Sweet Seduction Stripped (Sweet Seduction, Book 7)

by Nicola Claire

  I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get me to slow down.

  "Your knee up to this?" he asked, ignoring my warning completely. Nick Anscombe could be a fucking prick sometimes.

  "Nick," I growled, instinctively checking the screen for the corridor outside control before I wrenched open the door.

  "OK," Nick said on a sigh. "Just take fucking care, yeah?"

  I nodded. He nodded back. And then I was out the door, sprinting past a shot-gun ready Carmel in the reception area, and taking the stairs three, four at a time even, to the parking garage and my SUV.

  I'm coming, sweetheart. Just, please, please, hold the fuck on.

  Chapter 14

  Do Your Worst, Jaxon

  Amber

  "You did good, baby," Jaxon purred, his lips on my bruised cheek, softly feathering kisses across clammy skin. "Now you're part of the team."

  "Part of the team?" I asked, my hands stilled on his shoulders. I'd gripped him back, tried to play along, but that's as far as they'd managed to get. I couldn't make myself hold him closer. I just couldn't.

  And if I kept him talking I prayed it would stop things progressing further than they already were. We were alone in his office, an office Jaxon had taken our relationship to the next level in, all those many months ago. I still remember the thrill of his chase. This omnipresent, important person in my world, handsome, confident, rich, showing such dedicated pursuit of me.

  He'd swept me off my feet. And then had his wicked way with me on his office floor.

  I blinked to clear my head, thoughts and memories, fears and concerns all clambering for attention in my too taxed brain.

  "Yeah, baby. Been waiting for this day forever. The day you started really working for C&C."

  I pushed back to look in his face. Needing to see the truth there. He honestly believed I'd want to continue working for him once I'd found out what exactly he did. The Gentleman's club was a front. A way to launder amounts of cash like that seven million odd I had just transferred into ASI's account.

  What else would he expect me to do?

  It didn't matter. I was getting out.

  "Are you feeling OK, baby?" Jaxon asked, moving me from where we'd been standing in front of his desk, towards the sofa. I was acutely aware of the fact that Eric's bug was probably recording this scene.

  "Wh..what are you doing?" I stuttered, utter panic swamping my thought processes right then.

  "Need you, baby," he husked and pure terror joined in on the fun.

  "I'm still sick," I murmured.

  "Baby, it's been almost two days. I need you."

  Hysteria threatened to engulf me. I'd thought him so hot and irresistible, that until yesterday I'd welcomed a robust and frequent sex life with him. Now I just felt sick at the thought.

  He sat on the sofa while pushing down on my shoulder, making me kneel between his legs. I knew what was coming, and the thought had me actually gagging. The back of my hand to my mouth as I swallowed the bile back down.

  "Baby," he growled, clearly seeing my reaction. "Not feeling turned on right about now with that pale arsed look on your face."

  Thank fuck.

  "Actually you're starting to turn green."

  "Jaxon," I managed on a pant. "I'm gonna puke."

  "Fucking hell!" he yelled, knifing up off the couch and hauling me to my feet by the upper arm. Surprisingly, despite the anger in his tone, his touch was still gentle as he led me into the attached bathroom and towards the toilet bowl.

  I wasn't sure if I was going to be sick now, the immediate terror had passed. But the need to ensure he kept his distance had me searching deep within for the sensations I'd only recently lost. There is nothing less attractive than someone vomiting. I was determined to be the grossest looking sick person I could be.

  But all I managed was a few dry heaves, saliva pooling in my mouth relentlessly and dribbling down my chin, but little else. That sandwich was well and truly entrenched in my belly. Oh, but this couldn't be attractive. Please, don't let it be attractive.

  "I need a minute," I panted through a couple of spits in the loo. "Give me some space."

  Not an unusual request. When I'd been sick in the past Jaxon would hover. Grab me wet wash cloths and glasses of water, and I'd always shoo him away, not wanting him to see me so disgustingly wretched. My demand now was not out of the realm of normality. But Jaxon wasn't having any of that.

  I realised, as he moved back only as far as the sink, crossing his arms and staring down at me, that escaping him while he was distracted would be damn hard tonight.

  And that thought, the fact that I may have to go home with the murdering bastard, was enough to make some of my dinner come back up. I cultivated the idea for a little longer, making the vomit-fest worthwhile, then sat back on my haunches affecting the most pathetic look I could muster.

  It worked. Jaxon's whole demeanour changed, face softening, arms uncrossing, and then he was reaching for a glass of water and filling it up at the sink.

  "Baby," he crooned as he knelt down beside me, handing me the glass. "You really are feeling like shit, huh?"

  I nodded, taking a sip and then spitting it out in the bowl. I took another and swallowed, relieving some of the itch in my bile scratched throat.

  "I thought you were playing me," he murmured, wrapping an arm around my back and one under my legs, then hoisting me off the floor. He started carrying me out to the office.

  If anyone was playing anyone though, it would be him. This was all new territory for me, but I had the feeling Jaxon was an expert. Twenty months, even more if you count when I started dancing here, of convincing me he was one thing, only to show me the real him this past few days.

  He'd had plans for me, he'd said. And now he was enacting them.

  "Why me?" I asked, as he placed me carefully on the couch. He stepped back and looked down at me from his impressive height. The lights in the room glinted off his blond hair, his eyes flashed a dazzling pale blue when he blinked.

  "Why you what?" he asked, but I could see the intelligence behind his lids.

  "You picked me, because of what I can do. Why?"

  "I picked you because you made me rock hard watching you swing around that fucking pole. I was always going to take you to my bed, Amber. And once I did, there was no way I was ever letting you go."

  Even after everything I'd learned about him I wanted to believe it was the truth. Far easier to swallow than the fact he'd chosen me for my computer hacking skills. He'd been attracted to my body, then fallen in love with me. Isn't that how normal relationships go? I wanted it to be true, even as I knew it was over.

  Stupid. Romantic in a warped kind of way. But there'd been so many things he'd done which I'd loved. I may not have felt the same way as him, but I had loved him in my own way too.

  Leaving was the only option, but it didn't mean that messed up feeling of sadness and heartache wasn't mixed in with the terror of what he could do and the horror of what he had done. It was a quagmire of conflicting emotions, and I just wanted it all to end. Be over and done with. So I could move on and patch up the cracks in my heart and head.

  "I gotta make some calls. Have a nap, baby," he said, walking back to his desk and still not leaving me alone. "I'll try and finish up early tonight and get you home to our bed."

  He was living in denial, of course. He knew I knew. And he knew I did not approve. And I was pretty damn sure he knew I wanted to run. But still he pretended we were a loving couple. Normal. Caring. On the right side of the law.

  I'd stolen someone's money and framed someone else, setting them up in some way I hadn't yet fully comprehended, all because my boyfriend told me to. How would that play out in Court? It was done under duress, I could only hope that would be evident. But I wasn't knowledgeable about these things, so it was only a hope.

  Minutes ticked by as Jaxon murmured on his phone and I pretended to be asleep. At one stage someone knocked on the door and Jaxon got up and spoke
to them just inside the room. He didn't let them come in, but he didn't leave entirely either. The only thing I could do was glance at the ASI bug still hanging off the underside of his desk and hope it was actually working.

  I couldn't change its position to a better one. I couldn't make a rapid phone call or send a text message. He barely spoke to the person for a minute, and I was never alone.

  My eyes landed on the laptop and a small smile twitched on the edges of my lips. I hadn't had much time to write a foolproof code before Bryan arrived, but I had to hope the door I'd opened at the back of C&C's system was still hidden for now. The longer it took for me to check it and ramp up its security, the more likely it would be picked up by a safety sweep of one of the programmes IT usually ran twice a day.

  I glanced at my watch and checked the time. The next sweep would be at midnight. Still five hours away, and even then it could still miss my encryption key. Chances were slim, Bryan and the team were almost as good as me.

  If Eric got hold of that key, I wondered just what he could achieve.

  And then I saw him in camouflage again, gun raised, muzzle glowing, pointed at the head of a frightened man.

  I heard Jaxon walk to the bathroom, my eyes again closed since he'd shut the door on whoever had been standing there. I could hear him peeing, he hadn't closed himself in the ensuite. If I moved, he'd probably hear me. If I ran, it was too far to an external door; I'd be picked up on security cameras immediately, an alarm would sound before I'd make it off this floor.

  I stayed immobile, and just let the image of Ric and that gun settle in my mind's eye. I took in every single minute detail I could. Searching for clues, looking for answers, praying for an explanation I could stomach. Could live with. Could accept.

  I'm not naive. I know the world is brutal. I've just never broken the law until tonight.

  The camouflage fatigues he wore were generic, no identifying patches or tags. He could have bought them at the Army Surplus store, like every other duck shooting enthusiast in the country. The gunk on his cheeks didn't quite hide the defeat in his eyes, the sheer exhaustion on his face. His hand looked steady, where it held the gun out, but then picking up a tremor in a still photo was never going to be an easy ask. He was leaning slightly, not entirely upright. Legs spread, all the weight on his right one, favouring the left. I couldn't see his free hand from the angle of the shot, but I'd bet all that money I transferred tonight that it was adding extra support to his weakened side. Blood coated his hand on the gun, but that wasn't all the red to be seen. His fatigues were darkened in places, smears blending into the pattern, but if you looked hard enough you could see they didn't belong. Most of it on his left leg, down the bottom of his trousers, dripping onto his scuffed thick soled boots. It also covered the man about to be killed.

  I shifted my attention to him. He wasn't as exhausted as Eric, fear made his features pale, but as there was no camouflage paint on his face the contrast didn't seem as great. His eyes were widened in terror, but there was also an understanding there, an acceptance. His hands were calloused, the palms open and up in a sign of surrender. His clothes were crooked, but not dishevelled. Dusty, but not filthy, other than splatters of blood. He was on his knees and unarmed.

  Three things I got from this assessment. Just three extremely important things.

  Eric had been hurt badly, long enough to wear him down, and the result was an injury to his leg which I suspect he still suffered from today.

  The guy on his knees was the man who had done him harm, practised in his art, his hands well worn by the tools of his trade, his clothes sporting evidence of the brutality he'd dealt in.

  And he knew he was going to die, even recognised the justice of that fact, proving just how much harm he must have inflicted to deserve such a sentence.

  Three things from a photo I'd looked at for mere minutes.

  Three things I knew to be the truth.

  Eric had killed that man. Murder, but not in cold blood. Revenge is better served cold, they say. I disagree. Survival is but a split second away from vengeance, and it's dirty and frantic and desperate and savage and vicious and honest and aching and full of every ounce of your being that you have. There is nothing cold about it.

  And Eric had survived.

  I wanted the courage it must have taken him in that moment. I wanted it desperately.

  "Well, well," Jaxon murmured, making me crack my eyelids and look across the room to him still sitting at his desk. "We have a shadow in our building."

  A shadow? Did he mean the bug?

  "Nick Anscombe is quicker to respond than I thought. Clearly not aware of what's about to happen at his sister-in-law's shop, otherwise they'd all be on High Street. Maybe if he gets an update, he'll redirect them," he muttered.

  I wanted to get up and go see what Jaxon was talking about. I wanted to be prepared for whatever horrendous thing he had planned.

  "The clock is ticking, boys," he said with no small amount of humour. "The countdown has begun."

  My heart pounded in my chest, my blood pumped relentlessly through my veins. The bomb. He'd activated the bomb. I had to hope Eric had heard the threat and cleared the café out. But I couldn't even be sure that bug was working.

  I fingered the dragon on my bracelet, wanting to send a warning that things had gone bad. But if I pressed that alarm, Eric would concentrate on here and not Sweet Seduction. He'd track my watch signal and be too far away to help Gen in her store.

  I had to know. I had to see what Jaxon was up to, then if I got the chance to intervene I'd be prepared.

  I sat up on the couch, swinging my legs over the side.

  "You feeling better, baby?" Jaxon said, not looking up from the screen he was staring at with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "You're gonna love seeing this."

  All the invitation I needed. I crossed to his side of the desk and peered over his shoulder, thankful he hadn't pulled me into his lap like he normally would.

  No, he was too busy watching the digits on a small clock on the corner of his screen countdown, with an image of High Street from the LTSA traffic cameras showing the clear stretch of road out the front of Sweet Seduction's shop. The street was almost empty, just a few people up the far end. All of them inside the café and neighbouring shops, at a guess.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, already knowing the answer. It was shouting out from an electronic display: 3:15, 3:14, 3.13...

  "Settle in, baby, and prepare to watch ASI's little whorehouse go up in flames."

  Oh dear God. I frantically searched the desk, the room, the computer screen for anything that would help. I could reach past him, I could hack the countdown, but there's no way I could stop it before he broke all of my fingers for the attempt.

  Futile. I felt futile and trapped and panicked and out of my fucking head.

  No, this was all my fault. I'd been there and Jaxon knew it. Oh, fuck no.

  "And you, you little fucktard," Jaxon growled, splitting the screen behind the countdown so it now showed the roof of a building and a man dressed in black moving in a crouch towards the emergency exit there.

  "Where is that?" I asked, stunned that the black clad figure was pulling a gun and aiming at the door lock.

  "Our roof," Jaxon replied calmly, pointing to another split screen which showed men in security uniforms I recognised ready and waiting behind a closed door. The closed emergency door that led to the roof of C&C.

  "He's walking into a trap," I whispered.

  "He's illegally breaking and entering," Jaxon replied. So calm, so measured. In his element.

  I chewed on my bottom lip, my eyes darting between High Street, C&C and that fucking ticking time bomb on the screen.

  Which would happen first? As I stood there numbed and in shock and unable to do a fucking thing. I had to try. I had to... just... try. No matter the outcome, I had to at least try.

  I went to reach around Jaxon, he shifted, seeing me move... and then the lights went out and the s
creen went blank and I cried out in frustration as a loud explosion rocked the building and Jaxon swore loudly, pushing me down hard and yelling, "Stay the fuck on the floor," and then disappearing out the doorway.

  Leaving me alone.

  OK. OK. Move. Move dammit.

  I was up and checking the power to the laptop. It had blanked out but was still on battery, a quick swipe of my fingers and it had brought the screen up. I blinked the sudden brightness away and started to get to work.

  C&C's network had been shut-down, isolated behind secure firewalls, backed up to a remote service and powered by our fail-safe UPS. If the building is threatened - I'd always thought by fire or an electrical storm, now I could include assault - everything went into hibernation, safely stored at our disaster recovery centre and protected by an uninterruptible power supply.

  But my back door encryption key was still where I'd left it, leaving a small but precise hole in the system that allowed me to reach the DR centre. A few short lines of code and I'd broken in; in a rather rudimentary fashion, and unfortunately quite easily traceable should they try. Leading them right back to Jaxon's office and this particular time, making the use of my back door key after this totally impotent, and pointing a finger directly at me.

  I sucked in a breath, considered the fact that I'd be running after this and not be able to place another wedge in the door to C&C keeping it open. But my eyes darted to the countdown on the screen: 1.34. And my decision was made.

  Twenty agonising seconds later I'd found the location of the bomb remote trigger. Fifteen seconds after that I realised it wasn't the only one and I'd have to do more than just stop the fucking thing; I'd have to change all the access codes for any associated remotes.

  I worked on stopping it first, managing to make the countdown quit at 0.48 seconds. Then as the building still shook and indistinct noises from other areas of C&C wafted through the still partially opened office door, I got to work on changing the lock-out codes.

  It took too long. I could have been running. In the chaos and disruption of whatever was happening out there, I could have easily slipped away.