Devoted to Pleasure

by Shayla Black

  “Me, too.” She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “What do we do tomorrow?”

  Her wrapped her up in the blanket. “You leave that to me. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Okay . . .”

  Seconds later, she dropped off to sleep. It meant so much to him that she would trust him enough to give over her worries and fears. Her faith in him to take care of her was so strong, and as a man, he took that responsibility seriously. They still had a mountain of mess to fix—the blackmailer and Foster’s killer, Brea, Tower, their geographical distance . . .

  He lifted her from his lap and tucked her into the big, warm bed. Then he cleaned up, crawled in beside her, and cuddled Shealyn against him, determined to handle every issue that could trip them up so his promise to her didn’t become famous last words.

  * * *

  —

  Cutter slept like the dead until a seagull cawed loudly near the bedroom window. He jolted awake, only to realize the sun floated high in a sky made hazy by coastal fog. What the hell time was it? He reached for his phone and bit back a groan when he saw the display. After nine A.M. Shit, he never slept this late.

  The reason he had this morning sighed and rolled closer to him, her golden hair spilling over the stark white sheets. Her lashes fanned across her cheeks. Her rosy lips pursed in a bow, then relaxed as she exhaled, utterly unaware that he stared at her in fascination.

  What would today bring for them? Or tomorrow? They’d admitted their love and they both wanted this relationship to work long-term. If they were dedicated and committed, all that remained was for him to make her safe and clear a path so they could be together permanently. It would be difficult—but not impossible.

  So why was he on edge and worrying as if they were living on borrowed time?

  Cutter kissed her forehead softly, rose from the bed, and grabbed his phone. The time for hard conversations with folks back home had come. While showering and grooming for the day, he developed a strategy . . . and tried to shake off his sense of doom.

  He and Shealyn had already connected more than he would have thought possible a week ago when he’d boarded a flight to help a total stranger who just happened to be a TV star. In the past few days, the two of them had worked through some of the issues that could keep them apart. Just a little more sorting through it all, and he hoped they would be free to be together.

  After he tossed on a new pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Cutter padded barefoot out to the balcony. As a former soldier and working operative, he was never going to make the kind of money necessary to live in a place like this, so he may as well enjoy the view now and remind himself to thank the Santiago brothers later.

  But beauty aside, it was quiet, private—the perfect time to start the conversations he couldn’t put off anymore. The first of those— and the easiest—was Cage.

  When he dialed, his brother picked up on the first ring. “Hey, bro. How’s California, besides crazy?”

  “Pretty good. How’s Mama?”

  “She’s fine. I’m in Dallas right now, but when I talked to her yesterday about noon, everything was status quo. And you know she’d call us if something had changed.”

  So true. And he’d catch up with Mama himself shortly. She’d be in church right now, with Brea and Preacher Bell, so those conversations would have to wait.

  “I need you to tell me that I’m not insane.”

  Cage snorted. “You came to the wrong guy, because I’ve always thought you were secretly batshit.”

  “Seriously, man. Straight up. I’m in love with Shealyn. And . . . we honestly want to try to make this work.”

  His brother didn’t say anything for a long moment—a feat since Cage was rarely at a loss for words. “For real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Has she said she loves you, too?”

  “She has. In fact, she said it first. I’d been thinking it for a while, but . . .” Now came the hard part. “I have to break the news to Brea and figure out how to help her without marrying her.”

  “Good for you. I’ll help you figure it out. Are you moving to L.A.?”

  “Looks like. She can’t give up her gig.” Even if she didn’t necessarily want the fame anymore, she had obligations. Shealyn was the sort of woman who would insist on living up to her word.

  “That makes sense.” Cage paused. “Have you thought about moving Brea out to Tinseltown with you?”

  “She won’t leave Preacher Bell—or Sunset.”

  “Push her a little harder. Tell her you’ll get her father medical help. No one in L.A. will care that she’s about to become a single mother. And moving her out west would get her away from One-Mile. He keeps turning up like a bad rash.”

  Cutter cursed. “What the fuck does he want now? He already got exactly what he coerced Brea into giving him. Fucking bastard.”

  “Honestly, I know you think he just wants sex. I think you’re wrong. He wants her.”

  And as a human being, Brea was so much better than One-Mile ever could be. “He can go fuck himself. That’s not going to happen.” After an angry sigh, he got back to the topic at hand. “But I’m going to talk to her. Maybe you’re right about getting Brea out of Sunset. If she knows the preacher has round-the-clock care, maybe she’ll at least come out to California for a long visit, see if she likes it. If she does, she can always open up shop here and find a better man than Pierce Walker.”

  And Cutter would be beside her every step of the way, just as he had been since the day she was born.

  “It’s worth a try. Honestly, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re a lucky bastard and I hope it all works out. Keep me posted, huh?”

  “Sure.”

  “When will I see you?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll probably have to come back later this week, give my trio of bosses my resignation. I want to talk face-to-face with Mama and Brea. Then . . . I guess I’ll drive my things to California. It sounds like I’ll be starting a new life at thirty. Hell, maybe I am crazy.”

  “Nah. You’re excited. Ready. In your shoes, I’d make the same choice. It’s not as if life hands you a bunch of opportunities to be truly happy. Celebrity or not, Shealyn West is a woman, first and foremost. If you two are in love, go for it. If I had the chance, I would.”

  Cage was right.

  Cutter felt lucky all the way around to have amazing people in his life. “Thanks, bro.”

  They rang off, and he gripped the phone in his hand, absently listening to the crashing waves. A glance back into the bedroom proved that Shealyn was still asleep. Cutter knew his feelings weren’t a mistake. Shealyn’s seemed so real, too. Her would-be villain was miles away now. Everything should be peaceful.

  So what was this nagging worry?

  Taking a deep breath, he scrolled through his phone and dialed Logan. As soon as the guy picked up, Cutter heard his twin girls playing and shrieking in the background. “Hello? Hey, Daddy isn’t a jungle gym, you two.”

  More girlish giggling ensued, and despite everything Cutter found himself smiling. Big, bad former SEAL done in by a little redhead and their two adorable daughters. Would someone be saying that someday about him and a certain blonde?

  “Hey, Logan. It’s Cutter. Got a second?”

  “Sure. Tara . . .” he called to his wife, who scooped up the toddlers and distracted them so Logan could find a quieter place to talk. “What’s up?”

  “Any update on Foster Holt’s sister, Faith? I need to know where she’s at and what’s going on. Is there any chance she was his accomplice in attempting to blackmail and kill Shealyn?”

  “Actually, I was just getting ready to call. When I got the info about Foster’s death, one of the grumblings from the LAPD was that his sister wasn’t responding to phone calls about her brother’s death. So the detective called police out i
n Bozeman, Montana, where she supposedly lived, for help in reaching her. One thing led to another, and apparently Faith was arrested for fraud yesterday. Her story is that Foster told her to invent a coma in Montana for him so no one would connect him with the plot to blackmail Shealyn. The photo she posted of him on Facebook as ‘proof’ is of another guy who looked enough like Foster to pass.”

  “How did you learn all that?”

  Logan cleared his throat. “Well, I sweet-talked the detective in charge of Foster’s homicide—”

  “You flirted with him?” That did not sound like Logan at all.

  “Hell, no. I, um . . . had to promise him a meet-and-greet with your girl. Sorry. But I thought the information was important enough to let her dress up and smile a little for the guy.”

  Cutter didn’t love it, but he had to agree. “Go on.”

  “Well, when police discovered Foster’s body, they didn’t find much, just his phone. The device contained some threatening texts to Shealyn. He’d cloaked his number.”

  Cutter froze. So her former bodyguard had definitely been the blackmailer. Had they found the incriminating video, too? “Did the police say they’d seen anything else?”

  “No. In fact, they’re stumped because they haven’t found anything blackmail worthy on the device yet. I might have suggested that Foster was a loon and didn’t have anything juicy . . .”

  “Thanks.”

  “I tried,” Logan said. “I don’t know if it will fly.”

  “Maybe Foster wiped the video clean off his cell.” That would be a relief.

  “Maybe. They said his computer was missing, but maybe he stashed it or ditched it. I don’t know. They didn’t find it among Faith’s things. But in his hovel of an apartment, they did find two hundred thousand in unmarked twenties in a duffel bag. I assume that came from Shealyn?”

  “I’m sure. If Faith backed up her brother’s con story about the coma, he probably gave her fifty grand for her trouble. But why would police arrest her for fraud? She was an accomplice to his crimes.” Cutter suspected she was also guilty of attempted murder.

  “Well, this is where it gets weird. Police in Bozeman said Faith’s house was cleaned out. No sign she even lived there anymore. She’d been telling folks in the town that she was at her brother’s bedside in Billings, playing Florence Nightingale. Cops in Bozeman, with help from the LAPD, put two and two together and realized that Faith had been bilking the townsfolk for donations to help with Foster’s ‘medical bills.’ It’s a federal matter now, too, since she mailed flyers to people who had moved to neighboring states, asking for their monetary help. The LAPD picked her up this morning in a scuzzy motel not far from Foster’s. If they can prove she was her brother’s accomplice, she should go down for a long while.”

  Cutter had to sit in the patio chair and try to absorb everything. “She’s in L.A.? Huh. But if Foster gave her some of the blackmail money, why was she running her own scam? And who killed him?” Would Faith have done her own brother in if she felt he hadn’t given her a fair cut of the cash? She hardly sounded like an angel, and he’d seen people do things far worse to other human beings for less money.

  “Who knows? No one has any answers yet. Faith swears she didn’t off him, but what else is she going to tell police? Hopefully we’ll get all the answers after everything is sorted out . . .”

  Yeah, and in a perfect world or on a TV cop drama, everything got tied up in a pretty pink bow in under an hour. The real world didn’t work that way, and they might never know why Faith had used her brother’s fake injury to con people out of money. Maybe to lend the supposed tragedy an air of authenticity? Or pure old-fashioned greed? Had Foster known about her scheme on the side? Had they argued over it? Or had the siblings had a falling-out over the ploy to extort money from Shealyn, which somehow motivated Faith to kill her own brother? Cutter didn’t know what had happened between the siblings. It was hard to accept that he might never know. But that was real life.

  “If Foster is dead and Faith is in jail . . . do you think the threat to Shealyn is behind us?”

  “Do you have any other suspects?”

  “No. And these two fit, I suppose. It seems as if Foster was after her money.” And somehow finagled the sex in the dressing room—and the resulting video—to hold over her head.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. When I poked around a bit, I discovered that he was up to his eyeballs in debt.”

  “And Faith seems as if she might be the sneaky, homicidal one. If she truly did kill her own brother over a disagreement or a few bucks, it wouldn’t be any big deal to kill a woman she didn’t know if it helped her cause.”

  “True. Logically, that makes sense.”

  It did . . . but Cutter wasn’t sure he liked it. The situation clicked together almost too well. Then again, he had a lot on his plate, and all of it was putting him on edge. The conversations he still had to have, the news he had to break, the unknowns that would come from the fallout . . . Maybe he was transferring his worry about all that to this situation.

  And maybe he was being overly cautious with Shealyn because in the span of a short week she’d become his world and he’d do anything to protect her. It was possible that reality was making him paranoid.

  “If you find out anything else, pass it on. I’ll talk to Shealyn, see about maybe taking her back to her place tonight.”

  “After I went to all that trouble to get you such an awesome safe house?”

  Despite everything, Cutter had to chuckle. “You did it up right. This place is amazing.”

  “Tara and I had a babymoon there when she was pregnant. We loved it. Javier and Xander both assured me they won’t be there until spring, so you might as well stay tonight at least.”

  His original flight reservation home left at noon tomorrow. Maybe he should hop on that plane and get his personal shit straightened out, talk to Brea face-to-face. Leave Louisiana with a clean slate.

  “Yeah. All right. Thanks, man.”

  Logan sighed. “I get the feeling you’ve got it bad for Shealyn West.”

  “Yeah. It’s . . . um, mutual.”

  “Really? Wow.” He huffed in surprise. “Should I expect a resignation from you?”

  Cutter could accuse Logan of a lot of things. Being stupid wasn’t one of them. “You going to let me out of my contract early?”

  “If you were going to work for the competition, I’d nail you to a fucking wall. But if you have to leave EM Security Management for something else . . . love is the best reason. I’ll talk to Hunter and Joaquin, but we all know how it is when you find the one.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Don’t think I won’t collect,” Logan poked.

  With a chuckle, they said good-bye and hung up. Cutter stood, staring out at the vast dark blue Pacific.

  His whole life was up in the air. He didn’t know where he’d be working in a month. Where he’d be living. He didn’t even know if he’d be okay because, while he loved Shealyn, one question loomed, drowning out all the other reasons he had to look forward to the future: Was the danger to his woman really over?

  CHAPTER 16

  Shealyn woke to the smell of fresh coffee. Before she even opened her eyes, she heard the soft crash of the waves against the beach, saw the sunlight filtering through her lids, felt the warmth of Cutter’s presence by her side.

  When she lifted her lashes and peered up at him, he grinned, steaming mug in hand. He was unbearably hot and amazing in bed. But more than that, he was a man in the best sense of the word. He was protective and possessive. He put the needs of others often before his own. He thought before he spoke. He didn’t pick fights, lose his temper, or place blame on others. Every inch of him was a southern gentleman.

  Staring, she stretched, then curled up to his thigh as he sat beside her on the bed. She pressed a kiss to his knee. “Morning.�
��

  “It’s more like afternoon,” he drawled as he verified with a glance at his watch. “Yep. What shall we do with this lazy day all to ourselves?”

  “You mean you’re going to let me out of bed?” she teased with mock surprise. He’d been voracious last night, and she hadn’t complained one bit. She couldn’t imagine any lover being more attentive, more concerned about her pleasure—or better at giving it.

  “Maybe for an hour or two. If you want. And if you don’t . . .” He stood and placed the mug on her nightstand, then reached for the hem of his shirt. “I’m game right now.”

  “Whoa.” She placed her hand on the ripples of his washboard abs and swallowed down a surprising rise of desire. “I’m sore from last night. Not sure I’m ready yet for round forty-three, Casanova.”

  He chuckled. “Forty-three, huh? You might be exaggerating a little.”

  “Not by much. You’re like the marathon runner of sex.”

  Cutter leaned in and nuzzled her neck. “You complaining?”

  “Nope. Not even a little. Just need a minute to catch my breath.”

  He cradled her face, dark eyes delving intently into hers. “I like you breathless. You should get used to that.”

  Then he kissed her. Shealyn knew where this could easily lead. Despite being tender all over, she didn’t object. She didn’t want to. How could she when his every touch made her feel more treasured and loved than she ever had in her life?

  Reluctantly, he pulled away with a sigh. “But I suppose I’ll be a nice guy this once and let you shower. I promise I’ll feed you before I throw you back in my bed and have my wicked way with you again.”

  Cutter was pulling away after his kiss had left her tingling? She grabbed his thigh. “Maybe I was a bit hasty. I don’t need time to recover after all. So if you want to lose your clothes and cozy up to me—”

  “I’d love to and I will,” he promised, brushing another kiss over her lips. “But we have to talk about a few important things first.”

  That sounded heavy, and dread hit her stomach with a big thud. “Like what?”