Endgame (43 page)

“So beautiful,” John whispered as he walked around her. “You’re harder, leaner now, Abbey. So pretty at my feet. Do you still abhor pain?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He bent and ran a finger down her exposed spine. “That will be your punishment for living. Ultimate pain. I can’t wait to fuck you, knowing for the first time you’ll be dry until your blood flows over my cock. So many ways to fuck you, too. I plan on cuffing you and hanging you from my ceiling. I can’t wait to pierce you, slide my knife into your sweet skin. Make you scream. Will you scream, Abbey?”

“If you wish, Sir.”

“I bet you’ll scream your actor’s name, too.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Christ, no. Chase slid closer, grabbed his wrist, and squeezed. Hard. Aaron swallowed just as hard, unable to bear what she’d go through. He hoped to hell she had enough training to make him scream first.

“You’ll scream my name again, many times, especially when I share you with my new friends. They like pain, too. When they’re done, it will be my turn to have you. I’ll get one orgasm from you. Just one, because it will be the ultimate humiliation for you to come in front of your actor. I still bet you love your ass fucked and a vibrator in your pussy, don’t you?”

She must not have answered quickly enough, because he kicked her in the side, the thud sickening.

“Yes,” she managed to choke out.

He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. “Yes?”

“Sir,” she whispered.

“You’ll come for me, and I’ll slit your throat.” John hauled her to her feet by her hair. He tipped her chin up with a finger and traced a line across the pale, creamy flesh at her throat, the skin Aaron loved so much. “Will you like that, Abbey?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He chuckled, and Aaron’s skin crawled. “There will be more, so much more. I plan on using you all night. Only tonight, you’ll remember everything.”

“Would you…drug me again? Please?” Her voice trembled, and Aaron’s heart went out to her, hoping this was all a really good act. “Sir?”

“Darling, no. But I love hearing you beg again. Such a good girl, Abigail.” He glanced at Chase and Aaron, his gaze harder, colder. “You boys can collect her body in the morning. I’ll be long gone, back underground.” His gaze softened, and the look he gave Charlotte was one of love. “You and I, we’ll meet again in hell, and I hope Satan will give you over, so I can do it again. And again. Mine forever, Abbey.”

John kissed her then, just a gentle touch at first, then it grew more insistent, demanding her surrender, his tongue crammed down her throat. Chase’s hand gripped tighter, and Aaron swallowed the bile. Shoulders sagging, she surrendered and kissed him back. After what seemed forever, John ended the kiss, his breathing heavy. “God, I missed you.”

Aaron’s stomach couldn’t churn any harder, nor could his heart pound much more ferociously without bursting.

John smiled at them, every inch the gracious host. “Would you like a parting gift from our sweet girl? You,” he pointed at Aaron, “she fucked you first. Abbey, give your first American lover your panties. Have you fucked them both, pumpkin?”

“Yes, sir,” she lied.

“They’ll have to share your sweet gift, then, just as they shared you.”

Eyes to the ground, she tucked her fingers under her skirt and tugged, struggling to get her panties over her boots.

John rolled his eyes with impatience. “For Christ’s sake, hurry.”

“Yes, Sir.” Panties in a purple ball, she turned and stood in front of Aaron, staring at his chest. “May I say goodbye to them, Sir?”

“Yes, of course. I can be kind when you deserve it. So far, you’ve been very good.”

She shoved her panties in Aaron’s pocket along with something cold and hard. A compact gun, the size of his wallet. She raised her head, the glint in her eyes all Ma’am with not a drop of fear. She rose on her toes and kissed him, a gentle, soft touch of the lips that said so much. She whispered, “Go.”

She turned to Chase and kissed him as well, and though it should have killed Aaron to see her lips touch Satan’s, he felt nothing but despair. She exchanged a long look with Chase, one that Aaron wished he understood. Chase nodded and she dropped her eyes.

“Come, Abbey,” John said, opening the door he’d come through. He pulled a gun from his back waistband and gestured to her impatiently. “Your actor waits. I bet you’re impatient, too.

“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was a meek whisper, so unlike his Danger Girl. He hoped it was all an act and his Danger Girl lurked somewhere, underneath, ready to fight. She had to be ready to fight.

Aaron held his breath as she walked out the door, out of his life, probably for good.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aaron and Chase were escorted to the front door by the two guards. Cold gunmetal pressed into Aaron’s sweaty back. Chase, off to his left, didn’t seem fazed a bit, the picture of calm and cool with balls too big for life. All Aaron could hear was his own heart pounding, his breathing labored, and it wasn’t because of the fucking gun at his back, either.

That asshole had his girl. If Chase hadn’t grabbed his wrist he would have leaped as John spewed that shit and would have gotten them all killed. At this point, getting Charlotte killed seemed like a better solution than letting her go. A bullet to her brain was much kinder than what John had planned.

Aaron held it together and cased the place, noting the exits, the arrangement of rooms, the guards, just as she’d taught him. He hoped to hell Chase was doing the same thing on his side. He was getting back in, no matter what.

The bouncers shoved them out the front door with a warning. They’d be contacted in the morning. Try to get in and they lost Jake, too.

The fragile hold Aaron had on sanity snapped. He staggered to the side of the driveway and vomited. Twice. He grabbed a handful of clean snow and shoved it in his mouth, washing away the foul taste, hating that he was such a pussy in front of Satan.

“Go ahead, make fun of me,” he grumbled to Chase when he finished, joining him in the driveway.

“I vomited before I came. If I had anything left, I’d be right there with you.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Aaron stomped down the driveway with Satan in tow.

“You think I wanted to leave her there? Just believe she’s not going to let him do that to her. You have to believe at this point.” But Chase didn’t sound so sure as they approached the car. “Come on, we’ll pretend to drive down the road and regroup.”

Chase drove down to the end of the lane, turned around and returned with the headlights turned off, parking at the end of the line of cars. He pulled night vision binoculars from a bag and scanned what he could see of the grounds.

“Well?”

Chase put down the binoculars and consulted what looked like a shrunken blueprint on a page. “We need a new plan. The schematics on the house were wrong. They’ve renovated.”

“Can’t you do some spy magic and find out where she is? Use a heat sensing satellite? Drones? Something?”

Chase stared. “This isn’t a movie, asshole.”

“Well, you couldn’t have come here with just you and her.” Aaron panicked under Chase’s glare. “Could you?”

“We need a new plan. Good plans always start with guns.” Chase grabbed a pistol from his bag and loaded a magazine into it. He stuffed two others into his pockets. “I don’t have one for you.”

“She gave me a gun, when she gave me her panties. She must have had one in her boot.” He pulled the compact gun from his pocket and handed it to Chase. He tucked her panties back into his pocket, though.

“My God, she’s good.” Chase dug in the glove box and found another magazine that would fit her gun. “Here. We’ll have to wait for support, but we’ll move when they get here.”

“Wait? Fuck, no. We’re getting in.”

Chase pinched is nose with his thumb and forefinger, his eyes squeezed shut. “Aaron, this isn’t a fucking movie. I don’t know where she is for sure, and every door I saw was heavily guarded. There are guards all over the fucking place, and I’m damned good, but I can’t storm the castle with the movie version of Jake. It will get us all killed.”

Aaron looked back up at the house, the lights an eerie yellow in the darkness. His heart had calmed a bit. John had wanted to take his time with her. If he used a combination of smarts and hot, he could find a way in and not get anyone killed. “Haven’t you ever crashed a party?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you got into all the parties with a handwritten invite, sealed with a kiss. You’re fucking hot.”

Chase flinched at the assessment. “You sure you’re not bi?”

“Yep, sure. But it’s hard to tell with us actor types.”

Chase gave one last scan of the building with the binoculars. “If we wait for support, we’ll have a better chance.”

“All we have to do is go to the side door and knock. The one at the patio isn’t guarded. I saw it on the way down. There’s a food table or something in front of it, and you have to climb through the snow, up to that door. There were a couple of women sitting in there who would love to get their hands all over you.”

“I didn’t see that.” Chase gave him a begrudging look. “You’re sure?”

“Charlotte taught me how to look for stuff like that in spy camp. There’s a foot of snow on the ground, they’re not thinking anyone will want to trudge up in that and get in. If that doesn’t work, there’s a balcony that’s not guarded. I saw that going in.” He hoped the snow was the reasoning behind the no guards, or they were toast.

“I noticed the balcony. Good work.” Chase shrugged, a little more hopeful. “We can give it a try.”

“Wait here.” Aaron got out, ran back to the borrowed car and grabbed the bag out of the back. He jogged back to Charlotte’s car with it and got back inside. “Trade jackets with me.”

Chase hesitated. “Kate gave me this.”

“We’re the same size. I’ll give yours back. But they’re different enough, and you need to look different if you’re going back in. Every woman and gay man in that place noticed you. I don’t know if this will work, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Fine.”

They traded, and Aaron grabbed hair gel from his bag. “Hold still and don’t get homophobic on me. I’m going to give you a disguise.” He squirted gel into his hands and spiked Chase’s hair differently, giving him more of a Mohawk look. An uncomfortable silence stretched as Aaron worked. “You need to talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you. You’re a judgmental prick and you’re banging my sister equivalent. I should be killing you with my bare hands.”

“I’m going to throw up again, on your lap, unless you keep my mind occupied. All I can think of is what she’s doing, and what she’s going through. Please?” Aaron wasn’t lying. His stomach churned again, but somehow he kept his hands from shaking.

“Fine.” Chase thought for a moment. “Did you enjoy spy camp? Is that what Char called it? I bet the Dragon Queen made for one hell of a counselor.”

“Dragon Queen?”

“You call her Danger Girl. We call her Dragon Queen.”

He could see her as a Dragon Queen, too. “I’ve found spy camp to be incredibly useful. Thanks for approving that.” Aaron raided Charlotte’s purse and came up with black eyeliner. “Again, no homophobic moments. Just let it happen.”

“What makes you think I’m homophobic?”

“You want to deck me for touching you, and you flinched like a whiny bitch when I said you were fucking hot.” He outlined Chase’s left eye, going for a Gothic look.

“You look like Jake. It’s disconcerting to have someone who looks like my best friend tell me I’m fucking hot.” Chase tilted his head in the direction Aaron indicated. “And you’re the one who’s judgmental. I would assume you have more homophobic tendencies than I do.”

Aaron paused in mid-stroke of the pencil, an odd sensation creeping over his skin. “I never agreed with the church’s stance on same sex relationships and marriage. That’s one of the many reasons I decided not to become a priest. Not a top one, but…”

“Did you share this?”

Aaron sat back and stared at Chase, disbelieving. “With who, my family? They don’t give a shit about me. Jesus, no one even asked why I came home. They just got pissed and yelled—which is what Andersons do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I had reasons and no one cared to ask, except Charlotte.”

“She asked?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “Why wouldn’t she? We didn’t just have sex the entire time. We had actual conversations, like normal people.” He wasn’t going to share that this particular discussion happened naked in his bed.

“She talked to you.”

“Of course.” Aaron smudged one of the lines on Chase’s eyelid. “What was she supposed to do, just sit and stare at me twenty-four/seven? I would assume you’d allow her to talk to me.” But Chase did look surprised, much in the way Jake had been shocked when he found out Charlotte had kissed him. “I take it she doesn’t talk.”

“Not really. Just to me or Jake, and then she doesn’t say much.”

Aaron was careful to raise the pencil, waiting for the explosion as he said, “She told me she can’t have kids.”

Chase stared as if Aaron had sprouted horns and a forked tail. After a long moment, he said softly, “I guess she did talk to you.”

“Yeah, we talked.”

Chase nodded. Then he made frowning look hot, his brow wrinkled in a deep vee. “Speaking of talking…did you tell her about the damned contest?”

“How do you know I know about that?”

“Jake. He eavesdrops on everything and tells me everything.” Chase glowered. “Like how he had to fix the door to your bedroom.”

That door was going to be the death of him.

“Of course, she knows about the contest. I had to get her into bed somehow.” Chase stiffened and Aaron almost poked him in the eye with the pencil. “That didn’t come out right.”

“If I shoot you in the nuts, I don’t have to worry about broken doors or contests, do I?” Chase tilted his head again, still pissed. “Did she tell Tia or Kate?”

“I don’t know.” Aaron thought for a moment. “Maybe.”

“Wonderful.” Chase tossed his hands in the air, the pencil in Aaron’s hand jumping wildly. “There was no contest, asshole. That was something we made up when we knew you were listening to yank your chain. I have no clue how many multiples I’ve given Kate. Now she’s going to be counting, and anything less than four is going to be unsatisfactory. I’ve never had an unsatisfactory rating in bed. Ever.”