Ryland (15 page)

“Who’s Macneary?”

She shrugged and walked to
the door. He followed behind her, laughing, after giving him the address of
their house. He found her on the street walking toward another shop.

“He was there in his mind.
He won’t call him, but he is afraid that I will. He’s something of a thug and
this guy hates him. He’s afraid of him too. I don’t think we have anything to
worry about. The desk will be delivered and the nice little lamp he picked up
for a song too.”

He laughed, roared with it.
She was priceless and all his. As he wrapped his arm around her waist and held
her to him. He told her that he was taking her to his next negotiations
meeting. She would be his secret weapon.

“I can do that. I can let
you know what each person is thinking about you. If there are any thoughts
about your body, however, all bets are off and I’m going to hurt someone.”

They bought a bedroom suite
and a mattress and linens. They thought about getting more, but as they’d
neither one seen the inside of the house, they opted to wait. And they would be
back to this store. Everyone, she said, was polite and honest.

Chapter 12

“Where is she?” Eli had
gotten the call in the middle of the night and was just now awake enough to
understand what Crawford was telling him. He’d found one of the women. He just wasn’t
sure which.

“I sent me a mercenary. You
know, one of those people you’re always sending out to talk to people first? Well,
I sent me one to the cat’s office. Before I could get much outta her, I thought
she was killed. Only thing is she said that Bronwyn was there.” He laughed. “Damned
if that ain’t the shit.”

“Yes, the shit, and it’s emissary
not a mercenary. You’re a mercenary and an…never mind. Where is she now? Your…mercenary?”
Christ, this man was killing him. “Can I please speak to her?”

“I don’t know where she’s
at.”

Eli waited. Closing his eyes,
he counted to ten. Then twenty. The man was simply going to die a slow and
painful death and soon. “What do you mean you don’t know where she’s at?” He
spoke each work precisely and hard so there was no way he’d mistake that he was
pissed. “How did you find out this information if you didn’t talk to her?”

“’Cause I can hear her
thinking just like she can me.” That would be a trip he’d never take, but
waited as he continued. “We have that thing you’re always saying that Bronwyn
has. Where we can talk to her. You know, not being in the same—”

“I understand now.” Eli
looked at the clock. “It’s four in the morning. Why are you just now calling
me?”

“She was gone. I keep
telling you stuff and you don’t listen to me. She. Is. Gone. Shit.” He heard
someone else speaking and then Crawford laughed. “Mikey wants to know if you
was sleeping?”

Eli put his finger to his
head and pretended to blow his brains out. This wasn’t the kind of start to his
day he wanted, yet it was nothing out of the ordinary for him and Crawford to
have these sorts of conversations. He opened his eyes and turned on the light. “What
building did you find the cats in? And without going into a great deal of
unnecessary information, tell me why you can’t find the girl.”

There was a pause and Eli
knew that he was thinking about each word so that he’d give him what he wanted.
The moron had to know that he was at the end of his patience and tolerance for
him.

“He is at the Golden Towers. But I don’t got a name. She just said that she could smell ‘em and that she was
going to find them. And can’t find the girl?” There was another pause and
conversation close before he answered. “Her connection, the thing that I can
talk to her with, it’s gone. Mikey said to say it was like she just
disappeared.”

Mikey was getting a fucking
medal. Eli pulled up a search on the Golden Towers. He read through it quickly
and found that the owner, Ryland Golden, was a billionaire and that he was in
the line to make a great deal more if the deal he had been working on came
through. He glanced at the date. A month ago, so it was plausible that he was
worth more now. He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll go and see Mr. Golden
myself. I don’t know how to find out who his cats are in the building, but I
will see if I can find Bronwyn. She probably works in one of the lower offices
as a mail clerk or something.

Eli didn’t have the same
feelings for females that Crawford did, but he knew that no one would put Bronwyn
at a desk without her killing someone. She was volatile and mean. He glanced at
the scar on his right hand that she’d given him once when he’d offered to shake
her hand. Of course she’d been chained up and had been beaten beforehand, but
he wanted her to feel that she could trust him. She hadn’t, and he’d paid. Well,
so had she, but that was later.

“I’m going to get his ambush,
though. He can’t be walking around acting like he’s the shit and all.”

Eli started to ask him what
his obsession with shit was, but knew that he’d have to explain the word “obsession”
to him and it just wasn’t worth it.

“Yes, you can take his
whatever. In the meantime, I want you to go to the lab and scare me up some
more workers. Not kill them, scare them. I want them to be able to do the
everyday things without bleeding or needing a wheelchair. Understand?”

“Yeah, I got you. Just get
some humans and take them to the lab.”

Eli hung up before he could
ask any more questions. He had a pounding headache and it was barely
four-thirty in the morning. He looked over the article on Golden. He was in his
late thirties and never married. He had several brothers, it said, and two of
them worked with him at the Towers. It also said that he had a mother who also
worked there, but she had retired some years ago. This man sounded like someone
he could get to like. A man who knew the value of money and who had lots of it.
Eli went to the bathroom to get ready for the day, knowing that he’d never get
back to sleep.

He worked until just after
nine and called Ryland’s secretary to make an appointment with Golden. He was
put on hold and, when she came back, she said that Mr. Golden didn’t have any
openings until the end of the week, and would he like to set it up?

“End of the week? It’s only
Monday. He can’t slide in someone who might have a business deal for him? One
that would make him double what he has now?” She said that he did not. “Yeah,
make it for the early part of the day. I have things to do as well.”

She told him ten on Friday
and that he would be allotted thirty minutes. He nearly told her to forget it,
but agreed. He didn’t have any deal except for trying to get him to give him Bronwyn,
but he did want to size up the man. He might be a welcome adversary some day.

But that wouldn’t mean that
he’d stop looking for Bronwyn. He decided that he’d go to the Towers and see if
he noticed her coming in or out. If he could snatch her up before Friday then
that would be good too. If not, then he’d get in the building and search for
her. He wasn’t sure how he’d do that yet, but he’d think of something. He did
his best thinking when he was under pressure.

~~~

The hotel was lovely. She
walked around touching things without really seeing them. When he came up
behind her, she leaned back into his chest. They were just waiting on breakfast
before they went to his office, then to the house. She was actually looking
forward to seeing the house.

They’d looked at the realtor’s
pictures they’d been given. The house really was huge and had such a big
backyard that she wanted to walk around in her bare feet. There was also a pool
and a little house on the property, as well as a five-car garage with an
apartment over it. She asked him why and he said that whoever cooked for them
would live there.

“But we don’t need a cook if
you’d rather do it. My mom did it for us all these years.” She shrugged and
told him she didn’t have the first clue about cooking. “Then you might need
some help with the house. And I want you relaxed all the time so that when I
come home from work I can relax inside of you.”

They’d made love when they
got to the hotel, then in the shower, and after dinner. She told him that she
was tired and that she needed to rest. Actually, she was a little sore and he
seemed to know it and pampered her all the rest of the evening. She had felt
amazingly loved and decadent.

His cell phone rang before
she could tell him she could relax him now. She knew the moment he tightened
his grip on her that it was bad. She held still and listened to him speak.

“When did he call? Yes,
that’s good. Friday is good. No, it’s fine. I’m sorry, he’s not anyone I would
want to meet alone so you were right to check with Brock’s secretary first on
the time. Thank you, I’ll be in soon.” He put the phone back in his pocket. “Cunningham
just called my office to set up a time to see me. He told the switchboard
operator that he had a deal for me that would double my worth now.”

“He’s talking about me.” He
nodded. “That means that he knows that I was there somehow. Maybe Angela
contacted him before she spoke to me. But I didn’t see a cell phone on her.”

His phone rang again before
he had a chance to answer her. This time he was pissed right away; his cat
appeared twice before he hung up. He took several deep breaths before he said
anything to her, and she waited. She knew what it was like to have a temper
that could get the better of you.

“I think that was the moron
who raises streaks, Forest Crawford.” He looked at her with a half grin. “He
seems to think that I’m going to be pleasantly surprised when he comes to visit
my home. I wonder how he thinks having anything to do with him will be any sort
of pleasure.”

“How did he know how to find
you? I mean, you haven’t taken out an ad or anything, have you?” She was half
kidding and when he nodded, she asked him what he meant.

“We have to register to any
place that we move to. I haven’t taken it very serious, but I did put my name
down about five years ago when they started cracking down more. It was required
of all paranormals to have a sort of record of us. I never gave them anything
but my cell phone number, so I don’t know where he got my address.”

“He tell you where you lived
or did he ask you?”

He shook his head.

“Then he’s bluffing. Or he
knows where your family is living. Your mom, is she on this registry too?”

He nodded, suddenly afraid.
She could see it on his face. “She would have filed that Dad passed away and
that I was the male now. She would more than likely have filled out all the
information they asked of her.”

“Your mom is very
resourceful. I would bet any amount of money that he has no more information on
her than he does on you. She has a post office box she told me she uses for
things she doesn’t care about but needs an address for. She said she checks it
about once a month if she’s mailing something.” She had told her yesterday when
they’d been talking about spam. “She’s not going to be caught with her pants
down. I’d even say that I’d feel sorry for any idiot that comes calling on
her.”

She was in the limo with him
when she noticed that they weren’t going to the office. When she asked him
about it he pulled out his phone and told the operator that he had something
unexpected come up that she was to call him if she needed him. He leaned back
in the seat.

“I want to spend the day
with you going over the house. Then when we have all the measurements and a
better list of what we might want, we’ll come back into town and shop some
more.” He grinned. “Maybe we can go to that little shop that the last clerk was
telling me about. They sell all sorts of women’s apparel.”

“What sort of women’s
apparel? And if you got a list of naughty stores from someone else, I’m going
to hurt you.” He flushed. “Damn it, Ryland. This is embarrassing. You have to
learn to keep it in your pants.”

She was suddenly across his
lap. “I want you every waking moment. I’m hard most of the time I’ve not just
finished making love to you and, even then, that’s iffy. And the thought of
stripping you down and seeing your lovely skin covered in silk and lace makes
me dizzy.”

“You’re going to wear it out
before we’re old.” She rocked on his hard cock and moaned. “Ryland, do you
think the new mattress it there?”

He lifted her shirt and
nipped at her hard nipple through her bra. She’d packed an extra pair of
clothes today, but if he was going to rip them off of her so soon she might be
naked again before they made it home. She pulled her shirt up and over her head,
then unhooked her bra and took it off.

“I have an extra shirt and
pair of pants for you in my briefcase.” He took her nipple into his mouth. “In
the event that we couldn’t make it until you were undressed.”

The moment his hands curled
into the top of her pants she moaned again. The sound of them tearing away from
her made her wetter than she already was. She was over him now in just her
panties and socks and shoes. He pushed her back to his knees, unbuckled his
belt, and then freed his cock.

She slid from his legs to
the floor. He reached for her, but she took him into her mouth before he could
pull her back up. He moaned loudly and held her to him. She licked him from
groin to tip then back down again, taking in his tiny drop of cum at the eye of
his cock