“Jesse—”
“Are we clear?”
She gulped. “Yes.”
Since he couldn’t get his eyebrows to go up any higher, he lowered them instead into a scowl. “Yes…”
“Sir,” she added hastily, cheeks flaming. “Yes, Sir.”
“That’s fifteen. Ten for creatin’ a scene, five for the disrespect.”
Oh, crap.
He pulled out her chair, bending closer to whisper in her ear. “And now, if you’ve finished, I suggest we go home. It would seem I have a punishment to administer.” At her sudden, sharp intake of breath, he gave a cold smile. “Just another small way I have of lettin’ you know how much I love and honor you.”
Adam and Jesse moved around the table, pulling out chairs, and, as everyone stood, a woman at the next table touched Maggie on the arm. “Are there any more of him around?”
“’Fraid not,” Maggie shrugged. “She got the last one, and by one, of course, I mean two. She got the last two.”
The woman gave a subtle point of her finger, wagging it back and forth between Adam and Jesse. “You mean…”
“Yeah.”
The woman smiled. “Lucky girl.”
A laugh shimmied from Maggie’s throat. “You have no idea.”
“Ladies, shall we?” Adam spread his arm, indicating that they should precede him away from the table and toward the door. As they emerged out into the warm summer night, redolent with the scent of honeysuckle and alive with the buzzing of cicadas, Jesse stepped behind Sarah and put his hands on her shoulders. “Lisa, Adam is going to drive you and Heather to your respective homes. Brian can drop you by the house tomorrow to pick up your car.”
“Yes, Sir.” Lisa knew when not to argue. She gave him a snappy salute and turned on her heel, nearly toppling over before Adam’s hand at her elbow righted her. “More of that damned gravity,” he muttered, making her giggle.
It was a subdued trio of females that Jesse escorted to the black Humvee and assisted into their seats. The ride back home was mostly silent, each occupant largely engrossed in her own thoughts. But they seemed to perk up after they got there, when Jesse asked, “Who’s up for a game of pool?”
“You’re on,” Cassie jumped up from the couch, nearly spilling her wine. “Where’s the pool table? I’ll mop the floor with you.”
Jesse grinned. “Follow me.” He led them to the back corner of the house and down the stairs. Bypassing the hallway that led to the Play Room and the exercise room on the left, he led them into what Sarah had dubbed Mammoth Cave.
Because it was, quite literally, a cave, a huge natural chamber hollowed eons ago out of the granite bluff upon which the house sat. The chamber had been enlarged, but the rock walls had been left in their natural, rough state. Along the back wall was an antique mahogany bar that had been salvaged from a derelict Virginia Beach hotel and lovingly restored by Jesse’s cousin Brian. At the far end of the cavern, was a fireplace and cozy seating area with overstuffed leather sofas and recliners that faced a sixty-inch plasma TV. A pool table dominated the center of the room,
The cave opening was a wall of glass, with sliding doors opening out onto a spacious balcony that jutted out over the tumbling river below.
While Sarah and Maggie, wineglasses in hand, settled on the couch to watch, Cassie selected a cue and Jesse racked the balls. Cassie broke, sinking two balls then sinking nine more before missing the red ball in the corner pocket. But she very carefully left Jesse with an impossible lie. He looked up from where he was leaning on his cue stick and shot her an amused glance. “I think I’ve just been hustled,” he said with grudging admiration. “Where did you learn to play?”
She grinned up at him. “Two of my brothers own bars with pool tables, one plays professionally and the other four are extremely competitive no matter what they’re playing, be it pool, baseball, or hockey.” She glanced at the table. “I do believe it’s your shot. You wanna make it interesting?”
Adam got home just in time to join in the applause as Jesse handily won the third game. Since it had been double or nothing, Cassie laughingly handed back the thousand dollars in monopoly money she’d won for the first two games, along with the additional thousand she owed. “Now who’s the hustler?” she wanted to know.
Maggie stood, wobbling only slightly, brushing her hands down her skirt to smooth out the wrinkles. “C’mon, Cass. We have an early flight in the morning and I, for one, have had wa-a-ay too much to drink today.” She turned to give Sarah a hug. “Good night, sweetie,” she said with a grin. “Enjoy the rest of your evening. I have a feeling it’s going to be an interesting one.”
Sarah gave her a wry grin. You don’t know the half of it.
Adam offered Maggie his arm. “Allow me,” he murmured, escorting both women out the door and up the stairs.
“Play Room. Now,” Jesse said without looking at her, racking his cue stick before walking over to the bar to pour himself a whiskey. “Strip and wait for us.”
Sarah gulped. So much for his forgetting that he owes me a punishment. “Yes, Sir.”
He watched her go, his heart twisting in his chest as he realized just how close he’d come to never having this, never having her. They’d met when she was just thirteen, a lonely, isolated child living on a vast, antebellum estate. Motherless since the age of eight, ignored by her father, a local judge, she’d been raised mostly by tutors and nannies. Jesse had been raised, for want of a better word, in a broken-down, leaky Airstream by a drunken bully of a father who’d beaten him regularly.
He’d hired on for the summer of her thirteenth year as the Marshalls’ new assistant gardener and was instantly drawn to Sarah. He’d never met anyone like her. Smarter than any adult he’d ever known, she was a phenomenon totally outside his experience—a sprite, a gamine, who, despite her repressive upbringing, was filled with joy and laughter and enthusiasm for life. And her innocence! Jesus Christ! It had shone from her like a flaming beacon, and he’d found himself daring to want to edge close enough to warm himself in it. Despite their six-year age gap, they’d been inseparable that summer, spending all his off-work time together fishing, reading, climbing trees…playing.
Over the next summer, he’d watched her develop from a child into a young woman so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. And he’d found himself thinking about her, dreaming about her. Only, in his dreams she hadn’t been a child. She’d been a woman, and he’d wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman in his life. So, when the next summer had rolled around, he just never showed up for work, knowing that the only way he could keep his hands off of her, was just to avoid all contact with her. She was the most precious thing in his life, a priceless treasure he could never own, and he vowed he would do whatever it took in order to protect her—even if it meant protecting her from himself.
But fate had intervened, stepping in twice over the next three years to make sure that he was Sarah’s only source of rescue when the town’s three worst bullies, Ryder Malone, Tucker Blanchard, and Jacob Rendell, attempted to kidnap and rape her. The first time was November of her fifteenth year, the second on the day of her eighteenth birthday. At that point he’d managed to stay away from her for three whole years, but when she’d thrown herself in his arms and kissed him the way a woman kisses a man, he’d nearly lost control and taken what he’d been wanting for so many years. What he’d been craving every night in his dreams. Sarah Marshall.
And that was the day he’d finally realized that the only way to keep himself from destroying her future was to get the hell outta Dodge. He was a man with no prospects, a man with no hope, a man with no future—too old, too jaded, too hardened by life to ever be worthy of her.
So, he’d left, sneaking away like a thief in the night, wanting her with a desperation that cut through him like a knife to the gut. A desperation that had never diminished. So, after eight years as a SEAL, knowing that he’d been tested in the fires of hell and had become a strong, confident, pow
erful man—a man she could be proud of, and, more importantly, a man he could be proud of—he’d decided to take a chance and come back to claim her.
The fact that Adam wanted her just as badly, having fallen in love with her just from hearing Jesse talk about her over the years, had been an added bit of serendipity. But the real bonus was that she was in love with both of them, and through that love, willing to give them the gift of her submission. A gift they honored and cherished above life itself.
Looking up when Adam returned, he started toward him. “Let’s get this punishment over with fast. I want to take our girl upstairs and fuck her until we all pass out.”
Adam rubbed his hands together. “It’s good to have plans.”
* * * *
He woke to the sound of something vibrating against the wooden surface of the nightstand. Half asleep, still groggy from all the orgasms he’d just had, he groped for his cell phone, making note of the time—three a.m.—and caller’s number. Uh-oh. This can’t be good. Instantly alert, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Matt? That you? Matt!”
There was a long pause, then Matt’s voice, hoarse and halting. “Jes-se?”
Alarmed, Jesse jumped to his feet and tagged his jeans off the floor. “Matt, what’s wrong? Where are you?”
Again, the reply was slow in coming. “Patti—Patti’s—she’s—”
“Stay right there, Matt. Stay right where you are,” Jesse ordered. “Don’t move, and don’t touch anything. I’ll be right there. Matt! Matt! Did you hear me?”
Shit!
He threw the phone down on the bed, shoved both legs into his jeans, and pulled them up, nearly falling over in his haste. Cursing a blue streak, he jammed his feet down into his boots, not bothering with socks.
Wide awake himself, Adam handed Jesse his T-shirt. “What’s going on?”
“Not sure,” Jesse said, thrusting his arms into the sleeves before pulling it over his head and yanking it down. He didn’t bother tucking it in, just reached for his Sig in the nightstand drawer and tucked it into his belt. “But there’s no way it’s good.” He’d filled Adam in earlier on the discovery of the men watching the biker compound.
“You want me to go with?” his friend asked quietly.
“No, I need you to stay with Sarah.” He stole a glance at her only to see that she was awake and watching him, eyes wide with worry. Christ, she was so fuckin’ precious to him! He hated this situation, hated the threat hanging over her, a threat that would continue as long as Ryder Malone was alive. Most of all, he hated Ryder Malone. More than he’d ever hated anyone in his life—including his father—and that was saying something. He wished he’d just gone ahead and killed him eight years ago, when he’d had his arm around the fucker’s throat, after pulling him up off of Sarah. He leaned over to give her a reassuring kiss. “It’s okay, sugar,” he said, although he knew it was a lie. Nothing was okay. And if anything happened to his cousin Matt because of Ryder Malone’s continued existence on this earth—he shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I’ll call when I know somethin’,” he said as he left the room. Adam and Sarah could hear his feet pounding on the stairs as he raced down them two at a time.
“Help me up,” Sarah said, holding out her hand.
“Where are you going?”
She tagged Adam’s T-shirt from where it lay crumpled at the foot of the bed and pulled it over her head. It engulfed her slender frame, hanging down around mid-thigh. “To make some coffee. I don’t think either of us is going to be getting any more sleep tonight.”
* * * *
Standing in the doorway of Patti Rendell’s bedroom, Jesse carefully surveyed the horrific scene before him. His chief deputy, Ned Bellamy, stood behind him, slightly off to the side. Blood was spattered everywhere. Patti lay sprawled on her back, across the bed, covered with blood which was still oozing sluggishly from several stab wounds to her breasts and abdomen. She was naked. She was also dead. A half-filled suitcase lay on the bed beside her.
On the floor next to the bed Pete “Ogre” Talbert was sprawled on his belly, his jeans down around his ankles and his T-shirt soaked with blood from an apparent stab wound to the back. He was unconscious, but still alive.
Matt Wilson was passed out on the floor at the foot of the bed, a bloody carving knife next to his right hand. He appeared unhurt except for the black eye, the split lip, and the deep gash in his head which had saturated his hair and bled profusely all over the carpet.
A ceramic lamp lay shattered on the floor nearby. There was blood splatter all over the bed, the walls, and the ceiling. Someone had entered this quiet little suburban bedroom and turned it into a slaughterhouse.
“Ned, call 9-1-1. Tell ’em to send two buses and CSU. Did you bring the video camera like I asked?”
Ned, his face pasty white, looked like he was about to puke.
“Ned? You okay?”
He gave a jerky nod of his head, swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Sorry, Jesse, I’ve just never seen anything quite this…”
“Yeah.” Jesse flipped his phone open. He’d seen worse in Afghanistan, but not by much. “Don’t worry about it. Even if you had, it’s not somethin’ you ever get used to—Dispatch? Colter. Send two buses, CSU and the coroner’s wagon to 247 Stanton Drive. Also, send SWAT to”—he rattled off the address of the empty building across the street from the Brigands’ compound—“and have them arrest anyone they find there. I want everythin’ in the area of the upstairs window overlookin’ the street dusted for prints.”
Jesse pocketed his phone, placing his hand on Ned’s shoulder. “Go out and get the camera.” While he waited for his deputy to return, he snapped a dozen or so shots with his cell phone. “Okay, Ned, I want you to pan slowly around the entire room. Then I want you to focus that camera on me as I move around the crime scene, so I’ll have proof of where everythin’ was before EMS gets here and starts movin’ bodies. If this ever goes to court, that video is gonna be proof that I didn’t remove, plant, or disturb any of the evidence left behind by the perps.”
He studied the older man, taking in his pinched features, the white lines around his mouth. “You good?”
“I’m good.” Ned raised the video camera in front of his face. “Go ahead, I got you covered.” For the next few minutes he documented Jesse’s tour around the room as his Chief snapped photo after photo, sometimes bending to place a pocket ruler next to an item or a mark on the carpet to provide a sense of scale. Jesse finished by ripping pages from his notebook and carefully placing them over certain spots.
“EMS!” came a shout from the front of the house.
“Back here!” Jesse called. “Put on your booties and hug the walls on your way down the hall, it hasn’t been black-lighted yet!” When the three EMTs got to the end of the hall, Jesse added, “Try not to disturb anythin’, and be careful not to dislodge or step on the pieces of paper I put down.” He turned to Ned. “Go get the blacklight outta the car.”
While the EMTs worked quickly to stabilize both Ogre and Matt, Jesse shone the black light around the dark hallway. Spots fluoresced in a regular pattern along the floor, diminishing in size and strength as they retreated back toward the living room. There were also a couple of random smudges on the wall.
The EMTs were wheeling the gurney containing Ogre back down the hall when the CSU techs finally arrived. As Jesse let them in to gather evidence, telling them to be sure and bag Patti’s hands, he called Eugene Pulaski, one of the paramedics working on Matt over to him. “Remove Matt and Ogre’s clothes carefully and bag each item separately. Also, bag their hands. I’ll send CSU to examine them after they’re done here.”
“Sure, Chief.”
“How bad is Matt?”
“He’s got a nasty gash on his head with some fragments of some kind of glass or ceramic in the wound”—he pointed—“probably from that broken lamp over there. He may have a concussion—won’t know for sure until we get can get a CAT scan
.” Eugene started to leave then stopped, hesitating. “Listen, Jesse, I may be way out of line here,” he said, “but is Matt’s group into doing drugs?”
Jesse’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because his pupils are way off. You want me to tell the docs to run a tox screen?”
“Yeah. On both of them. Tell ‘em to look for GHB or ketamine. And tell ‘em to look for possible injection sites. Thanks, Gene. Thanks for catchin’ that.”
Gene turned to leave, but this time Jesse stopped him. “They gonna be okay? I mean, Ogre—is he—”
“From what we could tell, there’s only the one stab wound and it’s not very deep. It appears to have missed any major organs, but we can’t be sure without an X-ray. And he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Is he gonna make it?”
Eugene shrugged. “Don’t know. We’re working to stabilize him now. We’ll know more, of course, when we get him to the hospital.”
“Go.” Jesse made a shooing motion with his hand. “Don’t let me keep you.” Eugene disappeared down the hall.
Jesse was still staring, long after Eugene had gone, his mind gnawing on the little tidbit the young paramedic had just dropped on him. Drugged. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. That would certainly explain all this. In fact, it is the only thing that would explain all this. Determined to get to the bottom of “all this”, he went back to join Ned who was standing in the open doorway, gazing at the CSU techs methodically working the room. Good. The deputy’s color was beginning to come back.
Sensing Jesse behind him, Ned shook his head slowly. “This scene doesn’t make any sense. What’re we looking at here, Jesse?”
Owning Sarah [Sequel to Loving Sarah] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 19
