Razor's Edge: Men in Blue, Book 2 (36 page)

“Lily!” JRad snapped. They all turned, shocked, at the iron in his tone.

“Old habits die hard, sweets.” The Mistress winked, undeterred, before continuing. “They stashed some of the new formula in Isabella’s perfume. I suspect they used a weakened version to coerce her for some time. Hell, you said it was a wedding gift, yes? Probably right from the start. Father’s a genius at crafting elaborate schemes. He takes something and twists it until lances of pain jut out in every direction. I can’t tell you how much he enjoyed marrying Isabella off to Malcolm when he knew I cared for the man. Or how he delighted in rubbing it in my face at every opportunity—another thing she had that I never would.”

“Mother fucker.”

“Father fucker in this case,” Lily sneered.

Razor could see where she’d excel at intimidation.

“That asshole used the women to experiment on then sold off his damaged guinea pigs as unwilling slaves. How could I stand for that to happen? I’ve tried, for close to a year now, to unearth more information—to set things right and build a case—before he catches me and shuts me down. He’ll take me out. All I want before I die is to see him lose once.”

JRad risked his limb, and his manhood, by reaching for her. This time she allowed him to comfort her.

“I smuggled as many of the women out as I could, spent my savings to make it look like they’d been sold. I have no use for his dirty money. I placed a dozen others with men I trust, who are keeping them safe until we can figure this out.” Her veneer cracked the slightest bit when her breath hitched. “But I couldn’t save Malcolm.”

“You tried,” JRad murmured.

“Yeah, what, with a bunch of grainy pictures? I gave them to Isabella, hoping she would leave, save herself as she did.” The woman nodded in their direction. “I prayed she’d divorce Malcolm and I’d be there to break him away from Buchanan—to care for him. I should have known diminishing his usefulness to my father would end with him murdered instead.”

JRad leaned in slow, as though waiting for her to reject his advance. When she didn’t, he whispered in her ear, something meant for her alone. Whatever it was, it worked.

She calmed, sighing as some of the lines of tension faded from her creased brow. “Sometimes fate is a bitch. The manufacturing process for their drug requires precision, which is difficult to maintain when you’re hooked on your own junk. God, it must be unbelievably addictive. One of the techs fucked up and started a fire that burned their research station to the ground the day before Isabella escaped Malcolm. That’s how I was able to delay the arrival of her buyer.”

“So you’re saying…”

“Yes. The bottle Isabella has is all that’s left.” Lily grimaced. “I think they can make more or they’d have hunted her harder. Still, it takes time to rebuild. Now our father knows I’ve betrayed him. I need your help to destroy them before they can reestablish their operations. They’ll be stronger this time.”

Razor noted she didn’t beg. Not even for something she’d risked her life for many times over.

Chapter Twenty-Four

After the IV of God-knew-what had finished emptying into his system, Razor gathered their clothes then shuffled to the bathroom while Izzy held his gown shut. It’d taken him longer to recover from the stun and the drug because of his recent injuries. Plus, they suspected—since he’d lain closest to Isabella—he’d been exposed to a higher dosage of the drug.

Fuck, Lily had been right. His balls ached like he hadn’t had sex in a decade though he and Izzy had gotten it on at every opportunity over the past couple of days.

“James?”

“Yeah?” She snapped him out of his musings. His jeans crumpled in his hands. Their gowns puddled around their bare feet.

“It wasn’t me. All that time, it wasn’t me. I mean, it was. Just not because there was something wrong with me.”

“What the hell are you talking about, princess?” He lifted her until she sat on the wide sink in the stark institutional bathroom so he could look into her captivating eyes.

“Malcolm never wanted me because I’m not…dominant.” She blew out a giant sigh. “Our wedding night, it turned him on when I attacked him. He hated when I waited for him to make love to me. He came with me on top of him, when I scratched him. How didn’t I notice? Why didn’t I guess? He knew it wasn’t in my nature. He knew it wouldn’t make me happy, so he pushed me away after that. I couldn’t be what he needed. That doesn’t make me defective.”

“Jesus Christ, Izzy!” Razor slammed their mouths together, unable to think beyond his need to prove her desirability. How could she have doubted it?

When she broke for air, she added between licks and nips, “I mean, he needed help. I’ll always wish I could have seen that—could have done more—but it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t make him the way he was. I didn’t drive him to the insane place he ended up. Thank God. Thank God.”

She crushed her lips onto his, sucking his tongue into her mouth as she clawed his shoulders.

He chuckled between searing kisses. “You’re doing a damn fine job of mauling me for someone who claims to be docile.”

Izzy laughed too. “I think it’s the drug, persisting. Can you feel it? My body is humming. Like the day they took me to the dungeon at Black Lily. Do you remember? How I told about my arousal? How it felt unnatural? Inappropriate. I’m not completely fucked up. It was the drug. Thank God.”

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry I didn’t understand.” Razor wanted to say so much, to confirm her relief. He hadn’t realized she carried all that doubt and anxiety inside. And, the truth was, he
did
feel the effects. Lust coursed through his veins. His cock jammed, hard as granite, into the edge of the sink where he stood between Izzy’s spread legs. He couldn’t force himself to retreat.

“Not your fault. You couldn’t have known. I didn’t know my own reactions well enough to understand how abnormal this feeling is. It’s like my body’s on fire.” She propped her feet beside her on the porcelain then tipped her shoulders until they rested on the mirror. She ran her hands from her neck over her breasts to her pussy. “James, I’ll die if I can’t have you inside me soon.”

“Fuck, yes. I can smell you.” Her arousal hid the reek of disinfectant he’d learned to despise during his extended stay here. Making one fantastic memory would go a long way toward helping him forget the months of suffering he’d endured between these walls.

Her pink-painted toes curled over the rim of the sink when he bent to lap at the moisture drenching her. She shrieked as she grabbed the edges for support. He feasted on her flesh. He’d barely begun to whet his hunger when she tensed. She shattered, riding his face as she came apart in record time.

Izzy screamed his name

“Everything all right in there?” JRad called from the other side of the door.

“Go away,” he and Izzy hollered in unison.

Masculine chuckles drifted into nothing as their friends granted them some privacy.

“Where was I?” He growled into her sodden folds when she began to move. “Stay. I think we need to start over.”

“No, fuck me.” She tugged on his hair.

“Soon.”

“Now.”

She changed her tune when his tongue probed around the hard bump of her clit. This time he couldn’t deny himself the weight of her perky breasts resting in his palms. He pinched her tight nipples. Izzy came again, flooding his mouth with her juice.

He stood, sharing the flavor with her in a smoldering kiss.

Shuddering with continued pleasure, Isabella wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist and clung to him. The white-hot heat of her pussy pressed to the stiffest hard-on he’d ever had. It bobbed in time to his pounding heart.

Razor reached below her thigh to grasp the base of his cock. He angled it toward her as she flexed her thighs, rising up to make room. After he fit the leaking head to her opening, he grasped her hips. His hands easily spanned her back, his fingers meshing in the middle, over her spine.

Izzy moaned. She interlocked their bodies with a sinuous gyration of her abdomen. He watched in wonder as she orgasmed the moment her clit stroked his pelvic bone, his cock lodged in the depths of her pussy. Staying stationary proved impossible.

Who wouldn’t become addicted to this?

He palmed her ass, spreading the cheeks as he lifted her. Her climax extended, seeming to crest with every full stroke he made into her clenching sheath. She came and came on him, strangling his engorged shaft with impossibly strong spasms.

When gravity ceased to generate enough friction, he spun. They banged into the door. He pinned her chest with his as he pistoned into her, utilizing more force than he thought appropriate. She encouraged him with husky dirty talk, begging for more.

Razor fucked her. Hard, fast and deep until he couldn’t possibly resist the animal instincts urging him to release, to fill her greedy pussy with his come. He had to mark her, stake his claim. Because he loved her and no other man would have this with her.

“Do it. James. Make me yours.”

He groaned.

In harmony with his every move, her lids fluttered open, sharing the ecstasy he’d given her. Continued to give her inch-by-inch, over and over. The naughty grin spreading across her reddened lips tempted him beyond sanity.

“No one else will ever come inside me. Only you. God, yes.” She clenched her pussy around him. The fierce rhythm of his thrusts degenerated into spastic rams. “Do it.”

Razor shouted her name. His love. He pumped her so full, his semen overflowed her tiny pussy, dripping onto her ass and his balls. He came as she shuddered, lost in her own euphoric climax. All the while, her gaze stayed fixed on his.

She whispered a thousand times. “I love you.”

Nothing had ever sounded so sweet or felt as good as those three words, falling softly from her lips.

Razor grinned at the knowing smile on the face of each woman ringing the nurses’ station. During the months he’d spent here, these ladies had become part of his family. He could see them practically chomping at the bit for a peek of his princess.

Izzy’s manners always amused him. She knew exactly the right thing to do in any social situation. Even the awkward kind where she emerged, thoroughly fucked, from a public-ish restroom.

“Hello. I’m Isabella. It’s my pleasure to meet the women who provided such amazing care of James. Lacey told me a little about you and, I have to say, if you’re anything like her…my guy was in good hands.” She skipped the handshakes and went straight for full-on squeezy hugs. Another tendency he adored about the sprite. By the time she’d smothered Valerie, giggled with Jambrea and permitted Dr. Joy to envelop her, they’d become fast friends.

God help him.

“That young man is a devil to take care of. You’re going to have your hands full,” Valerie, sporting some new purple highlights in her silver hair, teased.

“It looks like she knows how to settle him down.” Jambrea laughed, winking in his direction. He adored the naughty side he’d found lurking under the shy nurse’s exterior.

“Let’s hear it, Dr. Joy.” He shook his head as he waited. “What do you have to add?”

“I can’t express how happy I am you’ve found someone to bring light back to those sexy eyes of yours.” She embraced him with one arm and Izzy with the other. “I hate to see one of my favorite cops off their game. You, my dear, are a miracle worker. And one lucky bitch to score our Razor. There’ll be a bunch of broken hearts around the hospital cafeteria today.”

Isabella beamed. She rose on her tiptoes to kiss him. “I know.”

“Dr. McHottie, is that any way to talk in front of the kids?” Tyler approached from the cheap, plastic bucket chair he’d occupied while guarding their room. “Sorry to break up the reunion. Mason will freak if we’re not on the curb in the next two minutes. I told him I’d come in to retrieve our little lovebirds five minutes ago.”

“Oh boy.” Jambrea winced. “You’d better walk fast.”

“Yeah, Captain Hardass puts his crankypants on if I’m a minute behind schedule.” Tyler shook his head in mock disgust.

“He worries because he loves you.” Valerie waved as they turned to leave. “Stay safe.”

Razor tugged his jeans over his hips without bothering to button them. He kissed Isabella’s cheek then abandoned the supple warmth of her sleeping form for thecold leather of the couch. Not exactly an upgrade but he had work to do.

He checked the volume on his stereo—nice and low—then flipped through his playlist until a song struck a chord. “Sirens” by Angels and Airwaves flooded the space, which seemed warmer, cozy, when Izzy shared it with him.

A twitch at the corner of his eye forced him to scrub his face with his shaking hands before extracting the interoffice envelope JRad had deposited beneath the sofa cushion. From inside it, he withdrew a manila folder.

Razor opened the file and spread the contents across the surface of the coffee table. A noise from the other room had him tossing a glance over his shoulder. Izzy rolled onto her opposite side before settling into deep sleep once again. His stiff fingers buffed the smile from his face.

Today, hell, the entire week, had been filled with an infinite stream of unpleasant surprises for his princess. She’d taken each lump like a trooper, adapting and making the best of the shitty situations. How long could she keep it up? What would be the last straw? How much more could she take?

If they didn’t resolve things soon they’d slip one day and leave her exposed.

Recent developments had convinced a judge to unseal several investigations involving Perry Buchanan. The one Razor selected from the pile had his blood pressure rising until he thought steam might pour from his ears.

Grotesque images of a young, broken woman littered the pages. Isabella’s mother. She’d fallen from the balcony of the master suite on the third floor of their mansion. The spikes topping the decorative wrought-iron fence around her flower beds had impaled her, instantly killing both her and the unborn child she’d carried.

Homicide had suspected Buchanan of shoving the woman. As with all the other alleged offenses, they’d never been able to gather enough intel to hold in court and convince a jury. Evidence had gone missing, been tainted and warrants had yielded nothing. With money and power, Buchanan had managed to stay a step ahead of the law for decades.