Imminent Conquest (11 page)

"You aren't family to me.” Like Bryan could ever consider Iceman anyone but a distant acquaintance, a canker sore at best.

"At least not when Michael isn't around, eh?” Colin said with a smug expression. He looked the stripper up and down and yelled at her, “Why don't ya spread them legs apart? Give us something real to see?"

Ignoring him, the stripper continued twirling around the pole she had attached herself to, trailing a gold scarf after her.

"You're an embarrassment to the human race.” Bryan shifted in his seat.

"Why don't you get yourself a real stick?” Colin goaded the stripper. “You can help yourself to mine, if ya want.” Colin ended up looking pleased with his comment.

"She's not paying attention to you. You're too ugly,” Bryan said, taking another sip of his beer.

"So? What's your excuse?"

Joel, the owner of the bar, paused at the table, all six feet five inches of him. “If you're drunk, I'm going to have Boxer hardass you out to the back alley and into the garbage heap."

Bryan turned his head to look over his shoulder in the direction Joel had indicated. Boxer was one bad dude at a hefty three hundred pounds.

"I'm not drunk, and that poodle can't do nothing to me. Hell, he wouldn't want to if he knows what's good for him,” Colin said, not bothering to give Boxer the evil eye. “Where the hell is my beer?"

Bryan took a deep breath and exhaled. If his ankle hadn't hurt so much, he would have walked to another table. It wasn't as if this place was overcrowded. Colin was getting himself into a patch of trouble.

Joel frowned like a pitbull. “Get a grip, Nicko.” He walked back to the bar.

Bryan liked Joel, a happily married man with a wife and two or three kids.

Colin's response was to slap his pockets in search of his pack of smokes and a lighter. When he found them, he lit up. “Damn heat,” he muttered with the cigarette between his thick lips. “Joel better get that beer over here pronto or else I'll have a little talk with him."

Maybe that's what bothered Bryan so much about his cousin. That cold, controlled way he had about him, like everyone around him was a fly he could swat dead any second. Bryan dipped his fingers in the small dish near his elbow, scooped up a handful of roasted peanuts and stuffed them in his mouth. Even above the jukebox's din, he heard his stomach rumble. He figured he'd be lucky if he could stomach food sometime in the next two weeks after watching Tom ground up into a human pulp. God, that had been a living nightmare.

The music ended. The stripper finished her act and made the mistake of passing too close to Colin as she flounced off the stage. He grabbed her and seated her in his lap. “Marry me,” he said in a bullish voice.

"If I do, then can I cut off your dick?” she asked sweetly.

Bryan suspected Colin was so stunned—although his face remained expressionless—he forgot to hold on to her. The stripper slid off his lap and patted his cheek before she walked off on high heels.

"You should marry a woman like that,” Bryan stated matter-of-factly. “She'd keep you in line."

Colin's eyes narrowed into mere slits. “She needs a real man. One who can show her a good time."

"Good ‘ole Colin. Real winner with the women, huh?"

Colin banged his fist on the table. Peanuts jumped from the bowl, and the tiny, white napkins did a short jitterbug dance as did Bryan's beer, which sloshed back and forth in its glass. “Get the fuck out of my life, man."

Bryan looked straight into his furious eyes and stared without blinking. A freezing blast of air swirled around them as the door to the bar opened some distance away. Colin was the first to break the eye lock when Brad marched up to him, his face pinched into tight lines. His tie was askew and he appeared out of breath. “What gives, asshole?” he asked Colin without preamble and without greeting Bryan.

Fascinated, Bryan watched. No one had ever dared call Colin an asshole. Not to his face anyway.

"What's got riled up?” Colin responded casually, propping his feet up on the table and knocking the bowl of peanuts off. They cascaded onto the hardwood floor.

Brad waved his arm at the room in general. “Like I'm going to say anything in front of them."

Colin smirked. “You really don't have to. Why don't you crawl back in the hole you came from?"

"I didn't come here to trade barbs with you."

"Trade what?” Colin asked, amused.

"I don't have to explain myself. You know what the scoop is."

Bryan swore he would see steam rising soon from Brad's ears.

"I won't do it. You hear me?” Brad went on in barely controlled fury.

Joel walked up silently and intervened. “If you two have a gripe, take it out in the alley."

"Happy to.” Colin got up, knocking his chair on its side.

It was so unlike Brad to give anyone a dirty look but he managed to as Colin strode to the back door. They exchanged heated words before Colin leapt at Brad, grabbed him by the back of his jacket collar and dragged him outside, like a human toying with a lifeless marionette. Bryan shook his head, unable to make out what had happened between the pair.

"What's going on?” Joel paused at the table.

"Don't know,” Bryan responded truthfully.

"Looks like they're dealing, but it's not coming off,” the beefy bartender muttered. “I hate drug dealers. They're the worst kind of scum on the face of the earth."

Bryan snorted. “Anything's possible with Iceman."

"I really didn't think they knew each other. They both come here but have never even exchanged glances. Now, it's like they can't do without each other."

Brad walked in, his expression less hostile but wary, as if the problem he had presented to Colin had been solved to his satisfaction. Iceman followed, and magnanimously brushed the other man's lapel off, before he reseated himself at the same table as Brad took.

"Good ‘ole bugger,” Bryan mumbled, glad Iceman had chosen to sit elsewhere.

Joel wiped his hands in his apron and strode off. Bryan watched Brad lose his cool and start to get angrier and more verbal but couldn't make out his words above the country music spilling from the jukebox. They continued in that vein for several minutes before Brad leapt up and ran from the bar. Colin shrugged and smiled to himself.

Bryan puzzled over the fact that Iceman and Brad knew each other. They had made no effort to acknowledge each other at the Anessa party. After a full minute, Colin readjusted himself and walked out into the cold night.

Nicole didn't know what to think as Michael rose, drew the speculum slowly from her vagina and untied her wrists and ankles as if they were made of precious china. Soft light illuminated the bed. His features were once again unreadable.

She rubbed her wrists, more for something to do than because they hurt. The accessories for her ravishing disappeared. She gazed at him sleepily, watching his sure but languid movements. Everything he did was meticulous, as if he had pre-planned each detail in advance. Now would he take her, plunge his cock into her still yearning pussy? He slipped his muscular arms into the sleeves of his dark blue jacket.

When he leaned over her, she felt embarrassment that he could do the things he did to her and that she barely batted an eye. He gazed into her eyes, his own still indecipherable. “I love you, Nicole. No matter where I was or the miserable condition I was in, I never stopped loving you.” He kissed her lips lightly, almost like a lazy butterfly wafting by on a sultry summer day.

Surprised by his words and his apparent gentleness, she did nothing as he left the room. She heard nothing except for the sound of his light tread down the stairs. She crimped and uncrimped a fistful of the champagne-soaked comforter in her right hand. What had he done to her?

Her cheeks flamed. Uneasy with her nudity and the fact that her body had betrayed her, she slid over the side of the bed and rose on wobbly legs. The room smelt of her female arousal and the heavy scent of bubbly. In the hushed silence, she waited for Michael to return, to continue his tormenting.

The woman reflected back in the dresser mirror was dishevelled and blushing but there was a sparkle in her eyes that hadn't been there earlier this evening. Nicole snarled at the mirror, ducked and rummaged for a light pink sweat suit in a bottom drawer, angered at her sense of vulnerability. She was smart and self-sufficient. How could she have allowed Michael to use her the way he had?

She welcomed the cool material covering her, enveloping her in a safe cocoon. He had stretched her pussy so wide. At first, there had been pain but her warm wetness had accommodated the speculum. Would he do it again? Where had he gone?

This time, he would have a shrieking cat with outstretched claws fighting him. What gave him the right to tie her up and leave her unsatisfied? Dressed and comfortable with her battle stance, she stepped up to the window, drew the sheer lace curtain aside and looked out on to the driveway. The limousine was gone. Tyre tracks were barely visible in the heavily falling snow. She gritted her teeth and slammed a fist on the windowsill. An overwhelming sense of relief that the bastard had left fought with a sudden emptiness that he had abandoned her. He was playing with her, making her feel like a sex toy. She vowed she would never let him near her again.

Turning from the window, she remembered how Michael had claimed fierce possession of anything he considered his. Rubbing her forearms, she shivered. Why couldn't he let her alone to live her life in peace? Why had he returned to wreak havoc with her emotions? And her body? If he wanted revenge, why hadn't he exacted it? Why had he told her he still loved her when he didn't mean those words that should never be spoken carelessly?

She ran down the stairs, thinking perhaps he was tricking her into believing he had left before he jumped her. Her skin tingled at the thought but she tamped down her desire. She had to remain steadfast in her determination not to let him near her again. Obviously, he still affected her.

A quick hunt showed the house was truly empty. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to battle him, and herself, tonight. She sank into a chair at the dining table and watched the snow falling outside under the yellowish glow of a sodium vapour light.

The clock set in the microwave told her it was half past midnight. Why had she deluded herself into thinking Brad was the right man to spend the rest of her life with? He was so totally obsessed with his first wife and the overwhelming hurt she had inflicted upon him. Nicole had tried to work through the problem with him, acting as his confidante, but after several years, why couldn't Brad let go of his ex-wife and move on? He was much too focused on the past that tore at his heart and from which he couldn't extract himself. Belatedly, Nicole thought he could still be in love with his ex-wife. Wasn't there only one true love in this life?

She didn't know if she should tell Brad that Michael had brought her home. Her train of thought reminded her that the bed was a mess and the comforter looked as if a heavy rain had poured down on it. Nicole couldn't find the energy to run upstairs and roll up the comforter to wash it in the morning. Instead, she opened the window above the kitchen sink and took a breath of brisk air. How could she deny that Michael had brought her home? In a limousine, no less?

She couldn't help but think of Michael's powerful body hovering over hers and his piercing gaze meeting her eyes. He reminded her of a panther on the prowl, each movement graceful and easy.

A sob welled up in her throat and threatened to choke off her air. Despite his denials to the contrary, Michael was a murderer. Nothing had changed there.

Hope flooded through her. If she explained her past and what part Michael had played in it to Brad, perhaps he would listen and they could let the evening alone as if it hadn't happened. For the first time in her life, she came to the conclusion that she had built her life around a pack of lies. She couldn't forget the love she and Michael had once had for each other. But neither could she forget that he was a killer with a prison record and, despite how many women were attracted to men who were in prison or had been paroled, she wasn't one of them.

A small noise interrupted her thoughts. Dread travelled along her spine. Michael had a key. He could unlock the door whenever he wanted to. She listened intently but she heard nothing. First thing in the morning, she would make sure the locks were changed on all the doors. She didn't want to be near him again, breathing in his musky scent, her gaze lingering on his mesmerising blue eyes, remembering what they had once shared together.

"I don't want you near me, James Carmichael,” she said out loud. “No matter what the consequences are."

"Are you talking about me?"

She whirled around, pressing a hand over her breast. He had returned.

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Nicole stared at Michael, leaning arrogantly against the doorframe as if he owned her house. She managed to find her voice. Without a doubt, he had heard her. “Get out."

"I came back because I want to talk to you."

She couldn't believe his audacity. He looked haggard and tired. She felt her resolve weakening. “Get out."

"You never gave me a chance to explain why I was holding the knife. Before you ran away."

She stepped back from him, edging against the Formica counter. Had he come back to finish her off? Had she lulled herself into a false sense of safety?

He spread his hands out in supplication. “I didn't kill my father. I want you to believe that."

She watched the earnest expression but wouldn't relent. “I saw you,” she whispered. “You held the knife. If I hadn't seen that, I might have believed you were innocent.” Her hair flowed around her waist as she shook her head to emphasise her point.

"Appearances can be deceptive,” he said, suppressing the sudden anger flaring to life in his eyes.

"Why can't you just leave me alone? You were tried and convicted."

"An innocent man can't just walk away from seven years of hell, Nicole. He has to find a way to make the real murderer pay the price."