Page 86 of Beneath the Burn

The idleness during the five-minute drive allowed Jay’s hangover to surface in a pulsating headache. At least he’d had the presence of mind to shower and brush his teeth before he’d walked into the nightmare waiting for him outside his room, the suite that had been vacant of Charlee. His heart ached.

The Suburbans rolled to a stop in front of a multi-level condominium in downtown Little Rock. He angled his neck, strained to see out the windows. Residential buildings fringed both sides of the road. His head swam. “What is this? She’s not in a hotel?”

Bodyguards filed out of the three SUVs, spreading over the sidewalk and around the building.

Tony opened the door. “I advise we discuss it inside, Mr. Mayard.” She stepped out, alert and irritating in her formality.

In other words, she expected him to make a scene, one she wanted to manage. Dread mounted on his already tight shoulders.

Inside, Nathan answered a door on the ground floor. Jay pushed past him, sweeping through a living room decorated with modern furnishings. By whatever stroke of luck, Roy hadn’t snatched Charlee the previous night. Perhaps he was waiting until she left town. Maybe he was still playing games. If the fuckwad had a pulse on this apartment, he wouldn’t be able to access it now. Not with the twenty bodyguards posted at every exit, entrance, and hidey hole.

“Where’s Charlee?” He ferreted around a corner and into an empty kitchen. “Where is she?”

“She’s here.” Nathan tailed him, curling a fold of papers in his hands. “She’s…” He held out the unraveling documents. “Here. This is her copy of the contract. I don’t know what she’s told you, but this will explain her…therapy. This is why she’s here.”

Accepting the pages with numb fingers, Jay didn’t need to read them. He knew her what her therapy entailed. Intimately. Every muscle in his body readied in preparation to kill a motherfucking Dom. “Which room?” He twisted around Nathan.

His back hit the wall, pinned beneath Nathan’s weight.

“She thinks you betrayed her.” Nathan shoved his forearm against Jay’s jugular, applying enough pressure to prick a burn behind his eyes. “I’ve watched her endure an ungodly amount of suffering over the years. She’s hurting. This is the only way she knows how to deal with it. Look…” Nathan released him and yanked the contract from his hand, opening it to the second page. “See? She excluded all sexual activity from the scene. She’s here for the pain.”

Jay read the paragraph twice. Flipping to the beginning, he read the entire contract, each section shedding more light on her therapy.

Stepping back, Nathan rubbed his eyes. “I know why she does this, but I hate it. Makes me sick. She needs treatment, Jay. Conventional treatment. She’s broken inside.”

The hairs on Jay’s nape bristled, and a fevered vehemence swelled through him. “ Nothing about her is broken. She’s the strongest fucking person you will ever have the privilege of knowing. Say that shit again and you’ll be eating through a straw for the rest of your miserable life. Got me?”

Nathan’s brows shot up his forehead, and his mouth hung open. Then his cheeks twitched, and his gaping mouth spread into a toothy grin. “Last door at the end of the hall.”

Purpose surged through Jay’s blood as he weaved through the crowd of bodyguards, past the living room and down the hall. He could break down the door, raise ten kinds of fist-swinging hell, and distress her more than he already had. Or he could knock, ask to observe, and maybe gain more insight into how he could give her what she needed.

He raised his fist and tapped on the door. After a painfully long moment and one…two…three lock clicks, the door cracked to the length of a short chain.

Two narrowed eyes peered out, widened. “Well, I’ll be damned. Jay Mayard from The Burn is standing in my hallway.”

“Fucking hell.” Charlee’s adorable mutter floated through the crack and nuzzled his heart.

The eyes behind the door vanished as the man turned his back. “Is he the emotional barrier?”

“The worst kind.” Venom tightened her voice.

Jay choked. Worse than Roy? He couldn’t condemn her anger, but fuck, that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “I’m the boyfriend. I get that she hates me. I just need one minute to change her mind about that.”

“Go away, Jay.” A muffled stomp accompanied her shout.

One kick. One fucking kick would snap the chain on the door, and he’d be in the path of her gorgeous—albeit furious—glare. Big breath. “Charlee, please don’t make me do this from the hallway. I’m only asking for one minute.”

The silence was so stifling he thought he might pass out from the anxiety of it.

“Sixty seconds,” she said. “Then Master Conrad has permission to toss your deceitful, cheating ass to the curb.”

Ouch. That was vicious, but if she’d been indifferent and numb he would’ve been more worried. He could deal with her ire.

The door snapped shut and reopened all the way. Only one end of the room was visible. She was hidden around the corner. Master Conrad stepped aside and locked them in.

As Jay sized him up, he knew the other man was doing the same. Alpha male? Yep. Wielding weapons? Nope, unless Jay counted the guy’s fifty extra pounds of muscle. That settled, he moved around the bend and froze.

Sweet Mother of God. Bent at the waist with legs spread, Charlee’s ass arched up and out in a trussed offering. Her wrists and elbows were bound together behind her back. A long rope connected her wrists to a point on the ceiling, raising them at a horizontal position in relation to her torso, forcing her to double over. His mouth went dry.

Her hair hung in sheets from her inverted head, reaching for the floor. A metal rod connected one ankle to the other, forcing her feet to stand wider than her shoulders.

Every inch of her flawless skin was on display, but he couldn’t drag his eyes from the visual feast between her legs. Her folds were swollen and glistening. The tiny pucker of her ass peeked between her spread cheeks.

His face heated, and his cock engorged. She was his, and he shook with the primal impulse to prove it.

He rolled his shoulders and reminded himself that she was probably mortified having him see her like this, considering the gut-wrenching position he was in the last time she saw him. He was there to soothe her and help her.

Moving toward her, he remembered he wasn’t alone. Another fucking man shared his glorious view. A sideways glance confirmed Conrad didn’t have a hard-on, and his eyes weren’t directed below Charlee’s waist. That saved the man from an automatic beat down.

“Forty-five seconds,” she ground out.

Fuck. Shoving his hands into his pockets to dissuade himself from touching her, he shifted to squat beneath her bowed head.

Rancor burned in her eyes. “Like what you see? Where’s Ella to take care of that problem in your pants?”

Christ, her hurt was palpable, a hiss singeing his skin. He coaxed his lips to smile. “I love what I see, which is why I’d never cheat on you.”

Pain flashed through her glare. “Thirty seconds.”

“I think Roy paid someone to poison your egg salad to separate us for the night.”

Her eyebrows crawled together, her face red from the stooped position.

“Did he know you liked those little oranges in your salad?”

“Yes.” A whisper. “He knows everything about me.”

Not everything. The sick fuck didn’t know how to make her happy. He drew in a lungful of air. “Ella confessed she was hired by Roy to drug my water and…seduce me. No doubt he expected you to catch me in the act and flee.” He scooted closer, placed his fingers over the rapid pulse on her throat. “I don’t remember any of it, Charlee. I don’t even remember singing the encore at the show.”

Her lashes dropped, fringing her cheeks. “You were hard as a rock, thrusting your dick at her, spurring her on. Drugged or not, that shit is seared into my eyes. How do I know your accusation against Ella isn’t a trick to get me back on the bus?”

Bile simmered through his chest, and his fingers flexed against her neck. “I’ve got a metric fuckton of faults, Charlee, but I’ve never lied to you.”

Her breath hitched, and she held it, bottom lip trembling as she searched his face.

Boots appeared beside his sneakers. “She’s been in the strappado long enough. I need to let her down.”

Jay nodded and climbed to his feet. This time, he didn’t stop his hands from roaming her spread thighs, the horizontal line of her spine, and the silky tresses of her hair. She didn’t cringe, so he continued his exploration as Conrad removed the spreader bar and untied the knots.

Conrad worked meticulously without an unwarranted touch or lustful glance. When her hands were free, Conrad cupped her wrists and offered them to him. “Massage the bound area to assist the blood flow.”

Jay raised her arms, rubbing and kissing the circle of pink around her wrists.

She wiggled free from his grasp and touched a finger to his dimple, his chin, and his lips. He held himself immobile, not breathing, waiting.

A glassy sheen slid over her hypnotic eyes and a tear escaped, glancing off her cheek. “Am I…are we safe here? If Roy orchestrated our separation, could he have followed me here?”

Yes. Roy was probably waiting for the right moment, trying to avoid a scene like the one at her apartment in New York. “There are twenty bodyguards surrounding this building. We’re as safe here as we are on the bus.”

A smile trembled on her lips and fell away. “I’m sorry I doubted you.” She pulled her hand back and curled it against her belly.

He cupped her face and rested his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry I ever gave you a reason to doubt me.”

She nodded, released a tattered breath, and threw her arms around his neck.

Spinning on the edge of giddiness, he kissed her face and her lips and dreamed of all the ways he wanted to make her glow. Her flesh warmed under his palms as he ran his hands down her spine and over the taut globes of her ass. “Just like heaven.”

“You look like you’ve been through hell.” She mussed his hair with one hand, the other clinging to his waist. “Have you eaten?”

He stretched his fingers around the back of her thigh and curled them between her legs. “I want to eat you .”

“Put her on the bed and you can.” Conrad appeared behind her, the rope wound over his shoulder. “That is, if you plan on sticking around for the remainder of the scene.”