Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (23 page)

Mallory’s vision cleared and she looked at Forbes. Blood covered his mouth and jaw, and she saw a bruise already starting to form on the right side where she had punched him. He stared back at her with a truckload of promised torture plain in his eyes.

“As amusing as I find it to watch the two of you go to blows, you will have to finish this in a more private setting later.” Carl Jordan gripped her upper arm and pushed her off of him. “It’s time to go.”

The office door swung open and Betty walked inside. “It’s done,” she told Forbes in a calm, cold voice that sent a dart of alarm straight to Mallory’s belly.

“What’s done?” Jordan rounded on her, but he didn’t lower the gun trained on Mallory’s head.

“Sasha is dead.” Forbes said it as if it meant nothing more to him than the color of the paint on the walls. He grabbed Mallory by the arm and yanked her toward the door Bruno and his goon had used to leave the office.

Mallory stumbled and struggled to get her balance in her four-inch heels.

“Take off those damn shoes.” Forbes jerked her around as he opened the door. “There’s no telling what you’ve got hidden inside them.”

Mallory slipped her feet out of the heels. They were no use to her anyway. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed about the fact that Forbes had stripped her naked. Her sole attention was on the gun in Jordan’s hand, still pointed at her head, and the fury the news of Sasha’s murder had ignited in the man’s eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jordan demanded. “Sasha had no part in this.”

“You should have sent her home when she got here this morning.” Forbes turned his focus on Kenneth Reese and pointed inside the doorway with his free hand. “Torch it.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Jordan bellowed, stepping closer.

Mallory was starting to wonder the same thing. What the hell was going on? Forbes had obviously made plans he hadn’t told Jordan anything about.

Betty apparently knew. The woman leered at Mallory as she pushed past her and Forbes and stepped through the doorway, stopping to rake a cold gaze down Mallory’s naked body. “We’re going to make a ton of money off you.”

“This is my club.” Jordan had moved within arm’s reach, the gun in his hand now barely an inch from Mallory’s temple.

Surely he didn’t still see her as the biggest threat here. Except, maybe she was. His fury aimed at Forbes didn’t distract him enough to lower that gun, but if she picked just the right moment, she could catch him off guard. A quick duck coupled with a blow to his arm and the gun would go flying.

But then what?

If she could get a sense of which direction the gun would land, she could go for it and gain the upper hand.

She waited, her gaze dancing from one man to the other, her heart pounding in a chest that ached from Forbes’s earlier kick. Her belly clenched from the first powerful kick, and she wondered she hadn’t thrown up everywhere. She still might, but she had more important things to concentrate on right now.

“This is my fucking club, my fucking business,” Forbes seethed through gritted teeth.

For the first time, Mallory saw true insanity in the man’s eyes. The gun in Jordan’s hand wavered. She saw it move, but Jordan wasn’t fast enough for Forbes. In a blink of an eye, Forbes wrenched his own gun from beneath his jacket and backhanded Jordan with the butt of it hard enough to knock Jordan out cold.

Forbes locked a steely, crazed stare on Kenneth Reese. “Leave him. He gets up before you’re through, shoot him. Torch the place and meet us at the van.”

Thaddeus glanced at his Rolex, noted the time was barely ten a.m., and scowled anyway. “Are you going to be ready anytime soon?”

“Cool your heels, Road Runner,” Terri called from the hallway bathroom. “I’ll be done in a jiffy.”

A jiffy?
Yeah, he would believe that when he saw it. Terri’s idea of a jiffy could be anywhere from thirty minutes to four hours.

Women.
How long did it really take to throw on some clothes, run a brush through the hair, dab on a bit of makeup, and step into a pair of shoes? He supposed he should be used to it. He had grown up with three younger sisters, after all. And, okay, in all fairness, he knew a handful of men who could take just as long, if not longer, to get ready in the morning.

“So where are we going?”

Thaddeus barely heard her question over the sound of the water running in the bathroom sink and the occasional conversation coming from the police scanner on the nearby bar. He had turned on Jackson’s scanner a few minutes before, listening to the radio communication between the various police and fire departments in the city. So far, it had been a relatively quiet morning.

“I don’t know. I thought we would swing by the challenge, see who is in the lead for today’s events, grab some lunch, maybe take you around and let you see some of the sights.”

He paced the living room floor as he talked, stopping in front of Jackson’s bookshelf to scan the spine of the books. Legal thrillers, nonfiction crime texts, and—
Oh, hel-
lo. His gaze locked on one title that certainly caught his attention.

Sex Games.
“Seriously, Jackson?”

“Didn’t you tell your parents you would try to come by their place for lunch today?”

Thaddeus shot a glance toward the hallway and heard the water shut off in the bathroom. “Yeah, I guess we should do that, too.”

He wasn’t avoiding his parents, but the short time he had spent with them after the challenge yesterday had confirmed his suspicions. He had introduced them to Terri and hadn’t missed the hope swirling in his mother’s eyes or the stark approval in his father’s expression. Taking Terri to the family home to have lunch would be a bad idea, but he couldn’t leave her to entertain herself all day.

Okay, he could. He just didn’t want to. Terri would be fine and would likely find a mountain of things to get into without him.

“I like your mother,” Terri said. “She seems sweet.”

“She likes you, too.”
And therein lies the problem.

“Everybody likes me, Vegister.”

He chuckled as the sound of a blow dryer ended their conversation, telling him Terri’s jiffy would be at least another five minutes. He pulled the
Sex Games
book from the shelf, opened the front cover, and saw the note written in perfect cursive on the title page.

Jackson, I thought you might like to have a copy of your own. You know, in case you decide you want to play again. Page sixty-two worked out really great last time. Angelina.

Angelina? Jackson’s sister-in-law had given him a book titled
Sex Games.

Play again? Last time? Jackson had sex with Angelina.

“And the surprises just keep on coming,” Thaddeus said in a quiet, singsong voice as he flipped to page sixty-two.

Sex with a stranger can be the most arousing of erotic fantasies. Show up at your partner's house and sneak up on him or her. Pretend you have a gun. Be careful he or she doesn't think it’s a real gun. A toy water pistol or banana works well. Blindfold your partner and take him or her back to your place where you've set the stage for a night of bed-burning sex.

“Holy smokes, Batman.” Thaddeus started to close the book but found another dog-eared page closer to the front. Curiously, he read that one, too.

Setting the mood can be vitally important. Light several candles and scatter them through the house. Set the table and have some sort of menu ready. When you greet your partner, pretend you are in your own restaurant and that you are his or her servant. Spark up a light conversation over the tasty dinner you cook and see what stupendous dessert ignites in the kitchen.

“Hmm, planning something, Jackson?”

“Talking to yourself now?” Amusement laced Terri’s voice as she came up behind him. She put a hand on his hip, pressed her front to his back, and rested her chin on his shoulder as she peered down at the book in his hands. “Jiminy Cricket, you found that on stuffy man’s bookshelf?”

Thaddeus closed the book and put it back on the shelf. “Don’t tease him about it, Ter.”

“Shit. I want to borrow it if it’s any good.”

“Ask Angelina where she bought it when we get back home. She’s the one who gave it to him.”

“Seriously?” Terri squeaked, turning her chin on his shoulder to look at him. “Damn, no wonder she and Jason have a marriage to die for.” She frowned. “Ever notice how almost everyone around us is so happily married they’re about to burst? Jason and Angelina, Dean and Veronica, Ryan and Tina, Cory and Rayne…”

“Cory and Rayne aren’t married.”

Terri rolled her eyes. “Only because Ford is in the picture, too, and women aren’t allowed to marry more than one man at a time in the state of Mississippi. Jeez, Rayne’s really got it made.”

Thaddeus chuckled. “You have enough problems handling one man. You would never be able to devote yourself to two.”

He felt Terri shrug against his back. “I might if it meant I would be happy. Look at them.” Her gaze flicked to the framed photo of Jackson, Mallory, and Cameron on top of the bookshelf. “Tell me they don’t look happy.”

Thaddeus had been working not to look at that photo, not to look at Cameron’s too-handsome smiling face. That face had smiled like that at him the other night, those lips had kissed him and left him wanting more.

Thaddeus sighed. Terri lifted her chin, her hand falling from his hip as he turned. “They’re friends. She’s Cameron’s sister.”

“I know, but doesn’t it make you wonder?”

No. No it didn’t. He knew exactly where she was going with this, and he wouldn’t let her put that wonderment in his mind.

Except, it was already there. No Terri implications necessary. Yeah, he could easily see himself standing there with his head resting on Adrien’s shoulder and Cameron smiling down at him.

“Are you finally ready?”

“Yep, I’m all spruced up and ready to hit the town.” She crossed her ankles and did a full one-eighty. “What do you think?”

“Smashing as always.”

An alarm tone blasted through the apartment, and they both whipped their heads toward the scanner on the bar.

“Rescue 14, Engine 14.” The dispatcher’s voice followed the alarm. “We have reports of a structure fire at 2300 Lynch Street. Possible people trapped inside. Proceed with caution. Time out 1024.”

“Sounds like a good one.” Thaddeus felt the all-too-familiar adrenaline kick up in his system.

“2300 Lynch Street, do you know where that is?”

He looked at Terri and saw the same excitement he felt echoing in her expression. “Yeah, it’s on the east side of town.”

Terri rocked back on her heels, a slow grin unfolding on her lips. “Want to check it out?”

Thaddeus grinned back at her. They were both itching for some real action. They probably wouldn’t be able to get involved, likely wouldn’t even be able to get close, but they could stand back and watch as Waterston’s smoke eaters did what they did best.

“Bet your sweet ass I do.” He snatched up his keys and they bolted for the door.

* * * *

“I don’t like this, man.” Tarantino’s voice sounded concerned through Cameron’s Bluetooth. “She’s been in there too long.”

“I don’t like it either.” Cameron glanced at the dashboard clock. Mallory had been inside Stardust for nearly an hour. “Any sign of movement back there?” he asked Tarantino as he scanned the parking lot and the street out front. Betty Carlisle’s red Altima and Mallory’s Lexus remained the only cars in the lot. The front door hadn’t opened, no one else had arrived, and barely any traffic had been down the street since Mallory stepped into the building.

“Nada.”

“Patch through to Toshie, make sure he still has her on his radar.” They had left Toshie back at HQ, monitoring the signal from the GPS device hidden in the anklet Mallory wore. If she moved from that building they would know about it.

He listened as Tarantino connected the calls, as Toshie confirmed Mallory’s signal was still strong inside the building.

“I want to know the instant that signal moves,” he told Toshie, and Tarantino cut the connection. “She’s good,” he said, more to comfort himself than Tarantino. It didn’t work. The niggling in his gut that something was about to go down got worse instead of better.

“If we walk in there, we’ll blow it,” Tarantino reminded him.

“If I walk in there, I’ll blow it. Your face is known in there. You’ve become a regular customer.”

“True, but the place doesn’t open for another hour and some odd minutes.”

Also true. Damnit, should they wait that long?

You don’t have a choice.

True words number three. If they moved and it turned out to be unnecessary, they would blow Mallory’s cover and the entire operation.

“Even if they had managed to get her out of that building somehow without us seeing, she wouldn’t have taken off the anklet and left it behind,” Tarantino said, breaking into Cameron’s thoughts. “She promised Jackson, in not so many words, that she would play this one by the book.” He let out a half chuckle. “After that scene in his office this morning, I doubt she would go against her word.”