by Livia Grant
Markus should be pissed, but he starts to grin at his friend’s warning as it dawns on him how very much he owes Lukus. “That sounds like a threat.”
Lukus grins back. “Hell, no. It’s a promise.”
After an awkward moment, Lukus walks to his friend and offers his hand for a shake. Instead, Markus reaches and pulls his best friend into an awkward embrace. “Thanks so much for coming out here and knocking some sense into me. Seriously, I really can’t thank you enough.”
“Any time, bro. You dug my ass out of the fire this week too. It’s only fair I repay the favor.”
Markus sighs as they step back from one another. “So now what? Do I just come down and collect her and say ‘Oops, sweetheart. I made a mistake’?”
Lukus laughs out loud. “I have a better idea and I think it’s going help you put your fear of her ever cheating on you again to rest for good. It might be a bit tricky, but I think we can pull it off.”
The men stop their planning session when they hear a vibration coming from nearby. They spread out trying to find the source of the noise and Lukus is first to locate Markus’ wayward phone.
“Jesus Christ, Markus. At least now I know why you weren’t answering your phone. You don’t even have the ringer on. It says you’ve missed four calls from me, one from your office and… for Christ’s sake. You’ve missed six phone calls, two voicemails and over a dozen text messages from Tiffany. I think she really wants to talk with you.”
Markus’ face gets dark. “That damn woman lied to me yesterday, too. I feel like I’ll never be able to trust her ever again. It’s clear she’ll lie for Brianna.”
Lukus laughs at his friend. “Well of course she did. What kind of a real friend wouldn’t have lied to you under these circumstances? If it makes you feel any better, Bri told me Tiffany was furious with her yesterday for putting her in that terrible position. I guess Tiffany hates Jake with a passion and she was furious with Bri for even considering leaving the salon with him.”
“I guess that’s some consolation, although I’m still pissed. I assume Tiff is worried about Bri since she was a no-show at the salon today and she has no way of getting ahold of Bri since Bri left her cell phone in the car last night. She’s going to go ballistic when she finds out I know about Jake.”
The men head into the kitchen to grab sandwiches and a cold beer. They spend the next thirty minutes planning how to get Brianna back home where she can be both comforted and punished by her husband and Dom. Markus knows he needs to punish her himself so they can put her infidelity behind them once and for all.
Tiffany phones two more times while they’re in the kitchen. Finally on the last call, Markus decides it’s time to answer. He puts the call on speaker so Lukus can hear both sides.
He doesn’t even answer with a hello. “Tiffany, you need to stop calling me.” His voice is hard.
“Oh, thank God you answered. Markus, I think something terrible happened to Brianna. She didn’t show up at the salon this morning and she isn’t even answering her cell phone. This is so unlike her. I’m really worried.”
“You’re right about one thing, Tiff. Something really terrible did happen to Brianna. Her husband found out she was fucking around on the side with her ex-boyfriend.”
“Oh, no. Markus… you have to...”
“I don’t have to do shit, Tiff. Brianna made her choices and now she’s going to have to live with those choices. You made yours too, didn’t you? You flat out lied to me when I called you.”
Lukus can hear her crying on the other end of the phone. “Markus, please. I’m so sorry. I wanted so bad to tell you the truth because I’m so worried about Bri. Jake is so dangerous. He’s hurt her so bad before and it scares the shit out of me.”
“I need to go. Stop calling me.”
“But, I need,” Markus ends the call before he can hear the rest of her plea.
“Well, you were pretty hard on her considering she wasn’t the one who cheated on you.” Lukus isn’t sure why, but he’s bothered by how that call went down.
“Butt out. Tiffany was our maid-of-honor. She’s supposed to be there for us, and our marriage. She should have talked some sense into Brianna instead of covering for her.”
“Okay, if you say so. I’m going to head back to the club and get things set in motion for our plan. You need to seriously take a shower and clean yourself up before you head down. You look like shit man.”
“Gee, thanks.”
As the men open the door to head out, Lukus sees an attractive woman barreling up the front walkway. He assumes by the mascara running down her cheeks that this must be Tiffany. Lukus can’t help but notice how snugly the casual knit, low-cut wrap-around dress she’s wearing hugs her curves. While she focuses on confronting Markus, he takes a minute to blatantly check her out from head to toe, admiring her long legs, well-rounded ass and firm, tits.
“Markus, I’m so sorry I lied to you. Really I am, but I need to see Bri right away. You can’t keep her from me.” Tiff tries to push past Markus, but he easily stops her in her tracks. Lukus moves shoulder to shoulder with Markus, helping to block her entrance to the house. “I mean it. Let me past so I can go find Bri.”
Lukus decides to jump into the fray. “What makes you think Brianna is even here?”
The look of sheer terror on her face almost guts him. “What do you mean? Where else could she be? Oh, my God. Jake didn’t hurt her, did he?”
Lukus watches as Tiffany panics. In that moment, he knows Brianna’s fear that her best friend might desert her is completely off base. He can see Tiffany is as loyal as friends come and for some reason, Lukus finds himself proud of her for standing up for Brianna in the face of two towering, pissed off men.
“I think Jake should be the least of your worries,” Lukus says. “Or hers, for that matter.”
Tiffany had been addressing Markus until this point, but now she turns to look at Lukus for the first time. Lukus almost chuckles as he sees the range of emotions crossing her expressive face. He fights the urge to reach out to wipe the mascara from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb. He sees her worry turning into fear and then finally, curiosity. “Who are you and what have you done with Brianna?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, baby?”
“Don’t baby me, asshole. I want to see Bri and I want to see Bri now” she snaps back quickly.
“Or what?”
“Or… or… damn it… just let me talk to Brianna.”
Lukus starts laughing outright at how flustered Tiffany has become. He has to fight down the urge to stay and have fun toying with her, but he has a lot of arrangements to make back at the club. “Sorry, sweetheart, but you’ll need to stay and duke this out with Markus.” He turns to his friend. “Call me when you’re headed down, okay?”
“Sure thing. And Lukus, thanks again.” Markus reaches out to shake hands with his friend.
Lukus reaches out to meet his friend’s strong grip. “Any time. Turn on your damn phone so I can get through to you if I need to. See you later.” With his goodbyes done, he turns to head to his car, but Tiffany has moved as if to block his departure.
She has the look of a mama bear protecting her cub. “You aren’t going anywhere until you two tell me where Brianna is. I need to know she’s safe.”
Lukus’ face breaks into a wide grin as he steps forward placing him a mere inch away from Tiffany. He towers over her by nearly six inches in spite of her two-inch heels. He takes a minute to drink in the view of her curly, long blond hair before he decides to reach out and roughly pull her hard against him. He can’t resist lacing his left hand through her silky hair to hold her neck tightly, tilting her head and forcing her to look up to meet his dominating stare. His right hand wraps around her lower back, pulling her swiftly into full contact with his rock hard body. Lukus is almost brought to his knees by the mere scent of her. He finds himself mesmerized as he watches her struggling with her emotions as he stares deep into her unique, ocean-
blue eyes.
‘Fuck me. Her body feels like pure sin.’
They each stand frozen to the spot as they size the other up. Lukus feels his cock coming to attention from the friction of their bodies pressed tightly together. It’s easy for him to see that Tiffany feels it too as her eyes shift from shocked surprise to barely veiled lust. He finally finds his voice.
“Now, I admire your loyalty to your friend. I really do, but you need to go home now, little girl, before you end up getting yourself hurt. Didn’t you know? Bad things can happen to naughty girls who tell lies.”
Lukus catches her sharp intake of breath at his blatant threat. He’s sure he feels a small quiver race through her body before she looks away in an attempt to break the dominant stare that has her pinned to the spot.
“Please,” she says. “I just need to know Brianna is safe. I’m so worried about her. “Please don’t let him hurt her again.”
“No one is going to hurt Brianna. Not Jake. Not Markus and not even me. You’re going to have to trust me when I say she’s safe. I’ll give her the message that you want to talk to her and she’ll call you as soon as she can.”
“Why can’t she call me now?”
Lukus squeezes the back of her neck just hard enough to get her attention. “You, little girl, need a few lessons on listening and following directions. I’ve answered your questions. I’ve reassured you that your friend is just fine. You need to simply say ‘thank you, Sir’ and let it go.”
He pauses, giving her a moment to consider his command. “Well?”
“Thank you, Sir,” she finally whispers, looking back up at him.
Lukus breaks into a broad grin. “You’re welcome. Much better.” With reluctance, he steps back, releasing her from his grip. She seems wobbly on her feet at first and he has to reach out to hold her steady. “Be a good girl and go home now, Tiffany.”
He’s already moving past her when he barely hears her almost silent ‘Yes, Sir’. The sound of Tiffany’s unprompted submissive response has him fearing he may shoot his wad like a fucking teenager.
‘Damn. I seriously need to find a woman to fuck, and soon. This hanging out with married people sucks.’
Lukus knows he needs to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. He peels out of Markus’ long drive, trying to get his hormones under control as he speeds back to the club.
Chapter Thirteen
Tiffany is in an emotional tailspin. She’d feared the worst when Brianna had failed to show up at the salon, and had grown panicky when she couldn’t reach her. Now that she knows Markus somehow found out about his wife’s infidelity, she’s worried about both of them. But Tiffany knows things could be worse. At least Brianna is away from Jake.
When she couldn’t reach Bri or Markus, she’d called Brianna’s parents and brother to see if they’d heard from her. Her first fear was that Jake had abducted her. She shudders when she reminds herself what Brianna’s ex is capable of.
Tiffany is so lost in thought she nearly slams into the back end of the traffic stopped in the middle of the Eisenhower expressway. She has to apply her brakes so hard her purse and cell phone fly off the front passenger seat and dump onto the floor, out of reach.
She has to swerve to the left so she can keep her eyes on the little silver BMW three car lengths in front of her. She has no idea who the driver – this totally hot stranger – is, but she has a feeling he knows where Bri is. She’s decided she has a better chance of finding her friend by following him than she does by trying to pry the information out of an angry Markus.
Tiff is furious with herself for how she reacted to the mysterious man. She’d actually let him intimidate her into acting like a damn submissive. She has no doubt the guy is a Dom. There’s no way he can’t be. He just drips of yummy masculinity and dominance, and while that lethal combination always gets her heart racing… and her panties dripping… the bottom line is Tiffany had sworn off the entire D/s lifestyle after seeing what Jake was capable of years before. While she and Brianna had dabbled in the lifestyle, watching her friend terrorized by Jake was enough for Tiff to be scared straight, or more appropriately, scared vanilla. The closest Tiffany has gotten to BDSM since Jake is what she finds between the pages of her kinky romance novels.
Still, she can’t help but compare the few minutes of interaction with Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome to last night’s date with Jason, the guy she’s been seeing for a couple of months now. She’s fairly certain the two minutes she spent in the arms of Markus’ friend had her heart pumping faster than any time spent in Jason’s arms, and that includes during sex.
Tiffany has to really push her little car to try to keep up with the Beamer once they get beyond an accident that temporarily stalled traffic. She can’t afford to lose him.
‘The man seriously drives like a maniac. He’s going to get himself or someone else killed.’
Tiffany gets a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach when the car she’s tailing takes an exit several miles west of downtown. Knowing this neighborhood has a bad reputation doesn’t make her feel any better. She hits her door lock button as she continues her chase, zigzagging north and east, as they edge closer to downtown. She almost loses him more than once and is forced to run two traffic lights to keep up.
She worries that she’s following too closely when she sees him turns down a rather narrow alley between two warehouse looking brick buildings. He pulls off, parking to the right of the building and she parks at the end of the alley as far away as she can while still keeping her eyes on him.
Even from this distance, her breath catches when she gets a good look at him as he exits the sports car and heads to a door underneath an awning. Tiffany watches as he uses a keycard to gain entry to the building. She can hear the thud of the heavy door as it slams shut behind him.
She waits until she finally feels confident the coast is clear, before driving her car up to park directly behind his BMW. Tiff decides she needs to investigate if she has a prayer of gaining entry to the building.
The only lettering on the door reads, TPP 7969. Of course, her attempt to open the door meets with resistance. She sees a keypad along with the keycard reader and spends a few minutes trying to guess the code.
She’s just about to give up and get back in her car to drive around the building to find another entrance when someone grabs her from behind. Her attacker’s arms are wrapped completely around her, holding her back tight and immobile against a rock hard chest.
Tiffany has taken self-defense classes over the years and she’s happily surprised when her training kicks in and she remembers to lift her high-heeled foot and stomp down on her attacker’s foot as hard as possible. This might have been an effective strategy had it met with any other pair of shoes in the city. Unfortunately, just her luck, her attacker is wearing steel-toed boots and all Tiffany manages to do is twist her ankle from the force of her failed defensive move.
“Ouch. Shit that hurts. Goddamn it, let me go! I’m going to call the police! Let me go!”
Tiffany isn’t surprised when her screams for help go unnoticed. She’s in a bad part of town in a deserted alley, and despite her attempts to escape, her captor is just too strong. She fights until she runs out of strength and slumps against the muscular body behind her.
“Shhh. You need to settle down now, baby.” His voice is low, but demanding.
‘Oh, my God! It’s him.’
He answers almost as if he’d heard her thoughts. “I know… I’m like a bad penny. I just keep turning up.” He doesn’t release her. Instead, he buries his face in her curls. She can hear him taking a deep breath as if he’s drinking in the scent of her hair. He then places his lips so close she can feel them brush across her ear as he softly chastises her. “You don’t listen very well, do you? I distinctly remember telling you to go home and wait there for Brianna to call, yet here you are.”
A strange combination of relief and trepidation invades her thoughts. “Let go of me and take me
to Brianna. I know she’s here.”
“Do you now. And what makes you think that?”
“Just the way you and Markus were talking. What is this place, anyway?” Tiff is totally self-conscious of the fact that she can feel the outline of his hard cock pressing into the small of her back. If she didn’t know better, she could swear he is ever so slightly grinding his hips as if to increase the friction between their bodies. She can almost feel the juices spilling out into her panties. She seriously needs to put some space between them if she has a hope of not embarrassing herself. “I’m serious. You need to let go of me now.”
Without warning, he abruptly releases her and only too late does Tiffany realize just how injured her right ankle is from her earlier failed defensive move. Without his stabilizing arms holding her up, she immediately topples over when her injured ankle gives out on her. Only his fast reflexes stop her from doing a nosedive onto the dirty alley.
“Whoa there.”
Tiffany quickly lifts her right leg slightly to take her weight off of her pained ankle. She has to hop around a bit to catch her balance until she finds herself once again in his tight embrace. This time they are face to face and she’s surprised to see concern in his eyes.
“Thanks for catching me before I ended up on the ground.”
“How’s your ankle? Do you think you can walk on it?”
“I just need a few minutes. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Tiffany attempts to put some weight on it, trying to evaluate how serious it is.
“So where are we and what does TPP stand for?” she asks as she tries to hobble on her sore ankle.
He chuckles mysteriously. “I’m not so sure you want to know the answer to that question, little girl. You know what they say. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
