Page 6 of Exit Strategy

“Copy that. Let’s see about scrambling the channels at the end of the day. Those only lasted about three days. They’re getting faster at cracking the signals.”

“At least the Taliban wasn’t that good,” he said.

“Aye, and they were just shooting at us.” I laughed softly and pulled a cigarette from my crumpled pack. “Kurt out.”

I puffed the smoke a few times. I kept my eyes moving, and tried not to listen, without putting in music or something else to drown the sounds coming from the RV out. Rex was not a gentle man, and I could hear both of them, the slap of skin against skin, choking and gagging noises, and what could only be her weeping.

Not my concern. What my boss did with his wife was beyond none of my business.

I flicked the butt, pulled another cigarette and lit it.

These people were fucking animals.

2

Calanthe…

I heard my husband coming. It was hard not to with his entire entourage. It was just enough time to hide Kurt’s books away. He didn’t know any better, and I didn’t want to cause him any grief or trouble for the small kindness. Small kindnesses turned into big kerfuffle’s around the New Eden Centre with a depressing regularity.

Our public greeting was brief and awkward. I smiled and laughed for our audience, as it was expected of me, but Arik had that predatory look in his eyes, that set to his shoulders. He was in a mood, and I was about to choke on it, surely.

As soon as the trailer door shut, he dropped all pretenses.

“Take off your dress and get on your knees, Calanthe.”

I hesitated, and he scowled at me. “Today,woman. I only have a certain amount of time between shots, and I don’t need you wasting it.”

I felt myself color and his smile became wicked.

I disrobed and he worked his cock out of his costume. I made to move closer, but he stopped me with an, “Ah, ah!”

I went slowly to my knees, and he smiled.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured and stood, hands on his hips, cock rising as I crawled toward him.

“Don’t fuck up the blood or makeup,” he warned me as I reached him.

“No, Husband,” I murmured, and I took him into my mouth. I could have gagged from that alone, but he grasped me by the roots of my long hair and did that for himself, thrusting himself past my teeth and into the back of my throat. I choked at the unexpectedness and cruelty of it, tried to swallow around him, and sobbed. He wasn’t particularlybig, orlong, but it was enough.

I tried to blank my mind, to go somewhere else, but that was a lot harder to do than it sounded with the insistent, painful tugging at my hair and the choking and inability to get a full breath.

I gagged especially hard, and he pulled back, allowing me to breathe a moment which ended on a strangled sob.

“What did I say about costume and makeup, Radiance?” he asked me, and I stumbled out an apology, hating myself for it. Hating all of this. Hating everything.

I just wanted to die.

They wouldn’t let me.

How did I know? I’d tried… last year.

“Up,” he commanded, and I fought to get my legs under me. Arik was cruel, liked it when girls flushed and colored, liked it when they cried, which is precisely why I’d been chosen for him.

Apparently, I was pretty, even when I cried.

“Don’t want to nut in that pretty mouth of yours, not when we’re trying to make a baby, right?” he asked, and I obediently bent over the end of the bed. He didn’t bother bringing my lace panties down, just moved them aside and shoved inside me.

This was easier to deal with in some respects. He, at least, wouldn’t be getting what he wanted out of his prized broodmare. I made sure of that.

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