The Billionaire's Caress Read online

  “They were in rough shape, Carol especially. I couldn’t imagine the horrors they’d been through. They were weak and depleted, and it took me forever to boost them up into the secret passageway in the ceiling – but we managed it, and then I got them to the attic.

  “I had a problem, though. I couldn’t take them with me in my car, which was a mile away. I couldn’t chance them giving up details about me to the police. Even though I had on the mask, the cops might pressure them into revealing information about the car. And I couldn’t call the cops from my cell phone. So I told them to run for the street and go to the nearest house.

  “Carol started sobbing. ‘No, no, I’m not going anywhere without you.’

  “‘You’re safe now – he’s not coming back until 1 or 2 in the morning – ’

  “‘I don’t care! I’m not going anywhere without you!’

  “It wasn’t my first choice to go with them, but I couldn’t very well leave them alone to fend for themselves, not in that state. So I made them promise not to tell anyone how I’d found them. Once they did that, I agreed to get them to the nearest neighbor’s house, and then I was taking off.

  “They couldn’t go out the way I came in. I climbed up the outside of the house, three stories up, to an entry panel in the attic. They were far too weak, even going down the rope. If they let go, they would break their legs, maybe even their backs. So we’d have to go out the front door.

  “I deactivated the alarm system from the wiring in the attic, then got them out to the second floor. We made it down the stairs to the front foyer when I saw headlights driving up the property’s long, isolated driveway.

  “He was back, three hours early.

  “Carol started screaming. ‘Is that him?! Is that him?!’

  “I calmed her down and told her we would wait until the garage door closed, then we’d bolt across the lawn. It was bigger than a football field, but I was reasonably sure we could make it before he spotted us. Lights would go on and a security company would be notified, but that would play in our favor.

  “Except the Jag stopped out front. It didn’t go in the garage.

  “Instead, the guy got out of the car. I couldn’t see much about him because he was just a black shadow behind the headlights, but I saw him cross in front of the car and head for the front door.

  “Carol and Sofia started freaking out. I knew the guy couldn’t have seen us because none of the house lights were on, and we were far enough back from the window. But we didn’t have long.

  “‘Up the stairs!’ I hissed, and we all ran back up to the second floor.

  “We hid in a bedroom near the stairs. As soon as we were inside, I locked the door behind us and scanned the room.

  “There was a phone and a window. I dialed 911 and handed the phone to Sofia. I told her to whisper and tell them where we were. I gave her the address of the house, and then I tried the window.

  “Downstairs I could hear the front door open. The girls looked terrified; I just put my finger to my mouth and went back to work.

  “The window was locked. Piece of cake – I picked it in less than 20 seconds. But there was some sort of newly installed metal bolt that kept it from opening. I would have thrown a chair through the window, but I designed the place, and I remembered that all the window panes were custom-ordered bulletproof glass. The hedge fund guy had been convinced there was a ‘99% versus the 1%’ war coming. Unfortunately, because I’d catered to his lunatic delusions, we were locked in with a serial killer.

  “We heard steps on the stairs. I hushed Sofia and we all listened.

  “It seemed like forever for the guy to make it to the top of the stairs. My mind was racing the entire time: How did he know I’m here? Does he know I got the girls out? The most logical answer was there was some sort of surveillance system installed that I didn’t know about – sort of like those weird bolts in the windows. But then the next question was, Is he going to the safe room first?

  “He paused at the top of the stairs forever – probably listening – but I finally heard him walk in the opposite direction from us. I opened the bedroom door a crack. Seconds later, I heard the beeps and sounds of the safe room’s main door retracting.

  “We didn’t have long. We could either wait there until the cops found us – or until he found us – or we could go for it.

  “Only problem was, I couldn’t let the cops find me.

  “And I sure as hell didn’t want him finding us.

  “The cops were coming, sooner or later, but so was the psycho – and he was probably coming sooner rather than later.

  “There was no choice.

  “I whispered to the girls, ‘Come on!’

  “They didn’t want to, but when they saw me leaving, they panicked and followed.

  “We all raced down the hallway as quickly as we could. The girls were barefoot and I was wearing specially designed boots, so we barely made a sound – until we got to the hardwood stairs. Then it was creak creak creak all the way down. I ignored it and keep telling myself, I’ll get the door open, we’ll get out, and everything will be fine.

  “I reached the door first. I unlocked the door handle, turned it – and SHUNK, some kind of bolt automatically clunked into place. I looked along the door edges, then realized that the sound came from the top of the door. Sure enough, someone had installed some kind of new electronic lock up there, just like the one on the window.

  “Is it automatic? I thought. Or did he trigger it manually because he knows we’re here?

  “I stepped to my left and wheeled around to look up.

  “That’s the only thing that saved my life.

  “There was a flash of light at the top of the stairs. I heard the boom of the gunshot, and I felt bits of wood or fragments of bullets or something fly off the door and scrape across my neck.

  “He was shooting at us.

  “At me.

  “The girls screamed. I pulled them into the next room by the base of the stairs. My heart was pounding, the panic was building, I was sure we were dead. He’d be on our heels in seconds –

  “And then I remembered: I know this house better than him. I designed it.

  “And I remembered a couple of things I specifically designed into it.

  “I just needed to get us there before he could reach us.

  “I hustled them through the kitchen and the living room, then opened up this secret passageway I put inside a closet. I pushed the girls in first, which wasn’t the smartest thing ever, since they were rushing into a pitch black tunnel – but there was no way I was going to leave them behind me to get shot.

  “As I entered the secret passageway, I turned to look behind me.

  “There was this flickering glow through the doorways. At first my brain couldn’t figure out what it was, but then I remembered something from when I was a kid: what the shadows looked like in my grandparents’ Victorian house when we lit a fire in the fireplace.

  “I realized, He’s burning the fucking house down.

  “Why, I had no idea – not until later. If he knew the gig was up, it was his best chance to destroy any DNA evidence of who he was.

  “Or maybe he just wanted to burn us for kicks.

  “Either way, I saw his silhouette outlined against the flames in a doorway. He was walking towards me, gun in the air.

  “I made it into the passageway and shut the door when he started firing.

  “Bullet holes blasted into the wall. I could see the orange glow of the flames through them.

  “The girls were screaming. I told them to be quiet, otherwise he could hear where we were going. Then I led them through the passageway.

  “It went up some stairs and opened up onto this second-story patio. It was still a ways down, but it wasn’t thirty feet, and I figured I could grab their hands and lower them until they were six or seven feet above the ground.

  “Off in the distance, I could hear the police sirens. They were still far away, but they’d be ther
e in minutes.

  “‘When you hit the ground, run,’ I told the women.

  “I locked my feet into the railing, hung upside down, and lowered them with my hands grasped around their wrists. Just like a circus trapeze act. First Carol, then I did a crunch and went back up and got Sofia. Like I figured, I had to drop them a good six feet above the ground. They cried out when they hit the grass, but they were able to hobble off towards the front lawn and safety.

  “I did another crunch, then grabbed onto the railing with my hands so I could pull my feet free –

  “He was there. At the end of the patio, silhouetted by the fire behind him. Looking at me.

  “I couldn’t see his face, because he was wearing a leather mask, something out of an S&M dungeon. But he was white, about 5’10”, solidly built, expensive suit.

  “And he had the gun in his hand, pointed right at me.

  “I let go of the railing and fell.

  “He never fired. I still don’t know why…”

  Here Grant’s voice becomes bitter and angry.

  “…unless he couldn’t stand that I had somehow bested him, even if it was by chance. So he had to prove how superior he was. How much smarter he was, so he could punish me slowly. Or maybe he just wanted someone new to toy with – a new game to entertain him.

  “Anyway, I twisted midair and landed on my feet and rolled. It was sloppy and painful, but I didn’t break or sprain anything.

  “I couldn’t follow the girls – despite how badly I wanted to get away, I was not about to run right into the hands of the cops – so I ran in the opposite direction, hugging the wall of the house so he couldn’t get a shot off at me. When I was reasonably sure I was safe, I bolted into the treeline and headed for the back of the property.

  “I looked back. It wasn’t smart, but something compelled me to.

  “The last thing I saw was him standing on another patio, watching me… and then he walked back into the fire.

  “Five minutes later, I was speeding in my unregistered car with fake license plates down to Beverly Hills.” Grant smiles wryly. “I thought I got away.

  “Anyway, the next day, it was all over the papers and the news: ‘Massive Fire in Bel Air.’ ‘Two Women Escape House of Horrors With Help From Mystery Man.’ ‘Six charred bodies found in the basement.’”

  I remember the headlines. I don’t watch the news, but I remember seeing the articles everywhere online. At the time I thought it was a gruesome curiosity. Now, hearing Grant’s tale, it’s like I’ve lived through the horror myself.

  “It came out later that the six bodies had all been dead long before the fire. His previous victims, all young women in their 20’s who had been drugged and kidnapped. Some had been missing for months.”

  “My God,” I whisper.

  “But no male bodies were found,” Grant says. “Which means he got out. How, I have no idea… but he got out.

  “I hired someone to investigate the hedge fund guy – anonymously. Nobody on my staff knows what I do for kicks, and I want to keep it that way. But I was obsessed with figuring out who that psychopath was, and the police had hit a dead end.

  “Turns out the hedge fund guy had been renting out his house for 60 grand a month – but he didn’t know to whom. Everything was handled through a law firm, and they didn’t even know who their client was. Some international firm with a holding company in Barbados. This Epicurus guy? He just vanished like smoke on the wind.

  “When I hit a dead end, I figured I was okay. I still had guys working on it… but if I couldn’t find him, I figured it stood to reason that he wouldn’t be able to find me.

  “Turns out I was wrong.

  “A couple of days after the fire, I got the first text message. And you know the rest.”

  8

  I stand there looking at Grant in awe. Ten minutes ago, I thought he was a thief with some sort of entitled, fucked-up Robin Hood complex – ‘steal from the rich to give to me.’

  Now I know he saved two women’s lives at the risk of his own, and faced down a serial killer.

  I’m astounded.

  And kind of turned on.

  I don’t think he can read that in my face, though. He’s probably just seeing blank shock, which he totally misinterprets.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this,” he says, his face grave. “I should have never gotten you involved in all this. I made you a target, and – ”

  What? Whoa, whoa, WHOA –

  “Stop right there,” I say, my palm outstretched in the air.

  “What?”

  “Why did you hire me?” I ask, a pissed-off tone in my voice.

  He gives me a puzzled frown. “Because they said you were among the very best, and I needed someone from the outside. In case Epicurus has infiltrated my organization and bribed somebody.” He adds, sheepishly, “That, and your background… I thought you might be a little more sympathetic to someone with my… past. If you had to find out.”

  “Which I did.”

  “Obviously,” he mutters, and looks around the room full of stolen paintings.

  “You should have told me from the beginning – ”

  “I didn’t know if I could trust you!” he interrupts.

  “ – BUT I can see why you didn’t,” I speak over him, my voice raised.

  I hate it when people interrupt me.

  Grant pauses, then gives me a look and half-shrug like, Okay… cool.

  “But you hired me because I’m one of the best. And you also told me a Hannibal Lecter-type was after you. Back in the car, an hour ago – remember that? You were right when you said ‘I told you from the beginning what I was up against.’ You were clear and truthful about that from the very beginning. But I said ‘yes,’ so quit making it seem like I’m some helpless little girl who can’t handle herself.”

  “He could have killed you in the art gallery,” Grant says. “Or worse.”

  The Or worse sends shivers down my spine. All my terror from earlier in the afternoon comes rushing back – but now it’s made even more horrifying knowing about those women Grant saved from the house.

  “We underestimated him in the art gallery,” I say. “We just won’t do that anymore.”

  “If we don’t know what his capabilities are, how the hell do we know if we’re underestimating him or not?” he says, his voice on edge.

  “We’ll figure it out. We’re both kind of winging it – but we’re in it together now.”

  “I’m just trying to protect you,” he says, a little angry.

  There’s part of me that likes that he’s angry. I don’t know why, but it triggers some primal reaction in me. It’s very sexy in a way I don’t quite understand.

  Another part of me says, Mmmmm. That part wants to be protected by this strong, hot guy.

  But another part of me is angry. The stubborn, Fuck you, I can do it on my own part – and that’s the one that wins out. “I don’t need protecting.”

  “He’s a serial killer. Of COURSE you need protecting.”

  Okay… he has a point.

  “Fine – but you need protecting too. Don’t act like you’re Superman and I’m some damsel in distress.”

  “I’m not acting like you’re some damsel in distress,” he snaps. He’s suddenly a lot closer to me, just inches away.

  I’m a lot more aware of how warm I am. Verging on hot.

  I don’t want him to know, but I’m really turned on by this whole… whatever the hell it is we’re doing. This shouting match, this lover’s spat, all over who’s protecting whom and who needs protecting.

  I’m looking him in his eyes – his gorgeous, angry, hot-as-hell eyes – and I have to struggle to remember the last thing he said.

  Oh yeah: I’m not acting like you’re some damsel in distress.

  “Yes you are, and I’m not,” I yell back.

  “You’re fucking infuriating when you think you’re right, you know that?”

  He’s leaning into me, just inches
away from me.

  I can feel the heat off his body, he’s so close.

  I want to rip his clothes off. I want to feel his body, feel that heat against my naked skin.

  “So are you!” I shout, when what I really want – deep, deep down, in a place I probably don’t even want to admit – is for him to sweep me up and kiss me.

  And then he does, like he was reading my mind.

  Grabs me, slams me up against the wall, and takes my breath away.

  I kiss him back – hard.

  His hands grab my waist, then my ass. He presses his mouth against mine like he wants to devour me.

  I bite his tongue, his lower lip. I’m in a frenzy, I’m so turned on.

  His hands roam up and down my body, clutching and feeling me as we grind against each other like two animals in heat.

  I bury my hands in his hair and pull him deeper into my mouth.

  He grabs me under my ass and hoists me into the air, pinning me between his body and the wall. I wrap my legs around him. I can feel his cock, already hard, pressing between my legs.

  One of his hands grips my ass, the other hand squeezes my breasts. He finds one of my nipples, so erect it pushes up beneath my bra, and pinches it so hard that I feel a ‘hurts so good’ kind of pain. As I moan, I watch him stare at me, his face almost a scowl. He’s back in that place he was on the plane, his face twisted in an animalistic expression of want and need.

  He moves his hips back a few inches, far enough to unzip his fly. Seconds later, he puts me down long enough to reach under my skirt and yank my panties to the floor. As soon as I step out of them, he has me up in the air again, pinned against the wall – except this time he pushes my skirt up to my waist, and positions the tip of his cock between my lips.

  His hips move forward, and suddenly his swollen head is inside me.

  “Oh God,” I cry out, surprised by the speed and intensity of him entering me – that, and the pleasure.

  He eases himself into me with short movements, back and forth, until he’s entirely wet with my juices and deep inside me. Then he starts to thrust.