“You can be alone. That’s fine.” I watched her face fall and then squeezed her hip. “Alone with me. I’ll help you get over it.”
“You can barely stand.”
“And? Do you want to spend the next few days at your house or my house?”
“What? What do you mean?”
I sighed as another wave of nausea swept through me. “We’re probably going to be getting sick together at one of the two places. I just wanted your opinion.”
Sonnie made a horrified face and backed away, but she stopped to brush her fingers over my forehead. “I’m a child of divorce now. This won’t be easy.”
Fuck, I wanted to kiss her. She was funny and everything good that I’d always wanted. She was also sexy as hell and I had plans for us as soon as we were both feeling better.
“I don’t want easy.”
Then I dropped my head back over the toilet and threw up again.
PART TWO
Chapter 1
Elizabeth
I was staring down the barrel of a white guy with an Ed Hardy T-shirt on. The barrel being his mouth, of course. There was no way I was getting anywhere near the other barrel. I’d never met a man in Ed Hardy who didn’t shave his downstairs hair into something that looked like a spaceship from Galaga. Complete with the little bullets shooting out, of course. No, thanks.
Mr. Hardy was talking with his mouth extra open. I’d never seen anything like it. Ever. At any of the clubs I’d ever been to. It was like he was trying to eat every word he spoke and he just couldn’t catch it in time. He also rubbed his crotch every two sentences. It was distracting and I was pretty sure he thought I was checking his package out, so he kept wagging his eyebrows at me like every weird uncle at the family picnic for all of time.
I looked over his head and spotted my best friends Sammie and Devon pointing and laughing at me. Scowling, I straightened to my full height of six feet, thanks to a good pair of heels, and put my hand on Mr. Hardy’s shoulder.
It was wet. Not damp, but actually wet. Dripping. I pulled my hand back and forced a smile. “I’m sorry. I just saw my friends heading towards the exit and I can’t let them leave me. It was nice to talk to you.”
He might’ve said something, but I was across the club as fast as my knock-off Manolos could carry me. I stopped for long enough to grab Sammie and Devon and then we were out of there. Once we were in the street, the chilly night air instantly sobered me up slightly.
“I feel bad. Should I have been nicer?”
Sammie giggled in the cute way that she did when she was tipsy. “He pretended to spank you when you turned to put your drink down.”
“No, then. I should’ve shoved my foot up his ass. What a jerk!” I shook my head and looked up to see where we were. First and Freidman. Close enough that I could go back to the office and get my phone. “Hey, I’m cutting over to the office. I left my phone earlier. Want to come?”
Devon rolled his eyes. “Like I want to go back there. It’s Friday and the weekend is just starting. I’m going to this little place on Seventh. There’s a bartender there whom I would love to climb.”
“I have to get home to Daniel. I could come with you if you need me, though.”
I grinned and opened my little handbag to reveal the taser I kept there. “I think I can handle getting to the office alone. Plus, it’s totally out of your way. Go home and have fun with your hubby.”
“Some of us have all the luck.” Devon pouted. “Let us know if you ever get tired of that fine husband of yours.”
“If she gets rid of Daniel, you’ll have to fight me for him. He cleans. He cooks. He likes going down on his woman. He’s the perfect man.”
Sammie blushed and stuck her arm out to catch a cab. “He is perfect and he does love doing that. Who am I to keep him from what he loves?”
“Goodnight, ladies! I’ve got a bartender to see.”
“Considering my only option for a little loving tonight is wearing an Ed Hardy T-shirt and probably has crabs, I’m going home after I grab my phone. Have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Sammie leaned her head out of her cab after climbing in. “I thought crabs were like extinct or something?”
Devon jogged across the street but his laugher could be heard clearly. “Go home to your faithful man and leave the STDs to us single folk.”
I scoffed and started walking, keeping up with Devon and the cab carrying Sammie. “I do not have an STD.”
“Not yet. There’s still time to try new things and live a little!”
Sammie’s cab sped up and she stuck her head out and looked back at me, her hair flying around her head like crazy. “You should set up a dating profile. My cousin, Betty, met a great guy from Oklahoma!”
I laughed, even as both of them were too far away to respond to. It put a smile on my face as I walked the rest of the way to the office. It’d been a shitty night. One dud after another had approached me and most of them hadn’t been nice after getting turned down. I’d been called names and one guy had even snatched back the drink he’d given me. Maybe the dating profile wasn’t such a terrible idea.
The Stelton Firm was downtown and one of the three tallest buildings in town. When I’d first started working there, I’d been proud to say that I worked at the top of the top. Scoring a secretarial job for one of the presidents had been a fluke and I was lucky to be out of my Cousin Joe’s office. Doing office work for a bail bondsman wasn’t nearly as exciting as working on the top floor of the Stelton building.
I stared up at the massive building as I approached and was glad to see most of the lights were off in the sea of windows overhead. I never stayed late or came back to the building after dark, so I didn’t want to run into anyone who’d be curious and want to talk to me. Being slightly drunk and dressed for going out, I wasn’t at my finest. I also didn’t want to let it slip that I’d been so eager to get my phone because I wanted to set up a dating profile.
I let myself into the massive ground-floor entrance and caught sight of Greg, one of the security guards. He was manning the guard desk closest to the elevators and he’d already spotted me. I wanted to take the elevators, but not more than I wanted to avoid Greg’s slimy pick-up attempts. I flashed a wave to him and took a quick left, through the door marked private and down a narrow hallway to the private stairway that went up to the executive’s wing on the top floor.
Within three floors, I knew I’d made a mistake. I should’ve dealt with sleazy Greg’s come-on attempts and then had a plush ride up in an elevator. I leaned against the handrail and rested for a second. My feet were killing me. In four-inch heels, my toes were being crushed and I felt like I was getting a blister on my ankle. I was thinking of the four flights I had to climb once I got home to my building, too. Did I really want to climb so many flights of stairs in one day? I had an image playing in my head of my rear view with absolutely no ass.
Another two flights and I kicked my shoes off. I counted on grabbing them when I came back down. By the time I reached the top floor, I was panting, covered in a sheen of sweat, and I’d also dropped my coat and purse on the stairwell. In just a tight black skirt and a silky red blouse, I leaned against the door leading to the executive wing and caught my breath. On the off chance that I opened the door and one of my bosses was there, I didn’t want to look like I was running from a serial killer. Not that the missing shoes and a jacket would instill confidence, but still. A girl had to have her lines.
I pulled open the door as quietly as possible. The other security guard, Henry, could be walking around somewhere, and I didn’t want him catching me, either. I rolled my eyes even as I thought about that. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. I just needed to grab my phone from my desk.
Closing the door just as silently as I’d pulled it open, I tiptoed down the hallway. The floor was lined with thick carpeting, so any sound I made was blanketed. It didn’t stop me from creeping around like a cat burglar, though.
I was so preoccupied with any sounds that I might make that I hadn’t noticed that there were other sounds reaching my ears until I was right on Helena Stelton’s secretary’s office. The door was open and it made me freeze with the idea of someone being just on the other side of it. Suddenly, I really felt as if I was a thief in the night and I’d broken into the building to steal all of the company secrets. I felt like I was a breath away from losing my job and being thrown in the hokey.
I realized I was drunker than I’d previously thought at the same moment I realized that the sounds I was hearing were oddly familiar, yet so out of place that they seemed foreign. I was hearing the moans of a woman in the beginning stages of bliss.
Not that I’d recognize those sounds from my own bedroom. It was as dry as the Sahara in my bedroom. Ugh. I really needed to get my phone and find a dating app. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d find a man within the week and there’d be rain in my future. A girl could hope.
Back to reality, I connected the sounds I was hearing with where I was. Was Helena’s secretary hooking up in her office? The quiet little woman was so demure that I couldn’t believe it. Yet there it was.
Dropping to my knees like the true creep I was, I crawled closer to the doorway and was about to peek around when I heard the muffled sounds of a man and then a loud thud.
Dropping back, I put my hand over my heart, finding it racing under the silk of my top. What the hell was that? That thud echoed in my head but then the moans picked up again and I leaned forward, unable to keep away. I needed to know who was in there. Peering around the doorway, I got an eyeful. It was way more than I ever thought I’d see, that was for sure.
Spread out on sweet little Brenda Hum’s desk was Helena Stelton, the owner of the Stelton Firm. She was dressed in some serious leather with her legs spread. In her hand, extended high, was a leather strap connected to the neck of the man in her lap. Even with the tanned thighs wrapped around his head, the back of Paul Porter was easily identifiable. Tan neck, thick hair, muscled. Paul was probably the only man in his late thirties that still thought of himself as the high school football star.
He was shirtless, pantless, and had a tail. Not like a born-with-a-tail kind of tail, but a something-stuck-in-his-butt-with-hair-on-its-end kind of tail.
I jerked back and pressed my back against the cream-colored wall. Everything around me was so muted and elegant, but the vision in my head was so dark and graphic. I blinked a few times and shook my head, trying to clear it.
As the cries reached a crescendo from inside the office, another sound reached my ears and sent me scrambling away. Deep, guttural cries from the man buried in Helena Stelton’s crotch. Only I couldn’t tell if they were pleasure or pain. All I knew was that they were haunting. I pulled myself to my feet and hurried away.
Fuck the phone. I had to get the hell away from there before Helena caught me watching her. I opened and closed the doorway to the stairwell quietly and then hurried down the stairs, gathering my things as I went. By the time I reached the bottom, I was giggling.
While the style and sounds of their sex had threatened to traumatize me, the fact that they were having it wasn’t wasted on me. The owner of the company and the salesman from the second floor were screwing in poor Brenda’s office. They’d spilled candle wax all over her rug, too. I tried to imagine Brenda’s face upon entering her office the next morning and snorted as I pushed open the door and cast another wave at Greg before hurrying out onto the street.
I needed to tell Sammie and Devon. It was the kind of thing that they would die to know. I was dying to tell them. Paul was the biggest asshole in sales and Helena was as cold as they came. Paul was also the easiest person to hate in the whole building. Sammie, Devon, and I were basically members of the I Hate Paul Porter Fan Club, and seeing him on his knees like that was the ammunition we needed to feel giddy at every Paul sighting for the rest of the year and into the next.
I hailed a cab because my thighs were burning like all hell, and wiggled in my seat as I waited for my building to come into sight. I reached in my purse to pull out my phone when I remembered that I hadn’t grabbed it.
Swearing, I closed my purse and settled back in the worn leather seat. I wanted to tell them so bad, but it’d have to wait until the morning.
“You okay, lady?”
I puffed out a sigh. “No. I left my phone at work.”
“You people and your phones. Live without it for a little while and see what the world has to offer.”
I waved him off. “Yeah, yeah—that’s why I need my phone. The world just offered me up a whole lot and I need to tell someone about it.”
“I’ll never understand you kids.”
Flattered, I still couldn’t help correcting him. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty in ten months and fifteen days. Not exactly a kid here.”
He shook his head. “Even worse.”
I barely resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him and just kept my mouth shut. Just like I’d have to do until the next morning.
Chapter 2
Branson
Five a.m. My alarm clock went off the same as it did every morning. I’d already been awake for an hour or so. It was hard to sleep when I could still hear the screams coming from my backyard. It’d only been a few days since Sonnie almost died back there. Almost strangled to death.
I rolled to my side and grabbed my phone. Sliding my thumb across the screen, I turned the alarm off and checked my messages. Nothing. The rest of the world was still asleep and wasn’t concerned with getting in touch with me. Not that I could blame them.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It felt like there was grit behind them. Moving around my room in the dark, I stopped at the window and looked out back. She’d been right there on the grass, between the treeline and my back porch. I’d been asleep. I was having the same nightmare I always had.
Late night. Some desert town in the middle of fucking nowhere. My team moving through the night with Luke leading us. Then, everything going to shit. Guns going off. Screaming. Commands being shouted even as Luke took his last breath. The bomb going off. Pain.
I turned away from the window and headed to the bathroom. I didn’t like to think about the night that all hell broke loose. My brain liked to go over it again and again, though, so my nightmares were frequent. I had a feeling the sound of Sonnie’s screams would be a part of the nightmare from now on.
I finished in the bathroom and headed to the gym I’d set up in the den. I stretched and then jumped on the treadmill, jogging first and then moving into a run. I pushed my body and slowly focused on my breathing and where my feet were, instead of on Sonnie.
Just like every morning, I worked out for almost an hour, pushing my body to its limits, and then took a shower and got dressed for the day. I was just climbing into my truck when I got a call from the Black Dog Security office.
I jabbed at my phone and answered the call. “Branson.”
Lauren’s voice came through the line, tense as was the norm lately. “We’ve got to get everyone in today to talk about this shit with Mercer. And I’ve got a case that I think you’re going to get.”
I started my truck and put it in gear. “I’m on my way in now. What’s the job?”
“I’ll tell you about it when you get in.” She hesitated. “Have you talked to your guy at the precinct?”
“I put a call in, but he hasn’t called me back yet.” I drove down the dirt road that led from my house and lifted a finger in a wave to my only neighbor. “I’ll call him again this afternoon and try to get somewhere.”
She sighed. “I’m worried.”
“He didn’t do anything, Lauren. They can’t pin anything on him because he didn’t do anything, so it’s fine.” My hand tightened on the steering wheel. My contact at the police department had never taken so long to get back to me. It wasn’t a good sign.
“You have too much faith in cops, Branson. The joy of having led a life on the right side of the
law, I guess.”
I smiled at her attitude. No one would ever guess, but there’d been a time that she was a hellion and had given everyone a run for their money. She’d also given her older brother so many near heart attacks that he’d wanted to kill her multiple times.
“This will all pass over. Mercer doesn’t need you worrying yourself to death.”
“Someone has to fucking worry. None of you assholes ever do.” With that, she hung up.
I shook my head and tossed my phone in the seat beside me. Driving into Black Dog, I couldn’t help but think about Mercer ending up in jail. Thinking of every possible scenario was part of being a SEAL. I couldn’t not think about Mercer ending up in jail. It wouldn’t be good.
Mercer had been a prisoner of war for a while. Thanks to some fucking assholes in some shithole country, he could be incredibly claustrophobic. The idea of putting him in jail freaked me out, rightfully so. He stood a real chance of snapping.
I pulled into the back parking lot of the office a little bit later and spotted Black Dog lounging next to the back door. Black Dog, the stray dog that Luke had claimed and taken care of, was the namesake of the business. He came and went as he pleased and when he was around, he was more than willing to take the spoiling that Lauren gave him.
Walking by the big dog, I reached down and patted his head. “Good boy.”
He looked at me with an eerie amount of knowledge in his light-brown eyes and wagged his tail. I lost his attention right after to a bowl of food.
I headed inside and found Lauren in the large back room with Mercer, Vince, and Tucker. It was jarring to see Tucker so early in the morning and the finger he flipped said he knew I was thinking of how much of a bum he could be.
“Cooper will be here in a few minutes. We have to talk about this new job and set up a schedule.” Lauren was right to business, as usual. She kept Black Dog Security running and all of us men in check. It wasn’t an easy job, I was sure.
Black Dog Security- Complete 5-Part Series Page 16