“Mary’s client list.”
Mickey handed over a single white sheet of paper, and curiosity about the names caused Ivory to intercept it before Jax could reach for it. She scanned the names, the high profile list that could throw the city of Boston into a fit. Ivory knew some of the people through her office and charities she was affiliated with.
“Holy shit.”
Jax ripped the paper from her hands, and Ivory glared at him. “Who is the primary suspect?”
Mickey stuck a toothpick between his teeth and moved it around with his tongue. “Top of the list. Saw her several times in the last months before her death.”
Jax swore beneath his breath. “This is the prosecuting attorney for the State of Massachusetts.”
“Yup,” Mickey said, squinting his eyes. “And I bet my last dollar he met her through the state, if you know what I mean.”
Ivory sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. She knew Christian Jacobs well. He and Nathan played golf together. Could he really be Ashley’s father? “I don’t know. He’s happily married. I’ve met his wife.”
Jax folded the piece of paper and stuck it in his back pocket. “The man doesn’t get neutered when he gets married. He very well could have fathered Ashley, and introduced my sister to drugs. Dirty cops. Dirty D.A. Why not?”
Ivory let the smell of baking cookies soothe her strained nerves. She felt sick to her stomach. Someone she believed in fathered a child by an escort. This was bigger than she could have imagined. “Did she keep regular clients?”
Mickey noted his binder. “Two or three were regulars. I don’t know what she did before she met her pimp and dealer. Maybe she worked on her own. Maybe she worked with a Madame.”
Jax started to pace. “There’s a high-profile Madame in Boston. She works out of an old Victorian house outside the city limits.”
Ivory jerked her gaze toward Jax and his set jaw. “How would you know?”
He shot her a look of granite, but Ivory didn’t crumble under his scrutiny. “I think it might be obvious, but I haven’t been there in years.”
“Obviously not if you never saw your sister.” Mickey chuckled.
“No. It’s been at least five,” he said, keeping his gaze on Ivory.
She finally broke eye contact when Ashley cooed, said, “Mama.”
She picked the bundle of joy up. “You said it again. That’s my girl,” Ivory whispered. She looked up to find Jax staring at the two of them, an odd expression on his face. She tried to discern what he might be thinking, but Jax kept his thoughts under lock and key.
Mickey broke the lag in conversation. “Well, let’s get on the road, my boy. We’ve got some people to question.”
Ivory never took her eyes off Jax. When they readied themselves to go, she stood up. “It’s Christmas Day.”
Jax shoved his arms through the coat. “Someone will talk.”
“Let me help.”
“No. If Christian Jacobs doesn’t take to being accused this way, then things might get ugly.”
Ivory planted her free hand on her hip, tossing her hair back. “I can handle it. I know how to defend myself.”
Jax glanced from Mickey to her, and then back to Mickey. The older man shrugged. Ivory knew she’d won the argument and moved around the small area collecting Ashley’s things efficiently. No more than five minutes, and Ashley was seated in the back of Jax’s extended cab, her car seat strapped in. Ivory sat beside Jax, her thigh constantly bumping against his, sending jolts of lightning up her legs straight to her core.
Even with Mickey and Ashley tucked in back, being in close quarters with Jax played havoc on her psyche. She longed for his taste, his lips on hers, to the exclusion of being able to think. She reveled in the feel of his body pressed to her side, the heat infusing her. The smell of his soap, fresh and male, tickled her nose. She itched to run her palm up his forearm, feel the steel cords flex as he effectively shifted gears.
They rode in silence all the way to Heron House, and Jenny took Ashley inside. When the baby disappeared behind the safe doors of Jenny’s nest, Ivory turned to look at Jax. “I think we should go see Nathan as well. He and Christian are friends.”
Only the sound of hard rock filled the truck as they made the turn that would lead them straight for Nathan’s house. Ivory’s stomach flipped when Jax’s telltale muscle started jumping. If Mickey wasn’t in the truck with them, Ivory would have demanded he pull over. She felt her need grow with each tic of the cord, the pulse of his anger alluring her.
She wanted his mouth against her throat. Feel his tongue on her, his fingers plunging over and over into her core as she held on.
“Ivory?”
Jax’s voice jerked her out of her thoughts. “What?”
A knowing smile played on his full lips, as if he could tell what she thought, what she needed, what she craved. “I think we should wait to go see Nathan. First, we’ll stop by the police station.”
“I don’t know how much we’ll find out today, kid, but she’s right. If anyone will know anything, it would be his friends.”
Ivory watched as Jax tightened his hands on the steering wheel, the sound of rubber screeching beneath his hands. “Nathan knew all along his dear old buddy, Christian, was fucking my sister for money.”
Ivory swallowed past the bile in her throat. Could Nathan have known?
And the answer came clear as day.
“Yes, I suppose it’s possible Nathan does know,” she whispered.
Jax swung a hard right, executed a U-turn and drove back toward the suburbs. “Son-a-fucking-bitch.”
* * * *
Jax put his foot to the pedal as they sped down Rt. 128. Nathan knew about his sister’s life, and the low life hadn’t even thought to tell him about it. Oh, when he got his hands on Nathan . . .
Ivory’s sweet little body plastered to his as they rounded a turn, and he felt her muscles tense at his reckless behavior. He narrowed his sights on the road, mindless as he took turn after turn to get to Nathan’s house situated on the water. What were the chances the one man who should have been helping in the first place held key information? Unless that man had something to hide. Not from Jax, but from Ivory.
And things started to clink into place. Jax shoved the clutch down as they pulled up in front of the condominium in Rockport. The small scenic town boasted quiet streets and specialty shops. The condos were beachfront property and cost a pretty penny in the area. “Let’s go.”
Ivory jumped out behind him and, careful of the growing child in her stomach, Jax kept her behind him. Mickey brought up the rear. The most precious thing in the world, and Jax’s only mission was to protect it. Innocence.
He rapped his knuckles against the hard front door of Nathan’s home, and Nathan, still in a robe, answered. He had a vicious looking split lip, and Jax felt satisfaction at his handiwork. Nathan squinted against the sunlight invading his tomb.
“I didn’t expect to see you three, today,” Nathan bit out.
Ivory tried to move around Jax, but he kept her behind him, blocking her path. Jax would do the talking. “We’ve got some questions for you, Nathan.”
The Chief of Police stepped back, letting the trio inside. The heat blast made Jax drowsy for a minute before he got his bearings. The Chief kept his place toasty warm. A voice called down the hallway, a decidedly feminine voice. Jax cut a look toward Ivory, when the woman said, “Nathan? Who is it?”
Ivory’s eyes had gone wide, her pupils ringed with a bit of blue. Her nostrils flared, and Jax wrapped his arm around her waist, his palm settling over her abdomen. His woman, his child. Nathan glowered at them. “We need to talk, Nate. Go tell your company you’re going to be a minute.”
Nathan grumbled about intrusion and headed off to the belly of his home. Jax glanced down at Ivory, but his little bird was stoic as usual, graceful in her appearance, though the flare of her nostrils betrayed her anger. “Easy, tiger. We’ll get some answers.”
“S
o not what I’m pissed about right now, Jax, and get your hand off me like I’m your property. This is no time for whose dick is bigger.”
Obliging her request, Jax let her go. Still, he kept his body positioned in front of her. Nathan returned, his jeans and T-shirt wrinkled as though he picked them up off the floor. He pointed toward the living room, and Jax led the way.
“What do you want to talk about, Jax?”
Mickey cleared his throat. “Actually, it’s me who needs to talk to you, Chief,” he said, stepping forward. He produced the color print of Mary, and Jax almost felt a twinge of grief over his lost sister, lost chances to know her.
Nathan stared at the five-by-five. “Pretty.”
“It’s my sister, you asshole, and you knew all along Christian Jacobs was fucking her.” Jax couldn’t keep the shakes out of his voice, and the anger inside.
Nathan pinned Jax with a loathing stare. “Mary and Christian had no such relationship.”
Mickey produced another paper, this one her list of contacts and clients. “Provided by a fellow, shall we say, service provider? Looks like the girls shared clients, except Christian. And one other man, but no one knows the name of that guy.”
Jax thought he saw Nathan’s eyes widen a little at the implication, and suspicion stirred in his gut. “Did Christian give Mary her first taste of heroin?”
Nathan paced back and forth in front of his gas fireplace. “They weren’t involved. Look, Mary had some dealings in bad shit. She worked for Madame Christine for a couple of months. We busted the Madame’s operation, but she slipped under the radar.”
Jax didn’t care about Madame Christine or her other charges. He cared about his sister and her fatherless child. Jax moved forward. He was a big guy, so was Nathan, but Jax’s training as a killer provided ample leverage. “I think you’d better start talking, Nathan. I’ll dig as deep as I have to go to find out who my sister’s keeper was, and I’ll start turning over rocks. I’ll find out what scumbags crawl out from the department’s protection. I can take you down, and you know I can do it.”
Jax caught Ivory’s expression. “Better yet, I’ll expose you,” he whispered to Nathan, between the two men.
Nathan nodded in ascent, understanding what Jax held over him. “Fine,” he said. “Christian and Mary were involved for a year or so, before she started working for Madame Christine, before the drugs. He kept her, paid her way. He ended it when he found out about the pregnancy.”
“How did they meet?” This from Mickey.
Nathan ran a hand back through his longish hair. “She worked in a bar downtown.”
Jax backed off, flexing his fingers. “I think there’s something you’re not saying. How did she get involved with the drugs?”
Nathan stood at his window, his back to them. “I don’t know. Mary was a good kid. I’m sorry she got what she did.”
Mickey took Ivory by the elbow, her expression growing more hostile by the minute. When his old friend had her safely outside, Jax walked over to Nathan and got in his face. In a steady voice, he said, “Come near Ivory, Ashley, or my child, and I’ll tell the whole world you frequent a brothel.”
“Your child?” Nathan asked.
Jax wrapped his finger around the doorknob, ready to exit. “Stay away, Nate. I won’t tell you again.”
* * * *
Ivory felt her anger infiltrate her veins, poisoning her good mood. Nathan was sleeping with someone? Had he been sleeping with the floozy while they were supposed to be working out their relationship? Mickey kept her in place with a staying hand on her arm as they waited for Jax.
“Let’s go home,” he barked when he climbed in.
“You’ve got the keys, fuck-nut.”
Ivory could see the lines of fatigue around Jax’s eyes and wondered if their morning exertions and the trip to Nathan’s had tired him out. The drive back to Nana’s felt eerily strange. Something changed in Jax’s demeanor, and whatever it was, he was keeping a secret. When did the man not keep secrets?
Mickey jumped out when they reached Ivory’s place, but Jax sat, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “I think you and Ashley should come live with me.”
Ivory felt her mouth drop open. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“You’re pregnant.”
She shifted to face him, her leg pulling beneath her. “That doesn’t constitute a major change in my living arrangements, Jax.”
He rubbed his temple. “Lady, you drive me nuts.”
Ivory scrambled for the passenger door and jumped down. The impact of her off-center balance on the concrete drive made her knees ache. “Damn truck.”
Jax rounded the hood just as she straightened. “Goddamnit, Ivory, you could have hurt yourself.”
She flung strands of hair out of her face, pulling them out of her mouth. “Then get a freaking sensible vehicle.” She stormed past him. “And for your information, in today’s day and age, you don’t need to live together to have a child together.”
Jax’s longer legs allowed him to catch up to her before she entered the house. He gripped her shoulder, and steered her toward the garage attached to the house. “Hey,” Ivory cried out. “Get your hands off me.”
The whisper of his voice against her ear sent shards of pleasure straight to her folds. “You like my hands on you, Ivory.”
“Bastard,” she muttered.
Jax checked the garage out, noted the windows and door into the house. Ivory waited for his inspection to conclude, her butt against her Grandpa’s old workbench. It hadn’t been used in years. Satisfied, he ran his hands down his face and cracked his neck. “I think we should be together, Ivory.”
“Oh, that’s convincing.” She sneered. “How can we be together when you’re constantly ordering me around? When you won’t tell me a damn thing about your life. What I know about you, Jax, wouldn’t fill the first page of a notebook.”
Jax’s hard stare made her balk. “You know all you need to know,” he growled.
“Not enough, Jax. We can work out a custody schedule, and sure, use my body at your will, but that’s all you get from me.”
“Liar.”
Ivory felt his accusation deep down, in her gut. Truth be told, what she’d started to suspect about her feelings for Jax were hidden, private, and she didn’t want to acknowledge their existence. Loving Jax Morgan would be painful, hard, and relentless. It would suck every drop of energy she had, and yet, he’d still demand more from her. He’d take and take, and never would she get a thing back.
“Don’t do this, Jax, please. Just leave it.”
He crossed the small distance between them, and scooped her up in his arms. He palmed her ass, pressing her center against his erection, and Ivory closed her eyes at the need that raged inside of her. “You belong to me, Ivory.”
He slid his hands up her breasts. “This is my playground.”
Over her stomach. “This is my child,” he whispered against her neck. His fingers trailed lower, between her thighs, cupped her through her pants. “And this is my heaven.”
Ivory couldn’t control the desire as it sped through her veins, her arteries pumping blood faster to her clit, the nerves and sensations as he rubbed her, pressed against the swollen bud. He untied the drawstring, pulled them, and Ivory felt his fingers tickle the tender skin at her hip bone, slide inside her panties. She was wet and ready. She opened to him, and when he slid a finger through her juices, used his thumb to massage her clit and two digits to pierce her core, Ivory muffled her cry on his shoulder.
“I can’t stop thinking about you, even on missions. I dream about you,” he growled. “You consume me.”
Ivory knew all about consumption, but the streaks of fire flowing through her, centered on that nubbin of pleasure, stole her breath, her thoughts. He could make her agree to anything as long as he touched her, loved her.
She reached up, laid her lips against his. “Jax, what if you get tired of having me around?”
A lo
w, rumbling chuckle reverberated through his chest. “Would I get tired of having your sweet body, hot little pussy at my mercy twenty-four hours a day? Fuck no.”
Sadness crept into her pleasure, doused the rage with a healthy bit of reality. “I won’t move in with you, Jax. We can be friends and parents, but that’s where I draw the line. When you leave, I don’t want a broken heart, because, God help me, I don’t know why, but you can make me fall in love with you.”
That stilled him.
He pulled his hand from her depths, and Ivory grieved the loss of his touch. He tied the drawstring of her pants and kissed her cheek. “I’ve got to go.”
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