I Need You Forever

by Cynthia P. O'Neill

  I turned on my laptop and began checking my email for replies back to some of the questions I had regarding some advertising options with various media outlets. I was happy to see almost everyone responded back, so I could now put a chart together and analyze which avenues might be best for us to pursue regarding the new items Dane had scouted out for the company.

  I also checked for the update on the timeline Ethan and Nate were working on for their latest software venture. I know they had to push things back a couple of times due to issues that arose with getting the software tested. I still didn’t have anything from them though, so I typed a reminder to them to give us at least a two week heads-up prior to them being done so that we could start formulating a marketing campaign for them and set up a meeting to review the various options.

  Next, I read over Titan’s reply to the interview requests we were getting in regard to their bodyguard services. They’d fought the idea of publicity, but that was the best way to help grow their business and let others know they were in town. We’d tried to convince them that several movie and sports stars lived in the area and others frequented for various venue options. They were always in need of bodyguard’s services, and the only way for them to be informed about their options was to finally be granted an interview with either Derrick’s dad or Dawn’s mom Sophia. I could tell it would be a battle to get them to bend on granting the interview. Maybe Mr. Prescott could persuade them to do it.

  I was deep in thought when Jax came to his door and asked aloud, “Can I see you in my office for a moment, Ms. Patrick? And please close the door behind you.”

  I looked up and saw a few coworkers’ heads pop up as well, a couple of them looking empathetically my way. I ran over what I’d done this morning and to whom I’d talked with on the phone – Marissa. Had I done something wrong?

  I was nervous as I got up from my desk and did as Jackson requested. He waited, perched at the front of his desk. As the door closed, he was on me in a heartbeat. His hands wrapped around my waist and neck drawing me into a dip and an all-consuming kiss as his tongue began foraging in my mouth.

  The heat instantly built in my stomach and started to expand throughout my body. How was he turning me on so fast?

  He tilted my head just a bit to give himself greater access to my mouth as he devoured me whole. Making me shiver with delight, his hand brushed against the underside of my breast. I had to put my hands against his chest and push for him to break the kiss. I was literally out of breath when he did.

  I guess I wasn’t the only one, as we both breathed in ragged breaths while our foreheads rested against one another. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but I couldn’t stand to be away from you for another moment.”

  He waited for me to speak, but I couldn’t find the words I wanted to say. My mind and my emotions were all confused. The only way I could respond was to nibble and lick his lower lip, which seemed to be the right answer because he pressed me against the wall and kissed me again.

  It was useless to refuse Jax. I knew he was a dominant, and I fell hard for his actions and tone. Despite my past, his dominance called to me. Causing my skirt to shift upward, he lifted one of my legs and wrapped it around his hip as his hand traced up my inner thigh to my apex and left a trail of fire in its wake. He teased the edges of my lace panties and was about to pull them aside, when his cell phone rang. It was a tone I’d recognized as Mr. Prescott’s.

  He stepped away to answer it, cursing under his breath, something about being blocked again. “Good afternoon, Alexander. What can I do for you?”

  Afternoon? I looked down at my watch and sure enough it was already 1 pm. Where had the day gone?

  I heard him mumble a couple of things, agree with whatever Mr. Prescott said, and then state, “We’ll be right up.”

  He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket before helping me straighten my clothes. “Alexander wants to see us in the conference room immediately.” His tone was matter of fact, not giving any hint as to why we were summoned to the top floor.

  He gave me a chaste kiss on the lips, “It’ll be all right, don’t worry. It’s nothing serious. Ready?” I nodded, so he opened the door while motioning for me to go first.

  As we passed Charlene’s desk, Jax told her, “Our presence has been requested by Mr. Prescott. I don’t know how long our meeting will be, but call Robin or I on our cells if you have anything pressing.”

  “Yes, sir and good luck to both of you.” She offered.

  I smiled at her but knew it wouldn’t be reflected in my eyes – I was too worried about why we had this sudden impromptu meeting.

  Why did I have the strange feeling that my life was starting to change?

  I WAS HOPING JACKSON would talk to me in the elevator and enlighten me about what he’d learned from Mr. Prescott, but he was quiet until he gave my hand a squeeze and told me to relax. But how could I?

  I rationalized it wasn’t about work, since we left all our reports and laptops downstairs. I started going over the different scenarios in my mind. Was it about my brother? Have they found him already? Had the fingerprints already come back on the note Declan had left? Was he in the area, or did he write it and send it by courier?

  There were several more questions rolling around in my mind, when I realized we were standing just inside the conference room. Jackson was right; I had a bad habit of zoning out on him.

  Mr. Prescott, Rick, a haggard Derrick, and one other guy I didn’t recognize were all inside waiting on us. Jackson closed the door behind us and, putting his hand on the small of my back, guided me to the end of the table where everyone was sitting.

  Taking me by surprise, Mr. Prescott got up and gave me a hug. I needed to know if I was in trouble, if I needed to pack my things and leave, or what the heck was going on. I couldn’t keep living on pins and needles. “Am I fired, Mr. Prescott? Are you being nice to break the bad news to me?” I asked with my voice wary.

  Everyone in the room laughed as he gave me a pat on the back and let me go. “By all means, Robin, call me Alexander. I think we’ve stepped beyond the need for formalities at this point. We’ve called you up here so we’re away from prying ears. We need to ask you a few questions, and we have some updates too.”

  I jumped at the notion that things were resolved. “I can go back to normal now? I can move out of Jackson’s place?”

  Derrick took in a deep breath and looked as beat as I felt. Did the man ever sleep? Had he been up all night? He held his hand up and halted my train of thought. “I wish we worked that fast, but you’ll be staying at Jackson’s for the unforeseeable future.”

  I was going to question them, when Alexander spoke up. “The team has made some progress, but they need your clarification on a couple of things.” He looked over to Rick, “You want to take this?”

  Rick slid a file over my way. “The papers found in there show that the ink used to write the note Declan left was almost a week old. We were able to find Declan Meyer’s fingerprints in our data system because he’d been picked up for a DUI when he was younger; however, his prints didn’t match up with those found on the paper. Actually, there were two sets of prints found on the note, and we’ve got them both running through our system as we speak. It may take a while, but if they’ve had a criminal record, we’ll find out who they belong to. It’ll take a little longer this way, but we’re not going to stop until we know who all we’re dealing with.”

  Derrick spoke up and motioned toward his father. “I think you remember meeting my father Tony Caldwell. He has some questions for you.”

  We both nodded in greeting. I hadn’t recognized him at first. He looked a little older and a little worse for wear. Stress must be something terrible in the security business.

  Jackson got up and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Tony.”

  Mr. Caldwell shook his hand and nodded my direction. “I wish our meeting was to discuss how we can get Titan’s name out there s
ince we’re new to the area, but we have a more pressing matter at hand that needs resolving quickly. I don’t like hearing of anyone threatened, especially not Robin. She’s been a great asset in trying to get our guys to bend and deal with some new media options.”

  I felt the blush travel up my neck to my face. I never was one to take compliments very well. “Thank you, sir.”

  He waved his hand in the air and shook his head. “By all means, call me Tony.” He looked over to Derrick and prodded him with his elbow to wake him up. “Son, you need to get your ass home and grab some sleep. You’re not going to be good to anyone if you can’t even stay awake for a meeting. Why don’t you talk first, and then I’ll call the car around to take you home.”

  Derrick grumbled up a storm but finally relented when both Alexander and Rick also chimed in to the like. “Fine.” He looked over at me with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry for being so grumpy, Robin, but the file you gave me was loaded with such great research that I stayed up all night trying to piece together some possible scenarios.”

  “And?” I was on edge with the possibilities.

  “We’ve discovered there are some legit Devlin Ridge Construction sites around the country. There’ve been no complaints from any of them short of the rare accident, one of which was only a broken bone caused by the worker’s drunken stupidity while on the job.”

  Tony piped in. “You’re rambling on. Get to the point.”

  Derrick nodded but didn’t appreciate his dad’s scolding. “The only construction site to have any issues has been the Orlando area one. There have been some anonymous complaints to the Better Business Bureau of illegal practices, coercion on behalf of management to cut corners, suspicious activity, and inferior equipment. We don’t know how that plays into your father’s health, but we’re looking into it.”

  He yawned a bit and took a long gulp of coffee before he went on. My heart reached out to him to see how dedicated he was to his job. The fact that he did all this on my behalf, when it could have waited, spoke volumes of how he got his position as head of Prescott’s security.

  “I had one of our team call in a favor asking about the supposed loophole that allowed your father’s dismissal at work. Big surprise, no such thing exists. We discovered that one of the directors for the area received a large transfer of funds into his account prior to your father being dismissed. But it gets better - we also exposed a similar issue with the person handling the claims at the insurance company. They, too, received a mysterious deposit in their bank account.” Poor Derrick yawned again.

  Tony took over. “We have Sophia trying to trace where the money came from and who the account is registered to. We’re hoping it’s not a dummy offshore account set up in a foreign country. If it is, we’ll have to dig a little deeper.”

  I was feeling confused and grabbed hold of Jackson’s hand. Alexander and everyone seemed to take note, so I tried to pull my hand back, but Jackson just gave it a squeeze, asking, “Can you put this all in simple terms to us? I’m not sure either of us follows.”

  Tony leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. “Basically, anyone wanting to hide money can set up accounts in multiple countries around the world. You don’t even have to go there; everything can be done electronically and over the phone these days. If you want to hide things, you can bounce around the money as easily as others bounce signals off of different satellites and cell towers to screw up the location of a call. In short, you can’t pinpoint the origin.”

  I spoke up wondering, “So you might never find where the money came from that was used,” I put my hands in the air and made quote signs, “to ‘pay off’ these people?”

  Tony sighed and nodded. “That is a possibility, but Sophia is the best at breaking through computer roadblocks where others fail. If there’s a way to find it, she will.”

  His answer caused me to question the safety of things. “Won’t someone see that we’re snooping into all this?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance. Sophia has broken into more backdoors of computers than I care to count. She’s undetectable. There’s not a firewall, actually scratch that, the only firewall she can’t penetrate is the one here at Prescott International. Not surprisingly, she’s the one who helped Ethan design it to the point it’s tighter than Fort Knox.”

  He went on to add, “We’re not going to the companies or the people themselves to acquire any information. We have contacts with eyes and ears all over the place. Any information we get will not be known by anyone; it’s being done in a stealthy manner to protect you and your brother.”

  I shivered in my seat at the mention of my brother’s name. “Speaking of Jonas, is there any word on his location? Have you been able to get a message to him?”

  Rick took this one. “Negative. We feared he might be in the middle of a military operation, and he is. Any attempt to contact him will blow his cover and endanger not only him, but the lives of the men he’s leading on this assignment. We’ve got someone on the inside tracking his progress. As soon as it’s safe to contact him, we’ll let him know what’s going on.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that my brother was still alive. I’d hoped that the news would be better, but I also understood my brother loved his country and would do anything to protect it. I didn’t want to risk him or anyone else with all this. I could wait for him to return.

  Jackson squeezed my hand and asked. “You said you had some questions, Tony?”

  Tony opened up a folder in front of him. “We ran into a few road blocks in our research and were wondering if you could help us fill in the gaps, Robin.”

  “Sure. What did you need?”

  He started reading off the list. “Can you think of anyone in Declan’s family who hated you or would want to have you out of the way?”

  I shook my head. “No. I never met any of them. He never introduced me to anyone.”

  “Was there anyone that your father might have angered or ticked off with his work ethics?” Tony asked.

  “I know he had to let a couple of employees go for always showing up stoned or drunk. They’d threatened to get him back and make him pay for supposedly ruining their lives. But they were endangering everyone on the construction site by being incoherent.” I admitted.

  “Do you happen to remember their names?”

  I shook my head. “I know they were let go during November the year before last, right before my dad started showing signs of illness.”

  I watched as he wrote some notes on the paper in front of him. “We can have our guys look into this. They should be able to locate the names and cross-check them with anyone filing for unemployment at the time.”

  “I hate to ask this, but was there anyone you were seeing besides Declan, anyone at the club he took you to that might have been jealous of your relationship?”

  Jackson pounded his free fist on the table at the same time Alexander spoke up. “Hold it right there, Tony. You’re pushing the boundary on what I deem acceptable to ask Robin.”

  Mr. Prescott was fuming and Jackson was ready to go over the table at Tony. He held up his hands in surrender. “I agree, but I have to work all the angles. I’ve heard of people becoming enamored with submissives they’ve seen at the clubs. They get jealous of their Doms and do anything and everything to destroy their lives so the submissive will seek refuge in their arms. I know it sucks, but it’s not unheard of in the less managed club scene.”

  Taking in the information, Alexander seemed to calm a bit. “We’ve never experienced any of that in our club. Although, I guess it could happen if we didn’t run such a tight ship at The Shanty.”

  Everyone was watching and waiting for me to respond to that. Feeling my heart was beating in my throat, I swallowed hard. “I only went to the club with Declan. He’d started out kind and caring and stuck to the private rooms to introduce me to various aspects of the club. As time progressed and I learned my place at his side, the rules began to change an
d so did his temperament.

  “I couldn’t seem to please him no matter what I did. He’d often accuse me of looking at him when I was given orders to keep my eyes averted, and of watching other Doms, inviting him to a challenge. As punishment, he forced me to do some public scenes with him. I understood it was his way of showing everyone how he wielded power over me. At least he granted me a blindfold so that I wouldn’t have to see the leers of other Doms and subs watching us, but that was it.”

  I felt embarrassed beyond belief talking to everyone, but I knew every man in this room had, at one point or another, been a Dom and might still be. So it wasn’t something they hadn’t dealt with.

  “Is there anything else you can think of? Did anyone try to hang around you after those scenes?” Tony questioned.

  I started to shake my head, but then remembered. “No one hung around, but there were a few times when we used a private room, prior to the humiliation, where he wanted to rob me of most of my senses so I’d experience more. He’d put me into a suspension swing, blindfold me, and put headphones on me so I could only hear music; however, a few minutes into things, well, I had a feeling that someone entered the room because Declan’s hands were on me the whole time, yet I felt the door open and a breeze cross over me.

  “I’d tensed, but felt his reassuring touch to calm down and relax. I felt an extra set of hands caress me. It scared me at first, but Declan only allowed a few touches and then the person was gone without ever doing anything more than massaging my shoulders. This happened on a few occasions, and I was asked if I enjoyed the added sensation. When I told him no, he said he wouldn’t invite anyone else in again. ”

  I took in a deep breath and shook.

  Jackson’s hand squeezed mine. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just recalled the last time we’d tried the sensory deprivation. It was supposed to be just us – he’d even locked the door – but I remember hearing some grunts come through the music and sensing some kind of movement going on in the room, along with another wisp of air travel over me as if the door opened. His smell alerted me that he was close by, but his hands seemed more aggressive. I was scared and panicked, but he’d gagged me again so that I wasn’t in a position to yell out or say anything. I guess he knew I was questioning things, so he removed the blindfold, and I relaxed when I saw it was still him.”