Beneath the Burn Read online

  She rubbed a thumb over his. “I have so little control over my life. I need this.” She needed to control when to be shackled, to name the limits, and to speak the safe word to stop it. So she paid the Nathan-vetted Doms to give her that. “I need those few hours of power. I know you understand this.”

  He let out a breath. “You’re resilient, you know that?”

  “I’m a survivor.” If she kept telling herself that, maybe she would be at the end of this.

  “I look at you every day and wonder how you do it, how you don’t break down under—” He squeezed her hands, swallowed “—under it. So if these appointments help you hold it together…”

  She nodded. He understood the reasons she gave. What he didn’t need to know was she used the physical pain to push her past her emotional barriers. When arousal tormented her, relief could only come from a choking restraint, the cut of a cane, the dry penetration of a cock. The notion was shameful, but each visit with a Dom guided her closer toward acceptance of her fucked-up desires.

  “I need to run a full investigation on this Duke guy again.”

  “Of course.” She straightened his fingers in her hand, tried to smooth out the tension there.

  “And I’ll be there. Right outside the room.” His mouth twitched, and it could’ve been mistaken for a smile. She knew it was nerves.

  The front door swung open and the whoosh of motoring traffic filtered in, followed by the footsteps of multiple people. The restaurant broke out in excited screams.

  “We need to go.” Nathan dug out his wallet.

  Her pulse spiked as she twisted in the booth. A crowd had gathered around the new-comers, blocking the view. Was it them? Had to be. A chill spread through her, and perspiration surfaced on her breastbone. How would she approach them without showing her face? Her plan hadn’t gone further than steering Nathan to the restaurant.

  A man climbed atop the table at the center of the commotion, his head rising above the throngs of women. Chunks of hair spiked over his large sunglasses. He shoved two fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Good evening, wonderful patrons of El Sabor Outpost. My buddies and I have a wager going, if you’ll be so kind as to oblige us. You see, they are questioning my mojo.”

  Women hooted around him, hiding his lower half, but the jerk of his shoulders implied he was thrusting his hips.

  She bent around the high back booth, craning her neck. “Let’s just wait it out.”

  “No fucking way.” He ground his teeth, flicking his eyes in every direction, and waved at the server. “Check, please.”

  Laz Bromwell, lead fucking guitarist, bounced on the table to peek over the crowd. “My friends don’t think I can get a date with the most beautiful woman in this restaurant. My manhood demands I take that bet. What do you say?”

  The women screamed and jumped up and down. Charlee’s heart mimicked in kind.

  Camera phones waved in the air. Dammit. Fuck. She flattened a hand beside her face to hide her features and met Nathan’s wild eyes. “This isn’t so bad.” Holy shit. Oh fuck, he was never going to forgive her for this.

  “We’re going to slip down that aisle on the far side and out through the kitchen.” He threw a wad of cash on the table, grabbed her hand and hauled her from the booth. “Do not look at him.”

  Shit. She couldn’t leave. Not without making contact with Jay. Where was he? She arched her neck, couldn’t see through the horde of people.

  Nathan tugged her toward the door. “Look. The. Other. Way.”

  Laz surveyed the room, making a show of eyeing each woman with his charming smile. Two others joined him on the table. The bald drummer, Rio Ketch and surfer boy bassist, Wil Sima. Where the hell was Jay?

  She dragged her feet, her heart sinking.

  Three pairs of well-known eyes locked on hers. Her heart sprinted into a marathon, urging her to run, but her legs were paralyzed. She didn’t know what had led Jay Mayard into her shop three years earlier, but this possibility of seeing him again might be the only one she’d ever get. She couldn’t walk away.

  18

  An arm wrapped around Charlee’s midsection, lifted her, and carried her toward the kitchen.

  “Wait.” She bucked against the unbreakable hold. At twenty-five years old, she could behave like a swooning fan just like the squealing girls across the room. He didn’t need to know her true intentions. “I want to meet them.”

  He growled in her ear. “I know you know the singer.”

  “What?” How the hell would he know that? She elbowed him in the ribs. “Put me down.”

  “Hey, Red. Wait. Don’t leave.” Laz pointed at her, jumped from the table, and pushed past the grabbing arms of the crowd. If she continued moving toward the back exit, would he follow? She hoped, because escaping the camera phones that would soon be turning her direction was the priority.

  A team of stiff, plain-dressed men held back the fans as Laz closed the distance.

  Nathan reached around her waist and pulled her through the kitchen doors. “This is the worst scenario imaginable. What if the paparazzi show up?” He spun them in a circle, likely scanning for an exit. “Great, just great.”

  “Hey there. Don’t hide.” A few feet away, Laz’s smile filled his adorable face, the doors swinging behind him and muffling the screams. She dropped her hands.

  “Sweet God in heaven, you are undeniably—”

  “My wife, Maylynn.” Nathan held out his hand, his jaw clenching in her periphery. “I’m Hank, the guy who cost you a bet. And we were just leaving.”

  Hank and Maylynn McGraw. Nathan’s ridiculous aliases made her fist twitch.

  “Is Jay here?” She couldn’t keep her anticipation from pitching her voice.

  Laz ignored Nathan’s hand and dropped his smile. “No. Why is he always the ladies’ first pick?

  “Where is he? Is he in New York?”

  “You’re wounding my pride, babe.” He spread out his arms. “What do you say? A date with Laz Bromwell? Since you’re married, I’ll do you both.” He shrugged. “I’m magnanimous like that.”

  The body pressed against her back turned to stone, pushing her to the side and out of view if the door opened.

  She patted Nathan’s hand where it clenched on her arm. “I think we’ll pass on the date.”

  Laz hung his head, shuffled to the door and poked his head into the dining room. “Shut down, folks. This bet is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”

  They responded in a roar of boos that rallied into “Pick me. Pick me.”

  Nathan grabbed her hand and moved them deeper into the kitchen, weaving around cook stations, his eyes probing the hallways and doors.

  Laz ran behind and skidded into her path, stopping her. “Just my luck I find the most beautiful woman on the fucking planet, and she’s taken.” He brushed a strand a hair from her face.

  The bold gesture made a slow curl through her stomach. She was such a glutton for tender touches. “What did the bet cost you?”

  His face flushed. “A tattoo.”

  A thrill kicked through her. “Any tattoo?”

  Nathan’s hand pulled her elbow. “We need to go. Now.”

  Laz laughed, and it had a nervous hitch to it. “The tat has to be a ruler.”

  “Like a king?”

  “Like a standard unit of measurement.”

  Weird. “Where?”

  He looked pointedly at his groin and back to her. “Know a good tattoo artist?”

  Nathan squeezed her hand. “Absolutely not.” He stopped a passing server. “Which door leads to the access road out back?”

  Charlee snorted. “A ruler on your dick?”

  Laz lifted his shoulders. “Marked off in inches. Or feet.” He grinned. “My friends are sick, I know. Change your mind about that date?”

  She needed money, but more than that, she needed to see Jay. “I’d consider doing the tattoo for the right price.”

  “Maylynn.” Nathan’s warning tone.

  �
�No shit? You do tattoos?” He pushed his hands through his hair and the spikes bounced back. “Five grand.”

  A Hell Yes tried to jump out of her gaping mouth. She caught it with a snap of her jaw. Think first. Then leap.

  He misread her expression. “Fine. Ten grand. I’d pay that just to stare at you for an hour with my cock in your hand.” He flashed a spread of white teeth. “I’ll double it to twenty grand if you’ll do it with your shirt off.”

  Nathan put his mouth next to her ear. “I don’t like this. They’re fucking media darlings.”

  “Twenty grand. Shirt on. In a private, secure area. No media.”

  He threw his fist up. “Done. How do I reach you?”

  She waved over a hovering waitress and borrowed a pen and a napkin. “Here’s my address.” Nathan’s office address.

  He stuffed it in his jean pocket and blew her a kiss as he walked backward toward the doors to the dining room.

  She snapped herself out of the surrealism of meeting Laz Bromwell and realized she’d never hear from him again. He didn’t have to pay for a tattoo. He’d have busty artists lining up to do it for free. And stroke him off while they did it. “Laz?”

  He put his hand on the door and raised his brows. “A parting kiss?”

  Since she hadn’t been able to find on photo of Jay without his shirt, she had to ask. “What did Jay end up doing with his tattoo? The one on his back?”

  A strange expression fell over his face, and he stared at her as if he were staring through her.

  Nathan blew out a loud exhale. “Fuck.”

  Fists banged on one of the doors behind them. A clamor of voices shouted on the other side.

  Nathan jerked his head toward Laz, his face red. “Paparazzi?”

  Laz lifted a shoulder. “Probably.”

  Shit. If their only way out was through a barrage of snapping pictures, Roy’s facial recognition software would find her.

  A kitchen rag landed on her chest, and she caught it. Nathan grabbed another one and pushed her toward the banging door. “Keep your face covered with that. Head down and away from the cameras.”

  She unfolded it and draped it over her nose and mouth as they swerved around a steel counter.

  “Wait.” Laz’s voice chased them. “Maylynn, is it? That’s your name?”

  “Keep going.” Nathan shifted them around a tiered rack of pastries.

  The back of her shirt caught and pulled taut, halting her forward motion. She looked over her shoulder, around the edge of the towel, and met Laz’s green-eyed glare.

  “There’s only one person who knows about that tattoo besides Jay and myself, and her name was Charlee. Her eyes were so blue, you’d never forget them. I know this because we have three hit songs written about those damned eyes.”

  Hers widened.

  “So tell me, Maylynn, what the fuck is your real name?” His jaw was set, his tone more forceful than she thought him capable.

  Nathan grabbed his wrist and squeezed. The fingers in her shirt flexed, released.

  “His tattoo artist must have talked.” Her voice was thready, dammit.

  Laz tsked. “I’m not an idiot. You disappeared three years ago. Now you’re—” He flicked a hand over her body “—undead and running from the press faster than we do.” He leaned against a shelf of can goods and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Our limo is waiting at the side entrance. There won’t be paparazzi there.”

  “Stay back, stay back.” Voices shouted in the dining room, just outside the kitchen doors.

  The air in her lungs cut off. Were the fans pushing in?

  “That’s our guards.” Laz grinned. “Sounds like the party wants to move to the kitchen.”

  Nathan shuffled backward, taking her with him. “Get us out of here.”

  “Right this way.” Laz jogged toward a pantry.

  19

  Charlee couldn’t tamp down her pulse as she followed Laz through the small room crowded with food supplies and into a hallway on the other side. The silent sentry at her back was in as much danger as she was if their faces were posted on the Internet. With all those camera phones, it was probably too damned late.

  A sea of fear sloshed in her stomach and robbed the strength from her legs. She stumbled, caught the edge of a shelf.

  Laz pushed the bar on an exterior door and stopped at the black limo waiting in a narrow alley just outside.

  The cool night air stirred with the rustling of litter. Cars rumbled somewhere around the corner, and there was not one flashbulb in sight. She strained her neck left to right and discovered why.

  Tall privacy gates blocked both ends of the alley, each guarded by a man in head-to-toe black. She released her breath in a puff of steam. How many bodyguards did they have?

  A woman with a stiff posture and hair combed into a severe bun opened the passenger door for them. “Good evening, Mr. Bromwell.”

  “We’re in a hurry, Tony. To the hotel, please. You’ll have to come back for the guys and the rest of the security team.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nathan placed his hand over Charlee’s Bodyguard 380. The pistol was seated inside her waistband at the small of her back. She crawled inside the limo, the leather seat aiding her slide to the far side.

  Nodding at Tony, Nathan followed her in with Laz at his heels. He settled beside her and pressed his phone to his ear. “Need a full run on the band The Burn…Yes…The musicians, promoters, managers, producers, security detail, everyone…Yes.” His arm tightened. “I’ve got her. And Crane? We’ve might’ve been exposed. Reassign someone to 24/7 facial searching.”

  They didn’t have the recognition software Roy’s company was developing, so their effort was manual and inefficient, but they looked anyway. If they found her photo on the Internet, they’d rip it down with the hope they caught it before Roy did. Her gut clenched. What a royal fucking conundrum she’d steered them in.

  Across the aisle, Laz eyed him, his lips flattened in a harsh line. He glanced at her, and an uncomfortable tension vibrated through the cabin.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed.

  “Yes…Keep me posted.” Nathan pocketed the phone and returned Laz’s glare. “Where are we going?”

  “The Plaza Hotel.”

  Nathan swung his head, looking out the windows. “Just drop us ten or twenty blocks up the road. We’ll take the subway back.”

  The hotel would be a cluster of fan girls. Didn’t stop the too-curious-to-be-rational part of her from speaking up. “Is Jay there?”

  “Depends.” Laz leaned into his arms bent on his spread knees.

  “On?”

  A battle of who-has-the-fiercest-glare launched between the men. She snapped her fingers in front of Laz. “On?”

  He didn’t unlock the stare down. “On if this guy is FBI or DEA or any of the other acronyms that would cause a rash in my ass.”

  Nathan blew out his cheeks and tapped his fingers on his knees.

  “Also depends on how much more damage you plan on doing to my best friend.”

  “Let us out.” Nathan thumped a fist on the divider behind the driver.

  “I want to know what the fuck is going on.” Laz scowled at her. “You’re dead. Then you’re not dead. Do you have any idea what you did to him?”

  Was she responsible for Jay’s damage? By leaving an unfinished tattoo him? Had she made his pain worse by giving him a design he didn’t want? She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, but a wanting need to fix it pulled at her heart.

  She clasped Nathan’s chin and made him look at her. “He just saved our asses from a media nightmare. A nightmare I led us into.”

  His jaw hardened beneath her fingers.

  “That’s right. I picked the restaurant knowing I might run into them. I will see this through.”

  “No. No fucking way.” He shoved her hand away, twisting in the seat and eyes flicking over the surrounding buildings and streets.

  She sucked in a breath. “You’re smotheri
ng me, Nathan. I didn’t ask you to be here. In fact, I’ve begged you to back off.”

  His gaze swung to hers, and they shared a moment of unspoken communication. She knew he walked a razor’s edge between controlling her and protecting her. His obligation revolved around repaying his self-imposed debt to his brother, and in the process, he imprisoned himself as much as her.

  Three years earlier, she’d put up with a paranoid life on the run. What did that get her? A dead boyfriend and two months in Roy’s penthouse. No more overbearing men.

  She dug deep to not buckle under Nathan’s confining eyes and filled hers with a silent command. Stop controlling.

  He closed the pregnant gap between them and patted her cheek. “Fine, but next time you’ll warn me before you parade us into the public eye.”

  She nodded and turned to Laz, swaying toward him as if her nearness would convey the prudence of her words. “I think you’ve already worked out that I met Jay in St. Louis three years ago when I gave him his first tattoo.”

  Laz leaned back and let out a long resolved breath. Then he jerked his chin at Nathan. “And him?”

  “Nathan owns a private investigation firm, but he spends most of his time keeping us under the radar.”

  The flicker of passing lights illuminated Laz’s sudden stiffness. “Private Investigation? Are you the asshole who—”

  “Yes.” Nathan scooted closer, crowding her.

  She tensed against him, preparing herself. “What is he talking about?”

  An explosion of fists pummeled the driver’s seatback. Then Laz turned and pointed one of those fists at Nathan. “That bastard told Jay you were dead. Jay went to St. Louis more hopeful than he’d been in his life, only to find out you were fucking murdered.”

  “Be careful, Mr. Bromwell.” Nathan’s voice was low, deadly. “The man who was murdered meant the world to us.”

  His face paled. “The boyfriend?”

  “And Nathan’s brother.” She squeezed Nathan’s hand as her words, and the guilt that came with them, pulsed in her chest.

  “Shit.” Laz pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, then lowered them and looked at her. “They didn’t catch him, did they? The murderer? That’s who you’re hiding from?”