Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Thank you.”
“Thank me when we’re back in New York and you’re still alive.”
The commander winked and walked from the room.
Joss patted him on the back. “Don’t fall for her, Bo. I like having you as my pilot.”
“Have faith,” he said with humor he didn’t feel.
The summer was unusually hot, always a bad omen. Sky dressed in her favorite fuchsia one-piece and grabbed a banana-coffee shake on her way to the club. Doumar waited at the door to let her in when she arrived. He was dressed in a long marine coat with padded shoulders, white leather pants, and a sailor cap. Taking a matching outfit from the closet in the dressing room where he kept her club outfits, he handed it to her. The only difference was that her pants had the back part cut out, exposing her naked ass, and she didn’t have the advantage of a long coat to cover it. She took the items with a feeling of irritation, suppressing the urge to throw the clothes in his face.
About to turn for the changing room, she stopped when he called her back.
“Dress in my office. We need to talk.”
The paper cup in her hand dented under the force of her fingers, but she followed him down the hallway. In his office, she turned her back on him and stripped, feeling his eyes on her from where he slouched in his chair.
“Turn around,” he said.
When she turned to face him, he crossed his legs on the desk and folded his hands over his stomach. “What happened last night?”
“He didn’t say anything.” She shimmied into the pants. “I didn’t find out where they are staying. You could’ve just had him followed.”
Even if Bono had said something, she wouldn’t tell Doumar. Mr. Black was a kind man, different from any other she’d met.
“I did,” Doumar said with a grin.
Her stomach tightened. She said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“He spotted my man.” His gaze lingered on her breasts. “Pity. Now he’ll be on the lookout.”
She pulled the striped spandex top over her head to cover herself, fiddling with the square-cut sailor’s collar to hide the shaking of her hands.
He looked her up and down slowly. “You kissed him.”
She tried not to act shocked or surprised. Her shrug was meant to appear non-caring. “It was necessary.”
“I saw the photos. It was quite a thing.” He waved his hand in the air. “Like that famous photograph of the sailor coming home from the war.”
Her hands stilled.
“You know?” He smiled. “The one who kissed the nurse. He tipped her back, doing this tango thing with her body. I looked it up. It’s called V-J Day in Times Square. That’s what you looked like—like that nurse.”
“I did what you told me to do.”
Pulling back his knee, he kicked the glass dildo on his desk with enough force to send it flying across the room. She jumped as it hit the wall and broke with a thud.
“He had his tongue down your throat.”
“Doumar—”
“Don’t you fucking Doumar me, you slut.” He jumped to his feet, sending the chair crashing into the wall behind him. “Come here.”
Her voice quivered. “Dou, please.”
“I said don’t call me by my name. Kneel, whore, and call me who I am.”
She made her way across the floor on shaky legs and knelt in front of him, but she didn’t bow her head.
“Who am I?”
“My owner.”
“Who are you?”
“Your property.”
His laugh sounded hollow. “Let me put things in perspective for you. You’re a cheap piece of furniture, Sky, an object worth less than my dog. I paid a thousand euros for that pure-breed bitch. That makes her my pet. What does that make you?”
“Nothing.”
He gripped her cheeks with bruising force, tilting her face up to him. “If he touches my property with his filthy mouth again, I’ll cut off his head, and then I’ll chop off your lips. Am I clear?”
“Yes.”
“I still smell him on you. Go brush your teeth. When you’re done, you can come back here and earn your keep.”
She rose swiftly, hoping to escape the room before he said more, but she wasn’t that lucky.
“Sky?”
She paused, not looking back at him.
“Tell me how much you’re worth, baby.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Five hundred Euros.”
“That’s right. The price of my desk. The nice leather chair I sit in costs more than that. Don’t you forget it.”
Two days went by without a sign of Bono Black or his French friend. Sky hoped for their sakes, and her own, they’d gone back to their countries. She prayed they’d abandoned finding what they came for. Since their meeting, she’d been thinking about the dangerous, gentle man with the dark skin too much. Mr. Black with his hard body and warm lips was a temptation where her mind wandered too often for her liking, especially seeing that he’d come after her. She expelled his memory with a toss of her head, shaking her hair free from the clip. Today, she didn’t want to be distracted.