Reclaim: A Recovered Innocence Novel (13 page)

“You’re going to spend the night,” he pronounces.

I shake my head.

He quickly tamps down the flash of disappointment that crosses his face. He clears his throat. “I’m going to convince you.”

“You can try.”

He studies me for a long moment, drawing out my anticipation. “What do you want me to do to you first?” he asks.

“My breasts. Touch them. Suck them.”

“What will you give me in return?”

“Whatever you want.”

“
Whatever
I want?”

“Yes.” My voice is soft with expectation.

He vaults over the footboard, making me bounce when he hits the mattress. Crawling on his hands and knees, he comes over me. He lowers his head and takes my nipple in his mouth. I arch up, pulling on my bindings. He fills his hands with me and takes his time sucking and caressing my sensitive flesh. Straining toward him, I buck and writhe. I love what he’s doing but I need more.

“Touch me between my legs,” I beg.

He pulls his mouth off me and licks a path to my ear. “No.” His voice is soft but firm.

“Please.”

“You promised me whatever I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know why you don’t want to spend the night with me.”

“I’m here now.”

“Only because of the sex. Which we’re not going to get to if you don’t answer my question.”

I open my mouth to speak, but only a moan comes out as he pulls my nipple deep into his mouth.

“The truth, Lila,” he says around my nipple, creating a shock wave that moves from where his mouth is straight to my pussy.

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” He licks around my areola and I close my eyes in ecstasy.

“I-I just can’t.”

“That’s not an answer,” he growls. “Are you married?” There’s real anger and jealousy in his tone.
“Answer me.”

“No. I’m not married.”

“Living with someone? Engaged? What?”

“None of those. I’m not with anyone.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Untie me.”

“I’ll only untie you if you tell me you don’t want this.” He slides his fingers across my clit and I moan. “But if it’s so you don’t have to answer my question then I’m not going to untie you.”

He strums my clit a few more times. The ties bite into my wrists as I twist and strain. The sting only enhances my pleasure.

“
Please,
Nolan.”

“I’ll make you come.” He easily finds my rhythm again. “I’ll make you come any way you want. But first you have to answer me. The real answer or else I’ll get you close over and over and stop before you come.”

“Yes.” I nod in desperation. “Do that.”

“Lila.”
His voice is soft with disappointment. He stops touching me and looks down at me with a combination of pity and sadness. “Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t understand,” I practically yell, pulling frantically on my restraints. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“What wouldn’t I understand?”

“Untie me!”

“No.”

“Untie me.” I try to bite at the tie on my right wrist but I can’t quite reach it.

“Lila.”

He’s trying to reason with me. There is no rhyme or reason to all of the things that are wrong with me. Tears threaten to leak from the corners of my eyes, not because I’m physically hurt, but because he’s woken the thing that I keep locked down tight.

“Lila.” Leaning over me, he takes my head in his hands. “What is it?”

“I can’t,” I gasp out. “I can’t. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Lila.”
The way he keeps repeating my name cracks something inside me. “Lila.” He strokes the hair back from my face. “Lila. Lila. Lila.”

A sob catches in my chest. It’s right there at the back of my throat, trying to shove its way out. “I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I can’t…I can’t…I can’t.”

“I got you.”

“I can’t sleep in a bed,” I inadvertently blurt out.

He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps stroking my hair back from my face.

“Not since that night he came in. He came in. He came in and he…he…put his hand over my mouth. He…he…he told me if I made a sound he’d kill me. He pulled at my clothes. He held me down. He had a knife. I let him do it. I lay there and let him. He said he’d kill me then my sister and my parents if I didn’t let him. So I let him. I let him…”

I can’t untie her fast enough. My hands are shaky and clumsy. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. She doesn’t say anything about my bumbling, just watches me. I can feel her anger and resentment. It fills the room around us. I forced her to tell me something she didn’t want to tell me. My selfishness might have cost me the sexiest, most interesting woman I’ve ever met. I don’t know how to fix this or what to say to her. Any apology I could make would be weak and worthless.

When I finally free her I expect her to bolt or to lash out at me, but she doesn’t move. Her arms and legs remain splayed as though she’s still tied to the bed. I kneel next to her on the mattress, looking down at her. My mind is blank. No words come. I feel like I need to say something or do something, but I have no idea what. What does she want? What does she need from me? Does she even want or need me at all? Am I useless to her?

“Lila.” Is all I can mange to get out as I lower myself next to her and hold her.

She doesn’t move. I can’t tell what is going on inside her head.

“I don’t care that you know I was raped,” she finally says. “It’s the other part…Why did you make me tell you that?”

“I thought there might be someone else or you had a kid or something you were trying to hide from me that would keep us apart. I just wanted you next to me tonight. I’m sorry.”

I can feel her nodding. “I get that. Do you get that I
can’t
?”

“Honestly?”

“Always.”

“No. I don’t. I mean I do, but I don’t. Can you explain it to me?”

“I just did.”

“But where do you sleep?”

“What does it matter?” She’s irritated with me.

“It just does.”

“I think it’s time for me to go.” She starts to roll away from me off the bed, but I catch her around the waist and bring her back against me. She puts her hands over mine like she’s going to pry them off, but she doesn’t. “Nolan, don’t.”

“Forget I asked and stay a little longer. We can get some dinner.”

“And have sex again?”

“Only if you want to.”

She looks back at me over her shoulder. “Stop being weird and treating me like I’m fragile. Two minutes ago you had me tied to your bed.”

“I’m not.”
Am I?

“Prove it.”

“How?”

She shifts so that she’s on her back the way she was earlier, her arms and legs spread. “Tie me up again.”

“You can give me the intimacy of your body, but not your mind?”

“You are the strangest man I’ve ever met. Most guys would have me half tied up already.”

She’s right, but I’m not going to let her shame me into carrying on with something I’m just not in the mood for right now. “Later. I’m hungry.”

“I told you to be honest with me.”

“I am.”

“Fuck me, Nolan. Right now.”

When I don’t respond she gets off the bed. I don’t stop her this time. She’s messed with my head. I don’t know how to deal with her and what she told me. Maybe she’s right. We should just go back to being colleagues. As soon as that thought forms I’m off the bed and after her. I don’t want to go back to being co-workers. I can deal with the limits she’s put on our relationship or whatever it is we’re doing. If she just wants me for a fuck buddy I can do that. I’m that desperate to have her.

I catch up to her in my office, where she’s stepping into her underwear.

“Don’t,” I say, making her look up at me. “Turn around and put your hands on the desk.” My voice is rough and not my own.
“Now.”

She doesn’t hesitate. She drops her underwear and steps out of them as she turns around and does what I told her to do.

“If this is all you want from me you’ve got it, but you’re going to get it my way. Understand?”

She nods and looks over her shoulder at me. I shouldn’t want to do this. The sight of her bent over my desk, her breasts swaying, her ass presented to me, does something primal to me. I won’t say it’s resentment. It’s too complicated to call it that. My hand goes to my cock and I stroke it until it’s hard. Watching me, she lowers herself until her tits rest on the keyboard of my computer. Fuck that’s hot. How does she do this to me? She twists me up until I don’t know right from wrong, good from bad.

I don’t think about how I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be giving her what she wants the way she wants it. If I do, I’m never going to get my way with her. But right now I don’t care as I pull the strip of condoms from the pocket of my pants on the floor where I’d dropped them during our last round. The image of her reclined in my office chair, her legs spread open for me, overlaps with her bent over my desk.

I have to be inside her.

I roll on a condom and stalk toward her. Somewhere in my brain I register my anger. She makes me so fucking mad. At the same time she makes me so fucking hot for her I can’t think of anything else, including how wrong all of this is.

I shove a hand between her legs. She’s wet.
Of course
she is. This kind of fucked-up thing is her catnip. I put a hand on her back and rub the tip of my dick through her slickness, then shove in deep. She jolts and moans like it’s the hottest damn thing in the world, this cold, emotionless fucking. I don’t think about her pleasure as I drive into her. It’s payback. She knows it and she welcomes it. She craves it. I shove hard into her, ruthlessly pushing her into the desk. Her cries become frantic as she gets close to orgasm.

I can’t let her get there. That’s part of the twisted bullshit we’re wrapped up in.

Changing the pace, I focus on her ass and how her pussy holds on to me as I move in and out of her. I grip her shoulder and hip. My thrusts become rougher, less coordinated. I don’t care about her, I tell myself. Fuck her. I don’t need this. My life is complicated enough without her screwing with it. I come on a backward movement like a goddamn teenager who can’t control his shit. Pulling out all the way, I yank the condom off and shoot my cum all over her. Some of it lands on the carpet and my hand.

I don’t care.
I make this my mantra as I walk out of the room. Turning in the doorway I catch her looking back at me. She smiles like she had the best time.

“Get dressed,” I force myself to say. “And go home. I’m done with you.”

Surprise flickers across her face for a moment, then she bends down and picks up my shirt from the floor and uses it to wipe the cum off her. I ignore her satisfied smile and go down the hall to my bathroom. Behind the closed door, I listen to her movements until the front door closes behind her. She doesn’t slam it. There’s not enough emotion in her for that or for me. I pound my forehead against the door.

I’m going to fuck her again. I know I will. She’s too much of a temptation to refuse. All she’ll have to do is ask and I’ll be whipping my dick out ready to stick it wherever she wants. I put all my frustrations on her, but the truth is some of them should be on me. She’s right. Most guys would take what she’s offering and be glad. Hell, they’d be ecstatic about it. No-strings-attached sex. That’s a dude’s dream come true. I should want it too. I probably would with someone else.

But she’s not like anyone else.

As I clean myself up it occurs to me that I’m living a cliché. I want what I can’t have and don’t want what I can have. I wasn’t even thinking about a relationship with her until she totally shut down that possibility. That’s messed up.
I’m
messed up. She’s got me so twisted around I don’t know which way is up and which is sideways.

I can’t say she’s not honest, though. In fact, I wish she were a little
less
honest. It was me who pushed the point. I shouldn’t be mad at her for giving it to me straight. I’m upset with myself, I realize, and I took it out on her. I own her an apology. I shouldn’t have left things with her that way. I should’ve walked her to her car like a gentleman and made sure she was safe.

I calculate how long it’s been since she left and the distance to her apartment. She’s probably home or about to get home. Getting dressed, I wait a few more minutes to be sure. I start to text her, then realize that’s the chickenshit way out and call her instead. Will she even answer when she sees it’s me calling?

“Nolan.” I should’ve known she’s not the type of person to shrink away from anything difficult or awkward. “What is it?”

“I just wanted to be sure you got home safe.”

“I did.”

The apology I owe her sits unsaid in my mouth. I don’t know why. The words just won’t leave.

“Are you going to do any more work tonight?” she asks and the moment is gone.

“I was going to check out Billits’s background, see if anything changed in his life around the time of Carla’s trial. That strangers-on-a-train theory you came up with.”

“I have a friend who was an intern in his office. I was thinking of contacting her to get her take on him.”

“That’s a good idea, but be careful where her loyalties lie,” I tell her. “She could tip him off that we’re looking into his background.”

“I will.”

“What time are we meeting tomorrow? Or are we meeting?”

“I can break away around three.”

“Meet me here?”

“Yeah.” There’s a long pause on her end. “Don’t watch the office tape without me.” Her hoarsely whispered command licks up my dick like a tongue stroke.

I forgot all about the camera being on when we were having sex earlier. Both times. I’d like to forget that last humiliating round, but I can’t. It’s going to stick with me and wake me up at night.

“I should erase them,” I tell her.

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“I want to see them.”

“Why? What’s the point?” But I know what the point is. She wants to have sex again, and watching us is foreplay for her. Shit if it isn’t for me too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Text me if you find anything out about Billits.”

“I will.”

“Good night.” She hangs up before I can respond.

This girl is going to lead me around by the dick until she gets bored and lets go and I’m going to let her. That’s damn depressing. I need to stop thinking about her. The case should be the priority here. I fix myself a sandwich and force my tortured thoughts off Lila and back onto finding out what the deal was between Billits and Martin. What did Billits do for Martin?

I start as any good skip tracer would by pulling both of their credit reports. Without their written permission it’s actually illegal for me to do this, but I get around that by using the generic-sounding name of the company I made up just for this purpose. My old boss did a lot of work for insurance companies and some not so much on the up-and-up individuals who ran off-the-books businesses—aka loan sharks and bookmakers. Since I’m not putting together a criminal case against these guys I’m not too worried about a fake soft inquiry showing up on their credit report that won’t affect their ability to buy a house or a car. Most likely they’ll never notice. If they do, my tracks are well covered.

I start with Martin. I’m looking for anything that happened both before he disappeared and after. Before will tell me where he might have gone. After will tell me if he’s still alive and where he might be now.

As I suspected there’s a couple of inquiries for property management companies in Wichita, Kansas, of all places. He even went so far as to apply for a couple of utilities. But those don’t concern me. What catches my eye is a soft inquiry on his credit report by an innocuous-sounding company called Recruit Safe. Most people would think it was just a background check by a potential employer—except there’s another one from a company called Secure Employ that occurred around the same time. One of them Martin set up and the other is someone doing exactly what I’m doing—trying to figure out what Martin was up to around the time he vanished.

It takes a few seconds to figure out that Secure Employ is a legit company that does background checks for employers whereas Recruit Safe has a pretty convincing splash page, but there are red flags all over it. It takes a skip tracer to recognize a fellow skip tracer. Who hired them? My first guess would be Debbie Martin. She was already suspicious of her husband. I wouldn’t put it past her to hire a private investigator.

I wonder how far they followed Martin and how much money whoever hired them threw at the chase. I’d bet that the trail in Wichita is like a two-headed octopus with long tentacles that all lead to dead ends. He’s definitely not in Kansas and there’s nothing on this report that gives a clue as to where he actually might be.

There’s not much else on his credit report after his disappearance other than his mortgage was paid off. That could be his wife refinancing the house or it could be her paying the loan off with mysteriously gotten gains. I make a note to call the lender to find out what happened there.

Next I pull Billits’s credit report. I don’t know how much money a district attorney makes, but his report is suspiciously void of all the normal accounts like bank loans, credit cards, and car loans. Either this guy pays cash for everything or he gets everything for free. Nobody lives this squeaky clean unless they’re living off an inheritance or their spouse’s family’s money.

I shouldn’t do it, but there are just too many inconsistencies. So I pull both of their wives’ credit reports. Mrs. Billits has the same eerily clean credit report. She doesn’t have a job and she hasn’t applied for credit in the past seven years, just like her husband. Not even to cosign for a college tuition loan for the two out of their three kids who are attending private colleges. My spidey senses tingle. There’s something very wrong here.

Debbie Martin’s credit report is pretty much normal except for the lack of a mortgage loan. So she paid her house off. She didn’t refinance it. Where did the money come from? I place all four reports side by side. It’s always about the money. Who has it and who needs it. There’s no doubt where the money came from that Debbie used to pay off her house, and I know why Billits gave Martin the money. What I don’t know is how Debbie got her hands on it.

The private investigator.
Of course.
Debbie was onto Martin the whole time, hence the camera in his office. As soon as he took off she could’ve swept his financial rug right out from under him. I would’ve loved to have seen his face when he found out what Debbie did to him. Karma is a bitch and so is his wife.