by Shayla Black
Page 38
“Very well done,” the man with the emblazoned shirt and the tie said, clapping. “Was the scene to your satisfaction?” he asked the brunette’s Dom.
Surprise poked at Tara. That voice sounded familiar . . .
“Yes. Thank you. ”
The two men shook hands, then the Dom unclipped his female, wrapping a gentle arm around her, before he grabbed his jacket, and helped her out the door.
The second they’d gone, the other man turned his attention to her. “And who have we here?”
Tara frowned. Yes, she’d definitely heard that voice before. His face wasn’t familiar at all, but his voice—mellow, with a used car salesman flare—she knew. But from where?
Damn, she couldn’t place it.
Jordan shoved her forward. “This is a new little sub whose Dom is . . . otherwise occupied. Her name is Tara. ”
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Lincoln Kantor, the resort’s manager. Welcome to our VIP room. I think you’ll enjoy it here. ”
Chapter Fourteen
“WHAT did you find?” Tara whispered to Logan after Jordan and Mr. Kantor escorted her back to the orientation, all smiles and attentiveness.
The two of them were a one-two punch of pure wrong.
A quick glance around the room proved that Logan’s little slut bunny had gone, and he stood alone, arms crossed over his massive chest. He didn’t have to pretend to be angry.
When she reached his side, he wrapped his hand around her arm and dragged her to the back of the room. “Where the hell did you go?”
“The VIP room. I met Fantasy Key’s manager. ” Tara nodded at Kantor, who stood at the front of the room, reaching for a microphone. He looked distinguished with this tall, almost scholarly build, his hair more salt than pepper. “That’s him. ”
“Hello, everyone. Welcome to Fantasy Key,” Kantor said into the microphone, wearing a friendly, perfectly fake smile.
Everyone clapped. Jordan stood beside his manager, scanning the crowd. His gaze found her and lingered. She played shy and looked down.
Logan lingered close to her during the orientation, which was a general overview of the resort’s rules, meal times, dungeon hours, and etiquette. Tara listened with half an ear, bursting with everything she’d learned earlier, trying to process it all.
The second Kantor walked off the stage and started shaking hands, Logan grabbed her by the arm and thrust her out the door and down the hall.
Tara dug in her heels. “Where are you taking me?”
“Our room. We have two hours before dinner and play time. ”
They were here to work a case, so they needed to make use of every free second. “Great, but could you slow down? Unlike you, I’m not six-four. ”
Cursing under his breath, Logan slowed his step. “What did you see in the VIP room?”
“Some hardcore stuff. ” She explained the scene she’d witnessed. “And in case you didn’t notice, Jordan was very interested in me. As was Kantor. ”
Logan scowled. “They were so obvious, they might as well have been wearing signs. And either Kantor is a piss-poor manager, or he knows exactly what’s happening under his roof. ”
She agreed with that assessment. “I’m betting on the latter. He’s creepy with a capital C. The weirdest thing? I know I’ve heard his voice before. I just can’t place it. ”
He snapped a laser-sharp stare in her direction. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. I just wish I could remember where . . . ”
“Keep working on it. ” Logan clenched his jaw and grabbed her elbow. His strides picked up pace again as they turned a corner.
“Seriously, slow down. ” She jerked her elbow from his grasp. “What are you so pissed about?”
“Pissed, worried, out of my mind . . . ”
Logan didn’t stop again until he found their room and used the key card to push her inside the door. He slammed it behind him. “Strip. ”
“Excuse me?” Tara’s brows shot up and her jaw dropped. He wanted to play games? Even as a first-time field agent, she knew they had to sweep the room for bugs. It was standard protocol.
“Take everything off except your nipple huggers. Now,” he growled.
“Fuck off,” she growled under her breath, pointing around the room, then to her ears.
With a curt nod, he tore around the room, looking in crevices and crannies, upending pillows, lifting lamps, uncovering bare walls behind pictures. Tara joined in, searching the room.
Suddenly, Logan stiffened, then set the remote control back on the desk. “Come with me, slave. ”
As he dragged her to their luxurious bathroom, her mind raced. He’d found surveillance equipment in their room. Was every suite in this place equipped in that way, as a part of some standard operating procedure? Or had she and Logan been discovered before they’d even stepped foot on the island? Shit. If so, what should they do next?
Inside the dazzling bathroom, natural stone tiles blended with glass accents in earthy colors. Soft lighting, fluffy towels, and a sinful shower with six heads waited. Logan flipped on the faucet full blast in the huge stall. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Last warning. Strip or else. ”
This was the only way they could talk freely. Their voices would be obscured by the spray.
Tara swallowed and complied, pushing the little top’s spaghetti straps down her shoulders, then peeling the sheer material off her body. Logan ate her up with his gaze, his face growing intent, his eyes fierce, predatory. Her breath stuttered.
Then he backed her against the wall and shoved the thong down her legs with a growl. Flinging the little garment aside, he rose and covered her body with his own, the muscled slabs of his chest and sinewy arms eclipsing her. Notching his hard cock right between her thighs, he tore off his own clothes. Then he fused their mouths together with a dark hunger that sent her reeling.
God, they were here to do a job, and she was exhausted after the last forty-eight really eventful hours, but the second he kissed her, all that fell away. Only the mind-stealing sear of desire and the desperate need to feel Logan inside her remained.
Tearing his mouth away, a muscle in his jaw ticking like leaving her for a second pissed him off, he tossed her into the shower and closed the clear glass doors behind him.
Tara frowned. “Logan, I—”
“Our room is bugged,” he spat out matter-of-factly.
“I guessed as much. Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m damn worried that means someone already knows who we are and why we’re here. As much as I hate it, I’m wondering if we should bail. ”
She shook her head emphatically. “I can’t walk away from this assignment without proof that we’ve been made. I can’t leave Darcy . . . I’ve got to find her before Thursday, when intel says they’ll take her out of the country. ” To film the snuff piece that would end her life.
“Fuck. ” He sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. Fine, but if we want to talk, we’ll have to do it here or turn up the music really loudly in our room and whisper. ”
“I understand. ”
“Do you?” He dragged her against his body as hot water pelted them. Steam rose all around. “This place is teeming with sick fucks selling women to abusers and rapists around the world who might be on to us, and you have to ask why I’m uptight when you disappear? I swear to God, Cherry, I should give you the spanking of a lifetime. Don’t you dare leave my side again in this place without telling me where you’re going. ”
That raised her hackles. She wasn’t helpless. “Do you act this way with the other SEALs? No, you trust them to do their jobs. Trust me to do mine. I’m a federal agent, if you’ll recall. ”
“Yeah, one without a gun, Bureau backup, or experience. ”
Eyes narrowed, she let him have a dose of the fury brewing inside her. “Well, when I left before the orientation, you looked far too busy to interrupt. ”
> “God damn it, I only talked to Allison. Like you suspected, she’s been here before. ”
“Allison, is it?” Of course they were on a first name basis. “You work fast. ”
“I was pumping her for information. ”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’ll bet you were. ”
Logan raised a dark brow at her and said nothing. Tara realized that she sounded like a jealous shrew. He was doing a job; they both were. She couldn’t bring her emotions in the middle of this.
Tara drew in a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m on edge. ”
“I’ll take that edge off. ” He sent her a sideways smile. “If you’re good and obey me. ”
Her heart skipped a beat. Her pussy clenched. Tara shoved her reactions aside. “What did Allison say?”
Logan reached for the soap and rubbed it between his big palms. “That she was friends with Laken Fox, the dead girl pulled out of the ocean a few days ago. She said that it’s against the rules to exchange personal information with other guests, but she and Laken did it anyway and became friends. Allison came this week because she was supposed to join Laken. Now she can’t find her friend and doesn’t know why. Apparently, the woman wrote Allison last week to say that she’d returned to Fantasy Key and met a great Dom. ”
“Jordan?”
Logan shrugged. “Maybe. Allison is worried. ”
“She has every right to be. If Jordan is the one who targets our vics, he definitely has access to the VIP room. No one batted an eyelash when he walked in with me. But Kantor sure sized me up. ”
“I’ll watch him. You get Bocelli digging deeper into both of them. We’ll come up with a plan to figure out Jordan’s role in this together. Understood?”
There was his Dom voice again. He wasn’t speaking to her as an operative or a partner, but as a Master. Tara knew she shouldn’t, but somehow that voice made her shiver and melt.
“Yes. We should be working together and—ah!”
He cupped her breasts with his soapy hands and thumbed her incredibly sensitive nipples. Bracketed by the delicate silver jewelry, they stood up, had swelled, and every brush of his skin against them had her gasping and holding on to him.
“Good. Not another word. ”
“But—”
He cut her off by lifting and spinning her until she was directly beneath the warm spray. The soap ran down her body until only water remained in rivulets. Logan began to catch them with his tongue, the shower running down his face as he sipped at her breasts and lapped at her tight, aching nipples. “So fucking gorgeous, Cherry. I love eating at these. I love eating all of you. ”
Tara nearly lost her mind. Tingles multiplied and sizzled, firing her blood, burning hotter with his every word until he nearly shut down her brain.
He wedged his feet between hers and nudged her legs apart—and she was too far gone to object. Her stomach pulsed as he covered her mound possessively with his palm, fingers sliding into her slick folds.
“It’s so sexy how wet you get for me. ”
She was still catching her breath when he lifted her body against his, arms straining, veins bulging, as he forced her legs around his waist and flattened her back to the wall. She hissed at the cold surface between her shoulders and the inferno of his flesh over her breasts. Heaven and hell all in one.
And she wanted it, him, throwing her arms around her neck as his cock bobbed between them, steely and thick and impossible to resist.
He bent, positioned himself at her entrance, and tried to impale her in one savage thrust.
“Take me,” he panted against her jaw, then covered her mouth with his.
Logan gripped her hips and pushed her down on his cock as he arched, trying to shove more of that fat blue head and those unyielding inches into her. She gasped against his lips—and he used the opening as an opportunity to thrust his tongue deep.
Tara couldn’t feel, hear, see, smell, or taste anything except Logan. He overtook every sense, wrapping himself all around her with his strength, his conviction, his seduction. She’d had “just sex” before. This was far more.
With a whimper, she wriggled, trying to take all of his hard stalk. He cursed, eased back a fraction, then plowed so deeply into her body, her head fell back against the tile with a scream.
“That’s it, Cherry. Take every inch of me, sweet girl. Yeah,” he rasped into her ear as he stroked into her again, easier with each spine-tingling plunge. She softened to accommodate all of him.
“Logan. ” She grabbed frantically at his hair. “God, you fill me up. I’ve never felt so alive. ”
His lips razed across her jaw. “I’d been dead for years until you came back. Don’t leave me. ”
Never, a voice inside her cried.
But was it really that simple? Could they simply resolve to be together? Her stepfather would oppose it. More important, they still had trust issues to bridge. In her head, she knew why Logan left her in high school. But for her heart, letting go of the pain and believing that he wouldn’t hurt her again wasn’t a matter of pure logic.
