He was the right age to be in a coffee shop, early twenties, nor had he shown her any more interest than anyone else in the coffee shop as he glanced around the room apparently looking for a place to sit once he had his coffee.
Yet Bella knew instinctively the man was here for her.
Which meant she had to leave.
Right now.
Bryce reached out and wrapped his fingers about Bella’s slender wrist as she rose abruptly to her feet. “Where are you going?”
She turned her head to look at him, but her focus wasn’t really on him. “Let go of my arm,” she instructed tightly.
He shook his head. “Not until you tell me why you’ve suddenly decided to leave.” Bryce easily maintained his hold about her wrist as his gaze followed Bella’s to the young man who had entered the coffee shop seconds ago and now stood at the back of the queue.
There was nothing about the younger man that stood out. Average height. Average weight. Dark hair that wasn’t too short or too long. Bland boy-next-door looks. In fact, everything about the guy was average. Maybe too much so?
Bryce studied the other man more closely.
His skin was slightly swarthy, possibly indicating a Mediterranean heritage rather than a Middle Eastern one. There was a tattoo of a snake on the side of his neck just visible above the collar of his leather jacket. A leather jacket that seemed to bulge at the back more than it ought to. Possibly because the man was carrying a concealed weapon of some kind?
As if aware of Bryce’s piercing gaze, the man turned to look across the room and then quickly away again the moment he realized Bryce was staring straight at him.
Not unusual in itself; Bryce had a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe as well as the one-night-only one.
What did make the other man’s behavior stand out as unusual was that instead of continuing to remain in the queue waiting to order his coffee, he immediately turned on his heel and hurried out of the coffee shop.
Bryce rose smoothly to his booted feet. “Wait here,” he instructed Bella distractedly as he released her before following the other man outside.
The man had disappeared by the time Bryce made his way out onto the street. A search in both directions gave him no clue as to where the man might have gone. Something that irritated him intensely.
What annoyed him even more was returning to the coffee shop seconds later to find that Bella had obviously taken advantage of his brief absence to take one of the other two exits out into the alley at the back of the building and had also disappeared.
Chapter Two
Bella gave a grimace and stepped back after opening the front door to her house wider, in response to the ringing of the doorbell, so that Bryce could step inside. “I wondered how long it would take for you to find out where I live and decide to pay me a visit.” It had only taken him the afternoon, Bella acknowledged ruefully, both to learn her address and then to come here and confront her.
Bryce’s expression was grim as he closed the door behind him. “This, right here, is the reason I’m here.”
“What?”
Bryce thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans as if he might reach out and shake her if he didn’t. “You opened the fucking door without checking who was standing outside—don’t try to deny it, because I had my hand over the peephole. You then invited me in without looking to see if I was alone or had been followed here.”
“Were you?”
“No. But you didn’t know that.”
“Of course I did,” Bella dismissed as she turned and walked down the hallway to her sitting room. “I already know that you and your brothers prefer to work alone. You’re also too good at what you do to allow someone to follow you if that wasn’t what you had intended all along. Besides…” She grimaced. “I don’t think where I live is too much of a secret. My car was spray-painted last night,” she explained at Bryce’s questioning look.
“What the…? With a random pattern, or were there words?”
Bella breathed out shakily. “Two words.”
“Which are?”
“Look, it could just be kids,” she excused. “This might be classed as a nice residential area of London, but we’ve still been having a few gang-related incidents lately—”
“Stop talking like a policewoman and tell me what the words are on your car!”
“I am a policewoman—”
His gaze became icy. “You’re going to be a policewoman with a sore arse if you don’t stop back-chatting me and answer the damned question.”
“I don’t think so,” she dismissed.
“You aren’t thinking straight at all, that’s the problem.” He scowled. “Was the spray paint on your car the reason you sought me out this morning?”
Bella avoided looking at him. “I told you, I started looking for you a week ago. But I might have overreacted. The car is my own fault, anyway,” she continued to delay. “I should have put it away in the garage when I came home from work last night rather than parking it in front of the house— What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped, fingers tightly grasping Bryce’s shoulders as she suddenly found herself lifted off her feet and then placed over Bryce’s thighs as he sat in one of her armchairs. “Bryce!”
One of his hands captured both her wrists and held them captive in the center of her back as he landed a stinging blow to her denim-covered bottom with the other hand.
Bella struggled to free herself and failed. None of her police training had prepared her for fighting against the ex-army she knew Bryce and his brothers to be. Instead, she had to settle for turning to glare over her shoulder at him. “You’re so going to regret this,” she warned through gritted teeth.
“Doubtful.” He gave her bottom another hard smack. “You interrupted my solitude this morning.” Then another.
“I will make you pay for this!” Bella was sure her humiliation couldn’t get any worse.
Bryce landed another resounding blow to her tender flesh. “You then decided to disappear when I went outside to chase down that other guy—”
“And did you? Chase him down,” she explained at Bryce’s questioning look.
“No.” His jaw tightened. “I came back to the coffee shop to find not only had they cleared away my half-full coffee mug in my absence—”
“I would never have placed you as being a mug-half-full kind of guy,” she taunted.
“But you had disappeared out of one of the back exits of the building,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Nor did you answer my call to your cell phone either.” He landed another smack.
Her brows rose. “You still have my number?”
He eyed her coldly. “Yes, I still have it.”
Well, there went the very last excuse of Bryce having accidentally deleted her number for why he hadn’t called her the previous month. Which meant Bella now had to accept he just hadn’t wanted to see her again.
“I forgot to recharge my cell phone last night,” she answered distractedly.
“For all I knew, the guy could have doubled back and taken you with him,” Bryce added harshly.
“Well, now you know he didn’t—”
“Only after I’d disturbed my brother Haydn’s weekend and asked him to hack into the police computer system to find out where you live.” His hand made another painful connection with her bottom.
“You are seriously going to regret spanking me,” Bella warned through gritted teeth.
“I don’t think so.”
“You obviously don’t know me very well.”
“I’m getting there.” He grinned. “Haydn went one better earlier and tracked your cell phone so we knew if you had the phone with you, you were at home.”
“You do realize you’ve just implicated yourself and your brother in breaking several laws—”
“I’d like to see you try to make any charges stick,” Bryce scorned as he placed another perfect smack across her already stinging bottom cheeks.
“The charge of assa
ulting a police officer comes to mind right now,” she muttered.
“If asked, I’d claim it was foreplay.”
Bella glanced back to see a mocking grin on his too-handsome face. “It’s not like any foreplay I’ve ever known,” she muttered.
His grin became predatory. “Maybe you haven’t been doing it right!”
She breathed out noisily. “Have you quite finished your caveman act now?”
“I don’t know, have I?”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I’m willing to let it go for the moment, if you start being honest with me.”
“You’re willing to let it go? Bryce, you just spanked me as if I’m a little girl!” she accused.
He nodded. “Or a big girl.”
“You—”
“I’ll do it again if you don’t start talking soon.”
“Bloody caveman,” she muttered.
His eyes turned glacial. “It’s your choice what happens next, Bella.”
“I really can’t talk to you when I’m thrown over your thighs, pinned in place, and being spanked,” she snapped.
“Fine.” He released her before helping her onto her feet. “Does it sting?” he drawled when Bella gave a pained wince as she straightened.
“Yes.”
Bryce stood. “Good.”
“Don’t push your luck, Bryce.” She rubbed her sore bottom. “I don’t think foreplay is supposed to hurt so much it prevents you from sitting down.”
“I think the idea is to get you to lie down. Besides, one woman’s foreplay is another woman’s…” He reached out to grasp her wrist as her hand swung up to make contact with his cheek, then used that leverage to twist her arm behind her back and pull her body in close against his. “Tell me being spanked didn’t excite you,” he prompted huskily.
Bella felt her face burn with humiliation. Because Bryce was right, those smacks on her bottom had excited her. Her breasts felt full and aching, the nipples tight, and there was both heat and dampness between her thighs.
What excited her even more was his close proximity. She could feel each ridge of his defined chest and abdominal muscles against her breasts, and the bulge in his jeans that told her he was as aroused as she was. From spanking her or their closeness now? It didn’t really matter which when that length and hardness was pulsing hotly against her.
Bryce quirked one dark brow. “Well?”
Bela’s gaze was challenging as she deliberately stepped closer to him rather than away from him. “No more so than it aroused you,” she challenged.
Bryce released her abruptly. “Good answer. Lying to me would have earned you another spanking.”
Her cheeks flushed. “It’s as well I’m not a liar, then.”
Bryce sobered. “Did you know that guy this morning?”
“Not specifically, no.”
His eyes narrowed at her evasive answer. “What does that mean?”
“It means I know the type.”
“And what type is that?”
Her mouth twisted. “Hired help.”
“Hired by whom?”
She shrugged. “As I didn’t actually speak to him, I have no idea.”
“But you felt the need to run from him anyway?”
Bella eyed him mockingly. “Maybe I had changed my mind about talking to you and took the opportunity of your absence to run away from you?”
“Oh you definitely ran.” He nodded. “But not from me.”
Her humor soured. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“Who was he, Bella?”
“I told you, I don’t know!” It was an honest answer, and yet…
Bella’d had plenty of time to think since returning home from the coffee shop earlier.
Of her conversation with Bryce.
And the man who had entered the building and then quickly exited again
A man who, on reflection, definitely seemed familiar to her. Not personally, perhaps, but he did remind her of someone. She just couldn’t remember who.
“What else has happened recently to unnerve you?” Bryce’s words brought her back to the present. “Besides having your car spray-painted?”
Once again, her gaze avoided meeting that piercing gray one. “What makes you think something else happened?”
“The fact you said you started looking for me a week ago.”
She had admitted that, Bella acknowledged with a grimace. She also knew Bryce well enough now to know he wasn’t going to let up on the subject until she had answered all his questions to his satisfaction. “I had…received a couple of disturbing things through my letter box before the spray-painting incident.”
Bryce frowned. “What sort of things?”
Her gaze didn’t quite meet his. “It’s probably nothing—”
“What sort of things?” he repeated in a voice that brooked no further argument.
“One was a…a dead rat.” She gave a shudder at the memory of coming downstairs one morning the previous week and seeing the dead rat on her doormat inside the house. “The other was— Bryce?” She instinctively took a step back at the furious expression on his face.
“Someone put a dead fucking rat through your letter box?” he repeated harshly.
“Yes.”
“How did it die?”
She swallowed down the nausea. “From having its throat cut.”
He winced. “That isn’t kids playing practical jokes.”
“No,” she conceded.
“Did you report it?”
She winced. “I— No.”
“Why the fuck not?” Bryce demanded. “You’re a bloody policewoman. As such, you should know that if this sort of behavior isn’t dealt with, it more often than not escalates into something worse.”
“Or, if there’s no reaction, it simply stops through boredom. Like ignoring someone who bullies you at boarding school,” she dismissed.
His brows rose. “You were bullied at school?”
Bella shot him an irritated glance. “Wasn’t everyone? Well, maybe not you or any of your brothers,” she conceded with a glance at his bulging muscles. “But it’s pretty normal for the rest of us. And all this stuff could just be happening because I’m a policewoman. The police aren’t exactly popular with the public anymore,” she added heavily.
His eyes narrowed to icy slits. “A dead rat and…?”
Bella tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry for her to stand a chance of succeeding. “A pair of red lace panties that were very similar in style to the ones I wear.”
“But they weren’t actually a pair of yours?”
“I don’t own any red ones.”
Bryce looked at her searchingly. “You seem way too upset for it to have just been a pair of random panties shoved through your letter box.”
“They were— Someone had— A man had—” She gave another shudder. “He’d ejaculated on them.”
His mouthed thinned. “Recently?”
“Very recently.” Bella could still remember her disgust, then the panic, as she realized whoever had soiled those panties had to have been close by when they did so.
She had arrived home from work half an hour earlier, was in the kitchen making her dinner when she heard a noise out in the hallway. At first, it had looked like a pool of blood in her entrance hall, much like the one beneath the rat that had taken her hours to remove, but then she’d realized it was actually red silk and lace this time. Lifting the garment with her fingertips before quickly dropping it again had also revealed that telltale wet and odorous stain.
The realization the perpetrator could still be outside, watching and enjoying her reaction, had thoroughly disgusted her. So much so she had hurried to the kitchen to scrub her hands clean before going into each room on the ground floor of the house to close the curtains.
“Fucking hell!” Bryce’s hands clenched at his sides. “Do you still have them?”
Bella gave an abrupt shake of her head. “I threw them in
the bin outside the house.”
“Are they still there?”
She shook her head. “The reason I put them outside was because the refuse was being collected early the following morning.”
“Seriously, Bella?” Bryce gave an impatient shake of his head. “You should have taken them in to work and had the…them tested for DNA.”
“I can just see that happening.” She snorted. “My male colleagues would make my life hell if I took in a pair of panties covered in semen and asked for the lab to test for DNA.”
“Your male colleagues sound like a load of dicks.”
“Probably because they pretty much are,” she acknowledged dryly. “For some in the profession, women are still considered as being usurpers in what was once a completely male-dominated career.”
Bryce felt angry toward Bella’s male colleagues as much as he did that someone could terrorize her in this way. From what Haydn had been able to find out about her earlier today Bella never missed a day of work, stood in for a colleague if asked, male as well as female. She lived alone in the house she owned and always paid her bills on time too. In other words, Bella quietly lived her life, not bothering anyone else and, until recently, not being bothered by them.
Haydn had also found out several other interesting facts about Bella Smith, but they could wait. What was happening to Bella now was so much more serious than “bother.” To Bryce, it also felt very personal. “Who else, besides you, knows what sort of panties you wear?” He wasn’t happy having this conversation with Bella so soon after he had spanked her—and wanted to rip off her panties himself so he could touch her bare skin.
Delicate color warmed her cheeks. “No one.”
“How about an ex-boyfriend.”
“I…went out a couple of times with someone earlier this year, but it wasn’t that sort of relationship.”
“Is this man familiar with your panties?”
Her eyes flashed a deep blue. “In the same way the women you’re involved with are familiar with your boxers?”
“I don’t wear boxers.”
“Briefs, then.”
“I don’t wear those either.”
Bryce (Steele Protectors 3) Page 2
