by Jan Graham
Wylde Shore 2
Playing Jax
Steve Jax buried his heart, along with his soul mate, two years ago. He had his turn in the game of love, and it didn't work out, end of story. His new neighbor might stir certain passions within him, but his dark, kinky desires aren't the sort of thing a sweet, naïve ex-nun should be exposed to. All he has to do is convince the determined little minx of that.
Rhiannon McCabe has never been in love. She's hidden under a religious veil since she was eighteen. Now everything's changed. She's left the church, created a new life, and finally met the only man to ever arouse her sexual nature. Steve might think he doesn't have the capacity to love her, but she's determined to convince him otherwise. If love really is a game, then Steve Jax is a prize worth playing for.
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary
Length: 122,428 words
PLAYING JAX
Wylde Shore 2
Jan Graham
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
PLAYING JAX
Copyright © 2012 by Jan Graham
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-687-2
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To Shane, the man who over the last eight years has taught me more about myself than I ever imagined I’d learn. Thank you for your support, for giving me the opportunity to write and for encouraging me to follow my dreams. R.I.P. lovely.
PLAYING JAX
Wylde Shore 2
JAN GRAHAM
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
Steve toyed with the mask in his hand as he stared at the crime scene tape surrounding the burnt-out farmhouse.
“I don’t see why I have to wear a goddamn breathing mask. I’ll look like a friggin’ idiot.” Steve stared at the head gear with attached breathing filters. It looked like something an astronaut would wear.
“You always look like an idiot to me, and no one else is around so just put the bloody thing on.” Cal Webster was one of the state’s leading fire investigators. Steve and he knew each other well, having met four years ago when Cal investigated the fire that burnt down Steve’s sister’s home.
“It’s been three days since this place went up in flames, the fire alone would have destroyed any toxic chemicals.” Steve eyed the mask once more.
“You want access to the house, you wear the mask. This might be your investigation Steve, but where the fire evidence is concerned, I’m in charge. My turf, my rules.”
Steve begrudgingly donned the breathing gear, positive that if he spoke he’d sound like Darth Vader. Cal could be a stubborn prick.
With Cal in the lead, Steve walked into the charred mess that used to be a farmhouse. The building, located in an isolated area of town, meant that sheer luck played a part in the flames being spotted. A truck driver traveling along the freeway overpass noticed the fire and called the fire brigade. Probably not lucky enough for the three bodies that had been found in the remains, but at least the families would be notified once the identification process was complete.
“Be careful where you walk, the floor’s pretty unstable in parts.” Cal didn’t have to tell Steve twice. The last thing he wanted was to fall through a floor. He shadowed Cal’s exact path, assuming the guy had mapped out exactly where to walk over the last three days.
“It’s not rocket science, man. I follow you and I’m on solid ground…wait.” Steve grabbed his friend by the arm, causing him to stop their hike across the room. “Didn’t you fall through a second-story floor about six months ago?”
Steve heard Cal’s laughter through the man’s mask.
“Yeah, I did. Man, that was funny. By the time I heard the creak of the boards I was already falling. Lucky the guy I was with landed first and broke my fall. He made the cement a lot softer.”
“So that’s why you work alone. You used too many colleagues as crash mats.” Steve liked Cal’s sense of humor. It was similar to his own. Just because he joked about using his fellow fireman as a cushion, didn’t mean he wasn’t devastated at the other guy’s injuries. In fact, at the time, Steve remembered Cal had been more concerned about the man’s injuries than his own.
“What do you see?” Cal asked as he stood in the centre of what would have been the living room.
“Black burnt shit.”
“Exactly, no distinctive flash points, so the fire probably started midair.”
Cal kicked some metal pots near his feet, pointed to them, then moved to the side of the room, near a window. Steve followed.
“What do you see?”
Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling before he answered. “Black, burnt, metal-looking shit.”
“Exactly, mattress springs. And there are also these…” Cal took a pen out of his pocket and poked around in a black circular object with what appeared to be little black beans in it. “Cigarette butts.”
“You’re
kidding, right?”
“Most people would be shocked at what survives a fire. The fire genie can be a random beast. Anyway, do you want to hear my theory?”
“Well, that is the reason I’m here.”
“Okay, I haven’t got all the lab reports back, so this may change.” Cal walked back to the centre of the room and pointed at the misshaped metal. “Our three crispy bodies, of which one or more were smokers, were cooking something. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t hot dogs. They were making a chemical compound. When the temperature dropped and it got cold, they closed the windows and doors.” Cal moved to the exit leading to the front entry of the house.
“Our first victim, we’ll call him Crispy One, was found here. But this isn’t where he started to burn. Crispy One’s gone to check the cooking, assumes it’s all okay, decides to light a smoke, and boom. A fireball from hell engulfs the room. Crispy One staggers back a few steps, collapses here to finish toasting.”
“Should you really be calling the victims crispy?”
Cal raised his hand to his ear, indicating he was listening. “I don’t hear any complaints. So, let me get back to what happened. Crispy Two and Three have been sitting on the mattress on the other side of the room, or maybe standing somewhere over there.” Cal indicated an alternate doorway leading into the living space. “Crispy Two and Three, surprised as all hell, and now also on fire, jump up and try to flee. We found Crispy Two in the next room. He acted as combustion source number two, spreading the fire to the right hand side of the home. Crispy Three was luckier. He nearly made it outside. We found him stuck to the linoleum in the kitchen. Combustion source number three, which ignited the back of the home. With three fires now placed equally throughout the residence, the whole place goes up, and we are left with this.”
“Cal, you are the sickest, most twisted individual I believe I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.” Steve wondered how affected the man’s mind really was. You couldn’t troll through scenes of death and destruction like this every day without developing some kind of odd behavior or thinking. He assumed using the term crispy to describe the victims was Cal’s way of lessening the human aspect of what he dealt with. The two men walked from the home, Steve thankful he could finally remove his mask.
“So your report will say the fire was started by a cigarette.”
“No, my report will say the fire was started by a chemical explosion. The cigarette lighter, still in Crispy One’s hand, I might add, ignited fumes from whatever they were cooking. I don’t even think the victims would have realized how much danger they were in. They obviously adjusted to the chemical smell over time. Once the place was locked up tight, the fumes continued to fill the room and other areas of the home to a lesser extent. Eventually all it took was the ignition source, midair as it was, and boom.”
Steve followed Cal back to his four-wheel drive and took up position in the passenger seat. Cal didn’t bother using the driveway of the old home to get back on the main road. He followed a direct line across a field, and over a broken wire fence to get them to their destination instead.
“So when will you know what they were cooking.”
“I’ll get reports back within the week. We did find a few other items that are being analyzed as well.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a woman’s handbag, some drug paraphernalia, all of it burnt to a crisp of course, so we won’t get prints off a thing. It will all be in the report. I can tell you though that the three victims were all men, so—”
“We have a possible fourth, likely a female who escaped the fire. And she didn’t report it. The emergency call came from a truck driver who spotted the fire as he headed into the city, correct?”
“Exactly, and the woman may have needed treatment for burns or smoke inhalation, depending on how close she came to the fire of course.”
“I’ll get one of my team to check the hospital for anything that could correlate.” Steve relaxed back in the seat. It wasn’t often someone else drove him anywhere, and he hadn’t taken his Harley to work this morning. He’d trained it into the city for a meeting instead. When Cal called about meeting him at the fire scene, it had been a blessing. The trip into the city that morning reminded him how much he hated public transportation. Cal had collected him from police headquarters and now, he would chauffeur him home. Well, one street away from his house, close enough to count it as a home trip.
“Where am I dropping you off?”
“I’m visiting my sister, so drop me there, and I’ll walk home from her place.”
“Cool, I’ll come in and visit with the lovely Angel as well. I need a coffee. The aroma will take the smell of black, burnt shit, as you so aptly refer to it, out of my nostrils.”
Cal had learnt the hard way to be cautious and respectful about Steve’s sister, Angel. Steve had warned his friend more than once to stop using sexualized description about his sister. The day Cal had said I could pound that ass until my cock fell off, had been the last straw. Cal’s swollen lip and black eye hadn’t taken long to heal. It was the perfect lesson in attitudinal adjustment his friend needed. From that time forward, he’d only ever referred to Steve’s little sister as the lovely Angel, which she was.
Steve decided to take a shower at his sister’s. Even though he’d worn a mask at the burnt-out house, the smell of being there clung to him. Angel insisted, if he intended to stay for dinner, Steve needed to remove the smell. As it was, she’d made Cal and him drink their coffee on the back veranda, rather than coming inside. Cal and he were agreeable to the request, especially considering their boots had black sludge marring the soles. Even after running the bottom of their shoes under the outdoor tap, they still managed to scuff the wooden deck with dark footprints.
Steve, now clean, dressed in borrowed jeans and a T-shirt, and smelling more like himself, sat on the steps of Angel’s back veranda, watching her twins playing in the yard. Angel was inside making fresh coffee, entrusting the twins to his care. The only instruction he’d been given was, “Make sure they don’t eat anything that might hurt them.” Steve wasn’t sure if sand from the big plastic clam shell they played in counted, so he decided to let them enjoy the textural experience. After all, sand was just organic matter. It wasn’t toxic. Nor was it something he’d eat, but then, he wasn’t a three-year-old.
Four years ago, he would never have imagined himself doing this. After all, four years ago he didn’t even know he had a sister, and now here he was, an uncle to twins. Life was a series of surprises.
Steve let the memories form. Four years ago, his life was good. He’d discovered Angel was his sister, he had a wife, whom he loved more than life, a great home near the beach, and was working as a detective, which he enjoyed. All in all, life was grand. How quickly things change. Once his wife Kathy was diagnosed with cancer life ceased as he knew it. In fact, after her death he no longer had a life. He merely existed.
It had taken Steve a while, but he’d finally decided that alone wasn’t a bad thing. He could always find company if the isolation became overwhelming, and once he accepted that having sex with another woman wasn’t cheating on Kathy, his sexual needs were sated.
He knew that a permanent relationship was a near impossibility for him now. Kathy had been his soul mate, and Steve believed love like he’d shared with his wife didn’t come along twice in a lifetime. The best he could hope for would be a regular, casual play partner, without the emotional involvement that most people desired.
Steve didn’t have a problem attracting women. He could flirt up a storm when he put his mind to it. The problem was, even though his body wanted the affection and release of lust with another, his heart wasn’t in it. He could flirt or fuck till the cows came home, but the need for true intimacy wasn’t there. His attraction to women these days was purely carnal. Steve had never been a man to confuse lust for love, he knew what each involved, and they were two very different beasts. Currently the beast of lust was reigning free, because t
he beast of love had died along with his wife two years ago.
“Why are you allowing my children to eat sand?” Angel emerged from the house with two coffees and two glasses of fruit juice on a tray. She sounded a little annoyed with him.
“It’s organic.” Steve shrugged. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt them.”
Angel sat the tray next to Steve before walking over to the sand pit and addressing the sand eating issue. It didn’t surprise Steve that the twins were gorgeous looking kids. After all, they had good-looking parents. It would have been unkind if the universe had given the Shore family ugly babies, but at the same time, Steve thought ugly children would have been amusing.
The twins were a pigeon pair. One of each sex…a boy and a girl. Jed and Amy. According to their mother both names meant ‘beloved’, which Steve thought was cool. Amy had Angel and Daniel’s dark hair, with Daniel’s deep brown eyes. Jed had Christian’s blonde hair with Angel’s brilliant emerald-colored eyes. The fact that the twins bore traits from all three parents had initially amazed everyone. Eventually it had been determined that the fraternal twins were produced by the simultaneous fertilization of the two eggs with sperm from each man. Testing confirmed that, in fact, Daniel was father to Amy, and Christian was father to Jed. Steve regularly teased both men about taking the sharing thing to a whole new level, by managing to get their own offspring to share the womb.
“What’s bothering you? You look a bit somber.” For some reason, Angel could read Steve like a book.
