by HELEN HARDT
King cast a lingering stare on the case. Garrett wouldn’t be surprised if the snake started drooling next. “It is all there, my friend,” he assured. “Twenty-five thousand for each of the women and your finder’s fee of fifteen thousand.”
King spread his hands. “I have no doubt of that, my friend. I am simply perplexed we are discussing payment now.” He flicked his gaze to Zeke. “Surely you and Gustav are interested in having your own test sessions?”
Z cocked one brow with well-practiced ease. “Will the other two do what she just did?”
King flashed a dirty grin. “Absolutely.”
“Then take the money. I have plans for my new acquisition that do not involve putting my dick on public spectacle.”
Garrett was tempted to chuckle. He was damn glad they’d gotten a recording of that. Cover identity or not, he was pretty sure that was the first and last time he’d hear Zeke turn down an offer to play with a subbie for an audience. For a long second, King scrutinized Z as if he didn’t believe it either. But he’d seen Zeke maintain his cool in situations like this—hell, worse than this—for close to five years now. King wasn’t the first leech they’d had to pry off humanity’s ass. He wouldn’t be the last. Garrett just wished he could make it hurt a little worse for the bastard, like demanding he hand over his balls along with the girls.
Z unlocked the case by pushing on a remote fob that hung on a chain around his neck. When the lock buttons pulsed green, he pushed the case to King. Garrett half expected King to cackle with glee, and King’s smirk hinted that way, but the bastard kept his cool while popping the case latches.
Reverently, King lifted back the lid.
Whoa. Seventy-five thousand dollars looked nice when it was all pretty, lined up and bundled. But the only thing Garrett saw was Zeke and himself in the hallway outside Franz’s office, waiting to have their asses tossed into slings if King really got away with that money. But this was part of the process. One more step to cross off on the glitch-free list. He forced back an impatient sigh, but it pushed in his throat again when Sage started stirring in his arms. The endorphins she’d been swimming in were starting to evaporate. Her back and her ass would start stinging soon. Goddamn, how much longer?
Apparently, much longer. With the speed of a turtle in the sun, King took out a map magnifier. He perused several hundred-dollar notes from the top of the stacks. After verifying the authenticity of the money, the guy looked back up and smiled again. “It is an immense pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen.” He pointed at Z’s chest. “And I shall take that little toy of yours now too.”
Zeke closed his fist over the fob. “You get the toy when we leave with the merchandise.”
King pouted. “Come now. Is that any way to treat a new friend? I have shown I can be trusted, have I not? Tit for tat is in order, gentlemen, if you desire to earn the same from me. Or perhaps you do not desire to earn the same?”
The bastard’s gaze narrowed. The expression had “glitch” written all over it. Instinctively, Garrett pulled Sage in tighter. He felt a matching degree of tension roll off Zeke. His friend emitted a growl. “You have seventy-five thousand reasons to trust us, friend.”
King backpedaled fast. With a nervous laugh, he spread his hands once again. “But of course. I wasn’t implying—”
“Mmmm.”
Sage’s groan, while loud, wasn’t what yanked King to a stunned stop. It was the hand she slinked up around Garrett’s neck, trying to pull him down for a fierce kiss. Garrett acted on sheer instinct in complying with her behest, hoping their long, tongue-tangling embrace swirled enough happy subbie mental mist back into her that she dropped into blissful silence again.
He should have known better.
The strength of her grip, the passion of her mouth, the undulation of her body… They all should have blasted one massive warning sign in his senses. Massive Glitch Ahead.
It happened as soon as he tried to clear the hair from her face. Her eyes, still glassy and lost, focused on him like some cravat-necked lord from one of her costume romance movies. Her lips, shiny and swollen, lifted in a dreamy smile.
“Garrett.” Her breathy inflection didn’t prevent the word from reverberating throughout the room like cannon fire. “Oh Garrett, thank you, baby.”
One second of total silence passed.
In the next, the air crackled from at least a dozen rounds getting chambered into rifles, along with the clicks of three hand guns. His, Zeke’s, and King’s.
“Shit,” Garrett muttered.
“Sounds about right,” Z returned.
Chapter Eighteen
Shit, shit, shit!
Sage dragged a hand through her hair as Garrett swung her next to him and whipped out a gun from under his pant leg. Thirty seconds. She couldn’t believe it. That was all the time it had taken for her senses to tumble from their cloud of satiation and endorphins into an ocean of dread, lined on the bottom by rocks of raw remorse.
I’m sorry. So sorry!
It was an apology Garrett would never hear aloud. He couldn’t afford the time or the distraction now that he and King glared down their gun barrels at each other. There was just one huge discrepancy in that. King and his .45 caliber were backed up by at least ten semiautomatic rifles brandished by guards who imagined this all as some grand adventure instead of a very real, very dangerous standoff. Sage gulped as she watched their untrained bodies twitching and their trigger fingers behaving worse.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Listen to me, King.” Garrett’s assertion pounded the air with shockingly calm command. “This changes nothing about the deal.”
He grabbed her and tucked her tighter behind him, but not before Sage got a longer look at his profile. Between the ruthless granite of his gaze, the rugged set of his mouth, and the maturity added by the false facial hair, he really had been transformed into a different person. Yes, she realized that was the whole idea of undercover work, but this makeover was different. Some parts of him weren’t makeup and costume glue. Some parts were wholly the man he’d become—the man who, crazily enough, had to be in disguise for her to see clearly for the first time. Gone was the reckless soldier boy who’d battled bar drunks for her. This was Garrett the man, sitting in front of a madman’s gun for her. Who might still take a bullet from that gun for her.
The man she loved so deeply, now more than ever.
King’s hyena laugh sliced her thoughts apart. The man poked his gun harder at Garrett in emphasis. “This changes nothing?” he barked. “Is that so? On what fucking planet does it change nothing for you, Sergeant Hawkins?”
Garrett’s composure stayed as resolute as the heights of Rainier. He nodded at the briefcase. “You have your money. We have what we came here for. This doesn’t have to get messy. Take your payoff and go.”
Sage expected another of the man’s smarmy chortles. When King’s response was a glowering silence instead, she admitted a jolt of bafflement—and terror. She didn’t like being wrong or scared about a monster like him.
“Is that what you think?” asked the bastard. “You truly deem that I got what I came here for?”
“He’s on the straight up, dickwad.” The intrusion came from Zeke, who also looked five times more menacing despite a beard and nose that must’ve been stolen from an Abraham Lincoln costume set. “The money’s all there. And it’s all real.”
“Oh ho, no doubt it is!” King rebutted. “Just as it is all marked, no doubt, by the—how did you put it—asshats who supplied it to you.”
“Guess I should take that as a compliment,” Wyatt spoke up, likely as a calculated move to swing King’s head around to where he still stood between Josie and Rayna. “The wrapping job is mine. Took a long time too, when we got all that flow from the bank after selling off Garrett’s condo.”
Sage’s heartbeat seized again on the stunned setting. Garrett sold the condo to do this? He loved the condo even more than she did. Stupid, sacrificing, amazing man.
She would’ve battered him raw if he wasn’t sitting there with nearly ten guns aimed at his beautiful heart.
Damn it, she had to help fix this! But how? She was sitting here, literally a sitting duck, trapped naked in nothing but a flannel blanket, and—
Wait.
Naked. Blanket.
She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. She had more than what she needed, didn’t she?
King’s distraction with Wyatt gave her the ideal opportunity to start repositioning herself, inch by inch. Garrett felt her shifting and tried to grab her ankle in the guise of soothing her, but she dug her heel into his fingers with rebellious resolve.
“So should I now call you the rubber-band man?” King cracked at Garrett’s uncle. “Surely you don’t still prefer Gustav? Or maybe you’ll just tell me who the fuck you really are.”
“No need to get testy. The name’s Wyatt Hawkins. You won’t mind if I continue to call you Mr. Cocksucker, right?”
“Hawkins,” drawled King. “So big daddy bear has come to save the wee one?”
“I’m his uncle. And he hasn’t needed saving since the days I was balls-deep in your mama, assface. I came for her.” He cut Josie out of her blindfold and cuffs and then did the same to Rayna. “And her.” He nodded toward Sage. “And her. And needless to say, my trigger finger gets awfully twitchy when it’s covered in rubber-band burns. So if you don’t mind, we’ll be toodelooing now.”
King responded to that by raising a hand. As Sage expected, all the guards jumped to high alert. Three of them lurched toward Wyatt, Josie, and Rayna. There were two dedicated to Garrett alone. The rest lurched into the same raised hackle mode, covering both doors, ready to shoot an ant on the wall if it moved.
None of them were paying attention to the naked girl in the blanket.
Which made it completely easy to sneak along the back of the couch. And surprisingly effortless to take a stance on the armrest as she peeled the blanket loose, spreading it outward, exposing her nudity in full glory. And outright fun to watch at least three of the soldiers turn to her with worshipful gapes.
And completely awesome to leap forward on a wild yell as she tossed the thing onto the idiots.
She jumped down to advance on the other guards, who struggled to comprehend that bare tits, ass, and other accessories were coming after them like a banshee on a vendetta. That was fine by her. She was a banshee on a vendetta.
She veered to the left, back into the dungeon area where Garrett had taken her to the moon and back. The whip rack lay two steps in. She grabbed a couple of the shorter single tails before turning back to face the three goons who’d followed her.
“Who wants a crack at me first, gentlemen?” She braced her legs and snapped the poppers on the floor, splitting the air with a pair of frightening cracks. “Huh. That was pretty cool, huh? Must’ve been beginner’s luck. You know, these things take practice. I’ve only played around with one, years ago. I’m not very good at all. God only knows what I’ll hit in my current delirium.” She flicked the leather lengths again. The soldiers scampered backward.
“Sage. Holy fuck!” The bellow came from Garrett, but she didn’t take her sights off the three henchmen in front of her.
“Do not listen to the bitch!” King screamed. “Take her down, damn you. Take her down!”
“The only things going down are your weapons, assholes.” She took a second to pray before cutting one of the whips at the closest guard. The lash came nowhere near her intended target, the guy’s gun hand, but it did flick into his crotch, making him fall to the floor in groaning agony. His gun slid away as he grabbed his balls and sobbed. Her heartbeat roaring, the heat of her terror burning behind her eyes, she bared her teeth at the remaining pair of goons. “Who’s next?”
The guards vacillated. They looked to King, only to discover that Zeke had used her antics as the ideal distraction. Their boss’s glare had a distinct new accessory—the butt of Z’s pistol.
“That’s such a pretty forty-five, cocksucker,” Zeke murmured. “I think my buddy would dig getting a closer look at it.” He dipped a glance at Wyatt. “Why don’t you set it down on the floor now. Yep, right there is fine. Do me a favor and slide it over to him.”
When King obeyed the first part of the demand but defiantly kicked the pistol in the opposite direction from Wyatt, Z let out a chuckle. “Ooohhh, you’re so cute, King. I love how you make me giggle in girlish delight.”
The guards in front of Sage huffed in frustration. “Screw this,” one of them blurted. He bolted from the building. The other three, including the guy she’d just whipped in the balls, rushed out after him. King roared in rage when the sound of a started car came from the open door. The engine purred, likely that of a Jag, BMW, or high-end Mercedes. Obviously, the goons had chosen King’s personal car for their escape.
If a human could breathe fire, Sage was certain King would spit full explosions at Zeke. The man glared like a caged dragon, lips twisting, skin mottling. “This shit is not done!”
Zeke barked in laughter. “Oh yeah, fuck-nugget, it’s done.” With his free hand, he pulled out a pair of fast plastic cuffs. Before he moved again, he looked around at King’s remaining minions. A couple of them still wrestled with the blanket, though Wyatt had already fished out their guns and now stood with the pile stacked between his spread legs. “I’m gonna put these on your boss man now, okay?” Zeke stated. “You know that if any of you try to stop me, my friends will put a bullet in your chest.” He nodded in Sage’s direction. “Whip girl will be happy to cut your crotch open for good measure too.”
Garrett glowered at his friend. “Are you encouraging her?” He stomped over and jabbed a finger at the corner where he’d left her skimpy outfit. “Put your damn clothes on, woman. Now.”
Zeke chuckled again, leaning over to King with the cuffs. Sage was about to give a sarcastic “Yes, Sir” to her fiancé when she witnessed the same crazy incident that everyone else did.
King greeted Zeke with a hug.
No. Oh God, no.
King didn’t give Z a hug. It was a knife. A big one, which he drove right into Z’s gut.
“It’s not over,” the monster said with a gritted smile.
“Nooooo!”
Rayna’s scream filled the room. Garrett lunged, slamming King away before the bastard could pull the knife free and make Z bleed out. Sage dashed over, trying to help Garrett pin King down, but the monster whacked a solid backhand to her cheek and she fell away. Seconds later, King scrambled clear from Garrett too. He stumbled to his feet, wrenched open the door—
Then crumpled against the jamb and slid down it.
A streak of blood followed his descent, flowing from the bullet wound in his forehead. There was a nick in the wood, clearly made by another bullet that had missed.
Sage gasped in shock. Still didn’t give her enough air. She tried again. Then again. She hadn’t even heard the shots.
“Wh-What the…” The words died as she stared back across the room. She’d pictured Wyatt standing there with the smoking gun—but the weapon was braced in Rayna’s trembling hands instead.
“You want over, asshole?” Her friend’s voice wobbled. Her teeth were bared in rage. “Now it’s over.”
Chapter Nineteen
“God, I’m glad you didn’t really sell this place.”
Sage’s husky murmur resonated against Garrett’s chest as the last rays of the sunset disappeared over the lake. They left behind a sky that looked like a watercolor too good to be real. Whipped-cream clouds danced with shades of lavender, orange, and amber over the silhouetted trees and were reflected in the calm ripples along the water outside.
Inside the condo, where they nestled on the couch with each other, Garrett chuckled quietly while twirling a strand of her hair. He’d never get tired of ending their days like this. Though the last week had been an insane whirl of debriefs at the base, another round of media for Sage, and checking in at the hospital with Z at lea
st once a day, they’d made sure to slot this time together at or near sunset.
Okay, so most nights, the couch cuddle hadn’t been exactly the end of their day. It led to ways that formed an even better conclusion for them both. Way better. Garrett and his new alter ego, who’d fast earned the title “Sir G” from Sage, were becoming fast comrades in the quest of bringing their woman a world of submissive pleasure. The stockpile in the nightstand now included a couple of mini floggers, nipple clamps, a remote-operated vibrator, several anal insertables, and lots of scented lube. And he wanted more. Much more.
He only hoped she could handle more—because tonight, she was going to get it.
Just the thought of his little surprise made Garrett shift a little, concertedly commanding the rocket between his legs to hold on to its fucking fuse. Sage pulled away from him a bit, crunching her brow in a frown. “I’m sorry, baby. I walked in here and instantly started talking about my visit with Ray at the hospital. I spaced on dinner. You’re probably hungry, right?”
“Nope.” Garrett smiled softly at her. “Not hungry. I grabbed something late this afternoon. Figured you’d be eating with Rayna. How’s she doing?”
Sage shrugged. “She’s talking to the counselors every day. She’s in the business of saving lives, not shooting people, no matter how much she hated King. It’s a lot for her to deal with right now. But focusing on Z is helping her, for sure.”
“That’s good. Real good. And how is Sergeant Hayes himself coming along, besides grouchy as fuck?”
“He’s still grouchy as fuck.” She giggled. “He’ll probably be out tomorrow in time to wreak hell on Rayna’s weekend.”
The affectionate tone of her voice shifted him into a serious mien. “Z doesn’t say too much to me about her, you know.”
