20. Scarlett
TWENTY
Startled, I almost scream when he grabs me.
“Let me go, Malone.”
He shoves me back against the wall of the building, air pushing from my lungs in a sharp gasp. The vein in his neck throbs, his lips pulled into a tight line.
No one’s out and about at this hour. I’m at his mercy, and he knows it. “I told you to stay inside. Where the fuck are you sneaking off to?”
I push him away, and the only reason I can do that is because he lets me. I turn and breathe hard, staring up at him. “To see my secret boyfriend.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend.”
I try to shove him again, but this time, he captures my hand. “Secret. You understand the word?”
“Absolutely.” He laughs. He actually laughs at me. “No secret boyfriend, Red. You haven’t had sex in about a year. The last date you went on was four months ago.”
The world veers sideways. How the hell did he know that?
“Can we not do this here?” I glare at him, and he gives me that mildly amused look that I want to smack off his face. “We’re on the street?—”
“And it’s late enough that this part of SoHo isn’t that active. This is the rich fuck mecca for shopping. Stores are shut down so it’s pretty quiet now.”
“Says the rich fuck.”
“Coming from a rich bitch.”
I curl my hand into a fist. He grabs me, hauls me over to a black car I didn’t notice, one of those smaller-type limos. And then he opens the door and pushes me inside.
Glaring at him, I lean forward on the seat as he gets in after me, blocking me with his body. He taps on the window partition. It lowers. “Drive.”
Then it goes back up and he flicks me a look.
“You’re such an insufferable ass.”
“And you keep walking on dangerous ground,” he says. “Where the fuck were you going?”
“Contrary to what you think, you’re not my boss or warden. You make me stay here with you and I’m doing that to help my family, but beyond that?—”
“Beyond that, what? You understand the terms of our deal, Scarlett.” He eyes me from head to toe. “You understood them this morning when you crawled to me, sucked my cock, and then sat on my face. Until this ends, you’re mine to do with as I please.”
“And where were you?” I snap, trying to get myself back under control.
“I don’t answer to you.”
“If you want a fake relationship, maybe you’d better.” I’m flying toward the sun, playing with fire I shouldn’t, and his expression hasn’t changed.
But the atmosphere has.
It’s charged with so much that it chokes me.
And right now, I don’t care.
I poke a finger at his chest. “Don’t tell me you were at your sick little club.” The one that turns me on, thinking of the things he could do to me while we’re there. But I ignore that. “Because you weren’t. I called.”
He stares at me. “You called? Like some kind of fucking jealous little wife?”
“No—”
“It’s cute, I’ll give you that, your dedication to our little ruse.” He grabs me by the waist and hauls me over to his lap, his arm an iron lock around me. “But you should know the people who work at my club don’t give a fuck who you are or what you are to me. They don’t know. Front of the house doesn’t give a flying fuck about you.”
Those words hurt and I don’t know why. “Let go of me.”
He flips me so I’m stomach down, plastered on top of him. Like this, in the moving car, the space closes down to just him and me and very little air. I slam my hands on either side of him and struggle to sit up, but his grip on me is too strong.
“At least you wore a fucking dress.” He flips my skirt and yanks my underwear down.
“I don’t want to play?—”
“Too fucking bad. And who said a thing about playing?” His voice turns to dark, liquid silk. “This isn’t play, this is punishment.”
“Let me up.” I struggle as much as I can, but he refuses to release me. And hot tears burn my eyes.
“No.”
“You—ow!”
He spanks me, and the pain is so unexpected, a biting sting that cuts my protests into pieces.
“At my fucking job, my business, no one knows if I’m there or not. That’s the deal.” He’s so calm as he punctuated each word with a hard, painful slap.
“Liar,” I spit.
He hits me again.
“Call me that one more time, Scarlett,” he says, his silken voice a croon around my senses.
“Liar.” I know why I’m saying it. I want more of his hand. I want more of him. I want. I just fucking want.
He laughs and spanks me again and again. “I think you like this. You want this.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes,” he whispers. “I’ve been watching you, how you seek out the very edges of my tolerance so I can dominate you. Hurt you in the right way, make you beg and crawl and submit to me.”
“No, that’s not true?—”
He hits me again. The pain ricochets through me and I shudder, hating him, hating this, hating how it’s burning, the heat radiating through me. I hate him and this almost as much as I want him and this. The pain, the bite, the burn, the pleasure.
Malone rubs my ass, and then he lifts his hand and I wait, clenching with need and anticipation. But the next blow doesn’t come.
“We both know it’s true. Look at you, so fucking wet, and you’re waiting for me to smack you again. Christ, your fucking ass would look perfect with welts from a whip.” He bends close to my head so that our foreheads almost touch. “Or maybe a paddle. We can use one with studs or holes. I like the holes better, the sound it would make when I bring it down to your ass would be perfect.”
I swallow hard. I need to stop because I’m sliding down into something that I think has no bottom to it, nothing to cushion my fall. I’m losing control. “Let me up.”
“No.” His hand comes down again, harder this time. A rainstorm of blows hits my ass and I scream, writhing against him.
The worst part is he’s spot-on. I hate this, I love this, because through the pain and heat, a wild beat rumbles deep in me. Now he’s storming my defenses, weak as they are. I’m coming apart at the edges, and there’s only his hand hitting my ass and the pain-pleasure that’s rushing through me.
I moan as he hits me one more time, and when he pulls his hand away, the radiation of crackling fire is like a buzzing field of energy. It’s not enough. I need more.
And Malone senses it. So he gives me more. He pushes two fingers into my pussy and starts to fuck me with them.
He doesn’t even need to touch my clit to make me come with a violent cry as wave after wave of euphoria hits me.
“So fucking sweet,” he says, thrusting slowly through the aftermath. “So fucking hot how you get off on what I do to you.”
He’s hard, I can feel the steel of his erection pressing into my stomach. And I want it. I want him in my mouth, my pussy, and… God help me, I want his cock up my ass.
I want him in me as I ride him.
However I can get him.
He pulls his fingers from me, and he sits me up on his lap and I reach for him, intending to either ride his cock or swallow it down, but he stops me and pushes me back onto the opposite seat.
For a moment I’m dazed, trying to compute why he’s rejecting me, and my head can only think of one thing.
There’s someone else.
A wave of jealousy so sharp and violent hits me that I almost leap at him. “If you fucked someone else, I’ll castrate you while you sleep.”
Malone grins, his face brightening with genuine joy. He leans toward me and pulls me against him. “Sleep? Baby girl, where’s the fun in that? I dare you to try while I’m awake.”
And then he guides my mouth up to his and kisses me, long and slow, a symphony of seduction, and all the hard parts of me turn soft and molten.
“Damn you, Malone,” I mutter when he releases me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“That’s a loaded question. Same things as you, I’d guess. We both like to play in dangerous waters.”
“I don’t.” But I can’t quite meet his eye.
“Think of it this way. Soon you’ll be free of me.”
There’s something in the way he says it that makes a weight in me shift, and the last shimmery filaments from my orgasm vanish.
But I’m not sure I want to know what he means or whether it’s simply because when he finds who’s threatening my family, he’ll just keep his end of the bargain and end things.
That’s not a thing I want to explore. Especially not my reaction to that.
Because I don’t really want him.
My stomach knots.
Do I?
“Where were you sneaking off to?” he asks. And this time, I know as I take in the hardness in his eyes, that the punishment for giving him hell won’t be pleasure-filled. It’ll just be pain.
“Uncle Grant’s.”
He narrows his eyes. “Why?”
I breathe out. “Amelia, she… I think something happened today. I said I’d go see her.”
“She’s fine where she is. There are people watching.” But he looks at me, silent for a minute. “Okay, you’re actually worried. We’ll head there now.”
He calls out to the driver again and the car is on the way to my uncle’s.
He doesn’t ask where Uncle Grant is when we arrive and I’m glad, because I don’t know. Maybe he went in to work, maybe he’s got a woman. But when we walk inside the duplex, I find myself watching Malone with a growing wonder.
“Hey, kid,” he says to my cousin. “The cavalry’s here.” He introduces himself and asks what happened. She shakes, her eyes teary, voice cracking as she recounts what she saw. When she’s done, he takes her into the living room after asking me to get her a snack and a drink.
I shake my head. Amazing. Amelia was instantly captivated by him. Sweet Jesus. He’s like a ridiculously sexy Pied Piper.
When I come back, Amelia’s staring at Malone with adoration and she’s clearly less stressed. Telling him what she saw made her so upset. But now? She’s completely at ease. He makes soothing sounds and then gets up.
He’s a man who wears many hats.
And he’s calming and nice to Amelia.
I don’t know where the hell he’s been hiding that side of himself.
Because it both fits him but doesn’t fit the man I know intimately.
When he leaves the room to make a call, I sit next to my cousin. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” But her lip trembles, just a bit for me to notice.
I take her hand. “What really happened?”
“Like I said, some guy was hanging around across the street from the house. Or at least, I thought he was. He was staring at me. And he looked evil. So scary. I was getting out of the car after school, and…” She stops. “I’m overreacting. It’s not like he came after me.”
“Amy, it’s me.” I pause after using the nickname I gave her. “And I don’t think you are overreacting.”
“Malone said the same thing, but Dad keeps telling me I am.” She nods at a card on the coffee table. It just has a number on it and I know instantly it came from Malone. She looks over her shoulder, pulling her hand free. “Where did you pick up Mr. Gorgeous, anyway?”
“He’ll help if you need it,” I say, sidestepping her question. “And you’re not the type to overreact.”
“I…” Amelia sighs. She sits back against the cushions and tugs on her messy ponytail. She fidgets for a few seconds and plucks at the flowers on her blue socks. “He was creepy, the guy. He got too close a few times, and then at the edge of the street, he said, ‘Watch your back, bitch.’”
I let out a breath, take her hand, and squeeze it again. “Where’s your dad?”
“I’m not his keeper.”
“Maybe he’s working?” Weird. My uncle is a total helicopter parent.
But she just shrugs. “He’s busy these days.”
I look up as Malone comes back in.
“Does he do this often?” he asks. “Get too busy to come home?”
“I’m old enough to be on my own,” she says.
“Oh, Christ, there are two of you, Red,” Malone says to me.
I lift an eyebrow. “Two women who think for themselves. Shocking.”
“Can you both stay a while?” She bites her lip and looks from him to me. “I’d feel better. I know it’s stupid. I mean, there’s a doorman and lots of locks on our apartment door but…”
“Of course we’ll stay. We’ll wait until your father gets home,” Malone says.
“Good.” Amelia sighs. “Sometimes I… I hear things, like someone’s here. Or at the door, and when I look, there’s no one.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Malone says. “Get some rest.”
Amelia smiles. Then she rises. “Okay. It’s getting late. I have school tomorrow.”
Then she goes to her room. Malone waits a second to speak as he sends a text. Finally, he looks over at me. “Your uncle isn’t at the dock or at the office, and your father hasn’t returned. Why the fuck is he leaving his fifteen-year-old kid alone?”
“I don’t know, maybe he thinks she’s mature enough.”
Even to my ears it sounds wrong, and I don’t believe it, anyway. Uncle Grant’s the type of man to make sure his kid’s safe. It’s not something I’ve ever had to think about. Not until recently, but now? It doesn’t make sense. He’s been talking about her safety. He worries about her, and the look on Malone’s face reflects my thoughts.
He moves past me to a side table and idly goes through the papers there.
“Malone?”
“If we can find something…” But he stops as he looks around. “Does he have an office here?”
“Through there.” I nod toward the hallway.
But he doesn’t move. “You know it’s odd, right?”
“Of course I do.” And it’s odd he’s being so nice. I frown. “You don’t mind waiting around?”
“Fuck no.”
“Because you want to go through things here?” I’m not sure why it suddenly bothers me, but it does. Just like it suddenly bothers me that he’s more concerned with helping make sure a teenager is safe over his precious club.
It’s not that I think he’ll do something to her. But it doesn’t fit his selfish, criminal persona. And maybe it makes me think I read him wrong.
“If I can find anything to help lead me to who’s making these threats, I’ll rip apart everything I can.”
“What about your job?” I ask.
“What about it?”
“Shouldn’t you be there? At the club?”
He walks toward me and leans in close. “You know, you seem to think I’m a legitimate guy, running a legitimate business.”
“You’re a criminal, one who thinks about himself first, except right now,” I say. “Or is this thing with Amelia just an excuse to get in here? What is it you’re really after?”
“To help you and take advantage of the legitimacy you can bring me.”
“And if I want to know more about what you do?” I ask.
“Keep your nose out of my business, Red.”
Something’s not right. I know he’s a criminal, a bad man, someone who’s doing something good, but only to help himself move forward. Yet… that man wouldn’t have been so nice to my cousin, would he? He spoke to her like someone who cared on a basic level. He gave her a card with a number to call if she was scared or needed help. Yet…
The man he seems to want me to think he is wouldn’t care at all.
So what is he up to? Really?
I look him up and down, trying not to think about my ass or the fact he’s so close I could kiss him. “I’ve seen you in action. Seen you as a ruthless, sleazy BDSM sex club owner, as a murderer. And that man… why the hell is he being nice to my cousin?”
“You’d prefer I was an asshole?”
“You are an asshole. I’m just wondering what your agenda is. There’s no payoff in this.”
“There is,” he says. “Help your cousin, get the rewards from your family.”
“But you don’t…” I stop. “I think you’re up to something. The rewards, as you put them, won’t change. This threat isn’t something new, and we both know my uncle won’t see it that way.”
He backs away and crosses his arms. “Then why don’t you tell me what I’m up to?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I want to know who you really are. What you are.”
“You already know that.” There’s a deadly note in his voice, one I try to ignore.
“No, I don’t.” I look at him. “You want me to trust you’ll help us. Maybe you’re here to get information; maybe you’ve got another agenda. Maybe you’re working for whoever’s threatening us. And maybe you’re waiting to turn on us.”
“You got all that from me being nice to your cousin?” He doesn’t smile, his face is blank, calm, and the anger radiating off him mirrors the heat and pain he inflicted on my ass.
And I wonder…
Have I hit on something?
“Maybe,” I say quietly. “Maybe you’re just being nice because it got this door open for you.”
“You’re the one who reached out to me, Red. Remember?”
His expression doesn’t change, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s furious at me. On a cold, deadly level. “I have no doubt that you could have manipulated the situation and gotten onto my uncle’s radar as someone who could help. I’ve seen what you’re capable of.” I push through because I don’t care. “Because you’re up to something. Something other than the job at hand.”
He doesn’t say a word. Just waits.
I clench and unclench my fingers, my pulse hammering against my neck. “Who are you, really? And what is it that you really want from my family?”