Hunting Moon (Decorah Security Series, Book #11): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (7 page)

He cupped her breasts, cradling them in his hands before his thumbs skimmed over the hardened tips again, sending another wave of sensation through her.

She brought her hands up to clasp his broad shoulders. They were bare. Had he been dressed when he’d walked toward her through the forest?

She couldn’t remember. But now he was naked in her bed, offering her escape from captivity—the only escape she could hope for tonight.

She brought her lips back to his, kissing him with an intensity that bordered on desperation as he continued to play with her breasts, squeezing them, twisting and pulling on the nipples, making her arch toward him.

“Please.”

“You need to come?”

“You know I do.”

He eased her down, so that she lay beside him hot and at the same time, vulnerable.

“Open your legs for me.”

She did as he asked,

His gaze burned into hers as he stroked one hand down her body, slipping into the warm, wet folds of her sex.

“You’re so ready for me.”

“Yes.” She had never been more ready for sex.

He kept his gaze locked with hers as he began to stroke her there, dipping into her vagina, making her hips rise to meet his touch. The devilish finger moved upward, circling her clit, making it swell before he slid down to her vagina again, plunging in and out, and imitating the motions of intercourse.

When he pulled his hand away, she cried out.

“Don’t stop.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you inside me.”

“We can’t—not now.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not. Because we have to wait until I get you out of the Refuge.”

She fought to drive that reality out of her mind and focus on release.

He changed his position, moving between her legs and bending to bring his mouth down to her sex. At the same time, he eased two fingers into her, pumping them in and out as he licked and sucked at her clit.

Her hips rocked, moving with him, begging for completion. And finally she came in an explosion of pleasure that rocketed through her.

Moments later, her eyes flew open, and she gasped when she saw where she was—in the narrow bed, locked in a room from which there was no escape unless Brand came back for her.

Her hand was between her legs, and she pulled it away, then lay very still, her breath coming fast and hard.

She looked around, hoping she hadn’t cried out in her sleep. She’d just had the most vivid sexual experience of her life, and it had been in a dream.

Her cheeks burned as she lay there in the dark, going back over the intimate encounter. She’d been shameless in her behavior. But it hadn’t been real. You could be shameless in a dream, and nobody would ever know. And maybe she could blame it on the drugs. They must have done something to her, like swept away her inhibitions. That and the visit from Brand.

A horrible thought struck her. What if they had a camera in here and someone had been watching her pleasure herself? Then she told herself they didn’t. If there was a camera, someone would have come running the minute Brand had stepped through the door.

She closed her eyes, trying to relax. Brand was coming back for her tomorrow. All she had to do was get through the next day with her sanity intact.

Right. Not a big task, but she knew it was going to be the most horrible day of her life—well, maybe the second most horrible—after seeing Johnny Denato lying in a pool of blood on the floor in his foyer.

Alexander Raymond was pacing back and forth in his office when his head of security, Gene Costa came in.

The doctor deliberately sat down in the chair behind his desk before demanding, “What the hell is going on out there?”

He’d heard shots fired, but after checking on Tory, he’d gone back to his office to avoid getting hit by a stray bullet. When he’d taken this job, he had looked forward to the elaborate scenario that he’d set up. Unfortunately from the first, things hadn’t gone exactly as he’d planned.

The little twit had escaped from the men who had brought her up from New York. Thank God the airport was enclosed so that she hadn’t gotten very far. That was all he needed—failure before the project ever had a chance to succeed.

He was being paid very well for this job, and he saw it as a stepping stone in his reputation as a can-do mental health expert. Or rather a can-do mental health destroyer.

His head of security was about to give him a summary of the recent disturbance when there was another knock at the door.

He glanced at Costa, who shrugged.

“Come in,” Raymond called, fighting to keep annoyance out of his voice.

He and the security chief turned to see Will Monroe, one of the grunts, standing in the doorway with what looked like a shirt and a pair of pants tucked under his arm.

“What’s that?” Raymond demanded.

“We found a pile of clothing near the side of the house.” He pulled the shirt and pants from under his arm and held them up. They were standard security staff issue.

Raymond’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the clothing. “How did they get there?”

“We don’t know.”

“Are you saying one of the guys went out and took his clothes off? Is someone dipping into the drug supply?”

Monroe shrugged.

Raymond’s gaze swung back to Costa. “Give me a timeline of what’s happened this evening.”

“One of the guys saw a big dog . . .” he hesitated for a moment, “Or a wolf prowling around outside the fence. Then Patrick was outside when the animal attacked him.”

Raymond kept his gaze on the man. “Attacked how?”

“Patrick saw the animal lurking near the house. He reached for his gun to take it down, but before he could shoot, it charged him and knocked the weapon out of his hand. Then it dashed for the fence. We followed it to the place where it squeezed under and escaped.”

“Wait a minute—how could it squeeze under the fence?”

“It found a place where it could dig out a passageway in the dirt.”

Raymond considered that. An animal had had the notion to crawl under a chain-link fence and come in here? But why?

“You’re sure?” he asked, half wondering if the security staff had been drinking. No. They looked sober—and worried.

“It was in a tearing hurry when it left—literally,” Costa was saying. We found some bloody skin and fur on the bottom metal prongs.”

“And then what?”

“It escaped into the forest.”

“Did anyone follow?”

“We were too busy securing the interior here. Plus, by the time we got out the gate, it would have been long gone.”

“You should have asked for instructions,” Raymond muttered, thinking that maybe he should have gone out to supervise.

“It was a judgment call.”

“Next time, ask me how to proceed.”

“Yes, sir.”

He kept his gaze on the two security men. “And there was no indication that a human followed the animal onto the grounds?”

“No, sir,” Costa answered. “We’re positive about that.”

“But someone could have sent the dog in to have a look around?”

“Yes sir,” Costa answered, sounding just a little bit doubtful on the logic of that idea. Like, how could a dog make a report? Well, it could if it was equipped with a camera.

“I want patrols doubled until we figure out that nobody’s coming in here. And I want you to peruse the woods to make sure that dog wasn’t with a man.”

“Should we wait until morning?” Costa asked.

“Have a quick look around now. Then go back as soon as the sun’s up,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“And inform me at once if you find anything.”

They talked for a few more minutes, but there was nothing else that Raymond could think of at the moment.

When they left, he crossed to the cabinet at the side of his office, opened the lower compartment and took out a bottle of Scotch. He never drank during the day, but there were times when he allowed himself to indulge in the evenings, and this was one of those times.

He poured out two fingers and sat down in one of the easy chairs, where he took a large swallow of the burning liquid as he thought about what had happened.

As he went back to the puzzle of the discarded clothing, several scenarios went through his mind. Like could some of the staff be gay—and they’d been interrupted during a tryst outside? Interrupted by a large dog. That seemed highly unlikely.

He set down his glass, crossed to his desk and picked up his laptop, which he brought back to the chair. Pulling up the wounded man’s personnel file, he studied the information. Patrick had a spotless record. And all he’d done tonight was get attacked by an animal that wasn’t supposed to be on the property.

What had the damn dog been doing in here, anyway? Why dig under a fence to get into a secure facility?

Raymond went back to the camera idea—which sounded pretty far-fetched. Still, there was no good explanation for what had happened.

Suppose a thief were interested in this upscale house out in the middle of nowhere? Or was there any way someone knew that Tory Robinson was being held here?

The theft part had merit. But how could anyone know Tory was here. Still, he’d better be prepared for anything. Too bad he’d been too sure of his security measures to install cameras. Could Costa do it? He’d have to ask if the security chief had the necessary training.

His gaze kept flicking to the phone on his desk, half expecting a call from Gary Freemont, the man who was paying big bucks for Raymond to interrogate the woman.

This was the biggest case he’d ever handled—and he’d come a long way since he’d practiced winding his parents around his little finger. He’d convinced them he was the kid in the family worth sending to college, and he’d never looked back.

An undergrad degree in psychology had helped his understanding of human nature tremendously. It really hadn’t been necessary to waste any more time sitting in class rooms. He’d grown a small beard to make himself look older, faked his PhD credentials and gone on from there.

He took a sip of Scotch as he thought about the clever moves he’d made.

He’d started his alternate career as a staffer at a halfway house before moving on to Garfield State Hospital, then quit before the chief of staff figured out that he was trying some mind manipulation experiments on the patients. But he’d gotten a good handle on some effective techniques—like creating confusion about how long a person had been in treatment.

After leaving Garfield State, he’d gotten the backing of a private benefactor who had paid his salary at an upscale institution in the DC suburbs where some interesting political types had gone for secret treatment. His two years there had been a good education in how to twist the minds of people who thought they were above the law.

But he’d wanted a place where he was the one in charge. And he’d found this facility, which was isolated enough for him to do anything he wanted—like hiring staff that had no interest in the welfare of the inmates and creating a bogus patient population where the only real one was the person he’d been hired to break down.

It had worked well with half a dozen patients, including a mobster’s wife who had tried to leave her husband. Before she’d gone, she’d raided his safe and taken cash and jewelry. She had been determined not to spill the whereabouts of the stash. Raymond had gotten her to talk—and conveyed the information to her husband. When the guy had given him the go-ahead, Raymond had put her out of her misery, then buried her in a pretty little grove of trees in the national forest.

That was his first murder. It had helped him solidify his well-earned reputation.

But this particular project seemed to have hit a snag. He had to find out what was going on—and cut off the interference before it could blossom into something a whole lot more serious.

Or before Gary Freemont found out about the clusterfuck that was going on up here.

But how would he—unless he had a spy on the staff?

“Now who’s paranoid?” Raymond muttered.

He and Freemont had met through a satisfied customer, Ned Hermann. Raymond had just handled a delicate matter for the man, involving a whistleblower named Jeff Pareles.

Pareles had thought he had the evidence to send Hermann to jail for padding a government contract and pocketing the extra money. After Raymond had finished twisting his mind in knots, Pareles had ended up taking a nosedive off the top of the headquarters building, and Hermann had faked e-mails that made the whistleblower look like the guilty party.

Raymond had been flush with success, and he’d bragged that he could get anyone to do anything he wanted—up to and including shooting their grandmother. Now he wished he hadn’t done such a good sales job. What if he couldn’t deliver?

Freemont was a dangerous man—as dangerous as Johnny Denato. And he was going to expect results for his retainer.

Raymond realized he had clamped his hand around the glass of Scotch. Deliberately relaxing his grip, he told himself that he wasn’t going to fail. Tory Robinson would tell him what he wanted to know, and Raymond would deliver the information to Freemont.

That is—if Tory
had
the information. Freemont had been sure she did. But what if he was wrong? Would that turn into a case of “shoot the messenger”?

Raymond swallowed the last of the Scotch in the glass, thinking he should have gotten better background information on the dancer’s relationship with Denato before jumping into this deal. Next time, he’d be more careful about accepting an assignment.

oOo

Brand stayed in the shadows under the trees, watching men crisscross the property, running around like rabid dogs. He wanted to stay and watch. No, that was only part of the truth. He wanted to stay because Tory was in there, and the thought of leaving her in the clutches of those bastards made his throat clog. Every werewolf instinct urged him to rush back to defend her. But the human brain inside the animal’s skull was better equipped to make decisions.

He knew he had to get back to his camp and make some plans. Too bad it was so far away. If he’d really known that he was coming to this place, he would have pitched his tent closer. On the other hand, if the camp were closer, the security staff might find it—and find him. Better to have some distance between them tonight.

Clouds had covered the moon, but he didn’t need moonlight to see. He moved through the woods with a wolf’s skill, all his senses sharp and probing. And always he was on the alert to make sure no man was following him. Earlier he’d taken a leisurely route, enjoying the forest and the hunt. This time he wanted to go directly back to his camp, but he forced himself to take a long detour through a stream, in case anyone was trying to follow him.

Then he was back on track, stopping just before he reached his tent, pausing in the shadows to make sure nobody was in the area before changing his form once more, wincing as the transformation hit the patch of skin that he’d torn as he’d wrenched himself under the fence. He pulled on his pants and carried his shirt inside. The change from wolf to man had made the wound bleed again. Getting out his first-aid kit, he put some antiseptic on the ripped places, then added a bandage which he could leave on only until his next change. But it would keep him from getting blood on his clothing.

After drinking from his water bottle, he lay down, thinking he would make plans for tomorrow. But the moment he got horizontal, he was transported back to the time when he’d been lying beside Tory in bed. He’d held her in his arms, kissed her, and longed to do a whole lot more. Now he felt his cock stiffen at the memory. It was tempting to go with the fantasy and take it to its logical conclusion. Instead he told himself he’d better focus on what he had to do tomorrow. It was too damn bad that the guard had stumbled on him inside the compound. Obviously the whole place was on alert now, and they were probably most interested in the spot where the large dog had clawed his way under the fence. The hole would be blocked up by now. And there would be extra patrols. But he’d have different considerations on his next visit. He’d tried to hide his presence because he couldn’t get Tory out immediately. When he left again, she was going with him, and it didn’t matter what he did to the guys who were in there guarding her.

He switched on his tablet and looked up Johnny Denato. The man was a big deal in the New York underworld, and Brand expected to see a detailed story about the murder in the New York Times. But there was nothing on the front page or any other page, as far as he could see.

It looked like someone had killed Denato and hushed it up—like it never even happened? Or what if everything Tory had told him was a lie? He didn’t want to believe it, but he should do some checking.