Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

She wouldn’t be here that long.

“My first instinct is to ask what an amazing-looking woman like you is doing here all alone.”

Mallory turned at the voice and met a set of eyes so bright green they stood out even in the dimness of the club. Well-honed observations skills had her taking him in with a glance—mid to late twenties, naturally tousled chestnut hair, and baby-face complexion. He had the build of a swimmer and the tan to go with it, clad in a dark Polo shirt and black jeans. He was handsome, but something in those eyes set off her internal danger alarm. It was probably the way he’d obviously taken her in, like one of the test tubes the waitresses carried around, and decided she would be fun to fuck for the night. The danger came in knowing she’d gobbled him down just as quickly and deduced the same, though she knew she wouldn’t follow through with the lusty urge.

“I’m Jim.” He looked more like a Nathan, as in Bartell, or a Jeff, as in Bosley, and those eyes were seriously potent.

“Jacqueline.” Caution had her giving him the name she used on undercover assignments as she put her hand in his extended one. The contact sent that lusty urge sizzling up her arm right along with the warning of danger she knew she’d do well to heed.

“Are you waiting for someone?” His voice moved over her like whipped cream, smooth and thick, like a politician with the skill to turn anything he said into a conviction.

“No.” It didn’t occur to her to lie. Years of training and experience, coupled with the sidearm concealed securely in her shoulder holster beneath her jacket, made her feel safe enough to enter any establishment alone.

He smiled, a slow unfolding of shapely lips that promised a fuck, if she were to go for it, would be a damn good one. “In that case, can I buy you a drink?”

Mallory glanced at her glass, lifted it, and took the first sip. “I won’t be staying beyond this one.” And she wouldn’t allow him to buy her another if she decided to stay. If working the club scene had taught her anything, it was to never let a stranger buy her a drink, even in a reputable establishment like Cinderella’s. An imperceptible sleight of a hand hiding the hottest date-rape drug on the market was the fastest and far too easiest way to spell a girl’s doom.

“Sounds like I’m on borrowed time to convince you to change your mind.” He settled on the barstool next to her, flagged the bartender, and ordered a Heineken. “Do you come here often?”

He didn’t wince at the obvious pick-up line. Confidence and control pumped off him in waves. In that way, he reminded her of Jackson, always cool and collected. She ought to know. She’d been trying to ruffle Jackson’s feathers for years.

One day this tie is going to come off, and you and I are going to play.

Jackson told her that once, just before leaving for an assignment in Silver Springs. She’d finally broken him, if only a little. She had finally gotten him to admit aloud he wanted her. But that admission had come with a threat. The promise and desire in his tone stayed with her even now, shooting through every erogenous zone in her body like a heat-seeking missile. It was his parting words that day that doused the icy water on the flames.

When that happens, it will be more than this delicious body I take.

“Now and then.” She pushed the recollection aside, knowing it wouldn’t stay from the forefront of her mind for long. Every time she looked at Jackson, every time she thought of him, those words reverberated in her memory. He wanted more than she was willing to give him, more than she
could
give him. Why couldn’t no-strings-attached sex be enough?

“It’s a cool place. Great crowd,” Jim commented. “You know, you’ll have to stay long enough to give me at least one dance.”

Dance. Yeah, that’s what she and Jackson had been doing almost since the day she grew into a woman. They’d been dancing around each other, around the mutual attraction, and the intense desire to be bare skin to bare skin. Because Jackson didn’t do flings, or at least he hadn’t until she’d goaded him into one with another woman. Or was it two? She still wasn’t sure if he’d indulged on his last trip to Silver Springs. She knew he had more than two years before, and with his twin brother and now sister-in-law at that.

You’re much too uptight lately, Jackson. Get laid while you’re gone. Have a quick fling. Maybe it will do us both some good.

How many times had she told him that very thing? He’d listened, too, at least once, and it had done them some good, though not enough to land him in her bed.

Mallory let her attention slide over Jim and didn’t try to hide her attraction in her gaze. Should she take her own advice? She’d been so focused on breaking through Jackson’s stuffy shell for so long that she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in… Wow, she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she had kept a night of company with anything other than her vibrator.

Because she knew no other man would satisfy the bone-deep, hormone-capturing need that churned through her for Jackson Graham.

“I’ll think about it,” she told Jim and lifted her glass for another sip. Maybe a little liquid courage would set her on a different track. It might not be the right one, but it might be time for her tie to come off, too.

* * * *

“He’s not home.” Thaddeus Carter glanced at Terri Vega and bit back a grin at the
duh
expression on her face. Considering he’d knocked on Jackson Graham’s apartment door three times, waiting a full minute between each, and he’d yet to hear so much as a rustle from inside, he supposed he deserved the look.

Terri set her duffel bag on the floor at her feet. “Maybe he forgot we were coming.”

Thaddeus shook his head. “I confirmed our visit this afternoon before we left the station.”

Terri shrugged, her shoulders reaching the tips of her chin-length, blonde ringlets and sending them swinging. “He could’ve gotten held up at the bureau.”

“He must have.” Thaddeus put down his own duffel bag and pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his navy blue cargo pants.

Terri folded her arm beneath her breasts and rested a shoulder on the wall beside the door, watching him through eyes that were partly amused and definitely exhausted. The drive from Silver Springs to Waterston had been a three-hour nothing, but hours spent on a structure fire followed by gear cleanup and debriefing had preceded that. “So what now, Vegister?”

He slid Terri a quick look as he thumbed through his contacts. She’d taken to calling him Vegister because he stayed on her case about eating healthier. The woman was a junk-food junkie. How she sustained her amazing figure with the way she consumed cheeseburgers and sweets all the time was beyond him. He might be a chocoholic himself, but he made up for it with a high-vitamin, low-carbohydrate diet and plenty of exercise.

Thaddeus found the contact labeled
MIB – cell
in his phone, slid his thumb over the green receiver icon, and brought the phone to his ear. “I’m calling his cell, see if you’re right.” Four rings connected him with Jackson’s voice mail. He waited for the beep then left a message. “Jackson, it’s Thad. Terri and I are in town, standing outside your apartment, actually, where you don’t seem to be. We’ll hang here a while. Call me back, sweetie.”

“Sweetie.” Terri grinned. “Oh, he’ll love that.”

Thaddeus winced. “It slipped, okay?” The endearment slipped a lot these days, and every time it did, it reminded him of Adrien.

He shook off the thought of the other man before it could fully form and moved to the contact labeled
MIB – work
. He listened to three rings this time before a male voice that was decidedly not Jackson Graham answered the phone.

“Agent Graham’s office.”

“Um, hi,” Thaddeus stammered. “I was actually trying to reach Agent Graham. Is he available?”

“He’s already left for the day. This is Agent Cameron Stone. Can I help you with something?”

The name rang a bell, though Thaddeus had never met the man. Adrien—who was never far from his mind no matter how much he wished he would be—had mentioned him many times when the Silver Springs DEA had teamed with the Waterston branch of the FBI to catch a notorious Cambodian drug lord who’d wreaked havoc along the coastline.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Thaddeus’s mind ping-ponged around information he’d picked up in conversations with Adrien, too-far-between, way-not-long-enough conversations with Adrien. Aw, man, would he ever get over his obsession with the dude?

The voice on the other end of the cellular waves chuckled. “Let’s see if I can help you pick one. Whom am I speaking to?”

“Thaddeus Carter. I—”

“Work with Jackson’s brother, Jason, at the SSFD,” Cameron finished for him. “Somehow we’ve never managed to actually meet, but I know who you are.”

That’s right. It clicked. Cameron Stone was one of Jackson’s closest friends. “Terri, she’s also on the department, and I are supposed to stay with Jackson for a few days.”

“Yeah, you’re in town for the Firefighter Challenge, right?”

Waterston was the city host for this year’s annual Firefighter Challenge—a competition that sought to encourage firefighter fitness and demonstrate the profession’s rigors to the public. Teams of firefighters from around the state would compete wearing full bunker gear and SCOTT Air-Pak breathing apparatuses while racing head-to-head as they simulated the physical demands of real-life firefighting. A linked series of events including climbing a five-story tower, hoisting, chopping, dragging hoses, and rescuing a life-sized, one-hundred-seventy-five pound “victim” would put the firefighters in a race against themselves, their opponents, and the clock.

Thaddeus’s rank as engineer of Engine Company 1 and Terri’s status as Firefighter/EMT made them the least likely two on the SSFD to accept the challenge. Hence the reason both were immediately gung-ho to do it. Individually and together, their mission was to prove every member of a fire department’s crew was as invaluable and competent as the next, even those who spent more time operating a fire truck or attending to the injured than actually fighting the fires.

“Right,” Thaddeus answered Cameron. “Thing is, well, we’re standing outside Jackson’s apartment right now, have been for a while, actually, and he doesn’t seem to be home. I thought he might have gotten held up at work.”

“He left here over an hour ago. Did you try his cell? Do you have that number?”

“I tried that first and got his voice mail.”
And called him sweetie.
What a way to start off a friendship. Thaddeus had never met Jackson face-to-face either. He’d talked to the man on the phone but knew him only by association with his twin brother. One thing he knew with absolute certainty was the other man was not gay. Jason had assured him that his brother didn’t have a problem with Thaddeus’s sexual preference. Of course, that didn’t leave Thaddeus open to hit on the guy, for Pete’s sake.

Not that he’d been hitting on Jackson in the message he’d left. The word had simply slipped, just like he’d told Terri. He hoped Jackson would realize that, too, or he might be booking a hotel room for this little trip after all because no way in hell would he and Terri bunk at his parents’ for the week.

“Tell you what. Hang tight. It’ll take me about ten minutes to get there. I’ve got a key to Jackson’s place. I’ll let you two in and then we’ll see if we can track him down.”

* * * *

I suggest you don’t stay here too long after I’m gone.

Jackson’s good-Samaritan kidnapper had been right on the money with that one. He needed to get out of this field. Street gangs, thugs, and drugs ruled this part of town. Even in his position hidden in the wooded field, he could see evidence of that all around him. Slivers of moonlight landed on graffiti-painted tree trunks, on broken bottles and used syringes cluttering the ground at his feet. Obviously, those gangs and thugs had taken refuge in these woods a time or twelve dozen. His kidnapper might have returned his cell phone and gun, but neither of those would do him any good if a full crew of violent, Fed-hating men found him.

He mentally tossed around his options as he pulled his cell from his inside coat pocket. Strutting into Stardust, which happened to be the closest establishment, dressed in clothes that screamed
federal agent
wouldn’t be so wise. Calling a cab would likely keep him waiting far longer than wise, too. He needed to get back to FBI HQ across town. Cameron had still been there when he left. So had his boss. And wasn’t that going to be fun? He could imagine himself calling Adam Cooper, team leader and all-around head badass in the bureau for a ride. Explaining why he needed that ride would be the icing on the cake.

He’d have to, though. As humiliating as it would be, he’d have to tell his boss and teammates everything about tonight because his good-Samaritan kidnapper had gone after him for a reason. She’d known he was an FBI agent.

Still, calling Cameron or the boss would leave him standing here for close to an hour. He knew of only one person who should be closer, one person who could get here sooner, and he really,
really
didn’t want to call her.

“Suck it up, Graham,” he muttered to himself and looked at his phone. The screen displayed two missed calls, the first from Thaddeus Carter and the second from Cameron.
Shit.
He punched the speed dial for Mallory, making a mental note to return both calls once he knew she was on her way to get him.