Shayla Black - [Wicked Lovers 01]

by Wicked Ties

  “Thanks,” she murmured, totally confused, as she settled into the chair across from Deke.

  Jack sat on her left, then with a nod, turned to his business partner. “Deke has some pals at the FBI who have studied copies of the photos the sick bastard has been leaving you and the pattern of his behavior.”

  Deke gripped his mug of coffee and leaned across the little table, a formidable presence even in the large, airy room. Morgan found herself holding her breath, hoping that he knew something, anything, to help catch her personal Norman Bates before he became a full-fledged Psycho.

  “Your stalker is likely a man somewhere between the age of twenty and forty-five. He’s someone you know. His behavior . . . he functions like an intimate-partner stalker, someone who is a little obsessed and can’t let go.”

  “But if he’s someone I know, wouldn’t I know who? I mean, wouldn’t he want me to be certain who he is?”

  “The way he withholds his identity is unusual. Either he’s purposely hiding it from you or he thinks it’s so obvious that you must know who you ‘belong to.’ Judging from the bit of evidence we have, I think it’s the latter. I don’t think this person is into subterfuge for the sake of hiding. So that makes him delusional, too.”

  Morgan sighed, her stomach tightening with fear at Deke’s every word. “Was there any question of that?”

  “No, but the fact that he followed you to Houston when you went to stay with your fiancé tells us he’s serious,” Jack added.

  Deke glanced back at her, surprise reflected in the raised arches of his brows.

  Fiancé? Morgan searched her memory. Jack’s tense jaw and black glower suddenly reminded her that she’d told him that she was engaged to Brandon. The lie hadn’t kept him from moving in too close. But correcting Jack now would only give him a greener light than he already thought he had to pursue whatever sexual arrangement he might want from her. Nope. She was hanging on to her subterfuge and pleading extreme guilt in case he came sniffing around again. Next time, she’d have to remember she was supposedly an engaged woman.

  “L.A. to Houston is a long way for a prank,” she agreed.

  “Exactly,” Deke cut in. “But the way this character took shots at you suggests there’s vengeance on his mind.”

  “He thinks you’re his,” said Jack. “But when he saw you having coffee with me, that’s the first time he tried to shoot you . . . like he wanted to punish you and keep anyone from having you if he couldn’t.”

  “That’s twisted.” Morgan grimaced.

  “Stalkers aren’t nice, normal guys.” Deke shrugged.

  She sighed. “I still have no idea who this is.”

  “I’m sure you know him, Morgan. This is someone you’ve been close with on some level, somewhere between conversationally and sexually. But in your interaction, he believed that you connected, that you were meant for him, which gives him the right to punish you for any ‘bad’ behavior you exhibit, like seeing another man. You’ve figured out that he’s tenacious.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s not going to call it a day anytime soon.” The knot of apprehension in her belly tightened.

  “Good,” Deke praised. “You and Jack are doing everything you can. Stay here for now. At this point, don’t try to be Miss Independent.”

  Getting away from Jack would be great for her self-respect—but terrible for her safety. Morgan sighed. “It chafes me to need a babysitter, but until I know who and what I’m dealing with, I feel better with backup.”

  “Good. Does he ever call your cell phone?” Deke questioned.

  “No. About six months ago, I got a new number. Only three people have the number: my mother, Brandon, and my agent.”

  “Brandon?”

  “Her fiancé.”

  Jack’s rancor as he answered his business partner stunned her. He sounded very unhappy about the “fact” that she had a soon-to-be husband. Morgan frowned. He’d gotten what he wanted, right? He couldn’t possibly be jealous.

  “Oh, and my production assistant, Reggie, has the number.”

  Jack and Deke shot each other an oblique look.

  “How much do you know about Reggie?”

  They suspected Reggie, clearly. Morgan started to tell them they were being absurd. Reggie was a cross between a giant teddy bear and a father figure. But then she realized that anyone could be a suspect. Anyone at all, no matter how absurd it sounded.

  “Reggie has been with me since the show started. He’s somewhere around forty. Divorced. He doesn’t seem like the type . . . but I guess no one gets ‘stalker’ tattooed across their forehead to make identification easy.”

  “Exactly. Do you talk with him about personal things?”

  She shrugged. “Some, I guess. He let me cry on his shoulder a time or two after my big breakup with Andrew. After Turn Me On was renewed, most of the cast went out together to this trendy L.A. bar and put down a few too many. Reggie ended up telling me about his divorce and how his ex cheated on him before he ordered a pot of coffee and insisted on taking me home since I couldn’t possibly drive.”

  “Did you have sex with him?” Jack prodded.

  Morgan’s jaw dropped. “No! I told you every bit of my personal past, which you shared with Deke.”

  “He was sketchy about the details at best,” Deke said with mock regret. “You can feel free to provide details. Or use me to reenact anything particularly juicy.”

  Jack whipped around in his seat and burned a furious, quelling glare at Deke.

  “Or not,” said the blond giant.

  Morgan’s gaze bounced back and forth between the two of them. What in the heck was going on? Jack was acting almost . . . possessive. She held in a snort. Yeah, as if she mattered to a guy like Jack. To him, she’d just be a plaything.

  “No chance you were too intoxicated to remember having sex with Reggie?” Jack asked.

  “No. I woke up the next morning with my panty hose still on.”

  Jack relaxed a degree or two and looked at his pal. “Anything else, man?”

  Deke’s reply was suddenly very businesslike. “Not at the moment. I’ll take the originals of the photos out for forensic analysis to see if this guy left behind any prints or other clues.”

  “That sounds unlikely,” she said.

  “It is,” Deke admitted with a shrug. “But you never know. Maybe he had a careless moment, or never believed you’d try to have them analyzed. I won’t know anything for a few days. But be patient. We’ll get to the bottom of it.” He patted her hand.

  Suddenly, Jack stood. His chair scraped across the hardwood floors, ripping into the early morning quiet. His entire body was tense as he slapped Deke on the back.

  “Let’s go discuss business.”

  Deke hesitated, appearing to fight a grin. Morgan had the feeling he was completely amused by the demand.

  “Okay.” He turned to Morgan. “Nice to meet you.”

  When he extended his hand across the table, Morgan barely had time to shake it before Jack herded him down the hall to the door, unlocked it, and pushed him through. She watched them disappear with a frown. What in the hell was up with Jack?

  JACK resisted the urge to slam the door behind them. He also resisted the urge to plow his fists into Deke’s face—but that took a lot more effort.

  What in the hell is wrong with me?

  “Okay, whatever it is, spill it,” Deke demanded, sitting in the chair beside the computer workstation.

  Jack didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

  He sighed and plopped down into his own chair. Where should he start? The tangled tale only got more complicated with every minute that passed. Revenge, lust, attempted murder, sex that didn’t just rock his world, but rocked his soul—all in the last two days.

  But like every story, Jack figured he’d better start at the beginning.

  “My ex-wife was having a fling with another man before she left.”

  “You mentioned that once after about your sixth hurricane t
hat weekend in New Orleans.”

  “His name was Brandon Ross.”

  Deke frowned. “Brandon Ro—the Brandon that Morgan is engaged to?”

  Jack rested his elbows on his knees and peered up at his friend. “The very same.”

  “I’d say it’s a huge coincidence that you wound up with your enemy’s woman under your protection and under your roof—and unless I’m totally off base here—in your bed. But I know you too well to believe in a coincidence that big.”

  “I planned it,” Jack confirmed. “Everything to the last detail. I was going to seduce her, then fuck her, and rub that fact in Brandon’s face, the way he rubbed it in mine.”

  Deke whistled. “Ballsy, man. Crappy but ballsy. So what happened?”

  Jack stood, paced the small windowless room. When had it gotten so damn small in here? It had never bothered him before.

  He turned his back on Deke. Sighed. Fisted his hands. Merde, he felt jumpy.

  No, it was more than that. Anger—at Brandon for starting this shit, at himself for feeling the desire to get back at his former pal, and for being dangerously usurped by the desire to have Morgan under him again. Anger that Morgan had, all night long, cheated with perfect bliss on her fiancé and appeared not to care a single bit. Yet she’d still managed to hold back that . . . something inside her. Damn it, her body, her face, told him she still hadn’t fully fucking submitted.

  Then he’d had to endure Deke’s teasing and flirtation with her. That just equaled wanting to rip the big blond giant’s head off.

  To top it all off, there was his desire . . . Jack swallowed against the need bubbling in his gut. He’d been inside Morgan less than four hours ago, and already he was like a starving man, panting, salivating. Ready to fight to taste her again. The need raged, like he had no control. It was unacceptable . . . and undeniable.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said finally. “It just . . . It’s not as simple as I thought.”

  “Did you become her stalker to get her where you wanted her?”

  “You know me better than that. I wouldn’t have called you to profile a pretend stalker. I’d just planned to lure Morgan to Lafayette for an afternoon. Nail her enough to persuade her that Brandon wasn’t her one and only, then let her go. There’s a real stalker, and when he shot at her in a crowd in broad daylight, she was fucking terrified. I brought her here.”

  “That makes sense, except this possessive thing. It’s not like you. In the past, we’ve shared—”

  “Don’t even think it,” Jack growled. “Morgan is very reserved. Besides, this is a woman running for her life, not some kitten one of us picked up in a sex club.”

  “None of that has stopped you from fucking her, though, has it?”

  “Drop it, damn it. Now!”

  “Okeydokey.” Deke heeded his warning growl with a tilted smile and held up his hands in a show of surrender. “All lascivious thoughts of the luscious redhead in the next room are gone.”

  Jack rolled his shoulders, trying to release his tension. Damn, a night with Morgan had him completely tied up in knots and his head screwed on wrong. He wished he could banish his thoughts of her half as easily as Deke supposedly had. It wasn’t happening. He wanted more of Morgan. And he wanted her now.

  “My question is, why the jealous lover routine?” Deke skewered him with a piercing stare, as if he knew every damn thought screaming through his head. “Unless, of course, you really are jealous.”

  Damn! The sad reality was that the green gremlin was feasting on his gut. No question about it. He had shared a few women with Deke before. Good times were had by all. Repeating that with Morgan . . . the thought conflicted him. An instinct told him that she would love a ménage—if she could wrap her mind around it. But he felt oddly proprietary about her. Allowing his buddy/business partner to get in on the action made him want to spit nails.

  There was something about Morgan that hit him squarely in the chest, so hard he couldn’t breathe. Jack was too experienced to play the denial game. His burning want for Brandon’s fiancée simply was, had little to do with revenge, and wishing otherwise wasn’t going to change it.

  It went deeper, though. Fucking Morgan for a whole night hadn’t satisfied his libido or his desire to betray Brandon. Rather, something about her had been so perfect. Jack didn’t remember ever . . . connecting with a woman so completely, as if he could see inside her, read her every desire. And he’d been physically inside her to the hilt, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted more from Morgan: the right to give her whatever she needed, the freedom to hear everything she felt or yearned for.

  Instead, she was holding back on him.

  Damn it, he didn’t want this. Aching for her wasn’t a part of his plan. Fuck her, plant seeds of doubt, encourage her to leave Brandon. Walk away. Simple, right?

  Not anymore. Jack didn’t just want her to leave Brandon to make his revenge complete. Reckless desperation gnawed at him. He wasn’t sure he could just let her go, walk away. Even though she’d cheated on Brandon. The knowledge didn’t set well with Jack. He’d thought he could steer clear of two-timing women when he divorced Kayla, but Morgan was so much . . . more than his ex-wife had ever been.

  The stupid, hormone-happy part of him wanted to earn Morgan’s trust, make her his to command. His hard-on demanded he claim her.

  There, he’d admitted it. Maybe owning up to it was the first step to recovering from his insanity and getting back to focusing on his revenge.

  Darting across the room, Jack paced, mind flying as if his brain had short-circuited. Surely just too much sex on too little sleep.

  But he knew himself too well. Something in his gut was shouting at him to abandon his revenge and grab the shimmering perfection of Morgan for himself. Treat her like a woman, teach her to respect her desires, care for her. Seize her and never let go.

  That something in his gut also told him emailing Brandon the video of him taking Morgan against the door had been a mistake. A big one.

  With a sigh, Jack sank into his desk chair. He shouldn’t be troubled at the thought of Brandon seeing him fuck Morgan. But like a stupid schmuck, he was. Damn it, he wished he hadn’t shared a single detail about their first time with anyone, much less a visual blow-by-blow.

  His regret didn’t make a damn lick of sense. Sending that video to Brandon had been half the point of his revenge! Despite that, Jack was uncomfortably aware that he’d sent something to Brandon that he wanted to keep between him and Morgan alone. What did that say about his feelings for her?

  Worse, if she found out, Morgan wouldn’t understand his revenge, just view his actions as a huge betrayal of her trust. One that could undermine any foundation he made with her. And if he wanted to touch her again, he was going to have to open up, take her into his care beyond the physical. He would have to show her that she mattered.

  Fuck. He was going to have to choose between Morgan and revenge because their uninhibited night together had not been enough to sate him. Not nearly enough. She’d only dug herself deeper into his psyche.

  How the hell could he just dismiss three years of fury, betrayal, hatred, and plotting?

  How the hell could he just let a sweet, submissive firecracker like Morgan go?

  “Oh.” Deke laughed. “Morgan has you by the balls. You’re strung out on this woman. Bad. Not that I blame you. She looks like one sweet little fu—”

  “Shut up. Don’t put Morgan in the same gutter as your mouth,” Jack snarled.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he’d done nothing but confirm every one of Deke’s suspicions.

  Shit!

  Deke laughed.

  Jack did his best to unclench his rigid jaw. “Let’s talk shop.”

  His buddy held in a wide grin. “Sure. We can do that. Who among our suspects do you think is Morgan’s stalker?”

  “Could be anyone.” Jack shrugged, struggling to relax. “I doubt it’s the college boyfriend with the wife and kid. I tend to think
she’s right about Brent Pherson. A pro football player on the road can’t be taking pictures of her at her house. So that leaves her former fiancé, her production assistant, or some random twisted fan.”

  “I suspect ol’ Reggie has all the makings of a sicko.”

  “He’s not as loyal as Morgan thinks. Hell, I paid him to get close to her, to pass my info and bio to her for the show. He took my money without asking questions and sent me her personal email address and IM info. But then he threatened me with everything short of castration if I so much as looked in her direction.” Jack grimaced.

  “So he sold her out, then turned on you. Nice.” Deke sighed. “Was he more jealous boyfriend than protective father?”

  “Hard to say over the phone. Could have been either.”

  “He bears watching. In digging yesterday, I found out he managed to avoid prison time for sexual assault due to a technicality.”

  Surprise ricocheted through Jack. “Really? Holy shit.”

  “Yep. I wonder if Morgan knows about Reggie’s past.”

  “I doubt it. She says he’s like a surrogate father to her. I don’t think she’d feel that way if she knew he might have a hobby as a rapist. But we also need to see if we can rule out any creepy neighbors and fans, just in case, but—”

  “My gut tells me this is someone Morgan knows, someone she trusts. That his identity is going to shock her to her toes.”

  As he gripped the arms of his chair, concern for Morgan gnawed at Jack’s calm. This guy wasn’t patient, and Jack was sure it would be a whole lot scarier before they finally caught the bastard and put a stop to his shit.

  “Exactly.”

  “So you have to stay close to Morgan, watch her twenty-four/seven,” Deke pointed out.

  Wasn’t that going to be a big help in unknotting his gut and getting his head screwed back on straight?

  “Yeah.”

  With a toss of his head, Deke howled with laughter. “And you want her again so bad you can’t see straight.”

  Jack sighed. He hated being a transparent as glass. “Yeah.”