Page 40 of Prohibited

Alex froze and he felt Ryan go still next to him. The fact that she even dared mention Tommy sent another pique of rage through him. But he mastered himself.

“Then I’m sure you can think of a thing or two to make it up to me.” Alex stood, relinquishing his hold on her legs, and stepped away so she couldn’t kick him. “Ryan, if you would kindly drag her back over to the water basin.”

“No,” she sobbed. “Please. I didn’t know.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Uh oh.

Alex turned his head slowly to find Lindsay at the bathroom door.

“Punishing a bad Dolly,” Alex said. “Would you care to join us?”

“Punishing?” Lindsay said, eyebrows drawn up, taking in the scene. “Punishing her for what?”

“Well, first and foremost, accessory to murder.” Alex slowly began to stalk toward him, causing Lindsay’s eyes to find his. A look of trepidation came into his eyes, but he didn’t step back. “And second, she stole a key.”

“Stole a key?” Lindsay said, incredulously. “How the fuck did she steal a key?”

“I’m guessing when she decided to fuck the lackey,” Alex said. He looked over his shoulder at her. “Is that right, Dolly? Is that why you fucked the apple cheeked toady? Unless you talked him into giving it to you. In either case, he’s a liability we can’t afford to keep around. We’re going to have to do something about him. Something rather permanent.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept her eyes on the ground where she slumped near Ryan’s feet. Ryan stoodnext to her, looking down at her with a strange, conflicted expression.

Alex walked toward her slowly until he was standing in front of her, at which point he slowly lowered himself into a crouch in front of her so that they were eye to eye. He caressed the side of her face, admiring the beauty of her features. How frightened she looked, how she shivered from the cold of being wet. How her dark, wet hair pushed back from her face allowed him to see the whole shape of it. He took her chin in his hand and stroked her bottom lip with his thumb.

“How does it feel to have the blood of yet another man on your hands?” Alex murmured like a lover.

“No,” she said automatically. She sat up straighter and reached for him with her bound hands, gripping the bloodied front of his otherwise pristine undershirt. “Please, he’s just a kid. He didn’t know. I took it from him.”

“Then you should have thought of that before you involved him in your plan,” Alex said. “And, of course, there’s always the chance that you’re lying to me.”

“How long is this going to go on?” Lindsay said behind him, voice warm with anger and something like anxiety.

“Until I get bored,” Alex said, eyes still roving over her face while he spoke. “Walter Stanley is still sweating and I want it to stay that way. He has no idea what’s happened to her and I take great pleasure in knowing that I have her in my keeping and that I can do whatever I want to her and there is nothing he can do about it.”

She made a sound of fear. Alex smiled and then leaned forward. She tried to pull away from him, but he held her fast and kissed her with his bloodied face, while she nearly squealed in protest.

“Well, as much fun as I’ve been having with you, Dolly,” Alex said, “it occurs to me that I have a leak to fix in my roof. So if you’ll excuse me, we’ll pick this back up another day.” He looked up at Ryan, who was looking down at both of them with a heat in his eyes that he was likely unaware of showing.

“Ryan,” Alex said in a slightly hoarse voice. “If you wouldn’t mind escorting our Dolly back to her cage. I’ve got an idiot to kill.”

“Please,” Evie said as he stood and walked away from her.

“Ryan, leave her,” Lindsay said. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Will you, now, Pony?” Alex said, looking at him with amusement.

“Yes,” Lindsay said. He gave Ryan a hard look. “Leave her.”

Alex took Lindsay by the elbow as he exited the bathroom, pulling him along. Lindsay nearly lost his balance as he pivoted to leave the bathroom with Alex, though he looked over his shoulder at the woman as they left.

Alex pushed him up against the wall just outside of the bathroom, framing with his head with his hands on either side of it.

“You look like hell,” Lindsay said, touching some of the blood on his cheek that was starting to dry. Though itwas clear that his Pony was angry with him, sparks leapt through his eyes with their bodies pressed this close. And beneath that, a stubborn, tender love that Alex did not perhaps deserve, but he drank it down greedily anyway.

“Can’t say the same about you, Pony,” Alex said. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

Alex sealed his lips over Lindsay’s. In spite of the blood on Alex’s lips, Lindsay parted his own lips and their tongues met in a slow, knee-trembling caress. No matter how many times they’d entered into a kiss, it still sent hot currents through Alex, straight to his cock, and all the way down to his toes. He wasn’t sure what it was about Lindsay that was so compelling. Lindsay wasn’t the most handsome of men. But he had a good-natured face, open and appealing. And those eyes, green and guileless. They possessed a certain purity, Alex thought, that made them so delicious to stare into while Lindsay suffered the agonies and indignities Alex adored inflicting on him. The curse of his straight red hair included a spill of freckles like rusty constellations spanning over his milky skin. And he had a crooked smile that was entirely too charming on its own. He looked and spoke every inch like the son of a farmer he was. Something about that working class quality lured him in, captured him. Echoes of his childhood and the people he grew up with. But his to capture, to shape, to brutalize and punish, at his own will.

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