by Cee Smith
“Tell me. Tell me what I want to hear.”
I breathed a fortifying breath. “I belong to you, Dominic. You own me.”
His bones creaked with his movements, and once again he stood before me, showing no signs that he needed my heartfelt words. I looked hard into the shadows of his eyes, hoping to gain some insight into that mind of his. Where did he go just then? There was hunger that pulled me into the dark pool of his eyes. Like a tar pit capturing unknowing animals, I was caught. There was something else hidden behind the hunger there, but I was shut out when he moved in to capture my face.
“Who knew that you would become my biggest weakness?”
“Maybe that’s your problem. Perhaps you should think of me as your strength.”
He grunted, as his fingers caressed the underside of my jaw and stroked my chin. He poured all of his frustration into the brutal taking of my mouth. His fingers clasped my jaw hard as his tongue wrestled mine into submission. A moan escaped my throat, which only seemed to amp up his need as he pressed his body close to mine. His erection speared my stomach in the closeness of our bodies. He let up just enough for me to capture air before his lips fell upon mine again.
I wanted to grab his shoulder and pull him closer. I could smell the faint smell of sweat lining his body, and I wanted to trace my tongue across his body to taste the saltiness of his skin. My need was confined by the ropes that held me back.
Dominic’s hands were two palms of bruising desire as they roved across my body with determination. He ripped off my bra, and the fabric shredded around me without restraint. My nipples were tweaked and plucked, pulled into two hardened peaks that thirsted for more attention, and Dominic delivered. His teeth made a path down my neck and from one breast to the other as he took his fill of me. I threw my head back as something akin to relief rushed through me. Dominic held me so close to the edge, and I stood on tippy toes in my silent plea for more.
He shifted the ropes lower on the trees and returned in front of me, dropping on his knees. A moment passed where we simply stared at each other, before he was grabbing the back of my knees and lifting the lower half of my body so I was parallel with the ground. The feeling was strange as it felt like I was flying, but the weight of gravity was a constant pressure coursing my body.
“Dominic?”
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you. I just want a taste.”
“Ah,” I let a whimper escape as he pulled my legs up around his shoulders so his face was poised between my legs. The lower half of my body was supported by his shoulders, and with his free hands, he held my hip and swiped across my cleft.
He petted me from my mound to my sopping entrance. The tip of his finger nudged in before slipping back out, drenching his fingers in my juices. His other hand kneaded the flesh of my ass while he continued to play me like a mandolin, strumming with fingers that wound me up so tight that even my knuckles ached with tension.
Then his head pressed in closer between my clenching thighs and his tongue traced the seam of my lips, with no amount of pressure to break the seal and lick where I ached for him most. He teased me, tormenting me with the heat of his mouth and feel of his tongue, but he made no move to push harder to relieve that ache.
“Please!” I squirmed closer so my lips were forced to part around his mouth. He spoke against my knotted flesh, and the vibration of his voice was almost enough to make me combust.
“You need this, don’t you?”
“No!” I groaned as I squirmed, rocking my legs across his shoulders.
“Lies!” He roared as he bit down on my clit with a pressure I felt electrify every nerve ending in my body. The pain was enough to freeze the scream in my lungs. My mouth opened wide, but nothing slipped out. His tongue vibrated against me with a pressure that left me racing to keep up with his ravishing tongue. He licked me like a man possessed, puncturing my entrance with a tongue that curled inside me in a way I’d never known before. My back arched and my heels dug between his shoulder blades as I braced myself for an orgasm that I felt would splinter through me and leave me decimated.
I rolled my hips to let up from the pressure of his tongue, but his other arm braced down over the top of my stomach, pulling me back down within his reach.
“Show me I own you. Give yourself to me, Hailey!” he bellowed before attacking me again.
“Haven’t I given you everything? What more can I give y—” I screamed my release as he used that exact moment to nip my clit again. The orgasm that barreled through me hit me like a freight train, stealing the air from my lungs and the fire from my veins. Every resistance I clung to evaporated, stolen into the night sky by the blanket of stars—the unwilling witnesses—to my decimation.
He eased my legs back down, and I watched through heavy eyelids as he began unbuttoning his pants. His mass was heavy as he released his zipper and it sprang free like a heat-seeking missile searching for its target. Me. Dominic stroked his length as he watched me watch him.
“Will it ever be enough?” I whispered. He knew what I meant, knew what I wanted to hear. I needed to know that it was enough because I had nothing left to give. I was spent. I could only love Dominic as much as my heart could allow, and there was no more love in my heart to wring even another drop for him.
He never answered me. Instead, he slipped off his pants and sunk back down in front of me. He kissed my lips and the feel of his mouth on mine was haunting, as if his skin whispered the truth of my fears as his lips brushed against mine.
Dominic sank into me slowly, and I stretched around him as he took me in measured thrusts. He showered my face and neck with kisses as our hips rolled together. He watched me as he sank in deeper, watching my face for every emotion that washed over my face. Whatever he saw seemed to pacify him because a spark of bliss passed his face and he cradled me closer and arched his body so that I was almost mounting him. I rode him the best I could without the use of my hands, and he held my hips to give me the much-needed leverage.
“That’s it, baby. Yes, clutch my cock just like that,” he whispered. With eyes closed and a smile that threatened to break free, he looked like he’d reached nirvana. Who was I to deny him oasis? I rocked my hips back and forth in time with his and rolled my body until he rubbed my orgasm to fruition.
“You’re mine.”
My walls closed down around him, zeroing in on the one area that lured the tip of him to come closer, rub harder, pierce. I didn’t know when he took back over. He held my body close to his, his arms wrapped tight around my waist and shoulders as he rocked us closer to the edge where we could dive over together.
“Are you ready?” The words were so simple. It meant that the start of something was about to begin. It’s a question asked all the time and in that moment “Are you ready?” could have meant a number of things. Was I ready? I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready, if I ever was truly ready. But with Dominic, it always felt like cliff diving. Like there was this big fall about to happen and you had no choice but to fall over the edge with him. There was no other way. So with a nod of my head he pulled my whole body into the next thrust of his hips, and it felt like my insides caved in as we both came.
“Hailey!” He roared my name like he wanted the heavens to know the sound of my name on his lips, and I screamed his name in return. Not fully finished, Dominic pulled out and continued painting the inside of my thighs with his release, effectively marking me as his.
“What have you got, Scout?”
I settled into the armchair just inside the door as Scout swiveled around in his chair to face me. For the last week, I’d spent just about every day there while we scoured everywhere for any little piece of information to get us closer to Zephyr. In all of the years that Scout had worked for me, I don’t think I’d ever seen him as much as I had that last week and it wasn’t just information I was seeking. I was seeking space, refuge, an escape from the one person I never expected to separate myself from—Hailey.
Hailey had w
ithdrawn since our time in the forest. She wasn’t the firecracker I expected her to be after everything that happened that night. No, she was quiet, weary, the look in her eyes glossed over as if she were perpetually crying whenever I wasn’t around. I thought taking her there would help us get back on track. I could see the ocean of distance that was forging it’s way between us, and I was willing to do everything to show her that it wouldn’t happen—not to us. It was like Hailey was reverting back to that same girl who I saw two years ago. Her doubts were like a virus, weakening her until she might have seemed exuberant on the outside to strangers, but she was mousy. I didn’t want the girl that people could walk all over, who floundered through life to appease people. I wanted the fighter, the woman who made things happen for herself.
It was those insecurities and the potential of so much more from her that encouraged me to not only abduct her for her liver, but to keep her. I could see there was the potential in Hailey. See that she was more than the lost girl who used her friends and family as a crutch. So like that day on the beach all that time ago, I made a choice to do what I could to save my wife from returning to her shell. Only, I wasn’t so sure it worked that time. In fact, I was positive it only widened the distance growing between us.
The hardest part was I was starting to feel like maybe we needed that distance. Where I was going, what I was doing was taking me to a place that I didn’t want Hailey to be a part of. The world I was stepping into would destroy people like Hailey, and I didn’t want her anywhere near it, which was also why I spent more of my time at Scout’s. The less Hailey knew about our plans, the better.
“I was able to get a name from Ezra—Anatoli Raptis, a family friend. Anatoli said he may have a contact, a police friend, who could give us more information. I’m digging up background information on both of them now. My guy should be getting back to me soon.”
“By what Ezra said, it sounds like Zephyr has a large organization. What do we know about that?” I asked, my attention now fully focused on the task.
“He has a rap sheet that pretty much begins and ends 18 years ago. Nothing major—petty crimes—but then it’s like he dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Promotion?”
“Maybe. It’s the only explanation. I haven’t yet found out who he was working for, but about three years later, crime picked up in the area, and we’re not talking about petty shit. Drugs, sex trafficking, money laundering, murder, you name it…for a small city, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Scout was probably the most animated I’d ever seen him. He sat forward at the edge of his seat, his hands moving excitedly as he spoke. His sharp blue eyes glinted like blades that had just been sharpened.
There it was—the same feeling I’d had since Ezra dropped that bomb on us. Bloodlust. Scout was made for this. I couldn’t tell whether it was his own thirst or some sense of obligation to me that got him amped up, but it didn’t matter. I needed it, needed him to be on the same page because what we were about to do needed inspiration and a hunger for pain.
Every night that week I stayed up thinking about what it would feel like to hear a bone snapping between my hands. There were so many things I wanted to do to Zephyr, things that scared me to even think them. I wanted to poke holes in him and watch as the blood drained from his body. I suddenly felt inspired to Google, “How long until a corpse runs dry?” and see how much time I’d have before it was all over. That’s all I wanted, just a little vengeance.
I’d never asked Scout much about his past, but I knew that aside from working in the military, he was a mercenary for hire, a go-to man for what seemed unattainable. Scout had the look of a man you didn’t want to cross. Although he wasn’t quite as tall as me, his muscle depth made him formidable, to say the least. He was huge, with cannons for arms and a barrel chest. His body was littered with scars. The worst of them ran from the top of his shoulder down his pectoral. Somehow that scar looked like it belonged there, like a birthmark. Scout was meant to have that scar.
A blanket of calm washed over Scout, and for a moment it looked like he wrestled the hunger away, just long enough to tell me that Zephyr probably had a group of maybe 100 guys working for him, give or take. I nodded my head, whether agreeing with his assessment or affirming that we could take on a group that size, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. I would go after Zephyr with everything I had or die trying. I’d waited more than ten years for this.
“I’m sure my guys can handle a crew that big, but we should have reinforcements, just in case.”
“I think I know just the man for the job.”
“Who?” he asked with suspicion in his eyes. I didn’t think Scout had ever looked at me this way. It was almost as if he’d just found out something about me he never knew. Maybe he didn’t think I had it in me. Perhaps, he was just starting to see how far I was willing to go for this vendetta.
“Sampson.”
It was one name.
A name that had threatened so much and cost me even more.
A name I was sure Scout never expected to pass my lips.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I can’t tell you who you should be associating with, but Sampson is the worst fucking character you want hanging around you. I’m not so sure he’s any better than Zephyr.”
I knew what he meant. Sampson was a businessman that I refused working with for just that reason. Pre-Hailey, Sampson reached out to me in hopes that Callas Enterprises would help his company from circling the drain. I took leave, escaping to South Dakota where I held Hailey prisoner and left Robert to close the deal. After months of back and forth with no resolution, I decided to meet Sampson. Not wanting to leave Hailey behind, I took her with me to the yearly Founder’s Ball where she was able to slip Sampson a note alluding to her imprisonment. He used that note to blackmail me into a deal to save his business. A deal that, under ordinary circumstances, I would never have agreed to.
“Things are different now. Though we’ve denied it, the truth is out about Hailey and me. He can no longer use that to blackmail Callas Enterprises into helping his company. What happened between Sampson and I was business, not personal.” The words passed my lips, but I couldn’t deny the sting that bit into my skin at how far he took things all those months ago.
After Scout found out about the note Hailey slipped Sampson, we escaped to a nearby cabin, unsure with how he would proceed now that he had me at his mercy. Two days. That’s how long it took for him to show up at my home with a small crew armed with automatic rifles and God knows what else. Sampson unloaded from his SUV like a general going to war. He was calm, assured, almost jovial in how he strode up to my doorstep. I garnered a deal with him, knowing that if I didn’t, he could use the information he found out about Hailey’s abduction against me. That deal was considered null and void the moment my involvement in Hailey’s abduction hit the news.
“I don’t like it,” Scout said, sitting back in his chair. If I didn’t know him I would think he was challenging me in the way he raised his head and pushed back his shoulders.
“Just get me the information I need and let me worry about Sampson.”
I moved to get up, ending the conversation as I made my way toward the door. With my hand still on the knob, I turned and said, “Call me the minute you have anything.”
“Will do, sir.”
I made my way down toward the beach, following the same path through the forest I led Hailey down only a week prior. It was different in the light of day. The air wasn’t filled with a thrumming of tension threatening to crack the earth beneath my feet. Thinking about that night did odd things to me. The memory of the excitement slithered across my skin like the snake in the Garden of Eden, tempting me with more. It was never enough when it came to Hailey. I tried to show that to her, tried to prove it, but some things she would just have to learn with time. I couldn’t make her see or feel it. She just had to know it was true.
My mind wandered back to Hailey, th
e image of her trussed up in the trees. How utterly miserable she looked lying on the ground in tatters, crying over the loss of me. She looked like a child, broken in abandonment.
Of course, after I took her, I’d seen the many facets of the girl I’d come to love, but this was something entirely new. Even when Hailey realized that I’d taken her because I planned to use her as an organ donor, she never acted like this. She was a natural fighter. She screamed, cried, lashed out, but what I saw last week? That was her battered and broken, internally. Where was this coming from? I did nothing to bring this on, and she was fine before I left to Chicago. At least I thought she was, but maybe there was more to it than I knew.
Sitting there watching her, I knew I should have gone to her, should have eased her pain and taken away her worries. But it was too late now.
The grass thinned out to mounds of silky rocks, and I toed my shoes and socks off as I walked out across the ocean of sand until I was just outside the reach of the lapping waves. It felt kind of empty sitting out there without Hailey. This was her thing—bright blue, cloudless skies, lapping waves of serene water, warm sand. I couldn’t have picked a better place for her to stay while I took care of the demons of my past.
I stretched out, my arms holding me up, while my legs pushed their way closer to the dampened sand. Will it ever be enough? She asked me that after I tongue-fucked her stupid. I didn’t answer her, and since then those words had haunted me, nudging a bit of doubt into the recesses of my mind.
I wasn’t afraid of shit. With a determined purpose, I would go after a mob boss with everything I had without blinking an eye, but that question. I was fearful of that question and even more afraid of the answer to that question. Will it ever be enough? I didn’t know, and that terrified me.