She climbed the two steps that led to the porch, then turned to look at me. “When you get home, if you want, you can come over. I’ve got a pot roast cooking in the crockpot. There’ll be plenty.”
My insides warmed. “I’ll do that.”
When I climbed the first step, her eyes went wide.
With me down a step from her, our eyes were almost level.
“Call me if you need me,” I breathed against her lips, moving in until barely an inch separated us. Pressing my lips to hers, I made sure it stayed chaste before pulling away and looking into her eyes. “Or even if you don’t.”
Then, without looking back once, I was gone, leaving her on her front porch staring at me in shocked surprise.
• • •
“What were the parents doing while the kid went missing?” I asked curiously, sitting back in my chair and placing one foot up onto the wrung of the chair beside me. Bruno’s.
He glared at me to remove it, and I grinned at him before leaving it there.
“Parents were both at work. It was the babysitter that was watching her. They were at the park. Kid went onto that huge jungle gym thing. She saw her go up, but she never came down the other side. When she moved to that side to look, the kid wasn’t there.” Lynn passed around a few photos of the girl.
She was cute.
Very cute.
She had long, curly brown hair, bright blue eyes, and mocha cream skin that looked beautiful against her bright white shirt with chocolate stains.
“Any access to this park other than the front entrance?” Bruno asked, scooting his chair over so that my foot was forced to drop to the ground.
“No,” Lynn answered. “Park is completely and totally fenced in. There are no other entrances or exits except for the one that leads to the parking lot.”
“Anybody else see anything?” I wondered, moving on from the photo of the girl to the photo of the cars in the parking lot right before the abduction.
“No,” Laric was the one to answer this time. “I talked to all of the parents—there were four there—and none of them saw a thing. They all started looking for the child as soon as they realized she was missing. She was nowhere to be found.”
“Why was this photo taken?” I asked curiously, showing him the photo of the cars in the parking lot.
“Parents ask for hourly updates. This was their first child. They were nervous parents, so the babysitter sent them the updates to help soothe their nerves,” Lynn explained. “This particular photo was taken by the kid, though, according to the babysitter. She was playing with the phone when they got out at the park.”
“Was the babysitter actually watching the girl?” I asked curiously.
“We asked the other parents that were there that, and they said other than an altercation between two young kids, around twelve or so, the girl was pretty attentive. Never had her phone out. Though she was reading a book. Then again, that was pretty standard for the girl. Parents said that the live-in babysitter is obsessed with books.”
“What’s this babysitter’s name?” I asked curiously.
“Name is Laurel Zdonzky.” Bruno passed another file over, this one pertaining to the babysitter.
She was cute, age twenty-one, and looked as if she’d just gotten out of high school yesterday.
“What kind of background check was done prior to this?” Trouper asked curiously.
“None,” I answered as I read. “Parents called multiple references, checked with other babysitters, but they knew her through friends, so they trusted her enough not to do a background check. I…”
My phone rang, and Lynn gave me an annoyed look.
But, upon pulling it out, I noticed that it was Blaise.
And no way in hell would I be ignoring it if it was her.
When we’d left, I knew that the two of us had an understanding. One that meant when I texted her my number—she still hadn’t given me hers, I’d had to look it up illegally through Hunt, our resident computer guru—she would text me if she needed me.
Calling meant that something was wrong.
Because she knew that I was working—looking for a missing child.
“Blaise, are you okay?” I asked upon pressing the phone to my ear.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’m just going to say this, because I know you’ll get mad but… so I started walking to the store.”
My head nearly exploded. “You fucking what?”
“I started walking to the store,” she repeated. “I’m out of milk, man. I need milk. Like now. I just had to have an Oreo, then that Oreo was eaten, and I didn’t have milk, and I started to cry, and I just needed fucking milk!”
I waited, sensing this was a topic I should probably not say a word about.
Even though it pissed me way the hell off.
“Annnnd…” she hesitated. “There was this little girl at the gas station with her father. Although, the way he was yelling at her to shut up, maybe he’s not the father.”
My heart started to pound as I leaned forward in my seat.
“Where are you?” I barked, standing up.
When all eyes turned my way, I made a gesture with my hand for them to follow me and headed for my bike.
I was on it, holding it steady with one foot, the other foot seconds away from starting the bike, when she finally told me where she was.
“Umm, I’d rather not tell you where exactly I am,” she admitted. “But we’re at the Valero station at the corner of Big Highway and Loop 334.”
“Stay on the line,” I ordered. “I won’t be able to hear you for a bit, but that doesn’t matter. If I want to get back on the line with you, I better be able to.”
“Okay,” she replied softly.
I tucked the phone into the holder on my bike that allowed me to see the screen and then turned to everybody.
Lynn, our unofficial official president, was staring at me with an intentness that I found slightly startling.
All that was Lynn—and there were a ton of facets to Lynn that most people had no clue about—was entirely focused on me.
Honestly, though I ‘knew’ Lynn, I didn’t ‘know’ him. And when that cold, dead stare was leveled on you, even a grown man, one that could very much handle his own, contemplated things.
“She’s at a gas station, won’t tell me where at the gas station, and she sees a kid that she thinks might fit the missing little girl,” I told him immediately, answering his unasked question.
Lynn nodded once. “Let’s go.”
We went.
It took us eight and a half minutes to get there. Normally the ride was a little under twenty minutes from Lynn’s place to that particular gas station. However, today we drove past the speed limit, and, surprisingly, the two police cars we passed didn’t so much as light their sirens up when they saw us.
I wasn’t sure if that was due to the fact that they knew us, knew our club upon sight, or because they just knew we were driving way too fucking fast to ever catch.
Whatever the reason, we got there fast—hopefully fast enough anyway—and surrounded the vehicles at the pump.
I picked up my phone. “Okay, where are you?”
There was a small sound. “In the car with the little girl.”
I felt my insides boil. “Where is the guy that was with her?”
She swallowed. “I locked the doors, and he left his keys inside. So he’s inside calling a locksmith right now.”
I looked at the front window, then looked at the two cars that our bikes were surrounding. Only one had a person standing outside of it.
“Get out,” I ordered as I jerked my chin toward the front counter.
Bruno and Lynn went that way, leaving Laric, Trouper, Trick, me, and Zach to sort things out here.
The car door bumped open, and then I heard the sniffling—not coming from my woman.
She looked at me warily as she stepped out, and I could see sweat dripping from her temples.
I
pinched the bridge of my nose, then gestured her to the side so I could get a good look at the kid.
Sure enough, said kid was the one that’d gone missing not a couple hours before.
I leaned back out and looked at Laric. “It’s her.”
My stomach sank even more.
To know that my pregnant woman had gotten in the car with this little girl after following him from who knows where…
There was a scuffle, and all of a sudden, the guy at the pump started firing.
The glass next to my face exploded, and all I could think about was the woman at my back.
“Son of a bitch!” I cried out, going to my knees involuntarily as something hit them from behind.
I looked down to see Blaise on the ground covering her head and prayed that she hadn’t been hit.
“Get the girl!” someone yelled.
Since I wasn’t sure who that was, I reached out and got her myself, just in case.
Pulling her underneath my body, I covered both her and Blaise, and kept my head up as I made sure I could see what was coming our way.
If anything was coming our way.
But I should’ve had more respect for the men that made up my ‘club.’
They were all very well trained in what they did.
Which meant the man that’d been standing beside his car, the man that obviously had been with the kidnapper, didn’t stand a chance.
“They’re both apprehended,” I heard Laric say. “You can get up now.”
I didn’t. Not for a few long seconds.
Only after I had a few seconds to control myself, my heartbeat and my temper, did I get up, uncovering Blaise and the girl.
That was when I heard the girl crying.
When I got up, Blaise immediately gathered the little girl in her arms.
“Call her parents?” I asked curiously as I stared at the girl’s tear-stricken face.
I should probably feel bad for making her cry, but I didn’t have it in me.
Not right then with how fucking pissed I was.
I slowly stood up to my full height, then reached down and helped Blaise and the girl up—the girl crying harder when I got closer.
As soon as Blaise was steady on her feet, I let her go and then backed away. Again, not for the little girl’s sake, but Blaise’s.
I was seconds away from strangling the life out of her.
God, I was almost shaking with the adrenaline and fear that were still coursing through my body.
“Cops are on their way,” I heard Trouper mutter.
I looked his way to see him kneeling down, wrapping a set of plastic cuffs on the man on the ground.
The man that’d not only shot at my woman and this child, but my unborn baby as well.
I saw red.
I was two steps away from ruining this guy’s life, from fucking him up so bad he never saw clearly again, when Blaise was suddenly in my face.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Absinthe Solomon,” she growled as she glared at me. She no longer had the kid. I didn’t know what she’d done with her, but I was too pissed to look around and find out. “Come with me.”
I ended up dragging her to the side of the building, not the other way around.
Because once I realized I could have a few seconds with her uninterrupted, I was more than on board with that.
The moment we rounded the back of the gas station, the only thing separating us from the chaos in the parking lot was a brick wall and a dumpster, she rounded on me.
“Okay, let me have it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
I looked from her to the door that was cracked open allowing cold air to escape, likely for the employees’ smoke breaks, and then back to her.
That was when I snapped for a second time.
Roughly yanking her toward me by her hair, I slammed my mouth down on hers hard, and then let go.
“Turn around,” I growled.
My voice was so guttural that I barely recognized it.
I. Didn’t. Care.
The moment she turned around, I reached down to her yoga pants—the ones that’d been driving me insane since I saw her in them—and roughly pulled them down over her ass, baring it to me.
She gasped, starting to wiggle away from me when she realized what I was about to do, but I held her firm with her face pressed against the brick of the building.
“Right now,” I growled into her ear as I used my free hand to pull my cock out of my jeans, “I suggest you just let this happen. You struggling is exciting me.”
“We’re in public, Sin,” she whispered as if she was offended. And she might very well be offended.
I didn’t fucking care.
She wasn’t saying no, either, and that was the important part right now.
“Push your pants down a little farther and bend at the waist,” I pushed.
She licked her lips, turning her face so that she could see me, and then did just that.
She had her hands on her hips and she was bending forward when I’d had all I could take.
With one hard thrust, I buried myself inside of her.
There was no resistance at all.
So she wanted it just as much as I wanted it based on the slickness that was now surrounding my cock.
“Oh fuck!” she cried out.
My moan joined her cry as I paused with my cock fully engulfed in her flames.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled as I pulled out and then thrust back inside—just as hard as the last time.
She cried out again, and again, and again.
Letting out an endless stream of cries, I fucked her hard, fast, and into oblivion.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I heard her gasp and chant. “I’m gonna come.”
That was good, because I was going to, too.
She sobbed out one last cry and clamped down around me, leaving me with nothing but my body’s instinctive movements as I came with her.
Hot jets of my release filled her up, and it was only when I was finished that I realized that I’d pressed her into the wall a little harder than I’d intended.
Fucked her a little harder, too.
“Shit,” I said as I pulled away.
Leaving her felt like leaving the warmth of your home on a dreary day.
But leave her I did.
Because that was when the guilt started to rush in for what I’d just done to her, in broad daylight, against a building.
Even the sight of my release running out of her and down the back of her thigh didn’t halt me.
Pulling away, I slowly pulled her panties and pants back into place before tucking myself back into my own pants.
She turned around, her face flushed, and looked at me with wide eyes.
“Shit,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked, then shook her head. “Don’t. That was the single hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
I just shook my head and was about to say something more when I heard, “Yes, Officer. They’re over here.”
That was Laric, talking way louder than he needed to, headed our way.
I caught Blaise’s hand, knew that the officer would know exactly what we were doing over here based solely on the state of Blaise’s hair and the fire in her cheeks, and led her to the two men I could now hear looking for us.
I wasn’t surprised to find them on the sidewalk waiting as if they knew we would hear.
Laric took one look at us and grinned.
The officer looked blank-faced.
“Officer,” I grumbled.
“I’d like to take statements,” he said, looking from me to Blaise. “Starting with yours and how you found her.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and listened to her explain.
“Well, it all started with me seeing her at the grocery store,” she explained. “I saw the two of them in the parking lot. And I remembered the girl’s face from the Amber Alert that went out this morning after I got home from a docto
r’s appointment. So I borrowed someone’s bike and followed them to this gas station. When the man went inside to pay for his gas, I got into the car with the little girl and locked the door.”
“You locked the door,” the officer said, looking and sounding incredulous. “You thought that was the smart thing to do? To get into a potential kidnapper’s car and lock the door?”
“He didn’t take the keys,” she defended herself. “And the back was really, really tinted. I couldn’t even see in when I tried. So I knew that he wouldn’t be able to see me in there. But that little girl was terrified, she looked like the photo that was going around on social media, and I couldn’t just do nothing.”
Bruno sidled up beside me and said, “I hope that you beat her ass later.”
I looked over at him. “Trust me, it’s gonna happen.”
“Like it happened on the side of that building?” he snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I flipped him off. “You’re not going to see it.”
“Didn’t think so,” he murmured as he crossed his arms and listened to Blaise explain the rest of the events that led up to then. Skipping, of course, the sex we’d had against the back of the building.
“Speaking of the back of the building,” Hunt said as he came to stand beside me. “I had to erase about five minutes of tape. They’re going to notice that. But it was better than having you plastered on their television. Apparently, people are dumping trash in their dumpster and they’ve had to set up cameras to catch the culprits.”
I started to laugh. “Whoops. Thanks, man.”
Hunt shrugged. “Guess it could’ve been worse. You could’ve done it where I had to erase multiple camera angles from multiple businesses.”
That was true.
Not that I would’ve cared earlier.
Earlier I’d been in a state.
I’d wanted to kill something.
Yet, Blaise had taken that edge off so now all I wanted to do was some damage.
Just as I was thinking that, a car came barreling into the gas station practically on two wheels.
A woman got out, and then she was running toward us.
“Where’s my baby?!” the woman all but bellowed.
The officer stopped what he was doing to point to an ambulance where another cop was waiting with the little girl.
Kitty Kitty Page 10