Stolen Seduction

by Elisabeth Naughton

  The pressure beneath her breastbone was so great, Eleanor’s hands shook and the phone fell from her hands to land against the carpet with a thud. It couldn’t be. They’d found it? After everything she’d done to make sure neither one of them ever learned the truth?

  Slowly, as the panic mounted, she moved through the elaborate house she’d decorated all on her own. She reached her bedroom—a place Garrett hadn’t stepped into for a year before his death—and opened the safe she kept hidden behind the Warhol painting. Her fingers shook as she turned the combination and pulled the door open. The private investigator’s report was hidden in the back, secured in a folder a quarter inch thick. Every year he updated it, because knowing Stella Adams’s location was the only way Eleanor had been able to sleep at night.

  God, how she hated Jamaica. The heat. The people. The smell. The pressure in her chest eased and she stared down at the most recent report with a mixture of revile and disgust. Thirty-five years she’d kept her secret safe. Now it was about to come out. There was only one thing left to do.

  “Give it to him, Hailey.”

  Hailey’s eyes snapped Shane’s in direction, and he didn’t miss the shock that flared in their blue depths. “Are you crazy?”

  “Listen to the man, whoever he is,” Paul said. “He’s obviously smarter than you are.”

  Shane’s gaze ran from the gun in McIntosh’s hand to the slim blonde hanging in the shadows behind Roarke Resorts’ chief financial officer. Lucy Walthers. He recognized her from the night he’d questioned her at the Roarke house in Chicago.

  His blood ran hot, but he played it cool. His hands were at his side, his eyes watching everything. The gun in the holster at his side had never felt so heavy before.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Paul?” Hailey asked.

  “Taking what’s mine.” Paul’s beady eyes shifted from Shane to Billy, then finally to Hailey. And in them? Nothing but contempt.

  “Stealing from us won’t get you anything,” Hailey said, taking a step around Shane that royally pissed him off. Was she brain-dead? “You’re not a Roarke. You still won’t get the company.”

  “Eleanor will get it for me.”

  “You think that,” Nicole piped in. “But you’re not so sure. She could be using you.”

  Fire flashed in Paul’s eyes as they darted to Nicole and back to Hailey. “She’ll come to her senses.” He laughed, but the sound held absolutely no humor. “I’ve earned this.”

  The way he was suddenly looking around, waving the gun and taking steps farther into the room set Shane’s nerves on instant alert. He stepped in front of Hailey slightly, saw Billy do the same with Nicole. Out in the hall, Walthers was pacing, like the entire scene had her nervous as a whore in church.

  “Stay behind me,” Shane mumbled so only Hailey could hear him.

  “Funny thing is,” McIntosh said. “If you had just married me like your loony father wanted, none of this would have happened. We wouldn’t be here, and he’d still be alive.”

  Hailey’s fingers dug into Shane’s upper arm, and then she was in front of him, moving so fast he barely had time to grab her around the waist and pull her back before she launched herself at McIntosh. “You son of a bitch! You killed him?”

  “Hailey!”

  A smug expression crossed McIntosh’s face.

  “Did you kill Bryan, too? Did he find out what a bastard you are!”

  Shane’s grip tightened around Hailey so hard, he knew he was leaving bruises, but goddamn she was strong, and so fired up he knew if he let go she’d sail across the room and claw the man’s eyes out without a second thought. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he hissed in her ear.

  McIntosh chuckled, watching Hailey struggle as if it amused him. Out of the corner of Shane’s eye he saw Billy take two steps to the man’s left. Nicole inched toward a stack of crates. “Bryan was dumb as a post and so pussy-whipped he didn’t even see what hit him. You have Lucy to thank for that.”

  In the hallway, Lucy stopped pacing and shot a worried look their way.

  “I’ll see you rot in prison for this.” Hailey’s tone turned to ice, and she stopped struggling, but the venom Shane felt pumping through her was worse than the way she’d lashed out. Because it meant she was unpredictable. And if there was one thing he needed her to do right now, it was stay calm. “You and my mother for what you’ve done.”

  “Your mother? She’s as stupid as you are. So worried about her own secrets she didn’t even realize what was going on around her. But she was a good fuck. I will give her that. Even at her age.” His eyes ran down the length of Hailey’s body in a way that sent the blood roaring to Shane’s head. “Not as good as you, though, right? I mean, look at you. You’ve got to be one spicy little slut in bed.”

  He glanced over her shoulder at Shane. “Is she? I bet she is. C’mon, man to man, you can tell me. Miss Ball-buster here never gave it up for me, but I bet she did for you.” His licentious gaze ran back to Hailey. “Yeah, I bet for him you’re a regular Jenna Jameson.”

  Shane heard the click in his brain, the one that told him he was going from stable to dangerous; the one he’d heard in Chicago just before he’d ended up with a knife in his side.

  “Too bad I won’t get to compare,” McIntosh went on. “But you and you friends here are going to have a nice long time to get to know one another when we’re gone. You can bone your brains out then.” He looked up and around. “How long you think the oxygen will last in here, Lucy?” he asked over his shoulder. “Think they’ll make it three days?”

  Mumbling came from the hallway, but McIntosh only smiled. “In three days I’ll be sitting pretty at RR. And hiring the worst private investigator in the city to look for the missing Roarke sisters.”

  His smile faded. And the gun in his hand gleamed under the lantern’s bright light. “Now give me the bronze. Lucy and I are really fucking tired of chasing you two around, and I’ve had it with her complaining.”

  Billy had reached the far side of the room, and because McIntosh was intent on Hailey and the bronze she’d picked up, he didn’t notice Shane take one step forward or Billy move in from the side.

  “You want it?” Hailey asked. “This? This piece of metal?”

  “Yes, I do. Bring it here.”

  “Hailey,” Shane warned under his breath. “Don’t you dare move.”

  Her jaw clenched. And slowly she lifted the sculpture until it was chest high. “Then you can have it, you bastard.”

  She heaved the statue hard, a chest pass the NBA would be proud of. But McIntosh saw it coming, and his hand holding the 9mm lifted.

  “Goddammit!” That roar erupted in Shane’s brain. He threw himself in front of the gun, tackled McIntosh before he could get a shot off. The bronze hit the ground. The gun slid from McIntosh’s grip with a thud against the floor. As they grappled, Shane faintly heard screaming, feet pounding and the sound of a gunshot out in the hall. He had enough time to lift his head and see Hailey heading for the door, just before McIntosh’s fist slammed into his jaw. “Prick!”

  They wrestled, but it didn’t take long for Shane to get the upper hand. He shoved his knee hard into McIntosh’s spine and yanked up on his arm until the man cried out in pain. He glanced up and around for something to secure the man’s wrists. Nicole was crouched behind a stack of boxes, eyes wide. Shane hollered for her to bring him some wire from the crates.

  When McIntosh tried to get up, Shane shoved him face-first into the concrete. “Stay down, asshole.” He wiped his mouth, glanced down at the blood on his hand as Nicole cautiously brought over the wire. The man grunted as Shane wrapped the wire tight around his wrists. “Where’s your goddamn sister?” he barked at Nicole.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Fuck this.” He shoved off McIntosh. Reached for the gun on the ground and checked the safety. Then he handed the firearm to Nicole. “Stand here. Keep this pointed at the son of a bitch. If he so much as moves, shoot his ass.�
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  McIntosh whimpered. Nicole’s eyes grew so big, the whites could be seen all around her dark irises. The gun trembled in her hand. “Wh-where are you going?”

  “To kick your sister’s ass.”

  Hailey and Billy were dragging a dirty and sobbing Lucy Walthers back toward the storage room when Shane reached the hallway. He should have been relieved, happy Hailey wasn’t hurt, but at the moment all he saw was red. She hadn’t listened to him. Again. Was she trying to get herself killed?

  He jerked Walthers out of their grasp and dumped her on the ground next to McIntosh.

  Hailey looked at Billy. “Do you have that phone?”

  He tossed it to her, went to Nicole and gently took the gun from her hand, wrapping one arm around her and cradling her against him.

  Hailey immediately dialed. “Allie? Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I’ve got some trash that needs to be picked up.” As she disappeared out into the hall to talk to Alice Hargrove, Shane was left with nothing to do but watch her go.

  He walked across the floor while Billy spoke quietly to Nicole. Shane’s adrenaline was still pumping as he picked up the bronze and looked at the two entwined lovers.

  Last Seduction? He didn’t see that. All he saw was greed. And revenge. And a woman who was so goddamn independent, the only way to get through to her was by force.

  Hailey’s voice drifted into the room. He heard her giving Allie their location on the island. He looked over at Billy and Nicole. “Police are on their way. Hailey and I have to make tracks. They’ll ask questions, we’ll get pulled in—”

  “And you two will never figure out the rest of this,” Billy said, arm still around Nicole. “We’ll wait for the cops. You two just get lost before they get here.”

  Shane nodded. Took one more look at Walthers and McIntosh on the ground, then turned for the door with the bronze tucked under his arm. And told himself not to lose his temper with Hailey. Not yet, at least.

  Shane hadn’t spoken a word to her on the boat ride back to Marathon. Hadn’t asked if she was okay or even looked her way. And Hailey tried not to read anything into that. Tried to tell herself she didn’t care whether he was worried about her mental health.

  But it was hard. Especially when they climbed on the Roarke Bombardier and she gave the pilot the coordinates from her father’s letter, found out they were heading to Jamaica, told Shane, and he still didn’t say a single word in response. Just strapped in and waited for takeoff with clenched jaw and eyes that seemed to look off into space.

  Okay, he was ticked. Didn’t take a brainiac to figure that one out. She twiddled her thumbs while the plane gained momentum and they shot into the air. The second they were high enough, she flipped off her seat belt and hit the galley for something to drink to settle her nerves.

  She was pouring her second shot when Shane picked her up by the elbows and turned her around to face him. The bottle of bourbon slipped from her fingers and hit the counter with a crack. “What the hell are you—”

  His mouth was over hers before the words were even past her lips, but she knew instinctively this wasn’t a gentle kiss. Wasn’t a loving kiss. Wasn’t even an I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through kiss. It was hard and wet and a little bit mean as his teeth sank into her bottom lip hard enough for a lick of pain to shoot though her skin. He didn’t give her a chance to say yes or no or anything in between, because he was yanking her off the floor and pushing her through the door into the private cabin and shoving her down to the mattress before she even realized they were moving.

  He was pissed. She could feel the anger pumping off him in hot, rolling waves. Knew he was replaying what she’d done in that bunker and using it to punish her. And while her brain told her rough, angry sex was a really bad idea, especially after the way things had gone last night and this morning, her own adrenaline was still so high, she didn’t care.

  She thrust her tongue into his mouth, found the edge of his shirt and scored her nails up underneath and across his bare back until he roared. He answered by biting her lip again, then ripping her T-shirt open right down the center to expose her bra and stomach.

  She gasped. Barely had time to react before he was pulling her breasts free without even unlatching her bra and devouring them with his mouth. His arousal rubbed against her hip. Electricity rushed over her skin.

  Oh, God…

  Bad, awful, really dangerous idea. So how come with him it felt so right?

  His teeth scraped her nipple as his hands found the snap on her jeans, ripped them open and stripped her bare. “Goddamn, you’re going to listen to me,” he growled. “Even if I have to force you to.”

  She moaned as his mouth ran low, lower, until he was pushing her legs wide and dragging his tongue up her cleft.

  “Shane…”

  Her back arched. Her fingers slid into his hair. Light flashed behind her eyes as he worked his tongue over and around, taking her places she’d never been. And when he pushed two fingers inside her, thrust deep in time with his tongue, all that adrenaline and anger and pent-up rage tipped the scales into a mind-blowing orgasm that rocketed through her entire body.

  He flicked his tongue over her as she came down the other side, then sank his teeth into the pressure point between her thigh and torso until she groaned.

  It didn’t hurt. If anything, it superheated her blood all over again. She pushed her hips up against him as he licked and sucked the spot, and reached for him, desperate to have him inside her like he’d been last night.

  But before she could wrap her hands about his shoulders, he was off the bed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and pacing the small room like a caged tiger ready to strike.

  Her brain was still nothing but sex-fuzz as she pushed up on her elbows to look for him. Why wasn’t he inside her right this second? She glanced down the length of his body and discovered—to her surprise—he wasn’t hard anymore.

  A chill spread through her veins, forcing out all that sultry heat. And in that moment she became achingly aware of the sound of the jet’s engines, the air hissing through the vent above, the heave and draw of his breath across the room. He was completely clothed, and her breasts were hanging out of her bra, her panties were ripped and her jeans were dangling from one leg.

  That wasn’t sex. That wasn’t pleasure. That was a point, which he’d made crystal clear. He didn’t need her. He didn’t want her. But he was in charge.

  A sick feeling settled in her stomach. She fixed her bra, pulled on her jeans and looked around for her bag so she could find a shirt not shredded by his hands.

  “When I tell you to do something,” he said in a low voice from across the room, “that means do it. It doesn’t mean lose your fucking common sense.”

  “Go to hell,” she snapped.

  She jerked on a shirt, managed to get the collar over her head before he grabbed her by the arm and whipped her back to face him. “I can’t keep you safe if you don’t listen to me!”

  She shoved his chest, enough to get him to stumble back a few steps so she could yank her shirt down. “I don’t need you to protect me. I’ve been doing it all on my own my whole life. Who the hell do you think you are anyway?”

  He took a step toward her. “Goddamn it, Hailey—”

  “I’m not Julie, Shane!”

  He stopped midstep. And something unreadable crossed his face.

  And that’s when it hit her, like a blast to the sternum that stole her breath. “Oh, my God. You’re not here because of me.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Why didn’t I see it before? All this time I thought you came down here with me because of how you felt about me. Because you wanted to help me.” She shook her head as she thought about how he’d walked away from his department without a second thought, taken her dagger from evidence, lied to his partner on the phone. “But that’s not why, is it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No.” She shook her head, his actions and wo
rds and the way he’d tried to keep personal distance between them all finally making sense in her head. “You’re here because of her. So you can prove you can save the girl and still get the bad guy in the end. And that’s why you’re so angry with me now. Because you can’t do that if I don’t play the helpless female who needs you to protect her.”

  She knew she was right when guilt crept into his eyes. “Hailey—”

  “Oh, God.” The room spun, and her stomach rolled. And when he moved toward her, she flinched out of his reach so his heat couldn’t brand her skin. “I can’t believe I was a complete fool.”

  “That’s not what this is—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” She held up her hands to block him, clenched them into fists as her stupidity registered. And felt her heart crack, right there in the silence between them. She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. “Just…do me the courtesy of at least not lying about it now.”

  He didn’t answer. And as she stood there gathering herself, she tried to figure out what it was about her and men. Why did she keep falling for guys who didn’t really want her?

  Slowly, she opened her eyes, only to find him watching her cautiously. The anger that had driven him before was gone, replaced with a guilt-ridden look that said, yep, she’d been right.

  Her chest tightened, so much so she thought it might just implode. And then in a rush, all that betrayal and rage slid out on a wave and was replaced with a numb feeling that seemed to grow from her core and radiate outward until all she felt was…nothing. Nothing but empty and utterly alone.

  She made a decision then, the only one she had left to make.

  “When we land, I want you to leave. I want you off my plane and out of my life for good.”

  “I’m not leaving you when—”

  “Don’t.” She held up a hand to keep him from touching her. But she didn’t yell. Didn’t snap. Didn’t have enough left in her to lash out at him. “Don’t take away what little dignity I have left. Just…don’t.”