Eleven
Well, that told me. Apparently, I was not sex-slave material. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. Anyway, there wasn’t time to think about that now. I had to focus, because I had a busy evening ahead of me.
Jumping in the middle of James’s big double bed, I did a series of rather painful contortionist moves to get my tied hands back in front of me. Thankfully, I was pretty fit. Whilst my arms would probably be sore tomorrow, the damage wouldn’t last for long. When I’d got them under my backside and managed to thread my legs through them, the hard work was nearly over. Now I just had to worry the knot with my teeth and hope he hadn’t been a Boy Scout.
After ten long minutes of chewing, I delivered a whole vocabulary of cuss words to James’s Scoutmaster. He’d knotted the cotton cloth in several different places, and when I finally got free of the infernal thing, I could almost have offered myself up as a virgin sacrifice to any God that would have me. The fact that I wasn’t actually a virgin would be a moot point, I was sure. Scowling darkly, I threw the swathe of black material on the floor. Deciding to keep the near death, or, and probably more accurately, actual death experiences for when I entered Alain’s house, I had things to do, cars to break into, and iPhones to hack. The night was not young, either, so I’d better get a move on.
At least the first task of the evening would be easy. Opening up my right palm to reveal the treasure hidden within, I grinned to myself. There, nestled inside my hand, was a set of car keys. Sporting the familiar three triangle emblem, they were the keys to a Mercedes saloon. When I landed on the floor, on my knees in front of him, I didn’t actually think he’d shoot me, but it wasn’t worth taking the risk. It also gave me ample opportunity to land heavily against him and whip his keys out of his pocket. I’d had a feeling I might need them, and my hunch had proved correct. Opening the car was going to be a cinch. Everything after that would be a bastard, but at least the car would be relatively painless.
Pressing my ear to the door, I listened for sounds of movement outside. I gave it a minute, but in that time, I heard nothing. Maybe James had decided I wasn’t much of a threat with my arms tied, and had finally gone to bed. It was time to find out.
Pulling the door lever down sharply, to minimise the resulting squeak, I paused and listened intently. It was still deathly quiet. Good. Then I pulled back and… nothing. What the hell? My jaw dropped. He’d locked me in! How had I missed that? Geez, I was slipping. No wonder there wasn’t a sound to be heard. The man had nothing to worry about. I was locked in a room with my hands tied up. How much trouble could I be?
Urrghh. Next time I came on assignment, I was going to hide my lock picking kit in an internal cavity. Honestly. Biting my lip in frustration, I did a few deep yoga breaths to get some perspective on the situation. In through the nose and out through the mouth. In through the nose… fuck that. What was I thinking? Where did I need to be? Outside. Were there any other exits out of the room? Yes. There was a window. Was it locked? I ran over to check. No. Fan-bloody-tastic. This could still work.
Opening the window to its widest angle, I decided it was a good job I hadn’t eaten much this week. The leaded windowpanes were narrow, but they left just about enough space for me to squeeze through. Thankfully, I was on the ground floor, so the drop was a small one. That was my only plus. On the minus side, I landed straight into a rose bush, several thorns diving straight through one foot, and the other foot landed ankle deep in mud. I sighed. It was going to be one of those days. Untangling my T-shirt from the blasted plant that wanted to eat me alive, I searched slowly from left to right, looking for a car. Nothing. As it was going to be difficult to hide, I figured there must be some kind of parking space around the back. Sprinting down the stone steps and over the gravel, I winced. Still, it was too late to worry about shoes. If my feet were going to be cut to ribbons, I might as well make sure it was for a good reason.
Sure enough, behind the back of the house there was a double garage, and nestled in one of the spaces was a jet black Mercedes. As soon as I was in grabbing distance of the door handle, I depressed the central locking release button and a bright flash of the indicators greeted me. Success. From there, it didn’t take me long to find his cell and charger in the glove compartment, which wasn’t locked. James, you’re a total amateur, I thought, but I couldn’t help a sigh of relief. It would make my job considerably easier.
Searching the back seat of the car, I wondered if there was a laptop stashed in here somewhere. There was no question there would be one about somewhere, but was it in the car or the house? Leaning over the seat, I confirmed that it wasn’t in the back, but it might be in the trunk. When he’d arrived, he’d been in a rush to get me indoors, so there was a chance he hadn’t bothered to unload anything yet. Crossing my fingers that my luck would hold just a little bit longer, I got out of the car and opened the trunk. For the first time that day, I smiled. There was an Antler laptop bag, and an overnight bag, if I wasn’t much mistaken. Holding my breath, I pulled out the slim case and unzipped it. An Apple Mac greeted me. Not sure if my day could get any better, I nestled myself in the back seat of the car, oblivious to the cold that was once again seeping into my bones, and fired up the computer. From there it was all smooth sailing. All I had to do was switch it off and reboot it in recovery mode. It was simple enough to change the password and begin my second trial of the evening - the iPhone. This was a little more challenging, but where there was a will, there was indeed a way.
When I’d finally hacked my way into James’s phone, managing to bypass both the code and fingerprint recognition software, I was shivering once again, though I didn’t let it bother me. I sent a quick text to Miss Sharkey, having memorised her number off by heart, and that was almost it. There was just the small matter of how to get back into the main house again. I could either try to go in via the door in my room, or the front door, but both options were locked and would require some careful ‘nudging’ before I carried out the next part of my plan.
Shutting the car door quietly, grasping the torch I found by the driver’s side door, I padded around to the garage area. I guess you’d call it a cart lodge really, because there weren’t any doors to the structure. There were two wooden arches where you could drive a couple of cars through, and a couple of makeshift plywood shelves that ran around the interior. They were covered in all sorts of things, from half-used paint cans to car wax and chamois leather, but there was nothing that was going to get through a locked door for me. Urrgh, please don’t let me fall at the last hurdle, I thought sourly as I searched through every last scrap available on the shelves. I wanted something thin, preferably metallic, and sturdy. A small screwdriver would have been excellent, but I didn’t think my luck was going to extend that far. A ballpoint pen would have been lovely. You can just slide the ink cartridge out and use that, but none were forthcoming. My favourite place to search for picks was usually the garage, but failing that, the kitchen was a good second choice. Bamboo skewers or toothpicks worked a treat. Alas, I wasn’t getting near the kitchen without a lock pick, so I needed to find something outside. As I worked around the shelves, I began to get a little despondent. Sponges, window wash, plant pots, fertiliser, a few coins, several old receipts, lots of rags, and a handheld vacuum cleaner were found and discarded. Reaching the end of the shelves and coming up empty-handed, I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have time to waste.
Giving up on the garage, I went back inside the Mercedes and decided I’d search the thing from top to bottom to find a pen. There had to be one in there somewhere. I went through all the pockets and compartments, searched under the seats and mats, and even went into the trunk to look for treasure. No joy. Exhausting all my options, I finally had one last chance left. It was with bated breath that I sat the laptop case back on my lap and crossed all the fingers and toes that I had. Could there be a pen in here?
There was a diary, but it didn’t have a pen attached. I spent a couple of minutes leafing through its pages, seeing if I could unearth anything of interest, but it seemed to be work related and mostly in code. Having not the time or energy to decipher its treasures, I eventually stuffed it back in its hidey hole, mostly in despair, as it seemed that I would have to trudge back to my locked cell in defeat. It wasn’t the grand finale I was hoping for, but in all fairness, I hadn’t done a bad evening’s work - I’d have to be content with that. Letting a large sigh escape, I shook my head and tried to stay positive. Maybe something would come to me later in my room. Far too cold to stay outside a moment longer, I decided it was time to get back indoors. As I hastily replaced the diary in its bag, my fingers caught against the edge of the pocket and I felt something small and sharp. Holding my breath, I sent out a silent prayer to the big guy above. “Oh God. Please let this be what I think it is,” I whispered to myself. Upon further careful exploration, I found not one, but two safety clips nestled at the bottom of the pocket. Halle-fucking-lujah. My smile was back, and it was bigger than ever.
Putting everything back in its place, bar the cell and the paperclips, I locked the car shut and headed back to my window. Deciding that James’s room would have the easiest lock to pick, I neatly avoided my thorny friends on my return visit and entered from a side angle. My bare feet thanked me. When I was back inside the room and the window was firmly shut, I contemplated taking a short nap, but then discarded the idea. There was no way I would get to sleep as hyped up as I was, so I might as well roll with plan number two. Besides, I could already smell James’s scent on the bed, and as soon as that enveloped me, there’d be little sleeping involved.
Concentrate on plan number two, Lois. Yes, what was that again? Ah, yes. Strip naked, crawl across the floor wiggling my ass, attract James’s attention, talk dirty, and then throw his damn cell at him and hopefully hit the asshole on the head with it. That was plan two in a nutshell. What could go wrong? And how did you talk dirty?
Jogging lightly on the spot to warm myself up, I found myself nice and toasty in under ten minutes. Next, I grabbed my two paperclips, made a tension wrench with one, and used the other as a pick. Gently wriggling it up and down, I heard a series of clicks as I triggered each of the door pins, and then the door handle finally turned. Success! Well, at least that part of the plan was easy. I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Peeling the door back slowly, I turned my head towards the left as I intended to explore new territory, so it was with a bit of a shock when a voice came out of nowhere.
“Took you long enough.”
Lunging for my attacker instinctively, I found his leg and tried to take it out from under him. He was already one step ahead of me, though. Crashing into me with all of his body weight, he put me off balance, and as I stepped away to counter the effect, he had an elbow in my neck and an ankle under my knee, propelling me towards the floor. With a sickening weightless feeling, I realised that my feet were no longer on the floor and my head was about to make a rather unpleasant acquaintance with the floor. Closing my eyes tightly against the inevitable crack of my skull against tile, the sickening contact never came. What happened next, however, was much worse than a little bone crunching. Six foot, three inches of heavily muscled sinew and bone came crashing down upon me and literally knocked every ounce of breath I possessed out of my body. He did catch me, though, so I guess I could be thankful for that.
“You set me up,” I said breathlessly, and it was difficult to say whether my lack of air was from his body weight crushing my lungs, or just his general proximity to me. I sincerely hoped it was the former.
He then braced himself against the floor, allowing me to breathe once again, but the simple act of drawing air into my body appeared to be almost impossible. Great. This was the last thing I needed.
“Not exactly. I just wanted to see what you were capable of. When I send people into near certain-death situations, I like to make sure they at least have a sporting chance of coming out alive.”
Reaching my arm out to slap him, he neatly grabbed it. “Don’t even think about it. Besides, you aren’t getting into the Dumortier estate without my help.”
He had a point, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “Did I pass muster?” I muttered.
“If it was up to me, I’d send you straight back home again, but you’ve just texted your boss, telling her I’m thoroughly impressed with your talents thus far, unless I’m much mistaken?” He raised both eyebrows at me and gave me a dark look.
My jaw wanted to hang open in shock, but I refused to let it. James Leverett did not read minds. Breathe. There was a reasonable explanation for his apparent foresight, and it probably lay in computer tech. He must have had his phone rigged up to something. Either that or he’d had cameras on me the whole time. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Hopefully, I had achieved my objective.
“And are you?” As soon as the question popped out of my mouth, I wanted to scoop it back in with both hands, but, unfortunately, James had a hold of those.
“No. I think you’ll be dead within a week.” I could feel his warm breath on my cheek, and his scent was almost intoxicating when I was this close to him. All my instincts were screaming run, but that wasn’t an option.
“Why do you care whether I live or die?”
“I don’t. That’s not the issue here. What I care about is whether I’ll have to risk my ass trying to extricate yours when you fuck up.”
I was staring at his lips, thinking of mine locked around them, and the thought was making my skin prickle all over. It was also doing other things, like hardening my nipples and soaking my panties. Lois, oh Lois, don’t go there, I told myself. My brain was several light years away when his words finally kicked in. Scrambling to think of a reply, which was yet another thing to be annoyed about, I said, “I don’t fuck up.”
“Let me rephrase that, then. What I care about is whether I’ll have to risk my ass trying to extricate yours when you fuck up or lie. Richard Mullane wasn’t all that long ago, sweetheart, and I have a good memory.”
Those ice-blue eyes of his tackled mine, and the battle they fought was dirty. How was I supposed to think with those boring into my retinas? There was no hope for me.
“I didn’t expect my dinner date to interrogate the living daylights out of me, nor did I expect him to be James Bond in disguise. My bad?” I said testily. “If I’m on an op, I do my homework.”
“Do you find me attractive, Lois?”
He smiled at me, but sensibly did not let go of my wrists. Urgh. I wanted to slap the man so bad. How many weeks would we have to be together? If I had to deal with that ego for more than a couple of days, I might have to commit murder.
“No.” It was short and succinct.
“You’ve just lied to me again, Lois. Tsk, tsk, tsk. What am I going to do with you?” There was laughter dancing in his eyes, and I didn’t much like it.
“Why, you absolute bast…” I never got to utter the last syllable. His mouth came crashing down on mine and all conscious thought ran out of the window. Moaning as his lips took over mine, my eyes fluttered closed as I let him taste me. I couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t delve far enough, couldn’t taste deeply enough. My body was spinning out of control, happily following its own agenda, and I was simply along for the ride. Exploding with adrenaline everywhere, my head spun as I tried to get a grip on my raging hormones. When he pulled away from me, seconds later, without a hint of warning, I wondered what I had done wrong.
“I think that answers my question,” he said thoughtfully.
While I was heaving for breath, with swollen lips and a delicate blush creeping across my chest, James appeared absolutely unaffected by me. My body wanted to spontaneously combust, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. It was the last straw. Somehow managing to free my right wrist with an impressive burst of adrenaline, I went for his windpipe, but he was ready for me. Slamming me back into the floor, he grasped both my wrists with one arm, and before I knew what was happening, there was a hand between my legs, rubbing gently at my clit.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snarled.
“You don’t know what I’m doing?” he said with a smug little smile upon his face.
I rolled my eyes in annoyance and growled. “Oh, I know exactly what you’re doing. What I want to know is why you’re doing it?”
“Well, you signed yourself up for the position of sex slave. I tried to talk you out of it, but not only did you not listen to me, you effectively fucked me over in order to make sure I followed through on this gig. I am curious, though. What did you think you’d be doing here? Some washing up and a spot of cleaning? That’s not how it’s going to play out over at Dumortier’s.”
His fingers became firmer and more insistent, and it was all I could do not to moan.
“Are you wet for me, Lois?”
I knew that question was a two-edged sword. If I said no, he was going to prove me wrong. The man wouldn’t think twice about getting his fingers dirty, judging by my previous experience with him. My options of retaliation were limited, but I gave it my best shot.
“Of course I’m wet. You’re a reasonably attractive male, and you’re rubbing my clit. Also, the human body is made up of around sixty percent water, and let’s face it, some parts are wetter than others.” I smiled sweetly up at him. Let that wipe the smug, patronising grin off his face.
He clamped his lips together, and I had the suspicious feeling he was trying hard not to laugh.
“Can’t think…” I mumbled helplessly. It was true. My brain had gone on holiday while my hormones were having a party. The words I wanted to articulate would not come, and I didn’t want to answer that question.
“You need to think about whether you want an orgasm or not?” he purred thoughtfully in my ear. “Interesting. Well,” he said, thrusting away with three fingers now, so I practically dissolved on the spot, “you’d better not have one, then.” I wasn’t quite sure I understood him, because his beautifully long fingers slammed into me five or six times, making me gasp out loud, before he withdrew them and let go of my wrists. I was speechless.
“If I offer you an orgasm in future, Lois, I’d be a damn site quicker to accept it, and a lot more enthusiastic about the prospect. It’s up to you, of course. It’s your pleasure at the end of the day, but if you don’t want to enjoy yourself while you’re here, that’s perfectly fine by me.” He sucked his index finger into his mouth as he tasted me, and his eyes fairly sparkled in triumph. Repeating the gesture with his middle finger, I kind of got the impression he was telling me where to go. He then licked each finger clean, even the ones that hadn’t been inside me, and I wondered if the man knew what that action did to my insides.
“I don’t want an orgasm from you,” I said, desperately trying to wriggle out of his one handed grasp. It was infuriating that he could control me so easily, and the attraction I felt towards him was almost debilitating in itself, so I was doubly fucked.
He laughed then, a deep, beautiful chuckle that resonated around the room.
“I’m happy to play it that way if it suits you, Lois. To be honest, after the stunt you’ve just pulled, you thoroughly deserve to be denied all pleasure under my hands.” The man looked smug, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was in store for me under his roof.
“How long am I likely to be here?” I whispered. It would have been nice to have been able to voice the question at a normal volume, but the weight of his body was severely restricting my lung capacity.
“As long as it takes, Lois.” That sentence was rather chillingly presented to me, with a pair of icy blue eyes drilling the statement home. Great. I’d made an enemy before my assignment had barely begun. Way to go, Lois.
Licking my lips slowly as I felt his erection graze the cleft between my legs, I bit down on the groan that wanted to escape.
“And how long, approximately, do you think that will be?” I asked testily. Somehow, I’d managed to add a little weight behind my voice, although the man wasn’t making it easy for me.
“Lois, your ass isn’t making it outside this compound until I sign it off. When you begin to obey every damn word I say, almost before I’ve said it, that’s your ticket to ride.” Staring at me intently for a few seconds, he then said, “For some reason, I have a feeling it’s going to be quite a journey to get to that point.” Grazing his teeth along the other shell of my ear, for no other reason than to torment me, I shuddered in response. This man was going to be my downfall. A terrible premonition of dread began to descend over me, but I ignored it. James Leverett wasn’t the enemy. Dumortier was. I needed to remember that.
“Can you get off me now? Breathing is near impossible with you on top of me.” My mouth had hardened into a militant line, although it didn’t seem to bother James one little bit. Then I wriggled around as much as I possibly could to make things difficult for him, but his grip on my hands never loosened.
“Are you going to continue behaving like a little kid, or can you put on some big girl shoes?” He gave me a warning look, but since when had I paid attention to one of those?
“Jury’s out on that one,” I said, batting my eyelashes provocatively. “Surely you can handle one little kid?” There may have been an acid slant of my tongue on the last two words.
“Oh, I can handle her alright, but I don’t want to break any of her bones on the first day. It would be rather unsporting of me, don’t you think?” To add insult to injury, he winked at me. “Now I’m going to let go of your wrists on two conditions. One, you don’t fly at me, and two, you go back to your room and try and get in a few hours’ sleep before we begin training in the morning. Do we have a deal?”
“Absolutely,” I lied. Let the bastard try to get any tells from my deadpan face this time. I was royally mad, and I intended to unleash some of my venom at the earliest opportunity.
“Failure to follow my rules will always have consequences, Lois, and you won’t like them very much.”
“They’re probably not going to be any worse than hypothermia, though, right?”
I sneered at him and thought, for one tiny moment, that there was a flicker of something close to emotion in his eyes. I blinked and, when I looked again, all traces of it had gone. The man was a robot. Where had my dinner date gone? James was more machine than human, and I didn’t know what to make of him.
Suddenly, and with no warning, my hands were released. It took me all of a second to compute that up to my brain, and then I managed to get an arm around his neck and a knee in his solar plexus in a mighty scrabble to gain the upper hand. The next thing I knew, I had a handcuff around my wrist. He then applied so much pressure to my joint, I thought my radius and ulna were about to snap in two.
“Stop,” I screamed, immediately ceasing my attempt, trying to lessen the pain in my throbbing wrist by staying as still as I possibly could.
“Do I have your attention now, Lois?”
James was up close and personal in my face, and I didn’t much like it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.
“Yes,” I squeaked painfully.
“Good.” Clipping the other handcuff sharply to his wrist, I stared at him in horror as he said, “Brace yourself, Lois. It’s time to face your punishment.”