“It’s okay. I want—”
He closed the door in my face, and I heard the click of a lock. The door handle wouldn’t budge when I tried it. “Nate, let me in.” I crossed my arms and stared at the door.
Silence inside. He’d given me the hottest moment of my life, then completely shut me out.
“Nate!” I slapped the door.
Low laughter met my ears, and I turned to see George leaning against the wall at the end of the hall. “Told you he was busy.”
Shut up was on the tip of my tongue, but I ignored him and tried the handle once more. It didn’t move. Hurt arced through me like lightning, and tears stung behind my eyes. I couldn’t even begin to fathom the embarrassment that George’s presence caused me.
He sauntered a few steps closer. “Your shirt’s on inside out.”
Glancing down, I saw he was right. Damn. To save what was left of my pride, I turned to walk past him and head back to my room.
The flick of a lighter caught my ear, and I stilled. After a few more moments, the slight acrid scent of a cigarette wafted from beneath the door. A grin spread across my face as I realized I’d driven Nate to smoke.
Chapter Seven
Nate
I’d spanked her. Spanked. Her.
The SUV hummed down the road toward the dock as I glared out the window. How did I lose control so fast? One second, I had decided to show her out of my office, the next, she was in my lap grinding on my cock like the perfect little fuck toy.
I clenched my eyes shut to block the vision from my mind, but it only splayed wider on the canvas of my eyelids. Her blue eyes, the swell of her tits, the feel of her hot pussy against me. And then, when I’d laid her across my lap and spanked her until my handprints had reddened her tan skin.
“Fuck.” I slapped my palm on my thigh.
Peter and David knew better than to say a word to me when I was like this. I should have been focusing on the weed shipment and the bloodshed that would happen in under an hour. Instead, all I could think about was how wet she’d been—her panties soaked—as I’d given her the spanking she’d been begging for ever since I’d seen her in the pool.
I’d broken. When she’d taken her top off, my cost/benefit analysis had short circuited. Taking her over my knee seemed the only response. And fuck, I certainly felt a benefit from it. The satisfaction of turning her ass crimson as she called my name and panted—there was nothing else like it. Oh, but the cost. The cost was going to bury me.
I longed for another cigarette as we pulled up to the abandoned dock. All the day workers were long gone, and I had an arrangement with the owner that my evening shipments would not be disturbed.
A gray trawler chugged up the Delaware, its outward appearance giving the look of a simple fishing setup. It carried a much more valuable cargo than simple cod, though. Some of the choicest strains of weed straight from grow operations in California and Colorado were onboard and represented a small fortune in street value. I kept my fingers constantly crossed that Pennsylvania and Jersey never got around to legalizing the stuff. It would wipe out my stoned clientele.
A handful of black SUVs were positioned around the dock, and I had shooters set up on rooftops and hidden in the few buildings along this stretch of river. The operation was simple—back up our 18-wheeler, load it, and kill anyone who tried to interfere.
The trawler edged up to the dock, the familiar captain visible through the windows along the front of the cockpit.
“We’re ready to transfer. Cops have been paid. There won’t be any boys in blue in this area while we’re working.” Peter peered out of the car, sizing up the scene.
“We’ve got lookouts along the highway. They’ll let us know when the Russians show.” David opened the door as the car stopped, and all three of us stepped out and walked onto the weathered dock. Pockmarked pavement turned to splintered wooden decking along the water. The trawler pulled up, and crewmen threw out its lines. My men secured it to the dock and waited for the gangplank to be set.
We worked in the dark, the only light coming from a sliver moon and a dull street lamp at our backs.
Peter kept a line of communication open with our men on the highway, his handset crackling. “Any sign of them?”
The reply came back, “all clear.”
I motioned for the truck to back all the way to the dock. A cool wind whipped past, and the trawler bumped against the graying wood with a mix of hollow and thick thumps. My skin crawled, and Peter shifted from foot to foot next to me, the boards creaking beneath him.