The Darkest Hour: The Surrender Series - Book 4

by Lauren Smith

  His gaze softened, and he smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you somewhere safe tonight.”

  Kenzie lowered her bandaged leg over the side of the bed, wondering if he was referring to a safehouse or something. “Where?”

  “My home.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but that fierce look was in his eyes again, the one that made her all fluttery and a little scared at the same time. It was a commanding look, but it didn’t frighten her.

  “Until I figure out what’s going on, I want you near me. You’ll have to trust me when I say that I’ve been in situations like this before. Allow me to protect you. Understood?”

  What could she say besides yes? Guns, trafficking, and bad guys were way out of her depth. She nodded at him.

  “Good. Now, let’s get you out of here. The quicker we figure this out, the better.” He held out his hand again. Part of Kenzie felt she should keep her distance, but she wasn’t sure she could walk through a sex club without holding on to him. It would be like Alice tumbling through the rabbit hole.

  They left the bedroom and walked back through the club. The woman on the bar was still lying there, but her lingerie was gone and a man now had a hand between her thighs as he drank directly from a bottle of scotch. His fingers were playing with the woman, inserting slowly, withdrawing, toying with her, and she moaned on the counter until he set the bottle down and gave her thigh a little smack. She gasped and attempted to hold still as he resumed his teasing touches.

  “Jesus.” Kenzie clenched her fingers around Royce’s hand as they walked by. Royce slowed and glanced down at her, then at the woman on the counter. He didn’t say a word—then again, he didn’t have to. She knew her face had to be fire-truck red, and she kept licking her lips. She was intrigued and a little aroused. She couldn’t stop looking. And the devilish grin growing on Royce’s lips told her he knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling.

  “Can we go?” she begged him in a whisper.

  He chuckled as they reached the door. “Kenzie, you are a delight. Just when I think I have you figured out, you manage to surprise me.”

  A delight? What the hell did that mean?

  They left the club. Royce nodded at Mistress Aria and the serious-looking bouncer beside her before they walked out to the parking lot.

  “My car,” she said as they passed by the Mazda.

  “Leave it. I’ll send someone to collect it. Tonight we’re taking mine.” He nodded to the red-and-black Lamborghini Aventador parked in a reserved spot. Royce opened her door, and it lifted up rather than out. Wow. He’d never driven this to campus before. He noticed her eyeing him and then the car before he shut her door. The man looked far too smug at her open appreciation.

  Royce walked around and got into his seat to start the car. The engine had a throaty purr, like a big jungle cat.

  “Where’s your motorcycle?” she asked as she buckled herself in.

  Royce chuckled. “Sometimes I don’t go home alone, and the women here are dressed for straddling me, not a motorcycle.”

  The thought of straddling him made her insides quiver. Stop it. Don’t think about him or sex. She’d managed to be his TA for a whole year—she would not blow it now by letting herself get carried away. She changed her focus to something much safer.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

  Royce didn’t speak for a long moment as he drove them down the winding New York’s Gold Coast roads back to Devereaux House. She’d never been there, but she’d seen pictures on the internet. The Gold Coast was famous for sweeping American castles and 1920s era oil baron mansions. Royce’s home was part of that historical legacy. The sweeping lawn, the lavish gardens, the white ashlar stone a sunny beacon amid the green foliage on summer days. Of course it would be different by night, but she felt safe now that she was with Royce. She smiled as she let the anticipation build inside of her. Would it look more like an antebellum-era ghost in a pale white gown drifting from the dark woods?

  “We’ll go to my office tomorrow morning and check things out, but I don’t want you going home. Not until we learn more. I know a guy who has some connections with the police. He can do some digging to see what’s going on there. I also want to make a few calls to some friends and colleagues.”

  Kenzie angled herself in the passenger seat to look at him. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. There’s only one kind of trafficking anyone could try to connect to me.”

  “What kind?” She held her breath, but she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding wildly.

  “Fossil smuggling.”

  The answer caught her off guard. “Fossil smuggling?” She knew about it, of course, but she’d never really given it much thought since it didn’t relate to her work directly.

  “It’s a bad business. Easy to get into, and it pays well for those involved. Big finds go for hundreds of thousands in legitimate auction houses. Some steal fossils from museums and sell them on the black market. Sadly, it happens quite often, and the public never knows. Museums rarely ever publicly acknowledge the thefts. I’ve consulted for the New York Natural History Museum in the past to assure them that their collections are indeed legitimate and not replicas. Occasionally during that process I find out a fossil isn’t from where the paperwork says it’s from. Fossil smugglers lie about the country of origin if that country doesn’t allow fossils to be sold.” He turned the car down a narrow gravel road. Two white stone pillars marked an entrance to an estate. Iron Ds in cursive script were carved in the stone.

  “Wow.” Kenzie had never really focused on the dark side of her chosen field. She’d focused on the joy of discovery and the research of the animals’ lives, not how much you could sell it for at an auction block.

  Rain was coming down hard on the front windshield, making it hard to see as Royce pulled the car into a circular drive in front of a large house.

  “You’re shaking like a leaf,” Royce said.

  Kenzie’s body was shaking, but she pushed aside her discomfort. There was too much at stake right now. He exited the car and came around to open her door. She had never wanted a guy to open a door for her before, but there was something sweet about the gesture. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was part of Royce’s charm. He was the guy who’d open your door, hold an umbrella over your head, protect you, but once you were in his bed, he would be wild, uncompromising, and rough during sex. Like a god delivering pleasure to his devoted worshipers. A man like that could own the world, could own her.

  She got out of the car walked up to the house, blinking away the rain that still fell. The house was lovely, the stones almost pearly white in the dim light. It was built in the style of one of the chateau mansions in Newport, with a mansard roof and eaves with decorated brackets below. Simple, elegant, and old-world. Her father had a thing for architecture and was always talking about the East Coast mansions.

  Royce started up the steps and unlocked the front door. “My butler, Mr. Lansdown, will be asleep. I’ll get you a room and something to wear to bed. You hungry?”

  Kenzie shook her head. After the scare she’d been through, she wouldn’t be hungry for a long time.

  She brushed her feet on the entry mat and then gasped when she looked up. Ahead of her was a massive staircase of walnut wood. The wall cloth bordering the stairs resembled a tapestry made to look like a forest. The ends of the banister were lit with bronze lamps nestled into the wood. The soft gold glow make Kenzie feel like she was passing between worlds, leaving reality behind as she entered a wooden glen lit by midsummer fairy lights. Dark-green carpets rippled up the stairs, adding to the effect of a forest floor. She took in the entryway and staircase, her breath caught by its beauty.

  A gentle hand touched her shoulder. She turned to see Royce standing there, watching her. Raindrops clung to the tips of his dark hair, glistening like diamonds before they dripped onto his shirt. He looked so…

  Irresistible, like a god of storms who’d taken morta
l form to seduce an unsuspecting maiden.

  For the hundredth time Kenzie cursed her libido and how she longed for things, for a man, she could never have.

  “Let me make you some hot cocoa at least,” he offered.

  If there were two things that tempted her most in the world it was hot cocoa and a hot man. Put them together and…

  I’m so screwed.

  Royce took her to the kitchen. It could have produced enough food for a hundred people, but it had been redesigned for more modern-day uses, including an open-concept eating area. A small table was tucked in a cozy nook next to a large walk-in pantry. Kenzie sat down in one of the chairs and watched Royce as he turned the stove on. The blue gas flames lit up, and he placed a pan on the stove. He retrieved milk, sugar, and a tin of cocoa.

  Homemade cocoa? This man really was the devil.

  He opened the fridge again, giving her a chance to study his profile in its sharp light. His features seemed to be cut from marble. His patrician nose and full, kissable lips were a siren’s call to her. Every part of him she could see was well defined, and Kenzie tried not to fantasize about nibbling him in more than one place. He had a body made for love bites. With a slight frown, he closed the door and turned back to her.

  “I hoped I had a steak or cold pack for your cheek. Some ice will have to do.” He put some cubes in a bag and wrapped a tea towel around it while the milk heated. He placed the makeshift ice pack against her cheek. Their hands met when she tried to hold the bag. For a long moment he didn’t move his hand away. The connection made her skin burn deliciously.

  “I’m so sorry, Little Mac. You must have gone through hell tonight.” He let go of the pack, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he brushed a wet lock of her hair behind her ear. His fingertip lingered against her skin as she shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold.

  Little Mac. Mac for MacKenzie. The affectionate nickname he used when they were working in his office that drove her insane and made her feel special at the same time.

  He cleared his throat and stepped back. “I better check on the cocoa,” he muttered, and resumed his preparations.

  When it was ready, he offered her a mug, which she gratefully accepted.

  “I can’t believe you made homemade cocoa.” She let the heat from the mug seep into her fingers before she took a sip. Taste exploded on her tongue, and a hint of nutmeg gave it an extra kick.

  “My father taught me two things: to seduce a woman you need to know how to dance and how to make homemade cocoa.” As he spoke, his smile was bittersweet.

  Kenzie held her breath as she hurt with him. Everyone knew the story. The Devereauxs had died in a plane crash. Royce had been nineteen and an only child. She couldn’t imagine how lonely he had to have felt in this house with no one but him and the servants to keep him company.

  She smiled, hoping he’d smile back. “Your dad sounds like a smart man.” She was rewarded with a slow grin.

  “He was. Best man I’ve ever known. He was an architect. He wanted to make things. Create dreams, he used to say.” Royce sipped from his mug, a thoughtful expression on his face. A lock of damp hair fell across his eyes, and Kenzie fought off the urge to stand and brush it away for him.

  “My dad is big into architecture too, as a hobby. And your mom?”

  “She was a doctor. They didn’t need the money, but she loved helping people.” His head dropped a little, lost in thought. She’d never known a deep loss like that. She was lucky. Her parents were a dentist and a paralegal, both still alive. Nothing world-changing had ever happened to Kenzie or her family, but they also had never suffered a loss. She was fortunate. Yet she had a feeling she’d never truly lived either.

  Royce suddenly straightened and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket.

  “I need to make a call. Be right back.” He slipped out of the kitchen, leaving Kenzie alone. She stood at the closed door, wishing she knew what to do next. She shouldn’t stay here at his house, but she didn’t want to go home either.

  Please let no one find out about this. It could ruin his career and kill hers before it even had a chance to start.

  That was assuming those men who’d hurt her didn’t get to them first.

  3

  Royce slipped into the hall and leaned against the banister by the stairs as he struggled to get control. Tonight was going to be a huge test of his strength. Letting his sweet, innocent and incredibly smart teaching assistant sleep under his roof was going to damn near kill him, because he wanted her.

  There were reasons he preferred visiting the Gilded Cuff. The safety and security of a place where everyone understood the rules, and everyone was a temporary player. MacKenzie Martin was not that type of girl. She was the kind a man fell in love with and married, and he wasn’t the marrying kind.

  Having her under his roof was like waving an expensive glass of scotch in front of an alcoholic. Just the scent of her, the feel of her hair beneath his fingers, and seeing those wide brown eyes begging for his help… She was a temptation he would do almost anything to possess.

  He hadn’t hired her based on her looks, even though she was sexy as hell. He’d chosen to hire her after a stellar phone interview followed by an in-person follow-up. But the moment she’d walked into his office two years ago as a twenty-six-year-old graduate student wearing nothing but jeans, a Hendrix concert T-shirt, and black Converse shoes, he had taken one look at her and known she was going to be trouble. She had that girl-next-door sweetness and vulnerability but also a touch of sass that drew him in and made him a little crazy with lust. Yet there was so much more to her than just the physical temptation.

  She was funny and so smart he sometimes wondered how he’d gotten lucky that she’d wanted to work for him. When she looked at fossils, it was like she could see the past, see the ancient creatures roaming a very different landscape than the one where the bones had been found. Kenzie had a gift for reading the dirt, reading the fossils and the rocks in a way he’d never seen before. And when she talked to him about their work, her eyes lit up and her face was so full of animation, and he was fascinated. He wanted to watch her and listen to her for hours. And that was when he’d realized he wanted more than just her body. He wanted her—all of her.

  He hadn’t known he’d want a woman like that, but he did. Fuck, he really did. So he’d hired her on the spot. That meant he had to ignore every instinct in him to cross the professional lines that kept him on his best behavior.

  It was the curse of every good dominant involved in the BDSM lifestyle; they were drawn to protect those who needed it. Kenzie was strong as hell—most submissives were—but when it came to responding to commands, they were delightfully obedient in the bedroom. He sensed Kenzie was a natural sub. Smart, feisty, and naturally equal to him, she likely had no idea that she needed a bit of kink in her bed, kink he wanted to provide over and over again until she was exhausted or overwhelmed with ecstasy.

  Her reactions tonight at the club had suggested that she was a submissive in nature. The woman stretched out on the bar being handled by Jaxon, the club owner, seemed to have aroused Kenzie. Her cheeks had flushed, and she’d been unable to look away. More than just idle curiosity there. It would be such a treat to show Kenzie how fun his world could be. He was tempted to lean down and whisper in her ear, “Come over to the dark side. We have cookies and hot sex.”

  But dating students was off-limits, and for good reason. A BDSM relationship involved a power exchange, and someone who wasn’t familiar with the lifestyle would mistake his domination as an abuse of his power as a professor and not see his being a Dom for what it was.

  If he wanted to date Kenzie, she’d have to leave her position as his TA and then sign a ton of relationship forms with the paleontology department and the school. If he didn’t, his reputation would be ruined. It would be a fucking nightmare. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about that right now. He and Kenzie had bigger problems, like the men who’d hurt her tonight trying to get to
him.

  Guilt dug into him. He should have been there working with her on the grades tonight, not enjoying himself at the Cuff. He had no way of knowing those bastards would show up, but still, he should have been there.

  I just have to figure out what these men want, then I can keep Kenzie safe. He lifted his phone up and called someone he knew who could help. It rang only twice before someone answered.

  “Brummer here,” a deep voice said.

  “Hans, buddy…I need some help.” Royce grinned as he heard a dramatic sigh on the other end of the line.

  Hans Brummer was a professional bodyguard. He had been employed by the family of Royce’s closest friends, Emery and Fenn Lockwood, since they were eight years old. Hans had been Emery’s protective shadow ever since Emery had recovered from being kidnapped as a child, along with his twin brother.

  The danger to Emery was over, and his long-lost brother was home again. Now Hans was bored. For the last couple of months, Royce had taken to hiring Hans to teach them things like lockpicking, safecracking, and tactical firearms. He’d always been a fine shot at a target range, but he’d never had to shoot like his life depended upon it. Now he was glad he had improved his marksmanship.

  “What did you have in mind?” Hans asked.

  “Can you come over to my place tonight? My TA was attacked while working late at my office. She said they were looking for me. They roughed her up pretty bad, but she got away. I need someone I can trust to help me protect her and get to the bottom of this.”

  Hans chuckled. “Sounds like you need someone to watch your ass as well, Devereaux.”

  “Probably. You up for it?”

  Hans sighed. “This is serious shit, isn’t it?”

  “Could be. They shoved a gun in Kenzie’s face. Hit her too. She jumped from a second-story window to escape the bastards. I want to find them and make them pay.” He couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice as his anger built up like a storm.

  “No cops?”

  “Kenzie said they might be compromised. Best to keep them at arm’s length.”