Sleeves (17 page)

Yet, he never orgasmed.

“He’s a machine, I’m telling you. Can you imagine having him in bed? He’d be able to go all night. Think of how many times you could climax in one evening from that insanely gorgeous man touching you like a caveman.” The blonde was fanning her face again and leaning toward her. “I’ve worn out my vibrator because of that man.”

Without thinking, Casey blurted, “Me, too.”

“What?” The woman’s eyes widened. “I thought you hadn’t heard of him or the club.”

“I lied.” Casey straightened up and moved forward, waiting to pay for her groceries that were already being scanned.

“Why would you lie about that? Did you get to touch him?”

“Repeatedly,” Casey admitted.

Why was she telling this stranger all of this? For some reason the pressure had built up and Casey was exploding all over the place, erupting on this frustrating woman. And Lord, did it feel good to vent to someone when she’d been keeping it all inside for what had seemed like forever.

Or was it because those knots were loosening in her stomach and for some reason, mentioning him even a little helped her lungs to expand and expel the air without her forcing them to keep functioning?

Whatever the reason, she was clearer, rejuvenated from this small outburst.

The blonde gave her a knowing glance with a little smirk.

All at once, Casey admitted to herself and this woman, how depressed she’d been lately.

“Yeah, I touched him a lot. I took him home with me actually, and we made love more than once. He’s incredible. Probably the best man I’ve ever known, but I screwed it up by saying and doing stupid things. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

“Oh my God!” the blonde gasped and pointed at her. “You’re the one! You’re the one he’s destroying himself over. You have to come to the club tonight! He’ll see you and he’ll go ballistic. He’ll probably force you to do . . .” the blonde looked around then lowered her voice “. . . really kinky shit with him.”

Casey mimicked her to show her how ridiculous and childish she was being. She hunched over and whispered back, “I don’t think so. We’re not good for each other, and he’s merely a fantasy man. No one’s that perfect, even if he can work a crowd into foaming at the mouth without even trying.”

Casey paid for her groceries, waved at the woman whose face had dropped down to her breasts, which admittedly wasn’t much of a drop, and at least her jaw was cushioned, but still . . . The woman needed to get a life, and preferably one that didn’t involve lounging at the beach so damned much.

Why didn’t she eat a burger and find some cellulite to befriend while she was at it?

Casey wrinkled her brow, set her jaw and left in a rush.

Now would be a good time to get home, put on her granny jammies and eat ice cream.

* * *

What the hell was she doing here?

Casey’s feet soldiered their way through the parking lot and brought her into the club.

She avoided Max’s watchful eye this time. Maybe if she wasn’t with Max, Kel would be oblivious of her presence and wouldn’t come rampaging after her out of his cage.

She found an inconspicuous spot to hide out in the back of the thick herd of a female pride of hyena’s, yipping at the rear of the room. They were charged and filled with anticipation.

She was, too.

She waited.

And waited.

Watched the covered cage.

Her stomach turning green.

The curtain wasn’t opening.

Why wasn’t it opening?

Right when her blood was near bursting out of her veins, she moved to go after Max but stopped when he abruptly announced, “Sorry, ladies. Tonight’s show is canceled. Kel’s not feeling well. He’s sick with a stomach virus and can’t keep anything down. But we’ll give you each one free pass for admission this Friday night.”

Casey moved straight to the door, and right as she reached out to open it, that annoying blonde bombshell from the grocery store accosted her, pulling her into a hug.

“I’m so glad you made it. I bet he didn’t show because he saw you! Wow, he’s really in love with you. Are you just dying over it?”

“Uh, no.” Casey dipped her head down, grabbed her keys out of her purse and said, “I’m going now. I’m sure he’s fine and it has nothing to do with me.”

“Are you coming back on the weekend? I’m sure he’ll be back up for it, if you know what I mean.”

Casey rolled her eyes and shook her head a little. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, but I won’t be coming back. This was really stupid of me to even come here tonight.”

“But you have to!” The woman gripped Casey’s shoulder. “You’re the reason he even puts on a show—I’m sure of it.”

“Sorry, but no.”

Casey pushed the blonde’s hand off her, but the woman’s hand gripped her arm instead. “You have to.”

She squeezed, her nails digging in.

“No. I don’t.” Casey dropped her keys and fought off her grip, but then she was shoved backward out the door into the parking lot, without her keys.

The blonde woman’s air-headed look turned into utter vehemence.

“Take her!” she called out.

A man lurched at Casey, grabbed her around the throat and before she could scream, he had some rag moistened with chemicals, covering her mouth.

She sputtered and coughed, scratching at his hands and kicking furiously behind her. Previous self-defense classes came rushing back into her mind, but it was too late. She was fading away into oblivion, being dragged off, then stuffed into a car.

* * *

When Casey woke, she was in a cage, similar in a lot of ways to the one Kel had at his club.

Only, she had a cot with a dingy mattress, a small table with a bottle of water on it, a chair, some chains and cuffs hooked to the bars.

What the hell was going on?

She jumped off the cot and immediately went into caterwauling. “Let me out! You have no right to do this!”

The blonde woman from the grocery store and the club approached her, wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope slung around her neck.

“Did you already run the diagnostics?” some Asian man asked the blonde while he sat at a desk several feet away, buried in paperwork and surrounded by various coffee mugs.

“Yeah, she’s infertile. No ovaries,” the blonde woman replied and then looked at Casey’s inner left elbow.

Casey’s eyes immediately flung down to her arm. It was bandaged. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“Relax . . . We only took a sample,” blondie replied.

“A sample of my blood? Why?”

“We had to make sure you weren’t pregnant before we started our procedure.”

Casey gulped and shifted away from the edge of the cage that was closest to this blonde demon. “You can’t do this.”

“We already did.”

“He’ll find you!” Casey glared. “There’s video surveillance at the club, and he’ll see that you took me.”

“Oh, I’m depending on it. We finally found him. You think I’m going to try and wrangle him out of there?” Blondie chuckled. “We want him back, and you were the lure we needed. Thank God you’re too stupid to realize when someone’s manipulating you. You’re obviously in love with that idiot. You deserve each other, and I’m sure he’ll love sharing his old cage with you.”

“What the fuck? You can’t do this! Any of it,” Casey cried out, gripping the back of her head. It was spinning along with her heart, spiraling out of control.

He never lied. Ever.

He was tortured by these people, and then it struck her. She knew . . . Her eyes turned to icy slits. “You’re Hannah.”

“Doctor, you need to see this!” the Asian man jumped out of his chair and ran to her, dragging her back to his computer monitor.

“Well, he didn’t waste any time, did he? She’s barely been here two hours.” Hannah’s eyes lit up, and she ran her fingertip across the screen in a sick, obsessed way. “He’s
ba-aaack
!” she sing-songed.

“Are the shots ready for him?” the Asian man asked.

“Yes, Johnathan—I’ve been waiting three years for his return—you think I’m not fully prepared for him this time?”

“It’s only been two years since his last escape,” Johnathan corrected her.

“It felt like an eternity,” Hannah groaned and then moved past him to grab what looked like a tranquilizer gun.

“How did he even find us this quickly? How’d he even see the footage? It should’ve been destroyed.” Johnathan was staring at Casey as if she was responsible for him somehow tracking them down.

“Who the hell knows? Probably his fed friend, working with him at the club.” Hannah loaded up her weapon with vials of God knew what.

Casey was at the edge of the cage, pressing her face into the bars, whimpering helplessly as she watched them prepare for his destruction. Her entire chest cavity heaved at the thought of him being in danger, and her mind whirred, realizing that Max was protecting Kel as best as he could—that he was some sort of federal agent.

God, this was an awful mess, all because she’d been dragged to that crazy club, and because she’d felt something for him.

This was all her fault.

She reached through the bars. “Please,” she called out to them, grasping at them even though there was no way she could ever reach them at this distance, “don’t hurt him! I’m begging you. He’s suffered enough. Just let him go. You can experiment on me all you want. I’ll cooperate, only let him go. Ignore him, and I’m sure he’ll leave and go back home. He’ll give up. I know he will.”

They disregarded her pleas and went about preparing to take him down.

“Please, God! Don’t do this! Leave him alone!” Casey ran over to her cot, dragged it over to the edge of the cage closest to them and tried her best to break the cage by banging the frame into the walls of it, but nothing happened.

It was useless. She was stuck, and soon Kel would be, too.

And if he didn’t already hate her, he would now for the rest of his days, and maybe even beyond.

He would be a lab rat once again, pricked and poked at these vile peoples’ whims.

She fell into a heap at the bottom of the cage, and her eyes fell upon a grapefruit-sized blood stain beneath her. Maybe even traces of human waste there as well.

Was this where he’d been stuck for years on end? In this exact spot? Had he cried to be released, too?

She kicked at the bars, gnashed her teeth at them like she was possessed of a devil.

All at once, they were flying through the room, and then they disappeared behind some heavy metal doors. Before they clanged shut, Casey noticed two armed guards in full swat team type gear, ready to go into attack mode.

She groaned and leaned back onto the cot’s mattress, lying on the floor behind her.

Her eyes leaked, and her heart did, too.

What could she do? Was there any way to help him?

Her feet tapped nervously on the shiny concrete floor, and her entire body hummed with adrenaline.

Maybe she could find a way to tackle them when they tried to put Kel in here with her. That’s what they said they would do when they were talking agitatedly over by the monitor.

She tried to plan out a method of attack, and figure out a way to be stealthy about it, but they’d see her coming at them. There wasn’t any way to hide in what appeared to be a large seven-by-seven foot cage.

It was a ridiculous notion to even think she could accomplish any kind of feat of strength against them anyway. Hadn’t Hannah nearly taken her down on her own at the club? It was absolutely pathetic.

She wanted to claw her own eyes out so she wouldn’t have to witness them torturing the man she loved.

Her heart pounded at the thought.

Love
? Yes, she loved him.

There was no way to pretend anymore she felt otherwise.

Those beautiful eyes of his pounded into her harder than his cock had, and she’d loved hearing his melodic voice when he spoke to her with reverence when he wasn’t bubbling over with rage at the memories of the atrocities of his past.

Now she’d see firsthand.

What seemed like an eternity later—they dragged Kel in through the doors they’d exited. He was awake but really impaired and groggy.

His right arm was hanging at an awkward angle, and there was a syringe sticking straight out of his chest.

They dropped him directly inside the door. Hannah plunged some other needle into his arm and pumped some black looking thick sludge into him. She yanked them both out at the same time once it was emptied.

“Get him in there,” she said.

Like a complete coward, Casey scampered to the back of the cage and huddled in the corner, curling into a ball in an attempt to hide herself. She clasped her bent knees to her chest.

They didn’t even have to try and subdue her. So much for helping him escape.

The ice running through her veins incapacitated her when it looked like he’d stopped breathing. Oh, God, they were throwing his corpse in her cell to be with her.