The Confession

Book 3: The Body Work Trilogy

by Sierra Kincade

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

The hot and thrilling conclusion to the Body Work Trilogy, following The Masseuse and The Distraction

Anna Rossi walked away from Alec Flynn to keep her family and friends safe. But she can’t protect her heart from him, no matter how hard she tries…
 
Time has done nothing to quell Anna’s need for Alec. She knows that she did the right thing walking away; the constant media attention that Alec’s been getting for testifying against Maxim Stein and Force Enterprises is evidence enough of that. But no matter how many times she warns herself that Alec is dangerous, she just can’t stay away—even after her connection to him once again threatens her life…
 
Alec knows the evidence he has against Max could stop him from hurting anyone ever again. But when it’s revealed that Alec stands to inherit everything from Max’s loss, his testimony is called into question—and Max could walk free putting Anna in harms’ ways once again. Now he’s beginning to wonder if any of this is even worth it—and if he and Anna will ever have a chance at true happiness…

Release date: May 5, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 368

Sample

The Body Work Trilogy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One

It begins with an offering. I set the mood—dim the lights, start the music, tantalize you with scents that pull you to a different place, a thousand miles away from the office, or the traffic, or your family. I open my door, but you’re the one who strips. You’re the one who whimpers and begs. You’re the one who trusts.

In massage school they teach the technique of effleurage, how to increase blood flow to the muscles through a series of gentle touches with your fingertips or the palms of your hands. It’s the foreplay of a massage. The tease. The seduction.

It’s my specialty.

From there I locate the knots; it’s easy enough if you know where to feel. The body tells you just what it wants, guides you to that place of tension. Fights what it needs, until with a sigh or a groan, it accepts the inevitable. Submission.

Petrissage follows, where a deeper pressure is applied to the area. We’re not playing around anymore. We’re fucking. I’m working you with every trick I’ve got. I’m pushing you, pushing you, pushing you until you finally give me what I want.

Your pain.

Because that’s all I have room for now.

*   *   *

My hands made soft, feathering strokes over his trapezius, afterplay from the deep-tissue work I’d just finished. I didn’t remember what his name was. It didn’t matter. He’d gotten what he came for, and I’d given him my best.

Which, admittedly, wasn’t stellar. Not that he’d noticed.

For the first time during our fifty-minute session, I took a good look at him. The thick muscles of his shoulders were well-defined and made a gradual slope down his back, beneath the sheet hiding what I guessed was a very nice ass. His arms rested, palms unfurled, at his sides, and his dark brown hair was a little too long. It curled where his collar would have landed. He’d requested a focus on his shoulders, and therefore hadn’t turned chest-up during the session.

I think he’d told me he was a baseball player or something. Minor league, maybe? It seemed to me the pros probably had their own team massage therapy staff, and this guy had shown up at the salon on a referral from one of my regulars.

In any case, he looked like he could have been a professional baseball player. And as my gaze lingered on the cut muscles of his upper arms, my mind wandered.

Look how hard I am.

The voice in my head brought a sharp ache in the deepest part of my belly. I shuddered, blinking back the wavering image before my eyes. Placing my flattened hands on each side of the client’s spine, I focused on his pale skin. It was smooth and cool, like polished marble. Too pale to trigger the familiar lust heating inside me.

You want me to fuck your mouth.

I withdrew my hands quickly, as if the coolness had burned me. My breath came in one hard rasp. The weight that had settled in my chest for the past two and a half months seemed to liquefy, sliding down through my breasts, making my nipples tighten and tingle.

The man moved. Just a slight adjustment, but it snapped my focus back in place. I returned my oiled hands to his slick back, moving lower, to where his waist tapered. I could feel another man’s body now. Feel my nails digging into his back as he growled in my ear.

Push back and fuck yourself on my dick.

Okay, moving back up now. Up and up and up, until I reached his neck. Gently, I stretched his muscles and tipped his head from side to side. His hair brushed against the back of my knuckles.

I closed my eyes.

I could feel him inside of me. The fullness only he could give me. My hands around his neck, fingers spearing through his hair. He was rocking against me, touching places deep inside that felt so good I thought I might die if he stopped. His mouth drifted to my collarbone, his rough stubble scraping my sensitive skin.

I love you so much it fucking hurts.

The man groaned, and I was thrust back into the present—into the massage room at Rave with the scent of cinnamon to sharpen my senses.

I was pulling his hair.

Pulling it, like I did when Alec made me come.

Realizing my mistake, I released him slowly, then gave him another few pulls just to make sure the move looked deliberate. I checked the small clock on the counter by the oils. Thank God it was the end of the session.

“How do you feel?”

I didn’t care; I needed to get the hell out.

“Fucking awesome.” His voice was muffled through the headrest.

“Take your time getting up. I’ll get you some water and meet you outside the door when you’re dressed.”

He grunted a response. Maybe he said something else, I don’t know. I was out of there, door shut behind me, before I could take another breath.

In less than a minute I was in the bathroom. It smelled like the lobby—fresh with the natural products we used in all our services—and had a stack of rolled towels on a wooden tray beside the sink.

I turned to face the wall and pressed my cheek against the cool tile. I was feverish. Sick. I had to be sick. That’s why the perspiration had dewed across my forehead, why my whole body felt like it was on fire.

Touch yourself.

No.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart pounded against my ribs like a jackhammer. One hand flattened against the tiles, as I fought off the feel of him behind me, shoving me roughly against the wall. Pulling up this flimsy skirt I wore and tearing off my panties. He wouldn’t be gentle. Not after all this time.

Feel how deep I am.

The throb between my legs was insistent now. He’d see I didn’t need much warming up; I was already hot and slick for him. His fingers would slide right in to the knuckle. I pressed one open hand against my right breast, trying to still the need, but it only served to increase the pressure.

Let go, baby.

“Stop,” I said aloud. I pushed off the wall, gulping down air. Facing the mirror, I turned on the cold water and splashed my face. It stung; every inch of my body was burning.

“Stop it, Anna.” I stared at my reflection. The wet mascara dripped down my cheeks. Good thing it was the only makeup I’d put on this morning. It had been a while since I’d worn much more than that.

Alec and I were over. I hadn’t seen him since I’d said good-bye to him the night Trevor Marshall, aka William MacAfee, had tried to throw me off a bridge. Apart from the time I’d come home to find my things from his apartment on my front stoop, he’d attempted zero contact.

But it wasn’t like he’d disappeared. I heard his name on the news reports on the radio. I saw his face on television and in the papers. Alec Flynn. Maxim Stein’s body man. Key witness in the biggest white-collar trial since Bernie Madoff.

Alec Flynn. The man that I loved.

Used to love. I didn’t love him anymore. I refused to. He’d endangered my life, and the lives of the people I cared about. If Alec and I had never been together, I wouldn’t have been kidnapped, carjacked, or nearly tossed off a bridge. My best friend, Amy, never would have been targeted to use against us, and her daughter, Paisley, never would have been in danger.

Alec Flynn was trouble, and I had moved on.

Which is why it really pissed me off to look in the mirror and see a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

I was thinner than I’d ever been. My cheekbones were more severe, and I now wore a size six, something that would have at one time warranted a celebratory parade. I wasn’t trying to lose weight—food was bland. My life was bland. I went through the motions from the time I woke up until the time I closed my eyes at night.

And punctuating that blandness were times like these. Times where I could still see him, or hear him saying my name. Times when I imagined us sitting together on my couch eating pizza. When I could almost feel him making love to me.

And times when I wondered what August felt like in Colorado. Or Alaska. Or fucking Greenland, because they surely needed masseuses there just like anywhere else.

I told myself those times would fade.

I was still waiting for that to happen.

Breathe.

I was at work. I had to get my client. Alec was off-limits. I’d promised myself I would be there for Amy and Paisley after learning they’d been abused by Amy’s ex, and Alec had compromised that. Not by choice, but they’d been hurt because of us all the same. It would never happen again.

Besides, if he’d really wanted me, he would have fought for me.

I scrubbed the mascara from beneath my eyes, and emerged into the hallway. My client was leaning against the wall outside of the room wearing the black tracksuit he’d arrived in, and as the door closed behind me, his gaze lifted.

His smile was dazzling, I’m sure.

“Your water,” I said, touching my forehead. “I’m so sorry. Let me get that for you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, pushing off the wall. He was big enough to block my path. Tall—at least a head above me—and broad. Like a baseball player. Like Alec.

Not like Alec. Not everything in this whole goddamn world circled back to Alec Flynn.

“Well, make sure you keep up the fluids today,” I said. “Your body releases a lot of toxins during massage.”

He smirked, and my gaze lowered to his mouth. Nice lips. Some freckles on his nose. Friendly eyes. He was younger than me, but cute. All-American cute.

“Anna, right?”

I took a not-so-subtle step back, which he didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s right.”

“What are you doing tonight? We should go get”—he smirked again—“fluids.”

“Wow.” I grinned to offset my tone. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Naw.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, obviously expecting to get my number. “First time. How’d it go?”

“Really smooth.” I tried to angle us toward the exit. “And it’s a sweet offer, but I’m busy tonight.”

“How about tomorrow? We’re on a home stand until Friday.”

“I . . .” should say yes. I should go out with him. There was nothing holding me back except the huge lump in my throat.

I went for the lie. The truth was too unbelievable. What was I going to say? Those guns you’re packing aren’t even close to big enough to carry my baggage.

“I’m sort of seeing someone right now.”

I watched my tip go up in smoke as the hand holding his phone lowered to his side.

“That doesn’t sound too serious.” He leaned forward, as if we weren’t the only ones in the hallway. I breathed in a cologne, something spicy that blended with the cinnamon oil he’d chosen for the massage. “Like I said, I’m gone on Friday.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Now that,” I said, “was really smooth.”

He slouched as I led him to the door. He’d actually expected that proposition to work. And maybe it would have, if I wasn’t swearing off men for the rest of eternity.

Before he left, I placed my hand on his biceps, but though it was firm and I liked hard muscles, it didn’t do a thing for my pulse.

“Thanks for the offer . . .” Name? I couldn’t remember. “Now’s just not a good time.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the next moment Amy swept in through the door, wearing a black smock accented at every available location by silver hair clips. Her platinum blond hair was down today, falling in a severe line just below her chin, and her bangs were swept across her forehead. She took one look at the baseball player and waggled her eyebrows at me.

“Hi, there,” he said to her, with that same twinkle in his eyes.

I snorted. He didn’t waste any time.

After escorting him back to the front desk, I returned to the massage room to clean up. Amy was already there, sniffing the sheets.

“Oh my God, he even smells good,” she said.

“So you go out with him,” I said. “He’s leaving town Friday.” I gave her an exaggerated wink.

We both knew she wouldn’t. She was secretly holding out for Mike, Alec’s best friend.

“He actually said that?” She laughed. “At least he’s honest.”

She helped me strip the table and toss the crumpled sheets into a pile on the floor.

“You could totally hit that, you know,” she said.

“Hit that? What are we, sixteen-year-old boys?”

She giggled. “I’m just sayin’. He’s hot. You’re hot. He’s not looking for serious. You’re . . .”

An all-too-familiar silence settled between us.

“Definitely not looking for serious,” I finished quietly. “Or anything, for that matter.”

She picked up the pile of sheets while I wiped down the counter and replaced the bottles of lotion and oils.

“Maybe something casual is just what you need.” She didn’t look up.

My jaw clenched, and I forced it to relax. Once, casual was all I did. No one got too close—romantic or otherwise. Now the idea seemed incomprehensible. Alec Flynn had made everything in my life dead serious.

I smiled, because the last thing I wanted was for Amy to feel guilty over my breakup. Not after everything she’d been through.

“I have everything I need. You and Paisley and my new, favorite roommate.”

After Alec and I had broken up, I’d finally told my dad everything that had happened with Trevor and his hit man, Reznik, on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. He’d listened quietly, expressing only minimal concern. I thought I’d dodged a bullet until he showed up on my doorstep the next morning, complete with his Great Dane, Mug, and no plans of ever letting me leave his sight again.

Amy chuckled. “He might as well just get a place here.”

“But how would he keep tabs on me twenty-four/seven that way?”

“True.” She sighed. “I guess you’ll just have to get a bigger house and live out your days as a spinster dog lady.”

“There’s just one dog.”

“So far,” she said. “Just you wait.”

She followed me as I carried the sheets to the laundry room, just as she would accompany me to the front desk for my next client, and magically appear in the back room when it was time for my lunch break. I sometimes wondered if she thought she was being sneaky. Or if Marcos, the cop who’d been assigned to tail me three months ago, remembered the danger had left with Alec when he randomly sent me text reminders asking me to check in. At least my dad didn’t try to hide the fact that he was keeping an eye on me. He had practically reverted to holding my hand before I crossed the street.

“Why don’t you guys come over for dinner tonight,” she said. “I’ll make something glorious from a box. I might even get crazy and throw some corndogs in the microwave.”

I knew this wasn’t an idle threat. Amy’s freezer was always stocked with last-minute meals.

“As appealing as that sounds, Dad has a case he’s working on.” He’d already informed me he had some PI work tonight—he’d started taking on a few private clients after his recent retirement from the police force in Cincinnati. He’d even managed to snag a couple of cases since coming to Tampa last month.

Amy handed me the detergent after I shoved the sheets into the washing machine.

“Well you should come by yourself then.”

The truth was, I’d been looking forward to some time alone. Maintaining the “everything’s great” façade was exhausting.

“Actually, I . . .” I hunched over the washer. “You already knew he’d be busy, didn’t you?”

She inhaled, cheery as an ad for kids’ cereal, and acted as though she hadn’t heard me.

“When do you get off? Five?”

“Something tells me you already checked what time I get off.”

“You could be over by five thirty. I’ll rent a movie if your dad’s pulling a late one.”

“Amy.”

“All right.” She rubbed her hands together, avoiding my gaze. “Good talk. See ya at five thirty.”

“Amy.” I blocked her from leaving the room.

She stayed tense while I sighed.

“Anna, just let us,” she said quietly. “Just for a while.”

How long? I wanted to ask. They’d been doing it since the night on the bridge. Two and a half months of constant support. I’d left Alec so everyone could move on, unafraid, leaving the chaos he’d brought into our lives behind, but instead they’d put everything on hold to watch me like I was a ticking time bomb.

I should have been protecting Amy after everything that had happened, not the other way around.

But as she faced me, green eyes rounding even as her thin lips pursed, I knew there was no turning her down.

“I have a CASA thing at five thirty,” I said. “I’ll be over before seven.”

Two

The Children’s Museum ran a special program for foster kids after hours on Wednesday nights. This month they’d brought in local artists to give lessons. It wasn’t technically a Court-Appointed Special Advocate event, but it was a good chance for me to check in on Jacob, the first boy I’d been assigned to.

The parking garage was next to the main building, but I took a metered spot on the street. It wasn’t that I was afraid of the dark, but I wasn’t stupid. Parking garages were prime places for predators to attack, and I didn’t exactly have a great track record.

After putting my neon blue sewing machine of a car in park, my fingers grazed absently over the small button hidden beneath the center console. Alec had installed the “kill switch” days after he’d gotten out of prison. It had saved my life once. Now it was one of the few reminders I had left that he’d ever really cared about me.

Grabbing my purse, I left the car. The air was still muggy, the result of an afternoon shower, and immediately made my skin glisten. I had been told this was the hottest August in years, a slow burn in a relentless summer.

The traffic light turned green up ahead, and the cars zipped past, drawing my gaze across the street to the trendy restaurants that lined the block.

My heart thudded to a stop.

Behind the wall of windows making up the front of a tapas bar was a man, seated at one of the tables. He wore a baseball cap, but even from here I could see a hint of dark hair that curled out from beneath it. Though he was turned to the side, it was obvious his shoulders were broad by the thick girth of his upper arms. His legs were too long for the little table he sat at; his knees hit the underside, even with his feet stretched beneath the empty chair opposite him.

He was staring at me.

“Alec.”

Saying his name aloud made something in my chest twist even as it made my mouth water.

At the blare of a horn, I jumped back. I hadn’t realized I’d stepped into the street, but even as I backed into my car I felt the urge to lean forward again. There was a pull coming from inside that restaurant, like the whole building was magnetized.

When I looked again, Alec was gone.

I didn’t think about it. If I had, I would have told myself to go into the museum and say hi to the kids. Instead, I waited for a break in the traffic and raced across the lanes. Even as my hand gripped the door handle, I could feel my blood begin to buzz.

Alec was here. He’d seen me. He was close.

I jogged past the hostess without a word and turned the corner, but the table where Alec had sat was empty.

“Just one, ma’am?” The hostess caught up with me, and as she did, the sounds of the restaurant tumbled past the rushing in my ears. Clanking dishes. Silverware hitting the floor. Laughter and conversation.

My chest went cold.

“N-no, I’m fine,” I said. She continued to watch me as I scanned the main seating area. “There was a man sitting there a few minutes ago. Do you know where he went?”

Her brows lifted. “I haven’t seated anyone there since lunch.”

I looked again at the empty table, feeling the color rise up my neck. Great. I was hallucinating him everywhere now. And even if he had been real, what was my plan once I’d gotten here? Hey Alec, how’ve you been? Anyone you know been tossed off a bridge lately? This wasn’t a margarine commercial. We weren’t running to each other in slow motion across fields of daisies.

“Sorry,” I told her. “My mistake.”

I’d promised myself I would stay clear of him. For Amy and Paisley. For my own safety. I told myself this like he’d been incorrigible, unable to leave me alone.

That was most definitely not the case.

I hadn’t changed my number, and he hadn’t called once. I lived at the same apartment, worked at the same salon. He knew where to find me, and he hadn’t.

There was nothing quite as shitty as realizing you’re easy to get over.

It was time I got over Alec Flynn.

I crossed the street, the numbness descending back over my shoulders like the heavy air. I was grateful for it. It was easier to feel nothing than to be constantly aware of the empty pit he’d left inside of me.

The signs were easy enough to follow once I entered the building. The lobby was clean and painted by a rainbow of colors reflected through the stained glass windows. The dinosaur exhibit in the main room had been pushed aside to create more floor area and thirty or so kids sprawled out across plastic tarps, surrounded by stacks of newspapers.

It didn’t take long to find Jacob. He was the one with two fingers in his mouth, whistling loud enough to crack someone’s eardrums.

Making my way across the floor, I waved at his foster mom, chatting with a few other women on the far side of the room. Squares of newspaper immediately stuck to my shoes, a result of the paste that was being used to papier-mâché balloons.

Jacob’s black hair was sticking straight out on one side. He’d probably touched it with his pastey hands. He gave me a lopsided smile and pretended to throw his heavy balloon, smothered with newspaper, straight at me.

“Did you hear me whistle?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure people in New York heard you whistle,” I answered, rubbing my ear. “I have a name, you know. People usually save whistling for dogs.”

He knelt back on the ground beside his little sister, six-year- old Sammy, who was making neat stacks of newspaper rather than attending to her balloon. Her kinky hair was in two puff balls on the top of her head, and her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration.

“Stanley showed me how,” he said.

Stanley was his foster father at the placement where I’d fought for him to live with his sister. I smiled. Maybe things were crap in my life, but knowing Jacob was happy, and that I’d played a part in that, took some of the weight off my shoulders.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Hot air balloons,” he said. “Mr. Rodriguez is an artist. We’re making masks like that one.” He pointed to the front of the room, where an elderly man with a long, white beard was showing an intricate tiger mask to a young girl.

“Awesome,” I said. “So how’s everything going?”

He painted his balloon with enough white paste to drown a horse and then haphazardly stuck pieces of newspaper to it.

“Good,” he said. “Lucia and Stanley want to adopt us.”

I crouched beside him, finding a clear space that didn’t look completely sticky.

“I heard. What do you think about that?” Being adopted was a big deal. Knowing someone wanted you—really wanted you—was both enormously validating, and its own type of betrayal. I’d never felt like I’d let my birth mother down more than the day my dad said he wanted to make me his.

“It’s good,” he said. “My mom gave up custody.”

I knew that, too, but played dumb so he could tell me about it.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Lucia says we don’t have to see her again if we don’t want to.”

“And do you want to?”

Part of me wished I could see my birth mother again, if only for a few minutes. I’d forgiven her for loving the drugs more than me a long time ago, but sometimes I still wanted to ask her why she’d never tried harder to be my mom. Why she’d never fought for me.

Was I not worth fighting for?

“Nope,” said Jacob definitively. “She makes me and Sissy feel bad.”

I nodded. “Yeah. But I bet there was a time she didn’t make you feel bad. And if you’re ever thinking about that, and wondering what she’s like, you can talk to Lucia about seeing her.”

“I won’t.”

I’d probably said the same thing.

“Okay,” I said. “Should we celebrate the adoption?”

Jacob looked up. “Tacos?”

I snorted. “Sure. When it’s all done, let’s go get tacos.” I turned to Jacob’s sister. “Hey Sammy, nice stacking.”

She smiled at me, and I grinned back. She didn’t do that much, and I’d take what I could get. Glancing down, she picked up the newspaper on top and handed it to me.

“You wanna do craps with us?”

“She means crafts,” said Jacob.

“I would hope so,” I said. But before I could say yes, I looked down at the paper and stalled, because staring back at me was Alec’s face.

He was sitting in a courtroom, hands folded on the desk before him. His hair had grown out a little since I’d seen him, but was still kept smoothed back behind his ears. He was wearing a suit and tie, and looked like someone had died.

Key Witness Has Questionable Past said the caption beneath the photo. The rest of the article had been cut away. The date was still at the top, though. It was from four days ago—the first day of the trial.

Resentment at the quote surged through me before I remembered that he wasn’t mine to defend.

I’d known when the trial had begun of course. I’d counted down the days until it started, along with half of Tampa. But because of my ties to Alec, to Maxim, to all of it, I’d tried to steer clear as much as possible. I didn’t get the newspaper. I’d turned the Internet off on my phone. When I went to restaurants or the gym, I made sure to position myself as far away from the televisions as possible.

And yet Alec still landed right in my lap.

“You coming to the dinner?” Jacob asked. “Lucia says I gotta wear a tie.”

“I got a dress,” said Sammy. “It’s pink.”

“Nice,” I told her. The dinner Jacob was referring to was a formal CASA fund-raising event this Friday. The program was staffed by volunteers, but training and raising awareness didn’t come cheap. This was a chance to reach out to the donors with deep pockets and show them just how important the advocates were to the kids.

“ ’Course I’m going to be there,” I said.

“You going to bring your boyfriend?”

I stiffened. “You don’t want to be my date?”

“Ew, gross. You’re, like, thirty.”

“Not quite,” I said. “But thanks.”

I’d actually asked Amy to come with me. It would have been nice to dress up for a date. Wear something long and pretty he could have peeled off at the end of the night. But I couldn’t picture anyone but Alec in that role, and well, no Alec.

Amy would have fun. She didn’t get a lot of chances to go to