The Risqué Target (19 page)

She got as far as two steps. Tantum's arm caught her around the waist. He pulled her against his solid body. “Are you trying to defy me?”

“Defy you? What are you, the Almighty, or some maniac with delusions of grandeur?”

Nala was swung into the air and found herself situated over Tantum's knee as he sat on the bed.

She struggled desperately to break free, but he held her down with a firm hand on her back. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I'm showing you who's in control.” He yanked her flannels and panties down, and over her yell of protest, gave her ass a swift hard smack.

The shock of pain and sharper shock of humiliation shot straight to her pussy. It throbbed, and she dropped her head so he wouldn’t see her shameful pleasure.

“Your need for control is the most destructive thing about you,” he told her. “You chose to stay in that van instead of coming with me, just to keep control over the situation.” Another slap landed on her ass. “You drugged me to control a situation you didn’t understand, almost killing me.” His hand came down again, leaving a burning heat. “Now you won't wear the sling because it lessens your control. I can't trust your obsessive need for control, so for now, I'm taking total control of you and everything we do.” He drove home his point with a stinging slap on one ass cheek, then the other.

She lay over his thighs, shuddering, wondering if he felt the wetness flowing from her pussy. He rubbed her stinging flesh with the palm of his hand, “Are you willing to surrender now?”

“No,” she whispered, unable to let him stop. She wanted to feel his power again. She wanted his fingers to seek— She shuddered again.

His hand sloped over her ass. His fingertips increased the tingling heat, “Ah, what a bad girl you are. You
like
being spanked, don't you sweetheart?” A finger dipped lower, and she bit back a cry as it filled her. “That's why you won’t give in, isn't it?”

Picking up his thrust, Nala lifted her ass so he could go deeper. He pushed a second finger into her wetness, stretching her open. She moaned shamelessly, out for more. But he pulled his fingers out of her and gave her another hard slap across her lifted ass. She wiggled her hips, pleading for more.

“I'm not doing this to pleasure you.” His hand came down again on her bottom.

Oh, no?
she thought. She clenched her thighs in anticipation, but instead he rested his large hand on her. Her toes pushed into the carpet as she writhed from his abrupt abandonment, moaning out in ecstasy and silently begging for his touch.

“Nala.” He lightly tapped the aching places his hands had reddened. “Look at me,” he ordered, and this time she obeyed. She found his determined, fixed glare blazing down at her. “Now tell me,” he said and gave her ass a teasing pat. “Who's in control?”

When she didn’t answer, he pulled her up and tossed her gently on to the bed. The soft linen brushed her sore bottom as he climbed over her. She sighed, wanting him as much as she’d ever wanted anything. But her independence protested. She was nobody’s doormat. She narrowed her eyes. “Is that all you've got?”

“No, sweetheart.” His hand slid down and disappeared into his pants. His biceps bulged and the muscles shifted as she watched him give what appeared to be, hidden beneath the material, a stroke to his cock. He leaned down over her, “I've also got this,” he said, and she felt the tip of his head enter her. “And you want it, don't you?” He slipped a tad farther into her. As his fullness stretched her, she fisted the sheets into her hands. Desperately, she wanted more.

“Yes.” She struggled again for a breath from the sheer pleasure of him inside her. “Yes, give it to me.” She took hold of his shoulders to draw him closer, but the resolute man didn’t budge.

“Well, you can't have it.” He pulled back, taking his heated rod with him. “You’re still trying to be in control.” He stood and turned away from her. “Now, pull up your pants,” he ordered.

She shimmied into them, her wetness absorbed instantly into the fabric
. Is he really going to leave me like this? Oh my god, he is.
She watched in amazement as he snatched a pillow from the bed and tossed it to the floor beside the bed. He went to his closet, pulled out a blanket, and laid that on the floor too. He gave her one hard look before he settled on the makeshift bed.

She rolled over, turning her back to him.

****

Nala was falling. Her body flailed in the air, her arms light but heavy at the same time. She tensed for the impact….

And then her eyes flew open.

“Shit!” She'd fallen out of bed again, but this time she didn’t make it to the floor. This time, she was cushioned by Tantum’s sturdy body.

Strong arms wrapped around her waist. His eyes slit open, the blue-green sparkling in the moonlight like rare gems.

“You all right?” His voice sounded groggy but sincere.

“I-I’m sorry. I… I….” she stuttered, unsure of the proper social protocol for falling on top of your former kidnapper in the night.

He arched a brow. “Fell out of bed?”

“Yeah. It happens sometimes.” She started to slide off of him. Her heart took a slow nose dive when he let her go. She crawled back onto the bed, no longer warm like the man she had landed on, but cold and uninviting. When she heard the blankets ruffle and saw his form rise from the side of the bed, her heart quickened, only to stop cold again when he went into the bathroom instead of coming to her. Feeling defeated and foolish, she rolled over, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and released another huff.

The door opened and she heard his feet slide along the hardwood floor and stop when he reached the rug. She waited for the ruffling of the blankets as he settled himself down again for the night, but it didn’t come. Instead, she felt a slope in the bed, a short wave from the weight of his body. Unsure what to do, she tightened her fingers on the blanket. She knew she should tell him to get out, but when his arm came around her waist and he spooned her body into his, she lost all thoughts of pushing him away.

His finger feathered back her hair, tucking it behind her ear. He whispered, “There.” Pulling her closer and resting his chin on top of her head, he assured her, “I’ll keep you from falling, Nala.”

****

For the next two days, he kept his distance from her. They worked on the case, sorting through the information during the day. When night came, he tortured himself. Neither of them talked about it, but in the darkness, when the lights went out, he crawled into the bed and swallowed her body up into his arms.

Sure, he'd get stiff, hard as a steel rod, but the comfort of her in his arms tamed him. He didn’t want to disrupt the sense of home he felt while holding her, a tranquil sensation, like a cottage full of hope, a dwelling filled with unexplainable warmth.

He wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to hold out, though. Restrain himself,  not give into the growing sexual need building inside of him. But he'd been saved, for on the third day, their efforts were rewarded. His little wildcat had found a name.

Through the thousands of documents, lists, and receipts, they discovered Brent Walden. He had stayed at a motel two miles from the Hotel Monaco, and he'd been at the Monaco, signed in there the day of the first bomb. His name came up in Scranton as well, at a gas station where he had to show ID for an alcohol purchase.

There was nothing linking him to Niagara Falls, but they decided to pursue him anyway. He was, after all, the only lead they had. When they started to look into his background, their suspicions only heightened. Brent Walden had one off-shore account that they found, as well as an address in Arlington, Virginia, only an hour away from where they were.

****

Tantum glanced over at Nala in the car. He didn’t want to let her go when this was over. Yet the awareness sat uneasy in his gut. He couldn’t keep her. She was not an object, not an expensive toy or the latest model of some new gadget. No, she was a woman, one who had snagged his heart from the moment she bumped into him at the airport. And he didn’t want to be free. He wanted to be captured by her forever, and that scared the piss out of him.

He had no idea how to make her happy and keep her that way. He’d never been in any relationship for long. Being an agent for NESA was all he knew. She deserved more than a damaged man, a man marred from the inside out with scars.

Detach, Tantum.
That was what he kept telling himself. It was what he needed to do. He certainly had experience doing so in the past. Shit, he could write a handbook on how to let go, separate from another human being, and never look back. He wondered if that would sell on Amazon.

He slowed as they passed the last known address of Brent Walden and sighed with relief when he saw the foreclosure sign. He’d known he couldn’t stop her from going in, whether it was occupied or not. After they checked the outside and looked through all the windows, he jimmied the back door open. His hand searched behind him to restrain her until he’d scoped out whether they were really alone. He felt her swat him away and brush past him.

As they entered the kitchen, a horrid smell reached their nostrils, something rotten. When Nala shot Tantum an apprehensive look, he gave her his arrogant smile. “You’ve been watching too many B-grade thrillers.” A motion of his head indicated the sink full of dirty dishes. At least, that’s what they had once been. Little was left on them now but rancid discoloration, and the mold on a plate of whatever-it-used-to-be on the table looked petrified. “Not much left now, but in a closed-up house the stink of rotting food might linger for years.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, but she still felt uneasy.

He stepped into the living room. “Maybe no one's lived here in a while, but someone has certainly been here.”

The place had been ransacked. Tables were overturned, furniture moved. As they went through the small ranch-style home, they saw that every room had been rummaged through.

She stepped over a drawer lying in front of the door to a bedroom. “Do you think they found the USB?”

“I don’t know. Let's keep looking. Even if the USB’s gone, maybe we can find out where Brent Walden went after he deserted this hellhole.”

Nodding her head, she left the room. Tantum stepped into each room casually, but Nala didn’t share his confidence that all they smelled rotting was the food in the kitchen. Each time she walked through a door, she prepared herself for a sight she would rather not see. After all, Brent Walden had disappeared without a trace.

There was nothing personal to be found. No pictures, no bills, nothing that suggested Brent Walden had ever called the place home. Tantum riffled through the other bedroom but came up empty there too. When he found Nala standing in front of the linen closet in the bathroom, staring at the toiletries, he knew the look. “So what are you thinking?”

“Well, my partner used to say that we always look at the obvious things like wallet, safe, and file cabinets when we're trying to find something personal on someone, but we never think of the everyday things we come in contact with.” She continued with her inspection of the items in the closet.

“Who was your partner?”

She didn’t move, but sliced him a look from the corner of her eye. “It’s not important. He’s not with NESA anymore.”

Something in her look struck him as strange.
Is she trying to protect this man? Did she have feelings for him? Was she in love with him?
The last thought pushed a rush of fury through him, and in response, he had to ask himself if, for the first time in his life, he was jealous of another man.

Quickly she turned back to the closet. “See the soap?” She glanced over at him, rousing him from his thoughts of a man out there she might care for. Might be in love with.

“The bars come separately boxed, but in packs, like this one.” She pointed to some soap boxes on the shelf, attached by a band of colored paper. “I know this kind of soap. The boxes are attached like this and wrapped in shrink wrap. So, why is the clear wrapping taken off this pack if he didn’t need to open a box yet?”

She lifted the pack, felt the boxes, then opened one. Along with a bar of soap, there was a business card.

Tantum caught it out of the box. “Nora's Bridle Boutique,” he read aloud, showing her the card. “1267 Linden Lane.” From the flipside he read, “Suite 28, Room 14, LC 3.”

“Can’t be for real. Look, they didn’t even bother to spell ‘bridal’ right. But what's LC 3 mean?”

“Let’s go find out. That address isn’t far from here.” He started for the door.

“Nora's Bridal Boutique,” she muttered, repeating the address aloud to fix it in her memory. “Somehow, I don’t see a guy going to that much trouble to hide that he’s getting married.”