His Every Desire (9 page)

“I’m not Tracy. Not anymore. She’s gone,” she whispered softly.

He pulled back and as he pulled out of her, she winced a little. “Sorry, baby…Emery.”

At the sound of her new name on his lips, she looked up at him.

He crooked a smile at her. “Been following Emery Hughes for about six months now…I’m awful damned glad to know it’s really you. You’re you…doesn’t matter what your name is. I’d know that taste anywhere…”

He pressed his mouth back to hers and she moaned, opening for him, feeling hunger stir in her belly again…even though she was still trembling from the climax.

Joel pulled back and lifted her against him, carrying her over to the bed. As he lay down behind her, she caught a glimpse of the smile curling his lips. “Changing your name, the way you look, you did good, Emery—very good.”

She pouted a little. “Not too good. You found me.”

There was an odd note in his voice. “Did you not want me to?”

Wriggling around, she turned in his arms, staring up at him with a sad little smile on her face. “Joel, I almost gave up waiting for you…”

His face spasmed and she watched something move in his eyes. “What is it?” she asked, arching up to him, pressing her lips to his chin while her fingers moved down to slip the buttons loose on his shirt. His hand caught hers before she could free them though.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to look at her. “You’ve been keeping track of what’s going on with Grainger,” he said quietly.

Her lashes flickered. “How do you know?”

Joel smiled. “You’re a smart woman, Tracy. You wouldn’t have taken off without keeping track of him. You’d know that he’d come after you if he lived. You set up a new identity—you had a contact. Somebody who watched him.”

Slowly, she nodded. “A lawyer. It was the lady who helped me become Emery. Tracy’s gone, Joel. I don’t even think I know Tracy anymore. She calls me…” her voice faded away and a frown darkened her face.

“What?” Joel asked quietly.

Emery turned away, reaching for the small blue cell phone on the bedside table. “She didn’t call me back. She’d recognize my number. Aleisha would call…damn it, I called yesterday morning and this morning. I was going to call her house when I got home. That’s always the last measure, but…”

Joel reached up and closed his hand over hers before she could punch in the number. “I’ll have somebody look into it. Just give me her name. Don’t call her house. That’s too dangerous, you know that.”

Dark gray eyes lifted and stared into his. “Aleisha would have called by now. I…I think I was trying not to think about it.” She licked her lips, looking around her. “I bought a house, Joel. This is mine. The first thing that’s been mine in forever. I can’t lose it.”

Reaching up, Joel wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down. She cuddled against him as he threaded a hand through the thick weight of her hair. “I’ll take care of you, Emery. I will.”

She lay there. “I know you will.” Long moments of silence passed and then she pulled away. Joel released her reluctantly, feeling the silken strands of her hair sliding away as she sat up, staring down at him, her eyes wide and dark.

“Where have you been for the past three years?” she asked quietly.

Joel closed his eyes. “In prison.” He heard her harsh intake of breath and looked back at her. “I’d never hurt you—and I’d kill anybody who did. But in a lot of ways, I’m not that different from Grainger. I’ve broken laws, I’ve stolen money, and I’ve killed people. My past caught up with me.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared down at him. Slowly, Emery knelt, putting her face level with his. “You can really be a dumb-ass idiot…” she whispered, shaking her head slowly.

Sitting back up, she arched a brow as she studied his face. “Vincent’s pleasure in life is taking from others, causing them pain. The making of money is a hobby. He’s good at it—but that’s just a plus. He really gets off on the pain.”

She looked away from him, her lashes lowering to hide her eyes. “And I know more about you than you think, Joel. A nice white-collar man isn’t going to willingly do business with Vincent. Not if he knows the man. He might do it unwillingly—or blindly. But you weren’t blind or unwilling. That means you were willing to break the law. I knew that. From the beginning, I knew you weren’t a knight in shining armor.”

Then she looked back at him, shrugging a little. “I don’t need a knight, Joel. Maybe I needed one a little…then. Now I just need you.”

Chapter Seven

He heard footsteps. Squeaky, rubber-soled shoes, a sound he hated. Damned nurses.

He was surrounded by them.

His mind was slowly getting back into gear and he was figuring out what in the hell was going on, but it was slow. Thinking was slow.

It had taken a few days to even get past the thick gray fog that had obscured most of his thoughts. A few more days to figure out where in the hell he was.

Was he at the office? The high-rise in New York?

No. He wasn’t at the office. If he had fallen asleep there, hell…he wouldn’t have.

The high-rise, then…but no. That was his own space. Only his men were allowed inside those elegantly appointed rooms, and none of them would wear anything as annoying as squeaking shoes.

Somebody passed in front of him. White…she wore white. Another nurse, a safe person. It was the people who didn’t wear white that he had to worry about.

He processed the information even as she dabbed at the drool he’d let dribble out of his mouth.

Disgusting, but there was a wariness about the way these people treated him that made him even more careful. Even the nurses.

Those who didn’t wear white bothered Vincent the most. Feds. They came in wearing dark clothes—his eyes still bothered him too much to see but he knew they’d be wearing poorly made suits and they’d ask too many damned questions.

When the people in the suits showed up, he drooled as much as he could and acted even more disgusting.

It helped that he could finally figure out why he was here, and why the feds were watching him like hawks.

It seemed like forever had passed since he had been able to think clearly—but in the past week or so, things had been getting clearer.

His memory of that last day was incredibly clear now, not that he had let on. Even as the damned therapy people worked with him, he lay there like some slack-jawed yokel.

It was paying off though. Every day, his body got stronger and the muscle cramps that plagued him faded little by little.

For the past twenty minutes, he had lain with his eyes closed while the nurse checked his vitals and a doctor argued with some damn feds that he was completely incompetent.

Good doctor…he smirked inwardly, even as he wondered where in the hell the man had gotten his medical degree. Was it really that easy to mimic a catatonic state? Just sit there, stare straight ahead and drool a little?

Disgusting, yes, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to jail and he was too damned weak yet to try and run.

“There has to be a test, something you can do to check for coherency.”

“We’ve done them. There’s brain activity, but he’s spent years in a coma—he has to learn everything over again. Give him some time!”

He’d been wondering how damn long he’d been there. Three years. Damn.

Now, as everybody left, his mind whirled and danced. Memories spun through his mind. Watching from a rocky cliff as a woman fucked a man…a man he wanted.

They’d been so vague at first, but now they were crystal clear. Too clear.

That woman…Tracy…his hands closed into fists as he said her name silently to himself. Her face flickered in his memory, that exotic face and sleek body so many men had wanted. That was why he had wanted her. Because others looked and wanted and knew they’d never have. But he could.

He could have any damned thing he wanted…almost.

The memory of Tracy with that man…Joel. Joel Lockhart.

Vincent could remember one thing, clear as crystal. Joel, sitting across from him, wearing a black suit that fit that perfect body damned well. Vincent had been entertaining a fantasy where he moved to Joel, unbuckled that expensive Italian leather belt, slid the zipper down, and took Joel’s cock in his mouth…

But then Joel had said words that had shocked the hell out of Vincent. He wasn’t shocked easily.

“I want your wife.” The man had stared at Vincent with emotionless, dark blue eyes, set in a face that was too harsh for true male beauty, but so damned sexy, so male.

“I beg your pardon?”

Joel’s voice was cool, flat, almost disinterested as he had responded. “You heard me. You understand, too. You asked what it would take to get me in on some of your business ventures. Well, I have the answer for you now. I want your wife. Otherwise, I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

Vincent had forced out a laugh, lacing his fingers loosely across his belly as he’d leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “No piece of ass is worth gambling a fortune on, Joel.”

“Well, since you like dick more anyway, you probably wouldn’t know. It’s not like she’s exactly your type. She can still be your little trophy wife—but I want her in my bed.”

Those words had infuriated Vincent. Infuriated him and frightened him. Homosexuality was not something that was welcomed in his world. Too many of the sharks he swam with would see it as a weakness. Weakness wasn’t welcomed in his world.

Joel Lockhart knew his secrets. Vincent didn’t know how—but he knew.

Yet while Joel’s words had infuriated him, scared him, they had made him hot, too…made him wonder if he could show Joel the pleasure to be found in…liking dick, as Joel had put it.

Not that it would ever happen. He’d learned to recognize those who could be tempted, bribed, or forced into his lifestyle.

Joel wasn’t one of them.

And the fuck had wanted Tracy. Tracy.

Gnashing his teeth, he fought the images that flooded his mind. Too powerful, too strong, and he still felt weak. But he couldn’t fight them off, so he fed off the anger they instilled in him.

How many times had he watched Joel fuck his wife?

Enough so that whenever he started to look at her, it was with jealousy. Then that day…yes. That day.

He’d fucked her, good and hard, and he could still remember how sweet that had been. Fuck, he could feel his cock jerking even now, and getting a hard-on wasn’t good when a man had a fucking catheter in his dick.

The humiliation, the indignity of it made him seethe.

They had put him in here. He was suffering this indignity because of them. And they were going to pay for that.

As soon as he could get the hell out.

* * * * *

Joel came out of sleep with a vicious, sudden start. Staring up at the ceiling, he held his breath as memory swam back up through the dark fog of sleep.

Against his side, there was a soft, warm weight, and a scent he hadn’t ever forgotten, sweet vanilla and woman.

Tracy…no…Emery. She called herself Emery now. Damn, she had changed. She’d always been fey, like a slender pixie, exotic, with that short chopped hair and that wide mouth in her heart-shaped face.

Now, though, she looked ethereal, like something too damned beautiful to be real.

He’d known that pale hair on her head wasn’t her natural color, although it had looked amazing on her. The slender strip of curls that rested just atop her slit was a soft, warm brown. She still waxed the lips of her pussy—soft, silken flesh. He hadn’t even taken the time to feel that soft flesh against his mouth—he had been too damned hungry to get inside her snug little sheath.

The shiny, soft brown hair suited her. It framed the softened curves of her face, falling into gentle waves to her breasts. And damn it, those breasts. Hell, she’d always had nice tits—he had loved cupping them in his hands, plumping them and sucking on her pretty little nipples.

But now…damn it, she was so soft and ripe. As he remembered how it had felt to take her, resting his hips in the soft cradle of her thighs, again and again throughout the night, his cock started to throb.

It went deeper than the surface though—there was strength inside her, confidence. He didn’t know if it had always been there, although he suspected it had. The hell she had lived in had required strength—a weaker woman would have taken the easier way out. God knew, plenty of people walking a road not so difficult had done just that.

But that inner core of strength that had kept her going wasn’t a quiet, hidden strength now. It shone in her eyes, in the way she walked, the way she talked.

Joel would be damned if that strength wasn’t every bit as appealing as the frailty he still glimpsed in her eyes.

He still wanted to cuddle her, promise her that she’d never know another instant of pain or fear. But he also wanted to fuck her brains out—ride her hard, rough—the way he hadn’t dared touch her.

His lids drooped as that image burned itself into his mind. That edgy hunger was one he had kept under control before. It had been easier. Tracy Grainger had been fragile. Most men didn’t want to bruise somebody already so delicate—and Tracy had been just that.

But Emery—the woman she had made herself into—was a different story.

That hunger burned just under the surface of his skin, sizzling through his veins.

Clouding his mind.

Damn it. He had to focus.

Had to remember what was going on, because the last time he had lost himself in thoughts of her, that bastard Simmonds had dared to pull a gun on her.

Simmonds…he’d died that day, massive cerebral hemorrhage. The official story—the old man had pulled a gun on him and in the fight that followed, Simmonds had fallen back.

He’d never mentioned Tracy, although they had asked about her in the days that followed. His story was that he hadn’t seen her since before he had left on his business trip days earlier.

They hadn’t bought it—and more, Dowling had even been tracking the elusive Mrs. Grainger, maybe even from the beginning.

If he hadn’t had that dossier, it would have taken a very long time to find her. Well, unless Carly had decided to shed some light on the subject.