by Sedona Venez
I couldn’t escape it any more than I could escape the insistent strokes on my throbbing clit, his hold keeping me still, forcing me to accept all he had to give me, making me give him even more than I had known I had to give.
Fuck. He’s reaching in, snatching part of my damn soul.
Core lifted me, keeping me on my knees in front of him as he buried himself deep in my ass at the same time he buried his face in my hair.
“Fuck, Sin,” he growled harshly, holding me, pulling me back against him, and he came deep inside my ass. “Mine.”
With a shudder, he released my hands before sitting on his heels, pulling me down to sit over his thighs. His cock pulsed inside me, drawing a moan from me as my head fell back against his shoulder.
His arms wrapped around me, the muscles beneath my thighs rock hard. “I’ve never wanted a woman more.” He cupped my breasts. “You okay, darling? Did I hurt you?”
No, I’m not okay. I was emotionally shaken and struggled to shore up defenses that had been eradicated by the intensity of his lovemaking.
Core had made me feel beautiful and desired. I loved the feel of his muscular arms around me and the way his thighs trembled beneath mine. The level of trust it had taken to allow him to do what he’d just done to me scared me.
My body stiffened when the most frightening and, frankly, disturbing thought flashed through my head. Core could easily make me break all my rules about not getting emotionally involved with a man.
And if that happens… will sex continue to be enough for me?
My heart raced as panic started to set in.
Oh God. What if I actually fall in love with him?
Heaviness settled in the pit of my stomach.
Shit. That would be a fucking disaster.
But I knew the possibility of sex morphing into something else was real and damn unnerving.
Jesus, I’m so fucked right now.
WEAVING IN AND OUT OF Manhattan traffic in my Porsche, I reveled in the sounds of the heavy metal music I used for meditation. I needed something to distract me from the powerful arousal that coursed through my body like fire when I remembered how, mere hours ago, Sin had screamed my name over and over again as I devoured her cunt, licking from bottom to top, teasing her clit and lapping up her cream like warm honey.
Damn. And her tight ass is incredible.
The vision of Sin’s eyes dilating with lust flashed in my mind. Basic, raw hunger surged through me, beating at my self-control. My cock swelled, and the wild thought of turning my car around and going back to the penthouse flittered through my mind.
Shit… the things I could do once I got there… like order her to get on her knees and suck me hard and fast. Damn. Just the thought of how her warm, pink tongue would feel against my skin while she teased my cock before taking me to the back of her throat…
I shook my head to clear my lustful, wicked thoughts.
Sin is an addictive distraction.
Even with a string of women and business successes over the years, it had been so long since I was with anyone who looked remotely like a real woman with soft curves, pretty girl-next-door looks, and a sassy, take-no-shit personality like Sin, and it was a bonus that she more than satisfied my distinct and dark tastes in sex.
Shit, my obsession with Sin was crazy and fucking reckless, but the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted her… in and out of my bed.
It wasn’t just her body that captivated me, but her wit, mind, and compassion also drew me in like a moth to a flame. My thoughts drifted back to our conversation and how Sin had instantly recognized and understood the anguish and guilt I’d felt over Mom’s, Maya’s, and my unborn baby’s deaths.
“I’m so sorry,” she had whispered before wrapping her arms around me, pressing her cheek against my chest.
Her impulsive yet simple act of affection and comfort had been unnerving at first. Frankly, it had been so long since I allowed a woman to get close—the last one Maya—that I didn’t even know how to react to her consoling touch. I was always fairly detached with women, and while I kept some of them around for a few months, it was only to hook up with them. I had no emotional investment whatsoever. But with Sin, it was like the emotional walls I’d worked so hard to erect were crumbling down.
Without a doubt, Sin was the full package. She was everything I wanted in a woman—strong, feisty, intelligent, and beautiful. And I wanted her more than any woman I’d been with—even Maya.
This was a real fucked-up predicament.
I had no damn business thinking about Sin that way.
She was supposed to be a woman I was using as bait.
Just a casualty in my war against Bigsby.
I pressed on the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. “Shit.”
I really didn’t need this Sin complication. My life was difficult enough, and I didn’t need any distractions, especially now that I’d found my mother’s killer. Besides, I wasn’t relationship material, and I never would be. I fucked women and then showed them the door. Well… that had been my mode of operation before Sin.
Now my plans for Sin had changed, and I’d decided once I destroyed Bigsby, I’d tell Sin the truth about everything. Not that I’d ever lied to her in the first place. I’d just omitted and dodged telling her some pertinent information so I could keep my Bigsby mission on track and her under my control. I’d already told her the truth—that I’d spent my entire life waiting for the day I’d finally find him, my mother’s killer, and avenge her death.
And Sin had replied, “I don’t blame you for feeling that way, Core.”
So I knew she would understand my motives when I told her the truth about Bigsby.
How could she not?
We’d both lost people in our lives that we loved.
The loss had devastated and changed us forever.
Yes, there was no doubt in my mind that Sin would forgive me, especially when I revealed that the same bastard who had killed my mother also murdered her father.
My cell rang, echoing throughout the confines of my car and rousing me out of my thoughts. Glancing at the caller ID that flashed on the dashboard, I turned down the loud music before pressing the button on my steering wheel.
“What’s up, Kevin?” I answered.
“My connection came through and sent me the info you asked for on Webb.”
“Damn, that was fast.”
As soon as I’d gotten in my car, I’d texted Kevin, instructing him to dig up everything he could find on Jaxon Webb, Sin’s stalker.
“Getting this info was a piece of cake compared to the other crap you asked me to do today.”
“Come on, bro. Just hit me up with the damn info already.”
I was fortunate to have Kevin on my team. He was not only one of my closest friends, the equivalent of a brother, but he was also one of the smartest men I knew. He was a valuable member of my team, handling the financing and accounting for all my businesses as well as all my private intelligence-gathering efforts. If I needed answers, Kevin would reach out to his deep well of intel connections and get that shit, pronto.
My fingers tapped on the steering wheel.
“Jaxon Webb. Caucasian. Thirty-one years old. He’s the only son of a filthy-rich family from Connecticut.”
My lips compressed as I waited for him to get to the point.
“Mother, Claire Webb. Father, Daniel Webb.” Kevin paused for a beat. “Jaxon’s parents are both attorneys…”
Is he kidding me?
I frowned. “Who gives a rat’s ass that they’re attorneys?” I complained under my breath.
Kevin droned on. “At their prominent Manhattan family law firm—”
I cut him off. “Fuck, Kevin!” I banged the steering wheel. “I don’t give a shit about his parents. Just tell me about that asshole Jaxon!”
“Shit. Calm the fuck down, Core,” he replied calmly. “There’s nothing about Jaxon that’s any different than most trust fund babies runni
ng around Manhattan. Shit. I’ve lost brain cells just reading his intel report. Why are you investigating him anyway?”
“He’s stalking Sin,” I gritted out.
My heart jerked as I remembered the vulnerability in her eyes and the truth laid out in her words as she’d told me what that demented asshole had done to her. I had known then that I would cut off my own arm before I’d ever let anyone harm her.
I always protected what I cared for.
“Stalking her?” Kevin responded. “Shit. Well, that’s not good.”
“Why?” I countered.
“Because according to the police report, he has a bad track record with women, and that raises a red flag.”
“Go on.” I prodded, overcome by an edgy, twitchy feeling.
“He’s been accused of sexually assaulting several women. But get this; he’s never been arrested or charged in connection with any of these alleged incidents.”
I snorted. “Let me guess; his parents intervened.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
My business dealings with blue-blooded fuckers had given me a glimpse into their world of bribes and other shady undertakings. I’d quickly learned from watching their maneuvers that if you had money and the right connections and pedigree, you could get away with anything, including murder, without any repercussions.
“Exactly.” Kevin confirmed. “His parents quietly dealt with the women while Jaxon left the country.”
“Where did he go?”
“He hopped around Europe for years. But it didn’t take long for his same pattern with women to start. He was accused of sexually assaulting five women in Europe. But this time, two of them ended up missing and are now presumed dead.”
“Shit!” I stiffened. Disgust twisted my mouth into a sneer. There was no way in hell that I was going to allow that sick fucker to hurt Sin.
She’s mine to protect… to care for.
And no one…
Absolutely no one…
Messes with what’s mine…
Sin.
My pulse elevated.
“Yeah, well, that’s not all,” Kevin replied. “Jaxon recently came back to the US, so that can’t be a good thing for Sin. Once a stalker, always a damn stalker.”
This confirmed Sin’s theory about Jaxon leaving roses on her doorstep. I tightened my fingers around the wheel. If there was one thing I despised, it was men who got their rocks off on harassing and intimidating women. And all the signs pointed to the fact that Jaxon had picked Sin as his next victim. Not on my damn watch. That shit was not going down.
Adrenaline rushed through my body.
“Kevin, you’ve got twenty-four hours to get me his address.” I couldn’t wait to find that coward, wrap my hands around his neck, and watch the life slowly drain from his eyes. “I need to pay that fucker a little visit and permanently shut his ass down.”
“Smart move. I’ll get back to you ASAP.”
“Next topic,” I grunted. “Did you decode Bigsby’s ledger?”
Once Max and Rocco had nabbed Jeff leaving Sin’s house with the ledger in hand, they had taken him to our warehouse for interrogation. Kevin’s role was to take the ledger and start piecing together exactly why it was so important to Bigsby that he’d ordered Jeff to break into Sin’s house to steal it.
“Shit. That was easy,” Kevin bragged. “Each entry in the ledger documents the client’s name, their credit card number, how much they paid, the date they hired the escort, and the name of the escort they fucked.”
“Escort? How the hell did you jump to that conclusion?”
“Jemma Kane,” he disclosed dryly. “She’s a Manhattan madam who got busted about twenty-seven years ago because of a sting that had targeted her massage parlor. Her establishment was really a cover for her high-end escort service, and all her clients were the who’s who of New York. I’m talking about politicians, judges, and Wall Street executives.”
“So what’s her connection to Bigsby?”
Kevin replied, “It was a painstaking process, but for each ledger entry, I ran a check on the credit card number associated with it. And every single credit card number came back to black cards issued by various financial firms and services. The charges were expensed on corporate accounts, disguised as computer repair, trading research, or consulting for market compliance. And every client credit card charge listed in that damn ledger links right back to Jemma’s escort service, which funneled money to several offshore accounts listed in the ledger. Now here’s the smoking gun. Every single one of those offshore accounts is closed, except one. And that active account connects to a shell company called Pomtonic International, which I confirmed is owned by Bigsby.”
“Holy shit,” I answered. “Is she still serving time? Because if we can get to her and offer her some cash, I’m sure she’d be willing to implicate Bigsby as part of her escort business, and then—”
“Great idea, Core. I like where you’re heading, but that shit is not going to happen.”
“Money talks—”
Kevin cut me off. “Jemma never served time.”
“Did she make a deal with the prosecution?” I inquired.
“Don’t know. She went missing without a trace while she was out on bail.”
“So when you say Jemma’s missing, you really mean she’s presumed dead,” I returned.
“Officially, according to the police, she’s missing. Unofficially, she’s presumed dead. It’s speculated that she either jumped bail and fled to Mexico or she was killed by one of her rich clients when she threatened to reveal the names in her black book, which I think is the fucking ledger we now have in our possession.”
“This shit is getting deep,” I mumbled as my mind raced with questions and theories. “But why would she have kept a ledger with all this information?”
“I’d guess it was her security, her plan B, if shit went south and she got nabbed by the police.”
“Exactly,” I interjected. “That’s what I’m thinking. So maybe when she got busted and had her back to the wall, she threatened to out her clients as a part of her plea deal with the authorities.” I frowned. “This is all speculation, but it makes sense. She probably revealed the names and then went into witness protection.”
“Maybe,” Kevin shot back. “This whole Jemma story is just fucking odd. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is off. I couldn’t find any information about her background. No birth certificate, no driver’s license, no photos, not even a blip of personal information about her anywhere. That shit doesn’t happen unless someone wiped her background clean.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone, and so much time has passed since she went missing that even if we wanted to find some of the escorts who had worked for her, that would be a big fucking waste of time.”
I thought about my conversation with Sin this morning when we’d talked about the person who’d broken into her townhouse and destroyed her collection, but the only thing they’d stolen was her dad’s ledger. A ledger that Bigsby had sent his errand boy to break into her house and steal. But how had Bigsby even known where to search for it?
“Did Sin tell you how she ended up with the ledger in the first place?” Kevin asked.
“Her father. And before you ask, she has no clue what the information in the ledger even means.”
Kevin scoffed. “And you believe her?”
“Hell yes, I believe her.”
From what I’d experienced so far, Sin didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. She pulled no punches in everything she did and said—a trait I admired and respected.
“Then how did her father end up possessing Jemma’s ledger—aka little black book?” Kevin inquired.
“Bro,” I barked, “if I knew the answer, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. All this shit… and the connection between Jemma, Bigsby, and Sin’s father is a big damn mystery. I suspect all three have something in common.” I just couldn’t figure out what.
�
�You mean all four,” Kevin stated.
“Four?”
“You forgot Sin,” he informed me.
“Sin is just the unwitting owner. Well, she was the owner of the ledger. We need to focus on our target—Bigsby. It’s taken us over twenty years and a fortune paid to dead-end tips to get this far.”
Bigsby was unfinished business, business I’d been waiting to resolve for far too many years. I had thought of nothing but revenge. It’d consumed me. Just thinking about the night when the unknown assailant wearing a gold ruby-and-diamond-encrusted horseshoe ring had shot my mother and left me choking on my own blood fueled my hate fire. My mother had died, but I survived. I’d finally found the owner of the ring—Bigsby. I had been searching for that ring for years, and it was right under my nose.
“Yeah, but what about Jemma?” Kevin started. “And her missing background is a loose end I don’t like. Until I figure this out, it’s going to be like a piece of corn stuck in my teeth. Fucking annoying.”
I sighed heavily. Sometimes Kevin was way too smart for his own good. He had this need to solve everything, and his need for perfection was borderline obsessive.
“Kevin, one mission at a time. Let’s finish the Bigsby mission first. Then if you want to chase down the unsolved Jemma disappearance, knock yourself out. Shit, I’ll even fund it. Hell, I love a good thriller and suspense story just like everyone else, so it would be nice to get to the bottom of what actually happened to Jemma. But right now, I’ve got the team waiting for me at the warehouse, so can we move this crap along?”
“Yes. Anyway, moving on, back to Jemma.” He paused. “Here’s the part I think you’re going to really love. Jemma had two business partners. The first was Bigsby Calhoune. The second was Sin’s father.”
“Which one?” I asked.
Kevin’s previous investigation into Sin’s family background had unearthed that she had two birth certificates, each one showing a different set of parents. The first birth certificate had her father listed as Ian Michaels and her mother as Grace Michaels. The second certificate had her father listed as Greer Lorne Cruickshank and her mother as Aubrey Cruickshank.
