Legal Action (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) (10 page)

             
Jorgen backed away and threw up his hands. He looked at Charlotte and said, “Well Chari, I believe he loves you, too, so you’re not in it all by yourself.”

             
Bly’s face softened then and he sat next to her in the booth. He held her against him and whispered, “Charlotte, you’ve put up a good fight to keep your feelings in control. The battle isn’t lost if you love me, we’ve both won. I love you Charlotte, truly, madly and very, very deeply.”

             
In the elevator, on their way to the room, she clung to him, but wouldn’t look up at his face.

             
He felt like he had been given the greatest gift of his life, she loved him and she’d even told Jorgen. He wanted to run his hands up the back of the tiny dress and cup her ass but he needed her to know it was more than sex. It was certainly mind-blowing sex, but it was much, much more.

             
In the suite they made love slowly, both saying, “I love you, I love you,” over and over.

             
He’d taken her again, against the wall of the shower, lifting her, her legs encircling him. He’d pulled her down hard on his cock and she felt that she would split open, but she trusted him and she clinched tight around him as she reveled in the glorious ache.

             
Later, they sat against piles of pillows in the huge bed, the lights of the Strip casting bright patterns on the walls of the suite. They’d ordered burgers and fries from room service and laughed as they fed each other in bed.

             
He told her the reason he’d stared at her all those years ago at the photo shoot. That he’d fallen hopelessly in love with her then and he’d had the primal urge to take her without a condom and plant his seed in her. The need to possess her had been so strong that he intended to tell her, that’s why he’d called. He wanted her to meet him so he could say he knew it was crazy but she was meant to be his. That she should love him and have his children and they would have everything, especially each other.

             
She slept curled tightly against him, she was his and he loved her, she was safe with him and so was her heart. She rose early the next morning, dressed in jeans, t-shirt and sneakers and put her hair in a ponytail. She wanted to try her hand at gambling before they left so she grabbed her phone and her wallet and took the elevator to the casino. She played some slot machines and it was up and down and it bored her. She walked out onto the Strip and breathed in the air. She felt a pinch at her neck and everything went black.

 
              By late afternoon, when Charlotte couldn’t be found, Bly was in a panic, he had the entire hotel staff and the police looking for her.

             
West reviewed the security tapes and three of Jamey Huang’s men had been in the casino. The cameras showed that she’d walked outside after gambling and they had followed her. The trail ended there and her cell phone was going straight to voice mail. He alerted the highway patrol and the Las Vegas and L.A. police departments and airport security nationwide.

             
The call came the next day from Jamey Huang, he wanted to meet Alexander Bly face to face and make his demands. No law enforcement would be involved or Charlotte would die. It was arranged for him to come to Bly’s mansion with only one of his men. He felt that would be sufficient since he held all the cards.

***

              Huang looked perfectly at ease sitting in Bly’s formal living room. He smiled serenely, sure of himself as he watched the powerful Alexander Bly sweat.

             
“You don’t quite understand, Mr. Bly. It would be simple if all I wanted was your money or your life or only to fuck your gorgeous girlfriend. Even as extraordinary as she is, none of those things fill my needs. I suppose it was a lucky twist of fate that your case brought Charlotte into my sphere of consciousness. Oh, it took a lot of digging. Perhaps your own sources overlooked the connection. You see, I want to kill a man, a man who has become a serious thorn in my side and he will only come to me in order to save her. I will put your mind at ease by telling you that she ended it with him long before she knew you. The good news for me is that he has never been able to move past his love for her. So you see, Mr. Bly, she is the perfect bait. He has nearly ruined my nice little arms-dealing business, he has ruthlessly killed my men and my foreign clients and he has been impossible to stop. I want him to surrender himself to me so that I can torture him for a good, long while before I kill him. Your job is to convey my message that his beloved will remain untouched, although she will also be naked and drugged just to take the edge off her hell-cat tendencies,” he touched the deep scratch marks that marred his face. “She will be returned to you, Mr. Bly, you can ride off into the sunset with her and live happily ever after if that is what you wish. However you must to come to Hong Kong to collect her. Here is the address where we will make the trade in two days’ time.” He handed a slip of paper to Bly. “An easy trade, Mr. Bly, I’m sure he’ll agree to it quickly when he knows that I have her. If you want her alive and… intact, you will bring me Finnegan Hale.”

             
Bly was shocked beyond what he thought was possible. He was livid that West had failed to discover that Finn had been the man from Charlotte’s past. He felt it was his own fault that he’d kept her away from her friends so that Finn didn’t know she had come in contact with Jamey Huang. He’d felt powerless in the face of his love for Charlotte and now he felt powerless to do anything to save her, other than to hand over a man who would be tortured and murdered.

             
How would Charlotte be able to live with that? Bly knew she loved him as he loved her but he also knew she cared for her former lover, was still his best friend. The thought of her, drugged and on her way to China made him want to cry for the first time since he was a little boy. Imagining Jamey Huang’s young thugs gathered around her, seeing her naked… he couldn’t stand to think about it.

             
West used all his connections to locate JP and give him the news. JP, it turned out, was in charge of organizing the details of an operation once a target was located, but Finn was unparalleled at stealthily and cleanly eliminating, ‘
the bad guys
.’

             
JP arrived at Bly’s mansion in the middle of the night and he looked badly shaken. He sat down with Bly and West and told them what he knew.

             
“I talked to Finn on a secure line and he’s gone out of his mind that they have her. I’ve never known him to come undone over anything before. I’m in shock, to be honest; I never suspected there was anything more than friendship between them. I did know Finn loved someone but it had been over for a while and talking about was strictly off limits. What matters is getting Charlotte back and the fact that Finn is not thinking rationally. He’s not going to fight them and put her in harm’s way. We all know they’re not going to let him live once they have him. He’s been ruthless at taking out Huang’s connections and let me tell you they are some bad mother-fuckers. Huang isn’t just dealing in rifles. He got his hands on long range missiles and nuclear warheads. He’s supplying terrorists. Finn’s valuable to the government but they’re not going to get involved and risk blowing the covers of an entire group of their operatives. Of course, he knows that, and he intends to go it alone, I can’t figure out anything we can do other than let him give himself over to them.”

***

              Charlotte opened her eyes and everything was blurry. Her vision began to clear but she couldn’t figure out where she was. She heard the roar of jet engines and remembered bits and pieces. Someone had jabbed a needle in her neck and she’d awakened to see Jamey Huang’s sadistic face above her. He’d moved his face close to hers and she’d scratched the hell out of him. He’d slapped her so hard her face was still throbbing.

             
She heard men’s voices talking and laughing and she sat up. She was on a bed in only her bra and panties; one wrist was handcuffed to a metal bedpost. She yelled at the top of her lungs, “Jamey, you worthless coward get in here and unlock me!”

             
He came in and sat next to her on the bed, he ran his hand over her lacy bra, then up to her swollen lips. She grabbed his hand and bit it and he backhanded her again.

             
“Bly will kill you for touching me.” She said, her voice shaking.

             
He laughed and produced the key to the handcuff, “Charlotte, my beauty, you’re not really my type. Wrong equipment, if you get my drift. Although that succulent mouth of yours is probably incredible to fuck. My men are extremely needy however, and rather bored, so you’ll want to stay quiet and out of sight. I’ll unlock your wrist and you can use the restroom, but if I were you, I would stay in the relative safety of this room. By tomorrow your beloved assassin will trade himself for you and you can go home with your billionaire and forget this ever happened.”

             
An old Chinese man came in and with a tray of medical instruments and as she watched he filled a syringe.

             
“What assassin, what are you talking about?” she tried to back away and Jamey wrapped her tightly in a blanket and held her as she struggled against the needle.

             
“Sweet dreams, princess. Be sure to dream well about your old lover, this is Finnegan Hale’s last night on earth.”

             
The drug was dragging her down, down, faraway, and she remembered.

***

              After the first year of law school, JP, Finn and Charlotte moved into a tiny house together. They did it partly for financial reasons but mostly because they were a threesome. Not where sex was concerned, Charlotte had avoided men after her divorce and men left her alone when Finn and JP were around. They lived together because they loved being each other’s company, they laughed at the same jokes, they drank but didn’t smoke, and they didn’t do drugs. Both men had gone into the military straight out of high school; they’d finished their bachelor’s degrees online and had become bad-ass Special Forces operatives. The threesome moved into a 1930’s Craftsman cottage not far from campus, it had three small bedrooms and only one bath. That had been difficult for Charlotte at first since the men never thought to close the bathroom door.

             
“It’s a military thing!” Finn yelled as she ran back down the hall one morning after she’d walked in on him humming as he sat on the edge of the bathtub jerking off. He laughed and told her he’d heard her battery operated ‘
boyfriend
’ hum often enough.

             
Finn had grown up in Manchester, England and his family moved to California when he was seventeen. He’d gone into the navy, been recruited for SEAL training and had become a US citizen.

             
Charlotte knew that no matter how close they’d all become as friends, both men still secretly lusted after her, but they were well oiled military machines. They knew how to resist enemy interrogation and torture so they lived with and resisted her. Then, one night the sound of JP and some girl really going at it had sent her to the bathroom in the dark, and there was Finn.              

             
He stood in the shower with water pouring over him, his eyes were closed. He was all gorgeous, rippling muscles, tattoos and battle scars, his long, stiff cock in his hand.

             
She stood still and watched him, it was so fucking sexy and his hard, sculpted body was so splendid it didn’t look real.

             
He wasn’t quite as tall as JP, but he was powerfully built, he trained as a boxer and it kept him incredibly strong and ripped. He’d said his tattoos told secret stories of missions he’d been on as a SEAL and there were knife and bullet wound scars all over him. He had dark, closely cropped hair and lips that made women stop and stare.             

             
Charlotte, too, was mesmerized by his mouth. Any woman would have paid good money for those lips, the top one was as full as the bottom and they were a luscious red.

             
He was deep in to what he was doing and had no idea she was there, for some reason he let go of his cock, covered his face with his hands and murmured, “ah, Charlotte.”

             
She stepped back then and a floor board creaked, he looked at her and she hadn’t moved another muscle.

             
He stepped out of the shower dripping wet, he didn’t even turn off the water. He held her with his large, grey eyes and walked slowly toward her, she could’ve walked away but she didn’t.

             
He took her face in his hands and she had never known such a kiss. His lips were amazingly succulent. The kiss was hot and wet and powerful.

             
She’d only ever slept with one man, strange as that seemed for the woman who’d been every man’s sexual obsession thanks to the magazine layout. But she’d worked hard and avoided boys to get through school then she’d married briefly for the wrong reasons. Her divorce had been final for nearly a year and she hadn’t had sex in all that time.