Page 30 of Tease Me


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I need time away from these men. When they are around, it’s like the air is sucked out of my lungs and it takes every ounce of energy I have just to breathe. I’m always in fight-or-flight mode, with neither option available to me, and it’s quite clear they don’t really know what to do with me when my father finally does come back to the US. I’m not sure which frightens me most. Spending the next week here with them, or them handing me back over. I don’t trust any of them. I know the shit will hit the fan when my father refuses to pay them the thirty million. I just need to be far away when that happens. I just don’t know how. There has to be a way out of this mess and with luck, tonight I’m going to have the space to figure it out.

Dacre paces the apartment, his feet as heavy as his huffing and puffing. The air is thick with tension and I can almost feel the anger rolling off him as he stomps past me time and time again. My chest tightens. Dacre isn’t like Mercier or Josh, but he has his own brand of danger. I don’t know him well enough to know how he will cope with something like this. He’s angry, but will that anger turn against me? I’m the obstacle standing in his way.

He presses dial once again and I wonder who is left to call. There’s no one left that knows I’m here.

“Sheila, It’s Alexander. I need a dress... I don’t know. What size do models usually wear? She’s about five four... Oh and Sheila, it’s for a big black-tie event. I want the best. Send it up and charge my card. I want it here by five.”

My hands grip the spoon and bowl and I realize how foolish I’ve been. There’s no way any of them are going to let me out of their sight. Especially not Dacre after what happened this morning. Not until the day they can finally get rid of me, right into my father’s clutches.

“Don’t eat too much,” Dacre snaps irritably. “We’re going out tonight.”

25

DACRE

Fuck Nix for bringing me into this shit and fuck Mercier for not picking up his phone. I don’t know why he even has it if he never bothers to answer the goddamned thing.

I can’t believe I’m taking Lucinda Waldgrave to a black-tie event in the heart of Manhattan. It’s completely fucking insane and yet what choice do I have? I’m a fucking intern. Interns never get invited to shit like this. If I turn down this chance, I might never get another one. I can’t rely on this ridiculous scheme I’ve come up with to succeed. We’ll be fucking lucky if we don’t end up in jail. I only told Nix it to get him to actually step up and help us in this shit mess he created. If, by some miracle, we do manage to evade the law, there’s no way on this earth we are going to get the thirty million Lucinda promised. Hell, the girl would have told us any bullshit to get away from her father, and I fell for it. We all did. Well, this is a real chance and I’m not going to fuck it up. Nix will probably murder me and I’m already cringing at the thought of Mercier’s smug as shit expression when he finds out I’ve broken rule number one, but I can’t pass this up. If I don’t fuck this entire evening up, we might not even need Lucinda anymore. The thought pacifies me.

I look over at her. She’s spent the day watching shit on TV. Her hair is all kinds of fucked up. From this angle, I can see her scalp under the shaved remains of black hair on one side. I cannot take her looking like this. She’s like a mongrel that Mercier scraped from the streets. From this angle, her absolute beauty is hidden beneath the rat's nest she calls hair. I can almost pretend that she hasn’t gotten under my skin. I need to keep it that way. I don’t need any more complications.

The house phone rings, taking my attention away from her.

“Yes?” I sigh.

“It’s Bobby, Mr. Dacre, sir. A young lady by the name of Sheila has brought a package for you. Would you like me to bring it up?”

I let out a long breath. “I’ll come and get it. I’ll be right down.”

I leave Lucinda watching the TV. It’s impossible to know if she heard me leave, but I get the feeling she knows a lot more than she lets on. She has an uncanny way of knowing where I am and where other things are without being able to see them. It’s some blind superpower shit. I’ve heard that when a person is blind, their other senses over compensate, but until now I never saw it in action. She’s not the helpless little mouse she first appeared to be, neither is she the sex goddess painted by the media. In fact, I can’t read her at all. She’s somewhere in between the two, not quite one and not quite the other, but not normal either. She’s the most abnormal person I’ve ever met and I’ve met some fucked up crazies in my time.

I pick up the dress from the front desk and head straight back up. There’s no way Lucinda could have gotten past me, but I’ve learned not to take Lucinda Waldgrave at face value. I don’t trust the bitch one iota. The windows and doors are now locked and I don’t think she’ll be stupid enough to try anything after what happened to her the last time she tried to escape, but there’s no way I’m leaving anything up to chance where she’s concerned.

Still, I’m both surprised and relieved when I find her still in the apartment. She’s sitting exactly where I left her, still watching reruns. Scared as a church mouse. I need to keep her that way. The more scared she is, the less likely she is to screw everything up. As it is, I’m gambling on the fear of her father from making her open her mouth and blab tonight. One fucking word and all of this is going to come down round our ears. I throw the garment bag at her and feel an enormous satisfaction when she flinches. With any luck, she’ll stay quiet all night. I’ll have to keep a tight rein on her, but if I can pass her off as my cousin, my new boss might not even notice what a fucking strange weirdo she is.

She scurries past me to her room. At least she’s not dressing in the living room anymore. Nix and Mercier aren’t here to ogle over her, but unlike them, I need to keep a modicum of decorum and some fucking self control. I’m not going to lose myself over her. She’s here to make me money, and that’s it.

I head to clean up the kitchen but find she’s already done it. All that’s left of her cereal lunch is a spot of milk that splashed onto the counter. I wipe the milk up quickly, pleased to see that it looks as clean as it did when we came here days ago. The quicker this shit is over, the better. If I do well enough at this dinner and ball, I might be able to afford my own apartment in Manhattan sooner than I planned. I eat the cereal quickly as I ruminate on how the hell I’m going to pull tonight off. It’s either going to be the launch-pad to success or an absolute fucking disaster.

“How do I look?”

I let out a low whistle and then check myself. Sheila outdid herself, but in doing that, she made Lucinda into someone that anyone with eyes wouldn’t be able to keep them away. Long white silk clings to her curves, almost like a second skin, showing everything off. Her nipples peak under the thin fabric that plainly shows the shape of her tits and, even more indecently, the slight v shape at the top of her legs. It’s obscene and positively filthy and though it covers her from shoulders to the floor, she might as well be naked.

“Put a fucking bra on, for fuck’s sake.”

“I can’t,” she stammers, bringing her arm across her chest. “You took mine.”

Fuck! I threw all of her stinking clothes she came in away with the plan to let her wear my mother’s. No bra of my mother’s would fit Lucinda. “You can’t come with me looking like that. You look like a whore.”

She doesn’t. Not in the same way she did when she was wearing the shit Mercier had brought her, but she doesn’t look like someone I’m willing to take to the most prestigious event of the company’s year. “Don’t you models use tape to hold your nipples down or something?”

She runs her hand over her left breast, feeling herself brazenly. My cock twitches at the sight of her, sending a jolt of anger through me. She’s a fucking liability.

“I... I don’t have any tape.”

I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose or if she really doesn’t know the effect that causes. She’s so damn pretty, but that side of her where she plays both innocent and sexual at the same time is fucking lethal. It’s what’s going to get us all put in jail. I cannot and will not fall for it the way Nix and Mercier have.

“I’ll get you something,” I snap, strolling past her and into my bedroom... my parents' room. I fling open my mother’s underwear drawer and try to find something suitable. There’s nothing that will fit, not without a whole amount of padding, but I doubt padding out Lucinda’s tits is going to make her more invisible. I need to distract attention from her, not invite it. After folding everything carefully and putting it back in the drawer, I open my mother’s wardrobe. I’ve already dismissed the dresses, but a white shawl catches my eye. It will have to do. I grab it and wrap it round Lucinda’s shoulders. People might wonder why she’s wearing a shawl indoors, but I’ll have to pass it off as her being susceptible to the cold. She’s so pale that people might buy it. She’s like an ice princess. Plus, the bonus is that it covers her up almost to the knees.

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