by M. S. Parker
“That's great!” He kissed me again, this one longer and deeper.
When I pulled back, desire was thrumming through my body. “Want to join me in the tub?”
He groaned. “You have no idea how badly I want to do that, but I don't want dinner getting ruined because I can't keep my hands off you. You need to eat.”
I took a moment to appreciate the fact that he'd put so much effort into a special night when he knew I didn't expect it. Did I love it? Definitely. But I wouldn't have thought anything bad about pizza in front of the TV either. As long as he was here, that was enough.
“All right,” I said. “How much time do I have?”
He kissed the tip of my nose and released me. “How does twenty minutes sound?”
“Perfect.”
I was a little surprised when I got out of the bath a little while later and found my favorite dress on the bed, but then I remembered that it was his favorite dress too. Enough built-in support that I didn't need a bra, tight enough that I either needed to wear a thong or forgo panties altogether. A plunging neckline and short hemline meant that it showed off both my legs and my breasts, but still managed to be tasteful. It was the sort of dress that, when I wore it, Dax both loved and hated it. He'd said once that the problem was, he wanted to show me off but didn't want any men looking at me.
I flushed as I remembered the last time I'd worn it. It was the night we'd signed the papers for the apartment, and Gavin had agreed to let us into the club as long as I didn't drink. Dax, however, had no such limitations, so he'd ended up having enough of whatever he'd been drinking to make him go even more alpha male than usual. I ended up with a hickey on my neck and the top of one breast before we even left the dance floor, then he dragged me into the men's bathroom, locked the door, and proceeded to fuck me six ways from Sunday.
By the time we'd come out, at least a dozen people were in the hallway, and they all burst into applause, confirming that the bathrooms weren't as sound-proofed as I'd hoped. No matter how much I tried to straighten my clothes and hair, I'd still looked thoroughly fucked as Dax had wrapped his arm around my waist, grinned smugly at everyone, and led me out to the car...where he'd eaten me out the entire way home.
Needless to say, I knew that putting on the dress meant, even if we didn't leave the apartment, we were going to have fun tonight.
The table was already set when I came out, and the appreciative look he gave me made my stomach squirm pleasurably. He didn't touch me though. That was probably a good thing since I wasn't sure I could resist him if he did, and as much as I wanted him, I was hungry.
We made small talk as we ate, letting the tension between us grow, knowing it'd make for an even hotter explosion when we finally came together. This, I thought, was everything I could ever want. In coming to New York, I'd been thinking only of acting and meeting my uncle. I'd never expected to fall in love, and I'd certainly never expected someone like Dax. We might not have made sense on paper, if someone had written out all of our similarities and differences, but we were perfect for each other, and I'd never been more grateful that I'd taken the risk to come here.
“That was amazing,” I said as I pushed my plate back. “Do we have dessert?”
A slow smile curved his lips as he stood and came toward me with deliberate steps. “That's a question with more than one meaning, but the answer to both is yes.” He stopped right in front of me. “But first...”
He dropped down on one knee, and all the air rushed from my lungs. This couldn't be what it looked like. It had to be some new sex game, some new part of the BDSM world he wanted to introduce me to. Because it couldn't be...
He held up his hands, and there was no missing the small black box. Or, as he opened it, the familiar diamond ring nestled on black velvet. Nana's engagement ring. The one she told my mother to hold until the right man asked for permission to give it to me.
“Dax–” I breathed his name.
“I love you, Bryne. And maybe some people will think this is too fast, or that we're too young, but I don't care about any of that. I just know that you're the only woman I've ever loved, and the only one I want to spend the rest of my life with. You already have me forever, but what I want to know is if you'll let me have you forever too.” He swallowed hard. “Will you marry me?”
I couldn't speak, could barely breathe, so I settled for nodding emphatically, tears spilling down my cheeks. My hand shook as he slid the ring onto my finger, then I threw myself at him, needing his arms around me. I kissed him hard, his teeth bruising against my lips, but I didn't care. He was mine. Forever.
One hand was sliding up over my ass when a sound cut through the apartment and we both froze. The second ring finally clicked with me, and I pulled back.
“Shit, that's Dena's ringtone.” I pushed myself to my feet, mentally cursing the prosecutor for interrupting. I knew, however, that she wouldn't have called unless it was something important. We liked each other well enough, but we weren't exactly phone buddies. “Hello?” I managed not to sound as annoyed as I felt.
She didn't mince words. “Carrie's in labor.”
“We're on our way.” I ended the call and turned back to Dax. “Um, rain check?”
He stared at me. “Are you kidding me?”
“Carrie's having the baby,” I said, the words sounding as breathless as I felt.
Instantly, he was on his feet. “Go get changed and I'll get us a car.” As I started for our bedroom, I heard him mutter, “Cockblocked by a baby. Go figure.”
I laughed and hurried back to press my mouth against his. “I promise I'll make it up to you.”
He cupped my ass, pulling me against him hard enough that I could feel his erection pressing against my stomach. “You better. I was looking forward to spending tonight making love to my fiancée.”
Fiancée.
I rocked against him. “How does a blowjob on the way to the hospital sound?”
Heat flared in his eyes. “Like a good start.”
I smiled and stepped back. As I hurried down the hall, I tossed another comment over my shoulder, “If you're lucky, maybe we can even find an empty room at the hospital for a quickie while we wait.”
I laughed as I heard him swear. I might not have been looking for this life when I came to New York, but now that I had it, I didn't intend to ever let it go.
His Every Desire
Shiloh Walker
His Every Desire
Shiloh Walker
"I want your wife."
Joel Lockhart has crossed a lot of lines in the name of vengeance, but this line has nothing to do with revenge…and everything to do with desire.
Vulnerable and alone, Tracy is the wife of Vincent Grainger, a cruel and abusive crime lord. The beautiful woman calls to something inside Joel that he thought was dead. Stealing her away from her sadistic husband plays into his plans…or that’s what he tells himself.
But looking into her eyes, Joel feels something he never expected. Love doesn’t figure into those plans for vengeance, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize he is willing to give up his very soul to have her, to love her…to make her his…for always.
Yet to do that, Joel might have to give up more than his soul to keep Tracy.
He might have to let go of his desire to avenge his sister, murdered by none other than Vincent Grainger…the man who even now is plotting his own revenge.
Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC
© Belmonte Publishing LLC & Shiloh Walker
Initial Publication 2005
Second Publication 2016
Third Publication 2017
Cover © Shiloh Walker
Cover Design, Fonts from PicMonkey & Fotor
Cover Image © Conrado via Bigstock Images
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
If you did not legally obtain a copy of this book, then you should purchase your own copy.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
I’d like to credit KB with the phrase…
Keep your friends close…and your enemies dead in the ground.
To all the loyal readers who supported me over the years.
To my agent Elaine Spender of The Knight Agency.
To the group at Inscribe Digital.
Prologue
The blood was everywhere. The thick metallic scent of it in the air, the darkening stains of it as it dried in puddles on the floor.
Dreaming, he told himself. Trapped in a dream more than twenty years old. He knew it. Knew that if he could just wake up, the dream would fall apart…until the next time.
But he couldn’t wake up. Walking through the hall of the condo, he felt trapped. Everything seemed smaller now—he was just a kid when he found her, and then everything had seemed so much larger—so large he felt lost.
Now he felt trapped, the walls closing in on him as he moved down the hallway.
She lay there, her pretty, dark blue eyes, just like his own, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her face a mask of blood and bruises, only looking at him when he knelt by her side to cover her. She was naked.
Twenty years ago, he’d crouched by her side, staring at the battered, nude body of his sister, the scream forming in his throat as his young mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
With age, he could now make sense of it, although it didn’t lessen the fury or the pain any, not in the dream. Not when he was awake.
There had been blood on her thighs. Lots of it.
Dried blood on her arms, her belly, her legs, and numerous little cuts. Bruises on her legs, her arms, from where she’d been held down.
Twenty years ago, he had turned away, run away, as though maybe he could outrun it and maybe it wouldn’t be real.
She had whispered to him. He had heard her voice—it had terrified him and comforted him at the same time as she had murmured to him. Run. Run away, baby. Hide and don’t look back.
He had run. Fast and hard, furiously. There had been nights when her voice had come to him, waking him from a fitful sleep and he had started to run again. Time to go, baby. He’s looking for you again…
Finally, that had stopped. And he had stopped running and started planning.
In the dream though, he hadn’t run away. In the dream…
He’d moved to kneel at her side, he’d held her hand until she died. He’d stayed with her so she hadn’t been alone. And he’d whispered, “They will pay, Carly. Every last one of them. I won’t stop until I see it happen.”
It was the sound of his own voice, a hoarse whisper, as he murmured those words that woke him up.
Joel lay in bed, his gut churning from the aftereffects of the dream.
Twenty years later, three of the men who had raped his sister were dead. They had paid, just as he had promised Carly.
The temperature in the room dropped and Joel tugged the tangled sheet so that it covered him better. “Carly, some rest?”
She laughed. The laughter had sound, and he glanced around the room, wondering if she would appear this time. He saw just the faintest white glow hovering in the corner. “You were awake before I showed up, baby.”
A cool breeze seemed to drift toward him and the white glow came closer. “Let it go—Grainger doesn’t matter. Not to me. I’m past caring about him.”
Joel scowled. “If you didn’t care about him, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”
The glow solidified into an actual form and he felt a fist wrap around his heart as he saw her face. She had been so damned pretty, so kind. So determined to get him away from the hellhole they had lived in with Mom.
“It’s not Vincent Grainger that’s keeping me here,” she murmured. “It’s you. Once I know you’re going to be okay—I’ll be fine.”
Joel smiled tightly. “I am okay.”
Carly just sighed. “Baby, you haven’t been okay a day in your life.”
He sighed, shoving a hand through his hair. “Look, I have to do this. You don’t understand that, but I have to. Once I deal with him, I’ll…I’ll do…”
His voice trailed off because he didn’t know what he was going to do.
Carly smiled at him. Reaching up, she touched her hand to his face. The ghostly touch felt cool against his cheek. He met her gaze as she said, “That’s just the problem, though. You don’t know what you’re going to do. You have to look for a life beyond this. I didn’t get a chance to live mine. Don’t waste yours on hatred, baby brother.”
Then she faded away.
Joel closed his eyes.
Hatred had eaten away at him for so long—it was just a part of his life. He lived with it. Breathed it.
He couldn’t just shove this aside—not until it was all done.
The men who had killed his sister would die. Three of them were already dead in the ground, but there was at least one more—Vincent Grainger.
The bastard who had given the order. The bastard who had stood over her while his men raped her. Had them hold her down while he took his turn.
He’d made a mistake. Two of the men he’d killed early on, without learning if there were others. They’d been bragging about it, the dumb shits, talking about Carly and other men and women they’d killed, just because Grainger had decided he wanted it done.
The third one, though, Robert Ellingsworth, that one, Joel had questioned before he’d killed him. Not that it had done much good. Ellingsworth had been certain, to the very last second that Joel wouldn’t kill him, and he was more afraid of Grainger than he was of Joel, and he hadn’t talked.
Not when Joel had beat him bloody, not when he’d damn near twisted the bastard’s balls off.
Ellingsworth had been dead a little less than a year now, and Joel had run out of resources. It was time. Time to move in on Grainger.
Time to ruin him. And when the bastard understood how it was to feel helpless, caught, trapped, then Joel would kill him.
But first…first…there was something else.
Chapter One
“I want your wife.” Joel stared coolly at Vincent Grainger, showing no sign of the worry that he might fuck this up.
But he couldn’t take it anymore. If he saw one more mark on her…
Grainger had shark’s eyes. Empty, expressionless pits of black in his face that had terrified more than one man. He was a man of average height, average weight—he worked out religiously, and the tailored Armani suits he wore covered a body that was lean and fit. There was nothing at all intimidating about the man…except those eyes.
There was no sign of life in them, no sign of a soul of any sorts. And it often seemed as though his eyes could see clear through a man.
Grainger stared at Joel, with those flat shark’s eyes as he said, “I beg your pardon?”
Joel laughed, a low, mirthless sound. “You heard me. You understand, too. You asked what it would take for me to become a…business acquaintance of yours, and I want your wife. Otherwise, I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
Vincent laughed. “No piece of ass is worth gambling a fortune on, Joel.”
A small smile crept across Joel’s face and he shrugged. “Well, since you like dick more anyway, you probably wouldn’t know. It’s not like she’s exactly your type. She can still be your little trophy wife—but I want her in my bed.”
Very few people knew Vincent’s Grainger’s secrets the way Joel did, and he knew damn near all of them, including the fact that the crime lord was gay.
Personally, Joel didn’t give a damn who the man fucked. It didn’t matter to him who anybody shared their bed with as long as it was consensu
al all the way around, but while it wasn’t exactly spoke of outright, in their world, some things were still…frowned upon.
Grainger probably worried how it would be seen if word of his orientation became common knowledge and it was a closely held secret. One of his lovers had been a little too loose-lipped and he’d been found dead within days. Rumor was Vincent had even cared for the guy—if such a thing were possible. Did sharks have feelings?
Joel didn’t know.
He did know Grainger’s secrets—quite a few, if not all. If it had been anyone else who had laid this particular secret on the line like that, Grainger probably would have killed him.
But they both knew Grainger was scared of Joel.
A lot of people were. And Joel did every damned thing he could to foster that fear.
He didn’t have the shark’s eyes, although his face was more often than not an expressionless mask, and he hadn’t ever invited a man to dinner and shot his guest in the forehead before going on to dine, the corpse bleeding on the table, as Grainger had.
But he had killed before, often enough, brutally enough, that none questioned his ability, and willingness to do it again.
“One of these days, Joel, you just might push me too far,” Grainger said, his lips barely moving as he spoke. A dull red flush of anger stained his cheeks and those normally flat black eyes glinted.
Joel grinned arrogantly. “Maybe. But not while I still have some things you really, really want. A few pieces of land, several building contracts. Among other things.”
The other man chuckled. “You know, it’s a damned good thing I like you.”
Actually, it was enough to make Joel sick. Not that he hadn’t been aiming for this for twenty years.
To see Grainger dead—that had been his goal since he had been all of twelve years old. For the past ten years, he had had been moving toward that goal with slow, but steady determination. Working his way first into Grainger’s notice…then gaining his trust.