Rico

“You can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything bad!”

“Wrong, and wrong. That car is going into impound, young lady. And you’re coming with me,” I repeat.

She gives me a pout, but not any real resistance. This isn’t like her. Usually she’d argue me down in three different languages and then call her favorite pet lawyer.

When I saw her speeding again, I thought it was another trap, another distraction.

Then I saw her face. She’s wearing a bruise across her cheek, the sort of mark only a man can leave on a woman. Takes a certain amount of practiced force to bust a girl like that without leaving more serious damage.

She says she fell, but nobody falls face first. There’s always bruises somewhere else. I look to her arms, and I do see marks. But they’re not heavy blotchy things from falling into something. They’re quite defined finger marks. Someone held her. And someone hit her.

The anger is boiling inside me now. Jasmine is beautiful and delicate and brilliant. She deserves so much better than the life she’s been given. In a good family, she would have been an unstoppable high flyer. But her father and her brother have turned her into a shadow of what she could be - and they’ve put her on a fast track to life in prison.

I open the door to the back seat of my car, and gesture for her to get inside.

She hesitates, looks at me with eyes that don’t hold her usual cocky defiance. They’re rimmed with red. She’s held back tears. My stomach clenches at the thought she’s probably quite practiced at not crying, not showing weakness.

“You’re going to lock me up, Ricky?”

“I’m taking you home.”

There’s a moment where she thinks I mean back to her father. The stricken expression is enough to make another surge of fury roll through me.

“I don’t want to go home.”

“My home.”

Her expression wavers. I see relief, curiosity - and fear. This is a young woman who has lived in fear for a very long time. She’s afraid of everything, though she doesn’t show it. She’s afraid of me, too, though I know she’s drawn to me.

“I can’t go to your house, Ricky. They’ll kill me.”

She says the words softly. They ring with truth.

“They won’t. I won’t let them. Get in. Now.”

I am being firm with her, because she needs it. She’s going to resist this rescue, I already know that. She doesn’t know what it means to be safe. I don’t think she’s been safe a day in her life.

There’s enough authority in my tone to make her obey though. She gets into the back of the car. I shut the door and get into the front, set off around the city. I’m not going straight to my place. I’m making sure we’re not being followed first.

“This is kidnapping!” Jasmine chirps up from the back.

“It’s not,” I say. “It’s protective custody. You’ve been hurt.”

“Hardly,” she snorts. “Do you run around the city scooping up every woman who got smacked across the face?”

“Is that what happened?”

She goes quiet.

I don’t need her answer. I know exactly who hit her. There’s nobody in the city who would dare lay a finger on this young lady. Her father and brother don’t tolerate male company around her. They guard her with the kind of jealousy which makes me worry what else they’ve done to her over the years.

If she’s been hit, it was by them. The finger marks on her arms suggest she was held. I doubt her father held her for her brother to hit her, so that means that little scumbag Leon helped her father assault her.

“You know, you deserve better than this,” I say. This is a speech I’ve given to a lot of women over the years. Rich, poor, it doesn’t matter. Social status doesn’t prevent abuse.

“Better than what? You were telling me earlier I deserve to go to jail.”

“You do.”

“I’d rather be free and smacked around a bit than be in prison,” she says disdainfully. “It’s not like they even hurt me.”

Of course she’s playing it down. I’ve seen that a hundred times too. Victims never want to admit to themselves how badly they’re being hurt. It makes them feel weak at the moment they most need to feel strong.

“Besides,” she says after a few minutes. “You hit me.”

I look up into the rear-view mirror and see her looking at me defiantly.

“I swatted your bottom,” I say. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Why not? Hypocrite.”

“Well,” I say, checking my mirrors for following cars. “For a starter, I didn’t do it in anger. I wasn’t taking anything out on you. I was getting you to behave yourself because you were being a brat.”

“That’s what my father would say. If I just did what he wanted…” her voice hitches and she stops talking before the tears start to well and she loses control.

I want to pull the car over, get her out and hug her, tell her that everything is going to be okay, that I’m going to take care of her and show her what it means to really be taken care of - but I’ve just spotted a Maserati two cars back and I know exactly who’s in it.

I pick up my radio and make a quick call, using the short code Jasmine won’t understand.

It takes less than a minute for a NYPD cruiser to come out of a side street and flash Leon Francoise to the side of the road.

Problem solved.

Time to get her home.

My place is out of the city, not quite upstate, but far enough into suburbia that I know all my neighbors. It’s calmer out there, pretty, peaceful, and it has multiple advantages security wise. Pretty hard to sneak up on a place where at any given time, there are multiple busybodies twitching their curtains to see who is coming and going.

“White picket fence, Ricky?”

She gives a disdainful laugh. My home cost less than the car I just impounded. At least, it did when I bought it 15 years ago. It’s a nice, simple place, bungalow with a lawn I keep pristine because it relaxes me to do it.

I park the car in the garage and open the door for her. She swings her long legs out and gets up, looking around her with a little half-sneer.

Jasmine looks out of place here. She’s too elegant for this simple world of mine. But this is what she needs, simplicity and safety.

“Come on in,” I say, opening the door into the house.

Jasmine follows after me. I’m sure she doesn’t like the place. I’m sure it’s a hovel compared to what she’s used to, but she doesn’t say anything, which surprises me.

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

Reasonable question.

I answer as I lead her into the lounge and gesture for her to take a seat. “As long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

A knock at the door interrupts my reply.

It’s Mrs. Brown from across the street. She’s holding a bowl of sugar in her hand. I do not have time for this right now, but if I don’t deal with her, she’s going to go and gather a posse of neighbors and they’ll be “dropping in” all day and night long until they know why there’s a beautiful younger woman in my home. If I could recruit a few hundred Magdalena Browns into the agency, the country would be a whole lot more secure.

I open the door to her and try not to scowl too hard.

“Oh hello,” she smiles. “I’m just returning that sugar I borrowed…” she cranes her neck around me with the agility of a giraffe getting the last leaves from a tree. “Oh! Who is this?”

“This is Jasmine,” I say. “She’s my niece. Staying with me for a while.”

“Your niece! How nice!”

Jasmine grins broadly.

“What happened to your face, dear?

There’s no interrogation like a Magdalena Brown interrogation.

“None of your business,” Jasmine replies, accurately, but rudely.

“Jasmine!” I chastise her. “She plays lacrosse,” I explain to Magdalena. “And she’s just had a really long day, so we’ll get settled in.”

“Oh of course. Enjoy the sugar!”

Magdalena leaves me holding a bowl I don’t want and totters off across the quiet street to the home she’s lived in for forty years, ready to ring around and tell everyone what she thinks she now knows.

“Sorry about that,” I say, closing the door.

“You live in some kind of 1950’s sitcom, Rico,” Jasmine smirks from the couch. She’s kicked off her shoes and has her feet tucked up under her. She looks very comfortable for a kidnap victim. “Little old ladies bringing you sugar…” she grins and shakes her head. “Are we gonna gather around the radio later on and listen to the Waltons?”

It’s good to see her smile, even if she’s giving me attitude.

I take a breath. Okay. What am I doing here? This was spur of the moment, and it’s not exactly protocol. I should get her to an approved safe house - and I will. But right now, I want her fed, settled, I want to start earning her trust.

“You hungry? Want something to eat?”

“Oh, I’m hungry,” she says, her voice dropping to the sultry tones I recognize so well. Jasmine is a very, very naughty girl. She has two modes: defiant brat and vixen. I guess we’re done with the brat, and the vixen is coming out to play.

She stretches out on the couch, her long legs bare as that little skirt rides up. The smile on her face is sinful.

I shake my head at her, but that only makes her grin more broadly.

“Careful, little girl.”

She’s putting on the siren act, but it’s not real. It’s something she does to try to get control - and I don’t intend to let her have any. I’m in charge here.

“Are you hungry, Ricky? Do you want to eat?” Her voice rises in a lilting question.

I walk over to her, stand over her, look down and see that lithe, pretty body of hers spread out for me. God. The money men would pay for this view.

What do I do with her? I could snap at her, tell her to behave herself, make her sit up straight. But I know her, and I know that will only make her think she’s getting under my skin. It’s time to call this bluff.

“Take your clothes off.”

My voice is gruff with command.

She hesitates.

“Take your clothes off, or I’m going to spank your little ass for teasing me.”

The smile is back on her face now. Oh, she likes this. So do I. But I have to keep myself in check.

That mark on her cheek is a reminder of all she has been through and what she so desperately needs.

Her eyes are full of defiance as she starts to remove her clothes. I watch as she slips the straps of her top off her shoulders, then shimmies it down over her breasts. They’re beautiful, two ripe globes, tipped with pink little nipples.

“You like this, Ricky? You don’t see things like this do you? Except online…” she smirks and taunts me as she strips herself down fully, discarding her clothing on the floor.

I let her run her mouth as I run my eyes over that stunning body. She has a little golden down triangle at the apex of her thighs, crowning the most stunning curves, hips and tits. She has a centerfold body. And then those eyes, looking at me, that crimson mouth in a sassy little smirk.

My cock is straining at my pants. My instinct is to free it, part her thighs, and plunge myself inside her, just fuck her like she’s begging to be fucked. This is a bad girl who wants to be treated like one.

Jasmine has the power all beautiful women have. Men usually fall at her feet - the ones who dare get past her father and brother, anyway.

“What are you waiting for, Ricky? Don’t you know what to do with me?”

I know exactly what to do with her.

I’m going to make her work for this. Every. Single. Bit. Of. It.

I point to the carpet at my feet.

“Kneel.”

Another hesitation, and then she does as she’s told, putting herself into position. This is superficial obedience. She’s doing it because she thinks she’s going to get leverage. But she doesn’t know who she’s playing with this time.

“Open your mouth.”

She starts to say something. I don’t let her. I reach down, slide my hand under her chin, and press my fingers lightly at the back of her jaw.

“Open your mouth and be quiet,” I say. “No talking.”

My grip isn’t painful, but it is firm.

I hold her there, in place, on her knees, at my feet. I hold her naked, not giving in to the lust charging between us. Not letting her run this situation with her body. I keep her in the place she belongs, and I watch as the realization dawns on her that this isn’t going to be like the other times.

“Ric…”

“Quiet,” I say. “You’ve said enough, Jasmine. From now on, you’ll speak when you’re spoken to. And you’ll call me sir. Understand?”

She makes a muffled noise that isn’t a word.

“Say it, Jasmine. Say yes, sir.”

I loosen my grip on her chin but keep my hand there.

“Ricky you…”

My hand closes again, just firmly enough to stop her from speaking.

“Oh no,” I chide. “I want to hear two words. Two words only.”

Suddenly, her nudity isn’t power. It’s shameful vulnerability. She’s not a siren seducing me, she’s a little girl, learning the lessons she should have learned long ago.

I loosen the grip again.

“Rick…”

That was her last chance. I reach up to my neck, loosen my tie and pull it off. With my hand slipping down to her graceful neck, I wrap the tie around her head, pushing it into her mouth, between her teeth like a bit.

Jasmine squirms, but she doesn’t fight me. She could reach up to try to stop me, but she doesn’t. Her eyes are wide with curiosity, arousal, and maybe some fear. The good kind of fear. The kind of fear a naughty girl should feel when she crosses her daddy.

“Speech is a privilege,” I tell her, tying a knot behind her head. “Now lay back.”

She does as she is told. I help guide her down until she rests against the carpet.

“Good girl.”

I start tracing my fingers up and down her body lightly, soft exploratory caresses which make goosebumps rise in their wake. I touch her breasts, find her nipples, run my fingers down her belly to the soft gold curls, then slip them away again.

I want to make her as desperate as she usually makes men. I want her begging for my touch. She can’t speak, but every other part of her is going to cry out for me.

There’s no rush now. I want her to think I might never go between her thighs. I want her to think I might never fuck her. I want her to realize that what she’s been looking for is right in front of her, but she’s going to have to behave herself to get it.

Her legs spread as my hand drifts lower.

“What are you doing that for, girl?”

She can’t reply, of course, which just makes asking the question all the hotter.

“Do you want something from me?”

I get a little reluctant nod.

My fingers play through her lower curls. “What is that, I wonder, hmmm?”

Jasmine makes a muffled sound through the tie gag.

“If you’d just said yes, sir when I asked you to, you’d be able to ask me to play with your pussy now, wouldn’t you?”

Her sound turns to something like a groan.

I look down between her thighs. Her lips are shaved, already swelling with feminine need.

“I can smell you, little girl,” I tell her, enjoying the blush which rises to her cheeks.

I slide my hand down between her thighs. I let my fingers find those soft lips. And I hear her moan, a sound which turns to a pretty little squeal when I let my fingers rise and then return in a little slap. It’s not nearly hard enough to hurt. But it is more than enough to let her know I will make her mine.