Yes, I’m fucking different. I’m hanging on to my sanity by a thread here, trying not to show you how much I’m hurting. I can barely breathe without her, let alone eat or sleep. Yet I’m trying to hold it together and convince you that everything is normal. Everything is fine.
“Everything is fine.” The words sounded limp. They hung in the air between us, seeming to hover over the desk. “Do you have another job for me?”
A frown line appeared between his brows. “I wasn’t aware we’d finished discussing this one.” His displeasure was obvious and my heart rate kicked up a notch. “What about the girl?”
I wanted to lick my lips and it took every ounce of self-control I had to stop myself. “Dead.”
“When?”
Shit. I could tell by his face he knew something. “At the same time as Villacruz. A week ago.”
He raised a brow. “You have proof?”
I handed over my cell phone. The picture had been produced by a dubious acquaintance of mine. I didn’t like to inquire too closely into his methods, but he had taken a head-and-shoulders morgue image of a dead woman and manipulated it according to my instructions until it resembled Inge. I didn’t like looking at it. Hated to see those lifeless features, that corpse-gray flesh and those blood-matted curls. Even though it was fake, I couldn’t bear to see that picture and think of it in relation to Inge.
I was counting on the commander not looking too closely either. As far as he was concerned, I’d delivered. Ricky Villacruz, the guy who’d shafted him on a drug partnership, was dead. I was hoping Inge was less important. I’d never given the commander a reason to question my loyalty. Why would he start now?
The commander barely glanced at the picture. Instead, he reached for his own cell phone and handed it to me. On the screen was a photograph of a woman descending the steps of an airplane. Although she wore shades and a straw hat, which she held in place with one hand, tendrils of red hair were escaping from beneath the brim. My heart and groin clenched with equal intensity. There was no denying who it was. My Inge.
“Then perhaps you can explain how this was taken at JFK three days ago?” A nasty smile touched his lips. “A ghost maybe?”
Three days? Had he already gotten to her? I raised my eyes from Inge’s picture to his face, wondering how to play it. “I thought she was dead.” Lame. I could hear it in my voice, read it in his eyes.
“You fucked up, Jake. Or did she get to you?”
I shook my head. “She tried, but it didn’t work.” Would he see through the lie? See how much she hadn’t just gotten to me, she had gotten in me? I held my breath as I waited for his response.
“Then you won’t mind finishing the job.” I eased out my breath in relief. If he wanted me to finish it, she was still alive. He rose from his seat and went to a filing cabinet, unlocking one of the drawers. “This is where I keep everything I have on the Seduction Squad.” He withdrew a file and tossed it onto the desk in front of me. “And this contains all you need to know about Inge Lopez de Vega. Your instructions were clear. A bullet to the head.”
I looked into the eyes of the man who had controlled my life since I was ten. “I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jake
I sat in my car opposite the neat house on the ordinary, suburban street. It was not the sort of place where I’d have pictured Inge living. It even had a picket fence, for fuck’s sake. All that was needed to complete the picture was a big, goofy dog.
A little boy played on the front step. His riot of red curls told me all I needed to know. This was Inge’s boy, no doubt about it. As I watched, the door opened and my heart gave a thud of anticipation. But the woman who stood there had dark hair and was in her forties. She spoke to the boy, who seemed reluctant to leave his game. He went to her with dawdling steps and longing glances over his shoulder. The woman caught his hand, saying something to make him laugh as they went inside.
About ten minutes later, a car pulled into the drive and I sat up straighter. When Inge emerged from the driver’s seat, she was wearing a black business suit with a pencil skirt and her hair had been tamed into a braid. I approved of the tight-fitting skirt—very much—but my fingers itched to undo that prim braid.
Giving her another five minutes after she had gone inside the house, I left the car and made my way up the short drive. I pressed the doorbell and musical chimes echoed through the house.
I heard heels approaching the door and Inge’s voice called out. “I’ve got it, Lola.”
When she opened the door, her eyes widened in shock, but I caught the initial flash of emotion in them. Joy. Pure elation at seeing me again. My heart squeezed tightly in recognition of it. Then reality kicked in. Her expression changed and she cast a nervous look over her shoulder.
“How did you find me?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” I leaned my arm against the door frame, looking down at her, resisting the impulse to kiss her until she begged for mercy. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“I...” That glance over her shoulder again.
“I would never hurt your son, Inge.” I needed her to know that.
She seemed to relax a little as she scanned my face, and she nodded. “I know you wouldn’t.”
I was grateful for that acknowledgment. It was one of the things that had bothered me as I drove over here, that she might be scared I’d harm him. A scared Inge would be a dangerous Inge. My injured arm gave a twinge at the thought.
Stepping aside, she allowed me to walk past her and into the hall. Something about the atmosphere of the house made me think of my own childhood. My life before the War Veterans tore it apart. Of the farmhouse in Zimbabwe. This house was smaller and neater, but the feel was the same. Inge had made it a place where her son could feel safe. This house was about him.
“Give me a second.” Inge gestured for me to go through a door, and I found myself in a cozy family room.
I heard her voice talking to the nanny. “Lola, I have a visitor. Can you take Niko out for a couple of hours? Maybe to the park and then grab something to eat?”
There was a flurry of activity as Niko, protesting that he didn’t need a coat, went off on his outing. When the door had closed behind them, Inge returned to the room.
“Why did you come here, Jake?”
There was too much room between us, and I moved toward her. She held up a hand to stop me. I knew why. If I touched her she would crumple into my arms. I could see it in her eyes. “I came because I had to.”
“Orders?” A slight smile trembled on her lips. Guts as well as brains. That’s my Inge.
I nodded. “At the start, the commander told me I could do anything I wanted with you...as long as I ended it with a bullet in the head.” Her eyes widened nervously as she licked her lips. She flicked a glance in the direction of a locked bureau near the door. I smiled, reading her thoughts. At least I knew where she kept her weapons. “So I did.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice was faint. Alarm had made her eyes even wider. Did she really think, even now, that I could kill her? I would have to show her what I already knew. I would never be able to hurt Inge. Not unless she wanted me to.
I covered the distance between us. Although she attempted to pull away, I was too fast and too strong for her. Drawing her close, I ran my hands up and down her arms, attempting to soothe away her fears. “He didn’t like it when he realized my bullet would be fired into his head instead of yours. In fact, he seemed most upset at the idea.”
“You killed your commander?” Inge stopped fighting, gazing up at me as the truth struck her.
“Spreading that bastard’s brains across his desk was the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done with a bullet.” The commander had pleaded for mercy. Just the way the farmers and their families had implored the W
ar Veterans all those years ago. Just as I had begged him for leniency so many times. I had ignored him—the way he had ignored me. It had felt so fucking good. I had walked out of that building on a high. Later, the tears had come. I had finally spilled the tears I needed to allow my family to find peace at last. “I just wish I’d had the strength to do it when I first met him.”
“You were a child.” I felt the shudder of relief that ran through her. Reaching up, Inge drew my head down to hers, kissing me long and hard, and with every stroke of her tongue some of the tightness around my heart eased. Her mouth felt like home.
“He took away my childhood.” My features hardened. “After I shot him, I torched his office. Everything he had on you, all his files on the Seduction Squad, it’s all gone.” I kissed her again, then tilted her chin up so I could study her face. “Did you mean it?”
She didn’t need to ask what I meant. Tears filled her eyes. “So much. I’ve been in hell without you.”
“How can you love me?” The question had been tormenting me ever since she’d said those words back at Villacruz’s mansion. I couldn’t understand how anyone could love me.
“The same reason you love me.” I didn’t deny it. How could I? I loved Inge with everything I had in me. The tears spilled over. Hers and mine. “Because you are the other half of me. You make me whole, Jake. We’re the same, both damaged by the past. We are ruthless killers who can find the beauty in each other, because only we know where to look.”
I wrapped my arms around her, determined never to let her go again. “You shot me. Don’t do that again.”
“Are you going to punish me?” There was a hopeful note in her voice that made me laugh.
“Maybe later. Right now, I need a quicker fix.” Releasing her, I sat on one of the comfortable sofas, undoing my jeans and releasing my erection. “You. On my cock. Now.”
With a mischievous smile, she started to undress. The business suit came off a little too slowly for my liking, but I decided we could discuss that another time, when I wasn’t so hard it was interfering with my ability to see straight.
“Keep the shoes on.”
Inge struck a pose. The glossy black fuck-me heels made her shapely legs appear even longer. “You like the shoes?”
“I like you. But, yeah, the shoes work, as well.”
She moved toward me and I held her between my thighs, sliding my thumbs up over her jutting hip bones. As much as I wanted to take this slow, a week spent thinking about fucking her had made too many demands on my self-control and I desperately needed to get inside that tight, hot cunt. Inge’s eyes widened in surprise as I pulled her on top of me. Lifting her by the waist, I held her suspended in midair for a few seconds, keeping the anticipation at fever pitch, before lowering her onto my cock.
She held still, poised above me with her knees either side of my hips, smiling into my eyes. “No fantasies this time, Jake?”
“You’re the only fantasy I need right now.”
Inge took me inch by throbbing inch. Squeezing her muscles tight, she drew in my iron hardness, keeping pace with me as I thrust upward. I moved one hand down to rub her clit with a fingertip, and she cried out. I moved the finger and ran it along the point where my cock met her sheath, keeping my eyes fixed on hers.
“This.” My voice came out in a hoarse gasp. “This is all I want.”
I felt her climax hit her hard, radiating out from her core to touch every trembling part of her. At the same time, I felt every ridge and vein in my cock stand out as she clutched me deep inside her. Our cries joined as my own orgasm pumped out its own rhythm.
Inge collapsed onto me and I eased her into my lap, cradling her close.
“There’s just one problem,” I said some time later. Inge raised her brows in inquiry. “Your job. I told you, I can’t share. Not ever.”
“I’ve just been to a Squad meeting. The Signora is retiring. They needed someone to take over the top job.” She leaned back, gazing into my face. “You’re looking at her, Jake. I’m the new Signora.”
“You won’t be turning tricks anymore?”
“No, I’ll be the person running the Squad, and my first job will be to do something about security. And since your commander managed to get hold of our files, I’m not prepared to risk that happening again. None of the Squad are going to be captured while I’m in charge. For that reason, I’ve decided to increase our protection. I’m going to need someone in charge of overall security...as well as my own personal bodyguard.”
“Are you offering me a job?” I asked.
“More a partnership. Personal and professional.” She grinned. “And, with Ricky’s money tucked away in a nice off-shore account, we are very wealthy.”
It was hard to believe this was happening. Inge was all I wanted—more than I’d ever dreamed of—but now I had more. I was free of the commander. I had a real job, a home, a family...my life was coming together in a way I could never have imagined possible just a few short weeks ago. I examined how that made me feel. Alive. Free. Happy. For the first time in forever, I knew what that word meant.
“In that case, there’s just one thing I need to ask you... What the fuck is your real name?”
She started to laugh. “Ruby. My real name is Ruby.”
“Your real name is also your safe word?” I lifted her so that she straddled me again with her knees either side of my hips and her outer lips hugging my cock. “Let me see if I can’t make you scream your name instead of mine this time.”
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
To Kerri and Lauren for their help, support and advice (and for such a warm welcome).
About the Author
Seduction Squad: Captured is Amanda Stewart’s debut erotic romance with Carina Press. Amanda enjoys writing the stories she wants to read...dark and sexy with damaged, but memorable, characters.
Amanda lives in Cheshire, England. She is married to a lovely man and mum to two grown-up children. Her hobbies include reading and traveling to romantic European cities that are steeped in history and drama.
Amanda also writes paranormal romance and romantic suspense as Jane Godman.
She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at:
Twitter: Twitter.com/RedHotRomance1
Website: romancecom.org
Facebook: Facebook.com/redhotromance
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