Breaking the Bad Boy Page 15

  There was a tentative knock at the door at some point, but she didn’t answer it and whoever it was went away. She couldn’t face anyone yet. Maybe she should just pack and go back to Denver. The more she considered it the more she decided it was the right thing to do. It took no time at all to pack since she came with nothing. She ticketed for a flight out at eight the next morning and tucked her computer in her portmanteau and climbed into bed.

  Joss wished she thought to bring the bottle of vodka with her on the way back to her room, as she waited for sleep to come. Too much time and emotion was being spent on Buck, and it was killing her. Maybe she should give Billy a call, it might make her forget. What was she trying to forget? Buck hadn’t even kissed her properly. But God, it was milliseconds away from being the best kiss of her life, she was fairly sure.

  Cassidy had said he wasn’t supposed to sleep with her, and she looked at Joss with jealous venom. It wasn’t to protect her daughter from his advances, but to protect Buck from hers. Joss suddenly knew without a doubt why Brent was so upset about Joss’s sexuality; Cassidy must have cheated on him, and he was afraid the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree. Cassidy would have cheated on him with the hands, too, undermining his authority on the ranch, cuckolding him for all to see.

  Buck slept with her mother.

  Why had she sent Buck here? Asshole, yes, but Buck was not the one who slit Fernando’s throat, she wouldn’t ever believe it. Somehow she could believe it of Cassidy.

  And Buck slept with her.

  The Frenchman’s gold. Cassidy must think there’s a chance in hell of getting her hands on it. The man Buck recognized was probably working with him to get their hands on her so she’d tell them where it was. If that were the case why didn’t Buck simply take her away, he had ample opportunity.

  Buck slept with Cassidy.

  He’d saved her life three times, that’s the only reason she was hung up about him. He had never been anything other than an asshole to her.

  If you discounted the kindness that kept showing under the veneer of the assholeishness, you would have a textbook asshole/hero character, if indeed, there was such a thing. She had finally lost her mind. Vodka. She got out of bed and padded quietly down the hall to the kitchen.

  She opened the freezer door and the floorboard squeaked behind her. Did she want it to be Buck, finding her in her ankle length silky gray negligee? Yes, of course she did, she wanted him to have an excellent, reasonable excuse for sleeping with Cassidy, beg her to run away with him and treat her to the most mind blowing sex she had ever had in her life. It was, after all, the reason she wore this slinky negligee in the first place if she was honest with herself. But Buck wouldn’t have made a sound, she knew that much. She turned, resigned to be coddled by Brent, when the back of her head split open with searing pain and the vodka bottle fell from her fingers to the floor.

  ***

  “I know you’re awake, precious, there’s no use pretending,” she heard the singsong voice but she couldn’t quite understand the words. She had been in and out of consciousness, she didn’t want to be conscious; there was too much pain. Was she supposed to understand? Was she supposed to be able to see? Her head was throbbing now, but she couldn’t move her hands to feel the damage. And she was so tired; couldn’t they just let her sleep?

  “Her eyes aren’t focusing; you hit her too fuckin’ hard.” Another voice said, suddenly in English, she understood this time. This one sounded concerned for her wellbeing, she liked him; maybe he would let her sleep. “She sure is pretty, though; can we fuck her when they’re finished with her?” Okay, never mind, they are both monsters. She closed her eyes and tried to focus.

  There was a heartbreaking sound, she looked around hazily, and she realized the heartbreaking sound had come from her. They did hit her too hard; she was now incapable of speech she thought distantly. She’d heard an article on NPR about the huge portion of the brain it took for speech and something about strokes, blah, blah, blah, she was going to die again, and Buck wasn’t around to shoot the bear in the eye to save her this time. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take, and then she thought this was when she found out what her limit was. Right after a nap.

  As soon as she arrived in Montana she’d had the worst luck. Her poor body was never going to be the same. Her heart was irrevocably damaged, but she could live with the bear claw scars; they marked her as one of them, like a brand.

  Oh God, Brand. If her bad luck continued she was going to die, probably this night. If there was any kind of merciful God, she’d meet up with Brand. Maybe the bear would be there, too. Then she could apologize properly; she couldn’t help but think it was all her fault. Sleep came to her and though it was not a good sleep it was a relief nonetheless.

  Her back was killing her, she noticed, it was the first thing she perceived when she woke and became aware of her surroundings. Her arms were tied behind her and she was on her back. She rolled to her side to take some of the pressure off, but this would only be a temporary measure, she could tell already. No position seemed to help her head, it was a lost cause. Oh, there was tape over her mouth, that’s why she couldn’t speak. There was only a slight comfort she took from that.

  The henchmen were talking in the corner in subdued tones; it could not bode well for her future. Were they doing rock, paper, scissors?

  “Wahoo!” The skinny one yelled while the other looked bothered. “Go in the other room, I’d like a little privacy.” He said as he came toward her.

  “Wait, two outta three,” the other man said. He was the man in her sketch she realized with a frightened sigh.

  “Fuck off,” the guy coming toward her said over his shoulder to him.

  “You sure, it’s the boss’ daughter?” The other man said. Brent? You have something to do with Brent? Joss couldn’t wrap her brain around that, Brent loved her. Oh God, Cassidy. These were Cassidy’s henchmen. She was going to be gang raped by people paid by her mother.

  “I’m sure. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission. Fuck off already,” he said.

  Fuck. She thought as he unbuckled his pants coming toward her like she was a skittish horse. Where did he think she was going to go? The other man stepped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him. She heard the heartbreaking moan again when he put his hands on her thighs, pushing up her carefully chosen negligee, and climbing on the bed. Joss was shaking her head and saying “No,” but it didn’t sound right through the tape.

  “You sure are pretty. Relax, I don’t want to hurt you, let’s just have some fun,” he said.

  Outside the room she heard something that sounded like a door slamming shut. Maybe the other guy left.

  The soon to be rapist had his dick in his hand and he was coming closer to her when the door opened. She could smell the man’s breath; coffee and a rank decay. “You just sit back, now.” The door opening made him stop immediately and turn to it, blocking her view. “I told you…” he started, but that’s as far as he got.

  He was looking at the door and Joss looked up when she heard another bang, and the back of the rapist’s skull opened up in front of her eyes and wet and bloody pieces of his brain matter flew out covering her neck and chest, followed immediately by the rest of his body slumping on top of her.

  Joss had the weird sensation that she was not really present, but instead watching from far away. She supposed she was going to be the next to die, and she tried to turn to face her executioner. The rapist was pulled off of her, and there he stood, the man who was going to be the death of her.

  “I’ve got you, my Duchess, it’s okay,” he said and it was too much all of a sudden and she simply let go of her consciousness.

  Looking at her, Buck cursed and wiped her face with the sheet from the bed and carefully took the tape off her mouth. He then reached down and lifted her gently over his shoulder. Buck was in a right pickle now. He didn’t quite know where to take her, and she was a mess, but he k
new he couldn’t leave her, she was only gone an hour and they were already raping her. He should dump her at the hospital, but what was to keep them from snatching her again and using her as a weapon against her father? Keep her safe, that’s what his brain was screaming at him, so he would, it was that simple. She was safest with him; he’d make sure of it. The FBI could go fuck itself.

  ***

  It was dark when Joss woke up; in fact, it was so dark she couldn’t see a thing. Her head was still killing her, her shoulders and back ached, and she was afraid to move, not knowing if she had only imagined Buck saving her yet again. “It’s okay, you’re safe.” She immediately knew his voice. He was lying millimeters away from her. Her arms were no longer bound, so she put her hands out to feel where he was and she hit him, hard, in the solar plexus. While he struggled for breath she felt around for a lamp on her side of the bed, but there was nothing.

  “You bastard,” she said to him. “Who do you work for? Cassidy?” He couldn’t answer her. She started to get out of the bed but he grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Let me go, you fucking Sadist!” She said struggling like a wild animal.

  “No,” he wheezed. “Hear me out.” He sounded pretty bad and it made her feel triumphant and terrible at the same time.

  “My back,” she gasped and he released her immediately and she hit him again, but this time she missed the soft part and hit his hip, stunning her fist, he gasped in shocked pain anyway, and she dived off the bed. He had her by the ankle and he slid off the bed on to the floor with her and grabbed her hands which were pummeling ineffectively at his chest.

  “Dammit, Joss,” he wheezed. There was something so plaintiff in his voice she stopped struggling and his big body covered her in one easy movement. “I need you.” He cradled her face in his hands and he kissed her, and she kissed him back with a fever no one in his vast experience ever matched. He rolled bringing her around on top of him so that she wasn’t on her tender back and she felt his erection under her and she wanted him. She was right, it was the best kiss of her life, and he was a bastard and she loved him. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she took it and welcomed it and reached out to claim it.

  While their tongues parried Buck ran his hands down her body and she trembled at his touch. Her hands were full of his soft black hair, her nails digging into his scalp, driving him wild. He pulled her down closer to him and she made a small sound of surrender and the kiss went deeper. An all-encompassing madness had her in its grip, he was such a beautiful kisser, and it took everything she had to stop what they had started.

  She pulled away, breathing hard and sitting back, Buck groaned. She was going to kill him, he was pretty sure. “Joss.”

  “I need the truth, Buck. You’ve lied to me from the get go,” she said sounding fragile for the first time since he’d clapped eyes on her.

  “Yes.” He said.

  “You don’t deny it?” She said.

  “Please don’t hit me anymore,” he took her hands gently in his. “I lied to you. I lied to your dad, and I lied to your mother. That’s what I do, what I’m paid to.”

  “Who the fuck pays you to lie?”

  “The FBI.” This was the last thing she expected to hear and it took much of the fury out of her. He felt it leave her body.

  “The FBI? What does the FBI have to do with us?”

  “Your mother is in pretty deep,” Joss could tell that he had leaned back on the floor by the way his voice changed. She was still straddling him, and she could still feel his need hard against her. “She’s been in league with a couple of crooks, at various different times in the past fifteen years. Francis Lanier was her first, he’s the reason she left Montana, left Brent, and you. And she had several other small time crooks while Lanier was in jail, but eight months ago Lanier was released. He’s up to his old tricks, and today we can add kidnapping to his sheet.”

  She had to admit, as excuses went for sleeping with her mother, this one was looking pretty good. She climbed off of him and sat cross-legged on the floor.

  He stood up and turned on the light in the bathroom and sat on the bed. “Come here, Duchess, let me hold you.” He said putting a hand down to her. She took it and sat on the edge of the bed next to him and looked at him in the light for the first time.

  “Oh Buck, your face, what happened?” She touched his face lightly and he grimaced, but found it hurt too much so he just made his face go blank. Funny, his face didn’t hurt at all when he was kissing her, and her feather light touch felt very nice. He briefly closed his eyes and enjoyed it.

  “Lanier doesn’t like me much, and Cassidy likes me too much. When your father asked me to leave, and he was remarkably kind about it, Lanier figured I was of no more use to him, and had his goons work me over a little, in case I had information he wanted. It hurt more when you hit me though; you’ve got an arm on you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I had probable cause,” she said and he laughed.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No more lies, Buck.”

  “No more lies, Joss.”

  “Do you love Cassidy?” He cringed.

  “No, I don’t even like her,” he said. “Some things are expected in the line of duty…” he began but her face contorted with pain and he stopped. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Was I…? Would you have fucked me ‘in the line of duty’?” She asked. His head pulled back as if she slapped him.

  “No Joss… not you. I am drawn to you like nothing else. I couldn’t keep away from you. I have been working under cover for eight months, and I nearly blew the whole thing because once you showed up I couldn’t keep away from you. Christ, I knew Brent would beat me bloody and kick me out and ruin eight months of field work, but I couldn’t help it, Joss.”

  “That’s why you kept trying to make me hate you. You were pushing me away, but I kept coming back.” He nodded.

  “You’ve done something witchy to me, Duchess, I’m a complete mess.” He looked so pained. “I can’t do my job, all I can think about is you. I haven’t been like this since I first saw Gwyneth Paltrow when I was fifteen.” She could have said he did the same thing to her, made her crazy with desire, made her feel something she hadn’t felt in so long, but she didn’t.

  “So you have a thing for blondes?”

  “No. I just have a thing for you.”

  “Why did they let you go, Buck?” She asked.

  “They didn’t.”

  “Oh. Did you kill Cassidy?” She braced herself and then realized she’d be okay with it if he had to in order to live.

  “No, Bolton showed up and told them they had you so Cassidy and Lanier left, and I was afraid for you,” he shrugged like it was no big deal, but it was a big deal, and she could forgive him anything for saving her again. For saving her from that.

  “Those men, are they dead?” She whispered.

  “Yes. Are you okay?” He asked taking her hand.

  “I feel like someone backed over my head, my back is on fire, and I think I broke my hand the second time I hit you. Aside from that…”

  “Then I wasn’t too late? They didn’t rape you?” He asked and she shook her head.

  “No,” she said in an expulsion of air. “If you were thirty seconds later he would have,” Buck tried not to cheer out loud. He had lain next to her for twenty minutes in the dark wondering how to help her through that and came up with nothing. “But once again, you saved me, Buck. I didn’t know I was so high maintenance.” He chuckled.

  “I knew it from the moment I saw you walking up the road in that dress,” he said.

  “Why am I sticky?” She looked at herself and remembered the rapist’s skull exploding and got a little dizzy. “Oh, God.” She ran to the bathroom and turned the shower on and stepped in before it was even warm. Her negligee was still on and she took it off and left it on the floor of the shower. She had been covered in the gray matter of a rapist, and she would have thrown up if there was anything in her belly. She scrubbed for
ten solid minutes and finally stepped out when the soap was nothing but a dime sized piece and found a towel.

  “Are you okay?” He asked quietly when she came back to the bed.

  “I don’t know,” she held out her hand and looked for a tremor, but there was nothing. She didn’t think she was in shock. “I’m hungry; does that make me a bad person?”

  “No, just human,” he smiled sadly.

  “Why did they take me?”

  “The Frenchman’s gold,” he said watching her face very carefully.

  “The Frenchman’s gold?” She asked unpleasantly. She thought as much, but she couldn’t really believe it.

  “Yes,” he said cautiously.

  “I thought so. But that’s a myth, it’s just some story my brother and I heard when we were kids, and elaborated as much as we could. But there’s no Frenchman’s gold.”

  “They know you know, Joss. Your brother told them that you and he would never tell where it was. Right before they killed him,” he said picking up her limp hand and putting it to his lips. “I’m sorry, Joss.”

  Her face went white and she unexpectedly lost the internal gyroscope, and she pitched sideways. Buck caught her and held her as she waited for the loud whooshing noise inside her head to stop. “Brand.” She whispered. “They killed my little brother.” Her tears came.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How long have you known?” She said into his shoulder.

  “I found out tonight, or rather this morning, it may have been morning then. I don’t think I was supposed to walk out of there alive, they spoke pretty freely around me.”

  “You got away from the bad guys and saved me from being raped, after having been beat… beaten,” the trembling started again and he held her to him.

  “I wish I could have come clean about everything, Joss. I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you.”