SHE DIDN’T WANT to sleep but couldn’t sit still. Strat was on a stool, back to the bar, twisting left to right, following her progress, pacing up and down the living room.
Hundreds of people on the floor below danced their time away without a care in the world. Damn did she envy them.
She’d thought getting the info was difficult. That telling Lachlan was stressful. Those were nothing to how she worried in the silence.
Until Connel walked in, until she laid eyes on him, she wouldn’t relax. Anything could happen. What if Lachlan got there quickly? Had the McDade posse been in the hotel already? She didn’t want them arrested on her tip.
A door slammed and she stopped, fixated on the stairs.
Connel came jogging into view.
Without even looking at her, he strode across the room. “Out,” he said to Strat as he rounded the bar.
Strat looked at her as he rose. If she asked him to stay, he would. With a slight nod, she gave him the silent go. Connel was pissed. No doubt. He might kick her out, but he wouldn’t hurt her.
Her bodyguard disappeared down the stairs.
Connel slammed a glass on the counter and poured out some liquor.
“You’re pissed,” she said, going to the bar. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell him. He called and was trying to find—this was about saving lives.” He drank. “Evander’s bringing women into the city. Trafficking women. He’s the cop’s only hope of finding them. They have to question him, to save these women. To free them, the cops have to find them.”
The glass hit the bar again. Hard. His eyes tapered, their depth darkening, zeroing in on her.
His hand disappeared into his inside pocket and then a cellphone was at his ear. “Manzani’s Russian dolls, where are they?” He paused, hung up, and dropped the phone by his drink. “Amber Corner, Rector Base, third floor.”
Damn. How had he…? Maybe she should’ve thought about asking him.
“Just like that you can…” On an exhale, she got it. “You know things.”
“I know things,” he said and drank the last of the liquor.
After slamming the glass down, he came around to snatch her wrist and dragged her to the bedroom. He swung her around, throwing her down on the bed.
In her recovery, sweeping her hair from her face, he whipped his belt from its loops to snap it loud. The sound cracked in her gut, hollowing her out to make way for need.
“Is this how we argue?” she asked, rising on her knees.
“No arguing. We have a deal. You do what you’re told,” he said, throwing the belt aside to unbutton his shirt. “Lose it.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Moisture rushed her throat; need overtook caution. Do as she was told. That was the deal, and, fuck, if she didn’t love being reminded. Unzipping, she lost her dress and bra as she walked down the bed on her knees.
This wasn’t like any other fight with a partner. Usually, she’d expect yelling. Anger. Sneers, insults, and backbiting. Where was the fear? The regret? Resentment, contrition, none of her emotions were negative, despite him vibrating with disapproval.
He jerked his shirt off his shoulders one at a time to throw it aside while she worked on his pants. The moment they were loose, he grabbed her jaw to haul her attention up.
“You are a subordinate, you exist beneath me, under me,” he growled. “Don’t think. Don’t make decisions. Your life is mine. You are mine. McDade property on my terms. My limits. You obey. Yield. Surrender. You don’t resist. You don’t get in my way. Your job is to support me. Say it.”
He loosened his grip just enough to let her speak. “My job is to support you.”
His ace? The video. The tool trapping her in his bed. Or was it? The recording didn’t explain why her hand slipped into his pants of its own freewill. Already full, his cock wanted to play, even if the ferocity burning from his gaze said otherwise.
Balling his fist in her hair, he bowed to get in her face. “Suck it,” he said, releasing her jaw, forcing her head down.
That was it. The order she’d anticipated. As a sharp spasm of excitement burst through her pussy, her hungry mouth sought his dick.
She hadn’t meant to disobey or embarrass him. His approval meant something. He’d been out there, in part, defending her, and she’d ruined his plan in the most intrusive way.
Shit, she wanted to please him. Wanted to apologize with the physical he understood. Except he didn’t fit in her throat, simple as that. She tried and failed. Tried and failed. Sucking and licking, working her hand up and down his shaft, she tried desperately to satisfy him. Peeking up, the elevated angle of his chin hid his expression. Did he want her? Enjoy her efforts? His pelvis moved, pushing himself deeper as his constricted hand forced her closer.
On his first real thrust, she gagged. He didn’t slow or stop; it was on her to breathe. To learn him, to find the rhythm. The sting of his tightened fingers in her hair shot all the way to her temples. Fuck, it felt good. He felt good. The speed, how his first hand joined the second and his pace picked up.
On a curse, he pulled her away, freeing her mouth to flip her onto her back. He dropped to his knees and, with one tug, brought her head off the edge of the bed. She’d never performed for a guy that way before, upside down. He ran the head of his dick across her lips, coating her in the need seeping from him.
“Open,” he snarled, grabbing her breast when her jaw loosened.
Feeding her his cock, he pushed, hard, fast, right into her throat. It was panic, no breath, pain, then… that fullness slipped away and she immediately wanted it back. He granted her wish and drove into her, his thrusts quick but deep. Every time he pushed in to the hilt, his balls squashed against her, blocking her nose. Breathing needed to match the tempo, which she only just got a moment before he fired into her, shooting his desire so deep, she almost choked when he withdrew.
Her labored breathing slowed but stayed intense. He’d just… they’d just…
What the fuck was that?
“Good girl,” he murmured as he rose to go into the bathroom.
Her pussy tingled, and she lay there, looking into the bedroom, upside down, focused on nothing.
Running her hands across her breasts, she closed her eyes, considering whether she should touch herself or hope he’d come back to finish the job.
“Up.” When she opened her eyes and raised her head, he was standing by the side of the bed. “Up.”
“We’re done?” she asked, struggling to sit.
“Go wash up.”
At something of a loss, she went to get ready for bed, brushing her teeth and washing her face.
In the closet, she checked through the clothes Dasha bought. “Dasha didn’t bring me anything to sleep in,” she said, peeking into the bedroom. “Can I borrow a shirt?”
He was already lying down, the sheet draped across his hips. “No. You sleep naked in my bed.”
Okay, or that was an option. Was Dasha under specific instructions to accommodate that wish?
Switching off the closet light, she went to the bed, skimming a leg across him to straddle his hips. “Still pissed?” she asked, opening her hands on his stomach.
“Cops will have him all weekend,” he said, his fingers locked behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I won’t get near him until next week.”
That was a yes. Still pissed.
“Do you understand why I told Lachlan?”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “You have a problem? You bring it to me. That’s my job. To fix it.”
“I don’t have your number,” she said, stroking him. “Which reminds me…”
When she raised a leg, intending to climb off him, he caught her knee to push it back down. “I didn’t give you permission to leave.”
“My phone is downstairs,” she said. “I need it.”
“Why?”
“I want to put your number in it, and because my brother’s going to call. My brother’s a cop, remember? If I don’t pick up, he’ll have his guys ping my phone and come find me. He already thinks I’m sleeping with Evander. Can you imagine how he’d feel when this address came up?”
“Go get my phone.”
Uh, okay… Being naked, tiptoeing across the living room to get his phone from the bar was a little nerve-wracking. If she was out there anyway, she could just hurry down the stairs to grab hers, but she was already on thin ice and didn’t want to push him by taking initiative.
She took his device back to the bedroom, putting it in his hand as she climbed over him to her side of the bed.
“Why do you need it?” she asked, but he was already on a call.
“Bluebell’s phone is in the office,” he said into his. “Put the secondary number in and chip it. And get someone to tip—yeah.”
He hung up and tossed the phone to his nightstand before putting his hands behind his head again.
“My phone needs to be chipped?” she asked, on her side, admiring his profile. “What does that mean?”
“Makes it untraceable,” he said. “By outside agencies.”
“Outside?”
“I’ll still be able to find you.”
“That’s fine. I’m used to abandoning my phone when I want to go off radar anyway. My dad started tracking me long before Evander did.”
His jaw twitched. “Don’t say his name.”
“Were you at the hotel? Did he know you were there?”
“No,” he said. “He’ll know your brother was though.”
“So he’ll be pissed at me,” she said, curling her arm beneath the pillow. That was going to happen either way. “Saved him learning about us. I don’t blame you if you want to wash your hands of me.”
“He’ll have bigger things to worry about when they cut him loose.”
“He will? Like what?”
“That shipment was his,” he said. “Not part of his father’s agenda.”
“Oh,” she said, wriggling closer. “That’s a bonehead move. His father is the head of the family. Silvio is not a guy anyone should mess with.”
“Have you met him?”
“Silvio? No, not in the flesh,” she said, smiling when his hand left his head to seek hers. He didn’t look at her, just took her hand to flatten it on his chest, his heavy on top. “We write sometimes.”
“Write?” he asked, adjusting his head to meet her eye. “You write to Silvio Manzani?”
“He wasn’t a fan of my article.”
“He threatened you?”
“He’s too smart for that,” she said, opening her fingers so his could sink between them. “I wrote to Helios too; we’ve had a back and forth for a while.” Few people knew about her connection to Vex’s incarcerated older brother, Helios “Hell” Manzani. And, yes, if the stories were true, he lived up to the title. “Didn’t Silvio Manzani and your dad used to be close?”
“The families were allies back in those days,” he said, his focus returning to the ceiling. “United against others. Silvio was closer to my uncle.”
“Your uncle worked under your father in the Midwest operation.”
Another head shift. This time he was frowning. “And?”
“Burl ran things on the east coast, right? You had to strengthen ties there yourself after… everything.” His frown deepened. “Do you still talk to Burl?”
“Planning another article?”
“Sort of,” she said. Before he could shift away, she rested her chin on his chest. “It would give us cover.”
“Cover?”
“For being around each other. If anyone asks questions, I can tell them I’m writing a story on the McDades.”
“Anyone asks questions, you call me.”
Except she wouldn’t do that with her family and Steeple.
“Steeple will worry about me,” she said. “He checks in with his people and wanted me to write a follow up on the Manzani exposé. If I’m going to miss meetings and be off the grid, I have to give him a reason for shadowing you or he’ll worry.”
“Print one word about me, my family, or my operations, he’ll have reason to worry.”
Although that was a poorly veiled threat, she slid a leg across him to straddle him again. This time, she bowed to join their lips for a brief kiss.
“Trust… Aren’t we building that?”
“McDades have been in the press enough.”
“The trial,” she murmured, kissing him. “Burl’s conviction, Biz’s—”
Grabbing her upper arms, he flipped them over, putting himself on top. “Think you can fuck with me? Think I’ll fall for that shit? Betray me and I won’t hesitate to open your pretty throat ear to ear.”
“I was worried about you,” she confessed, relaxing even as his grip tightened and his glare darkened. “Even after you knew the cops were on their way, I was scared you’d be caught up in it.”
“You could’ve let us walk into that. Got all of us in one net.”
Which hadn’t occurred to her for a second. “I don’t want the cops to have you,” she said, raising her head to seek his lips, though he jerked out of the way. “I can’t go twenty-five to life without feeling you inside me… Conn…”
“Fuck,” he hissed, his mouth swooping down onto hers.
Raising her arms, he pinned them above her head, holding her down as his tongue plunged deeper.
What was she doing? This wasn’t smart. Her honesty with him… Her feelings. He had every reason not to trust her. Yet he’d shared privileged information. If she revealed that to her brother or her father, to anyone else, Connel McDade would be in serious trouble.
Still, it wasn’t tempting. He had the tape, the ability to ruin her. Leverage. Tit for tat. Everything about them and their lives contrasted, but as his hand insinuated itself between them to play with her pussy, she was ready to give him anything he wanted.