, pinching and probing. She forced her mind to detach, thought of everything she knew about rapists, murderers. Those who wanted to be in control, needed it. She made herself go limp. Trembling and letting the tears roll down her face wasn't hard, because that was a dam that wanted to break anyway. She just couldn't let it completely take it over.

  "Yeah, you know you lost, bitch. Not so tough now. Not up in my face, are you?" He gripped her hair, yanked her head up so hard she heard her neck crack painfully. "Answer me."

  She shook her head, said something through the washcloth and duct tape that sounded like a plea. It was impossible he was sixteen years old, this six foot tall muscular man who had demons in his eyes. But he was. That was important. She was dealing with a teenager, not a mature man. A wealth of terrifying possibilities were wheeling around behind those dark eyes.

  "Haven't had a house like this before, where I can take some time. Loretta, her daddy got home too soon. I should have capped him. Could have waited on Momma to get home, and then had both Momma and little girl. Yeah, should have done it that way. I've got time with you, though. Ain't no one gonna come looking for you anytime soon. So you gonna do for me the way Loretta should have. She just cried the whole time, but I see in your eyes, you a tougher bitch. More fun to make you cry."

  He pulled his gun out from his back waistband, backed up off of her. As he stared at her, a feral grin crossed his face. He sauntered back to her occasional chair and sat down, stretching out his long legs. "You stand up for Dogboy, bitch. Show me what you got."

  She wanted to throw up. She wanted to run, to fight, but he had the gun trained on her. She made herself stand up. It took two tries with her arms bound behind her, because her legs were shaking so badly. That had to change. She willed herself to become rigid, to keep her limbs from trembling. She had to center, to calm down, so if the opportunity to fight came, she'd be ready.

  His eyes had lit with pleasure at her awkward struggles. "No, don't stand there like a damn mannequin. Pose sexy for me. Maybe you work hard to make me happy, I don't kill you."

  She narrowed her eyes at him and made it clear what she said through the gag wasn't complimentary. He chuckled at that, but rose. She forced herself not to back up as he approached, but closed her eyes, averted her face as he punched her again. She avoided having her cheekbone broken, but the impact drove her to her knees. He kicked her in the side several times, until she started begging through the gag.

  "Yeah, you a tough cunt, but pain hurts, don't it? I'm going to take that gag off because you going to suck me off before it's all done. The first time you raise your voice up over a whisper, I'm going to shoot you in the gut and fuck you while you're bleeding out slow. That's what I did to DeeDee. She didn't like it none and neither will you. You gonna stay quiet?"

  Celeste nodded. Her insides felt like something had ruptured. She hoped to God that wasn't the case.

  He cut the duct tape with a wicked-looking knife, chuckling at her widened eyes. He scraped it down her cheek, passing over the glass cuts. A new wound opened, more blood trickling down her cheek and jaw. She bit back another moan at the pain. Some of the blood from her forehead had dripped down into her eyes. He used her washcloth gag to wipe it away, doing it with an obscenely gentle hand. "There you go. Don't want you looking all zombie cunt on me. I can do other things with this knife, bitch. Now get back up. You got sexy stuff? I bet you do. You gonna wear sexy things for me."

  He stepped back, the gun trained on her. "I saw you putting sexy stuff in the drawer when I looked through the door crack. You fucking somebody? He ain't gonna want you after I'm done with you." He chuckled again, the darkness in his eyes saying that was as much because of how he was going to use her body as the fact she'd be a corpse. Like she couldn't figure that out herself. But his assumption that she'd do anything for him to spare her life was the advantage she had.

  "I...I have sexy stuff." Her jaw was having trouble working properly, throbbing the way it was. But she spoke in a tremulous voice. "Do you want me to...put it on?"

  "Not yet. I like seeing your pussy. But show me." He cut the tape around her wrists, freeing them, but then made her whimper as he caught her jaw, shoved the barrel of the gun in her mouth. He hit a couple teeth and a lance of pain went through her as one of them broke from the impact.

  "You try anything, this is what you gonna get. You know you're done, don't you? Can't fight me, can you?"

  She shook her head, tears streaming, and he nodded, satisfied. "Okay, show me what you got."

  She moved to the lingerie drawer. He followed her with the gun, but when she paused, holding on to the dresser and trying to manage the pain of her ribs, her jaw and the nauseating level of terror, he made an impatient noise. "I don't got all day, bitch. Or maybe I do, if no one coming. We can make this last a good, long time."

  He backed up to the occasional chair again, did that alpha male, king-on-his-throne sprawl, but his eyes on her were sharp as a raptor's. "Give me a show, darlin'."

  She stiffened, an entirely different lance of pain shooting through her heart. She'd rather he call her bitch, cunt, whore. Anything but the endearment she'd come to cherish from Leland's lips.

  Focus, damn it. She lifted out a pair of thong panties, spreading them between both thumbs so he could see them.

  "Hold them up to you. Yeah, they're nice and see-through. I could see your cunt through them. Show me more."

  She showed him a pair of lacy boy shorts he didn't like as much, then a white delicate pair with lace on the edges. Probably like what Marcie would have been wearing under her dress for Ben. She was going to burn every pair she showed him, every pair his eyes crawled over, even as his attention kept roving up and down her naked body. She could feel every place he'd touched her, inside and out.

  "You got anything more? I like this little fashion show. Gonna have you try them all on, maybe fuck you while wearing a couple. Show me more."

  She nodded, turned and reached into the drawer for more.

  Closing her hand on the grip of her loaded nine millimeter, she brought it out of the drawer and pivoted toward him in one swift motion.

  Somewhere in a distant, rational place in her brain, she knew she had less than a blink of advantage. She was going up against a killer who already had his gun pointed at her. Though it was resting on the chair arm, her odds were slim and none. But the only thing that mattered was she wasn't going to bear a moment more of this nightmare.

  She fired. Once, twice, three times. And kept doing it until the slide racked back, telling her the gun was empty. The sound in the small room was deafening, leaving her ears ringing, but as the echoes died away, she realized she'd been screaming as she fired. Moving forward while she shot, watching his body jerk. His gun was on the floor, dropped from his limp fingers.

  There'd been a bare second of surprise in his eyes, where he'd looked like a bewildered teenager. He'd thought he'd beaten her. It had been so hard to wait, to pick up and show him those first few pairs of panties, to see if the "show" would make him relax his guard. She'd watched the gun lower to the chair arm. Then his finger moved, no longer lovingly stroking the trigger. Giving her the only and best chance of survival.

  She felt something trickling down her breast and looked. She had a hole in her right shoulder. She put her fingers up, probed it, swayed on her feet. She was bleeding, but she could breathe, so he hadn't hit a lung. Okay. Okay. She told herself to think through the haze of shock, the overwhelming desire to collapse.

  Her phone was still in the kitchen. She moved in that direction, the gun hanging limply in her hand. Her hallway had transformed into one of those fun houses where it seemed like the floor was
tilting. She held on to the wall as it kept tilting, trying to topple her. She had to get to the phone. It was important. So important. But she was tired. Maybe she'd just stop here.

  She slid down the wall. She was naked. Cold. She should have picked up a robe. Christ, she didn't want anyone to find her naked, but it didn't seem as important as it should have been. As she eased down to the carpet, her aching cheek meeting the rough Berber, she closed her eyes. She'd get it later. Leland. She wished Leland was here. She wanted him to be here. Always.

  SS

  You're dragging your ass. Don't open that laptop,

  he texted. He shook his head, a smile on his face as he imagined her response. She'd probably hunker down and work for a couple hours, just to spite him. Maybe he was being paranoid, but until Dogboy was behind bars, Leland wasn't going to let her be any place without him that didn't have a security system. He'd taken a new look at Dogboy's rap sheet, which began at age eleven with the killing of his neighbor's dog with a pocketknife. The crime reminded Leland of the glimpse he'd gotten of the kid's face during the drive-by. He had dead eyes, too far gone to come back.

  Fuck it. He turned his vehicle in the direction of her house. She was at the edge of the District 1 jurisdiction. He was going to go scoop her up and take her to his place himself. Then she wouldn't have a car and would have to stay there. Yeah, she'd go for that, he was sure. Probably try to kick his balls in his throat and march right down to the bus stop. But he was going to do it anyway.

  He was half way there when the call came in on the radio. "Shots reported in the vicinity of 26 to 29 Newman Way." Her street, and her address was 27 Newman.

  "Twelve-twenty-five responding." He barked it into the radio, hit the lights, siren and accelerator as everything seized up inside him. He shouldn't have let her go alone. Christ, please God. Celeste.