The Alpha Men's Secret Club 4: Intrigue: A Shockingly Hot BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance (9 page)

23

“When did you know?” she asked him.

They were in his bed, cuddling up to each other beneath the sheets. This was the most romantic thing she could ever imagine – in the aftermath of lovemaking with the man she loved.

“Know what?” he teased.

“You know.” She tweaked his nipple. “When did you
know you loved me?”

He was silent for a long time.

“I don’t exactly know when. Maybe it was when you came to my office to seduce me for the second time.”

“Really?”

He laughed. “Like I said, I don’t exactly know. But I knew that I liked being with you, and every moment that I wasn’t with you, I thought about being with you. That made me smile. I thought of you . . . a lot.”

Her chest warmed to his words.

“But at the same time,” he continued, “I knew that the beast within me wanted to devour you. And so I kept my distance . . . and yet I couldn’t stay away. You know what I mean?”

Yes, she knew what he meant. It was the same for her. No matter how many people told her that Rust was bad for her, she was still drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

She said, “Rust, I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“I wanted to wait till tomorrow, but then I realized I shouldn’t keep secrets from you . . . not even for a night.”

He tensed. He turned to gaze upon her face.
“What is it, Kate?”

She swallowed. This was going to be very hard. But she had to tell him about Rita Cunningham, and so she told him. She left nothing out. And when she finished, he was very sober and contemplative.

“I never thought you murdered Teddy Mitchell,” she said.

“I thought I did,” he remarked quietly.

She did have her doubts, to be honest, but he didn’t need to know that. He needed to know that she believed in him wholly and truly – with her heart and soul.

“Did you glimpse the footage?”

“Yes.”

“How did Teddy look?”

“Like he knew whoever murdered him.”

He sat up in bed. The romantic moment had dissipated, like she knew it would. This was too huge.

He said, “Can you repeat what Teddy said?”

She dutifully repeated the scene as she remembered it.

TEDDY (smiling and stroking his cock): “Well, hello. Come for a taste of this?”

“Is it a woman?” she said, her pulse rising again.

“I don’t know Teddy Mitchell well at all. It could be a woman. It could be a man. Teddy doesn’t strike me as homosexual, but we are shifters. We tend to have experimented sexually on both sides.”

Of course. She remembered the orgies.

“So she wants to blackmail me,” Rust said.

“Yes.”

“She wants me to be the gateway to the shifter world. She wants me to tell her and the world everything about us.”

“I believe so.”

He got off the bed and began to pace, naked.

“I can’t do that,” he declared. “These are my people. These are not my secrets to divulge.”

“But Rust . . . she’s going to do it anyway. She’s going to release the video in some publicity stunt. You can’t stop her.”

She knew from the shift of light in his eyes that he knew there was a way to stop Rita Cunningham. But that he discounted it
immediately.

He was truly not a murderer.

He stood still and stared at the wall – at the abstract painting on the wall of zigzags and wavy lines.

He said abruptly, “Unless I confront the murderer.”

“How?” She furrowed her brow. “Do you know who did it?”

He looked at her. “Yes.”

Her stomach clenched, and she knew it to be true.

24

It was something which had to be played very carefully.

Rust O’Brien walked into the crowded restaurant on 54
th
Street. He had chosen this place specifically because of its lunch bustle, so that he would have as many people around him as possible. He was dressed in a sharp suit and tie. Purposefully so.

The person he was meeting was al
ready there at the table he reserved. He had kept the details of the meeting sketchy at the time of invitation.

“Can we meet? I have something to discuss with you.”

His lunch companion did not rise as he approached the table.

“Shamilar,” he acknowledged her.

“Rust.” She smiled. “Always a pleasure to meet with you. You look handsome, as always.”

“Thank you. And you’re looking particularly beautiful.”

She was resplendent in a blue off-shoulder dress which showed off her bare shoulders and cleavage to good effect. He noted that she was wearing a push-up strapless bra beneath the dress. She was always dressed to impress, and today was no different.

He remembered why they had parted ways. The would-be mother of his children . . . but what sort of children would they be?
He did not like being cornered and trapped into marriage. And he did not desire half-breed shifters as his children. They did not turn out well, and those few which had been born were deformed physically or mentally challenged.

“How goes everything, Rust?” Shamilar said.

“As well as being accused for murder can.”

Several people at the other tables looked over to the handsome couple. Rust knew for certain that they recognized him.

The waiter came with the menus.

“I heard you took the
plunge and burned the demon out of you,” Shamilar said.

“I did.”

“And have you burned all the memories as well, as such things are wont to do?” She eyed him intently.

“Yes. Most of them.”

“Can you still shift?”

“I haven’t really tried, but in the attempts I have made to do so . . . I failed.”

She breathed audibly.

“So you think you burned your soul out of you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

She reached for his hand on the table. “Rust,
I’ve missed you. Remember how we used to talk? We would talk for hours. We could talk about anything and everything. I suppose you would have less to talk about with your new girlfriend.” Her mouth curled into a slight sneer.

He said lightly, “Don’t assume that just because Kate is young and in college that
she has no intellect. She was one of my brightest students.”

“And you’re a fool to
give everything up because of her.”

“When I can have you?” He smiled.
“You want to be associated with a murderer, Shamilar?”

She paused.

“How sure are you that you are a murderer, Rust, when most of your recent memories have been burned out of you?”

“Not all of them have been burned out of me.” He held her eyes steadily. Her hand was still upon his, and he did not withdraw it.
“They’re all coming back to me, Shamilar. Slowly but surely.”

For the first time, he beheld a kind of fear in her eyes.

He said, “I remember that night. The night of the rave.”

He could see the sharp intake of her breath.

He went on, “You came up to me and Kate. I introduced you, and then you asked to speak to me alone. I went with you behind the bushes.”

The waiter came up again.

“Are you ready to order, sir? Miss?” he said pleasantly.

“Yes, we are,” Rust said, still in the same genial tone.
“I’ll have the white asparagus with scallops for starters. And you?” He inquired this of Shamilar.

“I . . . will have the salad,” she said, her complexion going pale.

“Which salad would that be, Miss?” the waiter said. “The nicoise is particularly good today, or would you prefer the pumpkin and rocket salad?”

“
I’ll have the nicoise.”

“Very good. And for the main course?”

Rust said, “Give me the ribeye. Rare, please.”

“Rare, sir? Or would you rather have it medium rare?”

“I only eat my steaks rare. Preferably bloody on the inside, thank you.” Rust rested his eyes on Shamilar’s face.

“I . . . won’t have a main course, thank you,” she said.

The waiter repeated their orders. “And would you like to have something to drink with that?”

“Chianti . . . for both of us,” Rust said. “That will be all.”

“Thank you, sir, Miss.” The waiter left.

Rust and Shamilar were both left staring at each other.

Rust said, “You asked me to give you a second chance. You loved me, you said. You wanted to be with me again. You wondered what I saw in Kate. To you, she was just an overweight coed. You did not spare your vitriol and disdain for her.”

He paused.

“That was when I saw you for what you really were, Shamilar.”

“I love you, Rust,” she said desperately.

“Yes, you told me that too the night we met. You told me you never stopped loving me. And when I spurned you . . . you tried to seduce me. We were both naked. The power of the place was thrumming in our veins. It was very easy to seduce anyone that night. And you so tried to do it with me.”

Shamilar did not deny this.

Rust went on, “You kissed me. Or tried to. When I pushed you away, you tried to kiss me again. You said, ‘Let me taste you one last time, and I will leave you alone with your milk cow’. I was incensed. But I am also a man, and I was buoyed by the raw sexual energy of Aaron Mitchell’s grounds. My cock was as stiff as a rod. And you took advantage of that.”

Shamilar said, “You wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

“Yes. Perhaps. But you knew my girlfriend was but twenty feet away.”

“You were going to prostitute her to other men anyway.”

“I was going to introduce her to other pleasures I was certain she would enjoy.” Rust’s voice had an edge to it. “I would never ask her to do anything she didn’t want to do.”

“
That doesn’t obviate the fact that you wanted me.” There was more certainty in Shamilar’s tone now.

Rust knew what she was thinking.
This is what he wants to talk to me about. The memories of that night.

He said, “
I was weak, perhaps. So I let you kiss me again. Then you went down to your knees. You wanted to pleasure me the way you knew I liked to be pleasured.”

“I always did give you good head, Rust. Don’t you try to deny it.”

“Oh, I won’t. You were down on your knees, and you took my cock in your mouth, like you used to. You said, ‘Let me hear you say that milk sop can do this better’. And so you sucked my cock.”

“I sucked it well.”

“Yes, you did. I will grant you that. You took all of it in your mouth.”

“As only I can . . . without gagging.” She smiled. “I can take all of you down my throat.”

“Yes, you can. I remember your tongue and lips closing in. You took me all the way in. You were quite rough. You might even have pulled out a few of my pubic hairs.”

At this, Shamilar quailed
again.

Rust said, “
You left with Teddy Mitchell after I spurned you for the second time, didn’t you? After I pushed your mouth away from my cock, you left the gardens. And you waited. Perhaps Teddy Mitchell came over to you after our quarrel. Perhaps some security
camera
caught you leaving with him.”

He knew that Shamilar did not know the finer details of the case.
Those details were only something the police and the CSI knew. Not even the perpetrator would know exactly what he or she left at the scene of the crime, especially when it came down to forensics.

All
the blood had drained out of Shamilar’s face. If looks went, she was already as guilty as hell.

“If I left with him,” she said carefully, “and that’s a big ‘if’, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not on its own,” he agreed. “But Teddy was killed by a large animal. Perhaps you and he shifted into your animal forms and went on a run in the woods behind his father’s house. Perhaps you even had sex. But something happened. You had an argument. Or you wanted to pay Teddy back for what he did to you in the past.”

Shamilar laughed softly. “You’re reaching, Rust.”

“So you killed him . . . and either you still had my pubic hairs in your mouth when you fellated me, or you kept them somehow to be used as premeditated evidence. Because they were found in Teddy’s fatal chest wound and traced back to me. You
meant
them to be traced back to me.”

He watched her face carefully.

She said, “You’re deluded.”

“I don’t think I am.” His voice dropped a notch. He was sad. Really sad it had come to this. “Hell hath no fury after all, and I believe you are one of those women who will not
stand to be embarrassed in such a manner, Shamilar. You hold a high account of yourself and any manner of rejection is seen as humiliation.”

“You have no proof of anything,” she declared. “You have a wire on you, don’t you, Rust? That’s what you came here for. For entrapment.”

He did indeed have a wire on him, but it was not something he corroborated with the NYPD. It was something Kate, Derek and he decided upon.

Shamilar said, “I’m not going to let you entrap me, Rust. I have not said anything that would incriminate me,
as you dearly would love me to.” She threw down her napkin. “Consider this meeting over.”

Her eyes burned, and yet there was something phenomenally sad in them.

Rust said, “I don’t have to entrap you, Shamilar, although that would be best for my case. I just have to create reasonable doubt.”

“Goodbye, Rust.” Her veneer was starting to crack, and she turned heel and left quickly.

His heart writhed within his chest cavity. She loved him, he knew. She had once loved him and she still loved him. And he was certain that she loved him enough to kill him.

The waiter came back with their appetizers.

“White asparagus with scallops for you, sir, and a nicoise salad for the lady. I trust she will be coming back, sir.”

“Don’t count on it,” Rust said as he adjusted the hidden microphone
in his lapel.