Savage (7 page)

But what? Her father was a janitor. He didn’t have anything of value. He rarely even had money in his pockets. And what would a thief want with a passport and hotel key card?

She put the leftover food in the fridge and leaned against the counter. On the other hand, why had her father so carefully hidden the two things in his coat? Why not keep them in his wallet? Or better yet, at home?

The more she thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. Maybe he’d been having an affair, taking trips to meet a lover. It was difficult to imagine, but she wouldn’t have blamed him given the circumstances. Still, she couldn’t be sure.

And for some reason, she wanted to be sure.

She thought about Farrell. He was a man of resources, and if Kate was correct, a man of some influence now. He would likely be able to help her trace the key card using the stamps on her father’s passport.

She shook her head, disgusted with herself.
Call it what it is if you want to see him,
she thought.
At least be honest with yourself.

It was true. She did want to see him, although she knew nothing good would come of it. He was like a magnet, drawing her body in through some kind of gravitational force. Once she was in his orbit, it was nearly impossible to stay away, proving that she’d been right to do so all these years.

But she did want to know about her father’s final days and weeks. Wanted to know what he’d been thinking. Why he’d been taking trips, carrying around a hotel key card.

And Farrell Black was the only person who could help her.

F
arrell surveyed
the man standing across from him, sensing his fear. They were at the club, Farrell in his chair behind his desk while Leo stood next to Bobby Powers. Farrell knew Bobby expected him to stand. It’s what most people did during a power play. An effort to level the playing field, to eliminate the advantage someone might have by standing over you.

But that was bullshit. Farrell didn’t believe in power plays. You either had power or you didn’t. You were either in control or you weren’t. You could either back up your words with action or you couldn’t.

And Farrell did.

Farrell was.

Farrell could.

It didn’t matter whether he was sitting, standing, or laying down. He could end Bobby Powers with one well-placed blow, and Bobby knew it. The idea was tempting. He’d been on edge since he’d seen Jenna, all his feelings for her wound like a snake waiting to strike in the pit of his stomach.

And Bobby had betrayed his trust. A bookie who was responsible for one of London’s most lucrative territories, he’d been stealing money from Farrell for weeks. Farrell didn’t like it when people stole from him, but what he hated most of all was when people underestimated him. When they assumed they could steal from him without consequence. Then he felt obliged to show them the error of their ways.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” Farrell finally said. “Skimming money off the top, under-reporting on the bets you control, lying about it all… Those aren’t forgivable offenses in my world.”

“I know,” Bobby said. He managed to keep his voice even, but Farrell saw the twitch of his shoulders, recognized the uncontrollable shaking that accompanies extreme fear. Bobby Powers was shitting his pants. “I’m sorry. I just… with the ex-wife and the support… I let it get away from me.”

“Do you think I’m interested in your personal problems?” Farrell asked him.

“N-No. You’re right. It’s not your problem. Just… please.”

“Please?” Farrell lifted an eyebrow, then cut a glance at Leo. He was like a brick wall, face impassive, shoulders squared. He would do what needed to be done.

What Farrell told him to do.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Bobby said, trying again.

Farrell sat forward. “I don’t make decisions based on pity. My conscience only answers to reason, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to let you get away with stealing from me. It would set a bad example for the others in my employ. Encourage more theft. And that I can’t allow.”

Bobby was shaking his head, trying to back out of the room even though Leo had a firm handle on his arm. Farrell wanted to stand, step around his desk, let loose on Bobby’s doughy face, not because it would accomplish anything, but because he needed the release.

He drew in a breath, forcing himself to maintain control. Giving in to the urge would feel good, but it would be a sign of weakness. An acknowledgment that seeing Jenna had put him off balance. And he’d promised himself a long time ago that would never happen again.

“Take care of it,” Farrell said to Leo.

Leo nodded with speaking, He didn’t have to ask questions. He knew what Farrell wanted done.

“N-no! Please… I swear it will never happen again! I can pay it all back! Every cent!”

Leo was already shoving him out of the room. Farrell waited for the door to close to lean back in the chair. He should call one of the women in his phone. He needed a distraction. Needed to sink into someone who would make him forget Jenna.

But even as he thought it, he knew it was impossible. He hadn’t forgotten her once since she’d left him. Hadn’t gone a day without thinking about her, wanting her with him. Had resisted the urge to get on a plane to New York at least a hundred times over the years.

He’d been with other women. Lots of them. Each one had been a chance to forget Jenna. Each one had been an utter failure. It was her face he saw when he was fucking someone. Her body he dreamed of plundering when he took from the sea of faceless others.

But he’d managed it. Had been able to wake up in the morning, go about his business, take care of Evan. Now she was back and her very proximity was like a homing beacon calling to him across the city. She was so close.

So close and so far.

What would happen if he went to her? If he pulled her into his arms, touched his lips to hers, slipped his tongue into her mouth, stripped the clothes from her body…

A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts. “Yes.”

Leo stepped inside, looking uncommonly nervous.

“I know you didn’t do him on the premises,” Farrell said.

Leo shook his head. “We’re taking him outside the city.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Farrell asked. “Get him off the property.”

“In process,” Leo said. “But you have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Farrell didn't get visitors. He had employees and he had customers. Customers didn’t come to the office, and employees spent the entirety of their employ hoping they were never called to do so.

Leo rubbed at the dark scruff along his chin. “It’s Jenna. Jenna Carver.”

Farrell had to fight not to flinch. “She’s here?”

Leo nodded. “Heard it in the headset on my way out.”

A thousand images moved through his mind, all of them too bloody dangerous to entertain. “Send her up.”

“Will do.”

The fact that Leo’s face showed no sign of concern is part of why he was Farrell’s right hand man. He didn’t need anyone asking if he was okay. Didn’t want anyone looking out for him. Leo knew he could handle himself. He gave Farrell information and he left it the fuck alone.

A moment later the door opened. And then she was there, stepping into the room.

Jenna.

She was wearing jeans, her shapely legs filling out every inch of them. Through the opening in her coat he could make out the soft swell of her breasts, the delicate angle of her collarbone.

But it was her face that captivated him. The same combination of vulnerability and strength, wisdom and innocence, that he could never quite decode. Her eyes looked green today, although he knew from experience that they sometimes appeared amber, or even slightly brown. She gave him a tentative smile, revealing the tiny gap between her front teeth.

And that was when he knew he was fucked.

H
e regarded her impassively
, his eyes unreadable. She allowed herself a moment to drink him in, needing the time to calm the rapid beating of her heart, to even out her shallow breathing.

It had been like that since the moment he’d appeared at her side in that pub almost six years ago. She hadn’t been able to explain it. Still couldn’t. It was as if he emitted a frequency that was keyed into some primitive channel in her body. A channel that was all need and desire, that was so powerful it left no room for logic, for reason.

And it didn’t hurt that he was still sexy as hell.

His wide shoulders pulled at a fine black sweater. It clung to his muscled chest, the slight V-neck revealing a sliver of the smooth skin where she’d once lain her head as she drifted off to sleep. She knew how it would feel to run her palms up the planes of his chest, knew how his body would respond if she bit one of his nipples.

Behind the desk, gray trousers stretched across his big thighs. She forced her eyes away from the visible bulge between his legs, trying not to remember how big he was, how totally he filled her, so completely there hadn’t been space left for the darkness that had dogged her most of her life.

His eyes were dark, and she knew if she got close enough they would appear deep blue instead of gray.

Lily's eyes.

Except Farrell’s were cold, his jaw set in an expression that said she was nothing to him. An expression that had once been reserved for anyone but her.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked.

She cleared her throat, forcing her mind back to the reason for her visit. “I… Can I sit down?”

He hesitated, like he might actually decline the request, then nodded.

She lowered herself to one of the chairs across from his desk, then removed the passport and key card from her pocket. “My father was carrying these when he died.” She slid them across the desk.

He lowered his eyes to them. “So?”

“So… it’s weird. It’s not like him.”

He picked them up reluctantly, like he was hesitant to become part of whatever mystery she’d brought to his door. Or maybe he was just hesitant to have anything to do with her.

He flipped through the passport and turned the key card over in his hand. He tossed both back on the desk. “It’s not unheard of for someone to carry their passport,” Farrell asked. “They’re used as identification in all sorts of situations.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But his is stamped.”

“I saw it,” Farrell said. “Madrid, Amsterdam.”

“Except my dad didn’t travel,” Jenna said.

His smile was cold. “Apparently he did. Maybe you didn’t realize it because you were in New York.”

There was a bite to his words, a glimpse of the anger and pain she’d caused him by leaving. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Maybe, but he wasn’t carrying it in his wallet. It was sewn into his coat.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Sewn?”

She nodded. “We got a package with Dad’s things from the police station, but the passport and key card weren’t in his wallet. They were sewn into the lining of his jacket.”

Farrell’s brows knitted together. He reached for the passport again and flipped through it before meeting her eyes. “I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

Jenna tapped her foot, wondering if this had been a mistake. What had she been thinking? So her father had a passport and a key card. Kate was right; he’d probably been having an affair. Did Jenna really want to know? And why did she think Farrell would want to help her if she did?

“I want to know what he was doing,” she said. “He had very little money, and he hated leaving my mother alone, yet he visited two different countries in the months before his death. If it was innocent, why didn’t he carry this stuff in his wallet? Why go to the trouble of sewing it into his coat unless…”

She was only now fully articulating what had her worried.

“Unless he was trying to hide it,” Farrell finished.

She nodded.

“Maybe he didn’t want your mother to find it.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But it seems a bit extreme for someone like my father to sew anything into his coat.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just tapped his fingers on the passport. “I have friends at Heathrow,” he finally said. “I’ll see what I can do about the passport. But the key card might be harder to trace.” He picked it up, turned it over. “This number could be anything.”

She nodded. “I understand. I appreciate anything you can do.”

He raised his eyes to hers, studied her for a long moment. “Why me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Why come to me for help after all that’s happened between us? You made it abundantly clear you want nothing to do with me.”

She clasped her hands in her lap to hide the fact that they were shaking. “I told you in the letter it wasn’t personal. We just wanted different things.”

His gaze hardened. “That’s bullshit, Jenna.”

His eyes tunneled through all the excuses, all the lies, until she was sure he could see everything. The months alone in New York. The birth of their daughter, attended by no one but Jenna and her doctor and a nurse she’d never met before that day. The days and weeks and months afterward when she was terrified, when she saw Farrell every time she looked at Lily.

“Thank you for looking into this,” she said, rising from the chair. “I have to go.”

She hurried for the hall, desperate to get away from his gaze before she told him everything. She’d only opened the door a crack when she felt him behind her. He shut it with the flat of one hand, then put the other one over her head so she was captive under the archway of his arms.

For a moment, neither of them moved. His presence was palpable, even though he had yet to touch her. Her pulse was racing, moisture pooling between her legs as her body answered the silent call to his. She kept her hand on the door knob, as if that meant there was still hope that she would escape the room.

That she would escape him.

He dropped his head to her shoulder and turned his face toward her neck. She felt the whisper of his breath on her ear, and a shudder of pure need swept her body, so powerful it almost brought her to her knees.

She held still. Maybe if she didn’t move he would step away. Except she didn’t want him to step away. Didn’t want him to stop breathing her in like his life depended on it.

He lowered his lips to the sensitive spot where her collarbone met her shoulder and she almost moaned out loud. Her head involuntarily dropped to the other side to give him better access to the base of her neck, his lips searing her skin as he kissed his way toward her ear. The sensation was made all the more erotic by the fact that she couldn’t see him, that he stood just behind her without letting any part of his body touch hers.

She was breathing too fast. She needed to leave. Needed to get back to New York. Far away from Farrell and her memories and all the things he could still do to her.

All the things he’d always done to her.

But she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She closed her eyes instead, sinking into the feeling of his mouth on her ear, the tug of it between his teeth. She fought against the urge to nestle her ass against him, to feel the hardness she knew would be there, to give herself over to him the way she once had.

He trailed a line of soft kisses along her jaw, finally leaning in close enough that she could feel his hard-on brush against her ass. A surge of wetness raced to her center, and a sigh escaped her mouth before she could stop it.

He nudged her legs open from behind with his knee, forcefully enough that she might have been knocked off balance if not for the hand that snaked around her waist. It found its way under her sweater, and the heat from his palm against the bare skin of her stomach was a new kind of torture.

There were no words between them. Only this.

He cupped her breasts, thumbing her nipples through the lace of her bra as he licked her neck. She moaned, and he moved in closer, grinding his cock against her ass. She gasped at the feel of it, impossibly big and hard, then tried to press her thighs together to stop the throbbing that was pulsing between her legs.

But he wouldn’t have any of it. He growled, nudging her legs open farther, rubbing against her with more force while he massaged her breasts, now painfully sensitive, in dire need of his mouth and tongue.

He nibbled at her neck while his hand slid down her stomach, into her jeans. It was like a branding iron against her mound, and she opened her legs wider even as a part of her brain was rebelling, demanding to know what she was doing. What she was thinking.

She trembled as his fingers brushed against her clit, then gasped when they found their way through her soaking folds. She cried out as he moved them inside her, his thumb massaging her tiny bud while he fucked her with his fingers. She was moving against him now, out of her mind with the need to come, in a place where there was no logic.

No past and no future.

“God, I’ve missed feeling you come,” he murmured against her throat.

The voice jolted her out of her reverie. She was back in the one place she swore she’d never be. Back in Farrell Black’s arms, losing herself to him all over again. Forgetting all the things that mattered.

Like Lily, and giving her the life she deserved.

Jenna stiffened, wrapping one hand around Farrell’s wrist. He stopped moving his fingers inside her. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to clear the fog from the part of her brain that wanted nothing more than for Farrell to keep touching her. That wanted him to fuck her with the kind of abandon that had spoiled her for any other man.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still facing the door. “I just… I can’t.”

His hand slipped from her jeans, and she knew from the chill at her back that he’d stepped away from her. She took a few seconds to catch her breath. Then she left like the room was on fire.

Like she was on fire.