Foreplay: Six Full-Length Standalone Novels from Six New York Times Bestsellers Read online

  I dropped back to the mattress with a thump.

  Jeremy Dunvan.

  Panic swelled in me, but then the front door burst open. I jumped back and screamed. I kept screaming when it banged shut and people ran to the living room. And, even as I saw it was a friend, I couldn’t stop the scream.

  “Jeremy.”

  My own voice haunted me. The bang of the gun came back and I felt the kickback in my hand again.

  “You have to be quiet. People will hear.”

  With an anguished gasp, I closed my mouth and fell over. Bending forward, I buried my head into the pillow. Another scream rushed through me. What had I done with the gun? Oh god. There was evidence. I couldn’t remember where I had put it.

  Soft hands touched my shoulder. “Emma.”

  I heard Amanda’s voice, one of the few that I trusted. She knelt beside me and gathered me to her. “Come on. Lift up.” Her finger slid underneath my chin, and she raised my head. I gasped for breath, but I couldn’t breathe. My entire body wrenched forward, and I started to pound my chest. The panic swirled in my chest. It was suffocating me. Oh god. The gun.

  Slap!

  My head snapped to the left, but I never felt the sting from her hand. It was enough to pull me back so I could breathe again. I looked back as I felt my pulse slowing down and grasped Amanda’s elbows. “Thank you.”

  She brushed back some of her blonde hair and smiled. It was a gentle smile, but I didn’t care that it was from pity. I grabbed her and held on with all my might. She had no idea, she couldn’t have, but she was there. I drew in a ragged breath.

  “Amanda.” Ben stopped in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. He had a white apron tied around his waist and he was shirtless. The jeans he wore underneath were wrinkled and ripped at the knees. They looked like he had slept in them, but then I saw the tear streaks on his chest and realized that he had slept in them. He had held Mallory during the night.

  She waved a hand to him. “We’re fine. We’ll be there in a second, okay?”

  He narrowed his black eyes.

  I frowned as I saw how his black hair was messed, like a hand had run through it over and over. I saw the red nail marks on his chest and I shot to my feet. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Emma.” Amanda shot to her feet beside me. She tried to block me, but I pushed aside all 98 pounds of her.

  “You slept with her?! You had sex with her last night?”

  He frowned and scratched at his chest. My eyes narrowed as I saw more scratches, long and red. They ran the entire length of his skinny torso. They stuck out against his pale skin. A different sickness came over me. It gurgled up from deep inside and threatened to spew out, but I couldn’t move. I could only look in revulsion.

  He sighed as his hand lifted to his hair. It fisted around a clump of his black strands and pulled at them before he took another deep breath. His shoulders slumped then and the hand dropped to his side. “What do you want, Emma? She didn’t want to feel him anymore. She wanted to feel me. She wanted another man’s touch.”

  “Did it work?” I spat out. I already knew it hadn’t.

  His head fell down. The towel he held in his other hand slipped to the ground. Then he lifted bleak eyes to me. “She’s been crying ever since.”

  “Ben!”

  “Oh, come on, Amanda.” His arms went wide. “You weren’t here. I was the only one. I didn’t know what to do. Mallory was a complete mess the entire night and this one,” his hand pointed at me, “was a zombie too. This was the first sign she was alive since that night. I thought I needed to take her to the hospital too.”

  My heart stopped. “You didn’t.”

  “No.” His eyes flashed with disgust. “But I should’ve. You should’ve. She shouldn’t be here. Both of you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be hiding—”

  “They’re going to kill us!”

  “Who?” he yelled back at me. His hands were in fists, and he raised them both in the air. “Who, Emma? Who could possibly be this dangerous that instead of going to the hospital, you come here—”

  “The mob, you idiot!” I lunged for him, but Amanda wrapped her tiny arms around me. Her feet dug in and I was swung back to the couches. I fell over them, but scrambled back to my feet. My hair fell to cover my face. I threw it back and heaved at him. My eyes were wild. Red-hot fury coursed through me, but it was when he stepped back that I realized what I must’ve looked like. Crazy.

  I drew in a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

  Shit—it was hard.

  “Where is she?”

  “Sleeping.” He folded his arms over his chest, and his chin tucked down. “And she’s going to stay that way. She needs to sleep, Em. She has to start healing, and she’s going to need all the rest she can get.”

  I raked my hands through my dark hair. I wanted to pull it out. I wanted that pain to sear through me. Any suffering would do, anything strong enough to rip out the pain from inside of me. Then I cried out. A gasp/half-gurgle ripped from me as I sunk to my knees. God, could I be more dramatic, but holy hell. I was going to hell. They were going to kill me.

  “Emma.” Amanda was at my side again. She urged me back to my feet, and we both moved to curl on the couch. I wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but I clung to her in that moment. I needed all the strength she was giving me.

  The chaos was bouncing inside of me, ricocheting around at a rapid pace. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t center myself in order to force all those emotions away.

  “Emma.”

  I closed my eyes when her soft hands came to my face. She lifted it up and started to inspect every line of exhaustion there was. Then she said in a gentle voice, “You should clean up, hon. Let’s go to the shower. I’ll help.”

  I shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good.

  “Come on.” Her hand cupped my elbow, and she started to pull me up. Her grip was strong.

  Ben was rooted in place as he watched us. His gaze was stark and the hand that ran down his face couldn’t hide the exhaustion. I saw that he could’ve fallen over alongside of me. We were a mess, both of us, but then I caught sight of the closed bedroom door. The sick laugh in me shriveled up suddenly. None of us were in as much of a mess as she was.

  Mallory. He had raped her.

  An image of her broken eyes stared back at me as his hips thrust into her.

  I flinched from the sudden flash, and this time the vomit really did come up. Rushing into the bathroom, I dropped to my knees. Frantically, I threw the toilet seat up just before everything pushed out of me. I did it again. And again. More came after that, and by the end, I could only hang onto the toilet to keep from falling down.

  I was going to die.

  “Oh, honey. Emma honey.” A cold washcloth was pressed to my forehead as Amanda knelt beside me. She wiped something off before she pressed it on my cheeks and then swiped beneath my lips. “You look a mess, but it’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

  I closed my eyes tighter. I didn’t want to see the rest of the pity in her eyes. I couldn’t handle it, not from her. Her eyes were so crystal blue, no emotion could hide in them. I had to clear it all away. Mallory needed me. And then, as I continued to think of my roommate, I shoved the rest of my fear to the side. When I opened my eyes, I turned and finally looked Amanda in the eyes. Unlike her baby blues, mine were dark, nearly black, and she couldn’t see anything. She wouldn’t see the effort it took me to keep from vomiting more garbage.

  I was contaminated.

  “I killed a man.”

  “I know, honey.” She bent and rested her forehead against mine. Her hands continued to wipe the washcloth over my cheeks. “We’ll get through this. We have to.”

  “How?”

  I winced at the tremble in my voice. I was weak. Pathetic.

  “They’re coming for me, Ems. You need to be strong. You hear me? You have to be strong.”

  My brother’s voice was in my head. Those memories wouldn’t
help me now.

  Amanda frowned at me. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I muttered as I lifted an arm and tried to push her away, just a little. I needed room to breathe.

  “No matter who knocks on the door, you don’t answer it. You don’t trust anyone, no one except Carter. Go to Carter. He’ll take care of everything. He’ll take care of you, Ems. I promise.”

  I gritted my teeth. I had to stop thinking about my brother.

  “EMMA! GET OUT HERE!” Ben bellowed from the living room.

  I shot out to yell at him for yelling, but then I heard the reporter’s words and froze.

  “Jeremy Dunvan is believed to be missing.” A picture of him flashed across the television screen. He was laughing in the photograph, smiling with a carefree look to whoever snapped the image. Then the reporter filled the screen with a somber expression over her face. Her eyes were sharp as she frowned into the camera. “If you have any information about the whereabouts of Jeremy Dunvan, call the number that is scrolling over the bottom of your screen. Again, if you have any knowledge at all about what might’ve happened to Jeremy Dunvan, please call this number.”

  She continued to recite the same message. The police were notified by Jeremy’s father, Franco Dunvan, earlier in the morning that his 32 year old son had gone missing when he didn’t return home the prior evening. She recited it over and over again. I started to feel sick. More pictures of him came up. Some of them were with his friends. He wore a softball uniform in one, another with a beer in hand. All of them made him look friendly, handsome— not at all like the monster that I saw twenty-four hours ago.

  A strangled sound came from Ben as he gaped at the television. One of his hands was twisted in his hair again. The other clutched the remote to his chest. His eyes were frantic. “I thought you said—” He stopped. His mouth closed, then opened again, then closed once more. His chest puffed up as he blinked rapidly for a second. “Holy shit, Emma. What did you do?”

  My eyes narrowed and I lunged for him. He reared back as fear flared over him, but I swiped the remote from him and turned the television off. “He was raping her. He was killing her. He would’ve killed me too.” I stopped and swallowed over a knot in my throat. My eyes started to swim. “I did what I had to do.”

  Ben gestured to the television again. His arm shook before it dropped back to his side. “Franco Dunvan. They said Franco Dunvan. Do you know who that is?”

  “Yes,” I hissed out. God yes. I blinked back more tears. I sure as hell knew who had ordered the hit on my own brother.

  “If you ever need anything, go to Carter.”

  I shook my head to clear the last words my brother spoke to me before he rushed from our apartment. I followed him. He hadn’t wanted me to, but when he caught me in the alley, it was too late. They appeared at the end and he lifted me so I would be hidden.

  I forced the memories away and spoke to Ben, “I told you this last night.”

  “The day before yesterday.”

  “What?” I stopped everything.

  “The day before yesterday,” Ben murmured, lost in his own thoughts. “You came here two days ago.”

  A whimper came from me. He’d been dead for two days now. Wait—was it? Time didn’t make sense anymore to me. But he was right. I always went to the gym after work at 5:00, but that day I got off early and skipped the gym. It was two nights ago when I killed him.

  I had slept for almost twenty-four hours. I blinked in surprise. Had Mallory? I looked up quickly, but Ben shook his head. “She only fell asleep an hour ago. She hasn’t slept at all, neither have I.”

  Oh.

  Amanda reached around me and took the remote. The television was turned back on. As she sat on a couch, Ben sat beside her. Both of them settled back with determined looks on their faces. They were going to watch the news. They were going to hear all of it. And then, with my stomach clenching into a thousand knots, I went back and curled on the couch.

  I tried to ready myself for what I was going to hear.

  “Authorities will be conducting a thorough search for Jeremy Dunvan and we’ve learned that federal authorities will be brought into the case. They believe that Jeremy Dunvan’s disappearance may be connected to a string of mob feuds. Now,” her voice grew clearer. “We’ve been told from credible sources that Franco Dunvan, the father of Jeremy Dunvan, is a highly ranked member in the Bartel family. Federal authorities have been trying for years to get evidence against Mr. Joseph Bartel to indict possibly thirty members of their criminal organization.”

  “Now, Angela,” a deeper voice spoke this time.

  “Yes, Mark?” She was so chipper.

  “Do the authorities believe this disappearance might be connected to the feud between the Bartel family and the Mauricio family?”

  There was so much excitement in her voice. “While we haven’t been told for certain that they’re heading the investigation towards the Mauricio family, it certainly seems likely. The government has long tried to get evidence against Carter Reed, someone they believe is a high official in the Mauricio family.”

  My heart stopped. I turned to the see the screen now. There was a picture of him.

  I sucked in my breath.

  I’d forgotten how clear his blue eyes were or how powerful the glare he sent to whomever had taken the photograph. He looked ready to kill whoever was behind the camera, but then another picture came next. This one was him in a black tuxedo as he got out of a black car. He had lifted a hand to block his face from being pictured, but they had been quicker. A sneer curved at the top of his lip, but even through the grainy image and blurred lines, the striking features were unmistakable.

  “Go to Carter.”

  AJ’s words floated back to me, but I couldn’t. I probably should’ve, but there was no way. He had been my brother’s best friend over ten years ago. He had joined the Mauricio family after AJ’s murder and, from what I heard, killed all of those that were a part of my brother’s death. A shiver went over me the first time I was told that, and those same shivers were felt again.

  Our city was big, but in that world, it would never be big enough. Word spread fast and everyone was soon calling Carter the Cold Killer. He didn’t kill only those that ordered the hit; he killed the actual shooters, the back-up guy, the driver, and even the messenger who passed along the hit. He took all of them out, moving faster than anyone could imagine.

  While I was in high school and went from foster home to foster home, I saw him a few times. There were random moments when I’d be waiting for the city bus and he would come out of a restaurant. He was always surrounded by other men, big and burly guys. They scared me then, and I knew they would scare me now.

  Then in college, since I attended a local one, I caught glimpses of him at nightclubs when I would go with my friends. I never asked for special treatment, I never even knew if he remembered me, but I knew which clubs he owned. Most of them were popular ones, ones my friends wanted to go to anyway, but I liked to see if I could get a glimpse of him. When I did, it was the same—always at a distance. The same men surrounded him, but there were times when he had a woman with him. They were always beautiful, almost too beautiful to be human. He got the best.

  I sighed as more images of him went across the television screen. With any story that might’ve been connected to the local mob, his picture was always broadcasted. The media loved him. He was gorgeous with striking cheekbones, blue eyes that reminded me of a wolf, and dark blonde hair. All of that plus a six feet two lean build with muscular shoulders.

  No one knew that I knew him. I didn’t dare tell a soul. If they did…I bit my lip as I considered it now. Would Mallory ask me to go to him? If anyone could help me, it was him. But this? Did I trust him with this information? That I had killed one of his enemies?

  “You don’t trust anyone, no one except Carter. Go to Carter. He’ll take care of everything. He’ll take care of you, Ems. I promise.”

  It hurt to swallow, but whe
n I opened my eyes again—Mallory was in the bedroom doorway. A blanket was wrapped around her frail form. Dried tears caked over her cheeks and she gazed back at me.

  He broke her.

  I saw it in that instant.

  Then I made my mind up. I would go to Carter, but if he wouldn’t help me, I’d help myself. I wanted to kill the bastard all over again. If his father came after us, I would protect her. I would protect myself. Carter rose among their ranks when we were kids. He did it to avenge my brother. If he could do that, I could keep us alive. I had to.

  THREE

  When I got out of the cab outside Octave, I faltered for a moment. What the hell was I doing? The crowd was lined down the block as they waited to get inside Carter Reed’s most popular nightclub. It was the most exclusive, but it was also the roughest. When my life had been more normal, prior to forty-eight hours ago, my friends and I enjoyed the more vanilla of his nightclubs. They played techno music, mixed with the pop hits, and the crowd didn’t make me envision BDSM occurring in any shadowed corner of the club. With this club, however, there was a reason why so many wanted to get inside—it ensured confidentiality. A lot of celebrities would sweep through and were ushered to their private boxes, floors above the actual dance floor. But there was also another crowd, the criminal crowd, which made it so secretive and exclusive at the same time.

  Anyone could go to Octave with the assurance that whatever happened in Octave stayed in Octave. There must’ve been security that swept the club on a regular schedule. Carter wasn’t stupid. He was far from stupid. While some of the rougher customers might feel they could get away with anything, there was a limit.

  Even though I’d only been inside Octave once, I couldn’t be completely sure about my suspicions. I knew Carter. He had never sanctioned that stuff when we were kids. Still, a lot had happened from then till now. As I swallowed over a dry throat, I was fully reminded. I had killed a man and now I was hoping Carter would help me.

  “Miss,” the cabdriver honked his horn at me. “You gotta pay, lady. This ain’t a charity ride.”