“I liked the bra,” Emma complained, but didn’t miss a beat. “That, I’m charging you for.”
“I’ll buy you a hundred,” I said between gulps of breath.
“Deal!” Emma threw her head back.
Her hips tensed and she gave a shuddering breath. With each pant, her head tilted forward. Mouth wide, she grinned at me as her hips shifted me inside her, back to that glacial pace.
“You really are a greedy little minx,” I said. “Did the thought of eight dozen free bras make you come?”
“We both know what made me come.” She shifted lower, taking more of me inside her. “And I am greedy. I want to come again before you do.”
“In that case, we better hurry,” I replied.
My thumbs and fingers rubbed the nubs of her nipples. She sucked in a sudden breath. Her fingers grasped my upper arms like an eagle clutching its prey.
Her rhythm sped to the quick pace she’d held before I’d mentioned the shopping spree. Her nails dug into my arms, but I couldn’t feel it. I was close, on the edge.
The couch shook and inched along the hardwood floor. Emma threw her head back again and went rigid. My own thrusts sped. She hadn’t even relaxed before I exploded.
She fell down against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and closed my eyes.
A beeping alarm would wake me some time after, alone.
11
Manors and Estates
Emma
Ian’s breathing slowed with the regularity of sleep. The powerful arms that encircled me went limp but I waited a few minutes longer. Only then, when I was certain he’d remain in slumber did I push myself off him.
The tattered remains of my dress and bra fell to the floor. I shimmied out of the loin cloth he’d turned my underwear into and left it in the pile. My eyes fell on Ian, my husband, captor, savior? I couldn’t decide.
He slept like an innocent, that was for sure. Sleep softened the edges of his face. His lips remained in a slight smile. Without the beard he’d sported that first night, he was even more attractive. That helped keep me from making a decision about him. Had he been short, chubby and ugly, the fact that he had just drugged and kidnapped me would’ve held a lot more weight… unless he was telling the truth about everything else.
I padded across the room to my suitcase. Muffled by my hand, the latches opened almost silently. I slipped on a wrap dress, not worried about anything else. Ian had been right earlier. Trying to escape was pointless. No phone, isolated in an unknown part of a country I’d spent maybe two weeks of my life in, I was about as lost as possible.
Even if I stole Ian’s car and blasted down that overgrown driveway, where would I go? My brother? He had nothing but disdain for me and that was before I’d learned he’d been searching for me after allegedly trying to kill our father. The old man must have left me something in his will.
My cousins had gone so far as to travel all the way to Seattle in their search for me. Mom better have been right about her safety with them. Hurting her got them nothing but she was coming here – well, not to Ian’s dilapidated manor. That she was on her way gave me another reason to stick with Ian. He’d promised to help. As little as I trusted him, he was the best option of the bad.
A breeze rustled by when I opened the door. A few clouds blotted the sky. Rays of sun filtered through the trees, jagged lights in the shadows splashed over the manor house.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep. It smelled like the forests back home, earthy and teaming with life. Birds twittered around me, their odd songs carried on the wind, so similar but not the same. Different birds in Scotland, I assumed.
My feet carried me closer to the manor. Its façade towered over me when I neared. Ivy clung along half the wall, wrapping around the side. A weathered but once ornate design surrounded the plywood covered entryway. A hinge on one side glittered in the sun. Was it a door?
Sure enough, the other side of the plywood pulled away from the doorway easily. It opened into a dark foyer. The daylight behind me only illuminated a scuffed and dirty stone floor, covered with a few broken tiles. Warped wallboards rose from the floor with scraps of wallpaper attached.
My hand moved to my purse and found the tiny flashlight attached to my keychain. A click and its tight beam blinked against the far wall. I let the plywood door close behind me. Beyond the penlight’s circle of light and the bleed at the bottom of the plywood, only a slight glow deeper in the manor and high above fought the darkness, probably from the broken tower.
The foyer opened into a cavernous room. The stone floor gave way to exposed wooden beams topped with boards I didn’t trust stiletto heels on. When I moved the flashlight beam between them, long shadows grew underneath. The basement must have been as vast as the rest of the grand room – at least it had been grand once.
At least two stories tall, a thin chain hung from the sagging ceiling. The floorboards below were splintered from an impact but any remains of the chandelier had been looted. A balcony had once ringed the room, connecting in the middle with a wide staircase. Half of it lay crumbled on the first floor, an unfinished line of wood above its only remnants.
Light bathed me from behind. I twisted and aimed my own at it. Ian stood silhouetted from the light outside, the plywood door pushed wide in his arm. He held a large flashlight in his hand.
“I’d watch my step on the wooden floor,” he said before stepping forward and letting the darkness in. “You have to stay on the beams, and even then, they might not hold you.”
