Dane - Book 3: A Foster Family Saga Read online

  “I ordered some stuff for us to get by for however long they keep us here,” I said.

  Hanna giggled in surprise. “You never cease to amaze me. How did you manage to pull that off?”

  “JPMorgan Chase Palladium card. Best concierge service in the world.”

  In the box was a week’s worth of clothes and toiletries so we wouldn’t have to rough it entirely. I put on a pair of fresh boxers, some comfortable Cavalli jeans, and a black t-shirt. I turned around to see Hanna wearing something similar.

  “I say we run out for something to eat.”

  “I thought they told us not to go anywhere,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about them. You think they don’t have someone watching us at all times?”

  We exited the hotel and hailed a cab to a restaurant suggested by the cab driver, where we filled our stomachs with Mexican food and danced a while like we didn’t have any troubles. The evening hours deepened into night, libido stretching like lengthening shadows. I was enjoying the simple pleasure of having Hanna by my side, and I wondered again why our relationship had failed. What was it about me that found it so difficult to make a lasting connection with a woman?

  I held Hanna’s hand as we ambled out of the restaurant and hailed a cab, my mind on love and romance. They were foreign concepts. I knew how to fuck, how to keep a woman satisfied, how to give her space and demand space for myself, but when it came to laying a foundation for a long-term commitment, it wasn’t in me. Dane Foster wasn’t made for it. But I wanted Hanna. I couldn’t deny my desire.

  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was feeling more like myself.

  “So…what now?” she asked as we stepped into the empty elevator to go back up to our room. I looked over at her, reading the invitation in her changeable eyes.

  As soon as we walked into the hotel room, I picked her up and threw her onto the writing table next to the door, chased by hounds from hell nipping at my heels. We had come so close to death that to breathe was a startling luxury that not even the shitty accommodations could take away from us. I sucked in air, sharply inhaling her scent. My mouth descended on hers. We kissed like we were the last people standing after the fallout of a nuclear disaster, like it was up to us to restart the human race. There was something intensely cathartic about kissing her lips as rare tears sprang to my eyes and I glorified in the unexpected gift of getting to hold her again. My thickly corded arms crushed her lithe, slender body closer.

  She melted in my embrace like molten gold, just as beautiful and valuable. Hanna writhed in my arms. She shoved at her jeans, wriggling them off her hips. One shoe skidded under the table and the other went flying across the room to land on the floor next to the door. I had a niggling suspicion the room was just as bugged as the interrogation room. Somewhere some pervert might be getting his kicks watching us, but the spying didn’t even matter to me. All that mattered was her silky skin beneath my palms as I squeezed her upper thighs, nails digging into her flesh. She clawed at my back, thrusting and grinding against me like she couldn’t wait to be plundered.

  Her breasts were smashed to my chest, her quivering stomach rubbing against my abs, and I buried my face in her hair to feel the silky strands tickle. I dipped my nose to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. I drew my face up and down along her skin. Lips dropped kisses. Tongue sampled the perspiration making her glisten like a starry night. Her fingers rushed through my long hair and tugged, pushing me lower. I tore open her shirt and her breasts sprang free like presents. The globes fell into my hands to be kneaded and appreciated. I raced to bring a rosy nipple to my tongue.

  I sucked and suckled, gasping and moaning her name reverently. She whimpered in pleasurable surrender. Whatever had been between us faded in the white heat of our honest desire. I had hurt this woman. I had wounded her and left scars that couldn’t be traced on her pale creamy skin, but I felt it in her soul when she let go of the hurt and forgave my undeserving wretchedness. My fingers curled under the wire of her bra and drew the lacy cups down to gain greater access. My face shifted to the untouched curve, the un-kissed nipple. I devoted my full attention to making the tears that slid down her rounded cheek be tears of joy.

  Her nipple flattened in my mouth and I tugged it back, releasing it with a throaty groan. I reached down and unsnapped my pants, yanking my erect cock out of my boxers and shoving forward to poise at her crevasse, her legs winding around my hips as she cried out. She rushed me. She begged to be impaled. Her hips sprang from the ledge of the table in her eagerness, and I lustily tried to oblige her.

  My throbbing erection pulsed in my hand as I pushed it to her slit and rammed home into the paradise of her pussy. The first thrust sent a gasp flying out of my mouth loud as a gunshot in the still room. Her moans added to the symphony. The table banged in a staccato drumbeat against the wall behind it. The drowsy ceiling fan overhead whooped in slowed revolutions as time seemed to decrease its mad dash onward to the future, and I savored the exquisite moment of finally making love to her. There was love in it. Even as I pulled back and plunged back into her tight squeeze, I felt the emotion like a heart beating for the first time. Electrical impulses sparked beneath my ribcage.

  “Sweet God,” I ground out. Thrusting harder, I collected her in my arms. She slipped from the edge of the table until I was holding her up completely, but I turned away and walked her to the full-length mirror screwed to the wall next to the bathroom, seeing my pleasure-ravaged face as her back collided with the glass. Hanna’s head lolled back and her hair swished against her shoulders.

  Her fingers closed around my neck and forced my face back to hers. She held my chin as her tongue traced my mouth; her tongue darted past my lips. She swallowed the sound of her name as I murmured with desperate need to be understood. This was me telling her what I couldn’t say with words. Her body jounced up and down. Her bare back smacked against the glass mirror, and her wet pussy stroked my cock, milking me. My stomach clenched as I battered her with pleasure. My hands took hers and outstretched her arms above her head, fingers clinging together as she was held up by the thrust of my pelvis. Finally, she dropped her hands to my shoulders and wrapped her arms around my neck, her face falling forward for our foreheads to connect, and her hair floating around our faces. Her staring hazel eyes connected with my dark blue ones in an intense stare.

  I saw the moment the climax forced her to release. Her eyelids fluttered shut, squinched tight. Her lips dropped open in a muted cry. Her arms tightened around my neck, her fingernails clawed into my shoulders, and I grabbed her hips to pound into her harder and faster, harder and faster. She climbed to the pinnacle of ecstasy and broke apart in a million shards of pleasure. Her rainstorm showered my dick with silvery wetness. Her inner walls rippled along my shaft like strong, stroking fingers.

  Still, I plunged on, unwilling to stop. She slid down the mirror and I brought her to the floor, where I stretched her body out to give her all of me. I rose and fell above her prostrate form, between her legs like a piston of an engine gunning at full power. My pelvis slammed against hers, but she met my thrusts with a lift of her hips to consume it all. I couldn’t stop the trembling of my arms. I lowered myself completely to her perfect body and cupped her in my embrace as I finally, finally…let go.

  “Hanna!”

  The violent ejaculation fired from my throbbing cock and filled her pussy with my essence, copiously pouring out my release. It wouldn’t end. The orgasm drew on and on as I shuddered and shook with passion. Her moans echoed in the room. We lay together like fallen angels reveling in the sheer wonder of being human. When at length our breathing resumed a normal pace and her silky thighs fell open to set me free, I leveraged my sated body up off the floor and helped her to her feet, tenderly staring into her eyes. She stepped closer, and I cupped her face, thumb skating around her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut. She looked back up at me.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  I gingerly kissed her con
fession. “I think you know,” I murmured. “I think you already know.”

  I clung to her in a hug until she complained about not being able to breathe, and we both started to laugh. Pulling away, I surveyed the enchanting heiress. She didn’t look anything like the rich socialite I had met all that time ago at a fundraiser at her aunt’s house. Her blouse was torn open, buttons missing. Her pants were somewhere by the table. Her feet were bare. She giggled and blushed under my scrutiny.

  “Here,” I said, leading her to the bed. I climbed in beside her and stretched out, reveling in the feel of Hanna in my arms. She rested her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest.

  “At some point,” she whispered drowsily, “you’re going to have to tell me what we are.”

  I didn’t say anything. I ran my fingers through her fiery hair and listened to her breathing until the soft stirs of breath transitioned to quiet snores. The truth of the matter was…I had no idea.

  A soft knock at the door roused me from a slumber that could’ve lasted another day. My exhaustion was bone deep, and moving to get out of the bed and answer the summons had muscles I didn’t even know existed screaming with pain. “Fuck,” I groaned, pulling my knee from under the covers. I stood on bare feet and reached for the midnight-blue robe folded over the back of the swivel chair, sliding my arms into the comforting silk. I knuckled sleep out of my eyes and glanced back to make sure Hanna was sleeping soundly.

  I turned the knob, and the heavy door swung open to reveal Gervais. On sight, his face split in a smile. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” he said. He stuck out his hand for a handshake. I grabbed his hand in a firm grip and pulled him into a hug. The quick, manly embrace said everything. He was a lifesaver. If it wasn’t for my ever-efficient assistant, I likely wouldn’t still be standing.

  “Come in,” I said. “Shit got real, and I’m glad you could get here so fast.”

  He pushed up his tortoiseshell glasses perched on the edge of his sharp nose and walked his lanky frame into the hotel room, glancing away modestly from the sleeping, naked Hanna. His briefcase was placed atop the writing desk, and he hurriedly pulled out his electronic tablet.

  “What do we have, Gervais?”

  “Kent Blake scheduled a meeting with the agent for this morning. He’s prepared to talk with you whenever you’re ready. Oh, I got you a new phone. Here you go. And I didn’t really get the gist of everything that was going on, but I also brought you some research I compiled on what is and isn’t allowed during an interrogation.”

  My eyes widened at his thoroughness. I didn’t want to talk in the hotel room, so I got dressed and left Hanna sleeping while Gervais and I took a rental car to a coffee shop around the corner from the hotel. The white Lincoln trailing us didn’t give me cause for alarm. I was confident with my team in place that the strong-arming would stop sooner or later.

  “Order up,” called the gawky teenager wearing black glasses, her messy ponytail piled atop her head. Two large cups hit the countertop and we retrieved our coffee then made a beeline for an empty booth near the back of the cozy establishment. Dark grain walls and distantly spaced tables added charm and made the coffeehouse ideal for people looking to get away and enjoy a cuppa. I spotted a college student sprawled on a fashionably ratty couch with books and laptop. A serious-looking writer was parked near the center of the room peering at his computer, and a suited businessman was talking quietly in a cell phone across the way.

  I threw back the tail of my sports coat and sat down, inhaling the rich aroma of fresh-ground coffee. “Luxuries,” I said with a satisfied sigh. I took a tentative sip.

  “Blake will be here in a second, but I can’t wait another second. Sir, what on earth happened?” Gervais said.

  I chuckled, able to laugh at the situation now that I was finally clear of the danger. “Half the shit feels like it was ripped straight from a movie. Darien and Sissy lured me onto their yacht. They drugged me and held me captive, expecting Cornelius to pay an exorbitant ransom. It was nothing shy of a miracle that I convinced them to try Hanna instead. You don’t know my father. He would’ve sent the Army instead of the money.”

  “I can imagine.” Gervais tittered. “How the hell did you survive?”

  “Listen, I’ve had enough martial arts training to be able to teach the shit, but it’s one thing when you’re fighting in a controlled match; it’s an entirely different scenario when the people you are battling are the same ones who raised you. I might have my hang-ups about Sissy, but she’s my mother, for God’s sake. And therein lies the root of the problem. The agent interviewing me yesterday alluded to the fact that I was out of line for not going straight to the police with information about Darien and Sissy’s whereabouts.”

  Kent Blake ambled into the coffeehouse looking more like a CIA agent than a lawyer, dark Ray Bans shielding half his face. He wore an immaculate black suit and white shirt, black clip-on tie evidencing the law genius’s youth. I grinned as soon as I saw him. We had known each other in grad school, and it was a pleasure to see an old friend again.

  He spotted us and marched over, as I stood to shake his hand. “Glad you could make it on short notice.”

  “For you, rock star, anything. Your assistant?”

  Gervais nodded. Kent took a seat and whipped off his shades, running his fingers through flawless auburn hair, barely ruffling the pomaded swoop. He cleared his throat and cracked open the briefcase he had with him, pulling out a small notebook and silver pen before setting the briefcase at his feet. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out. The most trivial detail could count. Before we begin, let me just tell you that those jerks at the bureau don’t have a fucking thing on you and no damn possible way of implicating you of a single crime, so rest your nerves.”

  “Thank you,” I said, relaxing. “We got the call from Sissy, but I didn’t think anything of it. I had other shit in my personal life that demanded my attention. And then we got the letter.”

  “That’s right,” Gervais interjected. “The private investigator he had hired before turned out to be under Darien’s thumb, so whatever leads he gave us went nowhere. Once we got the letter from Sissy, we had a solid address, and Dane flew out to take a look around.”

  “Why Louisiana? Did she have any other connections there?” asked Kent.

  “Nah, Darien and Sissy were always on the move. I didn’t think anything of the location, and I don’t think they picked it for any reason other than convenience. Darien found a con and he worked it. The landlord was completely taken in by Darien’s charm, and he was reluctant to give me their whereabouts, but I had a hunch he knew exactly where they were. I was right. He had loaned them his yacht.”

  “So, the landlord was involved? That’s excellent. You remember his name?”

  I told him the name of the condominiums, but I couldn’t remember the landlord’s name. Gervais pulled up his tablet and did a search. I said, “The yacht was Walk on Water. They were laying low in Houma. I figured I’d run aboard and have a chat with Mom, convince her to leave. You have to understand. In her letter, she indicated she was ready to get away from Darien, but I found out it was all a part of Darien’s plan to lure me out there. They drugged me. They invited me in to dinner, and, like a fucking idiot, I trusted them.”

  Gervais frowned. “It’s okay, sir. Anyone else would’ve done the same. Who would imagine their own mother turning against them?”

  I sipped my coffee. It still hurt to think of how deeply Sissy had descended this round. In the past, she had easily lied to me, used me, but to think she had helped Griess drug and hold me hostage was salt in the wound. She would’ve stood by and let the man kill me. I was sure of it now, and there was very little comfort in getting out alive with that knowledge. I sighed and studied my hands.

  Kent cleared his throat. I looked up, pushing the darkness out of mind. “Apparently,” I said, “his motive for kidnapping me was to hold me for ransom to get money to pay off a debt.”

 
Kent said, “The key is to build a case against Darien. He’s the big fish, from what I discovered. I have a source. Anyway, apparently he’s been under surveillance for the past year. There was an undercover getting close to him when he was working at the theology school, but Darien discovered him and took him out.”

  “What?” I said in shock.

  Kent nodded and said to Gervais, “Search St. James and pull up whatever you can on the missing money.”

  Gervais swiftly worked his magic, taking cues from Kent to get to the right headlines. Finally, they turned the tablet to my side of the table for me to read the report. Skimming the brief write-up was all I needed. Something the landlord had said came immediately to mind.

  “The landlord told me Darien was handling the money for St. James, but his opinion was someone else could’ve taken the money, someone Darien was working with.”

  Kent nodded gravely. “Xavier Donaldson was an experienced undercover cop. How Darien got the drop on him, I have no idea. Essentially, it appears he killed Donaldson and fled with the money once he figured out the guy was FBI.”

  “But what happened to the money?” asked Gervais.

  “That’s what the feds want to know.”

  “Darien said he owed a debt to a Mexican drug cartel,” I said.

  “You tell them that. You really don’t have anything to hide,” said Kent firmly. He dropped a hand on top of mine and nodded reassuringly. “So, are you ready to meet with those sons of bitches?”

  I smiled. “Are you kidding? New York is calling my name louder and lovelier than a siren. I just want to get on a plane and get there.”

  “Don’t worry, buddy. With me here, we’ll have you headed home before the sun sinks.”

  #

  True to Kent’s word, the investigative agents had a new attitude the minute I walked into the conference room with my attorney. What might’ve taken days to get to the bottom of ended up being resolved within about a few hours. They took my statement, having already gotten a statement from Hanna. I had to leave her at the hotel to pack our things and wait with Gervais, who was making arrangements for our flight home. As I sat at the table across from a bristling Agent Brent and an overly polite Agent Clementine, all I could think about was whether I wanted to go to the manor home or the penthouse.