Acres, Natalie - Sex Club [Cowboy Sex 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (15 page)

“I’m not a size-matters kind of gal myself, but Kimberly…oh, Jason, let me tell you how she’s changed. My sister? Humph, she’s like a sex machine now that she’s spending time with men her own age. She has a fella now who is like a locomotive.

“After she got rid of you, she started traveling with one of the hottest Doms this world has ever seen. She met him here, actually.” Her gaze met Bailey’s disapproving stare. “As a matter of fact, she’s with him right now. They’re in Bermuda.”

“You don’t say?” Jason grated out, taking a shot glass from his latest adoring sub’s hands. Down the hatch the dark liquor went, and he released a sudden “Ahh” before adding, “Well, I sure hope she’s happy.”

His nostrils flared. He glared at her like he hated her more than a rattlesnake, which was sad, really, since the varmint was his next of kin.

Still, she realized she’d taken things way too far. Jason would hop the first flight out just to make sure Kimberly was, in fact, in Bermuda. Snap damn, Ansley thought. She possessed one gigantic mouth and had no business telling her sister’s whereabouts. Somebody should’ve gagged her.

She quickly glanced at Bailey before her gaze jumped from Tristan to Graham to Elliott. She had a few ideas of what could be used to keep her quiet.

“Well, if she’s moved on, then I see no reason why I can’t, too.”

A wave of hurt stained his cheeks bright pink, and for a split second, Ansley felt sorry for the guy. That is, until he grabbed her arm and said, “Come on, sugar, lead me to heaven.”

Ansley gasped as soon as his fingers dug into her skin. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”

“I’m gonna hurt you all right,” he promised, taking her hand in his and covering his cock. “Feel that, sugar? Now you know if your sister said anything to the contrary, she was lying.”

Tristan leapt over a chair and hurried toward her.

Ansley swallowed the bile rising in her throat. She could smell the stench of hard, straight-up liquor rolling off the man’s breath. “If you don’t release my hand, I’ll squeeze your dick off and then pluck your balls from your pants and toss ’em to the crowd.”

“I always knew I dated the wrong sister.”

“The lady said let her go!” Tristan shouted over the loud music thumping off the walls.

“Who the fuck are you?” Jason asked, staggering.

About that time, the Killian brothers joined them, apparently ready to give Tristan a helping hand if he required one. “Neely, I never thought you were the kind of guy to hold a woman against her will,” Graham said.

As if Graham’s statement jolted him into a quick sobriety trip, he immediately loosened his grip. Still, he secured Ansley’s arm at his side.

“If you don’t release her now, I’ll personally escort you straight to the gates of hell,” Tristan said, moving his mouth to Jason’s ear. His voice was stern and low, dark and assumptive, and oh so deliciously possessive.

He fully expected Jason to release her because he said so and because he planned to make Jason answer to him if he didn’t abide by Tristan’s new law and order. His jaw set as firmly as those beautiful eyes, and he glared at Jason as if he could rip him apart with little effort required.

Yes, Ansley summed him up all right. Tristan was mad as hell.

Jason dropped her arm. “I see you still like your lapdogs, Ansley.”

Tristan snarled. Graham and Elliott moved out of the way, giving Tristan plenty of swinging room. Ansley saw the right hook coming from a mile away.

After he knocked Jason to the floor, he placed his foot upon his chest and said, “I’m hardly a poodle. In fact, if I had a four-legged counterpart, it would undoubtedly be a Rottweiler. See, I don’t bark unless I plan to bite.

“Try to remember that the next time you have an urge to place your hands on something that doesn’t belong to you. Otherwise I’ll toss a leash over your neck and drag you out of here. Then your subs, and everyone else in this town, will know who your little bitch ass obeys.”

* * * *

“I had that under control,” Ansley informed him as they stepped behind the bar and began waiting on customers again.

“You didn’t,” Tristan said, filling a tall glass with ice.

“Bailey, tell him.”

“I have to agree with Tristan. Jason could’ve had his way with you, Ansley.”

Graham and Elliott pulled up two barstools and took a seat. “You all right, sweetheart?” Graham asked.

“Fine,” she replied, irritated that Jason had placed his hands on her, madder still because he’d placed her palm against his cock.

“You’re a little pale,” Elliott remarked.

“He’s lucky I didn’t vomit on him.”

Tristan’s nose twitched. The visual must’ve been too much.

The phone rang, and Tristan nearly tripped over her and Bailey in order to grab the phone. “Clink,” he said gruffly.

“Who is this calling?” He passed off the glass to Bailey and then turned his back to Ansley. “I’ll be happy to relay a message to Ms. Cartwell if you’ll give me a name.” A beat later, he said, “Which Ms. Cartwell would you like to speak to this evening, by the way?”

Ansley immediately reached around him and grabbed the phone. “Screening my calls now, Tristan?”

He lunged toward her, but she clutched the object to her chest. Slowly, she lifted the handset to her ear. “Hello. May I help you?”

She released a held breath while staring at Tristan. An added wrinkle of worry separated the lines in his forehead, and the man looked concerned. Without question, Tristan had already made up his mind. He wanted her. He planned to make her his sub and was probably going to be a real pain in her ass.

“Hello?” Ansley chirped again.

“You weren’t happy with one. Two or three wouldn’t do. Now you have four ogling over you? A real slut. That’s what you are. Look at the way you’re dressed tonight. You’re a real menace to society.”

Ansley immediately scanned the crowd. Her heart was pounding. Her pulse raced. Suddenly, she felt like she had a bull’s-eye on her back, one someone planned to use for target practice.

She continued to look at the faces of those standing in the crowd. She couldn’t see everyone but was aware of the fact that the center bar was open and always the focal point of the club. If someone wanted to watch her, they’d have a good vantage point from the elevated loft, or if they stood on their tiptoes, they could see her from almost anywhere in the club.

She walked the length of the long bar. “So you’re visiting us tonight, are you?” She scooted past Bailey and headed to the opposite end of the long stretch of wood.

Ansley couldn’t help but notice that Elliott, Graham, and Tristan were listening to her conversation. Maybe she should’ve told them about the threat. Then again, who would’ve thought this idiot would’ve shown up there?

Panic set in as she tried to find anyone who might look suspicious. The club was packed. Several patrons were using their phones, many of them with a finger shoved in their exposed ear.

No one stood out as threatening. Most were smiling or laughing as they mingled with their respective groups.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“I’m the woman who has come to kill you. I’ll shred that tight skirt away from your plump hips and then use the same knife to cut a reminder in your heart.”

Ansley gulped. “And what is it that you want me to remember, exactly?” She turned around and faced Tristan. His knowing eyes held hers.

Did he realize the caller was threatening her? Is that why he’d refused to hand off the phone when he’d first answered?

“You can’t take what doesn’t belong to you.”

“If you’re truly here, then look around,” Ansley said. “Do I seem like a desperate woman? Hmm? Do I look like a lady who needs a man? Much less one who already has a wife? No! I do not!”

Ansley pushed by Tristan. He snatched the receiver as she passed him. “Who is this?”

Ansley tried to regain control of the handset, but Tristan walked away. “Damn it to hell. Who is this?”

Bailey froze. He and Tristan glared at one another.

Tristan walked over to the wall and slammed the phone back in the cradle. “Bring the lights up. Cut the music. Lock the doors. We’re searching everyone. No one leaves until we see their phones and check the last number dialed. We’ll find out who is threatening Ansley and put a stop to this now.”

“What? Are you crazy?” she asked, rushing him. “No one is here to harm me!”

“Don’t lie to me, Ansley.”

“You don’t call the shots here! Are you out of your mind? We’ll lose thousands of dollars tonight if you do this!”

“And you need the money, right?” Graham asked, apparently on Tristan’s side.

“Do it now,” Tristan said, ignoring her and addressing Bailey while he reached for the in-house radio. Pressing the button on the side of the transmitter, he said, “Front-of-the-house? We have a problem. Lock the doors. Check everyone. We’re looking for a cell used to call the bar just a few minutes ago. If anyone has dialed this number in the last hour, detain them. I want to speak with them.”

Baron, the lead bouncer, said, “You got it, Tristan.”

“This is my club,” Ansley said, following his hand as he waved a few customers away. “You’re making demands on a staff you do not pay. You’re closing down a club you do not own!”

“That may be a fact, but if you’re dead and in the grave day after tomorrow, who will run the club then, hmm? And what makes you so sure that whoever is out to kill you won’t harm your sister or the rest of your family next?”

“She won’t,” Ansley assured him.

“How do you know?” Tristan asked, his eyes bulging with anger.

“I…” She paused, took a breath, and looked at the Killian brothers. She hated to admit this in front of them. They had always played the field, but she’d often led them to believe they were the only men she’d enjoyed in quite some time. Then again, she had nothing to feel guilty about. She hadn’t been with anyone since she was last in their bed.

“Ansley, is someone out to hurt you?” Elliott asked.

“Apparently so,” she grumbled, forever unable to string a Killian along. It wouldn’t do any good. They could read her like the back of a beer bottle, quickly, correctly, and without squinting their eyes.

“Why?” Graham asked.

She thinned her lips.

“You tell ’em or I will,” Tristan said.

Bailey wiped his hands on a bar towel. “This isn’t necessary, Tristan.”

“The hell it isn’t. Someone is here to kill her.”

Elliott quickly looked around the bar.

“Why on earth would someone want to hurt Ansley?” Graham asked.

Tristan set his jaw. “I will tell them. We may need their help.”

“You aren’t in charge here,” she reminded him, her nerves shattering as she considered the evil tone the woman used, the wicked voice that had poured through the phone lines. Apparently, she had brought this down on herself. Maybe she’d slept with someone who, in fact, had a wife, and she just hadn’t known.

Quickly, she ran through a list of intimate memories. She was a flirt, not a slut. Excluding the Killians, she could only recall five bed partners. Four of her past liaisons were friends from high school! They were unmarried. That left Scott Lingerloins, a man she’d met in college, one she’d never forget given his last name.