Make Me Yours Evermore, Book 3 (30 page)

“We haven’t got time. Decide. With me or not. But if it’s not, you need to pack your bags and head to Brazil or somewhere fucking far away because not only will the boss not be happy, neither will the cops if these women talk to them.”

What? I couldn’t blink. Had someone escaped? Was Zoe among them?

“Wait. Rush me and you get nothing.” Chris turned away leaving Scrim all but grinding his teeth. He walked to us.

“What is it?” Andreas moved so their conversation was a little private.

“Someone may have helped the women escape. Scrim thinks so. Though they didn’t get a car, their cage got unlocked and they went over the wall. Looks like someone also put up a ladder for them. Zoe has gone too.” He glanced at me.

Oh god. I didn’t say anything. Joy blossomed. The girl was away!

Funny though, a second later, regret sneaked in. She was gone from my life. I even felt sadness that I’d lost a friend. How fucked up was I?

Andreas reached down and patted my head. “Maybe they managed all that themselves?”

“Don’t know. Scrim’s sure he has a traitor. He wants me with him.”

“He trusts you more?”

Chris made a doubtful face. “If I go…Scrim’s men are armed and they have some way of tracking the girls’ collars so they have a chance of catching them. He figures they have half an hour head start, at most. One other thing – he’s guaranteed me Zoe when, if, we catch her, and he seems damned certain they will.”

“Wow. He must need you then.”

“I guess we have a lot at stake and he figures that makes me on his side.”

I couldn’t stop myself though my hands shook and I bunched them in my dress. “Sir. Please. Let them go.”

He frowned and, apart from a glance, ignored me. “If they get away, we’re stuffed Andreas. The cops would track us down. This place would be found.”

“Yeah.” Andreas scraped his hand down his face. “Shit. We might have some time but we’d be found eventually. Trails like phone texts, DNA, I’m sure there’s witnesses to our road trip too. Things would add up.”

“I’m sorry, mate. Never meant this to happen.”

Scrim interjected. “Let’s stop pussying around, hey? Get your ass downstairs in five minutes. I’ve got to grab stuff and people.” He turned to go but halted and added, “This is no Disney thing. If you come, just remember these women are like bottles on a shelf. Sometimes I have to eliminate stock.” He jogged off down the stairs.

Dread sent sharp tendrils into my blood. He’d kill the women? I half swallowed, my throat seizing up.

Andreas slapped the wall beside his head. “Okay, he’s gone. Chris, fucking bottom line. If they start shooting at people at night, you could get injured, killed, doing this.”

Gun. I had a gun. Despite a lack of logic, that seemed like it could lead to a solution. I backed away on my knees. “I’m feeling sick…”

They dismissed me with hand signals. I’d never been allowed alone in the house. Ever. I fled barefoot back to the bedroom, hauled out the drawer Zoe had told me to move, and there was the steel lid set in the floor. Number pad. Handle.

Frantic, with my stomach contents trying to arrive in my mouth, I punched in the combination to the number pad. Locked still.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Again.

Slow down. I swallowed bile.

Get it right this time.
Punch. Punch, punch.

The little handle turned and the lid opened. There lay a gleaming pistol and a magazine of bullets. I took a deep breath and picked them up, slid the magazine in. Everything clicked together so easily. I’d never fired a gun but there were a shitload of bullets. Maybe I should’ve counted them, but I wasn’t game to try removing the magazine, sure that something would fall apart.

This must be the safety.
I flicked the switch on then off again. Point and pull the trigger. Easy. And who was I going to shoot?

I ran back to the foyer, halting the other side of the wall from where Chris and Andreas were. They were silent.

Then Andreas spoke. “On the other hand, I’d rather leave Australia than see you killed trying to get women back for a slave trafficker.”

I peeked around the corner and saw Chris nodding, stern look to his face like Andreas had just delivered the commandments in stone.

What did I want? With one hand hanging at my side and the heaviness of the gun dragging it down, I rubbed the heel of my other hand into my forehead. Think.

Run while they’re distracted? See if I can get out via the deck, if they left it unlocked? Unlikely but possible.

Only Scrim said he was tracking the women.
If
he caught them, and it seemed possible…he might kill them? Maybe if they struggled? Maybe if they ran when told to stop? I could see Zoe doing just that. I wasn’t sure of the reasons that might make him do it, but he might.

Fuck. I banged my hand into my forehead.

I didn’t want her to die. I wanted…I wanted to send Chris to go fetch her back. If he was there, he could help her.

“I am so fucked,” I whispered.

What if she might have truly gotten away? What if I was the cause of her being caught again? What if she got herself killed? I couldn’t see Zoe giving up again easily. If Scrim caught her, she might be a mouse, or she might be a screaming person he’d have to drag back here. Kicking and screaming and spitting.

I could see it, and the bullet in her head. The blood. Or maybe he’d just strangle her, that’d be quieter.

“He doesn’t want me to come, does he?” Andreas again.

“No. And how the fuck would that help us anyway? You need to stay here with Kat.”

Shit. I leaned on the wall, feeling like I needed an extra brain to sort this out. My head ached. What if I just went and shot everybody? Like in
Resident Evil
, I could be the badass chick who mows down her enemies with dead-accurate shots.

Fuck yeah.

I hefted the gun, reading the etched writing but not really seeing past the blur in my eyes.

I’d rather toss away the slim chance of her freedom and beg Chris to get her back. Though I knew, and couldn’t deny, that I also wanted her in my arms, because, just plain because, I did.

“Decided?” Andreas murmured.

But I didn’t want Chris to die either, and I trusted Scrim as far as I could toss a feather.

With the gun behind my back, I squeezed around the corner, pivoting slowly around the door frame on my shoulders.

“You okay, Kat?” Andreas swung as if to see me better.

“I –”

In one stride, Chris had me against the wall. Arm like steel across my neck, his body pinning me, the gun and my hand holding it fastened to the wall as if stapled there by his grip. I was forced up on tippy toes, feeling the sting where the ring pierced me.

His face was an inch away and his eyes dissected me, separating thought and mind so the words on my tongue vanished and my will fell away to nothing.

I blinked, breath caught in my throat.

“What are you doing, little Kat?”

That I could answer. “Giving you something, Sir. To help you.” I gulped.

“The pistol?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You want me to go search for Zoe?”

Did I? Wrong or right, I did. “Yes, Sir.”

Then he stepped away and with relief I could reassemble some of my mind, though most of me was in tatters. I’d never seen him as my Sir. No one had been since
him
. Yet then, for that moment, he had been. I swayed a little, needing time, space, so I could rescue myself, let alone Zoe. If anyone deserved my submission it was Andreas. I didn’t need Chris.

But, he’d stepped away? When I had a gun? I’d been looking at his chest and I marshaled the courage to stare at him.

“Then do it, now. Give me the gun.” He surveyed my face, concentrating, as if seeing me for the first time.

What big blue eyes you have, Sir.

I’d always been able to force myself to meet his eyes in any emergency. Not now. My gaze slid away like glass slipping on ice.

I was on the edge of a precipice, teetering, with the clouds blowing past. If he blew on me, I’d fall. I shuddered.
Fuck.

I cleared my throat and went to hand him the gun.

“No.” His hand was on me again, slowly he raked his fingers upward through the nape of my hair and he tilted my head back, tightening the grip as he twisted his fingers. Delicious force. I groaned. My eyelids fluttered. My clit throbbed, in time with my heartbeat, reminding me I had a part of him in me, always.

“Look at me, Kat.”

I did, for all of two seconds, before the glass on ice effect hit me again. I wavered.

“No. Look at me. You could have tried to use this to shoot us, couldn’t you? To get free. But you didn’t.”

“Yes,” I whispered, squirming my already sore butt against the wall. I was ashamed that he’d figured that out. Obvious though. Looking at him staring back at me was so uncomfortable, and yet, he was so
there
, so determined to make me see
him
. Nervous, I swallowed.

Away. Need to get away, remember?

His hand moved a little more. Pain twisted in. “Yes, I see you too, Kat.”

Then he released my hair, and slipped his hand a little lower, to my neck, and he stroked me there for a moment before he drew me to him and wrapped his arms about me, surrounding me with him.

I…let myself go. For the first time ever, I sank into him, his scent, the feel of his muscles moving against me, the sound of his voice at my ear and of his heart thudding.

“Andreas told me I should be gentler with you. But you only need a little of that, don’t you, Kat? What you really need is me, as I am – a big bad sadist.

“On a day when you’re sad, and a man who loved you would bring you flowers, I’ll give you pain if that’s what you need. Fuck flowers. But if instead of pain you need the head of the person who caused your sadness, I’ll do that for you too. I’ll bring you their fucking head.”

I couldn’t stop listening as his words rumbled out.

“They say if you love someone, you let them go free. Understand this. I’m not letting you go, Kat, not in a million, million years, because what I have for you isn’t love, it’s obsession.

“Now I want you to tell me. What are you?”

His murmur had stolen in and invested some part of me. My heart it seemed, from the warmth there. And yes, I knew this wasn’t exactly love from me either. I had simply done what he’d said – I’d finally comprehended what I was.

Getting away meant leaving him behind, and if what I needed was him?

The price for having
him
was terrifying. For it was me.

But nothing held me back anymore. I was prepared to pay.

My pulse beat so loud it filled my head; my fingers trembled against his shirt feeling his body beneath. How solid he was when I was fragile. I was warm, safe. I buried my nose in his shoulder, inhaled. The world disassociated and floated.

He released me, and I slipped away and went to my knees. “I am yours, Sir.” Then I put the gun down and my palms to the floor and I bowed my head, amazed at the liberating feeling that flooded me, washing away my resentment and anger. “I am yours,” I repeated softly, because the words seemed to work magic.

He went to one knee before me. “I know. You are mine.”

I understood. I’d lost a part of myself yet I’d gained something also.
Him.

From below rumbled the sound of vehicles starting.

I raised my head, surprised at the tears in my eyes. “Zoe?”

He smiled. “You want her? I’ll get her for you.”

My world had turned upside down. Now, I was scared that
he
wouldn’t come back. I closed my eyes trying to sort this out. I was right though.
This
was right. I needed him. I was like a jigsaw that had found the last piece.

I sighed and resurrected my tougher self, sat back on my heels. I nodded. “Thank you, Sir.” I couldn’t stop saying what came next. “Please, come back.”

I was such a wuss.

“I will.”

Please come back.

That she cared enough to say that…I was still in shock.

I readjusted my hands where they rested on my knee, wishing I could instruct her to do something deeply kinky just so I could see her finally obey me without question.

There was triumph for me in what she’d done as well as a very simple and pure pleasure. I’d wanted her submission for so long. I’d had subs spout versions of the same words many times but hearing it from Kat, who’d fought so hard against it – the ultimate thrill and power rush and satisfaction.

I couldn’t resist cupping her face in my palm. When she leaned her cheek into my hand, an unfamiliar ache spread in my chest.

What a time for this to happen. I needed to move my ass or Scrim would leave without me.

“May I give you the gun, Sir?”

It lay next to her hand on the timber floor. Innocuous metal. Potential violence. I wasn’t a weapons man unless it had a sharp edge or was my own body.

“Yes.”

She took it up in both hands and offered it to me with the pistol laid across them. An unusual way to do it, as if this meant more to her than merely a weapon. As if this were her submission made solid.

“Thank you.” Keeping hold of one of her hands, I checked the safety was on then tucked it into the back of my jeans. I looked up and found Andreas where he was propping up a wall. “Grab me a T-shirt?”

“Sure.”

Once he was gone, I could pay attention to Kat again.

Her mouth pursed and she wriggled and tried to disengage her hand from mine.

“No. Do not.” I hung on to her fingers, pleased when she instantly relaxed.

“Sorry, Sir. Umm.” Kat ducked her head, then peered up at me, blinking. She wiped her eyes.

The ache in my chest intensified. This had struck her as deeply as it had me.

Formal words seemed
right
. “I accept your submission, Kat, and I thank you. But there’s something I need to know. Where did this weapon come from?” There so many possibilities that could be disasters in the waiting.

The wavering in the line of her mouth said she was worried.

“Kat ?”

“Zoe. I don’t know how she found out but she told me it was in a safe in your bedside drawers, and she gave me the combination. She seemed to be frightened that she even knew about it.”