Possession: Steel Brothers Saga: Book Three (10 page)

“Right now I’ve got to figure out a way to keep her from getting a tattoo.”

“That’s another thing I don’t understand, Talon. Why do you care so much about the tattoo?”

“You don’t understand. That tattoo she wanted to get…that exact image…”

Marj stopped chopping and turned to me. “What?”

“One of those awful guys who kidnapped me. He had that exact tattoo.”

Marj dropped her mouth into an O, the knife slipping from her hands and clattering to the floor, just missing her sandaled toe.

I picked up the knife quickly and set it on the counter. “Marj? What’s wrong?”

“Did Jade ever tell you where she found that image?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she said she found it in one of Toby’s books.”

“She did. But that’s not where she first saw it.”

My blood ran cold. “And where was that?”

“Her mother’s new boyfriend had that exact tattoo. On his forearm.”

I
was changing
out of my work clothes when someone pounded on my door.

“Just a minute,” I yelled. I threw my red silk scarf, white linen pullover, and black skirt on the bed and hurried into a tank top and a pair of heather-gray sweats.

I walked to the door. “Who is it?” I’d have to talk to Sarah about installing a peephole. Snow Creek was a small town and all, but I was a young woman living alone. I needed to see who was behind my door.

“It’s me.”

Talon. I opened the door. He was red with rage.

“Oh my God. What’s wrong?”

“Your mother’s boyfriend. What’s his name?”

“Nico. Nico Kostas. Why?”

Talon ran to my sink and turned on the water. “God, I met him. I fucking shook his hand.”

The water turned hot, and steam rose from the falling cascade. Talon pumped out some soft soap and scrubbed his hands. They turned red with the heat.

I strode quickly to the sink and turned off the water. “You’ll burn yourself. What the hell are you doing?”

“Where is your mother’s boyfriend now?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I… I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the night of my mom’s accident. He said he was flying to Des Moines. He hasn’t been back.”

“God… Goddamn.” Talon raked his wet hands through his tousled hair. “So fucking close!”

“Talon, please. Tell me what’s going on.”

He turned to me, gripping my shoulders. “What color are his eyes, Jade? This Nico guy. Does he have brown eyes?”

“Y-Yes, I think so. I never paid that much attention.”

“Neither did I, goddamnit. If only— Damn!”

“Talon, you’re scaring me. What the heck is going on?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me where you saw that fucking phoenix tattoo!”

“I did.”

“You told me you saw it in one of Toby’s books!”

“I did. I didn’t—”

“You saw it first on him! You saw it on that fucking psychopath!”

Psychopath? Nico struck me as a little slimy, but I figured he just wasn’t my type. “Talon, my mother would not date a psychopath.” Of course, I knew so little about my mother. Maybe she would. But Nico, a psychopath?

“Well, she
is
.”

I shook my head to clear it. “I don’t understand. Please just tell me what—”

He grabbed me and slammed his mouth down on the mine. It was an angry kiss, a punishing kiss. But what was I being punished for this time? For not telling Talon I had seen the tattoo on Nico?

But still I opened to him, let him take from me, let him punish me with his lips and tongue.

He broke the kiss and ripped my tank top off me. “Get on the fucking bed,” he gritted out.

“Talon, I—”

“I said get on the bed. Don’t make me repeat myself again.”

My lips trembled, but I obeyed. Equal parts of fear and arousal coursed through me.

I sat on the edge of my bed, my breasts bare, my nipples hard and longing for his touch. He grabbed my legs and pulled my sweatpants off. Then he ripped my lace panties in half getting them off me.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he commanded.

Shivering, I complied.

Slap!
His palm came down on my ass.

Slap! Slap! Slap!
Three more times, and the sting tingled through me, morphing into pleasure as I cried out.

“Damn it, Jade!”
Slap! Slap! Slap!

“Talon—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Slap! Slap! Slap!

I moaned into the comforter, bracing for another smack. But a feathery light touch drifted over me. First over my stinging ass, and then over my back, and then down my thighs.

“This is a pretty red scarf, blue eyes.”

My red silk scarf. It had been one of the last gifts from Colin. I’d gotten rid of most of them, but this one had seemed too nice to give away. It added a splash of color to my otherwise mundane lawyer’s wardrobe.

“What can we do with this?” Talon asked.

I gulped in silence.

“Turn over onto your back,” he said.

I obeyed, my ass still stinging.

Talon was fingering the scarf. “I think I’m going to use this as a blindfold.” His voice, though hard and cold, was laced with desire. “I’m going to cover your eyes with this, Jade, and I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to do to you.”

My nipples were so hard. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I had no idea what he was going to do, and I didn’t really care. My pussy gushed fresh juice.

“I’d like to bind your hands, but you don’t have any bed posts.”

“Of course not. This is a futon.”

“Then you’ll have to just hold your hands still. And if you move them, I’ll punish you. Sit up.”

When I did, he secured the scarf over my eyes and tied it in the back. The silk was cool on my eyelids, and I couldn’t see a damned thing.

“Lie down, and put your arms flat on the bed, palms down.”

I did as he told me.

“Do not move your hands. If you do, you’re going to get more spankings.”

I imagined my ass was red as a beet at the moment. Although the idea of more spankings didn’t repel me.

Nothing happened for a few moments. Talon was lurking around my apartment, his footsteps creaking on the floor. What was he doing? I had no idea, until—

“Oh!”

Something cold touched my nipple. Ice.

“Your skin is so hot, Jade, it’s melting right on you.” Little rivers of water flowed over my breast, like an icicle thawing over me.

The ice touched my other nipple, and soon the cold water flowed over the mound of my other breast.

“How does that feel, baby?”

It was an utterly new sensation. But pleasurable nonetheless. “Good,” I said.

The cold numbness of the ice cube trailed over each nipple once again and then spiraled around my breasts in larger and larger circles. It trailed down my abdomen, dipped into my navel for a scant minute, and then traveled over my vulva and nudged the tip of my clit.

“Oh!” But I didn’t move my hands. I locked them flat on the bed.

“Good, good,” he moaned. “I’m going to put this ice cube in your hot little pussy now. Don’t you dare move your hands.”

My thighs quaked as the cold ice cube trickled into my tunnel. “Spread your legs as far as you can, baby. That’s right. Now I’m going to suck on your clit while this ice is in your pussy. Don’t you dare move your fucking hands.”

I trembled all over.

“Yeah, baby, here comes the water. Your hot little pussy is melting the ice.” He licked my clit.

I grabbed fistfuls of the comforter, willing myself not to move my hands. I wanted to touch my nipples so badly, to pinch them and play with them. But I was determined.

He sucked my clit between his lips, and the ice cold penetrated through me.

God, he had ice in his mouth, too.

He sucked on me, sucked at my pussy. And soon I grabbed the sheets and plummeted into a climax so deep, so amazing, that I wasn’t sure where I was for a moment.

“Yeah, baby, come for me. Come all over my fucking face.”

I must’ve melted all the ice, because then Talon’s fingers were in me, pumping me, milking me for every last drop of orgasm.

He sucked on my clit again. “Come for me again. Come.”

At his command, I did. My whole body shuddered, and I felt like I was racing to the moon.

“That’s it, baby. Come. Come when I tell you to come.”

My thighs were still quivering from the coldness. Had anything ever been so good?

Seemingly of their own accord, my fingers trailed to one nipple and started playing with the hard bud.

But Talon noticed. And in the back of my mind, I had known he would.

“I told you not to move your hands.” He flipped me over onto my stomach quickly and—

Slap!

“God, baby, your ass is so red, so beautiful.”

Slap!
And then his tongue, more ice, right over my asshole.

I quivered and groaned, my face smashed into the comforter.

“You like that, baby? You like my icy tongue in your ass?”

“Yes, yes,” I mumbled into the comforter.

As the ice melted, the water dribbled from my asshole down onto my swollen pussy lips. I gulped, grasping the quilt again.

“Easy now, baby. I’m going to put this ice cube in your ass.”

The coldness ripped me open, and I willed myself to relax. When he breached my ring of muscle, I sucked in a breath.

“Yeah, baby, it’s melting so fast.”

Soon all I felt was the gush of cool water.

“Talon, God. God…”

“That’s right, baby. This is
my
ass.” And then his hot tongue soothed the coldness.

He tongued my asshole and then inserted his fingers back into my pussy.

I was going crazy here, and soon I was splintering into a million pieces, climaxing high to the sky.

“Talon, please. I need your cock inside me. Please.”

I heard the clicking of his belt buckle, the unzipping of his zipper. And then—

He filled me, completing me.

“God, baby, your pussy feels so good.”

“Yes, so good.”

“Your sweet ass is so red. Do you like it when I spank you, baby? You like it?”

“Yes,” I sobbed into the comforter.

Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

“I want you to come again for me, baby. I’ll take you to the fucking stars.”

His words sent me over the edge. I spiraled into nirvana, my whole body trembling, culminating in my pussy. “God, Talon, God.”

“That’s it, baby. Come. Come all over me.”

Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

With one last groan, Talon pushed into me just as I was coming down from my orgasm, and as I felt every pulse of his cock when he released, I spiraled into the vortex again. Coming, coming, coming.

When he finally pulled out and flopped onto the bed next to me, I flattened and turned on my side to face him. I removed the scarf, and tears flowed from my eyes. For some reason, the sight moved me beyond measure.

“Talon…”

He opened his eyes and turned toward me. “Baby, don’t cry.”

“Don’t worry. They’re good tears.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

I shook my head. “No, you didn’t hurt me. You never could.”

“I wish I could be sure of that. I came in here so fucking angry.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I saw the tattoo. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

He sighed, the agitation within him visibly returning. “You have no idea.”

“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what this Nico Kostas means to you.”

“He’s the fucking devil.”

I nearly jerked off the bed. “Why would you say that?”

“I can’t get into it right now.”

I sat up. “Talon, my mother is dating this person. If he’s the devil you say he is, I need to know. I need to keep him away from my mother.”

“I thought you didn’t care much about your mother.”

“She’s still my mother. She gave me life. Seeing her lying there, so helpless, I’ve kind of had a change of heart. I want to see her recover. And if she recovers, I don’t want her hanging around with someone who’s a bad person.”

Talon shook his head. “Blue eyes, you have no idea.”

“Then tell me. Please. Just be honest with me. I can take it. I promise you.”

“I wish I could, Jade. I’m just not ready yet. But please, keep your mother away from him.”

“So far I haven’t had to worry about it. After you and I showed up at the hospital the other night, he left. Like I told you, he said he was going to Des Moines, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Talon cleared his throat. “I’m not surprised.”

“Why?”

“I can’t get into it. But I will find him, Jade. I will find him. I promise you that.”

S
he didn’t push
me any further to talk about Nico’s tattoo, and for that I was grateful. But still, a look graced her beautiful face—a look that said she wasn’t letting this go. I didn’t expect her to. I knew her that well at this point.

She sat up and let out a moan.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She let out a chuckle. “Yeah, my ass is a little sore.”

“I’m sorry, blue eyes. You have to let me know if I get too rough. Maybe it’s time we talked about a safe word.”

“A safe word?”

“Yeah. It’s a tool dominants and submissives use. It’s a word that means ‘stop.’”

“Why not just use the word ‘stop?’”

I let out a laugh. “Because sometimes people like to act out fantasies of being assaulted or attacked, and yelling ‘stop’ is part of the fantasy.”

“I can assure you I don’t have any fantasies like that.”

“All right, then. We’ll use stop as your safe word.”

“Works for me.”

“So why didn’t you tell me to stop tonight?”

“Because.” She hedged. “Talon, I want to please you. I want to please you more than anything in the world. And clearly you needed this tonight. You needed to spank me for whatever reason. You were angry, and I wanted to help.”

“Hurting you is never what I require, blue eyes.”

“I know that. If it had gotten to the point where I absolutely hadn’t been able to take it, I would’ve told you to stop. But I can take a lot, Talon, and I want you to take what you need from me.”

Had there ever been a more wonderful woman in the world? A woman made just for me? For that’s what I believed Jade to be. I was determined to become worthy of her and her love. And of her trust.

“There’s something I want to tell you, blue eyes.”

She caressed my cheek. “What’s that?”

“I don’t want you to see this as a weakness.”

“Talon, you’re about the strongest person I know.”

“How can you say that? You’ve seen me crazy, angry, almost delusional.”

“And you come out of it every time.”

I paused a moment. Then, I heaved a sigh. “I’ve been seeing a therapist.”

She didn’t bat an eye. “Oh?”

“Yes. I have a lot of stuff I have to work out.”

“You mean from what happened overseas? Or is there more? There must be more.”

She knew me too well. Most people assumed I had post-traumatic stress disorder from my time overseas. Truthfully, my time overseas had been less horrific than the incident in my childhood. “Yes, some other things.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Not yet, blue eyes. But I will. I promise I will.”

God love her, she didn’t push. But she did continue speaking. “Can I tell everyone that I’m in a relationship with you now? I mean, that’s kind of where this whole thing started.”

Everything at me screamed to tell her no, that I wasn’t ready for that. But I had to trudge uphill. I had to step out of my comfort zone. This would be a good start.

“Yes, blue eyes. I would be proud and honored to have everyone know I’m in a relationship with you.”

She smiled a gorgeous smile and climbed on top of me, searing my lips with hers. We kissed hungrily until I began to harden underneath her again. She didn’t miss a beat. She sank her cunt down on my cock and rode me, slowly this time—slow, sweet love.

“I love you, Talon,” she said, playing with her nipples as she rode up and down on my cock. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you, Jade.” I poured every ounce of love from the depths of my soul into those words, and I hoped she felt it.

We climaxed together, moving in perfect harmony, in perfect synchrony, like two strings of a violin quivering with the same music.

When we both finished, completing each other, she rolled off me and curled into my arms.

“Talon?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“What’s that, blue eyes?”

She exhaled. “Colin.”

I stiffened. Agitation coursed through my veins. “After that beautiful lovemaking, you bring him up?”

“It’s nothing like that, I promise. It’s just that, his father has called me a couple times. It seems he’s disappeared.”

“Good riddance,” I said.

“This is serious. He’s disappeared, and so has Larry Wade, my boss.”

“Well, I can’t say the world isn’t a better place without both of them, but I don’t know anything about it.”

“I just want you to be careful,” she said. “It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between you and Colin. People are going to ask questions. That’s why Steve Dugan came to see me.”

“He hasn't gotten around to me yet.”

“He will. I had to tell him the truth, Talon. I told him the last time I saw Colin was that Friday night, when you and your brothers found us together. Remember? He laughed and said he was going to be in court on Monday? And then he didn’t show.”

“I just figured he thought better of it.”

“That’s what I figured too, at the time. But looking back, I was just thankful he hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t like him at all. He had pledged to make trouble, and usually, when Colin sets his mind on something, he sees it through.”

“So you think whatever happened to him happened sometime between the time we saw him on Friday and court on Monday.”

“That would be my guess. I expected Colin to show up at court.”

“You want me to look into it, blue eyes?”

“No. You have enough on your plate right now with your own therapy and running the ranch. I’ll figure this out. I’m just glad to know you have nothing to do with it.”

“I won’t deny I hate the guy, but the last time you saw him was also the last time I saw him.”

“And your brothers?”

“Blue eyes, my brothers have way more sense than to get involved in anything illegal. Trust me, I’m the one
they
worry about. They’re both very level-headed.”

“I believe that they are, but Colin pushed all their buttons. Even Ryan got agitated at the end.”

“True. Not much gets to Ry.”

“But Colin did.”

True. Colin had. And Ryan would do anything for me. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll talk to my brothers. But I can tell you with ninety-nine point nine percent accuracy that they had nothing to do with him disappearing.”

“Okay, good.”

“And what’s this about your boss missing?”

“Yeah. It’s the weirdest thing. He left a little bit early Friday, to take his grandkids somewhere. And then I was almost sure I saw him talking to Nico in the hallway at the hospital around midnight that night. But in a flash they were both gone, so I could have been mistaken. I haven’t seen either one of them since.”

I stiffened again. Larry Wade. I knew very little about him, other than he’d come to town and been appointed city attorney when the old one retired. But if he was hanging with Nico Kostas… My spine went cold.

Jade went on, “Anyway, the mayor is pissed that nobody can find him. In fact, he made me acting city attorney for the time being.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

She let out a laugh. “I’ll say. There will be no more bending of ethics with me in charge.”

“Well, it was his bending of ethics that got me off with Colin.”

“True enough. But Talon, he’s a sleaze—” She stopped abruptly, as if there was something else she wanted to say but thought better of it.

“And?” I pushed.

“And…what?”

“Never mind.”

As curious as I was, she hadn’t pushed me on things I wasn’t ready to talk about, so I would not push her.

Then she jerked upward into a sitting position. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You don’t think Colin’s disappearance and Larry’s disappearance are related, do you?”

“I don’t see why they would be. Colin disappeared way before Larry.”

“It’s just that…something is so weird about all of this. Why would Larry just fall off the edge of the earth? He had a good thing going as city attorney. Yeah, he’s a sleaze ball, but as far as I could tell, he had a great relationship with his grandkids. Why would he leave all of that behind?”

“I don’t know, blue eyes. But I can give you the name of a few really good PIs if you want to investigate it.”

“I have everything at my disposal at the city attorney’s office. I can investigate it myself.” She lay back down, snuggling into my arms. “Talon, will you stay with me tonight?”

And I stiffened once more. She was asking me for the one thing I couldn’t give her. “Blue eyes, I can’t. And you know why.”

* * *

M
y guts were churning
as I gripped the arms of the hunter-green chair. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jade’s mother’s boyfriend, the man named Nico Kostas. I had Googled him when I returned home.

The Internet held precious little about the man, considering he was supposedly a politician.

“You seem a little more agitated than usual today,” Dr. Carmichael remarked.

I didn’t know where to begin. “Remember the tattoo? The image of a phoenix that Jade wanted to get permanently inked on her body?”

She nodded.

“I found something out last night. She didn’t just find the image in a book. She saw it on a person. On a person’s forearm.”

Dr. Carmichael widened her green eyes. “Whose?”

“Her mother’s boyfriend. His name is Nico Kostas, and he’s supposedly a senator from Iowa, but he’s lying. There’s no record of him anywhere.” I trembled. “I met him. I shook his motherfucking hand.”

“I understand this is difficult for you. But you know, Talon, just because this person had the same tattoo on his forearm as the one you remember doesn’t mean he’s the same person who abducted and tortured you.”

I knew that. I knew with my objective brain that she spoke the truth. But something niggled at the back of my neck. This was related. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. “Doc, it just all seems so eerie to me. That he would have the same tattoo that I remember on the same part of his body—his left forearm.”

“Yes, I can see that it’s very eerie,” she said. “But still, you have no evidence—”

“Damn it!” My fist came down on the leather of the chair. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just
know
. I know in the depths of my soul that this guy is the guy.”

“You say you met him?”

“Yeah, I did. Jade’s mom was in a car accident, and he was the driver. He walked away unscathed, but Jade’s mother’s airbag didn’t deploy, and she was badly injured.”

“My goodness, will she be okay?”

“They think so. She’s unconscious most of the time now, but the prognosis is good.”

“Well, that’s good at least. Let me ask you, Talon. Did you feel any hint of recognition when you met this man?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t recognize any of them if I saw them on the street. They were always masked. The only thing I remember about the worst one is that he had that tattoo on his left forearm and he had brown eyes.”

“And this Nico, did he have brown eyes?”

I closed my eyes. “I wasn’t looking that closely. But I think he did. And Jade thinks he has brown eyes. He has a Mediterranean look, you know, olive skin and black hair. So they were most likely brown.”

“Perhaps you should pursue this, Talon,” Dr. Carmichael said. “It could be a shot in the dark, but at least it’s a shot.”

“I have every intention of pursuing it. But the guy seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.” And so had Jade’s boss. Could there possibly be any relationship between the two?

“I wonder…”

“What?”

“You met him. You told him your name, right?”

“Either I did or Jade did. I can’t remember.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, Talon. It could be a coincidence that he disappeared after meeting you, or it could be that meeting you sent him into hiding.”

God. This was all too much for me right now. Was it truly possible that I had found one of my abductors? Only to have him disappear? My mind wasn’t ready to deal with this, so I did the only thing I could at the moment. I changed the subject.

“Jade asked me to stay the night with her last night.” I gripped those damned hunter-green chair arms.

“And?” Dr. Carmichael said.

“And I couldn’t. You know why.”

“Did you want to?”

“Of course. More than anything.” And that was definitely the truth. I wanted to be with her more than anything. I never wanted to let her out of my sight. I wanted to protect her with everything that I was. But I knew I wasn’t ready to do that yet. Before I could protect her, I had to heal myself.

“When do you think you’ll be able to spend the night with her?”

“I don’t know. What if I never can?”

Dr. Carmichael smiled. “Talon, you will be able to. We will work and get you through this, and one day, you will be able to spend the night with the woman you love.”

I hoped with all my heart she was right.

“I’d like to suggest something to talk about for today,” she said.

That was fine with me. It saved me from having to figure out something to talk about. “Sure, what do you want to talk about?”

She handed me a piece of paper. “This.”

It was a photocopy of a news article from the
Snow Creek Daily
. “Local Hero Comes Home.” Damn. But I figured we’d have to talk about this sooner or later. I scanned through the article, my nerves on edge.