New Concepts Publishing www.newconceptspublishing.com

    Copyright © 2003 by Eden Robins

    First published by New Concepts Publishing, July 2003

    NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

    

    

    by

    Lesley Belle

    (c) copyright July 2003 Serena Thatcher

    Cover art (c) copyright July 2003 Eliza Black

    New Concepts Publishing

    4729 Humphreys Rd.

    Lake Park, GA 31636 www.newconceptspublishing.com

    Five years ago…

    He was getting close-too close. And the lives of innocent people were at stake-his included. He knew when he'd accepted the assignment that it would be dangerous. You didn't go toe-to-toe with members of the largest drug cartel this side of the border without knowing the antes. And his bet was up, time for Detective Brady "The Stinger" Randall to fold, though he wasn't the kind of guy who liked to lose. But he hated being set up even more. And by a woman. It was humbling-not to mention humiliating-to have fucked her only to have her fuck him right back. And not in the carnal sense.

    Brady figured it was inevitable. When a man lets his libido rule he relinquishes control, his mind gets muddled and his priorities messed up. And the night the drop-dead gorgeous beauty walked into his life it only took one look, one goddamn come-hither look from those emerald eyes that could hook a man like a hit of heroin from a dirty syringe, and he'd been helpless to stop it. The temptation too consuming and, as he just realized, deadly. It was sloppy. It was stupid. He'd been set up, his cover blown, and the sting operation to bring down the infamous Fernando Mason and his sidekick son a.k.a. Andy Stone, had been halted. Now he had to forfeit the game. So he did the only thing he could do. He killed himself.

    

    

    Isabella Mason abhorred drugs and forbade them in her club. She wasn't naпve enough to think that her girls came to work a little fired up with more than adrenaline, but she had a strict policy-no drugs allowed. Not even aspirin was acceptable and she ensured that every girl's bag and person was thoroughly searched at the beginning and end of every shift. If they were caught they were fired on the spot-no questions asked. Just tossed out on their firm, sculpted bottoms.

    Isabella had a reputation for being somewhat of a tight-ass, but she didn't care. If her employees wanted to reap the rewards from her exclusive night club and even more exclusive clientele, they would pay homage to her rules. Isabella ran a clean club-and she would keep it that way.

    Isabella thanked God every day that she was born a woman. Her curvy body and feminine wiles had served her well over the years along with her savvy business sense that was easily overlooked not only by her family, but by her competitors. You had to capitalize on your strengths, use your attributes to get want you wanted, and that's exactly what Isabella had done over the years.

    She easily spent fourteen hours a day, every day, except Sunday, in her club A Stone's Throe. It was glitzy, glamorous, and, above all, lucrative. Men and women, alike, sandwiched themselves outside between ruby red velvet ropes, vying for the opportunity to get a peak behind the tinted windows into an erotic fantasy world that would revisit their dreams, and probably bedrooms, for nights afterward. People, Isabella knew, craved escape. They sought out temptation. They wanted to awaken their senses and stimulate their bodies. If that required watching uninhibited female forms bending, squatting, fondling and shaking various body parts on stage, alone or in tandem, then she was more than pleased to take their money and provide the essential service. Because it was a service, more valuable than others Isabella could imagine. She sold sex. Not the act itself, but the idea of it, the most sensual and arousing and uncomplicated aspects of it. It made people happy.

    It made her rich.

    Isabella wasn't ashamed or embarrassed by her career choice. Not her style. Why should she be? People had urges, thirsts that needed to be quenched by more than martinis decorated with expensive olives bobbing on plastic swizzles or vintage scotch served in gilded snifters at the bar. It was all above board, completely legal, and absolutely necessary. Her club catered to the curious, the deprived and the sexually frustrated-as long as they paid.

    And they paid heftily for the chance to have women flaunt their wares and titillate warped or weary senses.

    Discreetly.

    The straight-laced, politically correct corpses that entered her club left with renewed vigor and life. Appearances were deceiving, so Isabella never judged. But she never underestimated, either. Behind the conservative business suits and silk gowns lay some of the kinkiest individuals Isabella could ever imagine. You get what you pay for. So they paid and Isabella provided everything from naughty to nice as long as the guests looked but never touched. She ran an exotic night club-not a brothel. Another of Isabella's strict policies. She employed performers, not prostitutes. The air could reek of sex, the atmosphere oozing with it, but it was an illusion of the senses. She didn't rent rooms by the hour or allow dark corner escapes. Hands stayed on the linen covered tables, zippers stayed fastened, and the only thing swallowed was liquor.

    Taking one last look in the mirror before exiting her dressing room above the club, Isabella wondered fleetingly if she didn't somehow resemble a modern day Madam with her rouged cheeks and cherry lips. Her porcelain skin a sharp contrast to the pink and red hues garnishing her complexion, one that dissimilated her from her Spanish heritage. Her mother, though Isabella knew very little about her except that she was a whore her father had hidden for nine months and sent away after Isabella was born, must have been fair skinned with green eyes because she barely resembled her father or brother save for the short stature that seemed more of a custom than a gene-pool influence.

    Her club was the feather in her cap. No worse than the illegal narcotics they bought and sold-her oblivion to the family enterprise an undeclared requisite-and no better than the whore her mother made her by association. But it worked for Isabella. She was wealthy, independent and unburdened by family ties.

    As much as could be expected, anyway.

    Her father and brother stayed away for the most part, but Isabella knew that they didn't run in such different circles. Her father and brother still kept their hands in the pot, kept a watch on her to ensure she didn't stray too far from the family allegiance. They were powerful men and that meant they needed to keep her close if only to keep her quiet. And when the gun-wielding brutes showed up on her doorstep every month to scour her club and deposit a wad of folded bills in her hand, she merely smiled and batted her eyelashes. She couldn't throw it back. Her only solace was the club's name, A Stone's Throe. A silent indictment of the distaste she had for her paternal lineage and a reminder to them that she still had a bet to make and a chip to gamble with. A taciturn dare that she was still in the game, could still pose a threat, and could cash in at any time. And if she did place a wager, it would be from six feet under.

    That was their challenge to her.

    So instead of throwing back the money, she opted to throw-up in the bathroom. Then she'd sob in her office, alone, and distribute the money to her employees in the form of a monthly bonus for a job well-done. She was afforded few chances, so Isabella just played the sport and kept her cards close. As much as possible.

    "Good evening, Ms. Mason." The burly man nodded brusquely as he uttered the salutation.

    "Hello, George, how are things looking tonight?" Isabella shared a secret code with the head of the club's security team. He was also a loyal and trusted friend, though he said little. He was a man of action, not words.

    Many saw him as a bouncer, a barbarian who intimidated people with his menacing stature and, should he be forced to use it, his street-wise fighting skills that had landed at least two men in the hospital. The first being his father. The second an unruly patron of A Stone's Throe.

    George had little patience for men who hit women, having watched his own mother endure endless years of abuse at the hands of his doped-up, cracked-out, trailer trash father who had apparently treated the family dog with more respect than his wife. So when he'd come home to an unconscious father and a battered mother, unrecognizable through bruises and blood, George had made good on a promise. But the man lived and George agreed to leave it that way so long as he never touched his mother again.

    The other man lived, too. His crime only a minor infraction, but slapping one of Isabella's girls was just not tolerable. And word got around that if you roughed up a lady at Isabella's club you'd be certain not to do it again.

    "Clean," the man replied stiffly, never taking his eyes off the action unfolding around them.

    Isabella knew that meant that the club was drug-free and hassle-free. No cops lurking about, no enforcers coming to pay her off. "Thank you, George. I'll be at the bar should you need me."

    Isabella was granted another terse nod to signal his acknowledgement before she strolled past him and up to the bar nestled at the far end of the room. It extended the length of the floor with leather covered stools standing sentinel in front. The mahogany wood was always polished and pristine, giving the illusion that one was seated at an exceptionally high and ill-dimensioned formal dining table instead of a bar.

    Isabella spared no expense for the comfort of her guests. Chandeliers cast a warm, ambient glow where strobe lighting customarily flickered and spewed colored bleeps of rainbow light. Linen covered pedestal tables replaced sticky, beer smeared ones, and plush carpet was laid where squares of muted linoleum usually rested. Isabella wasn't matron to a back-alley disco. Hers was a fashionable club that serviced those with discerning tastes and an elitist attitude. Like sugar, her club was a refined, sweet seduction that people arduously denied themselves in public, but devoured in private. A stimulus that got into the bloodstream. Addiction meant repeat customers.

    The night was still young and people still mulled around the perimeter of the club. Later, all eyes would be focused on the entertainment at center stage, an L-shaped platform that gave admirers a clear view of the performers who would dance and gyrate for the pleasure of the wealthy voyeurs.

    Yes, Isabella mused, she liked having that much power.

    Isabella rested a casual elbow on the bar and waited. People came to her or avoided her just as avidly depending on their mood. She'd been told once that she had eyes that mesmerized, cast a spell. So she stood, patiently, to see what magic she could wield this evening.

    "Ms. Mason." A deep, husky voice sounded from behind. No one ever dared call her by her given name in the club. Another one of her rules. She had learned years ago that mixing business with pleasure, dissolving the thin line between professional and personal was deadly.

    Gracefully, Isabella turned around and set her sights upon the man. He was… average. No distinguishing characteristics, nothing special. Isabella bored easily lately, and this man bored her with just the mundane sight of him. He was also a "candy customer"-a regular guest who dropped a handsome sum into Isabella's profit bucket. Money dripped from his limbs-the too-big, gold watch, the designer suit that made his slumping shoulders protrude from their sockets and jut into a perfect T-shape, the perfect white smile blighted only by a shimmer of bullion capped over one eye tooth that matched the timepiece dangling on his wrist. He smelled faintly of peppermint. Isabella's stomach rolled once.

    "Good evening," Isabella cooed, extending her hand. The man brought the appendage to his lips and kissed it cordially, his eyes never leaving hers.

    Isabella smoothly removed her hand and smiled. "Sasha and Tasha will be pleased to see you tonight." The man had a thing for the two women who did creative things with their identically pierced tongues.

    "They are my favorite," the man confirmed shamelessly. "But you already know that, Ms. Mason."

    Isabella nodded, her smile never faltering. He wanted those tongues for his own personal enjoyment, she knew. Once he'd offered her ten thousand dollars for an hour of their private services. Isabella had refused. She wasn't a pimp and the girls were barely old enough to be legal, though they'd been forced to mature far beyond their age. They'd been selling their bodies since they were fourteen and Isabella had made them a better offer to get them off the streets. Now any sexual acts they engaged in for payment was limited to their stage exploits with each other.

    "You are far too protective, Ms. Mason," the man scolded, his mouth curving into a conspiratorial smile.

    Go to hell, creep. Isabella tittered politely and ran a brightly painted fingertip over his lapel. "I have rules. But you already know that."

    The man snatched her hand and held it. Tight. "I like a woman who knows how to tease me," he hissed, though his voice was as strained as her fingers clutched in his palm.

    Isabella swallowed a yelp. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He wouldn't intimidate her. Not on her turf. She slanted him a wry grin instead.

    The man released the hand and flexed his fingers, then winked and sauntered away. He would stay. He couldn't not. He was, in Isabella's estimation, a well-dressed junkie needing a fix.

    Isabella gestured to the bartender and a shot of black, licorice tasting liquid was deposited in front of her. Black sambucca. She tossed it back, licked her lips, and headed back to her office. Not even the burning elixir could cleanse her tonight. Made-up, decked out and outwardly composed. Medicated with a shot of black sin only moderately numbed her but couldn't even begin to chip away the faзade. Ever since that night five years ago, she had felt dirty. Cheap. Empty. She had more scruples than her brother, more compassion than her father, and she never spread her legs for just any man like her mother, but she wasn't any better. She was cursed.

    Pasting an elegant smile on her face, she glided through the club and back up the stairs to her sanctuary. The show could go on without her tonight.

    

    

    He watched her from the shadows. She was beautiful, breath-taking in every regard. A man couldn't help but watch her. She seemed to float rather than walk, her curvaceous figure swaying gracefully while she moved. Her jet black hair hung in ringlets down her back, the sheen tinged the texture with a blue glow and her lush lips were outlined in red vibrancy. She looked as tempting as the flame atop a pillar candle that lured but burned if you got too close.

    Isabella, my beautiful, he chanted silently in his head. She was unforgettable. She was a bitch.

    He watched his quarry with avid voracity. He wanted to pounce but refrained. He'd learned the value of patience. He would wait. The time would be right, soon. She was a liability. She was trouble. She was a pain in the ass. He would need to teach her a lesson-betrayal was not an admirable quality. It was bad for business. Especially bad for a woman.

    Digging her delicate fingers tipped with manicured nails that matched her lips-talons really-into the fissure between her two plump breasts, she extracted a key and employed it to open the door to her office. Rarely did she allow people in there, he knew. He'd been granted entrance once before… but only once. Isabella's club was more a fortress than an established night club and it was a wonder he'd managed to get inside without detection. Absently, he rubbed his twitchy fingers over the metal holstered at his side. He would use it if necessary.

    The mongrel at the entrance of the club had been easier to by-pass than he'd anticipated. He had the face of a bull dog and the intelligence of a damn moth, attracted stupidly to the light, so he'd strategically sheathed himself in black attire, careful to creep along the dim perimeter. Easy in.

    He heard the click as the solid wooden door compressed back into place, then the snap of the chain as Isabella fastened it. Stupid woman. Like a door lock and a metal chain could keep him out. He had the urge to plant his shoulder against the barrier and ram it until it flung open. But he wouldn't. Not tonight. Tonight he would watch and wait. Calculate his next move. He pressed his fingers to his lips, smelled the sweet linger of cigar on the digits. "Until we meet again, my beautiful," he whispered as he blew a kiss into the darkness.

    

    

    "Yes, papa, I got the money." Isabella fumbled with the lid of the contraband as she balanced the phone in the crux of her shoulder. She had a headache that threatened to split her head apart and she needed the aspirin. "No, papa, there are no problems with the club. I am well protected."

    Her father called at the most inopportune times-infrequent enough to keep her off-balance and more regularly lately to make her suspicious. He sounded bothered. When he spoke to her in Spanish instead of the broken English he'd never perfected, she knew something was agitating him.

    "No, papa, there is no man. No gringo, papa. I told you."

    Her father spoke more erratically now. Isabella struggled to keep up with the Spanish she'd never perfected.

    She felt cornered, the same way she had felt as a little girl, living under his roof, his rules. He would interrogate her, convinced that she was keeping something, or someone, from him.

    "Who is he?" he kept repeating in his native tongue-she could decipher that much. Along with his disapproval.

    "Papa! Por favor. Please." Isabella rubbed her aching temple. "I am not involved with anyone." It was a curious question. Her father insisted she was a whore like the mother she never knew, so she took the abusive line of questioning, yet she'd never given him reason to suspect she was involved. Not for a long time, anyway. Not since the man she had loved died five years ago. And even then, she was discreet. Her father, as far as she knew, had never known about her lover.

    Her father's grunt interrupted her thoughts. He always grunted when he was satisfied with her response and didn't want to hear another word.

    "Be a good girl, Isabella. Respect your father and your family as a good daughter should." It was a warning spoken in English.

    "I do, papa," Isabella replied dutifully. She would not cross her father-at least not to his face. She knew the sinister wrath of the man who had raised her. Isabella was not a timid woman, but he had raised her in self-doubt and fear. Sometimes the sins of the father were too powerful an influence to shake even in adulthood.

    "Si, yes. Your mama-no good woman. You, my daughter, remembers her place." Another reminder that made Isabella's teeth clench. Her father never missed the chance to remind her that her mother was a slut who had shamed him and that Isabella was born from her womb, thus part of that disobedience. As much as he tried, he couldn't break the spirit that was bred into the daughter from the mother. Her father may have screwed the woman who was Isabella's mother, but it was her fault she got pregnant and bore him an illegitimate child.

    "Goodnight, papa."

    The buzz of the dial tone signaled the end of the conversation-as dictated by him of course.

    Slowly, Isabella lowered herself into the chair behind her desk and kicked off her shoes. She drew her knees protectively up to her chest and reached for the converter that operated the security camera. At the flick of a button, Isabella could observe the goings-on of her club from the safety of her office. She froze immediately when she heard the rattle of the doorknob. Nobody was authorized to be up here in her rooms. She had an office and a suite on the second floor of the club for convenience-and a condo across town for appearance sake. Her father wouldn't hear of his daughter living above a night club that showcased naked women, though selling dope, in his estimation, was a perfectly respectable business. Her father didn't slip a plastic baggie into the hands of his clients on a street corner-there were runners for that. Children were lured by money that could feed a family used to food stamps and hunger pains. Somehow, her father had deduced that that was admirable and dissolved him of any wrong-doing. It sickened Isabella.

    The doorknob rattled again. She opened the drawer and retrieved the gun. She hated feeling vulnerable, though she'd never so much as released the safety on the damn thing before, but it gave her a false sense of security, nonetheless.

    Nobody had a key but her. Not even George. And he'd call her before invading her private space. The person on the other side of that door didn't belong there.

    Suddenly, there was a loud bang that reverberated against the door. Isabella was more surprised the door hadn't cracked in half than she was with the pounding that ensued. And the groans. The gasping pleas to stop. Then silence.

    Isabella ran to the door and unhooked the chain, released the lock and opened the door, gun pointed.

    A limp body slumped onto her calves, the weight of the man pressing against the tops of her bare feet.

    "Lower that gun, Ms. Mason."

    Isabella was shaking so violently the barrel of the gun nodded in sinister salutation at her bouncer. George took the liberty of wrapping his paw-like hand around the apparatus, tugging it free from her grip.

    Isabella stood stunned. Then realized a very unconscious man was resting against her legs and jumped back, instantly.

    "It's… it's… "The words stuck in her throat like a wedged toothpick.

    "Yes," was George's brisk reply. "I saw him sneak up here. Do you want me to kill him?"

    Wide-eyed at his candor, she merely shook her head.

    "I'll just remove him, then."

    Isabella had no doubt George was serious. He would have killed the man. For Isabella, he would have murdered. That thought, in itself, terrified Isabella and mollified her in some perverse way. He would protect her-no question.

    "Don't… just get him out of here, George. Please."

    "Lock the door," he ordered as he hefted the man over his shoulder. He hung lifelessly over the massive shoulder but Isabella could see his chest moving. He was still alive. He would live thanks to Isabella's simple request. To control the life of a human being was an absurd concept. To decide in a split second whether a man would live or die at the hands of another. She didn't like the feeling. She'd felt it once before-five years ago.

    Isabella shivered. She would have to speak to George, again, and incite another rule at her club. Nobody died.

    She closed the door and wondered why the man wearing the designer suit and the gold tooth would stalk her.

    Isabella slid down the door and crumpled onto the floor. Her father was right. She was a good daughter. She didn't have people executed. Very high standards indeed.

    Isabella raised her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to contain the hurt, the sheer force of the physical pain throbbed menacingly at her core. The ache seemed more a part of her than the intrusion it was-had been for several years now.

    The tears came now, concealed within the walls of her office. No one saw Isabella, the hard-ass club owner, the dutiful little daughter, cry.

    She wanted out. "Out!" she yelled to the invisible demons circling her like prey in the darkness. "Out!" she repeated, thumping a fist against the floor.

    Drained, she set her cheek against the cool cushion of the carpet.

    Tonight she'd settle for the blackness that accompanied sleep like a blanket that could wrap around her, cover her, and disengage her from reality for a little while.

    Isabella drifted away.

    On the floor.

    

    

    She looked like a bug. A shelled little beetle in her onyx dress, shimmering against the ray of light that peaked around the door from the hallway. She was lying in a fetal position on the rust colored carpet. He thought of squishing the pest, flattening it with one hard blow that would make her insides meld and blend with that carpet in a unity of crimson. But one look at that face, that bewitching little face, and he lost his nerve.

    He was no barbarian-just a man. An angry man.

    Isabella had been raised with her father's iron fist and her brother's arrogant, yet perfunctory, attention. She was the baby, the little girl, the princess who had been banished from their hearts, but not their lives, simply because she was born in her mother's image.

    Hate and love was such a disconcerting dichotomy. So close together in the spectrum of emotions that they wrapped around you and met, like fingers around a globe touching, to create a circle.

    His Bella. His beautiful Bella.

    Her slender legs, hitched and bent, were crossed at the ankle so that her knees grazed the swell of her tits pushing out of the bodice of her gown. The heals of her bare feet almost touched her ass. He wanted to fuck her there. Shove himself up her hole. That virginal, forbidden place. But she was no innocent, he knew.

    The haze of fury that he'd constructed as a defense against the hurt and betrayal he'd carried for so many years was dissipating, like a fog pushed away by the brilliance and heat of the sun. God damn, her! One look at her and he was stripped of it all. All the viciousness and violence-gone. And he didn't like what was left.

    Guilty, he uncurled his fists and knelt beside her. With the gentle stroke of a familiar lover, he ran his fingers over her hip and down her bottom. He stopped when his fingers grazed the crevice he'd been plotting to invade. He could ram them up inside her, show her what happened when a woman fucked with him, plotted against him, used him, then turned him away.

    He removed his hand, burning from both the touch and the vile thought.

    Isabella made a whimpering sound in her sleep.

    He replaced his hand and she moaned.

    Little bitch. How many men had she had since his… departure? Bile rose in his throat-he hated to think of it. Nobody had the goddamn right to touch her but him. Always him. Absently, he wondered what her illustrious club members would think of the owner of one of the kinkiest and well-respected strip joints in the city being a virgin when he'd had her five years ago? She'd been an innocent when he'd rammed his cock inside her and looked into her wickedly sensual green eyes.

    Green-eyed witch is what her brother, Andy, had called her. Eyes like peas, hair like night, and skin pale as the cloud brimming above a wicked caldron. Wicked. That's what they thought of her. That's what she tried to emulate. She wouldn't want to disappoint them by not living up to her reputation. But, he'd felt the tear of her innocence as he entered her-heard her gasp when he'd filled her. He'd been gentle, but horny. Enchanted, captivated, consumed by her. And when he'd been inside her he'd felt a completeness he didn't realize could be achieved by the coupling of two people. It wasn't just sex. It was… more.

    Isabella moaned again and wiggled instinctively against his outstretched hand. He shouldn't. He knew he shouldn't. He didn't come here to… shit she felt so good. He caressed her bottom, felt the warmth of her skin under the fabric. He smelled her-the subtle scent of her perfume, the faint aroma of her arousal, her juice, and imagined the wetness pooling against the crotch of the silk panties she loved to wear.

    His fingers slid beneath the hem of her dress and his hand traveled up the flesh of her leg and rested on her hip as if he'd been taken over by an unstoppable force, his hand taking on a mind of its own separate from rational thought. It pushed him to continue, until his hand rested against her waist. If he spread his fingers he could touch the… no silk tonight. God. He could feel the tickle of hair against the tips of his fingers. Isabella made another noise and pushed her bottom out so that it touched his knee as he kneeled over her.

    Was she drunk? Or just fast asleep and dreaming of… who? Who was she dreaming about?

    His fingers clutched the crinkled hair roughly. Damn her. He swiftly yanked her more snuggly against the hard cap of his knee, his violent erection pulsing against the zipper of his pants as the top cheek of her ass grazed his groin. She was practically hitched on his lap. But still she slept.

    What if she woke up? It wasn't the time. He wouldn't rush this reunion. But he couldn't resist. One more touch. So he used his free hand and clamped it around her breast. And squeezed, the flesh filling his palm, the action enticing his sleeping, beautiful slut to roll backwards. Now she rested partially on the floor, the other half of her body arching across his lap. Her head was thrown back, resting on the carpeted floor, eyes still tightly shut. He wanted to make her come. Yearned to see those penetrating eyes glaze as he took control of her body and made her convulse from the impact of a climax.

    If she woke up he'd smother her. Yes, he would. He could. But he needed this, now. He was owed this much by her.

    He pushed his hand between her soaking thighs and felt the ooze of her feminine juice across his skin. She needed the touch of a man-any man it seemed. Fury rose inside him at the same time he shoved two fingers inside her. She cried out her pleasure. She deserved pain and he gave her pleasure. Reflexively, he curled his fingers as if he wanted to make a fist, but the action elicited another cry of joy from the slumbering woman bucking over his thighs. Obviously, he'd found her G-spot and he continued his torturous ministrations as she writhed unconsciously in perfect time with the pressure he exerted inside her.

    Enough! The pain was his, now. He withdrew his fingers quickly, the exit making her whine in disappointment. He'd give her what she wanted. Not because he wanted to give her anything, but because he was desperate to possess her. His.

    He rolled her unceremoniously off him and onto her stomach. He heard her gasp and saw her try to lift her head. He shoved her face back down and growled like a feral animal as he covered her body with his own. She was awake, now.

    "I'm going to fuck you, now," he warned in a lethal whisper as he freed his near exploding erection. He felt her struggle, trying to get her hands under her so she could lift herself up from her prone position. "Don't," he ordered and reached under her, the back of his hands brushing across her erect nipples, and hauled her hands free. He jerked them above her head, palms down. Isabella had no choice but to obey, his weight crushing her into the plush floor and the tone of his voice just as severe. She couldn't move.

    He placed his hands under the swell of her bottom and shoved so that her knees would burn from the friction of the movement as he accomplished his goal. He stared into the sweet splay of her thighs, the pink skin looking so delicate he might have been convinced that she had remained untouched since he'd had the pleasure of sucking her glorious center. It was so long ago.

    "Please…"

    He heard her hoarse plea, a mere whisper. He had frightened her. That should make him proud. Instead, it made his frosted heart crack at the pitying sound of her voice.

    He pushed it aside. He was a hard man-in more ways than one. "You run a fucking strip club. You advertise sex. By default, you should want it, too."

    He heard her swallow a sob.

    Shit. Get it over with, he chided. Bang the bitch and go. Take her!

    He wrapped an arm around her waist to immobilize her and pressed the iron of his arousal against her opening. One thrust. Maybe two and he'd be done. He just needed to jerk his hips and blow his load.

    Isabella was motionless, frozen in position with her dress wrinkled about her slender waist, her raven hair hanging in a mass around her head that was planted, face first, on the floor. She was quiet. Too quiet. Maybe he'd scared her to death and he was about to screw a corpse. Pretty picture.

    Disgusted, he scraped a calloused hand over his face and let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Then, he let go of Isabella and she slid forward limply, her delicate body now horizontal, arms still where he'd told her to keep them, above her head.

    "I'm sorry, Bella," he murmured. What a candy-ass he was. He had an opportunity and he lost his goddamn nerve.

    He saw her hair ruffle and her back lift off the ground slightly as she tried to move. His command was softer this time. "Stay there until you hear the door close."

    Stealthily, he rose, tucked himself back inside his pants, and confined the animal that had wanted-and still wanted-to feel the moist heat of the woman on the floor.

    Without sound, he left.

    Isabella heard the click of the door latching back into place. Her skin still tingled from where the man had touched her. His breath branding her. And she knew. Either she was in hell or he'd come back to take her there with him.

    

    

    He was a respected man. A revered man. A hated man. He was also dead.

    It had been the perfect murder. And he'd planned it in less than forty-eight hours. Two days and he'd been dead. Gone. Out. He'd had no other choice.

    His people had blamed the drug cartel and they had taken the credit, but without doing the deed. Stupid bastards.

    No body was ever recovered. Fire could do that-burn until there was nothing left but ash and teeth. Teeth that had been smashed and ultimately unrecognizable so that even the most high-tech equipment couldn't conclusively match his dental records to the bits left in the corpse's mouth. Poor bastard. A casualty of war that nobody would miss. One of Mason's lackeys. It was a minor irritant to Mason that one of his own had been misplaced, but he hadn't lost sleep over it. Neither had Brady. It was just luck that he'd found the man already dead, overdosed on the product he had been paid to protect. Regardless, the mole had been relegated back to his hole-and buried. Detective Brady "The Stinger" Randall was gone-or so they believed. Good riddance.

    Brady sat nursing a beer in his dingy room. Oh, he had friends-the cockroaches had an affinity for providing company in the dank stink of the dungeon he had called home for weeks now.

    Brady was back.

    He'd slipped back in the dark, much like his hard-shelled buddies, and carefully stayed in the shadows. It wouldn't do for "The Stinger" to roll out the welcome mat on his own behalf five years after his tragic death. God knows how much money had been spent on those pretty little floral arrangements littering the church the day of the funeral-and the fucking commemorative plaque at police headquarters had been custom engraved. He was a legend. A nameless, faceless, nobody who might as well be six feet under-his present abode was certainly as lonely and limited. A coffin may well have been bigger and cushier than living in an infested dive where the water was yellow on a good day and brown most others. But nobody here cared and they certainly didn't take the time to ask questions. Cash at the beginning of every week and fuck-you-very-much until next Monday.

    Brady ran a hand through his shoulder length bleached blonde hair. Quite a change from the neatly gelled brown do he'd sported as an undercover agent while he'd been busting his balls infiltrating the most exclusive drug ring in the country. He'd known this was to be his final assignment before bugging out, getting a new identity and moving to a secluded beach in the south Pacific, his days as an undercover agent finished. Well, at least he'd gone out with a bang! And after getting even with the woman who'd made him take an early and unconventional retirement, he'd be through for good. No more scum bags and no more rat-ass rooms. He'd take that nest egg he'd hidden and go to that beach-a free man, finally. Freed of the chains of raw fury that ate away at him like a disease. Who ever said revenge was sweet? Damned straight. And he would savor every morsel of it and settle the score once and for all. Then he'd be able to move on with whatever scrap of a life still remained after the vultures had ripped it apart.

    Brady used his palm to cover a roach racing across the wobbly wooden table and captured it in his hand. Then he crushed it. And thought of Isabella.

    Christ, he'd wanted to do that to her tonight. But one look at her and he'd gone soft-in the head and heart, but not in the groin. He remembered, the picture of her lying in front of him as clear as a Kodak, and he could feel the beginnings of another erection. And something else-something far more tender. Love made a man weak. Dumbly, he realized he was still in love with her.

    Brady knew he would have taken her with him once the job was done and her father and brother were rotting away in a four by eight prison cell somewhere, though she hadn't known he was a cop. Not at first, anyway. Brady had naively suspected she was as clean as the proverbial whistle. Christ, she'd hated him because he had worked for her father and brother. Or so he stupidly thought. Now he knew better.

    The moment he'd met her gaze while posing as one of Mason's right-hand men, she'd practically hissed like a venomous snake, all the while coiling and curling herself around him in order to please her brother. He'd introduced Brady as an associate and told Isabella to entertain him at her club. She'd complied by offering him a front row seat and a cocktail. Then she left.

    He'd followed her with his eyes for weeks, watching her float easily into her prescribed roles as hostess, employer, obedient daughter and supportive sister. She slipped in and out of character with graceful charm, yet Brady knew, whether by training or instinct, that there was more to Isabella than the ceremonious faзade she revealed to the world. What Brady saw was an unhappy, displaced woman who, like a chameleon, blended with her surroundings with resiliency and understated bravado. She intrigued him. So he'd set out to earn her trust, form a strategic alliance with the king pin's daughter and learn about the secrets she hid so stoically beneath her polished veneer, as pristine as the mahogany bar they'd christened one night after the club closed. It was a glorious and primal mating. Uninhibited.

    It had began as innocent flirtation and escalated quickly. She was sassy and seductive and he never would have fathomed the possibility that she was still a virgin until she'd cried out sharply after he'd thrust himself into her. He'd wanted to stop and soothe her, he almost did, but she'd eagerly clutched the edge of the wooden counter, dug her nails into the lacquer and pressed her swollen breasts into the tabletop so that he could ram her again. She encouraged him with her body, squirming beneath him, face down, in much the same way she had lain on the floor tonight for him. Her breath fogged the shiny surface and her moans of pleasure echoed in the barren room until they came-together-for the first time. Then Brady had lifted her from the elevated make-shift podium, gathered her in his arms, looked into her eyes, and carried her upstairs to her bed. And had fallen in love.

    He could still remember her shaking after their torrid night of sex, begging him not to tell her brother about the affair. It was the only time Brady saw her weak. Even in bed, the virgin had been a spit-fire. But her family scared the shit out of her. She didn't have to tell him for Brady to know it. So he'd held her face in his hands and pledged his promise to her that had ultimately killed him. It was a set-up… and Isabella, that little wench, a talented actress. The tears seemed so real. The vow of love so genuine. The only thing she hadn't faked was her orgasm.

    Next time, Brady thought wryly as he brushed the black corpse of the bug off his palm, he'd coax more from her than sexual satisfaction. This next time, she'd tell all-and damn her if she didn't, he'd kill her.

    He knew she had set him up, sold him out. He hadn't told her he was a cop, but something in those eyes of hers-as if she could see right through him. Maybe her family had found out about them and she had covered her own ass by telling them that he was a cop just to take the pressure off. To show her alliance with them. Giving the dogs a new scent to follow. Oh, his Bella was a smart little minx.

    Brady rose slowly from his chair and sauntered into the bathroom, not bothering with the lights. In the darkness he couldn't see the hue of the water. In the darkness he could see Isabella's wholesome face, untainted with deception, in front of him. Nothing could block that image from him. He would always see her that way, though it was a lie. A sick trick that his mind tried to constantly play on him.

    Stepping under the spray, he wrapped his hand around his cock, the sluicing water lubrication. His hand slid up and down his hard dick in a paced rhythm. Brady clenched his jaw and stifled a groan. He figured at this rate, Isabella would end up killing him first.

    For real this time.

    

    

    For five years he'd suffered without her. Because of her. And he needed her. Still. Brady sat in the leather chair behind Isabella's desk watching her on the closed circuit screen in full, glorious color while the stage show behind her served as an erotic backdrop. Brady marveled at the technology and wondered if Isabella had installed the cameras simply to keep a close eye on the happenings of her club or whether she enjoyed having the secret power to watch the performances from the privacy of her office. Maybe they turned her on and she pleasured herself from the comfort of her leather chair, the same one Brady was currently warming. Funny. Watching the swirl of bodies on the compact monitor didn't arouse him. The naked breasts with ornamented gold tassels over the nipples and the swell of female rear-ends left him indifferent. It was the woman with the swaying hips, clothed in a strapless cerulean dress that illuminated her blue-black locks that had him wanting to touch his semi-erect cock through his jeans. She was the devil and the damsel entwined in a body of sin with the face of an exotic goddess. At one point, she peered directly into the lens of the camera, as if she could sense him watching her. Her eyes, a shade darker than her form-fitting frock, pierced him from behind the glass barrier, mesmerizing him with familiar intensity.

    And then she was gone.

    And he smiled in anticipatory glee.

    

    

    Isabella knew where all the camera's were placed inside her club. Just as she knew how to side-step each one of them. It wasn't avoidance. She just needed time to think.

    She had felt his presence when she'd looked up into the camera hidden beside the stage as surely as if he had winked at her from across the room. Her body told her, a mixture of apprehension and stimulation that shot tingles down to her very center. He touched her with just a look, as potent as his touch last night in her office. She had wanted him to touch her, take her, enliven her own blunted senses. For five years she'd dreamed of him, fantasized about him, thought of him when she touched herself. He could reach the most intimate and vulnerable parts of her with only a memory.

    Her body remembered. Her heart, too. Her soul, her very core, yearned for him. She just never thought he'd come back to her. He had been dead for years-she made herself believe it, harden herself against the onslaught of emotions and guilt that consumed her because of it. Now, Brady had come back to exact his revenge, to take the last remaining piece of her that could still feel-and love. And she was helpless not to give it over to him.

    Mummified in her evening gown and concealing make-up, she stood stone-still at the base of the stairs. If she went up she would take him down with her. He was not safe here. Nothing was safe or sacred in her life and especially not in her club. She was a puppet and there were strings. There could never be freedom. Her life was a sequence of illicit illusions-a paid performance. Her family paid, her club patrons paid. Brady had paid for her, too-with his life. Though she couldn't be certain, she believed that somehow she was to blame. Perhaps tonight she could repay him.

    "Isabella, my beautiful."

    Isabella whipped her head around so fast black curls slapped her face.

    "Will you invite me up?" The masculine voice prickled and abraded like burlap against a baby's delicate flesh.

    Isabella's eyes darted around, belying her contrived composure.

    "My beautiful, do not worry." He ran a fingertip down her cheek. It seared like a branding iron. "George did not see me."

    "What do you want, Andy?"

    "What any brother wants from his dear, little sister." A predatory look flashed into his eyes then disappeared. "A flame," he said, carefully sliding a plump cigar out of his pocket with the tips of his fingers.

    "I don't smoke. You'll have to get what you're looking for inside the club." She spit the words out, knowing full-well what he wanted.

    Crease marks imprinted the sides of his tanned cheeks as he coaxed his lips into a teasing smile. "I hope you are not suggesting that I must pay for what I desire?"

    His words coated her skin with invisible slime. "I am suggesting," Isabella countered, "that you procure a match from the bar and savor your indulgence while watching the entertainment provided."

    "I assure you, my beautiful, that sucking on a well-stoked cigar is quite savory. It's a shame you never took up the habit."

    "I have discernable tastes, my dear brother."

    "You are a teasing little witch!" His venom stung worse than any slap. He had always hated her. Isabella had no delusions about that or his motives to want to sleep with her. He viewed her as a slut, just like her father viewed her mother as one. But her armor was only so thick and eventually she knew it would crack. Perhaps that's why she played the game. Not to deny the accusations, but to confirm them. To be accepted as something that was nothing was more a solace than not being accepted as anything at all.

    Brady had accepted her. He had wanted her. He had seen through the armor and still he hadn't rejected her. Maybe that's why she was afraid to go up the stairs. Afraid that he would throw her back into the maws of rejection, the abyss of lovelessness that continually sucked at her heals.

    "Good night my little green-eyed witch," her brother hissed before slithering out the back door of the club.

    He would be back.

    

    

    Isabella stood perfectly still inside her office. She didn't make a move to turn on the lights and continued facing the door even after it had clicked shut. She knew she wasn't alone. So she waited.

    He spoke. "Planning to run, Bella?" Sitting for the past two hours inside a pitch black room had allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He could see her, but she had yet to see him.

    "I've never run from anything in my life," Isabella said evenly, though the use of her nickname, the one only he used, made her want to weep. She never thought she'd hear his voice again.

    "But you're good at running to, aren't you, angel? Like when you run to daddy or your brother. I underestimated you."

    "And I you," she shot back acerbically. "You know better than anyone that I don't associate with my family beyond necessary courtesies."

    "Do I? Is that why you're talking to a dead man?"

    Isabella heard the click and, simultaneously, the soft light from a table lamp broke through the darkness. She didn't dare move, prolonging the moment when she would see what she already knew in her heart to be true.

    "But you're not… you're…"

    "Yep. Still here. Though some days I think I might have been better off burning." Though the words were said casually, there was an underlying lilt of thickly disguised contempt.

    He came up behind her, his feet moving silently as he reached Isabella in three long strides. His breath warmed her cheek. His erection pressed into her back. And his hand snaked around her waist, pinning her between him and her only escape route.

    Only she didn't try to run. Not his Bella-she had too much damn moxie to back down. So why had she turned tables on him five years ago? The question burned hotter than his groin nuzzled tightly against her. Just being in the same room with her made his body betray him with wanting.

    His mind whirled-with questions, emotions, a haze of need that clouded his thoughts. Then he heard her spit out the insult.

    "Bastard."

    "Actually, I had a mommy and a daddy. Unlike you, Bella. What happened to your mama, baby?" He was goading her, he knew, but anger reared up uncontrollably. A man known for control and this woman made him lose it so goddamn easily.

    "She was a whore. Like me." Her response was so automatic, Brady actually winced.

    "So you've been busy since I left." It was a statement, not a question and was spoken through clenched teeth. "You let other men touch you, Bella?" Brady ran his hand up her torso, his palm grazing her breast. He felt her shiver under his ministrations. Responsive. She always was. Not much had changed in that department. Except…

    A streak of possessiveness shot through him, and he tightened his hold on her, rubbing her puckered nipples roughly. "Tell me," he growled in her ear. "Tell me about all the other men you've fucked since I left, you slut."

    "Lots," she lied, and immediately felt herself spin.

    Brady pinned her, facing him now, his hold on her shoulders bruising. And he looked into her mesmerizing eyes. Sad eyes. Lying eyes.

    "Don't lie to me, Bella." Brady lightened his grip on her shoulders. Marginally. He could tell she was lying. He could always read her like no other, as if they were somehow connected on another, deeper, level that enabled him to seep into her thoughts. That's what had made her betrayal so… unbelievable. And humbling. He'd always thought he could trust her.

    "I'm just telling you what you want to hear." Her voice was flat, emotionless.

    "I don't want to hear that you've had other men!" His voice raised another level. "You think I want to think about other men sticking their cock inside you? Do you think I spent five years dreaming of other men in your bed?"

    "Maybe you should have," she countered, her words hitting him like splattering oil from a fryer. "I've spent five years thinking you were dead!"

    "You made me dead, honey. Remember?" he coaxed. "You fucking sent me to hell."

    Her reply was no more than a whisper. "No."

    "Yes, baby." Brady shook her so she was forced to look into his face, so she could see his pained expression. The betrayal that made his mouth twitch and his hands, still chaining her, shake. "You couldn't have screwed me more intimately, Bella."

    Her voice was meek-and Brady hated it. "I never betrayed you, Brady. Never." Because I love you.

    "Bullshit!"

    "Do you want truth or lies? Neither seem to appease you," she spit out. "So tell me what you want, what you came here for. You want revenge for all the injustices my family put you through? Take it." Bella lifted her hand and pounded on his chest. "Take it, Brady. Take what you want. Fuck me, if you want. Any way you want. Kill me, if that would settle the score. You think I care? I've been dead, too, Brady. The day George told me that you were dead, I died, too."

    It had taken Brady fucking years to infiltrate Stone's organization and earn his trust. It was a bitch of an assignment and he was meticulous-and relentless-in his pursuit. Until he had fallen in love with the daughter of a drug-lord. Until he had become more concerned for a woman than for a job that had preoccupied him for too long. Isabella wasn't to blame. He had been careless, letting down his guard. Sneaking into her club, her bed. He had gotten too close and had lost sight of the goal. Or maybe his priorities had just changed. Someone had figured him out because he let them by being careless. Not because Isabella had told them.

    "Bella?" Brady tried to shush her. She was trembling so hard that his own body shook in rhythm to hers.

    "Just do it, Brady. Do what makes you happy. Finish this."

    "You knew I was undercover," he blurted, still shell-shocked by the realization.

    She only nodded and, sensing she was about to lose her brazen act, Brady lowered her quaking body gently to the floor. With his hands caressing her arms, trying to erase the bruises he'd left on her porcelain skin, he silently implored her to talk to him. He needed to know-so much.

    Isabella raised a hand and cupped his unshaven cheek as if she was memorizing it-or remembering something long ago forgotten. "Not at first. Not until you held me that morning and swore never to tell my brother about… us." She waved a hand in front of her, still unsure if it was man or ghost she was confiding in. "I just knew, then, that you couldn't possibly have loyalties to the organization." She stopped and stared into his eyes and the emotion swirling in their greenness punched into him. "I saw it in your eyes, Brady."

    Brady needed to hear the words, though he knew the truth now as if it had been spoken under some godly oath. "Did you tell them?"

    There was no censure in his voice. No veiled conviction.

    "I told them."

    Brady shot up as if he'd been hit by a lightening bolt.

    "I told them," she soothed, "that you were as dirty as they were." Isabella drew a hand up to her cheek, remembering. "And my brother struck me so hard that he knocked me over."

    Brady's jaw clenched at the thought. That filthy bastard.

    "If I had told them anything else, they wouldn't have believed me. They knew that I despised what they did. If I had sung your praises they would have become suspicious."

    "So you took your brother's wrath to protect me." God, how could he have doubted? What had the job done to him?

    Brady scrubbed a hand over his face and felt the evidence of his descent into madness. He had stopped caring about everything except revenge. And he'd been targeting the wrong damn person for five caging, suffocating years. He hadn't gone soft. He'd gone hard-like the sinister bastards he'd been trying to bring down. Brady couldn't miss the irony. He'd really become one of them by trying to become one of them. The act had turned real. Too real. His thoughts-unforgivable.

    "Bella, I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so fucking sorry. I thought…"

    Isabella put a tender hand over his mouth, halting the words. "No, Brady. I'm the one who should be sorry. My life was never worth enough to have dragged you into it."

    "You are worth everything to me. Everything!" All his hopes had been pinned to her, he realized. When he had her and when he thought he never could have her. Either way, it was Isabella that had kept him going. Fighting. And in some odd way, living-even if it had been shrouded with destructive hatred.

    "No, Brady. I'm not worth anything. Not really. I run a strip-club and I make money by capitalizing on people's fantasies. I take advantage of people just like my family."

    "You are nothing like your scumbag family!"

    "But you thought I was."

    The truth of her words sickened him. He had thought the worst things. Almost convinced himself to do them.

    "Don't you see, Brady? I'm one of them. I always will be. They'll never let their hold on me go. So if you are with me, you are with them. That's not a good place to be."

    "I want to be with you."

    "No!"

    Isabella had only ever loved one man in her whole life. He'd died once, whether directly or indirectly, because of her. She wouldn't allow him to do it again. As much as she wanted him. Needed him. He made her feel like she counted, like she mattered.

    She struggled to her feet, pushing Brady away. "No!" she yelled, swiping at him, begging him to let her go. But he held on, wrapping his strong arms around her, cocooning her in his warmth.

    "Go, Brady! Leave! I don't want you here."

    "Yes. You do," he murmured into her hair. "Tell me you do."

    "No."

    "Yes."

    Brady caressed her back with his hands. "It's been so long since I've felt you against me, Bella."

    "I'll call George."

    Idol threats, he knew. Besides, the man may have a lot of brawn, but very little brain. Case in point, Brady was in Isabella's office.

    Brady ran his hands over her bottom. Held each firm cheek of her heart-shaped ass in his palms. "Do you remember the first night I took you? On the bar?" Brady continued to squeeze her backside. "I got to watch your beautiful ass as I slid into you, sweetheart. I thought you'd be nervous, but you loved the way I took you from behind. Tell me, Bella," he demanded.

    "I remember." It was a quiet reply.

    "Tell me," he repeated.

    "You pushed me against the bar and for a moment I was worried. I didn't know what to do. I was a… ahhh…"

    Brady had slid the hem of her blue dress up so that he could feel her flesh.

    "Say it."

    His rough commands excited her as much as the memory of their first time together. It had been so raw, so elemental, so passionate. He'd unleashed a part of her that she'd kept suppressed for so long. A part of her that needed to be loved-thoroughly, in the most basic of ways. He made her feel uninhibited and beautiful and whole. He made her feel-really feel a gambit of emotions that she'd bottled up and doled out in small, insignificant dollops under the guise of a strip club. She'd watch the performers in her club on stage, on a television screen with a mix of envy and dismay because she yearned for an outlet, too. And craving that again-that freedom from restraint, from conditioned numbness, she answered him, "I was a virgin."

    "Yes, Bella. My little, naughty virgin who doesn't wear anything under her dress." He continued to spread her with his hands, using the advantage of his long arms to work his fingers forward to where she was already wet from excitement.

    "Stop. Brady, you have to." Fearful and uncertain, she said the words, but it was only a line from some pre-rehearsed script she'd carefully followed for most of her life. Pushing people away. Avoiding attachments.

    She'd never wanted someone so badly in her life.

    "What do you want me to do to you, Bella?"

    "Stop."

    Brady swiftly removed his hands and was rewarded with a whimper of disappointment before Bella belied her own command by grinding into him.

    "Stop?"

    "Yes," she moaned, still rubbing her body, naked from the waist down, against his hardness.

    "What will it be, Bella? Your mouth says no," Brady punctuated his words by capturing her lips and sucking-hard-on her tongue, "but you're body says… what does your body say?"

    When she didn't answer, Brady continued. "What does your hot little body say, Bella? Tell me. Tell me what you want." Brady's voice was rough with need.

    "You."

    Brady stepped away. "Not good enough."

    Isabella assessed him for a moment, torn between rational thought and an urge so intense it was a palpable force between them, drawing her to him.

    Isabella took a step toward him.

    He took one backward.

    Within seconds Brady felt the wooden ledge of the desk against the back of his thighs. And Isabella at his front.

    "You," she repeated. "Only you."

    She reached to unzip his pants, free his throbbing cock from the barrier. Brady let her and his erection sprang out, the end of his penis pointing directly at Isabella's stomach and the bunched material that hoolahooped around her middle.

    But before she could wrap her slender fingers around the treasure, Brady turned tables.

    Isabella let out a gasp as she was smoothly bent over the desk. With his hands, Brady captured hers, palms down, fastening her to the table top, his arms on either side of her body pinning her. Then, using his teeth, Brady skillfully lowered the zipper on the back of her dress, still holding her in place.

    Leaning in close to her ear, Brady said, "move your hands to the top of the desk and hang on to the ledge." Slowly, he released his hold so she could obey.

    And she did, without hesitation.

    With Isabella at the mercy of his unseen ministrations, he slid his hand up to her breasts, but lingered only long enough to hear her sigh of pleasure as he skimmed the peaks of her nipples while sliding the designer material down her lithe body. Her skin was slick from perspiration and the dress fell from her curves, effortlessly, puddling around her ankles.

    "Step out of the dress, Bella."

    She did.

    "Now, spread your legs, baby. That's it. Wider, Bella. I want to see what I've been missing all these years. What I fantasize about when I hold my dick in my hand."

    Brady groaned into her shoulder as she spread her legs, straining to keep them separated. He used his tongue to lick down the curve of her back, feeling the sexy ripple of her spine as he traveled in a zigzag pattern downward. Lower. Until he slid the tip of his tongue down the crease of her bottom.

    Isabella moaned.

    He tasted the sweet honey of her and, using his tongue, spread that glorious moisture around the pink folds of her womanhood. "You taste like heaven," he murmured, thinking that all the time he'd spent in hell was worth this reward. "I could die happy, right here."

    Isabella shot up, unhappy with the analogy. "Don't ever say that."

    Brady captured her with both hands around her waist, coaxing her back down. "Only a figure of speech, baby. I'm not going anywhere until I've had my fill of you. And that could take a while. A long while," he estimated as he moved back to taste her again. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get enough of her in three lifetimes.

    Her moans grew louder.

    "Shhh. You have to be quiet, sweetheart." Being cautious-walls, he knew, had ears-Brady snatched up her dress from the floor and placed it in front of her.

    Isabella buried her face in the material, hoping it might stifle her cries of pleasure. She could smell Brady's cologne on the fabric and her own scent. It only aided her speedy release. Isabella barely had time to lower her head into the makeshift pillow before her first scream of delight escaped.

    Brady was pleased.

    And ready to burst with wanting to be inside Isabella's sweet, hot pussy. He wanted to fill her.

    Evidently, she wanted that too. Isabella squirmed that sassy little bottom, enticing him to give her what she wanted-what they both wanted.

    Teasingly, Brady probed the entrance of her slick heat with just the head of his penis and Isabella moaned her approval. But when he didn't enter her all the way, she pushed back, taking him in half way before he stilled her movement.

    "Hold on tight, Bella. This is going to be a hard ride for both of us." And with that, Brady thrust forward, filling her deeply. The sensation, the ecstasy, made his breath hitch. God, but she felt divine. Five long years without being inside her, without feeling her, hot and wet and tight, pulsing around him, was enough to make him groan. How he had missed this-her. His Bella. He couldn't get close enough to her. Deep enough.

    Unable to restrain himself, Brady made love to her with an intensity and force so powerful that the desk rocked in unison with their bodies. He couldn't remember ever being so hard, or ever wanting a woman so much. He plunged, captivated by the feel and the fit of their bodies. Joining together was like a madness and a mercy with them-it always had been. There had always been a heat between them, an energy that was unleashed like a flash-fire when their bodies connected.

    Some things never changed.

    Some things only got better.

    Isabella clung to the ledge of the desk and bit down on the blue dress, every slap of flesh causing her to gasp. And each of those sexy noises drew Brady into a brilliant abyss of heightened arousal as he stretched her wide and full, glorying in the feel of the silky compression on his cock… until he exploded inside her and felt her internal muscles clamp around him with her own climax.

    Breathless, Brady collapsed over her and kissed her hair. He'd never felt more alive.

    "Oh, baby," he cooed, "you feel so damn good to me."

    But I'm not, she thought through the haze of passion. I'm not good.

    

    

    Guilt.

    Isabella wondered if guilt alone could cause a body to ache like hers did.

    She rolled onto her side and snatched up a pillow. And thought of Brady.

    They'd made love in her office last night-over and over. She could still feel his touch on her body in the most intimate places. He'd claimed her roughly and tenderly because Brady was a man who did things in the extreme-physically and emotionally. He'd been charged up and eager, dark and dangerous, and utterly passionate. When their bodies were fused together, the energy between them was like palpable electricity-powerful and searing. Yet, she attributed her pain to something beyond hours of sexual indulgence.

    Brady was in danger again. She knew it. She could feel it. Her father didn't trust her. Her brother hated her. They always had someone watching her, her club. They kept tabs on her life and that meant, sooner or later, they would discover that Brady was back. If they hadn't already.

    Now that he no longer believed her to be his deceiver, he would find the rat. He would water the hole until that rat surfaced. Or be drowned in the process.

    Isabella shivered, as much from the memory of his body against hers, inside hers, as from the notion that she had to stop his suicidal quest.

    Being the sacrificial lamb was not the most desirable option, but the only one. She would keep Brady safe, no matter the cost or risk. She was prepared to die for him.

    And she knew who her murderer would be.

    

    

    Brady was good at blending-he'd done it his entire career. Being invisible was a learned talent. A gift. Mixing with a crowd so that he became as undetectable as a flea on a mutt's back, riding along, living off their skin, like one of them. Again, he would have to tag along and ride on the backs of his nemeses. He would become the itch they desperately needed to scratch. And in the process, he'd find the person who'd set him up five years earlier. The one who'd made his life since then a living death.

    Brady had his suspicions. Five years had made him wary, but one thing he trusted in was Isabella's innocence in the whole conspiracy. After what they'd shared last night, he was damn sure that she couldn't possibly have arranged to have him killed. At least not by her father or brother or their slimy drug-dealing organization. Her seductive ways, however… were another story.

    A part of Brady-the mean, vengeful hard-ass he'd manifested into over the years-was slowly being leached from his system. Sure, he wanted to find the shit-head who'd set him up. But gone was the streak of utter despair and madness that had consumed him thinking it was at the hands of the woman he worshipped. Their night together had confirmed one thing for sure-she had the power to melt him. Physically and emotionally, he was at her mercy.

    He was still a dead man. Brady knew he had to use that leverage to finish this deal, once and for all. Tonight.

    Silently, he crept back into his apartment, the stench assaulting his senses as if for the first time… and the realization of how far he had sunk in his quest for retribution.

    He lived in squalor, his abode mimicking the duplicity of his frayed world. He'd wasted five years, digging himself a grave more undesirable than the plot of land covering the coffin of a man bearing his name on the presiding tombstone. His descent had been self-destructive and selfish. Five long and lonely years he spent lamenting, cursing, and hating. Everyone-including himself.

    Now Brady looked around the cramped space with disgust. He housed very few possessions. This was never home. He'd need only the clothes on his back, his gun, and the stash of money that lay bundled beneath the rotting floorboards in his kitchen. Then, he'd leave this life and start another. Only this time, he sure as hell wasn't going alone.

    Isabella might not know it yet, but tonight would be her last at the club, her last as Isabella Mason. He'd left her early this morning, skulking out of her bedroom like a teenager after curfew. That would not happen again.

    She needed to be cherished, protected. Not exploited and manipulated. He hadn't told her about his plan, but soon enough she'd know. Stubborn, independent Isabella could be persuaded-needed to be. For her own sake. For theirs.

    Brady needed her like his next breath and her response to him last night was his assurance that the feeling was mutual. She'd given herself to him without restraint, her moans and cries of satisfaction emboldening his determination to make her his-for always. He needed her beside him, with him, in his life and in his bed. And he would spend the rest of his life-his new life with her-worshipping her the way a man should for the woman he loves. And after setting his plan into motion, he'd devote the rest of his existence to making her happy.

    He would not fail this time. He would leave-and live-the victor.

    

    

    "You fool!"

    That was the most English the old man had spoken for close to ten minutes, his loquacious tendency characteristic of flash-fire temper.

    "Mr. Mason…"

    "Do not," he waggled an arthritic finger at the man standing uncomfortably in front of him who dwarfed him in size but not fury, "address me." The elderly man wheezed and shook his fist. "You watched him enter. You watched him leave. You did nothing. You are no use to me." The man punctuated his veiled threat by using that fist to pound the table-top in front of him.

    Narrowing his eyes, he assessed his employee. "Tell me why I should let you live, gringo?"

    "Sir," the man swallowed again in an attempt to push the lump out of his throat. "I didn't want to be hasty. I needed to be sure."

    "You think too much!"

    "I have been loyal to you. To this family," he said in his own defense.

    "You are a coward. My daughter is a whore, like her mother."

    The harshness of his description made the man's jaw tighten.

    "My son is a disappointment. He thinks with his dick and not his head. I have no grandchildren, no sons," he amended, "and all he thinks about is bedding his half-sister."

    "Papa!" came a defensive voice from the corner of the shadowed room.

    "Do not speak!" the man bellowed, his small stature deceiving its intensity. "You do not fuck her!" It was a command.

    "I didn't, Papa."

    "But you want to and that makes your head… "the old man waved his hand, grasping for the English translation. Then a wry smile crept across his thin lips as his hand made a sweeping gesture below his belt. "Soft."

    "You were to watch her," the old man said, addressing his employee once more. "Women cannot be trusted. I know this." The old man used his index finger to tap his temple, symbolizing his intuition and knowledge. "Now, he is back. I knew. I smelled." The finger traveled to his nose. "Like the smell of a woman's juices, a man knows when to be ready. We were not ready before. That was a mistake my son made. I gave him too much control over the business. It will not happen again." There was a timbre to the old man's voice that told the room of men his resignation. He was not a man to be crossed. Regardless of blood-relation or business affiliation, he would dispose of all possible threats to his livelihood.

    "You," the old man pointed to the brute of a man in front of him, "are to find that man, the one they call The Stinger, and kill him. If you are stupid enough to fail, I will kill you. Myself."

    "I won't fail," the man said, notably relieved at being given a reprieve from an imminent and painful extermination. He knew that his fate had taken a gracious turn, when only moments ago he thought he was walking to his own execution.

    "Fernando!" Andy's father addressed him using his given name, not his Americanized one.

    "Yes, papa?"

    "You go and check on the shipment coming in tonight. The cargo must be imported without detection."

    "Yes, papa," agreed the young man.

    "And then you will ensure that our friend, here, has done as I have asked."

    His son nodded in understanding. His father's instructions were always to be followed.

    Both men made a hasty retreat, instinctively knowing that if they stayed a moment longer the old man's generosity might be revoked. Stress made him act rashly, impulsively, and neither man wanted to be on the receiving end of his deadly whip.

    Left alone, the patriarch lit a cigar and leaned back into his chair. He hadn't smoked in years but indulged in the vice as an early celebration. He would be rid of that renegade cop and teach his daughter a lesson in obedience at the same time. Now all he had to do was wait. He would, as they say, kill two birds with one stone.

    "Si," he chuckled into the silence, laughing at his play on words. "It is a good night for a reunion."

    

    

    He entered her room silently. The door was open, as if she were expecting him, though it was still early and the club had not yet opened.

    In the corner, the television screen glowed, the angle of the camera positioned to get the best possible view of the empty stage.

    Odd. Isabella was never so careless.

    Brady's gut clenched and he suddenly felt uneasy. Worried that something had happened to Isabella, he made it to her desk in two swift strides. If she had left in a hurry, there may be evidence.

    The cop in him scoured the desk for clues, frustrated when he found nothing but a blank, sealed envelope. Brady opened it. And his groin tightened as he deciphered the delicate swirls of ink.

    What you see is what you get.

    He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. His head jerked up and immediately his field of vision locked onto the screen. And Isabella.

    

    

    She had walked onto the stage on unsteady legs. Never before in her life had she be so tantalized and terrified. She could feel Brady's stare as if he were in the room with her even though he was directly above her. In another room… in her office a floor and flight of stairs away. Her nipples perked up under the scrutiny of a camera lens hidden in the chandelier above the platform.

    There was no music, no cigarette smoke to singe her senses. No spotlight heating her. She didn't need it. This moment was not for public consumption. It was for his eyes only. Her farewell gift to him that she hoped would make an imprint on him forever more, mark him, so that when she was gone he could still have her, and she him. A fantasy. A possession. A memory.

    Isabella had never before done a strip tease for a man. But the prospect of it had always been compelling. Brazen. Erotic. To know that a man would watch a woman's naked body, revere it, worship it. Get hot and hard because of it. She had watched so many women in her club use their bodies to entertain and arouse. She had been aroused, too. Not with what she saw, but with the knowledge that women could have that kind of control. They could be master of their own body as well as the body of a man. Making him so hungry-ravenous-for her that he thought of nothing but devouring the gifts laid out in front of him. With only the sight of flesh. Feminine flesh. Rounded, soft, slick and sweaty, a woman's body was not just a vehicle or portal, but a masterful creation that could, in turn, fill and consume. Overwhelming a man, pushing him to the edge, making him want and beg. Women could be goddesses and men would get on their knees to pray for release-pay for release.

    She looked up into the light, the camera, and licked her lips. An invitation to Brady to watch her. Remember her. He would not pay for her, but he might, in fact, pray for her someday.

    The stiletto heals made her bottom jut out and her hips thrust forward. Bella reached for the tie on her silk robe. The garment slithered soundlessly to the floor. She held her shoulders squarely so that her nipples winked at him, her breasts corseted in an emerald green brassiere, studded with gold tassels. Her pale flesh filled the cups of the garment to overflowing. A matching triangle of material concealed her mound, the tassels dangling on the back tickling her bare bottom. She was not glamorous Isabella, nightclub proprietor, nor dutiful daughter who feared rejection and acceptance at the same time. No. This time she was only Isabella. No faзade, no glaze, no glam. Just Bella. A woman who loved a man. A woman who had dreamed of inhibitions, now without any in front of the camera. She was the star of her own show, now. Isabella would make love to Brady one last time with her body in choreographed movements she'd only emulated while alone in front of her bedroom mirror. After this-her exhibition, her inhibition-she would give him-and herself-what she never could before. Freedom.

    She lifted her arms-a welcoming gesture-and then ran her fingers back through her mane of silky, black hair. Isabella closed her eyes, her own touch igniting her skin. She was hot. Her mouth opened, a sigh of breath escaping. She could feel him.

    Brady could feel her. Her breath hot on his neck, her teeth grazing his skin as she marked him. He could hear her panting his name though her lips didn't move. He sensed it as if she was next to him. He couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Off her.

    Isabella placed her fingertip against her open mouth, swirling it against her tongue until it was glossed with her saliva.

    Brady felt that tongue on his cock. His erection pressed against his jeans.

    Isabella sucked her finger, knuckle by knuckle, inside her mouth. Slowly. Until cherry lips swallowed pale skin, warming it inside her opening.

    Brady's breath hitched and moisture crowned the tip of his engorged penis. He imagined himself wrapped with Bella's sweet lips. Sweat beaded along his forehead. He was hot. Horny. Helpless. He couldn't turn away from her. He realized he never could.

    Isabella released her finger with a pop, freeing it from the delectable suction of her mouth, then dragged the moistened finger down her chest, over her right breast. The tassels quivered. She snagged the strings between her fingers and pulled, exposing one nipple. Cool air stung the rosy peak.

    Brady groaned. He wanted to take that nipple into his mouth, touch it with his fingers, his palm-place his erection there, rub it against her, then coat her with the milk of his body.

    Isabella nestled her palm under the weighted flesh of her tit, full and heavy with desire, and lifted it. She imagined Brady doing that to her, cupping her in his large, calloused hand so that he could suckle her. With head bent, tongue instinctively arched, Isabella strained to bridge the distance and touch the distended peak. Instead, she pressed the nub with a moistened finger, pretending it was Brady's tongue. She grinded her hips against air spiced with her scent, impulsively searching for her mate. In her mind she could smell the musk of her man, feel the slap of his sweaty skin against her own. It seemed so real, the image in Isabella's mind so vivid, she edged toward release.

    Brady lifted his shirt and pinched his own nipple, growling like a feral jungle cat at the sensation. He thought he knew what it was to want. To need. But not until this moment had he been so desperate for a woman's body. Isabella's body. He craved her, his body begged for her. Supplication. Prayer. His balls tightened. His breath quickened. He was at her mercy, enraptured by a screen, an image. Her eyes remained closed, as if she were in a world of her own, luring him with her magic. He was spellbound.

    Isabella reached behind her back and undid the clasp of her bra. Emerald material exploded and, weightless now, whooshed to the floor. She used her left hand, in tandem with the right, and fondled her breasts. Her nipples sharpened with the onslaught of stimulation. Isabella wanted to come. Instead, she dropped her hands to her sides and dug her nails into her palms. She would wait.

    Brady could not wait. He slid down into the leather chair so that his ass rested on the edge of the seat and unzipped his jeans. His manhood jutted out and he thrust his hips, his body blindly searching for an opening. He wanted Isabella to straddle him, wrap her long legs around him and impale him inside her body. He wanted to push into her hot cleft and ram himself into oblivion or ecstasy-whichever came first as long as it was with Isabella.

    Isabella unfurled her fingers and scraped her nails-slowly-up her thighs, over her buttocks and across her stomach, leaving red tracks on the surface of her porcelain skin. She needed to remind herself that she was still conscious. She saw nothing. Heard nothing. Felt everything. Her nails, his touch.

    Brady rubbed his palm down his erection.

    Isabella rubbed her palm over her heated triangle.

    Brady massaged his balls with his other hand.

    Isabella found her clit and massaged the stiff bulb through wet satin.

    Brady wrapped his whole hand around his penis. It pulsed and throbbed. He squeezed. Flesh against flesh. His hand moved. Friction. Faster. Friction.

    Faster. Isabella teased herself through dampened material, pressing her fingers inside herself, rubbing herself with her thumb. Deeper. Black hair curled around the edges of her panties as she pushed material and finger inside her. She would come for him.

    Brady would come for her. He couldn't not. First in his own hand, then inside Isabella. He would go and get her. Rub the sticky essence of his ejaculation from his own stomach onto hers as he pushed into her. On the floor. Before she could climb the stairs to meet him, he would be there to meet her. He would show her what she could do to him without even touching him.

    It was like Brady was touching her. She felt him. Only him. She cried out his name as she climaxed. And dropped to her knees with the intensity of it. The power of it shot through her. Just before the bullet did.

    

    

    It took a minute before his body and mind assimilated.

    His release shot through him. The sound of the bullet shot through him.

    He saw Isabella collapse to her knees. He saw the flash of the bullet on the screen.

    He cried out her name and heard the deafening silence that followed.

    He cursed. The chair toppled. Brady scrambled to his feet, knees still damnably weak. He snatched up his coat, his gun still holstered at his boot and glanced back at the television screen before flinging the door open.

    Bella lay on her side with one cheek pressed against the floor and her discarded costume, the flirting gold ribbons of her bodice now spread out around her head like a halo. His angel. Her eyes were closed, the same way they were during her teasing performance to the camera-to him. Was she still dreaming of him? Was she still alive? Then, as if on cue, the camera shut off and the screen went blank.

    Brady ran like a bat out of hell and mentally laid odds on the outcome. He was a betting man, after all. Then, for good measure, he prayed his Bella was still alive. He'd never prayed before in his life, and certainly not for a woman, but he did so now. He had come back to get even with the woman he thought betrayed him, only to fall in love with her-again. Now his only coherent thought was that if Bella died, he'd never live through it-again. He'd put her in danger the minute he stepped foot inside her club days ago and he hated himself for that. He had planned to come here tonight and take her away with him. It had all been arranged, the flight, the phony passports, the ring. He'd even bought her a ring so that he could propose to her. After all, the names on their new passports read Mister and Missus. He wanted to make it official, show her he was serious about them and their life together, their future. Now he had a sick feeling of guilt and terror churning in his stomach.

    Brady flew down the back stairs of the club so quickly it felt as if his feet hovered above the wooden steps instead of making contact with them. Like the rest of his body, they were numbed with fear. He repeated the plan in his head, as he'd done so many times before when he'd been a cop getting into position before a sting operation. Only this time was different. This time the catch was not a hardened criminal. It was his Bella.

    "Get to the stage. Get to Bella." The words played like a pre-recorded message in his head.

    Breathing heavily, more from panic than exertion, Brady neared the back of the stage. Gripping the pleated black curtain that divided him from his Bella, he took a deep breath and shoved aside the barrier.

    The bright stage lights blinded him momentarily, forcing him to raise his hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare. His heart thudded wildly in his chest as adrenaline kicked through his system. Cautiously, he put one foot in front of the other and inched toward his beautiful fallen angel. His Bella. He stopped when the sound of clapping skin echoed from the one of the tables at the back of the seating area in front of the stage.

    "A very convincing performance, would you not agree, Senor Stinger?" A deep, Spanish-accented male voice rang through the hollow cavern of the club.

    Brady knew that arrogant, raspy voice. The man who had ordered a hit on him five years ago. The man who commanded one of the largest drug smuggling rings in North America. Oh, Brady could never forget the voice of Fernando Mason Senior.

    "You sadistic son-of-a-bitch," were the only words Brady could string together and manage to spit out of his clenched jaw.

    The man let out a hoarse laugh that crawled up Brady's spine and wrapped around him like a boa constrictor. The sound of the man's obvious amusement squeezed the breath from Brady's lungs.

    "We meet again, Senor Stinger. I knew you were here because I smelled you, my little pest. You are no better than a rat. And she," the old man waved a gnarled hand towards his daughter lying on the floor of the stage, "is garbage that rats feed on."

    "You sick sac-of… "Brady jolted forward, wanting to strangle the man in front of him with bare hands.

    "Do not move any closer," the man warned, angling his gun towards Brady's heart. "My daughter is a whore like her mother," he continued, undaunted. "She could put a spell on men. Every man wanted her. My son," he spit out in disgust, fumbling to find the English words, "dreamed always of having her."

    The notion made Brady's blood boil. He clenched his fists, biding his time, waiting for his moment to take this sorry excuse for a man out. Bella was not a woman to be had.

    "And that interfered with the business. A business that I built with my bare hands." The man lifted age-worn, unsteady hands up for proof. "I will not allow any woman, not even my daughter, to jeopardize the business and shame her own family." He shouted his last words, making the gun quiver dangerously in his grip. "That is why I had to teach her a lesson in obedience, take matters into my own care. I hate to have blood on my hands, but I work with incompetents." It seemed he was reminiscing, more for his benefit than for Brady's. "I have been forced to oversee everything. Take care of everything. My daughter is only the first order of business." Fernando Mason Senior sneered as he leveled his gun again in shaking hands, readying himself for his next execution.

    "You weren't supposed to hurt her," another voice replied coolly.

    Brady whipped his head around to see George, Bella's bouncer, standing behind him, a gun cradled in his own massive paw. The man weighed a good three hundred pounds, but could move as stealthily and soundlessly as a cat stalking prey in a field. Only this was no meadow and the man standing behind Brady was no pussycat.

    Fernando Senior's voice held evidence of his agitation. "You are dead, too! We had a deal. You were to kill The Stinger. You did not fulfill our agreement."

    "Not yet," George agreed. "But she wasn't part of the deal." George nodded toward the woman lying on the floor. "So," he shrugged a shoulder, "we must re-negotiate our contract."

    "I do not negotiate!" the old man shouted. "I am in charge. I am always in charge. You work for me and me alone."

    "I work for Ms. Mason," the bouncer announced. "And I am owned by no one."

    Daggers shot through the old man's eyes at the bouncer's defiance. Now was the time for Brady to make his move. He had limited options with two men wanting his life, one in front of him, and one behind. But if he could get a clear shot at Fernando Senior, the world would be rid of one less criminal. And it was his best chance at securing Bella's safety because, regardless of George's affiliation with the organization, he seemed to genuinely care for Isabella.

    So with one brisk and calculated move, Brady reached down to unholster the gun at his ankle.

    A shot rang out.

    A moment-one silent moment-lapsed into two. Then three, before Brady realized that the man behind him had taken aim while Brady had been bent over. And he'd shot Fernando Mason Senior between the eyes in typical mob execution style, killing him instantly.

    Gun still in his hand, Brady turned to George, and saw the steely gleam in his eyes. Then the man spoke, unaffected, "I was supposed to kill you five years ago." He paused, unaccustomed to speaking beyond brief, terse acknowledgements. George was a man who listened well and customarily accepted orders without question. "And I would have to keep Ms. Mason safe. But you beat me to your own murder." Something resembling a smile tugged at the man's lips, but the hard look in his eyes didn't falter.

    Brady, shocked by the candid confession, stood stone-still. "And now?" he asked, wondering whether he'd have time to aim his gun before the man could get another shot off.

    "Now," the man began, lowering his gun, "I see you were willing to fight for her. Protect her."

    "I love her." Saying the words, hearing them aloud for the first time, jarred Brady back to reality-and the realization that Bella still lay motionless on the floor.

    Brady ran to Bella and knelt down beside her, afraid to touch her. Afraid she might not be alive. Brady's breath hitched as he sucked in air, gathering courage, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

    George sensed Brady's panic and spoke. "The bullet only grazed the side of her forehead. She knocked herself out when she hit the floor. The old man's past his prime. Couldn't hit a target if it was two damned feet in front of him. If he had, I'd have killed him long before I did." Something akin to pride tinged the bouncer's taut voice.

    Brady looked at George with a combination of admiration and respect-an odd mix considering he'd been the one to sell Brady out five years ago. And shock since Brady had never heard the man speak so much and, at times, had wondered if the man even could. Now George was talking to the man he'd nearly killed five years ago like a friend and confidant. But George was true to Isabella, had kept her safe the best way he knew how, and that mattered more to Brady than a grudge.

    Brady turned his attention back to his sweet Bella. Gently, he picked up her discarded robe and wrapped it around her.

    Brushing the hair from her forehead, he could see a small scratch, and some dried blood. "Bella, sweetheart, wake up," he whispered, and was relieved when she made a soft moaning sound.

    "Bella, darling, come back to me. Wake up now." Brady continued to whisper endearments in her ear, while using his index finger to make delicate patterns on her upturned cheek.

    "Did it work?" she murmured.

    "Did what work, sweetheart?"

    "George was supposed to kill me and set us free."

    Before Brady could question it, George spoke. "Ms. Mason came to me with this idea that she should stage her own murder. Much like you did five years ago, Stinger."

    Brady's nickname made him wince. He didn't want to be that man anymore.

    "She figured that by videotaping her own murder, she could finally be free of her family. Only the deal was that I was supposed to let out a shot from behind the stage-missing her of course," he clarified. "The tape would show the flash of the bullet. Then she'd disappear. She knew she wouldn't ever be free unless she did something drastic."

    "And was I supposed to just believe you were dead, too, Bella?" Brady couldn't hide the anger and hurt in his voice.

    "I did it for you, Brady. I wanted you to be free," she whispered. "From me, from my family…"

    "I don't ever want to be free from you, love." Brady wiped a tear from her cheek. "I will never leave you. Never again."

    "I wanted to say good-bye, I thought you'd understand…"

    Brady placed a finger over her swollen lips to hush her. He understood perfectly. "I love you, too, Bella. Always. And the only way you're leaving here is with me." Brady shot George a look, waiting for his challenge.

    "There's a car waiting outside."

    "What about your… agreement with Stone? The organization?" Brady needed to be sure that there would be no more danger, for him or Bella.

    "I'm going to use my savings to leave town, too," the bouncer said conversationally, remembering too well the power of the organization and the wrath that would be inflicted when he failed to carry out the orders of his superiors.

    "Savings that you garnered from betraying Isabella and working with her father, a man who despised her?" Brady couldn't keep the censure out of his voice.

    "I worked with him because it was the best way to keep Ms. Mason safe. I would know what to expect and I could keep one step ahead of them."

    Satisfied, Brady lifted Bella into his arms. Just the feel of her body against his, naked except for the thin silk robe draped loosely over her, was enough to content him, arouse him, turn him inside out. He finally had a chance to protect her, keep her safe forever, love her with a newly mended heart. She was his and he would never let her go again.

    Brady carried her to the waiting car outside and settled her in the backseat. Kneeling over her, he gently wrapped a blanket around her shivering body. A faint purple bruise was forming on her temple. Brady leaned over to kiss it. His lips barely touched her skin, but he heard Bella's soft sigh. He could still smell her arousal lingering on her tender skin and remembered all the promises he had made to himself while watching her come undone in front of the camera for him not long before. He knew that if he didn't get them both the hell out of there, before people starting sniffing around the club-her brother, the cops-he'd never be able to make good on any of them.

    George repeated Brady's thoughts aloud. "Time to disappear, Stinger. Best for everyone if you're both dead, if you know what I mean."

    Brady did. The price of freedom was high-but worth it.

    "I'll take care of things before I go."

    Brady nodded to George before settling himself behind the wheel. He was indebted to the man who had wanted to, and almost did, take his life five years ago. Instead of taking it, George had, ironically, given it back to Brady.

    Behind him, Bella placed her hand against the window, silently thanking George for doing what she could never have asked him to do. Then, she slid that hand to rest on Brady's shoulder. He grasped it, entwining their fingers together.

    They both understood. Sometimes in order to live, you had to die first.

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