Training Her Curves - Geneva (A BBW Billionaire Domination and Submission Romance) (4 page)

I almost didn't recognize his voice. My hearing was fine. The words twisted around one another as if they were wrestling their way out of him. The tone was raw, gravelly. He wound me tighter in his arms and said it again.

"I am," I whispered.

He retreated instantly, only touching me enough so that I didn't spill back onto the surface beneath us. I sat up and took stock of my condition. My knee stung. I lifted my skirt over the area to see that I had scraped it. That appeared to be the only injury.

"You didn't fall all the way before I reached you," he said, his voice smoothing out.

I swung around and hit my palm hard against his chest. "Are you crazy? You should have let me fall. One bad move getting off the roof's edge and you would have dropped twenty stories!"

"Still thinking about me when you should be worried about yourself, love." His hand closed over my scraped knee.

I angrily brushed it away. "Last time, you can bet on it."

Before Dylan could react, I shoved my hand into the lower pocket on his jacket where I had seen him place the pass card. I ran to the elevator, no longer thinking about how high up we were, and swiped the card. I didn't know if it would call the elevator back up without another security code for him.

Thankfully, it did and quickly. As soon as the doors opened, I jumped inside and spun around to look at him. He remained sitting on the rooftop, his gaze on its surface as if it was one of his ledgers, infinitely more important and interesting than me. His fingers absently stroked his breast pocket, reminding me of how he had made the same gesture earlier.

I punched the button that would return me to the office level then flung the pass card at his feet, leaving him alone on the roof.

By the time I reached the conference room, Riona had returned.

"Sweet sister, you look a mess," she said, concern warming her gaze. "I was hoping the two of you were off reconciling your differences."

I gave an angry shake of my head but said nothing else. I didn't have time to sort the thoughts racing through my head and talk to Riona before Dylan returned.

He looked completely nonplussed. Not a hair out of place, perfectly composed. He slid his jacket off and returned to the stack of folders. I followed suit, trying to find some normalcy that would soothe my nerves and distract my mind from what had just happened up on the roof.

The bastard had called me "love" -- after acting like a callous jerk to the point I fainted.

I fucking fainted! First time ever. Because of him.

Snapping open the guest folder, I looked at the first page again and immediately noticed what I had missed before. Dylan was picking up a highlighter and I snatched it out of his hand. I drew a fat yellow line across the entry that had caught my attention, flipped through the remaining pages and marked each recurrence then handed the folder to him.

He studied it, brows crinkling. Leaving the folder open to one of the highlighted entries, he picked up a second folder, scanned through it and highlighted several charge columns.

"Okay, what the hell are you two looking at?" Riona asked, all the relationship drama pushed aside for the moment.

"The hotel doesn't have a floor marked as thirteen," Dylan answered.

Riona rolled her eyes like Dylan and I were idiotic twins. "Because people are superstitious fools," she snorted.

"The names..." I started, drawing Dylan's attention to me. "What region are they from?"

"Mishka can confirm, but I think they are Russian and Eastern European."

I cut a side glance to Riona. "There are bookings for suites that would be on the thirteenth floor if the hotel, like practically every other hotel in western countries, didn't skip from the twelfth to the fourteenth. And isn't Eastern Europe and Russia supposed to be more superstitious than most?"

"Exactly," Dylan answered and tapped a finger against the charge columns. "We need to look into these guests. There are a lot of 'entertainment' charges to them, unspecified and very high dollar."

Standing, he grabbed his briefcase and the two folders. "Find Mishka and send him up to my room...please."

I nodded, ignoring for the moment that he'd just given me an order as if I were still his assistant. However mixed my emotions were regarding Dylan, the medical examiner's report had me motivated to take King out. I would play Dylan's assistant if necessary to get the job done.

"I'll message him," Riona said after Dylan left the room. Pausing as she pulled her phone out, she nodded at my rough appearance. "There's a ladies room at the end of the hall. Or, hell, go to your room for a couple of hours. No one is going to fault you, sweetie. And if anyone tries, I'll kick them in the balls."

"The bathroom will be fine," I answered and pushed my chair away from the table. "The faster we figure this out, the sooner we'll be back in America and thousands of miles away from your brother."

Her face broke wistful for a moment and then she nodded. Turning, I left the room. I didn't want to analyze Riona's expression. Maybe she was thinking about someone in the States and not about my desire to be as far away from Dylan as possible. Maybe she was totally thinking about me and Dylan -- which would only start me thinking about the same thing and I didn't need that painful and often embarrassing distraction.

Finding the bathroom, I washed my knee. There was mouthwash and I poured a little onto a paper towel and dabbed it on my scrape for its antiseptic properties. Next I futzed with my hair and dipped into the stall for a pee.

The state of my panties embarrassed me. As furious as I had been at Dylan, as horrified as I had been reading the autopsy report or up on the roof, there were many moments since my arrival at the hotel when my body had responded positively to Dylan's presence.

Hell, it was responding to the memories as I sat there on the toilet trying to urge my bladder to relax and spill its contents.

His hands on me in the elevator...

His kisses as he lured me onto the rooftop...

That demonically beautiful face of his as he taunted me from the crumbling edge of the building...

The way he had held me after I fainted while he still thought me unconscious.

Sighing, I gave up trying to pee, wiped the moisture that had reformed between my labia, and left the stall. Turning the water on to wash my hands, I paused as I reached for the soap dispenser.

My palm had an almost microscopic dot of dried blood on it. I scratched at the dot, fresh blood emerging from the pinprick. There was no other abrasion on the skin and my mind puzzled over how I could have gotten just the small hole when I fainted.

Not when I fainted, I realized. I had injured the area when I struck my open palm against Dylan's chest. I had hit him near the bottom of his breast pocket -- the same one I had twice seen him running his fingers against while we were fighting with each other, first in the conference room and then again right before I took the elevator down from the roof.

Quickly, I finished cleaning my hands. Going down the hallway, I saw Riona out of the conference room talking to Yannick. He was writing something down. She called to me right before I could turn into the conference room.

"Does a grilled chicken and cheddar on toasted bread sound good for lunch?"

My body gravitating toward the door, I managed a small nod.

"Salad?"

Another nod.

"Tea?"

I swallowed a frustrated groan before it could escape me. My gaze cut toward the conference table. Dylan had left with his briefcase, but he had forgotten his jacket. It would take only a few seconds after dismissing Yannick before Riona was back in the room.

"Water will do," I blurted. "Whatever dressing you're getting is fine with me."

I disappeared into the room before she could ask yet another question. I power walked to the chair and gingerly pushed my hand into the pocket. I felt another small prick and then my fingers closed around the object.

Pulling it out, I wanted to faint all over again.

The gladioli brooch winked at me. He had tried to give it back to me that night in Miami, I had left it in the room when I fled to Boston. He had saved it, carried it with him, even brought it to a country he didn't even expect me to be in. And twice today he had subconsciously reached for it while we quarreled.

Tears brimming, I shoved the pin into the pocket and moved to stare out the window until I knew I could look at Riona when she returned without any trace of the pain I felt.

********************

Sometimes I thought of life as a river that pulled me along without caring whether I knew how to swim or not. After finding the brooch in Dylan's pocket, I could have used a flotation ring strapped to each arm.

The river didn't care. Its current swept me further downstream, dragging me over sharp rocks, shoving me underwater. Trying to dam my emotions only made things rougher, so I decided to follow the flow -- once I had a free, private moment to arrange things.

I muddled my way through lunch, deflecting Riona's more personal questions and re-focusing her on the folders and anything in them that had other Eastern European connections. Suppliers, staff, more guests, financing, anything.

Mishka came in soon after we finished eating. His expression was grim but he would not explain beyond a few words. His accent was unusually thick as he spoke, a clear sign that the afternoon's discovery was bothering him.

"Some of these are very bad men," he said. "Dylan wants you both back in the States, jet leaves tomorrow. He will not let you refuse -- neither will I."

Tomorrow...

The schedule didn't give me much time to execute my plan. I excused myself for another bathroom break and disappeared down the hall. Through lunch, I had been reading the folders with one hand and searching with the browser on my phone with the other. I had a location picked, I just needed to contact the agent and book it -- if it was available.

I punched the number in. A woman answered. She walked me through the details, took my payment information and arranged for a driver as well. I hung up, returned to the conference room and lied about not feeling well then I went to my room, packed a small bag and returned to the ground floor to wait for the driver to show.

I wasn't running away again -- quite the opposite. At a little after four, I texted an address to Dylan and a time for him to arrive.

Dylan

The house rested high in the alpine foothills to the south of Geneva. Receiving Joey's text, I had done a quick web search of the address. I tried to call her, but she didn't answer. Mishka immediately ran a trace on her phone's location, which matched the address she had given me.

Riona swore no knowledge of what was going on.

Hope warred with caution in my head and chest. A search of her room showed no sign of a struggle. The text, even if she didn't send it, told me she hadn't run away. But the briefing Mishka had given me on some of the names, all members of organized crime in Russia and Eastern Europe, with strong operations along the Atlantic seaboard, had me worried that her leaving hadn't been voluntary. A check of the hotel cameras, however, showed her leaving with a small bag, alone but with an anxious face.

"I think it's your lucky night, my friend," Mishka said, his fingers strumming along the top of the steering wheel. A long paused followed and then he unleashed his twisted humor on me. "Or you're going to die a terrible death."

"Have I told you lately how much I hate you?" I joked back.

"It's been awhile." He shrugged, the side of his mouth that I could see curling up in a smile. "I was beginning to feel neglected. But I'm sure it's fine."

"So the three cars behind us are there because?"

"I get lonely," he offered, his grin climbing higher up his cheek. "I can check the house out first."

"No," I answered too quickly. I had a vision of Joey in my head, her choicest curves barely concealed by one of the outfits she'd modeled in the fall catalog. Looking at the proofs of the shoot had been absolute torture abated only by a trip to the executive bathroom and the relief only temporary.

Pulling out my phone, I called Mishka's phone number, he answered and then I slid my phone back into my breast pocket. Stepping out of the car, I shut the door.

"Hear me okay?"

"Da," he answered in his native tongue.

I circled the car and approached the stairs that would take me up to the main level. The house was built for privacy. The road ended in a turnout carved into the mountain with only garage doors accessible on the same level. I imagined there were interior stairs as well, but the doors were closed.

Up the steps I went, their path rounding behind the house, which was actually the front in terms of the layout inside.

"Still good?" I asked, my hand poised to knock. With all the apprehension over Joey's safety battering my insides, I promised I would give her one hell of a spanking if she had summoned me here for a private talk.

"Fantastic," the big Russian answered drily.