The Club (10 page)

Agent Turner

I don’t know why I said all that shit back at the bar. Hell, for all I know, that girl may enjoy Antonio’s dominance just like I enjoy Rene’s. People outside of our world don’t get it. We’re born this way, wired with a bent towards kink. What we term
vanilla sex
just doesn’t do it for us. No, the itch we have that cries out to be scratched goes much deeper than the standard, garden-variety sex. We need more, so much more.

I just have too much on my mind with all these abductions. I won’t permit women to be taken against their will. Piracy is becoming a real problem at sea. Antonio doesn’t know it but I can help him find his cargo. One thing I will say for Antonio Wayne Ramirez is that when he brings women over, he gives them jobs. He doesn’t have to steal women. Hell, his girls nicknamed him
The Magic Man.
He has one hell of a reputation for his bedroom antics. This is the first time I have ever witnessed the guy with only one woman. He has got it bad for this girl.

I’ve got to rescue these stolen women before they are so traumatized that, mentally, there is no coming back or before they are so addicted to drugs that they will only return to their captors even after being rescued. The responsibility weighs heavily on me. If I was to be honest with myself, every case does. I have to know that I have done all I can do on each and every case I work. I can’t get up in the morning and look myself in the face if I haven’t done everything I can do to rescue or vindicate a victim of crime.

Roxanne

“Where are you going, Roxanne?” Antonio questions me as he slams the door to the bedroom. The large wooden door looks like it was taken straight from an old, medieval castle and the hasp sliding through the metal sends a chill up my spine. The familiar fear flows through me and I can feel the moisture gathering between my thighs, as I grow wet with arousal. This time, however, it’s an arousal I have no intentions of giving in to.

I stand and hold my pillow tightly against my chest as I look at Antonio with wide, innocent, doe eyes. “To bed.”

“Your bed is right there,” he nods towards the bed.

I pad over to the bed and say, “I want to go to Alexis.”

He comes over and wrenches my pillow from my grasp. He begins to unbutton my shirt and remove it. I cross my arms in front of me and he uncrosses them.

“Your place is here with me, Roxanne.” He raises my chin, “Look at me.”

He lifts my face to view big tears rolling down my cheeks.

“You hurt me,” I whimper. “I feel like you broke something in me. Is this what you do to your women?”

      I can see his heartstrings tugging as he views my childlike behavior.

“I’m trying to protect you, Roxanne.” He speaks to me softly and slowly as if it will help me understand why he subjected me to a night of interrogation when Juanita and I planned to escape.

“No, you’re not. You’re trying to break me and you broke the wrong thing. I want to go to Alexis.” I turn and make my way out of the room.

Roxanne

I sleep with Alexis every night since I told my husband that he broke me. On the fourth night, I wake up to Antonio standing over me. “Get up,” he says as he pulls me out of bed and takes me to his bedroom.

He locks the door and turns to look at me. The pain etched in his face is evident and, once again, my heart betrays me, wrenching for the little boy trapped in this broken man’s body.

I stand there, looking at him in the pale moonlight. I’m dressed in a button up shirt and underwear and have my arms crossed defensively.

He approaches me slowly in the dim light and I can see him tremble as he unbuttons my shirt. I can’t ever remember a time that I’ve seen his hands anything but steady.

He reaches up to cup my breasts, now healed from the abuse they suffered at his sadistic hands. He places one in his mouth and gently sucks, savoring my flesh as if he has missed me beyond measure.

He takes his hands and runs them along the sides of my panties. Before I can resist or object, he hooks his thumbs and pulls them down swiftly, betraying his evident need of me. It does no good to try and fight what this man does to me. It is futile; my body always responds to him.

“I love you so much, Roxanne, that it physically hurts. I can feel it in my chest and it aches.” He is on his knees and looking up at me as if he is begging me to believe the words that he speaks. I have never witnessed this strong, independent man in as vulnerable of a state as I’m seeing right now. He’s different with me and I don’t know why. It isn’t anything that I have purposely done to him. I need to remember that though he may be vulnerable, he is not weak. This sadistic monster I have let loose is more dangerous to me now than ever before. He is dangerous because he will stop at nothing to keep me.

“You’re so intense, Tony,” I say as I run my hand through his thick, black hair.

He pulls me down to the fur rug and finishes removing my shirt. He stares as if he is transfixed, telling me how beautiful I am. He cups my breast and whispers, “You are so soft,” as he kisses up and down my neck.

“I love you so much, Roxanne,” he says once again, right before he enters me. “God, I love you so much.”

His eyes search my face as he gently makes love to me for the first time since my capture. There is no rough possession; there is only a soft, gentle persuasion.

He is begging me, with every ounce of his being, to forgive him. I know that Antonio is everything I should stay away from but I find myself grateful for the fact that I am his captive. I don’t have a choice and I am glad because I don’t want to be without this man. His intensity is as alluring as it is dangerous.

Every day, he lodges himself deeper into my soul. At least I don’t have to deal with the guilt of choosing to be with a monster. I have no choice; he has taken that away… the same way that he is taking my heart.

I open my legs, moaning his name. He slowly moves in me, touching and staring as if he is trying to soak up my very essence.

     I can see, by the earnestness in his eyes, that the words he speaks to me are true. I know that he is falling in love with me. I just can’t figure out why. I know that he is damaged goods. I’m glad I overheard the night terror he had because it helps me to understand why this man is so tormented with thoughts of me abandoning him. My freedom will be his undoing. I am torn but, for now, I lose myself in the love of a monster under the pale light of the moon in a forbidden castle.

Antonio is like me—broken.

Maybe that is what draws us to one another. The broken, fragmented pieces crying out from the atrocities of the past just beg anyone to understand. We are two beings with shattered souls reaching out to each other because we recognized a kindred, broken spirit. We are like two peas in a pod. Maybe that is why he gets to me. This is the worst sort of man that I could fall in love with.

Why is it that we always gravitate towards the things that are forbidden? Tonight, something is happening as he speaks softly and tells me how vulnerable he feels. He’s telling me he has never loved anyone but his brother. Antonio opens up a part of himself to me—a part he has never shown anyone.

How can I turn away a man who needs me? I can see his anguish. No one can fake the depth of pain that I see in his eyes tonight. No matter how much my head warns me not to connect with this man, my heart and my body are not listening…

Antonio Wayne

I turn around in my office chair and stare out the window as my mind drifts back to my childhood.

My brother and I had grown up in the violent backstreets of Colombia. Our drug-addicted mother’s violent boyfriends assured that we would rather sleep in the streets than return home in the evenings. We literally grew up stealing to eat and fighting for our lives.

We were all each other had and still are to this day. When I lost him, it crushed me. Roxanne is causing a lot of memories to resurface that I have kept buried. Things I thought I had buried deep enough to never bother me again are suddenly plaguing my mind.

Roxanne is causing an emotion in me that I can’t remember feeling since I was a child: fear. It’s ridiculous. I can handle things like violence and bloodshed without batting an eye. Only one thing causes me to feel true fear and that is the threat of abandonment.

I am afraid of losing her and the thought makes me violent. It is all that I can do to restrain the vicious beast lodged within me. I don’t want to physically hurt her. I was reacting in anger because of the fear. I can’t lose her; I just can’t.

My brother, Ricardo, sent me to live with an uncle in New York City when he began running drugs for the cartel. I went from the jungles to the city and I will never forget the day I left. It literally broke my heart and I vowed that day I would never love again. I have kept that promise all these years until now…

My private line rings. Only one person has that number and that’s my big brother, Ricardo.

“Hermanito, como estas? How are you, little brother?”

“I’m well, very well, just enjoying that trouble making, little, redhead you sent me.”

“It must be something with the American women. My Juanita is always making trouble for me too. On another note, I’ve called Miller in to help deal with this issue of our cargo.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing his crazy ass.”

“Yes, I have a soft place for him too. Not to mention the man is very good at what he does. He has a partner now, a woman. They say she is very efficient at helping him. They will be arriving in New York tomorrow. Needless to say, make certain they are given the royal treatment for helping us.”

“You know it, big brother, you know it. Though we both know the man would come to our aid even if it was necessary for him to sleep outside, he won’t be experiencing anything but royal treatment during his stay here.”

“I love you, little brother. I will talk to you soon.”

“Love you too, big brother.”