Uncovering You 7: Resurrection (4 page)

“A man told me,” I say.

“A man.” Jeremy nearly chuckles. He turns back to the bar. His hand hovers over a series of bottles before clasping the neck of one. He picks it up, takes his tumbler, and walks to sit behind his desk.

He does this all without once casting a look at me.

He leans in his seat, and then, to my surprise, kicks his legs up on the table. He pours the brandy, closely watching the dark, golden liquid.

“Are you
trying
to evoke a reaction from me?” he asks. “Is that why you’re here, Lilly? Do you want to see how much power you still hold?”

He swirls the liquid in the glass, continuing to watch only it. “Well, I know a better way for you to do it. Come here, Lilly.”

My back stiffens at the callous sound of his request. I walk over to him regardless.

He only looks at me when I’m a foot away.

“Blow me,” he says.

I blink. “What?”

“Get on your fucking knees and blow me!” Jeremy roars.

The outburst makes me instantly drop down. Jeremy twirls in his chair and places his open legs on either side of my head.

“I’m sorry,” he chuckles. “I shouldn’t have yelled. But I think it’s preferable to…the alternative.”

I nearly open my mouth to ask ‘what alternative’, before realizing I don’t want to know.

Jeremy unbuckles his belt and pulls his pants down. I’m astounded to see that he’s already semi-hard.

“You know this type of thing gets my blood going,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “And all day long I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that perky, little mouth of yours wrapping around my cock. You owe me for the weekend, Lilly. You and I…” he strokes a hand through my hair, “…have some much-needed catching up to do.”

Chapter Five

I scream as Jeremy pounds me. We’ve fucked everywhere. On the sofa. Across his desk. Against the glass wall.

Right now, I’m back on the desk for a second round. I can’t believe Jeremy has the stamina to keep going. Then again, knowing his voracious appetite, why am I surprised? He was right: We
are
catching up for lost time over the weekend.

“Harder,” I beg. Jeremy grabs my waist and pins me down, then proceeds to quicken the already break-neck speed he’s going at. “Harder! Oh yes! Fuck me! Fuck me harder!”

We’ve long since discarded our clothes. All the muscles of Jeremy’s body are glistening with sweat. His shoulders strain as he pounds into me. Each pulse sends his cock deep inside. Continuous waves of pleasure scorch my body.

“Ah…Lilly…I’m going to come!” He pulls out. “Get down!”

I comply without hesitation, dropping to my knees before him and letting him splatter his semen all over my face.

He staggers forward when it’s done, leaning over me, against the desk, for support.

His ragged breathing slowly calms.

He opens his eyes, “Come on, then. Time for you to get cleaned up.”

As I stand, wiping the semen from my eyes with the back of my hand, he slaps my ass. I jump.

“Damn, but you’re fucking sexy when you’re all broken like that,” he says.

***

After we’ve both showered in his private bathroom, and dressed, we return to the main part of his office. Jeremy, with his hair still wet, looks as good as I’ve ever seen him. More than that, he looks…satisfied. Satiated.

After all the sex we’ve just had, it’s no surprise.

Still, it’s a reminder of how much his mood can be influenced by such a simple act. Okay, maybe not
simple—
not with him—but something that I can offer on demand, when needed as it suits me.

Come on,
a voice whispers.
It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it, too.

I stifle a giggle and then drape myself on the leather sofa.

“So,” Jeremy says. He adjusts his hair with both hands and then crosses his arms, looking at me. “Miss Ryder. Are you ready to now tell me where you learned that name?”

“Blackthorne?” I ask.

Jeremy shifts on his feet. I can see him fighting some internal irritation. “Yes,” he says softly. “
Blackthorne
.”

“I told you, but you don’t believe me,” I say. I sit up. The time for languidity is over. A storm has started outside. A flash of lightning breaks through the downpour.

I shiver. I’ve never felt safe in the middle of a storm.

Jeremy exhales slowly. “That’s the story you’re sticking to?” he asks.

“Jeremy, you saw me in the elevator! You saw how distraught I was. Do you think I’d just make something like that up?”

“The mind is capable of extraordinary things, Lilly,” he says. “Perhaps I overestimated your capacity for returning to work so early. Perhaps, after learning what Fey told you, you should have stayed home.”

My back stiffens. “Are you saying I’m not capable,” I begin.

“I’m
saying
that you’re stressed,” he interrupts. “Something happened to you today. You weren’t yourself. It’s understandable, Lilly. Admirable, even, that you’ve put on a strong face for so long. You had a breakdown in the elevator. That’s all.”

It frustrates me how he can speak of it so…clinically. So dispassionately. As if we didn’t just share one of the most intense fucking sessions in recent memory.

It’s as if, once the suit came back on, and we returned to his office, the dynamic of our relationship shifted right into that of employer-employee.

“Now tell me,” he continues. “Is this something else you got from Fey? Did her fiancé do some more
digging
?”

“No,” I say. I want to grind my teeth in frustration. “Jeremy, why won’t you listen to me? Look, this is what happened. I was waiting by the elevator, ready to leave, when a man approached me. He looked familiar. It took me a moment to place him. I saw him once, months ago, when you introduced me to your board! Don’t you remember?”

“Don’t mock me now,” Jeremy says. His voice is soft and dangerous. “Of course I remember. I remember everything that has to do with this company. I remember everything that has to do with
you
.”

“That’s very sweet,” I say sarcastically. “May I continue?”

Jeremy gestures in an off-handed manner.

“He asked me to go with him. I didn’t know what he wanted, so I said ‘no’. I was ready to leave. I wanted to go home…to see you.”

Jeremy curls his lips back into the thinnest facsimile of a smile. “How sweet,” he mimics.

I ignore the provocation. “He told me it was about you. Then he called you by your first name. To my face.”

I expected some reaction from Jeremy when I said that.

He gives none. He just looks at me expectantly, clearly waiting for me to continue.

“Don’t you think that’s a little bit unusual?” I ask.

“As long as it’s not done in my presence, people can call me whatever they want,” Jeremy says. “So what, Lilly? Get to the point. My patience is wearing thin.”

“The
point
,” I say, growing angry, “is that he knew about us. About me and you. About our relationship outside of work.”

Jeremy looks unimpressed. “So?” he asks. “Anybody with half a brain could put two and two together. It’s only on your insistence that we maintain the charade of formality in this building.”

“Not that,” I hiss. “He knew about us…about you…about…” My nerves almost fail me. “…The collar.”

That gets his attention. “What did you say?”

“The man…Hugh Blackthorne—whoever—had photographs of us, Jeremy. On your island. He gave them to me.” I look around, searching for the envelope, but can’t find it right away. “Even worse, just before I left, he reached into his desk and took out…the collar.”

“That’s impossible,” Jeremy says. “That technology has only been shared with a few, privileged individuals—all of whom I trust with my life. I don’t have extra collars just floating around, Lilly.”

“Then explain what I saw,” I challenge.

Jeremy exhales and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what you saw,” he says. “But I have a way of finding out.” His eyes move to the corner of the ceiling.

“You have cameras in here?” I exclaim. “That means they just recorded everything…everything you and I did?”

“Oh, don’t act so affronted,” he snarls. “Of course I have cameras here. Security is vital. I have cameras on every floor, in every room, of this building. I gave you control over the inside of my house. Don’t expect me to do the same here.”

“I don’t’ expect that,” I say softly, looking at my feet.

“Then when you’re done playing games with me—when you’re done trying to
test
me—we can go and see exactly what got you so riled up.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it. Maybe then you’ll believe me.”

Jeremy leads us out the back door, down a series of halls, and into a small surveillance room. It’s locked away behind two heavy metal doors.

The room is dark. The only illumination comes from the screens glowing around me. They cast a blue hue over the space.

Jeremy approaches one and keys in his access code.

“Now,” he says, turning to me, “when did this happen? When did the man approach you?”

“Just before I came to you,” I say.

“Where?”

“By the elevators on the 18
th
floor. I was about to leave.”

“Hmm,” Jeremy’s fingers make a few keystrokes, and the main display goes to the camera overlooking the elevators on the 18
th
floor. He rewinds the tape and points to the screen. “There you are,” he says.

“Just wait,” I tell him.

I watch, scanning the people milling around me on the screen for sign of Hugh. The elevator doors open. Some people get in; some get out.

I remember the moment. I almost stepped onto the elevator before realizing it was going up, not down. It wasn’t long after that I felt that hand touch my arm.

I go up on my toes, anticipation building. “There!” I say, spotting a man moving through the crowd toward me. “There! That’s him.”

Sure enough, the man reaches me and touches my arm. His back is to the camera, so we can’t see his face.

Jeremy looks over his shoulder at me. His forehead is marred by a deep frown line.

“Lilly,” he says slowly. “That’s Simon, my driver.”

“What? No it’s—” I cut off. The Lilly on the screen starts to follow the man. Together, they turn toward the camera. I see his face.

Jeremy is right. It is Simon. It is his driver.

But that’s not who I was speaking to!

The surveillance room spins. I feel dizzy. Short of breath. Like I’ve been submerged in a pool of thick, murky liquid, and am looking out at the world from behind an aquarium lens.

Jeremy taps a few keys. The video display changes to track my progress with Simon down the hall.

We walk into a room. Not the one I remember entering.

Jeremy pauses the tape and looks at me. “This is what had you upset?” he asks. There’s an undertone of grave disappointment in his voice.

I try to steady my nerves, but they’re beyond frazzled. “I…I don’t know what to say,” I blubber.

“
I
sent Simon to get you, Lilly. He was supposed to relay a message to you that I would be delayed tonight. That I wouldn’t make the trip home.” Jeremy’s eyes narrow oh-so-slightly. “Let’s see what happens next.”

The camera showing the inside of the room lights up the screen. There’s Simon, sitting behind a desk…A small one, not nearly so grand as I remember. And there—my stomach gives an uneasy lurch—am I, sitting across from him, both our faces clear as day in the recording.

I watch in silence, dumbfounded. It feels like I’m losing my grip on reality. In my mind’s eye, I have no recollection of what is transpiring on-screen. I remember
Hugh
—what he said, what he told me, his office, his face—not Simon.

Then why the hell is the video showing something else entirely?

There’s no audio, but Simon and I are conversing. It’s a conversation that does not exist in my head. He slides something across the table to me. My eyes latch onto the object—and some small degree of faith in my own sanity is restored.

The thing he slides across the table—the thing that I pick up—is a rectangular manila envelope.

The one with all the photographs inside.

“There,” I exclaim. “There, you see that?
That
envelope held the photographs I was telling you about. The ones of us on the beach, on the island!”

“Yes, that’s right,” Jeremy says. Letting the tape pause, he reaches into his jacket and takes out the exact same rectangular, manila envelope. “Photographs that I had made as a souvenir for you.”

He extends it to me. I take it from him in a daze. My fingers brush the outside paper lining, but they feel like someone else’s fingers. Someone else’s hands.

“I asked Simon,” Jeremy says patiently, “to give those to you so you could choose your favorites. I was intending on having them blown up and framed.”

I take the photographs out. I flip through them, searching for the lewd night vision ones.

There are none.

Jeremy glances at the screen. It shows me, collected, composed, shaking hands with Simon and exiting the room.

He switches cameras. This one shows me walking calmly toward the elevators, envelope tucked under one arm. I hit the call button and get in. The doors close, hiding me from view. And the camera of the hallway continues to play.

Jeremy turns to me. I stare.

“Is that all, Lilly?” he asks.

I…I don’t know what to say. Have I completely lost it? Have I cracked, mentally, and gone insane?

Have I plummeted into the same dark void that holds my father?

I need…I don’t know what I need. A reprieve. Solace. Isolation, where I can think. Because the memories in my head are both clear and vivid. I
remember
meeting Hugh. I
remember
going into his office. I
remember
his warning to me.

Most of all, I remember the raw shock and horror I felt when he revealed the collar.

But none of that matches what I just saw on screen.