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April’s insides did a jig. She’d imagined this moment—wondering how it would feel to have Nat’s hand on her backside. Not like this though. She put out her hand to ward him off. “You’re angry. I don’t want you to touch me like that when you’re angry,” she replied, panicking.
Nat grabbed her hand and pulled her into his broad chest. “Oh, I’m not angry, my hot little mess. I’m frustrated, disappointed, hurt, and determined that you’re going to know exactly what I think about you running away from me, but I’m not angry.”
He sat down on her father’s desk and hauled her across his hard left thigh. “Do you have any idea how I felt when you just vanished?” His hand whipped down the calf-length tights and the pink scrapes beneath them to her knees.
April’s mind latched onto hurt. Had she actually hurt him? She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Her hands gripped the edge of the desk, her bottom wiggling as she tried to scoot away from him. “I-I never meant to hurt you,” she stammered.
Nat squeezed her buttocks with his right hand and gripped her hip with his left. “Well, you did,” he scolded as he began peppering her plump mounds with stinging slaps.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she replied frantically. It felt like red ants were crawling all over her butt and biting her with their fiery venom. “I didn’t intend to stay away, I was coming back.” She lifted her feet off the floor under the insistent barrage that just got hotter.
He paused for a moment. “When, exactly, did you plan to come back?”
He began rubbing her bottom and April arched into this new sensation. Now this she could get used to, it felt wonderful. “When I was finished,” she explained awkwardly, realizing how that must sound. Murder investigations could take years. She hadn’t thought that out very well, she realized. In fact, she probably hadn’t thought any of it out very well; she’d been running on adrenaline and anger for months. It had given her the impetus to ignore the feelings developing between her and Nat and put them on a back burner somewhere to just simmer until she was ready to turn up the heat. That hadn’t been very fair to him, she realized with a deep pang of regret.
Nat grunted. “We’ll come back to that. I realize now that you interfering with my investigation at Christmas time probably came naturally, given your background, but I still promised you a spanking for doing that. “Oliver spanked Marsha, so you deserve yours as well.”
April couldn’t argue with that because getting involved with Marsha Pierson, now married to Nat’s best friend Oliver Tremaine, was how she’d met Nat to begin with. “It was karma,” she gasped. “We were obviously meant to meet, so I deserve a break for that.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” he thundered behind her. When his right leg came over one of hers, she knew the worst was about to begin. She’d watched several spankings at the BDSM club in Boston so she wasn’t a novice. None of what she’d seen had been applied to her own behind though.
This was different!
“Nat, please, I-I’ve never been spanked before,” she cried out desperately as he tugged her in closer. Now that her fantasy was becoming a reality, she was scared. All her senses were heightened. The smell of the furniture polish seared into her nose, the sound of a car horn blaring somewhere outside filtered to her ears, and the taste of Nat on her mouth was intoxicating. She wanted to beg him to stop, but she also wanted him to continue. Confusion reigned supreme.
His large palm moved down one thigh and back up the other side, caressing and exploring. “So beautiful, and yet so naughty. You deserve every spank you’re going to get.”
His thigh was hard beneath her stomach. April adjusted her free foot outward to give her better balance. It left her feeling terribly exposed though and she blushed at the thought of his view. Gulping when his hand left her bottom, she squealed when it contacted her flesh again in a hard, burning swat that left her gasping.
The feelings in her daydreams were a direct contradiction to the hot lava he was basting her ass with. “No, no I don’t deserve...ouch...I was helping you...oh...Nat, stop! Please?” She begged shamefully. A small part of her was embarrassed at the fuss she was making, but honestly, she hadn’t expected it to hurt like this. How did those dungeon subs take it?
One measured spank at a time, Nat rained down punishment that had her burning and writhing in his hold. While he spanked, he lectured about how dangerous it was to get into the middle of a police investigation, then moved on to how dangerous it was to hack into restricted files, and how it could get you killed or arrested.
So many feelings assailed April. Guilt for hurting him, anger for his thinking he had the right to punish her, regret for the time they’d missed being together. It all swirled in her mind and left her sobbing so hard she didn’t even realize he’d stopped until she felt his palm soothing her fiery nates.
April had apologized every way she could think of and made promises she knew she’d never keep, but nothing had deterred his punishing hand. Either she was a complete baby, or she didn’t get the same spanking the subs at the dungeon received. They seemed to enjoy being spanked, but she hadn’t enjoyed this one little bit.
“Are...are we done?” she croaked out, glancing back at him.
His gaze was soft as he caught her eyes. “You took your punishment fairly well,” he replied with a nod, beaming at her. “I’m proud of you.”
April sniffled. His praise did make her feel better, even proud of herself, although she knew he was lying. She’d been a colossal whiner. In fact, she was feeling a whole lot better with the things his hand was doing to her lady parts between her legs. She moaned softly when one of his fingers entered her wet channel and then slid up to the bud at the very core of her body. She arched her back, whimpering with a sudden raging need. “Nat,” she breathed huskily. Something was poking into her side and she realized it was him, hard as a rock and demanding attention.
“Promise me you’ll never disappear from my life without warning again,” he suddenly growled above her.
April was on fire with need. Her hips bucked up, begging him to complete her without her saying a word.
“Oh no, my hot little mess,” he said fiercely. “You don’t get what you want until you promise me.”
“T-that’s not fair,” she protested, her voice hoarse with desire. “I-I can’t promise you that, Nat.”
His fingers pinched her button, nearly sending her over the edge. “Are you sure about that?”
She panted, her body reaching, stretching for that fulfillment that was just a stroke or two away. She banged her fist on his thigh. “Will you believe me when I tell you my father was murdered?” she countered, glaring back at him.
“If you say he was, then I believe you, honey,” he replied seriously. “But I’m also a realist, I deal in facts and evidence. I need to see some of that.”
April gritted her teeth and choked back a sob. “If you’ll promise to either help me or stay out of my way, then I’ll promise not to just disappear. But don’t try to stop me, Nat. I will find out the truth, or die trying.”
Nat slapped her rear hard. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he snapped. “I won’t let you die.”
“Then help me,” she shouted back at him.
They glared at each other, neither wanting to give in until finally Nat sighed. “No more searching under your dad’s old alias,” he ordered sternly, easing his fingers into her slick wetness once again. “And you follow my lead.”
“No more searches under the wind,” she promised with a gasp. She didn’t tell him she’d already changed her handle to kickasstornado.
“And you’ll follow my lead?”
“I’ll listen to what you have to say,” she amended, “but that’s the best you’re going to get.”
His little mess was going to be harder to tame than he’d originally planned, but that was okay. Nat finally nodded in agreement, his eyes gleaming down at her.
Coherent thought went out of April’s head as Nat delivered the reward that took her rocketing into space and floating gently back to the ground. The ground being his lap on her dad’s old lumpy sofa where he’d moved with her.
***
NAT HELD HIS PRIZE tightly. He wouldn’t put it past her to slip out again and vanish into the darkness if he so much as went to the bathroom.
Yes, he’d wrung a promise from her sweet lips, but how much did it really mean? She was a mercurial personality, elusive and quick to disappear, just like the wind itself. There had been several times over the last 7 months that he’d thought she was nearby. A whiff of her warm, sultry perfume would catch him unaware and he’d be whipping around to identify its source.
She was never there.
Or if she was, he hadn’t recognized her. Of course, then he hadn’t known she was an expert in disguises.
He’d loved her scent from the moment he’d met her. Normally he didn’t ask women what perfume they were wearing, but he’d had to ask. It was called Anomaly, she’d told him, and he’d be damned if he hadn’t looked it up. It had been described as sweet, powdery, and delicately floral. A sophisticated, sultry scent for young professionals. It made perfect sense, naturally. In a moment of weakness, he’d ordered a bottle to the tune of 160.00—and that was a small bottle. Oliver would never let him live it down if he’d known about it either.
His hungry gaze swept her supine form, from the slope of her bare hip to the curve of her cheeks where a tear trail lingered. They may not have made love yet, but he was fast claiming her for his own. His body ached to take her right here and right now, but there was too much at stake to get distracted. Once he had a taste of her, that’s all he’d be able to think about and he had to concentrate on keeping her alive.
Briefly his mind flickered back to the note he’d found pinned to the windshield beneath the windshield wiper of the little red Honda parked on the street in front of the building outside. The note had been printed in black magic marker.
You should not have come back.
That note was interesting. Who knew she was back? Had she been home, or anywhere else for that matter, before she’d come to the offices? Who had she seen since she’d been here?
This office building was off the beaten path of the main streets, so there were no cameras that he could see. He had a million questions for her and keeping her safe had to take precedent.
When her eyes finally opened, their lavender gaze was soft and dreamy—until the shield slid firmly back into place. He watched them turn guarded and wary as she sat up and tugged at her panties and tights.
“Put your arm around my neck,” he ordered gruffly as he lifted her slightly so he could help her rearrange her clothing. Once that was settled, she attempted to climb off his lap, but he wouldn’t let her. Fishing in one pocket of his jeans, he took out the folded note. “This was on your car. The little red Honda is your car, right?”
He was impressed when she took it gingerly, keeping her fingers on the very edges. She nodded, a frown marring the perfection of her dark eyebrows.
“Yes, it’s my car.” She looked up at him. “No one knows I’m even in town except the pizza delivery kid and Ray Wills. I haven’t even been home yet. I told my mother I’d be in this weekend.”
“Not just the pizza delivery kid,” he corrected. “There’s the person who took your order, anyone outside when you pulled up and got out, not to mention anyone in the buildings around you. Did you stop for gas and see an old friend? Or stop anywhere in town?”
“Someone’s watching the building,” she went on, ignoring his questions. “I need to find out who works in the buildings on this street,” she exclaimed. “Let me get to my laptop.” She squirmed and tried to drop her feet to the floor.
Nat sighed and pulled her legs back up on the couch. “April, calm down. Not everything is solved with hacking. Some of it takes old-fashioned footwork and details. We can start by you answering my questions.”
“I’m hungry. I never got to finish my pizza. Besides, I can’t concentrate when you’re holding me like this,” she grumbled trying to get off his lap once again.
This time he relented and let her go, then followed her back to the desk so they could eat together. After closing the blinds in the window, he took the seat in front of the desk in case she made a break for the door.
Giving him the stink eye, she made a snarly comment. “I’m not like...going to make a run for it you know. You don’t have to guard the door.” She laid the note on the desk and sat a pencil holder on the edge of it.
“Do you always keep your promises?” he drawled with humor, reaching for the pizza slice he’d abandoned earlier. He hungrily took two bites at once then chewed while he watched her face for signs of duplicity.
April picked up her piece of pizza, then gazed warily at him. “I realize I made some pretty wild promises when you were...umm...spanking me,” she said delicately, remembering her promise to always do everything he told her to do, “but that was under extreme duress. However, I said I wouldn’t just disappear again. So, whether you give up on my theory that my dad was murdered or not, I’ll keep that promise. I also stand by what I said about you getting out of my way if you weren’t going to help me. I will find the truth, one way or another,” she finished adamantly.
“I believe you,” Nat replied softly. He could see the sincerity in her eyes and knew she meant every word. She would not stop until she knew the truth—that meant he’d have to help her in order to keep her safe. Which also meant he could finally relieve himself in the bathroom. He’d driven straight here with no breaks. “I’ll be right back,” he added, stuffing the rest of his slice in his mouth and hurrying through to the next office.
April was working on her second piece when Nat returned. “How did you find me here?”
He grinned wolfishly at her and reached for more food. “I didn’t know. Your childhood home was my next stop. and then this office. I called your mother on my way here and she said you weren’t in. So, I stopped by here first to check this place out. You were here. Who’s Ray Wills?” he asked suddenly.
“He’s an old friend of dad’s and has rented the office across the hall for several years. They sometimes worked cases together.”
“You said you know your dad was murdered. How do you know?” Nat asked. She hesitated and he knew she was debating whether to tell him what she’d found out. “I need to know what you know if I’m going to help you,” he urged softly.
“I want immunity from punishment,” she finally replied warily. “You can’t just throw me over your lap every time I tell you something you don’t approve of.”
“You mean every time I find out you’ve done something illegal,” he responded dryly. “I already know you’ve broken a dozen laws, so just spill it.”
“I downloaded my dads’ FBI autopsy report directly from the Boston Coroner’s office today,” she stated baldly.
Nat nearly choked on his pizza, his eyes going wide. “How in the hell did you do that?” he spluttered indignantly. “That would have to be done in person.”
“I made an appointment with the director of the FBI files,” she replied sweetly. “Months in advance, I might add.”
Speechless, he glared at her for a moment, then finally spoke. “Which is where you were headed in those killer red heels.”
“Distraction and professionalism go hand in hand,” she cooed.
Nat’s hand itched. “And?”
“The report said there was no water in his lungs,” she hissed, “and it was signed off on by your old buddy, Jason Ambones. The man is a liar and a fraud. He knows my dad’s death wasn’t accidental, and he’s covering it up.”
“There must be a good reason,” Nat muttered.
“There’s no reason good enough in my book!” April was practically breathing fire and Nat couldn’t blame her. It had taken him aback, but knowing Jason as he did, he still trusted him.
“Don’t let anyone else know what you’ve found out,” he replied with a scowl. “That kind of knowledge will put you in danger.” He ran his palm over his head. “Someone may already know, and that’s why there’s a note on your car threatening your life. I need to talk to Jason.”
April’s eyes narrowed. “I’m quite sure Jason already knows about the information breech. Their security is top notch and extremely tight.”
“Look, can you stay with your mother until I get this figured out?” Nat asked tightly. “I’ll get with Jason in private and find out what’s going on.” The look on her face told him that wasn’t going to be an option.
“Did you just like...tell me to go home to mother while the big bad cop detective takes over my investigation?” Her arms folded into each other. “Cause if you did, that would be a huge mistake, mister. No...no...and no again.” She leaned forward, her eyes blazing. “This is my investigation and my father. You don’t get to tell me what to do! This is the part where the get out of my way comes in if you think you’re going to exclude me,” she rattled on.
When April took a deep breath to continue her verbal onslaught, she reminded him of April Sue Madison. Nat leaned forward and placed a warning finger over her lips. “You made your point. I’m sorry. I’m used to working alone these days.” He could see her proverbial hackles slowly lowering. “Just take some time and tell me what you’ve been looking into, and what you’ve found out so far. Let’s get all the information laid out so we can plan together.”
“Much better,” she replied with a mocking grin.
Nat’s hand itched some more. His nose twitched at the delicate whiff of her perfume he’d caught when the tops of her breasts had been revealed as she leaned forward. His manhood was now knocking against his zipper, begging to be let out. Concentrate, he told himself, gritting his teeth.
“Smelt, Smelt and Hancock is the firm that handled one of my father’s most disgruntled cases. Naturally, he would have access to anything he wanted. I didn’t have that luxury, so I had to take it.”
“Didn’t he keep copies in his files?” Nat asked, waving his hand towards the filing cabinets beside the credenza.
“He kept copies of the people whom he’d had to file lawsuits against, but only had the bare bones of the ones that had filed against him. That’s why I went undercover there. I needed a way to follow up on one particular lawsuit and find any personal information the lawyers may have had that didn’t come up in court. Plus, I needed a legitimate job. I followed other leads while I was working there as well. It took me several months, but I finally found this guy near Christmas time when so many people were out for the holidays.”
Nat’s eyes narrowed. “What was it about?”
She scowled. “Unfortunately, it was a dead end. It was a case where the wife had asked my dad to find out if her husband was cheating on her. He was. The wife promptly left him and filed for a huge divorce settlement, which was considerable. The man was worth millions.”
Nat crossed one ankle over the other. “Did she win?”
“She did win although he maintained he was innocent, and that my father had photographed someone that closely resembled him. The judge was a female and took the wife’s side. She was awarded 35 million dollars and two of his properties, one in Jamaica and the other in Vermont. Not to mention the family home outside New York.”
Nat’s eyes went wide. “What did he do for a living?”
April grinned. “He wasn’t a cop.”
“No lie, Sherlock,” he replied derisively.
“He was a plastic surgeon,” she added, her eyes twinkling.
“So you didn’t find anything of interest?”
“I found out that his wife died 6 months after winning the lawsuit. They found her floating off the beach. She’d been to a party on a yacht in the harbor and was drinking heavily. But unlike dad, she had actually drowned. There was water in her lungs, according to the autopsy. The law suspected him of foul play, but couldn’t prove it.”
She leaned forward. “There was something really odd though. James Denton died a year later, broke. They said someone had fleeced him for millions in a scam and that he’d committed suicide. He didn’t have any other family, no kids, and no wife either.”
“So, a real dead end,” Nat jokingly replied. Sometimes you had to have a macabre sense of humor to deal with the situations you found yourself in with law enforcement. Like the ambulance driver that had joked about the bomb victims he’d had to put together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was often a way to relieve stress in a grizzly situation.
The similarities in Mrs. Denton’s death and Shatemuc’s death bothered Nat. “So what else did you find out?” he asked uneasily.
April swung her chair back and got up to pace restlessly. “Not a lot,” she confessed. “I followed up on every one of Dad’s disgruntled lawsuits and none of them have any red flags that I can see.”
“How many did he have?”
“Eighteen, plus two red zone cases.” She went to the window to peek between the blinds.
“Come away from the window,” Nat ordered. “Stay clear of windows. Now, what is a red zone case?”
April backed away from the window with an exaggerated sigh. “Meaning the client had made threats of revenge against him,” she explained flopping down in her chair and shoving the pizza box aside.
“Was James Denton a red zone case?”
She shook her head. “No, he never made any threats according to the files. He was just unhappy about losing all that money and insisted he’d never cheated on his wife.”
“And have you investigated these red zone cases?” Nat asked, snaffling another piece of pizza.
“Yes. One of them died in jail, but he’d apparently had an epiphany and had become highly religious before his death to cancer. He even wrote my father a thank you letter for being the cause of his incarceration because it had saved his soul.”
“And the other one?”
“He now lives in the middle of Timbuktu, Oklahoma, happy as a clam with a new wife and six kids between them. No cause for alarm there,” she responded dryly. “Which is why I’m beginning to believe Dad’s death must have something to do with his years at the FBI. I’ve tried to access his files without raising any alarms, but from what you say, I’ve triggered some without knowing it.”
Nat changed the subject so abruptly she blinked at him. “Do you have a bug sweeper?”
Then she focused, a sarcastic comment escaping her lips. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Did you sweep the offices when you came in?”
“Yes, but I didn’t find anything.”
Nat stood up. “Do you have a key to this Ray’s office? Does he know you’re back?”
“I talked to Ray earlier.” April opened the door and pulled out the keyring next to the pistol. “I know Dad used to have one, but Ray’s gone for the evening.”
“If he was here, we wouldn’t need a key would we?” He asked dryly.
“Here,” she mocked, tossing the key ring towards him. “If none of those work, I can use my lockpick set.”
Nat took the keys with a shake of his head. “Which office is his?” he asked as he opened the outer office door.
April followed him. “Right across the hallway.” She shot him a mocking glance as she motioned to the door directly across from theirs, with the frosted glass and Ray Wills Private Investigations engraved in it. “Wicked observant, aren’t you?”
“It was dark in the hallway, and I was watching the pizza guy,” Nat replied, feeling a bit sheepish. Ignoring her chuckle he started trying keys in the deadbolt until one of them clicked. Then he took a spare Kleenex out of his pocket and wiped anywhere his fingers had touched.
Once the door was open, he flipped the light switch by the door and the office was illuminated with a bright, spartan glow. Ray’s office was the direct opposite of April’s. Here, everything was a mess. It was almost suspicious in itself. Papers sticking out of cabinet drawers looked like they had been that way for a long time. As if the drawer had been arranged to look that way and then just left.
He and April walked slowly around the room, finally coming to stand in front of the massive desk that was big enough for three people to sit behind. His gaze narrowed as he took in the permanent black sharpie with the paper it was laying on. Where the sharpie had leaked through from the previous paper were blotches here and there that matched the note on April’s car.
There was no doubt that Ray Wills had written that note.
“How well do you know Ray?” By the stunned look on April’s face he could tell she couldn’t believe it.
Her face white, she stuttered, “W-why would Ray kill my father?”
“Don’t touch anything. We need to get out of here,” he replied, taking out his cell phone and snapping some pics. Then he herded the dazed girl out of the office, locking the door behind him.