Son of the Enemy (22 page)

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Holy— He didn’t rape you, did he?”

If he had, he’d be dead now
, John thought. His fingers tightened around his gun.

“Not quite. But he would have if that alarm hadn’t gone off when it did.”

Bradshaw tried to wrap his arms around her, but she shrugged him off.

Good girl.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that that happened,” Bradshaw said, controlled anger in his tone. “That punk will regret the day he laid a hand on you.”

“No! Don’t hurt him. Not on my account. I knocked his balls into his throat anyway.”

Bradshaw stared at her. “What did you think I was going to do? Kill him?”

John tensed when she didn’t answer right away.

Christ, Hannah, say something.

“Why do you have a man at your gate checking for weapons?” she asked.

“I’m a prominent man. There are a lot of wackos out there who would like to steal from me, or take photos or whatnot. I’m protecting my privacy.”

Hannah crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to one side. Her body language said,
Bullshit.
“I see. And your guard just assumed I was a wacko? Most people don’t run their friends through metal detectors when they drop in unannounced.”

“The man made a mistake. He’ll be dealt with.”

“For a man who has a teenage son, I’d think you’d keep better company. The men I saw in your house, like Nick, looked like thugs, frankly. And they act like they’re afraid of you.”

Jesus Christ,
John thought.
She’s giving him a friggin’ lecture.

“I had some important clients with me tonight,” Bradshaw said. “They’re the kind of people who like to have protection, so I gave them protection. But that’s not why—”

“Why did you send dogs after me?”

Bradshaw remained remarkably cool, even though he had to be exasperated. “The dogs are a part of my security plan. Something hit the window, hard, and set off the alarm. When the alarms go off, the men who keep the dogs are immediately alerted. It takes time to call them back. I didn’t send them after you.” He stepped closer and laid his hands on her shoulders. “My God, Hannah, I was frantic when I realized you’d left the house. Why didn’t you just run out of the room? What made you run out of the house?”

“Nick made me run. And the alarms. They scared the hell out of me.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Bradshaw again tried to pull her into his arms but she shoved against his chest. “What—? Why are you acting like this? I told you I was sorry. What more can I do?”

“You can leave.”

“Why did you come to my house tonight?”

Was there a note of suspicion in his voice? John couldn’t see his face anymore, and Hannah was completely out of sight.

Damn, move back toward the door.

“It was an impulse. Stupid. I never should have gone there. If the cab hadn’t already taken off, I would have left as soon as that creep tried to frisk me.”

“If only you’d come on a different night, or called first.”

“Oh, believe me, I wish I’d called.”

“When you kissed me like that, it was all I could do not to take you upstairs and forget about that meeting.”

John could hear the blood pounding in his temples. How did she kiss him? God damn it! He shifted his position so he could see a part of Hannah’s back. Bradshaw’s hands were on her shoulders.

“I had a little too much wine,” she said.

“I know, I could smell it on your breath. But I didn’t care.”

“Thornton…”

“You’re not the kind of woman who would do something she really didn’t want to do just because she’d been drinking. That first night in the limo, you claimed—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You told me later that was all about the booze, too, but you and I both know it was because we’d had a great time with Emil and his wife.”

“Oh God,” Hannah groaned. “Why did you have to bring him up?”

“I know, I know, but it’s true. You wanted me that night. And even if the alcohol loosened you up, that doesn’t explain the other times.”

John’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth. If Bradshaw got any more graphic, he might have to just walk out there and blow his fucking head off.

Hannah stalked to the door and pulled it open. “I will not have this discussion. Please, just go.”

“Fine. I’ll go. But I plan to finish what we started tonight. It can be good between us.” He lowered his voice. “I know what you like and how you like it, Hannah. If I can make you scream in the back of a moving limo, just imagine what I could do to you in a big, soft bed.”

“Just go,” she whispered.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Plan to have dinner with me Monday night. We’ll take the scenic route home.” He pulled the door closed behind him.

John didn’t move until he heard the car pull away, then stuck his gun in his coat pocket and dropped the coat on the floor. As he turned to join Hannah in the living room, she surprised him by appearing in the doorway. They made eye contact briefly, but her expression was closed. She flipped the light back on, walked past him to her dresser and started pulling out underwear.

“I need to be back by Tuesday afternoon,” she said. “And we’re staying in separate rooms.”

The hell they were. “I’ll book something at a nearby hotel.”

She opened another drawer and pulled out a couple of sweaters. “Nearby what?”

“Nearby the house in Marblehead.”

She looked up.

He nodded.

She frowned and became suddenly very irritable. “And I’m just supposed to trust you. What are you going to do? Stick me under the bed and try to make me remember?”

“If necessary.”

She unzipped the suitcase and dumped in the underwear and sweaters. “I’m sure whoever lives there now will just be thrilled to have us poking around the master bedroom.”

“It’s a bed and breakfast. Has been for twenty-one years.”

She turned to the window, as though she could see the past reflected there. “I’m not ready for this. And I don’t automatically accept what a convicted murderer has to say about anything.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t care who he is. I hate that man. I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate him. He took everything from me.”

“You hate the man who killed your mother,” John said, absorbing the pain her words inflicted. “Whoever he is. My father is not capable of murder. Not then, not now.”

Hannah squinted up at him, as though she had trouble seeing him. “Putting aside all the ways you’ve deceived me, how could you manipulate a sick old man into believing you were writing a book about him and his baby? Other than Bebe, the Grange School was the most important thing in Arthur’s life, and you exploited that for your own purposes. I’ll never forgive you for disappointing him.”

John scrubbed a hand over his face and around the back of his neck. “Fine, I’m a heartless bastard, okay? I’m not going to hold a gun to your head, Hannah. Either decide you want the truth about your mother’s murder or not, but either way you’re not safe here.”

“Oh, please. Let’s just acknowledge that this is about saving your father’s ass and drop the bullshit about my safety.”

Goddamn it
. What was it going to take to convince her that he really did care about her? “If you don’t want to do it for me, then do it for your mother. She would want you to be safe from this maniac.”

Hannah’s expression hardened. “You don’t know what my mother would or wouldn’t want.” She brushed past him to get to the closet. “I’m going to Marblehead because I don’t want to deal with Thornton or the FBI and because I figure anyone who can lie as well as you do must be a reasonably good agent. So if you’ve got a hunch, who am I to doubt it?”

“You’re a pretty good liar yourself.”

She stopped moving for a moment, then bent over to pick up some shoes and yanked a skirt off a hanger. Her movements were jerky. When she walked back to the bed to throw her things in the suitcase her cheeks were flushed.

“You never said a word about Santini’s visit,” he pressed, knowing he’d never had the right to expect honesty or openness from her, but too churned up to stop now. “You said you didn’t want to go to the beach because your life was too complicated.”

“Get out of here so I can get dressed.”

He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Like I haven’t seen it all.” Yeah, it was an asshole thing to say, but he was hurt and angry and felt like giving a little back. He gestured with his head toward the living room, where Bradshaw had been a few minutes earlier. “And I guess I’m not the only one.”

Her control snapped before his eyes. “No, you’re sure as hell not,” she spat. “Lots of men have had me, so don’t think you’re anything special.”

John caught her arms and pushed her backward onto the bed, then covered her body with his own. It was time she understood he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. She struggled to push him off, but he held her wrists beside her head and didn’t budge.

“So, you and Bradshaw only had sex in limos, huh?” He tried not to clench his teeth. “Pretty kinky.”

Her eyes flashed. “Yeah, it really turned me on doing it in a moving car. Reminded me of the old days, you know, doing it in the backseat? I’m sure you can relate.”

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Sure you do. I liked it when Thornton took all my clothes off and he stayed fully dressed, especially if he was wearing a tux.”

John’s heart was pounding. “That’s enough.”

“He liked me to keep on my garter belt and heels, but nothing else. Not even—”

“I’m warning you, Hannah.”

“—my panties. Nothing. He would close the front panel, but there was always the chance that the driver would peek.”

“No more, goddamn it!” His lips were inches from her face, and he was pressing her wrists hard into the bed. “You think I want to hear about another man fucking you in a limo? I know why you’re so pissed off. You wish you didn’t care. Well, guess what? Right now I wish I didn’t give a damn about you, either, but I do.”

“He liked it rough,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. Her breath was coming fast. “He’d pull off his tie and wrap it around my wrists and then tie it to the—”

It was his turn to lose it. “Oh, you want it rough, huh?” His heart pounded so loud it was deafening. “I’ll give you rough.” He yanked the belt off her robe, pulled her hands up over her head and tied them tight, then dragged her up to the head of the bed and fastened it to the post.

“What the hell do you—?”

He cut off her words with a fierce kiss that had their teeth clanking together. She tugged at the belt and thrashed her head to break the kiss but he held her face in his hands until she stopped fighting it and began to tangle her tongue with his. When she began to arch into him, he pulled his head back and demanded. “How’re we doing?”

“John—”

He nipped at her neck hard enough to make her gasp. “That’s right,” he said, anger and lust fueling his need to possess her. He shifted his body lower on hers and grabbed her breasts in both hands, pinching her nipples as she groaned and writhed beneath him. He pulled one into his mouth and sucked hard, using his teeth. Her cries sounded like a mix of ecstasy and pain.

“Is that how he does it?” He barely recognized his own, savage voice.

“No. John—”

“Then let’s try it again.” He went to work on her other breast, biting and sucking with a ferocity he’d never felt before. His cock was so hard he felt like he was ready to explode, but he wasn’t done with her yet. Not by a long shot.

He pushed her legs open with his, then used both hands to force her knees up almost to her chest, spreading her as wide as she could go. “Let me know if I’m getting it right.”

She lifted her head and he could see the flush in her cheeks, the heavy lidded eyes and swollen lips—almost as swollen as the creamy lips he’d exposed between her thighs. Her breath was coming as pants, same as his. “Wait,” she rasped. “I—”

“No waiting,” he said, and ground his stubbled face into her soft wetness. She arched into him, and he covered her with his mouth and tongue, probing, sucking, thrusting his tongue inside her, over and over as she gasped and begged. He felt her stiffen and then shudder as she cried out her release. And then he couldn’t wait anymore for his own.

He got to his knees, undid his jeans and pulled them just low enough to release his cock. The smile he shot her felt as evil as his heart when he pushed her legs down and straddled her face. “I could get used to this,” he said, and thrust his cock into her open, waiting mouth.

She groaned as she ran her tongue up his shaft, then sucked the purple head. Oh,
Christ
, it felt too good, too good. Seeing her bound beneath him, sucking his cock, gave him a sense of carnal power so intense he felt ready to explode. The jealousy that was burning a hole in his gut reared its ugly head. “Did you suck Bradshaw’s cock too?”

She stopped, eyes wide, just for a moment, and then the fierce light returned and she nodded.

The hole got bigger. Badder. “Did he push it in deep, like this?” He thrust and she reared her head back, then seemed to recover and sucked harder. When he was nearly blind with need he pulled out, flipped her onto her stomach and pushed his cock inside her, all the way to the hilt.

“Here we go.” He grabbed on to her hips and fucked her hard, his balls smacking into her with each angry thrust. Beneath him she groaned and begged for more. Yeah, she liked it rough, all right. And that bastard, Bradshaw, had figured it out first.

When he finished he pulled out of her and climbed off the bed. He was breathing heavily, like he’d run a marathon. Hannah just lay there, still bound, also struggling for breath. He untied the terry belt from the bedpost and then freed her wrists. She pulled them to her chest, but didn’t roll over.

That’s when the guilt set in.

“Shit,” he muttered, and sat down beside her. He stroked her hair gently. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Hannah.”

Nothing.

“I was jealous and pissed off, and I had no right.”