Hostage of my Heart Ch. 01

Authors Note: Hostage of my Heart is a four-part series. While it's possible to read the sections out of order and not get lost, there's an actual story to back up all the naughty bits, and it's more fun if you start at the beginning!

Thanks for reading-- Stefanie

--

The whole thing was insane, Opal thought. This was New Hampshire, not New York, an advertising agency, not a diamond merchant, and it was real life, not Hollywood. Who would ever expect to be taken hostage in a New Hampshire ad agency? For that matter, who'd expect to find an ad agency in New Hampshire? Opal herself had nearly skipped right over the job listing on Craiglist, figuring it was some kind of scam, but at the last moment she'd decided- what the hell?- she was a freelance graphic artist looking for a home, and she hated cities. One click couldn't hurt.

That was eighteen months ago, before she had any personal experience with escaped assassins and hostage situations, when she would have said working in an ad agency was one of the safest careers a person could chose. Opal was no daredevil; her childhood had provided excitement enough to last a lifetime.

She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin atop one knee, making herself as small and unobtrusive as possible on her piece of dense grey industrial carpeting.

The five men who'd taken over the building half an hour earlier were heavily armed. All wore boxy black pistols on their belts and guns strapped across their chests, which Opal believed were automatic weapons. Honestly, though, she had no idea. She'd hunted as a teenager, and she had an ex-boyfriend who was a handgun nut, but the only things she knew about automatic weapons came from movies. She was plenty familiar with bloodthirsty men, though, and these guys were deep-down violent, especially the one in charge.

She chanced a quick scan of the group around her, convincing herself that no one looked like they were planning anything stupid. If they started to look that way, she herself planned to be as far from the action as possible.

Mr. Branch caught her eye, his dark gaze steady and reassuring. She lowered her eyes without responding, but reflected that she was reassured. In other circumstances, she'd have smiled and maybe glanced back at him from under lowered lashes once or twice, enough to let him know she was interested. He was much older than Opal, but he was also tall, with broad shoulders and an air of quiet self-confidence that she found extremely sexy.

Not today, though; today she was thinking that reassuring her was the least Mr. Branch could do, since he was inadvertently the reason they were in this mess. Everyone else in the company-- everyone else in the whole industrial park, for that matter-- had left early for the weekend, but Opal's team had stayed late, despite blizzard warnings on the news and quickly accumulating drifts outside.

Mr. Branch was an important account for a relatively new agency like theirs. An offshoot of his solar energy company, recently transplanted to Boston's high-tech corridor, was headed for an IPO later this year, and apparently he'd been some kind of Olympic athlete back in his day. It was a big deal, anyway. He'd come in for a preliminary meeting before the holidays, but their main pitch was this afternoon, and the owner of the agency didn't want to risk pissing him off.

Of course said owner had gone straight home after a hearty meet-and-greet with the client, leaving the people directly involved with the account to run the meeting: the campaign director, copywriter, a photographer, and a graphic artist-- that was Opal. Two interns were enlisted to fetch, carry, and serve coffee. Helena, the curvaceous, incompetent receptionist, stayed as window dressing, and Mrs. Withers, the office manager, stayed because the success of the whole operation rested firmly on her overstuffed shoulders-- according to her, at least.

"Okay, gents and ladies, your attention, please?"

Without moving her head, Opal raised her eyes to the interlopers' dark-skinned leader. Even before he opened his mouth, this guy was scary: a broad, flat, hard-looking body, a white-blond crew cut, and the kind of dead eyes artists like Opal tried not to draw.

"We're going around the room, and each of you will tell me the name and job of the person next to you, sabe? I'm Dominic Sainte-- Mr. Sainte to you lot, by the way, and you, Red," he gestured to Helena, "the gent to your left, what does he do here?"

After Helena introduced Richard, Mr. Sainte asked Richard to do the same for Mrs. Withers, and for a moment, Opal wondered about the man's method of getting information. The reason came to her immediately: while a person might prevaricate about his own position-- to cover up being a security guard or whatever-- they'd be unlikely to invent a similar lie for someone else.

When Mr. Branch's turn arrived, he looked across the aisle at her and lifted a shoulder, "It's Opal, isn't it?"

"You don't know her?" Sainte waved his gun at Opal, making her flinch.

Rand glanced again at the petite dark-haired girl, the one who'd caught his eye earlier in the afternoon, and shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, I don't."

The ad agency's campaign manager hadn't introduced the team members or their roles individually. Maybe he'd been planning to, but they hadn't gotten that far when these idiots flooded the building.

"Anyone here know her?"

The other eight hostages shifted nervously, making flitting eye contact, but no one spoke, surprising Rand. Maybe she was a temp or something.... If he hadn't been looking straight at her, he would have missed the brief look of betrayal in the young woman's eyes; it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. So at least one of them knew her, probably more than one from the looks they'd been giving each other. Bastards, Rand thought viciously, wishing he could take back his own denial, which was at least truthful.

Sainte looked assessingly at the girl. She was pretty, he saw, not flashy like the redhead, but the kind of doe-eyed piece of tail that engendered a man's protective instinct. Sainte let his eyes scan the hostages. There were a couple of other possibilities for amusement, too, he thought. The two young ones... mentally, he shrugged. Might as well play-- they'd be here for a while.

"Well, come on up here, then." He motioned with his gun, and the nervous shifting distilled into frozen anticipation.

Opal hesitated, then rose gracefully to her feet. She was wearing black ballet slippers, Rand saw as she stood, which were nearly silent on the faux-marble floor.

"Assholes." Opal thought, her stomach turning. Every damn one of them. Chickenshit assholes.

She stopped exactly where the man had indicated and his eyes flickered. Maybe he'd expected her to be afraid of getting that close to him, but living with her stepfather had taught her that distance didn't equal safety. This man had the same eyes as her step-dad: sly and sadistic. Meek compliance was her only chance to avoid violence now, and it was a slim one. She couldn't stop the panicked thunder in her veins, but the rapid rise and fall of her breasts pleased him, she saw. No surprise there.

He nodded slightly. "Opal, right?"

"Yes," she murmured, with a dip of her chin.

"Good girl, Opal. I'm not going to have any trouble with you, am I?"

She shook her head, saw the glint in his eyes, and knew her mistake immediately, but she didn't have time to undo it.

The slap wasn't unexpected, but she cried out in pain and staggered to her right as though it had been. Bravery was ill-advised with a man like this.

Through the ringing in her ear, she sensed the shock, heard the gasps of her co-workers, and something else, a rough grunt.

Sainte grabbed her upper arm and she curled around the pain, whimpering. The gun extended over her head and past her shoulder. She barely heard his words, but his tone said it was an order.

As the vice-like grip on her arm loosened, Opal heard movement. She glanced back to see where the gun was pointing. Their dark-eyed client was letting his shoulders settle against the wall. A red mark on one cheek matched the angry complexion of the man holding a pistol to Mr. Branch's temple, telling Opal he'd probably tried to come to her rescue.

Branch met her eyes for just a second before Sainte pulled her close.

Opal let the fear show on her face and saw feral satisfaction on his. "Am I, Opal? Am I going to have trouble with you?"

She didn't make the same mistake again. "No, sir. No trouble."

"Good girl. Now, I don't see a ring: are you married?"

"No, sir."

"Engaged?"

"No, sir."

"You have a boyfriend, Opal, or are you a clit-licker?"

She could lie, she knew, but that would be dangerous, too. "No, sir, I'm straight but I'm not seeing anyone now."

His eyes narrowed. "You're not one of those little promise girls, are you? Staying pure until married by God?"

She shook her head, remembering in time. "No, sir."

"Okay, then...."

He looked her up and down, and Opal repressed a shudder. This was bad. He was going to rape her, she knew it, and being raped by a sadist... didn't bear recollection. Or anticipation. She took a deep breath and braced herself. She'd lived through everything else; she'd make it through this, too.

His eyes returned to her face and again she let her trepidation show. He was pleased, but it didn't stop him from hurting her. With the pistol still raised, he reached for her breast, clamping down as tightly as he had on her arm.

Opal's knees buckled. She keened in agony and only her automatic two-hand grip on his wrist kept her upright. Helplessly, she followed his hand as he drew her in, until the side of her breast touched his stomach. There, his cruel grasp eased by just a hair, enough for a sliver of awareness to sneak in past the pain.

"Okay, Opal. There are-- let's see-- five men in this room, not counting me and mine. Since you don't know any of them, I'll give you the run-down. First, your knight in shining armor-- dark eyes, dark skin, maybe Mediterranean, old- maybe fifty-five, but holding up pretty well. Then we've got a surfer. Six-one or so, blond, tan, twenties. A faggot, by the looks of him-- nice shoes, asshole." The last bit was directed over her head.

As Sainte spoke, he gestured with the gun and the movements were echoed in the fist clamped around her breast. Tears ran freely down Opal's face while she listened for clues. She didn't know Rand Branch personally, but she knew everyone else. The surfer was Tim Howard, and he was a strictly-heterosexual slut. Until a few minutes ago, she'd also considered him a friend.

The tally continued. "Then there's a boring brown-haired, suit-clad accountant type, probably named Gavin or Andrew, something like that, and I'll bet he has two point five kids and a WASPY wife at home. Probably a runner, too. Looks like he stays in shape, anyway."

That was Bob, and Sainte was right about the wife and kids.

"Bald black guy. Looks like a mailman without the blues. Short, stocky, also fifty-ish. What's your name, baldy?"

"Sandir, sir."

"Sandir... what's that accent? Where you from, Sandir?"

"Dominican Republic, sir."

"Ah, the Derr... you bring the family over yet, Sandir?"

"No, sir, I'm working toward it."

"Okay, Sandir."

"So, we have Sandir, a gay surfer, Gavin, your aging hero, and... you, Calvin Klein. What's your story?"

His hand clenched more tightly when he said Gavin, Calvin, and Hero. Opal's lips drew back in an involuntary grimace. The pain in her breast radiated up into her neck and down to her belly. She tried to concentrate. For whatever reason, he was going to make her chose one of the men, and apparently he didn't like Bob, Rand Branch, or Richard, who was talking now. She couldn't follow what he was saying.

"So, not an underwear model, huh? You missed your calling, Dick." Sainte's hand tightened momentarily on the name and Opal's knees wobbled.

Suddenly, he released her breast and put his arm around her waist, drawing her firmly against his body as she pressed her hands to her chest, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

"Okay, Opal," he said "Five gents. Sandir, Dick, Gavin, surfer boy, and the hero. Pick one." He kissed her head, and beneath her tears, Opal repressed an urge to vomit.

She hesitated, though she knew she shouldn't. Pick for what?

Her sobbing pleased him enough to overlook her slowness. "C'mon, Opal. While I do, in fact, have all day, I also have shit to do. Tell you what, let's do it this way... you're going to spend a year on a desert island, which one of these guys you want with you?"

What was he going to do? What if she was choosing who he'd kill first?

"Still nothing? Okay, one more chance, Opal." His fingers on her waist tightened and for the first time she noticed the erection pressing against her belly.

Oh, shit.

"Let's start with who you wouldn't want on the island."

Shit, shit, shit. A sadist was like a child in some ways. If she said she was afraid of puppies, but loved snakes, this prick would lock her in a closet full of dogs. Answer fast, Opal, she prodded herself. "The old guys-- the hero and the guy from... from...."

"The D.R.? Our friend Sandir?"

Opal nodded against his chest and hurried to correct herself. "Yes, sir." That gave him two choices-- one man he didn't like and one to whom he was indifferent.

It was a risky move. She loathed Richard. Bob was nice but solidly white-bread-middle-class; he'd try to do the right thing and get them both killed. Timmy she actually did like, but she was trying to keep him out of whatever Sainte had planned. He was too young and emotional to be reliable, though at twenty-four, he was technically only a year younger than she.

Sandir worked for a messenger service. Opal didn't see him often and didn't know him well, but he seemed level-headed and he had a nice smile. The client was a complete stranger, but he'd been brave enough to help and smart enough to stop when the pistol was pointed at him. He was also very attractive. She was taking a huge chance, and betting everything on the education her step-father had given her. She held her breath.

"The old guys, hmm?" He mused under his breath, stroking her back gently.

"Not Bob," Opal prayed, her eyes closing.

"Okay, then." He patted her ass briskly, having made up his mind.

Not Bob. Not Bob OR Richard, she amended. Richard might not get her killed, but she despised the sleazy prick.

Sainte turned her around to face the group, deliberately dragging her body across his erection as he did. With Opal's back to him, he clenched her breast again-- the same one-- and she choked back a moan.

Through her tears, she noted expressions on the faces around her. Helena was pleased, of course-- she hated Opal-- Jenny and Brit clung together in fear, and Mrs. Withers was as stoic as ever. Richard had the look of prurient interest she'd expected, but unexpectedly, so did Bob. Opal felt a flash of revulsion and her litany of Not-Bobs became even more fervent.

Sandir met her eyes steadily, and Timmy's reaction stunned her-- he was beet red, veins standing out in his neck, and one of Sainte's men stood slightly behind him, aiming an automatic weapon at his head. The stranger was still angry, too, but his was a tightly controlled impulse.

"Okay, then," Sainte repeated. "C'mon up here, Hero."

A mere millisecond of hesitation and the resolute roll to his feet told Opal she'd been right. She was almost glad for the pain in her breast, because she might not have been able to contain a sigh of satisfaction.

The stranger stopped in front of her, expressionless eyes rising to meet Sainte's gaze.

"What's your name, Hero?"

"Rand."

"Rand. Alright, Sir Rand. I release our little maiden into your care." He let go of Opal's breast, shoving her suddenly toward the stranger, who caught her about the shoulders, pulling her against his broad, astonishingly hard chest.

Opal wanted nothing more than to sink into this man's arms and cry her heart out, but she had the presence of mind to hold her body rigid, showing none of her relief.

Rand felt her stiffness and moved his hands to her shoulders, though he wanted to cradle her against him. Bastard, he thought again, much more viciously than he'd hurled the mental epithets at her acquaintances.

"Take her over there." Sainte gestured to the conference table.

---- o ----

The office was an open-plan workplace with few real divisions. Instead of cubicles, a series of desks were paired around the perimeter of the room. Flanked by and separated from the desks by two tiled aisles, the carpeted center of the room contained couches, easy chairs, several mobile ottomans, and even a couple of beanbags.

The long, narrow table Sainte pointed out was a five-thousand dollar showpiece, a massive slice of dark-stained redwood with its natural contours intact. It was gorgeous, but it was used mostly for brainstorming and snack sessions-- the real conference table was enclosed in a soundproof glass room near the executive offices at the other end of the building.

Rand's arm encircled Opal as he guided her to the table, no more than a dozen feet from where she'd been sitting on the floor. Politely, he held a chair for her, but before she could sit, Sainte stopped them.

"No."

Opal froze.

"On the table."

She was like a deer in the headlights-- if the deer knew a hunter was in the car, locked, loaded and covered in camo. Opal hated being right. Her eyes widened, but she did what he said. Removing one hand from her breast to help support herself, she hopped up before Mr. Branch had a chance to help.

"Okay, Hero. Fuck her."

Everyone froze. Half of Sainte's men chuckled into the stricken silence.

Rand swiveled slowly away from her.

Opal wanted to grab his arm and explain, tell him he'd have to do it if he wanted them to live, tell him what this man would do, what he was like, and then tell him that it was okay, that she'd be okay, that she'd survived much worse. If they'd had privacy, she'd tack on a coda that she found him incredibly sexy and that she'd chosen him on purpose. As sick as Sainte was, as dangerous as the situation could be, Opal didn't object to the thought of Rand Branch putting his cock in her.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Rand asked.

Opal held her breath, thinking he'd just gotten them killed, but the reaction wasn't what she'd expected. Her step-father would have gone crazy-er at the question, but Sainte just shrugged. His grin didn't budge. "Probably. Doesn't make a difference to you, though, Sir Knight. If you want to live through this-- more importantly, Hero, if you want your Lady Opal to live-- you'll turn around, strip her off, and fuck her on that table."

Sainte lifted his arm, pointing the pistol at Rand's head, but Rand didn't move until Sainte slowly, deliberately swung the barrel to point directly at Opal.

Rand turned to face her wearing an expression of utter horror.

Sainte was watching her, so when she met Rand's eyes, she had to let her apprehension show, but she wished there was a way to tell him it was okay.

"Strip her off, Sir Rand." Sainte repeated.

Still Rand hesitated until Opal kicked her shoes off, her hands moving to the top button of her blouse.

He took over, whispering. "I'm sorry."

"What was that, Sir Rand? Share." Sainte ordered.

Rand didn't turn. "I told her I'm sorry. I don't want to do this."

Sainte laughed. "Yeah, okay, Hero. Guys always want to do this; it's why we're guys."

Rand finished with her buttons and took a breath as he pushed the shirt from Opal's shoulders, meeting her eyes again. His eyes were steely grey, cooler than you'd expect to see on a man with his complexion, and flecked with tiny specks of a darker color, giving them the appearance of granite. Up close, she could see that the darker bits were emerald green, and his eyes weren't hard at all.