Rebel Love (Kings of Corruption Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  But it had been something new, too.

  She’d been as curious as ever, and his cock hardened when he thought of her wrapping her mouth around him, enveloping him in her heat as she sucked and licked until he’d had to roll her under him. Until he’d driven into her without preamble, desperate to prove that she was still there. To look in her eyes while he joined his body with hers. To see what he’d seen there the first time — the same need and love that had welled up inside him the moment he’d seen her outside Bolton’s.

  It had been too much to hope for, and yet he’d seen it in her eyes. Had felt it in the way she’d given herself to him even after he’d told her everything. He couldn’t help feeling euphoric at the knowledge that this time, there was nothing between them.

  He was opening the brown paper around a package of butcher-cut bacon when his phone buzzed on the counter. He leaned over, his movements slowing as he read the Breaking News Alert.

  Malcolm Glover, CEO of Bolton’s Corporation, under investigation for alleged embezzlement at EnerCom Corporation.

  He set down the bacon and walked around to the dining room table, then opened his laptop to the New York Times. The news was still breaking, details scarce.

  Malcolm Glover, former CEO of EnerCom, is the subject of an embezzlement investigation, anonymous sources in the FBI say.

  Glover, who has been a member of Fortune’s 100 for the past twelve years, has a controversial reputation as a hard-dealing executive with a no-holds-barred approach to creating profit for shareholders. He has been CEO of Bolton’s Corporation since his resignation from EnerCom last year.

  This story is still developing.

  “Coffee smells good.”

  He looked up to see Elle padding across the living room on bare feet, one of his shirts hanging almost to her knees, hair tousled around her perfect face.

  “What is it?” she said as she approached, her eyes on his laptop. “You look like you’re in shock.”

  “Actually, I’m not surprised at all.” He patted his thigh and she slid onto his lap, her eyes scanning the article.

  “Has he been arrested?” Elle asked when she was done reading.

  He shook his head. “Sounds like a leak from the FBI. They’ve probably been investigating him for awhile.”

  “But this is good, right?” she said, looking at him. “This means they’re going to get him.”

  “Not necessarily. They have to have enough proof to stand up in court.”

  She tipped her head. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I’m telling you everything I know,” he said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

  “But there’s something else,” she said. “I can see it on your face.”

  He rubbed the five o’clock shadow at his jaw. “I can’t help thinking about Mexico.”

  “About his possible ties to human trafficking there?” she asked.

  “Not just that,” Locke said. “According to air traffic control records, he’s been visiting his estate there more frequently. Between that and the liquidation of so many of his assets over the past year…”

  “You think he’s going to run,” she said.

  “It makes sense,” Locke said. “FBI investigations don’t come out of nowhere. Glover might have seen the writing on the wall when he left EnerCom.”

  She turned to him. “So what do we do now?”

  He caught a hint of her scent — sandalwood mixed with salt and sex. He shifted a little to tamp down his hard-on, torn between feeding her and fucking her. He tried to focus on her use of the pronoun “we” instead. On the fact that it might really mean she was with him even after everything he’d learned.

  He let her slide off his lap as he stood, patting her ass as he moved into the kitchen to pour her a cup of coffee. When he had the steaming mug in hand, he returned to the dining room and handed it to her.

  “Now we go to Mexico.”

  21

  Elle looked out the window as they banked over a canopy of trees, the Caribbean a saturated, surreal blue through the helicopter’s window on her right. For a moment, they were suspended at an incredibly steep angle, and she looked over at Locke, piloting the machine next to her, to see if he was nervous. She relaxed when she realized his expression was as serene as it had been when they’d lifted into the air in Tijuana just over California’s southern border.

  She returned her attention to the scenery on the other side of the glass, marveling at all the things she’d learned about him since his confession on the terrace five days before. It had been a whirlwind since then, one she’d eagerly stepped into after her surprise at his invitation to Mexico had worn off.

  She’d dismissed it at first. She couldn’t just leave, she’d argued. What about the store? What about…?

  That’s when she’d realized there was precious little keeping her in San Diego. She’d been living for the store since college, for the possibility of rebuilding her parent’s legacy. She hadn’t even bothered to ask what was next once the dream was fulfilled.

  After five glorious days with Locke, she was beginning to realize her oversight. She’d traded hurried mornings at the gym for hours spent with his hands and mouth marking the parameters of her body, coaxing it back to life after its long hibernation. Her hours alone at the store were spent smiling and humming as she relived their moments together, the way he looked at her like she was the sun, moon and stars.

  The way she felt like the sun, moon, and stars when she was with him.

  Instead of dreading eight o’ clock when the store closed, she’d anxiously counted down the hours, knowing she would see the silver Acura pull up to the curb. Would see Locke, golden and beautiful, step onto the sidewalk and into the store, the smile on his face making it clear he’d been counting down the hours, too.

  She’d been concerned about telling her mother, both about Locke and about Mexico. She shouldn’t have been. Her mother had only smiled, wrapped her arms around Elle, told her to go where her heart led. She’d been more than happy to manage the store in Elle’s absence, had encouraged Elle to go. To have her own adventure for a change instead of reading about everybody else’s.

  “Almost there.”

  Locke's voice sounded through the headphones around her ears, and she looked over to see him smiling at her. She smiled back and looked down as a sprawling estate came into view just ahead of them.

  It seemed to rise out of the jungle, a broad lawn bridging the gap between the surrounding forest and the house that rose up out of the trees. The structure had a relatively small footprint, although it looked to be cantilevered on three levels of a granite hill that sloped over the beach.

  Locke circled the house, and she saw that there was a helipad at the top of a rooftop that had three levels. An open-air tower that rose even higher than the helipad stood next to it, a steeply pitched thatched roof covering the rest of the structure.

  The helicopter stabilized, the rotors beating out a rhythm as it hovered over the helipad, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach as they descended directly over the circle on the top of the roof.

  Less than minute later they landed with a gentle bump. The engine whined as Locke turned it off, the rotors slowing until the sound gradually stopped altogether. He took off his headphones and reached over to gently remove hers.

  “What is this place?” she asked, peering though the helicopter’s windshield.

  He grinned. “It’s my place. One of them anyway. Hold on and I’ll help you out.”

  His words echoed through her mind as he stepped out of the helicopter and made his way around to her side.

  One of them anyway…

  The last few days had been full of revelations like that one. Revelations that made it clear that while Locke might have told her his biggest, possibly deal-breaking secret, there was still a lot to learn about the man she’d once known as well as she’d known herself.

  Her door opened and Locke appeared in the opening, his hand ext
ended. She took it and jumped out of the helicopter, stepping into the warm, briny air. The smell of salt was familiar, laced with the scent of lush foliage that surrounded the house. She wondered if any of Locke’s properties were far from the sea. It was hard to imagine. He’d always seemed to be part of the water, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find him sculpted out of sand, salt water running through his veins like Neptune himself.

  He led her away from the helicopter toward a set of metal stairs that descended from the helipad to another rooftop patio just below it.

  “What about our bags?” she asked.

  “They’ll be brought in,” he said. “I’ll show you the house while we wait.”

  She looked around, expecting to see someone hurrying for the helicopter, but the area was empty, the waves rushing onto the beach below the only sound.

  They stepped off the staircase onto the second rooftop level. She took in the row of lounge chairs, the patio heaters, the retracted umbrellas designed to shield one from the sun, though she couldn’t imagine Locke ever wanting to that.

  He was made of the sun.

  “You can sunbathe up here anytime,” he said. “There’s an intercom so you don’t have to go to the kitchen if you need anything.”

  They walked across the patio to another set of stairs and continued downward to a third deck outfitted with a long, rustic table and twelve chairs, a gourmet grill and kitchen area, complete with a sink, faucet, and refrigerator.

  “I eat out here sometimes when it’s warm,” he said. “The sunsets are impossible to describe.”

  “I’m sure. It’s gorgeous.”

  She forced the words from her mouth trying to sound impressed, but sadness had crept into her chest, compressing her heart like a vise. She knew even without seeing the rest of the house that it would be impressive, could tell that Locke had put a tremendous amount of thought into the property and its furnishings.

  But all she saw was loneliness.

  I eat out here sometimes when it’s warm…

  As if he always came here alone. She suddenly wished she could take back her earlier jealousy at the thought of someone else warming his bed. Better that than to accept what she was now beginning to understand: he’d been alone all this time.

  Maybe he’d slept with women. Certainly he’d slept with women.

  But he hadn’t been able to share his life with anyone. Hadn’t been able to share all the beautiful things he’d come to own or the work he did to make the world a better place for people who didn’t have anyone to fight for them.

  The thought made her unspeakably sad. She would gladly have traded her jealousy at knowing he’d had someone for the image of him so alone.

  They continued down one last staircase to a wide portico open on all sides. A large swimming pool sat in front of it, the ocean rolling onto the sand beyond it. Trees rose high on one side, giving her the feeling of being in a treehouse, birds tittering in the branches high above their heads. To the other side, the lawn she’d seen from the air stretched toward more tropical woods.

  “I don’t use the pool much,” he said. “But it’s here if you want it.”

  She wasn’t surprised. Locke would never choose a chlorinated pool over the wilds of the ocean just feet away.

  He led her through an open wall with more of the glass doors she’d become familiar with at the house in La Jolla. They were folded back, almost disappearing into the walls, creating an open living space that felt like it was suspended in the trees over the water.

  The tiled living area was open to a gourmet kitchen, and they passed through the expansive great room and headed for a winding staircase with an elaborate railing that led to the floors above.

  “I’ll take you to our room so you can get settled,” he said.

  They wound their way upward and spilled onto a large open landing with a view of the living area below, the portico and the pool beyond it. He led the way down a wide hallway with doors on either side, a window running from floor to ceiling at the end of it, making it look like they might continue walking right into the trees. He stopped when they got to the end of the hallway and they stepped through a set of double doors into a massive suite.

  The room was light and open, with a steeply pitched ceiling that rose at least twenty feet overhead. She thought of the thatched roof she’d seen from the air and realized that while the house had been designed to blend into the surroundings, there was nothing rustic about its construction.

  The master suite was the size of her entire apartment in San Diego. The space was clean and spare, dominated by a large iron canopy bed hung with sheer white draperies and stacked with thick white linens. The modernity of the white walls and iron bed was offset by thick wood nightstands and a seating area upholstered in blues and greens that mimicked the sea and sky beyond open terrace doors.

  “There’s an en-suite bathroom behind those doors,” Locke said, gesturing to a set of frosted doors on one side of the room. “Feel free to shower or take a bath. You should find everything you need.”

  “How did our bags get here?” she asked, her gaze coming to rest on her suitcase, already sitting on a luggage wrack near a knotty pine wardrobe twice the size of her closet at home.

  “I have a staff.” He almost seemed embarrassed by the admission. “It’s necessary to keep the house in order while I’m gone, but they keep a low profile. I like my privacy.”

  She looked around, a little stunned by the display of wealth. It was one thing to own a seaside mansion worth millions; it was another to own multiple seaside mansions worth millions. And she knew from his earlier comment that even this was probably the tip of the iceberg.

  She was surprised when he came up to her, held her face in his hands, looked at her with concern in his amber eyes. “I”m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure this is a little overwhelming.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she said. “I’m just surprised.”

  He smiled a little. “Just consider me another lucky beneficiary of the technology revolution.”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing lucky about you, Locke. You made this. You shouldn’t apologize for it.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “I just want you to be comfortable.”

  She slid her hands around his neck. “You’re here. I’m comfortable.”

  The words seemed to unleash something in him, and he kissed her more passionately, his tongue slipping into her mouth, sparking the desire that had been smoldering 24/7 since he’d made love to her that first night at the house in La Jolla.

  She passed her body to his, molding herself to him as his tongue swept her mouth, his cock pressing into her belly, forcing a wave of heat between her thighs.

  He pulled away a moment later, touched his forehead to hers. “I’m going to get out of here before I forget all the other stuff I have to do in favor of taking you to bed.”

  She smiled. “Is anything more important than taking me to bed though?”

  He groaned, kissed her quickly before stepping away. “You are a temptress, Elle Matheson, just like always. I’m going to do some work outside.” He turned around when he got to the door, like he didn’t trust himself to look at her until he’d reached a safe distance. “Why don’t you get settled and join me? We’ll go to dinner in town tonight.”

  She sighed dramatically. “If you insist.”

  “I’ll make it up to you later.” He grinned. “I promise.”

  The shiver was still running up her spine when he closed the door behind him.

  22

  Locke spoke to Theresa, the woman who ran the house in his absence, and checked in with Hector, his head of security. They went over the expenses and an incident involving a drunk tourist who’d turned up at the gates after he’d gotten lost on his way out of town. Two hours later Locke was making his way to the panic room hidden on the ground floor.

  It was hidden behind a bookshelf in the den, and he silently thanked his former self
for adding it when he’d had the house built. It had seemed foolish at the time; there was no one in his life he would have dreamed of bringing to Tulum — to any of the houses he kept as potential escape measures around the world. It had seemed foolish. Worse, it had seemed like he was jinxing himself. Like he was letting the universe know his deepest, darkest desire, risking that it would never grant him love again out of spite.

  But that wasn’t how things worked. He’d known it intellectually, and now it seemed like the universe was giving him forgiveness. Not only had he found love, but he’d found it with the one person who’d taught him what it meant all those years ago.

  The one person who completed him.

  He moved the bookcase aside and worked the combination on the steel door. It swung open, and he stepped into the room.

  It was spacious for a panic room, but that’s because it also held his weapons and comms room. It hadn’t made sense to separate them; if ever anyone breached the property he would want whoever was sheltering here to see them coming — and to be able to fight them off if it came to it.

  He moved into the room, past the row of monitors that showed the security cam feeds from around the property, past a wall of weaponry that would easily outfit a small army. At the back of the room stood shelves of other equipment, and he let his eyes skim the shortwave radio, listening devices, tiny recorders, and scrambling devices until they came to rest on the smallest of the drones he’d collected for just such an occasion.

  He picked it up, grabbed an iPad from the shelf, and exited the room, closing the steel door behind him and moving the bookcase back into place.

  He exited through one of the doors on the ground floor and stepped onto a small patio before crossing to the lawn. The grass was springy under his feet, and he looked up, following the birdsong to the canopy of trees beyond the landscaped perimeter. Of all his retreats, the Tulum, Mexico house was one of his favorites. He’d always assumed this is where he’d retire if and when the day came that he was forced to make an escape — or in the unlikely event that he wanted to throw in the towel on his operation.