by Hazel Parker
But did Cameron do that? Did Cameron give me what I wanted?
No, because we were evil to each other like that. We had to tease each other and make the other wait. How savagely unfair!
“Cameron!”
But the more I shouted, the more Cameron just laughed and kept dancing around me, kissing my thighs and my stomach but not the spot that would give me orgasms. Finally, I had enough.
I reached up, dug both my hands into his hair, and buried him in my pussy.
“Work!” I shouted.
He said something that sounded like, “I can’t breathe,” but I ignored him. I let up just a smidge, just so he could get his nostrils up, as his tongue darted out of his mouth and started working on my clit. I closed my eyes but never let go of his head, controlling him and making him satisfy me as he did so well.
It didn’t take long for him to get me close to orgasm. He’d already done the hard work when he’d started to massage my scalp before; that was the foreplay to this foreplay, so it wasn’t like he needed to be down there for hours on end.
“Oh, fuck…”
The world started to blur around me. My body tensed with pleasure. Everything seemed to flicker, as if on a very old TV with bad reception. I could feel the orgasm on the cusp, just a few more licks, a few more kisses, a few more…
A few more…
And then my eyes shot back open.
Cameron was gone.
So was the villa I was in.
So was the margarita that I’d had on the table.
It was all gone. It wasn’t real.
It was just a dream.
But where I found myself now was no dream, not even close to it.
Instead of on a luxurious bed in a villa that cost thousands of dollars a night to rent, I was now on a cot—I seriously had spent more comfortable nights in a sleeping bag in the middle of the woods—on a boat that I didn’t know anything about other than my room.
And what was there to say about my room? It was barren.
Quite literally. Aside from my bed, which had one very uncomfortable pillow and one very thin white sheet on a “mattress” that didn’t earn its name, there was nothing. White walls, a wooden floor, and…a white ceiling, I guess. No windows, no artwork, nothing.
I knew I was on the ocean, at least. The gentle rocking and the slight sense of disequilibrium told me as much. I also knew, unsurprisingly, that I’d been kidnapped. I only had to think of…however many nights ago it was, when I woke up, saw a man in all black standing over me, applying chloroform to my face, and then me waking up on this boat.
I’d screamed the first night, begging to be let out. No one answered. I got food twice a day, and to my surprise, it was half-decent food. I wasn’t eating steak and escargot by any stretch of the imagination, but I never went starving, either.
But I was most certainly prisoner of someone who wanted to keep me captive from the rest of the world, away from my friends and obviously my family. And said captives apparently had no interest in talking to me or even looking at me.
Which, what the hell? I mean, come on now, I could at least pass the time with some fun conversation—
The door opened.
I scooted back on my bed in surprise. I had on the pajamas I’d worn to bed a few nights ago, so I wasn’t naked, but having someone else look at me after so long without a shower or any cleanup just felt so…so vulnerable. I would have felt more confident naked in front of one of my guy friends that I did clothed but dirty right now.
An enormous man entered the room right then. He had a brown-haired mullet, a beard, and tattoos all over his arms. On his right arm, it looked like he had twin snakes hissing at each other, and on his other arm, it looked like the fangs and face of a viper about to strike. He had no weapons on him, though I thought I heard a couple of guards shuffling near the door.
“Good morning, Kaylie,” the man said. “It sounded like you were enjoying your rest.”
Oh, God. I was probably talking in my sleep, wasn’t I?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Tats.”
“Tats?” the man said, arching an eyebrow.
“You have more tattoos than David Beckham.”
The man chuckled, but it didn’t exactly sound like he was amused. Not that that would stop me.
“Funny, but don’t you dare ever call me that,” he said. “You can call me Snake.”
I suppose the appropriate response in this moment would have been to feel some deep-seated fear, like, “Oh, no, surely a man who goes by Snake must be terrifying and could kill or rape me.”
But instead, I just laughed.
“Snake?” I said, still laughing at him. “Let me guess, do you call your cock Python? Do you—”
“I would suggest, Kaylie,” he said with a snarl. “You drop the sass. We know you and your family can be a pain in the ass. I suggest you minimize it for your sake.”
I laughed a couple more times, sort of as a fuck you to this “Snake” man, but I didn’t push my luck.
“What am I doing here, anyway?” I said. “When can I go home?”
“You can go home when your mother pays the ransom.”
“OK, so…have you asked her? You know my family’s rich, right?”
I was probably a bad negotiator, but oh well.
“Yes, we have spoken to her. She is aware of our asking price.”
“Damn, and you still have me here? You guys fucking suck at this. What kind of kidnappers are you?”
Snake remained poised, but I could see subtle signs of cracking his veneer. The snarl. The twitch of an eyebrow. The general vibe, the sense that I was coming dangerously close to saying something that would probably carry ugly consequences for me.
“Have my mom drop the money off somewhere, you get the money, send me on my merry way, and you never have to deal with my sassy ass again.”
“I am glad you at least have some measure of self-awareness, child,” he said, which made me want to slap him. “Your mother decided to call the FBI. This could have been much easier had she not done so, but now we cannot do a monetary exchange without being traced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, how dare my mother love me and want to call in help—”
“She knew the fucking terms of the deal!”
Snake’s face went red. He looked like he’d literally pop a blood vessel in his rage. I shut my mouth, finally recognizing when this would go from sarcastic, harsh banter to the point where I might get hit.
And I didn’t want to get fucking hit by a man who called himself Snake and looked like had served in the special forces.
“And because she violated those terms,” Snake said, his voice slowly coming down, “we have to wait until the FBI moves on or diverts resources elsewhere.”
“And how long is that going to be?” I said, even though I was afraid of the question.
Snake smiled at me.
“Come,” he said.
I did not move.
“I will ask you this nicely once more, because I know I snapped,” he said with a hint of tension to his voice. “Come.”
I got to my feet. I wished I had something clean to wear, something nicer than my pajamas, not for anyone’s sake other than my own. But with a healthy respect for Snake’s anger more than my own hygiene, I moved forward. Snake put a firm, calloused hand on my back as he led me out of the room and down a hallway. He led me out to a deck where we could see the ocean.
And nothing else.
Had I been in the company of someone that I didn’t worry about murdering me, I might have found the scene beautiful.
“You want to know how long it will be?” Snake said, coming up and putting a hand on the small of my back once more. “It will be as long as it takes for the FBI to find us. And let me assure you, we are not so easily found, most especially since we are not having outside communication with the world.”
“How kind of you.”
“You might be saying that with sincer
ity when I tell you this next part,” he said. “We have enough food on hand to feed you for the next three months. Do not think of that as your final date—we can easily have more food shipped here. Rather, think of it as the fact that if you comply with us, if you do not make a fuss, we will treat you well. Be a brat, be annoying, and be a thorn in our side, and we will make sure that you wither under our watch. Understood?’
I hated how Snake asked if I understood like a father who knew he had all the power. I hated that my mother had gotten the FBI involved when it sounded like simply paying the man would take care of everything. I hated that I was now stuck on this boat for, probably, at least three months. Sure, it was a nice boat, and sure, if I behaved, I would get fed and…well, maybe I’d get to shower.
But with my family’s resources, how the fuck had I wound up on this boat with no rescue still?
“I suppose,” I said. “It would be nice if I had a shower here, though.”
“Of course.”
“Alone.”
“Of course.”
He responded so quickly, it made me wonder if I had been ridiculous for assuming the worst of these guys.
Then again, I hadn’t walked into a bar and gotten hit on by some dudes with Cameron by my side. I’d been fucking kidnapped.
I looked out on the water, at the nothingness around us, at the lack of land anywhere. I suppose as far as kidnappings went, I had it pretty well.
But if Mom didn’t take care of this shit soon, I was going to quickly lose my food and shower privileges.
And then the truly cranky Kaylie would rear her ugly head.
Chapter 3: Scott
Rummaging through a secret room adjacent to my bedroom, I grabbed my alias package.
I packed all of my bags with all of my clothes, weapons, and any other gear that I needed. I headed to the nearby airport hangar, driving over and communicating with my pilot on the way about what I needed to do. I also called two of my henchmen, Liam and Burke, on my burner phone.
“I’m headed for the Cayman Islands; I had a job come up,” I said. “I need you two on standby in case anything comes up.”
“Understood, sir,” they both said.
Of the two of them, Liam was easily the most likely for me to call. In this business, trust mattered more than anything else, and for all the years we’d worked together, Liam was the closest person I knew to being like me.
We hung up. I got to the airport hangar, got into the plane, and sat back as it took off. In spots like these, my pilot and I seldom spoke. I counted on him to see and hear me board and to then take off—I did not need a fucking safety instruction on what to do in the case of an emergency landing. One, if I had to do that, I’d have bigger problems than surviving the crash, and two, it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d had to handle something like that.
Make no mistake about it—I took care of my men since they took care of me. But we didn’t need hugs and cuddles to do that shit.
On the way down, I reviewed the case materials. By all accounts, Kaylie had been kidnapped in the middle of the night, with no one, not even anyone at the vacation spot, any the wiser. There was no sign of burglary, no property damage, nothing—not even a window left open. The local police, sure enough, had been so befuddled by what had happened that they were convinced the partygoers were lying, probably to extract attention or media coverage.
To an extent, I got why the police acted the way they did. I had a feeling I knew who was behind this—only one person and one group had the ability to flawlessly execute a kidnapping like this, and he had such a global reach that it was all but impossible for him to pop up in the same locations with any regularity. It made familiarity with him difficult—the only thing one knew about him was he was quite unknowable.
But the man I suspected was behind Kaylie’s kidnapping was someone I was all too experienced, if not familiar in detail, with. He had deep pockets and even deeper connections. And more than that, he was fucking crazy.
He wasn’t crazy in the asylum sense, though. He was so fucking crazy because he was almost irrationally sane to be in this line of work. He did shit like this purely for the fun of it, but he never hurt his victims unless they got out of line and even referred to them as his clients. He was a fucking whack job, and the code name that he went by said it all.
Snake.
Like a fucking slithering creature in the wild that you never saw until it had sunk its jaws into you. That was the thing about it, though—Snake wasn’t “venomous,” but he sure as hell was quite good at extracting money and fear from a whole bunch of rich people.
But I knew Snake well, and I knew what to expect—as much as one could, at least. I didn’t know as much yet as I wanted to about Kaylie.
But unlike Snake, who might as well not have existed to the outside world, Kaylie was quite famous.
I found her Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages without much trouble, and even better, the girl seemed intent on providing social updates every couple of hours. She was literally the cliché young hot girl, having to share everything with everyone possible.
Video after video after video of her showed her on the beach, tanning, laughing, drinking, smiling, and enjoying the rays. I had to look at her from a professional perspective, but seeing a girl with her curves and her body splashing around, all wet in the water, her clothes sometimes slipping…
Rule three. Rule three. Rule fucking three.
Kaylie Charleston was going to be the fucking test of my life, and it didn’t even have anything to do with how difficult her rescue would be. Heaven help me if she gave me sass. I’d have to teach her a fucking lesson.
I knew I’d figure out how.
I started to get bored of watching the videos, which showed the same thing over and over again, before I came across one of particular interest. It showed a guy, probably having just graduated college, with her arm around her before smacking her ass—but in a very soft and almost scared way. The caption read, “OMG, Cameron!” I presumed it was a boyfriend.
Although it had nothing to do with my mission, the only thing I could think about was how much of a dud the kid was. One, he looked like he had violated so many rules by smacking that girl’s ass. He looked apologetic. I felt embarrassed for the fucking boy looking at him.
You never showed someone as hot as Kaylie Charleston that you were apologetic. God forbid, that was worse than anything short of physically harming her. You showed her who the fucking boss was. You told her to remove her clothes, get on all fours, and wait for further instructions.
But would she beg for more from me, like all the other women do?
Or would she refuse me? Would she think she knows what’s best and fight back? Would I have to show her who the real fucking boss is?
Swear to God, Scott, rule fucking three needs to get tattooed on your skull.
I shook my head. I was being a fucking bastard. She was a twenty-five-year-old reality TV star who was kidnapped by one of the most dangerous men in the world, and all I could think about was how good it would feel to dominate this little Barbie doll in bed. She might have known she was hot, she might have acted sassy and feisty, she might have been the type of gal I wanted to hear beg for mercy while I dominated her, but…
I scrolled through the remaining videos. I both had a keen eye for paying attention to little things while tuning out what almost everyone else would see—namely, a bunch of hot girls and stud guys drinking and having a good time. But so far, for mostly better, there was nothing but hot girls dancing, laughing, and screaming.
And then I saw it.
A man, far in the background, so far back as to barely be visible, taking photos of the group of girls.
He wasn’t doing it in a way that would make him look like a pervert. To people on the beach or in nearby villas, he probably just looked like another vacationer, taking shots of the trip. But I knew what bullshit smelled like, and this guy reeked of it, especially given the way he had the cam
era lens pointed in a different direction than his body—trying to sneak some shots in. I paused the video, took a screenshot of the image, and uploaded it to a self-developed app that would let me zoom in on a photo without losing image quality.
In the app, I zoomed in as closely as I could to the man’s hand. The position of his right hand on the camera made it a tad difficult, but I could see enough. He had a black ring on his pinkie finger, one that, though difficult to see, I knew had a coiled snake slithering around it, like a vortex of an image.
It confirmed the presence of Snake.
That fucking bastard would never leave my life.
I should have been glad that I now knew who was behind this job. But like I said, he was a fucking whack job, and he was perhaps the only person in the world that could truly cause DOM headaches if he wanted to.
Probably because he knows it better than even your agents do.
“We’ll be landing in five minutes, sir.”
It was all the advanced warning I needed. I could save the half-hour, redundant notices of landing for the commercial flights; once I knew I had five minutes, I could get everything packed and prepared.
The plane touched down in the Grand Caymans without a hitch. I remained in my seat as the plane came to a full stop, and as soon as it did, I opened the door, climbed down, and headed over to where I knew my vehicle would be waiting. And sure enough, just as I had arranged with the other DOMs, we had it all set up.
I drove with urgency but not with speed, careful not to draw attention to me. The car I had, to the outside world, looked vanilla, like something that a suburban dad still clinging to his belief that vans were stupid would have no choice but to drive. But on the inside, I had guns, I had bullet-proof coating, bullet-proof glass, and a whole assortment of short-range weapons in case someone somehow disabled my guns.
But when I got to my private compound—just one of the many that I had in DOM—I had never had to so much as honk at another driver, let alone resort to physical means.