by Mia Dymond
“I offered to put a chip on her but that proved difficult.”
“Why?”
“Do you really need specifics, Rawlings?”
Jake held his tongue. No, he didn’t and even more, he didn’t even want to entertain the thought that Majors or any other agent might search Bri’s body for a place to hide a chip. The one and only thing that kept him from pummeling the other man was the device already embedded in her bracelet – the one he planted without her knowledge.
“If one sequin goes missing from her costume, you have me to deal with.”
“Sequins?”
“Blue,” he mumbled. Tiny little sparkling stars, strategically sewn along her top to outline her firm, tight breasts and on her g-string in a perfect vee, leading to the treasure between her legs. Although now hard, Jake cursed his arousal. “I’m dead serious, Majors, one misplaced sequin will render you dickless.”
“Your concern is duly noted.” The agent had balls enough to smirk while he nodded at the catwalk. “There’s your girl.”
Momentarily distracted from his anger at Majors, Jake turned his attention to Bri, scantily dressed in the aforementioned sequins. Although his vision remained colored red, anger couldn’t be blamed; no, pure, raw arousal deserved full credit.
He watched in sheer, silent agony while she moved her body in time to her signature heavy metal music, teasing and taunting every man in the room with each sway of her barely-covered ass. His traitor of a cock hardened as he took in her equally blue hooker heels that boosted her height at least four inches; how she kept from breaking her neck, he didn’t know – didn’t really care at this moment. As long as he pictured them on her feet as she wrapped those tan, smooth legs around his hips in a fit of passion, all was right in his world.
He pried his eyes from her body long enough to glance at his watch. Good. Approximately two minutes left, then he’d drag her by her blonde curls back to his house and toss her into his bed where she would be safe. Even if he had to bound and gag her to do it.
He stole a glance at Majors and frowned when the other man appeared a little too interested in the activity on stage.
He cleared his throat – loudly. “Don’t you think you should focus on your security team?”
The agent shook his head and grinned as he scooted his chair back from the table. “You realize I’ve seen her naked, right?”
Jake’s eyes cramped with his narrowed stare. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Relax, Rawlings.” Majors slapped him on the back. “I’m just trying to keep you on your toes.”
Jake balled his fists to resist reaching for the weapon on his hip while a thin sheen of sweat crept across his forehead. He glanced at the door and his partner raised an eyebrow when their gazes met. Maybe he should’ve taken Mace’s advice and worked the door instead.
Catcalls and high pitched whistles drew his attention back to the stage in just enough time to see Bri’s ass disappear behind the curtain. About damn time. He stood from the table and then stomped away from the table toward the side stage door. He was gonna wring her neck, then handcuff her to him and swallow the key, just as he promised. Damn, stubborn woman!
“Hey, handsome.”
Without any other choice, he was forced to pause in mid-stomp to keep from barreling over the half-naked brunette in his path. Before he could apologize for almost taking her out, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed her incredibly tight, creamy breasts against him while she whispered in his ear. “You look like you could use some fun.”
“Not tonight, sweetheart.”
“Really? I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
“No doubt but I’ll have to pass.”
Those breasts moved about half a millimeter when she lifted a leg and pressed it against his hip. “You sure about that?”
Very gently, he brushed her leg from his body, reached for his own hip, unclipped his badge holder and then flashed the gold at her. “Positive. I’m on duty.”
Her dark red lips split into a sultry smile. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He had to grin at her tenacity. “Seriously, not tonight.”
She tossed her long, wavy curls over her shoulder and smirked. “Your loss, big guy.”
Extremely annoyed by the interruption, Jake made a beeline through the stage door until he stood in front of Bri’s dressing room. His fists ached as he pounded on the door. “Bri, I’m coming in.”
The silent seconds only fueled his anger and when she failed to answer, he shoved the door so hard it slammed into the wall and splintered down the middle.
“Bri?” The empty room taunted him. “Where are you?”
He stood in the middle of the room while anxiety burnt a hole in his gut. He flung a nearby hairdryer at the wall and watched the plastic pieces scatter in the air.
“Hey!” Mace took a quick step to one side as he stepped through the doorway.
“Damn it Turner, she’s gone! Where’s her backup?”
His partner frowned. “Hold on a sec.” Mace stepped further into the room.
“She’s not here,” Jake spat, “I’ve already checked.”
“Rawlings, shut the hell up!”
Both stunned and pissed off, Jake ran a hand across his jaw.
Mace moved toward the back of the room. “Did you hear that?”
“No.”
“Over here, from this locker.”
Mace opened the locker door and the agent assigned to Bri fell to the floor, bound and gagged.
Now beyond angry, Jake yanked the tape from his mouth, ignoring the colorful language he assumed to be in reference to pain.
“Start talking.”
“I was hit from behind.” Mace untied the agent’s hands and feet and helped him to stand. “I woke up in there.” He glanced at Jake. “Without my weapon.”
“Sonuvabitch.” Jake pulled his phone from his pocket and stabbed buttons until a blinking red dot appeared on the screen. His stomach churned. “Turner, call Majors. She’s headed west on Houston Avenue.”
“On it.”
He listened to Mace explain the situation to Majors while fear threatened to take him to his knees. Five nights – he’d endured this hell for almost a week before the idiot made his move. The red dot continued to move along the mapped route.
“They’ll follow us,” Mace said finally.
He allowed his eyes to leave the screen only long enough to toss his keys at Mace before they headed out the door. “You drive.”
Jake squeezed the phone and watched the light blink as it moved along a map of Primrose. Blood seared his veins as it sped through his body.
“Focus, Rawlings.” Mace’s voice held clear directive as they piled in the cruiser. “We’ll find her and take them down.”
“I’m focused.” He buckled his seatbelt. “Damn bastards are going down, even if I have to roll heads to do it.”
Mace grinned and started the car. “If anyone asks, I didn’t see anything unusual about the takedown.”
“Left on Elm. Looks like they’re headed for the warehouse district.” Jake allowed a smirk to move his upper lip. “You know suspension’s a bitch, right?”
“I kinda know that firsthand, partner.” Mace’s grin spread into a full-fledged smile. “Like I said, I didn’t see anything.”
Jake kept his eyes glued to the red cursor and barked out directions as Mace kept them on course.
“Rookie mistake number one.” Mace chuckled as they turned yet another circle. “All this does is cause seasickness.”
“Didn’t count on a bug,” Jake mumbled. And, for the first time since he planted it, he didn’t feel one ounce of guilt. In fact, he may just leave it there – just in case she ever decided to take matters into her own hands again.
***
Goosebumps danced on her skin as Bri squeezed her eyes closed, feigning sleep while she attempted to get a feel for her surroundings. The surface beneath her appeared to be hard and
cold, but with her hands bound in front of her she couldn’t tell much else. She wiggled her legs, both encouraged and curious when she discovered them unbound. Did she walk here on her own? Question marks pummeled her hazy brain while she lay perfectly still and attempted to take a mental inventory of her body parts, relieved that other than a mother of a headache, she appeared unharmed.
She took a deep breath and then frowned. The atmosphere smelled musty and dirty, much like an attic used for storage of antiques. The sound of faint, male voices floated in the stale air from somewhere outside, far enough away to assure her she didn’t have company. Cautiously, she opened her eyes.
Although it was dark, she blinked several times to clear her vision to see enough to know she lay inside a four-walled structure on a concrete bench, still dressed in her sapphire blue ensemble. The walls appeared to be steel; the floor, concrete. A lone door occupied the middle of one wall. Panic suddenly climbed all thirty-three vertebrae of her spine. What on Earth happened? Jake warned her about the dangers of dancing, but this predicament was almost unbelievable – she had an FBI bodyguard, for Pete’s sake!
Her head ached as she concentrated hard to remember the night’s events. She remembered dancing, that she’d never forget. Jake’s eyes glued to her every move prevented any memory loss – for either of them. Her traitorous nipples tightened and she almost laughed out loud; even in fear her body responded to him.
After she danced, she’d returned to the dressing room as planned, nodding to her bodyguard on the way inside. He’d returned the gesture, skillfully attempting to hide his interest in her costume. So, she’d thrown in an extra toss of one hip and a wink over one shoulder as she left him.
The moment the door closed behind her, things took a turn.
Bri ran both hands across her brow and willed herself to think hard. She remembered hearing a thump against the front entrance door that captured her attention and before she could analyze the situation, the back door opened. Stephan Lombardy and a giant of a man she assumed to be his bodyguard entered.
She hadn’t been alarmed, really, just surprised. In her tenure at the Velvet Glove, the owner rarely made an appearance. In fact, she’d only seen him a total of two or three times. He’d given her a very charming smile and a kiss to the back of her knuckles and then asked if she’d be interested in performing a second time. She’d politely declined. Mr. Lombardy had laughed, the bodyguard stepped in front of her.
From that moment, her mind became completely blank.
She swallowed hard, partly to gather courage but mostly to digest the fact she owed Jake a big apology – a whopping one. First things first, though – he wouldn’t get his apology until she was good and ready. She rolled her eyes at her own stubbornness; when she was good and ready and free from the ropes.
Her bracelet tickled the surface of her skin as she wiggled her wrists from side to side and then in small circles in an attempt to loosen the knots. When that technique didn’t work, she tugged and pulled with her teeth. Her progress was slow but finally they loosened enough to free her hands. She eased herself to stand, hesitating a few seconds to dispel a sudden wave of dizziness, then she moved her hands along the cold metal wall as she walked until she finally reached door. She reached out at waist-level and turned a knob, fully expecting to find it locked. Instead the orb squeaked and a sliver of light blinded her when it sneaked through.
She waited for her vision to clear and then peered further out the door. Several other rooms lined a hallway that connected the makeshift prison cells to a large, empty room. The male voices gathered strength down the hallway.
Bri inched her way out of the door and closed it softly. She tiptoed to the neighboring door and placed an ear against it. When she didn’t hear anything, she moved to the next door. Her heart pounded when very faint female voices seeped through the silence. She turned the knob, again unlocked. Now extremely confused, she slipped inside and the voices stopped.
“Hello?” She spoke softly, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry through the steel. “I’m here to help you.”
“Bri?”
Bri locked her knees to keep them from buckling when she recognized the voice immediately. “Sunny? Is that you?”
“Yes. How’d you find us?”
“Us? Who else is here?”
“Just me and Melissa.”
“Are either of you hurt?”
“No, we’re okay, just scared.”
Despite her fear, incredible relief wrapped her body. At least Sunny and Melissa were here. Unharmed and alive. “I managed to find the way out of my suite.”
“How?”
“Actually, I simply turned the knob and left the room.”
Melissa’s voice wavered. “No need for locks, there’s nowhere else to go. The whole place is crawling with guards.”
“What now?”
Bri caught a hopeful note in Sunny’s question and paused while her conscious taunted her. Yeah, what now? She spun her bracelet, amazed that it still decorated her wrist. No sense panicking everyone. “The police are on the way.” She hoped. “Are there others?”
“Not anymore,” Sunny answered. “The rest of them were loaded onto a truck yesterday.”
***
Standing with his arms folded over his chest, Jake glanced at the agent next to him and seriously considered snapping his neck. Ten minutes ago, he’d been briefed on operation rescue and still, they waited inside the perimeter established around a huge, abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. He hoped like hell Bri still wore her bracelet – that would be the only way out of this mess. Desperate, he slid his cell phone from his pocket and breathed a long sigh when the red light blinked in one solitary area. At least she wasn’t on the move.
“Damn it, Majors! We need to go in now!”
“Cool your jets, Rawlings. We’ve saturated the area.”
Normally the other man’s calm demeanor would impress him but at this moment Jake really, really wanted to pull his gun. “This from the jackass who swore she was safe under the watchful eye of the FBI. Look where she is now. If I hadn’t planted that tracker—”
“The point is,” Majors interrupted, “she’s safe right now and we want to keep her that way. You know damn well we can’t just rush in there with guns blazing.”
“We don’t know she’s safe! In fact, we don’t know for a fact the chip is still on her body!” Now pissed off and totally out of control for being forced to voice the one fear he avoided at all costs, Jake yanked his gun from his body holster and released the safety. “I’m going in.”
“Hang on, Jake.” Mace cocked his own weapon.
“You gonna try and stop me?”
“Hell no, partner. I’m going with you.”
Jake nodded, confident that Mace had his back.
“Hold up.” Majors reached into his pocket and then handed both him and Mace an earpiece. “At least follow protocol.”
Jake crammed the device in his left ear. “Protocol, my ass.”
Without another word to the Agent in Charge, he and Mace crept to the back door of the warehouse, the chatter coming through the wires in his earpiece letting him know the others were also on the move. Jake refused to let down his guard – trapped criminals had nothing to lose and were highly unpredictable. No way would he risk innocent lives.
Adrenaline pushed him closer to the entry as gunshots sounded through the quiet night and several bullets ripped through the space. “Get down, Turner!” He shoved Mace down next to him. “The welcoming committee’s in full force.”
“We’ll waddle over there.” He pointed to a row of empty barrels stacked in their path then led the way.
““Can you get a fix on her location?” Mace asked once they were protected.
Jake yanked out his cell phone again and glared at the scene, both relieved and majorly annoyed. “She’s here.”
“Where?”
“Just here!” Jake crammed the phone back inside his pocket. “The layou
t of the warehouse isn’t mapped.”
“Well then,” Mace said as he reached into his pocket, pulled out several bullets and loaded his weapon, “looks like we’re gonna have to clear a path.”
Jake cocked his own weapon. “See you inside.”
Mace nodded, aimed his gun at the doorway and squeezed the trigger – the goon stationed there doubled over and fell to the ground.
“Move, Rawlings!” Majors’ order rattled his earpiece and for once he took the agent’s order to heart. He sprinted for the entrance at full speed.
Once inside, he braced himself against a wall and took several deep breaths to attempt to slow his racing heart. Seconds later, Mace appeared beside him.
“What took you so long?”
“Screw you.” Mace wheezed as he bent at the waist. “I think I left a lung out there.”
“I’ve got agents on your back, Rawlings. Proceed.” Jake snickered at Majors’ directive and resisted the urge to rip the microphone from his ear as he looked at Mace. “Does he really believe I’m going to listen to him?”
“Probably.” Mace straightened. “Seen anyone else?”
“No, the place is quiet as a tomb.”
“Go.” Mace nodded toward a long hallway. “You said she’s here somewhere, so find her.”
With practiced ease, Jake pushed off the wall and made his way down the corridor, checking doors on his way.
***
Bri’s forehead ached with wrinkles of concentration. “How did you get here, Sunny?”
“When I finished one of my shifts last week, Mr. Lombardy offered to buy me dinner. I only remember being escorted to the limousine. I woke up here.”
“Melissa, what about you?”
“Same thing. You too?”
“Almost. He waited on me in the dressing room with the excuse that he wanted to discuss a repeat performance.” The pieces finally began assembling to resemble some sort of sick puzzle. “Who hired you, Sunny?”
“Mr. Lombardy.”
“You too, Melissa?”
“Yes.”