Page 12

Chapter Twelve

Tynan

R iding a motorcycle with a straining, pierced dick wasn’t the kind of torture I’d wish on my worst enemies, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to get out of there. Any longer in that house—near her would’ve tested the very edge of my boundaries, an edge I hadn’t known existed until I was two fingers deep in her tight cunt.

Fuck.

How the hell had this night ended like this?

My bike hugged the curves of the winding coastal highway as I tried to pinpoint the moment things had gone so fucking far off track.

Was it when I heard the music blasting and, for some unknown reason, decided to barge into the room rather than knock?

Was it when I saw her there, bent in front of the bed, completely naked, like she was just waiting for someone to fucking dominate her from behind?

The lust that rocketed through me was like the thrust of a rocket ship, lasting for a single consuming second until I realized that her show was for someone—someone on her phone.

Did it all go wrong when I didn’t even bother to consider that the video was for someone she knew? A boyfriend? Someone other than a stranger? Because I hadn’t.

As soon as I registered she was fucking filming herself, lust sublimated straight to rage. Not even the sight of her stripped body, inked and pierced for sin, was enough to give me pause before I went for her phone.

Did it all turn to shit when she tried to escape me—again—rather than tell me the truth?

Was it when she dared me to follow through on the threat to punish her? Or when that threat quickly turned into a live fantasy for us both?

All I knew for sure was that things had veered straight down the Do Not Enter path well fucking before she was spread on the bed beneath me, her body laid out like a feast catered in midnight ink and opalescent velvet skin, and my fingers buried in the warm pink clutch of her cunt.

I revved the engine like I could outrun the memory.

Something came over me tonight. Something I had no excuse for. No reason for. It was more than lust. Lust was an easy beast to control, and I’d certainly been doing just that for long enough.

I’d wanted her truth—her submission with a kind of violent need I hadn’t been able to control. And no matter what it seemed like, it wasn’t because I wanted to dominate her. That was the farthest from what I wanted.

From the moment she landed her boot into my gut that first day in the garage, I saw Sutton for who she was: someone who didn’t let anyone take care of her.

Maybe she didn’t need it, but that wasn’t the point.

That moment was the moment my blood was poisoned with the need to care for her. And the symptoms of that poison had been appearing in small ways ever since. Cooking for her. Sparring with her. Showing her how to clean a bike.

It was a sad fucking fate to be addicted to the poison that would undo me.

The chilled night air whipped against my chest where I hadn’t bothered to zip my jacket, but though I felt the air, I didn’t feel the cold. I tried. I sped faster, trying to catch a speed that would finally start to cool the fire in my blood, but even breaking double the speed limit brought no relief.

My deep space gray Harley chewed through the asphalt like it could grind a new highway straight down to the special hell where I belonged. The one where they put a man who touched his best friend’s daughter. A man who still imagined her bare body underneath me every time I blinked. A man who still felt the ripples of her tight cunt squeezing my fingers and the wetness of her want on my skin.

The road twisted and curved, turned and dipped, but in the end, it wasn’t hell where I ended up but the familiar looming structure of the garage in front of me. There was no light save for the singular bulb over the small door to enter the garage; it spilled harsh shadows over Creed’s bike parked off to the side next to Rob’s Mercedes.

Normally, I’d open the bay so I could park my bike in its resident spot, but I couldn’t. The man I was now wasn’t the same man who’d left the garage an hour or so ago.

So, I pulled up to the closed door and sat there for a beat before I shut the engine off, lowered the kickstand, and pulled off my helmet, a heavy breath tearing from my chest at the same moment.

Fuck, Jon. You should be here. I wish you were here to beat my fuckin’ ass. I deserve it now more than ever.

I swung my leg over the bike’s hull, cursing in pain as it pinched my swollen cock. I adjusted myself, feeling the damp spot on my jeans that was still there. No way I could focus on anything until I took care of my raging erection.

My brain fritzed, processing the next couple minutes in fragments. The smell of cleaner in the garage. The sound of the elevator doors opening. The low light of the hall that led to my cabin. The feel of the icy cold water hitting my fingertips and then the rest of me.

The tiled shower wall felt just as cold under my palm, and my shoulders heaved a shudder as my fist wrapped around my pierced girth. I was so fucking on edge, so fucking close to release, it only took a couple hard jerks along my length before I was coming. My balls pulled tight, and I let myself gorge on a single memory for one moment to push me over the edge: Sutton’s face screaming into the bed while her hot cunt milked my fingers. And then I was coming, hard and violent, my cock spending what seemed like endless jets of cum against the shower wall.

I didn’t even realize I’d tipped forward to rest my head against the tile until I finally peeled my eyes open, the shower feeling like thousands of tiny ice bullets against my back.

“Fuck.” I beat my fist weakly against the tile and pulled myself straight.

I should’ve felt more relief than I did. More spent than I did. As I finished cleaning up, I pretended like it was enough. It would have to be.

I finished up quickly after that, washing and dressing, and walking straight past my bed. Not a chance I was sleeping tonight. I needed to put some distance between me and my fantasies of Sutton, and shutting my eyes for any length of time would be like letting those beasts off the leash.

I was surprised to see the light on in my office, and the door cracked open. It was equal bets as to which of the other guests at Sherwood it would be: Robyn or Creed.

In the end, it was the hunched hulk rather than the small redhead seated at the table.

“You’re still up.” It wasn’t a question, just my brain working to tether itself to the current moment so the heavy memories of what happened at the townhouse didn’t drag me asunder.

“Don’t sleep much,” was all Creed offered.

“I have new info.” I set Sutton’s phone on the table, wincing as I was hit with the memory of what she’d been doing when I walked in—what she’d been willing to do to try and find Mara. I pushed the device toward him. “Turns out Kang was approached by someone at the club and told to have Mara register on a cam site not long before she disappeared. I think she might’ve been conversing with a user on there who wanted to meet her.”

“That someone associated with the Wah Ching?”

“Not sure. But it’s a lead.”

Creed made a low noise but remained surprisingly stoic as he looked at the screen. “Who was the user?”

I scowled and reached for the phone. “It’s right…” My voice trailed off, staring at the blank User923X not found screen. “Dammit.”

“Here.” He held out his palm, and I gave him back the phone. He then reached in his backpack and pulled out a small device that he plugged into the phone. It lit orange and then green. “This’ll send all the data back to Callum, so he can access it remotely. He’ll be able to hack the app, and if there’s any information trail, he’ll find it.”

He set the phone on the table, letting the wireless transmitter do its thing as he turned back to me.

I let out a breath. “I’m going to look into the site itself. I don’t have a good feeling.”

His head tipped. “You think the whole thing is suspect?”

Something dark and heavy settled on my chest.

“Afraid the whole fucking thing is a front,” I said and went behind my desk to wake up my computer. Knowing Kang left with Carson…knowing my suspicion that Carson had been providing women to Uzair for years…I had a bad fucking feeling that I’d just found how he’d been doing it.

Creed made another low grunt and looked back to his iPad. “I’m going to head back into the city in the morning. GrowTech is having some kind of town hall meeting with Carson to give the company some good publicity.”

“You going to follow him?”

I watched his head tip from the back.

“I think I’ll just ask him what he was doing at the White Pearl that night and see what he says.”

My brows rose. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Can’t spook him. He’s in the public eye now. Figured this is the best shot to either get some answers or watch him lead me to the person who’s got them.”

Bold…but solid.

“Of course, if Callum comes back with any information from the app or on this User923X, I can adjust course.”

I made a sound of agreement, and then we both settled into the silence, neither of us bothered by not speaking. Not when there was work to do.

I jolted as the alarm started going off.

“What the…” A deep groan broke from its moorings in my chest, my body protesting every kind of movement as I tried to sit up.

My vision swam into focus. Computer. Desk. Empty table. I’d fallen asleep at my desk.

“Shit.” Even though I didn’t remember my dreams, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the subject of them when I stood, my hard cock wedged tight to my sweatpants.

I adjusted myself and then grabbed Sutton’s phone off the table; it was her alarm that was going off, not any of mine.

8:15. I swiped and quickly turned off the blaring sound.

“Fuck,” I let out a long breath. The time wasn’t the problem. Not really. Just its implication.

I had to go back to the townhouse. I told Sutton we would talk this morning, and even though the things I’d done to her, including the way I’d had to walk away, were borderline brutish and entirely unacceptable, I was a man of my word.

I’d go back to the townhouse and we’d talk about last night. Whatever it took. Whatever it cost. Even if the price was my sanity.

And then I’d finally tell her what I’d gone there last night to tell her: what Creed found out about the night Mara disappeared and what it could mean.

A quick scan through the security footage showed that both Creed and Robyn had left earlier; my motorcycle was the lone vehicle parked in front of the bay.

Striding from the room, I headed for my cabin and a quick change of clothes. My body called for another release. It begged to not return to the fountain of temptation without quenching its thirst for release, but something in my gut made me ignore it.

Maybe it was because I’d left her for longer than I had the last couple of nights. Maybe it was because of the way I’d left her and the selfish way I’d been desperate all night to know she was okay. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Something else that was darker and more insidious the way it hooked its claws into me and had me speeding back to Carmel Cove like I had the hounds of hell at my heels.

Hell might’ve been at my heels, but the street felt as quiet as a tomb as I approached the townhouse.

My pulse thumped in my ears, much louder than the purr of the engine as I pulled in through the coded garage gate, déjà vu hitting me like a sack of bricks.

I killed the engine just as my phone started to vibrate. Shit. I fished for it quickly, thinking it was Creed, but it was Rob’s name on the screen.

I gritted my teeth, tempted to answer, but then I declined the call, knowing to answer would just be avoiding the fucking hard thing I was about to do: face the one woman I desperately wanted but definitely couldn’t have.

Each step up the staircase felt like I was dragging Jon’s body behind me, the weight of what I’d done—the line I’d crossed—weighted like an albatross on my back.

My best friend. My mentor. And now all my fantasies were consumed with the image of his daughter’s naked body.

My cell buzzed again just as I moved into the hall and closed the door behind me.

Rob again. Two calls in the span of a few minutes; that wasn’t right. I was about to answer when the bedroom door opened and Sutton stepped through it.

Sorry, Rob. I silenced the call again, knowing she could easily call either of her brothers for some kind of emergency, and Harm or Dare were sure to answer. But I was busy dealing with shit right now.

Sutton stepped into the hallway with the presence of a fucking queen. That emerald robe loosely tied over her front, giving a deep V on her chest. I blinked hard, but it was impossible to not flash the image of her naked body in my mind. Her pierced nipples. The delicate constellation tattoos that framed the underside of her breasts. Her slender stomach. Her bare cunt.

My throat cinched closed. The way this woman carried herself…like even when I had her helpless and begging under me last night, my dominance was only at her will.

“Sutton.” I cleared my throat.

Her eyes narrowed, as though my voice confirmed I wasn’t an illusion, and then their depths filled with hatred.

“You owe me an explanation,” she declared, and I flinched.

How the fuck did one start this kind of apology?

I’m sorry for spanking you until you were…until I was so turned on, I had to give you an orgasm.

“And it better be a good one for fucking ruining my only lead on Mara.”

Air whooshed through my lips in a tumble, selfishly relieved that she wasn’t talking about what else happened between us.

Sutton lifted her pert, defiant chin. I pinched my fingers together, my first instinct to capture that little show of bravado and reward it with a kiss.

“You’re insane if you think the best plan was to get naked and court danger on some fucking porn site with the hope to be taken by the same person,” I said, my jaw clenched, as I stepped toward her.

“As opposed to your plan, which was to sit around with my thumb up my ass?”

My cock stiffened at the mention of anything going up her ass. Fuck.

“Just because you were waiting doesn’t mean that other people weren’t working on finding Mara. And if you had fucking waited.” I took another step closer and stood over her, continuing with a growl, “I would’ve told you last night that Creed found evidence that Kang is involved with a man who is a known sex-trafficker, specifically when it comes to curating women for criminal clients with deviant…violent tastes.”

“Like the man I was messaging?” She banded her arms. “Did you find out who he is? Hack his username? Was he messaging Mara?”

My jaw twitched, hating the answer that burned bitter on the tip of my tongue.

“That profile is gone.”

She jerked like I’d hit her. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

My jaw wrenched tight. “I mean, by the time I got back to the garage, the profile had been deleted.”

Her eyes went wild. “Are you—” She broke off, looked into the bedroom for a second, and then whipped back to me, grabbing the edge of my jacket. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Anger was etched all over her beautiful face, but I swore I was the only one who could see the tears that glittered behind the glassy rage in her gaze.

I grabbed her arms, pulling her dangerously closer. “Sutton, listen to me—” I broke off, hearing several distinct thuds coming from?—

The sliding patio door in the bedroom shattered against the metal butt of a knife. The house alarm started blaring full force, but the squeal of warning didn’t deter the three Asian men in black suits who broke in, the curved, glinting knives shining with singular intent: to leave no one alive.

“Run,” I ordered Sutton low and then shoved her down the hall before rushing into the bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind me.

The only benefit I had was that these thugs had clearly expected to find Sutton alone in here. I pulled my Glock from where it was tucked in my back holster, getting off one shot straight into the chest of the first man to approach me.

But one shot was all I got.

The second had already climbed over the bed and kicked my wrist, knocking the gun from my hand.

I ducked under the swing of his blade and slammed my arm into the back of his knees, destabilizing him and giving me time to manage the third man.

“Give us the girl,” he demanded with an accent, the jagged scar along his face hardly moving as he spoke.

“Sorry to disappoint, gentlemen, but no girl here.” I motioned to myself and the otherwise empty room.

“Tynan!” Sutton screamed from the other side of the door, and there was no curse sufficient for my anger with her at the moment. Why couldn’t she just fucking listen to me? “Let me in!”

The older Asian man smirked. “No girl? Then what is that?”

I gritted my teeth and lifted my arms, watching carefully as the two men drew closer.

“A wasp.”

The second man lunged for me again and I spun to the side, sufficient to avoid his knife but not the blade of the older man.

A pained growl tore from my chest as I was forced to grab the scarred man’s knife by the blade. Better it slice my hand than my chest. I used brute force to deflect it and then punched him in the face.

“Tynan!”

Adrenaline pumped with the sound of her voice.

The scarred man stumbled back from my blow, and I faced the other man again, dodging his thrust and punching him right in the throat. He coughed and sputtered, but still tried to attack me. Never attack from a position of weakness. I elbowed his wrist as it nearly missed my middle and grabbed the knife from his momentarily loosened grip.

The older man cried out, and I registered that the two must be close—friends. Family. And then I drove the knife into his back. It was two versus one. I couldn’t afford to try for prisoners, especially when Sutton was still banging on the door behind me.

The older man let out a wail and then came for me. He swung, and I dodged, his knife landing through the wood of the door.

Fury seized me. If Sutton had been right there.

I let out a snarl and shoved him back, he stumbled with the force and then tripped over my gun on the floor, kicking it closer to me, and I saw my opportunity.

Just as I went to lunge for it, the door opened behind me.

Fuck.

FUCK.

I spun and tried to shove the door back shut, forgetting all about the gun and only thinking to keep her out of the room.

“Stay the fuck out!” I shouted, using all my brute strength to try and close her out.

“Let me help!”

Goddamn , she just wouldn’t fuckin’ give up.

“No—” The word ended on a deep groan sliced from my gut with the twisted blade the assassin sank into my side. I saw the pain as it sparkled like tiny white dots on my vision and heard the sound of vengeance take the form of muttered Chinese curses in my ear, both duty and retribution for killing his men.

Pain or not. Wounded or not. The instinct to fight back in the face of fear didn’t dim. It was an instinct that had been not only trained in me but ingrained in me to never give in—never give up—especially when there were innocent lives on the line.

Maybe if this killed me I could debate whether or not Sutton was truly innocent or not, but until then, I was going to fight until my last fucking breath to keep her safe.

Adrenaline blotted up the pain like a towel soaking up the spilled sensation. I let out a roar and erupted into a fury of movement.

My elbow struck him in the gut, and then I twisted, a savage shout of pain ripping from my throat as I slammed my other elbow into his face. This time, when he stumbled back, he left the knife in my side.

I let the pain fuel me as I stepped toward him, prepared to strangle him with my bare hands if that was what it took. I heard Sutton enter the room behind me, but as long as she stayed behind me, I’d keep her safe.

I lifted my arms, prepared for a true hand-to-hand fight, and then, with blood dripping down his face, his mouth curled into a slow snarl as he pulled a second, smaller knife from the back of his belt. He raised his arm, and too late I realized this wasn’t a stabbing knife but one to be thrown.

And my choice became clear: move out of its path and risk Sutton becoming its target or—no. There was no choice. No fucking choice at all. The blade glinted off the sunlight coming in unbroken through the shattered glass door, and all my muscles pulled tight, prepared for the blade to hit me.

The bloody snarl on the man’s face spread wider, revealing red even in his teeth.

And then the sound of a gunshot tore through the room. I watched as the bullet made a hole through the base of the man’s throat, a fresh well of blood drenching his collar and jacket. His eyes went wide and then rolled back in his head as his dead weight crumbled to the floor.

One dead at the door. One with his knife protruding from his back. And the third with a bullet through his chest. Because of her.

Fuck.

The pain in my side was blinding, but all I could think about was her. She’d just been forced to kill a man. Good, bad, or evil—taking another life wasn’t always about the character of the life you’d taken but about whether the character inside you could withstand the weight of the choice.

“Sutton,” I croaked and turned toward her. Slowly, I watched her eyes slide from the scarred man to me. “Are you alright?”

She blinked, looking like she was in a daze for a second before she seemed to finally see me.

“Me?” she demanded with a small cry. “You’re the one with a fucking knife in your side.”

It had to be the injury—the endorphins from the pain that made me register frantic worry in her voice.

“I’m fine,” I gritted and grabbed her wrist, catching her hand as she reached for the handle of the blade. “Don’t. It’ll be…too much…”

“Goddammit, Tynan,” she swore and yanked her hand back, her fist flexing like she was ready to hit me. “God-fucking-dammit. We need to call an ambulance?—”

“No,” I growled.

“What do you mean?—”

“I have a knife in my side,” I bit out, taking a breath as another wave of pain crested over me. “Can you not argue with me for once?” I wanted it to come out angry, but I didn’t have the strength. I was losing a lot of blood, and it took all my strength to just stay upright.

Somehow, I was going to have to figure out how to ride my bike… one bridge at a time.

“Fine.” Her shoulders sagged. “What should I do?”

“Get dressed,” I gritted out, gripping my side around the hilt of the knife to try and stave the bleeding. “We’re going back…to the garage.”

“The garage? What are you going to do, wrench the knife from your side and have me wax it shut?—”

“Sutton.”

She snapped her mouth shut and rushed by me, snatching clothes out of her duffel bag on the floor and tugging them on.

I found my phone, biting back a curse and fighting the darkness encroaching on my vision to try and slide it open. My finger was too slippery with blood to open it. The only thing I could do was tap on Rob’s name.

“What the hell, Tynan? When I call twice, it’s not just to gossip?—”

“Robyn,” I hissed, and the way she stopped, she knew something was wrong.

“They found you.”

Later, I’d ask how she knew and who exactly they were, but for right now, I had a singular mission. Getting Sutton back to Sherwood.

“They’re dead.”

“And you?”

I looked at Sutton, tilting my head in a motion to follow me as I hobbled through the door, into the hall, and then toward the garage.

“Call Rorik,” I told her, starting down the steps.

“How bad?”

“Tell him to bring blood,” I said between grunts of pain and then ended the call.

“Tynan, we need a car. You can’t fucking ride a motorcycle—” She stopped when I let out another beastly roar of pain as I swung my leg over the seat.

“No time,” I breathed out. “Get…on.”

She gave me a glare, coming up to my side and resting her hand on my shoulder. Maybe it was the slow process of bleeding to death, but damn, if just the feel of her hand didn’t abate some of the pain I felt and seemed to weave a kind of invisible strength.

“Please,” I rasped. “Let me…take care of you.”

Her eyes narrowed into slashes and then fluttered, and then a single tear streaked down her cheek.

“Fuck that.” She pushed my good shoulder back. “You just got stabbed. I’m driving.”

I groaned, but any chance of protest was swallowed under waves of pain as she forced off my jacket.

“What…” Words evaporated on a roar when she yanked the knife from my side.

“Not taking the chance you fall off this thing and impale yourself worse.” Her distant voice floated around me, above me, like some kind of chiding goddess. Then there was a tightness around my middle. She’d tied something to curtail the bleeding and then slid into the seat in front of me.

“Do you know how to drive?” I breathed through a fresh round of pain, feeling blood ooze much faster now, seeping like a fountain under my fingers.

“Don’t ask dumb questions and hang on.” She revved the engine as I slung one arm around her middle.

I bet we looked a sight as she sped along the highway back to the garage. My big ass clinging to her petite form as she handled my Harley like a pro.

I didn’t know why I kept thinking of Sutton as some small, helpless child. Maybe because if I admitted she didn’t really need me, then there’d be no chance at easing the guilt I carried for Jon’s death and everything that happened to her since.

It was a sobering thought to have—but not sobering enough to stop the blackness from creeping in from the edges of my vision and eating away the remains of my consciousness.