You'll Answer To Me

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  Luke didn’t give a whit about Alexa otherwise. Something had changed in him. He didn’t even offer up the usual taunting humiliations. An uneasy restlessness drove him, but of course, he wouldn’t speak of it to her. This wasn’t the old days. This was now and she was just a sex slave serving out her sentence. Any meager affection they might have experienced before the house party had completely disappeared.

  Despite the impossibility of the idea, Alexa gave a lot of thought to Bo’s demand, as if there might be some way she could obey the ridiculous order. But try as she might to find a way to extricate herself from Luke’s control, she came up empty. Any possible scenario that came to mind lead to the same result. Luke would only remind her of the documents tucked in his safe that pointed to her presumed guilt, the murdered father, her bloody prints on the gun that fired the shot, and then her convenient disappearance. What the FBI and Scotland Yard and the international press had already done years before was try, convict and sentence her before any court could hear all the evidence. Had anyone even bothered to look for another suspect? She doubted it. The case was a slam dunk. The hope for any happy life, regardless of how a trial turned out, would be over if Luke divulged the secret he harbored. Over, as in done, no Bo, no winery, no life but a lonely prison cell. Couldn’t Bo see that?

  There wasn’t even a way to start the conversation, and yet, Bo’s rebuke remained fixed inside her head, taunting her into action, until her nights became restless and Luke’s sexual demands on her started making her angry.

  Luke felt her anger, and that was a surprise. Since his return from the City, he’d hardly paid attention to her, other than to use her sexually. All he cared about was getting off. Now, suddenly, he was pissed off that Alexa wasn’t the compliant, surrendering, even sometimes eager slave he expected her to be. On the third angry day, he took a crop to her; on the fourth a cane, the fifth a thick wooden butter paddle, delivering punishment that left her bottom perpetually sore and her emotions raw each time he silently laid into her. When the punishment was over, he fucked her regardless of whether her body and spirit had surrendered.

  Another few days of this and she’d reached the bitter edge. It almost seemed as if they’d been driven into a confrontation by forces neither of them understood. She was afraid for herself, afraid she couldn’t take the abuse any longer without screaming for him to stop, and that would only earn her another round with the disturbing sadist he’d become.

  The odd impasse between them went on for nearly two weeks, until one day, as he left her with her just-fucked ass hanging out and her pussy dripping cum, he managed a terse, “I don’t know what the hell is the matter with you these days, but this is going to end now. You shape up, get back to the sweet, surrendering Alexa I expect, or you’re going to find yourself pulling slave duty like you’ve never done before.”

  What he meant by ‘slave duty’ he probably didn’t know himself. He’d make something up on the fly if it came to that.

  Still, she fumed at the threat, and was so close to spitting out, I’m done with this, Luke. We’re done. It’s over! that it took every bit of force she could muster, and a whole lot of tongue biting, literally, to stop a terrible tirade from spewing forth.

  At the last second, she pulled back and took a deep breath in hopes that would calm her. Luke left without further comment.

  She avoided Bo. Unable to look him in the eye, she had no desire to be confronted by her failure. But of course, he knew she had failed her assignment. Every day spent without her flying down to the winery office to announce the good news was another day of inaction, another day of regret, another wedge between the only thing that gave her hope while she played Luke’s slave.

  She lived in a perpetual limbo, waiting for something to break the awful impasse she felt in her heart and her thoughts, and in every cell of her body. There was no torture worse than this, nothing either man could physically do to her was worse than denying Bo the one thing he needed most. Bo wanted her for himself, without reservations or conditions, and this was the one thing she couldn’t give him.

  She fumed for hours as she cleaned the house and washed the dishes and took out the trash, thinking angry thoughts about her disgruntled lover. She shouted at him in her mind, venting all the foul things she thought of him for making this impossible demand. But that was all a worthless effort. She was a coward when it came to confrontation—at least she was now. She hadn’t always been like this. She used to have no problem thumbing her nose at the world, at decency, the law, her father, and the ghoulish paparazzi. Where had that wild girl gone? The only times she felt her now were during the raunchiest sex acts when that little slut found some real pleasure.

  She was on edge and afraid every second, in the house, on the winery grounds, and now in the garden where she was pruning pretty fat roses with big thorns.

  “Ouch!” she exclaimed aloud when a nasty barb caught her thumb. Blood oozed from the tiny wound and she put her finger to her mouth to soothe the sting.

  “Better be more careful.”

  She heard Bo’s voice behind her and whipped around to see him standing so close that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t felt that sexy energy she loved.

  “Just pricked my finger,” she said.

  “Let me look.”

  She showed him the puncture, although the bleeding had stopped and it was hard to see where the thorn had jabbed her flesh. He held her hand, and through those talented fingers of his she could feel his pulse radiate into her body. Oh, how hungry she was for him! Her crotch seemed to melt and she would have yielded anything to him – anything but the will to set things straight with Luke. The last week had proven that.

  “Still too fucking scared?” he asked without needing to name the issue.

  “That’s where it stands.”

  “Well, I’m not about to wait around, hearing you fuck the boy because you haven’t got the guts to stop him. It’s gonna end, Alexa, one way or another it’s gonna end now. If you don’t have the guts to do it, I will.”

  “Bo, you can’t just—”

  “I can do what’s right. What’s needs to be done. And don’t go getting in the way if I do.” He saw how scared she looked. “Don’t worry, I’m not marching in there now. There’s another matter to be handled first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m fucking horny, Alexa, been about two weeks by my count and that’s far too long. I’ll see you later, when I’m ready.” Oddly, she loved the look of his snarling face, the fire in his eyes, the feeling that beneath his jeans his cock was hard, pulsing and ready for her. That he would leave her with that thought…knowing his erection would be between her legs very soon sparked something that had been missing these last weeks.

  Coming back to the present moment, she looked at him, reminded again of how he’d left things with her the last time they were together. “I thought we were done unless I—”

  He smiled, though it was hardly a wholesome smile. “I’m a master, and I can do any fucking thing I want with you, including change my mind.”

  He gave her sore finger a surprisingly tender kiss, then let it go and marched off.

  She stood stunned, gazing at his retreating figure, her head in a cloud of worry, her astonished heart anxious but heartened in the same instant. Her body was so alive with sexual hunger that she could hardly keep her hand from her crotch.

  ***

  She almost thought he wouldn’t come, and then he was on her so swiftly that she couldn’t catch her breath. Bo grabbed her out of the kitchen where she was finishing up the dinner dishes. Luke had taken her just the hour before, right over the kitchen counter, drilling her in a fuck so routine that she hardly even felt it. He’d left with her panties in his hand, and his juices leaking down her thigh. He told her not to wipe them up, so she let them dry on her skin.

  “So, you like getting nailed anytime the boy wants?” Bo asked, as if he knew she’d just had sex. They were halfway down the path to his cott
age.

  “Not really. Not anymore.”

  He replied with no more than a grunt, then shoved her into the cottage wall, yanked down the fancy skirt, ripped the sheer blouse away, and gazed at the lacy bra.

  “Take it off.”

  It was all that was left of her clothes but the high heels.

  She hesitated a moment.

  “Take it off!” he repeated.

  She immediately rushed to obey, reaching around to unhook the bra and discarding it in the pile of clothes.

  “Now push your tits to your lips and lick them for me,” he ordered.

  She looked a little dazed.

  “Your tits. I want to see you lick your tits.”

  He’d never asked her to do anything like this, and she felt strangely embarrassed.

  “Go on,” his tone had lightened some, but she saw from the look in his eye that this was no joke.

  She blushed, though he probably didn’t see it with his eyes so fixed on the center of her body, watching as she raised her breasts to her mouth and licked the smooth white flesh.

  In the light of the pale moon her body shone like a beautiful white bird pinned to the cottage wall. If Luke had gazed out one of the north-facing windows he couldn’t have helped but see her. She prayed that he did not. But Luke was hardly of much concern to her now. Bo’s huge energy seemed to sweep away every thought in her mind as he stared at her, naked and trembling before him.

  “Hands up against the wall,” he suddenly ordered, and she dropped her tits and raised her arms up high overhead until her back was arched, and the back of her hands touched the rough stucco.

  “Maybe I’ll leave you bound right here when I’m done with you, let him see you nailed to my wall, not his. God, I’d love to see his face.”

  He didn’t say another word. The forceful way he attacked her said all he needed to say. He pulled his cock from his jeans, made up the two steps between them so he was standing in front of her, close enough to kiss her lips – which he didn’t do. He kept that distance, making her aware of how the head of his erection tickled her bare, shaved pussy, ever so delicately, teasingly, until she began undulating before him, silently screaming for him to use her. She felt her old self come back to her, reminding her of the “I don’t fucking care what I do attitude” that had been so much a part of the wild girl she had been.

  “You want it, Lexy?”

  “Oh my yes, I want it.”

  “Then beg.”

  She spasmed deep and felt a spurt of pussy juice drizzling down her inner thigh. “Bo, please, fuck me,” she whispered quietly.

  “Say it out loud.”

  “Fuck me, Bo,” she said aloud with some emphasis.

  “Louder. Let him hear you up the hill.”

  “Fuck me, Bo, please!”

  “Let’s give it another shot.”

  She winced, worried that Luke would hear.

  “Do it! Let him know who owns you.” He was fed-up with her hesitation and by then so was she.

  “FUCK ME!” she finally yelled, letting her voice carry all the way to the house.

  Bo’s scowl turned into a devilish smile. “Yeah, bitch, that’s the slut I want to see.”

  And so he fucked her, fucked her hard and fast, thirty seconds tops, until he’d come inside her pussy in several exhilarating spasms. When he finally pulled out they were both sweaty and panting. Her back hurt from being banged against the stucco wall. She didn’t mind. He left her there, naked with a smile on her face, as peaceful as she’d been in a long while, at least until she recalled his earlier threat to take care of Luke if she didn’t.

  It’s gonna end, it’s gonna end now! came marching into her brain on the heels of the passing nirvana. Within seconds it was all she could think about as she remained pinned to the outside wall of Bo’s cottage with her hands raised and her pussy flooded.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Luke’s voice pulled her out of her stupor.

  She put her hands down and gathered up her clothes.

  “I asked you a question. Answer me.”

  “Bo just used me. That seems to be all I’m good for.”

  “He used you? As in fucked you right here?”

  “Maybe five minutes to go.”

  “Well, I’m stopping that right now. His privileges have been revoked.”

  Something broke inside her, all the pent-up anger and frustration poured out in a torrent of unbridled emotion. For the first time in a long while, she snapped. “Oh, for crissakes, Luke, when are you going to give it up? You’re tired of the game and so am I. It’s over and you know it. You don’t even want to be here. You think I don’t hear those late night calls with… hum, is it Ashley? Or Miranda? It certainly isn’t Brett. She’d have you by the balls. No, you’d need a girl who’s a little more compliant that Brett. You certainly don’t want me, and you don’t want this winery. You don’t even want to be here in California at this miserable relic of your past.”

  He looked back at her startled. “Have you fucking lost your mind, talking to me this way?”

  “No. Not at all,” she could feel herself coming back to her – yes the wild outrageous girl was back, tired of being fucked by a boy, when it was a man she wanted, and that man needed her to do this now. “It’s probably the first sane thing I’ve said since I got back here. In case you didn’t get my meaning, I just quit the job of being your sex slave, because you didn’t have the guts to end it yourself. I quit. It’s over.”

  He stared at her, as stunned as Alexa was that she’d actually opened her mouth and spit out the truth.

  She breathed deeply, realizing that so far, no lightning bolt had struck her down.

  Damn, Bo. Damn him, he was right about the whole six months. The only lightning bolt to strike that day was the honest truth spewing from her lips. There was only one thing left to say.

  “And don’t you dare tell me you’re going to call the cops. You won’t. I know that. I took care of you when your life dumped you here with your dad, and you hated it. I took care of you. I listened to you, played with you, held you when you cried and washed away your tears. That meant something then, and it means something now. I’m calling a halt to this silly charade. It’s never been right for you. Not the Luke I know, and that’s the one I’m speaking to now. We got caught up in a really twisted game—I’ll probably spend the next six years trying to sort that out – or not. But one thing for sure, the game’s over. Time to put it aside and walk away.” She was about to leave, then remembered, “Oh, and I expect the documents, every last piece of incriminating evidence on your desk by the time I’m back in the house and dressed. Go back to Boston, that’s where your life is, not here.”

  She left him standing on that dusty path while she marched back up to the house, went inside, and dressed.

  ***

  Alexa found Bo in the winery office, going through invoices. She was dressed in the clothes she’d worn the day she arrived in Bo’s old jalopy. In her arms was an envelope with the contents of the safe Luke had handed over.

  “It’s over,” she said, feeling strangely empty at that moment.

  “I know. I heard it all.”

  “What? Sometimes I think you’re a ghost hiding in every nook and cranny of this place.”

  He looked at her and smiled.

  “You’re sure he gave you everything?”

  She shrugged. “He’s not going to make trouble. I heard him packing. I’ve leaving him alone…let him save face.”

  Bo’s smile changed to a frown. He shook his head and stood up.

  “What? You got a problem with my doing exactly what you told me to do?” she asked.

  “No. I got a problem with that soft spot in your heart for him. Think of yourself for a moment, Alexa. You got to close the door on this…forever, no maybes about it. But you’re still placating him, playing the soft-hearted nanny. For all you’ve been through with the Tatums, you’re still so naïve! The boy’s not all right. Isn’t that
obvious? He has a darkness in his heart you want to deny now, as if your little speech – and by the way, it was a very good speech – as if that speech blew away all the twisted madness in him. But you can’t trust him. Yes, you got through to him. But we need to finish this off.”

  “And by that you mean what? I have the contents of the safe, all here. I saw him put the documents inside. There was nothing left.”

  “Except the back-up disks.”

  She gazed at him momentarily taken aback.

  “You think he didn’t make back-up disks? He was fully invested in this scheme of his. He may never use them. He may throw them away. But you don’t know that. And since we can’t be certain where they’ll end up, we need to collect those too.”

  “You want me to go back to him?”

  “No, you’ve done enough. I’ll take care of the rest myself.”

  “What you are going to do? How can you be sure you’ll get everything?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

  Alexa had never seen Bo quite like this. It was a different kind of fire in his eyes, and there was nothing sexual about it. She couldn’t quite explain to herself what she saw, but it was fierce and sure and steady. The ground seemed to shake beneath him – but that couldn’t possibly be. No, it was beyond what she could see with her eyes, something she felt deep within. She knew that Bo didn’t need to think of anything to extract what he needed from Luke. He already knew what he needed to say to the boy. He may never tell her what it was, but she was certain he would get all the assurance he needed from the departing Luke.

  Chapter Thirteen

  On any normal summer day, the sun would have been blazing through the open curtains at that hour, but the sky was dark, and the air thick, steamy in an unusual way. She took a deep whiff of morning air and realized it was about to rain.