Hell's Kitchen Read online

  Sal responds by taking a handful of my hair and pulling me along beside him. I struggle at first, my hands going up into my hair and trying to pry his fingers free, but it’s a losing battle. I have two choices: let him lead me into this place, or let him tear my entire scalp off my skull.

  I choose the first one.

  The elevator closes behind us, and the loud noise of people fucking fills my ears. I listen for a moment, feeling oddly invasive, almost as if I’m eavesdropping on people while they go at it like rabbits. The chick isn’t just moaning—she’s screaming.

  Wait, no, that’s not right. There are two female voices. One is moaning along with the guy, but the second female voice is screaming a name.

  “Sal. Sal! I know you’re here! Get your fucking ass up here and untie me!”

  I move my gaze slowly to Sal, feeling as if I’m in some screwed-up dream. The color drains from his face as he hears his name being called.

  “Oh, motherfucker,” he swears, looking upstairs.

  “What is that?” I whisper. I feel like whispering is the most appropriate thing to do in this situation.

  “Nothing,” Sal says, waving his hand dismissively.

  “Salvatore Barbieri!” the female voice yells.

  “I’m coming!” Salvatore screams back up the stairs.

  I can’t help it. I start to laugh, and maybe I’m still just super nervous and fearing for my life, but the moaning, coupled with Sal screaming that he’s coming, just about has me coming undone at the sides with giggles.

  “What’s so funny?” Sal asks me, clearly having missed the joke.

  “Sal!” the woman’s voice screams again.

  “I said I’m coming!” Sal barks, catching on as he looks at me again. I see the edge of his mouth twitch as he hears what he’s saying.

  “Are we in a brothel?” I whisper. “Where’s the cab driver?”

  Sal shakes his head in disbelief. “Do you know him or something?” he asks. I shake my head back, dragging my feet as he takes hold of my arm and starts hauling me up a sweeping mahogany staircase, toward the source of the screaming and moaning.

  “Then why do you care?” he asks. “He’s fine. He’s in the trunk of the cab. Once this is all over, I’ll send him home with his car and he’ll. Be. Fine.”

  “Huh,” I huff, secretly glad I’m not in the trunk of a cab.

  The moaning reaches fever pitch as the voice screams out, “Sal! Get this thing out of my pussy!”

  I almost choke when I hear what she’s said. I look at Sal, whose cheeks are so, so red they might as well have been lit on fire. He clears his throat, looking nervous as we reach the top of the stairs.

  I have a feeling that things are about to get even more fucked up.

  And, sure enough, I’m right.

  We enter a large bedroom at the top of the stairs, and I finally see the source of all the noise. It’s a nice bedroom as far as rooms go, but it smells … it smells like piss. There’s a large bed against one wall, an impressive four-poster affair. Oh, yeah, and there’s a chick lying—tied—to each bedpost, stark naked, a giant black vibrator stuck up her … well, you know.

  “You motherfucking motherfucker!” the chick screams at Sal, her eyes wild, her face smeared with old makeup. I look at Sal, who appears hopelessly lost.

  “Katya,” he says awkwardly. “You’re still here?”

  The chick looks like she’s about to pop a blood vessel. The moaning and breathing is so loud, and it’s not coming from her. I scan the room, my eyes landing upon a large flat-screen television hanging on the wall, with porn playing loudly.

  “You fucking tied me up!” she screams, rattling the ropes on her wrists to make her point.

  “I did sailors’ knots,” he says. “I thought you knew how to undo them.”

  She just glares at him.

  I’m still transfixed by the bizarre situation when Sal takes my elbow and leads me past the bed, shoving me down into a chair. I don’t struggle until I see a length of rope appear in his hands—the same rope securing Miss Porn Star to the bed.

  “Oh, no fucking way, buddy!” I protest, pulling my hands away. “I’m not letting you do that to me!”

  Sal responds by covering my mouth and nose with his large palm, pinching my nose shut and sealing off my mouth so I can’t breathe.

  Really, again? That’s what I want to say, but obviously I can’t since I’m silenced by his hand, not to mention on the verge of passing the fuck out again. I kick his shins with my cheap work shoes, pummel his face with my fists, but it’s no use. He had the jump on me, and I’m clearly not at my best, the first pains of needing one of those magic white pills starting to eat into my bones. My eyes start to flutter closed and all the fight goes out of me as I slump forward against Sal’s hard chest. I’m still hovering on the edge of consciousness, but it’s like I’m drunk, my limbs heavy and clumsy as I attempt to push him away. It’s useless, though. By the time he takes his hand away and I can suck in a great lungful of air, I’m tied to this stupid chair.

  “Sal!” the chick on the bed screams. I catch another acidic whiff as I’m desperately filling my lungs, and, yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure she pissed the bed.

  SIX

  THEO

  Blonde. Curves. Legs up to her goddamn armpits. Tits blatantly on show for me. The woman standing on the other side of the door is sex personified. Normally I get hard just looking at her, but not now. Not when there’s a belligerent Gracie O’Connor standing behind me, just waiting for an opportunity to kick my ass, and I can’t fucking find my tearaway brother.

  Shandi pouts, shoving out her chest. “Luca said you came up here,” she informs me in that husky voice of hers. “You said you’d come find me when you got back, baby. What are you doing up here all alone?”

  So Luca told her I was up here but he failed to mention I wasn’t alone. I could kiss the man. Shandi and I aren’t together but I don’t think she’d mind it if we were. I would, though. Bitch is crazy. “I just needed to make a phone call. It’s private up here, is all,” I say.

  Shandi runs her hand up my chest, making a sound at the back of her throat that comes close to a purr. “Don’t I know it, baby. Come on. Let’s have some fun, huh?” She tries to push me back into the room so she can come inside but I anchor on, bracing one hand against the doorframe. “Now’s not really a good time, Shan. I have to find Sal.” To my credit, this is true.

  Shandi doesn’t seem to care for my honesty, though. “You’ve bent me over and fucked me in there at least five times when I’ve had to go, Theo. I took a reaming from your dad last week when I was late, just so you could get your dick wet. It’s time to return the favor, okay?” She poses the last bit as a question, but aside from her voice going up at the end, it’s very clear she’s not really asking. She wants to get fucked right here and right now, and she’s determined to get her way.

  She pushes harder against my chest, but I ain’t budging. When she realizes this she moves quickly, ducking under my arm and slipping into the storeroom beyond. I reach for her, grabbing for her arm, but it’s too late. She’s already inside.

  “Shan, don’t—” I’m about to tell her not to make a scene, not to start screaming at me, asking who the random woman is sitting on the drum of olive oil, but I don’t need to. Because Gracie is gone.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck?

  There are no windows in here. No trapdoors or secret exits. No way for Gracie to have physically made it out of the room. That means she must still be—

  I see the white flash of her eyes in the darkness; she’s hiding between the wall and the five-tier shelving unit, cluttered with jars and pots of dried ingredients, clutching at her shoulder, like it’s hurting her or something. I can barely make out the dark line of her body. Smart woman. She knows she’s not getting out of here without getting shot, so no point trying to make a break for it. But she also knows that if she does manage to escape the storeroom, she’ll then find herself in the hous
ehold of her enemy, and they won’t be as interested in keeping her alive as I am. I think I see her roll her eyes.

  Shandi, god bless her blonde, unobservant heart, hasn’t noticed the figure lurking in the corner. Her back is to Gracie so that she’s facing me. And she’s unbuttoning her waitress’s shirt.

  “Shan, I told you I don’t have time. Later, after shift.”

  She pouts again, shaking her head. “But I want you now, baby. Why are you being so mean?” Her shirt’s unbuttoned all the way now. Stronger men than me have crumpled to her feet at the sight of that cleavage. I know as soon as she unfastens that bra and loses it altogether I’m in serious shit. I can’t let it happen. I pull the door to the storeroom closed and then take hold of her by the wrists. I can feel Gracie’s eyes burning into the side of my head, daring me to even touch this woman while she’s forced to watch.

  The thought of that … the thought of her having to watch me fuck this insanely attractive yet very annoying woman? I’m not gonna lie. It appeals to me in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Gracie’s been nothing but a pain since the moment she sat that perfect little ass of hers down in the back of the Lincoln. Fucking Shan in front of her when she can do absolutely nothing about it would definitely be one way to teach her to fucking behave herself. I can’t justify wasting the time, though. Salvatore isn’t exactly known for making good choices. He could be neck deep in shit right now and me fucking with either one of these girls isn’t going to help matters.

  “I told you. After shift, Shan.” I apply a little pressure to her wrists—a warning. I should know better than to expect her to take heed of it. Instead, she smiles, licking her lips and then biting down on the bottom one. She should have worked in porn. Who the fuck knows? She probably has at some point. “Baby, you’re making me angry,” she says in the same childish whimper she uses on my father when she wants to finish a shift early. “You don’t want to make me angry, do you? I run my mouth when I get angry. Say things I shouldn’t. I let things slip.”

  My grip on her wrists tightens. “Don’t fuck around. If you’re trying to bribe me into sticking my dick into you, say it plainly. I don’t like fucking games.”

  “Okay,” she says, a serious look marshaling her features. I can still feel the lust boiling underneath the surface, but she seems cooler now. More focused. “If you don’t screw me right now, I’ll tell Roberto about Clara.”

  “Clara?” It feels like a stone weight is pulling at my insides, pulling me down, down, down. “What the fuck you mean, you’ll tell him about Clara?” Clara is the thirty-eight-year-old woman my sixty-seven-year-old father has been fucking the past few months. He’s obsessed with her, and Clara is obsessed with money. Their arrangement seems to work quite well, since Clara gives up her pussy at the very first sign of a dollar bill, and my father is rich as fuck. The woman is a viper, pure and simple. Both Sal and I steer well clear of her. Shan gives me a tease of a smile and I can practically hear the slow grind of the cogs turning in her head.

  “Well, I’ll tell him you’ve been fucking her, of course.”

  “I haven’t even looked sideways at Clara.”

  “I know that, and you know that. But planting that seed in Roberto’s head? That might be a bad thing, don’t you think?” Shan laughs, like she’s insanely pleased with herself for coming up with this foolproof plan to bend me to her will. If there’s one thing she should have learned about me by now, though, it’s that I don’t bend to anybody’s will. Not without a fight. I take a step toward her, glaring at her from under drawn brows. The laughter dies on her lips.

  “What do you say, baby? You gonna give in and play with me now?” she asks, though she looks doubtful, as though she’s suddenly realized what she’s done.

  I’m still glaring at her, fury in my eyes, as I walk her backward toward the oil drum. Spinning her around so I can sit down, I realize that she might end up seeing Gracie after all—she’s to my right, still mostly hidden in the shadows—but I don’t care anymore. I won’t be blackmailed. Especially by Shandi. No fucking way. I’m gripping her wrists hard enough that my fingers have gone white now. She’s starting to look a little concerned.

  “Come here,” I say, pulling her closer. “Bend yourself over my knee.”

  “What?”

  “Bend yourself … over my knee,” I repeat slowly, waiting for her to oblige me. She does, slowly, eyes not leaving mine until the last second, and then her chest is pressing against my legs, her butt sticking up in the air, and I can feel her heart beat thum, thum, thumming against my thighs. She’s absolutely still as she braces herself, waiting to see if this is something she will like or something she will intensely dislike. I’m a sick bastard. The more she doesn’t enjoy this, the more I’m going to.

  “Theo?”

  I grab the hem of her way-too-high black pencil skirt and yank it up over her ass. “I don’t wanna hear another single word come out of your mouth,” I say.

  “But—” I grab hold of her panties next—surprised she’s even wearing any—and I pull on them, hard. “Ahhh! Ow!” she cries out, like she’s surprised that I’m being rough with her right after she’s just threatened to tell my father something that would most likely get me killed.

  “Not another word, Shan. Shut your fucking mouth.” And she does. I think she finally, finally understands that her threat hasn’t been received the way she was hoping. She goes still, as though she’s weighing up her options: whether she should stay bent double over my legs with her naked ass in the air, or whether she should bolt. I look up and I catch Gracie staring at me … at the hand I’m raising … bringing down on Shan’s bare backside. The tiny storeroom fills with the cracking sound of my palm meeting her flesh, and then her strangled, startled cry. Leaning down, I’m still staring Gracie in the eye as I whisper to Shan, “You should know better than to threaten me, sweetheart.”

  I spank her again, just as hard, still watching Gracie. The other woman just stands there with her back to the wall, watching, a blank look on her face. Her features are completely flat, but there’s something there … a light in her eyes that makes me want to smile like a maniac. She’s not as disapproving as I thought she would be. In fact, I’m pretty sure, despite how badly she doesn’t want me to know it, Gracie might actually be a little fascinated by what I’m doing right now. She’s literally squirming.

  Oh, really? Well, aren’t you just one surprise after another, Miss O’Connor? I can barely fight the grim smile that spreads across my face as I raise my hand and bring it down on Shan’s ass again. She cries out, her voice a mixture of outrage and frustrated pleasure. She digs her fingernails into my thigh, sharp enough to sting a little, and so I slap her again, this time a little lower. This time in between her legs, on the exposed flesh of her pussy. She’s wet, of course. No surprises there. The girl doesn’t even have the common sense not to be turned on while I’m reprimanding her. She yelps, her surprise catching in her throat and sticking there, cutting off as she holds her breath. I’m transfixed by Gracie—by the blush I can just about see building in her cheeks. By the way she’s balled her hands into fists. By the cool yet very interested curiosity in those dark eyes of hers.

  I can’t resist it. I spank Shan again, eliciting the same response from her, but this time I leave my hand in place, fingers teasing over the slick, swollen flesh between her legs. Shan’s anger quickly dissipates as I move my fingers, sliding them over her pussy, upward until I find the tight, firm bud of her clit. After that, she’s back to purring again, annoyance forgotten as I work my middle finger in a tight circle over her pleasure center.

  And Gracie watches.

  Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Today has been a hell of a day and it’s not even mid-morning yet. And now this chick is actually watching me tease Shandi-with-a-fucking-I, like … like she’s wishing it was her over my knee? No. No way. Can’t be.

  “Oh my god. Fuck, Theo. I knew you wouldn’t hold out on me.” Shan squir
ms, reminding me of her presence, of what my hands are automatically doing to her. I smack her left butt cheek, making her squeak. I don’t want to make her come. She doesn’t fucking deserve it. But when I catch sight of Gracie’s lips parting, her tongue slowly wetting them, I’m gripped by an overwhelming desire to know what she’ll do if Shan does come. I’m beginning to think she’d enjoy it.

  I have to find out. Pushing at the insides of her thighs, I make Shan spread her legs a little so I have better access to her … and so Gracie can see what I’m doing. Slowly, so slowly, I slide my index and middle finger inside. She shivers, her body trembling. She makes a sound I’m more than used to—a stuttering sigh that means she’s really enjoying herself now. But is Gracie?

  Hard to tell. Her eyes are locked on my hand, on Shan’s naked skin, but it looks like her chest is rising and falling a little faster. I see her hand twitch, a slight inward motion, and then she’s uncurling her fist. She presses her open palm against the top of her thigh, wiping it, as though she’s suffering from sweaty palms. She shifts it sideways, tips of her fingers digging into her pants, and I know it. I fucking know it. She wants to touch herself. She wants to slip her hand down the front of her pants, and she wants to run her fingers over her pussy the same way I’m running mine over Shan’s. My dick was hard before, but all of a sudden it’s made out of fucking granite. I can’t think of anything I want to see more than that right now.

  Gracie’s eyes flicker up to mine, irritation clear as day in her expression, as though she knows she’s been busted and she’s mad about it. I smile a smile that feels about as wicked as they come. She looks away, closes her eyes, but I can tell that it takes effort.

  “Do it,” I say out loud.

  Shan twists her head, trying to look over her shoulder. “Do what?” she pants. Without looking at her I grab hold of the back of her head and turn it away from me. I don’t want to look at her and I sure as shit don’t want her looking at me. I don’t want her finally noticing Gracie, either. That would ruin the fun.