Three and a Half Weeks

by Lulu Astor

  “Threatened?” she thunders. “In what manner?”

  “Just forget it. How about I order take-out and we watch a movie together? I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”

  “Ella, what the hell is going on? I need to know.”

  I’m exhausted by it all myself. I relay to Mariah the facts as I know them, finishing with Ian’s trip to New York.

  “How long is this threat going to continue? I mean, this crazy bitch can hold it over you for years, can’t she?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I’m hopeful that Ian and Daniel will figure out a way to stop it somehow. I’m not sure I want to even know how.”

  “Who’s Daniel?”

  Now I grin. “Oh, how I wish you could meet Daniel. He is a new friend of Ian’s and words are not fit to describe him: you have to see him to believe him.”

  “Is he single?”

  “’Fraid not, Mariah. But he’s still worth a gander, trust me. When he and Ian are in a room together, a girl doesn’t know where to put her eyes. It’s the kind of dilemma that’s the stuff of dreams—wet dreams, of course.” I laugh.

  “Mmm, why are all the best ones taken?”

  “Ah, the single girl’s lament. I know it well.”

  “Oh, shut up, Ella. Look at the one you snagged. When does he get back anyway?”

  I frown when I think about his open-ended itinerary. “I don’t know—I don’t think he knows either. I desperately want to join him but he says I’m better off here.”

  Seeing me start to sink miserably into the couch, Mariah slaps my hand. “In that case, let’s get rip-roaring drunk and watch a comedy. How about the Marx Brothers?”

  Mustering a grin, I nod my head in agreement. “Let’s do it.”

  We fill a large crystal pitcher with piña coladas—heavy on the dark rum—with pineapple chunks and coconut milk that I found in the pantry. I find a movie in Ian’s library—he has a whole set of Marx Bros. films—and we hunker down to cheer ourselves up. During the middle of the movie, Mason comes into the room. “Ms. Strong, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”

  “Sure, Mason,” I answer, as I hit the pause button on the television and hop up off the couch. Luckily, I stopped at my second drink so while I’m buzzed, I’m still in complete control. “What’s up?” I ask when we get into the hall.

  “Mr. Blackmon asked me to inform you that the threat against you has been escalated. Apparently the woman involved asked Lucien Phillips to kidnap you and when he refused to cooperate, she informed him she’d enlist the Lithuanians. Mr. Blackmon said you’d understand. He’s very concerned about your wellbeing and he wants you to appreciate the level of threat against you right now. Trust me, Ms. Strong, you don’t want to mess around with the Russian mob.”

  “The what?” I ask, my voice reaching into the octave of an insect drone.

  Mason’s face goes bloodless: I’ve never seen anyone so pale before, as if he’s been exsanguinated.

  “I see,” I say. “You assumed I knew and now realize I did not. Okay, Mason, I won’t let on but Ian should have told me. I know he didn’t because he doesn’t want me to worry but I need to know these things, especially when I’m so directly involved.”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “Is he safe, Mason? In your professional estimation?”

  “I just don’t know, Ms. Strong, but I wish I were with him in New York right about now.”

  “That makes two of us.” I glumly rejoin Mariah but my enjoyment of Duck Soup has been severely compromised.

  Mariah leaves at nine and I settle in for the night. I’m lying in bed, trying hard not to cry because I miss Ian so stupidly much, so I instead focus on the night before last. I’ve noticed that when Ian gets stressed out, his dominance emerges big time. That night, he’d come home from work in a stressed-out mood and an hour later asked me to go into the dungeon with him. Fact is, he hasn’t asked me to go in there since the bad, terrible, awful time when he whipped me with a single tail and I left the damn country in response. Naturally, I was on full alert and my heart was pounding so hard it was battering my chest wall, but I acquiesced, wanting to give him a good night because I was worried about his heart stewing in all that toxic soup triggered by stress.

  We’d just finished dinner and were enjoying a tumbler of Drambuie when he brought up the subject.

  “Come, Ella. I’d like to visit my dungeon with you. Are you game?”

  I just looked at him quizzically. Really? I said nothing.

  He smiled reassuringly. “You can ask any questions you like.”

  “About your weapons?”

  “About the implements, yes. I don’t consider them weapons, Ella, or I wouldn’t have them.”

  As he led me by the hand, we walked upstairs to the locked room, and he began a guided tour of his wee dungeon. I slowly circuited the space, saying nothing, but pointing out each implement, as he prefers to call them. Ian is the master of euphemisms, after all—he should probably work for the government. I gestured at one that intrigued me.

  “Riding crop.”

  I pointed to another.

  “Flogger.”

  Yet another.

  His voice dropped to a nearly inaudible decibel. “Single tail.”

  Just the name forced ice up my spine. I quickly moved on, fingering a pretty one: it was long and almost tortoise-shell in color.

  “That’s a cane, one of my favorites. She handles well.”

  I arched a brow at his gender characterization but said not a word, keeping my emotions close to the vest. I did, after all, learn from a master. I realized it’s the second time I’d characterized him as such in less than a minute. My master. In the very beginning, he instructed me to address him as such when in this room and I looked at him as if he’d shape-shifted into Mephisto—he is my own personal devil, isn’t he? I stopped at a chest and opened it, picking up a colorful rope-type of thing with black hooks on each end. What the hell?

  “That’s a bungee cord. It’s for suspension but it makes a good implement of punishment, so I’ve learned,” he said, chuckling. “But then again, so do rulers, large spoons, small pans, or the belt I have on. It’s always fun to improvise.”

  I peeked into his eyes and the heat I saw in them made everything inside me twist and turn. I’m sorry, but this man of mine is fucking hot.

  Aiming for strong and confident, the voice that projected from my throat was all breathy and feeble. Pathetic. “It all begs the question, why? Why, Ian? Why is it necessary?”

  Without breaking his intense gaze, he responded softly. “Before I met you, the answer would be to keep my sexual partners at an emotional remove.”

  “And now?”

  He didn’t look at me as he answered; instead, he ran his hand almost lovingly over a cane hanging on the wall. “Now I haven’t done it in some time… but I think I’d still enjoy doing it.” Then his eyes traveled to mine and he grinned wickedly. “With you. The moment I saw you, I wanted you in here, baby, naked and entirely at my mercy. I’d enjoy that very much, even now.”

  “Enjoy inflicting pain?”

  His face sobered. “I would think that by now you’d know me better than that, Ella. No, enjoy driving you crazy with sexual arousal. Watching your lovely pale skin flush with heat until it’s bright pink. Seeing you gasp from the heights of physical pleasure. My little version of Nirvana, my pretty Ella.”

  I accepted what he said as gospel but in my bones I knew he’d still like to be able to deliver some pain. Since we’ve reunited, there’s been a bit here and there but nothing with whips of any stripe—ugh, another pun. I’d have to think long and hard before I’d even open a dialogue with him about his using a whip on me again. Frankly, I doubt I’ll ever go down that road again… but one thing I’ve learned is that you should never say never.

  So I’d let him tie me down to a bench of a sort and use things on me: a flogger, some vibrating toys, and a blindfold. Now that I felt comfortable with h
im and knew he’d have reasonable limits to how far he’d go, I felt much more at ease with these things and could actually allow myself to enjoy the experience. When he finally removed the black satin blindfold from my eyes, I realized all over again how extraordinarily handsome a man he is. It seemed revelatory that night, as if I’d never quite seen him clearly before, really seen him. That’s when I understood that his sexual proclivities are part and parcel of who he is and I’d better learn to enjoy them, for his sake. Yes, I thought, I can do that.

  Thinking about the things we did is now making me want Ian all the more. I’ve grown accustomed to daily orgasms and he’s been gone a good sixteen hours. I close my eyes remembering how, after he tied my wrists and thighs down around the narrow bench, he used the flogger all over my body, sensitizing the skin to the point where I was ready to scream for him to touch me.

  But he didn’t, not right away. He teased me with feathers and chains, cold and hot, soft and hard, brushing each one ever so lightly over my skin. In addition to lying on my stomach, I wore a blindfold so I couldn’t see a thing, not a single thing. The music playing in the background had harps and violins and the staccato beat was unnerving in this environment— precisely why he chose it, I’m sure. When I was so relaxed that I felt boneless, well, that’s when he took out the clamps.

  My breasts were dangling from the bench. Standing, he straddled me, leaning on me lightly as he reached down and grasped them. I gasped at the contact of his warm hands and enjoyed him playing with my nips but when he started twisting and tugging, I whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’m just getting them ready for some jewelry. You like jewelry, don’t you, Ella?” he whispered into my ear, his warm breath sending fire right through my core.

  I nodded—I do like jewelry—though I yet whined internally at my sore nipples when I felt the bite of sharp metal teeth on one. “Eek!” I screamed.

  “Too tight?” he asked gently, but I heard laughter in his tone, as if he were enjoying my discomfort.

  “Yes, too tight,” I spat out the words in a torrent but he didn’t loosen it. He just waited, rubbing my back until the pain faded. Then he took up the other one. I realized it must be almost an art form to know just how tight to make the clamp: too tight and a person could be injured; too loose and there’s no point to using it. It must be adjusted to produce just enough erotic pain to contribute to the sum total. Ian knew exactly how to gauge it.

  What I was not expecting at all was the clit clamp. When he asked, “Ready for the next one?” and pinched me there, I tried to buck and evade his fingers but he’d tied me down too well—I could barely move an inch. He readied it the same way as my breasts and that, I’ll admit, was okay… fun even. Okay, it was fucking hot. But not when the clamp bit down. I squeeze my eyes shut even now as I recall the sharp sting.

  The real pain was yet to come, though, for I discovered taking off the clamps is when you get the most punch. Once he’d entered me, his rhythm pushed me all the way up, up, up, and I was about to come. That’s when he reached down between us and released the lower clamp. I even scared myself with the scream I produced when I climaxed: I’d never experienced an orgasm like that before. A few beats later, he removed the breast clamps, and I came again, right on top of the first one. When the rolling waves finally subsided enough for me to regain my hearing, I heard him laugh like Satan, and then he picked up a frenzied pace again until he couldn’t take any more and let loose. Afterward, we both just lay limp on the narrow little bench, his thighs on mine, resting on a small leather support on either side of the sawhorse.

  As he locked the room’s door and we headed back to his bedroom, he looked at me with heavy lidded eyes and I took note that he looked so much more relaxed now. “We need to visit that room more often, Ella, don’t you think?” His voice was smooth again, the hoarseness ironed out by sexual release. I felt a twinge of pride at accomplishing my mission.

  “Mmm, maybe so,” I replied truthfully, for I also felt good, as if I’d just received a massage instead of rough sex. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. I didn’t want to ever let him go.

  Finally, tonight, with a picture of Ian in my mind’s eye, in his blue jeans and white tee shirt, barefoot with disheveled hair, tucking me into bed, I fall asleep hugging my pillow and pretending it’s his warm and comforting body. That night I dream of New York, two men, and a blond woman with long, red nails that morph into talons before my very eyes.

  Chapter 43

  The door to Phillips’ loft is sitting ajar as the two men warily approach it. On the way up, they discussed the various options in front of them.

  “If they were all Russian, deportation would be a much more attractive path to pursue,” Ian pointed out. “With our collective clout, we could facilitate an expedited deportation order and have Natasha’s grandpa’s friends providing the welcome home. Live or die, they’d no longer be my problem.”

  Daniel nodded. “True, but the brothers are Lithuanian nationals, which complicates the situation. It’s also not an ideal solution for other reasons. Even if we succeed in expediting the process, it can still drag on for months—months that could allow them time to put back-up plans into place. Moreover, you can never be sure of their individual fates. For example, even if the Russian welcome wagon took out the men, would they necessarily eliminate the women as well? Natasha is your biggest problem, or so it appears right now.”

  Ian nodded. “I need more intel on the entire family before I commit to any course of action. I suppose we’ll see how today plays out. If the brothers engage us, to use your word, then we’ll see to them here and now, and worry about the others later.”

  Daniel had smirked and agreed wholeheartedly. “I’ve got your back, friend. Let’s do this.”

  About five feet away, Daniel extends his arm to halt Ian’s progress and they stand still while Daniel concentrates. Thirty seconds later, he opens his eyes, gives a curt nod, and lowers the barrier of his arm. They proceed further and step through the threshold of the apartment. Lucien is right there in the room, not ten feet away from them, waiting patiently for their arrival.

  “Hello, Lucifer,” Daniel says, smiling. “How goes it?”

  Lucien sneers when he catches sight of Daniel. Obviously he remembers him from his last visit. Ian stands adjacent, broadly grinning at his adversary and enjoying Daniel’s moniker for him.

  “So? Where are your henchman protectors, Phillips?”

  “They’re not here. They’re busy conspiring against you with your number-one female fan.”

  “Ah. I assume you mean the poisonous Natasha Yenin?”

  Lucien nods. “What do you want? I will caution you that it’s really not safe for you to be here. My henchman protectors, as you so quaintly label them, are dangerous men with little to lose—the very worst kind.”

  “Oh, I disagree,” Ian counters. “Everyone has something valuable to lose, regardless of what he tells himself.”

  Daniel, meantime, is pacing slowly throughout the room, arms behind his back. At a pause in the conversation, he glances up. “Is there anything you’d care to share with us, Lucifer?”

  Glaring at Daniel, Lucien spits out his words. “First, if you expect me to converse politely with you, you’ll stop calling me by that name.”

  Smiling, Daniel replies, “True, you’re way too much of a pussy to be equated with the prince of darkness… “ He cocks his head in a speculative stance. “Still, I like it on you.”

  Lucien scowls and mutters at Daniel. “Asshole.”

  Ian chimes in. “Now that’s funny… You see, we think you’re the asshole, Phillips, and we’d like the pleasure of never having to see your sniveling face again. But, alas, your friends keep getting in our faces so we’re here to lose them. Understand?”

  Without answering, Lucien sits on the couch, loosely gesturing to them to join him. Daniel complies but Ian remains standing.

  “Where are they now?” Ian prods.
>
  Lucien shrugs his shoulders. “No idea. I told Natasha to leave and she took them with her.”

  Daniel now interjects. “You told Natasha to leave? Why?”

  “She asked me to go after Ella. I refused and told her to get out.”

  “You’d better watch your back in that case, Phillips. Those brothers might be fond of you but blood is thicker than water.”

  Lucien smirks. “Thanks for your concern, Blackmon. Anything else?”

  “What did she ask you to do to Ella?” Daniel’s face is now devoid of humor.

  “She wanted me to grab Ella and hold her as a means to get to you, Blackmon. I think she planned to let her uncles have their way with her, as well.”

  Ian gets a sick look on his face at hearing that information. “Do they have anyone else working with them?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Lucien answers, “but I’m not privy to everything, either. I suggest you watch Ella carefully. If I hear anything else, I’ll inform you of it. Give me your cell number.”

  Hating to do it, Ian nonetheless pulls out his cell, scrolls through his phone book, and calls Lucien’s phone, unblocking his private number. The three men listen to the phone buzz twice before Ian disconnects. “Okay, you have my number. Is there any other information you can share with us? Anything at all?”

  “Nothing comes to mind.”

  Daniel stands. “Do the Lithuanians have any other family, other than Natasha’s mother?”

  Shaking his head, Lucien says, “I’ve never heard them speak of anyone. Then again, they’re not the forthcoming type either… but as far as I know, Natasha’s family is their only blood.”

  Daniel looks sharply at the blond man. “No children for either man?”

  Lucien flushes at the penetrating gaze Daniel is training on him. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Daniel continues to stare at Lucien for a long minute, green eyes blazing with light. Finally, he smiles and turns away. “Let’s go, Ian. Can’t wring blood out of a stone.” With his back to Lucien, he tosses a farewell over his shoulder, “Au revoir, Monsieur Phillips, j'espère que nous n'atteindrons pas encore,” in flawless French, taking Lucien by surprise.