by Camryn Rhys
Rossi had been pissed enough to kill security people, and some kind of breach had happened, but Luther had never been told what it was.
He meant to find out.
The next morning, Luther found himself on the dock earlier than he needed to be. Two years in Choaca had brought a strange sort of rhythm. Rossi’s transportation needs, when he didn’t have a big-gun client in town, were minor, and Luther didn’t like being on that dock any more than he needed to be.
He always carried a pager, in case Adrian needed the boat. Luther’s was the only boat allowed on the island, and it only took fifteen minutes to speed out there.
With no delivery and no client, he should’ve slept in, done his morning run an hour later, and enjoyed a nice coffee on the strand. Instead, he’d been using his almost nonexistent spy skills to find Maggie.
I should’ve gone CIA instead of blue line.
He was on his boat not long after sunrise, reading The Old Man and the Sea and trying to look like he wasn’t waiting for her. As the head of the land-based security team for Rossi Enterprises, he could easily have sent in an order to the penthouse to find the mysterious American.
Luther didn’t know who to trust anymore. He couldn’t even fully trust himself. She was damn hot, and he hadn’t gotten laid in awhile.
Except he was surrounded by women when he wanted to be. Hell, he’d been hit on by the United Nations of hotel staff the last couple of weeks, and on the dock, no less. He could have had any one of them.
So why did he want that little sprite who accused him of all the things his own mind had numbed out long ago.
“I see you’re hard at work,” came the smirking tone he’d been waiting to hear. When he looked up from his book, Maggie was hanging on a steel railing, her same green shoe dangling off the small gangway.
She grinned and an uncomfortable warm sensation worked its way across his skin. Luther laid the book across his chest. “I’m not on the job.”
“But you’re here anyway.” Maggie’s lips slid into a smile. “So dedicated.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her foot landed on the deck and she kept hold of the rope, holding herself in limbo, barely on and barely off his boat. “You gonna order me away again?”
Luther set his book on the deck. She was only a few feet from him, and he found himself wishing he’d pretended to hide on the second level. At least give him the cushion of the stairs between them. He didn’t like what happened to him around her. All the lines blurred.
The life he’d carefully constructed in Choaca seemed suddenly precarious with her around.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he found himself saying, and shook his head. “I mean, I’ve been expecting you. No. I mean, I knew… Never mind.” He jumped to his feet and came to meet her, toe to toe. “I want to know why you’re here.”
Her delicate-featured face wound up and she whirled around. “Is there someone watching us?”
“No. Why would you think—”
She put her finger on his lips and moved toward him, leaning her little body against his. “A girl likes a little foreplay, before you go for the goods, Luther.”
The feel of her skin on his mouth made him hungry. For her.
He almost took that little finger between his teeth, just to see if she knew what she was doing.
“I don’t have time for foreplay,” he said against her finger.
“Fine.” She pulled her hand away. “Let’s go somewhere more private anyway. I don’t know if I can trust you yet, and my team’s surveillance isn’t as good as yours.”
Luther stepped back onto the deck. “You’re going to tell me who sent you, or this conversation is over.”
“I’ll explain.” Maggie ducked past him and took the stairs up to the second level. She scurried around the port side and Luther followed her, all the way to the front deck that sat just out the slanted windows that hid the captain’s chair.
Adrian had outfitted the boat almost exclusively in white fabrics, and the sunbed on the front deck glistened in the morning light. Maggie’s colorful clothes and sleeve tattoos contrasted starkly to the empty palette behind her. She sat on the big couch and pulled one leg under her.
“We’re private contractors,” she said, patting the seat in front of her.
Luther sat, although it seemed dangerous to be in such close proximity to her. She was the enemy, after all. Wasn’t she? She’d admitted to breaking into the penthouse. His boss’ penthouse. That made her… He didn’t know what that made her, to be honest.
“Who do you work for?”
“We represent a group of Americans whose family has been kidnapped by Adrian Rossi and forced into sex slavery.”
The words landed harder than he’d anticipated. Sex slavery. How had this been happening without his knowledge?
“How do you know that?”
Maggie hesitated, looking around the mostly empty dock. “I can’t tell you everything. I need to know you’re going to help us first.”
Luther fisted his hands and pressed them into the soft couch. “I can’t just help you without some assurance that you’re telling the truth.”
She sighed. “I get that. Okay, look. It’s not safe here. I don’t have access to all of the feeds, so I don’t know where he’s watching and where he’s not. But I’m going to ask you to trust me.”
Luther chuckled and leaned back on the couch. “Just like that, huh? Just… betray the man who has protected me for two years. Just trust you, who I only met yesterday. It’s all easy for you to say.”
Maggie climbed forward, leaning against his chest, and the heat that had been threatening to overtake him came with her, almost drowning him. He wasn’t sure what exactly was happening to him when she was around, but it was unlike any adrenaline rush he’d ever felt before.
“You can trust me, and you know it.” Her face was mere inches from his. To anyone who might be watching, it looked like she was coming onto him. Was she doing this on purpose?
“I don’t trust you at all,” he forced out, but his voice betrayed him in its whisper.
“You do trust me.” She slid a finger down the side of his face. “You don’t quite know why, but deep inside, you trust me.”
He choked on his breath. “How do you know that?”
“Because I feel the same way about you.” She held his cheek and lowered her lips to his.
Luther’s whole body lit on fire and he had to concentrate to keep himself from jumping up and throwing her down against the forty-five-degree-angle windows, and fucking her right there in front of God and everyone. He turned his face away from her kiss and took a long breath. “You don’t know how I feel.”
“But I do,” she whispered. “You feel like you have to be a part of me, like our bodies belong together. You want to fuck me right here, in the open air, and keep fucking me until neither of us can walk straight.”
Her voice was so low, so seductive, and he was in such a haze of rushing blood and thoughts, he couldn’t argue with her.
That’s exactly what I want.
Luther shook his head, pushing her back onto the couch and scooting away. “For all I know, you’ve got spy lipstick on, with drugs in it, and I’m going to pass out in three seconds so you can take what you want from the boat.”
Maggie laughed and crawled toward him. “I’m not a spy.”
He held a hand out to stop her and made sure to grab her shoulder. “I don’t believe you.”
She took his hand and laced her fingers through his, pulling him to his feet. “Then come with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Luther thought about pulling back, about resisting. But after what he’d seen on the monitors at the boat house, and the strange happenings of the last few weeks, he couldn’t afford to take any chances that she might be right.
And if it was a trap, it would be the most beautiful trap he could imagine.
Chapter Four
<
br /> They entered the apartment building, and Maggie led Luther up the stairs to the door of the team’s flat. Multiple heartbeats sounded from inside. Niko hadn’t answered her text, but there was no turning back now. She turned the key and pushed open the door.
Andrea and Hannah glanced up and their eyes widened, flashing bright yellow for a brief second.
“Shit, Mag!” Niko growled from the hall opening. “You could’ve texted or something.”
“I did, Niko,” she shot back. “Where’s your damn phone?”
“What the fuck?” Luther slammed the door behind him.
Maggie caught the glint of metal flash beside her and she whirled. Luther had pulled a Glock and was pointing it straight at Andrea and Hannah.
Niko snarled, the sound much more animalistic than Maggie wanted to hear at the moment.
“Don’t you dare, Niko.” She waved off the irate mobster and stepped directly in front of Luther’s raised gun. The last thing she needed was Niko to shift again and all hell to break loose. “Are you going to shoot me?” Maggie asked, attempting to command Luther’s attention. Her eyes narrowed and she breathed deliberately through the thick waves of magick churning between them.
Dammit. If this is what Rain and Nora had experienced, she didn’t know how they’d managed to ever stop fucking each other.
He stared through her for several moments, studying the other two women. Then his focus shifted and he met her gaze head on. Heat seared through her body and liquid pooled in her core, dampening her panties. Her legs trembled, but she didn’t move and neither did anyone else.
Luther lowered his gun and then holstered it beneath his left arm. He licked his lips and then slowly shook his head. “No.”
“Good.” Maggie tried to make the tension flow out of her body. “Then I can introduce you to the team.”
“There’s something wrong with those two.” He nodded toward Hannah and Andrea.
“Nothing that isn’t normal for us. Relax, I told you I’d tell you everything.”
“Wait.” His forehead wrinkled and he took a step forward.
Maggie paralleled his movements, keeping her small frame between him and the rest of the team.
“You work for the hotel. Both of you have been to the docks…” He peered down at her and cocked his head. “Were you the last shot at me?”
Maggie grinned. “We almost sent Niko, just to test the waters.”
“Snarly over there?”
She followed his gaze. Niko had relaxed his stance and was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his white wife-beater.
“Apparently, all we needed to perk your interest was a tiny tattooed firecracker that doesn’t take no for an answer.” Niko chuckled, flashing Maggie a quick smirk.
“Bite me,” Maggie bit out.
“I’m pretty sure that responsibility is going to fall on Luther.”
She hissed, but the asshole just laughed again.
Donavan appeared beside Niko, along with Hannah. “Everything okay out here?” Donovan’s Kentucky twang calmed Maggie’s frayed nerves.
“How many people do you have packed into this tin can of an apartment?” Luther sighed and Maggie felt him relax just slightly.
“We’re fine. Would you guys all head downstairs for a bit? Luther and I need to discuss the details of our situation?” Maggie tipped her head toward the door.
Each of the team members nodded, and filed across the room.
Luther moved aside and they exited the apartment.
Niko paused beside Maggie and gave Luther a hard stare. “If you hurt her, I’ll rip your tongue out through your throat with my teeth.”
“Niko,” Maggie hissed.
The blond smiled and shrugged. “Just letting him know how it’ll be.”
She shoved him toward the door and he closed it on his way out. A sigh slipped from her chest. Now the hard part really starts.
“Come sit. I need to show you what we have.” She crossed the room and scooped up her tablet before taking a seat at the small dinette table.
Luther still hadn’t moved or spoken since everyone had left.
Maggie patted the spot next to her at the table. “I promise not to bite unless you ask me too.” Damn it. Why did I let that slip out? She tapped the screen and entered the back door she’d programmed into Adrian’s penthouse security feed. Video feeds popped up from all around the island. She spun the tablet and caught his interest. “Have you seen these?”
He stalked toward the table and sank slowly into the chair beside her. Then took the tablet from her hands.
Their fingers grazed ever so slightly and her breath was all but vacuumed out of her lungs. Her skin warmed and magick tingled up and down her arm. She wanted to touch him again. And keep touching him. Over and over and over.
“How do you have this?”
His question shook her imagination out of the raunchy gutter it’d crawled into, and she blinked. “When we broke into Adrian’s security room in the penthouse, I left myself a back door so I could find the hidden feeds.”
He tapped one of the small camera feeds and made it larger on the tablet. “What is this? I’ve never seen this before.”
“It’s somewhere on the island. That’s all we know. The source of all these feeds is somewhere out on that island.”
“I saw something today…a girl in a white dress…”
“That’s the uniform that his female servants wear.”
“Female servants?”
“Yes. But that’s hardly the worst of it.” Maggie took the tablet from his hands and typed in the time code for the horrible scene she’d seen that morning. When she’d shown it to the team, no one had been able to speak for several hours.
She tapped to make the feed start playing and handed it back to him. Thank the gods there was no sound on the cameras or she’d probably need to vomit.
“This is going to be very hard to watch.” Maggie slipped out of her chair and walked across the kitchen. She didn’t want to see it again. Didn’t need to. The pain that poor woman had experienced as a human and a wolf was etched into her mind’s eye for all eternity.
If she couldn’t convince him with words, this was her only chance. He had to see the atrocities with his own eyes. Feel their pain in his soul. The good, caring, protective soul she knew he had. He’d just buried it.
“Fuck.” Luther laid the tablet on the table and looked up at Maggie. “I can’t believe this has been happening under my nose…” His eyes traveled back to the screen again. “Fucking hell, what are they going to do with that cattle prod?”
“You need to watch. You won’t understand why it’s so imperative that we stop him unless you keep watching.” Maggie gritted her teeth and breathed deeply through her nose. Please don’t run. Please don’t run. The phrase ran over and over through her mind.
“What the fucking shit? She changed and then…” He stood abruptly, knocking his chair backward. “What the hell.”
“They electrocuted her until her wolf took over. We’re stronger in wolf form. Her instincts wanted her to fight back.” She unbuttoned her shirt and let it drop to the floor. She toed off her shoes and then pulled off her socks.
Luther stared. “We?” His eyes were filled with confusion and disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Her shorts were next. And panties. Then her bra.
His eyes devoured her naked body. As angry and confused as he was, the attraction he felt for her couldn’t be dismissed.
The pull between them was stronger than ever.
Maggie closed her eyes and embraced the warmth of the magick that always surrounded her. Her skin tingled and she sank to the floor as she called her wolf spirit forward.
Luther couldn’t breathe. The animal practically materialized in front of him, out of Maggie’s body. It was the most sensual thing he had ever seen, the way she peeled off her clothing, and then became this beautiful wolf.
There were any number of drugs tha
t could’ve produced this hallucination. He wasn’t sure how Maggie fed them to him, but it was pure genius. She should work for the CIA.
He could get her an in.
With a shake of his head, he stepped back. “Shit, this is good stuff, whatever I’m on right now. Because I swear, everyone is turning into fucking wolves.”
The air shimmered again and Maggie stood in front of him, completely naked, her tight body humming with energy. He had a much better vantage on her tattoos, without clothes to hinder him. The dark greens and blues and purples wound their way up her arms and fanned out onto her shoulders. The creamy white skin stood out against the thick, rich colors—the flowers, the vines. He couldn’t name any of them, but they gave her a spritely air.
Her nipples pointed at him, begging for his touch, but Luther steeled himself. If this was all a hallucination, he didn’t want to let himself go there.
“You’re not on anything,” she said. “Except maybe magick, but no drugs.”
“Of course, you’re going to say that.” He took another step back. “You’re fucking around with me.”
“I am absolutely not doing that.”
“Then I’m just supposed to believe that you can…that you’re some kind of, what, werewolf?” He shook his head. “No.”
“Not exactly like werewolves that you would’ve heard of. We’re not a hybrid race. We don’t become werewolves. We’ve got wolf spirits in us that take wolf form. It’s the result of some very powerful spells that were cast two thousand years ago.”
She kept nodding at him, like it was the most sane thing she’d ever heard of. Standing naked in a sparse little living room, turning back and forth from wolf to human.
This was fucking nuts.
“You saw it on the screen.” She pointed to the tablet. “I was just proving it to you.”
He didn’t want to look back at the screen. The girl, the torture. And worst of all, he recognized the two men in the frame. Would he have hallucinated Drake and the rich Italian who’d come to visit Adrian last week?
At least it wasn’t some Hollywood thing with green screens. No way they would’ve gotten Drake and Mr. Italy to pose for something like that. But the way Maggie had just…changed…no way that was real.
