17. Victoria
17
VICTORIA
When his lips meet mine, and I feel his tongue filling my mouth, I lose the ability to think. Any anger I felt towards him is instantaneously converted into lust, and I find myself reaching for his shirt buttons, fumbling to unfasten them so that I can run my hands across his inked chest.
He grips my wrists in his fists, raises my arms above my head, and holds them tightly with one hand, his other hand ripping open my shirt.
I gasp, but the sound is swallowed by his mouth.
Somehow, my bra follows my shirt onto the elevator floor, and he pinches my nipple until I cry out. His eyes meet mine. A silent warning not to stop him. His hand slides down to the waistband of my jeans. I feel his knuckles digging into the soft flesh of my abdomen as he unfastens the button and pulls down the zipper, and my pussy starts throbbing.
I want him so badly it’s like an ache inside that only he can soothe.
His mouth pulls away, and I find myself reaching for him, my swollen lips lost without him. “Don’t move.” Caleb waits for me to nod that I understand.
Then he drops to his knees in front of me. He drags my jeans and panties down over my hips, exposing my sex to the open elevator doors and the apartment beyond, and I feel the dampness between my legs. I could lower my arms. I could cover my nakedness, entwine my fingers through his hair, turn around and bend over so that he can fuck me from behind. But I don’t. I keep my arms raised above my head just like he told me to.
He spreads my thighs, and I open my legs wider, needing to feel his tongue inside me. He’s rough, dragging his tongue across my clit until it’s engorged and then sucking on it, until I’m bent double over him.
He sits back, hands still holding my sex apart. “I told you not to move, Victoria.”
“Sorry.” I’m panting, breathless, my orgasm so close, I could make myself come just thinking about his tongue.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Lick me.” It’s barely more than a whisper; the words are so unnatural to me.
“Give me one good reason why I should lick you.” His eyes never waver from mine.
“Because… Because I want to come.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to come yet.” He stands, leans over me, both hands against the wall on either side of my head so that I can’t move.
“Please, Caleb.” I’m throbbing so hard I’m going to explode with or without him.
“You’ll wait if I tell you to, won’t you?” A groan escapes my lips, and Caleb flicks my nipple. “That just cost you a couple of minutes.”
I swallow. “I’m so close, Caleb. Please…”
He cups my pussy with one hand. “You’re throbbing, Victoria.”
He smothers my mouth with his, but keeps his eyes on me, gauging my reaction, inserting a finger into my sex at the same time. He leaves it there, sitting inside me, not moving but feeling what I’m feeling.
“How badly do you want it?” His breath mingles with mine.
I don’t know how to answer this, so instead, I lean into him, stick my tongue in his mouth, and kiss him.
Caleb pulls away. “Answer the question. How badly do you want it?”
“Badly,” I whisper.
He smiles. “Badly enough to wait for it?”
“Yes.” Even though I don’t know how much longer I can wait without finishing myself off.
“Badly enough to come when I tell you to.”
“Yes.” Louder now. More demanding.
He slides his finger out of me and places it between our mouths, watching me lick my taste from him, amusement glinting in his eyes.
“Good girl.” He pulls away from me, turns around, and hits the down button on the elevator panel. The doors shush together, and my stomach twists when we start moving.
“Caleb.” My eyes widen. “What are you doing?”
He smiles. “I’m waiting for you to come.”
I stare at the panel, the levels counting down slowly. I know that the elevator opens directly onto Caleb’s private parking bay, but I don’t know if his driver will be there waiting in the car. Or his brother maybe.
“But what if someone sees us?” I sound desperate even to my own ears.
“Then they’ll know how badly you wanted it too.”
“But—”
He presses his finger to my lips. “ Now , Victoria. I’m going down, and I want you to come before we reach the parking lot.”
My mouth is dry. My heart is racing so frantically it’s making me feel nauseous. But my traitorous pussy gives me away by clenching around Caleb’s tongue.
I spread my legs as wide as they can go, groaning in response to his tongue filling me up. I spread my arms above my head too as if I’ve been shackled to the elevator walls and give in to the orgasm that is threatening to explode all over Caleb’s tongue.
“Oh. My. God.” I hear myself say in a husky voice that doesn’t even sound like me.
My orgasm just keeps coming and coming. My entire body convulses against the elevator wall, and when the doors open at basement level, I’m still spreadeagled against the far wall, Caleb’s head between my legs.
There’s a rush of cold air from the parking lot.
“Don’t look.” Caleb stops licking briefly. Then his fingers are inside me, and he’s fucking me with them while filling my mouth with his tongue and breathing into my mouth, “Mianach, Victoria. Gach mianach .”
And I do as I’m told. I keep my eyes closed as we ride the elevator back up to the apartment, and practically fall through the doors, my legs wrapped around Caleb’s waist, his cock inside me.
Caleb is gone when I wake up in his bed the following morning.
Every part of me aches. I roll onto my back, and my swollen sex flinches at the feel of the sheet brushing against it. My nipples are sore. My lips are puffy, and my eyes feel gritty with lack of sleep. But I can’t help smiling to myself when I try to recall how many orgasms I had.
I remember the elevator, and my eyes fly open.
Fuck!
Did anyone see us? How will I be able to look the driver in the eye?
Then I hear Abigail padding about in her room and my chest floods with guilt that she might’ve woken up and seen us having sex on every available surface in the living room. Worse than that, I didn’t even think about how she would feel if Caleb had let me go, and she’d woken up without me here.
How could I have been so hot-tempered and selfish?
I don’t even have to think about the answer. I’m sore. I can’t even think about pulling on a pair of jeans this morning, but I want to do it all over again tonight. I want Caleb to fuck me every night for the rest of my life.
But the problem is, I still don’t know what he wants. All those sexy Gaelic words that he whispers to me in the heat of the moment mean nothing to me.
It appears that we are drawn to talking to each other through our bodies, and as enlightening as Caleb’s body has been, I don’t know how long I can keep up the pretense of our arrangement without knowing what this is between us. I need to stop bottling it up and choose the right time to ask him how he feels. Which isn’t easy when he’s either working or bending me over and screwing me from behind.
My cheeks flush at the memory of Caleb fucking me from behind in front of the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows the night before. Sure, we’re fifty stories up, and the walls are black mirrors, but there’s a small possibility that someone might have seen us. Someone with binoculars perhaps. A voyeur with a fetish for peering through other people’s penthouse apartment windows.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and wince at the soreness between my legs. My mind is already figuring out how to make it better by tonight.
Sienna will know. A tiny jolt of uneasiness stabs my chest. She didn’t return my calls or text me to let me know that she was busy. We rarely spend a day without speaking, so my uneasiness is justified. She doesn’t even know about the shooting incident at Cesar two nights ago.
I try calling her again, and her phone is dead. I get the standard message: The number you are calling is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
What’s the point? I already know that later will provide the same results.
So, I’m going to do this the old-fashioned way. I’m going to go find her myself.
I shower quickly, get Abigail washed and dressed, and try to ignore the tingling between my legs. There’s a time and a place to think about Caleb’s naked body pressed up against mine, and this isn’t it.
“Where are we going?” Abigail watches me closely like she can see right through me. Which would be pretty catastrophic if she could view the images of the night before currently playing out inside my head like a movie preview.
“We’re going to find Auntie Sienna.”
“Is she lost?”
Her eyes are so wide and innocent that I sometimes think I hate this world she’s growing up in. If only adults could view each other with this same purity of heart the world would be so different.
“She isn’t answering her phone.” I can’t lie to her, but I need to protect her from the truth.
“Is it broken?”
“Maybe.” I smile. I wish I could believe that. “So, we’ll go to her apartment.”
“Is Caleb coming?”
I’m astonished at the ease with which Abigail has accepted Caleb into her life. There has never been a string of partners walking in and out of our existence—I never date, and Mason… Well, who knows what Mason does most of the time. So, I always thought that introducing her to a man I had serious feelings for would be hard for her to adjust to. Seems I was wrong.
I’m not sure how this makes me feel. I mean, has she been missing out on having a decent male role model in her life? It sucks when I think how hard I’ve tried to be both parents to her while Mason has been racking up a string of debts in casinos.
“No, sweetie, Caleb is working.”
“What does he do?”
I perch on the edge of her bed while I braid her hair. “He runs the hotel.”
She’s quiet for several moments. Then: “He has other people to do that for him.”
I can’t help smiling at how smart Abigail is. “But Caleb tells the other people what to do.” My cheeks flood with heat when I think of the elevator carrying us down to the basement with Caleb’s face buried between my legs.
Including me .
A guy I don’t recognize wearing a black suit and black roll-neck sweater is waiting in the elevator when the doors open.
Surprise must register on my face because he smiles at me and Abigail and says, “Mr. Murray asked me to escort you wherever you want to go.”
I’m not a prisoner, but I’m not allowed to go anywhere without Caleb knowing about it. Part of me feels safe within this cocoon Caleb has woven around us, but the other part of me, the independent part just wants to feel normal again.
I step into the elevator and face the doors as they slide shut, fighting the urge to ask the guy if he was on duty yesterday evening. Caleb was right: it’s easier to keep my eyes shut and remain blissfully ignorant.
They must have a secret way of communicating because the driver is waiting next to Caleb’s car, the rear passenger door already open, and the engine running. Either that or Caleb has invisible cameras inside the elevator.
Oh God. If that’s true, then someone, somewhere, could be watching back the footage right now.
The driver keeps his eyes discreetly on Abigail, and I tell myself to stop overthinking it. It’s done now. Too late to go back and change it, and even if I had the chance, would I do things differently? Probably not.
Abigail stares out of the passenger window, seeing the city through the fresh eyes of a child. One day, she’ll see things differently. I only hope I can prolong that moment for as long as possible.
There’s no answer when I ring the outside buzzer to Sienna’s apartment. I peer up at the second-story windows; maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels as though the apartment is empty. Abandoned. I think I’m letting everything get to me.
I step away from the door, still studying the windows. It’s a gray morning, the heavy sky threatening the kind of drizzly rain that saturates you without you even realizing, but there are no lights on inside. It’s Saturday. Sienna won’t be working, which means that maybe she was out last night and ended up back at someone else’s apartment for an after-party. Or maybe she hooked up with a guy.
But this doesn’t feel right either. After the accident, Sienna changed. The flamboyant party animal was replaced by someone who was embarrassed to take her clothes off even in front of her best friend. She brushes it aside when I try speaking about it. Wears clothes that cover up the scars, but I think it was more than just the skin grafts that damaged her confidence. I think the guy who left her for dead obliterated her trust in men.
Besides, if she’d met someone she liked enough to hook up with, I’d be the first person she would tell.
I hold Abigail’s hand. “Come on.”
We walk back to the sidewalk, climb into the passenger seat of Caleb’s car, and I give the driver the address of the art gallery that accepted Sienna’s piece.
It’s a small building, approached via an alleyway between buildings, making it invisible from the busy tourist-filled streets. The bodyguard, whose name is Martin, walks with us to the entrance and waits outside. The door is painted a smart navy-blue, which does nothing to prepare me for the way the interior opens up into a spacious modern room, the walls of the foyer covered with bold statement pieces. Sienna’s artwork will fit right in here; no wonder they snapped up her piece.
A petite woman with black hair tied back into a severe ponytail comes out to greet us. Her smile remains firmly fixed in place even when her gaze settles on Abigail, and she decides that we’re not looking to buy.
“Hello, I’m so sorry to trouble you,” I begin. “I’m looking for Sienna Walker and wondered if she might be here.”
The woman’s expression remains perfectly bland. “She isn’t, I’m afraid. I’ve been trying to get hold of her myself.”
My stomach lurches, and I instinctively squeeze Abigail’s hand tighter. This opportunity is so important to Sienna, there’s no way she wouldn’t be returning the gallery’s calls. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”
The woman’s eyes flicker briefly. “When she came here to discuss including her piece in our exhibition.”
Days ago. I met Sienna for coffee after the meeting and haven’t spoken to her since. Did someone see us together? Is she in danger because of me? Right on cue, the graze on my upper arm starts stinging, reminding me of what happened outside the restaurant.
Moving on autopilot, I thank the gallery owner and head back outside, my thoughts spinning. Where is she? I wish I could piece together her movements before we met for coffee, but I’ve been so wrapped up in Caleb and this new, surreal existence I’m living in that I’ve hardly thought about anything else.
“Everything okay?” Martin asks, escorting us back to the car.
I nod even though everything is a million miles from okay. Sienna wouldn’t simply take off without telling me. Especially now when things are finally slotting into place for her. I don’t know where else to look. Her other part-time jobs are in schools which will be closed for the weekend, and I can’t wait until Monday, not knowing where she is.
“I want to walk,” I say to Martin.
I need air and space to breathe, to reassemble my thoughts. Because with every passing moment I’m more certain that Sienna is in some kind of trouble.
Martin signals to the driver and falls into step behind me and Abigail. I try to zone him out of my mind. I pretend that he’s just some guy out shopping for a gift for his wife, which is more difficult than I thought it would be when the driver appears from nowhere.
Great. So now we have two shadows.
How does Caleb even think when he never gets a moment alone?
I wander the streets, matching the city pace of the other pedestrians, gripping Abigail’s hand so tightly, she squirms in my grip. “Where are we going now?” she asks.
“We’re still looking for Auntie Sienna.” I glimpse Martin and the driver, a few paces behind us, out of the corner of my eye. This would be easier without them tailing us like private investigators.
My heart is racing, and my mouth is dry. This is like looking for a speck of glitter on a thick-pile rug. There are millions of people in this city, and they all seem to have spewed out of the buildings and onto the streets at once.
Without thinking, I dip inside Macy’s department store. The heady aroma of perfume, rather than making my head spin like cotton candy, almost feels welcoming. I worked here for six months when Abigail was a baby, so my brain instinctively associates the smells, and the buzz of sales taking place over counters laden with glamorous bottles, with safety.
I scan the aisles, but there are too many people moving in both directions for me to pick out individual faces.
Then, I catch a glimpse of a black leather jacket, collar bunched awkwardly around the back of the wearer’s neck, hair the same color as mine and Abigail’s.
“Mason?” I pick up speed, dragging Abigail along with me.
“Daddy?” She runs to keep up with me. “Where is he?”
“Mason!” Louder this time. But he doesn’t hear me because he keeps moving, doesn’t even glance over his shoulder.
A group of Asian women—tourists maybe—loaded up with shopping bags, blocks our path, and I quickly dart between perfume counters and out the other side, craning my neck to view the next aisle for a glimpse of a beaten-up leather jacket.
I can’t see him now. Where did he go?
Sienna is forgotten momentarily. If I can find Mason, it will be one less person to worry about, and maybe then, I’ll stop adding up the coincidences and start looking at Sienna’s whereabouts logically.
We dart between counters, dodging shoppers and sales assistants. I remember the layout of the store, and when I reach the escalator, I drag Abigail onto it, brushing past people checking their cell phones and the contents of their shopping bags, and don’t turn around until we’re halfway, so that I scan the lower level before we reach the top.
Maybe I was so desperate to find him that I imagined Mason. There’s no sign of a leather jacket anywhere now. My eyes dart to the exits, praying that, if he’s here, I’ll catch him before he leaves. But no one even remotely resembles my brother.
It isn’t until I reach the cosmetics department on the third floor that I realize we’re no longer being followed. I stop and scan the men’s Levi section and the windows of Starbucks.
“Where’s Daddy?” Abigail asks.
My shoulders slump. I raised her hopes for nothing, and now I have to let her down all over again.
Crouching in front of her, I keep my voice lighthearted. “I don’t think it was him, sweetie. I’m sorry.” I smile. “Did you see where Martin went?”
She shakes her head. “I heard them calling us.”
“You did?” I must’ve been so focused on finding Mason that I didn’t even hear them.
I stand up, peering around the store at the busy counters, the men rifling through racks of denim, the women getting their complimentary makeup done, reclining on comfy seats, eyes closed. There are people feeding stringy pizza wedges into their mouths at the pizza bar. Friends sharing caramel lattes inside Starbucks. Sales assistants eyeing up their next sale.
I feel like I can breathe again without our shadows. Like I’m just Victoria Callahan out running errands with her niece, and not someone who associates with billionaire bachelors like Caleb Murray.
“Well,” I say to Abigail, “now we can look for Auntie Sienna without worrying about them following us.”
“There they are.” Abigail points in the direction of the escalators at the two men in black suits.
Without thinking, I dart into the stairwell, tugging Abigail along behind me. “Do you want frozen yogurt?” I don’t even wait for her to answer. I know that she loves frozen yogurt.
We’re both breathing heavily by the time we reach the seventh floor. I quickly buy a tub of yogurt for Abigail and then head to the elevators. I’m taking a chance that the men will stick to the escalators; it would be impossible for two men to cover all levels and all methods of moving around the store. But I also realize that they’ll probably call for backup when they can’t find us.
“Come on.” I stare at the panel inside the elevator, willing it to go faster, and praying that the doors won’t open to reveal one of the men waiting for us. Because now that we’ve evaded them, I just want to be left alone to find my friend.
We make it outside to W 34 th Street, and I glance around the sidewalk, making sure they’re not waiting for us.
They’re not. I don’t know how we managed it, but I get a small thrill of pleasure at the thought of losing Caleb’s bodyguard in Macy’s department store.
Walking quickly, we head towards Madison Square Garden. The streets are busy. Tourists stand outside the building taking selfies. Businessmen in smart suits walk briskly with their cell phones held in front of their faces. Yellow cabs beep their horns at the slow-moving traffic. There are sirens in the distance, the emergency services battling the Saturday morning chaos to attend whatever incident they’ve been called to.
I don’t know where I’m going. But I do know that I can’t sit around waiting for Sienna to call me back and let me know that she’s okay.
I stop to get my bearings and catch the eye of a young man clad head-to-toe in black. He half-turns away and peers into a store window. I don’t know why, but I wait for him to look around and meet my eye again, which he does.
My knees tremble. Is he following us? He can’t be one of Caleb’s men because he would come over and make himself known. Perhaps this is simply my overactive imagination making something out of nothing.
I keep walking, chatting to Abigail about what we should do for the rest of the day, and stop again. Spinning around abruptly, I notice the man in black peering into another store window, the distance between us having closed a little.
I crouch in front of Abigail again. “Sweetie don’t look around, but the station is behind us. We’re going to go inside and find somewhere quiet to sit down for a while.”
“Why?” Abigail blinks her wide eyes at me but doesn’t look around.
“Because I’m tired. Aren’t you?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I guess.”
I glance over her shoulder; the guy is still watching us, hands in his pockets, trying to look nonchalant while tourists and pedestrians mill around him. “Then we can think about where Auntie Sienna might be.”
“Okay.”
“Good girl.” I straighten. Now is not the time to think about Caleb praising me for being a good girl too.
We walk as fast as we can without drawing attention to ourselves. Inside the station, lots of people are wandering around or sitting on benches waiting for friends or family to arrive. But the space is so huge that the guy will spot us the instant he walks in.
I realize that time is limited. If he is following us as I suspect, he will have reacted the instant he saw us dart inside the station. My heart is thumping, but my brain is thinking logically. I try to get inside his head. Where would he instinctively look for us? The restrooms are the first place that spring to mind.
Shrugging out of my coat, I drape it over a carryon while the owner is looking the other way and tell Abigail to take off her coat. Fastening her coat around my waist by the sleeves, I cut through the middle of a ticket booth line and make Abigail wait for me behind a giant stone planter. He will be looking for a woman and a child. I pray that he won’t pay too much attention as I turn around and make conversation with the blonde woman waiting in line behind me.
I spot him standing just inside the entrance and force a wide smile, tugging my hair forward to half-cover my face. He turns three-sixty, eyes narrowed, scanning the vast atrium. His gaze skims past the line as he starts heading towards the food court.
“Hey, the line is moving,” the blonde woman says.
“What?” My eyes dart back to the gap in front of me, and I instinctively move forward. But when I turn back, the guy in black is gone.
“What the hell…”
I step out of line. Where did he go? Abigail is still hiding behind the planter, but I can’t risk him finding her. I realize with a jolt that this would never have happened if I hadn’t lost Martin and the driver. I reach for my phone to call Caleb, but I left it in my coat pocket, and my coat is nowhere to be seen.
I grab Abigail and start running.