High-heeled Wonder (A Killer Style Novel) (Entangled Ignite) (11 page)

“He won’t be for long. Not after we get this stuff to the cops. Gather everything you can. We’ll turn it all in as soon as we’re out of here.”

He hurried to the filing cabinets, making quick work of the drawer locks. The first drawer was stuffed with photos of people having sex or getting blown. Judging by the angles and the grainy images, the pics had been snapped using a cheap surveillance camera. Another drawer held a USB drive, which he slipped into his pocket, and old fashioned, handwritten accounting ledgers. Flipping through the pages, he found names, dates, and monetary amounts. In the notes, Anders had scrawled the client’s drug of choice, most often cocaine. Tony thumbed through five books before he hit pay dirt. Keith’s undercover name was listed among the buyers.

Yes!

“Got him,” he growled, and allowed himself a covert fist pump. He had done some questionable things to get here, but if it brought Keith’s murderer to justice, those less-than-honorable actions would be totally worth it.

“Tony, take a look at this.”

Holding tightly onto the ledger, he hustled to the desk. Under a sheaf of papers was a laptop, the cover of which had a distinct scratch.

“Is it yours?” He knew the answer before he asked the question, but a sixth sense reverberated in the back of his skull. Something was off.

“Uh-huh.” Her shoulders shook and she inhaled a wheezy breath.

Instantly alert, he reached for her purse where she’d dropped it in the chair. “Do you need your inhaler?”

She shook her head. “I’m not having an asthma attack.” Her jaw clenched and she squeezed her fists so tightly her knuckles whitened. “I’m just so damn mad right now I could tear Anders apart with my bare hands.”

His chest tightened and guilt rose to clog his throat. The preview of her reaction to his impending confession made his palms sweaty. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

A click sounded.

More light flooded the office.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?” Anders strolled in.

Marvin followed close behind, carrying the pink-haired sales girl. She appeared barely conscious. He stepped in front of his boss and dropped her limp body to the cold concrete floor. She moaned but didn’t try to get up.

Anders spared her an unconcerned glance and then tilted his head at them, a malicious smile slithering onto his lips. “So. I see you two found my happy place.”

Chapter Sixteen

“I will not retire while I’ve still got legs and my makeup box.”

—Bette Davis

Sylvie rushed forward, but Tony circled her wrist, jerking her back before she could plow headfirst into deep shit. In the same move, he took a half step to the side, obstructing Anders’s and Marvin’s view of her. Out of sight and out of mind—he hoped like hell. He prayed the girl on the floor would be okay. But he had to stay focused on the men and, somehow, take them down. He needed to get Sylvie the fuck out of there.

No other outcome was acceptable.

“A pity. For you, that is.” Anders walked farther into the room, crushing the girl’s fingers under his shoe. She didn’t even flinch. “I love being a designer, but it’s my other profession that really makes me feel alive.”

“You goddamn bastard.” Sylvie hurled the words at him, anger thick in her strained voice.

Instead of pissing Anders off, he smiled at the insult.

Marvin loomed by the door, hands clasped behind his back and shoulders straight, his face a blank mask. Former military, Tony figured. Best to target him first. Fast and hard.

Sylvie pushed her way around Tony, stopping shoulder to shoulder with him. “
Profession
, you call it? You’re not just selling a little blow to some models. You sell
people
.”

“Bravo.” Anders clapped theatrically. “Let’s see. We have prostitution, a little human trafficking, with a side of drug dealing and blackmail. Which is why I keep such meticulous records.” He waved a hand at the computer. “You know, said that way, it sure does put the harassment complaint you came to bitch about way down at the bottom of the totem pole of bad things, doesn’t it?” He ambled to the filing cabinets. “Of course, it would be harder to manage all of my activities if it wasn’t for my photographic memory. My father thought I was wasting that gift when I enrolled in design school. Little did he know how handy it would become.”

Thank God Anders had an ego the size of the moon, eager to spill all the intimate details of his grand plan. That he was sharing so much didn’t bode well for Tony and Sylvie’s longevity, but at least the more the asshole talked, the more time Tony had to formulate an escape.

The designer crossed to the desk and tapped the cover of Sylvie’s laptop. “I wonder…” He stopped midthought and took another step closer to Sylvie.

The closer Anders came to her, the louder the blood roared in Tony’s ears.

“One of the benefits of a photographic memory is that I never forget a face. Especially not a photographer’s assistant with a totally squeezable ass. Or should I say an
undercover cop
with a totally squeezable ass…” As Anders turned to Tony, he slid a 9 millimeter Glock from a shoulder holster hidden under his magenta blazer, and held it casually at his side.

“I’m not a cop,” Tony ground out between his teeth. “Not anymore.”

Ignoring him, Anders spoke in a singsong voice, as if reciting a child’s bedtime story. “I remember how blistering hot it was the day I shot your partner. Even the cats were sweating as they watched from the top of the dumpster in the alley behind Yo! Mein. I’d forced a hulking man to his knees in front of me, and the power rush was amazing. Instead of pulling out my dick—which is what normally happens in that situation—I grabbed my gun, put the barrel flat against his forehead, right next to a large mole above his right eye. He cried when I put my finger on the trigger. Not weeping. No, he was too butch for that. Just a single tear, like a brokenhearted girl in a sappy romance movie.” He paused, drawing out the ugly tale as fury raged inside Tony. “Then
boom
, his brains were splattered all over the asphalt.”

Tony saw red. Every tendon and muscle begged for action, for the chance to rip Anders’s bones from his body and beat him senseless with his own femur. His peripheral vision turned black. His arms and tightly drawn fists shook with long-denied wrath. Thighs tense, ready to attack, he went deadly cold. He emptied his lungs of air and his mind of distractions.

He could move fast enough to kill the asshole before Marvin even realized what was going down. But then what would he do about Marvin? And if he went for the bodyguard first, he’d be taking a huge chance that Anders would shoot them both before he could get to him.

All shitty options. But they were the only ones he and Sylvie had.

One target.

One move.

One outcome.

The single
click
of a gun safety being released echoed off the bare cement-block walls. Tony swung around.

“I don’t think so.” Marvin centered the gun’s aim on Tony.

Anders’s brows went up.

Marvin moved like lightning, and in three long-legged steps had his Remington .45 shoved against Tony’s ribs. “This is not the day to be a hero.”

“Oh, didn’t I mention it?” Anders malicious smile widened. “You and the bitch are going to die.”

Tony took a mental step back and made himself assess the situation with cold calculation, as he’d learned at the academy. The bodyguard was fast, but with all that bulk, he wasn’t nimble. Pulling out all the stops for a surprise attack would render him useless. Anders, on the other hand, had crazy on his side.

But Tony had more to lose.
Sylvie
.

The designer turned a disdainful gaze on her. “Can’t say I’ll miss either of you. Of course, attending your funeral may be a bit awkward, but I think I can bear the burden. I’ll be sure to wear something you’d hate.”

“Sylvie, now!
Run!
” In one fluid motion, Tony pivoted on his heel, grabbed Marvin’s gun, and shoved the muzzle away from his body.

But instead of escaping as planned, Sylvie grabbed her laptop with both hands and winged it at Anders. It smashed into his nose and blood squirted out like a fountain.

While Anders reeled, Tony sliced his elbow into Marvin’s windpipe, and a split-second later smashed his fist into the goon’s face. Marvin went down like a redwood tree, and stayed down. The gun clanked against the concrete floor.

The sound of Sylvie and Anders struggling penetrated the heartbeat drumming in Tony’s ears, and he dove for the gun. Ignoring the searing pain in his bad knee, he rolled into a half squat, gun in hand, Anders in his sights.

The designer stood, bloodied and battered, with his arm around Sylvie’s waist, his own gun’s muzzle planted on her temple.

Tony’s gut hardened. “Let her go.”

Anders pressed the muzzle hard enough against Sylvie’s head that she whimpered. “You’ll never pull the trigger in time. She’ll die first.”

Doubt crept up Tony’s spine, embedding itself in the secret, dark places of his mind where all his fears resided. His thigh muscles started to quake and the pain in his knee hit fifteen on a ten-point scale.

“Although, you’ve known her for what, a few weeks? It’s not like she actually means anything to you.”

Everything came at Tony in a split second. Lavender perfume. The way she twirled her hair around a finger as she listened to his stories. The look on her face when she’d tasted his gravy. How she talked to herself while typing away on her blog. The way she’d climaxed so hard on his deck, screaming his name. Had it been only a few weeks? It seemed like a lifetime.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Tony raised the gun, putting the asshole square in its sights, his finger on the trigger. “Sylvie, S.I.N.G. Trust your gut.”

Understanding gleamed in her eye a half second before she drove her elbow deep into Anders’s stomach, then ducked.

He pulled the trigger.

A
bang
thundered through the office.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air.

The
thunk
of two bodies hitting the floor reverberated through the room.

Blood pooled around what was left of Anders’s face.

For a heartbeat that lasted a decade, Sylvie—still tangled in the bastard’s grip—didn’t move.

Shit
.

Tony dropped to his knees beside her. “Sylvie!”

The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils. A panic he’d never experienced before gripped him by the balls and shook him. Then she opened her eyes.
Thank God
.

Her voice shook. “Nice advice.”

Blood spattered Sylvie’s cheek and dripped off her jaw. Her face had turned from olive to ghostly white, the normal sparkle of her green eyes dulled by shock.

Something inside him broke.

“My God, where are you hit?” His hands were everywhere, smearing the crimson liquid as he searched for her injury.

“It’s not my blood. It’s—” Her mouth trembled.

Relief flooded through him and lightened his arms. He wrapped them tightly around Sylvie to reassure himself as much as her.

And he didn’t let her go until the cops released them from the scene.

Chapter Seventeen

“Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves, and of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys, they’d walk around naked at all times.”

—Betsey Johnson

Pink water pooled at Sylvie’s feet, besmirching the pristine white shower tile and sparkling silver drain before disappearing down, down, down into the darkness. Water sluiced across her bare skin, steam obscuring the glass door and the view of her bathroom beyond, but still she shivered. Even her bones had goose bumps. She pushed against the slick tile, desperate for something to grasp, to hold on to, to anchor herself on, as the water streaming down her face forced her eyes closed. But the sensory deprivation only heightened the memories.

Cold metal against her temple.

Blood splattering.

Anders crumbling.

His wet gasping death rasp—too much like the one she’d heard on that night so many years ago when her mother had locked her in a closet with Anya. They’d stayed there for what seemed like forever after the loud
bang
, clinging to each other and too scared to call out for help. Finally, they heard footsteps outside. She’d watched the brass knob turn, hope slicing the Gordian knot in her stomach.
It had all been a mistake. The gunshot must have been a car backfiring
. She’d squinted against the sliver of light that invaded when the door opened, unable to understand why her mother’s feet were so high up.

“Hey there, girls. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” The cop had hunkered down to their level, but his smile hadn’t reached his tired eyes. “I’m gonna need you to hold hands and walk as fast as you can to the hallway. Don’t look at the bed. Okay?”

Anya had squeezed her hand so tightly that Sylvie’s knuckles cracked as they emerged into the light. Sylvie hadn’t meant to look, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She turned her head toward the uniformed men huddled around her mom’s rumpled bed.

Cheap, yellow satin splotched with crimson.

Her mother’s green eyes, normally glazed over by whatever drug was fueling her high, stared out, clear and hard.

A pillow sodden with blood, brains, and soiled dreams.

Water couldn’t wash away the images.
Anders. Her mom. Sylvie’s own blood-speckled hands
.

She slid down the shower wall, too weary to keep the despair at bay.

“Sylvie, you doing all right in there?” Tony’s voice pushed through the closed bathroom door.

Unable to form words over the lump blocking her throat, she let the water flow over her bowed head.

The water stuttered and stopped. Warm, thick cotton enveloped her and strong arms lifted her to her feet. Tony dried her skin and wrapped her in a terrycloth robe and then carried her to the living room and lowered her onto the couch.

He settled in next to her. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart. I can still take you to your dads’. Your sister’s and Drea’s planes won’t be landing until the morning.”

Sylvie shook her head. “Seeing my dads at the store was about all I could take. I need time to get my head together. Thanks again for staying with me. They would have kidnapped me for sure, otherwise.”

“I don’t blame them.” He turned her head away from him and combed through her wet hair with his fingers, gently untangling the knots. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“I’m not.” She melted backward against his strong chest, his heat evaporating the chill clinging to her bones. “I have you with me.”

Tony tensed behind her and his fingers froze against scalp. “Sylvie—”

His hands fell away from her, leaving her damp hair clinging to her head. The cold returned with an inevitable vengeance and seared her with its brutal intensity. Tomorrow she could face all of the ugly. But tonight, she wanted to find hope somewhere in the mess the last few weeks had left behind. She needed Tony, and not just for tonight. Somewhere in the middle of everything, he’d become an anchor to a better version of herself, and she’d realized how much she’d been hiding herself away. What she’d thought was lust had turned into something far more important.

Afraid to see rejection in his eyes, she refused to turn around and instead focused on the fox lamp as her heart sank. “Can we pretend for just a little while that there’s nothing on the other side of the door? That nothing horrible happened today? That we’re just two people who want each other?”

There was a brief silence, and then he said, “No. Not after what I’ve done.”

He pushed off the couch, the movement knocking her off-kilter, and she spun around to regain her balance. And she saw his face.

Grooves of pain dented his forehead and his expression was a portrait of misery. The exposed, broken pieces inside him called out to her, melting her heart. He needed her touch as much as she needed his.

They needed each other.

She was on her feet in the next heartbeat, one hand wrapped partially around his bicep and the other pressed up to his chest. His heart’s mad beat thumped against her. “What you’ve done is you’ve saved my life. So much more than you realize. You saved me this afternoon…and I’m asking you to do it again tonight.” She shrugged off the robe, letting it pool at her feet. The way her nipples hardened had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the way Tony’s gaze ate up her nakedness. “Please, Tony. I need to feel something real and good. Please, help me do that.”

He mumbled something that could have been a prayer or a curse. It didn’t matter because the next second his lips were on hers.

Heat sizzled along her skin as his fingers traced across her bare hips. With a maddeningly light touch, they slid around and traveled up her spine as his lips moved to her jawline. The bristle of his five o’clock shadow scraped erotically over her earlobe. Her knees wobbled under the sensual onslaught of his powerful body against her.

“You’re going to hate me later.” He whispered the words against her bare, overheated skin.

She teased her fingers down his jeans zipper and slid them inside, wrapping around his steel-hard cock and pulling it out. “Never.”

I love you.
The words were too fresh and new to say out loud, but she could show him. His dick jerked in response to her firm touch.

He groaned and nipped the vulnerable spot at the base of her throat. “You will.” He grasped her face and forced her to look at him. His brown eyes were dark with want, but something else lurked in their shadows. “And when you do, promise you’ll give me the chance to fix it.”

He waited until she gave him an uncertain nod, and then his mouth sealed to hers, stopping her suddenly uneasy thoughts, as well as any further conversation, and blasting her with an atomic bomb of sexual promise that decimated her ability to form coherent thoughts. Lust pooled deep inside her and seeped into every part of her yearning body. The last of her chill melted into a dampness between her legs that demanded attention.
Now
.

She hooked a leg around his calf, spilling him onto the couch. He landed on his butt with an
oomph
of surprise.

The man had way too many clothes on. She planted her hands on her hips and ordered, “T-shirt off.”

The cheeky bastard had the balls to wink at her. “Say please.” His strong hands remained glued to his thighs, unmoving and taunting her. His cock, the head slick with anticipation, stood at attention, extending out of his unzipped jeans.

Her clit buzzed in response to the many temptations he presented. As if tuned in to her euphoric discomfort, he leaned forward, his devilish mouth stopping within inches of the dark curls at the apex of her thighs. The earth stopped on its axis, waiting to see what would happen next. She dug her nails into her hips, nearly piercing the skin, in an effort to maintain control.

He blew a long, slow puff of air across the damp curls. “Say please, Sylvie.”

A fire in the Sahara couldn’t compare to the flaming desire eating away at her resistance to his bid for domination. Still, she wouldn’t give up without a fight. Centering her weight on one leg, she lifted her other foot so it rested on the couch’s armrest, giving him a front-row seat to her glistening lips. “Take off your shirt, Tony.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and his fingers twitched against the denim. His tongue extended, closing the short distance between them, and slid along her slick folds, dancing along her most sensitive spot and lapping against the nub like a cat with cream. Tension swirled inside her, building with every twist and turn of his mouth. The sensation built higher and higher until her thighs tingled a warning of her oncoming orgasm. But before it could crash over her, he pulled away.

His lips, shiny with her need, turned up at the corners. “You know what you have to do.” He entered her with a single finger, rocking it against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside.

She moaned and felt herself weakening.

“Say please, and I’ll make you come so hard you won’t be able to stand.”

“You’re pretty fucking cocky.” She barely recognized her voice with its strained, breathy tone.

“Not cocky, confident.” He rubbed a series of figure eights against her G-spot, increasing the pressure with each rotation until she squirmed with pleasure. “But there’s only one way for you to find out for sure.”

Her vision darkened around the edges as her thighs thrummed.
God
, she was so close. She threw her head back, more than ready for the climax, but he withdrew his finger. Again.

She nearly wept.

“Please.” The word tore from her mouth in a desperate scream.

He slid two fingers deep inside and resumed his divine torment while his mouth found her clit again, sucking on the nub in rhythm with his figure eights. The world disappeared. The pressure building inside her grew fuller and fuller until she thought her body would implode under the weight of pleasure. The tingling started in her calves, zinging up her thighs and vibrating her ass before her orgasm exploded, stealing her vision and her breath.

He was right. She couldn’t stand.

Afterward, coming down from the blissful peak, she found herself crumpled on his lap, her still-hard nipples pressed against his soft cotton shirt. “Take off your shirt,” she mumbled into the crook of his neck.

His laughter boomed across the room, and he yanked the shirt over his head. In the next breath, he swiveled her on his lap to face him. He wove his fingers through her damp hair, claiming control, and tipping her head back as he nipped, licked, and kissed his way down her throat.

Her catlike bonelessness gave way to sensations that left her breathless in the best way possible. Excitement swirled through her, revving her heart to autobahn speeds.

When he dipped between her breasts, she grasped his head and pushed his luscious mouth away. “Pants. Off.” She slid off his lap and stood. “Now.”

A lust-induced haze had overtaken his brown eyes and a confused wrinkle divided his forehead.

“Poor baby. I know just how you feel.” She unsnapped his jeans and dropped to her knees. “I promise to make it better…after I make it worse.” She shoved down his pants.

With his jeans pooled around his ankles, she cupped his balls and tugged lightly. Her other hand wrapped around his cock’s base, her fingertips unable to meet. Leaning forward, she nestled his cock between her boobs and rocked. The bulbous head emerged from between them and she licked the end with a flat tongue.

He groaned low, and his hips arched forward.

“Not yet.” She lapped at him again. “I warned you it would get worse.”

Sylvie was killing Tony with her pink tongue and devilish doe-eyed look. Fucking killing him. He had never been happier. That alone should have forced him to come clean and put an end to the lie before things went any further.

A better man would have. But he had a sinking feeling this would be their last night together. She’d kick him out of her life as soon as he confessed. And if he was out the front door in the morning, he had to take this opportunity to plead his case with his body, beg for mercy, and tell her he loved her with his touch—even if he couldn’t speak the words out loud. Not yet. Saying them before he’d set things right would tarnish the words. And she’d never believe them after he’d told her what he must.

Her silky smooth hair slid along his thighs as she engulfed him, and logical thought turned to fumes. Warm. Wet. Heaven. A vibration low in her throat danced up his cock and his balls tightened. Tension built at the base of his spine. It took every ounce of self-control to pull her up to his lap before his eyes crossed permanently.

Fire singed him where her pointed nipples pressed against his heated skin as she straddled him. The need to toss her down, drive inside her warmth, and mark her as his roared to life. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he clamped down on the urge. “Got to slow down.”

“Not this time. No planning. No eating first. No thinking out every angle. This calls for immediate action.” Her words tickled his earlobe. She slid open a drawer and pulled out a condom. “I need you inside me.”

Okay, maybe not so slow. Sinking his fingers into her round hips, he relished the moan that reverberated. “You feel so perfect.”

She lowered the condom onto his throbbing dick, lifted up, and fitted him to her. Then, inch by inch, he slid into her tight grip and the universe revealed its secrets. There was no before. No after. Only now. Only Sylvie.

She settled all the way down. “Now,
that’s
perfect.”

For once, he couldn’t argue with her.

She rode him, slow and hard, putting her tits at the perfect level for sucking. It was an invitation he couldn’t decline. He lavished her nipples and the tender undersides of her breasts, appreciating them for the works of art they were. Her back muscles undulated under his fingers as he touched her above her pert ass while she rose and fell. It was all so right.