Maurice handed Eli his coffee, steam rising from the cup. He gave me a glass of milk, a child’s drink. Why could no one remember that I was an adult now?
Eli sipped his coffee.
“My sentence is for life. If I get caught, what are they going to do? Execute me? I don’t think so. But every day we stay here, our risk increases. I just need to buy myself a little time.”
“A little time for what?”
“To find my wife.”
Maurice seemed taken aback. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and Maurice leaned back in his chair, studying Eli’s face.
“You think she’s alive?” he asked.
“I know it,” Eli answered. “I certainly didn’t kill her. And you as well as anyone should know what Patricia is capable of. It all makes perfect sense, a twisted way. She stole my money and staged her own death. She gets her revenge, not to mention my riches.”
Maurice pondered this as he watched the steam rise from the coffee in his hands.
“Not dead, you say,” he muttered. “That’s a lot to take in. But …”
“But what, Maurice?” I nearly shouted.
“The lake house,” he said finally. “Yes, the lake house. The last time I paid the electricity bill out there—before you had to let me go, of course—the bill was quite a bit higher than I was expecting. It surprised me because nobody was supposed to be out there at that time of year. But sure enough, that place was occupied. Do you think it might have been Ms. Patricia?”
“Damn it,” Eli muttered. “Maurice, why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“You was already in jail when I saw the bill. I told your lawyer, though. Made copies for him and everything.”
“That lazy, no-account son of a bitch,” Eli said, his fist slamming against the table. “He never said a word about it to me.”
“He must have had a lot on his mind,” Maurice offered.
“Yeah. So did I. Let’s go, Avery.”
Eli moved to stand up from the table, but I remained in my seat.
“Surely you don’t think she’s still out there, do you?” I asked.
“Can you think of a better place for her to hide? While the dust settles?”
“Sure. How about Peru? Swaziland? Why not Switzerland? If Mama really has all your money, she can afford to go anywhere in the world.”
“It’s not that easy to disappear, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Eli said. “The lake house makes perfect sense. We own the entire lake, so you wouldn’t have to worry about any visitors. The property is held in a trust for tax purposes, so it’s not in my name. The authorities probably didn’t even know to search there.
“Seriously, the lake house is the ideal hideaway. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me until now. Even if no one pays the bills and the main power is shut off, the backup generators would run for at least a year or two. And if you don’t mind eating a lot of canned goods, there’s a fully equipped bomb shelter in the basement. You could survive a nuclear holocaust down there.”
Maurice and I exchanged skeptical glances. Eli shrugged.
“Hey, it was the Cold War. It was a different time. And my grandpa, well, he was one paranoid rich man.”
“That he was,” Maurice said.
5.
Eli and I left the green sedan in Maurice’s garage. We borrowed Maurice’s black SUV—a gift from Eli to celebrate the butler’s sixtieth birthday, as a matter of fact—and we drove back through town on our way to the lake house.
“If this lake house is so great,” I asked, “why am I just now hearing about it? Did it never occur to you that your own daughter might like to spend a weekend at our private lake every once in a while?”
“That’s a long story, sport,” Eli said.
He was wearing a pair of Maurice’s oversized sunglasses and one of the T-shirts that I had bought for him. The shirt was on the snug side, I couldn’t help but notice. Eli rubbed the scruff on his chin. It was growing thicker than I had ever seen, nearly the length of a respectable beard.
“Have you ever seen me swim?” he asked.
“You own a swimming pool. Two swimming pools that I know of, to be precise.”
“Yeah, but have you seen me dip so much as a toe into either of them?”
I thought about this. To my surprise, I could not conjure a single memory of Eli swimming in his own luxurious pools.
“But,” I replied, “I did see you swim that river two nights ago.”
Eli grinned and nodded. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
Eli grew silent for a while. The SUV turned onto a narrow road winding into the steep hill country west of town.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said, his voice barely audible. “The memory haunts me to this day. That lake may look placid on the surface, but it’s deceptive. The undertow. My mother …”
Eli was quiet again. I lay my hand on his arm.
“I couldn’t save her,” he finally said.
Behind his dark sunglasses I could not see Eli’s eyes, but tears were welling up in the corners of my own. This partial revelation had explained so much. We drove not saying a word. I tried to be there for him, to show him I cared, but I could tell he did not wish to tell me more. Maybe later.
We entered a tunnel through one of the mountains and the radio stopped working, which made me even more painfully aware of the long gap in our conversation.
Eli turned onto an even steeper and more winding road. We drove to the top of a mountain all covered with green trees. The road kept going on the other side of the mountain, winding down into a valley. Around a particularly sharp curve, the road came to a dead end. Eli stopped the SUV in front of an elaborate wrought-iron gate that reminded me of the main entrance to the Rutherford estate back in Shiloh.
“Home away from home,” Eli muttered. Then he put the SUV in drive and mashed the gas. We rammed the gate, hard, metal scraping metal. The gate was bent but not broken. Eli backed up several feet, then rammed it even harder. The gate burst loose, swinging wildly from its hinges. Eli never even slowed down.
“Jesus,” I said. “A little warning would be nice.”
“Consider yourself warned,” Eli said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Maurice is going to be so ticked at you. And I am NOT taking the blame for this one.”
Eli turned to me and grinned. “One-oh-three Chestnut Avenue.”
“Let me guess. Maurice’s address?”
“Maurice’s address.”
So Eli was planning to pay back Maurice, too. I admired Eli’s intentions, but they seemed a bit on the optimistic side. If we got caught, he would never be able to repay Maurice and the other innocent bystanders we had “borrowed” from.
We drove for what felt like a long time, then crested another hill, and then I saw the lake. Its crystal-blue water filled the deep valley below, lapping the base of a series of dramatic rocky cliffs. Mountains ringed the lake on all sides. Yes indeed, this was one secluded getaway spot—and the perfect hiding place for my mother, if she was here.
At the edge of the lake was a chateau built all of stone. To me, it resembled a European castle. It was three stories tall, with large windows and a steep roof. The sight of it took my breath away.
“God,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
Eli snorted. “Looks can be deceiving,” he said. “Just look at your mother. Hell, look at you, for that matter. A little brat in a woman’s body.”
My feelings were hurt until Eli grinned, and I realized he was joking. He reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. Then he tucked the strand behind my ear, and his hand cupped the back of my neck. He squeezed, and it felt so warm and nice.
“Thank you for taking this journey with me, Avery. There is no way I could have done any of this without you.”
“I know,” I smiled. “Just don’t forget me when you’re back on top.”
“Never,” he said, and I believed him with a
ll my heart.
We parked in a well-concealed spot behind some brush and scrubby trees a few hundred yards up the road, and approached the chateau on foot. Overgrown forest lined the drive leading up to the chateau, and we hugged the shadows in case anyone was watching from one of the top-floor windows.
When we were close enough we jogged the rest of the way up the steps, right to the front door. Eli turned the knob, and to his surprise the door opened. It creaked as it swung wide, revealing the faded glory of the Rutherford clan’s forgotten chateau. We stepped inside a darkly cavernous room with a double staircase near the back wall. Life-sized murals adorned the walls. Some of the men bore a striking resemblance to Eli. The room was filled with the kind of fancy and delicate-looking antique furniture that no one in their right mind would want to use.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I said.
Eli shushed me. “We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up,” he whispered.
Eli was obviously excited, striding across the floor with a real sense of purpose. But I had a feeling we would not find what we were looking for. To me, it looked like no one had visited the lake home in months. Maybe years. But I went along with him, like a good girl.
Eli found a flashlight in a hall closet, then led me to a hidden stairwell down to the basement. The bomb shelter door had been left ajar. Eli flicked on the flashlight, the beam casting a slant of yellow light in the darkness.
The bomb shelter was seriously creepy. I wanted to turn around right then, but Eli walked into the darkened room, shining his light this way and that. It was like a regular living room from a home in the 1960s, with brightly colored furniture and shag carpeting, but the walls were lined with gallon cans of every kind of preserved food you could imagine. I nearly gagged when I saw the gallon of potted meat. It was all so weird. I couldn’t imagine being stuck in this place, eating all that old food. I might have to take my chances with the bomb.
“Nothing’s changed since I was a kid,” Eli said.
Eli made a sweep of the bomb-shelter living room, then the kitchen and three modest bedrooms. I trailed close behind, trying not to bump into things.
“Let’s check the other floors,” he said.
We did. We saw a tasteful parlor and a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I pulled out one of the books, and its pages crumbled in my fingers.
The dining room was big as a banquet hall, and there was a fully stocked kitchen, but no recent signs of human presence.
Leaving behind the ground level, we ascended the staircase to the second and third floors, entering the bedrooms one by one, with their overstuffed beds, chests-of-drawers of dark and rich-smelling wood. We found miscellaneous items of furniture that varied from one room to the next, but still no evidence that a real-live person had occupied any of these rooms in years. The entire chateau was like a very expensive an exquisitely preserved dollhouse.
Eli and I came to the second-to-last door. Eli paused in front of the door, then skipped it and entered the final room at the end of the hall. His decision to bypass the door puzzled me, but I said nothing. We walked inside a bedroom that was larger and more opulent than all the rest. This was clearly the master suite. Still, though, it was deserted.
As we left, Eli shut the door behind him, then turned to face the door he had passed over moments before. Something was holding him back. I placed my hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling ever so faintly. “What is it, Eli?” I asked.
“My mother’s room,” he said, not moving.
“Let me,” I said. “I’ll go in. You stay here.”
Eli took a deep breath, but he didn’t step aside. Instead, he opened the door and walked in, electing to confront his demons. Late-afternoon sunlight was shafting through a west-facing window, illuminating the small but tasteful room. There was a canopy bed and a small wooden desk, and a rocking chair beside a window overlooking the lake. I imagined Eli as a small child being rocked to sleep by his mother.
“We searched the whole house,” Eli said. “There’s nowhere else. I … I need to think.”
“There, there,” I said, guiding Eli to sit on the edge of the bed. His body seemed drained of its power, and he sat without protest. I could tell his mind was torn between two conflicting thoughts—of my mother’s whereabouts, and memories of his own mother, long dead.
“She was very beautiful, you know,” he said. “I remember her face so clearly—her smile, the way she laughed. I was always doing little things to make her smile. When she died it’s like a piece of me died, too.”
I was sitting next to Eli on his mother’s bed. I hugged his waist, and he held me in his arms. I looked up and saw there were tears in his eyes. I wiped one from his cheek. For some reason, my simple action made him smile through his sadness. He touched my forehead, brushing my hair out of my eyes just as he had done earlier in the truck, again tucking the loose strand behind my ear. I loved the gentle touch of Eli’s fingertips.
“When I look at you, sometimes I think of her,” he said. “You are lovely, just like she was.”
Eli’s touch and his words made me love him more than ever. They were like a magnet drawing us closer. Eli held my face in his hands as we gazed into each other’s eyes.
“I love you, Avery,” he said.
Eli leaned in and lightly kissed my forehead. I craned my neck, yearning for more, and I felt his kiss land softly on my cheek. My eyes closed as I breathed in his familiar scent, my lips curling into a smile. Then his mouth moved from my cheek, and I felt him next to my mouth, his lips brushing my lips, grazing them softly, gently. His lips moved slowly and lightly, like a man tasting forbidden fruit. Eli’s hands explored my hips.
“I tried to ignore my feelings for you, but I can’t. Not any longer,” he said.
It might have been a sin, a father seeking comfort in his only daughter, but no god would strike us down for the love we shared. My lips parted slightly, and I could taste him. It only made me hungry for more. Eli dipped his tongue between my lips, filling me with excitement. The way his tongue fell in and out of my mouth, I felt a stirring between my legs and a need to feel something more inside my mouth. I wanted to taste Eli’s manhood, to feel him sliding between my lips and dominating my mouth as I swallowed every delectable inch of him. Just thinking about it made me wet.
I pushed Eli away. “I have a present for you,” I said with a girlish grin.
Eli’s eyes widened with surprise as I fell to my knees, bowing before him. I ran my hands up and down his thighs, then over his crotch, touching the hard bump that was already forming there. I fumbled with the button of Eli’s jeans, greedy for his cock. Eli impatiently unsnapped the button as I tugged at the zipper, exposing Eli’s underwear. It was bulging beyond belief, barely containing Eli’s manhood.
He reached into his drawers, and the next thing I knew, he had pulled out the most magnificent cock I had ever seen. It was semi-hard and already as big around as my arm. And long. That kind of girth, I wasn’t sure if it would even fit between my lips. My eyes widened with terror, even as I licked my lips, my mouth watering with anticipation.
Even if I got him into my mouth, my biggest fear was whether he would fit where I ultimately wanted him to fill me the most.
I wrapped both of my hands around his manhood, my small fingers not quite reaching all the way around his girth. I stroked him as he grew before my eyes. My lips kissed the tip, my tongue lapping the swollen head, then licking down his long, meaty shaft. He was salty and delicious, and my tongue ran up the shaft and back to the tip as I lapped him up.
Eli groaned with pleasure. With my hands gripping his shaft, I playfully nibbled his tip, then opened as wide as I could to guide it between my lips, hoping he didn’t mind the teeth. I savored the feeling of his throbbing head as it filled up my mouth, easing farther in. The way his cock dominated me, I couldn’t think of anything beside my desire to suck him off and drink down his cum.
My head bobbed on Eli’s cock, my
hands and lips running up and down his shaft. Eli let out a ragged moan.
“Fuck, Avery,” he said. “This feels so good.”
I needed to come up for air. I massaged Eli’s balls as I took a deep breath, my spit mingling with Eli’s precum and dribbling down my chin. I wiped off my chin and used the wetness as lube as I stroked his cock.
This was as good a time as any. I’d been harboring a secret.
“Eli?” I said, my hands pumping up and down on his rock-hard rod.
Eli grunted. His eyes were closed, and he was leaning back on his arms. His body was rocking to the rhythm of my hands as I drew him closer and closer to completion.
Too Big Taboo Bundle: Naughty Brats, Forbidden First Time, Man of the House Page 11