“Seems personal.”
Oh... it is.
His eyes run over me again and stutter to a stop at my scarred hand.
They lift to mine.
His question is there, though he doesn't voice it.
The cop knows the evidence of violence when he sees it, like Thorn did. He's not here to question me like a suspect, but he's suspicious. It's in the tense set of his body.
I stand, and he follows me. I take a mournful mental inventory of the things in my home.
I halt when I catch sight of my bed.
My normal clothes are hanging in the closet.
Slashed—every one.
The only things that escaped destruction are my stripper outfits. Each one of those is neatly laid out on the bed.
Gooseflesh breaks out over my body, running down my arms.
I move to my dresser and tear my drawers open.
My panties are missing.
Bras.
Oh my god.
I slowly turn, and Tagger gives me a neutral look.
I want to hit him. “You could have warned me at least.”
He shakes his head. “I needed to see your reaction.”
I wipe my eyes, brushing angry tears away.
“What?” I move into his personal space. “You some kind of sadist? You get off on some freak coming in here and wrecking all my stuff?”
Tagger's eyes narrow.
“No, I don't, Miss Mitchell.” He stares at me then glances at the bed full of stripper clothes.
“But I am mighty curious why someone would break into your apartment and wreck everything. Then they take nothing but your lingerie, and keep an assortment of very... interesting clothes in perfect condition on display for your return.”
My eyes drop from his.
I hear his frustration. “Is there something you're not telling me?” he asks.
There is.
But if I breathe a whisper about Ronnie Bunce, I have to answer questions about laps, extras... and my newest love interest. It could be dangerous for me.
It could hurt my mom.
Oh yeah, officer, I'm keeping billionaire Mick McKenna around to deflower me before I die, and my crazy-as-fuck stepdad wants to make good on unfinished business.
They'd keep me wrapped up so tight I'd never see my mom.
No way. I'm all she has. I can't be embroiled in some mess while her care hangs in the balance.
“No, there really isn't,” I lie. The weight of my desperation pins every word with a grain of truth. Love is a powerful motivator.
Tagger closes his tablet with a smack. “I wish I believed you.”
Me too. I stare at him, folding my arms.
He sighs in frustration. “You have a place to stay?”
I don't answer fast enough, and he explains, “You're not safe here. There's no way to secure the door.”
I can tell he thinks I'm some kind of whacko flight risk.
I open my mouth.
“She'll stay with me.”
We turn toward the door, looking out into my small living room at the man entering my wrecked apartment.
I heard his voice and, like Pavlov's dog, that ache settled right between my legs, heat spreading from my core to my toes.
From just his voice.
Tagger whirls around, his hand on the butt of his pistol.
“How did you get up here?” His hand strokes the leather holster.
My eyes move to Mick's, their root beer brown so deep I drown in them.
“Ben Franklin let me in.”
Tagger frowns.
Mick holds up a one hundred dollar bill.
~ 5 ~
“Hate to break it to you, Mr. McKenna, but you can't buy me.”
Tagger glares as Mick calmly plucks a billfold out of the interior pocket of his suit.
“No?”
Mick's brows dump above angry eyes, a tick beginning in his square jaw. “Then maybe you can explain why my girlfriend is being browbeaten by a beat cop who leaves the apartment unattended after it's been rifled through?”
Girlfriend?
I drink him in as he stuffs the money in his wallet.
Tagger's forehead furrows, his body going tense. “Where's Scott?”
Mick removes an imaginary piece of lint from his understated, tailor-cut suit. It perfectly showcases his natural elegance.
His eyes cut to Tagger. “I don't know. Why don't you find out and leave me here with Miss Mitchell? I can take it from here.”
I cringe at his unflinching handling of the police.
Tagger doesn't move. “We may need to assign police protection—”
“That won't be necessary,” Mick cuts him off.
My eyes find Tagger. “Police protection?”
He shrugs, and my eyes narrow. He makes me feel as though I’m somehow to blame, like a police liability.
“You thought you might lean on Miss Mitchell until she cracked?” Mick asks.
Tagger stares at Mick, his fair skin taking on a ruddy glow.
I turn my attention to Mick, my mouth agape.
“I'm aware of Miss Mitchell's background,” Tagger says.
I somehow cover my shock. I’m so glad everyone knows everything about me and doesn’t bother to make me privy. “What does my history have to do with this?”
I shoot Mick a hard look. Has he said something to Tagger? No, that makes no sense-- unless they know each other from before.
Tagger scrubs his face and scowls at Mick. “I don't know how you know anything here, McKenna.”
“Sounds personal,” I mimic and Tagger gives me a thoughtful look.
Mick walks over to me and puts a large warm hand at the nape of my neck. The warmth from his voice is nothing to that single touch.
A searing flame races from my head to my toes, coming back to latch on to my crotch in a vicious twist of arousal.
My lips part; I keep from panting from sheer will alone.
I clearly need more oxygen.
It doesn't matter that Tagger is watching us like a hawk. Mick is touching me, and I can't get past that.
He's a barrier I can't break, that I want to hold forever.
“It is,” Tagger replies, his eyes noting Mick's hand on me.
“Ben Franklin always works, Tagger.” Mick gives my neck a gentle squeeze, and a small bubble of sound escapes me.
Mick glances at me, his aloof facade slipping around the edges. It's like ice melting before the passion of our contact.
“It doesn't work with me, McKenna.”
Mick's eyes slide back to Tagger's. “I know you're working a case.”
He does?
Tagger pushes his tablet into his pocket slowly, never breaking eye contact with Mick.
“I have a right to know what's going on,” I say, stepping away from Mick so I can think. I feel like the only one out of the know. Tagger knows my background, Mick does too. They seem to know each other. And Ronnie Bunce is at the heart. Maybe it beats without their knowledge.
“There's been a similar... pattern of break-ins,” Tagger admits.
My mouth opens then closes. “When... who?”
Tagger cocks his head. “It's local, similar M.O.”
Oh... maybe not Bunce.
“Hookers mainly,” Tagger says, and my face flames.
Definitely Bunce. First the mask, then trashing my apartment?
Mick's expression darkens.
“I'm not a hooker,” I say.
That rides the line of lying.
Have I had intercourse during a lap?
No.
Have I done everything but that?
Almost.
And I did it for the money.
I think of my mom, how it was before Ronnie and I bite my lip. That long ago memory is a bittersweet whip of velvet inside my mind.
“We're not accusing you of prostitution,” Tagger says.
“You’d better not be.” Mick’s voice sounds like a growl, and I ba
rely resist looking at him.
Tagger grins, seeming to love his role of authority.
“She's not your wife, Mr. McKenna. You really don't have any rights here. In fact, you being here is wrong on a lot of levels.”
Tagger turns to me. “Do you feel threatened, Miss Mitchell?”
“Of course!” I answer immediately.
“Do you feel threatened by Mr. McKenna?” he clarifies.
My eyes shift to Tagger’s as I remember Mick slamming me against walls and doors, pinning my wrists above my head while he assaulted me with his lips.
I take too long responding, and Mick looks at me.
“No, I don't feel threatened by Mr. McKenna.”
Mick's shoulders relax, but there's a question in his eyes that I don't want to answer.
Tagger closes the distance between us, and Mick tenses again.
I would love to understand the animosity between them, but I keep my mouth shut.
Tagger’s arm stretches out, and I flinch. Habit.
His eyes tighten at my reaction. “I won't hurt you, Miss Mitchell.”
I've heard that before—about a hundred times when the cops came and Ronnie talked to them.
He could be very convincing.
I imagine he had his own stockpile of George Washingtons.
Tagger’s hand opens, and his card sits inside. “Take it.”
I pluck the card out of his hand and slide it into the front pocket of my scrubs.
“Humphrey has promised to get your door repaired within twenty-four hours, but until that happens, you'll need somewhere safe to stay.”
“I said she's staying with me,” Mick says with finality.
I'm so not staying with him.
Too many secrets to hide.
“Right.” Tagger looks at me, unconvinced.
I blush from his look that brims with assumptions. He's getting a mental image of all the slut suits on my bed along with nightly humpfests with Mick.
“Fine.” He walks to my yawning, shattered doorway and turns. “There will be a follow-up.” He leaves.
Tagger never did tell me what my history had to do with this.
I'm the victim; he knows that. If he knows about my past, then he knows that.
So why do I get the feeling he suspects me of wrongdoing?
Some people have a nose for the truth.
~ 6 ~
Mick presses his fingers to my lips. “Faren, just say yes.”
I lift my cell phone and wag it. “Kiki's coming over.” Though I don't know when.
Mick seems to sense the cracks in my words and slides through.
He tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear and brushes his lips over mine. Pulling away, he cradles my face, and my hands fall to my sides.
“I lied,” he says in a bland voice.
Oh no.
I can't take any more revelations.
His dark eyes search mine, his high cheekbones still splashed with color from being outside.
“You're not like the other women I've been with.”
I close my eyes and feel his fingertips against my lips, “Technically we haven't been together.”
My eyes open, meeting his.
He grins, his perfect white teeth blazing at me. “There's time.”
“Yeah, about that,” I say as I step away from Mick.
His smile fades, but he continues to regard me with that customary heat. A built-in incubator of desire.
I gulp. “I want to make sure that we keep our relationship without strings.”
Mick jams his hands in the pockets of his suit. “Yup.”
My stomach twists.
My brows rise, and I put my hands on my hips. His face is totally neutral. I'm looking for any bleep on the emotional screen. Nothing. I roll my bottom lip into my teeth, and his eyes shift to the movement.
The temperature rises instantly. “No strings,” I repeat.
“Nope.” He grins as he watches me gnaw on my bottom lip.
It's that tell again. I let my lip go. I wonder how many unconscious things I do that show Mick things I’d rather he didn’t know.
Mick strolls toward me. “I'm all about strings.” He kisses my forehead, his hands coming to my shoulders.
Oh god.
“Tight…” His kiss falls like butterfly wings against the sensitive spot beneath my ear. “Strings.”
My eyes snap open, and his are two inches from my face.
I take note of the ring of bright gold around his pupil and feel my control slip further... into his hands.
I manage to whisper, “Just until Kiki comes.” I don't address the permanency of what he implies.
He kisses me then, a crushing press that takes away my breath and curls my toes. That molten hard press breaks my lips open, and our tongues twine in an erotic collision of wet heat.
Mick breaks away, leaving us both gasping, our swollen mouths seeking more of the same passionate damage.
“Get your things, Faren.” His face is hard, his eyes soft with want.
I blink and look down at my work outfit. “Oh god, my stuff.”
I shake, thinking about all my clothes. My eyes move to my open bedroom door.
Mick searches my face, easily reading my expression. “We'll get more.”
My pride holds me at knifepoint. “I don't need you to buy my clothes.” I want his help, but the plea is a lodged wedge in my throat.
I turn away and walk over to my bed, covered with shimmering dresses that barely cover my female bits, and sigh.
I don't have two dimes to rub together. I've spent every penny on my mom's debt.
I roll my bottom lip into my mouth.
“Too late, babe,” he says so close behind me I jump.
How could he buy me anything that fast? My apartment was just wrecked.
I whirl and see his hand on the first dress he ever saw me in. Mick lets the silver glass beads run through his fingers like water. I watch him like visual foreplay.
He says, “You can take all this.” Something ripples across the surface of his face that gives me pause.
“Thanks,” I mutter, and I smile when he's not looking.
I move to the closet, grab a duffle, and stuff all my outfits inside. My cell chimes. I grip it in my good hand and see the name rising from the blackness of my screen.
Thorn.
The lap address appears for tonight, and my breath catches. I completely forgot.
Nothing like a visit from my deranged stepfather to blank my mental agenda.
Mick zips the duffle closed and I slip my cell into my smock pocket. My mind is so thick with my thoughts it's like a mudslide inside my skull.
“Important?” Mick inquires.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “No.” Yes.
My nose scrunches. “I need toiletries.”
I move to the bathroom and look at the forty million makeup bottles and brushes. When I look up, my fractured reflection stares back. The glass is shattered but intact inside the frame.
It makes me want to cry again, seeing all those images of my face in broken slices.
I can feel Mick staring at me. His gaze brings my emotions to the surface. My trembling lip and quick swallows to contain the new torrent of tears gives me away, and he gently moves me aside.
He pins the duffle to the rim of the vanity with his knee. He sweeps the entire top tier of items into my duffle.
Powder sprays up, and perfume bottles clink together. My hairbrush misses the rim of the duffle and clunks to the floor. Tampons fall like decapitated paper fingers.
I look at Mick, and he's grinning.
I laugh and can't stop.
He takes me in his arms when I begin to cry.
“Shhh, Faren.”
His big hands slide around my waist and cup my ass, hauling me up on the now-empty vanity. “Stay with me.”
“Why?” My hands come to his face, and the rasp of his five o'clock shadow feels good against my fingers. “W
hy do I have to stay with you?”
Mick's face goes serious, his brown eyes darkening to glittering ebony marbles. “Because I leave town for two days and someone eviscerates your apartment.”
His hands move to my waist, his fingers touching at my back. My head tips back, and my breath slides out in surrender as his thumbs stroke my ribcage.
Mick's grip tightens with my response. He dips his head, pressing a soft kiss at my throat, and my fingers sink into his hair.
The deep bass of his voice continues. “Hacks your clothes to pieces... and you escape a mugging by the skin of your pretty teeth.”
I don't have any words for the evil he recites.
Instead, I switch gears. “You called me your girlfriend.”
Mick steps away, and I become cold without him, my fingers falling from his thick hair.
“Am I?” I ask. I want to be. And I don't.
“You're something.”
“What?” What am I to him? What are we really doing?
Mick looks down, a lock of his dark auburn hair defeats the widow's peak that centers above his forehead. When his gaze rises to mine, those dark eyes cover every nuance of emotion on my face, missing nothing. Every hill, every valley. As if weighing me.
“Special.”
He holds out his hand, and I slip mine inside.
Mick scoops the duffle from the floor and throws it over his shoulder, hauling me behind him.
I begin to turn around and look at the carnage that Ronnie made.
He squeezes my hand. “Don't look.”
I take a deep breath and follow him out my ruined door.
*
My stomach drops when I see where we park.
Henry has slowed the limo to a gentle stop in front of the Millennium Tower, and a literal red carpet runs out to the floorboards of the limo.
To my left is Puget Sound, and to my right is one of the most expensive high-rise condominium palaces in Seattle.
This is also where Kiki lives.
Holy smokes, how much more convoluted can my life become?
“Do you know all your neighbors?” I ask, trying for casual.
Mick stops his more or less constant drumming on his knee. “Not really.”
His other hand rests on my thigh like a brand of fire.
“I thought you said you live here.”
Henry opens the door and I place my hand into his gloved one, that sense of the surreal slipping over me as he helps me out.
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