Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (21 page)

“Now what was it you and Benny discussed?” Collin asked, doggedly perusing that single line of questioning.

Swallowing the broken pleas that bubbled up, Kathy tried to focus past the painful need beginning to grip her. She needed an answer that would bring an end to this torment, but one that wouldn’t betray Benny.

“Benny doesn’t know squat.” That was the best she could come up with, considering that it was both true and a lie. “Even if he did, he wouldn’t tell me given he’d already heard the rumors that I’m associating with the law.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jack stiffened up instantly as Kathy suddenly realized the error in her words.

“It doesn’t mean I told him you were a damn DEA agent, that’s for sure.” The alarm ringing through her doused her rioting libido as nothing else could, though it didn’t make her words any more measured. Fear had her mouth running on its own steam as Kathy’s natural instinct to attack kicked in.

“Benny’s smart enough to figure out somebody on Amanda’s security detail is a Fed all on his own, which makes
two
of us local
hicks
more than capable of reasoning through
your
simple-minded plan.”

Moving with a speed that left Kathy gasping, Jack latched onto her arms and pulled her from Collin’s lap. He dangled her effortlessly well over a foot off the floor, bringing her nose to nose with him. This close, Kathy could clearly see the violent sparks flickering in his eyes as they drilled into hers and could feel the heated wash of his breath over her cheeks as he snarled.

“Now you listen here, lady. I’ve had
enough
of your games. You’re
interfering
in an ongoing investigation. If you don’t want to spend the next several years learning how to hammer out license plates, I suggest you
start
answering my questions.”

Jack’s eyebrows actually quivered with his rage. While Kathy knew all about red-faced and vein-bulging rage, she’d never pushed a man so far his damn hair trembled with the force of his anger. Jack looked ready to take her head clean off if she so much as dared to disagree with him.

“Do they really do that?” Kathy couldn’t stop herself. She just had to know what would happen when Jack finally broke down and shed every last bit of civility. “I mean, prisoners, do they make license plates?”

“You’re about to find out.”

“I don’t think so.” Kathy smiled, both pleased and disappointed that he’d been bluffing. “I think you’re going to put me down,
officer
, before I have to report you for manhandling…assault, sexual harassment. I’m sure one of those commission-based lawyers will think of all sorts of things to charge your ass with if you don’t get it
out of my kitchen
!”

“Fine.”

Kathy didn’t even have a chance to shriek before Jack’s hard shoulder pounded the air out of her stomach. From upside down, she watched as her living room disappeared under his heels. More ominously, a second pair of black boots followed them all the way to the bedroom. The idea of what came next filled Kathy with enough nervous excitement to keep her from cussing them out. Offering no objections as Jack dropped her onto the mattress, she simply rolled right off the opposite edge, buying herself that much distance to figure out what to do. Too busy with turning on Collin, Jack didn’t try to stop her.

“Not this time.” Jack’s palm smacked right into the center of Collin’s chest, holding him back at the door.

“No way.” Collin shoved Jack’s hand back, taking a determined step forward. “I’m not going to go sit in the car and play with myself.”

“Oh, let him stay,” Kathy called out, daring to voice her opinion. Knowing it was wrong and unwise at every level, she still couldn’t stop herself from antagonizing Jack. “Besides, he’s more fun than you.”

“What did you just say?” Jack turned on her with such lethal quickness he had Kathy regretting her impulsive words.

“If I had to pick between the two of you, I’d go with Collin. He looks more ready than you.” Even as she tried to explain away her rash comments, Kathy’s gaze settled on the enormous bulge in Jack’s jeans. “Well, maybe more willing.”

“Too bad you don’t get to make that call,” Jack snapped. Kathy didn’t have a clue what was going through Jack’s mind, but it dawned on her that she ought to be scared. Strangely, though, she wasn’t.

* * * *

Jack knew that stubborn look. Kathy didn’t feel like being an adult and cooperating, and that suited him just fine. Turning, he pinned Collin with a pointed look, hoping for once his old friend wouldn’t give him any grief. “Get a chair. You can stay, but you better remember this is
my
interrogation.”

“I know. I know. I’m not part of the
team
.” Collin rolled his eyes. “But if I was, I’d be forced to remind you that this isn’t a legal interrogation and you could be jeopardizing the entire case.”

“Don’t start, Collin,” Jack growled. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Then Jack might have to do something about it, like changes his plans. Jack didn’t have the patience to even consider that option. The primitive urges driving him to make Kathy submit and heed his commands were too raw and poignant to be denied. He wanted to give in to them, to relish and enjoy where they led. Reason and obligations would only ruin the moment.

“Sure, I won’t point out that this isn’t an approved technique, or that you’re actually pushing things
too
far. That would just be rude,” Collin taunted him.

“I don’t care!” Jack spat, unable to avoid the truth even if he didn’t want to confront it. “Damnit, Collin! Why you got to ruin this? It wasn’t like I was planning on touching her until
after
she confessed. I was going to let you do all the fondling until then.”

“But you wanted to play the director.” Clearly Collin didn’t want to let Jack have even that much fun. “That still makes you involved and this interrogation illegal. Maybe you ought to go wait out in the car. You can hear everything you need to when I make my report.”

“No way in hell am I backing down.” Jack meant it.

“It could cost you your career,” Collin warned him.

“So be it.” It was a snap decision, one made under the duress from the pain in his balls. Jack had never felt such an intense ache and knew there was no way he could walk out of this room and suffer through it. He couldn’t. He needed Kathy, needed her with a desperation Jack was beginning to realize might never diminish. That weakness only fed his drive to see her submit.

Not interested in arguing with Collin any longer, Jack turned to confront Kathy, only to find the bedroom empty. “Fuck.”

“Don’t you need a partner to do that with?”

Shooting Collin a dirty look for that one, Jack strode toward the closest door. It turned out to be a closet stuffed so full that Kathy couldn’t have hid in it even if she tried. He didn’t have to guess what the second door led to given the door was already open. He could see the tiles and knew it was a bathroom. What was unexpected was the second door in the bathroom that led back out to the hall.

Collin snickered as Jack tracked through the bathroom and came out behind him. “I guess the little darling wants to play a game of hide-and-seek, so now the only question is what are you going to do?”

Tan her ass once he found her, but Jack kept that answer to himself, not wanting to give the little darling any warning. Instead he met Collin’s amused gaze with his own steady one. “Go get that chair, Collin, and you can have a front-row seat.”

Stepping back into the bathroom, he locked the door before he crossed over into Kathy’s bedroom. He headed for the closet despite knowing he wouldn’t find Kathy there. What he did find was the collection of scarves he’d seen hanging on the back of the door. While he selected the five best from the bunch, Collin dragged in the largest chair from the living room. It still looked too small to fit his frame comfortably. That was Collin’s problem.

Jack left him to deal with it, focusing instead on searching through Kathy’s dresser drawers. He found what he wanted hidden beneath the piles of underwear. It didn’t shock Jack either that Kathy’s selection of sex toys didn’t vary more than a dildo and a vibrator, but it did kind of depress him. He could have really used a set of clamps and a whip.

“Purple?” Collin picked up the vibrator and studied it. “Why do women always choose Day-Glo colors to fuck themselves with?”

“Like I know.” Jack snorted, shooting Collin a hopeful look. “You didn’t bring anything, did you?”

“Wouldn’t that be useful?” Collin smirked as if he’d made a joke. “But no, sorry, man. I didn’t travel with a party pack.”

“You used to,” Jack muttered, trying to think of how hard it would be to get one of his buddies to ship a few things his way. That wouldn’t help him tonight, but Jack didn’t fool himself into thinking this would be a onetime event. Hell, he’d just met Kathy last night, and it would be the fourth time he fucked around with her.

“Yeah, well, then I got married.” Collin shoved away from the dresser to head for his seat. “That might have been as big a mistake as you’re about to make, but nobody could have stopped me, and I doubt anybody can stop you, except that you’re missing the woman.”

“Well, if I were a dumbass, I’d think she ran through the bathroom and escaped,” Jack explained as he walked over to the bed. Bending down, he latched onto the edge of the frame and lifted. “But since I’m
not
, I got to figure she’s right here. Hey, honey, you want to come out now?”

Plastered to the floor, Kathy looked up at him in shock. Jack couldn’t deny the thrill he got at seeing her with her eyes rounded in surprise and her full lips parted in slack-jawed amazement. Finally, he’d gotten the better of her. Jack savored her shock, knowing it wouldn’t last long. It didn’t.

“Fine.” In less than a second, Kathy shot to her feet and lifted a glare in his direction. He had to give her points for looking both haughty and indignant while being stark naked. “You can put my bed down now
and
my toys back because you’re not going to get to play with them. My answer is no, and as an officer of the law, I assume you know what that means.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it, baby.” Jack dropped her bed, letting the frame crash back to the floor under the weight of the mattress and box spring. “Since you’ve been listening all this time, you know your choices are either me…or him.”

“Like I said, sweet meat, he might be longer, but I’m thicker,” Collin called out cheerily, causing both Jack and Kathy to shoot him dirty looks.

“In your dreams.”

“More like yours, because I’m telling you both no.” Kathy tilted her chin higher and dared to challenge Jack again. “Now get the hell out of my house.”

“And I’m telling you, whether by your hand or mine, you’re going to be straddling that boy’s lap in the next minute.” Jack ignored her command, not concerned in the slightest at her rejection. “I want you on display, sunshine. I want to see just how creamy that cunt gets as you beg for more, so
move it
.”

“Damnit, Jack! I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.”

Kathy’s lips puckered as her scowl deepened. “You know if this were just sex, I would say yes, but we both know that’s not what you’re planning on. I won’t let you use sex as a weapon against me, Jack Harrington. I got more than enough men willing to fuck me not to have to put up with your crap just to get a little dick.”

“Who you calling little?” Jack wanted to smile at the way Kathy growled.

“You think I conspired with Will McKinney,” Kathy snapped out like that was new news. “That I’m guilty of murder and worse, and you’re going to plow your case for what? Just to teach me a lesson? Am I really worth that?”

“No, but I never said I thought you were guilty.” Jack barely managed to hold back the grin pulling at his lips when Kathy snorted at that, looking anything but relieved.

The dark glare she sent his way should only be worn by a woman fully clothed. Given Jack could see the pink, puckered tips her nipples had become and smell the thick cream beginning to glisten between her thighs, he couldn’t help but think all her indignation was nothing but for show. The woman couldn’t simply lie down and give in to her desires, but had to fight them. Well, Jack would give her something to fight against if that’s what it took to get her hot.

“Trust me, Kathy, I assured my superiors you were nothing more than a ditzy, small-town—”

“Excuse me?”

“—bubblehead whose—”

“I have
never
been ditzy a day in my life!”

“—imagination had gotten the better—”

“
Bubblehead?
”

“—of her and was now intent on interfering—”

“So says the man who’s got the purple head bobbing at the end of his cock!”

“—in our case no matter what danger—”

“The only danger here is your dick is about ready to burst your britches.”

“—she might place herself in or the cost it could have on those she supposedly cares about—”

“Oh, don’t try to guilt me.”

“—but they didn’t believe me.” Jack sighed over that bit as if it were the worst of what he said. Ignoring Kathy, all flushed and panting with her indignation, he tipped his head and appeared to consider his fate with mock bleakness. “So here I am, ready to serve my country.”

“Give it up!” Kathy huffed with a roll of her eyes. “You’re here for a payback. I seduced the truth out of you last night, and now you’re intent on fucking it out of me.”

“You got me drunk.” Jack couldn’t help the way he bristled over that reminder. It didn’t matter that he knew that’s just what Kathy wanted, he still leapt to her bait. “And if I was a woman it’d be called date rape, not seduction.”