Roberts Teresa Noelle - Drive 1

Table of Contents

Dedication 6 Acknowledgements 7 Chapter One 8 Chapter Two 15 Chapter Three 20 Chapter Four 26 Chapter Five 29 Chapter Six 33 Chapter Seven 42 Chapter Eight 47 Chapter Nine 56 Chapter Ten 62 Chapter Eleven 70 Chapter Twelve 74 Chapter Thirteen 79 Chapter Fourteen 86 Chapter Fifteen 99 Chapter Sixteen 109 Chapter Seventeen 114 Chapter Eighteen 120 Chapter Nineteen 124 Chapter Twenty 130 Chapter Twenty-One 133 Chapter Twenty-Two 137 Chapter Twenty-Three 142 Chapter Twenty-Four 147 Chapter Twenty-Five 152 Chapter Twenty-Six 162 About the Author 169 Look for these titles by Teresa Noelle Roberts 170

He’s a kinky dream come true—and her only protection from danger. Cougars, Cars and Kink, Book 1 Eight months after her (cheating, almost-ex) husband’s death, Suzanne Mayhew has a plan to move on with her life. First step: sell off Frank’s classic cars, starting with the red vintage Mustang convertible he never let her drive. Second step: get her unexplored kink on with a delicious younger man. Preferably the one an old friend sends around, ostensibly to check out the Mustang. Neil Callahan—Boston cop, Dom, fifteen years her junior. Neil feels the mutual sizzle, but if the blush staining her cheeks is any indication, her flirting skills are a little rusty. Though his instinct tells him to take things slow with the recent widow, he can’t resist inviting her along for a test drive—for the whole weekend. Throwing caution to the wind, Suzanne takes him up on it. But they’re barely out of the driveway when Neil’s cop instincts kick in. They’ve got a tail…and it looks dangerously like her ex’s secrets looming large—and deadly—in their rear-view mirror. Warning: Spies, lies and vile bad guys. A meddling BFF. Inappropriate use of kitchen tools. Completely appropriate use of rope and floggers. Your mileage may vary, depending on battery life.

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B Cincinnati OH 45249 Drive Copyright © 2016 by Teresa Noelle Roberts ISBN: 978-1-61923-284-6 Edited by Latoya Smith Cover by Kelly Martin All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: February 2016 www.samhainpublishing.com

Drive Teresa Noelle Roberts

Dedication As always, this book—and my heart—belong to Jeff, my own law enforcement hero.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Detectives Ken Wright and John Armstrong of the Mansfield, Massachusetts police department, who patiently answered all my questions about procedure, and how a small department might handle possible terrorist activities. Any errors can be blamed on me not asking all the right questions. The detectives answered everything I thought to ask fully, honestly, and with great humor.

Chapter One

“I’m so glad I came into Boston last night,” Suzanne Mayhew told her friend Janice, who made a yes, go on-type of noise into the phone. “I was scared half to death, I can admit it now. Your Kinky Kougars are a great bunch of women, though, and made me feel right at home.” Suzanne paced from one end of the large, rarely used living room to the other, working off energy that was partly erotic. Telling other people that she missed the spanky side of sex—even other women, who weren’t her prospective partner pool—had been a revelation. A turn-on. Now, she couldn’t get her mind out of the gutter, and she was remembering how much she’d liked the view from down here in her long-ago single-and-fun days; the days before she’d met a handsome if straight-laced entrepreneur named Frank Mayhew, who convinced her it was time to settle down. It had started out great and then the settling became more like what sediment did as it drifted to the bottom of a pond. She could have lived with that if they’d stayed cozy and content, even if it was dull. Frank, though, had decided to have adventures without her, the kind that involved latenight “meetings” he wouldn’t talk about, evasions and outright lies. The hidden, password-protected phone he wouldn’t explain had been the last straw. She’d confronted him about that just a couple of weeks before the accident, started working on the process of getting a divorce. Suzanne told herself firmly she wasn’t going to think about that now. She was finally getting past the long, slow decline of her marriage and its abrupt, horrible ending, letting herself have fun again. She wasn’t going to let herself go back to feeling numbed, miserable or guilty—the evil triad of emotions that had dominated her life since Frank died. Janice laughed through the phone, breaking through her moment of melancholy and bringing her back to happier thoughts of the future. “I told them to be gentle with you because you’re still a grieving widow. I made sure to use my best ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ voice. Even the Dommes wouldn’t dare to disobey me because I get us the meeting space.” Janice King was Suzanne’s best friend from college, and their friendship had endured for more than twenty years, even though Janice, a sexuality educator and pro-Domme, was definitely living the alternative life and Suzanne had wound up, by default rather than real choice, on a more conservative path.

Drive

A path that she was more than ready to abandon. “I call bullshit. If anything, you’d have called me a pissed-off almost-ex-wife still dealing with the fact her cheating husband wrapped his car around a tree before she could divorce his sorry ass.” “Only to your face, sweetie.” Suzanne took a deep breath then choked out what she was thinking. “Am I terrible for saying that, even to you? Terrible for wanting to move on? I mean, I wanted him out of my life, but…not that way.” “It’s not terrible. You have to laugh or you’ll cry, right? You did your crying already, and way too much of it was before he died. As for moving on, eight months might be fast if you’d been happy, but the only reason you were still sharing a house when he died was because it was so huge you could avoid each other.” Suzanne let herself smile. “Truth.” “Your relationship with Frank is in the past, and Kinky Kougars is all about your future, and the hot, kinky, younger guys you’ll eventually meet and beat. No, wait, that’s me.” Janice chuckled at her own joke. Suzanne could imagine her pushing her funky, red-rimmed glasses up as she did it. “I meant they’ll meet you and beat you, in all the right ways.” “I’d like that.” Damn, was her voice quavering? She forced a chuckle because there was nothing wrong other than feeling both excited and overwhelmed. Okay, a little wistful about the past and sad for the death of a man she’d once loved, but she was going to focus on the good stuff. “I’m not sure how to date the vanilla way, though, let alone meet a guy who’s kinky and everything else I might like. I mean, I haven’t done anything seriously kinky since Frank and I got together.” “Remember how convinced we both were that he was a Dom when you met him? Sure, I figured he was the kind of arrogant jerk Dom I want to beat in ways he wouldn’t like, but still a Dom.” Janice snorted. “If the world ever needed proof that control freak and Dom are two different traits…” “I’m convinced there’s some alternate universe where Frank embraced the fun side of being a control freak. That universe’s me is a much happier woman and he’s the biggest toywhore ever.” “Oh God, you’re right. He’d have one of everything and two of the really expensive, shiny things, whether he ever used them or not.” “Hell, he’d design his own in this alternate world. He had the skills.” “Kind of a shame he wasn’t into it. I mean, sex toys powered by cutting-edge robotics? www.samhainpublishing.com

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He’d have made a fortune.” “He made a fortune anyway.” “Yeah,” Janice conceded, “but no one’s eyes would glaze over when he talked about his work. Hell, maybe if he’d had a more fun job, he’d have had actual conversations instead of being all silent and brooding. He looked good doing it, but it got old fast.” Suzanne laughed more than she remembered doing since Frank died eight months ago—not because she’d missed him, but because she hadn’t missed him as much as their many years together merited, and that made her sad. She’d loved him once, liked and cared about him even when the passion faded. Once he was gone, though, she realized they’d been living separate lives long before it became obvious. Maybe if she’d noticed it sooner, they could have found a way back to each other—or at least spared each other lies and anger. But it was too late now for those regrets. She was not going to cry. Not now. Time to talk about something else. “Speaking of expensive, shiny toys, and of moving forward with my life, I’ve put the first of Frank’s cars on the market.” Janice made a small, speculative noise. “Which one’s for sale?” “The Mustang.” Suzanne heard the note of bitterness creep into her voice and decided there was no point in hiding it from her friend. “That gorgeous red Mustang he loved more than any living thing, except maybe Daisy the cat.” The sound of applause echoed through the phone. Suzanne wandered out of the living room and back to her cozy home office, settling into her favorite overstuffed chair. “Thanks,” she said to her friend. “Seriously, thanks for helping me through the lousy times—and for helping me get on the road to good ones. Between Kinky Kougars and getting rid of those damn cars, the future looks mighty bright.” ***** The red Mustang with the FOR SALE sign on it was the second thing to catch Neil Callahan’s eyes, even though he’d been looking for it on this tree-lined suburban street of huge, handsome, but cloyingly similar houses. Cookie-cutter, but an expensive cookie cutter. The first thing he noticed was the ass and long, jean-clad legs of the woman cleaning the windshield of the classic convertible. The car was hot, a vintage Mustang—1965 or so, he thought—in near-showroom condition. Yet the car’s current owner drew his attention away from the vehicle. It said 10

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something about how tempting that butt was. How firm, yet curvy. How spankable… Which was definitely not what he should be thinking, unless he wanted to talk cars while sporting a mammoth hard-on. If this were porn, he could do that and find himself banging the callipygian redhead within thirty-five seconds, and she’d turn out to be as kinky as a cheap garden hose. But this was real life, so she’d probably pepper-spray him, or at least think of some good reason to cut the conversation short, leaving him without either the information he wanted on the car or a chance to flirt with her. Neil made himself ride a couple of blocks while thinking distinctly non-sexy thoughts about the details of the latest investigation at work (looked like a straightforward case of one drug dealer shooting another over money, but it was early yet) and the schematics of Ford engines from the ’70s. When he thought he could talk without sounding like a horny teenager, he whipped his vintage Indian motorcycle around and headed back. Probably the woman would have gone back indoors and he’d have to call but with luck, she’d come back out to answer his questions, so he could see if the rest of her was as impressive as the rear view. Then maybe he’d ask her if she’d like to get lunch sometime, or coffee, which could lead to all sorts of interesting places, including his bedroom, the inside of his favorite bondage club or… Down, boy! All the meeting was likely to lead to was finding out if he wanted to pursue the car, not the woman. She was probably married with kids, seeing as how she lived in a big house in upscale, suburban Bellwood, with the whole manicured-lawn thing going on. A far cry from his home base in Boston’s working-class Dorchester neighborhood, but one of his kink-community friends knew how badly he longed for a new project car and had mentioned seeing a Mustang for sale in this area. Not that this car looked like a project. More like it had been someone’s precious baby, lovingly maintained all these years, and would be out his price range, even if his dad wanted to go in on it. Their usual project cars were more the “three tubs of parts and a frame” kind. But he could always drool. Whether he’d be drooling more over the car or the woman was an excellent question. When he pulled up, the woman was still out front, idly adjusting the FOR SALE sign, which had been resting on the bumper but was now in a more prominent position on the windshield. The rest of her looked just as good as the rear view suggested. Older than he was, early to mid-forties, he’d guess, to his thirty—the perfect age, in his www.samhainpublishing.com

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opinion. Older women were more confident, as a rule, more in touch with their own sexual needs and less likely to use the submissive role as an excuse to avoid responsibility. A guy could dream. Just like he could dream he could afford the car. He pulled up and stepped off the bike. “What a beauty!” he said, gesturing at the Mustang. Which wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say. It applied as much, in his mind, to the hot cougar—at least he hoped she had cougarish aspirations—as it did to the Mustang, but he really was talking about the car. What he was thinking was another story, but it was too nice a September day to get slapped, so he was going to keep that to himself for the time being. She nodded. “We should all look so good at this car’s age. Of course it helps to be steel rather than flesh and blood. Easier to repair scratches and dents.” If she thought she had scratches and dents, she was wrong. But it was premature to say that. “Do you have a few minutes? I’d love to find out more about the car.” And about you, but let’s start with the car to see if you show any signs of being available and interested. “Sure.” The woman walked around to the front of the car, closer to him. God help him, she even walked sexily. Not like she was trying to strut her stuff, though. She was wiping her hands on her jeans and seemed unselfconscious, but she moved well. Graceful. Athletic looking, but not too slim, which suited his taste. She met Neil’s gaze firmly. Her eyes were greenish brown—hazel. A soft color, but for a second, they looked coolly appraising. He couldn’t tell if she liked what she saw or not, but he thought he caught a hint of a smile. “I’ll warn you,” she said, “I’m ignorant about what’s under the hood, though I’ve got maintenance records and stuff. Even an original manual. I know it’s been well cared for, but not by me.” “That’s a good start.” Really good start. If she didn’t know much about cars, he might be able to get a better price. On the other hand, she didn’t come off as naïve, so she’d probably done her homework. “How about a few basics? What year is she? ’66?” “’65. The car and my late husband were twins.” Neil didn’t move, but mentally, he pulled back about fifteen steps. The lady might be technically available, but it was anyone’s guess whether she was in a place to consider dating, wild flings with younger men, or even flirting. “I’m sorry.” “I’m not.” She laughed without humor. “Wow, that sounds bad. Of course I’m sorry he’s dead. At the time he died, though, we were careening toward a divorce.” She shrugged, glanced away. “Sorry. That was more information than you needed as a follow-up to Frank’s bad joke slipping out of my mouth.” 12

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Neil didn’t usually find himself at a loss for words, but he had no idea what to say to this. The fact that some unrepentantly shallow part of him (that would be his dick) found the whole not-terribly-grieving widow situation promising, both for buying the car and getting a date down the line, made it even more difficult to think of a response that didn’t make him sound like a jerk. A few houses away, someone was mowing their lawn and the mower sounded like a monster truck in the awkward silence. A bird chirped in the Japanese maple on the lawn; he looked for a giant mutant freak-bird, but it turned out to be the world’s loudest sparrow. Say something. Anything. She’s going to feel even more awkward if you don’t. What he really wanted to do was put his arm around her, kiss her on the forehead, ruffle that silky-looking red hair. And not just for the reasons he’d been pondering before the little foray into TMI territory, but because she’d gone from confident and sexy to closed in on herself and not exactly sad, but melancholy. Like she regretted that she couldn’t miss her dead husband more. He took a step closer before common sense kicked in. “Maybe we should set up a time for me to come back?” That would give them both a chance to regroup so they could get down to business without the specter of the late but not very lamented Frank watching over their shoulders. She shook her head briskly, decisively. “Last thing I need is to spend more time alone surrounded by half-packed boxes of my dead almost-ex-husband’s stuff. So what can I tell you about the Mustang? Ask me anything. Obviously, with the mood I’m in, I might just tell you.” Did you ever have sex in it, back when you and your husband still loved each other? Would you like to have sex in it now? Definitely not the right questions. At least not yet. What came out of his mouth didn’t seem much better, especially knowing about the dirty images of red hair, long legs, leather seats and awkward positions that had been flashing through his mind. “How does it handle?” “Frank had no complaints. I’ve never driven it, except to take it out of the garage today, and turn it over once in a while to make sure it kept running.” “You’ve never… Woman, that’s a crime!” “Now you see why I have a hard time missing Frank too much. I never got to ride in this one, let alone drive it. The Chevy Bel Air was worth more, according to the guy who www.samhainpublishing.com

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appraised them, and Frank drove the Stingray more often—that was the one he crashed.” She hesitated and he thought he caught a catch in her voice. “But this one was his baby.” She snorted. “Don’t ask me why I haven’t driven it since he died. Just wasn’t ready, I guess, and then I decided it made more sense to sell the cars than hang on to them forever. Sorry, I’m babbling, and I’m not even answering your question.” “Then there’s only one way to find out how it handles. We’ll take it for a ride.” “Makes sense.” She rummaged in her jeans pocket, fished out a key ring with a lone key, and handed it toward him. “Here you go.” “Oh no,” Neil said. “You get the first turn behind the wheel. And since we’re about to get into a car together and head off, my name’s Neil Callahan, and I’ll show you my license and stuff, so you can text the details to someone in case I turn out to be a sex-crazed lunatic.” Which I am, but not the bad kind, and only with women who are into it. He extended his hand to her. “Suzanne Mayhew.” He liked the way her fingers clasped him, warm and confident. He showed her his ID. She glanced at the license then took a picture of it with her phone. Smart lady, although part of him liked to think she wanted a trophy so she could prove his age to her hot suburban MILF friends. She took a longer look at the other ID he showed her. “Boston PD? I feel safer already. The girlfriend I’m about to text will definitely feel better about this adventure knowing I’m with a cop.” “I’m off-duty. Who knows what might happen?” She laughed. Nice laugh. Not a girl’s cutesy giggle, but deep, throaty, hinting at adult experience and adult pleasures. “That’s why this is an adventure. You want to text anyone just in case I’m a black widow?” “I’ve dealt with way more murderers than I care to think about on such a nice day. I doubt you’re a black widow. After driving this car, though, maybe you’ll be a merry widow.” Well, that came out a little more suggestive than he’d intended, but since she didn’t look offended, he followed up with a teasing, challenging grin. She grinned right back. “I like the sound of that. It’s about damn time to be a merrier widow. I think I even have a merry widow stashed somewhere, but boned lingerie seems too fussy for the occasion.”

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Chapter Two

I don’t believe I just said that. She’d already made enough of an ass of herself, telling young, buff, beautiful Neil Callahan more than he needed to know about her relationship with Frank. When she finally told herself to lighten up and enjoy a little practice flirting with a hot guy, she’d blurted out something over the top. She was crazy out of practice about how to be charming and playful with a guy she found attractive, but maybe Neil would forgive that, seeing as though she’d been married until not all that long ago and was just dipping her toes into the flirting water. She didn’t even know if she had that merry widow anymore. Not much point in complicated lingerie when your sex life was by the numbers and you were sure your husband was thinking about someone else. And more often than not, she was too, even if it was just a fantasy Dom out of one of her romance novels. But she suspected the other women of the Kinky Kougars group, the ones who’d successfully navigated the treacherous waters of post-forty dating and were now playing with a hot young stud (or more than one, in some cases), would say to run with it. Neil’s blue eyes, an extraordinarily deep shade, almost midnight, raked up and down her body. He’d gone there, and evidently liked the trip. “If you want to change, I’ll wait.” Blue shouldn’t look as heated as his eyes did. Frank had blue eyes too, but his had been closer to gray, and more often than not as cold and remote as the sky on a winter day. Neil’s were like a tropical sea… She made herself laugh. “Even if I knew where the darn thing was, which I don’t, and even if it still fit, which I doubt, those things are poky.” “Point.” His eyes darkened to an even more implausible shade of blue. “And not the best choice for a drive. It’s nice today, but it’ll be cool with the top down.” She raised an eyebrow, and he added quickly, “Have to make sure it works, right? Older convertibles can have problems with the tops sticking.” Oh, this was going to be fun. At the last minute, she hesitated, handed the keys to Neil. “No, really. You wanted to test-drive it. You should go first. I mean, it’s still my car. I could drive it any time.” Now that she’d admitted to herself that she itched to drive the gorgeous, off-limits car, she didn’t quite understand why she wasn’t jumping at the chance to do so. Good manners?

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A desire to let Neil have the fun of the first drive because she was developing a silly little crush on him? At least she knew it wasn’t because she was afraid she’d wreck the car. Frank had often implied—very politely, because his manners were impeccable even when he was being a jerk—that she wasn’t a very good driver. But she suspected the problem was more that he was a terrible passenger, too much of a control freak to relax and enjoy the ride. Sad, considering she hadn’t even been getting hot kinky sex out of letting Frank take charge all those years. Long before the end, though, she wouldn’t have wanted it with him even if he’d offered. That spark was dead. Hot sex of any flavor, with Neil Callahan, with those fierce blue eyes, that short, but touchable dark hair, that hint of scruff, which must be his way of rebelling on off-duty days, that body, would be another question. Which was why she found herself wanting to defer, she supposed. Bad idea. What was it they’d said at the meeting, and in the inevitable chats on their forum on FetLife? Get to know each other a little as equals, establish a baseline of mutual respect, set boundaries, and then think about submitting. That must go about triple if you’re not even sure the guy’s interested in you. Sure, he’d acted flirty, but maybe he was just a flirt, or trying to butter her up to accept a low-ball offer on the car. It didn’t mean he wanted to do anything kinky even if he was interested in her. A wave of awkwardness hit her, but luckily, Neil didn’t seem to notice. “I get it,” he said. “You want to take your turn on interesting roads instead of suburban side streets. I can respect that. And this way I can get us heading to someplace more scenic.” “Where?” she thought to ask, sliding into the passenger seat. She started to text Janice as soon as she sat down to let her know what was going on—she should say where she was headed as well. “Do you have plans for the rest of the day? I was thinking the Cape.” Immediately she thought of all the reasons this was a bad idea. The Cape was a long way away. They could be gone for hours. She’d just met this guy, and sure, he was a cop so he probably wasn’t also a rapist or an ax-murderer, but wasn’t it crazy to decide to spend the day with a stranger? She had things to do… Only she didn’t, really. Nothing she couldn’t do tomorrow or the next day or any damn time. She lived alone and as a kitchen designer, she worked odd hours and had no appointments until late morning tomorrow. If the house was messy because she’d been out having an adventure for once, or if she ended up buying groceries at 1 AM, who cared? 16

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As for him being a stranger—yeah, he was, but he was the one who’d suggested the safe call. Which, come to think of it, was something that had come at the Kinky Kougars meeting, as a precaution people should take when getting together with a potential Dominant. Maybe younger people did it as a matter of course, or maybe it occurred to him because of his work, but she liked to imagine Neil was a kinkster who’d fulfill her every fantasy. Dreams were good. Dreams were all that had kept her going for the last few years of her marriage, when Frank got so wrapped up in work, or whatever the hell else he was doing, that she might as well have lived alone. That, as much as anything, was why she let herself respond to Neil’s suggestion the way her gut and not her common sense told her to do. Common sense was overrated. She’d been living for years with the common sense that told her to stay safe and trapped in a comfortable-enough marriage to a man who loved his work and his hobbies with more passion than he loved her. Fuck that noise. She jumped when she realized she said that out loud. “We don’t have to go to the Cape,” Neil said quickly. “It just seemed like a good place to drive with the top down.” “Was that the outside voice?” She laughed at herself. “I was just saying shut up to that little voice that told me to stay home and do the laundry.” “Did you or the laundry win?” “Me, thank goodness. I haven’t been to the Cape in ages,” she said. “And it’s the perfect day for it. After Labor Day, but still warm.” She added a few words to her text and hit SEND, but her brain was decidedly not on what she was writing. She figured Janice would understand any crazy typos. “Then sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ll find the perfect stretch of road and then you can take over.” He wasn’t even looking at her as he spoke, busy with the thousand little adjustments you need to make when getting ready to drive an unfamiliar car, but the way he said sit back and let me drive filled Suzanne’s head with vague but delightful images of ropes and blindfolds and Neil’s big hands, so competent-looking on the steering wheel. Lost in naughty thoughts, she read Janice’s almost instantaneous reply to her text: GO FOR IT. SEND UPDATES. It came as a surprise when the car stopped halfway out the driveway. Another car, a dark blue high-end SUV with tinted glass, had partially blocked their www.samhainpublishing.com

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path. “Let me handle this,” Neil said. Any urge she had to protest died hearing that tone of voice. Neil got out of the car and took a few steps toward the offending vehicle. Without being in uniform, without being armed, he managed to scream law enforcement through body language alone. The driver rolled the window down. “Take it easy. We just want to see the car.” The driver had a slight accent, maybe Arabic or Turkish. His hair was a lighter brown than Neil’s, his skin the color of old ivory—but his hawk-like features struck her as faintly exotic. There was another man in the passenger seat, but she couldn’t get a good look at him. “I simply hoped to catch you before you went out. I’m interested in the car.” “We’re in a hurry,” Neil said curtly. “Please back up so we can leave.” “But I want to talk to the lady about the car.” “The lady and I need to get going. Call the number on that sign later and make an appointment.” He pointed at the FOR SALE sign, now propped up against the mailbox. “I don’t have a lot of time and I’d like my chance for a test-drive.” Suzanne opened her mouth to say something then closed it again. She’d probably have caved in to the guy’s pressure, but she liked the way Neil handled it. Authoritative but not an asshole. “I’m not going anywhere until I check out the car.” “You don’t want to play that game. I’m a cop, which means if I call and say someone’s menacing my friend, this neighborhood will be crawling with uniforms in about two seconds. Blocking someone’s driveway so she can’t leave seems pretty menacing to me.” The two men in the SUV consulted briefly. Suzanne couldn’t hear them, but she suspected they weren’t speaking English. Finally, the driver barked, “Fine. I’ll call,” and backed up enough to let them out. Suzanne glanced behind her and saw them making an awkward U-turn in the narrow street. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought that was kind of creepy?” “Probably just an asshole with attitude, but do me a favor and write the plate number down. I’ll run it tomorrow.” She had no idea what the plate number was—she couldn’t even swear it was a Massachusetts plate—but Neil recited it like it was his own phone number and she jotted it down on an old grocery list. On second thought, she also typed it into the notepad app on her phone so she couldn’t possibly misplace it. 18

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She also kept checking behind them as they headed for the highway, even though she’d seen the SUV going off in the other direction. It didn’t relieve her nerves that Neil seemed to glance in the rearview more often than most people did. If the cop was concerned someone was following them, Suzanne figured she wasn’t paranoid from watching too many TV crime dramas and reading too many romantic suspense novels. Under the circumstances, she’d rather be paranoid.

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Chapter Three

As they drove, something occurred to Suzanne. “How did he hear about the car? I just decided to sell it two days ago and put the for sale sign out yesterday. The ads I placed won’t be out until the weekend. I mean, you were driving by on the insanely cool bike, but—” “Actually one of my friends mentioned the Mustang. He lives around the corner from you, and he knows my dad and I are car nuts.” She was already freaking out a little and while he wouldn’t say he was, that guy had an aggressively bad attitude in an expensive jacket. Best to reassure her—and himself—that there were all kinds of ways Mr. SUV might have heard about the Mustang. “You know John Barrow?” She nodded. “African-American guy about your age? He’s in IT and his wife teaches at Boston College?” Neil nodded. “I designed their new kitchen, and he runs past the house all the time. So maybe the jerk in the SUV knows someone in the area too. That’s the simplest explanation.” Yeah, and usually the simplest explanation was the right one. So why was the incident niggling at him so much? It had just been a thoughtless guy with an overpriced gas-guzzler being annoying. Nothing more ominous than bad manners and an entitled attitude, and he ought to be used to that. But Neil had been a police officer too long to discount the intuition that told him more was going on than someone proving that money didn’t equal class. Might be nothing, but maybe he’d fended off something bad just by being in the right place at the right time. The rude guy and his companion didn’t fit the usual carjacker or home invader profile. They were middle-aged, wearing suit jackets and he thought the passenger even had a tie on, as if they were playing hooky from work to check out the car—but maybe they were trying to blend in with their targets. He hadn’t heard about anything like that going on, but it could be a suburban problem that hadn’t made it onto his radar in Boston; he’d get in touch with some of the local guys and see if he’d missed hearing about a ring of classy-looking criminals terrorizing the wealthier suburbs. Neil realized with a start that he’d been driving by rote, not appreciating the wind in his hair or the car’s vintage interior, not paying any attention to how the Mustang cornered or what the engine sounded like.

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Dad would smack him upside the head, especially since he wasn’t being distracted by the only thing his father appreciated more than a great car: a beautiful woman. Dad, as he often said, was old, but he wasn’t dead. He flashed a brief smile at Suzanne and was rewarded by a grin in return. “This is great and we haven’t even made it to the highway… Oh, turn here!” They were almost to Route 95, but he took the left and soon found himself on a narrow, twisty road that felt like it was far more remote than it was. He vaguely remembered seeing a sign for an Audubon reserve at the turn. Judging from the woods around him and the occasional mountain bike enjoying the hill road’s curves, they must be driving through the reserve’s land. He couldn’t exactly open the car up, not with a speed limit of 30 and conditions that made even that impractical. A couple of times he had to slow to a crawl until he could get around a laboring cyclist. But it was enough to test the car, enough to give him a feel of the way it handled, the barely restrained power of the eight-cylinder engine. It wanted to run like the wild horse for which it was named, but it could be polite, hold itself back when necessary. Kind of like he was because he wanted to pull off into one of the little trail heads or a random driveway and kiss the woman by his side. When they got to the reserve headquarters, an old farmhouse surrounded by gardens heavy with cosmos and sunflowers and a bunch of flowers he didn’t recognize though the birds and butterflies obviously did, he pulled into the parking lot. It might be a weekday, but the weather was gorgeous, so the lot was relatively crowded, with several groups milling around pulling daypacks and water bottles out of their cars. Still, he managed to find a spot under the trees at the far edge. “Thank you. That was the perfect road to get started. Now it’s your turn if you’d like. Just go light on the gas. This isn’t exactly the Prius in your driveway.” “Between you and me, I got the Prius mostly to annoy Frank. Good to be green and all that, but mostly it was because he didn’t think of it as a proper car and at the time that amused me. But I’ll be nervous with all the damn mountain bikes,” she admitted. “I’d rather wait until we’re on the highway. That is, if you still want to go out to the Cape. Was this enough of a test-drive for you?” He thought carefully about his answer, wanting to make sure he made it clear he was talking about the Mustang and not about Suzanne—even if he kind of was talking about Suzanne. “Enough of a test-drive to know I’d like to drive this car some more. Enough to let me know I really want it, even though it’s not the project car I was looking for. But yes, I’d www.samhainpublishing.com

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still like to get out to the Cape. And I’d love to have you drive me there.” He hesitated. “Do you know how to drive a standard? If that’s why you’re nervous, I understand. And I’ll be glad to teach you sometime if you’d like.” She laughed. “I’d love to pretend I can’t drive standard because that would give us an excuse to hang out some more, but I actually learned to drive on a standard and thanks to Frank’s car obsession, I’ve kept in practice. The Prius is the first automatic car I’ve owned. I guess I’m just nervous about driving Frank’s baby. But he let me drive the Stingray a couple of times, so this one’s nothing to be scared of. Move over and let me play.” The day was already brilliant, the kind of New England early autumn day that poets probably wrote about, but her smile made it brighter yet. “I’m going to go slowly around the mountain bikes. Those suckers make me nervous.” He scooted over as best he could, awkwardly lifting himself over the gearshift, just to allow himself a few extra seconds of watching her walk around the car. Yellow T-shirt. Dark indigo straight-legged jeans, definitely not Mom jeans. Black canvas Keds with white polka dots—he hadn’t noticed those before because honestly he hadn’t gotten beyond her glorious ass, the length of her legs, the fall and sway of her hair. Slightly retro, lively, fun—he liked it. She stopped by the driver’s door and snapped a selfie with Neil and the car behind her. “Proof of life for my friend,” she explained, laughing, as she sent the picture off into the ether. Then she settled into the red curves of the driver’s seat, giving him lovely thoughts of leather and her ass meeting without jeans in between. Suzanne’s knuckles were white as she made her way through the herd of mountain bikers, but she was already having fun. By the time she’d been on the highway for half an hour, she had second thoughts about selling the Mustang. The power of the engine, the warm leather seats, the sheer fun of driving something so big and red and shiny, something that turned heads. She snapped another car selfie when they stopped for coffee and sent it to Janice with the text SELL OR KEEP? Janice might just urge her to keep it, if only as a form of revenge through good living. And this car was definitely good living. No wonder Frank had loved it so much. Damn selfish of him not to share it with her. Then again, he hadn’t shared much with her. Neil had already opened up more in the short drive than Frank typically would in a year. Not that Neil was a chatterbox, but she’d learned from his words that he’d inherited his grandparents’ two-family house in Dorchester, and that he and his father, a retired cop, restored cars and other vehicles together. The 22

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vintage motorcycle he’d arrived on was one of their projects. And she knew from his eyes and the inflections of his voice that he loved his father, even though he’d told a few hilarious stories about them butting heads. She knew he was dedicated to his work, knew he wasn’t a detective yet, but hoped to be one within the year. From the way his big hand stroked the dashboard or the leather seat when he thought she wasn’t looking, she could tell that he lusted after the Mustang, but the smile that lit up his incredible blue eyes told her he enjoyed watching her getting acquainted with a car that was technically hers, but that she hadn’t enjoyed until now. She wondered if Janice would playfully suggest keeping Neil or selling him. He’d been in the picture too. Suzanne would keep him if that were an option. Alas, it probably wasn’t. Should she sell the car to him or not? It wasn’t like she needed the money. Hell, she didn’t need her job, in financial terms. Frank’s persnickety nature, annoying as it had been when he was alive, meant he’d left their finances in excellent shape—a small fortune, well invested, and no unpleasant surprises. His will, to her astonishment, stipulated that she would have been his primary heir even if they’d gotten divorced, as long as neither had remarried at the time of his death. And the car was incredible. She could see why Frank wanted to keep the pleasure to himself. But she’d be thinking about Frank every time she drove it. No point in having the sort of car meant to plaster a grin on your face offer bitter memories instead. By the time they turned off into the parking lot for Nauset Beach, she’d made a decision. If Neil wanted the Mustang, she’d sell it to him at a good price. He’d enjoy it without his fun being dimmed by association, and he’d enjoy keeping it in tip-top shape instead of needing to farm its upkeep out to a specialty shop that would overcharge her because she wouldn’t know enough to call them on their bullshit. She’d use the proceeds to buy a sexy car that would be all hers, with no memories of Frank attached. A modern convertible might not be quite as spectacular as this one, but it would still be great to drive. It would also have a warranty and readily available parts, and might get more than six miles to the gallon or whatever this relic of a more optimistic age got. There, that was settled. She felt a little wistful as she looked out over the ocean, smelling salt air and luxuriating in red leather, but it was the best solution all around. www.samhainpublishing.com

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Maybe Neil would take her for a ride sometimes. Yeah, as if…but didn’t that bring all sorts of interesting, sexy images to mind? Suzanne sat back in the red leather driver’s seat and turned to him. Her sunny yellow T-shirt was a startling contrast to the seat and he liked the effect. She stretched like a cat, obviously luxuriating in the sun and the ocean view. “So, what do you think?” she said. “About what?” About how much he’d love to see her naked on that red leather? About how he’d like to kiss her senseless and let things escalate into spanking, bondage, and anything else that seemed like a good idea to both of them? About the alarming way her smile knocked him sideways? Yeah, pretty sure she wasn’t asking about any of those thoughts, but a guy could dream. “About the car, silly.” Yeah. Things just deflated at the reminder he was only enjoying her company thanks to the Mustang. “I lust after it…” He chose the words deliberately because he was only human and he needed to flirt a little with the lovely Suzanne. He glanced out over the beach and the restless, blue gray water while he chose his words. He came up with half a dozen dodges in half a dozen seconds, but in the end decided on the truth. “I’d love to drive her some more, maybe poke around under the hood. But honestly, I’m not sure I can pay you what she’s worth.” “Once you’ve had a chance to do your driving and poking, make me an offer.” He didn’t pick up a hint she was talking about anything but the car, but she looked so beautiful in that driver’s seat, September sun glinting in her red hair, that Neil couldn’t help thinking of all the offers he’d like to make her. He hesitated, trying to fight back the words and worse yet, the impulses that filled his brain. He wanted to offer her his naked body, a bed, a chance to explore her naughtiest, kinkiest fantasies. Wanted to offer to strip her down and taste every inch of her luscious flesh. Wanted to offer her an afternoon that would at least start to make up for what sounded like a craptastic marriage, and then a week, a month, however long it took for them to get the other out of their system. Inappropriate much, Callahan? He and Suzanne had a flirtatious vibe, but that would definitely be pushing it. Probably to the point where she’d order him out of the Mustang and make him walk back to Bellwood to collect his motorcycle. With a struggle and some deep breathing, he forced his words, if not his growing erection, back under the control of his brain. “I’m going to have to do some research. John 24

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gave me the impression the car was a fixer-upper, but it looks like she’s had nothing but TLC.” A strange look flickered over Suzanne’s face but fled before he could interpret it. “It’s had TLC all right,” she said drily. “The appraiser said it was actually over-restored.” She snorted. “Kind of like some of my friends, but you didn’t hear that from me.” He ran his hand over the silken surface of the dashboard. “In this case—though maybe not your friends—the results are beautiful. But I know what your appraiser meant. A lot of us prefer a car that shows its history, even if it has some dings and scratches, to one that looks showroom new thanks to a lot of replacement parts.” The dashboard felt almost alive beneath his hands, sleek and animal, but instead of reveling in it, he was imagining Suzanne’s skin. Imagining her lips, glossed with something soft and slick and kissable. He couldn’t help himself. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. Suzanne snorted. “Right. It must be the nicks and dings.” “Partly. You have history. A beautiful patina of experience.” He leaned forward. She met him halfway. “I was hoping you’d make this kind of offer,” she said, her voice husky. And then they were kissing in the beach parking lot, with families milling around them, carrying all the gear needed for a day of fun in the sun. Body boards, beach umbrellas and picnic coolers were all very well, but kissing a beautiful woman was the kind of fun in the sun that Neil preferred. Better than taking his Indian on the Kancamagus Highway, better than cruising top down in a classic convertible, better than any thrill he’d ever experienced. The fact that he and the beautiful woman were doing their necking in a sweet red ’65 Mustang only made it better.

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Chapter Four

Suzanne’s last coherent thoughts were, I can’t believe I’m doing this! Followed by, Why the hell shouldn’t I do this? She’d been a good, faithful partner to Frank for all the years they’d been together, long after she realized that his passions were more intellectual than physical or emotional, and his vanilla ways less a preference than an unwillingness to step outside his comfort zone. That he liked her balance of good nature and occasional bouts of redheaded temper that made her willing to stand up to his stubbornness, but in the way you’d admire those traits in a top-notch executive assistant. Even when she was sure their marriage was over except for the paperwork, it made a difference to her that she kept the promises she’d made so long ago. Only they were promises made to a dead man. They didn’t count anymore. And if she shocked a few sun-tanned moms of toddlers, or retirees on vacation enjoying the last glorious days of New England summer, did it matter? Then she forced her conscious mind to shut up and threw herself into the kiss. At first it was awkward. It had been so long since she’d kissed anyone other than Frank, who had his own style. Not a bad style, sweet and comfortable like the old married folks they were—except that pleasant but tame kisses started when they were way too young to settle for that. At least his kisses still felt affectionate, in his detached, distant way, even after he started with the late nights, the unexplained absences, and the second, passwordprotected phone she was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to have found. But she had to reach back into the mists of the early 1990s to remember this kind of kiss, the kind full of passion and possibility and curiosity. The kind that asked all kinds of questions, starting with “Do you think I’m hot?” heading to “Do you want to…?” and then taking a left turn to questions about love, sex and the meaning of life that were impossible to put into words. She didn’t have answers to those questions. Didn’t even know, anymore, how to ask herself anything that deep and searching. And maybe it didn’t make sense that she thought she might find the right questions, if not the answers, in the arms of this sexy, much younger cop. But Neil’s lips reminded her she was truly alive, not just going through the motions of living. His lips and his tongue, the tickle of his rebel scruff, so charmingly at odds with his

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short, neat cop hair. And oh, those muscled arms around her, pulling her close, making her feel small and soft, but at the same time powerful, desirable. And not powerful because she was desirable. She was both. Her body filled with almost forgotten hunger. Oh, she remembered desire, felt it often, but for the last few years, even while Frank was alive and well and occasionally having sex with her, desire had grown from fantasies rather than reality. A handsome actor looking buff and commanding on a movie screen, a sexy passage in a book—her Kindle was full of BDSM romances and erotica, some good, some schlocky, but all featuring scenes that set her imagination and libido soaring—a stray thought that sent her mind to dark, delicious places where hard hands and strong bodies and the occasional whip, paddle or toy worked their magic on her. This wasn’t fantasy desire. This was specific. All about the taste of Neil Callahan’s lips, the way his tongue invaded her mouth…no, not invaded, because invaders weren’t invited in and welcomed with ticker-tape parades, and if her mouth could, it would be throwing a parade right about now. All about the way he smelled like gingerbread in the salt air with its hint of suntan lotion. The way one big hand cradled the back of her head, controlling and tender at the same time. The way his broad chest and back felt as she scrambled to touch as much of him as she could, and if she was making a spectacle of herself, well, it was about time. She hadn’t thought about it when Frank was still alive, but she’d always been in his shadow, the brilliant man’s pretty wife who stayed in the background. Or was kept there. He was never mean about it, but his work was his life, and his cars were his escape from work, and she didn’t have a role, other than “supportive cheerleader,” in either area. She’d given him the occasional verbal slap down when his confidence veered into arrogance or when he walked over her without even noticing he was doing it, but she let him do his thing because both Mayhew Robotics and the cars mattered so much to him. Now it was time for her. Seagulls’ cries and the hush and roar of surf mingled with the wet sounds of kissing, sharp intakes of breath, little groans she was startled, then amused, to realize she was letting loose. She’d worked one hand under Neil’s Dropkick Murphys T-shirt, getting to know roped muscle. He stroked her bare back and side underneath her shirt until she expected the prim little twist-front top to burst into flames from her rising heat. His hand crept forward and up and she thought—hoped—prayed—he’d touch her breast right there in the parking lot, under the cover of their twined bodies but still in public. www.samhainpublishing.com

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His hand ceased its journey, to her aching disappointment, but he kissed his way along her jaw to her ear, little, delicate brushes that made her shiver. “We’re being watched,” he whispered, between small nips on her earlobe. “Duh.” She didn’t bother to whisper. “We’re a little blatant with the PDA. I’m fine with that.” He gripped the base of her ponytail, sending a thrill through her whole body, and tilted her head. He opened his mouth, let his teeth rest lightly around her throat. No pressure, just pure, primal possessiveness, and her body responded in kind, turning limp and liquid and compliant, ready to do whatever he suggested or demanded next. His lips returned to her ear. “No,” he whispered. “Well, yeah. A few people are gawking. But I swear the guy from your driveway is in one of the other cars.”

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Chapter Five

The conflagration in Suzanne’s body changed to an ice storm, and the gasp she let out had nothing to do with passion. “Why?” was all she managed to say at first. It occurred to her as soon as she did that Neil was likely as clueless about that as she was. But being a cop, he might have answers to some more immediately important questions. “What do we do now?” She pulled away, smoothed her hair with a quick, instinctive gesture. Neil pulled her back. “First, I want to make sure I’m not imagining things.” He kissed her again, a more playful kiss this time, deliberately rumbling the hair she’d just smoothed. “Would you like an ice cream?” It took Suzanne’s addled brain a few seconds to catch he was inclining his head toward the ice cream stand at the far side of the parking lot. She tried to look casual as she glanced in that direction. Between the Mustang and the stand was a gray Lincoln MKX SUV with its motor running and its windows rolled up. She couldn’t make out the faces of the people inside, but on this warm, beautiful September day, both men were incongruously wearing sports jackets, as if they’d just come from a business meeting. Just like the guys who’d been so rude earlier. She shuddered. “Yeah. Ice cream. I see what you’re getting at. Good time for a walk.” Her imagination was full of scenes from the action movies and TV crime dramas she loved, the only frames of reference she had for this situation, so it took her a while to understand his next question. “What flavor?” Not something she could make her mind about easily at the best of times, and this was hardly the best of times. But a stroll to the ice cream stand wouldn’t be convincing if it ended without ice cream. “Anything but vanilla.” Neil grinned. God help her, even with some creepy guys possibly stalking them, he promised her all sorts of delights she could hardly imagine yet yearned to experience. “Anything but vanilla. My kind of woman. Although vanilla can be good with the right… topping.” Had he just said that? Had he meant what she read into it? It hardly seemed like the time to ask.

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But as he sauntered toward the ice cream stand, strutting the cocky walk of a man on a hot and possibly illicit date, she couldn’t help wondering. Even as she noted the way his seemingly casual strut and sightseer’s gawk were carefully calculated to disguise how he observed everything around him. Including the occupants of the Lincoln. She’d always hated those pretentious jumped up vehicles anyway. Now she had a reason. Neil had done this dance before, something more than a dozen times, less than a thousand. Done the dance of pretending to be doing anything on earth other than paying attention to potential criminal activity. The difference between those times and this one? For one, the many times he’d done it as part of his job, he’d been armed, and there’d been backup, even if the backup hadn’t always been close enough to do much good if, as his dad said, the excrement really hit the air-conditioner. The bigger difference between just about any surveillance-type situation in police work and this one was that at work he had an idea why the person was behaving suspiciously. Knew, in general, if he was dealing with a known drug dealer or a possible burglar, a potential pedophile or a suspected murderer. This time, he had no clue what was going on, no idea why or how the guy may have followed them all the way to the Cape, or whether he was stalking Suzanne or himself. Not exactly reassuring to know so little, especially not when someone else was involved. Was she an innocent bystander in whatever the hell was going on or did she know something? What did he really know about Suzanne Mayhew anyway, other than she’d inherited (supposedly) a gorgeous Mustang and she kissed like someone possessed by a succubus? Not a hell of a lot. Part of his mind was wandering in all directions, but most of it was observing. No one else appeared to be watching him or Suzanne with intense interest, though he got a couple of glances. Suzanne’s car was definitely drawing admiring looks, but then people moved on. It was hard to keep track of all the people milling around the lot, not to mention he was more interested in keeping an eye on Suzanne and on the people in the gray Lincoln anyway. He waved at Suzanne, smiling goofily like a doting boyfriend and was rewarded with her blowing him a kiss. Suddenly he felt very much like a doting boyfriend. Which wasn’t helping his concentration. 30

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Get back in the game. He’d been walking slowly, acting like a man enjoying the nice day and checking out the view of the beach and water from the lot—Nauset Beach’s parking lot was set well above the beach itself, making it quite a spectacular spot. Romantic, even with the crowd. Or it would be if that gray Lincoln weren’t sitting there, its engine running as if the occupants wanted to be able to follow them at a moment’s notice. Maybe they just liked looking at the water in air-conditioned comfort in their jackets and ties. Maybe it was two completely different guys, stopping at the beach for a breather on their way home from a law office; even on the Cape, lawyers tended to be formal. Hell, for all he knew, the two guys were a couple having a heart-to-heart or a fight and that was why the windows were rolled up tight. In fact, there were so many reasonable explanations that Neil almost managed to convince himself his law-enforcement Spidey senses were mistuned. Until he got a good look at the people in the car. The tint on the windows was enough he hadn’t been sure from a distance, but as he passed the car, it was obvious. Same guys. Different car, same guys. How the hell had they followed them to the Cape, especially with the detour to the Audubon preserve? The guy had Suzanne’s cell phone number. If the guy could triangulate using cell towers, he could track them that way. It wouldn’t be easy to pull off on your own, and highly illegal unless you were law enforcement with a warrant, but not impossible if you had mad hacking skills and/or the right contacts. Hell, there were apps and websites that would let you track someone’s cell phone. All the legit ones were set up so the trackee had to consent—they were meant for keeping tabs on kids or people with health issues—but hackers were hackers because they got a big old woody out of getting around safeguards like those. And that was the kind of hack that could make someone a lot of money. It seemed like something out of a spy movie, but it was the most logical explanation he could think of. He bought the ice cream. He didn’t want to let the two well-dressed goons know they’d been made. And while he waited for the cones, he took what he hoped looked like a picture of www.samhainpublishing.com

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Suzanne and the Mustang, but wasn’t. He couldn’t make out much through the tinted glass, but maybe it could be enhanced. It wasn’t like on TV, where someone could take five pixels and get a clear image from it, but maybe he’d captured enough that between the image and their verbal descriptions, a sketch artist could come up with something decent. He greeted Suzanne as affectionately as he could with them both holding ice cream and whispered, as he did, to confirm their friends from Bellwood had found them again. Then he suggested they switch places. “I know the roads down here,” he said, trying to sound casual and, for her sake, not saying he was the one trained in driving for pursuit and evasion. From her strained expression and the smile that didn’t reach her eyes, she figured it out without him saying anything. He also made a great show of driving out of the parking lot one-handed, licking his Kahlúa-and-cream cone until the Lincoln was out of sight. Temporarily. They’d be back because they wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble if whatever was going on wasn’t important. Then he tossed the cone toward the curb (with a childish internal whimper because it had been really good ice cream) and, with both hands on the wheel, put all his training in defensive driving and everything he’d even thought of about ditching pursuit to the test. As soon as they were on a mostly empty back road, he ordered, “Take the battery out of your cell phone. Now.” Suzanne gaped and sputtered “What the hell?”

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Chapter Six

“Take the battery out of the phone,” he repeated using slightly different words, as if she hadn’t understood him the first time. “They’re tracking you. Using the GPS, I think, but maybe towers.” Holy shit! This was like something off NCIS. One of her favorite TV shows, sure, but not something she wanted to find herself living. “But what if one of my clients or my mom calls? And my safe-call friend might freak out if she can’t reach me. She’s super-protective. Like Wonder Woman or something.” That was the way to handle it, making light of the situation. He had to be mistaken. Paranoia must become a natural side effect of being a police officer, and the incident this morning had been creepy enough to trigger it even in someone with less reason to see crime everywhere. Then she had a thought. “If it is the same guys, how do you know they’re not after you?” “I don’t. They switched cars once, and they might have done it more than once. For all I know, they tracked me to your place from Boston, in which case, I’m really sorry. And we’ve made it easy for them. A vintage Indian and a red Mustang are both distinctive.” “Oh why couldn’t I have been selling a white Accord? Oh, because you wouldn’t have been interested in it.” The poor attempt at snappy dialogue made her feel braver for a few seconds. “Whichever one of us they’re targeting, my gut says they caught up to us using your phone.” He took one hand off the wheel, and, without taking his eyes off the road, wrapped strong fingers around her wrist. “Do it, Suzanne. It’s the best way to be sure. Trust me.” Her panic mounted, but at the same time, something about the firm grip on her wrist, the authoritative voice, set her shuddering for an entirely different reason. This moment shouldn’t feel sexy. Not when she was apparently being followed by creepy people in an SUV. Not when a cop was worried about those stalkers and talking about scary, spy-movie kinds of things. But his intense, deep voice, his strong, tanned hand, the sense that she needed to obey him, all conspired against her. He was being his cop-self, she knew, not a fantasy Dominant, but damn if it wasn’t playing into some of her fantasies. Or maybe being crazy turned on kept her from becoming a complete panic stricken,

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whimpering idiot, in which case it was a survival tactic. She still hoped he might be mistaken, or that the men’s presence here was a coincidence. But better to be safe. She opened the phone and pulled the battery out. For a second, she let it rest in her hand, slightly warm and feeling much heavier than it actually was. She flashed to the stranger’s cold eyes, the behavior she’d thought of entitled pushiness but could also make sense as something more ominous. She flung the battery from the car. She was tempted to throw the phone after it, as if it were somehow contaminated. “Good girl.” His voice was almost a whisper, but it was so intense that it carried over the road noise. It zinged through her body, quivered on her nipples and clit. Had she been waiting all her life to hear those words in that tone from a man like Neil Callahan? Maybe. Okay, yes. Yes, she had been. But none of her favorite writers would feature these circumstances as a sexy set-up in her next erotic book. Neil might be hot, but scary stalkers weren’t. Suzanne slumped lower into the red leather seat, reality hitting her. Her stomach roiled, and she realized she was shaking. She closed her eyes, focusing on the purring of the big engine and let it take the edge off her terror. She didn’t realize she’d knotted her hands together tight as tangled yarn until Neil’s big hand came to rest over her entwined ones. She breathed deeply, drinking in the warmth of his skin on hers. “What now?” she asked, ashamed of how her voice quavered. She had sounded more composed talking to the officer who called her after Frank’s accident. “I can’t go home, can I?” She made herself open her eyes, look at Neil. He seemed impassive, but his gaze kept shifting to the mirrors, checking behind him constantly. His hand squeezed hers as he said, “Not until I have a better idea what’s going on. I’m not sure I should either. It makes more sense that they were following me, not you. I can’t place them, but cops do make enemies.” “Hotel?” Her damn libido kicked in as she said it, obviously liking the idea of holing up in a hotel with Neil. She told it to pipe down. Neil shrugged as he replied. “The car’s too distinctive, and not many hotels on the Cape have garages. But I have a friend who works at Woods Hole.” “I don’t want to get him involved in this. Whatever this is.” “He’s at sea doing research for the next five weeks. I know where he keeps his key, 34

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though, and he’s always said he’s fine with me borrowing his place if I want to chill on the Cape.” To her astonishment, Suzanne laughed. “Chill? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” “Princess Bride? I knew I liked you for a reason.” He squeezed her hand again. “No, this won’t exactly be chilling.” He turned his eyes from the road for a second, looked into hers. And there was that hot blue again, tropical, compelling. She could drown in his eyes and die happy. She was about to laugh at her own thought when, despite everything, Neil smiled. “The opposite of chill. Things may get pretty hot.” He drew a line with one finger on the soft skin of her inner arm, but it seemed like he stroked someplace more intimate and even more sensitive. Suzanne swallowed hard, her mouth as dry as her panties were wet. Neil zigged and zagged on back roads, relying less on his GPS than on instinct, best guess and memories of rides on the Indian. No one car had been behind them for very long, and every time he spotted someone following them apparently by chance, he’d turned. Only once had the other car turned after him, and it had pulled into a driveway moments later. But he still felt uneasy. The men had been in a different vehicle the second time he’d spotted them, and he suspected they’d been trailed part of the way with a completely different car driven by different people. So who knew who might have spotted them, passed intel on to…whoever was in charge. Which, he told himself firmly, was crazy talk. This couldn’t be some kind of large-scale operation. It wouldn’t make sense. Not unless Suzanne wasn’t what she appeared to be. Soccer-mom drug kingpin? Suburban madam who’d blackmailed the wrong person? He’d heard of weirder things. More likely, though, an innocent woman who’d caught the wrong person’s attention. She hadn’t admitted to any misguided dating adventures or creepy clients, but maybe she just hadn’t made the connection. Dealers and mobsters might get bored and lonely and check out OKCupid or FetLife, but they probably took a brush-off even less gracefully than the average online creeper. Or, as he said earlier, this had to do with him or maybe even his father, and they’d been using the Mustang as an excuse. He glanced at her again, got hit by another wave of rampaging lust. Something else, too, something that made him want to protect her—not like he protected the public as a cop, but in a more personal way, like a knight in freaking armor or something like that, defending www.samhainpublishing.com

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his lady. She’d better not turn out to be a criminal. He’d made it this far without fucking any criminals, as far as he knew. It would be a shame to spoil that record. And he had every intention of fucking her, and doing other things with, for and to her, if she’d let him. Which he was pretty sure she would. At least he was sure of something, because everything else was damn fucked up. Nothing like stumbling into what might or might not be a crime off duty and outside his jurisdiction. ***** Thank goodness for small mercies. Plenty of room for the Mustang in Sam’s garage, next to a well-loved Jeep, still splattered with mud from previous adventures. As a bonus, Neil found a large tarp, still in its package, which he threw over the shiny red vehicle. “Ought to be a crime to hide something this pretty,” he muttered. Suzanne nodded her agreement as she grabbed the other side of the tarp. She helped him position it, adding, “I have a cover for it at home. But who knew we’d need it?” “Yeah.” He let them in through the back door. God, he’d given his friend grief so many times about leaving his key under a rock by the steps, but he was grateful today. Tonight, more like, because the sun was setting. The little Cape was simple, no-frills, and achingly tidy. Neil teased Sam that he’d make someone a great service sub someday, although the neatness was a habit he’d gotten into from living on ships for long stretches and a level of self-discipline (and discipline of a few select friends) that made Neil look like a slacker. They entered the kitchen, which looked like Neil’s friend had scrubbed it before he left. Of course there was nothing in the fridge except some condiments and a lonely can of root beer. Suzanne was looking around, though, like it was the frigging Four Seasons combined with Disneyland. No, Neil realized, she wasn’t. She was just trying to avoid meeting his gaze. She moved restlessly, just out of reach. Hovering. Anxious. Well, of course she was anxious, but he sensed the anxiety wasn’t just about the crazy situation and all the unknowns, but about being alone with him. About what might happen next. 36

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He’d set up a good, responsible plan while driving here, a plan that involved contacting his lieutenant, running those plates, seeing if anyone knew anything about men fitting their stalkers’ description or if there’d been reports of similar incidents. This plan involved dinner, even if it had to be pizza or whatever else delivered in Falmouth. He figured food would help him keep his hands off Suzanne until he had answers for her, or at least until he could say he’d asked the right people some of the right questions and they were on their way to getting answers. The good intentions dissolved when he saw how lost she looked, how frightened and at the same time, how eager. He touched her shoulder, more tentatively than he yearned to, more tentatively than he would have if the day hadn’t been so weird and fraught. “Suzanne…” He wanted to say the right thing, but words were failing him. For a second, not even that, he stroked the fiery silk of her ponytail and repeated to himself everything his father had ever impressed upon him about how to treat a lady. But when she raised her face, looked at him with big eyes, frightened and confused and yet heated, all his father’s wise words blurred into so much noise, drowned out by the roar of his blood. The combination of fright and confusion and lust was potent for a man with his needs, his fetishes, even knowing that while the spark of attraction between them was real, the nervous bewilderment wasn’t the happy nerves of anticipating a scene with a new Dom. “God, you’re lovely,” he breathed. He imagined his hands on the amazing body of hers. Imagined losing that cute sunshine yellow shirt, peeling off her jeans, experiencing more of her sleek skin. Imagined himself spanking that fine, firm ass. His last bit of sense asserted himself with that idea. No. Too soon. Even if he sensed that energy from her. Even if he could smell her need, felt the way she was trembling. Down the road, sure, but this didn’t feel like the right time for opening that door, the negotiating, asking all the delicate questions a Dom should ask with a new playmate, especially one who might be inexperienced. Let them taste each other tonight—he didn’t think he could help himself if she was as willing as she seemed—and figure out the rest later, when he’d had a chance to follow up on the creepers and put both their minds at ease. Except she looked up with him with those big eyes and pleaded. “Touch me, Neil. Touch me like I think you want to.” He had to ask, had to make sure they were on the same page, even though his blood roared and his dick screamed for him to just do it. Grab her. Take her. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“Like you’re in charge.” She swallowed hard. He saw the muscles shift in her throat and it was unspeakably sexy, that show of nerves not in the face of would-be stalkers but the prospect of him and her, of him topping her. “Because I want you to be right now. When you grabbed my wrist in the car, I started shaking, and it wasn’t just nerves. I melted. My panties got soaked. And I’m scared half to death about what’s going on because it just doesn’t make any sense but I’m still melted, thinking about you handling me like that, about giving me orders in that growly voice. Maybe hurting me in good ways.” “Have you played this way—BDSM?” Suzanne dropped her gaze briefly, as if considering, then looked back at him. “Not in about a million years.” He snorted. “You have a few years on me, sure, but you’re not that much older.” “Since before I was married, which seems like a million years ago. Just experimenting, I guess, nothing really hardcore, but I loved it. Then I met Frank and he wasn’t into it. I thought maybe he’d change his mind, but he never did.” A deep breath. “I want this, Neil. Need this. I may be rusty, but I know what I’m doing. Know what I want to be doing, at least.” Finally, given permission to follow his instincts, he let one hand slide to that tempting firm ass and grabbed it. The other stayed in her hair, but gripped that ponytail, using it in the way—one of the ways—he’d been imagining ever since he saw it, pulling her head back, tugging hard. For a second he watched a lust-charged smile bloom across her face. Yeah, she liked this. Then he was kissing her the way he’d been craving. Oh, the kisses at Nauset Beach had come close, but that was before Suzanne had actually said the words he needed to hear, the ones that unleashed the side of him he normally kept under tight control. He devoured her, staked a claim on that sweet, sensual mouth. She tasted as good as prime rib and whiskey, as good as Christmas, as good as the first cup of coffee on a winter morning or the first cold beer after a long shift on a hot day. She tasted like more, and Neil took more. She made little, happy mewling noises around his invading tongue and ground her body against him. He pressed his leg between hers and she took the not-too-subtle hint eagerly, straddling his thigh to grind against it. Need surged through him at her responsiveness, her obvious desire. He could channel that. Use that against her in ways that would ultimately be for her, for both of them. He could have taken her to the bedroom. He even knew where the toy bag lived, and 38

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which toys Sam didn’t mind visiting friends using as long as they got cleaned. But his blood was boiling, his hands tingling with the need to touch Suzanne, manhandle her more, spank her. The kitchen would do for now. There was a handy container of wooden spoons and spatulas on the counter. He had his suspicions about those spoons; there were an awful lot of them for a guy who lived mostly on frozen dinners and sandwiches. Neil knew all about that trick. He liked to cook, but he had more of certain kinds of kitchen tools than he needed because they doubled as excellent and inexpensive toys. His cock strained so hard against his fly that he swore he could count each tooth of the zipper as it pressed against him. He eased away from the kiss, but only far enough to slide his hands to the hem of her shirt. “I want you naked,” he said, and it sounded like a groan and a prayer wrapped together with hemp rope. “I want to be naked. And I wanted you out of those clothes about five seconds after I met you.” She clamped her lips together as soon as she said it; as if she was astonished the words had come from her mouth. But her eyes sparkled, and she wriggled, helping Neil pull her shirt over her head. Her bra was off-white, plain, not the kind of bra a woman wore on a hot date. He still thought it looked beautiful, or maybe more like she was beautiful and the bra, like her clothes, was irrelevant. Her breasts would look better with his hands cupping them, not the bra. Evidently she agreed, because Suzanne twisted her arms behind her back and the bra fell to the floor. “Normally I like to set the pace, undress you myself,” Neil said, “or tell you to do so. But I appreciate your enthusiasm. And the view.” Her breasts were neither modelperky nor model-huge. A little softness there, but like the subtle lines around her eyes, he liked that proof she wasn’t a girl, but a woman who knew what she wanted and had the experience to back up her choices. Her skin was fair, her stiff, deep rose nipples contrasting starkly. He could see the faded tan lines from the summer; although she had the body to rock a skimpy bikini, Suzanne was apparently a one-piece woman. He hoped it was because she was the type of person who didn’t want to worry about sand rash or one more place to protect a redhead’s sensitive skin, not the kind who was ashamed of a belly that had a slight curve to it, a hint of softness that he, personally, found sexy as hell. (Not that there was anything wrong with a more athletic build, either. Face it, he just liked women’s bodies.) Neil moved behind her. The kitchen was narrow, the sort you found in older houses where they worried more about function than form, and she had to step closer to the www.samhainpublishing.com

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counter to allow him to do it. He didn’t need to say anything. She seemed to read his body language, his need. Yeah, her experience with kink might be years ago, but she had the right instincts. She could anticipate his needs and wishes from his body language, and they barely knew each other. Hot like a jalapeño. He reached around, cupping her breasts to pull her close, her bare back pressed against his chest. Dammit. He liked the mental game of stripping her while he stayed dressed, setting up a power dichotomy for their games, but right now, he wished he’d given up the mindfuck for that bit of extra skin-on-skin contact. He cupped her breasts. Soft, soft skin, so warm, and her nipples were already at attention. He brushed them gently at first, reveling in her sudden intake of breath. Then he pinched, harder than he would the first time touching someone one hundred percent vanilla, and was rewarded with a gasp as her body undulated against him. “You like that?” Way to ask a question with an obvious answer. “Love it.” She turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were huge, the pupils dilated by lust so they looked almost black. “More please. Maybe harder.” He could do that. With pleasure. Soon, though, he was regretting the position he’d put them in. The noises she made wove into a symphony of moans and hisses and gasps, but he wanted to watch the sensations pass over her face. He urged her around by grasping one nipple firmly and pulling it to the left while pushing her right hip forward. She laughed as she turned, not a girl’s uneasy giggle, but the full, throaty sound of a woman having the time of her life. Her nipples were reddened, swollen. A few bruises blossomed where he’d pinched the pale, sweetly curved flesh. Her eyes were glazed, and she smiled dreamily. “More?” It wasn’t begging—more like how a cat would demand more petting if it could talk—but at the moment, he wasn’t holding that against her. He didn’t know if she’d enjoy a higher protocol, or if she’d like to try it at least, and this wasn’t going to be a time for detailed negotiations and long discussions of likes, dislikes, and fantasies. That could come later. This time they’d learn by doing and ask the most important questions as they went along. “More as in more of this, or more as more intensity, more sensation?” She grinned as she replied. “Yes!” Then she laughed, this time sounding more girlish and silly. “I mean I really enjoy what you’re doing, but I’d also love to try something more intense.” She hesitated. “I think, anyway. Like I said, I’m out of practice. I know how much I want, but not how much I can actually take.” 40

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Oh shit. Callahan, you idiot, you forgot to discuss safewords. “If it’s too much, but you don’t want to stop, just tone it down or take a breather, say yellow.” “And if I really need to stop something, I’d say red, right? I may be out of the loop, but I’ve been reading a lot lately.” Neil found himself breathing a little easier. He nodded. “Exactly.” If they’d played again, he might encourage her to come up with her own safewords if she wanted, words that resonated for her, but the old standbys worked for now. He ran his hands over the fullness of her breasts gently this time, watching her face. Excitement. Arousal. A flicker of doubt—maybe at his unexpected gentleness, maybe at herself. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, as if the weight of desire was forcing them shut, but still held a spark of curiosity that pleased him. When he pinched again, she sighed, arched her back to push her breasts toward him as if to beg for more. For a few minutes, he alternated between gentle, soothing strokes and pinches. When he judged she was ready—when her face was flushed with lust and, even when he pinched, her eyes were screwed shut with need—he slapped her right breast. Not too hard, but hard enough that the flesh jumped and so did she. Her eyes shot open, and she yelped. He could tell when the sudden pain transmuted to pleasure. Her face softened, and a dizzy smile broke out. “Thank you,” she murmured. He said you’re welcome by hitting the other breast, waiting for her to process the sensation, then repeating on the other side. After four slaps on each side, she had lovely red handprints on those pale breasts. Her eyes were wide again, glazed, and her breath was coming in short gasps. She’d made a sound each time that might have been protest, except it was too laden with desire, too needy. Too delicious. And with each slap, she’d thanked him, her voice sounding less articulate each time. She was ready for more, he judged. And God knew he was. “Take off your jeans.” His voice barely sounded human to his own ears. “Then turn around and put your hands on the counter.”

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Chapter Seven

As she toed off her sneakers and wriggled out of her jeans, Suzanne came back to what normally passed as reality to think I’m getting my breasts abused by a guy fifteen years younger than me, a guy I just met today. And we’re doing it in a stranger’s kitchen, which makes the whole thing even more surreal. So did the reason they were in that kitchen, as opposed to her place or Neil’s or some motel, but she wasn’t going to go there right now. Instead she rooted herself in the moment by asking what seemed like a more timely question, if less important in the big picture, than why someone had been stalking them. “Underwear too?” She found herself wishing she’d worn something less utilitarian than Hanes Her Way, but they’d been her last clean pair; she really had needed to do laundry on her afternoon off. Neil didn’t seem to care about the lack of pretty lingerie. “Underwear too. Good girl for asking.” The plain pale blue underwear, thoroughly damp at the crotch, flew over by the front door. She wasn’t sure she’d want to explain to anyone except Neil himself how much those simple words moved her. Being called a good girl sent a jolt of pleasure through her whole body, even if, or maybe because, she hadn’t been a girl in decades. It started at her toes and tingled all the way up to her scalp. Most of it, though lingered between her legs, adding to the wet, delicious throbbing. It put her in a strange space, half insane with lust and wanting to go faster and harder right now, half so intrigued by what was happening that she’d like to slow everything down and study it like a beautiful but confusing foreign film. She started to turn, but Neil reached out. “Not so fast.” His blue eyes narrowed as he studied her body, and he nodded slightly as if in approval. Then his gaze seemed to focus on what she knew must be a glint of silver between her legs. He reached out, gently touched her recently healed clit-hood piercing. “Now this is a nice surprise.” “Part of coming back to life. I was numb after Frank died, and then I realized I’d been numb for years anyway. This was a way of waking myself up, getting reacquainted with my

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wild side.” She swallowed hard and decided she’d tell him a little more. “Sometimes I put a ribbon or something through it and imagine that it’s a leash.” Her face was flaming, but at the same time, she didn’t feel embarrassed so much as freed by saying it. “We’re going to have so much fun.” He smiled, shaking his head. “Open your legs.” When she obeyed, he ran two fingers over her lips, catching her moisture. “You’re so wet.” His fingers dove into her, just long enough to make her clench. “I can’t wait to lick that lovely pussy and play with that ring. Can’t wait to fuck you. But first, I’m going to do something I’ve been dreaming about ever since I saw you bent over the Mustang. Turn around so I can spank your beautiful ass. Assuming that’s something you want to try, of course.” Heart pounding, breath caught in her throat, Suzanne obeyed, bracing herself against the counter. She prepared herself for a resounding thwack, but as he’d done with her breasts, he started with a light caress, running his big hands over the skin until every bit of it tingled to life. She pushed her ass back at him and moaned. He rewarded her with a hard spank. Surprisingly hard. She’d been prepared, she thought, but it had been a long time. “Ouch!” she exclaimed, then added quickly as the heat spread from her affronted bottom throughout her body, “But not yellow. Just startled.” He stroked the tender skin for a second then struck again. This time, she managed not to yell, though she did bounce in place on her toes and instinctively pull her hips forward. She immediately pushed them back at Neil and the spanking continued. It stung like the devil, but at the same time, the pain suffused her with heat and need. Her clit throbbed. Her pussy ached as it got even wetter. The ring in her labia felt like a great, teasing, delicious weight. At first she tried to count the blows, but soon her brain refused to deal with anything that mundane and lost itself in the cycle of sting and sensual fire. Her hips rocked back and forth. Her head swam. Neil was crooning something as he spanked her, but while the words sounded sweet and dirty, she couldn’t focus on them. When he switched from his hand to a wooden spoon, she yelped, but more because she was startled than anything. That felt great too—a different, more concentrated sensation, less intimate than Neil’s hand, but exciting in the way it packed the sensation into one small area. “Is that good?” Neil asked. “Yes,” she moaned, surprised by how husky her voice sounded, how much like a woman already having an orgasm rather than spiraling toward one. “Oh, yes. Wouldn’t mind harder.” A flurry of sharp wood blows followed, light but stinging. She danced in place, flinching www.samhainpublishing.com

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instinctively, yet delighting in the blows, in the way pain and pleasure blurred. Without warning, Neil switched back to his hand, one solid, thuddy spank. The warmth of his hand seared into her beautifully abused skin and reached places inside her she hadn’t even known existed. Her body convulsed. Her cunt contracted around nothing. Her knees started to buckle from the force of an unexpected orgasm. She caught herself on the counter, still wobbling. Then Neil wrapped his arms around her, pressed himself over her body. As she started to calm down, he pressed harder, the roughness of his jeans emphasizing how tender her ass was. One hand snaked between her legs to tug gently on her piercing then circle her clit. Suzanne detonated again, crying out his name. Neil didn’t even bother to undress, just opened his fly and, after a few minutes of rummaging that seemed like hours, put on a condom. She didn’t ask where the condom came from, didn’t especially care. She wished she’d gotten a good look at his cock, but right now what mattered was he was in her, long and thick and fierce. It felt like she’d been waiting for this all her life. One hand pressed on her upper back, pushing her onto the counter, the other gripped her hip almost savagely. He didn’t bother starting slow or building up gradually. Just pistoned into her and it was just what she needed at that moment. The slap of his hips against her sore ass, the slight abrasion of the zipper, reminded her over and over again of the spanking. She couldn’t move, just feel and react, and that was just fine with her. The hand that had been holding her against the counter grabbed her ponytail, forcing her head back. She arched, clenching even more. “I want to feel you come on my cock.” Neil’s voice shivered on her skin, rough and beautiful. “Can you do that for me?” “God, yes. Soon.” She couldn’t remember ever coming this much in such a short time, not unless it was just her, her trusty Hitachi and a book, but another orgasm was building quickly. The arch of her back, the firm tug on her hair, Neil’s control over her movement and the delightful soreness of her ass all contributed. He thrust and pulled back over and over again, riding an exquisite line between brutality and gentleness that she’d never realized she needed. Her inner muscles gripped at him. His thrusts sped up, pumped into her until she thought, ridiculously, of the pistons of a V8 engine. His body seemed to tense. “Come for me,” he ordered. “Now!” An orgasm ripped through her. While she was still convulsing, Neil cried out, a harsh, 44

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guttural noise without words, and he exploded into her. She was dimly aware tears were streaming down her face, though she couldn’t remember when she’d felt better, happier. “You okay?” Neil asked, turning her around. “Never better.” She actually giggled, then laughed more when she realized how silly and girlish she sounded. “Just…letting go, I guess.” “It happens,” he said quietly, then brushed away tears. “Let go as much as you need to. I’m right here.” He pulled her close and she snuggled against his chest. The damn tears kept welling up and she didn’t understand why. Oh, yes she did. Everything she and Frank hadn’t shared she’d just tasted with a guy she’d met only that morning. All the things she’d finally found the guts to say to Frank but never had a chance to because the bastard died. Nerves because of the freaky things that happened today. Nerves of an entirely different kind because she felt like she was about to take off and fly, or burst out of a cocoon, or something equally scary and beautiful. And it all started because she decided it was time to get rid of Frank’s precious freaking Mustang. Though at this point, she might just keep it. Might not be the best idea with people apparently following them, but she’d had no idea how much fun it would be to drive. Or how much fun it would be to be driven by someone like Neil Callahan. Still tearing up, she started to laugh. And when she finally managed to explain to Neil, at least about the Mustang, he started laughing too. ***** They stumbled into the living room, curled up together on an overly firm navy couch, wrapped in the Patriots fleece blanket that had been folded over the back. Suzanne hadn’t thought she was cold, not after a warm day and hot sex, but the blanket was comforting, almost as much as Neil’s arms. She must have dozed for a while, because she woke to find Neil sitting across the room in a lounge chair, also navy but much cushier than the sofa and obviously his friend’s TV chair from its placement, phone in hand. “Hi, sleepy head. I checked the plates. The SUV in your www.samhainpublishing.com

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driveway was reported stolen in Wellesley a few days ago. The one at the beach is registered to a company called—” he glanced at the phone for a second “—White Imports, which sounds phony. I haven’t been able to find any information about it, but cyber-investigations aren’t my specialty. The description of our two creepy friends didn’t ring any bells with my department but I’ve got a call into Bellwood as well. They’ve put another BOLO out on the stolen car—there already was one, but we’ve added a description of the driver. And that’s all I’ve been able to find out so far except there’s a restaurant called Fisherman Jim’s up the road that’ll deliver fried fish by the fuck-ton. That or pizza sound better?” She sat up, keeping the comforting blanket around her. “Seafood sounds great.” “If only they delivered beer, they’d be perfect. But Sam must have some stashed somewhere. I’ll pay him back.” He handed her his phone, which displayed the menu. For a second, she looked at the salads. Then she exclaimed, “Fuck it. Fried clams it is. Want to split onion rings? No, on second thought, I’ll take my own for once.” “Living dangerously,” he said drily as he joined her on the sofa. She shrugged and snuggled up against him, liking the feel of her bare skin against his clothes, loving the heat of his body, the way he pulled her close with his muscular arm. “It’s not every day a nice suburban matron finds herself in a suspense thriller. I think I’ve earned a few onion rings. But I’m not going to live so dangerously I don’t check in with my friend, because she’s scarier than any criminal. Mind if I use your phone?” Might as well make a joke of all the craziness, both external and internal. It always beat crying. As she punched in Janice’s number, she decided summarizing the whole scary-stalkers thing in a text was too much. It’s Suzanne. Having phone issues, she texted. She figured that would be less panic inducing for Janice than explaining the truth in just a few words. But day went so well I’m not coming home 2nite. Then she sent a second text: Deets later. Your kind of deets. She half-expected a text or call immediately demanding proof of life, but instead she just got: Sucks about the phone. Play safe, have fun. And a follow-up message: Call when u can. Want stories! Some things hadn’t changed since they were in their twenties. She smiled to herself as she gave Neil back his phone.

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Chapter Eight

Neil was so tempted to spend the night at Sam’s place, just curl up with Suzanne in the big bed—probably not even making good use of the tie-down points on the bedframe and the rope that hung in the closet, alluring though that notion was—and pass out. Suzanne’s tears, the way she clung to him both before and after her nap, even the way she devoured a large order of clams and enough onion rings to satisfy a college boy, all spoke of sub drop. After a nap and food, she seemed more alert and together, but his instincts told him to baby her. Let’s face it, he could use the sleep himself. The adrenaline and lust of the day had drained him too. He was used to a sense of threat at work, but he preferred his days off criminal-free, thank you very much. And while the scene with Suzanne had been light from a physical perspective—no bondage, no floggers, no pointy things threatening her pretty skin, only the slightest bruising from pinching fingers and those last few thwacks with the spoon—it had been emotionally intense. Surprisingly so. Unfortunately, he had to be at work in the morning. Neil opened up the familiar sofa bed where he’d crashed in the past after one of Sam’s play parties. There were sheets on it, and knowing Sam, they’d be clean in case some of his friends decided to use the place while he was away and didn’t feel comfortable disturbing the inner sanctum of the bedroom. Then he set the alarm on his phone. “Get some sleep,” he told Suzanne. “I’m going to dig a little more, see if I can figure out what’s going on. If we head out around 2:30 the highways ought to be as close to deserted as they ever were, and even creepy stalkers should be asleep. That way I can still get to work on time.” Maybe even getting a bit of sleep himself in the interim. It was only 9:30; he should be able to snatch an hour or two. Suzanne was wearing one of Sam’s T-shirts, a huge blue thing with a whale on the front and the logo of an environmental group on the back. Neil figured that he’d have time to wash it and return it, along with the sheets, before his friend got back from whatever goodly scientific mission he was on. It didn’t make her a bit less enticing. More so, maybe. Her hair was loose, like it had been when he first saw her. The shirt wasn’t quite long enough to cover the curve of her ass. He couldn’t see the bruises from the kitchen encounter, but he knew they were there and the thought of them made him yearn to give her more. Then he’d lay her

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facedown on the bed, kiss the bruises, then go to work on her pussy. But no. Nap first, play later. He kept that resolve until, she bent over the foldout bed to fluff pillows (not that there was much to fluff, since they were square, flat throw pillows with Patriots covers) and arrange the bedding in ways that it didn’t really need to be arranged. He tried to study his phone, where he’d been attempting to see if he could make the photo he snapped into anything useful. But he was quickly reaching the conclusion that someone with mad skills and professional photo editing software might be able to clarify the faces, but he couldn’t. And a man could resist only so much. He stood, grabbed those distracting hips, pulled her against his crotch as he bent over her, pressing his body against hers. “You tempt me,” he whispered. “God, do you tempt me.” “I’m trying to.” He kissed her neck, then bit down at that tender place where her neck met her shoulder. He got a mouthful of cotton, but her sigh of pleasure and her movements against him made the taste of T-shirt a gourmet treat. “It’s working. But I should investigate our maybe bad guys. And I could use some sleep myself.” His cock offered the opinion that sleep was for the weak and feeble. His brain agreed more than it should have. “Besides, I had only the one condom.” That was a more convincing argument to his cock than responsibility, though said happy dick reminded him there were plenty of getting-off options that didn’t require a condom. “If you had more than that, I’d be concerned you spent a lot of time having wild nights with strangers.” Well, it had been known to happen. He was a young, single guy active in the local BDSM community; munches, demos and play parties sometimes led to hook-ups. He had a feeling Suzanne wouldn’t really be shocked by that. But those were situations when you knew a hook-up was a possibility. “I’m glad I had any. Not something I deliberately take along to check out a car, but I’d had one in my wallet for ages as a just-in-case.” “I’m about twenty years out of the habit of carrying them myself. But if you keep doing that—” he was thrusting against her, couldn’t help himself because even with fabric separating them, it felt too damn good “—I may not care.” He might not either, even though he’d come like a fucking rocket not long ago, and that would be bad. They were moving fast, but there was moving fast and there was being just plain dumb. Reluctantly, he pulled away. She was still bent over, though, and that was more than he could resist. “You have the 48

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most spankable ass,” he whispered as he gripped it, digging his fingers into areas tender from their earlier play. She moaned deep in her throat. “Oh please…” Oh God in heaven, yes. One hand to spank her, one hand to cup her pussy. He pressed on her clit and vibrated as he spanked, played with the ring. She started gasping for breath and bucking, first pushing back to enjoy the spanking, then pressing forward into his exploring fingers. She arched her back and tossed her head. He couldn’t see her skin flushing, dammit, couldn’t see the curve of her body, but even through the enveloping T-shirt, he could see how her breasts moved. He reveled in that plump, slick clit, the slippery ring. It wasn’t enough. He had a brief, startling thought. It might not ever be enough with this woman. There was something addictive about her enthusiasm, about the way she admitted her darker cravings and seized the opportunity to fulfill them. He could imagine so many things he’d like to try with her. She might not like all of his kinks—that would be too much to dream— but he was willing to bet she’d be game to try most anything once and at least hear more about the edgier ones she wasn’t ready to dive right into. Right now, though, what he wanted to do was something even the most vanilla of women tended to like. “So goddamn beautiful. So wet. I need to taste you, Suzanne.” Her answer was a moaned, “Oh God, yes!” Before she finished with the three short words, he bent down. There, he could see better now. Her beautiful ass was mottled, red with a few blue-black bruises shaped like a wooden spoon, and it took all his strength not to bite it, mark it further as if sealing his claim on her. He spread her ass-cheeks, licked once at her wet slit. Delicious, but the position was too awkward. “On the bed, now. Shirt off.” It gratified his domly black heart to see how quickly yet gracefully she scrambled to obey. She might have been away from BDSM for decades, but gleeful submission was definitely in her nature. And then he stopped analyzing. It was hard to turn off that part of his brain but when she was spread before him on that ugly pullout bed, long legs parted wide, her slick pussy glistening and swollen, and a silver ring ornamented with a green ball marking his target, everything switched off that wasn’t directly related to her or to sex. Even the throbbing of his dick took second place to the need to taste Suzanne. He knelt down on the bed between her legs and for a second, just studied her. Beautiful, and maybe he’d been saying that word a lot to himself since he’d met her—was it really only this morning?—but he couldn’t think of a better one. Maybe gorgeous, maybe hot and sexy, www.samhainpublishing.com

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but beautiful worked. Her legs were parted wide, knees bent, and her pussy was already exposed, but he put one thumb on each of her outer labia and opened her wider. Her cunt contracted, clenching as if his gaze caressed her. Oh yeah, she was a live one. She whimpered, no words in it, not even a plea. The sound was so soft he might have missed it, as if all her energy was centered between her legs, with little to spare for anything else. He glided his thumbs up and down, stroking along her pussy lips until she was mewling. He ended with his thumbs at the top, near her mound, pulling back so that pretty clit stood proud. “That ring is super-sexy,” he said, “and it makes a great target for my tongue.” Then he lowered himself to his belly and let himself, at last, taste Suzanne Mayhew’s musky juices. Suzanne was overwhelmed even before Neil touched her sex. The spanking’s pain and the pleasure had awakened a raucous need. And then when he demanded to taste her, in that rough working-class voice… Frank had gone down on her, though not in the last few years of their marriage. He’d been good at it, for that matter, as he tended to be at anything that meant something to him. But never enthusiastic, never like he was doing it for himself as well as for her. It was a means to an end for him. Neil was different. She could tell by his voice, the need in it… He wanted to do this because it was something he craved, maybe a kind of power in its own right, not so she’d be ready to fuck him. Any idiot could tell she was ready to fuck again about ten minutes ago. Neil opened her and for what seemed like years, just studied her. She felt like a lab specimen, a bug on a pin. Suzanne rather liked feeling that way, at least here and now, with Neil the one who was scrutinizing her. Not like she wasn’t watching him too. He’d never gotten undressed for their earlier sex, but once the food arrived, he’d stripped down to boxers and she was definitely enjoying the view. He was Irish fair, with a dusting of freckles on one shoulder and a fuzz of brown hair decorating his chest. The way he knelt showed off the long muscles of his thighs. No piercings, no tats, just muscle and skin, like he was sculpted from warm marble. She started to reach out her hands to stroke that tempting flesh, but he shook his head. “Not yet,” he whispered. Then he changed position, ending up on his belly. 50

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Good Lord, his hot mouth closed on her clit. His tongue swirled, paying special attention to her piercing. It was indescribably intense. Not painful at all, not necessarily even more sensitive…just so very different than anything she’d ever experienced before, with that little piece of metal focusing her attention on her clit. Not like she could think about much of anything else anyway at the moment, but the slight pressure of the piercing accentuated how he played her. When he caught the ring between his teeth and gave it a gentle, calculated tug, she thought she was going to fly through the roof. As sensation shot through her, she reached for his dark hair to keep him doing exactly what he was doing, but some instinct told her no. Not now. He might not mind, but she’d never known it was possible for a guy to go down on a woman in such a take-charge way and she didn’t want to break that mood. Break that feeling of being sweetly taken, pushed, tormented. Although he seemed entirely absorbed in what he was doing to her, he must have noticed the struggle not to take control, and the way she’d defeated that urge. “Good girl,” he crooned, looking up enough to meet her eyes. “Such a sweet, tasty cunt. But it’s empty, isn’t it? I bet you want something to fill it up.” She nodded. Until he’d spoken, she’d been riding the pleasure of his tongue, but his sultry, sweetly nasty words made her ache to be filled. “Say it, Suzanne,” he demanded. For a second, all she could do was watch his mouth. The angled light from the one lamp they had lit highlighted how his lips and chin gleamed with her juices. “Tell me what you want.” “I want something inside me while you eat me. I can’t have your cock, so let me have your fingers.” One finger poised between her pussy lips, ready to enter. “How many?” There was a mischievous lilt to his voice. Suzanne could dimly remember the years when she and Frank had suffered bed-death, when she would have been fucking thrilled to have one finger inside her because it was better than the nothing or impersonal silicone she’d gotten used to. But every cell was screaming for more now, eager to make up for long deprivation. Her body remembered being young, wild and greedy, but also recalled she wasn’t so young anymore and could call up every experience she’d ever had, book she’d ever read, filthy image she’d ever glimpsed online, and crazy story she’d heard from Janice, to let her know what she wanted and give her the nerve to express it. “All of them,” she managed to say, although her voice sounded anything but normal. “I want all your fingers, Neil.” www.samhainpublishing.com

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He laughed deep in his chest, a laugh that sounded almost like a purr. Then he turned his attention back to her clit at the same time he entered her with two fingers. He started with a slow, rhythmic thrusting, matching his licks to his thrusts. She thought she might die on the spot. Somehow he was keeping the pleasure building, past the point where she’d normally come; just when she was about to explode, he’d switch to doing something just as devastatingly good, yet different enough to keep her hovering but not quite blasting off. When her belly began to ripple in time to his thrusts, he pulled his fingers all the way out, leaving her cunt clasping at nothing—then pushed back in, hard and decisive, with a third. She couldn’t suppress the cry that undulated from her throat. “So good. Oh God, so good. So full.” His tongue was relentless, and with the fingers as well, the combination was insane. She rocked her hips, trying to get more of the deliciously invading fingers, the tormenting tongue. She wanted to come, needed to come, but at the same time, this extended push was blissful and she wasn’t sure she wanted it to end. Her head swam, her body trembled. Neil drew his hand back, entered her again, and this time, it was almost too much yet just enough. Filling her, finding places that cocks, no matter how much she loved them, sometimes had trouble reaching. At the same time, his tongue swirled just the way she needed. Her whole body tightened, then arched off the bed with the force of her orgasm. Her cunt clenched around his thick fingers. It almost hurt but the brush with pain made her clench harder, cry out louder. He released her clit, but kept four fingers inside her as he said, “Oh God, I could almost come just watching you, good girl. Someday I’m going to take an hour to tie you down and fist you. Would you like that?” There were words, Suzanne knew, words that could be strung together to answer Neil. But his wicked question had set up another set of waves crashing through her body. Words other than “yes” seemed far away, but maybe yes was all the answer she needed. She came back to herself with Neil wrapped around her on what she could now recognize as a really uncomfortable bed (though one that would forever be blessed in her memory), one leg and one arm flung possessively over her. “Hot,” he said, the one word seeming to sum up a bunch of things he didn’t quite know how to say. “So very hot.” As he said it, his fingers, still slick with her juices, toyed with her nipple, almost as if he didn’t 52

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know he was doing it. Suzanne didn’t believe that for a minute. He might be half-drunk on lust like she was, but he seemed like the type to hang on to a few spare brain cells so he could stay in control of the situation and of his partner. That thought was enough to make her cunt twitch again, an aftershock making her bite her lip and press her body against Neil’s. “Good girl,” he crooned. He tweaked her nipple, then ran his hand down her body to circle her clit. “Let it take you.” And she did. Over and over again. Finally she calmed—more like he let her calm—and her brain started to solidify. Her body let her know it was exhausted. It wasn’t that late, but she’d had a long, weird day, not to mention more sex than she’d had in…well, she wasn’t going to go there. Why look back on the depressing dry spell now that she’d ended it? A yawn tried to take over. She opened her mouth to let it out, but instead of a yawn, what came out was, “I want to suck you, Neil. Please, may I suck your cock?” God yes was the answer that came to mind, but he dredged up a few more necessary words. “I don’t know if I can be gentle right now. If my dick goes into your mouth now, I’ll be fucking it. Do you like that?” Her eyes went wide, but she nodded. “Been a long time since I deep-throated anyone. Way out of practice. But hell yeah.” He detangled himself from around her. He swore his skin sighed, reluctant to lose contact. “Head over the side of the bed if you can. Don’t hurt yourself,” he added. “That’s my job.” This had all happened so fast he had no idea if she had any injuries and he wanted to make sure this wouldn’t be a problem. She complied dreamily, though, her eyes glazed, her mouth open, ready for him. He could imagine himself sliding between those rosy lips, almost feel himself in her mouth, down her throat. He wasn’t going to last long, but in this case, that was fine. Some acts were meant to be fast, hard and brutal, because otherwise they’d be too much for both parties. With one last effort to make his brain work, he stood, grabbed the keys out of the pocket of his discarded jeans, and handed them to her. “Drop these if it’s too much. Hard to talk with your mouth full and that noise should get through to me no matter how far gone I am.” She nodded, then said, “It won’t be too much, but thanks for thinking of this.” Her voice www.samhainpublishing.com

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was breathy and shook slightly. It might have been lust or nerves, but he’d bet his motorcycle that it was both. He positioned himself next to the bed, bent his knees because the foldout was too low for this game, but he wasn’t about to stop to find a better location, and fed his cock into her open mouth. She swirled her tongue around his head as he entered her, and he knew she tasted his pre-come. Damn, her mouth was hot, and she was eager, and when he pushed back past that welcoming, exploring tongue, she took him deep. “Touch me if you want,” he managed to say before his mind went completely south into his balls. “I like that.” Then he lost himself. He thrust, but Suzanne wasn’t exactly passive, swirling her tongue as best she could around the onslaught, applying enough suction that he remembered the ridiculous old phrase about being able to suck the chrome off a bumper. God, she was taking him so well, the angle opening her throat to permit him deeper access. One of her hands explored his balls, the touch a little tentative for his taste but hell, any touch felt good at this stage. He looked down. Her hair swept down onto the floor, a red waterfall. Her face was contorted by his dick, flushed almost as red as her hair. As he watched her, she gulped and swallowed hard. Her mouth and throat contracted. Her eyes were screwed shut, but a few tears escaped to trickle down her cheeks. She raised the keys and he froze, expecting her to drop them, tap out. Instead, she waved them like a tiny, rattly pom-pom as if signaling to him that everything was fine. She opened her eyes then, and tears or not, they were happy, though drunken-looking, glazed by desire. She winked. It took him half a second to process. He’d been face-fucking her hard enough to bring tears to her eyes and make her gag, but Suzanne Mayhew had just winked at him. From deep within his lust-addled brain, he dredged up words. “You sure?” He couldn’t remember why it was important to verify, couldn’t think that clearly, but instincts pushed him to get consent even more strongly than they urged him to keep thrusting into that avid mouth, keep feeling the back of her throat against his dick head. She rattled the keys again. As she did, she moved her head to take him deeper, back to where he’d been when he thought he might have gone too far. She was hot, wet, gripping bliss and hell, if she was okay with him letting loose, he would. His hips snapped. He pistoned into her mouth as if it was her cunt and she’d just begged him to fuck her hard. More half-choked tears and a messy sniffle that was sexy under the circumstances, but she didn’t stop, and the hand on his balls, oh good lord, moved to 54

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torment his sensitive taint. “I’m going to come,” he warned. “Come so hard right down your throat.” His own words added to his rising excitement, but nothing compared to how he felt when she tightened her mouth and somehow, magically, her throat. With a cry that hardly sounded human to his own ears, he exploded, draining himself into her mouth. Her eager mouth. She was taking his come like it was chocolate sauce or good booze, and that made him twitch and spurt again. He swore his balls were wringing themselves out, an orgasm so intense it verged on pain and he got, on a visceral level, that line submissives liked to ride where hurt and ecstasy blurred. Finally, he had to pull away, leaving a dribble of white fluid on Suzanne’s cheek. Her tongue darted out, tried to catch it. When she couldn’t quite reach, she swiped it with her finger, then sucked the finger deep into her mouth. Her eyes were still shut, her head still lolled off the bed, and though her cheeks were glazed with tears, he could see now that he wasn’t distracted where her other hand had gone. The keys rested on the bed next to her hip, and her other hand was between her legs, masturbating for all she was worth. “Don’t think I can come again,” she said, “but it feels good.” His dick was exhausted, but the part of his brain where the lust lived surged, trying desperately to rise to this nasty, gorgeous occasion. No, his body was done. Even his hands and tongue didn’t seem quite ready to respond to his commands. But sometimes you didn’t need your body to finish bringing someone off. “Suzanne, come!” he barked in his best Dom voice. “Come for me now. Show me how much you liked my dick fucking your throat.” She cried his name as she came. And tired as he was, that was enough to make his spent cock twitch again.

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Chapter Nine

Evidently exhausted by a long day, stress and many orgasms, Suzanne drifted to sleep quickly. Neil stayed by her side until her breathing changed and she softened into slumber, but even though he’d been the one who’d been determined to get some sleep—and even though he’d also had a day of weird stress and plenty of sex—he found he couldn’t join her. He kept squirming, thinking at first the problem was the bed was wicked uncomfortable. He might not have noticed, though, if too many thoughts hadn’t raced through his head. Yeah, he was in full cop-mode, tired or not. The stalker-types were probably car thieves, he decided. Most logical explanation, at least, and the logical explanation was often the right one. They’d heard about the car somehow, came to case the situation, and when he’d intervened, decided to step up their efforts from just stealing the car from the yard to tracking Suzanne and looking for a good opportunity for a car-jacking. Which kind of made him feel like shit, thinking his attempt to help a lady in distress might have made things worse, but if they were car thieves, they were a fairly organized bunch and someone—one of the suburban departments if not Boston— must be looking for them. He eased out of the foldout torture device, tiptoed to the lounge chair, picked up his phone. If he was this awake, he might as well try to figure a few things out. A text had come in. For a half second he hoped it was one of his contacts coming back with an answer or two. No such luck. It was Suzanne’s safe-call friend popping back with a short, enthusiastic Woot! Then he blinked. Looked at the text again. From someone named Janice. Was it a coincidence he knew someone named Janice…and so did John, who’d told him about the car? At least this was easy detective work. Check the phone log for the number the text came from. Compare it to the one saved in his phone for Janice King. He suppressed a chuckle and an exclamation that might have woken Suzanne. Hot damn! Suzanne’s safe call was a friend of his, a Domme from the local kink community. Janice was known for setting her friends up with people she thought might be fun playmates and maybe potential long-term partners. Usually she was direct but he could

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totally see her being sneaky about it if one of the friends in question was getting her feet wet after a long vanilla hiatus, and recently widowed to boot. Especially if the other party was him, because Janice had known him since he was a little twerp just old enough to go to munches and local events and she’d been the mentor who’d kept him from making too much of an ass of himself while he figured out how to use his dominant impulses for good. Suzanne was the type of woman Janice knew he went for, but he’d get a little twitchy if the seemingly perfect woman got thrown at him. And Janice, being no idiot, would know that. Hell, he should get twitchy now, with Janice and John ganging up on him like this. Instead he had to smile. It was the perfect setup for him because he’d asked a few friends to keep their eyes open for a project car. If there hadn’t been a spark between him and Suzanne, he’d have checked out the car and either made an offer on it or not, no harm, no foul, no awkward moment when you know a mutual friend was trying to set you up and the two of you were staring at each other thinking, no way, no how, not if you were the last living member of a gender I’m willing to fuck. He went back to Janice’s text, hit Reply, and typed in: This is Neil. You sneaky bitch, I love you. He thought for a minute and added a smiley face before he hit Send. Janice didn’t need to know the whole mess with car thieves and stalkers yet, though once they got it straightened out, they’d all need to go out for a drink—John and his wife too—and share the whole crazy story. However, she did need to know he was on to her little game and was getting a kick out of it. He was Boston PD. Give him a little credit. And speaking of Boston PD, now that he was done tweaking Janice, he had work to do. But two hours later, he was no closer to a clue into their situation (though he’d gotten a text back from Janice with nothing but an emoji of a face sticking its tongue out while grinning). He yawned and his skull felt like it was about to split. This would be easier on the computers at work, where he had access to more sources. Even if it wasn’t, he wasn’t going to do much good three-quarters asleep. He curled up next to Suzanne who grunted in her sleep and moved over to give him more room. The bed was hellish and he briefly regretted not using Sam’s bed. But he was way too tired to deal with it now, and Suzanne was fast asleep. Having her curled up next to him felt so natural it would have been scary if he had the brain space to be concerned about how fast he was falling for her. Luckily, he didn’t. A weird kind of bright side to having stumbled into a bizarre stalking situation was that www.samhainpublishing.com

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it was hard to freak out about the stupid things when there was something serious to worry about. ***** Suzanne had no clear memories of the car ride back from the Cape to Neil’s house in Dorchester, and only a few impressions of the house. A two-family, older but well maintained. Not much in the way of décor, but she really only saw the downstairs bathroom while Neil stashed the Mustang somewhere in his garage and picked up his car, which to her surprise and delight was a metallic green Challenger. He laughed as he ushered her into the 70s muscle car’s bucket seat. “This was my grandfather’s. Being a car freak runs in the family. Hope you don’t mind if I leave my bike at your place a while longer. At this hour, I’m not about to wake my dad up and have him give me a ride to Bellwood.” “Ashamed of me?” Suzanne managed to joke. He snorted as he started the car. She liked the way its engine roared. “Hell no, but it’s four in the morning and now that he’s retired, Dad takes about an hour and a gallon of black coffee to find his glasses, let alone drive safely. But I do have to let him know the Mustang’s in the garage. He’s bound to go out there at some point.” He paused. “After my mom died, Dad got depressed. I know, duh, but this was a medical-problem depressed, not just sad. Once he retired, it reached the point he’d forget to eat and stuff. I’d inherited the duplex from my grandparents and I knew my tenant was leaving in a few months so I tried to convince Dad he’d be doing me a favor to sell the old house and move in.” “That was a nice thing to do.” She wasn’t sure what she said even made sense. She was mostly talking for noise as the car ate up the road, heading south toward her house. Her empty, lonely house. The house that the bad guys could find way too easily. But she had to go home because she had appointments with clients in Bellwood tomorrow and all her notes were there. Besides, Neil hadn’t offered to let her stay at his place and she wasn’t about to impose. They’d had a great time, but it was an impulsive fling made more intense by the sense of danger. She was fifteen years older than he was, for heaven’s sake. This wasn’t going to last. Still, she was going to enjoy the hell out of the fling and any other fun she could get out of this craziness. She cocked her head at Neil, tried to study his face. It wasn’t easy in the dim light, but he looked thoughtful. 58

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“It didn’t work at first. He’d said he didn’t want to be in my way or lose his independence. But when I told him I was working on Gramps’s Challenger and could use some help restoring it, he got excited. Started hanging out here all the time. When the tenant moved out, he asked if he could move in because he’d found a project car himself and he liked my garage set-up better.” This time Suzanne’s brain clicked into gear before she answered. “Okay, that’s awesome. Sweet, but in a real, non-sappy way. I think I like your dad.” Neil rested his hand on her thigh. “He’d like you. I mean, he has a weakness for sexy redheads so you’d get a lot of borderline creepy old-dude flirting but I think he’d just plain like you.” He squeezed. “And since you put up so well with a borderline creepy young guy flirting you should be able to handle him.” Suzanne yawned, stretched, put her hand on top of Neil’s. In all the excitement of the day, she hadn’t taken a really good look at his hands before—it was hard not to be distracted by what his hands could do, not to mention the rakish blue eyes, abs, ass, cock and the dirty, dirty mind—but for a second the dim interior of the car, previously illuminated by dashboard lights, was lit up by the blaring floodlights of a construction zone. She noticed the calluses, the faint stains. Yeah, he worked with his hands. Frank had had calluses too, but he was as likely to get a manicure as she was. And despite playing under the hoods of his cars, he made sure his hands didn’t reflect that hobby. Certainly no stains. Frank was the CEO of a company. Even if, at heart, he was an engineer who loved to tinker, he also liked to be elegant. Neil wasn’t elegant. “And thank God for that,” she muttered. Luckily, Neil was dealing with a construction-related merge and didn’t pay attention to her cryptic remark, so she wasn’t forced to explain the whole thing. Neil, in fact, fell silent. Maybe he thought she’d want to doze, or maybe he needed a little quiet. He seemed like a man who might spend a lot of time in relative silence, not much given to small talk unless it served a purpose. Flirting seemed to count as a purpose. She closed her eyes, tried to let the roaring purr of the engine hypnotize her to sleep. It didn’t work. She’d managed not to worry too much about the pursuers this evening. Hell, it was hard to worry about too much of anything, or even think in a straight line, while having the best sex in decades or lost in a post-orgasmic haze. But in this patch of weary yet sleepless quiet, she could think. Neil had said something about car thieves on the drive up from the Cape, and that made sense. She wanted it to make sense. www.samhainpublishing.com

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But what if it wasn’t car thieves? The man who’d gotten out of the car and talked to them—almost threatened them—hadn’t felt thuggish. Menacing in a controlled way, but not thuggish. Sure, her idea of car thieves and other low-level criminals was based on movies and cop shows, but wouldn’t they be younger and rougher around the edges? Maybe their guys were the ones who scouted out the cars and someone else got their hands dirty doing the actual theft. They were management. Criminal management, but management. Which would explain why the guy had reminded her of a slightly exotic Frank until he’d opened his mouth and turned into an asshole—and honestly, he still had a bit after that. She couldn’t imagine Frank ever being rude in a threatening way, but he could be singleminded in pursuit of his goals and come off like a jerk. And that thought led her to Frank and his secrets. Maybe they’d found the name and learned about the car from something Frank had posted online. She thought he’d been involved in a couple of automotive forums. Neil might even know what they were, and they must be bookmarked on Frank’s laptop. Someone could have pieced together his identity and decided to rob him. Were they social enough sites that someone might have posted that he’d died? She’d check out the laptop in the morning, and she’d ask Neil if he’d heard about criminals trolling online for people who died leaving behind valuables that might not be obvious to less clued-in survivors. That decision reached, she was able to relax. Only a few exits left, not much point in sleeping, but she could close her eyes and rest… Neil had to wake her up when they pulled into the driveway. “I’m going to take a look around. Can you open the doors from here?” She punched him sleepily. “I could if my phone still worked, but all I can do for you is raise the garage door.” She pressed the remote on her key ring and the door opened. “It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like both of Frank’s other cars and my Prius are still there. That’s something. We’ll have to get in the old-fashioned way.” “No, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way. You stay here until I know it’s clear.” She opened her mouth to argue then closed it again. Partly she knew he was right; she wouldn’t have a clue what to do if there were intruders and might require rescue or do something totally stupid that made the situation worse for Neil. Partly the conviction in his voice went right to her clit. This was a real-life scary situation, not even remotely a sexy roleplay, but her pink bits didn’t know to make that 60

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distinction. They just heard a handsome Dom using the trademarked Voice of Authority and responded. God, she had it bad. Neil took a second to open the trunk, which surprised her, but it became clear when she saw the tire iron in his hand. He handed the Challenger keys back. “Lock the door. If you hear shots, drive like hell to the police station,” he ordered, then kissed her. That was The Voice of Authority too, but this time even her clit knew the difference.

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Neil decided to go in through the garage. Car thieves would start there and probably not get any farther. As a bonus: inside the house, you probably wouldn’t see if the garage lights had been turned on, just in case something more complicated was afoot than stealing classic cars. Three cars, just like she’d thought, or rather one car and two car-shaped lumps under covers, even within the garage. The Prius was plugged in, charging, where Suzanne had left it before they headed to the Cape. It was locked, and apparently undisturbed, which made sense. People stole Priuses but they wouldn’t be worth as much as Frank’s vintage collectibles. Gingerly, he lifted the covering on the closer car, a turquoise and white ’57 Bel Air. Neil froze. That trunk had been pried open, awkwardly. It wasn’t closed properly now, probably wouldn’t close again without repair work. Not something a car thief would do. If a thief couldn’t pick the locks, he wouldn’t damage a vehicle he might be able to come back for later. Something smelled off. He didn’t want to look. He was enough of his father’s son, his grandfather’s grandson, that it pained him to see damage to a classic car. But he had to. Yup, the window was smashed, the way you’d do it if a pet or a kid had been locked in and you didn’t have time to wait for a locksmith. What he saw inside the car was wanton destruction, subtle as a brick. Slashed upholstery, a few panels dislodged like someone had been looking for something and wanted Suzanne to know they’d been looking for it. He didn’t dare curse out loud, but he mentally let loose a barrage that would make his uncle the dockworker wince. Car theft was bad enough. No one liked to have expensive property drive away without them. But this was worse. If they hadn’t had the incident this morning, if someone hadn’t been following them on the Cape, he’d interpret this as vandalism, idiots with too much time on their hands, not enough brains in their skulls and probably too much booze or

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drugs in their bloodstream having what they considered fun. Yet with everything else he’d seen, this cranked up from everyday stupid shit to something much more threatening not to mention personal, as if someone had a serious case of hate for Frank or Suzanne or what these cars represented. The white-knight part of him that Suzanne brought out made him want to charge into the house and check it out, but he knew better. You just didn’t go into the scene of a potential burglary alone and armed only with a crowbar and a bad case of wanting to look heroic in front of a pretty woman. Every muscle in his body tensed with the strain of resisting the urge to charge into the house. Not his jurisdiction, not his case, not even remotely a good idea to play hero, but he wanted to. Almost needed to, and not just for all the reasons he’d become a cop in the first place, but because it was Suzanne’s house, Suzanne’s danger. He’d known her for less than twenty-four hours and he was already starting to feel responsible for her, protective of her, and not because she was a member of the public he was sworn to serve and protect. It was because she was Suzanne, and she’d gotten under his skin. Some idiot caveman part of him had decided that one evening of sex (really great sex, sure, but still one evening of sex) meant she was his. That line of thinking could only get him in trouble in so many ways. Time to beat a strategic retreat and call in the locals. Fuck. ***** Suzanne stared at what remained of Frank’s home office. Some part of her supposed she should be hysterical, but right now, the mayhem wasn’t sinking in. She wasn’t letting it. That furniture, tossed around like a careless child’s toys, was part of the set for a crime drama. The shredded books that looked like a chimpanzee with a bad attitude had gotten to them were the props. The hole in the wallboard? Part of the set design. Frank’s computers and tablet gone? Well, of course they were. It was that kind of show. The fact that much of the house looked nearly as bad wasn’t even close to registering yet. The dishes were mostly intact, but the contents of the fridge and cupboards had been ransacked, and for some reason all the salad dressing and mayo had been emptied, and a half-jar of spaghetti sauce. The bedroom was torn apart, and she’d looked away when she www.samhainpublishing.com

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saw what happened to the mattress. It seemed too much like those knives had been ripping into her. Although the computers and Frank’s tablet were gone, the TVs and Suzanne’s jewelry hadn’t been taken. The thieves had missed her tablet in the large tote she used for work. She’d laughed hysterically when she realized that. Her house was a disaster, even her bed destroyed, but she could still make her appointments today—and read her kinky ebooks. The targeted theft, and the level of destruction, had made the police ask who might have a grudge against her or her late husband, or have reason to think there was something on Frank’s computer that might harm them? The best Suzanne could come up with was the girlfriend, maybe, or someone connected to her, but she didn’t know who the girlfriend was—or, for that matter, if she’d actually existed outside Suzanne’s suspicions. Janice was holding on to Frank’s password-protected secondary phone because she’d neither wanted it in the house nor felt like dealing with the truths hidden in it. Trying to come up with a reason other than a grudge that someone would ransack the house and cars was even harder. Industrial espionage was a possibility, she supposed, but why here instead of Mayhew Robotics, where work had continued as usual after Frank’s death? Why now? And why so violently? As the detective from the Bellwood PD pointed out, stealing corporate secrets tended to be a slick, impersonal kind of crime carried out by professionals who could more often than not do it electronically. This was messy, amateurish. And then there were the two men who may or may not have followed them to the Cape. The police officers took that all down too. Finally, the detective asked the question she’d been trying to figure out how to answer: what was her relationship with Neil? She wasn’t ashamed of having a fling with a goodlooking young man, but if Neil was trying to be discreet and their stories didn’t match, that might send the police off on the wrong track. “We just met yesterday when he came to look at the car,” she finally said, “but we clicked. Started flirting, decided a test drive all the way to Falmouth seemed like a good idea. When it seemed we’d been followed out to the Cape, Neil decided we’d try to lose them by hanging out at a friend’s place for a while. I think he called in the plates on the vehicles—he’s Boston PD—but I’m sure he’ll tell your partner all that.” Noncommittal and for now the officer didn’t push it. Then again, her face was probably flaming thanks to her damn redhead complexion. The detective, not being born yesterday, probably guessed they’d done more than go for a drive together, but for the moment, her relationship-or-not with Neil seemed to have no 64

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bearing on the case so the detective didn’t press the issue. It felt like hours, but when the police got ready to leave, she realized they’d been there less than an hour, and that included officers combing the house and garage for evidence. She drooped. Tears welled and she blinked them back. Crying never did any good. Crying in front of other people would only make her feel weaker and more vulnerable at a time when her skin had been stripped off and she’d been thrown in salt water. And she still had a 10:30 appointment with a prospective client. She could cancel, she supposed. But then what would she do? Sitting around her ruined house all day sounded depressing as hell and not exactly safe. Besides, it wasn’t like she could hang out with Neil while he worked. She managed to maintain the façade of calm she’d displayed for the police (though by now she suspected it looked more like exhausted numbness), once she and Neil were alone in the house. She’d insisted on showering alone just to prove to herself that she could. In the shower, the warm water undid her. She let herself cry a little and to her surprise, it softened the knot in her belly. She let the water wash over her, wash the evidence of tears away. By the time she left the bathroom, clean, dressed and groomed, if free of makeup— she decided that she didn’t want to use any of what had been scattered on the floor and scooped it all unceremoniously into the trash—she figured Neil would see a strong woman, one who was handling the situation well. One who wasn’t going to take advantage of a fling, however amazing it had been, by getting all emotional and needy at him. She would not cling to Neil. He’d been a rock all along, and she didn’t think she’d have coped nearly as well with everything that had happened without him. Not that she felt like she was coping all that well, but she hadn’t collapsed in a tear-sodden heap on what was left of her sofa, or started screaming uncontrollably or any of the other dramatic and pointless reactions that tempted her. She refused to give in to the urge to throw herself into his arms and blubber while using his strength to hide from her problems. For reasons she’d probably have to talk with a therapist to figure out, the destruction of Frank’s beloved cars and so much of his stuff made her feel closer to Frank than she had while he’d been alive. She wouldn’t want to let him down now. Sleeping with another guy didn’t seem like a betrayal of his memory, not with his secrets and his cheating, but blubbering all over another guy, expecting him to save her, did. “Shower’s all yours,” she said casually. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“Took one while you were still asleep at Sam’s. I made coffee. You get first dibs because it’s your house that got trashed.” He handed her a steaming cup and she knew without asking that he’d made sure to check out the coffee pot and pods that had been scattered on the counter. “Mine’s brewing now.” He put his arm around her waist. She leaned into his warm, strong body and his other arm pulled her closer, mindful of the coffee. She didn’t cry, didn’t shake, didn’t cling. But if he wanted to hold her, she’d put her head on his shoulder, breathe in that masculine scent she thought she might already recognize blindfolded, and take the comfort he offered. In the distance, she heard the gurgle of a Keurig at the end of its brewing cycle. “It’s a beautiful morning,” Neil said. “How about I grab my coffee and we go out on the deck?” Smart man. Then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with someone whose home had been burglarized. He must guess she would be more comfortable in the undamaged, still serene yard than in any room of the violated house. The backyard was calm in the morning light, green and peaceful with a honeyed scent of alyssum from the small flowerbed bordering the house. A squirrel scrambled up the oak tree that partially shaded the deck and a few birds chirped as if nothing had happened, as if behind the familiar red back door her home hadn’t been violated. She shook herself. Forced herself to focus on the relentless cheer of morning birds, on the squirrel’s liveliness, on Neil’s blue eyes and the equally blue sky, on the parted curtains of the house next door, where her elderly neighbor Mrs. Wurstoff was no doubt speculating about what was happening and calling all her friends from the garden club to share theories—anything but the weight of memories on top of everything else. “I don’t think I’m a suspect,” she said, hoping she was right, “so why do I feel like I was just interrogated?” “Because you kind of were. Not because they think you did anything wrong, but because this doesn’t seem like a simple break-in and they’re trying to get all the information they can. Maybe some detail that doesn’t mean much to you will fit in with some other seemingly random clue. If it makes you feel better, they asked me a lot of questions too, especially about the guys in the SUV. I emailed them the information I’d dug up, not that there was much.” A layer of tension dissolved. The police had been polite, but so persistent and persnickety in their questions that on some level she wasn’t sure they believed her. Good to know they did—well, at least provisionally, because even though she knew she’d told the truth as far as she’d known it, they had to figure she might be lying about something, or at least not saying 66

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everything she knew. “That makes sense. But God, it’s exhausting. Wish I could pass out right there—” she pointed to one of the Adirondack chairs on the deck “—and sleep in the sun. Though I suppose I’d never be able to actually fall asleep here today. That’s going to take a while.” “I’d rather you didn’t try until someone’s in custody for this, or at least there’s a clue what they wanted.” What they wanted. That fell into the by-now enormous category of “I don’t have a clue and I don’t think I can handle thinking about it more right now.” Seemed like a great time to move on to another topic, one that wasn’t directly related to crime, her personal safety, or Frank’s secrets, which were maybe something more complicated than adultery. But she had to ask. “It shouldn’t be long, right? It’s basically just a break-in, even if there are weird things about it.” He shook his head. “Maybe if they get a lucky break. But even if one of the criminals was dumb enough to leave prints, it can take weeks to get fingerprints processed for a nonviolent crime. Complicated forensics take even longer. It’s not like on TV, unfortunately.” He squeezed her hand. “I have to head back to my place anyway. We can go together and you can crash there. I changed the sheets yesterday morning and everything.” He paused, then added, “I know we don’t know each other well, despite everything that’s happened. Maybe there’s someplace you could hang out today that might be more comfortable than being in my place when I’m not even there.” “I still need to work today,” she told Neil, trying to sound firmer than she actually felt. “I’ll just stop somewhere and grab a little makeup. Oh, and a phone.” She made herself smile, though it felt more like a rictus. “Probably one of those cheap-ass prepaid flip phones because hopefully I won’t have to use it long. Thank goodness I have my contacts backed up online. I remember so few phone numbers anymore. Which reminds me I’ll need yours.” Neil grabbed his wallet, pulled out a card. “Cell’s scrawled on the back.” He brushed a lock of hair off her cheek. “I wish I could spend the day with you. Sooner or later this is all going to hit you like a MBTA bus.” She forced another smile. “Why do you think I’m making myself go to work, even if I’m fried and so far off my game I hope this is one of those chatty, opinionated clients who’s done her homework and has pictures and paint samples lined up to show me? I won’t be alone, and I won’t be wandering around town like a lost soul to avoid the mess that used to be my home.” She hoped she’d get past that bone-deep sense of displacement, but right now, www.samhainpublishing.com

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it was hard to imagine she’d ever feel comfortable in the house again. She’d always felt like it was too big for just two people, let alone for one, and she’d had in the back of her mind that she’d sell it once she figured out where she actually wanted to be, but she didn’t appreciate feeling driven out. Kind of like her marriage to Frank. One thing to decide to end it, another to have the decision forced on you by the whim of a universe with a cruel and crazy sense of humor. And as much as she’d gotten bored with Bellwood’s cushy suburban safety, its very dullness made its violation, its shift into a crime scene, all the more jarring. Neil brushed away a lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear. This time, he let his hand return to her cheek, cup her face gently. “I’d keep you with me if I could but I don’t think shadowing a cop would be relaxing. You stay at my house for a few days, though. I don’t want you alone, here or anywhere.” She’d leaned into his big, warm hand, driven by the need to grasp any comfort she could find, but despite feeling better for the contact, she shivered at his tone, and it wasn’t a pleasurable erotic shiver. The conviction in his voice told her that he, at least, believed she might be in danger. “I don’t want to come back here tonight,” she whispered. “Maybe not ever. I was going to call Janice.” To her astonishment, Neil managed to laugh. “I was going to talk to you about the fact we have a friend in common before all hell broke loose. How do you know Janice King?” “She’s my oldest friend. I’ve known her since college.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I bet I know how she knows you. You’re involved in Boston Kinksters United too.” “Guilty as charged. Did she know you were selling the Mustang?” Her brain still reeling, but in a less ominous, more amused way than it was earlier, Suzanne answered, “Of course. Why that little… I mean, if she set us up, she did a good job, but I’m still going to smack her upside the head.” “I’m not complaining about the results, but it was a damn sneaky thing to do, even if it worked. And pulling poor John into it—bet he had no idea he was being used for Janice’s evil purposes.” Suzanne had one of those thoughts that made her giggle despite everything. “So she also knows John. Does that mean what I think it means?” He snorted. “If I refuse to answer, you’ll just know the answer’s yes. So yeah, we know each other through Boston Kinksters. And that’s all I’m saying.” “Fine. I’ll pick Janice’s brain tonight.” She hesitated then added, “I mean, I appreciate the offer of a place to stay, but I don’t want to impose, and I’d be safe at Janice’s.” 68

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“Scary as Janice can be when it suits her purposes or her friends’ fantasies, I’d rather have you with me.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper and she realized that despite everything, her libido wasn’t dead, though it was shell-shocked and exhausted as the rest of her. “I’m a cop, after all. Protect and serve. It’s what I do.” Part of her desperately wanted to agree, but she was too frazzled to gauge whether it was the sensible part or the scared-shitless part or even the sensitive, excitable, sexy one that suggested that hot, rough sex would work as stress relief. “I’ll meet you at your place after we’re both off work. I’ll even stay there tonight—hell, we might as well get some fun out of this mess. I’m not moving in or anything. Don’t want to disturb your dad.” Don’t want to endanger your dad, she meant, picturing a frail older man, but not wanting to say it. “Eh.” Neil shrugged. “Once a cop, always a cop. Feeling like he has something to do other than fix cars will do him good.” He paused. “I have to get going. I’m running late as it is. But I don’t want to leave you.” He drew her into his arms. Suzanne waved at Mrs. Wurstoff ’s window before throwing herself into the kiss. It wasn’t like yesterday’s passionate devouring, but Mrs. Wurstoff had had a long, happy marriage herself and she’d know what she was seeing. This was a kiss that reassured and comforted on one level, but at the same time it was a kiss that marked and possessed. If Suzanne believed in New Age fluffer-nutter stuff, she’d say Neil was imparting some bit of his spirit, some spark of himself, into her as a shield. Something to bolster her courage, but also meant to ward off danger by sending up an invisible signal: this woman is under my protection and I will keep her safe. Do not harm her or you’ll mess with me. She opened her mouth beneath his lips, welcomed his tongue and felt some of the tension flee her body. Maybe there was something to New Age fluffer-nutter stuff. She felt stronger already, more able to cope. And if he actually did put some kind of glowing magic shield on her, well, she could use it. The kiss ended much too soon, though she supposed they both had to get to their respective jobs. As she stepped away, Neil grasped her wrist, pulled her close again. “Take it easy today,” he said, “because I have plans for you tonight. We may both be fried, but I think we’ll need to blow off some steam.” A frisson of pleasurable nerves cascaded through her body. It didn’t overcome the cold anxiety that filled her, but it took the edge off. She could get through today. And tonight she and Neil would help each other find the bliss they’d enjoyed before everything went crazy.

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Chapter Eleven

Neil’s shift was drawing to a blurry, over-caffeinated close when he got a call on his cell from an unfamiliar number. Normally he ignored such calls; on the rare occasions they were legit, he’d get a message. But he had a feeling about this one. Yup. Suzanne. “Got a new phone. I think I’ll last about another day without going nuts because I can’t get online easily, or listen to my music, but at least I can say I have a burn phone, which sounds very spy-like.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t mind me. I’ve personally made sure the Bellwood Dunkin Donuts is having a profitable month, so I’m babbling. Hell, they could close until Thanksgiving and they’d still be in the black thanks to me.” He wanted to still her mouth with his, capture her tongue. Not that he had a problem with babbling. Talking that much would take more energy than he had right now or he might be doing it too. He had definitely had too much caffeine in his system and too many disjointed thoughts running through his brain. At the moment, all the random thoughts were being replaced by ones of kissing Suzanne. That was good, right? Doing anything more than kissing might take more energy than he had, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone else, but damned if thinking about it wasn’t giving him a pleasant little jolt. Not in his brain, where he really needed it, but at least the blood was flowing less sluggishly somewhere. “Glad you have a phone again. Any problems today?” “Other than almost falling asleep standing up, and getting distracted by the jar of wooden utensils on my client’s kitchen counter? It’s been quiet, thank goodness. I talked to Detective Cardoza again. She checked in to say it would be a while before they had any real information, which you’d already told me, but she said I’m not being paranoid to not want to stay here, just sensible.” Her over-caffeinated, exhausted babbling was kind of adorable, but since he was over-caffeinated and exhausted too, he wasn’t sure he could say that and have it sound like a compliment. “I could have told you that. In fact, I did tell you that.” He lowered his voice as he said it, tried to sound as sexily menacing as he could manage in his sleep-deprived state. Damn, the woman just brought out his Dom side, no matter what the circumstances. “Weren’t you listening?”

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“You did. I just thought it was good…well, not good, but useful…that she agreed.” Suzanne dropped her voice. “Do I get a spanking for not believing you or something?” He pictured Suzanne over his knees, bare ass waiting for the spanking to come. Now that was an image that woke a guy up. “Maybe.” It might have to be tomorrow, but that was a cold dose of reality they’d worry about later. He was teasing and flirting now, not making definite plans. “But not as a punishment, as a reward for being smart. Though you may get a spanking for not telling me about Janice sooner. Not that you had any idea there was a reason to, but it’s the principle of the thing.” “I’m sure she’d agree with you. She’s big on the principle of the thing with her boys, as long as it’s fun for everyone.” She made a small, happy noise. “I’d like to talk more about that, but you’re still at work.” “Until four. I was catching up on reports, but I should still get going. Never know when things will stop being so quiet.” He gave her directions to his house, knowing she hadn’t been paying attention last night, resisted the urge to blow a kiss into the phone since someone was bound to notice and ask pointed, locker-room type questions. Cops were big on giving each other a hard time as a way to blow off steam. Not being at work, she did make kissy noises into the phone, which gratified him than he cared to admit. “See you later, then.” She drew in a deep breath and blurted out, “Frank had a second phone, which was part of why I thought he was cheating. I stashed it at Janice’s because I figured someday I’d have the guts to try to crack his password but I didn’t want to look at it. I need to get it back.” He realized his sergeant was staring at him from across the room, so he shuffled papers on his desk and rolled his eyes, pretending he was listening to the blah-blah-blah of someone who wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise to hang up without being rude. “We need to,” Neil said, lowering his voice. “I think the two of us paying Janice a visit has humor potential. Or horror potential, but I’ll go with humor for now.” ***** Ensconced in a comfortably shabby pleather chair in the Bellwood library, Suzanne double-checked Neil’s directions on Google maps on her tablet; he’d rattled them off so quickly she wasn’t sure she’d caught them all. She chose the most important contacts from her iCloud account and added them to her phone, cursing the necessity of a simple burn phone that wouldn’t sync. But at least she had the numbers. She left a voice mail for Janice, www.samhainpublishing.com

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who was probably writing and ignoring the phone (or maybe doing something pleasurably evil to some lucky man; Suzanne preferred that idea). And then, since she had WiFi here and traffic closer to Boston was going to be a bitch at this time of the afternoon, she decided to check her email. She was proud of herself for not screaming when she opened her Gmail account and saw an email with the subject line, “Require information on Frank Mayhew’s work.” The sender was an obvious alias, and the sheer blandness of [email protected] made her shudder. A legit business contact wouldn’t use such a lame alias. Hell, a legit business contact would be in touch with Frank’s company, not with her. He’d been the mastermind behind it, but he’d had a lot of talented employees and Mayhew Robotics, led by his former second-in-command, Ly Vo, was doing fine without him. A business contact wouldn’t be bugging Frank’s widow in such a weird, unprofessional way. For a bitter second, she wanted to laugh. She’d be glad to tell them, whoever they were, about Frank’s work, except she knew nothing about his recent projects. The last one he’d talked about much was the improvements on robotic manufacturing thingamabobbies, but that had been a few years ago. More recently, his company had been working on a stillunreleased product to aid with situations like mountain rescue, but that was as much as she knew, and she’d gleaned that accidentally. How would robots help with mountain rescue? Her brain whirred frantically and she pictured R2D2 laboring up snow-covered Mount Washington, beeping and chirping to call for a lost hiker. Drones. Drones could be used for aerial searches in places humans couldn’t easily reach. And robotics and drones kind of went together. Oh holy shit. Frank had been developing drones. Drones had civilian uses, but any innovations could have military or intelligence applications too. That explained why he didn’t talk about work anymore. Not because he was banging a coworker, or because he’d finally gotten frustrated with how little she could understand his techthusiam, but because he was either working on something for the military or something that could be stolen and adapted by someone else’s military or intelligence against the US. Even if he’d designed these robots-or-drones for mountain rescue, and who knew if that was the whole truth, they could probably be repurposed for deadlier uses. The more people knew the more chances someone would let something slip to the 72

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wrong person, and you’d eventually get closed-mouthed even with your spouse. The quiet library closed in around her, its silence no longer peaceful but threatening, that moment just before something terrible happens in a suspense film too classy to resort to cheesy music to crank up the fear. She’d always thought silence worked just fine in scary movies. Silence in an almost deserted library worked even better. Something rustled in the distance. Footsteps on the marble floor. Maybe a voice. Her throat constricted, making it hard to draw a breath. Her hands shook. One of the librarians, someone she knew from Thursday night yoga classes, walked into the room with an older man carrying old-school honest-to-God microfiche. She waved at Suzanne but was seemingly too busy to talk. Thank goodness. If someone asked how she was doing, she might lose it. But seeing that familiar face and pleasant, neighborly smile, she could at least draw a breath again. Right. The email was alarming, but SUV-guy and his creepy cohorts weren’t going to hang around the library all day to see if she came in. She hoped, anyway. Suzanne logged out of her email. No way she was going to look at that one without Neil by her side. A moment later, she’d logged out of everything. Time to head to Neil’s. She might end up stuck in traffic, but a moving target, or even a stuck-on-the-highway target, was harder to catch than a stationary one. And she really liked the idea of being in a house with one current and one retired cop right about now. The fact that the current cop was sexy and dominant and miraculously hot for her middle-aged self might be a factor again when she actually saw his gorgeous face and smoking body. Right now, she was more interested in the fact that he had a gun and knew how to use it, and presumably knew what to do if trouble found them because her plan consisted of screaming and running. That never worked so well in the movies. She doubted it would work better in real life.

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Chapter Twelve

Once she was locked in the car, she texted Neil with the latest development: They emailed. Want info on Frank’s projects. Drones? He answered almost immediately: Be careful. Nothing more. Maybe there was nothing more he could say until he got more information himself. And God knows it was good advice. Suzanne checked the rearview obsessively for the entire drive, but no one seemed to be following her on the highway. A car lurked behind her off the highway. A lot of them did, of course, but this one was right on her tail as she made her way to Neil’s street. That made her even more nervous than she already was, but it was a very ordinary looking Toyota Corolla with a replacement hood that didn’t match the rest of the car. You wouldn’t drive something like that if you were stalking someone, would you? The SUVs from yesterday were highend, tastefully expensive, and powerful. The white hood and slightly battered blue body of this car were memorable and at the same time distinctly clunky. She’d think they’d want a car that could get away fast if it needed to, not what Frank would describe as a mom-box powered by hamsters—and judging from the looks of the car, tired hamsters. But what did she know? Maybe it was protective coloration to fit into this working-class neighborhood and that ugly shell concealed a powerful engine and 007-type toys. She’d seen too many damn James Bond movies because she could imagine the illusion of an old Toyota falling away to reveal something sleek, dangerous and armed. To her relief, it had pulled into a driveway halfway down the block. A perfectly ordinary, non-scary young black woman got out and started fussing with the toddler Suzanne hadn’t been able to see in the back seat. Suzanne breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled up in front of Neil’s. She was safe now. By some strange alchemy of sleep-deprivation and terror, Suzanne was more awake and less foggy than she had been more than twelve sleepless hours ago. This time the details of Neil’s house registered on her. His hands-on approach to cars extended to the house, or so she imagined. It was an older side-by-side two-family, nothing elegant, but both the pale yellow exterior of the house and the tiny yard were neat, well-maintained. The house had been sided recently, she’d guess. No flowers or anything frou-frou decorated the lawn, but one small, carefully pruned weeping tree of some sort, maybe an ornamental cherry, took up most of one half

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of the tight space. She parked on the street, mentally noting that she’d have to move it that evening. Maybe Neil would have a better idea where to leave it, but she didn’t want to take up the driveway, not knowing who might be coming or going. Before she got out of the locked car, she took a good look up and down the street, searching for anything that looked out of place. Not like she knew exactly what she was looking for, but she’d start with SUVs that cost more than the down payment on a house in this part of town or anyone who’d pulled in about the same time she did and was hanging out in their car for no apparent reason. Especially an “anyone” in an expensive-looking suit, which again didn’t fit with the tone of the neighborhood. She liked the neighborhood that was so similar to Neil’s house: well-maintained, comfortable, but not the domain of men in custom suits and women in Jimmy Choo shoes. Nor was it hipster ironically gritty and retro, like the neighborhoods inhabited by artsy types who drank Pabst Blue Ribbon with their grass-fed organic $20 a pound buffalo steaks because the favorite beer of broke college students and underpaid blue-collar workers was suddenly cool again. She didn’t see anything obvious. She looked again, because damn it, she’d feel like an idiot if she got kidnapped or died or whatever the mysterious “people” wanted because she missed something she should have spotted. Her mouth and throat were desert dry and she hadn’t thought to grab any water in the flight from Bellwood. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath. No fancy SUVs, no one in a suit or otherwise looking out of place. No one had any reason to know she was here. The break-in and the email both proved that whatever was going on, it was targeted at her, or more precisely at Frank through her, so they weren’t after Neil, had no reason to know who he was. Probably. But who knew what resources the mysterious “they” had? If this was really all about drones, “they” might be honest-to-God spies with covert information sources she could scarcely imagine. That train of thought would keep her sitting in the car all night, or at least until she swallowed her pride, phoned Neil inside the house, and begged him to come and get her— preferably armed. And that would be taking her fear too far. Sure, she had every right to be scared. Terrified, even. But she could make it a few feet from the curb to Neil’s door without an armed escort. www.samhainpublishing.com

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She looked around one last time before she unlocked her door, thinking as she did that some neighbor was probably watching her and wondering if she should call the cops about the weird lady loitering on their quiet street. She grabbed her little bag of clothes and got out of the car, looking up as she did at a graying late-day sky with a few red streaks toward the west, electric lines and, far overhead, a seagull. For all she knew, that seagull might be a drone. She’d seen a few pictures of drones on TV, but there were many types. Wouldn’t it be genius to make a surveillance drone that looked like a common bird? Just the kind of thing Frank would think of. She just hadn’t imagined him ever doing it. With that unwelcome thought, she forced herself to walk toward the house rather than bolt for it. If someone was watching her, be it a spy or a nosy neighbor, she wanted them to see she wasn’t scared. Even though she was. By the time she got to the front door, she’d broken out in a light sweat, even though it wasn’t hot. She felt lightheaded, and she swore she could sense unfriendly gazes from every direction. Deep cleansing breaths, like they did in yoga. Frank might have called her yoga “fluffernutter stuff ” but they prescribed yoga breathing exercises for vets with PTSD. She’d take what she could get. Breathe again, let it out with an audible sigh, then knock. ***** Suzanne steeled herself to see Neil again. Would he be in uniform? Lust bubbled up through the fog of her nerves, but she made herself prioritize. A good round of sex might soothe her anxiety, but she was here for her safety, not for a date. She wasn’t going to make any assumptions about how the night would go. Sure, he’d teased her on the phone, tempted her with pretend scoldings and talk of spanking, but they’d both been up for far too long and Neil had warned her he might pass out. She’d stay calm and strong, a tough woman, not a melting sub, unless she got a clear signal from Neil that the time was ripe to be that melting sub. Yeah, she thought she was prepared for Neil. She wasn’t prepared for the good-looking, gray-haired man with eyes as brilliantly blue 76

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as Neil’s who actually answered the door, or his determined expression and surprisingly sweet smile. All the defenses she’d put up fled because they didn’t apply here. Neil’s father wasn’t the frail old man she’d pictured. Mandatory retirement for cops must arrive relatively young, and he looked like he could eat nails for breakfast. “Mr. Callahan?” she said weakly. “Call me Joe.” He extended a hand, which she numbly took. A good, big hand, a few prominent veins on the back, and even more beat up than Neil’s. “Come inside.” As he ushered her in, he bellowed, “Neil, she’s here! Want a beer?” Before she could answer, he added, “Bring another beer for the lady.” He was locking the door as he said it, and peering out the small window like he was checking for threats, though far more coolly and competently than she had. But of course, he’d been Boston PD himself. Suzanne could have been strong for Neil. Could have pretended calm when on the inside she was a roil of panic. She hadn’t dated for a very long time, but she seemed to remember there were standards of behavior involved, including not getting all weepy and dependent this early in the game. But there didn’t seem to be any point in pretending with Joe. Wasn’t like she’d slept with him or anything. He was just a nice man who happened to be a tough one as well, the sort of guy who exuded trustworthy. Which his son had inherited along with a dose of bad-boy sexiness. That trustworthiness, the sense of safety, was enough to shatter Suzanne’s determined, precarious hold on calm. She dropped her bag on the floor and burst into tears. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “I really need that beer.” Joe patted her back awkwardly, but he sounded assured as he said, “You’re safe here, Ms. Mayhew. Neil and I have everything under control.” She doubted that since this mess had escalated from a personal vendetta of some sort to a possible international incident. But the steadiness of his voice reassured her that maybe everything could be under control again sometime soon. It took less than a minute for Neil to arrive with a cold bottle of Sam Adams and a concerned smile, and that was all the time she’d needed to get the urge to blubber out of her system. “I must look awful,” she said, smearing what little makeup she’d managed to apply that day in an effort to wipe away her tears. “You look beautiful.” Neil was still in uniform, but he’d unbuttoned the top two buttons of the uniform shirt. The deep blue of the uniform brought out his eyes, and the formality of it suited him as well as the jeans, bad-boy leather jacket and T-shirt he’d had on yesterday. “How many beers have you had?” she managed to quip. It wasn’t a good joke but she needed to say something a little lighthearted. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“Not as many as I’d like. You never told me your husband was a military contractor.” “I didn’t know he was one. I still don’t know for sure, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” Neil’s tone of voice when he asked about Frank’s work went with the uniform, serious and authoritative, but the hand he placed on the small of her back was gentle as he guided her from the entry hall to a living room dominated by comfortable older furniture and a single-guy sized TV that took up most of one wall. The room had an 80s wallpaper border involving blue and mauve roses and discreet touches of silver foil. It didn’t go with him at all, at least what she knew of him, but it went with the history of the house. Definitely what someone’s grandmother might have chosen. And he did seem like the kind of guy who would take great pains fixing something broken, but who’d ignore something functional but dated. She finished her thought as she sat in a comfortable, battered chair. “Like I said, I didn’t think of him as a military contractor, but there are so many things you could do with robotics, and I know he didn’t tell me everything. And his last project…” She outlined what little she knew and the bits she’d guessed. Joe let out a long, piercing whistle. “This is way above our pay grade.”

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Chapter Thirteen

Suzanne looked from one blue-eyed face to the other. Both were full of steely determination, tempered with an eagerness for a good fight that was apparently an Irish stereotype for a reason. Above our pay grade seemed like guy code for exciting. It thrilled a primitive core she didn’t know she had to realize they were willing to go to battle for her, but her more practical side kicked in. “We need to contact someone. FBI, NSA, Defense Department.” “I’m sure they’re already on it,” Neil said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Probably have been since Frank died, just not getting you involved because until yesterday you haven’t had to be.” “Safer for everyone,” his father said, “if you weren’t in the loop.” She nodded numbly. “Yeah. If he was making whatever this was for the government, but some of the information’s gone missing, they’d be looking for it, and they’d know other people might want it too. Maybe the new CEO of Mayhew knows something. Ly Vo’s a good guy.” “Or maybe he and the other execs are the ones who are stalking you. If they know Frank was working on something big and they’re missing some critical information…” Her stomach seized. She hadn’t known the rest of the management team at Mayhew well—Frank had kept his work compartmentalized and she was starting to understand why—but she’d met them all, including Ly Vo, at least a few times. “The guys following us, who harassed us about the car, might work at Mayhew, but they aren’t Mayhew management. At least I’ve never seen them before.” It was lame, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe that men and women she actually knew would torment her and burglarize and vandalize her home without first even trying to ask if she had any of Frank’s work files. Not that she had, or if she had, she hadn’t known it. Neil and his father looked at each other, a look so weighted with bad things it made her want to chug the rest of her beer at the same time it tempted her to throw up what she’d already sipped. “Freelancers.” Joe’s voice was solid, certain. Scary. “Or not connected to Mayhew at all,” Neil said. “Lots of possible players here. We don’t know the Mayhew head honchos are involved. We just don’t know they’re not.” “You’re making it sound like the people who logically are most likely to be able help

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clear this mess up,” Suzanne pieced together, “are also the most likely to be involved. Ly Vo. The government.” Joe just nodded. Neil put his arm around her, pulled her to his side. It felt good to be there, good to be in warm physical contact. So real and safe, when everything else was abstract and terrifying. It suddenly struck her that just a few days ago, getting freaky with an experienced Dominant would be the most wild, crazy and scary thing she could imagine ever happening to her. Now the Dom was her oasis of safety in a world gone mad and the prospect of kinky shenanigans was her way of holding on to sanity. She stifled a laugh that was halfway a sob. Neil raised one eyebrow, half smiled. “What’s the joke?” “Tell you later.” When his father wasn’t around. Neil took a quick look at the email. Suzanne decided she couldn’t bear to read it over his shoulder then decided she couldn’t not look. She was surprised to find herself relieved when she actually read the note. “This sounds kind of amateur. Like whoever wrote this made it up but had no idea what he was doing.” Joe glanced at it too, sniffed, and said, “Not your CEO, and not CIA or whatever. Either of those would write better. CIA wouldn’t email you anyway, just turn up like a bunch of ninjas.” There was a short hesitation before ninjas that Suzanne took to mean he meant fucking ninjas but was trying to tone down his language in front of a lady. Another urge to giggle. If he knew what she and his son had been up to, he wouldn’t be worried about her delicate sensibilities. Then again, he might not know how kinky Neil was, but he must suspect they’d spent the night together, and probably not playing Scrabble. “The people who were tailing us had expertise. This is more along the lines of the break-in: subtle like a brick. Seems we’re looking at two different bunches of assholes.” “That’s cheerful.” Suzanne felt the urge to laugh again, but this time she was clear it was hysteria. “But if this bunch are amateurs, the email might be traceable without having to do anything too crazy. You should forward it to our new friends in Bellwood.” Suzanne nodded numbly then took another slug of beer. Tired as she was, she’d have thought her brain would be completely muzzled by the beer and her body would seek the nearest soft, relatively flat surface so she could doze off. Instead, she was hyper-focused, hyper-aware, at the same time she knew she was exhausted and would collapse as soon as she allowed herself to do so. She might need Neil to help her unwind, though, to let go of 80

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the tension that was holding her together. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not. The two men were talking possibilities, suspects. Some part of her, the part that was truly exhausted and way out of her depth, wanted to leave it to them, and to the Bellwood police. It wasn’t her job, after all. Not Neil’s or his father’s, either, but at least they had the training. Still, letting them take over would make her dependent in a way that didn’t feel right. Frank had left her set for life financially, but he’d also left her precarious—untrusting and yet too eager to trust. She needed to take responsibility for herself as best she could. Maybe there wasn’t much she could do in this situation. She’d have to rely on other people, including Detective Cardoza and other complete strangers in the Bellwood Police Department, to protect her and to actually solve the crime, track down the bad guys and press charges. But she could help collect her own thoughts, make sure the police had all the information they needed. Even if that meant examining her marriage in ways she’d been reluctant to do until now. “If one of you could grab me paper and a pen,” she said, “I’ll start writing things down. I was so rattled this morning I may have forgotten things. And now I have phone numbers the cops may need.” She patted her pocket, where the trusty cheap phone hid. She might have to get online again to grab some of Frank’s old contacts, but she could get started now. Joe stared at her as if she’d suggested doing a stakeout singlehandedly, but Neil nodded, stood, and came back a few minutes later with a pen and a yellow legal pad stained with coffee and ornamented with the beginning of a grocery list: eggs, coffee, hamburger, fries. She tore off that sheet and handed it to him, stomping hard on the urge to recommend adding some veggies to the list. She’d sat by herself in an overstuffed green and brown plaid recliner, outdated, worn, clearly much loved and deliciously comfortable—the kind of chair Frank would have hated—letting the two men take over the couch so they could bounce ideas off each other more easily. Instead of going back to his father, though, Neil perched on the arm of the chair and put one hand on her shoulder as if it belonged there. In the midst of all the fear, the touch soothed her and aroused her at the same time. Just a hand on her shoulder. Nothing you couldn’t do in public, or, like now, in front of your dad. It wasn’t erotic or exotic on the surface, and it wouldn’t take up a thousand words in one of the books that burned up Suzanne’s tablet. But maybe it should. He was so confident that she wanted the touch, that his hand www.samhainpublishing.com

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belonged on her body in this casual, comfortable way without any discussion. His hand on her, in front of his father like this, seemed as proprietary and weighted with meaning as a wedding ring. Or a collar. Suzanne rubbed the ring finger of her left hand, where the pale indentation of her wedding ring had finally faded. She caught herself, forced herself to grip the pen with one hand, the notebook with the other. “So, what do we have so far for suspects? Frank’s company, the slick foreign guys, and apparently some extra-dumb frat boys who want to get their hands on drone technology.” “Don’t forget the government,” Joe said drily. Neil’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “Dad—” “They’re not suspects. They’re not going to hurt you unless they think you’re selling intel to the other side but they’re an interested party. They might have set someone to tail you if for some reason they wanted to keep track of your husband’s cars. Think they’d do a better job of it than these guys did, but there’s no law that federal agents can’t be jerks.” Suzanne dutifully made notes. “I still think my best bet is going to them.” Then she shook her head. “No, not yet because if I contact the wrong agency I’ll sound like a paranoid nutbar.” “And if you contact the right one but don’t have answers when they start asking questions, you’ll sound suspicious and things will get worse before they get better. At least someone can arrest criminals and spies and get them away from you, but you’re stuck with federal agents.” “Dad. She’s nervous enough already.” “We’re talking about people who do bad things for good reasons, people who do the jobs the rest of us don’t want to think about in order to keep this country safe. They’re taking care of some greater good, but that doesn’t mean they’ll take care of you.” Joe’s face hardened as he spoke. Suzanne swallowed hard, writing a few random words to cover her agitation. “Fine. Nothing like trying to do the right thing and getting in even more trouble. I’ll hold off until there’s more info, or until the police say it’s time.” Neil started making small circles on her back with his hand. It was almost too soothing, sapping her energy and resolve, but she forced herself to think through the bliss that radiated out from that simple contact. “I’d told the Bellwood police I thought it might be something to do with the cars themselves, some kind of crazed car club rivalry or just thieves. That seems less likely now, but I know the 82

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cars are involved somehow. The foreign guys seemed determined to get their hands on the Mustang, and whoever robbed the house tore the Chevy apart.” Joe shook his head tightly. “Animals, treating a classic car that way.” Neil bent down. His lips brushed Suzanne’s ear, his hot breath tickling. “Thanks for distracting him from the government thing. He was about to rant. He was on detail at the Marathon finish line the year of the bombing and had to deal with way too many feds because of it.” The words were about the least sexy ones she could imagine, but the intimacy, the way he had to bend close and press against her to whisper, the movement of his lips on her skin, was like blowing on banked coals to set them aflame. Heat flared. She clenched, despite everything. For a second, she leaned back against him, just enjoying the warmth, the solidity of his body. It took willpower to resist the urge to pull him down for a kiss, to touch him in ways that weren’t appropriate in front of his father. Neil’s body went still as granite when she leaned back against him, his hands frozen in place, and she realized he too was fighting temptation. Damn, that was gratifying. “Write down cars with a question mark. There’s some connection, but what?” Suzanne’s turn to shrug. “Anyone who knew Frank knew he was all about the cars. Probably anyone who’d done any research on Frank or the company knew it, because every time he got interviewed the collection came up. He was always a car buff, long before he started Mayhew, but I can see where someone might think it was about something more than him loving anything pretty, shiny and mechanical. Maybe they think he hid something in one of them.” “Neil, you have a chance to go over the Mustang before all hell broke?” She felt Neil shrug. “It’s a sweet car. Handles great. Engine purrs like a happy lion. But…” He hesitated for less than a second. Suzanne almost wouldn’t have noticed it except his father chortled, his previous dark mood seemingly forgotten. “But you were too busy looking over the lovely lady to notice every detail of the car.” This time, Neil sounded like exactly like a teenager as he sputtered, “Dad!” Then he, too laughed. “Priorities, Dad. A man’s gotta have priorities!” Suzanne felt herself blushing, but it was a good feeling. “In any case, the car’s in our garage now. It’s not going anywhere on its own.” “We hope,” Suzanne added pointedly. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“We’ll check it out together, kid. If there’s anything there, you and I should be able to find it without trashing the car the way those idiots did. Crime to destroy a dead man’s work that way.” “I know, Dad. There’s more at stake here than cars, but I’d want to get those bastards even if they were just a bunch of vandals. Whatever else Frank may have been up to, he did great work on his cars.” He kissed the top of Suzanne’s head, squeezed her. “He did great work, period.” After all the bitterness, the years of frustration, it felt important to say that. “Frank might not have been the greatest husband for me, but he was talented. At anything mechanical, he was a genius. People who know about that kind of thing said he was the best in the robotics game. I suppose if that wasn’t true, if he was just good at restoring cars, we wouldn’t have this problem.” She snorted. “Just like old times, Frank. You’re causing me trouble and you’re not around to take care of it—and this time it’s way worse than a souped-up vacuum that didn’t work quite right.” “There’s a story here,” Neil said drily. “You know those robot vacuums? Frank had a similar idea a while back, not long after we got married. Only it hit him when I was off having a girly weekend with Janice, so he decided to experiment with our vacuum. Let’s just say it was self-propelled by the time I got home, but he hadn’t worked out a guidance system. And oh, he didn’t tell me he’d been playing with it. Two lamps, a glass-topped table and a cat with a run-over tail later… For some reason, he never pursued that idea. Got mad as hell when someone came out with one a few years later, though. Especially when they showed cats in their ads.” At that, they all began to laugh, much harder, Suzanne realized, than the story warranted. Her body shook, and she knew it wasn’t just laughter, but tension releasing. Neil, who was whooping, pulled her to her feet, sat himself down in the chair, and then tugged her onto his lap. His father was red in the face and wiping at his eyes. “Poor kitty.” “He felt so bad about Daisy. She lost fur in the injured area and it never grew back.” He’d refused to get another cat after Daisy died—many years after the incident, having lived to an advanced age despite bald patches on her formerly magnificent tail; while he came up with a lot of excuses, Suzanne always knew it was guilt. He’d loved that cat to pieces but he’d hurt it. She’d almost forgotten that. Frank had gotten good at hiding his feelings, good at being detached and remote. But once he’d been a man who admitted he loved a tuxedo cat from the local shelter, who petted the cat when he was home and made automated toys so she’d have someone to play with even when she was alone. Who broke out of his remoteness, out of the shell he’d built around himself and the busyness of running a company, to make sure 84

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they could go together for Daisy’s final trip to the vet, who’d held the little black-and-white body afterward and cried and buried it in the backyard even though it was technically illegal in Bellwood. Suzanne realized she was crying and laughing at the same time. “Daisy was a great cat,” she said weakly. “I still miss her.” Then she forced herself to smile. “But you know, I think I’m finally ready to get another cat once this mess is settled. Lots of other good kitties need homes.” From the way Neil hugged her closer and Joe just shook his head, they realized even before she did that she wasn’t just talking about cats. Well, wasn’t that special? At least Neil wasn’t freaking out. But she kind of was. She’d told Janice she was ready to date again. She’d certainly proved she was ready to have sex again. But it was one thing to admit to your best friend that a new relationship sounded good, another to inadvertently admit it not only to the man you’d just had a fling with, but to his dad as well. Awkward! “Want to look at the car first thing in the morning?” Joe said, blatantly changing the subject. “Sure. Won’t have a lot of time, but we can get started. Finish after work, unless Janice wants us to stop by and pick up that phone.” After all the talk, the intensity and then the laughter, silence filled the room, its weight shocking. Suzanne’s crazy energy fled, and all she wanted to do was cling to Neil until she relaxed enough to sleep. But the weight of the silence wouldn’t let her. Finally Joe spoke again. “Well,” he said. “You two must be beat, and my show’s on in a few minutes. Gonna go heat up some dinner. Suzanne.” He nodded, the gesture simultaneously curt and gracious, and retreated. He’d left them alone together. For about five heartbeats they remained frozen in their almost-decorous position. Then he stood and leaned over her. One hand pushed on the back of the chair, tipping her back slightly. She fell backward, raised her head, let her mouth open despite herself. His other hand tangled in her hair, a firm, possessive grip. He half-lifted her out of the chair, though she followed willingly, raising herself to meet him. He moved the hand from the chair to the small of her back, slipped it under the hem of her shirt so he was touching bare skin. Her brain melted. His lips took possession of her mouth, and all worry, all tension, all thought of anything but him fled.

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Chapter Fourteen

He shouldn’t be doing this. Neil didn’t feel bad about kissing her. He’d caught the quickening of her breath when he’d caressed the back of her hand, noted the way her body softened when she leaned into him. Yesterday hadn’t been a one-time good deal for either of them. She wanted more, just like he did. Not sure what that meant yet, but it was a place to start. But he couldn’t help kissing her like he was a starving animal and she was something he could devour. Like she was his and it was his right to do so. He should be considerate now, gentle. Soothing. A sweet kiss, welcoming. Then he should take care of her, make her comfortable. Maybe ask her if she’d prefer to go out for dinner or order in or take a chance on his cooking. He wasn’t a candidate for Iron Chef, and he needed to go shopping, but he could manage doctoring spaghetti sauce from a jar or grilling up a tuna melt with what he had on hand. Instead his tongue moved in and out of her mouth roughly, mimicking fucking. He’d pulled her out of the chair. His cock was already steel hard, and the only reason he wasn’t tearing at her clothes was that the position was awkward and he wanted to hold her. Let them move, just a little, and he’d be flipping up that soft print skirt. He loved skirts for so many reasons, but access was definitely one of them. He thought he remembered her complaining that she didn’t have clean panties. Wasn’t that convenient? And wasn’t he a pig, considering the kind of day she’d had, how exhausted she must be? But Suzanne didn’t exactly protest. No, her mouth had opened under his invasion and she was sucking on his tongue, welcoming it in. She arched her body against him. God, she was supple. Must do yoga or dance or something because the position was damn awkward and she was not only maintaining it but encouraging him. One of her hands was on the chair arm for balance, but the other was on his back, moving around, gliding down toward his ass and back up again. He felt like a horny teenager, at the edge of losing control. Before Suzanne appeared at the door, he’d been so exhausted he didn’t think he could stay awake long enough for a reasonable conversation, let alone a scene. Eat something simple, kiss her good night, crawl into bed together and try for some fun in the morning if they had the energy then. He’d started waking up as soon as he saw her, and now all the fatigue had melted away, leaving

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behind only raw need. Not right. Except from the way she was reacting, the same thing had happened to her. So there was no reason to feel weird about it. He broke away from the kiss just long enough for Suzanne to stand up. Her eyes were soft, glazed, her mouth swollen from his kisses, and her nipples made little tents in her shirt. He managed to get a good look before she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down, back into the kiss. “Need you,” she whispered before their lips met again. “Please.” Her voice was sultry with desire. Oh hell… Sometime they’d sit down and go over checklists and have the conversation about fantasies and limits that a Dom and a sub should have before they played. But tonight wasn’t going to be that night. He’d watch her body language, listen for safewords, ask her before he tried anything new. Besides, he wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore, and he sensed she wasn’t either. Neil pulled her close, a rough, possessive movement. He slid his hand down that amazing ass and started working her skirt up as they kissed. Yeah, he’d remembered correctly. No panties. Hallelujah. He squeezed. She moaned. “That’s tender. More than I realized.” “Good.” “Not too tender, though.” Her voice was quivery in a good way, like she couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of her mouth, couldn’t quite believe her own daring. “Please…” She pushed her ass back against his questing hand and he knew what she was pleading for. Still, he figured he should double-check. One, it was the right thing to do. Two, prolonging her suspense, making her ask again, spelling out what she’d probably prefer to leave as inarticulate pleas, was evil in a fun way. “Tell me what you need, Suzanne.” She swallowed hard. He watched her throat move, remembering her sucking his cock the night before. “I need to stop thinking. Stop fretting. Need to clear my head. Pain and sex will help. Please spank me.” “Bend over. Brace yourself on the chair.” Without a second’s hesitation, and with a glowing smile, Suzanne obeyed. “Are you always this obedient?” “Don’t know. So far you haven’t given any orders I haven’t liked.” She hesitated then added, “Except about the cell phone, and that was just common sense.” He flipped up her www.samhainpublishing.com

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skirt, baring the naked ass he’d felt, but hadn’t seen in what felt like years. It was bruised. The light mottling made it even more spectacular. He ran his fingers lightly over the bruising until she was purring under his ministrations. Then he pinched. Suzanne yelped, but the yelp quickly shifted to a moan, and she pushed back against his hand. Already, he smelled the rich aroma of her arousal. He wasn’t one to wax poetic about things like a woman’s scent, but he’d go as far as saying hers was intoxicating. Maybe that was just her, though. Not her smell but her lust, her enthusiasm, her need, the way she didn’t feel she had to play shy and coy with him. “Are you sure you want a spanking? You must be sore already.” He was confident of the answer, based on her hungry reaction to the pinch, the way she was swaying her butt now as if trying to hypnotize him with it. But it was always smart to ask when you and a sub were still getting to know each other. Know each other? Hell, under circumstances that didn’t involve craziness with cars, drones and creepy dudes with accents he couldn’t place, they’d still be at the coffee-date stage. Maybe coffee-date with a lot of suggestive flirting and a kiss goodbye that involved tongue and hair-pulling, but still, things were moving fast. In a good direction, but still fast. “Yes!” Then she hesitated before adding. “I’m a little tender, but every time I sat down today, I thought of you. Thought about that evil, wonderful spoon.” “Good.” He pushed the skirt further up, making sure it was out of the way. “You should be tender. You’re bruised.” “I want a mirror.” If he hadn’t been able to see her grin, he swore he could have heard it. He petted the curve of her ass again. “Later. It’ll look even better freshly reddened.” She wriggled under his hand. She had no idea how tempting…or maybe she did. Suzanne might not have a lot of real-life experience, but she had all the right instincts. “Don’t scream,” he whispered. “Dad’s right next door.” He put his left hand between her shoulder blades, forcing her head down and at the same time offering connection, comfort in what must still be an odd situation. Then he struck. “This is for not telling me you were friends with Janice. Not that you had any reason to know I knew her.” She laughed. At the same time, she rose onto the balls of her feet as if the blow lifted her up, and she shoved the fleshy base of her thumb into her mouth to stifle a cry. Then a layer of tension melted away from her body. He swore he could see her muscles softening, her breathing become slower and deeper. He understood exactly what she was feeling because the same magic was working on him. For her, pain and surrender. For him, pain and control. Two sides of a coin. 88

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Three more spanks, each punctuated with a ridiculous reference to Janice and “being set up”. Three more delicious responses. He pitched his voice low. “Good girl.” She sighed, a sigh halfway to a moan of ecstasy, and that felt like a reward. He cupped his hand this time, and caught her at the sweet spot where her ass curved to meet her thighs. This time he heard the gasp behind her hand, but it turned to a pleased moan. The roll of her hips gave him a good look at her pussy, already slicked and swollen. He couldn’t resist giving that tempting pussy a slap too, much lighter than the ones on her ass, but enough to test how she liked it. The sound that escaped around her hand was indescribable, unprintable, and sexy as hell. His hand came away wet, and when he looked down, a trickle of moisture glinted on her thigh. “More, please,” she said, almost whimpering. “On your ass or your cunt?” “Yes, please.” Oh God. How had he gotten this lucky? All he’d meant to do was check out a car. Of course, Janice had other designs, but her instincts had been great so he couldn’t complain, except jokingly. Of course he’d also gotten up to his eyebrows in a clusterfuck that involved some potential insane brew of alphabet agencies, corporate sharks and wannabe terrorists. But when he gave a sharp slap to Suzanne’s swollen sex, felt the slickness coat his fingers, heard her sharp intake of breath, the clusterfuck dimmed, leaving only the keen-edged moment behind. He rested his wet fingers against her, found the steel ring amid the soft, slippery flesh. Tugged. Caressed. Tugged again. Held off when it seemed like she might come, instead alternately petting her soft pubic curls and slapping at the inside of her thighs. He repeated the game until she was mewling and not even bothering to hold it back. “Shhh,” he said, but his hand kept moving, encouraging her, enjoying the noises and her lack of control. He was a grown man. His father could handle a few odd noises, and if he got funny looks or inquiring grunts while they checked out the Mustang in the morning, it was worth it. With her juices, he traced the outline of a red palm print on her ass. She made a strangled noise, shaking her head back and forth as if she wanted to say something—wanted to demand something—but couldn’t find words, at least not words she dared to use at the www.samhainpublishing.com

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moment. “Good girl,” he repeated, though he wasn’t sure if he meant her obvious hunger or the unspoken plea. She wasn’t the only one who was having trouble with words at this point. A lot of the blood his brain needed had gathered in his cock and balls. God, he loved her responsiveness. She was uninhibited, had some idea what she’d like to try, but she seemed surprised by her own reactions half the time, surprised by her lack of shame and delighted by it, and that made her even more fun. She offered the best of both worlds: the thrill of watching a newbie learn about her own kinks and the pleasures of BDSM combined with the ease of a more experienced, worldly playmate who knew what she wanted. He began spanking that tempting curve again, spanked until it was a uniform rose. Suzanne’s cunt juices dripped down her thighs and his cock was so hard, so demanding, that it was all he could do not to take her right there, over the chair, just like yesterday not even bothering to undress because he didn’t want to deal with anything that slowed down his dick’s race into that tight, hungry pussy. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Nothing wrong with that kind of crazed-weasel sex, but maybe it would do them both good to slow down this time. Once it was over, once he’d come and so had she, they’d both start thinking again. No need to rush for that moment. Not tonight. He eased her upright, guiding her with both hands, then turning her around in his arms. An open-mouthed kiss, almost soft after the wild ones earlier, but punctuated with his fingers digging into her tenderized ass until she groaned into his mouth and tried to ride his thigh. Then he broke off the kiss. He’d meant to say something more eloquent, or at least a complete sentence, but what came out was “Bed. Now.” And that seemed to work for Suzanne. The bedroom, at least, was upstairs and on the far side of the house. His father, probably in the living room watching TV, wouldn’t hear noises. Neil had every intention of making Suzanne scream. A lot. ***** The downstairs had seemed trapped in an earlier decade, but Neil had put a little work into his bedroom. It was simple, both traditional and modern looking, with pale yellow walls, dark wood furniture with clean lines—Mission knock-offs. Simple, functional, and yet attractive. In her work, she’d seen a lot of bad decorating. This was no designer masterpiece, 90

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but it was good decorating. Tonight she thought the gun case under the nightstand particularly complimented the décor. She might have been biased because the room’s simplicity made it easy to focus on Neil, intense in his uniform, eyes dark with need. She liked the way he looked in his uniform. The dark blue suited him, as did the severity of it. It gave him an air of authority she liked. Even the white T-shirt that showed where he’d opened his collar worked for her, maybe because Frank wore suits when he needed to impress investors and dressed in engineer chic the rest of the time, khakis and plaid or checked button-down shirts that had gotten more expensive as he’d become more successful, but no less ugly. When she touched Neil, the fabric, coarse and tough and polyester-laden, felt right because it was his uniform, or maybe because it was on his body. She traced the outline of the Boston Police Department patch on his upper arm, feeling the heat of his skin, the hardness of his muscles. “Uniform fetish?” He smiled as he said it, and the smile seemed to strip away her clothes and several layers of skin. “I never thought so before tonight. I still don’t think so. But the uniform works on you.” “Have to show you the dress uniform sometime.” He was unbuttoning his shirt as he said it. “Those pants fit better. And you’ll like the jacket. Everyone likes that.” She swallowed hard. It wasn’t like he was showing more skin yet, but the white tee clung to his chest in a way the uniform shirt didn’t. Dark hair poked through in places, and she could see his nipples, erect and dark in contrast to his fair skin. “I’m sure. But I like this better. Your body, under thin cotton.” She reached out, ran her hand down his chest. The T-shirt was soft under her fingertips, with the crispness of his hair underneath, and warm skin. She brushed his nipple, was rewarded by an intake of breath and a low, “Damn…” He grabbed her wrist then, and that gesture, that demand, almost brought her to her knees. “You’re making me crazy. Crazier. Let me get undressed.” He let go of her wrist. It felt lonely. His touch echoed in her skin, pulsed at her wrist. Her ass throbbed, and so did her clit, in time with her heart, her blood, that insistent beat in the place he’d held. “Good. Should I…” She gestured down the front of her body. “God, yes. Wanted you naked an hour ago.” She revved like the Mustang’s engine at the heat in his voice. Her hands felt like they belonged to someone else, but somehow she managed to undress without fumbling too much. www.samhainpublishing.com

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Her clothes ended up in a heap on the floor by the bed. She noted Neil laid his uniform across a straight-backed chair, more a gesture of respect, she thought, than keeping it neat, because it already bore the signs of a day’s wear and would probably need to be cleaned. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him naked, but this time she could really look at him, though arousal and exhaustion warred to un-focus her. Really drink in the long, lean legs, the cut abs and muscled chest stippled with dark hair. His arms were glorious too, not too big or unnaturally defined, not over-the-top gym-rat, just fit. Yeah, she’d seen it all before, but it wasn’t like it was going to get old any time soon. And he was studying her the same way she knew she was studying him, as if looking for wonderful surprises they’d missed in yesterday’s frenzy. Like the hip dimples—she didn’t know what else to call them, but she hadn’t seen that little indentation in the muscles, except in photos online, for years. Color her shallow, but she liked seeing them in real life again. “I could kiss and nibble you all over,” she admitted. “All those pretty muscles.” He suppressed a laugh. “Pretty? That’s a new one. I’d like directing you on just how to kiss and nibble. But not now.” He dragged his gaze up and down her body then looked beyond her to the bed. Yeah, she was standing right in front of the big dark-framed bed and she’d been so busy staring at Neil she’d hardly noticed he’d maneuvered her there. Nice work, Callahan. “All day…all the damn day, I’ve thought about spanking your ass, tying you to the bed and fucking you until neither of us can worry about car-killing psychos.” She felt her face flame, all the way down to her breasts. Would that make it a blush or a flush of excitement? Probably both. “Glad I wasn’t the only one.” “But right now I don’t have the patience for bondage.” “Not the only one with that problem, either. So what are we waiting for?” Her face was on fire now, but so was her whole body, in a good way, craving what Neil offered. Where the hell was she finding this boldness? It was like she’d been saving it up for years. There’d been a time she could be open and playful, but it had faded quickly in the face of real life with a man whose company took off like a stock car at the start of the race, a man whose time and interest in their relationship diminished as his success grew. “You have this mole on your left hip. It’s sexy.” That seemed to be his version of an answer. Then he put one big hand on her chest, just above her breasts, and gave her a good shove. She staggered back, but Neil caught her and guided her onto the bed. For a few lonely seconds that seemed like hours, he stalked to the nightstand, fumbled in a drawer, and as much as she craved his touch, even that absence excited her because 92

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she knew what he sought. Then he was with her on the bed, sprawled by her side like a great cat, fevered heat of his skin warming her. Or maybe that was her body throwing off the heat. She couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop touching him, couldn’t stop herself from exploring his body. Feeling those pretty muscles, and they were pretty, no matter how he’d scoffed at the word. Stroking his cock, remembering how it had been inside her yesterday, how he’d fucked both her pussy and her mouth. “I’d love to feel you in my ass,” she mused out loud. How would that feel, especially with her butt cheeks so tender? She’d experimented with anal during her wild years. As she recalled, she liked it, but it wasn’t something she’d ever done a lot. His cock jumped under her hand as she said that, and his balls tightened. “So you like ass sex,” he said, his voice smoky and rough. She clenched, and for the first time in ages, she realized her ass as well as her pussy was involved. “I think so,” she admitted, “I used to.” “Let me guess, you’re years out of practice.” She nodded. Something in his voice made her nervous and she studied the dark green sheets to avoid meeting his eyes. His cock wasn’t faltering, though, and she was wetter than before despite, or maybe because of, her embarrassment, which verged on shame. Had she really just asked for anal sex? Yeah, she had. And he seemed to like her boldness. “It’s bad to speak ill of the dead, so I won’t.” He caught her wrists, making her shudder with need. “And if you think I’m the one to help you make up for lost time, I’m all for it. There will be time for all the games you want eventually. But right now, I just need to be in you. ASAP.” She nodded. “Yes. Please.” With a quick motion her over-stimulated brain couldn’t parse, he ended up on top of her. He’d stretched her arms above her head, held her wrists down. He wasn’t trying to enter her, but his cock nudged against her. She opened her legs wider. He slid over her clit, teased at her opening. Need pulsed deep within her, and she wasn’t sure it was purely a physical sensation. It was all she could do not to push up, wrap her legs around him, try to get him inside her even without the condom. Maybe there was a good reason to immobilize her hands besides that it was hot as hell. Her brain was definitely in the thrall of her body and Neil’s, and common sense was gone. Maybe it had been blown away by a sea breeze down in Nauset. Maybe she’d been doomed as soon as she’d looked into the blue eyes and saw that cocky, take-charge grin. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“So wet. Do you know how hot it is to be with a woman who’s as horny as I am and not trying to hide it?” “Hid…for too long.” It was getting harder to talk, but she wanted to say that. “Want you.” Trust you, she wanted to add, and need you, but that was just her blissed-out brain playing with her. She did trust him. That was the funny thing, though not enough to say it. Because as soon as you said you trusted someone, they could take advantage of it. And God forbid you should admit you need someone when it meant something beyond between the sheets right now. She’d admitted that to Frank years ago and the admission had taken on a life of its own. A life that led them to a marriage that for both of them had been too comfortable to leave easily, but never really good. Her arousal faltered as memories she didn’t want to examine flooded in. A whimper slipped before she could stop it. Not the fun, sexy kind of whimper either, not what either of them wanted or needed, with his hard cock taunting her clit with something that until a few seconds ago she’d craved. He froze. “Suzanne?” “I let myself think for a second. That was a mistake.” “Not a night for thinking,” he agreed. Good, he assumed she’d meant she’d been thinking about criminal creeps, which were also a fine topic to avoid. “A night for distraction.” He worked her hands together—she helped him as soon as she figured out what he was doing—clasped both wrists with one big hand. With his other hand, he began to circle her clit. All his weight lay on her, warm, secure, possessive. His fingers worked magic. His cock still glided between her legs, teasing at the areas his fingers missed. His other hand still secured her wrists in the sexiest way; his weight still pinned her down, and combined with the grip on her wrists, she could tell it was a deliberate “don’t move” thing, bondage by bodyweight, not just chance. Dear God, this was so good. And he’d all but promised that he’d be tying her up on some future occasion, fulfilling that fantasy. She imagined rope or cuffs where his hands were, and the layer of fantasy made the already hot moment scorching. Her worries and memories tried to hang on, tried to control her as they had for so long, but her body wouldn’t let them. Why worry when you can have wild, multi-orgasmic sex instead? Sensations flooded her, hot and liquid, burning away everything else. She arched. She couldn’t move much under Neil’s weight, couldn’t budge her hands out of his steely grip, 94

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and that turned her on even more. Too much analysis to decide if she was having was a second orgasm or a continuation of the first. All she knew was she couldn’t stop, that pleasure ripped her apart and rebuilt her in ways she hadn’t known were possible, ways she thought were the realm of erotic fiction and the over-the-top, romantic subgenre of it at that. She cried out, unable to stop herself, and Neil caught the cry in his mouth. Which stoked the fire again, a sweetness that just added to the conflagration. He had to stop touching her clit, had to let go of her wrists, in order to put the condom on. But he stayed in contact with her the whole time, and except for a quick glance at the condom to make sure it was going on right, he kept up eye contact. Something about those intense eyes, navy shading toward black as his pupils widened with desire, worked almost like bonds. She couldn’t move under that dark-blue gaze, kept her hands over her head where he’d left them and her legs spread wide. But she could tremble and need and yearn. Could hear the fire roaring in her blood, demanding to be fed. He pushed her legs even farther apart, raised her knees. Positioned himself between those spread legs. All the time, he was looking at her. She felt like prey and like a movie star at the same time, vulnerable, desirable and desired. Soon, something in her brain snapped, some last bit of resistance she hadn’t known was there. As he entered her, he positioned himself so he could pin her hands down again. That restraint, as much as the incredible feeling of his cock opening her up, set her off, sent her soaring. It wasn’t just the fucking, the simple act of penetration, though the way he was moving inside her was enough to make her insane, and he’d angled himself so her clit got plenty of attention with each deep, fierce thrust, and the way she was rippling around him, gripping him, seemed to be making him as wild with desire as he was making her. No, his cock, and the skillful way he used it, drove her close to the edge, but it was the strong hands holding her down and the wild blue eyes that captured hers and wouldn’t let her dare to glance away that drove her toward that precipice again. Her pussy clenched. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in even deeper, because as deep inside her as he was, she wanted more. Wanted something she couldn’t name or describe except that maybe she wanted to fuse with him, erase all distinctions between them. But the distinction was there. He was holding her down, in charge. With her heels pressing into his ass, goading him to go faster, fuck harder, and with both of them trembling, tight, on the verge of explosion, he slowed down, letting her feel every excruciating, delicious millimeter of him as he glided in and out. “My pace,” he said through clenched teeth, confirming her suspicions and also confirming it wasn’t easy for him to hold back www.samhainpublishing.com

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either. “You choose to play. I choose the details. You can say no if something’s not for you, but otherwise I steer.” He paused for a second. “All right with that? I know this is new for you.” “Yes, it’s good,” she whispered, and then, beyond thinking it through, “Yes, sir.” Something fluttered inside her as she spoke, fluttered and then clenched, and it wasn’t as simple as her pussy twitching in excitement. This was something more, something deeper that had to do with his words, the possessiveness and control in them, and her own reaction to them. She’d known she missed rougher play, spanking, a hint of kink to spice sex, but good lord, she hadn’t known how much she needed to submit sexually, to yield to someone else’s force and will. Not the way she’d acquiesced to Frank’s whims because it was easier than fighting them, but because she wanted to follow. In this context, following made her stronger. Suzanne was doomed. She was Neil’s, at least for this moment, his willing slave if he’d have her. She needed to look away then, escape from that intense gaze, pull back from the moment and hide the crazed feelings he’d turned loose. But she couldn’t. He wouldn’t let her look away, she thought, though she couldn’t explain how he was controlling her. Might be as simple as she didn’t truly want to look away. Wanted to bare her desire, the tumult of her feelings, to him, so he could do with them what he would, as he did with her body. “Yes,” she whispered again, rippling around him, unable to be still as he pumped with excruciating slowness and ground against her swollen clit. “You’re starting to understand. Good girl.” “Thank you,” she said, unsure what, exactly she was thanking him for—his body, the pleasure they’d already shared, the fantasies he’d fulfilled and the promise of more, or even the simple good girl that thrilled her every time he said it. “Thank you, Master.” She froze when she realized what she’d said, how lost she’d been in her cloud of fantasies. Neil chuckled throatily, a sound like cognac or bourbon, smooth yet burning, intoxicating. “Way too soon for that, but I like the way it sounds when you say it.” He smiled, and the smile stabbed her. It was cool in this hot moment, calculating, and it just made her want him more. She wouldn’t have thought she could want more than she did, but that smile, and the evil, tormenting, delicious expression in his eyes made her shudder, clench harder and beg, “Please. Please.” “Please what?” He bit his lip after he finished speaking. This was a tease, an erotic torture for him as well. 96

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“Please, sir.” For some reason, that seemed like the right response. No, seemed like the only response. All the specific pleas she wanted to make, all the things that she would have demanded under other circumstances, being all but dangled over the edge and not allowed to fall, didn’t feel appropriate now. Might never be appropriate with this man, but certainly not tonight. Either she guessed right or Neil couldn’t take it anymore himself, because he began to move faster. Slamming into her with all the randy energy of a teenager and the finesse of a grown man with a lot of experience and a great dedication to his lover’s pleasure. She began to keen as her pleasure built. She would have said she was at the precipice before, ready to tumble, but he pushed her higher yet, found a more dangerous edge for her to totter on. Then he rocked his hips in a particular way that made her cry out his name and bite her lips against begging for release. “Come,” he demanded, and his voice scraped against her clit. “Come with me, Suzanne.” He gripped her wrists tighter as he said it; drove so deep inside her it was almost painful. She tumbled over that cliff into the blue of Neil’s eyes, though it was more like flying, and he soared with her, carrying up in his strong arms as he roared his own pleasure to the night. ***** Words started to return to her mind, but they seemed like the wrong words, so she stifled them and snuggled closer, contenting herself with the silent comfort of Neil’s body. The moment felt big, somehow, like there had been more at stake than simply their mutual pleasure; however, she figured with what little higher cerebral function remained, that that was an illusion created because that much pleasure at once was new to her, or might as well be after a long run of decent-enough status-quo sex and several years of not even that. Suzanne stifled a chuckle. She’d been ridiculous, calling him Master like that even made sense. And he’d realized it was the intensity of the moment, didn’t take it seriously, but accepted it for what it was. Who was she kidding by thinking accepted? He’d enjoyed the hell out of it while it was happening, even while acknowledging it was a bit of fantasy. Fantasy they’d both found scorching hot but still fantasy nonetheless. Neil’s breathing slowed. His body relaxed even more, curling around hers. She opened her eyes, shifted so she could see his face. www.samhainpublishing.com

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He was asleep, as she would be as soon as she let herself drift off. The sculpted planes of his face looked softer, and the faint lines around his eyes, the kind even a thirty-yearold might get from smiling or squinting into the sun, had melted away. God, he was beautiful…but so young. Even with the dark scruff accentuating his cheekbones, even with the memory of those faint lines, even with the uniform on the chair and the gun case under the nightstand, he was achingly young. Frank referred to his engineers and designers, the twenty-something and early-thirties hotshots, as “the kids”. Awake, Neil didn’t seem as youthful as the awkward young geniuses she’d met through Frank. But as he dozed, she could see Neil’s true age, or lack thereof, more clearly. Frank could have been Neil’s father. She literally couldn’t be his mom—Suzanne had been adventurous as a teen, but she’d clung to her virginity by a technicality until a few years after Neil was born—but someone her age could, assuming a birth-control failure during a high-school romance. She might called Neil sir and even Master while they played, but that was a sex-game, a bit of fun she’d desperately needed after coming home to a destroyed house and realizing Frank had been deceptive in far more complicated ways than she’d known. That Neil had probably needed almost as much after a day that started with dealing with a fellow police officer as a witness, not a colleague. Best not to make this more than it was: an adventure for both of them, one that might have happened anyway, but was sped up, first by the kind of car that made you feel wild and free, and then by bizarre circumstances that forced a first not-officially-a-date into something intense and intimate and scary. Their connection might be fever hot, but like a fever, it would pass, leaving them with delirious memories. Hopefully before any lasting damage was done.

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Chapter Fifteen

Suzanne’s sensible resolves faded when Neil woke in the dim, cool hour just before sunrise and began to caress her. She didn’t even think of saying no, though she’d been asleep when he first touched her. It felt too good waking up to a man’s passion. It had been far too long. And never like this, with her hands stretched above her head and tied with a quick loop of rope to the headboard and evil, wonderful little clamps on her nipples. When it was over, and she snuggled against him, Neil said, “I want to put tracking software on your new phone before I head out today.” Her brain still felt sodden and slow from pleasure, but she wasn’t so far gone not to exclaim, “What? I’m not even planning to go to any appointments this week, just doing phone and Skype consults.” He ran his hand down her back to her ass. Grasped it hard enough for her to feel the bruises. “Humor me.” “You’re paranoid.” For some reason, it wasn’t easy to form the sentence. “I’m a cop.” He rolled her onto her back, started kissing his way down her body. “Might be the same thing.” “Not when someone really is out to get you.” He took a nipple, still tender from the clips she’d worn earlier, into his mouth and suckled. Sensation surged through her, a heady mixture of pleasure and a hint of pain. When that nipple was so sensitive she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, he turned his attentions to the other one. Her hips began to roll, fucking the air. He worked his way down between her legs, gave her two delicious, disorienting licks. “Besides,” he added, raising his head, “what makes you think I’m giving you a choice? If you give in gracefully, though, I’ll keep licking you. If you argue, you’ll have to wait.” “Fine!” she conceded. She still thought he was being paranoid. But someone might be out to get her, so a little paranoia was healthy. And more importantly, she didn’t want to stop what he was doing. *****

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Janice lived in Charlestown in a converted industrial space. She had only a few rooms, but they were all large. Perfect for swinging a whip, Janice always claimed, even in front of vanilla friends. She’d say it like it was a joke, but Suzanne knew it was the simple truth. And those high ceilings with exposed steel beams must be great for suspension bondage. Funny how Suzanne had never thought about that before, just envied the space’s clean lines and great light. Janice made no secret of her proclivities and she’d been at Janice’s place often but her experiments with Neil, mild as they probably were in comparison to Janice’s activities, had pushed BDSM to the front of her brain. There was no avoiding how well those exposed beams would work as anchor points, or how that spare “modern sculpture” might be a frame for flogging or bondage. It wasn’t a St. Andrew’s cross or something else that a sheltered Sunday-school teacher might guess had naughty applications, but now that she was more clued in, Suzanne couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out before. It made her want to giggle. Not laugh in a mature, womanly way but giggle like an eight-year-old girl who’d just figured out a dirty joke. Until she saw Janice’s face, drawn with worry. Janice drew her into a hug and said, “Frank was a different flavor of SOB than we thought. Who knew he’d be up to his eyebrows in spies and top-secret stuff? Geeks, even good-looking geeks with fun cars, don’t seem like spy-thriller material.” Suzanne stiffened. She hadn’t given Janice any details about what was going on, just that she was finally ready to face Frank’s phone and what it might contain. It was too surreal and trying to explain it, instead bringing it into sense and order, just underscored how little information they had. She thought it would make more sense if she explained in person. Or maybe when it was all over, when the bad guys were safely behind bars and she actually knew what she was explaining. But someone had told Janice. And she knew who that someone had to be. Part of Suzanne wanted to cling to Janice and accept her acerbic version of comfort. Instead, she pulled back a little and glared at Neil. “You told her!” He shrugged. “She’s my friend too.” “When I didn’t hear back from you with salacious stories and you didn’t return my texts, I pinged Neil. Figured you guys had crashed and burned before you really got started and you were both pretending you didn’t know I’d set you up until you figured out exactly how to rip me a new one. But Neil’s the type to answer a direct question and I was dying of curiosity, so I just asked. And boy did I get an earful. Wouldn’t have believed that story from most people, but Neil got all LEO on me, so I knew he was serious. We had terrorists 100

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in Boston not too long ago, so it’s not as weird as it might seem.” Janice sounded concerned but also fascinated, which was par for the course. The woman was curious about everything. She’d have a million questions, and they’d have no answers for ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety of them. Which was exactly why Suzanne hadn’t wanted to say anything until things were clearer. Preferably until the mysteries were solved, the bad guys were out of the picture, and Suzanne and Neil could both get back to their lives, separately or together. No point in pulling Janice into this mess too. She couldn’t do much to help except be moral support, and even that might be dangerous. Too late for that now. The cat was out of the bag, and like any self-respecting cat that had escaped from a bag, it was going to zip around leaving a trail of destruction behind it and wouldn’t take kindly to being shoved back in. “It’s a wild story all right,” Neil said coolly, oblivious to her glare. “I guess it’s even stranger if you knew the guy. I didn’t get the full impact, not knowing Mr. Anal-RetentiveNerd.” “It was my story to tell or not to tell. Not yours.” She was half sick with fury and she couldn’t figure out why. Annoyance, sure. That would make sense. But she was choking on rage. What was the reason? Janice waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Suzanne. He’s not Frank, or Frank’s sexier mirror-image, or whatever you’re worrying about.” Oh yeah, that was why: Frank’s terrible habit of making unilateral decisions about what to share and not to share. Some of it made more sense now. As a defense contractor dealing with highly sensitive information, he’d needed to develop a habit of secrecy; playing things close to the vest would seem reasonable even if it wasn’t really necessary. Even if he ended up cutting himself off from his wife and friends. Janice was right: Neil talking when she would prefer to keep something quiet had seemed like another guy controlling the flow of information in ways that affected her life, and she was over that. But it wasn’t really the same thing, was it? At least this time, it was obviously early enough to talk it out before things got ugly. “You should have asked me. I didn’t want her caught up in my fucked-up mess.” Janice squeezed her hard then let her go. “I’d call it Frank’s fucked-up mess. Don’t go taking responsibility for something you knew nothing about until it blew up in your face. I suppose he couldn’t explain exactly what he was working on, but you’d think he could have www.samhainpublishing.com

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figured out a way to give you a heads-up that he was doing something defense-related or that weirdos might be after his work.” Neil raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m prepared to dislike a guy I never met because he didn’t appreciate you, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. He literally might not have been allowed to say anything. Or maybe he figured it was better you didn’t know, that you could be all honestly ‘What? You must be mistaken,’ if someone asked. I’m sure he assumed any problems that arose would land in his lap where they belonged. No one expects to die young.” “Especially since we were talking divorce. No need to get me in the loop on his latest super-clandestine project and maybe complicate both our lives when I’d be getting the hell out of Dodge soon. We were only sharing the house still because it’s so huge we could have separate rooms and pretty much ignore each other.” “I guess you’re right.” To Suzanne’s surprise, Janice seemed almost appeased. Suzanne had been angry with Frank, hurt by him and in the end so distant from him that both the anger and the pain were like old injuries that occasionally twinged in the rain, but she’d never hated him. Disliked sometimes, but never hated. Janice had, with the fierce, sharp loathing of a best friend who had no memories of love to soften her feelings. Well, that was settled, anyway. “As for you, I still don’t get why you took the liberty of telling her. Maybe I was going to spill the whole insanity in person.” “Think, Suzanne.” Damn traitor body. Most of her wanted to slug him, but the part of her that responded to his orders, to his dominance, kind of liked that. Even if his tone could be read as condescending, she could imagine it working into a scene somehow. “You’re up to your eyebrows in alligators, and the only reason I’m not is because I’m taller than you, so my eyebrows are higher up. Like you, I didn’t want Janice to get caught up in this clusterfuck, but she’s already involved. I don’t think anyone’s realized you’re hiding out at my house, and I don’t think anyone followed us here, but I’m not sure because no one knows how many players are involved and what resources they have. There are a lot of unknowns, so there’s a risk to anyone who looks like they might know something about Frank’s business.” Shit. She’d managed to implicate Janice in Frank’s mess months before she even knew there was a mess. “You’ve been holding on to his Batphone all this time, and the bad guys wouldn’t know it was because I thought it was his booty phone. For that matter, neither would the good guys, and the good guys aren’t necessarily nice if they think someone may have gotten their hands on top-secret technology. They may apologize later, but they’ll make your life miserable first.” 102

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Janice snorted. “Like I’d be able to make heads or tails of Frank’s documentation even if I had it. You both know I dropped out of college to tie men up for fun and profit, and when I went back, it was for writing.” “You wouldn’t need to understand the tech to sell it,” Neil argued. “Before you use your bullwhip on me, I know you wouldn’t, but the alphabet agencies are paid to suspect everyone.” Janice added blithely, “I didn’t exactly keep it a secret that if Frank was on fire, I’d get out the marshmallows. That might give me an extra motive if someone was looking for one. So I appreciated the heads-up. But it took about two seconds to decide I wasn’t going to FedEx you the phone or anything like that. You’re my bestie. The bad guys can get to know my little friends if they try to mess with me.” She gestured toward the room where Suzanne knew she kept her toys. “Two seconds is an exaggeration,” Neil added. “More like half a second. And there were a few ‘screw them’s’ involved.” Suzanne couldn’t help laughing at that. “No lube, right?” “Right. Definitely no lube. And any beatings would be of the non-fun, nonconsensual variety.” The tension that had filled the big room like a poison gas dissipated. Suzanne crossed to Neil, looked up at him, unsure whether she should touch him or not. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” She thought about elaborating, about explaining why she’d reacted so badly to a decision which she’d have been totally behind if he’d explained his thought processes. It was the not trusting her with the thought processes that she’d had an issue with. Then she decided the trusting her with them was her assumption based on Frank and didn’t apply to Neil. Hell, it might not have actually applied to Frank, based on what she’d learned in the past day. My God, had it really only been a little over twenty-four hours since I learned about the drones, a little over forty-eight since I met Neil? She’d explain later, after she’d had a chance to detangle her thoughts and emotions. Luckily, Neil didn’t demand details. He just nodded. “You’re stressed. I’m used to making decisions to keep civilians safe; it’s a habit, and I didn’t even think about it when Janice was on the phone and I had an opportunity to warn her.” “Makes sense.” It did, too. Wait and see. Try to trust. He’s helping you. Neil was super-hot. That made trusting Neil harder in some ways because she’d been fooled by a pretty face before. She probably ought to accept his judgment, at least where www.samhainpublishing.com

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issues involving crime were concerned. But the way her brain melted into her panties made her both overly accepting and extra wary. Parts of her wanted to trust him completely, accept his judgment in all things, but that was because it had felt right to do so in bed. Other, probably wiser, parts questioned every interaction with him because of that brainmelt issue. She’d only been attracted to one person this thoroughly, this quickly. She’d met both men at times when her life was in flux. She knew, in retrospect, that she’d fallen so hard for Frank because he represented maturity and stability at a time when she was having a hard time finding those qualities in herself. And for all he had the fun qualities of a fantasy badboy Dom, a fantasy she’d craved, Neil was also the living embodiment of the law, safety at a dangerous and confusing time. Which made the emotional and erotic side of this whole situation almost as dangerous as the criminal aspect. Suzanne couldn’t spend too much time brooding about intangibles, though, because Janice handed her Frank’s phone. It rested heavy in her hand, heavier than a sleek, high-end phone had any reason to be. She imagined it was ticking like a bomb. With a touch in the right place, it lit up—Janice had obviously been keeping it charged—showing a login screen. She took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing. Any suggestions for the password?” Janice suggested, “Try I’mAnAsshole, all one word?” When they both glared her way, she added, “Hey, you asked!” Then she gestured toward a couch and chair. “This is going to take a while; we might as well be comfortable. Anyone want a drink?” Suzanne chuckled drily under her breath. Thank God for Janice’s snark. “I’d love a drink,” she said, settling on the sofa, “but I’d better stick to coffee. I’m still pretty crunchy.” “Coffee’s good.” Neil sat beside her. Without any conscious thought on her part, Suzanne snuggled against him, grateful for his sturdy, protective warmth. He slid an arm along the back of the couch behind her. He wasn’t quite cuddling her, as if he knew she couldn’t concentrate with too much contact, but she felt his heat and his protection enfolding her and was grateful. And as scared by her own gratitude as by the notion of what she might unlock on the innocuous-looking phone. Fueled with Janice’s dark-roast coffee, its harsh edges subdued but not tamed with a splash of cream, Suzanne started with the more obvious password choices. Frank’s birthday. The date he was granted his first patent, which had been on the Stingray’s vanity plate. 104

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DAISY, because whatever you could say about him, even Jan grudgingly conceded he loved that cat. After three tries, the phone warned them it would erase all data on the tenth failed attempt then refused to let them try again for an hour. Janice snorted. “Trust Frank to be annoying even months after he’s dead. This seems like a great time for dinner.” “You offering to cook?” The way Neil said it made it clear he knew Janice could burn water. “You have your choice of the finest takeout Charlestown has to offer. Let me grab some menus out of the fridge.” Neil raised an eyebrow. “They’re food-related, right? I might as well have something in there besides beer, wine, and cream for my coffee.” As Janice wandered off in search of the takeout menus, Suzanne tossed the phone to the far end of the couch, sighed in frustration, and leaned back against Neil. “What was I thinking? Frank was a geek, a brilliant one, and he was apparently doing something defenserelated. He probably had a randomly generated 27-character alphanumeric password that he changed every six weeks.” “In that case, we’ll need to turn it over to the police, have a specialist with the right tools deal with it.” “But what if this is just the phone he used to contact his girlfriend and store his favorite smut? I’d rather see if it’s anything that might be important instead of just embarrassing before I waste police time.” “They say even people who know better usually use passwords they can remember and we’ve found that to be true. Let’s try a few more times once it lets us.” Neil wrapped his arm around her, pulled her closer. It wasn’t sexual, not in any way Suzanne could define, more friendly and comforting, but it still made her want to purr like a contented cat. Still kindled a slow fire deep inside her, something that wasn’t arousal yet, but wanted to be when it grew up. Okay, maybe falling for Neil so quickly was a consequence of stress and adrenaline, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t real attraction between them, or that they shouldn’t have fun with it. It might keep her sane while her life was otherwise in shambles. “Or I could contact the company, explain the situation.” She shrugged, mainly because she liked feeling herself moving against Neil’s chest. “At least the part about my husband dying and me needing to get into his phone and cloud account, not the part about possible spies and terrorists. They might give it to me.” “If they won’t, the police can get a warrant.” He kissed the top of her head. Janice, back www.samhainpublishing.com

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with a sheaf of menus, rolled her eyes. “Get a room! Wild sex I could handle, but I’m not all that interested in watching two of my best friends get mushy on my sofa. Though I guess I did set you up so it’s my fault.” Janice waggled her eyebrows above her red-rimmed glasses. “Anyway, the Thai place is really good and delivers, and the Mexican is good too, but we’d have to pick it up. If you want pizza, I recommend Luigi’s. And seriously, try ASSHOLE for the password. Can’t hurt, can it?” ***** The hour passed more quickly once they had menus to argue over and eventually pad Thai, summer rolls and a spicy chicken Penang curry to distract them. But finally the time came when Suzanne couldn’t put it off any longer. “So what should I try next? Maybe one of the cars? Or a real aspirational car, like a Maybach? I know he coveted one. Who doesn’t?” “Have you tried your anniversary?” Neil suggested. She snorted. “I thought you said people liked passwords that were easy to remember and he forgot that years ago.” Still, she tried it. It didn’t work. Then she thought of something. Frank had spent his junior year in Germany. Europeans put the day before the month when typing dates. She tried their anniversary in that format. That one probably wouldn’t work, she figured, but she’d go back and try Frank’s birthday or some other date he’d have been more likely to use. The phone came to life. “What the fuck?” she said slowly as she sat up straight, sliding out of Neil’s embrace as if his touch stung her. “What the actual fuck?” Neil’s body followed hers. He didn’t touch her again, but he sat up at attention when she did, then leaned slightly in her direction. She was all too aware of him, of the weight of his presence, how much he wanted to put his arm around her, how easy it would be to pull her close and kiss her if he did. Aware, too, of how much she wanted him to do that at the same time she really, really didn’t. She sprang to her feet, started pacing as she tried to open various apps on the phone. Neil leaned forward, his muscles tensing as if he was about to take off into orbit, but he stayed seated. Smart man. Aggravating man. She needed him to keep his distance for the moment, but at the same time she really didn’t want him to. Part of her hoped he’d shatter her indecision, pound right past the barrier of guilt she was erecting, and distract her from the phone and 106

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whatever secrets it might contain. Just knowing the password had thrown her for enough of a loop. God, she was an idiot. With all the real problems she had, problems that the phone might help her (or more likely the police) solve, she was fixated on Neil, and on the ambiguities and tangles of her relationship with a dead man. Focus on the phone, dammit. It may contain information with national security implications. Or at the very least something that will help you to resolve some of the questions about your marriage. By some luck, the password for the Gmail app had been saved. The Gmail address was one she didn’t know, but most of the emails seemed to be either forwarded from Frank’s work email. Only two people seemed to send directly to this address, a Nancy Chang and an R. Delvecchio. She opened one randomly. Turned out R. Delvecchio was a Ron. It sounded totally innocuous, talking about a dog Frank was training… Only they’d never had a dog. “It’s a code!” she exclaimed. “I have no idea what it means, but it must be code. Take a look!” She returned to the sofa, brandished the phone under Neil’s nose. He chuckled. “I can’t read it when it’s moving.” Then he took hold of her wrist, stilling her so he could read. And so she could melt a little. She could tell herself it was an accident, but she didn’t think for a second he didn’t know what he was doing to her. When he absently put his hand on the curve of her ass as he read, she knew it was deliberate. Of course, she hadn’t let go of the phone and moved back like she would have with anyone else, so she was at fault too, assuming “fault” was the right word. As soon as she realized that, she pulled away and began to pace up and down the big room. His touch, she swore, still burned into her skin, right through her jeans. His gaze—how could blue eyes be so heated, so smoldering?—definitely followed her as she paced. He looked like a predator who wanted to spring at her, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Her breath caught in her throat at the thought, at the blurry but delicious sensual barrage of images that followed. Focus on the phone. I’m imagining how much I feel for this guy because I’m scared and I’d rather think about sex than danger. A quick scroll through the emails showed a few more seemingly coded communications from Ron and a lot of fairly straightforward technical and work-related questions from www.samhainpublishing.com

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Nancy Chang that were obviously meant to be intelligible only to the two of them, a lot of key details left out. Either both of his correspondents were involved with the supposed secret project or Frank had been so guarded he even flirted in code. Which was possible. It didn’t seem likely he would have been flirting with another man— Frank was accepting of other people’s sexuality, but was straight and fairly conventional in what he liked—but maybe he’d met someone who’d completely rocked his world, made him feel things he’d never expected to feel. It happened sometimes. It kind of had to her, after all. She’d always known she had a passionate, kinky side that didn’t get out much, but Neil had unleashed way more than she’d known was there. “I hate feeling like a teenager again,” she spat at Janice in passing, hoping Janice would understand. Janice nodded and mouthed something. It took Suzanne a second to translate it as “horny and conflicted,” which summed up a lot of what was going on. Out loud, she said, “It’s called perimenopause, hon. All the fun head games of adolescence, only with the benefit of experience so you know you’re acting insane.” Neil stood himself, moving like a big cat. He was going to pounce after all, her treacherous brain and body informed her, but all he did was stretch and then say, “It’s getting late and I have an early shift tomorrow. I need to go.” He shrugged. “I can leave you here with Janice, but I’d feel better if you were at the house with me and Dad.” Janice smirked, but Suzanne could tell it was a veneer on top of genuine concern. “Cops and their egos. I’m more dangerous than you any day of the week, Callahan!” Then she turned to Suzanne, “On the other hand, Neil has ranged weapons. By the time someone’s close enough for me to whip him into submission, things could get dicey.” Things could get dicey if she went home with Neil because she didn’t know right now if she was coming or going where he was concerned. Or worse, she did. She’d be coming, and she probably ought to be going. Yet she found herself grabbing her bag and giving Janice a hug. She told herself she was thinking about safety, about keeping her friend out of harm’s way. Pity she didn’t believe her own rationalizations.

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Chapter Sixteen

She kept playing with the phone while Neil drove. By the time they got back to Neil’s house she’d learned that while Frank had emailed both Nancy Chang and Ron Delvecchio regularly, he’d called only one number from this phone. No name, but it almost had to be one of those two, didn’t it? “I’m calling that number,” she announced as she walked in the door, entered the by-now reassuring shabby comfort of Neil’s front room. “It’s a San Francisco area code. If the person’s actually in California, it’s not all that late.” “Bad idea. Let the police follow up.” He tried to put his arm around Suzanne, but she jerked away. She wanted his touch. Sweet God in heaven, she wanted his touch, the way it simultaneously grounded her and sent her soaring, made her not care so much about the madness her life had become. But she wasn’t happy about how much she craved his touch. She couldn’t afford the distraction, couldn’t afford how confused she was right now about him. Janice had said he was a guy who’d give an honest answer to a direct question. That was a novelty, so she’d try the novel approach of asking the direct question. “Bad idea because I’d be breaking the law somehow, or messing up the chain of evidence or something else that’ll make the cops’ job harder?” That was important and he’d know better than she would. Still, she had a gut feeling that his issue was less procedural and pragmatic than emotional. “Or bad idea because you’re trying to protect me from finding out the truth about Frank, which is bound to be painful no matter what it is?” “It’s the cops’ job, not yours. If the person’s a fed, she’ll talk in circles to you and you won’t be better off than when you started. If she’s a business contact and dirty, it might tip her off so she hides whatever she’s up to even more effectively. And if she was Frank’s lover…” He eased off, but she could read his thought: if this woman was Frank’s lover, confirmation of the affair she’d suspected would cause her pain without giving them any useful information. Except it would be useful information, for her if not for the police. She’d have one little area where she’d know what Frank had been up to. Closure wasn’t always comfortable, but at least she’d have that much settled. “First off, Nancy Chang is probably in San Fran, so I’m betting against them being involved that way. I’m thinking a co-developer on this project. But Frank’s lover would need

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to know there’s something weird going on. That whoever is coming after me might find out about her. For that matter, a business contact should know too.” Neil nodded, almost sullenly. “You’ve got a good point. But if it turns out to be someone’s office number, do me a favor and just hang up. You’ll know the person’s probably the codeveloper, and we can tell the police that much, but in case they’re dirty, you won’t tip our… their…hand.” Our…their. She smiled at that little slip. He so wanted to take over, make this his case. She couldn’t decide if it was rampant professional enthusiasm about an interesting, baffling case or possessiveness, a feeling that he was involved in the situation, and she was his… well, she wasn’t sure how she’d describe their relationship, let alone how he’d describe it, but something was going on. It was almost cute. She’d never tell him that, of course, but cute came to mind. Only a young man had that much passion to spare, in her experience. At a certain point, you learned to hold back, conserve your energy. He wasn’t there yet. Any more than he conserved his energy in bed. Which was a damn mistake. She couldn’t afford to think that way. Not until she had a few more answers about what Frank had been up to in the last few months of his life. The fact he’d used their anniversary as a password might mean everything she’d assumed about him was wrong. Or it might have just been a convenient date, one he could remember even if he’d rarely done anything about it unless she’d brought it up first. “Here goes nothing,” she said with studied casualness as she hit the number in Frank’s phone. Maybe she’d get lucky and it would be an obvious office number and no one would be there. She’d be able to hang up without saying a word, but the voicemail would give her a name, the company name and maybe a job title. Instead, someone answered on the first ring. “Chang here.” The woman’s voice was professional, crisp. She sounded Midwestern, Suzanne thought, with the kind of accent newscasters used because it was so middle of the road. Then there was a second of hesitation as if it just sank in that a dead man had been on her caller ID. “Who are you?” The who the hell part was strongly implied, but she was too classy to actually say it, or maybe federal agents were trained not to lose their cool. Suzanne had thought this part through, even though after this bit of the conversation she’d be punting. A simple, straightforward answer would be best, she’d figured, no matter who was on the other end of the line. “Frank Mayhew’s wife Suzanne.” 110

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“What was the first vintage car Frank purchased?” The out-of-left-field question gave Suzanne mental whiplash, but it made sense. For all Ms. Chang knew, Suzanne was a North Korean agent who spoke excellent English. Frank and his contacts would have set up some kind of code for emergencies or someone calling in claiming to be from him. And luckily—although Frank’s meticulous mind and car-obsession, not luck, were responsible—Suzanne knew the answer to the question. “He’d say a 1976 Charger he got when he was still in high school, although I always argued that one wasn’t vintage at the time, just old. I’d say the 1959 Ford Fairlane he restored and sold in grad school.” Neil’s arms slipped around her from behind. She didn’t pull away. This woman wasn’t his lover, but a lover would have been easier in many ways. So much more normal than having a calm, rational conversation about a dead man with someone who was obviously from the government but might or might not be here to help her. A dry laugh. “That was exactly what he said you’d say.” Another second of hesitation, this time, Suzanne thought, because the woman was looking for words. “My condolences, Mrs. Mayhew, and my apologies they have to be belated.” “It would have been nice to hear that eight months ago, Ms. Chang.” Now it was Suzanne’s turn to hesitate. “No, scratch that. I wasn’t ready right after Frank died to hear that he was involved in some kind of national defense…I don’t even know what to call it. Thing.” “In my opinion, you should have been filled in at the time, but we were hoping to clear up the loose ends and come to you with answers, not more questions. Mrs. Mayhew, you were told your husband crashed his car. That’s the truth, but not the whole truth.” After the incidents of the last few days, Suzanne wasn’t as shocked as she wished she was. “Frank was murdered, wasn’t he? Someone caused the crash.” “We believe so. The investigation is ongoing. I’m not at liberty to say more.” A tsunami of fury buffeted her. “Why am I only learning this now? And who the hell is we? You and the mouse in your pocket?” A little sane voice in her brain suggested that maybe losing her temper at a federal agent wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, but she thought maybe under the circumstances they’d understand. “I’m with the Department of Defense, Frank’s contact on Project Frontier. We would be the DoD, the NSA, the FBI, Homeland Security and for all I know, maybe a few other subagencies I don’t have the clearance to know about.” “Oh.” That was the curtest oh she’d ever heard from her own mouth. Pathetic that she was resorting to suburban-housewife cattiness to help her process the reality of her www.samhainpublishing.com

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husband’s murder, but how the hell was a person supposed to react to news like that? She’d already gone through the shock, mourning and regret for lost opportunities months ago. Now, she was flashing between numbness and rage, but without any real grief. “I can’t say much more about his death, but by mid-morning your time I should be able to refer you to someone who can. Can you give me another phone number, one that isn’t potentially compromised by the connection to Frank Mayhew?” Suzanne rattled off her new cell number instinctively. Then it all started to sink in. She leaned back against Neil, letting the contact ground her. Someone had killed her husband—and it hadn’t been her, though she’d had moments of wanting to ring his fool neck, or Janice, despite her regular tongue-in-cheek threats, or a business rival or someone’s jealous partner. No, this was the kind of murderer who got the attention of a whole alphabet’s worth of alphabet agencies. A spy, a terrorist, someone like that—and they knew where she lived. Maybe while Team Alphabet was dealing with the national security threat, they’d take care of the threat to her own skin. “Someone is after me. Two groups of someones, actually, I think. I’ve been followed. My house has been ransacked. And they have Frank’s computers.” The woman on the other end of the phone paused for a moment, clearly weighing her words. “We’ll step up surveillance where you’re concerned. I’m sorry about your house, but you should be happy to know they got away with computers loaded with dummy notes and schematics for a project that doesn’t exist, as well as his car garbleygook and some pictures of a cute cat with an ugly tail. Homeland got all the important files off them during his funeral. Thank you for letting us know. Sooner or later someone may try to sell that set of phony schematics, in addition to the set Iran already turned up with, and we’ll be watching for that.” Another dry chuckle. “And before you say it, switching out the computers during the funeral was rude timing. Necessary for national security, and convenient, but I’d have been happier if we could have done it another way.” Suzanne heard the woman draw a deep breath, as if she was collecting her thoughts. “Mrs. Mayhew…your husband was one of the smartest and most talented people I’ve ever worked with. Not the easiest, as I suspect you know: a control freak, stubborn as anyone I’ve ever met and closed-mouthed even by defense industry standard. Unless he got an opening to yammer about cars and then he could talk my ear off.” She sounded actually human then, not like a capital letters DoD Employee, and Suzanne thought she heard a little bit of a Southern accent under that careful, neutral voice. “He was a brilliant, principled man, and a real asset as a defense contractor, and his work will be missed.” 112

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The woman didn’t actually claim Frank would be missed, which seemed like refreshing honesty under the circumstances. Even in his element, talking about important work with people who actually understood it, Frank had still been a grumpy bear. Suzanne laughed. It sounded more like a bitter cackle, and felt like one from the inside. “It’s a relief to hear you say that. I was starting to wonder if I’d known him at all. Apparently he was impossible everywhere he went.” She wasn’t sure if she felt like she was betraying Frank by saying this or acknowledging a truth about him but she forced herself to think of it as the latter. “Unfortunately for our program, and for you, he is being just as difficult in death. We’re still missing the final version of his Project Frontier plans, which we know were complete. We’re not the only people who are looking for it. And I would guess some of them have found you, probably the Iranian contingent, though Frank did his best to disassociate himself from anyone he cared about at all.” “Oh.” A very different oh from the last one. More like a squeak. “If you find anything, you know how to contact me. I will be in touch in the morning with someone who can tell you more about the murder investigation. It’s late, and despite the area code on this phone, I’m in DC. Good night, Mrs. Mayhew.” “Suzanne, please,” she said instinctively. Even when everything had been great with Frank, she’d disliked being called Mrs. Mayhew. Right now, she’d like to be called by a completely different name. Kathleen Murphy had a nice ring to it. There had to be about eight thousand of them in the greater Boston area, so she could just blend in. At that thought, she started to laugh into a now silent phone. Ms. Chang apparently didn’t believe in saying goodbye. Neil gently turned her around to face him, rested one hand gently on her face. “Talk to me,” he said. It wasn’t an order or a cop’s habit of authority. It sounded more like a plea. “They murdered Frank.” She managed to stay calm as she said those three simple, lifealtering words. “Someone murdered my husband, probably Iranian spies, and the last time I talked to him I called him a miserable, cold, cheating bastard. The reason it’s taken the bad guys so long to track me down is that he…he hid me. I thought he didn’t care, that he was hiding things because he didn’t care. But he was protecting me.” Neil drew her close, kissed the top of her head as if she was a child. And like a child, she clung to him as the tears started.

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Chapter Seventeen

“I talked with Ron Delvecchio at the FBI today,” she told Neil as soon as he walked in the door. He’d had a weird shift today, so it was only around three. Thank goodness. Keeping the latest developments to herself had been painful. “Iranian spies killed Frank, The FBI and Homeland Security and the whole damn lot of them suspected that, but hadn’t been able to narrow down which Iranians. I learned that in the morning, and I told them the Bellwood police had sketches of the guys we saw the other day. Apparently they were helpful. I don’t know exactly how, but I got a call about half an hour ago that they caught the spies. We’ll hear all about it on the news at 11. Well, at least the part they can share.” Neil let out an audible sigh of what had to be relief. “You’re safe now?” She’d hoped so too. Trying to answer the question, though, made her break into a nervous sweat, her stomach roiling. “Maybe. I told Delvecchio about the break-in and he went silent in this ominous way. Then he started in with the questions. He didn’t actually tell me what he was thinking, but I got the feeling that he suspects the same thing we did, that the break-in was done by a different group of people.” “But he’s not going to commit to saying that without more information. I know this dance.” Neil sighed again, and this time it definitely wasn’t a sigh of relief. He closed the gap between them, wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll be all right. They’ll be watching out for you now. So will I.” “I took notes as Agent Delvecchio and I talked,” she said. “You can look at them later. Right now I just want to feel you.” He smelled good. Well, really he smelled a bit like Dunkin Donuts and stress, a more masculine version of her own scent at the moment, but it was Neil’s scent and she liked it. Funny how that worked, how quickly he’d become a comfort to her. She nuzzled against him. “Got an email from Ly Vo today. The new Mayhew CEO,” she added when Neil looked puzzled. “He asked if I could stop by his office this evening around seven. He didn’t say it in so many words, but I got the feeling he’s heard from the feds too and wanted to touch base.” “I’ll go with you.” She shrugged. “I already emailed back to set up a time on another day. Too much to deal with tonight. We can arrange the time so you can come along without it being a huge hassle.”

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“Do you want to help me look over the Mustang? I slept too late this morning,” he said without mentioning that it wasn’t as much that he’d overslept as she’d been reluctant to let go of him. “I know Dad offered to help, but maybe it’s better if you and I do it.” Suzanne nodded. She got why he’d think that. Give her something useful to do, something that gave her control over the situation or at least an illusion of it. Not to mention he loved cars so much he probably thought of this as a fun activity they could share. Under other circumstances, she might agree. Not tonight. “Maybe tomorrow morning,” she said after some consideration. “I’ll try to make sure we get up early enough. Or at least not actively prevent it. But I don’t want to think tonight.” She looked up at him, tried to put all she was feeling into her gaze. He seemed to get it. “What do you want to do instead of think?” He smiled and ran his hands down to cup her ass. “Something that pushes me out of my head and into a place where I feel too good to be scared.” He smiled. The hands on her ass switched from a gentle caress to a firm, possessive grip. His fingers found places she hadn’t realized were tender until he pinched them. “I think I can manage that. What do you want?” “I’m not usually going to say ‘whatever you want,’ but tonight…tonight I want you to make the decision. I trust you.” Neil swallowed hard at that moment, stunned by her trust and knocked speechless by the blood rushing to his cock. So perfect. She didn’t know how perfect this was for him. He needed to stop obsessing over things he couldn’t control, needed to stop worrying about Suzanne’s safety, if only for a little while. A good scene, where Suzanne didn’t need to think beyond the moment’s pleasure and he could control most of the elements, was just what the doctor ordered for both of them. Which was why Suzanne ended up blindfolded and bound, wrapped lovingly in yards of green rope. Neil enjoyed the functional side of bondage more than the actual ropework—he did simple restraints, not artistic shibari—but Suzanne’s first reaction to the rope on her skin was so sweet it went to his head and his dick in equal measure. A gasp, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she melted as the scent of her arousal filled the air. God, he could see why people got into the more complicated stuff. He’d ended up adding some extra fillips instead of sticking to tying her wrists and ankles to the bedframe. Ropes around www.samhainpublishing.com

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her breasts. A harness that wrapped her waist and tugged at her sex, toyed with her asshole. It looked gorgeous, even if some of the rope-work was sloppy. But her reaction was the important part and if the act of being tied up made her that soft and dreamy, he’d swallow his pride and ask Janice or one of the local riggers for a refresher course. What? You want to learn new skills for someone? You realize that implies a future together, don’t you? He could practically hear Janice’s dry voice mocking him. Only she wouldn’t really be mocking him, just pretending to because it was the kind of friendship they had. Janice might be resolutely single herself, playing with a lot of guys, keeping it on a friendly level outside of scenes, but she was always delighted when people she liked found someone special. She just had to tease them mercilessly about it because that was the way she was. And maybe he deserved teasing. If you’d asked him less than a week ago to describe the woman who might make him want to settle down, he’d have been stumped, other than “attractive, kinky and with a piece of brain lodged in her skull.” Now that dream woman looked a lot like Suzanne Mayhew. Not only was she smart, good looking and just the right amount of twisted, she was brave. She was aware of danger, and sometimes it got to her, but she faced it head on, figuring out how to deal with it. She’d remained pretty calm considering the level of shit-storm going on around her. A couple of crying jags, sure, but hell, he’d felt tempted to cry or at least scream like a frustrated toddler a few times lately, because he couldn’t do much to help with this clusterfuck. (Though apparently the FBI and NSA had been stymied by the huge clusterfuck too. And he and Suzanne had helped by describing those two Iranians.) Mostly though, she’d been able to roll with the punches. An important quality for a prospective cop’s wife. Wait a damn minute: wife? Big jump from I like her and she’s fun in bed to wife. But I can see it working down the road. Freaky thought to have about someone he’d known less than a week…but the fact he wasn’t trying to run screaming away from his own brain told him it wasn’t the worst crazy idea he’d ever had. Way too soon to consider it seriously but if Suzanne did turn out to be the one for the long haul, they’d have gone through enough law-enforcement-type insanity in the first week of knowing each other that the joys of a cop’s life wouldn’t seem that daunting by comparison. He stepped back to take in the view, Suzanne’s beautiful ass on display over a wedge pillow, the twines and vines of green rope against her skin. Damn, he liked the effect, almost as much as he liked Suzanne’s reactions to the rope. Liked Suzanne’s reactions to just about 116

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everything. He was going to fuck that incredible ass later. They’d already agreed on that. Something different in a good, sexy way to distract from all the different in a really bad way shit that had been going on. First, he wanted it red. Red as the sweet candy-apple Mustang that had brought them together, but with some stripes like a muscle car from the 70s. Neil leaned over, kissed Suzanne’s shoulder, then bit down, not hard but enough to break through the rope-induced dreaminess. She squealed, jumped, then wriggled in her bondages and moaned, “Oh, yeah.” “Tell me what you want.” “You, and something that cracks me open so all I can do is feel.” “Way too coherent,” he quipped, running his hands down her bound form until he reached her beautifully exposed ass and sex. “But I like it.” Like it as in his cock was hard as a stick shift, like it as in his brain filled with red swirls and blood pounded in his head and his dick simultaneously and he didn’t know whether to take his time, play out this scene the way they’d both envisioned it or fall on her now, devour her, slake them both hard and fast so maybe they could focus on the more elaborate scene. No. Newbie to BDSM or not, Suzanne was wise enough to know what she wanted and needed—another great thing about her. He might not be able to deliver her the bad guys’ heads on a platter, and he hadn’t yet tracked down Frank’s missing notes—since both the feds and the bad guys had been looking at least since Frank was killed, though, he didn’t feel too bad about that—but he could give her that much. Could give them both that much, the sexual satisfaction of surrender and control. He caressed the curve of Suzanne’s ass, dipped his hand between her ass cheeks to taunt and tease her. Her swollen lips were held open by the thin green rope, and his fingers swam in her moisture. He swirled two fingers around her clit, tugged at her ring, which was almost too slick to grasp. She undulated and he thought of the curves on the Kancamagus Highway, up in the mountains of New Hampshire, and how the Indian swerved and hugged them. He skirted her cunt in the same way, riding the lips like you ride a great stretch of road, but he gathered moisture as he did so when he reached her anus, he could slick it. No entry now, just stroking the opening, sensitizing it until Suzanne moaned and the little puckered hole opened and closed under his attentions. “So eager. You want more, don’t you? Want something in there, filling up that hungry little hole?” “Oh…oh please…please…” “Patience.” He wasn’t feeling all that patient himself, so he sympathized. But some www.samhainpublishing.com

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things shouldn’t be rushed, and anal sex was one of them, especially if the receiver was out of practice. Maybe it wasn’t fair to tease her, but he never claimed to be fair. And he loved seeing her melt, watching the tension wash out of her body except for the pleasant tension of arousal. She pushed back, eager for more, and the scent of her need, the heat of her skin was tempting enough that he wanted to give in. Damn, this woman had gotten under his skin so quickly, shattering all pretense of being in control of the situation. He needed to regain it and not just for the sake of making this a scene they’d both enjoy. Enough was out of his control right now. Out of hers, too, but in a bad way. So he’d keep control here, and he’d give her something she’d like, though not exactly what she was begging for at the moment. Something to turn the sense of being out of control into something fun, exciting—sexy. After one last caress, he drew his hand away then smacked it down onto the delicious curve of her butt, right at the sweet spot where it connected with her thigh. She jumped, of course; he deliberately snuck it up on her. But the noise she made was a happy one. “Good girl,” he whispered, because she liked those words and the way she smiled when she heard them made his cock happy. Then he spanked her again. After a lovely warm-up spanking that left her with a wonderfully rosy butt, he ran his hand over that now-tender skin, then, impulsively, bent and kissed her right ass cheek. That made her giggle, a wonderfully relaxed sound, and he couldn’t resist. He bit down on the tender flesh, then sucked, hoping to leave a different kind of mark, one that might last longer than light bruising and stripes. He liked the idea of his marks on her. Maybe he’d see she was up for trying a cane. Canes made lovely marks. No, make that another night, because caning took focus and finesse, and his cock was already interfering with his brain, knowing that hot, tight ass was waiting for him. “Moving away for a second.” He liked to warn a lady he was about to break contact— unless, of course, it suited his purposes not to do so. He’d laid out a few toys on a chair near the bed so he didn’t have to go far to grab the flogger. Medium weight deer suede, green falls, green handle accented with black. He thought it was just the right weight for the job, not too harsh for Suzanne’s relative inexperience, but not a light tickle either. The flogger felt right in his hand, an old friend, almost an extension of his arm. He swung it experimentally so it struck the bed next to her, and was pleased by her shiver, her delighted little gasp. One more test swing. Perfect—it fell exactly where he wanted it 118

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to, a welcome affirmation of control. Suzanne’s body and pleasure were hot, addictive, but he needed this element—not the toy, but the dominance it symbolized—to make his own pleasure complete tonight. Neil took aim, swung at her ass. “Oh God,” she cried. “Feels so good. Please…” And this time she was begging for what he wanted to give her in this moment. He aimed again then struck. As the flogger made contact, he said, “You like that, good girl?” and was rewarded with a gasped “Yes.” “Good. I like it too.” He swung the flogger again as he spoke. After that, he fell into a rhythm. Took control of the rhythm. Let the rhythm and the pops of the flogger and Suzanne’s pleasured pain wash away every aspect of his life that wasn’t so perfect.

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Chapter Eighteen

Suzanne’s mind had been spinning like a hamster in a wheel, even after Neil had tied her up. Oh, her body had been with the program the whole time. She’d been excited in anticipation, waiting for Neil to come home because she needed so badly to fall into his arms and into the magic he could work with pleasure and pain. Waiting for that, holding on to that, had kept her functional as she talked with the FBI agent about Frank’s murder. “We knew they were Iranians because chatter revealed they had a bogus version of Frank’s plans,” he said. “But when they were fully decrypted, they were all about cars and a cat named Daisy.” Agent Delvecchio said they might be making arrests as soon as tonight. But that gave hours for someone to find her. And the people who’d broken into the house didn’t seem to have the finesse to be actual trained spies. So of course she’d jumped every time she heard a noise on the street, then panicked at the grim direction of her own thoughts. Cringed at memories of Frank sweeping her off her feet, an up-and-coming entrepreneur and inventor with a great classic car and a fascinating distance to him, not like the emotionally vulnerable, confused guys her own age. Lingered over the image of her touching Frank’s hand over Daisy’s black-and-white fur as the old cat’s labored breathing stilled, wondering why it took this to bring them together. Latched on to a thousand little details that made her question whether Frank had really been pulling away from her in the last few years or it had been the habit of secrecy gone too far. Every time the fear or the now ambiguous memories of Frank intruded, she forced her mind toward Neil and the night to come. As a result, she’d been wet before he’d touched her. As soon as Neil embraced her, the tension in her neck eased and the butterflies in her stomach flittered off to plague someone else. The soft, secure bite of the green rope on her skin let her relax further, leaving her open and vulnerable in a good way. Only she’d still been thinking about dangerous vulnerability—Frank’s marriageending inability to let down his guard except where the cat was concerned, and his ultimate vulnerability. He’d done everything he knew how to keep himself and her safe, even cutting them off from each other, yet he wound up dead at the hands of Iranian intelligence agents and she was hiding from who knew all. Even when Neil played with her asshole, she kept

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slipping from going crazy with need to going crazy with doubt and anxiety. That, more than lust, was why she’d begged him to fuck her right then. Surely with a cock in your ass you couldn’t think about much of anything other than the moment. At least she hoped that, hoped enough to beg incoherently. It wasn’t until Neil began to flog her that she could let those obsessive thoughts go. Sure, she’d need to address them sometime, probably sometime soon, but the persistent stinging thud of deer suede on her ass drove them away and she lost herself in the rhythm, the peculiar pleasure. She lost track of the room and the boundaries of her body. No thoughts, just reactions. No need for thought. Just a flogger and rope and a deep bliss born of the moment. She was connected to Neil, hyperaware of his every movement, even his breathing. Yet at the same time, she wasn’t thinking about Neil in the usual way, wondering what he’d do next or picturing his body, his intense gaze, his cock poised to enter her ass when the moment was right. Everything blurred and softened. The orgasm took her by surprise, a series of soft, hot waves that buffeted her but didn’t pull her out of her boneless bliss. The cool slick of lube on her ass brought her back to herself abruptly. Oh, it was good. She was still all floaty and aroused, and that little hole, so hungry before, regained its appetite. Neil touched and explored and like before, she found herself begging. Needing. Needing the oblivion of pleasure, or at least the violent distraction of the erotically unfamiliar and unfamiliarly erotic. One finger. It felt dark and crisp somehow and very good and she panted and pushed back, trying to take in more. Two fingers and a memory box opened, two things spilling out. A college-era lover filling her ass with a butt plug before fucking her, both laughing at their awkward daring at the same time they’d been fiercely turned on. And Frank admitting, “Anal sex doesn’t do it for me. As taboos to violate go, it’s nothing these days, and it’s a lot of mess and fuss. But if you’re really into it, I’m game.” She’d said oh no, it’s not a big deal, because it really wasn’t and she hadn’t wanted to make him uncomfortable. They’d loved each other once but they’d filed all their edges off, her to keep him content, him to keep her safe. Mess and fuss. He’d hated mess and fuss. And yet the end of his life had created nothing but… No…must not let those thoughts back in. Suzanne pushed back. Two fingers felt good… www.samhainpublishing.com

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yessss…filling and just edging on discomfort but not getting there. She could hover here until her body relaxed more, accepting the fingers completely, but if she focused on that edge between pleasure and pain, her other thoughts fled. So her brain prompted her to beg, “Another, please,” before her body was quite that eager. Neil added more lube and the third finger slid in gracefully, just enough edginess to keep her focused on him, on her own body, not on the snarls of her mind. Full, so full, and her body was relaxing. When she begged this time, it wasn’t even in recognizable words because her body was with the program. And Neil answered her incoherent pleas by rubbing the head of his sheathed, lubed cock against her sex—she hadn’t realized just how wet she was until his cock moved away and she could feel the trail of moisture it pulled away—and then tapping it against her anus. “Are you ready, girl?” He pushed, not enough to open her again, but enough to let her know that while his cock wasn’t as thick as his three fingers, it would be a very different sensation. A more intense one. One that would thoroughly pull her from herself. Pull her into his orbit, pull her deep and far from the real world. She managed to spit out “Yes”, not sure it actually sounded like an English word. Then he was entering her. He was on his knees, his hands on her hips, and it was controlled and primal at the same time, driving her farther from her mind and deeper into her body, into the place where her body and his connected so fiercely. Inch by inch—no, millimeter by millimeter— he filled her until there was nothing but that strong yet fragile place inside her and his cock moving inside it. At last he was fully inside her, his hips pressed against her tender butt, his fingers cupping her hip bones and tugging at the network of ropes so they moved against her pussy lips. One hand slipped forward to reach her clit. Then he began to pump, a slow primal beat. It was steady, steady, but picking up speed gradually and it edged on discomfort but also skirted perfect bliss, approached unity with something bigger than the two of them, bigger than national security issues, bigger than the universe. The ropes held her. She’d almost lost track of them, but now, every bit of her skin sensitized, she was aware how they held her, an extension of Neil’s body, Neil’s will. And his cock in her, his hands on her, woke up places she’d allowed to sleep for more than a decade. She was alive. Oh yes, she was alive in ways she’d almost forgotten. 122

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Suzanne began to keen under her breath from a pleasure too intense and complicated to put into words, even one as straightforward and clear as yes. This was the kind of pleasure that was almost too much, that could crack you open and put you back together. Saying yes was accepting that shattering and she wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready for what might rush in when the walls came down. She broke anyway, cracked into a thousand shining, sobbing shards. And when she did, everything she’d used sex to hold at bay came rushing back in.

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Chapter Nineteen

Oh shit. Suzanne had smiled through tears the first time they played. Neil had seen that kind of catharsis before, even from subs who weren’t dealing with nearly as much as she was. But these were racking sobs. When he asked if she was okay, knowing he sounded like an idiot because she obviously wasn’t but you have to say something, she shook her head wildly, like she was saying yes and no at the same time, and pressed her face into the mattress. He quickly peeled off the condom and tossed it toward the wastebasket, not even bothering to check if he’d made it, then grabbed his EMT safety shears off the bedside table. In all his years of kinky fuckery, he’d never had to use them, but he always kept them close by if he was playing with rope and this time he was grateful for his paranoia. That position had probably felt great as long as Suzanne was soaring along on the sexy, but if she was going to have a meltdown, she might as well be comfortable doing it. She flinched from his touch now, but he couldn’t very well get her untied without touching her, so he worked as quickly and efficiently as he could and somehow fought off the urge to say something dumb like “it’s okay” because really, it wasn’t. Not right now, anyway. The woman had just found out her husband had been killed by fucking Iranian spies. Sure, she’d dealt with his death, been ready to move on, but that was when she thought he was a cheating asshole who’d died in an accident. This new information must have jarred all sorts of ugliness loose. They’d both known that. It was part of why they’d both wanted some intense play, to distract themselves. However, when emotions ran high, it could lead to some serious sub drop. As he pulled the ropes away, she hissed and shuddered. “Rope burn?” he asked, trying to pitch his voice slow and deep. A calming voice, the voice he’d use talking to someone who’d just been mugged or crashed their car. “Feels too good. Can’t take it.” That made sense in context. She’d gone from soaring to crashing awfully fast and her body hadn’t caught up. He moved the ropes as gingerly as he’d peel off a Band-Aid. That seemed to work better. When he finished getting the ropes away, removed the blindfold, she curled up in a ball,

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shook off his touch, and responded to his attempts to talk with “Go away.” He backed off to the chair, but he wasn’t about to leave, not with her in this state. During his time in the scene, he’d been around people who’d melted down for no apparent reason. Sometimes it happened during a scene, maybe even a scene that didn’t seem particular intense to the Dom but struck a chord with the sub. Those were times when you talked reassuringly, tried to figure out what was wrong, or if, in fact, nothing was “wrong” but all kinds of feelings were crashing around and the only way to make sense of them was to have a good cry. Hell, it wasn’t just subs. Sometimes Doms got triggered by something, dropped too hard when a scene was over, and things got weird for a while. This time, Suzanne had so many reasons to melt down that it seemed foolish to ask, “What’s wrong?” because she could answer “everything” and no one would accuse her of being a drama queen. Instead of asking questions, instead of trying to touch her when she was already overwhelmed, all Neil could do was just sit on his ass like an idiot instead of fixing the situation. Anything he could think of that might help might also make things worse. And that sucked. He clung to one thought. Suzanne was good at communicating. As soon as she could put things into words, she’d tell him what was going on. And then he could help her make it better. It was what he did. He couldn’t solve all her problems. Hell, he couldn’t solve all his own problems at any given moment, and his didn’t involve the Feds and missing plans for some piece of robotic or drone technology that was still so nebulous he could stare at the damn thing and not recognize it. But when you cared about someone, you took care of them, fixed things for them—be it their lawn mower or their case of the blues. He cared about Suzanne, dammit, so he wanted to take control of the mess she was in and fix it for her. Even if he didn’t have the slightest idea how. So he’d sit there until she gave him some kind of clue what would help in the short run. What had she done? It was one thing to have a crazy fling, even start dating again, eight months after her almost-ex husband ran himself off the road. That was just getting on with her life. But to keep the fling going, let it get crazier and kinkier and, if she was being honest with herself, more emotionally intense, right after learning Frank had been murdered? That was just twisted. www.samhainpublishing.com

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He’d been using their anniversary as a password to protect his Batphone. She’d found that out and had gone right ahead with being tied up, whipped and assfucked by her new boy toy. Her brain, not her heart, was scolding her, and that made her feel even worse. Her heart was just fine with her and Neil Callahan being mutual chew toys, maybe for a good long time. She had so much to learn about herself, and about kinky sex, and she liked the guy as well as lusting after him. Her heart didn’t see what the problem was. Didn’t see that fifteen years of marriage meant something, that Frank behaved as he did for a damn good reason and someone had killed him. That he deserved to be mourned, far more than she realized at the time of his death. And she couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t keep her hands off Neil Callahan the day that Frank had, in a sense, died all over again. Not that she’d actually had her hands on Neil for most of tonight, some wicked part of her subconscious reminded her; she’d been tied up. That same part of her subconscious thought that had been damn hot. Amazingly hot. Only now she wanted to run her hands over Neil’s skin, touch him as she hadn’t been able to… God, she was terrible. Or maybe not terrible, but certainly confused. There was nothing evil about consensual sex with a great guy and maybe she’d needed this night to cope at all with what she’d learned. But she couldn’t go on like this. She’d been right. She did crave kink and sexual submission, more deeply than she’d imagined. But this wasn’t the time to explore that side of herself. It wasn’t right to use Neil, use her own sexuality, to avoid dealing with the fact that her assumptions about Frank had been wrong. That she’d judged him and condemned their marriage without knowing the facts. She flung herself from the bed, started fumbling for her clothes. She was sticky with sex-sweat, cum and lube, and right now it felt anything but erotic. Suddenly she couldn’t bear being naked another second, not even long enough to shower. Neil stood as she did. She couldn’t help watching him move—it might be the last time, unless for some weird reason he was willing to try again in six months or a year when her head, heart and body could all agree. Her blood stirred. God, he was beautiful. Young, brave, beautiful and so very, very good at making her feel brave and beautiful herself, not to mention younger than she’d felt when she was Neil’s age. At Neil’s age, she’d 126

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been married to Frank for five years already, and while things were still good between them then, still warm and happy, they’d definitely become settled in their ways. “Cold?” Neil asked, though he must have known she wasn’t on this warm evening. She slipped her skirt back on and popped her shirt over her head, not bothering with the bra, before she answered. “I can’t stay here. I need…” I need to stay here with you her body and her heart insisted, but she knew that wasn’t right. Wasn’t reasonable or mature or fair to Frank’s memory or her own ability to make peace with the dead. Probably wasn’t fair to Neil either. He might be having fun being used, but she was still using him to cope with everything that was going on. “I need to be somewhere else for a while. Need space and time. Playing with you tonight wasn’t right.” His mouth clenched into a tight line and darkness veiled his eyes. “Talk to me. Did I do something I shouldn’t have? Pressure you?” She shook her head frantically. “No.” No, you did too much right. Made me want and feel too much at the worst time. “I thought I wanted…no, scratch that. I did want, did need to be with you, to push boundaries. To forget for a little while. But I can’t keep forgetting. Frank and I drifted apart because he was protecting me. I don’t know what this means yet, but I know it changes things between you and me.” She took a deep breath. Neil deserved to know what she was thinking. No, what she felt, burning in her like desire had so recently, dancing on skin left overly sensitive by rope and floggers and a fucking that felt more profound than it really could have been. “I was starting to make this…whatever it is between us more than it could ever become. You woke me up, Neil, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not the right time. I have things to figure out about my marriage before I should move forward. I thought I’d had all that in place, but now I don’t know.” “I’m happy to be a playmate or fuck-buddy if that’s what you need right now.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were dark and cold like the winter ocean or the night sky, a blue so deep it shaded to black. “Or happy to hang back and let you sort things out in your head. But I don’t want you to leave, and that’s not just the cop in me talking.” “Stop being so damn understanding.” The words blurted out before she could stop them. She didn’t need this maturity from him. Didn’t need to see again that flash of potential for something more than great sex. If he was just a random good-looking young dude, her cougar fling, she could walk away and sort things out without hurting either of them. But it wasn’t that simple. Neil was more than that, more mature and dominant and wise than anyone his age had a right to be. Not to mention she wasn’t sure where to go and still be safe. She’d been trying not to www.samhainpublishing.com

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think about that aspect of the problem. “You’ve had some major shocks over the past few days.” He shrugged, held out his arms to the sides in a gesture that might mean “I got nothing” or “I need a hug”. Maybe, under the circumstances, both. “I probably count as one of them. Neither of us expected this when I stopped to check out your car. Okay, I thought you were even hotter than the car but I didn’t think anything would come of it except for some fantasy fodder.” “Yeah, same here. I blame Janice.” Not that blame was the right word. If circumstances were different—if circumstances were what they’d seemed to be when she’d told Janice she wanted to meet a kinky new man—they’d be thanking Janice. Maybe if Neil was as patient as he seemed, they’d still end up thanking Janice. But right now, blame definitely came to mind. Thanks a lot, bestie, for setting me up with exactly the guy I wanted, but can’t handle yet. Neil took a few steps forward, closed the distance between them. She didn’t know whether to sidestep, which her brain prompted her to do, or give in to her body and heart’s demands and melt against that broad chest, let those strong arms close around her. In the end she did neither, just stood there, her bra dangling ridiculously from one hand because she didn’t want to leave it here. Neil was too close for comfort, close enough she smelled their combined musk and the sex-sweat on his skin but not actually touching. He looked as frozen as she felt, like he desperately wanted to touch her but knew it wasn’t a good idea—like he wanted to grasp the back of her neck, tangling a knot of hair in that big hand, pull her face up to meet his, kiss her until she shattered, until she stopped caring about the past or the uglier aspects of the future, the ones involving federal agents and spies and God only knew who else and slipped back into the moment. Or maybe that was just what she hoped he’d do. Giving herself some space to think without his overwhelming physical presence to distract her was her only hope. “I have to go,” she said, striding toward the bedroom door. “If I drive fast, I can still catch Ly Vo at the office. He always works late.” “Shouldn’t I—” “No,” she cut him off firmly, knowing what he was going to offer. “I’ll go right to Mayhew, I’ll call when I get there, and then I’ll come back here. I promise. No unnecessary risks. They have really good security, and I’m sure the FBI or the NSA or whatever is still watching the place even though the Iranians have been arrested.” “You can have the bed,” Neil said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.” 128

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She grabbed the bag that held her keys and both her phone and Frank’s, then literally ran out of the room. She’d clean up and put her bra on in the downstairs bathroom. Another second in Neil’s company and she’d lose her resolve. She’d be the one sleeping on the couch, she told herself as she hurriedly washed off the residues of sex. The bedroom was already stocked with delicious memories and tempting smells she needed, God help her, to avoid. Even if she had to stay at Neil’s for her safety and his peace of mind.

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Chapter Twenty

Suzanne dodged traffic on the back streets until she reached Route 95. Traffic was still heavy this close to the city but it gave her something to think about. In a Prius, she couldn’t be a lane-changing, speeding fool, and she thought painfully of the Mustang. Wouldn’t have been safe to take it for a spin, she knew. It was too distinctive a car, unlike the anonymous little blue Prius. But it would have been cathartic to open the Mustang up, take it on some side roads somewhere. She laughed at her own thought. A decade and a half with Frank had just about broken her of that urge. Cars were so much Frank’s thing that they couldn’t be hers anymore, even though the car collection had been part of her initial fascination with the man. A few days hanging out with Neil and she was back to admitting she was a car buff and just a little bit of a speed demon. Not that she’d tell Neil the speed-demon part, seeing that he was a cop. Not that she knew what she’d be telling him from now on. Neil was very much alive and Frank was gone, but that didn’t matter in some aspect. Not when Frank was haunting her the way he was now. How could she move on—with Neil Callahan or without him—when she didn’t even know who Frank really was and how he’d felt about her? How she felt about him, for that matter? She felt her mind split as she drove. Part of it focused on the road and the cars around her, focused on driving a little fast, but safely. The rest lost itself in thought and memory. Memories of Frank when they first met, when she was charmed by him and everything was good. He’d always had a cool edge to him, and at first that was part of the attraction. It reminded her of a Dom during a scene, that way of being a little distant while still being focused on her in the bedroom. Even though he’d turned out to be utterly vanilla, the attitude had been enough to make her hot. Looking back, she thought she could pinpoint when he must have started working on the top-secret projects. That was when the pose of distance started to become real. Not like Neil. She couldn’t imagine him ever being distant except for kinky effect, and then she could tell he was playing a role. Normally, she imagined, he’d be direct, maybe a little too blunt. Not a bad thing, though. She shook herself. She’d gotten so lost in thought she’d almost missed her exit.

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Mayhew was in one of the towns bordering on Bellwood, but not directly on the highway. She wove her way down a state highway and from there onto the side road that would take her to her destination. It was suburbia, sure, but pretty suburbia, and driving along the tree-lined street pulled her back from her memories and into the now. And in the now, she realized she’d been unfair to Neil tonight, but worse, she’d been unfair to herself, slamming herself when she’d done nothing wrong. Even if she didn’t know exactly what was going on in her own head and heart, or how things really stood at the end of her marriage, she knew she’d come to care about Neil. She could mourn Frank and what they’d lost in all his necessary secrecy while exploring what Neil had to teach her. She could work through the aftermath of Frank’s life and death while still getting on with her own life. Even if Frank had been ready to get the divorce in part to protect her, the fact remained he’d been ready to leave—not arm her with the truth and a plan of action, not pretend to split up to confound enemies, not find some other way, with that clever mind of his, to stay together and work together to stay safe. Time and complacency as well as secrecy had taken their toll, sapped their desire, made it impossible for them to communicate even in the areas where Frank didn’t need to guard Defense Department secrets. Inertia was a habit that died hard. Love, on the other hand, died more easily. Frank had cared enough he wanted her to be safe, and she’d cared enough to be hurt by his silence and enraged by his seeming infidelity—but neither of them had cared enough to break through those challenges and get back to what had brought them together in the first place. Hadn’t cared enough. Damn, she was turning into a leaky faucet these days. The road was blurring through a haze of tears, and while willpower could keep the tears from turning to Niagara Falls, it couldn’t keep them from welling up, interfering with her vision. Luckily, she was almost at Mayhew. She made it into the parking lot, checked that her doors were locked, and called Neil. “I’m sorry,” she said into the impersonality of his voicemail. “I think that was what you call a bad drop but my head’s clearer now. I’ve reached Mayhew and I’ll call you after the meeting’s done. It should be quick. Call me.” She might have rambled on to fill the silence, but she wanted to get in at about the time Ly Vo had tried to set up the original appointment. She’d see Ly Vo, make it short and sweet, then go home. Home. When had that two-family house in Dorchester become home? She smiled at the thought. For whatever reason, it felt more like home than her own house had the past few years. A big green SUV had pulled in while she was calling. No big deal. The driver and a www.samhainpublishing.com

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passenger were just stepping out. Both white guys, one very blond and fairly young, the other older with angular features, graying dark hair, both dressed in the engineer version of business casual. She froze for a second, considered staying locked in the car until they went inside or otherwise proved they were harmless. No one had been right behind her on the road; she’d have noticed on the narrow, windy road through the industrial park. And if they’d been following her and she’d somehow not seen them, they’d have pulled in right when she did, right? People must come and go here all the time. It was a business, and there was a second shift for the production team, with a few engineers and designers no doubt working late or on flexible hours. No reason to lurk in the car like a big old coward. She took a deep breath, opened the door. The two men converged on her, moving fast and with practiced intent. The one who reached her first grabbed her arm. She did three things at once: she threw her coffee at his face, screamed bloody murder, and fumbled in her pocket, trying to hit redial on her phone. The young man—he looked old enough to buy cigarettes but maybe not beer, and his hair was so blond it was almost white—cursed in a language she didn’t understand, but only gripped her arm tighter. The screaming was equally ineffective. No one was around. When the older man—he was hard-looking with a craggy face that looked like it was awkwardly carved from New Hampshire granite—pressed something hard and cold against her back and muttered, “Come along quietly,” she could only hope she’d redialed successfully and Neil would get a phone message full of screaming—and get it soon. Because otherwise she was fucked.

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Chapter Twenty-One

Neil figured they weren’t having a real fight. Stress and sub-drop had conspired to make Suzanne’s brain explode and, well, maybe stress and top-drop had made his not work as well as it should have, either. Janice would smack him for trying new games with a justifiably stressed-out sub, even games he thought of as pretty mild, games she’d suggested herself on a less totally fucking weird occasion. Still, he needed to distract himself from worry about her off on her own, even if, as she’d pointed out, Mayhew Technologies was probably the safest place in the greater Boston area at the moment. It didn’t help that he suspected he’d been an idiot, hadn’t taken care of Suzanne in the right way. For that matter, maybe part of the issue was that, much as she was enjoying the kinky sex, she wasn’t feeling the same level of connection to him that he did to her. He truly didn’t want to think about that too much. Doing something useful would help. He grabbed a set of keys, jingled them in his hand. The weight and familiar noise soothed his nerves as he ran down the stairs and headed outside. There wasn’t a door connecting the two halves of the house, so he knocked on his father’s back door. “Want to take a look at the Mustang?” he asked without preliminaries when his father answered. “Hell yeah.” Of course, in order to look at it, they had to take it for a drive first, though they didn’t make it a very long one. And it was a good thing they did because on that ride, his dad caught a slight rattle in the passenger doorframe. Neil should have heard it before, but every other time he’d been in the car, he’d been distracted by Suzanne. A pretty damn good reason for missing that tiniest of off sounds, even his father agreed. “Let’s check it out,” Joe insisted. “Any other car, I’d say it was nothing. But this Mustang was her husband’s baby. It’s as shiny and perfect as the day someone drove it out of the dealer’s lot.” “Yeah…so why didn’t he do something about that noise unless he wanted someone to hear it?” Neil was already turning the Mustang around as he asked the question. They made it back to the house in record time.

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***** Neil was good with cars, but this one was special in many ways. The property of a woman he was just a little crazy about. A heirloom from a dead husband who might have been a rat bastard but was also a genius and, if not a hero, someone who helped heroes do their jobs. Potential evidence in an investigation that involved murder, espionage and God only knew what else. And leaving all that aside, one of the sweetest cars he’d ever seen. Neil was confident, most of the time, but Neil was nervous about touching the car. Luckily, his father had no such compunctions. Probably because while he respected the car and the whole spies-and-killers-andtreason situation, his dad wasn’t madly in lust with the car’s rightful owner. In lust and maybe a little in love. Which was definitely not going to come up in conversation because Neil was having a hard time admitting it to himself, let alone to his dad or God forbid, the woman herself. His dad could be calm about investigating that rattle, and that meant Neil could too. They had to take the interior door panel off, but when they looked, they could see where it had been done before. Certain screws appeared to be replacements, not matching the ones on the other side. There was a tiny scratch near one of the replacement screws, in a place where you’d never see it unless you were looking to take the door apart—but given how pristine everything else was, it stood out. Once they got the door apart, they discovered a small box from a jewelry store in the doorframe. “The man went to a lot of trouble to hide Christmas gifts,” Joe grumbled. “You’ve talked to Suzanne. She’s sharp. You’d need to go to this much trouble.” Neil smiled as he said it, but he felt anything but jovial. He was excited in the same way he sometimes was when he found some seemingly insignificant clue that, to a trained eye, promised to be a key to a case, but anxious at the same time. Whatever was in this box had gotten a man killed, might have gotten Suzanne killed too if he hadn’t stopped to check out the Mustang and its beautiful owner. He and his father both reached for the box, then stopped and said, in chorus, “Gloves!” Evidence found when “fixing a friend’s car” would still be admissible—you didn’t need a warrant to do a favor for a friend. If anyone asked, they’d say they hadn’t necessarily been looking for anything other than the source of the rattle, but once they saw the unlikely box… well, they were trained officers and they knew about Frank Mayhew’s missing documents. Neil grabbed gloves from inside before he lifted the box out of its hiding place. He set 134

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the box down on the red leather passenger seat. The phone rang, but he ignored it at first. It wouldn’t hurt to let her stew a little bit and besides, if he waited a few minutes and called her back, he’d have real news for her. Not all the answers, but possibly the source for the answers that everyone needed. Right. Time to get those answers. He opened the box with exaggerated care. It was full of foam padding, and nestled inside was a flash drive. He held it up, let his father see it. His dad nodded, asked, “Gonna look at it?” “No way in hell. Guy was an übergeek and this is national-security type stuff. I’m leaving it for people who know what they’re doing.” “Point. It’s probably encrypted to self-destruct or something.” When Neil heard “Mustang Sally” blaring from his phone for the second time in less than five minutes, he grabbed it. “Suzanne?” he said quickly, maybe too quickly. He was answered with what sounded like screaming and the sound of struggle. He took a deep breath, hung up the phone, and met his father’s eyes, now a stormy blue gray. Shit, before he’d said anything, the old man had sensed trouble. “They’ve grabbed Suzanne,” Neil said simply. “I’m going after her.” He wasn’t sure where he was going, exactly, other than toward Mayhew Tech’s headquarters. But he sure as hell wasn’t sitting still. With any luck she’d be able to hang on to her phone long enough for the tracking software to do some good. “Shit.” His father nodded tightly. “I’ll grab my gun.” Neil called the police immediately, trying to sound like a professional dealing with a situation, not a scared-shitless boyfriend. But he was a scared-shitless boyfriend. He understood fear did strange things to a person’s brain, but as it turned out, knowing that didn’t necessarily prevent the way terror made you babble. At least he had some idea of what they’d need to know on the other end of the phone. Knowing that calmed him enough to think through what to do next. He ran inside to grab his own gun, rummaged through the papers on which he’d made notes until he found the name and number of the FBI agent Suzanne had spoken to. Thank goodness Suzanne had taken notes. He had the DoD contact’s number too, but that would be a later call. Ms. Chang would have contacts and probably intel the local guys would need, but Delvecchio was law enforcement; he and Neil would speak the same language. Not to mention, they had something the FBI needed, so maybe the FBI would play nice. Neil hadn’t actually intended to bring his father with him, just let him know what was www.samhainpublishing.com

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going on. But why had he imagined for a second his father wouldn’t assume he was coming along? When Joe strode out the door, his gun holstered at his hip, barely concealed by a light jacket, he looked better than he had in several years. More focused. More determined. A cop on the case, or maybe something more dramatic, like an older but very competent action hero, Liam Neeson maybe. Well, cop or action hero, only an idiot went up against an unknown number of mysterious enemies alone. Even though Joe Callahan was Dad to him, the depressed, retired widowed dad he normally had to fuss over and motivate, Joe Callahan was first and foremost a decorated Boston police officer who’d been a cop longer than Neil had been alive. And right now he looked plenty motivated. “So what are we waiting for?” his father asked, heading toward the garage. “We taking the Charger?” Neil tossed the keys to his dad. “You get us up out to Walton—it’s the next town over from Bellwood. I have calls to make. I’ll take over once we get there.” At least he knew where he needed to go for now. Suzanne’s call had definitely come from Mayhew, or near it. Thank goodness he’d insisted on that software, although right now he wasn’t getting a clear reading from it. He’d so hoped she would be right, that he was worrying too much. Unfortunately for them, his instincts had been good. His father still drove like he had a siren on top of the car. What the hell? Luckily, Neil had his police ID on him and they were both licensed to carry concealed. While his father drove, Neil called Bellwood and filled them in—they’d be sending an officer too—and then his own department. Not that there was a hell of a lot they could do yet; it wasn’t Boston’s jurisdiction. But he wanted them to know something was going on that might involve terrorists. The sergeant on duty listened to him, asked the right questions, then paused before she said, “I know you, Callahan. I know your dad. I’m not even going to ask where you’re going or what you’re planning to do, because if I know, I’d have to try to stop you and I doubt I could without actual shooting.” Neil could picture her shaking her head. “Just do me a favor and don’t do anything too stupid. And keep an eye on Joe.” Despite the tension—no, because of the tension—he laughed. “Right. You know how well that works. I’m his son. He’ll listen to me even less than he did to you and the lieutenants.” Joe took one hand off the wheel long enough to smack him. Neil was glad for that blessed bit of normality in a mad world, because the next call he had to make was to the FBI. 136

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Don’t shoot me. If you shoot me, you’ll never get the information. Maybe, if she thought it often enough, the two men would subliminally understand. Or not. After they shoved her in the back of her own car, duct tape over her mouth and more duct tape binding her wrists behind her back, and, rather confusingly, buckled her in, they’d ignored her. Ignored each other, for that matter. Suzanne kept hoping they’d talk to each other—maybe drop clues as to where they were taking her. Unfortunately, they maintained a stony silence. The quiet was enough to make Suzanne want to scream and beat her fists on something just to make some noise. Only she couldn’t scream, thanks to the magic of duct tape, and couldn’t beat her hands on anything, at least not in a satisfactory way, for the same reason. This is not the fun kind of bondage, she thought, and laughed into the duct tape. Clearly she was close to hysteria, her mind wandering to all sorts of crazy places. Neil would get those messages, and he’d find her. Somehow. He’d known where she was going. She had to have faith. They were driving a fairly straightforward route and weren’t making any effort to hide their direction, which freaked her out a lot. Did that mean it didn’t matter if she knew where they were because she wasn’t going to survive this encounter? Maybe that was what they thought, but she was going to get through this. She wasn’t sure how, but she would get the best of whoever was behind this and live to testify against them. She was not going to die this way, killed by idiots looking to steal secrets she didn’t even have. First step: don’t panic and, even though she had a cop on her team, don’t sit around waiting to be rescued like the kind of movie character she always wanted to dope-slap. If her kidnappers had used zip ties on her, she’d be in serious trouble; you needed scissors for those, and sharp scissors at that. But duct tape…with duct tape she might have a chance. The flexibility gained from years of yoga extended to her wrists as well. Quietly, trying to make her movements as tiny as possible, she began to pick at the ends of the duct tape. She might not get far, she admitted to herself, but at least she wasn’t sitting on her ass being a passive victim. She was trying to be self-rescuing. The odd thought occurred to her that both her late husband and her new lover would

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approve of that sentiment. Apparently they had something in common besides a fondness for vintage cars. Figured this would dawn on her at a time it was totally useless, instead of when it might have pulled her out of a bad drop and prevented her from storming out on Neil like an over-dramatic teenager. Right. Love is grand and all that, but focus on the damn tape. And once you get your hands free, figure out how if it’s safer to fling yourself from the car than to ride along with people who might be planning to kill you. The driver turned off the highway. Made a few turns. Headed down a high-end suburban street, the kind that made the one where she and Frank lived look middle-class. Frank had liked his creature comforts, but he was ostentatious only with the cars. This neighborhood was definitely Conspicuous Consumptionville. Suzanne realized with a horrified start that she’d been there before. She’d played right into her kidnapper’s hands. ***** Neil and his father burst into the lobby at Mayhew, only to find something that might or might not be a crime scene. At first they tried to brush him off, but he showed his badge. “Your friend’s car’s not here,” the Walton cop said, “but the man she had a meeting with has been out sick for a few days. It’s possible she went to his home, since the receptionist said they knew each other.” “Ly Vo?” The other cop nodded. “That has to be a mistake. Mr. Vo contacted Ms. Mayhew this afternoon and asked her to meet with him here at seven. She called me right when she got here.” Neil stressed the name, reminding the officer who the missing woman was: not just his friend, but the wife of this company’s founder. He only wished he could tell the whole story, make it clear why he was so frantic. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same man?” The cop nodded. “That’s the name. The CEO. I guess everyone’s concerned about him because he’s not the kind to call in sick, and if he has to, he’s calling and Skyping in all the time. This time, not so much. Several people mentioned he and Ms. Mayhew know each other from when her late husband ran the company, so we’re hoping maybe he called to change the meeting to his place. Only all the security cameras for the parking lot are down, which is suspicious.” Neil’s heart stopped for a second, then started up again double-time. “She was saying 138

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they pride themselves on their security here. There was screaming on the phone.” “I’d really like to believe it was just some weird background noise that we’ll figure when we analyze it. But if you guys are Boston PD I’m sure you can tell the difference. Hard to believe a kidnapping happening in this town, but that’s probably what we’re looking at.” He met first Joe’s eyes, then Neil’s. “Plus, I got a call from Bellwood, so I know about that incident. Not all the details, but that Bellwood’s sending out detectives to join us.” Neil nodded. “You should check out Ly Vo’s house.” And I’ll check out where the software’s telling me to go. P.S. Frank Mayhew was murdered by Iranian spies, the FBI knows Suzanne’s disappeared, and someone from their Boston bureau will be in touch with your office, but I’m not at liberty to tell you that. Soon, Neil and his father were leaving Mayhew, Neil frantically Googling for a home address for Ly Vo to see if what the tracking software hinted matched his suspicions. It did. “The good news,” Neil said, sounding more blithe than he felt, “is Suzanne has tracking software on her phone.” His father sputtered, “And you didn’t tell them? Why?” “I hoped they’d have a lead and we wouldn’t have to use it. She knows it’s on there, so it’s legal, but it was bound to lead to awkward questions and I didn’t want to hang around explaining myself when we can go get her. Walton’s still clueless, and the FBI isn’t here yet, so it’s up to us.” Which translated to infiltrating someone else’s case. Sometimes you had to do what you had to do. He was a cop, and his father had been a cop, to protect the innocent. This time protecting the innocent might involve bending a few laws. Maybe in potentially career-ending ways, depending on who he pissed off with this maneuver, but why quibble about details when Suzanne was in danger? “Come on, then,” his father said. “Tell me where to go. I’ll phone in an anonymous tip once you figure out where she’s likely to be. They can do the arresting.” “And I’ll get her out of there.” Neil hoped it worked: the part about someone getting her out, at least. It would be satisfying to be the hero for Suzanne, but it didn’t matter, in the long run, who rescued her as long as someone did. All he cared about was Suzanne’s safety. ***** www.samhainpublishing.com

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Suzanne had been right about where they were headed. They’d be there in about five minutes if she remembered correctly. And she’d made almost no progress with the damn tape. Shit. Maybe it would help that her kidnapper had once poured her drinks in this same overthe-top suburban wannabe mansion, that she’d created his beautiful kitchen for him. Or maybe not. She’d been kidnapped on the behest of her husband’s successor at Mayhew and, she’d always thought, the closest thing Frank had to an actual friend—not just a colleague or a fellow car aficionado, but a friend. Her friend too, or at least friendly acquaintance, she’d thought. It sickened her to realize she’d basically set up her own kidnapping because for all her paranoia she hadn’t been paranoid enough, had listened to her own suburban instincts instead of to Neil’s. White-haired Boy yanked Suzanne from the car and shoved her forward. She cursed behind the damnable duct tape as she stumbled, but caught herself before she fell. Thank goodness for small mercies, and for having really worked on those balance exercises in yoga; a stumble with bound hands could easily turn into a face plant and she had enough troubles without breaking her nose. To her surprise, Craggyface caught her arm, far more gently than she’d expected from someone who’d had a gun pressed into her back before and probably would again. “Don’t damage her,” he barked at the younger man. His voice was as gruff as his face. He had a slight accent, Eastern European, she thought. “That is not part of the plan.” “Not yet,” White-haired Boy said. His almost colorless eyes gleamed in a creepy way. From those few words, his English sounded almost too perfect. Suzanne suspected he too was speaking a second language, but had forced out all traces of an accent. His voice was startlingly affectless, flat. She’d been more scared of Craggyface at first, still had a healthy amount of respect for his still-unseen gun, but the younger man had just risen in her threat assessment. Craggyface seemed a guy doing a job, but the kid sounded like a well-controlled psycho. “Move,” White-haired Psycho Boy barked, yanking at her arm to guide her. I know where I’m going, she thought. It’s a monster of a house, but Ly Vo will be waiting for me in his office. Sadly, she had no way to convey that, not with duct tape over her mouth. Still, she forced herself to go into the faux-Tudor monstrosity with her head high, as if her fashion 140

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statement didn’t involve duct tape and a gun poking at her left kidney, not to mention, choking on terror. One thing about being married to Frank: she’d gotten really good at pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. Who knew it would come in handy under such dramatic circumstances? She’d been right, though it was hardly a great victory. The thugs guided her through a familiar big open plan living room-dining room that opened onto a state-of-the-art kitchen she’d designed to amuse Ly’s mother when she visited, and down a wide hallway toward a room she’d seen while visiting or working on the kitchen but had never had a reason to spend much time in: Ly Vo’s home office. She’d always suspected this was the room that suited his actual tastes best. It was grand and a bit Downton Abbey, but lived-in, comfortable, and most of the books that lined the walls looked like they’d been read many times. Ly Vo was behind a desk—not the steel-andwood computer station where he actually worked, but the grand mahogany faux-antique that went with the Ye Olde Manor’s Library décor of the room. He usually looked imposing behind the vast desk, despite being a slight man, but he was slouched as if he were too exhausted to stay upright. Crime doesn’t come naturally to him; I’ve seen him on a release day when I know damn well he hasn’t slept for thirty-hours and he looked better than this. Unlike much of the geek elite, Ly tended to be a sharp dresser. Today, though, he wore a rumpled MIT T-shirt that looked like it had been slept in for more than one night. His hair stuck out in all directions, not in some artful avant-garde style but like he hadn’t washed or combed it. He managed a smile for her when she was shoved in the door, and she thought it was genuine, if strained. “Forgive me if I don’t stand,” he said, “but I’m a little tied up right now.” He gave a cool, but angry nod to the two thugs, like a hero in an old spy thriller, in a precarious situation but still bantering. Suzanne couldn’t see Craggyface, but White-haired Boy did a double take. “This is what I get for hiring someone straight out of college,” Ly added, glaring at White-haired Boy. “It’s easy to get good references when you’re an intern. You’re not around long enough for people to figure out you’re a terrorist psycho as well as a decent mechanical engineer.” And then she saw the dark ropes that attached Ly to his chair. Shit. She might have been able to make Ly Vo see reason if he’d been the one masterminding this mess. But if he was a victim too… Well, at least she had one of the smartest men in the country on her side.

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Chapter Twenty-Three

The two thugs left, slamming the door. She heard the lock clicking into place. Ly sighed. “I’m so sorry about this, Suzanne. I tried to tell them you wouldn’t know anything, that if Frank hadn’t shared the last bits of the plan with me and the rest of the management team, he wouldn’t have told you. That you were a decorator, not a robotics engineer, and if he had mentioned anything in passing, you wouldn’t remember the details. No offense.” “None taken. I wouldn’t have, any more than you or Frank would remember what tile colors are fashionable this year.” “They didn’t believe me and I was too much of a coward not to set up the meeting when they pointed a gun at my head. I figured the security at Mayhew would be too good for anything to actually happen there. Olek—he’s the kid who was the insider at Mayhew— must have either bribed someone or just disabled the cameras. I’m so sorry.” He could be lying, she told herself furiously. Maybe the ropes and the story were an elaborate setup so she’d trust him. But she didn’t think so. She’d seen Ly Vo trying to lie about much less important things. He was possibly the worst liar in the world, always flushing and stuttering when he tried. In the end, it was one of the reasons she’d liked him. Frank could lie about just about anything. Even better than she’d realized, as it turned out. She nodded. It was about all she could do. “I can’t move much,” he said, “but if you come over here and sit on the floor I might be able to get the tape off your mouth. That should make you more comfortable, at least.” He lowered his voice. “And then we can brainstorm and see if we can work out a way to convince these Ukrainian lunatics we can’t help them.” It was possible Suzanne had been in less comfortable positions than kneeling behind an oversized desk chair with her face pressed on someone’s bound hands so he could try to peel tape off her mouth by feel. But she couldn’t think of any. The blowjob half off the bed might have been more awkward, but at least it had been fun. This was just odd. She and Ly had rarely touched in the years they’d known each other. He’d hugged her at Frank’s funeral, quick and hard and somehow sincere, but theirs had been a friendship with strict parameters, a friendship that existed because he worked with her husband, not because

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they had any connection of their own. And now he was groping her. Well, groping her face, anyway. Focusing on the weirdness of it helped her not focus on the fact she’d been kidnapped and Ly was a prisoner in his own house. It seemed to take forever, but he got a grip on the edge of the tape. Then he ripped. “Fuck, that hurts!” She thought she’d been prepared for the sting, but it was beyond what she expected, less like pulling off a bandage than ripping off several layers of skin. “Could have been worse. You could have a goatee. I screamed like a little girl.” He managed a smile. His lips were looking chapped and rough, she noticed now, like hers felt and his goatee, usually impeccably groomed, looked like he hadn’t fussed over it lately. Her mouth, she thought ridiculously, would be too tender to wear lipstick for days, let alone to enjoy one of Neil’s rough, possessive kisses. Assuming she survived, that is. On second thought, she’d happily endure painful kisses because it meant she was alive and in good enough shape to be kissed, not dead or in a hospital bed with a tube helping her breathe. “I got the edge of the tape loose on my wrists, but I couldn’t get very far with it. Think you can manage?” He laughed, a dry, bitter sound that scraped along her skin. “Not sure, but it beats sitting around waiting to see if I’ll be shot, which is how I’ve spent the last two days. And when I get frustrated, you can have a go at my ropes.” “I tried to call my friend, who’s a cop, when they grabbed me,” she whispered. “Not sure if he’ll figure it out, but if anyone can, he will. And he has the number for someone at the FBI.” She had to believe that. Had to believe Neil would come for her, or make sure someone would. She wished she could have called the FBI too. But her phone was long gone. “I’m an atheist,” Ly said, “but for that I’ll pray just in case. Anything to get away from these Ukrainian lunatics.” “They’re Ukrainians?” she whispered. “From some would-be separate region.” She shrugged, even though she knew Ly couldn’t see her. “Great. Terrorists I know nothing about. I haven’t even tried to make sense of the civil war in the Ukraine.” A bitter snort. “I don’t think they’ve made sense of it either. Lots of passion and cobbledtogether rhetoric, not much of a plan. Somewhere along the line, someone in their group www.samhainpublishing.com

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got a hint that Mayhew was developing technology that might be useful to their cause. I’m not sure they even know we were working on advanced drones. And now here we are, about to be shot by Dumb and Dumber.” “Wasn’t the FBI watching you? I mean Frank…” “Was murdered. I know. That’s why I’ve been staying away from you. I was under some surveillance, but after so many months, I think the FBI figured I didn’t need constant protection. They were looking for professionals, anyway, not one of my own engineers asking me to swing by the lab when we were both working late and hitting me over the head. No one knew about these bozos. I mean, seriously, I’m not sure anyone official knew there was even a separatist group in this region, let alone that they had members in the US. I think we may have the whole cell here, those two and another two or three who don’t really speak English who are patrolling outside. Alexy, the older guy, seems to be the brains of the operation, but I suspect he put it together from bits of spy movies.” “Great. We’ve been kidnapped by amateurs.” Which could be good or bad. Might be easier to bamboozle people who were making up as they went along. But wannabes might feel the need to try harder, and the notion of terrorists who tried harder didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Ly had just managed to work her hands free when Craggyface—Alexy—burst in, brandishing a phone. They both froze, knowing their positions made it clear they were working to free each other. Alexy, though, had other things on his mind. “What is this? You told us this woman, she knows nothing. What is the file with her name on it on his phone, then?” He got into her face. He smelled like cabbage rolls. She blinked, thought fast, decided honesty was the best answer. “What file? I didn’t see anything except a few emails.” A meaty hand cracked into her face. She’d always thought seeing stars was just an expression, but as her head snapped to the side and pain washed over her, she saw a wash of red, punctuated by flashes of light. Stars, just like in a cartoon. She focused on that to stave off panic. It didn’t help much. “One note. One note only, and it is called For Suzanne. You are Suzanne, no? So how do you not know about it?” She figured saying I have no fucking idea would at best get her hit again. She figured telling as much of the truth as she dared, though, would be good. “I checked the emails and phone logs because I thought my husband had been having an affair. It was all work-related, 144

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though, and I couldn’t make sense of it, so I was bringing it to Ly. I didn’t even look at the notes app once I realized it was a work phone.” He tossed the phone onto the desk. “You worked with Mayhew, knew how he thought,” he barked at Ly. “Open the file.” Ly nodded tightly, then shrugged. “Love to, but I’m a little tied up here.” Alexy strode around the desk, kicked Suzanne out of the way—not hard, more the way you’d nudge an underfoot cat—and slashed Ly’s bonds with a hardcore-looking knife he’d pulled from his belt. “A few more minutes and she’d have gotten you free. I see her hands are loose. Not that either of you would have gotten far, but I like that you tried. A person should keep fighting.” He smiled again, another disturbingly non-disturbing expression. “It is a good thing I am in charge, not Olek. No patience, that one. No sense of proportion.” Ly stretched his arms and shook out his hands. “Could you get my ankles so I can stretch a little?” he asked hopefully. Instead, Alexy shoved the phone into his hands. “That would be foolish,” he said. “Get to work.” Then he crouched down and re-taped Suzanne’s hands. “I am sorry, but you are a determined one, and women are good at taking advantage of any moment of weakness.” She couldn’t argue with that, since she’d been analyzing him all along for that very purpose. Not that she was about to argue with an armed terrorist. “I knew Frank better than Ly did,” she said boldly. “Better than anyone. I can help him crack the password on the file.” Might not be true—she seriously doubted anyone had known Frank as well as they thought they had—but she had a feeling it was to her advantage to appear useful. Not to mention that getting up off the hardwood floor would be a blessing. “It’s probably the kind of password that will destroy the file if we get it wrong too often,” Ly said cheerfully. “Frank was a paranoid SOB.” “At least that’s what we all thought until…” Alexy shrugged. “Until someone murdered him, I know. Was not us. I would rather not kill you, either. Olek…you can’t be sure with Olek. Sometimes I think it is not so much that he loves our country but that he loves guns. Now, shut up and get to work.” Suzanne was praying for a password, maybe even the self-destructing kind. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass for these losers? But the file opened by touching it, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. A screen full of plain type opened. The date on the top was the day he’d made that fatal road trip to Vermont. www.samhainpublishing.com

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Suzanne drove her nails into her palms and bit her lip, hoping the slight pain would ward off the tears she could feel welling already. Dear Suzanne, I’m sorry. If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. I’ve always tried to keep you separate from my work and told myself it was for the best. That it was safer for you and for the work. I’m a defense contractor. I build top-secret tools that protect this country. I still can’t tell you exactly what I do, not even now. But I’m in danger. Someone has demanded the plans for my latest project. They know where we live, know where you work. They’re getting what they think are the plans. My contacts at the Department of Defense know what’s really going on. It should be enough to protect you for a while. But it may not be enough to save me today. You guessed I was lying to you and you were right. It wasn’t what you thought it was. It was worse in a way. But I never cheated on you. We might have fallen apart anyway, even without my work and its secrets. Even now, I can’t tell you how I feel to your face. Not sure I can in writing, but at least I can try this way. I love you, Suzanne. I’m not in love with you anymore, not the way I think you want to be loved. But I love you. You’re the only person who’s not so impressed by the fancy cars and the toys I make that you won’t call me on my shit and I need that in my life. God, I wish I’d figured that out sooner—so you could have really been in my life, as a friend if not a wife, while I was still alive. Frank Alexy slammed the knife into the wall, where it quivered like Suzanne’s nerves. “What is this, some kind of code?” “I think,” Ly said slowly, “that it’s a letter from my dead partner to his wife. But it might also be a code. Even dead, he’s smarter than the rest of us put together.” He wiped away a tear. That was enough to undo Suzanne’s efforts to hold herself together. She was still crying when she heard a crash that sounded like a door bursting in. Alexy ran out of the office, reaching for his gun. She held her breath to listen for the sound of the lock clicking into place—which it did, he wasn’t that much of an amateur—but the tears still flowed. “Federal agents!” she heard. “Hands in the air.” That never works, she thought, thinking of all the times she’d watched that scenario play out on TV. They never just give up. She was still crying when the shooting started. 146

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Chapter Twenty-Four

Neil reached Suzanne’s FBI contact when he called, but Delvecchio and his team were already on the move. It turned out someone at Mayhew had gotten through first. The FBI and local LEOs—and who knows what other alphabet agencies the FBI had called in—were just a few minutes behind Neil and his father. Of course they’d all said not to go in, not to do anything, but the hell with that. The FBI and company would be most concerned about catching the terrorists or whatever the hell these scumbags actually were. For all Neil or anyone else knew, they might be garden-variety criminals looking to sell some valuable technology to the highest bidder, no politics involved. No one knew if Ly Vo was a mastermind or a victim. No one knew much of anything except that Suzanne, or at least Suzanne’s phone, was at Ly Vo’s house. So Neil did what any sensible person would do when about to do something completely crazy: he pulled up the house on the town assessor’s database to see if there was a plot and floor plan. Sure enough, there was. Rough, and tiny on his phone’s screen, but at least he knew where the back entrance was, and how, thanks to online maps, to sneak through the neighbors’ huge, wooded lot to get to it. The law enforcement people who were supposed to be there would surround the building, make a coordinated assault. He’d just have to get into place beforehand and use the distraction they presented to get inside. Neil shouldn’t be there. Boston wasn’t involved in this case. But there were so many agencies involved that there was a little confusion, a lot of unfamiliar faces, and, since this had come together so quickly, a few federal agents were in decidedly casual clothes because they’d been called in suddenly on a day off. As long as he ducked the one person who’d know him by sight, the LEO he’d met at Mayhew, this should work. It would probably cost him his job and make him a front-page-of-the-Globe scandal, but right now that didn’t seem important. Even his father, who’d run out of fucks to give about procedure versus justice a long time ago, had tried to talk him out of infiltrating the raid. Though that might have been because his dad wanted to be the one to do it. Had less to risk, he said. Which he did.

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But Neil had more to gain. Suzanne came first. The rest would sort itself out. He let the officers who’d been assigned to this raid go in first through the side door into a mudroom the size of his living room and kitchen combined and into a spectacular kitchen that he had a bad feeling would look less spectacular by the time today’s work was done. Only two of the mystery bad guys were holding the space, though, and one heard “Federal Officers, drop your weapons!” and actually did. Then he fell to his knees and started babbling in some Eastern European language Neil couldn’t identify. The other perp, a young guy with almost white hair and the dead eyes of a functional psycho, took aim, but not very well. He managed to get off one wild shot before the lead FBI agent double-tapped him. In the resulting swarm of humanity, Neil slipped away. More agents and cops were swarming in the front door, dealing with a small group of defending bad guys. No shooting yet, though, so Neil ignored them. He didn’t know where he was going, just a gut feeling. Office. He was looking for an office. Ly Vo had to have one in his home. Whether he was an accomplice or a victim, the office and its high tech contents would be a part of the plot. Of course, the office could be anywhere and the house was immense. It was pure luck that led him to the locked door at the end of the hall before anyone else got to it. He threw himself at the door, yelled “Suzanne!” like an idiot. And was rewarded by the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. “I’m in here.” Neil had never looked more gorgeous than he did storming in the door. The film of tears that hazed Suzanne’s vision distorted him a little, but that didn’t matter. So fierce, so handsome, so welcome. He was armed with a handgun, but wasn’t in uniform. Some small part of Suzanne’s brain wondered what that meant. But most of her couldn’t worry about that, any more than she could worry about the way her heart surged when she saw him. And it wasn’t because he was rescue but because he was Neil. “Neil?” Her voice sounded small and frail. She’d managed to sound brave dealing with Craggyface or Alexy or whatever his name was, but Neil was different. She didn’t need to be brave anymore. “Thank God. Thank you.” Neil took two big steps then glared at Ly Vo. He didn’t actually point the gun at Ly, but his expression was a weapon all by itself. Ly, who’d already been pale and holding himself 148

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together by willpower, raised his hands and silently pushed himself farther away from her. He couldn’t get very far, but it seemed to be enough to satisfy Neil for now. “Ly’s not involved, Neil.” Suzanne had to force the words out. The lump in her throat was so big it was hard to speak. “They were holding him hostage.” Too much. It was all too much. Neil glared at the other man again then seemed to notice the ropes that still secured him to the chair. He nodded curtly. “We’ll untie you in a few, Mr. Vo. I’ve got something to do first.” Neil reached out and pulled Suzanne into his arms. The phone tumbled to the floor. “Thank God,” he whispered, and kissed the top of her head. “You all right?” For a second, Suzanne didn’t know how to answer that question. All right seemed like a distant memory. “I’m not sure. They didn’t hurt me, but Neil…” She pointed at the phone, though Neil didn’t spare a glance for it. “So confused.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “Hush. You don’t need to make sense of it now. You’re probably in shock.” She nodded. “Probably.” In so many ways but this wasn’t the right time to try to explain or think through. “Let me get you free. Mr. Vo, I need scissors.” Ly had already grabbed them from the desk and had used them on his own bonds. He handed them over to Neil without a word. The scissors were cold on her skin and Neil’s touch was warm and sure. Despite everything, Suzanne flashed to bondage and those EMT shears by the bed and thoughts of Neil doing teasing things to her with cool steel. Need and lust struck her, and her body didn’t care that it was completely inappropriate. She whimpered her desire and hoped it passed as a sound of distress. Neil wasn’t fooled. He ran the cool, blunt side of the scissor down the inside of her arm, awakening the tender flesh. “Soon,” he whispered. “As soon as I can get you home.” All she wanted to do was let Neil whisk her to safety and then do wonderful, evil, kinky things to her until she couldn’t remember her own name, let alone the last few hours. But she couldn’t, could she? Not now. Leaving aside the practical things, like the fact the police and a whole alphabet’s worth of agencies would want to hear her version of what happened before she’d get to leave the day behind her, she couldn’t let herself fall into the comfort of Neil’s body. Couldn’t use him like that. And it would be using, with Frank’s last words burned from the screen in front of her and into her brain. She couldn’t do that to www.samhainpublishing.com

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either of them. She wanted Neil. Wanted him with every cell of her body. But she was lost and frightened and trying to cope with far too much. Frank had gone to a meeting that he knew might be fatal hoping it would protect her. Basically gone to his death for her sake. If that wasn’t love, what was? Not whatever she felt for Neil Callahan. That was lust. Lust and a huge measure of gratitude. Gratitude was appropriate, but she was grateful for the other cops who were obviously out there dealing with the bad guys and she had no intention of having kinky sex with all of them. And while lust was great, had seemed like exactly what she needed when they met, it wasn’t appropriate now. She’d gotten involved with Neil thinking she was a free woman, a widow who was ready to move on. She wasn’t. Not yet. Not until she had time to work through that so much of what she’d assumed about Frank was wrong. But when her hands were free, the first thing she did was throw her arms around Neil’s neck. Couldn’t help herself. As Neil caught her up in a devouring kiss, she didn’t push him away, just clung tighter. The kiss only broke off when five armed officers crashed into the room. “Ms. Mayhew’s safe,” Neil confirmed, releasing her. Her body rebelled, wanting to curl against him forever. Her mind sighed with relief. When she jumped at the intrusion and looked up, the first thing she saw wasn’t the officers or even Neil. It was Frank’s letter, black type on a white background. She couldn’t actually see it at the moment, with the phone at her feet, but the words were burned into her eyeballs and brain. Suzanne whispered, “Everything changed today, Neil. I’ve changed. I don’t think I can see you again.” Neil finally focused on the phone she picked up and held out to him. He didn’t have time to read it, she thought, but he could see the date and the first few words and that was all he needed to know. He turned to her again. His blue eyes were so huge she might drown in them and so lost she wished she literally could drown in them and escape the stab of pain and guilt. “I understand,” he said, and backed away. “I…I want what’s best for you. If you change your mind, you know where to find me. But you should be the one to turn this in.” He handed her a flash drive, then added, “It was in the Mustang. I think it’s what all 150

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these assholes wanted.” And then more officers piled in, filling the room, and Suzanne had to pretend that Neil was just another cop.

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Chapter Twenty-Five

Being rescued was, in some ways, the beginning of a whole new nightmare involving questions, interviews and way too much attention from the media and the prospect of this particular bad dream dragging on for months or years until the Ukrainian terrorists went on trial. But it wasn’t all bad. Suzanne didn’t have time to reread that last letter from Frank more than once or twice a day, didn’t have time to brood over what it meant for more than a few hours at a time. She was so busy she only almost called Neil, then changed her mind, every fifteen minutes or so. For a week or more, she didn’t even look at local news, not wanting to see her own face, or worse yet, Frank’s, plastered on the screen while some distressingly perky newscaster told half the story and left out the parts that really mattered. Frank’s sacrifice. Neil’s courage. The way her husband had been returned to her, almost a year after his death and several years after the death of their marriage. The way Neil had looked at her when she said it was over, right before they were swarmed by cops and FBI and they both had to pretend that, on top of everything else, she hadn’t just bruised his heart and cracked her own. She didn’t want to answer the phone for anyone. She’d spent far too much time talking to law enforcement, the DoD, lawyers and everyone else under the sun. When she finally picked up for Janice, she admitted to herself it was because Janice was a connection to Neil. And she’d trust Janice to tell her if she was playing the martyr like a moron, which she occasionally suspected. Janice’s first words were, “Neil’s in trouble. Big trouble. Do something.” ***** Neil stared at the Boston Herald headline. “‘Hero’ Cop Suspended.” There was a huge picture of him and everything. Somehow that made the suspension more real than actually

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being told he was on administrative leave pending an investigation of his actions. At least the Herald dubbed him a hero. The Globe had been less kind. And Suzanne hadn’t said anything at all. The media still didn’t know half of what he and his father had done, and thank goodness for that. But it would all come out. They’d helped save both Suzanne and Ly Vo, and they hadn’t actually withheld evidence, but they’d broken a few laws and a lot of police procedure. He probably wouldn’t go to jail, but he might lose his job. He had no idea what to do about it except have another beer. Only he’d been trying that solution way too often and it wasn’t helping. So for the moment, he was just going to sit on his ass in his grandfather’s favorite old chair and brood. Suzanne walked in the front door. Barged right in like she belonged there and Neil’s heart told him that she did. She must have come straight from work; she wore slim, pale tan dress pants and a green knit top with a keyhole neckline, some soft, slightly shiny knit that looked fancier than a T-shirt. Tan heels. He’d never seen her in heels before but now that he had, he wanted to see her in them all the time, preferably without much of anything else except lingerie or maybe some rope. “What…how?” He knew he sounded like he was brain damaged, but he kind of felt like he was. Brain numbed, anyway, from the shock of seeing her, drawn and hollow-eyed and thinner than she had been a week ago and still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Words weren’t cooperating with him. But she seemed to know what he was trying to say. “You gave me a key, remember? And now I’m glad I didn’t give it back. Not like you were answering your phone or email or opening the door or even talking to your dad. Yeah, I checked in with him too.” He swallowed hard and looked away because he couldn’t bear to look at the way she was caught in a beam of sunlight, and the light glinted off her red hair and made her skin look rosy. Only when he looked away, he saw all the beer bottles he hadn’t bothered cleaning up for… God, how long had it been? A few days at least, because he’d never actually gotten drunk, just kept a steady light buzz between his heart and the shit storm around him. If the beer bottles weren’t bad enough, and they were, there was the pizza box from last night that hadn’t made it into recycling and the wrapper from some disgusting desperation burrito he’d grabbed out of his dad’s freezer on a night he couldn’t even be bothered to call for pizza. His place looked like a frat house on Sunday morning. It even smelled kind of like a frat house on Sunday morning, though thankfully without any vomit. And when was the last time he’d shaved or taken a shower anyway? He ran one hand www.samhainpublishing.com

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through his hair. Short though it was, it must be sticking out in crazy ways and obviously greasy. “What are you doing here?” he asked without actually looking her way. He hoped he didn’t sound angry because he wasn’t, just astonished. She’d sounded so sure that she’d never want to see him again. And she hadn’t called. Or maybe she had and he’d missed the message among all the ones he was letting pile up because he wasn’t ready to cope with them. Concerned coworkers. Angry coworkers. God help him, media. And Janice, who was worse than a reporter crossed with a pit bull for persistence. He’d finally had to talk to her because he’d been afraid she’d march right in like some black leather avenger and start slapping him around. He probably deserved it, but Janice would be way too gleeful. He didn’t know what he expected from Suzanne, but it wasn’t her delivering her own version of a Janice-style slap. Only Suzanne’s was a dope slap straight to the head and could in no demented universe be considered fun or consensual. Justified, maybe, but not fun or consensual. “Look at you! Janice said you were wallowing. Guess she was right.” She came a couple of steps farther into the living room. Half the room was lit by late day sun, but the other half, which faced north, was dim. He’d been hiding in that dimness, and in moving forward, she crossed from light to semi-darkness. Joined him in the corner where he’d been hiding, and damn him, the corner seemed brighter, even if she had her hands on her hips and was glowering at him. “I’ve already had one man die for me. I’m not letting your life be destroyed because you helped me. We can fix this. But you’ve got to meet me half way.” Suzanne held out her hands. Every muscle in Neil’s body screamed to stand up, go to her, take those offered hands, even if she was surely reaching out from kindness and guilt, not desire or God help him, love. But he couldn’t. She was too beautiful, and she was here out of obligation. It was all tied to Frank somehow. He’d never read that last letter, but Janice had told him what it said. Even she had sounded moved, and she’d hated the guy. Neil wanted to go to her, but instead he looked away again. Couldn’t meet her eyes. Not when he’d tried to be a hero for her, only to be out-heroed in her heart by a dead guy. Not when he looked like a bum on a bender, which he was pretty close to being. He knew if she looked into his eyes, she’d see how much he needed her. How much he loved her. And wouldn’t that be charming? Given time, she might have fallen for Neil Callahan, cop and Dom, but no one would fall for Neil Callahan, unemployed drunk. She slammed her hand into the wall, harder than he’d have thought she’d do. “Dammit, 154

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look at me when I’m ranting at you!” “Scares me,” he admitted. “Janice told me you think Frank…died for you.” A tight nod. “He delivered fake documentation to an Iranian agent, who killed him and made it look like an accident. He did it because he was afraid the Iranians might come after me.” Then she blinked. “That was part of the reason. The feds were hoping it would help expose the spies and it did. His fake info was convincing enough they thought it was real for months and acted on it. But part of the reason he went along with the plan was to protect me. Ly and other people at Mayhew, too, I guess, but mostly me.” “And that’s why…” Damn it, he still couldn’t talk sensibly. She nodded. “That’s why. It was one thing to feel ready for you when I thought Frank had been cheating on me before he died, or that we’d grown apart so much he might as well have been. Yet another thing to realize how much he cared about me. I felt dirty and heartless, like I’d done something wrong by sleeping with you. Like I’d betrayed Frank, who was a hero. Even if he was a lousy husband the last few years.” Neil looked down at the arm of his scruffy plaid recliner, refusing to meet her gaze. Refusing to meet defeat head-on. “Today, when Janice said you were in trouble and were refusing to talk to anyone, something sank in. Frank said in that last letter, that even though we sucked at being husband and wife by the end, he valued me as a friend. Part of the reason he did was I’d call him on his shit. So I’m calling you on your shit. You can’t just crawl into a hole. You have to fight back.” Neil blinked. “I plan to. Just not yet.” Both the FBI and his department were furious with him. He knew he’d bent and outright broken some rules—and frankly, he’d been in too much of a funk to think clearly. He’d shared his information and hadn’t tampered with any evidence, had tried not to touch anything he didn’t absolutely have to. That would count in his favor. Until she’d burst into his living room, full of life and wrath, he realized, he hadn’t been sure he was going to bother fighting back. Which was dumb. He couldn’t imagine being anything other than a cop—the fourth generation of Callahans to be one—but he’d been stuck in his own damn head. “I’ll back you up.” She smiled as she said it and Neil’s mood lifted instantly. “Did you think I wouldn’t?” He didn’t want to admit he hadn’t been sure, so he didn’t say anything. It sounded stupid now that she was here in front of him. The little part of his brain that could be rational knew www.samhainpublishing.com

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their break-up wasn’t about him, but about her needing to sort through what she’d learned about Frank. Still, not hearing from her had gotten to him. “You put the tracking software with my consent, so that’s legal. Weird, maybe, but legal—and we don’t need to get into all the details of how you wrangled the consent out of me. I’d told you I was meeting with Ly Vo, so you had an idea where to look when I wasn’t at Mayhew. And you were suspicious of him to start with. Turned out he wasn’t guilty of anything except not being brave enough to defy people who were pointing guns at him, but your suspicions pointed you in the right direction. That’s all true. “Plus, you rescued me. Me and Ly Vo, who thinks you’re some kind of scary god at this point and I’m not going to correct him on that. That has to count for something.” It actually might, he realized. Public opinion did matter to the department, and people were thinking of him as a hero. He was no lawyer, but he didn’t think he’d done anything that would jeopardize getting those Ukrainian losers convicted. He’d just gotten to the hostages before the locals, the FBI and everyone else and their uncle did. Maybe he could beat this as long as she was with him. Even having her as a friend who called him on his shit was still better than nothing. She stepped forward, took the beer bottle out of his hand and set it on the coffee table. Then she leaned in and put one hand on his shoulder. With the other, a slender hand that seemed stronger than steel, she turned his face toward hers. “Now will you look at me? Or should I just leave and stop embarrassing myself? You saved my life, Neil. Hell, you brought me back to life. I care about you, and whether it’s the right time or a good idea or whatever doesn’t seem to matter. It is what it is.” “I rescued you and you dumped me. On the spot.” Despite the bitter words, his eyes were drinking in the sight of her, and one hand reached out. She caught it. “Frank…that letter…” Neil nodded. “I know.” She squeezed his hand then placed it on her hip, freeing her hand to rest on his other shoulder. “Do you know often I called him a selfish bastard? I was freaking out. I still am freaking out. That letter changed everything for me.” She leaned in closer. “Yet it changed nothing. Frank’s still dead. He was still a lousy husband for me, even if he was a better human being than he let me see. I’m alive, and alone, and I still want to explore all the things I set aside while we were together. Plus, I can’t stop thinking about you.” Neil’s mouth opened and closed. He needed to say something, but the words that wanted to come out were “I love you” and they weren’t there yet. Even without the ghost 156

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of Frank between them, they wouldn’t be there, but with Frank in the way, they certainly weren’t. She must have taken his silence as rejection, because she started to pull away. Fixing this, he could handle. It wouldn’t require many words. “Oh no you don’t,” he said, because that seemed safe. Then he shifted one hand from the safe territory of her side to the more dangerous and alluring curve of her ass and used the other to scruff the back of her neck. He strained up as he pulled her down to meet his lips. She didn’t fight. Her big hazel eyes went wide and soft, then she shut them and melted into his kiss. His breath was probably beer-flavored, but he stopped worrying about that after about a second because Suzanne didn’t care. She kissed him like they’d been apart for months, not days, kissed him like there was no conflict between what her body wanted and what her brain and heart prompted, kissed him like she felt the same way he did. It might not be true, but he embraced the illusion as he embraced Suzanne, pulling her closer. Still kissing her, not wanting to let go, he stood and guided her to the sofa. The bedroom was too far away. Making out on the sofa was adolescent and silly and just what he judged they both needed right now, when her body knew what it wanted but her brain must still be ready to start overthinking again. He ran his hands under her silky knit shirt. He’d thought his memories of her skin were too good to be true. They weren’t. It was that soft, that great to touch, and she did make those sweet noises when he stroked it, even in a semi-innocent place like the curve of her spine. He wanted that skin bared to him. Wanted it, right now, more than he wanted vindication, more than he wanted to keep his job, more than anything. Almost anything. Before he undressed her, then kissed and caressed every inch of her, drank in her scent, buried himself deep inside her body, there was something he needed to do—for both of them. Making out on the sofa was one thing. But the arm of the sofa was just the right height for other activities, things he knew he needed like oxygen and thought she might too. “Turn around,” he said, his voice deepening. “Hands on the arm. Stick your ass out.” Her eyes widened and for a second she looked like she was about to protest. Then she whispered, “Thank you” and obeyed. It would be better when she was bare to his hand, but he didn’t want to wait that long, didn’t want to be distracted by her naked beauty. He had a point to make. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“I’m alive,” he said, spanking her. “You’re alive.” Another spank, not a gentle warm-up, but a good, firm blow. She yelped and flinched away. Then she stuck her ass out again for more. “Frank’s dead.” Another spank. “I don’t do three-ways with dead guys, even heroic ones.” A flurry of blows, partly so he could think how to say the rest, but mostly because she was getting into it now, moaning and gasping and rocking to meet the spanks. “I know you’ll think about him. You’ll need to talk about him sometimes. But right now, it’s just us. And that’s how I want it to be when we’re playing. That’s an order.” He was sure it wasn’t an order she could always obey, but he was gratified to hear her say “Yes, sir.” Even more gratified when she followed up with, “Thank you. I thought I’d ruined everything.” “Can’t lose me that easily.” She almost had, but that was his own damn fault for not being more persistent, for crawling into a hole instead of checking in with her. He raised her up, wheeled her around, caught her for another kiss, fumbling with her clothes as he did. “Let me,” she whispered. “Quicker.” “Leave the heels on,” he commanded. He was out of his clothes in record time and so was she. She turned, flashed that beautiful smile he’d feared he’d never see again, and slipped back into her heels. God, they made her ass and legs look even more amazing, and she must have known it, because she strutted like a model across the room, circled slowly, then returned to him. He smacked her bare ass, because he could. He couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t want to turn her and himself on with little signs of dominance. Wouldn’t want, simply, to touch her. And she did exactly what he hoped she’d do. She bent over the couch again, thrust the glorious curve of her ass at him, and wiggled. “Please,” she moaned. “Feels like it’s been forever.” It did. Oh yes, it did, far longer than the few days it actually had been. But what to do first? “Pain or fucking?” he asked. “Yes, please yes.” Which was a more useful answer than it sounded like on the surface. Greedy after even a short time apart, she wanted it all. Just like he did. He wanted to bury his cock balls deep in that pussy. She was already so wet, glistening even in the dim light. But he wanted more. Wanted to make her wait—maybe make himself wait too, because if she needed a little 158

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teasing punishment, he did too, for brooding like some asshole teenager who didn’t know better. “I want to use my belt on you,” he admitted. “It’s going to sting like a bitch, I’m not going to lie about that. But I think a few stripes on your beautiful ass will make us both feel better. Am I right?” She made a noise he couldn’t quite describe, halfway between a whimper of fear and a moan of pleasure. She closed her eyes, threw her head up and back. Her breathing became ragged, as if even breathing was too much effort. She was trembling, but when he thrust one hand between her legs, she was drenched and moved against his fingers as if she couldn’t help herself. He wasn’t sure, for a few seconds, whether to carry on with his evil/sexy impulse or just caress and then fuck her—wasn’t like that was a terrible option, and he didn’t want to push her too hard, especially when things still seemed shaky between them. Finally, she managed to speak, and it was just what he hoped to hear. “Yes. I need… I didn’t know what I needed, but maybe that. Please. Please, sir, please.” He loved hearing her reduced to being that inarticulate so early in the game. God knew she made him feel that way just by existing, just by being her. He tried to hide it because being a stammering wreck wasn’t exactly domly and he already looked enough like a fucking mess, unshaven and until recently in sweatpants he probably shouldn’t have put back on today, without sounding like one too. But she robbed him of at least half his brainpower because whenever she was around the blood that was supposed to go to his brain headed straight to his cock instead. Still, his hand was steady. And when he tested his aim on a couch cushion, making Suzanne jump at the noise, it was true. Good. A week of too much beer and crap food and not enough sleep hadn’t done much damage. Yay fast metabolism. He’d use the belt doubled up this time, though; he could aim more precisely and it made a wonderful noise that really fucked with a sub’s head, making it seem like something more violent was going on than really was. Neil ran his hand over the curve of Suzanne’s ass one more time, then took a step back and struck. It was like a kinky symphony: the loud pop of leather on leather, the sharp thwack of leather on skin, and then the sweet, gratifying sound of Suzanne’s gasp, pained and pleased at the same time. She flinched as he made contact, but repositioned herself immediately, asking for more. A beautiful red strip blossomed on the pale skin of her ass. www.samhainpublishing.com

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He couldn’t resist pinching it, adding another layer to the painful pleasure. Then he calculated, struck again. This time, he hit harder and Suzanne cried out more violently. At the same time, she shuddered as if something clenched deep inside. “More?” he asked, although he was pretty sure what the answer would be. She nodded, the movement a bit frantic. “Yes.” Now that he’d checked in, he could push a few more buttons, sound more commanding. “Five more. You’ll take five more for me.” He hoped she knew she could say no, use a safe word…but he didn’t need to worry about it because she responded with another nod and a smoky, whispered, “Oh yes, please yes.” “Then count for me.” And she did, one to five, although with each number her voice got shakier, less coherent. By the time the last stripe joined the others on her ass, he thought for a second she was going to cry. Instead she began to laugh throatily. “So good,” she choked out. “Just what I needed. How did you know?” Because I know you. He wasn’t about to say it because damned if he could explain his conviction and it would probably sound creepy outside of his head. But it was true on some level. He went for a simpler, equally true explanation. “I needed to do it, so I guessed. Doms and subs are mirrors when everything’s working.” “Everything’s working,” she breathed, and then, “Fuck me, Neil. I need you inside me.” “Condom…” he said stupidly. The condoms were in the bedroom, where he’d been convinced they might stay untouched for months. They might not really need condoms now that she knew Frank hadn’t been unfaithful, but neither of them were in a place to have that conversation right now. “Front pocket of my bag. Brought some just in case.” Women’s pocketbooks were personal spaces, and it had always seemed almost too intimate, with past lovers, to rummage in them. The fact it seemed so natural to fumble in her pretty, soft, expensive-looking bag proved as much as anything else that he had it bad for Suzanne. Like he needed more proof. He ripped open the condom with suddenly awkward hands, rolled it on at lightning speed. Next time he’d have Suzanne do it, teasingly, but he didn’t want the interruption. He kicked her ankle, not hard, so she spread those wonderful high-heeled legs wider. And then he was inside her, fast and rough and deep, though she cried, “Oh God, so 160

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good,” so it wasn’t too rough or fast. He gripped her hips and forgot everything he’d ever known about finesse as a lover, just fucked fast and hard. And Suzanne, wonderful, freaky Suzanne, slammed back against him, fucking herself on his cock just as hard as he was fucking her. Her pussy grasped at him, and she was making beautiful, anguished noises like this was simultaneously the best and scariest thing that had ever happened to her. He was fucking out all his fear from when she was missing, all his worry about his job and their relationship, everything. He laughed the way she had earlier because now that he was inside Suzanne, everything made sense again. There was no way he was going to last long, not at the rate he was going, so he slipped one hand from her hip to her slick, swollen clit, found that metal ring like a target and began to circle. She was already bucking and keening, but that pushed her over the edge. Suddenly, she was clamping down on him like a silken vise and calling out his name. The sound of “Yes, Neil, yes,” as much as that delicious grip, pushed him over the edge. He was astonished, but maybe he shouldn’t have been, when, after a shower, she turned to him and said briskly, “We need a plan. Let’s brainstorm. Janice knows a good lawyer.”

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Chapter Twenty-Six

In the end, the lavish praise of Neil’s bravery from the Herald and the local news affiliates, coupled with the fact that Neil had narrowly managed not to break any laws except those of common sense, got him off the hook. Maybe he could also thank the politely couched threats of that lawyer friend of Janice’s who, despite his bedroom proclivities, wasn’t at all submissive where his clients were concerned, or the good word of the rich and influential Ly Vo. But Neil figured it was Suzanne who saved him. It wasn’t so much anything she did or said in the hearings, though it couldn’t hurt that she swore under oath she knew about the tracking software on her phone. No, it was her being back in his life that gave him the strength to deal with the bullshit and the tough questions and the occasional wish to run away to Bora Bora and become a beachcomber. In the weeks it took to go through departmental hearing after departmental hearing, though, he and Suzanne talked every day but didn’t get to spend any time alone. It might look bad, the lawyer advised, like maybe he’d coerced her into saying all the right things. Even if they’d been willing to risk it, he was so spent at the end of the grueling days that he didn’t think he could do her credit. Besides, she was busy herself, commuting between Janice’s place and the Bellwood house, which she was getting ready to put on the market. Too many memories there, she said, and too many of them grim. She still hadn’t told him where she planned to move once the house sold and he hadn’t formally asked her to move in with him. Every time she told him about something she’d had fixed, some items she’d donated or sold, he bit his tongue. Not time yet, he told himself. Wait until he knew he had a job and a future. The day he was reinstated, she left work early and he picked her up at South Station on the Indian. “I’m still a cop,” he said, letting the simple words carry the weight of the relief, the joy, the renewed sense of security and purpose. And Suzanne, wise Suzanne, embraced him and said, “Let’s celebrate.” “Some of the guys wanted to go out for beer. Said you could come too.” He paused for dramatic effect then added, “I told them we’d make plans for tomorrow or the next day, that my priority tonight was celebrating with a beautiful redhead. I got you a helmet and I borrowed a leather jacket from Janice so you’ll be safe and warm.”

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She laughed. “I’m tempted to say how about heading straight to Dorchester and your bedroom, but I’d like a bike kind of adventure too. How about dinner someplace scenic?” Neil’s heart grinned as much as his face did. And he didn’t stop smiling all the way to the North Shore. It was early November—the hearings had taken what felt like forever, but now that they were over, Neil could admit they’d wrapped them up pretty quickly for something that involved so much red tape—but the weather was unseasonably warm. Still cool for the bike, and there was no foliage left except a few brown oak trees, but it felt good to ride with Suzanne behind him. He’d guessed she’d love being on a motorcycle. He was right. She wrapped her arms tight around him and pressed her head against his back. She was grinning like a fool when they stopped for coffee at a rest stop off the highway, and she flat-out laughed with delight once they got onto the winding back roads of Cape Ann, tree-lined, but with glimpses of the Atlantic in the distance. Why had he waited so long to do something as simple as take Suzanne for a ride on the Indian? Oh, yeah, both of them had spent most of the fall trying to get their lives back in enough order that they could think about dating again. More to the point, why couldn’t he time-travel so he could find a younger pre-Frank Suzanne and make her his? It would spare them both so much trouble. Too bad it would only work in science fiction. Neil almost proposed as they watched the sun set over the water near Gloucester, huddled together against the chill, but he bit his tongue. Too soon. They hadn’t known each other long, though they’d bonded quickly because of the stress and fear of those wild days. She also still got that haunted look in her eyes, as if she was musing about Frank or wondering if she was really ready for a relationship. Give it time, he told himself. She wasn’t going anywhere. And when the time was right, he’d be ready with a ring and everything. But tonight he would ask her about moving in, or at least moving closer to Boston if she wasn’t quite ready to make the leap to sharing a house with him—and his father. That didn’t seem so premature. ***** Sunset on the beach, bracketed by rides on Neil’s amazing vintage Indian, almost www.samhainpublishing.com

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crashed through the last of the walls Suzanne had put up to protect herself. They’d been crumpling anyway, getting more fragile as she sorted through the remains of her life with Frank. Ly Vo had told her Mayhew Robotics had been doing defense work all along, in addition to the industrial and consumer work she knew about. So all her memories of Frank were damaged now, even the ones from early in the relationship when they still connected. Not that he’d been a bad person. He’d been an honorable if often difficult man. But she’d never known him. And maybe he’d never known her either, not really, and in her case, she didn’t have national security and military secrets as an excuse. They’d fallen for each other’s shiny surface and rushed into a relationship based on assumptions, sex and hot cars—and once the shiny wore off, it turned out there wasn’t much in common. In many ways, Neil knew her better than Frank ever did. And that was both beautiful and terrifying, because all the time they were celebrating Neil’s reinstatement, she wanted to ask about the future, wanted to ask about moving in after she sold the echoing McMansion in Bellwood. But that didn’t make sense. Their brief relationship had been one dramatic upheaval after another—punctuated by incredible sex and that just made it trickier. The sensible thing to do was to spend time together now that things were on more of an even keel, when spies, national security and grave danger weren’t involved. Having more of that mind-melting kinky sex, sure, but also figuring out how much of their bond was real and how much was shared stress and kinks in common. That was the sensible thing to do. Years ago, she’d rushed into a marriage with a handsome man she didn’t know well, with less than stellar results. She and Neil wouldn’t have anything like the same kinds of problems, because he wouldn’t keep secrets. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be issues they’d need to work out, especially considering their age difference. She didn’t want to be sensible where Neil was concerned, though. She wanted to exclaim, “Whee!” or something equally articulate and throw herself into building a future with him. Without worrying if their seeming feelings for each other were real. Without thinking fifteen years older way too often. Luckily once they got back to his house, she didn’t need to be sensible, didn’t need to worry. Because in the confines of the bedroom, he wasn’t going to give her that option. He didn’t. “Strip. Kneel,” he commanded as soon as he closed the bedroom door. Then he said, “I need to touch you all over, then whip you. And then I’ll need to touch you some more.” 164

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That was only the beginning of the evening. ***** They ended up snuggled together, at first too spent to speak. Neil had pulled up a light blanket and even though it wasn’t cool in the bedroom, Suzanne was grateful for its comforting softness. Especially when Neil pulled her even closer, pressed his body against hers and said, “So, I know living fulltime in Bellwood’s right out for you and sooner or later you’re going to want to get out of Janice’s spare room.” “It’s kind of putting a cramp in Janice’s style,” she admitted. “Some of the boy-toys don’t like knowing there’s someone else in the apartment. And some of them like it so much it’s distracting for all of us.” “Want to move in here?” Neil’s words tumbled out in a mad rush, as if he just wanted to get them out into the open, or as if he hoped if he said them fast enough and she didn’t like what she heard, she could pretend she hadn’t caught it. Oh, she caught it, all right. And she liked it way too much. Her body was still singing. It thought that being with Neil, playing with Neil, getting all sexy and kinky with Neil, was the answer to everything, and she wanted to believe it was right. She and Neil might have the best sex ever—and she was willing to believe that—but great sex didn’t eliminate the age gap between them. They really needed to address that. Like now, before they made any life-altering decisions, even ones they both wanted. Suzanne jumped to her feet and began to pace. She was naked and that should have made her feel self-conscious. It didn’t, and that was just a testament to how over her head she was. “You’re thinking about Frank again,” Neil said. “Don’t. I get that you’ll need to sometimes because that kind of shit takes time to heal but for now, try to enjoy.” “I’m thinking, but not about Frank. Just about how insane this all is.” “This”—Neil gestured to himself and then to her—“us being together, having crazygood sex, is probably the least insane thing that’s happened to either of us since early September. Longer than that for you, maybe. We work, Suzanne. We’re hot together. If you www.samhainpublishing.com

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move in, we can do this all the time.” Of course. They were hot together. Suzanne couldn’t argue that. But the way he put it proved her point. Insanity lay down this road. Great sex, sure, but also insanity. What she thought she felt for Neil must be an illusion, comfort in a dark time. And what he felt for her was a combination of lust and protectiveness, which was pretty awesome for a mindmelting fling, but wasn’t likely to grow into something long-term. Didn’t mean she had to dump him, but she couldn’t expect too much either. Much as she wanted to. Much as she thought she might love the kid, he was still a kid. She had to cut off her stupid fantasy in the bud because there was no way a guy like Neil was seeing a future with a woman like her. If he thought he was, it was because he hadn’t thought the situation through. That sucked, but she owed it to both of them to bring it up, make sure they weren’t going to make a tempting, terrible mistake. Neil was staring at her now, and the calculating look in those blue eyes told her she had about three seconds before he got all dominant on her ass and reset the moment back to sex. God that sounded tempting. Still, there was something she needed to say first. “I’m fifteen years older than you,” she said slowly. “Yeah, and?” He got off the bed too, stalked closer. And it was a stalk, like a big predator circling prey. Her heart skipped a beat and her pussy clenched. He was way too hot for her. “When you’re the age I am now, I’ll be sixty.” “So. You’ll still be you. Still be gorgeous. You’ll look great with white hair.” One step closer. If he touched her, she’d be lost. “All I’m saying is I know this can’t work in the long run. I shouldn’t move in, tempting though it is. But if you’re all right with continuing as we are…” “I’ll be your personal fantasy-fulfillment service if that’s what you need from me.” Oh God, now his hands were on her naked skin and she was lost, just like she’d thought, no doubt about it. His grip on her shoulders was rough, real, erotic and grounding at the same time. “I’m not really all right with it though.” She froze. “The Dom on Demand thing is fun for a while, but it means leaving walls up between the Dom and the sub. I want to tear those down between us.” His grip on her shoulders tightened, bruising. Pain zinged and damn, her body wanted anything he’d give her. Then he stepped away, swallowing hard. His gaze clouded and he looked like he was struggling for words, or maybe for control. That lasted for about half a second, then he was back in her face again, blue eyes fierce. “Do you really believe this can’t work in the long 166

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run? Do you not want it to? Or are you just scared? I need to know.” She looked away, unable to meet that clear blue gaze. Seconds ago, she’d been sure, but Neil’s ferocity made her question in wonder. Could he… Oh my God, maybe he did feel what she did. They were both talking around it rather than saying anything outright, but maybe this wasn’t so impossible. “I’m scared,” she finally said. “I’m so much older than you. I can’t have kids. And…” She could say it. She’d been through actual danger, the kind where she could have died, and Neil had come through for her. She could take this risk for both of them. “It’s the wrong time and it’s crazy, but I’m falling in love with you. I think it started before you rescued me, so it’s not some kind of delusion born of gratitude. I just can’t imagine—” “Imagine it, Suzanne. Know it.” Neil stepped forward, swept her roughly against his naked body. “I love you. Plus, I think you were born to be a cop’s wife.” It took her a few minutes to process what he’d said. “Did you just…” “Propose in a way we could both pretend hadn’t happened if necessary?” He hesitated then nodded. “I think I did. I was going to wait until we’d spent more time together without any spies involved, and then do it right with a ring and all that shit. But yeah, I just proposed. Because I think you needed to hear I love you and I’m serious about making this work. It doesn’t get more serious than asking you to marry me.” She took a deep breath. Logic told her all the reasons this was a bad idea, but she ignored most of them. “I’ll still get gloomy about Frank sometimes,” she confessed. “I’ll just beat it out of you.” He said it with such good humor she had to smile. Suzanne wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, but instead of doing either, she rose up and kissed him. He pulled her closer, close enough she swore every inch of his skin was burning into her and her hard nipples were drilling into him. He teased at her mouth with his tongue, and then he stopped teasing and began to move in her mouth like he was fucking it. At the same time, he clasped her tender butt in his big hands, raised her even higher. Heat bubbled inside her and she moaned deep in her throat. She straddled his thigh and knew she was leaving a hot, wet trail on his skin. His cock jutted against her, hard and proud again. Advantage to a younger lover, she thought shamelessly. Then she didn’t think about anything much for a while. It was only after they’d made love again—love with a few ropes and a good spanking involved, but definitely love—that Suzanne found her wit. Snuggled against Neil’s chest, stroking the dark fuzz there, she asked, “And how do I know you’re not just doing this to get your hands on the cars?” www.samhainpublishing.com

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He shook his head and chuckled. “You’re on to me. But look at it this way: my father and I can fix all the damage those terrorist wannabes did.” “The Mustang’s mine,” she said with sudden conviction. “I’ll keep the Prius for times when gas mileage matters. But sometimes I’m going to say the hell with it and drive the Mustang.” If she was throwing caution to the wind, following her heart and her gut, she might as well go the whole way. And her heart told her that while the Prius had its merits, she might as well admit she lusted after a vintage red convertible as well as a not-so-vintage Boston cop. He shrugged. “You’ve earned it. But I’ll want to drive it sometimes too. It’s an awesome car, and it brought us together.” “Fine. But if you get to play with the Mustang, I want to drive the Charger.” “Well…I guess I could let my future wife do that. Once in a while. If she wears a seatbelt. I like restraints, you know.”

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About the Author

Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals, sexy science fiction romances and BDSM-spiced contemporaries have become her favorites. Teresa is a crunchy granola girl who enjoys belly dance, yoga, cooking, hiking, playing in the ocean and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat. She’d enjoy sleeping too. She thinks. But it takes so much time! She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband—a Leo in law enforcement—and three cats. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history and/or proximity to water. Find out more about Teresa at www.teresanoelleroberts.com. If you’d rather be conversational, find her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TeresNoeRoberts or become a Facebook fan at www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts. She also hangs out on Pinterest, sharing pictures of hot cars, hotter men and other inspirational imagery, at www. pinterest.com/teresanoellerob.

Look for these titles by Teresa Noelle Roberts

Now Available: Cougars, Cars and Kink Drive Knowing the Ropes Out of Control Duals and Donovans: The Different Lions’ Pride Foxes’ Den Fox’s Folly Cougar’s Courage Witches’ Waves The Chronicles of the Malcolm Thrill-Kinky Bad Kitty

Don’t miss these other titles by Teresa Noelle Roberts

When you make the Devil’s bargain, be prepared to take the heat. A lot of heat. Chronicles of the Malcolm, Book 2 Most of Xia’s early memories are repressed, thank the Great Cat Mother. But her body remembers how to kill. The longer she and her fellow Malcolm crewmates are holed up on Cibari hiding from assassins, the twitchier she gets—until the planet’s insanely sexy Warlord, Rahal Mizyar, borrows her skills to take out slavers. Rahal suspects Xia is his mate, but the human-raised female never learned the finer points of felinoid rituals. The solution: make her fall hard and fast for him, even if it means playing dirty. Hired to determine if Xia is the long-missing granddaughter of the felinoid prime minister, Cal Janssen has finally tracked her down. Getting past Rahal, though, is a problem—until he’s mistaken for a notorious arms dealer and playboy. And he finds himself the object of both Rahal’s and Xia’s seduction. When their first mission brings Xia’s memories bulleting back to the surface, she realizes she’s fallen for two men who don’t exist. Running away, however, could be her deadliest mistake. Warning: Contains an assassin with a swiss cheese memory, a badass warlord who’s getting tired of his own con, and a freelance lawman. Secrets, lies, and hot sex with no rules.

Sexual freefall is like a game of chicken: except the first one to let go wins. Chronicles of the Malcolm, Book 1 Humans may have expanded to the stars, but they still have the annoying need to work for a living. Which is why Rita, crew member of the space freighter Malcolm, is stuck collecting recyclable slag rather than attending her favorite festival celebrating love and sexuality. Things go from boring to interesting when she discovers a badly injured man who’s been thrown into a recycling bin to die. The catch, he’s gorgeous, winged, and naked. Drax Jalricki, reformed (mostly) art thief and reluctant covert operative, is on an undercover mission to protect three planets when someone in his own government brands him a traitor. By virtue of association, Rita and her crew are going down with him. From their first, hide-in-plain-sight quickie, the erotic spark between Rita and Drax is fueled by danger and adrenaline. But their growing suspicion that there’s more to their connection than lust may not matter if they don’t live through the night. Warning: Hero and heroine who straddle the line of criminal behavior—and definitely violate public indecency statutes. Exhibitionist, dangerous sex. Dark, sordid pasts. Wild risk-taking. Giggly cat-girl sidekick who’s not just another pretty…tail. And the greatest risk of all: true love.

The ocean is on their side. But the fight is on land—and it’s about to get dirty. Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 4 Long held captive as the Agency’s secret weapon—a blind witch with visions—Meaghan has come to a line she refuses to cross. Rather than betray the infant “child of five bloods” to the Agency’s scientists, she chooses death. Except when she throws herself into the ocean, she doesn’t die. Her repressed water magic comes to life. When the sodden, delirious witch drifts into Kyle’s arms, his otter dual instincts tell him to get her to the Donovans as fast as possible. Even though one particular surfer-dude Donovan broke his heart. Declan Donovan continually kicks himself for pushing Kyle away, but his touchy combination of water, earth and lightning magic is too volatile, and Kyle wanted more than Deck was ready to give. When they come together to help Meaghan control her new magic, it leads the Agency straight to the child of five bloods. They’ll have to dive head-first into total trust—in their magics, in themselves and in each other—to save the child and stop the Agency once and for all. Warning: Contains an oceanful of sex between an ethereal blind heroine who swears like a pissedoff Marine, an overly serious otter shifter, a would-be beach bum who may be descended from a Norse god, in permutations as fluid as the sea – and themes of abuse and recovery.