Ryland (20 page)

“I’d already escaped the first time by
then. But he caught me again later.” She moved to one of the chairs and sat
down. “He had had some results. I could move things with my mind before,
smaller things, but by the time I’d been ready to leave I could move nearly
anything. And I could control people. He didn’t know about that, I’m not even
sure he knows now, but I could and can. He just assumed because I wasn’t
showing him results that there were none.”

“You hid them from him and everyone
else. How did you escape? I’m sure now it wasn’t a case of him letting you go
when he thought you weren’t living up to his expectations. How did you manage
it?”

“I waited until there was hardly anyone
in the building and unlocked the door to my cage. By the time I had made it
through the building I’d gotten all the cleaning crew out, as well as any
security. They weren’t a part of what he was doing so I had no reason to hurt
them. There were a few others there. Some like me that were there as projects,
he called us, but others that he was using as specimens.” She looked at him.
“Two of them didn’t want to leave and I couldn’t make them.”

“It’s not your fault. They could have
left.” He sat down beside her. “We’re going to get him, Bronwyn. I swear to you
that we will. He and Crawford are going to pay. Pay with their lives, if I have
anything to do with it. Men like them are not worth you getting upset over.”

She grinned up at him. “You nearly had
him piss his pants when you put your paw on him. Christ, I could smell the fear
on him.”

“And he left here like we were chasing
him. I swear to you, since I’ve met you, I’ve never had so much fun. And I’ve
gotten to know my tiger a great deal better as well.” He lifted her from the
chair. “Do you know what I’d like to do right now if I didn’t have this meeting
that I have to attend?”

She slid to the floor and ran her hands
up his thighs. He watched her as she pushed him back a little and put her hands
on his belt. He felt his cock lengthen and thicken at what she was going to do
for him.

“You seem so tense. Do you think you’ll
make it until you come home if I helped you a little?” Her voice was like pure
sex and he shivered when she put her fingers on the clasp at his pants. “What
do you want, Ryland? Me to suck on you until you come down my throat, or would
you like to take me on the table behind you?”

He glanced at the table then back down
at her. “Both. I want to feel your mouth wrapped around me again, then I want
to pound into you until you come on that table. Do you think it’ll hold us?”

She eyed the table as she reached into
his pants. Hissing through his teeth, he lifted his ass up so she could pull
them down further. Ryland nearly fell off the chair when she nipped hard at his
cock. “Gently, love. If you do that again it’ll be over before you start.” She
grinned seductively at him and he knew he was in trouble. “Bronwyn, no.”

It was too late. She took his balls into
her mouth and rolled them. Gripping the chair harder, he rolled his hips
upward. When she took him into her mouth, he did cry out when she bit him. He
was going to come right now if she kept it up and he wasn’t sure if that was a
good thing or not. Her hand slid beneath him the next time he rocked into her
warm mouth and he trembled with anticipation.

“Come for me, Ryland. I want to feel you
come down my throat again.” Her command had him grabbing her head and holding
her over him as he fucked her. When her fingers slid over his puckered ass
muscles, he tightened his grip, knowing that as soon as she entered him, he was
gone.

He exploded. Not just his cock, but his
entire body came. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he felt the room
dim. She never stopped, not with her mouth or her finger inside of him. He
never knew that pain could be so amazingly wonderful.

Lifting her head from his cock, he
begged her, pleaded with her to stop. He was hurting now it felt so good. She
licked the last of his cum from the tip of his cock and watched him. He would
be lucky if he could move in a month. He looked down at her through his hooded
eyes. “I can’t move.”

She laughed.

“I’m serious. If the place caught on
fire, I’d be fucked.”

“Yes, you would.” She stood up and sat
on the chair next to him as he straightened his clothes. He wanted her, but
didn’t know if he could or not. But he could satisfy her in other ways.

When he reached for her, she shook her
head. “I’m going to expect to be satisfied a great many times when you get home
tonight.” She stood up when he did. “As a cat, as a human…anyway and every way
I want you.”

“Your wish is my command. I will do
anything you want so long as you come here again and help me with my tension,
let’s say…” He kissed her mouth long and hard, tasting him on her. “Daily.”

She nodded and giggled. They had very
little time now before the meeting and he was excited to have her input about
the men there wanting him to invest in their projects. She was going to be busy
tonight and asked for extra juice to be put in the room.
Christ,
Ryland
thought,
I love this woman.

Chapter 16

They had a plan. And as soon as he had
that fucking bitch in his possession he was making her take this hex off his
hand and would make her pay for what she’d done to him. And Eli knew it was
her. She’d tried to ruin him.

His hand was now in a soft cast. He’d
woken up after the meeting today with the Goldens with his hair brush again. He
didn’t even remember going to get it from his bedroom, but he had, and now he
was going to need surgery to repair the damage done to it. He glanced at the
hospital bill and snarled. She was so fucking going to pay.

The doctor at the emergency room had
taken one look at his hand and had sent for a consult with another doctor
immediately. Eli thought he was bringing in another doctor for a second opinion,
but he’d gone to get someone to evaluate his mental stability. He damn near
came up off the bed when he’d started asking questions.

“Why do you care what my financial
situation is?”

The man had looked up from his clipboard
and frowned at Eli.

“I mean, I have an injured hand and I
pay my bills. What’s the problem?”

“That looks self-inflicted, Mr.
Cunningham. We just want to make sure that when we let you go home, no more
injuries occur.”

Eli thought it was his “we let you go”
that had alerted him that things weren’t what he’d thought.

“You can understand our concern,
correct?”

“Not really. I have a seafood allergy. You
can and should ask my own physician if you don’t believe me.” He moved to the
side of the bed to leave as he continued. “I came here for help with my hand.
Whatever you’re inferring with your little clipboard and pen there, you can go
fuck yourself.”

He was nearly to the door when his
doctor came around the corner. He wanted to snarl at him for telling Eli to go
to the emergency room, that he’d meet him there and not be here. He would have
too if there hadn’t been a cop standing so close. He told his doctor what they
had tried to do to him.

“I’ve taken care of it for you. Come
now, let’s have a look at this.”

Four hours later, he was not in nearly
as much pain as he had been and the itching was not as intense. He looked down
at the cast and thought about what he was going to have to do to get his hand
looking like a hand again.

He’d gone to the bone in several places
when he’d used the brush. And on the back of his hand, near his thumb, it was
raw and torn so badly that the doctors had thought there might be muscle
damage. He was going to hurt Bronwyn in ways she couldn’t imagine. Then
Crawford had shown up at the hospital to bring him home.

“I want her and that ambush she’s with
tonight. We know where they are and I want you to go and distract the cats
while I get her.” Crawford had laughed. “You better have something poking you
to make you laugh right now or, so help me, I’ll kill you.”

“They call it a ‘streak.’ What a pussy
name for a bunch of cats.” He glanced over at Eli. “You ever heard of such a
thing?”

They were actually both the same, but
Eli figured that Crawford had liked the word ambush because of the way it
sounded. He had opened his mouth to tell him this when he thought better of it.
The explanations and the conversation they would have about it would drive him
insane.

“You just leave that streak of theirs to
us. We got it. I’m thinking that we’ll take that old lady’s house too. We could
make it into our sort of playhouse.” Eli glanced at him when he laughed again. “Maybe
can make it our headquarters. Have meetings and shit in it. Wouldn’t that piss
‘em off?”

“I doubt it since you’ll have to kill
them all to take anything from them. And just so you know, Ryland Golden is a
huge fucking male.” Eli thought about his paw digging into his chest. “And he’s
far from your average tiger. This man has smarts.”

“Shit, I’m not afraid of him. All it
takes is a good swipe to the neck and
poof
, he’s gone.” He drove for a
few more minutes before he turned to him again. “I still get to fuck her, don’t
I? Bronwyn? I get to fuck her, right?”

“If you’re into necrophilia, then I’d
say it’s fine.” He grinned when Crawford looked at him. “You’ll have to clear
it with her first. She might not be up for it.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll do that. You think I
could be a good necrophilia?” Eli nodded. “I think so too. Got all the right
parts to make myself set up as king of that…what did you call it again?”

“Necrophilia. And as soon as I have Bronwyn
I’ll make sure you have all the right parts to be king. It would be my
pleasure.” Eli had leaned back in the seat and smiled. He smiled now when he
thought about Crawford asking for some extra money to set her up as his queen
for a few weeks. Eli said he could have all the money he wanted.

And now they were only a few hours from
making it all happen. If Golden or one of his brothers killed Crawford, or even
if the old woman did, he was as good as dead anyway. As well as all his
minions. It was all starting to fall into place and he’d never been happier. The
phone ringing had him reaching for it before he could think to check who it
was. As soon as he heard her nasal voice, he started to hang up. He hated his
ex-wife.

“I’ve been trying to call you for over
two weeks. Where the fuck is that extra money you promised me for the extra
hour I had to wait for you to come and get them last time?” He closed his eyes,
not wanting to deal with her right now. “You said because you weren’t on time
you’d pay me. Where the fuck is it? I have expenses.”

“I just bet you do. And if you would
have looked on the last check I sent you, I added your payment. I divided up
how much I pay you per hour a month and added that amount. I think I was more
than generous. I was actually only forty-three minutes late and I paid you for
a whole hour.”

It had come to six dollars and
twenty-five cents. He’d never had so much fun writing out a check for her in
his life. When she started screaming at him about calling the courts, he let
her. He’d been doing some checking himself and she actually made a great deal
more money than he did at the moment. He should be getting paid, not the other
way around.

“I’m going to fucking sue you. Do you
know how much money I make an hour at my job that you made me late for?” He
told her that she didn’t work that night. “You’re checking up on me?”

“Of course I am. You don’t expect me to
pay you forty-five hundred dollars a month without making sure that my children
are well cared for, do you? I know every move you make, every dime you spend,
and what you spend it on.” The silence on her end of the conversation made him
bolder. “Who’s the fuck buddy this week? Is it still the guy across the street?
What do you think his little woman would think if she knew he was spending his
vacation fucking you on the couch I bought?”

“You mother fucking son of a bitch. You
have no rights to spy on me. I’m stuck with your fucking kids all day every day
while you get to do whatever the fuck you want. What if I told you that I
didn’t want them anymore? Huh? How would that be if I suddenly said fuck it and
dropped them off at your doorstep?”

“Do it.”

She sputtered several times before she
said, “Fuck off.”

“Thanks, but I’ve been there with you
and I’m telling you now, it wasn’t all that good and I had to fake it.” He hung
up. He reached for the phone again and made it so that she couldn’t call him
again without it going straight to voicemail. He was sick of her shit and hoped
she dropped the kids off. He would love to have them back in the house full
time. Plus, he wouldn’t have to pay her any more and that was a bonus all in
itself.

Crawford came in ten minutes later. He
was dressed in tear-away pants and a sleeveless t-shirt. He sat, more like
flopped, into the chair across from him. He looked excited. When his leg
started shaking, Eli looked at him. “Are you fucking stoned?”

Crawford nodded with a sloppy grin.

“You fool. Didn’t I tell you that things
have to go perfectly tonight? Do you think you’re on your best game when you’re
flying like this?”