Page 3 of Duke

I knelt beside the girl who flinched away from me, automatically, it seemed. I frowned down at her. “Hey now, Fancy, don’t be hatin’. I’m on your side, okay? I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m gonna get that gag off, and then you can cuss me out all you want, as long as you do it quiet, all right?”

She held still, but kept wary eyes fixed on me as I knelt closer to her, leaned forward, reached around behind her head to untie the knot. Yeah, I could’ve knelt behind her to do it, and where’s the fun in that? She smelled like jasmine; I got a good whiff as I worked at the knot, and good fucking goddamn, that scent, on that woman? Made me dizzy. I swear I could get hard just sniffing her.

I acted like I was having trouble with the knot, pausing, leaning a little closer to peer over her shoulder. It was an act, since it was a fairly simple knot loosely tied, and I could have gotten it free with my eyes closed, but it got me another subtle nose-full of her intoxicating scent, which was its own reward, and well worth the glare of daggers I got from Fancy when I pulled back to work on the knot a bit more.

Once it was free, I tossed the handkerchief aside…

And Fancy promptly set to complaining. “My god, that thing tasted like old sweat. I think I’m going to vomit.”

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, sugar, and it’ll pass. The nausea is more from whatever they used to knock us out.”

She shot me that patented death-and-daggers glare. “My name is Temple. Not sugar, or babe, orfancy.” She was breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, I noticed. “Temple Kennedy.”

Damn—that was a name I knew. Hell,everybodyknew that name. She was one of those “famous for being famous” celebrity honeys. Daddy was a retired rock star and her mom was an A-list actress with multiple Oscar noms and at least one Golden Globe that I knew of. Beyond wealthy, spoiled, she had lived her whole life in the spotlight. Has a reality show where cameras follow her around as she trots the globe and suns herself on yachts in the Mediterranean, yells at servers, and insults her mom and sucks up to her dad. She turned all that into a lucrative career doing…I wasn’t sure what. She had an app which did who knew what, clothing lines, makeup, a tell-all book or two, and any number of other bits and pieces of merchandising with her name and likeness on it.

So what the ever-lovingfuckwas a high-classlady-ladylike Temple Kennedy doing in a dive bar in LoDo?

Thatwas the million-dollar question.

Or, actually, shit—a hundred million dollar question, given how much her parents were worth.

I leaned down and put my face inches from hers, reached out an index finger, brushed her sunshine-and-honey hair out of her face. “So, Temple Kennedy. Think these dick-knobs know who they’ve got in their basement?”

One plucked eyebrow lowered, the other arched upward. “I would assume so.”

She had a little smudge of dirt on her forehead from the floor. I rubbed my thumb over it, gently, wiping it away. She was breathing hard by the time I finished, tension written in every line of her body and face. She didnotlike my proximity. Funny, most honeys are tripping over themselves to get closer to me, to get my hands on them. But then, Temple Kennedy waswayabove even my pay grade.

“See, I don’t think they do.”

She struggled to sit up, but her hands and feet were both bound, her hands behind her back leaving her helpless. Bound hand and foot,andgagged? She must have put up a fight.

“Why wouldn’t they? I assume they’re kidnappers looking for a ransom.”

I laughed quietly, and then lifted her to a sitting position, keeping a grip on her until she was steady. “Oh, sweetpea, not everything is about you. Unfortunately, the situation is a lot worse than that.”

“Why is it so hard for you to use my name?” She wavered and I caught her, keeping her upright. “And how could it be worse than me being kidnapped? And can youpleasedo something about these restraints? They’re beginning to chafe.”

I crept from corner to corner, rummaging through the detritus, but found nothing useful for severing her wire bonds. Then I ducked under the stairs, remembering the basement of a foster house I’d stayed in for a bit, and how the drunken old bastard had kept an ancient toolbox under the stairs in the basement. Sure enough, I hit the jackpot. In a corner was a rusting Craftsman toolbox filled with screwdrivers, ratchets, a hammer, loose nails, and a pair of wire cutters. I returned to Temple with the wire cutters and knelt behind her.

“Hold still, Fancy, I’m gonna pop these ties.” I clipped between her wrists, and she immediately drew her hands around in front and massaged them. “As for how it could be worse? They didn’t snatch me because I was with you, they snatchedyoubecause you were withme.”

“I wasn’twithyou. I was outside smoking.”

“And I went out after you. They saw you next to me and, as you heard, they had orders not to take chances or leave witnesses.” I moved to her feet and clipped her ankles free. “I’m not sure what they want, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest it ain’t a tickle fight, princess. They got no problem burying you if you cause trouble, trust me on that.

“And if they were to somehow find out who you are if, say,someonewas to bust out with a‘do you even know who I am?’,Baby-cakes…that wouldnotbe beneficial to your situation. They’d not only have a witness, but they’d have a hostage, and money to be made. The guy in charge of this whole mess, he ain’t a nice guy. He’d be the sort to send severed fingers to your dad until he got his money. So I suggest you keep your mouth shut and follow my lead.”

She paled at that, and considering her pearly complexion, that meant she wentreallypale. “Theywouldn’t.”

I shrugged. “That’s my best guess. This Cain guy isn’t really my particular enemy, he’s more my boss’s enemy. But since I’m connected to him, they snatched me, and got you in a twofer. And, yeah, honey, they would absolutely hack off your pretty little manicured fingers.”

She was rolling her ankles, trying to get the feeling back, so I took her foot in my hand, slipped off her wedge sandal, and massaged her foot. A low, sultry groan of pleasure left her lips before she could stop herself, but then she yanked her foot back and shot me that glare again.

I let her go, and squatted next to her, watching her try to massage feeling back into her extremities and admiring her tight, toned body. “I happen to think you’ve got beautiful hands, and it’d be a shame to see them come to any harm, so you can relax. I won’t let anything happen to your fingers, or any other part of your fine-ass body.”

“Oh really? There were three of them, in case you didn’t notice.” She said this as if I should be afraid.

“Yeah, I noticed.”