by H M Thomas
“I’m sorry.” She tried to slide from his lap.
Finn clamped his hand on her waist, stilling her. “No, I’m sorry.” He kissed her ear firmly, before trailing lighter kisses down her cheek to her lips. He lifted his hips and pressed his hard length against her backside. “Come home with me tonight.”
“Why wait?” She tried to shake off the lingering unease from his mood change. “I have a room in the back.”
He shook his head and ran a finger lightly over her cheek before he fisted it in her hair, bringing her face to his. “Lilah’s hot, but I want Gretchen.” He took her mouth with bruising force. “Besides I want to hear you screaming my name, my real name.”
“I get off in an hour.” She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts against his chest.
“I’ll be waiting,” he assured her with a slap on her ass.
~ ~ ~
Gretchen lay sprawled across Finn’s chest, tracing the points of his compass. Her eyes drifted closed as his fingers drew slow circles down her bare back. Smiling against his chest, she kissed his tight nipple and looked up at him. A peacefulness she’d never felt washed over her. She wouldn’t tell him that though, if she started, she’d say things he wouldn’t want to hear from her, so instead she studied the sharp lines of his handsome face as her heart swelled.
“Are you going to tell Carlisle about that tomorrow?”
The tightening of his jaw was his only response. She started to pull away, but he held her close and looked down at her. The warmth radiating from his gaze was enough to tempt her into believing he cared about her as much as she did him.
“I didn’t tell him anything, except you wax.”
“I don’t wax.” She raised her head to meet his eyes.
Briefly closing his eyes, he gave a swift nod. “Yeah, I know. He asked, but I couldn’t talk about you with him.”
She pushed up to kneel beside him on the bed. “Why?” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m just some girl. It doesn’t matter what you tell him about me.”
“You aren’t just some girl.” He reached out to twist a strand of her hair around his thick finger. “You’re my Gretchen. You could never be just some girl.”
She tried to ignore the swell of her heart as her chest tightened. “And when this case is over,” she prompted.
“You’ll stay off that pole,” he swore.
She slid her hand under the sheet to find his hardening dick, giving it a squeeze. “What about this pole?”
His eyes rolled back in his head as he flexed his hips and pushed up into her fist. “I may be a little more reluctant to get you off that one.”
He reached for her, and her heart skipped a beat at the caving of his dimples. She leaned over and met his lips with her own, before sliding her leg over his hips and taking him inside her.
“Reluctant?” Her bottom lip poked out. “But you’ll still let me go, Finn?” She raised her hips then brought them down again.
“It’s not fair to ask me questions like that when you’re.” His voice broke off, and his head fell back as she squeezed her inner muscles around him, raising and lowering once more as she did.
“No more questions.” She took his mouth and rode him over the edge.
Chapter 7
“Seriously guys.” Gretchen slid onto the vacant barstool between Neil and their newest recruit, Jackson Shepard. A plate piled high with a burger and fries sat waiting. “I’m working undercover in a club. Couldn’t we have met somewhere other than a bar on my first night off?
Jackson grinned. “At least you won’t have to dance for your drinks tonight.”
When she shot him a glare, the smile slid off his face.
Neil tapped on the tabletop to get her attention. “Have you looked over the information I sent you?”
“That whole lot of not shit, you mean?” She’d read the files. Other than Raymond Carlisle, no one else at the club had done anything to warrant the attention of the feds.
“I know.” Neil waved her off. “For the most part, Carlisle surrounds himself with low-key players or intelligent ones. Did you notice what wasn’t in the information I sent you?”
Gretchen dug out her phone and pulled up the file Neil had sent, scrolling through the list of possession, solicitation, and assault charges. “Ronnie Sinclair,” she muttered. How had she missed that? Probably because she’d been so relieved Finn only had a couple of assault charges that’d been dropped.
“Give the lady a prize.” Neil leaned in closer, until the scent of his cologne settled around her. Under the table his leg bounced.
“Why does this excite you so much?” Gretchen asked. “She’s not there, which means you found nothing.”
“Exactly.” He sat up straighter, energy thrumming off him. “Nothing, not even a freaking library fine. Who doesn’t have a library fine?”
“People who don’t read,” Jackson replied dryly.
“Responsible citizens who return their books on time,” she offered.
Neil rolled his eyes. “No. People who don’t exist.” He slid his phone across the gleaming table to her. “Ronnie Sinclair’s real name is Elizabeth Smith.”
Gretchen studied the mugshot on Neil’s phone. The girl was young with dark circles under vacant eyes. Long, dull hair in need of a thorough washing obscured most of her features. Neil reached passed Gretchen and swiped the screen. An image of a vibrant redhead with stunning blue eyes replaced the gaunt young woman.
“There’s a lot more of her.” Ronnie’s chest had to be at least two cup sizes larger than Elizabeth’s.
Neil nodded. “Miami’s third in highest number of plastic surgeons per capita.”
Gretchen and Jackson stared at him.
“What?”
Jackson shook his head. “Why do you know things like that?”
Neil lifted a broad shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Miami’s expensive. So’s cosmetic surgery. What does she do?” Gretchen steered them back to the topic.
“That’s the thing. According to my sources her title is companion search specialist. Unfortunately, the companions she finds are young, sometimes reluctant, and not always legal. The feds think she’s a human trafficker.”
“Whoa. What?” Gretchen put down her burger without taking a bite. “Human trafficking? Are you sure? Carlisle and his guys aren’t into that. He sells drugs and sex, not people.” In the months she’d been at the club, there’d been nothing to indicate Raymond Carlisle forced women to have sex for money.
“I know,” Neil conceded.
Gretchen studied her partner for a moment. This would be so much easier if she could read his mind, instead of having to pull information out of him. “So, what’s she doing with them?”
“She started as one of Carlisle’s girls,” he replied.
One of Carlisle’s girls? “She was a hooker?”
Neil nodded.
“So how does the student surpass the teacher?” How did a woman go from a young, beaten down hooker, to a madame who forced other women to do the same?
“Oh grasshopper.” Neil beamed at her. “She had a john go a little crazy on her, laid her up for a while, surgery, rehab, the whole nine. Some of those, uh, augmentations you see are chosen and some were necessary.”
Gretchen toggled between the two images on Neil’s phone, trying to find traces of the young woman in the face of the Madame.
“Carlisle paid for everything. After she healed, he helped her start her own business as a way to say sorry,” Neil explained.
Jackson bit into a fry as he listened. “Does Carlisle know what she’s doing?”
Gretchen’s stomach tightened. If Carlisle knew, wouldn’t that mean Finn knew? Please don’t let Finn know about this.
Neil raised a brow. “Wouldn’t you know? Carlisle supposedly doesn’t have a hand in the business, but do you think one pimp doesn’t know what another is up to?”
“What happened to the guy?” Gretchen already felt the answer in the pit of her stomach. Still, she had to ask.
Neil met her gaze straight on. “No one’s seen him since.”
Yeah, that sounded about right. Ronnie was Carlisle’s girl, and Ronnie had been attacked, Carlisle would take care of the problem.
“She’ll be in town soon and Carpenter’s getting a real hard on for her,” Neil continued.
“Me too until you said she kidnaps people.” Jackson glared at the picture in front of Gretchen and his jaw tightened.
“Well, keep that to yourself,” Neil informed him. “She’s Jay Finley’s, and he’s ruthless.”
It took a moment for Gretchen to remember Jay Finley and her Finn James were the same man. When she did, her brain came to a screeching halt.
“Rumor is she wants to relocate here because of him,” Neil added.
Gretchen shook away her shock. “Wait. What do you mean she’s Jay Finley’s?” Finn wouldn’t openly sleep with her if he had a girlfriend. Would he?
“They’re together.” Neil bit into his burger.
Gretchen raised a brow. He needed to spell this out for her, because right now, none of this made sense. Finn had hated Raymond Carlisle and even blamed him for his mother’s murder. He couldn’t be in a relationship with someone who would force women into that same life.
“He means they’re fucking,” Jackson told her through a mouthful of burger.
Neil elbowed him, motioning toward Gretchen with his own food. “Watch your language in front of the lady.”
Jackson choked on his dinner before managing to swallow it down. “Lady? It’s Gretchen. She has bigger balls than all of us.”
She rewarded the rookie with a smile. “Yes, I do. That’s why I wear them on my chest.”
Jackson coughed out a laugh. “You wear them really well too.” He winked.
Beside him, Neil clenched his jaw.
The smile slipped from Gretchen’s face. “So, what’s the plan?”
Neil turned his attention back to Gretchen. “Carlisle’s still our priority but send anything you can get on Sinclair our way. So far no agency’s been able to touch her.”
Gretchen took a sip of her beer. “So far they haven’t sent us.”
Laughing, the men went back to their meals, but she’d lost her appetite. The Finn she knew wouldn’t condone Ronnie’s actions. He wouldn’t be okay with women and young girls being raped or held captive. So, did that mean Ronnie was innocent or that Gretchen didn’t know Finn after all?
~ ~ ~
Finn studied Gretchen out of the corner of his eye as he pulled waffles from the iron and put them on a plate. He didn’t want to think about how right it felt to have her in his apartment as he did something as simple as making breakfast. The two days she’d been away from the club, doing God knew what in her real life, had been hell. He couldn’t admit to her how much he’d missed her. She was back now, and she’d spent the past four nights with him, pulling further away from him each day, until he suspected she was playing him as much as everyone else.
“You’re thinking too hard.” He ducked into the refrigerator and came out with a carton of orange juice.
She sat at the bar and spun a glass in her hands. “Is there such a thing?” Her lips failed in their attempt at a smile.
“What’s up?” He placed the plate of eggs and waffles in front of her before he took the stool next to her.
“Just thinking.” She poked at the food with her fork. “You and me, what we do, it’s not so different.”
“If you don’t count the fact you enforce the laws I sometimes break, I guess you have a point.”
She shrugged and pushed her food around her plate. “I’m sure we both do things we don’t always think are right. We both lie to the people around us.”
Is that what had been bothering her, the lies they told each other and everyone else? Only, he hadn’t lied to her, except when he’d said he couldn’t love her. To his disappointment, she’d believed every word of it.
“I wonder sometimes who I really am,” she confided. “I mean I know where I come from and who I’m supposed to be, but then I go in as someone new, and—”
“And you feel more comfortable in your skin,” he finished for her.
Her head snapped up and she met his stare. “Exactly. You feel that way too?”
He studied her for a moment, searching her eyes for any clue she was trying to con him. Instead he had a sudden memory of her running across the lush lawn of her parents’ house toward him. He’d been thirteen, and she’d been seven. He’d avoided Brock’s family for weeks while his bruised ribs healed after another battle with his stepfather. Gretchen had spotted him across the lawn and immediately sprinted toward him, yelling his name with her arms outstretched. He’d lifted her, despite the pain in his side, and she’d wrapped her tiny arms around his neck and squeezed.
“I missed you,” she’d told him. He’d told her he missed her too and promised not to disappear for so long again. As he’d placed her back on the ground, she’d kissed his cheek loudly.
“I love you,” she’d said.
And he’d responded, “Me too.”
What would he say if she uttered those three words to him again? Now that he loved her so differently, would he be able to admit his feelings? He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his juice while he got his emotions under control.
“You’re a good person,” he finally told her. “You try to help people, and you lie to do that. The end justifies the means and all that.”
Her green eyes darkened fractionally. “Is that why you do it?”
He forced a laugh. “What’s with the heart-to-heart? I thought we said no interrogations.”
She flinched before visibly shaking off his words. “I’m sorry.” She picked up the plate she’d barely touched and made her way to the sink. With her fork, she scraped the contents away and then reached across to switch on the garbage disposal. The hem of his shirt rode up her thigh to expose the curve of her bottom.
“Stupid of me to think we could talk instead of just having sex.” She looked back over her shoulder with a smile plastered on her face. He didn’t miss the tears that filled her eyes.
What had gotten into her? They didn’t just have sex? They might mostly have sex, that was normal for new relationships. He put the brakes on that train of thought. They weren’t in a new relationship, they were only having sex.
Sighing, he rose from his stool and padded to the kitchen. He stopped behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She froze when he ran them down her bare skin to her biceps and rested his forehead against the back of her head. He wished he could share his own confusion with her, not only about himself, but about the two of them together and his growing feelings for her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered instead.
She put down the plate and braced her hands on the sink. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she lied.
“You know me better than anyone. You’re the only one in this whole world who knows Finn and Jay. You’re certainly the only one who could still . . .” He clamped his mouth shut, afraid to make presumptions about her feelings. “Like me, knowing all you do.”
She shook her head and her hair brushed against his forehead. He breathed her in, under the scent of his own shampoo was the warm, sunshine fragrance of Gretchen.
“You do like me, don’t you?” He kissed her neck and slid his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against him.
She sighed. “I’ve always liked you.”
“Even when you said you hated me?” he hedg
ed. Had it only been a little over a week since she’d uttered those words outside the club? How the hell had he fallen so in love with her in such a short time? Probably because he’d loved her in one form or another her entire life.
“Maybe even especially,” she confessed.
The urge to tell her he loved her rushed through him, and he fought it back, he’d never said those words to a woman, and even with Gretchen, he didn’t know how to be that vulnerable. So, instead he kissed her neck again and moved down to her shoulder. “Why don’t you bring some of your things with you the next time you come? You could leave them, and then you wouldn’t have to lug that huge bag back and forth.”
She turned in his arms, considering him through narrowed eyes. “That’s a bit of a commitment, isn’t it?”
Her cocked eyebrow made him laugh. How could she be so damn cute and sexy at the same time?
“It is,” he conceded, “but if we want to convince everyone for the sake of your investigation.” Why couldn’t he admit he wanted her there with him?
“Of course.” She nodded, though her voice had turned cold. She wouldn’t be leaving anything at his place. She patted his chest like she would a small child and moved out of his arms.
He cursed under his breath and ran a hand through his unruly hair. “Gretchen, what’s wrong? Please.”
Leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her breasts, she watched him so closely he wanted to squirm. “How would Ronnie feel if my things were here?”
Ah, so that’s what had been bothering her all weekend?
“I couldn’t tell you,” he lied. Ronnie would hit the fucking roof when she heard about them, which was part of the reason he wanted Gretchen in his apartment where he could keep an eye on her.