Dangerous

by Audrey Alexander

  “It’s been awhile.” The man stepped forward, light casting on his haggard yet smiling face. Dominique had owned the club for years and had supplied Jace with VIP access and a private room only he could access. For the right price, of course. It had been several months since he’d seen the man. Jace had stopped frequenting the place as often as he used to, and last night had been the first time he’d used the private room in a long time. “I thought you’d given up the lifestyle.”

  “A temporary break. I was here last night.”

  “So I heard. Good to have you back.” The man stepped closer and gave Jace’s hand a shake. His grip was strong, a signal to Jace that he was a powerful man no matter how old he might look. “But what are you doing here now? Is there a problem with your room?”

  “It’s as perfect as always.” Jace gave a nod to Franklin. “However, another patron who was here last night delivered an unsettling message to my assistant this morning.”

  Franklin stepped forward and handed the photos over to Dominique. Dominique’s eyes landed on the snapshots, and his lips pursed before he handed them back.

  “You know we tend to get voyeurs in here, too.” Dominique gave a shrug, though his frown was deep. “I’m sorry that it troubles you. We do discourage photos, but we can’t prevent them all from happening, unfortunately.”

  “I normally wouldn’t be so concerned. As I’m sure you know, photos of me tend to end up everywhere regardless of what I do,” Jace said, eyes narrowing. “But there was a blackmail note attached to these photos. Someone is trying to wrangle a million dollars out of my pocket.”

  Dominique coughed, eyes wide. “You’ve got to be shitting me. A million bucks not to leak a harmless photo? You two aren’t even kissing. Let me give you some advice, just let this one roll right off your shoulders. It’s not like they caught you in your playroom.”

  Jace took a deep breath and glanced at Franklin.

  “The woman in this photo is his step-sister,” Franklin said. “She’s a successful attorney. You can see why she might not want this to get out.”

  “Jace Holt, you dog, you,” Dominique said with a laugh. “Yes, I can see why you’d want to keep this one under wraps. I tell you what, I’ll ask around. Maybe one of the girls working last night noticed someone skulking around with a camera.”

  “That’s it?” Jace asked, clenching his fists by his sides. He’d expected more from Dominique, but he was just brushing this off like it was no big deal. “You have security cameras. I want to see the footage from last night.”

  “We do have security cameras, but they won’t help you much,” Dominique said with a shrug. “They’re a live feed only. My guys watch it while the club is open to make sure no one gets into any trouble, but we don’t record what happens. Most of my patrons, you included I’m sure, don’t want a record of their activity here.”

  “No, of course not.” Jace sighed. Bonds had been just another dead end after all.

  “I need you to come do some snooping with me,” Carrie said over the phone to her best friend, Sarah. After leaving Jace’s penthouse, Carrie had gone home to catch up on some work. The first case she’d looked at had, of course, been Jace’s, and she’d realized she didn’t have much information about the crime scene relating to Madison’s death. The cops had pored over Madison’s apartment, but they hadn’t recorded much by way of evidence.

  Whatever had happened to Madison was the key to figuring out whoever was behind framing Jace. Carrie was certain of it.

  Diving into the investigation had kept her mind off what Jace had asked her to do. A major plus in her mind. She’d told him she needed time to think, and that had been the truth, but a huge part of her didn’t want to replay the contents of that contract over and over again. She couldn’t believe he thought she’d sign on to a thing like that. Carrie had worked damn hard to get the life she had, and she wouldn’t give up her free will just to keep Jace from feeling like she wouldn’t run away from him.

  Because that was the whole point behind the contract. It was to keep her from leaving. He just wasn’t capable of doing it like a normal guy by getting down on one knee and proposing. Carrie had wanted him to do just that three years before, but he’d still been gun shy about the whole thing. And now they could never be together like that. Not with the marriage between their parents.

  “I’m all about the snooping.” Sarah’s excited voice came over the line. “Who are we spying on? Is it Jace?”

  “No, of course not. This is about work. Meet me at Fifty-Seventh and First. And wear black.”

  An hour later, Carrie and Sarah stood outside Madison Holland’s apartment, shivering in the cold. Snow fell down around them, casting the usual hectic sounds of New York into an eerie quiet. Carrie rubbed her gloved hands together and stared up at the dark apartment building. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure this was such a good idea.

  “This is the dead girl’s apartment, isn’t it?” Sarah asked, her ears and eyes hidden under a black beanie. Her dark pea coat collar was hiked up around her neck, giving her the appearance of an old-fashioned spy. In any other city, Carrie would have thought they looked incredibly strange and totally obvious, but there were a lot of weirdos in New York, and they looked more normal than most.

  “It’s only a matter of time before the cops decide they have enough evidence to arrest Jace.” Carrie blew warm breath on her gloves. “I need a lead. Something to help figure out who’s been trying to set him up.”

  “And you think you can find it here?” Sarah hiked a thumb toward the silent building. “The cops would have taken all the evidence.”

  “They might not have known what to look for.” Carrie frowned. She’d had the same thought that Sarah had, but she still felt she needed to check things out herself. If she could find anything at all that could give her a lead, she might be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together before the cops decided Jace was their only option.

  “Okay, so what are we looking for?”

  “Connections,” Carrie said. “Madison didn’t do this by herself. What kind of people did she run with? Who were her friends? Anything that ties her to someone who might want to see Jace behind bars.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said with a nod. “Let’s do this.”

  The two of them strode up the apartment steps, and Carrie pushed every single one of the apartment buzzers. Hopefully someone in the building would be home and wouldn’t ask any questions. A moment later, the door buzzed, and Carrie pressed it open with a smile. It wasn’t the first time she’d used that trick, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  When the two of them reached the second floor, it wasn’t hard to figure out which apartment had been Madison’s. Yellow police tape crisscrossed the only door on the landing. Carrie pushed aside the paper and tried the knob. Unlocked. With a nod toward Sarah, she eased inside the dark apartment, her breath held tight in her throat.

  The place had been ransacked. Lamps had been knocked over, couch cushions were tossed against the wall, and picture frames had been pulled from the walls. Carrie wasn’t sure if the mess had come from the cops or the killer who had stalked Madison that night. A chill swept across her skin at the thought. She’d been smarter this time by bringing Sarah along with her, but that didn’t change the fact that the two of them couldn’t take on a burly man who wanted to remove them from the equation if he found them snooping around.

  “We need to do this quickly,” Carrie said, pressing her face against the window to look down on the streets below. She held her breath as she watched a lone man stride down the street, but he didn’t stop or even cast a glance up in their direction. She knew she needed to get a grip. She was just being paranoid. The man who had attacked her wasn’t going to show up here now. There was no reason for him to.

  Still, they shouldn’t test fate by lingering around for too long.

  Carrie began to move through the living room while Sarah took Madison’s bedroom at the back end of the skinny railroad apartment. She pi
cked through smashed photo frames and trendy magazines that had been ripped to shreds. Sighing, she moved into the kitchen and opened the drawers, but all she found were the typical belongings of a single girl living in Manhattan. Mis-matched utensils, boxes of ramen noodles, and a trash can full of stained takeaway boxes.

  Carrie’s heart hurt as she took in the life Madison had left behind. It was all too familiar. This had been Carrie’s life when she’d first moved to the city, barely getting by paycheck to paycheck while she worked her way up the ranks of the law firm’s career ladder. No matter how much Madison had been involved in this thing, Carrie felt certain she hadn’t wanted anyone to die. And she certainly hadn’t want to end up dead herself. She’d gotten sucked in way over her head, a feeling Carrie was all too familiar with.

  “I found something!” Sarah yelled out from the back room. Carrie winced and darted her eyes around, expecting someone to come busting through the front door at any moment. Sarah stomped through the apartment toward Carrie, far too loud. Everyone within the vicinity was going to know they were here.

  “Shh,” Carrie said, edging quietly toward Sarah. Her best friend held something in her hands that looked like a large book, and a bright smile painted her pixie features. “You’re going to wake the dead.”

  “You worry way too much.” Sarah held out the book. “I found Madison’s scrapbook. She was one of those girls who prints out photos and makes pretty colorful albums about her life.”

  Carrie took the book, flipped open the cover, and scanned the first page. Madison had created a detailed scrapbook of her entire time in New York, each section named and dated. She flipped through several more pages before something caught her eye. In a photo in the middle of the page, Madison stood in a luminous ball-gown. Her hand was tucked into the arm of a handsome man in a dark suit. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a posture that made her widen her eyes. It was a man Carrie didn’t know, but there was something about his look and his style that seemed very familiar.

  He looked a lot like Jace Holt.

  It had been twelve hours since Jace had heard from Carrie, and he was beginning to feel like he needed to take a visit to her office and punish her for her lack of contact. He’d bend her over, expose her perfect ass, and spank her until her skin turned pink. He’d enjoyed the vanilla sex they’d had together in his playroom, but her recent attitude made him want to strap her up and take her hard.

  Jace’s phone rang, and he gritted his teeth. Every time he was in a fantasy about Carrie, someone decided it was the perfect time to interrupt his thoughts. He snatched up the phone.

  “Jace Holt,” he said in a gruff voice.

  “Hi, Jace,” a familiar voice filtered through the phone. “Dominique here. I spoke to my girls, and they were able to shed some light on your unfortunate photo situation.”

  Jace’s back straightened, and he gripped the phone tighter to his ear. “They saw something.”

  “They saw something, and they said something.”

  Jace rolled his eyes at Dominique’s turn of phrase, but he waited to hear what he had to say. He hadn’t told Carrie about the photo, of course. She’d freak out even though Jace knew he was going to take care of this before it got out of control. She’d never have to know, especially if Dominique had a lead on who had spotted them there.

  “Tell me,” Jace commanded.

  “It was another one of my regular patrons. He rents a playroom in the back just like you do.” Dominique cleared his throat, and his voice went from perky to concerned. “He pays me quite well to keep his confidence. He doesn’t want it getting out that he’s a patron of this kind of establishment.”

  “If you’re trying to strong-arm me, Dominique, you should think twice about what you’re about to say next,” Jace said, narrowing his eyes. He knew this game. The other client paid a premium for the room and the discretion, but so did Jace. Dominique would do well to remember exactly who he was talking to before he tried to wring more money out of his pockets, like everyone else seemed to be trying to do these days.

  “Well, the truth of the matter is I don’t like the man, and I don’t particularly like this game he’s trying to play. I won’t be a party to blackmail. Not in my club.”

  “So, you’re going to tell me who he is,” Jace said.

  “I believe you may know him,” Dominique said. “Rick Allen. He’s a partner at that law firm where your girlfriend works.”

  Jace gripped the phone so tight in his hands, he thought it might crack under the pressure. His vision turned red as he glared down at his desk. Rick Allen. Carrie’s boss. He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, but the truth was like a smack in the face. Rick Allen had taken a compromising photo of him and Carrie and now threatened to expose them, knowing Carrie was terrified of losing her job.

  It’s a smart move, Jace thought. Rick must have known Jace would do anything to keep Carrie’s name out of the papers. But what he hadn’t been counting on was Jace finding out who he was.

  “I appreciate the information,” Jace finally said. “I’ll be sure to make this worth your while.”

  As soon as Jace hung up the phone, it rang again. Narrowing his eyes, he snatched it up. He was in a horrible mood now, and he had no time for anything else when he needed to deal with this Rick Allen situation.

  “Jace Holt,” he said.

  “Sir.” It was Lana, his receptionist. “It’s Miss Simmons. She’s here to see you.”

  Jace frowned, but a thrill went through his veins at the thought that Carrie had come to see him. This was one distraction he was happy to deal with right now. Maybe she’d finally come to her senses. “Send her in.”

  Carrie strode into the room, her head held high. She wore a crisp gray suit, black heels, and a white blouse that cut down to reveal just a hint of cleavage. Her dark hair was around her shoulders in waves, and she’d worn an alluring shade of red lipstick.

  Jace stood and gave her a wicked smile. “You’ve certainly made an effort to get my attention. Tell me why you’ve come to my office.”

  “I’m your lawyer, and I need something from you.” On those last few words, Carrie’s eyes flicked to Jace’s crotch, and he couldn’t stop the satisfied smirk from donning his lips.

  “Is that so?” He crossed his arms and leaned against his desk. A part of him knew he should tell Carrie what her boss was up to, but she looked so calm and confident now, he couldn’t bear to see the look on her face when she found out. He’d just have to take care of this behind the scenes and pretend like everything in the world was all right.

  “You kept a copy of the real security footage from the night of the murder in your hotel.”

  Surprised, Jace cocked his head and frowned. Where had this come from?

  “Don’t act innocent with me. I know you, Jace Holt,” she said with a smile, taking a few steps closer to his side, so close that he could smell her hair, mixed with a new scent. Perfume. She really had made an effort. “You would have kept a copy of the real deal. I need to see it.”

  “You’re acting very confident, Miss Simmons,” Jace said, letting his eyes drop to her cleavage. Her breasts heaved as her breath quickened, and he raised his eyes to see her tongue swipe across her red lips.

  “I’m still your lawyer, and I need to review those tapes.” She held out her hand.

  Jace chuckled, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of wavy hair behind her shoulder. “And if I kept them, what makes you think I’d hand them over to you?”

  “Because I’m here to make a deal with you,” she said in full-on lawyer mode. “You give me the tapes, and you can do anything you want to me. Strap me up, punish me, whip me as hard as you can.”

  Jace raised his eyebrows. “Tempting.”

  “So, it’s a deal?” Carrie asked, stepping even closer so that she nuzzled her nose into his neck. He groaned, his cock hardening at her sensual touch. He knew what she was doing, of course. She was playing the game, his way. And now the ball was in his cou
rt.

  He twisted away from her and picked up the phone. “Franklin. I need you to bring me the original footage from the night Anders Holland died. It seems Miss Simmons needs access to it. But give us twenty minutes before you knock on the door.”

  A delicious heat spread through Carrie’s body when Jace turned to face her. Her breath hitched at the look in his eyes. He’d done as she’d asked—Franklin was on his way to the office with the real footage from that night—and now it was Jace’s turn to get what he wanted. Carrie.

  “Turn around,” Jace commanded.

  Swallowing hard, she obeyed. “Here? In your office?”

  “You better fucking believe it,” Jace said, his voice a deep growl. He was already turned on, she could tell by the gravel in his voice and the bulge in his pants, and it made her every nerve stand on end.

  “Bend over,” he said. “Put your head down to the floor and grab your ankles.”

  Carrie bent over, her ass sticking straight up in the air. She twisted her fingers around her ankles and fought to keep her balance as she teetered in her shoes. She’d chosen this pair specifically for their stiletto heels, in hopes to tempt Jace into agreeing to her deal. It had worked. Better than she’d hoped.

  Jace grabbed her hips, steadying her. He shoved her skirt up to her waist and sucked in a breath when he saw she wore no thong. His fingers slipped between her thighs, and she bucked at the sensation that rippled through her. She grew wet and hot as he stroked her pussy, and she couldn’t help but let out a moan.

  “I don’t know what to do with you, Carrie,” Jace said in a low voice. “You’ve been a very naughty girl, but giving you a punishment almost feels like giving you a reward. Tell me what you think I should do to you.”

  “Whatever you want,” Carrie said in a gasp as he pulled away from her, leaving her aching for more of his touch. She stayed bent over, her ass sticking up in the air, as he moved around her, his eyes sparking with desire.