by Trent Evans
“That’s—” she actually groaned, refusing to make eye contact—”that’s… not what you think. It’s… I—”
She wasn’t just moist — she was absolutely soaked.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, I think.”
He was almost giddy as he said it, the strength of the dark, possessive lust that fired within him making his cock feel as if it might spontaneously combust. There was much more to the lovely, defiant Falon Moore than even he’d suspected… and it had nothing to do with her pursuit of her big story.
“First things first though.” He draped the flogger over the back of the chair, reaching up and releasing the rope from the hook, letting Falon’s arms down, the woman letting out a long moan as he did. She obediently held her hands out for him as he slipped the rope from the ring embedded in the cuffs.
Her cute little eyebrows went up though when he didn’t release them.
Giving her an indulgent shake of the head, he took her by the upper arm. “You’d better get used to being bound. That’s part of the deal here. If I decide you’ve earned the right to it, I’ll release your hands.”
Her face flushed a deep red. “Oh, come on! Please! Just let me out of them for a minute! Fuck!” Her voice was almost a screech, her eyes flashing.
Ford gave her a resigned smile. “I knew you couldn’t last that long. We’ll take care of it though.” He pulled her along behind him. “Let’s get you situated first.”
Leading her over to the corner of the basement near where the staircase descended, he swept an arm toward the floor to ceiling bars that enclosed space roughly eight feet long and six feet deep. He’d installed it years ago in a fit of petulant rage after Sarah had left, determined then to only live his life in the way that was true to him, and his needs. Never again, he’d vowed, would he suppress who — and what — he really was inside. Not for a woman, not for anyone.
Falon’s face went sheet white upon viewing the barred cell, pulling at his grip.
“No… you can’t.”
“I can, and I will,” Ford said, opening the gate and pulling her inside. “And I think we’ve already discussed what happens when you use that word, haven’t we?”
She knew better than to say anything further.
“Right now though, you need to sit and think for a little while. Get used to this place — you’re going to be spending plenty of time in it.”
He led her across the padded floor, the blue gymnastics cushions working perfectly for the space; he’d managed to find one that happened to fit the floor plan almost perfectly, only slightly bunching up against bars at the long ends of the enclosure.
Easing the now visibly stunned Falon down onto the mounded cushions along the back wall of the cell, he released her from the cuffs, pointing at the chains that hung from two large D rings high up on the wall, padded manacles backed in thick black leather dangling from the last link of each one.
“Need to get you into these,” he said, securing her arms quickly. Something inside him eased the tiniest bit having her in chains once again. It was where his woman belonged — even if this particular woman was only his for a short time.
You’re a sick individual, Ford.
Making one last check to ensure the chains were short enough to keep her secure but still allow her arms free movement within the cage, he stepped outside the threshold of the bars, swinging the bars shut with a clang that made her head jerk. Her eyes shone with an anxious, almost panicky look.
“Sir?”
He smiled at her, crouching down outside the bars. “Yes?”
“Don’t go. Please.”
“I’ll be upstairs. You’re safe here.”
“But I’m in a cell. Sir.”
“Yes, safe and sound, where I can protect you.”
She frowned, looking away. “Protect me…”
He looked at her a moment, then decided against telling her. He didn’t want her to worry about it. Falon had enough to worry about as it was — especially when he came back downstairs to address her little outburst earlier.
Besides, he still wasn’t sure there was anything to it. It was more a hunch or an instinct than anything concrete… but he suspected that Falon might not be entirely safe in White Valley anymore.
“See you in a bit, Ms. Moore.”
Ford walked up the creaking steps then, his heart racing, arousal and a vague sense of dread warring within him.
When he reached the top riser, he paused in the doorway, looking back down the staircase.
You better know what the fuck you’re doing, Ford.
Then he closed the basement door behind him.
* * *
The woman sure seemed to have a gift for picking out what was relevant.
He still felt a twinge of sheepishness as he sat down at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee and reviewing Falon’s confiscated notes — most of them in the form of entries on her laptop. Her phone and computer seemed to share the same notes, which was usually an indication that at least some of the information was resident in a common site, probably cloud-based. He could go through the pain in the ass process of going to Leigh Harcourt for a warrant to crack Falon’s passwords and try to get into her cloud-based accounts, but he’d wait on that until he needed it.
If he needed it.
There was more than enough on her laptop to keep him busy for a while.
A lot of the information her source seemed to be feeding her was stuff from way back in the oldies-but-goodies days of White Valley. It was well known among many in the town that though modern day White Valley was built upon a foundation — or at least an understanding — of consent, several decades ago, it was sometimes quite different.
It was ancient history, of course, but yes, in the past some women were indeed coerced into serving powerful members of the town — then a hub for mining, timber, and agriculture interests. A few women found themselves the kept playthings of corrupt power magnates, who used White Valley as a vacation spot — or simply a place to keep a lower profile than might be possible in Seattle, or Portland, or even San Francisco.
And a handful of women simply disappeared.
There were theories about where those poor souls ended up — anything from a secret sex slave ring in North America to being sold off like chattel to some sultan somewhere in the Middle East, but the fact that some women had vanished off the face of the Earth was incontrovertible.
If the source’s information was taken at face value, some past history might not just be in the past any longer — such things were happening now in White Valley.
That was the first thing that felt off with the source though: the age of the supposed information was all wrong. What was worse, some of the activities alleged in the source’s letters — including one passage that seemed to imply some women were currently being imprisoned and auctioned off to a crazy over-the-top society of Illuminati types — appeared to be complete and utter fabrications.
Another red flag.
The overhead arc sodium he’d installed earlier in the year flickered on outside. When he arrived home late from work, he’d grown tired of dropping his keys in his pitch dark driveway. Ford would never tire though of the sense of quiet, of peace, that descended on his little property as soon as the Sun passed behind the mountains for the night.
Clicking through those files again, he closed the laptop in frustration. Something was missing. He had a feeling the identity of that source was the key to all of it. Now, with the Council’s deal, he’d given Falon a concrete reason — and an escape route, of sorts — to help her keep her source confidential.
But this was now about more than tracking down — and shutting down — a troublesome reporter. Things had progressed far beyond that. As he leaned back in his chair, the moon just beginning to cast its ghostly light upon the surface of the river, he thought of her again. His ward.
The term still had a newness to it, something that had promise, but didn’t yet quite fit.
He wondered what Falon would think down there if she knew he was up here trying to figure out why he couldn’t shake the growing fear that she was in trouble somehow.
Occam’s razor would indicate that the only trouble here was the girl currently cooling her heels in her cell downstairs, a girl who’d been so obviously aroused during a stiff flogging that he still didn’t know what to think of it. Yes, some women were aroused by being punished, though more of them were excited by the dominance — and submission — inherent in the whole dynamic.
Which was she? Or was she something else entirely?
She’s got you all fucked up already, Ford. And she’s the one sitting in the cage.
There was one thing he still wanted to check though. The source’s mention of the missing girls in White Valley’s dark past. It didn’t match the rest of the crap the source was dropping a dime on, which was mostly alleged to be happening currently rather than eighty years ago. It was almost as if it had been tacked on for shock value, or salaciousness.
Not a bad idea if the aim was to attract a reporter’s interest, like a honeypot—
“Oh shit.”
He set down his coffee, leaning over onto one hip to retrieve his phone from his pocket. Why hadn’t he thought of that before now? He dialed Mike Anders, hoping he hadn’t yet buttoned up the station for the night.
He got him on the second ring. “Hey, Mike. You still on shift?”
“I’m parking now. Got a car prowl call down at the 97 junction, but not much other than that. I’d kill for some action.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Deputy.”
Anders laughed, his truck’s door chime ringing in the background, the sound of the evening breeze a gentle rush over the phone’s receiver.
“Listen, Mike. Before you head home, I need a favor from you.”
“No prob, boss. Another tail? Can I at least cuff and stuff someone this time?”
“Asshole,” Ford said, smiling in the dark of his kitchen nook, the moonlight outside just beginning to brighten the evening gloom. “I need you to pull the missing persons file — the last two years, at least. Just throw it on my desk before you head out, okay?”
“Got it. Anything going?”
“Not yet. Just a hunch right now.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Mike.” Ford tapped the phone against his chin, thinking of that bewitching girl downstairs.
If you’re gonna do this, just fucking do it, Ford. All the way.
“Hey, uh, Mike. I’m… not going to be in for a little while. Maybe a few days. You think you can hold down the fort for me?”
“Business or pleasure?” the sardonic deputy drawled.
Ford laughed, shaking his head. He thought the man would make a great sergeant or even captain someday.
“Both.”
“See ya when we see ya.” Then the line went dead, and Ford dropped the phone on the table.
He cursed under his breath, taking another sip as he stared out the window, not liking how often his thoughts turned to the gorgeous woman trembling in her bonds in his basement. It called into question his judgment. Ford still needed to do his job, no matter how hard she made his cock.
At that thought, his erection rose again, his testicles protesting angrily. He’d passed Blueballsville a long time ago though. If he kept this up, his fucking gonads were going to turn to stone.
Heading upstairs to change, Ford couldn’t help but think of something he’d once heard Leigh Harcourt say: “Being a temporary ward doesn’t just change the woman who submits to it — it changes her guardian too.”
At the time, of course, he’d shrugged such a notion off. It was the ward who bent her will to her guardian, especially if said guardian was as strict as he was. Ford believed in one thing above all else when it came to a relationship with a woman. He issued the orders, and she obeyed them. Total control was what he demanded in every aspect of his woman’s life.
It was why Sarah had left. They’d both concluded that what he wanted was a bridge too far for her.
Make that about ten bridges too far.
Yet rather than part as friends, it was the scorched Earth agony of her final words she’d left him with:
Freak. Sick. Monster.
The pain of those words strengthened him though, like fire and water tempering steel, they burned away all the confusion, the bullshit second-guessing Ford had engaged in for so many years, and distilled him down to his core, made him into what he really was inside.
He’d been trying to be someone else, not who he really was.
It was just too bad it had taken him so many years — and a failed marriage — to finally figure that out.
Changed into a threadbare gray t-shirt and a pair of comfortable jeans, Ford headed back down the shadowed hall, the door to the basement looming large. This was that turning point he firmly believed all men faced once in their lives — a chance to take the path they were meant for, no matter what it may be… or one last opportunity to turn away from it.
Opening the door, Ford breathed in the cool basement air tinged with the arousal — and fear — of one beautiful Falon Moore.
He’d never turn away again.
Chapter 14
The thick leather cuffs affixing her to the heavy chains were almost… comfortable.
And that fact galled her.
It would be easier to rail, to fight, to resist, if they’d hurt like those metal versions did.
As utterly humiliating as being chained up in a cage was though, Falon surprised herself by how calm she’d stayed.
It was the agreement, those papers.
Signing them had been a truly surreal experience, to be sure. They gave her, in theory at least, protection. More than that, they allowed her to accept that this was how it had to be.
There was too much to lose if she chose not to go through with it.
You’re a crazy bitch — and now you’re deep in it, with no hope of getting yourself out of this.
Still, her mind always came back to the same point, no matter how hard she might try to occupy her thoughts with something, anything, but what had happened only a few minutes ago. He’d flogged her as if she were a recalcitrant inmate, an animal that understood only one thing — pain.
She understood it all right… but how she reacted to it was the most confusing, confounding thing she had ever experienced.
The pain was bad, worse than she’d expected. The shame, and mortification was worse — the way he’d strung her up like so much game brought home from the hunt.
It was her physical reaction that was worst of all though. How could she possibly have become…?
The term you’re looking for is aroused.
Quite aware of the human body’s reactions, she wanted to shrug it off as purely reflexive, even protective. But it was more than that, and the truth of it scared her — and fascinated her — even more than the uber strict cop essentially holding her captive in his own home.
Was such a thing even allowed under the Council’s deal? Only two restrictions had been laid out though — and neither one barred keeping her chained up like some slave girl in a basement cell.
Jesus, this is insane.
The true insanity though was the coiling deep in her belly as Ford had stretched her arms toward the heavens, her entire naked body taut as a bowstring, the cruel leather of the flogger leaving her buttocks a mass of throbbing, seething heat. The vision — forever burned into her memory, she was sure — of the damning evidence of her arousal gleaming upon the black leather of the flogger was what haunted her the most though.
What did that mean?
I think you know exactly what it means.
The truth, the deep down, shameful truth — no matter how suppressed it might have been — was there, dancing at the edges of her consciousness. The light would eventually shine upon it, somehow. The only question was when — and what Ford might do to her to draw it out.
The door
at the top of the stairs opened, a tiny disturbance in the air pressure upon her skin making the hairs on her forearms stand up. A creak of the floorboards overhead made her look up, her legs closing instinctively. She hugged her breasts, covering them with her hands, the chains clinking, the steel links frigid against her skin.
He was in no hurry to descend the steps, each heavy footfall on the stairs sending Falon’s heart rate higher and higher. Ford walked into the room, moving over to the armoire and rummaging around inside it. Turning back toward her, something dangled from one hand, his dark gaze fixing upon her immediately. He took his time moving toward her cell though, more of a saunter than a stride. He’d changed his clothes, her mouth going dry at the way the t-shirt he now wore stretched across the heavily muscled shoulders and the bulging pectorals. The warm-ups he wore molded and highlighted the promise of the compact power of his buttocks.
She knew it was absurd to be ogling him at a time like that, but she was a woman after all. It was next to impossible to ignore a man built like Ford Mathis, regardless of the fact that she’d essentially signed her freedom over to the man for the duration.
Or maybe it’s precisely because of that fact that makes him impossible to ignore.
She bit down on her tongue, thankful her thoughts hadn’t leapt unbidden from her lips. He had enough power over her already. She wasn’t about to give him even more. Not without a fight anyway.
“I’m glad you were a good girl down here, Ms. Moore.”
Her cheeks warmed at the endearment, a confusing mixture of bashfulness and surprise warring within her.
The door to her cell swung open, and he stepped inside.
It was then that she saw what hung from one clenched fist. It was a stout strap made of black leather, along with several lengths of thin silver chain.
“W-what’s that?” she asked, wincing as she remembered he’d told her not to speak unless given leave to do so.
He looked down at her a moment, a dark eyebrow arching, confirming her fears.
The man remembered all right.