by Meg Ripley
“Are—are you sure we can do this?” Chelsea asked, her breath catching in her throat as she began to shift and twist on top of Johan’s body, desire welling up inside of her.
“Mmhmm,” Johan murmured, dragging his lips along the side of her neck as his fingers slid up and down between her labia, his hand spreading her legs just slightly. “I’m going to take you just like this. Nice and slow.” Johan’s fingers found Chelsea’s clit by touch, and Chelsea gasped, shivering, as his touch sent jolts of pleasure through her nerves. He pressed her body against his, rocking his hips against the curve of Chelsea’s ass, and Chelsea could feel his cock hardening faster.
Johan’s fingers withdrew from her vulva, and Chelsea let out a groan of disappointment, grabbing at his hand instinctively. Johan chuckled, lifting her uninjured leg up and out of the water. He carefully rested it along the lip of the tub, shifting her around on his lap. “Lean forward just a little bit,” Johan murmured. Chelsea did, and she felt the tip of Johan’s cock brushing against her labia, working its way in between. Johan pushed down on her hips, thrusting up at the same moment, and Chelsea moaned out in pleasure as he slid into her slowly.
As soon as he was fully inside of her, Johan pulled Chelsea back once more, and she shivered, loving the feel of him slowly sliding along her inner walls, the tip of his cock pressing and brushing steadily against her pleasure center. “All you have to do is float,” Johan murmured, one hand drifting down between her legs once more to stroke and tease her clit while he worked his hips underneath her, thrusting up. His other hand cupped and teased her breasts, rolling and twisting her nipples as they moved together. Chelsea felt her pleasure mounting more and more—she was shocked at how good it felt, at how well they fit together, at the way the water swirled around her as Johan pushed deeper and deeper inside of her.
Chelsea arched against Johan, moaning out as wave after wave of pleasure coursed through her body. She grabbed at his arms, his legs underneath her, and as their movements together became more frantic, she could barely hear the water sloshing in the tub, spilling out onto the floor. Chelsea threw her head back against Johan’s shoulder as her orgasm intensified, as she felt his body tensing underneath hers, and he joined her in climax, groaning something in his native Swedish. They both moved until the last of their spasms of pleasure abated, and Chelsea sagged against Johan, spent and satisfied.
****
The next morning, Chelsea awakened to the smell of breakfast wafting into the bedroom from the living room area of the suite. She realized she was alone in the bed, and sat up carefully, holding her hand against the bruised rib to minimize the pain. After their tryst in the bathtub, Johan had carefully lifted her up and out of the water, gave her another Vicodin, and ordered ice packs.
She had struggled to keep from laughing at the big, strong mercenary bodyguard as he played nurse, taking the throw pillows off the couch and positioning them so that her knee and ankle were elevated, bringing her water when she got thirsty, insisting that Chelsea shouldn’t get up for any reason. Under the humming, cottony influence of the pain killers, Chelsea hadn’t even felt the slightest self-consciousness when Johan carried her into the bathroom to use the toilet, waiting politely just on the other side of the door.
His lack of presence nearby made her irritated in some way that Chelsea couldn’t quite put a finger on. She carefully leaned over the edge of the bed to retrieve the braces that the hospital had given her and strapped them around her ankle and knee. Chelsea took a deep breath and slowly climbed out of the bed, trying to bend and twist as little as possible, putting her weight on her uninjured leg.
She grabbed up her bathrobe and limped into the living room area, where she found Johan, seated near the patio to their room, talking on his phone. A few feet away, Chelsea took in the sight of an extensive—and, she had no doubt, expensive—room service breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, yogurt, toast…more things than she could imagine even the two of them being able to consume in one sitting. Johan glanced up and flashed a quick smile in her direction, holding up a finger to indicate he was nearly done with whomever he was speaking to. Still feeling slightly irritable—slightly hung over from the pain pills leaving her system, with dull, aching throbs echoing through her body—Chelsea sat down gracelessly on the couch, propping up her injured leg along the length of the furniture.
“I have good news,” Johan said as he tapped his screen to end the call. Chelsea raised an eyebrow.
“Someone killed the CEO of my company so now I can go back to having a normal life?” She paused and added, “At least, a normal unemployed life until I can get another job?” Johan smiled wryly and shook his head.
“Almost as good. My client has your new paperwork, and he got us an apartment. Do you think you can manage to deal with sitting in a car for a few hours while I drive us to your new home?” Chelsea scrubbed at her face.
“I think I can manage,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “Can we cut back my dose of the Vicodin somehow? It was kind of nice to be totally oblivious of everything, but I’d like to start being at least partially aware of the world around me again now.” Johan nodded, standing in a quick, graceful movement that Chelsea resented for the way it underscored her current injured state.
“I’ll give you a full dose after breakfast, and the next dose will be half, how about that?” Chelsea shrugged.
“Why not a half dose to begin with?”
“Because, my dear, it’s a lot easier to prevent pain than it is to kill it. If you have a full dose now and we give you a half dose on schedule, it’ll work better.” Chelsea shrugged, scratching at the skin around her knee brace idly. Why are these stupid things always so itchy? Johan began filling a plate for her from the platters and bowls on the table. “It’s a good thing I turned you down last night, or I’d feel horrible right now,” Johan said absently.
“You turned me down last night?” Chelsea frowned. Johan grinned at her, handing her the plate and a roll of silverware.
“You turned over in the bed at about… I want to say midnight? And started groping me.” Chelsea’s cheeks flared with heat. “I mean really going to town.” She looked down at her plate as her blush deepened. “You said something about how I could fuck you however I wanted. But since you didn’t sound exactly like yourself I figured it was the Vicodin talking.” Chelsea swallowed the tight ball of embarrassment in her throat, taking a slow breath.
“It’s a good thing you did,” she said, picking at the food on her plate. “Although I probably wouldn’t have remembered it.” She felt Johan’s fingers against her jaw; he tilted her face up so that she had to meet his gaze.
“I want every time we have sex to be memorable. Why waste an opportunity when you’re too drugged to even know what’s happening, much less tell me the next morning how good it was?” Chelsea chuckled, shaking her head slightly. “Besides, I wasn’t sure how to feel about you calling me ‘Mr. Honey-cock’.” Chelsea stared at him in shock.
“I—I called you—Mr.…”
“Honey-cock, yep.” Chelsea closed her eyes as new waves of embarrassment washed through her. “It was cute. A little weird, but cute.” Chelsea bit her bottom lip, unsure of whether she felt more resentment, embarrassment, or amusement at the situation that Johan had described.
“One of these days, somehow, I’m going to drug you and—and make you horny and record the stupid things you say,” she told him. Johan chuckled.
“Good luck with that,” he said, leaning in to brush his lips against hers. He pointed to her plate, pulling back to serve his own plate of breakfast. “We’ll eat, pack up your things, give you your first dose, and get on the road,” Johan told her. “New life!” Johan glanced at Chelsea, and she took a bite of her food more out of the feeling that she should than out of actual hunger. “It’ll be okay,” Johan said, holding her gaze. “Hey—there are lots of people who go to crazy lengths to ditch their old life.” Chelsea shrugged.
�
�I guess I’m not really one of them,” she said, taking a deep breath and exhaling on a sigh. “But I’ll have to become one.” Chelsea gave Johan a tight, tense smile and decided resolutely to focus on her food. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward.
****
“We’re here.” Chelsea grunted softly as Johan’s voice called her out of a doze. She had drifted off to sleep shortly after Johan had given her the half-dose of Vicodin during their rest break at a restaurant on their way to what Johan was calling her new life.
“How is it possible,” Chelsea had asked then, realizing that they had been doing an improbable amount of driving over the past week—including her twenty-four-hour harried flight. “How is it possible that we’ve driven this much without being halfway across the country?” Johan had chuckled.
“Well, for most of the time we’ve been together, we’ve been traveling in interesting shapes around the state, avoiding your home town,” he had explained. “Of course, I knew when you went out on your own you’d probably pick a direction and keep going, so I went after you that way. Fortunately, I picked the right direction.”
Her new life would be in the next state; Johan had explained that they were several hours away, but that everything would be ready for them when they arrived. Chelsea opened her eyes, yawning as she came out of her doze. Johan had parked in the driveway of a respectable-looking house, on an anonymous street. “Wow, this is an upgrade,” Chelsea said, staring at the front of the home for a long moment. It was two-story, with butter-yellow walls and clean white trim, the door painted a deep red. The yard was well maintained, with trimmed grass and a low, landscaped garden.
“Let me go in first,” Johan suggested. “I’ll make sure there’s no one hiding out inside, and come help you up and into the place.” Chelsea saw the three steps leading from the walkway to the front door and nodded. Much as she would have liked to bristle at Johan’s authoritative tone, she was slightly woozy from the pain pills and knew that she wouldn’t be an asset if someone had found their way inside.
Johan locked the car behind him and strode to the front door, and Chelsea watched him as he located the key to the door—somehow—and let himself in. She sat back, glancing around the neighborhood. It was a place for someone like her former boss, the project manager; not the kind of place she would have seen herself living in alone, not with her salary. Of course, right now you have no salary and you won’t be living in it alone, Chelsea though wryly. She felt her eyes stinging slightly as it once more dawned on her how completely and utterly her life had changed in a matter of mere days.
By the time Johan came back, nodding slightly as he approached the car to indicate that the house was clear, Chelsea had managed to regain her composure, dashing away the few tears she had allowed herself to shed. Johan unlocked the car and walked around to the passenger side to help her out, pulling her up from the seat with almost the same strength he had possessed from the first time she’d met him.
The house she had been given—or at least, loaned—to live in was as beautiful on the inside as its exterior had promised; fully furnished, with a slightly plastic smell of brand-new rugs and upholstery, it looked—on the surface—as if the people who owned it had been living there for a year. Art prints dotted the walls, the beds—both the master bed on the ground floor and, Johan informed her, the two guest bedrooms upstairs—were made, there were towels, and the kitchen was fully stocked. “It really is just…like slipping into another life,” Chelsea said with a mixture of awe and consternation, as Johan settled her on the couch.
“Witness protection—privately funded, in this case,” he grinned slightly. “Much nicer than what you’d get from the government, I can promise you.” Chelsea shrugged. The luxury of their surroundings—solidly upper middle class—compared to the apartment she had left behind, and combined with the prestigious hotels and fancy cars they had had at their disposal, had begun to worry her once more. Without the full dosage of Vicodin in her system to make worrying about anything seem completely useless, more and more of their circumstances seemed unsettling.
“I think it’s time you tell me what the hell is going on,” Chelsea said as Johan returned from the kitchen, armed with three re-freezable cold packs. He raised an eyebrow, perching himself on the coffee table to remove her braces and apply the freezing packets. Chelsea shivered, wincing against the pain that came along with the intense cold.
“You’re in waiting,” Johan said with a shrug. “Nice digs, no need to work until probably after the trial—too much risk involved with routine coming and going—and entertainment.” He pointed at himself. Chelsea looked around at the living room, at the staircase leading to the second floor of the house.
“This is insane,” she said, turning her attention back to Johan as the cold started to gnaw into her from the ice packs, increasing her irritation and unease. “How the hell does someone just—this is crazy. This house is too good.” Johan stared at her in confusion. “This is like—hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of hide-out! And—and the cars, and the hotels, and the room service… and my hospital bill…” Chelsea shook her head, her heart beating faster as the incalculable costs started to stack up in large, blank shapes in her mind.
“You are probably the only person I’ve ever met who would even question this,” Johan said, his voice roughening slightly with something like irritation.
“If this is privately funded, how the hell am I going to pay this back? Am I some kind of—am I in debt to the mob now or something? Who the hell are you? Who’s funding this?” Chelsea stood up quickly, and immediately regretted the impulse, pain flaring through her body as her injured knee and ankle took the pressure of her sudden stand, and her rib protested the movement of her torso.
Johan pushed her carefully but inelegantly back down onto the couch, gathering up the ice packs and half-slapping them back into place. He pulled a spool of ACE bandage out of his pocket and silently strapped the packs down while Chelsea fumed futilely. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, finally meeting her gaze. “Since I can tell you’re going to throw another tantrum if you don’t get your way—” he began, raising a hand to forestall the protest that started to leave Chelsea’s lips. “And after driving half the day I don’t really feel like having to haul you to the hospital for orthopedic surgery when you make your injuries worse—I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“Good,” Chelsea said, shivering as she decided to ignore the ‘tantrum’ part of the comment. “Talk.”
Johan took another deep breath. “You’re not in debt to the mob. My client is interested in buying up your company; but of course, your CEO won’t sell. He thinks it’s a worthwhile investment to keep you alive to testify against the scummy asshole, and he wants you to be as comfortable as possible. He figures that when your CEO goes to jail, the cost of the company will plummet, and he’ll make up the difference in a matter of months.” Chelsea stared at Johan for a long moment, digesting the information.
“Your client doesn’t sound all that much better than my CEO,” she said finally. Johan shrugged.
“He’s putting you up pretty well,” Johan pointed out. “He isn’t a great guy, but he’s decent enough to want you to testify because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re being forced into it.” Johan smiled wryly. “And before you ask, no—I didn’t have orders to seduce you. You’re just too good-looking to pass up.”
“Unless I’m drugged.”
Johan snorted. “Yes, unless you’re drugged.” Chelsea pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying at it for a long moment as she considered.
“What about the other guy?” she asked. “The business partner and all that?” Johan shrugged again, standing and moving onto the couch next to her carefully.
“He’s getting put up, too,” Johan said. “It’s a don’t-ask-don’t-tell kind of situation.” Chelsea sighed.
“So, what happens after the trial?” Johan reached out and closed his
hand around hers.
“You’re free to do as you want. I could probably persuade him to let you keep the house; give me the car as a bonus. If you need rehab for your injuries, obviously, that’s something he’ll cover.”
“But—I had a whole life.” Johan brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her palm delicately.
“So, you'll rebuild it, once we’re over the hump.”
“We?”
Johan grinned. “Oh, you’re not losing me until after the trial,” he said, his bright eyes warming. “And even then, you’ll have to tell me to leave.” Chelsea smiled weakly.
“Well I guess at least I won’t have to do it all alone,” she said, leaning against him as the stresses of the week—and especially the acute stress of the last several minutes—weighed on her. “I want another Vicodin. A whole one. Standing up was really dumb.”
“You have to eat first,” Johan said firmly. “And then I’ll give you a pill and get you tucked into bed.”
“You sound like my mom,” Chelsea complained. Johan brushed his lips against her ear.
“After you wake up, I will prove to you that I am nothing at all like your mom,” he promised, his voice low and slightly rough with desire.
****
“Chelsea…wake up, sleepy-head.” Chelsea turned over in bed, for a moment uncertain when she had gotten into the warm, soft sheets. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms, shifting and stretching—and then, as a flicker of pain crackled through her, remembered everything: eating an early dinner with Johan, taking a Vicodin, watching a little TV and dozing off. She had barely awakened when Johan had carried her into the master bedroom.
“Mm, what time is it?” Chelsea opened her eyes, blinking quickly as light flooded into them.
“Morning,” Johan said, slithering under the blankets and sheets next to her.
“I seriously slept—what? Ten hours?”