PF4114
Claudia's Surrender, The Case of the Reluctant Submissive
S J Lewis
01/24/2008
S J Lewis
Pink Flamingo Publications
Fantasy

Claudia’s Surrender:

The Case of the Reluctant Submissive

by S J Lewis

A Pink Flamingo Ebook Publication

Copyright © 2006, All rights reserved

No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the
publisher.

For information contact:

Pink Flamingo Publications

www.pinkflamingo.com

P.O. Box 632  Richland, MI 49083

USA

Cover Image Heat:
Copyright © R.C. Hörsch

www.eroto.com

Email Comments: comments@pinkflamingo.com

Chapter One

“So...you guys will be okay here for the
rest of the day?” Claudia asked. She took another look around the office as if
trying to pick out which wall or part of the ceiling would fall once she had
pulled out of the parking lot. She brushed back a stray lock of her straight,
coppery hair. It was getting too long. It just brushed her shoulders now. She
would have to schedule a visit to the hairdresser’s soon.

“We’ll be fine, Chief, just fine!” Jerry
reassured her. “And if anything happens, we’ve got your phone number.”

“Amanda?” Claudia turned towards the shy
little temp. Amanda was smart and a good worker, but no Marabel. She would have
felt much more at ease if Marabel were still here.

“I’m fine also, Miss Cole,” Amanda
replied. “I know what to do.”

“Well, then…” Claudia looked around the
office again.

Jerry laughed once. “Chief…go enjoy your
vacation, if that’s what you’re calling it. You’ve been in here every morning
this week so far, and we haven’t had to call you at home once yet. It’s slow
here now. We’ll be fine, I swear!”

“Okay, Jer.” Claudia had to laugh at
herself. She was probably making poor Amanda nervous, and she didn’t live all
that far away, so if they had to call her…oh, to Hell with it! This business
might be her baby, after all, but she was acting like an overprotective mother.
She started towards the door, opened it, and paused to look back one last time.
“I’ll probably be in tomorrow morning too.” She had to grin at Jerry’s look of
comic exasperation.

It was sunny out today, and the steering
wheel of her car was almost too hot to touch. She’d have to get that windshield
screen out of the trunk and start using it again.  As uncomfortable as her hands felt on the
steering wheel, her round little bottom was even more uncomfortable. That
horrendous spanking Sam had given her in the motel when she was struggling with
him still smarted…and so did the other thing he had done to her that night. She
shivered at the memory. It had been a wonderfully intense experience, but she
wasn’t at all sure she would like anal sex as a regular thing. It hurt, both
during and afterwards. Still, it was the most intense sexual experience she’d
ever had…the ultimate in submission. Maybe the pain and discomfort was an
integral part of that. She started the car and let it idle long enough for the
air conditioning to kick in, then put it in gear and drove off.

The roads were starting to clog up with
lunchtime traffic, and it took her a little longer to get back to her apartment
than usual. As she pulled into her parking space, she saw that Sam’s rental car
wasn’t there. Where could he have gone off to? Well, it couldn’t be very
interesting for him to just wait around for her in her apartment half the day.
Maybe he’d left a note for her inside?

The parking area was on the shady side
of the building, so she didn’t bother with the windshield screen. As she
unlocked the door to her apartment, she decided to take a long, hot bath before
Sam came back. If she strung the bath out long enough, maybe he’d show up in
time to scrub her back. She smiled at the thought. He would want to scrub more
than her back.

It was cool and dark inside. Sam kept
setting the air conditioning just a little too low, and the feel of the chilled
air took her back to that bungalow years ago. Was that why he did it?
She shut the door, locked it behind her, and went to her bedroom. She was no
more than a few steps into it when she heard a man’s voice behind her: “Don’t
turn around and don’t move!”

It was Sam’s voice. She knew it very
well now, no matter how much he tried to disguise it, and she felt a wild
thrill. He had been here after all, and this was the start of some game he’d
dreamed up! Obediently, she froze in place. “What do you want?” she asked, trying
to put a quaver into her voice.

“And shut up, too.” Sam growled from
behind her. A moment later, she had a brief glimpse of a black cloth just
before he pulled it over her eyes and knotted it tightly behind her head as a
blindfold. She couldn’t help but shiver in anticipation. Outside of this
apartment, she was Claudia Cole, or Miss Cole, or Ms. Cole, or even “Chief”, a
respected and competent businesswoman. Inside of it, with Sam, she could be
just “Red”; lusty, horny, kinky, submissive Red.

“Open your mouth,” Sam ordered. She obeyed,
and felt him stuffing a wadded-up cloth between her parted lips. He secured it
in place with what felt like a strip of more cloth. Then he began to undress
her, roughly. Her thin summer blouse and flimsy brassiere were the first to go,
unbuttoned, unfastened, and yanked violently off of her body. Then he pulled
her hands behind her, holding her wrists together tightly with one strong hand.
She hoped he wasn’t going to use ropes on her…she would have to go to the
office again tomorrow morning, and the weather was getting too warm for the
long sleeves needed to conceal the marks. She felt him wrapping something
around her crossed wrists that felt like still more cloth, and she let herself
relax that last little bit. She felt him tighten the bonds on her wrists and knot
them snugly, she moaned faintly through her gag. He reached around to cup her
breasts in his hard, strong hands. His breath was warm and moist on her neck
and she leaned back against him, enjoying all of the sensations, feeling
helplessly vulnerable and perfectly safe at the same time.

“I’ve been thinking about this since I
got up this morning, Red,” he murmured into her ear. He pinched her nipples
lightly, making her squeak. “I think you’re gonna like it.” He kissed her bare
shoulder once, fiercely, before returning to the job of stripping her naked,
even to the point of removing any jewelry she might be wearing. Today, she had
worn only earrings, and they were the last things he took. She was shivering,
partly from the chilly air inside her apartment, but mainly in anticipation of
whatever Sam had dreamed up for today. Whatever it was, she was sure it would
be intense…and that he would leave her wanting even more.

“This way,” he said, taking her by her
arm. She let him guide her. It was getting easier with practice, and she could
tell he was leading her towards her bed. What was he going to do?

He made her lie face-down, and then
gripped her ankles, spreading her legs and pulling her down towards the foot of
the bed. His strength always surprised her. She was not a particularly small
woman, but when he was like this he seemed to be able to move her around as if
she were a doll. Now he was wrapping something around one of her ankles. She
was fairly certain it was yet more cloth. It felt like it. She struggled a
little for his benefit, and he gave her rump a hard swat, making her jerk and
squeal. She remained still as he finished tying her ankles to the bed. She felt
a little uneasy like this. She was still sore…exactly which hole was he
planning to use?  She couldn’t stop
him now…not with her legs spread and secured like this…and she wasn’t entirely
sure she would try to stop him even if she could. But still…she reached down as
far as she could with her bound wrists and spread her hands to shield herself.
Maybe he would get the message? Maybe he didn’t need the message. Maybe he wouldn’t
care. She didn’t know. She would find out.

She gave a start as his hand began
stroking her bare back, slowly and lightly. It made her shiver, and she moaned
through her gag for him. She loved his touch. It was all she needed to be
instantly wet and ready for him, and he knew it. She could picture him smiling
right now as he heard her moan, feeling the heat building up in her skin. She
felt him get onto the bed alongside of her, he then gripped her hair with one
hand while he slid the other one under her, just below her breasts. What was
he doing?

“Up,” was all he said as he pulled on
her hair and lifted up from underneath at the same time. It hurt! Well, a
little, anyway. It wasn’t easy to do this with her legs bound as they were, and
it was clear he expected her to do most of the work. His grip on her hair was
for incentive, and his hand under her was just for a little bit of assistance.
With that little bit of assistance she was just able to get up into a kneeling
position. She huffed through her nose from the effort. He stood close in front
of her on the bed, the rough material of his jeans rubbing against the tip of
her nose. Did he want her mouth now? She was ready for that too. There
was something wild and primitive in kneeling before a man, naked and bound, and
taking him into her mouth. Sam had even introduced his own little twist to it
the other night. As she had begun to suck on him, slowly, he had taken her head
in his hands and held her that way tightly as he began to fuck her mouth with
short, powerful thrusts of his hips. That had been wild, primitive and
brutal…he kept thrusting a little bit too far, hitting the back of her throat,
making her choke and gasp. But he never stopped, and his grip was so strong she
could not move her head at all. When he had suddenly quickened his thrusts,
she’d known he was going to come in her mouth any second. She had something
very close to an orgasm right then, just from the realization.

But what exactly did he want now? She
leaned forward against him, nuzzling at his crotch, making little moaning
noises to excite him. He liked her noisy…and he could make her very noisy when
he wanted to. But…what did he want now? She knew what SHE wanted! She
rubbed her face against him, whining with impatience.

He moved away from her, still gripping
her by her hair, and did something. It felt as if he’d put something on the bed
just in front of her, because she could feel the mattress yield and heard a
faint thump. What he did next came as a surprise. She felt him step to one
side, and then his hand let go of her hair, cupped the back of her head, and
shoved…hard! She toppled over with a yelp, turned her head, hit the mattress
hard, and bounced once. The something he had put on the bed was soft but firm.
It felt round, and it was positioned right under her hips now, raising her rump
conveniently into the air. He tugged at whatever it was, adjusting it a bit.
She heard him chuckle, and his hand gave her round left cheek a stinging slap.
She yelped again and felt him get off of the bed. Now what? She didn’t
think he was just going to leave her here for long. For the past several days,
sex had been like a drug they shared: A powerfully addictive drug that sated
their lusts for a little while only to stoke them up again, even higher. He
didn’t need to do anything to ready her for what he might have in mind. She was
as ready as she could possibly be, hot and slickly wet. She wriggled her hips
for him to signal her state, and her growing impatience.

She felt him climb back onto the bed, behind
her. His hand ran between her legs once, and she heard him chuckle again. He
leaned forward, his breath warm on her neck. “I think you’re gonna like this,
Red,” he whispered into her ear. “I know I will.” He wiped his hand on her
back.  She felt her own wetness and her
skin cooled briefly where he had touched. His hands gripped her body, just
where her hips began to flare out from the narrowness of her waist. She felt
him moving behind her, positioning himself. When she felt the tip of his cock
begin to enter her, that first touch of his slow, protracted penetration hit
her like an electric shock. She shuddered violently. She seemed to have been
waiting for this for torturous hours, even though it had only been a few
minutes.

He took his time, enjoying the feel of
her as he thrust himself all the way inside. He also enjoyed her moans and
shivers while he did it. When he was all the way in, he leaned forward, letting
his weight drive his cock in just a little bit deeper. Her body moved away as
his moved forward until all of the slack in the bonds around her ankles was
taken up. He leaned more heavily into her and was rewarded by a long, low
groan. Her nostrils flared as her breath quickened. When he stayed as he was
and didn’t move for a long moment, she began to writhe under him, whining with
impatience. That was one of the things he loved about Red. She was smart,
tough, competent and lovely and yet when he had her like this, completely at
his mercy, so to speak, she became something else; a lusting female animal,
hungry only to fuck and be fucked. The transformation awed him some times, the
more so because it seemed that he had to do very little to put her in that
condition. He’d wondered at first if it was just because she’d been celibate
for over two years, ever since the bungalow…and the barn…but he’d seen some
signs of that lusting female animal in her even back then. So…was it her
response to him and his aggression? He hoped so. In the meantime, he had work
to do. Still gripping her body, now warm and quivering under his hands, he
slowly withdrew about halfway, and then slammed himself into her again, deep
and hard!

She felt the bonds on her ankles jerk
minutely tighter with every one of his thrusts. He was pumping her hard, almost
driving the breath out of her with each stroke. Her legs were stretched taut,
straining. She was held firmly in place for him, as if everything below her
waist was gripped in a vise, enabling him to stab even deeper and harder and
the feeling was fast becoming overwhelming. She wanted to come desperately, and
she knew that if he kept this up, she would, inevitably…and yet, just now, she
never wanted this to end. She arched her back, lifting her head and shoulders
up off of the bed briefly before letting herself fall heavily back down. Then
she did it again. This was so intense that she had to do SOMETHING!

Her breathing kept time with his
thrusts, but it became more and more labored. There were certain little signs
she would make when she couldn’t talk. He didn’t think she made most of them
consciously, but they gave him some feedback as to how she was doing. Right
now, her bound hands were clenched into fists with such strength that her
knuckles were showing white, which meant that she was very close now and
closing fast. But that repeated lifting and dropping of her upper body was
something entirely new. It seemed like a sign of distress of some kind, but if
she really WAS suffering in some way she would usually open her hands wide and
wriggle her fingers, more or less furiously with the amount of distress. He set
his jaw and began pumping her harder…harder…

She took one long, noisy breath through
her nose and tried to let it all out in a long, high shriek, but the gag
blocked and muffled it so it seemed to go on for a long, long time. He kept
thrusting, intent on his own release now, spurred on by the sight and sound and
feel and smell of her as she came.

Everything was a beautiful, warm, soft,
fuzzy pink haze to her. There was no time, no gravity. She realized that he
must have come himself when she felt him removing the gag, and she realized how
short of breath she was when he pulled the packed cloth out of her mouth. She
took a long, deep breath, and let it all out with a happy sigh. There was still
a warm, soft, fuzzy pink haze in her, but time and gravity were slowly
returning.

The cloth knotted around her ankles was
pulled so tight that Sam couldn’t undo the knots, but he was prepared. He
fished his jeans up off the floor and rummaged in a pocket for his knife. It
was a folding knife with a three-inch blade that came to a narrow and very
sharp point. Opening it one-handed, he carefully sliced her ankles free. The
strips of black cloth were a complete ruin, but he had more. That black
bedsheet he’d bought today would provide a lot more strips before he had to get
another one. As he let go of each slim ankle, her lovely long legs fell limply
onto the bed. It might be a little while before she could safely walk, but she
would be fine.

He pulled the cylindrical cushion out
from under her. It had taken him some time to find the thing, but it had been
worth it, even if they never used it again. Red rolled weakly over onto her
back, still blindfolded, her wrists still bound behind her. He knew, somehow,
that she was waiting for him to kiss her. He tossed the bolster aside and
leaned over her for a kiss. Her mouth, her lips, were soft and yielding, but
there was still a hint of her hunger in the kiss. He laid down beside her,
propped up on one elbow, and he began to slowly stroke her body with his free
hand, marveling at the warmth and softness of her skin. He liked to do that.
She stirred under his hand, purred, and arched her back. It was another one of
those little signs. He cupped a breast in his hand, squeezed slightly, and took
her swelling nipple into his mouth. Her purr turned into a moan. Grinning, he
kissed her again. There was a little more hunger in her kiss this time, and he
laughed softly so that she could hear.

“What?” she asked with a lazy smile. His
hand still held her breast, and she slowly arched her back again, pushing
against it.

“I’ve created a monster,” he whispered
into her ear, imitating the accent of a bad horror-movie mad scientist. She
laughed a smug, self-satisfied laugh.

“I thought YOU were the monster.” Her
voice was a throaty purr. “I’m the poor, helpless…heroine? That doesn’t sound
like the right word. But isn’t that what they called the beautiful girl that
the monster was always trying to capture? Poor monster. Even when he did
capture her, he never got to have any fun. Now YOU, on the other hand…”

“Hush, Red.” He put his hand lightly
over her mouth. Her breath, warm and moist, made his palm tingle. “I get your
point.”

“Mmmmm…” She smiled. “When did you think
this one up? I can barely feel my legs, you beast.”

“Really?” His free hand slid down to
glide across her thighs. “I can feel them just fine, Red. They feel pretty good
to me.”

“Very funny,” she chuckled happily.
“You’ll pay for that when I get loose.”

“Well, then.” He kissed her one more
time, quickly. “I guess I just won’t let you get loose for a while.”

“Promise?” she teased.

“Just you wait right here,” he told her,
patting her thigh. “I’ll be right back.”

He’d done a lot of shopping that
morning, and some of his purchases were still hidden in a kitchen cabinet,
stashed in a bag. It had seemed like the safest place. Red didn’t seem to pay
too much attention to the kitchen. She had a few pots and pans, a matched set
of dishes and assorted silverware, but when he’d first peeked into her
refrigerator he’d been surprised to find it almost empty. The freezer, on the
other hand, had been stuffed with frozen meals. He guessed she used her
microwave a lot. Since then, he’d been to every local grocery store, comparing
prices and quality. Now, the refrigerator was well-stocked, and every evening
so far he’d cooked a meal for the two of them. He had something special planned
for tonight, but first things first. He retrieved the bag and placed it on the
counter. Reaching in, he fished around until he found what he wanted;  a pair of handcuffs in bright stainless
steel. They weren’t the robust type favored by the police. In fact, they looked
almost fragile, more like exotic jewelry, but he’d tested them and was sure
that they would restrain Red quite suitably. Whistling happily, he went back into
the bedroom.

He found Red sitting up on the edge of
her bed. She smiled when she heard him come in, and lifted her face for another
kiss. He obliged her. “Think you can stand now?” he asked. He pulled the
blindfold up and off of her.

“I think so. Why?” She looked up at him
warily.

“It’s time for your shower, Red,” he
grinned. He held up the cuffs for her to see. She looked them over and then
smiled, half-turning so he could reach her wrists and untie them.

He led her into the bathroom and helped
her into the tub. Yesterday he had, after much searching and tapping, located a
beam above the tub and screwed a long, heavy eyebolt into it. Red had noticed
it when she’d come home, but she hadn’t said anything about it. Today, while
doing his shopping, he had found a special spray attachment for the showerhead
and installed it, then attached a length of chain to the eyebolt with a stout
padlock. There was another, smaller padlock hanging from the end of the chain.
He lifted Red’s shackled hands up over her head and secured her handcuffs to
the chain with the smaller padlock. He had been careful about the length of the
chain. She could stand comfortably the way he had her rigged. He also knew
which link to run the padlock through to get her up on her toes, but that would
be for another night.

“What exactly did you have in mind?” she
asked him as she looked at the new shower attachment. It was a long, flexible
metallic hose with a wide spray nozzle on the end. The nozzle could be adjusted
for anything from a fine spray to a solid stream, or adjusted for pulsing
instead of constant flow. He was looking forward to experimenting with it.

He stepped back for a moment just to
enjoy looking at her. Her pose accented the long, lovely lines of her body. It
flattened out the soft curves of her breasts, but that made her puffy pink
nipples, already erect with anticipation, stand out more boldly. She turned a
bit, and he let his gaze rest on the ripe swelling of her hips. The gaze stay
there long, because the coppery, silky tuft at the join of her thighs, as
always, fascinated him.

“Sam,” Claudia said quietly, smiling.
“Are you going to give me my shower or not?” She didn’t mind him staring at her
body like that. In fact, it turned her on, especially with that hungry,
yearning look in his eyes. But she’d gotten a good look at the new shower toy
he had installed and she was really curious to see what it could do…or more
exactly, what he could do with it. She could feel her own hunger building.

“Oh…sorry,” he shook his head, grinning,
and turned on the water, testing it with his hand until he had the temperature
just right…for his purposes. “All right, Red,” he said, straightening up. “Here
we go.”

Chapter Two

Sam didn’t chain her up for dinner. As
much as he enjoyed hand-feeding Red, he liked watching her eat on her own just
as much. She seemed to really like his cooking, which he found gratifying, but
it might also be because left to her own devices she just nuked herself a
frozen meal. Maybe she wasn’t much of a cook.

He liked to keep her naked, but she
often complained that he kept the air conditioning set too low for her to be
completely comfortable that way. They had agreed on a compromise. He’d bought
her a fluffy white terrycloth bathrobe to wear whenever he did not bind or
chain her. It was a size or so too large for her. When she stood, it fell
almost to her ankles, and she could never belt it securely enough to keep him
from getting tantalizing glimpses of a breast or a thigh whenever she moved.
Sometimes, that was a lot sexier than complete nudity.

He wasn’t eating at the moment. He found
that his hunger just to watch this woman was greater than his hunger for food.
At the moment, she was too busy eating to notice, stoking her splendid body.
She really did remind him of a thoroughbred, he thought: Spirited, strong and
vital.

Claudia noticed him staring at her and
paused with a forkful of that delicious, spicy pork halfway to her lips. He had
an odd look in his eyes. It was partly that familiar hungering look of his, and
partly…something else.

“What?” she asked. She looked down
quickly to see if she’d dropped any food onto her snowy-white robe.

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “I just like
looking at you.”

“While I’m eating?”

“While you’re eating, while you’re
sleeping…just about any time.” Claudia felt herself blush, and she saw his grin
widen.

“That’s not nice,” she admonished him
with a grin of her own. “Now I won’t be able to eat any of this meal with you
staring at me.” She lifted her fork to her mouth. She didn’t know what he’d
used to season the pork, but it had an aftertaste that tingled.

“Sure you can,” he smiled. “You’re a
strong woman. And anyhow, the food is way too good to let it go to waste.”

“Is it indeed?” She stabbed one of the
buttery small potatoes with her fork next, then stared at him as she took a
dainty bite out of it. She could eat with him staring at her after all, she
thought, if she was staring back at him while she did it.

“It is indeed,” he replied, returning
her stare as he lifted his own fork to his mouth.

It became a game between them then, to
eat their respective meals while staring intently into each other’s eyes.
Blinking was allowed. Further conversation was not allowed. Claudia began
toying with her food, licking it, putting it slowly into her mouth and pulling
it slowly out again. She knew she was teasing him by doing that, but she was
trying to get him to laugh or look away before he could make her laugh or look
away.

Her plan did not work. It wasn’t until
she’d finished her meal that she realized he wasn’t at all likely to look away
while she was doing all those sexually suggestive things with her food. He was
left with just one small potato left on his plate, and he tried to stab it with
his fork while still staring at her with that ferocious and hungry gaze. He
just missed. The potato skittered off of his plate, rolled across the small
table, and bounced onto the floor. She completely lost it when he ignored all
that and pretended to eat the potato anyway, never changing his expression.

“Okay…okay…” she gasped, holding up a
hand. “You win!” He started laughing. That set her off again. She laughed until
her sides hurt and tears were streaming from her eyes. The next thing she knew,
he was picking her up in his arms. He gave her a quick and awkward kiss…he was
still laughing himself…and carried her out of the kitchen into her bedroom.

“Mmmmm….” Claudia purred some time
later. “That was very nice.” She slid her leg over his and laid her head
against his shoulder. He didn’t always tie her up for sex, which she liked
sometimes, but she had never in her life before made love while both she and
her partner were convulsed with laughs, chuckles and, in her case,
irrepressible giggles.

He put his arm around her and held her
close. “Red,” he sighed happily, “’Nice’ doesn’t begin. But you gotta watch
those claws of yours. My back’s never gonna heal at this rate.”

She had to giggle at that. She hadn’t
really scratched him badly this time. He’d been too quick to grab her wrists
and pin them down once he’d felt her nails starting to dig into his flesh. At
the time, that had set them both off on another peal of hilarity.

This was the calm after the storm. She
closed her eyes content now just to feel his nearness, his warmth and his
strength. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I guess from now on if you aren’t going to
tie me up or tie me down you’ll just have to let me get on top.”

He grunted noncommittally and kissed her
forehead. “Or you could wear mittens,” he suggested.

“Gee…I don’t know…” she teased.
“Wouldn’t that be kind of kinky?”

“Mittens? Nah…” he replied sleepily.
“Now, boxing gloves…THAT would be kinky.”

They both laughed, but the wild storm
had passed and this was just a last straggling squall.

“Sam…” she said after a moment “I have
to ask you…”

“What?”

“Back then…back at the bungalow…” she
could feel herself blushing as she brought the subject up, and was glad that it
was too dark for him to see it. “How…how did you know I would…go along with…all
that?”

“Ah, Red…” he chuckled and drew her
closer. “My first clue was when you didn’t just run out of the place screaming.
Course, I didn’t know you that well then or my first clue would’ve been when
you didn’t start kicking all our asses.”

“Come on,” she nudged him playfully.
“I’m serious.”

“So am I, Red,” he answered. “But if you
gotta know, well, my second clue was your feet.”

“My feet?”

“Yeah. You were wearing some kind of
sandals that day, and I got a good look at ‘em.”

“What have my FEET got to do with that?”

“Oh…” he yawned, “It’s just a little
something I found to be a pretty good indicator. Your second toes are a little bit
longer than your big toes. And you have very pretty feet, by the way.”

She frowned. He was right about her
toes…well, about their relative lengths, anyway. But was that really a clue?
“You’re kidding,” she said.

“I’m tellin’ the truth, Red,” he
replied. “It’s not a one-hundred-percent-sure thing, but it worked for me
before a lot more than it didn’t.” He chuckled. “I heard or read somewhere that
those kinda feet were associated with werewolves. Given what you’ve done to my back
already, I’m thinkin’ about tying you down REAL good come next full moon.”

She tried to stifle a giggle and failed.
Most of it escaped through her nose in an unladylike snort.

“Does Dianne have the same kind of toes
as I do?” she asked, tracing little circles on his chest with her forefinger.

“I hope you’re not upset about that,
Red,” he answered cautiously. “I told you, I was a little bit crazy then.”

“Mmm…” she purred, digging her nail into
him a little. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Red,” he sighed, “What difference does
it make now? I came looking for YOU. I’m here with you now.”

“Until when, Sam?” she asked. “Can you
promise you’ll stay with me?” Her original impression of him, that he was not
the kind to stay, had come back to haunt her. She could feel it lying between
them now, even with their flesh touching, breast to chest, belly to hip, leg to
leg.

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t
know, Red,” he answered at last. “My first thought is to make that promise,
because it’s what I want to do NOW. But…” he shrugged “This is all kinda new to
me. For two years, I kept thinking about you. I had dreams about you. And for
the past year, any time I met a woman, I’d find myself comparing her to you
sooner or later. They never came off well when I did that.”

“But?” she prompted.

“Yeah…but.” He nodded. “I thought I knew
what I wanted, Red. Then I met you and after just a couple of days you walked
away. I thought, well, that was fun and memorable, but she’s got other stuff to
do and there’s lots of other willing ladies out there. Yep, they were out
there, but none of them were you or even close to you. You ruined me for other
women. I fought it, but I knew I’d have to find you again, and find out if you
were what I remembered or just what I imagined.”

“So, what am I?” she asked.

“More than a little bit of both and a
bit more than either. I’m glad I came looking for you.” He gave her a quick,
one-armed hug.

“But will you stay?”

“What do you mean by that, Red? Stay for
another day, another week, a month, a year, forever? I don’t know myself right
now. This is all new to me.” He yawned. “What I CAN promise right here and now
is that as long as I’m with you, it’ll be just you and nobody else.”

She felt disappointed, and she wasn’t
sure why. He was being honest with her, she was sure, but that wasn’t quite
enough. What would be enough? For him to tell her that he loved her and he
would never, ever leave? It would be nice to hear, but she wouldn’t believe
him, not right now. He’d come halfway around the world to see her again, he’d
told her, but he hadn’t once said he loved her yet.

On the other hand…she hadn’t told him
that she loved him either. Did she love him? She did not know. The sight of him
always made her heart skip, but was that love…or lust? Or was it neither one by
itself? This was as new to her as it was to him, she thought. It would not be
fair to him to expect him to make a commitment that she wasn’t willing to make
herself. She didn’t like this train of thought. It threw a big, wet blanket
over all of the laughing and playing and fierce-yet-tender sex that had
preceded it.

“Just me? Only me?” she asked teasingly,
changing the subject. “Even if Dianne comes to visit?”

This felt way too much like walking into
a minefield to him. Was there ANY safe answer to that question?

“I gotta ask you what you mean by THAT,
Red.” He knew that she and Dianne had “played” together more than once, but he
was wary about this sudden change of course.

“Well…” her fingernail was back to
tracing swirls on his chest again. “Don’t most guys have fantasies about
threesomes?”

Okay…was this an invitation or bait for
a trap? “I don’t know about most guys, Red.”

“Come on…you’ve thought about it,
haven’t you?”

“Well, you’ve got me thinking about it
now.”

“And?”

“And what? I’m just thinking…and I’m
wondering why you brought this up.” He wished he could see her face, but all he
could see was the back of her head as it lay on his chest, and it was too dark
to see her expression anyway. Well, he wasn’t going to try to defend himself until
or unless she attacked…if she was going to attack. He didn’t know, and not for
the first time, he wished he had a better idea what went on behind Red’s lovely
green eyes.

“Anyway,” he said, stroking her hair.
“Don’t women have fantasies about threesomes too?”

She stirred, chuckling. “I suppose some
do,” she replied. “But, you see, for a woman the fantasy is likely to be about
two guys and a girl, not two girls and a guy.”

“Is it that way with you, Red?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead,
she suddenly rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. She struck a pose on all
fours, her head up, her back arched. He could just make out her form in the
streetlights that filtered through the drapes. As always, she was lovely.

“Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded
playful again. “Now, how many cocks do you have, Sam?”

“Just the one,” he chuckled. “Why?”

“And with me like this, how many hot,
wet holes do I have that you can stick that cock in?”

Was this a trick question? “Three,” he
said. He ought to know.

“Right.” She bounded back into the bed
and snuggled close to him, pulling up the covers. Well, it was a bit chilly in
her apartment. “See,” she went on, “one man can only service one hole at a
time. A woman might fantasize about two guys and two holes at once. But if guys
are fantasizing about TWO women…well, aren’t they biting off more than they can
chew?”

“We’ve got hands too, Red,” he chided.
“And tongues.”

“Oh, my dear Sam,” she sighed, “They
aren’t the same thing. They can be quite stimulating, but they just aren’t the
same thing.”

He still wasn’t sure what she was
getting at, or even if she was trying to get at anything.

“All right,” he conceded. “But what’s your
point, Red?”

“I thought I’d made my point.”

“If you did, I missed it. Are you
talking about having another guy come in?”

“No,” she said without any hesitation.
“I’m just talking about fantasies, and how they can be different for men and
women.”

“Oh?” he shifted into a more comfortable
position, still holding her close. He loved the feel of her body against his,
he loved the sound of her voice in the still darkness. “So what kind of
fantasies do you have, Red?”

“Don’t I still talk in my sleep?”

“Not lately,” he said.

She laughed, not loudly. “And does that
bother you, my dear Sam?”

“No,” he replied. It wasn’t a complete
lie.

“So…” she put her face close to his and
kissed him once. “Shall I tell you some of my deep, dark fantasies?” She laid a
slim finger across his lips before continuing. “Just remember…they might be my
fantasies, but that doesn’t mean I want to act them out. I’m still getting used
to you, Sam…and to me, all over again.”

He
kissed her fingertip before she withdrew it. “I understand,” he said. Should he
have told her that now that he’d found her again he didn’t want to share her
with anybody? Not even with Dianne? Would she have believed him?

She took a long breath before beginning.
“I have one, in particular, that keeps coming back to me.” Her voice was a low
murmur, barely audible. She laid her head back down on his chest. He couldn’t
see her face at all now, and wondered if that was deliberate. Was it easier for
her to talk about this if she wasn’t looking at him?

“There’s a big mansion, out in the
country somewhere,” she began. “It’s a huge place, and it’s surrounded by a
high wall,  very private and secure.
There’s a big party going on there, in a huge hall. All of the men are wearing
elegant and very expensive suits…” She fell silent for a moment.

“And the women?” he prompted her with
another one-armed hug.

“I was getting to that,” she murmured.
“There are plenty of women there, but no matter how they were dressed when they
were brought in, whether they wore beautiful gowns or jeans and t-shirts, now
they’re all buck-naked. They’re all blindfolded with a soft black cloth.
They’re also all handcuffed. Well, sometimes their hands are tied behind them,
with more cloth or ropes…but usually they’re handcuffed. There’s just something
about the simplicity of handcuffs…that cold, hard steel imprisoning that soft,
warm flesh…”

He made a sound of assent to let her
know he was listening.

“I’m one of the women there. None of us
saw any of the others before we were prepared and led into the hall, but I know
there are a lot of other women there besides me.”

“How do you know?” he asked. He felt her
shrug.

“Different ways,” she answered. “I can
smell their different perfumes, or I can hear a woman’s voice whenever one of
the men touches or fondles her. I don’t know exactly how many other women there
are, but I know they’re there. I can’t see, so if I move, I move very carefully,
kind of sliding my feet along the thick carpeting. Every so often I can feel a
man’s hands on my ass or my breasts or my waist. Sometimes it’s a caress,
sometimes it’s more like a squeeze, or maybe an affectionate pat. You see, the
men are walking among all these chained and naked women to pick out which one
they want to spend the night with. We can’t see them, and we can’t stop them
from touching us. Some of the men pinch my nipples, not too hard, just to hear
what kind of noise I might make when they do that. Others run a finger or a
thumb across my lips. Somehow I know that that’s a signal for me to open my
mouth for them, so I do, and then the finger or thumb might go into my mouth.
If it does, I suck on it, gently.”

She shivered in his arms. “It’s all very
slow-motion and dreamlike at first, but as time goes by, the hands on my body
get harder and rougher. At some point, a man grips me by the back of my neck to
guide me. He presses me up against another woman, and we have to kiss and move
against each other for the amusement of all the men. Her mouth is hot…not warm,
HOT…and I can feel that her breasts are bigger than mine. I can smell her
perfume very clearly then, but I can also tell that she’s very excited and
aroused…just as I am.”

“Interesting,” he said. Indeed, it was
very interesting. He could feel himself getting aroused by her story. “Is that
it?”

“Oh, no!” she chuckled. “It goes on. You
see, when a man finally chooses a woman, he puts a big leather collar on her
and buckles it in place himself. Then he clips a leash to it and begins to lead
her away…to a more private place. There’s always this terrific rush I get when
I feel the collar being put around my neck.”

“And then what?”

It usually ends there,” she replied
sleepily. “By then, I’m usually worked up enough to get myself off pretty
quickly. You see, the main thing is to be CHOSEN. Being chosen is very pretty
much the whole point, so I put up with all of the feeling and groping and
fondling and semi-forced girl-girl stuff. Not that I mind it all that much…”

“Mind what?” he asked. “The feeling or
the groping or the…”

“ANY of it, you dimbulb male.” She
pinched his side playfully. “It’s what we have to go through to be chosen. The
men don’t only want to know how we look or feel, but what we do, too…how we
react to all those things. That’s how they pick us.”

“But you don’t even know who picked you
or what he looks like.”

“That’s true,” she agreed. “But that
just add to the fantasy. I DON’T know who picked me, and I don’t know what he
plans to do.”

“So the uncertainty is a turn-on?” He
felt her shiver.

“Oh, yes!” She was emphatic. “Will he be
kind or cruel? Sometimes I can get a clue from the way he puts the collar on me,
or how hard he pulls on the leash to get me moving.”

“You said it usually ends there. What
happens when it doesn’t end there?”

She shrugged. “It depends. I’m led away
to another room. Sometimes it’s nearby, sometimes it’s a long walk to some
remote part of the mansion. I know we’ve arrived when I hear a big, heavy door
close behind me.”

“Mmmm…” he began stroking her back
gently. “And then what?”

“You’re getting off on this, aren’t
you?” she asked.

“How can you tell?” he responded
jokingly.

“Oh…little things,” she answered. He
felt her fingers close softly around his cock. “I can just tell.”

He had to chuckle. “But then what, Red?
What does he do to you in that private room?”

“Ah…” she hesitated before going on. “I
didn’t tell you…sometimes I’m led down long flights of stairs. When I feel cold
stones under my feet instead of thick carpet, I now I’ve been taken to some
dark, dark basement. Sometimes I can hear other women moaning or screaming, but
faintly, like they were behind thick wooden doors. I think it’s some kind of
dungeon, and I get a bit scared then. But there’s nothing I can do about it
now. Actually, there was nothing I could do about it once I agreed to come
here. I knew that all along.” Her fingers, slim and strong, closed more tightly
around the shaft of his cock and began slowly stroking it. He could feel
himself swelling and hardening.

“Ahhh...Red…”

“Hush,” she admonished him. Her fingers
kept stroking and squeezing. “Let me finish. I can hear other men’s voices, all
around me, but they’re talking so quietly I can’t make out what they’re saying,
or how many of them there are. Then I feel hard, strong hands grab me and force
me to my knees on those cold stones. I try to fight them, but they’re too many
and too strong, and I get slapped for resisting. They hold me there so I can’t
get up, and then I feel someone grab me by my hair and I get slapped again. I
know what’s coming, and I know I can’t stop it, but I try to at first.” She
took a deep breath. “And then…I give up. I yield. I whimper once just before I
open my mouth as wide as I can for the first hard, merciless cock…”

He never did hear any more of her story,
because he felt her lips close around the head of his own hard, merciless cock
and begin to suck. He took a fistful of her coppery hair, but did not use the
grip to urge her on. She knew what she was doing, and she could do it very
well, and he never interfered with an expert who knew what they were doing. He could
hear her making little murmurs of pleasure along with the soft, wet sounds he
was coming to know so well. He’d been pretty well drained before, and it was
probably going to take her a while to make him come again, but if she didn’t
mind, he sure as Hell didn’t mind either. He squeezed the back of her neck
once, gently. Something about her pose made him think, irrationally, of a
vampire feeding on her prey. He almost laughed out loud at the thought but
didn’t. She would have wanted to know what he was laughing at. He didn’t think
he could explain it clearly, and anyway it would break the mood. He gave her
slender neck another affectionate squeeze and moaned just loud enough for her
to hear.

Chapter
Three

“You want any breakfast?”

“Just coffee, thanks,” Claudia replied.
“Not enough time to eat anything.”

“Red,” Sam shook his head, “it’s not as
if you’re gonna get docked if you show up a couple of minutes late, is it? And
you’re not the only one with a key to the office, are you?”

“Well, no,” Claudia admitted as she took
a quick sip of her coffee. She liked it hot, black and strong. Sam liked to experiment
with different kinds of coffee and this morning’s brew tasted faintly of
something vanilla-ish. It wasn’t bad. “But I am the boss, after all. Anyway,
you’re the one who took up so much time this morning.”

“Was that me? I could’ve sworn it was
us, Red.”

She gave him a shy, sly smile. “Okay, it
was us,” she agreed with a big grin. She looked very trim and businesslike in
her skirt, blouse and jacket, nothing at all like the rumpled, straining,
squalling hellion of a half-hour ago. She liked it rough, and she especially
liked it from behind. He was going to have to change all the bedsheets, but…it
had definitely been worth it, even if he was going to have to eat breakfast
alone because of it.

He watched her down the last of the
coffee and place the mug in the sink. “I should be back in the early
afternoon,” she smiled up at him before leaning forward and standing on her
toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Will you be here?”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and
drew her close for a more thorough kiss. She responded happily before pulling
away. “Really, Sam, I have to go now or I’ll be late,” she protested.

“All right, all right,” he nodded,
letting her go. As she turned away, he couldn’t resist giving her well-tailored
rump a light swat. She jumped a little and giggled back at him over her
shoulder before hurrying out the door of her apartment. He heard her lock it
behind her. She always did that. He knew it was probably out of force of habit.
It did feel sometimes, though, as if she were locking him in.

Well, that’s that, he thought. Another
morning all to himself, when what he really wanted was Red all to himself. She
just wouldn’t let go of her business, even for a little while. He could
understand that. He had a business of his own, and had been just as worried
about and protective of it when it was just starting up too. Still…he sighed
once and shook his head. Tomorrow was Saturday. Her office wasn’t open on the
weekends.

He stood up and paced slowly around the
small kitchen table. The idea of spending all weekend here in her apartment,
keeping her naked and bound…or chained…and eager had a certain appeal, but the
fact was that there was only so much you could do in a day…or  two…even with such a willing and lovely
captive. Anyway, he wanted to know her in other ways and in other places. What
kind of movies did she like? Did she like to bowl or play pool, did she like
sports, and if so, what kind? What did she do for fun when he wasn’t around?

There was an awful lot he just didn’t know
about her. He wanted to know everything, but he had no idea where to begin.

He stopped pacing and looked around at
the kitchen. He’d been in a lot of women’s kitchens over the years, and every
one of them had told him something about the woman who ran it. This one told
him almost nothing. It was neat and clean and as impersonal as a showroom.
There were no decorations, no flowers, not even artificial ones, in a vase to
give a touch of color. The appliances were all either white or bright chrome,
and the only ones that showed any sign of regular use were the microwave oven
and the coffeemaker. Why did she even have a food processor? Had it been a gift
from someone who just didn’t know her that well?

He
cracked open a couple of eggs into the skillet and added the peppers and onions
that he’d chopped up earlier. Alone or not, he still wanted his breakfast. He
had time for that and for cleaning up afterwards before he would need to make
those phone calls.

Claudia eased her car into her usual
spot. She was ten minutes early and couldn’t get that smug half-smile off of
her face. Sam knew what she liked almost better than she did, and she had liked
this morning very much indeed. She retrieved the sunscreen from the back seat
and propped it up in her windshield before getting out of her car and going on
to unlock the office door. As she was entering, she saw Amanda’s elderly little
Toyota pulling up. Years and miles had dulled the original paint to a pale,
flat dishwater gray, and there was a small crack in the windshield, but it
seemed to run pretty well, and it was likely that Amanda couldn’t afford
anything else. Claudia smiled and waved before going inside.

“Good morning, Miss Cole,” Amanda smiled
as she bustled in a few moments later.

“Good morning, Amanda,” Claudia smiled
back as she waited for her computer to boot up. “But I told you to call me
‘Claudia’ not ‘Miss Cole’, remember?”

“Sorry,” Amanda looked rueful. “I keep
forgetting.”

“It’s all right. Anything happen after I
left yesterday?”

“Ah…no.” Amanda put her oversized purse
down on her desk and bustled over to the office coffeemaker. “Oh, wait! A
Detective Sanchez called for you around three. She said she’d call back this
morning.”

“Did she say what the call was about?”

“No,” Amanda shook her head. “Just that
it could wait until this morning.”

“Okay,” Claudia nodded. She couldn’t
think of any reason for Sanchez to call here unless it was important…but if it
had really been important she would have called her at home…wouldn’t she?

Amanda came back to her desk and started
her computer. The coffeemaker began to gurgle quietly to itself. Claudia rose
from her chair and went back to the older computer that had the only Internet
connection in the office. It was getting creaky and cranky in its old age, and
it would probably be a good idea to replace it soon. She clicked it on.
Normally she’d get herself some coffee while the poor old thing booted up, but
this morning she just lounged back in the chair and smiled to herself as she
thought about the past few days…and nights…with Sam. He was strong and
demanding and very, very male. He had done things with her and to her that made
her toes curl up. Right now she was feeling wonderfully relaxed and loose and
alive. She also felt completely safe with him. On second thought, safe might
not be quite the right word. She felt sure that he wasn’t going to go around
telling anybody what a totally kinky whore she was. She stifled a very
un-boss-like giggle before sobering up. That kind of trust was priceless. Why
was she giving it to a man she didn’t really know that well?

She shook her head to clear it. She was
in her office now. She should concentrate on business.

The morning’s e-mail had more than the
usual share of fantastic, incredible offers, but she really didn’t think she
needed any kind of viagra, herbal or otherwise. Sam certainly didn’t seem to
need any. Neither was she in the market for any kind of debt consolidation or
any subscriptions to anything. She also didn’t think she was the right person
to help get forty million dollars transferred from an overseas bank account.
She clicked on all of the offending messages and consigned them to the oblivion
of virtual trash.

That left five e-mails that might be
worth opening. She clicked on the first one.

Her business website, small as it was,
did bring in a number of inquiries every day. Most of them, though, were of the
I-think-my-spouse-is-cheating-on-me-can-you-help-me-get-proof type. She usually
didn’t even bother to respond to them. In her first few months of running her
own agency, she’d had to take some jobs like that just to pay the bills. But
those kinds of cases left her feeling grimy, even if the suspicions turned out
to be correct. If the suspicions turned out not to be correct, which was about
half the time, she felt both grimy and slimy.
Three of this morning’s e-mails were from suspicious spouses and she deleted
them after giving each one a quick scan, just in case. One of the other two
messages was from a firm located in the next county asking if she would be
interested in doing some consulting work for them on their plant security. That
one might be worth replying to. She had a number of consulting contracts. None
of them were very big, but in the aggregate they went a long way to paying the
bills and meeting the payroll.

The fifth e-mail was from a local
newspaper interested in interviewing her for a follow-up article on the Bowman
insurance scam. They’d also like to get some pictures of her for the article.

Claudia leaned back in the chair and
nibbled at her lower lip. The interview might not be a bad idea. It would be
great free publicity for her agency, especially with the case still fresh in
people’s minds. Pictures were another matter. She didn’t want her face
plastered all over the Sunday edition. There wasn’t anything wrong with the way
she looked, but it was possible for any investigator to be a bit
too…ah…visible. In any case, she valued her privacy too much. Leaning forward,
she quickly tapped out a reply to the effect that was agreeable to an
interview, but no pictures, please. If they’d go for that, fine. If not…she
shrugged and logged out of the office e-mail.

That reminded her, though. She hadn’t
heard back from the insurance company about her fee. Shepperton might have been
running a scam, but he’d been a legitimate employee of theirs when he’d signed
that contract with her. Maybe she should fax them over a copy of it as a
reminder. No, on second thought, Amanda should do that. She might be a shy
little temp, but she had the same idea as Marabel about letting the boss handle
menial work.

Jerry breezed into the office a moment
later, apologizing about being late. “I had to get a jump start,” he explained.
“I might need one to get home again too.”

“What’s the problem?” Claudia asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the battery,”
Jerry shrugged. “It’s almost as old as the car.”

“Why not just replace it, then?”

“I’m planning to after work,” he
replied. “There’s a service center near that little mall, and they’re open
until eight. If they can’t do it for me, I can do it myself in their parking
lot. All I need is a wrench.” He grinned. “Anyway…what’s on the docket for
today, Chief?”

“Not a lot,” Claudia shook her head.
“Maybe you could give Amanda a hand with bringing all the files up to date.”

“They’re all up to date, Chief. It’s
been pretty quiet the past few days.”

“Oh. Well, then…” Claudia tried to think
of something, but she had a sudden mental picture of herself and Sam earlier
that morning, writhing and groaning in her bed, his hands on her shoulders…

“Sorry!” She shook her head abruptly. “I
lost my train of thought.” She felt her face reddening.

“You’ve been doing that lately,” Jerry
observed with a smile. “Maybe you need a real vacation, instead of these
half-day things you’ve been doing.”

Claudia felt herself blushing more
deeply. “Ah…well…it’s different when you’re the boss, Jer.”

“One reason I never wanted to be the
boss,” Jerry shrugged. He wandered off to get himself some coffee. Claudia had
the distinct impression he’d wanted to say more but had decided against it. He
was a smart man, despite his careless and rumpled appearance. She was sure he’d
guessed what was behind her half-days and occasional mental lapses, and
grateful that he wasn’t saying anything about it. The situation must be pretty
confusing to Amanda, though.

The phone rang, and Amanda answered it
with her usual cheerful tone. “Good morning! Cole Investigations. How may I
help you?” After a moment, she took the phone away from her ear and put her
hand over the mouthpiece. “Miss Cole? It’s for you. Sergeant Sanchez.”

“Oh.” Claudia nodded. “Yes. I’ll take it
at my desk.” She got up, walked over and plopped herself down in her office
chair. She picked up her phone and punched the blinking button. “Cole here,”
she said. “What’s up, Sergeant?”

“Hi, Cole.” Sanchez chuckled at the
other end. “Understand you’ve been slacking off this week.”

“Just afternoons,” Claudia replied,
smiling. She liked the stocky little detective and considered her a friend.
“Don’t you cops get some time off after a shooting?”

“Depends on who shot and who got shot.
The other night, nobody got shot,” Sanchez said. “Anyway, I’m figurin’ you’re
spending that time off with that tall, dark and rugged Pender character.
Right?”

“Ah…” Claudia felt herself beginning to
blush again. First Jerry, now Sanchez. What did Amanda know, or guess? She
swiveled her chair so that she was facing away from her. “So?” she said
defensively.

Sanchez chuckled again. “Hey, I don’t
blame you,” she answered. “He’s not my type, but I can see where some women
might find him attractive. Anyway, he’s the reason I’m calling.”

“Oh? But then, why call me here at the
office about that?”

“I though it might be better. I know
he’s staying at your place nowadays.”

Claudia felt a faint chill. She dropped
her voice to a whisper. “Have you been watching me?”

“No way, Cole.” Sanchez snapped back.
“He moved out of his hotel suite and left your apartment as a forwarding
address. I was checking up on him when I found that out, not on you.”

“Sorry,” Claudia felt herself blushing
yet again. “So that’s why you didn’t call me at home. Did you think it would
matter where I was when you called?”

“Oh…” Sanchez sounded overly casual.
“Maybe it wouldn’t. I dunno. But I did some checking on him.”

“I thought you would. What did you find
out?” Claudia spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper. She was worried about
what Sanchez might say.

“Well, he’s an engineer, like he said,
and he owns his own company, like he said. He’s also a couple years older than
you. He’s got a clean record going back about ten years.”

“There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”
Claudia prompted.

“Yep.” Sanchez sighed. “You know me. I
keep digging until the shovel hits something.”

“And?”

“Look, Cole, there’s nothing really,
really bad, just this one thing that bothers me. I thought you should know. Mr.
Pender had kind of a colorful youth. You want to talk about this over the phone
in your office, or you want to meet somewhere in private?”

“You’re making me think maybe it is kind
of bad.”

“So you want it now?”

“N-no.” Claudia shook her head. “I’ll
meet you. Can you take an early lunch?”

“If you’re springing for it, sure.”

“All right, then…”

The restaurant she chose for the meeting
was just over the township line. Claudia had chosen it because she’d only been
to it once before and wasn’t likely to be recognized. She didn’t know why that
seemed to be important to her just now, but it also served good Italian food,
and that was likely to be important to Sanchez. She had the hostess seat her in
a corner booth where she could watch the door. When Sanchez arrived, she waved
her over with a smile that wasn’t entirely sincere.

“Not bad, Cole.” Sanchez grinned as she
sat down facing her. “I wasn’t expecting anything this upscale for lunch.”

“I thought you’d like it.” Claudia
replied. “The food here is pretty good, as I recall.”

A skinny young waitress brought them
menus and ice water and left without saying anything.

“I hope it’s better than the service
seems to be,” Sanchez observed sourly, turning her head to frown at the
departing waitress’ back.

“Well, we’re not really meeting here
just for lunch, are we?”

Sanchez turned back with a sheepish grin.
“No, we’re not.” She picked up her menu and opened it, eying Claudia over the
top of it. “You want it now or after we’ve ordered?”

“Go ahead and order,” Claudia sighed.
“I’m not all that hungry.”

Sanchez closed the menu and laid it down
on the table. “You’re pissed,” she observed with a shrug. “Well, I don’t blame
you. I’ve been kinda jerking your chain here.”

“Yes, you have,” Claudia agreed. “And
I’m thinking that if it was something really bad you would’ve told me right
away. If it wasn’t anything much, you’d have told me over the phone. So it’s
something in between and trying to figure out what that could be is driving me
nuts.”

Sanchez shrugged again. “Hell, I’ve been
trying to figure out how to tell you, and that’s been driving me nuts.” She
took a drink of her water, thumped the glass back down on the table. Some of
the water splashed onto the red-and-white checked tablecloth. “Look, Cole, he’s
got a lot of the usual stuff for a wild young man: A couple of DUI’s, way back
when, a couple of drunk and disorderlies, disturbing the peace, stuff like that.
There’s only one thing in his record that bothers me.”

“What is it?”

“Manslaughter. The charges were dropped
before it ever got to trial, though.”

“Dropped? Do you know why?” Claudia
leaned forward, keeping her voice low. She saw the skinny waitress approaching
and waved her off with a frown. The girl made a face and went away.

“His lawyer claimed it was self-defense.
Some sheriff was pushing for a trial, but the district attorney wouldn’t go for
it. That’s all I’ve been able to come up with so far.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten years. He’s been squeaky-clean ever
since, as near as I can tell.”

“Any particulars on the case?”

Sanchez sighed. “No. I told you all I
could find out. That’s what bothers me about it all, Cole. The record is
complete and yet totally sterile. It tells me who, what and when, but doesn’t
even hint at the why. I think somebody got hold of it and…well, let’s say it
was sanitized, somehow. I don’t have a clue as to the why of that, either.”

“Politics?” Claudia suggested. “Family
connections?”

“Cole,” Sanchez shook her head, “He had
no family connections. His folks were dirt-poor ranchers. He’s an only child.
Mother died when he was fifteen. Car accident. Father died in a hospital a
couple of years ago. He smoked too much. Both of them came from dirt-poor
families too. He might have a couple of third cousins around somewhere, but
that’s as close as he gets to any kind of family connections.”

“You’re going to keep digging, though?”
Claudia asked.

Sanchez smiled wanly. “Nope,” she shook
her head. “I got as far as I could before they took away my shovel and told me
I couldn’t dig there any more.”

“They?”

“I think I annoyed somebody back in
Pender’s old neighborhood with all my questions. I think they called somebody
who called somebody who called my chief who then called me into his office.”

“Oh.” Claudia frowned. “You’re not in
any trouble, are you?”

“Not so long as I leave Mr. Pender
alone.” Sanchez looked straight into Claudia’s eyes. “I don’t know what it’s
all about, Cole. And that bothers me more than anything else.” She picked up
her menu again and opened it. “I get hungry when I’m annoyed,” she announced.
Can you get that stick-figure of a waitress back now?”

Chapter Four

Claudia drove slowly back towards her
apartment, taking back roads. She wanted time to think, lots of time to think.
She’d prodded Sanchez for more information, but the stocky little detective
hadn’t been able to provide much. It had been like pulling teeth, she’d said,
just to get what little information she had. Nobody she’d spoken to had wanted
to talk about what had happened ten years ago.

Manslaughter. Sam had killed a man. She
couldn’t picture him doing that…or could she? The more she thought about it,
the less certain she was. It was on the record that he had indeed done so, and
it didn’t matter if she could picture it or not. What had been the
circumstances? Apparently it had been ruled self-defense, and he’d never been
tried for it. That was a bit of a relief, but still…

She turned off the radio. It was just a
distracting noise now. What was she going to do? Her first thought had been to
confront Sam about it directly. It still seemed to be the best course in spite
of all the other ideas that were clamoring for attention in her mind. So…if it
was such a good idea, why was she taking such a long time to get home?

It was because she was afraid, she
realized. She wasn’t afraid of what Sam might do. She was afraid of what he might
say. She was also afraid of what he might not say. He might not say anything
about it at all and that would somehow be worse than if he just shrugged and
said, “So what?”

On second thought, she was afraid of
what he might do after all. Oh, she wasn’t afraid that he would hurt her
physically. Their lovemaking…no, their fucking, she corrected herself…was wild
and kinky and fierce. His spankings stung and smarted, sometimes for hours
afterwards, but that was savage foreplay that both of them enjoyed. Some times
he gripped her so hard that it hurt, but that was a good hurt. She was
completely convinced that Sam would never truly strike her. But…what if he said
nothing and just left? That would hurt worse than if he actually beat her.

She kept driving, paying only the
minimum attention required to stay on her side of the road. Maybe she was just
overthinking things. What she really needed was a close friend to talk this all
over with. Too bad the only close friend she had was Diane. Diane lived a long,
long way away from here, and this wouldn’t be the kind of talk they could have
over a long-distance line.

She sighed heavily. She could keep on
thinking about this, worrying about it, and what-iffing it, but sooner or later
she was going to have to face it…and Sam. As much as she dreaded some of the
possible outcomes she could imagine, even as a little girl she hadn’t been the
type to hide from boogeymen. She straightened in her seat. Her foot began to
apply pressure to the accelerator. The highway was up ahead.

As she pulled into the parking lot of
her apartment complex, she saw that Sam’s rental car wasn’t there. Her first
feeling of relief didn’t last long. He might have parked it somewhere else in
order to surprise her again. Even if he was out and about, he’d be back
eventually. She parked in her usual spot and killed the engine. She sat in her
car for a long moment before getting out.

Her apartment was cool and dark and
empty when she entered. She made a point of making noise, closing the door a
bit too hard, jingling her car keys before laying them down on the wooden stand
next to the living room closet, stalking boldly into the kitchen still wearing
her low heels. It was a few minutes before she was certain that Sam was not
there. She still checked each closet in the apartment, feeling a little
foolish. There was no Sam. There was no note from him, either.

She sat down on her bed, at a loss for
what to do. Before Sam came, she usually never got home before six.  She had a more-or-less regular schedule for
her early evenings which included sessions at the health club, continuing
self-defense classes and sometimes a trip to the indoor pistol range, just to
keep in practice. This past week, she had done none of those things. Instead,
she had stayed at home, held in lusty, eager captivity by Sam. Even when they
weren’t fucking, it was very, very nice to be held in his arms in the dark as
they talked in low voices about a variety of things. Sam was very interested in
her life, where had she grown up, what was it like there, what was her family
like. He in turn talked about different projects he had worked on and odd
characters he’d met. He never said anything about his boyhood. Any time she’d
brought the matter up, he would change the subject, sometimes in a very
ingeniously carnal way.

But…here it was, early afternoon, no Sam
and she felt completely lost. Go back to the office? She could do
that, but why? Just because she couldn’t think of anything else to do? She
kicked off her shoes and laid back on the bed. Now she was beginning to feel
more than a little irritated at Sam. Why couldn’t he have at least left a note
for her? Did he expect her to just wait for him, no matter how long it took?

The phone rang. Without thinking, she
sat up quickly, eagerly reaching for it. She caught herself. If it was Sam, she
didn’t want to seem to eager to answer. She let it ring again and again. On the
fourth ring, she picked it up, just before the answering machine would have kicked
in.

“Hello?”

“Hi Red, it’s me. Sorry I didn’t leave
you a note, but I expected to be back a while ago.” Sam sounded unreasonably
cheerful.

“Oh.” She bit back the complaint she’d
been ready to make about just that thing. “Where are you now?”

“Not far. I’m on my way back. You have
any plans for the rest of the day?”

She almost laughed at that. “No, why?”

“I should be there in ten, fifteen
minutes. I’m takin’ you to the zoo, so dress comfortable, okay?”

“What? The zoo? But…”

“Gotta go, Red. See you soon. Bye!”

Claudia stared at the receiver for a
moment. The zoo? She hadn’t been to a zoo since…well, she couldn’t remember
exactly, but it was a long time ago. She’d still been in high school then. She
hung up the receiver. What did he have in mind? What would she wear?

“You look good, Red,” Sam grinned as he
looked her up and down. “You ready to go?”

“Sure.” Claudia nodded. She didn’t feel
all that good. She’d dug the jeans out from the back of her closet. She hadn’t
worn them in a while, and they felt disturbingly tight. When she’d found the
jeans, she’d also found an old, oversized white cotton shirt. It was worn at
the collar and cuffs, but soft and comfortable. For shoes, she’d thrown on the
same pair she usually wore to the gym. She’d also retrieved an old straw hat, a
souvenir from a holiday many years ago. And there was still that question she
would have to ask him, but later, later. “But where did you find a zoo around
here? I didn’t know there was one.”

“When did you go looking for one, Red?”
he countered. “You’ve been too busy up to now, haven’t you?”

“Well, yes, I guess I have. But where is
it?”

“Not too far. Maybe twenty, twenty-five
minutes. I’ll drive.”

She followed him out to his car. She
wanted to blurt out the question with every step, but fought the urge back.
This was the closest thing she’d had to a date since she’d moved here two years
ago. She didn’t want to spoil the mood. Not just yet, anyway.

Much to her surprise, Sam opened the car
door for her. She slid into the passenger seat and smiled up at him just before
he shut the door. When was the last time a man had treated her like that? It
was another one of those things she couldn’t quite remember. Or…was it two
years ago, when Sam and Rom had taken her and Dianne to that restaurant for
dinner and dancing…before later taking them out into the country for… She
shivered at the memory.

“What’s the problem, Red?” They were out
on one of the county highways. Sam was a careful driver, leaving plenty of room
between himself and any vehicles in front. The windows were up. The air
conditioning kept the interior comfortable and the only sounds for the past few
minutes had been the faint whirr of the fan and the muted sound of the tires on
the road.

“Ah…what do you mean?” She knew what he
meant. For a moment she debated telling him that she hadn’t been on a date for
so long she’d forgotten how to act, but that wouldn’t fool him.

“C’mon, Red. Something’s bugging you.
What is it?”

She was silent for a long minute. Sam
just waited it out.

“Detective Sanchez called me today.”
Claudia looked at him, trying not to appear as nervous as she felt.

“And?” Sam prompted. He certainly wasn’t
making this easy for her.

“Remember I told you she was going to
check up on you, Sam?”

“I remember. So what did she find out?”

Claudia swallowed before continuing. Sam
kept his eyes on the traffic. She could only see his profile, and it was
unreadable. “Sam, she told me about a manslaughter charge. Ten years ago? What
happened?”

“I ain’t proud of it, Red,” he replied.
“I was still kind of a wild kid in those days. Drinkin’ too much sometimes, gettin’
into fights. My parents had busted their asses to be able to put me through
college, and I got my degree…but I was wastin’ it all. And I thought I was just
havin’ fun. What else was there?” he shrugged. Now, in profile, he looked grim.

“But…” Claudia searched for words. “How
did it happen? Sanchez told me it had been ruled self-defense.”

He looked at her once, smiling wryly,
before turning his attention back to the road. “Yeah, it was and it wasn’t,
Red.” He fell silent. Claudia thought he didn’t want to talk about it anymore,
but then he began to speak again.

“There was this bad bunch. Young guys,
just like me and my friends, only bad. We’d get busted for drunk and disorderly
or DUI any time the local cops thought we needed to be reined in a bit. We knew
how it worked and no hard feelings. But this other bunch…they didn’t live in
the area like we did. They’d roll into town every so often just to make
trouble. Bad trouble. They put people into the hospital some times. We usually
kept clear of them. Let the cops handle it.” He took a measured breath.

“Then one day, me and a couple of my
buds came across three of them hassling a woman. She worked as a waitress at
the roadhouse we liked to hang out in. Older woman, but she looked good enough
for us to try to flirt with her sometimes. She always brushed us off, but
always with a smile. It was like with the cops. No hard feelings. Anyway, these
three had found the trailer where she lived and it was pretty clear they had
more than flirting in mind. When we got there, she was really scared. They’d
caught her outside, had her surrounded. She kept trying to get back into her
trailer, and they’d block her way every time, laughing. When she saw us…Red, I
never saw such a great big question, such a fuckin’ desperate plea on anybody’s
face ever, before or since. She knew us. We knew her. She needed help, and we
were the only ones there.”

Claudia reached out to put her hand on
his arm, lightly. He reached over to touch her hand briefly with his own.

“Bobby and Teech, well, I could see they
weren’t sure. They wanted to help, but those guys had been known to cut people
who crossed them. It was a funny thing. I could feel like everything was slowed
down, just kinda teeterin’, balanced on a point, waiting for somethin’ to tip
it one way or the other. I guess we could’a gone to call the cops…but Ann kept
lookin’ over towards us. Next thing I knew, I was out of the car, walkin’ over
to those thugs, tellin’ ‘em to leave the lady alone.”

“What happened then?”

Sam grunted. “They just laughed and told
us to mind our own business. They didn’t say it quite like that, but that was
the gist of it. Then one of ‘em grabbed Ann by her arm and told us we could
have ‘er when they were done. I dunno what happened right after that, Red.
There had to be ten, twenty feet between me and him, but the next thing I knew
I was right in his face, tryin’ to punch my fist right through his head. I
busted most of his front teeth and one of my knuckles, but he let go of Ann and
fell over like a sack of dirt. He didn’t move after he hit.”

“You killed him with a punch?”

“Naw, Red,” Sam grinned faintly. “He
wasn’t dead, just out cold. Then I heard Teech yell for me to look out.” He shook
his head.  “I don’t know what made me
move the way I did or in the direction I did, because there was no way for me
to see the guy coming up behind me tryin’ to stick a knife into me. Anyway, I
did what I did and he missed. He was off-balance, and I saw the knife. It was a
big sheath knife, Red, and I didn’t want him to stick it into any part of me,
so I aimed a punch at his jaw. I was a little off-balance myself, though and
instead of his jaw, I caught him right in the throat. Hard. His eyes got all big,
he dropped the knife and started to turn blue. He made some terrible noises
before he died, tryin’ to suck in air. The third guy saw that and ran. The
local sheriff showed up a little bit after that, ‘cause the chickenshit called
‘em.”

“They arrested you?”

“Oh, yeah, but the way the deputy
explained it to me it was more like takin’ me into protective custody.
Chickenshit had friends, and he’d prob’ly called them too. As it turned out, he
did. They showed up later in the day, lookin’ for blood. They didn’t get any.
The sheriff’d ordered all the bars in town closed ahead of time, and they all
had the sense to go along with it. So the gang got no blood and no booze and
after a while they got bored and went away. They promised to be back, though.”

“Sanchez said the sheriff wanted you
tried for murder.”

“Yeah, the sheriff in the next county
did. The thug I’d accidentally killed was a nephew of his or something. He got
real loud and belligerent about it, but there was never a chance of makin’ a
charge like that stick and he knew it.”

“Sanchez also said that the charges were
dropped.”

“They weren’t ever really made, Red. I
had Bobby and Teech to back up my story, but what really decided it was Ann’s
testimony. I never did get a chance to thank that lady. She moved away real
soon afterwards. Anyway, I spent a couple nights in the jail. Still protective
custody, mind you, but I wasn’t fightin’ real hard to get released. I needed
time to think.”

“To think about what, Sam?” Claudia gave
his arm a little squeeze.

“Everything, Red. I’d got a good long
look into Ann’s eyes when she was scared and prayin’ we’d help her, and another
into that guy’s eyes. I knew the exact moment when he realized he was gonna die.
I gotta remind myself some times that just a little bit before that he was
tryin’ to kill me. I did a lot of thinkin’ about a lot of things. I wasn’t even
worried about goin’ to trial. I was ready for it if it happened, but somehow it
just didn’t seem all that important. I had other things to worry about, like
what was I gonna do with my life? I started to see that if I kept on livin’ it
the way I had been, I had a pretty good chance of endin’ up like that guy,
dyin’ in the dust in a trailer park or maybe in a car wreck out in the desert.
I didn’t want to end up that way.”

“So…what did you do, Sam?”

“Well, after it all got sorted out…the
judge had a long talk with me and suggested that it might be a good idea if I
went and lived somewhere else for a while. Sounded like a plan to me. I said my
good-byes to my old man, paid a last visit to my mom’s grave and left those
parts. I found myself a job where I could put that college degree to use.” He
chuckled. “I found out I was pretty good at it. Damned good, after a while.”

“Did you ever…go back?”

“Oh, hell yeah!” Sam replied. He seemed
less grim now. “I kept writin’ to my old man, sent him some money when I could
spare it. I went back after…oh, four years, I think, because I’d got word he
wasn’t doing too well. He wasn’t. Too much hard livin’ had finally caught up
with him. I got him into a pretty good nursing home, ‘cause he needed more care
than I could give him. While I was in the neighborhood, I got a job offer for
some major construction goin’ on. I took it. The pay was good, but it was the
bonuses I kept earnin’ that let me start my own company. Consulting, mostly. I
turned out to be good at that too.”

“But…what about the rest of that gang?
They hadn’t forgotten you, had they?”

“I
don’t know, Red.” He patted her hand where it rested on his arm again. “Two of
‘em got shot tryin’ to break into a rancher’s house while the rancher was still
at home. I heard one of ‘em killed himself tryin’ to outrun a patrol car.
Couldn’t quite make that last turn. The others…well, they must’ve drifted off.
Nobody knew where they went and nobody cared.”

Now she knew why Sam hadn’t wanted to
talk about parts of his life. Claudia leaned over, hampered by the shoulder
safety belt, and laid her head on his shoulder for a moment. She believed him.
His story didn’t explain why anyone would quash Sanchez’s investigation, but
that could wait until later or maybe even forever. “I’m so sorry, Sam,” she
said quietly. She sat back up. She kept her hand on his arm.

He gave her a quick look, a crooked
grin. “Sorry for what, Red? None of it was your doin’.”

She smiled back at him. There didn’t
seem to be anything more to say just now. All of her earlier anxiety was gone.

The zoo was a delight. She’d forgotten
how much fun it was to watch the antics of the monkeys, how fascinating it was
to look into the unblinking eye of a snake. It wasn’t a large zoo, but it was
well laid-out. It also had an impressive array of animals, including some of
her favorites, the birds of prey. There was even a show put on by some
falconers, with big, hook-beaked hawks flying from one handler to another and
back again. One of them had made a point of flying very low as it passed from
behind the audience to the falconer standing in front. It flew so low that it
smacked Sam lightly on the back of his head with the trailing leather strips of
its jesses. It seemed to be a deliberate act, because once it had landed on the
falconer’s outstretched arm it turned around and glared directly at Sam as if
daring him to do something about it. Sam started to laugh, and she had to join
in.

The zoo was a delight, but it was
because she was there with Sam. They walked all over the zoo, holding hands for
most of the time, pointing out interesting things to each other. Once he’d
stopped her right after a peahen had scuttled across the walkway. She turned
her head to ask him why he’d done that, but he’d just smiled and pointed
towards the bushes the bird had emerged from. One by one, six little chicks
scampered across the asphalt after the peahen. Sam waited for a moment after
the last one had disappeared into the bushes on the other side before
continuing. Then she stopped him and pulled him close for a kiss.

The day was sliding slowly into evening
when they left the zoo. Off to the west the clouds were painted in lurid reds
and purples by the setting sun. To the east, the sky was a dark, dark blue
shading into black, faintly pinpointed here and there by a few early stars.

“Where are we going now?” Claudia asked
him as he once again held the car door open for her. She slid into the
passenger seat.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” she smiled. She was indeed
hungry, but not just for food. She was also hungry to feel him between her legs
or in her mouth, but the longer that was delayed the more eager and excited she
would be for it. She was certain that he had something in mind. He always did.

“You like hot dogs? Burgers?” he asked
just before he shut the door.

Why did he ask her that? She waited until
he got into the car and shut the door.

“Why hot dogs and hamburgers?” she
asked.

“’Cause that’s what they sell at the
carnival.” He grinned and started up the rental car.

“There’s a carnival in town?”

“Well there’s one in the area. Rides and
games and junk food aplenty. I’m gonna try to win a stuffed animal for you,
even if the games are rigged.”

“How do you find these things?” Claudia
shook her head. He leaned across the seat to plant a quick peck on her lips.

“Got a powerful incentive to, Red,” he
replied, his face still close to hers.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“I mean I love to see your face light up
when you see something you really like. I love to hear your laugh when you see
or hear something funny. And I love to be the one responsible for that.”

She reached out to pull him close for a
longer kiss. A much longer kiss. She had to break it before it got too steamy,
but she kept it going long enough for him to look forward to their return to
her apartment later. She wanted him to be eager and excited too.

She hadn’t been to a carnival since she
was twelve or thirteen. Somehow, once puberty had kicked in, carnivals had
stopped being cool. But as she walked hand-in-hand with Sam along the midway,
the flashing lights, the babble of voices and the calliope music in the
background made it seem like the best place in the world to be that night. They
ate foot-long hotdogs smothered in sauerkraut, followed by fresh hot popcorn
and orange sodas. The sodas were indeed orange-colored, but they were
syrupy-sweet and didn’t taste much like oranges.

There weren’t a lot of rides suitable
for adults, but they did have bumper cars. She’d loved bumper cars when she was
a girl and found that she could still get a thrill out of ramming into one of
the other cars…well, ramming into the one Sam was driving, anyway. He tried to
reciprocate, but she managed to evade most of his efforts, laughing like a kid
the whole time. There was also a small ferris wheel. They rode it several
times. She sat close to Sam, resting her head on his shoulder as they went up
and down, the colorful view below changing with every revolution. And finally,
he took her to one of the many “games of skill” to try to win a stuffed animal
for her. He picked one where the object was to knock over three wooden bottles
with a baseball. His first attempt only brought down two, but on the second try
he not only knocked them all down but sent them spinning away off of the table.
The barker running the game, a skinny young man in a sweat-stained striped
shirt, congratulated Sam, but didn’t suggest that he try again. When he asked
Sam which of the stuffed animals hanging overhead he wanted, Sam had turned to
her with a smile and asked her which one she’d like.

It was difficult for her to choose,
and the barker grew visibly more impatient as she kept looking the selection
over. She finally settled on a rust-colored stuffed cat.

“Where did you learn to throw like
that?” she asked Sam later as they walked towards the exit.

“What do you mean?” he had his arm
around her, and it felt good.

“I mean, those games are rigged. It’s
almost impossible to knock all those bottles over.”

“Yeah,” Sam shrugged. “I know.”

“So how did you do it?”

“Red,” he gave her a one-armed hug.
“When I was a kid, I used to hunt rabbits for the pot that way. It kinda stuck
with me.”

“And that’s why you were able to bean
Shepperton with a rock before he could shoot me.”

“Pretty much. He was a much bigger
target than any rabbit I ever saw. But hey, I’ve got a question for you now.”

“What?”

“Why did you pick that particular stuffed
animal?” he asked. “You’ve already got one.”

“What? I don’t have any stuffed animals
at home, let alone one like this.”

“That ain’t what I meant, Red,” he
chuckled. They were out into the parking lot now. It was late, and there were
only a few cars still there.

“Well, what do you mean?”

He put his mouth close to her ear and
murmured, “I mean, you already got a red pussy.”

She was laughing all the way back to his
car.

Chapter Five

Claudia blinked and yawned. She ran a
hand through her hair and frowned. Why hadn’t she heard the alarm clock? Had
she forgotten to set it? She had a brief moment of panic before she remembered
that today was Saturday. She could hear the shower running. Sam must have woken
up earlier. Smiling to herself, she stretched and was surprised to hear the
clink of chains. What the hell? She craned her neck, half-rolling on to her side
to see what had made the noise and was surprised to realize there was something
around her neck. She reached up with her free hand and touched soft
leather…with a metal ring set in it…and a chain attached to the ring by a
padlock.

Oh, yes. Now she remembered. That was
one of Sam’s little surprises last night, one of his many surprises. He’d
chained her to the bedframe by her neck last night before they’d made
love…again. The collar he’d used was of wonderfully soft black leather with one
massive D-ring. She reached up with one hand to touch the stout padlock that
dangled from the ring, the heavy links of the chain that ran from the padlock
to some place under her bed. She loved it when Sam tied or chained her up for
sex, but last night all he had done was put this collar on her and then hold
her down while he went about screwing her brains out. She’d been very loud, as
she recalled. It was a good thing that these apartments were so well-built that
it was almost impossible to hear anything going on next door. She smothered a
giggle.

She curled up to wait for Sam, knowing
that she would be willing and eager for anything he might want to do to her. It
was only Saturday morning. They would have the whole weekend together.

She wondered if he could possibly top
yesterday’s performance. She hadn’t been on anything resembling a real
date…well, for a long, long time. Who but Sam would have taken her to the zoo
and then to a carnival? And afterwards…he had driven a little ways out of town
to what had to be some sort of lovers’ lane. Did anyone still call it that?

The spot he parked
in had a view of the river. They could see the lights of boats and ships plying
the waterway, upstream and downstream. On the far bank twinkled more lights
from buildings. It was too dark to make out what kind of buildings they were,
but after only a few minutes of making out (Did anyone still use that phrase
too?) with Sam, those buildings could have caught fire and burned to the
ground and she wouldn’t have noticed.

She hadn’t dated at all in high school
and barely dated while she was in college. She’d heard other girls talking
about passionate encounters in parked cars and until last night she’d always
wondered what it would be like. Well, now she knew. The front seat was okay for
a while, but then it got kind of cramped. The back seat was a lot roomier, but
they’d had to get there by clambering over the front seats, laughing the whole
time. Sam had been very skillful in getting her out of her clothes. She hadn’t
realized he’d unhooked her bra until she felt his hands on her breasts. She
still couldn’t recall just how or when he’d shucked her jeans off of her. She
did remember tearing at his clothes so she could kiss him all over. And always
at the back of her mind was the worry that someone…possibly some killjoy police
officer…would come along to interrupt them. That fear hadn’t stopped her, but
it had added a tiny, thrilling dollop of danger to it all.

Sam had wanted her to suck him. She had
wanted to, but she’d kept acting like an unwilling coed. It was a game, one
that Sam had seemed to enjoy too. He’d tried to coax and cajole her, grinning,
until he just couldn’t wait any more and then he’d forced her head down, in
spite of her insincere protests and counterfeit struggles.

And finally…just as she was totally,
achingly ready for him, he had made a little production of retrieving his
wallet from his discarded slacks and pulling out a condom.

She’d still been
laughing as he pushed her down onto the back seat and had his way with her.

The sound of the shower stopped. She
debated pretending to still be asleep when he came in for her, considered
kneeling on the floor next to the bed, gave a few moment’s thought to
displaying herself spread-eagled for him (face up or face down?) and was
still considering all of her options, when Sam came strolling in, wearing only
a towel wrapped around his waist and a big, toothy grin.

She knew he liked to look at her. She
wondered if he liked it as much as she liked to look at him. He was lean, but
not at all skinny. There was strength in the very shape of his chest, arms and
shoulders, power in his legs and hips. She couldn’t help shivering a little as
her eyes drank him in.

“What?” he asked, still grinning.

“Nothing,” she smiled up at him. “It’s
just…you’re beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” His grin didn’t fade as he
sat down on the bed alongside her. “How?”

She reached up to run her nails through
the hairs on his chest. “You just are,” she murmured.

“Guys aren’t beautiful,” he said.

“Yes, they are,” she corrected him. “You
are.” Then, to keep him from arguing, she put her hand on the back of his
head…short as it was, his hair was still damp from the shower…and pulled him
down to her for a long, long kiss. She heard the chain clinking again as she
moved. As if that sound were some kind of trigger, her kiss suddenly went from
warm and loving to hot, hungry and passionate.

“Hey…” Sam protested mildly. “Hey now…I
just took a shower.”

“So what?” Claudia smiled. “You can
always take another. Mmmm…” she reached for his towel and tugged at it. “Or I
can lick you clean…”

Sam gripped her wrists, pulling her
hands away. “Or…” he countered, “I can give you a shower…which is what I was
planning.”

“Well…” Claudia pretended to consider
his suggestion. “That sounds good too…I guess…”

“C’mon, Red,” he laughed. The nightstand
next to her bed now held a number of toys and devices. He opened the top drawer
and took out a ring of keys and a pair of handcuffs. “We have to get a move on.
I made plans.” He cuffed her hands in front of her before he unlocked her
collar, so she remained secured.

He led her to the bathroom with one
strong hand gripping the chain linking the handcuffs. She went willingly. She
was already aroused at the thought of what he could do to her with that new
shower attachment…and his hands. The metal of the cuffs bit into her wrists,
and that was also arousing.

He chained her up in the tub, her hands
over her head as before, but this time she had to stand on tiptoe to keep the
cuffs from digging in hard enough to really hurt. She felt stretched and
particularly vulnerable. He stepped back to look at her, and she arched her
back for him. He hadn’t actually done anything to her yet, but the promise of
what he might do already had her nipples starkly erect.

He looked her up and down. She was
heartbreakingly lovely this way, long and lean and thoroughly female, waiting
for his touch. Standing on her toes as she was accentuated the shape and length
of her legs. He didn’t know how long she could stay like that before it began
to strain her too much.

“One more thing,” he said. He opened the
medicine cabinet and took out a new toy. He held it up for her to see. It was a
ball gag, bright red. A length of black nylon cord ran through it. It was
perfectly suited for use in the shower.

She looked at it for just a moment
before opening her mouth. He wedged it in, ran the cord behind her neck and
then back in front to knot it snugly at her throat. It fit nicely. It stuffed
her mouth effectively without straining her jaws too much. Her nostrils flared
once as she drew in a deep breath. He tickled a nipple with one finger, looking
into her green eyes as he did so. She shuddered, moaning weakly through the gag,
and her eyes seemed to lose their focus.

He turned on the water, adjusting the
temperature carefully. He could hear Red making little muffled noises as he
drew the procedure out. Well, he liked his women noisy and she knew that. He
suspected she liked to be very vocal anyway.

He stood up and peeled off his towel
before stepping into the tub with her. He drew the curtain and stepped close to
her so that she could feel his cock hard against her belly. He unhooked the
shower attachment and held it up to her. “Ready?” he asked.

Claudia moaned and groaned and grunted
as he did a very thorough job of washing her down. She tilted her head back so
he could wash her hair, closing her eyes against the spray. She loved the feel
of his hands on her body, and she shuddered uncontrollably as he slowly, lovingly,
soaped and rinsed her legs. All the while, he kept working closer and closer to
her pussy without actually touching it until she was half out of her mind with
frustration and anticipation. She didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all, because
it always aroused her even more, knowing it was coming but never knowing when
or how and being totally unable to do anything about it. Then he brought the
hand-held attachment up between her legs and slowly changed it from a fine mist
to a hard, pulsing spray. He supplemented it with his fingers.

She moaned, she howled, she shrieked
through the ball gag. The muffled sounds echoed off of the tiles. She spread
her legs wider, the long muscles straining. She pressed herself against his
hand, against the spray. Her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, and
he knew she was biting down hard on that rubber ball. He kept a careful eye on
her for any sign of fatigue, but for fifteen long minutes she was nothing but a
writhing, shuddering, howling female animal. He was pretty sure, although not
completely, of when she came. Her head would tilt back and she would grunt
quickly and softly several times as her body began to sag but judicious
application of the spray would have her up and dancing again. Then came a time
when she couldn’t seem to keep herself upright any longer, and he knew she had
reached her limits. He put aside the spray attachment and quickly freed her
hands. He supported her as she sank to her knees in the tub. Her eyes looked
glazed and far-away now, and she felt almost boneless in his arms. Her head
sagged forward, making it difficult to remove the gag, but she seemed to
recover a little once he’d pulled it out from between her teeth. There were
deep indentations in the soft rubber. She took in a long, shuddering breath
through her mouth, then another. She slumped forward, but stayed upright on her
knees as he uncuffed her hands and recuffed them behind her. He noted that her
wrists were only slightly bruised.

This hadn’t been part of his original
plan for the morning, but he wanted her right here and right now. He took a
fistful of her coppery hair and pulled her up and towards him. Her eyes were
still unfocused, but she opened her mouth and took him in immediately. He kept
his grip on her hair, but let her proceed as she chose. Soon she was making
noises again; tiny little wet slurps, nasal grunts and the occasional moan. She
kept trying to take him in a little deeper with each bob of her head.

He looked down on her as she sucked and
licked. From this angle he couldn’t see her face very well, but he could see
her pink-nippled breasts between strokes. Her nipples were swollen again…or
were they just still swollen? Behind her, her cuffed hands were relaxed, open.

He’d known women for whom fellatio was
strictly an act of submission. He’d known others for whom it could also be an
act of aggression. With Red, it always seemed to be both mixed together, plus
an indefinable something else, something extra and infinitely arousing. He
could feel the tip of his cock impacting the back of her throat now, could feel
her tongue sliding along the underside, tickling and teasing. He groaned once,
tightening his grip on her hair. She knew the signals. She began to speed up.
She got noisier.

When he came, he clamped both hands on
her head, holding her in place. He didn’t so much groan as roar with each
ejaculation as Red squirmed and struggled weakly and made squeals and squeaks
of objection and outrage, very real-sounding but utterly fake. She knew what he
liked.

“Mmmm…” Claudia smiled sleepily and laid
her head on his thigh. She was still naked and handcuffed, kneeling beside him.
There was a big folded towel under her, protecting her knees from the cold,
hard kitchen floor. He’d dried her hair, but the ends were still a little damp,
and they tickled the back of her neck whenever she moved her head. “I don’t
know if I can eat two breakfasts in one morning.”

“Just a little, Red,” he urged. “Come
on, now.”

She straightened up and opened her mouth
for the forkful of Western omelet. She made a playful production of chewing and
swallowing. Actually, she was ravenously hungry, but it was fun for her to have
him cajole her into eating. She opened her mouth for another bite.

She felt safe and free like this, with Sam in
her apartment. She could make up for two years of denial and celibacy with no
fear that Sam would tell anybody what an utter slut she could be. Well, no.
Slut wasn’t the right word, because she could be this way with Sam and with Sam
only. There was still a nagging worry in the back of her mind that Sam could be
this way with other women. She knew he had been, though she’d never asked him
about it. But he had told her that after her, every other woman he’d been with
had felt like plain vanilla, over and over again, and she believed it. Hadn’t
he come looking for her after two long years? She didn’t even mind…too much…the
fact that he’d fucked (“Slept with” just didn’t fit: “Pumped for information”
was more accurate and much more descriptive.) her friend Dianne not long before
he’d shown up here. He’d said that he’d been a little bit crazy at the time
trying to find her and that at that moment, Dianne had been the closest thing
to her that there was. The important thing was that he was here now. He had
come looking for her and had found her. After all that time, he could still set
her free even as he chained or tied her up. She kissed his denim-clad thigh
before accepting another bite. He followed that with some coffee for her. It
was in a baby bottle. She sucked eagerly at the nipple. He’d told her that
there was no chance for a scalding spill this way, which was true. That
certainly wasn’t the only reason he did it, but she didn’t care. It just added
to her feelings of arousal, like everything he did. Every minute she spent with
him, she felt vibrant, desired, female, alive in a way she never had before.
Was this love or just lust? Right now, it didn’t matter. She wanted to wallow
in the sensation, to drown in it.

“What’cha thinkin’, Red?” he asked. He
stroked her hair. She rubbed her cheek against his thigh softly.

“Nothing…” she replied. It was mostly
true. She wasn’t so much thinking as feeling.

“Up for another date?” he asked.

“Oh?” she looked up at him. He was
smiling. He had something planned. “What kind of date? Dinner and a movie?”

He laughed. “Anybody can do that, Red.
I’ve got somethin’ else in mind.”

“Mmmm…” she purred, smiling in return.
“And what might that be?”

“Finish your breakfast and I’ll tell
you.”

She smiled and then opened her mouth
wide for the next helping.

“This is wonderful!” she exclaimed,
twisting half around in the saddle to look at him. “How did you ever find this
place?”

Sam shrugged and grinned. He looked very
much at home on the back of a horse. “It wasn’t too hard, Red,” he replied. “I
figured any place with as much open land as there is around here had to have a
riding stable somewheres.”

She wanted to hug him, but it wasn’t
feasible. It had been a while since she’d gone horseback riding, and she felt a
bit rusty at it. Her horse was a placid older mare named  ‘Cindylou’, of all things. Cindylou seemed to
have an aversion to letting any other horse get ahead of her. As long as Sam
and his horse, a younger gelding named Pitchfork, stayed a little bit behind,
Cindylou was happy. Any time Sam tried to catch up, Cindylou would toss her
head and quicken her pace. In all other things, the mare was content to let Claudia
have her way.

They were riding along a clearly defined
trail that meandered through open woodlands and meadows. The horses seemed to
know the way as well as Claudia knew her way to work and back, which took only
a little bit of the fun out of it. Given how long it had been since she’d last
gone riding, she was content. She leaned forward and patted Cindylou’s neck
affectionately. The horse whickered softly.

“You still haven’t told me what’s in
that basket,” she called over her shoulder.

“Haven’t I?” Sam called back in mock
surprise. “Oh, well. Sorry!”

“You haven’t, and I want to know.”

“Nothin’ much, Red. Just a little picnic
lunch for the two of us and a couple of apples for our transportation.”

She turned in her saddle again. “You’re
serious?”

His grin grew wider and threatened to
break into a smile. “Why sure. Why not? We have the whole afternoon to
ourselves, Red.”

She was pretty sure that a packed lunch
wasn’t a normal part of the services here. She looked at the basket, which was
strapped securely to the back of his horse. It looked almost new. How far ahead
had he planned this? She was willing to bet that if it had rained today he
would have had some alternate plan ready to go.

They came out of a stretch of woods and
into a meadow. The sun was very warm now. The air was heavy with the scent of
long grass and the buzzing of insects. She could hear crickets chirping, birds
calling. There was no sound of traffic out here. She tugged her straw hat down
a little and smiled. She could feel Sam watching her, and it was a good
feeling. She knew he was trying to see right through her clothes, at least with
his imagination and didn’t mind now that he had insisted that she wear no
underwear for this date. Oh, it felt a little odd, with her sensitive nether
regions in direct contact with faded denim. But she rather liked the occasional
jiggling of her breasts under the oversized white shirt she wore. Better still,
if Sam had a picnic planned he probably had some very special additional plans
as well, and underwear might only get in the way.

They stopped in the shade of some big
old gnarled trees. There was a little grass growing there, short and
discouraged-looking. Sam tethered their horses in the shade, but within easy
reach of more abundant grass if they wanted a snack. Then he began to set up
the picnic. Claudia watched him, sitting with her back to one massive trunk.
She was used to male attention, but usually a man went to this much trouble
only when he was trying to get into her pants. Sam had been into everything she
had already, although the thought made her blush, and she pulled down the brim
of her hat so he wouldn’t see. Still, he was going to considerable lengths to
do things like this for her…no, with her, she corrected herself. Was he trying
to show her how very special she was to him, or was he just doing them because
she was so special to him? She supposed she could ask him, but not now. He
might not have thought it all out yet. She was still trying to sort it all out
herself.

“Lunch is served, Red,” he sat down on
the blanket he’d spread and waved her over. Claudia rose, smiling, and doffed
her hat. She wondered what kind of picnic he’d arranged.

“Seriously, Red,” Sam persisted. “Why
don’t you come out to my ranch and visit for a while?”

“Sam…” Claudia propped herself up on her
elbows to look at his face. They were lying next to each other on the picnic
blanket. Sam was on his back.  “I told
you…I can’t. I just can’t afford to take so much time away from my agency.”

“You’re dead sure of that, Red? You said
yourself it’s a slow time just now.”

“Dead sure,” she replied. “If I’m not
there for too long it’ll all go to Hell, slow time or not. It took me a while
to build it up. I don’t want to have to start all over again from square one.”

“I’m not talkin’ about a long time. You
sure you can’t spare a week? I’d really like to show you around my place.”

She reached past him to pick up the last
fried chicken leg, more to stall for time rather than because she was still
hungry. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed, trying to look as if she were
considering his suggestion.

“No, I can’t spare it,” she said at
last, shaking her head. “Jer has vacation time coming, but if I shut down for a
week,  Amanda has to go back to the temp
agency. She’s trying hard, learning and really needs the job. It wouldn’t be
fair to her.”

“I suppose you know best about that,
Red.” Sam sighed. He took her wrist in his hand and pulled it down so he could
take his own bite out of the chicken leg. “But I really wish you’d change your
mind. You’d love the desert.”

Claudia smiled down at him. “No, I
wouldn’t, Sam.”

“How can you know that? You’ve told me
all those stories about how you love the great outdoors.”

Claudia sat up and unbuttoned the top
three buttons of her shirt. She pulled the material apart a little. “What do
you see?” she asked him.

Sam sat up for a better look. “Not much,
Red…but it looks good to me.” He reached out to touch her with his fingertips,
just below her neck. She felt her skin tingle where he touched her. “You’ve got
beautiful skin, Red.”

“Right,” she nodded. “But Sam…I don’t
tan…I burn…and I freckle! God, how I freckle!”

Sam slid his fingers down under the
material of her shirt to the top of her breast. She shivered at that, but
didn’t pull away. “I don’t recall seein’ any freckles, Red.”

“No! You wouldn’t…now. I’ve been taking
very good care of myself since I hit puberty when all of a sudden how I looked
got a lot more important to me.”

“But what about all that outdoors stuff
you told me about? The fishing, the hunting?” Sam seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Oh, Sam!” She laughed. “Most of that
was in the fall or winter! I was all covered up to keep warm then! And haven’t
you noticed how I’m dressed now? How I was dressed for the zoo? I was sure my
hat would be a clue.”

“I was kinda curious about that, Red,”
Sam admitted. “But you looked so good no matter what you were wearin’ that I
just let it go.” He withdrew his hand from under her shirt to caress her cheek.
He sighed. “I really wish you could come visit.”

“Maybe next year?”

“I’m thinkin’ that maybe next year there’ll
be somethin’ else keepin’ you from a visit, Red.”

“Don’t push it, Sam. Please?”

He sighed again and shrugged. “Okay,
Red.” He leaned over to pull something out of the picnic basket. It was a spray
can of whipped cream. “Ready for dessert?” he asked as he began to shake the
can.

“Dessert? There can’t be anything left
in that basket!” She looked around at the plates of cheese, chicken bones and
leftover fruits spread out around them.

“No, there isn’t.” She knew what that
grin of his meant…and that look in his eye.

“Oh…hey…” she giggled nervously.
“No…come on, Sam, not out here…”

“Why not?” he asked, gently pushing her
onto her back. “We’re all alone here, Red…and we’re in the shade.”

Chapter Six

Claudia stirred in her bed. Her left
hand reached out to find that Sam wasn’t there next to her, and she opened her
eyes to look. Nope, he definitely wasn’t there. She yawned and stretched and
rolled on to her other side to look at her clock radio.

It was just a few minutes shy of ten a.m.
She frowned. Why had Sam let her sleep so late? She listened for the sound of
the shower. Nothing. Now she was concerned. She sat up, letting the bedclothes
fall away from her. It was a little chilly in her bedroom, and she was reaching
for her robe before she realized that she didn’t seem to be chained to her bed
this morning. Her collar lay on the floor on top of a loose coil of bright chain.
She felt her neck with her hand. There was no collar there at all. Now she was
sure that something had to be wrong. She wrapped her robe around her and belted
it, then padded out of her bedroom. “Sam?” she called. “SAM?”

She saw him sitting at her kitchen
table, holding a cell phone up to his left ear. He looked up as she entered the
living room, nodded towards her and held up his free hand. He looked terribly
serious, which instantly quenched her sense of relief. Okay, he was here after
all, but something was still wrong. She walked across the carpeting and onto
the cold tiles of the kitchen. Sam was listening intently to whoever was on the
other end of the line. She didn’t want to disturb him, so she went over to the
coffeemaker. The pot was half full. She quietly poured herself a cup. She took
it and sat down at the table near him. He was still listening…or was he
waiting? The fingers of his right hand were drumming the table. She reached out
to cover his hand with hers. He looked up at her and smiled, but he still
seemed terribly preoccupied. She was about to ask him who or what it was when
he suddenly straightened up in his chair and his attention immediately shifted
away from her.

“Yes, yes, I’m still here,” he said into
the phone. He sounded irritated, even a little angry. “I told you I’d wait.”

She guessed that maybe the call had
something to do with his business, but she wasn’t sure. She gave his hand a
little squeeze, just to let him know she was there for him. That got her a quick
smile.

“Right. Right.” His attention was
focused entirely on his conversation again. “Since late Thursday, you say? How
come nobody called me until now?”

Still holding his hand, she took a sip
of the coffee. It tasted a bit old, but was still drinkable, and she wasn’t
going to get up now to make a fresh pot.

“Dammit…” Sam muttered under his breath.
“Okay, so what’s being done?”

He paused,
listening. “Yeah. Okay. Keep on it and call me back as soon as you know, okay?”

“What was that?” Claudia asked. Sam
turned off the phone and laid it on the table. He stared at it for a moment,
and she couldn’t tell much from his expression.

“Sorry, Red,” he shook his head and
looked at her. “Business-related.” He sighed. “I may have to leave a little
sooner than I planned.”

“Today?” No, it couldn’t be today!
Not today, not on such short notice!

“No, not today, Red.” He reached out
with his left hand to cover hers as hers covered his right hand. “And I may not
have to leave early at all, but I won’t know for a while.”

“What’s the problem, Sam?”

“It could be serious,” he shrugged. He
grinned at her, but it wasn’t entirely convincing. “And it could turn out to be
nothing at all. But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to keep my cell with me until
they call back and I know for sure.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is?”

“It may not be anything, Red. Don’t
worry about it.”

“Sam…” Claudia frowned. “I’m not a
little kid. Don’t treat me like one. What’s the problem? Tell me!”

He looked at her for a long moment, then
gave her hand a squeeze. “Okay,” he said. “There may be a problem back home.
Business related, like I said, but kinda personal too. I don’t wanna say any
more about it right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it might not really be a
problem, Red. It might be nothing at all.”

“But you’re worried. Whatever it is,
it’s got you worried, Sam.”

“Yeah, it does have me worried,” he
nodded. “I’m sorry, Red. I had some plans for us today, but…”

She wanted to press him to tell her just
what the problem was…or might be, but she already knew that it wouldn’t work.
When he said he didn’t want to talk about something, he just wouldn’t talk
about it. He wouldn’t listen to anybody else talk about it either. Anyway, he’d
also said it might turn out not to be a problem at all. Either way, he’d have
it weighing on his mind until it was resolved.

“Sam…” she smiled and caressed his cheek
with her free hand. “It’s okay. Really. We don’t have to go out. We can stay
in.”

He smiled at her. “We can save the plans
for the next time, I guess.” He shrugged and shook his head once. “I’m gonna be
kinda distracted today anyway.”

She could see real concern in his eyes.
She wished he would tell her what it was all about, but he wouldn’t do that until
and unless he was ready. It pained her to see him like this. It pained her
immeasurably more that he might be leaving soon. Up until this moment, she’d
tried very hard not to think about him leaving at all. She felt completely
unprepared for the possibility now.

“It’s that bad?” she asked.

“It could be.” He shrugged again. “Hell,
it probably is.”

“So, why can’t you tell me any more
about it?”

He looked at her across the table.
“Red,” he sighed, “You told me you don’t wanna talk about your business with
me. Okay. I haven’t pushed you on that. Don’t push me on this.”

She felt a sudden flare of anger at him
but bit back the words she was about to say. He was right. She had refused to
talk about her work with him. She’d also been careful to keep him away from her
office. She wasn’t sure why she’d done that. She hadn’t even asked him if that
had bothered him. Maybe it had, but did he have to throw it back in her face
like that?

No…that wasn’t fair. She couldn’t have
it both ways. But…this wasn’t quite the same thing, was it?

“Well, then,” she said. “What are we
going to do, Sam?”

“All we can do for now is wait, Red,” he
shrugged. “And I hate waiting.”

“How soon do you think they’ll call you
back?”

“I don’t know. An hour, maybe. Maybe
more. They’re three hours behind us out there.”

Three hours…that put it somewhere way
out west. Maybe it was even near that ranch he kept trying to talk her into
visiting. So was this problem work-related as he’d said or ranch-related? Could
it be something as simple as a missing horse? She could speculate all she
wanted, but it was frustrating. Why couldn’t he just tell her what it was?

She almost asked him again, but he
wasn’t even looking at her now. He was staring down at the tabletop, but his
gaze was so far-away that he probably didn’t even see it. No…whatever the
problem was, it wasn’t just a stray horse.

“Sam…Sam…” She reached out and nudged
him lightly with her hand.

“What? Oh…sorry, Red. I was just
thinking.”

“Thinking of what?”

“Just thinking.” He smiled weakly at her
but he didn’t elaborate. She felt that flush of anger flare up and fought it
back down again. She’d taken the lead in keeping their personal and
professional lives sealed off from each other. She had no call to be angry with
him about it now. But she was still angry.

“You don’t want to talk about it.”

He frowned. “I already said that, Red.”

She stood up, feeling angrier. “All
right, then,” she said. She shed her robe, letting it drop to the floor. She
knelt and retrieved the white cloth belt and handed it to him. “Don’t talk
about it.” Her words were clipped. She turned her back to him and crossed her
wrists behind her. “Don’t talk about anything. Just tie me up and fuck me.”

“Hey now, Red…” he began.

“Do it, Sam,” she ordered. “Just do it.
Tie me. Fuck me. Use me.” She kept her back to him, her gaze fixed on the far
wall.

There was a silence that seemed to go on
and on before she heard him stand up and push his chair back. She had a sudden
fear that he would just leave and as furious as she felt with him at the
moment, she desperately wanted him to stay. “Do it, Sam,” she repeated.
“Please.” She felt as if she was going to cry. If he hadn’t begun binding her
wrists with the belt of her robe a moment later, she was sure she would have.
But as he wound and cinched and knotted tightly, that urge faded and her anger
came back. Maybe it was irrational. Maybe it wasn’t fair to him. But it felt as
real as her bindings, and she wanted to wallow in her feelings…all of
them…before he went away and left her alone again.

He turned her to face him. Holding her
by her upper arms, he leaned closer for a kiss. She leaned back from him,
turning her head away. She glared at him sideways, squirming in his grip. She
said nothing. Her teeth were clenched, her lips compressed, and she was breathing
noisily through her nose.

He looked at her. Her face was flushed.
He knew she was angry with him. He could see that much in her eyes. But if she
was really all that angry why had she insisted that he tie her up? If she was
that angry, why wasn’t she making a real effort to pull free? What the Hell did
she want from him? He felt some anger now himself.  Couldn’t she just tell him what it was? With
that came the realization that she’d managed to distract him from his worries
and focus all of his attention on her. Was that what she wanted? He looked into
her eyes, beautiful, green and glaring. That might be one of the things she
wanted, but he was sure it wasn’t the only thing. All right, then. If she
wouldn’t tell him what she wanted, he would give her what she’d asked for. He
took a fistful of her hair and began towing her back to the bedroom.

She resisted. She tried to pull away,
struggled, snarled and whined. She never said anything, though and if she’d
meant ‘no’ she would have that…wouldn’t she? Well, he’d give her a chance until
they got to the bedroom. Then he would gag her. He strengthened his grip on her
hair and pulled her along, feeling confused and angry and very, very aroused.
If she wanted angry sex, he would give her angry sex.

For the first time since Sam had come back
to her, Claudia felt a bit of real fear. His grip on her hair really hurt, and
he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to that possibility. He was hauling
her towards the bedroom, and she knew what he had in mind, but only in a very
general way. She could still open her mouth and tell him no. She was sure that
if she did he would stop, but that seemed too much to her like chickening out
at the last minute after she had deliberately provoked him into this. That was
something she just couldn’t do. She gritted her teeth until her jaws ached. All
right…let him do his worst. She shuddered, wondering what his worst might be.
Her mind might be burning with anger, but she could feel her body smoldering
with lust and anticipation.

He forced her to the floor in her
bedroom and went to the dresser where she kept her stockings. As he was
rummaging through the drawer, she got up and tried to run away. He caught her,
dragged her back and forced her to the floor again. She kept fighting him, and
he didn’t think a spanking would subdue her this time. For one brief moment he
thought wildly of slapping her as hard as he could. It would stun her for a
while at least. But he couldn’t do that, as much as he might want to at the
moment. Instead, he sat down on her belly…hard enough to make her grunt…and
quickly used the lone nylon stocking he’d managed to grab so far to tie her
ankle very tightly to one leg of the bed. That would keep her from running
away, at least. He went back to the opened drawer and began pulling out more
stockings, scarves, anything that could be used to bind or gag her.

It was a fight to get her other ankle
tied to the other leg of her bed. It was an even bigger fight to gag her. He
used whatever force he needed to without actually hitting her and finally
stuffed a wadded-up scarf into her mouth. He tied it in place with another
stocking. She could fight all she wanted to now, and it wouldn’t do her any
good. He stood up, catching his breath and a bit more self-control and looked
down on his prize. She still looked angry. The muscles in her beautiful long
legs strained as she tried to free her ankles. Her body twisted from one side
to the other as she pulled and fought. She tried to sit up once. He pushed her
back down roughly. He stood over her, straddling her, and began to undress.

Claudia kept fighting her bonds. Her
legs were spread widely, almost painfully. The stockings he’d used were ruined.
It was a small thing, but it fueled her anger. There were so many other things
he could have used instead.

He peeled off his shirt, spread it wide
and dropped it so that it covered her face. She tossed her head, trying to
shake it off. She was unsuccessful. She couldn’t see him now, but she knew that
he was still undressing, looking down now on an anonymous, naked female body,
staked out by him and for him. How many other women had he done this to…or
with? It was more fuel for the fire. She was going to try to sit up again to
shake off that damned shirt, but then realized he would only push her back down
again. And anyway…not being able to see him somehow made it easier for her to
keep her anger burning as fiercely as her desire. He was not Sam any more. He
was an anonymous man…or men…who had invaded her home, made her a prisoner and
tied her so that he…or they…could use her body. For a moment, lust overcame her
anger. Her whole body shuddered. Her back arched and she moaned. Then she felt
his hand between her legs, testing her readiness, and the anger flared up
again. She jerked, trying to twist away, snarling through her gag.

He was glad he’d covered her face. If he
couldn’t see it, especially her eyes, he wouldn’t have to make any guesses
about what she was thinking or feeling or wanting. Those things seemed to be
changing from moment to moment now anyway. But her body told him she was
ready…very, very ready, and it stayed on message in spite of all her struggling
and complaining. He knelt between her spread legs, leaned forward on one arm,
guiding his cock with his free hand. She was really bucking now, but with her
legs tied so wide and tight, the target area couldn’t really move around much.
The moment he felt the head of his cock slide between the outer lips of her
pussy he rammed himself deeply into her. He let her take all of his weight,
felt the warm softness of her breasts compressed against his chest. She grunted
once and was still, but he could hear her heavy, labored breathing under his
shirt.

Everything seemed to lose focus…or was
it that there were so many things demanding her attention now that she couldn’t
focus on any one of them? Sam felt impossibly heavy, pinning her down even as
he penetrated her. Her bound hands dug into the small of her back, and she
couldn’t even move them into a less uncomfortable position. Her legs felt
pulled, strained, stretched wide, and the gag, combined with his weight
crushing her down, made it very hard for her to get a full breath. She had
never felt more utterly helpless, more completely a captive, even in her steamiest
fantasies. And then Sam began to fuck her…hard and fast.

She tried to buck him off of her,
knowing it would be useless even if she wasn’t bound. Sam shifted, putting his
hands on her shoulders and pinning her down. She kept fighting him, bucking and
writhing. All Sam did was grunt once and change to a new rhythm, slower and
more deliberate but no less powerful. After only a few strokes, she couldn’t
fight him any more. She didn’t want to. For the first time, she moaned. Sam
kept pumping away…slow, strong, relentless. He said nothing, but she could hear
him exhale loudly if not quite grunting, with each thrust. She let herself go,
surrendering. Once again, she was Red, required to do nothing but submit, free
to let all the sensations wash over and through her. She moaned again, rotating
her hips as Sam went on and on…and then he stopped.

Why? Why had he stopped? She whined
at him through her gag and then she heard his cell phone ringing in the
kitchen. Here in the bedroom, the sound was faint but clear and it stabbed
coldly at her ears. If he got up and left her, there was nothing she could do
to try to stop him. He wouldn’t do that, would he? He couldn’t do that! Not
now…

She could feel his weight on her, his
cock driven deeply up into her, motionless. She could picture him on top of
her, his head turned towards the door, listening… It seemed to her that he was
still for a very long time, until she was sure that he would leave her here on
the floor, abandoning her. Tears began to sting her eyes, and she didn’t know
why. Then Sam made a noise…an angry, animal noise somewhere between a growl and
a snarl. He leaned harder onto her shoulders and began ramming himself into
her, hard and fast and furiously, over and over again. She shrieked. She shut
her eyes tight and plunged back into the scalding bath of raw physical
sensation. He had not left her! He had not left her! Twisting and
squirming, still pinned by his weight, she lifted her hips up for him so he
could plumb her even deeper.

***

She was still groggy from her orgasm, so
she was only dimly aware of Sam groaning and groaning as he came, pushing into
her so deep and so hard that she felt as if her bound legs were going to be
pulled from their hip sockets. Then he was done. As he slowly withdrew from her
she could hear him panting for breath as if he’d just run a marathon.

He freed her ankles so quickly and
abruptly that she was certain he’d cut through the nylons that had bound her.
When he tossed aside the shirt that had covered her face she could see him
standing over her. Usually, after something like this, he would be grinning.
Now he just looked grim…and a little bit sad. He ungagged her and raised her up
to a sitting position for a quick, hard kiss before he began to free her hands.
It wasn’t until then that she realized her hands had gone numb. When he tried
to help her to her feet, she found that her legs also felt a little numb. She
couldn’t quite stand on her own, even with Sam helping her. He picked her up in
his arms and laid her down gently on the bed. He kissed her again before he
left her. She saw him pulling his jeans back on even as he went out the door.

All the anger she’d felt earlier was
gone. Now all she felt was a growing sadness. He was going to leave. She just
knew it. And then the anger flared up again. He wouldn’t even tell her why! She
rolled onto her side with her back to the doorway, curled up, and fought back
tears.

Chapter
Seven

“You really have to go? So soon?”
Claudia reached out to put a hand on Sam’s thigh as he sat on the edge of her
bed. She’d had angry words ready for him when he’d come back into the bedroom.
Then she’d seen the look on his face and the words died, unspoken. Sam
looked…different. There was a stark grimness in his expression.

“I do, Red.” He looked at the floor for
a moment and then turned back to her. He smiled weakly. “I really wish I
didn’t.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. But I gotta go.”

“When? How soon?”  She edged closer to him. She had to know how
much time they had left, no matter how badly it might hurt.

“Tomorrow morning,” he replied. “Early.”

She felt something very cold stab
through her heart. “How early?”

“There’s a seven a.m. flight. I’ll have
to leave before five to get there in time to go through the security checks and
still catch the plane.”

Claudia chewed at her lower lip. She
wanted to ask him if he couldn’t catch a later flight. But that would be
pointless. “It’s that important that you have to leave so early?”

He reached out to stroke her hair
gently. “It’s that important, Red.”

“Can’t you tell me what it’s all about?”

He leaned over to kiss her softly. For a
moment she thought he was just going to do that instead of tell her. He leaned
back again and sighed once. “A friend of mine may be in some trouble. I’m gonna
go see what I can do.”

Well…that was something, at least. It
was more than he’d been willing to share with her so far. It still didn’t feel
like enough, but she wasn’t going to press him.

“They must be a pretty good friend,” she
said. And then, some angry impulse compelled her to add, “Him or her?” She
threw in a sneering emphasis on the last word.

The instant she said it she wished she
hadn’t. Sam had seemed on the verge of opening up to her. Now she saw something
like a wall come down behind his eyes. He frowned at her.

“Don’t do that, Red. It don’t suit you.”

“I’m sorry!” She was completely sincere,
but that wall remained in place. “I shouldn’t have said that at all, Sam.
I’m…just upset that you have to leave.”

“I ain’t too happy about it either,” he
shrugged. “But I gotta go.”

“Will you be coming back?” She was
already sure that she knew the answer.

“Soon as I can, but it might not be for
a while. I got a business to run too, same as you.”

“Yeah, sure.” She’d been lying on her
bed. Now she sat up, drawing away from him, tucking her knees up under her chin
and wrapping her arms around her legs. “So I guess you’ll call me?” Her tone
was bitter.

“Come on, Red. You think I wanna leave?
We both knew I was gonna have to sooner or later.”

That was perfectly true, although neither
of them had spoken about it. Now that moment was almost here and she felt
somehow cheated. It wasn’t a rational feeling, but it was very real. And,
rational or not, it was Sam who had caused it. He’d walked back into her life,
relit the almost-forgotten fires and added a few new ones. Now he’d be leaving
in less than twenty-four hours. Two years ago it had taken everything she had
to walk away from him. It might not have been enough then, except that she’d
had starting her own business to look forward to. Now he was walking away from
her, and it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

No…that wasn’t fair either. He said he
didn’t want to go and she believed him. But how much of that was just because
he was here with her now? Back home or anywhere else in the world, he could
find any number of other women to bed and bind. They would be there and she
wouldn’t. He might say that every other woman was plain vanilla after her, but
sooner or later he’d find one of a flavor that he liked, and ‘Red’ would become
no more than a memory to him.

Dammit! Why was her mind doing this
to her? Sam was still here. He hadn’t left yet and any possible replacement
for her was miles and days away, yet she was ready to write an unhappy ending
to the story.

“You okay, Red?” Sam hadn’t made a move
to get closer to her after she’d pulled away, and he was regarding her with
some concern. Yeah, sure, he was worried he wasn’t going to get any more today…STOP
IT!

She took a deep breath to steady herself
and let it out in a long sigh. “No, I’m not okay, Sam,” she replied, shaking
her head slowly. “I’m missing you already and I hate it.”

He held out his hand to her. “We still
got some time. Not enough to waste, but some. What do you want to do with it,
Red?”

She looked at his hand, then up at his
face. He was smiling, but it was a small and bittersweet smile. The next thing
she knew she’d thrown herself into his arms, wrapped her arms around his neck
and was kissing him so hard she was bruising her mouth. It didn’t matter. She
pulled him closer, held him tighter. It felt as if she was trying to merge with
him so he could never leave her at all. She felt his arms go around her, first
hesitantly, then tighter, stronger.  She
moaned into his mouth before she finally had to break the kiss to breathe.
Sam’s face was flushed. She knew that hers was too.

“Listen, Sam,” she said, panting a
little. “I want to tell you another…fantasy of mine.”

“One of the ones you don’t wanna act
out?”

“Yes and no…” she began. “No, that’s not
quite what I mean.” She tried to think about what she did really mean, but
nothing came clearly to mind. “No…” she shook her head. “This will be hard to
explain no matter what…and I’m not sure I can tell you anyway.”

“Well,” Sam gave her a little hug and
smiled. “I’m willin’ to wait. Those fantasies of yours are always pretty
interestin’.”

She put her hands to either side of his
face. He had a little stubble, and it felt like fine sandpaper under her palms.
She kissed him once, softly. “Maybe you can make it a little easier for me
to…talk about it.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “Just tell me what
to do.”

“You still have some duct tape?”

“Uh…yeah. But you said it was a bit too
painful comin’ off.”

“We’ll need it for this,” she replied.
“Could you go and get it?”

“Okay.” Sam returned to the bedroom with
a heavy roll of duct tape. It was silvery, two inches wide, and, as Claudia
knew from experience, very, very sticky. “Here it is. Now what?”

She put herself face-down on her bed and
crossed her wrists behind her. “Do it rough, Sam,” she urged him. “Do it like
you’ve broken in here to use me all night.”

Sam jumped onto the bed and straddled
her. She heard the ripping sound of the tape coming off of the roll and then
felt him wrapping it tightly around and around her wrists. She whimpered for
his benefit, but didn’t struggle. There was a final tug.

“Now blindfold me,” she said. “Use the
tape.”

“You sure, Red?”

“Do it, Sam,” she gritted. “Please.”

Another ripping sound. Sam placed the
tape carefully over her eyes, smoothing it down. It was going to hurt when it
came off, but now she thought she was finally ready…well, as ready as she was
ever likely to be. She rolled over onto her back, shifting around until she
found a not-too-uncomfortable position for her taped wrists. She kept her legs
primly together. A real captive would probably do that so that her captor would
have to part her legs himself.

She licked her lips. They felt oddly
dry. Well, she was about to strip her inner self as naked to him as her outer
self already was. “Before I tell you…” she began.

“I can guess.” Sam’s voice sounded very
close. “This is another one of those fantasies you never want to act out for
real.”

How did he know? Probably because of the
big production she was making of all this. “That’s right,” she answered. “Sam,
please touch me while I tell you this. I won’t feel so…alone, then.”

He didn’t say anything, but a moment
later she felt the warmth of his palm resting lightly on her belly. She
shivered delicately.

“It goes back to when Dianne and I were
still on the police force,” she began. “We were pretty good at what we did, and
we ticked off quite a few criminals. I used to wonder what would happen if any
of them decided to get some revenge on a couple of nosy female cops…”

Sam’s fingers pressed ever-so-gently
against the soft, silky skin of her belly for just a moment. She shivered
again, even though she knew he’d done it just to let her know he was listening.

“Anyway…” she went on. What I
imagined…more than once…was that somehow a gang of them had captured Dianne.
They let me know that they had her, and unless I came to a certain place by a
certain time, they would hurt her.” She took a deep breath and continued.
“Sometimes the place was an old warehouse, sometimes an abandoned tenement…but
usually it was this big, dirty junkyard just inside the city limits, near the
river. It was a real place. All of them were.” She laughed weakly. “Dianne and
I poked through a lot of places in our time. I remember once I came across an
old metal bedstead in an abandoned apartment building. It had this old, beat-up
mattress on it, and I suddenly had a picture of myself spread-eagled on it,
naked and bruised, ropes so tight that my feet and hands had gone numb…anyway…”
she shook her head and got back on topic.

“So…I have to go, alone, to this junkyard.
It’s a big place with rusting old cars stacked up all over the place. It stinks
of oil, gasoline, dirt and sweat, and inside it’s a lot like a maze. It’s
surrounded by this tall chain-link fence and there are big gates at either end.
I drive there in my car. The gate I was told to go to is open, so I drive
through it. I’m going very slowly. I really don’t want to be there at all, but
I can’t just let them hurt Dianne. When I look in my rear-view mirror I see two
men closing the gate behind me.” She took another breath. “I know, it sounds
like a bad cop movie. Now they have both of us instead of just one of us. It
just wouldn’t happen in real life, but this is a fantasy.”

Again she felt Sam briefly press his
fingertips lightly into her flesh. She was glad he was just listening and not
interrupting with questions. If he had any questions, she wasn’t sure she could
answer them coherently. This fantasy was something she indulged in late at
night in her bed all by herself. She’d never expected to be telling it to
anyone else, so a lot of it didn’t really have words to it.

“Anyway…I go a little ways and two more
men make me stop my car and get out. They both look like they work here, big,
burly men in grimy overalls and beat-up work boots. They both need a shave. One
of them has a sawed-off shotgun. I’m in my police uniform. They take my belt,
hat, gun…and my car keys. They take me to a place that’s almost right in the
middle of the junkyard, surrounded by these tall columns of crushed cars.
There’s a little building there, some kind of an office. It has a dirty window.
I can see Dianne through the window. She’s also in uniform. She has her arms
behind her, so they’ve either tied or cuffed her. There are two more burly men
with her. She looks scared but not hurt. I can’t let them hurt her, so I’ll
have to do what they say.” She paused. Sam gently pressed her belly again. This
time, it made her shiver. She was getting aroused.

“They take me away from there, around a
corner to another building. It’s bigger, made out of wood with all the paint
covered by grime and dirt. There’s a big door, wide enough to drive a pickup
through. They bring me in there and close the door. It’s dark, there are lights
but they’re very weak. There are two more men in there besides the two who
brought me in. One wears a suit. The other is dressed like every other guy
there, but his clothes aren’t as grimy. They make me strip, right there on the
dirty concrete floor. Once I’m naked, they cuff me with my own handcuffs. The
less-grimy one holds me while the man in the suit slaps me around a little and
fondles me. I hate it, but I have to put up with it or they’ll hurt Dianne.
Then they take me through the building. There’s a door at the other end,
regular-sized this time. They lead me through it. I can feel my breasts
jiggling a little as they hustle me through the door. Sometimes it’s a little
chilly outside. Sometimes it’s cold. Sometimes it’s very hot and muggy. But
always, on the other side of the door there’s this open area, surrounded by
more piles of crushed cars. There are more men there, waiting. And right in the
middle of the space is this metal stake driven into the ground. There’s a chain
attached to it and a greasy old dog collar attached to the chain. It looks like
there used to be a junkyard dog tied up there. They must have moved it. I know
what they’re planning to do, but I can’t fight them or they will hurt Dianne.
So I let them make me kneel and put the dog collar around my neck.”

This time, Sam’s touch was more of a
light caress. It was all she could do to keep from shivering violently, and it
took an effort to remember keep her legs together. She could feel her nipples
swelling as she told her story. She hoped Sam would think it was his gentle
touch causing it.

“The man in the suit is first. He slaps
me around a little more, and I have to take it. What could I do now anyway?
Then he unzips his pants and grabs me by my hair with one hand. He pulls his
cock out with his other hand and presses the head of it against my lips. I
don’t want to do it, especially not with all those men watching and waiting for
their turns, but if I don’t, they’ll hurt Dianne. So finally, I open my mouth
and he shoves his cock in…all the way in, so it blocks my throat. He holds it
there and slaps me hard. I start to squirm and whine because I can’t breathe.
He slaps me again, even harder, before he lets me pull back a little and get
some air. I start to suck him. I can hear the other men making comments on my
technique. I try to ignore them. The sooner I can get this guy off, the quicker
he’ll be out of my mouth. But there are all those other men…”

She had to pause. After that first
imaginary man, the fantasy tended to split into many different trails. She took
a deep breath, and went on.

“They keep me there all day. Sometimes
they make me suck them. Sometimes they shove me over onto my face and fuck me
from behind…” She shivered, and decided not to tell Sam that sometimes they
also fucked her up her ass, clamping big, hard hands over her mouth to muffle
her screams. “If I get too dirty after a while, they dump a bucket of water
over me. Cold water. And it goes on and on, all day…”

She stopped. Her heart was pounding now.
Telling this darkest-of-all-fantasies to Sam had her more aroused than it ever
had when she visited it by herself. There was more she could tell him, but it
was disjointed and fragmented. “Sam?” she said weakly.

“I’m still listening, Red.”

“I…don’t think I have any more to say.
Do you?”

“I think I’m always gonna be surprised
by your imagination, Red,” he replied. “But now I’m wonderin’ why you told me
all this.”

She took another deep breath and tried
not to think about how short their remaining time together was. “Treat me
rough, Sam,” she told him. “Slap me, spank me, fuck me however you want. Just
keep me your prisoner all night. Make me your sex slave until you have to go.”

“You’re sure about this, Red?” He
sounded doubtful, but his hand had moved off of her belly and she heard the
sound of duct tape being torn off of the roll.

“Yes,” she responded. “I’m su…” Her last
word was blotted out as he sealed her mouth with duct tape. For just a moment
she hesitated, surprised by how quickly he had acted. Then she tried to kick
him. A woman could be expected to resist, at least at first, couldn’t she? Her
kick missed. His hand grabbed her ankle, and she tried to kick him with her
other leg. This one connected. She didn’t know where she’d hit him, but she
heard him grunt at the impact. Then his other hand grabbed her other ankle. She
struggled wildly with him, but he kept his grip. Soon she had to quit
struggling because the tape over her mouth was keeping her from getting all the
air she needed to keep it up. Once she did that, he twisted her legs, forcing
her to turn over, face-down. He let go of one ankle to land a tremendous,
stinging slap on her rump. She yelped and jerked. He gave her another hard
swat. She felt him bending her leg double until her calf was touching her
thigh. She heard him ripping more tape off of the roll.

She tried to fight. She really, really
tried, but he was too strong and she was short of breath again far too soon.
She felt him wrapping tape around her doubled leg, pinning it in that position.
Then he repeated his actions with her other leg. In a few moments, she was as
completely helpless as he could make her, and she was as fully aroused as she
could be. With her legs secured the way they were, all he had to do was flip
her over onto her back and she would be open and vulnerable, her knees raised
and parted for him. But instead of doing that, he dragged her off of the bed
and dumped her onto the floor. She landed heavily, still face-down. Then he
rolled her roughly onto her back and slapped her. He slapped her again, and
then she felt his weight land on top of her. She grunted at the impact. She
could feel his legs forcing hers apart as he fumbled one-handed with his pants.
Then he was in her, with one powerful, merciless thrust that pinned her down.
She squealed as best she could, shaking her head back and forth as he began to
plow her. He was hard and fast and relentless, intent only on fucking her,
using her, dominating her. She loved it! Before long, she was squirming and
moaning under him, lost in the sensations.

Usually, no matter how strenuous the
game they were playing, Sam was careful to ensure that he made her come. She’d
tried to explain to him that he didn’t have to do that. In fact, if she felt
him really letting himself go, that was often enough to give her the pleasure
she needed. He’d said he understood, but it didn’t seem as if he really
believed it. Not so now. She could feel him grinding and thrusting, she could
hear him grunting and panting, paying no attention to her reactions. In her
mind’s eye, she could see herself, naked, bound, gagged and blindfolded with
tape, writhing on the floor under him. She could see him also, on top of her,
still clothed, pinning her down and ramming himself into her again and again
and again.

Claudia felt herself beginning to come.
She gave Sam no signal and he kept pounding away at her. She shivered as the
feeling grew and grew, until it finally overwhelmed her. She could feel herself
quivering, contracting around Sam’s hard maleness. She could hear herself
huffing and panting through her nose, moaning weakly behind the tape gag. When
she shuddered violently, Sam finally seemed to notice. He rammed himself into
her, burying his face against her neck, letting her take his full weight. He
held her like that as he groaned and grunted and emptied himself into her. Even
after he was done, he laid heavily on top of her for a long moment. She stirred
weakly under him, moaning a little for his benefit. She finally felt him get up
off of her. She was briefly worried that he would immediately free her. He
usually did and that would put an end to the fantasy she’d constructed of being
the helpless victim of an intruder who would treat her cruelly and use her
mercilessly…all day and all night. But instead, he simply nudged her once with
his foot before rolling her onto her belly on the carpet. She heard him walk
away, into the kitchen, and breathed a sigh of relief. She could become very
uncomfortable if he kept her bound like this, but for the time they had left
together, she wanted to experience all the intensity, all the pain and pleasure
that she could. It might have to last her for a very long time.

She did not know how much time had
passed before he came to her again. She thought she must have slept because now
her legs felt cramped and strained. He peeled the tape off of her mouth. It
wasn’t as painful as it might have been, because she’d drooled a little bit and
her saliva had weakened some of the adhesive. Still, it hurt a bit and she
gasped and gulped after he’d yanked it off. He grabbed a fistful of her hair
and pulled her up onto her knees. It hurt and she whined in complaint.

“Shut up.” Sam slapped her lightly, made
her tilt her head back, and held something to her lips. She could smell that it
was beer. She must have been asleep for some time, because she felt very
thirsty. She opened her mouth, and Sam poured some beer in. Too much. She
choked and sputtered, but managed to drink most of it down. Then he did it
again. She was a little more prepared for it this time and did not dribble so
much. Then Sam slapped her. “Keep your mouth open, bitch!” he growled.

She yelped weakly at the slap but obeyed
him. She knew what was coming, and she almost wriggled with anticipation. But
she made small noises of complaint and protest, earning herself another slap
and another growled warning. She whined, but kept her mouth open, waiting.

She had tried to explain to him once how
this was, to her, the ultimate submission…to kneel before a man, bound, and
take him into her mouth. At first, Sam had not quite understood. Wasn’t anal
sex the ultimate submission? She’d pointed out that if she was tied up and
helpless, she didn’t have much to say about whether a man used her pussy or her
ass. But her mouth was another matter…for one thing, it had teeth. Sam had
looked at her blankly for a second and then burst out laughing before conceding
her point.

Now she felt the tip of his cock
touching her lips. She fought the urge to immediately lean forward and take him
in as deeply as she could. Instead, she moved her head away and whined. He
slapped her again, much less gently. This time, she let him push his cock into
her mouth.

“Suck, bitch,” he growled, slapping her
lightly. She whimpered, and obeyed. She knew he would make her swallow and the
thought made her shiver with anticipation.

***

Claudia rolled onto her back. She
brushed a stray coppery lock out of her eyes and blinked. The tape blindfold
was gone, she didn’t remember Sam removing it. The tapes binding her wrists and
legs were gone too. She was lying on her bed, covered with a sheet, and watery
light was filtering in through the heavy drapes of her bedroom.

So it had to be morning…Sunday morning…She
closed her eyes and sighed. There seemed to be something around her neck. She
reached up and touched it. It was a thin leather belt, Sam’s belt, the one he’d
used as a collar and leash on her some time last night. She sighed again. She
turned her head to look, knowing and dreading what she would not see.

The other half of the bed was empty,
except for a single small rose lying on the pillow. Where on earth had he found
a rose? When could he have possibly even gone looking for one?

It didn’t matter. The rose might be
here, but Sam was gone. She reached out and took the flower in her hand just
before she began to cry.

Chapter
Eight

“Hey! Ow! HEY!!! I said, that’s ENOUGH!”

Claudia stepped back, panting and
sweating. She held up her hands. “Sorry! Sorry! I got a little carried away.”

“A little carried away?” Her sparring
partner rubbed at her upper arm. “Who were you trying to kill? I know it wasn’t
me.”

“I’m sorry, Carline.” Still breathing
heavily, Claudia peeled the thinly-padded gloves off of her hands. “I think I
just had a lot to work off.” The adrenaline that had been fueling her was
fading away now. She felt suddenly tired.

“Uh-huh.” Carline nodded. She wiped her
forearm across her brow. She was half a head taller than Claudia. Her
coffee-and-cream skin shone with her own sweat. She took off her own gloves,
tossed them away, and ran her fingers back through her close-cropped black
hair. “What’s his name?” she grinned.

“What?”

“Come on,” Carline prodded. “I’ve never
seen you lose control like that before, so it has to be because of some guy. Am
I right?” Her grin was teasing now.

“Yeah,” Claudia admitted after a long pause
that was an affirmative answer all by itself.

“So what happened? He said he’d call and
never did?”

“Not exactly,” Claudia shrugged. In
fact, Sam had called…once. But there was a three-hour time difference between
where he was and where she was, and he’d wound up talking to her answering
machine. It hadn’t been much of a message, just that he’d arrived safely and
would be in touch. She’d waited two more days for him to call, getting more and
more restless and irritated when he didn’t before she thought to check her
e-mail. She checked it infrequently anyway, and she hadn’t even thought of it
in all the time she and Sam had been together, so her mailbox had been stuffed.
Most of it was junk mail. It always was, but since she didn’t know Sam’s e-mail
address…strange that he’d never told her…she’d had to check through each
message until she found it: unclejack01. He’d sent her at least two e-mails
every day, including the day he’d left the message on her answering machine.
Okay, so he’d kept in touch like he’d promised. But somehow, the way he’d done
it annoyed her anyway. Why couldn’t he have told her he was going to use
e-mail?

“So…he called?” Carline looked puzzled.

“Not exactly.”

“Girl, I’m confused. What the hell did
he do, then?”

“He sent me e-mails.”

“Oh. Well, that’s something, anyway. So
what’s the problem? He brush you off?”

“No.” Claudia shook her head. “It’s kind
of complicated. He had to go out of town on short notice.”

“Uh-huh.” Carline folded her arms and
nodded. “And you believed him?”

Claudia looked at her. She really didn’t
want to talk about it at all, but Carline was the nearest thing she had to a
close friend here. “Yeah. I believe him.”

“He coming back?”

“I think so. I just don’t know when.”

Carline snorted. “Right. How is it that
gorgeous, savvy women like us can still fall for those old lines?” Her grin was
back.

Claudia laughed weakly. “Hormones, I
guess,” she shrugged.

“He must’ve got to you real good,”
Carline observed. “I’d like to say that’s great, but you’ve been skippin’ your
workouts for over a week and then you come in and try to kill me.”

That wasn’t the half of it. She’d been
skipping work, too, and the boss should just never do that. The past couple of
days she’d been overdoing it at the office as if she could make up for the lost
time. It hadn’t been fair to Jerry or Amanda. Jerry was leery of talking to her
at all now and poor little Amanda had been near to tears more than once. She
would have to apologize to both of them tomorrow morning. If Marabel had still
been in the office, she would have set Claudia straight, boss or no boss. But
Marabel wouldn’t be back for at least another week until she settled some family
problem.

“So…” Carline shrugged. “Maybe he comes
back, maybe he doesn’t. You gonna just sit around and wait for him? C’mon.
There’s a whole lot of guys here who’re already interested in you. I could make
a few introductions.”

“Thanks, but no.” Claudia shook her
head. “I’ll be all right, really.” She sighed. “I think I just had to work
something off. I’m better now.”

“You better be,” Carline replied. “You
go crazy on me again and I’ll flatten you.”

Claudia had to smile. Carline was not
only taller, she was also a lot more muscular, not body-builder muscular, but
still impressive. She also taught many of the self-defense classes here. There
was no doubt that she could do just what she’d promised.

Carline smiled back. “You gonna hit the
showers now? I’m almost at the end of my shift. We could go out someplace, have
a couple of drinks, bitch about guys.”

“Ah…” Claudia hesitated. This was
unexpected. She’d intended to shower at home. She still had some marks on her
body…mostly on her rear. They were faint now and fading, but she still didn’t
want to risk anyone seeing them. “Maybe some other time, thanks. I’m just going
to go home and go to bed.”

“Gonna check your e-mail first, I bet.”
Carline laughed. “It’s okay, girl. Some other time.” She gathered up the
gloves. “Let me know how it goes.”

***

Claudia entered her apartment, shut the
door behind her, dropped her gym bag on the floor, and sighed. It was the same
place it had been before Sam had come. Now, with him gone again, it felt cold,
empty and bleak. Or was that just how she felt? She sighed again and slipped
off her shoes, still standing by the door. She began peeling off her gym
clothes. When Sam was here, he’d talked her into stripping naked for him the
minute she’d gotten inside. Well, he hadn’t had to do all that much talking to
get her to do it. She loved the hungry way he always looked at her when she was
nude. He was gone now, but through preserving the ritual, she could recapture a
little of the excitement and the lust.

Sam had installed a full-length mirror
on the wall opposite the front door. She left her clothes lying on the floor
and regarded her image. She put her hands behind her head, spread her legs a
little and arched her back, keeping her face expressionless. That pose always
seemed to kindle a fire in Sam…and in her. She closed her eyes, imagining him
coming over to her, running his big, rough hands possessively all over her
body. She shuddered and opened her eyes again.

She was in her mid-thirties now, but she
still looked pretty good, she thought. Her breasts were on the small-to-medium
size. Years ago, she’d privately bemoaned that fact. Now, she was grateful that
gravity, that ancient foe of women, had so little to work with. Her legs were
long and shapely and while she wished at times for slimmer hips, she wasn’t
completely unhappy with the ones she had. Sam had certainly never voiced any
complaints either, and she was sure he’d seen enough naked female bodies to be
an expert judge of them.

She turned her side to the mirror then
shrugged. What was the use? Being naked in her apartment just wasn’t the same
without Sam as an audience. She picked up her discarded clothes and padded off
to her bathroom. She needed a shower. That wouldn’t be the same without him
either. The big hook he’d installed in the ceiling over the tub was still
there. She tried not to look at it as she let the hot water course over her.
After she’d dried herself off, she thought about remaining nude, but again…what
was the point? She put on a big, soft, dark green bathrobe. It had been Sam’s.
It still held his scent. He’d left it here. Would he ever come back for it?

Sam might be gone, but his presence was
everywhere. She nuked a frozen meal for dinner. After Sam’s cooking, it tasted
bland, and using a knife and fork wasn’t the same as kneeling on the floor,
naked, collared and handcuffed, waiting for him to feed her each delicious
bite. She wolfed the meal down. She wished she hadn’t immediately afterwards.
The meal might have been nearly tasteless, but eating it had at least given her
something to do. Now…the empty, empty evening stretched out before her. Sam
always had something planned for them. She supposed she could watch television,
but she’d never been much for that. She had some books she could read…mostly
crime novels…but reading didn’t appeal to her tonight. She didn’t feel like
going out either.

She paced restlessly around her living
room. She wasn’t anywhere near tired enough to go to bed, despite the furious
workout she’d put herself through at the gym. It was way too early for that,
anyway. Maybe a drink, to help her relax? Sam had left a small stock of liquor
behind. After reviewing it, she settled on a glass of wine. There was rum
available, but she liked to mix that with fruit juice, and she’d used the last
of that the other night. Grocery shopping would kill some time, but she just
didn’t want to go out. All she wanted, she realized sadly, was Sam.

A thought struck her. She took a sip of
her wine and carried the glass with her over to her computer. He’d almost
certainly sent her another e-mail or two. As she started the computer up, she
thought about calling him. He’d sent her his cell phone number previously. Up
until now, she hadn’t used it. She’d still felt angry over him not calling her
more than once and some part of her had insisted that he still had to call and
speak to her, not her damned answering machine…first. Maybe it was time to bend
a little. His last e-mail had said she could call him any time of the day or
night. What was the time now where he was?

Her phone rang. It had been so very
quiet in her apartment that the sudden noise made her jump. Her first thought
was to wonder who could be calling her.  Right on its heels was the thought that it
might be Sam. It took an effort, but she managed to walk, not run, from the
computer to the phone. She let the phone ring three times before she picked it
up. If she let it ring any longer, the answering machine would kick in.

“Hello?” She kept her voice calm.

“Red? It’s Sam.”

“Sam…Sam…” She pretended not to
recognize the name or his voice. “Are you sure you have the right number?” She
sat down on the chair next to the little table that held the phone.

“Pretty sure,” he answered. “Sent you an
e-mail. You read it yet?”

He hadn’t picked up on her joking…or maybe
he was just ignoring it. His voice sounded peculiar. Was something wrong?

“No…no, I haven’t. I just started up my
computer when you called.”

“Okay. Listen, Red…”

“Yes?”

There was a pause before he went on. “I
got a little problem out here. I was thinkin’ you could help.”

She had a sudden thought that his little
problem was that he was missing her as badly as she was missing him and that
she could help with a little phone sex session. But, no…he sounded too
serious…even grim.

“What’s the problem?”

“A friend of mine’s missin’. So’s a big
pile of cash.”

“He took it?”

Another pause. “Not this guy, Red. I
know him. He just wouldn’t do that. Ever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve gone to the police, the sheriff..Hell,
even the state cops here. I can’t get any of ‘em interested in the case. They
all think they know what happened.”

“What do they think happened?”

“They think he took the money and
skipped. They’ve got apb’s out for him all over the place.”

“What do you think happened?”

There was a very long pause now. “Red…”
he said at last, “I think he’s dead. I think somebody killed him, took the
money, and dumped his body somewhere.”

“But…how can you be sure?”

He sighed across the miles. “I’m sure.
That’s all.”

“But what do you think I can do? Either
way it’s a police matter.”

“I was thinkin’ maybe if you come on out
here you might turn up somethin’. I’m damn near desperate here, Red. Every
minute means whoever did it has a better chance of gettin’ away with it.”

She could hear the frustration and the
anger in his voice. She didn’t know what to do or say.

“Sam…”

“Yeah, Red?”

“I can’t…I’d really like to help, but I
can’t. It’s something the police should handle.”

“They won’t,” Sam’s voice was bitter.
“They all think they know what happened already.”

“I understand. But…I’m not even licensed
to work in that state. If I came out there and started poking around, I’d get
arrested.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. Truly.”

He sighed again. “I know, Red. But I
tried everything else I could think of. I got nowhere. You sure you couldn’t
come on out anyway?”

“No, Sam, I can’t. I have to run my
business here and even if I did come, there isn’t anything I could do without
some official…cover.”

“I miss you, Red. I’m missin’ you real
bad right now.” There was real pain in his voice and it wasn’t just from his
missing her, she was sure.

“I miss you, too,” she replied. “But…I
can’t. I’m so sorry…”

“I know, Red…it’s okay. This was kind of
a long shot anyway.”

“I wish I could help…”

“Well…” Now he just sounded tired. “Have
a look at the e-mail, Red. It’s kinda long, but it lays out all the details.
Maybe you could see something everybody else missed.”

“I’ll do that, Sam.” He didn’t say
anything and for a moment she thought he’d hung up. “Sam?”

“I’m here, Red. I’m just beat. I ain’t
gotten much sleep the past couple days.”

She thought about what to say in reply.
If they were together, she could take him in her arms and words wouldn’t be so
necessary. But they were far, far apart.

“He was a good friend of yours?”

“One of the best, Red. I really want to
get the sonofabitch who did it.”

There was an angry tone to his voice
now. It was a cold, deep anger. It reminded her of one of her first impressions
of him, years ago, that he was a man capable of violence. It had been one of
the things that she’d found so powerfully attractive about him. Now, it made
her shiver.

“Be careful, Sam. If you’re right about
all this, whoever did it might try to kill you too.”

“I ain’t so easy to kill, Red.” There
was a pause, and she heard him sigh. “I gotta go,” he said. “I’ll keep in
touch.”

“Sam?” she blurted before he could hang
up.

“Yeah?” The anger had gone from his
voice. Now he just sounded tired.

“Be careful, Sam. Promise me.”

“I’ll be as careful as I need to be,
Red. Promise.”

There was a click. He’d hung up.

She put the phone back on its cradle and
leaned back in the chair. Why hadn’t she been able to say what she really
wanted to tell him?

In her years on the police force, she’d
come into contact with maybe a dozen people who’d killed somebody. They fell
into two categories. Most of them had been devastated once the realization had
set in about what they had done. These were the ones who had killed,
unthinking, in a fit of rage or passion.

There had been one, though, who hadn’t
seemed at all disturbed by it. The only emotion he’d displayed during his
interrogation had been boredom. His eyes had been flat and emotionless,
reminding her of a cobra she’d seen at the zoo once.

She hoped whoever the “sonofabitch” was
that Sam was after, he wasn’t like cobra eyes. Against a creature like that,
even Sam wouldn’t have much of a chance.

Of course, it was also possible that the
police were right and Sam was wrong, and his friend had skipped with the money.

She stood up and began pacing. Dammit!
He’d dumped all of this on her and now she wasn’t going to get any sleep at all
tonight.

She stopped pacing. Didn’t he say he’d
sent her an e-mail? She hurried back to her computer. It might not be the same
as having him here, and it wasn’t even the same as hearing his voice on the
phone, but it was something of Sam at least.

There was just one message from ‘unclejack01’.
Out of habit, she pruned away all the junk e-mails first. There was also a
message from Dianne, but she’d get to that one later. Finally, she clicked on
Sam’s message and settled back to read it.

She read through it twice. It laid out
only the facts, with no speculation on Sam’s part. His friend…he didn’t give a
name…had been in charge of accounting and payroll for a large construction
project. Pay was monthly, and always in cash. It arrived by armored truck the
day before it was due. The following day, payday, the workers would come to his
office at the end of the day and receive their pay. Each man had to sign for it
in person. Apparently for this part of the operation Sam’s unnamed friend had
some clerical help. There was an assistant bookkeeper and a couple of clerks.
Sam’s friend had gone missing the night before payday, along with his car and
something like half a million dollars in cash.

She took a sip of her wine. Put that
way, it wasn’t surprising that the police figured he’d skipped with the money.
After the armored truck delivered the payroll, it was always stashed in a large
safe, under the eyes of the truck’s guards. Sam’s friend was the only one on
the site with the combination to the safe, and the safe hadn’t been forced. It
did look pretty cut-and-dried. Could it be that Sam just couldn’t believe an
old friend of his could do such a thing? She wasn’t sure. Sam seemed to be a
pretty good judge of people.

It was moot anyway. She couldn’t help,
as much as she might want to, and Sam could be wrong. Claudia sighed. She
drained off the last of the wine in a gulp and logged out without checking
Dianne’s message. It would keep. She turned off her computer and began pacing
around her apartment again. She felt restless and frustrated. She also felt
very horny. She wanted Sam here with her, not chasing around out in the desert
after someone who might not even exist.

Tonight, she would want him to be rough
with her…well, more rough than usual. She’d want to fight him, resist him, to
be forced to submit to whatever he had in mind. But he was far away, and she
was here alone. Dammit! She wanted to throw her wineglass against the wall out
of sheer frustration. Instead, she padded into her kitchen and put it in the
sink. There was something she could do that was more constructive than breaking
glass.

She went into her bedroom and shed her
robe. There was a storage box under her bed. She pulled it out and opened it.
It was full of ropes, collars, straps, handcuffs…all the toys she and Sam had
accumulated. Naked, she began rummaging through it, looking for some very
specific things.

One night, Sam had told her he wanted to
watch her put herself in bondage for him. He’d given her the items to do it
with: Handcuffs, leg cuffs and a ball gag that stuffed her mouth very
completely. She’d done as he’d asked, even running the chain of her leg cuffs
between the handcuffs so she couldn’t stand up. He’d teased her mercilessly
that night, taking pleasure in just watching her struggles for a while. The
next night, he’d added a little something, and watched her again. When he was
done watching, he’d fucked her long and hard.

She found what she was looking for. She
laid it on the floor and slid the box back under her bed. She spread out the
dropped robe on the floor next to her bed and settled down on it. The
terrycloth wasn’t as soft as the carpeting, but she didn’t want soft. The leg
cuffs went on first. If they left marks on her ankles, she could wear shoes
with ankle straps to work tomorrow to hide the marks. Even so, she was careful
not to ratchet them too tightly.

Next came a wide, thick leather collar.
It had a single D-ring, with a long length of chain attached. Dangling from the
end of the chain was a pair of handcuffs. She buckled the collar around her
neck, imagining Sam watching her, urging her on just by the hungry look in his
eyes. If those handcuffs left marks, well, she’d just wear a long-sleeved
blouse to work again. There was a key that fit both sets of cuffs. She put it
aside where she could find it easily later.

Now for the ball gag. She had to use her
hand to push it behind her teeth. It stretched her jaws almost painfully, and
she couldn’t help drooling whenever Sam made her wear it, but it also muffled
any and all sounds she made. She buckled it securely into place.

Almost ready. She picked up the
blindfold and looked at it for a moment. It was only a length of thick, soft
black cloth, but it added a bit more risk. As long as it was on, she wouldn’t
be able to see anything at all. She shrugged to herself and put it on, knotting
it tightly. The next part wasn’t hard. She gripped the chain that hung from her
collar and slid her hand down until she reached the handcuffs. She rose up on her
knees and put them between her legs with one hand, groping behind her for them
with her other hand. Once she’d gotten hold of them, she pulled them up and put
her free hand behind her. The chain was tickling her inner thighs now.

She locked a handcuff around one wrist.
She wasn’t completely helpless yet, and she poised on the edge for a moment,
savoring the sensations. Her heart was pounding, and she was wet already. She
drew the chain upwards, until it was just touching the lips of her pussy. Sam
had personally chosen the chain, and the links were large, cold, smooth and
hard. She shivered. She hesitated. Had she dead-bolted the door? Were all the
windows safely locked? She thought of all the things that could happen to her
if some intruder came in and found her like this. She shivered again.

She locked the handcuffs around her
other wrist and pulled up on the chain until it almost hurt. She could feel a
trickle of saliva on her chin already. Her skin felt hot, her nipples were
swollen and sensitive. She wished Sam was there to suck on them…or do anything
else to them. She began rotating her hips, feeling the chain sliding back and
forth. She imagined Sam watching her with that hungry look, getting hard for
her.

Her imagination took over. Now it was
not Sam watching her, but several men, all strangers, standing around her, just
watching. Maybe one of them had a small whip he would use on her ass if she
refused to put on a show for them. She pulled the chain tighter, grinding
herself against it, moaning behind the big ball gag. The hard, round links slid
and pressed against her clitoris. She moved faster. She moaned again.

No…it was just Sam watching, sitting in
the chair, leaning forward, intent on her and nothing else. She arched her back
for him so he could see how hard her nipples were, how they stood out from the
soft, soft flesh of her breasts. Soon she would feel his hands on them,
fondling, squeezing. But first, he wanted to see her make herself come. She
moved her hips faster, harder. She could feel herself starting to lose it.

Chapter Nine

She awoke suddenly, only aware that
something was wrong. She tried to sit up, but the chains and cuffs she’d shackled
herself with ended her attempt with a painful jolt. For a moment, she fought
panic.

It was alright, she told herself, it was
alright. All she had to do was find the key. First, she would have to get rid
of the blindfold. She tried rubbing it away from her eyes against the
terrycloth of the bathrobe she was still lying on. It didn’t work. Okay, time
for Plan B. She sat up…much more carefully this time…bringing her cuffed hands
up under her raised knees. Balancing herself with care, she raised her feet,
tucking them in close and sliding her hands under them. All right, now her
hands were in front of her, but that damned chain linking them to her collar
was going to give her some trouble. The chain on her ankle cuffs was getting in
the way. She leaned forward, raising her hands towards the blindfold.

There. Now she could see. The key was
right where she had left it. She rolled onto her side and wormed her way over
to it.

Once she had the key, it didn’t take
long to free herself. Sam would have enjoyed watching her. He always marveled
at how limber she was and always tried to push her limits. She removed the ball
gag last, moving her jaw to work out some of the stiffness. She left the collar
on. Only now did she dare to look at the alarm clock.

Three-forty in the morning. She let out
a sigh of relief. She’d been worried that she’d slept so long that she would be
late for work. She stood up and stretched, spreading her arms and legs wide.
She felt tired. She also felt lonely and a little sad. Masturbating against the
chain drawn tight between her legs might scratch her itch, but it wouldn’t feed
her hunger like Sam could with his hands, cock and tongue. She sighed again,
running her hands through her coppery hair and regarding the tangle of
equipment on the floor. She bundled it all up in the bathrobe and shoved it
under her bed. It was late, and she still needed sleep. She could sort it all
out tomorrow. For a moment, she debated taking a shower, but she could do that
in the morning. Still wearing the collar…she could vividly remember the first
time Sam had put it on her…she climbed into her bed. She hugged one of the
pillows to her, wishing it were Sam.

***

The alarm clock rang too soon. She hit
the snooze button as many times as she dared before she actually got up.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she took a look at her wrists and ankles. There
were marks from the cuffs, but they were faint. She unbuckled the collar and
looked around for a moment for a place to put it before stuffing it under her
pillow. Yawning, she made her way to the bathroom. It was going to be a long
day.

The shower helped to wake her up,
especially when she turned the cold water up high at the end. She stood it as
long as she could before shutting it off. Naked and shivering, she groped for
her towel. She gave herself a vigorous rubdown with it and checked her wrists
and ankles again. She decided it might be a good idea to go with a long-sleeved
blouse today. It was supposed to be warm and sunny and although she’d be indoors
for most of the day, she usually covered up in sunny weather anyway. As for her
ankles…well, she had a couple of pairs of heels with ankle straps, but they
weren’t for the office. She’d go with a long, loose skirt and hope for the
best. Jerry might notice, but he almost certainly wouldn’t say anything to
anybody. She couldn’t help what he might think, but he would keep it to
himself.

She felt tired enough to stop for coffee
at a little convenience store. There was a coffeemaker at the office, but she
didn’t want to wait. She sipped at the hot liquid as she drove. All the while,
the radio told her of the usual accidents and traffic jams on the main routes,
interspersed with weather reports, commercials, and the morning news. Some
days, she thought they could just record the Monday show and play it all week
long. Would anyone notice if they did?

The traffic problems rarely bothered
her. She didn’t live all that far from her office, and she didn’t need to take
any of the main arteries to get there. She pulled into her usual parking space
fifteen minutes early. Neither Jerry nor Amanda had arrived yet. She locked her
car, walked to the office door and unlocked it. And with that, she was back to
the old daily routine…without Sam. She felt suddenly saddened by the thought.
But…if he came back, she’d wind up neglecting her business like before, and
she’d worked too hard to let that happen again.

She turned on the lights and went over
to the coffeemaker. She was going to need a whole pot just for herself if she
was going to get through this day. Tomorrow shouldn’t be as hard. Once she had
everything ready, she hit the “Brew” button and went over to her desk. After a
moment, the coffeemaker gurgled loudly and then seemed to sigh. It sounded sad,
resigned to its own old daily routine,
and Claudia suddenly found herself fighting back tears. Amanda chose that
moment to hurry in through the door.
“Good morning!” she said brightly.

Claudia faked a sneeze. She didn’t want
Amanda to see her crying.

“Good morning!” she smiled.
“Sorry…there’s something in the air today. I’ve been sneezing most of the way
here.”

“Really?” Amanda looked at the doorway, then
back at Claudia. “Do you have allergies?”

“Not really. It just happens sometimes.”

“Oh.” Amanda nodded and went to her
desk. Grateful for her lack of curiosity, Claudia started up her computer. She
had a lot to catch up on.

Jerry bustled in a couple of minutes
later. “Morning, Chief,” he grinned. He held up a white paper bag. “I brought
some donuts, in case anybody wants some.”

“Thanks, Jer.” Claudia responded. Jerry
had a fondness for jelly donuts. She didn’t care for them herself. The jelly
was always too sticky sweet. But he always included some that were powdered or
glazed, and one of them sounded pretty good just now. She hadn’t had any
breakfast. Sam had been cooking them for her before.

She felt her eyes beginning to tear up
again. She faked another sneeze.

Jerry put the bag of donuts down next to
the coffeemaker and came over to her.

“You okay, Chief?”

“Oh. Sure.” Claudia sniffled as if
another sneeze was imminent. “Just something in the air this morning, I think.”

“Okay,” he shrugged. Whether he believed
her or not, he wasn’t going to push it. She was grateful for that.

“I wanted to ask you …” He hesitated.
“You going to be here all day today?”

“Yes.” Claudia replied. “I’ve been
letting things slide for too long. It’s time to get serious again.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded and looked at her
more closely. “You sure you’re okay, Chief?”

“I will be. Can you and Amanda bring me
up to speed?”

It didn’t take long. This time of year
was usually slow anyway. The home security company that used her as a
consultant wanted to renew her contract, a couple of suspicious spouses wanted
her agency to spy on possibly-straying mates, and a local supermarket chain
wanted her advice on how to cut down on shoplifting losses. She sighed and
shook her head at that one. Usually, a company suffered most of its losses to
employee theft, but some companies had trouble believing it could happen to
them.

“One last thing, Ms. Cole,” Amanda said
nervously. “The insurance company doesn’t want to pay us for the Bowman case.
They’re saying since it was part of a fraud set up by Mr. Shepperton, they’re
not obligated.”

“The hell they aren’t!” Claudia snorted.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Amanda flinch.

“I’m not upset with you, Amanda,”
Claudia reassured her. “But I signed that contract in good faith, and they’re
damned well going to honor it.”

“You might have to get a lawyer,” Jerry
observed.

“I might,” Claudia nodded. “But this
might be a bluff on the part of one of their executives to see if we just shrug
and walk away. Well, we’re not going to, but it really bugs me that it doesn’t
cost them anything to try it anyway. They’ll end up paying us, all right…just
three or four months from now.” Every so often, she’d run into clients like
that. It was always annoying, but it was especially so this time because she’d
been counting on that check to tide her agency over for a while. They could manage
until the insurance company paid up, but it would be pretty lean until they
did.

“Well,” she shrugged. “Let’s take care
of the other stuff. Amanda, could you tell that security company to send over
copies of the contract for me to sign? After that, give me the list of people
who want to snoop on their husbands or wives. I think I should tell them
personally that I can’t take their cases.” She hated that kind of work. Whether
the suspicions were well-founded or not, she would feel a little grimy
afterwards.

“And Jer,” she turned to him, “have a
chat with the supermarket people…find out just what it is they think we can do,
and how cheap they think we can do it. Get them to show you around one of their
stores, too. Take your time. We can go over it when you come back in tomorrow
morning.”

“Gotcha, Chief,” he grinned. It was the
kind of assignment he liked, and he was very good at what he did. “You want me
to go now?”

“If you would,” she answered. “We’re
going to have to have something going for us until that insurance company gives
up and pays.”  It might also be a good
idea to call that company’s main office. She made a mental note to try it
later.

The day stretched on, long and quiet.
The phone rang at irregular intervals. Claudia noticed that Amanda handled each
one skillfully; screening them, politely getting rid of the ones that needed
getting rid of and only passing on the ones that needed Claudia’s personal
attention…not that there were many of those today. It was hard to reconcile her
performance with the soft-spoken, painfully shy young woman she was used to in
the office. She’d have to send along a good, solid reference when Amanda went
back to the temp agency.

She made the phone calls to politely
decline all the spouse-spying requests. It didn’t take anywhere near long
enough. There really wasn’t a lot happening today, and she found herself
regarding Amanda more closely. Normally, she’d have interviewed her in person
before hiring her, but with all the…excitement of the Bowman case and Sam
coming to look her up after two years, she’d relied on Marabel’s judgement.
She’d never had any reason to doubt it before, and Amanda had certainly picked
up on the office routine with minimal supervision…but there was something about
the younger woman that piqued her curiosity.

Amanda wasn’t exactly plain…most men
would certainly find her attractive, in a shy and retiring kind of way. She
used very little makeup and dressed very plainly in long skirts, earth-tone
blouses and low-heeled shoes. She appeared to have a limited wardrobe as well. While
her clothes were always neat and clean, most of them seemed a bit worn. She
drove an older model car, a small light-blue Japanese thing that probably gave
her good gas mileage. She usually brought her own small lunch to the office,
always in a brown paper bag. Okay, so she chose to live inexpensively. You
pretty much had to do that when working temp jobs, but Amanda was certainly
sharp enough to land a permanent position that paid a lot better.

As an old detective had once told her
over beers in a dark and crowded bar, there was always a reason for everything.
Sometimes, you could figure it out all by yourself and sometimes when you did
that you figured it out all wrong. You should always start by asking questions.

That was good advice, but she barely
knew Amanda, and any questions she’d want to ask might be painfully personal to
her. Besides…she was a temp, and once Marabel came back from whatever family
business needed her attention, she would probably never see Amanda again. Maybe
she could invite her for coffee after work. It would give her a chance to
apologize for being so bitchy these past few days and maybe find out a little more
about Amanda. Claudia shrugged and turned back to her computer.

The afternoon dragged. The phone hardly
rang at all, and she found herself dragging out a conversation with a local
businessman who was absolutely certain his partner was stealing from him simply
because it gave her something to do. She took down the information he gave to
her. It sounded like a job for a sharp accountant rather than a private
investigator, but work was work, and she had to find something to fill the
dreary emptiness now that Sam was gone.

It was a little after four-thirty. She
was thinking about what to do after work when the phone rang one more time.
Amanda answered it. Whoever was on the other end of the line apparently wanted
to talk to Claudia Cole immediately, but Amanda kept trying to find out what it
was about first.

“Amanda,” Claudia said quietly.

“Hold, please.” Amanda hit a button on
her phone and looked over at her.

“It’s all right. I’ll take the call.”

Amanda nodded and hit the button again.
“I can put you through now,” she said. She hit another button and Claudia’s
phone rang. Once. Twice.

She picked it up just as the third ring
began. Whoever it was could just wait for a bit for giving Amanda a hard time.

“Claudia Cole.” She winked briefly at
Amanda, who had been watching and no doubt wondering what was going on. Amanda
smiled and returned to her work. She had a very nice smile. She ought to use it
more often.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Cole.” The voice at
the other end sounded female, fussy, middle-aged and a little bit annoyed.
There was a pause.

“Yes?” Claudia prompted.

“Ms. Cole, I’m calling on behalf of
Simonds Assurance.”

“Yes? I’m afraid that doesn’t mean
anything to me.”

Another pause. Claudia waited.

“I’m calling in regards to the matter of
the bond on a Mr. James Andersen.”

Another pause. “I’m afraid that doesn’t
mean anything to me either,” Claudia said evenly. “Could you please get to the
point? My time is valuable. I’m sure yours is as well.”

“I see.” The woman at the other end took
a breath. “Very well. Mr. Andersen was in charge of accounting and payroll on a
large construction project here. He has disappeared and so has a very large
amount of money. He was bonded through our company, and we are now liable for
that very large amount.”

“Go on.” Claudia leaned forward a little.

“Ah…we are asking if you would be
interested in this case. We are prepared to pay you quite well, for only a small
amount of your time: A week, perhaps ten days.”

“And exactly where are you located?”
Claudia asked. Fussy Woman told her.

“That’s no good. I’m only licensed in
this state.” She was beginning to wonder just how Sam could have pulled
something like this off. Why did he ever think it was going to work?

“We can deal with that. You’ll be a
contract employee of our company while you are out here. We will handle any and
all legal questions.”

“I see.” Now Claudia leaned back in her
chair. “How did you happen to pick me for this assignment?”

“I did not select you. That decision was
made higher up.”

The tone of the woman’s voice told
Claudia that she didn’t approve of that decision at all. That might explain
some of her attitude. She was probably some mid-level bureaucrat, the kind who
would dutifully carry out an order she thought ill-advised, but act like a
sullen child while doing it.

“I see.” Claudia took a deep breath,
held it for a moment, exhaled. She was dead certain that Sam was behind this
somehow. “You said your company was prepared to pay me quite well. Could you
give me a figure?”

Fussy Woman gave her a figure. It was
substantial. She went on: “Of course, we would also pay transportation and
expenses. And, in the event that you recover any of the missing funds, you will
be eligible to receive a percentage.” The tone of her voice indicated that she
doubted Claudia could find even a penny dropped on the sidewalk, let alone a
big pile of stolen cash.

Throwing in travel and expenses put the
total beyond substantial. It could very easily tide her agency over until the
insurance company paid up.

“Time is of the essence, Ms. Cole. We
must have an answer within twenty-four hours.”

Okay, this was a new wrinkle. “Why the
deadline?” She could hear Fussy sigh.

“It is believed that if the money is not
found quickly, there is no chance of finding it at all,” she said. It sounded
as if she were explaining something to a slow-witted child.

As handy as the more-than-substantial
amount would be, Claudia felt more irritation than interest now. She didn’t
like the idea of Sam manipulating her from a distance, and she really didn’t
care for Fussy Woman’s attitude.

“Thank you, no,” she said.

“May I ask why?”

“You may ask,” Claudia replied, and then
hung up the phone. She turned towards Amanda. “It’s almost five,” she called
out. “Would you like to join me for a cup of coffee after work?”

***

Claudia pulled into her usual parking
space at her apartment building a little over an hour later. She was not in a
good mood. Coffee with Amanda had given her a chance to apologize. Amanda had
accepted the apology with a smile, but she had not stayed past the first cup.
She’d been very apologetic about it, but she’d seemed terribly nervous. Claudia
had wondered at first if Amanda thought she was trying to hit on her. In any
case, it hadn’t been much of a conversation.

What was really gnawing at her, though,
was the thought of turning down what could have been a very lucrative offer.
She realized that the feeling wasn’t entirely rational. But, really, she
couldn’t afford to be away from her office for any length of time…could she?
Well, it was too late to do anything about it now. She gathered up her few
things, locked the car, and started towards her apartment.

She’d no sooner locked the door behind
her than her phone started ringing. She hoped it would be Sam calling her. She
wanted to give him a piece of her mind.

“Hello?”

“Is this Ms. Cole?” It was a man’s
voice, deep and melodious, but it wasn’t Sam.

“If you’re trying to sell me something,
I’m not interested.” She was about to hang up before he said anything else, but
she heard him laugh, and paused.

“Ms. Cole,” whoever it was went on,
“First let me apologize for the behavior of our representative who called you
earlier today.”

‘What representative?’ Claudia thought
back. ‘Did he mean Fussy Woman?’

“ I’m calling on behalf of Simonds
Assurance. Let me assure you…” he chuckled once. “Her behavior was very
unprofessional. We do not conduct business that way, she has been reprimanded.”

“Your apology is accepted, but if you
think I’m going to change my mind…”

“Ms. Cole, it is my assigned duty to
convince you to change your mind.”

“I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

“I’m willing to run that risk if you’re
willing to hear me out.”

Claudia sighed. “All right,” she said.
“Go on.”

Chapter Ten

There were times Claudia wished she’d
lived in an earlier age, when travel had something mysterious and romantic
about it. There should be something awe-inspiring about traveling six miles
above the ground at half the speed of sound, but taking a trip by plane now had
all the charm and excitement of taking a bus. One plane looked and felt very
much like any other plane, one terminal looked and felt much like any other terminal.
It all boiled down to sitting in a long metal tube surrounded by strangers and
waiting. In the meantime, you took it on faith that whoever was driving the
thing knew what they were doing and that whoever maintained the machinery was
competent and thorough. Every airline tried to reassure its passengers that air
travel was safe, citing statistics to prove it. They also did their best to
insulate those passengers from noise, discomfort and boredom. There were
in-flight movies, always bland and inoffensive, or your choice of music piped
into earphones. The music was usually bland and inoffensive as well. Maybe a
bus trip would be more exciting after all.

She sighed inwardly and looked out
though the window again. From way up here, the scenery was just as bland and
inoffensive as everything else. Flying over the mountains earlier had been
interesting, but for over an hour now they’d been passing over endless plains
and there wasn’t much to see. She returned to the folder Simonds Assurance had
delivered to her office that morning. It held all the information available on
the disappearance of one James Andersen and just under three-quarters of a
million dollars in cash. The police reports told her very little. Friday
morning, his assistant and two clerks arrived at the pay office to find the
safe opened and emptied.

Mr. Andersen was
the only person there with the combination to the safe. No one had seen him since
roughly nine o’clock the previous night. The police had arrived at the logical
conclusion that he’d stolen the money and skipped. Local, county and state
police were all on the lookout for him.

She looked at the picture provided of
Mr. Andersen. He looked like a geeky little guy, mid to late forties,
round-faced and balding. The wire-framed glasses he wore made him look exactly
like an accountant…or an insurance salesman. At first glance, he also looked
entirely unremarkable, except for his eyes. They were also round, and blue, but
behind those glasses they looked somehow calculating and warm at the same time.
However bland he might look on the outside, there was a keen and observant
intelligence there. She didn’t see anything about his face that would suggest
he would steal, but the most effective criminals were the ones who just didn’t look
the part.

He also didn’t look like the kind of man
Sam would have anything in common with, but Sam had described him as one of his
best friends. How had they met?

More to the point, some aspects of this
case bothered her. In this age of electronic money, why were they running such
a large payroll in cash? It seemed an invitation for just this sort of thing to
happen. Security around the pay offices had been pretty lax too. There was supposed
to be two rent-a-cops on duty the night of the theft, but one of them had gone
home sick without calling it in. He’d done that once or twice before and had
been warned about it. The other was apparently a problem drinker. He hadn’t
called in his partner’s absence either. Both had been fired the next day. Both
had been interrogated by the police. Neither one had been able to offer any
useful information. She hoped the police were still keeping tabs on them. She
knew she would be. Something about this stank.

There was sloppy police work, and there was
lazy police work. The reports she’d read reeked more than a little of both. She
could follow the line of reasoning. The safe hadn’t been forced. Mr. Andersen
was the only one with the combination. Ergo, Mr. Andersen had opened the safe
and run off with the money. It was all very plain and simple. It might even be
correct. Still, something about it bothered her. She closed the folder and her
eyes. She had a week to work with. That was all Simonds Assurance would pay
for. She hoped it would be enough.

***

As the plane lost altitude during its
landing approach, the scenery outside became more interesting in a stark kind
of way, sand and rocks, for the most part, in varying shades of red and brown,
sprinkled with little gray-green bushes. The only large plant life she could
see, aside from some cactus, looked like trees from Mars. It looked hot
outside…hot and very dry. She could feel her skin starting to shrivel up
already.

She went from the air-conditioned plane
to an air-conditioned tube that led to the air-conditioned terminal, grateful
for the protective cocoon of technology. She hoped she wouldn’t have to spend
too much time outdoors here. She’d dressed for comfort and for protection in jeans,
comfortable walking shoes and a long-sleeved, loose-fitting white shirt. In her
luggage, she’d packed a couple of wide-brimmed hats. She was going to retrieve
one of them and put it on before she left the terminal.

***

Simonds Assurance had wanted to provide
her with a driver. She’d turned down the offer, insisting on a rental car
instead. She preferred to do her own driving and suspected that any driver they
provided would also be spying on her and reporting back to the main office. One
of the men at the rental agency took quite a liking to her and insisted on
accompanying her to her car He insisted on carrying her luggage as well. When
they stepped out of the terminal building, she expected to walk into a furnace.
She was pleasantly surprised when it felt only a bit warm.

“What’s the temperature here today?” she
asked.

“Only ninety-six,” her self-appointed
escort replied, smiling. He was tall, rangy, tanned, good-looking and, since he
appeared to be in his mid-twenties, about ten years younger than she was. He
told her his name was Brian.

Her car was a late-model white sedan.
Brian insisted on showing her all of the safety features, just in case, he
said.  It was terribly flattering, so she
let him go on. It was reassuring to know that there was a desert survival kit,
complete with instructions, stowed in the trunk anyway. When he finally ran out
of features to point out, she thanked him with a smile. When she took the keys
from him, she let her fingertips brush briefly across his hand. She wasn’t
really interested, but he’d been so very polite and attentive she felt that she
had to leave him with something.

She started the car up. The engine sounded
good. She left the driver’s door open while the air conditioner worked its way
up to speed and took the time to look over the instructions from Simonds and
the little road maps provided by the rental agency.

The airport appeared to be a couple of
miles away from town. Well, there was plenty of room around here, if not much
else. Why not use it? There was one main road running straight from the airport
into town. It was imaginatively named “Airport Road”. There were some smaller
roads that seemed to do the same job, but they wandered all over the place
before getting anywhere. One of them puzzled her until she noticed on the map
legend that a dashed line meant a trail, not a road. What was the difference?

The air conditioner was pushing an
arctic blast out of the dashboard now. She doffed her big hat, shut the door,
adjusted the seat, seatbelt and mirrors and pulled out of the parking lot.

In the distance, no matter which way she
looked, she could see mountains, but the ground here was so flat that she could
see the town easily. Even from a distance it looked more like a small city,
though it didn’t seem to have any tall buildings. She began to pass housing
developments, sprawling tracts of sprawling one-story houses. Some had lawns
surrounding them. They were the first patches of real green she’d seen here,
and it was jarring. How much work and water went into keeping a lawn in the
desert? Most of the homesteads also sported swimming pools, but she didn’t see
anyone using them.

Her hotel was in town, just off the main
drag. Simonds Assurance had rented an office a few blocks away, for her use.
They’d also provided a small staff to help her. She was willing to bet that
they were supposed to keep an eye on her as well. She’d have to meet them, of
course, but first she was going to check in at the hotel. After hours stuck on
the plane she wanted a shower…and something to eat. The last time she’d been on
a long flight, the airline had served a meal. All she’d been offered on this
flight was a very small bag of tasteless nuts and her choice of soda or water.

The hotel was set back from the road just
far enough to permit a lane to drive up to the main entrance. There was a large
canopy over the spot and some sort of hotel functionary waiting there in the
shade, next to a sign that read: ‘Valet Parking’. He came briskly over to her
door as she stopped and opened it for her.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” he smiled. He
looked to be somewhere in his sixties, still lean and trim, if a bit leathery.
He wore jeans, cowboy boots and a red vest over a blindingly white shirt.
“Checking in?”

“Yes, thank you.” Claudia smiled back. He
offered his hand to help her out of her car. She took it with a smile, trying
to remember the last time she’d been offered such a courtesy.

“Your bags?”

“In the trunk.”

He held out his hand again, still smiling.

“Oh! Sorry. Here.” Claudia handed him her
keys.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he nodded to her.
“I’ll have your bags brought up to your room.” As if on cue, a gangly teenage
boy came scurrying out of the entrance. He was dressed much like the doorman.
She hoped he would be lugging the bags instead of parking her car.

Well, what did it matter? The car was a
rental. She started towards the entrance.

***

Showered, changed and fed, she pulled up
in front of the building housing the Simonds office an hour later. It was still
early afternoon here, but it felt like it should be later. The Sun should be
much lower in the sky. She used the street parking. There might be a lot around
somewhere, but she didn’t want to go looking for it, and she wasn’t planning on
spending a lot of time here anyway. She got out, locked the car, and stepped
onto the sidewalk.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

Claudia turned. He was tall,
wide-shouldered, square-jawed and slim-hipped. He looked like some kind of
trooper in his khaki uniform and Stetson hat. He was wearing mirrored
sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes. He was also smiling, but it wasn’t a
convincing smile. As he came closer, she could read his badge and his name tag:
T. Pipes, of the County Police. He looked oddly bulky in the chest. Claudia
took another look. He was wearing body armor under his uniform. In this heat?

“Yes, officer?” Was there some law against
parking on the street? No, there couldn’t be. There were other cars parked
there.

“Might you be the investigator that
bonding company sent out here?” He nodded towards the office building.

“I might,” Claudia shrugged. “Why?”

“You’re supposed to check in with the
local authorities, ma’am,” he replied. “Why don’t I just give you a quick ride
over there, get it out of the way?” His smile got wider, which made it even
less convincing.

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any
trouble, officer,” she smiled sweetly. She wasn’t going anywhere with this
character. Something about him reeked.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist…”
he began.

“Why, Timmy Pipes! Are you trying to hit
on this pretty lady?”

Officer Pipes whirled at the voice.
Claudia took a step sideways. She knew who it was already, but she had to see.
Sam was ambling towards them, hands thrust into the pockets of his faded jeans,
grinning. He wore a hat much like the officer’s, but no mirrored sunglasses.

“This is none of your business, Pender.”  Was it a trick of her ears or did Officer
Pipes suddenly sound a little bit scared?

“Ain’t none of yours either, Timmy,” Sam
drawled. He stopped about a yard away, looking completely at ease, as if he
were passing the time of day with a friend. He kept his hands thrust into his
pockets. Officer Pipes looked anything but relaxed. “You’re county. This here’s
city police jurisdiction. Shouldn’t you be out writin’ speedin’ tickets
somewheres?”

Officer Pipes just stood there for a
moment. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Claudia and stalked off,
making a wide detour around Sam.

“What was that all about?” Claudia asked.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Sam nodded.
He took his hands out of his pockets and came closer. He went on, in a very low
voice: “We don’t know each other. Act like you’re a little annoyed at me.”

“That won’t be hard,” Claudia replied. She
was annoyed with him for manipulating her into coming to this hot, dry place.
And yet…just seeing him again had her heart beating faster.

“I was just on my way in here, Ma’am,” Sam
went on in his normal voice. He nodded towards the office building. “May I get
the door for you?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said
as they started for the door. She kept her voice low, as Sam had. Sam opened
the door for her.

“What question?”

“What was that all about?”

“Oh. That.” Sam shrugged. He spoke quietly
after looking to see if there was anyone else in the lobby. There wasn’t.
“Nothin’ much to worry about. Timmy’s just muscle for some of the bigshots
here. I think he was just tryin’ to find out about you, maybe scare you a
little.” He spoke in a low voice.

Claudia had come across more than her
share of bad cops. She nodded. “Who do you think sent him?” Sam led the way
towards the elevator. She followed.

“Think he came all by himself. See,
Timmy’s just muscle to those guys, but Timmy’s got a problem. He’s a muscle
with aspirations. He thinks if he can show them how valuable he can be they’ll
cut him in on some of the goodies.”

“What are you talking about?” The elevator
opened. Sam gestured for her to enter and she did.

He punched the button for the third floor.
The door slid shut.

“This town’s a cesspool, Red,” he turned
towards her, grim and serious. “Too much development too soon, too much money
comin’ in too fast, nobody payin’ much attention. The city fathers are busy
stuffing their pockets while they can. One of ‘em even owns the only paper in
town, so they ain’t much worried about bein’ exposed. Somebody like you might
make them a little nervous. They might’ve mentioned it in Timmy’s earshot.”

“Is he dangerous at all?”

“He’s a bully at heart, Red. He’s only
dangerous if you let him be. Stand up to him and he backs down.”

“If he’s county police, what was he doing
in town?”

“He’s muscle. He pretty much goes where he
wants.” Sam chuckled. “Except for the reservation.”

“The what?”

“There’s a Navajo reservation up north,
just on the county line. Timmy used to go up there, catch anyone coming into
the county, write tickets for any little thing he could find. Made such a pain
of himself some of the tribal police had a little talk with him. He won’t go
within twenty miles of it now. All they did was talk to him.”

“Really.”

A chime rang. The elevator stopped with a
tiny jolt and the door slid open. As it did, Sam shook her hand, simultaneously
pressing something into it.

“This is my floor, ma’am,” Sam smiled.
“You want the next floor up. Nice meetin’ you.” He ambled out. Claudia watched
him until the door shut. She pressed the button for the fourth floor. It was
only then that she realized she’d missed a chance to hold him, kiss him, feel
his body against hers again. She’d also missed a chance to give him a piece of
her mind and a hard slap. What did he mean by ‘we don’t know each other’? It
had sounded like a warning…and did he really have business on the third floor?
She looked at the small cell phone Sam had passed to her with the handshake.

The elevator came to a stop again. The
door opened. She slid the cell phone into her shirt pocket and stepped out.

***

When she entered the office, there were
two women and one man waiting. One of the women, middle-aged and plump, sat
behind a small desk. She was taking notes on a small yellow pad. The man looked
to be about the same age, tall, thin and stooped. He was almost bald. What
straggling gray hair he had left circled his head like a wreath just above his
ears. He looked at her over antique-looking reading glasses.

The other woman was perhaps a year or two
younger than Claudia. She was about the same height with long, straight black
hair framing a face with a little too much space between her cheekbones and
chin. As the black-haired woman met her gaze, Claudia saw her stand a bit
straighter and pull her shoulders back a bit. She’d seen that sort of reaction
to her before, from other women, and she always thought of it as a female
threat display, ‘Fear me! My tits are bigger than yours’!

Well, they were, Claudia noted sourly. Her
hips were bigger as well, but not so much bigger as to make her look hefty.
What was the right word to describe her build? Voluptuous might fit. She was
the only one of the three not dressed for the office. While the man and the
woman wore what could be described as generic office wear, this other woman was
clad in a tan blouse above a long skirt woven in a bright Southwestern pattern.
She also wore serviceable-looking boots instead of highly-polished shoes.

“Ma’am?” the older woman cleared her throat.
“May I help you?”

“I suppose you can. I’m Claudia Cole. You
were expecting me?”

“Ah, Ms. Cole!” The man smiled. It looked
as if it put a strain on his face. He came over towards her, holding out one
big, skinny hand. “Yes, indeed! We were expecting you, but not for a little
while yet! I’m very pleased to finally meet you!”

Claudia let him take her hand and shake it
briefly. “I’m Paul Morrison,” he said, letting go of her hand and stepping back
a little. “This is Esther Green.” He nodded towards the older woman, who smiled
wanly up at Claudia. “We’re here to assist you in any way we can while you’re
here.”

“Thank you,” Claudia nodded. She looked
over at the black-haired woman. Before Paul Morrison could say anything, the
woman came towards her, smiling and holding out her hand. “I am Anna Turco,”
she introduced herself. “I was Mr. Andersen’s assistant. I am very pleased to
meet you.”

She pronounced her name very precisely,  ‘AH-nah TOOR-co’. She also used more pressure
than was necessary when she shook Claudia’s hand. Claudia did not much care for
Anna Turco and it was apparent that Anna Turco did not care for her. Claudia
shrugged mentally. It happened sometimes, hate at first sight. She disengaged
her hand from Anna’s deftly. Anna had dark brown eyes, so dark as to seem
almost black, and a complexion not quite dark enough to be called swarthy. Up
close, Claudia could see that Anna’s nose had made a valiant effort to cover
the cheekbone-to-chin span of her face. In doing so, it had flattened itself
out a bit.

“Very nice to meet you all,” Claudia
smiled at them.

“Ms. Turco is helping us,” Mr. Morrison
said.

“Is she indeed?” Claudia arched an eyebrow
at her. “I was given to understand that she wasn’t there that night.”

“I wasn’t,” Anna shook her head. She
offered nothing more.

“Then how can you possibly help?” Claudia
inquired mildly. They locked eyes.

“Ah…Ms. Turco was describing the security
arrangements, the layout of the pay office and so on,” Mr. Morrison
interjected. “Background material, nothing more.”

“Don’t the police already have all that?”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Morrison nodded. The way he
did that, his head looked almost too heavy for his thin neck. “But it never
hurts to review things. It’s always possible that some previously overlooked
detail will come to light.”

Claudia looked away from Anna as if
dismissing her and smiled at him. “Very good,” she said. “Did anything come to
light?”

“Ah…” Mr. Morrison’s answering smile
faded. “I’m afraid not.”

“Well, it was worth a try. Is Ms. Turco
finished now?”

“Yes, I think so,” Anna spoke up. She
sounded irritated. Good.

“All right,” Claudia nodded. “I don’t have
much time, so if there’s nothing new to go over here, I’d like to have a look
at the payroll office. I’d like to poke around there a little for myself.”

“There’s not much to see,” Anna said. “The
police have been all over it anyway. I’d be happy to show you around the place
though.”

Oh, great. There was no plausible way to
turn down that offer. “Why, thank you!” Claudia smiled.

***

“I saw that you’ve already met our Mr.
Pender,” Anna spoke up as they drove out to the site. There had been no
plausible way to insist that they take separate cars either.

“How did you know that?” Claudia kept her
voice even and concentrated on driving. They were heading north out of the city
and there seemed to be a lot more traffic out this way.

“I happened to see you through the
window,” Anna lounged back in the seat. She turned her head to watch the
scenery go by. “I saw that you also met Officer Pipes.”

“Not a very pleasant guy,” Claudia
replied.

“Officer Pipes, no…but that Mr. Pender…”
Anna gestured with one hand as if she was shaking water off of her fingertips.
“That one is muy hombre. I wouldn’t mind putting the spurs to him some time.”

Inwardly, Claudia snickered. Anna obviously
had no idea what Mr. Pender was like, which came as a relief. “How do you
happen to know them?” she asked.

“Ah,” Anna chuckled. “I think every woman
in the county knows of Mr. Pender. His engineering company has done some work
in this area. As for the officer,” her voice turned sour, “I think every pretty
woman in the county knows of him too. He thinks he’s God’s special gift to
women. If he finds one attractive, he’ll pull her over for the slightest
reason, then suggest alternative ways to settle the ticket.”

“He did that to you?”

“Yes. I turned him down. After that, he
began pulling me over and giving me a ticket any time he could. He is a vicious
little boy.” Anna almost spat the last word.

They rode for a little while in silence. A
large construction site began to loom into view, but there was no sign of
activity.

“You turn off to the right just ahead,”
Anna spoke up, pointing. She had been absolutely still until then. “There’s a
guard at the gate, but I can get us through.”

“Thanks,” Claudia said. She had some ID
from Simonds Assurance, but she wasn’t sure how far that would get her on its
own.

“Say…” Anna went on.

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot
earlier. I’d like to see this terrible mess resolved as much as anybody. If
there’s anything I can do to help you, please let me know.”

“Now that you mention it…” Claudia slowed
down and signaled for the turn. She’d spotted a police cruiser in her rear-view
mirror. It was too far away to make out the department it belonged to, but it
just might be Timmy Pipes tailing them. No point in giving him a free shot.
“How long did you work with Mr. Andersen?”

“About six months. I came here shortly
after the construction began and he asked for an assistant.”

“So you both worked for the same company?
Pierce, Howell and Jones?”

“Yes. I’ve been with them for three years
now. Nothing like this has ever happened to them before.”

“There was something else I was wondering
about.”

“What?”

“Who carries such a large payroll in cash
any more? It almost seems that they were asking for something like this to
happen.”

“I don’t know that for sure, but I think I
know why,” Anna shrugged.

“Oh? What do you think?”

“There’s a lot of unskilled and
semi-skilled labor on the site. The supervisors are all paid by check or
electronically, but the laborers…well, they’re mostly Mexican guest workers. I
think they don’t trust Yankee banks.”

“Why guest workers?” Claudia asked.

Anna
shrugged again. “I’ve heard that there isn’t enough labor available locally. It
might be true. I know they’ve had some trouble with labor unions over it.”

Chapter
Eleven

Claudia returned to her hotel room in a
foul mood. Part of it might be due to the fact that she still felt three hours
out of focus with everything, but the undeniable bulk of it was attributable to
the fact that she had no leads at all. The visit to the pay office had turned
up nothing new. The safe had been a massive, ancient thing. A close inspection
of it had revealed no signs of tampering. Whoever had opened it had used the
combination.

Anna Turco had done her best to be
helpful. That hadn’t helped at all. In spite of her change of attitude, Claudia
still did not care for her. It had been a constant strain to have the other
woman so close and so solicitous, so eager to answer any questions and to offer
information on her own. The last straw had been when she’d casually mentioned
she was getting hungry. Anna had quickly suggested a restaurant she knew that
had great food.

Since they’d driven out to the site
together, she had to give Anna a ride back. The restaurant happened to be not
too far from where Anna’s car was parked. Since Anna had claimed to be hungry
as well, there had been no good way to just drop her off and go to the
restaurant alone.

“You’ll love this place,” Anna smiled over
her shoulder as they entered. “It has really great food.”

The exterior of the restaurant was
unremarkable, but the interior had gone overboard on the southwestern motif
with fake adobe walls, red-brown tiled floor, thick, loosely-woven white
tablecloths and heavy wooden furniture. The service was good, though. They were
seated promptly and white-jacketed waiters quickly brought menus. They also set
a pitcher of ice water in front of each woman. Claudia noted it, but said
nothing. If she did say anything, Anna would no doubt tell her why they did
that. She was getting weary of Anna’s bottomless fountain of information.

A quick scan of the menu told her anyway.
Except for a couple of seafood dishes, everything on the menu seemed to feature
chili peppers as a main seasoning. Little red flames printed next to each item
suggested how spicy it was. It came as no surprise to Claudia that Anna picked
one of the hottest available, smiling sweetly at Claudia as she gave the waiter
her order.

Claudia selected a dish equally incendiary
and smiled just as sweetly back at Anna. No, they were never going to be
friends. Anna was every bit as competitive as she was.

“So, what did you think of him?” Anna
leaned forward over the table and asked, grinning.

“Who?” Claudia turned her head to look at
the back of their rapidly receding waiter. He was average height, average
build, latino, as were most of the staff, and young.

“Not him!” Anna laughed. “Sam…Sam Pender.”

“Oh.” Claudia shrugged. “He was very
polite. Officer Pipes doesn’t seem to like him, though.” She tried to keep her
expression neutral. Anna apparently had some interest in Sam. This was another
reason to dislike her.

“Pipes is afraid of him,” Anna shrugged.
“But…come on, you didn’t get a little bit warm around Sam?”

“I just met him,” Claudia protested.
“Anyway, I’m here on business.” She remembered the cell phone he’d passed to
her. Her hand slid up to pat her shirt pocket. It was still there. What did he
intend for her to do with it?

“That should be all it takes.” Anna leaned
a little bit closer. “Unless…you prefer women?”

“What?”

“No offense!” Anna protested mildly,
sitting back, showing her palms. “I’m sorry. It’s just that our Sam usually has
an immediate effect on women.”

“I’m sure he does,” Claudia responded
calmly, even though her heart was galloping. The look in Anna’s eyes when she
asked the question had been a little disturbing. Anna’s tastes seemed to be
eclectic. “But, really…I’m here on business. I can’t afford to be distracted.”

Anna
smirked. “Best to keep away from Sam, then,” she said. It sounded like a
warning.

***

Now back in her hotel room, Claudia kicked
off her shoes and flopped down on the small couch. At least Simonds Assurance
didn’t do things on the cheap. They’d rented her a small but very comfortable
suite. She wondered how much it cost per night.

After a moment, she got up and began
pacing. It helped her to think, and anyway, her meal was making it difficult to
sit still. She usually enjoyed spicy food once in a while. She’d also thought
that a girl raised on Midwestern barbecue could handle just about everything,
but she realized now that had been a vain hope. It had not been a dinner so
much as a contest between her and Anna Turco. She thought she could at least
claim a draw, especially if Anna felt just like she did at this moment.

After their long, rambling conversation
over dinner, she thought she had Anna figured out now. As long as she was on
the job, Anna would be helpful. She said she wanted the matter settled as much
as anybody, and she’d certainly acted that way so far. Once Anna figured they
were off the clock though, everything became a contest between them. Anna kept
trying to set the forum and the rules. Just knowing this was going to be a
distraction, on or off the clock. Worse yet, she kept remembering that look in
Anna’s eyes. Something about it…she shivered. No, that couldn’t be. Dianne was
the only woman she’d ever done that with, each time only after some harrowing
experience when they’d both served on the force. She’d been too long away from
Sam. That had to be it.

That reminded her of the cell phone again.
She fished it out of her pocket and held it up to look at it. It was incredibly
small, thin, and light. She flipped the cover open. A scrap of yellow paper
fluttered out and landed on her lap. She retrieved it. There was a phone number
written on it. She knew Sam’s handwriting. Whoever had written the number down,
it wasn’t him. This writing looked feminine.

She debated calling the number now, but
decided against it. She was tired. The clock might say it was early in the
evening, but her body kept telling her it was much later. She wanted a shower
and a good long sleep, but she’d need something to help settle her stomach if
she was going to sleep at all. She sat up and used the hotel phone to call room
service.

She was just getting out of the shower
when she heard a knock at her door.

“Who is it?” she called out. She picked up
a towel and began to dry herself.

“Room service.” The voice was muffled coming
through the door, but it sounded like a young woman’s.

“Just put it on the table, thanks,”
Claudia called out again, a bit louder. She heard the door open. A little
later, she heard it shut. She picked up another towel and used it to dry her
hair. She’d have to brush it out later, or it would look like a brillo pad in
the morning, but she could do that just before she turned in. The hotel
provided bathrobes to go along with the towels. She wrapped one around herself
and padded barefoot out into the front room of her suite.

She was busy belting the robe, so she was
looking down. When she looked up, she saw a man sitting in one of the chairs.
She yelped, jumping backwards, her heart suddenly hammering at her ribcage.

“Easy, Red,” Sam grinned at her. “It’s
just me.”

Claudia took a deep breath to steady
herself. Then she walked briskly over to him. She slapped him hard across the
face. Sam let her.

“Don’t DO that!” she hissed. “You could’ve
let me know you were here!”

“Yeah, I guess I could’ve at that,” he
admitted. He rubbed at the cheek she’d slapped. “Sorry, Red. I couldn’t
resist.”

“And what happened to ‘we don’t know each
other’? Who let you in? Room service? That’s a helluva way to keep things
secret!”

Sam just grinned up at her. “Amparo’s not
gonna tell anybody.”

“How do you know that?”

“Her father works for me,” he shrugged. He
stood up, facing her, very close. She had an urge to step back and an equally
strong urge to hurl herself at him. So, she just stood there, looking up into
his eyes. Her heart was still hammering, but it wasn’t from surprise and shock
now.

“Sam, what’s going on?” she asked. “Please
tell me.”

“I will, Red,” he nodded. His hands reached
out. He began unfastening the belt to her robe. “But first…I’ve missed you.”

She wondered absently if all the drapes
had been drawn. Then he had the belt off. He held it in one hand and began to
slide the robe off of her shoulders. He went slowly. Claudia found herself
transported back to their first meeting years ago, when he’d done the same
thing.  This time, though, they were
alone. There were no other men, no naked, blindfolded and handcuffed Dianne to
complicate things. She closed her eyes and felt the robe slide off of her onto
the floor. Sam took her into his arms. He kissed her, hard. Her arms went
around him. His face felt bristly against hers, and his clothes felt rough
against her bare skin. She wallowed in the sensations.

“Sam…” she gasped, breaking the kiss.
“Sam, wait…”

“I missed you, Red,” he huffed. He was
breathing as hard as she was.

“Sam…” she almost sobbed. “Don’t speak.
Tie me up and fuck my brains out. Use me. Use me hard.”

He used the belt from her robe to tie her
hands behind her painfully tight. Then he spun her around to face him. He slapped
her, but nowhere near as hard as she had slapped him. When he put his big, hard
hands on her shoulders and pushed down, she offered no more than a token
resistance before she sank to her knees on the thick tan carpeting. She looked
away as he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free of the loops. He put it around
her neck and pulled it snug. She whimpered, but kept her eyes on the floor. She
heard the sound of a zipper. A moment later, he slapped her again…this time
with his cock. He was already big and hard for her. She turned her head away
and he cock-slapped her again. When he gripped her by her hair, she whimpered
and opened her mouth for him. She kept her eyes closed.

He wouldn’t let go of his belt or her
hair, so in the end she had to seek for him with her mouth. She could just
smell the faint trace of his musk. It tickled something at the back of her
nose, making her ready for him, hungry for him. She closed her lips around the
head of his cock and took him in, shallowly. If he wanted to go deeper, he
would have to do something about it himself.

He did. He pulled her head towards him,
easily overcoming her weak attempt to resist. She felt his cock hit the back of
her throat. The feeling made her shudder and moan.

Now he let go of both his belt and her
hair. His hands clamped around her head, holding her still as he fucked her
mouth, slowly and deeply. She grunted with each stroke. She knew it excited him
and knowing that in turn excited her. If he wanted to come in her mouth, she was
ready for that, even eager. He would be just as hard and just as hungry for her
an hour or so later.

He didn’t come in her mouth. She felt him
pull out, then another hard slap with his cock. He gripped her hair again to
pull her to her feet and then lifted her and threw her over his shoulder. Her
head hung down behind him. He slapped her ass hard once. It stung. She stifled
her yelp as best she could and he carried her into the suite’s bedroom. He
threw her down onto the bed so hard that she bounced, and then he was on top of
her, pinning her down, stuffing a wad of white cloth into her mouth. She
struggled and squirmed as he thrust first one knee, then the other, between her
legs, forcing them apart. He gripped the end of his belt again, using it to keep
her from wriggling away while he used his other hand to guide his cock into
her. She didn’t make it easy for him. She could still move her hips in an
erotic little game of keep-away, but she knew that, one way or another, Sam
would win.

He rammed himself into her hard and deeply
and she squealed through the cloth stuffed in her mouth. She could have spat it
out at any time. Instead, she kept it clenched in her teeth so she could make
as much noise as she wanted without waking the whole hotel. She kept on
struggling as he fucked her, whimpering and moaning like an unwilling victim.
He held her as still as he could, plowing into her again and again until her
whole world narrowed down to his cock in her pussy.

“Tight,” he grunted. She felt her little
world explode.

***

“So now can you tell me what’s going on
here?” She stirred against him in the bed, loving the feel of his body next to
hers. She took another sip of the milk that room service had brought. It hadn’t
quite gone warm while they were playing. “What’s with all the secret-agent
stuff?” She brushed at her hair with the fingers of her free hand. It was a
mess.

“Don’t you think it’d make your job a
little harder if people knew we knew each other?” Sam countered. They were
sitting side by side in the bed. He had his arm around her. His fingers were
brushing against the side of her breast. He’d turned the lights down and the
air conditioner up.

“Fair enough,” Claudia shrugged. “But why
slip me the phone in the elevator if you were going to come here tonight
anyway?”

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get here,”
he shrugged. “How could I tell if you were gonna order room service?”

“And the phone number?”

“It’ll get you to me, but not directly. A
woman’ll answer it. She’ll call me and I’ll call you right back.”

“Who’s the woman?”

“Just a friend, Red. She’s sixty-two, so
don’t get jealous.”

It was her turn to shrug. She took another
sip of milk. It seemed to be helping to settle her stomach. “I have a question…questions,
rather.”

“Shoot. I’ll answer what I can.”

“Something’s been bothering me. Why was
that company running such a large payroll in cash? Isn’t that kind of unusual
these days?”

“Oh, that.” Sam shook his head. “Everybody
here knows, Red, but no one’ll tell you. What do they call it? An open secret?”

“You’ll tell me,” she prodded.

“Yeah, I will. You remember what I said
about this town bein’ a cesspit?”

“Yes.”

“Too much money floatin’ around makes some
people real greedy. They’re puttin’ up a power plant out there. It’s supposed
to burn trash. They got some kind of government grant for the construction. The
contractor didn’t want to pay union wages, so he went and hired a lot of guest workers…mostly
Mexicans. Now they’re a month behind schedule because the work force is willing
but inexperienced.” He shook his head. “Anyway, that’s not the point. All those
guest workers get paid in cash, once a month. The story is that the workers don’t
trust American banks. Some of ‘em don’t, but that ain’t the real story.”

“What is?”

“What’s the one thing about cash that can
make it more useful than electronic money, Red?”

“Cash isn’t as traceable.”

“Right. And every one of those guest
workers, each and every month, has to pay a nice little kickback to the
construction company. If any one of ‘em objects, they yank his papers and truck
him back to the border.”

“That’s…”

“That’s what they’re used to, Red. You
want anything done back home, you gotta pay la mordita. They come here and it’s
the same. They’re used to it.”

“La what?”

“La mordita. The little bite. The bribe.”

Claudia pulled away a little and looked at
him. She felt cold. “Just how involved in this are you?”

“Not at all, Red.” He looked straight back
at her. “My company did some preliminary work on the plant, a feasibility
study. When we told ‘em that if they built it there was no way they could ever
run it at anything but a loss they thanked us kindly and hired another outfit
to tell ‘em what they wanted to hear. That was some time ago.”

“So…why are you here now? Do you live
around here?”

Sam chuckled. “No,” he said. “My ranch is
clear over in the next county.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“They still owe my company for the study,
Red. They paid only half of what they owe us. I come back from time to time to
try and get the rest. Arrogant bastards think they can do as they please.” The
look in his eye when he said that chilled her. She drained the last of the
milk, set the glass aside on the nightstand and snuggled closer to him for
warmth. His hand cupped her breast now.

“You got anything, Red?” he asked. “I know
it’s early…”

“Nothing yet, Sam,” she admitted. “But I
just started.”

“Right.” He nodded. They were both silent
for a moment.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know an Anna Turco?”

“Met her once or twice. She worked with
James.”

“James? Not Jim?”

“Didn’t feel right callin’ him Jim, Red. He
wasn’t the type. Callin’ him ‘Mr. Andersen’ didn’t feel right after a while
either.” He sighed. “Smartest man I ever knew when it came to some things.
Learned a lot from him.”

“What do you think of Anna?” Claudia
steered the conversation back on topic.

Sam shrugged. “Smart woman, kinda intense
close-up. Puts me off.”

“Attractive?”

“Red,” he sighed. His hand squeezed the
soft flesh of her breast gently. “I met her after I met you. She could be every
other man in the world’s most gorgeous piece of ass ever. It wouldn’t matter to
me at all. Like I said…after you, evr’y other woman I met was like plain
vanilla, over an’ over again.”

Claudia let it go. She thought that Anna
Turco would be more like Rocky Road than vanilla, but Sam was totally sincere.
“I missed you,” she said.

“Missed you somethin’ awful, Red,” he
replied. He kissed her forehead. His hand on her breast began teasing her
nipple.

“Sam.”

“Red?” The tone of her voice stopped his
wonderful manipulations.

“What are we going to do after this is all
over?”

“I wish I knew, Red,” he sighed. “All I
know for sure right now is I don’t wanna miss you again.”

She didn’t want to miss him again either,
but she could see no way to avoid it. They both had businesses to run. They
lived at opposite ends of the country. It was impossible, and she didn’t want
to think about it, not now with him so close to her.

She threw back the covers and clambered
out of bed.

“Red?” Sam seemed worried.

She
paused to grin at him. “Gotta use the bathroom,” she said. “I’ll be right
back.” Her grin turned lickerish. “I have something special in mind for when I
do.”

She was longer in the bathroom than she’d
expected to be. Her hair was nearly a hopeless tangle, and it took a while to
get her coppery locks brushed out. If she didn’t get that done tonight she’d
look like a frayed mop in the morning. She didn’t want to appear that way in
the morning…especially not in front of Anna Turco.

Sam had apparently been waiting patiently
just outside the bathroom door. When she came out, he grabbed her and gave her
a quick kiss.

“My turn,” he grinned. “If you get tired
of waiting, start without me.” He shut the door behind him.

Claudia chuckled. She could at least set
things up. She retrieved a thin belt of her own and looped it around her neck.
The belt from her robe was lying on the floor next to the bed where Sam had
dropped it after he untied her. She used it to hobble her ankles together before
realizing she’d gotten slightly ahead of herself. Oh, well. She shuffled back
over to the dresser and selected two scarves. When Sam came out of the
bathroom, he found her kneeling on the floor, bent over so that the tip of her
nose was just touching the carpet. Her wrists were crossed together behind her
back. She’d seen an actress do something similar once in a rented video, except
she’d offered her partner a pair of handcuffs first. It had been a powerfully
erotic scene, especially after her partner actually used the handcuffs.

She heard Sam come over to her. He just
stood there for a moment. She was sure he was looking at her intently, maybe
storing her image away in his memory. She hoped she looked as sweetly
submissive as that actress had.

He tied her hands behind her with the
scarf, taking his time. He paused for a long moment after he was done. Was he
wondering what to do with the other scarf?
She could tell him, but that would kind of ruin the setup.

She heard him chuckle, then felt him put
the scarf around her arms, just above her elbows. He tightened it, pulling her
arms back until her elbows were just touching. It was mildly uncomfortable, but
also very, very arousing, the way it pulled her shoulders back and thrust her
breasts out.

He stood in front of her and pulled her
upright by her hair. She knelt, looking up at him, her mouth half opened. She’d
picked this particular spot on the floor for a reason. There was a full-length
mirror on the inside of the closet door. She’d opened and positioned that door
with great care. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see herself and
Sam. She shivered in anticipation. From the first time she’d seen a picture of
a bound, naked, kneeling woman with a cock stuffed into her mouth, she’d been
fascinated. Now she would get to see how she looked in that position.

Sam stepped close to her. He was only
half-erect, but she could fix that. She leaned forward, groping for him with
her mouth and tongue. She took just the head of his cock into her mouth,
holding him in her lips while her tongue caressed that very, very sensitive
spot on the underside of the shaft. She heard Sam groan. She could feel him
swelling, getting harder, and she took him in deeper, making wet little noises.
She looked up. Sam was smiling. His eyes were closed, so she took a quick
glance at the mirror. Sam was right…she looked beautiful this way. She moaned
and closed her eyes. She began to suck him faster, using her tongue freely and
expertly. From time to time, she would risk another quick look at the mirror.
She began to drool.

Sam put his hands on the top of her head.
It was his signal that he was about to come. She kept sucking. When he first
spurted into her mouth, she was looking into the mirror. She saw her eyes widen
at the first hot burst and then Sam gripped her head and groaned. His hands
blocked her view of the rest.

Chapter
Twelve

She always traveled with an old-fashioned
wind-up alarm clock. It was heavy and ugly and utterly reliable with the most
nerve-jarring, unpleasant sound when it went off. It never failed to wake her
up. Even better, as long as she had it she didn’t have to rely on wake-up calls
or the local power supply.

Turning the thing off wasn’t as easy as
hitting a snooze button either. It was just elaborate enough an operation that
by the time she managed it she was well and truly awake. She sat up in the bed,
stretched her arms and yawned. The bedcovers fell away from her torso. She felt
no chill. Sam must have turned the air conditioning back up before he left. She
looked at the spot on the bed next to her. It still had Sam’s impression. She
put her head on the pillow he’d used. It still held a little of his scent. She
inhaled deeply and smiled. Then she flung the covers back and swung her legs
out. The carpeting felt very plush against her bare feet. Last night, she’d
been so intent on Sam that she hadn’t noticed. Well, enough of that. She had
work to do. Time for a quick shower, a quick breakfast and then…she figured
she’d stop by the city police station first, introduce herself, and see if she
could scare up any new information. After that, well, it would depend on what
she found out, if anything. She’d also have to stop by the county police sooner
or later. The crime scene was in their jurisdiction. They might have something,
but she was tempted to put that off as long as possible. She really didn’t want
to run into that Pipes character again. If things were as bad around here as
Sam seemed to think, it wouldn’t do her any good to file a complaint against
him. It could make things worse, though. Cops tended to stick together, corrupt
ones always did.

This time when room service arrived she
was dressed and ready. She really had been furious with Sam for scaring her so
badly last night…for all of a few seconds, anyway. Still, the episode had
reminded her to keep her guard up. She took a long look through the peephole in
the door before she opened it.

There was a very pretty young woman in a hotel
uniform in the hallway. She was carrying a covered tray. Her skin was a light
tan, her hair straight and black, parted in the middle. Could this be the
Amparo Sam had mentioned? Claudia opened the door.

“Good morning. I have brought your
breakfast.” The young woman’s smile was dazzlingly bright. Her voice held only
a hint of an accent.

“Good morning,” Claudia responded,
stepping aside to let her in. “Are you Amparo?”

“Oh no, Ma’am, Amparo is my cousin. I am
Felicia.” Felicia’s smile told Claudia that she was in on the joke too. Claudia
felt her face redden as she realized that Felicia and Amparo had undoubtedly
spoken to each other about Sam’s nighttime visit. She had a sudden urge to make
the badly rumpled bed herself, rather than provide ammunition for further
conversations. She let the urge pass. It was already too late. She just hoped
that Amparo and Felicia could keep it between themselves. She was pretty sure
neither one of them would guess what had actually happened last night.

***

The city police were no help at all. As
far as they were concerned, the whole thing was a county matter and no concern
of theirs. She had a brief interview with the chief of police, a lean, balding man
probably very near retirement. That hadn’t gone any better. He made it clear
that he had a low opinion of private investigators, especially female ones.
Before she left, he advised her to be careful not to interfere with any police
investigations or he’d have her hauled in. She’d heard that kind of threat
before, and she wasn’t impressed. He did seem unhappy to have her around, but
he’d also seemed nervous about something.

The county police were not much more
helpful. The chief was even less happy to see her. He didn’t feel compelled to
give her any dire warnings, though, and grudgingly agreed to her request to
look over the files. A middle-aged officer with baggy eyes and baggier  khaki pants brought her a manila folder on
the case and pointed out a desk she could use. His desk was nearby, and the
whole time she studied the contents of the envelope he sat slumped in his
chair, unmoving, watching her. She thought at first that his stare was somehow
intended to be intimidating. But, since his whole attitude was one of great and
soul-crushing boredom, that seemed unlikely. She tuned him out and concentrated
on the files. It was easy. He had all the presence of one of the old, scarred
desks that were spotted around the office.

There wasn’t much to go on. Once again,
Claudia was struck with an impression of lazy, sloppy investigative work.
Still, it provided a few useful details such as the fact that Anna Turco had
phoned in the initial report. Well, that only made sense. She was the number
two of the payroll operation. She read further to find that Timothy Pipes had
been the first officer to arrive at the scene. Claudia frowned. Okay, maybe it
was just possible that he’d been the closest one that morning. Anna had
probably been less than thrilled by that. He’d called in his report and sealed
off the area. The second car, with officers Danton and O’Reilly, had arrived
five minutes later. They found Pipes sitting in his car, engine running and
air-conditioner on, with a furious Anna occupying the back seat. Hmm...From the
report of the two officers, Pipes had apparently not handcuffed her before
stuffing her into the back seat, as per department regulations. Claudia
shrugged. He might not have gotten far if he’d tried. Anna seemed to be a very
strong woman.

The rest of the file contained nothing
new or useful. She made a few notes before returning it to Baggy Eyes, who
hadn’t moved an inch all this time. She handed it to him with a smile and a
“thank you”. He accepted all three with the same air of weary indifference with
which he seemed to regard the world. She wished she’d had a donut with her. It
would be interesting to see if waving one at him could rouse him out of his
torpor. Oh, well. She might as well go to her office at Simonds Assurance.

***

It wasn’t dark outside yet, but the
shadows were getting pretty long. Claudia leaned back in her chair and sighed.
There was so much about all of this…not just the case, but the whole
situation…that bothered her. It was a lot like having a bad case of poison ivy
where everything itched and scratching didn’t help. Well, at least when she’d
called in to her own office back East everything had been all right.

In her years on the force she’d come
across corruption in one form or another. Some people were corrupted by power,
some corrupted by lust, but most were corrupted by money. From what Sam had
said, this place had grown so big so fast that there was plenty of money
floating around…too much money. If the growth had been slower, there would have
been time to put some checks on any spread of corruption, but it hadn’t
happened that way. It was ridiculous to blame the money for the results. The
old saw went that money was the root of all evil, but she knew that was a
misquote. It was the love of money that was the root of all evil. Well, maybe
lust would be a better word than love. She had been glad when Sam had told her
he had no part in any of it…but that still left the matter of his missing
friend. If he was as smart as Sam seemed to think, he would have had to know
what was going on…and yet, he stayed. Had he stayed just so he could make a
score of his own, or had there been some other reason? She would have to ask
Sam about that.

Another thing…how much would all that
money weigh? How much room would it take up? If it was all in large bills, it
could be relatively compact, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t all been in
large bills. To get an answer on that subject, she’d have to ask Anna Turco.
Well, sometimes you had to do unpleasant things to get the job done.

That brought her to the job itself.
Simonds Assurance didn’t seem to care if she got it done or not. When her time
was up, that was it as far as they were concerned, whether she solved the case
or not. Sam, on the other hand, very much wanted her to clear his friend, even
if it meant finding him dead. She wasn’t sure she could do that, even if she
had more time. Sloppy police work aside, the county sheriff’s conclusion was
very plausible…Sam’s friend had taken the money and disappeared. Sam seemed to
be the only person in the county who thought otherwise.

And yet…there were too many gaps. No one
had seen the missing Mr. Andersen arrive, thanks to the ineptitude of the two
security guards. The entrance gate was manned only during normal working hours.
After that, access was supposedly controlled by a machine. To get the gate to
open, you had to insert an encoded card. Mr. Andersen’s card had been used the
night he went missing, at about 8:00 PM. That proved nothing, except that the
card had been used, and anybody could have used it. The machine kept no
photographic record. For that matter, the gate itself was a joke. It would keep
a car from getting in, but someone on foot could slip past it with only a
little difficulty. It would be entirely possible for a perp to wait until Mr.
Andersen had entered, sneak in behind him, make their way to the office…

Yes, it could be done that way…maybe.
Afterwards, all they’d have to do was haul everything away in Mr. Andersen’s
car. The gate records showed that his card had been used to exit the place at
8:45. Plenty of time to load a body and all the cash into the trunk of the car
and then drive off. Yes, it was plausible, but it was also a lot of work for
just one person. There had also been no sign of a struggle inside the office,
which meant either that Mr. Andersen had been taken by surprise, or he’d known
and trusted the person who’d attacked him. Or possibly it meant something else
entirely. She sighed.

She got up out of her chair and began
pacing. Whether it helped her to think or not, it at least gave her body
something to do while her mind was busy. The one thing that really bothered her
was that whoever had done it had picked the one night when both security guards
had been neutralized. That was a little too convenient to be entirely
coincidental. Tomorrow, she’d have to see if she could interview those two. She
had their names and addresses off of the police reports.

There was a knock at her office door.
She stopped pacing. “Yes?”

“Ms. Cole?” She recognized the voice. It
was Esther. The door opened. Esther took a step into Claudia’s office. She was
alone and the front office looked dark.

“What is it?”

“Ah…it’s well after five now, Ms. Cole.
I was wondering if you’d still need me?”

“Oh.” Claudia shrugged. “I suppose not.”
Actually, she’d barely used Esther at all so far. She wasn’t used to having a
secretary. “And just call me Claudia.”

“All right,” Esther smiled and nodded.
She paused. “How is it going?”

Claudia sighed. “Too many questions, not
enough answers. But it’s early yet.”

“Ah…may I ask you something…Claudia?”

“All right.”

Esther looked behind her briefly before
continuing. “I was just wondering…how do you know Mr. Pender?”

“What do you mean?” The question put
Claudia on her guard immediately.

“Well,” Esther hesitated. “I’ve been
working for this company for twenty years, and this all seems very irregular to
me. I’ve heard that Mr. Pender pulled some strings to arrange this.” She
shrugged. “It may well be true. He seems to be a very forceful man. I…was just
curious as to why he insisted on the company hiring you for this job.”

“Oh.” Claudia eyed Esther carefully. The
older woman’s face was a mask of innocent curiosity. She let the silence drag
on for a moment, until Esther began to look puzzled.

“I don’t think that’s at all important,
Esther.”

“Oh.” Esther shrugged. “All right.” She
acted as if it really wasn’t important, but Claudia was sure she’d seen a quick
flash of anger in the other woman’s eyes. “May I go now?”

“Of course.” Claudia nodded. “I might as
well go myself. I have a lot of thinking to do, and I can do that pretty much
anywhere.” She also didn’t want to be here alone after hours. This building had
only a couple of video cameras for security, and that just wasn’t enough for
her peace of mind.

She waited while Esther locked the
offices and rode down to the ground floor on the elevator with her. Esther
seemed to have nothing to say now. Maybe it was due to hurt feelings, but
Claudia rather doubted that. She was certain that the other woman was angry.
Had she thought it would be easy to pump her for information? And if that had
been what she was trying to do, who wanted that information?

From as far back as she could remember,
she’d always loved detective movies, especially the old black-and-white ones
with the tough-guy characters and the snappy dialogue. There had been something
almost romantic about them, with the lone hero setting out to right wrongs. Now
she was in the middle of her very own film noir, and from this vantage point it
wasn’t all that romantic. She felt edgy, maybe even a little nervous. It always
seemed as if she was being watched. The constant tension had her more than a
little aroused. She wondered if there was something wrong with her.

As she and Esther went their separate
ways to their cars, she reached up to pat her shirt pocket. Just being able to
feel the small cellphone Sam had given her made her feel a little safer. She
wanted very much to call him, if only to hear his voice, but he’d told her it
was only for an emergency. She didn’t think that feeling lonely and horny would
qualify.

Once in her car, with the doors locked,
she leaned back in the seat and thought about what she should do next. Well,
she was hungry. Dinner was probably in order. The hotel had a restaurant and
the food was pretty good, but she didn’t really feel like having a meal she
could have anywhere in the world that the chain had built a hotel. She
considered cruising around to find something more regional. The memory of the
meal she’d shared with Anna made her reconsider.

She started the car. To hell with it.
She’d go back to the hotel and order room service. Maybe Sam would take the
opportunity to sneak in and ravish her again. That thought distracted her just
enough that she cruised through a yellow traffic light. Maybe she’d had enough
room to come to a stop and maybe she hadn’t, but the flashing lights of a
police car flamed on behind her almost immediately.

“Damn,” she gritted through clenched
teeth. She looked for a spot to pull over. A lot of the city seemed to shut
down in the evening, but a little ways up ahead she could see lights and
people. It looked like a street full of bars and restaurants. She flipped on
the turn signal and slowed down. She wasn’t going to come to a stop until she
was where lots of other people could see her.

The trailing police car sounded its
siren. People up ahead turned to look. Perfect. She came to a stop and sat
quietly with both hands on the steering wheel. The police car stopped right
behind her, light s still flashing. In her side view mirror, she saw an officer
get out and approach. Whoever he was, he hadn’t been trained well. Instead of
halting a little bit behind her, he stood right in front of the window and
rapped on it.

She looked up at him. Oh, great! It was
Officer Timmy Pipes, still wearing his body armor and sunglasses. She rolled
down the window. “Yes, Officer?” she asked. She would have smiled nicely for
any other cop, but she just didn’t feel like smiling at this one.

“License and registration, please.”

“Of course.” She retrieved the rental
papers from the center console and offered them, with her license. “Is there
some problem, Officer?”

Pipes made a big production out of
looking over the documents. “You ran a red light back there,” he said at last.

“I’m sure it was yellow, Officer.”

“It was red.” He still held on to the
papers.

Claudia shrugged. “Then I suppose you’ll
have to give me a citation, Officer.”

“Wait here.” He stalked off back to his
cruiser.

Even with the sun almost set, it was too
warm to sit in her car for any length of time. She was sure Pipes was going to
take as much time as he could to make her sweat, both literally and
figuratively. She didn’t plan on doing either one. She opened the door and got
out. This way, she could get some air and lots of people would get a good look
at her as well. She leaned against the fender and waited. It was funny. Years
ago, she’d taught a women’s self-defense course as part of her police duties. She’d
never expected to be resorting to some of the tactics she’d taught. She was
certain of one thing: She wasn’t getting into the police car with Pipes, no
matter what.

There were a lot of young men coming out
of or going into the shops, singly or in small groups. Some of them paused to
look at the long-legged redhead lounging against her car. She smiled and nodded
at them. One of the rules, make sure that you’re seen. Pipes stayed in his
patrol car, probably wondering what to do next. She chuckled to herself. Now he
was probably doing the sweating, but she was wondering what he’d do next as
well. He was well out of his jurisdiction. If he tried to arrest her on any
pretext at all, she was going to have the mother of all screaming fits. That
would attract even more attention, and she was sure that attention was the last
thing Pipes wanted.

The waiting went on. She could imagine
Pipes dithering over plans of action. In spite of her own curiosity, she would
not look towards him.

One of the young men detached himself
from the crowd and ambled over towards her. She recognized him as the one who’d
helped her with her car rental. As he drew nearer, she smiled at him. “Hello,
there,” she greeted. She tried to remember his name from the tag he’d worn at
the rental agency. It was Brian, she thought.

“Hello, Ms. Cole,” he smiled back. “ I
thought it was you. What’s the problem?”

“The officer back there says I went
through a red light.” Claudia jerked a thumb back over her shoulder. “It was
yellow.”

“Bummer.” He looked past her briefly at
the flashing roof lights. “They always pick on the rental drivers. They can
spot you because of the company logo on the back bumper.” He returned his gaze
to her and smiled a little wider. She knew the look in his eyes. Any minute now
he would invite her for a drink…or dinner. She was half-tempted to accept his
invitation before he’d even made it, simply because he’d come to her rescue.
She hadn’t needed rescuing, but he couldn’t know that.

“Oh, hey. Did he call for backup?”

Claudia turned. Another police car was
just pulling in behind Pipes’. Its roof lights were flashing too, but they
looked different. It had to be the city police. This ought to be interesting.
“I don’t think that’s backup,” she said. She saw two officers get out of the
car. They approached the one with Pipes in it from either side. Pipes must have
had his window open, because the officer on that side reached in and snatched
something away from him. She could hear Pipes protesting angrily. The officer
ignored him and started walking towards Claudia.

“Are you in trouble?” Brian asked from
behind her.

“I don’t think so.”

“Ma’am?” the officer came nearer. He
separated the wad of papers he’d taken from Pipes and handed her back her
license and rental agreement. “Sorry about that.”

“Why, thank you, officer,” she smiled as
she accepted them. “Is there a problem?”

“Not any more,” he grunted. “You can go.
My partner and I will handle this.” He touched the brim of his cap and nodded
before turning away. Pipes was out of his car now, arguing loudly with the
other officer.

“Thank you again,” Claudia called after
him. He waved a hand absently and kept going.

“What was that all about?” Brian asked.

Claudia shrugged. “I don’t know,” she
lied. She turned around to face him.

“Well…” he cleared his throat. “I was
wondering…do you have to be any place now?”

He was tall, young, and good-looking. He
was also visibly nervous about hitting on her. “Actually, I do,” she replied.
He looked disappointed. “But thank you very much for the offer, Brian.” She
smiled, then leaned forward to plant a quick little kiss on his cheek. If his
friends were watching, it ought to impress them a little. She got back into her
car and drove off, favoring Brian with a wave and a smile. He seemed like a
sweet young man, and his obvious interest in her was flattering, but she
already knew that her tastes did not run to sweet young men.

Chapter
Thirteen

It had been three days of utter
frustration. Claudia was ready to give up. She still had no leads of any kind.
She doubted she was going to turn any up in the few days remaining on her
contract with Simonds Assurance. She could probably coast her way to the end of
it. Certainly no one from Simonds was pressuring her to solve the case. In
fact, she had the distinct impression that they’d be happy if she wound up the
case unable to prove anything one way or the other. On the other hand, Simonds
might be applying some pressure from an unexpected direction.

Esther Green was gone. Officially, she’d
been called away on a family emergency. Claudia had her doubts about that,
especially since she’d departed right after their last brief conversation.
Esther’s replacement was a younger blonde woman in her late twenties named
Christina Sykes, who insisted that she be called “Chrissy”. She was undeniably
efficient. She was also so bubbly and friendly that she set Claudia’s nerves on
edge after two days.

At first, it had been pretty nice.
Chrissy was no dumb blonde, however much she might look and act like one. When
Claudia sat down with her to bring her up to speed on the case, she’d listened
attentively, taking notes. She even made a few pretty sharp observations of her
own. Claudia found her very open and likeable. Given the tension she’d been
operating under, it felt good to be around someone she could relax with. At the
end of the workday, Chrissy had timidly invited her to dinner.

Claudia had demurred, “I’m not sure I
can stand much of the local cuisine again. It’s a bit too spicy for me.”

“There are other places,” Chrissy
smiled. “Not every restaurant here goes in for lots of chili peppers topped off
with napalm.”

“Really?”

“Really. What are you in the mood for?
I’ll bet I can find a place.”

“Well…” Claudia thought about passing on
the opportunity, but why do that? The hotel restaurant’s food was pretty bland,
she hadn’t heard from Sam, and she hadn’t gotten over her feeling of being
completely out of place here. The desert was beautiful, in its very stark way,
but she badly missed green hills and trees. Chrissy at least was a friendly
face. “This may sound silly…but is there any place around here that serves
seafood?”

“There sure is!” Chrissy grinned. “You’d
never guess there’d be such a place out here, but I know one that gets fresh
fish in every day.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh,” Chrissy shrugged, still grinning.
“I grew up around here. I haven’t been back for years, but after I got the call
from the main office, I used my time on the flight in to check up on some of
the old places I used to know.” Her grin became rueful. “A couple of them are
still around. So…you wanna come along?”

Claudia thought for a moment. “Sure,”
she replied. “Why not?”

***

They dropped Claudia’s car off at her
hotel. It made sense, Chrissy knew the area, and it was unlikely that Officer
Pipes would recognize her dark red minivan.

“You know,” Chrissy said as Claudia slid
into the passenger seat and buckled up.  “We really ought to go to another little place
I know first.”

“Oh? What for?”

“You’ll see,” Chrissy grinned. She
tromped on the gas pedal.

Claudia spent the rest of the ride
hanging on to whatever she could. There wasn’t any opportunity for
conversation. Chrissy never went much over the speed limit, but she took turns
faster than Claudia thought prudent and seemed to regard a yellow light as a
signal to speed up. She didn’t allow much space between herself and the traffic
in front of her, tried to peel rubber at every opportunity, and seemed to have
an aversion to using her brakes if she thought her horn would do the job. When
they pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall near the outskirts of the
city, she cut off another car that had been aiming for the same parking space
as she wanted.

“Here we are,” Chrissy announced
brightly as she switched off the engine. Behind them, the cut-off car honked
once before moving on to find another spot.

“Where’s that?” Claudia looked around.
She’d thought maybe they were going somewhere for drinks, but the strip mall
seemed to be composed only of retail stores.

“C’mon,” Chrissy urged. “I’ll show you.”

Claudia followed her companion across
the parking lot. Her legs felt a little rubbery. Chrissy strode up to one of
the little clothing stores and held the door open. “Come on,” she urged.

“Why are we stopping here?” Claudia
asked. Once inside, she could see it was some sort of upscale boutique. All of
the mannequins were dressed in Western-style clothes. She wondered if Anna
Turco did her shopping here.

“We need to dress you up a little,”
Chrissy replied, taking her by the arm. “You can’t keep going around looking
like you just got off a plane from the East.”

“Why not?” Claudia looked at her. “I’m
going back there soon anyway.” She looked past Chrissy at some of the price
tags. “And anyway, this stuff is a little out of my price range.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Chrissy chuckled.
“When I moved back here the company gave me a pretty generous moving
allowance.” She fished a plastic bank card out of her shoulder bag. “Only
problem is, it’s on this, and the damned thing expires in two weeks. If I don’t
spend it, I lose it.”

“But…”

“It’s all right. Really.” Chrissy sighed.
“When I moved back here I found out my old friends had moved away. I don’t
really know anybody here, except for you…kinda.”

“I couldn’t…”

“Sure you could! Please? I used to go
clothes shopping all the time with my girlfriends. My closet’s already full to
bursting, and this is all on the company dime anyway.” Chrissy smiled. “We can
at least get you a better hat to wear than the one you’ve been using.” She
regarded Claudia’s creamy redhead complexion. “I guess you have to be careful
about the sun, hey?”

When Chrissy put it that way, Claudia
found it easy to let herself be talked into getting a hat. The one she’d
brought with her did the job, but it really felt too girly to suit her tastes.
The light brown Stetson she finally settled on, though, did the same job but
really looked good on her.

Buying the hat opened the floodgates.
Chrissy insisted that she had to have an ensemble to go with it. Claudia let
herself be persuaded. It was a lot like the shopping expeditions she and Dianne
had gone on years ago. Only now did she realize how much she’d missed them.
When they walked out of the store some time later, Claudia wore her new
outfit…snug jeans, a loose-fitting white shirt with buttoned pockets,
fake-snakeskin boots and her new hat. She carried her old clothes in a shopping
bag. Chrissy was dressed similarly. In spite of her previous claim that her
closets were already full, she carried two shopping bags, one with her old
clothes, the other with more new ones. They tossed the bags into the back of
the minivan and Claudia steeled herself for another wild ride.

The restaurant was mercifully near to
the strip mall. It occupied an old brick building that looked as if it might
have been a small factory once. There was a neon sign over the entrance, ‘Fuller’s’.

“You’re gonna love this,” Chrissy said
as they walked across the parking lot to the entryway. “It’s mostly older
people who come here now, but they have the best seafood you’ve ever tasted.”

“It doesn’t seem very crowded,” Claudia
observed. There weren’t that many cars, and most of them did indeed look like
the big sedans favored by older drivers.

“It is on the weekends.”

The interior décor was neutral. It
didn’t shout out the southwestern location, nor did it have fake fishing nets
and other nautical accessories hanging from the walls. They had no trouble
getting a table right away. Chrissy insisted that they order drinks from the
bar. Claudia shrugged and went along. She didn’t drink much, but tonight she
would make an exception.

“Thanks for coming along,” Chrissy
smiled. She raised her cocktail. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Claudia smiled back. She
clinked her own glass lightly against Chrissy’s. “Actually, I think I needed
something like this…so thank you.”

“Working really hard?”

Chrissy’s tone was sympathetic. Claudia
started telling her just how hard it was to find out anything new or useful
about the case. Before she quite realized it, she had gone on to her long
struggle to start her own investigation agency. She caught herself and took a
big sip of her drink. “Sorry,” she shrugged. “I didn’t mean to go on and on.”

“It’s okay,” Chrissy grinned. “I’m a
good listener. That sounds pretty tough, though. Over two years with no
vacation? Not even a little one?”

Even after all this time, the word
“vacation’ had a powerful effect. For just a moment, Claudia could picture
herself and Dianne, naked in the old barn, tied, helpless, fucked…she could
almost feel the straw under her back again. She took a gulp of her drink.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no…” Claudia waved a hand. “It’s
okay. Yeah, it’s tough not getting any time off, but I really love my work.”

“What’s it like?”

“Challenging…some times. A lot of the
time, though, it’s just routine.”

“I can’t see how investigating could
ever be routine,” Chrissy sounded dubious.

“Oh, a lot of times it’s just helping
some business improve their security arrangements. That part can be dull,
especially when you hear about how the plans are going to cost too much.”

“Really?” Chrissy took a gulp of her
cocktail. “I guess it’s not like the movies then, hey?”

“What ever is like the movies?” Claudia
shrugged. “Still, it helps to pay the bills. And every so often, you get to do
something really interesting.”

“Oh?” Chrissy leaned closer. “Like
what?”

“Well, a little while ago I had a case…”
Claudia caught herself. “No, I can’t really talk about it.” She shook her head.
“Some people still have to go to trial.”

“Do you carry a gun?”

Claudia chuckled. “I own one. I even
practice with it at the police range once a month, but I hardly ever carry it.”

“Really not like the movies,” Chrissy
sighed.

Their orders arrived just as the
conversation ran down. It looked and smelled delicious. Claudia tucked into her
broiled salmon while Chrissy began cracking open the claws on her lobster. For
a while, both women were too busy eating to talk.

“So…” Chrissy finally spoke up, “All
work and no play? You don’t even have a boyfriend?”

“Ah…” Claudia swallowed. “Nope. Not
really.” She supposed this was basically true. Sam was no boy.

“Ouch.” Chrissy winced. “No action at
all? Ever?”

Claudia felt her face redden. Hadn’t she had
a similar conversation with Anna Turco? “I didn’t say that.”

“Oh…okay.” Chrissy seemed suddenly
embarrassed. “Sorry.”

What was she thinking? Oh, for crying
out loud, did she think her temporary boss preferred women? Claudia groaned
inwardly. She’d gone through this with Anna…and, for all she knew, Amanda as
well.

“Look,” she said. “Don’t get the wrong
idea. I like men. Really. I just…find it difficult to talk about…it.”

“Oh!” Chrissy’s relief was palpable. She
stifled a giggle. “Should I say I’m sorry again? We were having such a good
time together that I guess I just pushed a little too far.” She took the last
gulp of her drink. “I guess I’m a little lonesome too, coming back to my
hometown to find my old friends gone.”

“How is it you got transferred back
here?”

“Oh. There was an opening posted on the
company website. The job I’d been working on was wrapping up, and I was going
to have to relocate anyway. I had a choice of Chicago, Philly, or here.” She
shrugged. “Maybe it sounds funny, but I was feeling pretty tired of big cities.
I couldn’t believe how this place had grown since I’d seen it last.”

“I’m a small-town girl myself,” Claudia
nodded. “Country, actually. But I’m used to more trees than this place has.”

The conversation turned to simple
things. They compared childhoods, growing up, schools, favorite teachers.
Claudia was surprised to learn that Chrissy had an MBA. Chrissy seemed
astonished when she heard that Claudia enjoyed hunting.

“You really do that?” she asked.

“I haven’t had a chance to in years,”
Claudia replied. “But yes, I did that, and I still kinda miss it.”

“Oh, well,” Chrissy shrugged and ate
another forkful of lobster tail. “I don’t think I could do it myself.”

“Hardly anyone has to these days,”
Claudia pointed out. “Someone else does the hunting…or the herding…and we just
buy the results.”

Chrissy chuckled. “You’re right about
that. But hey, what about high school? Did you have a boyfriend then? Go to
your prom?”

“I had sort of a boyfriend, but I was
pretty much a tomboy until college. We hung out a lot together, but that was
it.”

“He never tried to kiss you? Not even
once?”

Claudia laughed. “No. He was a sweet
boy, but I think he was too shy. And I never had a prom. The school I went to
was too small. We had a Seniors’ Spring Dance, but we had to pair up with
another school in the next county for it. Not enough people showed up otherwise.”

“Geez. And I thought I was small-town,”
Chrissy grimaced. Then she brightened. “But how about college? You meet anybody
special there?”

“Did you?” Claudia countered. She smiled
warmly so Chrissy wouldn’t think it was another rebuff. She was feeling
relaxed, happy, and relieved to be able to put business aside for a while. She
missed Dianne badly. Maybe when she got back home she could invite her old
friend to visit for a while. No, scratch that. She still had her business to
run.

“Well,” Chrissy’s answering smile was coy. “Actually, I met a number of
special guys there. One for each year.”

“Anything serious?”

“You mean, am I still seeing any of
them?” Chrissy sighed. “No, not at all. My job takes me all over the
country…out of it too, sometimes. It pays well, but it can get lonely.” She
took a quick look at the rest of the diners. They were all older people, many
of them couples. “Your turn,” she grinned.

“I don’t have much of a turn then,”
Claudia shrugged. “My folks could just barely afford to send me to college, so
I just paid attention to my studies.”

“No partying at all?”

“Well…okay. My first year, I did slack
off for a while until I got my grades for that semester,” Claudia shrugged. “That
was a hell of a wakeup call.”

“Okay…how about after college? So far,
you sound like you’ve lived like a nun.”

Claudia laughed. “I suppose it does
sound like that, but I’m not a nun, really.”

“Aha!” Chrissy grinned wickedly. “So you
have a significant other somewhere? Or at least you had one for a while?”

“Have you got one?”

Okay, answering a question with a
question might have worked once, but doing it twice sounded pretty lame. It
occurred to Claudia that her “girl talk” had gotten rusty without Dianne around
to practice it with. “Sorry,” she said. “That didn’t come out at all right.”

“It’s okay,” Chrissy smiled. “But
really, I haven’t been back here long enough to even meet many guys, let alone
find a good one.” She took a bite of lobster, chewed and swallowed. “Hey,
speaking of that, I just had a thought.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Chrissy nodded and grinned. “I
was wondering if you could do me a small favor.”

“What might that be?”

Chrissy leaned closer. Her smile was
conspiratorial. “I was wondering if you could introduce me to Sam Pender.”

“What?” Claudia almost choked on the
last forkful of salmon.

“Yeah,” Chrissy went on, still smiling.
“I saw him back at City Hall yesterday. Now he looks like a real…interesting
guy. You do know him, don’t you? I mean, it was in the file that he insisted
Simonds hire you. It also said he was a resident of this area. I’d kinda like
to meet him.” Her blue eyes were guileless.

Claudia regretted letting her guard
down. This was a much more indirect approach than the one Esther Green had
tried. She wondered how much she’d given away. “Maybe something could be
arranged,” she said. She tried to sound casual, but she doubted that it worked.

“Would I be poaching?” Chrissy seemed
concerned. “I mean, are you interested in him yourself?”

Claudia sighed. “I have all I can handle
with this case,” she replied. “And whether I’m interested in him or not, I live
at the opposite end of the country.”

“Oh…so you could introduce me?”

***

Claudia leaned back in her office chair
and sighed. It was clear to her that whether or not Chrissy was interested in
Sam (and it was easy to believe that she was), Simonds Assurance was interested
in her existing relationship to him, even if they weren’t sure just how close
it was. She wondered if they’d sent anybody around to her office back East to
try to pump Jerry or Amanda for information. No, that wasn’t likely. They
wouldn’t have gotten anything out of Jerry, and he would have told her about it
if they’d tried. Amanda didn’t know anything, but she would have mentioned if
anyone had been asking her questions as well.

It puzzled her. What were they trying to
find out, and why? Whatever it was, it no doubt had a lot to do with Sam being
so careful not to be seen with her after that first day. Why couldn’t he tell
her what that was all about?

She turned back to the reason she’d come
out here and flipped through the very thin file she’d accumulated. She’d wanted
to interview the two security guards from the night in question. The police had
already interrogated them, decided they had no connection with the crime and
let them go. Jack Simms, the one who had failed to call in sick had left town
two days later, packing his few belongings into his battered old van and
heading west. He’d left no forwarding address, but it was assumed he’d gone to
California. The county police had previously determined he’d done nothing
criminal, aside from skipping out on a couple of bills, so they had no further
interest in him. They also had no interest in helping Claudia track him down.
The other guard…Charley Grover…well, he had just about disappeared. He was
still in the area somewhere, as far as anyone knew. He had a pattern of taking
low-paying jobs for a while until his drinking got to be too much for even the
most desperate employer, then fading into the background for a while until he
ran out of money for booze and had to sober up to get a job to earn some money
to buy some more. One helpful county cop had told her this. He’d been sure old
Charley would resurface soon in no more than a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, Claudia didn’t have a
couple of weeks. She had a couple of days. Maybe old Charley wouldn’t have been
able to help her investigation at all, but it would have been nice to find out
for sure for herself.

There was a knock at the door. “Ms.
Cole? Claudia?”

Oh, great. Chrissy had an annoying habit
of checking every so often to see if she wanted something. Usually it was
coffee, but she would also offer to go pick up some lunch or a soda, or…the
list was a long one and included things Claudia had never even thought of
asking for. Maybe she was just trying to be helpful. The case had stalled,
there wasn’t a lot of typing or filing for her to do, and all of her
considerable energy might need an outlet. At least she hadn’t brought Sam up in
conversation since that night.

Sam hadn’t even brought himself up
lately. She hadn’t seen or heard from him at all. The case had her frustrated
and angry and it would have been nice for him to show up and help her relax.
Her hand strayed up to the pocket of her shirt, where she kept the little
cellphone. She badly wanted to call him, if only to hear his voice. He’d told
her the phone was for an emergency, though. She wasn’t sure he’d agree that her
being lonely and horny was an emergency.

“What is it?” she called out.

The door opened and Chrissy stuck her
head in. “I was going to go for lunch. You wanna come with?”

Okay…maybe she was just feeling
lonely herself, coming back to her hometown to find everyone she knew gone.
Maybe she really just wanted to be friends. But she was so relentlessly,
remorselessly cheerful about it all the time!

“I’ll come with,” Claudia answered. “I’m
not getting anywhere here.”

“I wish I could help.”

“Well, you could start by letting me
drive,” Claudia chuckled.

***

“I didn’t see you at the health club
last night,” Chrissy mentioned as they drove to another restaurant she’d
recommended.

“Too tired,” Claudia replied. “Anyway, I
had a lot of thinking to do. Thanks for the invite, but I don’t think I’m going
to have a chance to get there before I have to leave.”

“It’s okay,” Chrissy shrugged. “I
understand. Anyway, you’ll never guess who I did meet there.”

“Who did you meet?”

“Anna Turco. She goes there a lot, she
says. You’d never guess by looking at her just how strong she is. She can bench
press like a man.”

Claudia recalled Anna’s painful
handshake. “She seemed pretty strong to me.”

“You should see her in gym tights. She’s
got muscles. Not like a body builder, but pretty impressive anyway. We went out
together afterwards and chatted for a while. She seems like a pretty nice
person.”

“I hope you didn’t chat about the case
to her.”

Chrissy laughed. “I know better than
that! No, we just talked girl-stuff. You know, about diets and clothes and
men.”

“Just don’t talk about this case…with
anyone.”

“I won’t.”

Chapter
Fourteen

Claudia let herself linger over a long
lunch with Chrissy. She didn’t feel much like conversation, but Chrissy seemed
able to keep one going for both of them. Most of what she said had to do with
how she remembered her hometown used to be. It was moderately interesting, but
the country was probably full of people who could talk about that. Claudia only
listened with half an ear. Chrissy didn’t seem to notice.

“Ah…do you think we should be getting
back to the office soon?”

“I’m sorry…what?” Chrissy’s question cut
through the fog of Claudia’s thinking.

“Do you think we ought to get back to
the office soon?” Chrissy repeated. “I mean, it’s past two.”

“Is it? I’m sorry. I lost track of the
time,” Claudia replied.

“What were you thinking about?” Chrissy
tilted her head and looked at her with some concern. “I mean, you were just
staring off into space, not moving at all.”

Claudia sighed. “This case is getting to
me. Tell you what, Chrissy, let’s call it a day. I’m going to take a drive.
Maybe it will help me think.”

“Really?” Chrissy looked dubious.

“Really,” Claudia nodded. “I’ll make
sure you get paid for the whole day.”

Chrissy laughed. “I’m on salary.”

“Well, then it shouldn’t be a problem.
We locked up the office before we left, so I’ll see you there tomorrow morning,
okay?”

“Okay,” Chrissy shrugged. “Think you
might stop by the health club later?”

“I don’t know,” Claudia shook her head.
“We’ll see.”

***

She drove back out to the jobsite. Today
it was swarming with workers, but she didn’t see much getting accomplished. She
didn’t have a pass to get through the security gate, so she parked across the
street and watched for a while. She could just see Anna Turco’s car from her
vantage point. It was parked between two other cars, both dark sedans. Maybe
she had a new boss and some extra security.

It was too hot to sit there without
running the air conditioner and after a while she began to think of the gas she
was wasting. She put the car in gear and drove away, keeping an eye out for
Officer Pipes. She kept within the speed limit, even when a big tanker rig
nearly crawled up her tailpipe. The fact was, she was so deep in thought that
she didn’t even notice him until he leaned on his horn.

It wasn’t a good idea to drive while she
was so distracted. She didn’t really want to go back to her hotel, but she
didn’t particularly want to go anywhere else either. She headed back into the
city. At least at the hotel she could treat herself to a long, hot soak in the
tub. It might help her think and it might not, but at least it would feel good.

She was alone in the elevator going up
to her suite when the cellphone Sam had given her began to chirp. It sounded exactly
like the cardinals that used to nest in the tree outside her window when she
was a girl back on the farm. She fished it out of her pocket and flipped it
open. “Hello?”

“Hi, Red.” It was Sam’s voice. He
sounded tired.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “Are
you okay?”

“Just business, Red. I flew into town
way early this morning and I’m feelin’ it. I tried stoppin’ by your office but
there was nobody there.”

“Are you there now?”

“No. Actually, I’m here in your hotel. Just
saw you get on the elevator. You want some company?”

“I was going to take a bath,” she
answered. “I think the tub’s big enough for two.”

She paused.
“Everything all right, Sammy?”

After a moment, she heard him chuckle.
“Yeah, Claudie, everything’s all right. See you in a bit.”

The phone went dead. Claudia grinned.
He’d remembered the little trick she and Dianne had to let each other know
things really were okay. She folded the phone up and tucked it into her pocket.
A moment later, when the elevator doors slid open, she was humming to herself
and grinning.

***

“Mmmmmm…” Claudia purred. “That feels
good!”

“You feel kinda tense, Red,” Sam
observed. His hands worked their way up and down her back, fingers probing at
the muscles. They were sitting in a tub full of hot, soapy water. She had her
back to him. The tub was just wide enough for his legs to fit on either side of
her. “How are you doin’ on the case?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid.”

“Bad?” He kept massaging her back. He
had strong fingers, and they were finding all the right places.

“Nothing but dead ends. I think the only
way to prove your friend didn’t steal the money is to prove someone else did.”

“Can you do that?”

“Right now I don’t see how, Sam.” She
turned her head to look back at him over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“You givin’ up?”

“No, of course not. But I just can’t
come up with anything.”

“Red,” he leaned forward and kissed her
shoulder. “”It ain’t over until you quit or the time runs out. And I don’t
think you’re the quittin’ type.”

“This is important to you, isn’t it?”

“Damned important.”

“Can you tell me why? He was your
friend, I know, but there’s something more to it that you haven’t told me.”

“There is…but I can’t tell you right
now. Can you trust me on it, Red?” His hands slipped down to her waist. His
thumbs began making small circles to either side of the base of her spine.

“Ahhh!” Claudia groaned. “Mmm…just keep
doing that and I’ll trust you with my car keys and ATM card.”

***

Naked, dried and handcuffed, she let Sam
lead her into the bedroom. She opened her mouth so he could stuff a small wad
of white cloth into it. Then he used a length of silvery duct tape to seal her
lips. The massaging in the tub had already made her horny, but when she caught
sight of herself in the mirror her arousal went to a whole new level.

She’d seen many, many pictures of bound
women. They were easy enough to find on-line, and once she’d convinced herself
she was looking for ideas, it was easier for her to study them. She thought
that a lot of them were too elaborate, used too much rope, and made it
impossible for a man to use his helpless captive. What Sam had done was much
simpler. It used only the cold steel handcuffs chaining her hands behind her,
the little wad of cloth, and the strip of tape. It was very like what some
intruder might do to render his chosen prey helpless to resist or scream for
help. She couldn’t look away from her image in the mirror. Her eyes taking in
the creamy white flesh, pink nipples that were already hard, the triangle of
curly hairs between her long, strong, slim legs that was the exact same coppery
shade as the hair on her head…and she had always found tape gags very, very
sexy. Then Sam reached around from behind her to cup her breasts in both hands
and squeeze gently,  her vision blurred.

“You like what you see?” he purred into
her ear. Maybe a tiger would purr that way, deeply and resonantly. His hands
manipulated the soft flesh of her breasts, pinching her nipples lightly. The
stubble of his beard rasped against her shoulder. Claudia shuddered and moaned.
She started to lean back against him. No…he had been away for too long. She was
going to make him work for it.

She lunged forward, heading for the door
to the sitting room of her suite. Sam must have been surprised, because she
made it through. She hesitated for only a moment before heading for the door to
the hallway. Sam caught her by her hair before she could  make it. She was relieved, because she
certainly wasn’t going to try to open the door and run out of her suite naked.
She had a sudden worry that she hadn’t drawn the drapes in this room, and
promptly forgot it.

Sam hauled her back to the bedroom. She
struggled as best she could, but his grip on her hair hurt if she tried too
hard. Once he had her inside the bedroom, he shut the door one-handed and then
turned her to face him. There was a fierce hunger in his eyes. It made her
shiver deliciously. Then his arms went around her, pulling her close. She loved
the feel of his clothes against her bare skin, and when his hands slid down to
grip her ass she moaned. Her eyes fluttered shut. His mouth fastened on a
nipple, sucking hard, teasing it with his tongue. Any thought of further
resistance faded from her mind. She wanted him at least as much as he wanted
her…she had from the start.

He pushed her to the floor, making her
lie face-down on the rug. She whimpered, trying to play up the part of a
frightened, helpless…albeit aroused…captive. He patted her rump once, not too
hard. Then he went to the bed. She wondered what he was doing for a moment. She
saw him throw back the covers and then pull the top sheet off. He snapped it
out once and laid it down on the floor next to her. Then he rolled her onto the
sheet. She lay on her back, shifting around so the handcuffs wouldn’t dig into
her and looked up at him, whimpering. She kept her knees together. Looking down
at her, Sam just grinned. Then he began to unbuckle his belt.

Claudia caught herself staring. She
looked away, whimpering again.

“Get on your belly,” he ordered. His
voice sounded hoarse and raspy, the way it always did when he wanted to sound
menacing. Claudia began to comply. She changed her whimpering to sobs.

“Faster,” Sam hissed. She obeyed, trying
to act as if she were frightened. Sam slapped her rump lightly.

“Get your pretty little ass up in the
air,” he growled. She whimpered and arched her back only a little. He slapped a
little harder. “Higher, bitch,” he growled. “You know damn’ well what I want.”

It was what she wanted too. Being taken
from behind while bound…or in this case, handcuffed…and gagged always excited
her enormously. She got up on her knees, turning her head to one side on the
sheet and closing her eyes. She whimpered again, but when she felt Sam’s hand
exploring between her legs the whimper turned into a moan.

“Spread ‘em,” Sam ordered, giving her
another spank. She complied. She felt Sam kneel between her legs and force them
even further apart by using his knees. His hands gripped her hips. She shivered
in anticipation. He slapped her ass once more. This time it stung, and she
yelped. “Get ready for a ride,” he chuckled.

He rammed himself into her so hard that
all of her breath went out through her nose in a deep grunt. His hands held her
in place as he did it again.

Claudia squirmed and squealed. He felt
huge and rock-hard, and he was pounding her without mercy. She braced herself
as best she could, but it was Sam’s iron grip on her hips that kept her in
place. She could feel herself being filled with every thrust he made, and the
feeling was almost unbearably intense. She felt a need for more air than she
could inhale through her nose and her vision blurred. Sam kept pumping away.

She felt her whole body trembling. She
could feel her orgasm coming. It seemed to start from far away, but it rushed
forward faster and faster as it came closer.

When it struck,
her body went limp. She had no strength to scream, but she could hear herself
moaning. The sound seemed far away, as if she was in the next room. Her legs
were trembling. Jolts of pleasure kept shooting up her spine from deep in her
pussy. Sam tightened his grip and kept on plowing. It felt like he went on for
hours before she heard him groan repeatedly, low and deep.

***

“Mmmmm…” She purred as they snuggled
close together in the bed. “We needed that.” Sam slid his arms around her and
threw a leg over hers.

“No argument there, Red.” His fingers
stroked her back. “You don’t feel nowhere near as tense now.”

She laughed, low in her throat. “Where
were you?” she asked.

“Business.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you
all about it when this is over.”

She stroked his hair. He kept it clipped
short, and she liked the spiky way it felt against her palms. “I’ve got to tell
you something.”

“What?”

“I think someone at Simonds is trying to
find out just what my relationship is to you. Why would they be doing that?”

“Don’t know.” Sam shrugged. “Who’s been
asking?”

“Well, that older woman, Esther, was
pretty direct asking me about it. I shot her down, though, and the next day,
she was gone.”

“That’s kinda strange.”

“Yes, it is. They replaced her with a
blonde a couple of years younger than me who seems to want to be my new friend.
She asked about you too, but it was a lot less direct. She said she’d seen you
once, and asked if I could introduce her to you.”       Sam chuckled. “It wouldn’t do her any
good, Red.”

She smiled at that. “Seriously, Sam, I
think she may be trying to find out what we are to each other.” She paused.
What exactly were they to each other? She was sure that Sam had something going
on in the background. She didn’t know what it could be, and it bothered her
that he wouldn’t open up to her.

“You going to tell her?” Sam asked. “It
could be that she really just wants to meet me.”

“Maybe,” Claudia shrugged. She could
understand a woman wanting to meet him. Hell, she could understand one wanting
to take him to bed soon afterwards. She stifled a giggle at the thought of
perky Chrissy discovering just what Sam was into.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Just a thought.
How’s the business of collecting the rest of your money coming along?”

“Stone wall, Red,” he growled. “But I’ll
get it, one way or another. I’ll be glad not to have to come back here again.”

“Why’s that?”

“I keep running into that Anna
whatsername.”

“Turco? Anna Turco?”

“Yeah, that’s her. She’s pretty direct
about what she wants.”

“So?”

“I got you, Red. Why would I want
anybody else?” He shook his head. “ Anyway, somethin’ about her just puts me
off.” He glanced over her shoulder at her ticking, wind-up clock. “Damn.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I gotta go, Red.” He kissed her. “I
don’t wanna go, but I have an appointment.”

“Will you be back?” She tightened her
arms around him.

“Sure,” he grinned. “It’ll only be for a
couple hours.”

***

She showered after he left. The handcuffs
had left faint marks on her wrists, but they wouldn’t last long and anyway, she
always wore long-sleeved shirts. It was getting dark outside, but there was
still a lot of time left in the day. She thought maybe she would go over the
case again while she was waiting for him to return. She donned a bathrobe and
sat down on the big, comfortable couch. She’d just opened the file when the
hotel phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Claudia?” It was Anna Turco. “Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here. What is it?” Anna
sounded a little nervous.

“I think I may have found something that
could help you with your investigation.” Either the connection was weak or she
was almost whispering. It was hard to hear her.

“Can you tell me what it is or bring it
over?”

“I…I don’t think so.” Now she sounded a
little scared. “Can you meet me? I’m at that restaurant we went to. I feel
safer in a public place.”

“All right,” Claudia tried to sound
reassuring. “I can be there in twenty minutes. Will you be all right until
then?”

“I think so,” Anna responded. “Thank
you.”

The phone went dead. Claudia hung it up
and hurried to her bedroom. She could understand why Anna wouldn’t go to the
police with whatever it was. She certainly wouldn’t trust them. And if it was
something that could scare Anna, it might be a very big thing indeed.

She dressed hurriedly, thankful that the
hotel offered laundry service. She pulled on a pair of jeans and the
many-pocketed shirt Chrissy had bought for her. She also put on her comfortable
old running shoes. This was no time for fake snakeskin boots. After a look at
the darkening sky outside, she decided to go without her cowboy hat as well.
She checked once to make sure she had everything she needed, then checked
again. The last thing she did was scribble a quick note to Sam on the hotel
stationery. She felt excited. Maybe she was going to break this case after all!

She took an elevator down to the parking
garage under the hotel. Since she was staying for a week instead of three days
or less, she had her own parking space there. It was a bit of a walk from the
elevator, and she hurried, fishing her car keys out of her jeans pocket as she
went. Out of habit, she scanned the parking area and saw nothing unusual.

She aimed the little electronic gizmo
that dangled from the key ring at her car and pushed one of the buttons. The
car made a beeping noise. She heard a click as it unlocked and saw the interior
lights come on.

She had her hand on the door handle when
she heard a faint noise behind her. She tried to whirl around to see what
caused the noise, but something pressed against her side. Bolts of agony shot
through her body. Her legs failed her and she started to fall. Somebody caught
her, wrapping their arms around her torso just below her ribcage and holding
her up.

“Help me.” The rasping whisper sounded
like Anna Turco’s voice, but it was impossible for Claudia to think clearly.
Someone appeared in front of her. They looked familiar, but her mind was having
a lot of difficulty putting one and one together. All she was sure of at the
moment was that someone had nailed her with a powerful taser set on “high”.

The newcomer tore the keyring from her
hand. She heard the sound of the trunk popping open. No, no, this couldn’t be
happening! She tried to struggle. It was useless. Her muscles weren’t
responding properly, and whoever held her was too strong. The arms wrapped
around her midsection were squeezing hard enough to make it difficult to
breathe.

She was seized by her ankles and lifted
up. She could see who the second person was now, Officer Pipes who was not in
uniform for once. She tried to kick at him with no success. Her attackers
carried her to the back of her car and dumped her in the opened trunk. She
tried to rise. The taser was pressed against her rump and once more blue bolts
of pain shot through her. All she could do was whimper as her hands were pulled
behind her. Something hard circled her wrists. She heard a zipping noise as it
was pulled tight…tight enough to hurt. The same thing was done to her ankles.
Then the trunk was slammed shut, leaving her in darkness. She gasped for
breath, trying to recover.

“Go. Meet me there.” That was definitely
Anna Turco’s voice. What was going on? Whatever it was, it was very bad for
her.

The car rocked a little as someone got
into the driver’s seat, probably Anna. She heard the engine start, felt the car
begin to move. She tried to kick and scream, but her body still wouldn’t obey.
All that came out was a croaking noise as her car lunged forward.

The trip seemed to take forever. It felt
as if Anna was driving very fast. Where the hell were they going? What was
going to happen to her? The thought of Pipes getting his hands on her made
her nauseous.

Just as she started to get back some
control over her scrambled muscles Anna made a sharp turn. The road suddenly became
rough and uneven, but Anna barely slowed down. Claudia bounced up and down,
side-to-side, unable to do anything. Her hands and feet felt numb and cold now.
Her head banged painfully against the floor of the trunk, half stunning her.

Finally, the car slowed. The road was
not so rough, but she could hear the engine laboring as if it was trying to tow
something very heavy. There was a lurch, then another, and the car stopped.
Anna gunned the engine, but the car didn’t move. She gunned it again, with the
same result. Then she switched off the engine.

The utter silence that descended chilled
Claudia to the bone. There were miles and miles of nothing all around the city,
and it seemed Anna had driven very far into that nothing. She heard the car
door open, felt Anna get out, heard and felt the door slam shut. A moment
later, the trunk popped open. Claudia tried to steel herself for whatever came
next.

It was dark outside now. The sky
overhead was strewn with stars. Anna’s form loomed up and blotted them out. She
switched on a flashlight and aimed it at Claudia. There was just enough
reflection for her to see Anna’s face. It was angry, triumphant and ugly in its
menace.

“So, you’ve been fucking him all along,
you bitch,” she snarled. Pipes appeared at Anna’s side. She barely noticed him.
“Well, you’ll fuck nobody after tonight!” Anna went on. Pipes pushed past her,
grabbed Claudia’s shirt and tore it open. Claudia screamed at him. That
wouldn’t stop him, but it was all she could do at the moment. Then Anna struck
the side of his head with the flashlight. That stopped him just before he could
get his hands on Claudia’s bra. He staggered and fell out of sight.

“What the fuck!” he yelled. He came up
slowly, keeping away from Anna. His hand covered the spot where she had struck
him.

“I told you no.” Anna snarled. “If you
want, I can give you a hand job later, but you don’t touch her. Understand?”

Pipes cringed as if she’d struck him
again. “Yeah, yeah, I understand,” he nodded.

“Good. Now go turn your truck around so
we can get out of here. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Pipes shuffled off obediently. Anna
turned her attention back to Claudia.

“Fucking him all along…” she repeated.
Her tone was venomous.

“Fucking who?” Claudia found she still
wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Sam Pender, you bitch,” Anna snarled.
“You thought no one would ever find out? Well, I followed him and I found out!
I made sure he didn’t see me. You won’t be fucking him again and with you gone
I can have him all to myself.”

Claudia started to make a reply, then
thought better of it. Anna wasn’t merely jealous, she was totally
insane…psychopathic. Did she really believe that Sam would turn to her? She probably
did. There was no point in arguing with her. It would just earn another shot of
the taser.

“So…” Anna took a deep breath and went
on, much calmer now. “We’re out in the desert here. Notice how cold it’s
getting? It will get colder before sunrise. But when the sun comes up in the
morning, it will bake you in your own car. You’ll suffer, you damned red-headed
bitch. You might even last for hours…in agony.” She clearly liked that image.
She leaned closer. “I hope your last thought is of me fucking Sam Pender.”

Anna straightened and slammed the trunk
lid down. After a moment, Claudia heard another car start…Pipes’ truck, no
doubt. She heard it drive away. The sound faded, and silence descended once
more, so deep that she could hear her own heartbeat.

Chapter
Fifteen

Claudia waited, wondering if Anna would
think twice and come back to finish the job she’d started. Long minutes passed,
it started to get uncomfortably cool but Anna didn’t return.

Okay, Claudia took a deep breath, held
it, and let it out slowly. That was it? She shook her head. It hurt when she
did that. Psycho Anna had watched too many cop shows. Claudia had no intention
of just waiting to be baked. First things first. The trunk was more than a
little cramped, and it was getting stuffy inside. She twisted herself around,
looking for the light of the emergency release button. Ah, there it was. She
twisted around again and groped for it with her bound hands. It wasn’t easy.
Her bonds were so tight that she had little feeling in her fingers. She
struggled for a few moments before the trunk popped open.

She took a deep breath of cool, dry air.
She might still bake, but it wouldn’t be while locked in the trunk. Now that
she had more room, she could try to get her hands in front of her again. That
took a little longer than getting the trunk opened, but she managed.

She took a look at her wrists. They’d
used one of those plastic zipties. The hard plastic was digging into her flesh.
She wriggled her fingers experimentally. She might not be able to feel much
with them, but they still worked. There was another ziptie securing her ankles,
but the thick socks she wore kept it from hurting quite as much.

She looked down at her shirt. The night
air was chilly enough to raise gooseflesh now, but when Pipes had torn it open
he’d ripped off most of the buttons. She pulled it shut with her bound hands
before swinging her legs out of the trunk.

Getting out of the trunk was difficult,
and she slipped and fell back in twice before succeeding. She stood up and
looked around. There was a faint light off in the direction her car was
pointed. It might be the last remnants of the sunset or it might be the glow of
the city lights. She had no way to know for sure. There was no moonlight. Would
there be a moon in the sky tonight? She hoped so. With nothing but starlight to
see by she couldn’t see much of anything. Oh, wait a minute!

She turned and reached into the trunk.
The desert emergency kit was still there in its box. She opened it, took out
the flashlight and switched it on. The batteries seemed to be fresh. More
welcome was the blanket at the bottom of the box. It wasn’t easy wrapping it around
her tied as she was, but she managed. There were two one-quart plastic bottles
of water and a package of road flares still in the box. She wondered if the
kits provided by the rental company saw much use. It had seemed to her at first
just to be a clever marketing ploy. Now she was very glad to have it available.

She worked her way around to the side of
her car. Maybe they’d left it unlocked. The going was soft sand and very
difficult. A nasty suspicion prompted her to shine the flashlight on the
wheels. Dammit! Anna had bogged the car down very effectively. The sand was up
to the middle of the hubcaps. It wasn’t likely she’d be able to drive away even
if the car was unlocked. A minute later, she found that it wasn’t unlocked. She
peered in through the window, still using the flashlight. The keys seemed to be
gone. Either Anna had taken them with her or she’d thrown them out into the
utter blackness of the desert night. She shone the light around, just in case.

She seemed to be at the bottom of a deep
and narrow ravine. The banks were lined with brush, strange, spiky-looking
plants. Even stranger-looking trees provided a partial screen overhead. Her
heart jumped when she shone her flashlight forward and saw another car parked a
little distance ahead of hers. She worked her way forward to get a look at the
license plate, if there was one.

There was. Claudia sagged against the
side of her car. She didn’t have to try to look in the car or the trunk to know
she’d found Sam’s missing friend. She closed her eyes. One tear trickled down
her cheek before she could gather herself together. Struggling through the
powdery sand, she sat down on the rear bumper of her car. She switched the
flashlight off and laid it carefully in the trunk.

Officer Pipes had been so eager to rip
her clothes off that he’d never noticed that there was something in one of the
pockets of her shirt. The cell phone itself was so small that Anna hadn’t
noticed it either. She unbuttoned the pocket, took it out, and flipped it open.
It wasn’t going to be easy operating it with her hands bound and numb, but if
it was easy anybody could do it. There was a signal. It was very weak. She
hoped it would be enough. She punched in the number Sam had given her and held
the cellphone up to her ear.

The phone rang…and rang. Finally,
someone answered it.

“Hola?” It sounded like an elderly
woman’s voice.

That much Spanish she understood. “This
is Claudia Cole. I need to talk to Sam. This is urgent.”

“Si. Momentito, por favor.”

The connection was broken. Claudia
looked to see if the signal was still there. It was. She spent some very long
minutes worrying before the phone chimed. She fumbled with the little thing,
trying to hit the button to answer the call. She almost dropped the phone.

“Hello? Hello?” she said anxiously.

“It’s me, Red. You okay?”

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was
Sam! “No, I’m not okay, Sam,” she answered. “I think I solved your case, but
I’m stuck out here in the desert. And Sam…”

“Yeah?”

“Keep away from Anna Turco. She’s
completely insane. Pipes is in on it with her, too.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam sounded worried now.
“Where are you, Red?”

“I don’t know! They drove me out here in
the trunk of my own car. It’s bogged down, and I don’t have the keys…” She
realized she sounded panicky and stopped.

“What can you see?”

“Not much. I’m in a ravine and it’s
dark.”

“Can you get out of the ravine? Take a
look around?”

“I’m tied up with those plastic police
cuffs,” she replied. “I don’t think I can, but I’ll try. Hold on. Don’t hang
up, Sam, please.”

“I won’t, Red. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

She tried hopping and almost fell. She
switched to shuffling along. With her bound ankles she made slow progress. She
kept a secure grip on the phone. She thought she heard Sam arguing with
someone. She stopped.

“Sam? SAM?”

“I’m still here, Red.”

“Is there somebody there with you?”

“It’s okay, Claudie.”

She hoped it truly was. “I don’t think
I’m going to get very far, and I don’t know how long this ravine is. But…I
think I see some mountains in the distance.”

“What do they look like?”

“Kind of raggedy. And I remember
something…Just before she locked me in the trunk, Anna said that I’d start
baking as soon as the sun rose. Maybe this ravine is facing East?”

“Okay, Red. Good thinking. That narrows
it down some. Stay by the car. Someone’s gonna come for you.”

“Sam, I don’t think you can trust the
police here.”

She heard him chuckle. “Don’t worry,
Red. I can trust these guys. Stick by your car and wait. I’m comin’ too. We’re
gonna be out of contact for a little while.”

“Sam…”

“Yeah, Red?”

“I love you.” The words came out before
she quite realized what she was going to say.

“I love you too, Red,” he answered. He
sounded utterly serious. “I’m comin’. Hold tight.” The connection broke. The
weak signal was still there.

She shuffled back to the car. Her heart
was pounding, but not from fear or exertion. After all this time, she’d finally
told him…and he had said he loved her! Well, whatever came next, at least
they’d told each other how they felt.

She waited…and waited. After a while,
she heard a helicopter, distant at first, but coming nearer. She heard it pass
overhead and recede. Then it came back. It seemed to be moving more slowly now.
Her cellphone chimed.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Red. Can you do anything to
make a signal?”

“Ah…maybe. I have some road flares, but
there’s a lot of dry brush around here.”

“Try it Red…but be careful.”

She took one of the flares out of the
box. Lighting it, bound as she was, was going to be a problem. Finding a safe
place to put it might be an even bigger problem. But if it meant getting out of
this place, she would find a way. She picked a spot in the soft sand that
seemed to be far enough away from anything combustible and set the flare. On
her third try, the flare lit. She shuffled away from it, back to her car, and
picked up her cellphone.

“Sam? Does that help? Sam?”

“Hold on, Red.” The phone was silent for
a moment. Then he was back. “Yeah, Red, that worked great! They have you
spotted now. Just stay put. They’ll be there soon.”

The helicopter hovered around the area
for a few minutes before moving off. Its sound faded away. Claudia missed it
badly. In the deep silence of the desert, she felt very much alone. Then she
faintly heard a long, mournful howl, and wished for the loneliness to be back.
Did coyotes attack people? Did they hunt in packs?

She had just about decided to get back
in the trunk and close it if a pack of coyotes came looking for her when she
heard the sound of a motor. It came closer. She hoped it was her rescuers, and
not Anna or Pipes coming back. Just in case, she hefted the thick dry branch
she’d found while looking for a spot for the flare. She didn’t know what kind
of a fight she could put up, but she wasn’t going to go easy if it came to
that.

A big vehicle growled into view. It
stopped just short of the still-sputtering flare. Its headlights blinded her
for a moment. Blinking, she raised her branch as she heard doors opening.

“Who are you?” she challenged. She hoped
she didn’t look too ridiculous.

“Hey, take it easy, lady,” A deep male
voice replied. There was something peculiar about the way he spoke. “We’re the
good guys.”

Claudia heard his companions laugh. She
didn’t know why they would find his comment funny. “Who sent you?” she
demanded. She didn’t lower the branch. Her eyes had adjusted to the glare of
the headlights. She could see that there were three men in all.

“It’s okay,” the first man said. “Sam
sent us…and I guess you must be ‘Red’?”

Claudia lowered the branch. It was
getting heavy anyway. The men came forward slowly. “We’re Tribal Police,” the
first man announced. He was bigger than his companions. He stepped past the
flare and turned to show her the patch on the sleeve of his shirt. Claudia
dropped the branch and sagged back against her car. She gave a long sigh of
relief.

“You okay?” He came closer, reaching out
to help her stay upright. Claudia realized she was shivering, partly from the
chill of the desert night, partly out of sheer relief. She was safe.

“I’m all right,” she answered. She held
up her fettered hands. “Can you get these off me, please?”

***

The SUV bounced and rolled as they left
the ravine. Claudia sat in the back, next to the youngest of her rescuers, who
had introduced himself simply as ‘Joe’. ‘Al’, the big man, was also the leader
and driver. ’Eddie’ was the last of the three, sitting in the front seat next
to Al. Eddie was using the radio, reporting on the situation. Al needed to keep
all of his attention on the trail. Watching it go by, Claudia marveled that
Anna had been able to drive the car so far along it.

“We’re taking you someplace safe,” Joe
told her. “Sam didn’t think it would be a good idea to bring you back to town.”
He looked grim. “Hope they catch that bitch.”

“Where is Sam?”

“He’ll meet us there,” Al called back
over his shoulder. “He was pretty worried about you. Never heard that man sound
nervous before.”

“Where is this safe place?” Claudia
gently rubbed at her wrists and hoped it wasn’t very far away. She was feeling
oddly shaky now that she’d been rescued. It was something like the overwhelming
horniness she always felt after escaping death or serious injury, but not
quite. She wanted to be with Sam. She wanted him to hold her, and she wanted to
ask him how he’d been able to put together this rescue mission so quickly.
After that, she would ride him into the ground.

“It’s a little motel on the
reservation,” Eddie answered. “Not much to look at, but it’s clean. Gets some
tourist traffic in the Spring when they have trail rides.”

***

It certainly wasn’t much to look at. There
were ten single cabins arranged in an L-shape along two sides of a big, square
parking lot. They looked weathered, but sturdy. Opposite one of the line of
cabins stood a gas station, a general store and a wide, one-story wooden
building. There were some cars parked in front of the cabins and a few more
cars and pickup trucks parked by the general store. Al steered for the wide
wooden building and parked in front of it. Before he’d had time to switch off
the engine, Claudia saw Sam come running out to meet them. She threw her own
door open and threw herself into his arms and kissed him, long and hard. She
didn’t care what anyone watching might think of it.

“Damn, Red,” he said, still holding her
close. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“You couldn’t know,” she kissed him
again, quickly. “I couldn’t know. I’m all right, Sam.”

“C’mon in, Red. Some people want to talk
to you.”

As she slid an arm around his waist her
hip bumped against a big revolver riding in a holster. “Hey, what’s this?”

“I’m not takin’ any more chances with you,
Red,” he answered simply. “Let’s go talk to the men.” Claudia’s rescuers
followed them in.

The building was some kind of community
center. The front was one big room with a pool table, a ping-pong table, soda
and snack machines, a television in one corner and some old, mismatched chairs.
Two men in suits rose to their feet as she and Sam came in. They looked very
out of place and not very happy.

“This is her?” one of them asked curtly,
nodding at Claudia.

“This is Ms. Cole, yes,” Sam replied. “I
suggest you be polite to her. She’s had a rough night and so have I.”

“We’d really rather do this in our
office downtown,” the man said. He had a heavy, jowly face though he didn’t
look fat. His companion had utterly forgettable features, not too tall, not too
heavy or thin, average face and hair. Claudia was sure they were cops, and
probably Federal.

“Ms. Cole ain’t leavin’ the reservation
‘til Turco and Pipes are picked up,” Sam said.

The jowly man regarded Sam for a long
moment. He seemed to want to say something to him. Then he sighed and shrugged.
“Alright, have it your way. Ms. Cole, could you please give us your statement
about the events tonight?”

“Yes,” Claudia nodded. “But first, I’d
like to know who I’m giving my statement to.”

“Agents Smith and Bowen,” Jowly said
without identifying which of them was which. “FBI. Since you allege you were
kidnapped and you were found on Indian land, this falls under our jurisdiction
for the moment.” He gave Sam a dark look.

“All right,” Claudia said. “I suppose it
was you who provided the helicopter?”

“Ms. Cole,” Jowly looked back at her. “I
can’t answer that question. May we proceed? Please, sit down.”

They used a tape recorder. Claudia gave
them an account of what had happened to her. That didn’t take long, but Jowly
had a lot of questions for her afterwards and that did take a while. Sam never
left her side through the whole interview. Al, Joe and Eddie drifted off to the
pool table. Agent Jowly glared at them when they started playing, but they
ignored him. It felt very late when the two agents finally packed up their
gear.

“Thank you, Ms. Cole,” Jowly nodded to
her as they were leaving. “We expect to have Ms. Turco and Officer Pipes in
custody very soon.”

“Thank you, Agent…” Claudia caught
herself. She had been about to say ‘Agent Jowly’. “Thank you both.”

After they left, Al, Joe and Eddie
stopped their pool game and meandered over.

“You all done now?” Al asked. Claudia
stood up and offered him her hand. “I want to thank the three of you for saving
me,” she said.

Al grinned and shook her hand. “It was
our pleasure, ma’am. You should be safe here now with Sam guarding you.”

Joe and Eddie shook her hand in turn,
both grinning. Then they left and she was alone with Sam.

“You’re going to have to tell me just
what you did to get me rescued tonight,” she smiled at him.

“Okay, Red,” he smiled back. “But it’s
late and we’re both a little tired. How about we go to the cabin I rented. We
can…talk in private.”

“Mmmm…” she purred. “I’d like that!
These cabins do have bathrooms, don’t they? I feel all gritty.”

“Sure do,” Sam answered. He offered her
his arm. She wrapped both of her arms around it and they left the building.
Once outside, Claudia noticed that it seemed to be later than she’d thought.
The general store and the gas station looked closed, and there were lights on
in only a few of the cabins.

“This way,” Sam pointed at a cabin on
the far side of the parking lot with his free hand.

“The one with the pickup truck parked in
front of it?”

“Yep. It’s a company truck.”

“Your company?”

“Have a look for yourself, Red.”

As he went on ahead to unlock the cabin
door, she lingered behind for a look at the truck. The lighting around the
parking lot was weak, but she could make out…a dog? Under the logo was the
legend: “Pender Engineering”.

“Why do you have a dog for a logo?” she
asked as she started towards the cabin again.

Sam had just opened the door. He swung
it open and turned back towards her. “It’s not a dog…” he began.

There was a sudden flurry of motion from
inside the cabin and a sickening thud. Sam dropped as if he’d been shot, half
in and half out of the doorway. Anna Turco stepped out of the darkness of the
cabin, straddling him. She was holding some sort of club.

“Hah,” she spat. “Going to fuck him
again, were you?” She hefted the club. “Come inside or I kill him right now.”

Claudia had no doubt Anna would do it.
She also had no doubt that if she went inside as Anna had ordered, Anna would
kill both of them. She had no idea how Anna had found out she’d been rescued so
quickly, but that was a question that could be answered later.. She started
towards the cabin, hoping she looked scared. Well, she was scared…as scared as
she’d ever been in her life. Sam lay motionless as she came closer.

“Hurry up,” Anna hissed.

There was scant chance that anyone would
come out to see what was going on. As she drew near to the doorway, Anna
stepped to one side to let her through, no doubt planning to bash her skull in
once she had a shot at her back.

Claudia suddenly lunged forward, raking
her nails across Anna’s face. She barely dodged the swing of the club as Anna
reacted a little too late.

“You bitch!” Anna snarled as Claudia
backpedaled into the parking lot.

“Not so pretty now, are you?” Claudia
taunted. “Come on over here and I’ll do it again.” If Anna was as psycho as she
thought, she might forget about killing Sam first.

“You…filthy…whore!” Anna ran towards
her, raising the club. There was murder in her eyes. Claudia gave a silent
thanks for all the painful lessons with Carline. She sidestepped Anna’s attack
at the last second, tripping her as she went by. Anna stumbled and fell heavily
on the packed dirt and gravel of the parking lot. She lost her grip on the
club, and it went skittering away. Claudia screamed. In the movies, heroes and
heroines always fought in silence, but she wanted an audience. She screamed
again as Anna picked herself up.

“I’ll kill you with my bare hands!” Anna
snarled.

“Come on, you psycho bitch,” Claudia
retorted. “You haven’t even touched me yet.”

This time Anna moved in slower. It gave
Claudia time for another scream. Somewhere in the desert night, a coyote howled
in answer. The two women circled each other. Anna was looking for an opening.
Claudia acted as if she was going to scream again and Anna rushed in. Claudia
spun away from her and tripped her again. This time, Anna staggered but didn’t
fall. As she whirled to charge in again, Claudia let loose a window-rattling,
hair-raising shriek. Lights came on in the general store, some people were
coming out of their cabins. Intent on killing Claudia, Anna ignored everything
else. Claudia hoped someone was dialing 911. Anna seemed to have a maniac’s
strength and energy. All she would have to do was get her hands on Claudia for
a moment, and she could easily snap her neck.

Anna came in swinging. She was quicker
than she looked. She managed to graze Claudia’s cheek with a punch that would
have flattened her if it had connected squarely. Claudia tried to back away,
but she couldn’t move backwards as fast as Anna was coming at her. She aimed a
clumsy kick at Anna’s leg. Anna saw it coming and dodged it. It was a trap.
Claudia’s sudden second kick connected with Anna’s knee. Claudia felt something
crunch. Anna’s face went white and she dropped like a sack of dirt. Her mouth
worked like a catfish’s, but no noise came out. She gasped and whimpered and
writhed in agony. Finally, she shrieked. Claudia kicked her, again wishing that
she was wearing her hard, fake snakeskin boots now instead of her running
shoes. Anna grabbed feebly at Claudia’s ankle. Claudia shook loose and backed
away. Anna wasn’t going anywhere now, but she was still dangerous. She turned
to run back to Sam.

A pickup truck came roaring into the
parking lot. It slid to a stop in the middle of the lot. Intent only on Sam,
Claudia ignored it.

“Stop right there!” She recognized
Pipes’ voice. Oh, crap! What was he doing here? She could hear sirens
approaching. She turned to face him. Maybe she could stall long enough for help
to arrive.

Pipes was standing behind the opened
door of his truck. He had a gun aimed at her, but he looked nervous as he
noticed all the witnesses standing around.

“Shoot her! Shoot her!” Anna shrieked. “Shoot her, you limp-dicked piece
of shit!”

Pipes appeared to gather himself. He was
forty or fifty feet away. There was a chance he might miss, but he had an
automatic, it was likely that once he started shooting he probably wouldn’t
stop until the magazine was empty. He looked panicked enough to try to shoot
all the witnesses too. Some of them dashed back into their cabins.

“Go right, Red. Quick!” Sam’s voice was
weak, just barely loud enough for her to hear him, but not loud enough for
Pipes to hear over the rapidly approaching noise of a siren.

She dove to the right, rolling on the
ground. BangBOOM! The two shots echoed through the parking lot. She heard a man
screaming. She hadn’t heard a bullet go past her, and she didn’t seem to be
shot. Still lying on the ground, she looked around. Pipes was down, lying on
his back screaming. His left leg was covered in blood.

She ran over to Sam. He was sitting
propped up against the wall of the cabin. He held his big revolver still aimed
at Pipes. He looked as if he was going to shoot him again. She was careful not
to get in his line of fire.

“Sam! Are you okay?” She came closer.

“I don’t think so, Red,” he said. His
voice sounded slurred.

“Are you shot?”

“No. But I took a hell of a hit to my
head, and my left side ain’t workin’ too good.”

An SUV appeared, police lights flashing.
Men poured out of it, guns drawn. People started yelling. Sam lowered his gun
as if it was suddenly too heavy to hold up. “Damn,” he breathed. His eyes
closed.

Chapter
Sixteen

The small plane taxied to a stop in
front of a sheet-metal building that appeared to be a hangar. Claudia smiled at
Sam and gave his hand a little squeeze. He smiled back, even though she’d had a
deathgrip on that hand from the time they’d taken off. Before, she’d been
wishing that air travel could recapture a little bit of the romance of its
earlier days. After the ninety-minute flight in this fragile, one-engine
machine she’d had enough of the romance of flying to last her for quite a
while. The air was a lot bumpier in a small plane, and while it might fly at a
lower altitude than a big jet, the ground below still seemed very far away.

Sam reached forward to pat the pilot’s
shoulder. “Thanks, Carl,” he said. “I really appreciate you coming to get us.”

Carl half-turned in his seat. “No
problem, neighbor,” he replied. “I always wanted to try out this bird of yours.
When do the medicos say you’ll be able to do your own piloting again?”

“A week,” Sam shrugged. “Maybe two. I
feel like I could’a done it now, but why take the chance?” He looked at Claudia
and smiled.

“Understood,” Carl nodded. He twisted
around even further to offer Claudia his hand. “I wouldn’t take any risks with
such a pretty passenger myself. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“Likewise,” Claudia smiled at him. “And
call me Claudia.” Carl was a large, burly man. Her hand disappeared in his big,
rough paw as he shook it with surprising gentleness.

“Here comes our ride.” Sam nodded at the
window. Claudia turned to see a fire-engine red jeep barreling towards them.

“See you soon.” Carl shook Sam’s hand
with a lot more vigor than he’d used on Claudia. “Got my truck parked over
there.” He jerked his thumb towards the hangar. Then he looked Claudia in the
eye. “You take good care of this invalid.” He nodded towards Sam. “Don’t let
him overstrain himself.” He laughed. It was a big, booming laugh that shook the
little plane. Claudia felt herself blushing.

***

The jeep pulled up in front of a
ranchhouse, sliding for a moment on the sand and gravel, raising a thin cloud
of gray-brown dust. The driver, a brown, skinny young man with a huge
white-toothed grin, leaned on the horn. The “ah-OOOH-gah” noise echoed across
the valley. Claudia was certain the horn wasn’t standard equipment.

“Good to have you home again, Boss.” The
driver nodded at Claudia. “You too, Ma’am.”

“Thanks, Pablo. Could you have Gretchen
put Ms. Cole’s luggage in the big guest room?” He helped Claudia out of the
jeep. After the plane ride and this jeep ride she was grateful to have solid
ground under her fake-snakeskin boots. She’d almost lost her Stetson hat three
times in two hundred yards.

“Sure thing, boss,” Pablo nodded. He
jammed the jeep into gear and floored the accelerator, disappearing around a
far corner of the building. Up close, it seemed much larger to Claudia, a
rambling, one-story building girded with a wide, covered wooden porch. It
looked very western.

“Welcome to my ranch, Red.” Sam held
Claudia’s hand as they climbed the wide steps. When they reached the porch, he
turned her to face him. “Welcome to my home,” he added in a very different
tone.

She was about to reply with a kiss, but
before she could do that she saw someone come running around the corner of the
building, feet pounding on the weathered planking.

“Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!” The running
figure picked up speed. It was a girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, Claudia
guessed, all gangly arms and legs, long dark hair streaming out behind her.
“Uncle Jack!” The last yell was almost a sob. Sam turned to face the newcomer
just before she collided with him. Skinny as she was, the impact almost knocked
him over. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.

“Uncle Jack…” She really was sobbing
now. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Claudia stepped back a little. She
didn’t want to intrude on the moment, and besides, it was interesting to see
Sam looking awkward and uncomfortable for once.

“Hey, hey now, Cindy,” Sam patted the
girl’s back lightly and clumsily as she clung to him, still sobbing and
sniffling. “This here’s the woman you should be thankin’.” He looked at Claudia
in silent appeal. Claudia stayed where she was.

Cindy slowly disengaged herself from Sam
and turned to face Claudia. Tears were running down her face, but she tried to
smile as she held out her hand. “P…pleased to meet you,” she managed to say.
Claudia took her hand briefly. “I’m Claudia Cole,” she smiled. “I wouldn’t have
been here but for Sam.” That was true in more than one way. “And you are…?” she
went on. Sam seemed to have forgotten the introductions.

“Cindy…Cynthia Andersen,” the girl said.
She was almost as tall as Claudia was.

“Thank you for
proving my daddy wasn’t a thief.”

Claudia shot a look at Sam. Now she felt
awkward. The file had said that Sam’s friend was married and had a child. She
should have expected something like this.

A woman came around the same corner of
the building as Cindy/Cynthia had a moment earlier. She was clad in black, and
her face held a terrible sadness. Claudia could see where Cynthia got her dark
hair and height. If she grew up anything like her mother, she was going to be a
beautiful woman in a couple of years. The woman approached slowly. Cynthia went
to her and took her arm. “This is…” she began, pointing at Claudia.

“Claudia Cole,” Claudia finished the
sentence for her as she stepped forward to meet them. “You must be Mrs.
Andersen. I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Please, call me Maria,” Mrs. Andersen
managed a weak smile. “Our loss,” she nodded at her daughter, “would have been
much greater without you. Thank you so very much.”

“You’re very welcome,” Claudia nodded.
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She wouldn’t have found out
anything at all if Anna Turco hadn’t turned out to be a jealous psychopath, but
this wasn’t the time or place to bring any of that up.

“Sam,” Maria turned towards him. “Thank
you also. You never doubted him for a moment.” Claudia noticed a hint of an
accent in Maria’s voice. She also noticed that Cynthia was looking at her, not
at Uncle Jack.

“I’m sorry it didn’t turn out better,”
Sam put a hand on Maria’s shoulder. Cynthia switched her gaze back to Uncle
Jack.

“I am sorry you were injured,” Maria
said. “Are you all right now?”

“I am,” Sam answered.

Maria looked back at Claudia. Her smile
was a little stronger now, but her dark eyes were still sad. “Sam is a good
man,” she said. “We will leave you two alone now.” She patted Cynthia’s hand.
“Come,” she said. Cynthia kept hold of her mother’s arm as they walked away.
Just before they passed out of sight, she looked back at Claudia one last time.

“You didn’t tell me,” Claudia turned on
Sam.

“I couldn’t, Red,” he shrugged and
spread his hands. “Remember you told me how Simonds was trying to find out
something from you?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve been after poor Maria to sign
some papers,” he said. “They’d gotten a judge to freeze all the family’s assets
in the hopes they’d get their money back somehow. I took them both here so
they’d be safe.” His grin was feral. “Nobody gets on my ranch unless I let
‘em.”

Claudia could picture him pitching a
process server into a ditch. “But why couldn’t you tell me?”

“If you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell
them, Red.”

“You’re a manipulative sonofabitch, John
Samuel Pender.” She tried to sound angry, but failed. “Aren’t you afraid people
will find out your secret?”

“What d’you mean, Red? What secret?
Everybody already knows I’m a manipulative sonofabitch.” Sam looked puzzled.

“I mean your real secret.”

“What real secret? I ain’t followin’,
Red.”

She stepped close and slid her arms
around him. “That you’re a nice guy, Sam. Under it all, you’re a nice guy.”

“I don’t think so,” he shook his head.
“I don’t feel like a nice guy at all. Anyways, my experience’s been that when a
woman tells a man he’s a nice guy she’s blowin’ him off or dumpin’ him.” He
eyed her warily.

“All right,” Claudia smiled. “Then you’re a good man. How’s that?”

“Better,” he shrugged and slipped his
arms around her waist. He kissed her once, softly.

“I’m glad I was…we were…” she corrected
herself, “able to help them.”

“She was the love of his life, Red.” Sam
sounded a little choked up. “And, funny as it may seem for such a geeky-looking
guy, he was the love of hers.”

Claudia nestled closer against him. “I
love you, Sam,” she whispered. She felt his arms tighten around her. “I love
you, Red,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry I put you at so much risk.”

She pulled a little away from him and
laid a finger across his lips. Did his eyes look a little…moist? “Hush,” she
told him. “I’m a big girl, Sam Pender. I don’t want to hear you talk about that
any more. We both made our choices. It turned out all right.”

He kissed her again, until she began to
feel drunk. She pulled away with an effort.

“Sam,” she looked up at him. “How long
are Maria and Cynthia staying here?”

“They’re leavin’ tomorrow mornin’, Red.
Why?”

“All right. I’m not trying to tease you,
Sam, but I think tonight I’ll be sleeping in the guest room…alone.”

Sam looked perplexed for just a moment.
Then he nodded. “I see your point, Red.”

“Good. I have a lot of thinking to do
anyway. Will you tell me when they’re going? I want to say good-bye to them.”

“Sure thing. They’ll want to say
good-bye to you, too.”

***

It wasn’t easy getting to sleep that
night. Claudia tossed and turned on the big bed, feeling sad, lonely, and
horny. She’d been ready to give Sam the ride of his life the night she was
rescued, but psycho Anna had stopped that. Well, Anna was in a prison hospital
now. The kick to her knee had worked better than she’d thought. That knee was
going to need serious surgery. Timmy Pipes had no such worry. Sam’s pistol was
an old single-action .45, and it hadn’t left anything of his knee to save. She
had asked Sam while the paramedics were strapping him down on the gurney why
he’d shot Pipes there.

“Hell, Red,” he’d answered sleepily.
“The way he was standin’ behind the truck door it was the only part of him I
had a clear shot at and I knew he always wore body armor.”

She laid on her back, looking up at the
ceiling. It was so quiet out here. There was no noise of traffic, only the
occasional lowing of a cow or the distant, mournful howl of a coyote. She
thought of Sam sleeping in his own bed and resisted the urge to go to him now.
She’d been worried that Anna had done some serious damage when she’d clubbed
him. His complaint about one side of his body not working had made her frantic.
She sighed. In the end, it had only been a concussion. It had laid him up for a
couple of days. She’d been with him for every moment she could wangle out of
the hospital staff. They hadn’t been alone. There’d been a constant parade of State
and Federal agents coming in with questions for both of them. Sam had
apparently been helping with a probe of the corruption in the city, providing
information and contacts. The story about getting the rest of the payment he
was owed, however determined he might have been about getting it, had been a
good cover. Some of the agents had been furious with him for, as they put it,
“jeopardizing the whole investigation” by bringing Claudia in on what had been
thought to be a wild-goose chase. Sam had told them where to go and what to do
when they’d arrived at their destinations. He’d also suggested they quit
wasting time bitching at him and start making arrests.

She’d had some questions of her own for
him. For example, how had he gotten enough influence to get Simonds Assurance
to hire her?

“Ah, Red,” he’d grinned crookedly. “I’ve
done a lot of work for some big engineering outfits. You keep findin’ ways to
save people big piles of money, after a while they start thinkin’ kindly of
you.”

At least she’d found out how Anna had
found her so quickly. “Old Charley” had been renting one of the cabins. Anna
had secretly been supplying him with liquor to keep him out of the way. She’d
been giving him enough to drink himself to death, which had probably been her
intention. Anna had been sneaking out of his cabin when the SUV with Claudia in
it had pulled into the parking lot.

She rolled onto her side. She’d seen the
look in Sam’s eyes when he’d talked about the Andersens. She’d heard the little
catch in his voice when he’d spoken of Cynthia now being able to go to college
and get a good education, but how it was even more important to her right now
to know that her daddy had not been a thief. She wiped a tear from her eye. She
did not know when she’d finally drifted off to sleep.

***

The plane soared upwards as it
approached the end of the runway. It circled over the landing strip, gaining
altitude, glinting silver in the morning sun. The sound of its engines faded as
it went higher. The pilot dipped the wings once as if to say good-bye and then
aimed westwards. Claudia watched it go, carrying Maria and Cynthia back home,
and she fought back tears. Sam stood next to her, his arm around her waist,
waving his hat long after anyone in the plane could have seen him. As the plane
dwindled to invisibility, he put his hat back on.

“What now, Red?” he asked, still looking
in the direction the plane had gone. “You said you had a lot of thinkin’ to
do.”

“I did,” she nodded. She scuffed at the
gravelly dirt with the heel of her fake-snakeskin boots. “And I’ve done it.”

“And?”

“Right now, I think you’re going to take
me horseback riding. We can pack a picnic lunch.”

***

They rode their horses up a hill.
Claudia twisted around in the saddle to look back. The ranchhouse was just visible
in the distance. She tugged the brim of her Stetson down a little. She was
carefully covered up in a long-sleeved white shirt, jeans, boots and hat. She
even wore thin leather gloves on her hands.

She looked back up the hill. There were
trees growing up there. She didn’t know what kind of trees they were, but at
least they weren’t those strange, alien ones she’d seen when she first came to
this part of the country. They had leaves and promised good shade.

The top of the hill was wide, with a
shallow depression. It had not only shade, but a little grass as well. She
tethered the horses while Sam spread a blanket on the ground and opened up the
picnic basket.

“You mind tellin’ me what’s goin’ on
with you, Red?” he asked, straightening up.

“What do you mean?” she countered,
stripping off the gloves.

“You ain’t said a whole lot since the
Andersens left. You told me you had somethin’ important to tell me, but you
wanted to do it in private.” He waved a hand around. “It don’t get much more
private than this.”

“Please, Sam, sit down.”

Sam sat. His expression made it clear
that he expected bad news. She stood facing him across the picnic blanket. She
tossed the gloves down on it. She doffed her hat and tossed it next to them.

“I did a lot of thinking last night,
Sam,” she began. She could see he was very unhappy right now. “A lot of
thinking…about you,  me, and us.”

“And?”

“You’re a good man, Sam Pender,” she
said as she began to unbutton her shirt. “You’re also a manipulative
sonofabitch. I wouldn’t ever want to have you mad at me.”

“Ah…what’re you doin’, Red?”

“Be quiet. I rehearsed this last night
and part of this morning. You’re going to hear me out.” Sam settled back. Now
he looked more puzzled than unhappy. Good. She continued unbuttoning her shirt.

“We live very far apart,” she went on.
“It isn’t easy for us to see each other. Both of us are too stubborn to give up
what we’ve built to make that easier.” She peeled off her shirt and threw it
aside. She’d worn a simple white bra today. It unfastened in front. For the
moment, she just stood looking at him, hands on her hips, legs planted a foot
or so apart.

“But it comes down to this, Sam,” she
went on finally. She reached up to unfasten her bra, shrug it off and let it
drop. “I’m your woman. I am your woman as surely as if you’d hogtied and
branded me like one of your cattle.” To his credit, Sam kept his eyes fixed on
hers instead of staring at her bared breasts. “So, you’d damned well better be
my man.”

Sam leaned back. She wished she had a
camera to capture this moment, because she could find no words to describe the
expressions that flickered across his face.

“Do you understand me?” she asked. Sam could
only nod. She pulled something from the pocket of her jeans and tossed it over
to him. He caught it, looked at it, and then looked back at her. “I don’t know
how we’re going to work this out,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to
turn out. But I love you, Sam Pender.”

She stepped across the blanket towards
him, stopped, turned her back to him and knelt down. She bent over, crossing
her wrists behind her, wondering what he would do.

“I love you, Claudia Cole,” he answered.
She felt him start to tie her wrists with one of the strips of rawhide she’d
been carrying. He tied her tightly. Then she felt him leaning over her,
reaching around to cup her breasts. She shivered. She had a lot of pent-up
sexual frustration to work off, but she was perfectly happy to leave herself
and everything else in Sam’s hard hands.

“Use me, Sam,” she breathed. “Use me,
any way and every way you want.” His fingers squeezed her nipples, and she
moaned. His hands moved down. She could feel him unbuckling her belt. He pulled
it free of the loops. A moment after, he slipped the belt around her neck and
pulled it snug. He held the free end and walked around to stand in front of
her. He began to unzip his jeans.

Claudia turned her head away. She wanted
him to force her. He slapped her face once, not hard. She turned her head the
other way. He’d have to do better than that.
She was all but quivering with her own desire for him, but she wanted to
feel forced. She wanted him to make her submit. He slapped her again, harder
this time, and grabbed a fistful of her coppery hair. That hurt enough to make
her whimper, but it still wasn’t enough to make her open her mouth. Sam gave
her head a rough shake and then used his free hand to pinch her nose shut
between thumb and forefinger. He hadn’t said a word so far. She whined and
moaned and tried to pull away, but all he did was tighten his grip.

She opened her mouth to gasp for air. He
let her take a couple of deep breaths and then let go of her nose so he could
guide the head of his cock into her mouth. She made a couple of half-hearted
strokes, not taking him in very deep. Then she tried to spit him out, but he’d
been expecting something like that. He took her head in both hands and drove
himself in. Claudia squealed in protest, in spite of the fact that she loved
the sensation of his cock, so thick, hard, warm, and alive, filling her mouth.
He held her like that for a long, long moment, until she started to choke for
air. He let go of her then. She reared back, choking and gasping. When he
gripped her hair again, she gave a little moan of protest, but opened her mouth
for him. Once again, he held her head in both hands. He began fucking her
mouth, holding her head still while he thrust in and out. She closed her eyes,
letting herself wallow in the sensations. Still playing the part of the
submissive but unwilling victim, she moaned and whined and grunted, all the
while struggling weakly.

She could feel
saliva dribbling out around Sam’s cock, trickling down her chin, dripping onto
her breasts.

Sam groaned. She felt his thumbs
pressing down on the top of her head, signaling that he was close to coming.
She squealed in mock protest. Sam’s thrusting quickened, and the pitch of her
squeals went up in response.

He came with a long, drawn-out groan.
Claudia’s last squeal was cut short as he gushed into her mouth. His grip on
her head tightened even more as he spurted again and again. She struggled
feebly, choking and spluttering, swallowing desperately. She coughed and some
of his semen went into her nose.

When he let go, she sagged, her head
drooping. A trickle of semen mixed with saliva escaped from the corner of her
mouth and dripped onto her breast. Sam gripped her hair, pulling her head up,
and shoved his cock back into her mouth. She sucked and licked it clean, still
trying to catch her breath. When he was satisfied, he took his cock in his hand
and slapped her with it, right-left. She moaned, licking her lips so she could
swallow as much of him as possible. In some of her old fantasies, there would
be a second man, and sometimes a third and a fourth, waiting his turn to use
her mouth. Now, Sam was all she wanted. She savored the taste of him.

***

The sun was sliding lower in the sky.
Soon it would be low enough that the trees overhead would no longer shade them.
Claudia lay on the blanket. The ground under it was hard. She didn’t care. Sam
had stripped her naked some time ago. Her clothes lay piled next to one of the
trees. Sam was sitting on a low stump, munching an apple, a remnant from the
picnic lunch. His eyes kept traveling over her. She could feel his gaze. She
loved it. Her hands were still bound behind her with the rawhide strips. She
loved that feeling too, as long as Sam was the one who had tied her.

He took one last bite of the apple,
looked at the core for a moment, and tossed it away over his shoulder. He wiped
his hands on his jeans, stood up, and walked slowly over to her. She rolled
onto her back to look up at him. She could tell by his eyes that he was ready
for her again, and it made her shiver. An hour or so ago, he had put her on her
back, spread her legs wide, and ridden her long and hard and deep, finishing with
a powerful gallop that had made her shriek. He’d had to clap a hand over her
mouth, muffling her cries as she came violently. The ranchhouse might be far
away, but sound carried in this valley.

“One more thing to do, Red,” he grinned.

“Mmmm…” she purred sleepily. “What might
that be?”

He laughed. “I found this down at the
bottom of the basket,” he replied. He held up a tube of lubricant.

“And?” Claudia arched an eyebrow. She
felt her own excitement rising again, but she acted coy.

“Been wonderin’ what to do with it,” he
grinned.

“Sam,” she smiled back, “I’m yours. The
way I’m feeling now, if you want to bring me back walking tethered to your
horse, you can. If you want to keep me captive in a stall in your barn, you
can. Hell,” she grinned wickedly, “if you want to parade me naked in public,
you can do that too. But I won’t share you with anybody, and you can’t share me
with anybody either.” As she said this, something in the back of her mind asked
her if she meant to exclude her old friend and partner Dianne along with
everybody else in the world. She shrugged it off. That was a question she could
answer some other day.

“I got no intention of sharin’ you with
anybody, anywhere, anytime, Red,” he grinned back at her. “Now, open that
pretty mouth. You damn’ near bit me last time, and I ain’t takin’ any chances
now.”

She opened her mouth willingly. Sam
wadded up one of the cloth napkins she’d packed and stuffed it in. He secured
it in place with another strip of rawhide and checked his work carefully. She
was trembling now, anticipating what was to come.

Sam gripped her ankles. He flipped her
over onto her belly with surprising strength. He pushed her legs wide apart.
Claudia arched her back. She felt him applying the lubricant, spreading it
freely. She couldn’t help moaning.

“Ass up, Red,” he chuckled, swatting her
rump lightly. She obeyed eagerly. He was the man who had introduced her to
this, and the only man she’d ever done it with. To her, it was something very
special that they shared.

It wasn’t easy for her to keep her
position with her hands tied behind her, but she thought she could get better
with practice. She hoped she would get plenty of practice.

Sam helped with
one hand holding her. She felt the head of his cock pushing against her anus,
and she shuddered violently. It was warm up here on the hill, but she suddenly
felt chilled.

“Hold still, Red,” Sam told her. He
gripped her hips with both hands. She felt his cock pushing into her,
stretching her wider…wider. She screamed into the gag.

The gag muffled her very effectively. She
could scream all she wanted without setting the coyotes to howling. Sam kept
pushing his cock deeper into her ass and she tried to push back against him to
help. It hurt…but it was an intensely exciting kind of hurt, so much so that
her vision was tinted red. Sam gripped her hips hard. Every so often, he would
give her upturned ass a hard spank. She could hear him grunting with effort as
he forced his way in. She was shivering violently now. She couldn’t help it.

It wasn’t very much like what she’d
imagined when she had dreamed of finding her true love. It was stark,
primitive, ferociously physical and the sensations were always overpowering.
She could not picture herself doing this with any man other than Sam. But with
him, she felt safe…and loved. He began pumping her, slowly and strongly. It
still hurt, but not so much, and the scream she was about to make turned into a
sigh.

Also by S J
Lewis…

Vacation

Female Prey

Elusive Prey

For a complete catalogue
of Erotic Fiction…

Pink Flamingo Publications

P.O. Box 632, Richland, MI
49083, 1-877-629-0051

E-mail: catalog@pinkflamingo.com

Website: http://www.pinkflamingo.com

eBook Info

Identifier:

PF4114

Title:

Claudia's Surrender, The Case of the Reluctant Submissive

Creator:

S J Lewis

Date:

01/24/2008

Copyrights:

S J Lewis

Publisher:

Pink Flamingo Publications

Subject:

Fantasy