by Esme Devlin
It felt like the net was closing in, and eventually something would have to be done. I admit, I may have underestimated Megan. It was true; she’d never been overly involved in the running of Jed’s business, but she knew things. Over the last few days, I’d gradually got more and more information out of her, sometimes without even trying. She knew where his warehouses were and what docks he used. Oban, for example, is a place I never would have guessed or thought to look. He was not stupid, to use a sleepy tourist town in the arse-end of nowhere. Davie stuck to the big cities, not because he wasn’t smart, but because nobody had ever dared to try anything before.
That was my first task. I rearranged our distribution with the help of Megan, following roughly what her brother had done. We picked parts of the county on a map with small populations and names hard to pronounce. In a country like ours, that was easier than it sounded. I changed the ports but used the same warehouses we always used, so Davie would suspect nothing. For years he hadn’t been that interested in how we got product into the country, only that his warehouses were full.
And I made sure they were always full.
I also made sure Sarah was alright. I made sure her bandages were clean, and she was well fed, and she got a bath every night. Every day she would ask about Megan and I had to think of more creative ways to tell her that she wouldn’t be seeing her. When I took the bandage off and found nice, new skin beneath it, I knew her time was up. I had told her she could see Megan when she was ready to work.. not thinking that the day would come as soon as it did.
“I don’t think it would be good for her,” I said.
“What? Why not?”
“She’s… fragile.”
“Of course she’s fucking fragile,” Sarah snapped back.
“You don’t understand. She’s living in a fantasy to cope. To deal with it. I think seeing you would ruin that for her.”
That was almost true. I liked things the way they were. I liked Megan only seeing me, only relying on me. Not to mention the fact that Megan would probably tell Sarah what I was planning to do with Kimber, with the whole fucking operation, and I couldn’t trust Sarah.
“I’m not getting to see her, am I?”
“Not right now, no.”
“But you will put me to work, anyway?”
“I will tell Davie that you’re better. What happens next is up to him.”
“You’re like a little lapdog.”
I shrugged. “If that’s how you describe loyalty, then yes.”
She had no fucking idea.
“There’s something you should know.” She looked down at her hands and swallowed. “I think I’m pregnant.”
“Davie won’t be pleased.” I stood up from the bed. “I’ll tell him, but I don’t think it will save you.”
Just as I expected, Davie hit the roof. There was no chance he would allow her to keep the baby, and he came straight over to the house to tell her that.
When he left, I went back to the room to see how she was doing.
“Hey, kiddo. Turn that frown upside-down,” I chuckled, attempting to lighten the mood. She giggled back and immediately my hackles raised. That’s not how a girl who’s been forced to terminate her baby behaves. “I told you it wouldn’t save you.”
“I know. I’m not bothered. I’m just scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t like… blood. I heard it’s sore.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Can someone come with me?”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, I mean. Someone who understands.”
“I told you, Megan’s in no fit state for fuck-all.”
“I have another friend. Louise.”
I laughed. “Yeah, let’s tell Louise where you’ll be so she can run and tell the Campbells exactly where to find you.”
Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea?
“She doesn’t know them. None of us did when he took me. They’re not the type of people to have social media; she would have literally no way of contacting them. Please, I’ll even let you send the message. You can say that if she tells a soul, then I die.”
My thoughts raced. I would bet my life that this Louise girl did have a way of contacting the Campbells, and Sarah knew it. Maybe this was the change I needed. I couldn’t hit Davie while I had Megan living in my house. If things went to shit, he’d send someone round there within ten minutes and kill her instantly. But I neither could I drop her at her brother’s doorstep to keep her safe, because Davie would know I’d done it.
What if this was the answer? If Jed found out Sarah and Megan were here, he’d take them back himself. I had no doubt about it.
“I need a name,” I stated, trying to pretend it was reluctant.
Chapter 17
MEGAN
He came home, and I was already waiting for him in bed.
“Follow me, baby girl,” he demanded, with his head around the bedroom door.
“I’m not dressed decently!”
“Stick a house-coat on then. It’s movie night.”
“Movie night?”
“Aye, movie night.”
What the fuck was up with him? Movie night was something normal couples did… We weren’t a normal couple. All we’d done together for two weeks was fuck, eat, and sleep. He’d been out to work every day while I amused myself with Eva, or a book, or some shite on TV. I chucked my housecoat on and followed him down the stairs.
“You hungry?”
“Starving… My stomach thinks my throat’s cut here.”
He chuckled from the bottom of the steps.
“Wouldn’t be like you,” he teased sarcastically. “I’ll phone a pizza.”
“Hmm… I fancy Chinese food.”
“I want Pizza,” he said, throwing me a devilish grin.
“You want Pizza.. I want Chinese. Let’s compromise and get a Chinese.”
He laughed and pushed me down on the sofa. “I’ll compromise you right out that window, brat!”
He sat down next to me and tucked my legs up over his lap. I gave him my order- plain noodles, sweet sticky crispy chicken, fried rice, and extra prawn crackers. When he hung up the phone he immediately phoned himself his own pizza.
“You’re ridiculous!”
“I’m sensible. Can’t have the little princess saying I’m not good to her.” He bent down and kissed my forehead. “What do you want to watch?”
“Something fucked up.”
“Jesus!”
He stuck a film on and we both watched in silence, only stopping while he answered the door to both deliveries. It was nice, just being normal.
When the film finished, he took my hand and led me up the stairs, but not to his bedroom, as I had expected.
“The first night I brought you here I gave you a choice… the bedroom or the playroom. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I chose the bedroom.”
“What do you choose tonight?”
“The bedroom.”
“Why?”
“I have no interest in using a ‘playroom’ that God only knows how many women have used before me!”
“There’s been no other women.”
“Then why would you have it?”
“I made it when I met you. It was shit then, but it’s better now.”
I thought about it for a moment in silence. He gripped my hand tighter and led me down the hall, passed his bedroom. When the door opened, the room was dark, and I had to strain my eyes to see. He clicked a light on but it barely made any difference. The light came from the far side of the room, no brighter than a candle but I could just about make out the shapes of things.
“I saw it in you the first night we met.”
What? What did he see? I tore my gaze away from the objects in the room and watched him in the dim light, trying to figure out what he thought he saw.
“You deal with things by twisting them in your mind. Just like me. We’re the same.”
>
“We’re not the same,” I argued.
“We’re capable of being the same, though.”
He began to walk around me slowly and I kept my gaze fixed on the door.
“Have you even thought about Jenny since that night?”
Jenny? Not really. It hadn’t kept me awake at night. I had felt no remorse she was dead.
“You killed Jenny, not me,” I stated.
“Ah… is that how you’re spinning it? I might have snapped her neck, but I did that all for you.”
“She deserved it,” I protested, crinkling my nose.
“No, no, she didn’t.”
He stopped circling me and stood before me again, watching me intently before he continued, “She was jealous. Bitter. She didn’t like you, but did that mean she had to die?”
I didn’t know how to respond. Why was he trying to make me doubt myself?
“I told you, we’re the same. Survivors… We don’t feel. We have to create new ways of feeling. We make each other feel things. It’s like a fucked up addiction.”
“Exactly what feeling are you addicted to?”
“The feeling of holding your life in my hands. Like I own you.”
“I’m not an object, James.”
“Does it matter? It’s not real.”
“Well, it feels real enough, when you’re hurting me.”
“You don’t enjoy it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You do enjoy it.”
“I didn’t say that either!”
“You didn’t have to say it. You don’t have to admit anything. You can twist it whatever fucking way works for you. But you will take off your clothes.”
I swallowed and did nothing for more than a moment. I just breathed. Slow and steady. In and out. He waited, his last sentence left hanging in the air between us like electricity. When I eventually moved, it was to undo the tie of my robe. The room was warm enough, but I shivered. Even though I could barely see his face, I could picture the way he was looking at me in my head. My breath caught when his finger came below my chin and he pressed my head up towards his face.
“Such a good little girl,” he whispered, as another shiver ran down my spine. His hands reached behind my back and he undid the clasps on my bra, before sliding it down my shoulders with my robe and moving down my body to take off my panties. I stepped out, and he stayed low on the ground, running his hands up and down the backs of my legs. His face moved closer to my most intimate parts — so close I could feel the warmth of his breath against me. My knees grew weak. It was like time stood still.
He lifted me up and suddenly the clock was ticking again, my heart increasing in pace as he carried me across the room. I wanted to look; I wanted to see what was coming next, but I didn’t. My bare backside felt the chill of cold leather when he placed me down on the edge of something hard. His hands connected to my shoulders, and he pushed me back. What was this? A bed? A chair? Something in between? It was black, and the room was so dark. I could barely see, and even if I could, I still don’t think I would have known what it was. I was half sitting, half lying when he grabbed my left leg and hoisted it high in the air with one hand. Stirrups. I’d seen enough dramatized childbirths on TV to know that much.
“What are you doing?” I tried to sit up, the muscles in my core straining as his grip remained firm on my leg, but he quickly pushed me back down. “James?”
“In this room, you call me Master.”
It was a warning. Or a threat.
I heard him fiddling with the buckles as the straps came down around my leg. One strap at the ankle, one above the knee, and one high on my thigh. He moved the thing so my leg jutted out at a rough angle and I felt a rush of air against my exposed pussy. My free leg shifted to cover myself, but he quickly grabbed it and attached it to the other stirrup. My legs were parted so widely that the rest of my body froze, scared that even the slightest movement would snap me in two.
He was just a dark shadow as he turned and walked across the room, returning a few moments later.
“Open your mouth,” he demanded.
“James?” It felt like a protest. This was all so fucking new to me. I had never seen him like this.
“I won’t ask you twice, baby girl.”
I half obeyed and opened my mouth just a fraction more than slightly. I knew what was coming before I even felt the ball against my lips. He forced it in my mouth and then tipped my head forward to seal it around my head. Next came a collar. Tight but not too restrictive. It felt nice against my throat, almost satisfying.
He cuffed my hands together in front of me and then raised them above my head, forcing them against the back of the chair-bed and causing my body to warp in the most unnatural of positions. I cried out but the sound just connected with the gag and dispersed in an inaudible breath through my nose.
When he had finished, he moved around the chair and stood in the gap between my legs, removing his top and throwing it on the floor. I couldn’t see his features clearly, but I could see the shape and the sheer size of him as he dominated the space.
“This is what I want to feel. This is how I want you, utterly fucking defenseless and vulnerable. I want to hear you scream through that gag. I want to make you squirm until you can’t think about anything else, until you’re crazy with need. Until we’re the only two people in the world who matter. You’re my drug, baby.”
He closed the gap between him and my pussy, and leaned down, raking his hands over my stomach and breasts. I squirmed when he brushed over my nipples, his touch light and delicate. He was correct; I was fucking helpless. I couldn’t fight my arousal. I couldn’t dispute the fact that everything he did to me was pure fucking euphoria. He made me feel things I never even knew I wanted.
“I want to hurt you,” he said, and I jerked as he pinched my nipples, “but only to make the pleasure feel better.”
His hand moved up to my neck, and he gripped a hold of me.
“I want to make you cry,” he said, as he pressed tighter and cut off my supply of air, “so I can kiss those tears away.”
He moved his hands over me again and I sucked in air through my nose, my heartbeat racing in my ears.
“I want to bury myself in that perfect little cunt for hours,” he said, as he slid a finger along my slit and then stuck it deep inside me, “knowing you’ll never take another man again.”
His thumb rubbed over my clit as his fingers triggered quickly inside me and I moaned through the gag in sheer delight.
“And I want to make you come. Again and again, until you’re fucking begging me for mercy.”
His pace increased, rubbing and circling until my body wanted to shake and jolt from it — but I couldn’t. I was stretched out like a string on a bow, every one of my limbs strapped in place.
“I want to know what you want, but you can’t speak. You can’t show me. So I’ll just have to guess.”
He knew what I wanted. It was fucking obvious. You could smell it in the air. I wanted him to claim me, like only he could.
I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t move, so I begged him with my eyes.
His hand moved away from my core and adjusted his erection. I felt empty… empty and desperate. He left me lying there, panting through my nose and unable to control the trembling my body was doing. When he returned, he didn’t come to the space between my legs but instead came to the side of the bed, his eyes raking over my body. I felt so fucking powerless under his gaze. His hand came down and he grasped a hold of my breast, kneading it firmly while I begged him through my gag. He pinched my nipple, sending shivers deep into my core, and placed a clamp firmly on the end of it. The pressure was almost too much but at the same time, not enough. Every breath I took, every movement in my chest intensified until I couldn’t think about anything but the aching need between my legs. He quickly attached a clamp to the other side and then casually bent down to kiss my forehead while my thoughts melted away to nothing.
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nbsp; He moved back down to the spot in between my legs and unzipped his jeans, so fucking slowly. Those dark eyes stared into my soul and I tried to meet them with my own but I couldn’t. There was far too much power in those eyes. Instead, I looked lower, down his neck and across his broad shoulders, down further to his chest that was moving up and down in such a controlled way. How did he do it? How did he stay so calm? My heart was hammering. I needed him so badly that it terrified me. My eyes crept further down to his taut muscles across his stomach and the trail of dark hair that led to his cock, now gripped in his hand. He moved it towards me and held it against my center, spread wide for him.
I closed my eyes, waiting for him to fill me, and then something hard pressed against my clit as he forced his way inside me and I screamed out through the gag. I had used vibrators before, of course, but never in this way. Never with my legs locked apart, my arms bound above me, nipples clamped and a gag in my mouth. It was too much. Far too much for one person to handle. Sensation overload, and I was overloaded. I came instantly, my muscles clamping hard around him and my whole body trying and failing not to shudder. My eyes rolled back, yes they fucking did, and color exploded behind my lids as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through my body.
It didn’t stop him, not for a second. He set a grueling pace as he rammed his whole body into me, not giving a single fuck that my cervix was in the way of where he wanted to go. The vibrator still pressed against me with one hand, and the other came down with a crack against my clamped nipple. I chocked on a scream, tears pricking my eyes.
He had said he wanted to make me cry, didn’t he? The emotions were getting too much. I had always taken pride in how fucking strong I was but in that moment; I was past caring. I would cry for him if it made him happy. I would cry for him if it meant he’d fuck me harder, if it meant he’d fuck me like this every day for the rest of my life. Tears spilled from my eyes until my face was soaking wet and when they cleared enough for me to see through them, it was pure, utter devotion I saw written across his face. He bent down over me, his pace slowing slightly but still as deep as ever, and removed the gag from my mouth so he could devour it with his lips. He kissed me like he was starving, taking my tongue into his mouth and sucking on it, then moving around until every inch of my face was covered in him. I wanted to eat him. That's the only way I can describe it. Like I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had every single piece of him inside me.