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Felix knocked on the door.
Silly, maybe, given what he’d come here to do, but somehow the gesture fit his surroundings. He stood on the second floor of a nice little walkup, neatly kept, its apartments home to an assortment of smaller family groups who didn’t strain the confines of their modest surroundings. You had to knock in a place like this. It was just so . . . cute. Quaint.
Safe.
He could see why Jack Shea had picked this place to stash his kid.
Which just went to show, Felix thought, how far he’d come in the past couple weeks. At first he’d struggled to believe the man even had a kid. Somebody that careful, letting a liability like a child hang around? It beggared belief. But Felix had looked into the particulars, and it checked out. Adaline Shea had been born somewhere in the southwest and her father had moved her up here five years ago, around the same time Felix had started to throw his own weight around, professionally, and had his first run-in with Shea.
Felix liked to think he’d got the man rattled enough that early on that he felt a need to move his kid. Sure it didn’t fix the scar tissue, but it gave him a nice warm glow all the same.
So Shea had brought her here, got her settled, and hadn’t moved her since. Neighbors indicated there’d been a nanny of some kind at first, but for the past couple years the girl had come and gone nearly unsupervised.
“Of course, her father is away on business an awful lot,” the female half of a cheerful, unsuspecting retired couple on the ground floor had confided in him, when he’d put on a good show of fixing her antique garbage disposal system. “But she’s so well behaved, I can see why he has no qualms about leaving her like that. Such a nice girl.”
And Felix, having spent the better part of the last month running his own brand of surveillance on the girl, was inclined to agree.
She was very nice.
Not just in the way Mrs. Farraday had indicated, though that, too, sure. Adaline was the kind who said good morning and good afternoon and meant it. Polite. Sweet.
She got good grades, according to the badly-formatted congratulatory writeup on the school’s web page; she’d been an honor roll student last term, though this term her name hadn’t made an appearance, which suggested the marks had begun to slip a little. But then, given what Felix knew of Shea’s recent antics in the Middle East, he could probably connect the kid’s school performance with her father’s prolonged absence pretty handily.
In any event, Adaline Shea was what unsuspecting middle-aged housewives called a nice kid, and Felix was inclined to agree.
But for the Mrs. Farradays of the world, that was where the appreciation ended. For Felix, who had watched her from a variety of distances for nearly a month now, his appreciation went considerably beyond Adaline’s manners. It encompassed her face, lightly freckled with a button nose, and the firm little chin. Her eyes, bright and intelligent had passed unseeingly over him one of the two times he’d allowed himself to cross her path since he set up surveillance. He anticipated the moment she would see him—really see him—and hardened at the thought.
He could almost understand why Jack had let himself indulge in the liability of keeping her. Felix wasn’t even her father, and he already very much understood the urge to hang on to Adaline.
He’d toyed with the idea for a while. Kept circling back around to it as he weighed the pros and cons of leaving the usual kind of message: the body, in whatever state of final abuse it had suffered, arranged to inflict maximum psychological damage. Felix had done that more than once, after all, and he fully appreciated it might be the best way to manage this as well.
But after a few days of watching, of chatting up the neighbors and tracking the pattern of disruption in his superiors’ plans that denoted Jack Shea’s movements around the world, he abandoned the initial plan and moved on to another. Namely, kidnapping. And he’d lingered over that one longer than he should have, given the constraints of his own professional existence. But the idea of taking her, keeping her, making a pet out of Shea’s own kid, had appealed very strongly to parts of his psyche he hadn’t even fully known existed until he contemplated indulging them at Adaline’s expense.
The twin allure of imagining her reluctance, her horror, her exquisitely slow capitulation to his demands on her body, coupled with communicating details of her ruination to her father and Shea’s own frantic, futile search . . . it gave him a nice tingle.
But his lifestyle was even more nomadic than Shea’s, and he doubted his ability to keep a proper rein on her in the long term. By the time he’d watched her long enough to verify what he’d already suspected—kid was smart, kid was self-sufficient, kid was stubborn as hell—he knew any attempt to keep her in the long run would end in disaster for one or both of them.
So he was back to the simple impact of enjoying her in the short term, and leaving her behind to damage Shea long into the future with the living proof of his inability to keep her safe.
Which was fine. Felix was perfectly prepared to work with that.
He had been about to move in three days ago—Friday was a school holiday, and she could be kept at home quite handily without being missed—but Shea himself had come home and sent Felix scrambling for cover.
He’d stayed three days, after being gone for three weeks. He took his kid out to parks, museums, all that shit. Just like he was a normal dad. The man even wore a polo shirt, for Chrissakes. If Felix hadn’t seen the carnage himself, he’d never have believed this was the same man who’d carved up half their security team in Beirut.
It was like nothing Felix had ever imagined.
He’d trailed them exactly as closely as he’d dared, this weird little family of two, trying to get a feel for how the hell that even worked for them.
Surprisingly well, by the look of it.
And when Shea had let himself out of the place just before dawn this morning, once more quietly, dangerously forgettable in a dark shirt and slacks, a generic duffel bag swinging easily from one hand, to slide into a waiting cab, Felix had spared no effort to ensure that he had, indeed, made it all the way to the airport.
Once he was satisfied that the man was out of the picture again, Felix had made his way back to the cramped room he’d taken almost a month ago. He showered aggressively, and made himself as presentable as the circumstances would permit. Then he went directly to the walkup where Jack Shea had chosen to stash his kid, climbed the stairs to their apartment, and he knocked on the door.
Dad was gone again.
Addie knew it the moment her feet hit the floor and she smelled the complete lack of coffee in the air.
She raked her fingers through her hair, let it slide down to resettle around her face, and tapped the screen of the phone lying on her nightstand. She checked the time, registered that she was going to be late—and in fact if she didn’t get her ass in gear immediately she was going to miss more than homeroom, which would count against her if she was angling for an exam exemption—and then debated if it was even worth going to school today.
She could stay home. Curl up in her bed again, snuggle down into a cocoon of low key resentment, and sleep for another couple hours. Maybe take off to the park and work on her freckles, if the day was sunny enough.
Ugh, but then Dad would get the no-arrival text, and he’d call and they’d go through the damn codeword sequence, and once he was satisfied she was really safe, just skipping school, he’d tear a strip off her, tell her he loved her, and she’d cry, and it would all just be hell. Addie didn’t think she had it in her to deal with all that today, so she levered up off the edge of the bed and shuffled into the bathroom.
She’d just gotten about three quarters of the way through the usual routine when she heard the knock.
Her spirits lifted, momentarily, to unreasonable heights before sinking once more. It couldn’t be Dad. Even if he had just stepped out for bagels and coffee and forgotten his key, he wouldn’t be knocking to get back in, he’d just be doing that weird thing with his shoulder and his knife to get it open.
So, if not Dad, then . . ?
Curiosity warred with cleanliness, and completion of her routine won out.
“Hang on!” she called around a mouthful of minty foam. “Jushha theck.”
A quick splash and rinse, and she headed for the door. Maybe Mrs. Farraday had made muffins again. Her stomach rumbled hopefully as she put her eye to the peep hole.
Not Mrs. Farraday. Some . . . guy. She drew her face away from the door, rose up onto the balls of her feet and backed up a few very quiet steps.
“Yeah?”
A pause. Then,
“Uh. Delivery.”
Addie blinked. “Dude, you’re not even in uniform.”
“Right. I mean . . . aw, to hell with it.” And then, to her horror, to her astonishment, he did the same thing her dad did with the scrape of metal in the lock, the thud of his shoulder applied at just the right spot, and . . . the door swung in.
The man standing there was on the medium-tall side, trimly built, with brownish-blondish hair cut in a classic Ivy League style. The only two points that told against his being a white collar worker fresh from an overpriced education were charcoal-colored jogging sweats and a month’s worth of beard growth fuzzing over the lower part of what was, by almost any measure, a disarmingly handsome face.
He smiled like he knew it.
“I guess that was the one part I didn’t really think through,” he said candidly, and stepped inside. He moved easily. Gliding, almost, just like . . . like Dad.
Shit.
Oh, shit.
Addie backed up until she bumped into something about waist-height, and stumbled to a stop. The intruder’s smile widened. He gently closed the door.
Felix was irritated that she had made him so easily. He should have brought a damn parcel or something. Said he needed her to sign for it. Not that it mattered in relation to the end goal, but he’d really liked the idea of her actually opening the door to admit him, and being the one who let him into her home. That had been something he wanted to point out to her, when it was all done: that she’d been the one to let him in.
But he was in all the same, and wasn’t that what counted?
In Jack Shea’s apartment, with Jack Shea’s kid, and he was going to enjoy this.
She was even cuter up close. And in her jammies, too. His eyes trailed appreciatively down her frame, taking in everything the camisole and brief, stripy shorts did nothing to hide. She was trim, her curves so far limited to the very subtle rounding of her backside and the modest swell of breasts still too pert to actually require a bra. If Felix was going to be picky about it, he would have preferred to see her with longer hair—something feminine, softening to that bright little face—but he had to admit the chin-length bob was probably the style which best suited.
Sweet.
Just like Adaline.
She had gathered her wits by this point. He tracked, with genuine pleasure, the way her line of sight shifted first to the door behind him, then to the living area on her right, then locked on him with strangely intense blankness. He guessed she’d be thinking about the kitchen window, which actually did let out onto a fire escape.
He wondered if she’d try to run for it. It almost might be worth the fun of letting her try . . . but the screams she might get out in the process were a higher risk than he’d prepared to calculate. Best not let her get any ideas.
“Do you know who I am, Adaline?”
Her eyes flickered, like her name was half a spell he’d been able to cast. She firmed her mouth.
“I can guess.”
Could she? He wondered. How much had her father even told her? Not everything, surely. Shea didn’t seem like the kind of dad who would confide in his kid even half of what he got up to when he wasn’t home with her. Vagaries, maybe, but specifics? Hell no.
“Yeah?”
He moved forward, eye contact unwavering. Testing her resolve. How grown up did she want to be about this? How grown up could she be, when she still looked like some fresh-faced hopeful auditioning for a Disney show?
“Well go on then.” He was about six, maybe five feet away from her. He could make out the outline of her nipples through the fabric of her camisole. Her chest was lifting and falling with the painful regularity of rigid self-control. “Guess.”
Some indication in his face or tone must have betrayed him, because in the half second before he’d reached for her, she leaped to the one side he had not anticipated and tore down the narrow corridor that led deeper into the apartment.
Toward the bedrooms.
Shit.
He was after her in a moment, but the girl was incredibly fast. She had reached the door at the end of the hall before he got within arm’s reach of her, and crashed through it before he could land a grip on any solid part. By the time he actually caught up with her and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her feet right off the floor, she had the drawer in the nightstand half-open.
He peeked inside, and smiled down at the gun she’d been trying to reach.
“Solid effort.”
With his left arm still banded securely around her waist, he reached down with his right, secured the gun and, bracing it awkwardly against his more occupied hand, checked the magazine.
“Now, I call that surprising. Your dad always struck me as the kind who’d go in big for safety. But look at him! Leaving this lying around when his little girl is home alone? That’s dangerous.”
As he spoke, he released the clip and let it drop to the rug before kicking it under the bed. A one-and-a-half handed check of the chamber to confirm it was empty, and he was satisfied. The gun he lobbed gently into the laundry hamper. “There. That’s better.”
He snugged her body close.
“Now there’s less chance you’ll get hurt.”
She trembled, and he was recalled, pleasurably, to his primary purpose.
“Gonna ask you again, Adaline. Do you know who I am?”
She rested mute in his encircling arm, the tips of her toes barely brushing the surface of the bedside rug. Her chest rose and fell beneath his pectoral muscle: a deep, mostly steady rhythm, if slightly erratic on the exhalation. Then she let her head fall forward, and her hair swished down to curtain the sides of her face.
She hung there a moment, silent; surrendered.
It was almost peaceful.
And it took him in completely.
The explosion of her head flying back to crack him in the cheek, missing his nasal bridge by less than an inch, took him completely off guard. The elbow that she jammed into his gut would have had him bent double if she’d been any taller at all: as it was, she took the wind out of him long enough to struggle loose and start for the bedroom window.
He tackled her just as she threw up the sash. She managed to throw half a scream to the alley, an abortive “FIR-“ before his hands wrapped around the lower part of her face and clamped her jaw shut.
She fought him the whole way down to the floor. He pinned her there, still surprised by the sheer suddenness and ferocity of the attack, and gave her a moment to register the futility of continuing to struggle before he spoke.
“Your dad teach you that?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“That was gym class.”
“And people say the public education system doesn’t pay enough attention to life skills,” he chuckled. She scowled, and he turned his attention to their surroundings. Clean—pristine, even. Old, prewar hardwood with a rug arranged squarely under the double bed. Dresser, bureau, desk . . . the walls were white, the bedspread a solid navy. No visible personal touches except a couple framed photographs on the usual surfaces.
“This is your dad’s room, huh?”
Adaline did not answer.
“Well. That suits me.” He caught her round the neck with one hand, hoisting her up off her back and shoving her back toward the bed. “I’m sure you’ve got a cute little room all your own, but I’ve gotta be honest,” her knees hit the foot of the bedframe and buckled, sending her over onto her back, “the idea of doing this to you in your father’s bed is too tempting to pass up.”
Panic flared in her eyes. He caught both her hands and raised them above her head, crossing them at the wrists and pinning them to the bedspread.
Her eyes darted frantically back and forth, and he waited patiently, letting her recognize the unavailability of any possible aid. Then he fit the forefinger of his free hand under her chin, and gently recaptured her focus.
“Now. Let’s try this again. Do you know who I am, Adaline?”
Her mouth firmed again. He grinned, pleased to recognize one of her mannerisms already.
“Your dad ever talk about his work?”
Still, she didn’t speak.
“Sure, fine. That’s all right. We don’t have to make small talk. I could just . . . get on with it, if you’d prefer.” He watched the way the smattering of freckles on her nose rippled and bunched as she scrunched up her face in revulsion. “Only I was curious. Your dad’s a real known quantity in his line of business. Anybody who really knows him there, that way? They’d know what this was about. They’d get why I had to do this. But you . . .” the free hand meandered from her chin to trail lightly down her neck. His forefinger eked out the shape of both her collarbones before hooking under her camisole strap, and easing it off her shoulder.
She shuddered.
“You’re not part of that world. Are you, Adaline?” He leaned in, intent. “He’s kept you out of it. Like, really out. And that’s incredible. That’s how good he is. That he could have you, keep you, as long as he has, and I’m just the first to find you? Even when he still comes here? Comes home to you, and does all the dad shit with nobody being the wiser? Adaline, he’s a fucking legend. You gotta understand that. This isn’t—I mean, I’m not just some . . . I want you to know, is all, that . . .”
Her lip curled in bitter understanding.
“You want me to be impressed that you’re the one who got the trophy.”
His understanding stumbled over the painful perception of hers.
“That . . . huh.” He drew back a little, reassessing her. “Huh.”
Trophy indeed.
“All right. Whatever it is, however much you know, about . . . him, here’s what you need to know about us. I am not, right now, planning to kill you. Not if you don’t make me. I’m liking the idea of him coming home and finding out that I’ve been here. Liking that the one who tells him has to be you. That’s all good. It means you get to survive this, if you try not to be really stupid about it.”
She regarded him steadily from her position on the bed. Abruptly, she laughed.
“Are you asking me not to hurt you?”
He blinked.
“I . . . guess I am. Not to try to, anyway. None of the really stupid stuff. You want to try, give yourself some kind of satisfaction, I mean, go for it. But I like both your eyes open, personally. Wouldn’t want to see them swollen shut. I’m liking how you have all the teeth left in your head, too. You know? If you don’t make me change any of that just to calm you down, don’t you think that would be for the best?”
She turned her head to the side for a minute, staring at the bedroom door. It still stood ajar.
Then her gaze shifted slightly, and he saw she was staring at the phone by the bedside table.
“Yeah, going for that would definitely count as a smackable offence,” he agreed. “At the very least. So. You getting it? Gonna be a good girl? I’m not looking for a lapdance and blowjob, or anything. I don’t expect you to tell me I’m the best you ever had, or some shit like that. I just need to you convince me you’re not angling for a—”
Her eyes flicked back again, in the direction of the phone, and for a moment he was actually bracing for the blow he imagined she was about to land. Then he looked again, and he realized it wasn’t just the phone that had caught her attention. It was the digital clock beside it.
Oh.
Oh.
“You clever girl,” he breathed. Then he grabbed her by the neck, heaved her up onto the pillows and pinned her in place with a knee on her chest. One pillow he caught up in both hands and pressed firmly down over her face. She really did fight him then, but with all the unreasoning instinct of panic, so most of the blows she landed missed all vital areas quite widely. He held the pillow in place with a forearm draped across it, bearing down with enough weight that her struggles became markedly less fierce, though it felt like the panic increased.
He leaned over, grabbed the phone from the cradle and, realizing he had no idea of the number he needed, was reduced to going through the automated directory assistant and requesting connection. Next he had to navigate the digital switchboard of Adaline’s school, took a wrong technical turn and ended up carefully backtracking to the main menu from a recording detailing that week’s cafeteria offering.
“You could have had a turkey wrap,” he informed the pillow under his elbow. “Sounds like you’re not missing much.”
At last he managed to navigate back to the correct menu, and chose the option he was after.
“To report a planned absence,” the electronic voice at the other end of the line invited him, “at the sound of the tone give the student’s ID and the reason for the absence.”
“Um,” he said, as the tone sounded, “Adaline Shea. She’s not feeling well. Thought we’d better keep her home today. Keep an eye on things. She should be back tomorrow.”
Then he disconnected, tossed the phone to join the unloaded gun in the laundry basket, and peeled the pillow off Adaline’s face.
He smiled down at her, letting her suck in deep, shaking lungsful of air. He used the pad of his thumb to disarrange the flattened track of her tears.
“Now. Where were we?”
Addie couldn’t decide if she’d rather he just be a completely violent asshole or not. She didn’t want to be hurt. Didn’t want him to black her eyes or knock out her teeth or even slap her. But she thought it might almost be easier, somehow, if he would hit her and hurt her and make it clear what would happen if she didn’t do everything he said. Maybe then she’d know in her head how to think about it all.
Because as long as he was this way, affable and grinning and looking at her lying there while he shucked off his black T shirt to reveal some kind of Abercrombie model physique, this was all too . . . weird. Too fucking weird. Like the guy who was dropping his pants to stand in his boxers, studying her appreciatively, was some college student she’d brought home for fun, the way her friends at school sometimes whispered about doing.
Everything in her head was rolling around in an endless loop, a list crumpled up into a ball with no discernible beginning or end. His smile, his stupidly handsome face, the things around the apartment she could run for and try to use as weapons, the way he was looking at her as he lowered his boxers, the faint hope generated by the fact that he hadn’t given her student number on the message, so maybe, just maybe, they would still send the safe arrival text to her Dad . . .
And then he was talking to her. Saying something. Asking her . . .
“—I can do it myself, if you’d rather. But I thought maybe you might want to do it instead.”
Strip. He wanted her to strip. Her cami and shorts, and then she’d be lying there wearing nothing. And he’d see. And suddenly it really was too much, and she was crying, and he was climbing on top of her warm and hard and his hands were horrifically gentle as he lifted her top up over her head and pressed his lips to her nipple.
She cried harder.
“Shh, shh,” he said, running a hand down the side of her face. “I know. It’s not going to be how you pictured it, is it? Unless—I mean, maybe it’s not your first time?”
She looked away, and hiccupped.
“Right. Well, I know you probably had something a little more romantic in mind, but I’ll see what I can do.”
So saying, he dropped down so his gaze was about level with her navel. His hands played with the lace hem of her little linen PJ shorts, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “God, these are adorable.”
Then he slid them down too, and she had no defenses left, not even something as flimsy as a linen-cotton blend, to shield her from his gaze.
“Mm,” he sighed, and dropped his lips to—
She sucked in her breath and did a half-curl without even thinking about it. Her knee knocked into his chest, not hard like she’d meant to do it, but not gently either. He sighed, waited for her to relax, and set a gentle palm on her stomach.
“I know you’re trying, Adaline. But so am I. I could have just—well. There’s no rules here, really, are there? Except the ones I make. So it would be nice if you could recognize I am taking a lot of trouble, here. I’ve had a while to think out how I want this to go, and you should know the ending I have in mind for you is by far the best one you were going to get. So let’s not make me second guess any of that, okay? Just settle in. Relax, if you can.”
He resettled between her legs like he was pulling up a chair at the table.
“Let’s see if we can’t help you enjoy this.”
She was genuinely, bewitchingly, adorable. Every inch of her. That was the problem, Felix thought, as he returned to drink in the sight and smell of her pussy, lightly fuzzed, and neatly trimmed on both sides. Somebody like this . . . it was difficult. Necessary, sure, but her being such a fucking delight made it harder for him to hurry up and get it over with, to decrease the risk of staying in Shea’s apartment one minute longer than he had to, because Shea’s kid was stretched out in front of him like a banquet feast and Felix was enjoying himself too fucking much.
It was only fair that Adaline enjoy herself a little, too.
“How do you touch yourself, Adaline? Hmm? What do you prefer?”
There was a blank, mortified silence. He stroked the top of her mons, featherlight.
“Nice and soft, like that?”
The silence yawned above him. It was punctuated, at last, with another wet little hiccup.
“No, hmm? Well maybe you go in for more of the rougher stuff.” He slapped her, then. Not like he’d crack her if she were actually fighting him, but sharp enough to make her shriek and writhe against the urge to curl up again. She was learning, he noted approvingly. Good.
“Like that, do you?” He slapped her pussy again, testing. She had her jaw clenched and was breathing wetly through her teeth. Fighting her every urge to fight him. “Mm. Have to admit, I like it, too. Spread your legs, honey. Let’s give you a good working over.”
She shook her head pleadingly even as she parted her legs to him. The demure little slit gaped, slightly. Something wet and pink beckoned promisingly, but he was as good as his word, and instead slapped her again, lightly, focusing his attention where he judged it was doing the most good.
Three, four, five smacks he gave her, the last one directly on her clit. At the end of it, the mild abuse had reduced her to tense silence and her labia were flushed a bright, responsive red.
“I think we can do better than that,” he decided, and lowered his face to take a deep, preparatory breath of her before setting his lips to the little clit he had just woken up.
She jerked underneath him again, but it was more a helpless twitch than any actual effort to escape, so he didn’t remark on it.
Besides, his mouth was full.
Addie squirmed miserably under the assault. She had never imagined . . . well she knew of course. In a read-things-in-books kind of way. And she had figured out how to make herself feel good, obviously, and did, when she wanted to.
But this was different.
This was his mouth, and his tongue, and it was hot and wet and almost impossibly . . . how could this feel good? When she didn’t want it, when she hated even knowing it was happening, how could it feel good? She longed to push him away, but what worse would he do, then? Wasn’t it stupid, to try to fight what felt good just because it did, and bring on . . . what else?
She wrestled with this problem until the tension between her legs hummed and narrowed to something tighter and sweeter than was possible to ignore. She tried—tried—to force it back, to hold it at bay, but just like the man giving it to her, the feeling was stronger than she was.
She came, sobbing, her hands flying up to cover her face as if not being visible in that small way would be enough to pretend it had happened to somebody else.
He made her stop, though. He climbed up on top of her, took her wrist in one hand and tugged her hand back from her face. Forced her to look up and see his smile.
“Hey,” he said gently. “That was good. You did really well.”
He trailed the back of one finger over the tightened nipple of one breast, and she shivered.
“Do you want to take a minute? Before . . .”
She needed to throw up. She definitely needed—
“The bathroom.” It came out of her a choked, hoarse whisper. “I need to use—”
“Sure,” he nodded, all sympathy and bedside manner, “sure, I get that. Let’s go, then.”
She staggered a little when her feet hit the floor, but his hand around her upper arm steadied her. He guided her down the hall, and she let him. Didn’t fight, or question, until they got to the bathroom and she turned to shut the door.
He slapped a firm palm against the panels, and raised an eyebrow in mild reproof.
“Adaline. You didn’t really think . . ?”
She flushed bright red. All over. She could feel her blush cover her, saw in his awful, open amusement that he could see it too, and she felt tears well up again.
“You can’t—no, I can’t, not while . . .”
“Then I’m afraid you won’t be able to. It’s with an audience, or not at all.”
She looked from him, to the toilet, then back again. She no longer felt the urge to vomit, but she still felt sick. At last, with a broken little sob, she sank onto the toilet and hid her face and peed.
He didn’t comment. That was the only way she was able to get through it. To wipe and wash her hands, and carefully look everywhere but the mirror . . . his silence was just enough to let her pretend he wasn’t there, until she had to turn and look at him again and for the first time see exactly how much he was enjoying himself.
Once she started looking at his erection, she couldn’t seem to stop. He followed her gaze, and laughed.
“Oh, she likes what she sees, does she?” He took it in one hand, and her hand in the other. “Do you want to touch it, Adaline?”
She jerked her hand back and cradled it against her chest.
“Aw come on,” he grinned, ducking his head a little to catch her mortified gaze. “I saw you looking. You getting a little worked up yourself, maybe? You wouldn’t be the first girl, if you are.”
She turned her head to break his stare, but ended up looking directly in the mirror. The blank, hopeless look on her face was even worse.
Before she had to decide where to look next, he took the decision from her. Took her by the hand, pulled her out of the bathroom to stand in front of him, and angled her so she was looking back down the hallway.
“Now,” he spoke softly over her shoulder. His breath warmed her ear. “You get to decide, Adaline: your bedroom, or your dad’s? Which one would you like me to use when I fuck you?”
The absurdity of him calling this a choice made hysterical giggles bubble up. She tamped them down ruthlessly. And she realized it actually was not a difficult decision.
The idea of picking her father’s bed was uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared to the prospect of having to sleep in her own bed after he’d . . .
“Dad’s,” she whispered.
“Hmm?” he prompted gently. “A little louder?”
“Dad’s bed.” Her voice cracked over the second word, and he laughed.
“Oh good.” He caught her under the backs of the knees and scooped her up like he was carrying his bride home from the church. “I was really hoping you’d say that.”
Then he carried her down the hall, back to her father’s bedroom, and closed the door.
He took his time arranging her on the bed. It was self-indulgent, he knew, but it gave him an excuse to touch every part of her, to run his hands along the taut muscles of her calves, to linger over the softness of her stomach and palm each of her breasts; give a slow, deliberate squeeze, and watch the tears spring into her eyes, even as she struggled against the urge to resist.
“You have amazing self control,” he observed, stroking her hair softly before pushing it well back from her face. He didn’t want to miss a single tear or facial tic as he pushed inside her. “That come from your dad too, I expect?”
Again, the precious thinning of her lips as she clenched them against the answer she didn’t want to give. He chuckled, and climbed on top of her.
The head of his erection nudged at the mouth of her cunt, and he exerted a little self control of his own.
“You can cry if you have to. But no screaming, Adaline. Do you think you can handle that? If not, I can gag you first.”
She licked her lips, and his cock twitched.
“N-no,” she whispered. The bleak, helpless resignation in her eyes was almost as delicious as the sweet, wet heat emanating from the core of her. “I won’t scream.”
“Of course not,” he agreed, pressing forward. “Big girl like you. Why would you scream?” His eyes caught hers, and he twinkled provokingly. “I think you’re even a little wet down here, honey. Little excited, huh?”
Her upper lip tried to curl its revulsion, but in the end the tremble of the bottom lip won out.
“Stop,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she meant the teasing or the fuck, but whatever. Kid was having a hell of a day. No sense making this harder on her than it had to be.
“It’ll all be over soon,” he promised. With one hand, he wet the head of his cock on her. Guided it to where it needed to be . . . and pushed in.
She wouldn’t scream, she wouldn’t scream, she wouldn’t—
But it hurt.
Oh God, it hurt.
Addie screamed.
The kid screamed, and Felix sighed. He knew she couldn’t help it, but he also really didn’t want to shoot the Farradays or whoever came running to investigate, either. Much harder to clean up a pile of bodies like that than leave one crying girl behind him, after all.
He reached for the pillow—but she was shaking her head at him, sobbing, hiccuping, pressing her own knuckles into her mouth and stifling the scream. She looked up at him pleadingly, eyes wide and awash with tears, and he raised an eyebrow.
“You sure?”
She nodded fiercely. All right, then. Let her have it her way.
He drove his hips forward, glorying in the hot, wet vice of her cunt. How could somebody who had no fucking clue what they were doing make him feel so good?
She whimpered beneath him, but no more screams. Pleased, he stroked into her with short, aggressive thrusts. This part wasn’t really something he was interested in making easier for her. The resistance of her cunt, independent of her weeping obedience to his demands, was its own allure. The cunt wanted to put up a fight, and he was ready to fight it. Leave her with something to remember him by, even if it was only the way she had to walk afterwards as she headed, stiff-legged, to the phone.
To tell her dad who had been there, and what he’d done . . .
He groaned in two different kinds of anticipation. The thought of the look on Shea’s face . . .
Shit, how was he this close already? He was pretty sure he hadn’t even bottomed out yet, though given how tight she was, it was damn hard to say for sure.
He looked down in bemusement, slowing his pace to delay the inevitable, and took a moment to enjoy the sight of her.
She was looking at him, but he couldn’t be sure she was seeing him. There was a distant glassiness behind the tears, like she was somewhere else entirely. A bit rude. He frowned, and gave her nipple a little twist. She gasped, and came fully back to herself, flinching deeper into the mattress—her father’s mattress—in a vain effort to get away.
“You’re going to stay with me for this,” he explained. Firm, but not unkind. “You’re going to tell your father everything. You understand? It’s why you get to live, Adaline. Because of what you’ll be alive to describe to him.”
Disgust simmered in her stare, but disgust meant she was paying attention. He could handle that.
“Now, sweetheart,” he gripped her hips, “I need to you aim that sweet little pussy right up at me.”
A moment’s hesitation, then she obeyed. Canted her hips up, and gave him full access. He grinned. “Glad you’re not a tease, anyway.” Then he firmed his grip on her hips and pounded into her with a vengeance.
Her tits bounced with every thrust, and the sounds she made every time he rammed into the very back of her cunt were like quiet, agonized music. Sweet little whimpers and cries, spilling out the sides of her mouth. He wished there was a way that Shea could hear her. Know what his kid sounded like when she had Felix inside her, pounding her cunt as he held her down on her father’s bed, where just minutes ago he’d eaten her to orgasm and tears.
The thought of the look on Shea’s face was what did it. He fell on top of her with a groan and came, shaking, bearing her down into the mattress as he emptied out into that sweet, squeezing little pussy.
For a moment the room was nearly silent, except for his gasps and her soft, wet sobs. Then the quiet, electronic chime nearly sent him out of his skin. He jerked around, searching . . .
The phone.
The phone in the laundry hamper.
He looked down to where she lay on the bed, eyes darting back and forth between him and the ringing hamper, and wrapped one hand around her throat.
“Who is it?”
“How should I—”
He shook her roughly by the neck.
“Don’t fucking try that on me. Who is it, probably?”
She swallowed.
“Dad.”
His hand clenched.
“Why?”
She coughed and gurgled. He eased his grip and repeated the question.
“Because. When you called the school, you didn’t give my ID.”
A number. Christ, it was a number. Not her name . . . shit. For a moment cold panic trickled down his spine. Then he calmed.
Shea was on a plane. Or off it by now, maybe, depending on where he had gone. But wherever he was, he was not going to make it home in time to end this on his terms. Felix had more than enough time to do this right. In fact . . .
He drew back. Pulled out of her—and that was almost painful. She felt so sweet on his cock—and gestured at the hamper.
She stared.
“Well?” He gestured again. “Don’t keep your father waiting, Adaline. Go answer the phone.”
Slowly, stiffly, like she expected this was some kind of trick, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet. Her knees nearly gave out on her, he was pleased to note. Took her a moment to get control of them. Then she crossed, shakily, to bend over the hamper—he got a glorious look at the wet mess he’d made of her cunt—and retrieve the phone.
She held it. Looked at him.
“Go on,” he said patiently. “Answer it.” He settled onto the bed, enjoying himself again. “Put it on speaker.”
She did as she was told.
Jack had suspected Addie might skip today, so when the automated text lit up his phone the second they touched down and he took it off airplane mode, he wasn’t actually that panicked. She usually took his departures pretty hard, and for the past couple years had taken to skipping school the next day.
He was still going to check, of course. But this time when she told him she’d needed time to herself, he resolved that he was not going to yell. He’d put her through enough as it was.
He put the call through as he was deplaning, but her cell went to voicemail. He frowned. Heading down the concourse, he tried it a second time, with no more luck than before. Well, maybe she was in the bathroom. Or . . .
He stopped walking. Stepped away from the main flow of traffic, sheltering in an alcove. Then he called the apartment.
This time, although it took quite a few rings, she picked up. He sighed in naked relief.
“Jesus, Addie, you scared me there.”
She made no response; just breathed, a little brokenly, like she’d been crying. He grimaced.
“Honey, look, we’ve talked about this. I know you find it hard, but you can’t just cut school. What kind of habits do you want to form for your senior year, anyway? You’ve got to think about that.”
She whimpered. He flinched back from the phone like she’d struck him.
“Addie, look, I’m sorry. It’s—it is what it is, you know that. I’m sorry.”
He waited, hopeful. Then came the sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“That was a beautiful apology, Adaline. I think you should accept it. Don’t you?”
“The fuck—”
“Shea! Sorry. Should have told you it was a conference call at the start. But I’m afraid I left my manners in my pants, and as it happens . . . I left those on the floor.” A delicate pause. “Quite some time ago.”
The room around Jack coalesced on the phone he held to his ear. On the sound of his daughter’s soft weeping, and the light, mocking voice that seemed to wrap around them both.
“I don’t know what you think you’ll achieve by this—”
“I’m sorry, was the line about my pants too subtle? Mea culpa, Jack. Very well, let’s have . . . sorry, what was it you called her?” A new note of interest lit the man’s voice. “Addie? Sweetheart, that is perfect. Adorable. Just like you.”
He paused.
“And she is adorable, Jack. Every inch of her. Inside and out.”
Jack fisted his free hand.
“So, Addie, let’s start by telling Dad what you’re wearing.”
She gulped, but did not speak. The male voice took on a low, persuasive tone.
“What did we say earlier, Addie? About the reason I was going to let you live?”
She sobbed, then. His baby girl just sobbed, and the reassurances and promises and threats spilled out of Jack like somebody had pulled a plug.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s fine. Tell me. Just do what he says. Tell me. And you listen to me, you sonofabitch,” with new venom, “if you think I won’t bury you for this—”
“I dunno, Jack. Is threatening the man alone in your house with your naked daughter really the power play you want to make right now?”
Jack stopped.
“Good. Now, Addie, why don’t you do as your father said, and tell him . . . everything?”
Her voice was thin and hopeless.
“I’m . . . not . . . wearing anything.”
“Mmm. And what did I do to you?”
“You—he—touched me.”
“No points for powers of description, Adaline,” the man said, and the note of mild warning in his voice sent a finger of ice tracing down Jack’s spine. He knew that voice. Where had it been? Tel Aviv?
Addie was struggling through the details, with his help.
“His mouth—he put his mouth on my—my . . .”
Jack held the phone away for a moment, in an effort to settle his stomach.
“. . . and licked me.”
“What did you do when I licked your pussy, Addie?”
She didn’t answer. Then came the horrible smack, and the low, pleasant voice again.
“Tell your father what you did when I licked your pussy, Addie. Tell him that you came all over my face like you’d been waiting your whole life for a man to eat you out.”
She was weeping around the words so much he could barely make them out, but that didn’t make it any better. Line by agonizing line, Jack listened to his daughter recount her violation at the hands of the man who had found her.
“. . . and then he fucked me,” she whispered, parroting the lines her captor fed her with an eerie, steady patience that did nothing to calm Jack’s nerves. “And he c-came inside me. And then . . . you called.”
“Mm, yes,” the man sighed, when she finished, “you called. Stayed local this time did you, Jack? Or was that just a connecting flight?”
“Stay put,” Jack suggested, his tones deeper and colder than he’d had cause to make them in a very long time. “I’ll tell you in person.”
Appreciative laughter spilled from the phone.
“Jack! You and your girl . . . seriously. The pair of you. Loving it. Of course I’m not going to be here when you get back. But she is! Isn’t that great? You have no idea how lucky you are, that I am letting you keep her. It could have gone so much worse for both of you. I really wanted it to, but . . . well. You know your little girl, Jack.” Eerily genuine warmth lit the man’s tone as he finished, “she’s a keeper.”
The only reply Jack could think of making to that would need to be delivered with his fists, so he stayed silent.
“Hurry home,” the man at the other end of the line advised. “She’ll be waiting.”
Then he hung up.
Felix waited.
Call it a fucked up combination of sentiment and self-gratification, but he wanted to watch the man come home. So he had lingered over the shower—he made her join him. She hated it. It was precious—and took his time getting dressed. Then he tied her to a kitchen chair, kissed the tip of her nose, and let himself out.
He waited on the roof across the street until Jack came home, took the front steps two at a time and disappeared in the main door.
Adaline was tied to a chair in clear view of the window, so he had a perfect view of Jack kneeling before her, kissing her forehead, cutting her ropes and wrapping his coat around her. Then he led her away from the window, out of sight, but that was fine. Felix had gotten all he wanted from the encounter. Shea was home, he’d seen her, Felix had seen him see her . . . they’d have a new address by nightfall, no doubt, but Felix had everything he needed.
Humming a fractured tune, he let himself down the fire escape on the other side of the roof, joined the afternoon foot traffic, and lost himself in the crowd.