“I saw you downstairs with the Usual Suspect” A towering woman approached and spoke to Harlow with what looked like disdain. “Did he say anything to you?”
“No. I walked out before he got the chance. I was shocked to see him here though.” Harlow spoke coolly to the giantess. There were definitely no happy hour vibes between them.
“Cole decided to allow him in. Better we have eyes on him than having him go rogue. Get some idea what he's up to while he doesn't know we know.”
“That's a good idea. If he's banned he's going to suspect we're on to him but going forward I'd appreciate being kept in the loop and avoiding shock.”
The towering woman gave a “whatever” smirk and strutted away.
“How does she walk in those thirteen inch heels?” I whispered to Harlow.
“How does she breathe in a six inch corset?”
We buried our noses in the martini glasses to hide our giggles.
“That's better. At least meeting Rowan took the pallor out of your face. I was worried I did the wrong thing bringing you here.”
“Honestly, it's not that. Have you ever been weirdly attached to someone after only one night and can't seem to let go?” There, it was out. If it was inappropriate she could tell me so but I had to share with someone before I burned up in a ball of re-entry fire.
“Hell, yeah. For a mere six long years of my life.”
“Really. And how did you get him out of your hair?”
“I didn't.”
“It was Cole?”
“Yeah. He disappeared on me after one night of the most incredible passion imaginable. Just upped and vanished without even a ciao, bella.”
I could imagine very clearly. Cole was incredible but she didn't know Cruz.
“When he came back after six years of me suffering without knowing why, he was different. He'd been through so much pain, he'd changed into a different person. I didn't know who he was and I was angry. Then there was the small matter of our parents had gotten married in the meantime making us step-siblings.”
Harlow ordered more drinks, champagne this time. As though she needed fuel to retell this tale from her past.
“So, if you don't mind me asking, how did you two get over all that?”
“First, I grew up. I stopped living in my fantasies and accepted all the fantasy Cole was ready to give me. I just had to learn to trust him and stop running away from my fears. No matter how hard you run away, they always circle around back in front of you, you can never outrun them. You have to turn around and look them in the eye.”
“Cole loves you so much. The feeling shining out of his face when he looks at you makes him even more handsome.”
“We both never stopped thinking and dreaming of the other one, all those years. If you want this mystery man you may have to be patient.”
“I think he's more than I can handle. He's rich and successful and gob-smacking handsome.”
“Uh huh, I know a guy like that. Those types are usually hurting somewhere inside. They're seeking a particular woman to ease that without realizing it. He'll be back and you'll be ready this time.”
Cruz
I got a good laugh out of breezing past the sniper's latest security system. The sonofabitch really thought super hi-tech could keep me out? Only in his dreams. I live super high-tech and I'm gonna be his biggest nightmare.
I didn't have to hang around long before they came home from the club and I got an even bigger reward. It made me fuzzy warm in my gut to hear them fighting over me. Anything I could do to cause that asshole any hassle would be my greatest pleasure. Same as he does everything possible to mess me up. He was nothing but a cold-blooded killer masquerading as a man with a soul and he doesn't deserve to keep a girl like Harlow caring for him so deeply. If he was nervous about Harlow's feelings for me, he should be.
“I just would have like to be forewarned,” my girl was saying as the elevator doors opened into the penthouse..
“Why? If you don't still get excited for Cruz de fucking Angelis what difference does it make to you if you run into him in the shibari room?”
He was already riled, the asshole professional killer, I know that body language.
“It was one time, Cole. I was confused, torn up inside over us and I wanted to experience shibari. Nothing else happened.”
So he knew. She must have told him all about the night we spent together. I edged along the hall, following them to the bedrooms. I was careful not to be sussed, much as I was desperate to hear his belly-aching over how much I excite her.
“And what about you and Rowan? She still treats me like the hired help.”
“Don't deflect back onto me to absolve yourself from this, babe. You know how Rowan is, that much must be obvious.”
“There you go protecting her. There's this thing between you. How can I feel secure that you won't run to her every time we have a fall out?”
“I told you a thousand times I'm sorry about that. I was crazed for you that night, only you.”
“Now who's deflecting?”
“But I am sorry. If I could take it back I would. Let's just agree never to have any more fall outs.”
“I guess we were both running scared. Me with Cruz, you with Rowan.”
“Cheating isn't cheating if it helps two people emerge out of their fear and closer together.”
Man, he's fucking smooth. And just like that, fuck it, he'd slipped that naked dress from her shoulders and was on his knees in front of her. And instead of drop-kicking him to the ground like he deserved, she was writhing her way out of her panties and standing astride him with her head thrown back so those glossy locks curl into her ass crack.
My dick was on fire, seeing her bare, smooth round ass, watching her agile back flex, hearing her moan. Every inch of my rod was howling to move three steps into the room and plunge into her from behind while he was on his knees in front of her. I could clearly picture freeing those astounding breasts from the nothing gauze of bra she's wearing. They'd be all mine, as I crushed them in my palms and rolled her unforgettable nipples in my fingertips.
My cock would slide so perfectly into her tighter passage and I'd hear her cry out at the invasion. The double pleasure from one man's dick and another man's tongue would send her howling at the moon. The urge to claim her finally was beyond bearing. I wouldn't even care if I had to share her with him. I was used to sharing lovers. Cole and I could fight our duel with blades buried deep inside the woman we were both burning for. The three of us would be perfect together. The ultimate menage, made for each other.
My prick was pulsing livid with need. I have to feel her walls squeezing me. That searing fire was alive in me, to be squeezed and held tightly inside a woman's body. She was so beautiful when her tunnel surrendered to me, the walls collapsing before bouncing back to tug me tighter, deeper. How she moaned lightly at the intensity of pleasure my shaft rubbing the length of her chasm offered. And then I was sleeping in her arms.
Wait, how the fuck did that happen? How did the girl with no name intrude into my mind yet again? I can't stop her rampaging into my thoughts even when I'm standing ten feet away from the woman I need to possess. The girl with no name rose up to claim me as hers, making my cock rage with desire to be buried deep inside her sweet slickness again.
No. I do not do this. No woman has ever raided my mind and refused to leave.
I forced my attention back to the pair in the bedroom. Harlow lithe and naked standing over the bastard at her feet. He was making her beg and plead for him to take her and my mind drifted again. To the nameless girl with her soft hair sticking lightly to her cheek as she begged me to come inside her. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why did I merge myself with her so that now I can't break free? Suddenly I couldn't stand there spying on these two. It felt all wrong. I came with a single purpose I can hardly recall. She's made me forget everything I'm required to do.
A sliver of shadow behind me made me press flat to the wall. I have
eyes everywhere even where I cannot see. I whipped my head around to see a face I know from somewhere. A face that's nothing but three massive circles of horror. Eyes and mouth stretched wide in fear. A girl who clamped both hands over her mouth at once and ran tearing down the hall.
The situation was compromised, so I slipped out of the penthouse. I'd have to complete this task some other time when I'm not so fucking distracted.
Chapter TEN
In seconds I was back on Fifth Avenue and strapped in the cockpit of the Wind God, spiriting me at high speed away from that harrowing situation.
Kenn was waiting for me in her usual place, like a siren draped across the sofa. She came to soothe me and twined her lithe little body around mine, offering me her round perfect breasts. For a moment I could breathe easy again. Until that goddamn nameless girl swirled into my head again.
“I've got a lot on my mind, Sis.” I told her But I extricated myself carefully so she didn't freak out over the rejection. “You need to go to DC first thing. Until I take care of this current situation I can't relax.”
“I think there are people watching the building,” Kennedy said. “Do you think they're on to us?”
I recalled the bulldog bouncer saying I'd been suspended and the way the Femdom appeared too conveniently to announce I should be admitted. It made sense.
“Yeah, I think they've nailed it. All the more reason for you to leave in the morning, get this job done.”
“But we've never been separated. Not once since you came back from the Far East.”
“I know, but it's time now. You're the only one I can trust with a job this sensitive.”
“And what are you going to do?”
I didn't tell her that I had to snatch Harlow because I didn't need any tantrums. But I knew then what my plan of action had to be. Right before I slipped out of Illicit, I'd clocked Harlow and the anonymous girl chatting at the bar with the ogress. One thirty second phone call was all it took to find out that the girl's new job was working for Harlow's charity. It was just silly putty. All I had to do was get together with Miss Pure at Heart, the perfect conduit of intel for what's going on at Illicit and, more important, my access to Harlow's mind.
“Cruz, what's up?” Kenn wrapped herself around me again as I sink into the sofa. “You look ghosty.”
“I did see a ghost tonight.”
“Who? Where?”
The image of the girl in the hallway at Cole's penthouse swarmed back to me. There's a history she and I have together, the details of which keep slipping out of my head. I bashed the side of my skull with the brick-like nub at the base of my hand but nothing flowed into clarity. Pictures of the past flashed through my head randomly and refused to gel. Something told me the girl in the hall was a player in an event I had no wish to remember.
Dani
Bo came home from happy hour and found me sobbing like a little fool.
“Boy trouble?” he asked, taking my hand between his two plump ones.
I nodded, unable to say the words. I sat up and pulled myself together. My best friend didn't need to come home and find a sniveling misery on his couch. Bad enough that, as my vile ex Bradley foretold, I was on cold pizza and reading socks every night. No amount of coaxing and threats from Bo could get me out to a bar.
I'd bitten down on my lower lip all day at the office after seeing Cruz at Illicit. As soon as I arrived into solitude at home though, the emotion welled up and ripped me apart. Why, why, why? I only needed to know why he came close and then walked away. Literally turning from me without acknowledging my existence.
It was only when Bo dug out the tequila and two shot glasses that I found the power of speech and my tongue was irredeemably loosened.
“I feel so stupid, crying over nothing, a fantasy, a wish in my head that I'd have what I longed for. Someone who would look at me the way Cole Winter looked at Harlow.”
“Didn't I already tell you babe that something's amiss here? A man sending flowers and gourmet breakfast isn't a fuck-and-run criminal. Something flicked a switch in him but for sure he was into you. It's only a matter of time before he's back because you are too irresistible.”
“Thanks. I know you're only saying that to make me feel better but it's working.”
“I am, but it ain't nothing but the truth girlfriend.”
I love how Bo did his best Queen Latifah impression complete with the finger, which was terrible but made me giggle. “You're a girl who deserves the best and he will realize it.”
“Actually he said the same thing the night we met. He told me I deserved better than Bradley.”
“The street mutt in the alley deserves better than that slime ball.”
“You never liked him.”
“Guilty your honor and not afraid to plead. And not only because I can't stand lawyers.”
“I was going to be one.”
“You were never going to be one anymore than you were going to waste your life with that A-wipe. Hang on girlfriend because I got a feeling good things are coming.”
We laughed when my phone tweeted at that moment.
“There, what'd I tell you? Perhaps you won the Lotto.”
“Oh my god. It's a message from Cruz.” The hitch in my breath was loud enough to wake sleeping alley mutts.
“I thought you said he didn't even ask for your number,” Bo said, his head cocked to one side in the way that reminded me of an adorable labrador.
I couldn't think straight. After weeks of staring into the distance through any window, now the man I could not stop fantasizing about had decided to reach out to me. But why now?
“He didn't and I have no idea how he got it but I wouldn't put anything at all past that man. Whatever he wants, he'll get.”
“So come on, what does he say?”
Its not something I usually do but id like to take u out for our next date
“Wow, the last of the great romantic poets,” Bo said. “And he waited long enough.”
“No I get it. He wants me to know that he's not going to be the trad hearts and flowers type. It's an early warning not to expect more than he can give.”
“Like I said, last of the romantics.”
“Believe me if you saw this guy and spent even an hour in his arms, you'd know.”
“I'm not so sure. I'm not much of a one for wounded warriors. But I can see you're as smitten as if you'd come upon a baby bird fallen out of its nest.”
“I have to do this. This is not your normal fuckbuddy and I need to see where it takes me.”
“I just don't wanna see you get hurt. Tell this Cruz missile that he'll have me to deal with if I come home and catch you sobbing one more time.”
“I'll mention it but trust me, you'd need all the Russian hoods in the city behind you to take on this guy.”
Cruz disarming my ex with one hand was still a mystery in my mind. “But thank you for caring. You're the bestest ever. And I will be careful.”
Cruz
It all goes to hell and turns to farce, as dating has a tendency to do. My arranged meet with the nameless girl at Rosewood was mutually hijacked when she had to dance around her boss and I had to take care of a broken ankle. And to top it all off with sprinkles, Kennedy was dragging her ass about getting down to DC. She'd packed and unpacked and repacked about a hundred times, saying she's got nothing to wear for this mission although she can barely get inside her walk-in closet it's so stuffed. She wandered around the suite for days wearing nothing but one of my old tee shirts and a deep pout like there's all the time in the universe to take care of this.
“You're slipping away, I can feel it,” she whined, draping bare her legs across my lap.
“I'm not. I told you I'm very wound up with this and you aren't being the support star I'm used to.”
“I'm scared, Cruz.”
“But you enjoy these missions.”
“We always did them together, here. Now you're sending me away.”
Chapter ELEVEN
>
When Ophelia called I was more than happy to take her out for a whirl just to get away from Project Runway at the suite. We went out to the Hamptons in the Huayra and when she fell, she refused to go to her clinic. She hates being the focus of attention and hates doctors more. I got her home and the only medic she trusts, a Swami type from India came over to mix up his lurid yellow powders.
“You know Ayurveda is the only medicine,” she insisted. Ophelia still behaved like a flower child from the sixties. I guess she prefers not to catch up with the horror of technology.
Then the girl called to say she's sorry she's late.
“I'm so sorry I got held up at the office, well at Harlow’s, she's my boss, apartment really. She wanted to work at home because her housekeeper is - well, sorry I'm babbling. I just wondered whether you're late too or if you gave up on waiting for me, which I wouldn’t blame you for at all but - Oh, there I go babbling again, Cruz I'm so nervous.”
“It's okay. I got held up too.”
I had no option but to give her the address at Ophelia's. Yeah, I could have blown it off for another night but soon as she mentioned the housekeeper at Harlow's, it was a done deal. I couldn't run out on Ophelia so the girl would have to meet me here. I meant to catch her outside when she arrived because, what the fuck is she gonna think, pulling up at a Fifth Avenue mansion? But Ophelia was in a ton of pain and I couldn't abandon her to a room filled with incense and chanting.
When the butler showed the girl into the parlor, she looked very tiny and very shocked, like she'd wandered into the Vatican for an audience with the Pope. I leapt up from the sofa before Giles announced her but the distance from seating arrangement to entrance was a sprint.
“A Miss Danny Madison,” he called, like he was presenting a debutante to the Queen of England. In a way he was. Ophelia looked up from where the Guru was fussing over her ankle, with an interest I hadn't seen in ages. I was grateful that at least I knew the girl's name now. Danny Madison.
CRUZ: Billionaire Bonded Romance Suspense (Illicit Book 4) Page 5
