Beck tried to go slow, ease her into his arms, the kiss he desperately wanted, and his life, but one touch of her lips to his and he wanted to sink in and devour her. Her initial sense of testing the waters melted away with the heat neither of them expected. The tip of her tongue tasted his bottom lip and set him off. He dove in for more, sweeping his tongue along hers. Tempting and sweet, it left him wanting more, but a second before Caden opened the front door he heard the alarm blare.

He broke the kiss and held a dazed Ashley away from him. “We’re not done.” He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs behind him.

“Two men at the gate on snowmobiles,” Caden said the second Beck hit the porch.

Beck handed Ashley off to Caden, took the gun his brother held out to him, and ran for the snowmobile he’d left in the driveway.

“Beck, no, stay here.” Ashley’s worried voice pierced his racing heart. He hated hearing the fear in her plea. He wanted to stay with her, but no way would he let Brice on his property or anywhere close to Ashley ever again.

“Stay with Caden.” He pinned his brother with a sharp look. “You keep her safe.” Caden gave him a nod, letting him know he’d do whatever it took to do just that, and probably in understanding that he knew how much Ashley already meant to Beck.

He jumped on the snowmobile, started the engine with the key he left in the ignition just for this reason, and took off down the long driveway to the gate.

He’d hoped for more time, but knew the minute the storm broke Brice would come looking for his prize possession. The guy had brass balls for taking chances like this. Celebrity made him arrogant and led him to believe he’d get what he wanted without any consequences. Not this time. Beck would never let him get away with what he’d done to Ashley and Adam.

Whatever he’d collected to blackmail people in power made him bold. Why else would he still be here and not hiding overseas?

Only a very dangerous man with connections would disregard how stupid it was to stay here and risk getting exposed and caught. A man obsessed with his target and with a plan to get out of any trouble that threatened to stop him.

Men like him, willing to do anything to get what they wanted, needed to be stopped because all they did was hurt people without remorse.

Beck rounded the bend in the driveway and approached the gate down the long straightaway. They saw him coming. He meant for them, or anyone trying to get on his property, to see him coming. They couldn’t see the house or land beyond the curve. It gave him a place to scout those stupid enough to approach from the front.

The two men hopped the four-foot fence instead of trying to climb over the six-foot-tall metal gate, ignoring the No Trespassing signs posted on both. Beck pegged the pudgy shorter one as Brice. The taller, leaner one trailed after him, his gaze darting back and forth between Beck’s approach and Brice, the man he obviously followed like a puppy dog.

Beck stopped the snowmobile ten feet in front of them, cut the engine, stood, flipped his visor up, pulled the gun from his back, and aimed it straight at Brice’s head. “Turn around and get off my land. Since you can’t read, I’ll give you one verbal warning—you’re trespassing.”

Both men held their hands up in front of them.

Brice raised one to his helmet and pulled it off, smiling like an idiot. “Hey now, we don’t want trouble. We’re looking for some friends.”

“You don’t have one here.”

Brice raked his fingers through his helmet-head hair. “You probably recognize me. I’m Brice Mooney.”

“I don’t give a fuck who you are. Get off my land.”

Brice ignored the warning, showing how stupid he could be and walked a few more steps closer. Beck fired, kicking up snow an inch from Brice’s left big toe. The man stopped in his tracks and glared.

The other guy whipped off his helmet and let it fall to the ground as he ran forward, put his hands on Brice’s shoulder and chest and studied him to be sure he was okay. “Oh my God. You shot at him. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you know who this is?”

“I don’t care.”

“Shooting at people is dangerous,” the guy warned.

“One warning is all you get.” Beck kept the gun trained on Brice, their eyes locked. Beck recognized a sociopath when he saw one. The gun, even death, didn’t mean much to a man who liked causing pain and torturing people. The threat Beck posed appealed to Brice, where anyone else, the man standing beside him for instance, would be scared shitless.

Brice eyed him back, then cocked his head, put on a grin that fooled most people. Not Beck. “Do you know Ashley Swan?”

“Should I?” Beck wanted to know where he was going with this.

“Oh come on,” the other guy scoffed. “She won an Oscar for Flame in the Night.”

“The girl in the new Bourne movie?”

“That’s Alicia Vikander.”

Beck tilted his head, still baiting the guy. “The one in that vampire series?”

“No, not Kristen Stewart.”

Beck shook his head. “Not her, the other one who sees the future.”

“Ashley Greene?” the guy asked, falling into Beck’s trap of making them, or at least him, believe Beck had no clue.

“She’s gorgeous.” Beck only irritated the guy more by not getting it right again.

“She played an assassin in Anarchy,” the guy suggested, trying to get Beck to figure out who they were talking about but missing the point completely that if he had her on his property he’d know who they were talking about.

Brice’s patience snapped. “Long dark hair, green eyes, about five-eight. She left the other night—”

“I suggest you check the roads to see if she got in an accident.”

“She was on foot,” the guy blurted out.

Brice’s gaze narrowed on the guy for giving away that information.

“Then she’s dead. I suggest you contact the authorities and send out a search team for her body.”

Brice eyed Beck again. “She’s a resourceful woman. Strong. Remarkable.”

“She’d have to be to survive the freezing temps.”

“Or she’d have had to find shelter before the worst of it hit.”

“Out here?” Beck looked around at the expanse of open land.

“Maybe in one of your outbuildings,” Brice suggested.

“Not likely.” Beck nodded to the security camera overhead, pointed straight at the gate. Another warning to keep off his land.

Brice followed his gaze, looked back at the formidable gate, and then at Beck again. “That’s a lot of security.”

“Which is how I knew you were here and she’s not. So be on your way.”

“Why all the security?” Brice asked, even more suspicious.

Beck didn’t like questions or giving this guy a reason to look too closely at him. “Privacy.”

An answer Brice could relate to. He’d come out here to the middle of nowhere so no prying eyes saw what he liked to do when he was alone and in control. Or so he thought. Because no one likes to be under someone’s thumb. They fight back. They find a way to leave. Brice found that out when Ashley escaped.

He didn’t just want her back. Beck read in his eyes what Brice could hide from most—he needed her back. Bad.

Brice understood the threat he’d put into that single word and the glare Beck sent his way. Brice backed away, but stopped short when his phone rang.