27. June 16th

JUNE 16TH

TB

He wasunsure what to do with himself. He needed to come up with a plan. His brain usually worked best when disengaged directly with the planning of a mission and engaged with something mindless. It was one of the reasons why the club was helpful to him: distraction. Maybe watching some television would help. That wouldn't require any of his brain power, so he left the guest room and went back to the main floor.

His one true weapon against Flame was that he knew she was physically attracted to him, and seducing her would take very little work. They had unbelievable chemistry, and it was an easy interrogation tactic for him. After all, he'd used it before with female marks.

Motherfucker, she's not a mark. She's a victim of a sadistic fuck. Quit being a tool. No, you're worse than a tool. You're the whole toolbox. Probably the whole tool cabinet.

He shook his head. He had just known this favor for Kubrick was going to be messy, and sure as shit, it was. He didn't want to hurt Flame the way he was about to. But if she wouldn't give up whatever she was hiding, he had no choice. It was either hurt her to protect her or let her keep back information and potentially let her stalker frighten her to death or, worse yet, take her.

When he got downstairs, he looked around the living room, and did a complete three-sixty turn. He frowned.

"Okay, I can forgive the no coffee, maybe. But who the hell doesn't have a television?" he mumbled.

Flame, that's who. Why wasn't he surprised? She lived in her books. He rolled his eyes. Of course she did.

That's when his eyes caught sight of the curio cabinet tucked into the corner of the room. He crossed over to it. Behind the latticed glass, he saw books lined up along the shelves. Some were on book stands. Others were all lined up like typical books on a shelf. There were also photos, primarily of shirtless men, that were signed by who he assumed were the models in the images.

When he looked more closely at the cover of one of the books on the middle shelf, he noticed that the photo of the model on that same shelf matched the model on the book's cover and his Flame's name in beautiful flowing script across the cover. These were her books that she wrote, and Steel's suggestion rang in his head.

Well, it's not like there's anything else to do. You wanted something mindless. There can't be anything more mindless than reading this.

Grabbing the book facing him, he read the title. Nature of the Beast. Underneath the title, in script, it said A Historical Paranormal Romance. The cover sported a man in a white dress shirt from a time gone by, the material shredded. There were claw marks scratched into his pectoral muscle, his head was thrown back, eyes closed, and he looked as if he were close to reaching a sexual peak. A woman's arms were around him, her nails at the base of the claw marks as if she had put them there. Her eyes, forehead, and part of her hair were all that he could see of her, peering intensely from behind the man's shoulder, looking straight out at the reader. The eyes were a vibrant, glowing green, and her hair was long, looking like it was blowing wild in the wind, and a deep auburn.

Well, that's kind of hot.

He settled on her couch in the living room, sprawling his large frame on it after toeing off his boots and putting a throw pillow between his head and the arm of the sofa. Still gazing at the cover, something struck him as odd about the female model, but he couldn't figure it out. Maybe he'd seen her in an ad or on a billboard before? He sighed and gave up worrying about it. Resigning himself to boredom, he opened the book and began to read.

Within ten minutes, his mouth had dried up, he could feel his heart beating faster, and there was a fine sweat breaking out of his pores. None of that was even close to the arousal he was feeling. He attempted to adjust his dick, which was painfully hard.

His eyes devoured the pages.

The sex was right out of the gate.

Leather cuffs. Chains. Sensory deprivation. Commands. Just the barest traces of consensual nonconsent.

Hot. Filthy.

In other words, perfect.

And a whole lot of familiar material to certain chat discussions from the last seven months.

Ho-ly fuckkkk.

The pages kept turning until he got to the end. Once the book closed, he lay on the couch, the book on his chest, his eyes staring at the ceiling, and his thoughts awhirl.

But it wasn't just the sex. She had built great characters. The setting was so vivid he felt like he'd been there, in time and space. What really surprised him, though, was how good the story was. He'd read the whole thing straight through. Now he understood how the guys on the team had read it overnight, even if he really wished they hadn't. She was an excellent writer.

He thumbed back to page one hundred thirty-four in the book and reread through to one hundred forty-seven. The book went back to closed on his chest, and his brow furrowed, deep in thought. Maybe…

"No. Way."

He looked at the cover again. Long red hair. Emerald-green eyes. Long, perfectly manicured nails.

My little Flame, who knew you could burn that hot?

A little bit of jealousy raged that his teammates had read her book, getting a glimpse into her dirty, sexy mind.

A little? Try an inferno of jealousy.

No wonder Nemo had been all smirks this morning.

Abruptly, he sat up on the couch, put his boots back on, and strode toward the stairs, leaving the book behind.

The invasion begins now. She is officially under siege.