"Sounds like a good plan. So about this penance you have to pay, what does it involve?"

  I grinned. "Well, it's very important work you see." I shifted to slide my hands up her bare legs. The skirt she wore was of some kind of twirly, frilly, flower-patterned thing that flared out, showcasing her gorgeous legs.

  As my hands slid up over her knees to her thighs, she licked her bottom lip. "Mr. Edgerton, just what are you up to, sir?"

  "I'm apologizing."

  "I like you apologizing. Feels nice."

  "I apologize very, very well. So since we're here, part your thighs for me. I want to see what I'm working with as I dig into this apology."

  She laughed at that. "Well, as apologies go, you should probably be thorough."

  "I mean to go very, very slow. I want to make sure that it's done well."

  "No rushing through it."

  "Yes ma'am."

  Emma's smile was infectious. I would never forget the way that she laughed, but her smile was my favorite thing. Like I was the only person on earth worthy of her smile.

  When my fingers reach the edge of her panties, she bit the corner of her lip. "I'm so curious how you are going to choose to apologize today."

  "Well, there are so many ways to apologize. Why don't you lay back and let me figure it out."

  With a giggle, Emma laid back. And with the pressure of my palms on her thighs, she separated them. She was wearing pink silk today, and that scrap of next to nothing over her brown skin was enough to make me salivate.

  "Why are you so perfect?"

  "I don't know. Just the way that I am. Isn't it amazing?"

  I nodded, slightly shifting her knickers to the right with my thumb. Looking at my prize. I gently blew on her clit, and Emma moaned.

  "Oh my God, Bridge."

  "I haven't even done anything yet. Prepare thyself to be amazed." The moment she laughed I dove in and stole a lick. The convulsing shudder she gave me was my reward.

  Emma's fingers dug into my hair. "You're teasing me."

  "Yes. I am just a little. But I recognize that this is an apology and I should take it seriously." I slid my finger to her entrance, ready to slide it in. But she was tight. My gaze flickered up to hers. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded even as her teeth grazed her bottom lip. "I just need to relax. I’ve been tense for a minute."

  “That’s my fault, love,” I whispered as I leaned forward, gently rubbing her a clit, and I watched her entrance as I could feel her soft opening clenching around my finger bit by bit. "Now, it's my job to make you nice and ready. Isn't it?"

  "Yes, sir. Do your worst."

  And I did.

  When I drew my mouth back, she whimpered. "Where are you going?"

  Before she could protest more, I tapped two of my fingers straight over her clit.

  That elicited a scream. "Holy shit."

  Her fingernails dug into the pillow as I dove back in, my hands widening her legs even further until she was splayed out with one leg over the back of the couch and one planted on the ground, making room for me and my shoulders. I licked from the bottom of her slit to the top using the flat of my tongue, letting her flavor soak over me. Cotton candy and something spicy. She melted over me, and fuck it was all I ever wanted.

  She started to rock her hips into me, and I dipped my tongue inside. Emma grasped my hair and dragged my face into her cunt. Grinding against my mouth. "Yes, right there, Bridge."

  It was on that second grind, that I slid a finger deep inside her.

  And she groaned her pleasure. There was no resistance now. She was soaked and slippery, and I lapped up her juices hungrily. I could not get enough.

  I scooped my hands under her arse, holding her cheeks firm, unrelenting.

  When her thighs clamped around my ears and her legs started to quiver, I knew what was happening, but I didn't stop. Instead, I shifted positions and planted my mouth over her clit and sucked hard. Over and over and over in a steady pulse until she was begging, her head thrashing on the pillows. "Oh my God. I can't. I can't. No more."

  But I just kept up the onslaught with my fingers and sucking. That was my only job. My fingers kept up the steady pace of thrust and twist and retreat with a slight cupping motion. And with every slide of the cupping motion, my fingers tickled that sensitive spot inside, and Emma's hips rose, grinding her even harder into my mouth.

  She was so wet, her juices flowing down my chin and over that pretty asshole. When I slipped one of my fingers from her pussy and circled it over her arse, all she could do was groan and whisper, "Oh God, yes. Please. God, oh my God, please."

  Using gentle pressure, I was fucking both holes and sucking on her clit, and Emma's whole body was convulsing in my arms as she begged, "I can't. Please, Bridge."

  After the third time that her legs started to quake, I picked up the pace and came up for air to watch but I didn't slow my fingers. Instead, I added my thumb to her clit.

  I watched her face as it contorted. Her eyes went wide as her whole body opened to me. This was my Emma. Completely unabashed, completely unrestrained. This was my wife.

  Her gaze flickered down to mine and our gazes locked, and I watched as she completely broke apart in my arms.

  Her pussy and arse clenched around my fingers, and I helped her ride that wave of orgasm by keeping that steady thumb on her clit. This time her legs tried to close, and she tried to curl into a ball. "Oh my God. I don't even think I can—"

  Gently I eased my fingers out of her and picked her up. "Let's get you upstairs. There was a lot of screaming happening. I don't want security getting curious."

  All she did was nod in my arms as I carried her. Once we were at the stairs, she lifted her head and met my gaze. "And here I thought you were going to get the lube."

  That one phrase. This woman, was trying to end me.

  "Oh God. Now that you mention it, that's a very, very good idea."

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Emma

  I shifted uncomfortably in the seat as I looked out at the hospital. Out this far, hospitals like this looked the way you expected them to in gothic romances. Beautiful manor homes that had been converted to look after those who are mentally ill. The facilities were immaculate.

  But I couldn’t shake the sense of heaviness and melancholy.

  In the car next to me, Drew tutted. “Don’t worry, it’s not like I'm going to leave you."

  “That’s not what I was worried about.”

  He slid me a glance that told me he knew what I was thinking. "What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I swear it’s like you’ve never seen American Horror Story or read any gothic romance. Actually, you know what? Never mind.”

  Drew chuckled. “I never really had an overactive imagination, Ems.”

  “Mine's not overactive; it’s highly accurate.”

  He laughed. “Sure. Highly accurate imagination.”

  “I get the impression you’re making fun of me.”

  “No never. Especially not when you hold my sanity in your hands. One word from you and they will lock me up forever.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine, make fun of me if you want, but it’s true.”

  “Come on. They’re expecting us. I’m Elite. They can’t touch you. Besides if they tried I’m pretty sure Bridge would raze this place to the ground.”

  I smirked at that. “Yes, exactly.”

  Drew parked near the garden. Around the right side of the building, there were people on the lawn doing yoga. There were several people walking around as well. It seemed absolutely normal. Like the kind of place you would go into recovery or something.

  When we entered, reception was easy enough to find. The woman at the front desk pointed us through the administrative offices where we met Dr. Webb.

  “Mr. Wilcox, Mrs. Edgerton. Come on in.”

  We both took a seat across from her.

  She clasped her hands. “As you know, I can’t tell you anything. I really do hate that you wasted a trip all the way out here. Unless one or both of you are seeking treatment yourselves?”

  I grinned at her. “I see what you’re doing there. No, neither of us is seeking treatment. People know where we are. Know the reputation of this place.”

  She tsked. “You really mustn’t listen to rumors. Is this something you do often?”

  Again, I didn’t bite. “There’s nothing you can tell us about Francis Middleton?”

  “I already explained to Interpol when they called. I cannot, and you know that.”

  We’d expected this. “Okay, that’s fair. We would never ask you to divulge a patient’s treatment. But can you tell us the sorts of things that you typically treat here?”

  She narrowed her gaze. “You’re well aware of what we treat.”

  “I would like you to clarify so that we can make sure we’ve heard everything correctly.”

  She sighed and sat back. The way she stared at me as if she was trying to dissect a bug made my skin crawl. “We take those with dissociative behavior disorders. Paranoia. And we help to rehabilitate them.”

  “So you have lots of sociopaths running around then.”

  “Some of the personality disorders that we deal with are vast. And we are helping our patients here. We hesitate to put people back out in the world who aren’t ready to be integrated into society yet.”

  I nodded. “And exactly how do you help sociopaths?”

  She frowned. “I think you mean psychopaths. We use a series of behavior modification exercises along with constant and prolonged therapy. There are also some medications that can help tamp some of the urges, but empathy, unless connections are made, can be next to impossible.”

  “Right. And given that that can be difficult, what do you do for the safety of the public?”

  “Well, the public are not at risk. We are more focused on individual assessment and rehabilitation.”

  Drew was getting impatient.

  He took something from his lapel and slid it across the table. It looked like a black key. Suddenly her demeanor changed, and her spine went ramrod straight. “This is highly irregular."

  Drew smiled. “We are aware. Now give us the files.”

  I unhinged my jaw. “What the hell is going on?”

  When she stood and went to one of the side doors. I frowned. “Drew, what is going on?”

  “That black key is a get out of jail free card for anyone who is aware of the Elite. Anyone who has it can call in a favor, whatever it may be that they’re in trouble with, and it goes away. We are a secret society of the vicious and the rich, many of whom are sociopaths, psychopaths, or at least a budding one. Everyone has been paid off to keep them here if needed to keep certain inheritance rights and other things going. Everything can’t exactly be above board. She understands that, and she knows that once she gets in trouble, she can make a call. So she will give us what we want now.”

  I snapped my jaw shut. “Were you planning on telling me this was the play?”

  “No. But I knew she wasn’t going to give us anything. All we could do was ask the vague questions about how they treat clients. She was never going to tell us anything specifically about Middleton. But now she’s going to.”

  I scowled. “Sometimes I hate the Elite.”

  “You and me both, love. You and me both.”

  She returned with a flash drive. “This is everything I can give you.”

  I took the drive, inspected it, and handed it to Drew.

  "What’s on it?” he asked.

  She glanced at the key again before speaking. “Patient records, incidents, things we’re aware of. Things we’re suspicious of. All of our sensitive clients get taken off-line.”

  I frowned. “That’s a flash drive. Which means it’s online somewhere.”

  She swallowed hard. “With some patients, there’s quite a bit to deal with because of who they’re connected to. I didn’t feel comfortable having those kinds of files anywhere that could burn down or get robbed. I took it off the mainframe. Also, our computers are not hardwired.”

  Drew and I exchanged a glance. That would explain why East and Telly hadn’t been able to get access to the files.

  “What else is on it?”

  “You’ll see. When his father came to collect him, I made him aware that he was going to need constant care. I don’t think he took me seriously."

  “Yeah, tell us some shit we didn’t know.” I muttered.

  “And what did Lord Middleton say?” Drew prompted.

  Her brow furrowed. “Lord Middleton? Lord Middleton isn’t his father.”

  Drew and I both exchanged another look of surprise, unable to contain it. “What?” Drew asked.

  “The man I dealt with during the entire span of Francis’s treatment was Lord Edmond Edgerton."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Emma

  "Behold, the conquering heroes."

  I laughed as I handed Telly the flash drive we'd gotten from the doctor. "If only it felt like we’d conquered something."

  East tried to swipe it out of Telly’s hands, but she was too fast.

  He scowled after her, but she just cackled and ran to grab her laptop from the island in Liv’s kitchen. The late afternoon sunshine had given way to stormy gray clouds and cast the kitchen and living area in subdued lighting.

  "I will start the process. I'll have the first looky-loo."

  "At least fucking cast it up on the big monitor so we can all see it," East grumbled.

  Telly frowned. "No. You'll just insist that you helped me when you really didn't."

  "I will be quiet. I swear. I just want to see."

  "No you don't. It's mine."

  Drew leaned in. "Ah, the bloody children are at it again. Are you bad cop, or am I bad cop?"

  I shrugged. "I find it funny when they fight. I don't actually want them to stop."

  The more they squabbled the more I laughed.

  Telly was frowning at her monitor. "Okay, but what if we find something truly terrifying on there. Like other missing women?"

  "Well, it seems like he already has a pattern right? We should probably prepare ourselves to find just about anything.

  Once Telly was in, she started doing a little dance at the counter. She looked like a sprite twirling around. Grabbing a beer and making a smacking sound when she put it back down. Her antics just made East crazy.

  The one thing I did notice was that there was no accessible hard liquor anywhere in the house. Everything was neatly put away. The glasses were still available as were seltzer and all kinds of mixers. But no liquor.

  I knew the house wasn't a dry house. But since we met here more often than not, I think Ben and Liv were doing their best to make it comfortable for Drew, which was kind. Drew didn't even look like he was struggling though. Didn't even seem to mind Telly drinking a beer.

  Telly tapped fluidly on the keyboard, her fingers moving like rapid fire. And then suddenly she hooted. "Holy shit balls."

  East leaned over her shoulder. And honestly, he looked like her father. He was so enormous next to her. "What do you have?"

  "Stop crowding me." When she realized he wasn't going to move, she rolled her eyes. "Okay, let me cast it."

  She put it up on the big monitor that East had set up in the corner. One of these days Ben and Liv would get their living room back. Or so we hoped, anyway.

  Telly pointed at a couple items on the screen. "See right there. That's when he went in for treatment. His parents had reported the usual signals, missing animals, dead things found around the house. Around the property, lizards with their heads cut off, those kinds of things. Initially, you could write those off as the cat had gotten to them or something along those lines. But when they started finding dead wildlife, dead skunks, a neighbor's cat, and a puppy he had been given for his birthday… You can’t ignore that.”

  East cursed under his breath.

  Telly continued. “His mother started insisting that he go somewhere. His father was less responsive to that. And then there was this incident.” She tapped something else on her keyboard.

  A news report about Willow Brook Lane came up on the screen. Telly said, “They were out in the country at Nottingham Shire visiting relatives. There was a property that buttressed his aunt's place. Francis and his cousins had been playing with a little girl from the neighboring property. They were all playing hide and seek, and the girl fell and hit her head. Except the coroner said that her injuries were inconsistent with a fall. In the end, because all of the children claimed that they were hiding and didn't hear her cry out when she fell, they assumed that she had fallen. Or if someone had hurt her, they didn't know who it was.”

  East cursed under his breath. My stomach twisted. When Liv came down the stairs, she found all of us crowded around the monitor. "Uh-oh. What is it?"

  "Well, we have a pattern,” East said.

  Another quick tap from Telly, and we winced as she continued reading. “There was another incident where a local boy had gone missing, and they eventually found him down a well, but he survived the experience. He had been playing in the woods, and he claimed someone he hadn't seen had been stalking him. Then he claimed that he'd been pushed in the well and that the person had stood above the well looking down at him for thirty minutes as he struggled to stay afloat. Of course, no one believed him.

  “Once again, no one could point to Francis, but he had been in the vicinity. He didn't know the boy though, so most people assumed he had nothing to do with the other kid’s ‘accident.’ But that's when his mother got insistent and started contacting local psychiatrists. Several saw him, all for one session only. Which, to his mother, only proved his manipulative behavior. And that's how he ended up at the hospital.”

  Telly frowned at the screen. “One thing that was quite interesting was an independent investigation done by a private company after the authorities dropped the case.” She pulled up the name. “Wellbrook Corporation. I don't know who runs it or who hired them, but they had the well dusted for fingerprints. Guess whose fingerprints they found on that well?"