Nickolas-1 (12 page)

“You do all right for a girl. Besides, I get a handicap when I play with you.” He grinned at her and they both laughed.

Jacob had brought her in the laptop and every time she died, which was taking longer and longer to happen, she’d research a little more. It was kinda fun.

While she was in prison, she’d taken a few classes on web design and set up.

She’d gotten so good at it that she was able to make a few sites for some of the guards and their wives. One was a site she set up was for an interior designer and she told Morgan that her business had tripled since it was put online. It was getting fairly late and she was just printing up the last of the pages when Nick came into the room. He had her papers in his hand.

Nick had been sitting in the office looking up some last minute investments when the printer behind him started printing. He didn’t really think much about it until it signaled it was out of paper and he’d turned around to refill it. There were about twenty sheets already there so he set them on the corner of his desk and filled it up. His name caught his eye as he turned back around and looked at the sheets closer. They were about him.

Someone was doing research on him, extensive research, it seemed. He looked at the ones printed, then picked up the last sheets as they came out. All thirty-nine pages were about him, from his childhood all the way until last week when he’d gone to the charity thing with his brother. He gathered them all up and went to see who it was.

Nick found Morgan still in the gaming room with a laptop on the table in front of her. She was the only one up.

“I found these. They were printing and it ran out of paper. Do they belong to you?” He didn’t hand them to her, but stood in the doorway holding them.

“Yes, hummm, do you think I could have them please? They’re not...I was doing some research on something.” She didn’t say anything more, but held out her hand.

Nick wanted to demand to know what she was doing. Why she was looking up things about him, but he felt he already knew the answer to that. What did every woman want when they had a very wealthy man sniffing around? Money.

He had to hand it to her. She was certainly doing her homework. He handed them to her and sat in the chair across from her. His entire body was cold. He’d thought she was different. But she was really no different than any other woman he knew, especially his wife. She’d only married him for his money, his security.

That’s what she’d told him the day before she died.

Well, he wasn’t going to be suckered in this time. No way was he letting another woman sink her claws into him. Or his family.

“Are you all right, Nickolas? You look a little...”

“Yes. I’m fine, better than fine. Are you ready for bed?” He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t want to hear her fake kindness right now. He wanted...he wanted her to pay.

He bent over and picked her up. When she protested again, he nearly snarled at her to drop the innocent act, that he knew what she was up to.

“You aren’t heavy. Not in the slightest.” He carried her up to his room and laid her on the bed. Before she could say anything, he was kissing her. It was several seconds before he realized he was scaring her, hurting her, and he backed off a little.

“I’m sorry, you’re just so beautiful. I forget myself.” He kissed her this time, gently, and began to unbutton her shirt as he did. She really was beautiful and sexy. It wasn’t hard for him to show her his desire for her, his need.

Nick stripped her down slowly, kissing each bit of skin he revealed. Her breasts were exquisite, firm and full; her nipples were dark and the tips hard.

When he took one into his mouth and suckled it, she arched against him. He continued his way down her body, removing clothing, tasting her. When she lay before him in only her panties, he stood back and stripped to his bare skin and looked at her.

“I want to be inside of you, deep inside of you.” Mindful of her foot, he slowly moved to her core. Heat poured from her. Slowly, he rocked gently into her. “You’re so tight, tighter than I thought you’d be,” he said as he moved inside of her.

“What? What did you say?” He wanted her to know. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t going to fall for her games.

“I said that you’re tighter than I thought. Oh, don’t worry, I’m enjoying this.

But I’m not going to come. I’m not going to give you what you need to trap me.” He moved again. He wanted to slam into her, take her hard and fast, but he didn’t have a condom and there was no way he was coming in her.

“Trap you? What are you talking about?” She was good, he’d give her that.

She had the indignant woman down pat.

“You know, into marriage, or whatever else you were researching me for. I’ll fuck you, but I won’t pay. Maybe we can do this some other time, when I’m more prepared. I’m willing to pay you, of course. I don’t know what the going rate is for a hooker, but you’d be worth about any price. You are so tight. Did you try this on Randall? Is that what happened and you cried rape? It’s not going to work with me, Morgan. You aren’t going to have my bastard, and I won’t let you hurt me or my family.”

Nick rocked into her again and again. He couldn’t seem to help himself. He needed to stop now, now before it was too late, and pulled out of her. He looked down at her and noticed that she wasn’t moving, just laying there staring at him.

When he got up off the bed, she rolled over and curled around herself. He hardened his heart and continued.

“I want you gone from here before I get out of the bathroom, do you hear me? And I want you to stay away from my family from now on. I don’t know how you suckered my Mother into your little scheme, but you’ll leave her alone too. Do you hear me?” He waited until she answered and just when he thought she wasn’t going to, she said, “yes.”

Nick moved to the door and looked back when he heard a sound, but didn’t stop moving until he was nearly to the bathroom. He could tell she was crying, but he didn’t care. Or at least, he tried not to care. He shut the door behind him and leaned against the sink.

He looked at the man in the mirror and suddenly hated him. Hated what he’d done and what he’d said. But he wasn’t that man right now, and he wasn’t going to be caught in a loveless marriage again. He jerked on the shower, stepped under the steaming water, and began scrubbing his skin.

Morgan heard the door click shut and her heart did too She rolled over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. There wasn’t anything going through her head other than the need to be gone. He’d said to be gone when he came out. She heard the shower turn on as she reached for her pants. When she had them up to her hips, she found her shirt and pulled it on too. Standing up, she didn’t even feel the pain in her foot, didn’t feel the stitches rip or the blood start to pour from the now open wound. She felt nothing, wouldn’t allow herself to feel, not yet, not now.

Morgan made her way down to the kitchen. She knew there was a phone there. She wasn’t up to trying to find another one. She stood there for several seconds trying to think. She didn’t know where she was, didn’t know whose house it was, nothing. She picked up the receiver and dialed one of the only two numbers she knew.

“This had better be fucking important to be calling me at midnight,” he snarled as a way of answering.

Morgan almost hung up. Almost, but she had no other choices.

“Mr. Sugar, its Morgan. Morgan Becky. I don’t...he said to be gone. I...I don’t know where I am. I have to be gone, you see, and I...could you come and get me?” She started sobbing then and felt stupid and humiliated at the same time.

“I’m sorry, forget it. I can...I can find my way. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She was sure he was speaking, but hung up anyway.

Morgan quietly opened the back door and slipped out into the night. When she got to the end of the drive, she looked for a mailbox and found the house number. She didn’t know what good it would do her. She didn’t have a phone and she still didn’t know the street. She began walking toward what she hoped was town.

She didn’t know how long she’d been walking when she heard the car. She ignored it just like she’d been trying to ignore the pain in her foot. But when she heard her name, she slowly turned around and tried to focus on the person.

Dizziness hit her hard and she nearly fell over, would have if the person hadn’t caught her.

“Christ, Morgan, why the fuck didn’t you wait for me? I said I was coming.

I’ve been—Jesus, you’re bleeding, your foot...” Suddenly, she was being picked up. Mick. It was Mick.

“I don’t feel so good. Could you please put me down? I have to throw up again.” He either didn’t hear her or didn’t listen because he was still carrying her. “Please.”

Mick set her down. Not on the ground where she would have preferred, but in a truck seat. A big truck, actually. And then her head was being forced between her knees.

“Just breathe, in and out, all right? What the hell happened back there that you had to leave in the middle of the night? I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.

Tell me what happened so I can tell the police why I killed him.”

“I just wanna go. I don’t have anywhere to go, Mr. Sugar.” And she started crying again.

“I’ll take you home. My wife will kill me if I let you go anywhere else. Come on, sweetie, get inside now.” He helped her inside and buckled her belt across her.

Nick had thought that she was trying to trap him. She wasn’t as stupid as he thought she was. She knew what he was talking about. That’s why...that’s why he didn’t finish. He...no baby. He didn’t want her to claim...he thought she’d tried it on Randall, the man who sold her, who raped her.

Mr. Sugar took her to his house and carried her into his house where a lovely little woman was waiting for them. She had gotten one of their spare bedrooms, one of their son’s, she’d said, ready, and he took her in and put her on the bed.

There were bandages and clean water already there. But she was too exhausted and as soon as he laid her down, she closed her eyes and went to sleep. Her screaming woke them all up about two hours later. The nightmare was gripping her again.

The next time she woke up, she was in the hospital. There was an IV hooked up to her right arm and her foot was propped up high on a pillow. She felt...doped and heavy. She looked around the room and saw Mrs. Libby Sugar sitting asleep in one of the chairs in the room. About that time, a nurse came sailing into the room and woke her.

“Oh, Miss Becky, you’re awake. Good. Are you hungry? The doctor said you could have something light if you wanted it. There’s also something for pain if you need it.”

“Doctor? I’m not...could I please have my things? I’d like to go, please.” She started to sit up, but noticed that she was catheterized. She looked up at the nurse who had begun backing toward the door.

“I’ll just call the doctor. He said to inform him when you woke up.” She bolted so fast that Morgan didn’t get a chance to stop her.

“I want to leave here. I really need to leave here. I don’t have a doctor. Do you know how to remove this thingy?” She was frantic. She could hear it in Libby’s voice.

“Morgan, just calm down. No one is going to hurt you. You’ve lost a lot of blood. When you woke up screaming the other night, we didn’t know what to think. We brought you here and they contacted your doctor. Micky wasn’t happy about it, but he let him treat you. They had to give you blood, you’d lost so much.”

“How long have I been here? You said the other night. How long have I been here?” She was afraid. If they contacted her doctor, the only one she’d seen...

“Hello, Morgan, how are you feeling?” Damon Grant. Well, fuck.

“I want to leave. Right now. I want you to take this thing out of me so I can leave please.” She was crying. Again. What if...no, she wasn’t going to think about him coming in.

“He doesn’t know you’re here. Just me, and, well, my mom, but Nick doesn’t know.”

She and Damon watched Mrs. Sugar leave the room and he sat down in her chair.

“The hospital called me on Friday morning to say that a patient of mine had been admitted. I almost didn’t take the call. You see, we had an emergency of our own at home. A guest had come up missing and there was blood all over the house. We didn’t know what to think until Nick got up. He said that you two had had a fight and that he’d sent you to another room. He didn’t know that you’d left. Is that what happened, Morgan? Did you two have a fight?”

“He told me to be gone when he came out of the bathroom.” She stopped.

She wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with his family. That’s what he’d said. “I’d like to go now, Dr. Grant. I don’t want you to be my doctor anymore either. You’re very nice and I’m sure you...I don’t think...I’m not supposed to have you as my doctor, please. I’d like to leave right now.” She looked out the window and tried to ignore the tears welling up in her eyes.

“I want you to stay a few days more. You’ve gotten the wound very dirty and I’ve had to clean it out. I’ve given you a tetanus shot, but I’d like to keep you at least two more days.”

She couldn’t look at him; she hurt so much.

“Morgan, you can talk to me. I won’t tell Nick anything you say to me.”

“Please.” After a few more minutes, she heard him get up and leave the room. She didn’t know what he was going to do. She could only hope that what he’d said was true and no one knew where she was.

A nurse came in a few minutes later and removed the catheter and handed her her bag without saying a word. Her crutches were brought in and another nurse brought in her discharge papers. After explaining that she’d need to set up an appointment with her own physician, she was free to go.

Go where, she didn’t know. Mr. Sugar solved the issue by telling her that he had an apartment over the bar she could have cheap when he came in to take her there. It wasn’t much, so neither was the rent, and when she was better, she’d come back to the bar to work. He also told her that Dr. Damon had gotten her things, including her money taped under the drawer, and he’d already taken it all to the apartment. He also wanted to know if she knew how to keep books, as he’d pay her for doing that while she was laid up.