Chapter One

 

Carol rammed her tongue against the cloth shoved in her mouth, desperately trying to push it out before her captor taped it in. She twisted her head away, but the fingers holding her nose pinched closed didn’t let go. Her lungs felt as though they’d burst and tears came unbidden to her eyes. A glimpse of silver out of the corner of her eye made her struggle even harder, but there was no recourse. He slapped the duct tape securely over her mouth even as her body arched and fought for air.

By the time the fingers were gone, the gag was secure. Even as her body sucked in air through her now-runny nose, Carol tried to get the cloth out of her mouth. But her lips were already stretched wide and held by the strips of duct tape he’d plastered over them. Her hair hung in her face, but that didn’t deter her captor. He had just taped over those as well, not caring that they would be pulled out of her head by the roots once the tape was removed.

This couldn’t be happening. This was the twenty-first century and she wasn’t rich. She struggled against the strong arms that held her, managing to kick one of them in the shins before she was thrown to the floor of the already-moving mini-van. The middle seat had been removed and as the vehicle turned a corner, she rolled onto her side to look at the men who had kidnapped her.

Three of them, she saw now. One driving, two in the back with her, one of them rubbing his shin where her foot had connected. She ignored the pain in her toes…where were her shoes? Had she lost them in the parking lot behind the store? Or here in the van? The handcuffs bit into her wrists; they were too tight and she knew the circulation to her fingers had been cut off to keep her from using them. Despite the pins and needles, she wiggled her fingers to keep them going as long as she could and tried to pull her hands around to the front as far as possible. She wanted this gag out.

“No way, bitch.” The shorter of the two in the back grabbed her shoulder and threw her face down. His voice was as rough as his hands, neither showing any kindness or caring. She’d gotten no more than a glimpse of cold blue eyes and an five o’clock shadow before he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. Carol cried out in protest as he gave his companion instructions. “Get her ankles. Bitch wants to kick, we’ll make it harder for her to do so.”

She tried to flail her legs, but the neo-Nazi’s strong hand in her hair kept her from being able to move much. She heard the sound of the duct tape before she felt it sticking to her naked ankles…why hadn’t she worn stockings today?...effectively wrapping them together and further taking away her ability to fight back.

The bully let go of her head and her body fell to the floor. She barely managed to turn her head in time and her cheek slammed against the floor, making her cry out again. But the gag effectively prevented more than a grunt to escape. Even as the cloth became soaked with her saliva, Carol automatically tried to push it out, but all she managed to do was compress it a little bit.

“Hood her.”

That came from the other guy in the back with her, the one who had bound her ankles. The one who had put his meaty hand over her mouth as she locked her car – was it only a few minutes ago? It seemed like an eternity since she’d driven up the wide alley that led to the back of her bookshop and parked the car. The shared area was employee parking for three businesses; a pizza shop not yet open, a lawyer who had court today…and her own shop. But today was Tuesday and the pizza shop’s usual delivery day. She’d seen the van and dismissed it as making a delivery to them, pulling into her parking place without another thought about it.

But then she’d turned her back on it to lock her car. The door had opened behind her and before she knew what was happening, a hand had closed over her mouth and she was pulled by strong arms inside. The door shut even as she fought for release, the vehicle pulling out of the alley even as her arms were handcuffed and her mouth gagged.

And now a black bag came down over her head, effectively cutting off whatever clues she might have been able to determine as they drove through the city streets. She thought they were headed to the expressway and when the van sped up, she knew her guess was correct. The hood was cinched around her throat, the drawstring more than snug and Carol stopped trying to figure out where they were going as she now tried to figure out how to keep breathing.

* * * * *

“Jake’s gonna have fun with this one,” Carl rubbed his shin where the woman’s toe had connected.

Len rubbed his hand absently over his bald pate. “Oh yeah…and so are we.” He’d been stalking the woman for two weeks, learning her habits and admiring her beauty.  Several times he’d visited her bookshop, just to get closer looks. He loved her eyes…dark brown pools of thought that told him there was more to her than the competent business owner she showed the world.

No tattoos – at least – none that showed. Pierced ears that rarely held earrings. No rings, but once a necklace. Not a showy woman at all. No makeup, but then again, she didn’t need it. The perpetual smile on her face engaged customers, her helpful friendliness kept them coming back.

Her height was pretty average…Jake’s dossier had pegged her at five foot, five, but Len thought she might be a bit shorter than that. She favored peasant blouses and long skirts and he’d discovered she wore her shoulder-length brown hair loose most of the time, except when she had hard, physical labor to do. Then she’d pull it back into an untidy ponytail that constantly escaped its tie. Well, she wasn’t going to escape the tie she was in now…handcuffs only came off with a key and the duct tape would have to be cut off.

Beside him, Carl reached down for the hem of the woman’s full skirt. Her flat sandals had fallen off almost right away and Carl had had to get back out of the van to pick them up while Len held onto her struggling body. Not that he minded. Best part of the job was what you got to hold in your hands.

“Leave-a her alone. You know-a the rules.”

Tony’s voice from the front made Carl pull his hand back. “Yeah, but it don’t hurt to peek now, does it?”

“You get more than a peek if you keep your dick in you-a pants. Master Jake – he don’t want his merchandise handled.”

Tony had worked for Jake nearly three years. At sixty, there weren’t too many employers who wanted to take on an older, out-of-work tradesman. Luck had brought him to Jake when the two of them commiserated about the state of the economy over beers. Two days later, Jake found Tony again and had offered to bring him into a new venture. Desperate for money and down on his luck, Tony had accepted. The pay was excellent…and the benefits better than any other company he’d worked for…ever. He could wait to get this beauty’s mouth around his cock…Jake would make it worth the wait.

Not far now. He swung the van around a cop car that had pulled over a speeder and grinned. If the cop only knew….

Leaving the expressway, Tony pulled the van onto the side streets across town from the upscale neighborhood where they’d bagged their catch. Rows of dilapidated houses and boarded-up storefronts faced the streets, punctuated with occasional alleyways that lead into even darker corners of the neighborhood. It was into one of these that Tony pulled the van, being careful not to scrape the mirrors on the buildings to either side.

The cul-de-sac at the end was the poor counterpart to the one they’d just left. Where those buildings rose in airy lines, opening the sky to light the large area behind them, these buildings hovered over it, cutting off the light and leaving this alley in perpetual twilight. With barely enough room to turn the van in a more-than-K-turn, the tightness of the spot always appealed to Tony’s sense of poetry. The woman was bound in more ways than one.

Len opened the van’s side door when Tony stopped, jumping out and keying in a code on a silver box that looked too modern and out of place in this junky old alley. The metal-reinforced door snicked open and he nodded to Len inside the van.

The woman’s head had come up when the van stopped. That hood had done the trick. Carl had made sure that drawstring would keep her uncomfortable. She’d stopped her fighting as she tried to breathe.

But he wasn’t fooled. As soon as he loosened it to get her up, she’d fight him again. He’d seen her kind before…and preferred them over the dishrags that had to be carried in. Much more fun to push and prod a live one.

Although with her ankles duct-taped, this one would have to be carried. He grinned as he got out of the van, pulling her across the floor as he did so. Her skirt rode up and he saw the creamy thighs he would soon molest, if all went well with Jake. Inside his pants, his cock rose as it had back in the van when he’d hooded her. Oh yeah…this bitch was gonna be a fun fuck for sure.

She didn’t disappoint him, her feet kicking out as he pulled her upright to sit on the edge of the van. Carl chuckled as Len leaned down, putting his shoulder into the woman’s belly and lifting. Had she not been gagged, the alley would’ve echoed with the screams she let loose. As it was, only frustrated grunts and growls made it past the rag he’d shoved in her mouth and taped in.

But she was a fighter. Len let her slide down, holding her mostly by her knees in front of him, her head bumping against his lower back. Too bad she wasn’t just a bit taller…Carl thought he’d like the feel of her hooded face bouncing on his ass as he carried her into his lair.

While Tony took care of the van, pulling it back out of the alley and parking it around the corner in the garage of a nearby house and Carl shut and reset the lock on the door, Len deposited his package into a large chair in a room below. A harsh light from a single floodlight filled the room.

“Delivery for ya, boss,” he told the man who stood there. The man who made this job worth every risk. The only man in the world who scared Len into a submission of his own.

It wasn’t that Jake Kariola was any larger than Len, or that he was broader or bigger in any way. He wasn’t. Physically, Len was stronger and more powerful. But Jake had an air of command about him that brooked no disobedience. Last month Len had witnessed first hand what had happened to a guy who hadn’t kept his hands to himself and who had mauled a woman up good before bringing her in. That guy would be singing soprano for the rest of his life…and Len had held him down while Jake wielded the knife.

Only in height were the two of them comparable, both reaching six-two. Not that Jake wasn’t muscular…Len had seen him work shirtless before and knew the man had a body that could belong to a model if it weren’t for the scar that ran on a diagonal across his chest. The man hadn’t volunteered where it had come from and Len hadn’t asked. None of his business, he’d decided when he’d seen the man work a single-tail on a woman’s back and bring her to orgasm with it.

His boss was currently dressed in a blindingly white, crisp shirt and dark pants. Len knew Jake liked to make a good first impression on his “clients”. He chuckled as the man knelt before the woman who still found the strength to wiggle in her bindings.

“I’m going to remove the hood now so you can see me.” Jake’s voice, soft and sexy, was pitched to put the woman at ease. Learning from the master, Len stood to the side and watched.

“The room, however, is brightly lit. Close your eyes.”

His strong fingers released the catch of the drawstring and opened the bag. Slowly he lifted it up, letting in bits of light at a time until he removed it entirely and held it out to Len. Without a word, Len stepped forward and took it, turning it inside out so the woman’s sweat would evaporate from it more quickly.

Jake put his hand over the woman’s tearing eyes. “In a moment you will be able to open your eyes and see me. We are not going to hurt you. I know you have questions and I will answer them. Take a deep breath for me now…slowly…and calmly…”

His voice was mesmerizing. Len watched as the woman quieted under his touch and the soothing sound of his voice. Jake reached out to her the same way one would reach out to a wild animal, calming it before attempting to help it.

Although Len wasn’t at all sure this one would like the help Jake would offer.

He watched as Jake removed his hand and wiped away the tears from her watering eyes.

“Open them slowly now and see me.”

* * * * *

The pain in her head from the blinding light receded and Carol managed to open her eyelids enough to peek at the man whose voice seemed so kind as compared to the brutes who had kidnapped her. She blinked several times before he came into focus and she tried not to respond to the incredible maleness of the man who knelt before her, care in his dark eyes and his face etched with concern for her.

“Better?”

She nodded, the harsh light no longer sending darts of pain into her skull.

He leaned back on his heels, his eyes now surveying her, noting the bindings and the bruise on her cheek. She saw the color come up in his face as his fingers touched her cheekbone and she winced.

“That will be dealt with, don’t worry.”

Harshness colored his voice and Carol suddenly understood this was a man to be reckoned with. A man whose good side you wanted to stay on. A flash of anger lit his eyes for only a moment, but it gave her a glimpse of a very different sort of man under the surface. Fear coiled in her belly as she realized this man was no more her friend than the others.

As if he realized he’d let his mask slip, he smiled. “I’m Jake and I know you have questions. Let me answer as many as I can for you and then I’ll take that gag off so you can ask the rest.”

He stood, moving to a rather messy desk in the far corner, coming back with a thin folder. Consulting it, he ran down his dossier on her.

“Name: Carol Walden. Age: 29, just shy of 30.” He winked at her as if they shared a joke, but Carol didn’t get it. “Occupation: owner of independent bookstore.” Looking at her again, he smiled. “I like that…’independent bookstore.’ Shows spirit and a desire to not go with corporate America.” He eyed her skirt and peasant blouse. “Suspect there’s a very independent spirit inside that body of yours.”

His look made her want to squirm again, but he was right. She did have an independent spirit and she let it flare now, holding her chin defiantly high and letting her eyes flash a warning at him that he’d best not mess with her.

He laughed outright. “Good.” He nodded and closed the folder. “Good to see. We’re going to have some fun together, I can tell.” Throwing the folder onto the large table in the center of the room, he sat beside it, one leg up, one down for balance.

“This is how it is, Carol Walden. You have a friend, one Beth Gardner, who felt you needed a change. She’s provided it, through me. I’m Jake Kariola and I run a…change business. Seems she knows of your…fantasies…and since I fulfilled one of hers a while back, she came to me to fulfill one of yours.”

Carol’s head reeled. Beth? Beth was behind all this? Beth was her best friend…her confidant. Why would she have her kidnapped? Kidnapping hadn’t ever been one of her fantasies. Was this all a mix-up?

“You’ve been sold, Carol. I bought you from Beth.”

Carol looked at him in panic. Okay, that one they’d talked about…in an esoteric sense. About being human property…bought and sold on the black market…sexual slavery…yeah. That had been a fantasy. But only a fantasy.

Jake slid off the table and towered over her, all traces of kindness now evaporated as the truth registered in Carol’s face.

“Yes, I paid good money for you.” He leaned down, his hands on the chair, fencing her in with his body, his face inches from her own. She shrank back against the cold leather seat and he followed. “You are mine now and I will do with you what I want.”