Rockin' the Boss (8 page)

“I know! I saw it when the copy came
through. You and Max must be so excited.”

“Yes, he is. Hell, we both are!
Unless there’s anything else, you go ahead and get that stuff to my laptop
ASAP. Either I’ll call you at home or on your cell over the weekend, and let
you know if we’re returning to Atlanta or going directly to Manhattan for Max’s
appearances. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you or the guys need me before
then.”

I hung up just as Jim and his wife arrived.
Max was letting them in as I put the phone in my purse.
I can’t go into details right now. This will give me time to decide on
a plan of action
.

“Is everything okay on the home
front?” Max asked as I picked up my pocketbook.

“Yes.”
He knows I’m lying just by looking at my face.

The restaurant we chose was away
from the hustle and bustle of the strip. It was a small restaurant, featuring
pub-style food. I ordered fish and chips, which I found excellent. Everyone
else decided on the burger special. I was amazed when Max ate the entire plate
full. There had been enough to feed two people, but he seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards,
they showed Max and me a few of the more posh neighborhoods for future
consideration.

They dropped us off a couple blocks
away, so we could leisurely enjoy the walk back. But not before Jim handed Max
two tickets to a hugely popular show. It was late enough that if we had dinner
early, we could make this one as well as another performance in the theater that
would soon be Max’s home.

Watching the Mercedes drive out of
sight, Max took my hand as we strolled. When we neared the hotel’s main
entrance, I swore I caught a glimpse of Lisa out of the corner of my eye. I
hurried him along, citing that I needed a bathroom break, which made him
chuckle.

Tossing off my shoes, I plopped down
on the sofa. Max offered me a glass of wine. Before I checked my email, I
motioned for him to sit next to me and told him what Misty had revealed
earlier, opening my computer to read.

“What the fuck else is this woman going
to do to me, Ashleigh?”

I leaned over and kissed him. “I’m
going to forward this on to one of my attorneys, the one who’s supposed to be
looking into that restraining order for you. I know he can check his email from
his phone. I’ll head it as urgent and ask him if he or I should call this
reporter.”

I took care of what needed to be
done as Max rubbed my back in an attempt to soothe my nerves. As soon as I
closed the laptop, he announced,
“Okay, Ms. Thomas, no more business.
You’re mine for the rest of the night. Hell, for the weekend.” He pulled me
closer.

Smirking, I cocked my head at him.
“Oh
no, I think you have it all wrong, Mr. Frazier. It is you who are mine for the
rest of the night.” I stood up, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off the
couch. “Come, it’s my turn to torture you.”

Once in the bedroom, I stripped him
of all his clothing and shoved him playfully onto the bed. Then, I quickly
undressed, watching him as lustfully as he was me. Lying next to each other, I
rolled him onto his back. Smiling at him, I caressed his chest, grinning when
he shuddered as I traced my fingers over his nipples. Leaning over, I ran my
tongue over the same spot.

He groaned, his fingers clutching
convulsively at my hair as he pushed closer. I moved my hands slowly along his
torso to the inside of his thighs. Deliberately, I feathered my fingers along
the area between his behind and balls.

Shuddering with pleasure, he moaned,
“Damn, baby! Stop! Please!”

“Oh no, I’m not finished with you
yet, my love.” I wrapped my hand around his sack and squeezed gently. He moaned
once again, stirring something mischievous within me.

Releasing my grip, I kissed him. I
started with his lips and followed with every part of his body, all the way
down to his belly button, my tongue flicking his skin along the way. I could
tell he was trying desperately to stay in control. His muscles twitched as I
neared his erection.

I took it in one hand and slowly
began to explore, touching every inch with my fingertips. Our eyes met for a
moment. He appeared as though he was on the edge. I squeezed and stroked him as
he growled from deep within. By then, his tip was weeping, and I gently ran my
tongue over it, licking him clean, and then sucking him.

His body jerked from the sensation,
tensing. “Ashleigh, baby, if you don’t stop what you’re doing, I’m going to
come.”

“What is it I’m doing?”

“You bloody well know what you’re
doing, wench,” he growled. “You love torturing me like this.”

“
Mmmmm
…” I
teased him as I continued swirling along the tip.

“Don’t! Stop it! Don’t! Don’t make
me come.”

“Why not,
my love?”

“Because I want to come inside you,
baby,” he hoarsely uttered.

Not wanting to stop, I squeezed him
as I ran my finger over the tip one more time.

He kept shivering. “Enough! You’ve
had your way with me long enough!”

All in one motion, he pushed me back
on the bed, parted my thighs with his knees, and positioned himself above me.
He kissed me as though our lives depended on it. I wrapped my legs around him
and slid my arms around his neck as he reached beneath me, arching my back so
that my body touched his. I felt his length press against me, wanting passage
but not entering.

He looked down at me. “I love you,
wench.”

“I love you, too.”

Slowly, he pushed into me. There was
nothing fast and hard about his thrusts this time. He let me feel every inch of
him until he filled me to the core, consuming me. It felt like he was inside me
so deep that he had consumed my soul. He stilled for a moment, and my body
shuttered against him. He groaned in pleasure.

I became lost in the gentle, erotic
movements he made on top of me. His strokes were sensual and lazy.

“Baby,” he whispered in my ear. “You
feel so damn good.” We were coupling as two people immersed in love.
A slow, all-consuming passion.

“Oh God, Max, don’t stop.”

At some point, frenzied desire took
over and didn’t let loose until it took us both over the cliff and beyond.
Never in my life had I experienced such pleasure or imagined such happiness.

Chapter
Six

The next morning we were on our way
to Manhattan. Max had bookings on the talk show circuit over the next couple of
days. As he slept, I busied myself trying to catch up on business matters until
I succumbed to sleep as well. He woke me as we descended into New York.

“I thought you couldn’t sleep on a
plane,” he remarked, smirking at me. “It must have been all that extra activity
last night.”

“Something like that, I’m sure.”

As we waited to come to a complete
stop I noticed two unmarked SUV’s heading toward the plane, knowing it was not
the car service I used. They send a limo and wouldn’t send more than one
vehicle. I glanced over at Max to see if he’d seen them. We gathered our things
as I led Max toward the exit and down the stairs.

Waiting for us at the bottom were
two men, who by their appearance were some sort of Federal Agents. I recognized
one of them immediately as Ben, the detective from Atlanta.

“What’s going on, Ben?” I asked
before either he or his companion could utter a word. “What’s wrong?” I felt
Max’s hand on my shoulder.

“Ms. Thomas, I need for you and Mr.
Frazier to come with us.”

“No, that’s not good enough. I want
to know what’s going on.
Now!”

“Trust me, please. Neither of you
are in any sort of trouble, but I do need for you to come with me.”

“Come on, Ashleigh,” I heard Max
inject. “I’m sure these gentlemen are merely looking out for our safety. Isn’t
that right, Ben?”

“Yes. Now, we need to go.”

We were escorted into downtown
Manhattan to an official looking building and shown to a conference room. A
young woman came in and asked if we’d like coffee or something else. Instead, I
asked the woman the whereabouts to the ladies’ restroom, and she accompanied me
down the hall.

When I returned, Max, Ben, and a
couple other men were deep in discussion. All of them glanced up and got out of
their seats as I entered. Max stood and took the chair next to mine.

“Ashleigh,” Ben began, “this is
Agent Keller.”

The man extended a hand in my
direction.
“Ms. Thomas, I’m sorry for the circumstances.”

Everyone sat down as I nodded my
head. By the look on Max’s face, he had already been briefed to some extent as
to why we were there.
“Ms. Thomas, how much did you know about your husband
Richard’s business dealings?”

“Only that the agency was his life…not
that he actually worked. He let everyone else do that. He simply claimed all
the perks. Why do you ask?”

“That’s it?” Agent Keller asked as
he stared me in the face.

“Um, I’m sure you know Richard and I
had a sham marriage. After he signed the prenuptial agreement, he wanted
nothing further to do with me unless it was for show. I was simply the cash
cow.” I looked around the room at each of the men’s faces. I couldn’t get a
read on any of them, except Max.
He looks
guilty.

“Okay, what the hell was Richard
involved in? What’s this all about?”

“Ashleigh,” Max began, “Richard was,
and is, involved in the sex trade.”

“What? What the hell are you talking
about?” I yelled
,
my eyes fixed directly on Max.

“In addition to owning some clubs,
he’s also involved in the business of selling women to rich men to use in their
own perverted worlds,” Agent Keller replied.

“So, Lisa wasn’t lying,” I hissed at
Max. “You do frequent places like that. And why are you all speaking of Richard
in the present tense?”

“Because Richard is still alive, Ms.
Thomas, and Mr. Frazier here was,
is
being tricked by him. Blackmailed might be too strong a term.”

“What are you talking about? Richard
died in a car crash a year ago. His car went off a cliff in the canyons outside
L.A.”

Agent Keller dumped a pile of photos
in front of me.
Pictures, recent pictures, of Richard.
He may have had a beard, trying to disguise himself, but it was Richard. And to
my shock, in a couple of the photos, Lisa was cuddled right up to him. I stared
at Max. “Did you know about any of this?”

“No, I didn’t. Not until they showed
me the pictures while you were in the restroom,” he replied, looking upset by
my earlier attack on him.

“So who else knows about this? Not
my father, I hope.”

“No, there has been no reason to
involve him…yet. However, we need your help.”

“How?”
I asked,
suddenly feeling a knot in the bottom of my stomach.

“Richard,” Ben began, “is not in the
country. He’s smartly situated himself somewhere he knows we can’t get him.
Lisa is his eyes and ears here.”

“What we want you and Max to do is
to carry on as you are,” Agent Keller took over. “Max said you’re in town for
some interviews, and he told me about this Las Vegas deal. Just continue on as
though you know nothing of what we’ve told you. We would like for you two to
discreetly start frequenting some clubs that are owned by Richard. When you do,
we’ll brief you on what we need from you.”

I sat in utter silence for several
minutes as I tried to collect my thoughts, knowing all eyes were on me.
“This is
ludicrous, this can’t be…What kind…what sort of clubs…?” I began to ask, but
then I stopped and looked at Max. “Never mind, Max can brief me in private
later.”

“We’re also going to assign an agent
to come on board as part of your staff, Ashleigh, and we’ll have our people
nearby at all times,” Agent Keller added.

“I don’t understand how I, or even
Max, can help. Wouldn’t my presence hurt Max if Richard knew he was inside his
clubs?”

“No, we feel it might actually lure
Richard out. Once he is made aware that the two of you are a couple and is led
to believe you live that lifestyle. He will be as jealous as a crazed bull.”

“He never was jealous before.”

“Maybe not before, but seeing you
parading in one of his sex clubs with Max might be an entirely different
matter. He must be stopped.”

We had been there for hours by now
and Agent Keller suggested we end the meeting for the day. He had Ben escort us
to my Manhattan townhouse.

The drive back was in total silence.
Max reached over and took my hand during the ride. I didn’t deny him, but tried
not to look at him. I was too confused and angry, afraid I’d say something I’d
regret.

While one of Ben’s colleagues
checked out the apartment with Ben, I walked toward the floor-to-ceiling
windows in the living room. I suspected they had done this prior to their
arrival. As I heard the door close and lock, I headed over to the bar and
picked out a bottle of Cabernet. When Max appeared, I was pouring myself a
second glass after wolfing down the first one. I handed him a glass as well,
walking past him in silence.