Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) (11 page)

"Do you," his voice faltered for a second, and
then he kissed her throat. "Do you like it when I do this?" His lips were warm
against Alyssa's skin, just like the fingertips curling against her sex.

"Mmm," she took a breath, "mm-hmm, right there,
your kisses are making the back of my head feel all prickly."

"Is that good?" Preston kissed her again.

"Oh my...yes, yes, yes!" Her whispers were soft,
but increasingly urgent. "I wanna yank my hands off this headboard and run them
through that thick, black hair. Oh God I wish I wasn't tied up right now."

Instead of talking, Preston just kissed her again,
warming her with a little circle of his tongue before touching her with his
lips. He took one of his fingers away from her body and slid the hand through
her hair. Halfway through, he grabbed a gentle handful and forced her neck to
crane and kissed right underneath her jaw, then her chin, then he sucked on her
throat and nibbled.

His tugging, raw, almost savage passion drove
Alyssa's mouth open and made her suck a deep breath that hung in her throat.

"When you touch me like this, I think all kinds of
things that I shouldn't be thinking, Preston," Alyssa said, wishing so badly
that she could see his face instead of the back of a blindfold. "Why can't I
see you?"

"Just not right now," he said, his lips brushing
the back of Lys's ear and making her neck arch toward him.

In one of the countless shadows that covered
Alyssa's room, a tiny lens turned and zoomed in on the lovers, watching Preston
caress Alyssa, and her squirm and grin no matter how helpless her situation.

"I wonder what they're saying," Gadsen chuckled as
he watched the whole scene play out on his Guest Room 4 monitor. "I'm sure it's
very sweet. So eager and clumsy. I expected more out of Preston. I expected at
least for him to try and hide her from me. Then again, I suppose I'm the only
one with eyes in every corner of the house."

He put his feet on the desk in his cramped
chambers, looked at a digital clock that displayed the time in large, bold, red
letters.

"Not long now," he said. "Not long until this
whole ridiculous charade and the puppy love and the promises of revenge are
over once and for all. I'm sorry it has to be this way, Alyssa. I'm sorry
you're caught up in something you don't understand. And I'm – wait a tick. No
I'm not." He grinned. "Not one bit."

––––––––

The smell of roses drifted through a bay window
which Alyssa was certain was not open the night before. A quick glance around,
and she noticed that a bunch of other things had moved as well – curtains
pulled back, sun flooding the tiny chamber in which she awoke, still bound and
helpless.

"Roses," she said into the cool morning air as a
breeze caressed her skin, prickling her with goose bumps. "Roses again."

Beside her prison bed, the tiny perfume bottle
that Peter left before her encounter with Mr. Webb had vanished, and that brush
she'd used was also absent. Unconsciously, she rubbed sleep from her eyes and
stretched.

Alyssa rubbed her wrists, stretching again. The
red lines were still hot, still a little painful, but at the same time, a bit
thrilling to rub, as she remembered Preston's passionate, tender touch with a
sigh.

"Wait a minute," she said, glancing around the
room again, "I'm up. I'm not tied. When did-"

"Oh good morning. I thought you'd still be asleep."
Gadsen entered the room, using his hip to push open the door and walked in
holding a tray. "I understand that Mr. Webb has made you our guest for some
time?"

"You?" Lys's mouth hung open.

"It's quite alright. I knew he enjoyed your
company, but Mr. Webb seems to have really taken a liking to you. He's tugged
in many directions with the business today and some of his father's old
affairs."

"I have absolutely no idea what to say." Alyssa
clapped her jaws shut as her tongue started to dry. "I was...just last
night...?"

Gadsen produced two lengths of rope and the
blindfold swatch from his pocket and said, "I was asked to let you up. Mr. Webb
is a bit eccentric, but not cruel. Well, not for long periods of time, anyway."

All Lys could do was let out a little bit of
nervous giggling.

"It is a lot to take in. That's understandable.
But I've brought you some food and juice. Your favorite is apple-cranberry,
yes?"

"How did you know that?"

He just smiled.

"Apple-cranberry, two eggs over easy, two bacon
fried crisp, and a biscuit. Cherry jelly. Will this do for now?"

With complete shock, Alyssa, who had just woken up
from an incredibly thrilling nightmare moments before, found herself presented
with the same thing she ate for breakfast nearly every day, right down to the
brand of jelly she used that came from a tiny store off the road out of town.
There's
just no way, there's no way this is really happening
.

"Oh, here you are." He poured tea – naturally her
favorite Oolong, judging by the smell – from a pot on the tray, replaced it,
and turned to leave. "If there's anything else you need, don't hesitate to ask.
There's a pull-chain on the light fixture that will ring the bell in my office
should you require anything."

"I'm sorry. I'm still in a little bit of shock, I
think. Or something else."

"Quite alright. Understandable given the change of
circumstances, but there is one other thing I neglected." With an almost
unnatural agility for someone of his age and stature, Gadsen returned to Lys's
side and brushed her fallen hair away from her neck. "I'll need to do a few
cursory examinations. Open please."

A thermometer was stuck quickly under her tongue.
A moment later it beeped. Gadsen checked it, smiled and nodded. He jotted
something on his notepad, then raised his sleepy eyes to hers.

"Look this way. Good, now this way. Right. Follow
my fingertip? Thank you." After jotting another note, he pushed the pen behind
his ear, put two fingers on Lys's throat and stared at his watch face for ten
seconds, counting soundlessly but moving his lips. "You're in remarkable
condition. Mr. Webb will be happy to know. He was worried that after the
jostling you received from that ogre yesterday, that you'd need medical
attention."

After collecting his things, topping off Alyssa's tea,
and folding her napkin into a triangle, Gadsen took two steps backward and
turned on his heel.

"Wait," Lys said as his fingers reached for the
door. "Wait just a second. What is all this? Why are you, taking my temperature
and checking my pulse?" Her words trembled a bit at the end.

"It's...I thought you were aware of the
circumstances surrounding your stay? Did Mr. Webb or that brutish Peter not
explain?"

"I know I was caught taking mushrooms, and that's
about it. Although last night when he was...er, last night, Preston said
something cryptic about helping him with his line, but I didn't understand what
he meant."

"I'll make a note of this. Highly irregular that
he wouldn't explain further what you were to do." He scribbled, stuffed the
notepad in his pocket hurriedly and moved back toward the door. "I'm sorry,
I've things to do around the house. I'm sure you understand. Again, if you need
anything, don't hesitate to ask."

"But I need to get back to town – I have a brother
and a sister that depend on me. They can't get to school or anything without-"

"All taken care of, don't worry. They're well seen
to. Now, if you would, I need to take care of some things around the house."

She took a deep breath when he turned around
again, trying to leave for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Okay, I'm sorry, one more thing and you can go. I
know you're busy and I really appreciate the breakfast and you giving my little
brother a ride to school and everything so don't think I'm angry, but..."

"Ask anything. I will do my best to answer you if
I can."

"Well can I, uh, go? I mean I'm not tied up
anymore, so can I leave whenever I want?"

"No."

"Not the house, or the grounds, I mean, can I just
go have a look around? This place looks huge and old and neat."

A smile crept across the old man's lips, which
somehow made him look more grim than happy. "No," he said. "I have my orders."

The door closed, and grunted as he slid the
deadbolt into place.

She paced back and forth in front of the
table-tray for a moment. Her stomach made an irritated grumbling sound and Lys
bent down, grabbed her biscuit and built herself a sandwich. When she bit down,
flavor erupted in her mouth. The egg, perfectly seasoned, the bacon's salty
crunch. But struck the most was the incredibly light and flaky biscuit that
seemed to melt in her mouth.

"Good God," she groaned, mouth still full, and
took another bite.

Not thirty seconds later, she'd destroyed the
biscuit, and a minute after that, devoured the rest of her breakfast and gulped
down the juice.

Resuming her pacing, but extending the range to
the whole room, she ran her hand along one of the walls that was textured with
large, raised squares that she hadn't noticed the night before in her terror.

"Well," she said, pulling the blanket off the bed
and around her shoulders, "if he won't let me out, I guess I'll have to figure
out a different way to go about things."

Sticking her head out the window, she looked for a
foothold but found only sheer walls, and a concrete walkway surrounding the
house, separating it from the manicured gardens. She was, as best she could
guess, fifty or sixty feet off the ground. The smell from outside – roses, of
course – filled her nose when she took a deep, slow breath.

Down and to the left, easily within foot-reaching
distance, Alyssa noticed a thin platform that ran the length of the manor,
where a small, warbling group of pigeons were gathered.

"This is a really, really bad idea, Lys. You're
two, really big, stories up. If you fall, there's no living through that. Or,
well, you'll break a leg at least."

Even as she talked to herself, one of her feet
slid through the open window, toes stretching for the foothold.

"Don't try this. You're an idiot," she said. The
second foot was out. She turned around with a death grip on the window sill.
"You're an idiot with a couple of inches to drop if she wants to go on the
grand tour. What the hell are you doing?"

Straining to hold herself up with the stone
windowsill under her arms, Lys pushed off it and slid a tiny bit further down
the wall until she felt her toes brush something that seemed a whole lot
thinner than it did when she looked at it and hatched her plan. She turned her
feet a little so the tips of all five toes were supported, and she flattened
herself against the outside wall.

"Okay. Alright. Ten feet that way. Just ten feet
there's a landing. Maybe another room, maybe a roof entrance, who knows.
Whatever it is, you better make it ten feet or you'll be a greasy stain."

Inch by inch, she willed herself onward. She had
counted to eighty-six by the time she made it halfway.

At ninety-two, her big toe slipped, and she eked
out a little screaming grunt, but managed to right her balance somehow and
pressed herself forward again. Ten counts later, she took another step.

Toes clinging to the ledge, Alyssa made up her
mind to keep moving. She counted one fifteen.

On one sixteen, her big toe brushed against a
crack on the stone, and she didn't think about it. "Keep going," she told
herself. "Don't look anywhere. Keep going. Not far. Another foot. Step, Lys,
step."

The next step felt good, and the next one better
still. She was moving inches by then, sometimes less than that. Her toe brushed
another, wider crack, but she still had a good grip.

One thirty-four.

"Three more steps. Just three steps."

Another crack, big enough to be careful about,
caught her attention when her toe slipped. A trickle of mortar, or of powdered
concrete, bounced off the side of the house with a gentle report, and a breeze
blew past Lys, kicking her hair up.

"Two more steps."

Her count reached one fifty.

"Come on Alyssa, you're almost there. Swallow.
Breathe." She reminded herself. If not for it pounding in her ears, she'd
probably need reminders for her heart to beat. "Breathe."

As she stepped forward, her back foot came to rest
exactly where the other had. Her big toe brushed the crack, but that time,
instead of powder slipping gently down the side of the building, a chunk of
mortar fell, then a piece of the foothold, then the whole bit around her back
foot collapsed.

Grasping at the wall, trying to get her fingers
dug in between the bricks enough to support herself when she lost her balance,
she scrabbled against the smooth brick.

One fifty-six.

She kicked her foot, closed her fingers.

No brick that time. No platform.

Just air.

––––––––

"Drink this," a gentle voice said when her eyes
opened. "Here."

Alyssa's entire body stung. The sore place on her
ribs was surrounded by other sore places. She tried to look up, but even her
neck ached. Slow, awful throbbing pumped through her entire body every time her
heart beat, which was mercifully slow.

A hand under her head cradled her. She opened her
lips and a salty, herb-laden broth slid over her tongue. When it hit her
throat, she sputtered for a second before being able to swallow down the liquid
and gulp again. Whatever it was, she liked it, and besides, she was so hungry
that her stomach ached right along with the rest of her. Craning her neck
painfully, she slurped at the bowl, trying to drink as quickly as she could.

The first wave of groggy unreality hit her as soon
as the liquid went down her throat.

"Can you lift your arms?"

Lys moved them. Her shoulders burned with such
terrible pain she almost stopped, but the soup tasted so good that the agony
was justified.

"Very good." She turned her eyes while still
drinking the broth. Gadsen was holding her head and smoothing her hair with the
back of his hand. "Good thing I was right about your health. You're a tough
little thing, aren't you?"

"Mmhm," Lys grunted, as the last of the soup
drained down her throat. The warmth of the stuff radiated out from her center
as Gadsen relaxed her head and laid it on the pillow. Just that was enough to
send a shock down her neck. "What...what happened?"

"How much do you remember?"

She started to shake her head, but her neck flared
with such horrible pain that she froze. Gadsen had got the message though.

"Nothing? Do you remember going out the window
like a fool? A brave one, I suppose, but nonetheless a fool."

"I...sorry."

"It's understandable. I told him this would
happen, but Mr. Webb insisted on keeping you in here. He couldn't stand the
thought of your leaving. Not when he was so close."

"Mmm." Lys rolled her head from one side to the
other. The soreness in her neck seemed to be just that – soreness – and nothing
more serious. Even then, it began to loosen a little. "Close to what?"

"I'll let him tell you. You were on the right
track earlier though, he's waiting outside. Don't tell him I said this, but the
poor man's been pacing up and down this hall since you bounced off the awning.
I've not seen him act like this since his father died."

Out of view, the door creaked on its ancient
hinges, letting out cry not unlike the one Lys made every time she moved a new
body part.

"Is she awake?" The voice was soft and strangely
comforting to Alyssa. As soon as she heard him, she let her head sink back into
the pillow, and until she did so, hadn't realized just how tightly she clenched
her neck.

"Yes, sir. She's fine. Terribly bruised, but fine.
Nothing's broken, her vision is tracking well. And most importantly, she's-"

"No Gadsen, there's nothing more important than
that." Preston Webb snapped over his butler.

"Yes sir, of course, I only meant that-"

"I'll hear no more of it. There are things more
important than this family's well-being."

Gadsen chose not to respond. Lys searched his face
for a clue, but found nothing. Just a blank stare, those sleepy, slightly
watery eyes fixated on hers. His chest rose with a deep breath. He exhaled
without making a sound.

"As you say, sir."

Preston stepped in, but the very instant that Lys
turned her head to look he spun on his heel and darted backward toward the
door.

"I'll see her now, Gadsen. Please prepare her. I –
I'm sorry, Alyssa. This is how it has to be."

"It's okay," she whispered, then swallowed hard.
"We've all got things that make us who we are. Don't worry about yours. Okay?"

Closing her eyes, she almost started when the
familiar black velvet brushed her face and enclosed her in darkness. When she
opened them again, her eyelashes rasped against the soft cloth, and the world
was black.

The mattress creaked and Gadsen stood.

Footsteps crossed the room, soft leather on
hardwood.

And then she smelled a vague hint of rose as
Preston sat.

––––––––

"She's asleep again. Seems to fade in and out a lot
quicker than is healthy. Did you have something to do with that? No, of course
not," Preston said, backing out into the hall. "Seems okay though."

"As expected. She took quite a fall, sir." Gadsen
rubbed the small wattle underneath his chin, pinching it between two fingers.
"She's lucky to be alive."

"Is she?"

Gadsen grumbled.

"I don't know about this. I don't know if this is
right or what, Gadsen. Looking at her lie there with her head in my arms, I
feel like a horrible, horrible villain. She didn't ask for this."

"She
stole
from you, sir."

"No she didn't. She picked some mushrooms. She's a
woman with a nice smile who gave up college to go home and help her lonely dad
take care of a couple kids. But here I am, being pushed into something I don't
want to do. This isn't normal and I'm starting to feel awful for it."

"She likes you. She doesn't recoil when you touch
her, she doesn't weep or protest."

"She's a prisoner, Gadsen. And it's my fault. By
way of a misunderstanding, sure, but it's my fault that she's stuck here and
can't go home to her family. I've got to let her go. If she really wants any
part of me, she'll come back. I can't do this to her. I can't do this to
myself."

"You mustn't, sir. Not yet. You know the stakes.
This business, your father's whole life.
Your
whole life. Not to mention
your mother. Everything they fought for and built. It all depends on you
managing to have someone to take the reins when..."

"Why don't you just say it? When what, Gadsen?
When I die? When whatever it is that killed my mother, and gave me these scars
does the same thing to me? Is that what you're getting at?"

"There's no need to be morose, sir."

"Morose? What are you? A golem? My whole life is
morose. And it's making me into someone I'm not. This whole thing is turning me
into a monster."

"Sir?"

"Don't play stupid, Gadsen. You can give me all
the platitudes you want, but the reality is, I was born under a bad sign. I
killed my mother Gadsen, do you have any idea how it feels to kill your own
mother?"

"Sir, that wasn't your fault. She wasn't well. You
can't blame yourself for that."

"And why not? My father always did." He ran his
hand backwards through his hair, grimaced at the thought of his dad. Gritting
his teeth, his cheeks burned red. His scar turned white.

For a long, trembling moment, Gadsen said nothing.
"He was troubled, is all. He didn't mean to blame you. Your father was a good
man in his way. Think of all the help he gave to people who needed it."

"And at what cost?" Preston shot back. "At what
cost, Gadsen? A trail of bodies and blood that runs through three countries, or
wars that he may as well have started for all the profit he made?"

"Sir, he had no control over that."

"Oh, you're right, of course. He didn't start any
of that. No, no, no, he didn't start them. He just helped keep them running. Is
that it?"

Behind them, so loud it was clear through the
thick, oak door Alyssa coughed and then groaned from deep in her chest. It
caught Preston off guard and he bit his lip.

"What you're saying sir is going against
everything that you know is true. Your father did the best he could for those
people. There was nothing else..."

"He could have stopped before he started. He could
have done anything besides paying huge amounts of money to starving people in
Monterrey, in Texas and Oklahoma from burning wells that belonged to
competitors. He could have stopped short of becoming an absentee diamond mine
owner. Any of that, he could have done, Gadsen. And now, his sins have become
mine. Don't you understand this?"

The butler cleared his throat.

"What about her, Gadsen, what about that innocent
girl? Or does that not matter? It doesn't, nothing matters except the business,
right?"

"Think about what you've said, sir. That's all I
ask. Think about these things you're saying."

"I should have said them a long time ago, before
this poor girl was caught up in the mix." He put one hand on the wall and
braced himself, and hung his head.

"Mr. Webb, I'm sorry, but I thought you liked her.
I thought that everything was going along with the plan. You've surprised me
with all this panic." Gadsen reached out and put a hand on Preston's shoulder
that was immediately slapped away.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing. I
know your game, Gadsen. As long as the company's solvent, you have a job. I'm
not a fool, no matter how much you might wish I was."

The butler's face didn't change.

"I know what's best for this family. Damn your
sudden attack of sentimentality or morals or whatever it is. I'll do whatever I
need to do to keep this company from sinking, no matter how hard you wish to
try me."

"Are you threatening me? Is that supposed to be
some kind of thinly-veiled attempt at intimidation?" Preston's lips pulled
tight and he shoved himself off the wall.

"No." Gadsen sneered. "No veil at all. Don't
endanger this company, or I'll pull the rug straight out from under you. Every
secret your father had will be turned around and you'll have nothing to catch
you. Understood?"

As the butler walked away, satisfied with himself,
Preston leaned heavily against the door to Alyssa's room and heaved a sigh.

"Is everything okay?"

"You heard all that?" He said to the woman who had
just spied on him for the second time in as many days. He couldn't help but
smile, no matter how badly it hurt.

"Sorry," she said, after a long pause. "I thought
you were talking about me."

"Everything?"

"Yes. Listen, I don't know what most of that was
about, but please don't think I'm angry at you or anything. I understand why
you're doing this."

He held his head in his hand, fingers prodding his
temples.

"You do? How can you? I've got you locked in a
room. When's the last time someone hit on you by locking you in their closet?"

"Alright, fair enough," Alyssa said after a pause.

"Please," he said. His voice was weak, but had
that same soft insistence from before.

"Well, okay. I think it has more to do with
me
than
it does with mushrooms, or your family. And I think it also has a lot to do
with whatever the reason for me having to wear a blindfold is. I want you to
know that whatever it is, I don't care. You couldn't be ugly."

"What are you talking about? You've got no idea."

"I know what your voice is like. And I know how it
felt for you to touch me. I've never felt like that before, not ever. And then
just now I listened to you and Gadsen. I don't know you, not really, but no
matter what scars you've got, you're not an ugly person. It doesn't matter what
he tells you."

There was a rustling outside the door, and then a
deep, baleful, rattled sigh.

"Preston? Are you there?"

Footsteps.

"Preston! Come back! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to
say whatever it was that upset you. Please!"

She put her hand on the door and imagined that it
was warm where she touched from his hand on the other side.

––––––––

Slowly breathing, in and out, Alyssa sat in front
of her window and watched the sun rise to full noon. The south-facing glass was
left open after her earlier escape attempt, and the oddly reflective curtains
billowed every so often with a breeze.

I guess I learned that lesson.

As midday turned to afternoon turned to evening,
clouds built on the horizon and the breeze came harder and faster. Soon, the
on-and-off puffing of the curtains was replaced with a steady wind blowing
through the room that filled her nose with the scent of rain almost immediately
before the first drops plopped heavy on the opened glass. An even, calming
rhythm and a soft howl of wind lulled her into a state of relaxation that,
despite the pain burning in her sides, her back and her shoulders, was very
welcome.

"Ugh," she grunted into the empty room, "what's
next? It's gotta be something."

She thought back to the first time she felt
Preston Webb's slow, patient fingers on her flesh. The way her skin prickled at
his touch, and how her heart burned for him, even though she couldn't figure
out why. Then her thoughts drifted even further, back to the men who plucked
her out of the woods, and how she ended up here, in this room, tied down and
blindfolded.

Terror. You should be in utter horror right
now, Alyssa. There's no reason for you to be anything but panicked.

"You've had one Hell of a trip, Lys." The girl
with the bruised, sore, pained body heaved a sigh so deep that it made her ribs
hurt. "But there's no time for moping now, either. You've got to figure out a
way to get yourself out of here. Or at least a way to get to Preston."

Before she could finish the thought, Lys's mind
drifted off somewhere else, like it always did when she was tired and there was
rain. "I wonder if Lori and Jake made it to school today. And what did that
butler mean when he said they were taken care of?" Even though Gadsen said they
were, she wondered.

Her eyes fell closed.

The rain, pattering slowly and patiently on the
window sill, began to cover the dark wood on the floor with splashed-off mist
that evaporated as soon as another gust drifted through the room.

Alyssa ran her fingers backward through her hair
as the steady sound grew heavier. A glance through half-opened eyes showed her
dark, puffy clouds.