She reached out to lightly touch the ridged skin of one of those scars. “How…?”

  “I’ve…done things, during the years since we last met,” Sinclair admitted flatly. “Some of them I can never tell you about in specifics because then you might feel obliged to report them to the police.”

  Remy studied him searchingly for several long minutes. “Does one of those ‘things’ have something to do with the fact the police failed to find Cathy’s kidnappers and murderers, but that evidence found ten months later at the premises where three men were shot and killed revealed they were the men responsible?”

  Sinclair’s eyes were glacial. “The police closed that particular case as being an argument over money between the three men, with the result they shot and killed each other.”

  “And yet you knew, without a name or date being mentioned, exactly which shooting I was referring to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow,” Remy murmured softly, aware she was inwardly shaking.

  Because she was shocked and horrified at the thought of Sinclair being responsible for those deaths, possibly with or without the assistance of his brothers?

  Strangely, no.

  Yes, like most people, she would hope that the law and justice would prevail. Unfortunately, often because of stupid technicalities or lack of admissible evidence, it very often didn’t.

  Did she approve of vigilante justice?

  No, but she understood the frustration behind it.

  How a parent’s heartbreak over losing a child could turn to hatred and a need for revenge.

  How a victim’s inability to forget or forgive an attack became a physical need for that attacker to receive retribution.

  She completely understood Sinclair’s frustration with the lack of legal recourse against the men who had kidnapped and murdered his wife.

  It was the thought of him being hurt, possibly killed, that filled her with dread.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Is that the only…incident of that kind you’ve been involved in?” She recalled Mal saying Sinclair was the best hunter he knew.

  “No,” Sinclair admitted grimly.

  “How many others?”

  “A lot.”

  “How do you know who to look for?”

  “I have a room full of police monitors and other surveillance equipment in the room beneath this suite.”

  “And from there, you decide who deserves justice and who doesn’t?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that a dangerous precedent? What if you’re wrong?”

  “I never am.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “I never make a move unless I am one hundred percent sure. Sometimes it takes months or years to confirm guilt, added to which I always ensure they confess to their crimes before proceeding,” he dismissed coldly.

  Remy shuddered. “Before you kill them.”

  “Not always,” he bit out. “Sometimes, if I think the police will be successful in a conviction, I just ensure that the guilty, along with the evidence against them, are delivered to the appropriate authority.”

  “And sometimes you’re shot or injured while you’re doing that?”

  “Yes. But we have a doctor on call twenty-four-seven if anything like that happens.”

  Remy shook her head. “Having a doctor on call to attend to gunshot wounds sounds like something the mafia or bratva would do.”

  Sinclair smiled slightly. “This doctor we helped find and then returned his daughter to him when she was kidnapped. Neither he nor I have any connection to the mafia or bratva. I don’t believe they’re exempt from justice either.”

  “I read in the newspapers about the court case and then later the death of the Russian that kidnapped the woman who’s now Adam’s wife.”

  “I wasn’t responsible for that.”

  “Because Adam was?” she guessed shrewdly. Adam had been in the special forces for many years and was now a part owner of Kingston Security.

  Sinclair shrugged. “As I’ve already told you, I won’t confirm or deny specific cases.”

  “You said ‘we’ just now. Does that mean all your brothers know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes. Casper most of all, because he’s the tech expert of the family.” Sinclair eyed her derisively. “Still think you might want to ‘explore’ a physical relationship with me? A man who has just told you he serves his own form of justice on people who, for one reason or another, have escaped being given lawful retribution for their crime?”

  She should say no. Should take herself as far away from the vigilante warrior Sinclair had become as she possibly could.

  One look at Sinclair’s mocking expression was enough to tell her that’s what he expected her to do.

  What he wanted her to do?

  Not because he didn’t want her, because the evidence of his arousal was still pressed against the front of his perfectly tailored trousers.

  No, Sinclair wanted her to back off because he wanted her. Because he would prefer to continue shutting himself and his emotions away in this turret.

  Remy wasn’t about to allow him to do that.

  There was also the chance, if they were involved, even for a short time, that she might even be able to persuade him into letting the law deal with more of those people—

  “I’m not one of those ‘lost causes’ you were always becoming involved with when you were younger.” Sinclair cut harshly into her thoughts. “I don’t need someone to understand me or help me find redemption for my sins, or any of that other crap so many do-gooders use to persuade themselves their interference in what other people do with their lives is excusable. I deliver justice when the law won’t or can’t, and I’m not about to stop doing that because you ask me to.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Yet,” he said knowingly.

  Despite what he’d just admitted to, Remy still believed that under that hard exterior this was the same Sinclair she’d been in love with for most of her life. The family man. The loving man. A man who loved to laugh and spend time with the people he loved. She could never walk away from that Sinclair.

  Instead of answering him, she grasped the bottom of her T-shirt to pull it up and over her head before dropping it on the tiled floor. She then reached back to unfasten her bra and slide the straps down her arms before dropping the scrap of pale pink lace on top of her T-shirt. She didn’t look up until her fingers moved to the fastening of her low-rider jeans.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sinclair breathed shallowly and he watched beneath lowered lids as Remy removed her T-shirt and bra. Her skin was smooth, with the color and luster of pearls. Her breasts were small and uptilting and tipped with dark and engorged rose-colored nipples.

  Sinclair groaned as he imagined licking and then sucking those plump nipples into his mouth. Would they taste of the same ripe apricots too?

  He didn’t have time to speculate further as, having slipped off her trainers and unfastened her jeans, Remy began to wriggle her hips and bottom so that she could push the tight-fitting material down her hips and thighs. His cock began to throb painfully.

  She wore matching pale pink panties beneath, the cluster of dark curls on her mound visible through the lacy material when she straightened from discarding the jeans.

  Remy arched one dark brow. “Shouldn’t you remove the rest of your clothes too if we’re going to take a shower together before my spanking?”

  Sinclair knew what he should do was put an end to this.

  Now.

  What he was going to do was something else entirely.

  He didn’t look away from Remy as he unfastened his trousers and dropped them to the floor, along with his boxers, before stepping out of them.

  Remy drew in a sharp breath, her eyes deepening in color as she stared at him with a hunger that caused Sinclair’s already engorged cock to pulse and leak pre-cum.

  “You’re beautiful,” she admired.

  “I doubt that.” Sinclair didn’t make a habit of looking at himself naked in a mirror. In fact, he never did that, but he still knew that his body wasn’t the same lithe and smooth one it had been twenty years ago. Grizzled was probably a better term for it, with those scars decorating his skin front and back, the hair on his chest and groin as much salt as pepper.

  “That’s for me to decide.” Remy gave him a chiding glance before stepping closer to him, her engorged nipples almost brushing against his chest. “Take off my panties,” she instructed huskily. “On your knees,” she added when his hands moved to the top of her panties.

  Sinclair’s breath caught and held, and he looked at her searchingly for several long seconds, noting and appreciating the challenge in her gaze, before he slowly sank to his knees on the hard tiled floor.

  No doubt he’d pay for that later, but right now, he was more interested in removing Remy’s last piece of clothing.

  Remy breathed shallowly as she watched the intensity of Sinclair’s gaze fixated on her while he hooked his thumbs into the top of her panties and slowly drew the material downward to reveal the trimmed dark and glossy curls on her mound. Curls that were already damp with her arousal.

  Her cheeks burned when, instead of removing her panties completely, Sinclair left them halfway down her thighs and placed his hands back on her hips.

  She gasped, her hands moving to grasp his shoulders as he leaned forward to bury his face in those dark and damp curls.

  “Apricots,” he murmured with satisfaction after drawing in a long and deep breath. “Delicious.” He pulled her panties the rest of the way down her legs to remove them before his hands returned to grip her hips. He then nudged her feet apart with his knees before burying his face even deeper into her sex.

  Remy’s back and neck arched the moment she felt the moist sweep of Sinclair’s tongue against her already sensitive clit. Her legs began to shake when he continued to stroke that moistness against her swollen nubbin, hard and then soft, over and over again, until Remy knew herself to be on the edge of a climax so intense, it threatened to bring her to her knees.

  Which was precisely when Sinclair decided to sit back on his heels before rising smoothly to his feet. “Time for a shower.”

  Remy stared at the flexing muscles in his back as he stepped away to open the shower door and turn the water on to what was obviously his preferred preset heat level.

  “Are you joining me?” he invited lightly as he stepped inside the large shower cubicle. “I’d like to get to the spanking part of the day sooner rather than later,” he announced.

  Her eyes narrowed, watching through the glass as he squeezed shower gel into his palm and began to wash himself as if she weren’t standing completely naked—and deeply aroused—on the other side of that glass.

  Bastard!

  Remy didn’t doubt for a moment that Sinclair had left her unsatisfied deliberately. Maybe it hadn’t been his intention at first, because she’d seen the hunger to taste her in his eyes as he’d looked at her searchingly before sinking to his knees. But she didn’t doubt that his having left her aching and hungry for release was another punishment, this time for having asked him to get on his knees for her.

  Fine.

  She was up for that challenge.

  Remy lifted her chin before stepping into the cubicle beneath the spray of hot water, closing the door behind her. Once her hair was wet and slicked back, she found the shower gel Sinclair was no longer using and squeezed some into her palm before returning it to the glass shelf.

  Sinclair watched her warily, but didn’t speak.

  Remy didn’t spare him so much as a second glance as she began to slowly soap and then caress her now-slippery breasts. She groaned as she pulled on her swollen nipples before one of her hands moved down to soap and then stroke and rub against the aching nubbin between her thighs.

  Fuck!

  Sinclair’s already engorged cock gave a throb when he realized exactly what Remy was doing.

  He’d never witnessed a woman pleasure herself before outside of a movie or TV program, and then it was only as part of a role being played. But he had absolutely no doubt that was exactly what Remy was currently doing.

  And it was hot as fuck!

  Remy’s lashes were lowered, and she was groaning her pleasure as one of her slender hands cupped beneath her breast, the thumb and index fingers pulling on the engorged nipple.

  The fingers of her other hand had parted the folds between her thighs and were now stroking her visibly red and swollen clit.

  Sinclair had had at least a dozen sexual partners before his marriage, then been a faithful husband for fourteen years, but he knew he’d never seen anything as erotic as watching Remy as she lost herself in the throes of self-pleasure.

  A part of him wanted to push her hands out of the way, put his own in their place, and finish giving her that pleasure himself. But he also didn’t want to stop watching her.

  It was a pleasure she was deliberately showing him she was capable of giving herself after he’d denied her that release.

  He’d done that as a punishment, as a lesson to Remy that he wasn’t going to fall on his knees whenever she asked, or ordered, him to.

  Which she’d known, of course, and that was why she’d decided to turn the tables and punish him.

  He really was going to enjoy every moment of spanking her delectable arse.

  But first…

  “Oh.” Remy gasped in surprise the moment she felt warm lips surround the nipple she wasn’t tugging on and squeezing, her breathing becoming ragged when that turgid flesh was sucked into the heat of Sinclair’s mouth.

  She looked down to where he sat on the bench seat that ran the length of the back wall of the shower. His cock was long and thick, with a vein running the length of it to the bulbous and glistening top. His lips were no longer stern, but parted and wrapped around the whole of her nipple and areola, which were being sucked completely inside the heat and pleasure of Sinclair’s mouth. Pale blue eyes were looking up at her as he continued to suck just short of pain.

  Remy stilled when one of Sinclair’s much larger hands left her waist to cover the hand between her thighs. His palm pressed against her fingers, encouraging her to continue stroking her clit.

  Remy drew in a ragged breath as one of his long and slender fingers stroked and then breached the slick lips of her channel. Two of those wet fingers thrust inside before curling to caress what Remy quickly realized must be the elusive G spot some people said didn’t exist while others merely smiled smugly. Whatever it was, the press and stroke of Sinclair’s fingers against that collection of nerves sent Remy into an instant climax. Only Sinclair’s hand tightening about her waist stopped her knees from no longer supporting her.

  Her back arched as wave after wave of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known before coursed hotly through her channel to the rest of her body. Sinclair prolonged that ecstasy with his lips and teeth on her breast, the hard press of his palm against her pulsing clit, and the hard strokes of his fingers against that bundle of nerves inside her.

  Remy was still lost in that body-melting pleasure when the water stopped cascading down on them and Sinclair tipped her over his thighs. One of his arms was like a steel band across her back, and his other hand landed painfully on her bare bottom.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Fucking hell!”

  Sinclair’s arm tightened across Remy’s back as she tried to rear up in response to being spanked. “There won’t be any fucking for now, Remy.” No release whatsoever, it seemed, for his straining and engorged cock. “Right now, I think you deserve a spanking more,” he bit out between gritted teeth as his palm landed on her hot flesh several more times, Remy letting out indignant shrieks as he alternated those smacks on her rapidly reddening bottom cheeks. “Your behavior in staying at your parents’ home after the break-in was not only reckless, but dangerous.”

  She turned to glare at him over her shoulder. “As I haven’t set eyes on you for five years, I don’t consider it any of your business what I choose to do now!”

  The fact Remy kept specifically mentioning how many years he’d disappeared from her life told Sinclair how much his absence had, and still did, hurt her.

  Years when he’d only just been managing to hold himself together emotionally. Even before Cathy was kidnapped, it had been difficult. Dealing with other people’s emotions after she was murdered had been something he simply couldn’t do. Unfortunately, Remy had become part of the fallout from the necessity of cutting Cathy’s brother and sister-in-law from his life.

  It had been Remy’s decision to seek him out today. To realize he was no longer that indulgent uncle-by-marriage he’d once been to her.

  “I’m making it so. Besides”—Sinclair’s nostrils flared as he breathed in that now-familiar scent of apricots as indication of her arousal—“I think you’re enjoying being spanked.” His aching cock throbbed each time his palm connected to her heated flesh.

  “I am not!” she stated indignantly.

  Sinclair ran his fingers lightly between her thighs, easily able to feel the increasing slickness on the swollen and sensitive lips of her channel. “All evidence to the contrary.”

  “Let me up, you—you bastard!” Her nails dug painfully into his calves.

  Sinclair answered by spanking her harder, first one cheek, then the other, all accompanied by Remy’s calling him increasingly insulting names.

  He’d worked up quite a punishing rhythm on those hot and throbbing cheeks by the time the insults turned into sobs.

  He instantly stopped spanking her before turning and lifting her gently until she was seated on his thighs and sobbing against his chest, his arms about her as she clung to him.

  Sinclair let her cry. Dealing with the trauma of the past month—her parents dying and the break-in and wrecking of the Mitchells’ home just two days ago—had to have been a nightmare for her. He knew Remy had no family still living, both sets of grandparents having died when she was young, and she didn’t seem particularly enamored with the man she’d gone out on a date with two evenings ago. Which probably meant she’d been keeping her emotions in check all this time and this meltdown was long overdue.