Legal Action - Box Set

by Kimball Lee

  “Nice ride,” he said, motioning to the plush interior of the jet, “thanks for coming to get us, we were beginning to get bored.”

  “Where is he?” she asked and sat up so fast her head was spinning and felt like she’d hit a brick wall.” Is he alright, is he alive? JP, let me see him!”

  “He’s here, he’s alive, you don’t want to see him yet, Char. They’re patching him up the best that they can…”

  Charlotte stood up despite her pounding head and she could see two of the soldiers working over Finn’s body. They had an IV bag hung from an overhead compartment and one was shooting a syringe of something into it while the other one applied bandages. She pushed her way past them and fell to her knees beside him, she barely recognized his beautiful face, it was so badly beaten. He was lying on a leather sofa unconscious and naked, and she had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming when she saw that his body was not only horribly beaten but covered with deep burns as if he’d been branded over and over.

  She said his name and lightly kissed his face a dozen times, then looked up at one of the soldier’s treating the burns.

  “He can’t hear you, ma’am, we shot him up with morphine. He’s got some broken ribs but his vital signs are pretty good, from what we can tell and what his buddy over there has told us, he doesn’t show any signs of internal bleeding. He’s stable right now and holding his own.”

  “Thank you,” she said settling on a spot on the floor so she could be near him yet out of the way. “Thank you all so much,” she began to cry then and to thank God for Finn’s life and all the men on the jet got very quiet, each one happy to have given her back what she loved.

  They stopped to refuel in Turkey and a doctor came on board to examine Finn and JP. Charlotte wanted Finn moved to a hospital immediately but JP, who had relatively minor injuries, said they should go on to Germany or continue to England. The doctor agreed that Finn was stable enough to travel, so they would continue on to London and an ambulance would be waiting at Heathrow.

  “What about the engine?” Charlotte asked Bly, “I smelled smoke, was one of them hit?”

  “Yes but it’s alright, this is a Falcon 7X, it has three engines but it can fly with only one if necessary. We need to get Finn to a hospital in a friendlier country so we’ll go on to London, don’t worry, it’s the safest jet in the world.”

  *

  JP was released from the hospital after three days, he had been beaten daily until Finn showed up, and then Mao Huang’s wrath was turned on the man he held responsible for Jamey’s death. Finn was kept heavily sedated in the hospital for a week. He was lucky, the doctors assured her, he had fractured and broken ribs and cuts, burns and contusions that were healing well and amazingly enough, no internal injuries. He was on massive doses of antibiotics and painkillers and had not spoken or seemed to recognize anyone in his short bouts of consciousness, although his brain scan showed no damage. The doctor’s told Charlotte, Jude and Georgina that he would be more lucid as he was weaned off the morphine they were giving him for the pain he suffered as the burns were cleaned and treated.

  “Mao Huang is dead, as he should be, suffice to say he had a lot of innocent men’s blood on his hands,” Bly told Charlotte as she sat with him in his penthouse suite the night before he went back to California. “His company is a shambles since the news of his death and Bly International is buying up massive quantities of stock. I’m not doing it to be opportunistic, I’ll have controlling interest and then I’ll break it into smaller companies and sell them off. Mao was holding JP to get to Finn, the same old trick Jamey used with you. Mao has daughters but Jamey was his only son and an only son in China is a man’s future and his treasure. He should have killed Finn quickly but he was a sadistic old bastard, turns out he always had been. We freed a dozen men when we took JP and Finn; they weren’t even criminals, just men who had displeased him. Well, he’s gone and so is his empire and there can never be any retribution against you or your family.”

  Charlotte and Bly sat on the floor of the suite playing with Atticus and she told him there was no way for her to thank him. Atticus crawled toward Bly and he picked him up and talked to him like one man to another and Charlotte laughed.

  “That’s a nice sound Charlotte, hearing you laugh, I’m glad I had some part in it. Now this little man,” he said lifting the baby and looking him in the eye, “he has his mother’s eyes and charisma, the girls better watch out for him!” He set the baby on the floor and looked at Charlotte, “funny how my best memories are with you and still my heart is completely broken. I would give my entire fortune if you and this baby were mine, Finn’s a lucky man and the gypsy was right, you’re a lucky, lucky girl.”

  “By the way,” Charlotte told Bly as he was helping her strap Atticus in his car seat, “you do know why JP turned down the lift you offered him back to the states, don’t you?”

  “Oh, knowing JP he’s probably met a girl,” Bly said and smiled.

  “Yep, and not just any girl, a beautiful girl with auburn hair whose pretty much in the mood for a bad boy.”

  “No,” he said, “my little sister, how the fuck did they meet?”

  “Through you and me and this hotel and the hospital, what does it matter? They’ve gone off together for a while, who knows where and cie la vie, remember, you only live once,” Charlotte pressed her lips quickly to his, and hugged and thanked him one last time before she drove away.

  *

  Jude checked on his little brother constantly and he and Charlotte took turns sleeping in his hospital room until he was out of danger. He was there when Finn’s mind was finally recovering from all the medication he’d been on, then he left for a month to be with his American girlfriend. He’d fallen in love it seemed, with a girl from Los Angeles, and Charlotte and his mother were glad for him but their minds were consumed with getting Finn well enough to come home. They were worried that Finn really didn’t know them but his doctor didn’t seem concerned, he claimed it was normal after the drugs and the emotional trauma. JP had said Finn was given drugs daily while they were held in Taiwan, and they made him scream and rant and remain incoherent most of the time. At first JP thought it was for the best, he’d hoped it kept Finn from feeling the red hot iron that was used to torture him, but now he thought the drugs might have permanently affected his memory.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Georgina and Henrietta waited with the baby at Dovecote cottage for Charlotte to bring Finn home. His face showed only slight scars and his body had healed well already, the doctors attributed it partly to his youth, (twenty eight year olds heal faster than old men they said) and partly to his iron will. Henrietta wrung her hands after she hugged him and he winced from his injured ribs and said he was sorry but he didn’t know her. Charlotte led him upstairs to the nursery and had him sit in the rocker, then she sat Atticus in his lap. The baby rested against him and smiled up at his face happily.

  “He’s mine?” Finn asked.

  “He’s ours,” Charlotte told him as she kneeled in front of him, hoping the baby and the cottage would help him remember.

  “I like him,” he said, looking up as her eyes filled with tears.

  “I like him, my love, don’t you mean?” she asked and watched his face to see if he really knew her.

  “Do I?’ he asked flatly, and Georgina lifted the baby and kissed Finn’s forehead and she and Atticus went to stay with Henrietta for the night.

  Charlotte stood up and took his hand so that he followed her into their bathroom and she began to undress him.

  “Your name’s Charlotte?” he asked, after she’d washed his wounds carefully and he leaned forward and kissed her passionately.

  “Yes my love,” she said, and led him to their bedroom and unbuttoned his jeans.

  He stopped her hands and asked, “Is this your room? I like the bed.”

  She smiled and her hands moved to her own clothes and she began to unbutton her blouse. It was October and there was a chil
l in the air and fires blazed in fireplaces in each room of the house, even so, when she let her lacy bra fall to the floor her nipples were erect. She blushed and moved her hands to cover them and he pushed her hands away and replaced them with his own hands. She drew in her breath and closed her eyes and his incredible mouth covered hers.

  “Did I love you before?” Finn asked stopping to catch his breath, “Because if I did, I’m falling in love with you all over again,” and he kissed her eyes and her cheeks and finally her fevered lips.

  After a while he forced his mouth away from hers and his hands stroked her breasts then moved down to her small waist. He studied her body with a look of wonder and asked, “You’re mine? We’re together?”

  “Yes my love,” she smiled and ran her fingers through the glossy waves of his hair and then she helped him out of his jeans.

  He was thinner than she’d ever seen him, but still muscular, JP told her they’d done pushups and sit-ups and pull-ups on a lead pipe that ran through the cell where they were kept in Taiwan. Even through the pain and delirium Finn had followed his SEAL workout every day, but they were fed little, so he’d become leaner, yet strong.

  She ran her hands lightly over his body; it was covered with fading bruises and the marks where sutures had been removed. She touched one of the gel-filled bandages that covered the many burns she’d just cleaned and she couldn’t stop the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  He lifted her chin and wiped her tears away and said he was sorry she was sad but he couldn’t wait. She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t want him to wait and before she could speak he lifted her onto the edge of the bed and placed her legs on his shoulders. She gasped at the newness of the action and her hips arched toward him as his fingers slid between her parted legs. His fingers were quick and rough and she began to shudder and moan as his thumb worked her clit and he forced a finger inside her.

  “Fuck!” he groaned as she clinched around his finger, she was so hot and tight and wet he thought he would cum before he entered her. He pushed the head of his cock into her and reached under her, grasping her sweet little ass and held her steady as he thrust.

  She cried out then, with the orgasm still ripping through her and the feeling of his long, thick cock causing her to seize again and again until he finally shouted her name and fell against her.

  “Charlotte, my Charlotte,” he whispered, breathing hard as his head lay against her bare breasts.

  “Yes my love, I’m yours,” she said and they climbed beneath the covers of their perfect bed and made love until dawn just as they had done on their first night in the little cottage in California when they were roommates.

  *

  Finn’s amnesia was intoxicating, Charlotte decided. He asked permission before he ravaged her body as though they were simply intimate strangers. His sense of humor was returning, that was for sure, when she told him he didn’t really have to ask, he said he was ‘ever the gentleman’. Then he leaned her forward on the kitchen table and fucked her slowly while they both watched through the kitchen window as his mother and Henrietta played with the baby in the garden, then she squeezed her eyes shut as he fingered her clit and she climaxed over and over.

  He didn’t remember who he was, but his body remembered hers and his arms remembered to scoop up Atticus and carry him outside while humming Van Morrison tunes. He remembered to kiss his mother every morning as she fixed his tea and breakfast. He didn’t remember the details, but somehow he remembered they were a family.

  They were settling back into as normal a life as possible; Charlotte was taking on more court cases while Finn wrestled with his wounds and his memory loss. One morning Finn walked in the bathroom holding his tea cup and watched as she stood with one leg resting on the bathtub. She leaned forward wearing a t-shirt but no panties; she spread shaving cream on her leg and drew the razor over it slowly. His tea cup crashed to the floor and she jumped, nicking her shin,

  “Damn, you scared me!” she said.

  He locked the door and walked to her and lowered her to the fluffy rug on the floor. “We were camping,” he said, unzipping his jeans and placing her hand on his huge erection. “I shaved you and then I fucked your shockingly sweet bare pussy, just like I’m going to do right now, my love.”

  She kissed him and smiled and laughed and stroked his wonderful cock, and when Georgina tapped on the bathroom door to ask if things were alright, Charlotte laughed even harder when he said, “take the baby to Henrietta’s house Mum, wicked things are going on in the bath.”

  Charlotte hated to lie but she called the solicitor and told him she had a family emergency and they would have to reschedule. She felt guilty, but she had been handling a lot of cases lately and the morning she’d spent with her husband was well worth one missed case. How could she have refused him anyway? He’d kissed her passionately as she lay on the bath rug, then he’d held a warm, wet wash cloth over her pubic hair. She’d squirmed as he slipped two fingers under the cloth, to ‘check the temperature’ he’d said with his signature crooked grin.

  “Better not squirm, my love, the razor will sting. I’ll settle you down just a bit so you can lie still while I shave you,” he said and his eyes held hers as one finger found her clit and circled it and the other pushed inside her. She’d arched against his hand, moaning, her hips grinding against his fingers and he leaned down to lick and suck her nipples until she lay quivering on the floor.

  He’d shaved her expertly, warning her not to move even when he massaged her tender clit with the shaving cream. “Don’t cum Charlotte, wait my love. I want you your pussy pulsing around me, lie still and open your legs. Ah, how could I ever have forgotten my perfect girl?”

  She nearly climaxed when the big, velvety head of his cock entered her, but he held her hips pinned to the floor and calmed her. When her eyes closed and she began to pulse around him anyway he thrust fully into her and as she cried his name he hit that far spot again and again watching her cum so hard and so long that he groaned and fell off the edge of the world with her.

  Other things came back to him slowly, but some washed over him in a tsunami of remembrance. As soon as they had thoroughly wrecked the bathroom he urged her to dress quickly and held her hand as they raced down the lane to Henrietta’s cottage. He burst through the door without knocking and the two women looked up from the Katie Couric Show as he scooped the sleeping baby from his little port-a-crib.

  “Atticus!” he said and kissed the drowsy baby’s face and burrowed his nose into his baby soft neck. “Atti, Atti,” he said over and over kissing his sweet little face and all three women watched and cried while Finn and his son laughed.

  Georgina pulled herself together and hugged and kissed Finn until he blushed and said, “Its ok now Mum!” Henrietta was beaming as she asked, “What on earth happened to make him remember?”

  Charlotte gave Finn a mischievous smile and said, “Why don’t you tell them, my love?”

  *

  They dressed Atticus as a pumpkin for Halloween, with little green tights and felt booties and a cap with a stem on top. Finn carried him on his shoulders and the three of them walked through the village stopping so friends could ooh and aah over the baby. They ducked into shops to warm up now and then and Charlotte placed her order with the butcher for a Thanksgiving turkey. Jude would be back from his trip to California and Charlotte and Georgina were hoping to meet his new love. Henrietta wasn’t too pleased with the notion of Jude with a girlfriend, no matter that she was thirty years older, she fancied him as her boyfriend. JP would be coming, too, and he said he was thinking of bringing Amanda Bly, but he hadn’t quite decided for sure. Of course Finn was stumped as to who exactly these people were that Charlotte was talking about, he had to see them in person to remember them.

  Georgina decided to take a short trip to California to visit her daughters and turn in the paperwork for her early retirement package. She could hardly stand the thought of being separated from Atticus for three w
eeks, but although her daughters were grown and on their own they missed her. She would return after Thanksgiving and live at Henrietta’s, renting her extra bedroom, since she was there most of the time as it was.

  *

  Charlotte drove to London to discuss a new case with a solicitor and afterward she stopped in at Harrods to do some shopping. Atticus was almost six months old and growing like a weed, he needed new clothes and she loved picking out cute little outfits for him. Her cell phone rang and she had to juggle shopping bags and dig through her purse as usual.

  “Yes, this is Charlotte!” she said, out of breath and fearing the caller had hung up.

  “I hoped it would be,” Bly said and laughed his deep, sexy laugh. “I’m not calling to bother you; I’ve had a request for your phone number and for the record, how are you Charlotte?”

  “Good, fine, how are you? Of course you’re not bothering me, you’re the man I owe my happiness to,” she said, and he was quiet for so long that she had to ask if he was still there.

  “Yes, I got a call this morning from Ambassador Tremont, he asked for your phone number and I said I’d have to talk to you before I gave it out. It might have been a lame excuse so I could call just to hear your voice, but now that I have, I wonder why I continue to torture myself.”

  “Bly,” she said, “don’t say that. Who are you dating, are you at least sleeping with every girl who crosses your path?”

  “Sleeping?” he said.

  “There you go! That’s the Bly I know and love… loved, damn, what was the question?” she sat in her car and put her head against the steering wheel, how could she have said she loved him?

  “Should I give Ambassador Tremont your number, he wants to meet with you and you do owe him, I would say. I don’t mean you owe him favors, hell, now it’s my turn to back track,” he said and laughed uneasily.

  “I can absolutely positively without any question assure you… he doesn’t want to talk to me about thanking him or doing him any favors. Give me his number and I’ll call him, you know what they say about me, I like to run the show,” and she hung up and dialed the ambassador’s private number.