“You sure about that, nanny? Cops report a slam dunk, open and shut case…” His emotions built to a frenzy, a glorious frenzy, if she were to evaluate his nearly jubilant mood. “You really expect me to buy your denial just because you sound so sincere?”
Wild bouts of anger in his past haunted her now. Scenes she would have rather forgotten. She forgave him then; he was young. Now grown, he was still a troubled young man and sinister possibilities inherent in that truth were truly frightening.
“Yes, I expect you to buy my story because we trust each other – at least we once did.” She hoped to take the high road, though all the while she could feel her alter ego wanting to push back and push back hard.
“I’m afraid that buying your story is pretty stupid after what I’ve seen here.”
“Don’t be foolish. You can’t assume that everything you read there is true.”
“You’re calling me foolish?” he snapped, not liking the sound of the word.
Seeing how his eyes flashed, she backed off, “I’m only suggesting that you weigh what’s there with what you know about the Alexa Dupree who was your nanny.”
The look in his eyes grew darker. “But I didn’t have a nanny. I had a whore masquerading as a nanny,” he barked. “But what better way for the old man to explain your presence in his house.”
“Luke, please. That was years ago. I’m sure this was all a shock to you, and I wish I could explain…”
“I have all the explanation I need right here,” he cut her off. “You don’t have to explain a thing.”
She never expected such spite, such anger; though he was so much like his father that she shouldn’t have been surprised. But while the comparison was appropriate, she sensed some deeper angst in the boy that had nothing to do with his natural temperament. This reached back far into his past and likely, at least for the most part, had nothing to do with her. Understanding that, she knew the futility of her arguments. Her mind tried desperately to figure a way out of the awkward moment, but the boy confused her. She had no idea what he wanted her to say…or if there was anything she could have said to appease his mood.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Luke.” She looked at him with a sorry face. “Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. I should go.”
She started to rise, but was immediately halted with a terse, “Sit the fuck down, you’re going nowhere.”
“Luke, really, I don’t see any point in pursuing this further.”
This time she made it to her feet, all the way to the open door. She could have walked through and closed it behind her. But what then? She didn’t think any further than that because she knew in her bones that the conversation with Luke Tatum was not over. He wouldn’t let her walk away – a fact he confirmed just seconds later.
“If you think Bo’s going to drive you out of here, you’re wrong, nanny. Sit the fuck down!”
She stood stock still, feeling a recognizable warmth growing in her belly in reaction to his tone of voice. She wanted to go back in time, call a halt to this ‘mood’ of his with the same kind of terse decree she sometimes needed to use when he started getting mouthy with her. She’d always been able to bring his surly attitude to an abrupt halt. But he was just a child then, she wasn’t sure that her methods would work now. Feeling diminished by his new knowledge of her, she decided to be less bold. She finally turned around and, to her surprise, the anger was gone from his eyes. He looked more like himself, and while he was no longer a boy, she could still detect the kernel of sweetness that warmed her heart so many times.
“Go on, sit,” he said, nodding to the chair.
She hesitated, then finally sat. Her body was flushed with arousal, dangerously so. Since arriving at the winery, she’d fought off memories as if they were cobwebs. She flailed at them uselessly, but they clung to her still, subtlety altering her mind and her mood, and hurling her back to the attitude of surrender required of her by his father when she was in this house. Hearing the terse command, she couldn’t stop herself from sitting on cue, as if he were in charge now, which only made her more confused. A little of that sassy, alter-ego brat might have been helpful, might have given her some courage, but she couldn’t seem to raise the wild girl from wherever she lay hiding.
Keeping his eyes on her until she was in the chair, Luke closed the leather file, stood up and walked around the desk, where he leaned back against the front edge in a distinctly authoritarian move. He seemed to have changed moods again as if he could don them like a suit of clothes. For the most part the bitterness was gone from his voice, but so was the light-hearted boy. While at times she had the feeling he was making things up as he went along, he was focused now, and spoke directly with a clear purpose in mind. “Why I asked you to come should be obvious to you by now. Maybe you’d like to ignore the facts, pretend that your other life didn’t really happen. But it did. I was there. I saw enough of it to know that you and my father had an unusual relationship. When I saw him whip you the truth dawned. Now that I’ve seen the file, I know what bound you to him and it all makes sense.”
The fire in her belly continued to swell as she listened to him speak. Such certainty from one so young. Despite her misgivings and mounting fear, her sex was alive and riveted on the boy’s fierce lust. Where he was leading seemed so wrong, so terribly depraved, but she made no attempt to squash the uneasy feelings. They almost seemed cause for celebration, even if the celebration was moving her down a path she been utterly determined to avoid.
“So what do I do with that file? All the juicy details, the X-rated photographs, an accusing police report, and that tidy little document with your signature that bound you to my father. I’ve been round the block a dozen times with that file and you know what?”
She stared at him blankly and shook her head.
He seemed colder still as he went on. “Much as I appreciate that you’ve been living the last six years as a free woman – which may very well be what you deserve, I’m afraid I just can’t overlook the obvious fact that you haven’t satisfied your contract with my father. Nowhere does it state that the terms cease on the man’s death, in fact, there’s a survivor’s provision written right into the document, in which you are quite literally passed down to me like any other piece of my father’s property.” She visibly recoiled hearing him say this. “How does it feel to be chattel, nanny?”
Like it did every fuckin’ moment of my years in this house, her alter ego screamed inside her head. How could this be happening again!
“I’m sure his death was a day of celebration for you. Freedom after five years under his rule. Must have been quite a relief. Maybe you grieved him…I saw the tears. I remember that face well. Funny, though, what I remember most the day of his funeral was a light in your sad eyes I’d never seen. I knew you were glad he was gone. I had a hunch at the time that he had some hold over you that was never disclosed to me, until now. And now that you’re chattel again, it’s up to me to decide how you spend the next few years.” Though it sounded as if he was taking the dilemma before him quite seriously, the lewd glimmer in his pale blue eyes suggested where his decision might lead. No, no! This couldn’t be happening. It was too weird, too crazy! Had the boy gone mad!
And yet, despite her immediate revulsion at the sexual implications, she couldn’t deny the strange eroticism inherent in this curious exchange. He made her wait while he strolled the room, putting on quite a dramatic show as he absently inspected his father’s collection of knickknacks and pictures. There was a distinctive force about him, something driven and powerful contained in his muscles and bones, in the way he walked and stood and carried himself. An adult not a child, he was utterly confident of himself and what he had planned. She watched him closely, waiting for him to say more as he studied in depth a small da Vinci sketch that his father had purchased in Paris twenty years before. So focused, he seemed hardly aware that she was even in the room, but though his eyes didn’t waver, she knew he kept her in his sights from a
far, and every second that passed, the energy between them mounted. He had a flare for the theatrical much like Warren, and all of the sexuality. Waiting for him to speak became a lesson in patience and yes, prayer!
When finally he turned, their eyes met.
“As I see it, nanny, you’re still wanted for murder, still the only suspect in your father’s death. What you gained in the arrangement with my father was a chance for freedom – but only after you completed the terms of the agreement. My father’s death doesn’t make up for the fact that you are bound to a contract you signed of your own free will, which required ten years service in my father’s employ. You served just five, and now you owe me, his heir, the final five.” He paused to sit down, as if assuming an official role, and like a judge passing sentence, he declared: “You’ll remain here until you’ve satisfied the terms of the agreement in full.”
Her apprehension turned to panic within seconds. “Surely you don’t mean that?” she practically leapt from her seat, but his eyes kept her fixed in place.
“Want me to repeat myself?” He stood again and sauntered forward.
“No, no, I heard you. But…you can’t be serious—” she searched his face, but saw no room for compromise in his hard expression.
“I’m as fuckin’ serious as I’ve ever been. Whether you like it or not, you can’t disagree with the facts. You had nearly six years of freedom to enjoy, now it’s time to pay off the debt.”
Fuck this, Alexa! The rebellious wild girl inside her chose that moment to scream at her, but the contest was already lost. Any bold moves that could extricate her from the current dilemma would be useless now. She stared about her, panicked.
As if he read her mind, Luke jumped in … “And don’t think that escaping this valley will let you off the hook. The resources I have at my disposal clearly trump your own. You come up missing, I’ll hunt you down and haul you back. Not only that, I’ll add on a month for every infraction of the rules – just like the agreement says.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Her neck, her face, her hands were hot. Blood throbbed through veins so hard that her chest hurt and her head ached. She felt as if she were about to burst. Frozen in place, she prayed for something, anything to stop this madness.
“No, Luke! Please…”
But he’d already moved around behind her, and grabbing a hold of her hair, he yanked down hard, straining her neck and forcing their eyes to meet once more. “You can ‘pretty please’ me all you like, nanny, but you know what I want.”
In that instant she did. Not before. Not even a second before had she entirely understood the truth, but now, in his eyes she saw the same lust-filled passion she’d seen in his father. They were the same in every way that mattered. Different men of different generations, but with the same savage desire for domination burning in their gut.
Once before, she’d been unceremoniously ripped from her life and shoved into another one, not of her own making. It was happening again…
…the horror of it happening again and she only had herself to blame.
She’d been too content. Too easily duped by a false sense of security in that ‘borrowed life’.
What a fool to think that she was safe. If only she had fled the state when Warren died. She could have lived in obscure safety in some place far from this false nirvana. If not then, she should have split as soon as the letter from Luke landed in her mailbox.
Letting go her hair, Luke sauntered back around the chair, eyeing her all the while deep in thought. She had only to close her eyes and it could have been Warren with his eyes fixing her in an imperious stare. It made no difference that it was Luke staring down at her; the lust was obvious and her own was real, and in some cosmic sense, what was about to happen had already been written. The horror it, and the wonder, already been written. For a moment it seemed that every savage scene of depravity that she suffered in this room marched before her eyes in a grand parade, a reminder of what was to come. She’d adapted to Warren, become used to the man, his moods and every odd quirk that made up his complex personality. Despite the unequal nature of their relationship, they’d made peace with each other inside the tiny world they shared. The sexuality was hellish, but amazing way it seemed to come straight from her own depraved fantasies, as if Warren had direct access to her private thoughts. He had found the wild girl and milked the possibilities of that naughty slut for all they had to give him.
But Luke? He was still a boy. A boy in a man’s body, perhaps, but still a boy, flushed with the
testosterone of youth and in possession of more wealth than any boy of that age had a right to command. How would this ever work? How would she survive? Though the questions rolled through her mind, she had no answers. Not one.
Chapter Three
The silence that followed Luke’s grand revelations seemed to stretch on forever. He returned to the front of the desk, leaned his rear against the edge and finally said, as if making casual conversation with the neighbor. “So, did you kneel for him, nanny?”
She looked up, quietly replying: “Yes, I knelt for him.” She shuddered at the admission, and yet her arousal suddenly billowed like wildfire beneath her calm exterior. Beneath that, the seeds of anger and indignation had already been planted and had begun to grow in equal measure.
“Then you’ll kneel for me,” he returned, his voice haughty and cold.
Her heart skipped anxious beats. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“This is no joke, Alexa.” She could see by the firm conviction on his lips that it was not.
“You mean now?” There was a hollow place in the pit of her stomach that ached with an unholy need.
“Yes, goddam it, now!” he spit back angrily, pointing to the tile floor. “On your knees.”
Her hesitation riled him, and within a second of her balking response, he leapt forward, grabbed her hair and shoved her to the floor. “I said on your knees, nanny.”
But when her knees hit the tile she snapped. Tossing aside the phony composure, she channeled her seething rage through terse words, spitting out an ill-advised, “If you’d just stop calling me nanny!” as she jerked back and forth trying to wrench from his grasp.
He let go, but responding to the snappish retort he kicked her thigh with the toe of his boot and her body pitched forward on the tile. Crouching beside her, he grabbed another fistful of hair and shook it hard again. “I’ll call you whatever the fuck I’d like, NANNY! Now kneel! Just like you knelt for my father. Exactly like you knelt for him.”
He shoved her against the floor, and letting go of her hair, he rose to his feet and stood directly above her as she slowly disentangled herself and moved to her knees. Gulping back tears, she took a deep breath. Though flushed with humiliation, she did as she was told. She clasped her hands behind her, raised her chin and lowered her eyes as she’d been taught. Her chest heaved as she silently fumed, though there was no mistaking the quality of her anger, and the fact that it was taking every act of will she could muster to keep it safely stifled. Even then the rage appeared to leak out at the seams and rise up around her like a cloud.
“So, was that so hard?”
“No, sir,” she spat out.
He smirked at her reply. “Ah, and you’re calling me sir,” he declared with a mocking air of jubilation. “How quickly you adapt. This might be easier than I thought.” He circled her kneeling form, then stopped and stood back in triumph. “Perfect. A well-trained sex slave at my beck and call. Just a few minor details to attend to.”
A rough war commenced between her raging libido and her disgust over the terrible turn her life had taken. But then Luke stepped forward and touched her face, running a delicate finger along her cheek and across her mouth. Her lips parted, and she could feel a desiring gasp escape. He continued the teasing play, running his fingers over her mouth and between her lips. One finger slipped inside that she sucked without thinking, and was almost sad when he pulled it away
. He came back pinching her cheeks and her lips, squeezing them roughly as if he would yank them from her face. She replied with tiny shrieks and breathless groans. Her anger retreated as her desire surged. She wanted more, at the same time wanted none of it. But the wanting seemed to win – it had been far too long since her wicked, rebellious demons had been satisfied this way. After running a hand through her hair and down her neck, he grabbed and mauled her like a man possessed. Her face, her cheeks, her chin, her lips were his, everything was his. Swirling, spinning, spiraling downward, she was his, not herself anymore, but his.
No, no! this can’t be happening, not again, the little voice in her swore, and swore again, though it was too timid to be heard. The voice of the tramp, the rebel, the naughty brat that liked it hard and rough, and sex with danger, drowned out that timid voice of caution. As Luke’s mauling hand continued the crude foreplay, the sexual Alexa was reborn in the trampy slut that emerged. Her chest heaved with desire and her pussy spasmed again and again and again until her panties were soaked, and the evidence of her arousal was obvious, even to Luke.
“So,” he finally pulled his hand away and looked down at her with a broad smile, “not as distasteful as you claim, is it?”
She didn’t answer.
“Is it!” he snapped.
Still she was mute.
He reared back in anger and slapped her face, which stunned them both, though he hardly lost a beat as he snarled at her, saying, “Answer me when I speak to you!”
Her hand flew to her burning cheek. “Yes, sir,” she meekly returned, but it wasn’t enough.
“No, you tell me the truth. Tell me you’re turned on!” His eyes burned hot and his voice became harder still. “Tell me!”
“Yes, yes, of course, I’m turned on,” she shot back, feeling annoyed and ashamed. She shook her head, fuming; then she clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.
The air bristled with tension, and for a moment she worried that the battle would escalate further, but instead, Luke backed off in a conciliatory gesture and smiled, significantly easing the enmity between them. “Yeah. Good. Let’s keep it honest from now on,” he said mildly, then his eyes sparked once more. “You can’t tell me that the woman in those pictures wasn’t enjoying every minute of that abuse. I won’t make you admit that now, but you will,” he chuckled darkly, “when it’s me delivering the abuse.”
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