Her tears wrecked me, mostly because there was nothing I could do. I felt disabled. I couldn’t wrap my arms around her for fear I’d give her the wrong impression that I wanted a relationship. I feared we’d fall madly into each other’s arms… and destruction would follow. I couldn’t tell her that I was in love with her because then, what if she wanted more – and more led to her death, too? I was afraid of committing, yes, but it was so much more than that. I harboured so many pent-up feelings of guilt over Daltrey, I didn’t think I deserved her love.
“Oh, Dante,” she whispered in the attic room, drawing me from my reverie, her face snug between my arms. She ran her nose through my chest hair and sighed and I smiled to myself every time she did. It was the little things combined which had made me fall hard. It was also her undeniable zest for life, her innocence and her alpha female strength, too.
Oh, it was the delicate female touches she put to the house in Knightsbridge. She once put up a love heart on the kitchen wall which said, Someone really, really loves you… you just have to find them. A few things like that I’m sure were signals… hints of what she really wanted from me – things I was frightened to give.
I’d always loved everything about her, which made me controlling, demanding and desperate. I wanted to devour her, like she devoured me.
Her soft breasts rubbed against me as she wriggled in sleep and I was half a hand span away from taking my cock in my fist and tugging out a load she’d nearly dragged from me earlier, but hadn’t.
“You drive me crazy, Ciara,” I whispered.
“Baby, don’t go,” she whispered sleepily.
“Where would I go? I’m going nowhere. Absolutely nowhere, darling.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
My libido raged when she snaked her leg over my legs and around my hip. Lifting her head, she mumbled, “Somebody’s hard.”
“Don’t toy with me, Ciara. I’ve still got the taste of your sweet pussy on my lips.”
She rolled right on top of me, some sort of fire back in her eyes. “Always with the light on, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I fucking am.”
I rocked my ass off the bed and rolled her over, pinning her instantly beneath me. Reaching between her legs, she was as smooth and damp as I needed her to be.
Biting into her breast, I pushed inside her at the same time and she mewled my name as we fit tight together. She felt so good, I died a little death just pushing inside her, never mind what it was like blowing a huge load in her… that was a thousand little deaths. This gorgeous, erotic creature… let me inside her. Let me…
“I’m not going to be a gentleman. You crying always makes me mad with love for you.”
I pinned her and shoved myself into her, deep inside her, her walls already gently milking me. Taking myself to the hilt, the sensation of my hips tight against hers filled me with howling ecstasy.
“It’s okay,” she gasped, “oh god, I’m close.”
I banged her, banged her… banged her… she came hard around me, milking me hard… so hard I bit her shoulder and growled, “Fuck!”
God, the spasms in my pelvis almost made me want to chop off this constant ache between my legs, this thing never satisfied unless snug inside her.
Slumping on top of her, she laughed and bit my ear. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, well it’s your turn to get the food.”
I rolled off her and watched her walk to the bathroom, clean herself up, then throw on a white robe.
“I love you,” she said with a smile, and everything seemed okay again.
After she was gone from the room, I threw the sheet on top of my wrecked body and felt myself falling asleep finally. For the past few days I’d virtually gotten zilch sleep.
Then the door creaked open and the tentative steps that followed were familiar.
“I don’t understand why you think this is appropriate–”
“I wouldn’t interrupt if it weren’t urgent. Cleo didn’t see me sneak in. She’s down in the breakfast room.”
“This better be good.”
I had flung my arm over my eyes, sheltering myself from the daylight. I didn’t want to look at her though either, so I didn’t.
“Teddy called… he wants to speak with you. He left a number. Here–”
Sitting up, I snatched it from out of her grasp. “Well, what’d he say?”
Holding my throbbing head, I caught her eyes briefly when she replied, “He didn’t say anything except that you’re to give him a call… immediately.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now you can go.”
She moved towards the door and said over her shoulder, “She’s really something, Dante.”
“Don’t you get any ideas.”
“I tried that already. She denied me.”
“She’s going to be my wife. She’s mine,” I growled, and Shay’s cheeks scorched with surprise.
She scuttled from the room, too shocked to say anything now she knew I actually wanted to marry Ciara, too. Ciara wasn’t just my lover, but my world.
I dug into my trouser pockets and pulled out my burner phone, calling the number.
“Teddy, it’s Dante–” I tried to sound casual, but came across like I was overcompensating for all these years of us not talking.
“Now then mate, I hear you’re looking for info?”
“I’m not your mate… but you’re right about the info. What do you have?”
This fucker abandoned me when Daltrey died… when a mental breakdown made me temporarily a human no-go zone to people who cared too much about what other people thought.
He cleared his voice and I realised I shouldn’t have bit back at his use of the term mate.
“Shay told me Ciara’s real name… apparently she’s been reading her notebooks. I’d be careful there if I were you, you know? Exes should be kept at a minimal distance of a thousand miles from your current squeeze.”
“Yeah, thanks. Now, please tell me there is an actual purpose for this call.”
“Has Ciara ever been followed? Would she notice if she were being followed? Would she tell you?”
“She never went anywhere without Sexton… or me.”
“Well for some reason the police know you exist. I’ve been looking for holes in the maze and she seems to be the only one viable.”
“I know. I mean, I know they know about the fixer existing.”
“What, you know?” He sounded aghast.
“Yes, I know. The fixer is a real thing. Didn’t you know?” I laid on the sarcasm. “People need to know I’m real otherwise I have no credibility.”
“Well, you didn’t hear this from me–”
“What, what do you know?” I asked, furiously in need of info.
“Some friends of friends of friends told me a team exists out there, a team of high-grade law-enforcement hackers, tasked only with finding details on you.”
“Which they never did. Or could.”
“Yes I know,” he sighed, “but if you’d let me get to the point…”
“Sorry.”
“The new guy has fucked up already.”
“Really?”
“Yep. A money transfer from one of your clients was traced to a newly opened account in the name of John Barnes, a false name for sure.”
“Teddy, how the fuck did the thief break my security but it only took five minutes for the cops to trace this shoddy fuck-up?”
“Inside job, has to be. Someone who knows you but doesn’t know your protocol, at least not in detail.”
“Not possible. I’ve been over this a hundred times already. It just isn’t possible.”
“You’re deluding yourself. You need to look much closer to home if you ask me.”
“I can’t deal with this, it’s like…” I paused, clutching my forehead, “…ten years ago, all over again.”
“I loved your brother too…
and I’m not just sorry about that… I was a coward, I know. I don’t have the tact to be there when it counts. I’m not a good friend.”
“There’s no need–”
“You never trusted anyone but me and Daltrey… and even though we drifted, I can tell you I never betrayed our trust.”
“Occupational necessity… failing to trust even your best friend.”
“Listen Dante, why don’t you take your woman and fucking go. Get clear of this shit.”
“It’s much easier said than done. Somebody killed my brother… and more than ten years later, the minute my back’s turned, someone slaughters my entire team in a secure building. I owe every single one of those people justice. I have a responsibility to find out the truth.”
“It could’ve been anybody.”
“I need to know so I can eliminate them. I can’t risk that same person going after Ciara–”
“I get it, I do. We both know that whoever did this has friends, has powers… and no doubt has all your contacts at his fingertips.”
I huffed down the phone. “Contacts I don’t have, not now. I didn’t think to memorise every single phone number, email address… etcetera.”
“Just pick the biggest client you had… and watch him or her very closely. Your culprit will show up, you know it.”
“That’s not a bad–” I cut myself off because I hated the thought of him looking smug.
“I get it, I’m not ever gonna regain your favour, but you know what? I’m just happy some love has come your way, maybe it’ll save you? Eh? So I’ll just say good luck.”
“Same to you.”
He hung up and I only had to think for a few seconds before I remembered our biggest client was Roman Cornish, the catalyst for me and Ciara, the man who seemed to be sending me messages at every turn. He was just a gay dude desperate not to be judged in a judgemental sport.
Teddy was right – I needed to find out if my enemy had approached Roman yet.
Ciara kicked open the door carrying a tray full of food and in a hurry, I put on some underwear and grabbed the tray from her. Then her nose was in the air…
“She’s been in here, hasn’t she? I’ll fucking kill her!” she yelled.
“How do you–”
“Perfume! I’d know that anywhere,” she snarled, rushing to the dressing table to pick up some of her own perfume and spray that around.
“Ciara, she just came to give me Teddy’s number and to tell me that you denied her.”
Putting my arms around her from behind, I kissed her neck and she was soothed a little, her fingers snaking in between mine.
“Bitch,” she cursed, and I chuckled.
“I was covered. She didn’t see anything.”
“She didn’t need to see anything, she probably has a photocopy of your cock on her mind… not to mention it stinks of sex near the bed. Oh how she loved that, no doubt.”
I growled, rubbing my dick against her ass. “Baby, you make me hard all the time. Knowing she’d love to stick her tongue in your pussy makes me ravenous for you.”
“No,” she shook herself from my arms, “I’m not happy she snuck in here while my back was turned, like she’d waited for me to scarper too! No!”
She proceeded to make tea and spread butter on our toast, giving me the cold shoulder.
“What do you care, Ciara? I don’t care. She holds no sway over me, she never did.”
She sniffed and gave me the silent treatment which was worse than her acid tongue.
Shoving tea and toast before me, she sat on the edge of the bed while I sat at the dressing table, hating crumbs in my bed.
“I just called Teddy, by the way… if you’re interested to know…”
She scowled and clenched her teeth, letting me know without words to get on with telling her.
Fuck, I loved that woman. I had to wonder if she’d figured out yet that she was a natural-born dominant.
“He doesn’t know anything more than we do.”
Teddy had access to many people on my books because a lot of them were his clients, too. Many of those people had been recommended me by Teddy in fact. Teddy was a friend who knew how I shafted people, but often turned a blind eye because deep down he realised that was the way of the world. A lawman, he hated some aspects of our disparate lives, but accepted it too. I think he’d never really gotten over the fact that Shay chose me and not him. In fact he had yet to realise she chose me less than she chose the lifestyle itself.
Teddy had contacts of his own, insiders, lookouts. If I knew nothing, he generally knew less. However his mention of my biggest client had set me thinking…
“He said the usurper will eventually try to contact our clients. Given I lost all our database records, I can only work with who I know would never leave us… the likes of Roman Cornish, who we can track easily. Just find a pap in the know… follow him and maybe… the bastard who did this will show their face… or maybe unicorns might inherit the earth and I’ll fart bubbles one day.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, chewing her nails. “Why don’t we just meet Cornish and ask if he’s been contacted?”
“You think he would?”
“He fancies the shitting pants off you, course he would!”
“Well, there’s that,” I admitted, biting through my toast.
“Did he know it was you fixing the press leaks for him?”
I shook my head. “Nope. He thinks I put him in touch with the fixer. He was really grateful… even offered to suck my cock.”
Her eyes shot to mine and she asked, “Say that again.”
“He wanted to suck my cock, Ciara,” I said, attempting to sound as innocent as someone like me could.
“No he didn’t!”
“Well,” I chuckled, “he may have done, if I’d asked!”
“He wouldn’t have admitted to you he was gay!”
“Just my cyber version…”
“Your mind is sick, Dante Sinclair.”
“Yeah, and you love it.”
She stood and walked to the door, locking it. On her way to me she left her robe on the floor and climbed onto my lap on the chair, dragging my boxers away with a rip.
“I do… I love it,” she whispered, and sank smoothly down onto my trembling length.
“Why does everything go off script with you? We could be in the midst of a killer… and you just…” She sank herself over me to the hilt and I had to take a deep breath, looking from where we joined, and back to her, then back to where we joined. How she could take me so deep and wide, I’d never know. Maybe she was part robot.
“I just what?”
“Sink your pussy on my dick.”
“Ah yes,” she murmured and while she rode me, she clutched her hand slightly at my throat and my back started to ache with the need to come.
Choking was something we’d only recently started doing and I only wanted her to choke me, not the other way around.
I had no limits, but she had hers. I already understood that without it even needing to be said.
“You thought,” she panted, “I wouldn’t cope here? Amongst these devils…”
“I’d hoped you would–” and secretly knew you would more than cope.
What she was, she had still to come to terms with. I’d not employed her just to spank me, I’d employed her because I spotted something otherworldly lurking under those green eyes, a creature who didn’t know herself yet. Yes I’d hoped one day she’d spank me as one lover to another, spanking me because she loved it. I never really saw it as her job, but as a gift, as natural for her to spank me as breathing. Receiving her wrath was something I enjoyed wholeheartedly. I’d never, not in my own mind anyway, considered her a paid employee. She was my woman. Always had been.
Being a masochist hadn’t turned off the control freak in me, that was all.
Running my hands down her back, over her curvaceous haunches, her swollen ass, I groaned. So silky smooth. So warm. So mine.
�
�Ciara–”
“My clit.”
I reached for her, igniting our joining, the whirling between us increasing.
Heat on heat.
Hardness, melting into softness.
Her boobs bounced gently.
Her newborn hair stuck out in all directions.
Her eyes opened and closed.
The chair creaking beneath me, she continued, not put off.
“Dante,” she breathed, panting.
“Yes. Don’t stop.”
“Dante!” she cried and the spasms which gripped her fired me up.
Gripping her hard at the hips, I fought back, thrusting at the same time as pulling her back and forth on me.
Seriously, as soon as it was all over, I wanted it again.
Holding my face, she told me, “I’m just hormonal.”
“I love hormonal. If this is you hormonal, bring it.”
She smiled, sadness still lurking in those grey-green pools of hers.
“Dante, I–”
“I know,” I shushed her, two fingertips against her lips, “I have a lot more secrets than you imagined.”
“Yes.”
“We’re getting close to the last big one, I promise.”
“Promise?” She dug her nails into my shoulders.
I flexed my neck in response, mumbling with my eyes half shut, “Absolutely promise. Only–”
“Only, what?”
“We still have twelve murders to solve.”
“Oh, there’s that.”
Nuzzling her breast, I warned, “You make me feel invincible. It might make me do something stupid one day.”
“It might but you said it yourself, if anyone wanted to hurt you, they would have done already. The time I’ve spent here has made me wonder if Daltrey and the other killings aren’t actually linked. Maybe… someone just wanted your business. Or for your business to fail. You set up the agency after your brother died, so how can the two be linked–”
“I suppose.”
I kept what else I knew to myself. For the time being, anyway.
I didn’t feel the need to protect myself, only her.
Twenty-Five
The Contract (Nightlong #1) Page 26