Hitman's Secret Baby: A Bad Boy Romance (9 page)

I had to do this, for Anna. Even if she never spoke to me again, even if she hated me for the rest of our lives, I had to find a way to protect Ethan.

At any cost.

“Got it, bro,” Jay quipped. “And what about your pretty baby mama?”

“What about her?”

“I mean, you got a kid, man. What are you gonna do? The Foster job’s a good payout. You thinking about shutting shop and playing house?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do you care?”

“It’d be a shame to lose you, but this job ain’t forever. We’re a flash in the pan, brother. Burning quick and bright.”

I scoffed. “Little poetic for you, isn’t it?” Jay shrugged, uncharacteristically solemn all of a sudden. It made me uneasy. “That kid doesn’t need all my shit in her life.”

“Dead dad or fucked-up dad,” Jay huffed. “What a choice.”

“Yeah.” I tipped back my third whiskey, two more lined up on the table. “Taryn doesn’t deserve all that.”

I didn’t know why I was opening up to him. This certainly wasn’t why I called him, that’s for sure. It might’ve had something to do with that third whiskey. Might’ve been the ache under my ribs, the gnawing feeling in my bones. I didn’t have
friends
, per se. Acquaintances, colleagues, dudes I drank with, people I ran recon with.

I guessed I just felt like talking to someone who had no stake in any of this and didn’t really give a shit. In some way, it reminded me of how I would normally deal with a situation—detached, cool, composed. It helped to get Jay’s perspective.

“She’s a good woman,” I went on, gripping my glass hard. “She’s done fine without me and she’ll keep on doing fine.”

It didn’t even scratch the surface. I was sore with wanting her, my mind saturated with every naked image, every breath and moan. I couldn’t get her voice out of my head, the sounds of pleasure or the sighs of comfort. I couldn’t stop thinking about how she defended me back at the house, how I hadn’t earned that kind of treatment yet.

“Isn’t that her decision?” Jay asked.

I laughed. “When did you become Dear Abby?”

Jay cocked his glass towards me. “This isn’t my first drink of the day.”

I looked at him,
really
looked. At sixteen he left behind a family for this job. I knew he had a sister and a brother, a dad who was still alive. I knew there had been a woman, too; he spoke about her in his darkest, drunkest moments. After a month together, she’d found out how he made his money and split in fear.

I hardly blamed her.

Jay hadn’t given up the job, though. He’d sunk so far into it I couldn’t see where he ended and it began. He’d become this wise-cracking jester, drinking alone at midday in this old shithole. Once he’d contacted the boss about my taking the Foster job, his purpose here completed, he’d go wherever the next job took him and probably find some other local shithole to get wasted in daily.

It unsettled me, all of a sudden, to realize this.

“I don’t exactly have any transferable skills,” I pointed out.

“Ranch work.”

I shuddered. “Fuck that.”

“Be a goddamn burger flipper. I’m not your fucking career advisor.”

“There he is,” I drawled. “Wondered where you’d gone for a minute, there.”

“Shut up, asshole.” Jay rolled his eyes. “Look, just—maybe consider it, yeah? If I had an opportunity like yours…” He drifted off, gazing right past me with a small frown. “Well, whatever, but just think about it.”

I was. The point of coming here had been to
stop
thinking about it. It hadn’t exactly worked out for me.

On the table, my cell started buzzing: Taryn.

Jay smirked, pushing his chair back to stand on swaying legs. “Speak and you shall receive.” He drained the last of his drink. “I gotta piss. Don’t wait up.”

At that, he left me, and I answered the phone.

“Hey, where are you?” she asked, calm sounding, which was encouraging.

“My hotel,” I lied. “Why?”

“I’m gonna come by, okay?”

“Right.” I stood, tossing some bills on the table—enough to cover Jay for at least a couple more hours at least. “I’ll be here.”

I cringed, breaking for the door, squinting at the burst of sunlight against my stinging eyes. My hotel was only around the corner and I quickly jogged there, shutting myself up in my room and splashing freezing water on my flushed face.

It wasn’t long before Taryn was knocking.

Chapter Nine
Taryn

Anna and Ethan left my place, my lengthy explanation to them in dire need of digestion.

I hadn’t seen Anna cry like that since we lost Mason ten years ago. Ethan was eerily quiet and wholeheartedly understanding. His father was just the man Mason had said he was and I pitied him for how he’d grown up.

No one deserved what William Foster had put the people I loved through; I never thought I could hate a person as much as I hated him.

And the ghost of him haunted us still.

How would we ever be rid of it?

I had an idea, and I’d run it by Ethan and Anna, but it was sheer madness. Mason was supposed to be the bloodthirsty killer but I was starting to realize just how easy it was to fall into that way of thinking. They had been shocked at my idea, as shocked as I’d been the moment it struck me, but as I’d talked, they’d started to get on board.

I needed to see Mason, though. If he thought it was insane, then I would trust him.

I called him and headed out to his hotel.

It wasn’t the flashiest of places, but it was the best in this town. I took the elevator up to the third floor and found his room, knocking just a few times before he swung open the door.

Straight away I could smell the tang of whiskey. “You’ve been drinking.”

Mason, still in his leather jacket and boots, obviously just arrived from wherever he’d been, perched on the edge of the king-sized bed.

“And?” he snapped, his mood clearly maudlin. “What, I can’t drink now?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did I say that?”

“It wasn’t much of a hello.”

“You can talk,” I scoffed.

It seemed to deflate him and he sighed. “Give me a break, it’s been a rough day.”

I kicked the door closed behind me and leaned back against the wall beside the desk. “We’re having a lot of those, huh?”

“And
you
,” he muttered bitterly, the sheets under his hands fisted into creases.

I felt a stab of anxiety, totally unrelated to the problems with Ethan. Mason was looking up at me darkly, his expression twisted by emotion, and I wondered if this was it, the crumbling of this strange truce we’d found ourselves in. Sex and intrigue could only sustain us so far, I thought with dread. My feelings for him were growing, but that didn’t mean he felt the same.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you make things cloudy!” he said, too loud in the quiet room. “You screw with my head!”

My throat closed up—outrage, now, not fear. I couldn’t speak for it—
how dare he!
It took me whole seconds to gather up my wits again, seething anger writhing in my stomach.

“I calmed your sister down, by the way,” I snapped eventually, ignoring his point completely. “Made her understand why you did what you did, explained to the both of them how much danger Ethan’s in. You’re welcome.”

I shook my head in disgust and turned to leave, my hand halfway to the door handle when he was suddenly
right there
, his breath against the back of my neck.

“Don’t,” he murmured, the heat of his closeness seeping all up my back.

“Fuck you,” I breathed, but I didn’t move any farther. Goddamn him for doing this to me, making me want him more than sense—

Oh. That was exactly what he’d meant by
cloudy
. He screwed with my head, too, and even now, my hand reaching for the exit, I couldn’t move away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he told me, his nose nuzzling into my hair.

“You apologize a lot.”

“That’s ’cause I’m a total ass most of the time.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Fuck you,” I told him again.

One word whispered into the bare skin of my shoulder: “Please.”

I gripped his hand, hovering near my hip, and yanked him against my back. It was animal, this feeling—raw and impulsive, out of my ability to control it. Mason was a searing line of heat against me, crowding me against the wall, and I
wanted
him.

I shucked up my dress, bringing his hand around to my front and down into my underwear.

“You feel that?” I asked, my voice already ragged. I was so wet his hand slicked right through my folds. “That’s what you do to me.”

He pressed his swelling erection into my back. “Ditto.”

His fingers curled into me and I arched back against him, crooking an arm around his neck to hold him close. His mouth latched onto the side of my throat, sucking kisses, licking with damp strokes of his tongue and stinging with his teeth.

“Show me how much I mess with your head, Mason,” I demanded, knowing how utterly fucked up that was, and he released me, the scratchy feel of his jacket gone and the metallic rustle of his zipper echoing.

He put a hand on my back and steered me to the nearby desk. I had to brace my hands on the desktop as he pushed me over it.

He fell to his knees behind me, his hands wrapping around my bare thighs, pushing my dress all the way up around my hips. I felt his teeth catch in the band of my underwear, and then the cool air of the room on my ass and between my legs as he slowly dragged my panties down.

I sighed a shaky laugh, my palms starting to sweat where I was leaning. I turned my head back over my shoulder to see what Mason was doing.

He was looking—just looking.

He tossed me a dark smirk that burned like a whiplash and slipped two fingers back inside me, making my knees wobble. His teeth grazed my butt cheek, and with his free hand he gave me a sharp slap.

“Ah!” My cry came out more like a moan. “Goddammit, Mason.” I fought the urge to call him a tease again; it was exactly what he wanted.

Two fingers deep in me, his face pressed into my pushed up skirt at the bottom of my back, he slapped my ass again.

I arched my back, toes curling in my shoes. Mason’s fingers slipped easily in and out of me like a slow torment but it wasn’t enough. I was so damn wet, so ready for his cock.

He knew it, too, and he kept it up, adding another finger and biting into the swell of my ass, slapping with his hand when I got too used to the rhythm.

I felt my walls tighten around him, every bite and slap and thrust building up until I couldn’t stop myself from giving in.

“Mason, please,” I finally begged, and he growled against me, standing and manhandling me into the position he wanted.

One knee up on the desk, my legs stretched wide open. He parted me with his fingers, the blunt head of his cock lining up, and the first push had me groaning.

It hadn’t been that long since the last time but I was so desperate for him.

My height made it difficult for me to even keep one foot on the floor, and I had to brace myself on the wall above the desk for balance. I knew it was on purpose; in this position, he had more control over me. He pushed his cock deep, pulling me roughly back against him with every long stroke.

“You want it hard, huh?” he asked, through his hitching breath.

“God, yes,” I moaned, eager for all that strength in his tightly coiled body.

He didn’t disappoint. I felt defenseless against his desire as he set the pace, jolting the breath out of my body with every thrust. He wanted me helpless and on the very edge of uncomfortable and I knew why, every drag of him inside me amplified.

I could hardly swallow around my gasps.

My voice came out in a constant stream of moans and mutters,
please
and
God
and
Mason
. His hands on my hips were bruising, yanking me back onto his cock every time he thrust forwards.

“You feel so good,” he told me breathlessly. “So damn deep, I can’t believe it.”

He pressed his hips flush against my ass to make his point, and I hung there, clawing the wallpaper with his cock all the way inside me, my pussy grinding down on him.

My stomach muscles ached from the position but he didn’t seem to be struggling at all.

“Mason, please,” I pleaded, not above it with the electric feel of my orgasm sitting right under my skin.

“I don’t know,” he mused, holding still and unrelenting. “I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

I twisted my head back over my shoulder as far as I could. “That’s awfully sentimental, Mason.”

He leaned down, catching my mouth in bruising, open-mouthed kiss, sloppy at this angle but hotter for it.

He renewed his assault, pulling his cock all the way out of me and then slamming back home so hard I cried out, breaking the kiss. His fingers curled around my body, snaking against my clit to press slickly there, and he fucked me until I came with a groan, caught off guard by it with my poor stomach muscles seizing over and over until I felt punched and winded.

I was trembling when I came back to myself, and Mason was holding still deep inside me again, breathing hard against my shoulder.

He was desperate to come, I could tell, but he’d wanted to finish me off first.

“Bed,” I told him, and we made it there, Mason sitting with me firmly in his lap.

His fingers carded through my hair, hands framing my face. “You okay?”

“Dumb question,” I slurred, my movements clumsy and shot to bits by the strength of my orgasm.

Mason gripped my hips tightly. “God, I’m close.”

I rode him over the edge, rocking our hips together, holding him deep and barely letting up an inch. He tipped his forehead against mine, suddenly tender, and came with my name in a gasp on his lips, his eyes falling shut, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks.

Beautiful
, I thought in awe. He was a goddamn marvel.

The thought settled into a fierce yearning, an inability to let go of him. I kissed him, instead; a possessive slip of tongues together. Anything to make the moment last a little longer.

I wanted, with such a startling brutality, to tell him to stay with me. Not just for now, but forever. I wrestled with the urge to spew a torrent of sap and sentiment until it dampened, but it lingered there, even as I pulled out of the kiss, as I looked into his face, sated and satisfied.

“I think we were meant to be talking about something real important,” I pointed out.

Mason bit softly into my lip. “We’re still mostly clothed, which is a step up from the other times we tried to have an adult conversation.”

“Let me get freshened up and we’ll talk.”

I gave him a quick kiss on the lips, stretched my back, and climbed out of his lap, closing myself in the bathroom to clean myself up a little.

In the mirror, my hair was a mess from Mason’s fingers, my throat pink from his mouth. My ass felt a little sore from his teeth and hand and I couldn’t help but smile at my reflection.

“Madness,” I told myself softly, turning off the tap and heading back out.

Mason had seated himself in one of the room’s armchairs in the corner and I joined him there, taking the seat opposite. It seemed better this way, keeping away from the temptation of the bed.

“So,” I began, that smile still tugging at my mouth.

Mason smirked. “So.”

I shook my head. “
So
. Anna and Ethan know the whole story. They’ve… accepted it. Or they’re trying.”

“Does she wanna see me again?”

The tentative hope in his voice made me want to put my arms around him. “Once she’s gotten her head around all of this, she’s gonna need you.”

“Taryn,” he said softly, and I held my breath in the pause. “I should thank you.” He winced. “I
am
thanking you. You’ve done more for me than I deserve.”

“Mason—”

He cut me off. “No, don’t
Mason
me. You’re too modest…always have been. Just take the gratitude, please? This isn’t easy for me.”

I ducked my head and huffed a sigh. “Fine. Gratitude accepted, now can we move on?”

“You’re anxious,” he said suddenly, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“I want to run something by you but it’s gonna sound insane.”

“More insane than everything else right now?”

“Oh yeah.” I laughed, a little hysterically. “I don’t even know if it’ll work, or if it’s possible, but—”

Mason leaned forward, putting a hand on my thigh. “Taryn, what?”

“What if the person who wanted Ethan dead were to… die.” It sounded even lamer than it had in my head, and definitely lamer than it had when I’d run it by Ethan and Anna, and I cringed.

“If Carl Monroe were to die?” he repeated flatly.

“Yeah.”

“I guess his organization would go into lockdown and an acting leader would be appointed until they decided on a permanent replacement.”

“And what if
that
guy died?”

Mason’s eyes widened. “What are you saying, Taryn?”