Sweetest Taboo (18 page)

She was breathing hard, looking deep into his eyes. “Only you,” he said.

“I know. God, Dallas, I've always known.”

“Put your legs around me,” he ordered, moving closer. He teased the tip of his cock against her pussy as she did, and he was so damned aroused he almost came right then. He held it back, though. He wanted—
needed
—to be inside her.

Slowly he entered her, watching the passion on her face as she tilted her head back. As her nipples peaked and her breathing became more and more shallow. She bit her lower lip and he knew that she was holding back a cry.

He pushed in more, and then more still when her legs tightened around his ass, urging him closer and closer until he was balls-deep inside of her, enveloped in the heaven of her wet heat.

“Make it hard, Dallas. Make me come.”

He didn't move a muscle, and she whimpered and squirmed in frustrated protest.

“Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

He slid his other arm around her waist, so that he was holding her steady with both hands. “Then let go of the post. Drop your legs from around me. Then lean back. Let your arms fall, too.”

“Dallas, no—”

“Yes.” The command in his voice was inescapable. “I want you to watch the stars, and I want to watch you. And I want to be the only thing keeping you from falling.”

“You already are,” she said, the deep sincerity in her voice filling his heart even as the heat on her face made his cock throb inside her. Slowly, she let go of the post and then leaned back so that only her ass was on the railing. The rest of her was laid out flat, kept from falling only by his hands on her back, and connected only by the length of his cock inside her.

She was his, all right. As surely as he belonged to her.

The thought filled him. Excited him. And he held tight to her waist as his hips moved, pounding a steady rhythm inside her, one that built in power and intensity as she cried out his name. As she gave herself entirely to him, trusting him to keep her safe as she floated under the wide expanse of stars.

“Dallas!” Her cry rent the night, and at the same time, her body clenched tight around him and she shook from the power of the orgasm that broke through her, giving him that final push into a wild oblivion. With a guttural cry, he exploded, filling her, holding her, loving her.

He pulled her back up to him, craving the feel of her skin against his chest and her mouth against his. She clung to him, her body still trembling as her legs once again wrapped around his hips, keeping them connected, so that there was nothing separating them. They were one in that moment. Whole. Complete. Perfect.

When she finally leaned back, he saw the fire in her eyes. “Wow,” she said, and he couldn't help but laugh with her.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Definitely wow.”

“So,” she said, trailing a fingertip down his chest. “Wanna go inside and go for round two?”

He was still inside her, and though he'd been soft, he felt himself get rock hard again.

She grinned at him. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess you do.”

With a laugh, he started toward the door, holding her tight against him, but the sharp, familiar ring of his phone made him freeze.

“Liam?” she asked as she slid down his body.

With a nod, he grabbed his phone off the table in front of the glider, then answered the call. “Tell me.”

“Her house is empty,” Liam said. “But there's no reason to think she knows we suspect her. Looks like she's just gone out of town and a chat with her gardener confirms that.”

“In that case,” Dallas said, “I think I have a way to draw her back home.”

I am the bait.

I know I'm safe and we're setting a trap and everything is under control, but I'm still nervous. And as our plane starts its descent toward JFK, I take another look at the text conversation on Dallas's phone:

Dallas did, of course. And now the plan is that he and I go back to New York as usual, get our luggage, head outside, and then when she pulls up to supposedly give me a ride, the team will swoop in and grab her.

It's risky in such a public place, but the guys have it planned out in such a way that, if everything goes right, Adele will be unconscious in seconds and Tony will drive her vehicle away right under everyone's noses.

Considering covert operations isn't my thing, I'm simply going to trust them. And cross my fingers very, very tightly.

Mostly, though, I'm going to leave the Adele side to the guys, because I know that I'm going to be mostly preoccupied with the crush of reporters and cameras.

And it turns out I'm right.

The madness begins the moment we hit baggage claim at JFK. Reporters with cameras and microphones get in our faces, trail us as we walk, and shout out everything from compliments to insults, all with the hopes of making us look in their direction so that they can get that perfect shot to sell to the tabloids or go viral on Instagram.

Before—in the pre-disinherited days—we'd have been met by one of the Sykes conglomerate's security guards who double as drivers. Usually someone big and burly who would keep the press away. Better yet, we would have flown in on one of the family's private jets and avoided the cameras altogether.

To be fair, in the past, I wouldn't have attracted much attention, if any. Wealth and a household name was hardly enough to maintain tabloid interest in me, and I usually flew under the radar unless I had a book out or lunch with a celebrity who really was Twitter worthy.

Dallas, of course, has always been a tabloid favorite, but he'd manufactured that persona and encouraged it.

We get our minimal luggage, and I hold tight to Dallas's hand as we keep our heads down and our sunglasses on. As if UV protection is sufficient to allow us to hide in plain sight.

The crowd is rowdy, shifting from simply photographing us to shouting insults, screaming that we're sinners, that it's Dallas's fault that poor dog is dead.

“You'll burn in hell!”

“Whore!”

“Dallas! Dallas! Do you think religious zealots sacrificed that dog?”

“Jane, give us a smile for the camera.”

I don't look—I keep my eyes focused on the floor—but when I hear the wail, I can't help but turn my head just quick enough to see a woman tumble to the ground, taking a reed-thin man with a camera down with her.

“Bitch!” the man yells as two burly security guards rush to pull him away before his fist smashes into her face.

They've completely drawn the focus away from us, and for that much at least I'm grateful. Even so, an unwelcome surge of panic rushes through me, and I just want Adele to pull up so that we can get this over with. But she doesn't. And doesn't.

And thirty minutes later she hasn't answered Dallas's texts or shown up.

“Any sign of her?” Dallas asks, talking with Liam on his phone. I lean close so that I can hear what they're saying.

“Nothing. Maybe she—wait. Noah found her. Patching him in.”

“Got her,” Noah says.

“Where? This terminal.”

“Across the goddamn Atlantic. She hopped a plane to London late yesterday. She must have gotten wind of the fact that we were scoping out her house.”

“And she just answered my texts from the goddamn UK.”

“There's more,” Noah says. “Get this, her seat mate was a guy named Christopher Brown. He's from Queens. And he owns a white cargo van.”

“They're running,” I say.

“Looks like it,” Dallas says, and then to Liam and Noah, “I'm getting Jane home. We need to talk to our parents today, but you guys find out everything you can about Brown and see if you can track the two of them in the UK. Give me a few hours and I'll check back in.”

I'm tense in the taxi home, not sure if it's good or bad that Adele is gone. I'm happy to have her in another country, but I'd rather have her behind bars. And on top of that, I'm guessing that the press is going to be just as crazy at our apartment, and I'm really not in the mood to deal.

But when we pull up in front of my building, I don't see any signs of paparazzi. I say a silent thank-you to the media gods who are, for once, protecting instead of pelting us with bolts of lightning.

My relief, however, is short lived, because the moment we step into the building, I see Bill waiting in the lobby. Bobby, one of the doormen, stands beside him, managing to look both official and embarrassed.

“Why are you here?” I ask, but it's Bobby who answers.

“He wanted to wait in your apartment, but that just wouldn't do. Not without a search warrant. Even being your ex-husband, Ms. Martin, I couldn't just let him in your apartment.”

“No,” I say slowly, dread growing inside me. “You couldn't.” I focus on Bill, who's standing now. And, I notice, his attention is on Dallas, not me.

“What's going on?” I pray my voice sounds normal.

He shifts his gaze to me, then lifts an eyebrow. “What's going on? Apparently a hell of a lot more than you bothered to tell me when we were married.”

My stomach twists as I realize that he learned about both my kidnapping and what happened between Dallas and me in that cell from the tabloids. “Bill, I'm so, so sorry. We—we should talk.”

“No,” he says harshly, then turns back to face Dallas. “You're the one I need to talk with right now.”

“All right,” Dallas said, sitting on the sofa and not bothering to offer Bill a chair. “You want to talk? Let's talk.”

Bill glanced toward the bedroom, where Jane had excused herself, but not before shooting Dallas a worried look. He'd simply brushed a kiss over her lips, certain he looked passably nonchalant.

But while he'd had years of practice camouflaging his nerves, that didn't change the fact that right now he
was
worried. What did Bill suspect? More to the point, what could Bill prove?

“I'd rather talk somewhere else. Do you have an office? Is there a common area in the building we can use?”

“It's a one-bedroom apartment, Bill. In case you missed the memo, Jane and I recently saw the tide turn in our fortunes. But have a seat.” Now he did gesture to the sofa. All things considered it probably made more sense to at least be cordial to the man. “We can talk here.”

“It's just that Jane…” He drifted off, glancing toward the closed bedroom door.

“Is that what this is about?” Dallas leaned back, purposely not crossing his arms over his chest. He wanted to look open, not closed off. And most definitely not defensive. “My relationship with Jane?”

“No. Well, yes, in a way. I just don't think that what I have to say is something you want her to overhear.”

“Bill, you're trying my patience. Whatever you have to say to me you can say to Jane.” No worry here. Nothing to hide at all. “So come on. What's got you so worked up you came all the way up from Washington to see me? Frankly, I don't think there's been a day in your life where I was the man at the top of your list. Except that one time. What was that, again?” He pulled a frown. “Oh, wait, I remember. When you decided to investigate my kidnapping against my wishes.”

“I remember that, too,” Bill said, still standing. “I wondered why you were so intent on blocking that investigation.”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you were fucking around in my life without my permission?”

“Possibly. Or it could be that you were afraid that investigating your kidnapping would lead down all sorts of strange rabbit holes.”

Dallas felt his stomach clench and told himself to just keep breathing. “If you're going to talk in riddles, Bill, you're going to have to come up with something cleverer. Or at least clearer.”

“You want clarity?” He took two steps forward. If Dallas had been standing, they would have been nose to nose. “How's this? I think you didn't want WORR or the FBI investigating because you were afraid we'd learn about Deliverance. How's that for some fucking clarity?”

“Deliverance?”
Shit, shit, goddamn motherfucking shit.
“You're talking about that vigilante organization that Jane's focusing on in her upcoming book? What the hell does that have to do with me?”

“A lot, I'm thinking. And if you've dragged Jane down into any of your sordid shit, Dallas, I swear to god I'll—”

“What?”
Dallas was on his feet, because as soon as Bill brought Jane into this, the gloves were off. “What the hell do you think I'm doing? And why the hell would you think I've dragged her anywhere?”

Bill actually laughed. “Are you kidding me? Do you think I haven't checked you out fully? Do you think I don't know who your real father is?”

“You son of a—”

“And then you stoop so low as to seduce your sister…”

“You have no idea what we are to each other.” He ground out each word, a vile anger bubbling inside him. “No idea how we saved each other.”

“I know you poisoned her,” Bill countered. “Not physically, maybe, but you destroyed her all the same.”

“No,” he said. “
No
. I saved her. And whether you understand it or not, she saved me.” He strode forward, getting in the other man's face. “She loves me, Bill, and that's what you can't stand. That you never really had her. That she was always mine, even when you called her wife.”

Bill blanched, but otherwise didn't falter. “Maybe so. Maybe she doesn't love me. But that's too bad, because she damn sure picked the wrong man. What is she going to do when you're locked away? Because you will be, Dallas. I've been asking questions. Lots of questions. And guess what? I'm starting to find answers, too.”

He took a step closer. “Think about that, Dallas.” His voice was low. Threatening. “Because I promise you—I damn sure will be.”