by Roxy Sloane
“You’re going to walk around all day with my cum still inside you,” I growl, running a possessive hand over her body. I squeeze her breast, hard. Her eyes flare. “You’re going to feel me dripping down your thighs, and know you belong to me. And when you get back tonight, I’m going to lick it all right out.”
Keely shudders. I release her. Yeah, that’ll give her something to think about.
She pulls her skirt down, taking a couple of hesitant steps. Sore, like she just took all nine inches and begged for more.
That’s right, baby. Feel how good I stretched that cunt.
“What about you?” Keely tries to pull herself together. “What are you going to do next?”
“Get answers,” I say. “We’ve been running around playing catch-up for too long. It’s time to get ahead of the game. Starting with Brent Ashcroft. I’m going to take a look at what that guy’s hiding in his apartment.”
7
KEELY
I insist on going with Vaughn to break into Brent’s place.
He flat-out says no.
“We’re in this together,” I remind him, standing my ground. “Either you take me with you, or I follow you on my own. Either way, we both know I’m safer with you.”
Vaughn grits his teeth. “Damn you. Can’t you see I’m trying to keep you out of trouble?”
“Maybe that’s not your job.” I take pity on him, standing there looking all noble and protective. And dangerously hot. “Look, I promise I’ll be careful. But I won’t just sit around while you go out and risk everything. This is my future on the line too, you know.”
So we go together, staking out Brent’s building in Tribeca until he leaves on the arm of some hot, Swedish blonde. Of course he’s got a fuck-pad in the city -- all paid for by Ashcroft Industries corporate accounts. The same company he’s doing his best to destroy.
“Come on, stay close,” Vaughn tells me. He grabs my hand and pulls me across the busy street. But instead of going to the lobby, he heads around the back of the building. “Too exposed,” he explains. “The fewer people who see us, the better.”
He pulls a baseball cap low over his face and gestures for me to put up the hood on my sweatshirt. I do it, feeling a thrill of excitement. Dressing in a disguise, sneaking in. It’s dangerous, but still, I love the buzz.
Vaughn finds the service entrance open, propped by a trashcan. “I slipped a guy a twenty.” He winks, ushering me inside.
“Top floor,” I tell him. “Penthouse suite.”
“Nothing but the best,” Vaughn drawls.
We take the stairs, climbing fast. I shiver, remembering the last time I was in a stairwell like this, when someone pushed me hard enough to send me tumbling. Was it Brent? I wonder. And if it was, what else would he do to steal the company he’s fixated on as his rightful inheritance. He’s willing to dismantle the whole thing to keep it from anyone else. Just how twisted is he?
Vaughn checks the penthouse hallway. All clear. We hurry to the front door, and I pass him the key. It wasn’t hard to get a copy. It belongs to the company, after all. I just had to call the management, pretending to be Brent’s secretary. I said we needed spares for redecorating, and had them message one over to the office.
Now, my heart catches as Vaughn swipes the card and the door clicks open. I exhale with relief.
“Careful,” he warns me, stepping inside. He flips the lights on, and looks around. “We still have the alarms.”
A tell-tale beeping comes from the box on the wall. I cross over, and tap in the code I scribbled down earlier. I pulled the same routine on the security company, and had them send over the info.
The beeping stops. “We’re in!”
Vaughn sees my grin and chuckles. “You little criminal.”
“What? I’m not breaking any laws,” I point out. “This was part of my inheritance. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“Tell that to Brent.” Vaughn looks around. “Where do you want to start?”
“The office, I guess. That’s where he’d be keeping all the business info.”
“Then let’s get started.”
We find the office down the hall. I flip on the lights, revealing a sleek room filled with porny art and hi-tech computers. Vaughn tries tapping at the keyboard, but he shakes his head. “Password protected.”
“Try ‘Brent is the greatest’,” I joke, rifling through a cabinet. Vaughn tries out a few combinations, but has no luck.
“We don’t want to risk it,” he sighs. “He might have a tracker installed, to tell him if someone tries to log in.”
We look through every drawer and cupboard in turn. “I think I’ve found something.” I call him over. A stash of papers in a drawer, a rough draft of some kind of contract with notes in the margins.
“It’s with Excaliber Finance!” I read the dense print. “Something about establishing a partnership...”
“He’s sold you out, just like we thought,” Vaughn says grimly. “He’s agreed to support the takeover, in exchange for a co-head position of the new company.”
It confirms all my worst suspicions, but it still hurts. It’s one thing for me to have considered walking away when I first got news of my inheritance, but Brent’s spent years watching his father build the company. He knows everything it means, and still, he’s happy to tear it all down.
“What about Excaliber?” I ask. “Does it have any more information about who that guy is?”
“There’s a signature, right here,” Vaughn flips to the last page. “Martin Ridley. Fuck.”
“What?” I see his expression change. Shock, and realization.
“It’s their old partner.” Vaughn looks at me, clenching the contract. “Back when my father and Ashcroft started the company, they brought on a third guy, the money. He disappeared, went to jail on tax charges. I always figured Ashcroft set him up too, to get him out of the picture.”
“And now he’s back, plotting with Brent.” I frown, trying to make sense of it. “And he’s the guy he’s been meeting?”
Vaughn taps his phone, bringing up an image search and typing in the name Martin Ridley. “Shit,” he says, showing me the results. Martin Ridley, the guy Brent and Carter have been sneaking around with. “I should have checked this earlier. It’s him.”
“But what does it mean?” I ask him, confused. “This guy has been planning to take back the company all this time?”
“Seems so,” Vaughn answers, putting the contract down. He goes back to searching the room, checking the waste paper basket and smoothing out discarded papers. “You said this Excaliber company had been trying to bid for the company before, but Ashcroft always turned them down.”
“Which means this Ridley guy is bad news.” I look at the contract again, leafing through the pages. There are notes in the margins, in handwriting I recognize as Brent’s, and another even scrawl. I try to make out the words, looking for any clues at all about what they’ve got planned. “We’ve got to stop him. If Ashcroft didn’t want him back at the company, there’s a reason.”
I check every page, looking for something, anything at all. And then it hits me. Not the words themselves, but the handwriting.
I’ve seen it before.
“Vaughn,” I gasp, chills running down my spine.
“What is it?” He’s at my side in an instant.
“Look.”
With shaking hands, I unfold the photo of my mother I’ve been carrying around in my wallet. The surveillance photo from Ashcroft’s attic, the one with the bullseye on the front.
You’re running out of time. I promise, the people you love will suffer if I don’t get what I want.
It’s the same. The notes on the contract. The threat on the photo. Written by the same man.
“Ridley,” I swallow, another chill gripping my body. “It’s him. He was the one threatening Ashcroft, promising to hurt my mother and your father. He’s who Ashcroft was trying to protect them from. This is all because of him.”
/> 8
VAUGHN
I want to go smash Ridley’s fucking face in. That’ll get us some answers quick. But Keely pleads with me not to go charging straight in.
“What will that do?” she says, when we’re back at her apartment. “It won’t prove anything. There are still too many questions about what went down. Hurting him won’t solve anything.”
“It’ll make him talk,” I growl, pacing. I’m full of restless energy, wired so fucking tight now I’m like a bomb about to go off. This guy is the one, the one who destroyed my father and drove him to suicide. I’ve been waiting twenty years to have justice done. “Let’s see if he can lie about the past when I’m breaking every bone in his body.”
“Vaughn.” Keely tries to pull me back. “Vaughn!”
I stop, turning at the sound of her yell. She stares at me straight in the eyes. “I know you’re angry and confused.” Keely takes my hands, holding tight. “This guy is the reason both of our lives turned out like this. He set everything in motion when he threatened Ashcroft, but it’s not enough. We have to play it smart, we can’t risk our one chance to discover the truth.”
She’s right.
I exhale in a frustrated bust. Fuck. Even though every part of me is burning to beat the answers out of him, I know Keely’s making sense. A guy like Ridley would just call the cops and have me thrown in jail, and then where would we be?
I’d be locked up somewhere, and Keely... Fuck, Keely would be on her own. Unprotected. With that attacker still out there, ready to strike.
I could never live with myself if anyone laid a hand on her again.
“What do we do now?” I demand, still pissed as hell. My hands are tied, I hate feeling so powerless. “Just sit around waiting. For what?”
“We get ready,” Keely corrects me. “Find out everything about this guy, everything that was going on back when he and Ashcroft and your dad were partnered up.”
“He was threatening Ashcroft over something. It has to be something big.” I scowl.
“It’s all connected,” Keely agrees. “If we can nail him on that old blackmail, there’s no way the board will vote to have him take over the company. Everything’s on the line now. We need to know the truth.”
“So how the fuck do we get it?”
Keely flinches. I drop my voice. “I just mean we’re no closer to a plan.”
“So we make one.” Keely smoothes her hands over my chest. Her touch calms me, draining the blood from my raging mind, and redirecting it in a much simpler direction: my cock.
“I’ll call Justine in LA. If Carter’s involved too, then maybe there’s something in his files she can find for us. You keep watching Brent, I’ll ask around at the office. We’ll find something,” she insists. “Everything’s going to be OK.”
It won’t be, not until I can look Ridley in the eye and know for sure what drove my father to the brink. But for once, I’m not carrying the burden of the past alone. Keely is right here too. It’s easier with her.
I’m not alone anymore.
* * *
I trail Brent for the next couple of days, hoping he’ll lead back to Ashcroft, but the bastard cares more about dropping cash at designer stores and partying until dawn than handing us a break. Again, I’m tempted to beat the answers out of him, but I force myself to stay cool.
Keely needs me by her side. I can’t fuck this up now.
“Come meet me for lunch,” Keely tells me when I call in a status update. “Let’s take a break from all this, just the two of us. I’ve been going around in circles trying to figure it out.”
“But I could miss something.” I stare through the window of some fancy tailor, frustrated.
“Vaughn...” Her voice is soft. “Come on. We can’t let this consume us.”
It’s easy enough for her to say, she’s not the one fighting to unravel twenty years of lies and cover-ups. But I’m hungry as hell, so I leave Brent to his new suit, and go meet Keely at a spot in Greenwich Village.
She’s waiting at the table when I arrive.
“Isn’t this nice?” She greets me with a kiss. “I actually get to see you in daylight for a change, instead of just back at the apartment.”
I’m still wound tight as a fucking vice. “Does this place have steak?”
She grins. “Why do you think I picked it?”
Keely takes my hand across the table. “C’mon, baby.” She lowers her voice. “You’ve been way too stressed. We just have to wait for them to mess up. Brent’s too cocky, he’ll slip up soon.”
She looks so certain, I relax a little. Certain, and sexy as hell.
“You know I can’t resist you in those business outfits,” I tell her, sliding a hand under the table. I find her knee and squeeze. “Stockings, hmm?” I slide my hand higher, up that sweet flesh. “You’re going to leave those on tonight.”
Her breath hitches. Keely bites her lip. “Yes, Vaughn,” she coos, teasing and obedient.
Yeah, now I’m distracted.
But before I can tell her what else I’m thinking, about her mouth sucking slow around my cock, a light hand comes down on my shoulder.
“Vaughn, darling, it’s so good to see you.”
Every muscle in my body recoils like a fucking electric shock. Even my dick shrinks back at the sound of that voice. A ghost. A goddamn specter.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” I growl, not even turning to look.
I see Keely’s eyes widen with shock and confusion. She looks up. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Vaughn, who is this?”
Memories crash through me as the woman lets out a laugh. “Me? I’m Julianne. Vaughn’s ex-wife.”
9
KEELY
His ex-wife?
“Ex-fiancée,” Vaughn corrects her with a growl. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
The woman laughs. “Oh look at you, still as blunt as ever.” She looks down at me from beside him, curling her perfect red lipstick in a smirk. “He can be a real beast, can’t he?”
It’s clear from her tone, she means more than just his manners.
I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to think as I stare at Julianne in shock. She’s beautiful, one of those sleek, blond, glamorous women poured into a chic black dress and towering spiked heels.
She dated Vaughn?
They were engaged?
Julianne looks from Vaughn to me and back again, and arches a perfect eyebrow. “Oh, did he not mention me? Whoopsie. Sorry, darling.”
She touches his shoulder again. I see Vaughn’s whole body tense. “Anyway, I must be on my way. You look well, darling. Give my love to your brother.” With a smug grin, Julianne turns on her heel and sashays away.
Silence.
“Vaughn?” I finally ask, my voice shaking. Insecurity ripples through me, ice-cold. “Is it true, what she said?”
“Yes.” Vaughn answers curtly, snapping back to life. He beckons the waiter over, and orders a steak, rare, like nothing’s happened. “Keely?” he prompts me. I blink, food the furthest thing from my mind. He sighs. “She’ll take the salmon,” he instructs the waiter, sending him away.
My head spins. I knew Vaughn had a past, that there were women before me. Dozens. Hundreds. But he always said, he didn’t do relationships. The one time I made him take me on a real date, he did everything he could to shut it down.
Now I discover there was a woman in his life, for real. A woman he wanted to marry, to start a family with.
A woman he was willing to say vows for.
“Talk to me, Vaughn,” I say, hating the pleading note in my voice. “I thought we said no more secrets.”
“Julianne isn’t a secret.” Vaughn spits out her name. “She’s the worst fucking mistake of my life. That’s all you need to know.”
“But that’s not enough.” I frown. “What happened? How long were you together? Why did it end?”
“Dammit, Keely, I said that’s all.” Vaughn scowls at me.
I
take a deep breath, suddenly feeling on the edge of tears.
I thought things were different now. I thought he was finally letting me in. But if Vaughn is still hiding something as big as this, what else is still lurking in his past, undiscovered?
“Excuse me.” I get to my feet and bolt for the restrooms. I need a moment away from him, to pull myself together before I lose it completely.
The marble bathroom is small and cool, and I run my wrists under the cold faucet, trying to talk myself down.
The door flies open.
“What---” I can’t even get the word out before Vaughn is slamming me back against the wall, claiming my mouth in a violent kiss.
I gasp for air. He pulls away, clutching at my body through my clothes. Groping my breast, shoving his leg between my thighs.
“What are you doing? Vaughn!” I protest as he yanks up my skirt. He wrenches his belt open and frees his swollen cock.
“What does it look like?” he growls, pushing me back against the wall. “I’m putting my dick back where it belongs.”
He pulls my thighs apart, panting. There’s a weird desperation in his eyes like I’ve never seen before.
“No!” I shove him away. “Not like this. Talk to me, Vaughn. Tell me what’s going on.”
Vaughn lets out a curse. He slams the bathroom wall and whirls around.
“Vaughn,” I call, but he storms out. The door swings shut behind him.
* * *
I don’t know what to do, I feel so confused, so I straighten up my clothes and head back to work. The office is quiet during lunch, and I wander the long route to my office, trying in vain to reach Vaughn on his cell.
You know what the hell to do. Message at the beep.
“It’s me,” I say, “Come on, Vaughn, please call me. I don’t even know what just happened, but whatever you have to say, I’ll listen. I’m here for you, remember? We’re a team now.”
I hang up slowly, calmer now. This Julianne woman hurt him; that much is clear. I shouldn’t be jealous. I just need to give Vaughn time to open up. He’s emotional right now, blind-sided -- that’s why he tried to blot her out in the only way he knows how.