A WILDer Kind of Love (16 page)

Fuck.

By the time they pulled apart, Franz wore most of the black lipstick. Princess Goth ran a thumb across his lips, smearing the shit even more across his face. “There,” she declared. “Perfect.”

From hooded eyes, Franz growled, “Perfect for what?”

Dan coughed. Loud. “Okay. This is
really
the part where I tell you two to get a room.”

“Don’t mind if we do.” Franz smiled. “By the way, man, this is Infinity.”

“Of course it is.”

Infinity laughed, making it harder to dislike her. “I wish I could say my parents were high, but they were just weird.” She extended the hand not covered in black lipstick streaks. “Nice to meet you. Johnny’s told me a lot of cool things about you.”

Dan shot up both brows. “Johnny?”

“It works.” Franz worked a hand around her nape. “
Outside
the playroom, at least.”

Infinity nudged Dan’s foot with a pointy-toed boot. “Let it slide and I won’t make any funny mask jokes.” To Franz, she cracked, “I had a few but I’ll save them.”

Franz laughed and nudged her to her feet. “Better idea? Why don’t you go and check on that room he told us to get.”

“
Excellent
idea,” she returned. “Though you sure this place can handle us? Pretty sure the bouncer who let me in was dangling a ‘Target special’ flogger off his belt.”

“That’s why I brought my own toy bag, beauty.”

She nuzzled more black marks into his neck. “I get so wet when you say ‘toy bag,’ Sir.”

“You can prove that in a few minutes, toy
girl
.”

He smacked her bottom playfully as she strutted toward the meathead in the corner playing the club’s ‘dungeon master.’ As he turned back to Dan, the pleasantry faded. “Wish I could send you the same promising ju-ju for your night, but you already let that ship sail right out of the harbor.”

“Thanks for the enlightenment.” He matched his sneer to the one already flung at him. “But you forgot about the kittens I drowned and the angels I shot down while I was at it.”

Franz spread his hands, emphasizing the expanse of his chest. “Doesn’t matter to me if you let Kate Upton get up and walk out. Just need to be sure you’re okay…okay?”

Dan chuckled. The mirth didn’t even tap at the doorway to the unfinished business that still lurked with Tess, but it still felt good to smile in public. Why hadn’t he thought of the mask thing earlier? It didn’t exactly work for grocery stores trips, but during a night out in a place like this, where at least ten other guys in the place wore masks, it was serendipitous. “I’m fine, man. No secret flights scheduled for Mexico tonight.”

“Good.” His shoulders relaxed a little. “That’s good.”

“So you’re saying it’s good?”

The guy picked up a piece of snack mix from the glowing bowl on the table and lobbed it. “Cocky-ass spook.”

“Paranoid soldier boy.”

“Like you’ve given me reason not to be?”

He sipped more Scotch, appreciating the burn down his throat, before conceding, “Fair enough.”

“No shit, especially with the buzz that came down today from Langley. Figured that once you heard, you’d be in the mood to blow off some steam, and—”

He slammed his glass down so hard, the snack mix lurched. “
What
news that came down from Langley?”

Franz inhaled. “Shit.”

“Shit
what
?” He leaned forward, ripping off his mask. Missing any nuance on the guy’s face wasn’t an option right now. “Christ, Franzen. If you tell me Stock was able to get a call out from the hospital and—”

He refused to finish it. If any of that was true—if Stock had bribed his way into getting even a single phone call, even in max security custody—he’d be able to buy his way out of the rest of it. The dick nozzle would once more hit the game reset button on them—only this time, he’d run a lot farther than Mexico.

“No,” Franz insisted. “
No.
Stock is right where we left him, chained to a hospital gurney, staring at the prunes between his legs. This time, it’s Newport.”

Dan stiffened.
Newport
. As in General Kirk Newport, another member of Stock’s groovy Scooby gang who were behind the freaky genetic alterations on Shay Bommer, Ghid Preston, and at least a hundred more unwilling subjects, finally resulting in the men joining forces to hide the mutants—and the “experiments” that were nothing simply sanctioned torture—in a top-secret “research facility” inside Area 51. After Shay went deep undercover to expose the operation, Newport was apprehended, jailed, and awaiting his due process by the military powers-that-be.

Or so they’d been led to believe.

With fury attacking his gut like a doomsday virus, Dan snarled, “What about him?”

Franz pulled in a measured breath. “Trivia tidbit. What other living general has more knowledge of Russian internal affairs than Kirk Newport?”

“Would that be the same zero as the one in front of his moral character rating?”

Franz scowled. Not just any scowl. Dan had only ever seen that look when the guy was in battle gear, getting ready to kick scumbag ass. “New math is going down, buddy. Zeros have no bearing. With things as tense as cock clamps between Moscow and Washington right now, the buzz says they’re talking to Kirkie-poo about a downgrade on sentencing if he cooperates with sharing the intel in his head.”

Dan swore under his breath. “So, a rabid wolf with a pile of new chew toys.”

Franz nodded. “Let the carnage begin.”

He downed the last of his drink. The bottom of his glass wasn’t an encouraging sight. He was about to flag down a waitress for another, but set down the tumbler and let out another string of profanity instead. Tying one on wasn’t the magic bullet right now—not when
he
felt like the damn wolf, prowling and savage, yearning for a full moon to rise and morph him out of the skin he was stuck in.

Trouble was, that moon now bore a name.

A moon who hadn’t returned his texts or phone calls in three damn days.

One more time. Maybe he’d try just one more time.

Pathetic putz.

So what? After Franz’s bomb drop, a dip into the pond of pathetic didn’t seem such a horrifying option.

“Hey.” Franz’s baritone yanked his head back up. “I can raincheck things with Infinity, if you just want to sit here and get polluted.”

He jammed up his middle finger, their way of expressing
thank you
and
fuck you
in one clean package. “Pollution’s bad for the soul. And I’m going to be as much fun as an ex at a wedding.
Go,
” he stressed when Franz only glowered. “You kids have fun.”

Made sense that
somebody
would tonight.

After “Johnny” cleared out to join his little goth, Dan threw down some more bar mix, hoping the shit infused his gonads with enough steel to try punching Tess’s number again. When he caught a trio of mini-skirted girls eyeing the table, he rose and gestured them over. “Damn. I’m a pig. Sorry for hogging the table.”

The tallest of the girls, a brunette with legs so muscular she likely bench-pressed more than he did, tilted a blinding smile. “No sorries necessary, hot stuff.”

Dan threw a glance back before realizing she spoke to him. “Errr. Okay. I was just leaving. It’s all yours.”

Warrior Girl’s friend, another brunette with a pixie haircut, smiled wider than her friend. “But we wanted the table because you came with it.”

“Huh?” he returned. “What?”

She’d strutted up to his right. She had to see the scars. Surely they weren’t the reason for the fascination in her gaze. “You heard me…hot stuff.” Sure enough, she lifted a hand, directing it right toward his mottled skin. He jerked away on instinct, lungs slicing on breaths that suddenly felt like…fear. “Ssshhh, honey. It’s okay. We just want to have fun. We’re
all
freaks of the night here, right? Let me be the beauty to your beast, Quasimodo.”

Dan grabbed her slender wrist. Heaved it away as fast as he could—but not as fast as the fear twisted into something worse. Something uglier than his face.

“Enjoy the table.” He snarled it with enough venom to drain her smile and drop her hand. As soon as she did, Dan rose and bolted.

How much crazier could this night get?

He wanted to forget the question had ever crossed his mind.

He needed the one person who could help him do that.

Out in the club’s brighter, cooler lobby, he palmed his phone and took a deep breath. The space was a shout-back to Vegas’s early days, with a curved reception desk, velvet ottomans, and a chandelier out of a Ray Bradbury novel. Appropriate, given that he suddenly felt like Frankie Avalon, nervously calling his Annette Funicello for the fiftieth time. Without the beach, of course. Or the flawless Avalon face.

He sat in a corner and punched in her number at once. If he was calling in a special from Lady Luck, might as well reach for the big brass ring.

One ring. Two. Three. Four.

Shit.

“Hey, stranger.”

As her voice filled the line, he silently promised Lady Luck a huge ass kiss. Anything else she wanted kissed, for that matter.

He attempted a casual laugh. Greatest acting job of his career, including the mission where he’d masqueraded as a Mexican goat herder for three weeks. “Hey!” His greeting sounded as awkward as the goat guy, too. “I—uh—wasn’t expecting you to pick up.”

“I know.” An apology threaded it. “I’m really sorry. I saw your calls and texts. It was just…a weird weekend.”

He shoved off the ottoman. Considering how her weekend had started off, alarm bells clanged in his blood. But Emerald had called him on Saturday, ensuring she’d waved goodbye to a peaceful and happy Tess. What the hell had happened since?

“Weird? How?”

“I—” She broke off with a flustered sigh. “I don’t know where to start.”

“
Ruby
.” It was a command, not an admonishment.

“Forget it,” she snapped. “How are
you
? What’s up?”

He laughed again. A lot of the mirth was gone. “Ohhh, no. I’m not chasing after
that
squirrel so easily. Why don’t you just back up and try that answer again?”

She whooshed out breath over the line. “Dammit. I have no secrets from you anymore, do I?”

Not since I had you naked, clamped, and moaning beneath me, little girl
.

“You’re evading.”

“I’m
not
evading. I’m…thinking.”

“About what?”

“‘About what?’” she slung back. “What the hell kind of a counterattack is that?”

“One that needs an answer.”

“I want some Colton sarcasm first.”

“And I want an answer.”

She huffed. The line scratched as if she’d angled the device away. “You all really
are
like hawks with their prey.”

Warmth instantly bloomed through him. Unbelievably, it spread faster than the first time she’d uttered the accusation—in that zap of a moment, surrounded by the candlelight of Catacomb, when her spirit reached out and wrapped around his, intoxicating him, making him want more…a lot more. So he’d hoarded her to himself for hours he’d longed to stretch into days, hoping it would be enough to shake how she’d suddenly, inexorably, pierced something deep inside him…

Fuck.

Might as well come clean, man.

You haven’t shaken a goddamn thing about her.

Dominating Tess, and fucking her on top of it, had accomplished exactly the opposite. Just hearing her voice again confirmed it. The vibrations of it, smart and sexy and sassy, torched his blood, ignited his mind, sent shockwaves up his cock…

Until her sob burst across the line.

“Tess?”

His query fell into all-too-thick silence.

Shit, shit, shit.

Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s been almost three days. Anything could’ve happened in that time. A weekend emergency at work. The toilet broke at her place again. Bad hair day. That time of the month.

“
Tess
.”

“I’m here.”

“Was that meant to reassure me?” Both shaky Bambi syllables of it?

“I’m sorry.” A scuffle filled the line, like she’d picked up a Kleenex and tried to suck up her emotions. “God. I’m really sorry. This is stupid. I mean, it’s been three days. I need to get over this!”

He held his own phone away. Swallowed hard.

So it wasn’t her time of the month.

Shit.

“Three days?” He went for vaguely confused. Came out more like constipated angst. “Since what?”

She sighed. Well, tried to. Three seconds in, it broke into another string of tears.

“Sweetheart,” Dan grated. “Talk to me.”

She snuffled. Took a deep breath. “I…it’s…hard.”

“It’s
me
.”

“That’s why it’s hard.”

“Why?” He really
was
confused. Unless she suspected anything about his duplicity on Friday. In that case, he was fucked anyway, so why not go down doing the right thing? Whatever the hell that was anymore.

“I’ll—I’ll let you go. Let’s talk later.”

“You’re not letting me go.”
Because I’m not letting
you
go. Not now. Not like this.
The mask was off. He could do this. The care and tenderness he couldn’t give her as a Dom was all his to give as a friend.

She snuffled again. “You didn’t sign up for this.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t even know what
this
is.” The ruse came easier now—which should have scared him more than it did. Right now, all that mattered was doing whatever he had to banish that melancholy in her voice. What the
hell
had he done to her?

“I’m being stupid, anyway.” She whimpered as if cutting off another sob. “
God
. So stupid.”

“Tess. What the hell—”

“I understand a lot more now.” She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And why you said what you did at lunch last week.”

His lips pressed together. “What part of what I said?”

“It makes sense. Your reaction when I suggested that you be my Dom. All of this…it’s much messier than I thought…”

She started laughing at herself but the sound was lost, despondent. It scared the shit out of him. “Tess, I’m coming over.”

“
No
.”