Silent Hunters (5 page)

“They’re fine. Thank you. As soon as I get some money I‘ll pay you back.”

“About that.” Luke leant back in his chair. “We can discuss money at some other time.

Right now we’re more concerned with who’s after you and why. Are you comfortable enough now to fill us in?”

Lauren chewed her bottom lip. Where to start? The whole thing sounded weird even to her.

“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “If you know about the Rhodes businesses then you must have been reading all the crazy stories in the newspaper lately, right? About all the court fights going on?”

“Some of it,” Mack said. “Your grandfather died and the estate seems to be tied up in a big legal snarl. Actually I Googled it this morning and pulled up all the articles about it.

There was certainly no shortage of coverage.”

“Too much.” She frowned. “So you’ve got an idea of the mess I’m living in.”

“Just from public information,” Luke told her. “We’ve been hashing it over this morning and played around with some ideas but it would help if you filled us in.

Lauren gave an unladylike snort. “It’s like a soap opera. My parents divorced when I was two and they’ve each remarried twice. So, let’s see.” She held up one finger. “They dumped me on my paternal grandparents who raised me and I have to say, lucky for me.”

She held up a second finger. “My father had a son from his second marriage, Jon, who joined our happy household when he was five.”

“Wait a minute.” Kelsey frowned. “I don’t mean to slam your father but what about his second wife? Surely she would have wanted her son.”

“Dear old Dad and his trophy wife lived the high life. She drove into a concrete overpass when she was drunk and was killed instantly.”

Luke whistled. “Holy shit.”

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“Wait.” Lauren held up her hand. “You haven’t heard it all.” She held up three fingers.

“Dad’s third marriage—and I use the words ‘Dad’ and ‘marriage’ very loosely here—

produced another daughter.”

“Did she get sent to live with all of you?” Sierra asked.

“No.” Lauren shook her head. “Wife Number Three apparently was at least a decent mother. No, Niema Rhodes showed up two years ago at the age of twenty-five, told Granddad that her father—
our
father—told her it was her right to join the Rhodes Corporation. She wanted to move into the house but Granddad put his foot down so she has an apartment in Bangor which she hates. And he gave her an entry level job which she also hates. Says she wants her so-called fair share, not something akin to slave labour.”

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Mack commented.

“As they say, ‘but wait, there’s more’.” She took a slow sip of her coffee. “The day after Granddad passed away my father showed up, all sad and concerned for my welfare.” She made a face. “Yeah, right. I don’t see him for years but now it seems he and Wife Number Three are concerned for their wallets. They live high and spend unwisely. God forbid they should even spare one thought for my welfare. Getting through the funeral and the aftermath has been like a bad B-movie.”

“Like living in a pit of vipers, I’ll bet,” Sierra commented.

“No kidding. And just to frost the cake, lurking around the edges we have one of the company attorneys, Jeffrey Delong, who’s been doing his damndest for two years to convince me to marry him. Now my so-called brother and sister are jumping on the bandwagon, along with Dad. Telling me it would be the best thing for me. Trying to convince me what a catch he is.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Why? It’s obvious you don’t love him.”

“Because running the Rhodes empire is a complicated task and I need a husband who can guide me,” she mimicked.

Damien’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Fuck that shit.”

“Down, boy,” Mack chuckled. “Lauren didn’t say
she
wanted to marry him.” He looked at Lauren. “You don’t, do you?”

“God, no.” A shiver skated down her spine. “But he keeps hanging around like a bad cold.” She sighed. “It seems my grandfather left all his shares in Rhodes to me with just a small financial stipend to dear old Dad and my half-siblings.”

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“That’s why everything’s tied up in court,” Mack said.

“Right. No one’s happy and everyone’s contesting the will.”

“What happens to your shares if you’re…not here?”

“You mean like dead?” She couldn’t keep the edge of tension from her voice.

“Or if you just, say, disappear?” This from Luke.

“It all goes into a trust. It doesn’t pass to any of the other heirs.”

“And I’m willing to bet Jeffrey would administer it,” Damien spat.

Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get a look at all the documents to find out. But they’re all in his office and he’s put me off time after time. In fact, I had an appointment for tomorrow…um, today…with Jeffrey and the senior partner in his firm to go over them.”

“Which is probably why the kidnapping took place when it did,” Damien said. “If you’re not around, you miss your appointment plus the court date. And maybe the rest of your life,” he growled.

“Well, they didn’t plan for you to be very comfortable in the cabin,” Luke told her.

Her eyes widened. “You went there? How did you find it?”

They all exchanged one of those looks that Lauren found impossible to interpret. What was going on here? She tensed but Damien’s hand immediately slid up and down her spine, soothing her.

“Let’s just say we know these woods very well,” Mack said. “Anyway, there was nothing in there except a bed and a chair. The windows were all boarded over and the only door had a bolt on the outside.”

“Babe, I think they were planning to just let you starve to death in there,” Damien told her in a voice laced with quiet rage. “Someday your body would be found but by then no one would be able to untangle who controlled Rhodes Industries and who knows how much money would have been bled from it.”

“So you’ve been living in the house with all these sleazebags?” Sierra asked.

“Uh huh.” Lauren felt sick. “I can’t go back to that house. I knew they all hated me, but to do this? They must be more desperate than I thought.”

Mack leaned on the table, closer to her. “Lauren, where money’s concerned I’ve learned there’s no limit to what people will do.”

“I can’t go back there,” she repeated.

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“Actually…”Damien shifted so he was facing her, his arm still holding her close. “We think that’s exactly what you should do.”

Her stomach knotted and a chill swept over her. “What? You
want
them to get to me?”

“Sort of,” Mack told her. “We had some other suggestions for you but with the information you’ve given us we can get a better handle on things. I think you can count on the fact that one of those characters is calling the shots, but we have to find out which one.”

“We have a plan,” Damien added, “but I want to talk to you about it first.” He looked at everyone else with a fierce expression. “Alone.”

Sierra smiled. “Of course. And, Lauren? I guess it all comes down to whether you think you can trust us. You’ve known us less than twenty-four hours but I’ve always felt trust is an inner thing. It’s there or it isn’t. And we’d be happy to give you references to check if that would ease your mind.”

Would it? Did she need it? The feeling of safety she’d felt since collapsing at the cabin wasn’t necessarily something you got from pieces of paper. And of course there was Damien.

Instantly heat flashed over her, every pulse throbbed and cream flooded her pussy.

Ohmigod!

Damien pushed back his chair and urged her up from hers. “Let’s go back to the bedroom where we have some privacy and I’ll lay it all out for you.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “And then I think it will, yes, come down to trust. Trust for everyone here. But especially for me.”

Damien had insisted on sitting in the armchair in the bedroom and pulling her down onto his lap. His gut told him that as long as they were connected physically he had a better shot at making this work. Especially since he planned to give her The Book to read and she would discover the truth about him. About all of them.

So he sat there holding her, stroking her with one large hand—her arm, her back, the curve of her hip, anyplace he could touch her. And carefully laid out what they’d come up with.

“B-but if I go back there I’ll be in that house unprotected,” she pointed out. “I’ll be a sitting duck.”

“First of all, you won’t be alone because I’m going in there with you. Right beside you.”

She stared at him. “You are?”

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He nodded. “I want to see everyone’s reaction when you walk into that house. Read their faces. Their body language.”

She frowned. “But if you’re with me they’ll all be on their guard.”

“Oh, I’m not staying. At least inside. I’ll be the person who found you on the road out of gas.”

“Wait. They’ll know that isn’t possible.”

His grin was feral. “Of course they will. But no one’s going to have the balls to contradict us. Right? They’d have to give away the game.”

“So you found me and…what?”

“Gave you a ride into Bangor until you could make arrangements for your car. You stayed in a motel overnight, talked to the local gas station about a tow and since you were still without wheels I offered to drive you home.”

Lauren actually chuckled. “It will definitely be interesting to see how they swallow that.”

“And I’m going to tell you exactly what to say to them when they ask what happened to you, however phony their concern.” He touched her bruised jaw. “Something that will explain this and all the scrapes and scratches.”

Now came the hard part. Getting her to trust him unconditionally. The minute he’d laid eyes on her Damien knew in his gut she was his mate. Forever. But would she return the feeling? Accept him for what he was? She could talk to the women. Sierra could tell her how it was when she met Luke and discovered his true nature. Kelsey herself was a shifter but she could bring another point of view to things.

Shit! The others who’d married humans hadn’t seemed to have any problems. Had they been as twisted up about it in the beginning?

Well, there was one language in which they communicated really well. He could start there and hope for the best.

He nuzzled her ear, tracing the outer shell with the tip of his tongue.

“You’re tense, babe. Let’s relax a little and then we can talk about this again.”

She laughed. “You just want an excuse to get me back in bed.”

“Uh huh.” He slid one hand up to cup her breast, his thumb rasping the nipple through the cloth of her T-shirt and bra. It hardened instantly. “Is it working?”

“I, uh, think so.” She squirmed on his lap. “Maybe you should try a little harder.”

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His cock, already hard, pressed painfully against the denim of his jeans and his balls tightened.

“Maybe I should start by taking this shirt off.” He could hear the desire laced in his voice.

Wordlessly Lauren lifted her arms while he pulled the top over her head and tossed it to the side. His fingers shook slightly as he worked the clasp of her bra. He’d seen her naked last night but only in the glow of the lamp. This morning the sun was shining full through the window and her body gave up all its secrets.

When he saw all the damage to her body from her run through the woods, anger surged through him but he taped it down. Plenty of time for that later, when the situation was resolved. Then he could punch someone’s lights out and be happy doing it. Right now Lauren needed something else from him.

He bent his head and captured a taut nipple between his lips, tugging on it and pulling it into his mouth. He scraped the pebbled surface lightly with his teeth, drawing a soft moan from her and more squirming. Too much of that and he’d be digging for the last vestiges of his control.

He let the nipple pop out of his mouth and turned his attention to the other one. By the time he had them both swollen and red she was moaning constantly. The sound vibrated through his body, stirring his blood and calling his wolf. He desperately wanted to mate with her but it was too soon. Too soon. And first they had to take care of whoever was after her, something he intended to do with great relish.

His hand moved to the snap on her jeans, the popping sound loud in the room followed by the hiss of her zipper. He slid his hand inside the elastic of her bikini panties past the softness of her curls to the slick wetness that made his mouth water. The scent of her musk drifted up to him, inflaming him, forcing him to dig deep for control.

He let his finger drift over her clit, rubbing lightly back and forth, and the sound of her moans intensified. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this without throwing her on the bed, ripping his clothes off and plunging into her. But this wasn’t about him and he had to keep that in mind.

Lauren let her thighs fall apart and he worked her clit harder, nipping the soft flesh of her ear at the same time, licking with his tongue. Lauren arched her hips slightly and Damien plunged two fingers inside her hungry, greedy pussy. Her walls clenched down on him, SILENT HUNTERS

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hardening his cock almost to the point of pain. He used his thumb on her clit while he pumped his fingers in and out of her.

Then he couldn’t stand it anymore. He lifted her and carried her to the bed, setting her down gently before practically tearing off his own clothes and tossing them to the side. Next came Lauren’s jeans and panties and he knelt on the floor, spread her thighs and closed his mouth over her swollen clit.

“Ohhhh.” Lauren leant back on her hands, her little whimpers of pleasure spurring him on.

He lapped at her, flicking her clit with his tongue then running it the entire length of her slit. Sliding his hands beneath her ass he dipped his fingers into the crevice and pressed the tips against her anus. She whimpered with pleasure and he pressed harder. He could hardly wait for the time when his cock would slide into her tight ass and he could truly brand her as his.