Electrified (29 page)

Sadly, he had to pick up, but he figured Sienna would need a few minutes to cool down and change her clothes. He nodded at Petey, motioning to his phone while he ducked out the back door.

“Hey, Ray, what you got, man?” He leaned up against the building, propping one bent leg behind him to provide him some leverage. For what, he didn’t know.

“Well, the Sam Charles guy is simple. Amateur porn maker from Jersey, been making the rounds around the country stalking a few of the big adult clubs and recruiting dancers to make it big in his films. For the most part, all of the club owners have thrown him out on his ass. Now, he’s decided to set his sights on Sienna. Figures if she signs on, the others will follow.”

Carson grunted and strummed his empty, idle fingers against the wall behind him. “Hmm, that’s interesting, but I doubt Sienna is going to do that. She doesn’t even do lap dances, so I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to star in a film featuring her having sex. At the end of the day, it sounds crazy, but she’s kind of innocent, untouched—”

Ray cut him off, which was a relief considering he really didn’t want to reveal his true feelings to himself, let alone to Ray. “Yeah, that’s the thing, Carson. Sienna is a bit of a mystery. I don’t know what’s going on with her. Sienna Flower didn’t exist until she arrived on the scene about seven years ago. I know that’s not such a red flag. A lot of these dancers use stage names, but Sienna Flower is the name Asher lists on an unofficial partnership agreement I dug up from his files. Why would he put Sienna Flower and not her real name for legal tax purposes? The only explanation would be that Sienna files under that name, but Sienna Flower hasn’t filed taxes. Ever.” He released an audible sigh.

Carson listened, tightening his grip on the phone as Ray revealed more of what he’d learned.

“There’s no paper trail for Sienna,” Ray went on. “No registration as an LLC or assumed name paperwork, no tax returns, or even a driver’s license. Which again, wouldn’t be a big deal except for the fact that Asher had put the name Sienna Flower on the agreement. I would think he would put her real name or the one she uses for financial filings on that; legally that makes sense. I did notice Asher has a small corporation named SF, LLC, listed for talent appraisal, to which he pays a pretty big sum each month and then fairly quickly cashes out. My hackles are up on this one, Carson, but I’m going to need some time.”

Carson’s head was swimming with possibilities, but he didn’t want Ray fishing around and mucking it up. He was certain Ray was thinking there was something big-time illegal going on, but Carson had only one nagging feeling in his gut.

The dates. The timeline of Sienna’s appearance coincided with the case he was working, but there was no way. No fucking way these two people could intersect.

“Let me work on it a bit, Ray. I may be able to connect a few dots, buddy, and not call in every favor you owe me just yet. I’ll give you an update in a few days. Thanks, man.” He pried himself from the wall and turned back toward the door.

Until he made certain that the two cases were absolutely not related, Carson didn’t want anyone near the facts. Now he was sorry he’d called Ray. He hoped the little shit didn’t get nosy, because his clients were under his privacy policy.

Forget them. He really hoped Sienna wasn’t who he was beginning to think she was. There was no way it was possible. The woman he was looking for was a devout religious fanatic, and Sienna was a stripper. She took her clothes off for money, and never filed a tax return.

Carson let out a long breath as he went back inside the club and made his way back to Sienna’s dressing room. He had to push the call to the back of his mind and think on it later, because as soon as he got close to Sienna, he started getting hard again. He couldn’t think now, nor did he want to. If this all ended up being related, he was in deep shit.

He didn’t know Sienna well, but he was pretty sure if she and the woman he was looking for were one and the same, there was a good reason. And he was pretty sure that reason wouldn’t make him happy to return her to her family.

S
IENNA WAS
in a great mood after dancing. She felt in control again; commanding the crowd did that to her. She hoped Carson would come back after her performance, but he seemed to still be giving her space. Did she make a mistake in shutting him out earlier?

Lost in her head over why he wasn’t back to see her yet, Sienna heard a little knock on the door.
Thank God.

Carson walked in confidently, as always, and immediately swept her in his arms, brushed his lips across her cheek, finally coming to rest on her own. He landed a deep, passionate kiss on her, only breaking away to say, “You looked fucking fabulous out there. I couldn’t help but think how envious every other dude would be of me if they knew I was the one taking you home.”

Sienna kept telling herself to let this whole thing go between them, but then he said something like what he just did, and her plans were out the window. Even though his words were lust filled and fueled from her dancing, there was something underneath them. A feeling that said they were more than dirty talk, they were words of promise. A promise she could never make good on.

She couldn’t be weak at the moment, or could she? With Sam Charles in the picture, she needed to assess her plan and safety, but for the moment, she let herself feel good in Carson’s arms.

Of course she would let him take her home. Nothing wrong with making a few more lasting memories, especially since she was moving on. And soon.

Sienna had one more dance at her regular time, and then she could leave. After a little quiet time kissing, touching, and taking in Carson, she needed to get ready to go back onstage.

She assumed Carson would stay and watch her dance, but he said he needed to go make a few calls related to work. Strange. He never did that before, but she figured she had been occupying a lot of his time, so he must be a bit behind.

After devouring her mouth again, Carson promised he’d be back to pick her up. His hand slipped alongside her breast, his thumb lightly rubbing her nipple with the promise of more later.

Instantly, Sienna was out of breath, and any thought of something being off with Carson was long gone.

“See you soon,” was all she could get out before Carson walked down the hall.

He’s so hot. Smoking hot.

C
ARSON HATED
to leave Sienna. Only the present mission could sway him from staying and watching Sienna play out all his sexual desires and urges onstage. If he didn’t need to prove himself wrong, assure himself Sienna and the woman he’d been fruitlessly searching for weren’t the same, he would be at the Tunnel.

But first, he had to attend to a few details. Namely, he had to put his mind to rest and get back to the club, so he could take Sienna home and fuck her. Not fuck her, bury himself deep inside her, be one with her, take everything she had to give, and fulfill his every want with her goodness.

He was in a hurry to get back to pleasure, so his current business was going to be quick. Real quick.

Carson wasn’t as worried about Sam Charles anymore. He was thinking the yokel was just an idiot. Good thing Mike and Asher wouldn’t let Charles get close to Sienna, because this pursuit required his full attention.

Their protection of Sienna allowed Carson to put his worry over Charles on the back burner, since the possibility of Sienna agreeing to be in his movies was slim to none.

This left Carson hurrying, strumming the steering wheel, and grinding the clutch all the way to his hotel. For once in his life, the speed didn’t take him away.

If what he feared most was true—that Sienna was the woman he’d been chasing around looking for—he realized Sam Charles would make a good decoy. The asshole would throw everyone off of him. At least until he figured out what he wanted to do, or needed to do to keep Sienna safe.

Carson took the turns faster than he should, going over what Sienna had told him about herself in his head. He was rolling over her words in his mind. Military kid. But military brats were usually pretty rule-oriented; they didn’t typically avoid paying taxes.

Mike and Asher knew Sienna about seven years, which was around the time she slowly started making it onto the scene. Around the same time period his current client told him their daughter went missing.

He banged the steering wheel with his hand. Luck of the fucking draw. He’d been on a wild-goose chase around the west, and he might have just fallen for the victim.

Carson concentrated on breathing. He needed to be pragmatic, like they taught him to be when he was in training. He couldn’t let emotions rule his thought process. He had about ninety minutes, tops, at the moment. He needed to go back and review his notes in the quiet of his hotel room before he jumped to any conclusions.

Once back at the hotel, he punched the elevator button like it was the enemy. He needed to get back to his room before he put his fist through the wall. His thoughts were moving as fast as he liked to drive.

How could he fall for a stripper? Did he really believe he could have a future with a woman who took her clothes off for hundreds of men every night? One of those fucking men could be trying to take her home at the moment.

Was Sienna a person of interest? Did he even care? Would he turn her in, or help hide her?

What happened to years of service with the government, and the number one rule to never get involved with someone on a case?

Well, he didn’t know.

Life was a bitch.

He dwarfed the miniscule hotel room workspace as he sat down. He crouched down to fit his legs under the desk. Fuck it. Now wasn’t the time to be comfortable. With a bottle of water cracked open since it wouldn’t be smart to have another drink that might further cloud his instincts, Carson opened his laptop and waited for his notes to load. This was such bullshit. He knew this current job was taking much longer than he expected. He was looking for a young woman, twenty-eight years old, who just up and disappeared about seven years ago. There wasn’t even the smallest trace of her. She was good.

When he took the case, he had never expected her to be able to disappear so completely. Her young age combined with the less-than-worldly family who hired him didn’t exactly say “criminal mind.”

Her family appeared to be clueless when it came to the real world, so he was unsure how she planned such a clean escape since she’d grown up in such a sheltered environment. They were like a cult or something. “Religious freaks” was putting it lightly. He wasn’t sure they even associated with anyone in the outside world.

In fact, he had no idea how they knew his friend, Alex, who referred them to him as clients. Oh right, he had a relative who lived in their area, but Alex wasn’t one of those religious freaks.

Maybe Carson could talk to Alex and get some insight?

Nah, that would mean I’d have to reveal this pitiful mistake of falling for the wrong woman.

All the evidence aside, Carson got why the woman wanted to get the hell out. Her family was downright fucked up, in his opinion.

He hated cults. How the hell anyone survived such closeness, scrutiny, and judgment among family members and community, he didn’t know. He would hightail it out of there if he’d been born into such a group.

What if there was more of a reason why this girl fled? Could it be the husband who recently crawled out of the woodwork?

Her family had him running all over. Although she grew up in an urban setting in Brooklyn, New York, her relatives decided it was likely she was hiding in a small rural town as far away from New York as she could get. Why would they say that?

Setting me off course on purpose? Why hire me in the first place?

“Why? How do you figure a rural area? What is she running from?” he remembered asking the parents. He had scanned their faces for any signs of emotion, but had seen none.

“She wanted to live differently, abandon our customs,” her family had told him. “She wanted to experience something different from what she grew up with, so we think a rural community is logical.”

Logical, my ass.

The family’s innocent act didn’t match how desperate they were to find her. He knew it all along, but he became a little too occupied with watching a stripper, who he was now smitten with more than he cared to admit. She had come to represent so much more, and had diverted his focus from his case.

Now, he had several problems on his hands. First, he had let himself fall for an adult dancer. Second, he’d never lost his grip on a case before. Third, how was he going to fix this if Sienna was who he was afraid she was? And did he want to fix it?

If the woman wanted to go her own way, why wouldn’t her family let her? She was an adult at the time she left. Carson couldn’t stop all the scenarios and questions running through his head when his notes finally opened on the screen.

His original notes were about as bare as a cue ball. This should have sent up a number of red flags, but at the time, Carson was determined to do a favor for his friend Alex. After all, Alex’s family had taken him in when he had no one.