by Nikki Chase
“I’m going to fuck you until I’m all your pussy remembers. I’ll make every part of you understand that you’re mine now. You’ll beg for me, you’ll come for me, your body will give pleasure only to me,” Jacob says.
He pulls out just to dip two of his fingers inside me. He sticks those fingers into my mouth as his cock pushes back inside me, impaling me against the wall. He picks up his pace, pushing me forward every time he thrusts inside.
I surrender to the overwhelming sensations. I close my eyes and throw my head back against Jacob’s shoulder. I don’t do anymore; I just feel. Feel the warm, yielding water on my hair and the hard wall against my thighs, my tits, my cheek. Feel Jacob’s insistent fingers in my mouth, on my clit. And most of all, feel Jacob’s hot, hard cock inside me.
“Come for me, baby. Come all over my cock,” Jacob growls. “Cream all over me and show me how much you love being my own personal slut.”
I scream as it all becomes too much. I shatter at his words. I don’t even know anymore if I’m only coming because that’s what he wants. It’s all blurring together, my desires and his, all becoming one as hot water washes over us.
Jacob grunts, pulls on my hair, slams into me over and over again until he comes inside me, biting me on the shoulder. He grinds into me, pushing me right up against the wet tiles.
When Jacob’s done shooting the last drop of cum inside me, he kisses my neck and turns me around. Without saying anything, he washes my body, lathers me up, and rinses me clean. We kiss, we touch, both of us quietly complicit in this filthy cleansing ritual.
“Where’s Max, by the way?” I shout at Jacob over the sound of the hair dryer.
“I don’t know,” Jacob says. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him.”
It’s unfair how guys don’t have to spend any time on grooming. I’ve combed my hair and put my clothes on, but I still have to dry my hair and apply my face cream. Meanwhile, Jacob stepped out of the shower the same time I did, threw on some clothes, and now he’s on the couch watching some animal documentary.
“I haven’t seen him either since I got home. He usually greets me at the door.” I frown.
Could Max be sick? Maybe his energy level is low. He is an old dog. I shut the hair dryer off and comb through my hair one last time with my fingers.
“Max!” I call out randomly as I check every room in the house. This is strange. He’s not even barking back. This house isn’t big enough for him to be anywhere indoors and not hear me. I turn up my volume regardless. “Max!”
I open the door to the backyard, and scream when I finally see a hunk of fur on the grass. It’s still moving, its rib cage going up and down with every labored breath.
It can’t be anything other than Max, can it? And yet...it can’t be Max. It just can’t.
I run toward the furry body and kneel beside it.
It is Max.
Tears stream out of my eyes. What happened to him?
Jacob
When I get to the backyard, Jessica's sobbing, kneeling on the grass. Her bare, freshly showered knees and feet sink into the mud, leaving brown stains on her pale skin.
In front of her, partially blocked by her back, is Max. His coat is as shiny as always, but he's just lying there, struggling to breathe.
“What happened?” I crouch beside Jessica and place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. I notice a small puddle of sick near poor Max’s little furry head, and some blood trickling out of his nose.
Damn it. The poor little fucker probably went out through the dog flap when I was still reading the financial section. When the fuck did I become the kind of person who just lays down and lets shit happen right under my nose?
“I don't know. I came out here and he was just… He was already like this when I found him.” Jessica answers without turning to look at me, her eyes locked firmly on Max.
I get up and start to check the ground. Damn it, it's starting to get dark. I grab my phone, turn on the flashlight, and scan the grass. There may not be anything left, but I need to try, for Jessica’s sake. She needs to know what really happened here.
“I’ll call the vet.” Jessica ‘s fingers start tapping on her phone, the cool blue light from the screen making her look otherworldly in the darkness. “Can you drive me?”
“No.”
“What? Hold on.” Jessica puts the phone to her ear.
I have to hand it to the vet. It doesn't take long at all for Jessica to get an emergency address for immediate treatment, but I don't think any vet is going to be able to help Max now.
Jessica carefully picks Max up in her arms, his little body limp like a lifeless doll. She says, “Get the car keys on the dining table, Jacob. Let's go.”
“No, it's too late for the little guy. We need to find whoever did this.”
“What are you talking about? You're not coming with me to the vet?”
“There are more important things to do right now.”
“Like staring at the grass, when we could be saving Max’s life?” Jessica raises her voice.
“It's rat poison.”
“What?”
“It's poison. I can’t say what kind for sure, but rat poison is the most widely available kind. Someone poisoned Max, and I'm trying to find some clues.” I check the area near the side gate leading to the backyard.
Whoever did this probably threw some kind of food laced with rat poison over the fence, so there should at least be traces of it left.
“I don't care what it is. We need to get Max to a clinic,” she says.
“We need to find the asshole who did this.” I kneel down to check out a suspicious piece of something brown and green. I didn't see it before because the colors hide it well among the grass and soil.
“Who? How long is it going to take you to find him? It could be anyone. Remember what the cops said about the letter in my mailbox. It could be anyone, for any reason.”
“I’ll start with Steve and Caine.”
“It's not them. Jacob, I’m telling you. You’d just be wasting your time if you approached them. Caine, especially. He’s a dangerous man,” Jessica says.
“Maybe I’m a dangerous man, too.” I know Jessica's getting aggravated, but I’m getting really tired of her throwing caution to the wind and having secret meetings with potentially dangerous men. Somebody has to be the responsible adult here, and it's obviously not going to be her.
“How are you even so sure that Max isn't just sick? He’s an old dog,” Jessica says.
“Call it a hunch,” I say as my fingers move the taller blades of grass out of the way.
“So I’m standing here waiting for you while Max is slowly dying, and it's all because you have a hunch?”
“There's something here.” I flash the light from my phone onto the suspicious thing on the ground. “Did you give Max some food here recently?”
“No. Jacob, listen. I’m done talking. Max needs to make it to the vet like right now. Do whatever you want. I'm going to the vet,” Jessica says.
I raise my head and open my mouth to call her, but she's gone. She must've slipped away when I was looking at this chunk of bright green minced meat on the ground.
It's some sort of poison alright, but I can't be sure what kind, or how much Max has ingested.
I hope the fact that his body was all the way over there means that he only ate a little bit before walking away. I do feel for the little guy, and I hope he makes it.
It's just more important to find the person responsible for this and keep Jessica safe. At least she's out of the house, which is where she's safest, considering whoever did this seems to want to chase her out, make her run away, keep her on her toes.
Jessica's right; if someone wanted to kidnap her or kill her, they would've already done that.
But what if that someone wants to stretch out the chase, maximize Jessica's pain, extend her punishment?
Then the easiest way to accomplish that is to hit her just when she lets her g
uard down. When she starts settling down, make her run away to another town. When she starts to settle down again in the new town, drive her away again. On and on until the guy’s bored of the cruel game.
This means there’s a good reason why the guy hasn’t openly attacked her yet, despite having had many opportunities to do so. This means neither Steve nor Caine can be ruled out.
Jessica
“Hang in there, Max.” I peer over the top of Max’s car seat when we stop at a red light.
His little body rapidly expands and contracts as his lungs work overtime. His whines tell me he’s scared and confused. He has no idea what’s going on, and it breaks my heart to watch him fight for his life.
I touch his head gently, afraid to hurt him. “Everything’s going to be okay, Max.”
I don’t believe my own words. I’ve seen how his muscles jerk uncontrollably. He’s having seizures.
As soon as the lights turn green, I step on it. The GPS tells me to take a right turn. The robotic voice is calm, cool, collected, unrushed—it annoys me.
We need to get to the clinic right now. I’m worried Max wouldn’t even make it onto the vet’s examination table.
Maybe Jacob’s right. Maybe it’s a lost cause and there’s no hope for Max at all. Maybe there’s zero chance that Max is going to live to see the sun rise.
But I have to give it my best shot. I won’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t. I’ll be damned if Max died because I choose to search for someone who may not even exist, instead of getting him to the vet.
Why is Jacob so sure this was done by someone who wants to hurt me anyway?
Maybe Max is sick because he’s old. He could’ve swallowed something poisonous just because he’s an idiot who’d eat anything. Maybe someone unintentionally fed Max something bad, and had no idea it was going to turn out this way. A neighborhood kid could’ve given him chocolate, for example.
Why would Jacob jump to the conclusion that it was a calculated, malicious move against me?
And why would he suspect Steve and Caine? I already told him they’re safe. Neither one of them would gain anything from me moving out of Ashbourne. Steve would just lose one potential downline for his network, and Caine never wanted anything from me in the first place.
They both have cleared my safety checks, but apparently that means nothing to Jacob. Only his judgment matters because I obviously know nothing.
To that, I say fuck off. I’ve worked in a seedy industry full of men who wanted to take advantage of me, and I’ve survived.
I used my stripping job to pay for Mom’s medical treatments, get an education, and build a nest egg of savings. I used my job and never let it use me.
I know how to take care of myself, thank you very much. I’d been doing that just fine for years before Jacob came along, pounding his chest and marking his territory.
I park my car in front of the building with a big bright sign that says 24-Hour Animal Clinic. I pick up Max’s car seat and balance the whole thing on my arms. It’s heavier and more awkward to carry him this way, but I don’t want to risk hurting Max by moving his body.
A teenager in blue scrubs opens the door for me. They’ve been waiting for Max. A young, attractive brunette who looks like she’s in charge gestures for me to follow her.
We walk into the examination room and I place the car seat on the stainless-steel surface. Max is still lying limp on the car seat. He’s whining, his little body jerking uncontrollably every once in a while.
“What’s his name?” The vet keeps her eyes on Max as she addresses me. The name tag on her lapel says ‘Sarah.’
“Max.”
“Did he eat anything suspicious?” She leans down to inspect Max’s mouth and eyes, her long brown waves tumbling to the front as she does.
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t feed him anything unusual, anything different from what he normally eats?” Sarah touches various parts of Max’s body with practiced movements. She looks like she knows what she’s doing.
“No. He was like this when I found him in the backyard.”
“Was he in the backyard on his own?” She speaks in a calm, precise manner. She doesn’t seem alarmed. Maybe that’s a good sign.
“Yes.”
“Is there any access from the street directly into the backyard?”
“There’s a side gate that separates the backyard from the street.”
“You may want to call the cops. Your dog has ingested some kind of poison. It may have been by accident, but it’s also very possible that someone has deliberately fed it to him.”
“Why would someone do something like that?”
“I have no idea.” She shrugs and shakes her head. “It could be because the dog is noisy, or just because whoever did it wanted to see how the poison would affect the dog. It’s sad, but it happens. Any other animals in your house that could wander into the backyard?”
“No.”
“Good. We’ll take care of him. You can sit outside in the waiting room and call the cops. You may also want to report this to the Animal Services and SPCA. My vet tech has all the numbers.”
“Is Max going to make it?”
“We’ll do our best.” Sarah looks up and meets my gaze for the first time. She gives me a kind smile, but there’s uncertainty in her eyes.
I want to grab her shoulders, shake her, and make her say she’s going to fix everything, make her promise she’ll give Max back to me as healthy as he was yesterday. But I know that’s not a fair expectation.
So I smile back at her and thank her before going outside to wait, closing the door behind me.
“Don’t worry,” says the guy in blue scrubs as I take a seat. He’s probably the vet tech Sarah mentioned earlier. He puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Your baby is in good hands. Is there anything I can do for you now?”
“Well, the vet told me to call the cops.”
“Right. Animal abuse. I have a list of numbers you can call. You don’t have to, but most people prefer doing something rather than just sitting here waiting. I’ll get you the numbers”
“Thank you.”
“Here you go.” The vet tech gives me a small piece of paper with some phone numbers on it. “My name is Brian. I’ll be right there behind the counter if you need anything,” he says before he goes back to his work.
I sit there in the waiting room, leaning forward with my elbows on my thighs, staring at the piece of paper until the writing becomes blurry.
Should I call the cops? Why do that when they probably won’t do anything?
If I call them and tell them about Jacob’s suspicion of Steve and Caine, are they going to check those leads? Are the cops going to bump into Jacob if and when they do?
What if they see Jacob beating the shit out of some innocent guy? Would Jacob get into trouble? Do I want him to get into trouble?
I have so many questions. A part of me feels like I need to have all the answers before making a decision. I don’t want to make the wrong move and make things worse.
At the same time, Brian is right. It’s a horrible feeling, sitting around helplessly while a crisis unfolds. I may actually feel worse now than I did on the drive here.
Okay. It’s decided then. I’ll call the cops.
Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t. What’s the worst that can happen? If Jacob gets into trouble, that would be his own fault. So be it. I don’t care.
Jacob
“Sorry, Sir. We don’t have a guest by that name.” The receptionist behind the front desk smiles.
“You can’t miss the guy. He’s tall, in his early thirties, probably wears business suits all the time. He looks like this.” I prop my phone up on the granite surface of the counter and show her a picture of Caine Foster.
“I apologize. I don’t recognize him. We have many guests coming and going all the time, Sir.”
Motherfucker.
Jessica told me this is the hotel where Caine is
staying. I could’ve figured it out myself because this is the best hotel in this small town, and he seems like the kind of guy who travels in style.
And yet, he’s gone. Disappeared like a ghost. It’s like he was never here.
I look around the hotel lobby, hoping to spot him sitting in the corner with an empty box of rat poison.
Yeah, I know that’s not likely, but I don’t know where else to look.
I tried asking Matt for help, but it’s no use. A guy like Caine values his privacy, and he has the money to protect it. There’s nothing I can do to find him.
It’s possible the receptionist is lying to me. I hate being lied to, but maybe it’s hotel policy to never reveal their guests’ details to strangers.
It’s also possible Caine has left town.
Based on Jessica’s story, even though Caine claimed he wanted to talk, he treated it like business. He gave and received information, then left when he was done. Like he was running on a tight schedule. He probably wouldn’t stay in town longer than he has to.
So that leaves Steve.
In the hotel parking lot, I hop onto my Harley Davidson and quickly check his address on my phone. Matt sent it to me when he first looked into the guy, thinking it might come in handy.
It doesn’t take me long to find Steve’s place. He lives in the nice side of the town where all the big houses are.
Well, big by small town standards. It doesn’t have a mile-long driveway or anything like that.
I park on the street and walk right up to the front door.
“Can I help you?” A woman opens the door. She’s probably in her fifties. Steve’s mom, maybe?
“Yes. I’m here to see Steve, Ma’am.” I want to beat the shit out of Steve if it turns out he’s the one responsible for poisoning Max and distressing Jessica, but I can’t be impolite to a lady. Call it a bad habit from my military days.
“Oh, he told me he’s waiting for a friend from Vita-ments.”
“That would be me.” I smile confidently, although I have no idea what she’s talking about.