30DaystoSyn

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  She inched the zipper down a couple of teeth then…

  The knock came lightly. Three taps. No more.

  He stilled, shook his head to deny the interruption. He was trembling from the force of the desire raging through his body, breathing heavily, and sweat on his forehead.

  Once more the knock sounded at the door. This time five taps—more insistent, louder—then Jono’s embarrassed voice.

  “Bro, it’s important or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Fuck!” he snarled, drawing back his lips as he stared at her.

  She smiled apologetically and pulled the zipper up, buttoned his fly.

  “Bathroom,” he said in a rough tone he didn’t recognize as his own voice.

  He was going to fucking kill Jono. Kicking aside the chair and wishing he hadn’t for he was barefoot, he cursed a blue streak as he limped to the door, viciously twisted the deadbolt handle and jerked the door open.

  “What?” he shouted. “What the fuck, Jono? The city had better be on fire or your ass is grass!”

  “I really am sorry, bro,” Jono said. “But she went to the office. She told them you had asked her to meet you there. In your office.” He looked down sheepishly. “They let her in.” He took a steadying breath then lifted his gaze. “She trashed the place. You weren’t answering your phone and they didn’t know what to do. Someone called the cops and they came and arrested her. She…”

  “What the fuck do I care if they arrested her ass? She can rot in jail for all I care! She sent me there. Karma’s a bitch!”

  “She’s your mother, bro,” Jono said. “Reporters showed up as they were bringing her out. It’s all over the news. She told them you own the brothel where she works.”

  “I what?” he exploded.

  “Someone called down there and found out your name is back on the deed of the condo,” Jono told him. “She’s been using it for…” He shrugged. “You know what.”

  “Sweet Mother of God!” he gasped. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Go,” she said from the bathroom. “Take care of it. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  Wanting to scream with frustration, he spun around and marched over to the chair to retrieve his T-shirt. He didn’t bother with his shoes.

  “I am sorry, bro,” Jono apologized again.

  “Not as sorry as that fucking old bitch is going to be!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Night Seventeen

  Disgusted, she reached for the remote to turn off the TV. The whole sordid circus that was being played and replayed on every news station had become a feeding frenzy. Talking heads were gleefully reporting the mayhem going on in Georgia. It had become the most reported news item in the world.

  “International entrepreneur Synjyn McGregor—a pimp?” the news screamed.

  Her heart went out to the Kiwi and she wished she could go to him, be at his side as he tried to get away from the reporters hounding him. But he had adamantly shot down that notion. He didn’t want the press finding out about her and especially not now.

  Not once had he replied to any of the paparazzi who shoved microphones and cameras in his face. There were pictures of him plastered in newspapers, tabloids and TV. Most videos showed close-ups of a carefully blank face, relaxed posture, but a man in a hurry to escape the sharks circling outside the gates of the subdivision where he lived and his offices—his team of bodyguards firmly pushing away those who got too close.

  But there was the occasional shot of a very angry man with the burning eyes of a demon glaring into the camera. Body rigid, lips tight, fists clenched he looked dangerous and that was the photo every TV station was leading with. That was the picture that underscored the nasty accusations his mother all too happily spouted to anyone who would listen.

  “I am deeply, morally ashamed,” Olivia Hanere had told a major Atlanta news station. “You cannot imagine the horrible things my son has forced me to do over the years in order to have a roof over my head.”

  When asked what those horrible things had been, Olivia had shaken her head, forced tears to her eyes and held up a trembling hand as though to ward off a blow.

  “Please, don’t make me talk about it. It is too shameful.”

  Though his juvenile record in New Zealand had been sealed, his mother gave all the sordid details to the press. That he had burned down the brothel where he had been born and raised—leaving his mother destitute and without a home—and that he had been sent to prison for his crime had become the lead for every news story.

  The phone rang and she rushed to it, picking it up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “I need you,” he said. “Baby, I really need you.”

  “Are you at the…?”

  “No and I can’t risk Jono picking you up. There are reporters following him and Spike. I can’t be sure my phones aren’t tapped. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Meet me where I told you about her. Do you remember where that was?”

  “Yes, I remember. I’m on my way.”

  It was really cold on the river walk. The heavy wool peacoat he was wearing and black knit cap kept away the chill but the wind stung his cheeks. He was shivering but he refused to stay inside the car. He’d always been claustrophobic and considering things were pressing down on him like a ton of dirt even the interior of his car was too much to bear.

  He saw the headlights coming and tensed, hoping it was Melina and not the fucking paparazzi. He’d been hounded by those jackals all day. Another confrontation with another aggressive reporter would push him right over the edge. In one pocket of his coat was a Glock 17. In the other was his permit to carry. He might not shoot the bugger but he would sure as hell scare the shit out of him.

  The moment he recognized her car, he relaxed. He prayed she hadn’t been followed, that no one knew about her yet. He didn’t want to drag her through the maelstrom that had become his life.

  He was leaning against the front fender of his car with his hands in the pockets of his coat and his legs crossed at the ankle. As she turned into the parking spot beside his car, the sweep of her headlights across his face revealed a man who had reached the end of his ability to cope. He pushed away from his car and opened the door to hers before she had come to a full stop. Settling into the seat beside her, he smelled strongly—too strongly—of booze.

  “You’ve been drinking,” she said as she turned off the car and killed the headlights.

  “I think I have a reason to,” he replied.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Well on my way to getting there,” he told her.

  She held out her hand. “Give me your keys.”

  He didn’t protest, just shot out his leg and took the keys from his jean pocket, handed them over them before he rested his head against the back of the seat.

  “Is your car locked?”

  He shrugged. “If a crim wants to steal it, let him. The fucking reporters have my license plate number. Let them follow someone else for a change.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked though she knew his answer before he shook his head. “What can I do then?”

  He swiveled his head on the backrest. “Take me somewhere and fuck me ‘til I drop.”

  She smiled. “Are you speeding up the timetable or are you just blowing smoke up my whang-wang?”

  He laughed—as she knew he would, needed to—and reached for her hand. He brought it over to his thigh and pressed it to him. “Whang-wang? Really?”

  “Your Gigantitron, my whang-wang,” she responded.

  His prolonged laughter was nice to hear. “You are so good for me, woman,” he told her.

  “I aim to please,” she said then gave an exaggerated sigh. “Even though all you do is tease.”

  “Ooh,” he chuckled. “A poet and don’t know it.”

  “No, just a woman very worried about her friend,” she replied.

  “Friend,” he repeated and t
ightened his hand over hers. “Is that all I am to you?”

  “I don’t know what you are to me, Kiwi,” she said. “I don’t know what I am to you.”

  He leaned over to put his free hand to her cheek then laid his forehead against hers. “You are fast becoming everything to me,” he whispered. “The only lifeline I have right now.”

  “You have Jonny and Craig and that woman Spike,” she reminded him. “Not to mention Kit and Jake.”

  “None of whom I want to hold me right now,” he said softly.

  She pushed him away and instantly hurt shifted through those eyes she had once called the saddest she’d ever seen.

  “Melina, I—”

  “It’s cold,” she said, reaching for the key. “I know a little motel out near Chamblee. We can spend the night there.”

  He gave her a look that made her toes curl in her sneakers. “All right,” he said and scooted down in the seat with his head to the window.

  His heart ached as he watched her driving through the night. Passing car lights would touch briefly on her beautiful face to make him want her all the more. Here she was, on the coldest night of the year in North Georgia, well past her usual eleven p.m. bedtime, taking him to a place he wanted desperately to know how she knew of it.

  “About the motel,” he said.

  She flicked her eyes over to him. “No, I haven’t stayed there but I did go to a party there once.”

  “What kind of party?” he asked and winced at the harshness in his tone.

  “You aren’t going to like my answer.”

  “I imagine not but I want it just the same,” he stated.

  “It was a sex-toy party,” she said and he would bet every dime he had she was blushing furiously. Once more she cast her gaze his way. “That’s where I got my—”

  “Crotch rocket,” he finished for her.

  “I’ve never heard it called that before,” she mumbled. “I thought that was a type of motorcycle.”

  “That’s my name for those little button warmers,” he said. “What do you call it?”

  “I don’t call it anything, but Rach calls it a clit flick,” she told him.

  He saw her hands tighten on the steering wheel, flex, then tighten again and grinned. He was embarrassing her.

  “Did you go to CCD every week?” he asked, referring to what was basically Catholic Sunday School.

  Her lips pressed together for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Woman, I’m going to corrupt you…” he said then snorted. “I am so going to corrupt you.”

  “Not if the legs fall off your timetable,” she replied.

  He scratched his chin. “Meaning?”

  “You know perfectly well what it means,” she said. “I’m finding foreplay very entertaining but there is a limit. Tick-tock, Kiwi. Tick-tock.”

  The laugh he provided for her relaxed her hands on the wheel.

  “Pull over,” he said.

  She turned her head toward him. “What?”

  “Pull over on the side of the road,” he ordered.

  “You gotta pee?”

  “Just pull over.”

  There wasn’t a car in sight, the road was dark as soot, but she pulled down on the turn signal and slowed carefully before steering the car onto the shoulder of the road.

  “Watch out for that truck!” he yelled.

  “Where?” she gasped, slamming her foot on the brake. The car fishtailed along the gravel edging the road.

  He shot forward—thankful the seatbelt kept him from going through the windshield—then snapped back in his seat as the car came to an abrupt stop.

  “Shit, woman!” he complained, putting a hand to the strap across his chest.

  “You bastard!” she spat at him and hit him on the arm with the flat of her hand. “That wasn’t funny!”

  “Was to me,” he said and put his arm up reflexively as she swatted at him again.

  “Get out and do what you have to!” she snapped.

  “I can’t,” he said, unbuckling the seat belt.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because what I have to do can’t be done out there,” he told her.

  She was facing him and her eyes widened. “You are not going to piss out the door of my car, Synjyn McGregor!”

  “No, but I am going to do this.”

  He moved across the console and put his hands on her cheeks. He pulled her mouth to his and thrust his tongue into the warm, wet heaven behind her lips. He put everything he had into the kiss. It was a promise, a warning, an omen of what was to come in the weeks ahead. When she moaned, he slid one hand to her chest, pushed his fingers inside her coat, yanked up her sweater and was delighted to find she wasn’t wearing her ever-present bra. He squeezed her breast firmly then closed his fingertips around her nipple, plucked at it until she moaned again.

  “I want you,” he said against her mouth.

  “I want you too,” she replied, her breath ragged.

  “But on my terms,” he said.

  He felt her stiffen and knew the reality of the ad had flitted through her mind.

  “I want it to be special, Melina,” he whispered. “I want you to crave me as I crave you.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Not yet you don’t. I’ve never touched you in the way I need to.”

  He knew he had to give her a taste of what he meant before she would accept the situation so he turned his hand, slid his palm down her waist then cupped her between the legs. She tightened her thighs.

  “Open your legs,” he ordered.

  She did and he stroked her hard through the fabric of her jeans, pressing down on her mound with the heel of his hand.

  “Kiwi, please!”

  He stroked two more times, squeezed her hard, then removed his hand, forcing himself to sit back in his seat although his cock was screaming at him to rip off her clothes and thrust himself into her as hard as he could.

  “Drive,” he said with a growl. “Now, woman. Drive!”

  She stared at him for a moment or two then started the car.

  There was, she thought, a nasty euphemism for women who led a man on but that euphemism fitted the Kiwi to a tee.

  “Cock tease,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “All good things come to those who wait,” he told her.

  “And I told you there was a limit,” she replied.

  The motel was only a few miles down the road but she knew it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be taking her that night. Chances were he’d shot his load as far as foreplay that night. She wouldn’t be the least surprised if he stripped down to his…

  “Are you wearing underwear?” she asked.

  He looked around at her. “Eh?”

  “Are you wearing underwear?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  When she didn’t say anything, she could hear the wheels turning in his feeble mind.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why what?”

  The exasperated sigh that came from him almost made her smile but she was too put out with him to allow it.

  “Why did you ask about my knickers?”

  Okay, she thought, I’m about to kick one of the legs of your timetable, buster.

  “I wanted to know because I assume I’ll be the one going in to register for the room.”

  “Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. “And?”

  “I needed to know if I should get a room with one bed or two,” she answered. “Underwear, one bed. No underwear, two beds.”

  “One.”

  “No underwear, two.”

  “One,” he repeated with a growl.

  “Two. Take it or leave it.”

  She could feel him glaring at her and in the faint glow of the dashboard lights she thought his face looked devilish.

  “Go ahead and waste my money. Get two beds but we’ll only be using one.”

  “That’s what you think,” she said smugly.

  “Woman, that’s what I
know,” he stressed.

  She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. He was going to learn a lesson tonight he would never forget.

  She was eerily silent as she used the old-fashioned motel room key with the big plastic elongated diamond fob emblazoned with the name Tucker Inn. He wondered if she got the same connection to the name that he had and grinned as she opened the door and walked—no, that wasn’t the word. She sashayed ahead of him, drawing his full attention to her sweet little arse. He had the urge to cover those tight little cheeks with his hands and squeeze until she squealed.

  He scowled as he looked around him. The room was as dismal as the outer reaches of the Outback. Orange drapes on the side-by-side windows, avocado-green quilted bedspreads, gold shag carpeting that was straight out of some sixties porn flick. Even the hideous pictures that hung over headboards of the saggy-middle beds bore the unmistakable stamp of fifty years ago.

  “It stinks in here,” he said.

  Not of cigarette smoke, he thought. That would have been preferable. It smelled of stale sex, spent semen and bodily fluids he didn’t want to name. The window air conditioning-heater unit made a low rumbling sound almost like that of an asthmatic succumbing to his illness.

  Walking through to the bathroom, he winced. Cracked tile, sink and bathtubs with rust stains, a fluorescent lighting tube over the sink that flickered and made deadly hissing sounds when he flicked it on added to the dubious ambience.

  “I wouldn’t take a crap in that toilet,” he mumbled. “I’d be afraid to pick up crabs off the toilet seat.”

  “Couldn’t be any worse than the bedbugs, I guess,” she said.

  He looked around at her. “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought it was,” she said as she tossed the room key onto the built-in console between the two beds. “It doesn’t look like much but the woman who owns it keeps it clean. You’re not going to get lice or bedbugs here.”