Capture

by Flora Dain

  Helpless under his amused gaze I feel the stuff pressing now one side, now the other – and then closing the gap to saw right along the middle. I moan with excitement as it keeps on moving, eternally slimy and cool, making me achingly hot.

  He watches me lazily as I endure his new torment. It’s relentless, unceasing, the effect on my building arousal almost unbearable. Soon every nerve strains to reach my zenith as he pulls the leathery length tight as a snake over my little place, enough to tease but never enough for release.

  Soon I’m panting for relief, endlessly denied. ‘Please, please …’

  ‘My poor sweet,’ he whispers softly. ‘You want to come? But the tide’s coming first. We have to leave now.’

  Waves are lapping near the ledge, close to our feet. The cavern mouth has shrunk to a narrow gap, almost too low for my boat.

  He chafes my hands for a moment in his, then raises them to his lips to kiss my chilled fingers. ‘Better get dressed.’

  As I fumble with my clothes he fires up his jet ski and slips easily out of the shrinking cave mouth. Alone now in the echoing chamber I take one last look round as I misfire the engine in my panic to follow.

  Once more I hear it, a low sighing noise like someone breathing. Like somebody else is here. I shiver again.

  Darnley’s waiting outside. ‘Race you back. And no touching.’

  I glare at him. ‘How will you know?’

  He leans over the rail and runs his finger down my cheek. ‘Trust me, I’ll know.’ He kisses me lightly. ‘Keep your eyes on the prize. It’ll be worth it, I promise.’

  With a light laugh he glides away and disappears round the headland.

  A high roller surges past me and into the narrow opening. Almost at once there’s a deep, hollow boom from deep inside the cave.

  The sound is terrifying, but not as scary as the small sound it drowned out.

  More laughter? Or an echo of Darnley’s?

  I steady the boat against the wavelets lapping at the cave entrance, but now the only noise is the rumble of the echo as I fire up the engine.

  The troll’s having the last laugh …

  * * *

  As I walk into the beach house the rich sound of a male aria stops my breath. When Darnley gets tense, playtime turns dark.

  The cave was just the start. My troll’s alive and well and hooked on Mozart. But this time it’s not Savoy’s lilting soprano. Instead it’s Don Giovanni’s deep male roar of despair as he falls into the jaws of hell.

  Darnley meets me at the door. The silver logo on his black velour robe glints, drawing my attention to the broad chest below it, where the fabric parts at his neck and gapes a little.

  ‘Turn around. I want to examine you.’ He makes me bend low so he can admire his handiwork. As he does it I feel the brush of velour against my burning skin and the clear nudge of his erection, jutting below his short robe. And all at once the velour’s gone and it’s his silky skin butting against me. Yes, yes … do it now.

  ‘Beautiful. Shower first. Let’s peel this off.’

  He helps me out of my wet, clinging clothes and runs warm hands all over my chilly flanks. He teases my chilled jutting places and tweaks my throbbing nipples back to full, stiffened glory. ‘Now into the shower, missy, and bend right over.’

  I bend double, bracing myself on the shower mat as he soothes me with scented gels and then sluices me off. Excitement builds again at his touch and the luxurious, sensual heat of the trickling water. I whimper at his touch but his low, cynical laugh warns me I’m no nearer release.

  ‘Later. Put your hands on your head. No touching.’

  He towels me dry and then scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom. His lips find mine in a constant rain of tiny kisses as he lowers me onto the bed. In seconds he’s forcing my legs apart and I feel his erection nudge at my opening.

  ‘You want me now, Ella? You want me inside you?’ He’s still teasing but he sounds husky.

  He needs this too.

  I writhe below him, arching to reach.

  He twitches away. ‘Ask nicely.’ He brushes my lips with his, his mouth soft and gentle, his erection hot and hard, poised for conquest.

  I plead. Shamefully, disgracefully. I whisper obscenities into his ear and dig my fingernails into his back. At last, as I start to whimper for real, he surges right up inside, large and thick and hot.

  Bliss. All the fantasies I’ve woven all afternoon fuse into rapture as he rides and slows, rides and slows, making me wait, making me ache, making me arch to reach him and finally, ecstatically, making me come. Each time I do he pauses, rides my spasms with an iron discipline all his own and then resumes, until finally he comes too, with a bellow louder than the boom of any troll.

  * * *

  Next day I see him at breakfast, but not for long. He’s on his phone, taking call after call. ‘No, that’s impossible. Check again.’ – ‘What do you mean, South America’s pulling out? Get them on the line.’ – ‘No, no interviews. Stall them.’

  When he’s done he stares at me like I’m a stranger.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I hesitate. I never ask him about business. Maybe I should.

  ‘Yes.’ He stares away for a moment. ‘From now on we’d better sleep apart.’

  ‘What?’ I stare at him, stunned. ‘Why?’

  With an impatient flick he cuts another call and pulls his chair close to mine. ‘We’re having trouble tracking this intruder.’

  I frown. ‘But … surely it’s Chet? He painted that message on the wall. He even had the words spelt out on a card …’

  He frowns. ‘Freda’s working on him. He admits to the paint. Says the troll made him do it. He denies all the other stuff. Syra says he wouldn’t know lipstick if he fell in it. Freda says we have to be patient. He panics under questions. Makes him sick.’

  ‘But – surely it has to be him?’

  He sighs. ‘Ella, it’s not that simple. There’s no sign of a break-in and no report of a breach. So it has to be somebody here.’

  ‘Why? I don’t see –’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘The sensors and fingerprint-recognition systems are programmed to identify each one of us, even our touch. They omit our data and our image from the surveillance video footage to speed up the scanning process. Any unauthorised entry triggers the alarm. But the system reports nothing unusual. So it has to be one of us.’ He swallows. ‘What I’m really trying to say is – it must be me.’

  For a split second I see pain flicker in his eyes.

  ‘I’m not safe. If it’s me then you’re in danger. Maybe I do it and black out. Maybe I do it in my sleep.’

  I wind my arms around his waist and lay my head on his shoulder. ‘That’s ridiculous. You’d never hurt me. How could you do this and me not know? I’m right here, Darnley. All the time.’

  But even as I say it I recall the slashed picture, and the knife. Maybe he’s right …

  His jaw stiffens. ‘We can’t be sure. It’s a risk. Until we find out we’d better sleep apart.’

  He kisses me as his cell signals again and this time he walks off to take the call. After a while I hear him leave the house.

  As I start on my breakfast he calls from the car. ‘I’ve assigned you a bodyguard. Syra again. Next time you drive to the complex she’ll go too.’

  ‘Why her?’ I roll my eyes.

  ‘She likes you.’

  He cuts the signal, just missing my impatient sigh. The last person I want hanging around me is Chet’s snoopy older sister.

  Somehow I have to talk to Ryan, now in Mexico. Once I’ve got those photos I can tell Darnley everything, Ryan will be gone for ever and Lydia’s past life will no longer be a threat.

  Keep your eyes on the prize.

  I swallow as the prize takes shape. It has to be worth the risk, if I can bring peace to this family. And maybe to Ryan, too, if he can get back on track.

  Everybody deserves a fresh start. Even him.

  * * *r />
  Slowly my day improves. I finish my reports early and now I’ve got a date with my birthday present – a trip to the recording studio to read my poem.

  Darnley’s back for lunch. Afterwards we fly down to San Francisco. We find the studio tucked away in some downtown suburb.

  People here are laid-back and friendly. I guess they’re used to first-timers. They show us round. All round the walls are framed photos of rock stars and folk singers, most of them signed. Soon I’m sitting all alone in a soundproof booth, fixed up with headphones.

  In front of me I have a printed copy of my poem. Through the glass I can see technicians working on a vast mixer-panel and behind them Darnley, his arms folded, watching intently as experts in another field get to work.

  I guess this is where many a singing career began. The thought makes me nervous. I’m no pop idol, I’m simply reading some stuff I wrote way back when I was a naïve, utterly inexperienced Miss Normal from New England, before I collided with Darnley and my life changed for ever.

  Our eyes meet and I wonder fleetingly if he’s thinking the same.

  ‘OK, count to five a few times so we can check the sound levels.’ The producer’s voice crackles for a moment in my headphones. ‘Just for a warm-up. Then we’ll go for the real thing.’

  I keep my eyes fixed on Darnley as I open my mouth to read the first lines of the poem I wrote so long ago. And I recall him saving me from disaster at the Poetry Institute in North Carolina when I dried and he stepped in to read it for me, his low, musical voice bringing my younger thoughts so vividly to life in front of all those people.

  Tears of gratitude well up. I blow him a kiss.

  At that moment there’s another crackle in my headphones and a new voice – new, but horribly familiar.

  And completely unexpected.

  ‘Hi there, P-p-petronella. Doing a p-p-poetry reading, are we? Crazy.’

  Ryan?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Through the glass booth I see the sound engineer giving me a thumbs-up sign for all systems go.

  But mine’s going nowhere. I’m in lockdown.

  Ryan’s voice hisses in my ear. ‘We gotta talk, El. I’ll call you tomorrow at three. Take the call down by your boat. It’s safer there. His sensors can’t pick it up under the cliff. And this time it’s urgent.’

  Fury flashes over me. I hiss back. ‘Where are you? And where are those photos?’

  From the corner of my eye I see Darnley frown as the engineer murmurs something to him. The technician takes off his headphones for a moment and peers at them. Can they hear this?

  In my ear here’s another hiss from Ryan. ‘Me? Still in sunny Mexico. Look, we can’t talk now. Talk tomorrow. Be there.’

  There’s another ferocious crackle and the line clears. The technician looks up and makes ‘go on’ shapes with his mouth.

  It seems Ryan’s voice reached only me but now the damage is done. My calm scattered. I look down at my poem, ‘A life in landscapes’.

  When I wrote it I thought I knew it all. Now I know better. Back then I knew next to nothing and Ryan’s just wiped even that. The words dance on the page and sing in my head, but when I open my mouth nothing happens.

  Angry tears well up. Now even the page is a blur.

  I tear off the headphones and blunder out of the booth. In seconds Darnley’s facing me.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m s-so sorry,’ I say wildly. ‘I can’t … I can’t …’

  ‘Hey. Chill. We’ll do it some other time.’

  He folds me into his arms and briefly holds me close. I want to sob on his shoulder but now the technician hurries over, his face anxious.

  ‘Sorry about that. We had some static there for a moment. We can go again – uh, she OK?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Darnley’s curt voice cuts in. ‘We’ll reschedule.’

  The engineer looks dazed. ‘Sure. Fine. Anything you say, sir.’

  * * *

  The flight back is ghastly. Darnley stares out of the window, morose and brooding. I stare miserably down at my fingers. When we get indoors Darnley murmurs something about having more work to do and disappears, leaving me on my own.

  I eat alone. I spend a long evening alone.

  Is he out somewhere? Has he gone away on business?

  Just as I think of turning in, I hear music – opera again. I stiffen.

  He’s been here all this time. He’s avoiding me?

  Separate rooms … the thought is unbearable. Slowly I search through my lingerie, and finally make my choice.

  When I finally knock lightly at his door I draw courage from my reflection in the mirror across from his room. I have a statement to make.

  I left off the corsets, the leather and the diamonds. Instead I’ve gone for stockings and heels, ultra-light make-up and loose, flowing hair, brushed to a shine. I’m wearing only the wisp of black lace that covers me – if that’s the word for it – when I wear the diamond-encrusted lingerie he gave me at Christmas. Without the diamonds below it I look somehow innocent but still eager.

  Everything shows through, turning me into pink, pulsing porno. At least it does when I’m as nervous as this. I can positively see my breasts swell, my nipples darken and tense.

  My engagement ring is my only jewel. Its weight and the glint of its vast diamond are cruel reminders that our wedding’s off, and not because he wants to split up. It’s to keep me safe. The thought tears me in two.

  I’ve gone light on the scent, a hint of jasmine – but I’ve been careful to spritz some parts only he ever sees.

  This had better work.

  ‘Come in.’

  His deep voice thrills through me. I’m burning up already, aching for his touch and I’m not yet in the room.

  He said to sleep apart. He said nothing about the other stuff.

  I open the door, step inside, softly close it again and lean against it.

  I’m careful to keep my left hand out of sight behind my back.

  He’s sprawled in a chair across the room. He looks good enough to eat.

  He’s freshly showered and still in his robe, one ankle resting casually on his knee. At his side is a heavy crystal tumbler partly filled with whisky.

  His look sweeps over me but he says nothing. Abruptly he lifts his glass, drains his drink and rises slowly to his feet, uncurling with the lazy grace of a leopard. ‘What are you doing?’

  Relief surges through me. At least he’s not turned me away. He can see what I’m doing as clearly as he can see through my lace. But I feel safer inside it. I want him to know what I want. I want him to know that what he can give me is all I’ll ever want, that the ring on my finger means something real and physical and I’m happy to come and ask for it any time.

  ‘What do you want?’

  I keep my eyes on his, because I know that if I look away my courage will fail and I’ll probably turn tail and run. ‘You know what I want.’

  ‘I told you, we should sleep apart.’

  I put my free hand on his arm, lean close and reach up to kiss him. ‘I know. But I’m not sleepy. Are you?’

  His jaw stiffens. At the same time I sense movement under his robe, somewhere near my belly. Joy floods through me. He’s aroused. It must be working …

  ‘I meant this as well. Christ, Ella, what’s the matter with you? I told you, stay away from me. I’m not safe. We’re not safe.’

  ‘I know what you said.’ I kiss him again. ‘When did I ever feel safe with you? Why should I want to feel safe now?’ I drop tiny kisses along the line of his jaw and all at once tears well up, tears I hadn’t planned and can’t control. ‘Please don’t do this, Darnley. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to be in the house with you knowing you feel like this –’ I touch the monster stirring between us with my fingertip ‘– without doing something about it.’

  His chest is heaving. I see a faint sheen of sweat mist his forehead. ‘What are you holding behind your back?’

  As
I hold up my hand he stares at it for a moment, and then his eyes gleam. ‘Really?’

  I nod. All at once I’m in his arms and he’s found my mouth. We collapse onto the chair. In seconds he’s clamped my wrists into the cruel cuffs I’d been hiding and slung them high behind his neck as I straddle his lap. He leans over to capture a mouthful of breast and black lace, his voice muffled. ‘Christ, Ella, I’m trying to do the right thing here. Why do you have to come in here and spoil everything? I can’t do this. I can’t resist you like this …’

  The rest of what he’s saying disappears into the other breast as the lace tries and fails spectacularly to shield me from his hungry mouth. And now he’s deep in my mouth again, searching with his tongue and pressing me close. I lean into him as he fondles my pulsing backside and eagerly caresses my lower back, my waist and my hips.

  I throw back my head and arch my neck as he quits my mouth at last and travels down my throat, his lips hot on my sensitive skin, shimmering all over now as the electric touch of his kisses sends excitement flickering through me. He tastes as he goes, gently on my delicate skin, more forcefully on my collarbones and my breasts, his breathing ragged as he splays his thighs underneath me and forces me to splay mine. As I hang over his lap, exposed and quivering, he reaches down to skim my treasures with his fingertip, his touch light and wildly arousing, the gleam in his eyes like fire.

  ‘Kneel up over me. I want to taste you. Keep your cuffs behind your head.’

  With an effort, I kneel on the arms of the chair, holding the heavy cuffs aloft so my breasts jut over his upturned face. He steadies me with his hands on my waist, his gaze stern. I feel his thumbs move gently on my navel, forcing me back.

  ‘Mm. Looks good from down here. Open.’

  I struggle to do this because it’s hard to balance, and all at once it gets a whole lot harder as his hungry mouth finds my privacy and starts to tease wildly, his slick tongue making me writhe dangerously close to the edge.

  ‘I’ll fall,’ I cry, half laughing, as his tongue increases its greedy pressure and my excitement leaps into overdrive. Yes, yes … oh, yes …

  ‘Whoa. Too much of that and you’ll beat me to it. Now you.’

  He pulls me upright, curves me over and forces me down on him, pressing on my head with one hand while the other holds my trapped wrists high up over my head so he can finger the tight metal casing where it bites into my skin. The feeling is extraordinary, his touch on my aching wrists light and gentle, the pressure he’s using to force my head downwards scarily strong.