Bare Your Soul (8 page)

“Are you sure you want to do this, Morgan? We aren’t talking about chump change here, and there’s always the possibility that her dad will pull something like this again.”

“You know what the Chechens are capable of, Brecken,” I hissed. “There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to let Angelica’s father get her mixed up with a gang who’s involved in human trafficking and prostitution.”

I heard a feminine gasp from behind me. Turning around, I found Angelica in the bathroom doorway, wearing a green silk robe I’d purchased for her, with a towel wrapped around her hair. I’d been so focused on my conversation with Brecken, I hadn’t heard the door open. I moved towards her, taking in how pale her face was and the tears filling her gorgeous green eyes. Her fucking father had managed to royally screw up a night which should have been special for her.

“F
ind out the exact amount owed and set up a meeting,” he growled into the phone after getting me settled back onto the mattress of his king-sized bed. I watched as he frowned at whatever the other person was telling him. “Of course you can come with me. I’m not a dumbass.”

He chuckled lowly, and his eyes lifted to mine, although they held no sign of humor. “Yeah, I’ll admit it. Being with Angelica has changed me, but it’s for the better. Doesn’t mean I’ve lost all my brain cells.”

I was flattered by the idea of making this incredible man even better. But it didn’t deter me from my focus on what I’d heard when I’d opened the bathroom door. I waited, semi-patiently, for him to end his call before asking him about the phrase which drew my attention in the first place.

“My father?” I couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “Why would you be talking to someone about him when he hasn’t been a part of my life for years?”

“That was an old friend of mine, Brecken. He’s ex-military, just moved to Chicago to open his own security business.”

“And he was calling you about my dad why exactly?”

Morgan rubbed his face with his hands and sat down on the edge of the bed next to me, his hand gripping my thigh. “I had him do a background check on you.”

“You ran a background check on me?” I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about that. I wouldn’t judge a woman for running an Internet check on a guy before dating him to make sure he was safe. As wealthy as he was, Morgan had a lot to lose. It would be hypocritical of me to judge him more harshly, but it still stung to know his trust only came because it was verified.

“Yes, I did,” he confirmed, his hold on my leg tightening as though he thought I would try to get away from him. “I didn’t know a thing about you back then. Nothing except that I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I’m not going to apologize when my decision to run the check on you is the reason why Brecken learned about the trouble your father has pulled you into.”

“Trouble?” I repeated, my head spinning at this turn of events. “What kind of trouble?”

“The type of problem that you have no business being a part of.”

I moved, getting up onto my knees on the mattress next to him so I could look him straight in the eyes. “Neither do you, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you from jumping right in anyway.”

“Because you’re mine, Angel, and I’ll damn well do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“I don’t understand what you need to protect me from,” I cried. “My father hasn’t been a part of my life in years. What could he have possibly done that would pull me into something from which I’d need rescuing.”

He scrubbed his face with his palms before scooting further onto the mattress and turning to fully face me. “He apparently has a gambling problem. A big one,” he emphasized. “And along with his problem comes a debt to a gang of men who won’t think twice about kidnapping you and selling you to the highest bidder if it means getting the money he owes them.”

“Holy crap,” I moaned, flopping backwards onto the mattress and tossing my arm over my face. It felt like I’d been punched in the gut or hit by a car or something. I was barely able to breathe and tears were leaking down my cheeks. When the mattress dipped next to me, I rolled towards Morgan’s body, desperate for the warmth he could provide.

“I didn’t think it was possible to hate him any more than I already did when he abandoned my mom and me,” I mumbled into his chest. “But now I do, I really do. And it kills me to know that if she was still alive today, my mom would hate him too.”

“With the amount of debt he managed to rack up and the people he owes, it’s pretty damn clear he has a serious problem, Angel.”

I knew Morgan was trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t going to work. The man I’d adored as a child was gone. It didn’t really matter why. Too much water was under that bridge already after going through my mom’s illness and death on my own. “How much does he owe?”

“Brecken’s working to find out. Hopefully he’ll have more details for me when he gets into town in the morning. In the meantime, I’m going to need you to stick close to the house for the next few days while we figure this out.”

“We should call the police. You can’t take care of this for me,” I cried, thinking about the danger he’d be placing himself in on my behalf.

“I won’t be taking care of this on my own, Angel. I’ll have Brecken at my back. He was a damn fine soldier and probably the only man in the world I’d trust with your safety,” he reassured me. “If he tells me our best play is to call in the cops, then that’s what I’ll do. But if he says I should pay these guys off to get them out of your hair, I’m gonna do it and you can’t stop me.”

I hadn’t even thought about how much this might cost him to fix if these guys wanted a human being in lieu of payment. “It’s too much, Morgan. You would have been better off if you’d never met me in the first place.”

Morgan grasped my chin and tilted it up until I was looking directly into his eyes. “The day you walked off my stage and crawled into my lap you became mine,” he growled, pulling me more tightly against his body. “You might not have known it then, but when you opened your legs and I made you come that first time I warned you. But you opened them again and again, deepening my hold over you. Tonight, you let me take your cherry, and you did so with your eyes wide open.”

Shaking my head, I tried to deny what we both knew to be true. It only seemed to make him more determined to get me to take back what I’d said. He rolled onto his back, taking me with him and settling me down on top of him with my legs straddling his hips.

“You’re mine and I’ll defy anyone who tries to tell me otherwise. You included,” he growled, surging upwards and impaling me on his cock. It took a moment for me to adjust to his size as he entered me. Even though he’d just been deep inside me, it still felt like the first time.

He lay underneath me, holding completely still. His hands clenched my hips tightly, hard enough I was certain I’d have bruises tomorrow morning. My breathing was fast as I stared down at him, trying to adjust to the feel of him inside me in this position. The bath had done wonders for my soreness, but there was a sting of pain from his cock filling me so soon after my first time.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean to take you like this. Not until you had the chance to heal.”

He started to lift me off his body, but I gripped his arms and bore down. “No, don’t stop. It’s already starting to feel better.”

“Then show me you want this as much as I do.”

My movements were clumsy because I didn’t know what to do, but I began to move slowly, sliding up and down and circling my hips. Leaning forward a little, I braced my hands on his shoulders and searched for the right rhythm, watching his face for signs of what felt best for him. When his pupils expanded and his nostrils flared, I knew I was on the right track. I quickened my pace, circling my hips on each downward thrust. My thighs trembled as I rode him hard, a sheen of sweat coating my skin. My core tightened around him as I got closer to my orgasm, making it more difficult to thrust down on his cock.

“Gonna make you come before you send me over the edge,” he rasped as he lost control, surging upwards, his hips grinding into me.

He fucked up into me, driving his cock all the way inside me, his balls slapping against my ass. It was exactly what I need to trigger my orgasm. Morgan didn’t hold anything back, slamming his cock into me, over and over, until he was coming too. When his hands left my hips, I dropped down onto his chest, boneless. My head nestled on his shoulder and my legs slid between his.

My eyes were drifting closed when I felt his lips on the top of my head. “Sleep, my Angel. Everything will be okay. I’ll make it so.”

I
’d never been more grateful for how soundly Angelica slept than when my cell vibrated against the nightstand in the middle of the night. I slid my arm out from underneath her head and rolled off the mattress, grabbing my phone and quietly exiting the room before answering the call without bothering to see who it was. Considering the time, I already knew it wasn’t going to be anything good. “Cadwell.”

“Is that any way to greet your best friend when he busted ass to fly halfway across the country to come to your girl’s rescue?”

I chose to ignore any reference to him saving my Angel because it would only result in me wanting to punch him in the face. “You’re here?”

“Brought a team with me, too.”

“Hold on a second,” I instructed him, slipping back into the bedroom to grab some clothes from the closet. I didn’t want to meet his guys naked as the day I was born. After checking on Angelica to make sure she was still sleeping, I left the room and softly shut the door behind me. “How far out are you?”

“We’ll be at your house in five minutes.”

If his middle of the night flight with a team of his employees didn’t clue me in on the seriousness of the situation, then the fact that he’d have had to use the private airstrip down the street from my home would have. “Use the back door. I’ll have coffee waiting.”

I grabbed my gun from the safe in my office and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans before heading into the kitchen. True to his word, Brecken walked in five minutes later, followed by two burly men and a tall, athletic looking woman.

“It’s good to see you, man.” I pulled him in for a quick hug before stepping back and scanning the faces of his team. “I just wish it was under better circumstances or at least with a little more warning.”

“No time to waste,” he muttered, gesturing for his team to take a seat on the stools at the granite counter while he pulled me to the side. “I got confirmation they’re planning to move in on her in the next twenty-four hours. We need to take care of this now, before they send a team of their own after her.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked, holding onto my temper by the barest thread, knowing it wouldn’t serve a purpose to lose it. The only reasons I was able to keep it together were knowing my Angel was safely upstairs in my bed and that I could always count on my best friend to have a plan.

“How much money do you have laying around?”

I did a quick tally in my head. “About a quarter of a mil if it has to be cash, closer to two if they’ll take diamonds and bearer bonds.”

He whistled softly. “I should have hit you up for more money when I started the business.”

“You help me get my Angel out of this mess and you can ask for whatever you want.”

“You may not be my brother in blood, but you’re my brother where it counts.” He thumped his chest, over his heart. “There’s no fucking way I’m taking payment from you to save your girl.”

“I think Boss man’s gone loco,” one of his guys muttered from behind us. “You don’t ever look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the female operative countered. “You damn well know his loyalty is the reason we signed on with him in the first place.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the other guy grumbled. “But the promise of earning a shit ton more than we did in the military certainly didn’t hurt.”

“Enough,” Brecken barked at them before turning his attention back to me. “The plan is to leave Sera behind to watch over your girl while we head out to pay off the Chechens. And we’d better hope they’ll take diamonds because the cash alone isn’t going to cut it.”

“Her father’s that deep into them?”

“Deeper,” he murmured. “The money and diamonds will get your girl out of this mess, but the Chechens still want his ass once they manage to locate him.”

“They can have him,” I growled. “As long as he stays away from Angelica, I don’t give a damn what happens to that piece of shit.”

“Then let’s grab what we need and head out,” Brecken replied, looking down at his watch. “Because we’re meeting with them in less than an hour.”

He followed me into my office. I unlocked the safe again, this time pulling out all the cash I had on hand and a couple black velvet drawstring bags filled with diamonds. My parent’s wealth had done a lot for me in my life, but I was never more grateful for it than today, knowing the money they’d given me was going to save Angelica’s life.

While Brecken packed the duffel bag, I crept back upstairs and watched her sleep. I didn’t allow myself much time to savor the sight, just a moment. Then I pulled a pair of fur-lined handcuffs from the nightstand and slipped them around her wrist. My hope was she’d never know they were there, but I didn’t trust her not to convince Brecken’s employee that they needed to come after us. Girl power and all that.

I wanted her safe and sound in my home while I cleaned up the mess her father left behind. If the way I handled it pissed her off, so be it. I’d figure out a way to make it up to her later.

***

G
etting to the meet was easy enough. They’d agreed to see me in the back room of a low-class strip club that was worlds apart from the places I owned. One of Brecken’s guys stayed with the car while the three of us went inside. The old guy sitting behind the desk wasn’t too intimidating, but the four guys surrounding us with their hands on the guns in their holsters sure as shit were. It was a good thing Brecken was standing behind me because I knew he had my back, literally and figuratively. I also knew he was the best shot in the room because he’d already been better than anyone else before the military got their hands on him.