The Contract (Nightlong #1) by Sarah Michelle Lynch Read Free Book Online Page A

knew people I trusted, people who’d not sprag, people who knew how to keep a secret better than I did.
    I arrived at the tall fence at the end of the garden, looking up as it stood in the way of my freedom. One, last barrier. Looking down at my throbbing arm, desperate for the painkillers to work so I could tackle this without screaming, I willed some sort of miracle.
    I knew there was nothing for it.
    Sensing Dante close by, I knew he might come over tonight to check on me. An imbalance in the force, his vibrations were so close… I knew he was near.
    Maybe he even had microphones in the house?
    I couldn’t risk mucking this up.
    I had to go!
    I climbed the high fence, wincing in agony as I did, the new stitches pulling as I strained myself to climb the eight-foot bastard in my way.
    “Cleo, WAIT!” I heard him shout.
    So, he had returned.
    Like we had a mental bond, I’d known he would return.
    Well, fuck him .
    It was too late.
    I ran down the alley behind the houses and was grateful to myself for making use of my home gym equipment which he’d encouraged me to use to keep up my strength for his benefit.
    Once out of the alley behind the row of houses, I looked down the residential street I found myself on and knew I wouldn’t be able to get all the way down the road without encountering Dante, who was no doubt circling his way around the street to get to where I was. He knew the lay of the land as well as I did. I’d tried this once before, but this was different now… I had seen the bastard for what he really was and now was my chance for escape. I’d do anything for it this time.
    I spotted one of the houses had its bins out front and I ran across the street, opening the various waste units only to find them all mostly full – except for the one containing compost materials.
    Hearing a car screech down the street, I didn’t think.
    I just jumped in.
    As I crouched, surrounded by a stench which reminded me of the flat I’d lived in just before I met Dante, I remembered how I came to meet him. It was like it was yesterday and yet, also a hundred years ago…
     
    MY day job back then had been beyond banal but it paid. For a girl who ran away from home without any higher qualifications, I was lucky I was earning a semi-professional wage at all. Earning barely £17K as a data processor wasn’t great though, because the room I rented in a shared house cost more per year than my salary. I had to subsidise my living somehow, if I wanted to work and live inside any one of the numerous boroughs of London.
    Inputting figures all day long was easy, it was repetitive and didn’t ask much of me, so I had some energy left for my evenings and instead of wallowing, I decided to earn extra cash in a fun environment. Bar work led to work as a hostess at a private members’ club and one night, one of the girls told me about the pay she got as a dominatrix. It was all off the books, she said, and the hostess stuff was just something to keep her hand in legit work and help out a friend.
    “How do I get into it? I mean… I don’t know anything about that sorta craic. To be sure I only ever knew one lad in that way, you know?” Like I’d jumped off the boat only yesterday, I’d yet to shed my strong country accent. London had only been my home for mere months.
    “Oh, there’s nothing you have to do but play games and it’s all safe. Each girl has a room, a role they play, and the guys pay for you to tease them. Maybe hold small talk. That’s all.”
    I looked at the girl, who called herself Trixy, and asked, “How much d’ya get paid?”
    “Hundred quid a pop. They pay the house way more than that, though. Easy money for permitting clients their fetishes, their desires, their…” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “…dirty, polluted sex games.”
    We both sniggered. “Sign me up. I’ll give anything to get the landlord off me back. I am a bit behind already.”
    “Sure?”
    “Sure!”
    “Well, you