Acres, Natalie - Cowboy Boots and Unsettled Debts [Cowboy Boots 3] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“You heard me. They have her on a Catherine Wheel.”

Juraz slammed his fist against the desk. “Get her out of there!”

“She looks as if she wants to be there,” Horatio told him. “They have her tied to the spokes. She is so secure, I don’t think we can just rush in and save her, Juraz.”

“Do it anyway!” he demanded. “I don’t want them fucking her, are we clear?”

“Yes, cousin,” Horatio said.

“You didn’t sound convincing, Horatio.” He stared at Abby’s picture. Then he focused on a photograph of the man who was most familiar to him. Casey was supposedly Abby’s brother. Now, he knew that wasn’t true. “The kid, the one who said he was Abby’s family. Has he touched her?”

“Yeah, boss,” Horatio replied. “That guy ain’t her brother. None of them are related as far as I can tell.”

“Damn bastards! Kill them all! Do you hear me?”

“What about tomorrow night?”

Juraz took a deeply troubled breath. Staring at the cabins on the lake, he wondered what kind of show he might enjoy for himself before his men toted away those fake-callused cowboys. The temptation was too great, but so were the risks. “Kill any of them who try and fuck her. Understood?”

“Yes,” Horatio replied. “Is that all?”

“No. I don’t want her brought to me tonight, but I want her to fear for her life. If you can get her away from them long enough to rough her up a bit, do that for me. Oh, and uh, one more favor?”

“Of course, cousin.”

“Tell her I’ll never let her go. She now belongs to Juraz Mendete.”

* * * *

“This is a curse!” Abby screamed.

“What’s wrong, superwoman,” Porter taunted her. “I thought you could handle a little teasing.”

“Some, yes, but an outright attack against a woman’s arousal is absurd.”

“What do you suggest we do about this?” Porter asked, bringing out a lunge whip. He tapped her mound with a couple of smacks and then popped her with a firmer swat.

Oh man, she was a true pleasure in action then. Porter couldn’t wait to slip his cock in between her legs and feel a little of that hotness boiling inside her. He gave her another sound slap.

“Ouch!” she screamed, grabbing hold of the rope in an apparent attempt to look like she was ready to come out of the binds fighting all of them.

“More?” Porter asked.

“No! Damn it! I’m already too…”

“Now, little sub.” Kit began additional taunting. “We can’t have you showing your defiance tomorrow. If you do, we’ll never work our way inside that hot little twat you’ve been sitting on for the last year.”

“A year?” Porter asked. “Really?”

“Shut up, Kit!” she screamed.

Brantley returned with the vibrator. The wheel came to a sudden stop, and he patted her mound like he might pat her on the back for a job well done. The smack was solid. She bucked under his palm and caught a true flaying.

Abby stared at the vibrator, and her lips moistened. She must’ve wanted Brantley to tuck the toy inside her pussy, set the speed to high, and let her fly.

Instead, the only excitement any of them earned was a real humdinger. The kind of shocker that rocked the house, alerting them all to a mini explosion too close for comfort.

“We’ve got company!” Fowler screamed, pulling out his handy little pocket model, a device that should’ve shown where all warm bodies were located. If Fowler’s expression was readable, the electronic was malfunctioning when they needed accuracy most.

Bam! Baboom! Babam! Bam! Bam!

“What the hell?” Judson yelled, rushing one of the few tiny windows in the dark basement. “Guys! Abby! We’re under a major attack here. Let’s move!”

Brantley took command. “Ace, Kit—get Abby out of here! Now!”

“What?” she screeched. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not some little woman who…”

Kit stuffed a ball gag in her mouth. Ace shook his head and thinned his lips as he cut the ropes securing her. Porter frantically worked to help free her. What the hell had they been thinking? What kind of dangerous games had they been playing on the inside while their enemies approached from the outskirts?

Brantley spat his orders. Weapons Porter never realized they’d stored in the basement were dragged out of the back of an old station wagon housed in the third bay. Sniper rifles were assembled and pistols tossed. Grenades were rapidly passed around. “We’ve got to split up! We’re sitting ducks, here! We’ve gotta move!”

As soon as Abby was free, she leapt from the elevated wheel, turned a few flips—showing off like always—secured a couple of weapons, mainly semiautomatics, and rolled out of sight. The rubber ball gag was left in her wake.

“She gets off on this,” Kit explained.

“Ya think?” Ace screamed, hurrying to follow along behind her.

Completely focused on the mission at hand, Brantley motioned for Casey and Fowler to work their way upstairs. They needed them in the command center.

“Porter, you take position from middle and up. Move! Move!”

Porter hurried upstairs. As soon as he hit the foyer, a flash of an image was in front of him. He saw the face of Juraz’s cousin, and then he didn’t see anything at all. Was it an illusion, or was the man there in the house?

Porter went with his gut. He rarely saw madmen who didn’t exist.

“We’ve got company inside! Horatio—Juraz’s cousin is in! Second floor and working up!”

A round of gunfire exploded on the top level. A few minutes later, Fowler called out. “Two men down. Two men.”

Porter hollered over his shoulder, “Couple of fellows are on the fly! The bad guys die for their many sins!”

“Would it be too much to ask you to keep the banter to a minimum?” Judson asked, easing up behind him. “I can’t hear a blasted thing.”

“If you’re gonna roll with this team, Judson, you need to brush the cobwebs off your ass. Our team moves. You and Kit sit on your ass and…”

Judson raised his gun, used Porter’s shoulder to steady his weapon, and fired five shots, all of them put to good use.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Porter screamed.

“Saving your ass so maybe one day when you’re old and gray you can collect those cobwebs you were talking about.” Judson stormed off in the other direction.

“Anybody got Abby?” Kit yelled. “Somebody talk to me!”

“It might be easier to do if we’d been prepared for something like this!” Porter called out.

“Abby, where is she?” Kit demanded, passing Porter.

“I haven’t seen her,” he said, concerned because the little wench was generally on his or Ace’s heels in an ambush. She liked to hide behind the guys who knew how to protect her.

“Porter, duck right, now!” Abby screamed. She rose from behind a sofa and bullets flew. A few moments later, she blew him a kiss and marched by him. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Judson was pissed off over this. “Abby!” An hour after the gunfire subsided and their enemies were either dead or fleeing, they still couldn’t locate the one who should’ve been protected most, given Juraz’s interest in her.

“Nothing,” Kit said, joining him outside.

“This is bad, Kit. The team is going to hell. Conrad was a leader. Brantley’s a fighter. He’s a good guy, a talented operative, but this mission is going to shit because he can’t manage the team.”

Ace stepped away from a large oak tree. He glared at them through eyes lit with pure fire. “He’s the right man for the job. You’ll see. Once the cookie crumbled, it was hard to piece everything back together again. The reins of leadership were placed in his hands and he’ll hold ’em. He needs a little time. That’s all.”

“Is that the friend talking or the agent?” Kit asked, his dark eyes barely visible with all the soot on his face.

“Both,” Ace said. “You boys have been inside too long. You don’t know how it is out here in the real world. When you get in a combative situation, you have to know who your friends are and respect them as your equal unless of course, they are your superior. And then you get behind your leader and push to make him greater than the potential he already has within. That’s what real friends do for one another…out here in the real world.” He started to walk away and stalled. “By the way, you’ve got soot all over your face.”

Kit wiped his cheeks.

“Were you in the chimney?”

“I heard something in the fireplace and made the mistake of looking up. Must’ve jarred something loose.”

“Who were you looking for, Santa Claus?”

Kit stared at him blankly.

“Forget it,” Judson grumbled. “Come on. Let’s see what screwup Brantley wants to orchestrate next.”

* * * *

“Let me go!” Abby screamed, wiggling all the way down the sidewalk. The feisty wench was so concerned with trying to break free, she’d failed to notice him strolling the length of the screened-in area of the lodge. “I mean it! Let me go! You’re hurting me!”

At the back of the lodge, they entered. His men tossed her to the floor and stood away, aiming their pistols at the floor where she landed.

In a knelt position, she bowed her back and looked upward. Juraz struck her, and she laughed. Her blonde mane whipped around her shoulders like a flag flying in high winds.

He narrowed his gaze on the defiant bitch. “I don’t have the patience for you this evening, Abby. That is your name, right?”

She rolled her shoulders back and was on her feet in a minute, pursuing him with the kind of strut to make a man pay attention. “Hello, Juraz. If you’d wanted to see me again, you could’ve called.”

He felt his left eye twitch. She drew out the weaker side of a man. A person in his position should’ve ordered her death, insisted her betrayal was unforgivable, but instead, he wanted a taste of her passion. He wanted to control her, tame that wild ass of hers and make her submit to him.

“Do you know who I am?”

A slow, diabolical smile curved her lips. “Do you know who I am?”

“I know enough,” he replied coolly.

“I don’t think you do,” she said, the sarcasm thick in her voice.

He scanned the back of the room. Three of his best men looked as if they were ready to collapse. They’d been loyal employees, served in his private army for nearly a decade, and they were of no use to him now.

They’d failed him.

“How much do you weigh?” he asked.

“A lady never tells her weight or her age.”

He drew his pistol and pointed it at her head. “Do you wish to die for refusing to answer a simple question? I asked you—how much do you weigh?”

She never flinched.

“I’ll ask one final time,” he said, reading her eyes, watching her expression, and understanding that perhaps she didn’t fear him before, but she now understood he had issued a final warning.

“One hundred and twenty pounds.”

He propelled his arm to the right and shot the soldier at her left, the bullet striking the man right between his eyes. Rather than kill his other guards, too, he screamed, “You let a small woman overpower you. She fights better than most men, but that is no excuse!”

They didn’t respond. They knew better. One of their own was lying in a pool of blood. Juraz tilted her chin toward his. “I shot a man in your presence and you’re unmoved.”

“He pissed me off,” she informed him, raising her arm and pointing to the scratches on her wrist. “I’ll have bruises tomorrow, and I had planned to wear some racy outfits.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said, turning his back to her but aware of the possibilities as he walked the length of the porch again. “You were listed as a guest with three men—Kit Reeves, Brantley Barclay, and Ace Bristol.” He stopped pacing. “I’m assuming Ace is your
ace in the hole
.”

“None other,” she mumbled.

“So you lied to me from the start?” he asked.

“What can I say? I like to get around.”

“That’s interesting because after your stunt, I intend to punish you for your actions.” He pursued her then, stalked her. Stopping in front of her, he lowered his voice as he hissed in her ear, “Your actions today will cost you because I lost someone very dear to me.”

“Oh, what a shame,” she drawled, sarcasm dripping from her lips. “I assume you’re grief ridden.”

He lifted his pistol again, cocked the gun, and caught himself in the nick of time. He came within a hair of pulling the trigger. She stared at him like she really didn’t give a damn either way.

“You’re resilient. Why?” he asked. “Are you trained?”

She glared at him. Her eyes were empty, cold.

“Are you a member of special ops?”

Her expression never changed.

“Are you a killer?”

Again, she was unresponsive.

“Can you even feel pain, Abby?” he rasped at her ear.

“Can you?” she asked. She placed her hands behind her back and leaned forward. They were nose to nose when she diabolically remarked, “I don’t think you can.”