Crash for Me (The Blankenships Book 7) (5 page)

“Of course, Mr. Blankenship,” Jason said.

“And one more thing?”

“Yes?”

“Knock it off with the Mr. Blankenship crap,” Alex said. He felt his smile grow just a little more brittle. “That was my father. I’m Alex.”

“Yes, Mr—uh, Alex. Absolutely. I’ll see you in fifteen.”

Leo was watching him closely as he disconnected the call. “Something important?”

“Something crucial,” Alex replied. “I need to go. You are welcome to come with me.”

“No,” Leo said. “I have things to arrange. Just in case.”

There was something about the way Leo said it. Something dark and dangerous, and Alex again reminded himself that this was a part of his friend about which he did not want to ask too many questions. “Will we see you tonight?”

“Assume yes,” Leo said. “I will be in touch if I cannot make it.”

They stood. Leo offered his hand, and Alex pulled him into a hug. A proper hug, both arms. It felt good, safe, to have someone to rely on, even for just a moment. There was a different dynamic between them than existed between himself and Zoey. He felt protective of her in a way that was difficult to quantify. Even though he knew she could stand up for herself, even though he knew she could handle almost anything, he still felt the urge to keep her safe.

It lasted just a moment, and then they broke apart. “Thank you,” Alex said.

“Thank me later,” Leo said, a glint in his eye. “Right now, manage what you must. I will see you soon.”

CHAPTER SIX

Zoey stared at her phone for a while as her loose spiral curls dripped onto her shoulders. It took longer than it should have to pick it up and dial home. Not her nasty little apartment. Home.

Her mother picked up the phone on the third ring. She was breathless. Zoey imagined her having run in from outside, where she might have been finishing something in the garden, or rushing in from the living room, searching for a receipt or a pencil to mark her place in whatever romance novel she’d been reading. “Hello? Zoey?”

It took Zoey just a moment to get her voice calm and level. “Mama,” she said. “Did you and Daddy finally get caller ID?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” her mother said, laughing, and launched into a story about how the phone company had offered them a reduction in their bill if they gave in and finally got one of those ‘new-fangled things.’ Zoey listened, laughed, and marveled. Her parents had argued for years that they had no need of caller ID, since they both had cell phones, but apparently things had finally just connected. It had been too long since she’d called home. A few weeks at least, but with so much happening, it felt like much longer than that.

“So, sha,” Mama said, once she’d wound through the surprisingly eventful story of installing the little caller ID box on their ancient phone, “Tell me, who is he?” A brief pause. “Or she. I don’t want to assume. If that’s why you moved to the city, after all, you can tell us. You could have just gone down to New Orleans, though, if that were the case. Or even Atlanta.”

She had to laugh. “No, Mama, I’m not a lesbian. If I were, I promise, I’d tell you.”

“So it’s a him, then. Tell me about him.”

She sank into the plush sofa and tried to think about how to explain her relationship with Alex. “I don’t know what there is to say, yet.” How could she explain this house, this man who ordered his clothes on the phone, to her parents, who were certainly upper middle class, but had never even considered this sort of life? How could she tell them how she’d ended up staying in this apartment, which was probably the size of their entire house, and not mention the tide of death and destruction that she’d seen in Alex’s life since. Thank god her parents avoided the gossip columns, or they would have seen everything already.

“Is he good to you, at least?”

“He is,” she said. Because he was. He held her close, even when he was hurting, and he was doing his best to take care of her. But she didn’t know if that would be anything like enough. “Look, Mama, that’s not why I called—”

“He better be taking good care of you,” she said, completely ignoring Zoey’s attempt at changing the topic of conversation. “Can we fly up and meet him?”

“I don’t think things are at that point yet, Mama.”

“I hear things, Zoey,” Mama’s tone changed, becoming quieter and softer. “It’s not just from the things that turn up on my phone. I taught Daddy about Google Alerts so we’d see your articles and—it’s just that there’s been a lot more than that. Baby, I worry about you.”

Zoey stomach churned, and she suddenly wished she’d turned down even the mild lunch that Sophia had pressed upon her. What awful things they must have seen the past few days. What terrible things they must think that she was connected to. “Mama…” There wasn’t anything to say, not really. Her voice trailed off, and she couldn’t pick it up again.

“You’re a grown woman, Zoey, and I’m not trying to pry into your business. But I’m worried about you, all the same. Is it this Alexander person, is that who you’re attached to?”

“We’re seeing each other, anyway.”

“And he’s good to you? For real now, not just because you need to make nice for your Mama.”

“He’s good to me, I swear. He’s real good.” It was funny, always, hearing the southern slang creep back into her voice. It was familiar. She’d never shamed herself for sounding like her parents. She’d learned how to sound like a New Yorker when she’d needed to, but she loved the soft, slow sound of her parents’ accents.

“And is he really mixed up in all this mess?”

“It’s happening around him, Mama, but he’s got nothing to do with any of it. I swear.” An idea came to her, and she kicked herself for not saying something before. “Mama, reporters aren’t calling you, are they? Is that why you got the caller ID?”

The pause was so long that her mother must have given up on trying to lie. “It’s no bother, Zoey; I don’t want you to worry about it.”

Something deep inside of her had been ever so slightly buoyed by her mother’s gentle concern about a man she might have been dating. This dropped a rock into her inner heart and left her twisted up with fear and concern. “Mama, you need—”

“No,” her mother said, in the same voice she’d used when Zoey was young and had gotten too close to the hot stove. Something deep inside yanked her hand back from the buttons she’d been about to press. “Absolutely not, Zoey, you are not going to worry about me. I don’t know what in the world you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in up there, but I know my girl, and I know that there’s nothing you can get yourself into that you can’t get yourself out of. So you’re going to be careful, and you’re going to be just fine, and when you get yourself sorted, you’re going to bring that foolish northern boy down here to meet your mother and father. Make him act right.”

“Yes, Mama,” she said. She had to take a deep breath to choke back the tears that wanted to fall. But that wasn’t how they did things. No. If she collapsed, if she gave in to the fear that was swirling through her, her parents would know that it was all more than she could handle, and they’d be on their way here on the very next plane, putting themselves in all sorts of danger that would just make surviving harder. She could barely manage to look out for herself and Alex; if her parents were in danger, too, then she had no idea what she’d do.

They’re already in danger,
that dark little voice whispered to her.
Look what happened to the Brie twins
.

You don’t know,
she told herself stubbornly. But she did know. She did, and there was no getting around it.

“His mother was from Georgia,” she found herself saying, her voice bubbling over with fake cheer.

“Oh?” Mama replied, sweet as anything. What a fucking pair they made.

They talked for a few more minutes, but later Zoey couldn’t recall a single word of the conversation. “Take care of yourself now,” Mama said, eventually.

“You too,” Zoey said. She struggled against the lump in her throat. “I love you, Mama.”

Her mother hung up without saying it back. She could understand it. It was like a jinx. If you admitted that you were worried, it made the worry that much more potent, and that much more likely to come true. But she couldn’t stop the what-ifs.

She laid her head down on her knees, and let the tears come.

***

Alex stared at the computer in front of him. After dealing with his father’s journal for all this time, he’d never thought—it had never occurred to him—that the old man would be this blatant about what he was doing.

He took a deep breath, scrubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands, and tried to focus. His vision blurred for a moment, but the words on the screen didn’t change. There, in black and white, he saw his father committing to dealing with both Zhu and Tanaka, acknowledging that he would sell to them, even though they were both sending troops into the Philippines, troops that would be in direct conflict with American forces that AEGIS was also supplying. He saw jokes about ‘whatever made the most money’ was fine with him.

His hands shook. He’d never once considered Philip Blankenship to be a good man. He had never thought to himself that his father was a man worth defending. But this—this was beyond anything Alex could understand. This was criminal.

He was glad that Leo had left to take care of whatever he felt he needed to organize, just in case the three of them needed to make a quick exit from the city. He couldn’t bring himself to share this information. Not yet. But there wouldn’t have been a way to hide the sense of betrayal and horror that he felt at the brazen disregard the old man had clearly felt for the lives of American soldiers. Those AEGIS was theoretically founded to help and support.

God, he was going to be sick.

He’d run other searches in the email, but nothing else had come up. He’d looked for information on Cindy, on his other half-siblings, and on their mothers. Nothing. While the old man had apparently had no problem flaunting his treason on AEGIS’s servers, he’d been more careful when he’d planned to terrorize his various children into living the life Cindy had claimed that he wanted from them.

He clapped the lid of the laptop closed, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and locked the laptop away. He had to talk to the lawyers. This had to be handled properly, or it could blow up everything about the company. It wasn’t going to be just his personal lawyers, either—this was going to have to go through the corporate attorneys. He’d need to make a presentation. Oh, god, he really was going to be sick.

He closed his eyes for a moment and choked down the sense of churning illness in his stomach. He’d thought—since Zoey had first asked him the question, since that awful meeting with the two Asian businessmen, he’d known that it was a distinct possibility—but to be confronted with the truth, that his father was a traitor to his country, on top of being a complete dirt bag. The knowledge made his entire body ache.

Tomorrow. Nothing was going to change between tonight and tomorrow. First thing tomorrow, he’d make the rounds. Check in with PR, see if there was anything that could be done to kill the story about Claire besides waiting for something more exciting to happen, and the tabloids to sink their teeth into that. Go to the lawyers, let them know what he’d found out, and let them deal with all of it.

Tonight, though. Tonight, he was going to go home. No. First, he was going to pick up some really excellent Chinese food and a bottle of Highland Park Scotch. He’d go home to Zoey. Leo would be there, if not right away, then soon. And he was going to sink into her, fuck her, fuck him, fuck someone until this ache in his chest turned back into a beating heart.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Zoey tried to focus her eyes. It wasn’t working very well. It was as if the whiskey had hit her like a wrecking ball, knocking her back a dozen steps. She was glad she was sitting. “Where did you get this again?”

Alex gave her a wide grin. “It’s from the Scotch Malt Society,” he said, slurring just a little on the syllables. “They have a big thing about only bottling from this one cask that they’ve chosen, all carefully. There are judges.” He peered back at her, gesturing with the glass of amber liquid. “The man at the store explained it all very carefully. I’m sure there were judges.”

Leo stared at the dark liquid with an equally closed off expression. “Whiskey,” he said. His accent was a bit thicker than Zoey had heard before, and a giggle bubbled up within her. “Should have gotten vodka.”

Alex actually rolled his eyes. “You should be more stereotypical, Leo. Seriously, I would like you to try.”

Leo gave another considering look at the drink—then tossed it back while Alex howled in protest. “Come,
moya dorogaya
. You have two slaves at your feet. Tell us what you want from us.”

Zoey sipped the last of her whiskey—it felt amazing in her mouth, soft and thick and almost like liquid chocolate—and set the glass aside. Alex had come home with a bottle of whiskey so expensive that she’d choked when he’d told her the price, and some of the most delicious dim sum she’d ever had. She’d tried to ask about his day, he’d stonewalled her until Leo arrived, and they’d broken out the whiskey. She’d done her best to put aside the concerns about her mother, her parents, what they were going to do next, but tension was curled inside her muscles and threaded through her heart.

“A pedicure,” she said, not realizing what words had slipped out of her mouth until she’d actually said them. She giggled, and then pressed the back of her hands to her lips before anything else could be said.

Alex laughed, but Leo nodded.
“Da
. This is a thing we can do.”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know if we have everything we need—”

Leo stood, pulling Alex up to his feet. “Come. I have seen your bathroom. It is better stocked than your average salon.”

“I don’t know how to give a pedicure,” Alex said, his tone verging on complaint.

“Then I will teach you something new,” Leo said.

Which was how it came to be that Zoey was leaning back on the couch, her feet in water almost hot enough to burn, rapid vibrations making her bones feel soft and strange. Leo had her left hand in his lap, digging almost viciously into the webbing of her fingers, dragging the tension out of her movement by movement.

Alex had her right hand, and his movements over her palm were more delicate, more sensual. He trailed a single finger down the middle of her palm, teasing over the thin skin at her wrist, replacing the hard feeling of stress and upset in her stomach with a soft, roiling feeling of luxurious need. It still felt wrong and off to want so much when there had been so much death and pain, but at the same time, she felt so incredibly human, so deeply present, and she didn’t want it to stop.

They toyed with her, and she loved it.

After a while, the water got cold. Leo seemed to know without her saying anything. He leaned down to shut off the vibration of the foot spa, and she sighed happily as he lifted her feet off, toweling them off with a soft, gentle towel. He poured lotion onto his hands and went after her feet and ankles with the same intense pressure he’d used on her hands. She melted under the touch of these two men who seemed to have no care in the world other than her calm and relaxation.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when the touches changed from relaxation to seduction. Was it when her calves had melted into pudding, and Leo touched her knees to encourage her thighs to separate, and she was suddenly aware that she was wearing just thin pajama pants, and she could smell her own arousal, hot and spicy? Was it before or after Alex leaned over and pressed his lips against her inner wrist with a delicate sigh that made her shiver? She wasn’t entirely sure.

“Not fair,” she heard Leo murmur, on the edges of her awareness. “You have things to kiss, but I don’t have permission to do anything.”

She glanced down and saw Alex already looking up at her, his dark eyes warm with interest. There was a question in them, a soft sort of asking, and she had to smile. “I’m too tired to answer questions all night,” she said, letting her voice drop into a lower register. “You make the decisions.” She lifted her hands, interlocking her fingers and dropping them behind her head.

The heat that flooded his eyes—she hadn’t seen it since the first few times they’d been together. For so many of the last few nights, everything had been so far out of his control that he’d needed her to manage this part of them. She’d accepted that responsibility, and done it gratefully, but it didn’t leave her feeling fulfilled in exactly the same way. Everything inside of her gave a delicate shiver at the idea of Alex and Leo using her like their play thing. Doing whatever they wanted to her. Using her in any degrading way. She felt the smile spread not just over her face, but through her chest, lighting her up.

“Well,” Alex said, his voice rough. “I think it’s very unfair that I get to kiss you and Leo doesn’t. I think that this should be an equal opportunity endeavor.” Alex’s hands came to the hem of her sweater while Leo’s went to the waistband of her pajama pants. They stripped her naked quickly, efficiently, and she shivered for a moment there on the couch. And then the men fell on her, almost in unison, Leo kissing his way up her thighs as Alex eased down the cups of her bra and licking over her nipples. It was a strange sensation; Zoey waited for the flood of anticipation and arousal, but what met her was something far smoother and softer. She sighed, her fingers clenching tight behind her head, and everything else falling into a deep relaxation. Her thighs parted, and Leo made a hungry sound, his mouth closing over her cunt with a fervor that made her mouth drop open in silent luxury. Alex undid the cups of her bra, and applied his tongue even more intently to her tight, sensitive nipples, latching his mouth over her left breast while he worked the right between his fingers.

Leo slid a single finger into her aching pussy, and an orgasm slammed down over her like a freight train. It came out of nowhere, and passed just as quickly, her quick gasp of breath the only audible sound she gave as her body clenched down, squeezing tightly. Leo licked into her even more fervently, the hot flat of his tongue devouring her as Alex paid worship to her tits.

As the orgasm passed through her, she sagged back into the couch cushions, aching but completely content. She had to let go of her fingers and tap Leo’s head to signal him to stop for a bit; the release had been so complete that his continued attention edged towards painful.

Somehow, she expected to see the two men turn towards each other, and part of her was very, very interested in exactly what they would do to ease their desire. Instead, they both looked slightly irritated. “That was very quick,” Leo said. Zoey waited for the rush of irritation, the feeling that he was somehow judging her, but it didn’t come. She found herself trusting that he was only put out because there was more he’d wanted to do, not through some kind of failing on her part.

“I know,” Alex said. “We should take her to bed. Give her a chance to rest, and then we can play with her more.”

She gave a soft groan as Leo drew back, raking firm fingertips along her inner thighs. “My room, I imagine?” There was something in his voice, and she found herself glancing back and forth between the men, trying to understand what non-verbal communication was happening right now.

Alex offered a smile back, sad, but sincere. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Leo said, and his expression softened and warmed. “I’d rather have the both of you in my bed than go there alone. When we’re all too tired to keep going, you can sleep there—God knows that the bed is big enough—or you can leave me warm and cuddled and go away. It will be up to you. I think I win, after all.”

Alex gave a loose laugh. “I’m going to go get some supplies, then,” he said as he stood. “For different possibilities.”

“Excellent. I love possibilities.”

Zoey rallied herself to stand, but Leo stood, taking her hand and tugging her toward him before she got the chance. She was surprised, but let her body shift with his. She thought he might carry her romantically through the penthouse—she had to choke back a little yip of sound when he tossed her over his shoulder, one hand on her thigh to hold her in place, tantalizingly close to the crease of her ass. “I don’t promise not to get started without you,” Leo said. And then he laid a slap along the left cheek of her ass.

She wasn’t sure what he expected. Another yip, or an irritated hey, maybe a thump on his back with a girly little fist. What he got was her sharp inhale between her teeth as her body came alive again, her nipples tightening. Her hands twisted into fists in his shirt as she tried not to squirm in an entirely unseemly fashion. The slap had been mostly noise, very little sting, but suddenly, in this incredibly humiliating posture, she wanted more of it. So much more of it.

“Oh my,” Leo breathed.

“I won’t negotiate that on her behalf,” Alex said. “But if you two want to enjoy yourselves, I’ll give you a few minutes, and then join you.”

She felt Leo’s nod, and then the sway of his steps as he carried her through the house. He dropped her on his bed with very little ceremony. She bounced just a bit, and she couldn’t contain a small giggle.

Alex always wore a dark face when he came at her intending to test her flesh with his tools and palms. She knew he didn’t mean harm by it, so she trusted him, but as Leo turned to the wall, unbuttoning his shirt and folding it neatly, hanging it over a chair in the corner, she found a small kernel of fear coiling tight in her stomach. He was physically so much bigger and bulkier than Alex. If he turned towards her with darkness in his eyes, she might call everything off and run for the hills.

But when he turned towards her, unhitching his belt and drawing the expensive leather through the soft loops of his pants with a distinctive, sweet sound, he wore a broad smile. He looped the belt in his hand, thwacking it twice into his palm, and the fear turned the corner into willingness, eager anticipation of the release that would come. The road through would be painful, but that smile told her it would be the right kind of pain.

“Tell me,” Leo rumbled. “How do you and Alex play?” The doubled belt thwacked into his hand again, and she watched the way the leather wrapped around his palm, mesmerized. Her pussy was heating up again, and she fought the urge to squirm.

“He tends to use his hands,” she said, her eyes fastened on the leather. It was a dark brown, and it seemed soft, flexible. Buttery. A little shiver slipped up her spine, making her shoulders dance. “Floggers, sometimes. We played with knives, once, but I had to safe word out.”

He nodded. “My favorite is leather,” he said. “There’s something about skin on skin that I just adore.” His voice was deep and dark, and the slap of the belt into his hand felt like punctuation. “What’s your safe word?”

“If I call you a fucking bastard, then let’s take a break and reassess,” she said. “Where do you want me?”

His expression darkened then, even though the smile stayed carefully in place. “On the bed, so I can stick my finger in your ass while I fuck you. Riding me, so I can play with your tits. Up against that wall, pinned there by my weight and my arms and my hips. But for now?” The smile morphed into a wicked grin. He tossed the belt onto the bed next to her, took her ankles in his hands and pulled so that her body slid down, her ass hanging off the bed awkwardly. He took her hands and pulled her to her feet, nipped lightly at her shoulder with his teeth, and then turned her so that her back was pressed against his chest. She expected him to take a moment in that position, fondling her breasts and her cunt, but he just pushed at her shoulders, bending her at the waist and guiding her hands to grip the footboard of the bed. “Don’t make me tie you down,” he said, quietly. It was the only warning she got before the first slap of the belt.

The sound she made was more an escape of air than a cry. She came up onto her tip toes, her hands tightening on the wood under her fingers. The edges bit like fire into her flesh, and heat poured through her, followed by the pain of the strike. She panted, trying to get on top of the pain, to find that place where she surfed it in and out, instead of being overwhelmed by it.