One dark brow rose, but Thomas shook his head. "I did not."
The Second in Command at Jaguar Holdings was speaking truthfully. He did not kill Frank. Nor did he kill Steve Meyers, though it took more self-control than he'd expected. Frank killed Meyers.
"Here." Thomas turned and handed his gun to the man cowering in the corner of the room, who'd been sniveling and whimpering since he'd been dragged in.
"W- WHAT?" blubbered Frank Marsh, former CEO of Atlantic Equities, "Why are you handing me a GUN? What the hell is going on here? What the-"
Sighing, Thomas crisply slapped his father-in-law across the face, enjoying the older man's squawk. "You're going to shoot and kill the man who attempted to rape your daughter-" he stopped for a moment, taking in a deep breath and trying to control his fury. "-and my wife. You do remember, don't you, Frank? Your 17-year-old daughter crying in the hallway when you came home? Her face on fire from being hit repeatedly by this filth?" There was a barely audible growl from Chuck, standing behind the bloody lump tied to the chair. He took a fistful of the man's hair and yanked his face up.
"Fra..." Meyers's mouthful of broken teeth didn't allow for more precise speech, and Thomas flexed his fists, knuckles bloody from beating the man into a pulp. He'd actually offered Meyers the opportunity to defend himself, Thomas removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves while the man put his hands up, waving them like a flag of surrender. But when he refused to defend himself, cowering and wailing, Thomas beat him soundly, enjoying the crunching noise of ribs breaking. And then he stepped back. Courteously inclining his head to a stone-faced Chuck, "Would you like to continue, Straker? I have meetings this afternoon and this scum has much to atone for."
When Lauren's bodyguard finally spoke, his tone was raspy. "It would be my pleasure, Mr. Williams." And so Thomas straightened his tie and smiled slightly at the first howl of agony as the man started his work.
But now, it was several hours later and Thomas was checking his watch, Chuck needed to be getting back to Lauren and he had one more subsidiary meeting before the closing cocktail party that evening. He held the gun out to the ashen-faced Frank again. "You can't redeem yourself for being the most worthless father alive, and believe me," Thomas chuckled, "I've seen some rather impressive candidates for the title. But I promised my wife that I wouldn't kill her would-be rapist. She didn't want his death on her conscience, no matter what he'd done to her." His attention turned to the mangled lump that used to be Steve Meyers, vice president of the company's South American division. "But you had to have known he wouldn't stop." Leaning in to stare at Meyers' ruined face, Thomas smiled slightly. "So it's time to put you down. Like a dog. And you-" he strode over to the terrified Frank and slapped the pistol into his hand. "You will finish him since you are responsible for all the women he raped when you promoted him and gave him free rein."
"I c- can't do that!" stuttered Frank, "I'm no killer!"
"Ah..." purred Thomas, "but you are quite capable of embezzlement, aren't you? Did you think being my-" he made a noise of disgust, "-being my father-in-law gave you immunity? You've stolen over eleven million dollars from Atlantic Equities in the last two years, most of it after I married Lauren. You must have felt quite confident about your safety. This was one of many mistakes. Now," he cruelly tightened Frank's fingers around the grip of the gun, "you will shoot this ex-employee. You will announce your retirement from the position of CEO, the money you've stolen has been returned to the company." Thomas's jaw clenched. "Fassell was the one who tracked down where you'd attempted to hide it. As your direct supervisor, I was required to repay the five million you'd already gambled away, you bloody idiot. Your assets have been liquidated and you will now live on a fixed income with a caretaker to keep you from fucking up again and requiring me to kill you." Thomas seized his father-in-law by the scruff of his neck, hauling him up and over to the sobbing Meyers. "Let me be clear," Thomas hissed into Frank's ear. "It is him, or you. But one of you leaves this room as a corpse."
The first shot was off, striking Meyers in the neck and making him scream shrilly. With a sigh, Chuck gripped his hand over Frank's, smiling as he heard a finger crunch and the next shot was through the left eye.
And now here he was, looking into the wet lavender gaze of his wife. "I did not kill Meyers. I did not kill your father. Frank is alive, though a little unwell at the moment." Thomas chuckled unrepentantly at the memory of Meyers' blood spattered all over a shrieking Frank's face and expensive suit. Looking back at Lauren, he watched her begin to curl into herself. "Darling," he began to unbutton his starched white shirt. "You asked me about the scar on my back." Her head snapped back up, eyes wide.
"Yes?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"There was a vile piece of shit at Eton - my public-school years - it was an all-boys school, but it didn't stop this bastard from harassing every girl within a twenty-five-kilometer radius of the school. He... there was a 19-year-old girl who worked in housekeeping, her name was Sally." Thomas paused for a moment, smoothing his hand over the back of his head. "She was very shy, easily cowed. He raped her. He bragged about it and she was fired. She needed that job, her mother had lung cancer and it was their only income. I beat the living hell out of him. Told him if he ever touched another girl, I'd kill him." Lauren was utterly still, barely breathing as if afraid she'd distract him. "MacGowen didn't like being made a fool of, everyone seeing him for what he was. So in the showers after soccer practice, he had four friends jump me. He stabbed me in the back repeatedly with a craft knife from the art department. Fortunate, that," Thomas said reflectively, "had it been a real knife I would have been paralyzed from the waist down, lost a kidney."
"What-" Lauren swallowed heavily. She would not cry; Thomas would never forgive it. "What happened to him? Did you press charges? Did the police-"
He cut her off, laughing harshly. "I was a scholarship student, darling. The Headmaster came to my hospital room and told me MacGowen's parents would pay for any recovery expenses and the rest of my time there."
Her full lips were thinned. "If you didn't go to the police. So their precious boy didn't get in trouble?"
Thomas nodded, pulling his shirt free from his trousers and unbuckling his belt. "Yes. I told him I would still hunt him down if he ever hurt another girl, but," he shook his head, "he was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. I don't..." He felt the cool, soft hand of his wife's slide gently over his lower back, tracing the flex and pull of muscle there. She was stroking with her fingertips, gliding over smooth skin and ragged scar tissue. Then, her lips pressed to the scar and Thomas stood abruptly.
"Wait! Just... please stay." Lauren's sweet voice. That anxious, hopeful tone always weakened him, made him soft. "Thank you, Thomas. Thank you for telling me. Don't go." And then his wife was kneeling behind him, breasts pressed against his back and her mouth hot on his neck.
When he groaned and turned in an instant, flipping her back onto the bed, Lauren looked up at him, wide-eyed but still. He was kneeling over her, his tall form blocking the moonlight from the windows, his beautiful face in shadow. He was a dark angel, her husband, and Lauren cautiously raised her arms over her head, hands gripping the rails of the headboard. Thomas's mouth was on a nipple, nudged harshly from her nightie and one hand gripping her wrists together while the other pushed up under the lace hem, yanking her panties down and off. Lauren stifled a yelp when two fingers pushed harshly inside her, feeling the rough pads of his fingertips push against her walls, stroking them. "So beautiful," he mused, almost to himself as his mouth attacked her other breast. "So very sweet, aren't you, little one?"
Lauren drew in a shaky breath, looking up at his eyes, blazing and pale like a winter sky. "Yes, Sir."
Soon, her hands were tied behind her to the headboard, making her back arch as Thomas gripped her hips and lifted her, spreading her knees to straddle him. Her breasts were pushed up to his mouth in a most enticing way, and he mouthed at them harshly as he aligned his cock with her channel and began sliding up her in short strokes. He'd not been inside her since that night she'd told him about Meyers, and she was tight, tight as the virgin he'd taken those nine months ago. He could feel her clamp down on his cock, but his sweet wife's slick was already flowing and helping him slide up her. Sliding his hands to her waist, Thomas began pushing her up and down on his marble hard shaft, trying to think if he should be less aggressive, but hearing Lauren already moan and gasp in that utterly enticing way told him she was ready, needy for him.
"God, being back inside this tender cunt," his voice was deep, guttural and she shivered. "I could live inside you, buried here forever." His lean hips circled and his wife's back arched even harder as he thrust against every part of her satin insides, the fat head of his cock rubbing and pushing against her. His thumb gathered some of Lauren's silky wetness and circled her clit, just a little harder than was comfortable, enjoying the corresponding hitch in her breath.
"Ah! Thomas- Sir- please, can I-"
Another thrust inside her cut off Lauren's plea, but her dark husband grinned. "Yes, sweetness? What do you need from your Sir?" But part of him knew it was what he needed to hear from her, needed to know that even after what happened to her, and what had happened to him, that his wife would still beg him to let her come.
"Please Sir," Lauren was panting, lifting her heavy head to whisper in his ear, "harder, please. Please let me come."
With a groan, Thomas began pistoning greedily up inside his bride, shoving his swollen cock as deep inside her as he could get, drawing almost all the way out to do it again until he bit her neck and growled, "It's time, little one. Come now."
And as he knew his good girl would Lauren did, tightening up so hard against his wet shaft that she held him immobile inside her as she came with a startled, blissful shriek. And then his come boiled up and out of him, coating her channel and slicking along their thighs. Releasing her bound hands, Thomas wrapped her limp arms around his neck and rocked them back and forth, still pulsing inside her.
It wasn't until he'd bathed her and stood patiently as Lauren carefully dried his wet skin and they were back in bed when she finally asked what he'd expected when he came home.
"Where is Frank?" her voice was small. "What did you...?"
