Chapter 22 #2
“Why would I be?” Her opalescent eyes delve into mine. “Your work and character aren’t in question. If Darian convinces Diran to mistrust you, that’s their problem, not yours.”
“But I’m currently jobless.” I feel stripped of my confidence, my reason to get up in the morning, my whole raison d’être. “I’m a spectacular failure.”
Tilting her head, she leans into my palm. “How do you figure?”
“I can’t locate your biological father, fend off Irving, or find a solution to the Lowing case.”
* * *
Iona
My thoughts race, and I question whether Leith’s real enemies aren’t the ones working with Galiene, giving me instructions every few days. If they aimed at severing Leith from the Syndicate, they succeeded. It could be Darian plays a part in it all.
It breaks my heart to see Leith so downcast, as if he’s fallen short in some way, when he’s up against enormous hurdles on all sides.
Can I risk telling him about Galiene’s blackmail?
Ultimately my heart decides. When he lists out the ways he’s a failure, I can’t bear it anymore. If I have to go to prison, so be it. But I won’t have Leith’s misery on my conscience.
I place two fingers over his lips. “Don’t say that. I have something to show you.”
My pulse jackhammers as I take a step back and root around in my handbag for the burner phone. Opening it, I lay it in his hand.
“What’s this?” His brow crinkles.
“Galiene blackmailed me into following all those instructions. She said if I didn’t, she’d turn me in for paying Kirkaldy to knife Aaron to avoid having Aaron reveal that I’d deliberately borne false witness against him.
” I see the flames flickering in his eyes and hasten to explain.
“I never did such things. But she has convincing videos and pictures. She must’ve doctored them and used AI. ”
Leith opens up the phone and reads through the four messages. His expression changes from confused to disbelieving to radge.
He looks up from the last message, his tone hurt. “You executed all these while I left you and Diran alone?”
I swallow, gearing up for worse ahead. “And I fed you that story about Phyfe MacGilson.”
His cold, steely eyes glitter with pain and malice. “Why, Iona?”
“Because I knew you’d believe her over me.” I throw my hands up. “You didn’t trust me enough to let me out of the house unguarded, and you nearly killed me when you thought I’d betrayed you to Stennis.”
“So you betrayed me four times in even more spectacular ways?” His voice cracks, sending a sharp pang through my heart.
“I’m sorry, Leith. But if you’d been in my position, you would’ve done the same.”
He holds up the burner phone. “Do you think I can trust you after this?”
I lift my chin, though my voice wobbles. “I hope you will. Because I came clean to you when it was least advantageous for me to do so.”
His features clear a bit. “Why did you tell me now?”
I can’t tell him it was because I hated to see him so low.
He’d think I was pitying him. “I’ve been wondering who your enemies are who would give me these instructions.
Could they be the same people who set you up today with Kirkaldy?
Could they be the reason why Diran laid you off?
” I nod toward the phone. “I wanted to give you a chance to find them.”
He looks down at the texts on the burner phone. “No question but these are the reason Diran laid me off. You not only threw me in a coffin but nailed it shut.”
My cheeks flush. “What if these texts shed light on the Lowing case?”
He side-eyes me. “Meaning?”
“All those names Galiene told me to tell Diran you’d exed off the list. What if they held some significance?”
He scrolls through the first and third tasks on my phone. “You mean Arthur Vox, Fast and Friendly Freight, and the other seven?”
“Aye. Maybe she wanted those names off the list for a reason,” I suggest. “What’s your overall strategy in the case?”
“My idea was to offer the COPFS something they want even more than the Syndicate’s heads on a platter.”
“The only thing they’ll be guaranteed to want is to save their own skins. So if you can blackmail them—the way Galiene did me—you’ll have them in your pocket.” I speak from immediate experience.
A bitter laugh falls from his lips. “Now it’s too late. Too late to have a good strategy or evidence to research.”
“Why? Why can’t I help you research those partners tomorrow? I’ll bet we come up with something big.”
He wraps an arm about my waist, snatching me close. My heart floods with warmth, knowing he’s forgiving me. “We, Scheherazade?”
“Aye. I’ll be your Galiene.”
He nuzzles my neck, laying impossibly soft kisses from my collarbone to my ear. “You’ll be better than Galiene. You won’t be a traitor, and I can fuck you every hour on the hour.”
I moan from the sheer heaven of his lips feathering my skin. But I fight to remain coherent. “So we’re on? Project Take the Lowing Case Back begins tomorrow at 9 sharp?”
“Aye. And beginning tonight at 11:30 sharp, I take you back.” He hooks me under my knees and wraps my legs around his waist, carrying me upstairs to our bedroom. Kicking the door shut, he slams me against the door. “Strip.”
As I hurry to obey, he sheds his own clothes, revealing one glorious stretch of body after another. His muscular thighs make my breath hitch, and the way his shoulders taper to his narrow waist makes my clit thump. He’s power, sex, and beauty rolled into one.
“Stand on the bed, legs far apart.” He swats my arse, making me scurry to do his bidding.
I climb onto the firm bed and widen my stance. He climbs up behind me and lifts one of my arms toward the ceiling, cuffing my wrist to a chain dangling from the rafter. He does the same with my other wrist, so my body forms an X vertically.
He draws my hair behind my shoulder and murmurs in my ear.
“Good girl. You were so good today, coming to my rescue. But you were also naughty, threatening Draven and keeping secrets from me. So this is a mixture of punishment and reward.” Warm jets of desire course through me at the vibrations of his voice.
He cuffs each of my ankles to a spreader bar so I’m forced to keep this position. Anticipation has me anxious and needy, my thrumming pussy leaking arousal and my nipples on point. What is he going to do to me?
He produces a leather tawse that’s split in two at the end, and I shiver, dreading its sting. Maw said school teachers used to use these on students’ hands when she was growing up.
He brushes the falls against my inner thighs, showing me how gentle they can be.
“Such a bonnie wee Flame. Taking her punishment and reward without question.” The ends of the tawse circle my folds, making me rock back and forth and moan.
“So responsive and pliable. Like this tawse.” As he snaps the strap against my clit, I jerk and cry out.
The biting pain dissipates and morphs into piquant pleasure.
He closes his hand around my throat. “Good girl. Let’s see how you like it in different places with different levels of harshness. ”
He slaps the tawse against a breast, and I groan, arching my back and seeking more of the sensation. A sadistic light enters his eye as he repeats this on the other breast. “You like that, eh? You and I both enjoy pain with our pleasure.”
He steps behind me and strokes the falls softly over my thighs. Suddenly he strikes the tawse roughly over first my right upper thigh then my left. I cry out, the sting almost too much to bear. But just as swiftly it dissolves into thin air, and my shaking subsides.
He kneels and parts my arse cheeks, tonguing my crack and groaning. “I can’t wait to take you back here. And I will, soon.”
Standing, he thwacks the tawse against first one buttock then the other. I startle and rattle the chains, making the bed shake. That hurts like the devil, and the pain lingers long afterward.
He deals out two more swift lashes on each globe, making my flesh ring like oversensitive ears. I’ll have marks for the rest of the week—and I’m sure that’s partly why he’s doing this.
Coming around in front of me, he loops the tawse around the back of my neck, holding me in place. “Now I’m gaun to fuck you till you’re raw.”
Driving into me in one ravening thrust, he locks gazes with me. He starts to move, in and out, with increasingly feral energy. The whole time he pounds me, my eyes never veer from his. Either he has me hypnotized or I’m feart if I look away he’ll tawse me again.
The veins in his neck explode with tension, and every muscle flexes in taut harmony. His metallic-grey eyes gleam, his lips curl voraciously, and his brows dip with possessive intent.
He tightens the tawse about my neck. “Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I choke out.
“That’s right. Your tight, wet cunt belongs to me. Say you’re my slave.”
“I’m your slave,” I agree readily.
“You’ll never lie to me again.”
“I’ll never lie to you again.” And I mean it. This past week has been hell, knowing I was keeping this huge secret from Leith.
“Now scream my name.” Holding my hip, he slams into me, and I shoot through the stratosphere.
“Leeiitthh!” My scream floods the room as I rocket forth, juddering through my explosion and riding the arc of bliss.
He doesn’t let up on his merciless thrusts, until his body seizes up and he groans, swelling so large inside me I feel his need for me like a tangible thing. “That’s right, Iona. Milk me for every drop.”
I do, and it feels oh, so sublime. Now I see why people die for orgasms. If they come in this form, they’re worth dying and being reborn again.
I’m panting as if I’ve run the five-hundred-meter dash, and sweat trickles down my back. He uncuffs me from the chains and the spreader bar, allowing circulation to return to my arms. Lifting me, he carries me into the bathroom and starts drawing a bath, our ritual now.
With my back to his chest I sigh. “How did Galiene know all the times you were meeting with Diran?”
“She has access to my calendar.” Leith drags the washcloth along my inner thigh. “The question is, does she know I’ve gotten laid off for the time being?”
I yawn. “I guess we’ll know if she sends more instructions to the burner phone.”
“If she doesn’t, it likely means Darian was involved, since he’ll know about my being put on furlough.” Leith cleans my pussy. “If she does, we can probably rule out Dar.”
“Are you feeling any better about the job situation now?”
I can hear the grit in his tone. “I’ll feel better when we’ve got the Lowing case in the bag and Diran needs us to bring it to a successful conclusion. Then he’ll wish he hadn’t bailed on me.”
“They still believe in you,” I reassure him. “But Galiene and whoever she’s working with undermined their trust in you—temporarily.”
“I look forward to punishing Galiene and her associates.”
“Any idea how?” I ask eagerly.
“When I know the full extent of the crime, I can better mete out the punishment.”
1?No worries