by Zoey Parker
Her comment made his eyes narrow. “There’s a lot of things you’re not supposed to do with your stepmom.”
“So why don’t we try some of them out?” She lifted a brow, running her tongue along her upper lip. The robe fell away more, exposing her left breast entirely. “Come on, Matthew. You know you want it. I see the way you’ve been looking at me.”
Red flags were dropping left and right. This was fucking nuts. In any other situation, though, Trent would have taken the bait. Would have fucked her right there in the foyer, or taken her to the kitchen counter, or draped her over the back of a couch and piston-fucked her until they both screamed.
But not now. Not anymore.
This shit wasn’t right.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re putting in your coffee,” Trent said, “but I am not getting freaky with my stepmom. Now put your tit away. Where’s my dad?”
She sighed, the look of a petulant child crossing her face. “He’s not here. Which means you don’t have to worry. He won’t find out.”
Darla grabbed his hand and brought it up to her breast, looking at him with wide eyes. “Come on. Do you feel that? How hard I am for you already?”
Heat streaked through him – a warning. He snatched his hand back.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since you first came over.” She grabbed his hand again, bringing it to the crease between her legs. He snatched it away before she could go further. “I’m wet for you, Matthew.”
“This is fucked up,” he snapped, holding up his palms. “I’m not fucking touching you, do you get it yet? Now, where’s my fucking dad?”
Darla’s face went dark. She was pissed.
“Fuck him!”
“Tell me where he is.”
“Fuck me first,” she challenged.
“I’m not,” Trent said, shaking his head.
And this, right here, was the true defining moment of his and Sam’s relationship. In any other time, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have been balls deep inside her by now. Taking whatever was offered to him. By any woman sexy enough to catch his eye.
But things were so different now.
“I’ll find him myself,” he said, heading out the door. She made his skin crawl. And not in the good way. “Why don’t you go try using a dildo or something, since you’re so hard up?” he called over his shoulder as he got into his car. “Just imagine my face. Since I’ll never be the one fucking you.”
He slammed his car door, the engine drowning out any response she might have had. He sped away before he could think twice, heart racing as he combed over the last ten minutes in his mind.
It was all skeevy for so many reasons, enlightening for different reasons, and totally unhelpful for one major reason.
Now he was tasked with finding Mueller on his own. He called the old man’s phone while he drove. It clicked over to voicemail three times before he got the hint. He wasn’t getting ahold of Lucas this morning.
Fuck. What now?
Trent pulled into a strip mall parking lot and parked, sighing as he ran over his options. Waiting wasn’t possible. This conversation needed to happen now. He dicked around on his phone, trying some different searches, following a couple of threads that led nowhere. Until he remembered: Lucas’ job.
He’d track him down there.
A quick internet search told him all he needed to know. Before long, Trent was pulling into the parking lot of a big, boxy building, gleaming silver and metallic. Mueller Enterprises. Of course. The old man’s oil speculation business. He didn’t get why he couldn’t just sell off his share and pay off the Sokolovs. Seemed like it would be so easy. But, of course, as with all things Sokolovs, there had to be more to the picture. Very often, the well ran way deeper than even he expected.
Trent strode up to the building, hitting the reception area just as big wall clock behind the metallic front desk struck nine a.m.
A bright-eyed woman blinked up at him. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Lucas Mueller,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Better not introduce himself as Lucas’ long-lost son. Not here. Not when the well could run so deep it turned into an ocean.
“And you are?”
Fuck.
Trent swallowed. “Matt.”
She nodded, picking up a phone and murmuring something into the receiver. A moment later, she offered him a plastic smile. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
Trent scuffed around the front foyer, waiting for ‘someone’. Anyone, really. He dragged a hand through his hair as he inspected a piece of art in the center of the foyer – like two elegant blobs doing the tango. Or something. He wondered if Lucas picked this shit out himself.
After a few minutes, a lady dressed in a sharp blazer dress walked up to him, heels clicking on the tile floor.
“Follow me, please,” she said curtly.
Trent did as he was told, feeling somehow like he was in trouble. Like maybe this had been a bad idea.
But why? He tried to reason with himself as the unamused lady led him into an elevator and pressed the button for floor nine. She didn’t speak.
He cleared his throat, then finally asked, “So is he busy today?”
She didn’t respond. His question hung awkwardly in the air until the doors slid open at the top floor. She walked out, and he followed her. If things weren’t weird before, they were now.
“Here.” She pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, with a nameplate that said, Lucas Mueller. “Wait here.”
Trent pushed open the door, finding Lucas’ quiet, dark personal office inside – a large wraparound oak desk, three enormous flat computer screens, two keyboards, and a spic-and-span desk area. As he turned around to ask why it was dark, where the fuck was Lucas, the woman was already walking away down the hall.
Yeah, things were definitely strange now. He flipped a light on, taking another look around the office, checking and double checking that there wasn’t someone crouched behind the desk or inside a cabinet. The coast was clear. Trent eased into a chair facing the big wraparound desk.
All he could do was wait.
Wait, and hope that Lucas walked through those doors mighty soon.
He tapped the armrests of the chair, humming to himself, so he didn’t go crazy waiting. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen.
And finally, footsteps approached the door, just when Trent had decided enough was enough and he was going to get the fuck out of here.
The door creaked. Shiny dress shoes appeared in the threshold. Then the door opened all the way.
And it wasn’t Lucas in the doorway, but Jacobi.
Trent’s stomach felt like it’d pitched to his feet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sam woke up to the sound of her late alarm, which meant the early alarm (which had a different tone) had come and gone without even disturbing her. She yawned, finding herself still somehow exhausted. Was it too much sex? Too many orgasms?
She rolled over again, finding the bed empty. She frowned, and when her emotions crashed down around her, that’s when she remembered.
She was pregnant.
Holy shit.
Every morning she remembered again. Someday, she trusted, it would become normal. But for this first week, it was taking her some time to get adjusted.
“Trent?” she said aloud, exhaustion still creeping in at the edges. This had to be pregnancy related too. She’d even got to bed early last night. How could she still be tired?
Probably all this hard work of growing a new life inside her.
Nobody responded, so she rubbed her eyes before rolling out of bed. She switched her alarm off in the process. Some footsteps in the living room told her he was probably out there, maybe getting breakfast ready, or watching TV from a random bout of insomnia.
“Trent, baby,” she called again, heading into the kitchen.
She blinked against the daylight filling the apartment. She was runn
ing late for work already, which meant she needed a shower, stat. The insides of her thighs felt sticky. More proof of their amazing lovemaking the night before.
Because that’s what it was at this point – lovemaking. Sure, they fucked. And they fucked good. But it was backed by love. Even though they hadn’t said the words yet, she felt it shivering through her. Through him.
So much so that it had made a baby.
Nobody was in the living room. Frowning, Sam headed for the bathroom. Time to shower and get ready for work. She’d text Trent on her way to the office. He probably had something come up with the Sokolovs – that had to be it.
She let the water run for a while before stepping in, letting the bathroom get foggy and warm. Stepping into the stream of hot water made her head loll to the side. It felt so good. So relaxing. Her eyes drifted shut, mind wandering back to last night. To the way only Trent could fill her. The way his plump, hungry lips would always, always drive her to climax first.
A soft moan escaped her as she thought back on her orgasms last night. He was a special man, that was for sure. Her hand wandered between her legs, seeking out the stiff peak of her clit. Just thinking about him made her want more of him. It was like she could never get enough. And honestly, that was a little scary too. She tweaked the peak of her clit once, then again, relishing the jolt of pleasure through her.
He’d like this. Knowing that she rubbed one out thinking about him. Maybe he’d even like a picture. A wicked smile crossed her face as she imagined what his reaction might be. She pinched her clit, knees almost buckling. She swirled her fingers up and down the folds of her pussy, imagining that steel heat filling her, pushing into the deepest parts of her.
She tweaked a nipple, finding them so much more sensitive than usual. Definitely a pregnancy perk.
“Mmmm.” This was the way to wake up. She slid her finger back and forth over her swollen clit, tweaking each nipple lazily in turn, seeing Trent’s head between her breasts, imagining his lips over each nipple. She bucked her hips, slipping her middle finger into her pussy.
There it was. She bit her lip, working two fingers in and out, in and out. It wasn’t as good as Trent, but it got the job done. She bumped her clit with her thumb as she fingerfucked herself, propping up a foot on the corner of the shower, allowing her deeper access.
A low moan escaped her just as she thought she heard the stirring of footsteps from the apartment. Excitement prickled through her. It had to be Trent. And he’d find her like this – legs spread and pleasuring herself.
Maybe he’d be jealous. Maybe he’d get inside the shower and finish the job himself, which she hoped for. Just thinking about his fat cock filling her made her core tighten, pushing her to the edge. The bathroom door opened and she tightened, nipples hard points.
The shower curtain was yanked to the side.
Except the person staring back at her was not Trent.
Some man in a black ski mask filled the bathroom, and she couldn’t even get a scream out before he wrapped an arm around her throat and dragged her out of the shower.
Panic sliced her in two, making her rigid and dumb. Then shock set in, and all she could do was wonder what the fuck was going on while this man held her to the ground. She fought – or she tried, at least. But there was no hope. He’d come too stealthily. She was too vulnerable.
He held a cloth over her mouth and nose and pressed it there until her world faded to black.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jacobi shut the door behind him with a soft click. He shook his head as he came to the chair behind Mueller’s desk.
Trent could only stare. This was not what he’d been expecting.
“Trent.” Jacobi eased into the overstuffed desk chair, smoothing a palm against the naked desktop. “I really wasn’t hoping to see you here.”
“I didn’t know it was even an option.” Trent cleared his throat. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“You really should have just left well enough alone,” Jacobi said, something dark and foreign crossing his face. His dark brows were knit together.
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Trent said. He really, really didn’t want this to turn into a shit show. And with the tension rolling off Jacobi from the second he’d stepped into the office, Trent was worried this might head in a direction that neither of them liked. “Unless you tell me your real name is Lucas Mueller.”
Jacobi’s smile was humorless. “Would that help things?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence descended between them.
Jacobi drummed his fingers against the desktop a moment.
“I’m just looking for Mueller,” Trent finally said.
“Yeah. I know. Except Mueller isn’t here. And he won’t be back either.” Jacobi lobbed a sigh.
He looked weary – Trent noticed for the first time. The little hairs by his temples were graying, peppering the dark hair covering his head. Maybe the mafia life was aging him prematurely. Jacobi couldn’t be more than forty.
“Where’d he go?”
“Away.” Jacobi flicked his wrist for emphasis. “I sent him away. Or rather, I sent him away because he tried to run. And I don’t tolerate that.”
“Run?”
“Yeah. Lucas changed his mind about the whole thing. Decided he’d rather not pay his debts. I must say, you did make it seem like he might cough up the cash for a moment. Maybe you didn’t realize that, but his ruse with you was actually his attempt to make good.”
Relief trickled through Trent, but it was short-lived. There had to be a big but waiting on the other side of this story.
“But he must have changed his mind. Decided it wasn’t worth paying back the people who had personally helped pull him out of his depression. Out of the financial wreckage of his life. Out of obscurity.”
Trent looked around the office. “Is this place because of your guys’ help?”
Jacobi nodded. “Yeah. Sad how people just choose to run away instead of face the music. Lucas knew he had this coming to him.”
“I don’t get what debts he had with you guys. Why can’t he just sell off his share of the business and make it right?”
Jacobi sighed. “Don’t you remember? I told you it’s not just money he owes. That idiot…” Jacobi pinched the bridge of his nose. “This oil spec business is a cash cow. You’re right. It’s also the perfect cover. With all the trips back and forth over the border, it gave me and Lucas the perfect way to bring in clients for our side business.”
“Side business?”
“Yeah. Something I do on the side, not under the Sokolov banner.” Jacobi waved his hand as though dismissing it. “Working girls. You know what I mean. There’s a huge waiting list up in the north for these girls, and Mueller Enterprises helps shuttle ‘em in.”
Trent blinked a few times, letting the ugly truth settle. “You mean sex slavery.”
“Nah. I wouldn’t call it that.”
Probably because it was sex slavery. Trent’s stomach turned. He had not been expecting this today at all. Not by a long shot.
“But the Sokolovs won’t let you operate under their banner,” Trent repeated.
“Some things need to go independent. Lucas was my business partner in this venture. Until he started to get crazy. Acting like he ran the whole show, getting too big for his britches. I warned him, and I warned him. I had his son, Matthew, killed in order to bring him in line. To prove a point. There’s only one leader of this show.”
Trent could barely believe his ears. This well ran way deeper than he’d imagined. It had turned into the dark, murky ocean he’d feared. Jacobi was clearly off the rails. Trent gripped the armrests, wondering what this might mean for him.
“We planted Darla, too, hoping that the wife of his dreams might help smooth things over,” he went on. “And, of course, to gather intel. Just to make sure he stayed in line. But that fucking Lucas.” Jacobi laughed bitterly. “That fucking Lucas was just
never content sticking to the plan.”
“Where is he now?” Trent asked, curling his fingers around the armrests.
“Away. He’s being taken care of.”
“I assume you mean killed.”
Jacobi’s smile stretched wide and sardonic. “After five years with the Sokolovs, you’ve picked up on something.”
“So why did you send me to collect from him if there was no money to pick up?”
