Chapter 22
Geneva
The man I’d thought Rick was hadn’t so much changed as a result of the meeting with Keenan and Ford. Rather, what it had done regarding my assessment of my boss was… evolve it.
I’d been genuinely surprised Rick had agreed to take the meeting at all, especially considering there was no prospect of compensation or remuneration for his time. He could have easily brushed off the problem of the young women’s disappearances, but instead he’d seemed genuinely concerned and wanting to help.
It was possibly the first time I’d seen any willingness in the man to place his own needs aside and focus on genuinely helping someone else. There wasn’t an angle here, at least none that I could make out.
That’s not saying all that much, Genie. How the fuck would you know what angle to look for?
It didn’t make sense… unless Rick truly did care about helping people. At least once in a while.
While I was dutifully taking down notes during our talk with the sheriff, I hadn’t understood all the implications of what was being said. I did the best that I could, but for all I knew, it could all have been garbage. I didn’t even know what was important—so I’d just scribbled down everything.
The surreal little tour we’d taken down through a tiny part of the town had been something I’d never imagined experiencing. And left me with even more questions than it answered.
I knew it was only a taste of what life in that place was like—perhaps intentionally so.
“Geneva, are you paying attention?” Rick stood over me, where I sat on the cute couch in our suite, as I mused on what I’d seen.
“Uh, sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I want you on your feet, at attention. Now.”
He stared down at me, his eyes piercing and intense. For a moment, I was frozen in place, as was so often the case when I knew he was aroused.
The bulge at the front of his slacks was eloquent testimony to that.
Rick was an individual with more layers than even I had expected. I’d come in expecting a mafia heavy, only out for himself, but he’d shown me something different. He was concerned for others, after a fashion.
That fact cast all of my previous notions of him in a rather different light. It said something about his character.
And maybe, just maybe, that meant there was more to Rick than I ever thought possible.
Wearing only a pair of jeans and a black tank, I got up on my feet, but I didn’t stand at attention, my hands on my hips instead. “Why are you such an asshole, and yet you do things like this?”
“Like what?” His gaze darkened, and he grew very still, watching me closely.
“Like… helping. For nothing.”
He pursed his lips. “I never do anything for nothing.”
“So, there is something in it for you in helping Keenan and Ford?”
“This is getting suspiciously close to an interrogation.” There was a warning note in his tone. “And I don’t like it.”
I was definitely taking a risk. But still, I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t give a shit if you like it. You seem to have this idea that you need to be, I don’t know, big bad underworld guy. And yet, you’re not.”
“Is that right?” His voice was so low it was more vibration through my viscera than actual audible sound.
“Yes. You’re more than that. And you want to hide it.”
“I don’t think you know the first fucking thing about me.”
“But—”
He held up his hand, a glint in his eye. “Keep that smart mouth shut. I’m talking and you’re listening.”
I swallowed hard, my tongue suddenly sticking to the roof of my very dry mouth.
You pushed him too far, you idiot!
“Get on your knees,” he said, his voice a gravelly rumble.
I wanted to obey him, but inside I felt like we were just starting to get somewhere really interesting.
“Rick, don’t you think we should talk about today?”
He stepped closer, his towering frame dwarfing me. He grasped my chin harshly, forcing me to look him in the eye. “I said, get on your knees.”
Resigned to losing that particular battle, I slowly knelt before him, my heart beginning to gallop.
“Now,” he said, voice tense. “You’re going to do something for me.”
Uh oh.
“What?”
“You’re going to put my cock in your mouth. Then we’re going to talk.”
Of all the things I’d expected him to say, that was definitely not one of them.
The imagery that sparked in my mind at the command had me almost whimpering with arousal.
Since when does degradation make you wet?
I chalked it up to the town, the entire place soaked in sex and sensual tension, promise, and mystery. “O-oh, okay.”
His fingers worked at the zipper of his slacks, and in moments, his cock—half erect and already huge—was out, waving inches from my face. The fragrant moan-inducing musk of his scent had my womb clenching, and I was practically drooling already.
I looked up at him, waiting. The fire in his eyes had my nipples drawing tight, my clit tingling.
He tapped my cheek with his now fully erect penis. “In it goes, slut.”
I opened my lips and took him inside, moaning at the delicious taste of him. I hadn’t had a huge amount of experience before him with oral, but I did generally like the taste and scent of a man’s cock. Rick’s cock though… I was beginning to worry I was growing obsessed with it.
As I began to suck on it, his hands clamped my face, holding me tight. “No. Just hold it there.”
I tried to pull back to ask him why—but he kept me exactly where I was.
Oh, shit.
His eyes fixed upon me, in my abject surrender, as he used me as little more than a cock warmer.
My mouth was already watering at the sight of the thick veins throbbing, hot and firm, and the feeling of the shaft heavy on my tongue.
He kept me that way for a long moment, just watching me, smiling a little as the heat of my blush spread across my face.
His fingers caressed my cheek, the edge of my ear. “Do you think I’m a nice man?”
I nodded, but he wasn’t happy with that. “Say it—and leave my cock in that mouth when you do.”
I could have sunk into the floor itself with humiliation, and yet I was practically dripping at the diabolical cruelty of it.
“Nnhoh shr,” I replied softly, trying to enunciate as best I could.
I know you’re not a nice guy… and I hate that I want you even more because of it.
I wondered what kind of person he could become if he tried to be one of the ‘good guys.’ Could that even be possible for someone like Rick?
The power of his allure—and how much I wanted to give into it—was dangerous. Such power could erode a woman’s judgment, tempt her to take risks she shouldn’t, to explore something that risked consuming her entirely.
Something, perhaps the challenge of it—or my irrational fear that I’d never find someone quite like him ever again—kept me from so much as moving a muscle.
But the urge to run free from him was just as strong.
What the fuck is happening to you?
“You’re making this harder for both of us,” he said softly. “If you want me, then you take me as I am. If you can’t, then now is the time to walk away”—he gripped my hair, his fingers twisting in it, the roots protesting just a little—“before things get worse.”
For whatever reason, fate had brought us together, two people who shouldn’t have worked… and yet fit together perfectly. Though I knew he was trouble, I was just as certain I couldn’t possibly leave him.
I’d made my choice, perhaps long ago, and I’d accepted the darkest parts of the most fascinating man I’d ever met.
God help you, Genie.
“I won’t change for you… if you stay with me, there’s no protecting you from who I am, from all that I need. You have to accept that, if you want this to work.”
“Eye dhoo,” I said, struggling to enunciate, my face flaming anew.
Thankfully, he took mercy on me, pulling his cock from my lips, though he kept the wet, swollen head pressed firmly to the corner of my mouth, a degrading reminder of his absolute control of me.
I cleared my throat. “I do accept you. I don’t know what that means yet, but… I want to see. I want to learn. I want you to… to teach me.”
“Even if it hurts?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, breathing harder, my voice an embarrassed murmur. “Even then.”
With the thought of not being his, at not being under his thumb, a surge of emotion overtook me, stinging tears welling in my eyes.
Was I losing my mind? I didn’t care anymore. All I knew was that I needed this. Him.
Oh, God help me, I need him.
Despite my fears and doubts and the endless second-guessing, it was only in that moment that I truly understood both him—and myself.
Though it might destroy me, in the end, kneeling at the feet of Rick Trafford, both literally and figuratively, was where I belonged.