Dark Advent (40 page)

Diane tore her mouth away from his, then dropped her purse on the foot of the bed. Hands spread on his chest, she grinned at him. Giggled. He grinned back.

“You’re not shy, I’ll give you that,” she said, voice low and husky. “But I think I’m going to have to teach you the pleasures of a little patience.”

She popped one hand onto his crotch and gently squeezed. His intake of breath was sharp and immediate, and his hands froze on her.

Got him.

“I know what you want.” Her lips and eyes drew into a pout as she continued to squeeze and knead his crotch, watching his own breath quicken. “And if you want it…you’re gonna have to wait a little.” She nipped at his chest. “Because it’ll be so much better…and so much wetter…once I get what
I
want.”

Putty. He was putty then, offering no resistance when she pushed him onto the stained sheets of his bed. He landed on his back and she hopped up to straddle him, pulling off his shirt, then teasing his pants down his legs until she thought he would surely explode.

Diane swirled her tongue up his stomach, then his chest, lingering at his throat, listening to his breathless mutterings about how great she looked, how good she felt. She was even starting to enjoy it, in a hate-sex sort of way. It had been over a year since she’d even kissed another man—Caleb’s cheek hardly counted—and she could see going ahead with it, letting the volcano within her erupt. That alone might kill him. But as much fun as that would be, she forced herself to remember that what she had planned would be infinitely more enjoyable.

“I’ve got this funny little quirk,” she murmured into his ear. “This special little trick I like.”

“What’s that, babe?”

She could feel his chest heaving beneath her. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

He grinned and bobbed his head. “Scout’s honor.”

She crinkled her nose. “It’s kinda kinky.”

“Hey, I’m
up
for kinky.”

“I like to be tied up,” she whispered.

Travis’s face went blank for a moment, then the grin returned bigger than ever, something inside him flashing the message:
One of thooose women.
The kind you don’t bring home to mother. A wicked gleam entered his eyes.

“You ever do it like that before?” she asked when he started to sit up, and held him back. She’d been betting all along that he’d been a pretty conventional lay his entire life, maybe a little variety in position now and then, but otherwise a strict meat-and-potatoes man who got down to business, got his rocks off, and got his sleep.

The bet paid off. He shook his head.

“So how can I trust you to do a good job?” she asked, hitting him with another pout. “’Cause if I don’t get what
I
need…”

“Don’t worry, I’m a fast learner,” Travis said.

She arched her eyebrows. “Care to put your money where your mouth wants to be?”

“Tell me what to do, and I guarantee you’ll be screaming that you never had it so good.”

If only this guy’s cock was as big as his ego.
“Then I’m going to hold you to that. So first, let me teach you the finer points. Let me show you how to do it.”

He frowned. “You mean…you tie
me
up? I don’t know…”

Diane had been expecting reluctance, so she drew back with her arms crossed over her breasts. “I thought you were up for kinky. You mean I was wrong about you?” She zeroed in with her eyes. “But just remember: Anything I show you, you get to do it to me. Twice.”

Travis wet his lips, then gave a curt nod and eased back on the bed.

She grinned slowly, swayed on the bed. “Don’t go away.”

Diane reached back to the end of his bed and retrieved her purse. The bed was a full-size, with a headboard and footboard that were perfect for the job. Eyeing Travis, she drew out a handful of silk scarves from her purse, watching his eyes widen and loving every second of it.

“You travel with those?” he said.

“You never know when the right opportunity’s going to come up.”

She started with his left ankle, running a scarf around it a couple times, then tying it tight. The loose ends she secured to the nearest bedpost. She repeated the procedure with his other ankle, and his legs were now spread wide.

“Having fun?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Not as much as I’m gonna be having when we turn this around.”

Diane laughed, and for the first time this evening, it
was totally genuine.
I
love it I love it I love it!
She took two more scarves and crawled to the top of the bed and bound his wrists. She paused a moment to admire her handiwork. The man was spread-eagle, tight, no slack at all…and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. She’d never seen anyone more helpless in her life. To top it off, he still had his flagpole hard-on and that idiot grin spread across his face.

Teasingly, Diane reached into her purse one last time and pulled out a leather-sheathed item she’d taken from sporting goods. With one hand holding his erection, she pulled off the sheath with her teeth and spit it aside, and showed it to Travis: a thin-bladed fishing knife, shiny and serrated and sharp as a razor. She notched the blade against the root of his groin and grinned, an entirely different look in her eyes as his erection and smile wilted in perfect unison.

“Now,” she said firmly. “You tell me where you’re keeping Erika Jennings and you tell me very quietly, or you’ll never have a chance in hell of making any little emperors.”

* *

Diane strutted down the fourth floor hallway as if she had every right to be there. The place reminded her of a college dormitory more than a hotel now. Pass by this room you hear drunken laughter, pass by this one you hear passion, by this one you hear two acoustic guitars. Nobody paid her much attention, but she was ready to spring the knife just in case.

She’d left Travis staked out like a desert captive on an anthill, squirming and twisting to no avail. To keep him quiet while she was gone, she stuffed a hand towel into his mouth and sealed it over with masking tape. Until then, though, he must’ve set a new world’s record for creative use of the word
bitch.

She stopped before Erika’s room, holding the all-doors passkey that she’d compelled Travis to hand over. She lingered a moment to make sure the hallway was clear, then she was inside the darkened room in the wink of an eye. The smell hit her first, that nursing-home smell of a warehoused human being. Diane fumbled alongside the doorjamb to find the light switch.

And bit her lip. “Oh Erika,” she whispered.

The figure on the bed was in much the same position as she’d left Travis, except her wrists were raw with abrasions from the rope, and she was clothed. She looked deathly pale, and as she rolled her head to face the light, her eyes looked like two dark tunnels to nowhere.

Diane switched on the room light. “It’s me, Erika. It’s Diane.”

“Huh?” Her voice was sluggish, pouring like syrup, and that tiny line creased between her eyes. Recognition and confusion.

Diane sat on the bed beside her, slashed the ropes and tossed them beneath the bed. Erika lay blinking her eyes, and Diane hugged her, crooning into her ear.

“You sore? Yeah, I bet you are.” Tied to a bed for over a week, damn right she’d be stiff and sore. Diane rubbed her hands over Erika’s sides, legs, arms. When she hit the inner part of her right elbow, Erika hissed with pain and whimpered.

Beneath the sleeve, Diane found a huge mottled bruise, speckled with injection sites.
Goddamn them.

“Can you hear me, hon? Can you follow what I’m saying?”

A weak nod. Erika’s tongue flicked out over her chapped lips. Her eyes roved, focused. “Good to…see you.”

“Gonna get you out of here. Take you home.” Diane took a deep breath. Good intentions and all, but the girl was
so
out of it. While there was a struggle going on behind those eyes, they were still glassy enough to have come from a taxidermist. “Can you walk? Think you can walk for me?”

All she got was a grunt.

Diane wrapped her arms around Erika to tug her from the bed, and Erika slid off like a sack of grain, heavy and loose. She got her feet beneath her and tottered, a spindly-legged colt learning to walk. Diane supported her with both arms, walked her around the room.

“Gonna get you back home, back where you belong,” she whispered into her ear. “Back where we love you. Get you cleaned up. Get you all gorgeous again for when Jason comes back.”

“Jason…?” she moaned.

Diane prattled on, soothing her as if talking to a child, as Erika’s legs grew steadier. “That’s my girl,” she said. “You’re doing great. I’ve seen drunks who couldn’t do half as well.”

Erika was mumbling, and most of it Diane couldn’t make out, but there’d be time for that later. She took Erika’s limp, oily hair and pulled it back from her face, over her ears, tucked the length down inside the back of her shirt. She pulled from the bottom of her purse a shoulder-length red wig and plunked it onto Erika’s head. Auburn curls spilled across the girl’s forehead. Diane was betting that most everyone around was oblivious to her presence here, but minimizing the risk of someone recognizing her couldn’t hurt.

She peeked out the doorway, and except for a woman with a wine bottle banging on a door halfway down the hall, it was clear.

Erika leaned heavily on her, head nestled in the crook of Diane’s neck as the mop of red hair spilled over her cheek. Diane held her tightly all the way down to Travis’s room, where she pulled the knife again before entering.

No need. He was still as helpless as when she’d left, just as alone, and every bit as furious. She’d never seen such enraged eyes. Muffled snarls came from behind the masking tape and towel, and she thought she could
still
make out the word
bitch.

She locked the door behind them. “Miss me?” she asked cheerfully.

Erika, wig askew by now, stared at Travis. She cocked her head as if struggling to comprehend the sight. And then she began to quiver with weak sputters of laughter.

Diane moved to the far wall and opened the window. The moonlight showed her the lawn area, gloomy and overgrown, with the bulky silhouettes of trees. Toward the right, another wing of the Omni stretched away from this one. Utility buildings sat far ahead across the garden, but directly below, the lawn doglegged out of this little boxed-in area.

“We’re going on a little trip now,” she told Travis, scooting beside him on the bed. “And you’re going with us. As an insurance policy.”

Travis glared at her, his breath whooshing in and out of his nose.

“I’m gonna untie you from the bed, and then tie the scarves together. Legs first, then hands.
Don’t
do anything stupid. You’re the one with all the muscles, but I’m the one with the knife. Who knows, you might get away with it. But screw up just once”—she traced the point lightly down the inside of his thigh—“and you’ll find out how sharp this thing really is.” She sliced effortlessly through the sheet to prove her point.

Travis’s breath rushed out in a huff. But he’d calmed over.

Diane kept the knife snuggled into his groin as she undid the scarves, moving slowly and leaving nothing to chance. Silk shackles for his ankles, then hands behind his back.

“Erika, can you make it out the window on your own?”

Her head bobbed in a sort-of nod, the wig still cockeyed. Diane sighed and plucked it from her head and pitched it into a corner before leading her to the window, helping her keep balanced until dropping from the sill. Erika
oofed
loudly when she hit the ground and rolled, and it was none too graceful, but she looked okay.

“You next,” she told Travis, and he scowled horribly. “Yes, naked.”

A fierce rumble welled up in his throat as he rose from the bed and shuffled across the room to the window. Diane promised herself that after this was all over, she was going to have to go off somewhere and treat herself to the biggest, longest laugh she’d had in maybe forever. Travis sat on the windowsill, and she helped him pull his legs up and spin around until they dangled down the outside wall. Understandably, his landing was even clumsier than Erika’s.

Diane glanced about the room. Better make it look as natural as she could. She pitched Travis’s pile of clothes into the closet, then turned off the ceiling light. Then she was out the window.

They moved across the weed-choked lawn, Diane walking, Erika weaving, and Travis bunny-hopping with his privates flopping. They followed the dogleg out, then skirted the edge of the beer garden. Diane led them along a sidewalk, then a service drive that emptied onto Twentieth Street. She turned right, north, and led them up Twentieth until they, in less than a block, were behind a bar and restaurant facing Market Street. And in the parking lot sat Caleb and the truck he’d taken, waiting patiently in the cab with his rifle aimed leisurely out the window.

“I don’t believe it,” he said when they drew nearer. “I’ll be damned if you didn’t pull this off.”

He slid out of the truck and the first thing he did was throw his arms around Erika in a fierce hug. She did her best to return it, and Diane saw tears leaking down Erika’s moonlit face. Her breath was coming easier now, her insides loosening from the knot they’d been in for the past three hours.

“
He
rides in back,” Caleb said, hitching a thumb at Travis and studying him as if looking at a bug. Travis was still growling deep in his throat, and she couldn’t begin to imagine the bottled-up obscenities that would come pouring out whenever they removed his gag.

Caleb helped Erika into the cab, and she was muttering about how she had to pee, and how they’d come in and untie her three times a day so she could use the bathroom and how tough it was to pee in front of strangers, and she seemed not to notice when Caleb ducked back out of the cab and hugged Diane.

“Damned if you didn’t pull this off,” he repeated. “If you ever did anything to make me any prouder of you than I am right now, I don’t think my heart could stand it.”

Diane grinned from ear to ear, and leaned her head against his shoulder. With the pressure off, the giggles were starting to take over again.