“Does that mean we should have talked to the detective tonight?”
“No. David wants to be with us. They haven’t told him enough for him to feel comfortable with where the conversation is heading. He also stressed that this is an election year, which means the DA is in reelection mode.”
“Which is motivation to solve the case and get a conviction.”
“Yes. It is.”
I wait, expecting him to say more and when he doesn’t, reality slowly comes to me, turning my stomach as it does. “A conviction at all costs—even a fall guy.”
“I’d like to think the DA is more ethical than that.”
His phone beeps and he answers it, once again listening intently. “Just call me when you reach him,” is all he says before he sets his phone on the coffee table. “Jacob can’t get ahold of Blake. He’ll call us when he does. He’s also trying to reach Mark for us since the bastard won’t return my calls.”
“So we’re in limbo, waiting for answers.”
“Yes, but at least we do it together.” He drags me to him and I snuggle against the hard lines of his body, my head resting on his chest, my mind counting the beat of his heart. Together, I repeat in my mind. I close my eyes and repeat those words over and over.
Two
Blinking awake, I find myself captured in Chris’s beautiful green-eyed stare, slowly becoming aware of my back against the couch cushion, and the intimate way our jean-clad legs twine together. “Hey,” I murmur, trailing fingers over the sexy stubble shadowing his jawline.
“Hey.”
“I could really get used to waking up next to you every day.”
He closes his hand over my fingers and kisses them. “I hope you already are.”
My lips curve. “I want more practice. Lots more. How long did we sleep?”
“About twelve hours.”
“What?” I jerk upward onto my elbow, swiping the messy dark brown veil of hair from my eyes to squint against the sunlight beaming through the wall of windows. “How is it even possible that it’s daylight and we never made it to bed? We still have our clothes on.”
“I took our shoes off about three hours ago, when you woke up and went to the bathroom.”
“I went to the bathroom?”
He laughs. “Yes. I planned to move to the bedroom when you got back, but apparently I fell asleep.”
“I don’t remember any of that. Did I sleep through any call-backs from Blake or Mark, too?”
“No calls from anyone.” He reaches to the coffee table and double-checks his phone before setting it back down. “Nope. Nothing.”
“Why hasn’t Blake called you?”
“I’m guessing he has nothing new to tell us and didn’t want to wake us up for no reason. It’s only eight in the morning.”
“I suppose that makes sense—but Mark’s ignoring us doesn’t. We’ve been trying to reach him for days now. I was really hoping he’d give us some insight on how the police are handling the case before this afternoon.” I half climb over Chris to grab my purse from the coffee table.
“Knee, baby,” he grumbles, grabbing my leg. “Knee.”
“Oops, sorry,” I say and quickly snatch my phone, checking the caller ID as I settle back beside him. “No one called me, either. Hmmm. The only two full-time staff members left at the gallery are Amanda and Ralph. Maybe I can catch Ralph, and he can tell us what is going on with Mark.” I start to punch in the gallery’s number but hesitate, worried about what I’ll say if he asks questions when he calls back. If he calls back. No one seems to want to talk to us right now. “How much do you think the gallery staff knows about what’s going on?”
“I talked to David and Blake right before we left Paris, and both confirmed that nothing outside of Ricco and Mary’s arrest has gone public.”
“I thought this kind of thing always made the press.”
“The police can seal the file in the public relations department, and apparently they’ve done that here. David says the DA doesn’t want an unsolved missing person’s case with the word ‘murder’ floating around, until they have a certain conviction.”
Murder. My heart twists and I quickly shove the word aside before it starts messing with my mind, too. “I wonder what Mark has told the staff, if anything. I guess I’ll leave a message for Ralph and hope that by the time he gets in, we hear something more from Blake or Mark.”
“Leave your message,” he says. “I’ll stay busy while I wait.” He drags me to the center of the couch, the deliciously heavy weight of him settling on top of me.
“Hmmm,” I murmur, as the thick ridge of his erection presses into my belly, “apparently my knee didn’t hurt you all that badly.” I indicate my cell phone and hit the auto-dial. “Behave. I’m making my call.”
“Whatever you want,” he promises, and I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about my call when his hands caress from my waist to my breasts.
“Stop that,” I chide. “The line is ringing.”
Undeterred, he shoves my T-shirt up my belly, his fingers teasing the delicate skin he’s exposed.
“Stop,” I demand, shoving my fingers into his wildly sexy blond hair to hold him steady, and dragging the burn of his stare to mine.
“No,” he replies simply.
“Yes.”
“Yes is a good answer,” he agrees, and despite my grip on his hair, he manages to slide his thumb between my thighs and turn the seam of my jeans into an erotic distraction.
My lashes flutter with the heat licking at my sex, and I can’t help but think of him licking me there. Somehow I still hear the options for the answering service menu, and I release Chris to hit the button to bypass them and get to Ralph. Chris embraces the opportunity to unsnap my jeans and tug down the zipper. And when his mouth comes down on the newly bared spot, his tongue dipping into my belly button, Ralph’s voice comes on the line at the same time, and I can’t manage to form words, let alone coherent speech.
Chris reaches for my phone and I grab it. “No. I have to call back.”
“Call back when they open.” He takes my cell from me and tosses it onto the chair to my right. “We have too many hours to kill before the meeting for you to stress this much.”
“Time we need to use to get some answers.”
“And that answer will be ‘yes’ when I cue you to say it.” He pulls my jeans down my hips, taking my panties with them.
“Try to call Blake first, Chris.”
He tosses my jeans as he had my phone, and starts skimming my T-shirt up my rib cage. “When we’re done here.” He unhooks my bra, covering my breasts with his hands, his fingers teasing my nipples, bending down to lick one of the stiff, aching peaks. “Any problem with that plan?”
“Problem?” I ask breathlessly. “What problem?”
His lips curve and he rolls my T-shirt the rest of the way up and over my head. I try to lower my hands but he holds them over my head. “Keep them there. Move them and I’ll dish out that punishment I never did last night.” He drags his hand over my bare breasts, plucking roughly at my nipples, and I feel the spikes of pleasure all the way to my sex.
Adrenaline rushes through me, part fear of the unknown, part white-hot arousal. “Punish me how?” I demand, my legs clenching around his hips of their own accord.
His gaze does a hot swipe of my puckered nipples and heavy, swollen breasts before lifting to mine. “We covered the list of possibilities on the plane yesterday.”
Heat zips through me with the memory of those whispered promises, all of which had been intimidatingly out of my comfort zone, and ever so arousing. “Yes. We did.”
He widens my legs, his fingers sliding into the slick, wet heat of my body, his thumb stroking my nub. “Do you want my mouth here?”
“Yes,” escapes my lips.
“What if I tell you that if you come before I say you can, the price will be me choosing one of those punishments I’m considering?”
I laugh, a throaty, nervous
rasp and remind him, “We’ve been down this path before. I’ll fail. In fact, at this very moment, if you breathe wrong—or right—I’ll come.”
That sexy, evil mouth of his curves with satisfaction. “Then maybe we should move right to the punishment.”
Nerves rush through me, mixed with enough adrenaline to make me tremble. Or maybe, that’s just him making me tremble. “I deserve the orgasm if I’m getting the punishment,” I manage to argue.
He laughs, and it sounds naughty and dominant, as if he’s already decided which of those wicked promises he made to me on the plane he’s going to fulfill. “Let’s see how ready you really are,” he murmurs, slipping a finger inside of me, then another, and stroking a line of pleasure as he does. I fight the arch of my hips, the burn of release, and he seems to understand, to know. “You can have your orgasm, baby,” he promises, “but if you move your hands, then I’ll punish you.” He curves his hand around my backside and lifts me into the pump of his fingers. “Understood?”
“Yes,” I pant. “Yes.” I barely know what I’m agreeing to, for the tiny darts of pleasure the stroke of his fingers are shooting through every part of me.
“Good.” He leans down and kisses my belly, then I feel the flicker of his tongue on the swollen buds of my nipples. “There is only punishment,” he murmurs against my skin, pausing for a moment to add, “Or no punishment.”
Punishment or no punishment. The words replay in my mind, and unbidden, so does Rebecca’s journal entry. You know I have to punish you. I never understood why she’d describe Mark saying this to her as being so addictive, but I do now. I feel the same dread and desire she’d described with him, the ache that is fear and lust in one breath.
Chris’s shoulders nudge my knees, his hot breath rasping over my swollen clit, and the anticipation inside me is almost too much to bear. I actually start to move my hands and pull him to me but catch myself. If I defy him, I know my punishment will begin with the denial of his mouth, and I want his mouth. Desperately.
More of his hot breath strokes over me and his tongue whispers over my inner thigh, and I have to dig my fingers into the leather arms to keep them in place. He’s taunting me, trying to get me to do what he has forbidden me. But I don’t. I won’t. I am waiting for the ultimate reward, and finally it comes.
His warm mouth closes down over my clit and it’s as if the hard ball of tension nestled inside me is unleashed, only to snap back in place all over again. Now I have his mouth, his tongue, but I crave that sweet, perfect moment when everything around me explodes into pleasure. And it’s close, so very close. His tongue is magic, rolling my clit, licking and swirling, while his fingers pump into me. I am without inhibitions, panting, moving with him, so on edge I feel I’ll crack into pieces. He’s keeping me there on purpose, slowing when I need him to speed up, moving when I need him to stay. I can’t take it anymore. I reach for him, my hand coming down on his head, and just like that, he stops what he is doing. I gasp, reaching for him, but it’s too late for me to turn back, to change what I have done.
He hovers over me, his eyes meeting mine. “I told you not to move.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. Punishment or no punishment. Those were the options.” Surprising me, he turns me over and drags me to my knees, pulling my backside up into the air. My heart races and adrenaline surges with the certainty that the punishment is coming.
Suddenly his bare hand smacks my bottom, the sting of it shocking me, radiating over my skin and up my spine. I gasp and arch my back, and it’s a mistake. I move into the next smack of his palm, creating more impact, more burn. Somehow I remember what he’d taught me, and I start counting with the next smack of his hand. Three, four, five. I hold my breath for the sixth that never comes.
Chris flips me over again, pressing me into the couch with the weight of his body, his fingers wrapping the long strands of my hair. For several seconds we breathe together, the air charged around us, electric, powerful. I can feel this man in every part of me, in every pore, every nerve ending. And when his mouth slants over mine, hot and hard, an unapologetic reprimand that says he has absolute control, I have never wanted to be kissed so badly in my entire life. He owns me and there is no part of me capable of denying him that claim. No part of me that rejects it or believes it to be untrue. There is simply only what he can take from me. My submission.
I’m panting when he tears his mouth from mine and releases my hair to slide down my body. He settles between my legs and I whimper as his mouth comes down on my clit. He sucks and licks, sending tantalizing sensations to every part of me. And this time he takes me where I want to go and I am lost, ripe for the release almost upon me. He licks me one last time and my sex clenches around his fingers, every muscle in my body tensing before the pleasure finally rolls over me. Everything is a wash of sensations where nothing else exists. I slowly come back to reality, gasping with the aftermath of what he has just done to me.
Chris starts to move away and I reach for him, trying to pull him back. “Wait. Please.” And just like that, I’m picked up and thrown over his shoulder, his hand settling on my backside, where he squeezes my cheek roughly. My heart races with the certainty that he intends to spank me again, and my breath stops in my lungs.
He enters our bathroom, flips on the light, and deposits me on the white-tiled counter. Then he walks to the shower and turns it on, pulling off his shirt in the process. My gaze devours the ripples of his muscular back, and the way his dragon ink flexes with the movement. He is power and control. He is pure male dominance. He is my future husband, and there’s something so damn sexy about the idea of being this man’s wife.
He turns to face me, his eyes pure, white-hot lust. He unbuttons his jeans and slides them down his powerful legs, and I am aware of every inch of his perfect, rock-hard body.
“Come here,” he commands, and I don’t even hesitate. He’s accused me of enjoying his control, and he’s right. I not only like it, I crave it, freely offering him the submission I would never consider with anyone else.
Pushing off of the counter, aroused by the slight sting of my backside, I cross the space between us and when I stand before him, my body trembles with how much I need his touch. It feels as if I haven’t had it in years, not mere seconds.
I expect him to deny me, to make me wait, but in one of those mood shifts, tenderness softens his eyes and face. The next thing I know, he’s dragging me into the shower and into an embrace.
My hand flattens on his chest. “You spanked me. And you didn’t warn me.”
He presses me against the wall. “Why do you think that is?”
He is dark again, on edge, and taking me with him and I stumble over my reply. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“Because if I melt down again, there won’t be a warning. You have to be prepared for that. We have to be prepared.”
My heart squeezes with understanding. He’s not pushing me away because of Amber. He’s pulling me closer. I wrap my arms around him. “We will be.”
“We have to be,” he stresses again, molding me to him, holding me a little too tightly, as if he’s afraid of losing me. So I hold him a little too tightly because he needs me to.
• • •
It’s nearly noon when I emerge from the bedroom to find Chris staring out of the window while he talks on the phone. He’s in black Diesel jeans, a matching Diesel T-shirt, and biker boots I helped him pick out in Paris, and he’s holding a cup of coffee. The stiffness of his spine and the tension in his shoulders make me wonder if he slept much less last night than he’d let on. And if he’s worried a whole lot more than he lets on about our meeting today.
I move to sit on the overstuffed brown leather chair across from him and he turns, ending his call. His eyes light on me, the sunlight capturing the flecks of amber in his eyes and turning them golden. He moves toward me, his stride casual, his scalding inspection of my black skirt and V-neck sweater pure predator.
He
claims the ottoman in front of me, his hand settling on my knee, fingers resting at the top of my boots. “You look good, baby,” he says, heat roughening his voice.
Some of that heat seems to rush to my cheeks. “Thank you. I thought I should be professional for the meeting.”
“Dress to impress yourself, not them.” His eyes twinkle with the mischief I so adore and he says, “Undress to impress me.” I try to smile, failing miserably, and Chris notices instantly. “Hey,” he says, caressing my cheek. “Ease up, baby. This meeting is nothing to worry about.”
I search his face, looking for tension, but it’s not there. Maybe I’d imagined it. “We’re going into this blind, and that bothers me. Mark won’t call us back. Neither has Ralph, though I left him two messages. Blake and David had nothing new to tell us. There has to be a reason the detective came here last night. And please tell me that was David on the phone.”
“Obviously I need to cut you off at two cups of coffee, you’re going a million miles an hour,” he teased. “And no, it wasn’t David. It was the jeweler I told you about. I sketched a ring design I plan to show you, but I wanted to be sure he could work with what I had in mind.”
“You sketched a ring for me?” I ask, thrilled. “I’ll have a Chris Merit original on my finger!”
“And in your bed,” he teases. “But yes. I sketched a ring. I have a few finishing touches to put on it and then I’ll show you.”
A glow comes over me. Somehow, Chris has managed to wipe away everything wrong and make everything absolutely right. I lean in and press my hands to his cheeks. “Designing my ring is the most amazing gift you could give me.”
His lips curve and he covers my hands with his, drawing them between us. “Let’s hope you think so when you see it.”
“You know I will. I don’t want to wait to see it. Can I just have a peek? Please? I don’t care that it’s not finished.”
He stands up and pulls me with him. “After the meeting with the police.”
The announcement is like a blast of winter air. “Right,” I say, swallowing a knot of reality. “The meeting.”
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