Dark Demands 01: Taken for His Captive (8 page)

Gina really needed
Kyle
to get this right.  She needed time to look around the penthouse and hopefully find
something that would help
.  Exactly what that was she wasn’t sure but all her instincts told her
Dark
would have brought work back here.  Particularly if that work was confidential and given
that his
London
staff was all new and he wouldn’t entirely trust them yet.

Apart from that
sleeping with him wasn’t an option any more, not if he had a wife.  And even if he didn’t s
he wasn’t ready
just yet
.  Her desire for this man might be becoming more wanton and feverish each time she saw him and their interlude minutes earlier had been wonderful, but common sense told her that she needed to put her original plans first.  Anyway once he found out who she really was and what she was up to he was unlikely to be interested any more.  So better not to get involved in the first place was the sensible
way to go.

As the lift sped upwards Gina knew
she was kidding herself.  She was involved with him.  She was involved mentally, because she couldn’t stop thinking about him and physically because her body craved for the burning touch of his hands and his mouth.  The way she’d just felt when he’d held her in his arms was like nothing she’d ever experienced
with a man
before.  She doubted it was love, it couldn’t be, not yet and how would she know anyway?  Gina had never been in love, infatuated yes, but never in love.  No, what she felt for
Dark
was far more dangerous.  A raging burning desire engulfed her body whenever she was near him and Gina knew that she would have to submit to its demands if she was
ever
to regain her sanity.
But
she couldn’t afford to let these
wild thought
s
get in the way of her plans.  The task in hand and no further, she told herself. 

Gina
let herself into the penthouse and slipped through the door with all the stealth of an intruder.  She quickly checked her surroundings half expecting to find she was not alone.  However, thankfully she was and feeling a little more confident she set about her search.

The penthouse was everything Gina had imaged it would be in a hotel of this size and prominence.  Large, opulent and as her big blue eyes scanned around she noted that it was probably larger than the small flat she had in her father’s house.  And
Dark
wasn’t the neatest of people either which would make her task all the more difficult
.  But on the plus side if he had brought work home then the chances were he’d have just left that lying about too
. 
But where to start, there were
clothes
and
paperwork strewn across most of the surfaces in all the rooms.

The b
edroom first and she entered this particular room on her tiptoes her spine alive with shivers of trepidation.
 
She wasn’t sure why but she half expected him to be waiting for her.  Stupid thought, she told herself, he’d be engaged in some pointless conversation with Kyle now if
that young man had
got it right.

Although she didn’t have the time to waste looking at his personal things
Gina
was fascinated to see how this man lived.  She trailed interested fingers over a beautiful Armani suit lay across the bed,
Dark
was a man of taste and he could well afford the best.  Handmade suits and shoes and top designer labels just lay around
on the backs of chairs, on the chest of drawers,
with no apparent respect for what they must have cost.  The dressing table was crowded with masculine colognes and brushes for his dark hair. 

She flicked through one or two files she found there but they contained only accounts paperwork and she quickly discarded them.  Then her eyes were drawn to an elegant dark blue velvet box about eight inches square and new.  Gina couldn’t resist, she picked it up and opening the catch lifted the lid.  Inside was a quite beautiful ruby
collar type
necklace with matching earrings.  Each ruby graduated in size with the central one as big as a walnut.  She gasped, the set was exquisite, and whoever it was intended for was one very lucky lady
, that woman, Lisa perhaps
.  Her heart was beating fast; she shouldn’t be doing this so she replaced it quickly and decided to search elsewhere.

But d
ominating the
bed
room was the large king sized bed bedecked with damask drapes and covered in an aubergine coloured silk counterpane. This is where he’d have brought her, made love to her
. 
Once in here Gina didn’t doubt he’d have wasted no time in removing her clothes.  He’d have laid her down on the rich fabric, her blonde hair billowing against the plump feather filled cushions and they’d have spent the night making love until the
small hours
. 
 

She felt the
twist of excitement grip her stomach
at this thought.  
She touched the rich silk of the bed covers it was soft, comfortable, a lovers bed, she thought hazily wondering who else he’d brought here for the same purpose.   Then there was Lisa, was she sharing this suite with him?  She scanned the room again but there was no evidence of a female presence.   But why would Charlie and, of course Kyle Hastings, think she was his wife then?

Gina looked at a pile of paperwork on the bedside table but there was nothing interesting.  She tapped her long fingers on the polished surface and looked around for a cabinet or even a safe but there was no obvious place he would store paperwork.  But as she looked up at the drapes surrounding the bed she saw it, a large metal ring set into the headboard about halfway down.  It looked out of place and as far as she could see had no obvious purpose.   She knelt up on the pillows to take a closer look and pulled the thing firmly but it was very securely fixed and didn’t move.  She shuffled back she needed to get down and continue her search but as she moved the pillows fell onto the floor and exposed what had been lying underneath.  Gina’s eyes widened as she saw the metallic glimmer of handcuffs and a long piece of fine, silky rope.

Her imagination took an immediate flight into the realms of the unknown as she pictured all sort of sexual practises being enjoyed in this room.  But who with, she wondered, the woman Lisa sprang to mind again.  Just what sort of man was Matthew Dark and what on Earth was he up to in the darkest hours of the night with the women he brought here?  Gina shuddered realising that perhaps the things she’d been told about the Scotsman behaviour weren’t in the realms of fantasy after all. 

And of course there was the way he’d wanted to control her earlier, the way he’d wanted her hands behind her back before he’d touched her, and how he’d punished her when she’d freed them.  She’d probably had a narrow escape being able to come up here on her own.  It was obvious to her now that it wouldn’t have been all soft pillows and soft words after all. 

Despite being on her own Gina still felt her cheeks pink as she imagined being cuffed tight and at his mercy and knew she needed to get out of there.  The whole penthouse had now taken on an entirely different mood.  But she had the cuffs in her hand now and she couldn’t put them down, the damned things fascinated her. Sitting on the side of the bed she couldn’t resist fitting her small wrists into one but she didn’t snap it shut she daren’t as she’d no idea where the key might be.   The metal felt cold and there was a silver chain running between this one and the other.  A chain long enough to loop the rope through and then tie it to the rink.  Was she right, she wondered, then reaching up she put the rope through it and saw that this would work.  A person restrained in this way would still be able to lie on the bed while their arms were held above their head out of the way.

Gina shivered again and shook her wrist roughly letting the cuffs fall to the floor.  Her spine and the lower reaches of her belly were tingling with excitement, an excitement she hated herself for feeling.  How could she be so turned on by this imagery in her head?  This uninvited, wild imagery of being on the receiving end of such treatment from him?

As she rolled off Gina lifted the counterpane and looked underneath the bed half expecting to find more evidence of Dark’s bedroom practises but there was nothing.  She was confused and just wanted to get away, even if she’d planned to there was no way she could wait here for him now. 
As far as she was concerned
Matthew Dark was definitely out of bounds.

Time was running out and as Gina checked her watch she realised that nearly ten minutes had already passed since she entered the penthouse.  She lifted the skirt of her gown and hurried around the beautifully furnished
sitting
room
. 
A large
desk sat under the balcony window
and
papers were literally inches deep
on its surface
and they
spilled
to the floor as she
quickly
searched through them. 

Literally at the bottom of this mess she found a thin black leather document wallet
with Dark’s initials embossed on it
and she delicately flicked it open.  Was this it, she wondered?  The papers
inside
seemed to be plans and specifications for a new computer.  The dates on each of the papers seemed to be right and there was a ‘post it’ note attached to one with a reminder to speak to the technical team the following day.
  So that meant it was a current project
and worth knowing about
she realised hopefully.

The wallet held six documents and kneeling down Gina spread them carefully on the plush cream coloured carpet that covered the floor then retrieving her cell ‘phone she began to photograph them one by one.

She replaced the papers as she’d found them and then saw that the wallet held something else in a leather sleeve.  It was a small tablet computer.  Ultra thin and very shiny glancing back at the papers Gina realised that this was what the ‘specs were for. 
Could t
his
really be the
‘gizmo’ that was such a secret.  Now she really was puzzled.  Tablets had been on the market for a while and although this one seemed to have a very high ‘spec what, she wondered, made it so different.  Gina didn’t have time to consider this now so she photographed it and put everything back on the desk as she remembered finding it.

She had a last look round.  The place seemed so untidy to her eyes that she was sure no one could possibly know she’d been poking around.  She
was just about to leave when she heard a loud knock at the door.

“
Gina
,” the male voice shouted anxiously.  “Are you still in there?”

For one heart stopping moment she’d thought it was Dark but the voice was different, it was Kyle.  She
shook herself
,
open
ed
the door a
n inch or two and peeped out.

“He’s on his way up, listen you can hear the lift,” he urged and reached for her arm.  “You have to leave now or he’ll find you,” he added looking at the lift lights indicating that it was now only four flights away.

“There’s nowhere to go, nowhere for us to hide,” Gina panicked.  She didn’t want to be here when Dark returned.  Not now, after finding those things in his bed, how on earth would she deal with him?

“There’s a staircase round here,” he said pulling her out of the penthouse doorway and onto the corridor.  “Come on, it’s the fire escape.  We’ll go down a few floors then get the lift.”

Gina took his hand and ran with him and as the staircase door closed behind them they stood quiet and breathless as they listened to the sound of the lift doors opening.
  She’d
had a narrow escape and she had Kyle Hastings to thank for that.  Thank God he’d had the foresight to come looking for her
because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about
.  She’d
leave
dealing with
Dark for another day and she’d leave his
key at reception.

“Can I see you again,” Kyle asked once they reached the safety of the busy ground floor.

How to answer him, she owed him something that was for sure because if he hadn’t come to warn her, she shuddered imagining what Mathew Dark might be doing to her right now.