STORY EXCERPT

“I do have a mommy and daddy, don’t I?”

The uncertainty that was etched on the angelic face of Reed Masters’s three-year-old niece instinctively made him hunker down to her level.

“Ellie May, what would you like to do today, pumpkin? What would you like to play?”

He felt for her. The kid had been to hell and back.

The enchanting child had tears in her eyes as she spoke. “I don’t want to play. I never want to play again.”

Desperate to distract her from the painful subject of her parents’ absence, Reed scooped her favorite toy from the floor, and then playfully nuzzled it against her neck.

“Don’t want to play, huh? Well, Puffalump here wants to play, even if you don’t.” He teased her with the yellow stuffed elephant again until she finally giggled with childish delight.

“No, Uncle Reed. No, that tickles.” Laughing hysterically now, she tried in vain to push him away. “Stop it. Stop it. I don’t like tickles anymore.”

Reed had always thought of himself as a tough guy. A man who, just like his twin brother, Shane, could deal with any shit that life dared to throw at him. However, the distress and upheaval that Ellie May was going through right now really tugged at his heartstrings.

The future was starting to look better than the past though. As each day became the next, Ellie May was slowly starting to rejoin the world. In a year from now, Reed doubted the little girl with the cute button nose and froth of blonde curls would have any recollection of the traumatic events that had taken place. Exactly one month after the tragic accident had cruelly taken four members of his extended family, the tearful episodes and horrific night terrors that had so bedeviled the three-year-old were now becoming less frequent. In some ways the Masters were not dissimilar to the Kennedys because fate had been cruel to both families.

Now playing happily on the floor, Ellie May was engrossed in a conversation with Puffalump and a variety of other stuffed toys. She had them lined up in a row like soldiers on parade, and sternly wagged a finger at them all.

“If you are not good toys then I’m going to tell Mom—” She suddenly stopped midsentence as though contemplating what she had just said. After quizzically looking at him for a moment or two she continued. “If you are all good boys and girls, and none of you are naughty then we can all have some candy later on.”

She stared expectantly up at him from her cross-legged position on the floor. “We can have some candy, can’t we, Uncle Reed? Look how good we’ve all been.”

Reed ruffled an unruly bundle of golden locks. “Of course you can, pumpkin. What do you say I take you out and buy us both the biggest ice cream in the world?”

Ellie May clapped her hands together with unbridled childish glee. “Yesss.”

As for being responsible for looking after his adorable three-year-old niece, Reed hadn’t seen it coming… How could he? How could anyone? In fact, when he’d answered his cell phone late on that fateful night, he had been in good spirits. Business was booming and he and Shane had just signed a lucrative contract in China for three hundred fifty million dollars’ worth of Masters Advanced Technology computer operating systems. Over the next five years, this huge and relatively untapped new market could be worth literally billions of dollars to MAT—a company that Shane and he had started from their bedrooms at the tender age of nineteen, with the help of a five thousand dollar loan from their father. They paid back the loan to their old man, and the interest that went with it, well before they reached their twenty-first birthdays. That was more than sixteen years ago now, and their company had gone from strength to strength in that time. Last year alone, Masters Advanced Technology made pre-tax profits of more than four hundred thirty million bucks. Now they were established players in this cutthroat market. Reed and his twin brother Shane were gunning for no less than Microsoft.

He had initially taken the call with a smile to his face. “Reed Masters speaking.” The smile instantly disappeared when the person on the other end of the line solemnly informed him that he was a police officer, calling from Mount Sinai Hospital, New York State.

At first he had been suspicious, and insisted on getting the name and badge number of the cop in question. In his line of business, industrial espionage was commonplace with competitors willing to sink to any level to know what he and Shane already knew. “Whoever you are, this had better be on the level.”

“I can assure you that I am who I say I am, Mr. Masters, but please feel free to check me out further if you are unsure, sir.”

“I’ll do just that. In the meantime, go on. I’m listening.”

“There is no easy way to say this, Mr. Masters, but you appear to be listed as the next of kin for your sister, a lady by the name of Sarah Jane Miles.”

“Wrong.” His suspicions returned. “If you are telling the truth, you would know that the next of kin for my sister is her husband. A guy by the name of Kane Miles. The clue is in her surname. Listen, just who the fuck are you anyway? If this is some sort of sick fucking joke, believe me when I say that I will hunt you down and destroy you?”

The silence that had then followed seemed unending.

“Mr. Masters, may I apologize for not explaining the situation properly.”

Listening to the sharp intake of breath that then traveled down the phone line, Reed was left in no doubt that something bad had happened to his twenty-nine-year-old kid sister.

ADULT EXCERPT

Shane had bedded more beautiful naked women than most men could ever dream of. Jessica was different, though, because she bewitched him. Of course, as a thirty-seven-year-old man he’d enjoyed longer relationships with women, three to be exact. The last one being with a lady by the name of Candy Miles. Candy was a statuesque blonde, and their difficult relationship had lasted for just over a year before he realized that the six-foot-one-inch Texan model was not the right woman for him. That was some eighteen months ago, and since then, he and Reed had spent much of their free time enjoying the carnal delights of the numerous fet clubs they were members of. Club Submission in Boston, Massachusetts was his all-time favorite for getting his rocks off.

The way that Jessica patiently, yet expectantly waited for him as she lay naked on the bed further fuelled his obsession, and Shane figured this intriguing lady enjoyed the darker side of sexual experimentation as much as he did. The sultry way those big brown eyes stared submissively back at him only made him want her all the more.

“Please, Shane. I need you. I need you deep inside me, sir.” She provocatively spread her legs invitingly wide. “Look, see how it glistens with desire. That’s all because of you, Shane. Only you can make me so wet and needy.”

“You’re perfect, just perfect, honey. Perfect in every way.”

Perfect little toes wriggled excitedly and his gaze drifted along perfect calves and thighs before settling on her perfect pussy. “You must be able to read my mind, because I always insist on a silky smooth cunt.”

He saw that Jessica enjoyed playing the submissive. “I’m glad I please you, Mr. Masters, sir. You’re my boss, and it’s always my intention to please my boss. In fact, it is my number one priority.”

“Just as it should be.”

His cock was achingly hard. Soon, very soon, he would bury his column of steel deep inside that glistening wet pussy. He would then fuck her so hard that Jessica wouldn’t look at another man for as long as she lived. First, though, he needed to taste her. His eyes connected with a soulful brown gaze that could lure normally sensible men to their deaths. Wanting more, wanting everything that Jessica had to offer, he knelt between her parted thighs before pulling her toward him, and then draping her slender legs over his shoulders. This close, her well-lubricated pussy looked even better, even more edible, and he breathed in deeply imbibing her feminine scent.

“Oh, woman, you do things to me that no other woman can.” Using the fingers of both hands, he spread the feminine folds apart like the petals of a delicate oriental flower. Shane then tasted this exquisite creature for the first time.

He wasn’t disappointed. In the past, he had been intimate with women whose glamorous exterior was betrayed by their personal hygiene. However, Jessica tasted exactly as he’d imagined. She tasted how a beautiful woman should. In fact, he couldn’t get enough of her, his tongue delving deeper and deeper into her honeypot as she erotically writhed on the bed. Shane relished the way she fisted her hands into his hair and energetically pulled. This was a lady who clearly enjoyed receiving oral sex as much as he enjoyed giving it, and as his tongue repeatedly circled her engorged and blood-filled clit, she pulled ever harder, almost to the point where he needed to stop her. He didn’t, because pleasure mixed with pain had always been an aphrodisiac to Shane.

Her words were breathy and excited. “Goddamn, how do you do what no other man can, ever could?” She was wet and excited, and his face was covered in her wonderful sexual arousal. He adored her. How could he not?

Her breathing was fast and ragged, and Shane figured her heart rate was already above one-thirty a minute and climbing.

“Shane. I–I–I need to tell you that I’ve never felt this good before. I need to tell you that I–I–I–I lo…lo…”