UndeniablyHisE (15 page)

Collin

Day three and I was on the ground in Keeling, North Carolina. I had an address to the horse farm Mia had grown up on and a description with a license plate number for the rental car she had picked up at the county airport. I started with the horse farm. I had seen pictures of the place online, back when the farm had a solid reputation for breeding champion thoroughbreds. Under its current ownership of Evan Morris, the farm retained none of its former glory. No horses were out of the stable, if any remained. The main house and grounds showed neglect.

Leaving my SUV, I knocked at the front door. No one answered. I walked the length of the porch, intending to peek in the ground floor windows, but all were heavily draped with the fabric pulled tight. I stepped onto the lawn and looked up at the second floor. More heavy curtains sealed out the light. Half expecting some redneck with a shotgun to come out and challenge me, I walked the house's entire perimeter.

No showdown materialized. I knocked on the front door again with a heavier hand. I didn't like the set-up, didn't want to think about Mia in the house with a man like Morris. No jail time, not even a single prosecution, but he was bad news. The preliminary report from Kane showed Morris had a dishonorable discharge from the Navy in 1980 before he completed his first tour. Some arrests followed that discharge before he married Mia's mother and some after the woman's death -- bar fights on both sides, reckless driving. Mixed in the recent reports were allegations of doping horses before showing them to prospective buyers. One of the horses had died in transit, but Morris bought the corpse back at full price plus a premium from the new owner, just managing to avoid an investigation.

Listening for any movement within the house at my knock, I grew more and more pissed.

I hadn't removed Mia from Dubai and sheltered her in Florida to have her run home to someone like Morris. Fists clenched, I stormed off the porch and into the SUV. I followed a dirt lane, rutted from the same neglect that marked the house. Still anticipating the sound of a round leaving a shotgun or rifle, I stopped at the outbuildings -- boarded up stables, maybe a garage for one of them, all with the windows covered over and heavy padlocks on the door, suggesting something of value or secrecy inside.

Given the run-down state of everything I saw, I couldn't imagine anything legitimate of value in the buildings. The locks, which looked regularly used, had to be in place to secure something illicit. Heading further down the lane into the tree line, I texted Kane to check with the local narcotics unit and see if they had a file on Morris. The information would come in handy in convincing Mia to return to Stark International.

Clearing the trees, I found my first sign of Mia in Keeling beyond the mere address given by the car rental company. A small house, the garage roof punctured by a half-snapped pine limb, but signs that windows had been recently cleaned, the front path cleared and tire tracks that likely matched the tiny Mazda she had rented. Looking through the open drapes after a knock on the front door proved useless, I saw more signs of recent cleaning.

A walk around the back of the house revealed a fresh plastic tarp over another portion of the roof, the ground still marked with the imprint of the ladder she had used. At least the small footprints around the ladder indicated Mia had been the one to repair the roof. The idea of her up there, working alone on a compromised structure for a few hours had me clenching my fists all over again. Not as bad, perhaps, as her living in the same house as Morris, but she had endangered herself in leaving Florida, compounded that danger by renewing her association with her stepfather and then she had risked life and limb making repairs.

I closed my eyes as I fought the need to punch a whole through one of the windows on her tiny home. Closing my eyes only made things worse. She needed disciplined and I only knew one way to discipline Mia. With my hands, in my bed, making her moan and come between spanks to her lovely ass or the dance of a flogger against her thighs and sweet cunt.

Arousal crowded against the worry and frustration I felt, my memory coiling around the contours of her body, the ripe breasts, the thick nipples that made her melt when I sucked on them, how tightly she could wrap around my fingers or cock, milking me as pleasure rolled through her.

My body responding, I thrust my hand into my pocket in search of the ring. Finding it, I shook my head at the lust thrumming through me. The big diamond with its platinum setting was my reminder of the baby lost and the one woman I wanted to protect more than anyone. The ring would not go on her finger. She would never be mine to discipline again. But I had to find and convince her to return to the company for her own safety. I would give her any location she wanted and a real job to do regardless of Kane's protests about the new security risk she posed as my former lover.

It was my company.

My Mia.

********************

I could have waited at the guesthouse for however many minutes or hours it took for her to return, but I had to see her without delay. I needed to see that she was whole, that her foolish departure from the safety of Stark International was taken from a point of strength. I needed to see my beautiful, obstinate woman and know that, in trying to protect her, I hadn't destroyed her spirit.

From the evidence visible at the guesthouse, I roughly sketched out Mia's priorities. Digging in, she had a home to repair and stock as she built a place for herself away from Stark International. Having left early, she likely was procuring more supplies. Taking another look through the open curtain, I noted the name of the hardware store on the bag. I decided to make it my first stop and spread out the search parameter from there for the blue Mazda rental.

A
eureka
moment blossomed in my chest twenty minutes later when I spotted the vehicle parked in the far corner of the store's lot. I parked next to it and looked inside. No map or newspaper out on the seat. No bags from other stores. No clues for her next destination.

I jogged across the lot and entered the store. Half the aisles were marked clearance. I stared down each one of them, my ears perked for the sound of her soft, lilting voice. Having scanned every row, I walked to the counter where a man somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies sat at the register and made marks on what looked like a freshly printed inventory sheet.

He looked up, a cataract obscuring almost all of one blue eye. "Help you find something?"

I removed my phone from my pocket and pulled up a picture of Mia. The old man's face moved from helpful to guarded.

All of Kane's arguments about me losing my mind where Mia was concerned bubbled up as I quashed the desire to go hard on the old timer at the first sign of his non-compliance. Instead, I smiled and forced a half-truth past my lips. "It's okay, just work related. She's my employee."

The man slapped a hand on the counter, his wheezy laugh exposing my lie. "You're from that Florida company, ain't ya? Sorry, boy, but she's my employee now."

"That was fast." I shrugged as I swallowed down my surprise. "She's only been in town three days."

"Smart cookie like that, knows her tools, easy on the eyes..." Shaking a gnarled finger at me, the old man threw a wink. "You don't give someone else a chance to hire her -- or steal her back."

Not the kind of competition I expected, but I liked him. Feisty for his age. I dropped my head, a genuine laugh rattling inside my chest before I hooked his good eye with mine. "Can't blame me for trying. Where is she?"

The old man brought his hands together on the countertop, studied me a long, hard second, then offered a dismissive chuckle. "You don't worry me, none. That girl's come home, got that look. She's running a few errands for the store."

His hand swept toward the front entrance. "Good luck, son. You're going to need it."

Leaving the store, I took a few seconds to organize my search and a game plan for when I found her. The old man had said she was out on errands. For a small hardware store on its last legs, that probably meant the bank, post office or lunch.

Glancing at my watch, I amended the possibility of her fetching lunch to fetching coffee then scoped out the street since she was presumably on foot. The old man might have a delivery service, but I didn't see the demand and he had said "errands," not "deliveries."

I crossed the street, quickly eyeing the the interiors of the stores I passed as I headed for the local branch of the county bank. The post office was half a dozen buildings beyond the bank, on the same side of the road as the hardware store. Standing sentry outside the bank, if I didn't get arrested by the locals, would provide an uninhibited view of every doorway Mia could possibly go in or out of on that bleak little avenue of commerce.

Reaching the bank, I looked inside then immediately flattened against the brick exterior. There, her back to me as she stood at the cashier's window, the lines of her body unmistakable to eyes that had never stopped studying her. Knowing we would be face-to-face for the first time since I sent her away, my pulse accelerated. The fear-based adrenaline rush brought a sharp reprimand from the soldier inside me. This was Mia -- not the Taliban nor Al Qaida, not some member of the La Familia or Juarez cartels nor the Russian mafia. Just Mia.

My heart needed to slow the fuck down -- fast, before she came out and saw me like this.

The bank door opened outward, the contours of her hand on the handle instantly recognizable. She realized someone stood in the arc of the door, but not that it was me. Her gaze came up, an apologetic smile on her face before she saw its recipient and then the green eyes and the smile froze.

I couldn't read her gaze, didn't know whether she didn't think I would find her after she left or if she didn't want me to.

"Mia." I caught her arm and guided her the rest of the way out of the bank before she could retreat inside.

I tugged her toward me. She twisted her elbow and I let her slip free. She stepped past me, her attention on the coffee shop I had passed before looking inside the bank. I touched her shoulder, longing for the time past when so small a gesture from me would freeze her in place.

She kept walking, glancing as she went at a small sheet of paper with all the lines but one marked off. "I'm not on my own time, Mr. Stark."

"Right, you work for Mr. Keppler at the moment."

"The store has a few months left in it." She slowed, if only for a second, and raised a brow in challenge before shaking her head at me.

Yanking on the door to the coffee shop, she entered, not looking back. I caught the door before it closed and followed her in. She ordered two coffees, one triple black, the other the espresso and cream I knew she preferred. I ordered nothing, letting the clerk assume Mia and I were together.

Mia moved down the counter. I followed, tongue frozen, heart hammering against my ribs. Whatever game plan I thought I had formulated evaporated the second I looked in those green eyes and witnessed her shut me out.

Had I really thought I could bribe or order her back?

Yeah -- I had projected my desire onto her, assuming she would feel the same beast clawing in her chest as I did, feel the same heat scorching her lungs and capitulate. That her departure had coincided with the television coverage of me with Kessa's hand on my shoulder had fueled my fantasy that her feelings hadn't faded over the four months spent apart.

Apparently, she had looked at the video, realized she no longer felt anything and decided it was time to leave.

Numb, I watched the clerk put the coffees on the counter. I wrapped my hands around them before Mia could and walked to the station with the napkins, sugar packets and lids. I licked my lips, finding them suddenly dry. Next to me, Mia stood straight and silent.

I shifted positions until I could gaze into her eyes. I searched for a sign that I was wrong about her being over me -- that my first assumption had been correct. Pissed, and without a prompt, she remained unreadable.

So I gave her a prompt.

"You need to come back." I put a lid on Keppler's cup, averting my gaze at the last second because I didn't think I could take another blank response. "Real data analytics, you choose the site--"

"Home office?"

The question slid past her lips like a knife leaving a well-oiled sheath. An assassin's question, I wasn't sure how to dance around it. I just knew I couldn't have her that close -- not if I wanted to keep her outside the danger zone. I couldn't know she was three floors away or that the elevator was carrying her down to the garage. I couldn't watch one of the men in the office try to get close to her without squeezing his head between my knees until his skull cracked.

The only control I had concerning Mia was keeping her at a distance -- a physical distance because I couldn't yet manage an emotional one.

"That would be..." I fumbled for words as I passed her Keppler's coffee and put a lid on the espresso and cream before I finished. "Awkward."

She took the second coffee and turned to me, the green eyes almost hollow. Certainly the smile that rose to her lips was empty.

"I wouldn't have said
yes
even if you agreed to home office."

Looking at her again, I searched for the lie. If she were over me, why ask for home office? To hear me say "no" so she could be certain she was over me? Which meant she wasn't -- maybe.

Damn it, this was not how it was supposed to go. I didn't want to hear her empty or hurt or anything other than compliant. I couldn't keep an eye on her out at that farm, couldn't ensure her safety.

I shook my head, ending my indecision. My hands came up to grip her by the elbows. Absent the coffees, it was a position we had adopted more than once, usually naked. Me pulling her into my arms, my thumbs lightly indenting the pressure points on the inside of her elbows.

Control...dominance.

The blood that had turned to cold syrup in my veins at her flat smile and hurt gaze surged at last. My grip tightened then tightened again at the faint flicker of need that sparked in Mia's eyes. She wasn't lost to me, not yet. I could have her back at Stark International, where she would be protected. She'd roll onto a team, make new friends, meet someone...