“I sure did. And Larson?”
“Yeah?”
“I tried to make it up to you. As soon as I was free I rushed to the airport. I envisioned this ridiculous movie- type ending where the hero and heroine make up at the last possible minute…”
“Hrmph.”
I’d imagined the same fucking thing. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“But we didn’t get to have that ending,” she concludes. “I guess life isn’t a fairy tale.”
“We can still have any ending that we want,” I tell her.
“When I got to the airport, you had already boarded your plane. Earlier than the other passengers, it seemed.”
“Damn war medals,” I mutter, under my breath.
“What?”
She half sits up, propping her head on her elbow and looking into my eyes.
“You have war medals?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Just two. Silver Stars.”
“Just two,” she mimics. “Two is a lot, right?”
I shrug, not able to resist smirking a little as I do.
“I knew you were in the Special Ops with the Bradford Brothers,” she says. “Riley told me as much. The pararescue unit, right?”
I nod, impressed that she remembered the specifics. She must be really fucking into me. And I can’t say the feeling isn’t mutual.
“But I didn’t know you were awarded two Silver Stars.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I’m not in the Special Ops anymore,” I tell her.
She nods.
“I’m not in the military at all anymore.”
She nods again. Waiting.
“But I do still work for the military. Kind of. As a private contractor.”
“I see.”
She doesn’t say anything further than that, and I don’t know how to tell her anything further.
“My job is… shady.”
“Is that why you move around so much?”
“I can’t exactly let everyone know where I live and such. I’m hired to do the military’s dirty work. Kind of like Blackwater, if you’ve heard of them?”
“I haven’t heard good things,” she says. “Weren’t they the private contractor company who had to be shut down for doing under the table what the military couldn’t do in public?”
“Something like that,” I tell her. “But it wasn’t exactly shut down. It kind of quietly went away and transformed into the company I work for now.”
“I see.”
“So when people cross government officials or high- ranking officers, or when they’re terrorists or otherwise a threat to the country…”
I’m not sure how to say this part.
“You take care of it,” she says.
“Exactly.”
She’s looking at me, as if knowing I need to tell her more. And I do. I just can’t seem to summon the words.
This is it. The point of no return. I’m falling for her, and falling hard, and this is either going to make us or break us.
She sidles up closer to me, and it makes my cock rock hard.
“They’re really bad guys, Brynn,” I tell her, as my cock brushes up against the side of her body. “So don’t think of me badly. Someone has to deal with them.”
“I know,” she says, straddling me with her legs. “And it’s hot that you take care of our country like that?”
“You really think so?” I ask, relieved. If she’s okay with this part, she might be okay with all of it.
“Can’t you tell?” She grinds on my cock and I hold tight onto her hips.
“I sure can,” I tell her, as she rides me.
“You really are an American hero,” she says.
“As long as I’m your hero, I’m a happy man.”
Chapter 41 – Brynn
I love feeling Larson’s big, swollen cock under me as I ride him. There’s something about Larson explaining his past and his life to me that turns me on even more than I already was for him. Even more than I thought possible.
I can tell that there’s more that he wants to tell me but I need to get my fill of him first. He slips on a condom and slips his cock into me. I bounce up and down on his hard dick, which reaches all the way up inside me and fills me with pleasure.
“Oh my god, Larson, this feels so good.”
I grip his strong shoulders while he grabs my ass. I ride him hard and fast, more into him than I ever have been into anyone. And I can tell the feeling is mutual, as he groans and says, “You’re going to make me come so fast.”
“I’ve needed this so badly,” I tell him.
“I couldn’t wait until to fuck you,” he says. “It’s all I thought about.”
“I missed you,” I tell him, as he pushes his cock even further into me.
“I’ve missed you too.”
I can feel him pulsing and throbbing inside me as we come together. We lay back on the bed, a sweaty mess of naked entangled limbs, and he brushes my now- frizzy hair out of my face and looks into my eyes.
“I love you, Brynn.”
“I love you too.”
We kiss, more passionately and intensely than we ever have, and everything finally feels perfect. As I feel myself drifting off into sleep, I know it’s going to be the first night in a long time I’ve gotten a good night’s rest.
I wake up in the morning to the hotel phone ringing.
I look over beside me to where I think Larson is, but he’s not there. Oh yeah, early riser.
“Good morning,” he says, from the armchair where he’s sitting in his boxers reading USA Today, with some pastries and coffee spread out on the table in frton of him. “I got us some breakfast.”
“What time is it?” I ask him.
“About ten.”
“What?” I sit straight up, embarrassed that I slept so late. “You let me sleep in?”
“I know you need your rest,” he says. “You deserve it.”
“Who could be calling?” I ask.
He shrugs, looking as confused as I am, neither of us expecting a call and knowing of no reason that the front desk would want to talk to us.
I realize my phone has been on silent in my purse all night.
“Do you have your phone on you?”
He shrugs.
“I need to charge it. I think the battery died.”
He half smirks at me and I know he’s thinking of making some remark about not needing to be tied to an asshole billionaire like I am. But luckily he thinks better of it. Because I don’t want to fight with him after what a great night we had last night.
I lean over and pick up the receiver from the bedside stand.
“Hello?” I ask, trying not to make my tone sound as annoyed as I feel at this interruption at the most inopportune moment.
“Ms. Elliot?” asks the hotel desk worker on the other end of the phone.
“Yes?”
Now I’m really annoyed. Just get to the point and let me get back to having Larson profess his love to me.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but there are some people down here in the lobby who say they need to talk to you, that it’s an emergency.”
“What?”
I look frantically at Larson, but he only returns a quizzical look, not knowing what’s going on any more than I do.
“Would you like to speak to them?” the desk clerk asks.
“Yes,” I say, a little hesitantly.
It’s probably Clay or the partners at work and they’re the last people I want to be talking to right now, which is exactly why I hadn’t been looking at my phone. But I also don’t want to lose my job if they need me so urgently as to track me down at the hotel and call me on the room phone.
“Brynn!” exclaims Jensen, once he comes to the phone. “Get down here right away. We’ve been trying to call you. Hurry! Hurry!”
“What’s wrong? I had put my phone on silent because my job is always t
rying to interrupt my personal time…”
“Come down here now please,” he says. “I need to tell you in person.”
Suddenly I’m filled with an overwhelming dread. If normally cool, calm and collected Jensen is this worked up, then something is definitely wrong.
I throw Larson’s clothes in his general direction and start getting dressed, filling him in on what Jensen had told me. He grabs my hand and we head down to the hotel lobby as fast as we can.
“This is bad,” I tell him. “I don’t even know what it is but this is really, really bad and I’m really scared.”
“It’ll be okay,” he says, squeezing my hand tight. “I won’t let anything bad happen.”
When we get down to the lobby, Jensen, Whitney and Monica are there.
“Where’s Caleb?” I ask them. “And Harlow and Ramsey? Did they all stay back with the kids?”
“Larson, we’ve got to go now,” Jensen says, nodding at Larson. “They took the kids.”
“What?”
My legs feel like they’re going to fall out from underneath me.
“Who took the kids?”
“Someone came and got them,” Jensen says. “And Riley too.”
“What the hell?”
I feel like sitting down on the chair before I faint, but I also need to take action. I don’t want to just sit there and do nothing when my baby boy is missing.
“We were outside looking at the snow,” Whitney says. “The boys didn’t have proper winter jackets so Riley had taken them back inside but the rest of us were still outside. Literally just a few minutes passed and we went back inside and they were gone.”
“Gone?” I ask. “Well maybe she took them to the store or something…”
“No,” Whitney says, and hands me a note. “This was in their place.”
I open the piece of notebook paper and it just says:
Neglectful parents have their kids taken by clowns when they’re not watching them.
“What the hell?”
“This is a kidnapping,” Monica says. “I don’t know what those stupid clowns have been up to or why but this is not some stupid prank. This is straight up kidnapping and they are going to go to jail. Ramsey and the others will find them. I promise you that, Brynn.”
“I’ve called the Desert Dogs and they’re scouring the city,” Jensen informs us. “Come on, Larson, we need to go join them. Harlow and Ramsey are also looking for them by car.”
“Oh my god.”
I squeeze Larson’s hand before letting it go, with a mixture of emotions. I want him here with me. But it makes more sense that he’s out there finding my son. And Drew and James and Riley too.”
“I’ll find them,” Larson says, holding me tight. “And I will make them fucking pay. Don’t worry.”
But it’s like telling me not to breathe. Of course I’m going to worry.
“Hurry up and find them,” I tell him. “I’ll die if anything happened to Caleb.”
“Wherever they are, Riley’s with them,” Jensen tells me. “And she won’t let anything happen to them. I know she won’t.”
“Okay,” I say, although it’s small comfort.
Larson and Jensen rush out of the hotel to their bikes waiting outside. I had been thinking that yesterday had turned out to be the best day of my life. But today is already by far the worst.
Chapter 42 – Larson
Fuck these fucking clowns.
I can’t believe they took Caleb. The best little boy in the world. He doesn’t deserve to be fucking scared like this.
I speed off on my bike with Jensen by our side. We meet up with some of the other Desert Dogs but so far they’ve been unable to find the boys or Riley or any of the clowns.
“That was such a cryptic note,” Jensen remarks. “It doesn’t make any sense. We weren’t neglecting our children. We were right there with them.”
“Nothing about these clowns makes any sense,” says another of our members. “They’re just like trolls.”
I know that’s the popular theory, but I think these clowns are after something. I think they’re after me.
I’m going to make them fucking pay.
I can’t believe I told Brynn I love her, but didn’t get to tell her the rest of my story. I need to talk to her and explain what else I think could be happening. But first I need to concentrate on finding Caleb and the others.
“We need to find one of these fucking clowns and make him squeal like a baby pig,” I decide. “Where do clowns hang out? Circuses? Arcades?”
I know my ideas are fucking ridiculous but I have to think of any possibility that I can. I have to do something to find these assholes instead of just literally spinning my wheels.
“Where do they get their costumes?” I ask, thinking back about to what Chad had said at Billy’s earlier. “Everyone go to a different specialty shop and ask around about people buying anything that could be clown wear,” I instruct.
“Good idea,” says Jensen, shaking his head at me as if he’s surprised I ever have any.
It’s not a good idea because Chad told me the stores had stopped selling clown wear. But it’s the best I can come up with at the moment.
We divide up all the local places we can think of that might have seen these clowns.
“Call me if any of you find anything out at all,” I tell them. “I want to be there when we find these fuckers.”
“Sure will, Larson,” the members say, as they each set out in small groups to different areas of the City.
I circle out to the Party City on the West Side, but the manager confirms to me that there have been no clown sightings there and that they stopped selling any clown wear before Halloween.
“I mean, we have your standard variety wigs and colorful outfits and stuff,” he says with a shrug. “I guess someone with some imagination and creativity could throw together something resembling a clown costume. But as far as standard looking clown costumes, nope. We saw what was happening on the news and we didn’t want to be selling anything that could support or endorse that kind of mayhem.”
I thank him and ask him to call me if he sees anything suspicious at all, which are the instructions that all the members of Desert Dogs have been told to ask everything they talk to. I head back to my bike.
Hopefully someone will stumble upon some clues but I don’t think this is the way to find Caleb and the others. I’m sure all the stores will have the standard answers. And the other members have that covered for now.
I need to go check on Brynn as I’m sure she’s a mess. And I need to tell her what I left out of our prior conversation before she hates me forever.
Chapter 43 – Brynn
I want to be out there looking for Caleb with Larson and the others. But first I need to talk to some people. I’m so fucking angry and scared that I can barely think straight.
First off, I need to call Steven. I’m pretty sure he’s behind this because of the way the note was worded. He’s trying to prove me an unfit parent so he can take Caleb and not have to pay child support.
“Hello?” he answers, sounding tired and hungover, like I had woken him up.
He definitely doesn’t sound like he was expecting to hear from me, but I’m not going to let that fool me.
“What did you do with Caleb?” I demand.
“What?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“Caleb?”
He sounds as if he forgot our own son’s name.
“I didn’t do anything with Caleb. What are you talking about?”
Shit.
If for some strange reason it turns out that Steven’s not behind this, I certainly don’t want to give him any ammunition to use against me in court.
But maybe I should tell him. Caleb is his son too, after all.
Maybe it’s a test to see if I tell him or not.
My mind races with all the possibilities and I have no idea what’s going on.
I decide to tell Steven if
Caleb isn’t back within twenty-four hours, at which point I will need to find out if Steven really is involved or at least inform him of what’s happened.
But I can’t go twenty-four hours without finding out if Caleb is okay. I have to find out now. And Steven doesn’t seem like he’s going to be very helpful in any event.
“Nothing,” I tell him.
I need to figure out a good cover for having called him. I hadn’t thought this far ahead.
“I just wanted to know what you mean to do about the agreement,” I ad lib. “I sent you one back.”
It’s true, I had changed almost everything he’d suggested because none of it was fair to me. Or Caleb for that matter. I knew he wouldn’t like it and hadn’t meant to discuss it now but I didn’t know what else to say I was calling about.
“It’s an awful proposal,” he tells me. “I’ve gotten a lawyer. He will be in contact.”
“Steven,” I say, frustrated. “Seriously? You’d rather spend money on a lawyer than on our son?”
“Look Brynn, I tried to tell you, I’m just not interested in being your sugar daddy. You can work with me to get me out of this huge obligation I can’t afford, or you can fight me in court. Or you could always just let me sign away my rights so I’ll be out of your life forever and you won’t have to deal with me.”
“What did you just say?”
My heart is pounding and I don’t know how much more I can take. First I find out Caleb is missing and now I find out that his father thinks so little of him that he wants to just completely give him up.
My poor baby. He doesn’t deserve this.
“You heard me,” Steven says, and then audibly yawns into the phone. “I gotta go. You woke me up.”
I angrily hang up, wanting so bad to say “Fuck off” but knowing it’s futile. I will have to deal with Steven later. Right now I have to find out where Caleb is.
This could be some elaborate scheme on Steven’s part but he doesn’t seem smart enough to pull that off. Plus, now that I think about it, how would he orchestrate clowns to wreck havoc for months in Albuquerque when he’s in New York, only to finally take Caleb now?
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but nothing does right now. All I know is that if Steven is behind this, he’s not letting me in on it. So it’s time to call the next suspect.
Hot Single Daddy: A Second Chance, First Time Romance Page 67