Chapter 19
EMME
“No.” I said that in a hush because it was surreal to find them here, invading my real life. I resisted running or throwing something at them. “Go away. You… I lost my job because of you.”
Mister Scott held his hands, palms out, to the side. “I’m defenseless here. Busy street.” He nodded at the sidewalk which was a few yards past the fence.
I didn’t throw anything. I took a deep breath then I couldn’t help sniffling.
My first instinct should have been to threaten them with the cops.
If I was quick, I could summon the security guard before he vanished into the school. Even now he was trotting up the stairs.
“Why are you here?” I pulled a tissue from my bag and blew my nose.
Mr. Scott had the grace to look concerned. Axl was waiting, hovering, hands in his jeans pockets. His mottled-white linen shirt looked spotless and straight from an upmarket store.
“I know you lost your job. I’m sorry. Really,” Mr. Scott said.
I frowned.
“Please, go away. I shouldn’t ever see you again.”
At that Axl broke out in a grin. My scowl swayed to him, deepened. He only shrugged.
“My name, my real name, is Grayson Hallow.”
The world tilted sideways. Only temporarily but still, that was a shock.
“Why tell me that now? How do you know what went on in there? Did you arrange it?” Fuck, what if they had?
I thought it through. Would I finally report them for rape and kidnapping and then explain how I hesitated because I mostly enjoyed it? I might be believed. I might be charged myself if the cops thought I was lying.
I was screwing the tissue into a tight ball in my fist.
“No, we did not.” Axl had finally spoken. Unruly brown hair, impish evil grin. I swept him from his boots to those annoying locks of hair draped over his forehead. Sexy, suave, and evil.
“How did you know?” I dropped the tissue into a bin next to the sidewalk.
“There is a backdoor to an app on your phone. We installed it when I first grabbed you,” Grayson cross Mr. Scott dryly explained, as if this were normal procedure. “We know everything you say and send and do. Where you’ve been, what you had for breakfast. All of it.”
My mouth had popped open. I shut it.
Stalking on an otherworldly level. I wavered between awed, scared, and feeling flattered by their dedication. They’d already demonstrated that they knew about phones and surveillance. Were they black hat or white hat hackers? I should have suspected this might happen.
“Come to a restaurant with us, now, tonight. You said you wanted more. We are interested.”
We.
They may as well have dropped a bomb on me.
“I have more than sex to worry about, boys—like my job,” I said bitterly.
“Boys? Ooo. She feels safe enough with us to make cutting remarks.” Axl bent at the waist to stare at me on my eye level. He added in a hard voice, “Restaurant. Now, Emme.”
I swear my ridiculous brain jellied at that order.
“I don’t think I trust you enough. You didn’t make that happen? The school—the accusations of public sex?”
Grayson shook his head slowly. “No. But we stopped Wharton from doing more. If you want explanations, come with us. No abduction, nothing but a meal. I mean, seriously, Emme, if we wanted to take you, we would.”
Oh my.
“How did you stop Wharton? I mean…” I bit off what I was about to angrily say. My curses degenerated into the archaic when I was really disturbed. Why not join them for a drink and a meal? “I suppose, I could join you.”
“Good. This way.” Grayson gestured.
On the sidewalk, they took a place on either side of me. Neither touched me. I had two well-built men in neat but casual jeans and shirts acting as escorts. This amused me.
I couldn’t help but intermittently check them over, noticing things that had been lost to me in the throes of coerced sex—such as the small scar beside Axl’s left eyebrow, or how Grayson’s fingers were extra-long.
I wondered how often he had to have the sides of his hair shaved to keep it that way.
I wondered how it would feel to run my hands through the top curls he left long, without being told to—just because I wanted to do it.
Those were normal things, and nothing we had done so far was that. What they had done had been awe-inspiring sexually, and sometimes frightening. It made me worried about ‘going normal’—if this were that.
The black Porsche a block away seemed our likely destination.
The two of them were causing mindfucks by their very presence at such a bad moment in my life. I’d never felt more fragile. Survival until my next job should be a priority because dismissal after a show-cause notice meant no further pay, and a sucky note from them, if I asked for a reference.
I was doomed currently. I hated the in-between-jobs hiatus, even if it meant being able to, theoretically, do anything. Make that—do anything I could afford.
“Yours?” I asked Axl when we arrived at the Porsche.
“Yes. A Panamera.” He clicked the key and indicated the back passenger seat.
I’d always envied those driving this sort of showy car. The seat gave under my weight as if I’d sat on a muscular cougar—all grace and good-quality materials.
Secretively, I smoothed my hand over the seat. This was the smell, the look, the feel of being rich. He pulled away from the curb. As we smoothly rumbled down the street, I turned to Grayson. “Where are we going?”
“A bridge restaurant called The Cherry Blossom.”
I nodded. “Heard of it. Are you buttering me up, so I don’t hand you to the cops?” This was my time to be snippy to them, if I ever was to be.
“No.” Axl glanced across as he steered. “If I butter you up it will be with you ass-up over something.” He winked.
I blushed.
“Damn,” I whispered that and shook my head. “Incorrigible.”
“We are doing this because we think we owe it to you. I indulged my fantasies. I wrecked your career, a little. Temporarily,” Grayson said, and he sank back into his seat. “We also think maybe we like you.” He smirked.
They liked me? I blew straight past that—none of us knew much about the other, except for the kinks we had. I suppose I knew Grayson had some morals and boundaries. He was the one who had let me go.
“You wrecked it temporarily? A little?” I fumed. I calmed myself. I should wait until we were in public at the restaurant. Not here, where yelling at them might, and probably would, get me…hurt.
I wrenched my mind away from all the fun sorts of hurts Grayson might provide.
Paddles, whips, crops.
Mentally, I shook myself.
But Axl might not be as fun. I had never met anyone who seemed so sly with his ways. As if he said one thing and casually did the opposite when no one was looking. I might be wrong. I probably was. There was one way to find out—see more of them.
We left the Porsche at a riverside park. The Cherry Blossom was to the side, in the middle of the old stone bridge, and was reached from the footpath that led across. The name suggested Asian cuisine, probably Japanese, and they had a mix of different Asian cooking styles on the menu.
With sushi, nigiri, dumplings, and spring rolls ordered, I waited for the two men to break the ice. They were my ex-abductors, and maybe my saviors today, even if it was too little, too late. I was too unbalanced to make small talk.
Axl had sat beside me in one of the black chairs with plush red seats.
Grayson had pulled out a chair, opposite.
I’d chosen the window seat that looked down over the river.
Clouds showed in the sky, the moon was making an early, pale appearance, and I was sitting with two men who thought it okay to kidnap a woman, tie her up, and make her have sex with them.
Yet here I was questioning my judgment not theirs.
They were discussing the football, the weather, computer virus detection—anything except what I wanted to hear.
Carefully, I folded my hands in my lap and waited for a break and until they both turned to look at me because my stillness had finally sunk in.
“Tell me what you did to Mr. Wharton. Tell me again that you did not deliberately make this happen. I’m sorry but with our past, you know?”
“Sure. We understand.” As he spoke, Axl had rested his forearm on the table and twisted to look at me.
I kept my eyes wide, my expression attentive, and tried to forget what he’d done to me only a few hours ago.
I couldn’t, not really. He’d shoved an orc dildo inside me while— Yes, that. I swallowed.
From his silence, and how he studied my face, he had an idea as to where my mind had gone.
He began again. “We saw the email. I had already checked out your squeaky-clean Christian school.”
I cocked my head. “Why?”
“A school run by a bunch of puritanical people and you, my pretty ex-nun, working for them? It was obvious I’d look into it.”
Not to me, it wasn’t, and I was never a nun, but I let it slide.
“He did.” Grayson nodded, his eyes lifting heavenward for a second. Clearly, he wasn’t agreeing with it being necessary.
“While looking into the board that was judging you and also the principal, we found out who was accusing you. The firewalls at the school are amateurish. I got into Wharton’s PC next and scanned it for naughtiness.
His history goes back years. He’s dirty as fuck.
Some of it would get him thrown off the board.
Some would be illegal.” Axl smiled. “So we texted him and threatened to reveal that and fixed your problem, as much as we could.”
“And you’ve been listening to me through my phone.” I grimaced. How could they? How intrusive. How wrong. How fucking thrilling. Oh, I knew myself fairly well, but not that being stalked like this could be a kink.
They waited.
The waiter arrived and laid out our food. We were sharing the platters. Once again, we behaved like normal people and offered each other plates, and only took what was polite to do. Not beasts, not animals, not whatever these two could be when provoked. Sex demons? A smile twitched at my mouth.
After picking at the food and eating little, I sighed. What was I going to do? Did I have to say it?