Sweet Seduction Stripped (Sweet Seduction, Book 7)

by Nicola Claire

  "I can't have that on me." Desperation to be rid of the evidence made me shove the card in Ric's hand before he was ready to accept it. He rushed to catch it before it hit the floor.

  "OK," he said slowly, once he'd contained the wayward piece of card. "Just remember, Sweet Seduction on High. Go there and I'll get to you as soon as I can. You'll be safe inside."

  I didn't respond. Words were beyond me now. I knew if I was going to return to the apartment, I needed to hurry up before Jaxon missed me. Once he realised what I was planning, all hell would break loose. His threats this evening proved how far he would go. The encrypted file filled in the rest of the blanks.

  And meant I wouldn't be escaping tonight. Dad depended on me. And I didn't have an answer regarding his safety and mine.

  Fear at returning to the place I had called home just this morning made me clutch my stomach and stagger slightly. Eric swore and rushed around the table to steady me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me against his side. I ducked my head and pressed my cheek to his chest, inhaling deeply.

  It was automatic, natural. Instinctive. And so very wrong.

  "Dancer," Ric whispered into my hair. "Let me help you. Please."

  "I can't," I said, the words muffled by his shirt and jacket.

  He reached down and placed his thumb and finger under my chin, lifting my face up so our eyes met. And held fast, glued to each other. I was thinking perhaps he was as mesmerised as me. Or at least I'd like to believe so.

  "Be careful," he said with meaning. "I don't know how much you're aware of, but even if you know some of what he is capable of, double it. Triple it. Be prepared. He hasn't remained hidden for so long without getting his hands dirty to achieve it. He's a very bad man."

  And now my panic had sky-rocketed. Making me taste a tinge of something metallic on my tongue. Adrenaline. I knew it for what it was. My heart beating too fast, pumping the hormone through my system, preparing me for fight or flight.

  I wanted to run. I wasn't sure I was strong enough to do battle. But I did know I wouldn't leave my father to face this alone. I couldn't.

  "I have to go," I mumbled, extricating myself from his warm embrace and rushing across the still crowded pub floor. I didn't look back. Looking back would have tripped me. And I couldn't afford to lose sight of my goal.

  Get home before Jaxon. Find a way to move Dad. Leave.

  It was a plan. A pretty damn flimsy one. And detail poor. But it was all I could do for now.

  Fear had me panting like a sick animal on the blurred and hazy drive back. I narrowly avoided being hit by a taxi, and the undercarriage of my car scraped on the driveway as I approached the garage doors, I was driving so fast. Too fast. Erratically. It was a surprise the cops didn't pick me up.

  Maybe that would be a good thing. Then I could hand the burden over to them.

  But I wasn't naive. Young, and until tonight, relatively innocent. But that file had more than just pictures of the dead. It had a list of all the people on C&C's payroll. Including several cops.

  I hadn't studied it closely. I was too shocked by what I had seen. But I saw enough to know I couldn't trust anyone. Including the police.

  I closed my eyes when I switched the engine off, having parked it next to Jaxon's thankfully empty slot. And tried to run through the names I did glance at. I managed to get to fifteen in my mind's eye. None of them had been Eric Shaw or referenced Anscombe Securities and Investigations. I let a long breath of air out and felt my shoulders relax.

  It wasn't solid proof. Not even close. But it did provide a stay of execution for my Ric.

  A couple more deep breaths and I opened the car door, climbing out under the bright white overhead lights. The air was chilly, this late at night, and the sound of a never sleeping Auckland drifted through the open slats on the walls. The odd flash of a passing headlight blinding my eyes. I looked back in the car and decided to leave my bag there. I may need to make a rapid escape and having the laptop inside the apartment now seemed like a very bad idea.

  Closing and beeping the locks shut, I started toward the lift.

  Halfway there and a shadow moved against the far wall, peeling away like a wraith.

  I stilled, my breath caught in my throat, my chest thudding with the panicked beat of my heart. All I could do was watch as the shadow took form, then lightened, until finally I could see who it was.

  For a second relief washed through me.

  Then confusion.

  Then alarm.

  "What are you doing here?" I demanded, astounded to hear my voice sounded so level and calm.

  "Ballerina," the lumbering giant murmured. "You think the boss don't keep eyes on his precious little princess."

  "Since when have you accepted bodyguard duty, Sal?" I asked, moving towards the elevator doors. If I acted as though he didn't scare the shit out of me, and pretended I had no reason to be concerned at all, then maybe the great big oaf, with fists the size of basketballs, wouldn't bother to rattle my cage.

  Sala Lauofo, first generation Samoan New Zealander who liked to think he was part of some big gangster movie. Beady black eyes, crooked nose, tribal tattoos sneaking up a wide neck, long black hair tied back in a ponytail, oversized muscles and a very large skull. He was Jaxon's right hand man, and until tonight I hadn't considered just what exactly that would entail.

  But knowing what I now knew, I was guessing he put those muscles and hands to nefarious practical use.

  "You been a bad girl, Amber honey," he said, stepping into my path and blocking the entrance to the lifts. "Who the fuck was the prick at the pub?"

  Oh God. He'd seen Ric. Ric and me. This was bad. Very fucking bad.

  "What pub?" Yeah, that would work, Amber. Denial, all the way.

  "The fuckin' Irish one, kefe!" Sala snarled. "Now," he added, getting a seriously malicious glint in his eyes. "We could work somfin' out, you and me."

  I took a step back. He advanced with a knowing grin.

  "I ain't seen you dance for a while, ballerina. Wanna show. Wrap those long legs around a pole for me and I'll forget all 'bout what I saw. No pub. No fuck touching Jaxon's girl. Noffin'. We got a deal?"

  The arsehole. He'd jerk off to it too. Wouldn't touch me, if he could help it. Knew that would mean a death sentence for him. But subjugate me and get off on the performance? Yeah, he'd be more than willing to do that.

  I scrambled to think of an alternative. To work out what would happen if I just told Jaxon that Eric was a friend and nothing else.

  Argh! Who was I kidding? He'd explode. Even before I knew what he was capable of, Jaxon had been possessive.

  I'd once been attracted to it. Now I saw the darkness his actions hid.

  Slowly I nodded my head, my stomach churning, my eyes threatening to pool with tears, but I wouldn't let the fuck-knuckle know. I've danced in front of him before, of course. At the club. Not privately. This would be equivalent to a lap dance, though, except hands-off was a literal warning. If he touched me salaciously Jaxon would chop his hands right off, I was sure.

  Probably his dick too.

  With dawning realisation of how dreadful my life had become in such a short space of time, I led the way into the too small lift. Sala stared at my boobs the entire way.

  "I want no top and that tiny glitter thong you used to wear," he growled as we crossed the threshold of the apartment.

  "He'll kill you if he finds out," I hissed, placing my cellphone down on a side table just inside the lounge.

  "He ain't gonna, though. Is he? 'Cause if he finds out 'bout our little arrangement, he'll find out 'bout lover boy at the pub."

  "He was just a friend," I insisted.

  "Ballerina," he said with a disgusted shake of his head. "Don't you get it yet? You don't got no friends. Not now you're Jaxon's." Fuck, he was right. And I'd been so blind. Letting Jaxon isolate me, losing touch with all my friends because he filled every part of my life. "But if you do me a solid show, I'll be your friend
on the sly," he purred. "Keep my mouth shut, see?"

  I'd never wanted to hold a gun before in my life, let alone fire one at a thug's head. Tonight was a night for firsts, it seemed.

  How had everything changed so drastically, so irrevocably, so dangerously in such a short space of time? My world was spiralling out of control, my life on a crash course with disaster.

  And all I could see, in the swirl of frightening colours to ground me, was green. Mesmerising, vibrant, sincere green. But I couldn't trust it just because the colour called to me. I couldn't trust anyone.

  As I slipped out of my jeans and t-shirt, removed my bra and replaced my knickers with my dancing thong, then pushed my reluctant feet into six inch heels, I had never felt so alone before in my life.

  This was where my choices had brought me. I was an exotic dancer and little else.

  My degree meant nothing as the music started out in the lounge where Jaxon had placed a pole for me to dance around - just for him. My perfect picture recall and impressive computer hacking skills were pointless as I crossed the dimmed room and laid a bare, sweating hand against the cool metal of the pole. The love of my father and the values he'd taught me were useless right now, as Sala slowly undid his belt buckle, reaching inside his pants to what lay beneath.

  I closed my eyes, shut down my senses, and pretended this was a night, like so many before it, on stage at the Champagne & Chandeliers Gentleman's Club.

  Stripped back and laid bare in a way I had never been before, I felt the tears slowly trickle down my cheeks throughout the entire wretched and vile performance.

  I didn't hang around when it was finished to see if Sala was pleased.

  Experience had taught me that they always were.

  Chapter 6

  Knowing I Wanted It To Be Me

  Eric

  The keyboard shattered under my too tight grip. As soon as I heard the crack of plastic I hurled the fucking thing across the room, making it disintegrate into a hundred different little pieces of high end tech.

  I heard it all. Every fucking disgusting, foul word out of that... dead... man's... mouth. I flexed my fingers, checked the waistband of my jeans and pulled my gun. The sound of the chamber reloading filled the air as the music at Amber's apartment abruptly switched off.

  "Good show, ballerina!" Sala Tuiloma so-fucking-dead Lauofo yelled. "I see you tomorrow, maybe we do a repeat."

  The door clicked shut, I was guessing out in the hallway. Wherever Amber had laid her cellphone down - with the listening device I'd attached to it at the pub - was closer to the "show" than the entranceway where Lauofo had just escaped.

  Escaped. Not for long, fucker!

  "You done?" an amused voice sounded out behind me. "Or you wanna give the keyboard over there a run for its money as well?"

  "Fuck off, Savill," I snarled.

  "Dude, just sayin'. Quite a temper you got yourself there. Too long inside these four walls."

  And that was unfortunately the God's honest truth. I had never wanted to get back out on the streets as much as I did right now. First stop: Lauofo. Next: Jaxon Fucking Harding and a bomb under C&C's floor.

  "Shit!" I said with force.

  "Girl knew what she was getting into bed with," Adam supplied.

  "Did she? I'm not so sure," I muttered.

  "Look. I get it. You feel like you know her. Fuck, three years talking it up on-line gotta be fucking with your head 'bout now. But she's a stripper, man. Sleeps with, nah, lives with a fucking psychopathic murderer. That little performance would have been routine. Besides, we only got ears in there, no eyes. Who's to say she wasn't smiling through the whole fucking thing."

  I shook my head. Everything out of Savill's lips could be right.

  My gut didn't buy it.

  She'd looked so fucking fragile at that pub. So scared. So unsure. Why did she stop running? Why go back and put yourself through that degrading experience to...

  To hide meeting me in a pub.

  Ah, fuck it. This was all my fault. Amber just practically whored herself out to keep me a secret from Harding. And the girl didn't even realise that Lauofo had played her. Harding would be getting a call from his second about now.

  "She's in trouble," I said into the strained silence of the room.

  "Ya think?"

  Fucking smart-arse.

  I rubbed the back of my neck trying to figure this all out. She runs. She stops, takes a break in an Irish Pub. Then she returns. To that. Why?

  I was missing something. Something I would find right now.

  I moved to a new keyboard and pulled up her bank records, then went through them with a fine toothed comb. The withdrawal earlier tonight would have been Amber, about to run. I followed the transaction trail and came up with an electronic thread that led to... C&C Enterprises.

  "He cleaned her out," I announced numbly, feeling Adam move to look over my shoulder. He whistled.

  "Girl's broke. Still, I'd keep runnin' if I were her. She could make money anywhere with a body like that. Fuck, I'd definitely pay her."

  I was up and out of my seat, hand fisted in Adam's shirt, his back thrust against the far wall in an instant. Both of us breathing too heavily.

  "Don't," I growled. "Just. Fuck. Don't."

  "All right, my man. Cool. All's cool." Hands up in the universal signal of surrender.

  I slowly released my grasp and took a step back, still panting, hands now fisted at my sides. Adam took my stance in with a seemingly casual one of his own.

  "All right," he said carefully. "So she needs our help."

  Clever man. I nodded. It felt fucking stiff. In fact my entire body felt stiff and not in a good way.

  I returned, my gait halting, to my seat in front of the screen I'd been using. Then after another slow breath in and out, continued down the bank statement.

  Four months ago I hit something.

  "Isn't that the hospice Eva's dad stayed in?" I said, pointing to the screen. Fuck knows what Adam had been doing, I'd blocked him out completely.

  "Yeah, looks like it." He turned away and started twisting knobs on a short-wave radio in the corner. So old school.

  "I think she's got someone there. Someone she can't leave behind."

  "She been paying for their care?" Adam asked.

  "Not recently."

  "Maybe they're already dead."

  I sighed, rubbed my eyes and tried to think.

  "Dude, you goin' home any time soon, or am I here for nothin'?"

  "Yeah. I need sleep."

  "You need to get laid," Adam shot back.

  Long legs, pouting curved lips and chocolate brown eyes stared back at me behind my closed lids. I groaned aloud, stood up and stretched to cover my reaction to that too fucking perfect vision inside my mind, and grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair.

  "You know he won't hurt her," Adam said slowly, not looking up from the project he'd hauled inside here at the start of his shift.

  "What makes you say that?" I asked, hesitating at the door. Jaxon Harding had only just come to our attention nine months ago. He was still predominantly an unknown player.

  "Word is he worships her. Keeps her hidden most of the time. Pulled her from the stage to waitressing and then finally, when she earned her degree, hid her away in C&C's IT department. He's obsessed with keeping her for himself."

  I knew all of this; until tonight in a detached way. We all did. Harding had been dissected in the past few weeks since we heard his name escalate on radar; his life, his loves, his interests. I just hadn't realised his interests crossed mine.

  "Yeah, I know," I said after too long a gap.

  "Just remindin' you," Adam murmured. "She could be the break we desperately need."

  "Jesus, you too?"

  I checked the screen, then unlocked the door, ready to step through and end this conversation.

  "He won't let her go easily," Adam added, before I could make my escape.

  "Yeah, well," I muttered. "He
doesn't know me."

  I caught the grin at the edges of Adam's lips, so slammed the door behind me before he could comment.

  Exhausted, sick to my stomach at what Amber had been forced to do tonight, and utterly unable to get the look of panic on her sweet face out of my mind, I knew I wouldn't be sleeping. I slipped into my SUV, switched on some heavy metal and drove to Parnell.

  Parking outside 104 Saint Stephen's Ave I waited for the familiar gleaming black Hummer, with chrome spinners on the low riding wheels, to pull into the garage beneath the building.

  Once it did, I lasted ten minutes before I had to leave.

  Knowing the fucking prick had made it to Amber's side, slipped beneath the sheets and joined her.

  Knowing I wanted it to be me.

  Sometimes this job just fucking sucked.

  Chapter 7

  That's My Girl

  Amber

  I felt the bed dip, my stomach went with it. My heart, on the other hand, ended up in my throat. A too familiar sensation this evening. I could smell him. He'd showered before he came to bed. Probably at the club before he left. Probably to hide the smell of the women on his skin, not the stench of cigars and alcohol as I'd assumed in the past.

  Everything was different. Nothing was what I had thought.

  I'd never loved him, the way I'd thought he'd loved me. But my heart was hurting all the same. A dull ache that combined with the utter fear I also felt left me slightly confused and adrift... and raw.

  I'd liked the life we'd shared. The way he worshipped not only my body, but me. But what I thought I'd seen was not the truth. He'd played me so well. The realisation that I was a possession and nothing more was perhaps the hardest to take.

  No, I'd be a pretty shallow person if that was the truth. The realisation that Jaxon had killed, was involved in the shipment of drugs, amongst other things, that is what's the hardest to take.

  Dark, but also capable of such gentle care.

  I'd thought he'd loved me. But a man who grins as he puts a bullet in a person's head isn't capable of love.

  God, I felt sick.

  "Baby, I know you're awake," he whispered into the dimness of the room, wrapping an arm around my waist, hauling me back against his stomach and chest, spooning me from behind.