30DaystoSyn (7 page)

Day Five

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
Rachel asked the next morning.

She’d asked Rach to pick her up an hour
early for work just so she could go by the office park, lying to her about the
reason for the visit.

“I don’t see anything that even closely
resembles a nursing facility.”

They were driving slowly through the office
park where cars were parked in nearly every available spot. Unfortunately the
buildings had no names or numbers on them.

“Aren’t all buildings supposed to have
numbers or names on them?” she asked Rachel. “Isn’t that required by law?”

“There are numbers,” Rachel said.

She turned to gape at her friend. “Where? I
don’t see any.”

Rachel lifted her hand and pointed a finger
upward.

“Damn,” she said, noticing the numbering on
the black roofs of each building. At night, those numbers would not be seen
unless illuminated by the two spotlights on either side of the numbers. She
knew
he’d
had them turned off for that very reason. “Sneaky bastard.”

“What?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing. Just keep going.”

“We’re not in the right place. This looks
like a strip mall, Lina,” Rachel complained.

“I’m sure this is where I was told to
come,” she said, compounding the lie. “Right around this next corner.”

Rachel turned the corner and there was the
correct building.

“469 Saur Rd.,” she said as she looked at
the roof.

“That is not a long-term care facility,”
Rachel said. “Whoever gave you the information was either drunk or shining you
on.”

“I can see that,” she agreed. “Let’s go,
then. I’ll call their number when I get to work.”

* * * * *

“Well if you have the address and know
where to look there are apps on the net where you can do property searches. I
can’t guarantee you can find out the owner’s name but at least you can learn
what corporation owns it,” Steve told her at lunch. “Want me to look something
up for you?”

“Would you?” she asked. “I’ve got just
enough computer savvy to do my job. I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about
finding out who owns that building.”

“What’s the addy?” he asked. He wrote it
down on his napkin when she gave it to him. “I’ll use my phone since I can’t
use my computer at work. Give me ‘til the end of the day.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she said and meant
it. “What kind of cake do you like? I’ll bake you one.”

His eyes took on a smoldering look. “I’d
rather have a date,” he said smoothly.

Never in a million years would she have
imagined a player such as Steve Ingram would ever ask her out. She was
surprised.

“You aren’t seeing anyone are you?” he
pressed.

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Then how ‘bout I pick you up tonight and
we get a bite to eat? Maybe take in a movie?” he asked.

She thought of the nightly sessions that
rarely lasted longer than half an hour.

“I don’t know…”

“Just supper,” he said.

He
had said
nothing about her dating other men. She thought that might have been an
oversight on his part but as long as he hadn’t expressly forbidden her to date,
she saw no reason why she couldn’t. There was no chance she’d be giving any
other man what he was expecting her to hand over to him.

“It would have to be late,” she said.
“After nine and I doubt you’d want to wait that long to eat.”

“Nine it is,” Steve said, his white-toothed
grin pleased. “Where you wanna go to eat?”

* * * * *

“Sit down and unbutton your blouse,” he
instructed. She gave him an odd look—one that bordered on concern—but put her
fingers to her blouse and took a seat in the straight-back chair. As each
button gave way, he felt his cock stir in anticipation of what he intended.
When she was finished undoing the blouse, he told her to drop it to the floor
beside her.

Beneath the spotlight, the flesh of her
bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts, the expanse of her body from the
edge of the expensive lace bra to the waistband of her skirt gleamed with a
light sheen of perspiration. It was hot under the light and he had purposefully
turned the heat up in the room because soon she would be bare from the waist
up.

“You like the bra?” he asked, shifting his
gaze over the soft ivory lace that lovingly cupped her full breasts.

She nodded and folded her hands in her lap.
He couldn’t have that.

“Put your arms behind the chair and lock
your fingers together.”

Again there was a look he couldn’t quite
fathom but she did as she was told. He was standing a few feet away and when he
walked over, then hunkered down in front of her, he saw her eyes flicker. The
rhythm of her breathing increased to make her breasts rise and fall enticingly.

He looked down at the full skirt she was
wearing. He preferred pencil skirts and made a mental note to tell her that was
the only kind he wanted her to wear. But for tonight—and for what he had in
mind—the full skirt was definitely better. He reached out to put his hands on
her knees.

She flinched but she held his gaze as she
knew she was supposed to. She didn’t look down at his hands and the only
reaction she had when he inched the hem of the skirt up to her knees was to
curl her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Spread your legs,” he said and gently pushed
against her knees.

There was a slight flare of her beautiful
green eyes then she obediently moved her legs apart. Not as far as he wanted so
he put outward pressure on her knees until she had spread her thighs as far as
he thought necessary. When she did, he moved forward, pressing himself against
the edge of the chair.

She was looking down at him and there was
anxiety on her face. He could hear her breath as she dragged it into her lungs
then expelled it in a wavering rush. His hands were on her bare knees and he
caressed them slowly, gently—never allowing her gaze to move from his.

“You did something the other evening I
don’t want you to do again,” he said. “Do you know what that was?”

He knew she did. He could see the guilt in
her eyes and the blush that tinted her cheeks but she shook her head.

“Liar,” he whispered. He pushed his hands a
little bit above her knees and onto the creamy expanse of her thighs—his
fingers digging lightly into her flesh—and she stopped breathing.

He kneaded her thighs for a second or two
then took his hands from her.

“No masturbating,” he said. “Understood? No
matter how horny you are, you are not to masturbate.” He narrowed his eyes at
her. “I mean it, Melina. Are we clear on this?”

She drew in a ragged breath and slowly nodded.
He knew she wondered how he knew what she’d done. It wouldn’t do to tell her
he’d watched her while refraining from joining her in the pleasure by jerking
off.

He leaned closer, lifted his hands to the
front closure of her bra and had it apart before she could take another breath.
The gasp that came from her opened lips made him grin. The sight of her freed
breasts as he pushed the cups aside brought an instant jerk to his cock. He
gave her no time at all to adjust to him looking at her naked chest before he
slipped his hands over the creamy mounds—the hard little nipples pressing into
the centers of his palms.

She made a strangled cry as her flesh met
his. Her body went rigid and her knees jerked, would have closed had he not
been between them. With each tender squeeze he gave her, she made a little
moaning sound. The sound intensified the hard-on that pulsed within the
confines of his jeans.

He looked down at her breasts and flexed
his fingers around them. He slid his palms over her nipples and to the sides
then under the glorious orbs to weigh them softly in his hands.

“Beautiful,” he said. “So soft and firm.
Absolute perfection.”

He lowered his head, bent forward to place
his lips against the soft rise of her right breast. She sucked in a breath at the
touch and then shivered as he moved his mouth to the silken area over her
sternum then on to the rise of her left breast before returning his lips to her
sternum. The kisses were slow, infinitely gentle—no more than a butterfly wing
fanning over her skin—and they left her breathing faster. He lifted his head
and looked up at her. Their gazes fused as he kneaded her firm mounds. Slowly
he began drawing his fingers together. He pictured them closing in on the dusty
moons of her areolas. The caramel-colored skin there was as soft and smooth as
the finest silk. He was moving ever closer to the puckered buds at the apex of
her breasts and her breathing became erratic. Her little moans came closer
together and when he glanced up at her face, he saw her eyes were closed. Her
body was straining toward him but he doubted she was aware that was happening.

He smiled.

His fingers were almost touching her
nipples when he stopped. She opened her eyes to find him staring intently at
her.

She knew.

Even before he said it, she knew, and when
he released her breasts without plucking at her aching nipples, she moaned. It
was a sound that embarrassed her and made his smile even more brutal and
hateful.

“Not what you wanted?” he asked and when
she vigorously shook her head, his smile faded. “Live with it,” he said then
sprang gracefully to his feet. “You may leave now.”

He was walking into the darkness when she
released an angry growl. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him stop, turn
and give her a stunned look. She bent down, snatched up her blouse, thrusting
her arms into it without snapping her bra shut.

“Excuse me?” she heard him say. “Did you
growl at me, Melina?”

She ignored him. Wrapping the two halves of
her open blouse around her, she wanted to get out of the room before she said
something she’d regret. Said something that would cost her the million dollars
she wanted so badly.

“Melina?”

She had the door open when he came storming
up behind her. He shot out his hand and slammed it shut before shoving himself
against her back to press her to the panel.

“When I ask you a question you’d better
answer me, woman!” he snarled in her ear, his lips pressed against her lobe.

“Yes, Synjyn,” she said. “I growled at
you!”

She felt him stiffen. He put his hands on
her upper arms and spun her around, pushing her tight to the door.

“What did you say?” he demanded. His eyes
were hard as flint.

“I said I heard you,” she answered. She
tried to push him away but he wasn’t having any of that. He was like a rock
shoved against her.

“What did you call me?” he asked again,
this time louder.

“Synjyn,” she said. Her eyes bored into
his. “Your name is Synjyn McGregor. You—”

This time he yelled at her. “
How did you
learn my name
?”

“From the internet!” she yelled back.

He let go of her and stepped away from her.
“Go,” he ordered, his face ugly. “Get the hell out of here before I say or do
something I’ll regret!”

She jerked open the door and left, leaving
him cursing a blue streak behind her.

“Oh, hell no!”
he exploded. “
Hell no
!”

Jono jumped out of the way as the glass of
scotch went flying by his head. It shattered behind him and he turned his head
to look down at the shards littering the floor after the glass hit the
fieldstone of the fireplace and shattered.

“Why the fuck didn’t you stop her?”

Jono turned to face him. “Don’t pack a
shitty, bro. You didn’t say anything to me about keeping her from having a
social life,” he said drily. “And it isn’t my concern—or yours for that
matter—anyway.”

“The hell it isn’t!”
he bellowed
. “She belongs to me! She is mine!”

He watched Jono’s eyebrows shift upward.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “Since when?”

Instead of answering, he marched to the
desk, snatched up his cell phone, thumbed through the numbers then stabbed at
one of them. He put the phone to his ear, a muscle working in his jaw.

“I want that bastard who brings her home
every day gone,” he snarled at his chief of security Kit Tomlinson. He paused
then rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t want him taken
out
! I want him gone!
Give him a job in the Cleveland office or the Detroit office or fucking
Mogadishu. Shit, I don’t care where you send him. Just get him the fuck out of
Georgia!” Another pause. “Well, offer him ten times what he’s getting here, you
moron! He’ll take it! What the fuck does he do anyway?”

What Tomlinson told him brought dark red
rage to his face. He didn’t bother to end the call. He simply threw the phone
at the fireplace. It connected and joined the glass on the carpet.

“That’s how she found out my name!” he
shouted. “Goddamn prick! He’s a computer nerd!”

“Bro, you need to chill,” Jono said. “If
you don’t, you’re gonna have a stroke.”

“Son of a fucking bitch,” he said through
his teeth. “Goddamn son of a fucking bitch kissed her. He fucking kissed my
woman good night at the door!”

“The bastard,” Jono said.

“That’s what I’m saying!”

“Hope he didn’t give her cooties in the
process.”

“He had better not—” He stopped, narrowed
his eyes and heard himself growl at his best friend. “She’s mine,” he stated.

“Did you tell her not to date?” Jono
inquired.

“No, but she knew not to.”

“So along with being a cute little chickie
she’s a mind reader too?”

“Watch what you say about my woman!” he
snapped.

“Will you listen to yourself?” Jono
queried. “Bro, I think I need to find a screwdriver because you’ve got some
loose screws rolling around inside that head of yours!”

“Fuck you and the kiwi you flew in on!”