by Cassie Ryan
Sandra frowned at something in Michelle’s voice. She felt like she was missing something, but she had no idea what.
Michelle held the book out again and Sandra’s gaze was drawn back to the picture. She took in the dark hair and the blue downcast eyes visible even through the thick glasses, as well as what she would have termed a “baby face” back in high school. Something about the set of his mouth gave her another sudden flash of familiarity, and then Michelle moved her finger off the name she’d been covering.
Brent Weston.
A hard stab of ice pierced her stomach, and she sucked in a breath as betrayal burned deep.
Brent.
Her Brent. But how? And why hadn’t he told her? She tried to tell herself that maybe he hadn’t known who she was either. But then she remembered all the times she had caught him watching her.
The boy who had asked her out in high school. The boy who had most likely had a crush on her, one of the popular girls. The boy she had turned down.
She could see how he might be excited to finally have the girl he had wanted all those years ago. Unfortunately, she now felt like a fool. Like everything they had built between them wasn’t actually real.
But now it made sense. She had wondered why a man like Brent would spend time with her, a decidedly broken woman who was a lot of extra work for him as a Dom and didn’t even know what she wanted. But knowing what she did now, all the pieces fell into place. She had been the unattainable one and now he had “obtained” her. She wasn’t sure where that left them. She had no one to blame but herself. She knew this had all gone too fast and that she should slow down and be more careful, but things at the time had felt too right with Brent, so she had ignored all her internal warnings.
Hell, until Michelle had shown her his high-school picture, everything had still felt right.
She sighed as the grandfather clock chimed the hour, and she glanced over to see that she had only a few hours until she was supposed to meet Brent at Club Desire.
How could she go meet him now? How could she play scenes with him and pretend that nothing had changed?
She couldn’t.
Michelle gently pulled the book away and closed it with a snap before replacing it on the shelf. “Something about Brent had been bugging me since I first saw you two on the couch. Something made me think I had met him before, but I kept telling myself that if I had ever met anyone remotely resembling Brent I wouldn’t have forgotten it.”
Sandra remembered thinking the same thing to explain away her flashes of familiarity. But even knowing Michelle had the same thought process didn’t offer much comfort.
She turned to go, not wanting to endure Michelle’s sympathetic gaze right now. She clenched her teeth and straightened her spine. Somehow she would find a way to get through this.
Chapter 20
Brent opened the large cabinets on the wall that his large desk faced. They held a bank of TV monitors that cycled through every view they had of Club Desire. As he’d told Sandra, there were cameras in all the common areas and even in the alcoves—except for his two private ones. People had started to arrive for the orgy in Basement 4 and Jake and his team had their hands full checking IDs, cross-checking them against the list of people who were attending, and turning away those who were just curious to get in.
The group who had booked it had requested an invite-only event, so anyone who wasn’t on the list wasn’t admitted.
Extra security was placed at all the elevators and around the building. Brent wasn’t expecting any problems, but Jake and his security teams usually took care of any before Brent even knew about them. He paid them well and they did terrific work.
His phone buzzed, which meant a call from one of the managers. He hit the speaker button on the phone. “What’s going on?”
A man cleared his throat and Brent immediately recognized it as Jake. “Brent, Sandra is here to see you and I think something is wrong. Should I escort her up to you?”
A heavy ball of dread settled in Brent’s stomach. What if Diego had tried to contact her again? Or got close to her? Dex had learned that one of Diego’s aliases’ credit card numbers had been used several times in Phoenix over the past few days. So unless it had been stolen, Diego was here in town. Did he already know where Sandra was? Brent hoped not, but Dex had Phoenix PD and even some FBI looking for him. Once they found Diego, he would be going away for a very long time, and he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again—especially not Sandra.
“Yes. Thank you, Jake.”
A few minutes later the elevator opened, and Sandra stood stiff and tall. Her chin was raised and there was anger and hurt shimmering in her eyes. She wore the same peasant skirt and blue top she had worn the first night she had come to Club Desire and she held a green book that brought back memories of a decade ago.
He stood and walked around the desk toward her.
She stepped forward and the elevator doors shushed closed behind her.
She held the book up like a shield between them. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie to me all this time?” Her voice rose, and he could tell she was trying to hold onto her anger, but the hurt was winning.
He wanted to hold her, to touch her, to try to explain, but she held her hand up in stop-sign fashion and he stilled. “I’m sorry, Sandra. I tried to tell you several times. But we got distracted and I never got back to it. I never meant to hurt you. We are both very different people than we were back then.”
He remembered the fear and hurt in her eyes when she had turned him down all those years ago, and the hurt shimmering in her eyes now sliced much deeper. He had caused this.
He had to try to make it right. “Does it really matter that much? We’ve gotten to know each other now and I think we are very good together.”
She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “So what was it? Because I turned you down you wanted to dominate me, humiliate me, and make me pay?” Tears brimmed in her eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks. “Did you get your revenge, Brent? Did all of this make up for how badly everyone treated you back then?” She was breathing hard, as if she had run a mile.
Her words hit hard, but not because any of it was true. It was because she could even think he would do something like that. “I never humiliated you. You craved someone to dominate you. To show you what passion and pleasure your body was capable of, and you and I have a great Dom/sub chemistry.”
She was staring down at his shoes, refusing to meet his gaze.
He clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. Even when his mind was screaming for him to hold her, he would never touch her when she had told him she didn’t want him to. “The fact that I’ve grown to care about you outside of the dungeon has nothing to do with ten years ago or turning me down for a high-school dance. I think once you move past your hurt and anger, you’ll see that.”
He took one step forward, hoping she would at least look at him.
She lifted the book and swung it, hitting him in the side of the head so hard his ears rang, and pain pierced his heart. When he raised his hand to touch his head and took another step forward, she threw the book at him and punched the button to open the elevator doors.
“Just leave me alone.” She stared at him over her shoulder. “I’m sorry if I hurt you all those years ago. I never meant to; I was too busy hiding my own secrets and too selfish to understand what you were going through. But that didn’t give you the right to manipulate me, to trick me and to lie to me.” She stepped inside the elevator when the doors opened. “I fell in love with you, damn it, and now I find out it’s not real. There’s no trust between us.”
She hit the button inside the elevator repeatedly until the doors closed, hiding her from view.
Brent cursed and sat down hard on his desk chair. He’d known all along that he needed to tell her. Dex had even warned him about this, and now he had hurt her, maybe beyond repair. The woman he loved had just run from him and asked him to leave her
alone. But how could he? Especially when she had just told him she loved him too.
It was what he had hoped for, but he didn’t expect it this soon. And especially when she’d found out he’d been keeping secrets from her.
Brent slammed his hand on his desk before he picked up the phone to call Jake and fill him in.
If he couldn’t watch over Sandra, then there were others here who could. If she stayed here.
His blood ran cold. She had already been attacked once, and even though the junkie was in jail awaiting sentencing, Diego was still out there just waiting to get his hands on Sandra.
He tried to call Dex but there was no answer.
Damn!
He grabbed his remote and cycled through the different views on the bank of monitors, searching for her. He wasn’t sure what to do next, but he knew she had asked him to stay away, and that knowledge had nearly ripped his heart out.
—
When the elevator opened downstairs, Sandra stepped out and then stood in the walkway, not sure where to go or what to do. Brent hadn’t reacted the way she’d expected. He hadn’t denied hiding it from her, or tried to turn it around and somehow make it her fault.
She remembered him telling her he’d gone to ASU and that he’d grown up here.
Damn. He had tried to tell her, and now that she thought about it she remembered other times when he had started to tell her and then got sidetracked. She hadn’t recognized at the time that that was what he was trying to admit, but now she did.
He had asked her if it even mattered. They were both different people now. Did it matter?
All she knew was that her emotions were in turmoil and she needed some time away to figure out how she felt about it. Right now she felt like a fool. She wasn’t sure if Brent had meant to pay her back or not. It didn’t really ring true for the man she felt he had become. But it could have started out that way.
But again, did it matter if it had? She loved the man he was now, or at least the man she thought he was. But she had thought that man would always be honest with her. If she could get past all this, she would always have that niggling doubt about his honesty. Because even though he had tried to tell her, for something that important, he should have told her despite interruptions or anything else.
Dex.
She needed to find Dex. He said he would always be there for her if she needed him, and right now she needed someone she trusted.
She walked around the perimeter of the main dungeon level, seeing all the new faces most likely here for the Roman orgy. When she finally found one of Jake’s security team, she asked if he knew where Dex was.
“He said he left something in his car. He just went down to the parking garage.”
Sandra forced a smile and thanked him. At least now she had a destination and a purpose. She weaved through the crowd and made her way to the parking garage.
She remembered Dex’s car, but with so many people here for the event she wasn’t sure how she would find him. He and Brent had reserved spaces, but she had only been down here once, and her sense of direction wasn’t the best.
The security guard watching the door from the parking garage into Club Desire turned to smile at her. He had seen her several times over the past week. “Leaving already?”
“Just looking for Dex.”
He nodded. “He went to grab something from his car.” He pointed to the right and she thanked him and headed that way.
The garage was jam-packed tonight with cars. She realized this had to really be a huge event.
She edged along the wall, figuring she would eventually find Dex. He had to pass her to get to the entrance back into the Club.
She passed several rows of cars and even some buses and a few motor homes. Some jackass had parked his truck right on the line so he blocked two spaces. She edged around the bed of the truck to get by.
Someone grabbed her from behind. Strong hands grabbed her neck and squeezed as they pulled her back against a hard prick. Her lungs were filled with the familiar scent of cologne she had hoped she would never smell again.
Diego!
She clawed at his hands, trying to get him to loosen his grip.
No, it couldn’t be. How did he find her? She tried to take a breath to scream, but he squeezed her throat until she gasped and sputtered.
“You stay quiet or you’ll end up quiet forever. Got it?” Diego’s voice. She’d been right.
She nodded and said a silent prayer that Dex or Brent’s security teams would find her on their multiple video cameras.
“You disobeyed me and caused me a lot of trouble, little girl. And you’ll be severely punished. Do you understand?” Diego loosened his hold just enough for her to answer.
She knew what he expected, but she was done being a doormat and a punching bag. So she did the stupidest thing she had ever done. She took a breath and shouted, “Fuck you!”
He immediately squeezed her throat and she thrashed, kicked, and fought with all her strength.
He squeezed her throat tighter and she thought he would crush her windpipe if she couldn’t break free.
She stomped down on his foot as hard as she could and reached back trying to scratch and hit him, but it wasn’t effective in this position.
Silver stars were beginning to sparkle behind her eyelids and her head swam.
Was this it? Was she going to die in a parking garage and never see Brent again? How stupid could she be to walk away from love over a decade-old secret? After, all she’d had her own. But she’d trusted him enough to tell him hers, even though it had been one of the hardest things she had ever done.
Blackness started to close in.
—
Brent’s heart nearly split in two when he rounded the corner and saw Sandra. A tall man—Diego?—stood behind her with his hands around her neck.
He started to rush forward, but a hand settled on his shoulder, stopping him.
He looked up at Dex, who motioned for him to circle around the other side.
Brent watched as Dex pulled his Glock from a shoulder holster Brent only saw him wear while not on duty, since FBI analysts didn’t carry guns. And then Brent concentrated on circling around behind several cars to come up on the other side of where the man he assumed was Diego was choking Sandra.
“Take your hands off her or I’ll put a bullet in your head, asshole.”
Dex’s voice echoed through the parking garage and when Diego turned his head to look at Dex, Brent darted forward, finding a position just a few feet from Diego.
When Diego didn’t react, Brent ran forward, striking him in the side of the neck. Not a lethal strike, but then he wasn’t trying to kill him. Yet.
A gurgling sound from Diego, and then the pressure around Sandra’s throat loosened just enough for her to suck in a small breath.
When Diego started squeezing Sandra’s throat again, Brent lifted his foot and struck down and in against the side of the man’s knee. A loud crunch sounded a split second before Diego’s scream of pain.
When he still didn’t let go of Sandra’s throat, Brent grabbed Diego’s right wrist, and using pressure points on the joint, inflicted severe pain until Diego finally let go of her.
Dex rushed forward and grabbed Sandra as Diego fell, leaving Brent to deal with the son of a bitch.
Brent wasn’t sure if that was a mistake or a favor, but as soon as the man thunked against the concrete Brent kicked him in the side, a satisfying crack telling Brent he had broken a rib.
Diego cursed, yelled, and threatened to disembowel Sandra while Brent watched.
Rage rose inside Brent, and for a split second he thought about ending Diego’s miserable life.
“Brent.” Sandra’s hoarse voice stopped him. “He’s not worth killing.”
Anyone else who tried to talk him down might not have been successful, but Sandra’s pain-filled voice helped him see reason.
Brent rolled the man over onto his stomach and planted his knee firmly on Dieg
o’s lower back, holding him down while pulling one of his arms behind his back. A lock that stressed the shoulder joint and caused extreme pain.
Diego yelled again and cursed until Brent yanked back nearly to the point where the joint popped out of its socket.
After another yell Diego fell silent, followed by only whimpering sobs.
Brent glanced up at Dex and heard the soft clink of metal against concrete to his right.
“Brent!”
Sandra’s hoarse croak only confirmed what he knew. Diego had pulled a knife or some other weapon out of his left pocket.
Brent grabbed Diego’s wrist and twisted until the knife clattered to the concrete.
Dex rushed forward and kicked it away just as screeching tires echoed around them.
The sound of pounding boots on pavement echoed through the parking garage. Apparently Brent’s security guys had seen what was happening on the cameras and had called the police.
Four men ran forward, surrounding them. Brent recognized two of them as the officers he and Dex had spoken to on the porch at Michelle’s house last week.
Diego started yelling for the police to help him. Saying he had been attacked and that Brent had broken his leg and rib and was trying to dislocate his shoulder.
Brent had been extremely tempted to dislocate the asshole’s shoulder, but figured he had dispensed enough pain for the day. Diego would get even more once he found himself in prison. The other two cops didn’t look familiar, but from their dress he assumed they were Feds.
When they addressed Dex, and they all started talking, he figured his assumption was correct.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying because Diego was still cursing, screaming, and outlining the horrors that Brent, Dex, and even Sandra had inflicted on him.
Finally one of the agents came forward and motioned for Brent to get off Diego and let him up.
Brent nodded and reluctantly released Diego’s arm and wrist. Then with one last full weight lean on the man’s lower back, Brent stood.
No one made any move to help Diego up, but Brent immediately made his way to Sandra, and only at the last minute did he remember she had told him to stay away from her. Instead, he opened his arms and she threw herself into his embrace.
