My hands stayed above my head, but it was torturous to try and keep them away from him. I wanted to grab his hair and press his face to my center. Feel his tongue on my wetness. Orgasm to his fingers thrusting inside of me. But Jackson had made it clear he was in charge, and I obeyed his lead and relished the anticipation of his body on mine.
I heard the muffled sound of a phone ringing, but just ignored it. It certainly wasn’t mine; I didn’t have a phone anymore. Jackson had destroyed it. And if Jackson didn’t think it was urgent enough to answer his phone, then I was happy to let it be the background noise as we made love.
But the phone didn’t stop ringing. Over and over again it rang and didn’t relent. Finally, out of frustration, Jackson moved his naked body from the bed and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. I couldn’t help but stare at him as he climbed out of the bed and stood in the middle of the room.
“Hello,” he said as he stood fully erect and looked at me from the foot of the bed.
Wow, he was one amazing specimen of a man. This time, I was allowed to drink him in, to look a
t every inch of him without looking away. His blond hair was tousled from my hands grabbing onto it early. His face was slightly flushed from the excessive excitement we had. I looked at every muscle from his chest down to his quads. There wasn’t more than an ounce of fat on the man, he was pure muscle. Yet as he stood naked, erect, and looking at me, I felt the softness of his soul.
“Yes, we are all right. Things are going well,” Jackson said as he rolled his eyes slightly. “Yes. I’ll let you know when we know more. It was an eventful night. Can we call you tomorrow?”
Jackson made a mock talking sign with his hand and he made fun of the person on the other end of the phone for talking too much. It was funny to see him naked and on the cell phone. I bet the person on the other end would have freaked out if they knew I was there in bed with him.
I rolled over and slid under the covers while he continued his phone call. My body was exhausted and I let my eyes close as he finished his call with who I assumed was Chase. I knew that Jackson would be done shortly and could slide back into bed and we could continue where we had left off.
Chapter Eleven
JACKSON
When I finished my call with Chase, I turned around and saw Roxanne sound asleep and tucked in under the covers. She looked so peaceful, more comfortable than I had seen her look before. Every urge in my body wanted to slide into bed and wake her up. But she didn’t look like she typically got a good night’s sleep and I didn’t want to be the one to take it away from her.
I had seen firsthand just how badly her sleep was on some nights. Her nightmares had been so intense after she was strangled. I couldn’t be the person who took away a peaceful night from her. Instead, I needed to think of her first and let her enjoy her dreams. We could always make love in the morning.
I slid into my briefs and then into the bed next to her. I was afraid to wake her, so I used all my willpower and stayed on my side of the bed. As I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I had visions of Ana and what her night must be like with Stephano.
I knew Chase and Jordan were worried about us finding Ana, but I felt confident that we were getting close. We just had to figure out how to get into Stephano’s home. My thoughts drifted to trying to figure out if he knew who I was or even what I really looked like. The cameras in his club couldn’t have seen very much, the rooms were dark and the camera itself looked extremely old. Would it be possible to try and buy Ana directly from Stephano?
My gut didn’t like the plan very much and that meant it probably wasn’t a good plan. As much as I wanted to get Ana out of the house right away, if the plan didn’t work and Roxanne and I ended up dead, well, that wasn’t a very good plan at all then.
There was a certain finesse needed when rescuing someone. Although most of my work had been in investigations, I had been used to rescue people from situations in the past. My experience as a Navy Seal had prepared me, but I had no experience in dealing with a woman like Roxanne. I did feel like she was a benefit to our case, I just had to figure out how best to use her without putting her at risk.
My night was spent tossing and turning as I tried to think of all the different ways I could get into the house. When I closed my eyes, I continually saw Roxanne being strangled and felt the helplessness of not being able to save her. I had never worked so closely with a woman on a case and I wasn’t going to have this be the first time I did and something went wrong.
Fire, I could set a fire and make Stephano evacuate the house. Once he was out in the open, it would give me a view of who all was in the home and maybe even grab Ana from him. But I suspected he would have armed gunmen with him who wouldn’t take very kindly to a strange man trying to steal one of Stephano’s women.
The buyer, maybe I could figure out who the buyer was and bribe him. Offer him more money in exchange for going through with the purchase and then handing her over. Or even threaten him with prison time if he didn’t turn her over. But the buyer was probably extremely wealthy and my offer of money or threats of prison would mean nothing to him. Wealth certainly could keep a person out of prison, despite what the police said to the public. I had seen it many times: a wealthy person hires a team of expensive lawyers who finagle the law into their favor.
Get someone on the inside, Roxanne could go to Stephano and convince him she wants to be with him. Maybe even get to stay in his home. Then, she could find Ana and release her. No, that plan wouldn’t work, at all. Roxanne would have to sleep with the scumbag, and I wasn’t about to allow that to happen.
None of my plans felt very solid, and I hated it. My job as an investigator wasn’t actually to save the person. I just needed to confirm where she was and notify the proper authorities. But after hearing that Stephano was in Miami, I doubted the local police were going to risk getting on his bad side and raiding his house in the off chance there was a woman being held there. My gut told me we were going to have to take this case all the way and get Ana out of there ourselves.
Then, I thought about what was going on for poor Ana at that very moment. Was Stephano drugging her? Was he taking advantage of her? Probably. He seemed like the kind of man who took what he wanted and didn’t really care what others thought. He probably didn’t even care if the buyer wanted the girl untouched. When the buyer actually showed up, it was highly unlikely he would turn her down, no matter what condition she was in. The black market for young females was very competitive and those men would stop at nothing to get a sweet young woman for their own.
I felt sick to my stomach as my brain swirled with thoughts of Ana. She certainly hadn’t expected to be held captive for over a month when she came to America. She had simply wanted love, and Stephano had convinced her he was going to give that to her.
On our flight from Italy to Miami, Jordan had told me the whole story about Ana and how she had met her man online. Red flags went up for me right away as Jordan told the story. I couldn’t believe Ana and Jordan had been so willing to fly across the country to men they didn’t even know.
Jordan had been lucky. She had found Chase, who wasn’t a bad guy. But Jordan had flown across the world after knowing Chase for only a few days. If I ever had a daughter, I would kill her if she did something like that. Women had to be better at protecting themselves. There were men all over the world who only wanted to hurt them.
Women were so gullible when it came to love. They always thought that men wanted the same things as they did. Some men maybe, but most men just want companionship, not love. They are happy to have a naked woman in their bed at night and just go through the motions of keeping her happy so she continues to come to his bed naked every now and again.
There were stories on the internet every day about people pretending to be someone they aren’t. I couldn’t understand how two seemingly smart women would so willingly go to meet men they had come in contact with online. The only reasonable thought I had was that they were in some sort of lust for the guys. Perhaps, lust for the idea of being loved. But whatever the reasoning, both Jordan and Ana had not been very smart in coming to America.
Personally, I had finished with the half-hearted relationships. I couldn’t be bothered to put energy into something like that since meeting Rose. She taught me what it was like to feel true love for someone. In the short time we knew each other, I felt less alone in the world and more ready to seize every single day. I wanted something as powerful as that again someday and I wasn’t interested in settling.
Roxanne was a great girl and maybe we would end up sleeping together during this job. I just wasn’t sure things were going to go very far when all the excitement and adrenaline of the job were over. But I was open to finding out. For the first time in a very long time, I felt open to seeing what might come of a relationship.