The Dom With the Perfect Brats (31 page)

She heard the crunch of footsteps as
he
returned. By the time the man loomed above, her head was a silent yet shrieking mess.

“You been squirming about?” He chuckled. “Won’t do you
any good. You can’t run with your legs tied together. You two sluts wouldn’t have much practice at keeping your legs together.” Then he slapped her cheek, rocking her head sideways. “You poor kinky bitch.”

Izzy’s eyes stung as much as her face. She wouldn’t cry in front of this fool.

Was that their last hope – had that phone been their last hope?

He dragged her out and she could do nothing. The ground swayed below. Her hair swished acr
oss his back as he walked over leaves and twigs and dirt. They were in a forested area. No traffic noise, no paved road. Wherever this was, help must be a long way away.

She could almost read the headlines – two women found in shallow grave.

What seemed six or eight strides up timber steps took them into some sort of cabin. He kicked the door closed, and kneeled to lay her on the floor next to Gemma. All she could hear was breathing – him staring down, breathing, Gemma inhaling and exhaling so fast it was almost panting, and her own forced, slower breaths.

“Guess you’re wondering why?” He smirked. His oil-black wavy hair would’ve looked good on a man in a magazine shoot
, but his face was marked with deep grooves of wrinkles on forehead and cheek, where maybe he’d smiled. Only on him, a smile, like the one he wore, looked downright evil. “Wondering what I mean to do to you? Like I said, I owe Cross. He messed with my wife, so I’m messing with his head, and yours, maybe with your bodies too?” The man leered.

He straightened and pulled his knife out again.
“Keep in mind that I have this.”

If she could’ve talked, Izzy would have told him where to shove that knife.

When he sheathed the blade and walked off, Izzy subsided. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding herself so stiffly, and now she was shaking. So much for calm.

“Never known two girls as quiet as you two.” He swaggered over to a duffel bag and retrieved a bottle of rum. After some hearty swigs straight from the bottle he went and sat on a bed with a bare mattress. “I’d offer you a drink but that’d mean taking off those gags. Maybe later. If you want to pee squeal nicely and I’ll take you outside. Don’t get any fucking ideas about running
, though. I’m going to tie a rope around your neck. Just be good for me.” He saluted them with the bottle then slumped back against a pillow wedged at the corner of the wall, with his legs hanging past the edge of the bed. His gaze focused on a print of a waterfall on the wall at the other end of the bed.

S
omething softly scraped behind her and she looked. Gemma was partly shielded by her body from his gaze, and she’d been rubbing away at her gag. Izzy hunched her shoulders and shifted a little to make it even harder for him to see.

While she watched
through partly open eyelids, he slumped more and more, drank more and more, and his eyes drifted shut.

“Izzy!” Her name, hissed unexpectedly, made her jerk.

Christ. Gemma had most of her mouth free. She rolled over.

“Can you talk? He’s asleep, I think.”

Izzy shook her head. Maybe she could do the same? But, despite her wiping her mouth across the floor, her own gag stayed put.

“What can we do?”

Brilliant plan needed. What could they do with their hands tied at their backs? She tested her bonds, wincing when the stiff plastic cut into a raw area. “Mite the pwastic?”

Mite?” Gemma frowned. “Ohh. Bite? No. I don’t think you can. This stuff is tough.”

“Twy?”

Another frown appeared then Gemma
nodded. “Turn over and I’ll see if I can get my teeth on it.”

Yes. This was a start. Trying was better than succumbing without doing anything.

The man roared, “What the fuck do you two think I am? Deaf?”

Izzy gasped and wanted to sink into the floor
. She heard him get up, stomp around then kneel behind her. Metal clattered on the timber floor. Was he was going to stick the knife in her? The area between her shoulder blades seemed to feel the tip as if it were there already, poised. Her skin tensed.

His hand fisted in her hair and lifted her head off the floor. With his other hand he rubbed the loose end of a roll of tape on to her mouth gag then wound it around and around until her lips were squashed in firmly
.

“Now you.”

She watched as he did the same to Gemma.

So much for escaping.

Despair? She hadn’t known it properly until then. Now it poured into her, filling up all the hard to reach places in her soul, weighing her down – she was a drowning woman spiraling into the cold depths of the ocean.

“Much better.” He sneered, squatting there between them like a toad. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to you two, I was a little
...” He held up thumb and finger a miniscule distance apart. “Tiny bit sorry for you. Now though, I’ve figured what I’ll do to show Cross not to touch my stuff.” He nodded, reached over and gripped Gemma by the chin, then shook her gently to and fro. “I’ll cut your faces with my knife and leave a scar. What do you think? Maybe here?” He swiped his finger across her forehead. He leaned in and stared at both of them from a foot away, first Gemma then Izzy.

He rose and walked to the front door, opened it and left them. The outside porch creaked from his weight. With the door still open she could hear the click of a cigarette lighter and smell the smoke.

This time, she couldn’t relax. The guy looked so normal – like a thirty-something business man. How had it even occurred to him to do this? His threat had numbed her. So angry...and assuming he could cut them like that... It seemed impossible and wrong, yet maybe he could? Maybe he would. Tomorrow.

The appalling thought burrowed down into Izzy’s bones and gripped her chest and gut with claws so sharp, she wondered how her heart managed to beat past the tightness.

Gemma was looking at her, wide-eyed.

Being terrified didn’t help anyone. She smiled weakly through the tape then squirmed over until their heads touched. Being together, even like this, was better than
going through this alone, although she wished Gemma could have been spared. They blinked at each other for a while until it became too much – the knowledge they were both helpless. So she shut her eyes and tried not to cry and not to think of how much her arms, hands and feet were hurting. Or of what he might to do to them tomorrow.

If he was telling the truth, he was going to let them live. Which to her, right now, would be a
fucking miracle. She didn’t care if he cut her, or Gemma, if they were simply allowed to live.

Please let us survive this. Please.
But she didn’t really know who she was appealing to.

If they died
...and blackness filled her at that thought...if they died, would Cross ever find out what happened to them? Would he weep over their bodies? In a crazy flip-flop of what was right and wrong and true, that Cross might suffer felt as horrible as the idea of having her face carved.

And in a moment of excruciating clarity, she knew that she loved him.

Cross

By the time Cross dragged his ass home it was almost seven in the morning. Izzy and Gemma wouldn’t have called already, would they? No, they’d be sleeping. He hoped he wasn’t too punch-drunk when he talked to them later.

His thoughts strayed back to little Zenobia and he felt his expression soften. There was something about a baby that helped him remember that life could be different. With babies things were simpler. You had to slow down. They ate, they cried, they pooped, they slept. You had to respect a baby. They had no power of their own, other than charm and complete dependence, and yet they commanded everyone around them. Until this morning he’d never thought much about children, except
that he’d probably be a sad excuse for a father. Zenobia had changed everything.

Mother must have done something right when he was a baby, otherwise he’d have starved. Maybe she’d only stopped loving him when he was old enough to
show his personality – to show his potential for evil. At what age did a child stop seeming innocent? There were a few smoke-stained photos of him and Sheppard kicking around his parents’ place. They’d both been cute kids. Sheppard looked mischievous in his pictures, but Cross looked duller and duller in each photo.

Despite what
his mother claimed, he couldn’t have been evil from birth. That wasn’t how babies worked. Having him exorcised when he was ten had seemed like overkill, even to him. Sometimes, she still bemoaned the fact that it hadn’t worked. Sometimes he wondered if she couldn’t stand him because he looked or acted like his biological father. He didn’t even know the man’s name.

Names. Zenobia. Trust Q to pick such a wild name. He sighed and the tension he’d been unaware of left his body. Zen was the perfect name for her.

Jude was a fortunate man. He was likable, got along easily with others, and was relaxed enough to be the kind of Dom his women needed. Cross, on the other hand, was taciturn, didn’t play well with others, and was so uptight that he’d actually tried domming the girls into being the submissives he wanted, instead of remembering that power exchange was a two-way relationship. Ass. No wonder they hated him. He was used to women who served him their submission on toast – with some he’d had to insist they took some back. He wasn’t into micromanagement.

Should Gemma and Izzy have called by now?
No. The clock read 7:15 AM. His nerves were getting to him. How was he going to fix this mess? He wandered to the answering machine. Maybe they’d left a message while he’d been gone.

Cross hit play and went to the fridge to grab a glass of orange juice. Through the night he’d drunk so much coffee that his body felt like an oversized coffee filter.

Messages one through five were from his mother, demanding money. The last one was at three in the morning. He hoped that she hadn’t kept his dad awake all night with her ranting. She sounded painfully high. There was a good reason he’d never experimented with drugs.

The sixth message was from Sarah. Seriously? Five AM? He hoped he wouldn’t have to take out a restraining order on her too.

“Cross? It’s Sarah.” Her voice sounded off – scared. “Remember I called a while back about my husband, Carl, seeing my text messages to you? Apparently now he really did. He’s been acting weird for days – disappearing for hours at a time. I figured maybe he was leaving me for his mistress. But he came home screaming in the middle of the night about how I was a dirty whore and he wanted to know how often I fucked you. I told him it wasn’t like that, but he was flipping out. He took off in the car about a half hour ago and said something about getting even.” Her voice cracked. “Sorry it took me so long to call. I wanted to warn you but I had to find change and go to a payphone. He took my cell phone and cut all the phone lines in the house. I’m going to stay at my sister’s house. I might go visit my Grandmother in Seattle.” She left her sister’s number in case he needed more information she hadn’t thought of and then rattled off a brief description of Carl and his car.

Just great. The last thing he needed this morning was a jealous husband trying to fuck him up when he had to make sure he fixed things with his girls. He played the message back twice, looking out the window. Nothing unusual in the street. He went down and checked the store, but all was quiet and in order.

He called his employee, Winter, and cancelled her shift, but told her that he’d pay her anyway. Putting his people in danger wasn’t acceptable.

His people.
Carl wouldn’t bother Gemma and Izzy, would he?

Why hadn’t he told them sooner about the pro-Dom thing? Because he was a chicken shit, that’s why. With a shake of his head,
Cross grabbed Gemma’s cell out of his pocket. He’d found it, forgotten, in the back of his truck. It was dead. He put it on the table by the door and plugged it in. He couldn’t find his cell, and figured Gemma had probably pocketed it by accident last night.

This wasn’t exactly the best time to come clean, but he needed to at least call the girls and warn them, just in case. Maybe he could gloss over who Carl was until they’d gotten their relationship on firmer footing
again. He picked up the handset for his home phone and dialed Izzy’s cell. No answer. Her house next. The phone rang and rang. Voicemail didn’t kick in until about the eleventh buzz. Why wouldn’t they be home at this time of the morning? Gemma liked to sleep in. Or had they gone out and done something wild after he’d left and weren’t home yet? Or maybe they’d gone out and Izzy’s car broke down again? Doing his best not to sound worried and failing miserably, he quickly explained that there was a guy that was pissed at him, and to be careful in case he showed up there.

“I love you both,” slipped out of his mouth
. He panicked and hung up.

He winced. Oh shit. Not the best time to spring the L word.
And on voicemail, no less. Too late now unless he did something crazy like sneak into her apartment and delete the message – not that he knew her voicemail code. If they made fun of him or it made things awkward, he’d blame it on the sleep deprivation. Was it true, though? First the thought of them dumping him, and now potentially being in danger forced him to know it deep in his bones. Without them his life was drab. How did he ever think he was happy before he met them? He’d been deluding himself, or just ignorant that life could be more.

Besides, love wasn’t something to be ashamed of...right?

Fueled by anxiety, he only took two seconds to jog down to his truck, He stopped at the door. Ugh. Keys might help. He ran back up to his apartment again and grabbed them and Gemma’s cell phone. He plugged the phone in again when he got back to the truck.

Cross turned the key, the beast r
umbled to life, and the air filled with Gemma’s ringtone.

He stared at the phone for a moment like he’d discovered a venomous snake on his dashboard. Were they calling to talk
? Or maybe it was Gemma’s parents looking to chat with her. Shit. It could be them saying some scary man was hanging around outside Izzy’s apartment.

Without giving himself another moment to debate he slid the on-screen toggle to unlock the phone. “Hello?”

There was faint noise at the other end. He killed the motor and listened hard.

“Mmmph...mmmmmp
.” The tone was desperate and loud. Frantic. It was Izzy, he was sure of it. Gagged? He listened so hard his ears hurt. No response.

“
Izzy?” He whispered. If this was actually them, in trouble, it might be worse if he yelled. “I’m getting the police. Don’t hang up.”

He ran back upstairs and dialed 911. The cell call terminated. It took only a few moments to babble his explanation to the operator. The police would swing by Izzy’s apartment when they had a chance.
Her muffled phone call was dismissed as “she probably accidentally dialed when her phone was in her pocket.” The girls hadn’t been gone for forty-eight hours yet so it wasn’t a missing person’s case, he was told.

By the time he hung up
, he was frantic. He had to find them. But what if Sarah’s husband had help? Admittedly he didn’t know much about the guy. How resourceful was he? To be safe, he needed back-up. Malachi picked up on the first ring.

Like an idiot, Cross babbled the entire story again, barely taking a breath.

“Fuck, Cross. You woke me up. Slow down. I feel like I’m talking to fucking Lassie.”

“How the hell am I going to find them? I don’t know shit about tracking people. Should I find a private detective or something?” He paced randomly around the house. A weapon. He needed something to protect them with. And rope. Lord knew he had plenty of rope.

“So Gemma has your phone?”

“Yes,” he barked irritably. “
She grabbed mine accidentally last night. I told you that!” He grabbed a pocket knife and a coil of rope from his room.

“Dude, just track your phone then. On the computer. Remember when that customer lifted my phone a few months ago? I told you I tracked my phone with the app, and it showed me what house the guy was in. If the girls really did get taken and
Izzy managed to call you, it could work. As long as they’re not outside cell range. If it’s true, the guy’s a dumbass for not checking them for a phone, but it’s good for us. You get started and I’ll be there in five.”

Cross hung up then flipped open his laptop with more force than necessary. He logged in and swore loudly at the computer for being so fucking slow. He found the app and stared blankly when it asked him for his password. Password? He remembered changing his phone download
password a few weeks ago. Uh. What the hell had he picked? His eyes cast around the room. The girls had been there, watching a movie. He’d only been half paying attention to the computer. Ugh! Think, think! They’d been joking around, saying the guy’s name from the movie and fluttering their eyelashes, pretending to swoon on the couch. Mister Darcy! He had to enter the name three ways before it worked. Mister, not Mr or Mr.

Holy shit. Where the fucking hell was that? The phone was showing as being way out of town –
maybe a hundred miles away. In the middle of the woods – there was no street address. At least a cell tower was picking them up.

He figured out how to get the same program on Gemma’s phone so they could take this show on the road.

Malachi burst through the door, sliding a little on the hardwood. “Are we going? I thought you’d be waiting in the parking lot?”

“I couldn’t remember my password. I’ve got it. We’re going to be driving at least an hour, it looks like.”

“I grabbed food and coffee on the way. Sorry to be so practical, but I didn’t want to be fainting all over when we rescued your fair damsels.”

They pounded down the stairs again.

“Are you seriously thinking this guy took them, though? Maybe they just went for a drive and she butt dialed you.”

“Malachi. Seriously. You wouldn’t recognize Ivy’s voice gagged, even now?”

“Harsh, man.” The red-headed bombshell had dumped Malachi’s ass about a month ago for an uber Dom she’d met on FetLife. She’d told Mal he wasn’t serious enough about his responsibilities. He’d been upset for a few weeks, but everyone had known it was a mismatch from the outset. Malachi was...a jester, just like he’d been when Cross met him in kindergarten. Ivy, on the other hand, was intense.

Traffic through town was light and Cross sped for the highway.

“Maybe you should slow down. If you get stopped by the cops it’ll set us back.”

“If the cops want to stop me they’ll have to catch me first, and they won’t until I get to where the girls are. Then they can help.”

“If we’re going to get into a high-speed police chase, just slow down a little so I can jump out, you crazy bastard. I’m not going down for you.”

“Good. You’re not my type. Did you bring a weapon?”

“My cunning wit. The only other weapon I have is the sword that I have hanging on the wall, but it’s only a replica. I brought my airsoft gun though. It probably won’t help any, but it’s all I had. Oh, and a baseball bat.”

“The baseball bat might be the better choice, dumbass.”

“This is my first lynching. I wasn’t sure what to bring.”

Cross drove for hours. At least it felt like hours. The clock said it had been forty minutes, but that just couldn’t be right. Mal tried to keep him distracted, but he was consumed with visions of them tortured, raped, murdered,
and disappearing forever. His chest ached and his heart pounded hard, like he was running a race. He blew out a shaky breath. Glancing around for lurking police, he slammed his foot down harder on the accelerator.

“Stop it. You’re freaking yourself out. If you have a panic attack you’re not going to be very helpful.
Maybe it’s nothing. We’re almost there. If I rescue them myself, I’m keeping them, so you’d better calm the fuck down.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks. You’re not my type either.”

They turned on
to a dirt road that seemed to be in the right area. There was no way the girls would’ve come here on their own for a picnic or a stroll – especially with Izzy’s car being tempermental lately. It was the only side road for miles and it was unlikely Carl would have been able to carry one of them far, let alone both of them.