Terms of Surrender (36 page)

"Beg me, Slany. Beg me to make you come," he growled.

"Please make me come, Master. Fuck me hard and make me come, please!" She panted, her own musky scent concentrated and wafting up to her nostrils, turning her on even more.

Nick knelt between her spread legs, dragged his tongue along her thighs until he reached the juices that had dripped out of her cunt, and licked them up, his touch slow and agonizingly sensual before he cupped her pubis.

"Do you know how much I love you, honey?"

"Please tell me…please…"

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He moved his mouth up her body and suckled her nipples as he dipped two fingers into her soaking cunt and scissored them inside her, stroking her soft folds before thrusting slow, deep and hard.

He plunged and rotated his fingers for several intense, silent moments, working up a feverish pace, mimicking what she wanted him to do to her pussy with his dick.

"Oh, God…Oh, Nick!" She stiffened with her climax, body convulsing beneath his skillful caresses, inner muscles clenching and clinging as he slowly slipped his fingers from her vagina.

He leaned in to kiss her mouth and whispered against her lips, "That's how much." He kissed his way back down her body, pausing at her center, teasing her clit with his tongue before blowing on it. "And more…"

She quivered when he gently stroked her folds with his tongue, licking and sucking her labia into his mouth before dipping his tongue inside her.

Nick slid his hands beneath her ass to pull her close at the same instant Slany pitched her hips against his mouth and someone started to bang on the apartment door with purpose.

Slany felt Nick pop up his head and moaned with disappointment, despite her recent orgasm, greedy for what she knew he could give her. An addict for his touch, his taste, his smell.

"What the hell?"

"Oh, God, no. Not now, not now!"

The pounding turned into insistent ringing as someone leaned on Nick's bell.

"I don't think whoever’s out there intends to leave until someone answers them," Slany said, pussy throbbing in an unwilling holding pattern.

"Doesn't sound like it." He kissed her belly, then went lower to kiss her cunt for good measure before he got up from the bed.

He didn't leave right away.

Slany felt him standing beside the bed, envisioned him staring down at her with hungry, heated eyes, fully clothed, a triumphant urban pirate who had just plundered his obedient captive and was unwilling to leave his spoils for later.

She hoped, prayed the ringing would stop, the throbbing in her pussy reaching a shattering crescendo matching that at the door and leaving her breathless. "Nick…"

"I'll get rid of whoever it is and hurry back."

The only thing that saved her from total frustration and madness was the knowledge that he was as aroused and eager to get back to what they were doing as she was.

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Nick grabbed his button-down from the back of his sofa before he jerked his arms through the sleeves, leaving it unbuttoned, tail flying behind him as he headed for the door.

He stood before it and took a few deep breaths, needing to get it together before he responded to whoever was on the other side of that metal. He was not in any condition now for mixed company.

Nick closed his eyes and saw Slany spread-eagle and helpless on his bed. His cock twitched in his jeans at the beautiful, wanton portrait she made, her female juices glistening on her thighs and auburn pussy hair beneath the light of the room, a light sheen of perspiration coating her flushed caramel skin that made him want to lick her entire body, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head and back again until he got his fill.

Who the hell had the nerve to interrupt such a fantasy?

Nick glanced through the peephole and saw a wide-shouldered, steel-haired man at his door. His heart dropped.

It had been years since he'd seen the man, but he knew that determined jawline and those tragic brown eyes anywhere. "What do you want, Mr. Lennox?"

"I know you and I haven't been on the friendliest of terms in the past, Nicholas, but I'd like to make amends. I'm man enough to say when I'm wrong, and I'd like to apologize for making your life so difficult all those years ago."

Nick swallowed, a vision of Lorraine smiling at him over a late dinner and drinks after they had worked on one of their first ad campaigns together—he the copywriter, and she the graphic designer. Instantly superimposed over her glowing soft face was the harsher male version of her father, red with anger and frustration as he'd confronted Nick at the police station, where Nick had gone to give a statement to the police.

Jeff Lennox pounded on the door again. "I'd really like to talk to you in person, Nick. It's important that I look at you face-to-face for this."

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How could he say no? The man had lost so much, and Nick couldn't help thinking that somewhere, somehow, he might have been a little responsible. He was still unsure of the motive of his and Slany's stalker, still unsure what he might have done to provoke the unknown assailant's attention and wrath.

Nick didn't think another second before unlocking and opening the door.

"Thank you, Nick." Mr. Lennox smiled right before pulling a gun from his back waistband and shoving it against Nick's temple.

"What the—"

"Shut up and move." Lennox closed the door behind him and pushed Nick back into the apartment.

Nick turned, hands raised, as he stared at the gun, a Beretta 40 S&W. He didn't want to make any sudden moves and give the man a reason to use it. He knew well the damage it could do.

"I've waited ten years for this moment."

"You have the wrong man."

"Is that what you wanted everyone to believe when you set up that poor kid in your office to take the fall for what you did?"

"Why are you so sure it's me and not Keyes?" Nick glanced at the gun again—easy, since it was pointed so close in his face, he could glimpse down the rotating barrel—then measured the distance from himself to Lennox and wondered whether or not he could take the man before he got off a round.

They were about the same height, same build. Lennox was a tough construction worker from the old school. It wouldn't be easy to take him dow—

"Because the police just released him this afternoon, or don't you watch the news?"

Nick didn't allow his shock to show, wondered what new evidence had come to light that Jeremy was no longer a suspect. "That doesn't mean it was me."

"Sit down." Lennox waved his gun towards the sofa with a quick flick of his wrist, grip steady and firm, no hesitation in his eyes.

Shit, I'm fucked.

Nick did as instructed, glancing up at Lennox as the man planted his feet.

"Put your palms on your thighs."

"Mr. Lennox, you don't have to do thi—"

"Shut up!" He stalked to Nick and pressed the muzzle to his forehead.

Nick closed his eyes, heart pounding so hard in his chest, he knew Lennox could hear it.

If this deranged and grief-stricken man managed to kill him, that would leave Slany all alone and at his mercy. Nick couldn't let that happen, didn't know what the man was capable of.

"I want you tell me what you did with my daughter."

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Nick popped open his eyes and gawked. "What?"

"I want you to tell me where Lorrie is so that I can give her…the proper burial she deserves…" Lennox choked back a sob, the first time he'd shown any waning in his resolve since Nick had opened the door to him.

"Mr. Lennox, I know you're grieving, and you need someone to blame. But you've got the wrong man." Nick paused and leaned forward in his seat, but kept his hands in place, only sliding them from his thighs to his knees and peered at the other man when he got no response. "I have four sisters and several nieces. I'd kill or die before I saw anything happen to any of them, before I let any man hurt any of them."

Lennox glanced around the room, as if on cue, and saw the framed family photographs Nick had on most of the available shelf space in his living room. He drifted over to the entertainment center and picked up one photograph, a picture of Nick at Tabitha and EJ's wedding, where Nick had been the best man, then stared at the picture beside it, Nick serving as the godfather at little James' Christening.

The entire while, he kept the gun aimed at Nick.

"You have a nice family, but that doesn't change the facts." Lennox came back to stand in front of Nick just as Slany called from the bedroom.

"I'm dying in here. Please come back…I'm begging…"

Lennox didn't hesitate, pressed the muzzle of his gun to Nick's head and forced the younger man to stand. He pointed him toward the hallway.

"Mr. Lennox, you have the wrong idea. I'm telling y—"

"Move it!"

Nick slowly headed down the hallway, stalling, doing everything in his power to keep Lennox out of the bedroom. If the man saw Slany—the cuffs, the blindfold, the mini-whip—

there was no telling what he'd—

"You sick son-of-a-bitch!"

"Nick, who's there? What's going on?" Slany lifted her head and turned toward Lennox's voice, a frown clearly creasing her forehead.

"Everything's going to be fine, Slany. Just relax."

"You're damn right it is,” Lennox said. “I'm not going to let him hurt you, miss."

"What? No, you don't understand. He's not hurting me. Nick…?"

Lennox shoved Nick towards the bed, and Nick stumbled to one knee. He used his momentum to sweep the other leg out towards Lennox's ankles.

Lennox fell back, the gun discharging as Nick leaped into action, diving for the man's gun hand before he could raise it and get off another shot.

"Nick! Nick, what's going
on?
"

He struggled with the man for several fierce seconds, fingers desperately clamped around the other man's fists trying to pry away the gun.

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Nick banged Lennox's wrist against the floor. Suddenly, the closet door burst open in front of him, and someone leaped out.

He didn't have time to glance up and see the person, just saw the flash of a heavy-toed construction boot as it whipped out and struck Lennox in the head.

Lennox grunted and immediately lost his hold on the gun.

But mystery Closet Guy kicked the gun out of Nick's reach before he could grab it.

"Nick! Nick, what's happening?"

Closet Guy headed for the bed, and when Nick dove and tried to grab his ankles, he easily evaded Nick's grasp, swinging out that vicious book against his temple.

"Now, to get this show on the road…"

Nick lay supine, stunned as he watched Closet Guy leave him to approach the bed, tearing a piece of duct tape off a roll as he went. He watched the man sit on the bed beside Slany and stroke her face.

"There, there, Slany. Nothing to fear. I'm here now."

"Wha—Who
are
you?"

"Someone who cares very deeply for you. Always has."

"Ashton?"

"Get away from her," Nick croaked, stars still bursting and pinwheeling before his eyes as he struggled to one knee.

"No, someone much more worthy." Closet Guy put the tape over her mouth, and Slany screamed behind it as she jerked her head away from him. "Now, to take care of business…" He stood, stalked back to Nick just as he was getting to his feet, and slammed the butt of his gun against Nick's temple. "This is how a pro does it, Vega. No wasting time trying to find out about a missing daughter with no hopes of finding her alive. No sympathizing with a crazy old man bent on revenge…" Closet Guy screwed a silencer onto the muzzle of his gun, aimed it at Lennox's crumpled form on the floor, and fired one shot to the head, just like that.

"You sick fuck!"

"Takes one to know one." Closet Guy chuckled, and Nick blinked several times, tried to focus his vision, tried to get a good look at the man before he turned and headed back to the bed where he sat beside Slany's struggling form, broad back to Nick.

Nick watched Slany flinch as Closet Guy raised a hand to brush stray, moist curls from her face.

"So nice of you to gift-wrap her for me, Vega. I admire your thoroughness."

That voice. He was sure he recognized that voice and couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Get your hands off of her."

Slany shook her head, screaming behind the tape again.

Nick watched as Closet Guy took something out of a small satchel on the bedside table. It looked like a hypodermic.

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No!

He thought he screamed the denial out loud, but only heard the words in his head as his vision came and went, more blurry than not, even when he focused on the bed.

Closet Guy pricked the inside of Slany's closest arm with the needle, and Nick suffered the agony of watching her thrash about, pulling against the cuffs—the cuffs
he
had painstakingly applied for their sex play—before she passed out.

Nick belly-crawled in the direction where he thought he had seen Lennox's gun slide, towards the bed, and spotted it right there near Closet Guy's foot.

Shit!

He had a second to think it right before the man's heavy heel came down on his knuckles, then kicked Nick full-force in the ribs with the same boot.

Nick gasped, clutching his side as the man stepped over him and went back to the closet.

He watched as Closet Guy retrieved a rolled-up floor-to-ceiling rug from the closet and brought it over to the bed, methodically undoing Slany's cuffs, before he unrolled the rug and proceeded to roll Slany up into it, snug as a fucking bug.

No one would know she was in that rug when he left the building!

Had he killed her with that shot?

That didn't seem like Closet Guy/stalker's style. He seemed like the type to have a little fun with his victims before he did away with them. The things he'd done to Wells had been done over a period of days, according to the police.