High-heeled Wonder (A Killer Style Novel) (Entangled Ignite) (7 page)

Cam whistled. “You really think either one would go postal to this extent because of what a blogger said about them?”

Tony’s toes itched at hearing spoken out loud the question he’d been asking himself for the past twenty-four hours. “I don’t know, but they’re the best leads we have right now.” Tony rammed his fingers through his hair. “Ryder, light a fire under Carlos. I want those computer records now. Cam, start snooping around Bloom. Sylvie said his last three collections were a bust and one more failure could mean the loss of his financial backers. Check out Worthington, too. Find out if she had opportunity or the ability to pull this off.”

“Gotcha.”

“One more thing.” Tony paused, trying to will the muscles in his shoulders to relax. “Rhodes ratted out Sylvie’s identity as the High-Heeled Wonder while doing drugs with Bloom. According to her, he’s one of the biggest sources of nose candy for models in Harbor City.”

Silence filled the line and Tony paced to the door. He glanced down the hall. No sign of Sylvie. For once he was glad.

Ryder murmured, “Do you think it’s connected to—”

The hairs on Tony’s forearms stood at attention and he interrupted his sister. “Can’t say, but it makes sense. Anders worked for Henry and Anton back when Keith was killed. It would explain why the trail always leads back to them.”

Steel filled Cam’s voice. “On it,” he said.

“Great. Let me know as soon as you hear anything. I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Hey boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” Cam chuckled.

Did he never get tired of that stupid line?

“Fuck off.” Tony hung up, shoved the phone into his pocket, and marched into the office to find the woman he was failing miserably at thinking of as only a client.

Sylvie sat in a chair pulled up close to his rolltop desk, her shoulders hunched as she peered at the computer screen. Tension rolled off her as strong as the wind whipping the trees outside the window.

“Everything okay?”

She turned and directed a hard glare his way. If looks could kill, it’d be pretty much over for him.

“You tell me.” She nodded at the laptop. “Why in the hell do you have an open case file on my fathers?”

Chapter Nine

“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”

—Coco Chanel

Anton’s decade-old mug shot broke Sylvie’s heart. Staring back at her from the screen was a version of her father she’d never met, who’d never tucked her into bed after a nightmare or soothed her worries with lemon drops. He looked like shit in his booking photo. Quarter-sized pupils. Sunken cheeks. Cracked lips. Greasy hair going in every direction. According to the police report, he’d gotten busted for trying to score cocaine from an undercover officer.

She slid her shaky fingers across the screen as if the action could erase the image. “He hid his addiction well. We never saw him like this, but I remember vividly when he went into rehab.”

Anya crying into her pillow. Henry putting on a brave face with a smile so fake it nearly cracked his teeth. And she’d spent twenty-eight days planning for history to repeat itself. But thankfully, Anton hadn’t gone down the same suicidal path that her mother had while whacked out on drugs.

He’d come home. Shaken and unsure, but he’d come home to them.

She’d be
damned
if she’d let anyone take him back to that hell. Even Tony.

“You haven’t answered my question. There are police reports, interview notes, and more. Why do you have all this?”

Tony shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I can’t tell you.”

“Who is Keith Molson? What does his autopsy have to do with my fathers?”

Tony stomped to the desk and slapped the laptop closed. His strong hand stayed on the cover, nearly taking up the entire space with his wide palm and long fingers. “Stop asking questions you don’t want the answers to.”

“Of all the stupid things. If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.” She shot out of her seat and jabbed a finger into his unyielding chest. “Tell me the truth.”

“Seriously. You don’t want to know.” Tony held up his hands, palms out, and took a step back. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She ground her teeth. She couldn’t stand the pity pooling in his brown eyes, threatening to drown her. Why did the people who kept promising they didn’t want to hurt her always inflict so much fucking damage? Her chest ached with the need for air. Keeping her jaw clamped tight, she inhaled a deep breath. It burned her nostrils but didn’t reach her lungs. It was like trying to breathe underwater using straws stuffed with newspaper. She gasped, fighting to drag in the oxygen she needed.

Panic slashed at her useless lungs. Her vision turned fuzzy. “Can’t…breathe.”

Tony straightened like a shot. “Where’s your purse?”

“Room.” Her legs folded underneath her and she thumped onto the couch.

He sprinted from the office.

She wheezed in another half breath, remembering her yoga instructor’s advice to visualize a place of serenity. She summoned an image of the ski lodge where she’d spent last Christmas with her family. The brisk wind against her cheeks. The swish of her skis as she sailed down the slopes. The nearly blinding white of the mountain peaks gleaming in the distance.

The sunlight flickered and thick gray clouds sealed out the light. Her lungs burned, the searing pain yanking her away from the darkening scene.

Tony’s face appeared over her, wavering like an oasis in the desert. He held out her puffer.

She wrapped her hand around his and brought the inhaler to her mouth. A blast of medication opened her constricted airway, followed by sweet, cool oxygen. Her muscles uncoiled and she sucked in a full, deep breath of air.

“Better?” He pushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead.

“Yes.” The single word scratched against her tender throat, but she couldn’t stop now, no matter how much it hurt, nor in how many ways. “Tell me why you have a case file on my fathers.”

He rubbed his hand across his five o’clock shadow.

“Please.” It hurt to plead, but she had to know.

Tony raised his gaze to the ceiling and fisted his hands at his sides. Then he looked back at her and his shoulders drooped. “They’re suspects in a cop’s murder.”

Her brain blanked as the idea skittered around her head like a marble on a sheet of ice. She gripped her inhaler like a lifeline. “They—”
No
.

“Are the only lead I had up until today.”

Anton or Henry would never harm anyone. The idea made absolutely no sense.

“You’ve met my fathers. How in God’s name could you ever take them for killers?” Another possibility popped into her head. It would have knocked her to her knees if she hadn’t already been sitting. “Was taking my case just a way to get closer to them? Was this whole thing a setup?”

He rocked back on his heels and studied the worn couch. “At first,” he admitted.

“You
bastard
.” Bitterness landed like a rock in her stomach. “Tell me everything, and do not leave anything out.”

He strode past the rolltop desk, across the thick, gray carpet to a bookcase jam-packed with football players’ biographies and framed photos of gap-toothed kids and smiling adults. He pulled one of the pictures down from the top shelf. His face pinched with pain as he gave it a long look and then strode back over and shoved the picture into her hands.

She stared down at the two men in dress blues mugging for the camera. Tony stood a few inches shorter than the man next to him who had two mile-deep dimples that had probably turned girls’ knees to jelly and made their mothers worry.

“I fucked up, and because of that, Keith died. I couldn’t walk away from even the slimmest of leads. And your dads were all I had.”

She stopped his words with an upraised hand. “Back up and start again.”

“Keith and I grew up together. He was at my house so much we might as well have been brothers. When we got partnered up together on vice, we had a snitch who happened to be a photographer. He told us about a major player in Harbor City’s fashion scene that was keeping the models in blow. We went undercover as photographer assistants.”

Nothing shocking in models buying drugs. More than one used cocaine to keep their weight down to an insane level, deal with the hectic hours, and let off steam. Getting a nice powder high added zero calories to their daily diet, unlike alcohol or chocolate cake. Ugly but true.

“And you thought Henry and Anton were dealers?” Not likely. Anton had been clean for more than a decade by the time she estimated Tony’s partner died.

“We traced a delivery to BC Designs. Then another. About two weeks before Keith died, we got word something was wrong with the cocaine. Someone had cut it with PCP and people were losing their minds. At least four deaths were tied to it. We had to go in.”

“Emily Rossi.” Her heartbeat sped as she remembered the six-foot-tall Nordic goddess who had been a regular at the BC Designs shows. She’d been Harbor City’s runway darling until she’d stepped in front of the number six bus while screaming about the demons stalking her every move.

Tony nodded. “Her death was one of the four. Whoever the dealer was, they were high up the ladder at BC with plenty of no-questions-asked access to fashion events. Everything went to shit before we got a chance to infiltrate the company.”

“What does that mean?”

“We were following a bike messenger with a package we knew was destined for your dads’ studio across town. The messenger made us and took off. We were on foot but went after him anyway. Keith and I got separated. He ran track in high school. There was no way I could keep up. I was crossing Delany Street so focused on not losing sight of Keith or the bike that I never saw the car come around the corner. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the ambulance, my leg a fucking shredded mess.”

He sank down next to her on the couch and rubbed his right knee. “It wasn’t until after surgery that they told me about Keith. Two shots to the head. Close range.” He inhaled a ragged breath. “We never caught the guy who did it. Every lead fizzled out. Requests for overtime got turned down. Snitches went to ground. Rumors started about the brass shutting down the case.” He shook his head in disgust. “I left the force and started Maltese Security. But I kept copies of my case files and notes—including Anton’s mug shot. Keith wasn’t just my partner; he was my best friend. I still see his mom around the neighborhood. I won’t stop until I find his killer, no matter how long it takes. I owe him that.”

Tension held Sylvie’s muscles so tightly it felt like her tendons were going to snap off her bones. She sympathized, and admired his loyalty. But there wasn’t a chance in hell— “Do you still think my fathers were involved?”

“My gut says no, but I can’t scratch them off the list yet. Not until I solve the case. Someone at BC Designs knew what was going on.” He looked at her, and agony, raw and uncensored, shone from his eyes.

“Is that everything? Nothing left out?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s it.”

“There is no way my fathers had anything to do with Keith’s death. You know it here.” She laid her palm on his chest, feeling the hard beat of his heart. “It had to be someone else. And I’ll help you prove it.”

She went to the desk, flipped open his laptop, and clicked on the document labeled BC Designs. It listed every company employee at the time of Keith’s death. She scrolled down the list, trying to remember when that little shit with two-toned magenta hair had quit in a huff. The cursor blinked over the name she was looking for, and her pulse pounded in her ears.

“Anders
was
working for my fathers then. BC Designs was his last job before he started his own line. And after what Ivy said today… Are you thinking—”

“Theories and feeling aren’t the same as proof. And without proof your fathers stay on the suspect list.” He rubbed his temples with his thumbs and groaned. “But hell, no, I don’t like Henry or Anton for this. Not anymore.”

Relief soaked into Sylvie’s bones. “If Anders was dealing, it would explain how he got financial backing for his line. And how he manages to keep it going despite the shit he produces. So what do we do now?”

“Eat.” Tony stood and held out a hand to her.

“But we—”

“Can’t go off half-cocked.” He tucked her hand into his bigger one, pulling her out of the chair as electricity zapped up her arm. “Come on. Let’s eat and figure out a plan.”

Chapter Ten

“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”

—Dorothy Parker

Flames crackled in the screened fire pit built into the slate patio. The earlier wind had died down to the occasional rustle of leaves across Tony’s expansive backyard surrounded by a six-foot-tall privacy fence. Growing up in the city, she’d never had a yard of her own to play in. However, sitting on a teakwood lounge chair wide enough for two and watching the stars begin to twinkle, she could imagine how nice it would be for a kid to have this kind of space to run around and play in.

Tony closed the grill, hanging a ridiculously huge spatula on a hook on its side. He took a pull off his beer and settled onto the lounge chair next to her. Their forearms brushed against each other, his heat seeping through the thin cotton of her sweater and pooling in the pit of her belly. The relaxed ease brought on by their earlier steak-and-potato dinner fled her limbs, and her skin buzzed with anticipation.

The breeze ruffled her skirt, inching it higher up her thighs. An image flashed through her mind of Tony’s firm hands spreading her legs wide and his warm lips making their way north from her knees until he reached her core, vibrating with want.

“You keep sucking on your lip like that and I’m going to forget I’m only pretending to be your boyfriend.” Under his light tone, something darker reverberated. Something heated and daring.

She practically spit her lip out of her mouth—if that was even possible—but it was too late. A wanton flush reddened her olive skin, and everything from the waist down melted. Keeping her gaze locked on the last pink hues of the sunset, she prayed he would assume the chilly wind had hardened her nipples.

Or not
…

He’d forget he was pretending…

“Would that be so wrong?”
Oh God
. Where did that breathy voice come from, and why in hell was she sitting here talking instead of fleeing to her room?

“
Very
wrong.” He sprang up from the lounge chair and strode over to the railing. “There are rules.”

To Sylvie, playing by the rules wasn’t just a cliché; it had become her life’s mantra. Somewhere along the line she’d become so petrified of disappointing her fathers and nearly everyone else in her life that she’d regularly scuttled or adjusted her plans in order to maintain the façade. The silver lining of having a stalker might turn out to be having to face reality…

It seemed so clear to her now.
She
was the only one who gave a damn about that false image of perfection. Tony had been right at Anya’s wedding—some people are good at hiding things.

Especially from themselves.

Sylvie hadn’t created the High-Heeled Wonder persona to protect her fathers. She’d done it so she wouldn’t have to take a chance and risk public failure.

That ended now. This second.

With this man.

Tony stood with his back to her, his broad shoulders outlined by the day’s last dying rays. Her fingers itched to trail across the strong muscles of his back, sneak underneath the hem of his lightweight black sweater, and explore his abs as they flexed to her touch.

In his tux at Anya’s wedding, Tony had been a stranger who looked like an Italian James Bond—a hot guy to take her mind off her public humiliation by Daniel. Tonight, she knew him, knew what kind of man he was—intelligent, determined, sexy as hell. She didn’t just want a hot guy any more.

She wanted Tony. And he wanted her.

And they were supposed to forget about the sparks lighting up the very air between them just because of some self-imposed rules?
Fuck the rules
. It was high time she stopping hiding behind an avatar and started living in the real world.

She pressed her palms against the wooden chair hard enough that the grain would probably leave an imprint. Her instincts screamed for her to sink back into her comfort zone. She refused.

Ignoring standard operating procedure, she pushed out of the lounge chair and crossed the deck on shaking legs until she stood hip to hip with him. Heat zapped between them like flashes of lust-induced static electricity.

The vein in his temple went haywire and his thighs locked inside the tight confines of his jeans, giving her a perfect view of the hardness pushing against his zipper. Her mouth turned to cotton and her brain to mush.
God, the man was magnificent
. There was nothing more in the world she wanted right this second than to slide her hands across his denim-covered cock and feel it jump beneath her touch. Her gut, however, warned against it, so she covered his clenched hand with hers, letting her fingers weave with his.

Showing her only his square-jawed profile, his grip tightened on the deck railing but he didn’t pull away. “You’re my client.”

His strained words did nothing to shake her intentions…or the tingling vibrations building steadily in her core. “And if I wasn’t?”

With a muffled groan he slipped his hand from beneath hers and pivoted so his solid frame faced her. Arms crossed and legs planted wide on the deck, he peered down at her. He had the intimidating look down pat—almost. Nothing short of a miracle could camouflage the desire turning his brown eyes to charcoal, or the growing cock outlined against his jeans. The view took away what little breath she had left.

“Wouldn’t matter.” His deep voice shook. “There are things you don’t know. That I hope you never find out. All you need to know right now is that you are my client, and this is a bad idea.”

“Poor boy.” She stepped close enough for her aching breasts to brush against his chest. Just that touch was enough to send a wave of pleasure through her body that left her knees wobbly. But she needed more. She found the snap of his jeans. The pop of its release echoed in the night. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that sometimes being bad—”she grasped his zipper’s pull tab—“is very, very good?”

With deliberate care she lowered the zipper, watching the expressions fly across his face as duty and desire battled within him. Just as the zipper reached its farthest depth, he locked his gaze on her, and there was no doubting who had won the war. She slipped her hand inside the opening of his boxers, wrapped her hand around his length and pulled him free. His cock lay heavy and firm in her hand.

“Sylvie,” he groaned up to the fast-darkening sky. His arms dropped from his chest and his fingers curled into fists that pressed against his thighs.

Maintaining an unhurried pace, she stroked her hand down to the base of his cock until his balls pressed against the back of her fingers, then reversed the motion. He felt like heated steel in her palm as she continued to rub up and down his thickening length. On her third leisurely trip, her fingers no longer met around his girth and pre-cum wet the wide tip.
Too tempting to ignore
.

The deck planks bit into her knees when she lowered herself, but the discomfort barely registered. Moving closer to his straining cock, she opened her mouth, hungry for the taste of him. She slid her tongue across his head, licking up the salty pre-cum and lavishing soft attention to his dick’s sensitive underside.

He hadn’t touched her, and yet her body was on fire with an overwhelming sexual need. Her nipples were iron pebbles, pressing against her too-tight lace bra, and the deep ache in her core intensified with each downward stroke on Tony’s cock.

“You’re killing me, woman.” His fingers laced through her hair and he pulled the strands taut, effectively holding her back from engulfing his length as she yearned to do.

“No, I’m enjoying you.” She tightened her grip on his cock and slid her tongue across her lips, leaving the faint taste of salt in its wake. “Are you going to let me get back to my fun?”

“It’s my turn.”

A wicked shiver shook her as she rose to her feet to meet his challenge. “All right. Show me what you’ve got.”

His lips found the hammering pulse point in her neck and he nipped at the spot before moving downward to the dip above her collarbone. Soft kisses in that sensitive spot were balanced out by his tight grip on her hips. Her skirt’s jersey knit material did nothing to mitigate the nuclear-level heat caused by his touch. Need whirled around inside her, blocking out everything except the touch of his fingers and lips.

Unable to be so close and not feel him, too, she grasped his face, his five o’clock shadow prickly against her palms, and pulled upward until his lips were level with hers. This was nothing like their first tentative kiss. They devoured each other, tongues dueling for supremacy.

He inched her skirt higher until the fall breeze scattering the leaves brushed against her bare behind. Her skin came alive with sensation under his touch and he slid a single finger across the cleft of her ass, wrapping it around the thin strap of lace threaded between her cheeks. Anticipation stopped her heart for a moment before he pulled the material tightly back, forcing the front of it to press against her sensitive clit.

Her pulse roared in her ears and she twisted her hips to increase the friction before falling against him. They stumbled. She landed on her back in the chaise lounge, her skirt up around her waist.

Tony dropped to his knees and bent forward, his face inches from the top of her exposed thighs, and his hard shaft temptingly close to her mouth. His fingers pushed her thong aside and plunged into the depths of her silky folds, curling to stroke the bundle of nerves hidden inside. The pleasure of it turned the world behind her eyelids black before it came back into focus in full Technicolor glory.

Bending over her, he lowered his face to her wet center, his tongue circling her clit in the same slow, deliberate pace she’d used on him earlier. The scratch of his five o’clock shadow heightened the tension growing in her belly.

The blissful torture made her want to cry out in joy…or desperation…she had no idea which. Needing to touch something—anything—she wrapped her hand around his hard length. He moaned against her sensitive flesh, causing tremors of pleasure to tighten the need building within her. Stroking his cock in time with the movements of his tongue, she didn’t even try to hold back her quiet gasps of desire. Faster and faster they moved in tandem, taking each other higher on crests of pleasure until they reached the zenith.

Her climax shot through her body, tightening every muscle and arching her upward. A moment later, wetness covered her fingers as Tony orgasmed in her hand.

Slowly, she returned to herself, and the stars overhead came back into focus. There wasn’t a single bone left in her body or thought in her brain. He’d made her come so hard she’d turned into a sex zombie.

His head rested against her inner thigh, his heavy breaths a soft caress against her still-swollen flesh. He kissed her leg with almost reverent care, and when his heavy-lidded gaze met hers something inside her tumbled to her toes and bounced back up to her chest.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that.” He nodded toward her sticky hand as he stood and zipped his jeans.

She shrugged. “Messy can be fun. Maybe next time—”

He whipped off his shirt and then clinically and efficiently cleaned off her hand, guilt replacing the postcoital softness in his gaze. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that.”

What the fuck?

“You can have first dibs on the bathroom.” He backpeddled away from her. “I… I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, he disappeared into the house, leaving her alone on the deck, her skirt and mind askew.

Fuck. What happens now?