30DaystoSyn (15 page)

“Lina, aye!” he whispered against her
breast.

He ground the steel of his shaft against
her and tugged at her nipple. She saw stars in the bright blue sky over her as
he suckled her as a babe would its mother. He released one of her hands to use
his to cup her breast to better position it for his attention. He kneaded her
flesh and she groaned, thrashing her head from side to side on the sand. His
hand slid down her side, her hip, her thigh. So entranced with what his hand
and lips were doing, she barely felt the glide of her skirt as he inched it up
her leg until she felt the hot beach breeze wafting over her.

A harsh gasp exploded from her throat as
his hand brushed across the opening of her pantaloons. She bucked beneath him
and his teeth clenched tighter on her nipple to still her. She went rigid then
for his fingers had found the opening and delved inside. The touch of
fingertips along the most private part of her tore a cry from her very depths.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She bolted up from the mattress with her
hands snagged in the fabric of the coverlet. She shuddered for it had seemed so
real. She could almost feel the heat of him lying atop her, the scent of him
surrounding her. Her heart was racing and her lower body was so heavy with
desire she wanted to cry.

She looked at the calendar hanging on the
wall above the little makeshift desk in the corner of the room. It had only
been eleven days since she’d begun this devil’s bargain with the demon himself.
There were nineteen more days ahead of her and only the gods knew how many
nights of longing, throbbing and needing he intended to put her through.

With a loud moan, she fell back on the bed,
turned to her side and—clutching her pillow to her aching breasts—buried her
face against the softness.

Her heart was doing a funny little
squeezing thing. She was beginning to realize she desperately wanted the Kiwi.

For more than the nineteen days that were
left.

The migraine had never materialized but he
was miserable nevertheless. He’d spent the last five hours of his workday
staring out the window—getting nothing done, dodging calls, ignoring emails.
Playing hooky.

He kept glancing at the clock like an antsy
adolescent waiting for the end of the school day. The time moved in slow increments
that had him gnashing his teeth. He wanted to be out of his office, on his bike
and roaring home to change for the evening he had planned for his lady.

His lady, he thought and that brought a
smile to his lips. He was beginning to think of her in that way. What had
started out as a drunken bet nine years earlier between him, Jono, and Craigie
that he could find a woman willing to give up her virginity for a million
dollars was fast becoming the most exciting adventure he’d ever undertaken. It
was more thrilling than running with the bulls in Pamplona, racing in Monte
Carlo, cliff diving in Acapulco, or diving the blue holes of the Bahamas. It
was proving to be more rousing than the African photography safari the three
had gone on five years earlier. Wilder than shooting the whitewater rapids on
the Deschutes River in Oregon a year after that. It was more breathtaking than
bungee jumping one thousand and fify-three feet down off the Royal Gorge
Suspension Bridge over the Arkansas River three years before. The invigorating experience
of hang gliding in Interlaken, Switzerland two years ago on his thirty-fifth
birthday couldn’t compare. Not even the adrenaline pumping, death-defying run
down the seven-thousand-feet vertical drop down the ski run at La Grave, France
in 2012 could hold a candle to the stimulation he felt while waiting for Melina
to appear each night.

And though his time with Melina wasn’t
dangerous as his other pursuits had been, it was far more awe inspiring and
three times as exhilarating. He felt more a man with her in a dark office room
than on the summit of the most dangerous mountain.

Spike poked her head in. “You need anything
before I leave for the day?” she asked. “Strychnine-laced coffee,
arsenic-sprinkled cookies or a
Fer-de-Lance
to stuff in your pants?”

“Fuck you very much but no,” he said with a
nasty grin that would cower anyone other than the four people who knew him best.

“Then I’m outta here,” she said.

“Hey!” he called out. “Did you make the
reservation at Luigi’s?”

She gave him one of her patented go-to-hell
looks.

“Did you send the flowers?”

She flipped him the bird in answer and
disappeared through the door.

“I’m gonna fire your disrespectful ass,
Spike!” he yelled after her.

It was a hollow threat and she knew it. She
was one of the Fab Five, a dear and loyal friend. She’d been with him since the
very beginning of his tenure at the head of McGregor Industries. He had a
feeling she would be the fierce gatekeeper of his kingdom for as long as the
two of them drew breath.

Or one of them killed the other, he thought
as he heaved himself out of his chair.

He looked down at the computer screen
embedded in the top of his desk. There was a program that kept track of how
many people were in the building at any given time and exactly where they were.
It was something his security chief had helped design and soon they would be
marketing the prototype to offices across the globe. According to the stats on
the program, there were nineteen people—including him—left. Only three remained
on the top floor and he knew two of them were him and Spike. He wondered who
the third was but wasn’t curious enough to check.

Grabbing his suit coat from the hall tree
beside the door, he crooked his finger in the collar and slung it over his
shoulder. He hated playing dress up—and that was exactly how he saw it—so the
first thing he did each morning as soon as he could was shuck the coat, loosen his
tie, and roll up his shirtsleeves. Unless he was seeing clients or
representatives from China he didn’t care what people thought of his attire
while he was working.

Frankly, he didn’t care what anyone
thought. Period.

He realized he was tapping his foot impatiently
as he waited for the elevator to come back up from the parking level. He was
anxious to get on his bike and open the throttle. When the elevator door opened
and he saw the new head of PR standing inside the cage, he frowned.

“Forget something?” he asked, stepping
aside to allow her out.

She took a step to the side. “I’m not
getting out. I’m going down,” she said and her eyes fell to zero in on his
crotch.

Irritation prodded him. He looked down at
his watch. It was six-thirty and he should have been home long before now.
“Didn’t you just ride the elevator down?” he asked. He entered the elevator
even though a warning bell went off inside his head.

“Yes,” she said. She ran her tongue over
her upper lip. “I was waiting for you.”

He moved well away from her. “For what?” he
snapped. “I told you if you had questions to go to my assistant.” The door
closed.

“She can’t help me with the assistance I
need,” she said, her voice low and sultry. “She isn’t equipped for it.” Once
more her eyes went to his crotch.

He opened his mouth to warn her about the
insinuation but she was on him before he could. Her hand went between his legs
and she pressed her tall body tightly to his, pinning him to the wall. He was
so stunned by what she was doing—rubbing him vigorously through his slacks and
trying to put her lips on his—for a moment he didn’t react. When he did, it was
with a brutal growl that bared his teeth.

“Get the fuck off me, slut!” he snarled,
shoving her away.

She stumbled back, colliding with the far
wall. Her expression filled with fury and she came at him with her fingers
curled into claws.

The cramps had settled down somewhat to a
more endurable level. At least she could walk across the floor without
grunting. She washed her hair as she showered, shaved her legs, and stood
before the mirror wrapped in a towel as she plucked her eyebrows. She was
making more of an effort than she had before when preparing to meet with
him
.

“Stop referring to him that way,” she said
to the mirror. “He has a name. Use it!”

Trouble was he hadn’t given her permission
to. Each time she said his name, he stiffened although he didn’t seem to mind
her calling him Kiwi. Jonny and Craigie called him Synnie. She wondered if he’d
get annoyed with her if she tried that nickname. Most likely he would. It was
best if she stuck to Kiwi. That he didn’t seem to mind.

She looked down at her wristwatch and
realized she was running late. She needed to get a move on if she was going to
apply makeup. Her hair was wet and would be for a while yet but by the time he
came to pick her up, it would be dry enough. He liked it hanging loose around
her shoulders anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, she was pacing the
floor in the living, going to the front door now and again looking for
headlights pulling into her drive. Fifteen minutes after that and she was
biting her cuticles, worrying that he had changed his mind. After an hour
passed without any sign of him, she went into the kitchen to call the emergency
number Jono had given her. Just as she picked up the receiver, the sweep of
headlights flashed across the glass of the storm door.

“About time, Kiwi,” she mumbled. She
snatched her purse from the table in the little foyer, grabbed her coat from
the closet and opened the door.

But it wasn’t him standing there. It was
Jono and the look on his face said all was not well in his world.

“What’s happened?” she asked, fear making
her insides turn to sludge.

“He’s been arrested,” Jono said.

“
Arrested
? For what?”

“Attempted rape.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”
she whispered. “Who?”

“A woman at his office,” Jono said. “She
called 9-1-1 after she says she pushed him down the stairs in front of the
office to get away from him.”

“Pushed him down…” Her hand was trembling
as she put it to her mouth. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I haven’t
been allowed to see him. His one phone call went to his lawyer Jake and Synnie
asked Jake to call me.” He looked at her sadly. “He wanted me to come tell you
in person before you heard it on the news.”

“Oh my God,” she said, slumping against the
doorjamb.

“He wouldn’t do something like this, Lina,”
he told her. “Not Synnie. Of all people not him. I don’t know who the hell this
woman is or why she’s lying but there is no doubt in my mind she is.”

“Where is she now?” she asked as anger
began to override her shock at the news.

“They took her to the hospital. According
to Jake she’s pretty banged up. She says Synnie tried to force himself on her
in the elevator and she fought back. Supposedly he hit her repeatedly, tore her
clothing, and broke her nose…”

“He wouldn’t do that!” she protested.

“Of course not but it’s her word against
his.” He grimaced. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

“I have to go to him,” she said. She tried
to push past him but he reached out to stop her.

“They won’t let you see him,” he told her.
“At least not tonight. When I spoke to Jake he’d been booked but he hadn’t been
arraigned yet.”

“What about bail?” she asked. “Lord, Jonny,
I know nothing about this sort of thing?”

“They will set bail at his arraignment,”
Jono told her. “That’s when he’ll be formally charged and asked to enter a
plea. If he pleads not guilty—which I know he will—he’ll go to trial. The trial
date will be set later. Until then—if bail is set—he’ll be released on his own
recognizance until the trial.”

“And if he pleads guilty?”

“He won’t.”

“If he pleads guilty?” she persisted.

“Then he’ll give up his right to a trial
and be sentenced.”

“For how long?”

“Lina—”

“How long, Jonny?”

He exhaled loudly. “It depends. This isn’t
his first scrape with the law,” he said.

She stared at him. “What did he do?”

Jon shook his head. “It’s not for me to
tell you. I just thought you should know. When they find out he has a record in
New Zealand, things could get complicated. They are pretty tough on rapists
here in Georgia. Since there was assault and battery involved, they might give
him a life sentence.”

She staggered and he shot out a hand to
steady her.

“This can’t be happening,” she said,
shaking her head. “It can’t.”

“You have to be positive, little beaut,” he
said. “Think the best. We’re going to fight this. There’s no way we’ll let him
go to prison for something we know damn well he didn’t do.”

He’d forgotten how dehumanizing jail could
be.

And how terrifying.

The first time he’d been handcuffed and
mauled by the police, he’d been a scared but defiant seventeen-year-old boy
with a chip a mile wide riding his slender shoulders. He fought them, cursed
them and had his ass handed to him along with bruises, scrapes and a broken
finger. He thought he’d learned his lesson about fighting cops.

He was wrong. He’d fought them tonight and…

Had his ass handed to him.

Despite years of martial-arts training and
adding on muscle and bulk, he was no match for two determined cops with a Taser
who looked at him as though he were pond scum.

The same way the Auckland coppers had
looked at him.

But for a different reason.

Sitting on the cot with his elbows on his
knees and his head in his hands, he was just as frightened and felt just as
helpless as he had at seventeen. The major dissimilarity this time was he had
people who would fight for him, try to protect him, and who would have his back
even if it was against the wall.

“Pretty boy like you’s gonna be real
popular in prison.”