His Indecent Revelations (Bound and Shackled to the Billionaire BDSM Erotic Romance) Page 2

  Well, it’s all too late anyway.

  Her heart flinches as she replies, “Yes, he treated me very well.”

  “At least he learned his lesson where women are concerned. Is he still a good lover? Can he pleasure a woman in bed?”

  What an absurd question, Susan thinks.

  “I don’t think he has changed that much from when you knew him,” she says, her tone icy. “But why does that concern you? You have Hugh.”

  “Indeed. But Hugh can no longer be my lover in the physical sense.” Alia’s eyes take on a faraway look. “The child was so huge that I was badly injured when it came out of me. The women of the Order did not believe in Caesareans. I barely survived. I healed in time, but there were terrible scars. Scars that would not allow me to experience physical love again.”

  Susan can well imagine the gravity of what Alia went through. The horror washes through her. No wonder Alia is so damaged. And no wonder Hugh took her, Susan, so freely, as if he knows there will be no repercussions from Alia. As if he had Alia’s blessing. Fuck her if you must. Fuck her to punish him.

  Susan says, unable to mask the pain in her voice, “You’ve had your revenge. He’s dead. I don’t even want to ask you what you’re going to do to me now that I’ve served my purpose to lure Channing to you.”

  Alia throws her a sweet smile. “What makes you think Channing is dead? Do you think I’d make his way out of this world so easy?”

  Susan freezes.

  *

  She trembles as Alia leads her down the corridors of the new citadel. She’s afraid of what she will find.

  Her elation of discovering that Channing is still alive is now tempered with her terror of finding him infirmed . . . or worse.

  What have they done to him?

  The shrieking in her head would not abate. Neither would the hammering of hands from inside her skull, trying to escape from this miserable existence where nothing can ever be the same again.

  The words ‘Channing, Channing, Channing’ tumble in her mind, gathering moss. It is easier to fixate on a name rather than a frightening image of what that beautiful, virile man has been reduced to. Oh, can she even bear to look upon him after what they’ve done?

  How much of why she loves Channing has been wrought by his beauty?

  She clenches her fists.

  You stupid, stupid girl. How could you ever think you love Channing for his aesthetics alone? You love him for everything he is, and if he has to wear a mask for the rest of his life, you’d love him just the same.

  They enter a courtyard. In the center, surrounded by a spiked iron fence, is a rose red house made of brick.

  Alia says, “Enter as you wish. Tend to him. He needs you more than ever.”

  Susan rushes inside the house, her heart galloping like wild horses.

  What she sees makes her stop in her tracks.

  4

  Channing lies on a bed, unmoving. His eyes are closed, swollen and purple. His lower lip is cut. He is covered with a sheet, but she can see the yellowing bruises on his naked torso and arms.

  “Channing!” she cries.

  She throws herself onto the side of the bed. She touches his cheeks, forehead, lips, arms – but he does not respond. He breathes the sleep of the comatose.

  “Oh Channing,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes.

  She reaches under the sheet to clasp his hand, willing him to life. But he does not open his eyes. She squeezes his palm, trying to let her own life force flow into him – to heal him, to make him whole again. But try as she may, he still does not wake up.

  Her tears spill over her cheeks in a deluge. She sinks to her haunches by his bed, still grasping onto his hand. She doesn’t ever want to let him go.

  I love you, she says silently, kissing his hand.

  She sits for hours this way. And when she falls asleep, she lies on the floor beside his bed so that he would not have to sleep alone.

  *

  She tends to his wounds with the gauze, cotton and alcohol she finds in the drawers. The little house is rustic in the way of a Middle Eastern peasant abode, with warm brick walls and a traditional kitchen.

  But despite her careful ministrations, he burns up with fever.

  Under the sheets, he wears the bruises and cuts of being severely beaten up. She feels for broken bones, but can detect nothing save a suspiciously mobile rib on the right side of his chest. There is also a suppurating open wound on his left testicle, which fills her with panic. What have they done to him? What have they tried to do to him?

  Oh, she can’t bear to think of what he had been through. Her thorough examination of his body reveals that his anus has been severely compromised. With a deep shudder, she remembers the chair he had been tethered to, and the hole made in its seat.

  She sponges his brow with a cold compress. Over and over, she wrings it dry and soaks it in ice cold water again. But his skin still flushes with the sheen of the unwell. He does not seem to be sweating it off either. And more alarmingly, he does not wake up. He lies there on the bed like a beautiful fallen angel. His features are not at rest and he does not sleep the sleep of the peaceful. The orbs of his eyes beneath his closed eyelids are constantly in flux, dreaming stuff that can only be nightmares from the tortured expression on his face.

  If only she can give him her life!

  Their meals are brought to them every day by a woman in a black burqa. Nothing fancy. Certainly not steak and potatoes but plain rice and broth filled with sour-tasting vegetables.

  Susan says to her, “Please . . . we need a doctor. Can you get us a doctor?”

  The woman blesses herself in the Arabic fashion and shakes her head.

  Susan is left to fret and tear her hair out over Channing. She can’t feed him. She can’t make him drink anything. And meanwhile, he is wasting away before her eyes.

  She goes to the spiked iron gates and screams her lungs out – “Alia! Please, we need a doctor!” – over and over, hoping to rouse someone to their plight. But her cries only echo in the cavernous walls surrounding the house. Is anyone around at all in this section of the citadel? What a strange place this prison is, built almost as an isolated gaol for long-term political prisoners.

  She is certain Alia knows that Channing is very ill. Which means she intends to let him rot without any medical aid . . . and for Susan to watch him die a slow death.

  No!

  Something tells her Channing would not last long unless she does something. For he has been stricken with not only an illness of the body. His spirit is suffering and he has lost the will to fight.

  But what can she do? She is as much a prisoner as he is. She can cut open her arm and let her blood drip into him, but he would be none the better. If only she was more resourceful. If only she had more survival skills. She briefly contemplates overpowering the burqa-clad woman and holding her hostage, but decides that Alia probably would not respond.

  She can almost hear Alia’s bored, uninflected tone. What is that old woman to me? Let her die.

  Besides, that would make her no better than her kidnappers.

  Channing’s eyes are hollowed and sunken. His skin clings to his muscles. He is severely dehydrated. She dribbles water constantly into his mouth – which she prizes forcefully open – and pinches his nose, hoping that he would swallow some of it.

  He needs more than just water and prayers. He needs antibiotics and an intravenous drip. But she is forced to make do with eighteenth century methods. The little house is sparse and filled only with things for basic living – a kettle, plates, cutlery, and swaths and swaths of cloth. At least she can use some of the cloth for bandages.

  Unless she does something more drastic, Channing will die.

  *

  Ferreting under the kitchen sink for more detergents to wash the sheets, Susan is struck by a bluish mold that covers the piping.

  Mold.

  There is something she needs to remember about mold. Something eighteenth century
people didn’t know and therefore could not harness. But she’s a twenty-first century woman with a twenty-first century education.

  Bluish-green mold. Penicillium notatum.

  Penicillin.

  But the mold here isn’t refined. It is raw and unprocessed, and possibly filled with minute impurities that can render Channing sicker than he already is. Or possibly even give him a severe allergic reaction which can kill him.

  Nevertheless, it is the only chance she has to do something different – to stop him from sinking into the eternal pit of his own uncompromising hell. Her spirit lights with the flames of hope for the first time in days.

  With vigor, she scrapes the mold off, mixes it with water and drips the concoction through his withered lips.

  And kneels by his bed to pray.

  5

  Susan wakes up to a rustling sound.

  She snaps open her eyes in alarm. The last time this has happened, she woke up in a strange and foreign place. But she is lying on the floor of the cottage on a makeshift mattress, her back stiff and her bones sore. The shadow of Channing’s sickbed still looms ominously beside her.

  A hand moves down to caress her hair. And a pair of beautiful blue eyes gazes down at her lovingly.

  “Got anything to eat?” Channing says with a weak smile.

  *

  Slowly, Susan rehabilitates him. He is still extremely weak and his limbs have lost all their muscle tone. So she makes him eat in increasing proportions. And she helps him to do toning exercises to build up his body strength again.

  Every day, Channing asks to see Hugh. And every day, the burqa-clad woman makes the same negative gesture – she blesses herself, shakes her head and scuttles away.

  “I guess they intend to keep us prisoner here for a long, long time,” Channing remarks.

  “You don’t seem overly upset.”

  “We’ll get out of here somehow.”

  “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

  He flashes her a sad little smile. “I’m afraid that if I tell you, they’d torture it out of you. So it’s best I don’t tell you until it’s time.”

  He reaches out to stroke her face. His gestures are tender.

  “I’d die if anything happened to you,” he says softly.

  Likewise, she thinks. But she doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t want to jinx it.

  Strangely enough, she is glad for this time they have together. She has never really had the time to get to know Channing before. He had always been her distant boss for many years. And then he had been her dom in their brief and weird dominant-submissive relationship. But now for the first time, he is becoming her true lover.

  She is getting to know him inside and out, exploring the deepest reaches of his mind.

  There is so much she wants to know about him, but she touches only on aspects not pertaining to his Iraqi past. Her mind has imposed a barrier. I don’t really want to know . . . because the more I know, the more miserable I will be. She is happy with knowing what she knows right now, and she prefers to maintain the pristine knight-in-shining-armor image of Channing that she has right now.

  Yes, maintain the fantasy. Be damned with the past. Because she is certain that his innate goodness will prevail. Surely a man can’t have changed all that much from what he was ten years ago? He must have been good then, as he is good now. Anyhow, he is who he is today – and she loves him for the man he is trying to be.

  She will wipe the slate of his past clean if she has to. At least in her mind.

  It seems ironic they are in this very predicament because of his past. The very past they are tiptoeing around and clearly avoiding any conversation about.

  It doesn’t matter. They are talking to each other like real lovers now, as though they are having an extremely extended romantic date.

  “You like cheese-flavored popcorn?” he says, laughing. It is good to see him laugh again. “Fancy that. I like cheese-flavored popcorn mixed together with caramel. Sweet and salty all in one bag.”

  “I’m a popcorn junkie,” she replies. “I can’t watch a movie without popcorn. I’ll go through a whole tub by the end of the first act.”

  “Remind me not to share a tub with you.”

  “Yeah, we should totally have our own tubs.”

  They smile at each other – smiles full of meaning and everything else unsaid. It is as if they are already planning for a future together that they may never have. Each moment becomes more precious, to be savored like fleeting happiness.

  Except for one thing.

  When she tries to get more intimate with him, he flinches.

  He doesn’t do it consciously, she is certain. They would start kissing on the bed. Slow, searching kisses that sear her soul and makes her hunger for more. He would be all right with the kissing. His lips would mesh against hers. His tongue would probe her mouth, lick at its insides – drowning in the warm, wet goodness of her.

  Her hands would grasp his waist, and he would put his rapidly strengthening arms around her body. They would sink back into the bed, devouring each other’s mouths passionately and voraciously.

  But when she reaches for his groin, he freezes.

  “What is it?” she asks timidly.

  “I’m not ready . . . I need more time.”

  The wound on his testicle has already healed, but she remembers the excoriations she has seen on his anus. She shudders.

  His shadowed eyes flit away. Whatever they have done to him, he has decided to keep it close to his chest.

  Give him time, she tells herself. But her heart can’t help clenching with hurt. He doesn’t mean it, she knows, but still . . .

  These things can’t help hurting in a soul deep sort of way.

  *

  Three weeks after they had first been incarcerated in here, they get a visit from Hugh. Finally! After all of Channing’s pleas. He is accompanied by two guards with machine guns.

  “Nice to see you again, big brother.” Hugh waltzes in as if he owns the place. Well, she supposes he technically does.

  The twins stare at each other – two peas in a pod. Susan is aware that this is the first time, as far as she knows, that they have been together in the same physical air space, unless Hugh had been part of Channing’s torture in that time space continuum that she wasn’t privy to.

  “Where have you been?” Channing says casually. “I’ve been asking for you.”

  “Here and about, investing and hiding all traces of the two hundred and fifty million dollars you so generously donated to our cause.”

  “I wasn’t aware you had a cause.”

  Susan’s eyes dart back and forth between the twins. It’s amazing how identical they are, especially now that Channing has lost a bit of his bulk. Both twins have let their buzz cuts grow out. Channing for the lack of clipping utensils in their prison. Hugh for whatever reasons she doesn’t wish to speculate.

  Hugh smiles in that easy but predatory way of his.

  “I’ve had her, you know, in ways you can’t imagine.”

  A tic jumps in Channing’s right cheek. “If you touch her again, I’ll make you wish you’d spontaneously aborted in our mother’s womb.”

  Hugh laughs out loud. “Touche. You’re not exactly in a position to threaten me, brother.”

  “Channing, it’s all right,” Susan says nervously. The last thing she wants is for them to haul him back to the dungeons again and torture him into a worse psychological wreck than he already is.

  Channing is bunched and corded up, as if he is just one big magma mess waiting to explode. A physical pain twinges in Susan’s gut. The entire room feels like a tinderbox. One spark, and they’d all be jumping at each other’s throats. Sweat trickles uncomfortably down her back, staining her clothes.

  Channing swallows. His voice is extremely strained. “I need to talk to you, Hugh . . . alone.”

  Hugh waves a hand. “You are talking to me. I haven’t come to gloat or remind you of your past tra
nsgressions. I came to show you this.”

  He hands Channing several printouts. Susan creeps to look over his shoulder. She’s still wary of getting too close to Hugh – not least because of her guilty attraction to him. The printouts are of webpages. News articles. Headlines from the past two weeks.

  ‘BILLIONAIRE PRESUMED DEAD. POSSIBLE PLANE CRASH OVER THE CARIBBEAN. DEBRIS NOT FOUND.’

  ‘TOP EXECUTIVE MISSING ALONGSIDE BILLIONAIRE. PRESUMED TO BE IN THE SAME PLANE.’

  ‘MYSTERY SURROUNDS DISAPPEARANCE OF BILLIONAIRE.’

  “Your company stock went into free fall upon your presumed demise,” Hugh remarks. “The jackals are prowling. Rival companies are waiting in the wings, planning hostile takeovers.”

  Channing peruses the news items. When he has finished, he hands the printouts back to Hugh.

  “You are pleased, no doubt,” he says.

  “I am ambivalent. You still owe me a quarter of a billion dollars.”

  “You can both of us go and maybe we can still salvage whatever’s left of the money.”

  “Nice try, but nothing going.”

  “The deal was for you to let Susan go. If you want to kill me, just kill me and get it over with. But Susan is innocent. She has done nothing to either Alia or you.”

  “You still don’t get it. She’s going to be crucial in our best laid plans.” Hugh jabs a thumb in Susan’s direction. “We’re going to need her around for as long as you’re around, big brother.”

  There are undercurrents here that she can detect. Dangerous ones. Fear courses through her. Something bad is going to come out of this. Neither Channing nor she would be allowed to leave this place alive.

  And here she thought she could maintain her fantasy of playing house with Channing forever.

  “Hugh.” Channing’s demeanor softens. “We have to talk, the two of us. Whatever you’re doing . . . it’s not you. You used to be ambitious, ruthless, stubborn, determined to have your way – ”