Freed (Assassin's Revenge #3)

I’m seventeen. I’m in the barn of my aunt’s farm, home for the summer. Next year, I’m going to start college and get away from my family, and I couldn’t be happier. My father treats me with bored indifference and my aunt looks at me with barely concealed loathing and all my life, I’ve thought there’s something wrong with me because of the way they treat me.

But the school’s counsellor has been making inroads and I’ve come to realize that I’ve done nothing to deserve this. Slowly, the scared child who was sent away to boarding school when he was six recedes. I grow into myself.

I’m not thinking of any of this now. Rather, my attention is focused on the German girl tied up in front of me. Her body wriggles prettily and she pouts at me. “Alexander,” she pleads in that husky voice that sends a shot of arousal straight to my groin. “Stop teasing me.”

“Angela,” I chuckle. “Are you really in a position to make demands?”

I walk closer to her. She’s tied to a wooden pillar. Her arms are restrained behind her back, and coils of rope wrap around her waist, holding her immobile. Her legs are free to kick out, but why would she? We are playing around, enjoying ourselves. I’m savouring the sense of power I feel knowing I control this beautiful, busty blonde’s every tremor. If I decree it, she’ll feel the sting of the riding crop. Or the sweetness of a kiss.

Knowing Angela, I’m not sure which option she’d welcome more.

Her beautiful breasts bulge outwards, those ruby-red nipples straining towards me. I run the tip of the riding crop over each nub. She whimpers, squirming in pleasure. “Alex,” she moans. “You are the devil. I will die if you don’t fuck me right away.”

“Again with the demands,” I chide. I’m grinning from ear to ear, as is Angela. This is fun. Exciting. My cock agrees. It is rock hard and aching, but I’m ignoring it for the moment. It’s much more pleasurable to keep Angela at the edge.

I flick the tip at her breast and a spot of red blooms on her fair skin at the point of contact. She inhales sharply and I look at her instantly. “Too hard?” I ask quickly. I’m just learning my way with the crop.

She shakes her head. “Oh no,” she assures me. “Do it again.”

I laugh. “Begging to be hurt, Fr?ulein?”

She winks. “Oui, Monsieur,” she says in an exaggerated French accent. “Crop my breasts, please, Monsieur.”

Those words, uttered part in jest and part with real longing sends a hot surge of desire through me. “As you wish, cherie,” I tell her. There’s a haze of blood-red need in my brain. The crop descends on her and each time she moans, my cock throbs.

Again and again, she whimpers and squirms. When I touch her, she’s dripping wet and I growl with pleasure. I did this. I made her plead and beg for more. Me.

It isn’t till I hear the glass shatter that I realize we haven’t been alone. Sometime in the last few minutes, my aunt has come up to the old barn. She’s standing in the doorway with a look of horror and terror in her eyes. “Monster,” she whispers. “You are a monster.”

***

I shook my head to clear it of those memories. My aunt was dead. That day had changed the course of my life, but there was no point dwelling on the past.

“Let’s go for a walk.” I extended my hand out to Jenny. “Fresh air will do us both some good.”

She hesitated, then placed her small hands in mine, rising gracefully to her feet. She was wearing a red sundress that flattered every curve of her body, but I resisted the urge to pull her into me. First, the fear needed to disappear. Because, no matter what my aunt had believed, I’d never once played with a woman who didn’t crave it the same way I did.

We strolled in the quiet tree-lined neighbourhood in silence. Finally, I broke the quiet. “Why are you afraid?”

She exhaled and when she spoke, there was muted anger in her voice. “Because I don’t know anything about you. Nothing real. The only thing I know is that you seem to think it’s normal to pay a million dollars for three months of a woman’s company. And yes, I’m frightened of how wealthy you are. If I displease you, I could disappear.”

I raised my eyebrow as I looked at her. It wasn’t a baseless fear. If her story didn’t check out, if she worked for the wrong person, she would disappear. If I couldn’t bring myself to do it, Jean-Luc would. My sentimentality couldn’t interfere with what we did.

But I’d been a lonely child in boarding school and the school counsellor had helped me. Once upon a time, I too had wanted to become a therapist and give hope back, the same way it had been given to me. I’d taught myself to listen to the hidden undertones in what people said and did.

It served me well right now. She was lying to me. She had as many secrets as I did. But I pushed back the automatic ire that had risen as a result of her accusation and I focused on the underlying fear. Her previous master had been rich. She’d genuinely been concerned he could make her disappear.

My voice softened. “What would you like to know, Jenny?”