Wish Her Well (6 page)

He took out his smartphone and swiped his thumb across the screen, then slid the device across the desk to show her a photograph.

She glanced down to have a look. The photo showed a high-definition shot of Thomas standing next to his bronze-colored SUV, mid-conversation with a blond woman. Gail Warnous.

Why was this a big deal? When Amanda had first moved into her townhouse, Thomas and Marla both used to swing by Gail’s place all the time, and not very long ago, she’d surmised that Marla had been under orders to do so. Whether or not Thomas had switched teams to take orders from Milazzo, those visits to Gail were never a secret. “Why is this a problem? That photo must be weeks old by now.”

“Yesterday. This picture was taken yesterday afternoon.”

“No. That’s not possible. Gail Warnous is, as far as I know, confined to a psychiatric facility up north.”

Wade finally showed some emotion. “Cut the crap. Explain this, or I’ll make sure your contract gets lost on its way to my desk.”

“Take it easy,” Josh cautioned. He turned to face her. “We’re not accusing Thomas of anything.”

“The hell we’re not,” Wade said. “There is no such thing as a kinder, gentler cattle prod, Joshua. If you’re so damned concerned for everyone’s wellbeing, what about Amanda’s? If Thomas has been compromised, you think she’s safe?”

Amanda had never seen anyone turn so many colors at once. Josh paled, looking sick yet reddening with fury at the same time. But he clamped down on the emotion and spoke to Wade in a semi-reasonable voice. “I think you’ve outlived your usefulness in this situation.”

Wade continued his attack as if the argument had been boiling beneath the surface, and she’d added the catalyst they needed to let it break open for good. “And I think you’re in denial. That girl—” Wade pointed at Amanda “—is a dangerous distraction. Now, I know you care about Thomas, but I know the type better than you ever will. Their loyalties always get them killed in the end, and you and I both know a dead man still holds his reins. Thomas has been floating out there in the wind, raw and alone all this time without Bill’s battles to fight or a line to hold. You think he’s immune to influence? Think again.”

The two men locked eyes once more while Josh turned an unhealthier shade of white.

Amanda’s stomach had seized the moment Wade used the word ‘killed.’ He knew. Wade knew perfectly well Thomas might be taking orders outside of the rightful chain of command.

Enough of this posturing. Time to court the devil right out in the open. “Who’s the enemy? Who could have gotten to Thomas?”

In measured tones, Wade told her, “If I knew that for certain, you would be long gone. Instead, you’re going to secure my asset. Or else. Find out who Thomas is talking to. How he’s spending his time, and I will contact you for frequent reports. For tonight…” Wade gestured toward Josh. “Do something about that, would you? His kind can’t stomach subterfuge.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “But my kind can?”

Wade snorted a laugh. “Bill Dunkirk used to say that people lived for three things: to fuck, to fight and to feel superior. From what I’ve seen, you’ve got two of those markets cornered so far. Now look me in the eye and tell me the thought of jumping into the fight doesn’t excite you. That you don’t secretly crave it.”

Damn him. She couldn’t do that, and he knew it.

She stood, unsure exactly how to phrase what she wanted to say. “I think you might have a higher opinion of my brains and abilities than you ought to have. I didn’t sign on for any of this. I don’t know who to fight or why I should fight them, let alone how to do any damage. Worst of all, I’m afraid of it.”

“And yet you’re still here. You’re not weeping in a corner, or telling me no. And if you’ll excuse me. I have a neglected wife waiting at home. Deal with this.”

Again, he gestured toward Josh, as if he were a mess she was supposed to clean up.

She reacted badly to the dismissive nature of it, but Josh reached out to snare her hand.

“Let him go,” Josh said. Quiet. She couldn’t tell if he was calmer now, or just exhausted. “He didn’t sign on for this either, you know. For him, this place is Siberia, and now he has to babysit me on the Accord.”

Without thinking, she rested a hand on Josh’s shoulder. She had no idea what he’d gone through during the Accord sessions, but her Highwayman was at the end of his rope.

He turned dark eyes to meet hers, and underneath all the weariness and stress, there was always kindness. Always warmth. “I need to know one more thing, and I need a straight answer.”

Despite everything, a tickle of affectionate attraction warmed her through. “Of course.”

“How involved are you with Thomas? Personally, I mean.”

That was a tough question to answer. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s… Well, other times, I… I honestly don’t know. I never know what’s real or what’s imagined with him.”

One of Josh’s eyebrows hopped aside into a wry angle. Apparently he could sympathize. “But are you involved with him after hours? Are you seeing him outside of work?”

“The only time I’ve seen him away from the resort was the wedding.”

Now both of this eyebrows went up. “You’re not sleeping with him.”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“Wow. How am I supposed to answer that? He’s your best friend, and you and I are about to spend the night together.”

“Oh, come on. Do you honestly think conventional rules apply to the three of us? Do you think I would begrudge Thomas anything, especially you?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that, either.

He stood and hauled her up with him. “Let’s walk. I’m sick of being cooped up, and I need to check how far they got on our transplant.”

Amanda had no idea what he meant. As they walked, Josh explained a client had wanted a full-sized maze removed from their property. Rather than cut it all down and let it die, Josh had paid to have it transplanted to one side of Thomas’s outdoor set.

They were about halfway to their destination, she figured, when he said, “I want you to help Wade, but maybe not necessarily the way he expects. You gotta understand that Thomas has his own way of getting things done. It’s not always the nicest or most diplomatic. Or the most legal. Just help him. I don’t care if you have to lie to Wade Fraser, just help Thomas any way you can.”

Well. Those sounded very much like direct orders from an Accord member. Mission accepted.

He went on. “And there’s something else. The way this place distorts everything… This will probably come out all wrong, but I need to say it anyhow. When I blue-chipped you, I did it because you make me feel good, and it seems like I do the same for you.”

“Seems? You always make me feel good, and I don’t just mean physically.”

“Exactly,” he agreed. Then he started to say something else, and stopped again. Next came a frustrated sound before he eventually continued. “What I
didn’t
mean to do was mark my territory or claim ownership. It’s possible Thomas might have seen things that way. I don’t know. I just want you to understand that I care about you. I know you care about me, and I can’t see any of that changing if you’re with Thomas, too. So whatever happens, you and me, we’re solid. That’s all.”

She nodded. She understood what he was saying, and it was nice to know exactly where she stood with him. If only everyone was so steady and straightforward.

Wondering how many of Thomas’s rules had been imposed on her out of loyalty or fear of betraying Josh, she followed him around a corner and made a quick jog to the left. Up a flight of stairs, they arrived in a greenroom that smelled of plaster and fresh paint. Josh led her to the set door and out onto the center walkway bisecting Thomas’s outdoor set.

In the moonlight, the brand new courtyard concrete shone like rivers of liquefied mercury. Seven mini-sets sets now ringed what had begun as a simple outdoor venue. Directly to her left was a gazebo containing the spinning apparatus they’d played with in the shop. Left-side center stood a partition walled off by tall wrought iron fencing, and at the far end, a more open space with benches and what looked like statuary. The other partitions were too far away or too secluded to make out. Josh led her to the right, toward the high black wall of transplanted hedge.

Voices up ahead. One of the sets must be in use already. Both she and Josh instinctively raised up onto the balls of their feet to reduce the sound of their footsteps. And as they grew closer they could see warmer, golder light flickering from the mini-set beyond the maze.

They crept forward to peer around the edge of the ten-foot-tall hedge. Four small hurricane lamps cast the flickering glow they’d seen. The lights fringed the edges of a raised platform strewn with flowers, almost like an altar. A woman, completely nude, was on her hands and knees. Behind her stood the unmistakable Ben Oliver, lead performer in exhibition fantasies.

Amanda had seen him shirtless before and admired his muscle definition. The rest of him was no less spectacular. His penis was thick and long and tautly erect as he stepped nearer his dark-haired, full-breasted client and took a fistful of her hair.

At first, Amanda was a bit startled by the implied brutality, but his client soon proved herself a willing victim. She cried out, but she also reached back to clutch at Ben’s shaft, desperate to get the tip into position.

“Get that cock into your pussy, and fuck me,” Ben ordered. His voice was an uncharacteristic snarl that warmed Amanda’s throat and chest like she’d taken a shot of pure lust.

Holy crap, he was hot. She felt an empathetic pang between her legs, and she watched, rapt, as the pair worked the tip of him inside. Then she got to watch the play of muscles in his chest, stomach and ass, and the focus in his eyes as he took over, driving his hips forward in a measured thrust. His eyes slid closed and his head fell back as the physical pleasure grabbed hold of him.

It grabbed hold of her, too. Watching Ben fuck his client, her breath turned erratic, and a sultry warmth spilled through her blood. She hoped Josh wasn’t exhausted from Accord politics. Her appetite for him had increased a thousand-fold now that the two of them lingered to watch Ben’s client take his forceful thrusts and counter each one, grinding against him, mewling out a mixture of ecstasy and pain.

Amanda felt the warmth and swelling between her own legs, and she ought to have known better about Josh: they were always on the same page. He drew her skirt up and dragged her panties down.

She didn’t make a single move to stop him. Why would she? This was like having a private show, even if it was someone else’s fantasy, and Ben wasn’t exactly boring to watch. The client, either. Though she was no raving beauty, she had a pretty smile that would often surface between thrusts. But then she would cry out again when Ben would tug her hair.

Josh nearly made her cry out herself, doing something she didn’t expect. Instead of stroking or banging her, he got to his knees behind her. Hands fanned over the crease between thigh and buttock. He used his thumbs to pull her pussy lips apart and stroke his tongue along her slit. A firefall of heat nearly made her knees give out, but his hands stiffened like an unspoken command to stay still and let him play.

Gladly.

He took his mouth away long enough to whisper another order aloud. “Watch them.”

Shamelessly—wondrously—opportunistic creature, she thought, but that was the last solid thought as Josh used his tongue and the pads of his thumbs to stimulate her so thoroughly she could even feel the heat of arousal, the swelling, in her throat and lips.

Her eyes, on the other hand, had centered on Ben’s shaft, watching the reddened, veined flesh appear and disappear as he and his client settled into a rough, hard grind. Amanda felt her body synch sympathetically into their rhythm, and her imagination did an amazing job of replicating what it must feel like to have Ben thrust into her that way. But it was Josh who made her muscles clench and her nerves sizzle.

Ah, God, he felt good. And he must have known she was anxious for some escalation when he took his mouth and hands away and put an end to the floor show by pulling her into the maze. Good thing he knew the layout. She couldn’t see anything, and had absolutely no idea where they were going. It took them a good minute before they finally emerged at the center of the maze.

There, the moonlight only gave a glancing blow to the scene. Very little was visible aside from a round bench in the center of the opening. Josh stripped her skirt and panties off before lying down to the bench. He made her come around the far side and climb on to straddle his head in sixty-nine position. She was about to protest that once again he was wearing too many clothes when he raised up and latched his mouth onto her pussy.

Word were forgotten entirely, then. He flattened his tongue and she worked her hips, feeling a velvety, deep heat begin to whirl inside. Only a moment or two passed, five or six waves of her hips before she could feel the sweetening, aching glow of orgasm begin to form.

This time, however, she was determined to hold it off. Josh did not make this easy. While she reached down to rub his cock through his jeans, he reached up to poke a finger into her ass. He might as well have plugged her into an electrical socket. The sensations were strong and fluid and powerful. She careened straight for abandon with his tongue against her clit and his finger pumping into her ass.