by Alana Davis
Alex was cooking steaks in a cast-iron skillet. The smell of onions and mushrooms that he sauteed with the steak filled my mouth with saliva. I reached in the skillet and picked out a mushroom and Alex slapped my hand playfully, feigning a frown as he did so.
“Hold your horses there young lady, we’re almost ready!”
I sat down at the dining table and a bottle of red wine was opened with two empty glasses next to it. I poured myself a large glass and then I poured Alex a glass as well. I took a sip and the wine tasted good. Really good. I leaned back in the hard wooden chair and looked around the cabin.
There was a large throw rug that covered much of the floor around the fireplace and couch. It looked old. Everything in the cabin looked old, but not a tired kind of old, but a nostalgic, loved kind of old.
The dining table was made of a carved wood that I couldn’t identify, but it looked gorgeous when I studied it closely. The kitchen was very basic, but Alex seemed to make it work. There was only a stove with a few burners on top, and the fridge with rusted hinges.
I loved it here. I never wanted to leave.
On the walls there were photos hung in frames, and for the first time I saw an adult Alexander Strauss with his mother. There was even a full family portrait and Maximillian Strauss was smiling as he had an arm around his son.
Alex put a metal plate in front of me with a rare steak that was covered with onions and mushrooms. He sat down next to me, a plate of his own before him. He raised a wine glass to me and drank heartily.
“To you, Samantha,” he toasted.
I blushed and toasted, suppressing a smile but doing a terrible job of it.
Alex dug into his meal like a savage. I had a flashback to Emily eating her cheeseburger on the day that I first met Alexander Strauss. I made another mental note to thank Emily for everything, and in spite of all the turmoil of the past few days, I was thankful for everything.
I ate my steak, savoring every bite. Sometimes, I found myself feeling guilty about eating meat. I had always flirted with vegetarianism, and during college I went vegan for six months, until Thanksgiving came around and broke my will. But this steak brought with it no guilt. I ate like it was the first meal that I had eaten in a week and every bite I chewed with ravenous enjoyment.
I washed down bites of succulent steak with gulps of fine red wine. All of a sudden Alex popped out of his chair, startling me, and ran over to the oven. He bent down and when he turned around, he was holding a loaf of bread underneath a towel that shielded his hand from the heat. He put the bread down in the middle of the table and we attacked it like animals, laughing as we did so.
“Oh my god, wonderful, delicious carbs,” I said through a mouthful of warm, freshly baked bread. It needed no butter and it melted in my mouth.
I looked over to Alex, food stuffed in my mouth like a chipmunk, and when I realized how I must have looked I felt a wave of embarrassment, until I saw Alex. He had double the amount of food on his mouth and he was reaching for more bread. When I looked at him, he stopped like he had been caught in the middle of a criminal act and looked at me, raising his eyebrows. We both laughed mutedly, our mouths full of the food.
After the meal, we pushed away our plates, both so full that the mere sight of the empty plate was offensive to our stomachs. I finished my second glass of wine and Alex poured himself another glass of wine as well.
“I think I won’t need to eat for days after that meal,” I said. “I think I’m ready to hibernate for the winter.”
“That sounds perfect to me,” Alex replied.
I rubbed my hand across his cheek and felt a wave of affection towards him. Or maybe it was something more than simple affection or even attraction. I pushed the thought out of my mind quickly, not wanting to address my feelings just yet.
“Alex, I’m still really confused about everything that’s happened,” I said. “How did you even find me?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Alex said.
“After you were threatened, I started to contact a private security firm that I trust. I wanted to make sure that there were no loose ends and that we would be as safe as possible. Obviously, our foes struck much faster than I had anticipated, but the security team did prove to be invaluable. Please forgive me, Samantha, but the first step I took was to place a tracking unit in one of your shoes.”
“You put a tracking unit in my shoe? Why?” I asked.
“It was only to be used as a last resort, please trust me on that. I wanted to make sure that if you went missing or if something happened to you, I would be able to retrace the steps that you had taken. It was only to be used in the case of an emergency. I was not having you tracked for any other purpose.
“The police contacted me within a half hour of your abduction. Apparently, even though they had hit Gary in the head with a pipe, he was still somewhat conscious. He kept repeating my name when the cops arrived. At first, they thought that I had been the one who had struck him.
“I arrived at the scene and Gary was being taken to the hospital. I immediately called my security firm and had your GPS unit tracked. I considered telling the police, but then I decided against it. If the police got involved, who knows where you’d be right now,” Alex said. “Or if you’d still be alive.” His face turned ashen. “I had to handle it myself.”
“I went to the hospital to get as much information as possible from Gary while the security firm tracked your location. They told me your GPS unit had stopped moving and the security firm found your shoes ditched on the side of the road. Those men who captured you were professionals, they must have scanned you and discovered the GPS unit.”
“But Alex, they took my clothes later and said it was a security precaution. Why would they have done that if they already found the GPS on me?”
“They probably wanted to make sure nothing slipped by them,” Alex said angrily.
“Gary told me everything that had happened. That man is a tank, he took a pipe to the face and he still managed to take out three men. When he found out I was going to come get you, he had to be restrained by two doctors and three nurses because he wanted to come along. I had to promise to come back for him before I came to rescue you. The man is loyal,” Alex said, a smile forming on his lips.
“We traced the GPS unit to a road that was a hundred miles or so out of the city. It must have taken them a while to find the unit or they had been too busy trying to get out of the city, but we used the location to start creating maps of possible areas they were keeping you in. The security firm concluded that they were not going to kill you, at least initially, and I had to agree. So in the meantime, we had to wait for the kidnappers to make contact.
“I hired several teams to scout areas in a twenty mile radius. Fortunately, you were being held just thirty miles outside of where the unit had been dropped. While that was outside our search radius, it meant that a team was relatively close to where you were.” Alex paused while he got up and poured me another glass of wine.
“Waiting was torturous. I had every phone of mine bugged and attached to the security firm’s computer network to triangulate your position. When they finally called, I had to keep them on the line for quite a while. And even still, they had some kind of firewall or encryption device that made it so triangulating them was nearly impossible.”
“Why did you tell the kidnappers that you didn’t care about me?” I asked. All my anger about it was gone and replaced with simple curiosity.
“I had to stall them. Every word was dragged out. I didn’t want to reveal too much or show the least bit of anxiety in my voice. I had to make them think I really didn’t care about you. I wanted to confuse them, make them doubt their decision. If they knew how much I cared, it might have been dangerous for you. They might have moved you or hurt you over the phone to try to persuade me more. I had to play it cool,” Alex said. He placed a hand over mine. “Also, I was angry. I wanted them to feel like fools. There was no other way I could
have made them regret their decision than to make them think they had gone to all the trouble and risk of kidnapping you for nothing. I’m sorry that you had to hear that Samantha, I really am, but even if I knew that you were going to hear it, I would have had to make the same decision.”
“I understand, Alex.” I said, meaning it.
“The call lasted long enough to triangulate their position within a mile radius. A team was on it and they found what they believed to be a building that could be housing you. I told them that I was going to lead the rescue mission, to which the security team refused.”
“How did you convince them?”
“I told them I’d either lead the rescue mission or I would find another security firm that I would do business with in the future. They gave in pretty quickly. Strauss Engines is their primary income.
“I had to lead the rescue mission. I had to know you were safe, first-hand. If anything happened to you, Samantha, I would have been devastated,” Alex looked at me and his eyes were the brightest blue that I had ever seen.
“I love you, Samantha. I can’t lose you.”
I was speechless. I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to grab him and squeeze him until he had to throw me off to save his life. I could feel tears of joy forming in my eyes and I let them fall down my cheeks. My heart was beating in my chest audibly through the room and I looked at the man of my dreams come to life. Alexander Strauss loved me.
“I love you, Alex.”
Alex grabbed me and kissed me gently. I felt his tongue move around mine and slowly, we kissed for days. His arms wrapped around my waist and he lifted me up from my chair. We never broke the kiss. He laid me down on the couch. The fire burned in front of us.
We tore clothes from each other as though they were burning our skin. Alex’s hands ran over my breasts and I pushed my hips against his groin. He lifted me up and with one hand tore his pants off. His pants were thrown across the room and caught one of the chairs we were just sitting in.
I was naked, held up by Alex and lowered down on his hard cock. Slowly, every inch of him slid into me. He pushed into me deeper than I had ever had anybody in, and I moved my hips around him, keeping every inch in as deep as I could. He kissed me like my mouth was the life saving water from an oasis and he was a dying man in the desert.
Then he moved me up and down, rapidly, pushing deeper and deeper into me. He pushed his hips up and I felt him thrust even deeper than I thought possible. I cried out in pleasure and pushed my face into his neck, breathing him in. I sucked on his neck and his hands gripped my ass tightly as he thrust in and out of me.
We made love. Our words came to life as our bodies met.
We slowed. I bit down on his lower lip gently and an orgasm began to rise in me. I straightened up and Alex pushed his face against my chest, kissing just above my breast where my heart now beat only for him. I came. I cried out his name at the top of his lungs and told him I loved him. His face was pressed against my chest and I felt his cock stiffen inside of me. He was about to come.
“Come inside me,” I whispered in his ear as I felt his entire cock push into my pussy. Then his cock violently shook and began to fill me with his seed. He let out a moan and his eyes shut against his will. I sucked on his right nipple as he came inside me. I moved up and down now, slowly as it was so big inside me that it was stretching me raw, and Alex gripped my head in his hands, rubbing my hair as his body rocked with orgasm.
We were both satisfied and I rolled over with Alex’s cock still deep inside me. He kissed the side of my face and rubbed my chest with his hands, savoring every inch of my skin.
“You are everything I could want in a woman,” Alex whispered into my ear.
I moved my hips slightly and felt his cock slide out of me slightly. He let out a little moan and pushed back in. I could feel his cock growing soft, but very slowly. I reached down and gently pulled him out of me and held his cock in my hand, caressing it, loving it.
We laid next to each other and kissed again. Our tongues moved in and out of each other’s mouths and I breathed in heavily. This was my dream come true.
I laid in Alex’s arms, my hand still rubbing his cock, now soft. I kissed his chest and rubbed my head against him. I closed my eyes and Alex kissed the top of my head.
“I’m in love with you,” Alex said. I looked up at him and his eyes were so warm that I felt that the fire could go out and we could have basked in their warmth in its absence. I kissed his perfect lips and rested my head back on his chest.
We laid there for a while, holding each other. I could have laid there forever.
Chapter Twenty-one
A phone rang. Alex sat up abruptly.
“My phone is off,” he said flatly. A look of worry was spreading across his face. I was growing alarmed.
The phone continued to ring. Alex gently moved me off him and stood up. I marveled at his physique, and despite the panic of the phone ringing, I grabbed his leg and pulled him closer to me. He looked down at me and I kissed his cock, giving it a lick around the head. I saw it stir a bit and it began to get hard again.
The phone ringing seemed to grow louder. Alex gently cupped the side of my face and then turned to find the phone.
He stopped along a wall and I watched him pick a cellphone off a counter there. The phone had been sitting next to a photo of Alex’s mother.
“It says it’s a private number,” Alex said.
He looked at the phone for a moment and then answered it with a simple hello. His face remained stoic as he listened intently. Two tense minutes passed and I was now sitting up, worried. My lust was replaced with a growing sense of panic. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Alex hung up the phone. Then, to my surprise, he threw the phone down to the ground and brought down his foot on the phone, smashing it into a thousand pieces. His face remained unmoved. He looked at me and said one word.
“Henderson.”
Chapter Twenty-two
“Henderson,” Alex repeated, his voice growing with anger.
I was speechless. A flood of emotion swept over me, but I couldn’t discern one from another. It was only a few moments ago that I was laying in Alex’s arms, breathing in the scent of his skin and relishing the faint echoes of the sex we’d just had.
“I’ve been ousted from the board,” Alex said flatly. He looked down at the shattered cell phone in disgust.
“But...they can’t do that. You’re the CEO,” I exclaimed.
“Yes, they can. If the board votes a two-thirds majority to oust the CEO, whatever his last name is, he’s out. Henderson just called to tell me the ‘bad news, my dear old friend,’” Alex said, making his voice sound eerily like Henderson’s. I immediately felt a wave of revulsion towards the thought of Henderson and I hoped that Alex would never imitate the man’s voice again.
Professional harlot. The words rang out in my head. Then I thought of the voice over the intercom calling me a harlot. It was no coincidence.
“Alex, Henderson was behind my kidnapping,” I said.
“How do you know?” asked Alex. He was dressing himself quickly now. I stood up from the couch and began to dress myself as well.
“When I was in that prison cell, there was a voice that would come over the loudspeaker. It was the same voice that you had talked to on the phone. But it had called me a harlot, just like Henderson had when he confronted me after the board meeting. Alex, nobody uses the word ‘harlot’, anymore. If the voice had called me a whore or a slut, I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but it specifically used Henderson’s word. Whether it was actually Henderson talking over the loudspeaker that time or not, the intention of the word was clear. He wanted me to know that he was behind it.”
Alex paused for a long while. His voice looked like a storm of thoughts were going on in his mind. He was calculating. When he looked up at me, there was electricity in his eyes.
“Are you one hundred percent positive? I will only ask
you once, just to extinguish any last shred of doubt about all of this.”
“Yes, I’m positive. The voice called me a harlot. I believe it in my bones that it was Henderson.”
“I should have treated your warnings about him much more seriously. It seems that I’ve grossly misjudged his intentions and just what that man is capable of,” Alex said.
“Even I didn’t suspect that he wanted to cause me physical harm or put me in a prison cell. I just had a bad feeling about him, but what are we going to do now?”
“A simple word that you heard him speak isn’t enough proof for the board or for the police. Although we’re past the point of being able to go to the police. What we need is cold, hard proof that Henderson is behind all of this. We’re leaving immediately. I’m not going to allow my father’s company to be taken over by that scoundrel of a man.”
“Alex, it’s not your father’s company anymore. It’s your company.”
Alex nodded his head slowly and looked at me. “I have to take it back. We need to be quick. Henderson is already a few steps ahead of us.”
Alex moved like a tornado through the cabin, snatching up articles of clothing and cleaning up. I helped him clean and for a moment it seemed ridiculous that we were doing dishes when Alex had been betrayed and backstabbed by his oldest family friend. Then I realized that nobody else was coming to the cabin. We were the only two people who knew of its existence. Except now three people knew about the cabin. Henderson had known that we were going to come here.
We finished washing the dishes and Alex extinguished the fire. As he walked away from the fireplace, he stopped and looked at the photograph of his mother as a young woman. He picked up the frame and held it in his hand. The moment was over as quickly as it had happened. He put the frame down and motioned towards the door.
“Henderson obviously knows about this place, so that means we’re definitely not safe here. I believe you that he kidnapped you. I intend to find out exactly why. It’s obviously connected with the takeover, but if we can figure out why, then we’ll know exactly what’s happened.”