Then I hear Trisha. “Aunt Lynn, I didn’t give it to him. I swear it. I don’t know where the key is!”
“Trisha, how could you? Everyone in this town knows about Rod Manning and Jenna Foster. Everyone knows about that time he pushed her all over their yard and the police had to come. How could you put her in jeopardy like that?”
Trisha is stammering and making no sense. Then I hear her say, “He made me. He told me he’d teach me good if I didn’t give him the key.”
Then my heart aches for her. But it doesn’t mean she should get off scot-free.
When the manager gets back on the phone, she’s apologizing like crazy. I stop her. “Look, I know he’s intimidating. I heard her, and I do believe her. But something has to be done to show her how she can handle something like that if it ever happens again. So please see to it that some kind of measures can be taken to teach not only her, but your other employees, how to handle a situation like that. Perhaps something as simple as teaching them to say there are no other keys to the rooms.”
“Yes, ma’am. And your stay is on us. There will be no charges at all.”
“We were here two months,” I say, as I can’t possibly imagine them comping the whole time.
“I’m aware of that, and the entire stay is on us. Thank you for staying with us. When you visit again, I hope you will consider staying with us again. I am very sorry, and this incident will help us to form a protocol for just this kind of thing. I am so sorry, and so is my niece.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry he did that to her.” I hang up and feel even more awful that he would do that to anyone just to get to me.
Does he draw no lines?
Chapter 22
REED
As I try to open the door to our room, I find the inside lock is latched.
“Reed?” Jenna calls out.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She comes and opens it and nearly falls into my arms. “Thank God!”
“Are you that hungry, Jenna?” I laugh a little as she wraps her arms around me.
But then I feel her body shaking as she hugs me.
I move with her, set the drinks and bag of food down, and pick her up. “What’s wrong?”
“Rod.” Then the tears start again.
“Jenna, you have to get a hold of yourself. You can’t let him get to you like this.” I run my hand through her hair.
She takes her face off my chest and looks up at me. “He was here, Reed. The girl at the front desk gave him a key, and he got in here.”
My body goes instantly hot. “No fucking way! That bitch is getting fired!”
“I already took care of that, and we don’t have to pay for our stay here. And the reason she did it is that he intimidated her into it. But they’re going to figure out some way to train their employees not to let that happen again,” she says, then buries her face back in my chest and wraps her arms tightly around me.
“What did he do to you?” I hold her tight and fight the urge to leave to go find him.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me. Just told me he wants me back. That kind of thing.” A shiver runs through her.
“Bet there’s a lot more to it than that,” I say as I hold her back and make her look at me. “I need to know it all. What happened with you two in the past? Don’t leave anything out.”
The way she looks up at me makes my heart hurt. I know it’s bad, and I know she doesn’t want to relive this, but I have to know.
She moves off my lap and climbs under the blanket and leans against the headboard. “Reed, I’m afraid you won’t be able to respect me if I tell you what I allowed.”
“You were young and inexperienced. I promise you there’s not a thing you can say to me that will make me lose respect for you. I respect who you are today. That young woman is not you anymore. I wouldn’t even ask you to do this, but I don’t want Rod to think he can make you stay quiet about what he’s done to you.” I move around on the bed and give her my full attention.
She bites her bottom lip. Then she looks down. “Not long after we moved in together, Rod asked me to enter into a contract with him. A submissive/slave contract, where he was the dominant. It said in the contract that he owned me.”
The way my stomach tightens and rolls makes me want to throw up. “I see.”
She keeps looking down. “I wasn’t going to sign it. I really wasn’t. But he had another woman come to the house, and she was ready to take that offer. She was ready and willing to do whatever he wanted, right then and there. So I told him I’d do it. I signed it and became his property.”
“That’s not even legal. But I get what you’re saying. So this contract was for life, then?” I ask, and have to fight nausea.
She nods. “And it came with rules and punishments for breaking them. And conditioning my body to accept pain.”
I run my hand over the blanket where her legs are. She can’t look at me, it seems. “Jenna, what did he do to you?”
“That first night, right after I signed the contract, he bound my hands and hung me up on a hook he’d put up on the wall in our bedroom. A hook like you’d hang a robe on. Only robes never hung there. Only me.” She has to close her eyes, and a tear runs down her cheek.
“I know this is hard.” I run my hand up her arm and over her cheek to wipe the tear away.
She opens her eyes, but doesn’t look at me. “He got out his leather belt and told me to say the safe word only after the pain was enough to make me cry. I was able to take five lashes before that happened. And he was pleased with that.”
My heart is pounding, and I wish that was all the fucker had done to her, but I know it couldn’t have been. “And after that?”
“He had sex with me while I was still strung up. And while I was still crying.” She closes her eyes again. “That was not the worst thing he ever did to me. It was just the first thing. It sticks out because of that, I guess.”
“So he hit you often?”
She nods. “For the first few months of the contract, it was every day. To get my body in condition, he said. And when I made little infractions of his rules, it got more intense. Nipple clamps, collars that were tight and large. They made me very uncomfortable, you know.”
“I can imagine. And you were incapacitated when he did those things?”
“Yes, strung up, so I couldn’t get away from him. Do you remember that New Year’s Eve when we all went to that bar and you left early?” she asks me as she looks into my eyes.
“I do.” I take her hand in mine and lace our fingers together.
“After you left, he made me go into the bathroom when that woman he was playing pool with went in. I had to beat her up. I busted her head against the sink and never felt worse about anything in my life. Not anything made me feel as bad as that did. But he was so proud of me for doing it. He told me he was making me strong and fearless. The kind of woman he needed.” She looks away.
“What else has he made you do?”
“Sex in places that were semi-public. Your family’s bathroom, the men’s room where he worked. The café where everyone in town eats. Behind the grocery store in the alley. I couldn’t work so he could call me to come to him when he wanted or come home to have sex or get a blowjob whenever he felt the need. If I wasn’t available for him then he said he’d get it from another woman and I didn’t want that. That’s why I made myself available for him.”
“He’s a very fucked up individual.”
She nods. “After that fight in the front yard when the cops came, and I told the cop not to take him to jail, he changed a lot. He threw away the belts, the bonds, and the other things he used to hurt me. He stopped making me cater to him. And he let me do my online classes. Then he asked me to marry him, and everything was great.” Her eyes cut up to mine. “Nowhere near as great as one single moment you and I have shared. But great for me and Rod. But then he disappeared and left a hole in my soul. I was a slave with no master. The contract was still there, al
ways lingering in the background of our relationship.”
“You belonged to him in your mind, didn’t you?” I run my hands up and down her arms.
“In my mind, I did. And with each day that passed after he left, that idea of belonging to him faded away. The reality of what life really is about started seeping in. Going off to college was the best thing I ever did for myself. I met this guy there, Cam. He helped me come to see that I had secluded myself. I pushed people away. I had no trust in anyone. With his help I came out of the shell I had allowed Rod to put me in.”
“Was he your boyfriend, Jenna?” I feel pangs of jealousy.
She shakes her head. “No. He was a great friend. I think it was very important for me to make him my friend and learn all men are not like Rod. All men don’t want to control women. All men don’t feel the need to punish. All men aren’t out to hurt me physically or emotionally.”
“I’m glad you had a friend like that. You became a very different person with that guy’s help. I should send him a thank-you card,” I say with a smile.
She looks at me. “Can I be completely honest with you?”
My heart lurches, as I have this deep fear she still has feelings for Rod, but I have to hear it if she does. So I nod and hold my breath.
“If this all comes out, Rod is going to say some things that are very personal about what we did. You see, I have no idea why this happened, but when he was giving me lashes I would get wet inside. And after he stopped I would have this frantic sex with him. I can’t explain why. It just worked like that. And I feel shame about that. I feel like a horrible person for that.”
“And I am going to get someone you can talk to about what happened to you, Jenna. Someone who can help you forgive yourself for things that were beyond your control. You were young, and he took advantage of the fact that you had never been allowed to date. You had no idea what was normal and what was not.”
Her hands shake as she moves them through her hair. “You’re right about that. And I think it would help if someone who’s been through that could help me understand why I’d react that way and understand why I didn’t leave. I had my parents to go to. But I never did. You told me to call you if I needed anything, and I never did. I had people who would’ve helped me. Thing is, I didn’t want help. I didn’t want out. And even when he first disappeared, I didn’t want it to end.”
I pull her into my arms. “I’m so sorry that he did that to you. So very sorry.”
Her hands move over my back and up to move through my hair. “Make love to me, Reed. Take my mind back to me and you and away from thinking about those days.”
Her hands move to the bottom of my T-shirt and I hold my arms up so she can pull it off me. Then I take off the nightgown she has on and toss it on the floor as I kick off my shoes.
I stand up, get rid of my jeans, and pull the blanket back. Her body rises and falls with her breathing and I find her beautiful. How my brother could do those things to her, I can’t understand.
She is an angel and should never be hurt. I run my hands over her stomach and watch it quiver with my touch.
She breathes out my name, “Reed.”
I look at her to find her gazing at me. “I love you, Jenna.”
Her hand runs over my cheek. “I love you. You really have made me happier than I ever imagined I could be.”
The sick feeling her story gave me starts to fade away as her touch heals me. I hope my touch does something similar to her.
“You have made me happier than I knew possible too.” I move my body over hers and she raises her legs, running her feet up my calves then wraps her legs around me as I slide into her gently.
I move with slow strokes and kiss her softly. Then I trail kisses down her cheek and over her neck. “You’re perfect.”
She moans as I move deep inside her. “Reed.”
Her breasts rub against my chest as I let the upper part of my body move to feel them between us. I move in and out of her with nice, slow strokes.
As I make love to her slow and steady, I want to show her how much I adore her and cherish her. I want to let her know that part of her life is over and she will never have to live like that again.
Her hands leave little currents of electricity as she trails them over my back and arches up to me. I roll with her so she’s on top of me and I can look at her.
She sits up and takes my hands to her breasts. I take them and rub them as she moves rhythmically over me. Back and forth she rocks on me, as I give her breasts gentle squeezes.
I move my hands down to her waist and pick her up to allow her body to stroke my cock. She puts her hands on my stomach and runs her fingers through the lines that divide my abs.
Her body is perfect and voluptuous. Her skin is a creamy peach color and her cheeks are flushed with desire.
This woman is like no other, and no man will ever harm a hair on her gorgeous head again.
The sun shines in, making her golden blonde hair shine, and a halo glows around her head as she moves up and down, giving me more pleasure than any man should be allowed to have.
But I am allowed this for some reason. I am allowed to have her. I am allowed to be the man for her.
Together, we will make a life for ourselves far away from the road my brother planned on taking her down.
She will live with me in a mansion instead of with him in a dump. She will be on my arm, a respectable woman instead of on the back of his motorcycle, hanging out with him and his motorcycle gang in biker bars across the country.
She will be treated like the goddess she is, instead of the slave he wanted her to be.
I watch her lip begin to quiver as her body starts to pulse around me. “Reed,” she moans as she climaxes.
She stretches out as she rides me and her walls squeeze my cock until I can’t take anymore and let my body do what it wants— cum inside her and fill her up with my love for her.
Her eyes open as my cum shoots into her and she looks at me, then smiles as I hiss out, “Yes! Jenna, you’re amazing!”
“You are,” she says, then leans over and kisses me, soft and sweet.
And I thank God she gave me a chance!
Chapter 23
REED
As Jenna sleeps in my arms, the calm our lovemaking gave me starts to leave and the fury at my brother creeps in.
I leave her sleeping, put my clothes back on, and leave to pay my brother a visit.
If he thinks he’s getting away without me kicking his ass completely for what he did to her, he’s very mistaken.
As I pull up to my parents’ house, I see both of their cars are gone and his Harley is in the driveway, along with a small red car.
As I go inside, I don’t see anyone. So I go to his bedroom and open the door. Sprawled across the bed, naked as the day they were born, are my brother and some woman with a red dye job.
With a quick visit to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of ice water, I go back and toss it in his sleeping face.
His eyes open and so do the woman’s who’s next to him. “What the fuck?” she shouts as she sits up and grabs the sheet to cover herself.
My brother doesn’t say a word as he attempts to jump out of bed, but my hands meet his chest and shove him back down. “Nope, you just lie back there so I can set your ass straight. Jenna told me everything. The slave contract, the way you beat her ass, the way you fucked her in ways that were inexcusable. And now I’m here to let you know she’s mine now. You will never touch her again. You got me, bro?”
“She is mine, and I have a contract that says that. I will get her. I will take her with me, and you will never see her again. Once I take her, I will never be coming back here. So take that and shove it up your ass, little bro.” He smiles and puts his hands behind his head and leans back, not even attempting to cover himself up.
“If you want her so bad, why do you have this skank in your bed?”
The woman glares at me, and I look right back at her until she
looks away. Rod shakes his head. “I have needs, and Jenna’s being difficult right now. None of your business, really. But you need to get it through your head that Jenna is mine. She always was. I took her virginity and, in the Biblical sense, she is my wife.”
I laugh. “You know nothing about the Bible, Rod! Please don’t even attempt to bring God into anything concerning you. After what you did to that poor girl, the only entity on your side is Satan.”
He smirks at me. “How much would you like to bet that if you gave me an hour with Jenna alone, I would have her back? Bet you aren’t secure enough about what you think you have with her to do that.”
“If you think I will ever allow that, you are truly insane. And the stunt you pulled at the lodge is a criminal act, you know.”
His eyes narrow at me. “I didn’t hurt her.”
“You came into a private room without being asked to,” I say, and find him smiling.
“How do you know she didn’t let me in, Reed?”
“I know she didn’t. She’s afraid of you.”
He eyes me to see if I’ll budge. “What if she did let me in? What if she does want to talk to me? Will you be man enough to let her?”
I look right back at him. “She didn’t let you in. She doesn’t want to talk to you. And I am man enough to protect the woman I love. I will never let her talk to you alone, no matter if she begs me to. You messed her head up, and I’m going to get her help to understand why she allowed you to do the things to her you did.”
“Now who’s controlling her?” Rod glances sideways at the woman in his bed.
She answers, “Sounds like he is.”
“Really? Bringing this bitch into this, Rod?” I roll my eyes. “Jenna doesn’t want to talk to you. I’m not going to allow you another moment around her to intimidate her into thinking she wants to talk to you.”
“I will get her back. And you can be sure her ass will stay red for a month for doing this to me. This is very humiliating. And I don’t deal well with being humiliated, little bro.” He sits up and puts his hand on his dick. Which makes me kind of sick. His hand runs up and down it. “See this? This has been all in that woman. This was in her first, and it will be in her last. And there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”
Dirty News (Dirty Network Book 1) Page 87