Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. His hug is powerful and comforting, and so very warm. “It’s my job to protect you, Clara.”
She looks up at me with a slightly confused smile. “I thought it was the other way around. I’m supposed to take care of you, if you know what I mean.”
“I think the terms of your employment are changing, Clara. You’re not here just for my pleasure now. No, you’re here for your pleasure too.”
“Does that mean I have to pay you?”
He holds me firmly and steals another kiss from me. The way he makes me feel is incredible, my lip is trembling from the brief contact. He makes me feel something I haven’t felt in years, even if it’s in a very different way from then.
“I’ll never ask for anything from you that you don’t want to give, lovely. But if you insist on having terms for this,” he says, his smile growing, clashing with the direness of our previous conversation, “your payment will be your moans of ecstasy when you’re around my cock, and the smiles you give me every time you see me.”
This man has turned my world upside down, and given it was so awful before? That’s a good thing.
He kisses me again. This one is longer, more powerful, and with a bit of tongue.
When it breaks, he looks me firmly in the eye. “I’m keeping you for pleasure, Clara. And your pleasure is my pleasure.”
12
SEBASTIAN
The rain falls hard as I drive my BMW through what’s definitely the bad part of town.
I have to be sticking out like a sore thumb, but I’m a man on a mission. Maybe I’m a fool. I could have easily hired people to send this message for me, but this means the world to me. And to Clara. It needs a personal touch.
Frank Thompson.
That’s the name of this scumbag.
My private investigator, an old friend of mine named Lawrence, is good at his job. Tailed him for a few days, dug up all of his records for me.
He’s been in prison for assault and battery a few times, and been in and out of county jail over the years, charged with everything from fraud to grand theft auto, and countless other robberies and petty crimes. Plenty of drug charges too. I’m amazed he hasn’t already been locked up and had the key thrown away, but he’s been a lucky son of a bitch. Trials keep going his way, charges get dropped. I wondered if he had a friend in the police force or maybe in the district attorney’s office, but Lawrence said no. He’s just lucky as hell but I’d put money on this guy dying behind bars someday.
If he doesn’t die by my hands first.
I steam when I think of this man. What he did to Clara’s mother. She didn’t say he did those things to her, but I wonder. Those are the types of things you repress. And if Frank did do those things to his daughter, and I confirm it?
Sorry, Clara, but I will kill him. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold myself back.
As it is, I have my mission. I have his address. He’s living rent-free in an apartment, having made friends with some scumbag slumlord, doing superficial maintenance and being an enforcer between the tenants when there are complaints.
He will be home tonight. Lawrence tells me he has a fresh batch of drugs, and has hired a lady for companionship. High living for someone who took his struggling daughter for every cent she had.
I step out of my car and walk through the rain. My jacket is drenched, but I don’t care. I’m not a witch, I won’t melt. I walk up to his door and knock softly at first. When I get no response, I rap at it louder and louder until I do.
“Holy shit, Randal, you could just call me,” I hear from the other side. The tumblers turn, and the door opens.
I see his face. I studied it extensively from the photos Lawrence brought me, since Clara has none, no sentimental reasons driving her to keep any.
The plan is to go in and negotiate with him, tell him to leave town and never return. If he does that, I’ll do nothing to him.
But my anger gets the best of me because I immediately throw a punch at his jaw the moment I lay eyes on him.
He stumbles back. “What the fuck?”
I follow it with another shot, both of us inside of the apartment, the door still wide open.
The woman in there screams in terror. “The hell is going on, Frank?”
I don’t let Frank answer, trying to keep up the pressure.
But maybe I underestimated him. He does come from a rough background and has been in his fair share of scraps. I don’t expect it when he rushes me with a double leg takedown and throws his own punch back into my face. We crash through some nearby shelves, a huge clatter of dishes falling all around us.