Take a Chance (15 page)

“
Bastard.” Whispered, but
loud enough for his ears. She hoped. He had the audacity to laugh,
proving the point of his parentage.

“
I’d planned for us to stay
awhile, but I think you’d be better off at home.”

She sucked in a breath, a fear of being alone
catching her unaware. Screw it. She’d lived alone for over a year
and liked it that way. She didn’t plan on giving up her house and
she refused to let a few strange incidents take away her personal
freedom.

Derek and Mark flanked her while Steve
explained what had happened to her this morning. The men, all three
of them, weren’t impressed with the situation. Derek and Mark both
offered help, and Derek insisted on walking out to Steve’s truck
with them, saying something about an extra set of eyes never
hurting.

“
I’m sorry I ruined your
evening,” she told him after her head cleared. She hated the way
all this drama made her body not her own, and she hated
disappointing Steve.

“
Don’t worry about the club.
It’ll be there for a long time, waiting for us to play
again.”

“
You’ll take me there
again?”

His head turned to her for a minute, then
flipped back to the dark road. “Of course. I thought you understood
my claim on you.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
That collar around your
throat. It means you belong to me for as long as you wear
it.”

“
Are we talking ownership?”
This wasn’t sounding like a regular dating situation at all. Sure,
he was amazing in a wild kind of way, but possession?

His hand covered hers on her lap. “Dena. This
is who I am. I explained my way of dating on our first date. Do you
want to be free of me? Say the word and I’ll release you.”

Well, shit-heck-darn. She didn’t want him to
drop her but the thought of belonging to him was more than scary.
Great sex shouldn’t come with whips and paddles and an
audience.

However.

Past experience had shown her that good sex
was a rarity.

“
Do you plan to spank me all
the time? If I stay with you?” It never hurt to be prepared before
you committed-something her mother taught her long ago.

“
I’ll manage your behavior
as I need to, and if you object to your treatment, you can always
use your safe word.”

Her heart stuttered with the mention of that
word. Did it mean the end of the relationship if she used it, or
something else. “Tell me about what happens if I use my word.”

“
Everything
stops.”

“
Everything?”

Steve sighed, like he was talking with a
recalcitrant child. “Yes. But you should only use it when you can’t
take any more of whatever we’re doing.” He patted her hand. “I’ll
push your limits, and you might feel overwhelmed or uncomfortable.
That’s where trust comes in. You need to trust me to take care of
you without hurt-mental, emotional, or physical. The safe word is
for times that you are hurting to the point you can’t handle it or
if you’re truly scared.”

“
And that ends our
relationship.”

The truck whipped into an empty parking lot
and came to a complete stop with a curse hanging in the air. “No.
Fuck, no.”

He popped his seatbelt and leaned across the
cab, his face inches from hers, his breath fanning her chin. “You
can’t get rid of me that easily, doll. Safe word stops the action
of the moment. Ending a relationship in the lifestyle is just like
in any other situation.” His head tipped until his forehead touched
hers. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me? That you want out of
this?”

Oh, God. This was not a conversation she was
prepared for. With no idea how he really felt, even when it seemed
he cared, she was unsure. Her brain, in fact, was scared to the
point of shutting down. Even as she analyzed and rationalized, her
heart wasn’t willing to give up the way he made her feel.

“
No. I just want to be sure
what’s happening between us. I’m out of my comfort zone on this,
Steve. I don’t know all the rules yet.”

His mouth brushed across hers and anything
else she might’ve said slipped into the wind with the truck’s air
conditioner. She reached for more, but they were already back on
the road, flying home.

His home, which made her feel cherished and
protected. And a spear of excitement danced down her body at what
he had in mind when they arrived.

Chapter 16

The alarm blared and he slapped it off,
thought about throwing the damn thing across the room, but pulled
the pillow over his head instead. Sleep had been fitful and
elusive, his mind racing to find a solution to his money problems.
The deadline for payment was coming up fast and if he didn’t have
something to give his private banker, he’d be dead. And that was
the good option. He’d never been late with a payment to this guy,
but he knew a few who had. It wasn’t pretty.

The smell of stale coffee met him at the
bedroom door. Lloyd was crashed on the sofa, the laptop on the
coffee table cycling a screensaver of shifting stars. They’d been
up most of the night trying to figure out what code the Lindsay
bitch used to create her passwords. If they could get into her
brokerage files, they could make a quick million in the market and
disappear before anyone accused them of insider trading.

But the damn bitch was either highly
intelligent or a damn fool with a paper file as a key to the
passwords.

Nothing they did got them past the login on
any of the three companies he needed. And he needed it three days
ago. From what he’d overheard from his uncle, one of his inner
circle of friends had a big merger pending, followed by a stock
split that would make every investor a butt load of money. All
three had accounts at Lindsay & Associates. With just enough
money squirreled away to invest, he was going to finally get out of
debt and live high on his own.

Hence the robbery and all the man-hours
hunched over computers with nothing forthcoming.

Approaching the girl at the scene of the
wreck was a spontaneous opportunity gone wrong, since she now knew
what he looked like. Last night proved him a first class idiot.
He’d seen Gladston walk away with her at the wreck and should’ve
stayed out of Private Delights, but he couldn’t resist the lure of
the club and the fuck bunnies he wanted to whip into submission.
Another desire the bitch took away from him.

“
Rise and shine, dumbass. We
need to get in today, or we’re both dead.”

“
Huh?” Lloyd pushed into a
sitting position and rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean, dead? What
have you done, Ethan?”

“
My money man wants to be
paid tomorrow. If I go down, so do you.”

“
I didn’t get into this to
pay off your loan shark. That wasn’t the deal you offered
me.”

Ethan rinsed out the coffee pot and started
fresh. “Deals change. Don’t screw with me, just get the job
done.”

“
How much do you owe the
guy?”

Ethan turned to face his co-conspirator and
leaned on the counter. “Too damn much to talk about. Are you any
closer to figuring out the passwords?”

“
No. I can’t find any
combination to open the file marked passwords, and I’ve tried a few
other files, too, on the off chance that file’s a dummy. I built a
randomizer to come up with possible logins, but it’s going to take
a while to finish combing through all the data.” Lloyd looked at
his watch and rose. “Man, I’ve got to get to work. Leave the laptop
running and I’ll come back at five to check the results.” He was
out the door before Ethan could stop him, feet flying like the
devil was behind him.

The apartment door shut with a thud and Ethan
poured a cup of coffee. A few sips cleared a little of the fog and
he went over to look at the program on Lloyd’s laptop. Data was
flowing, but he had no idea what it meant. He opened his own
computer and checked in with the world. He had a date with Sara
much later, and he needed to make arrangements. No way he’d bring
her here. No, for this little rendezvous he needed a place out and
away from town, where no one knew him and he could pay in cash.
He’d missed the fun last night, but tonight he’d take all he
wanted.

At exactly seven, he knocked on Sara’s door.
She looked great in a black dress and heels that made her ass move
when she walked, just what he liked in a woman. “How do you feel
about Italian food?” he asked, helping her into the compact rental
he’d picked up for the night, courtesy of a friend who owed him a
few bucks. He’d chosen a restaurant known for good food, one that
didn’t take reservations and was usually busy. They waited twenty
minutes before a small table in the back opened up. With customers
knee deep at the bar, conversation was close to impossible, which
was just what he wanted.

He was socially obligated to feed the woman
before he banged her, so he did. It was the only rule his mother
forced him to follow once his uncle took over his education. He
ordered two glasses of wine and waited until she left to go to the
restroom to drop the pill into the red-tinged glass. His good time
was a sure thing tonight and she’d remember nothing.

Fuck her memory of him. If Lloyd’s program
didn’t come up with a usable password by morning, Ethan was giving
serious thought to getting on a plane and getting well out of town.
He didn’t have enough money to start over, but he had enough info
about his cousin to work a blackmail scheme of his own. Might be
worth investigating.

In two days, maybe three, he could be good
and gone. If he kept his money man off his ass that long.

Ethan watched Sara wend her way through the
crowd, her curly blond hair down her back, a smile on her lips. In
his mind he could already see her on her knees. He’d hold her in
place with a handful of her hair wrapped around his knuckles while
she sucked him off. He smiled back at her when she sat across from
him. Yeah, he was looking forward to the after dinner part of the
date.

Lifting his glass, he proposed a toast and,
of course, she joined him in a long drink of the wine. Their
appetizer arrived and he nibbled while she made conversation
instead of going for the food. With some encouragement and a
discussion of the wine, he had her drinking steadily. Between the
alcohol and the sweet pill, she was giddy and playful by the time
they got back in the car.

She didn’t even notice the rundown hotel on
the edge of town. Or the handcuffs strategically placed over the
headboard.

She was wet and ready when the phone rang and
he cursed a blue streak when he heard the ringtone. Not wise to let
it go to voicemail. He slipped a wadded bandana into her mouth and
opened the connection. “I told you it’d be next week.”

“
Not good enough. And don’t
leave me messages. You want to negotiate, speak to me in person or
from the grave.”

“
I don’t have it yet, but I
will. Soon, I promise.” Fucking bloodsucker loan shark would have
to wait until he scored. “I’m working on it.”

The man growled another threat and Ethan
flinched. A long painful death spread over several days didn’t
sound like fun. “I’ll get it to you. Soon. I promise.”

“
Two days. After that, you
owe double.”

The connection closed and Ethan dropped the
cell on the crappy nightstand. The girl on the bed moaned and
squirmed, the medicine doing its job, but he walked away, thinking.
There was no way he could come up with twenty-five thousand in two
days, not even half of that. He didn’t fucking have enough to skip
town, just maybe eight hundred in his account. A hum brought him
out of his head and he looked down.

Her purse was open on the chair, her cell
bright and vibrating with a call. He waited for the message to drop
before he picked it up. Nice phone, lots of memory. All kinds of
apps.

One marked ‘specials’ caught his eye. When he
opened it, there were a series of number/letter combinations.
Passwords. When he scrolled down to the bottom of the file, passing
a shitload of white space, he found a list of bank names.

For a rich college student, she wasn’t very
bright.

He checked over his shoulder and found her
just as he’d left her, arms over her head and tied to the
headboard, a gag in her mouth, legs splayed and waiting for
him.

An idea rolled in, a crazy stupid idea that
just might work all the way around if he played it right. It was a
long shot, but he liked to gamble. Besides, if it didn’t go well,
he’d be dead and if he didn’t at least try, he’d be dead.

Might as well jump in with both feet and play
it to the end.

Shit. He could do both and no one would be
the wiser. Fun first, and collect the cash after.

* * * *

Dena stretched her neck and shoulder muscles
and resettled on the pillow, her body warmed from the back. Steve’s
hand made a lazy pass across her hip and over to her belly, heat
flowing along the path. Sharing a bed was much more than she’d
imagined, even with the restraints.

Steve used only the best, the softest wrist
cuffs, and she appreciated his concern for her. Three consecutive
days and nights sleeping, or not, in his bed made her more than
appreciate his care. She’d never been more pampered.

“
Ready to get up,
sweetheart?”

Hard to decide, since other things were hard
and reminded her of what they’d done before sleep took them.

“
Maybe.”

He hummed and a wet tongue caressed the skin
below her ear. “Not an answer.”