by Shayla Black
“No. Let me go, damn it!”
“Ah, I understand,” he breathed into her ear, strumming the pebbled tip with his thumb.
Back and forth, over and over, until tingles leapt and sizzled within her breast. Her knees nearly buckled. Her stomach jumped with a bolt of thrill. He most certainly did understand if just the soft pad of his thumb against her nipple made her wet.
Against her better judgment, a moan escaped her.
“I’ll bet you need it harder.”
Before she could protest, he squeezed her nipple with even more force than before. She yelped, her body going rigid. She blindly lashed out with her feet, trying to connect with his shins, instep—anything to make him let go.
“No! It hurts. Stop!”
Instantly, he released her and stepped away.
“Not your cup of tea?” he drawled.
“You bastard! I didn’t ask you to—to grope me. That’s got to be against rules or regulations or something. I’m going to call, find out who your boss is, and have your balls on a platter.”
That little smile tilted the corners of his mouth again. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to talk to you. Of course, they’ll ask you about Curtis, too. And they may not be as patient as I am. They might just take you right down to the station and see if you’d rather talk from behind bars. Aiding and abetting is a crime.” He shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
He didn’t even wait for her reply. Instead, the infuriating, gorgeous man stepped around her, leaving her gaping.
At the door, he turned around. “Oh, and when you talk to Curtis, tell him he’d better show up to the courthouse on Monday.”
Then he left, and she stood there in stunned silence, torn between ogling the scrumptious view of his backside and worrying that he’d call a whole passel of cops…who’d be a hell of a lot less kind if they suspected she’d lied.
When Cam dropped by the trailer, Thorn could see he was agitated. And sported a hard-on he couldn’t miss.
This ought to be interesting.
He smiled at the thought and perched the corner of his ass on the rickety metal table in his six-by-six kitchen. “So what happened?”
Ducking to enter the little trailer, Cam slammed the door behind him and crossed the room, shooting him a glare of pure venom. He reached for the fridge, took out a longneck, and tossed half of it down his throat. “Damn it!”
“I followed you and tried to watch through my binoculars, but once you went inside, nada. So spill it. What went down? Any good news?”
“She’s lying about virtually everything.”
“Shit. I was hoping for some good news. She looked freshly fucked when she opened the door.”
Cam glared, and Thorn kept his grin to himself. Yanking the chain on the man’s temper was just too easy. “She’d been exercising. Did you notice that she greeted me with a gun in her hand?”
“Hmm. Missed that. Too busy looking at her tits.”
Gritting his teeth, Cam shook his head, then he drained the rest of the bottle. “She told me her name and the fact she’s from Texas. She admitted that she knows Lawton. Those are the only things I believe. After that, the truth got murky. She claims she’s Lawton’s mistress.”
Thorn crossed his arms over his chest. If there was one thing he’d learned to appreciate about Cam over the last few years, it was the man’s instinct. He’d risen through the ranks fast to become detective because he paid attention, could think with cool logic, and because he just seemed to understand people and see under their surfaces in a way Thorn envied and couldn’t possibly duplicate.
“What makes you think it’s bullshit? Lawton does like them young and hot. She qualifies.”
“She was nervous, not only like she was hiding something. Nervous like she was confused. She tried to dodge me with flirtation. When it didn’t work, she tried a bit of the ice princess routine, but she fumbled with it.”
“Like, she’s not that type?”
“Yeah. But the kicker… You’re sure Lawton is into giving pain and wants women who can take it?”
“With what I saw last year, no question. He made sure when he fucked the bitch that he was causing her loads of pain. Floggers, nipple clamps, the whole nine yards. And she was lapping it up.”
“Then the woman I just talked to isn’t his mistress. She is not into pain.”
“How’d you figure that out?” he drilled, wishing like hell he’d been a fly on the wall, watching Cam press the pretty liar for the truth and lose his control… He got hard just thinking about it.
“You’re not getting details, pervert. I’ll just say that, at one point, she wanted my balls on a platter.”
“Holy shit, you go alpha on her?” Now that was a sight he’d pay money to see. Cam alpha. Who’da thunk it?
Despite his teasing yesterday, Thorn knew his pal did real well with the ladies. The few he knew Cam had taken to bed all sighed and swooned and flushed when he entered a room. They were fucking star struck. He damn near laughed watching them try to get Cam’s attention. They used words like “gentle” and “patient” and “perceptive.” But Thorn had long suspected Cam had a kick-ass alpha side that some woman would bring out someday—when she rattled his cage enough.
And Thorn did love to see Cam with his cage rattled.
Cam looked away with a guilty expression. “I pushed her a little.”
“She made you hard as hell.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m not proud of it. But I proved that she’s not into pain. Does it automatically mean, though, that she’s not his mistress? I mean, she is living in his fortress of fornication.”
Thorn laughed. “Yeah, but if she isn’t into pain, then she isn’t Lawton’s little honey. I think Lawton needs to dish out pain to get off.”
“Maybe. If we assume this woman isn’t his mistress, it begs the question, why is she there and why would she lie?”
“Yeah, and if she doesn’t need pain to get off, why couldn’t she come last night?”
“Who the hell knows?” He sighed. “It’s not relevant, anyway. We need to find out what her connection to Lawton is.”
“Yeah, just not as much fun.” Thorn winked. “Does she know where he is?”
Hesitating, Cam appeared to ponder the question, weigh things in his mind. “That one…maybe. She said no, but that was also when the ice princess act started. I think we go with the assumption that she’s got some clue.”
“Sounds reasonable.” Thorn nodded. “And if she does, she’ll tell him we’re sniffing around.”
“Lawton should know we’re after him, anyway.”
“True. Well, give her a few hours, go back there, and try her again. Maybe she’ll cough up the truth.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“It won’t work. She’s hiding something, I’m sure of it. But she also knows I’m onto her. I had to do something…questionable to get the little bit of information she gave me. To get more, I’d probably have to do something that could get me arrested.”
“Nah, man. You couldn’t just question her? She could fuck up when you do, Cam. You can wear her down. I’ve seen you do it with suspects. Just use all that cool patience.”
“Around her, I don’t have any.” With a sigh, Cam rose, paced. “She’s too…soft and curved. Hell, she fit right against me. That sweet Texas accent of hers went straight to my cock.”
Thorn laughed. “Now you know how the rest of us guys live. Welcome to reality.”
“This is serious!” Cam snarled. “If I’d spent another ten minutes alone with her, I would have found some way to get her clothes off, get her on her back, and fuck her senseless.”
Grinning, Thorn decided then that was exactly what should happen…as long as he had a ringside seat. “Do you think she knows you’re watching her every move?”
“Damn it, stop smiling. This is not good! Of course she knows I’m watching. She’s not stupid.”
Of course she w
asn’t. Even better. She’d give ol’ Cam the runaround, make him hard and crazy. Make him see how every other red-blooded man lived his life. Maybe then, Cam would shut up about how much Thorn lived his life through his dick.
“And if you try to visit so you can question her again,” Thorn said, “even if you could keep your dick to yourself, she’s simply not going to answer, right?”
“That pretty much sums it up. I need another beer. Then I need to get my head together and figure out what the hell to do.”
Thorn couldn’t miss the fact that when Cam rose to his feet again and yanked the fridge door open, his erection stood as tall and thick as it had the minute he entered the trailer door.
“Well, if you tried your way of questioning her and didn’t get all the information…” Thorn retrieved his Glock, his sunglasses, and the keys to his Harley from the rickety kitchen table. Then he flashed Cam a dangerous smile. “Maybe it’s time for me to question her. My way.”
Chapter Three
Brenna woke suddenly to the feel of something around her ankle. Her cat? Winky rarely left her hiding places long enough to fraternize with the enemy. Was she cold?
Fighting sleep, Brenna managed to crack open her eyes. With a frown, she glanced around the dark, shadowed room. Where was she? Certainly not in her own bedroom.
Then it clicked—Arizona. The bedroom in Curtis’s bungalow.
Which meant that Winky was back in Muenster, Texas, with her aunt, not prowling around her ankles.
So what had she felt?
Opening her eyes completely, she gave the room a thorough scan. Black corners and unlit nooks surrounded her, but that didn’t freak her out.
What did was the feeling that she wasn’t alone.
The air seethed with a vibe she didn’t understand—and couldn’t ignore. Dark, intense, sexual. How weird… Had she been having a dream she couldn’t shake? Maybe, but she didn’t remember it.
Her palms began to sweat. Adrenaline pumped into her system. She gave the room a harder stare—and still couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Curtis?” she called hopefully.
“Guess again.”
The unfamiliar male voice from across the room sent ice dashing into her veins. His tone wasn’t much warmer either. Fear rooted her in place.
“Oh my god.”
“I don’t think He’s going to help you tonight. Right now, it’s just you and me.”
“Who are you?” She heard her voice tremble.
He laughed in answer.
Brenna tried to get up, dart out of the bed. No go. Her ankles had been spread and secured to the bedposts. Something jerked at her wrists and rattled near her ears.
The intruder had tied her ankles down, secured her wrists with handcuffs. Oh, shit. Was she going to wind up on the five o’clock news in a segment about a horrific murder, featuring some recent picture of her and a body bag?
She struggled again, frantically tugging at one wrist then the other. But the bite and metallic jangle let her know she wasn’t moving.
“Those are standard-issue police cuffs,” said the stranger as he stepped from the shadows into the pool of moonlight under the skylight. “You’re not going anywhere until I release you.”
She could see enough about the intruder to get a general impression. He was a dream and a nightmare at once. Black leather pants, a matching vest…and nothing underneath but smooth bronze skin and rippling muscles. Oh, and the tattoos. They covered his left arm and shoulder in some intricate black flame pattern that wrapped around his enormous biceps multiple times, almost to the elbow. Blond hair hung straight to his shoulders. A silver medallion dangled from his neck and glinted in the moonlight between solid pecs and brushed the top of taut abs.
In another setting, this very bad boy would have made her incredibly wet.
Uninvited in her bedroom with her all tied up?
She screamed.
Calmly, he crossed the room, then covered her mouth with his hand. “You know no one can hear you since you’re nearest neighbor is half a mile away. If it makes you feel better, I’m not here to hurt or kill you. I’m a…friend of Curtis’s.”
Yeah, wild hunch here, but friends of friends didn’t tie one another up.
Brenna closed her mouth against the unfamiliar salty tang of his skin and jerked her head away, but her mind raced. Hearing that he knew Curtis didn’t fill her with a warm fuzzy.
“As you can see, he’s not here.”
“I need your help finding him.”
“I-I don’t know where he is.”
“Now, see, that’s where I think you’re lying to me.”
She looked back at him, her eyes pleading in the dark. “No, I swear. A detective came by today. I told him I didn’t know, too. And I don’t. I arrived here Saturday morning, and he left fifteen minutes later. I don’t know where he went. Honest.”
There was a long pause. The stranger didn’t step back or take his hand away. After she’d turned her head, his palm had settled on her neck, long fingers wrapping easily around it. God, that made her nervous. He could cut off her windpipe with a good squeeze.
“Know when he’ll be back?”
“No. How do you know him? What kind of trouble is he in?”
He glided his palm over her shoulder, his thumb brushing under her tank top, perilously close to her breast, before running a light finger slowly down her arm, leaving a trail of unwanted tingles behind. He reached the handcuff around her wrist, binding her to the bed, and gave a playful tug. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be asking the questions. Let’s try again. How do you know Curtis?”
“I-I…” She didn’t dare float the mistress story again. If the detective had seen through her quickly, despite the dark, she couldn’t possibly hope to hide anything from this predator.
“You…what?”
She stubbornly refused to answer. What could she say when she knew the lie was ineffective and the truth, at least according to Curtis, could land her in a heap of shit.
“It’s a long story.”
With a smile that did not comfort her, he crossed his arms over his wide chest. “I have all night. So do you.”
As long as she was tied up this effectively? Yes. “I barely know him. Friend of a friend sort of thing,” she improvised. “I came out here for a change of scenery. I certainly don’t know anything that would help you.”
Her intruder said nothing for a full minute. Instead, he reached down to inch her tank up her body to reveal her stomach beneath. He swept a broad palm over her skin, fingers snagging on her belly ring.
“You’re a young, gorgeous girl. Long hair, tight ass, great tits.” He punctuated the statement by lifting his hand over her bare breast and flicking her nipple, still hard and sore from the detective’s cruel pinch. She gasped as pleasure jolted through her body.
Brenna heard fear and desire could affect the body in very similar ways. Tonight, she was getting firsthand proof. Why else would her nipples be hard if her life was in danger? Heaven help her if he discovered she was wet, too. He’d tamper with her just for the joy of messing with her body and head.
Then, who knows? He might kill her for the sport of it.
Before she could protest, his hand settled high on her torso, just beneath her breast, which brushed the top of his hand. There, he planted, clearly with no intent to leave soon.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He ignored her. “You know, you’re just the sort of girl Curtis likes to bring here to fuck. Is that why you’re here?”
Curtis didn’t live here? No wonder this cottage lacked all personal items or any sort of homey clutter. “No.”
“I think I’ll test, just to be sure you’re telling the truth.”
The intruder reached for her again. She had no idea what he intended to do, but if it was anything like what she’d endured earlier that day, she didn’t want to find out. “No! Please…don’t hurt me.”
The biker paused. “So
you know what Curtis is into?”
“Based on the conversation I had earlier today with the detective, I guessed. I-I don’t know from experience.”
An odd smile crossed his face. “The detective told you Curtis is a sadist?”
“No, he grabbed me and squeezed my…”
Brenna had a bad feeling if she explained the interaction between she and the hot detective, that this intruder would want to test her reaction for himself. God, she didn’t want to repeat that pain.
“He demonstrated,” she corrected.
“Did he? He squeezed your…what?”
“That’s not relevant. Aren’t you here about Curtis?”
“We’ll get back to him in a moment. The detective interests me, too. He’s usually a good little Boy Scout. Tell me how he inflicted pain on you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not telling you so that you can do it for yourself.”
“I don’t like causing pain. I’m not a sick fuck like Curtis.”
“Really?” Sarcasm sprayed out like a garden hose full blast. “You only like to break into a woman’s bedroom, tie her up in her sleep, then fondle and scare the hell out of her.”
“Oh, I haven’t even started to fondle you yet.”
“Don’t touch me!” The words sounded much braver than she felt.
He went on as if she hadn’t even spoken. “I’m wondering…” The intruder eased his hand back to her breast, where he cupped it with a blazing palm. Then he set that thumb back over her nipple to graze and roll it back and forth. “Did he squeeze this one?”
Yes. And even now, she could feel the stranger’s touch acutely through the remnants of the detective’s pain. She was more sensitive than usual. Way more.
“Stop it!”
“It doesn’t feel good?” he asked innocently as he thumbed the hard nub. “Did Detective Martinez squeeze this nipple?”
It felt too good. No way she was going to answer him, not when he’d take that as an invitation.
Suddenly, the bed dipped with his weight as he sat beside her. “I’ve been watching this place for a few days now. Give me some information about Curtis, and I’ll give you the orgasm you couldn’t give yourself by the pool.”
