Close Up: Exposure Book Three (4 page)

“And who was he?”

“A very powerful man. He is the godfather of his syndicate, and that syndicate is one of the most powerful in Russia. He’s easily a billionaire in his own right, but he makes his money off of human trafficking, cybercrime and drugs. Personally, his operation turns my stomach. Especially the human trafficking. It makes me sick, and, what’s worse, my sister is involved with that too.”

I shook my head and shuddered. A flash of memory came into the cracks of my brain, as I seemed to remember something about being held captive by somebody. But, as with all my memories, this one was hazy and unformed.

“Your sister. How is she involved with that?”

“Natalia,” he said, “finds the girls for my father. She befriends them, makes them trust her, and then she leads them right into the organization. I don’t know how she lives with herself. I hate her as much as I hate my father, even though I shouldn’t. A part of me knows that she doesn’t feel like she has a choice. It’s either that or live on the streets. There is so much misery and depression in my town, you can’t even believe it. Natalia is only doing what she needs to do to survive, but that doesn’t make me feel any sympathy for her. I wish I did, though.”

As I sat there and looked at him, more flashes were coming to me. “Yuri,” I said. “There was a guy named Yuri. He held me captive.”

And then I vomited on the floor.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” I said to him.

To his credit, he seemed not to mind having to clean up the mess. He simply got up and got a towel, and silently wiped it up. It was on the hardwood floor, though, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Still, I felt like I fell more in love with him as I watched him silently working.

When he was finished, he sat next to me on the sofa. “Don’t worry about that, CJ,” he said. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes. It’s just your talking about the human trafficking is making me feel extremely anxious. And I remember something about that Yuri. I could see his face, and, quite frankly, it made me sick.”

Asher nodded. “Well, now you know how I feel. My father is heavily involved with that trade. But, as I said, he protects me and he financed my way through Yale and Stanford for my bachelor’s and my PhD. Because I went to Stanford, I was able to get the kind of education that was necessary for me to discover and patent the alternative energy sources that have made me wealthy and has done good for the world.” He sighed. “I feel guilty, sometimes, knowing that I have benefitted so much from the wealth of such a despicable man.”

I almost hated to ask the next question, but I knew that I had to. “What about you, Asher? You worked for him, didn’t you? What did you do?”

“I was a soldier for him as well, but my father soon found out that I had a knack for computer hacking. I was able to breach any security protocol with really a minimum of effort, so my father put these talents to work. That was really the most innocuous part of the business, so I was relieved that I was given this job. Because if he forced me into the human trafficking part of the business, I probably would have literally killed myself before I would ever let that happen. I could never live with myself, knowing that I was responsible for the absolute misery of another human being.”

“What did you do?”

“I stole money from large overseas banks. I also was involved in quite a few other large thefts, some of which made the news. I’m not proud of it, but our group was able to obtain quite a few credit card numbers from some data breaches. I can’t go into all of that, but you probably have heard the news of some of the data breaches that my group was involved in. I played a large part in getting those credit card numbers.” He looked ashamed about that. “That was really an awful thing to do, because we were stealing money from people who couldn’t necessarily afford to lose it. I reassured myself that what I was doing wasn’t that bad, because, in the end, it isn’t usually the consumers who lose the money in data breaches, it’s large corporations. Either the credit card issuers end up paying, or the stores whose data was breached. So, considering all the other jobs that I could have done for my father, cybercrime was probably the most innocuous.”

I regarded my drink, and took a sip of it. “Do you still feel that way? After all, you’re the CEO of an international corporation. Wouldn’t you be pissed if people stole from you like that?”

I almost felt bad busting him like that, because I knew where he was coming from. If you’re given the choice between human trafficking, drug dealing or stealing money from corporations that probably wouldn’t even notice the money missing, then the choice should be easy. But I still wondered if his perspective had changed, now that he was firmly on the other side of the equation.

“Of course I would be,” he said. “But, as I was telling my friend Nikolai, who asked me the same question, I wouldn’t be so upset about losing money to a hacker, but, rather, losing valuable information. My corporation has a great deal of confidential information that’s on our databases, and losing any of that would be devastating. That’s one of the reasons why I’m so vigilant, still, about computer security, and why I still keep up on all of the security breach techniques that computer hackers use. I still have all the skills that I ever had when it comes to computer security, but I use it for defense now, as opposed to offense.”

I bit my lip and looked at him. “So, then, your father’s organization is involved in the slave trade. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t look forward to meeting him. I have the philosophy of being non-judgmental of people, but that’s only when they’re not actively hurting another person or animal. But your father clearly crosses that line, so…”

Asher looked hopeful, though, when I was saying this. “Are you saying that you are going to meet my father?” The unspoken part of this question was clear – if I was going to meet his father, then that would mean that I would have agreed to marry him.

“No, I’m not saying that at all. I still haven’t decided.” I paused. “You have to admit that you’re a complicated man, and, I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you seem to have a lot of baggage. Your father, your ex-girlfriend. And showing up at my mom’s house seems…vaguely stalkerish.”

Asher was hurt by my assessment of him, it was clear by his face. So, I put my arm around him. “But all of that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. I’m just frustrated by my inability to remember anything about our past together. And, because I can’t remember all of that, I have to go by what I
do
know about you, and, let’s face it, it hasn’t exactly been great. It’s been just one thing after another coming at me.” I took a deep breath. “But I do love you. That much I know.”

He just nodded his head and looked at his glass of scotch. “I didn’t mean to stalk you. I just thought that you needed me, that’s all.”

“I did,” I said. “I really did need you, but, at the same time, I wish that I could just tell you what I need instead of you guessing and assuming.”

He didn’t respond to what I was saying to him. He just continued to stare into space, his left hand absently stroking the edge of his glass.

I put my hand on his knee. “Hey,” I said to him. “Look at me.”

He did as I asked, a questioning look in his blue eyes.

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t want to marry you. I just need some time. I hope that I can recover my memory, and then I think that things will be different. But you really have to give me the time that I’m asking for. And that means not showing up at places where you think that I’m going to be.”

He nodded silently, and went back to sipping his scotch. “I’m sorry, CJ. I shouldn’t have meddled with your issues with your family.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” I said. “But I understand why you did.”

At that, I kissed his lips gently. He responded to my kiss without aggression.

I put my forehead to his, and kissed his nose. He sighed and leaned back on the couch. I snuggled up to him, and kissed his neck and played with his thick dark hair. “I will have to go soon, Asher,” I said. “I need to get my life together. I need to prove to myself that I can handle my problems and issues on my own. My family, my job, my finances…I need to know, for myself, that I’m not helpless without you. I hope that I can get my head straightened out about all of this, and I can come back to you and take you up on your proposal. I’m not making any promises, though.”

I saw in his eyes that he was confused and hurt. “I can’t keep you here, of course. But I do hope that you do end up back with me, where you belong.”

“I know. But, I hope that I’m not being too forward in asking you if I can have you for at least this one night.”

He nodded and tried to mask the hurt in his eyes. Then he gently kissed me again. My body responded to the tender way his lips enveloped mine. A trail of heat went from my lips to my netherparts, and I sighed. There was just no doubt about it, I felt like I was drawn to him through electricity and heat and love.

I so wished that I could just go on feeling and try to ignore my brain.

He was almost shy as he lifted my shirt over my head, and he slowly and deliberately unhooked my bra and let it fall to the floor. As his lips and mouth started to suck and lick my nipples, gently at first, and then more insistent, I put my legs around his back and laid down. I let the erotic feelings wash over me again and again. I pulled his hair and he moaned.

I pulled down my pants and panties. His lips made a trail down to my clit and he lightly flicked it while his mouth hungrily covered my pussy. His tongue was soon inside of me, swirling lightly, while his fingers worked around my nether areas. I reared my head back in ecstasy, loving the feeling of his beautiful mouth on my clit.

He pulled down his pants, exposing his massive hard-on, which he sheathed deftly. Then he slowly entered me. I could feel the swelling of my pussy enveloping his massive manhood, and he made me come for the first time of the evening. I cried out, unable to keep it in. He rhythmically worked his beautiful cock in and out, while he felt each of my breasts, and his hands worked their way around to lightly grazing my ass.

I pushed him on his back and then rode him hard. By that time, I was getting into it. I was losing myself in the feeling of ecstasy that I was getting in feeling his beautiful dick working inside of me slowly and steadily. I sucked on his neck and he groaned, his head moving side to side.

Then he put my head in his hands, and brought my lips to his. With a groan, I knew that he had come, and I came to my climax at precisely the same time.

I was out of breath and shaking, and I laid down on top of him. I could feel our hearts beating in rhythmic sync, and I smiled. “Thanks for that,” I said in a whisper. “I do love you. I hope that you know that.”

He sighed, and I knew that he wasn’t feeling happy at that moment. It definitely was not the sound of somebody who was content, but, rather, it was the sound of somebody who felt that he was defeated.

I didn’t want to defeat him. I didn’t want to hurt him. There was something about him that made me want to completely forget about all my misgivings and just go with it. Just go with the emotions that I was feeling and try to just forget about all of the issues that I felt were keeping us emotionally apart.

It wasn’t that he was handsome, sexy and wealthy, although he was definitely all three of those things. It was mostly that I knew, deep down, that he and I were the same. Especially after he told me his story about his brother and his mother, I could see that there was a thread that was between us. A thread that was sturdy and solid and, I hoped, couldn’t be broken.

Yet I had to separate from him. For real. I needed to get away.

I had promised, him, though, that I would stay the night, so I put my head on his chest and listened to his beating heart. He wrapped his strong arms around me, and his breathing was even and relaxed. “I know that you have to do what you have to do,” he said to me. “I just wish that there was something that I could say to change your mind.”

“I’m not going to be gone for good. I hope that you know that. But I get really confused when I’m around you. I feel like I can’t think straight. And that’s dangerous for me, because I can’t lose my head around you. That’s how I will end up getting sucked into something that might not be healthy for me.”

He was silent for a few minutes. Then he finally spoke. “I’m sorry that you feel that I’m not healthy for you,” he said, his voice even. His tone, though, told me that he was starting to get agitated. His voice pitch rose ever so slightly. “But if you only knew the lengths that I went through to find you after you were abducted, I think that you would know how much I care for you.”

I shook my head. “That’s what I’m trying to find out for myself. Why I was where I was when I was abducted. How I was feeling when you apparently dumped me. I don’t remember any of that, and that’s incredibly frustrating for me. I know that you hurt me, though, and you’re hurting me now too. You’re killing me, Asher. I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m around you. All I can think about are your lies.”

It was then that he finally had enough. “Please leave,” he said, “I’ll call my driver to come and get you.”

I started to protest. “Asher, I told you that I would spent tonight with you.”

“I don’t want you to anymore. You apparently see nothing but deceit in me, and, quite frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m sorry. I made a mistake with my ex-girlfriend. That happened, and there’s nothing that I can do about it. But everything else that I have kept from you was for your own good. I’m sorry that you can’t see that.”

I was just as angry as Asher was by this time. “Oh, no. You patronized me. You should have just manned up and told me all the crap that I needed to know as soon as I was strong enough to handle it. But you didn’t. So, that’s on you.”

Asher was on the phone, calling his driver.

“Don’t bother,” I said, putting my clothes on. “I’ll just call a cab.”

“You can if you want,” he said coldly. “But if you would like an escort, then my driver and the limo will be waiting for you downstairs.”