His to Take (Wicked Lovers #9)(44)
Author: Shayla Black

As the other woman started down the stairs, Bailey stopped her. “Why did Joaquin bring me here?”

“The way Thorpe explained it, he needed a safe place to bring you, but he also knew that Sean and I would have background that no one else would. Two birds, one stone.”

That made sense. And it should have set her at ease that he apparently hadn’t had kinky sex in mind when he cuffed her to someone else’s bed. On the other hand, she felt oddly unwanted, almost rejected, that his motives hadn’t been lascivious. Other than the hot kiss they’d shared, he hadn’t pursued anything sexual before or since.

“Is Joaquin . . . Do you think he’s like, um, Thorpe and Sean?”

She didn’t know how to ask the question without sounding sexually interested. Heat flamed across her cheeks.

Callie stared over her shoulder. “Dominant? I don’t know him well. But if I had to guess? Oh, honey. He’s got all the earmarks. I don’t know how much he actually knows about the lifestyle, but I’ll bet if he spent even a few days here without having to worry about bad guys and dead bodies, your ass would be a fabulous shade of red.”

“Mine?”

“Yours. He’s watching you. And just a heads-up: You left your room without saying a word to him.”

“But I’m with you,” Bailey protested.

“A Dom, especially one who’s borderline paranoid about your safety, isn’t going to care if you’d been guarded by the entire Secret Service. He didn’t know and he didn’t make the arrangements. End of story.” Callie shrugged. “But maybe I’m reading Joaquin wrong and he doesn’t roll that way. We’ll find out.”

Maybe they would, and the possibilities Callie raised made her pulse flutter and her sex clench. Hell, why did that man excite her? And why did the thought that he would want to strike his palm to her bare ass in the name of discipline rev her up?

Because in the last twenty-four hours, she’d gone absolutely mental.

Following Callie down the stairs, she found her stomach knotting as Axel grunted and gestured them ahead. He guarded their flank as he shepherded them back to the secure area of the club.

Callie looked a little nervous as she glanced over her shoulder at the hulk. “How bad is it?”

Axel grunted. “Don’t expect to sit at your wedding.”

She winced and shoved open the door leading to the hallway that held Thorpe’s office. In the doorway, he glanced at his watch, then raised a dark brow. Perched on the edge of Thorpe’s desk, Sean polished off the last of his drink, then shook his head, tsking. Joaquin stood just behind them both, looking positively furious. Bailey swallowed.

“Do you need a new watch, lovely?” Sean asked, his voice silky.

“No,” she answered softly, head bowed.

Bailey knew how the woman felt. When she risked a glance at Joaquin again, she fought the odd urge to apologize, look down . . . something.

He came at her on angry footfalls. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Of course not.”

Joaquin took hold of her half-full glass and sniffed. “Wine?”

“I thought it would relax me.” She took it back from him and downed the rest with challenge in her eyes.

“Did you drink any?” Sean asked Callie sharply.

“No.” The heiress shook her head and held up her bottle. “Water. See?”

That clearly surprised Thorpe. “You passed up wine. Are you feeling all right?”

“Mitchell . . .” She sent him a saucy scowl.

Joaquin ignored the trio and rounded on Bailey. “If you wanted something to drink, you could have asked me instead of going into a public area of the club where anyone could have seen you.”

Bailey didn’t want to get Callie in trouble. “We got a glass, then she took me to a secure observation room. I’m fine.”

“I had Axel watching them,” Thorpe supplied.

Joaquin still didn’t look happy.

“You never told me I couldn’t leave the room with your friends,” she argued.

Her statement made Joaquin look like he wanted to grind his teeth into dust. “Do you remember the pictures of the bodies on my phone? Do you really want to chance that happening to you? Because if Axel could drive up from Houston and arrive here a few hours ago, I guarantee that anyone else who got the idea that you might be here could have reached Dallas by now, too.”

He made perfectly good points. Bailey felt a bit guilty that he’d gone to so much trouble to save her and she’d succumbed to a little cabin fever and the desire for some vino. Seeing him somewhere between angry and disappointed dug at her in a way she didn’t understand. She had a hard time meeting his gaze. “Sorry.”