“No sign of her, boss, and we’re starting to draw suspicion from the amount of time we’re spending at this marina. Are you sure this is where your PI got a bead on her?” Joe Marcel asked.
Anger followed swiftly on the heels of disappointment when he heard Joe’s answer. Where the fuck was that troublemaker? “I’ll check with him again, but he seemed positive, and the description he gave me was spot on except for the hair. She must’ve had it cut, which isn’t a surprise. My guy is sure the call she made to her mother two weeks ago came from southern Florida, and instructing the private investigators to concentrate their search on marinas first only made sense. Cassandra worked her way through college at a river dock office.”
“Maybe she didn’t see me off Johnson. Could be she heard us and left. That’s just heresay, and your contacts can easily disabuse anything she says without proof.”
“I don’t take chances with ‘maybes.’ You should know that,” he snapped, his frustration evident in the whiplash of his tone. “Especially not now that Johnson’s body has surfaced. I want her found and dealt with. You and Clifford go check out some other marinas, those closest to that one, for a few days while I check back with the PIs. I have to be careful not to overplay the worried stepfather excuse. With no sign of foul play implied with her disappearance, and a record of her sabbatical from work, it was hard enough getting someone to take the case of a missing adult. Get back with me in a few days.”
Jacques hung up without waiting for a reply, confident his instructions would be met. He’d made sure he employed only the most trustworthy when it came to his lucrative side business of drug selling. And when one slipped through the cracks and tried to stab him in the back, like Johnson had when he’d withheld part of a payment from a sale, he sent a message to the others by taking him out fast. He’d worked too long and too hard to build up his little empire by greasing the right palms in the right places to keep him under the radar of the local cops to let his bitch stepdaughter ruin everything now.
Swiveling his chair around, he gazed out the wide window overlooking his two-acre backyard. The pool glistened in the early morning sunlight, neat rows of pruned shrubs and flowers still in bloom lined the covered patio and walk down to the pool. He came from money, a lot of it, and grew up pampered and spoiled. It was a lifestyle he wasn’t willing to give up when the markets crashed the dot-com bubble he’d invested a heavy sum in and lost in 2000. It still amazed him, seventeen years later, how easy and profitable the drug trade was, and it hadn’t taken him long to recoup his losses and pay off his debts. By then, he’d been sucked into doing business with men even more ruthless than he and used that as an excuse for staying in the illegal business when the truth was he loved the power and money.
His marriage to Victoria had been icing on his empire’s cake, her husband’s sudden heart attack and death giving him the opening he’d waited two years for. His infatuation with her had begun with a chance encounter on voting day and he’d looked into those guileless green eyes as he’d registered. Neither her marital status nor the fact she had a fifteen-year-old daughter deterred him from first fantasizing about her then stalking her in a subtle, non-threatening manner.
Her rather naïve, trusting nature meant she never suspected their chance encounters at her frequent haunts such as the grocery and library were anything but coincidence and his inquiries about her family and activities anything but polite chit-chat.
Jacques had never wanted a woman the way he had and still did Victoria, but her daughter was a different matter. Cassandra’s dislike and mistrust of him had been a thorn in his side for the entire ten years of their marriage, and he’d given up long ago trying to bring her around. He didn’t know for sure why she’d dropped by the manor out of the blue that evening over a month ago, but suspected it had something to do with Billy, the imbecile son Victoria had saddled him with. The strong attachment she felt toward the boy continued to baffle him. Settling Billy in the specialized school had been the best thing for his marriage as the boy took too much of Victoria’s attention away from Jacques, but he saw now it had been akin to waving a red flag in front of his stepdaughter’s face.
A knock on his office door drew his attention, Victoria’s timid voice announcing, “It’s me,” wringing a smile from him. He’d trained her well to not only stay out of his private space, but not to enter without his explicit invitation if he was inside.
“Come in, sweetheart.”
At forty-eight, Victoria was still a striking woman, the sight of her lush body and shy look never failing to stir his cock. Her neediness not only boosted his ego, but had played nicely into wooing her into a quick marriage when he’d taken advantage of her grief-stricken state upon her husband’s death.
“Where are you off to this morning?” Holding out his hand, he beckoned her over.
“I’ve got the Guild meeting and lunch, but wanted to see if there’d been any word.”
She settled on his lap, a small shudder running through her body when he tightened his arms around her.
“You know I’d tell you right away if there had,” he chided her, slipping his hand down the scooped neck of her frilly top. Filling his hand with the lush fullness of her breast, he pinched the nipple hard enough to make her jump and divert her attention from Cassandra’s disappearance. “Why don’t you give me a little sugar before you go, take both our minds off our daughter’s behavior.” He’d gotten adept at dropping hints Cassandra’s silent absence was her own selfish doing.
“I… I’m not sure I… have time,” she whispered before ending on a long moan as he shoved her skirt up and ripped her panties off.
“But you’ll make time, won’t you?” He phrased it as a request, but his hard tone and forceful push spreading her soft thighs turned it to a demand.
“Of course… Jacques!”
She wasn’t wet enough to take his three-fingered thrust comfortably, but that didn’t slow him down. Delving deep and hard, he found her clit and pressed, her hips arching up into his hand. The small release of cream was good enough for him and he turned her to face the desk, pushing on her back until her torso lay flat. “Lift up, sweetheart.” She didn’t argue, pressing down on her feet and lifting enough for him to release his cock before grasping her hips and slamming her down on his erection. He relished her whimper of discomfort, his dick jerking with a spurt of pre-come already.
“That’s it, Victoria, come on, baby, ride my cock, show me how much you love me, need me.”
“Oh, I do, Jacques, you know I do,” she cried out, her tone laced with desperation he fed on.
“Sometimes I wonder though. When all you talk about are the kids, it hurts. You need to do better making me happy.” Controlling her hips, he thrust up into her cunt with ruthless force, as if he could compel her to feel more for him than she did her children. “You need to come now or get left behind. I want you too much to slow down.” Tossing her that crumb worked in his favor as she coated his pistoning cock with a rush of juices followed by small ripples of her slick muscles around his girth. “There you go, that’s my girl.”
Now, if only he could bury the threat Cassandra posed, along with her, he’d have his world all tied up in a nice neat bow, Jacques thought as he exploded in pleasure inside his wife.
Zach slipped behind the helm, sipping his piping hot coffee as he brought the engine to life. Clouds rolled on the far horizon, the weather report he’d radioed for hinting at a mild, incoming storm. Since no threatening conditions were associated with the small group of rain clouds, there was nothing to be concerned about. Instead, the topsy-turvy weather matched his mood, and he welcomed a bit of distracting turmoil. Guilt-ridden, sleepless nights were nothing new to him and usually a bout of dominant sex went a long way toward ensuring he got a peaceful night’s sleep. Not so last night.
After returning to his own stateroom, he’d fallen into an uneasy sleep plagued with memories he’d just as soon forget. His out-of-control, teenage behavior and
the grief it had caused his mother weighed on his conscience even now, all these years later. As irrational as he knew it was, sometimes he wondered if the stress he’d caused his mother during that time aided in the early onset of her Alzheimer’s. For years after his grandfather had sought him out, he had financial means to atone for the trouble he created, the old man granting him access to enough money to see to Carol’s every comfort as a way to make up for the lack of child support from his neglectful son.
But no amount of money could cure Carol or even ease her suffering. He could pinpoint his slow decline in interest in the financial institution he’d inherited with her diagnosis, as well as his reluctance to get involved with anyone other than the six members of his brotherhood. His relationships with women didn’t go past a few hours or an overnight of sex, and he liked it that way. So, what was it about Sandie that had wormed its way past his irritation and brought his failures to the surface?
He’d planned this first voyage in the new yacht as a solo get-away from what he couldn’t change, a few days of mindless drifting away from the phone and all socialization, and even his well-meaning friends, to come to grips with the inevitable. With his last visit to the home, Zach could no longer deny or set aside his mother’s fast approaching death and the pain of that acknowledgement made him want to lash out. He should feel a twinge of remorse for his harsh treatment of Sandie when he’d first found her in his bed, but he didn’t. She was the interloper, not he. But now that the displeasure of her intrusion on his pity-party had taken a surprising turn into pleasure, he had to decide which he desired more, spending the next few days burying his grief in her body or to continue wallowing in anger at the injustice of his mother’s plight.
Changing their course from due east to southwest, Zach wondered how she’d react to bare exposure if they happened by another vessel. The new route would bring them closer to the mainland, but south of Miami, where he was familiar with a private beach on Bimini they could cruise by and get an eyeful of naked bodies that might help shed any inhibitions or reluctance on her part. Of course, she could surprise him again, the way the small sign of submission her acceptance of his spanking had, along with her eager responses to his rough fucking last night. He didn’t know what she was running from or hiding from, and still didn’t care, but if they could both enjoy a day or two of comfort from their troubles, why not? Had to be a better way to go than to be constantly at odds with her.
Speak of the little devil. A deep, indrawn breath heralded Sandie’s presence above deck a second before she popped her head inside the cockpit. “Mind if I join you—oh, can I have a sip of your coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, she swung up into the co-captain’s chair dressed in another plain tee shirt, this one bright green, and set her drawing pad and pencils on her lap before picking up his cup.
“It’s cold,” he warned her, but she took a long drink anyway, sighing in pleasure as she returned it to the cup holder. Eyeing those smooth legs curling under her brought back the memory of the tight clasp of her soft thighs around his back and forced him to look away, at least for the time being.
“That’s okay, I just needed the caffeine kick to get the mind to wake along with the body. God, I’ll never get used to what that sight does to me,” she murmured, her gaze riveted on the endless blue ocean. “The front of the boat looks a lot bigger from here.”
“The bow,” he corrected her.
“Huh?”
Pointing out the glass pane, Zach gave her a quick lesson on nautical terms. “The front end of a boat is the bow, and if you’re moving that way, it’s called going forward. The rear is the stern, going aft if you’re walking toward that end. Right now, we’re moving ahead. If I reverse course, move backwards, we’ll be going astern.”
“And I need to know this why?”
Sending her a sideways look he hoped spoke volumes about his intentions here on out, he stated, “Because you’re on my yacht. Listen up, there might be a quiz later and if you miss anything, I’ll have to punish you.”
She giggled and his lips turned up in a small grin. “You certainly take this spanking thing seriously.”
“Baby, you have no idea. Now, if you’re standing in the stern looking forward, the entire right side is the starboard side, the entire left, the port side. The front right side of the yacht is the starboard bow, the front left, port bow. The right rear, the starboard quarter, the left rear is the port quarter. We’re sitting at the helm.”
“I knew that one.”
The mention of punishing her diverted Sandie’s attention in that direction and her buttocks clenched in response. Or maybe her mind had never left the gutter since her body still pulsed with the remnants of pleasure Zachary wrought from her last night. She didn’t recall much of the nightmare that roused her to his presence on the bunk, but she’d never forget the way he took her over, his control and body driving her to heights of fear-forgetting ecstasy she already ached to experience again.
The sudden urge to bend over his lap, release his cock and take him in her mouth pushed her to divert her attention. Flipping open her sketchpad, she withdrew a drawing pencil, keeping her gaze on the vista as she drew and spoke at the same time.
“If you don’t work, or have an interest in where your money comes from, what the heck do you do with your time? Other than cruise the Atlantic by yourself when I’m not on board.” His silence caused her to look over in time to catch his furrowed brow above those cobalt eyes before he startled her with his abrupt demand.
“Take off your shirt before I answer. Bra too.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to have to come up with a different response when I give you an order. It’s simple. I haven’t seen your breasts yet, and I want to. If you’ll recall, I told you, any involvement with me is about what I want, when I want it. Change your mind already?” he taunted.
“Not hardly.” Sandie found it awkward as well as embarrassing to pull her tee shirt over her head then remove her bra with his intense gaze focused on her, but the fresh breeze wafting across her exposed skin, the sun warming flesh that had never been exposed to its rays, worked to arouse her much the same as the flare of lust in his eyes. “Now are you going to answer my question?” Picking up her pencil again, she acted like she wasn’t affected by her near naked state or didn’t care whether he answered or not.
Shrugging, he replied with bored indifference, “I’m a rich playboy, I do whatever pleases me that day. Meeting friends at a club, golfing, taking my yacht out.”
She fought to suppress the smile pulling at her lips. He was such an ass. “No charities you donate time to? I thought all wealthy people got involved with pet projects, you know, to make them look good.”
“Maybe I don’t care how I appear to others.”
She laughed outright at that arrogant comment. “Now, that I believe.”
Not liking how her questions shed light on his self-centered lifestyle, a way of life that had never bothered him before, Zach reached over and tweaked her nipple. She had pretty breasts, just big enough to overflow his hand, soft yet sitting high and firm on her chest. Berry pink nipples looked as enticing as cherries on a mound of whipped cream. “Tell me what you did before working at the marina, because you haven’t been there long.”
Sandie shifted her eyes from him as she replied with a melancholy sigh. “I’m an art teacher, grade school kids, but I’m on sabbatical now.”
“For how long?”
That simple inquiry drew another smile from her, replacing the flicker of unhappiness in her eyes. “I can’t tell you, but only because I don’t know.”
Zach didn’t care for the uncustomary urge to dig deeper, the compulsion to erase the flitting signs of fear and sadness he kept catching on her face or in her expressive eyes. Just like he didn’t care for her knowing smirk when he’d revealed his own, self-indulgent lifestyle, a way of life he enjoyed, damn it.
Sex. That’s the only thing he wanted from her, and it
was time he led her back in that direction. First, a test as to how well she obeyed simple instructions. Slowing the engine, he reached over again and squeezed her breast. Her eyes widened and glazed with arousal as she looked at him and read his expression.
“There are a few lounges on the stern deck. Pick one, remove your panties, lie down and wait for me. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
She paused a moment, never looking away from him, then nodded and slipped off the seat, taking her shirt, pad and pencils with her. At least she quit carrying her backpack around, he thought, watching as she started toward the bow then executed a quick about face, tossed him a cheeky grin and moved aft. That smile tightened his abdomen, a response he ignored for lack of an explanation.
Zach resisted the temptation to check on Sandie, see if she was following his instructions, as he slipped into the common area. Striding across the large room, he opened a deep drawer under the curved sofa and rummaged through the packaged toys, searching for the best ones to torment her untried body with. Pulling out a dual set of bullet vibrators and nipple clamps, he then selected a single braided, leather spanker hanging on the wall next to an array of spanking implements.
He hesitated a moment, running his fingers down the twelve-inch, mini whip, wondering if the objects in his hands might be too intense for her inexperience. Not used to catering to an untutored submissive, he reminded himself she was the one to push him to this point and shoved aside his doubts. She could always stop him with a single word. When he told her no meant no, he’d never been more serious. He was an ass, not an abuser.
After making a stop in the galley to store a few more items in a small cooler, he tossed his shirt onto the booth, kicked off his deck shoes and returned topside with eager anticipation thrumming through his veins. Spotting Sandie lying naked on a lounge, in the exact position he’d ordered, halted him in mid-stride, his mouth going dry at the sight of her up-thrust breasts and surprisingly long legs for her short height.