Neal (Golden Streak Series) (11 page)

“You will be safe?” She nodded. “You
know just how to contact me. I will be here for you. I owe you so much.”

When he was gone, Rayne went to the
showroom to see what had happened while she’d been gone. Things had sold, and a
great deal of the inventory that she’d finished up just the day before was
sitting with “sold” tags on it and even more sitting with “hold” on it. She
thought about the things she’d purchased and wondered where they were. She
turned to Neal when he stepped up behind her.

“He’ll come around.” She knew he was
hoping that so didn’t say anything. She took the receipts for the day and was
astonished by the sales, but some of the thrill was gone now. She handed them
to Neal.

“I’m really tired. I was wondering if
you cared if I stayed here tonight. I want to get some things finished up for
the weekend, and I have…I have some big projects that I want to get a start on
soon.” He nodded at her, and she felt her heart crush a little more. “Then I’ll
see you soon?”

“I’m not going anywhere that you’re not,
Rayne. I thought you’d figured that out by now.” She started to shake her head,
and he held her face in his hands. “I love you. With all my heart, I love you
dearly. And if you work, I help you. If I need you, I know that you’ll help me
in the same way. We’re together forever.”

“But I have a friend who’s a vampire. Doesn’t
that sicken you? I know what your kind thinks about his. You hate him for what
he might—” He put his hand over her mouth much like Peter had.

“Not my kind, Rayne, but our kind. You
and I are the same. You just happen to have a little more, but we’re the same kind
of beings, we both are tigers. And if Ryland doesn’t understand what you did
for that man, then fuck him. He’s a small-minded prick if he can’t see that.” She
laughed and went to him. “That’s my girl. I love you.”

“And I love you too. But Peter won’t
hurt him. Not because I asked him not to, but because he really is a changed
man. He was nearly rogue when I found him. That’s the real reason he was being
killed. But the moment I saved him he….” Rayne turned around and looked out
into the waning evening. “Do you know that in order for him to have lived as
long as he has how much he’s seen? What he’s had to endure, to go through just
to survive? So much of it, I suppose it must have made him overwhelmed and
feeling like he’d had enough.”

She walked to the large work area and
saw the stacks of soil as well as two carts of flowers. On the new wall that
Ally had asked if she could put up, there were orders hanging. Rayne took a
step closer to read some of them. Orders, some of them large, others just a few
herbs put into a cup, were stacked in neat rows for her to work. She looked at
Neal when he sat down in the chair she’d been using as a work chair since she’d
opened.

“Neal, I’m hungry.” He nodded. “I mean
really hungry. What do you think we can do? I mean now, what can we do now?”

He stood and moved toward her, and when
he was within inches of her, he touched her shoulder just under her shirt
collar. She held her breath as he moved his mouth along the same path. Her cat
purred, and he lifted his head to look down at her before he touched his mouth
to hers. The kiss was long and felt as if he’d touched her with all of him

“I saw the things you bought today. The thought
of you dressing in that little outfit had my cock aching to join you in your
bed.” He slid his tongue over her lips. “And those shoes you bought to wear
with it. I want to bend you over one of these tables with you just wearing them
and fuck you from behind.”

“I’d like that too.” She tore the
buttons open on his shirt and untied his tie. “But for now I just need you to
feed me.”

After having him sit down, she tied his
hands to the chair. He was going to enjoy this, she thought. When she knelt
between his legs, he opened them for her, and she moved closer to him. She unbuckled
his belt and leaned in and swirled her tongue in his navel. His hiss of
approval made her wetter.

When she freed his cock, she licked the
tip, then blew across him. He lifted his hips from the chair, and she pressed
him back down. Shaking her head, she pulled his pants down to his calves and told
him to behave.

“I want to play with you.” He nodded. “You
might not like this as much as you think you might. I’m not going to give you
what you want until I have just what I want.”

“You take what you want and then when
you’ve had your fill, I’ll take what I want.” She licked his cock again and he
moaned. “I’m not going to survive this, am I?”

“I don’t know. Do you want to?” He
nodded. “I can make this very hard for you. Harder than you are right now.”

“I’m yours. Christ, I’m all yours.” She
took him into her mouth and twirled her tongue all around his crown. She felt
him strain at the tie around him, but he didn’t break it. When she leaned back,
she took off her bra and then stood up to take off her jeans and panties. Moving
closer to him so his face was where she wanted it, she told him to eat her.

He ate at her so hard and so wonderfully
she nearly forgot that she was running the show. Taking a step back, she nearly
went back to him when he growled at her. His command for her to come back to
him almost had her begging him to let her come, but she took another step back and
held her ground. She only hoped she didn’t regret making him so close only to
pull back.

“I’m going to have to punish you for
that. I told you that I was going to play. We do things my way.” He growled
again, and she felt her pussy tighten. If he kept this up, she was going to
give in. Then she smiled.

“Watch me, Neal.” Sliding her hands down
her waist to her hips, she moved her fingers over her mound just above her
slit. When she slid her fingers past the wet curls, she moaned and heard him do
the same. She’d never done anything like this before and opened her eyes to
tell him so when she saw his face. He looked like he was ready to break free
and take her to the floor. Lifting her fingers to her mouth, she licked them
and then looked at him.

“Are you ready for me?” His growl rolled
over her body. “I’m going to suck you until you come. Then I’m going to ride
you until I do. Will you be able to come quickly, Neal? I’m in pain I need to
come so badly.”

“Let me eat you again. Let me lick your
clit until you flood my mouth.” She hardly recognized his voice it was so thick
with need, but shook her head. “When you touch me with your mouth, I’m going to
come. I’m going to hold you over me as I fuck that mouth of yours until I’m
empty.”

She took him into her mouth by bending
over him. The sound to her right startled her, and she looked at the chair arm where
he’d broken it off, and he curled his hand in her hair and fucked her. She
gagged twice, but it didn’t seem to matter because the next time he pulled her
down, he roared out his release. Before she could move back from him when she
thought him to be empty, he stood up and jerked her around so that she was bent
over the chair he’d been sitting in.

“Hold on.” She wrapped her hands into
the back of it, and he slammed deep into her pussy. “Come. Christ, come now. I want
to fill you again.”

Moving her hand to her pussy, she slid
it along her clit in hard and quick moments like he was doing behind her. Every
time he pulled to the tip and jerked her back to meet him, she felt his balls
slap against her. When he moved his finger over hers and slid both his and hers
into her she felt his cock move like a piston. Her climax at these new
sensations had him jerking her upright. As he fucked her with his fingers and
cock, she cupped her breasts and pulled hard on her nipples. His command for
her to come sent her over the edge twice more until he leaned over her and took
her again. As soon as he sank his canines into her neck, she cried out, this
time falling over the edge of darkness. Christ, he was going to kill her.

Chapter 11

Frederick Holden looked at the idiot in
front of him. When he’d figured out that Pierce had found his prey when none of
his others had been able to, Fredrick wanted to strangle the man after he
congratulated him on a job well done. But Pierce had made sure that others knew
he was there, and Fredrick couldn’t simply kill him and mark it off as
something that just happened to men like him. He had to have a better plan. Or
at least one that didn’t involve him getting his hands dirty by spilling the
blood of a federal agent.

“She lives outside of town with some
rich guy. I believe they’re married now, but when she’d moved here, she wasn’t.
And there’s a kid.” He looked up at him sharply, and the man moved back in his
chair. “A little girl about a week old. I don’t have that for sure, but there
was an announcement in the paper a few days ago. I hadn’t had a chance to
connect her with the baby yet.”

“Did you see this child? And why would
you take the word of a small assed paper like a town this size would print?
These places can barely get the names right in big articles much less the
little shit like a birth of a baby.” Pierce shook his head, then nodded. “Well,
which is it you, fool? I don’t have time for your games.”

“I’ve not seen it, but I know it’s hers.
There was a thing in the paper about her having it on the side of the road. Had
to have it delivered by some chick that owns the local flower shop.” Frederick
nearly came out of his chair then. “Flower shop, you say? What’s the name of
the owner? Where is it?”

“Out off route forty-three. She’s only
part owner, and her name…?” He looked at his notes. “I don’t think I remember
that. It’s probably in the article I have in my file.”

He stood up, but Fredrick told him to
sit. He sent one of the flunkies that were forever underfoot to get this
supposed file. Pierce said it was in his hotel room on the table. “I’ve been
keeping notes on everything that I find out about this Bronwyn. She’s a real
nice lady from all accounts.”

He’d just bet she was. She hadn’t been
when he’d had her oh so long ago. And now this new development nearly had him
pulling out his dick and doing a celebratory jerk off. Fredrick laughed to
himself, thinking what the fuck in front of him would do if he did that. Or if
he told him the only way he could get off was to masturbate with blood and he
didn’t care who’s it was, his or one of the many that had died for him.

“Good notes, you say? Well I don’t see
that. Except for the fact that you can’t remember the name of the bitch that
whelped her brat or the name of the shop that she is supposed to own, you got
some drivel about her being nice. What the fuck kind of notes are you keeping
if they’re so half assed?” Pierce nearly let go of his well-known control over
his temper. Fredrick was willing to bet the man had never had an erection that
his fucking wife didn’t shrivel up with just the sound of her voice. He’d met
her before and knew that she had a voice that would cut a glacier in two.

“I have been trying to get in to see Mrs.
Golden but haven’t had any luck. Just yesterday I followed her into a shop with
two other women. When I went in to speak to her, one of them accused me of stealing
her wallet. I have never done such a thing. She put it on me is what she did.”
Fredrick looked at Pierce.

“Are you saying she planted her wallet
on you so you could what? Buy something for yourself?” He shook his head and
mumbled something. When he was asked to repeat it, all the blood in his body
seemed to freeze.

“I said I think it was to steal my
identification. Both were missing when I got out to the car. I already reported
it stolen and should receive my new badge any time now.” Frederick asked him
which one. “The one at my work. I guess I should have said something to the lab,
but there wasn’t any reason to. I’d gotten in without it and wasn’t even sure
why they had issued me one.”

“You’ve been to the lab?” Pierce nodded.
“When? When did you go there, and, better yet, how did you find it?”

“I’d found the longitude and latitude for
it among the things that Cunningham’s wife gave me a few months ago. And I had
done a little digging on my own to find out as much information as I could
because there was something about her story that made me…can you imagine if
this woman can really change into a cat, what we can use it for?”

“Bronwyn can change into a cat or any other
thing she wants to. She has the ability to do whatever she wants because I gave
Cunningham the ways and means to give it to her. And you know entirely too much.”
He pulled out his gun and shot the man in the head. “And now you don’t.”

The next thing on his list of fuck-ups
to take care of was to find this nephew of Pierce’s and find out just how much
he knew. Probably a great deal less that Pierce did, but like all good snoops,
he had to go too. When he found his prey, he wanted her all to himself this
time. No more fucking around.

His lab had been his secret. He had had
it built with Bronwyn in mind. She wasn’t going to get away this time, and
neither was his little plaything, Rayne, if this was her. He had no doubt it
was because she had had a passion for growing things. To have them both
together…he was having a hard time keeping his dick in his pants as he looked
at the blood splatter on the wall behind Pierce.

He picked up the phone, having just
remembered where Pierce had said he’d gotten the address. “Number one-seven
needs to be terminated. I don’t care how it looks when it’s done so long as she
can’t be traced back to me.”

“Yes, sir.” The line disconnected and he
sat back. He had no doubt that within the next ten minutes or so Mrs.
Cunningham would have met with a horrible accident, leaving her two small
children orphans.

Frederick sat back and waited for the
file to come to him and for someone to come and clean up Pierce’s mess. The man
had moved ahead of the game much too quickly and hadn’t done what he’d been
told to do. He was going to have to have a little talk with Brads, Pierce’s
work buddy, too when he got back. He was supposed to tell him to give it up and
forget about the box of shit from the Cunningham woman. Well, he was going to
have to see to it that he didn’t fuck up again. Laughing, he picked up his
phone again.

“Kill Brads.” This was met with another
yes
sir
and he knew then that the matter was taken care of. When the call came
to him five minutes later that one-seven had committed suicide, he smiled. One
down and two to go. But he had a feeling that little Bobby was going to be a
walk in the park to take out.

~~~

Neal sat at his desk for nearly an hour
before he was ready to say fuck it and go to the shop. He’d been late coming in
and no one seemed to notice, and now he was simply sitting there with his
computer screen gone to black and he couldn’t remember the first thing about
what he’d been doing before that. When his phone rang, he nearly didn’t answer
it.

“Neal Golden.” He smiled when his mother
laughed. “See, I took your advice and started answering it with the name you
slaved over.”

“You’re a good boy. But I need something
from you. You know that lovely little planter that I bought from Rayne? The one
with all those purple flowers in it?”

“Hydrangeas.” He’d been getting really
good at naming the flowers too. “What about it? You didn’t forget to water it
did you?”

“Good heavens, no. How would that look
if my future daughter-in-law gave me instructions on how to keep it alive and I
couldn’t? How would that look to the flower club I chair too? No, I need
another one. But in pinks. I think I saw that she had one in pink there, didn’t
I?”

“If she doesn’t, I’m sure she’ll make
you one. Did you need it taken somewhere?” She gave him the name of a friend of
her daughter, and he wrote it down.

“She just had a baby girl and I thought
what a lovely gift to give her. Rayne told me that they can live for a very
long time with proper care. And I’m sure it will get good care where it’s going.”
He assured her he’d ask her. “Also, when are you getting married? I would have thought
by now you would have at least asked her. Goodness, son, do you need to take
lessons from your brothers?”

“No.” He pulled the ring box out of his
pocket and opened it. “I was going to do it last night, but she had company and
then later we had to finish up some orders.” And he wasn’t going to tell his
mom, but he’d been distracted by her naked body while she’d filled pot after pot
with soil so that all she had to do today was fill them with plants. He put the
ring away.

“I’m going to meet her after she closes
up tonight. Then we’re going to go and look for her a car. I didn’t even know
she didn’t own one until last night.” He looked up when May walked in. “I have
to go, Mom. I need to get out on time and I still have a ton of work to do.”

“You might want to rethink that.” May
shut the door behind her. “There’s a man in the lobby that says he has to see
you. He said that he thinks someone is trying to kill him, and since your
brother Ryland is tied up in meetings, he said you’d have to see him. His name
is Bobby Smyth. He said his uncle, Sheldon Pierce, hasn’t contacted him for
several hours and he should have. He said that Pierce works for the CIA and has
been trying to contact Bronwyn.”

“Where is he now?” She told him near the
security desk. “I’m going to call Brock and let him know what’s going on and
have him meet me down there. I’m not sure what this guy thinks an accountant is
going to help him with, but maybe he needs something else.”

She nodded as he reached for the phone
as she went out, leaving the door open. He could hear her speaking to someone
and realized it was Stan, telling him to hold Mr. Smyth until she could contact
someone. May left her desk after hanging up the phone. She told him she was
going to see if Ryland had a few minutes to spare. Brock answered on the first
ring.

Neal told him everything that May had
told him. “I’m going down to see what I can figure out. Can you come down too?”

“Sure. Give me two minutes and we’ll go
together. I think Ryland and Alistair are going too, both of them are with me.”
Neal nodded and walked to his door just as his cell phone rang. He smiled as he
answered it.

“Don’t speak, just listen to me. I’ve
been taken from my shop, and my mom is hurt. Bronwyn is with me, and she’s hurt
but not badly. I can’t heal her until I see what this mad man has in store for
us. I think he’s taking us to the address we’d found.” He felt the finger of
fear run up his spine as Rayne whispered to him.

“Leave the phone on if you have to. I’ll
find you.” He moved to the hall just as his brothers were coming to him. They
were laughing, and he was so afraid that he wanted to drop to his knees and beg
them for help.

“Go to the shop. The baby is there. I’m
so worried for her. My mom…will you please see that she’s taken care of too?
He…he just shot her.” The signal seemed to drop for a few minutes and he caught
himself screaming for her. He looked at Ryland when the line went dead.

“We have to get to the shop. Someone has
taken them. Both of them. Rayne said that the baby was at the shop and that her
mom is hurt.” All three of them took off to the stairs knowing that they could
run down them faster than waiting on the elevator.

Brock said he’d deal with the man as the
two of them took off for the garage. Ryland’s car was closer so they got in it
and tore out of the underground area as if their lives depended on it. Neal
supposed in a way it did.

“Who took them, did she say?” He said
that she hadn’t. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch when we find him.”

They pulled into the parking area just
as the police did. The alarm had been pulled, they’d said, and had asked for
them to wait. Ryland nearly knocked the first man down getting inside when it
was cleared.

The baby was crying or they might not
have found her. She had been hidden deep in one of the pots that had been in
the work room with an empty soil bag over the top of it. When Ryland picked her
up and held her to him, it was all Neal could to do stand up with him. He
looked at his brother as he cooed at his little girl.

“She smells like Rayne,” he told him
softly. “She was the last person to hold her, so she hid her from whoever came
here. I don’t know what happened here, but your mate saved my daughter again.”

It took them nearly ten minutes to find
Karin, but she’d not been so lucky. Her arm was broken in two places and she
had lost a great deal of blood. When she opened her eyes to look at him as she
was being loaded into an ambulance, Neal had to lean very close to hear her.

“He took her. You must find her.” He
nodded. “Here is his scent.” She uncurled her hand, and he looked down at the
scrap of material from her and held it to his nose. Her last words to him as
she was being closed inside was to contact Peter.

“How do you do that?” He looked at Brock
as he took the material to his nose as well and shrugged at Ryland. “And what
sort of help do you suppose he could be? Other than draining us all in our
sleep. Or better yet, thanks to your mate, any time of the day or night.”