30DaystoSyn (23 page)

Night Seventeen

Disgusted, she reached for the remote to
turn off the TV. The whole sordid circus that was being played and replayed on
every news station had become a feeding frenzy. Talking heads were gleefully
reporting the mayhem going on in Georgia. It had become the most reported news
item in the world.

“International entrepreneur Synjyn
McGregor—a pimp?” the news screamed.

Her heart went out to the Kiwi and she
wished she could go to him, be at his side as he tried to get away from the
reporters hounding him. But he had adamantly shot down that notion. He didn’t
want the press finding out about her and especially not now.

Not once had he replied to any of the
paparazzi who shoved microphones and cameras in his face. There were pictures
of him plastered in newspapers, tabloids and TV. Most videos showed close-ups
of a carefully blank face, relaxed posture, but a man in a hurry to escape the
sharks circling outside the gates of the subdivision where he lived and his
offices—his team of bodyguards firmly pushing away those who got too close.

But there was the occasional shot of a very
angry man with the burning eyes of a demon glaring into the camera. Body rigid,
lips tight, fists clenched he looked dangerous and that was the photo every TV
station was leading with. That was the picture that underscored the nasty
accusations his mother all too happily spouted to anyone who would listen.

“I am deeply, morally ashamed,” Olivia
Hanere had told a major Atlanta news station. “You cannot imagine the horrible
things my son has forced me to do over the years in order to have a roof over
my head.”

When asked what those horrible things had
been, Olivia had shaken her head, forced tears to her eyes and held up a
trembling hand as though to ward off a blow.

“Please, don’t make me talk about it. It is
too shameful.”

Though his juvenile record in New Zealand
had been sealed, his mother gave all the sordid details to the press. That he
had burned down the brothel where he had been born and raised—leaving his
mother destitute and without a home—and that he had been sent to prison for his
crime had become the lead for every news story.

The phone rang and she rushed to it,
picking it up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“I need you,” he said. “Baby, I really need
you.”

“Are you at the…?”

“No and I can’t risk Jono picking you up.
There are reporters following him and Spike. I can’t be sure my phones aren’t
tapped. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me where I told you about her. Do you
remember where that was?”

“Yes, I remember. I’m on my way.”

It was really cold on the river walk. The
heavy wool peacoat he was wearing and black knit cap kept away the chill but
the wind stung his cheeks. He was shivering but he refused to stay inside the
car. He’d always been claustrophobic and considering things were pressing down
on him like a ton of dirt even the interior of his car was too much to bear.

He saw the headlights coming and tensed,
hoping it was Melina and not the fucking paparazzi. He’d been hounded by those
jackals all day. Another confrontation with another aggressive reporter would
push him right over the edge. In one pocket of his coat was a Glock 17. In the
other was his permit to carry. He might not shoot the bugger but he would sure
as hell scare the shit out of him.

The moment he recognized her car, he
relaxed. He prayed she hadn’t been followed, that no one knew about her yet. He
didn’t want to drag her through the maelstrom that had become his life.

He was leaning against the front fender of
his car with his hands in the pockets of his coat and his legs crossed at the
ankle. As she turned into the parking spot beside his car, the sweep of her
headlights across his face revealed a man who had reached the end of his
ability to cope. He pushed away from his car and opened the door to hers before
she had come to a full stop. Settling into the seat beside her, he smelled
strongly—too strongly—of booze.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said as she
turned off the car and killed the headlights.

“I think I have a reason to,” he replied.

“Are you drunk?”

“Well on my way to getting there,” he told
her.

She held out her hand. “Give me your keys.”

He didn’t protest, just shot out his leg
and took the keys from his jean pocket, handed them over them before he rested
his head against the back of the seat.

“Is your car locked?”

He shrugged. “If a crim wants to steal it,
let him. The fucking reporters have my license plate number. Let them follow
someone else for a change.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked
though she knew his answer before he shook his head. “What can I do then?”

He swiveled his head on the backrest. “Take
me somewhere and fuck me ‘til I drop.”

She smiled. “Are you speeding up the
timetable or are you just blowing smoke up my whang-wang?”

He laughed—as she knew he would, needed
to—and reached for her hand. He brought it over to his thigh and pressed it to
him. “Whang-wang? Really?”

“Your Gigantitron, my whang-wang,” she
responded.

His prolonged laughter was nice to hear.
“You are so good for me, woman,” he told her.

“I aim to please,” she said then gave an
exaggerated sigh. “Even though all you do is tease.”

“Ooh,” he chuckled. “A poet and don’t know
it.”

“No, just a woman very worried about her
friend,” she replied.

“Friend,” he repeated and tightened his
hand over hers. “Is that all I am to you?”

“I don’t know what you are to me, Kiwi,”
she said. “I don’t know what I am to you.”

He leaned over to put his free hand to her
cheek then laid his forehead against hers. “You are fast becoming everything to
me,” he whispered. “The only lifeline I have right now.”

“You have Jonny and Craig and that woman
Spike,” she reminded him. “Not to mention Kit and Jake.”

“None of whom I want to hold me right now,”
he said softly.

She pushed him away and instantly hurt
shifted through those eyes she had once called the saddest she’d ever seen.

“Melina, I—”

“It’s cold,” she said, reaching for the
key. “I know a little motel out near Chamblee. We can spend the night there.”

He gave her a look that made her toes curl
in her sneakers. “All right,” he said and scooted down in the seat with his
head to the window.

His heart ached as he watched her driving
through the night. Passing car lights would touch briefly on her beautiful face
to make him want her all the more. Here she was, on the coldest night of the
year in North Georgia, well past her usual eleven p.m. bedtime, taking him to a
place he wanted desperately to know how she knew of it.

“About the motel,” he said.

She flicked her eyes over to him. “No, I
haven’t stayed there but I did go to a party there once.”

“What kind of party?” he asked and winced
at the harshness in his tone.

“You aren’t going to like my answer.”

“I imagine not but I want it just the
same,” he stated.

“It was a sex-toy party,” she said and he
would bet every dime he had she was blushing furiously. Once more she cast her
gaze his way. “That’s where I got my—”

“Crotch rocket,” he finished for her.

“I’ve never heard it called that before,”
she mumbled. “I thought that was a type of motorcycle.”

“That’s my name for those little button
warmers,” he said. “What do you call it?”

“I don’t call it anything, but Rach calls
it a clit flick,” she told him.

He saw her hands tighten on the steering
wheel, flex, then tighten again and grinned. He was embarrassing her.

“Did you go to CCD every week?” he asked,
referring to what was basically Catholic Sunday School.

Her lips pressed together for a moment.
“Yes.”

“Woman, I’m going to corrupt you…” he said
then snorted. “I am
so
going to corrupt you.”

“Not if the legs fall off your timetable,”
she replied.

He scratched his chin. “Meaning?”

“You know perfectly well what it means,”
she said. “I’m finding foreplay very entertaining but there is a limit.
Tick-tock, Kiwi. Tick-tock.”

The laugh he provided for her relaxed her
hands on the wheel.

“Pull over,” he said.

She turned her head toward him. “What?”

“Pull over on the side of the road,” he
ordered.

“You gotta pee?”

“Just pull over.”

There wasn’t a car in sight, the road was
dark as soot, but she pulled down on the turn signal and slowed carefully
before steering the car onto the shoulder of the road.

“Watch out for that truck!” he yelled.

“Where?” she gasped, slamming her foot on
the brake. The car fishtailed along the gravel edging the road.

He shot forward—thankful the seatbelt kept
him from going through the windshield—then snapped back in his seat as the car
came to an abrupt stop.

“Shit, woman!” he complained, putting a
hand to the strap across his chest.

“You bastard!” she spat at him and hit him
on the arm with the flat of her hand. “That wasn’t funny!”

“Was to me,” he said and put his arm up
reflexively as she swatted at him again.

“Get out and do what you have to!” she
snapped.

“I can’t,” he said, unbuckling the seat
belt.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because what I have to do can’t be done
out there,” he told her.

She was facing him and her eyes widened.
“You are
not
going to piss out the door of my car, Synjyn McGregor!”

“No, but I am going to do this.”

He moved across the console and put his
hands on her cheeks. He pulled her mouth to his and thrust his tongue into the
warm, wet heaven behind her lips. He put everything he had into the kiss. It
was a promise, a warning, an omen of what was to come in the weeks ahead. When
she moaned, he slid one hand to her chest, pushed his fingers inside her coat,
yanked up her sweater and was delighted to find she wasn’t wearing her
ever-present bra. He squeezed her breast firmly then closed his fingertips around
her nipple, plucked at it until she moaned again.

“I want you,” he said against her mouth.

“I want you too,” she replied, her breath
ragged.

“But on my terms,” he said.

He felt her stiffen and knew the reality of
the ad had flitted through her mind.

“I want it to be special, Melina,” he
whispered. “I want you to crave me as I crave you.”

“I do,” she said.

“Not yet you don’t. I’ve never touched you
in the way I need to.”

He knew he had to give her a taste of what
he meant before she would accept the situation so he turned his hand, slid his
palm down her waist then cupped her between the legs. She tightened her thighs.

“Open your legs,” he ordered.

She did and he stroked her hard through the
fabric of her jeans, pressing down on her mound with the heel of his hand.

“Kiwi, please!”

He stroked two more times, squeezed her
hard, then removed his hand, forcing himself to sit back in his seat although
his cock was screaming at him to rip off her clothes and thrust himself into
her as hard as he could.

“Drive,” he said with a growl. “Now, woman.
Drive!”

She stared at him for a moment or two then
started the car.

There was, she thought, a nasty euphemism
for women who led a man on but that euphemism fitted the Kiwi to a tee.

“Cock tease,” she said through clenched
teeth.

“All good things come to those who wait,”
he told her.

“And I told you there was a limit,” she
replied.

The motel was only a few miles down the
road but she knew it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be taking her that night.
Chances were he’d shot his load as far as foreplay that night. She wouldn’t be
the least surprised if he stripped down to his…

“Are you wearing underwear?” she asked.

He looked around at her. “Eh?”

“Are you wearing underwear?”

“You know I don’t.”

When she didn’t say anything, she could
hear the wheels turning in his feeble mind.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

The exasperated sigh that came from him
almost made her smile but she was too put out with him to allow it.

“Why did you ask about my knickers?”

Okay, she thought, I’m about to kick one of
the legs of your timetable, buster.

“I wanted to know because I assume I’ll be
the one going in to register for the room.”

“Yes,” he said, drawing the word out.
“And?”

“I needed to know if I should get a room
with one bed or two,” she answered. “Underwear, one bed. No underwear, two
beds.”

“One.”

“No underwear, two.”

“One,” he repeated with a growl.

“Two. Take it or leave it.”

She could feel him glaring at her and in
the faint glow of the dashboard lights she thought his face looked devilish.

“Go ahead and waste my money. Get two beds
but we’ll only be using one.”

“That’s what you think,” she said smugly.

“Woman, that’s what I
know
,” he
stressed.

She had to bite her tongue to keep from
laughing. He was going to learn a lesson tonight he would never forget.

She was eerily silent as she used the
old-fashioned motel room key with the big plastic elongated diamond fob
emblazoned with the name Tucker Inn. He wondered if she got the same connection
to the name that he had and grinned as she opened the door and walked—no, that
wasn’t the word. She
sashayed
ahead of him, drawing his full attention
to her sweet little arse. He had the urge to cover those tight little cheeks
with his hands and squeeze until she squealed.