Release (25 page)
Authors: Beth Kery
He was missing something, and the longer it took him to figure out what that something was, the more Genny was left exposed and vulnerable.
He wrote Genny a note as to his whereabouts and quietly exited the penthouse.
An hour and a half later, Sean had worked out and showered again in the Sauren-Kennedy locker room. He sat at his computer in his office, poring over a secured file containing old photos, news articles, and his personal notes. He’d grown accustomed to compiling detailed files about cases for his work. Max Sauren’s murder wasn’t a case, but because of Genny, Sean had felt even more of a need to collect and organize the data.
To try to make sense of it all.
Max had been found dead in his car in early January. His motionless form had been spotted in the driver’s seat of his silver Mercedes by a man who had pulled into the abandoned warehouse parking lot to change a flat tire.
The police had been stymied by the clean murder scene and lack of evidence or a clear motive. Not only had Max’s gun not been on him, it hadn’t been in the compartment where he’d sometimes stored it while he drove—a small container with a lock that Max’d had installed in his car. Because of his investigations and visitations with government officials, Max frequently had to pass through high-security buildings. He’d been paranoid about leaving his gun with anyone, preferring to lock it in his car versus hand it over to security. Sean had gotten Detective Franklin to admit that the gun compartment had been found locked and empty.
Max’s keys had been missing along with his gun. The car doors had been left unlocked. His clothes had been mussed, indicating a struggle, but his wallet hadn’t been touched. Max’d been shot twice. One bullet had collapsed a lung. The kill shot had pierced his heart.
Sean opened a file and stared at Max Sauren’s face in death. He’d successfully procured some photos from an assistant coroner. Detective Franklin had become suspicious of a leak at the coroner’s office, however, and Sean hadn’t been able to get his hands on the official coroner’s report.
He’d never gleaned much from the photographs other than the obvious bullet punctures of the chest, but he’d always been struck by Max Sauren’s expression in death. It was peaceful, enigmatic . . . even slightly smug? Almost as if just before he’d died, the consummate spy had glimpsed the biggest secret of all.
The police had launched a massive search for the murder weapon, combing miles of city streets and foliage, dredging the depths of a nearby creek and checking hundreds of Dumpsters in the proximity. With Genevieve’s permission, they’d searched the Sauren mansion and the grounds.
Nothing had ever been found, including—as far as Sean knew—Max Sauren’s attaché case.
By the time they’d searched her house, Sean’d already doubted the police would find anything—unless Albert Rook showed it to them, that is. By that time, Rook had already planned his blackmail meeting and left Sean’s office running scared.
Sean clicked on another file labeled ROOK. He opened some dated notes, and read one of his own entries.
October 6. MS said he wanted to meet about the Zeilerman case, but instead started asking about the quality of AR’s work. Told him it was satisfactory, but had to keep on him—AR tends to cut corners and get sloppy. MS said AR is like a dog that obeys best with a choker. Asked what he meant, and MS said he had documentation that proved that while AR worked as a Navy weapons systems analyst he’d committed treason. It’d been AR’s job to reveal certain military secrets to Taiwan, but he’d shared with the Chinese, as well. For a hefty price, of course. Asked MS why he was telling me this, and he said there may come a time when AR needed to be controlled. MS said the documentation was AR’s choker.
Sean stared at the letters on the computer screen. The conversation that he’d just read marked the first time Sean had been one hundred percent certain that Sauren and Rook were lovers.
He’d suspected the two men were sexually involved before from the way that Rook stared at Max sometimes, while Max so studiously avoided his glances. But when Max casually told Sean about Rook committing treason, it had been the last nail in the coffin. Max was the type to collect secrets about those who were close to him.
People who had the potential to hurt him.
Max’s behavior had also revealed to Sean just how untrustworthy Rook was. His old boss may have enjoyed Rook in bed, but if he was telling Sean his lover’s secrets, he didn’t trust the man worth a damn. Max had probably sensed that Sean disliked Rook. If anything ever happened to Max, he probably wanted to ensure that Sean brought Rook to justice.
Unfortunately, Rook had come to Sean and laid evidence before him first.
He clicked on another file labeled GB/AR.
Rook had showed him digital photos of Max’s gun and his keys. The only tangible evidence Rook had showed Sean on that afternoon were the shell casings. He’d claimed he found all of it on the wooded grounds of the Sauren mansion. Rook’d also claimed the gun was clean of prints, but he’d allowed Sean to pull a couple prints off the shell casings. All of them had been Genevieve’s, a fact Sean was able to prove to himself thanks to the Sauren fingerprint archive.
Sean didn’t necessarily believe Rook’s allegations. It was just as possible Rook had murdered his lover. But as an ex-weapons analyst and military spy, Rook knew his stuff. The evidence he’d compiled was convincing, even if Rook would have to make up some cock-and-bull story as to why he illegally removed the evidence from where he “found” it. Rook had carefully documented the evidence with photographs, like any good intelligence operative.
Besides, the police already had Genny in their targets. They
might
switch their attention to Rook if Sean told them about the two men being lovers, and Rook was forced to admit how he’d illegally removed the evidence he’d supposedly found.
might
switch their attention to Rook if Sean told them about the two men being lovers, and Rook was forced to admit how he’d illegally removed the evidence he’d supposedly found.
But
what if
? What if Max had showed Genny the tape, like Rook claimed he planned to do? She’d have been so disillusioned by Max . . . so hurt. Who’s to say she couldn’t have had an altercation with him? What if they’d struggled and Genny had shot him by accident?
what if
? What if Max had showed Genny the tape, like Rook claimed he planned to do? She’d have been so disillusioned by Max . . . so hurt. Who’s to say she couldn’t have had an altercation with him? What if they’d struggled and Genny had shot him by accident?
Sean doubted it, but the possibility haunted him. On the few occasions he’d seen Genny following the murder, she’d certainly
looked
guilty and afraid, that much was certain.
looked
guilty and afraid, that much was certain.
But Genny was no cold-blooded killer. If she’d shot Max it’d happened in a volatile moment and by accident.
Sean thought it was much more likely that Rook was responsible for Max’s death. He’d wanted something from Max, and had possibly threatened to reveal Max’s bisexual tendencies—a powerful threat in the male-dominated, machismo world of espionage and intelligence. Max had threatened him in turn with exposure of his treasonous activities, and Rook had shot him to prevent that possibility.
But even if there was a good chance the police would poke holes in Rook’s story, from Sean’s perspective, there had been too great of a chance that Rook might be successful.
And it still nagged at Sean how betrayed Genny must have felt when Max showed her his true face after all those years of knowing him. Who knew what kind of an effect it had on her?
Rook had claimed that Max had showed him the videotape of the New Year’s Eve ménage days before he was killed. Did Sean believe Rook? It was hard to say. It was the exact sort of thing Max would have done. Hadn’t he done something similar when he told Sean about Rook? Rook most certainly
had
the recording, while Sean only had Max’s report of his treason, not the elusive documentation.
had
the recording, while Sean only had Max’s report of his treason, not the elusive documentation.
All in all, Max had given his lover a better hand than he had Sean.
Sean sat back in his leather chair, exhausted from over-thinking.
The fact of the matter was, the videotape might have been mortifying for Genny, but the only blackmail effect it’d had on Sean personally lay in that he’d never want Genny to be hurt by it. It was an effective enough means of blackmail, but Sean didn’t think Max had been counting on that to hold over Sean’s head for future ammunition.
No. It’d been what he’d planned later that he probably had hoped to use as ammunition against Sean . . . after Genny had fallen asleep in exhaustion following their lovemaking on that New Year’s Eve night.
THREE YEARS AGO
Sean felt the depth of his need like the pain from an unhealed wound as he worshipped Genny’s breasts with his lips, tongue, and fingertips. Breasts had been created to provide nurturance, and Sean well believed that as he ran his lips over petal-soft skin and inserted a turgid, reddened nipple into his mouth.
He could have feasted on her for hours, and his selfishness was so extreme that he’d still want more—more of Genny’s responsive flesh, more of her lush, firm curves filling his hands, more of her catchy sighs and whimpers of pleasure filling his ears.
More. Always more.
“Sean,”
she cried out when he pushed both distended nipples close together and laved them warmly with his tongue.
she cried out when he pushed both distended nipples close together and laved them warmly with his tongue.
He inserted one turgid crest into his mouth and glanced up at Genny. A sharp ache stabbed through his genitals as he took note of her mussed hair, lividly pink cheeks, and shiny eyes. She whimpered shakily when he drew on her while his fingertips studied the topography of the other wet, beaded nipple. She panted as their stares held, but then her pleasure overcame her and she clenched her eyelids shut and tried to twist her torso away from his mouth.
Sean lifted his head as Max placed his hands on her shoulders and held her in place next to his body.
“What’s the matter, girl? Does it hurt?” Sean whispered gruffly as he continued to mold her breasts gently to his palm.
Genny moved her head from side to side on Max’s chest. Sean saw a tear leak out of her eyelid. “No, no,” she muttered, sounding frantic. “It only hurts when you stop.”
“Sweet thing,” Sean said feelingly. He’d been so involved in making love to her breasts that he hadn’t realized the depth of her arousal. He reached down between her spread thighs and slid his finger between swollen, creamy labia.
He reinserted a nipple in his mouth and suckled her a moment later as she cried out in climax. The expression of ecstasy on her face mesmerized him. He kissed her nipple warmly.
“I could eat you alive, girl.”
He couldn’t resist plunging a finger into her snug, juicy slit, needing to feel her shudders of pleasure from the inside.
Her sharp exhalations of pleasure fell in warm bursts across his mouth when he kissed her opened lips.
He reached for a condom while she panted in the aftermath of her pleasure. He was hardly even aware of Max at that moment, so totally enraptured was he by Genny. His arousal was so intense, his need so sharp, his entire world narrowed down to her.
His body shook with barely restrained desire by the time he pressed his cock to her entrance. Her eyes blinked open in surprise when he applied a firm, steady pressure with his hips and the tip of his cock dipped into paradise. She mouthed his name when he thrust into her farther.
A groan tore out of his throat. She gripped him in a tight, hot embrace. He needed to apply a firm, constant pressure to gain access to her succulent depths.
“That’s right, girl. Let me in,” he coaxed with his voice even as he slid farther into her depths, demanding total entry. By the time he pressed his aching balls to her damp, warm flesh, they both were breathing heavily.
And Sean had started to shake even more; his need had been so intense. He paused, completely sheathed in Genny’s pussy, trying desperately to get control of his raging lust so that he could savor her. He leaned on his arms and panted while Max kissed Genny’s ear.
“He has a nice, big cock, doesn’t he, love? Does it feel good?” Max murmured. Sean noticed that he’d released one of Genny’s wrists and was shaping one of her breasts with his hand, his thumb and forefinger lightly pinching a damp, distended nipple. His cock lurched deep inside Genny, making her moan. Her hips moved restlessly. Sean stilled them with his hands.
“Does it?” Max asked again, this time more forcefully. Sean saw the other man shift his hips, and knew Max was likely again aroused and pressing his erection next to Genny’s ass. The evidence of Max’s rearousal was just what Sean needed to reign in his nearly out-of-control lust.
At least it was until Genny opened her lips, her eyes on Sean’s face, and whispered,
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Sean clenched his jaw tightly and began to fuck her, long and thorough. Their gazes locked the whole time, despite the fact that not only their bodies, but the entire bed began to quake with his powerful strokes. When she began to shift her hips, matching his relentless pace, Sean felt himself quickly rising toward climax.
Too quickly.
“Hold her tight, Max. Don’t let her move. She’s all mine.”
Sean didn’t want anyone in that room to be left in doubt that Genny was
his.
his.
It didn’t last for as long as he would have liked it, but given his forceful possession, Sean figured it was best for Genny that his tumultuous need crested sooner versus later. When her head went back and her face tightened in an agony of pleasure, Sean fell down over her, pressing his face to the side of her neck, breathing her scent as he pressed deep inside her clenching, climaxing pussy and orgasm ripped through him.
Sometime afterward, Sean became aware of Max’s hands moving along the sides of their entwined bodies.
“Let me up,” Max spoke intently. “I want her again.”
Sean lifted his head and fell to his side on the mattress. He pulled Genny with him—all the way to the other side, putting his body between Max’s and hers.
“Leave her alone,” he told Max. “She’s had enough.”
Max just stared at him, his gaze hot and enigmatic. He heard Genny’s muffled whimper, the small noise sounding distressed. He rolled toward her and removed the condom. He encircled her in his arms a moment later, turning his back to Max . . . doing his best to ignore the other man.
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