Designing Woman (The Sloan Brothers Book 2) (20 page)

When I felt my legs give way, he laughed.  He bent at the waist and I felt him hoist me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  I saw the staircase beneath his feet as he ascended to the upper level.  The last thought I had before unconsciousness claimed me was, “That crazy asshole roofied me”.

I woke up with a splitting headache, totally nude.  I was spread eagle, my limbs fastened to the bed with handcuffs.  Was I afraid?  Hell yes I was afraid.  Oddly enough, my greatest fear was that Anton was going to kill me.  If he didn’t, the rest of the family would be in line waiting for their chance to secure my demise.

The room was dark, so I’d been here awhile.  Memories came back in bits and pieces until I turned my head and saw the view.  Tony was right.  The city twinkled like stars.  Tony.  I was in his penthouse apartment, naked in his bed.  I couldn’t see my body or test my limbs.  For the first time in my life, I was totally helpless.  The feeling didn’t agree with me.

I felt the bed dip next to me and a large warm hand caressed my abdomen.  This was so not good.  I whimpered and I felt him smile.  An evil presence will do that to you.  I could feel his emotions rolling off of him in waves.  He was smug and horny.  I could smell his lust and his touch was bold.  I had one defense left in my arsenal and I had to be careful how I used it.  I couldn’t run or hide if I pissed him off.

“You’re finally awake.  I was beginning to worry that I’d used too much.  One pill is usually enough, but you’re feisty so I used two.  How do you feel baby?”

His hand moved to my breast and he squeezed roughly, causing me to squirm.  He held on tightly, his fingers pinching my nipple tightly.  When I stopped squirming, his touch became gentle.  I filed this away for future reference.

My voice was hoarse and I cleared my throat.

“I have the mother of all headaches and I’m cold.”

He leaned over to the nightstand and retrieved something.

“I’ve got aspirin, open your mouth.”

I did as I was told and he dropped two tablets on my tongue.  The bitterness confirmed what he’d said.  He placed a straw to my lips and I drank deeply, sucking and swallowing to relieve my parched throat and to get the pills down.  My neck was straining with the effort to raise up enough that I didn’t choke.  When I finished swallowing, I turned my head and he returned the glass to the nightstand.

“I’m still cold.”

“Want me to warm you up?”

He stretched out on the bed next to me and I felt he was wearing sweatpants and no shirt.  His feet were bare.  He threw one of his legs over one of mine and moved his thigh against my groin while his lips moved from my shoulder to my neck.  I stayed perfectly still and prayed that this was a nightmare and I’d wake up in my own bed next to Anton.  I felt him stiffen against my thigh and I became rigid and still.

I felt his warm breath against my ear, he was panting and his hands were becoming more aggressive.

“It’s been too long for me Mel’.  Much too long.  When I was taking your clothes off it was everything I could do not to take you right then.  I had no idea how hot you were under all those clothes.”

I had to stay calm.  This was escalating and he could hurt me.  He was trained to hurt people in all kinds of ways.  The guy was a Dom and a boxer.  Control was his thing.  I had to play into it, as much as I was going to hate what I was about to do next.

I moaned and turned my head towards him, moving my hips against his thigh suggestively.  He froze.  I moved my tongue against his jaw and he pulled back until his head was just out of reach.

“You’re so big Tony, kiss me.  Kiss me like you mean it.”

He hesitated for a moment, saying nothing.  Then he lowered his lips to mine and I took his bottom lip between my teeth and tugged.  I shoved my tongue in his mouth, stroking and tasting while I groaned and wiggled against him.

He pulled completely away from me and sat up on the side of the bed.  He leaned over and touched something, and the immediate area became dimly lit.  His eyes met mine and I saw hesitation, but the lust was gone.  He looked skeptical.

“What are you playing at Melody?  You’re no whore.  What the fuck was that?”

“I thought that you wanted me.  Change your mind?”

His eyes scanned my body and I felt cheap and degraded.  He lingered on my breasts and my hips.  He licked his lips and his pupils dilated.  I thrust my hips towards him and he scowled in distaste.

“I was going to rape you.”

“You can’t rape the willing baby.”

He stood and tore his hands through his hair.  He looked down at me.

“Stop it!  Stop trying to top me from the bottom Mel’.  I’m in control here, not you.  I call the shots.  I decide when and how, not you.  Understand?”

It was working.  I had to stay strong and not gag on my next line.  If I was reading him incorrectly, this would go horribly wrong and I couldn’t even cry rape.

“Shut up and fuck me already.  You’ve got me worked up, take me!”

He reached out and slapped my breast with force.  The sting almost made me cry out but I licked my lips instead.

“Oh I like that.  Slap the other one.  Do it.  Now.”

He roared and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.”

I slumped back against the bed, trying to calm my speeding heart.  My strategy was working, but for how long?  If it had truly been, “too long” for him, he’d cave at some point, just to get relief.  The thought made my blood run cold and I started to tremble in fear.

I turned my head to take in the view of Manhattan.  My borough.  My home.  My family was right over there and I had no way to reach them.  Surely they were looking for me by now.  Surely they suspected who had me.  I could imagine Anton trying to reach me by phone and freaking out because his calls kept going to voicemail.  They had to be searching for me.  They had to be.

I felt the first hot tear as it pooled in my ear.  Even if they were searching for me, they were assuming he’d be staying close enough to stalk Ayla with ease.  They’d never suspect Brooklyn.  Even if they did, was Tony traveling under his actual name or did he check in under a pseudonym?  How the hell would they find me when they hadn’t managed to find him so far?  How could I help them when I couldn’t even help myself?

I began to flail, pulling against the cuffs with every ounce of strength I possessed.  Why the hell had he cuffed my cast?  He could have taken the damned thing off and cuffed my ankle.  Was he that stupid?  I raised up as high as I could and looked down.  He’d looped a fucking cable tie through one of the velcro straps of the cast, and attached the cuff to the tie.  It wasn’t much, but it was the weak link in the chain.  If I could manage to break the tie or the strap, I’d have one foot free.  I knew how much damage I could do with a foot.  It wasn’t much, but it gave me something to do.

Anton was pacing in his fiance’s living room, surrounded by everyone that loved either of them.

“It’s ten o’clock.  Where the hell is she?”

Deacon was holding Dorothy’s hand and she was stroking her abdomen in a self-calming gesture.

“Anton, calm down.  Freaking out isn’t helping in the least.  We need to think and talk this out.  We’re missing something.”

Anton stopped and leveled a glare at his brother.

“We’re missing Melody.  When I get my hands on her, she won’t be able to sit down for a week!”

He looked at Pierce who looked distraught with his arm around Ayla who was crying softly against his chest.

“Pierce, I may need to borrow a flogger.”

Pierce’s face turned beet red and his eyes darted nervously to Chase and Austin.

“What the fuck are you talking about?  Why would I have a flogger?”

Anton rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air as he resumed pacing.

“Cut the shit Pierce.  We all know how you get your freak on now.  All I’m asking for is a simple flogger.  Maybe something with several tails.  And knots.  Leather with knots.  She won’t forget who’s boss when I’m done with her wandering ass.”

He stopped moving and tore at his own hair.

“I TOLD her not to go out alone!  Why the hell doesn’t she ever listen?!”

The rest of the family remained quiet, watching the one Sloan that always blew everything off in a smart aleck comeback, go insane before their very eyes.

They’d run through the timeline of events ad nauseum until they could all but trace her steps.  They’d called everyone in her rolodex and no one had heard a word from her.  Her parents were in Paris and Dorothy had persuaded the rest of the group not to contact them until absolutely necessary.  Chase had pulled in every favor he could and Mel’s picture was now in every squad car in New York City.  If she surfaced, she’d be spotted.  The assumption was that Tony had her, but they were as close to knowing where he was as they were to knowing where she was.

The waiting was killing them.  Sean had cooked dinner for everyone and now he was rocking back and forth on the loveseat in one giant bundle of nerves.  He stopped abruptly, his eyes becoming half of his face.

“She went to him willingly.”

His words had everyone’s eyes on him in an instant.  Even Anton stopped pacing and glared at him.

“Why the hell would she do that?”

“I don’t know, but she did.  He got to her somehow.  Think about it.  She lied about a business meeting.  Why would she lie unless she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be?  She’d never cheat on you Anton and all of her friends are here in this room.  Everyone else hates her, but she has no real enemies except for him.  He owes her and he said as much.  She’s with him somewhere.”

Chase blew out a breath and addressed Sean as if he were a child.

“We figured out that much Sean.  What makes you think she went willingly?”

Sean sat back in his chair, crossed one jean clad leg over the other and steepled his fingers while he reasoned it out.

“In a lot of ways, she’s naive.  She wants to believe there’s good in everyone.  I know that’s hard to believe...”

Dorothy sat forward, her eyes on Sean.

“It’s true.  She’ll trust anyone until they prove she can’t.  Keep going Sean.  What are you thinking?”

He nodded and continued, his eyes on Chase.

“If he called her...”

Anton spoke up, unable to hold himself back.

“How would he get her number?”

Sean waved him off.

“Oh please.  I can get anyone’s number in this town with three phone calls.  It’s called networking and I don’t even have that many connections.”

He turned his face from Anton and refocused on Chase.

“As I was saying, if he called her and played the sympathy card, I think she’d fall for it.  All he would have had to have done was apologize for scaring her and stay calm.  After the cold shoulder that Ayla’s been giving her the last few days because of Austin, she might have listened to what he had to say.”

Austin looked at his sister who was sitting up with red rimmed eyes.

“I was upset, okay?  I thought she was dumping you for that asshole that keeps her chasing her own tail.  I couldn’t help it.  He’s not good enough for her Austin.  She deserves you.”

Austin rubbed his face and looked at his sister, trying to figure out a way to make her understand.

“Anton is perfect for her Ay’.  They’ve got history and they understand one another.  Melody and I never would have worked.  She’s too high maintenance for me.  Think about it.  I like simple.  She is the farthest thing from simple that exists.”

Ayla narrowed her eyes at her brother.

“So she was right?  You blew her off without a word?”

He blushed and looked at his feet.

“I didn’t want to fight with her.  I thought this would be easiest.”

“Easiest for who?  You?  You are such an asshole Austin.”

He looked up at his sister who was looking right back with disgust in her eyes.

“Okay, I handled it wrong!  Jesus, can we just find her already and discuss all this shit later please?”

Chase stepped into the fray, hoping to be the voice of reason.

“Okay everyone, focus.  Ayla, is he persuasive enough to talk her into meeting him?  You know him better than anyone.”

“He was persuasive enough to keep me beaten and in chains for years.  If he turned on the charm, he could talk her into meeting him, yes.”

The room fell silent as they all digested this new theory.  Anton walked over to her, leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“Stay with me here Ay’.  Where would they meet?  Where would he take her?”

Ayla grasped Pierce’s hand tightly in her own.

“He’d meet her somewhere public to keep her at ease and her guard down.  It wouldn’t be in Manhattan though, too many people know her here.  She’d be too easily recognized.”

Every word she said held a grain of truth and Chase moved closer.

“He’s not comfortable in fancy places, so it wouldn’t be someplace trendy or sophisticated.  He’s from the shady side of Boston.  It would have been a dive or a diner because that’s where he’s comfortable.  If he was planning on kidnapping her, it would be close to where he’s staying.”