Tied to His Betrayal Page 23

  Each time I kiss her neck, squeeze her nipple, thrust my hips, she’s getting wetter and wetter, hanging on the edge, ready to explode. I refuse to thrust hard and push her over the edge. We’re going to feel each other, every inch, until the end.

  Fingers laced in her hair, I angle her head right where I want it, allowing me to kiss her like I want to kiss her. Taste her. Nibble her. Own her. Tingles begin rushing up my spine as her inner walls begin milking me with the building of another release.

  “Oh, God, Darius…I’m going to…”

  I taste the saltiness on her neck. “Give me everything.”

  And just that easily, her legs quiver and her warm juices spread rapidly over me, and the vise grip on my rock-hard cock sends my hips shooting forward, my semen ejaculating deep inside her.

  Sometime later, my forehead rests against her sweaty back, both our chests heaving. She chuckles and says, “Everyone out there must have heard us.”

  “Good.”

  “Why good?”

  I kiss the sweet spot on the back of her neck. “Because if I’m going to be in the tabloids tomorrow because I fucked you in a supply closet, the story better say that I made you scream.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Ah, what a story that will be.”

  “It’ll be the best story of all,” I say, kissing her cheek.

  “And why is that?” She smiles.

  “Because it’s our story.”

  Epilogue

  Darius

  One month later, I stare at the tombstone in the middle of the large cemetery and think, I don’t remember you. I feel like I don’t even know you at all, except for what I’m learning about you from Allie. I’m sorry it took me so long to see what you went through. What he put you through. He won’t hurt anyone else, that I promise you. Especially Allie. He won’t get anywhere near her. You missed so much in my life. So now I’m going to show you something. Something that he won’t ever see. Something that I imagine would have made you very happy if you’d still been here.

  I glance over my shoulder, first noticing Allie and Micah sitting in his Bentley, with Taylor waiting a few feet in front of them. We’d all come to the cemetery together this afternoon, mainly because I had no idea where my mother had been buried. Which, in turn, had been next to her husband, under an old oak tree. My mind wants to travel to the places I think are expected. If only you didn’t die. If only I had the chance to know you. So many if only’s…

  But I have no time for that. I’ve never stayed in the past long, as I know those thoughts can turn into something major if you let them. I stare at the woman watching me closely. Taylor gave me space, but now I call her forward with a wave of my hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asks when she reaches me.

  I smile, taking her hand. “Yes, I’m good.”

  She looks so worried for me, her brows furrowed tight, but coming to the cemetery didn’t worry me. Life and death happens. Hell, shit happens, too. I simply refuse to waste any more time than what’s already been wasted.

  Of course, I can’t deny there’s still a world of guilt hanging on my shoulders that I hadn’t listened to Allie earlier and checked into my father’s story. Truth is, I believe I’d become numb to anything about my mother. My father made sure of that. And I’d been so focused on my success, gaining back all that I had lost, that I hadn’t realized I’d been fighting for the wrong thing. I cared more for money than I cared for relationships.

  As I stare into Taylor’s warm eyes, I realize from this day on, I’ll always fight for the right thing. Her.

  She’s staying silent, while I’m brushing my thumb across her soft hand, the sun beaming down on us, and I can’t stop the regret of not going to my mother when she was alive and demanding an answer for why she left, because maybe then I would have known her. But those are the scars of life. They never completely heal, but they don’t continue to bleed either.

  Taylor steps closer to me, finally breaking the silence. “I’m glad you came here.”

  “Me too,” I say, reaching into my pocket, retrieving the ripped-out magazine cover. “Because I wanted to give you this when we were here.”

  She opens the piece of paper, her brows pulling together even tighter now at the cover headline: Darius Bennett Is Getting Married! “I don’t understand this,” she says.

  “Seems like the tabloids are still printing the truth,” I tell her.

  She lifts her head, blinks at me, then glances at the cover. In that second, I grab the princess-cut diamond engagement ring from my pocket. And when she looks at me again, I drop to one knee, holding up the ring to her.

  The magazine cover flutters out of her hand before both are over her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh, God.”

  “You know I’m not good with this…sharing stuff…” I stare into her watery eyes and drop the barriers, allowing the words to come. “My life is nothing without you. It’s like I’m a shadow, always living, but somehow bathed in darkness. I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want this. I want you, not only by my side. I want you to be my wife.” I pause, letting her absorb what I’ve said before I ask, “Taylor Erickson, will you marry me?”

  “Yes!” She jumps at me, nearly sending me ass over teakettle.

  I chuckle, wrapping my arms around her waist, kissing her swiftly. When I told Allie and Micah my plans, I questioned if a cemetery would ruin the mood. But as I taste the saltiness of Taylor’s tears on my lips, I realize my worries were pointless. She understands the why behind my choices today.

  Her sweet laughter pulls me away. I see the delight shine in her eyes when I slide the ring onto her finger. “You’re happy?” I ask.

  She laughs again; this time it sounds so free. “I’m so happy, Darius. I’m so, so friggin’ happy. I love you.”

  I kiss her pouty lips. “I love you, too.”

  An eruption of clapping and whistles breaks Taylor and me apart, and then the love of my life is ripped from my arms as Allie’s hugging her. I can’t stop from smiling as they jump up and down in the way they used to when they were kids, over silly things like *NSYNC concert tickets.

  Micah smiles, offering his hand. “Congratulations.”

  I return his strong handshake. “Thank you.” And I have to admit that I see a curious edge to his eyes, as if marriage had not been something he thought about before, until this moment.

  Before I can decide if I’d give my blessing to Micah asking for Allie’s hand in marriage, my half-sister spins around to me and gestures at the tombstone. “This would’ve pleased her. A lot.”

  “I’m glad.” I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling, but I just act and grab Allie, wrapping my arms around her tight. She stiffens, and I know why; I’ve never hugged her before. But when this little fifteen-year-old girl walked into my life with a big heart and warm eyes, she turned everything upside down. For the better, I can now see. I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Are you pleased, though?”

  When I lean away, tears well up in Allie’s eyes. “I am so very happy for you and for Taylor…and for me.” She smiles, even though her chin is quivering. “And you know, I’ve been thinking about fate lately, wondering why we’ve gone through the things we’ve gone through. And I think Mom left me so I could find you. She wanted to save you in the only way she knew how, by forcing us together.”

  My throat tightens with emotion, my eyes water. “Dammit, Allie. Stop trying to make me cry.” Every time she tells me a story about our mother, I see her looking for tears.

  She laughs softly, stands on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “One day I’ll crack through all that toughness.”

  “What a goal to have,” says Micah, who smiles at me, pulling Allie into his arms.

  I reach for Taylor, bringing her close, her back pressed to my chest. I place my chin on top of her head. “Tell me a story,” I say to Allie.

  “What kind of story?” she asks.

  “Another story about Mom.”

  A tear slides down
her cheek before she wipes it away quickly and her smile warms. I see now that Allie needs this as much as I do. She wants to never forget the woman I never knew.

  “She always had this saying,” Allie begins. “No matter how bad things were, she’d always say, ‘Everything’s going to be okay,’ and somehow it always was—”

  A squeal of tires jerks my head left, and I notice Ryder’s truck coming to an abrupt stop behind Micah’s car. A second later, Ryder’s out of his truck, charging toward us.

  “Do I even want to know how you knew we were here?” I inquire when he reaches us.

  “Later,” Ryder quips, tension radiating off him. To Micah, he says, “Apparently, your money laundering story is not enough to keep the tabloids fucking happy.” He lifts a magazine up. “Now they’re coming after me.”

  I squint, reading the written words:

  Is the senator’s daughter, Hadley Winters, becoming a handful for head security detail and multi-millionaire Ryder Blackwood? Our sources say, yes! And they also tell us that the kick-ass bodyguard is madly in love with her.

  I glance up at Ryder. “What’s your plan?”

  Ryder pauses, clearly considering his choices. Then he slowly begins to smile. “I’m going to squeeze and keep on squeezing until this fucker has nowhere to hide.”

  Tension ripples in the air around us. We all knew this fight wouldn’t end with Taylor telling our story. It might have taken the heat off us, but tabloids live for dirty little secrets. And by the rage on Ryder’s face, his dirty little secret has some truth behind it.

  I look from Ryder to Micah to Allie to Taylor and say the only thing that comes to mind, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  As always, for my readers.

  Acknowledgments

  Much love to my readers; my editor, Sue; my agent, Jessica; and the entire Loveswept team for all that they do.

  BY STACEY KENNEDY

  Dirty Little Secrets

  Bound Beneath His Pain

  Tied to His Betrayal

  Restrained Under His Duty (coming soon)

  Club Sin

  Claimed

  Bared

  Desired

  Freed

  Tamed

  Commanded

  Mine

  Magic & Mayhem

  Witches Be Burned

  PHOTO: PAIGE RICHARDSON

  STACEY KENNEDY is the USA Today bestselling author of the Dirty Little Secrets and Club Sin series. She writes deeply emotional romances about powerful men and the wild women who tame them. When she’s not writing sensual stories, she spends time with her real-life hero, her husband, their two young children, and her other babies: a mini labradoodle named Jax and a chocolate labrador named Murphy. Stacey is a proud chocolate, television show, Urban Barn, and wine addict. She likes the heroes in her books like she likes her coffee…strong and hot!

  staceykennedy.com

  Facebook.com/​authorstaceykennedy

  @Stacey_Kennedy

  Read on for an excerpt from the next book in Stacey Kennedy’s Dirty Little Secrets series:

  Restrained Under His Duty

  Available from Loveswept

  Chapter 1

  Ryder

  Sexy. As. Hell. Trouble.

  I’m rooted to the shiny marble floor, watching Hadley Winters pour herself a glass of wine in the chef’s kitchen of her father’s historic Queen Anne mansion. Her back’s to me, teasing me with how her heart-shaped ass perfectly fills out her blue jeans. But the way she teases me is my punishment for a crime I never committed.

  What I feel for Hadley is worse than hunger. It’s worse than thirst. It’s even worse than pain. She’s my forbidden fruit that I crave to taste, and yet my duty as security detail to her father, Senator Gary Winters, makes her inconsumable.

  In front of her, the trees of Lafayette Park wave in the wind outside the window, and San Francisco is sunny and bright this afternoon, but my mood is anything but chipper. I do my best to avoid Hadley at all costs, but like magnets, the universe is forcing us together.

  I clear my throat to attract her attention, and she turns, her mesmerizing light green eyes catching mine and widening. A soft flush creeps over her freckled cheeks and her perfectly sculpted lips curve slightly.

  “Mr. Blackwood,” she addresses me, tucking her pale blond shoulder-length hair behind her ear.

  “Ms. Winters.” I mirror her formal address, embracing the tightness in my chest. She does that to me. She drives me fucking crazy. I step farther into the kitchen and toss the magazine I’m holding onto the counter in front of her. “I’m afraid we need to discuss this.”

  She sips her red wine, taking a good look at the cover of the tabloid magazine Gotcha!, and then flips a couple pages and reads the article: Is the senator’s daughter, Hadley Winters, becoming a handful for head security detail and multi-millionaire Ryder Blackwood? Our sources say, yes! And they also tell us that the kick-ass bodyguard is madly in love with her. She finally lifts her twinkling eyes to mine. “Unless you’re ready to admit that there’s some truth behind this story, then there’s nothing to talk about.”

  I ignore where she’s trying to direct the conversation. I need to stay on my toes around this one. She’s wickedly clever, and she has a way of getting to me and getting what she wants: my attention.

  “The tabloids have taken a sudden interest in my life,” I admit, wishing this wasn’t the case. “Which sadly means both you and your father are likely to come under the radar because I work for the senator.”

  Hadley laughs softly, leaning one elbow against the countertop behind her. “Let’s be honest here. You don’t exactly work for my father. You’re loyal to him. There’s a huge difference there.”

  She’s not wrong—the senator stopped paying me for my intel and protection a long time ago. Blackwood Security is one of the top private security detail companies in North America, and I have operatives working all over the world for top government officials, diplomats, and celebrities. But sitting behind a desk had never been my style. And I was who I was because of the senator. That debt had yet to be repaid.

  The last thing I wanted was for his daughter’s dirty little secrets to be on the cover of a grocery-store tabloid. “Listen, there are things I know about you,” I explain gently, widening my stance and folding my arms across my black T-shirt with the Blackwood logo across the chest. “Things that, because of the tabloids’ sudden focus on me, could be a problem for you.”

  She gives me a long, heated, full-body examination before addressing me again: “What things?”

  I pull out the eight-by-ten photograph I’d placed in the back of the magazine earlier and offer it to her. “This, for one.”

  The flush on her cheeks deepens and her mouth falls open. I understand why—the photograph is of herself, bound, gagged, and getting fucked in Afterglow, a local BDSM club, and it’s blatantly clear that she’s never seen the picture before now.

  Her head snaps up, eyes narrowing on me. “To be perfectly honest, Blackwood, this is none of your business.”

  “Believe me, I’m well aware of that fact,” I agree gruffly. “But let’s discuss this, shall we? If this picture found its way to me, how long do you think it would take the tabloids to get ahold of it? Your father doesn’t need a scandal like this.”

  “I’m well aware of that fact.” She cleverly uses my own words back at me.

  Which is the one thing I admire about her. I’ve seen middle-aged men cower in my presence. This twenty-five-year-old woman stands before me as an equal, and I fucking enjoy it.

  She takes another look at the picture, desire thick in the depths of her eyes, before glancing my way again. “How did this picture fall into your hands, anyway?”

  “That, I’m afraid, is not for me to share.” Because I’m as loyal to my sources as I am to her father.

  “Hmm,” she mutters. Her top teeth begin to worry her lip while she hesitates. Then she reconciles whatever’s on her mind and quick
ly continues: “Do you know if this is the only picture out there or if there are more?”

  I see her mind working behind those intelligent eyes and lean my shoulder against the door frame. “From what I know, this is the only one.”

  “Good,” she says in obvious relief, as if that’s the end of the conversation.

  We’re not even close to being done. “It would be in your best interest to stay away from any clubs or any people affiliated with these clubs until some of the heat on me dies down.” I pause, letting her process what I just said, frustrated that I can’t get a read on her. Christ, I wish I could, because the mystery of the woman before me is one of the reasons she’s so damn tempting.

  I note the lines of frustration between her brows, and I hate putting her in this position. She’s young, free, and still finding herself. I don’t want to stop her journey, so I offer, “I can arrange for you to meet with a vetted Dominant in the privacy of a well-secured location to correct this position I’ve put you in.”

  Her smirk returns, eyes twinkling. “Now do tell me: How could you possibly arrange that?”

  She’s digging for more information about me. But she’s not going to get those answers. Not today. Not ever. “I have connections to help you here, Hadley. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  Her eyes are focused intently on me again, kicking up my heart rate. This woman sees me so clearly. But maybe it’s just the innocence in her eyes and the fact that she makes me go soft.

  She leaves her place at the counter and moves closer, her spicy scent spiraling deliciously around me. “What if I said I didn’t want another man? What if I said I wanted you?”