Hereafter [McKnight, Perth & Daire 2] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Beth D. Carter

  “Like what you see?” he taunted.

  She stuck her tongue out.

  “Don’t think for one moment I won’t punish that little pink tongue of yours,” he warned.

  “Promises, promises,” she managed to say just before Master Eyries turned back toward them. It was so easy to flirt with Nash. Maybe a little too easy. Guilt tried to rise up in her mind, but she ruthlessly pushed it down. She’d have enough time to worry over self-recrimination once they got out of here and returned to reality.

  “When you are in this room, you will address me as Master, and you will address her as Mistress,” Master Eyries stated. He stood at the dresser, opening drawers, though she couldn’t see what he was accruing.

  “Ah, question,” she said. “What do I call him?”

  Mast Eyries frowned at her over his shoulder. “What?”

  Charlotte pointed at Nash. “What do I call him?”

  “Call him whatever you want. Some people use the word sub or slave—”

  “Oh, I like slave.” She turned to Nash. “Can I call you that?”

  “No,” Nash ground out.

  “Silence, slave,” she ordered and then ruined her authoritative tone by giggling.

  Master Eyries turned around holding a silver tray, the reflection gleaming in the low lighting and reflecting the candlelight. Resting on the surface were four different looking whips. One looked like a regular whip, black leather with a snake’s tail coming from the tip. Another was regular flogger with about twenty-five or thirty leather strands emerging from a handle. The third held a solid piece of black rawhide with a heart shape punched out of the center. And the last was a stiff piece of leather with a loop at the end.

  She pointed to it. “Does that one tie up his penis?”

  “Shut up, Charlotte,” Nash all but growled at her.

  “Enough!” Master Eyries yelled. “Jesus Christ! Have you guys never done this before? I’m in control! This is my room!”

  Charlotte held up her hands. “Sorry. When I get nervous I talk.”

  Behind the mask she saw him close his eyes and take a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s try this again. I’m Master Eyries, and you, slave, will be chained to the X-frame. You”—he pointed to Charlotte—“get a gag.”

  “A gag?”

  “In the dresser. Fourth drawer.”

  Charlotte stared at him for a moment and then marched over the black dresser. But as she approached it, the…touch…for lack of a better word, guided her, blocking everything else out. She placed her hands on the top of the dresser and slowly ran her hands down the front of it, past the first drawer, past the second, and past the third. When she approached the fourth, it was suddenly hard for her to breathe. In fact, it felt like she could barely take a breath of air, and she became light-headed.

  She pulled the drawer open, several rows of different items winking up at her. At the left were odd looking cones that had a flat surface. The cones started out small and slowly increased in girth. In the center were rings of all shapes and colors, some leather and some metal. She tried to figure out what they were for, but her imagination wasn’t helping. On the right were, well, gags. Some were made with elastic and some with leather, and some had a ball in the center, but there were ones that just held the mouth open. Looking at them made her jaw ache.

  Then all of a sudden, she felt the presence again, and it seemed like it was next to her, guiding her. She hoped the ghost knew what it was doing because she had nothing to go on. Charlotte ran her fingers over the gags, but nothing reached out to snag her attention.

  Until she touched the fabric the gags rested on.

  She pinched the corner and pulled, the fabric peeling away from the base effortlessly. And there she could see, even in the low light, dark stains. Curious, she touched one, and instantly, pain gripped her body. The air whooshed from her lungs as the lash of a whip tore open her flesh. Over and over, the sting cut into her skin and the unmistakable roll of moisture ran down her back. Blood? Dear God, am I bleeding?

  How long was this torture going to last?

  No sooner had the words entered her mind when the crack of the lash died. She wanted to collapse and began to weep uncontrollably until a metal ball gag was shoved into her mouth, knocking against her teeth. She didn’t know what was happening, and panic began to well up, causing her chest to tighten even more. She tried to draw a breath and couldn’t. It seemed the air had vanished from the room.

  Charlotte started to cough, her chest becoming a fist that squeezed around her heart. The more she struggled, the more she couldn’t breathe. Little by little, the invisible rope around her windpipe squeezed. She tried gasping, but pain began to radiate upward. She felt the vomit rising up from her stomach. Charlotte tried to spit it out, but her mouth was sealed shut and her hands were tied down. She tried screaming and couldn’t. The vomit slid back down, only this time it entered the wrong opening. She felt it like a violation, filling up her wind pipe, unrepentant. Her eyes bulged. She couldn’t…breathe…she couldn’t…do…anything.

  “Charlotte!”

  She heard her name being shouted before she fell to her knees. Her hand slid away from the dark stain, and immediately Janie’s ghost let go of her. Nash was over her. He tilted her head back and put his mouth on hers, pinching her nose closed. He blew into her mouth, and her chest inflated. He did it again. She coughed, and air rushed back into her lungs.

  She looked up at Nash, tears forming and leaking out to run slowly down her temples. He stared down at her, white faced, his chest heaving as if he’d just run a marathon.

  Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. He leaned over her, putting his ear directly over her lips.

  “Vomit,” she managed to get out, though her throat felt like a cheese grater had rearranged her tonsils.

  But Nash seemed to understand. He pulled out his phone and made a call. Charlotte closed her eyes and gave up trying to think about anything else.

  * * * *

  Charlotte sat in the back of the ambulance breathing through an oxygen mask and watching the rush of FBI agents coming and going from the Here After club. People in white paper overalls had taken out the dresser and the whips, plus other things in marked evidence bags. The music had stopped, leaving all the people standing around with nothing to do but talk and speculate behind the yellow police tape.

  Cecelia Duwhite stood with her arms folded in front of her, defiantly glaring at the Fed who tried to interrogate her. She must have felt Charlotte’s eyes on her because she looked over and caught her stare. There was no mistaking the wealth of anger and loathing seeping from every pore. Master Eyries had his mask off and was being detained by two other Feds. She knew Nash was somewhere inside doing his detective work.

  She could save them a lot of time. Janie had died by choking on her own vomit. Fear over what had been happening to her had engulfed her, blanketing her reasoning and understanding. Charlotte had felt that same fear in every cell of her body. It had risen up, overwhelming her, until she couldn’t think or react. Janie had panicked, so Charlotte had panicked, but unlike Janie, Charlotte had Nash, who performed CPR to snap her out of the connection.

  The last time CPR had been performed on her, she had just died. She remembered coughing up what seemed like a river of water, air rushing painfully back into her starving lungs, her heart beating fiercely with the knowledge that it had almost stopped.

  She had stared up at the man who’d saved her, her body shaking from a mixture of fear, relief, and cold. She could still feel the hand twirling in her hair, pushing her under and holding her there. She’d fought, but he’d had the advantage, making sure she couldn’t come up for air.

  Her family had arrived about a minute after the ambulance, shoving past the police, her trainer, her friends, all the pool management, and various others standing around, to see her lying helplessly on the wet concrete, shivering. She wasn’t sure who had put the blanket over her, maybe her mother, but she remembered looking up
and catching Holly’s tearful gaze, and suddenly it had hit her.

  Someone had tried to kill her.

  She felt like she couldn’t trust anyone except, perhaps, the person who had saved her. It was as if her innocence had been ripped from her very being.

  A hand cupped her face and Charlotte blinked, her gaze rising to meet Nash’s worried gaze. The tenderness she saw in his face made her heart pound, and she had to blink back tears.

  “We can go,” he told her. “The Feds have the place locked down.”

  “You told them about the whip?”

  “Yeah. Come on.”

  Charlotte handed the oxygen mask back to the paramedic and thanked him. They had insisted she go to the hospital, but she knew she hadn’t suffered trauma, only the repercussions of connecting to a woman who had suffocated. Most hospitals wouldn’t know how to treat that symptom.

  Nash helped her out of the ambulance and slipped his arm around her waist. They walked slowly back to his rental, which was still parked in the dark alley. He didn’t ask her any questions or tell her what the Feds had discovered. She knew what the next step would be. They would take samples, test the DNA, and they would find a match to Janie Gabel. The Here After club would be shut down and investigated, the dirty hidden secret of Cecelia Duwhite exposed.

  Nash opened her door and helped her slide in before walking over to his side and sliding behind the wheel. He didn’t waste any time starting up the engine and driving away.

  “Janie asphyxiated on her own vomit,” she murmured. Her head rested back, and she stared out her side window. Night had fallen, and without highway lights she felt like they were the only two people alive.

  “I didn’t realize you could experience what they experienced.”

  “Zach had me stand in for his girlfriend, but this is the first time something like this has happened to me,” she admitted. “Janie had been gagged with one of those ball things, and she panicked. It was like I was her. It started in her lungs and radiated upward.”

  Nash was silent for a moment. “Asthma attack?”

  “Maybe. I never did find that room, the one from my earlier vision.”

  “I think it’s safe to say you more than did your job.”

  Silence fell. She couldn’t seem to control the memories, the past and the present overlapping. Tears welled up and fell, and she didn’t know how to contain them.

  “Charlotte?” Nash asked, concern lacing his voice. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You’re crying. Hold on, I’m turning off up here.”

  She wanted to tell him to keep driving, but the words wouldn’t come forth, and she recognized the need to be held and soothed. Nash put his blinker on and exited off the four-lane highway onto a dirt road. He drove a few more minutes before putting the car in park and switching off the engine.

  He turned in his seat to look at her, one of his hands reaching up to wipe the tear off her cheek.

  “Face me,” he softly ordered.

  She did as he commanded and met his gaze, although she couldn’t see his features in the darkness.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You used CPR on me.”

  “Because you stopped breathing! Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me.”

  His voice was harsh, though she knew he wasn’t upset with her.

  “I’ve had CPR one other time in my life,” she admitted.

  He tensed, waiting.

  “You know I was a swimmer, right?”

  Nash nodded. “Yes. Placed first in the National freestyle heats and made a bid for the US Olympic team. What? You’re sort of on Wikipedia.”

  “You Googled me?”

  “So not the point right now.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t quit because I had an injury. I quit because…someone…tried to drown me.”

  “What?”

  “Actually, they succeeded. I was at the bottom of the pool until the club owner’s son found me and resuscitated me.”

  He was silent for a moment, and she could feel his eyes on her face, searching.

  “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

  “Didn’t you ever wonder how I got my ability? I wasn’t born with it.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face. His body was wound so tight she was surprised he hadn’t yet busted a gut.

  “This wasn’t in any report—”

  “I never reported it.”

  “What? Why?”

  She flinched at his angry tone.

  “I told everyone I had developed a cramp, that the drowning was accidental. But the damage had been done. I couldn’t face water again. I never went back into a pool.”

  He let out a deep sigh. “And why you don’t like bathtubs. Christ, Charlotte! Does your family know what happened?”

  “Only Holly and Al. Jonas. And now you.”

  “You told Jonas?”

  She nodded. “Of course I told Jonas.”

  She could sense he didn’t like that. His lips tightened fractionally, and he shot her a dark glower.

  “I can’t believe Alastair sanctions your silence.”

  “I was an emotional wreck back then. It didn’t take too much pressure for him to keep quiet. I…couldn’t handle a lot.”

  He sat in silence for a long time, and she let him have his moment to think about everything she’d said. Jonas hadn’t taken it well, and she didn’t expect Nash to either.

  “What do you plan to do?” he asked, startling her.

  “About what?”

  “About your attempted murder.”

  She winced. “Prying into one’s deepest fear is almost as terrifying as the fear itself.”

  “What’s your deepest fear?”

  “Finding out that someone I knew, someone I trusted, could hurt me like that,” she replied. “It gives me nightmares.”

  “Do you want to find out?”

  “Don’t you think I ought to? By not speaking up, I let a killer roam free, possibly to hurt someone else.”

  “Right now, I don’t give a shit about someone else.” He cupped her face and brought himself as close to her as the bucket seats allowed. “I only care about you, Charlotte. I only want you.”

  “To be safe?” she whispered.

  “Always,” he answered and then brought his mouth down onto hers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As soon as his lips landed on hers, a thousand butterflies erupted in her stomach, and lightning streaked along her nerve endings. He traced a path across her bottom lip, tasting her, as if he wanted to memorize the shape and texture of her mouth. The glide of his lips over hers was sinful, seductive, and she opened for him. Their tongues met and danced together, bringing them even closer together. He tried to maneuver closer together, but the steering wheel and center console prevented too much closeness.

  With a curse he pulled his mouth from hers. He opened his door and exited the car, slamming his door shut with force. She watched as he stalked around to her side, her mouth falling open as he opened her door and grabbed her hand, pulling her up to his body.

  There was no light, not even moonlight, as he leaned her against the car and took her mouth again in a kiss that curled her toes. He groaned and cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss, tasting and devouring any protest she might utter. But she didn’t plan on stopping him. She craved his touch, like a thirsty man finding an oasis.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, he rained a trail of hot kisses down her throat as his fingers worked nimbly at the buttons. As each one was released, he’d plant a kiss on the flesh exposed. After her blouse hung open, his hands then slid to the back clasp of her bra and unhooked it. She was now bare to his hot gaze, exposed in a raw, primitive state in the cool night air. Her nipples puckered, and she shivered. He bent his head and fastened his mouth over one pebble, drawing it deep within the wet recess of his mouth. This ti
me her shiver had nothing to do with temperature. Her body came alive as fire ignited her passion, and she buried her hands in his flaxen hair, pulling him as close as she could. Time melted away as he lavished attention on her nipples, first one, rolling his tongue over it and nipping the turgid peak between his teeth, and then the other. She became a mass of quivering flesh, putty in his hands, as reason and good sense disappeared.

  He worked his way up, and she felt his soft chest hair nuzzling her breasts, bringing forth a whole new set of erotic sensations. Dimly, she realized he had lost his shirt somewhere, somehow, as his hand slid around her ass to grasp her thigh and pull her leg up and around his hip. The position made him nestle snugly against her aching nest, right where she needed him most.

  There was something wild and primitive being outside where anyone could happen upon them. But it was easy to believe they were all alone in the world. The traffic on the nearby highway was thin, but they were well out of sight of anyone looking. This was twice tonight he had pleasured her, and she could seriously get used to his attention. But she wanted more, more of him, and that was too dangerous.

  “I want to eat you up,” he growled in her ear. “I want to lay you on this car hood and hike up your skirt. I want to lick you until you scream with satisfaction. Until you say you’re mine.”

  “I don’t want to hurt Jonas,” she whispered.

  “You want me,” he told her. “I know you do.”

  She nodded. “I want more of you. I want…all of you. But if I give into that, what does that make me? How can I consider myself a good person if I betray a man who means everything to me?”

  He jerked back enough to stare into her eyes, and even though she couldn’t see their color in the darkness, she could still feel their intensity.

  “He can’t mean everything if you burn at my touch.”

  She eased herself out of his arms and yanked the ends of her blouse together, hiding from his gaze. “This was a mistake.”

  He grabbed her arms. “No, it wasn’t. I was the one who made a mistake a year ago by pushing you away. Believe me, I curse myself every day for doing that, because if I hadn’t, you’d be in my arms—”