by Vivian Arend
Now she was running off to confront her psycho stepbrother with the gun he had stupidly thrust into her hands. If she got hurt, he would never forgive himself. Hell, if she got hurt, he would probably end up on the pointy end of a knife Marley borrowed from Spider. That friend of Aston's had a sweet, soft gentleness about her, but he had heard the tales of her biological father. If she had inherited even a drop of his bad blood, she would flay him alive for exposing her best friend to harm. He would deserve it.
The moment they had escaped the 1-8-7 crew trying to gun them down, he should have driven her straight to a police station. He should have urged her to file a police report on the stolen car and to say that he had kidnapped her and nearly gotten her shot. They would have taken her into protective custody and kept her guarded around the clock.
But he hadn't done that. He'd dragged her to a brothel, seduced her and then left her with a gun and a promise of his return. Shame roiled in his gut and left him feeling sick with himself. Zec was wrong. He didn't need to stay away from Aston because she was too high profile. He needed to stay away from her because she deserved a better man.
A better class of man. Wasn't that what she had said after she smacked him in his office? She had been right. He was too low class and mobbed up to ever be trusted with a woman like her.
Mercifully, there were no gates guarding the entrance to her neighborhood. Just as he had expected, the mansions here were oversized and sumptuous with their pretentious architecture and manicured lawns. It was yet another reminder that this world of Aston's would never be his anymore than his could ever be hers.
He found her house number and turned down the private drive that angled away from the street. Huge pecan and oak trees provided a thick barrier that shrouded the house. He spotted the Camaro parked in front of her house but didn't see another vehicle. Ben refused to believe her stepbrother had gotten his hands on the Aston Martin. It was nothing more than a ruse to lure her close.
But Calvin had gotten more than he had bargained for with his lure. Ben had given Aston his word. Calvin would never hurt her again.
Even if that meant he had to put her stepbrother six feet underground.
CHAPTER SIX
I realized my mistake the second I stepped into the house. The cold, hard tip of a knife pressed into the soft skin of my throat. I gulped and closed my eyes. So this is how it ends.
"Close the door. Give me your phone."
I did exactly as Calvin ordered and made sure to keep my movements slow and small lest he cut me open with the knife he held to my neck. He didn't frisk me for a weapon. If he had run his hand along my back, he would have felt the rigid outline of the gun hidden there. The layers of my top and jacket concealed it for now.
"Don't think about screaming for Nina and Pedro. They're not here."
My chest constricted with fear for the married housekeeper and groundskeeper who had lived in this house and worked for my family since before I was born. "Did you kill them?"
His laughter made my skin scrawl. "No. I paid a cop to call with a fake report of their son's injury. They're probably hitting San Antonio right about now. So it's just you and me now, sis."
"Lucky me," I said, finally daring to look into his eyes.
He let the point of the knife glide down the exposed skin of my throat until it was nestled between my breasts and pressing against my heart. The long line he had scratched into my skin burned and throbbed. "This might be your luckiest night yet." He dragged the knife along the swell of my breast. "Russ said you didn't scream when he took you that night in the pool house, but I've always wondered if it was the drugs or because you actually liked it."
I glared at him. "Fuck. You."
"Later, sweetness," he said with that evil smile I had come to loathe. "I've always wanted to throw you face down across your beloved Daddy's desk. God, I hope he haunts this place. I'm getting hard just thinking about his ghost watching us."
I swallowed hard as bile rose in my throat. "You are such a sick freak."
"Blah, blah, blah," he intoned in a high-pitched voice while talking with his hand. "Like I haven't heard that from fifty psychologists." He pressed the knife back to the curve of my throat. "Walk. Now."
"Where?"
"The office, obviously," he added tersely. "We're going to open up that big ole safe Jack had hidden behind the bookcase there."
A quiver of panic pierced my belly. "I don't know the combination."
"Don't even try that bullshit with me." He purposely nicked my neck to remind me of my precarious position. "He gave you everything before he died. I know he gave you the combination."
"Not to that safe," I hurriedly replied. "Really. I've tried to open it a million times."
"Well, for your sake, I hope one million and one is your lucky number." The knife dug into my throat even harder. "Walk."
When we made it to my father's office, the one room in the house I hadn't dared touch since his death, he shoved me toward the bookcase. I stumbled into it and narrowly missed hitting my cheek. Righting myself, I found the button hidden along the underside of the panel and pressed it. The bookcase popped away from the wall and swung to the side on hidden hinges to reveal the safe.
"Open it." He pushed me to my knees in front of the keypad.
Lifting shaky fingers to the buttons, I tried to remember all the combinations I had tried since my father's death. My birthday, his birthday, my Social Security number, his, my mother's birthday, the day my mother died, the date of his first marriage, the date of the second to Marjorie—none of them worked. As I considered what Calvin thought this safe contained, it finally hit me. "What was the date of the acquisition?"
"What? Of course!" He grasped my shoulders and flung me out of the way. "Move!"
Before I could react, he had opened the safe and started dragging out armfuls of envelopes and cardboard tubes. He pried the cap off one tube, upended it—and nothing but ashes poured onto the rug. I watched with a mixture of dread and fascination as tube after tube and envelope after envelope yielded nothing but ashes, burnt scraps of paper, crushed flash drives and shredded discs.
Calvin grew more agitated and angry. He cursed a blue streak while dumping out the contents of each package. I couldn't help it. I started laughing. Hysterically.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Calvin demanded as he whirled on me. "You think this is funny?" He slapped a handful of ash in my face. "Is this hilarious to you?"
Wiping ash from my face and certain I must have looked crazy, I nodded. "I think it’s the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Daddy destroyed the one thing you wanted. Even from the grave, he found a way to give you the biggest middle finger imaginable."
"Yeah? You want to talk about graves? Let's talk about my mother's. Do you really think it was an accident that those cupcakes had ground up macadamia nuts in them and that her Epi-Pen malfunctioned?"
My laughter died, and the smile faded from my face. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I killed that traitorous bitch. She married the man who ruined my father's company—"
"Your father ruined his own company."
"Your father was lucky you had so many nurses watching him and that you slept in his room around the clock there at the end," Calvin sneered. "I had the perfect end planned for him." His manic smile returned. "But no matter. Now it's time for my real masterpiece."
He wielded his knife like an expert and flew at me. I scuttled out of the way and slung the closest chair in between us. He tripped over it and hit his face on the floor. When I threw the chair at him, the movement freed the gun tucked into the waistband of my skirt. It hit the floor with a loud thunk.
Calvin snarled and dove for the gun but I got there first. Before I could flick off the safety, he slapped it out of my hands. We scrambled across the floor toward the weapon, our elbows jamming together and our hands smacking. He snatched up the pistol and swung it toward me, but I locked my hands together and used the m
omentum of both arms to hit him in the face. He managed to get a good smack in, but I put both hands against his chin and shoved hard. He tried to bring the gun toward me and almost succeeded—until a big leather boot connected with his head.
My tattooed knight in leather and denim appeared suddenly and miraculously. The kick he landed to Calvin's head dazed my stepbrother long enough for Ben to take him down to the floor. I clambered out of the way, crawling backwards toward the door and unable to look away as Ben used those powerful arms and strong hands of his to throttle Calvin.
Somehow my stepbrother had managed to keep a grip on the pistol. He pointed it toward Ben's head, but Ben blocked it at the last moment. The crack of the gunshot ricocheted off the coffered ceilings and marble floors. I screamed, but Ben proved his prowess in a fight by ripping the gun away from Calvin and pistol-whipping him into submission.
"Aston!"
Shocked by Marley's voice, I glanced at the doorway just in time to see her rush through it. Her eyes widened at the bloody sight before her, but my eyes widened at the sight of Devil running toward her back. He grabbed her by the shoulders and set her aside like one might an unruly child. His long legs ate up the floor as he came to Ben's aid.
When Ben jerked a knife from a scabbard hidden in his boot, I reacted on instinct. "No! Ben! Don't!"
His wild-eyed gaze landed on me. He held the knife to Calvin's neck, ready to slit him wide open. My stepbrother gurgled and coughed as he fought to breathe. The gurgles soon turned to laughter. He was laughing like a hyena, barking with sheer delight and making all of us look at him in horror.
Panting, Ben stated the obvious. "He tried to kill you. He tried to have you raped by his friend. He stole from you. He tried to shoot us both tonight. He damned near kicked off a war with a cartel."
"I know," I said quietly, accepting everything he said as truth. "He killed his mother too. He planned to rape me before he was done tonight."
Ben's expression slackened and then grew fierce like a warrior. "He'll only try to hurt you again. He'll keep hurting other people." Ben brought the knife tight against Calvin's jugular. "He needs to die."
"I know—but it can't be you."
Our gazes held for a tense moment. Ben's jaw worked back and forth. Did he understand why it couldn't be him? Did he understand that I couldn’t bear the thought of Calvin's blood staining his hands forever?
Sitting back on his heels, Ben lowered the knife and glanced at Marley. "Take Aston to her room. Get her cleaned up."
Marley nodded shakily and grasped my upper arm. "Come on, Aston. Let's go."
Clinging to my best friend, I stumbled out of the office. I didn’t dare look back as she led me upstairs. We could hear the low murmuring of male voices—and then there was only silence. We both knew what that meant, but neither of us spoke aloud what we were thinking.
She closed my bedroom door, turned on the light and tugged me into the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror. I had a swollen cheek with a small cut under my eye. The nick on my neck had bled more than I had imagined, and the gnarly scratch was bright red and angry.
"You'll feel better once you're clean." She pushed me toward the shower. "I'm going downstairs to get you something to drink."
"Water," I said, my voice husky.
"And something stronger," she added knowingly. "Food, too. You're bound to get the shakes soon."
As she left and I undressed, I found myself wondering if she had gone through all this after being kidnapped and narrowly escaping an assassin's bullet. Safe inside the shower, I let the hot water rush over my tired body. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Calvin's crazed face. I could hear him telling me how he had killed his mother and how he wanted to hurt and kill me. His manic laughter echoed in my ears.
Footsteps in the bathroom alerted me to Marley's return. With my back to the entrance of the walk-in shower, I asked, "Do you want to stay for the rest of the night?"
"Yes."
I spun around at the low, raspy answer. It wasn't Marley eyeing me like a predator but Ben. He had stripped down to only his jeans and those were quickly whisked away along with his boxers and socks. Joining me in the shower, he cupped my face and lowered his mouth until it brushed mine. He kissed me tenderly and so sweetly that I had to blink away tears. His thumbs gently caressed my cheeks. "Are you all right?"
Figuring he was one of the few people who might understand what I was feeling, I admitted, "I'm relieved, but that's wrong, isn't it?"
He shook his head. "Calvin is rotten. He's psychotic. He's dangerous."
"Is?" I seized on the word. "You didn't…?"
"Not yet," Ben said, reaching for one of the sponges resting in the corner basket. "I refused to dishonor your home in that way. Devil took him."
"Where?"
"I don't know." He lathered up the sponge with my favorite body wash. "You'll never see him again."
"The police?"
"You don't need to worry about that."
Licking my lips, I asked, "Where is Marley?"
"She left a tray in your bedroom. She said she's staying across the hall. Apparently you refused to leave her after she was kidnapped. Now she's refusing to leave you." He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. "You're lucky to have a friend like that."
"I know."
"You're a strange pair, the two of you." He dragged the foamy sponge up my arm, across my back and down the other arm. "You'll have to tell me how a girl from a trailer park and a girl from Royal Oaks managed to become such good friends."
"Tomorrow," I said, enjoying the feel of the soapy sponge gliding over my skin too much.
"All right." He swiped long lines along my back and slow circles on my belly. Eventually, he abandoned the sponge in favor of his hands. I leaned back against the tiles and closed my eyes, relishing the feel of his rough, warm palms moving over my skin. His mouth found mine, and I reacted with the usual heat and need that his touch inspired.
Breaking away, he growled. "I want you."
"So have me."
"No, you just survived—"
"Yes," I interrupted, clasping his face. "I survived. I'm alive. Now help me enjoy it."
That was all the permission he needed. Shutting off the water, he swung me up in his arms and carefully left the bathroom. With anyone else, I would have complained about the watery trail we were leaving, but with Ben I just didn't care. I wanted him. Now.
He put me on the bed so very gently. There was no mistaking the passion blazing in his pale green eyes, but he touched me so softly and with such caution. Certain he was afraid of scaring me, I pushed up on my elbows and captured his mouth with an insistent kiss. A rumbling groan erupted from his throat, and I smiled knowingly.
Interlacing our fingers, Ben trailed ticklish kisses down the side of my face and along my neck. He spent extra time kissing the wounds Calvin had left behind, his sensual touch erasing the bad memories. Down and down he went, his lips pressing here and there and making me sigh with pleasure. He suckled my nipples and grazed his teeth over them, causing me to buck up against his bigger, stronger body.
Chuckling with amusement at my reaction, Ben sought out new ways to make me mewl like a kitten and arch my back. His tongue dragged a zigzag line to my navel and then back to my chest. His hand caressed my belly and hips before sliding between my thighs.
He brushed his knuckles down the seam of my pussy while tormenting my breasts with his mouth. His thick fingers parted my folds. He slid one down to my entrance and found me already wet, but he didn’t penetrate me yet. His fingertips danced around my clitoris, swirling over the swollen nub and making me pant.
Tangling his fingers in my wet hair, he forced me to hold his heated gaze while he carefully thrust one long digit into my slick sheath. He was testing me, ensuring I was ready for him when the time came. A second finger joined the first. His thumb flicked my clit while his curved fingers glided in and out of me. I clenched around his thrusting digits and wished it
was his cock.
He must have been able to read my mind because he carefully pulled his hand away from me. I nearly died when he licked my shiny nectar from his fingers. He grinned at my embarrassment and made my face even hotter when he nuzzled my ear and whispered, "You have the sweetest, juiciest cunt. I could eat you all night and still want more."
Head pounding and dizzy, I clutched at his shoulders when he moved between my thighs. My legs fell open for him in silent invitation. His wolfish, sinful grin made my heart flip-flop in my chest. I moaned with anticipation as he kissed my knees and thighs and dipped his tongue into my navel before sliding between my parted thighs. The fat head of his cock rubbed against my leg and then my lower belly. I trembled as need flared in my core and seared me with its heat.
Wanting to touch him, I grasped his rigid length and marveled yet again at the size of him. He shivered as my hand pumped him from blunt crown to wide base. I let my hand slide even lower to cup his heavy sac. His nostrils flared, and he sent me a promising look. Now it was my turn to grin wickedly. I had no doubt that making love to Ben would eclipse every other experience.
Holding his cock, I guided him into place. His hand settled on the back of my neck just before he breached me. With one long, deliberate thrust, he impaled me. His pale eyes never left mine. I gasped at the sudden invasion, my body unused to anything so big or thick. The concerned expression he wore told me Ben understood. I didn't need to worry. He wasn't going to hurt me.
Fully sheathed in my pussy, he claimed my mouth with languid, lazy kisses. His hips started to move, and he took me with slow, easy strokes. Those skilled hands of his rode my curves, palming my breasts and pinching my nipples before settling on my waist. I couldn't stop touching him either. My greedy hands moved over his tattoos. I wanted to know all the stories behind the symbols he had chosen to forever mark his body. One night with Ben was never going to be enough.