Sweet Seduction Stripped (5 page)

"Since when have you accepted bodyguard duty, Sal?" I asked, moving towards the elevator doors. If I acted as though he didn't scare the shit out of me, and pretended I had no reason to be concerned at all, then maybe the great big oaf, with fists the size of basketballs, wouldn't bother to rattle my cage.

Sala Lauofo, first generation Samoan New Zealander who liked to think he was part of some big gangster movie. Beady black eyes, crooked nose, tribal tattoos sneaking up a wide neck, long black hair tied back in a ponytail, oversized muscles and a very large skull. He was Jaxon's right hand man, and until tonight I hadn't considered just what exactly that would entail.

But knowing what I now knew, I was guessing he put those muscles and hands to nefarious practical use.

"You been a bad girl, Amber honey," he said, stepping into my path and blocking the entrance to the lifts. "Who the fuck was the prick at the pub?"

Oh God. He'd seen Ric. Ric and me. This was bad. Very fucking bad.

"What pub?" Yeah, that would work, Amber. Denial, all the way.

"The fuckin' Irish one,
kefe
!" Sala snarled. "Now," he added, getting a seriously malicious glint in his eyes. "We could work somfin' out, you and me."

I took a step back. He advanced with a knowing grin.

"I ain't seen you dance for a while, ballerina. Wanna show. Wrap those long legs around a pole for me and I'll forget all 'bout what I saw. No pub. No fuck touching Jaxon's girl. Noffin'. We got a deal?"

The arsehole. He'd jerk off to it too. Wouldn't touch me, if he could help it. Knew that would mean a death sentence for him. But subjugate me and get off on the performance? Yeah, he'd be more than willing to do that.

I scrambled to think of an alternative. To work out what would happen if I just told Jaxon that Eric was a friend and nothing else.

Argh! Who was I kidding? He'd explode. Even before I knew what he was capable of, Jaxon had been possessive.

I'd once been attracted to it. Now I saw the darkness his actions hid.

Slowly I nodded my head, my stomach churning, my eyes threatening to pool with tears, but I wouldn't let the fuck-knuckle know. I've danced in front of him before, of course. At the club. Not privately. This would be equivalent to a lap dance, though, except hands-off was a literal warning. If he touched me salaciously Jaxon would chop his hands right off, I was sure.

Probably his dick too.

With dawning realisation of how dreadful my life had become in such a short space of time, I led the way into the too small lift. Sala stared at my boobs the entire way.

"I want no top and that tiny glitter thong you used to wear," he growled as we crossed the threshold of the apartment.

"He'll kill you if he finds out," I hissed, placing my cellphone down on a side table just inside the lounge.

"He ain't gonna, though. Is he? 'Cause if he finds out 'bout our little arrangement, he'll find out 'bout lover boy at the pub."

"He was just a friend," I insisted.

"Ballerina," he said with a disgusted shake of his head. "Don't you get it yet? You don't got no friends. Not now you're Jaxon's." Fuck, he was right. And I'd been so blind. Letting Jaxon isolate me, losing touch with all my friends because he filled every part of my life. "But if you do me a solid show, I'll be your friend on the sly," he purred. "Keep my mouth shut, see?"

I'd never wanted to hold a gun before in my life, let alone fire one at a thug's head. Tonight was a night for firsts, it seemed.

How had everything changed so drastically, so irrevocably, so dangerously in such a short space of time? My world was spiralling out of control, my life on a crash course with disaster.

And all I could see, in the swirl of frightening colours to ground me, was green. Mesmerising, vibrant, sincere green. But I couldn't trust it just because the colour called to me. I couldn't trust anyone.

As I slipped out of my jeans and t-shirt, removed my bra and replaced my knickers with my dancing thong, then pushed my reluctant feet into six inch heels, I had never felt so alone before in my life.

This was where my choices had brought me. I was an exotic dancer and little else.

My degree meant nothing as the music started out in the lounge where Jaxon had placed a pole for me to dance around - just for him. My perfect picture recall and impressive computer hacking skills were pointless as I crossed the dimmed room and laid a bare, sweating hand against the cool metal of the pole. The love of my father and the values he'd taught me were useless right now, as Sala slowly undid his belt buckle, reaching inside his pants to what lay beneath.

I closed my eyes, shut down my senses, and pretended this was a night, like so many before it, on stage at the Champagne & Chandeliers Gentleman's Club.

Stripped back and laid bare in a way I had never been before, I felt the tears slowly trickle down my cheeks throughout the entire wretched and vile performance.

I didn't hang around when it was finished to see if Sala was pleased.

Experience had taught me that they always were.

The keyboard shattered under my too tight grip. As soon as I heard the crack of plastic I hurled the fucking thing across the room, making it disintegrate into a hundred different little pieces of high end tech.

I heard it all. Every fucking disgusting, foul word out of that... dead... man's... mouth. I flexed my fingers, checked the waistband of my jeans and pulled my gun. The sound of the chamber reloading filled the air as the music at Amber's apartment abruptly switched off.

"Good show, ballerina!" Sala Tuiloma so-fucking-dead Lauofo yelled. "I see you tomorrow, maybe we do a repeat."

The door clicked shut, I was guessing out in the hallway. Wherever Amber had laid her cellphone down - with the listening device I'd attached to it at the pub - was closer to the "show" than the entranceway where Lauofo had just escaped.

Escaped. Not for long, fucker!

"You done?" an amused voice sounded out behind me. "Or you wanna give the keyboard over there a run for its money as well?"

"Fuck off, Savill," I snarled.

"Dude, just sayin'. Quite a temper you got yourself there. Too long inside these four walls."

And that was unfortunately the God's honest truth. I had never wanted to get back out on the streets as much as I did right now. First stop: Lauofo. Next: Jaxon Fucking Harding and a bomb under C&C's floor.

"Shit!" I said with force.

"Girl knew what she was getting into bed with," Adam supplied.

"Did she? I'm not so sure," I muttered.

"Look. I get it. You feel like you know her. Fuck, three years talking it up on-line gotta be fucking with your head 'bout now. But she's a stripper, man. Sleeps with, nah,
lives
with a fucking psychopathic murderer. That little performance would have been routine. Besides, we only got ears in there, no eyes. Who's to say she wasn't smiling through the whole fucking thing."

I shook my head. Everything out of Savill's lips could be right.

My gut didn't buy it.

She'd looked so fucking fragile at that pub. So scared. So unsure. Why did she stop running? Why go back and put yourself through that degrading experience to...

To hide meeting me in a pub.

Ah, fuck it. This was all my fault. Amber just practically whored herself out to keep me a secret from Harding. And the girl didn't even realise that Lauofo had played her. Harding would be getting a call from his second about now.

"She's in trouble," I said into the strained silence of the room.

"Ya think?"

Fucking smart-arse.

I rubbed the back of my neck trying to figure this all out. She runs. She stops, takes a break in an Irish Pub. Then she returns. To that. Why?

I was missing something. Something I would find right now.

I moved to a new keyboard and pulled up her bank records, then went through them with a fine toothed comb. The withdrawal earlier tonight would have been Amber, about to run. I followed the transaction trail and came up with an electronic thread that led to... C&C Enterprises.

"He cleaned her out," I announced numbly, feeling Adam move to look over my shoulder. He whistled.

"Girl's broke. Still, I'd keep runnin' if I were her. She could make money anywhere with a body like that. Fuck, I'd definitely pay her."

I was up and out of my seat, hand fisted in Adam's shirt, his back thrust against the far wall in an instant. Both of us breathing too heavily.

"Don't," I growled. "Just. Fuck. Don't."

"All right, my man. Cool. All's cool." Hands up in the universal signal of surrender.

I slowly released my grasp and took a step back, still panting, hands now fisted at my sides. Adam took my stance in with a seemingly casual one of his own.

"All right," he said carefully. "So she needs our help."

Clever man. I nodded. It felt fucking stiff. In fact my entire body felt stiff and not in a good way.

I returned, my gait halting, to my seat in front of the screen I'd been using. Then after another slow breath in and out, continued down the bank statement.

Four months ago I hit something.

"Isn't that the hospice Eva's dad stayed in?" I said, pointing to the screen. Fuck knows what Adam had been doing, I'd blocked him out completely.

"Yeah, looks like it." He turned away and started twisting knobs on a short-wave radio in the corner. So old school.

"I think she's got someone there. Someone she can't leave behind."

"She been paying for their care?" Adam asked.

"Not recently."

"Maybe they're already dead."

I sighed, rubbed my eyes and tried to think.

"Dude, you goin' home any time soon, or am I here for nothin'?"

"Yeah. I need sleep."

"You need to get laid," Adam shot back.

Long legs, pouting curved lips and chocolate brown eyes stared back at me behind my closed lids. I groaned aloud, stood up and stretched to cover my reaction to that too fucking perfect vision inside my mind, and grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair.

"You know he won't hurt her," Adam said slowly, not looking up from the project he'd hauled inside here at the start of his shift.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, hesitating at the door. Jaxon Harding had only just come to our attention nine months ago. He was still predominantly an unknown player.

"Word is he worships her. Keeps her hidden most of the time. Pulled her from the stage to waitressing and then finally, when she earned her degree, hid her away in C&C's IT department. He's obsessed with keeping her for himself."

I knew all of this; until tonight in a detached way. We all did. Harding had been dissected in the past few weeks since we heard his name escalate on radar; his life, his loves, his interests. I just hadn't realised his interests crossed mine.

"Yeah, I know," I said after too long a gap.

"Just remindin' you," Adam murmured. "She could be the break we desperately need."

"Jesus, you too?"

I checked the screen, then unlocked the door, ready to step through and end this conversation.

"He won't let her go easily," Adam added, before I could make my escape.

"Yeah, well," I muttered. "He doesn't know me."

I caught the grin at the edges of Adam's lips, so slammed the door behind me before he could comment.

Exhausted, sick to my stomach at what Amber had been forced to do tonight, and utterly unable to get the look of panic on her sweet face out of my mind, I knew I wouldn't be sleeping. I slipped into my SUV, switched on some heavy metal and drove to Parnell.

Parking outside 104 Saint Stephen's Ave I waited for the familiar gleaming black Hummer, with chrome spinners on the low riding wheels, to pull into the garage beneath the building.

Once it did, I lasted ten minutes before I had to leave.

Knowing the fucking prick had made it to Amber's side, slipped beneath the sheets and joined her.

Knowing I wanted it to be me.

Sometimes this job just fucking sucked.

I felt the bed dip, my stomach went with it. My heart, on the other hand, ended up in my throat. A too familiar sensation this evening. I could smell him. He'd showered before he came to bed. Probably at the club before he left. Probably to hide the smell of the women on his skin, not the stench of cigars and alcohol as I'd assumed in the past.

Everything was different. Nothing was what I had thought.

I'd never loved him, the way I'd thought he'd loved me. But my heart was hurting all the same. A dull ache that combined with the utter fear I also felt left me slightly confused and adrift... and raw.

I'd liked the life we'd shared. The way he worshipped not only my body, but me. But what I thought I'd seen was not the truth. He'd played me so well. The realisation that I was a possession and nothing more was perhaps the hardest to take.

No, I'd be a pretty shallow person if that was the truth. The realisation that Jaxon had killed, was involved in the shipment of drugs, amongst other things,
that
is what's the hardest to take.

Dark, but also capable of such gentle care.

I'd thought he'd loved me. But a man who grins as he puts a bullet in a person's head isn't capable of love.

God, I felt sick.

"Baby, I know you're awake," he whispered into the dimness of the room, wrapping an arm around my waist, hauling me back against his stomach and chest, spooning me from behind.

I couldn't talk. If I talked, I'd vomit.

Silence for an infinite length of time, or so it seemed.

He could kill me, so easily. The muscles on his thick arms were rock hard, as though he was restraining himself from doing exactly that.

"I've been good to you, haven't I?" he murmured, his face nestling into the back of my hair, inhaling deeply. "I've taken good care of you, baby, I know I have." His hand smoothed down over my stomach, what little was inside churned. His too large palm laid flat over my pubic bone, not cupping me, but letting me know he could with a simple flex of his fingers. "I know what makes you scream my name," he growled. "I've spent hours learning this body, what makes it burn."

I'd stopped breathing. My vision had turned completely black. My heart fluttered uselessly inside my aching chest, like a dying bird beating its wings one final, futile time.

I could feel his erection pressing into my rear. I'd never felt true fear until this second.

"All I think about is being inside you, near you," he said, his lips finding skin down the side of my neck. "You drive me crazy. All night long I want to be here on this bed, balls deep in that so fucking sweet pussy. I'm consumed with the need to possess every part of you."

He knew. Sal must have told him. He felt threatened and he was going all caveman.

This would not end well.

I tried to find a place inside me that I could retreat to and hide. I tried to block out the sensation of his tongue on my skin licking, his teeth nibbling, the rock of hips against my butt. I couldn't. Oh, God. I couldn't. This was going to be bad.

"And you are mine, Amber," he growled, biting hard on my shoulder, making me cry out in pain involuntarily, then suck in a shuddering breath of air at the fact I'd made a sound at all.

Somehow I was sure if I remained silent this wouldn't be as bad as I thought.

"Baby," he soothed. "I'd never hurt you."

Liar. He was hurting me right now.

"I love you," he added, sucking on the skin behind my ear.

It would have lit me on fire in the past. It would have had me pushing back against all that silken hardness. It would have had me begging for more.

I just whimpered.

"You still sick?" he asked, shocking the ever loving crap out of me. "Baby?"

Did he not know? Had Sal kept his promise? Was this all over something else?

I was so fucking confused.

"Yeah," I managed finally, my words breathless, making him rub his arousal up against my body, a reaction to my low, inadvertently husky, voice.

"Baby," he moaned. "Fuck, I want you, but if you're still sick I won't push."

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. My hand came up to my mouth, covering the relief that wanted out on a scream.

He didn't know. He couldn't know. He wouldn't be this caring if he thought I'd tried to run or I'd met another man in a pub.

I was safe. As safe as I could be lying next to a murdering criminal. For now I was safe and my body, against my better judgement, relaxed.

"There, baby. That's it. You're so wound up, anyone would think you're hiding something from me."

And the fear and panic came back.

The sadistic bastard was playing with me.

He crushed my body against him, his hand flat on lower abdomen, pushing my butt cheeks against his erection.

"If you were, I'd have to punish you," he whispered, slowly rocking, as though threatening me was getting him off. "I don't want to punish my princess." Another soft kiss, another thrust of his hips. "But I will."

His hand moved from my belly and onto my hip, he pushed me onto my stomach, a position I had never before considered to be so heinous. Vulnerable, my back to the beast, I couldn't see what he was doing; one of his strong hands holding my body still at the top of my spine, just below my neck, the other had disappeared.

But the bed was rocking, a slow, steady rhythm that matched the increase in his breaths. Like Sala earlier, jerking off to my forced dance routine, Jaxon was doing the same to my fear.

Bile coated my tongue and I started to struggle. Panic making me lose all sight of my goals; to hide my knowledge and terror long enough to figure out how to move Dad, and then leave.

"Fight me, Amber," Jaxon growled. "It only turns me on more."

A sound of distress left me. If I'd needed proof that he wasn't the man I'd thought, this was it.

"Please," I whispered, but his now harsh breathing drowned out the words.

"Jaxon," I tried. Louder. Desperate. "Please don't."

He heard me. A low growl falling from his lips.

And then he was off the bed and storming to the ensuite bathroom, slamming the door behind him and leaving me... confused.

What the hell? He stopped? I'd wanted him to, but I hadn't thought he would.

I curled up into a little ball, eyes on the slim line of light I could see under the door to the bathroom, and just breathed.

Scared, so fucking scared, and now this. I didn't understand Jaxon. I couldn't work him out. He was one thing, and then he was another. The dark, evil, villainous side of him, mixed with controlled, gentle restraint.

I knew what he was capable of now. I almost expected it. But walking away right then, when he was obviously trying to punish me? It made no sense.

And the confusion just addled my brain.

I heard the shower come on. I waited for his return. But he took so long and I was so emotionally spent, that I eventually fell asleep. My dreams filled with dark shadows and hidden horrors, that I knew would jump out and get me, but they never did.

I woke to sunshine streaming in through the window and an empty bed.

Stunned I'd fallen asleep when so close to the enemy, I reached over blindly and felt Jaxon's side of the sheets, finding them cold. Had he not come to bed afterwards?

I didn't want to feel reassurance and gratitude that he'd stopped when I'd asked. He didn't deserve it. But my body was on a roller coaster of mixed and volatile emotions. Not exactly up one minute and down the next, but certainly on a high of relief one second and consumed by fright on the following dip.

I rolled out of bed and crossed to the ensuite, flicking the switch as I went inside. I noticed the mirror first. Cracked, right down the middle. Then as my eyes swung to the shower stall, I took in the missing tiles and blood stained grout.

I hadn't heard a thing. He'd railed on the bathroom in near silence, taking out his frustrations on inanimate objects and therefore not on me. I sagged against the vanity, hand pressed to chest, sucking back air. Closing my eyes I prayed to a God I'd abandoned when he let my mother die in a needless car crash. I wasn't sure I could keep doing this, and the dawning horror of forcing myself to leave my father to his plight made me feel ill.

The lid on the toilet made a thunderous banging sound as I forced it out of my way. So little in my stomach but somehow I still managed to puke the lot of it up into the bowl.

A warm hand on the back of my neck had me stilling. Soft words and a wet cloth on my forehead had my eyes filling with tears.

No. I couldn't keep doing this. His care, his loving touch. And a bathroom that needed remodelling.

"Baby," he purred. "Have you been to the doctors to have it confirmed?"

I shook my head.

"Too soon?" he asked, more aware of my dates than I was. Probably already calculated when he thought we'd managed to conceive as well.

I sat back, clutching the flannel to my head and watched him warily. He was dressed for the club already, and it couldn't have been much after eight. He leaned back against the cupboards and held my stare. His steady, unflappable pale blue gaze told me everything I needed to know.

I'm on to you
, it said.
I know what you did last night.

Then why hadn't he acted on it? Why that particular scene, and then retreat?

An unpredictable foe is a dangerous one. Jaxon was the epitome of danger.

"I want you in the club today," he suddenly said.

"The club?" I asked, dumbly. So unbalanced right now.

"I want to keep an eye on you." Oh, God. "Make sure you're all right if this vomiting continues."

Fucking hell. I couldn't tell if I was coming or going, and it was starting to make me shake. My whole body trembling, with fear and uncertainty, shock and anxiety, relief and confusion.

"I've gotta head out for a meeting, but I want you there by eleven o'clock," he added, starting to rise. "You'll make it, wont you, Amber?" Not really a question.

I nodded slowly, my eyes never leaving the steel-blue of his.

"Good girl. Got something I want to show you later." He smiled. It was a good smile. It brought out the flecks of lighter blue in his eyes, softened his hard jaw, made his whole features lift and brighten.

I hated that smile.

I forced one of my own back.

"My poor baby," he murmured, reaching down and cupping my chin. At first gently, then much harder, until I knew I would bruise. "Don't know which way's up, do you?"

I didn't move, even though in my mind I was shaking my head in agreement.

He leaned down, his expensive cologne washing over me, making my stomach contract and saliva to pool threateningly in my mouth.

"Let me make it easy for you," he said, voice hardening. "I own you, Amber Lane. I own this pretty face. This made-to-be-fucked-hard body. That addictive cunt. I own it all. And if you cross me, I will destroy every thing you hold dear. Understand?"

Tears pooled in my eyes. I nodded my head, my chin burning from his still too tight hold.

"Don't make me be this person," he whispered, his voice suddenly rough. "Be a good girl. Do what's right."

It was almost a plea. As though he hated who he was becoming. Well, that made two of us.

"I'll be there, Jax," I forced out.

"Baby," he said on a sigh, his eyes closing briefly, his grip finally loosening. "I love you so much."

Say it. Say it back, Amber. It's expected. Say it!

He held my gaze, a breath of air escaped my lips, and I rasped, "I love you, too."

"That's my girl." He stood up and walked towards the door, leaving me on the floor.

Then as he reached the threshold he stopped.

"Paid your dad's bill, baby. You don't need to worry about him."

He didn't look at me as he said it. He didn't growl it threateningly. But it was a threat. Plain and simple. Mentioning my dad again, reminding me why I couldn't run.

I waited for him to leave the bedroom, then waited another ten minutes more to be sure he'd truly gone.

Then curled up in a ball on the tiles of the ruined bathroom and bawled. Sobbed. Let my heart out all over the ceramic, left my sanity on that hard, cold floor.

I allowed myself ten minutes of self pity, then showered, dressed and headed out the door. Phoning the hospice on the way out of the garage, I checked on my dad, gave nothing of my turmoil away, and made sure the bill had been paid and he was momentarily safe.

Then I headed to High Street and Sweet Seduction Café.

I was living with the nightmare, how much worse could Eric Shaw be?

I needed help. Desperately. I needed an answer and I had
nowhere
to turn.

Just three years of casual conversation through the type written word. I had to trust Eric wouldn't have put that kind of effort into a cover. Surely? I had to trust the man I'd
seen
on that screen. If I see it, I remember it. In every exacting detail.