by Hazel Parker
“I can’t see!”
“Good.”
“But what if I sprain an ankle? Then I’ll hold you up, and—”
I squeezed her arm hard. She got the message. There was fieriness one could have on a boat when a motor provided enough noise for cover and no one was hot on your trail. This was not the time for that.
We hurried through the darkness for what felt like hours. Down in the depths of the island, I couldn’t hear the madness above, but I knew by the way the helicopters and four-wheelers sounded that by now, they probably had gotten to the compound and were in the process of raiding the place. They’d find this hidden exit at some point too, but the goal was no longer to remain totally in the shadows; it was just to escape to the next shadow before they found us.
Finally, the place started to smell like the ocean. And that was the best sign yet.
“Keep moving; we’re almost there,” I said.
“Christ, I feel like I’m running track again,” Kaylie said. “You wouldn’t—”
I heard a rumble far behind us. It wasn’t close, and I didn’t worry about debris. But the rumble was very obviously from an explosion.
At this point, I had to hope that the weapons on our escape craft would be enough to cover us. Because if they had found our secret escape spot as well, Snake had won.
At the last light, I grabbed Kaylie’s arm, yanked her to the left, and went down a dark path.
“Where the hell are you taking—”
“Shh,” I said. “Don’t you know you need to stay the fuck quiet during this?”
“When have I at any point during this mission?”
God, I hate how much she’s right.
It was only a couple minutes later when I could see the distant light of the sky—but luckily, only someone who knew exactly where to look would have found us. I came to the creaky dock—not like it was a spot I visited frequently or refurbished—put Kaylie on a boat much like the one I had used to rescue her, grabbed the assault rifle, confirmed it was loaded, and drove the boat to the edge of the cavern.
“Keep your head low,” I said. “And do not fucking look up.”
Kaylie nodded. She put her head in her hands, I slung the rifle on my shoulder, and I drove out to the Atlantic Ocean.
For the moment, we were safe. There were no other vehicles in sight, and I knew my destination. I’d mapped it out before.
But when we got there, to George Town, I knew we hadn’t won yet.
If anything, the “game” hadn’t even reached halftime yet. It was still probably in the first quarter, in fact.
Chapter 12: Kaylie
I’d wanted to talk a lot.
But I could sense Scott felt nervous too. And if he was nervous, I was nervous.
Maybe nervous wasn’t the right word. Appropriately paranoid, perhaps. But either way, there definitely was a heightened sense of urgency compared to even when he had rescued me off the boat the first go-around.
And for that reason, I kept my head buried in the boat, my hands over my head, and just imagined being back in New York City. Back in my apartment, in my bed. Back to where my family was.
I wouldn’t say I’d never go on vacation ever again, but I wouldn’t act so foolishly, so spoiled anymore. I’d be more aware. I wouldn’t be ruined, but I wouldn’t be naive anymore. I’d take better care of myself.
And, as I now figured, I’d break up with Cameron. That was almost certainly going to happen without Scott making me feel like the world’s most pleasured woman before, but what he had done had just taken it to another level.
But that was a bridge that wouldn’t be crossed for some time, and even if I wanted to cross it, I had another one pop up pretty soon. The boat got on the sand.
“Come on,” Scott said.
“Are we camping on the beach?” I said.
Scott ignored me. I probably deserved that. But at least I was back on land again.
Somehow—I didn’t bother to ask how—we had another motorcycle waiting for us. I wrapped my arms around Scott’s thick torso, held on tight, and pressed my head into his back as he drove down the road. It was the safest spot that I had felt this entire trip; if my body was connected to Scott, then I knew it was unlikely anything would happen to me.
And if something did happen to me, it was probably going to feel unbelievably good.
Scott drove the motorcycle for a few minutes before he pulled off to another off-road location. He stopped in front of a one-story building that looked more like a military bunker than it did a safe house.
“Follow me,” he said.
He opened the metal door, flicked on a light, and shut the door behind me.
I was wrong. It didn’t look like a military bunker—it was a military bunker.
“Holy fuck,” Scott said, taking off his hat and sunglasses.
Wait.
He did that.
He showed me his face.
For the first time since the mission began, perhaps without even realizing what she’d done, he was showing me all of him. And he was absolutely, drop-dead, stunningly handsome. His eyes…
They locked in on mine.
He knew. If he hadn’t before, he sure did now. He knew that his gaze was revealing himself, his whole body, his appearance to me. And he didn’t seem to care. If anything, his eyes lingered on me.
And as the gaze remained, as our eyes could not pull away from each other’s exhausted bodies, my mind drifted to the previous night. It was a great orgasm, yes, but it wasn’t just that. It was so much more. It was…
Well, it wasn’t love, that was ridiculous. But it was a type of feeling I had never had for anyone else before. There wasn’t a good word to describe it. Grateful and attached kind of got at it, but the exact words eluded me. What could I say? I was better at looking wild and frisky on TikTok than I was at being literary with how I felt about someone.
He shook his head, like a dog shaking off after a shower, and ran his hands over his face. He was starting to look unraveled, maybe not ruined or falling apart, but certainly under more stress than he had probably anticipated or hoped for.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
There was no snark, no sarcasm, no fire in my voice. I just genuinely wanted to know.
But when Scott looked at me, I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer.
“Are you OK?” he said.
At least he didn’t sound angry or bitter to say it. He didn’t sound like he regretted showing me his face, and even if he did, he couldn’t undo it now. There was no “rewind” button in real life.
But he wasn’t going to tell me anything about himself for now. Not anytime soon, at least.
“I’m fine,” I said. “My ankle feels a little sore, but I didn’t sprain it.”
“Hmm,” Scott said, more to show he gave a response than to show he cared.
He rose up from the ground, walked over, and looked at my ankle. His course, tough fingers over my ankle felt like the innocent beginning of something fiery and hot. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
But he let it drop so fast, it almost slammed into the bed frame.
“Your ankle will survive.”
“How generous of you to say, Scotty,” I said, knowing it would probably dig at him.
I was right. Scott turned back and scowled at me.
“Just because you’ve seen my face doesn’t mean you get to stop calling me Daddy,” I said. “Remember, I’m in charge of you.”
You say that, and yet I know how you looked at me. Don’t think I don’t know that you’re unsure of how to handle this too.
“Please, like I’m some slave to do your bidding, master,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Scott snorted, and damn if he didn’t look so fucking hot doing so. I only needed to think back last night to how he could get when I put him into a tough situation. The number of contortions he went through before he finally ate my pussy was practically magical.
But he walked away an
d said nothing. That was annoying. It wasn’t like he was the only one fighting with what to do. It didn’t exactly make me feel good to know that I was starting to be attracted to a guy who, when it was all said and done, would probably take off and not say a word to me for the rest of my life.
“So what, you’re going back to being the boss?” I said, sitting back up on the side of the bed. “Don’t make me leverage the fact that I know you now.”
“Know me?” Scott said with a sarcastic laugh. “Kaylie, you don’t know me. You know what I look like, but I don’t want you to know me at all.”
“Why? I’d be happy to let you know more about me.”
“That’s great; anything that can help me get you off this island and back home?”
I shook my head.
“What I thought. Spoiled child.”
There was a fine line between being dominated and being cruelly mocked. Scott, perhaps without knowing it, had just crossed it.
“Just because I’m on TV doesn’t mean my life is perfect, Scott,” I said.
“Oh, I wasn’t aware that your family was only millionaires instead of billionaires.”
“Why do you think it’s been my mother that you’ve been communicating with this whole time? Haven’t you ever given any thought to where my father has been?”
Scott wisely shut his mouth. For once, I would not have been turned on by him trying to control the conversation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“I assumed your mother was divorced,” Scott said, firmly but not aggressively, as if he was certain on the matter. He shouldn’t have been.
“No,” I said. “My father and my little sister died when I was five.”
Scott took a deep, deep breath through his nose and snorted it out slowly. I hadn’t discussed this story often, because why the hell would I? It wasn’t something that I liked talking about, and the show my mother shot was something that had explicit rules in a contract for what could and could not be discussed. Aside from making mention of the fact that she was the sole person responsible for the Charleston “empire,” this was not something that was mentioned.
“How did it happen?” he asked.
“Car accident,” I said. “There’s no dramatic story to it. Everyone thinks that because my family does reality TV, that must mean our life is full of drama twenty-four-seven. This whole bullshit aside, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Says the girl who was on the Cayman Islands in an expensive villa.”
“And you’ve never vacationed in your life?”
Scott shut up.
“I like to think of myself as a normal girl. A fiery one who isn’t afraid to call people on their bullshit—”
“That much is for damn sure.”
“But I don’t want to follow in my mother’s footsteps. You heard her. She’s fucking crazy.”
Scott chuckled. It was the kind of laugh that suggested, though, he agreed. He was probably just wise enough to not say anything.
“I do the show because it makes Mom happy, and she’s been dealt a lot of shit in her life. But if I had my choice, if Mom wanted to cancel the show? I’d say she should have done it on the spot.”
“Makes sense,” Scott said as he went to what looked like a refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of water, and tossed it to me. “But you don’t mind being on the show? Or at least you don’t mind being famous?”
“I accept it,” I said. “It makes Mom happy, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be a little famous?”
“Me, for starters,” Scott shot back. “Everyone else I may work with. The first rule of my organization is we don’t exist.”
OK, I understood some people really preferred privacy over publicity. But to be that private? To go so far underground as to not officially exist? What sort of secrecy was that? What sort of fun was that?
“You know it was your fame that got you kidnapped, right?”
“I know,” I said. “I’m kind of surprised no one else from my group got kidnapped. We have a lot of beautiful girls in my group.”
Scott took a chug of his own water bottle and shrugged.
“Snake is very precise in his targets and his actions. He’s not going to make a mistake by grabbing the wrong girl or grabbing someone he doesn’t think is going to fetch him a pretty penny. You have a famous last name, you’re attractive, and you’re rich. Other people in that party might have two of the three, or maybe even all three, but not to the degree that you do.”
That was a fair point. It wasn’t like I wanted the others captured with me. I guess it was just a bit of “why me?” Why me, considering who all else was there?
“Tell me about the boy in all your photos.”
“Who?”
“The guy who has his arm draped around you seemingly every damn time you post to social media?”
Probably not a great sign that you said “who.” Then again, not like you were especially confident about it before.
“That’s my…boyfriend. Cameron.”
“Boyfriend,” Scott said, almost derisively. “Boyfriend.”
I hemmed on what to say next. Did I defend the guy? He was nice to me. But on the other hand, I had let Scott bring me to orgasm. And if he’d had anything less than perfect self-control, he would have fucked me on the bed.
“Serious boyfriend?”
“About eight months,” I said, grateful for having an actual question to answer. “But I wouldn’t say we were rushing down the aisle to get married.”
“Thank God for that.”
I flinched in surprise. Guys just didn’t speak that bluntly or honestly. Not even guys like Scott—I had thought.
“What, are you going to go creep on him on Facebook? Like you crept on me before this trip?”
Scott did not look in the slightest unsettled by my line of questioning.
“I don’t give a damn about the kid,” he said. The kid. You make me feel so young. “I was just curious.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Curious, jealous, whatever you want to call it, you—”
Scott stood up in the middle of my words, came over to me, and pressed my wrists up against the wall. His body pressed against mine, his lips inches away from me. I bit my lip as I gazed into those eyes that he was finally letting me see, and with them looking like the eyes of a lion about to score his prey, I could not help but start to feel wet all over again.
“How many times am I going to have to tell you to watch that pretty mouth of yours?” he said, his lips just inches from mine—I could have probably kissed him. “You got a sexy and hot mouth…but you let yourself go too far. Remember who’s in charge here, Kaylie.”
God, I was so turned on by this guy. Maybe this is why I said “who?” in reference to Cameron. Scott had such power, such ferocity behind him, that it was impossible not to feel attracted to him. No one else had ever displayed this level of authority and dominance before—which probably explained why I hadn’t felt attracted to many guys before.
It was so intense, in fact, that it was kind of a little frightening. He was a man in command at all times.
He was also a man who was capable of being an enormous asshole, and not the fun kind.
“Is that up for debate?” I said.
But even though I had kind of meant for my words to poke at him a little, even though I’d hoped I’d gotten him to just take me—and this time, without having to hide my eyes and without having to only do oral—he was backing away. Somehow, someway, he seemed to find the strength and wherewithal not to give in to temptation to me.
I could have lured him back in. I knew that as much as he prided himself on having self-control, I could make him break. I couldn’t say if I was the only one who made him do that, but his frustration with himself suggested it was rare.
But boy.
It was one thing to poke the bear, knowing you had some boundary that it would never cross, making it fun and relatively harmless. It was an entirely different thing when you realize
d that boundary had vanished, and now you risked getting hurt—or, maybe equally worse, getting involved.
“No,” Scott said. “Get some rest. We’re only safe here for a brief period of time. You’d best be served saving whatever strength you have.”
I’d had a full night’s worth of sleep the night before. I could still feel the aftereffects of my climax, even if it had been a full night and half a morning. But he was right.
I was exhausted.
I was exhausted by this journey, this escape.
I was exhausted by Scott.
And most of all, I was exhausted by myself.
Chapter 13: Scott
I backed away because I realized what I had not done.
For all of the things I’d done to Kaylie, for all of the sexual boundaries I had crossed that I swore I wouldn’t cross, for all of the DOM rules I’d already violated, I had done one thing that I swore I would never do on a personal level.
I hadn’t kissed her.
And yet, when I was inches away from her, mostly to make a point about her place, I realized just how badly I wanted to. I wanted to suck on those tasty lips, still lusciously pink despite having been captive and hidden away for so long. I wanted to feel her attraction for me.
She had gone past just being a client I had pushed past boundaries on. Those boundaries were so far gone now that I barely even bothered to acknowledge them. No, I had a bigger problem.
I was having serious attraction to Kaylie Charleston, the girl. Not the client, but the girl.
This was not just ill-advised; it was downright dangerous. The mission depended on maintaining a clear head. It was why I didn’t let anyone sleep with clients, but the deeper idea was that my business associates would not develop deeper feelings for their clients that would get in the way. And now…
Fuck me.
I had to detach from Kaylie. But that was damn near impossible when she was everything I had ever wanted in a woman—that was, when I allowed myself to believe that I wanted just one woman. She was smart, she was beautiful, she took no shit, and she could talk back to someone like me. The latter was especially important to me, for the desire to control and dominate everything was not just an agent façade, though it certainly helped.