A French Whipping

by Nicole Camden

  He collapsed to the side of her, both of them gasping for breath.

  Wanting to hold him, Blake turned her head in his direction.

  “Untie me,” she murmured, hoping it wouldn’t take too long.

  To her surprise, the tension in her right leg ended abruptly and the rope fell away quickly. He helped her sit up and removed the rope from her arms and chest.

  When her hands were free, Blake removed the blindfold. He was naked and holding a knife. He’d cut her free of the rope.

  Swallowing, Blake managed a shaky laugh. “Isn’t that cheating?”

  “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.” He shrugged and set the knife aside on the nightstand. He came back to her and pulled her into his arms, using the weight of his body to pull them both back against the pillows.

  Blake rested her head against his chest while he gently rubbed her skin where the rope had dug in slightly. They lay together in silence for a few minutes as their bodies calmed.

  “Thank you,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  “Thank you,” she teased.

  A small meow sounded from somewhere near the floor and there was the sound of claws against fabric.

  Blake winced and sat up, crawling to the edge of the bed. Missy was playing with the cut ends of the rope that hung over the edge of the bed, batting at them and catching her claws in Nick’s undoubtedly expensive duvet cover.

  Nick joined her and laughed softly. Taking one of the rope sections, he dangled it playfully in front of the kitten, letting her catch it and then pulling upward, lifting her briefly before she let go.

  Blake shook her head. “You never cease to amaze me, Nick Cord.”

  He looked at her, and there was something so lost in his face that she blinked back the sting of tears and touched his cheek. She kissed him, erasing that look, and he dropped the rope to the floor, wrapping her in his arms more tightly than he’d wrapped her with the rope, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

  25

  MILTON RETURNED TO work Tuesday morning, strolling into Nick’s office looking tanned, if not particularly relaxed. Milton never relaxed. He was constantly moving, thinking, and messing around with the tricks that he kept on his person.

  “Roland is arguing with a woman,” Milton said without preamble.

  Nick blinked. He’d never known Roland to argue with women. Women loved Roland. Well, with the exception of Detective O’Halloran.

  “Probably the detective who’s been investigating Keenan.”

  “Really?” Milton fiddled with the magnetic bead sculpture on Nick’s desk, making the beads appear and disappear. Unlike Milton’s office, which was covered in knickknacks, Nick’s office was clean and nearly empty. He only kept the bead sculpture to keep Milton occupied, and even that was on the other side of the desk. Other than that, he’d hung one large photograph of the harbor full of boats behind his desk and a shadowbox holding his first black belt was hung on the wall near the door.

  “Yeah,” Nick answered. “As far as I can tell, she thinks he’s as crooked as Keenan, he just hasn’t killed anyone.”

  Milton shoved his hands in his pockets and went to Nick’s window. “Why does she think that?”

  Nick leaned back in his chair. “Oh, it might have something to do with his going behind her back and making deals with lowlifes in order to get information.”

  Milton snorted. “Cops make deals with lowlifes all the times. They call them confidential informants.”

  “Apparently either she’s a rule-follower or she just has a problem with Roland.”

  “Huh.” Milton rocked back and forth.

  Nick rolled his shoulders. He’d been working on code all morning. “Roland had an idea for how to locate Keenan. I could use your help with the code.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Nick nodded. “He wants to lure him out by adjusting the security around MOMENT.”

  “Adjusting it how?”

  “He wants to lay some traps, some holes that aren’t really holes. See if we can’t get him to attack us again and trace him back to wherever he’s holed up.”

  “Cool.” Milton looked impressed. “I’m kind of surprised Roland would be willing to risk MOMENT at all. He’s obsessed with making it work.”

  Nick hadn’t been terribly surprised. Roland was as obsessed with finding Keenan as he was with MOMENT. Maybe more so. “He wants Keenan caught.”

  “So how’s Blake?”

  Nick winced. Milton had never been subtle, but he was perceptive. Nick had actually been avoiding her as much as he could for the past day. Not outright—that was impossible with her living in his house—but he knew she’d noticed his distance. That night. He’d never considered sex more than a pleasurable pastime before Blake. Touching her, having her surrender herself to him like that, had unnerved him to the point that he’d felt sick. He hadn’t known he could feel that much, be certain that he would do anything . . . anything to keep her, have her.

  He would have given Keenan the software for MOMENT if he thought that was all the asshole wanted. He didn’t know now if he could give her up. If, once all this was resolved, she decided that she didn’t want to be with him anymore, he didn’t think he could go back to being just her friend.

  “She’s restless. She doesn’t like waiting.”

  Milton nodded. “I don’t blame her. She probably feels trapped.”

  Nick scowled. “She goes out. Shane’s been driving her. She has a support group meeting this evening.”

  “Cool. Are you going with her?”

  Nick had considered it. He didn’t like her going alone, even with Shane driving her and the extra security detail, but he wasn’t sure if she wanted him there.

  “Maybe.” He opened his phone and checked the security log. No one had left the apartment since he’d taken off for a run this morning.

  “You should go. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

  “What are you doing?” Nick tossed back. He doubted that it was attending a support group for abused women.

  “I was going to see if I could come up with some names of document men in Little Italy for Roland, then head over to the hospital for a while. I have some presents for the kids.”

  That reminded Nick. “I forgot to tell you. I started talking to Chuck about gaming, and I kind of agreed to make a game for the kids. I sent the developers over there on Friday to play with the kids and get some ideas.”

  “Cool idea. We have sketches, any initial designs? I’d like to see it.”

  “Yeah.” Nick punched a few keys and pulled up the server where the developers were working on it. He opened the game and walked Milton through the preliminary designs for the initial levels.

  “This is great.” Milton’s fingers twitched, like he wanted to take control. “We should take this over to the hospital. Blake can come as well.”

  Nick ran a hand down his face.

  Milton smacked him in the back of the head. “What is your problem?”

  “I love her,” Nick snapped back. “I love her so much I’m fucking crazy. Happy?”

  Milton shrugged. “What’s the big deal? You’ve always loved her.”

  “No.” Nick shook his head. “Before, it was under control. We were friends. I loved her, but she was my friend and I could love her and not worry that one day she’d be gone from my life, that I would drive her away . . . I could control it,” Nick argued through gritted teeth.

  “Uh-huh.” Milton looked doubtful. “You may have thought you controlled your feelings, but I think you just stuffed them into a punching bag and beat the shit out of it on occasion. That’s like sticking your finger in a hole and hoping the dam doesn’t break. Let me tell you something . . . one day it always breaks.”

  Nick shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

  “So explain
it.”

  “No. Just go work on what you can find out about Keenan. Roland’s checking with Interpol to see if there’s any data on the woman he has with him.”

  “Are we going to the hospital or not?”

  “Yes,” Nick snapped. “Later. Just go.”

  “Touchy. Okay, I’m going. Don’t forget to invite Blake.”

  Nick felt a growl rumbling in his throat. He needed to go for a run.

  Blake thought about knocking Nick out, tying him up, and demanding to know what his problem was, but she wasn’t entirely sure how she would go about it. He was a difficult man to sneak up on, and he always seemed to be aware of her on a visceral level.

  Even when he was avoiding her, he seemed to be aware of her. Yesterday he’d left at the crack of dawn for a run . . . not so unusual. But he hadn’t come back for breakfast and he’d come home late, after she’d already given up on him and gone to sleep. He’d said he was working late, trying to figure out Keenan’s location, but she just didn’t buy it. This morning had gone the same way so far. He was gone when she woke up, sending her a text message with a good-morning and an admonition to stay in the apartment unless it was absolutely necessary that she leave. No one had mind-blowing, world-altering sex and was just suddenly too busy to see the other person unless avoidance was the goal.

  The question was why. She didn’t remember saying anything she hadn’t before. She hadn’t pushed him for a response or demanded that he love her back. So why would he freak out now?

  “Irritating man,” she muttered to the cat. The maid was at the house, cleaning the bedrooms and giving Blake disapproving looks. Blake ignored her and painted her toes bright pink, her third color in as many days. She’d also finished all her schoolwork and had read a book on successful charity organizations. If they didn’t find Keenan soon, she was going to say to hell with hiding and let Nick try to protect her while she went back to her real life. Well, real with the exception of Nick being her lover. She wasn’t going to give him up now.

  “Miss, is this yours?”

  The maid, a young Brazilian woman with gorgeous glossy black hair, held out a small shopping bag with BERGDORF GOODMAN written across the bottom. Bergdorf’s? She’d thought Bergdorf’s was only in New York.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied, curious to see what Nick could possibly have purchased from the exclusive department store. He wasn’t exactly a world-class shopper. She had to force him to buy Christmas presents.

  The maid set the bag on the end table next to where Blake sat on the couch and went back down the hall to finish cleaning. Blake waited until she had left to pick up the bag and reach inside. She pulled out a white box with a gold seal that read JAR, BOLT OF LIGHTNING. It was empty, but it smelled like the perfume that Nick had anointed her body with.

  Curious, she looked inside the bag again and saw ribbon and a receipt. Plucking out the receipt, she turned it over and gasped. Surely not. Surely he hadn’t paid that much for perfume. The ink was faded, but she could make out the date, nearly ten years earlier. What had he said . . . that when he’d smelled it, he’d thought of her? Ten years ago he’d bought a perfume at an exclusive boutique with her in mind and he’d never given it to her?

  What the hell? He’d been thinking about her this way even then? Her lips parted in astonishment, she traced the design on the top of the box. Nick. She thought his name, and, to her surprise, felt her throat close.

  Shaking the feeling off, she picked up her phone to ask him about it and realized that she had a voice mail from Milton. He’d left a message telling her they were going to the hospital to show the ideas for Nick’s game to the kids, and did she want to come?

  He’d said “they” were going . . . so Nick was going. And he hadn’t called her. Oh, it was so on.

  26

  IN THE BACK of the limo, Milton kept looking from Nick to Blake and back again as Shane drove them all to Boston Children’s Hospital. Blake had deliberately invaded Nick’s space when she’d joined them, sliding in next to him on the seat and kissing his cheek. He took her hand in his, but he didn’t meet her eyes.

  Milton, wearing a hideous tropical-print shirt that he must have picked up on vacation, grinned at her.

  “I told you not to cut your vacation short,” she said sternly, narrowing her eyes at him.

  He spread his hands the same way he did when he was showing an audience that he didn’t have anything up his sleeves. “It was Regina’s idea. She was getting bored, and she missed the kids.”

  Blake didn’t doubt that was true. Other than Nick, Regina was one of the most driven people she’d ever met. “Is she at the hospital today?”

  “She’s not working, but she’s meeting us there.”

  “That’s good.” Blake liked watching Milton and Regina together. In some ways, they were as odd a pair as she and Nick. Milton was always in motion, always doing something, and almost every thought in his head seemed to come straight out of his mouth. Regina was quieter, more thoughtful, but was often too serious.

  Blake slid a glance to Nick’s hard profile and frowned.

  “Did Nick tell you he adopted a kitten?” Blake turned to Milton with a smile that might have been just a little evil around the edges.

  Milton’s eyes widened. “Bullshit.”

  “He did,” Blake confirmed and patted Nick’s knee with her free hand. She thought she could hear his teeth grinding.

  “You didn’t mention that earlier.” Milton didn’t bother to hide his grin as he looked at Nick.

  “I didn’t adopt it. I picked it up temporarily.”

  Blake laid her head on Nick’s shoulder, thinking about the perfume. Ten years. “He’s in denial.”

  Milton nodded as if that made perfect sense. “It’s where he lives.”

  “Speaking of denial,” Nick said pointedly in Blake’s direction. “We found a document dealer in Little Italy today who says he made papers for Keenan and a woman, and that Keenan mentioned he intended to leave the country within the week, so whatever he’s planning, he’s planning it soon.”

  Blake stopped smiling and her hand clenched around Nick’s. He squeezed back, and she took a deep breath.

  With a frown at Nick, Milton explained, “We had some help from Interpol, and we’ve told your Detective O’Halloran the names that they intend to use, but it’s still possible that he had other aliases made as backups.”

  “So we still don’t know where he is right now?”

  Nick shook his head. “No, not yet.”

  “But Roland’s looking right now, and we’re going to keep looking.” Milton seemed determined to stay positive, especially since Nick was being such a grumpy bastard.

  “It would make sense if you stayed home and didn’t go to the shelter tonight,” Nick added, finally meeting her eyes. “Just in case. We need to talk, anyway.”

  Blake couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kiss him or smack him around. Preferably both. She wasn’t going to like what he was going to tell her in this little “talk.” She could tell that much already.

  “I’m going,” she said stubbornly and released his hand. “Rosa will be there. I’ll be surrounded by people. Everything will be fine.”

  Tuesday wasn’t the usual day that Milton visited the hospital and performed tricks for the kids, but the entertainment room was still filled with the majority of his fans. Chuck, the kid who liked knots, came over to talk to Nick, who’d elected to stand in the back of the room while Milton and Regina passed out presents from their vacation in the Caribbean. Blake knelt nearby, talking to Emily, who was smiling broadly even though she sat in a wheelchair.

  Chuck nodded at the laptop that Nick had carried out of the limo. “The game ready to try?”

  “We have a short test version and the initial designs, but we need to add more levels, sketch out some additional characters, and go through t
esting. I brought it for you to take a first peek at it, though.” Nick held out the laptop. “Give it a shot.”

  “Yeah? Awesome.” Chuck took the laptop and hurried to a nearby table, calling to a couple of the other kids.

  Nick followed and stood behind them to watch, directing them on how to log in and start a new game. At one point Blake and Emily joined the boys, and the two of them offered their own opinions on how Nick and the other developers should make changes. By the time Milton joined the crowd, several small arguments had broken out.

  “Okay,” Regina called out and held up a hand. “I think we need to come up with a plan. We’re going to take turns. Who’s going to volunteer to write down ideas for changes?”

  Nick watched as Regina and Blake organized the kids into groups. Milton came over to stand beside him. He was smiling at Regina as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. Do I look at Blake that way?

  “You know, this was my crowd you’ve stolen.”

  Shrugging, Nick waved a hand at the group of kids. “I should have brought more copies with more laptops. I wasn’t expecting them to all want to play with it.”

  “It’s a cool game, but more than that, they know that they are helping to build it, so it makes it theirs, you know?”

  “Yeah, well, I got the idea from you.”

  Chuck handed the game over to someone else and came back to Nick. “It’s pretty cool, but I have some ideas for how we can add levels.”

  “All right.” Nick walked with Chuck to a nearby table and sat down with the kid.

  Twenty minutes had gone by before he looked up from the notes he was taking. Milton was helping some kids with a new magic trick. Regina was helping Emily draw something on a piece of paper, and Blake was . . . Blake was nowhere to be found.

  Nick stood quickly and looked around, searching for her blond hair amidst the kids and the odd parent or nurse who had stopped by to hang out. Someone had picked up pizza at some point and the air smelled like pepperoni.