by Hannah Ford
“Fine. We will go over your schedule and work something out.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we will work something out.”
He didn’t elaborate.
From up at the front of the room, a crashing sound came as a backdrop went falling to the stage. People ran to fix it, all of them crowding around the backdrop to try and help hoist it back up.
There was a certain franticness to their movements, a franticness that hadn’t seemed to be there when we first came in.
“I think you’re making them nervous,” I said.
He glanced over at me. “Yes, I seem to be having that effect on people today.”
His glance was intense, and it lingered on me for longer than was necessary, and I felt myself blush. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the fact that he obviously knew exactly what he was doing to me.
“You seem like you’re enjoying it,” I said haughtily.
“The effect I’m having on you?”
“No. Making people nervous.” My heart was pounding hard in my chest, and I went to reach for my water, then though better of it and went for my orange juice instead.
“I enjoy making you nervous,” he said, his voice a low, throaty growl.
“Why?”
“Because it means you will submit to me.”
My heart pounded.
What was it he’d said this morning? Don’t make me get the whip.
“Rule Number Four,” I said. “I want a safe word.”
“Of course,” Liam said with no hesitation. He reached for the pitcher of orange juice in the middle of the table and refilled my glass.
“Orange,” I said, taking another sip of the juice. “Orange can be my safe word.”
He nodded. “Orange. When you safe word, I will immediately stop anything I’m doing to you.” It was a promise of restraint, but coming from his lips it still sounded sexy and wrong, and I realized I liked the idea of him pushing me to the point where he would make me safe word, that I was getting turned on thinking about all the dirty, twisted things he might want to do to me.
I was wet between my legs, and I could feel the sheer fabric of my new La Perla panties sticking to my pussy.
“You’re right,” I said, wanting desperately to change the subject. “I need to call Maddie. She’ll be worried.”
But Liam wasn’t done with me yet.
He pushed my dress up a tiny bit, his hand brushing my bare thigh. “Do you have any hard limits, Emery?”
“Hard limits?” My mouth felt dry and I licked my bottom lip.
“Yes.” He was so close his breath tickled my neck. He took my chin in his hand and tilted my face so that I was forced to look at him. “Things you won’t explore with me.”
“Like what?” I breathed.
“Certain forms of punishment. Certain ways of bringing you pleasure that you may be nervous about.”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s okay,” he said, his thumb brushing my cheek. He leaned in and sucked my bottom lip in between his own lips, sending shockwaves of pleasure roaring through my body. I couldn’t believe he was doing that right here, right in front of everyone. Not that anyone could really see us. We were bathed in shadow, sitting way in the back of the room.
But still.
His brashness was appalling.
But what did I expect from a man who was willing to steal me off the street? Everything about him was brash and appalling and completely unapologetic.
A trace of longing clouded his face as his hand moved to the back of my neck. He pulled me into him and kissed me, hard and long, his tongue tangling with mine. He tasted like oranges and mint, his skin smooth against mine, unlike the scruff that had dusted his chin last night.
“Fuck, you taste good, baby,” he murmured into my ear. “My dick is rock hard for you. I’m going to need to fuck again soon.”
Even though I was raw and sore between my legs from what he’d done to me last night and this morning, I felt myself pulsing down there, aching for him.
He was a force field, pulling me into him, and I was helpless to resist.
But I had to summon my strength.
“Rule Number Five,” I said. “I want to talk to my father.”
Liam shook his head, his eyes dark and serious. “I can’t promise that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where he is.”
My stomach flipped. “But I thought you said he was being held by someone.”
“No, I said he was in debt to someone. Your father is out and about, living his life,” Liam said. “I thought you knew that, Emery.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.” I closed my eyes, remembering my dad last night, standing there in the road, calling me over to him. My chest tightened, and a slight ache started behind my eyes, the kind of ache that usually preceded tears. But I wasn’t going to cry. I refused to cry over my father anymore.
“Well, he is.” Liam was sitting back in his chair now, studying me carefully.
“Then why am I even here?” I demanded. “If they let him go, then why do I need to be here?”
“They can find him.” He shrugged. “They can and they will. It’s much less messy to find him when they have to, rather than keep him hostage.” He glanced at me, an amused smile playing on his lips. “Hostages cause all sorts of problems.”
“So how do I get in touch with him, then?” I demanded. “I want to make sure he’s okay, that I’m not doing this for nothing.”
Liam shrugged. “You could call him.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t have a phone.” My father was never in one place long enough to have a landline, and the thought of him having a cell phone was even more ridiculous. A real cell phone required a credit card and a permanent address, neither of which my father had.
“Then how do you normally get in touch with him?” Liam asked.
I didn’t reply. Liam sighed as he realized I didn’t talk to my father much. Not that he should have been surprised. My father had led him to me, had basically sold me to him.
“Emery – ”
“I want to talk to him.” If I was going to agree to this, all because of my father, then I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to hear him admit what he did, wanted to hear him say that he’d sold me to get himself out of trouble.
“I told you it’s not that simple. I don’t know where he is.”
“You’re a rich, powerful, man,” I said bitterly, pushing my muffin away. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I was going to take my rebellion anywhere I could. “I’m sure you can figure out how to find him.”
Liam opened his mouth and began to say something, and I instantly got defensive. I knew what he was going to say. He was going to ask me why I wanted to talk to my father, why I even cared.
“If you’re going to ask me why I care, why I don’t just cut him out, then you’re wasting your time,” I said. “And trust me, what he did to me last night, sending me to be with you? That was nothing compared to the things he’s done in the past. And if those things didn’t make me give up on him, then this sure as hell isn’t going to.”
Liam stayed quiet, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on me, watching me, accessing.
But before he could say something, the back doors of the conference room went flying open, and a man walked in, followed by the blond receptionist who’d greeted us when we’d first come in.
She was running after him. “Sir! Sir! I told you not to come in here.” Her eyes widened in fear as they fell onto Liam, who was up and out of his chair now, pulling himself to his full height and buttoning his suit coat around his broad chest.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Rutherford,” she said. “I’m so sorry, he said he was an old friend, and then he just went running in here.” She sounded extremely nervous, like she was afraid she was going to get fired.
“You can go back to work
now,” Liam said without looking at her.
She scampered back through the door like a scared little mouse.
“Wow, Rutherford,” the man who’d come in the door said. He was tall and handsome, probably around thirty years old, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He wore a pressed gray suit over a crisp white shirt. “You sure know how to scare the help. What’d you do, fuck her and leave her?”
“How the fuck did you get in here?” Liam said, pulling his phone out of his coat pocket.
“It wasn’t that hard,” the man said. He took a step further into the room, then grabbed a muffin out of the basket that was sitting on our table and took a bite. “Good grub,” he said thoughtfully. Then his eyes landed on me. “Oh, hello. I’m Drew.”
“I’m Emery,” I said.
Liam gave me a look, his eyes filled with barely disguised rage. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his phone.
“Don’t tell me you’re calling security,” Drew said, rolling his eyes as he popped the rest of his muffin into his mouth. “Because I really don’t want to have to deal with that.”
“No,” Liam said simply, putting his phone down on the table in front of him. “I’m going to kick you out myself. I just don’t want my phone getting smashed when I do it.”
Drew reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone, set it down on the table next to Liam’s.
I braced myself as Liam’s eyes landed on the phone and his hands tightened into fists by his sides.
“What is that?” he asked, his voice a low growl.
“You know what it is,” Drew said, and now some of the tension went out of his voice and he took a step toward him. “Please, Liam,” he said. “Just think about it.”
“I’ve already thought about it.”
My heart was pounding as I watched the two of them. There was something very serious about their interaction, a frisson of danger simmering under the surface, and not the kind of danger that was usually present when two men were fighting over something. This wasn’t like when you were at a party and a couple of frat boys had too much to drink and began shoving each other. This was more sinister than that.
Drew’s jaw hardened, and frustration crossed his face. “The next step is a warrant, Liam.”
“Do it,” Liam said. “Fucking bring it.”
“You’re making this personal,” Drew said. “And you’re going to regret it.”
This made the anger in Liam’s eyes flash bright, and I saw a glimpse of the man he’d been last night, the man who’d thought nothing of pushing me into the back of an SUV and gagging me. The man who’d been sitting here a few moments ago, the one who’d insisted I drink orange juice and had seemed interested in my well being, was gone.
“The only thing I’m going to regret,” Liam said from between gritted teeth, “is not busting your face wide open.” He took a step toward him, and Drew stepped back, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine.” He reached behind Liam and picked his phone back up off the table. “But you haven’t heard the last of this, Rutherford.” He walked out the door, pushing it open angrily as he went.
Liam reached down and picked up his water glass, downed it in one gulp.
“Who was that?” I asked tentatively.
“Drew Keenan,” he said. “He’s an FBI agent.” I wasn’t sure what was more shocking – that Drew was an FBI agent, or that Liam was actually answering my question.
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to unlock that phone,” he said. “Which he never should have fucking brought here in the first place.” His body seemed wired with tension, his shoulders tight, his body stiff.
“Like break into it?”
“Yes.” He ran his fingers through his hair, his face a mask of pensiveness.
“Why?”
He ignored the question, his eyes getting a faraway look. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I swallowed. “And go where?”
“Home.”
“But what about the brunch?”
“Fuck the brunch.” He reached for my hand and pulled me out of my chair. His hand in mine was warm but the line of tension that seemed to be wired through his body was still present, and I could feel it in his touch.
He pulled me toward the door, and I felt a nervousness settle deep in my belly. He was so intense, his vibe completely turning on a dime, and I was worried about why he wanted to take me home, why he wanted to get me there, what he was going to do me once he was there.
We stepped into the lobby, and the receptionist was gone, no longer at her desk. She was probably hiding from Liam, huddled in some bathroom stall somewhere, crying because she knew she was going to be in trouble for letting Drew into the conference room.
The sound of a cell phone ringing echoed through the lobby – it was a ringtone I knew anywhere, the Cher Lloyd song Oath, a dancey pop song that Maddie and I had both programmed into our phones last summer for when the other one was calling.
It was coming from Liam’s pocket, where my phone was.
He pulled it out and looked at the screen.
“BFF,” he read stiltedly, pronouncing the letters like they were some kind of acronym for a company or an organization, instead of a way to say best friend.
“It’s Maddie,” I said. I went to reach for my phone, but Liam held it up and out of my reach. “If I don’t answer it, she’s going to be worried.”
He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.
My heart was pounding. “I need to talk to her,” I said. “I’m not going to say anything. Why would I?”
He leaned into me, his breath brushing against my skin as he handed the phone. “Be good,” he said. “Or you will be punished beyond anything you’ve ever imagined.”
I swallowed, the blood rushing through my body so fast I was sure he could hear it.
I answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Em!” Maddie said. “Where the hell are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t be able to tell that I wasn’t okay, and yet knowing there was a good chance she would. Maddie knew everything – almost -- about me.
“Where are you?”
I swallowed. “I’m… I met a guy.”
“You met a guy!” she said, sounding delighted.
“Yes.” I hated lying to Maddie. But I supposed, technically, it wasn’t really a lie. I had met a guy. Just not one of the ball-capped frat boys she was probably imagining.
“You spent the night with him? Ohmigod, you have to call me later and tell me everything.”
“Text me,” I said, knowing that Liam would most likely let me use my phone to text someone back.
“Okay,” she said. “LYSM.”
“LYSM,” I said back. It was our secret code for Love You So Much.
I shut the phone off and put it back in Liam’s hand.
Suddenly, I was pissed.
Pissed at myself for not saying anything when I had the chance to Francine, to that man Drew, to the receptionist, to Maddie. Pissed at Liam for putting me in this horrible situation, pissed at my stupid screw-up father who had gotten me into this situation in the first place.
What the hell was I doing here?
Why was I staying with him?
He claimed I could leave whenever I wanted. So then why didn’t I tell him to go fuck himself?
His hand tightened around my wrist and he began pulling me toward the double doors, the ones that opened to the tunnel that led to where the car was parked.
“I want to talk to my father,” I said as we headed down the walkway.
“I told you, Emery, I don’t know where your father is.”
“Find him.”
His grip around me tightened, and he turned to look at me. “You do not make the rules, Emery. I do.”
His tone was dark, domineering, and he towered over me in the empty tunnel. I was flooded with wa
rmth and want between my legs, and I hated that he had this kind of power over me, hated that just his eyes on my body, just his dark and damaging words made me want to let him do whatever he wanted to me.
I felt myself getting pulled into his whirlpool, and I struggled against it, struggled against the magnetism of this beautiful man and the fucked up, sordid things he was expecting from me.
He pushed me up against the side of the tunnel, his hand on the small of my back, pulling me toward him as his lips crashed into mine. He was like a tornado, a whirling, dark tornado picking up everything in his wake and making it a part of his twisted world.
I pushed him away.
“I will make it worse if you fight,” he breathed.
I gathered my strength and pushed him away again, and he took a step back from me, not because I was stronger than him, but because he seemed to relish the fact that I was agitated.
“Who was that man?” I demanded, because I had no way to get under his skin, and it was the only way I could think to do it. I wanted to punish him, to make him uncomfortable, to do the same things to him that he was doing to me. “The one who just came in with that phone?”
“I told you, he was FBI.”
“And what did he want? Why does he want you to unlock that phone?”
Liam’s eyes turned dark, and then a cruel smile pulled at the sides of his lips. “He thinks that phone has information on it about an impending terrorist attack.” He dropped this bombshell and then began to walk away from me, toward the parking garage where he his car was parked.
“What?” I demanded, rushing to keep up with him.
“You heard me.”
“Why does he want you to do it?”
He glanced at me and shook his head. “Because I’m the only one who can.”
I remembered now, reading something about him, about how not only was he a brilliant businessman, he was a brilliant engineer. He’d gone to Stanford for computer engineering and development, not business. His business sense seemed to have been something that had come naturally to him, something that was just an instinct, something that couldn’t be taught in books.
We were near the car now.
“You have to do it,” I said.
“No.”
“Why not?” The frustration was building inside of me, wiring tight like a coil. I knew somewhere deep down it wasn’t about the phone, that it was about so much more, but the phone was something tangible, something I could push him on, something that actually seemed to be threatening his seemingly impenetrable walls.