Chapter 40 Ian
I paced the office and glanced at my watch for the millionth time.
Where was she? I muttered as I took a seat.
What on earth could she need to do so desperately that she’d be gone this long? I hadn’t kept her from living life, had I?
Of course you did Jackass, you had her in a basement.
Collette had been out of my sight for over two hours, going on three. I was getting frustrated and antsy.
I’ve been keeping tabs on her from Rossi and knew that when she’d finished talking to Ingrid, she’d gone shopping.
He’d quit responding after an update because I was being super annoying. I knew it; he knew it and even though I paid him to do his job; I didn’t have to be a terror about it.
She was making an entire day of being away from me. Her bank account had regular payments processed into them while she’d been working for me. They were way more than she’d been made in any previous given year. I just couldn’t believe that she decided to go on a shopping trip when we needed to be focused on finding a killer.
When she came waltzing in another hour later with her shopping bags and a smile on her face, I lost it.
A growl erupted.
“Jessica, hold all my calls.”
I ordered through the intercom to the woman subbing for Kathy.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through the past few hours while you were out shopping?”
I growled again and for the first time, Collette appeared slightly scared. The bright smile she had on her face a second ago vanished.
She dropped the bags and took a step backward. It only made me want to pin her down to claim her as mine.
“I’ve been pacing, unable to think because I was consumed with worry. I wasn’t able to focus on anything while you were gone.”
I stalked over to the door and flicked the lock on the door.
Her instincts must have warned her not to move, because she stood still as I approached. The dom in me approved. The man worried about pushing too hard.
I couldn’t stop myself and picked her up to carry her to the desk.
It had been running through my head for hours about how I was going to punish her for making me go through all this waiting.
With a sweep of my hand over the desk, I cleared it. Then I wrapped an arm around her, twirling her around to face the desk.
It was a soundproof room, and this was going to be rough. I was going to make her regret leaving me to worry for a few hours.
I yanked her pants down and bent her over.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
With each word, I gave her ass cheeks a hard slap to bring the message home. “I’ve learned that I quite enjoy having you around. Unless you tell me this isn’t what you want, I’ll continue.”
She nodded, and I gripped her hair, pulling her back toward me as I undid my fly with the other and thrust my rock hard cock toward her pussy. Her red cheeks were so pretty covered in my hand print.
I leaned over her back and snarled in her ear, “When we have more time, I’ll take that ass again.”
She groaned and rubbed back against me.
“That turns you on, doesn’t it?”
I growled.
I held her head so she couldn’t do more than push her ass back toward me.
“I’m going to remind you what you have here. Then you won’t ever want to run away from me again.”
I leaned forward and bit into her neck as I continued to fuck her into the desk.
The whole boss/employee scene was making both of us hot, and I would have to remember to do this again when we got back from Ireland.
“This is the kind of punishment you can expect from me when you don’t inform me of where you’re going.”
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
The words were the last piece of the puzzle, and we both came together with a shout.
When I handed her a Kleenex to wipe up with, she smirked at me.
She set her naked ass on the edge of my desk and watched as I zipped up my pants. She kept her legs open so I could see our juices pour out of her and onto my desk. My cock stirred once again.
“Ingrid didn’t really give me anything too helpful. She’s trying to figure out who Heather is and where her father might have taken her, but they appear to have disappeared.”
She crossed her legs and waited for me to ask her to get dressed.
I was tempted to growl at her and tell her to uncross those pretty little legs, and let me catch my fill.
In my current mood, she could wait on putting on clothes until she got cold. I should have her naked in the office often in the future. If she’d lose the shirt, then I could watch her boobs bounce as she walked around the room.
“We went over all those avenues thoroughly, but it doesn’t hurt for others to try. We’ll need to do some on the ground digging when we get there.”
I held back the chuckle when she hopped off the desk and pulled her pants on.
“My ass was getting cold,”
she murmured.
“That makes perfect sense.”
“Oh, there was one thing that seemed odd, though. Ingrid mentioned they’d only found Andy’s body and not the bodyguard’s body. You said he died, though, right? And she said Andy had been bitten several times by dogs.”
“Yes, he wasn’t found near Andrew. They found him floating in the river about two weeks later. The cops didn’t put the two deaths together.”
I took a seat again.
“What if the bodyguard was giving Heather’s family information? After they had what they needed, they just killed him.”
She took a seat on the other side of the desk, far away from me.
“His name was Joseph Volkov. We don’t think he was a spy, but he was tortured for information before they killed him. He was bitten too.”
Levering myself up, I paced the length of the room.
I hated revisiting this memory.
“What I’m about to tell you isn’t something that I want people knowing about.”
I continued pacing. “I made a mistake early on, and one of my companions killed herself. Her brother, Sergi, blamed me. He’s part of the Russian mafia, or he was. He’s hired himself out to Heather’s father. We think he's the one who questioned both of them.”
Shame filled me. It was a time I would never forget. It was also why I was so hard on myself for not taking better care of Collette. Fortunately, Collette was a stronger woman, with the hunger for survival.
“I had no idea that he was in Ireland or associated with Heather’s father. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have sent Andrew to find her. I truly thought he’d be able to get her and come away without a scratch.”
Her eyes softened as she looked at me. “You couldn’t have known. This Sergi guy being involved is a worst-case scenario. We’ll just be super careful and make sure that no one finds out we’re looking for her.”
“That’s why you shouldn't try to ditch Rossi. If Sergi finds out that I’m there in person, it’s not going to be safe for any of us.”
He would hurt Collette. He would use her to punish me, knowing that it would be the worst torture I could endure.
I hit the button for Rossi to join us. It was time to get ready and on our way.
He came in with a grunt, carrying three suitcases and various bags of items from her shopping trip.
“I wasn’t just off on a pleasure trip.”
She shot me a knowing look. “I don’t have anything to wear that will work for this kind of trip. Plus, I needed to enjoy some of the money that I’d been making.”
“That reminds me, I’ve booked the company plane to fly out this evening.”
I got up and collected some files on the floor that would need our attention before we left.
“Rossi, can you please pack a bag for you and I, so that we can leave for Ireland this evening? I’d like to get there first thing in the morning, which will be closer to evening there with the time changes, but we can’t help that for now.”
He nodded and left, leaving the bags. Everything we needed would end up on the plane. He was reliable that way.
WHen the door shut I sank back into my office chair and watched as Collette bent over to collect the last few objects I’d shoved to the floor in my hurry to sink my cock into her.
How was it that I’d lived for so long without her and survived?
There’d been a shift the last few days, and I was certain that I might be in love with her. No more of the guessing and wondering about my feelings. That had never happened before. I just needed to persuade her to stay once we were done with this quest. Preferably by making her unwilling to give up the fantastic sex.
We didn’t have time for another round. There were preparations that needed to be made before we could leave in a few hours.
Although, if she didn’t stop bending over in front of me, we were going to have sex again. That would most definitely delay us, because at this rate I’d probably harden after I finished and I was still inside her. I would never be able to get enough of her.
This feeling like a teenager infatuated with a girl was something new and different. I’d never busted a nut without meaning to, but she was making me come close to the edge with her actions.
Instead of working, she’d started taking things out of her shopping bags and began to pack them in the suitcases that she’d purchased.
“What?”
she questioned as she turned and caught my eyes on her.
“Just admiring the view.”
Her cheeks blushed a rosy color at my words. I ducked my head back to the computer and tried to focus.
“You’re going to have to get used to compliments. It’s not something that I give out lightly, but there are moments when I’m not going to be able to help it.”
I must have said something wrong, because she stopped completely.
“You can’t help it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Like they just involuntarily slip out and you can’t stop them?”
“Uh, yeah.”
All of my self-confidence withered under that glare. As an adult, no one else had ever been able to cut me into small pieces until Collette. “They’re still compliments.”
“Yes, and they should be freely given. Not just the slip of a tongue that you can’t keep from coming out.”
A sigh escaped her lips. “I deserve better. If you can’t honestly tell me how you feel, then I’m not sure that we can have a future.”
This was one of those moments that I was completely unprepared for. If I wanted to keep her, I was going to have to change the way I thought about things. Something had to change with my lifestyle and habits because until now, I hadn’t wanted to be the better version of myself for anyone.
“You’re right. I apologize. Complements shouldn’t be given grudgingly. They should be heaped upon you for all the good things you do.”
She surprised me by coming over and plopping herself into my lap.
“I love when you praise me for things. Seems I’ve developed a certain kind of response to being told that I’m a good girl. Other compliments are always welcome, but I’m going to preen and purr when you tell me I’m doing a good job.”
Her words were making me hard again, which she realized as she moved her ass closer to my crotch. She was getting the reaction that she wanted for sure.
“Make me believe I can trust you.”
Her body moved to press against mine as she whispered in my ear.
I could feel myself becoming rock solid, and while I would have loved to pursue that again, we needed to prepare for the trip.
Firmly taking her by the waist, I sat her on her feet in front of me.
“We have things to finish up if we’re going to find Andrew’s killer.”
I mumbled, pulling her neck down so that I could kiss her mouth.
Her approving smile warmed me in ways that had nothing to do with lust.
Even as we finished up the work that couldn’t wait, I was trying to think of new ways and places to have sex with her. I couldn’t get enough of her. Thankfully, I was taking her with me so that I didn’t have to be without my fix. Evidently, we didn’t do well when we were apart from each other.
A chill rushed through me. That was what killed my mother. She had depended on my father for her food, nourishment, and social attachments. When he’d given up caring for her, she hadn’t been able to do anything on her own.
Watching Collette work efficiently around me, I suddenly knew that I’d done the exact same thing as my father had to my mother. I hadn’t broken the pattern, I’d just recreated it and called it something different.
Patterns could be broken, and it was time to become someone that wasn’t my father.
With both of us determined to find Heather and avenge Andrew’s death, Ireland wasn’t going to know what hit them. Money had a lot of advantages, and I was willing to use loads of it to get to the truth. The killer had no idea what can of worms they’d opened up by murdering my best friend, but they were about to find out.
And if needed, Sergi would be dealt with permanently.