“That’s fine.” I nodded, feeling more and more silly. I’d seen him on the street. In broad daylight. What had I expected him to do? Grab me on the street in broad daylight?
Ten minutes later, I left the security guards to head up to my room. I had no doubt I was under their very watchful eye. They had pictures of Topher that had been passed to every member of the security team and the bell staff and the people who handled check-ins. If he tried to check in, he would be recognized, I’d been assured.
That was assuming he didn’t try to change his looks, I was assuming.
That was why Stefan had asked about whether Topher had done anything to change how he looked.
The thought twisted my guts inside me and I found myself hurrying across the lobby floor to where the elevators were. Without thinking, I went to the elevator that went directly to the floors for LeVan, Sly, and Mac and I punched in the code that Sly had given me.
I don’t know why—I wasn’t thinking.
Okay, I was, but only on the most basic level.
I was thinking…I want him to hold me for a little bit.
The doors slid open and I jumped a little at the sight of Sly. He looked at me, a smile forming, but it faded fast. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
I took a step toward him, which had me in the elevator.
He clearly didn’t care, because the doors closed on us. Neither of us noticed it whisking upward as I threw my arms around him, the shakes hitting me hard and fast.
“He’s here,” I said, my voice a trembling mess. “I saw him, Sly. Topher is here. He was just…standing there and watching me.”
His arms came around me, a strong, secure, tight band. “Baby,” he murmured against my temple. He rained a string of kisses across my cheek, each one a comforting touch. There was no seduction in the touch and when he reached my mouth, I sucked in a breath, all but sealing his mouth to mine.
He kissed me gently, lightly.
The doors slid open.
We both glanced up.
Sly went rigid, but I barely noticed.
Mac stepped inside and I continued to cling to Sly, still shaking. “Can I stay in your place for a little while?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice gritty.
I didn’t think anything of it, either.
He pulled away, but not entirely. Taking my hand, he stood there, rubbing my inner wrist with his thumb. Just as the doors opened, he leaned in and murmured, “It will be okay, Emmy.”
15
Sly
“You fucking piece of shit!”
A huge blow from a fist like a rock came flying at me. I didn’t bother to try and move. I figured I had it coming.
I hit the ground and sat there for a minute, shaking my head to clear as Mac paced around in front of me. “Get up, you bastard!” he snarled.
I could’ve done it.
I had anger burning inside me like an army of angry hornets, but what good would it do?
Eying Mac, I ran my tongue across my teeth. All were accounted for—bonus points to me. There wasn’t any blood in my mouth either. Sweet. I shook my head and said, “I think I’ll stay here for now.”
“Coward,” he sneered at me.
“Watch it,” I advised. “Or I’ll take your legs out from under you.”
His lip peeled back from his teeth in a sneer. “Do it. I can’t wait to kick your ass for this, Sly. Any fucking woman and you had to go after her! Are you so determined to get a piece of ass, you’ll go after anyone?”
“She’s not just any fucking woman!” Coming to my feet, I stood in front of him, arms spread out. “And watch how you talk about her, you prick. She’s sure as hell not a piece of ass.”
“Hey, hey…”
LeVan tried to calm things down.
We both turned on him.
“Shove it!” Mac snarled.
“Back off, Lev,” I warned him. Then I took a step toward Mac. “She might be your wife’s cousin, but she’s more than that to me, so back the hell down.”
Mac’s face, already set in a cynical sneer, had my hand clenching into a fist.
But as he opened his mouth to reply, a funny thing happened.
He stopped.
He just…stopped.
Staring at me with that sneer and his mouth hanging open, he sort of…gaped at me.
The sneer fell away.
Slowly, he closed his mouth.
Uneasy, I tensed, ready for whatever he was up to as he prowled a few steps closer. I’d taken the one hit because I figured I was owed that one, but I wasn’t taking anymore.
But although he got in my face, head bent low to accommodate the fact that he was practically a fucking giant and I was average height, he stared into my eyes.
He turned away after a few seconds, a disbelieving laugh escaping him. “What the fuck is this shit, Sly?” He didn’t even wait for an answer as he spun around and focused on LeVan. “Do you believe this shit, man?”
LeVan shrugged. “I’ve seen it coming for a few weeks. But you’ve been…preoccupied.”
“I got married. I didn’t go blind.” Mac’s focus shifted with laser-like accuracy back to me. “What did you do, fall and hit your head or something? This isn’t you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Mac’s pale eyes practically cut a hole in me as he stared at me. Finally, he said, “Do you even have any clue?”
“Would you stop being so cryptic?” I shouted.
“You’re in love with her!”
Now it was my turn to gape at him. I started to deny it. Then I stopped myself before the words could even form. Then I opened my mouth again, but whatever it was I wanted to say just wouldn’t come out. Snapping my jaw shut, I glared at him. “You’re full of shit, you know that?”
“Yeah?” Mac crossed his arms high on his chest, standing in front of me like some carved Roman statue come to life, all muscle and arrogance. Brow cocked, he asked, “When did the two of you first hook up?”
A blush crawled up the back of my neck. When was the last time I had blushed? I had done so many depraved, twisted things and I liked them but here I was blushing?
“That’s none of your damn business,” I spat out.
“It’s been…oh, hell…I’m thinking more than a few days. Am I right?”
“They hooked up at the wedding,” LeVan offered helpfully.
Some fucking friend. I was so tempted to strangle him. “Shut up, Lev.”
He grinned at me. It was pretty damn clear he was enjoying himself.
Mac squeezed his eyes shut and I could tell he wasn’t entirely okay with Emmy and me. A moment later, he shoved the heel of one hand against his right eye socket like he was dealing with a migraine.
I understood the feeling. I felt like I had one coming on myself.
“You hooked up at our wedding—no. I’m going to stay on target here.” He looked back at me, jaw tight. “Have you…hooked up with anyone since then?”
I should’ve just lied to him.
But in the end, I couldn’t. “No.” Turning my back on him, I paced over to one of the tables we kept on hand and I bent over it, hands spread wide. “Look, she…matters. I’ll give you that. I ain’t about to get down on bended knee or anything. That’s not for jackasses like me and she deserves better. But she matters, okay?”
After a moment of pulsing silence, I turned back to him. Desperate to move their attention from me, I said, “Anyway, my love life shouldn’t be the big concern here.” Mouth going tight, I shifted my gaze from Mac over to LeVan before looking back at the bigger guy. “That fucker who stalked her in Branson somehow managed to track her down. She saw him. She came looking for me—she was upset. That’s what we were talking about when you saw us in the elevator.”
16
Emmy
Nibbling on my thumbnail, I stood at the window and stared out at the mountains in the distance. It was bright outside, the sky so clear and blue, I could see for m
iles—or I would’ve been able to, if parts of the skyline weren’t blocked by hotels and casino marquees.
Sly had given me his keycard and I’d been in his room for the past few hours, feeling too on edge and uneasy to go to my own room, but after pacing around his room, even stripping down to the skin and doing some yoga, I was back to being as edgy as I’d been earlier.
It might have helped if Sly had walked in and found me in the middle of Downward Facing Dog again.
I’d actually kind of hoped that would happen—I’d had a few daydreams about just that, but it hadn’t happened.
Now, unable to force my mind to settle, I searched the streets below and found myself wondering again…where was he?
“You’ve got to stop this,” I muttered.
I turned around and on my next circuit across the room, I caught sight of his computer. I hesitated a moment, then went over to it. He’d told me the password if I wanted to go online and surf. He also warned me—if you’re easily offended, stay clear of my browser history…and my wallpaper is a naked woman.
“Oh…wow…” Craning my head, I studied the pose the woman was in, bent over and tied with rope. It was almost Child’s Pose from yoga, I couldn’t help but think. And her hands were tied to her ankles.
The image was shot in black and white and it was both erotic and artistic.
I wondered if Sly would tie me up like that.
No sooner had the thought gone through my mind than another thought echoed…Yes.
Hunger punched at me, hard and fast, and I hurriedly clicked open the browser to get this search over and done with so I could finally eat something. I had no idea what I was going to do—shop, maybe. But without even really making the conscious decision, I found myself scrolling through his browser history.
There were a few infrequent visits to social media platforms, to their group website.
And…a sex toy shop.
I clicked on that one, my face burning and found myself staring at a two-pronged vibrator. The ball of heat that had settled low in my belly when I saw the bound woman grew a little bit more and I clicked away, returning to the search history.
It took some scrolling, almost two weeks’ worth, although there was a visit to an erotic online photography exhibit, women…and a few men…artistically bound with rope in displays so beautiful, so sexy, I found myself squirming in my chair.
But that was nothing compared to the motherlode I found waiting a little past the two-week mark.
I knew Sly was kinky.
But Sly wasn’t kinky. He was kinky. We might even need to capitalize that.
I found myself at a hardcore BDSM site and mesmerized, I found myself clicking through picture after picture, torn between arousal and discomfort.
And more than once, I imagined it was Sly and me in the scenario.
Especially…
I sucked in a breath, leaning back in the chair, feeling a little weak at the one that filled the monitor now.
It was a woman, bound much like the one on his desktop had been, hands to her ankles.
A man stood behind her, muscles gleaming in the harsh light.
There was no artistry to this shot—it was pure, raw sex.
He had his dick half-buried in the woman’s ass.
I moaned and wiggled in the seat, my panties sliding back and forth over flesh that had gone wet.
My phone buzzed, startling me and I grabbed it without thinking.
It was Sly’s name on the screen.
Thinking about having pizza…then you. Thoughts?
I texted back.
Okay.
Then I shot a look at the screen.
When will you be here?
He responded that it would be another hour or so, so I dropped the phone, disappointed and frustrated.
I needed to quit looking at all of this or I was going to end up abusing the massaging showerhead he had in the master bathroom.
I found myself on Facebook. I logged in and thought about posting an update—I hadn’t done it in forever, but decided against it.
Biting my lip, I stared at the search icon.
Addy.
Her name popped into my head out of nowhere.
Without giving myself time to think it through, I typed in Addy O’Malley.
I had no idea what her name would be, but why not start there?
More than a few came up, but none were of the right age group.
“That’s a sign,” I told myself as I cleared the browsing history.
But I didn’t shut down the computer.
Driven now, I opened an incognito browser and set the cache to clear every few minutes.
Then…I got to work.
I had a little bit of experience in finding people—it was one of the things that had made me good at hiding—I knew how people did it. My knowledge came not from a life of crime.
Rather it came from one of my mother’s former…lovers.
One of the guys she’d spent more than a few months with, one who’d almost made her consider settling down, she’d told me, came from one of the most boring professions on earth.
And, of course, she’d met him because of me. He was a friend of Angel’s dad, a fellow lawyer and I’d interned for him one summer, which was how my mother had met him. Seduced him.
I couldn’t say we kept in touch, but I had learned some interesting stuff while working there…interesting, at least, considering how dull the work itself had been.
Probate law.
But some of it…the tracking people down? That had been interesting.
The first thing I wanted to do was find out who Sly’s mother was.
And the easiest way to do that was sitting in the palm of my hand. I went did an online search and found a copy of his birth certificate.
Seriously, people had no idea how much of their information was out there for anyone to see, assuming they had the right information and knew where to look. Sly left his wallet in the apartment and when I’d seen it earlier, I’d peeked inside. His driver’s license gave me his date of birth and I had a rough idea of where he had lived when he’d been a kid, thanks to what he’d told me earlier.
It took me less than ten minutes and I murmured a private apology to him, but I wasn’t going to stop, either. I felt driven, for some reason, pushed to hunt this information down.
Once I found her information, I started doing searches on the mom, on the stepfather, on Addy.
And while I found the date of death fitting Rick—Richard Garvey—from Plano, Texas, about the time Sly would’ve been four years old, there was no mention of the baby, or even Sly himself.
Because they were kids…minors with no other surviving family members. They probably ended up in the system. Assuming Addy was alive.
I had hit a dead end.
But I knew who could help me.
My eyes fell on the time, though, and I hissed. I cleared the history and backed out of the incognito tab, then double-checked to make sure everything had cleared, no downloads remaining, no overtly conspicuous signs that I’d been on Facebook. I logged myself out and decided…what the hell. I went back to the BDSM site, and the picture that had all but stolen the breath from my lungs.
I was still staring at it five minutes later when Sly came in.
He caught sight of my red face and winced. “I told you that you might want to avoid my browser history.”
I wasn’t blushing out of embarrassment. At least not completely out of embarrassment.
Licking my lips, I gestured to the screen as he drew near.
He held a pizza box in one hand but he put it down on the coffee table before circling around to stand beside me.
“If I said I wanted to try that, what would you say?”
His answer was to slam his mouth down on mine.
I was naked in under two minutes.
He kept me that way as he told me to walk to his room.
“It doesn’t feel fair me being naked, and you not.�
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“Life’s not fair, sugar,” he said from behind me, voice rough.
My knees trembled at the sound.
Oh, man…what had I gotten myself into?
Once we were in the bedroom, he made me pick a safe word.
He wouldn’t so much as touch me without it and that worried me a little. Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “Do I have to sign a contract, too?”
He didn’t respond, just leaned in and murmured, his lips just a breath from mine, “I’m really dying to fuck you, so if you could help me out and give me a word…”
“Yoga,” I blurted out.
A smile crooked his lips as he rocked back onto his heels. “Yoga, it is.” He traced his index finger over my mouth. “You use it if I push too hard and make you too uncomfortable. If for any reason…”
“Would you just…” I floundered for the words to tell him to get a grip already. But what do you tell a guy who’s clearly into kinky and hard? Tie me up already, big guy? “Just do it already.”
His eyes lit with a hot, avid gleam.
“Gladly.”
But all he did was kiss me.
At first.
He backed me up to his bed and spilled me down on top, following me down and as I gasped from the impact of his body on mine, he sealed our mouths together all over again.
“Open,” he muttered against my lips. “More.”
He tangled a hand in my hair and cranked my head back.
The next kiss was so deep, so wet, so consuming, some part of me was left to wonder just how much he’d been holding back.
When he rolled me onto my belly, I braced myself, convinced he was going to start.
But all he did was kiss my neck and stay stretched out atop me. He rocked his hips against my butt and an aching emptiness settled inside me, one that echoed and pulsed with the rhythm of his body as he moved against me.
He caught my hands, stretching them out from my body, pinning them down. By that time, though, I’d forgotten about him getting to it.
Rule You (Vegas Knights Book 3) Page 11
