Denied (13 page)

Monster (Present Day)

He didn’t want
to be doing this. He hated to see her hurt and frightened and angry with him, but he didn’t have any choice. He needed her to choose to continue to live, even if it was a different life than the one she’d grown used to. Perhaps he shouldn’t have touched her, but he hadn’t been able to control himself. Having her so close, bound like that, made his cock throb. He could still taste her on his tongue, and he wanted her again, so badly. Even now, as she sat with her naked thighs primly pressed together, the small thatch of curls of her pubic hair peeping up above them, he had to hold himself back. Just being in her presence turned him on, making him so hard he wanted to rid himself of the slacks that contained him, though he felt sure she’d be able to see the outline of how much he wanted her clearly enough.

More than anything, he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her home with him. What she suggested was so tempting, but he couldn’t allow himself to be weak. They might get a couple of days together, maybe a week if they were lucky, but then she would be taken from him and forced to endure more than she had even imagined.

His cell phone buzzed in his suit jacket pocket.

Monster tensed. There was no one he wanted to hear from.

Without saying anything to Flower, he turned away from her and pulled out the phone. Glancing down at the screen, he noticed the number was withheld. His teeth clenched. That wasn’t a good thing. He debated not answering—hell, he debated opening the balcony doors and hurling the damn thing twenty stories down to the road below—but that would only make things worse for them both.

He glanced over his shoulder toward Lily, who sat bolt upright, her eyes widening in his direction. The sight of her half naked and vulnerable made something in his chest tighten. How was he going to live without her in his life?

With his jaw tight, he answered the phone.

“Yes?”

“Have you found her yet?”

It was him.

“Who?” Monster said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“You know who. The woman you’ve traveled to America to find.” Rodriguez gave a low chuckle. “I assume you’ve gone to all this trouble to keep me happy, Merrick. You know I have hundreds more men working for me than you do, and it’ll only take one word from me to send them after you.”

“I’ll get you any girl you could possibly want,” he said. “You don’t have to take that one.”

“Yes, I do. This isn’t about the woman—although I’ll make sure my men and I enjoy her. This is about taking what’s yours and hurting you, just like you hurt me.”

Monster flicked his gaze back over to Lily. She was watching him, a line drawn between her eyebrows, her lips thinned with worry, and he lowered his voice in the hope she wouldn’t hear him.

“It won’t hurt me. She’s just another piece of pussy I paid for.”

“Then why go to all this trouble, Merrick? I know you had her sent back to America, and then you followed her here.”

Here. He’d said, ‘here’ not ‘there.’ Did that mean Rodriguez was in the United States as well? A chill went through him, lodging deep in his bones.

“I already told you, I have business here. I’ll be back in a day or two. We can meet then and discuss this further.”

“What, and give you a chance to shoot me, too? Why would I do such a thing?”

“Because we’ve had enough violence.”

Rodriguez laughed, infuriatingly, and Monster clutched the phone hard, his other hand balling into a fist. “But maybe I enjoy the violence, Merrick! Isn’t that what makes us men, after all? Violence and fucking, oh, and maybe money. The three things that make a man’s world go around.”

And can make it stop, too,
he thought but didn’t say.

“I just have some business to attend to. You can’t expect me to drop everything and come running because you snap your fingers. You’re not the boss of me, Rodriguez.”

“I think you’re wrong there, my friend. I think I fucking own you. Now give me what I want or I’ll come and take it from you.”

The phone went dead, and Monster stared down at the screen in fury. He wished he could reach down the phone and grab Rodriguez by the throat and squeeze the life out of him. He would kill the other man if he could, but Rodriguez kept himself surrounded by armed men, and traveled in bulletproof vehicles. He was cocky, but paranoid with it, and Monster had no idea how to reach the man, never mind kill him. Plus, he knew that if any harm came to Rodriguez, he would have an army of men come down on him. Monster wouldn’t survive another day, and he didn’t even want to think about what they would do to Flower.

No, he had no choice. He had to send her away, and then tell Rodriguez she was dead. Perhaps Rodriguez would see through the lie, and kill him anyway, but Monster couldn’t see any other options.

“What’s going on?” Lily called out to him. “Was that the person you’re trying to protect me from?”

“The less you know, the better,” he replied, slipping the cell back into his pocket and walking down the wide hallway toward her.

“Bullshit. I know you well enough to be able to read your body language. I can tell when you’re angry. Whoever was on the end of that phone has made you seriously pissed. If it’s nothing to do with me, why won’t you just tell me?”

“Because my business is none of your concern.”

“Really? This certainly feels like my concern. You’re asking me to change my life, but won’t even tell me why!”

“All I’m trying to do is protect you.”

She jiggled the handcuffs and stared down at her naked lower half. “This is your idea of protecting me?”

He glowered at her. “I’ve never been conventional, Flower. I thought you knew that by now.”

“Yes, I guess I did.”

He stopped and kneeled in front of her. “I need you to do what I’m asking, Flower. Your life is in danger if you don’t, but this man won’t just kill you. He wants to use you in ways that would make the traffickers who took you initially look like school boys. He would use you in every way possible, over and over, until you are completely and utterly broken, a shell of a woman, and when he decides he no longer wants you, he will hand you over to his men. When they are finally done with you, they will kill you.”

She took a shaky sigh, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “I know you’re frightening me for a reason, and I am frightened, but I can’t stand the thought of being alone again.”

“You have no choice!” His anger fired within him. “God damn it, Flower. Why can’t you see that? Why won’t you just do as you’re told for once in your life? You’re the most infuriatingly stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

“We can go together,” she said, her tone full of hope. “Let’s run together and take our chances. Please, I won’t do this alone.”

He couldn’t help himself. The desperation and longing in her eyes was too much for him to withstand. He leaned into her and crushed his mouth hard to hers. He pushed his tongue forcefully into her mouth, his hand reaching around to the back of her head and knotting his fingers in her hair. He pulled tight, hard enough to hurt, and she gave a little whimper against his lips, which made the dark part inside of him turn over with delight.

He thrust his hand between her thighs, and she opened her legs willingly for him. His fingers pressed into the soft, wet heat, her vulva still swollen from when he’d almost made her come not long before. Lily let out a moan and pressed her pelvis against his hand. He remembered what he’d told her about not letting her orgasm unless she agreed to what he wanted. He meant to keep that promise, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come himself.

Blood had rushed to his cock, his balls hot and heavy, a tingling spreading along his perineum, to his ass and back again. He wanted her desperately. Wanted to free himself and drive deep into her pussy, to hold her tight against him, bury his face in her skin and listen to her cry out as her inner muscles pulsed around him. But then she’d be satisfied and he’d have lost his edge.

He released her hair. Pulling open the button of his fly with his free hand, he yanked down the zipper. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, so his cock sprung free, long and hard. Lily’s gaze locked on his erection, her lips plump and slack, her breathing already growing ragged from the way he slipped his middle and index finger in and out of her.

He took hold of his cock and gave it a couple of long, firm strokes, up to the swollen, dark head and back down to the root. She watched him, and her hips lifted again as though imagining it was her cunt moving up and down his shaft instead of his hand.

But instead of giving her what she wanted, he slipped his fingers from inside her and stood between her legs, so his cock was level with her mouth.

“Open up, Flower. You’re going to swallow me.”

She parted her lips without any hesitation, and he pushed the first inch of himself over her tongue, exhaling a groan as he did so. She felt amazing, and she swirled her tongue around his tip and then applied a little suction. He reached back around her head to knot his fingers in her hair once more. Though she didn’t appear to need any encouragement, he enjoyed the force it held over her, the power to make her do something while she fought him on every other level. That she still had her hands cuffed behind her back, and was naked from the waist down, turned him on even more.

He thrust forward again, his buttocks clenched, his abdominals tight, and another inch of his length vanished between her lips. She stared up at him, wide eyed, and he knew just another nudge of his hips would have her gagging. But her lips created a tight circle around his girth, and he allowed her to pull back slightly, only to thrust forward again so he was fucking her mouth.

He wanted to be deeper.

Tightening his hold on her hair, he pushed another inch of his cock into her mouth. The smooth flesh of her soft palate pressed against his cockhead, and he felt her repress a gag.

“Good girl,” he told her, smoothly.

He thrust again, using her hair to hold her firm, and this time she did gag, and the movement felt unbelievable against his erection.

“Ah, fuck,” he said, tensing his muscles. He needed to stay upright.

They built up a steady momentum together, him using his hold on her hair to guide her movements while he rocked back and forth. Her tongue did wicked things to him, continuing to swirl around his base, even while he was shoving his cock down her throat. Twin trickles of drool ran from the corners of her mouth, but she made no attempt to pull away from him or turn her face. He wondered how wet she would be now if he touched her. Was she soaking the chair?

The familiar heaviness in his balls and the tightening from his perineum to the base of his cock increased. His erection grew harder, enough so Lily must have felt like he was ramming a rod of lead down her throat. He wanted to watch her, with her eyes wide and streaming as she stared up at him, drool down her chin, but the force of his orgasm surged up inside him. His eyes squeezed shut as hot cum surged up from his balls and spurted down her throat. His fingers held her hair tight, pulling it enough that it must have been painful, and he thrust his hips forward, jerking again, and then again, as stream after stream of silky cum spilled from his slit.

Lily swallowed with every jet, and the sensation felt like heaven. Tears spilled from her eyes, but he knew they were tears caused by the effort she’d put in, rather than tears of sadness or pain.

He began to soften and pulled himself from between her lips. He zipped himself away, his skin still wet from her saliva.

Lily licked her lips. “I hope it’s my turn now.”

He shook his head. “Not until you agree to what I want.”

“You’re a bastard, you know that, right?”

He gave his shoulder a slight shrug, the hazy afterglow of his orgasm settling over him like a warm blanket. “I’ve never claimed to be anything else.”

Seventeen

Lily loved having
the taste of him on her tongue again. By consuming him, it felt as though a tiny part of him was hers again.

She knew there was a sick and twisted part of her that enjoyed Monster dominating her, but perhaps she was thinking of this wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t sick and twisted, maybe it was natural for her to want to give herself over to him. She was just wired differently than other people. She didn’t know if she’d been born that way, or if events in her life had created that side of her, or even if it had been Monster himself who had awoken it inside of her, but she craved him, while other people left her cold. She didn’t need a reason or excuse for what she felt. She just did.

But she couldn’t allow herself to think about her needs and desires now. If she survived the next few days, or even the week, maybe she could have that conversation with a psychiatrist, but right now they had more important matters to work through.

“So you’re seriously going to keep me like this until I agree to start my life over?” she said.

He gave her a half smile that made her heart flip. That way he was looking now, as though he was drugged, she’d done that to him. Even though she was the one in the handcuffs who was left desperate for an orgasm herself, just that look gave her a sense of power. He still wanted her, still cared about her, whatever else he said and did.

“I thought I’d made that clear,” he replied.

“And if I never agree? What do we do then?”

“I guess I rack myself up a very large hotel bill, and at some point the man who was on the end of that call will find us, and take you and kill me.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. I don’t know what else you expect me to say. I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you, Flower. Bad men are involved. Men worse than me. Worse than the Gonzalez-Larrinaga brothers, in fact.”

The mention of their name sent shivers through her. She remembered how close she’d come to being raped by them. Was that her future now? Being taken by men even worse and raped over and over? She couldn’t even fathom it.

“I’m not going to release you until you agree to go along with my plans,” he told her. “We can stay here and continue with this, but at some point this adversary is going to track me down, and when he does, he’s going to take you.”

“I don’t care about me,” she said. “Maybe I should, but threatening me isn’t going to make me do what you want.”

“I’m not threatening you, Flower,” he said, reaching out so his hand cupped her cheek. “I’m warning you.”

“I care about other people more than myself. Give me something I want, and perhaps I’ll think about it.”

“What do you want?”

“You. I want you.”

He shook his head. “Not possible.”

“What about Cameron? Where is he?”

“He’s safe.” His expression darkened. “If you can’t have me, do you plan on replacing me with him?”

“I thought you understood now that it couldn’t happen even if I wanted it to—which I don’t. I still can’t handle people touching me, Monster. You’re the only one whose touch I long for rather than dread. I don’t know why, but even if I wanted another man, I don’t think I could do it. There’s something wrong with me, and for some reason you’re the only one who can heal me again.”

He regarded her with dark eyes filled with sadness. “Then you will never be healed. I’m sorry.”

She suddenly remembered the noise she’d heard from one of the containers as she’d been taken. “The women!”

“What?”

“There were women in the container where I was taken. I heard them.”

She yanked at her bonds, trying to stand up from the chair, but her shoulders wrenched back, the metal cuffs cutting into her skin. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of them until now. She’d been so caught up in fear for her own skin when she’d first been taken from the port, and then in finding Monster here, she’d completely blocked out the memory of that small cry for help from the container.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Monster. We have to do something! We have to help them.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What do you think I was doing down at the port near the Marine Corps base?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t there, Flower. Men I employ were the ones to track you down and bring you here. They told me what direction you were headed in and who you were with, but the next call I got was to say they’d taken you into their possession and were on their way here.”

“I went there to try to track down the traffickers you paid to take me the first time!”

“What? Why would you do such a stupid thing?”

“Because the police weren’t listening to me, and it wasn’t as though I could ask you for help. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those poor women I was locked up with. They’d been beaten and raped, and I wasn’t just going to carry on with my life and forget about them. I’d already left it too long when I stayed with you.”

“We have bigger problems to worry about, Flower.”

“Really?” she said, incredulous. “What could possibly be bigger? Why is my life any more important than any one of those other women who have been taken? “

“It is to me.”

“But it wasn’t when you first had Cigarette Hands and his friend abduct me. I was a nothing to you then, just like these women are now.”

His brow creased. “Who the hell is Cigarette Hands?”

“He’s the guy who took me. I never knew his name so I called him that because his fingers stank of stale cigarette smoke.”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry you went through that. I should have known better.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t, and that wasn’t all your fault either. Besides, even if I had the choice to not experience everything I had and go back to life the way it was before, I don’t think I’d choose that. We can make a difference now.”

He glowered at her. “Since when have I ever been some kind of bleeding heart, Flower? Don’t try to twist who I am in your head, because you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

“Fine. Then we’ll make a deal. You let me go, and we go back to the port and put an end to what that sick man and his partner are doing, and then I’ll do as you ask and vanish.”

He stared at her, and she knew he was at least considering her proposal.

She thought of something else. “And I want to see Cameron again. Alive. I need to know he’s safe.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Not on this, no. And also, I want to tell him I’m sorry for getting him involved in this mess, and I want him to know it won’t go any further.”

He began to pace, his hand against his mouth, thinking, his dark brows furrowed. He drew to a halt. “The deal is you let my men deal with Cigarette Hands, and I’ll let you see your friend via video call.”

She shook her head. “No deal. It’s what I want or nothing at all.”

“You don’t need to be involved in what’s going on at the old port.”

“Yes, I do. I want to see the look in that son of a bitch’s eyes when he sees who it is who has come for him. He told me we never come back—the women he took and sold on—but I did. I want him to know that. And I want to make sure the women he’s holding are safe. It’ll help them to have another woman there, and to know I am a survivor.” She gave a cold smile. “The men who run in your crowd don’t exactly seem to have much respect for women.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, “but I do respect you, Flower.”

“Maybe you think you do, but you don’t. If you did, you’d take my thoughts and feelings into account, and not just make decisions for me. You’d trust that I know how to make the right choice.”

He shook his head. “It’s not about a lack of respect, Flower, it’s that I’m afraid of losing control.”

“I’m a human being, Monster. You’ll never be able to control me, even if you think you are from the outside.”

“Not being able to control what you do in order to keep you safe is the thing that frightens me the most,” he admitted.

“So meet me halfway. Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want. Let’s go and free those women and find Cigarette Hands and his buddy—together—and show me that Cameron is safe and free. Then I’ll pack up my stuff and get the hell out of Los Angeles.”

He paced the floor, his head in his hands. “Damn it, Flower. You’re not going to give me any other options, are you?”

“No. This is fair. This is called compromise.”

He came to a stop and scowled at her. “I could always keep you tied to that chair, teasing and torturing you until you agree to my way of doing things. In fact, perhaps I like the sound of that option far better than one that also puts you in danger and reunites you with a boyfriend.”

“Cameron isn’t, and never has been a boyfriend,” she said. “He’s just a friend, I swear.”

Monster’s scowl deepened. “Just hearing his name from your lips makes me want to kill him.”

“But that’s not going to happen, right?” she said, her voice firm.

“Only for you,” he replied.

“And as for Cigarette Hands, it seems to me that you’ve got enough men on the payroll to help us take him down. It’s not as though I’ll be going in alone. I’ll have you by my side, and whoever else you’ve hired while you’re on American soil. I assume they’re all armed.” She thought of something and frowned. “Actually, I had a gun myself, but your guy knocked it out of my hand.”

Monster turned and went to the dresser drawer, pulled it open, and lifted out a weapon. She recognized it as the Glock she’d purchased only the other day.

“That’s mine,” she said.

“If I give it back to you, do you promise not to do anything stupid?”

She twisted her lips. “I’m not going to shoot you, Monster.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, his lips quirking at the edges. “I should hope not. I meant more that you weren’t going to rush into the situation before we can be assured you won’t get hurt.”

“As long as no one kills that bastard before I get the chance.”

“You think you could kill him, Flower? Do you have that in you, to take a man’s life?” He walked toward her and crouched at her side. “It changes who you are. Are you sure you want to take that step?”

“I already am changed,” she said. “And yes, I have it in me to take his life. You’ve no idea what it was like inside that container—being forced to piss where I was sitting, watching what he’d done to those poor girls, and the whole time he had this smug attitude, as though he could do whatever he wanted and none of it would come back on him. I want to be the one to show him that it can.”

He studied her face, as though he could read the truth of her thoughts written upon her skin. She held his gaze, defiant, even though everything had been done to take away any dignity or modesty. She wouldn’t be broken.

Finally, he gave a slow nod. “Okay, Lily Drayton. You have a deal.”

Her heart sang. Not only did he agree to her terms, he’d used her full name.

Monster picked up her jeans and underwear from where they’d been dropped in a bundle on the floor. He untangled them and then pulled the panties back over her feet and up her legs. She lifted her bottom up, to allow him to cover her back up, though part of her wilted in disappointment. He wasn’t going to finish what he started, then? What if something happened to either of them and they never got the chance to make love one last time? He repeated the process with the jeans and did up the button.

“You’ve lost weight since you first came to me,” he said. “Is that my fault?”

She nodded. “In part, yes.”

He leaned in and kissed her stomach. “I’m sorry for that.”

Lily held back sudden tears. “Thank you.”

He slipped her sneakers back onto her feet, like a modern prince finding his Cinderella, and then pulled a small key from the back pocket of his pants.

“Don’t make me regret doing this,” he warned.

She shook her head. “I won’t.”

He moved behind her with the key, and she felt him move the cuffs in order to get access to the lock, and then with a quiet click, the metal rings fell open and dropped to the floor.

Lily let out a groan and pulled her hands onto her lap, massaging her wrists with the opposite hand, and rolling her shoulders. Monster’s large hands made contact with the spots on either side of her neck where the tension had built, his thumbs rolling firmly into the tight knots that had come from having her arms in the same position for so long. His touch felt like heaven, and she circled her neck, her eyes slipping shut.

Monster massaged the knots out of her neck and then his hands left her skin. Her eyes opened, brought back to real life, and the space where he’d been felt bereft of his presence.

He was at the bar, making them a drink. Needing to stretch her legs, she got to her feet. Her calves twitched, threatening to cramp, so she paused to rub the knots out of them as well.

Monster carried a glass over to her. “It’s only sparkling water,” he told her. “No drugs, I promise.”