Chapter 11 #2
His silken voice in my ear sent prickles of desire straight between my thighs. He played my body like his personal cello, and my inhibitions didn’t stand a chance against his deft moves. By the end, I was putty in his hands, agreeing to anything he dictated.
Which is a problem, because I know incredible sex can lead to catching feelings. If I lose my heart to him, I’m toast. He has Galiene, and he’s using me for reasons he won’t divulge.
And while I know he wouldn’t harm me physically, psychologically he’s capable of doing a great deal of damage.
My phone pings with a text, and I slide it out and open it.
Unknown: Check your pocket.
Me: Who is this?
Nervously I pat both skirt pockets, feeling something flat in my right pocket. Reaching in, I pull out a folded piece of notepaper.
How did this get here? Prickles skate down my spine, and a spasm jerks through me. Someone had access to my clothes.
My hands shake as I open the note, reading the printed handwriting: You killed Aaron Frye. If I catch you, you die. RUN.
Run now?
Unknown: Now. If you scream, I’ll find you all the more easily.
My heart catapults out of my chest, and sweat breaks out on my forehead. There’s a killer on this train, and he’s got his sights on me. My eyes dart about wildly as I rub my clammy palms on my skirt. I need to call Leith.
The signal is too weak, and my call dies, so I shoot off a message to him. “Where are you? Someone is after me, trying to kill me.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it hammering in my ears.
If I stay here, I’m a sitting duck.
Sliding the cabin door open, I make my way on wobbly legs along the corridor, trying the door to every cabin. We’re at the end of the carriage, so there are nine more cabins in the coach. Every last one is locked. There’ll be no hiding here.
I press the button, and the automated doors slide open to let me into the next carriage. Vowing to find the Club Car as fast as possible, I run down the corridor toward the next coach. Each corridor is dimly lit and quiet, and I encounter no one.
Every few steps I stop and listen, like a deer being stalked by a hunter.
Nothing.
I go through seven more carriages before reaching the Club Car. Oddly, no one mans the counter, and no one is dining, meeting, or working here.
Where’s Leith?
Panic constricts my throat, and I couldn’t scream if I wanted to. Now what? I can’t go back the way I came. I cast about for a weapon. Rushing behind the bunker, I try to pull out drawers to find a knife, a fork, anything. But all the drawers are locked.
I gnaw a fingernail. I need to find a secure hiding place.
There’s nowhere to conceal myself in this small space by the register.
The fridge will be too cold. I look up, spying two cupboards.
Without debating further, I clamber onto the bunker, fling open one of the cupboard doors, and hoist myself up.
I shove a few tins of tea and boxes of sugar lumps over to the other side to make room for my body, then I curl up in a tight ball and pull the cupboard door closed.
In case my phone dings with another text and gives me away, I turn it off. Then I try to regulate my breathing while straining my ears for any sound.
You killed Aaron Frye. Whoever’s after me knows what happened four years ago, kept tabs on me, and seeks vengeance on Aaron’s behalf. I shiver so violently my body rattles the cupboard.
An automatic door slides open, and I freeze, not daring to breathe.
Slow, measured steps thud across the floor, heading in this direction.
Please, don’t let him suspect I’m up here.
A low, crackly voice modulated by a distortion mechanism approaches the cupboard. “Come out, Iona. Your time is up.”
I try to keep my teeth from chattering. Squeezing my eyes tight, all I see is the police station, the lineup, Grizel’s smeared makeup, khaki cargo trousers, dark scruff, and a hawk nose.
Bile rises in my throat, and a spasm wracks my limbs as I continue to cower, hoping against hope he’ll leave.
“On the count of three I start shooting,” the dark voice threatens.
My heart thrashing against my ribcage, I open my eyes and push the cupboard door open.
A man in a black mask with a menacing cracked skull over the face stands several feet away, his head reaching to the level of the cupboard. He holds a dagger in one hand and a whip in the other.
“P-please,” I stutter from my cubbyhole.
“On the floor. Now,” he rasps.
Crawling out, I tumble onto the bunker and jump to the floor. My back is to the counter, and my attacker faces me at close range.
He brings up the arm holding the knife, and an eternity passes in a split second.
I see the end of my life, the moments during my attack That Night, and the immediate aftermath with Grizel.
His arm comes down like a hammer, and I wait for death to announce itself through excruciating pain, gore, and my own screams.
So this is how it all ends. At the hands of someone in league with Grizel’s assailant.
Only I’m still breathing, and the explosion of pain doesn’t come.
I open my eyes to see the masked man bearing down on me and the knife lodged in the wooden bunker between my chest and arm. There’s a one-inch gap there, and the chances of him striking there by accident are next to nothing.
My breath catches, and my heart rate shoots through the roof.
The man clamps his hand around my throat and gives it a squeeze. “Since you defy death, take my cock instead.”
He forces me to my knees and fumbles with his belt, wrenching his jeans and boxer briefs down.
His cock is . . . Oh, God, it at once terrifies me and draws me like a magnet.
I’ve never seen anything so sublime. Not nearly compassable with one hand, it rages and pulsates against a rock-hard abdomen.
A magnificent vein snakes up the pink underside to a tip glistening with pre-cum.
My pussy pulses and wells with arousal.
Gratitude floods me. For how he’s sparing my life. For how he’ll only make me suck him off instead of penetrating me. For how pleasurable the task will be.
“Please me,” the distorted voice directs.
As I take hold of his mammoth shaft and lever it toward my lips, he strokes the folded whip over my jawbone, back and forth, back and forth, in an almost soothing motion.
Maybe if I please this vengeful man he’ll spare my life. But as I lick his balls and take his head in my mouth, I taste Achnasheen. Gorse, heather, myrtle, and peat blend in a heady concoction that makes me think I’m going insane.
This is just the way I imagined Leith tasting.
As I slurp the warm desire from his crown, I think of Leith, who’s probably just as well-endowed and equally intoxicating.
Grazing my teeth down the silky girth in my mouth, I whimper with longing.
If I never get to do this to Leith, I’ll haunt my assailant to the grave.
This is Leith’s scent, Leith’s night, and Leith’s right.
Fuck my assailant. I’m going to render him comatose. Then I’ll escape, go back to Leith, and please him.
The masked man fists my hair and holds my head in place, driving his cock to the bottom of my throat. I nearly toss the contents of dinner, but I manage to get it under control. Instinct tells me to relax my jaw, breathe through my nose, and tilt my head back.
“Take it like the good slut you are,” he says approvingly, using my throat as his personal cum vessel.
Flattening my tongue, I grab hold of his hips to support my trembling thighs and submit to the rough invasion, thrust after punishing thrust. Tears bathe my cheeks, my throat feels like sandpaper, and drool spills down my neck from my mouth. But I soldier on, to save my life. To get back to Leith.
And now my cunt aches as never before.
“Fuck, you’re soft, wet, and tight. Made to swallow my cock.” I barely make out the gruff words through the mask.
I’m shocked when my sensitive organs clench and overflow. I think I’ve just come while sucking off a killer.
But I don’t have time to enjoy my burst of pleasure, because the masked man is pounding me, relentless, ferocious, and domineering. I’m nothing but a hole for him to use, and that only arouses me more. He pulls out most of the way, pausing a long moment.
“Swallow it all, slave.”
I don’t have time to think about his name for me before his hot spend jets over my tongue and trickles down my throat. As he pinches my nose, I swallow every drop, its taste clean, potent, and slightly salty.
When I’ve absorbed it all, he rips off his mask and tosses it aside.
Leith.
Wait, Leith?
My heart slingshots about my chest, and my first instinct is to run and hide. Something inside me warned me all along that the enemy was within.
“Look at me,” he commands in his own sonorous voice.
Though it costs me nearly everything, I meet his eye.
He grips my hair so tightly my scalp burns. “Every minute with me you’ll be fighting for your life, Scheherazade.” He taps my cheek with the curled-up whip. “You did well just now. Your life is spared another day.”
Rather than feeling elated, I’m deflated. Leith made me fear for my life for the last hour. Leith chased me through the Caledonian Sleeper. Leith threw a knife at me as a test, then forced me to give him a blowjob.
Leith made me feel guilty for cheating on him with another man.
Before I can reply, he releases my hair and grabs the dagger, sliding it into his jeans. “Come.”
He takes my arm and hauls me up, whisking us through the doors to the corridor and back toward our carriage.
Finally, in the second coach I find my voice. “Fuck you, Leith.”
Turning us, he slams me against the window, hemming me in with his hips. A devilish smile creeps up his lips. “I will, Iona. And how.”
I turn my head aside, no longer able to face his penetrating grey eyes. Tears prick at my own. “Why did you do it?”
How did you know about Aaron Frye?
Turning my head back to him, he presses his erection into my lower belly. “Because you were begging for it.”
“I was not,” I fire back.
Approaching his lips to mine, he smirks. “You still are.”
I hate how much I want him to kiss me. He just fucked with my head in an unforgivable way. Yet I long to have a reprise of the altar kiss—or the reception kiss.
“If I’d known it was you?—”
“What? You wouldn’t have obliged your own husband? After he gave you pleasure?” His voice brims with cruel mirth. “You were content to cheat on me with another man?”
“You’re fucking with my mind!” I stomp my foot.
He strokes his hand down the column of my throat, and I dissolve under his touch. “I’ll fuck with every part of you—with your very soul—before I’m done.”
He swoops on my lips, taking control of the last vestiges of defiance in me and stroking them out with aggressive, sensual thrusts of his tongue. My mewls turn to purrs, and I claw at his back, wanting to score him like a cat. His defined muscles ripple in response, hinting at how he’ll look naked.
Superb.
I bite his lip, and he bites mine back, sucking our blood like nectar. Our teeth click as our kiss deepens and our tongues fuck each other’s throats.
I want to be rid of him, but first I need to see what he looks like naked.
He pulls back, leaving me panting. “Come.”
Cupping my nape, he leads me down the corridor toward the last carriage—and our double bed.
1?knew
2?Lying