Chapter 16 Reed #2
She sighs, a gusty sound of disappointment. “I believe we went over this already. Mr. Blitz is a very busy man who cannot be disturbed while he prepares to give his keynote presentation at a Zurich conference. Whatever you need assistance with, I’m certain I can assist you.”
“Unfortunately, I must talk to Mr. Blitz about this.” I clear my throat. “It’s a matter of life or death.”
The unknown caller scowls at me through his mask. I’m no actor, and while I am scared that this may be the end, right now, I am of more use to him alive than I am dead. So if I can muddle my way through this call, maybe I can hatch an escape plan.
“That sounds awfully dramatic, Mr. Thompson. What seems to be the trouble?” she asks.
“I—” My brain goes blank. He told me not to be specific. “I…might die?”
The unknown caller shakes his head, rolls his green eyes. I shoot him my own look of annoyance. This is not how I wanted my night to go either. I’m trying my best here.
“Is it something you ate? If so, I can put you in touch with the on-call doctor,” she says.
“No, it’s not anything like that,” I reply.
“Are you suggesting you’ll take your own life? Mr. Thompson, Arrow Mart has a fabulous automated mental health text line. Let me see if I can send it over to you—”
The unknown caller growls like a ferocious beast. As if maybe he’s part of that pack we confronted outside, and any second he might transform despite it not being a full moon.
Quickly, the unknown caller changes from a voice call to a video call. He backs the phone up so the front-facing camera showcases me—mud-splattered, red-eyed, and bound to the chair. I wish he’d at least covered my lap since I’m still in my underwear.
“Here we go, it’s—” A proper-sounding gasp oozes from the phone speaker. “Oh my goodness. Mr. Thompson, what’s going on? Who’s done this to you?” Erin’s camera flips on. She’s got owlish glasses, curly gray hair, and a mole over the right side of her thin mouth.
“I have,” the unknown caller says, turning the camera to him.
“Excuse me, but who are you? Take that mask off right this instant,” Erin says as if she has any command over the situation whatsoever.
I’m sure whatever title she holds under Wendell gives her authority.
But right now? She’s as useless as I am.
“I thought I was clear, Mr. Thompson. No visitors. How could you let this man inside? And where the devil are your pants?”
“I spilled on them,” I say, confused as to why that’s what she’s glommed onto. “Also, I didn’t let him in. He broke in. The power went out, the security system glitched, and here he is.”
Erin stammers, obviously not trained in crisis management. “This is highly irregular. Mr. Thompson, I wish you had notified me sooner before this intruder got you in such a compromising position.”
“Uh…” Is she insinuating this is somehow my fault? “I tried to call you.”
“Well, not hard enough, it appears,” she huffs, sounding way too victim-blamey for my taste.
My eyes ping from her on the screen to the hunting knife in the unknown caller’s other hand. She is the only person who can help me right now, and she’s proving inept, but I need to stay on her good side and keep her on the line.
“Perhaps if you were wearing more clothes, he would not have been tempted to break in,” she says.
“Excuse me?” At this point, I don’t know who to be more annoyed with, Erin or the unknown caller.
“I advised the Blitzes not to hire someone with such active dating profiles, but they insisted,” she says. “We do very thorough background checks, Mr. Thompson. Your proclivities were uncovered in the case file.”
I’m only mildly mortified that Wendell Blitz—billionaire and apparently my dad—is now aware that I have an account on Kink Camp. A profile that lists the dozens of debaucherous deeds I enjoy in the bedroom. My cheeks scorch. “Okay…”
“Shut up! Both of you!” the unknown caller snaps. “I’m not here about Mr. Thompson’s proclivities.” The way he says it makes me think he’s cool with robbery, kidnapping, and murder, but lying, homophobia, and kink-shaming are deep offenses. “I’m here to take what’s mine.”
Erin yips out a laugh. “Good luck scrounging anything of value in that house beyond a bottle of liquor or a pair of designer shoes. You think the Blitz’s leave any of their valuables lying around when vetting a new house sitter?”
Underneath the balaclava, the unknown caller’s nostrils flare. “No, I think the Blitz’s leave their valuables in a safe in this very house.”
Erin’s face goes even whiter than it already is. “That’s absurd.”
“The only thing that’s absurd is that you’ve yet to give me the location of and combination to that safe when I have your house sitter tied up and I’m holding a hunting knife.” He shows her the imposing weapon before placing it at the base of my throat.
I shrink away from the cold bite of the steel blade. My pulse pounds stronger in my neck veins. Panic stops my breath like a wine cork.
“Let’s not be hasty,” Erin says, her fingers working away out of sight of the camera.
“If you’re trying to trip the security system,” the unknown caller says, “I’ve already deactivated it.”
Damn, he’s good. I suppose if I have to be held hostage by a stalking, sticky-fingered psychopath, at least this one’s a professional. If I live to tell the tale, it’ll be a good one. They could even make a movie out of it.
Erin’s brown eyes droop. She clicks a mouse out of the frame. “If it’s money you’re after, I’m authorized to wire you ten thousand dollars into an account of your choosing, no police called, and no questions asked.”
I gulp again. My Adam’s apple skims the edge of the knife blade. My nostrils spasm as I try to suck in enough breath without moving my jaw.
If I were the unknown caller, I’d take the deal. Ten thousand dollars is better than going to prison.
“You must think I’m stupid,” the unknown caller says with a brooding laugh.
“Whatever’s in that state-of-the-art safe is worth several million if not more.
Besides, unless you’re marching yourself down here with a bag full of dollar bills, that transaction will be traceable.
I’m not falling for your trap, but it was a good try. ”
Erin sniffles, hardens her stare. “Fine. Let’s see if the Jackson police will be as agreeable as I am.” She makes a show of pulling out a second phone from a desk drawer.
The knife stays at my throat. The way it jumps every few seconds suggests the unknown caller is quietly laughing to himself.
He lets her act out the call for his amusement.
I might find it funny too if he weren’t playing roulette with my artery right now.
One wrong slip of his hand and I’m liable to bleed out.
“They’ll be there before you know it,” she says, setting the phone down.
“You’re an even worse actor than he is.” The unknown caller turns the knife point on me.
“Hey!” I snap, then rear away from the knife again. Fatal injury supersedes insult right now.
“You think I didn’t call?” Erin asks.
“I know you didn’t call,” he says. “Mr. Blitz and the local police are not on good terms after Mr. Blitz purchased this land and tried to get the local police department to implement his investment firm’s public safety software.
They declined due to many reports from various states of critical failures that resulted in catastrophic downtime of their 9-1-1 operations.
If you call them, you’ll probably upset your boss, and if you upset your boss, you just might lose your job. I did my own background check.”
Erin’s frown drags down her already jowly cheeks. “Twenty thousand,” she says.
“The safe,” he replies.
“Thirty thousand,” she says.
“The safe.” The knife is perpendicular against my throat once more. It nips at my sensitive skin. If ever there were a moment for my life to flash before my eyes, it would be now. However, I’m mercifully spared that miserable trip down bad memory lane.
“Forty thousand,” she says, “that’s my final offer.”
“The only negotiating I’m going to do with you, lady, is the safe or his life. What’s it going to be?” the unknown caller asks, tolerance waning in his words.
The knife comes closer. I white-knuckle the arms of the chair as my heart speeds.
Oh my god. He might actually do it.
He might actually hurt me.
Earlier, I’d partially believed him when he said he didn’t want to.
Need beats want every time, I suppose. I close my eyes and try to go to a happy place in my mind.
The saddest part is, I can’t come up with a single one except being held by Hank, the Dom Daddy who unceremoniously ghosted me and blocked me after tying me up just like this.
Just like…
The red ropes around my wrists seem to grow brighter in my peripheral vision.
“Fifty thou—” Erin grips her hair. “I don’t know where it is!”
“Say that again.” The unknown caller retracts the knife, but only a centimeter, maybe two.
The Johnny Cash songs over the speakers and sung outside replay in my mind.
“I don’t know where it is, nor do I have the combination to it. Mr. Blitz has been incredibly secretive about it. I’m telling the honest-to-god truth here,” she says.
A frustrated growl escapes the unknown caller. In the small rectangle in the corner of my phone, he practically froths at the mouth. The animal in him rips to the surface. I half expect his clothes to tear apart in a shower of fur and spittle.
His clothes. A black turtleneck. Tight black, stretchy jeans. Clothes I’ve seen before tonight.
“I suggest you get both of those pieces of information,” he says.
“Mr. Blitz is—”
“I don’t give a fuck what Mr. Blitz is doing. Get Mr. Blitz on the horn right this minute.”
“That’s not pos—”
“Interrupt him and get it,” the unknown caller says in a voice that seems to accidentally slide higher than the deep rumble he’s been using.
A deep rumble that mirrors a character voice I heard during a role-play scene where my partner was embodying Dr. Nebula. The same Dr. Nebula from the movie I was watching earlier, which the unknown caller knew scene-by-scene.
The knife returns to its position at my throat, and this time, it breaches skin.
Fuck, don’t let this be the end.
But also, fuck, don’t let him stop.
My cock unhelpfully comes alive in my briefs when I realize that the unknown caller must be Hank Richards. These can’t be coincidences. Like the paternity results, I’m ninety-nine percent certain.
Thank goodness the camera is trained up on the knife’s contact point. Otherwise, Erin would see my proclivities on full display. The pain from the place where the knife nicked me fuels my unexpected, iron-rod erection that I wish I could cover with my hands.
Flashes of a comic panel from my favorite Nova Ranger issue come to mind. A trickle of his sparkly red blood flowing with star stuff down his exposed muscular chest through the rips in his super suit.
On my Kink Camp profile, I have blood play and primal play listed in my “curious about” category. The droplet of my blood rolls across my collarbone and down under the front of my shirt, disappearing between my pecs. My dick swells more.
Well, kink confirmed, I guess. Too bad this isn’t a scripted scene with a safeword. I’d come so hard I might never regain consciousness. That would be a preferable way to die, at least.
The danger Hank poses to me now sends endorphins marathoning through my bloodstream.
Even my hardest workouts have never produced this kind of bodily high.
On the knife’s edge of life and death, I feel truly free, accepting of my interests and my hardscrabble past. No guilt or shame can crowd my thoughts when I might not even be alive much longer.
And Hank. Hank is here.
Did he stalk me here? Or has he been planning this all along?
“I can’t just—”
“Your excuses don’t interest me,” says Hank to Erin. “It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. I expect Wendell Blitz to call me and tell me where he’s put that safe and how to crack it. You’ve got one hour.”
“But you don’t understand…” Erin tries fruitlessly to explain.
“One,” he repeats, “hour. If I don’t hear from Mr. Blitz by then, Mr. Thompson dies, and his blood will not only be stained all over the expensive rug in this room. His blood will be on your hands.”
He ends the call and chucks my phone onto the bed. I must be messed up because I suddenly wish I were the phone. I want to be tossed like nothing onto the mattress, pinned down, and then pile-driven into submission.
God help me. I’m probably going to die at the hands of my last and best hookup, and my brain chooses now to fill up with more of my filthiest fantasies.
I suppose some people picture their last meal on death row.
Steak and a baked potato or some shit. I picture my final lay. The orgasm I’ll go out on.
“Fuck,” probably-Hank says, setting the hunting knife down. His gravelly voice isn’t helping debone my hard-on.
He wipes his huge, gloved hand over his wet mouth. I consider his nails sinking deep into the skin of my back—marking me, scarring me, branding me as his.
“What the fuck am I going to do with you for an ho—” He stops in front of the chair, green eyes pinging down to my lap. For a moment, he appears scared of me for a change. Then his mouth curls into a devilish grin. “Are you hard right now?”
My face flushes, and I say nothing. Denying my visible need would be mortifying. Was Hank ghosting me a clear sign he isn’t interested in me anymore? All of his actions tonight, right down to him being here, suggest otherwise.
“When I sniffed your briefs, I knew I smelled a slut,” he says. Only Hank knows that degradation makes me leak like a broken faucet. Demeaning words crank something in my psyche that once provoked can’t be put away.
A patch of wet grows on the pouch of my light-gray briefs.
Hank bites his plump bottom lip. A bottom lip I’ve kissed and bitten. I’m so sure of it.
“I was wondering what to do with you while we wait for Daddy Dearest,” he says as he steps between my already spread legs so his crotch is practically right in my face. I swear I can smell his familiar musk through his layers. Tantalizingly intoxicating.
He bends his knee so it presses into the underside of my hard-on. “You’ve given me an excellent idea.”
He throws his weight behind his knee, and I cry out in the most exquisite blend of pain and pleasure I’ve ever experienced. “For the next hour, I’m Daddy.”