Dallas seemed as good a place as anywhere else to settle down.
The bar was owned by a local radio disc jockey, who had a nationally syndicated morning show. It was a cross between a casual, neighborhood place and a country-themed karaoke bar. I walked up to the main bar and settled on a stool, watching the bartender talk to a couple of people at the far end. I smiled at her, and she held up a couple of fingers, letting me know she’d be with me in a minute. That was fine. I was in no hurry.
I turned to survey the place, watching customers come and go, watching a sober game of pool taking place in a side room, watching a couple of college-aged girls giggle as they reviewed the selections in the jukebox. It was a good crowd. Business people, mostly, from the looks of it.
“I know this is a really old line, but I’m not imaginative enough to come up with a better one. So…here goes. Can I buy you a drink?”
I turned to find myself looking at a cocky smile on an intensely handsome face. He was tall, but thin, his hair cut stylishly, his eyes dark and observant. He reminded me a little of a young Brad Pitt, but taller and even more confident, if that was possible. I found myself glancing over my shoulder, making sure he was looking at me—and not some prettier girl behind me.
“I’m not really here for leisure.”
“Oh? Why are you here?”
“Looking for a job.”
“You’re far too good for this place.”
I smiled, flattered by his words despite the fact that they were sort of hollow since he knew nothing about me. He settled onto the stool beside me, touching my arm like it was an accident, but I got the impression it wasn’t. My heart was suddenly jumping into my throat, every alarm going off in my head even as my lower belly tightened, suggesting that this was the man I’d been waiting for.
Mom jumped into bed with every man who looked twice at her aging façade. I promised myself I wouldn’t be like that. I would wait for the right man.
I’d known this guy less than five minutes, yet my body was telling me he was the one.
Was this what lust felt like? No wonder so many women made so many bad mistakes when it came to men.
“I’m really not interested,” I said, moving to stand.
“Give me a chance,” he said, his lips so close to my ear that his warm breath did things to my equilibrium. I nearly tripped over my own feet.
I had a choice in that moment. I was at a fork in the road. And I chose the wrong tine.
He bought a bottle of Cristal, forcing the pretty bartender to go into the back room to find it. We moved to a table, and he told me stories about his life that had to have been lies. And I knew they were lies. Stories of trips to Europe, of backpacking through France and Italy. Stories of the people he met, the hostels he stayed in, of the struggles of doing it with just a few hundred dollars and a credit card with a very small limit in his pocket. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d struggled a moment in his life, but he swore he had been.
There was something about the way his mouth moved, the sound of his voice. I listened to him for hours, smiling and giggling like a girl who didn’t know better. I did know better. And I fully intended to end this before it could go too far.
But then the bar was closing, and I had nowhere to go for the night. And he promised that he would sleep on the couch…
I’d never been in a suite in a hotel before. The door locked and the sheets were so soft and the towels thick and warm. It was heaven. And heaven was better spent in a man’s arms.
I was in love. We danced in the bed, in the living room, in the hallways. He took me to all the best restaurants, walked with me through museums, shopped with me, happy to hold my bags and insisting that he loved the smile on my face when he bought me something that cost more than all the money I’d made in my adult life. How could I not be in love?
And then he disappeared one night, and I was sure that was it, that he’d left me holding the bill for the hotel room. But he came back and pulled me into the bed when I tried to argue with him, touching me with more passion than he’d ever shown, clearly excited by something he hadn’t told me yet.
He tugged at my hip, pulling me closer against him in the tangled sheets of his bed.
“You know, I think you’re probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever been with.”
“Oh, that’s romantic. Just how many girls have you been with?”
“Dozens. But you’re at the top of the list.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He laughed, tugging me even closer. “I think your beautiful face could distract even the pope from his daily prayers.”
“Then I suppose I should wear a veil if I ever go to St. Peter’s.”
“And if you could distract the pope, surely a simple security guard would be no problem.”
Alarm bells again began to sound in my head. Was this it? Was this the moment when he asked for a return on his investment?
I twisted around, trying to see his face. “What are you talking about?”
“I have this problem and I thought…since you care so much about me…”
I slapped his shoulder. “What makes you think I give a shit about you?”
“You’re in my bed, aren’t you? And didn’t you tell me before that you’d only slept with one other guy?”
I blushed, embarrassed that he was throwing that back at me. “I only told you that so you wouldn’t think I was some sort of slut.”
“I knew you weren’t a slut the first time I set eyes on you. And this little blush—while cute, it gives away all your little secrets, my love.”He ran his hand slowly over my belly. “Listen, this guy took some things from me and I just want to get them back. But he has them at his office downtown and there’s security everywhere.”
“And you want me to distract the security guard.”
“Just long enough for me to get inside. That’s all. Five minutes at the most.”
“How did this guy get your stuff?”
He shrugged. “It was a poker game gone wrong. Then I found out he was cheating, so really, I never should have lost my stuff to him.”
It seemed logical to me. But to take it without permission?
“I can’t help you rob someone.”
“This is a thing we do. We’ve done it before. He cheats me, I steal it back, he gets mad for a while, but then he comes around again and we start all over again.”
“Sounds silly.”
“We’ve been doing it since college.”
He shifted, pressing me down against the mattress as he rose to tower over me. He pressed his mouth to my throat, his teeth sharp against my skin. I laughed and groaned all at the same time, moving my hips so that he could slide inside of me again, his cock long and thick and touching things inside of me that made my lower belly quiver. I wrapped my legs around his waist, kneading my fingers against his back muscles.
“Tell me you’ll do it,” he groaned against my ear, stilling the movement of his hips.
I moved my hips, trying to encourage him. “Please…,” I whispered.
“Tell me you’ll do it.”
“Unfair.”
He groaned. “To you or to me? You’re driving me mad.”
“Okay.”
He started to move again, and I was lost in seconds, my body a ball of overstimulated nerves, my lower belly shaking so hard that it was like an earthquake in the core of my body.
Sex.
Fuck, I didn’t know it could feel so good!
I didn’t know my body was capable of that much pleasure. My first experience was less than enjoyable. Painful, really. But this? There was no comparison to it. If he promised to lie with me like this every night for the rest of my life, I would probably agree to do just about anything. Murder, even. I had already done things I never imagined I would. What was distracting a security guard? Besides, if this guy was a friend and they’d done this since college…what was the big deal?
Whom were we hurting?
“He works in a building downtown,” he told me later. “His company is on the third floor, but there’s a lobby with a security guard watching the security camera feeds twenty-four seven. I just need you to go in there, talk to him, keep him distracted so that he won’t see me on the cameras. Can you do that?”
“No problem.”
We rode over together the next evening. He dropped me off at the front door. I ran in, a little breathless when I walked up to the main desk.
“Can I borrow a phone?”
The guard—a tall, fit man with a baldhead and a smooth smile—looked up from the textbook he was studying. His eyes moved over me, over the low-cut blouse he’d instructed me to wear. I saw him linger over my cleavage and knew that he’d been right. The security guard was already distracted.
“Do you need help?”
“My ride took off and I have no way to get home. I was just hoping I could call my dad?”
“Your dad?”
“Pathetic, huh? Twenty-five and I still live at home.”
A slow smile touched the guard’s full lips. “I’m twenty-eight and still live with my mom. College is so damn expensive!”
“It is, isn’t it? What are you studying?”
“Biology.”
“Are you thinking of going into medicine?”
“No, not for me. Teaching, maybe.”
“That’s pretty cool, too.”
He chuckled a little, leaning over the desk to move closer to me. “It’s not, but it’ll pay the bills.”
I’d been instructed to touch him, to let him know that I was available if that’s what he wanted. But I’d begun to feel a little uneasy. The security guard was a nice guy, and I was putting his job at risk by running this scam on him. What if someone found out what we’d done? What if this blew back on him?
I stepped back a little, careful to keep my face down. I knew there were security cameras in the lobby. Somewhere. I hadn’t bothered to look; I didn’t want to know where they were. I just kept my head down, my hair veiling both sides of my face, looking only at the security guard. There might be a camera behind him, but there was nothing I could do about that. But I could avoid the others.
The security guard touched me, reaching for my arm he brushed his hand against the side of my face. I forced a smile.
“Did you want to make that call?”
But even as he said the words, I saw the numbers on the elevator go all the way to the basement. He was done. It was time to go.
“Actually, I just remembered that a couple of friends said they were having dinner down the street tonight. I think I’ll go see if they’re still there.”
The guard looked disappointed, but he simply nodded.
“You’re welcome to come back if you can’t find them.”
“Thanks.”
I walked away quickly, my head down. He was supposed to be waiting for me down on the corner, but he wasn’t there. I called an Uber to take me back to the hotel. As I was crossing the lobby, the night manager came over to me, several shopping bags overflowing in his hands.
“Mr. Lester asked that I give you these and tell you that he had to check out earlier than planned.”
And that’s when I knew.
I should have listened to those alarm bells in my head.
Chapter 15
Nolan
I paced, the silence that fell in the room when she finished her story weighing heavy on my shoulders.
“What name did he give you?”
“Colin Lester.”
“And the college friend? Did he ever mention a name?”
“Billy.” She shook her head as she tried to remember. “Billy Murphy, I think.”
I glanced at her, not sure why I was surprised by what she’d said. “Did you check into it? See if he was telling you the truth?”
“I thought I was in love. I thought we were going to have a future. Why wouldn’t I trust him?”
“Billy Murphy? That was the name of the man who owned the financial planning company.”
I could see the power just seep out of her. She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tight against her.
“Where did you go after you left the hotel?”
She snickered a little. “I threw all the things he’d bought me in the trash, and then I got in my Jeep and drove as far from there as I could get on the one tank of gas I had.”
“You didn’t come straight here.” There were weeks between her arrival here and the crime. I’d already done the math in my head. A month, almost. “Did you visit friends? Talk to anyone about what happened?”
She shook her head. “I camped out at this place between Dallas and Waco. Then I sold a couple of pieces of jewelry my mother gave me and stayed in Round Rock for a week or two, staying in a little trailer this guy was renting by the week. Then I camped out at a couple of truck stops until someone figured out I wasn’t leaving when I should have been. Then I ran out of money again and had nowhere else to go, so I came here.”
“Did you wonder if there was a warrant out for your arrest?”
She shrugged. “I figured if there was, David would see it on the background checks he ran when I first got here.”
I inclined my head slightly. “As far as I know, there isn’t one.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“But there could be.”
Her head came up. “I was careful not to show my face to the cameras.”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t leave fingerprints, that you didn’t leave some other evidence that the cops in Dallas have.” I dragged my fingers over my skull. “We don’t know what they have because they aren’t sharing any information.”
Silence fell between us. I kept pacing, my thoughts reeling as I tried to figure a way out of this for her that wouldn’t require letting anyone else know what was going on. But I couldn’t think of anything. We had to go to Kipling, at the very least. Maybe even David.
And Detective Snider.
“Will they arrest me for helping him?”
It was almost as if she was reading my mind. But I knew it was something that had probably been on her mind since that night.
“It’s likely. The other women who helped him commit his thefts are all serving time.”
“All of them?”
“Five right now. Three from Houston and two from San Antonio. Then there’s the girl from the robbery here. She’s sitting in the county lockup right now, facing five to ten in the state penitentiary.”
“Is that what I’d get? Five to ten?”
Her voice shook, her hands pressed under her hips as she curled up in my office chair like a child. I went to her, unable to resist her anymore. I picked her up and settled back in my own chair, pulling her down into my lap.
“If we do this right, maybe you could walk away without any penalty.”
“How could we do that?”
I shook my head, not really sure. “What do you know about this guy, this Colin Lester?”
She was quiet for a long moment, her entire body vibrating with fear as I pulled her tighter against me.
“He told me he has a house down in Corpus Christi that he likes to go to when he’s not on the road for work. Told me that he was some sort of salesman, that he sold bonds or something. I don’t really remember what he told me he sold, something complicated that he said it was easier not to explain. He said it requires him to travel a lot, so he’s often on the road. Said that he liked the travel, liked meeting new people all the time. But that it was lonesome sometimes, that he was glad he met me.”
I kissed her neck lightly. “What else?”
She shook her head, pulling back a little so she could see my face. “Why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave—or kick me out—when I told you what I’d done?”
“Because you were the victim, Pepper. You didn’t ask for this man to use you, and you certainly didn’t know who or what he was. You thought you were doing a favor for someone you care
d about. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But that favor could land me in jail.”
“It’s bad, what you did. When you realized what had happened, you should have gone straight to the police and told them all you knew. But we all make stupid choices when we’re afraid.”
“Not like mine.”
“Sometimes worse,” I said softly.
She started to shake her head, but I caught her cheek and drew her up to me. Our lips brushed lightly, then I moved closer, kissing her harder. She melted against me, moving so that she straddled my lap. I slid my hands under that sweater, loving the curve of her ass, of her hips, drawing her hard against me as she reached down to release me from my shorts. I was inside of her before I could catch my breath, moaning against her lips as she began to move against me. I held her still for a moment, pulling her hips hard against mine, pushing her backward as I deepened that incredibly hot kiss. Her shoulders hit the desk as I gained my feet, thrusting even deeper inside of her as I position her body just right between the laptop and the stack of mail I hadn’t bothered to go through all this week.
She held my arms as I straightened up, thrusting roughly against her. Her cheeks were bright with color in the light of the newly awakened laptop, her lips slightly parted. I slid my hands over her breasts and felt them move under me; I felt her nipple rise and reach up to touch me. I slowed my movements, wanting more than anything to see pleasure on her face, to watch it dance in her eyes. I wanted to make her feel more than that man had given her. I wanted her to see what real passion could be like. I wanted to wipe the memory of that ass from her mind.
I wanted to be the only man who mattered in her thoughts, in her heart.
She wrapped her thighs tight around my hips, tugging me harder against her. Then she cried out, her thighs quivering in time with the little flutters I could see moving through the tight muscles of her abs. I knew she was coming before I felt the vibration against my cock, the movement of her cunt muscles as they milked me, pulling me deep inside as my cock swelled a little more with the power of my orgasm.
CHASING PEPPER (Gray Wolf Security, Texas Book 5) Page 10