Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 11: Protection
“MR. RIORDAN, it’s Henry Pascal,” Henry said when he was finally connected.
“Henry, you’ve known me all your life. You came to play with Luke before you were both in kindergarten and have always felt at home with us. When will you finally accept that you can call me Paul?”
“Yes, sir. I just always try to be respectful.”
“And you succeed at that. What can I do for you? Trouble with the car?”
“No, sir. It’s working fine. I couldn’t be happier. This is a more ... personal matter.”
“Sounds serious, Henry. Are you in trouble?”
“Not exactly. Did Luke tell you about our little run-in with a guy on New Year’s Eve?” Henry asked. Luke said he told his father, just as Henry had informed his parents.
“Yes. Nasty business. You boys handled it well. I’m not going to lecture you or your partners on being more careful. Just be more careful, okay?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve done some investigating of this guy, Tom Reynolds, and I’ve supplied a lot of information to the police. I understand he’s out on bail now. The thing is, I think he’s more dangerous than just a drunk on New Year’s Eve. I ... I think Chastity could be in danger. I’ve found indications that this isn’t the first time he’s been in trouble like this and the women didn’t fare well,” Henry said.
“You’re sure of this?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve dug pretty deep and I believe he’s dangerous, especially to women who don’t comply with what he wants.”
“Don’t say anything else. Don’t ask for anything. You don’t know anything about him or what he’s like. Do you understand?” Paul asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Goodbye, Henry.”
If Henry hadn’t known Paul Riordan for his entire eighteen years, he might have taken that as a dismissal of his concerns. But Henry knew Paul would never reject a person—a family member—in need.
Henry and Luke were eleven years old when Paul encountered difficulties at his dealership. He was well on the way to becoming the biggest auto dealer in the metropolitan area and there were others who weren’t pleased with him. He always had prices that would beat the operating costs of other dealers, and had acquired franchises for all the GM product lines. At the time, he was negotiating to acquire both Toyota and Honda franchises.
That’s when a series of unfortunate events began occurring at his business locations. Windows were broken to start. The dealership windows could have been the result of a teen gang just out to destroy convenient property. But when the damage extended to vandalism of new and used vehicles, Paul wasn’t content to wait for police to figure it out.
It was never clear how much he was involved in the ‘security’ company he hired to deal with the problem. No one was ever arrested for vandalizing his property or inventory. But the vandalism slowly dissipated. Not long thereafter, the local Toyota dealer sold his business to Riordan Motors. The former owner moved to Hawaii.
What Henry knew was that Paul Riordan had contacts and they were capable of changing the landscape if necessary. Henry had no idea what the people would do to protect Chastity, but he went to sleep that night secure in the knowledge she was safe.
On Saturday, he drove up to Cleveland to pick up Carol and bring her back for the start of spring classes at the university. Of course, they didn’t get back until just in time for classes to start on Monday morning. They liked the little hotel they’d found in Youngstown and decided to spend a couple of nights there.
“Well, Janice and Leah have put on the freshman fifteen and show no sign of stopping there,” Carol laughed about her high school friends who went skiing together. “But they seemed happy enough. Teri was always the quiet one among us and I expected her to do pretty well at Wellesley. I guess you could say she has. I never expected the girl to come out of her shell like she has. Come out of it? I think she blew it up and filed for insurance. She was nothing like the girl we went to high school with.”
“I’ve heard of that happening at five- or ten-year class reunions, but never over the course of one semester,” Henry said.
“I can’t say it was a bad thing. Maybe it was just getting out from under the thumb of her very religious parents. She was only home a few days over Christmas and then went to stay with Leah for the rest of the break until we all went skiing. She’s headed straight for the airport back to Boston this afternoon,” Carol said.
“I’m glad you had a good time. You know, I hang out with my three best buddies from high school all the time. Even though it’s mostly online. We met together a few times this week, just to work on company philosophy and bylaws. We talked about going to the zoo to adopt a corporate seal, but they only have California sea lions and that didn’t seem to have the same humor.”
“Sounds like you had some fun!”
“Yeah. We got a lot of work done, but when it comes down to it, we’re still working on creating a corporate name. We might have to recruit someone with more imagination,” Henry said.
It didn’t take long after they’d checked in for the two to be naked on the bed.
“Oh! Oh, God! I almost forgot what that felt like! We girls didn’t forget how to go down on each other. We’d been doing that since we were freshmen in high school. But none of the girls had this piece of equipment. God! I love this feeling. Yeah. Move in me. Ohh!”
It sounded like Carol had done more than ski during her break and that always brought inspiring images to mind when she talked about pleasuring or being pleasured by another woman. He’d like to be the meat in that sandwich.
Just being buried in Carol, though, was like a welcome home celebration for both of them. Touching and sucking on her breasts, sliding in and out of her, filling his hands with her sexy ass, were all incredible. And coming with her while they kissed deeply was a phenomenon that left them both exhausted and wrapped in each other’s arms.
Carol had had a few orgasms at the hands and tongues of her high school friends. Henry had none since she left. Not that it was a great hardship—they often went a week or two without on campus. But something else had been bothering Henry.
He could have called Chastity at any time over the previous week and she’d have invited him over for some of the best sex of his life. But she’d finally said something on New Year’s Eve that jarred him and he couldn’t believe he’d never put it together before.
Chastity was an escort. She earned most of her money from providing sexual services to her dates. Despite having told Henry frequently that all she wanted from him was for him to take care of her, he felt conflicted now.
It wasn’t about whether or not trading sex for favors of one kind or another, including financial, was moral or immoral. Isobel and her mother might question that, but not Henry. He didn’t think Luke would be conflicted about it, either. Henry’s problem was he felt like having sex with Chastity and not paying was somehow stealing from her.
Yet, he thought offering to pay her might damage their relationship in other ways. He understood that his ‘generosity’ in including her as an equal partner in the LLC and transferring the patent and software to them to license for a substantial sum had made them all wealthy ... on paper. Chastity considered that to be taking care of her.
But none of them could touch the million dollars in the bank. Luke and Isobel had sat down with an investment counselor over the break and worked out what to do with the money until it was needed to fund the corporation. He supposed he could have gone, but that part of the business frankly bored him.
He just wanted ... He wanted to take care of Chastity. She certainly took care of him.
Isobel was the second of the partners to turn nineteen on the twenty-fourth of January. There was a flurry of text messages to congratulate her and celebrate, but she and Luke stayed at Villanova and did not come back to Pittsburgh.
Henry was busy trying to keep up with the heavy course load he had. He no longer had any classes with Dan and only one, Intro to Machine Learning, with Josh. He and Lisa shared both Theoretical Computer Science and Calculus in Three Dimensions. They still met with Josh and Dan in their study group, but did more independent study or one-on-one. Josh had two classes with Dan, so they all had plenty to keep them busy. Henry’s other two classes included a cognitive science elective: Thinking in Person vs. Thinking Online, and a Humanities elective: The Nature of Language. He was maxed out at 18 credits again, but since he’d aced all his first semester classes, there was no question about him being able to handle the load.
He and Carol had scarcely had time together when she stood next to him at golf practice on Tuesday the ninth of February and gave him a nudge.
“Hey, what’s up, gorgeous? I’m sorry I haven’t had any time to breathe in the past week. Want to get together this weekend?” he asked.
“No. I mean, yes, of course, but we’re getting together tonight,” Carol replied
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.