Capturing Charlie [Braden Security 5] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Dale Cadeau

  “Clay, you never told me that there was anything between Chase and Charlie? The way you talk about him, I didn’t think he would be ready to settle down for a long time.”

  “Chase the hound dog will never settle with only one woman. I know there’s nothing going on between the two of them. Chase depends on her a lot at work. But that’s it. Chase is Chase. It will take some woman a lot of work to tie him down,” Clay said, picking up his glass.

  “But enough of this gossip. We’re here to celebrate.”

  Talk between the men changed to mundane subjects for a while until Brad though they should do some shots.

  “I don’t know, Brad. Beer is enough for me. I want to get back and start connecting the dots between General Brown and Carlos.”

  “That can wait until tomorrow, Grant. Have one with us and we’ll have Lance’s limo take us home. Come on, let us celebrate having you back with us,” Brad encouraged.

  All the men had drunk less than Grant. Lance had made sure that his glass was always full. Grant was no way drunk. Lance had made sure he had just enough to dull his senses so their takedown would go smoothly.

  Clay turned to Lance, standing behind the bar, “Why don’t you pour us each a shot and join us out here at a table?”

  “Sure, Clay.” Lance walked over to the till and took the rope and cuffs in hand from under it. “Take a table, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Clay and Brad between them pulled Grant up of the stool at the bar and tried to help him to the table.

  “I can move on my own, thank you,” Grant said pulling back a little.

  Suddenly Grant found Clay and Brad abruptly turning him, grabbing both of his hands behind his back with Lance clasping cuffs on him.

  “What the fuck, guys? Let me go,” Grant said as he glared at Clay and Brad.

  Suddenly he felt his legs being pulled together and looked down and saw Lance at his feet, tying rope around them.

  “Shit, guys, this is too much. Even for a bunch of jokers like you,” Grant said with disbelief in his voice.

  Clay held on to his shoulder as Lance finished tying his feet together and stood. “It’s for your own good.”

  “What’s for my own good? Damn it, Clay! I just got free from a couple of pricks. Don’t go making me think that you are one,” Grant said, his face flushed as rage came over him as he struggled to get free and found he couldn’t move an inch.

  “Now, Grant, you’re going to hurt my feeling if you talk like that. Settle down, this is still a celebration.”

  “Well you have a minute until I lose my patience.” Grant gritted his teeth, looking around at the people seated around the bar, watching what was going on, but no one stepping forward to help him.

  “Why aren’t the people doing something? They’re sitting there as if they’re watching a show. God, Clay, this is a setup. Isn’t it? Tell me you and Brad haven’t done something stupid. Charlie made her choice and I’m okay with it.” Grant almost shouted at them.

  “Who said anything about Charlie? This has nothing to do with her. I know that you have no time for her after the way she left with Chase,” Brad added.

  “Shit, Brad, did you tell Clay about that?”

  “Well of course, we don’t keep secrets. Clay came up with the ideal that you need someone to make you forget anything about her.”

  “What do you have in mind, Clay?” Grant said, getting pissed off the more he heard. “Are James and Angel in on this?”

  “No, James and Angel have clean hands. No this is all on me. Remember I’ve always said payback was hell. Well this is my time to collect on that payback. With Lance’s help, we have a lady that will take your mind off the last few days and Charlie. Think of it as a gift from all of us to you.”

  “No fucking way, Clay. Lance, you can keep your ladies to yourself.” Grant started to struggle in earnest now, almost toppling over with his wild movements.

  “I think he’s getting bit aggravated. Lance, do we have something to keep him quiet? We don’t want to upset anyone in the bar,” Clay asked Lance as he and Brad both tried to hold on to Grant.

  Lance held up a ball gag. Grant took one look at it and almost fell to the floor trying to get away from Clay and Brad.

  “No fucking way.” He looked at John, Tony, and Gabe, who stood around shielding them a bit from the rest of the room.

  “You owe me, John. Well, I need help. This would be a good way for you to repay me,” Grant said as he tossed his head back and forth as Lance tried to get the gag in his mouth.

  John moved closer. “Sorry, buddy. Remember, I said I take orders. Great, well, this is Clay’s mission and I’m only following orders,” John told him, helping Lance hold his head steady so the ball gag could be shoved in his mouth.

  When Lance and John moved back, Tony and Gabe came forward. Bending down, they grabbed Grant’s feet in their hands and stood up. Clay, with Brad’s help, held up his shoulders.

  “Where to Lance?”

  Lance walked to the door and held it open. “This way, gentlemen.”

  Lance turned back to look at the people still watching their every move. “Thank you all for your participation. The rest of the show is private. You can all go home now and Cyn will make sure that we show our appreciation at your next pay.”

  Tony and Gabe were first through the door. John held it open as Lance moved across the hallway and opened another door across from it.

  The men carried a trussed Grant through the bar on the Spice side and down into a large room that held a stage. Grant, catching a look at it as they turned the corner, increased his struggles, swearing beneath the ball gag in his mouth.

  Brad and Clay almost dropped him. Securing their hold, they heaved him up higher and carried him across the room and up a few steps to the stage. The stage was bare except for a bed with leather straps draped at the head and foot of it. A small table was set near with a few miscellaneous items that Grant didn’t want to think about.

  Lance swept around them and picked up the straps. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Tony and Gabe let Grant’s feet down so he was standing upright.

  “Shit, we can’t lay him down on his hands. I have to release him before we can strap him down. We have to do this fast. Everyone ready?”

  Brad un-cuffed Grant, but before Grant could retaliate, Clay and Tony were ready and grabbed his arms, and along with John and Gabe’s help, they laid him down on the bed flat on his back.

  Brad moved to the opposite side of the bed from Lance, picking up one of the straps. When Grant’s hands were laid out on the bed near the head of it, both man were ready and securely cuffed his hands in the straps.

  His feet were a bit trickier, with Grant hitting Brad on the chin with his boot when the ropes from around his legs were released.

  “Fuck, Grant. That hurt. Settle down. You know we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think it was for your own good,” Brad said, rubbing his chin.

  Finally they had Grant strapped to the bed. All of the men stepped back a bit and took a deep breath.

  “He sure can fight. Are you sure that you know what you’re doing?” John asked, looking around at Clay, Brad, then Gabe and Tony.

  “Can’t say,” Tony spoke up. “This is our first time. You would have to ask them?” He nodded toward Clay and Brad.

  “Don’t worry, John, by this time tomorrow Grant will be thanking us,” Clay told him as he grinned down at a still-struggling Grant, holding up a blindfold for Grant to see. Putting the blindfold over Grant’s eyes, he tied it snuggly at the back of his head.

  “I guess our job is over,” Lance said, walking down the steps off the stage. “It’s time for the second act.”

  “You forgot one thing.” Grant could hear a woman’s voice. He thought it might be Avery but put it out of his mind. Avery was at Angel’s with her new baby and James.”

  “What did we forget?” Lances asked. “We did everything that you asked of us.”

 
“You can’t leave him with all his clothes on. It would ruin the mood.”

  All the guys backed away from the bed, looking down at Avery.

  “No way am I doing it,” they all replied in unison.

  “Well I can,” the woman’s voice said. Then Grant heard a door open and an “Oh shit!” from another female voice.

  “Forget that,” came an overly gruff voice, and Grant could hear two men’s footsteps walking in the silent room.

  “I just want to help,” the woman said, her voice a little more high-pitched now.

  “Not this time.”

  “James, let me go.”

  Shit, James, was here that must have been Avery’s voice that he had heard. Knowing that Lance helped, he was pretty sure that Cyn was probably around here, and that meant Angel had to be near.

  Grant felt his face flush with rage. The spittle from him trying to swear at them started to run down his chin. He had never been so humiliated in his life.

  “Clay,” he heard James say. “You wanted payback. This is all on you.”

  “Okay, but this stays in this room. Got a sharp knife, Lance?”

  “Sure.” He heard Lance leave for a minute and then walk back up on to the stage to his side.

  His boots and socks were pulled roughly off him, then he felt the cold steel of a knife’s blade slowly going up his inside pant leg. Stiffening up, Grant didn’t dare move. The knife made a turn at the top of his leg and made its way across to the outside of his pant leg and back down. The knife repeated its journey a minute later on the other pant leg and then he was lifted up a bit and his jeans were pulled out from underneath him.

  Next, he heard the buttons of his shirt pop and the blade running up each of his arms. Like with the jeans, he felt himself lifted a bit and the shirt was gone.

  He could feel Clay’s breath near his ear. “We have a very special lady for you. Tomorrow morning you will be back to your old self and thanking us.”

  Left in only his briefs, Grant would have spit on Clay if he was able to there was only so much a man was expected to take. He just had to get through this, then he would kill all of them.

  He knew in their minds that they were trying to help. But a woman, even a very special one, was not going to take the place of Charlie. He hadn’t been able to get it up with anyone else since he met her. He would have to just disappoint the woman. Feeling better now, he knew what they were up to, and that shortly this would be all over, he settled down a bit.

  “Okay, that’s it. Our part is now officially over,” Clay said, and Grant could heard the men all leaving the stage.

  The door at the end of the room opened and banged shut, then there was silence.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  As soon as they were on the other side of the door but still in the Spice bar, James turned toward them and let them have it. “Of all the harebrained schemes! Laura, Raven, Mary, and even Grandma thought it was a grand scheme and had lots of fun filling us in on the whole thing. Jared and Stan were speechless while they listened and heard it for the first time. They thought the girls had gone out for groceries. So tell me, who takes the credit?”

  “Lance?” James looked his way with steely blue eyes.

  “Can’t blame me, James. I just did a favor for Cyn. She’s my partner, after all,” Lance replied, meeting James’s glare with one of his own.

  “Cyn?” James said looking directly at her standing beside Angel, who was holding on to his hand, not looking too pleased with her himself.

  “Well Avery and I wanted to help. Janet did, too. We all did.”

  “Where is you other partner in crime? You don’t have to explain about Avery’s part in this. I know her MO. This would be right up her alley,” James said, looking down at a contrite Avery biting her lip.

  “She’ll be out shortly. Maybe we went a little far James, but Grant was being an asshole,” Avery said, looking up at James, the spark back in her eyes.

  “So you think tying him up and leaving him on the stage in a BDSM club would help?”

  “We just want him to be happy, James.” Cyn finally spoke up.

  “Okay, enough. Let’s get out of here. Stan and Jared will be here soon to collect Janet.” Angel spoke up.

  “We can’t leave Grant and Charlie alone in the club. What if something happens?” Avery added as James took her arm and steered her toward the door with the others following.

  “Don’t worry, Avery. I’ll be in my office until the lovebirds are ready. At least I’m hoping that’s how it will end. I have a letter to write,” Lance told them bring up the end of the line toward the door.

  “You’re going to write a letter in this day and age?” Clay asked as he walked ahead of Lance through the Spice door and into the entranceway.

  “Yeah, well, I have a debt to settle and this is the only way to communicate with this person.”

  “Does this person live in the boonies? Everyone has a telephone now.” Clay stopped at the outside door holding it open after everyone had gone through.

  “No phone for this person. He’s Amish. They don’t believe in those things.”

  “Amish—how the hell did you get indebted to an Amish?”

  “It’s a long story, Clay. I’ll tell you later, right now I want to get back to the office in case the buzzer goes off and Grant or Charlie need help.”

  “Okay, I’ll hold you to that. I want to hear how a BDSM Dom owes an Amish a favor.” Clay was just starting to go through the door, shaking his head at Lance when Stan and Jared busted though.

  “Where’s Janet?” a stressed-out looking Jared asked of Clay.

  “She should be out here in a minute,” Lance answered.

  Janet appeared at the door, holding a large shopping bag in one hand. “I’m here. Wait until you see what I got.”

  Stan smiled indulgently when he spotted her, but Jared grabbed the bag from her hand and glared down at her. “You were supposed to be grocery shopping. You might not sit down for a week after making us worry like this.”

  “You didn’t have to worry, I was with Avery, Cyn, and Charlie,” Janet said, taking Stan’s hand and smiling up at him, ignoring Jared’s warning glare.

  “I don’t know Charlie, but Brad has enlightened us about Avery and Cyn’s high jinks. When James and Angel came and told us what was up and got the other women to confess, I was worried.”

  “Sorry,” Janet said, looking forlorn at Jared.

  “Okay, love, just don’t do it again.” Jared chastised her.

  “No, never.” Janet gave a sly smile at Clay as she meekly held Jared’s hand and they followed Stan outside.

  “It’s times like these that I sure am glad that I’m single,” Lance remarked to Clay, watching the trio go down the step of the club. “At least Laura didn’t get involved.”

  “Laura is involved up to her eyebrows in this. She’s the one that called and let me in on their plan and my place in it,” Clay informed him.

  “Are you going to redden her ass for her part?” Lance asked Clay as he watched him go down the outside steps to the parking lot.

  “No, I have a different way to deal with Laura. I going to pick her up, take her home, and keep her in bed until she knows that there is only one man she has to be concerned with, and that is me.” Clay looked back with a wide grin on his face.

  “Well good luck with that. I’m sure you will hear the outcome of this plan as soon as I do. But if it does turn sour, I will call. I don’t want to be left alone with Grant when he gets free and is pissed.”

  “Don’t think it will come to that, but let the phone ring a while, it might take me time to answer.” Clay laughed again and jumped the last step, eager to get to Laura.

  Lance shut the big door of the club and locked it. Turning his mind back to his letter, he made his way to his office. He didn’t think he would have to hurry. If everything went as planned he would probably still be here in the morning.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Cha
rlie stood in the middle of the large room, staring up at the stage. Janet had left her when she had hear her husbands Stan and Jared’s voices in the entranceway to the club.

  “Got to go,” was all Janet said as she hurriedly left.

  Alone now that the girls were gone, she knew that most of her courage went with them. She had agreed and even laughed when they had all discussed the plan and her part in it.

  Now that the time was here to carry out all of her plans, she hesitated. She could see Grant on the stage all trussed up like a gift just for her.

  But, would the gift be given freely if Grant had a say in it?

  Charlie knew that she wanted him desperately, desperate enough to go through with their harebrained scheme that made so much sense a minute ago. What if she only accomplished the opposite and pushed him farther away?

  Charlie hadn’t taken the time to really think of the consequences if Grant didn’t want her. This step she was about to take could really change her life in ways that she hadn’t thought of, but did now.

  Grant was a part of James’s unit and a member of the Braden Security team. Chase, her boss, was James’s brother. If James disagreed with her methods, or Grant for that matter complained, she could lose her job and livelihood at Braden Investments by any action she took tonight.

  With her shoulder hunched, she stared at the floor, trying to gather her courage together. She couldn’t undo anything, it was too late for that. No, she had to try. She had to remember if this went the way she hoped it would, she would have what she had wanted those many months ago when she had first spotted Grant.

  Lust for Grant had simmered below the surface the many months that they had worked together, but it had also brought respect and deep feelings of need and love as she found out what kind of man Grant really was. Their time together in the small room in the cabin had cinched it for her.

  When she thought that it might be the end at the cabin, she couldn’t think of anyone else she wanted to spend it with. She loved him deeply and knew that for her, he was it. No man would be taking his place if this didn’t work out.