Sylvia screams, and I make a mental note that she clearly loves good oral. Hearing her scream does it for me, and I cum inside of Lillian. The four of us collapse, all of us gasping for air. I wind up just laying on my back, Sylvia under one arm and Lillian under the other as Daisy collapses right on top of me, her head resting on my chest. I look at Sylvia, and by the grin on her face I can see she had just as much fun as me –good.
After all the hell I have been through lately, I have to say that this was one hell of a way to celebrate the police officially clearing me of any wrong-doings. Now, after one of the craziest sexual experiences I’ve ever had, I take a hard ass nap surrounded by three gorgeous women. Not a bad day, I’d say.
65
I wake up still surrounded by three naked and sexy women after the four of us slept through the night in the bar loft. Daisy had rolled off me during the night and wound up cuddling with Lillian, the two of them squished against the wall where the futon is shoved up against. Sylvia is beside me, and I don’t know what makes me think this is a good idea, but I crawl on top of her and kiss her away. “James…” she opens her eyes and smiles at me, and I shove my dick inside her without giving her much time to process. She looks over at Lillian and Daisy who are both still asleep and giggles, “You’ll wake them up.”
“Shh…” I say and kiss her, sliding my cock around inside her incredibly wet pussy. I keep my lips pressed tight against hers, muffling the slight groans she is making. I can tell she is still really turned on after what had happened last night. I cum inside her, and the two of us laugh quietly at how ridiculous the whole situation is. We quietly crawl out of bed, taking note that Lillian and Daisy look absolutely exhausted, so we try not to wake them as we get dressed. Sylvia leaves them an awkward note thanking them for the fun night and apologizing for having to scram, and the two of us sneak out the door.
We walk the walk of shame past the employees who are getting in for the morning shift and out into the streets, feeling the sting of the morning light. “So what are your plans for the day?” she asks, giggling slightly –still hyped up after the unusual way we had spent our evening.
“I’m going to see what I can do about helping the police,” I say. “I still have Eddie on my mind. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to put this behind me until I figure out who killed him. A part of me still wonders if Éclair might have-”
“I doubt it,” Sylvia says. “You say you two have been friends for a long time –good friends. Plus, like I said before, I don’t think she would risk her company’s reputation. I have a thought if you want to hear it.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Martin Stone,” she says, and the name rings a bell, but I’m not entirely sure.
“How do I know him?” I ask.
“I did some digging. I told you, I’m a regular Nancy Drew. I found a police report in your files at Shattered INC. You had to fire him after he accidentally contaminated some supplements, and he had to be drug away by police off of the premises,” Sylvia explained her reasoning, and I have to admit I’m impressed with her detective work. “He’s a big guy. He could have taken down Eddie easily.”
“I forgot all about him,” I say. “It was years ago. Do you really think he could still be holding a grudge?”
“Could be. Now here’s the real kicker. Stone is one of the ones who put up money for the lawsuit.” Sylvia grinned, “Pretty suspicious, right? Especially considering that, as a fired employee, I doubt he had been using your supplements, so he wouldn’t be a victim. He would just be putting up money to help other people cash out –and that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Damn,” I say, “you are a regular old Nancy Drew, aren’t you? All right, Nancy, are you going to help me look into this Martin Stone guy?”
She frowns and grabs me by my tie, pulling me in for a kiss, “Unfortunately, sweetie, you’re on your own today. I have to get to work.”
“Oh,” I say, disappointed, but I remind myself that she sat with me for five hours at court yesterday. We say our farewell, and I’m off to chase down this lead that Sylvia suggested I follow. I look into this Martin Stone guy, barely able to remember him. If it wasn’t for having to have him escorted off the premises, I probably would not remember him at all. He wasn’t that good of an employee, to be frank. Eventually I’m able to track down a phone number but no address. Should I call him? Would that tip him off? Against my better judgement, I call the number I found amongst my files at work. While sitting in my desk, I tap my fingers nervously against my desktop keyboard.
He actually answers. “Martin Stone,” he says in a pretty peppy voice for someone in the middle of a revenge scheme.
“Um…” I’m a little caught off guard by it, but I go for it anyways. “Martin, this is James Mont.”
There’s a long pause. “What can I do for you, Mr. Mont?”
“Coffee?” I ask and then add, “I realize this is a little out of the blue, but I was hoping to talk to you face to face if you could spare an hour.”
There’s another long pause. “I mean… I guess…” he sounds hesitant, “I can take a lunch if you’re wanting to meet up today.”
“I’d appreciate it. It’s kind of urgent,” I say, honestly a bit surprised he’s willing to meet.
The next thing I know I’m meeting this poor bastard I fired at this random coffee shop down the corner from my office. Much to my surprise, he pulls up in this brand new Honda, and the guy has a personal driver. I raise a brow at this, and I stand to greet him at the door with this awkward handshake. We order our coffee, and we find a seat outside on the patio. He’s wearing a fine suit, not much unlike the expensive shit I normally wear –not at all like the factory worker garb I was used to seeing him in. “You look good, Martin,” I say, slowly recalling my seldom interactions with the lowly factory worker I had fired.
He smiles, “I was honestly surprised to hear from you. Why are you calling me after almost two years?” He takes a sip of the coffee I had bought him. He seems legitimately confused about our meeting which is making him less and less suspicious by the minute.
“I suppose you’ve seen Shattered INC. in the news a lot lately,” I say, and he nods. “The lawsuit against my company is going to be tossed out because they’ve cleared us of any wrongdoings. However, I have found out recently that you are one of the ones helping to pay for the lawyer who’s trying to sue me.”
Martin suddenly laughs. “Oh God, that’s what this is about? Mr. Mont, I bought up a shit ton of your new line of supplements because I ran into Eddie, and he gave me a deal, and I handed them out in this stupid giveaway my company did a while back for my employees. Half of my staff wound up in the hospital after taking your shit, so when they all starting pointing fingers at me I offered to help pay for the lawyer –that’s all, I swear!” he has this stupid grin on his face. “I guess I was just trying to pass the blame game back to you and off of me to keep my employees from crying workers comp.”
I let what he is saying sink in. Surely he still has some sort of grudge against me for firing him, but he seems so damn friendly. “Your company?” I ask.
He smiles and pulls a brochure out of his jacket pocket, handing it to me. “I should honestly thank you, Mr. Mont,” he says, “I was headed down a dark path. My wife was thinking about leaving me and taking the kids. I was showing up drunk to work all the time because my alcoholism was getting the better of me. After you fired me, I didn’t have much of a choice but to grow up. I joined AA, and about a year after leaving the program I took out a loan and started my own branding business. As a matter of fact, Eddie’s used us a couple of times… so in a way, I guess I’m still working for Shattered.” He smiles brightly at me, “You firing me was a real wakeup call. I worked for your dad for years, and honestly I always thought of you as the sort of playboy joke son. Getting fired by you made me realize I must have really fucked up. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would have lost my kids.” He suddenly changes his deme
anor. “I heard about Eddie. What happened?”
“Honestly, Martin, I don’t know. Someone attacked him.” I look at him, trying to gage what he is thinking. It’s not him. I know it’s not. I guess I got to tell Sylvia strike one. “Honestly,” I say, looking him in the eye, “I had you meet me here today because I was going to accuse you, but you don’t exactly seem resentful.”
Martin frowns. “No, I wouldn’t hurt Eddie. He was a good guy. And I’ll admit I was a little… upset… the day you fired me. Plus, I was drunk. I’m two years sober, I swear to it.”
“I can tell.” I smile at him. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve been racking my brain about the whole thing, but I just can’t figure it out. I don’t know who would want to do this to me.”
“Have you looked into other people who jumped on the lawsuit bandwagon?” Martin asks. “Some woman was the one who initially hired the lawyer and started the lawsuit. I’ve never met her in person, but her name is Suzette. She’s been really sketchy, to be honest with you. Even the lawyer will tell you so, but money is money. She’s been sending the lawyer money, paying way more fines than me, and she’s always pushing the lawsuit forward despite repeatedly all of us being told that it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“You’ve never met her, but you’re working with her?” I question.
“Yeah. The lawyer hasn’t even really met her. She’s just paying for others to be represented. She herself is not even on the list of victims. She’s just some woman sending funds to a lawyer and compiling lists of victims to get them riled up about the lawsuit. She sent a mass email to my company is the only reason I even know about her.” Martin sort of slumps his shoulders as though he has had some sort of epiphany. “Honestly, the more I think about it, the weirder it seems. She won’t speak with me on the phone, only email. The lawyer just accepts her money and moves on. She occasionally sends out email blasts to get everyone worked up about you, though. The emails are kind of hateful, actually.”
“Her name is Suzette?” I ask.
“Yeah, hold on,” Martin takes the brochure away from me and writes the woman’s email down for me. [email protected]
“Is that all you got for me?” I ask.
“Sorry, but that’s it,” Martin says, “That’s the only way she’s been communicating with my employees about the lawsuit. I can forward you the emails, if you like. One of my employees has been sending me them.”
“Please do,” I say.
I stare at the brochure with the email address. It isn’t much, but I have a first name and an email address. Looks like I got some sort of lead.
66
I’m really starting to hate the police station. I got called down here –again –to talk to the local deputies in charge of investigating Eddie’s murder. They’re a lot more relaxed towards me now since they dropped me as a suspect, so I did not feel the need to call Lillian to come down and straighten them out this time.
The deputies who had been investigating the murder don’t really look me in the eye when I enter the precinct although they are somewhat friendly –asking me how I’ve been coping and whether or not I received the flowers they had sent to the funeral home. Suddenly they are being shooed away by a woman cop, the precincts chief, who asks to speak to me privately in her office. It’s a change of pace from the interrogation room, I’ll admit. She introduces herself as Chief Lawrence, but she tells me to just call her Kathy as she offers me coffee and sits down behind her desk. The door is closed so we can have a private conversation, and I’ll admit I’m suddenly finding myself on edge.
“How have you been?” she asks.
“I’ve been better, to be honest,” I say.
“I’m sure,” she says, “My deepest sympathies.”
“I’m actually glad you all called me down here. I think I found something that could be useful. This woman, I don’t have a last name, but she’s the one who has been initiating the lawsuit against me. Her name’s Suzette, and I have an email address –but that’s all. Something in my gut is telling me that this mystery woman might know something.” I say this with confidence, so the chief writes down the information as I presented it to her –saying she will have her deputies’ look into it.
Her demeanor tells me that she is uncomfortable. She looks sad. She leans back in her desk, and I can tell that she is beating around the bush with whatever it is she is about to tell me. Eventually, though, she gets right to it. “James,” she says my first name to appear as friendly as possible, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Eddie did not die from complications from his injuries.”
“I thought his heart attack was brought on by stress from his surgeries and his injuries?” I question.
“Your brother had rat poison in his system. Upon further investigation, we have concluded that someone inserted liquefied rat poison into his iv. The hospital is cooperating with a full investigation.” Kathy pauses, letting what I have just heard sink in.
I bite my bottom lip. One thought occurs to me. “He would have been okay,” I say, my throat tightening.
“Yes,” she says. “Whoever hurt Eddie went back to finish the job. We are convinced now more than ever that whoever poisoned your supplements also attacked and killed Eddie. The same form of poison that was used in your supplements was used to kill Eddie.”
I don’t know what to say. Eddie was recovering. He was getting better –now they’re telling me he would have been fine if someone had not come back after him? Kathy keeps talking to me, but I’m not listening. She’s trying to assure me that everything is fine. That they’re going to find out who did this. I pop off at her, “Well you’re not any damn closer than you’ve been for months! You don’t have a damn clue who’s behind this! I don’t either! Your jackass investigators wasted their damn time looking into me, now whoever killed my brother is probably gone and has moved on by now. He’s probably in hiding laughing his ass off at how stupid you all are! Why don’t you do something? What the fuck are you even…” my voice trails off. I bite my tongue. “I’m sorry,” I say in a much calmer voice. “I think I need a minute.”
“Of course,” she says and leaves me alone in her office.
He would have lived. He would have been okay. That’s the part I can’t get past. Eddie was healing. He was getting better. I had just assumed all of his injuries and medications and repeated surgeries and all the stress he was under had caused his heart attack –not this. Not rat poison. Not someone coming back to finish the job –to make sure their tracks were covered. Whoever did this, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.
67
Sylvia had insisted that the two of us go out after I told her what I had been told by the chief at the station. I am devastated, and Sylvia knows that. She wants me to be distracted. I decided that that was a good thing –that I needed it. I told her I wanted to plan a nice date for us, and I went all out. I needed something to occupy my mind during the day, so I thought up fun date ideas. We always do something wild and crazy, so I come up with something a little more romantic this time around.
We take my company’s yacht out of the bay, and I cooked us a fancy lobster dinner. Yes, ladies, I cook too. Sylvia is dressed up in a long, black dress with her blonde hair pulled up on her head in a messy bun –a piece of silver jewelry was keeping her bun on top of her head. It was a diamond encrusted dragonfly clip, and it looked really fancy tucked up on the side of her head.
She laugh and joke around with one another as we sat at the table out on the deck of the ship, looking out into the harbor while under the stars. It really is nice. She makes rude comments towards me about our orgy with Lillian and Daisy –mostly teasing me, but also she admits to having had a good time. Sometimes I just don’t understand her. It’s like I can do no wrong. She’s always in a good mood. She’s always happy around me. She’s always looking for ways to make me happy. In a way, it’s almost too perfect.
Halfway through enjoying our fancy lobster dinner I click a button a
remote I had been hiding under the table, and music starts playing. She smiles and props her elbows up on the table, resting her chin in her hands. “Music too? Don’t tell me you’re taking me dancing, Mr. Mont?”
I smile this ridiculously big smile. I’m sure she can see that I’m really fascinated and infatuated and a little obsessed with her. I’m sure it is plastered all over my face as I lean forward, take her by the hand, and lead her to the deck of the ship to have a private dance.
I’m going to have to give my mother a shout out for this one. She had always wanted to take dancing lessons with our dad, but he had refused time and time again –too busy with work. She made Eddie and I sign up when I was fourteen and forced us to this dance hall every Thursday night. We were always the only kids there, and most of the adults were twice the age of my own mother, and while neither of us would have ever admitted it out loud –we kind of had fun. The old men would enjoy having us there because their wives would give them a break on occasion saying, “Oh you know Mrs. Mont always brings both her boys –I’ll just dance with one of them tonight if you’re back is hurting you.” Mom always told us we would appreciate the dance lessons one day. The big smile on Sylvia’s face is making me appreciate it now.
“You dance too?” She laughs as I spin her around.
“I guess I’m a man of many talents,” I say. I pull her in closer, and we start swaying a little slower as the song changes.
She wraps her arms around me and lays her head on my chest. “You know, when you first asked me on a date, I had been so nervous.”
“Nervous? Why?”
“Because you’re James Mont. The guy I had gushed over for a while because of a damn advertising poster you were on. The billionaire playboy. I suppose I had just convinced myself not to be too excited –that you were probably not this sweet fantasy guy I had worked up in my head.” She looks up at me and smile.
Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection Page 74