Killian
There’s a pole in the middle of her living room. One that looks uncannily like…Shit. I can’t get my mind around it. Raw, carnal images war with unwanted scenarios in my brain. I drag my gaze from the solid steel column to where she’s standing. Pink heat creeps into her face. But still she’s fierce as she replies, “Exactly what it looks like.”
A stripper pole. Fuck me. “Why?” I hear the gravel roughness of my voice, caused by arousal and suspicion, and I’m not even a little bit ashamed of either.
“Because I wanted one.” Her voice suggests that’s the end of the conversation.
Except it so isn’t. Unless she wants me to go apeshit. Which I’m half a second from unleashing. “Faith…”
Something in my tone must alert her to the paper-thin veneer I have over my control. Or it’s my use of her name. The name she seems to now detest.
Her gaze meets mine for a second before it slides away. “I was trying a few things after I moved in to keep me from going stir-crazy. I couldn’t go running or join a gym. The sounds of a treadmill drove my elderly neighbor nuts, so I had to come up with something else. The pole seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s grown on me.”
The red haze recedes, and impure thoughts rush to the fore. I turn back around and stare at the pole, picture her sliding against it. My cock responds eagerly.
“Don’t get any ideas, Knight,” she snaps.
“Too fucking late, baby,” I reply, but I still can’t look away from the pole. God, I’d kill to have her dance for me right now.
I glance over at her. She shakes her head definitively, muttering under her breath before heading for a short hallway. A moment later, a door slams. My very turned-on attention returns to the pole, and my imagination runs wild with what I could do to her against it. Hell, what she could do to me. Her super-toned body is perfect for it. My hand sneaks over my crotch, and I touch myself with all the finesse of a virgin nerd. I pinch the head of my cock in the vain hope of stopping this killer hard-on that feels like it’s going to slay me, but all I can think of is Faith with her legs wrapped around the steel pole or hanging upside down from the top while taking me into her mouth and sucking me off.
Sweet Christ.
I whirl away before I do something really uncool, like come in my pants. I take a deep breath and properly take in the rest of her apartment. My raging erection throttles back as I look at her things, as I stare at the space she’s lived in for four years without me.
I still don’t really know why she fled from me after the nightmare in Cairo. But in the light of our immediate problem, I have to let things lie for now. But that conversation is coming. Soon.
Besides a very comfortable-looking set of sofas and a stylish rug, there’s the usual TV and entertainment center, a couple of potted plants, scented candles, a wool throw, and a bookcase filled from top to bottom with spy novels. Wait, not all. I spot a book of erotica, and my eyebrows spike. I shouldn’t really touch it. I shouldn’t…
I’m flicking through the book for the third time when I hear the click of heels behind me. I place a finger in the well-thumbed page on multiple orgasms and turn around.
“Killian, I’ve been…”
Whatever she’s saying is drowned out because…holy fuck. My breath punches out of me and I swear I see stars. “Jesus, baby. Muay Thai, pole dancing, and now you walk out of your bedroom looking like that? Do you want to give me a fucking heart attack?”
The black see-through lace shirt she’s wearing is covered by a tightly zipped-up corset that makes her waist look ten inches wide. The effect is a lush, mouthwatering, hourglass magnificence that I know I’ll kill for because I’ve already done it once. And that’s even before I take in her straight hair, the very provocative bangs resting on her brows, and the fuck-me red lipstick on her luscious, fuckable mouth.
“This is how I…” She stops suddenly and looks warily at me.
This is how I dress for work. I do my very best not to think about all the times horny assholes and dirty bastards have seen her like this. But no matter how much I try, my blood simmers with the jealousy that has been a part of me since the moment I set eyes on her.
I’m making sure she quits that fucking job if it’s the last thing I do. It might be because that heart attack I talked about seems very likely with each passing second.
I drag my eyes from that vulgar little triangular gap between her legs, lovingly cradled by soft leather, up the flare of her hips to the tits I’m dying to see, to touch, to taste again. She takes a deep breath, and my cock screams in agony.
“You were saying?” My voice sounds like I’ve swallowed a fucking porcupine, and I don’t even give a shit.
“That…umm, I’ve been thinking.”
“So have I.”
Her gaze goes to the book in my hand before darting back to my face. The book about sex that she’s read a lot of times if the dog-ears are any indication. “About our Galveston problem, Killian. Not the stripper pole…or whatever’s going through your mind.”
I return the book to the shelf. Something else to discuss later. If she’s taken an interest in bondage or tantric sex or deep-throat blow jobs, I certainly want to know about it. “Trust me, sweetheart. You don’t wanna know what I’m thinking right now,” I reply, but the mention of our mutual enemy sobers me up long enough to take a deep, cleansing breath and focus my mind. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
She walks toward me in stiletto boots, and it’s all I can do not to find the nearest rope and tie her to that damn pole. I shove my hands into my pockets instead.
“We have six hundred members at the club. And another couple of thousand names of potential members we’ve turned away because they were either batshit crazy or their proclivities were more suited to another type of club. Or behind the locked doors of a jail cell,” she adds with a tightening of her red lips.
I drag my attention from her mouth. “You kept the records?”
She nods. “I have it on a thumb drive at the club.”
“Okay, we can cross-reference their names with the list of sex clubs and brothels or anyone associated with sex trafficking minors. If anything pops up, Betty can do a deeper dive.”
A shaft of pain crosses her face. “We thought with Moses and Galveston dead, we’d done enough for Fallhurst to dismantle the rings.” She exhales heavily. “But now we know Galveston is alive and possibly still active.”
“We have to assume they plan to revive the sex ring. Killing the agents could just be revenge for Cairo, but they probably wouldn’t be disposing of the team if they were planning on retiring anytime soon.” I sigh. “We’ll focus on the usual shipping angle and maybe border patrols. We need to look at whoever’s now in charge of Phillips Black. Could be there are people within the company who knew about the trafficking. Or Raj could still be pulling strings from wherever he’s hiding.”
“You think we can get a list of their employees?” she asks.
“I can make that happen.”
She nods. “Okay.”
She turns to leave the room, and my eyes immediately drop to her heart-shaped ass and the pin-straight hair brushing the top of it. “Fucking hell,” I mutter under my breath.
Her back stiffens and her stride falters for a millisecond, but she keeps walking. When she returns clutching a small purse, I’m massaging my nape purely so I don’t massage the ache in my cock.
“I’m good to go.”
“Great.” My voice is still strained. Hell, my whole body is strained. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. Still, I man up and follow her out the door.
The route Betty plotted to Hell’s Kitchen and the Punishment Club gets us there in record time. Faith enters a code, and we drive into an underground parking garage.
She eyes Mitch and Linc when they exit the SUV and follow us to the elevator. “They’re staying here, right?”
I let my eyes speak for me.
“Killian, I can’t bring bodyguards to work with me,” she protests.
I push the button for the elevator. When it arrives, I gently guide her inside. “Nonnegotiable.”
She swears under her breath and glances at the two giant men crowding the small space with us. There’s an evil light in her eyes that tells me she has payback on her mind. “Well, I hope you boys don’t mind being the center of attention. Friday nights are…extra-special nights, and with those endless muscles, you’re prime bait material for tonight’s program.”
A muscle jumps in Mitch’s cheek, but Linc remains as unflappable as ever. I don’t reassure them, because they’re grown men, and also because my own temperature is already too high from watching her walk from the car to the elevator in those tight leather pants and sky-high heels. “Be nice, sweetheart.”
Her glare tells me she’s not in the mood. “I’m just giving them fair warning.”
I see what she means the moment we walk into the main reception area. Wall-to-wall skin is the name of the game. It’s not exactly BDSM, but there’s no effort to hide the lurid activities going on right there in the open. And this is just the ground floor.
Every muscle in my body clenches tight. Before I know it, I’m sliding my arm around her and backing her up against the nearest wall. I plant my hands on either side of her head and crowd her with my body. “Tell me again that you don’t get involved with any of this shit?” I sound like I’m hanging on by a thread. And I feel it.
Her eyes narrow. “Seriously? Not now—”
“Yes, fucking now. I’m one goddamn heartbeat from throwing you over my shoulder and taking you the hell out of here. So if you want me to let up, answer my question.”
She puffs out an annoyed breath. “Nothing sexual. Ever.”
I release my pent-up breath, and then I ask one of the many questions that’s been eating at me. “And that book in your apartment? The one on erotica? Any reason you’ve taken an interest in that kind of thing?”
She blinks up at me through her sexy bangs, and slave that I am, my cock jumps. “How do you know I haven’t always been interested in…the more adventurous side of things?”
“The way we fucked was hardly vanilla, baby,” I point out. “But I’m more than happy to step things up for you if you need it.”
Her green eyes turn a shade darker, and her breathing intensifies. “Let me go, Killian. I need to go organize a special pass for your guys or they won’t be allowed upstairs.”
My temples begin to throb. “And what’s upstairs?”
“Let me go, and I’ll give you a tour.”
I’m not sure I want a tour. In fact, the only thing I’m sure of is that I want her out of here, like yesterday. But I drop my hands and step back.
“Lead the way.”
We walk past naked and nearly naked bodies in all shapes and sizes. The stench of sex is in the air, and it’s like they’re all waiting for some sort of sign to begin a giant orgy. I catch a couple of cougars eyeing Mitch and Linc. To their credit, the two men are holding their own. Or rather staring straight ahead and pretending none of the skin flick in front of them is happening. Courage under fucking fire. It’s why I pay them the big bucks, I guess.
We approach another, quieter reception area. The attractive black girl behind the desk smiles at Faith. “Hi, B.”
She returns the smile with a small one of her own. “Hey. Is Axel around?”
“He just got in. He’s in his office.”
“Thanks. Can you sort two passes for me, please?”
The receptionist nods and slides two silver cards through a portable machine and hands them over.
We get in another elevator and go another couple of floors. “This area is for gold and platinum members only. From here, you need a card to access every floor, but the silver cards only get you to the fourth floor. After that, you either need to be a member or have a special invitation.” The level where we exit has the same theme going on as downstairs but with less people and more sophistication.
It’s also clear that these regulars know Faith. She nods at a few people and exchanges words with a few more. I exhale the breath locked in my throat when I notice that her acknowledgments are friendly but professional. Still, enough already. We stop at a well-stocked bar, and she orders a drink—a Hine on the rocks—for me. My jumpy senses settle a little. She hasn’t forgotten my favorite drink. Our fingers brush as she passes me the glass, and I watch her lips part as she takes a rushed little breath.
Before I can comment on it, she nods at her bodyguards. “I can’t take them back to Axel’s office. They’ll have to stay in the bar.”
I’ve clocked where the exits are and where any potential threats may come from. And the Glock resting against my spine is a reassuring presence. “Fine.”
Surprise lights her eyes. I smile, toss back my drink, and slide the empty glass on the counter. We leave the reception area and walk through a surprisingly brightly lit hallway. “This is the newbie floor. We keep things less…heavy around here.” She points to the monitors by each door. “And we also keep an eye on everyone in the first few weeks.”
Some of the monitors are dark, and some are full-color playback of what’s going on behind closed doors. I’m not interested in watching other people have sex so I keep my eyes on my woman. “So that Burning Man sex tent scenario downstairs happens every Friday?”
“Pretty much.”
“That looks more like sin and less like punishment.”
She smiles. “Not everyone likes baring themselves in front of strangers. Not everyone enjoys being touched by another human being. There’s a redhead in the group downstairs whose therapist recommended the club for her anxiety. God knows why. I tried to talk her out of it but she insisted. That’s not technically a punishment but I made an exception for her, and it seems to be working, so…” She shrugs.
I’m quietly impressed. Not enough to kill the need to get her the fuck away from here ASAP though. Whatever she started this club to prove, it’s time for her to move on.
We tour the second floor but I decline going any further. I don’t need to see what’s going on on the upper floors. I get the idea. We take the elevator back down to the basement and walk through a set of security doors marked Private. She stops in front a plain-looking door but seems reluctant to enter. “This is my office.”
I raise one eyebrow. “Unless you have a naked guy chained to the wall in there, there’s no reason for you to be nervous. If you do, you’re about to be in a world of hurt.”
She rolls her eyes and enters the code. The latch springs open, and we step inside. She walks across the gray carpet, her gaze darting to mine as she discards her purse.
A large antique desk and chair sit beneath a large window. The usual office accessories of sleek computer, stationery, lamp, coatrack, and, because she loves them, a few potted plants are scattered in the usual places. There’s a large, comfy sofa with cushions and a woolen blanket next to one wall. Through a partially opened closet, I see several changes of clothing, more blankets, and a couple of pillows.
Besides the worrying thought that she may have slept here at times instead of going home, there’s nothing out of the ordinary. And yet she still looks nervous.
It takes a moment for the light bulb to go off in my head.
This has been her domain for four years. A concept she’s taken from inception to mega-success. Her very own stake in something solid where she didn’t have one before. I took her from housewife to spy, but she was still in my world, playing by my rules.
Faith Carson will kick ass in whatever area of life she pursues. But everyone needs to be told they’re doing a good job. Especially when they’re expected to leave behind the thing they’ve created at short notice.
Shit. I don’t regret my decision to force her hand on this, but I feel a little bad for being a complete bastard about it.
I walk over and slide my hands over her shoulders. “Regardless of my reservations about all that nakedness going on upstairs, I’m seriously impressed with what you’ve done here, baby.”
She relaxes a little and even manages a smile. “Thank you.”
I nod. Then look around some more. There are no personal items, save for a letter opener with the letter B inscribed on it. While I commend her for keeping her cover under wraps and ensuring her safety, I’m still a little disturbed by how effectively she’s erased her past. She could walk out of this room and no one would know she was ever here. And because that suits my purposes right now, I’m not too upset by it.
“You wanna grab the thumb drive?” I ask.
She nods slowly and walks over to a safe behind her desk. She removes two thumb drives before she locks it.
I breathe a little sigh of relief. “We good to go now?”
She shakes her head. “In a minute. I need to see Axel first.”