by Shirl Anders
“Oh my Lord, baby,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he rumbled back.
Then they lay there wiped out and in awe together.
Sometime later, he moved them into the bed, her onto her side, and he went and got a warm washcloth and brought it back to clean her. She thought that of all the most intimate things that had recently been happening in her life, that might be one of the most intimate. Then he crawled in bed and spooned her tightly.
It wasn’t until several hours later, in the deep of night, that she woke up and realized she might be hung over, needed to pee, and was starving. But before she could gently extract herself from Finn’s wrapped embrace around her, she heard his deep voice murmur, “Stomach’s been rumbling.”
Coco grimaced, her head pounding from a hangover headache. How much champagne had she drunk?
She rubbed her temple and murmured back, “I might not have eaten.”
His hard chest moved with a chuckle along her back.
“No doubt, bella,” he muttered. “You need an aspirin?” he asked, and she thought for sure he was psychic.
She moaned. “Maybe.”
She felt movement behind her, then the sound and the feel of a slap on her behind, which stung one of the sensitive cheeks.
“I’ll bring you water and aspirin, then you can come help me find something to eat.”
She decided that was actually quite a good deal.
So they were eating grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, while arguing over whether his jalapeno and bacon cheese was better than her smoky Havarti, when strangely her cell phone rang in the middle of the night.
Actually, it was the middle of the morning, about two a.m.
In an automatic gesture, she grabbed her phone out of her new Prada python bag, which she’d left on the kitchen table, and she set the phone to her ear without looking.
“Yes,” she answered with an anxious tone, as she finally looked up at Finn, and then saw his scowl.
She also saw his hand, which had been reaching toward her, maybe trying to stop her from taking the call, but he’d been too late.
“Coco honey, you have to listen to me,” Gordon said, from the other end of her cell. “I use my one call to call you. To make you safe.”
Coco nearly gasped, she was so surprised. Maybe not so surprised by what he said, but that he would call her at two in the morning, or that he was even able to call her. Wasn’t he in jail? Why would he call her?
“What?” Finn demanded, and he was leaning forward to grab the phone from her with an even more serious scowl.
She leaned back and held her hand up, then whispered to Finn, “It’s okay.” Into the phone, she demanded, “Gordon, what do you mean by make me safe?”
Now she actually heard Finn growl.
“We have to go into witness protection, Coco. You have to come with me. You have to,” Gordon exclaimed.
“What?” she nearly shrieked. “Gordon Duane Maxwell, you’d better tell me exactly why you think I need to go into witness protection and you better tell me right now.”
Coco saw Finn stalling his motion of grabbing her and her cell phone, and then he muttered, “Get him to talk, babe.”
Her eyes widened on Finn, and he nodded.
“Coco, you have to trust me, it’s dangerous!” Gordon exclaimed.
Coco straightened with determination. “No ... I don’t have to trust you. You need to tell me why. I deserve that, Gordon.”
Coco grabbed Finn’s arm and pulled him closer to the phone. She turned the phone so they could both hear what Gordon was going to say, but so she could still talk to Gordon.
Then they both heard him saying, “It was supposed to be easy. Just a way to earn some extra money. You made so damn much, you emasculated me. I had to do something.”
Coco felt Finn look at her, but she ignored him as she stifled the hurt threatening to overpower her. Gordon hadn’t wanted her to succeed, and she’d known that unspoken thing was between them so much that she’d hidden her true success from him.
But she pushed that aside.
“What does that have to do with making me in danger, Gordon?”
“They’re bad men, Coco. Really bad men.”
“Who?” she whispered right back to him.
“I said bad men!” Gordon shouted.
Coco shook her head, and under her breath, she muttered, “Damn it.” Then, into the phone, she said, “Well, Gordon, I appreciate you telling me at freaking two a.m. in the morning. But I’m sorry I’m not going to believe your lying and cheating ass!”
Finn’s hand tightened on her waist, and she thought he meant it to encourage her.
While Gordon continued and whined, “I wanted a better life for you, Coco. For you! I did their books, for you! And now my life is ruined because of you. I’ll never be safe. They’ll find me wherever I go, because now I see I have their books, and now I know they’re so bad these books could take them down!”
Coco pulled the phone away so she could gasp without Gordon hearing her as Finn swore under his breath. Finn grabbed the phone, and she let him.
Into the phone, Finn growled, “This is ATF Special Agent O’Neil. I’m Coco’s new man and now I’m your fucking worst nightmare, Maxwell. Later, we’ll get into your calling my woman at two a.m. in the morning, asshole. But right now, I’m telling you what your new reality is.”
Coco could hear Gordon sputtering on the other end of the cell phone, and she silently cheered Finn on. She’d never had a man stand up for her as Finn had done since she’d first met him. It made her feel safe and cared for, even if she could be in danger because of Gordon’s stupidity.
“You don’t give me those books you’re a dead man, Maxwell,” Finn said. “No more fucking around. You’re in above your head and this is damn dangerous. As in, you will be dead. You give us the books, we take them down, and you disappear into a new life.”
“You can’t have my wife,” Gordon wailed. “She’s not like this—she’s just not like this!”
“That’s the problem, asshole; you haven’t got a clue what your beautiful, sexy, and extremely hot ex-wife was about, and you fucking lost out. But I’m here to thank you, because her pussy is so sweet and she fucks me so hot, I’ll be a happy man until the end of my days.”
Coco fell into Finn’s outstretched arm as Gordon whined, but he finally gave in and said he’d give them everything he had, because he was so scared the mob was going to kill him. Then she heard Finn reassuring him that he would be moved immediately into a safe location, where no one would know where he was.
Gordon was all but thanking Finn by the end of it.
When Finn got off the phone, she asked, “How did he get that call?”
“It’s something I’m going to have to investigate, babe,” Finn said as he rubbed her back and held her against his chest. “I didn’t want to sidetrack him when he was spilling.”
She nodded against his strong chest. “I’ve never heard him so scared. He’ll do what you say now.”
Finn kissed the side of her temple, and then he whispered in her ear, “You did amazing, babe. That had to be very hard.” He squeezed her as tears burned her eyes. “This will make my case. This will get all of them and make all that time undercover worthwhile,” he said. “You have to listen to me now, because they could try to get to you, to get to him, before I get the last of them.”
She stiffened against him, but then she relaxed, realizing she couldn’t be any safer than where she was.
“You think that’s why they set Caval looking for me?”
He nodded. “But Caval didn’t know why they wanted you. And now you need a bodyguard twenty-four-seven, until we make the rest of the arrests, rounding up Coronado’s gang.”
“I like this kind of official protection,” she murmured, snuggling in closer, trying to make a joke in the very hard position she was in.
“No one’s touching you,” Finn informed her.
That made her feel
better.
But then Finn said he had to go.
Right then ... and she’d been feeling better and starting to hope for more hot makeup sex.
Shoot.
Fourteen] I’ll Be A Good Girl
Finn’s idea of twenty-four-seven protection started with six-foot-four Special Agent Rand. He came in the lake house with a large and mean-looking black weapon, an earbud, a tactical vest that had “ATF” printed in big yellow letters on the back, and a frown.
Coco didn’t think he was very glad to be called out at three a.m. in the morning to guard her. But then again, she decided that his dark-shadowed jaw might never lift with a smile. She was beginning to think that all officers were hot, but maybe a tad brooding.
“All doors and windows stay locked,” Finn informed her as he hugged her against him while they were saying goodbye. “Rand will move inside and outside checking the perimeter randomly, but he’ll always keep the front door locked, and he will never leave out of it.”
Coco put her arms around Finn’s neck and hugged everything else she had against him. Her robe was slightly open, so that meant he got some warm breast hugs too, as she promised him she would be a good girl.
“Tell me exactly,” he ordered, and he grabbed her chin so that she had to look up at him.
Well, she guessed she deserved that.
“I promise to do what Special Agent Rand says and I promise not to leave this house until you let me or I go with you. Right, sugar.”
He was already smiling his sexy, hot smile, and that made it all worth it, for her to basically allow him to be in total control even out of bed.
“That’s right, baby.”
Then he was kissing her deep and hard, and she thought for longer than he intended, before he dragged himself away. He set her back from him and looked down at her breasts.
“Fucking hard to leave you,” he muttered.
That made everything inside her sing, and she helped him by closing her robe.
“You go fight the bad guys, baby. Put them away, and then we will have more time.”
She liked the look that he gave her, which said he liked her confidence in him, and she decided she needed to make him feel like that more often.
Then, after Finn left to make sure her soon-to-be ex-husband got into a safe house and told him where his books were, she just couldn’t go back to sleep.
Special Agent Rand was prowling around keeping her safe and all that, while she’d gone back to the master bedroom and closed the door. It was about five a.m. by then, and she decided it was much too early to call Patty Ann, but that didn’t stop her.
Of course, Patty Ann didn’t pick up, so she left a message, and then she pouted.
Great sex and hot domination with her man had given her excessive energy too early in the morning. What she needed to do was go grocery shopping, and then fill out Finn’s master bathroom with some items that were essential—especially essential with the gorgeous tile he’d put in there.
“But I promised him I wouldn’t go anywhere,” she said, looking down at her phone. She meant to keep that promise. So she dialed Special Agent Rand, who had given her his cell number. “So, Special Agent Rand,” she said, “is it against the rules to get groceries delivered here?”
His reply: “Hell.”
Coco figured that meant yes, and she thanked him and went to find the phone number of a local grocery that would deliver. Then she was going to do some online shopping from her phone, because Finn’s place had some serious needs. If she couldn’t go out and shop, that didn’t mean she couldn’t shop.
An hour and a half later, just as she realized the local home improvement store delivered, her phone rang.
“Babe, your ex-bastard made it to the safe house in one piece, and I’m heading to get the books,” Finn said.
Gordon never called her to tell her anything, and he’d never called her to tell her important stuff. As much as she loved Finn already, it just grew impossibly bigger.
“Deek,” she said softly and with tons of meaning. Then she added, “You be careful.”
“Careful is my middle name,” he told her, so lying. But then he made her squint. “You are home, yeah?”
Instantly, she wanted to growl at him, but she would not destroy her perfect moment.
“Yes, baby, of course.”
And while she said that, she clicked on the purchase she’d been mulling over.
It seemed Finn was now going to be the owner of new deck furniture and a towel warming rack to go with the other things she’d ordered for his bathroom. She felt a little guilty a few seconds later when Finn rumbled something sexy to her as a goodbye.
“Keep that sweet pussy warm for me, bella.”
Wow.
But she didn’t feel so guilty that she’d canceled her order. It was time in her life to own her success, and if she wanted to furnish or totally finish Finn’s lake house, it really wouldn’t dent her trust savings by much. As she’d made her millions selling beauty products, she’d set up a trust, because it was a smart thing to do, but also, she could admit now, because of how Gordon had reacted to her success.
Looking back on it, she supposed that she’d known by then her marriage was on very shaky ground, and she’d tried to tell herself she was just being smart, when actually she was secretly trying to protect herself and all her hard work.
No way was Gordon getting his hands on one cent of the money he had so mocked.
So just when the feeling of being a smoking-hot man’s woman was settling in, until she “really” believed it was actually happening to her, her cell rang again.
“I can tell you did it with him just by your voice, babe,” Patty Ann said, as Coco answered her cell, after saying bye to Finn.
Whatever Coco was about to say went sideways. “You can tell that from my voice?” Coco asked, incredulous.
“Sugar babe, I can tell that by how you breathe,” Patty Ann said. “And you just confirmed it!”
“Well,” Coco drawled. “I could be breathing differently because of all this hotness going on.”
Patty Ann did a bestie squeal over the phone, then ordered, “Dish, babe. All of it.”
Well, Coco intended to dish some, but for the first time with Patty Ann, her best friend in the world, she wasn’t going to reveal everything. Maybe not even half of it, because even being besties and all, it was private between her and Finn. Very private. And very delicious.
She was not messing that up!
But she would dish about one thing coming up, which was very exciting, and not at all too intimate to talk about.
“Patty Ann, there’s going to be a charity ball for the local Indian reservation orphanage,” she said, and then she exclaimed, “You have to come!”
It would be a great time for her and Finn to meet, and she and Patty Ann loved any reason to dress up.
It would be fabulous.
***
Finn pulled up to the condo where Gordon had been staying, which had been a perk from his boss, Coro-fucking-nado. Finn couldn’t believe Gordon had left the books in the mob house. Finn’s only hope was the place Gordon had revealed he was hiding the books, inside the house, was a pretty damn brilliant hiding place.
Justice pulled in next to Finn and they got out, weapons drawn, to approach the condo. Right away, they could tell it had been ransacked, because the door was kicked in and hanging off its hinge. Both he and Justice slowed, and he gave the signal to enter with extreme caution. Justice nodded with compressed lips.
As was normal, Finn went in high and Justice went in low. Finn swung his weapon to the right and Justice swung his to the left. They could see no one in the living area and into the kitchen, which was in their line of sight. But every piece of furniture had been broken and every cushion torn apart with the insides thrown around the room.
Finn knew in his gut exactly what the lowlifes who had ransacked the place were looking for. He had a moment of apprehension, but just glancing at t
he fireplace had him thinking they hadn’t found it, and that put Coco in even more danger.
Coronado wasn’t stupid, and he certainly wasn’t above using the bookkeeper’s wife to strong-arm him into doing what he wanted. It was all Coronado had left to do if he hadn’t found the books and he couldn’t get his hands on Gordon.
Coronado had that left, and to try to flee, but they had eyes on him. Even if he tried to make a move out of town, they were going to pull him in on any bogus charge they could find.
Finn nodded to Justice, and they started down the hallway with Finn slightly ahead. He didn’t think anyone was there, but he wasn’t taking any chances. They cleared the first two bedrooms and a bathroom before they came to a back laundry room that walked through into an attached garage. Each room they’d gone through had been torn apart. They’d even gone so far as to knock holes in the wall, pull molding off, and rip closets apart.
But the laundry room looked straightened up, and that was Finn’s first clue. Both he and Justice tensed and looked at the closed garage door. Someone had been there after the mob guys had ransacked the place and they’d straightened up the laundry room, so they were either gone or inside the garage they were drilling with their gazes.
There were several bad guys that hadn’t been caught in the sting. Creed would be number one on that list, and whom Finn hoped was behind that door.
Finn said lowly, “Doing this fast.”
Justice nodded with his weapon raised as he glanced at him. That meant go.
In the next second, Finn shouted, “ATF, don’t move! Raise your hands, Torenni!”
Finn couldn’t be more blown away that it was Victor Torenni, Coronado’s right-hand man, looking like a homeless rat who had burrowed into a less-than-ideal hiding place.
Torenni was a big man. His normal suit was gone and he wore a ripped black shirt and jeans as he slowly stood with his arms raised. It looked as if Torenni had been in a fight. He was favoring his right side, his arm was bleeding, and his face was a mess.
Still, he sneered. “Fucking knew you were legit, O’Neil. I told him.”
“Yeah, you’re the brilliant one,” Finn snapped, as he reached behind his waist for his handcuffs.