Chapter 12
Georgia
A roomful of men and here I am struggling not to get up and smack half of them for assuming my only purpose is to serve them. To serve them evidence and then shut up.
“I think it will work out for the best if I write it all down.” I look to them, one by one resting my gaze. “I wasn’t expecting to have to remember this, here and now.”
It’s too private, almost, too visceral a remembrance, even though I knew I was going to be asked this, just not precisely this hour, this day.
This is for me too. I need this. For sure this Sir Benjamin wants his son’s killer brought to justice but none of them have experienced this hurt as personally as I have. In my face. Being raped as a consequence of that night on the boat. This is for me. I want justice. I want…
More.
The day Juniper stamped a bloody great metal spear into the guts of Shawn…
In a lightning moment my expectations switch. I don’t want some sterile court justice. I want to stamp my feet in their guts. I want their brains on my sword or whatever comes to hand. I want blood, and to paint their house red and run out under a storm rumbling sky and scream my fury.
Yes.
My hands are clutched in a tight ball in my lap, one over the other.
“That is absolutely okay.” Sir Benjamin says, in that beautifully calm voice
It helps me shut down my crazed thoughts. “It is?”
“Do you feel you can remember more than what you just said?” he asks.
“Yes. I do. I saw a man’s face. I just want to be calm to do this. Hard to do that here.”
“Of course. As soon as you can do this, ask for Lazlo and he will deliver your notes to me.”
“Sure.”
Alden rocks his leg on the armrest where he’s perched. There was something he did. That…
I sit up straight. “There’s something else I just thought of. Alden had a message from Joseph’s phone. That must mean someone close to whoever organized this is partly on our side? They warned us.” Or him. They told Alden.
Alden is finally looking alert. “Yes! Though how did they get his phone unless someone rescued it off the ship? Wouldn’t the cops be trying to trace it?”
“Maybe they cloned it?” Rafael says. “It’s not my skillset, but it’s certainly possible. The frat has some great hackers and IT guys. Ask them.”
“I will do so.” Sir Benjamin signals to Lazlo. “Let’s adjourn this for now. Georgia, you’re welcome to tour the estate, today, providing you have an escort. You will be taken care of, but the rest is out of my hands.”
Which is when Rafael leans over to take my hand and clasp it under his on the armrest. “I’m going to have to leave soon to get to London and back in time for that meeting. I can trust you to watch her?”
Lazlo nods. “Yes.”
And again, I am in the room. Fuck this being an object.
So I’m on my own for the day, except I have to have an escort. This is better than being locked in a cell. I should remember that.
“What were you doing with me,” I whisper, “if there was no one to watch me?”
He angles his head my way. “Tie you to the bed and lock the room.” When I tsk at his choice, his hand leaves mine, his knuckles brush beneath my chin. “What else but that?”
“There are lots of—”
But he’s drawn me closer and he kisses me, very gently.
The gentleness almost makes me wish for what he did before, in the shower. Gentle doesn’t work on me. Unless it’s a man I’ve chosen to want and we’re sated and happy and…stuff. Rafael is more in the realm of I got you, or else.
“Be good for me.”
“Fuck, no,” I mutter as he stands. Did anyone hear that? Maybe, judging by their guarded expressions.
He looks down. “Really? Remember your promise.”
To obey him. Maybe I should stop trying to annoy him. I stand up.
“I’ll be getting a collar and leash for you in London. Come.”
Back to being his little bitch, I go. I follow him to the door.
“I’ll have staff send some dresses to your room for you to try on for this meeting.”
That was Lazlo, and he’s addressing me not my, ahem, handler. The thoughtful look he carries makes me wonder what he makes of what just occurred.
If this is puzzling him, wait until he hears about the things the fraternity does at parties.
Or sees? My step falters. Will they require him to attend any parties? I am worried about Rafael taking me to one, but I’d love to see that strait-laced man try to figure out extreme kink. He’d probably faint.
After he shuts the door, I’m two steps into our bedroom when his hand wraps around my hair and he drags me to the bed and bends me over it. My pants are hauled down. My ass gets smacked a few times on each side, hard enough that I yelp.
It’s not the pain; it’s the shock of it.
His large hand smacking into me makes all those delicious burning echoes flutter through me, and with his hand holding my hair and shoving my face into the bed…bliss.
He stops and I hear the unzipping of his pants fly.
“This time, you get what you earned.”
I shut my eyes as I feel his cock probe at my entrance, then it slides, slips, and he directs it straight into me.
Thudding in deep. And again. Again.
Within seconds I’m gasping. The body betrayal is perfect. I’d braced myself, wasn’t sure I could take him fully, but that swell of pleasure conquers me.
Oh. Fuck. I groan into the bedding as he thuds in, pistoning in and out without respite, grunting, twisting my hair tighter, fingers on my scalp, his other hand anchored on my hip.
I whimper, arch, spread my thighs and grapple with the bed quilt, when he speeds up, slams in once more and stays there. The spurt of come is obvious. I can feel him coming, then a second thrust as he grinds in and swears, empties more into me.
When he releases me, I stay there, sprawled out, and I’m subtly squirming against the bed even as he’s zipping up. His palm lands in the center of my back, pressing me down.
“Now that was a good girl.”
A final hard smack lands on my right ass cheek.
“Owie.” I turn my head and eye him as he grabs keys, grabs a bag, stuffs a couple of things inside.
Phone in hand, he pauses by the door.
“Lazy thing. Get up and shower.”
“Heyyy, can’t you just—”
“No. You know why. Think on it.” He strides over. “You’re so impossible. Pick a lane. Bratting is fine but insulting me in public? Hell, fucking, no.”
I pout at him, still hoping for more and embarrassed to be this obvious. “Pick a lane?”
“Yes. We don’t have to be enemies, Georgia. I can see your head is still looking for a way out.” He ruffles my hair, draws his large hand down my back to my ass where he cups one cheek. “Think while I’m gone. See you later. And don’t fuck that mountain, Lazlo.”
What? Him?
I’m still lost and blinking when he strides out the door, closes it, and is off pattering down the stairs.
I flop over onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
He wants us to be friends. Friends, what are they?
I was just fucked and I enjoyed it, immensely, even though I didn’t get to orgasm.
No matter what else I have against him he’s given me back my sex drive.
But that means I trust him? Sex makes you give yourself over to someone else, doesn’t it? Sometimes. Sometimes not.
I frown as I think it through. I’m confusing myself.
Stop thinking about this and get out of bed.
There is a small balcony with wrought iron railings outside this room, and I clean up quickly then go out there.
I’m in time to see the BMW roar down the road and head in a straight line down the avenue of green oaks.
I almost wave but there is no point. He won’t see, and why am I even considering waving goodbye to my jailer?
This whole thing is confusing me more by the hour.
Think on my situation, he said. Friends. It’s almost heretical to frame this like that. Stockholm syndrome is rather BS. I don’t need to be his friend.
He’s gone for the day. What can I do that’s worth the time?
Write down my memories, of course. Everything leading up to that night then the blurred happenings on the boat, and then I was transported somewhere else while I must have been drugged.
All I recall of that is a vibrating, humming floor where I lay on my side with my face in wetness—probably my own drool.
Then being hauled out of a dark container and left in a room where I was chained to a wall.
After that, damn.
After that…
I live through that moment, feeling the grit on my shoulders from the floor as I shift, then a door opens and spreads light, blinding me. Their laughter as they approach, while I slowly zero in on my surroundings and discover the presence of two men. Shawn and Zasha, the evil assholes.
They’re dead now. Gone. No more names. Henceforth they can be The Evil Assholes.
“Okay.” Think.
The boat is surely the most important part if I’m to unearth whoever arranged this.
The last face on there I remember seeing was so blurry and unfocused.
A man. A bearded man. Not Lazlo, thank fuck.
If it were him… I shudder at the possibility I might have come full circle.
Fear clutches me and I make myself breathe slowly, deeply, searching for reality. I’m safe here, I am. Kind of.
My imagination is trying to drive me insane.
I stand there, leaning into the railing, before going inside to have a proper shower, only to find when I emerge, wrapped in a towel, that someone has slid a large notepad under the door. A pen is attached to it.
While I sit on the bed with my knees drawn up, his other instruction returns to me. Don’t fuck Lazlo. As if. I am fairly sure he despises me.
When I’ve written all the details I can recall, and it took me over an hour since I was being careful, I find the door is locked from the outside. Is that even legal? Duh. Course not.
I knock on the door and call out. “Anyone out there?”
The door is unlocked and a man, my guard clearly, looks in. “Yes?”
“I’m done with the notes. Sir Benjamin wants them.”
“Okay.” He takes them, locks the door again.
I stare at the inside of it, muttering, “Well. That was fun.”
Ten minutes later, I hear a “Helloo! Is it okay to deliver the clothes?”
That’s Lazlo. “Come in!”
He enters and drops some dresses on the unmade bed, raises an eyebrow at the mess then walks back to the door. Just before he closes it, he ducks back in with only his head showing. “If you want, when you’re done with that, I will take you on that tour of the estate.”
“Lovely. I’ll take you up on that.” The door closes and I eye the pile.
I pick up the top piece of clothing, a white silken top, with a matching long, silk skirt beneath it.
Then a red dress and a black dress, then a pair of pale blue jeans and a white shirt.
Nothing too flash, not high couture, I’m sure. Even so, this was fast.
A tour? “Only so I don’t get bored.” I say under my breath as I strip off to try the clothes.