“There’s no business that could possibly require you to dress like that.”
I’d been so angry. But worse than that? I’d been so fucking turned on.
Joss and I hadn’t been together in months because of the tension of everything that had happened—my cheating, the whole Wyoming ordeal—and I missed her desperately. To see her wearing that particular dress, a dress she’d bought specifically to drive me wild, pushed me over an edge I didn’t even know I was standing near.
I grabbed her with the intention of keeping her from leaving the bedroom. I didn’t realize what I was doing until I felt her respond to my lips on her throat. Before I knew it, we were ripping at each other’s clothes, falling onto the bed in a passionate embrace that was different from anything we’d done before, but so familiar, so perfect. It wasn’t until it was over that I realized what I’d done. I’d just forced my wife to satisfy my needs without stopping to ask what it was she wanted.
I hated myself afterward. She reached for my hand, but I couldn’t…
Why had she brought that up? We hadn’t talked about it then. Why talk about it now?
Was she trying to tell me something?
Chapter 6
Joss
I didn’t sleep. There was too much rattling around in my head for that to be possible. Instead, I packed my meager amount of luggage and spent hours on my laptop, trying to figure out what was so important about the land Jack Mahoney had been buying up in Wyoming that he'd felt the need to be in the state himself while the deals went down. There were still deeds on file, still public information I could access to try to put the puzzle pieces together. But I couldn’t find a damn thing.
There were no mineral deposits under the land. And, even if there were, the town owned the mineral rights, not the property owners.
It couldn’t be oil.
There were no legends of pirates or treasure seekers flocking to the area.
It wasn’t about buried treasure.
The land wasn’t particularly fertile. There were no new laws allowing casinos in the area. There was no interest from deep-pocketed firms he might flip the property to. There had been, but the interest died down as quickly as it had flared up. Hollywood was no longer interested in making that part of Wyoming their new hot vacation spot. A businessman like Mahoney would have seen that coming.
I couldn’t find any reason why Mahoney would choose that part of Wyoming—or any state—to begin buying up land. It didn’t make sense to me. He’d placed himself in the FBI and Ash’s target sights for what amounted to nothing.
But it had to be something.
Clint called him a terrorist. Said he intended to take over the government with his well-placed goons. As it was, the FBI had identified people as high up as the United States Congress who were in his pocket for one reason or another. Did Wyoming have something to do with that? And if it did, what was it?
This whole thing was incredibly frustrating. Ash always taught me that I needed to know my enemy in order to defeat him. But the more I thought I knew Mahoney, the less I seemed to really know.
I dropped a wad of bills on the dresser for my landlady and walked out a little before dawn, my bag over my shoulder. Carrington was already at the town square, his own leather overnight bag on the ground beside him. He stood when he saw me coming, moving away from the concrete fountain that was the centerpiece of the square.
“You look terrible.”
I chuckled dryly. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“We’ve got a bit of a walk. No taxis this early in the morning.” I gestured to his bag. “Hope it’s not too heavy.”
“Nope.” He snatched it up and then he grabbed the strap of my bag and tossed it over his shoulder, carrying both bags. “Lighter than yours.”
I didn’t argue. I was too tired to care all that much, and if he wanted to be a gentleman, who was I to shut him down?
We headed toward the main road. Carrington walked behind me, but always close enough that I could feel the wind of his movements. It was a little bit of a hike, but we managed to get to the small airport as the sun brightened the sky.
“You came here on a private plane?”
“I did.”
“And no one questioned it?”
“Why would they? We arrived in the middle of the night. The hotel doesn’t send their shuttle out here until after breakfast.”
“Doesn’t anyone else use this place?”
“No. Tyson had this runway put in specifically for herself and her guests. She owns it.”
“And she wouldn’t question a Gray Wolf plane landing here?”
“Do you really think Ash is dumb enough to have this plane registered in such a way that it’s easily tracked back to him or the firm? He’s smarter than that.”
Carrington just shook his head as he followed me toward the plane. The pilot stepped off the stairs to greet us, handing our bags over to the flight attendant to stow in the luggage compartment. We were in the air in less than ten minutes, a breakfast of fresh fruit and an assortment of breads served with coffee once we reached cruising altitude. Everything looked so good and the coffee smelled like heaven, but I couldn’t touch it.
It took everything I had to suppress the urge to vomit.
When the pilot announced that we’d arrived in Santa Monica, Carrington shot me a dark look.
“Santa Monica? I thought we were headed to Georgia.”
“We need to pick up a passenger.”
“Spencer,” he said, spitting out the name like it tasted foul on the tip of his tongue.
“I told you, we need his authority. We can’t exactly walk up to Tyson’s plane and ask her to kindly come with us so we can interrogate her, can we?”
“You never know. That might work.”
I laughed, a sound that got trapped in my throat when my stomach decided it could no longer hold on to the delicious chicken tortilla soup I’d eaten last night. I got up and dashed to the back of the plane where a spacious bathroom waited with the toilet seat thankfully already upright.
Carrington knocked on the door while I was still on my knees, my hands resting on either side of the porcelain bowl. I couldn’t catch my breath for a moment, the spasms too much. One hand slid down to the swelling low in my belly.
“You’ve got to cooperate with Mom today, okay, kid?”
“Joss!” Carrington said loudly, his voice full of concern. “Are you okay?”
I got up and rinsed my mouth in the sink, washing my hands quickly before I opened the door. “Fine,” I said as I brushed past him.
Carrington grabbed my arm. “You’re not fine. What the hell is going on?”
The concern in his eyes was touching, but what really got me was the spark of fear I also saw there. What was he afraid of?
“It’s just the water. They say not to drink it, but you know I never follow the rules. It’s probably that mixed in with flying so early in the morning.”
He tilted his head slightly, regarding me. “Don’t lie to me. I know you too well for that.”
Before I could respond, the flight attendant came over to us. “The pilot asks that everyone take their seats for landing, Mrs. Matthews.”
“Thank you, Darla.”
Mike was waiting for us once we touched ground, so there was no time for Carrington to interrogate me any further. The flight attendant let down the steps and we were back in the air the moment he was settled in his seat.
“I come bearing gifts,” he said, dropping a heavy file on the table between us. I reached for it, flipping it open on my lap. Carrington, who’d chosen a seat beside me, leaned close to look. “Perhaps you and I,” Mike began to say, his eyes flipping to Carrington.
“Do I not have the right clearance to see this?” my husband asked in a low, angry tone.
“As a matter of fact, no, you don’t.”
“Being the father of the missing child doesn’t give me the right to know the woman who took h
er?”
“Mike,” I said softly.
His eyes softened a little. He hadn’t been pleased to see Carrington on the plane, but he wasn’t going to argue. And he’d let this go, too, if it was what I wanted. Mike Spencer was a good man and a better cop. He was also a divorced man who’d set his sights on me for reasons I didn’t completely understand and had unabashedly taken advantage of.
“Anita Tyson, as I told you over the phone, is the wife of Rahul Rush.”
“And that is?” Carrington asked.
“He’s a lieutenant in Mahoney’s Cartel,” I informed him. “We came up against him three months ago when Audra was working undercover at a strip joint called the Red Door. He was working as a sort of manager there, but he was also exporting illegal immigrants to be used as sex slaves in Asia. He was caught up in the raid we ran on the port.”
Carrington nodded. His business, like many others that ran out of those ports, had been impacted by the raid. That sort of thing stayed in his memory.
“Rush was on bond when he left the state. The FBI just recently picked him up in Chicago and brought him back to California. He’s in their custody for the sex trafficking and half a dozen murders another member of the cartel placed on him.”
“Murders? And this guy’s wife has our daughter?”
“If she wanted to harm your child, she would have done it already,” Mike said. “We have evidence that she flew to Denver the night of the kidnapping, so we think she likely took the child somewhere else, perhaps to a safehouse.”
“The child has a name,” Carrington said, his voice cold and controlled. “It’s Aidan. After my brother.”
Mike inclined his head. “Aidan. Of course.”
The tension was getting a little thick. I tried to ignore it, but that was growing impossible.
“What do we know about Tyson? Is there anything we can use when we interrogate her?”
“I think so.” Mike leaned on the table, his eyes on me only. “It turns out that she and Rush met in one of the clubs he was running for Mahoney some six or seven years ago. She was a stripper. He married her on the sly, not really interested in his enemies—or his friends, for that matter—learning who she was and using that against him. She stayed in Texas while he moved wherever Mahoney wanted him. It also turns out she’s something of a computer expert. She’s been making a living hacking into high security systems for paying clients. It was with that money that she opened the hotel in Mexico and properties in other parts of the world. But we think that Mexico property was her retirement plan. She hoped that she and Rahul would move there very soon.”
“She doesn’t know her husband well if that was her plan.”
Mike tilted his head, clearly sitting on something I didn’t know.
“Turns out things have changed a little.” He sat back, a shit-eating grin on his face. “She’s seven months pregnant.”
My hand instinctively moved to the miniscule lump low in my belly. Carrington, who was still leaning close to read over my shoulder, didn’t miss the movement. I heard his hitched breath, his hand pushing mine out of the way before cupping my slightly swollen belly himself. He jerked, the movement violent enough to knock the file off my lap. And then he was out of his chair and striding toward the back of the plane. I jumped when I heard the pocket door to the office that was situated back there slam shut.
“What was that all about?” Mike asked, moving around the table to help me pick up the spilled file.
“It’s complicated.”
I stood to go speak to Carrington. Mike grabbed my wrist and pulled me back toward him.
“He’s a loose cannon, Joss. Do you really think it was a good idea to bring him along?”
“I think he’s under a lot of stress. I think his child is missing.”
“I know that. But there’s a reason why the FBI does not involve victim’s families in investigations.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that our family is not a typical family.”
“No. But I’ve also noticed the tension between the two of you. And the fact that you’ve been living out of a hotel room for weeks.”
“My marriage is my business, Mike.” I pulled my wrist out of his grip. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
I walked away before he could respond.
Carrington was leaning against the front of the desk when I pulled the pocket door open, digging at his cuticles as though he was interested in nothing more than a good manicure. I secured the door behind me and moved to rest beside him.
“I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“How long have you known?”
That was a complicated question that I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer. But I was tired of all the lies and half truths. I didn’t any more between us.
“The emergency room doctor told me the night I was stabbed.”
Carrington slapped his hands on his thighs, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.
“I was in shock at first, I think. Ash had just been shot at, I was getting a dozen stitches in my back, and you and the girls had just moved to the compound. Everything was insane!”
“That was weeks ago, Joss.”
“I know. I wanted to tell you, I really did.”
“We were together the next day. We made love.”
I nodded again. “And I wanted to tell you. I even started to, but then you got angry with me and I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think.” He shook his head as he stood, burying his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “You never think, Joss. You just go out and do things all on your own, never stopping to consider how your actions impact other people!” He dragged one hand over his head, making his red hair stand on end. “When did I become the enemy?”
“You’re not the enemy!”
“Yet, you’re far along enough in a pregnancy to be showing and you didn’t feel the need to tell me?”
“I tried! I tried last night!”
His eyes widened slightly. “Is that what that was all about? The question about that night?”
“Yeah. That’s the night it happened.”
The high color that had come into his cheeks with his anger suddenly disappeared. He stared at me, his slips slightly parted.
“That night? The night you went out in that dress?”
I nodded. “Had to have been.”
He shook his head. “But I was so angry that night! What a fucking night to make a baby!”
I went to him, twisted my hand in the front of his shirt. “But we made a baby. And that’s got to be a damn miracle after all that time we tried and had no success.”
“We just had to stop trying. Isn’t that what the doctor told us?”
I laughed, reaching up to caress his face. “That’s what he said.”
Carrington groaned. “We’re having a baby.”
“We are.”
He ran his hand over my throat, pushing my head back as he captured my lips. It was a hard, possessive kiss, the kind of kiss a jealous boyfriend might steal from the girl of his dreams. I wrapped my arms around his neck as I opened to him, desperate for his touch despite everything. Or maybe because of everything.
He lifted me and set me on the edge of the desk, his hands those of an octopus, touching me everywhere all at once. He tugged at my blouse, slipping his hands underneath to cup one bra encased breast. My nipples were tender, swollen and aching from the pregnancy hormones. I moaned against his lips and that just made him more determined, more anxious to possess me.
He pushed me back, sending a cup of pens and some papers flying off the top of the desk. He tugged at the shorts I was wearing, jerking them open with one hard tug. As they came open, he snagged his fingers not only under the denim, but hooked them in the sides of my panties, too, ripping them off in one quick movement. He fell to his knees as he did, pressing his mouth to the tender flesh that was still warm and moist from the humidity of Mexico, nibbling at my inner thigh.
I sat up a little, just enough to slide my fingers through his hair. He looked up at me, a fever I’d missed so desperately burning in his eyes. And then he buried his head between my legs and my head began to spin, every nerve in my body suddenly alive in that one spot. I moved my hips and cried out as he nibbled at flesh, ran his tongue against more flesh, touching me in ways that he knew would drive me to distraction and beyond. I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming and alerting everyone beyond those pocket doors to what was happening.
He did things to me that went beyond description. I was chewing my lip bloody, the pleasure almost too much to stand. Carrington had been single a long time before I met him and he hadn’t been a lonely single. He was rich, he was charming, and he was incredibly good looking. Women came out of the woodwork—still—for the pleasure of being in his company. And those years had taught him a lot about the female body. He’d always used every bit of that knowledge to teach me things that, even now, made me blush.
When he’d brought me to a near frenzy, he began to move upward, his lips sliding over my thighs, my hips. He paused over the lump in my lower abdomen that was impossible to mistake given the position I was lying in. He smoothed his palm over it before bending low and kissing it softly.
“We’re going to make this okay,” he said to our baby bump. “We’re going to be a family again and we’re going to give you the life you deserve.”
And then his mouth was on mine again and we were tearing at each other again. Passion burned through us, all the months of tension melting into something different, something better. When he was inside of me, he tugged me down onto the very edge of the desk and held my hips, his eyes refusing to leave mine. I sat up because I needed to be close to him, needed to touch him. The passion slowed, his movements becoming near torture as they turned into more of a rolling of the hips instead of thrusts, as he became gentle with each movement: the way he held me, the way he kissed me, the way he loved me.
I gasped when I reached my climax, digging my nails into the soft flesh of his ass, holding him still as I soared over my peak. He finished a moment later, his hands digging into me, pulling me closer than we’d been in a long time, both physically and emotionally.
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