Hailey's Game

by Hailey's Game (lit)

  The problem was she didn’t believe herself. Hailey couldn’t escape the feeling that she should be bracing herself for Cole’s reaction, but it would help if she had a clue as to what that reaction would be. Hailey didn’t have any idea of what to expect but figured a shower and food would help her handle it better than being stinky and hungry.

  A great idea in theory, bathing required a great deal of vulnerability with the removing of clothes and the loss of hearing by the rushing water. Hailey had never before been so aware of just how dangerous the simple act of showering could be. Rushing through her daily luxury, Hailey even dressed in the steamed-over room, too afraid of what may lurk on the other side of the door.

  Never before had opening her bathroom door been such a nerve-racking experience, but Hailey peeked out, making sure nothing had changed while she’d been insulated in the shower. Silent stillness still reigned over her house, and she peered around the corners like a cop on a TV show as she made her way to the kitchen and the coffee pot.

  A half hour and two cups of coffee later, Hailey started to feel a little silly. She was acting like the CIA was after her, but neither Cole nor Kyle would ever actually hurt her. Fortified by sunlight and growing impatience with her fear, Hailey began to rationalize just how good her situation actually was.

  Yes, Cole had gotten arrested, but really, whose fault was that? His own. So what if Hailey had put the offer on the table? Only a total butthead would have taken it up. That had been Cole’s choice and just as she’d always said, it was his to make.

  It didn’t sound good to her ears, but Hailey couldn’t take just sitting in her kitchen waiting for something to happen. Still, for all her silent bravado, Hailey peered out of windows, scanning her yard and street before she dared to unlock the front door.

  Dashing out as if the boogie man might just out and grab her at any point, Hailey rushed for the newspaper. Making it back through the front door safely, she slammed it, leaning against the solid wood surface as she panted from her exertion.

  Locking it back up, she carried the plastic wrapped paper into the kitchen where she dropped it onto the table. She’d need another cup of coffee before she could face the headline article. Folded over as it was, Hailey could already make out the first bold words.

  Local Man. She knew who that referred to. Armed with a full mug, settled into her seat, and braced for the worst, Hailey dumped the paper out onto the table and flatted out the front page.

  Local Man Helps Police Break Up Prostitution Ring.

  Hailey finally heard something as her eyes traced back over the letters—a high pitched ringing. It started in her head, buzzing right out her ears as she began to read the small print.

  A local man, Cole Jackson, went undercover to help the Dothan police infiltrate a motel long suspected of operating a prostitution service through its rooms. The sting last night…

  She read it over and over again, just that sentence. Rachel hadn’t written this article. Andy Anderson had, so where was Rachel’s article? Where was Rachel? She hadn’t called once in the last day. Even as the thought occurred to her, Hailey reached for her phone.

  She got Rachel’s voice mail on her cell and counted on getting the same on her home number when on the fifth ring a man finally answered. “Hello?”

  “Uh,” Hailey couldn’t place the voice in the moment and it left her fumbling slightly. “Is Rachel there?”

  “Hailey?”

  The question almost sounded like an accusation, and she snapped back her own. “Who is this?”

  “Adam.”

  “Oh, hey, Adam.” Hailey almost laughed as the stress released out of her with that answer. “This is Hailey. I was just trying to get in touch with Rachel.”

  “She’s tied up right now,” Adam drawled with a certain smugness that had Hailey stilling.

  “What?”

  “She gonna be tied up for a few days, Hailey, but I’ll let her know you called.”

  He didn’t even bother to say goodbye before the line went dead. Staring at the phone, Hailey didn’t know what to make of that strange call. It left her almost feeling the need to call back and demand answers, but instead she dialed Patton’s number. Unfortunately, Slade answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Slade? It’s Hailey.”

  “Oh, morning, Hales. How’s it going?” He sounded way too damn happy.

  “Not good.” But she bet Slade knew that already. “I don’t suppose you’d let me talk to Patton for a moment.”

  “Ah, sorry, Hailey. She’s tied up right now.”

  “And I bet she’s going to be that way for the next couple of days,” Hailey muttered.

  Slade laughed in the face of her misery. “You got that right, Hailey. Now you have to excuse me, I have a busy morning ahead.”

  “Yeah, great.” Hanging up, Hailey just stared at the paper until she couldn’t take it anymore. Dialing the number she knew by heart, she waited four rings for the son of a bitch to answer. When he didn’t, that just riled her temper another notch and had her fingers scorching over the numbers to his cell.

  He answered on the second ring, and she didn’t even wait to hear his greeting. “Can’t bother to get out of bed to answer the phone? Do I have to ask what it is you’re doing?”

  “Mornin’, princess.” Cole sounded ready to laugh. “I wouldn’t bother with the good part because I can tell it ain’t going that well for you.”

  “No, it isn’t, and you know damn well why,” Hailey snarled. “You think you are so clever. Don’t you, Cole?”

  “Clever? I don’t know about all of that, but according to the paper, I am a hero.”

  Oh, he loved saying that. “How?”

  “How what, princess?”

  “How did you figure it out?”

  “Is that really important right now, Hailey?” Cole retorted. “Or aren’t you calling to find out what it is I want in retribution?”

  Just the way he asked the question told Hailey the answer. “I know what you want, Cole.”

  “Is that right?” His voice dropped into the husky tones of a lover. “So, tell me, then, you going to give it to me?”

  Hailey swallowed. He’d take it if she didn’t, and she didn’t doubt that. “Where is Kyle?”

  “Holding the leash, princess,” Cole growled. “If it had been up to me, you’d have woken up with dick holding you still for the torment you got coming to you, but your Prince Charming wanted to give you a chance to surrender with dignity. So tell me, Hailey, how do you want to end this game?”

  Hailey closed her eyes and went with the nuclear option. “I love you, Cole.”

  Silence hung on the other end before he muttered. “Oh, that’s low, Hailey.”

  “I think I’ll call Kyle and tell him I’ll put his ring on.”

  “Oh, don’t you—”

  Hailey hung up on his yell and dialed Kyle’s number as fast as she could. He picked up on the third ring, and she could already hear Cole yelling in the background.

  “Don’t you let that woman sweet talk you out of our deal!”

  “Shut up, Cole. Hello?” He voice went up as he turned back into the phone.

  “Kyle?”

  “What?”

  That sharp response had her feeling her way slowly. “I guess you know about the Bavis deal.” She rounded the statement out when he didn’t help fill in the pause.

  “You promised, Kyle. She earned her due, and you aren’t going to stand in my way.”

  “You realize he’s getting ready to head over to your place.” Cold and detached, Kyle’s tone sobered Hailey up more than his words. Cole might be all fired up and ready to bring the battle to her doorstep, but his outrage was all bluster. An act he planned to use to corner her into giving him his night, his way.

  Kyle, though, sounded honestly remote, and that had her hesitating. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No? Let me ask you this, why did you do it? I mean, I know you and
your buddies came up with this plan about the time Cole and I tore up the Bread Box. I get that you might have been mad back then, but we gave you every chance to confess yesterday. So, why didn’t you?”

  All her answers felt lame and limp in the face of his anger. Hailey didn’t have the courage to air them now. Instead, she tried to gloss over them all with a muttered, “I don’t know. I guess I just got scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Yeah, I mean I figured you’d be mad.”

  “And so you reasoned we’d be less so after the fact?” Kyle snorted.

  “Okay, fine,” Hailey snapped, goaded by her own guilt into a rash truth. “I know one day you two are going to move on to your next victim, and I can’t…I won’t…”

  She stopped trying to say what she couldn’t. Sighing, her shoulders slumped forward. “I do love you, Kyle. I just know love doesn’t last.”

  He didn’t respond for a long moment. When he did, his voice didn’t carry an ounce of sympathy or understanding. “Hailey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be naked and in bed by the time we get there.”

  * * * *

  Kyle managed to hold on to his laughter until after he disconnected the call. “This is almost too much fun. You know?”

  “She said she loved me.” Cole laughed.

  “Hailey’s really desperate right now.”

  “Yeah.” Cole appeared to consider that for a moment before cocking a brow at Kyle. “You think she’s going to be naked and in bed?”

  Kyle could wish. “No.”

  Sighing, Cole straightened up. “Well, then I guess we better get a move on it. We got a lot of work to get done today.”

  A lot of work, Kyle echoed as he lifted up the gym bag Cole already had prepared and followed Cole out the kitchen door. He felt good about the coming confrontation. It felt like a cleansing. After today, they could finally start their life together.

  Pulling in behind the tarp covered car in the drive fifteen minutes later, Cole sat there with the truck idling staring at the Fastback hidden under the blue cover.

  “I can’t believe I actually own it, man.” Cole shook his head and laughed. “I got the car and the girl. I really am the king.”

  “We don’t have the girl yet.” Kyle pushed open his door. Hefting the gym bag over his shoulder, he paused before jumping out. “What do you want to bet I have to break down the back door?”

  “Why don’t we just use the key?” Cole’s question came a moment later as he cleared the hood of the truck to fall in step with Kyle as they went up the drive.

  “You think Hailey left those rocks out?” Kyle snorted. “She ain’t that dumb.”

  “Neither am I.” Cole produced one of Hailey’s house keys from his pocket. “I swiped it out of the rock yesterday before lunch.”

  “I guess you really are the king,” Kyle snickered as they turned around the path that led up to the back porch. The shuffle of their boots over the pavement came to a pause as they both stared up at the wide-open kitchen door.

  “Will you look at that,” Cole murmured.

  Kyle looked, even as he leaned in to whisper to Cole. “You think she’s still in the house?”

  “Yeah,” Cole nodded.

  “You think it’s a trap?”

  Typical Cole, he just grinned at the idea and started back up the path. “Only one way to find out.”

  For all his cockiness, Cole didn’t strut through the door but peeked through, moving into the kitchen much like a man who expected a banshee to jump out at any moment. Nothing stirred but the whine of the door as Kyle pushed it even farther open with the gym bag.

  “What do you think?”

  Cole didn’t answer but tossed him a shrug before he began moving down the hall. Neither man called out to Hailey but crept along for all the stealth the hard wood floors provided. Cole veered toward the living room, and Kyle ducked into the longer hall the bedrooms fed off. He looked one place, and he only needed to.

  “Cole.” Calling his best friend back to his side, Kyle waited until Cole crowded in the hallway to see the sign Hailey left for them. Stuck to her closed bedroom door was a little brown square patch Kyle recognized instantly. Dangling from behind, the gold chain hammered in the message.

  “It is a trap.” Cole shook his head, starting down the hall. “The little wench, she trying to throw the damn game.”

  Barging into her room, Cole came to a short stop, forcing Kyle to push around him to see Hailey sitting in bed wearing nothing but a sheet and his ring. The sight took Kyle’s breath away, and the gym bag thunked down onto the floor.

  “Well, well, well.” Cole circled the bed but didn’t draw Hailey’s gaze or smile from Kyle.

  Ah, but she looks like a goddess.

  With her hair glowing in the sunlight, the golden rays warmed over her shoulder and arms, making her fairly radiate with sensual appeal that all but lured Kyle to his doom.

  Cole blocked out Kyle’s view as he stretched one arm over the headboard and the other across Hailey’s hip to lean in and threaten her. “Don’t think all this ceremony is going to stop me from taking my revenge, princess.”

  A hand with his ring glinting on her finger circled Cole’s neck and pulled him down over Hailey. With a hoot, Cole rolled over her and, from all the laughter, it sounded like his friend had fun wrestling with a naked Hailey. Kyle certainly liked the show, especially when she crawled over Cole and spread those legs so he got a nice view of the heaven he’d soon be delighting in.

  Mesmerized by his own lustful thoughts, Kyle barely paid any attention to their commotion as Hailey pounded Cole with a pillow. His friend hollering all sorts of obscenity-laden threats didn’t even disturb his pleasant contemplations.

  Not until Hailey leaned back and Cole didn’t follow did it even dawn on Kyle that something was wrong. Blinking away his erotic musings didn’t come easy when Hailey turned, crawling naked across her bed.

  “Kyle, damnit! Do something!”

  Cole's outraged demand still didn’t draw Kyle’s gaze as his mind considered just what he’d do with the sexy little woman coming his way. With that look in her eyes, he should probably consider what it was she intended to do with him.

  “Kyle!”

  Sighing over that impatient demand, Kyle did what he didn’t want to look over at Cole. Cuffed to her headboard, just like some part of him had known for minutes. Still, he didn’t feel like doing anything more about Cole’s predicament than wrap his arms around the warm, soft, naked woman pressing all her sweet curves into him.

  “I knew you set a trap.” Kyle turned back to accept the kiss Hailey brushed into his mouth. Returning the gesture, he kept his just as teasing as he murmured between the caresses. “You don’t really think a few kisses are going to trick me into letting you leave him like that, do you?”

  Hailey pulled back with a pout on her full lips. “We both know Cole’s going to punish me.”

  “You got that right, princess,” Cole shot back instantly. “And your tab is just going up, so why don’t you save yourself and undo these cuffs now.”

  Cole didn’t sound happy or amused anymore. In fact, Kyle hadn’t ever heard him sound more pissed. Hailey didn’t appear too concerned. She didn’t even appear to notice Cole’s interruption, probably hoping to distract Kyle, too, with the subtle rubbing motion that kept him very aware of all the naked curves at his fingertips.

  “And he doesn’t really have any right.”

  “I have all the right in the world, princess,” Cole snapped. “You gave me that when you and your little girl squad teamed up with Bavis to make a joke out of me.”

  “But he didn’t make a joke out of Cole,” Hailey pouted in a little girl voice she’d never unleashed on him before. Like salt water to metal, it eroded his strength. “We made him a hero.”

  “I made myself one, and don’t be trying to twist the facts. Kyle knows the whole truth.”

  “All I wanted was for Cole to know what it
was like to be bound.” Hailey gave Kyle a hopeful little smile. “Don’t you think I should get to enjoy a little of that before I suffer for it.”

  Kyle smiled. She argued a good point, especially to the man who didn’t have metal bracelets on.

  “Don’t you dare, Kyle. I swear to God—”

  “Besides,” Hailey looked back at Cole. “I bent the keys, so either you have to cut through the metal poles of the headboard or call somebody.”

  “You’re assuming we don’t have our own set of keys,” Cole snarled.

  That challenge had Hailey straightening away from him to give Cole the classic head-roll of a pissed off woman. “Did you bring them?”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “So,” Hailey turned her grin back on Kyle. “I guess that means you have to leave Cole with me while you run off to get the key or, of course,” Hailey pressed herself back against him, “you could just stay and enjoy the moment.”

  “The moment?” Kyle smiled. His little princess really did think he was the Prince Charming, but Kyle wanted to be king. Maybe it was time he explained that fact to Hailey.

  Chapter 40

  Hailey held her smile as Kyle moved back. He’d fold. Her whole plan relied on him folding. It had all come to her the moment Kyle hung up and she realized just how deep she sank her ship into the mire.

  Hailey accepted it. She couldn’t win the war. She’d been fighting and fighting, but she could go on her whole life and they’d still be standing there, waiting for her to finally tire out. For all the bluster, Hailey admitted she’d come to that point.

  Being tired didn’t mean just accepting defeat in Hailey’s mind. She meant what she said to Kyle. If she was going to accept the punishment, she wanted to commit the crime. So Cole could stay cuffed to the bed, and she’d let Kyle make a meal out of her.

  A risky move given Kyle didn’t always choose her side, and it kept her gaze focused on the slow motions of his hands as he undid his belt. As the thick strap of leather slipped through the loops, it became harder to hold her smile and not give into the urge to run in the opposite direction. Especially when he held on to the long tail and beckoned her.