I shook my head. “Sure as hell didn’t look like it.”
Colt swore. “Fuck this shit, man. This ain’t what we signed up for.”
“Funny, I don’t remember signing up for shit.”
Because we hadn’t. Our “employment” by Jedidiah Pike was less “employment” and more “indentured servitude.” We worked because we’d been in a hole with the wrong people. And since those people had business ties with Jeb and his operations, a deal was struck. We worked for him in exchange for our debt getting paid off.
Slowly.
We knew what the “operations” were when we’d walked into this, of course, but it’d been a little different when we’d started. Jeb’s business was girls — specifically, training girls to be the perfect playthings for the rich and powerful. Now, that’s a sordid business no matter how you shake it, but when we’d first come on as help, the girls came willingly. These were failed actresses, models, and all manner of pretty young women who needed cash and were willing to be matched with men of a certain means who were looking for a companion. It wasn’t hooking — I mean, not really. Jeb paid the girls, the men paid Jeb, and if a client and a girl hit it off, that was that. They’d leave Jeb’s ranch here in Montana to go off and live the life of luxury as arm candy to the elite at European casinos, and lavish Caribbean resorts, and wherever the fuck else rich guys brought hot girls they paid to fuck them.
Then things changed.
The clientele got shadier, and more interested in certain darker tastes. To some of these fucking guys, it wasn’t enough to have some girl under their employ to spread their legs on their yachts, they needed more of a challenge — more of a power status. I guess maybe the thinking was that any rich guy could buy a pretty girl, but it took a man of power to make one his.
Fuck that.
That wasn’t power, not to me. That was cowardice and weakness, and it’d rubbed Colt and I raw when we’d found out the new direction Jeb was taking things. We’d wanted to walk away right then and there, but a debt was a debt, and ours wasn’t the kind you walked away from.
At least, not if you wanted to keep your fucking head attached to your neck.
The girl that day, out at that farm, was exactly the sort of shit I hated.
She wasn’t coming to Jeb knowingly, and willingly accepting what this was going to be. She was a bargaining chip. I wasn’t sure if her uncle knew what the fuck was in store for her, but I knew enough about how Jeb operated to know the guy couldn’t have been totally clueless. At the end of the day, the man was selling his niece to Jeb and a life of sexual servitude so he could keep his piddly little farm.
That’s some cold shit right there.
I knew something was up the second we pulled up that long dusty drive to that farm. And I definitely knew it the second she walked around the corner of the barn.
Fuck.
She was too innocent. Too young, too pure, to unsullied to be the kind of girl who went looking for high-paying sugar daddies. Nope, this was the other side of things — the shadier, darker, fucked up side. Jeb hadn’t told Colt or I the details when we’d ridden with him that day, but I know we both knew what was up the second we saw her.
She was about to be sold, and she had no idea what was coming her way. She had no idea the ways Jeb would try and break her, and use her, and twist her into this perfect little fuck-toy for some fat old guy with more money than charm.
“Whoa, easy.”
I blinked away the red mist clouding my eyes as I turned to see Colt looking at me sharply. He nodded at the half-crushed beer can in my head, and I blinked.
“Sorry.”
I unclenched, beer froth dripping down my wrist.
“It’s her, isn’t it?”
I looked down.
Her, as in the girl on the farm that day. The fresh-faced, totally innocent, totally knockout girl standing there in her jeans and plaid shirt. I mean she was dressed for mucking out a fucking barn and she still looked stunning. Chestnut hair, full, pouty lips, legs for days and those crystal blue eyes. She looked scared, and sheltered, and like the kind of girl who had no fucking clue the effect she had on men around her.
Hell, she made a man want to lay claim is what she did. She made a man — this man, for sure — want to take that innocence and make it his own. I turned to look at my friend, seeing the same shadowed, faraway musing look in his own eyes, and I knew damn well he was thinking the same thing.
“Fuck, she’s a pretty one,” Colt murmured, sipping his beer.
“Perfect.”
“This ain’t no place for a girl like her.” Colt’s jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing on the horizon. “Fuck, man, I can’t be a part of this—”
“We have to be a part of this,” I hissed, my hand clenching the can again. “You know damn well I want no part of this either, but you know the terms.”
Colt spat off the porch. “Terms my ass. You mean how Jeb fuckin’ owns us?”
I glared at him. I fucking hated when he put it like that, no matter how much truth there was to it.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
I shook my head. “You ain’t wrong.”
“So what’s the plan? What’s the move here?”
I sighed and tilted my beer back, taking a large swallow. “She’s not escaping this. I mean, she’ll be here soon, and when she gets here, that fucker is going to break her. He’s going to tear that angel down until she’s some groveling little sex-toy.”
Colt stood abruptly, hissing before suddenly whirling and slamming his fist into the wooden side of the bunkhouse. He swore immediately, roaring and shaking his hand out as the rage billowed across his face.
I grinned wryly at him. “Feel better?”
“Not really.” He grabbed a fresh beer from the cooler and winced as he laid it against his knuckles.
“None of that we’re going to be able to stop, but we can make it better for her.”
Colt glanced up at me.
“If Jeb and his guys get ahold of her, they’re going to destroy her. A girl like that? Shit, if she’s even had one roll in the hay with whatever pimple-faced farm boys she’s got in that podunk town, I’ll be shocked. Letting Jeb and his boys at her would be like throwing meat to the fucking wolves.”
Colt met my eyes, and slowly, he nodded.
“Us.”
I nodded back. “We can’t let it be Jeb. No fuckin’ way.”
“You’re saying we have to be the ones to break her in. We gotta be her handlers when she gets here.”
“It’s us or him and his guys.”
“No fucking way.”
“Then you know what we’ve gotta do.”
Colt nodded as he exhaled heavily and sank back into his chair. He reached into the cooler and grabbed a beer, passing it my way before cracking the one he’d had on his bruised hand.
“When that angel comes to this ranch,” I said slowly, in a measured tone. “She’s going to be ours. If we want to save her?”
I glanced over and met my best friend’s eyes.
“If we want to save her, we’ve gotta break her.”
4
Johanna
“Of course you let them drive away.”
Peggy signed, shaking her head at me.
“Two cute guys lookin’ at you, and you don’t do a dang thing about it. Typical Jo.”
I chewed on my lip, looking down from the hay loft at the barn floor beneath our swinging feet. The Nathansons were the closest thing my aunt and uncle had to neighbors, and out of pure geography and the fact that we were about the same age, their daughter Peggy and I hung out from time to time. I was smart enough to know that Peggy wasn’t a friend, but there wasn’t a whole of people lining up for that role being so isolated out on the farm, and sometimes, having someone to talk to that wasn’t my uncle, my aunt, or my cousins was a nice break.
Jim and Mary didn’t really like me hanging around with Peggy, for good reason. Peggy was what you’d call a “bad influence” — she wore a b
it less than she ought to have, she’d gotten one of those lower back tattoos that she loved showing off, and she smoked cigarettes. In fact, that’s why we were in her barn, so she could smoke without her Ma yelling at her. The latest scandal involving Peggy Nathanson had been a few months before, right after graduation, when her Pa had caught eighteen-year-old Peggy in this very barn with one of the new ranch hands they’d hired for the summer.
I’d been too scandalized to listen to the details when she’d gleefully told me, but I knew it hadn’t involved a whole lot of clothes.
Her folks had thrown a fit, rightfully, and that was the end of Peggy going off to the local state college. Hey, on the bright side, at least I had someone my own age around to talk to, even if she was a horrible influence.
“Well what was I going to do, go up and kiss two good looking guys just because they looked at me nicely?”
Peggy snorted. “Who said anything about kissing? If they were as cute as you’re sayin’, I’d have just dropped to my knees and—”
“Okay, okay.” I wrinkled my nose and quickly shook my head.
Peggy laughed. “You know, I was almost looking forward to you maybe finding a way to go to college so you could let loose a little.”
“I don’t need to let loose.”
“Um, please, yes you do. You need to get out there, wear something sexy for once instead of overalls—”
“Overalls work perfectly well for work.”
“Farm work, not the kinda work where you go out to a bar, bat your eyes at some hot cowboy, and then ride him like a bull in the back of his truck in the parking lot.”
I blushed bright red and looked down. “I’m not— I mean, I’m not like—”
“Like me?” Peggy snorted. “Your loss.”
She handed me a cigarette, but I quickly shook my head.
“I mean God damn, Jo, how the hell are you nineteen and a virgin? Hell, how do you even live?”
I scowled. “I live just fine, thank you very much. I just think there are more important things for me to concentrate on.”
“You’re wrong, there aren’t. What are you, waiting for Mr. Right or somethin’? Jo, I’m telling you, you need to get bullshit like that out of your head. Go find Mr. Right Now, walk up, grab that big cowboy cock right through his jeans and tell him you want him to fuck the virgin right out of you.”
“Peggy!” I gasped, feeling my face burn as she just laughed, choking on her cigarette smoke.
I was immediately regretting telling her about the two handsome cowboys from the day before. And she was wrong, anyways. It’s not like I’d been waiting around for some movie Prince to ride up to the farm and sweep me away. I mean hell, I had had urges and all that, it’s just that there’d never been an opportunity. None of the boys in school had ever even remotely interested me, and it’s not like Jim and Mary had the money to hire ranch hands like Peggy’s folks — as if I would ever have done what she had. If the Nathanson’s only kid had been a boy instead of Peggy, well, yeah — I’d have probably seen what all the fuss was about a long time ago.
The fact was, I’d just never been given the option or the opportunity.
“I think I should go.”
“Aww, c’mon, Jo. Don’t be a prude about it.”
“I’m not,” I said primly. “I just have chores that need doing and things to do before I leave.”
“Fine, whatever.” Peggy shrugged. “But hey, when you go to this new job at that guy’s ranch with the two hotties you saw yesterday?”
I paused on the ladder, glancing back at her.
“Do yourself a favor. Find one of ‘em, stop being such a prude, and take him for a ride. You can thank me later.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes, my face getting red all over again as I stomped the rest of the way down the ladder.
5
Johanna
“Time to get up, little missy.”
I squinted, rolling over on the small cot I was lying on and opening my eyes.
I froze.
Grinning down at me was Mr. Pike.
I sat up, quickly waking up as the events of the night before came trickling into my head. The two men who’d come to collect me at my aunt and uncle’s farm were not the two handsome cowboys from the first visit. These two had been swarthy and scowling — scary-looking, and not in a sexy way, in a legitimately mean way. They’d had me ride in the back of their pickup truck, along with the one suitcase I’d packed, for the entire drive out to Mr. Pike’s ranch. At one point, one of them had given me something for “car sickness,” even when I’d told him I was fine.
“It gets bumpy later,” he’d said, pushing the pill into my hand. “Take it.”
It hadn’t seemed much like a request at that point, so I had.
I didn’t remember now if it had been bumpy, I just remembered how damn sleepy I’d gotten — probably the anxiety of the new job finally catching up with me. But in any case, when we’d arrived, I’d been so tired after the long drive that the two men had basically carried me into this place.
The room had a small cot and a window that looked out at the hills, but it was bare besides that. Just a few bits of straw on the ground, as if this had been used more as a barn than a guest room.
For some reason, I felt like I remembered the sound of a lock being clicked after they’d laid me on this small bed, but I knew that had to be something from a dream.
“Time to get up,” Mr. Pike said with that same cold, uncomfortable smile from before. “Your first day is important here.”
I blinked, suddenly remembering the whole point of me being here.
“My goodness, I’m so sorry! Of course!”
God, my first day and I was sleeping in.
I started to throw back the blankets and stand when I gasped and let out a small shriek.
“My clothes!”
I gasped as I yanked the blankets tight to my chin, my whole body going rigid and my cheeks burning. I was completely naked underneath it.
Mr. Pike chuckled.
“Yup, must have forgot to mention that. You were pretty zonked out last night, so I had some of the staff strip you down.”
My jaw dropped, but Mr. Pike just smiled at me, as if it wasn’t insane that he’d had someone take my damn clothes off while I was sleeping!
“Besides, we’ve got a — well,” he chuckled. “A uniform for you while you’re here.”
I nodded and shivered, feeling so exposed with only a blanket between me and this frightening man.
Mr. Pike seemed to grin at my uncomfortableness though, and suddenly tossed a small parcel.
“I want you to put that on and follow me. We need to get you checked out before you begin.”
I frowned. “Checked out?”
“Examined. Now put it on.”
I paused, still feeling strange about having woken up naked in what was clearly an old hay stall. “I— I’m not sure about this.”
“Now you listen to me, missy!” Mr. Pike’s voice suddenly went darker. “I offered your family a fair price for your services. Now you can get on home right now if you want, but it’ll mean giving that money back, understand? And I’m pretty sure your uncle was clear about that meaning you all lose your damn farm. You want that on you? Your family, all those little cousins of yours, without a home ‘cause you didn’t want to do a little work?”
I blushed crimson as he chastised me. “N-no, sir. I’ll work. Of course. I’m great with cows and livestock, I can operate most field machinery, and—”
Mr. Pike started laughing, as if at a joke I wasn’t quite getting.
“Well that’s just swell, but that ain’t why you’re here.”
I swallowed. “It’s not?”
Mr. Pike only smiled. “Put that on.” He nodded again at the parcel.
Slowly, I nodded. I started to open the small box, pulling the little ribbon away and taking the top off, when suddenly my whole face went hot and I felt a chill shiver down my back as I froze. br />
“Something the matter?” he said, his voice dripping in sarcasm.
A lump formed in my throat as I looked down at the black, lacy contents of the box.
This had to be a mistake. Or a joke they played on new hires, or… or… something.
My scary new boss hadn’t really just given me a box of sexy lingerie, right?
“I— um—”
“Is there a problem here, Johanna?”
I glanced up, chewing at my lip. “I’m sorry, you want me to—”
“To put that the fuck on, and follow me. Yes.”
“I can’t,” I shook my head quickly. “Mr. Pike, I—”
I gasped as he suddenly strode over to me, and I shrieked as he yanked the blanket from my hands, grabbed me by the arm, and yanked me up so I that I was standing naked in front of him.
His lips curled into a mean, wicked smile, his meaty hand holding me firmly as I tried to pull away. His cold eyes leered down at me, roaming my naked body in a way that made me shiver before he narrowed them on my face.
“Let’s get one thing very straight, right now.” His eyes blazed. “I fucking own you now, okay? You’re not here to fuckin’ milk cows, or pile hay, or whatever hillbilly farm bullshit you mistakenly thought you were going to be doing here. I’m not after ranch hands, I’m after girls.”
A coldness started to creep through me.
“You ain’t here for a visit, you’re here until I sell you.”
I froze, my jaw dropping.
“What?”
“I’m going to sell you,” he hissed with a chilling smile. “But first, I’m gonna train you, so put on the fucking uniform, and follow me, or I will get mean. Do we understand each other?”
My head felt stuffy, like it was filled with cotton, and the room felt like it was spinning. Words like “sold” and “train you” flashed through my head as I blinked and tried to process what he’d just said.
“I said—”
I gasped as his hand gripped my arm tightly.
“Do we understand each other?”
I nodded.
I didn’t know what else to do, I just nodded.