My Sinful Love (Sinful Men Book 4) Page 5

  My orgasm slammed into me, fast and sharp as a hot knife. Seizing my body. Lighting me up. Racing across every inch of my skin. It was everywhere, rapid and furious, pulsing, and over far too soon. I was left panting, and not nearly sated enough.

  His name fell from my lips once more.

  I didn’t feel cold tonight.

  I was burning up.

  My body was alive again, and I feared I would become addicted to this feeling before my heart was ready.

  9

  Michael

  The dog’s legs flew, like a flip-book at high speed, as I cruised down the trail.

  No one ever beat the dog. Not even Colin, and he’d recently finished the Badass Triathlon. But today I was a few footfalls behind Johnny Cash, and my brothers Colin and Ryan were eating my dust.

  Pent-up lust could do that to a man. Desire could drive me to finish faster, push harder, focus more intensely.

  With sweat slicking down my chest and my heart pounding, I ran as the sun peeked over the hills at Red Rock Canyon. My thoughts cycled between the bare-bones one-foot-in-front-of-the-other adrenaline and sheer, unrepentant want.

  Last night was intense, sure. But it was only physical. It had to be that way. My ex-girlfriends had simply been wrong. As I whipped around a switchback, the black-and-white border collie in my crosshairs, I felt more confident than ever that my past relationship woes were never about Annalise. I wasn’t a player. I didn’t have a string of three-and-out dates trailing behind me. I’d had plenty of serious girlfriends over the years. I hadn’t settled down with any of them because I simply hadn’t met the right woman.

  Not because I was hung up on her.

  That was so not the case.

  As the dust churned up beneath my sneakers, my mind flashed back to Katrina’s comments a year ago. I’d been with her for ten months, but taking things to a serious level had never crossed my mind.

  When she’d ended it, she’d simply shaken her head in frustration and said, “You’re in love with the past.”

  I’d scoffed, doubtful. “What does that mean?”

  “Ask yourself. I’m done trying to figure you out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out. What you see is what you get.”

  “Well, what I’m getting isn’t enough. You’re stuck someplace else, Michael.”

  My quads burned from the fast pace on the dusty trail. Stuck. Ha. I was fine. Work and family were all I needed. Besides, I had too much going on. Business was booming, and the investigation into my father’s death had gotten its first big break in ages last month when the police had arrested the getaway driver.

  I was stuck on absolutely nothing.

  Seeing Annalise had proved that, hadn’t it? I wanted her, but I wasn’t caught up in her. I’d be a stone-cold idiot to be hung up on someone who’d moved on more than a decade ago.

  That kiss had proved it, I reasoned, as I neared the trailhead.

  That was enough to get her out of my system.

  Except I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss.

  That intoxicating kiss.

  That fucking kiss, which had ignited all my fantasies last night. She’d felt like fire in my arms, and just as hard to contain. But I’d craved the danger, the risk of touching her. Of what it might do to me to have her.

  It would either free me or wreck me.

  Those thoughts powered me the final feet to the end of the trail, where I caught up quickly to Ryan’s four-legged best friend. Johnny Cash panted hard, tongue lolling from his snout. My heart beat furiously as I pressed the spigot on the water fountain. “Here, boy,” I called, giving the dog first dibs on the water as Colin’s relentless pace bounded closer.

  “You bastard. You on the juice now?” he shouted as he caught up.

  “No. Ryan is. That’s the only way he can manage to finish within a minute of us,” I said, panting.

  Colin laughed as I took a drink of the water, then stepped away from the fountain for Colin to get his shot. When Ryan arrived, wiping his palm across his brow, I adopted a look of feigned disgust. “I see your almost-married life is slowing you down,” I said, teasing my brother, who’d recently gotten engaged.

  “Nothing slows me down. Not ever,” Ryan said. “I let you win.”

  “You wish.”

  I wandered over to the wooden fence that edged the lot, parking my foot on a post to stretch. Colin and Ryan joined me, and Johnny Cash trotted behind, slumping in a furry black-and-white heap at Ryan’s feet.

  “Listen. We’ve got some things to figure out,” I said, diving into a conversation I’d told my brothers we needed to have on our run today. “I was thinking we need to take care of Marcus when shit starts going down. Probably even sooner.”

  Colin nodded, shoving a hand through his dark hair. “Definitely. I’ve been talking to him about what to expect. He’s already working on transferring to another college out of state,” he said, breathing hard as he stretched his quads after our five-mile run. “That way he has a real reason to get out of town without his dad knowing he’s been giving key details to the detectives. He’s looking to go to school in Florida.”

  “Smart kid. And that’s where we come in,” I said. “We need to pay for his school and his new place, and make sure he’s got around-the-clock security for a while, even if he’s clear on the other side of the country.”

  “Absolutely,” Ryan quickly agreed.

  “No question about it.” Colin nodded.

  I pointed at Colin. “You see him the most. You let him know we’ve got his back on this, all right? He’s our brother, and we’ll take care of him. Without him, we might not have a chance at taking down the other men who killed our father. I want them all behind bars. Every last one of them.”

  With the revelation that our half-brother Marcus’s father, Luke, was the leader of the notorious street gang the Royal Sinners, the cops were working to devise the best way to dismantle the gang and connect Luke to our father’s murder. I reasoned that any sort of sting operation to take down the group’s head, who’d successfully operated as the clandestine leader for more than two decades, would put Marcus square in the face of danger.

  One man—the gunman, Jerry Stefano—was already in prison and had been for eighteen years. So was our mother, who’d plotted the murder. Now, Kenny Nelson, the getaway driver who had been arrested a few weeks ago, was likely on his way to the big house, but I wouldn’t rest until TJ Nelson, the alleged mastermind of the gunman’s hits, joined him there, along with the head of the gang. Apparently, Luke had been pulling the strings all along, hiding behind his harmless piano-teacher persona as he operated a gang of thieves, thugs, and murderers. I had hired the private detective, with Mindy’s help, to conduct my own recon, do my part to push things along.

  “I’ve got to hit the road. Lots to do in the office,” I said, then turned to Ryan. “I’m taking the afternoon off.”

  Ryan stopped in his tracks. “Whoa. You never take off. You prepping for your New York trip?”

  I was slated to meet with some clients in Manhattan at the end of the week. “Nope. Just a meeting locally.”

  “With who?” Ryan asked, and the question was perfectly reasonable because Ryan and I ran Sloan Protection Resources together.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t like lying, but I didn’t want to get into the details. I reached for the door handle of my car, trying to ignore the question.

  “Wait.” Ryan’s hand came down on my shoulder. “You’re seeing her.”

  I spun around. “What?”

  Ryan wagged his finger and grinned like he’d caught me red-handed. “Yep. I knew it. You told me she wrote to you, and I fucking knew you were going to see her.”

  I shrugged, trying to make light of it. “Big deal. So I saw her.”

  “And now you’re playing hooky to see her again,” Ryan teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

  I waved him off. “Not playing hooky. I’ll be working late tonight.”

  “Or
working late on Annalise,” Ryan called out as I shut the door.

  I flipped him the bird, and my brothers laughed. There wasn’t much that got past them. They knew how over the moon I’d been for Annalise back in high school. Hell, they knew her. Everyone knew her—my grandparents, my sister, even my father.

  My father had thought she was perfect for me.

  I flashed back to the note in my wallet. The one I kept with me at all times. My father’s last written words to me were about Annalise. As I peeled away from the hills and drove back to my home on the Strip, I replayed the thirty-six hours before my father had been killed. The breakfast with him the day before was a blur; the next morning with Annalise at the airport as I said goodbye was a smudge in my memory too.

  The one starkly clear event had happened after midnight.

  A snapshot blazed before my eyes. I swallowed hard, jammed the brakes, and pulled over to the side of the road.

  The image was too powerful to drive through.

  I’d been in my bed, trying to sleep. I’d bolted upright, remembering I’d left something in the car that day. I’d barely been sleeping anyway. I got out of bed, padded to the front door, and unlocked it. My father’s car was in the driveway. He’d been driving the limo that night, taking some teens to the prom, and after returning the limo to work, he drove his own car home.

  I headed for the car door then nearly tripped.

  On my father.

  My veins ran cold with fear, then denial, then a soul-ripping agony as I fell to my knees, grabbing, clutching, holding the lifeless body in the driveway. Soaked in blood. Heart no longer beating. Wallet open, ID and photos spilled everywhere along with, I’d learn later, a note my father had likely written to me earlier that day.

  The black of night cloaked me as I held my father, and I began to know the true meaning of the word horror.

  Pressing two fingers against the bridge of my nose, I let the memory recede, like a wave rolling out to sea. It would crash into me again, but for now, that image sent me back to the investigation. To the role my mother’s lover had played in the murder.

  The question remained—did Luke want Thomas Paige dead because he was in love with Thomas’s wife? Or was there some other motive at stake?

  10

  Becky

  “Coffee or tea? Tea, right?”

  The words seemed to float past me, indistinct, indecipherable. I hunched over the menu, studying it intently. Eggs, chia seed pudding—whatever that was—oats. My focus was singular—avoid the topic of my husband.

  That wouldn’t be easy. For so many reasons.

  But surely, perusing all of the food options here—so many avocado toast customizations at this hip breakfast café—would keep me busy for some time.

  “Tea with sugar, right?” Annalise said it louder, jarring me.

  I startled, then looked up. The waitress was here. I hadn’t even noticed her arrival.

  “Sorry, dear. Tea is fine,” I said to the waitress, fiddling with the edge of the menu.

  Annalise added, “Some sugar for the tea, please. And a coffee for me. Black.”

  The waitress nodded and swiveled on her heels.

  “Do you know what you want to eat?” Annalise asked when the woman was gone, and I shook my head. Now, if I could just stare at this menu the whole time.

  Except I wanted to catch up with the young woman who was the closest I’d ever come to having a daughter. I hadn’t seen her since she lived with my husband and me all those years ago, but we’d kept in touch from afar over the years.

  But I hardly knew how I would maintain a blank face once she surely started asking me about Sanders. How he was. What he was up to.

  There was a reason I never played cards—terrible bluffer.

  “Can’t decide.” Absently I ran my finger across the fork on the table. Perhaps I could delay ordering until the last minute, then I could simply focus on Annalise. Ask her about her job, keep her focused on that, and then deflect any and all questions about Sanders and Thomas and the past that had been dredged into the present.

  “Maybe the special, then? I saw it on the chalkboard. Eggs and chives with homemade sourdough bread,” she offered.

  “Sure, fine,” I said, since I had to choose something.

  After the waitress swung by again, Annalise ordered, then, straight shooter that she was, began with the obvious. “So, Sanders couldn’t make it today?”

  No, I wanted to shout. He couldn’t come. He’s busy. And no, I can’t tell you what he’s busy with, but it’s eating me alive. Instead, I plastered on a smile and did what I’d learned to do the last few months. “He’s busy with some things.” I waved a hand airily, like Sanders’s goings-on were all so ordinary lately. When they were anything but. “Appointments . . . you know.” Then I patted her hand. “Enough about me, love. I’m a boring old woman. Tell me all about you. Your life, what you’ve been up to. I want to hear everything.”

  I did my best to listen intently, only occasionally sneaking a peek at my phone, as we caught up on the highlights of the last eighteen years. There were highs and lows—awards she’d won in journalism, meeting her husband then losing him to an early and not unexpected death. I also took my turn, sharing what my boys were up to—their families, their jobs, their lives.

  “And Sanders?” Her question was gentle, but firm. She wanted to know how he was. Which was understandable.

  “Great,” I said, but something hitched in my voice.

  “Is everything okay?” Annalise reached out a hand, resting it on top of mine.

  “Yes,” I said quickly. My answer was both a lie and the truth.

  “Are you sure?” I said nothing. “Becky,” she said in a soft voice. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  My eyes squeezed closed, pained. I had to keep it together. Had to keep it inside. But, my God, carrying this—all these details—was a terrible burden. When I opened my eyes, I wiped a finger under my lashes, erasing the threat of tears. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.”

  “Is it Sanders?”

  I sighed heavily, admitting the barest truth. “I’m trying to keep it all together. I really am.”

  “Are you guys okay? Is he sick? Is that the appointment?”

  “Oh, no. He’s fit as can be. Well, he has that bad back. But he’s all good otherwise. It’s just . . .”

  “You’re not separating, are you? Divorcing?” she asked. Even when she was younger, she’d never been one to tiptoe around a tough situation. And I wanted to talk. Oh, how I wanted to tell her—tell someone—everything.

  Instead, I shook my head. “I wouldn’t let him out of my grasp. Same for him,” I said, adding a light laugh. “It’s just been a tense few months.”

  She offered a soft smile. “I’m here if you want to talk. Or if you just want me to listen. After all, I’m leaving soon. Your secrets would be tucked safely away in my luggage on the return trip home,” she said playfully.

  The clawing desire rose up inside me to tell her how our lives had changed irrevocably since that day my husband was caught speeding.

  “Ever since the investigation . . .” I began, but then I trailed off. “I shouldn’t say anything. I can’t say anything.”

  She squeezed my hand. “I understand.”

  But did she? Did anyone? Would anyone understand when they knew? When the truth came out.

  She reached for the sugar, poured some into her coffee, and shifted gears. “So . . . is the big cruise still happening after Sanders retires?”

  “I hope so.” The cruise was our goal. If we made it there, we’d be in the clear. Blessedly in the clear. “Fingers crossed it doesn’t get put off.”

  Every night I made that wish, for a thousand reasons.

  And for one big reason.

  11

  Annalise

  Something was off.

  But I had no idea what.

  I could speculate though.

  As we talked more about little thin
gs, the wheels in my head started to turn, and I wondered what would defer Sanders’s retirement, and why was Becky so tense from the investigation. What on earth would they have to be worried about from an inquiry into an incident that had occurred eighteen years ago? Sanders was Thomas’s best friend back then. They’d worked together.

  The wheels picked up speed. Did Sanders know something? Was he talking to the cops?

  My heart squeezed.

  Oh.

  The appointment.

  Was it regarding the case? Did Sanders have something to hide? Did Becky? As the possibilities took shape, I cycled back eighteen years ago to a night when I’d slipped into the house late, lips bee-stung and bruised, hair a wild tumble, heart racing from being with Michael. Becky had been reading, waiting up for me, and we’d talked briefly in the living room.

  “So, young Michael Paige-Prince. You sure do like him. Is it serious?”

  I had nodded with a grin I couldn’t contain. “How do you say it? I am crazy for him.”

  “Yes. And I can see why. He’s smart, kind, a handsome young man.”

  “He is,” I had echoed, feeling dreamy, the way I’d always felt when I thought of the boy I was falling in love with.

  Becky had smiled. “He gets his good looks from his father.”

  At age sixteen, I’d barely registered the comment.

  Now, years later, I lingered on the remark. He gets his good looks from his father. Surely that was nothing, right? There had been no secret affair between Becky and Thomas, no long-simmering desire? It was just a comment, wasn’t it?

  I quieted my skeptical side, telling myself that Becky’s remarks from years ago couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her odd behavior today.

  As I said my goodbye at the end of the meal and slid into the back seat of the Uber waiting to whisk me to my shoot, I replayed last night.