by Evie Hunter
23
Abbie wasn’t sure what woke her. She’d been working flat out for the last week since her vanilla date with Jack, and the clock on the side table said 3.15am. She should be asleep. She lay awake, listening. The noise came again. It sounded like drawers being pulled out.
For a moment, terror froze her muscles, then she forced herself into action. How had she not heard them get in? She must have forgotten to bolt the front door. Jack would kill her, if they didn’t get to her first. She slid out of bed and made her way quietly to the bedroom door. The noise came from the kitchen this time. She could hear the sound of the refrigerator being opened and closed. OK, calm down, they’re outside and you have a lock on the door. Her father had insisted on it after the last time she’d had a break-in. She turned the key and slid the deadbolt into place.
She had to call the police. Abbie patted the floor beside the bed, searching. She’d been rereading the texts from Jack on her personal phone before she fell asleep; it must be here somewhere. She didn’t dare to turn on a light. Her phone beeped as it came to life and she smothered the sound against her chest and tried not to breathe. She heard the sound of glass breaking and a male voice cursing.
With shaking fingers, she dialled 911.
‘Emergency Services, how can we help you?’
‘There’s someone in my apartment,’ she whispered down the phone.
‘Ma’am, can you speak up?’
Abbie crawled along the floor until she had reached the furthest spot from the bedroom door. ‘There is someone in my apartment. Please come.’
She could barely keep the fear out of her voice.
‘Ma’am, you need to give me your name and address and I’ll send a car. Where are you now?’
‘In my bedroom. I’ve locked myself in,’ Abbie whispered. She rattled off her name and address.
Another crash came from outside. Louder this time. They would hardly expect her to sleep through that. ‘Please hurry.’
The operator stayed on the line, trying to soothe her. ‘Ma’am, just hang on there, there’s a car in the area, someone will be with you shortly.’
Abbie waited for what seemed like for ever, keeping her eyes firmly on the locked door, watching the doorknob turn first in one direction and then the other. Outside, she heard the blare of a police siren. The doorknob twisted again. Then, she heard a loud thump and the sound of raised voices.
‘Cops coming,’ a gruff voice muttered and Abbie heard a door slamming. Her first instinct was to open the door, but what if they were still there? What if they were just pretending? She sat on the floor, hugging herself, trying to stop shaking.
‘Ma’am, are you still there, ma’am?’
Abbie pulled the phone to her ear. ‘Yes, I –’
‘The officers are in your building, ma’am. Just hold on.’
‘Thanks. Thank you for staying on the line.’
‘You’re welcome, ma’am.’ The call disconnected.
Abbie jumped when a loud rap came on the bedroom door. ‘Ms Marshall? This is the New York Police Department.’
Afterwards was a nightmare. Her apartment had been torn apart. She couldn’t tell what had been taken. Her computer disks were spread around the floor, her cushions had been ripped apart and all her books had been tossed around, pages torn and their spines broken.
One of the cops picked up an antique silver frame. ‘Well, they weren’t looking for valuables. Can you tell if anything is missing, ma’am?’
She scanned the shelves again. Two portable disk drives were gone, but her precious laptop was still in the bedroom. Some photographs from Honduras were trampled into the rug, alongside a torn orchid. The broken glass from the frame glittered on the petals of the flower.
Bile rose in her throat. It was the same people, it had to be, and now they knew where she lived. She couldn’t ignore it any longer. She had to tell the police.
She watched the officer’s face as she talked and what he thought was a routine burglary turned into something far more sinister.
‘Ma’am, have you someone you can call? A friend, maybe?’
‘Yes, I’ll grab a few things. I don’t want to stay here.’
She called Kit, glad to hear a friendly voice on the other end of the line. Kit told her to come over immediately. She packed an overnight bag and wondered if she could put off calling Jack until the morning. She could just imagine the dire punishment that awaited her if she did. No, it had to be done. She took a breath and pressed his number on the phone, praying that he was still awake.
‘I’ve had a break-in,’ she said quickly when he answered. ‘The police are here.’
‘What? Are you OK?’
She looked around at the mess. ‘The cleaner won’t like it but I’m fine. I can’t talk for long.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. I locked myself in the bedroom.’
‘Get out of there. I warned you about taking chances.’ God, he was turning into a Neanderthal again. Curiously, it made her feel better.
‘I wasn’t planning to stay here tonight. Jack, I think it was connected with the story about Honduras.’
‘Honduras?’
‘Well, it’s the only news story I’m still working on. They’re hardly concerned about my crimes against fashion.’
She heard a snort on the other end of the line. He was definitely going to put her over his knee for that remark.
‘Abbie, I’m not joking. You are to take all necessary precautions. Or I’ll do it for you.’
She hugged her coat around her. ‘I’m going. I’ll stay with Kit for a few days. I’ll let you know when I arrive.’
‘If you do anything stupid, you are going to make the acquaintance of every single implement in my playroom. You will be typing standing up for a month.’
He sounded as if he really meant it. ‘I’ll be fine. I just wanted to hear your voice. I’ll call you when I get to Kit’s.’
‘Text me when you leave your apartment, and when you get to Kit’s. And don’t go anywhere on your own.’
She ran downstairs to get her cab, feeling strangely reassured.
Jack was playing pool when the phone rang. Worrying about Abbie had been driving him crazy all day, even through his call-back audition for The African Queen. He had to let off some steam. He was in his favourite bar which, despite Californian anti-smoking laws, always seemed to be dim and smoky, even in the late afternoon. He was dressed in a baggy lumberjack shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, with his hair brushed over his face. If a tourist managed to find his way here, he’d be hard-pressed to recognize Hollywood heart-throb Jack Winter.
Most of the patrons here were bikers, truckers or farm workers. It was a hang-out for locals. When Jack asked people to call him Michael, no one blinked. The beer was good, the women were friendly and the nachos were spicy.
There was twenty dollars on the table, and Jack had lined up a tricky cross shot. He cursed the phone, but didn’t think of ignoring it. Only a handful of people had this number. He checked the display, hoping it was Abbie, but Kev’s ID glowed on the screen. Reluctantly, he answered it.
‘About time, you bastard,’ Kev snarled. ‘Where the hell do you get off, busting up my date and then ignoring my calls?’
‘Sorry, Kev, I wasn’t ignoring you. I just had my phone switched off.’ In this bar, he couldn’t mention the African Queen audition.
‘And did you have your brain switched off when you crashed my date with Abbie?’
Jack shoved his hand through his hair, not caring that it might make him easier to recognize. ‘Yeah, about that –’
‘Don’t try to weasel out of it.’ Kevin’s annoyance came clearly through the phone. ‘You might have had a thing with her in Honduras, but you told me it was all over. So, what the hell were you doing coming on like a caveman?’
‘Change of plan, Kev. It’s not over. I know, I should have told you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Have you seen her? How is she with all this shit?’
‘Abbie’s fine. She’s living with her friend the Crazy Cornrow Girl in an apartment in the Village that looks like something off the Psychic channel. I mean, she has dreamcatchers in the kitchen. How long is she planning to stay there?’
A large trucker yelled at Jack. ‘Hey, Mick, are you going to play pool or chat up your girlfriend?’ He made kissy noises towards the phone, and his jowls, almost hidden by a ginger beard, quivered.
Jack pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment. ‘Hold your horses, this is important.’
The trucker made an obscene gesture while Jack put the phone back to his ear. ‘Go on.’
‘She is going to drive me demented. She’s on kissing terms with everyone in New York. It’s not just the men, it’s the women too. Do you think she could be a lesbian? I mean, that would be cool, I’ve always wanted to watch some lesbian action, but it would be nice to have some warning, you know?’
Jack felt as if he’d fallen down the rabbit hole. ‘What are you talking about? Lesbian? Of course she’s not. What other men?’
‘Four men came up and kissed her in an hour. And three women. Not polite air-kissing either, real kisses. There could have been tongue. And one of them felt her ass.’
What the hell? ‘Are you sure?’ How could he be so mistaken about anyone?
‘Of course I’m sure.’ Kev sounded indignant. ‘I was there. Hell, the only reason I didn’t shoot clips for YouTube was because she’d have called me “Mr O’Malley” in that annoying way of hers, and then set the cops on me.’
‘Mick!’ roared the trucker. ‘Put down that goddamned phone and pick up your pool cue, or forfeit the game.’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Jack told him. ‘I need to hear this.’
He turned his back on the trucker. Abbie was kissing strange men?
The next moment he was whipped round and pinned against the pool table. A pair of bloodshot eyes stared down at him. ‘Did you just tell me to go fuck myself? Do you know who you are talking to?’
‘A drunken asshole with beer breath?’ said Jack, too pissed off to watch his words.
A growl from two guys standing at the bar was his only warning. He blinked, and was doubled over when a meaty fist slammed into his belly, knocking all the breath out of his lungs.
A second blow to the chin cracked his head back, and the row of rings on the chunky fingers acted like a knuckleduster. When Jack shook his head, drops of blood scattered.
He braced himself against the edge of the table and kicked out. His boot connected with the trucker’s thigh, knocking him backwards and producing a cry of pain.
‘Why you little bastard.’ With a roar, the trucker threw himself at Jack. With the pool table at his back, there was no escape and Jack braced himself for three hundred pounds of drunken fury. He landed a punch, which made the other man wheeze, then got pitched over on to the table beneath his opponent.
The pool table, old and battered, couldn’t take the strain and collapsed under them. Jack hit the floor first, with the trucker on top of him and splinters of table leg scraping his skin. He twisted out from underneath and scrambled to his feet, but the trucker grabbed his ankle and pulled him off balance.
By the time Jack had sorted out the misunderstanding with the trucker, he was a mass of bruises and under arrest. He used his phone call to ring Kev. ‘What the hell do you mean Abbie was kissing other men?’
‘What?’ Kev sounded baffled. ‘Not Abbie. That fruitcake friend of hers. All Abbie does is hang around indoors and play with her computer.’
Jack sat impatiently waiting for Abbie to log on. He needed to see her, to reassure himself that she was safe and happy. Well, as happy as anyone could be when a powerful bad guy was gunning for her. He was still astonished at her sangfroid when it came to threats to her safety. She took it all in her stride and complained that he was worrying over nothing.
He cursed when he remembered the faint tremor in her voice when she had told him her apartment had been broken into. If he hadn’t been due at a press conference for Jungle Heat the next morning, he would have dropped everything to be at her side. He still wanted to blister her backside for not taking better care of herself.
But her disregard for her personal safety was going to end. Abbie had signed and returned the agreement. She’s mine to care for now. And I will, whether she likes it or not. He was already plotting how he would make sure that his sweet sub stayed safe.
At precisely ten New York time, Abbie logged on.
Despite his irritation with her disregard for her safety, he couldn’t help smiling.
Wild orchid is typing.
24
Abbie debated disobeying him. It wasn’t as if he could do anything about it, since she was in New York and he was in LA. But it might be more fun to tease him. Just to annoy him she took her time about switching on the webcam. She grinned at him.
His voice, slightly distorted by the poor speakers on her laptop, was still enough to give her chills. That Irish accent was pure sex. Then she listened to his words.
‘You failed to provide a lingerie report this morning. You know what that means.’
Sh –. She stopped that word from even crossing her mind. She had enough problems as it was. She wondered what he would do tonight. ‘Aw, come on. I had a lot on my mind.’
Yeah, that was going to work. Jack’s face was set in that stern ‘I am the Dom’ expression that always gave her a nervous thrill in the pit of her stomach.
‘So did I. Waiting for your report. Wondering if there wasn’t one because you weren’t wearing any. The thought was giving me a hard-on in the call-back audition. I was doing a scene with Maria Richards and she appreciated it far too much.’
Abbie couldn’t help it. She giggled at the idea of the queen of Hollywood getting excited by Jack, while she, Abbie Marshall was the one who had him on her webcam, planning to do something depraved. He didn’t disappoint her.
‘Come on, you know what you have to do. Take them off and show them to me.’
‘Take them off ?’ she protested. ‘Last time I just had to show you while I was wearing them.’
‘You didn’t learn your lesson, so the penalty increases. Take them off and put them on the desk.’
She couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through her at the idea. Her thighs flexed against a tickle of arousal, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘You’re a baaaad man.’
What could she do to stop him getting too cocky? She moved away from the computer and considered. He wanted her panties. Fair enough, she hadn’t sent him the report. But she could play him at his own game. She took them off and slipped back in front of the computer. She held them up. Blue lace, he ought to approve of that. ‘Happy?’
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. Jack said, ‘No, I think you should take off the skirt as well.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ She was going to kill him.
‘You don’t have to show me. The desk will hide everything.’ He almost sounded reasonable. ‘I just want to know that you are sitting there, naked and available. My imagination
will do the rest.’
Unfortunately, her imagination was pretty active too. The thought of sitting there, in front of Jack, bare from the waist down, made her pulse pound. She was surprised by how tempting the idea was.
‘If you insist,’ she said, trying to sound reluctant. She got up, unzipped the skirt and wriggled out of it, but managed to angle herself when she came back to the desk so that he couldn’t see anything. Before he could speak and demand proof, she dropped her black skirt on the desk. ‘Satisfied now?’
His laugh was evil. And tempting. ‘No, but I’m sure I soon will be. How do you feel sitting there like that?’
She wished he hadn’t asked her that. She had been trying to ignore the sensations that were unsettling her, but he had asked a direct question. She had to answer him. ‘A little bit cold. And a little bit scared. What if someone comes in and catches me like this? A lot excited. The air is moving around me; it almost feels like someone is blowing on me.’
‘On what?’
Oh, he was evil. ‘On my pussy.’ It was a struggle to get the words out.
Jack smiled at her, an untrustworthy smile that alerted her. ‘Hook your feet around the legs of your chair.’ She did, and moaned. The position, which sounded so innocent when he said it, spread her legs and left her feeling completely exposed. ‘That’s it. You can’t cross your legs or press your thighs together.’
She tried to close her thighs, and found she couldn’t. The position focused all her awareness on how exposed she was. To her embarrassment, she felt a trickle of moisture. Kit would kill her. This was an antique chair.
‘Good girl. I’m very pleased with you. Did submitting to my order make you all creamy?’
She swore that his words made everything worse. She had never been so conscious of how wet she was. Reluctantly, she nodded.
He went on, relentless as an avalanche. ‘How are your nipples? Are they hard? Open your blouse and see.’
Oh, he was so bad. It didn’t help that her breasts were heavy and aching, just dying for some contact. Abbie put her hand up inside her blouse and caressed them, teasing the sensitive nipples into further hardness. But again she angled herself so that Jack wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing under her silky blouse.