Grace Street (A Chapter 8 Novel, #1) (10 page)

In the kitchen, she was happy to find an
assortment of fruits and snacks in the refrigerator, along with
bottled water. At least her time waiting wouldn’t be spent
hungry.

The day crept by slowly,
hour-by-miserable-hour ticking painfully by. She had read an entire
novella on her e-book app on her phone and played mindless games
until her frustration practically boiled over. It was absolutely
preposterous for her to wait around for a man she knew nothing
about. Okay – that wasn’t entirely true. She knew the size of his
dick, which, by the way, was perfect, as well as the fact that he
was good in the sack and liked deep throating her.

Elsa rolled her eyes. What a shitty list of
things to know about someone. She wanted to know him more
personally - more about his life; his history; his past
relationships. Or did she? This was, after all, supposed to be only
a ‘physical association.’

Bored to tears and perturbed that she was
still unable to open the spare bedroom door despite nearly kicking
it in, she lay on the now pee-free lounger and decided to pleasure
herself. Post masturbation, she fell asleep and woke several hours
later to Mr. Black’s signature cigarette and aftershave scent and
to his fingers inside of her.

Her body writhed with need and she thrust her
hips upward into his palm as her eyes flickered open. The room was
dim with only Mr. Black’s silhouetted profile in view. He pumped
his fingers in and out slowly while his thumb pressed down firmly
on her clit. Her nethers were still over sensitized from her own
manipulation, making his massaging and probing all the more
intense. She fisted her own hair and sunk her teeth into her bottom
lip as her climax neared. She was so close and it felt so good...
The heat in her lower belly descended and turned into a cool chill
when Mr. Black abruptly stood and moved to the chair without saying
anything.

Elsa sat up, hot and bothered and her
hormones raging. Seated on the chair, he watched her with the same
look of displeasure on his face as the previous night. What had she
done now? Would she never please him? Hell, she waited all damned
day for him. She glanced out the bay window to see the sun barely
on the horizon and rubbed her eyes.

“I waited like you said to,” she smiled
tentatively at him, smoothing her skirt down over her legs.

“I see that,” he replied coolly as he dipped
the same fingers that had just been in her into his mouth, licking
them clean of her juices. “What else did you do today?”

She huffed, “Nothing.”

Mr. Black adjusted himself in the seat,
gripping his hard-on, and shook his head. “That’s not entirely
true, now is it?”

What did he want? A blow-by-blow account of
her daily activities? “I ate. I read. I played a few games on my
phone. I ate again. I waited.”

“And?” he prompted.

Her parted lips clamped shut. Did he know she
had played with herself? Of course not. He was just guessing. Her
stomach knotted and she stiffened under his accusing stare. Sitting
up straight, she crossed her legs and placed her hands in her lap
while remaining quiet.

Pushing himself off the chair, he began to
pace back and forth in front of her, then around the chaise, his
hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m disappointed in you. I had hoped we
could enjoy each other’s company tonight and that I could taste
that exquisite pussy of yours again, but…” he trailed off, pausing
in front of the window and looking out. “Seeing as you don’t need
me to get you off and you can do it yourself, I guess our time here
is done. Gather your things and I’ll see you next weekend.”

Elsa’s mouth gaped open in utter disbelief.
She had waited all day and for what? So he could deny her an orgasm
and dismiss her because she had fingered herself? She stood,
incensed and exasperated and… she couldn’t even put into coherent
thoughts what she was feeling.

As her breathing became more labored and
loud, he peered over his shoulder and lifted his brows. “What are
you waiting for? You’re free to leave,” he replied with a finality
that forbade any further discussion.

She stomped upstairs, seething more with
every passing minute. She retrieved her bag and tore back
downstairs to get the hell out of there when Mr. Black’s inflamed
voice resonated through the hallway behind her.

“Rule number five: All your orgasms belong to
me.”

***

The door slammed behind Eight and Victor
winced at her abrupt departure. He really had been looking forward
to spending some quality time with her – namely in the form of
fucking her flawless mouth. He would just have to settle for
watching her finger banging session and rub one out, he supposed.
Standing in the hallway staring at the door, he decided his time
would be better spent going over the minutiae of the Cambridge
case, details he had burnt into his memory.

In the dining room, he reached for his
briefcase and jacket and noticed a snow globe on the fireplace
mantle. Picking it up, he turned it over and watched the glitter
and white flakes float around a fake waterfall. The brass plate on
the front read
Winter in Niagara.
It looked old. He upturned
it and found a carved date on the bottom.
2001.
Elsa would
have been sixteen at that time. He shook the globe again and
watched the white dust drift around as he thought about her on
vacation with her brother and parents. He smiled at the thought of
a teenaged and rebellious Elsa ending up in juvenile detention for
thirty days on two different occasions for smoking pot and getting
in a girl fight. He couldn’t help but wonder what the fight had
been over. His research didn’t reveal that little fact. Maybe it
was over a boy, though she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who
would fight over something so petty.

With his eyes still on the remaining glitter
that hovered in the water, his thoughts drifted to his sixteenth
birthday and his smile faded. His mother had fucked up yet another
celebration for him on that day. It was supposed to be his coming
of age party and all it ended up being was his day of cleaning up
the drunken, violent mess that she had left behind, yet again. To
make matters worse, he had walked in on her giving one of his
classmates head. He got his own lesson in humiliation the following
day back at school.

That particular birthday was also the day he
found out that his father was still alive. In his mother’s
inebriated state, she had let that little bit of information slip
after having lied to him his entire life and leading him to believe
that his father was some kind of war hero who had died valiantly.
Lying fucking bitch.

He shook off the memory, reminding himself
that his mother had lied about his father for good reason and that
she did have a few good qualities. Like the fact that she raised
him on her own and without the help of the government or anyone
else. And the fact that she had taught him to be independent and
had gotten him a loan to pay for his college degree in criminology.
Of course, she ended up defaulting on the loan when she drank her
savings away and he ended up paying it back on his own, but that
was neither here nor there. He just reminded himself that adversity
built character and made people stronger.

Then again, sometimes adversity also broke
people. That’s what he had accomplished so many times with his
Chapters. He had given them tough situations in an attempt to help
them overcome their fears and weaknesses and become stronger
individuals while studying them, but all of them had proven that
his brand of education was just too much for them. It didn’t help
that he enjoyed the harsh conditions he provided and that tidbit
only confirmed that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Elsa, on the other hand, might just be the
lone, star pupil in his long list of failed attempts. So long as
she played his game by his rules.

***

Seated at the same small café where Mr. Black
had made his proposition and in the same booth, Elsa sipped on a
cup of overly-sweetened coffee. She was still raging about his
dismissal of her and her idiocy for having waited all damned day
for nothing. So what if she had masturbated? He was doing the same
thing the night before that prompted her to take matters into her
own hands. And mouth. That damned perfect cock of his. It all came
down to her lack of dick and common sense when not getting it often
enough. She knew he was a bad seed from the moment she set eyes on
him and still, she signed that stupid piece of paper. She rolled
her eyes at her offer to sign it in blood. He probably would’ve
enjoyed it if she had, the sadistic, piss-inducing-sicko that he
is.

No undergarments. Whatever.

Hair down in his presence. Ogre.

Showered and ready. Seriously? Like being
clean wouldn’t already be on her agenda?

WAIT. Egomaniac.

No masturbating. Fuck you, Mr. Black. Fuck.
You.

And that ridiculous physical examination?
Double fuck you.

What was up with him wanting to be called
that, anyway? Too worn out and annoyed to care anymore, she
finished her coffee and went back to the safety and privacy of her
apartment.

Privacy
. The word cascaded across her
subconscious and as she readied for bed, she began to wonder how
the hell he knew she had masturbated. Wanting to know about the
mysterious asshole she was having sex with, she went to her
computer to try and do a search. Again, when she typed his name
into a search engine, she was redirected to a completely different
site. When she yielded the same results on her 4G connection on her
phone, alarm bells once again went off in her head. There was
something rotten in Denmark.

Elsa unplugged her laptop and went down the
hall to Viv’s place and was given permission to borrow her WiFi for
a short time. Once connected, she hit the jackpot with a simple
Google search.

Mr. Black wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill
businessman as she had suspected. He was a well-known criminal
profiler for the FBI with a long list of accolades and honors to
his name. He also had a list just as long of criminals he had
helped to capture and cases he had helped to solve. Elsa continued
on her quest to seek out all that she could about him, stunned at
everything she was reading. He was truly an amazing man, even if he
was a harsh task master.

If the community only knew of his bizarre
requests and rules, they might not think so highly of him. Not that
she would ever disclose that sort of thing. Everyone was allowed
their secrets. But surely she wasn’t the first of his conquests. He
was nearly thirty-six years old and by his actions with her, he
clearly had presence of mind and experience in dealing with women.
Most especially in the manner he was dealing with her.

With his government connections, it was no
wonder he could manipulate her computer and phone access and was
privy to all her personal information. He truly was a nosey
douchebag of epic proportions – albeit an intelligent,
crime-solving, gorgeous, sex-depriving douchebag.

Overcome with everything she had learned, she
sank into Viv’s couch and laughed ironically at herself. What was
it about her that she could attract the most screwed up and
demanding men? Did she have a target on her head that said: if
you’re an asshole, here I am! Use and abuse me! Break my heart!
Maybe the bull’s-eye was on her pussy. She must be secreting some
jacked up pheromones to be attracting such weirdoes.

Why couldn’t Mr. Black be like he was after
her punishment: The one who had read her mind and body and taken
her like she had always wanted to be taken; the man who had held
her close as he slept next to her; the person who had watched and
touched her gently when he thought she was asleep; the gentleman
who had hand washed her skirt and set out one of his own clean
shirts for her to wear. That guy. Why not him? Was that tender man
the real person hiding behind the cold façade or was she just
deceiving herself like she had with Patrick?

She leaned her head back and sighed heavily.
Now what was she going to do? The answer remained unspoken, but
hovered on her lips: follow his rules until he says otherwise.

Monday at work was every bit as frustrating as
her weekend had been. After everything she had learned about Mr.
Black, she was having a difficult time motivating herself and her
lack of sleep was only making matters worse. She wanted to know
more. The internet search had only produced basic facts about the
inexplicable and handsome man, not the kind of details she could
really sink her teeth into. Like was he married? Despite exhaustive
efforts and staying at Viv’s until the wee hours of the morning,
she could find nothing at all about his personal life. The only
thing of real interest was an obituary for his mother who had died
the previous year and revealed that he was her only survivor.
Unsurprisingly, there were no details of her death and Elsa was
left to her imagination as to what had happened. Mr. Black had been
thorough in keeping his personal life private and it was maddening.
What made a man like Victor Laurenzo tick? What kinds of atrocities
had he seen with his job? She could only imagine.

She was eating an early lunch alone in her
office while obsessing over Mr. Black when her phone notified her
of a text message.

MrBlack: 1:00 pm, Albans Gynecology, 926
Center St.

With everything that had happened and all
that was on her mind, she had forgotten about her appointment. At
least this time a phone number was associated with the text message
and she promptly stored it in her list of contacts. Frowning at the
impersonal message, she considered whether or not to go. Of course
she would go. Contract or not, she was too curious and intrigued by
Mr. Black not to. She began typing a response, but decided to just
let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, what would she say?