Love's Sacrifice Read online

  I take a huge gulp of my drink. The same man who brought the stool brings a cigarette box to her! He offers it to her and she takes one. With a face as serious as murder he lights it for her and she puts it into her mouth. I stare with astonishment as she transfers the cigarette from her mouth to her vagina and starts blowing perfect smoke rings! I turn to Blake, but he is looking at me.

  ‘I don’t want to watch.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ he murmurs in my ear. I feel his hand slide up my thigh.

  ‘Blake,’ I protest.

  ‘Everything is allowed here. You didn’t really think I came to see that performance, did you?’

  ‘What did you come for?’ I ask breathily.

  ‘I came here to fuck in public.’

  I draw in a mortified breath. ‘What?’

  I feel his fingers moving up my thighs, parting them and entering me.

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head, but the alcohol I have consumed at dinner is singing in my blood, and the blood is pounding in my veins. A crackle of magical static is throbbing wetly between my legs.

  ‘Nobody can see us. And,’ he adds persuasively, ‘even if they can we will never see them again. So what do you care what they think?

  The truth is I don’t. I look around me, and indeed nobody is looking at us. It even seems as if there are other couples in various stages of the act.

  ‘Take off your panties.’

  I slip my fingers into my new stretchy white dress, hook them into my lacy bits and pull them down. Bending slightly I take them off and put them into his waiting hand. He pockets them. Turning slightly he faces me and opens my thighs.

  My body is lust drenched and impatient for some hot action, but that is so direct I gasp and look around nervously. ‘I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’

  He ignores my comment and, lifting me up, puts me on his lap so my body is facing him, my thighs spread, my sex touching his erection. His hands pull my dress until it is bunched around my hips.

  ‘Straight to the point then,’ I rasp.

  He puts his middle finger into his mouth and—I close my eyes because I know what he is going to do, and I am both embarrassed and excited by it—slowly inserts that saliva lubricated finger between my legs.

  He smiles arrogantly. His hair glows blue-black in the blue tinted spotlights. Tonight he oozes danger and power…and something bad. I like it.

  ‘You want me to do what?’

  He chuckles. Even that sound seems illicit and dancing with power tonight. ‘Show me that this is a mutual appreciation society.’

  I unbutton the top button of his jeans and slide the zip down, to see the tip of his erection poking out of his underwear. ‘Oh, you animal, you,’ I tease. My thighs twitch as I release his shaft. It bounces out and I stop with a gasp. My eyes run into his, shocked, questioning.

  ‘You’re…different,’ I say.

  He laughs.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘An old woman came by while you were out shopping and expertly stung me with two bees.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘When you say old, how old was she?’

  ‘At least ninety-seven and she was only about four feet tall.’

  I laugh breathlessly. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘Like two mosquito bites.’

  I drop my scandalized eyes down to his exposed cock. It seems massively swollen, brutally aggressive, and…well, thrilling.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he purrs.

  ‘I don’t know, yet. I kind of liked it before too.’

  His eyes glint. ‘Try it and then complain.’

  Right, when in Rome… ‘That can be arranged,’ I say huskily.

  Holding the swollen shaft by the base I lower myself onto it and slide down its hard length slowly, conscious of the unfamiliar feeling of being so incredibly stretched and filled. I get halfway and have to take a deep breath.

  ‘You are soooo much bigger and thicker,’ I whisper in his ear.

  ‘It’s creepy how obsessed I am with you,’ he rumbles from deep within his chest, and taking my chin in his fingers pulls my lips to his. I gasp into his mouth, and fight for his tongue, bring it into my mouth, and suck it. Every nerve in my body feels alive, with his tongue in my mouth and my sex unbearably stretched. The kiss deepens. Breathlessly, I feel my dazzled body being slowly pushed down the thick shaft. He takes his mouth away from me and says something but I don’t hear.

  I am all sensation. The music, the smoky air, the sounds of other people having sex. He takes my nipples in his fingers and tugs them, but so gently, they ache for a good sucking in his mouth. All the while he is shoving his cock deeper and deeper into me. I moan helplessly as I squirm downwards. The breeze from an air con vent blows chilled air over our heads. Smoke curls around us like ghostly snakes or dragons. Anyone can see us and what we are up to but I don’t care.

  My tiny, entirely complete world of him, me and his bee-stung cock is rudely interrupted when I feel a hand on my shoulder. The touch is light but utterly alien and unwelcome. My hands grip Blake’s shoulders as my head swivels back with the same creeped out horror as having a spider fall on my bare skin.

  A woman is standing next to me. Like most of the other local girls in that club, she has straight, long black hair and is scantily clad in a bikini bra and shiny black shorts. Under the spotlights her skin glows smooth and moon pale.

  ‘Can I join you?’ she asks. Her accent is Americanized.

  She is touching me and asking me, but she is looking at Blake. My mind goes blank except for the weird thought that Billie would probably like her small-boned girl-body. Me? I look at the bulletproof lipstick, almond eyes, and the totally impenetrable expression and I think—poison!

  The shock and embarrassment of being caught sitting on a dick wears off dead quick and my mating response takes over, and it is so instinctive, so animalistic, and so loaded with the threat of actual violence that it shocks another detached, watching part of myself. No, I fucking wouldn’t like you to join in. I actually want to hiss at her. If I had fangs I would have bared them at her.

  The air crackles with my sudden animosity.

  Blake’s voice cuts into my simmering rage. ‘No. You can’t,’ he tells her, his voice edged not with the fury I am experiencing, but simply with impatience at being interrupted.

  She slinks away wordlessly and I watch her go, still in a jealous fury.

  ‘I don’t want to share you with her or anyone,’ he whispers in my ear, and I am suddenly euphoric because damn, if I didn’t loathe even more the thought that he might have wanted her to join in.

  I turn back to look into his eyes. His gaze locks with mine, mesmeric, dizzying, sweetening the poisoned air. Making a protective cage around us. He is looking at me so hungrily, it is as if I am food or prey. I latch onto the hunger eagerly. This is my mate. And only mine.

  ‘Baby,’ he growls. His voice is so full of hot lust, its vibration sizzles through me, intoxicating me. I exhale, almost a moan. He gets harder and bigger inside.

  I grip him with my thighs. Looking deep into my eyes he grabs my bare ass with his powerful hands, ramming me all the way down that pillar of meat. ‘It’s all for you,’ he says with a dark laugh.

  ‘Fuck, yeah,’ I cry hoarsely. And I feel myself flush with the feeling, the indignity of total possession.

  He begins to slowly move my body up and down the shaft. The first few strokes are shallow, then it is to the hilt and my breath gets knocked out of my body. My flesh shivers as my muscles clench tighter.

  ‘You won’t believe how hot and tight you feel,’ he whispers, his hand sliding down my belly, and between my legs to play with my clit.

  That makes me swoon. Surely I am not going to come so quickly. My body arches like a bow. I grasp his arms—the muscles are bulging with the effort of holding my body and moving it up and down his shaft. I lock my jaw as my chin lifts up, to stop from screaming. And then it comes, a liqu
id explosion inside me. It is powerful and totally different from any other orgasm I have experienced. It is dark and thick and flavored with something forbidden. On and on until my energy is spent.

  My dazed eyes return to his eye level. His are smoldering darkly with fresh intent. His cock jerks within me as he lifts my body and drops it hard and fast on his shaft. My mouth opens involuntarily. My sated flesh purrs and comes alive again. I balance myself on his shoulder and rise to my knees. My limbs slick with sweat, I fuck him as hard and as fast as I can. The wet heat and friction are delicious.

  He comes snarling my name, his seed shooting into my body, mixing with my fluids in a long, hot release. His breath is rough and ragged. I put my hand on his chest and feel his heartbeat, swift and loud. An African drum in Thailand.

  ‘I want to go home and finish this,’ he says.

  My eyebrows fly upwards. ‘After that.’

  He grins. Feral. ‘I want to take your bra off and suck your breasts, deep pulls that will leave you squirming and delirious.’

  Not taking my eyes off his, I uncouple from his cock, making a most unladylike sucking sound. He pulls my dress over my dripping sex. Cum is still trickling out of me as we leave the nightclub.

  Twelve

  Victoria Jane Montgomery

  That night I wait until it is late. I lie in my bed and watch the low-lying mist shroud the vast expanse of green outside this dreadful mad house until the phones by the nurses’ station have stopped ringing. Until there is no more noise other than the odd screaming that will suddenly pierce the night. Until the lone night nurse thinks everybody is asleep and she is busy watching porn on the Internet.

  Then I get under the covers and shine the little torch my mother brought me on my musical box. It is an old antique. A ballerina in a lilac tutu. The tutu is almost gray now. I touch the delicately painted porcelain face. It belonged to my great grandmother and came directly from her to me. It did not pass my grandmother or mother so they do not know about the secret compartment it conceals at the bottom of the figurine.

  Carefully, I depress the lever that opens it. So many years since I opened it. It is a little sticky and I pull it, but that just jams the drawer. I come out of the covers and look for something to pull it open with. A knife or anything sharp, but there is nothing sharp in the room or the bathroom. In frustration I bang the ballerina with the side of my fist. It still will not open. For some reason this infuriates me to unreasonable anger.

  I guess that is what road rage is. Someone cuts you up and you react as if someone has raped your daughter. I throw the musical box against the wall. The sound of it shattering is almost a profanity.

  For a moment I don’t move. I listen. No one comes. I walk toward the box. The drawer is open. I reach into it and take out the small, folded document inside.

  I open it out and look at it in the light of the torch.

  For a moment I remember, tangled with him, bonded skin to skin, sharing breath. The way Blake had felt deep inside me. Then I remember—that was not him. That was some other random man that crawled into my life at three a.m. Forget that.

  This, this tiny piece of paper in my hand is my ticket out of here.

  Blake Law Barrington, you’re about to get the shock of your life. You shouldn’t have double-crossed me.

  Thirteen

  Lana Barrington

  It is during the end of the second act, when the Prince sings to Turandot, ‘You do not know my name. Tell me my name before sunrise, and at dawn, I will die.’

  I turn away from the stage and look at Blake. His phone must have vibrated in his pocket, because he is checking the lighted screen. He smiles at me and leaves the box to take the call. It could have been anyone, calling about any number of urgent matters, but it is as if my heart already knows: the unthinkable has happened. For a moment I do nothing, simply sit terrified where I am, and listen to the cruel Turandot accept the Prince’s challenge.

  By dawn he will be dead.

  Then I stand and follow Blake out. As I open the door I see him terminating his call. His body is stiff and tense. When he looks up at me he looks ashen. I see his hands tremble as he puts his phone away. I stare at him aghast. I was right. The unthinkable has happened.

  ‘What’s happened? What is it?’ My voice sounds hollow and scared.

  He starts walking toward me. ‘I’ve called Tom to pick us up. We have to go home now.’

  Fear. Fear. Fear like I have never known coils around me, crushing me so hard, I can hardly take my next breath. I know what he is going to say. I know exactly what he is going to say. I realize I don’t want him to say the words. My head is shaking.

  ‘No, no,’ I whisper, and start backing away from him.

  The second act is over, and all around us people in their finery are streaming out of their boxes, heading toward the restrooms and the bars. I take another backward step and collide with a man in a black suit. He steadies me with his hands. He has dirty blond eyebrows and concerned, muddy brown eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asks.

  I gaze stupidly at him with my mouth hanging open.

  Before my confused, frightened brain can even formulate a reply, Blake appears at my side and takes my arm. The other man drops his hands. He smiles oddly at me and with a nod to Blake leads the woman with him away. My mind reels and incongruously notes that her velvet dress has a tiny stain on the right sleeve. And yet she seems happy. She doesn’t have bad news waiting for her at home. Suddenly I feel nauseated. My fingers shake as they rush to cover my mouth.

  ‘We have to get home,’ Blake mutters. He leads me through the throng of people. The bar is crowded and the foyer seems suddenly very noisy. We get outside. I take a gulp of cool evening air and shiver. My shoulder curls up around my ears and my ribcage tightens to avoid breathing in the cold air.

  ‘You’re cold,’ Blake says.

  ‘I left my wrap in the box,’ I reply in a daze. As if it matters.

  He takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders.

  I snuggle into the living warmth of his body heat and put off for another second hearing what he has to say to me.

  ‘Sorab’s missing. Looks like he’s been taken.’

  I nod. As if he had said to me, ‘Let’s have a drink before dinner.’ Fighting a sense of disbelief, I clutch his jacket lapels close together and glance away from him. There’s a beggar sitting on the theater steps. He has a mangy dog. It looks mournfully at me. Poor thing. Living on the streets, eating scraps. Someone’s taken my baby. I turn back to Blake.

  ‘How?’ My voice is surprisingly flat. Almost uninterested. I am conscious that my reaction is strange, to say the least. Perhaps I am in shock.

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out. Brian thinks it’s Ben.’

  ‘Ben?’ I repeat. My hands drop to my sides.

  Blake nods. ‘He’s gone AWOL.’

  ‘He’s one of the new guys, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I force the words out of my throat. ‘One of the men you hired because I asked you to,’ I whisper. My teeth have started chattering.

  He pulls his jacket tightly around me and holds me close to his body. I register the heat instantly. He radiates it like a hot water bottle.

  ‘Stop it. It’s not your fault,’ he says into my hair. ‘Come. Tom’s here. We have to go.’

  I turn in the direction he is looking in and see Tom stop the car. Tom doesn’t smile. He looks pale. Blake opens the door and I enter and sit down huddled inside his jacket. I can’t feel anything, but a numbing cold. I clasp my fingers together in my lap to stop them from shaking. Nothing feels real.

  I try to remember Ben. Dark hair, generally unsmiling with caramel eyes, suspicious caramel eyes. But that means nothing. They are all like that.

  ‘Is it possible that Ben might have taken Sorab for a ride in his car…and just not told anyone?’ Even as I say it I know it could never have transpired like that.

  Blake shakes
his head slowly and squeezes my icy hands.

  His thigh is close but not touching mine. I shift so it is touching me and that thin stretch of contact comforts me. I stare silently out of the window, not seeing a thing, and listen to him making phone calls.

  ‘Get the word out. I want to know who has my son.’

  I place my palm on the cold glass pane. I’m so numb. Some of the one-sided conversation slips through the cold fog I am in: Something about seizing Ben’s phone records. Somebody has been to his place. Looking for clues. The phones are already tapped. A police inspector has been discreetly and unofficially contacted. Feelers are already out in the street. The disjointed thought in my numb brain: how fast these men move. As if they were expecting such a scenario. An ambulance, its siren turned off, but its lights flashing, passes us on its way to another tragedy.

  I think of Sorab’s little face and a shudder goes through me. Where is he? He is not familiar with Ben. He will be so frightened. He will have to go to sleep without his favorite toy. He has never been to bed without clutching Sleepy Teddy. I think of him blinking up at me from my lap. The image is oddly painful.

  And then a clear thought, so comforting: They will not hurt him. They just want money. Blake will give them whatever they ask. I know Blake has ties with the underworld and the mafia. Obviously, we will get our son back. Some part of me knows, of course, that I am probably deceiving myself, but at that moment that baseless belief comforts me tremendously. I lie back and close my eyes and don’t allow myself to think further than that. I just listen to the blood pounding steadily in my ears and concentrate on the feel of Blake’s thigh pressed into mine.

  When I get home the nightmare becomes real. The dining room looks like a war office with listening equipment and gadgets I cannot recognize, and Geraldine looks at me with huge, frightened eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Lana. I was only in the toilet for a minute,’ she says in a trembling voice.

  Fourteen

  Blake Law Barrington