Loose Ends (37 page)

Skeeter dropped the bloody shard and ran back through the firing range, heading toward the stairs leading down to the office. She didn’t question Zach’s orders—and she didn’t see MNK-1 drop out of the rafters and land silently in a crouch behind her, ready to spring.

“I’m scared, Jack.”

Yeah, so was he.

“Are you going to order a steak?”

It wasn’t at the top of his list anymore, not after talking to Con.

What he wanted to do was get over to the Kashmir Club. He had a feeling that’s where Con had gone—but that meant leaving Scout alone at the Armstrong, and that was not going to happen, and he sure as hell was not going to take her anyplace he might run into trouble, like the Kashmir Club.

Con had tied his hands, and the boss damn well knew it.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think it’s a good idea to get some food. If you can, Scout, it would be good for you to eat something, too.”

“Sure, I guess I—” She stopped abruptly when the phone in her pocket rang.

It could be only one person, Red Dog, and he quickly reached out and took her hand before she could pull the phone out.

“Not yet, Scout,” he said. “It may get to that before the night is over, but not yet … please.”

And there they stood, the two of them in the middle of the room, holding hands while the phone rang and rang.
She didn’t try to answer it, and he didn’t let go of her, and when it finally quit ringing, he was still holding her hand.

Unable to resist, he smoothed his thumb across her skin—and he reveled at the softness. She wasn’t like other girls, not like any other girl he’d ever met.

“Pansy,” he said, and let out a short laugh. “I couldn’t believe it when Con told me. You, of all girls, named Pansy.”

“Pansy Louise.” She was holding his hand, too, and Jack was very aware of the fact.

“So what does this Karl guy call you?” He was giving himself away. He knew it, but he wanted to hear it from her.

“Ms. Leesom.”

“Ms. Leesom?” He looked at her, not quite sure what she meant.

“Dr. Karl Reynder is the man teaching me to speak Dutch.”

“He’s your teacher, not your boyfriend?” Oh, man, was Con going to get it—if they all got out of here.

“Teacher, sixty-four years old if he’s a day,” she confirmed.

He’d be damned.

“So why did Con—” He cut himself off. So why did Con make it sound like she was in love with the guy—that’s what he’d been about to ask.

But he knew the answer.

Con was tying up loose ends, getting ready for the endgame. Jack had been played.

And rightly so.

He was going to need Scout as much as she needed him by the time this was all over.

He smoothed his thumb across the back of her hand again. He was paler than she, his skin rougher, his hands a lot bigger. Hell, the veins in his arms were bigger than
her fingers—okay, not quite, but he was a big guy, and Pansy Louise “Scout” Leesom was everything he’d ever dreamed of, everything he’d ever wanted but had just been too damned chicken to try to get. Rejection from her would have thrown him for a loop. The only thing worse would have been her falling for another guy—and Con had known it.

He’d never known the boss to meddle in anybody’s personal life—except for raising Scout. He’d taken that job on because of her father, but he’d stayed on the job because of Scout. Con loved her, and the boss wasn’t alone in those heartfelt feelings.

“I love you, Scout.” The words slipped out so easily, words he’d never dreamed he would dare to say—words he’d never said to another woman. “I love everything about you, even the way you get mad at me.”

He kept smoothing his thumb over her hand and marveling at the softness of her skin. She was so beautiful, so much more than he deserved, but she was meant to be his. He knew that for certain, but he also knew things didn’t always work out the way they should.

Looking up, he met her gaze. “I love you, Scout. I’ve loved you since forever.”

She was gorgeous, her hair still all tied up with the scarf, dark curls tumbling down every which way, her eyes so green and so focused on him with a look that said she didn’t quite believe him. “You’ve done a darn good job of hiding the fact, Jack.”

He was a jerk. He knew it. But the truth was out now, and he was going to run with it.

“You’re the only thing on the face of the earth that scares me, Scout. I figured if I never told you how I felt, then I could keep cruising on, thinking there might be a chance. But if I stepped up and you turned away, then it was over, no coming back.”

“So you’re stepping up now?”

How she could doubt him was beyond him. He’d never been more serious in his life, at least not without a weapon shouldered and his finger squeezing off rounds. He was damned serious then.

“Yes, I am.” But about ten more seconds of her looking at him like she wasn’t sure what to think, and he was stepping out the door and doing a damage evaluation.

“You’re starting to sweat, Jack.”

Yes, he was.

“I love you, Scout, and I’m not backing off from that statement.” Whether he had to make a run for the door or not.

“You’re nothing but trouble, always have been,” she said.

Oh, hell, if they were going to do a rundown of his faults, they needed to order in supplies.

“We’re good together. You know we are, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I am the best man for you, or I wouldn’t be laying myself out here like this.” And that was the God’s truth.

“I don’t know, Jack, it’s been—”

He silenced her with a kiss, sliding his free hand around the back of her neck and lowering his mouth to hers, bending her into him—and at the first taste, he knew he should have done this years ago.

She melted against him, rising up on her toes, her arms coming around his neck, her body pressing up against his, every luscious curve. He slid his hand up under her shirt and held her close, kissing her wildly, and when she did the same, slipped her hands up under his shirt, instant need became his driving force, replacing every other thought in his body.

He wanted her. He loved her. And he needed her to be his, wholly and completely, on the bed with him inside her.

One of her hands went to the waistband of his pants,
and just the thought of her touching him made him hard.

“
Scout,
” he whispered her name and undid his pants, asking her to please, please, please …

And she did, sliding her hand into his pants and stroking his cock—and the clothes started coming off.

“I need you, Jack,” she said between hot kisses. Pants hit the floor, shirts went flying, shoes disappeared, underwear melted away, and he scooped her up in his arms, both of them naked, and her so beautiful, she took his breath away.

Laying her on the bed, he came down on top of her, and he kissed her and teased her, rubbing himself against her, until she was moving beneath him.

“God, Scout, you’re so beautiful, so damned beautiful.” He kissed her breasts and cupped them in his hands, and he slid down her body to tease her with his mouth.

This was Scout, his love, his lover, and everything about her excited him: the taste and softness of her, the way she responded to every lick of his tongue. It was going to take days, weeks, years to get enough of her, if he ever could.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God … Jack
.

Scout was melting from the inside out. She’d imagined making love with Black Jack Traeger hundreds of times, if not thousands—but nothing in her imagination had prepared her for Jack in love and in her bed.

Jack loved her—it was all she needed. He loved her, and he was giving her pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known. Forever, he’d said, and oh, God, she believed him. She’d wanted him forever—and the more he aroused her, the more she never wanted him to stop, not ever, not when he felt so amazingly good, not until he took her straight over the edge.

“
Jack …
” His name sighed out of her on a groan of
pleasure more intense than anything she’d ever known. “
Oh, Jack … Jack.
”

When she’d gone limp beneath him, he came up her body and fitted himself to her—and she was so ready for him to thrust inside, to fill her up. He was hot, and hard, and heavy, and he held her so strongly, giving her even more pleasure. He was a big man, every inch of him solid muscle, and when his release came, she felt every last pulsing thrust, her body alive and in tune with his.

He didn’t withdraw for a long time, just held her there, keeping her close in his arms, breathing softly against the side of her face.

“That was crazy,” he finally said.

“Yeah.” It sure had been, sweetly intense, wildly out of control.

“Crazy wonderful.”

“Yeah.” She’d go there with him. It had been wonderful.

“We should do it again.”

A smile curved her mouth. Now, that was the Jack she knew.

“Yeah,” she said, sliding her hand up to cup his face. “We should do it again.”

He looked down at her and grinned—and they did it again.

Dylan Hart had a well-earned and well-deserved reputation for coolness under pressure. He owned the words “cold bastard.” He was the iceman, his emotions always tempered by reason.
Always
.

Except for tonight.

With the terrifying abduction of Jane, and faced with the crimes committed by the man Kid and Zach had hauled down into Steele Street’s basement, he was struggling inside, in a fierce conflict with himself. Under other circumstances, he would have gone to Skeeter to talk things through. The kick-ass blond bombshell was his mate, his sounding board, the balm to his soul, but the bad girl had nothing to offer him here. She wanted Lancaster dead, and she was counting on him to give the order that would make it so.

The problem, the temptation burning through him, was to do it himself, long and slow and brutal and final—starting now. Right now. He had four syringes left, and any combination thereof would do the deed, give Lancaster a taste of the crazy, fucking hell he’d sold over a hundred American soldiers into for money and his own twisted reasons.

The bastard needed to suffer and wail, to be undone, to lose his mind and be brought back only to lose it again.

Pain beyond bearing—that’s what Lancaster needed. He needed it like Dylan needed his next breath.

Standing in the shadows, he silently waited and watched as Kid tied Lancaster to the rope and pulley rig hanging from a boom secured to the ceiling. A hundred years ago, the rig had been used to move crates of goods into storage for Errol Steele’s Mercantile, the building’s first incarnation.

Tonight it had a far grimmer purpose.

General Richard “Buck” Grant, Special Defense Force’s commanding officer, was on his way to Denver to deal with Randolph Lancaster, but until Buck arrived, the man known as White Rook was under Dylan’s tender care.

He saw the old man wince as Kid tightened the ropes tying him to the pulleys.

“I want him chained,” he said, and Lancaster jerked his head around to peer into the darkness, looking for him.

Kid didn’t miss a beat. He quickly secured the ropes, then walked over to the corner and picked up a heavy length of chain.

“Hart?” Lancaster gasped, his voice feeble, his face gray beneath the shock of white hair he wore so proudly. “Is that you?”

Kid had not been gentle with the man who had taken his brother from him. One of Lancaster’s eyes was swollen shut. A trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth and dripped on his pale blue dress shirt. His tie was askew, his black suit coat scuffed and tossed aside. The old man’s left hand was limp, likely broken at the wrist. Regardless, Kid had gone ahead and cuffed him before tying him to the pulley rig.

Things happened.

Especially to evil men unlucky enough to end up here
, Dylan thought.

Tyler Crutchfield was still taped to his chair, perched on the edge of the pool deck, hardly daring to breathe. Dylan understood. The lawyer did not want to draw Kid’s attention, not when every hard line in the Boy Wonder’s face said his restraint was hanging by the same thin thread holding Dylan back.

“White Rook,” he said, walking into the light. “It’s been a while.”

“Hart.” Lancaster slumped against his restraints. He was hanging at an odd angle that kept him from being able to stand upright or kneel. “Re-release me. There’s been a mistake.”

“A terrible mistake,” Dylan agreed. “One of hundreds, starting with the sale of J. T. Chronopolous to Atlas Exports and ending tonight with the abduction of Jane Linden.

“I-I don’t know any Jane Linden.”

Not only possible but probable.

“How about Scott Church?”

The old man went perfectly still, except for the fresh sheen of sweat suddenly beading on his forehead and his upper lip. “No, n-no. I don’t know him.”

“Liar.” Dylan referred to the sheaf of papers he held in his hand and read off a long series of letters and numbers. “Your international bank account number. I’ve got your balance here, Rook: forty-nine million plus change, including the last deposit you took in for the sale of Scott Church. You’ve done well for a government employee.”

The old man was shaking his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “No, no, it’s not what you think.”

“What do I think, Rook? You tell me.”

When Lancaster didn’t reply other than to keep shaking his head, Dylan continued. “I’m thinking I didn’t know you were on the board of World Resources.”

“N-no,” Lancaster said. “You-you don’t understand
what you’re dealing with here. Release me. I … I can’t—” A gasp of pain escaped him.

Good.

“Actually, Rook, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with here—or who.”

“SDF,” Lancaster ground out with effort. Spittle came with the words, and more blood, and Dylan decided that maybe Kid had hit him harder than he’d thought. “Special Defense Force. I m-made you, created you out of
nothing.
”