Leashed

Chapter 16

January 2, 2021

Desire isn’t bad. It’s natural. What you have to be wary of is when it's exceeding. This, nonetheless, may not be something to worry about for the sadistic heiress who preferred to glaze her indulgence to the obsession of one of her dogs.

               It was the second day of the “Marriage Game.” Morning had come, and golden sunshine had blanketed Sindangan, a city in Western Mindanao facing the West Philippine Sea and somewhere befitting for a temporary escapade.

               Neoma basked in the peace the start of this day brought. She considered this a luxury, since it’s not always that something like this occurs. Her father’s schemes weren’t within her radius, and the troubles associated with her identity weren’t able to reach her—at least, for now.

               “How do you feel?” Sol softly asked.

               He was inside a bedroom with Neoma. His breath was hot on her nape—a contrast to the coldness of the wet towel he was tracing on her bruised back. Although he seemed calm, his mistress sensed that a noticeable part of him wasn’t.

               She was sitting on a wooden stool, a bucket of water near her and she was wearing nothing but a thin piece of underwear. This invited quite the uncomfortable rouse in him, for this is a sight he has always coveted to behold. It would be pure bliss to explore every inch of her body. The blue violet patches of bruises and the ugly lacerations on her—to him—didn’t make her less enticing. He wanted to kiss each of these—even lick if he’d be permitted. The temptation was strong, and he fought hard against it. He gulped. Cleaning off Neoma’s body was no simple task anymore; it became an ordeal he was barely winning.

               Neoma hid a smirk; her green irises accompanied that with a dark glint.

               “A bit tingly, but I’ll manage,” she replied, “How about you? How do you feel?”

               His hand froze on her shoulder as he realized what she meant. He looked down and saw his visible discomfort.

               “I’m excited,” he disclosed.

               Amused, she mentally lauded his honesty. This is the part of him that made her keep him as her dog. Although he annoyed her a lot, he is always loyal, and he has always been bold about his actions and always forward about how he felt around her. He is—to her—a pet constantly wagging his tail in delight. Therefore, he deserved a treat.

               “Sol, come here,” she commanded, to which he briskly obeyed.

               The anticipating man stood in front of his mistress. She looked up at him, slowly and sensually. On the other hand, his gaze shifted from the fullness of her perky breasts, hardly covered by her loosed hair, to the eroticism her eyes were giving off.

               Damn. He muttered to himself.

               Suddenly, she took his wrist and yanked her down towards her. His knees were already on the floor, and his face leveled to hers. He grinned, and even more so when she roughly grabbed his hair.

               “This is for doing a good job.”

               Her lips were then on his.

               “Mmmh!”

               He didn’t notice how the wet towel slipped from his hand. His attention was on how torrid their exchange of kisses was. He closed his eyes to savor every second of his reward. Their tongues were clashing. They were swallowing every inch of each other’s thirst. He felt hotter and greedier.

               But then, Neoma halted, and pushed him down to the floor when he instinctively conquered her bosom. They were both catching their breaths as he lied down on his back.

               “I didn’t tell you that you could touch me,” irked, she stated.

               He licked his lips. He was still in delirium. He wanted to move, but she pushed him back in place. She wasn’t finished yet.

               Steadily, she crouched and found her hand between his legs—to that very eager part of himself—and lightly brushed it.

               “Do you want me to do something about this?”

               She was provoking him, and he loved it.

               “Y-yes.”

               “Then beg.”

               He fisted his hands and bit his lower lip. “Please. Please make a mess out of me.”

               Neoma then smiled smugly. Like usual, Sol showed her an interesting spectacle. She unzipped his pants, freed his erect shaft and firmly enveloped her palm around it.

               He sighed while his small brown eyes shrunk more in pleasure, since she was starting to move her hand up and down repetitively. She started slowly, teasing him, squeezing slightly. Then, she went fast and hard, which made him squirm and curl his toes.

               “Ugh! Neoma. Ah!”

               She picked up the pace until he shot loads of his seeds, and she saw his body convulse. She glanced at the sticky fluid wrapping over her right hand.

               “How was it? Your reward”

               He smiled mischievously. “I liked it very much. Thank you.”

Blagkh! Blak!

               That was the sound of glass hitting the skull of someone wearing a johnny before it broke on the concrete floor of a private ward. The body guard pressed his hand on his bleeding forehead; it was all he could do as the recipient of his boss’ rage. It seemed that miraculously surviving from the hands of Neoma Belmonte’s dog didn’t do him good at all. He was shot in the chest, but the bullet missed his heart.

               Hart and his younger cousin, Benjie, as well as their fellow henchmen didn’t dare interfere, for they feared to take part in this mischance; moreover, they heard no mention of their dead colleagues because their employer couldn’t care less about them.

               “I’ve never been this disappointed of how inutile all of you are!” Ohm’s booming voice reverberated on the four walls of the air-conditioned room. He was lying furious on a hospital bed. It was still early in the morning, and he had just lived through a day of disorientation; whereas, he was already throwing a fit even with his gunshot wounds aching cruelly.

               “It was just Neoma, one weak b***h—and some asshole!” He pertained the latter to Sol. “You! How many were you?”

               He nailed his mad focus on that henchman who was fortunate to live past the New Year and who wouldn’t meet his gaze. “There were dozens of you, and you still didn’t have a chance? Explain how those two escaped when your number overwhelmed them! Huh?!”

               Even with how he was incapacitated by Neoma’s dog, he refused to recognize his might. His huge ego would never let him.

               The bodyguard, though apprehensive, narrated what happened.

               Ohm listened with his brows knotted. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For every word about the self-proclaimed dog, he loathed him more. Not only did he take Neoma away from him, he also had the gall to shoot him and even attempted to finish him off. What made him madder was how his fiancée encouraged that. Now, he was more determined to get her back, and let her suffer the worst punishment.

               “Yet, boss,” the poor henchman then emphasized, “They had someone else with them.”

               His left brow rose. “Someone else?”

               “Yes, boss, and it was another man. But, I didn’t clearly see his face.”

               He scoffed. “Another man? It’s really not much of a surprise. So, that w***e has another pet in tow!”

               He hated to admit it: jealousy was swallowing him whole, since what was supposed to be his possession—his alone—was with two men who shared her presence and attention. It should be his, and no one else. He is the only one who deserves her.

               He went to lengths to disarm her. He colluded with her father, tortured her lover and chased her down, but nothing worked. He didn’t believe that it was her luck; it was because of her dog, Sol, and now she added another one. She has guts that not even the esteemed manipulative Wile Belmonte could crush; likewise, her defenses are fortified because she’s guarded by able men. She really is clever at combining her charm with her wit, and this made him want her more.

               “Any news about Neoma’s whereabouts?” He asked no one in particular.

               “Boss,” Hart injected, “An informant told us that she was spotted in Dipolog City port yesterday in the middle of a commotion.”

               “And?”

               He handed his boss a tablet, and played the viral video footage of the man wearing a black cap and face mask.

               “One of the two men with her manhandled the security, and the other one rushed her out of there. As of now, we don’t know where they are specifically, but we’re certain they’re still in Mindanao.”

               Ohm gritted his teeth as he tapped the video to pause. “So, even there, they still couldn’t be subdued. Why can’t those assholes just die?”

               Hart along with the others, realized the point. The young miss wasn’t alone in this battle; she has a force to be reckoned with. The “Marriage Game” of her father which, at this point, their injured boss has no idea yet, might be something she can win easily with those two strong men with her.

               “Boss,” he said, “About what Mr. Belmonte started yesterday; we may have a way for you to be victorious.”

               Clueless, Ohm asked, “What do you mean?”

               Benjie looked at his older cousin intently.

               “The tycoon’s game, it may be a cinch if we employ professional help.”

A while after that, a certain company received a call.

               “Good day, this is Suspensus. How can we be of service?”

Leopoldo, the man near his sixties who habitually ties his shoulder-length white hair, wasn’t hired because he could take care of an entire lonely resort well. In fact, he didn’t even apply for the job. It hadn’t been that long, when he was just a reticent (still is) fish vendor who had a stall on the side of a desolate street. Months ago, a man and a woman whom he mistook as newlyweds appeared before him.

               “Good morning.”

               The young man didn’t speak his dialect and didn’t have an accent as solid as his. He conjectured that he and his beautiful companion, who wore a big hat and a bored expression, had come from Luzon.

               “We kind of have a situation today. We can’t find an open eatery around here,” he said.

               The aged man realized that he was lying. That day wasn’t any special holiday nor was it a weekend for eateries, carinderias or even fast food chains in Sindangan to be unavailable. This perplexed him.

               “Surely, sir,” he replied using the national language, “You may not have walked around enough.”

               “I’m already tired from walking,” the woman interrupted.

               Sometimes—maybe, you can judge a book by its cover. Leopoldo, at first sight, assessed that the woman may actually be overbearing. It was in her demeanor, and how she spoke confirmed that. Accordingly, people like her are difficult to deal with.

               “Anyway, sir, ma’am.” He changed the subject. “Would you care for some Malangsi?”

               He presented the small pile of herring in his fish stall with a card indicating forty pesos for a kilo.

               “No,” she outright rejected. “I’ll pay you. Make lunch for us.”

               He couldn’t really think of anything grand to offer them, considering that what he was selling was his viand. However, what made him agree with the woman’s request—command rather—wasn’t the money she pledged, but the part which signaled that it was a dare to him. He never fancied himself as someone with a significant role in this world, but if there’s one thing that he can be proud of, it could be his decent cooking. So then, he took them to his nipa hut by the beach and provided them, on a hot noon, with some well-cooked rice, Inun unan (Fish cooked in vinegar) and Kinilaw (Filipino fish ceviche wherein the fillets are cured in a mixture of calamansi juice, fresh ginger, onion, chili and seasonings).

               Initially, he thought that his female guest wouldn’t even take a bite out of those, yet even when she was somehow thoroughly examining the food on the table, she ate without making a single comment. The same went for the man with her as he carefully assisted her every chance he got. He sensed that he wasn’t really her lover; he was more of an obsessed flunky. Either way, it didn’t matter to him.

               “Those tasted good,” she finally said, “But not on a gourmet level.”

               “I’m glad” was all he could respond.

               She then took out some blue bills and handed these to him, which made him startled.

               “I can’t accept this much, ma’am.”

               She raised her hand. “I insist. Trust me, you need them.”

               “Well then, thank you, ma’am.” He gave her an awkward smile while he pocketed the money. “Just who are you people?”

               “The name’s ‘Sol’”, the man answered. “And this here is my master, ‘Neoma’.”

               He could swear his face glowed when he introduced her. He took Sol’s right hand and shook it. “I’m Leopoldo.”

               “Say, Mang Leo,” Neoma then said, “Would you like a job that pays thrice more than what you’re earning right now?”

               For once in his life, his cooking amounted to something good, so on that very day, he quit being a fish vendor and started taking care of the old resort two kilometers from his house.

               Over four months later, he saw his employer’s face making it to a news headline. Neoma Belmonte fell off a cliff in Carcar, Cebu, and it was the first time that he learned who she really was: the heiress of a filthy rich business tycoon and a woman with serious troubles. He never really questioned her identity along with Sol’s. The good monthly pay, he thought, was enough reason for him to keep his mouth shut.

               Then, whatsoever, the “Marriage Game” was broadcasted. It sounded fascinating.

               Sol and Neoma then arrived with an interesting character at the beach house in the resort. He’s not fond of talking that much, just like him, but Owel—as he was told—was far more extreme than he is. He seemed inherently composed, but he could tell that he was nowhere lethargic, so unlike him. And that morning, when he was serving breakfast in the bright dining room, he was nowhere to be seen.

               “Mang Leo, where is he?” Neoma asked as soon as she sat down to eat. Sol had carried her there.

               “Well,” Leopoldo was somehow unsure, “I may have seen him go out at dawn.”

               Sol and Neoma glanced at each other. He wouldn’t dare. She thought.

               However, when the sun set and the evening came, Owel still didn’t come back.