A French Whipping

by Nicole Camden

  Blake took pity on him, trying not to laugh.

  “Why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll see what I can do with it?” She patted his chest.

  He grabbed her and kissed her quickly. “Thank you. Okay, I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  He ran as fast as he could from a bedraggled stray that probably weighed no more than his phone. Figured. Blake thought about what she’d said to him last night, about the way he’d frozen up.

  Yeah. It figured.

  20

  NICK SHOWERED QUICKLY. A kitten. Blake was right. They’d have to find a rescue group or a shelter that could take the thing. What had he been thinking?

  When he returned to the kitchen, Blake was at the sink, a towel wrapped around her waist like an apron and tied at her lower back in a knot. She’d cleaned up the mess they’d made in the kitchen last night, and was bent over the sink. It made the T-shirt she’d stolen from him ride up so that he could just see the cheeks of her ass. If she hadn’t been attempting to bathe an irate feline with sharp claws, he would have done a little exploring. As it was, he approached warily, not wanting to startle her or be asked to do anything to help.

  “How’s it going?” He could hear the guilt in his voice and knew she could hear it as well.

  She sent him a wrathful look over her shoulder. “This should be you.”

  Nick quickly stepped to the side and picked up his reading glasses. “I’ll find a shelter that’s open.”

  He logged in to his computer and pulled up Google, hoping he’d find something that was open. If not, he was going to have to locate a pet store pretty quickly and lay in some temporary supplies.

  “What are you bathing it with?”

  “It’s a girl.”

  He’d take her word for it. “Okay.”

  “I’m using some of the glycerin soap I found in the guest bathroom. She’ll smell like lemongrass instead of garbage. I hope. I’ve already picked six fleas off of her.”

  Nick glanced at the floor. She’d cleaned up the saucer and the spilled milk. He hoped he hadn’t just infested his house. He scratched his arm, scowling.

  He found eight shelters in the area, but none of them were open on Sundays except the Boston Adoption Center, and not until noon. He clicked on the adoptable animals and was shocked to see so many. He looked at Blake. He hoped she’d be okay leaving it there. It may not get adopted, and it wasn’t like they could keep the animals around forever. He’d have to donate big, maybe send in a couple hundred thousand or something. Surely then he wouldn’t feel bad about leaving one little kitten.

  “The MSPCA at Boston Adoption Center is open at noon.” The MSPCA was a private entity that stood for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  She’d removed the towel and wrapped the kitten up in it, walking over to him to look over his shoulder at the computer.

  “Okay, we can pick up some kitty litter and some food for her for now, and then just donate everything when we drop her off.”

  Nick sighed in relief. “Great. We can get breakfast while we’re out, though I don’t know what we’ll do with her while we eat.”

  The little girl had calmed down now that her belly was full and seemed to like the way Blake was rubbing her fur dry with the towel. He supposed she wasn’t hideous.

  “We’ll find something to carry her in at the pet store, and it’s a pretty day. We can sit outside.”

  Nick would have preferred something less exposed in case Keenan followed them, but the plan had the merit of being unpredictable, and the security detail wouldn’t be far away.

  “Okay, I found a pet boutique on Gloucester. What’s a pet boutique?”

  Blake rolled her eyes and kissed the top of the kitten’s head. “That’s where rich kitties like Missy here go shopping for rhinestone collars and organic kitty chow.”

  Nick frowned. “Missy?”

  Blake shrugged. “It’s better than just saying ‘her’ over and over again.”

  Nick wasn’t so sure about that. He was pretty sure that naming something meant that it was yours, like a ship. He shifted his feet, trying to find his balance. His favorite yacht, moored in Boston Harbor, bore the name Green-Eyed Lady.

  Two hours later, the cat was slumbering in a deluxe kitty carrier at Blake’s feet while they ate brunch at an outdoor café.

  “I’m just saying that there’s no harm in waiting until tomorrow and taking her to a no-kill shelter. I’ll still make a donation.”

  Blake tried not to smile adoringly at him, but it was a challenge. He’d carried the cat through the boutique while an orange-haired woman with thick glasses had explained different kinds of food, and kitty litter, and where to take Missy for shots. Blake had watched him absorb it all in that intense way he had and knew that the cat wasn’t going anywhere. She wondered how long it would take before he realized this himself.

  “I wanted to show you the progress we’ve made on the video game for the kids,” he continued. “I told them we’d come by on Friday, though I think Milton will be back by then.”

  Blake nodded automatically. “Of course. I’m excited to see it. Is it a war game?”

  Nick finished a bite of his spinach salad—the man was disgustingly healthy—and explained, “It’s a survival game, but not one that relies on guns or killing.”

  A survival game. How appropriate. The kids at the hospital, that was all they did, but she’d bet that Nick hadn’t included anything about being sick or in a hospital.

  “So what do they have to do?”

  “It’s actually kind of like the game Keenan stole from us originally, the one with mazes and knots, only I had the developers scrap the idea of a maze and just set the survival situations in different backgrounds.”

  “So, the character is stuck in a life-threatening situation . . .”

  “And there are choices for actions to take, like building a machine that will help you scale a wall, or what to use to fend off a bear, or what knot to use as a snare, or how to tie a French whipping,” he finished.

  Blake couldn’t help it. “A French whipping?”

  “You’re as bad as Milton,” Nick muttered. “It’s a type of knot, not a kinky sex game.”

  “Pity.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “So what’s it used for, if not to pleasure naughty girls like me?” She scooped up a bit of her angel-hair pasta, wrapping the buttery noodles around her fork and taking a slow bite.

  His eyes narrowed and he said huskily, “Oh, I’m sure I could use it to pleasure you.”

  His voice had roughened and Blake swallowed. She should know better. Every time she teased him, she was the one who ended up squirming.

  “But it’s actually a practical knot,” he said in a more normal tone. “It’s used to secure the end of a line that’s unraveling.”

  “You’ll have to show me,” Blake said huskily, thinking of the book in the guest bedroom. Talk about unraveling. Just the thought of what it would be like to have him secure her that way was enough to have her crossing and uncrossing her legs restlessly.

  He regarded her with a knowing gleam in his eye. “We could always get the food boxed up to go.”

  Blake smiled and picked up her chardonnay. “Where’s that famous patience of yours, Mr. Cord? I think you can wait a little while longer.”

  “For every minute I wait, I’m going to make you wait.”

  Blake choked a little and had to clear her throat. “I’ll get the check.”

  21

  ON THE WAY back to the house, Roland called Nick’s phone, his voice slightly muffled at first.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “I said,” Roland’s voice came more clearly over the line, “that I think I have a lead on where Keenan has been staying.”

  Nick glanced at Blake as he drove back to his apartment. She w
as holding the kitten in her lap, petting the fluffy thing, which had curled into a ball against her thighs and gone to sleep. I’d like to be the one curled up against her thighs, he thought darkly.

  “Did you call the detective?”

  “Not exactly. This lead doesn’t really want to be known to the cops, if you know what I mean.”

  Nick knew. It was one of Roland’s father’s acquaintances, most likely. Crawly wasn’t known for having friends of sterling character.

  “He know anything about Keenan being with a woman?”

  “Not that he said, but he doesn’t want to talk over the phone.”

  “You’re meeting him?”

  “Yeah. You coming?” Roland asked.

  “Who is he?”

  “A supplier. Mostly papers, but he works in weapons and technology as well.”

  Nick would actually have preferred to go back to his apartment and tie Blake up in intricate knots and then fuck her delicately while she lay helpless, but he wanted her safe more than anything, and he didn’t want Roland to meet with anyone without someone watching his back.

  “Yeah. How are we getting there?”

  “I’ll come by and get you. Be there in thirty minutes.”

  Roland hung up. Nick glanced over at Blake. She didn’t look happy.

  “Something to do with Keenan?”

  “Roland has a lead. He and I are going to meet with someone he knows.”

  “By yourselves? You don’t think that’s a little dangerous?”

  Nick wouldn’t have called it safe, but he also knew that people like Keenan were usually found through men who moved in the same circles. Besides, he and Roland could take care of themselves for the most part. Nick was confident he could handle most attacks, provided the other person didn’t have a gun. Roland had a concealed-carry license, so he would undoubtedly be armed, but Nick had never known Roland to rely on a weapon when charm or bribery usually did the trick.

  “We’ll be fine,” he promised. “I’ll probably be gone most of the afternoon, and when I get back, we’ll have dinner and go do something fun, just you and me.”

  “I might call Rosa. She if she can fit me in for another self-defense lesson.”

  Nick frowned. He didn’t want her to go anywhere, not without him around, but he didn’t see how he could prevent her from leaving, either. “Why don’t you invite her over to my apartment? You can use the gym upstairs. You’ll be protected by the security staff.”

  She studied him, her eyes gentle. “I can’t stay tucked inside your apartment forever, Nick.”

  “It’s not forever. It’s just until we find Keenan.”

  Shaking her head, Blake looked out the window. “You know we may not ever find him.”

  “We will,” he insisted. “We have something he wants.” He wasn’t entirely sure if he was referring to the software or to Blake. He knew which he’d pick if told to choose. In any case, they already had teams looking for Keenan, both as part of the security and investigation company they’d hired and in a team of hackers looking for any sign of Keenan’s activity on the Internet. The cops were also looking. As long as Keenan didn’t disappear off the face of the earth again, they would catch him. He’d never be able to threaten them again.

  And their lives could go back to the way they’d been.

  He looked at the cat, purring contentedly beneath Blake’s fingers. Back to the way they had been. . . . Why did that sound so . . . unpleasant?

  Thirty minutes later, Blake and Missy were safely ensconced in the apartment and Nick was stepping into a car he didn’t recognize, a newer-model Mercedes SUV.

  “New car?” he asked Roland, settling himself on the leather and buckling his seat belt. Roland liked cars and kept a collection on an estate out in the country, close to the coast where there were several cranberry bogs.

  Roland nodded. “Bought it a few weeks ago. Blake doing okay?”

  Nick thought about telling Roland what she’d said the night before, but he stopped himself. It probably wasn’t the time, and he didn’t know what the hell he would say, anyway.

  “She’s hanging in there. Still taking self-defense lessons. I was going to show her a few things this week as well. Where are we headed?”

  “Dorchester.”

  Dorchester was a town south of even South Boston, and known to have quite a bit of crime, but on a Sunday afternoon it would be fairly quiet depending on where they went.

  “Blake texted me,” Roland said with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  Nick felt his head snap up.

  Roland raised an eyebrow at him. “She said to ask you about Missy.”

  Nick groaned. He was never going to hear the end of it once he admitted that he’d picked up a kitten off the street.

  “Turning into a domesticated man, aren’t you, Nick?”

  She’d told him. Of course she’d told him. Why would thinking she loved him mean that she wouldn’t take every opportunity to give him a hard time, just as she always had? Somehow that thought cheered him up, just a little.

  “I thought it would distract Blake from what’s going on,” Nick lied, though now that he’d seen her holding the cat, he did think the little creature was helping her.

  Roland snorted. “She sent me a picture of you carrying it around a pet store like a baby.”

  Okay, so maybe the cat had distracted him as well. “It’s not so bad now that it’s clean.”

  “If you say so. First there’s a woman in your house and now you’re bringing home stray animals. Before you know it, you’ll be married with a couple kids running around.”

  An image of Blake, round with his child, popped into Nick’s head, and he blinked, putting a hand to his chest. No. Just no. He’d be a horrible father.

  “So, who are we meeting?” Nick changed the subject.

  “Man named John Justice. It’s his real name as far as I can tell. How’s that for a piece of irony? He’s a con artist, a drug dealer on occasion, and a snitch for the right price.”

  Nick nodded. “I figured.”

  “So watch your back, okay?”

  “I will. And yours, too.”

  “Thanks.” Roland looked grim, just as he had ever since Keenan had first attempted to steal the software a few months ago.

  Nick studied his friend, wondering what exactly was going on in that complicated brain of his. “Roland, when did you first suspect that hack of our systems in January was Keenan’s work? When you connected it to those Russian gangsters?”

  His friend didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but when he did it sounded dragged out of him, like he hadn’t wanted to admit it. “I saw him in Russia a couple years ago. I couldn’t touch him; he was working for Polzin on something to do with stealing top-secret information from the Kremlin, so I knew they were connected. At the time, Polzin had some information I needed, so I didn’t pursue Keenan the way I should have.”

  Polzin was a Russian gangster Accendo had done some software encryption and security work for in the past, but then Milton and Nick had figured out that Polzin had been at least partly behind the attempted theft of MOMENT a few months ago.

  “So you knew that Polzin and Keenan were connected?”

  Roland shook his head, but not to deny what Nick was saying, more like he still couldn’t believe something. “I always knew that one day I would have to deal with Keenan. Even looking for him all those years, I knew that one day he would come after me. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.”

  “It’s not your fault, Roland,” Nick argued. It seemed like he was saying that a lot lately.

  “I should have seen what he was,” Roland said darkly.

  Nick stared at his friend. Roland rarely expressed regret . . . or fear, for that matter. He presented himself as perpetually confident. As far as Nick knew, only Keenan had e
ver managed to get the best of him.

  And if he could get the best of Roland, then he could get the best of anyone.

  22

  BACK AT NICK’S apartment, Blake unpacked all the equipment they’d purchased for the kitten, including a litter box. She set Missy on the sand and waited, pleased when the cat used the litter right away. However, when Missy had finished, she attempted to bury the evidence, spraying litter in all directions.

  Wincing, Blake picked her up before she could redecorate the entire room. “We may have to get one of those domed kitty boxes,” she informed the kitten seriously, holding the baby on her back with one hand, soft kitten belly in the air. “And Nick’s maid is going to need a raise.”

  Missy tried to squirm out of her grasp, so Blake carried her into the living room and put her back down near the French doors with a small wool mouse toy that Nick had picked out.

  Nick. So clueless for such a smart man.

  Her phone dinged. It was a text from Milton. Miss you. Regina says hi.

  Blake smiled. Miss you too. Tell her I’m jealous.

  Headed back tomorrow. Worried about you.

  Blake scowled. Don’t come back because of Keenan. I’m fine.

  Nick?

  What was he asking? Nick is fine.

  He treatin you OK?

  Nick is wonderful.

  He was, even though he hadn’t exactly jumped for joy at her declaration of love. She loved him. He didn’t have to love her back.

  He deserved better. She knew that. But she was selfish enough to want him for herself anyway. None of those silly twits he liked to date would ever be good enough for him, either.

  If you say so. See you soon.

  See you soon, Blake replied, hoping she’d convinced him not to cut short the vacation, if only for Regina’s sake. The doctor hadn’t had a vacation in a long time, and she deserved one more than anyone else Blake knew.

  Determined to stop feeling sorry for herself, she called Rosa, hoping that the woman answered. She needed to do something before she lost her mind and started surfing the Internet for kitty supplies.