SinfulSouthernHero

by S. J. Drum

  When she started to move her hands from where he had placed them above her head, he growled a warning and withdrew until only the head of his shaft was lodged inside her. “What did I tell you about your hands?”

  Lucy writhed and wiggled, trying to pull him back inside while carefully placing her hands back over her head. “Please.”

  “Please, what?” Dalton asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it.

  “Please. Don’t stop. I need you inside of me. I want to watch you come.”

  Dalton felt his dick twitch at the sound of her words. Wanting nothing more than to give Lucy what she needed, he angled his hips to reach the sweet spot in her channel and thrust back inside of her, setting up a pounding rhythm.

  The rhythm and angle had them both moaning in concert each time he thrust inside her wet heat. Straining and slick with sweat, Dalton moved his grip to her knees and pushed them upward from where they’d settled at his hips. The small shift in position allowed his dick to reach just the slightest bit deeper and brought them both to a dizzying orgasm in seconds.

  Drained of the tension and worry that had pulled at Dalton for the past week, he collapsed forward onto Lucy, wrapping her in his arms and pressing his nose behind her ear to breathe in her scent. Without looking up, he removed the belt from her wrists.

  * * * * *

  Lucy was terrified. Not of the massive weight laid across her nude body or the gentle kisses being placed behind her ear and along her neck. No, what terrified Lucy were the dangerous feelings bubbling up through the cracks Dalton had made in the wall around her heart. She felt…happy and hopeful and it scared the ever-loving shit out of her.

  Life had taught Lucy to be wary of hope and happiness because they had the power to hurt her more significantly than any negative emotion ever could.

  With a groan, Dalton pushed himself off of her to stand. When he offered her his hands, she hesitated, weighing the risk.

  “Darlin’?” Dalton wiggled his fingertips and raised a brow in challenge.

  She could either hide for the rest of her life, never letting anyone close enough to hurt her, never allowing herself to dare to feel such foreign emotions as love and happiness, or she could say fuck it and take a chance on a full life.

  Lucy placed her hands in Dalton’s larger, rougher ones and allowed him to pull her up to stand in front of him. He held her gaze and she saw understanding reflected in the depths of his sinfully blue eyes.

  After getting dressed, she agreed to ride with Dalton to his place and pick up her small bag of belongings from Abigail and Jed’s later in the evening. Opening the office door and stepping into the hall, Lucy jumped and let out an indelicate squeak of surprise at finding Dez reclining against the wall just outside her office. A heated blush stained her cheeks at the thought of what he may have heard.

  “Dez,” Dalton rumbled as he followed her into the hall.

  An uncharacteristic grin stretched Dez’s lips. “Dalton. Whatever could you have been doing in Lucy’s office with the door locked?”

  Lucy tucked her face into Dalton’s side in an effort to quell some of her embarrassment.

  Dalton, the ass, didn’t seem nearly as bothered. “None of your business, asshole. What do you want?”

  Lucy peeked at Dez and watched his grin fade.

  “Just wanted to let you know my guy is moving on Ross Vance. As we speak his house is being combed for evidence and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. He’s in the wind, not using any credit cards, the cell phone registered in his name has been turned off and he hasn’t shown up for work. My guess is he’s running scared. Still, we need to keep our guard up until this fucker is in lockdown.”

  A strange mix of nausea, guilt and joy coursed through Lucy. It was almost over. A thought occurred to her. “You said he hasn’t shown up for work. Does that mean the state police or whoever your guy is went to the precinct looking for Ross?” At Dez’s nod, she asked, “And they were helpful? I find that hard to believe.”

  Dez shook his head. “They weren’t given a choice. They’re used to doing whatever the hell they want in that podunk precinct and to hell with common decency and the law. Lucy, you’re not the only person those cops dicked over. Their operation was already under investigation and your case tipped the scales in the Internal Affairs’ favor. I imagine there will be a thorough housecleaning and re-staffing project in the precinct pretty damn soon.”

  Relief and vindication propelled Lucy out of Dalton’s arms and against Dez’s chest for a hug she knew he wasn’t expecting. “Thank you, Dez. Thank you.”

  The startled man in her arms gave her a tentative hug in return before clearing his throat. “Well, don’t thank me yet. They haven’t caught the bastard yet. Besides, I didn’t do anything but make a call.”

  “Bullshit,” Dalton said while pulling Lucy back into his arms and away from Dez. “You did more than I could have. But, you’re right, we’ll wait to celebrate until after Ross is behind bars.”

  “I’ll keep you updated as I receive information,” Dez told Dalton, giving him a hard look. “Keep our girl safe.”

  Lucy watched him disappear down the hallway before turning to Dalton. “I know you said we’d wait to celebrate, but can we do one little thing when we get to your place?”

  Dalton slung a heavy arm over her shoulders and led her toward the outside door. “What’s that, darlin’?”

  “Well…”

  “Spit it out already.” Dalton pushed open the glass door and pulled her into the sweltering heat of the parking lot.

  “I can’t say it out loud. I’ll have to whisper it.”

  His steps stuttered to a stop and a sexy, mischievous smile tilted one corner of his lips. “Damn, whatever it is sounds good.” He leaned down to place his ear closer to Lucy’s lips.

  Deciding to go for it, Lucy whispered, “I want to fuck you on your kitchen table. We need to…sexually baptize…that hunk of wood. I can’t stand the thought of Rachel being the most recent naked woman to have laid on its surface. Either we’re fucking on it or we’re gonna have a bonfire with it tonight. Your choice.”

  Previously unaware of the phenomenon, the power rush Lucy felt when asserting herself sexually and witnessing Dalton’s response caught her by surprise. It was as if she had the ultimate control over this towering masculine figure. At her explicit words, the otherwise self-contained and rough man swayed toward her, his eyes glazing with lust. Meek, chubby Lucy Ellingsworth even managed to change the direction of his blood flow, if the bulge in his pants was any indication.

  She giggled when Dalton abruptly bent at the waist, put his shoulder to her stomach and tossed her over his shoulder. Knowing he would only growl at her and continue on his way if she objected to being carried on the basis of her weight, she pushed her insecurity aside and grinned like an idiot while he stomped toward his truck and tossed her inside the cab.

  During the short drive to Dalton’s house, she allowed the dangerous emotions of hope and happiness to infuse her with a sense of confidence she couldn’t remember ever feeling. After parking his truck, Dalton shot her a roguish wink before climbing out of the cab and rounding the hood to open her door. The humid summer heat combined with the scent of fresh-cut grass to give the walk from the truck to Dalton’s front door a nostalgic, dreamlike quality.

  Lucy was so lost in the moment and her tentative grasp on her exciting new emotions that, when Dalton’s body stiffened before toppling down onto the wooden porch in an unnatural sprawl, she stared at the anomaly as though it were a movie playing on a screen instead of real life happening right in front of her.

  The strong body crumpled at her feet was as out of place in the silly daydream of hope and happiness as the red feather-tipped dart sticking out of one of Dalton’s muscled shoulders. The bright crimson feathers on the end of the tubular dart rippled gently in the warm breeze, an obscene middle finger to any chance Lucy might have had at a normal life.

  She concent
rated on the small amount of comfort she felt watching the rhythmic rise and fall of Dalton’s chest and the knowledge he would likely awake pissed as hell but alive. She was so focused on the body of her lover and the tragic red feathers now adorning him, that only when she noticed the object of her attention getting smaller, farther away, did she realize she wasn’t a sideshow in this terrible attraction, but the main event.

  Lucy was being kidnapped.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dalton awoke to a sharp pain in his shoulder and a muffled masculine voice demanding he do something. Whatever the owner of the voice wanted, he could fucking forget about gaining Dalton’s compliance. Sleep. All Dalton wanted was sleep.

  Why does my head weigh a thousand pounds?

  His ears felt stuffed with cotton and he ached all over, too.

  As Dalton’s senses slowly returned, he began to realize something was wrong.

  He cracked an eye open and met sunlight, which seemed to stab a straight line to his brain, strengthening his growing headache. The last thing he remembered was walking toward his house with Lucy, then…

  A metallic whistling POP!

  Pain…

  Darkness…

  Lucy!

  Dalton struggled to rise from his sprawl but whatever drug had entered his system made him weak as particle board when he was accustomed to feeling more like oak. Though it seriously pissed him off to accept help, he allowed the owner of the masculine voice—whom he now saw was Dez—to brace his shoulders and pull his worthless body into an undignified slump. Dez gripped Dalton under his arms and dragged him a few feet backward across rough porch boards before settling his back to lean against the porch railing, supporting his unsteady upright position.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, massaging the sore spot on his shoulder where the dart Dez was currently dangling in his face had struck him.

  “That about sums it up.” Dez’s voice sounded clearer this time when he spoke. Dalton took this as a good sign.

  “What the hell, man? I thought you were all on top of this shit. Didn’t you have people watching Ross? Where the fuck is Lucy?” If he could have stood upright, Dalton would have pounded his fist into his friend and foreman’s face. From the start it had eaten at him to entrust Lucy’s safety to Dez and his shady, secretive “contacts”. Equal amounts of rage and guilt coursed through Dalton as he narrowed his eyes on the man crouched in front of him.

  A muscle jumped in Dez’s hard jaw but he held Dalton’s gaze. “It fucking pains me to say this but no one is infallible, not even me. I don’t know how this bastard slipped by my guys but we will find her, brother. I’ve got backup on the way here as we speak and we will bring Lucy home.”

  Dalton studied Dez, finding sincere concern and no small amount of the man’s own guilt etched onto his drawn face and tense muscles. It wasn’t the time for confrontations of this nature but Dalton’s emotions were running high and the sedative in his veins loosened his lips. “You know Lucy’s mine, right? You even think about her in a non-big-brother way and I will smash your face.”

  Dez swiped a hand over his sweat-damp face and chuckled before offering Dalton a hand. “Think you can stand? We need to get some water and caffeine in you if you’re going to help us find your girl.”

  “Answer the question, asshole.”

  “I get you. She’s yours.” Dez shoved his outstretched hand closer to Dalton.

  After grabbing the offered hand and lurching clumsily to his feet, Dalton allowed Dez to lead him through his front door and into the kitchen where he dropped his ass onto a kitchen chair with a grateful groan.

  While filling a glass of water at the sink, a safe distance from Dalton, Dez looked over his shoulder and said, “Not that I didn’t think about it. I mean, Lucy is hot and that crazy red hair totally makes me hard.”

  Dalton growled, “Dez…”

  Dez walked over and placed the full glass of water on the table in front of Dalton before continuing. “But, even if I was the kind of guy to poach, Lucy wouldn’t have me. She loves your dumb ass.”

  Suddenly realizing how dry his mouth was, Dalton grabbed the glass and guzzled down its entire contents in one go. He slammed the empty glass on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Good. Now, how are we gonna get her back?”

  “I—”

  Dez was cut off by the sound of furious pounding on Dalton’s porch door. He was up and gone before Dalton could push his unsteady body to stand.

  Rachel swept into the kitchen in a fit of curse words and a halo of messy blonde hair. Dalton had never seen her so undone. Before he could demand she take herself right back out his door, she blurted, “I know where Lucy is.”

  Dalton’s face grew hot and he contemplated strangling her. At least if she’d been a man, he could have taken out some of his frustration on her crazy hide. “Please tell me you had nothing to do with this, Rachel.”

  “Yes. No. Not in the way you’re thinking.” She shook her head and pleaded for understanding with her wide eyes.

  “Explain. Now. I have no patience left where you’re concerned.”

  Dez backed up Dalton’s words by stepping close to Rachel and giving her a stare so grim it had probably made grown men piss their pants.

  “He told me Lucy was crazy, said she needed help.”

  “Who?” Dez demanded.

  With a pained look, Rachel conceded, “Ross. He said he only wanted time alone with her to convince her to let him get her the help she needed. I believed him. Or maybe I just wanted to.” Her gaze sought Dalton before quickly skating to the floor. Her throat worked hard like she was fighting back tears. “I thought if I could get her away from you, you’d come back to me.”

  “What?” Dalton yelled, slamming his fist onto the table and making Rachel jump.

  “I was wrong. I know that now,” she spoke fast. “He found out there was a warrant out on him and lost his mind. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t help him.”

  Dalton stood, adrenaline finally trumping any drugs remaining in his system. He prowled toward Rachel and spoke through clenched teeth. “What have you done?”

  Tears pooled on her long black lashes. “He has a gun, he threatened to kill me and do something horrible to my brother if I didn’t help him. I used company records at Elegance Supplied to find a place he could take Lucy. There are a few properties with houses that were started but never completed due to lack of funding. We keep the information on all our projects, even the abandoned ones.”

  Dalton wasn’t capable of summoning enough care for Rachel to go easy on her. “Where. Did. He. Take. Her?” he growled, finding no enjoyment in the way Rachel trembled at his tone but also unconcerned with her feelings.

  She pulled a folded yellow post-it note from her back pocket and handed it to him. On its crinkled surface was one line, an address. Dalton knew the place. He shoved the paper in Dez’s hands and headed for the door. He heard Dez giving Rachel instructions to stay put as he reached the porch.

  Four people Dalton didn’t recognize pulled three motorcycles to a stop in his narrow drive. The combined sound of the bikes caused the boards of his porch to vibrate, the rumbling strong enough he felt it through the soles of his boots. Dez loped down the porch steps and greeted each driver as they shut off their engines. Dalton guessed them to be the backup Dez spoke of, except… “While I appreciate the help,” he started as he strode to stand on the top step, “this ain’t a double date. Your girlfriend stays here.” Dalton addressed his order to the one man who’d pulled up with a woman on the back of his bike.

  Dalton turned at the sound of his front door clicking open, ready to send Rachel back inside, when a whiff! and thump! sounded entirely too close to his head. Spinning back around, he first cataloged the palm-sized blade embedded point first into the four-by-four porch post a few inches to his right. His gaze went from the knife to the tiny woman straddling the back of a bike in his driveway while leveling a small handgun on him.

  Wi
th the woman wearing skintight jeans and an equally revealing tank top, Dalton couldn’t imagine where she hid those weapons. She gave him a nod then lowered the gun.

  Dez walked over and retrieved the blade from the porch post with a grunt of effort. With the knife, Dez pointed at each person in turn. “This is Jason, Kade, Denver and Annie. Annie’s a mute, so don’t bother asking her any questions. I gave them the address. I’m with you in your truck. Let’s roll out.”

  Dez’s in-charge attitude grated on Dalton, but he was too anxious to find Lucy to argue.

  “You all right to drive?” Dez asked.

  “Yup.” Dalton pulled his keys from his pocket and headed toward his truck at a jog. As he jumped into the cab, the noise of three bikes revving their engines drowned out any further talk.

  * * * * *

  The heat inside the unfinished McMansion had Lucy’s clothes damp with sweat within minutes of entering the house. Ross had shoved her onto her knees in the entryway of what would someday be a living room and, after thirty minutes inside the Godforsaken oven of a house, Lucy’s knees were aching and her head was swimming, no doubt from the amount of fluid she was sweating out.

  She’d been in this position many times before, on her knees at the mercy of Ross, of which he had none. There was one thing different about this particular situation, though. This time, Lucy was different. She had no plans to cower, apologize and meekly take a beating all the while hoping her actions would lessen the punishment. This time, she was going to fight. She just needed to wait for the right opportunity.

  Lucy tracked Ross’ movements as he paced back and forth in front of her, ranting and brandishing his gun to emphasize his statements like normal people wave their hands around when they’re angry.

  The smug bastard hadn’t bothered restraining her, no doubt depending upon the years he’d committed to conditioning Lucy to fear him and keep her from running.

  “Are you listening to me, you stupid bitch?” Spittle flew from his lips as he jabbed Lucy in the forehead with the muzzle of his handgun.