Jack Stone - Deadly Revenge (8 page)

Stone frowned. “Who is he? Is he here tonight?”

The woman looked at Stone like he was insane. “Of course,” she said. “He owns the club.”

Stone heard a sudden growl of angry noise behind his back. He turned. One of the men who had been gathered around the kneeling submissive was buckling up his belt and zippering his jeans – and he was staring at Stone.

Stone let the blonde woman’s elbow go. The man broke from the group and strode towards him. He was a big guy, maybe in his mid-thirties. He had long straggly black hair and a scruffy beard. He was wearing a black biker’s t-shirt and jeans. He was solid but not fit. He had weight, but no muscle.

Stone turned to face the man. Celia stepped close behind Stone’s back like she was sheltering from an approaching storm.

Stone held up his hand like a cop stopping traffic.

The biker guy growled. “You don’t touch my bitch,” he said. He was still coming on like an avalanche of bad attitude. The blonde haired girl started to shake. She tottered out of the way unsteady in her high heels. The biker guy shot her a malevolent glance that read like she was going to be punished – just as soon as he dealt with the stranger in the suit coat who had touched her.

“No one touches my bitch,” the biker said.

Stone shrugged. “I didn’t realize she was yours,” he said.

“You should have asked,” the biker spat back. He was toe to toe with Stone now, conceding a couple of inches in height, but with a clear weight advantage. Othe
rs in the crowd were turning suddenly, drawn by the guy’s raised voice. “You should have asked her if I was her master.”

Stone
looked amused, but he felt his anger changing up through the gears. “You mean I should have walked up to her and asked if the fat hairy pig with the dick that is smaller than my little finger was her master?”

The guy roared. Stone saw broken stumps of yellowed teeth, and then a fist the size of a football swinging towards him. Stone stepped forward and snapped out a hard right. The biker’s punch died in mid air, and Stone’s fist had his weight, and the momentum of his forward step behind it. It wasn’t his best. It wasn’t a blow he would look back and
remember fondly – but the biker wasn’t the biggest or the baddest man he had ever rumbled with either.

Stone’s punch landed on the point of the man’s chin. The guy went backwards, his arms
pin wheeling for a hand-hold that wasn’t there. He lost his balance and he crashed into the bar counter. Stone hit the guy again, swinging his left fist from low down near his hip and punching upwards into the biker’s unprotected ribs. The guy made a gasping sound as all the breath exploded from his lungs. Then he sagged to the ground and didn’t get up again.

“Stay down,” Stone warned the guy. “If you get up, I’ll take you apart and see what makes you work.”

Stone wheeled round, his fists still bunched to confront anyone else who might be coming to the biker’s aid. There was a wild animal ferocity about him.

No one was. Everyone was standing back, standing still – because the big friendly doorman who had greeted them when they arrived with a big friendly smile and a big friendly laugh was standing in front of Stone holding a big ugly gun.

Stone paused. Slowly raised his hands.

“We’re going,” he said slowly.

The doorman nodded. “Yes you are,” he said. Right now. And don’t ever be dumb enough to come back.”

Sixteen.

The
y drove back to the hotel in silence. Celia sat in the seat, small and subdued, but bristling with some kind of energy and emotion that seemed to make her body hum.

They walked up the stairs in silence. Stone opened his door and Celia followed him inside. Stone flicked on the light, tossed the room key onto the counter and went to the bathroom. His knuckles were grazed and smeared bloody. He ran his hands under cold water.

When he came back into the room, Celia was sitting rigid on the edge of the bed, knees pressed together, back straight, hands clasped in her lap. Her skirt had ridden high up her thigh but she hadn’t seemed to notice. She sat there wordlessly for a long time and Stone said nothing. Did nothing. Just watched her and imagined all the things and emotions that were rumbling and crashing around in her mind and her imagination.

She stirred at last, like she was coming out of a trance, or waking slowly from a troubled sleep. Her eyes were dark and huge.

“The Dom,” she said. “That woman called him The Dom.”

Stone nodded.

“Not ‘a’ dom.
The
Dom. Like that was his name.”

Stone nodded.

“But we still don’t have a real name.”

“No, but we don’t need one,” Stone said. “We know who he is, and we know where he is. Whether he calls himself Adolf or
Ghandi is irrelevant. The man who runs that club is the man we need to talk to.”

Celia nodded
and sprang to her feet. “That’s why we’ve got to go back!”

Stone balked. “Go back?”

“To the club, Jack! That’s where the man is. We’ve got to go back and confront him. Find out if he is the one who murdered Katrina!” There was a hectic, fanatical flush in her eyes.

“I agree,” Stone said carefully.
He put his hands on her shoulders and stared evenly into her eyes. “When the time is right.”

Celia chewed her lip
, fighting to control her urgent impatience. “How? When?”

Stone shook his h
ead. “I don’t know,” he said, looking Celia in the eye and lying, because in the back of his mind, Stone had a plan. But it was a plan he didn’t think he could carry out with Celia at his side. He needed to work alone – to protect her from the risks that would need to be taken, and the one big gamble that would require every ounce of his ability to bluff. “And I don’t think it’s something we should decide right now,” Stone said smoothly. “Only fools rush in…” he said.

Celia nodded reluctantly
, suppressing her impatience and her thirst for revenge and justice. But she was also strangely restless. She sighed and her expression changed. It was like she had mentally flicked channels completely, switching from one subject to another like she had some kind of remote control thing going on inside her head.

She glanced up at Stone suddenly and her eyes were hooded, her face flushed warm.

“Tonight was… was stimulating,” she said vaguely.

Stone shrugged, because he
didn’t know how else to respond, but he could sense the direction Celia’s mind had diverted to – and he was keen to encourage her distraction. Anything that took her mind off her rush for instant revenge. He waited. Celia moved on the bed a little until she was facing where Stone stood. Her knees fell open a few inches.

“Seeing that woman chained to the ceiling…” Celia began and then her voice drifted to silence. She shook her head in wonder, and her hair bounced and rippled across the smooth shape of her shoulders. “And when she was down on her hands and knees, Jack. I saw one of the men bring another woman over to her and they…”

Stone nodded. “How did it make you feel?”

“I don’t know,” she gasped suddenly. “I just don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she said. She stared at the window for a moment like the answer might be there. It wasn’t. “I was shocked… and I was aroused,” she confessed. “Very aroused.”

“That’s good.”

Celia shook her head. “It’s confusing, Jack. I’m not into women. I like men. But when I saw that submissive girl sink down and begin to pleasure the woman on her hands and knees with her mouth and tongue… I… well I just don’t know!”

Stone smiled. “Celia, You’re normal,” Stone assured her. “You don’t have to be into other women to be deeply aroused by a scene like that. It’s not about being turned on by other women. That scene was about power, and power can be asexual. Power as an aphrodisiac transcends genders.”

Celia thought about that for long moments, and some of the anxiety and tension seemed to melt from her body in a subtle wave of relief.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Yes, of course.”

Stone said nothing more. Just let her dwell on her thoughts and feelings while he
took a can of Coke from the tiny refrigerator and shared it into two glasses. He took one to Celia and she clutched at it absently.

Stone sat down on the bed beside her. He felt Celia shudder suddenly.
She turned towards him, her face close to his.

“Is that what BDSM is for you, Jack?” she asked him. “Is it all about power?”

Stone thought about the question.

“Partly,” he admitted. “I’m an alpha kind of guy, Celia. I like being in control, and I like being dominant,” he said. “Learning the skills of a master suited my personality – but it’s only half the story.”

Celia smiled wistfully. “You’re such a contradiction, Jack. I saw the way you fight,” she said, looking up into his face and seeing the wolfish danger of him like a glint of steel in the shadows. “You’re the kind of bad-boy my mom warned me to avoid – and yet below that tough exterior, I get the feeling you’re a good man.”

Stone
stayed silent for a long moment. “It’s hard to make your mark in this word if you’re always walking on tip-toes,” he said at last. “I’m not trying to be anything other than the best man I can, Celia, whether people like me or not, makes no difference. I sleep with a clear conscience.”

“
Do you think BDSM scenes create the best sex?” she prompted him.

Stone sipped at his drink. “I found that the best way to pleasure a woman is when she is submissive,” he said. “For me, anyhow.
It is when we are in those rolls that I feel a woman is at her most natural and most instinctive – and that’s why the sex seems better for them. And that’s the other part of the equation,” he explained. “Because great sex can’t happen unless both people are enjoying the moment. If it’s only fun for one, it can only ever be average.”

Celia paused, carefully framing her next question.

“So… any woman who submits to you is guaranteed great sex?”

To her amazement,
Stone laughed. It was a natural, somehow reassuring sound of genuine delight, made rich and vibrant by the natural timbre of his voice. Celia felt a small thrill sizzle down the length of her spine and she noticed the way Stone’s face took on a totally different appearance – maybe becoming even more ruggedly handsome.

“There are no guarantees,” Stone said. “But I haven’t had any complaints.”

Celia blushed. “I bet you haven’t,” she muttered softly. And then – overwhelmed with an impulse she had been fighting with all her energy to resist – she threw her arms around Stone’s neck and kissed him fiercely.

“Show me,” she breathed against his lips, crushing her body against the hard lean muscle of him. “Treat me as your submissive girl
, Jack, so I’ll know exactly how great sex can be.”

Stone kissed her back.
His tongue teased her mouth, tasting the corners of her lips. His kiss was ravenous, his body tough and hot against her own.

Celia pulled away
for a moment, breathless and shaking.

“I need you to know that I’m not normally like this, Jack,” she said defensively. “I don’t usually do casual sex.”

The intensity in Stone’s eyes burned into her. “I assure you,” he said calmly. “There won’t be anything casual about it.”

Then he kissed her harder,
wrenching her lips apart and using his tongue like a weapon as he plundered her mouth. He pushed her down onto the bed and gripped his hand around her throat, forcing her chin up, making her mouth even more vulnerable to his. Celia’s eyes flashed wide and wild, and the desire in her eyes burned with the intensity of her lust.

“Yes,” she hissed.

Stone straddled her body, holding her captive, and ripped at the front clasp of her bra. Celia’s breasts were warm and firm and he bit and nipped at the flesh around her nipples until the sparks of pain and the ache of her need began to blend and blur into deep yearning for more.

He reached back and
found the hem of her skirt, then worked it up until it was bunched around her waist, exposing silken thighs and lacy suspenders, and the heat of her femininity. “Spread your legs,” Stone said, and there was a sexy husky growl in the back of his throat.

She obeyed, and then threw her hands out to the side and grabbed at the bedspread so that her body was
his to explore.

Stone climbed off the bed. He tore off his t-shirt and slid out of his jeans. Celia raised her head off the mattress and watched.

His body was all hard lean lines of muscle, broad and defined across the breadth of his chest and then becoming corrugated ripples across his abdomen, each contour clearly defined. His arms and shoulders were thick, roped and corded with veins that stood proud beneath the tautness of his flesh.

Stone came to the foot of the bed. Celia felt her body twinge in melting heated anticipation. He was hard and vaulted, the arrogant maleness of him like a thick iron bar.
Stone reached down and tore her suspenders off.

“Get up,” Stone said.
“Come here.”

Despite the harshness of his voice, she went to him, un
able and unwilling to resist, even though she could see the smoky look in his eyes and knew exactly what it meant. He was gazing at her like she was an object – and she had to crush down on a flicker of resentment, realizing that this was exactly what she had asked of him.

She looked up to him
, suddenly timid and breathless. “You… you won’t hurt me – will you?”

Stone gave her an enigmatic smile of menace. “Not unless you want me to…”

He took her into the bathroom. Pressed her up against the shower screen. Celia felt the cold touch of the glass against her breasts and she flinched.

“Reach up, and take hold of the bar,” Stone ordered.

The shower cubicle was a small square, with a sliding door of frosted glass that slid on tracks. Celia reached up for the top slider and grabbed the aluminum frame. Stone pulled the delicate fabric of her panties to one side and began stroking Celia with his long fingers. She groaned aloud. Then he circled her entrance with teasing touches, moving his hand so that it brushed gently against her sex – and then not so gently.

Celia made a sound of helplessness, but then her hips began to rock against his hand, riding him as she clung desperately to the bar above her head.

Stone tore at the thin fabric of her panties and the satin fell from her hips. The panties were damp with her arousal and perfumed with her scent. Stone tugged the skirt off her. Left it lying on the cold tiled floor.

“
Now I’m going to fuck you,” Stone said softly in her ear. She could feel the heat of him against her back, and feel the urgent press and demand of his body against the smooth cleft of her bottom. She arched her spine to give him better access and parted her legs as far as she could.

Stone slid his hand
back down over her skin, following the contours of her body until his fingers were possessively dipping within the warm cleft of her sex again. Celia made a throaty sensuous sound of need.

“I’m going to take you, and use you for my pleasure,” he whispered. “I’m going to fuck you with long slow strokes, Celia, until you can’t take any more,” he said.

Celia moaned softly. She tried to look over her shoulder to see the blaze in his eyes but her body was too taut, too finely stretched, so that all she could do was lay her cheek against the cold glass and close her eyes – concentrate on the sound of his voice – concentrate on breathing. She felt as though she might suffocate. Every breath was an effort. Every nerve in her body was strung tight to breaking point.

“I’m going to give you this one night,” Stone said. “This one night of sex – and I swear to you, it will be a night you will neve
r. Ever. Forget.”

Celia gasped. She was trembling. It was a combination of the
sound of Stone’s voice and the strained pressure on her thighs. She was tensed and flexed, drawn tight in anticipation, and the soft rhythmic slide of Stone’s fingers along the wet folds between her legs was only serving to heighten her anticipation. She whimpered softly. Then Stone clamped his hands around Celia’s hips and pushed himself into her from behind.

She gasped, and then groaned. The breath left her body in a sudden long slow moan of wonder, and she felt
the strength melt from her legs.

Stone growled. Celia’s body
felt tight and silken and gripping as he filled her. He pulled her back against him and thrust forward at the same instant so that his full length touched her deepest, most intimate places.