“On my body?”

  “Trinity.” His tone was a warning.

  Okay, fine. I could survive this. Maybe they’d let me go after this, and I would never see him again.

  I turned slowly, biting down on my lower lip so hard that I tasted blood.

  I felt his body come up behind me, and I stiffened. What was he doing? My heart was racing in my chest, and I began to tremble.

  “Spread your legs and bend over,” he said.

  I looked back over my shoulder at him, but he didn’t meet my gaze. His eyes were on my ass, and the heat I saw in them made me feel things other than humiliation. I was apparently a bad person. I should feel nothing but embarrassment right now. Jerking my head back around, I opened my legs and leaned forward. I held my breath, wondering if he could see the wetness between my legs.

  “Fuck,” he swore under his breath, and I closed my eyes, feeling a tingle as if he’d touched me with more than his gaze. “Get dressed!” he demanded, and I straightened, turning to see his back as he walked away.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist and stood there until I heard the door at the top of the stairs slam shut. Moving, I went to get my panties and dressed myself. There had been no trackers on my clothes or body. I knew that. I had proven myself. Surely, he’d come back soon and let me go. I could lock myself in my apartment and try and forget this day had ever happened.

  Once I was finished, I sat down on the sofa and waited. I would not check out on this. I would not.

  “You stay alert,” I told myself. “This is not a place to have an attack. You will be leaving soon.”

  Time ticked by, and he didn’t return. What was taking so long? Why was I still here? I kept looking around to remind myself how large this area was. Not a closet. I wasn’t locked in a closet. I was fine. I was going to be fine. The cold sweat started to creep over me, and I stood up to walk around.

  “Get control of yourself.”

  I had to stop this. I began pacing back and forth, telling myself that, tomorrow, I would be cleaning the library at this time, and all would be well with the world. Rochelle would want to hear about the fairy romance I’d just read, and although the first book had been hard to get through, this second one was awesome.

  My mouth was dry, and my stomach grumbled. I looked back at the stairs. Was he going to come back? I needed some water. Anything. I walked over to the bottom of the stairs and listened. It was quiet, but that could be that it was soundproof down here. My stomach rumbled some more. I needed something to drink and eat. I’d been told to stay down here, but he had checked me for a tracker since then. Maybe I was expected to come up when I was ready. He hadn’t told me to stay down here after he checked me and left.

  I headed up the stairs, unlocked the door, and stepped into the hallway. The windows up ahead told me it was almost dusk. Why hadn’t they sent me home already? Had they forgotten I was down there? I began to walk, not sure which direction I should go when I heard something or someone. Following the sound, I listened for more, but it sounded like muttering.

  The light was on ahead, and I could tell the noise was definitely coming from that direction. I walked toward it, and just as I stepped into the open room, I realized it wasn’t a mutter but a groan. My gaze went to the sofa. Huck was leaning back. I could only see the profile of his face, and his mouth was slightly open. I took another step in and started to say his name when his arm moved up and down. Pausing, I waited, unsure what he was doing.

  “Harder,” he demanded, and I heard the gagging sound.

  Before I covered my mouth, a sound escaped me. Huck’s head turned, and his eyes locked on me. I stood there, knowing I needed to leave the room, but unable to make my legs work.

  The look of pleasure on his face made my stomach feel funny. I saw the brown hair clasped in his fist as he jerked up the head of the woman who was between his legs before shoving it back down. He kept his gaze on me. I watched as he lifted his hips to thrust into her mouth.

  “Take it. Suck it like a good little whore,” he growled. “That’s it. Just like that.”

  He wasn’t talking to me, but it felt like it. His eyes were locked on me as he talked to her. I should go, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I could. Huck’s face tensed up as a groan tore from him. He jerked, looking satisfied.

  “Swallow it all,” he said as a smile curled his lips.

  Forgetting about food or water, I spun around and rushed back to the door leading downstairs. I had just watched Huck get a blow job. What was wrong with me? Why was I so messed up? As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d had to see every imperfection of my body today, now, he’d seen me be a full-blown voyeur. Surely, I’d be going home now.

  Six

  Huck

  Gage was sitting on the edge of the desk in the office, holding papers in his hand with a grin on his face. He lifted his eyes when he heard me enter and shook his head. “Damn, I didn’t know Hayes had it in him. Seems like he was a fucking Kingston after all.”

  I scowled at him. What the fuck was he talking about? “Stop grinning like a moron and explain.”

  Gage held the papers up. “Got that background check on his girl. She’s not Baptist at all. Not even fucking close.”

  I reached out and snatched the papers from his hand.

  “I just want to know if we can keep her.” Gage’s amusement annoyed me, and I hadn’t even read the report yet.

  I reviewed the first page. Trinity Camille Bennett, age twenty. Birth date: November 5, 2002. Known addresses, Social Security number, phone numbers, employment. I scanned through all that, and then I tensed. Affair with a married fifty-year-old professor at Howell University, where she’d had a full ride and lost it. Worked at Diamond Heels, a strip club thirty minutes from where she’d attended college. In the photo attached she had been wearing a wig and colored contacts but that body had been hers. No fucking doubt in my mind. Tabitha Bennett had claimed she had used her identity for several credit cards, but that was never proven, and case dropped. Roy Hayley had filed a police report, claiming she had stolen five thousand dollars’ worth of rare first-edition books from him. Again, never proven, but that would be hard to prove. Arrested for grand theft auto but later released.

  Had my brother known any of this? I knew he’d believed the Lord forgave, but I couldn’t imagine the folks who had raised my mother would accept this. Fuck, Hayes wouldn’t have been able to accept any of this. There was no way he had known. Hayes had never broken a law. The kid had never even gotten a speeding ticket.

  “I mean, the fraud is impressive,” Gage said. “And the grand theft auto? Levi and she can bond over their similar felonies. I bet she uses that hot little body to her advantage.”

  “Why the fuck was she cleaning houses and businesses? For someone who had done all this, why wasn’t she hitting a pole somewhere else? And this address is a shit area to live. At least with stripping, she could afford to live in a decent area.”

  “About that. Levi and Kye called. Her place had been trashed. Torn to fucking shreds. Everything had been destroyed. Looked like they were after something,” Gage informed me. I should have gone but I hadn’t wanted to leave with Trinity here. Kye, who had recently stepped up to begin family after graduating high school, wasn’t my first choice in something like this. He wouldn’t have known what all to look for but Levi would had been thorough.

  My grip tightened on the papers. What the fuck had she gotten herself into? There was nothing incriminating after she’d hooked up with Hayes. For the six months, they had been together, her record was clear. If someone was after her, then they had to be after her because she’d been the only one not left dead in that house. She’d escaped. We’d put her on their radar.

  “Fuck,” I grunted, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with her.

  “Want me to get a room ready for her?” Gage asked, still grinning.

  I glared at him. I knew what the fucker was thinking. He wanted her at his disposal. That shit wasn’t happening. She might be a liar and a slut, but at least Hayes hadn’t died without having had a hot piece of ass. Slamming the papers down on the desk, I turned to see Levi walking into the office.

  “You look thrilled about the sis-in-law,” he drawled with a smirk. “Her place is torn the fuck up. Barely found her anything worth salvaging. She can’t go back there, so I vote she stays here. We need a cook. Gina’s gone, and I’m tired of not getting a hot meal.”

  “I’m behind that idea,” Gage piped up. “She can take Gina’s spot. In the kitchen and on my cock.”

  Like hell. He’d been ready to kill her. Held a gun to her head twice. Fucker wasn’t getting his damn cock anywhere near her.

  “No,” I said, stalking toward the door.

  “To the cooking or the fucking?” Levi asked.

  “Only cock she’s riding is mine,” I growled before walking out. “And only once or twice,” I muttered. Just to fuck her out of my system.

  I’d had to rub one out after getting sucked off and fucking the bitch I’d had over earlier. Seeing those big brown eyes watching Destiny between my legs messed with me. That juicy, bare ass was the reason I’d needed an outlet to begin with. Then, she’d appeared, and I’d gagged Destiny with my load.

  Hayes would hate me for this. Even if he’d known about her past. But I wasn’t Hayes. I didn’t have damn morals. I fucked when and how I wanted to. No remorse, no attachments. And Hayes was dead.

  Slamming my fist into the brick wall, I took out my frustration.

  Seven

  Trinity

  It was two hours before I heard footsteps on the stairs. I’d sat silently on the sofa, staring at the wall, trying not to think about what I’d seen.

  How was I going to look at this man after all this? Please let me be going home now.

  I didn’t turn to see him walk into the room. I stayed where I was, studying my hands that I twisted in my lap. A tray of food was put down on the coffee table in front of me, and my stomach growled at the sight of the pizza. Old habits died hard, and my first thought was to grab a piece of pizza and cram it in my mouth while I had a chance. Thankfully, years of teaching myself control kept me from embarrassing myself further.

  Lifting my gaze to meet his, I started to say thank you, but he spoke first.

  “Take a bath or shower when you want. Here is a shirt you can sleep in. There are extra toothbrushes under the sink,” he said, then turned and headed to leave me.

  I stood up quickly. “Wait. You’re leaving me down here? All night?”

  He stopped and turned back around to look at me. “Yes.”

  “Why? You checked me for a tracker. Can’t I go home now?” Please let me go home.

  I couldn’t stay down here. No matter how nice it was, I was exhausted from battling my inner demons to keep myself alert.

  He shook his head. “No,” he replied, then turned and went back to the stairs.

  I opened my mouth to plead with him, but he was gone. I stood there, feeling hopeless. When the door upstairs closed, I sank back down and looked at the pizza. Grabbing a slice, I began to eat it like the starved kid I had once been. He wasn’t going to make me go without food. Perhaps he was just waiting on the background check to come back. How long did those take?

  Swallowing the slice, I grabbed another, but didn’t eat it as quickly. My stomach would rebel if I ate too much. I picked up the bottle of water he’d brought and took a long drink.

  This was going to be fine. I’d faced worse. I could survive this.

  Finishing the pizza, I drank down the rest of the bottle of water, then stood up to go get a shower. I felt dirty and wanted to wash this day from my body. The threat of anxiety tried to creep in, and I fought it. This would not get to me. I could live through this. They would see I was harmless soon and let me go.

  The warm water washed over me, and I imagined it was cleaning me of all I’d been through. I soaped my body twice and washed my hair three times before finally stepping out of the shower and drying off. The T-shirt that Huck had left for me was huge. It had to be his. I took the fabric and held it to my nose to inhale. It smelled like him. I slipped it on over my head, and it hung off one shoulder and hit me just above my knees.

  Sighing at myself in the mirror, I turned out the lights to the bathroom and went to the king-size bed. Taking a pillow from it and the blanket folded up on the end, I went to the sofa and lay down. I didn’t know if Huck intended to sleep in that bed or not tonight, but I wasn’t going to be in it if he did return.

  Opening my eyes, I blinked, confused as I looked around the room. Where was I? Sitting up, I realized I was on a sofa, and with that, it all came back to me. I was in a basement, being held prisoner by my dead fiancé’s criminal older brother. I stretched out my legs and dropped my head back on the sofa. Would today be the day I could go home? Unsure of the time, I walked over to a lamp and turned it on, then looked at my watch. It was seven thirty-three.

  I glanced back at Huck’s bed, and it looked exactly how it had last night. He hadn’t slept down here. Hopefully, he’d return soon, and I could go.

  I looked around for the television remote and found it on the table beside the recliner. Picking it up, I managed to figure out how to turn it on and change the channels. It was complicated, so I stayed with the basics. I stood there, flipping through the channels until I found the local news. Once I had some other voices to fill the silence, I put the remote down and went to use the bathroom and get myself ready to go home.

  Twenty minutes later, when I stepped out of the bathroom, my eyes locked on Huck, and I stopped. He stood, scowling at the sofa as if it offended him. I waited until he noticed me, afraid to say anything. I still didn’t know what to think of this man. Should I be afraid of him, feel safe with him, stop noticing how attractive he was?

  His gaze lifted to find me standing across the room, watching him.

  “You slept on the sofa.” He sounded angry.

  I nodded, unsure if that was an insult of sorts.

  “Why?”

  I tucked some hair behind my ear. “I, uh, well, that’s your bed. I didn’t think you’d want a stranger in it.”

  His scowl deepened.

  “Sit down,” he demanded.

  I wondered if anyone had ever told this man no. The way he ordered me around made me want to stand my ground, but then there was the other part of me that knew better than to push the person in charge. I walked over to the sofa and sat down, telling myself that I’d get to leave soon and I’d never have to lay eyes on him again. Which was a good thing because the dirty, twisted part of me, which I had worked so hard to hide from the world, was attracted to this brutal killer. No amount of ipecac would get that demon out of me. But then it had never worked when Tabitha shoved it down my throat. Whatever demons she thought were inside of me hadn’t left. My boobs had only gotten bigger. If she had known about my sexual thoughts and the books I read, she’d never have let me sleep under her roof while I dated Hayes.

  Huck didn’t sit down, but remained towering over me while he looked down at me. “For six months, you had to put on a fucking good act for my brother.”

  The disgust was clear in his tone and expression. I was used to disgust. I’d grown up with it in my face daily. But seeing it on his face bothered me.

  What all had he found out about me? How much could he have learned in such a short time? Did those things I had been wrongfully accused of show up? And why the heck did I care if Huck Kingston was disgusted with me?

  Fine! Be disgusted with me. But get in line, buddy. You aren’t the first one.

  “Hayes would never have put a ring on your finger had he known the truth, but then you know that. How did you think you were going to pull off being a minister’s wife?” He let out a hard laugh then. “You were good at it. I was even fucking fooled at the funeral.”

  I fisted my hands in my lap. I would not let this man get to me. He wasn’t a saint. His judgment was laughable. At least I’d never killed anyone. I should be disgusted with him.

  “Not gonna defend yourself?” he asked, raising one eyebrow as he looked down at me. “Not gonna tell me that you can explain things? You had to have made up some crock-of-shit story to tell my brother in case he ever heard the truth about how you’d lost your scholarship and when. Because it sure as fuck wasn’t a year ago, when you’d finally gone back home.”

  He bent down until his eyes were level with mine. The disgust was still there, but I saw something else. Something that should send me running from this room and this house. It wasn’t the first time a man had looked at me like that. I knew what it meant. I’d learned from Roy that a man could be disgusted with you and feel lust at the same time.

  “And to think, I had felt like a fucking asshole for making you take off your clothes for me,” he said, tilting his head as a slow, sadistic smile spread across his face. “Then, you spread those legs and bent over, and that pink pussy was glistening with your arousal. I should have known it then.”

  His hand shot out, and he grabbed my face with his massive hand. Squeezing my chin so hard that I wanted to cry out from the pain, but I didn’t. I was afraid to move or make a sound.

  “You played that part so well. Embarrassed to strip for me when you had done it for money. And my baby brother never knew, did he?” He let go of my face, shoving it away from him as he stood up.

  He had found out I’d worked at a strip club for almost six months. No one knew that. I’d worn a wig, colored contacts, and gone by a different name. I hadn’t applied to be a dancer. I didn’t think anyone would want to see my body naked. I started as a server. I was just required to wear a short skirt and pasties over my nipples. After one week, they convinced me to get onstage. Customers had wanted me up there, and the money was the reason I gave in, but I would have done anything to keep from having to go back to my father’s house. Tabitha had made my life a living hell. She was the reason I’d studied so hard in school, determined to get a scholarship to a college as far away from her and the home I’d been forced to live in.