Chapter 7
CHAPTER
LET ME GO! GET OFF me, you jerks!”
Rhett had walked outside in time to see his father’s sex-mate for the night being forced by two men into an SUV, with her eyes still blindfolded.
“Hey,” he called out.
“Yeah?” said the biggest of the men, who was the head of Barton Temple’s personal security team.
“Where are you taking her?”
“Back to where she came from, sir,” said the same man.
“And the blindfold?”
The man looked at Rhett like he was an idiot. “Protecting the boss, sir.”
“I’ll take her back,” said Rhett.
“No can do,” said the man. “Our orders—”
“The ‘boss’ just told me to come down and see to this. Care to go upstairs and wake him up and ask him?”
None of the men looked remotely willing to do that.
Rhett gripped the woman’s arm. “Let’s go.”
She immediately started to struggle until he leaned in and whispered, “I’m getting you out of a tight situation. Trust me.”
He guided her to his Porsche, and got her settled and buckled in.
As he climbed in next to her he said, “What’s your name?”
“Can I take off the blindfold now? They said if I did it before I wouldn’t get paid.”
“When I get to where you’re going you can. What’s your name?”
“Laurel.”
“How did you come to be here tonight?”
“I work… for people. They set it up.”
“How much of your fee goes to the people?”
“Seventy percent, I keep the rest,” replied Laurel.
“You need to work a better deal.”
Frowning she said, “Just drop me off, okay?”
“Where?”
She gave him an address and he put it into the nav system.
He studied her. She was young. Maybe jailbait young. His father had to be slipping to play things that close to the edge. “Did he treat you okay?”
She shrugged. “I was thinking of other things. That’s what I do.”
“He pay well?”
“Yeah. Real good.”
“You mind my asking how much?”
“Two thousand,” she said in a tone that was full of both pride and wonder. “Two grand for ten minutes’ work,” she added, which made Rhett snort.
“I’m surprised he could satisfy you.”
“He couldn’t. But I satisfied him.”
It took Rhett a moment to understand what she meant. “Right. Well, he is pretty old.”
“Whatever.”
“But you only get thirty percent. That’s six hundred bucks.”
“Still a lot for ten minutes. Per hour that’s like—”
“—thirty-six hundred.”
“Yeah, way more than doctors and lawyers make.”
“You been with him before?” he asked.
“Three times before.”
“How can you tell with the blindfold? His voice?”
“It’s his smell,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
This piqued Rhett’s interest. “So what does he smell like?”
“Old. Mothballs, and something else I can’t quite figure out.”
She turned to him again as they sailed around a curve. “So you think I should get more than thirty percent?”
“Well, you are doing all the work.”
“You’re rich, right?”
“How can you tell that?” asked Rhett.
“You were at the guy’s place. His goons called you sir and let you take me away. And your car smells and sounds expensive.”
“You could be a detective.”
She said in a coy voice, “Look, you wanna do it with me? It’s not like I got any personal satisfaction from him. And I get to keep a hundred percent.”
He looked her over. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“No, really, how old are you?”
“Nineteen, I swear.”
“You got ID?”
“Left pocket of my dress. Why don’t you pull it out?” she added coyly.
He leaned over and snagged it, feeling the softness of her hip at the same time. She smelled good, honeysuckle and coconut.
The driver’s license showed her name as Laurel Burke, age nineteen, and it looked legit. At least it would give him plausible deniability. He took a picture of it with his phone, slipped it back into her pocket, this time stroking her hip and thigh.
“And don’t worry, I’m on the pill. Of course with the old guy it didn’t matter. You can’t get pregnant that way.”
Though he was certain his father had never told Mindy, Rhett had found out his dad had undergone a vasectomy a while back. His father would probably just keep having sex with Mindy and blame the lack of offspring on her inability to conceive, since he’d already successfully fathered four offspring.
“Sometimes the pill fails. So I will be using protection.”
“Where do you want to do it?” she asked.
In answer he found a dirt road, where he pulled to a stop in front of a thicket of wild butterfly shrubs that drooped with the weight of the recent rain. With the break in the weather he put the Porsche’s top down so they’d have more room.
Rhett had her keep the blindfold on while he slid down his pants and underwear and put on the condom. He then put the seat back as far as it would go and helped Burke climb over the console and sit astride him.
She slipped her dress off, revealing only a thong underneath. He tugged that aside, and the Porsche rocked for the next half hour.
“Can’t I take the blindfold off?” she gasped.
“It’s more fun this way,” he countered. “You can imagine me any way you want.”
“Kinky.”
Finished, he slowly stroked her hair.
“Better than the old sack of shit?” he whispered.
She moaned throatily. “Oh, yeah. Lots.”
When the rain started to fall again, Rhett started the car and put the top up, to keep them from getting doused.
They put their clothes back on, and he drove off.
A half hour later he slowed to a stop in an area of the city far away from the penthouse crowd.
He peeled off a huge wad of hundreds from a stash he kept in a custom lock box under the front seat, then grabbed a small, zippered vinyl bag from the console and put the cash in there before handing the bag to her.
“Five thousand cash.”
“Shit,” she said. “Seriously?”
“You want to count it?”
“No, I’m good. I trust you.”
“And like you said, you get one hundred percent. Thirty minutes of work, so that’s ten grand an hour.”
She smirked. “Thanks for the raise.”
He helped her get out of the car and looked around. “You close by?”
“You see a red door?” she asked.
“Yeah, number twelve, on the left.”
“That’s me.”
“You got a key?” he said.
“In my other pocket.”
“Count to five and then take off the blindfold.”
“Maybe we can do this again.”
“Maybe we can.”
He got back into the car. “So, what do I smell like?”
She turned toward the sound of his voice. “Not old, for sure. No mothballs.”
“But?”
“But—and don’t take this the wrong way, mister—you… you smell a little like the other guy.”