by Lexi Blake
“Excellent.” Finn Taylor was the only one in the room who looked satisfied. He stood and collected his things. “I already have a team working on Renard. We’ll know something soon, Sir.”
That Sir grated on Jen’s nerves. So did the deferential way Finn Taylor nodded at Stef. It was more than the polite acknowledgement of a lawyer to his client. Finn wasn’t being polite to his client. He was honoring a Dom.
“Your work is impeccable, Finn. You honor your Master. Tell Julian I’ll be in touch with him.” He turned back to Jen. “Let’s move, Jennifer. I have a plane ready. We need to be at Love Field in an hour. I have an officer waiting to process you out.”
Jen’s head whirled. “Plane?”
“Yes, plane. We’re going back to Bliss.”
“Bullshit.”
Cool, gray eyes slitted, and she could practically feel the will rolling off him. Stef was tense, and she knew it was a bad idea to push him, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’m serious, Stef. I’m not going anywhere with you.” She couldn’t go back to Bliss. Panic threatened to swamp her. He was here. He was right here in front of her, and her heart didn’t give a damn that he was a bastard. For the first time in months, she felt desire for something besides her art. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, go down that path again.
He got into her space, a move he’d perfected seemingly long before he met her. She held her ground. Even though he didn’t touch her physically, he seemed to surround her. Suddenly her whole world was Stef, his gray eyes, the heat of his body, his masculine, clean scent. He filled her every sense.
“I’m not going home with you.” She forced herself to say the words.
His lips hitched up. “At least you admit Bliss is your home.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant. Bliss, Colorado, had felt like home when she’d been there, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bliss wasn’t big enough for the two of them. “It’s your home. Hell, Stef, it’s your little kingdom, and you like to play the king, don’t you?”
“Yes, because everyone does what I say.” Stef’s low growl made her breath speed up. “Everyone in Bliss bows down to me. Have you been gone for so long that you forget Max regularly kicks my ass? And Nell and Henry are currently protesting my gardening practices.”
He was too close for comfort. She gave in and took a step back. She could see plainly that he was satisfied with her discomfort. “Don’t try to play the poor rich boy with me. You’re a puppet master. You like to pull the strings and see how people dance. Well, I’m not in your kingdom anymore, and there’s no way you can get me there again. So you can take your money and go back to Colorado.”
It was stupid. Even as she said the words, she wanted to take them back. She’d spent the last twenty-four hours terrified in a jail cell. She would have to be the stupidest woman in the world to turn him down, but she’d never thought around Stef. Since the moment she’d met him, she’d been a quivering mass of emotion and desire every time he entered a room.
“Stubborn thing. I’ll make it easy on you.” His hands caught hers, and before she could think she felt cold metal surrounding her wrists. He flicked the cuffs on with the cool precision of a man who often cuffed the women in his life.
“What are you doing?” She stared at her hands. At least this time they were in front of her. She preferred it that way. Damn, her life had taken a wrong turn when she could compare and contrast her experiences with men who handcuffed her.
“Taking you home, Jennifer. Whether you like it or not.”
He leaned down and picked her up. She was in his arms, nestled close to his chest. She looked up at the square, inflexible line of his jaw. His arms tightened around her, and she was caged more closely than she’d been in the holding cell. She had the suspicion that this time Stef would be harder to escape from than before. He kicked open the door and started down the hall.
Yep, like it or not, she was going back to Bliss.
Chapter Two
Stefan Talbot kicked open the door to the interrogation room and strode down the hall. Jen’s slender body finally relaxed in his arms as she seemed to figure out he wasn’t letting her go. He stared straight ahead, unwilling to look down at her. If he looked at her he might falter, and he couldn’t risk it. Six months had gone by, and all he’d had was a bunch of photos taken by some private investigator named Karina. He’d stared at them every day. It made him feel like a complete pervert every time he looked at them. Luckily, he was comfortable with his perversity since he couldn’t seem to help himself.
Trouble. She’d always been trouble. When he’d met her two years before, his first thought was to run for the hills. No. That hadn’t been his first thought at all. His first thought had been to snap a collar on her and chain her to his side. He’d decided to run for the hills when he’d come to his senses.
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice was quiet, almost as though she was asking herself the question, or didn’t really want to know the answer.
He stopped right there in the middle of the bustling hall and finally looked down at her face. Golden-brown hair and large green eyes stared up at him. Her skin was like porcelain, but there was a smattering of freckles that crossed her nose and made him want to run his lips across her face to kiss each and every one.
Why? Why did it have to be this woman? Why did she have to be so fucking young?
“Because you need me.” He kept his answer short. If he didn’t, he would end up a blathering idiot.
There was a sheen of tears in her eyes that told Stef he’d fucked up. He always managed to with her. He was a Dom of the first order, known for taking care of his subs, but he fumbled the minute she batted those eyes at him. There was nothing to do about it now. He simply continued down the hall. He would fix her when they got back to Bliss.
Now that he thought about it, he should have expected this greeting. The entire plane trip here, he’d had all sorts of fantasies about being her hero. In his fantasies, she’d cried prettily and thrown herself into his arms. He’d gotten her out of this current scrape and then protected her. He’d set her up in a nice studio in Bliss, and she’d be waiting for him when she was old enough to know what she wanted.
Twenty-three. She was fucking twenty-three years old. He was a thirty-two-year-old man in love with a girl barely out of college. She had no idea who she was, and she’d proven it by running away. She was just a kid, and he’d done all sorts of nasty, dirty, glorious things to her.
Maybe he wasn’t so comfortable with his perversity.
He turned down the main hall. Standing off to one side was a man he’d been told was named Ian Taggart. He was large and seemed to speak Sarcasm, but he owned the company Julian had hired to watch over Jen. Next to him was a quiet man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. The one time he’d heard the guy speak it had been in a lyrical Irish accent.
Nate Wright, his old friend and the current sheriff of Bliss, Colorado, stood talking to the district attorney and the chief of police. Lucky for him both men belonged to a private BDSM club and both wanted to be in the debt of insanely wealthy men. They had streamlined the process of getting Jennifer out on bond, going so far as to wake a judge to do the paperwork. It wasn’t exactly procedure, but otherwise, Jen would still have hours in a cell, and he couldn’t even consider that.
“Damn, I hope I can keep the press off this.” The chief shook his head as he signed the paperwork releasing Jennifer Waters to the custody of Stef and Sheriff Wright. He looked over at Taggart. “Will you monitor the situation?”
The blond guy nodded. “We’re already on it, Chief. I’ve sent you the file we have on Waters. I’ve had Karina Mills and Liam, here, tailing her. She’s as boring as a chick who talks to herself can be.”
“I do not,” she said, her eyes wide.
The Irishman sighed. “You absolutely do. You had an entire conversation on the train two days ago about the color blue. You didn’t even notice that the man next to you thought you were
talking to him. He was hitting on you, by the way. I don’t think you noticed that either.”
“I hope you made sure he stayed away from her,” Stef said, knowing it was a stupid thing to get upset about.
“I was being paid to follow her, not monitor her sex life,” Liam replied. “Not that she has one. She did pick up a vibrator the other day. It’s all in my report.”
“Spies are…spying on me?” Jen asked.
“You know you love it.” Taggart glanced down at Jen, his eyes seeming to stick on the cuffs. “Julian said you were good. Way to learn, Talbot. She got away once. She won’t get away if you cuff her to something that doesn’t move. I’ve found headboards are perfect.”
He did not need advice from the peanut gallery. He turned to the DA. “We’ve tried to keep everything quiet.”
The DA seemed much more comfortable than the chief. “The girl’s never been in trouble before. It’s unusual, but we’re releasing her to law enforcement custody. The people who own the painting are fine with letting her go for now. You have to talk to them because they could still press charges. Besides, I don’t know if I buy Renard’s story. He’s a shady fellow. If she stole the painting, then where is it? We’ve searched her place.”
Jen’s head came off his shoulder again. “You did?”
Nate never looked up from the paperwork he was now signing. “They didn’t find anything beyond your own paintings, and this afternoon the whole thing is being packed up and moved to Bliss. Stef packed your work himself this morning while we were waiting on the judge.”
“I’ll make sure all of your canvases get back home.” He hadn’t been able to get her latest painting out, but it appeared she had recently finished it, possibly the night before her arrest. The oil was still wet. Renard, the fucker, had refused to release it, and no amount of intimidation had worked on him. At least the work in her apartment was properly packed and readied for transit. Perhaps he would set Mr. Sarcasm on Renard personally. The big guy wasn’t merely obnoxious. He also was thoroughly intimidating. If he couldn’t money whip the man, maybe Taggart could actually whip him.
Jen’s lips turned down, and she held her hands up for all to see. “And do you intend to keep me cuffed during my stay?”
He’d love to. He’d love to bind her arms and legs and keep her tied to his bed exactly as had been suggested. He’d let her out to paint. It was important, and she was far too talented to ignore, but other than that, she would be constantly spread for his pleasure. He shifted uncomfortably. His cock was hard as a rock.
Nate’s eyes went straight to the handcuffs around Jen’s wrists. “Was that necessary, Stef?”
“She was being uncooperative.”
“And he was being an asshole,” Jen shot back.
At least she was getting her spirit back. It made him happy that she was starting to fight again. He’d watched her in the interview room while she spoke to Finn Taylor, and everything about her had seemed dimmer than normal. Her eyes had been dull and downcast, her shoulders slumped. Now there was fire in them again, and it gave him hope.
“No surprise there. He’s been a complete asshole for six months now,” Nate complained. He settled his hat on his head and looked every inch the small-town sheriff he was. “He’s giving Max a run for his money. I swear if I catch the two of them pounding on each other again, I’m going to put them both in lockup.”
Stef set her on her feet and hoped he didn’t have to chase her down. She immediately walked to Nate, holding out her cuffed hands in greeting.
“It’s good to see you, Sheriff. How are Callie and Zane?” Jen’s face shone as she looked up at the sheriff.
She hadn’t smiled once at him.
“They’re fine. Zane opened a bar, and now he’s got Callie hopping. I had to hire a new admin because Callie’s having so much fun learning to bartend,” Nate explained. His face went a little bit hard. “She’s looking forward to seeing you again, Jen. She missed you.”
Jen flushed. Her skin was so pale he never had trouble reading her.
“I missed her, too.”
“A letter would have been nice. It would have let her know you were alive.” Nate turned his stony face to Stef. “We should get going if we’re going to make the plane.”
Jen’s smile fell, and Stef kind of wanted to put a fist through his friend’s face. He knew how Nate felt about Jennifer. Nate had made it entirely plain to him during the trip to Dallas. He was angry because his wife, Callie, had been hurt by Jen’s sudden disappearance. Callie’s other husband, Zane, was a bit more forgiving. Zane understood the need to run. If Zane would have been a lick of help, Stef would have brought him instead of Nate. Unfortunately, Nate was the sheriff of Bliss, and there was no substitute in this case.
“Come on.” Stef tried to soften the gruff command by placing a hand on her back.
She stepped away. “You’re sure I can’t stay here? My trial is going to be here. That lawyer person said I could stay with him. And apparently there’s a bunch of spies following me around. I can’t go anywhere.”
His heart plunged. She would rather stay with a complete stranger than come home. Maybe he should let her. Julian Lodge would make sure she was safe. McKay-Taggart would work on the case from the investigative end while Finn handled the legalities. Perhaps he should simply bow out. He never meant to come after her anyway. He should step back and allow her to live her own life.
“You’re coming with me or you can go back to jail.” So much for stepping back. He couldn’t. And Julian lived in one of the most notorious BDSM clubs in the world. No way was he going to allow Jennifer to live there. She’d be collared in a heartbeat. She’d belong to someone else. He couldn’t handle the thought. He turned to Finn and the security guys. He wasn’t going to call them spies. They were more like protectors. “We’ll contact you when we get back home. I hope you’ll have something for me.”
“See? Puppet master Stef is in the house. Fine. I’ll go back because Bliss is way better than the Dallas County Jail, but don’t think I’ll trade favors for my freedom.” She turned and walked out the door, her back regally straight, as though she were a queen leaving her castle.
“See, that’s what I meant about cuffing her to something that doesn’t move,” Taggart was saying. “Just cuffing her hands together kind of misses the point.”
He ignored the security guy, preferring to stride after Jen since she really was getting away.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, love.” Stef shed his own jacket because the queen was going to be awfully cold. He caught up with her and settled the jacket around her shoulders. He thought briefly about uncuffing her but decided he didn’t want to get slapped. He led her to the driveway. “Wear it.”
She smiled up at him, but there was no warmth in it. “Of course. I wouldn’t dream of refusing Master Stefan. Besides, I like the fact that you’re cold.”
“How could he possibly be cold?” Nate asked with a smirk. “He’s been running ever since the investigators called him yesterday morning. I don’t think his heart’s settled down once since he got that call. He had everyone in Bliss on their toes five minutes later.”
Stef sent Nate his best “shut the fuck up” look.
Jen turned to Nate as the limo pulled up. “I wish I could have seen that. Tell me something, how is she? Is Callie happy? Has Rachel had her baby yet? Did Stella find someone to replace me? I mean, I know she did, but I just…I missed everyone. More than I realized.”
The driver popped out and opened the door. He got in and turned back to help Jen.
Nate softened slightly as he settled into the seat across from them. He looked slightly out of place in the elegant limo. Sometimes it was hard for Stef to remember Nate came from money. “Callie’s doing great. She and Zane are having the time of their life driving me crazy. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Rachel is due in a couple of weeks. Stef brought in a doctor. We have a nice clinic now.”
Thanks to him. “Well, I had to or
Max and Rye were going to drive me crazy. Why Rachel ever let them read those What to Expect books, I have no idea. They’ve been paranoid. And Max has become quite the medical expert. He’s diagnosed Rachel with everything from GERD to preeclampsia. I expect Ebola is next on his list of things his pregnant wife is dying from. I had to bring in Dr. Burke to save poor Rachel from Max keeping her on bed rest.”
Jen laughed. It was practically music in Stef’s mind. “I can’t believe I missed that. Has Mel made sure the baby is safe from alien probes?”
“Naturally,” Nate replied. “He’s consulted with Dr. Burke about making the birth completely alien free. The doc is a tolerant man. He’s also good with electronics. He’s modified the Detector 5000 to warn us if an alien invades Rachel’s womb.”
“Excellent.” Jen turned her face to the window as they drove toward the airport.
He watched her carefully. He wondered if she was sad to leave Dallas. He’d been inside her tiny apartment on Good Latimer. It was a studio space, but it looked like an art bomb had gone off inside. There had been canvases and three different easels, each set up to catch a different type of light. Everywhere he’d looked there were signs of her creativity. Sketchbooks were littered through the place as though she wanted one anywhere she sat in case an idea hit her.
The limo fell silent as Nate played around on his cell. He was probably texting Callie or Zane, who would immediately call Stella, and the grapevine would be in full bloom. In roughly five minutes, everyone in Bliss would know he was bringing Jen home. They turned up Mockingbird, and Stef thought about his own work. He’d only managed two canvases while she’d been gone, each a portrait of a slender brunette with flashing green eyes.
How was he going to keep his hands off her?