Deepest Kiss (Stark Trilogy 3.6)

"And you?"

He could hear the tremor of excitement in her voice and knew that he had her. "I'll be right here," he said, as he took her hand and urged her toward the blonde, who was flushed pink with anticipation. He moved behind the redhead, cupping her breasts as she put her legs around the blonde's waist, then he squeezed her nipples hard as the blonde's fingers slid into her core.

Pressed against her back, he could feel every tremor of pleasure, every quickening in her pulse. And as she started to shake with a series of little convulsions, he slid his hand between her legs from behind, dipping his fingers into her wet pussy. As he did, his hand brushed up against the blonde's, whose sensual moan shot straight to his cock.

Next, he slid his now-slick finger up to tease the redhead's ass as she bucked against him, her body clearly on fire from this dual assault. "Dallas," she moaned as her body shook with release. "Oh, god, Dallas, this is so fucked up."

"That's the way I like it, baby," he said. "That's the only way I play."

It was true. He liked his sex dirty. Wild. He wanted to be reminded of who he was. What he'd become.

The King of Fuck. He'd heard what they all called him, and he had to appreciate how apt--and ironic--the moniker was. Because God knew he was fucked up. His whole goddamn life was an act. A facade.

He was damaged goods. As broken as a man could be. But he'd turned that shit around. Claimed it. Made it his own.

Maybe he would never again have the woman he craved in his arms, but if that was his reality, he was going to damn sure make the most of it.

With his free hand he reached down to stroke his cock. The sensation of his sex-slicked palm moving rhythmically over the steel of his erection mingled with the wild, almost feral sounds of the two women. He closed his eyes, imagining another place. Another woman.

He thought of her. He thought of Jane.

But not like this. Not fucked up. Not like a goddamn evening's entertainment, as fungible as a night at the movies and at least as unimportant.

Except everything was fucked up. Him, most of all.

Goddammit. He needed to shut it down. These thoughts. These wishes.

All these damn regrets.

The sharp trill of his cellphone startled him from his thoughts, and he slid back away from the redhead who cried out in protest.

"Sorry, baby." His voice was tense, his chest tight. "That's the one ringtone I always answer." He grabbed his phone off the bedside table, lightly brushing both women's skin before turning his back to them and taking the call.

"Tell me," he demanded, expecting the worst. His best friend, Liam Foster, wasn't due to report in until the next morning. If he was calling now, it meant something had happened.

"It's all good, man," Liam said, his voice as close to excited as his military training would allow.

"The child?" Dallas had sent his team to Shanghai to recover the eight-year-old son of a Chinese diplomat who'd been kidnapped ten days prior.

"Fine," Liam assured him. "Dehydrated. Malnourished. Scared. But he's back with his family, and physically, he should make a full recovery."

Physically, Dallas thought, the word sounding vile in his head. Because that wasn't all of it, was it? Not even close.

He shoved the thoughts aside, forcing himself to focus. "Then why are you--"

"Because the German asshole who grabbed him tried to trade freedom for intel. He knows, Dallas. This dickwad Mueller knows who the sixth kidnapper was."

The words were simple. The impact on Dallas wasn't. His blood turned to fire. The room turned hot and red. He wanted to beat the shit out of the sixth man. He wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

He wanted to finally know the truth.

There had been two in charge of the six fucks who had snatched them--and surely this sixth man could identify his employers. First, there'd been the main guy who sat back, keeping his hands clean, but who was dirtier than all of them. That man lived in Dallas's memory only as hints and impressions. He'd been smart. He'd kept his distance. But he'd been the puppeteer, the one who'd hired the six and pulled all the strings.

Dallas and Jane had come to think of him as the Jailer, and he'd spoken directly to Dallas only twice. He'd told Dallas that he deserved it all--every moment of agony, every pang of fear, every prick of humiliation.

And then there was the Woman. She was supposed to feed and tend to Dallas and Jane, but instead she brought pain and fear along with a twisted darkness and a bone-deep shame that hadn't faded even after Dallas was free of the confinement of those mildewed walls.

But he wasn't fifteen anymore, goddammit. He wasn't locked in the dark, tortured and hungry and helpless.

He might be damaged goods, but he had money and power and he knew how to wield both like a goddamn medieval mace.

"We're getting damn close to ending this thing," Liam said. "We use this douchebag's intel to grab the sixth. We interrogate him. Get him to tell us who hired him. It's the last puzzle piece, Dallas. We get that, and you can finally say that it's over."

Dallas closed his eyes and drew in a breath, soaking in the words. Liam was wrong, of course. It would never really be over. But he couldn't deny the anticipation that was building in him. The fantasy that he really could end this.

For himself.

For his sanity.

But most of all, for Jane.

FIND YOUR HEART'S DESIRE . . .