AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2) (100 page)

Ben’s lawyer spluttered a couple of times. “You mean that you’re actually going to take this to trial?” he asked. “You don’t have a chance. Your client was a prostitute …”

“‘Was’ being the operative term here,” Chuck said, standing up. I did the same.

“That simple fact is going to murder you in court,” Ben’s lawyer said incredulously. “You’re wasting your time.”

“My client wants to see her child,” Chuck said. “She is also independently successful. No, she might not have the coffers that the Paxton’s have. But she has love, and a comfortable lifestyle to raise any happy child. You’ll be hearing from us, gentlemen.”

“Shimmy.”

Ben’s cold voice made me freeze at the door. Chuck tried to propel me forward, but I had to hear what he was going to say.

“This is only going to get worse,” he told me, his eyes devoid of life. They were so different from Tyler’s, which sparkled with deep emotions that I wasn’t sure I’d ever unravel. I liked the mystery too much.

“That’ll be all,” Ben’s lawyer said quickly, seizing Ben’s shoulder and squeezing. “We’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

Chuck waited until we were back in a taxi before whooping and pounding my back.

“I want to take you to my poker night, girl,” he said, “but I don’t want to play against you. You have a stone face, let me tell you. We’ve gotten them shaken up about something.”

“They don’t want to go to trial,” I said.

“Damn right they don’t,” Chuck agreed. “A trial means public record. The Paxton’s don’t want to smear that precious name of theirs.”

I held my tongue. The biggest reason that the Paxton’s didn’t want to go to trial was because they were hiding something that I was going to root out.

“You’re working with someone other than me, aren’t you?” Chuck asked when we reached Sisters Together again.

“I’ve hired a private investigator,” I said.

Chuck nodded. “That’s how you knew about the restraining order.”

“Please be honest with me in the future,” I said. “I need to know exactly what I’m facing so I can know what to do next.”

Chuck shook his head. “I really underestimated you, Shimmy,” he said. “Good for you about the private investigator. I hope you turn up some real dirt at the Paxton’s and get your son back in the process.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “My son is my priority,” I said. “Everything else is just collateral.”

Chuck whistled. “Sounds like you’re going to war.”

“Going to war?” I laughed. “I’m right in the middle of it. I’ll let you know when we’re going to make our next move.”

“Fair enough,” Chuck said, shaking my hand before catching another cab.

I thought about going in to say hello to Jasmine, but I knew she was busy. Plus, I was eager to get back to the shop. I trusted my new employees, but I hated leaving them alone too long. It was my boutique, after all, and I was responsible for seeing that it stayed successful.

              Business was brisk as I arrived, one of my assistants manning the register. I sent the second to open another register to expedite the long line and started helping customers myself. It was so nice to be able to immerse myself in this, to forget about all the hard things I was facing.

I was usually able to banish all non-work-related thoughts as I helped customers, but something kept invading my mind.

Tyler. I couldn’t help but dwell on the evening we’d spent together, the intense kisses, the slap of our flesh against each other, the absolute frenzy in which we’d devoured each other …

“I know that look,” a customer said playfully as I gave her another size in one of our hottest selling cocktail dresses.

“That look?” I asked, bewildered.

“The look you had just now,” she said, draping the dress over her arm. “You’re in love.”

I laughed and shook my head as the customer raised her eyebrows knowingly and pulled the curtain to the dressing room shut.

But her observation—as casual as it was—gave me pause. Was it possible that I was more than just physically attracted to Tyler? I felt like I barely knew him. Was it possible to be in love with someone you knew practically nothing about?

I walked around the store, straightening clothes on the shelves and racks, the simple task soothing. I tried to tally up the things I knew about Tyler. He was formerly a part of the FBI. He was now a private investigator. He didn’t like to cross personal boundaries. He was good at what he did. He had a tender streak. He was sexy as hell.

In short, I knew nothing about the man that I found myself becoming more and more attached to. I wondered if he’d think it was too forward if I invited him out to dinner. Hell, I was lucky he didn’t think it was too forward when I threw myself at him last night.

An enormous crash pierced my train of thought, and several people screamed. I looked to the front of the boutique to see that the display window had been shattered, a brick resting in the middle of the shards. A car sped off and my customers looked at me, shocked.

I made my way to the front, picking my way over the glass.

“Is everyone all right?” I asked loudly as curious passers-by stared in. “Anyone hurt?”

“Just scared to death,” a woman said, her hand clutching her heart.

“That was a pretty unpleasant way to interrupt the afternoon,” I said, and a few customers tittered. “I’m sorry that this happened, but I’m glad no one was hurt. If you would accommodate me, I’d like to close a little bit early today. Please proceed to the register with any purchases you’d like to make and I would be happy to give you a discount on them.”

Surprised sounds filled the boutique, and the customers did as I asked. I didn’t want them to be scared to come back, and I wanted their eyes off of me for a few minutes.

I had seen the piece of paper fastened to the brick with a rubber band, and I wanted to look at it without anyone else looking at it with me.

I unfolded the paper as discreetly as I could and examined it. It was blank except for a single sentence: “I told you so.”

I swallowed and kept my face like stone, the poker face that Chuck Bloom had admired so much. Slipping the paper into my pocket, I pulled my phone out and dialed.

“I’m here.”

I turned and looked up at Tyler before ending the call and slipping my phone back into my pocket. It made the paper crunch, reminded me that the father of my child was out to get me, promised me that my fight was nowhere near over.

His face was handsome even with concern painted over his normally placid features.

“Did you see anything?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “But this isn’t the place to discuss it,” he said. “Why don’t you let your assistants and police handle this?”

“Police?” I asked. “I thought we were treading softly now.”

“Filing a police report is the natural thing to do,” he said. “It doesn’t imply that you know who did it, even though you do know.”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I do.”

“And it’ll help you file with your insurance company,” he said smoothly.

After the cops came by to take my statement and a couple of other witnesses’ statements, my insurance agent came by. She took some pictures and then we swept up the glass and nailed up some pieces of plywood until the next morning, when the repairmen would be there to put in some new glass.

The responsibilities gave me something to do, but once everything was cleaned and boarded up, I was shaking again.

“You’ve done well,” Tyler soothed, wrapping me up in his arms after everyone else had left. “You’ve done very well.”

“We had them scared at the meeting this morning,” I said, my voice muffled against his shirt, breathing in his intoxicating scent. It was somewhere in between pine and a musky vanilla. Simply smelling it made me feel safe.

“And that’s why this happened,” he said. “Because you have them feeling threatened. They’re trying to stop you from going to trial.”

“That’s because they have something to hide,” I said, pulling away from Tyler.

He gave me a megawatt grin. “Look who’s the detective now,” he said.

“As we were leaving the meeting, Ben said that things were going to get worse,” I said, biting my lip.

“Intimidation,” Tyler said. “Trying to get you to stop what you’re doing.”

Wordlessly, I pulled the paper that had accompanied the brick into my boutique out of my pocket.

Tyler read it, just as silent, and gave it back to me.

              “Are you keeping all of this evidence somewhere?” he asked.

I nodded. “A safe in my apartment,” I said. “It’s all there. Photos, everything.”

“Good.” Tyler ran his fingers through my curls and looked at me. “When you’re trying to save a child from a dangerous place, you don’t go in with bombs and machine guns.”

“I know that now.”

Tyler held up a finger. “You sneak in, using every rule of stealth and subterfuge until you see the child safely out.” He paused, his blue eyes delving into my own, traveling to my very core, ferreting out what exactly I was made of.

“And then you drop a fucking bomb,” he said.

I grabbed his face and kissed him, and he lifted me up against him, shoving my skirt up to around my waist and tearing my panties off of me in his haste. His fingers were there, teasing me, stretching me, preparing me for his sweet cock. He propped me up on the countertop with the registers and removed his fingers, making me moan with impatience.

“Good things come to those who wait,” he chided, grinning and unfastening his pants.

He was back against me in an instant, drinking in my kisses, trailing his hand down my heaving chest. I wanted to slow down, to revel in his caresses, but we didn’t have the luxury of time or location. The adrenaline of the brick through my display window made it impossible for me to slow down my desperate clawing at his shoulders, the way I drew my legs around him and dragged him toward me.

“I’m going to give you what you need, baby,” he said, the pet name making me shudder with something I couldn’t name. “You don’t have to worry about a single thing. I’m going to give you everything you need.”

With that, he plunged into my soaking pussy, dragging me to the edge of the countertop and keeping me there, balanced precariously. It was hard to relax or enjoy myself when I was afraid I was going to go tumbling to the floor.

“I’m not going to let you fall,” Tyler whispered against my mouth. “Trust me. Let yourself go.”

It was easier said than done, but I tried for his sake. He was right. His strong arms pinned me in place even as he thrust up into me. I was safe. I was secure.

I hugged his neck and dragged my teeth up his throat, kissing him as he panted, rubbing my hands over the fuzz of his cropped blond hair. His cock was a piston, plunging into me again and again, a machine, its sole purpose to give me comfort and pleasure.

I muffled a howl of completion into his shoulder, biting the skin hard to keep from making too much of a racket. We could hear commuters walking by just on the other side of the plywood. For the first time, I was grateful for the brick that broke the window. There was no way Tyler and I could’ve had sex in here with that expanse of glass.

Tyler grunted intently after I released his shoulder from my mouth, moving jerkily and in the way that I was coming to recognize as pre-orgasmic. To make his climax even sweeter for him, I squeezed my inner muscles, convulsing around his cock. I was rewarded for my extra effort as Tyler gasped rapturously.

“Yes, baby,” he groaned, coming and coming, filling me with his seed. “Yes, yes.”

Oh, God. It was so sexy to watch him let himself go, to see his eyes flutter and know that I was the cause of it, to see his pulse beat in his throat and realize that I could pierce this man’s careful façade. I didn’t know if he realized how vulnerable he looked when he was coming. I didn’t want him to know, afraid it would make him hold back. One thing was clear. Good or bad, right or wrong, I was in love with Tyler Marlowe. I was in love with him and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

We held each other for several long minutes before getting dressed again. I found my ruined panties and slipped them on, not minding a little extra air beneath my skirt.

“Sorry about that,” Tyler said, grinning.

“You owe me a new pair,” I said, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll pay my debts, don’t you worry,” he said. “Now, let’s talk business.”

Distasteful business. I had to keep reminding myself that I’d hired Tyler as a private investigator. I’d never lose sight of my endgame—to be reunited with my son—but Tyler was a delicious distraction until that day came.

“I’m worried about your personal safety,” he said. “Ben did this in full sight of the public.”

“So it was Ben,” I said. “Ben, personally.”

“I saw him throw the brick and tried to follow him for a while, but the traffic was too much,” Tyler explained. “And I needed to make sure that you were all right.”

“You big softie,” I teased.

Tyler snorted. “I don’t feel good about you staying in your apartment anymore,” he said. “We’re going to go there now and pack a bag—and get your evidence—and then you’re going to be staying with me.”