Unreal Part 3 - FREE AND DISGUISED: (THRILLER ROMANCE AND MYSTERY) Page 13

  “Juliet?”

  He settled her in his arms and stroked her hair as she moaned into his chest and kept her voice low.

  “Do you want to save her? Do you just want to do it all over again?”

  She felt shamed by the question, and the stilling of Ethan’s heart threatened the prospect of the wrong call. Thinking that this might be her last few seconds in his arms, Julie inhaled the scent of his shirt, his skin. If she was never going to get back to his side, she would live on the memory and always wonder where he was and who he might find himself with. Brian aside, maybe he would make his way back into the woods with Kim at his side. Jealousy tugged at her heart. But this was still all kinds of her fault, and she choked it down as she left him with a soft hand on his cheek.

  “It’s… it’s okay if you do,” she murmured. “I want to save her, too.”

  Julie removed the ring from her hand and started to hand it over when he grabbed her arms and brought her body back to his.

  “Don’t leave me, Juliet,” he pleaded. “There was nothing…it wasn’t like us when I held her.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  Ethan tilted her face to his and swiftly shook his head.

  “I... sure I want you both safe,” he started. “But I want you with me.”

  Blinking back tears, Julie started to fall into him when he suddenly held her back and ran his hands across her face.

  “Tell me that you believe me, Juliet?”

  She tried to nod, but the thought that he might save Kim at the first chance if it was her life obviously on the line pushed her back, and shook her head even as she took his hands.

  “But… won’t you always go to the one of us that needs you most?”

  “Juliet, I---”

  “Because I’m fine now,” she continued. “And Kim needs help.”

  His face grew dark as he touched her cheek.

  “Do you want me to go after her?” he asked.

  A part of her thought that it seemed fitting and fair, but as soon as she nodded, Ethan slammed her body from his side and glared.

  “Maybe you want to get rid of me.”

  She laughed at that and turned away from him. Again the ring was nearly off her finger when she peered into his eyes and sighed sharply.

  “No, Ethan. I wanted to sleep in your arms forever.”

  “Then there’s no problem, Juliet. I want you---”

  “I get that.”

  Prying the ring way, she pressed it into his palm and studied his face. Even when he was on the verge of breaking, Ethan was still beautiful, and she kissed his lips as she patted his cheek.

  “But you have to need tomorrow, Ethan,” she said. “And Kim thinks that you’re all mixed up in yesterday.”

  “Juliet… so much went down,” he said. “And I want tomorrow. With you.”

  “Maybe.”

  Leaving the ring behind, Julie charge towards the elevator and waited with an impatient foot as the car started to creep towards her floor.

  “Where are you going?”

  Ethan bellowed past Dona as he rushed to her side and took her in his arms.

  “Juliet, please don’t do this.”

  “I have to talk to her. Like really talk to her.”

  A group of men in finely tailored suits pushed past them with curious eyes. Julie had the sense that every man knew what had happened to her, and she flinched under the sight of their stares when Ethan curled her deeper into the elevator and kissed her neck as the door slid shut behind them.

  “Take the ring back, Juliet,” he said. “Say that your mine.”

  The thought was tempting, and she offered her hand to accept the band when the bell clanged. Even as the doors slid open and shut, there was no one else trying to touch her. And even as Julie was thankful for that, she kept Ethan arm’s length as the doors finally opened on the lobby.

  “I want to be yours,” Julie whispered. “But now Kim comes first.”

  She started to leave his side when Ethan gripped her arm and pulled her body back to his.

  “I can tell you everything you need to know,” he said. “I… I love you, Juliet. You’re the one that I want to save.”

  Ethan tried to kiss her again when she pushed back and pressed her fingers to her lips.

  “And I… I want to believe you, Ethan,” she said. “And maybe when it’s done, I always will.”

  Julie was almost out the main door when she felt his groan at his back. Hearing and feeling his sigh running down her spine, she turned back and took his face in her hands.

  “I want to come back,” she said. “Let’s hope that I can.”

  Julie was on the curb, on the verge of hailing a taxi when she suddenly felt Ethan’s fingers surrounding her wrists. She could still feel the ring in his palm as he pressed her back to his body, and he kissed her hair as he whispered into her ear.

  “But… but please always come back,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to be without you for too long.”

  Julie pecked his cheek and stepped into a cab in search of Jersey. Maybe there was nothing sinister in Kim’s touch, and it was something that she had left them on their own to try to sort things out. But nothing was settled.

  And nothing would be until she saw Kim again.

  16

  What would Jules do now? Cling close to him and feel like she could go back to their quiet moments? That felt like Julie, wanting to push the bad feelings under the carpet and emerge smelling as sweet as a freshly plucked rose. Typical Jules. Always getting out from under before the other shoe fell. Before they knew what the man was and what he needed, Greg Heller was the father that Julie had lost, the man that Kim had never really had. Her body broke around the idea of the others, but she swallowed them back and paced the space before her house when Brian entered right on cue. In another life, she could get down with the idea of just letting him hold her through the night terrors. Sure seemed to work for Julie. But now those waters were far too choppy, and the thought made her smile.

  “So… so I guess like you’re happy to see me,” Brian said.

  He seemed nervous all the time now; that might be enough for the likes of Julie, too. But Kim needed him steely and focused for what came next.

  “Brian.”

  Taking his hand in her firm palm, she peered into his eyes and cocked her head to the side.

  “Has to be now,” she said. “Boone gives me something. Then I give him something more.”

  He started to protest when Kim abandoned his hand and flattened her fingers against his cheek.

  “You’re doing this with me, right?” she demanded.

  “Kim, I---”

  “You swore that you would drive me there and back. It’s not like I’m asking you to gut the pricks.”

  At the sound of that, Brian shuddered, and Kim went stiff as he took her into his arms.

  “But you don’t have to either,” he whispered into her hair. “Law and order took care of Greg Heller. And as for the others, well---”

  “They have cash to spare. And a lawyer who knows what she’s doing. You think I’m really going to let that Leo Barber fuck mess this up for me a second time around?”

  “But now that you’re here… that you’re back, you---”

  “And I gave them an out,” Kim continued. “Laid the whole thing at Greg’s feet.”

  “Kim, wait!”

  Brian’s hands suddenly became hard as he eased her body into the wall and curled his fingers around her shoulders. No longer a stranger to pain, Kim accepted his touch barely bordering on brutal and smirked when he backed off and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Don’t want to have to handle you like that.”

  Something in his rough touch made her body buzz, and Kim forced his fingers back to her arms and dragged them towards her throat.

  “Go on,” she challenged. “Bet I can cum with just one little push.”

  He appeared stunned by her request, but still his g
lasses fogged up, and Brian started to honor her request as she began to moan under the promise of his strangulation. It hurt then, and if Brian did it even close to right, it would hurt now. But she needed this now to get off, and she started to rock her hips against his when Brian backed off and flapped his hands in the air.

  “This isn’t me!” he exclaimed as he pushed away from her and hid his face in his fingers. Kim tried and failed to feel sympathy as he sobbed softy into his palms. Was that a move that Ethan Graff made when he feared that he might shatter Julie? No doubt that got Jules off. The white knight with a soft heart. Save it for later.

  Right now…

  “It can be, Brian,” Kim said as she knelt at his side and cradled his chin in her hands. His glasses fell way from his face, and as he squinted in an effort to see her more clearly, Kim crushed into his lips and stroked his cheeks.

  “Please help me,” she whispered. “Help me make this happen. It’s… it’s the only way that I can ever be free.”

  “That’s something we both want,” he said.

  “Naturally.”

  She kissed him again and fell into his arms as she glanced out the window over his shoulder. The day was dark, no hint of sun in the sky. Kim took that as good sign, and she pushed back as Brian slowly nodded his head.

  “Okay,” he said. “But… but once this is done… Kim?”

  She stood up straighter at the sound of her name coming out like a question and pressed her hands to her hips.

  “Spit it out.”

  He wavered on the ground and ran his hands across his face.

  “Don’t… do you really have to go through the rest with Julie?” he asked.

  “You’re actually asking me that?”

  “Look.”

  He tapped his fingers to the glass, his own eyes gazing out at the cloudy sky when his shoulders heaved.

  “I know that… that you went through ten times what Julie did.”

  “Ten?” Kim asked.

  “A hundred. A thousand. But… but she still suffered. And… and if you can both just be happy after all of that…”

  So he wasn’t getting it. At least not entirely. But Kim would work to bring him back to her side on that front after. Everything else aside, she knew how to please a man to the point of no return, and she pushed his glasses back to his face and smiled brightly as soon as he was able to focus on her again.

  “It’s something to think about,” she said. “But I still need their blood. Or… or do I…?”

  Cuddling close to his chest, Kim sobbed into his skin and let him run his hands down her back.

  “Or do I go it alone, Brian?”

  The suggestion stiffened his body, and his lip quivered as her managed to nod his head as he sighed.

  “This will bring you some peace?” he asked.

  “It’s a good start,” Kim said. “Maybe the rest won’t matter once the deed is done.”

  That brought a smile to his face, and Brian kissed her nose as he held her arms.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Then I can get down with the plan.”

  “Thank you, Brian.”

  A fun idea for both of us.

  She had to have been here before. A cabin well-equipped for weekend warriors just wanting to blow off some steam. But Kim was the one that had to do the blowing, and she ordered Brian to hide his car under the trees as she stepped from the passenger’s seat.

  What would they think? The little red head that they had turned out and used to spin their story standing tall in a tight red mini and little else. Kim’s legs were strong under her heels, and she flung her coat into the backseat of the car, wearing nothing else but a bra as she stomped up the steps. Through the walls of the house, she could hear slurping mixed with sobbing. Was it wrong to enable this? No. Because Boone promised to save the dirty duties for someone else. The thought of that brought a smile to her face, and she proudly opened the door to survey the scene.

  “Hello, boys!”

  Carter McCord looked up from his throbbing dick and the girl around his mouth. Tucking the former away and sneering at the latter, he pointed at her.

  And he laughed.

  “Oh this is just too much!” he said. “What’s the problem? Need a fix for old time’s sake or something?”

  Boone lingered in the corner, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he kept his gaze fixed on a game of solitaire. Kim took note of Carter’s confusion as he signaled for some kind of help, but when Boone still made no move, Carter charged towards Kim.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re---?”

  Kim reached under her skirt and pulled out a switchblade. Clicking the knife to attention, she flicked the blade before Carter’s eyes and smirked.

  “Thanks for busting me out,” she teased. “But somehow it wasn’t enough to return the favor.”

  And the man laughed, his smile smug and sure as he kicked the quivering girl huddled at his heels, skinny and scared. Sort of looked like Colleen and everything that Kim had been until she got a kind of a second chance.

  No way she wasn’t’ talking it.

  “Hey, Boone!” Carter yelled as he pushed past Kim like she was a thing of no consequence. “What is she even here? Seems like we’re going to have to have a ---”

  Kim stilled his speech with a blade in his back. As much as she wanted to meet his eyes, to see his shock and watch the life drain away from his face, she twisted the knife deeper and felt the blood pooling though her fingers. Cater McCord groaned, and Kim kept ripping the knife into his flesh. His silk shirt shredded over her wrists, and Kim smiled at the sight of his skin ripping loose when he finally managed to turn towards her eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he gasped

  “That was my question,” she said. “Over and over again.”

  Pulling the knife away with one harsh tug, Kim smiled at the crimson covering the blade.

  “You know how many times I wanted to do this to you? To both of you?”

  Carter McCord’s eyes registered a kind of understanding, and he stated to lurch forward, his lips parting to call out for his father-in-law when Kim jabbed the knife into his heart and watched the man’s face turn white.

  “Relax,” she hissed. “I’m so glad that you came back to play.”

  Maybe Brian couldn’t manage it, but Kim was more than ready. Slicing her way up his chest, she reveled in the feel of his blood loss spilling across her arms, and as he sputtered and choked for air, Kim pulled the knife away and tapped his shoulder.

  “And they all fall down…”

  Carter did just that, and as soon as his body hit the ground, she watched him twitch against the floor and try to bring his hand closer to the wound cutting into his heart. Would just a little pressure on his part save him? Stranger things had happened.

  And Kim was not about to take the chance.

  “Now you die, shit.”

  Pushing her heel into his wrist, she held his hand at bay and watched the life leave his body. A small part of her almost wished that Julie could be here. But those were old feelings, the types that she had to keep buried.

  “Boone?”

  Her former mountain man captor pulled on his smoke and flashed her a quick wink.

  “One down,” he teased. “You gonna do the other one.”

  “You gonna keep your end of the bargain?”

  “Now like I’m one to waste a piece of fresh meat.”

  Kim knew as much and almost started to strike him with the tip of the blade when she heard a scream pouring though a closed door. She stepped over the sobbing girl and wiped away Carter’s blood on the back of her hand.

  “Don’t want to waste my time either.”

  Pushing the door open, Kim’s eyes burned at the sight of Geoffrey Troxel and a bound girl. His cock was in her ass, and the little blonde screamed and shook as her took his perverse pleasure in the face of her suffering.

  “Problem, son?” he asked, hardly looking over his shoulder as he
shredded the girl’s rear and pressed his fingers into her back.

  “This one is tight,” he continued. “You have to try it.”

  Kim watched the unnamed girl suffer for a few more seconds. Not a face that she recognized from her own time in captivity. So maybe she would get over it.

  Julie wouldn’t be quite so lucky.

  “Oh, Dad?”

  Geoffrey left his forced conquest and found her eyes. When he saw Kim, his first move was to laugh, and Kim clutched the handle of the knife tighter as she stepped closer to the bed.

  “You’re back?” Geoffrey asked. “Glutton for punishment or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  The girl wept into the sheets as Kim sat on the edge of the bed, the knife firmly planted firmly behind her back as she reached for his face with her free hand.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked.

  He grunted and nodded as he seized the back of her neck and forcefully lowered her body to the bed.

  “You did good in court, bitch,” he said. “Vivian says there’s no way they can touch us now.”

  Kim endured his kiss and fought the urge to vomit at the feel of his tongue swirling down her throat. She found the strength to kiss him back, and as soon as he had to come up for air, Kim saw his smirk and bit down on her lip.

  “Want to play?” he asked. “I can get rid of this other one.”

  “Then get busy, sir.”

  In short order, Geoffrey kicked the other girl’s quaking body to the floor. Kim started to find her eyes in an effort to assure her that an end was at hand when she moved back to Geoffrey Troxel’s chest. Let her stew. Like Julie, she probably had sunshine and rainbows waiting for her upon return. She would be fine. Let this just be one more nightmare to add to her collection.

  “Come on.”

  At the sound of Kim’s hushed voice, Geoffrey pushed her legs apart and pushed his slick cock into her body. Kim arched up and groaned at the moment of impact, but she let him sink deeper as he tried to wrestle her hands from behind her back.

  “Let’s have you touching me,” he said as he bit down on her breasts and chewed on her nipples. Kim kept the knife close in one hand as she reached for his cock. Gamey and vile, she eased it deeper and felt him twirling all around her. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Kim granted him a few more seconds as he neared the point of climax. His awful lust was on the verge of filling her when she summoned the strength push him back and send him towards the scattered pillows.