Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  It was obvious I had wandered into a decorated event meant for family and close friends, and though I was pretty positive I didn’t believe much in love—especially coming off a jilted date, I did acknowledge that I had walked into a celebration of it. And who would be the judge if I danced like a fool for one night?

  It beat looking like an even bigger fool for one more minute.

  And then I was up. Moving. Twirling.

  I dallied on the dance floor like a little spin-top and as the melody went round and round, so did my feet. I found myself laughing. Partiers on the dance floor rotated partners around the room like a rodeo, and I found myself in the hands of not just one man, but several, falling into the beat from one music crescendo to the next as I switched positions, moving to the rhythm against one rocking body and then another. Tendrils of chestnut hair dropped from my austere bun, tickling the edges of my shoulders, and still I danced, feeling somehow lighter, probably more carefree than I had felt in fucking forever.

  It didn’t matter that I was by myself, dancing as if I was in an ad for Geritol. It didn’t matter that I was stiffed by Parker Daniels yet again, and that I’d fucked my one chance of returning to the FBI, and that the last friends I had on Earth would disown me the moment they’d found out what I’d done.

  I was free. I had done it my way. Complete Frank Sinatra style. As always.

  So, why under that layer of freedom was this feeling of guilt? The niggling notion that seemed eerily like loneliness?

  I whipped my hair around before that notion could seep further into my skin. When I did, I whipped right into another pair of arms, ones that were sturdier than the last. I found my grip on a pair of hardened muscle, bricklike biceps hidden beneath a layer of silk—smooth material.

  I dug into the fabric. Shit.

  My new dance partner’s body was harder than brass… and his hands were the color of a creamy light bronze. They grabbed onto mine, holding them in place. I faltered on my feet a little just at the smell of him.

  There was something familiar in his fragrance, but I didn’t get to see his face. It was just gone just as soon as it came—there one moment and gone the next as the crowd on the floor switched dancers again, and floated from one pair of arms to the next.

  I danced all night until I couldn’t stand. And even when fatigue set in, I still danced, imbibing any bit of alcohol that came my way, tiring my toes and liver until I was sure that both would give out of utter failure. This huge fuck-up would probably be my last…

  I snorted, lighting an already withered cigarette. My first since I was fifteen.

  Might as well obliterate my lungs, too, while I was at it.

  The word “fuck-up” refused to leave my brain as I smoked the crumpled cancer stick in my hand, and with the repeated memory of the word leaving my stepfather’s lips, I leaned against the wall, soaking in the relative silence, knowing that it wouldn’t last.

  I would be back in noisy New York by morning. Parker-less… and penniless.

  I leaned my body away from the wall. Drunk and sore from dancing, I tried to wobble my way out of the dark hall and back into the light of the main banquet.

  And that’s when the light was snuffed—along with my cigarette. Two hands grabbed me from behind, pulling, and I was dragged immediately from my feet, rendered airborne as two powerful arms encircled me. Crushing me. It happened before I could react.

  A hand went across my torso. The other wrapped around my lips, killing any scream that might lie there. I couldn’t even bite down—which is exactly what I tried to do. My body—slack at first—went into shock. I couldn’t flail. I couldn’t cry out.

  Involuntary tears burned the back of my eyes as a mysterious man grabbed me, carrying me backwards to God-knows-where. The chest against me was hard, an immovable wall of flesh and bone that refused to yield to my squirming limbs.

  I was finished. Done. I had nothing left. Nothing but the fog in my brain and the fear in my heart. Fear… because despite all my FBI training, despite a lifetime of scrapping in the streets, scrapping against the stronger, the bigger, the tougher, I might have finally met my match.

  One who slipped in when I was most vulnerable. Who knew to slip in when I was most vulnerable.

  Somehow this mystery man had a hold on more than just me. And it was just like my flashback. Except this time, it wasn’t Penelope. It was me. For the first time in forever, I felt helpless—trapped.

  Then the sound of the room changed, and I realized that we had stumbled into another one. The mystery kidnapper and I were alone…

  I was so utterly fucked.

  ***

  GIOVANNI

  I was a dead man. I could feel it.

  But then again… I hadn’t been good at feeling alive for quite some time.

  Drugs didn’t do it for me. Drinking only numbed the sensations for a while, and sex…? Well… sex just complicated every-fucking-thing. At least for me, it did.

  That’s why I learned long ago not to let that little pleasure pursuit mean anything, to never let a temporary lust last past a sunrise, and when my hard dick usually went down, most of the time I was getting up, sending the convenient sweetheart I seduced the night before to the door. I needed to bask in solitude before I started a new day.

  Not that it mattered much. Not to them. Least of all, to me.

  Most of the women I’d fucked were married and the ones who weren’t, were those I had fooled, some conquest or other. Some meaningless chase to pass the time—a momentary pleasure to pause a lifetime of mostly pain.

  Good thing I chose to feel neither. Not acutely anyway. But I couldn’t ignore the pricks of feeling I was getting while holding Sienna in my clutches.

  It was a strange and dark, primal inclination.

  I’d only meant to save her, but there was something base about it, something primeval in my temporary possession of her body that pulled at my senses, heightening every one of them. The smell of her hair. The feel of her tight, plump ass against my crotch. And her skin… Fuck, her skin.

  It held that hint of scent I’d grown accustomed to, that undercurrent of ripe citrus that made me think of nothing else but tasting her—nothing else of getting to the bottom of her sweetest nectar, where I would take my fill, fucking her with my mouth until she couldn’t stand.

  Not that she was doing much of that anyway.

  I was holding her hostage between my palms, her tiny feet dangling near my ankles, doing their best to kick. Even now, caught off-guard and seemingly wasted, Sienna still had that fight in her. I wanted to grin. Nothing had changed in a whole fucking year.

  I backed her into the bathroom, squeezing her against the door once it was closed. Once her feet hit the floor, she instantly tried to weasel away, shoving her free elbow into deepest curve of my abdomen. Sharp pain shot through my ribs with a jolt, and I fumbled through my surprise, almost letting her go. She nearly succeeded in getting away… until I pinned her body against the sturdy wood with my own, pressing the length of my body against the long, supple line of hers. I braced my hands on the wall above her head, hovering… breathing her in.

  Her face pressed against the wood. My face pressed just behind it, above her earlobe. My teeth could just graze its tip.

  I was harder than the tile beneath my fingers.

  I could hear Sienna breathing. Hard. She was trying to keep it together. She wasn’t succeeding…

  “Well?” she asked, grit ground into her voice. “Are you going to get this over with or what?”

  I was stunned. “Get what over with?”

  “This rape. You’re drawing out the process as if it will make things any better for me. It won’t. So, just get right to it since I know that’s what you came to do. You’re a creeper lurking amongst the shadows. Creep all you want, but just know…” she paused. “This is not going to be the easy score you probably thought it’d be. I’m going to fight you every step of the fucking way.”

  Her words hit me hard. R
ape… She thought I was here to rape her.

  But when I thought about it, I couldn’t really blame her. I was basically rubbing my erection between the crevice of her ass. I’d been completely unable to get my soldier to salute for the sophisticated Katherine Sandaval… but for Sienna, I was all but hammering nails with my cock. I hadn’t been able to control myself once I felt her—really felt her.

  I felt like a starving man that had been hungry for a decade. Everything up until this point had been like a snack. Sienna was the full fucking course.

  But still…

  Since when had I not been able to control my own body’s reactions? I never had a problem with women. And I certainly didn’t need to force one to be with me. If I had Sienna—when I had Sienna—it wouldn’t be until she was begging for it. Begging for me. And even then I still might not give it to her…

  Part of me wanted to tempt her or torture her the way she had done me. But tonight wasn’t that night…

  I leaned into her ear, whispering from behind her.

  “You must have me mistaken for someone else. I don’t violate women. And if I was stupid and despicable enough, it certainly wouldn’t be a woman like you. Not with your arsenal of arsenic to worry about…”

  I could hear the hitch of her breath as she inhaled sharply, pausing. “Parker?”

  “Santiago.” My answer was brief.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Saving you. This time, I get to blame you for messing up our appointment. You’re on the wrong side of town. I wanted to meet at Il Cantinoro. You’re at El Cantinoro.”

  “And dragging me back into the bathroom is necessary because…?”

  “Because we would have both been fucked if I hadn’t. Literally. Sienna… this is an over-50 sex party…”

  She balked, snorting. “No, it’s not. It’s a fiftieth wedding anniversary that I…”

  “There are dungeons in the back rooms,” I interrupted. “A sex swing outside of the main hall. This bathroom has cuffs in each stall… Need I say more?”

  “It might be safer if you didn’t. I don’t think I want to know how you know all of this…”

  I smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

  “With you?” she countered. “I don’t think that’s possible… Mysterious profiles. Kidnapping unsuspecting women… I’m not sure I believe a thing you say. I still believe that mayo hatred you have is just a myth.”

  “And I told you that the bag of dicks you threatened me with would be more appetizing.”

  She snorted without humor. “Proud to say I could be a part of your step out of the closet then.”

  I laughed against my own will. Shit. She was back. Even better than before.

  Our conversation had turned from talks of sexual assault into sex clubs and ridiculous dick jokes. And I realized that there was nothing this little secretary couldn’t handle.

  A little conning would be the least she could take on. It was a shame, really. To want to take her many talents—scrappiness, notwithstanding—and use them for my own twisted reasons.

  But that’s who I was. Twisted.

  Besides, I had a job to do. It hadn’t escaped me that she was still part of that job… We stood there, my front to her back for what felt like an eternity as I considered the depravity of my current deeds.

  I wasn’t ready… and neither was she. There couldn’t be a worse time to proposition her. When I did it, I wanted her to hear me. I didn’t need her to be on guard… which is exactly what she was. I could feel the shield around her, the hackles she had raised. She wouldn’t listen to a fucking word I said if I said it now.

  She turned out to be the first to speak. “So, is there a reason, other than this discussion about your dick-eating appetite, that you still have me trapped?”

  I stifled a smile. Good girl. Even in the face of alarm and uncertainty, she was putting up a fantastic front. She showed no fear, even though I knew that it was what she was feeling.

  I slid the card from my back pocket into her hands and then covered them with my own. I sighed against her neck, feeling her shiver.

  “There’s only one cure for what I have an appetite for. And if I told you what it was, I’m sure you’d blacken my eye…”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  I inched backwards. “I won’t hold you to the door anymore. But I need a second to get my shit together. I might be bleeding from that initial headbutt in the hallway.”

  “Not that you didn’t deserve it, but… okay.”

  I eased my way from her curvy figure. I kept stepping back as she continued to speak, now to herself, her nervousness showing as she talked to cover it.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this… Traveled two hundred fucking miles,” she muttered. “To play Hide and Seek with a creeper. I don’t listen. I never listen. And even when Javi and Ang warned me, I still…” She exhaled. “Parker?” she said suddenly. “Parker…?”

  But I was already gone. At least, to her knowledge.

  There were more than a few things I had neglected to tell her. The most important one?

  The AARP sex party bathroom had a trap back door…

  Wake Up Alone

  SIENNA

  “Javi,” I breathed into the phone. “I met him.”

  “What?” he grumbled sleepily.

  “I met him. Parker… the guy that I know Angie told you about.” I inhaled, trying to catch my breath from all the excitement. I knew Ang told Javi about Parker; it was so freakin’ obvious. It was why he was giving me the “sympathetic face” outside the bar my last night in New York. It was why they were making secret faces—unsuccessfully—behind my back when I wasn’t looking, and it was partially why a huge piece of me didn’t give a shit that I’d left so suddenly.

  “I’m in DC… and I met Parker. If what happened could be described as ‘meeting’ someone.”

  I heard the ruffle of sheets and pillows on the other end. If I knew Javi, then he was only an hour from getting up for work in the morning. He was always working. He toiled like his life depended on it, and he didn’t really have to.

  He wasn’t just the bartender at Tino’s. He was part owner.

  A workaholic to the very core, he was the reason I’d joined the Bureau in the first place. He was the older brother I never had, the only protector I’d ever known. And when he entered the FBI almost ten years ago, I could barely wait for my turn or time to sign up.

  But Javi quit. It was the one thing he did that I wouldn’t. Being an agent was as much a part of my bloodstream as the O-negative pumping through my veins.

  It was the only thing I was good at. And lately I wasn’t too much of whiz kid anymore at that. I fucked up the Penelope Castalano case, but my passion was becoming renewed. Thanks in large part to Parker. Things were finally starting to look up.

  My only problem? The man himself. Keeping a healthy distance from a man I should push away. A man who drew certain feelings out of me—ones I’d forgotten I had. He pushed my buttons like no one had before or since Marco.

  And the worst part… was that I still hadn’t seen his face.

  I tried not to think about that “proper fuck” Ang had once mentioned and attempted to concentrate back on Javi’s groggy responses. I had woken him up before the butt-crack of dawn. I was just too pumped up to hold the information in until the morning.

  Javi huffed on the other end. “Who is this? Wait… Si?” I could hear the click of a light cutting on in the background. “Si, is that you?”

  I didn’t answer his question. “Javi. I need your help. I need you to talk some sense into me. Snap me out of it. Tell me that I’m being stupid and stepping into dangerous territory.”

  “Sure…” he responded, gruff. “You’re being stupid and stepping into dangerous territory.”

  My brows pulled together, and I sighed. “Thank you.”

  “But you’re forgetting one important thing, Si: You’re not going to listen to me anyway. You’re going
to do what you’ve always done: your own thing. I’m not going to say that it isn’t one of the reasons I care about you so much, but it’s also one of the reasons you can’t see past your own walls. You get in your own way.”

  I felt my excitement deflating. “And how is that?”

  “By never letting anyone in, Si… You think if you hold me and Ang at arm’s length that you won’t get hurt, but life doesn’t work that way. You hide your feelings from the people who care the most—your friends. You alienate your coworkers. Even that bastard Horton could see that you…”

  “Whoa, wait a minute.” I stopped him from talking. “Horton? The Horton who tried to grope me? The Horton I threw coffee on? That Horton? You once said you hadn’t spoken to him since before I started with the Bureau…”

  Javi grew quiet. “It’s not that, Si.” He sighed, sounding aggravated. “It’s the sleep talking. It’s just been a long night…

  “Fuck the long night.” I interrupted. “Horton said what? When was this? You must really be a talented agent. To speak to a man about me before he and I had ever even met.”

  “That was a long time ago, Si.” Javi’s gritty voice was weary. I was practically yelling at him, but I couldn’t find the will to stop. It was as if he were voicing all of the internal doubt I’d ever felt.

  Like maybe I couldn’t pull this off. Like maybe I just wasn’t good enough. Good enough of an agent. Good enough at the only thing that fucking mattered. No wonder Javi didn’t want me to go. He was with them. He believed that I couldn’t cut it—whatever it was.

  I knew he loved me—the way a brother loves his little sister, but he was no help in this case. I couldn’t go to him for advice. Javi wasn’t on my side.

  I reminded him of it. “Yeah, it was a long time ago. So, how you managed to speak to Horton in the first place really baffles me.”

  He sighed, knowing there was no way I was going to let him slide out of this one. I waited on the phone for Javi’s answer. Within seconds, I got it.