Page 73 of Illicit Temptation

Shea sleeps soundly in her bed, knocked out from the multiple orgasms and taking my dick in her ass like a fucking champ. God, she’s tough. She can handle me. Every bit of me. My filthy desires, my dirty talk, and my carnal needs even when she’s in fucking pain.

Feeling like my world is tilting on its axis over the revelations we confessed, I complete my final nighttime walkthrough of the grounds wearing just my jeans. My dick still throbs in my pants and my brain is still wrapped in her confession about not having kids.

I truly don’t care if she can’t have children. I don’t know what this woman is doing to me. All these years I worried I wasn’t remembering correctly thinking all I needed was to live out one more fantasy with her. Get my fill and move on.

There’s no moving on for me. She’s it. She’s my forever.

This walkthrough is uneventful as usual. A thought hits me, remembering Shea had suggested I stay in the guest cottage near the pool. My brain tickles suddenly like the energy is pulling me that way to make sure it’s locked.

I hadn’t bothered checking it for two freaking months.

Crossing the back patio, I notice movement behind the fence that leads to the beach, and it stops me in my tracks. It’s a private pathway for residents on this block only. I see a dude passing by, but he stops and stands there, looking between the slats, fiddling with the iron handle to get in.

Heart pounding, I crouch down behind the bar near the outdoor kitchen. Fuck, I don’t have my binoculars. Just my gun and my phone. But my phone has ultra zoom. I snap a photo and by the time I’ve stretched it to see betterand figure out who this is, he’s picking the fucking lock.

What the hell?

Shoving my phone into my pocket, I flip off the safety on my piece sitting on my hip. The cottage door sits to my right and is on the paved path to the house from the back gate.

Is this fucking happening? Is someone breaking into Shea’s backyard? Damn, I’d gotten as complacent as she is. I steady my breathing and watch for the shadow. When it’s close, I pounce. Keeping my voice down, I tackle the fucker. While struggling, the guy pulls out a knife from somewhere and slices my arm.

The pain doesn’t even register as I wrestle the knife away from him and hold it against his jugular. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Fuck you,” he answers, and it tells me everything I need to know.

An ordinary harmless stalker starts blabbering apologies. A jealous ex asks me who the fuck I am. This guy seems to know what he’s doing. Only he brought a knife and not a gun.

Guns can be traced and bullets leave behind evidence. Knives can’t. This guy is a professional.

Swearing, I lift him easily and drag him into the cottage. Which was bleedin’ unlocked. I get the door open, and my ops training assures me no one else is in here. I’ve gotten to the point where I can smell sweat and fear.

Kicking the door closed, I slam this guy down on the ceramic floor, pushing the breakfast table out of the way. “Tell me who sent you?”

Who he is irrelevant, he’s clearly working for someone. Furious, I punch him, his nose exploding with blood.

Great.

“Talk,”I yell.

He shakes his head, struggling to get out of my hold. Itighten my grip, but he reaches for my gun, the blood making everything slick. Grabbing my gun, sohecan’t, I whack him in the head with the butt so hard the guy goes still.

Shite.

Loosening myself, I get up with my gun trained on his head. Stepping back, I watch him to make sure he’s just out cold and not dead. I can’t deal with a body right now. I quickly wipe sticky blood from my hands then clean my gun on my jeans. With it back in my pocket, I pull out my phone and launch my fingerprint app.

With a quick press, his prints are scanned, and I wait, terrified of who this is.

Beep:Matt Delano

He’s Italian. Typing the name into my phone under the images tab and adding some clever keywords, I see it.

A photo of Nico Scava. Behind him in a suit wearing a wire, is this guy. It’s Scava’s bodyguard. Or one of them. Someone on his security team. Did he draw the short straw?

I look around and mutter to the guard who worked here before me. “Soren, please tell me you left rope in here.”

After scouring a few closets, I find a duffle with rope, duct tape, zip ties, drugged darts, rounds of ammo, and a few more knives. No guns though. Smart. If he left registered guns that could have been stolen from a cottage he didn’t bother to fucking lock when he left, there would be bigger problems.

This hitman’s care pack is all I need. Including some bandages to deal with the knife wound. I clean the gash, thick from past scars and use liquid stitches. Then I wrap it up in gauze.

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