Possession (The Plus One Chronicles) (14 page)

Dropping her head, she stared at her floor. She had done exactly what he said. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I made a huge leap.” She sucked in a breath. “But I’m glad to know it was creative.”

“Very. And FYI, if I want you do to something, I’ll ask you straight up.”

“Or order me.” Like he had about calling John or Ethan. “You sent John.” To protect her. She had to admit, it didn’t completely suck to feel cared for.

“Would you have called him if I hadn’t been on the phone with you?”

Kat debated telling him what he wanted to hear, but that was foolish. “It all happened so fast, I don’t know. It didn’t even cross my mind.” She dropped down on the barstool.

“I worry about you, Kitten.” His voice tensed. “Your leg and panic attacks make you too damned vulnerable.”

Her chest squeezed. See that? Straight up. He didn’t play word games, didn’t manipulate her. Just flat out told her. “I won’t live in a bubble, but I’ll call John or Ethan if David or anyone I’m not sure about shows up, okay?”

“I can live with that. Plus, I have back up now because Sherry will be all over your ass if you don’t. And she’s not as nice as I am.”

She snorted and laughed at the same time. “Newsflash, you’re both sadistic.” Kat fingered the flash drive she’d set on the counter. “David is losing weight, his left eye is twitching. He’s having mood swings. Today he was calm, but at the bakery last week he was jacked.”

“Drugs?”

Kat stared at the flash drive. “Or a breakdown.” She turned the little plastic stick over and over. “If he had a drug habit back when we were together, it would explain David lying about the mugging to cover himself.” Heavy boulders stacked up in her stomach. Could he have been doing drugs and she hadn’t realized it? “If he owed drug dealers money, I suppose they could have come after me to encourage him to pay.”

“More importantly, how do we keep you safe? I’m five seconds from losing control of my need to lock you down. Talk fast.”

She should be annoyed, but she wasn’t. “As Marshall pointed out, I’m mostly off the radar. I don’t think I’m in the same danger as when I was engaged to David. But since Kel’s planning to go to John’s, I’ll go to your house and I’ll stay the night.”

Slight pause, then he asked, “But?”

“I’m going to work in the morning and back to my house afterward.” She took a breath. “I’ll be careful and I’ll call your friends if I need help, but I’m living my life. I can’t go back to existing in fear.”

“I get that. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

Warmth flooded out of the boulder-sized anxiety in her stomach. That’s what made Sloane so sexy, he really did get that she wanted to be strong. “Thank you for that.”

“Let’s talk about you sleeping in my bed tonight. Will you be naked? Thinking of me? Better yet…” his voice deepened, “…touch yourself and think of me?” He dragged in a breath. “I’m going to fantasize about that tonight.”

Her pulse jumped. Heat bloomed in her chest and spread through her. “That’s your fantasy?”

“Oh yeah. One of them. Coming home after a trip, walking in my room and finding you on my bed, nude and masturbating. I’d make you finish while I watched. Would you do it for me?”

Blood thrummed in her head. That scenario turned her on, surprising her. “Yes.” What would it feel like to have his eyes on her, watching? But she knew—he always made her feel sexy and safe.

Ready to let go.

All you have to do is ask. You do that, and I’ll assume control and take care of you. But only when you’re ready.
Sloane’s words from the limo released a flutter of tiny wings in her belly. All she had to do was ask. “Sloane?”

“Yeah?”

Excitement, nerves and fear tangled and quivered in her. Part of her wanted to chicken out. But a bigger portion was tired of living careful, worried about who she should be instead of who she could be. Her mouth was so dry, she went to the fridge and grabbed a water.

The phone hummed with patience in her ear.

“I want to let go with you.” After taking a drink of her water, she set the bottle down. “Will you spank me? I mean sex spanking.” She stared at the dark veins running through the granite countertop. Wished he was there now to touch her, to make it okay to want this.

He sucked in a harsh breath. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me you want it. I’m going to show you how fucking hot it’ll be when you’re naked and at my mercy. You’re going to put yourself in my hands and submit, letting me take care of you.” He made a noise that traveled across the line and sank into her chest. “I will take care of you. All you’ll have to do is let go. Trust me,” he said softly.

“I do.”

Chapter Ten

As soon as Sloane opened the door to his house on Friday evening, he recognized the sounds coming from the big-screen TV in his family room. Sloane’s last championship fight.

After dropping his suitcase, he went to the fridge and snagged a cold beer. Downing a quarter of the bottle, he glanced at the screen.

It was the younger, rougher version of him. Wearing only shorts, his muscles rippling as the ref held his hand high in the air, Sloane “Vengeance” Michaels won his third and final heavyweight championship.

When the cameras zoomed in for a close-up, Sloane’s eyes burned a golden fire of retribution.

A sense of tired nostalgia twisted through him. At a time when he should have embraced the moment, celebrated, all he’d been thinking was that he was one step closer to his ultimate goal.

Revenge.

The screen froze.

Sloane shifted his attention to Drake sitting in the recliner flanking his sofa. What was his game? Showing Sloane that he’d been a fighter not a killer? “Don’t start.”

“Sometimes it’s not about you.”

Drake looked like hell. His eyes were sunken, and his shoulder blades stood out as an obscene reminder that cancer was winning this fight. Sloane rotated his head, trying to ease the stress in his neck and the agony eating his spine at the thought of losing Drake. He walked to the coffee table, dropped his ass down and rested his elbows on his thighs. His knees brushed Drake’s. “Tell me.”

Vulnerability like he’d never seen before swam in Drake’s blue eyes. “Had some stomach trouble.”

Sloane had held Drake as he’d puked up his guts a few times. Hauled his too-skinny ass into the shower a few more times. He knew it happened. “Where the hell is your nurse?”

A smile teased his lips. “Your girl and Sherry didn’t like the way she was doing her job, fired her and the agency that sent her. They’ve been taking turns along with Kellen, helping me out.”

Sloane damn near dropped his beer. “My girl?”

A soft expression chased out the shadows. “Kat. She’s been altering some of her muffin recipes, trying to find something I can hold down. Her friend Kellen has been making shakes and doing massages to ease some pain.”

Sloane opened his mouth. Then shut it. Christ, all this happened while he was gone?

“Speechless?”

He tried to gather his wits. “Why’d they fire the nurse?”

His eyes cut to the left. “I got sick after dinner Wednesday night and didn’t make it to the bathroom. The nurse said handling that wasn’t her job. I thought Sherry was the one with the temper? Holy shitballs, Sloane, Kat’s fierce when she’s angry.”

His thoughts boiled violently. His chest burned with the reality that Drake was getting sicker and with fury that the nurse had treated him that way. Added to that was frustration that he’d wanted Kat to come over, hang out and have fun, not end up taking care of Drake. Sherry had told him that she and Kat were really hitting it off, and she thought they could be friends.

But the worst part? Sloane should have been here. Ethan was strong enough to lift Drake, and the kid would shower the man off without flinching. But it should have been Sloane. Laying his hand on Drake’s bony leg, he said, “I’m done traveling for now. I’ll be here.” No matter how fucked up it was to have to watch the man who was like a father to him dying by inches.

Drake turned off the TV and leveled his gaze on Sloane. “What happened in Brazil? You trained with Marcus?”

Sloane drained his beer. “Yes.” Marcus was one of the best Brazilian jujitsu martial artists in the world.

“Your rear naked chokehold?”

“Lion ready.” Sloane was that good—he could kill a lion with the hold. He knew it, his trainers new it, but the public did not. Sloane had carefully crafted his image as staying in shape to be more camera ready than cage ready. Cradling the empty beer bottle between his thighs, he said, “Got a little close to the edge with one sparring partner.”

“You put him to sleep?”

“So fast, he didn’t tap.” He paid a hell of a lot of money to train with a partner competent enough to recognize when they were in danger. “He was supposed to be trained. He should have tapped.” The memory of his opponent going limp in Sloane’s hold still ate at his guts. That was one of the reasons he’d trained to react so fast to tapping—seconds mattered in a chokehold.

Realizing he’d been staring at the floor, he looked up and got hit with Drake’s knowing expression. Sloane could read the man like a book. “It’s not the same thing.” Killing his sparring partner would have been an accident that would have sickened Sloane.

Drake raised his brows. “What’s that?”

Setting the beer bottle aside, he forced ice into his veins. “Lee Foster deserves to die.”

“He does. What he did to Sara…I should have killed him myself. But I didn’t.” Drake leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “I tried to do the right thing that day. It was bad enough Sara was killed. I didn’t want your life destroyed too.”

“You wanted to kill Foster?” In all these years, Drake had never said that.

Drake opened his eyes, the old steely fire burning in their depths. “On the spot. But I’d been down that road, son, and it’s a hellish one. Instead, I tried to give you another path.” His fingers tightened around the remote. “But if I couldn’t keep you from your plan, then I was going to kill Foster first before you could.”

That smashed into him like a train. Sloane jackknifed to his feet and stared down at the man, trying to process the words. “You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly.”

No, that was insane. “Sara was my sister. I wasn’t there when I should have been, I owe her this.” He’d held her body to him, swearing he would get vengeance for her. He couldn’t break that promise to her. If he did, then he was just like his mother. Worse than his mother.

Drake nodded slowly. “I know that’s what you believe.”

Sloane looked out the wall of windows into the dark barren night. If he could see his own soul, that’s what it would look like—dark and empty.

Enough of this. “I’m taking a shower, then I’ll get you something to eat.” He started toward the stairs.

“Want to know why I was watching your fight when you came in?”

He paused. “Why?”

“You’re like a son to me. I was never going to let you kill Foster. I was always going to get in that cage and do it for you. Always. But now I don’t even know if I’ll still be breathing when you face Foster and make your choice.”

Brutal reality gripped Sloane by the throat. The once huge and winning fighter was losing the biggest battle of his life. The man didn’t deserve to suffer a vicious disease that took away everything he had, his dreams, his hope, his dignity—took everything from him, even his breath. Drake had made one mistake, yeah, but he’d spent decades since then caring for kids no one else did. Ugly grief and helpless rage twisted Sloane’s guts.

“I watched your old fights, looking at the man I came to love as a son, the man I’m going to fail when he needs me the most.”

He had no words. Nothing. It just fucking hurt. He’d never known Drake felt that way.

A son.

Him?

Drake picked up the remote and turned the TV on. The roar of the crowd surged from the surround-sound speakers as Sloane was declared a three-time champion.

So why was it that Sloane felt like anything but?

* * *

After his shower, Sloane was striding barefoot through his living room when he heard his front door open. He swung left and stopped. “Kat.”