by Measha Stone
He seemed to keep her naked whenever possible.
“Sleep, Azalea. Don’t leave my suite until I come for you,” he ordered.
Was he continuing her punishment, or was he testing her? She didn’t know, and her eyelids were too heavy for her to take the time to inspect the thoughts.
She felt his lips, warm and thick, press against her cheek, and then he was gone. Only a soft click of the door signaled she was alone.
Except she could still feel the burn of his belt on her ass, the stretch of his fingers inside her, and the warmth of his kiss on her cheek.
No. She wasn’t alone.
Chapter 14
“Peter.” Hunter, a former client of the Annex, rose from his chair in the office with an extended hand.
Peter took it in greeting. “What brings you back here? Is Jae giving you too much trouble?” Peter joked. Jaelynn had been contracted from a party to Hunter for a weekend, but she never returned—becoming his full-time submissive.
“She will never be too much trouble.” Hunter grinned. “Just the right amount.”
Peter laughed. He understood the sentiment.
“So, what brings you around?” Peter sat across the desk.
“I heard you’ve been looking for a man named Santos.” Hunter leaned forward in his seat.
“I am,” Peter said with a firm nod.
“He’s been to see my uncle,” Hunter said. “My uncle has some dealings with Santos’s boss. Santos came looking for help. Says you have his boss’s daughter.” Hunter leaned back, leaving the sentence open in the air.
“I do.” Peter gave another nod. “And if he’s got any balls on him, he’ll come to talk to me, not your damn uncle about it.”
Hunter opened his hands as though to ward off an argument. “You know how I feel about my uncle’s dealings, but you also know there’s little I can do about it right now. He wants to know if you have her, and if so, he’d like you to turn her over to me so I can bring her home.”
Peter laughed. “That’s not going to happen. Did Santos also inform your uncle he owed Ashland over a hundred grand?”
Hunter shook his head. “I’m sure he left that out.”
“The girl stays with me. When her mother returns from whatever trip she’s on, she can come collect her, but I will not hand her over to fucking Santos.”
“So, she’s not being sold?” Hunter raised his brows.
“We don’t sell the unwilling. You know that,” Peter ground out.
“I know, I know. That’s why I offered to come speak to you. Didn’t seem right, you just taking the girl from her home. That’s not how things are done here anymore.”
Azalea hadn’t been given a choice in the matter of coming home with him, but Peter wasn’t going to explain the events to Hunter.
“When her mother comes back—”
“That’s what has Santos all in a fucking uproar. Her mother is probably going to have his head for letting her out of his sight. I don’t understand the whole thing. Last I saw of Bellatrix Gothel, she never mentioned a kid. Even my uncle was surprised to hear of it, and he’d been dealing with her for years.”
“Dealing with her, how? I can’t imagine she works on his garbage routes or in that casino of his. She seems older, more along the lines of his age—”
“No, nothing like that. I believe she’s a supplier.” Hunter’s gaze faltered. They both knew what a supplier in Jansen’s world meant. And it wasn’t any product that could be stored on a shelf.
“I’ve heard her name before, but I can’t place her. If she’s a big supplier, Samuel would have mentioned her, right? I would have seen her around the house growing up. Maybe Ash remembers her.” Peter rubbed his chin. “She never mentioned a kid at all? She had two daughters. One was kidnapped.”
“My uncle said he didn’t know much about her. She’s very quiet about her work, doesn’t like to be out in the open. Maybe she never mentioned her kids because she kept business away from family. I remember your father once coming over to my uncle’s when I was in high school. He mentioned her—I only remember because it’s such an odd name. But I don’t ever remember seeing her or hearing of her otherwise.”
Peter’s stomach clenched at the mention of his father. He’d made the ultimate sacrifice to keep business from hurting his family, taken a bullet aimed at Peter during a bad deal.
“So, she may have worked with Samuel then, too.” Peter forced his thoughts to stick to the topic at hand. Wandering off thinking about the past never gained anything. “I have my men looking into her, but I’ll have them check the old records again. Maybe Samuel has her marked somewhere as a vendor.”
“Thought he filled his own inventory,” Hunter said with a huff.
“Most of the time, yeah, but he wasn’t averse to buying from the outside. And if I remember correctly, your uncle preferred the quick sale.”
Hunter nodded. It didn’t matter what vocabulary they used, neither of the men liked the business practices of their families. The buying and selling of women was a bit more complex, a bit more gut twisting than simply ordering stock and having it delivered like they were in the market for party supplies.
“You don’t think this girl you have held up here is one of hers, do you?” Hunter stood from his chair, buttoning his jacket.
The thought hadn’t occurred to him, and now that it had, there was no fucking way she was leaving with her mother until Peter had every damn question answered to his satisfaction.
“I’m sure it’s not the case,” Hunter said when Peter didn’t remark. “I’ll give my uncle your response.”
“Remind him that I protect what’s mine, and until her mother returns and Azalea decides otherwise, the girl is mine.” Peter kept his tone firm and didn’t bat an eye as he ground his glare into Hunter.
“I will,” Hunter said with a nod. Peter had no quarrel with him. He had the same struggle Ash and Peter had with Samuel. Blood made them family and created a loyalty that couldn’t be broken. Until Hunter could take over as the head of his family, little would change.
“And tell your wife we all said hello.” Peter broke out of his tense demeanor as he pulled the door open for Hunter. “She’s welcome to come by anytime to visit. I know a few of the girls have mentioned wanting to see her.”
“She’s not setting foot in the Annex ever again,” Hunter said with finality. “But if you’d let them meet in the gardens or the main house, I’ll bring her over once all this mess with Bellatrix is over.”
“That would be fine.” Peter nodded. “A little afraid she’d miss the place if she went inside?” he teased.
Hunter’s jaw tensed. “No. Afraid I’ll remember she used to work there and have to kill you for letting another man touch her.”
Peter laughed. “I was one of those men, you realize.” Jaelynn didn’t take to rules any easier than most of the girls when they first arrived at the Annex. He’d had the job of disciplining her on more than one occasion.
Hunter deadpanned. “I’ve done an extremely good job at blocking that part of her life out of my mind. Don’t make me regret that.”
“Okay, okay.” Peter slapped him on the back. He knew when to break the teasing, and Hunter’s murderous glare gave the cue it was time to stop.
Peter stepped out into the hall with Hunter. A man, not much older than himself, walked up to them, with Johnny right behind him.
“Damien. This is Peter Titon. Peter, this is Damien. He’s my right hand.”
Damien’s hair was cropped excessively short, but Peter could still easily make out the stark blond coloring. And his eyes. He knew those eyes.
Shaking himself out of his suspicions, he took Damien’s outreached hand and shook it. “Did Johnny give you the tour?” he asked nodding toward the doors leading to the playrooms.
“Yeah, he did. I’ve never been to one of your catalogue parties, but I wouldn’t mind an invite.” He grinned. “Since Hunter’s not utilizing your services any longer.”
/>
Peter couldn’t help but stare. The resemblance was too clear, too uncanny.
“Yeah, I’m sure we can do that.” Johnny spoke when Peter continued to remain silent.
“Great.” Damien gave Johnny a puzzled look but nodded all the same.
Hunter cut off the staring contest and said his goodbyes.
Peter made the right movements, shook hands, nodded, said the appropriate goodbyes, but his mind was already swirling.
Once they were gone, Johnny brought him out of his thoughts. “You saw that, right?”
“The resemblance?”
“Yeah. That can’t be a coincidence, right? I mean how many people have that color hair?”
Peter agreed. Not many from his suspicion. “Where’s Azalea?”
“In your room. She took your laptop up there. I figured since you let her on it in the office, it was okay.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Have you found anything on her mother? Any deals she may have had with Samuel?”
Johnny shifted his weight. “No. But his coding is so old, it could be right there, and I wouldn’t know.”
“Yeah.” Just another way his uncle kept such tight control.
“What about this Damien. Did you get a last name?”
“No. But I can get one. I’ll look into him today.”
“And I want you to look into a kidnapping of a preteen girl with the last name of Gothel. Probably about twenty years ago,” Peter said.
If Johnny had more questions, he wasn’t asking them.
“You got it. Daniel’s out on a collection, and the girls have three appointments this afternoon. Are you going over to Tower?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Peter said. “Other than getting Daniel up to speed, don’t tell anyone about Damien.”
“Got it.”
“Good. I’m going to find Azalea, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
Chapter 15
Azalea sprawled across the massive bed on her stomach, working on the laptop. Things would be moving faster if she had her own computer with her—she already had the programs she needed—but she would have to make do for the time being.
The door to the bedroom pushed open, and she glanced to be sure it was Peter and not one of his men. She hadn’t had any issues with them, and they gave her the impression Peter had warned them away from her, but she still didn’t trust them.
“What are you up to?” Peter asked in his low tone that sent a tingle through her.
“I have been working on increasing your revenue,” she announced proudly. It occurred to her that he could be upset with her meddling, but he needed her help.
He just didn’t know it yet.
“Oh yeah? And how have you done that?” he asked with skepticism.
She pushed up from her position and sat with her legs crossed, flipping the computer around to show him. “I’ve made new graphics—well, a few—for your website and then I spruced up the site to give it a better look.”
He leaned over the bed, pressing his hands into the mattress to examine the screen. She hadn’t changed much, only the entire color scheme.
“How the hell did you get access to the website?” he asked, still looking over what she’d done. He didn’t sound angry, but sometimes she couldn’t tell without seeing his eyes.
“Well, you didn’t pick a very secure password, and it auto-populated your email address.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. But, you may want to pick a harder password than Tower.”
He moved his gaze from the computer screen to her. Dark eyes, but not quite the usual storm. She’d probably pricked his ego but hadn’t quite pissed him off.
“You changed the colors.”
“They match the actual club now. You have a lot of gold and black there; it’s a very sensual atmosphere. I made the site match. And the graphics—you had some casual stock photos. I jazzed them up a bit.” She pointed to the home page. What was once just empty tables in a nightclub, now had images from the actual club, a few of them taken of the live art in the catacombs of the main room.
“Where’d you get the photos?” he asked, scrolling through the website.
“You had them on your hard drive.” She crawled to him and peeked over the monitor. “It’s still a little rough, but I don’t have my computer with my programs, so I had to use the open-source stuff I got online.”
“Where’d you learn to do all this?” he asked, standing up.
She looked up at him. “School. I have a degree in graphic design. But the website stuff I learned on my own.”
“Your mother let you go to school? I would have thought she’d homeschool you.”
“When I was young, she did. Well, not her—I had tutors. But when I finished high school, she let me enroll in college. Santos or one of her other men was always with me, but at least she let me go.” She didn’t mean to sound as though her mother had completely locked her away and forgotten about her, even if it had sometimes felt that way growing up.
“Hmmm. You said you had an older sister. Do you remember her?”
Azalea shook her head. “No. Mother had me after she was abducted.”
“Ever see a picture of her?”
“Just a few. When she was young, like two or three maybe.” Azalea hadn’t pressed too hard for details about her older sister. Her mother had become so distraught and paranoid at any reminder of the loss of her daughter, she would force Azalea to remain her room for days at a time. Not chancing someone being able to kidnap her as well, she insisted. Azalea learned not to bring it up if she didn’t want the door of her suite locked.
“Any brothers?” he asked.
What was he fishing for?
“No. Why are you asking me all this?” Azalea slid off the bed. “Did something happen? Have you found Santos?”
Peter laughed. “No. Nothing like that.” He went to his closet and shrugged out of his jacket, hung it up, and unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt.
“Do you hate the website?” she asked, glancing back at it.
“No. I love it, actually. You did an amazing job. In fact, I think I’ll put you in charge of all the advertising and website design.”
“I don’t know very much about advertising,” she admitted.
“Well, then maybe we should sign you up for some classes at the college.” A lock of hair fell in front of his forehead, giving him a soft, wistful look.
“But I’m only going to be here another week or two,” she said softly.
“We don’t know that.”
“You promised,” she reminded with force.
“I promised when your mother came, we’d discuss it. You may not want to leave when the time comes. Have you thought of that?” He finished rolling his left sleeve up to his elbow and made his way to her. With each predatory step he took, she backpedaled, until her legs were pressed against the bed.
“You’re not mad about the website, are you?” she asked softly, feeling his body even though he hadn’t actually touched her yet.
“No. I mean—you really shouldn’t be snooping in my computer, and even if it’s easy to hack an account, you shouldn’t. But since I benefited, I’ll leave it be.” Using both hands, he pushed her hair behind her.
“What are you doing, then?” she asked, daring to look up at him.
“Making sure you won’t want to leave when the time comes.” He brought his mouth down on hers, unyielding while he framed her face. She lost herself easily in the kiss. He nibbled her lower lip, and she arched into him, wanting more. More sweetness of his caressing tongue, more pain from the sharpness of his teeth. She wanted both, and she needed them more.
When he ended the kiss, she looked at him through a haze of arousal and need. When had this man become less of an asshole and more of something she craved?
“You think a little kiss will do that?” she teased but didn’t lift her gaze to his. Eye-to-eye contact would make her lose her nerve, and she’d spent too much time calculating this to begin with.
<
br /> “Hmm, is my girl getting greedy already?” He pulled at the T-shirt she wore. “Take this damn thing off. I thought I had Daniel bring you some real clothes.”
“He did, but I wanted something comfortable, not all those dresses.”
Peter paused in his tugging of her shirt over her head. “So, where’d you get this, then?” he asked, yanking it off her and shaking it at her.
“It’s Aubree’s. She gave me a few things,” Azalea said.
His jaw ticked. “You spoke with Aubree?”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t talk with people. In fact, you said I could go anywhere on the estate. I haven’t tried to run away, and I didn’t even go in your precious Annex.”
“I didn’t say you did anything wrong. I’m just surprised.”
“What? That I know how to be sociable?” He must have thought her mother kept her under lock and key. Which, of course, she had, but Azalea had learned at a decent age how to get out from under that suffocating thumb of her mother’s and have some friendly encounters.
“I didn’t say that.”
She tried to push away from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her right back in place.
“Then stop looking so pissed,” she demanded, grabbing the shirt from him and covering her naked bosom with it.
“This isn’t my pissed face, Azalea.” He gingerly took the garment from her and dropped it to the floor. “I don’t want to talk about clothes anymore, or social conversations, what I want is your body naked, sprawled out on my bed.” He reached around her and snagged the laptop, shutting it. “Make that happen.”
“Make that happen?” she laughed. “Like I’m one of your employees?”
“No.” He turned his dark stare on her. “Like you’re a good girl who doesn’t want to end up with a spanking instead of a fucking.”
Her jaw dropped.
“But—”
He closed in on her space, gripping both of her nipples and pulling them toward him until she cried out, and then he lessened the stretch.
“But nothing. I’m making you mine, Azalea.”