Natalie Acres (25 page)

Unhooking the leash attached to her collar and then the neckband itself, she tossed the items to the bed. “I need to shower. Talk to Vince. If I’m wrong, let me know.”

“Bitch,” he called after her as he reached for the phone.

She shot him a smile. “I’m your bitch, honey, but you already know that. I’m also the brains behind this Cartwell operation. If Kimberly has already spread her legs for Sebastian and Wyatt, you need to hurry up and have her abducted today.”

“She hasn’t fucked them,” Jason assured her, discarding the condom from his prick.

“Vince is still on the phone,” she pointed out, crossing her arms and leaning against the bathroom door.

“You think you know her so well,” Jason said, lifting the phone to his ear.

She grinned. “I just know what I would do if I were in her shoes tonight.”

Jason snarled. “Talk to me, Vince. Heather seems to think we’ve already fucked things up with Sweden.”

“You’ll have to sell her as used merchandise,” Vince said.

“Why is that?” Jason asked, enraged. His gaze briefly met Heather’s.

“Because she’s already in bed with Sebastian and Wyatt. They brought down the walls the morning after the auction. I had hoped I was mistaken, but after what I witnessed at Exploitation, there’s no doubt she’s fucking them. She fucked them both in public.”

“I’d have to see proof of that to believe it. Kimberly isn’t like her sister. She wouldn’t fuck for sport.”

Heather rolled her eyes and entered the bathroom. “Told you she was damaged goods now.”

“How do we fix this with Sweden?” Jason asked. He wanted to kill someone. He also wanted to punish Kimberly. How could she do this to him? Who the hell did she think she was?

Vince grunted. “There’s only one way. We move tonight. We pick her up, drug her up, make the transfer, collect the cash, and then skip town.”

“That’s not a problem. I’m ready to roll when you are.”

“You may not be able to leave as quickly as you’d hoped.”

“Why’s that?” Jason asked, stretching his neck and watching Heather as she pleasured herself so he could see her. He couldn’t wait to punish her. As of late, she’d been breaking too many rules all for the sake of her own self-inflicted orgasms.

“My sources tell me the Cartwells are on to you and you’ll probably see the hothead later today.”

“Who, Kane?”

“Yes,” Vince replied.

“I’m not afraid of Kane Cartwell. What other problems do we have?”

Vince sighed. “You’re my one phone call. I’m behind bars in Columbia and I need an attorney.”

“And you’re discussing this on a public phone?” Jason bellowed.

“I knew you were waiting for my call!”

“Fuck you, Vince,” Jason growled, slamming the phone against the cradle.

“Problems?” Heather asked, reappearing in the doorway. Wearing only a towel, she dropped the limited coverage and cupped her breasts. “Come play with me. I’ll make it better for you.”

“Get dressed,” Jason snapped. “We’re going to Columbia.”

“I haven’t lost anything in Columbia,” she said, dragging her fingers over her pierced nipples. “And you haven’t either.”

“You might change your mind, lover. Kimberly had a public exploit with those damned bastards, Sebastian and Wyatt. Her actions could cause us to lose millions.”

“Her actions—of course—are the only problem here, as always,” Heather drawled.

“Can the sarcasm,” Jason said. “If we don’t pick her up and get her out of the Carolinas tonight, Sweden won’t transfer the funds. We won’t have that multimillion-dollar payday we needed. Do you understand?”

“I understand perfectly.” She tilted her head at the window where the Cartwells could be seen exiting their vehicle. “I wonder if they will.”

* * * *

“Kane, what brings you out this way bright and early today?” Jason greeted the Cartwell men before they bounded up the front steps and forced their way inside his home.

He’d experienced the Cartwell temper more than once. Kane was the vilest, but Evan and Braden could be brutal, too, especially when one of their little china dolls happened to fall too far away from the Cartwells’ well-guarded shelves.

“I’ve been on the phone with Kimberly this morning. I also spoke to Sebastian Ketchum and Wyatt Clanton. You know them, I’m sure,” Kane said, a sarcastic smile tilting his lips. “It didn’t take me too long to figure out what you’re up to, Neely.”

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “Get to your point, Cartwell. I was about to leave town.”

Kane’s gaze averted when the patio door behind Jason opened and closed. He grunted before returning his focus to Jason. “I’m glad Heather’s back where she belongs.”

“Me, too,” Evan drawled, shooting Heather a strong glare. “We know one young woman who will be glad to hear the news as well.”

Heather draped her body around Jason’s and hung on for dear life. He wiggled away from her, but she came right back, acting as if she were his fifth limb.

“We’re headed out of town.”

“So you said,” Kane said, narrowing his gaze.

Jason was suddenly nervous. Braden and Evan had placed some distance between themselves and Kane. Each of the Cartwell brothers stood at least six to eight feet apart, forming a half circle around him.

Right over them, birds flocked together and fled the large chestnut tree near Jason’s porch. In the nearby field, four horses stamped their hooves and snorted, acting as if they understood the looming danger.

Kane slowly reached behind him, dragging an envelope away from his denim pocket. “What kind of business have you been conducting with Sweden?”

Jason chuckled. “You give me too much credit, Cartwell. I don’t have any business dealings overseas.”

“I told you he’d play that card,” Evan said, chewing on a toothpick.

“We know who Sweden is,” Kane said, closing the distance between himself and Jason and Heather.

“You’re talking about a person?” Jason asked.

“You damn well know who I’m talking about!”

“Can’t say the name rings a bell.”

Kane snarled. “You always were a foolish man, Neely.”

“If I knew someone by the name of Sweden, why would I care to mention the fact?”

“I guess because he’s trafficking women,” Kane said. “Has been for nearly two decades.”

“Way we see it,” Evan began. “There are only a few folks in the States, especially in the BDSM community, who would know about Sweden.”

The tension in the air thickened and Heather even backed off, no longer interested in clinging to him like a well-attached vine.

“I know Sweden,” she admitted.

“Shut up, Heather.”

“With a name like Sweden, do you honestly think they don’t know the truth, Jason?” she asked, glaring at him as if she were trying to transmit private messages. “He’s been threatening Jason for a while now. First, he wanted Kimberly, then he wanted—what was her name, honey? Mary something or other—and then he set his sights on me.”

“I seriously doubt that story,” Kane said, probably realizing his daughter was exactly what Sweden would love to have in his harem of women.

Braden cleared his throat. “I gotta tell you, I am surprised. Evan and Kane never believed you loved her for a minute, but you fooled me. I really thought you cared about her.”

“Cared about her?” Jason said, feeling a stab through his heart. “I damn well loved her.”

“Enough to sell her to a human trafficker,” Kane pointed out.

“That’s not what was going on here,” he said, shooting Heather a sideways glance. He’d always meant to have Heather help him right up to the very end. Then at the last minute, he had planned on making a switch. Everything changed when Kimberly ended up in Columbia. In some ways he feared he would have to let Kimberly go once and for all and he had been trying to come to terms with that possibility.

Braden shoved his fingers through his short hair. He glanced at Heather and then back at Jason. “You surely don’t expect us to believe you were going to try and double-cross Sweden by sending in
that
.”

“Braden,” Evan warned his big brother under his breath.

The Cartwell men didn’t believe in disrespecting women, even women like Heather who had earned her bad reputation, but Heather had been unusually cruel to the Cartwell women.

Kane slapped Jason’s chest with the envelope. “Open it.”

Jason took out several copies of some sort of printouts. He scanned page after page of black-and-white proof. How the hell had the Cartwells managed to retrieve copies of his text messages?

“It’s all right there,” Kane said, glancing at Heather. “Oh, and Braden was just joshing with you for a minute, Heather. Read page four. There’s a detailed conversation between Jason and Vince. They had every intention of sending you in Kimberly’s place. They were going to try and pass you off as a widow with one partner. Then, Vince threatened to tell you. Jason backed away from the idea for show but if I were you, I’d always wonder. Was he planning to send you, or was Kimberly destined to be a casualty? Guess we’ll never know.”

“They’re lying,” Jason said, ripping up the proof.

Heather’s lips quivered. Her eyes watered. Her wrinkled hands trembled.

She loved him and Jason had always known he’d taken her for granted. Now, it appeared as if he needed her more than ever before.

He had to keep her from reading the truth. He could smooth things over as long as she didn’t see the evidence in black and white.

“I have another few copies at home if you’d like to see them, Heather.”

“Jason? Is this true?”

“Of course it’s not true!” he screamed, shaking his head. Wagging his finger at Kane then, he screamed, “Haven’t you caused enough trouble in my life, Cartwell? Haven’t you destroyed everything I care about, including your daughter? What more do you want? Haven’t you taken enough?”

Kane slapped his cheek in a taunting smack. “Ah now, settle down, darlin’. We’re just gettin’ started with you.”

Kimberly awoke feeling as if she never slept at all. Hours earlier, after she’d spoken to her parents, she’d walked in on an intense conversation between Sebastian and Wyatt. They’d tried to reassure her that their suspicions about her relationship with Jason wouldn’t change their opinion of her, but she’d witnessed the disappointment—or maybe it was true disapproval— in their eyes.

Whatever they’d discovered on Vince’s phone had made them question their feelings for her. To make matters worse, she’d been so exhausted that she’d fallen asleep right after they’d started to discuss their concerns.

She couldn’t even remember the short exchange. The only thing she recalled was her mother’s probing questions.

They were embarrassing, not to mention degrading, and yet after she realized why her mother felt it was necessary to ask—because a human trafficker had set his sights on her—she found herself answering her mother with a frankness she couldn’t explain.

“Good morning,” Sebastian said, entering the room, twirling a set of keys and carrying a hot mug of coffee.

Bare-chested, he wore a pair of blue jeans better than any cowboy she knew, yet she wasn’t sure he was a cowboy. He didn’t speak with a Southern drawl, and he really didn’t have a working man’s hands.

“Good morning to you,” she said, pulling her arms forward and thrusting them toward him.

“I hope you didn’t mind.” He tilted his head at the handcuffs around her wrists.

“Why would I mind?”

“We haven’t had a chance to establish a foundation for our relationship.”

“We haven’t even finished the interview questions,” Wyatt said, entering the room wearing pajama pants and a smile.

“It’s a little too late for that,” she said, rubbing her wrists once Sebastian released them.

“Let me,” he said, massaging her arms tenderly. “And it’s never too late to discuss expectations, boundaries, and future relationship goals between a Dom or Doms and their submissive.”

“Is that what you want then?”

“A submissive?” Sebastian asked, his fingers sliding up and down her forearm. He cut his gaze to Wyatt. “This one is on you.”

Silence sliced through the air and Kimberly’s imagination ran wild. They didn’t want a sex slave. Her dream of becoming inexplicably controlled by someone she loved was a dead fantasy, perhaps even an illusion that didn’t even exist in the lifestyle.

“We need to discuss a few things with you first, Kimberly,” Wyatt said, taking a seat on the spanking bench.

As soon as he sat down, his hands ran across the leather seat and that deep-seated lust settled in his amazing eyes. Her heart picked up its pace as she thought about how those eyes had looked into hers as he’d fucked her in front of an audience, in front of others like them. And even though the club had been packed, he had made her feel as if she were the only woman in the room, the only woman he’d ever taken so savagely.

“I’ve been on the phone all afternoon—”