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He stepped even closer so that his breath whispered across my face. “I want to believe it. I really do.” He slipped his fingers inside my panties then, ignoring my throbbing clit and moving lower where he circled my entrance before plunging inside of me. “Ah, soaked. I like this a lot.”

I struggled to suppress a moan, struggled to be as stoic as he’d been when I’d touched him.

But it was impossible. The storm was already gathering, my belly tightening as the pleasure built and I couldn’t help the small, breathy cries that echoed from the back of my throat.

Reeve sighed heavily, pressing his forehead against mine. “You’re very tempting, Emily Wayborn. So very tempting.” Desire clouded in his expression, but – in his stance, in his form, in the way he held himself firm against me – I saw restraint. Which would win? Which did I want to win?

He brushed the thumb of his free hand across my lower lip. “Tempting. But as I told you, I’m not easily overwhelmed.” He pulled away suddenly, leaving my body wound up and wanting. “I’ve just remembered some business I need to attend to. Thank you for an entertaining dinner, Emily. Anatolios can see you back to your suite if you’d like him to.”

Then he was gone, exiting as quickly as his waiters had come and gone all night long.

Again, I cursed under my breath. I didn’t dare look at the guard who had finally let me go, aware that he was likely gloating in my humiliation, and I certainly wasn’t letting him escort me out. Without another word, I straightened my skirt and started out the way I’d come in, my head high despite Anatolios’s eyes heavy on my backside. It certainly wasn’t the walk of shame that I’d expected to make at the night’s end, but I handled it with as much confidence as I could muster.

Back in my room, I collapsed on the bed, my fists balled at my sides. “Dammit,” I said, punching the mattress next to me. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.” I was frustrated and turned on. And worried that I’d never hear from Reeve again and that I’d fucked everything up in my search for Amber. I punched once more for good measure.

But really my turmoil at the moment had little to do with Amber and all to do with what I’d learned that evening: Reeve Sallis liked to be in control.

I’d met that type of man before. I knew what they liked. They were the men who liked to fuck, but on their terms. They were the men who liked giving gifts and praise almost as much as they liked taking them away. They were the men who liked to hurt. To humiliate. Manipulate. They left bruises. They left scars. They were the men that induced fear. The men who debased and defiled. They were the reason I’d left that life in the first place.

And this was why, where Reeve Sallis was concerned, I was fucked. Because these were the men that I could never stop craving.

CHAPTER 4

My cell phone ringtone woke me the next morning. I considered ignoring it, but the thought that it could possibly be Reeve had me reaching across the bed before it stopped ringing.

“Emily. It’s Joe Cook.”

I rubbed a hand over my eyes, trying to convince myself I wasn’t disappointed. Reeve didn’t even have my number, not that that would matter.

Then I registered what the caller had said. I sat up. “Joe. Hi. Do you have news?” He wouldn’t have called if he didn’t.

I’d hired Joe Cook after the police had been utterly unhelpful in my search for Amber. It wasn’t their fault really. I didn’t have enough for them to go on, plain and simple. I’d argued. I’d pled. I spent all of Black Friday in the station¸ in fact, trying to get someone to take my report seriously. Finally, an older detective called me into his office. Patiently he listened to my entire story. He listened to the message that I’d recorded onto my phone from my mother’s answering machine. He listened to me explain how, even though Amber never once asked for help or stated that she was in trouble, I knew there was something wrong because she’d said “blue raincoat” – our code.

Then just as patiently he explained the reasons he couldn’t do anything. “There is simply nothing that you have presented to justify a missing person,” he had said. “I’m not saying that nothing happened to your friend – I’m only saying that we can’t help you find her.”

I opened my mouth to argue when he added, “But I do know someone who can help you. He’s pricey, but worth it if this is that important to you.”

It was that important to me. I left the station ten minutes later with Joe Cook’s number.

Joe had arranged to meet at a hole-in-the-wall diner in Hollywood – his choice, not mine – and at first sight I knew he wasn’t like anyone I’d spent much time with. The men I’d known best were suave and charming, at least on the outside, their hands manicured, their suits pressed, their cars expensive. Half bounty hunter, half private investigator, Joe had shown up on a Harley, decked from head to toe in black leather and sporting colorful tattoos over every bare inch of his arms and neck. His hair was buzzed and he wore dark glasses that he never took off, even inside. As gruff and gritty as he was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew the detective who’d pointed me his way because Joe had a record of his own.

Despite my first impression and the fact that his resume was simply, “I find people who are hard to find,” Joe was professional. He took my business seriously, gathering details of my friendship with Amber for nearly three hours, never doubting or questioning my reasons for hiring someone like him rather than one of the hundreds of PI’s I could find on the Internet for a third of his asking price. I wasn’t an idiot and Amber knew how to hide. I needed a tracker with skills that included more than taking pictures of cheating spouses and locating children after they’d been put up for adoption.

Joe was that guy. It was a gut feeling more than anything, but I believed it enough to hire him on the spot. When he’d given me his first report that included mention of past events that I’d been convinced were buried, he’d more than proven himself.

“I found the parents,” he said to me now. “Actually spoke to the mother. She’s a real fucktard. Lived in the same house for all these years in Santa Clarita, only an hour from where Amber was staying in high school, but I’d bet money she never bothered to look that far. She rolled her eyes when I mentioned her daughter’s name. Said she hasn’t heard anything from her in over a decade. Said she’d figured Amber was dead. Didn’t seem interested even when I’d shown her pics of Amber from after she’d run away. I see people do shitty things on a daily basis so it’s with authority that I say she had a bad family life, Em.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me through the phone. “Yeah, I know.”

Amber had never spoken much about her parents, but what I had gleaned from the few things she’d slipped over the course of our friendship was that her mother had been a jealous bitch. Jealous of her own daughter. Her dad was the worst kind of scum and had been sexually abusing her – his child – on a daily basis, and instead of defending her, Amber’s mother resented her.

At least my mother had tried to love me. “Well, that was a long shot anyway. Did you see her father at all?”

“Now, that’s an interesting thing. He wasn’t there. He’s been at Folsom for the past several years.”

“State prison?”

“Yep. He was sentenced to twenty-five years for aggravated assault on a child. Some kid in the neighborhood. Seems he would often give the girl a ride after school and by ride I mean a trip on the baloney pony, not his car. Now here’s where it gets fishy. Back at the beginning of October, he got himself murdered.”