Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Because there was just something in her tone, man. Can’t tell you what it was, but it didn’t seem to fit her. So I asked Sawyer if I could follow up, and I did, and here we are. Second question.”
“Why the ever-loving fucking hell didn’t you call me?”
That was a valid question. Were she my sister, I would have been just as pissed. “Not my place. She wanted you left out of it. She is, for all intents and purposes, my boss. Not for nothing, but it seems like your other sister…”
To that, he hung his head, exhaling. “I dunno how the fuck she got Reese to clam up. Reese was always the one to rat her out when they were teens. Thankfully, because it saved my mother and me a lot of headaches to deescalate the situations before she could fly off the handle. Coffee?”
I nodded my head and took it from his hands. “Thanks.”
“Now, as for my request.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I think we are on the same wavelength here in thinking that Kenz is not safe. Those messages and notes and shit—they all referenced the both of them. I don’t think he is going to stop just because he has Cass.
I think he wants Kenz too so he can complete his sick fucking fantasy.
And well, that fucking shit ain’t happening.
Not on my goddamn watch. But that being said, there will be times when I can’t be here or when she’s had enough of me, and we need a couple of minutes and… ”
“I got her, Paine.” Something in my voice made his gaze find mine, unwavering, boring into me and searching for something. “You can trust her with me.”
He nodded at that, hearing what I heard in my own voice—determination. I had fucked up enough, and the poor Cass girl got taken. I was not, was fucking not going to fall asleep on the job again.
No one was going to get Kenzi.
“You got somewhere you need to be right now?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I got my phone to look shit up and keep in touch with Sawyer, Brock, Barrett, and Lloyd if you need to be somewhere else.”
“I’m gonna hit the street. Call Breaker and Shooter, get them in from whatever fucking jobs they might be on. This is top priority.”
“Think you would’ve heard from Break by now,” I said, brows drawing together. “Barrett is using Alex, so if he has her, then Break has got to know.”
“Wasn’t thinking. Left my phone in the car. He’s probably going apeshit. Alright. Give me… two, three hours. I will come back and stay the night so you can handle some shit.”
He didn’t leave, though, pausing, looking down the hall to where the girls’ voices could be heard through the closed bathroom door—Reese’s hushed, Kenzi’s strong despite her mild breakdown just moments before.
“Paine,” I called, making him start and look at me. “I got her. Them,” I corrected, hoping that didn’t give too much away.
“Right. Two, three hours,” he said again, putting his mug down and heading into the hall.
The girls didn’t seem to be making their way out, so I brought my bag over to the door, taking the deadbolt that someone had left on the mail table, pulling the package open, then setting to work.
I had just closed and bolted the door when the bathroom door finally opened.
“Medieval filth cauldron!” Kenzi insisted, voice vehement.
“It will relax you! I have all these salts and bombs and stuff you can…” Reese’s voice trailed off when she spotted me, her cheeks going the slightest bit pink.
“I am not stewing in a bowl of my own filth, you freak,” Kenzi said, moving to the kitchen to pour coffee and pump two shots of some kind of syrup she kept on her counter.
“Oh my God, how dirty do you think you are?” Reese shot back, getting her own cup of coffee and putting a pump of the syrup in it too.
“Where’s Paine?” Kenzi asked instead of answering her sister.
“He wanted to go talk to Break and Shoot.”
She had pulled it together well enough, slipping her defenses on, refusing to crumble under the pressure. But there were traces of it all over her—in the swollen redness of her eyes, the way her lashes were clumped together with the tears still clinging there, the crease between her brows.
But she was done freaking out.
I had to respect that.
“Has anyone…” she started, only to be cut off by my phone. Normally, I hated answering when talking to another person, but this was a serious fucking issue, and I had no business missing any calls. So I reached for it.
And then another.
And another.
I had eighteen calls that night from everyone—from Paine, who was running a lot later than planned, to Lloyd, to the office, and Alex.
Nothing.
No one was getting anywhere.
Sometime around ten, Kenzi pushed Reese off to bed after watching her nod off three times while reading. She was obviously someone who turned in early but was trying to stay up for her sister.
“You can’t be comfortable,” she said a couple of minutes after we were alone.
She wasn’t wrong.
A man my size, I was convinced, was never supposed to sit on a goddamn pouf. That was what the glorified cushion I was sitting on was called.
“There’s plenty of room on the couch,” she said, pulling her legs in slightly and pulling her blanket up a bit so it wasn’t covering the other half of the couch.
And when a woman invited you closer, you just went.
I stuck my phone back on the charger, not expecting to hear much else for a while after so many dead ends.
Then I stood and moved toward her, sitting back against the couch that was a fuckuva lot more comfortable than it looked, reaching over to grab her legs, pulling them over my lap, then taking one of her feet between both my hands.
“What are you… oh,” she groaned, her head moving back, her back arching ever so slightly as her eyes pressed closed.
It was practically a fucking O-face, and it took every bit of self-control not to let desire sprout and grow through my system.
“Dunno how the fuck you walk on those stilts all day, every day.” I needed to talk because the second my thumb pressed into her arch, she let out a whimpering sound that went right to my dick.
“Not all of us can be five thousand feet tall in our bare feet,” she said, pushing her other foot toward my hand.
“You’re tall for a woman,” I shrugged, pressing the ache out of her second foot as she made another low groaning noise.
There was a long silence after—long enough for me to wonder if she was maybe even asleep— before her eyelids fluttered open. “So these massage skills of yours, are they strictly limited to feet?”
I felt my lips twitch and curve. “Curl up and see,” I suggested.
There wasn’t even a hesitation before she was scooting up and onto my left, mostly toward my other side, the upper half of her body curled forward so her face was resting in the curve of my shoulder, giving me almost complete access to her back.
Let’s just say that the close contact was causing issues, which thankfully she remained unaware of as her ass was situated fully on one of my thighs while I ran my hands up and down her back, digging in and working out knots where I found them.
The whimper thing, though, yeah, she kept doing that, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a simple foot or back rub could make her so vocally appreciative, what it would be like to feast on her pussy or bury deep inside her.
Her body melted into mine, her warm breath on my neck, her hands eventually moving up to rest around my shoulders.
“Tig?” Her voice was low, airy. If I wasn’t completely mistaken, turned on.
“Yeah, honey?”
She pressed back; my hands settled in the center of her back as she looked at me, eyelids heavy. “My best friend is missing.”
I felt my brows draw together slightly. “I know.”
She swallowed hard, wetting her lips slightly. “So this is really wrong.”
“What…”
I didn’t get to finish asking because her hands were sliding up my shoulders, the sides of my neck, then framing my face as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine.
Kenzi, even half-sick with worry, even after what had to have been the longest day of her life, still kissed like she lived—with every bit of herself in it.
There was no hesitation as she tilted her head and pressed the kiss deeper, as her tongue moved out and claimed mine.
My hands moved down her ass, sinking into the softness as she shifted until she was straddling me, pressing hard against me, her breasts crushed to my chest, and through her unpadded bra, I could feel her nipples hardening with desire.
Her hips sank down, pressing into my lap where my cock was already hard and straining, making her gasp and moan almost simultaneously.
My hands sank in harder, using her ass to drag her against my cock again.
Her hand left my jaw, curling into a fist and slamming down onto my shoulder with a moan.
Was I maybe taking advantage of a weak moment?
Probably. Should I have been the one in that highly emotionally charged situation to pull back and say she was freaking out and shouldn’t be making those kinds of decisions?
Hell, yeah. Did it make me a bit of a dick to let her fragile state allow me to fulfill something I had wanted for over a week since the second she walked her sexy ass into the office? Maybe.
But when I pulled her hips to do another stroke and her entire goddamn body trembled… yeah, I found myself not giving a fuck.
Maybe she would regret it.
Maybe she would cuss me out about taking advantage.
But those were problems I could deal with when they arose.
Right then, well, I wasn’t going to spoil a good fucking thing as her hips started moving of their own accord, riding me, grinding down hard, taking what she needed to stoke her desire.
Was there anything hotter than a woman who took what she needed without embarrassment?
I was pretty sure there wasn’t.
Her lips ripped from mine, her eyes opening, full of need as she made another move against me, her lips parting to let the moan slip through as her head tilted back slightly.
And it looked a helluva lot like an invitation.
One I was, of course, inclined to accept as I leaned forward and ran my tongue up the sensitive column of her neck, stopping to nip at her earlobe.
And it was right about fucking then that my phone decided to start screaming again.
She didn’t pull away at first. She rode me a little harder, her breathing getting more shallow, getting closer to an orgasm.
I wanted nothing more than to reach between us, slide my hand inside her panties, and drag one screaming out of her.
Then the phone stopped and started again, making her let out a loud grumble as she moved away from me, taking a deep breath.
“That might be important,” she reasoned, not able to look at me as she tried to pull it together.
Quite frankly, with the situation, every call was likely important.
So while every ounce of me was throbbing with the need to say fuck it, grab her, and drag her into her bedroom, I took a deep breath instead, standing and ignoring the chafing feeling of my hard cock against my jeans, and went for my phone.
It was the first of four calls and six emails I needed to look over from various sources.
Meanwhile, Kenzi regained control and slid back under her blanket, curling up on her side, not even bothering to pretend she wasn’t watching me for the first hour until she finally drifted off to sleep.
After which, I put the phone on silent, tucked it into my pocket, and went to lift her up into my arms, intent on bringing her to her bed and taking my ass back to the living room.
Distance.
We needed it.
I, especially, needed it so I could keep my head in the game.
I was almost to the hall when the door shook with what was likely meant to be a quiet knock, but given that it must have been Paine, it reverberated across the whole living space, making Kenzi grumble and turn her face into my chest.
I walked to the door, checked the peephole, then balanced her on my leg as I slid the locks, lifting her back up as Paine opened the door and moved in with a couple of bags in his hands.
He looked at me, then Kenz, seeming to pick up on maybe something deeper there, but saying nothing about it.
“Let me go put her in bed. Then we can talk.”
Kenzi’s room, as I had noticed earlier when I checked it, screamed of her—class, unabashed femininity, but an underlying streamlined neatness.
Three of the walls were a white that didn’t manage to hurt the eye.
But the wall behind her giant bed with a white tufted headboard and white sheets with a purple comforter was painted a deep royal purple.
The nightstands on either side were simple and minimalist, but the lights on them were glass and dainty.
Her closet door was open, an impressive amount of clothing practically bursting out of it.
There were white dressers with no adornments and then a vanity with a scalloped mirror and padded seat that had the entire surface covered in makeup, jewelry, brushes, creams, and two bottles of the perfume that always clung deliciously to her skin.
After I set her on the bed and tucked her in, I may have let my curiosity get the better of me, walking over and picking up the bottle.
On it, I found a label with her own damn name on it.
No wonder it was so unique.
She had it specially made.
Which, given how standout she was as a woman, a person, made perfect sense.
Shaking my head, trying to clear it of the sentimental, absurd thoughts, I moved back into the hall, closed her door, and made my way back toward the kitchen where Paine already had coffee dripping and Chinese takeout spread over the counter.
“What’d you find out?” I asked.
He turned to me, exhaling hard.
“Not a fucking thing.”
That was exactly what me, Sawyer, Brock, Barrett, Alex, and the cops had too.
Not a fucking thing.