by Unknown
Chapter One
Audra Leone contorted herself into a pretzel, her muscles straining as she bit back an agonized moan. She practiced yoga three times a week, but no yoga pose in the world could make her forty-three-year-old body stretch far enough to reach the little bastard of a key that had fumbled out of her hands and tumbled four feet away, then flipped down over the lip of the step that led to the front section of the store.
She was so screwed.
Heaving a breath, she straightened, easing the strain on her back as she considered her other options. There really weren’t any. Other than yell for help in hopes that some passerby would hear, or wait here and perhaps die a quiet death as the snow piled up outside and no one ventured into the antique shop until she was long gone. It was right after Christmas, and the shoppers who had filled the sidewalks of Old Port, the historic neighborhood of Portland, Maine, were gone.
The blinding snow falling outside as New England fought one of the worst nor’easters in years didn’t help. Most of the other businesses had closed around one. Only she had to stick with it until closing time—over an hour ago.
She could see the write up on the local news pages now.
Local business owner Audra Leone was found dead in her antique shop, Lost Treasures, shackled to a post. Some speculate Ms. Leone was the victim of a sex game gone wrong, but police found no evidence of foul play and attribute Leone’s death to freakish clumsiness and bad judgment. No one knows exactly how long Ms. Leone was in the store before she perished. Services will be held…
Audra closed her eyes and prepared herself to start screaming as loudly as she could, hoping some brave soul would walk through the storm outside and maybe hear her before her deodorant gave out. She threw a venomous look at the brick wall to her left. There was no way her neighbors would ever hear her.
Score!—the sports bar next door—was open. Loud as ever, the music and games played on the big-screen TVs, throbbing through the brick. The noise was a constant irritation and ruined the calm, vintage atmosphere in her shop. She’d thought about breaking her lease and moving, but she couldn’t afford any other property in the area and running this shop was her dream.
Right now, it was her trap.
She had to hope someone would hear her. As she opened her mouth, the bell rang at the front of the shop—the door! Relief made her knees sag.
“Help! Is someone out there? Can you come back here, please? I need help.”
Heavy footsteps made their way across the wood floor.
“Audra?”
She froze as she recognized the voice. Damn.
“I’m back here.”
She cursed under her breath as Scott Beckett turned the corner, staring for a moment in surprise when he saw her. To his credit, he didn’t laugh, but instead seemed very concerned. She hadn’t expected that.
“What happened? Were you robbed? Are you hurt?”
He quickly stepped forward, dressed in jeans, a navy fisherman’s sweater and heavy boots. Even in this foul weather, when everyone else bundled up to their eyeballs, Scott didn’t seem to mind the snow or the icy winds off of Casco Bay.
As he came close, she couldn’t help but notice that he smelled nice. Like spices and smoke, and other very manly things. It made her a little woozy when he got too close—in a good way—which was bad, because she didn’t want to be woozy around Scott Beckett.
He was her landlord, and an ex-sports celebrity. Women hung on him—younger, smaller, tighter women—like their lives depended on it. Different ones every weekend. Not that it was her place to judge Scott’s actions, but she’d been married to an egomaniac who loved women—all of them, except for his wife. Men whose egos were bigger than their hearts held no appeal for her. Or they shouldn’t.
Scott had asked her out a few times, coming around and trying to work his charms. But Audra wasn’t about to mix business with pleasure. The store meant too much to her to risk losing it for a quick tumble with her landlord, no matter how hot he was.
“What happened? I’m calling the police.” His brow lowered severely over sharp gray eyes as he stood close, almost protectively.
“No, no police.” She reached out to touch his arm, trying to stop him, but the movement only jerked the shackle around her wrist tighter. “Ow.”
He paused, looking down at her. “You’re in shock.”
“No, I’m not. Not shock…stuck. I need you to help me get out of these.”
Her cheeks burned as she watched his eyes change, the dark, steel gray of anger and concern lightening to crystal-clear understanding.
“Stuck? You weren’t robbed?”
“No. I was testing out the new key I ordered on these cuffs, and as I was trying to get it in the lock, I dropped it.”
His gaze took in her position as she leaned slightly back against the counter, focusing on her right wrist, the one encased in black iron.
Audra took a breath and reminded herself that everyone made mistakes.
“It fell out of my hand. Over there.”
She nodded toward the step where he’d come up.
The former NHL hockey champion watched her like he couldn’t quite believe she would do something that stupid. Yeah, she couldn’t believe it either.
He walked over to where she indicated and squatted down—how did he manage to look graceful as he plucked the key from where it had fallen on the floor? He was still an athlete in the way he moved. He had a scar on his temple that marred his otherwise perfect features and plenty of muscles under that sweater. His cheekbones and facial features made him look refined, but his body was that of a burly hockey player. Solid as rock. Or so she imagined, anyway.
His Boston accent was as thick as her Maine one, and there was a toughness about him that she found sexy as hell. Audra might have taken him up on his offers if he weren’t nine years her junior and a guy who saw women as notches in his hockey stick.
“This it?”
“Yes. Maybe you could try it? It’s starting to get uncomfortable.”
He grinned in a totally wicked way, turning the key in well-kept hands. “I bet. You look very uncomfortable. You didn’t think to test the key without putting those things on your actual body?”
Audra wanted to glare and growl, but the man literally held the key to her freedom in his hands. The way his eyes moved over her actual body, her skirt pulling tight as she leaned in such a way to reduce the tension on her arm, seemed to catch his attention in particular.
“This is not the time for twenty questions. Please.”
“That might depend on the questions.”
Scott Beckett was flirting. While she was in shackles.
Her sex life had been somewhere between zero and nonexistent in the last year or so, and the way he was looking at her was a keen reminder of that. Suddenly, Audra was uncomfortable in a different way.
She tried to look unflustered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What will you give me if I set you free?” he asked, crossing his arms in front of him.
Audra gaped as her patience snapped. “Are you kidding me? Stop being a jerk and unlock this cuff!”
She was outraged (so she told herself), but there was that traitorous zing again. Dammit.
He pursed his lips—such nice lips—full, masculine. “You’re pretty testy with the guy who holds your freedom in his hands.”
The way he said it made her think he wanted to hold something else altogether in his hands.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It is. A little. You know, in the time we’ve been neighbors, you’ve never come into my bar. Not for a drink or even for lunch. You’ve said no every time I ask you out.”<
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She stared at him in amazement. “The bar’s too loud for me, I don’t like sports, and I don’t think it’s smart to date my landlord.”
“Really? I didn’t know those things. It makes my point, though. All this time we’ve known each other, but we really never got to know each other.”
“We have a business relationship. We don’t need to know each other personally.”
“I don’t agree. How about I get you out of those shackles, and you let me take you to dinner?”
Audra blinked. “You’re trading help for a date?”
Why was she surprised? Every news or internet photo she’d ever seen of him (and yes, she’d looked…) came complete with a groupie—usually a large-breasted one—attached to his arm. Audra knew she didn’t come close to looking like one of those magazine-cover-worthy women. She was a forty-three-year-old woman in pretty good shape. She certainly got her share of looks from guys on the street—but not from guys like Scott Beckett.
“Not a date. A chance to talk. That’s it. Get to know each other a little.”
“There’s a storm out there, in case you didn’t notice. I need to get home.”
His thirty-four to her forty-three wasn’t that big of a gap, but still, Audra didn’t often get asked out by younger men. Or by many men, period. She’d dated more than she cared to, married once, divorced once, and she hadn’t found anyone interesting enough to make her break a comfortable dry spell for a long time.
Scott was interesting, but he was also far too tempting, and that made him dangerous. She was old enough to know better than to play his games. But she was also hungry.
“Fine, we can grab a bite at your bar before I head home. Just unlock these things, please.” She accepted his terms without any pleasure or grace.
“It’s a deal.”
Her gray wool skirt, knee-length, had ridden up slightly, and his hip pressed against hers as he leaned into the tight space where she stood, wedging between her and a pole that went from floor to ceiling on his other side. He leaned over the counter as he focused on the lock.
He puttered with it for a few minutes and frowned. “The key doesn’t work.”
“It has to. I paid a fortune for it to be made for these specific cuffs.” Audra fought back panic as she held out her hand for the key.
“It’s a little tricky. Let me try.”
He pressed the key into the palm of her hand and didn’t move away as she turned to try the lock, pressing into him even more as she did.
After a few minutes, it was clear that the key didn’t, in fact, work. She’d bought it through an online locksmith because that had been cheaper than any of the local shops. You get what you pay for. A string of blue words flew from her lips, and Scott coughed back a laugh as she turned to glare at him.
“What are you laughing at? How am I going to get out of here?”
She wrenched her arm again in frustration, and this time it really hurt. Her gasp of pain erased the sparkle from his eyes as his large hand closed around her forearm, gently stilling her.
“Hey, take it easy. We’ll get you out of this.” His voice was calm and velvety, zeroing in on the core of her anxiety and turning it into something else as she looked up at him. He still stood close, and felt…big. Comforting.
That only proved how upset she really was.
“How?”
“I can cut it—I have a pair of bolt cutters next door. I’ll be back in five minutes, promise.”
She stared at him in shock. “Do you know how old these cuffs are? What they’re worth? No way can we cut them off.”
He paused. “Okay, well, I have a friend downtown, a locksmith. I don’t know if he’s in the store now, but I can try to get him here as a favor.”
“I’ll pay for his overtime.”
“You don’t want to know what he’d charge for an off-hours call like this. He’ll give me a deal or do it for free. Let me ask him if he’ll come over, okay?”
Audra had to bite her tongue, literally. She didn’t want anyone else to see her like this. Word could get around neighborhoods like Old Port pretty quickly, and she had a business reputation to protect. Still, she’d have to risk it. The cuffs were too valuable to destroy.
She nodded stiffly, turning her gaze away from his.
“It’ll be fine, Audra. Nick’s discreet.”
It was the last thing Scott said to her as he stepped away, pulling his phone out of his pocket. The motion turned her attention to his finely shaped butt. She closed her eyes, castigating herself for even noticing.
A few minutes later, he turned back to her with a smile. “I caught him on his way out, and he’s coming right over. Twenty minutes and you’ll be free.”
“Thank you.” She was relieved and couldn’t pretend otherwise.
The feeling was short-lived as Scott stepped in closer, reaching out to push a stray lock of hair out of her face. “You’re welcome. I guess the question is, what do we do until he gets here?”
Scott knew it was kind of mean to mess with Audra when she was in such a vulnerable position, but he couldn’t help himself—she was so damned hot. He’d thought she was attractive when he met her nearly five years ago, and that opinion had never changed. At the time, he was fresh from recovery after a career-ending injury on the ice and starting his new business venture.
When Audra had come around looking for rental space, it was clear that she was smart, capable, sexy—and wounded. Whoever had hurt her had left shadows clinging. For that reason, while he watched her walk in and out of the shop in her conservative skirts and blouses that he found sexier than the skimpiest bikini, he hadn’t pushed too hard the handful of times she’d refused his invitations out.
He’d come over here to talk to her about the business, because no one was at the bar and wasn’t likely to be in this weather, so he’d closed down early. Good of a time as any to tell her that he was going to have to raise her rent, and probably have her close up for a month or longer over the spring for renovations. They’d known for a little over a year that the building Lost Treasures occupied needed some repairs. He’d shared the inspection with her right away, but she’d asked him not to close over summer, her busiest season. The inspector said the repairs could wait until spring, but no longer.
However, the building was also a financial risk—all of the estimates to do the renovation work were very high. He had to raise Audra’s rent far past what she could afford, but he hoped they could work something out. His business manager wanted him to give up renting the space completely and expand Score! Scott wasn’t sure what to do.
Audra’s predicament had completely rerouted his intention to talk business. Truth be told, this was one of the first times he’d ever seen her less than perfectly cool and composed. Her silky-straight, brown-black hair was wild, her cheeks flushed, her eyes uncertain. Her breasts strained against the buttons of the soft pink sweater she wore in a way that made his mouth water. When she got worked up, angry or agitated, it made her cocoa-colored eyes turn dark, and her pretty lips flattened in a way that made him want to kiss them right back open again. Everything about her turned him on.
He leaned in closer, planting his hand on the counter, letting his thigh brush hers. He saw the flash of heat spark in her soft brown eyes.
Audra wanted him, as well. She didn’t want to want him, but that was a different story altogether. The shadows that haunted her when they’d first met had vanished, and electricity crackled between them instead. He focused on her mouth, enjoying how her tongue darted out to wet her lips and how the upper one crested in the center like a little bow—he wanted to lick it.
“Okay, I have a question.” She seemed nervous, to his surprise.
“What’s that?”
“Why are you coming on to me? Is it my age? Some kind of bent curiosity? Because I’ve said no before?”
He shook his head slowly. “Your age has nothing to do with anything. But I suppose, yes, I am curious and you have presented a c
hallenge of sorts.”
“Is this some kind of gag?” she asked stiffly. “If so, I wish you’d stop. I don’t intend to be the butt of your jokes when you go back over to the bar, thank you.”
He pulled back with a frown.
“Why would you think that? I mean, it’s funny that you got yourself in this position, but no, I’m not coming on to you to go back to the bar and joke about it. No way.”
She looked doubtful.
Scott added, “I’m coming on to you because I like you. I’ve liked you for a long time, and I think you know it. I could ask why you always say no?”
“I just…I thought…I’m not exactly your type.”
“And what is my type, exactly?”
Her expression turned from hesitant to incredulous, and he noticed a light sprinkle of freckles on her nose.
Cute.
“Much younger and more scantily dressed, for instance.”
She had noticed who he was with, at least. That meant she was interested. He never saw her with anyone.
“I like to spend some time with a pretty girl now and then, sure, but most of the girls you see in the news or at the bar, they’re just sports fans or friends.”
“Whatever. It’s none of my business.”
Scott smiled and leaned in a little closer. “Would you like it to be?”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t say age doesn’t matter. I’m way older than you.”
“Not way older. Just a few years older,” he countered. “And no, it doesn’t matter one bit to me.”
Scott knew her age. He’d gotten a copy of her driver’s license for the rental contract. He could give a fig about the age difference. He knew people in their thirties who had bodies of sixty year olds after abusing them for years. In contrast, one of his uncles was near seventy-five and running marathons. Number of years meant little in the scope of things.
Leaning in, he licked his lips, anticipating her taste as the door in front opening rang the bell—it had to be Nick.
He winked at Audra. “Saved by the bell, honey.” Then he yelled, “Nick, back here!”
Scott wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that flashed over Audra’s expression when he stepped away. She was clearly feeling a bit mortified when Nick showed up with his tool case, staring at her curiously and at Scott.