“Of course, sir. We’ll get you there,” Riley forced himself to say.
This was a man who, by all accounts, did Greg Jansen’s dirty work—and had for years. Being this close to the asshole who probably had more than a thing or two to do with Carrie’s murder made Riley want to strangle him.
“You two working this fucking sham of a wedding?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother tense slightly, but Law’s eyes stayed on the doors as the elevator descended. “Nah. We’re dropping this set off for cleaning, then we’re done for the day.”
Vincent frowned. “I thought you had maids to cart that shit around. You two aren’t dressed for laundry.”
It was Riley’s turn. He’d had a lot of experience with being friendly and non-threatening. He’d spent much of his life making up for the fact that Law acted like a Rottweiler on steroids. “Normally, we wouldn’t have anything to do with the laundry, man, but there’s this girl…”
Vincent nodded and sent him a knowing wink. “Hey, you gotta give a little to get some. Well, some of us do.”
“She’s a cute little thing. I don’t know that she’ll last long in the job, though. She’s skittish about some of the nasty stuff we have to send out for cleaning.” Riley shrugged. “When you work in a hotel for as long as I have, you see just about everything.”
“Doesn’t the hotel have its own laundry?” Dargo scowled.
“Sure, but some couple got freaky on one of our thousand thread count sheets. Can’t just throw those out. You know how it is. Some stains are harder to remove and need a professional.”
Vincent Dargo was a stain that Riley would dearly love to remove, but Dargo’s boss was more important. “Well, you won’t have that problem in the bridal suite tonight. God, I’ll be surprised if they fuck at all. That girl is so bangable, but she’s cold. Society women. You think you have a rough job. Try having a boss who tells you to go out and find him a wife with society connections and a fat ass. Oh, but she has to be pretty. Lucky me, I found one, but it was hard. I had to find a go between, if you know what I mean.”
Riley didn’t. Thankfully, the door dinged and opened to the ballroom level because Riley could practically see his brother vibrating with the need for violence.
Down the long hall, Riley caught sight of Jansen in his immaculate tuxedo. For all that Dargo looked like a thug, Jansen fit into society perfectly, a shark masked by designer wear.
He spoke to a man Riley recognized as a senator from Georgia. They were having an intense conversation. Chamber music flooded the halls. It sounded like the wedding was getting ready to start. Someone would start looking for Kinley soon.
“Gotta go.” Dargo rushed out to meet his boss.
Riley reached out and very calmly pressed the button to close the doors.
“I’m going to kill him,” Law said under his breath.
“I’m sure that would make you feel better.” Sometimes he thought snuffing the breath out of lowlifes like Dargo was one of Law’s ways to relax. Today, Riley understood. “When the time comes, make him suffer.”
“What do you think he meant?”
Riley had already reviewed the conversation in his head. He was pretty sure he knew what was bugging his brother. “You mean, why was he concerned with her ass?” He’d seen her pictures. Kinley Kohl had a luscious backside that she tried to camouflage with her clothing. He shrugged. “Maybe he’s an ass man.”
“His other girlfriends have all been model types, very thin. So thin that I’ve wanted to feed them a cheeseburger,” Law muttered. “Even Carrie was that way.”
Carrie Anthony had been beautiful, but neither Riley nor Law had ever been tempted by her. She’d been like their little sister, too. Beyond that, she hadn’t been anywhere close to their type. Sometimes Riley wished they didn’t have a type, but it was true.
Over time, he’d fallen into sharing women with his brother and Dominic. It was just the way he preferred things. Oh, it wasn’t that he couldn’t have sex on his own. He could totally do that, enjoy it even, but he didn’t picture picket fences and forever without backup.
Life in a trailer park, watching his mom pay for their food by whoring herself out, had taught him to always have a contingency, other resources. But finding someone who wanted to be involved with him and his backup had been next to impossible.
So if Jansen wasn’t attracted to juicy asses, why had he insisted on one?
The doors opened, and suddenly that was a problem for another day. It was time to get a move on. Workers rushed around them as they strode down the hallway toward the loading docks.
“About time,” Dominic said. He was dressed in coveralls emblazoned with the name of a local specialty cleaner. “Is that everything we need?”
He was holding a clipboard that likely contained a crossword puzzle and nothing else. It was all just a part of the ruse.
“This should do it.” Riley pushed the cart into the back of the truck.
Just before he was about to close it, Law jumped in. “I’ll ride back here, make sure the merchandise doesn’t get damaged in transit.”
He slammed the door shut.
“Don’t be a pervert.”
Now that they were about to escape the hotel, the worry that Law’s face had been captured by that hallway camera returned. Riley was right back to wondering how he would look in an orange jumpsuit. His guess? Not so great.
But some part of him was more fixated on the moment, was the tiniest bit jealous that Law had Kinley all to himself. He would very likely pick her up because it wouldn’t be nice to leave her in a laundry cart. He would cradle her to make sure she was safe. He would have that very fine ass sitting right on his lap.
Maybe Law wasn’t the only pervert.
“Can we go now?” Dominic asked. “Or do you want to ride in the back, too?”
His longtime best friend was so obviously not amused. “I’m good to go.”
He jogged around the truck and hopped in.
As they lost themselves in the Manhattan traffic, Riley’s thoughts stuck on the woman in the back of the truck.
* * * *
Dominic couldn’t quite take his eyes off the woman reclining in the seat of the private jet he’d chartered to take them to the James’s landing strip in River Run, Alaska. They’d been in the air for over an hour and she hadn’t moved yet.
She didn’t look anything like Carrie. He’d known it from the pictures he’d studied, but somehow he’d thought that when he got into the same space as Kinley Kohl, he’d see something that reminded him of his sister.
After all, they had both fallen for the same man—a cold-blooded killer who had offed Carrie and intended to do the same to Kinley.
Riley sank into the seat next to him. “Law says we’ll be flying all night.”
It was somewhere around ten hours from New York to Alaska. Dominic had a long night to ruminate on the task he had to complete tomorrow.
He had to break Kinley Kohl.
“Can we get her out of that ridiculous dress?” Dominic asked, eyeing her all wrapped in white silk and satin. He couldn’t contemplate playing hardball with her when she looked that damn innocent.
When Law had passed her to him from the truck, she’d nestled down into his arms like a trusting child. Or a lover. But she could never be his lover. Or Law’s—no matter what he imagined.
“I think Law would be happy to undress her,” Riley said. “You want me to take his place in the cockpit?”
Riley wasn’t half the pilot his brother was, but he would be able to keep them in flight.
“No.” He didn’t want to tempt Law any further. “She can change when we arrive and she comes to. She won’t wake up during the flight, will she?”
Riley shrugged. “She hasn’t gotten much sleep lately. At least that’s what Annabelle said. But she had a weird reaction to the sedative. She came out of it for a minute in the hall. Law held her then and stroked her hair. She went back to sleep.�
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Dominic bet that little episode had done nothing to dampen Law’s infatuation. That man had a deep-seated need to protect. Kinley looked fragile right now, but surely when the interrogation started tomorrow, she would show her true colors.
“Gigi.” She started to mutter in her sleep. “Where…Gigi?”
Dominic frowned. “Who’s Gigi?”
“Annabelle mentioned her. Then she gave us that half smile women often do, the one that looks a little evil and makes you wait for things to start falling. You know what I’m talking about?”
Annabelle could be a bit mysterious, but he had other problems now. “Did you check through her luggage? I don’t want to find a cell phone.”
Cell phones had GPS. GPS meant they were up shit creek and all his careful planning had been for nothing.
“I left it sitting on the table in the living area of the suite.”
Not good enough. There had been a ton of people going through that bridal suite all day long. “How do you know it was hers?”
“Have you looked at her? Look, man, it was in her room and it was pink and blinged within an inch of its life. She seems to like little fake diamonds on everything. I don’t get it.”
He was going to have Law’s head. It had been a sloppy operation. Law should have made damn sure that was her phone. He could forgive Riley, who was usually behind the scenes, but Law knew damn well how to run an op. Now Dominic had to check through the luggage to make sure they weren’t going to be met by feds when they landed in River Run.
“Why did Law decide to bring a half ton of designer luggage with us?”
Dominic knew he shouldn’t, but he stared across the aisle. Her blonde hair was the color of honey. The pictures didn’t capture its natural beauty. Lighter shades threaded through the darker ones, forming a gorgeous honey and amber color that contrasted beautifully with her skin.
Porcelain. Her skin was like porcelain, perfect and creamy white.
He needed to remember that porcelain, while beautiful, was also cold.
“He was worried she might need something in there,” Riley answered with a touch of disbelief, as if he, too, thought his brother had gone mental.
“So he wanted to be the guy who brought all her clothes along. He’s going to kill me over this.” He pulled the first bag free and slid the zipper around. The top popped open as though deeply happy at being free. She’d stuffed the bag to the hilt. “Holy shit. How many pairs of jeans does one woman need?”
There were at least a dozen pairs of jeans in the case, each with more and more elaborately placed rhinestones across the pockets that would hug her ass. It was like Las Vegas had taken over her luggage. Every eye in the world would go straight to her ass because there was no way anyone could miss it.
“There seems to be a theme here. She likes shiny objects. Maybe if we get some jewelry we can distract her enough so she’ll just give us all the intel we need,” Dominic offered.
There were several shirts but they were blousy and draped, rather modest by modern standards. Her bras and panties were utilitarian, all white cotton. Nothing lacy and pretty to show off her stunning body on her honeymoon. That was a riddle. Dominic would have bet that Kinley used that sexy body to get everything she wanted, but her underwear told a different story.
There was a makeup bag with bright pink trim and black polka dots. In fact, nothing was plain about anything Kinley owned—except her underwear.
He opened the makeup case. Nothing was sacred now. He needed to know everything about her, understand her better before he began his interrogation.
Her makeup was drugstore. Cheap. That surprised him. The luggage was wretchedly expensive, but she got by with crappy makeup and inexpensive moisturizer.
He was sure she would be wearing Chanel right before Jansen killed her.
Dominic took a long breath and repacked her bag, using the little gold lock to run the zipper back around the edge.
“This one is full of shoes.” Riley held up a pair that he would expect a stripper to wear. They were fucking hot. “She has twelve pairs of shoes for a five-day trip. Why does she need all those shoes?”
To make a man crazy. To make her legs look a million miles long. To wrap them around his back and press into his flesh. Her shoes were everything her undies weren’t. They were hot sex on stilettos.
He had to turn away because he was getting agonizingly hard just thinking about her in those heels.
The bag to his left began to shake. And bark.
Well, now he could guess who Gigi was. He unzipped the travel bag and a puffball leapt out.
“What the fuck is that?” Riley asked, frowning down at the little thing. Kinley had tied a pink bow in its fur, and there was a rhinestone-studded collar around its tiny throat.
“I think it’s supposed to be a dog.” It started to yip, a deeply annoying sound. The little thing started to bark and run in circles as though trying to communicate.
“It looks more like a rat. Why would she put bows on a rat?” Riley leaned down and held out a hand. “Here, girl. Let’s get you back in the bag. That’s your home, right? Don’t you want to go back home and stop that infernal sound you’re making? I can’t call it a bark. Real dogs bark.”
But the little rat thing proved it could bite. The minute Riley reached for it, it nipped him.
Riley popped back up, shaking his hand, then staring at it. “Damn it. I’m going to go wash my hand and hope that thing doesn’t have rabies.”
He stalked back toward the bathroom.
Riley didn’t seem to understand that all creatures needed to know their place in the pecking order, whether person or dog or weirdly dressed rat thing. Dominic knew who was in charge—him.
He picked up Gigi by the scruff of her neck, lifting her high in the air, and bringing her up to meet his eyes. Gigi made an odd sound in the back of her throat that Dominic thought might pass for a snarl in rat-dog world.
Dominic spoke in a language the animal could understand. He gave her a real snarl.
Gigi whimpered and tried to rear back into a protective ball.
Now, they understood each other. He set the dog thing back down. It immediately ran to hide in Kinley’s skirts, apparently not caring that its mistress was unconscious.
Dominic sighed and sat back in his chair.
Riley plopped down beside him. “It didn’t break the skin. Maybe its teeth aren’t sharp enough. Have you thought about the fact that Butch is going to eat that thing?”
His bulldog was already in Alaska. River Run and the compound there had become their base of operations for this particular mission. One of their largest clients, Black Oak Oil, had offered to let them use the large house they kept outside their center in Alaska. When Dominic had asked about it, Gavin James had simply handed over the keys and the security codes, insisting that he didn’t want to know a damn thing else.
Gavin knew him fairly well, but their connections in public were almost purely professional. If Kinley’s kidnapping got tied back to him, it would be a while before the feds got around to questioning Gavin. “Butch will be a perfect gentleman.”
He hoped. Kinley probably wouldn’t be too helpful if his dog swallowed hers whole and burped up those pink bows.
With great effort, she lifted her head and sighed. “Find Gigi…”
The words were slurred like she was totally trashed. It was a reasonable reaction to the sedatives, though they should have just knocked her out for at least eight to ten hours. She was certainly stronger physically than he’d imagined.
“Gigi is hiding in your skirts,” he explained in a soft voice.
She smiled, and his heart actually skipped a beat. What the hell was that about? Those plump lips curled up, and she flushed a little. He could imagine that exact expression on her face when he pressed his cock deep and found that perfect place deep inside her.
Had Jansen ever given her a screaming orgasm? The thought of his sister’s killer fucking Kinley deflated
his dick in a second. He wasn’t going to have sex with Jansen’s leftovers. No fucking way. No matter how much he wanted her.
She lurched up on wobbly feet and immediately stumbled, landing right in his lap.
“Go to sleep, Kinley.” He tried making it an order. Maybe Kinley was a little like her rat-dog thing and just needed a firm hand.
“Kay,” she slurred and nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck where he could feel her breath on his skin.
Yeah, his cock was hard again. She settled her ass against it, and Dominic thought he might come in his slacks. Damn it. “In your own seat, Kinley.”
“Kay.” But she just snuggled closer and sighed as though she’d found right where she wanted to be.
“She seems very affectionate when she’s incapacitated.” Riley had the faintest smile on his face. “You probably shouldn’t move her. She might sleep better like that.”
“Then get Law out here to hold her.” He couldn’t just sit here with her all pressed up against him for hours. Even as he thought it, the plane hit an air pocket. With the momentary turbulence, his arm wound around her waist, tugging her more firmly into his lap. She would fall if he didn’t, and he couldn’t have her injured at this junction. That was the only reason he did it.
“Unfortunately, Law is flying the plane,” Riley pointed out, then turned quiet for a moment. “She seems sweet actually. She’s not totally what I thought she was.”
Fuck. Riley drank her in with that same glazed, lustful expression Law did. This could spell trouble.
Kinley’s breathing evened out as she went utterly limp. Knowing he was stuck with her indefinitely, Dominic held in a curse. “Pull your head out of your pants. She’s exactly what we thought. She’s just better at manipulating men than I gave her credit for. She even does it in her damn sleep.”
Riley snorted. “We gave her the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer, and she’s managed to worry more about that little hairy thing than herself.”
It was time to remind his partner of some hard truths. “She’s marrying for money.”
Riley sat back, sighing a little. “Is that really the worst crime you can think of?”
Their Virgin Hostage, Masters of Ménage, Book 5 Page 5