“What?” he asked, moving forward for the first time since entering the room.
She took a deep breath, glancing up from the corner of her eye. “I was tasked with working directly with you.”
His heart pounded a little. She hadn’t said anything he hadn’t already considered, but having her confirm it didn’t feel good. How much had the feds already known about his involvement in Jeremiah Ward’s murder? If she hadn’t already told him she was here because she’d been reassigned, he’d think she was here to arrest him. That would’ve been the fucking cherry on this messy-ass cake.
“I see,” he said through tight lips.
“No, baby, you don’t.” His shoulders tensed at the endearment, but he didn’t say anything, waiting on her to continue. “We weren’t working with the IRS. It was another federal agency.”
“I’m aware of that. Rick informed us that day you’d been kidnapped.”
She nodded slowly. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “Did he say it was the SEC?”
“The SEC?” he asked, taken aback. What would the SEC want with him?
“I’ll take that as a no.” She paused, watching him, and he realized just how hard this was for her. Unable to resist the need to ease her fears, he took a few more steps, closing the distance between them. He didn’t sit on the bed, though. He couldn’t be that close to her. Instead, he leaned against the dresser. “The original case had nothing to do with you specifically. We’re—they’re—investigating a man named Mason Showalter.”
That was the last thing he expected her to say. “Mason? Why?”
She shook her head before he finished his short question. “I honestly don’t know, but even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. The fact that you know a friend of yours is currently under federal investigation is already too much.”
“I’m technically just a client of his.” Blade shrugged. “I mean, we were friends when we were younger, but we lost touch. Once I started getting land royalties again, I needed some investment advice. I’d heard he was good with that sort of thing. We’ve only recently reconnected. It’s not as if we go fishing together or anything. Cordial conversations while we conduct business is about the extent of it.”
Anna nodded at that. “My assignment was to get close to you and see what kind of relationship you had with him.”
Another confession that burned. “Mission accomplished. You could’ve just fucking asked rather than playing me. You got your answer inside of thirty seconds by just bringing it up.” He understood if she was on assignment asking him outright would not have been an option. She didn’t know how loyal he was to Mason. But just because he understood why she couldn’t do that didn’t mean he liked the fact she used his feelings for what amounted to the advancement of her career.
She narrowed her gaze. “Do you think I wanted to keep you in the dark? It killed me not being open with you.” She blinked as if fighting tears. “Brax, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since we got back from Dallas that I haven’t thought about you.”
His name on her lips had his cock hardening. Her admission, though, that had his heart swelling.
She stood before he could say anything, not that he was sure he could manage words as all the blood in his body rushed south. The look in her eyes—naughty with a hint of mischief—was not helping the situation. In about two seconds, this damn towel around his hips would be tenting.
“Remember how that night started?” she asked. He didn’t remember the exact starting point, but as she yanked the towel away and dropped to her knees, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what she’d been talking about.
“Fuck, Anna,” he breathed as she took him into her mouth. His hands dove into her hair, and he tried his best not to fist it around his knuckles. But good lord, he couldn’t concentrate as she sucked him into the back of her throat. He’d forgotten how good she was at this, which he tried not to think about why that was. At least he got to reap the benefits. “Oh, yeah,” he murmured when her throat relaxed enough for him to sink all the way in. She grabbed his hips and pulled, signaling she wanted him to thrust rather than staying still. He did it almost involuntarily and then eased back before pumping slowly into her mouth. “You like that?”
She nodded around his dick and, all too soon, he felt the tale-tell tingling sign at the base of his spine. As much as he’d love to finish this way, he wanted something more. For the first time since she started, he gripped her hair and pulled. She groaned, giving him that cute little pout that he loved, but it didn’t stay on her face for long. As soon as he scooped her up, she gasped out a surprise and then a giggle as he dropped her on the bed.
Her laughter died down as he yanked her shorts off and buried his face between her legs. So fucking sweet. Her scent had him aching more than her mouth had, and Blade had to fight the urge to hump her leg as he licked her pussy. Not roses. Woman. All woman.
All his.
God, he could devour her for hours. He nibbled on her lips and teased her clit. Within minutes, she was moaning and wiggling her hips, trying to get him to focus on her clit. He knew as soon as he did, she’d go off, but he wanted to drag it out as long as he could.
“Please, please,” she started chanting as her fingers found his hair. The forceful little minx was having none of the teasing, so he relented and gave her what she wanted. Right as she sucked in a lungful of air, he shoved a finger inside of her and rubbed as he drew the neediest little spot on her body into the warm cavern of his mouth. When she screamed, he almost smiled triumphantly.
Then he realized she’d been making the demands, and like an eager young man, he’d given her whatever she wanted. It wasn’t as if he’d coaxed her to give him what he wanted.
Not that he hadn’t enjoyed every second.
Before she came down off her high, Blade dug out a condom from his nightstand, rolled it on, and pushed into her. He groaned when he felt her walls flexing around him.
“So good,” he whispered into her ear. She moaned and grabbed onto his back, not even trying to verbally reply. He was fine letting her body do the talking.
Blade kissed her neck, her chest, her breast. His mouth landed everywhere he could reach almost in desperation to taste her everywhere. All the while he thrust into her over and over, increasing in speed until he was mindless with need. From the incoherent sounds she was making, he figured she was right there with him. If not, he was glad she’d already come once because he didn’t think he could hold off much longer.
“Oh, God,” she groaned, hitching her legs up higher, locking them around his back. “Gonna make me come.”
Jesus Christ, that did it. Blade dug his head into her neck and pounded into her. He was vaguely aware of the screams ripping from her throat. His answering roar drowned everything else out as he came harder than he ever had in his life.
Even after he emptied all he had to give into the condom, he continued to pump slowly, not wanting to pull out. She felt too good, and he didn’t just mean sexually.
When he could no longer put it off, he gently extricated himself, took care of the protection, and eased back into the bed, taking her into his arms. He didn’t want to think about anything other than this moment with her, but other stronger needs took over. Needs that had nothing to do with the physical and absolutely everything to do with the emotional pull she had on him.
“Tell me what you being here means.”
She looked up at him, and the air locked in his lungs. He’d never seen her gaze so open, so trusting.
“I love you,” she barely whispered.
He smiled, his heart that had swelled earlier with warm, precious feelings damn near exploded. “I love you, too, babe,” he said, and kissed the top of her head because he just couldn’t keep his lips off her. “Where does that leave us?” he asked into her hair.
“I guess it leaves us seeing where this goes.”
“I already know where it goes,” he said, and even though he hated it,
he nudged her up and slipped out of the bed.
“Where are you going?” she asked. He didn’t miss the slight panic in her voice she hadn’t been able to hide.
Blade suppressed a smile as he opened his drawer and pulled out the item he was after. When he turned to her, he hid it in his hand so she couldn’t see what he had until he was ready.
“Anna Sue Fisher,” he started, and tugged on her left hand. It wasn’t until he had her fingers in his grasp that she saw what he’d gotten.
She gasped.
He let the smile free he’d been holding back as he placed his grandma’s ring on the tip of that finger. “I will never feel worthy of your love, but if you’ll be my wife, not a day will go by where you won’t know how much you are loved. I promise to cherish you forever.” That was true whether or not she married him, but as he waited for her answer, he’d never been so anxious to hear that one little word.
“Yes.” She smiled the biggest smile he’d ever seen from her. “Yes,” she said louder, and threw her arms around him. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
They still had a lot of things to discuss, but they had the rest of their lives to work out the details. He needed time to just be with her. That El Camino could wait another day. Anna’s lips grazed his neck.
Or five.
Epilogue
“Are you ordering me to sleep with him?” Shelby Landry asked her smug boss as she stared across the conference room table at him. She loved her job as an FBI agent. It was a lot less messy than working in the garage back home. But in the three years she’d worked for the bureau, she’d never gone undercover alone. And even when she did work on assignment, she’d never been told she had to have sex with a man she didn’t know. What kind of woman did he think she was?
“I’m not saying that,” Rick, Mr. Smug himself, hedged. “As you know, Mason Showalter is the newest partner and latest target at the brokerage firm that has been under SEC investigation, which as of today, we are putting all our resources behind. The SEC has been cracking down on Ponzi Schemes ever since the Madoff embarrassment. The enforcement division has been investigating Feldstein and Baxter Investments for two years and recently asked for FBI support. We agreed to play nice and help out with this inter-agency task, but we need to kick it up a notch.”
“So because their investigation has identified Showalter as a Dom at the highly exclusive club scene, you want her to go undercover as a sexual submissive? I might lead a pretty vanilla sex life, boss, but even I can guess what happens at a sex club,” Darrell said as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. Shelby could always count on Darrell to have her back. He’d mentored her from day one since joining the bureau.
Rick took a sip of the thick, black coffee he always drank and placed the Styrofoam cup next to his notepad. “Her objective is to gain his trust and see what intel she can garner. We don’t know if he’s privy to the illegal behavior at his firm. If he is, we can’t tap his house or office without enough evidence against him. If he isn’t, then maybe he can be an asset to us by getting information from the inside.”
“Because someone going in to get info has already worked so well,” Carson said, referencing Anna’s last role as part of their team.
Without acknowledging Caron’s comment, Rick turned toward Shelby. “You’re not to go in and arrest him or even make a determination of guilt. Just get enough on him so we can get a warrant. The SEC will do the rest. This is still their operation. We’ll do our part to make the directors happy and then get out. We have other stuff we should be working on.”
“Bet you’re glad you are a blonde, eh Viola?” Carson muttered. Carson Childers and Viola Lane rounded out the FBI investigative team Shelby worked on. Lucky for her, the enforcement division hadn’t only discovered Mason’s need for sexual domination, but also that he had a penchant for brunettes.
With long, flowing locks of the stuff, it was easy for Shelby to understand why she’d been chosen for this task. She’d been singled out for this particular assignment from the beginning. And not because of her mental assets. Hell, her specialty was linguistics. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been considered unless the investment firm under the microscope had documents in Mandarin Chinese the F.B.I. needed her to translate.
“Yeah, that, and I’m married. My husband was all kinds of pissed when I participated in that massage parlor sting op. How would I explain to him that I have to get nasty with a suspect?” Viola shivered.
God, Shelby didn’t know if she could do this. She wasn’t a virgin, but she was the type of person who had no qualms with the basic missionary position. What had Darrell called his sex life? Vanilla? Yes, she was a big ol’ bowl of vanilla. Not even with sprinkles.
Rick sighed. “Let’s keep this professional, Lane.”
“There’s a word for a sex professional, Rick,” Shelby finally said. “And prostitutes make a hell of a lot more money than me.”
“I know this will be uncomfortable for you, but you don’t have to have sex with Showalter. Would it make things easier? Maybe. But he and some of the other Doms help with sexual awakening when a woman thinks she might be a submissive. They have been known to engage in activities that do not involve intercourse. This is the angle we are playing.”
“That’s a big gray area,” Darrell said as he glared at Rick.
“I know. But this is our best shot. She can’t go in one evening with a wire and hope to get what we need. The man is very private, and it will take time to find out what he knows. If he knows anything, and that’s a seriously big if.”
“So she wears a wire, has some meetings with the man, and we analyze everything first before she gets too involved,” Viola said, shrugging. “No need to go in guns blazing yet.”
“Won’t work,” Carson said, frowning. “What if he wants to see her naked? We don’t know how he decides to work with a submissive. It’s the same reason why she can’t wear a wire at all. At anytime she could be asked to strip. We have some very high-tech, inconspicuous devices, but they’re not foolproof. Hell, for all we know, he could have some top-notch security measures in place to scramble the frequency, and that’s if she doesn’t get caught with one on her. The only way I see this working is going in undercover. She’d have to be the eyes and ears for us.”
“Agreed,” Rick said. “We need Shelby to gain his trust so he’ll let her get close to him and maybe even the more personal areas of his life. We only need enough to decide to bring him in to help us out or if we have to play hardball with him.”
But the phrase personal areas of his life lingered in her mind. “How personal are we talking here?” she asked, gaping at her boss. Sure Carson had just teased about sex, but as the conversation went on, she got the sinking feeling her boss expected more from her than just showing up at the club.
He shrugged. “If you could get a date out of him, get him to take you someplace public, away from the club and any security measures it possess, that would be a good start. We can record any conversation he has with you without needing a warrant. If you’re someplace public, you could be wired without the fear of getting caught. That’s just an idea, an option we’d have if it comes to that.” He took another sip of his coffee. “The closer you get to him, the better our chances are of getting intel directly from the source.”
“So I can’t just come right out and ask him if he’s involved or if he wants to help,” she said with an edge of sarcasm, though it’d be a heck of a lot easier on her if she could do just that.
Rick slammed his fist on the conference table, startling her. “Use your head. That’s what someone undercover does, Landry! You play along and get what you need through any means necessary.” She’d thought of Anna and the hell the last assignment put her through, lying to the man she loved in the name of justice.
How many lives would this case try to ruin?
She didn’t know the answer to that, but Rick had finally answered her question.
Shelby was going u
ndercover in a sex club and would have to sleep with a man who had connections with the company they were investigating. She could fight this assignment and be relegated to a desk job for the indefinite future. Or be transferred out of state like they’d done to Anna.
Or she could suck it up and do what she needed to see an end to this case. There was really only one answer, assuming she honestly had a choice. Prostitution was supposed to be illegal, but apparently not if one’s pimp was the federal government.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
* * *
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Thank you for reading my book. :) If you enjoyed it, I’d be very grateful for a review. If you didn’t like it, then share that, too... as long as your review is honest, that’s all that matters.
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Mandy
Also by Mandy Harbin
The Bang Shift Series
Brody
Hunter
Blade
Shelby
Paranormal Romance
Surrounded by Woods
Surrounded by Pleasure
Surrounded by Temptation
Surrounded by Secrets
Young Adult written as M.W. Muse
Goddess Legacy
Goddess Secret
Goddess Sacrifice
Goddess Revenge
Goddess Bared
Goddess Bound
About the Author
Mandy Harbin is a USA Today Bestselling author who loves creating stories that explore the complexities of everyday relationships…with some kissing thrown in. She is a Superstar Award recipient, Reader’s Crown and Passionate Plume finalist, and has achieved Night Owl Reviews Top Pick distinction many times. She also writes young adult romance as M.W. Muse because teens like kissing, too.
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