Tempting Trade, page 7
part #1 of Desolate Lands Series
It meant there were few left. Mum and Dad protected theirs with the same sort of zeal they guarded our supply of canned goods, but I’d read nearly all of them, most more than once. I was a voracious reader, and if one thing could make staying in this spooky old place, with these terrifying men, more amenable it would have been a library full of books.
Jackson strode down the corridor, his heavy booted feet scuffing along the parquet floor as he went. I watched him walk, and noted he had an assurance about him, the kind I suspected only came from being of his height and size with the heightened senses of an Altered.
My stomach turned at the thought of what he’d told me earlier, when he’d said I was one of them, too. I didn’t believe it, but it would explain the strange things that had occurred in my life. The way I sometimes knew exactly what my mum was going to say. Or the way I’d sense an event was going to happen before it did. But then again, they used to say my beloved and now long dead great grandma had ‘the sight’ so maybe it was a family thing and nothing to do with being Altered?
We reached a grand double door and Jackson opened it, stepping inside and holding it back for me to follow him.
I walked in and stopped dead. If I’d been bowled over by the dining room, then this was a whole other level of wow. And Jackson was a big fat liar, because the space was full of books.
They were crammed in almost from floor to ceiling on every wall. The ceiling was high, and the place had one of those ladders on wheels that you could move about to reach the higher books.
A sleek, black, grand piano stood off to one side, near an alcove with a small seating area, and a low coffee table upon which sat a huge marble chess set.
A sound escaped me. The sort of sound I’d never made before. A kind of whimper crawled up my throat and turned into a slight moan as it escaped my parted lips.
Jackson was watching me with a smirk on his devilishly handsome face. Ben watched too, and his face held something altogether more lustful.
“Fuck, Milly, don’t go making noises like that in a house full of red blooded males who rarely get female company.”
I shrank back a little at the heat behind his words. Ben was good looking. Jackson even more so, and my plan meant I wanted them to want me, didn’t I? But the reality of his powerful male lust scared me.
Then thoughts of Mum and Dad in danger flashed into my mind, and I pushed the fear away. If I slept with one of them, chose one, and screwed his brains out, would he be more likely to help me? Could I make him somehow fall for me?
Could I sell my soul to save my family?
Would it work?
These men were hard, bitter, and rough edged. Maybe it would, though. They were surely lonely here in this big house. And if women did come visit, they were probably as hard bitten, if not more so, than these men. Me? I was naïve, soft. I’d been protected and now I’d entered their harsh world, a shiny new person with none of the weathered early onset age lines, or grey hairs that so many outside the compounds had from a young age.
I had curves, too. I ate well. The feral women I’d seen, they were skin and bones at times, or in many cases, as muscular as the men. Steroids were rampant amongst feral settlements, I’d heard. A way for people to feel stronger and more able to fight off attacks by the Foamers.
I wandered away from the men, giving myself space to think without their big bodies crowding me. I ran my finger along the book spines as I walked, taking in the titles in delight.
Pride and Prejudice. The Mill on the Floss. Vanity Fair. Dear God, I would be in reading heaven here. My father would think he’d hit the jackpot if he could stay in this place.
I turned to look at Ben and Jackson. Could I sleep with one of them if they wanted me? If I were being honest, Jackson appealed to me. I’d dreamed about him for God’s sake. Strange, heated, erotic dreams. And he was an astonishing looking man. I doubted few women would walk past him on the street and not give him a second glance.
Ben was good looking in a different way. His short hair, and scar gave him an air of danger, but there was also a normality to his face. A lived-in kind of comfortableness that made you think he might be a normal kind of a guy, despite his bulk.
I could see him going for a coffee, or a beer with friends before the world went to shit. Jackson looked as if he should be leading the barbarian horde into battle. Nothing ordinary or normal about him. No comfort in his features, but plenty of beauty.
Then there was Doc. He had a nice face. Handsome. Those blue eyes made me go all swoony. He was still big built, but much slimmer than either Jackson or Ben. And of course, there was the mysterious Alexandru.
“When will I meet Alexandru?” I asked.
Maybe he’d be the one I could give myself to.
The two men exchanged a glance I couldn’t decipher. So much for my alleged psychic abilities.
Could I sell my body in exchange for help freeing my parents from the compound? Maybe it would be more of an exchange. They might not give me what I wanted though. I could seduce one and it all be for nothing.
What if I offered it, point blank? Have me, in return for fetching my parents here?
I could try, but part of me didn’t think it would work. I might be supposedly beautiful, but I hardly thought I was Helen of Troy. Men might want me, but probably not enough to go to extreme danger to have me.
But what if…I went back to my original thought, what if I had sex with one and tried to make him fall for me? Maybe then he’d do it for me. Did love even exist anymore?
I thought my parents loved one another, but couldn’t be sure. This new, hard world had turned my mother hard too. Instead of the arty dreamer I remembered as a young teenager, she’d morphed into a woman who wanted her daughter to marry a boy simply to gain social prestige.
I didn’t blame her. She was tired, ground down. I could see it on her face. The way she looked ten years older than she was. The way her eyes held a palpable sorrow.
Dad faired somewhat better.
“Soon.” Ben, finally replied, then turned to Jackson. “Our guest is scared in those quarters all alone. Wants to be on a wing near us.”
“That’s handy seen as I wasn’t going to let her be all the way out on that corridor,” Jackson said.
“Who sleeps where?” I asked. Ben hadn’t been specific.
“Why?” Jackson narrowed his eyes.
“I’m trying to figure out which one of you is least scary. Maybe I ought to take a room near Alexandru, perhaps he’s the least scary of you all.”
Ben let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “Oh, yeah, believe that, sister. You’re in for a shock. Anyway, Alex sleeps downstairs.”
“What?” I frowned. “Down here? Why?”
“No. not here. Below here.” Ben turned and began to walk out of the room. “I’m fucking starving and you must be hungry, too. I’m going to make some food. You coming?”
I wasn’t really hungry, the sickness still churning in my stomach, but I hadn’t eaten all day, and I ought to keep my strength up.
Food was bland and boring these days. Tins of stuff; Spam, Fish, Corned beef, that surely had never seen a cow in its life and was more likely mangy horse mixed in with some sheep. Mutton. So much mutton. Ugh. I hated the strong taste of it. We had vegetables of course, but they weren’t the nice things I remembered from my childhood. Rocket, or arugula, from Italy, tasty tomatoes, avocados. Those luxuries were long gone. Our vegetables were things such as carrots, swede, turnips, some soggy lettuces in summer, cucumber, and asparagus. Those sorts of things. We also had tart apples, and berries. No bananas. It always struck me as odd that after The Collapse one of the first things to disappear from the shelves were bananas.
I followed Ben to the kitchen, all too aware of Jackson behind me. Something about him put all my senses on alert. Even my neck prickled in awareness as if he blew gently on my nape.
When we got to the kitchen, which necessitated going down some stairs and into what looked like the old servants’ quarters, Ben marched up to a huge double-door fridge freezer and threw open the doors.
I looked inside and gave a gasp of utter surprise. There were cheeses, meats, what looked like ham and a turkey leg. A wider variety of vegetables than I’d seen in ages, and even fresh milk, in a glass bottle.
I turned to my captors, all astonishment. “How? I mean…where?” I gave up and gestured lamely to the fridge.
Jackson shrugged. “We grow a lot of stuff here. We have enough land safe from the Foamers and protected to grow food. Of course, Ferals do break in now and again and forage some before we see them off, and once they took our whole crop of tomatoes, but generally the food is safe. We have chicken’s here. And we hunt. There are some wild turkeys and chickens as well as pigs in the woods outside the fence, which the Ferals hunt, too, but most of them are shit at it. We also have two generators that provide enough power to run the house along with a greenhouse outside where we grow food hydroponically. When we’re lucky, we can trade with others who grow food, as well.”
“Wow.” My stomach rumbled, and Ben laughed.
“Let’s eat.”
He pulled out the turkey leg and slammed it onto the counter, not bothering to put a plate out for it. This was followed by a slab of cheese, some tomatoes, cucumber, and a gorgeous bunch of watercress. Oh wow, watercress. I loved it and hadn’t had it in the longest time.
“All you need now is some mayonnaise and this would be the perfect feast,” I said, joking, because mayo was a luxury too far.
Jackson turned suddenly hungry eyes my way and grinned. “Fuck, I miss mayo.”
“Make some,” I shrugged.
“Erm, don’t know how,” he said.
“It’s easy. You need eggs, oil. Do you have them? Some vinegar?”
Ben busied himself getting me the ingredients.
I set about making a fresh mayonnaise, using an honest to goodness hand held mixer. Heaven.
After a short time, I had it the right consistency. I dipped my finger in to taste and hummed my approval as it tasted fine!
“Let me taste,” Jackson said.
And then I did it.
I did the thing that changed it all.
I did something so forward, and frankly, crazy, that I didn’t know what came over me. I dipped my finger back into the mayo and held it up right by Jackson’s mouth.
He stared at me for a moment.
“Open up,” I whispered.
It seemed I had made my decision. Jackson it was.
Holy shit, what was I playing at? Trust me to pick the most dangerous one to try and seduce. My finger shook, but I didn’t lower it.
Fire flashed in his eyes, and the amber warmed. He might not have shown any interest in me, but Jackson was interested alright. I faltered and went to pull my hand away, scared suddenly, and also ashamed of myself.
Jackson’s hand came out so quick to capture mine, I didn’t see it happen, and only realized it had when firm fingers settled around my wrist.
He held my hand where it was, pointer finger out, aimed at his lips, and then he parted said lips, and sucked in my finger.
The moment he did this, something elemental within me came to life. I had been attracted to a man before. Had boyfriends. Lusted after people and had stupid crushes on some of them. I’d even fancied myself in love before, but I’d never felt anything like I did from such a small moment of intimacy with this man.
The minute his lips wrapped around the end of my finger and sucked it into the warmth of his mouth, my world tilted on its axis and heat bloomed between my legs as my breath came out in short puffs.
“Hmm,” he lifted his mouth from me after humming around my finger and giving me more sensation. “That is good.”
Ben had watched the whole thing with hungry eyes.
“Give Ben a taste,” Jackson said, something undefinable shining in his eyes.
I held the bowl out to Ben, wanting the ground to swallow me up now that I’d made such a show of myself.
“No,” Jackson said slow and deep. “The way you let me taste. Let. Ben. Taste.”
Holy shit. The intonation of his delivery left no room for ambiguity that when he said let Ben taste, he meant me, not the mayo.
I looked to Jackson, confused. I’d been playing a game. Wanting to get him to maybe like me some, so I could start to try and get him on my side about my parents. The moment he’d taken my finger into his mouth, I’d realized I was hopelessly out of my depth.
There was some weird connection between us, an attraction based on more than his pure physicality, as impressive as that was. Now, he wanted me to let Ben have a taste. Of me? Why? Didn’t he want me? Oh, God, was he into threesomes?
So out of my depth. Slim had been right.
I swallowed and looked to Ben. He wasn’t smiling, but instead staring at me as if he wanted to eat me alive. “Yeah, Milly, give me a taste.”
I was scared, but I was also hopelessly turned on. I had the strangest urge to simply surrender to these two big, powerful men and let them do what they would to me. Maybe it would involve the three of us on the kitchen table, and the thought made me damp between my legs. Part of me wanted to turn tail and run away from it all. To escape the thick, lust laden air of the kitchen.
Instead, I slowly dipped my finger once more into the mayo. I pulled it out of the bowl, the end covered in thick, cool dressing, and held it out to Ben. At the last minute, I panicked and snatched my hand back.
Ben grunted.
I turned and wiped my hands on a tea towel hanging from one of the doors.
“Oh, well,” Jackson said. “Maybe another time.”
I turned to him, humiliated and scared and not wanting to show either. I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “I want to go home, I don’t like it here, and I don’t like your games.”
“Oh, really?” he laughed. “You don’t like our games?” Jackson shook his head. “You’re the one that started playing, Milly. You got cold feet, and that’s all cool. We won’t do anything to you that you don’t want, but you wanted.”
We? So, they were planning on doing something to me together. The thought both titillated and terrified me.
“I didn’t want,” I said.
“Liar,” Ben whispered in my ear. “Your pussy is soaked. I can smell you.”
I flushed hot with shame at his words. But even worse came another pulse of arousal.
“Come on, let’s stop teasing our little Milly. She’s going to get a bad impression of us,” Jackson said. “Let’s eat.”
They grabbed the food and carried it to the worn, wooden table, where they set it down. Then Jackson went to the fridge and got out some beers, popping the lids off them and passing me one. Ben had rummaged around in a drawer and brandished some knives and forks in his hand as he came back to the table.
“Grab three plates, Milly,” he tossed over his shoulder as if they hadn’t just tag-team harassed me.
“Third cupboard along,” Jackson added.
I found the crockery, all a mish-mash of different styles, and carried three over.
We all loaded our plates, and I took a big swig of the ice-cold beer they’d given me, needing it like a dying man needs water. I wanted to get blindingly drunk for the first time in my life. Anything to stop the terror. But it would only be worse in the morning when I woke up. I’d still be a captive here, but with the hangover from hell. Hangovers always made me depressed and I was in a dark enough place as it was.
“How dangerous is it in the compound?” I asked after swallowing some succulent turkey.
“It’s getting worse all the time.”
“Will my parents be okay?”
Ben shrugged. “Where they are now, I reckon they will be okay for a while longer, but ultimately the compound won’t hold.”
I relaxed some at his words. It gave me time to figure out a way to get one of these men on my side. Not either of these two. They were both far too dangerous to me. Honestly? After mayo-gate I could see myself letting them tag-team me, have their wicked way with me and end up not asking for anything in return because their combined hotness had melted my tiny mind.
I needed a different option. Perhaps Doc or Alexandru?
As if thinking about him had called him to me, a door opened to the far side of the kitchen, and a figure stepped out of the gloom there.
“Ah, Alex. Evening. Or should I say, morning?” Ben grinned.
The man who had opened the door stepped into the artificial light of the kitchen. The strip light had been on when we came in but at some point the day outside had faded, and it had become twilight without me really noticing.
Alex yawned and ruffled his thick hair. It was dark, so dark it looked blue-black under the lighting. He was tall, though not as big as Jackson. Broad too, but leaner, and his face… Good God, his face. The man was stunning.
Pale skin, with deep blue eyes, peering out of lashes so long they should be illegal.
“Sleep well?” Ben asked.
“Like the dead,” came the deadpan reply.
Ben rolled his eyes and I didn’t get the joke.
“Who is this ravishing creature?” Alexandru sauntered over and gazed down at me.
He reached out with two long fingers and tipped my jaw. His touch was cool, not unpleasant but strangely chilled, like marble on a hot summer’s day.
“This is Milly, and she’ll be staying a while.”
“Oh, is she with you. Or you?” He pointed to Jackson first, then Ben. “Or is she here for all of us to play with?” This he added with a smirk.
“No playing, for now.” Jackson said. “Although the little minx nearly started something a moment ago. But…no playing.” He sounded saddened by this. “She’s here for a reason. She’s an Altered. A rather special one, too.”
“Really? So, this is the woman you’ve been dreaming about? I should have known. Our savior made flesh.” Alexandru sat opposite me and smiled.
My heart stopped dead. I swear to all that is holy, it stopped beating in my chest for a few seconds.
