Wanted by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  Geez. Look at me, worrying about Corbin. He’d probably tangled with people far more worrisome than Henry, but the truth was that Henry had caught men like Corbin before.

  I plugged in my heated comforter and crawled under it. I had a feeling that I was going to be spending way more time with Henry than I cared to, pumping him for information to keep my mind at ease.

  Rob came by my apartment the next afternoon, which gave me something to do besides stare at my phones, waiting to hear from Corbin.

  Rob had a bluish bruise under one eye, magnified by his round glasses.

  “What happened? Work?”

  “Jealous boyfriend,” he said. “The girl set me up.”

  I could just imagine. “So, what, you were innocently talking to her… and what?”

  “Pleading the fifth.” He slung his duffel bag onto my small kitchen table and unzipped a side pocket. “When are you going to move? This place is depressing.”

  “When Dad gives me a raise.”

  “You make enough to afford something not condemned by the city.” He dropped a file on the table. “Dad wants us to work together on this.”

  “The embezzlement guy. Hoboken…”

  “Syre,” he finished. “I told Pops that either of us could handle it, and he got his panties into a knot.”

  “Weird.”

  “Martha’s putting the pressure on. She was hinting to me that if Dad doesn’t cut back, she’s going to leave.”

  I didn’t see what that had to do with us working the case together. “Since when does Martha call you up for advice?”

  “She didn’t. I was over for dinner, Dad went to the bathroom, and that’s when she said it.”

  “They invited you for dinner?”

  “Oh.” He laughed, rolling his eyes. “She tried to set me up with her hairdresser. It was a one-time thing.”

  “She never tried to set me up with anyone.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.” He unzipped the duffel’s main compartment and pulled out an enormous stack of papers. “Photocopies of Syre’s cell phone records and some other odds and ends. Paid his ex-wife a visit yesterday. We now know that he’s got expensive taste, he’s extremely paranoid, he made his wife get implants when she turned forty, he pops boner pills—”

  “You can stop there.”

  Rob laughed. “Syre also ripped off a former business associate who he hasn’t been in contact with. The guy never pressed charges, so he’s not in the files, but the wife told me all about that. Anyway, the business partner was quite happy to give up the goods on the stripper girlfriend.”

  “Stripper. Classy.”

  “I know. What a loser. Anyway, her shift at the club starts at 4:00, so I’ll go down and see what I can find.”

  “Rob!”

  He smiled. “It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. That leaves you to stake out either the mother’s house or the storage facility, and Katrina can handle the other one.”

  “I’ll do the storage facility.” It wouldn’t be the first time that someone got the bright idea to live in one, thinking no one would consider looking there.

  Rob distributed the contents of the folders into three piles. I cleared my throat. “You have any idea why we’re working this together?”

  “Ah. Because of Henry.”

  “We’re friends.”

  “Um…” He aimed an exasperated look at me. “Not what I meant. After you split Jones the other night, Dad is paranoid we’ll get scooped. Thinks the sharks and vultures are circling. He spent hours on the phone yelling about ethics and fairness.”

  “So?”

  “So he probably figures two of us on this means faster progress.”

  “In other words, he would have handled it, but Martha’s upset, so he decided that one of him equals two of us.”

  “Don’t get pissed.” He double-checked the folders, then shoveled two of them back in the duffel. “I’ll take Kat’s to her.”

  “I don’t understand why you aren’t offended.”

  “Because it’s just a job. Unless you’re getting bonuses that I’m not aware of.” He opened my fridge. “This orange juice expired?” Without waiting for an answer, he twisted off the top and peered inside. I watched in horror as he drank straight from the carton. When it was empty, he belched.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Do you mind if I have some orange juice?”

  I swatted at him, but he was already moving toward the door. “The interest and service charges on that orange juice mean you owe me dinner!” I said.

  “It’s a deal.” He left, and I stood alone in the kitchen, looking at the pile of papers on the opened folder. Great. He’d left the bulk of the tedious work to me.

  I dug a highlighter out of a drawer and tucked into the files. But a few minutes later, my mind started to wander. Was Dad finally going to retire? Seemed impossible, but then, Dad didn’t want to get divorced a fifth time. A smile crept across my face. Once I was running Stroop Finders, things were going to change. Less dealing with sketchy bail bondsmen, and more detective work. I thought about something Corbin had said the weekend we were snowed in together. He’d told me that I liked the hunt. He was probably right.

  After three hours of squinting at old Hobo’s credit card and phone bills, I consolidated my notes, then put on my coat and headed outside. Time to go by the storage unit.

  Teenagers streamed by on skateboards and scooters, so I didn’t see him until I was almost at my car. He seemed to materialize from the shadows.

  I jumped, my fists coming up protectively even though I’d already identified my visitor. “Fuck.” I plastered my hand to my trembling chest.

  “Scare you?” Corbin’s voice was low, seductive.

  “No,” I said testily. I pushed past him and unlocked the car. “I don’t have time to arrest you right now, so you’ll have to come back later.”

  “You surely have twenty minutes.” He stood close enough that sexual charisma was like a palpable thing between us. He wore a short, dark coat, a gray scarf, and blue jeans with a yellowish vintage wash. His dark hair was a little messy, and I wanted to comb my fingers through it.

  “Fifteen minutes,” I countered. “What do you want?”

  “To show you something. It’s not far. You drive.”

  “You don’t mind being seen in a go-kart, then? Your standards are slipping, Corbin.”

  He snickered. I got in the car and looked around, trying to guess which vehicle belonged to Corbin. No familiar black SUV in sight.

  He directed me out of my run-down neighborhood, past the industrial park and to a newish luxury development. Following Corbin’s orders, I pulled into the driveway of an end unit.

  “That was eight minutes. I have to leave thirty seconds ago.”

  Corbin jumped out of the car and opened my door. When I didn’t move, he unbuckled my seatbelt and extended his hand.

  I accepted it, and he led me through the front door. He switched on the light. “What do you think?”

  I looked around. It was decorated in an ultra-modern way, all sleek designs and black shiny surfaces. Beautiful but sterile. “Eh. I liked the other place better. Is this your new… home?” I curled my fingers into quotation marks.

  Corbin caught my hand and led me into the sparsely furnished living room. “Thinking about it. Haven’t made a decision yet. What was better about the other one?”

  “The enormous skylight. It was open. Warm.”

  He nodded, looking around. “Well, I have this one for a week.”

  “You can do that?”

  “You can do anything you want if you know how to ask for it.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Please tell me the owner isn’t stuffed into a box in the basement.”

  “The owner isn’t stuffed into a box in the basement,” he repeated.

  “You’re giving me the impression that the owner might be boxed and in the attic, or bagged and in the basement.” I shot him an evil look. “Have
you considered that it will be much easier for me to find you if I know where you’re living?”

  “I was hoping you’d spend a lot of time here,” he said, dropping his coat and scarf on a polished table.

  I blushed.

  He leaned up against a wall, arms over his chest, blue-green eyes studying me. “Not like that. Well, like that, too. Remember how I suggested you come work for me?”

  Like I could forget. He’d said that the people he worked for were interested in getting from one place to another. Sometimes that meant going through something—and by something, he meant someone—that could have been handled in a different way. He seemed to think that if I came to work for him, I could find safer ways of doing… whatever illegal things he did.

  But I hadn’t been able to reconcile that with the fact that I would be working for a criminal organization. And that every time I failed at my job, it meant that someone was going to die. Thanks, but no thanks.

  “I said no.”

  “This would be a one-time thing. One project, one month. Unless you wanted to extend it.”

  “No.”

  His frown threatened to morph into a pout. “You’re being unfair. You don’t even know—”

  “If you tell me more, it’ll turn into one of those situations where if I don’t go along with it, you’ll have to find a way to make sure I don’t talk or something.”

  His head came back like I’d slapped him. Then he shrugged, feigning casualness. “Come see the upstairs at least.”

  I could spare a few more minutes. I’d always had a curiosity about the way other people lived… probably the same thing that made me enjoy poking around in others’ lives and inventing interesting backgrounds for complete strangers.

  Corbin took my hand, and I smiled, turning my face so he wouldn’t see.

  The second floor was nicer than I would have expected. Certainly less tacky. The main bedroom had an enormous hot tub. I stared at it for a few seconds, the gears in my head churning.

  One of Corbin’s arms drifted around my shoulder, enveloping me in his exciting scent. “You know you want to try it…”

  “Never claimed otherwise, but I don’t have time.”

  “That’s a pity.” He pulled off his T-shirt as he walked toward the tub, and I watched the muscles in his broad back rippling. He turned on the water and the whirlpool, then slowly started to unbutton his jeans.

  I stared. I had never had a chance to actually watch him strip before. I wanted to slather his perfect abs in whipped cream and spend all evening licking him clean.

  “What are you so busy doing?” he wanted to know.

  “Work,” I managed to squeeze out despite the fact that I was almost drooling. “Have to stake out a storage unit for a few hours. Very glamorous stuff.”

  He stepped out of the jeans, and stood before me in black boxer briefs. He had the most amazing abs I’d ever seen. I’d always thought that bodies like his didn’t exist except in the editing programs of photographers, but now I had proof that it was physically possible. “Give me another twenty minutes, Audrey.” His deep voice was low, intimate.

  How could I walk away when his cock was half erect and his eyes gleamed like that?

  I shucked off my coat and kicked my boots away without bothering to fully untie them. I pulled off my shirts, not caring that they were full of static, making strands of hair float across my face.

  The rest of my clothes quickly joined the pile on the floor, and I wrestled my messy, curly hair into a bun atop my head. Corbin waited patiently next to the tub, his muscular legs now devoid of boxer briefs. His cock rose, proudly erect. When I neared, he caught me around the waist and lifted me into the tub before I even knew what was happening.

  The water was filling up fast, and I sat down in the bubbling warmth. It was heaven on my stiff muscles, all knotted up from my lumpy mattress.

  Corbin slipped into the water across from me. Too far away. He sank down, his legs brushing my calves, his eyes closing, and I studied his perfect face. Strong chin. Long, masculine nose. Dark eyebrows and eyelashes that contrasted strongly with those electric blue-green eyes, at least, when they were open.

  He sighed and sat up, then moved forward, coming toward me and looking like a music video hunk. Water streamed down his sculpted torso, and I stopped breathing. He leaned over, caught my lower lip between his teeth, and nibbled, his eyes open and watching me. I reached up and palmed his balls, full and heavy.

  My lips parted, but he didn’t kiss me, and I had a feeling that this was going to take longer than fifteen minutes. Corbin with the slow mouth, the determined hands.

  “Nice,” I breathed when he released my mouth.

  He knelt between my legs, getting comfortable. Water dripped from the ends of his hair. “Sex in the alley. You’re kinky.”

  “Says the guy who spanked me twenty seconds after he saw me naked.”

  “And will again.” He kissed me deeper, forcing my head back until it rested on the curved edge of the tub. I closed my eyes, letting myself go. I loved his kisses, full of longing and demands. When I opened my eyes, he was staring at me with such intensity that I wondered why I hadn’t exploded.

  “Technically, I didn’t spank you twenty seconds after I saw you naked,” he said quietly, referring to the fact that when he’d found me keeled over in the middle of the road, he’d had to remove my wet clothes as part of the process of saving my life. When I first found out, I was unreasonably furious.

  “Now that we know each other better, you can tell me the truth. Did it turn you on?”

  He sat back, frowning. My favorite part of his gorgeous body was, sadly, submersed. “No.”

  “But a helpless woman, passed out and naked…”

  “No. It was horrible. I didn’t know how long you’d been there or how serious your condition was.”

  “Ok. But now that you know it all turned out fine, do you ever think about that?” I shifted, starting to feel silly.

  “Never. Do you?”

  I blinked. “No. Although…”

  “You wouldn’t mind being tied up and helpless.” An evil smile rolled across his face. “As you wish.”

  “I didn’t say…”

  He stood, water running down his body. He was still fully erect for my viewing pleasure. “Snowstorm,” he said.

  It took a second for me to understand that he was reminding me of my safe word.

  He stepped out of the tub, then reached in and picked me up, tossing me over his shoulder.

  Squealing, I grabbed at his waist, but he was so wet that my fingers couldn’t find purchase. Finally, I’d found a downside to his lack of body fat.

  He tossed me onto the soft bed and forced my knees apart. I fought him; I needed to make up for having been such an easy lay the night before.

  “Keep struggling,” he said. “You’re providing me a reason to go harder on you.” Too easily, he spread my legs wider, his gaze anchored on my pussy, then he abruptly released my ankles. I slammed my legs closed and pulled myself up to sitting, my chest heaving.

  I glared at him for no good reason except that he’d frightened me with his sheer power. The look in his eyes made it clear that he was plotting something wicked.

  And then suddenly reality came rushing back. “Wait. What time is it? I have to stake out the facility.”

  “Are you relieving someone?”

  “Well… no.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Suppose he shows up and leaves?”

  “Suppose he showed up and left an hour ago? Really, without round-the-clock surveillance, there’s not much of a point in going at all. Seems like busywork.”

  “He would be unlikely to make an appearance until after the employees leave for the day.” I smirked. Chew on that, smartypants.

  “He’s unlikely to show up before it’s fully dark.” He snapped handcuffs on each of my wrists.

  “Corbin—”

  “You may call me ‘sir’ if you li
ke.” He pulled a nylon bag out from under the bed.

  “Corbin, I really have to leave. Twenty minutes, max.”

  “You can stop me at any time with your safe word.” He sat on the edge of the bed, a length of thin but sturdy chain in his hand. Fuck. He had a stash of kinky things.

  I licked my lips and swallowed as I tested the handcuffs. These weren’t plastic toys. What Corbin needed was incentive to watch the time, because once he started, I wouldn’t have the will to stop him. “If Rob and I get this guy right away, I’ll be able to take a few days off.”

  He looked at me, eyes gleaming. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? You’ll have your man tonight. I promise.”

  He snapped the end of the chain to the handcuffs, knelt on the bed, and slid forward until his cock was right over my face and the bottoms of his balls brushed my nose. I watched as he began wrapping the chain around a horizontal pole that ran between the bedposts.

  I licked one of his balls, then struggled up a bit and tried in vain to reach his cock.

  Then the chain jerked, raising my arms over my head until they were straightened. Corbin turned his attention to me. “I believe you were requesting, in your fumbling, submissive way, to suck my cock.”

  “You don’t deserve the bliss that is my mouth,” I said, turning my head. I hated it when men assumed they were going to get a blow job, just because.

  “Snowstorm, little one. Don’t forget. And if your mouth is full, snap your fingers.”

  “What part of ‘no blow job for you, asshole’ was ambiguous?” I taunted. A thrill ran through me. Corbin was dangerous, and prodding him was playing with fire.

  “All of it,” he said, fisting his cock and mashing the tip against my closed mouth. He smelled like soap. After a moment, I perceived an almost undetectable masculine musk that made my mouth water and my pulse triple.

  I turned my head, resisting him, but my pussy fluttered, then clenched, when I raised my gaze to his face. The gleam in his eyes was seriously hot.

  “Suck me, or I’ll make you regret it.”

  “Never,” I spat. He lightly slapped my face, and I fought back a moan. This was so fucking wrong on every level.

  But I loved it.