Chapter Fourteen
Caroline
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“YOU WERE MEAN, SIR.” I stuck my tongue out at him, hoping he was too weary to take my bait and punish me all over again. It was a risky strategy, but the unsatisfied throb between my legs insisted I try. “I only asked you to spank me, not to torment me.”
“You got the punishment you deserved.” Cradling my head back against his chest, he lowered to kiss my crown. “I needed to remind you who’s in charge.”
“As if I could forget, Sir.” I sighed contentedly.
I wished he had put the flames out between my legs, but I loved being so close to him again, and damn him, he was right; I yearned for his sexual authority. After so much stress and uncertainty, I’d sensed we both needed the solace it brought.
Glancing at the large window at the end of the room, I noticed the light was slipping away outside, the pale illumination from the window reduced to mere shadows.
Who knew how much time had slipped past since he’d untangled himself from me?
Even though we should have cared that we still hadn’t bought any of the essentials we required, I couldn’t bring myself to be concerned.
All there was in the world was him and the burning, unspent demands of my pussy.
“Can I ask you a question?” I turned my face against the soft hair of his chest, searching for his eyes.
“Of course.”
I envied the sound of satisfaction in his voice.
“You can always ask me, little girl. What is it?”
“It’s about Fabian.”
I didn’t know why the man who’d leased us the house was on my mind, but somehow, I couldn’t shake my latent sense of suspicion.
I’d accepted his offer gladly. Without it, we’d have had nowhere to go, but I was still skeptical about the coincidence that a man with spare rental properties to lease just happened to be in the same café as us when we needed accommodation.
“What about him?”
“Do you trust him?” The question was more direct than I’d intended. “I mean, what were the chances that he’d have exactly what we needed from the next table?”
“I agree, it was all a little convenient.” He stroked the side of my face. “But we really needed his help, so... I suppose I squashed my concerns in favor of our practical requirements.”
“Yeah.” It seemed neither of us truly trusted the man who owned the house we were cuddling in. “I think that’s where I got to.”
“Listen, I’m sure it’s fine.” His hand fell to my shoulder and squeezed.
“Who do we think he’s working for? Fewer than a handful of people knew about our plan, and only Andrew and Hans knew we were in Switzerland.
How could they have possibly got in touch with Fabian and told him to meet us in a café we didn’t even know we were going to until we went there? ”
The sound of his chuckle eased some of the tension from my muscles. “I understand what you mean. We’re probably just a little paranoid. After the last few years, who would blame us?”
“Right.” I leaned against the back of his hand. “You’re right.”
“I had similar concerns about Hans, but if we hadn’t trusted anyone, we’d never have made it from Felixstowe.”
“I know.” My thoughts returned to those fateful moments when Andrew had finally revealed himself. After Macmillan hadn’t showed, I’d truly thought we were done for. “We’ve been lucky.”
“Very lucky.” He sighed, and when he spoke again, his voice was tinged with anguish. “I just hope they haven’t hurt Macmillan.”
I wrapped my arm around his muscular abdomen and held him. “I hope they haven’t, either.”
“What the fuck am I saying?” His laughter sounded haunted. “Of course they’ll have fucking hurt him. Even if his no-show hadn’t meant the worst for him, Ian will have put the pieces of my deception together by now, and he’ll have made sure he tortured the old guy before he hanged him.”
Anxiety clawed at my insides. Experience had taught me Harper’s assessment was likely to have been accurate, but hearing Macmillan’s plight really brought the tragedy home to me.
We’d been lucky, and other people had paid the price.
“He was a good guy.” Harper’s tone was more contemplative. “I always liked him.”
“Maybe he got away, too, Sir?” But even as the words escaped, I knew they were folly.
Nobody ever escaped.
We were one of the first, and based on the draconian way I suspected the so-called president would react to our departure, we’d probably be the last.
“I like your version, little girl.” He offered me a weak smile. “Let’s go with that.”
“I’m sorry.” I wished there was more I could offer him as consolation. “He always seemed like a decent, respectful man.” And there hadn’t been many of those. “He doesn’t deserve to be punished for our choices.”
“Yeah.” Harper frowned. “It sucks, and it hurts even more that I helped to build the dictatorship that probably crushed him, but there’s no way any of this is down to you. I’m the one who made the call to leave. I asked Macmillan for his help.”
“I’m not sorry you did.” Turning my head, I kissed his bare torso. He might have been an erotically cruel lover who’d left me hopelessly frustrated, but in that moment, my lack of fulfilment was irrelevant. “I love you, Sir.”
“Oh, little girl.” His hand rose to the back of my head, holding me as he lowered to press his lips to mine. “I fucking love you, too. Whatever the cost, what we have will always be worth it.”
My eyes closed at the sensual vow, and in the silence that followed, I rested my head against his skin and listened to the comforting thud of his heartbeat, while praying that he was right.
There had been so much pain and suffering in recent years. So much loss and grief. The trauma had to be worth something, didn’t it?
Deep in thought, I hardly noticed the knock on the front door.
“That’ll be the pizza we ordered.” Kissing me again, Harper wiggled free from my grasp and collected the money he’d already counted from the bag, which was safely ensconced on the other side of the lounge. “You stay put.”
“Yes, Sir.”
I feigned a salute, chuckling at his scowl as I snuggled into the soft throw he’d found in a hall closet. After so many months on basic, barely edible rations, I couldn’t believe I was about to eat pizza again. Like so much of our recent transformation, the meal seemed like a dream.
Sprawled out there on the sofa, it was almost impossible to believe that only a few days prior, I’d been a prisoner at the Fortorus concentration camp, bowing to idiots who just happened to have been born without a uterus.
Watching his denim-covered ass as it disappeared into the hall, I realized the humongous change was going to take a lot of getting used to.
Pulling the blanket tighter, I permitted my mind to flit back to the horrors of those dark days, the relentless brutality and humiliating routines all the women had been forced to endure.
Harper had himself found new and ingenious ways for me to prove my loyalty to him, but being in the luxury of his unit had afforded me protection as well as pleasure.
It was where we’d got to know one another.
It was where we’d fallen in love.
But even in the haze of those happier recollections, I couldn’t forget the fate of all the others.
It wasn’t only Macmillan who might have paid the price for our escape.
What about all those women we’d freed on our way out of the camp?
Linda, Jean, and the others who’d helped me to survive the horror.
What had happened to them?
We’d sent them off into the night with minimal weaponry and no provisions. How long could they have lasted before sentries had been dispatched to deliver the same arbitrary fate that poor Fern had suffered?
Likely, their best outcomes would have been if some generous local had taken them in, but doing so would have come at great personal risk to the individual, and there had been so many women... How could anyone—however big their heart was—have helped them all?
Depressingly, I realized it was more probable that the same local would have ratted them out to Ian Jackson’s hideous authorities. I had to hope Harper fleeing had done enough to destabilize Fortorus, allowing at least some of those women to slip through the net.
My belly contracted at the dreadful conclusion. How was it fair that I had escaped with a man who loved and sheltered me, while so many others were left to rot? How was I going to live with myself, knowing there was nothing more I could do to help those women?
“Here we go, gorgeous.” He was back in the doorway, his spectacular body bared from the waist up.
I glanced up in time to see him nudge the door closed with his foot, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he carried the two huge pizza boxes in his hands.
Half-naked and at ease, nobody would have guessed that only a week before, he’d been in charge of the fate of thousands of women.
He looked like any other guy collecting a delivery for his partner.
“I hope you’re hungry, little girl.” He advanced with a grin. “It looks as though we’ve ordered enough for an entire family and—” He stopped, his brows knitting. “What’s wrong?”
I pulled in a breath, conscious for the first time that I was crying. The tears stung my eyes, demanding justice for those we’d left behind.
I left behind, I clarified. I was one of them, yet I abandoned them all at the first chance I got.
“Caroline.” He dropped the pizza boxes to the ground as he perched on the seat beside me. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing.” I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand.
“I left you for two minutes to collect the pizza and now you’re upset.” His gaze was bewildered. “Talk to me.”
I could tell not being able to micromanage every minute of my emotional state was pushing him well out of his comfort zone, but even though I knew he had my interests at heart, I needed time to process my woe before I shared it with him.
“I was just thinking about what we were discussing, that’s all. ”
“Fortorus?” His tone was resigned.