Sting (30 page)

“What about your fiancé? Jackson?”

“In regard to the trip, you mean? I told him that I was attending an event planning convention that weekend.”

“When he called you—”

“He didn't.”

“For three days?”

“He had no reason to call.”

Shaw looked at her with dismay. “‘Honey, how are you? Did you have a good flight? How's the hotel? I miss you. Let's have phone sex and make it dirty.'”

Getting testy, she said, “He didn't see the need to call.”

“If you ask me, Jackson didn't keep very good track of his woman.”

“Well, I didn't ask you, and Jackson had no reason to doubt me.”

“No? Then why did he call it quits at the first sign of trouble? He didn't stick around to see how involved you were, or not. He didn't vow to slay dragons for you or even to stand in the background and lend moral support. No, he left skid marks getting outta there and on to his debutante. In fact, what did Jackson ever do to inspire your love and admiration?” He ended by grumbling, “I don't like him.”

She laughed softly. “He wouldn't like you, either.”

“Nobody does.”

“I do.”

F
ollowing Jordie's hushed proclamation, neither she nor Shaw moved or said anything. For several moments, the only sound was that of rain pattering against the window glass.

Then he placed his hands—large, strong, beautifully shaped hands—on the arms of the easy chair and pushed himself out of it. He walked toward her in the slow, measured tread that she remembered from when they were in the garage. Except that this time as he got closer, she didn't tremble with apprehension but tingled with anticipation.

Standing in front of her, he took up her whole field of vision. Not that she wanted to look at anything except him.

He said, “Why?”

“Why do I like you?” How best to explain it? After consideration, she said, “Because you don't make excuses for yourself. You don't apologize for who you are.”

He reached for her hand and pulled her up. As before, he cradled her face between his hands and tilted her head back. His eyes roved over her features, perhaps looking for a more comprehensive explanation for what she'd said, or for a protest when he nudged her feet apart so he could stand between them.

He bumped her once, then again, testing her willingness. She tilted against him invitingly, and when he paired the notch of her thighs with the erection inside his jeans, the warmth of desire spread through her middle like the finest of liqueurs.

She closed her eyes and let her neck go limp, relying solely on his hands to hold her head up. She whispered, “I don't want to fight you anymore, Shaw. Or fight this.”

He dabbed the corner of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, then moved his mouth to her neck and gently sucked the spot just beneath her ear.

“Whatever this is,” she said on a waft breath. “What is this?”

Lowering his hands from her face, he reached behind her, up under her shirt, and unhooked her bra. “This is further notice.”

“What?”

“I said you'd be under arrest until further notice.”

“I confessed to a crime.”

“I'm about to commit one.”

He slid his hands around her rib cage and into the cups of her bra. He made a sound of satisfaction as his fingertips played lightly over her tight nipples, then he ground them gently against his wide palms before his fingers closed around her breasts, tenderly but possessively.

Want, need, and surrender unfurled in her. Her mouth sought his, and when they connected, each was as greedy as the other. Even though they never broke the kiss, he managed to wrangle her out of her shirt and slid off her bra, and then his mouth was at her breast, sweetly tugging or teasing with his tongue. She slid her fingers into his hair and, for a time, their panting moans of increasing appetite were heard above the sound of the rain.

He lowered his head, resting the crown of it between her breasts so he could see to undo his fly. His rapid, hot exhales fanned her skin as he grappled with stubborn buttons. When all were free, he raised his head and looked at her. “I may be able to make it to the bed. If we hurry.”

He took her hand and towed her into the bedroom. Not bothering to turn on the light, he flipped open the louvers of one panel of shutters to let in light from a lamppost down below. They formed stripes of light and shadow across the bed.

His boots hit the floor in two solid thuds, then he unsnapped the buttons of his shirt and pulled it off. From their time in the garage, Jordie remembered the hair-dusted pecs, corrugated rib cage, and enticing line of sleek hair that had directed her eyes to his waistband. But now the goodie trail widened into his open jeans, and the sight of his fully aroused sex stopped her breathing.

He pushed his jeans to the floor and stepped out of them. Then, noticing that she was arrested in motion, he asked raggedly, “You need help?”

“No.” Quickly, she kicked off her shoes, unfastened her pants, and pulled them off.

He lifted her by the waist and set her in the middle of the bed, then followed her as she lay down. Even as their mouths met, he pushed her panties only as far as he could reach, then came up on his knees and finished removing them.

His hands skimmed over her breasts, pressing them briefly before moving past her ribs to bracket her hips. He bent down and nuzzled the V of hair, then slid his tongue between the lips of her sex and continued down with it until, by the time he'd parted her thighs and got between them, it was making sweeping love strokes around and inside her.

She gasped his name and reached for him.

He rose above her, entirely male, physically dominant, intent, but his expression was vulnerable with longing. The broad head of his penis probed her, found her tight but yielding. He made a low sound and, in one thrust, buried himself completely. His shuddering sigh became an echo of hers as he settled on her heavily.

“All I've thought about,” he said, breathing the words against her neck, “being like this…inside you.”

Her response was to clench.

“Ah, dammit, Jordie, don't. I don't want to rush it.”

“Neither do I.”

“But I can't help moving.”

“Neither can I.” She arched her hips up and rocked against him.

He groaned, planted his hands above her shoulders, and levered himself up. Then, as he'd promised her, he told her straight out: “I'm gonna fuck you now.”

After several minutes of lying replete, he left the bed and went into the bathroom. By feel, he found fresh washcloths in the cupboard, waited for the tap water to turn warm, washed himself, and then carried another cloth to the bed where he washed her.

Meeting her gaze as he moved the cloth across her stomach, he said, “Pulling out. Hardest thing I've ever had to do.”

“You didn't have to.”

“I hadn't asked your permission.”

“You never ask permission for anything.”

“This is the one exception.”

“You're mama raised you better?”

He couldn't hide his wistful smile.

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned her.”

“It's okay,” he said, setting the washcloth on the nightstand. “She did raise me better.”

As he was lying back down, Jordie sat upright and gave a soft cry of alarm. She touched the bandage on his side. “You're bleeding.”

A few spots had seeped through the gauze of the bandage and showed through the outer layer. “The incision leaked a little when Wiley and I were running after Hickam.”

“Let me check it.”

“I already did. It's fine. And even if it was a hemorrhage, you're not going anywhere.” He pulled her down beside him, took her hand, and placed it over his resting penis.

“Good,” she said. “I like it here.”

He grunted with pleasure at the squeeze she gave him. “I noticed you looking before.”

“How could I miss it?”

He shot her a crocodile grin. “In my dreams, you couldn't keep your hands off it.”

“You dreamed about me?”

“When I was coming out of anesthesia. Really dirty stuff.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Not unless you want to be embarrassed.”

She laughed and rubbed her nose in his chest hair before resting her head on him. “That night in the bar, I wanted him to be you.”

“Him who?”

“The man who called me there.”

“It was me.”

“Yes, but I didn't know that then. I saw you walking toward me. My heart rate kicked up. But you went past, didn't stop, didn't acknowledge me. I was disappointed.”

“That is such bullshit,” he said. “You didn't give me a second's notice.”

“Oh, I noticed.”

“Really?”

“Hmm. I thought, ‘Bad boy alert.'”

“What's that mean exactly?”

“Dangerously sexy.”

“Keep talking.”

She laughed and raised her head, propping her chin on his sternum. “I've said enough. You get the idea.”

“I couldn't get enough of looking at your ass. On that bar stool? Oh man. And I smelled your perfume. Made me want to bury my face in your neck. And in your cleavage.” Turning his voice smoky, he said, “I think you can guess where else.”

She ducked her head shyly then came up and looked into his face, outlining the C on his chin. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got this?”

“One of Panella's guys.”

“One you had to—”

“Yeah. He was a knife man. I defended myself with a nine-millimeter, but not before he got in one good swipe.”

“My God, Shaw. How can you be so blasé about it? He could have disfigured you.”

“He did.”

She kissed the scar, then whispered against his lips. “How little you know.”

Keeping their lips together, he said, “One thing I know…your thumb is the second best thing that's ever happened to my cock.”

“Please. I'm blushing.”

“And you blush in all the best places. Come here.”

He motioned her up until he could reach her nipple with his mouth. Under the brush of his lips, it hardened instantly, but he worried it with his tongue until he felt her belly quickening against his. He moved to the other breast. God, they were perfect.

So was her ass, which his hands lightly stroked, then firmly gripped when that thumb of hers discovered a tear of semen leaking from his slit and spread it over the tip. “Jesus, Jordie.” His head fell back onto the pillow. He didn't believe he could possibly be more aroused, until he noticed her nipples, erect and glossed from his mouth. “Wet looks good on you.”

“How does it look on you?”

A tidal wave of lust surged through him as she began inching down his front. She pecked kisses across the center of his chest, ruffled his chest hair by blowing through it softly, brought his hips up off the bed when her tongue delicately flicked his nipple.

Her hair slid across his belly like a veil of silk. When she got even with the wound she'd inflicted, she looked up at him with remorse and tenderly kissed the bandage.

She moved lower and nuzzled his navel, whisked her lips back and forth across the line of hair that tapered down from it. Then her face hovered above him for an eternity. He could feel her breath; he held his.

First the damp velvet touch of her lips, then glancing caresses of her tongue, and, at last, she took him into her mouth.

His erotic hallucinations had been nothing compared to the real thing. Unlike the porn star Jordie of his dreams, the real one was more giving, less expert, and all the sweeter for it.

His hands fisted in the sheets, but after a time, he couldn't help but grip one handful of her hair. Sweat broke from every pore. He growled her name in appeal. For what, he wasn't sure.

But Jordie seemed to know.

When it was over, he pulled her up beside him, eased her onto her back and rolled onto her, kissing her mouth long and deep, tasting himself. Finally coming up for air, he whispered, “I take it back.”

“What?”

“Your thumb is the third best thing.”

M
r. Panella?”

“Speaking.”

“I know it's terribly late where you are, but you left a message for me to call you an hour before the bank closes for the day.”

“I did, and the time doesn't matter. I just got in, actually.” Flicking sweat off his brow, he looked over at the hoodie, now lying on the floor just inside the door. It had spatters of the FBI agent's blood on it and would have to be burned.

The banker was saying, “Prior to calling, I took the liberty of checking to see that everything is in order. I noticed that you never requested the two-million-dollar wire transfer which we discussed a few days go.”

No, he hadn't needed the two million because Mickey Bolden's recruit had turned out to be a cop!

Shaw Kinnard hadn't kidnapped Jordie from that bar. He'd
saved
her. All that bargaining and squeezing him for more money? Bullshit. Kinnard wounded, captured, and in custody? More bullshit.

“Mr. Panella? About the wire transfer…?”

“Yes, right, sorry, I was distracted.”

He'd been hoodwinked. By Shaw Kinnard, who'd finagled a new deal for a hit he never intended to carry out. By FBI Agent Joe Wiley, who'd told him that Kinnard had been arrested.

He hated being had.

If he hadn't been in Tobias today, he might not have discovered the ruse. But he'd been drawn back to the town to enjoy firsthand the chaotic aftermath of Royce Sherman's murder. Of course, he hadn't gone near the side road where he'd shut up that redneck loudmouth for good, but he'd picked a spot in which he could remain out of sight while observing the comings and goings at the busy sheriff's office annex.

He'd recognized the girl when she arrived. She was wearing the same clothing she'd had on the night before while being pawed by Sherman. Today she had looked a wreck, crying her heart out, needing the supporting arm of a friend as she stumbled into the building.

No doubt she was grateful to be alive and equally fearful that he would decide he shouldn't have left a witness and would come after her. He couldn't be bothered. She would never be able to identify him. The electrolarynx could be implicating, he supposed, but since anybody could get one, that would never hold up in court.

Not that he would be caught or brought to trial.

He hadn't been all that surprised when Agents Wiley and Hickam joined the party. Like good lawmen everywhere they would have connected dot A to dot B and concluded that there were coincidences, and then there were
bizarre
coincidences, and that the murder of Royce Sherman qualified as the latter.

What had come as a shock—and more of one than he was willing to admit—was seeing Kinnard climb out of the backseat of their unmarked sedan. Anyone giving him only a passing glance might have missed the sharp cheekbones beneath the silly sunglasses.

However, if one was looking closely, Kinnard was recognizable from his mug shot, which had been shown on TV. He was accused of being the abductor from whom Jordie Bennett had been rescued. He was the alleged slayer of Mickey Bolden.

But he hadn't been shuffling along in an orange jumpsuit and leg irons, a prisoner. No, he'd been wearing cowboy boots and a hoodie. Despite the outfit, he was obviously very much a part of the law enforcement team.

Well, fuck me.

The group had stayed inside the annex for approximately an hour. When they piled into the sedan and left Tobias, he'd followed them back to the city, figuring they would eventually lead him to Jordie. Because trickery or no trickery, he still had every intention of killing her. The fact that he'd been made a chump only heightened his resolve.

The feds' car pulled into the parking garage of a multistoried hotel. The Panella Investments Group had once hosted a seminar in one of its conference rooms, so he knew its general layout. Recognizing both the unique challenges and opportunities that a busy hotel presented, he drove past the entrance to the garage and parked in another lot several blocks over.

Returning on foot, he took an idea from the FBI and bought a hoodie at a souvenir walk-up. He kept his head down and melded with the ebb and flow of foot traffic on the sidewalks surrounding the hotel while monitoring the maw of the parking garage.

At dusk, three official-looking SUVs caravanned into it. Soon after that, the police presence increased around the hotel—men in uniform as well as undercover officers. (Did they really think they would fool him?)

Something was about to happen. He'd considered retrieving his car. If they transported Jordie in one of the SUVs, he would need his car in order to follow them. But if he were gone even for a few minutes, he might miss the big event.

While still debating, he spotted the handsome black agent emerging from the hotel's parking garage on foot, carrying a pair of duffel bags. The agent crossed the street then turned and struck off down the sidewalk toward a waiting car. Not the one they'd taken to Tobias.

It was like a gift! Only a coward or a fool wouldn't have acted on it. Why not seize an opportunity to underscore that if you messed with Billy Panella, you did so at great personal risk?

He slipped from his hiding place between two buildings and moved along the sidewalk. As he approached the car, the agent was deceived by the hoodie. He'd actually lowered the car window. Last thing he said was, “Kinnard, what the hell are you—”

Phfft!

Smiling into the phone now, he wondered what the Asian banker would think of the coup he'd pulled off tonight. Who needed hired help? “I didn't request the wire transfer because I didn't need the funds after all.”

“I see.”

He didn't see, of course. He didn't have an effing clue.

“I hope you're not unhappy with our service.”

He reveled in the man's deferential tone. Everyone wanted to keep Billy Panella pacified. “I contracted men to do a job. They turned out to be incompetent and untrustworthy. The job wasn't completed, but your bank's service wasn't an issue.”

“Splendid. I'm glad to hear that.” He paused. “What service may I perform for you today?”

What was this guy, a whore? Well, in a manner of speaking, he was. Which was why it was going to crush him to hear this.

“I want you to close all my accounts.”

“I'm sorry?”

He adjusted the electrolarynyx. “I want you to close all my accounts. Subtract whatever service charges apply, then withdraw every last cent.”

“I don't understand.”

“I'm moving these funds to another financial institution. Is that clarifying enough?”

The guy seemed to have swallowed his golden tongue. Seconds passed.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, Mr. Panella. I'm just—”

“Can you handle this request, or do I need to speak with your superior?”

“No, I'll handle it.”

“Thank you.”

Obviously flustered, the banker asked for the details of where the funds were to be transferred. In the background, his computer keys were clicking. “And your password, please?”

He gave it.

More keyboard clicking. “Thank you, Mr. Panella.”

“You're welcome.” It had been such a successful twenty-four hours, he felt like being expansive. “Let me say, this isn't a reflection on you. It's been a pleasure doing business with you. I like your accent. Very classy, very—”

“Excuse me. I need the second password.”

“What?”

“Jordan Bennett's password?”

Jordan Bennett's password?
Had he heard right? “What are you talking about?”

“After opening the account where the lion's share of your funds were deposited, you contacted me a few days later and stipulated that two passwords be required to access that particular account. Yours and Jordan Bennett's.”

He had done no such thing!

“Had you forgotten making that stipulation, Mr. Panella?”

Bloody fucking shit!