Finding Brianne: New Pleasures Book 4

by Parker, M. S.

  “Just returning the favor, sweetheart,” I whispered in her ear. “Lie back and enjoy.”

  My fingers played across her body, strumming pleasure from every nerve until she was a writhing, mewling mess. I traced the shell of her ear with the tip of my tongue, and she shuddered against me. I closed my eyes, summoning up every bit of self-control. My cock was full and aching, already painfully hard despite having come not too long ago, but I was determined to make her climax before I took her.

  I pressed the heel of my hand against her clit and stretched my fingers down to slide inside her. The position didn’t let me get too deep, but I didn’t need to, not to make her come. Short, rough jerks of my hand against her clit had her screaming in no time, but I kept going until she started twisting in my arms, trying to shove my hand away. When I released her, she curled up tight, panting, but when I reached over her, she grabbed my wrist.

  “Don’t leave,” she said.

  I didn’t remind her that this was my hotel room, but instead smiled down at her. “Just grabbing a condom.”

  She watched as I retrieved one of those square packets, not relaxing again until I was wrapping myself around her again, sliding my latex-sheathed cock inside her with one smooth stroke.

  “Ahh…” She let out a low groan as I filled her. “So good.”

  “You feel amazing,” I said as I moved in short, slow thrusts. “Touch yourself, Tess. Make yourself come.”

  I’d always thought of passion and intensity as something rough and almost violent, an explosive sort of thing that consumed with an insatiable hunger, but this spell we wove between the two of us now, it burned stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. I didn’t want to overthink it, make more of it than what I knew it had to be, but as Tess cried out my name, I had to wonder if I was too late. If I’d be able to return to my regular life now that this was all over. If I’d even want to.

  Then, white-hot pleasure blew apart every thought and gave me the peace I’d been craving. A peace I’d hold on to for as long as I could, no matter what it cost me.

  Thirty-Two

  Tess

  The jolt from my half-dozing state to full wakefulness was jarring enough to disorient me, and for a few seconds, I didn’t remember where I was or why I wasn’t in my studio apartment back in Hell’s Kitchen. Then I heard my phone ring again and scrambled out of bed. It wasn’t until I dug it out of my pocket that I remembered I wasn’t alone.

  “Hello?” I pitched my voice low as I answered, glancing back at Clay to make sure I hadn’t woken him up.

  The sex between us was amazing, but the whole ‘after’ part of things was still awkward, and I really didn’t want to deal with that while taking a call too.

  “Are you the reporter?”

  No accent, at least not one I could get from the question. “I am,” I said as I moved to the bathroom. “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “No names,” he said quickly. “I can’t have anyone knowing that I’m talking to you.”

  I closed the door behind me and leaned against the sink. “All right. John Doe is fine. How can I help you?”

  “It’s how I can help you.”

  I rolled my eyes. If I’d gotten a big story even half the time some informant gave me a tip that started with that line, I would’ve won a Pulitzer by now.

  “All right, I’ll bite. How can you help me?”

  “That cartel you stole from isn’t just a bunch of thugs. They’re in deep with the government. Colombian and Costa Rican. That’s why your government sent you to get its people out.”

  I frowned, straightening. “My government didn’t send me.”

  “I have proof,” he said. “But I can’t talk about it over the phone. Meet me.”

  I didn’t even hesitate. “Where?”

  “The Black Cat. Do you know it?”

  Unfortunately. “Yes.” I glanced at the door but couldn’t tell if Clay was still sleeping or not. “When?”

  “Can you come now?”

  I glanced at the time on my phone and counted out the hours until I could go back to the hospital and get Brianne at four o’clock. If I left right now, I could get to the bar, and then back here in enough time to be at the hospital just when visiting hours started.

  “All right,” I said, mentally calculating how long it would take me to find a cab and get through the city at that time of day. “I can be there in a half hour.”

  “I’ll be waiting at the table closest to the door.”

  And then the call was over. I stayed where I was, my mind racing with all the possibilities. Chances were high that this was just someone trying to extort money from me. He could have heard about the money the cartel had gotten and assumed that I had access to those sorts of funds. That was probably all I’d get out of it. A wasted trip.

  But, there was still a small possibility that he knew something important. The fact that he’d claimed the government had sent me brought back up the things I’d learned about Clay’s partner. I might’ve come on behalf of my mom, but Clay’s involvement had come through Ray and his government connections. I’d already been suspicious about Agent Matthews. What I learned from this informant could either confirm that I was on to something or tell me that I was looking in the wrong place.

  I needed to get dressed quickly and find a cab. I had no doubt that if I was late, my informant would leave. I just hoped that the bit of cash I had on me would be enough to pay him to talk because there was no way I would ask Clay to reach out to his friend for more money.

  In fact, I didn’t intend to involve Clay in this at all. Not when he’d most likely tell me to let it go because it was dangerous and there was no story there anyway.

  He was going to be pissed if he found out, but I planned on getting back here before he knew I was gone.

  Which meant I needed to get going.

  I rushed as quietly as I could and managed to make it to The Black Cat within twenty-five minutes. Just as my informant had said, the place was open. I got a few strange looks from the men already drinking, but no one bothered me as I took a seat at the table closest to the door.

  It was only a few minutes later that a new customer slinked in, his skin and hair dirty enough that it took me a moment to realize that he was a pale-skinned blond. His light blue eyes were blood-shot, and his hands shook as he pulled out the chair opposite me. It was all I could do not to gag at the fumes of alcohol coming off him in waves.

  “Get me some rum,” he ordered, his fingers twitching against the tabletop.

  American. Maybe Canadian. I raised my hand to call over the lone waitress and ordered a rum for the stranger, water for me. Other people could do whatever they wanted, but I wasn’t the sort to do much drinking so early.

  “Now that I’m here, can I get your name?” I asked, hoping I looked more nonchalant than I felt. I didn’t want to rush him, but I wasn’t in any mood to stay here longer than necessary, especially since I had to get back to the hotel before Clay woke up. I didn’t want to think about how he’d react if he knew what I was doing.

  “I think John Doe works just fine for me.” He drank half of the glass in front of him. “But since you’re interested in names, here’s a name for you: Taylor MacIntosh.”

  My spine stiffened and the hand under the table clenched. “If that’s not your name, whose is it?”

  “You don’t know?” he asked. “You’ve never heard it before?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t have time for games, Mr. Doe. Who is he?”

  The corner of the stranger’s mouth tipped up. “Who said MacIntosh was a man?”

  Shit. Had Clay said that MacIntosh was a man, or had I just assumed? For that matter, had Clay assumed? It made sense. Taylor was one of those neutral gender names, but since we’d gotten the name as the person being involved with the Secretary of State’s sister-in-law, it was very possible that we could have jumped to the conclusion that MacIntosh was a man based on that.

  “Taylor MacIn
tosh is a woman?”

  The stranger shrugged and emptied his glass. “I might have seen a list of the names of the twelve people who were part of the group who got grabbed. Five names that were definitely women. Seven that looked like guys names. Unless there’re girls named Steven, Charles, or Harry, my money’s on Taylor being the sixth woman.”

  “You saw a list of the people who’d been kidnapped by the cartel?” I leaned forward, knowing I sounded too eager, but unable to stop myself. “Do you remember any other names?”

  “Maybe.” He gave a pointed look to his empty glass.

  I gestured to the waitress who came back over and filled the stranger’s glass again. Before she’d gone more than three or four steps away, another half of a glass of rum was gone.

  “Names,” I said.

  “Any name in particular you’re looking for?” he asked.

  I didn’t want to give him the whole thing. “A woman’s name that starts with a B, maybe?”

  He appeared to think for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope. Cathy, Denise, Tara, Lisa, Helen. All broads.”

  Damn. Maybe Clay was right. Maybe someone at Red Care had screwed up and switched lists. Once he talked to everyone, we’d know for certain that’s what happened.

  But was it possible that there was another explanation?

  “You said something about the government,” I reminded him. “Does that have to do with Taylor MacIntosh?”

  “I have a friend,” my informant said. “Works for some government fuck. Anyway, he’s there when his boss gets a call saying that there’s some reporter poking around about some missing Red Care group.”

  Heat flooded my face. He might not have meant me, but I didn’t know that for sure.

  “Isn’t that the sort of thing the government should be interested in?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not really my thing. Anyway. Friend’s boss hangs up and starts ranting about how there are people keeping an eye on this cartel situation, but one hand doesn’t know what the other’s doing.”

  This sounded more like a conspiracy theory than something real, but he’d known MacIntosh’s name. “This doesn’t really give me much,” I said.

  He held up his hands, and I cringed at the filth on his palms. “All I know is my friend said his boss was calling some army bitch and then the White House or wherever, trying to clear up what he said was a clusterfuck involving people who were where they weren’t supposed to be.”

  People who were where they weren’t supposed to be.

  Was he referring to me and Clay…or was there something more going on?

  Pieces clicked. A missing name or a missing person. Both. A mistake in a huge organization. A government unwilling to get a little egg on their face to save its citizens.

  Shit.

  What if Brianne was Taylor MacIntosh? What if she was involved in something shady? What if the ransom had never been the point?

  And what if rescuing her from the cartel didn’t mean she was safe?

  Thirty-Three

  Tess

  “Where is a damn cab when you need one?” I muttered as I paced in front of the bar. It was a Wednesday afternoon, not a Friday night, for fuck’s sake! This wasn’t the best part of the city, but I’d seen cabs around here before. Of course, the moment I needed one, none was around.

  I looked at my phone again to check the time, reminding myself all over again that my battery had died at some point during my conversation with John Doe and I’d left my emergency charger back in the States. I’d asked the bartender if I could use the bar’s phone to make a call, but he’d told me that the phone wasn’t working. I’d even picked it up to make sure he was telling the truth, but all that had gotten me was a dirty look and absolutely no help when I’d asked him about calling a cab.

  My mind raced, trying to piece together all the new information I’d gotten with the things I’d already known, as well as my own theories, no matter how half-baked. This, I knew, was what made me good at my job.

  While I never printed wild speculations, and I always triple-checked my facts before handing in a story, I had the imagination to make impossible connections as well as the tenacity to track down the truth. I didn’t need facts to come up with ideas, and the ideas filling my head ranged from the mundane to the insane.

  The problem was, some of those insane ones were becoming saner the longer I considered them.

  Like this idea of Brianne being Taylor MacIntosh. Her using an alias was, at first glance, ludicrous. But then, after applying the other fact I knew about MacIntosh – that he / she was involved with the Secretary of State’s sister-in-law – the use of an alias made sense.

  Traveling to a foreign country could be extremely dangerous for people close to those in power. If Brianne had wanted to do some volunteer work outside the US with Red Care, using a name that couldn’t be connected to the sister-in-law of a powerful member of the US government was a good idea.

  And that was only one possible theory. A romantic angle wasn’t necessarily the right one. Most of the time, the simplest explanation was the correct one, but that didn’t mean the more elaborate, obscure sorts of things didn’t happen at all. No matter how many cut-and-dry, one-spouse-killed-the-other murders, there was bound to be a one-armed man at some point.

  A cab finally pulled up to the curb, and I barely waited for it to stop before hopping in the backseat. I rattled off the hotel’s address, then told the driver that there’d be a fifty percent tip if he could make it there in half the estimated time.

  He hit the gas, and we shot forward, the rapid acceleration throwing me back against the seat. I scrambled for the seat belt as the car went around a corner, tipping us up far enough that I was pretty sure we’d been on two wheels for at least a few seconds. A thrill went through me as the driver swerved around slower-moving vehicles and a nervous laugh bubbled up inside me. Wouldn’t it be my luck to have survived going to The Black Cat by myself, only to be killed in a car crash?

  In the space of a few blinks, everything changed.

  The driver looked in his rearview mirror and yelled.

  Blink.

  Something hit the cab from behind, and my head snapped forward.

  Blink.

  The front driver’s side wheel caught on a metal ramp.

  Blink.

  We went airborne, flipping upside-down.

  Blink.

  The roof crumpled with a crunch.

  Blink.

  Pain.

  Blink…darkness.

  Thirty-Four

  Clay

  “All right, Tess, where are you?” I muttered as I paced next to the front door of the hotel.

  She’d been gone when I’d woken up, but I’d assumed she’d gone back to her room to get cleaned up before we went to get Brianne from the hospital. Or maybe she’d been giving me some space. Or she’d just wanted to be alone for a bit. There were half a dozen plausible reasons to explain why she’d disappeared on me, most of which I couldn’t really be annoyed at her for.

  Not responding to my text and being late, however, was a different story.

  We’d been told to come back to the hospital around four o’clock, so Tess could start the discharge paperwork and I could talk to the other victims, but I’d figured we’d probably be so impatient we’d get there early. Except it was nearly a quarter after four and Tess still wasn’t down here.

  I looked at my phone again, this time seeing what I hadn’t noticed the previous four times I’d looked. The message I’d sent didn’t show as having been read.

  Dammit.

  Her phone must have died, and she hadn’t realized it. She was probably sitting up in her room wondering how long I planned on sleeping.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the front desk clerk. “I have a bit of a problem.”

  It took some convincing before I managed to get him to let me into Tess’s room. Well, convincing and fifty bucks. I was pretty sure he thought I was some pervert looking to steal her
panties or something, but I didn’t bother trying to explain myself. Once he saw the two of us leaving together, clearly friendly with each other, he’d know I’d told him the truth.

  I waited until he went back down the hall before pushing the door open. I knocked as I stepped inside, calling her name.

  No response.

  I let the door close behind me and crossed to the bathroom door. It was partially open, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in the middle of a shower or whatever. Except I didn’t hear water running.

  “Tess?” I called again. My stomach sank as I realized I couldn’t hear anyone else in the room. No one moving around, no one responding to my voice.

  All the same, I opened the bathroom door to confirm that the room was empty.

  A dozen possible scenarios ran through my mind, and I forced myself to go through them one by one to consider how likely each one was.

  She wouldn’t have left the country or even checked out of the hotel since her things were here. Not all her things, since I didn’t see her purse, but she’d left her clothes, toiletries, and her laptop here. The laptop was the most convincing proof that she hadn’t left.

  She could have gone down to the pool and fallen asleep, but a look down into the courtyard revealed four adults and three children, none of whom I could have mistaken for Tess.

  The most logical explanation now was that she’d gone to get Brianne on her own, either because she hadn’t wanted to wake me or because she was trying to keep me at a distance after we’d slept together again. The reason why wasn’t nearly as important as finding her.

  I scribbled out a note in case she returned, asking her to text me or just wait here until I came back, and then went back downstairs. The whole way to the hospital, I kept trying to convince myself that nothing was wrong, that I’d show up in Brianne’s room and Tess would be there. Things would be awkward, and she’d be annoyed that I’d come. Maybe Brianne would even realize that something had happened, and everything could come out so that there wasn’t anything hidden.