AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He puts me down, but grabs my hand because he’s clearly not letting me walk a foot in this club without some part of him touching me. I lead him down the hallway, stopping in front of a door that has storage written on the outside.
“You’re here because of the business card you saw me read, right?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. I did some snooping around before you showed up.” I open the door and pull him into the small room that’s more like a utility closet than anything else. Mops and buckets and boxes of napkins and coasters fill the space. I pull my cell phone out from the tiny pocket of this pretty much nonexistent dress and turn on the flashlight, using it to light our way as I guide him around the boxes and into the corner I’d snooped out earlier. On the way, I reach up and pull the string that’s connected to the bare light bulb. It’s not strong and puts out just enough light so we can see each other and not run into anything.
“Look,” I say, pointing to the large vent above my head. “That leads right into the main office. If someone’s meeting Sam, it’s probably going to be in there. If you lift me up, I can listen in.”
“We’re going to have a serious fucking discussion later about all this Emily.” He eyes the vent and takes out his phone. Snapping a few photos, he sends them off along with a quick text.
“Hurry,” I tell him. “It’s almost time.”
He sighs and leans down, motioning me over. When it’s clear he wants me to wrap my legs around his neck and sit on his shoulders, I hesitate. I may be short, but I’ve got some substance, and I swear to god if he grunts and struggles to stand up, I may just run out of here and never show my face again.
“Emily,” he says, “wrap those gorgeous legs around my neck right fucking now.”
His words spur me into action. I hike a leg over, biting back a surprised yelp when he grabs onto my thighs and stands up with ease, not even a hint of a strained grunt coming out of him. I grab onto his head, scared I’m going to lose my balance and fall backwards as my dress completely gives up the fight and rolls up past my ass so it’s nothing but me in my lacy thong wrapped around his neck.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he groans. “I think you’re trying to kill me.”
He keeps a firm grip on my legs, getting me as close to the vent as he can and then hands me his cell phone so I can record the conversation. I can hear a soft murmur of voices, and when I strain to get closer and angle my ear to it, the words become clear.
“I can hear them,” I whisper. I keep one hand holding the phone as close to the vent as I can get and the other in his hair, absentmindedly playing with the strands that are surprisingly silky soft as I close my eyes and put all my focus on the conversation on the other side of this vent.
“What have you got for me, Sam?” The man sounds like the one who’d asked Roman if he’d share me, but I can’t be sure.
“A new shipment is coming in,” a man who must be Sam says. “All from Eastern Europe, all ripe and prime for the picking,” he says with a disgusting laugh. I tighten my grip on Roman’s hair, and he surprises me by kissing my inner thigh in a sweet gesture that immediately comforts me.
“When will they be here?” the other man asks.
“Next month. Same airport as usual. I’ll send you the flight information when I get it.” He lets out another laugh. “I should get a fucking bonus for this lot. Wait till you see them.”
“Looking forward to it. We’ve got buyers lined up for some of them already, and we can always hold another auction if we need to.”
Disgust runs though me. They sound like they’re talking about a shipment of cattle, not human beings, and it takes everything I have to not bang my hands against the vent in rage. I knew there was something going on, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. I thought my dad was involved in some nasty shit, but I didn’t realize it was this level of evil.
I feel like I’m about to be sick, and when Roman gives my thigh another kiss, he whispers, “Just breathe, solnishka.”
My hands shake as I slowly inhale and listen to the two men make jokes about tight pussies and how much a girl’s cherry is worth. By the time Sam leaves, I’m more than ready to call it a night and get the fuck out of here.
“It’s done,” I whisper, and whatever Roman hears in my voice has him gently lifting me off him and then immediately wrapping me into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “If there was any way for me to avoid having you hear that, I would have done it.”
“It’s okay.” I hand him his phone. “There’s a flight of women coming in.”
He pulls back just enough to grab the phone. He turns the volume down low and holds it to his ear so he can listen without me having to hear it again. I watch his face, seeing the pain that fills his eyes, and my arms tighten around his waist without me even having to think about it. He cups the back of my head and kisses my forehead, and when he’s done, he sends the recording to someone before slipping his phone back into his pocket.
“What’s going on, Roman?”
“Later. I promise I’ll tell you everything later, but we’ve been gone too long as it is, and we’re supposed to be in a room fucking.”
He releases me and then runs his eyes over me. My dress is still hiked up, and when I pull it down, he shakes his head and then takes off his suit jacket.
“Put this on. I can’t handle watching them stare at you in that dress again.”
I stare at the gun he has holstered beneath his arm. Without a word, he takes the gun out and tucks it into the back of his pants, untucking his white dress shirt to cover it. Pulling the empty holster off, he puts it on me so it’ll be hidden beneath his jacket. His movements are sure and confident, the way a man handles a gun when he has a lot of experience with it. It probably shouldn’t be sexy, but it is.
