Mistaken Trust (The Jewels Trust Series)

• Dedication
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Mistaken Trust Description
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Chapter Thirty-One
  
• Chapter Thirty-Two
  
• Chapter Thirty-Three
  
• Chapter Thirty-Four
  
• Chapter Thirty-Five
  
• Chapter Thirty-Six
  
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
• Chapter Forty
  
• Chapter Forty-One
  
• Chapter Forty-Two
  
• Chapter Forty-Three
  
• Chapter Forty-Four
  
• Chapter Forty-Five
  
• Chapter Forty-Six
  
• Chapter Forty-Seven
  
• Chapter Forty-Eight
  
• Chapter Forty-Nine
  
• Chapter Fifty
  
• Chapter Fifty-One
  
• Thank You!
  
• About the Author
  
• Overview Ultimate Trust—Book two in the Jewels Trust series
  
• Ultimate Trust excerpt
  

For my awesome husband, Curtis.
The most supportive guy a gal could ever dream of ... thank you for the countless times you vacuumed the house, went solo on shopping trips to the grocery store and Sam’s Club, prepared meals, and washed laundry just so I could fulfil my dream to write and publish novels.

And Peggy Beach.
My amazing (and exceedingly patient) editor. Creative writing 101 teacher. And most of all, the best cheerleading, kick-me-in-the-pants when I need it, friend imaginable. Without you, Peggy, I would have
never
had the confidence or courage to publish this novel ... and I’m proud of it, thanks to you!

Suzanne Sphar
for reminding me, “If it is to be, it is up to me,” which motivated me to pursue the world of e-publishing. Bestselling fiction author,
Heather Horrock
s, for mentoring me through the process of indie publishing. My brother, commercial photographer
Joe Venus
and his beautiful Urban Warriors model, Rachel Barney, for the terrific cover photo. And good friends,
Cheryl Pixley, Noray Turney
and
Heather McElreath,
who were the first brave souls to read my novels “raw” and despite the plethora of “goofs” applauded my efforts and encouraged me to keep going.

This includes the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please respect the efforts of the author and purchase only authorized electronic editions. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase a separate additional copy.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Formatting by Melody Chase Precision E-Formatting

www.PrecisionEformatting.com

The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

For mature readers. Contains strong language, violence and sexual situations.

THE COMMANDER
would stop at nothing to have her. Deception. Torture. Murder. Masterminded and executed in preparation for taking possession of his Sweet Cheeks: Jewels.

Just for the practice of honing his self-taught surgical skills, he had kidnapped,
cleansed,
and killed four women; lab rats he called them. Like his lab rats, Jewels would have to be cleansed. Her s
ex button
cut out. Forever preserved in a special jar joining his collection of secret treasures.

His plan to acquire her was foolproof. Cleverly elaborate. Insanely detailed. Criminally brilliant. Jewels would be his, one way or another.

Or would she?

Violently captured and held prisoner in the remote mountains of Utah by a radical militia, Jewels’ defensive handgunning expertise, journalism experience, and strong-willed personality could either help or hinder her chances of survival.

An ally would almost guarantee her escape. But whom should she trust? The FBI agent who had been hounding her for a date since the death of her husband? The rough-handed handsome he-man designated to keep her imprisoned? The militia’s kind-eyed doctor? Or...?

Will she make the right choice in time to be spared the savage mutilation her captor ... the mysterious
Commander .
.. has planned for her?

Or will
mistaken trust
lead to her torturous demise?

“When I see a pretty woman ... one side of me says, I’d like to talk to her, date her. The other side of me says, I wonder what her head would look like on a stick?”

Edmund Kemper, The Co-ed Killer

HEFTING HER LIMP BODY
off his shoulder, he dumped his latest
lab rat
on the specially prepared queen-sized bed.

The impact snapped her head back, slightly fanning her chin-length auburn hair across the crisp, white sheet. A soft moan floated from her quivering lips.

“Good,” he muttered with a crooked grin, knowing from experience soon she would be conscious. Digging his arms under her shoulder blades, he hoisted her body toward the center of the mattress, positioning her arms toward the edge of the headboard where the open jaws of thick leather restraints waited to, once again, mercilessly consume unwilling flesh.

Her eyes fluttered. Brows crimped. Arm muscles sparked a hint of life.

Quickly engulfing her right wrist in the three-inch-wide strap, he jerked it hard, buckling it tight, but not so tightly she wouldn’t have a little wiggle room. When she awoke, he wanted her to sense a glimmer of
hope
that she could free herself. Hope would motivate her to struggle in her bonds, even though escape was hopeless.

Agony stumbled across her slowly-waking face; her right arm flinched in pain.

Fastening her left wrist in an identical restraint on the other side of the bed, he smiled with calculating pleasure. The binding of her legs would come later, when she was fully awake ... when he could gorge on the sights, sounds, and smell of her terror as she fought to escape the inescapable tethers. Fought to escape
him
.

Another experiment was beginning.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER. The rough edges of the thick leather straps bit into her wrists as she vigorously fought the restraints. “Take these off me, right now,” she demanded through gritted teeth, continuing to combat the straps.

Near the foot of the bed he towered over his latest captive. Arms neatly folded across his chest. Amused. Like a weed-out-the-wimps boot camp sergeant, his eyes narrowed. Why the hell did his
lab rats
think he would give in to any of their demands?

The veins in her neck stood out in livid ridges and her hands balled into white-knuckled fists as she twisted and turned. Pulled and yanked. Her leaf green eyes bulged. Just as he had planned, the
hope
of escape fueled her vigor.

Despite her best efforts, she wasn’t going to escape. None of the others had. The potent leather bindings were designed to control the most violent of criminals no matter their size, how much iron they pumped, or how jacked up they were on drugs.

The bare bones log cabin creaked and swayed like a frail old man shivering. Outside, near the timberline of the High Uinta Mountains, the late summer’s pastel sky had fallen victim to a violent assault. Dozens of inky clouds spit lightning and belched thunder. Micro bursts of wind screamed through throngs of tall pines like sirens warning of an impending air raid.

“Who the hell dresses like that in the woods anyway?” she scoffed, breathing heavily, her brows furrowed and nose curled. “And that tie is ridiculous. It looks like the tongue of a half-breed Chow-Chow.”

Raising a brow in a questioning slant, he straightened his pink and black silk tie and flicked imaginary dust off the sleeves of the costly black pin-striped suit coat, admiring himself. “I look like a Fortune 500 executive, don’t I?” he bragged, standing erect. As if basking in a moment of limelight on stage, he elongated his neck and turned his head toward the camping lantern softly swaying from a rusty spike in the rafter. Though it didn’t spotlight his face, it effectively illuminated the modest cabin interior: one large room with a small nook for a kitchen area which served his basic needs.

“You perverted bastard. Let me go,” she snorted, glaring murderously at him.

A fist-sized purple bruise was manifesting beneath her left cheekbone from the knockout punch he’d inflicted to abduct her.

His maleness swelled watching the woman’s athletic body wildly thrash about in vain for freedom.

Daylight seeped into the cabin through thin spaces between wooden planks boarding up the windows. The storm’s invisible fury banged against the thick wooden door like a relentless knock from a persistent door-to-door salesman. Drafts of angry air squeezed through the poorly fitted door jamb, howling as its invasion commenced.

Abruptly his mind ventured into the future, fantasizing about
her
. His chosen one. His true love.
Sweet Cheeks
.

Visions of her scrambled over each other in his head like prostitutes in a Hollywood movie orgy. Her long, vanilla hair. Aphrodite face. Alluring Nordic blue eyes. Smooth, sexy walk and sway of her hourglass body. The delicious smell of expensive perfume emanating from her soft, sun-bronzed skin....

How would
she
react when it was her turn to be strapped down? Dreaming of his suave character and exquisite powers of charm, he imagined how, almost effortlessly, he would beguile her into trusting him so completely she willingly submitted to him, even as he tightly buckled the restraints to painfully bind her to the bed … and he envisioned her enjoying it; being sexually aroused by it. However the notion of her resisting him, even just a tiny bit, was a guiltless pleasure he could easily exploit to his personal satisfaction as well.

It had been a long road, his trek to Sweet Cheeks. He had planned every detail, including her upcoming kidnapping followed by her staged death. Only then, when Sweet Cheeks was presumed dead, would she be his without interruption or threat from the outside world.

Using a collection of Barbie dolls—Sweet Cheeks’ proxies—posed in various bondage positions like those featured on forced rape pornographic internet sites, he detailed the sexual poses of how he wanted to enslave her.

His maleness continued to swell.

“You fucker, say something!” The woman thrust a hate-filled kick at him. The tread of her hiking boot skimmed across his stomach, leaving a dirt mark on his white shirt.