Wicked Release

Book 2: Wicked Exposure

by Katana Collins

Genres: Erotic & Steamy Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Give into the pleasure… As the investigation into her sister’s murder continues, forensic photographer Jessica remains committed to finding the killer and navigating her own complicated relationship with Sam, the local detective on the case. But when one of her photos reveals the identity of her sister’s boyfriend, a man previously only known as Master, Jessica finds herself drawn to his dominance. Going under cover as lovers to infiltrate a drug ring, Jessica can’t deny her fascination for this darkly mysterious man. To get to the truth she faces a choice: trust her instincts and stay true to her heart or give into her passion and enter a world of unknown danger…

Release date: November 1, 2015

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 354

Sample

Jess waited patiently in the reception area of Elliot Warner’s office. The white marble was smooth beneath her as she scuffed her toe back and forth against the floor. Only two weeks ago, her sister would have been coming into this office to work. She would have arrived on that same elevator—maybe even with Elliot, her boyfriend—and she would have gotten off on the tenth floor while he rode all the way up here to his office. The penthouse.

Jess shook her head, gripping the flimsy paper cup tighter in her hand. His office, she thought, inwardly rolling her eyes. The whole damn building belonged to him, even if he used only the penthouse for his personal operations. The rest of the floors were rented out to various businesses, including the pharmaceutical company where her sister works. Worked. Past tense. Because her sister was dead. Cass was dead. It still didn’t feel real. Like she expected at any moment, her sister would come barging in off the elevator, pull Jess’s shirt closed over the little bit of cleavage showing, and demand that she get home to do that growing load of laundry piling up at her bedroom door.

Jess’s hand trembled, causing a bit of coffee to fall and splatter against the white marble floor.

“Shit.”

She set the cup down on the receptionist’s desk beside the second cup of coffee that she had bought for Elliot. Pinching the bridge of her nose between her burning eyes, she took a deep breath. She needed to pull it together. Though she’d only briefly met Elliot Warner once before during a shared elevator ride, she knew him all too well from the e-mail account she’d found on her sister’s iPad. The iPad she found buried beneath the floorboards of her sister’s house, along with stacks of money, a fake passport, and a skeleton key that unlocked a secret tunnel in the basement.

Is this what her life was now? Secret tunnels and stacks of cash, mystery men and murder?

Jess sat back down, pulling the iPad out of her purse and flipping it open. She didn’t know why the hell it was so calming to read her sister’s old e-mails. Maybe it was because she could almost hear the words as though Cass were actually saying them. Maybe she was clinging to any memory her sister had left.

She scrolled through the e-mail history, choosing a random entry. She’d read almost all of them already, but it didn’t matter.

Master. Her sister actually addressed this man as Master in their relationship. Jess grabbed her coffee back from the receptionist’s desk, craning her neck to see down the hallway. What the hell was taking so long? Settling back onto the bench, she clicked Cass’s response open.

Jess dug inside her purse for the tissues she kept in there. Tears danced at the edges of her eyes. Had he given up on her? Given up on her so much that he felt the need to shoot her and leave her to die in the ocean? Jess wasn’t sure; she had spent the last week reading the dark details of their relationship and the man in the e-mails clearly loved her sister. And even if Jess and Elliot “Master” Warner had nothing else in common, the fact that they both loved Cass was enough. It had to be. She had no one else to turn to now that Sam wanted her to give up and get out of town—to leave Portland and forget the fact that her sister’s death was so much more than the “robbery gone bad” Portland Police labeled it as. Besides herself, Sam, and Captain Straimer, no one else was in on the underground drug dealings her sister had gotten involved in. Not even Sam’s partner, Matt.

Everyone who used to bring Jess comfort now only brought pain. Her parents had passed away years ago. Cass was dead. Her sister’s former friend/handyman, Dane, had lied to Jess the very second he met her. And then there was Sam.

Sam was the boy Jess had grown up with. Her first kiss, her first cigarette, her first everything—and she couldn’t even trust him anymore. And if she was being honest with herself, she never could. He’d been lying to her since they were fifteen. Ever since the night her parents died and he covered up the fact that his mother had been at the wheel of the car that struck them.

Jess winced as the memory of Sam in his hospital bed, vulnerable and bloody, rushed into her thoughts. Yes, she was mad at him. No, she didn’t trust him anymore. But that didn’t mean she wanted him in pain or suffering. Someone had attacked him, hurt him, as a way to get to her. And now, she had nowhere else to turn. No one else to believe in . . . except for Elliot. Wetness stained her cheeks and she wiped it away, looking at her reflection in the mirrored elevator doors. She had to pull it together. If there was ever a man who wouldn’t respond to tears, it would be Elliot. She was sure of that much.

Jess slipped the iPad back into her purse as she gently wiped below her eyes and pinched her cheeks to get some of her color back. “Don’t be desperate,” she said to her reflection. “And don’t show weakness.”

“Mr. Warner’s ready now,” the receptionist said from behind her.

Jess grabbed her things and followed the receptionist with her smooth, bouncing ponytail down a long hall. After a moment, Jess entered through heavy double doors into an oversize office that screamed of an inferiority complex. She scanned the long floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over historical Portland’s wharfs and docks.

“Ms. Walters.” Elliot Warner’s voice was quiet, with the low trill of a wolf’s warning growl. Her attention drew to where he sat behind his desk and she felt her chest hitch with a sharp inhalation. His lips quirked and damn if he didn’t sense her nervous energy. Of course he did. A wolf always knew which prey was the easiest capture. His eyes never once left hers. “I’ve been expecting you.” He gripped a set of car keys in his hand before setting them down onto the desk next to him.

“It’s Jess. Not Ms. Walters.” Nerves bounced around in her empty stomach. “Going somewhere?” Jess asked, nodding to his keys.

“Just getting back, actually.” He cleared his throat. “You discovered me last week, in the elevators. And yet it took you days to actually confront me.” He grabbed the cup of coffee Jess had brought for him from the coffee cart outside, which, according to his e-mail exchanges with her sister, was the best in all of Portland.

“Was there a question in there somewhere?” Jess took a sip from her cup. Though it had been a while since she arrived and bought the coffees, it was still hot, and she savored the smooth, creamy liquid as it slid down her throat.

“Let me rephrase,” he said. “Why did it take you so long to confront me when you’ve clearly known who I was for several days now?”

“Well, I was busy and had business to attend to this weekend. This felt like it could wait. I usually have good instincts about these things,” Jess answered.

Elliot took a long swig of his own coffee, but unlike when Sam drank coffee, Elliot’s sip was refined. Smooth. Whereas Sam would slug it back in a quick gulp no matter how piping hot the liquid inside was. Tightness closed in around Jess’s throat and she turned her attention outside of Elliot’s window. She could not think of Sam right now. He didn’t deserve her. And while she wasn’t so foolish to believe that once they broke up she had some sort of magical immunity to their chemistry, it didn’t change the facts. You only get one second chance, and Sam blew his. Matt could take care of him now that he had been released from the hospital on Monday.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Elliot responded.

“Huh?”

“About your instincts?” he continued, pressing his palms to the lacquered desk and pushing to his feet. The exquisite three-piece navy pinstripe suit fit his body perfectly, as though it was sewn for his exact specifications. And hell, maybe it was. This guy was freaking loaded. “In fact . . . I’d say other than coming to see me today, your ‘instincts’ have damn well nearly killed you and your boyfriend.”

Jess’s cheeks heated. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Your . . . dom, perhaps?” There was a teasing tone to his voice that Jess hated.

Sam’s voice from last week echoed in her memory. “I’m going to tear that dress from your body, press your breasts against that wall, and show you what you’ve been missing all these years by paddling that tight ass of yours.”

Lifting her chin in a false show of confidence, Jess shook her head. “No. He’s my nothing. My colleague, perhaps, and that’s all.”

“Well, that’s an interesting development.”

A sense of unease slid through Jess’s body, landing at her fingers as they trembled around the coffee cup, despite the heat that burned through. “How do you know so much about me?”

“I make it my business to know.” He swaggered around to the front of his desk, then tugged at the knees of his million-dollar pants. “So, Sam’s out of the picture . . . pardon the photography pun.”

“Yes. He’s out.” With a deep breath, Jess gave herself the mental pep talk she needed. She could do this. She had to do this. Not only for Cass now, but also for her own life and for Sam’s. Even if they wouldn’t be together, she didn’t want him dead. “You know more than you let on. It’s painfully obvious. I think you probably know more than the entire Portland Police force ever could. And I need your help.” Jess resisted the urge to look at her feet. “Cass needs your help.”

“I don’t see how a dead woman would need my help.” But even as he said the harsh words, pain sliced through his cold features.

Jess slammed her coffee down on the corner of his desk. A bit of the steaming liquid sloshed out the top and splattered onto her knuckles. She gritted her teeth and refused to show any acknowledgment of the pain. But despite her efforts, Elliot’s eyes flicked down, noting the moment as a smile turned his lips.

“Don’t be an ass,” Jess said. “Don’t pretend as though my sister meant nothing to you. She may have been your sub, but she loved you. And I think you loved her.”

“That’s a lot of thinking you’ve been doing.” Elliot’s eyes locked into hers and they stood there, momentarily frozen in time. He walked over to a small bar area on the opposite side of the room. “Can I offer you a little Irish in your coffee?” He wiggled a bottle of whiskey, the caramel-colored liquid sloshing around inside the bottle.

Jess shook her head as he poured himself two fingers worth of whiskey. “Yes,” Elliot said after a long sip. “I loved Cassandra. And if you’re not careful, you’re going to end up with the same fate as her.”

“Except that her colleague, Zooey, is being pinned for both Cass’s and Dr. Brown’s murder. And I don’t think she killed them. At least not Cass—as for Dr. Brown . . . well, I don’t know.”

Wrinkles framed his eyes as they narrowed for just a fraction of a second. “Zooey? That mousy girl that Cass worked with?” He shook his head. “Wow. They’re really straining to close this, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are. And it certainly doesn’t help Zooey’s case that she confessed to Dr. Brown’s accidental manslaughter and then disappeared. But even still, I think she’s being set up.” Jess brushed a hand against Elliot’s arm to emphasize the point, and immediately regretted doing so. He looked down at where her finger had dared to touch his suit as though he may need to burn the thing now. She pulled her hand back to her side. “Come on. We both know she didn’t do this.”

Elliot sighed, dragging his hand down over weary features, his entire body seeming to relax with the breath. “I don’t know anything. Which is exactly how you should answer should anyone ask you, Jessica.”

“Jess,” she corrected once more. The last man to call her by her full name was Sam. In the bedroom. She’d rather not have that memory hanging over her.

One side of Elliot’s mouth lifted into an arrogant half smile. “I prefer Jessica.”

“And yet, that’s not really your call.”

His grin twitched higher. “And yet, I don’t care.”

A breeze gusted through his open window and Jess shivered, resisting the urge to hug her arms to her chest. Just who did he think he was? And what the hell was it about men who were assholes being so damn magnetic? Jess hated herself for liking that quality in Sam, and she hated Cass for having liked it in this guy. Because at the end of the day, all it did was make them shitheads. Sexy shitheads, but still . . .

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Of course. But only if we do this my way, Jessica.”

Jess gave an inward curse. He knew exactly which buttons to push and relished her agitation.

She opened her mouth to answer, when her cell phone rang from within her pocket. The sudden noise made her jump. It was a small action, but damn if Elliot didn’t notice it. Jess gnashed her teeth together, grabbing her phone from her pocket and checking the number. Sam.

Emotion burned through her chest at the sight of his name.

Jamming her finger onto the silence button, she slipped the phone into her back pocket, unanswered. Sam was no longer a player in this game. But this man in front of her? Her sister’s ex-lover and the man who ran the masquerade parties? He was her only hope. He was Cass’s only hope.

“Deal.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sam grumbled, tossing his phone on the bed beside him. Placing a damp palm against his forehead, he closed his eyes, willing away his pounding headache.

“Still not answering, huh?” Matt, his longtime friend and partner on the force, nudged open Sam’s bedroom door, resting a bowl of soup and a glass of water on the nightstand.

“That better be vodka,” Sam said, eyeing the glass.

“I don’t expect to earn my ‘naughty nurse’ title for nothin’,” Matt laughed. “C’mon, man. You gotta eat something. The doc told me I’d have to drag your ass back in if you’re not drinking enough fluids.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sam grumbled. “You’ve gone soft since you became a dad.”

“Shut up and eat your soup, asshole.”

Sam leaned over the steaming bowl and took a sip of the salty broth. It felt good going down. But damn if he’d admit it to Matt that he was right.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Matt grinned knowingly.

“Fuck . . . this isn’t any sort of canned shit.”

Matt shook his head. “No way. Nothing but the best for my partner. Kelly made it. It’s some family recipe or something. But it’s damn good.”

Holy hell. Sam lifted the bowl, resting it in his lap. After two days of hospital food, this was like a Thanksgiving feast.

“She left a full container of it in your fridge, as well as two casseroles. With your stomach? You should be good until breakfast, fatty.” Matt gave him a gentle slap on the back and Sam grunted in response.

After another moment of silent eating, Sam dared another glance at his buddy. “How is she?”

Matt tucked his hands into his pockets, a disingenuous smile crossing his face. “Kelly’s good. Busy with the baby and we’re both fucking exhausted—”

“That’s not who I’m asking about and you know it,” Sam interrupted.

Matt’s smile faded. “Yeah, I know. We have uniforms driving by and checking in on Jess a few times a day. She seems fine.”

“No one shady hanging around?”

“Dude, we caught the guy—or girl, in this case. Zooey’s unconscious but handcuffed to her hospital bed. Jessie’s safe. You’re safe.”

And yet, that uneasy feeling in the pit of Sam’s stomach wouldn’t go away. Zooey wasn’t their perp. There was no way she was the brains behind the newest drug being distributed in Portland. Not that Sam expected Matt to have any knowledge of that. To his friend, this probably did look like a clear cut-and-dried case. What they initially thought to be a robbery gone bad with Cass—and what Sam and Captain Straimer were relying on everyone to believe to better solve her case and find the mole in the department—now looked like a crime of passion. A love triangle between a scorned woman; her boyfriend, Dr. Richard Brown; and Cass, the woman he was flirting with on the side.

“You really think a girl attacked me in that basement?” asked Sam.

“I’ve seen stranger things,” Matt said.

“When she wakes up, she’ll be able to—”

“If she wakes up,” Matt interrupted. “She’s in rough shape.”

Fuck. Then all will have gone to Cass’s murderer’s plan. Zooey will be the fall person for Cass’s and Dr. Brown’s deaths and they can carry right on distributing drugs. “You’ve got a uniform watching Zooey’s door, too, right?”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Of course. What do you think this is? Amateur hour?”

Well, at least that’s something. A small relief, but Sam would take his wins when he got them. “Have you at least talked to Jessie?”

Matt shook his head, running his fingers down the length of his trimmed goatee. It would have looked ridiculous had Sam not known the guy well enough to know that was his habit when he didn’t want to admit something. “Matt—what?”

“She won’t answer my calls, either,” he said, dropping his hands. “Not since we found Zooey.”

Maybe she’d finally taken his advice? Realized just what was good for her and gotten the hell out of this investigation. Now that her sister’s murderer thought that they had wrapped the case up in a neat little bow with Zooey’s arrest, maybe, just maybe, they’d let Jess go back to her life. Go back to Brooklyn. And even though it hurt like a sock to the jaw, it was the only way Jess could survive this. The person who attacked him at the masquerade Friday night had made that perfectly clear.

Get her out of Portland. . . . The attacker’s hot breath and raspy voice rang in Sam’s ears as if it had happened seconds ago. He had tried. He had broken up with her and confessed to the one thing he was certain would make her forget all about him and move on—the fact that his mother had been the drunk driver who killed her parents in a car wreck when they were fifteen. Sure, he was just a boy when he came home that night to find his intoxicated mother sweaty and panicking. She had begged him to be her alibi.

“And . . .” Matt broke through Sam’s thoughts, hesitating before continuing.

Sam froze with that one little word. His already sore and stiff muscles bunched beneath his pajama pants and undershirt. “And?”

“According to Officer Donnelly, she left this morning. And she was seen loading luggage into her trunk.”

“Why didn’t they follow her? Find out where she was going?”

“He wasn’t actually on watch for her. He happened to be in the area and just did a quick drive-by. But . . .”

“But what?”

“I mean, her leaving with a packed suitcase. It can really only mean one thing, right? She was leaving.”

Jess was leaving town. The mixture of relief and pure, empty sadness was overwhelming. She needed to get out of Portland for her own good. No matter how hollow his life would be without her. He did it once . . . he could do it again.

“It’s okay, Matt. I knew her stay wouldn’t be permanent.”

“Yeah, but this is sooner than you thought, isn’t it? Weren’t you two just getting back together—”

Sam gave his best casual smile. “Jess and I are like a carton of milk. We always had an expiration date. She’s just tossing us out now, before we spoil, instead of after.”

“Whatever you say, man. I think it’s pretty fucked up, though. She didn’t even say good-bye. I thought for sure you two would work it out.”

“We don’t all end up with our high school sweethearts, Mattie.”

Though it was silent, his partner held his glare, a tense energy passing between them. Matt only came to about Sam’s shoulders when they were both standing tall. He was stocky, but short. And like a bulldog, he could deliver as loud a bark as any of the big dogs on the force. And he knew Sam better than he sometimes knew himself.

“Well, I need to get going. Captain Straimer is assigning me a temp partner,” Matt snarled, his lip curling. “Apparently Officer Laura Rodriguez is training to be detective and so she’s gonna shadow me while you’re out of commission.”

“Jesus,” Sam grunted. “Good luck with that. Keep it in your pants, man. Kelly will eat you alive if you—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Matt laughed, opening the bedroom door. “But she won’t know if I look or not. Just no touching.” He held both hands up at his shoulders, palms out, as he backed out the door. “I’ll check on you later. Call if you need anything.”

The sound of Matt’s heavy footsteps clomped down the stairs and with a slam of the front door, Sam was alone in his apartment again. For the first time in years, he felt lonely. The boring white walls, crappy particleboard furniture, and simple navy décor was suddenly massively depressing.

Without thinking, he grabbed his phone and called Jess again. Just one more time to say good-bye . . . and yet, as the phone rang against his ear, he knew it was a stupid idea. She hated him—or at least she should hate him. Her voice mail clicked on and he ended the call without leaving a message. And really, what was there to say? All those years; all that time he had lied to her about his mom. A lump lodged in his throat and he took another slurp of soup to help it go down. All those years of hiding the truth and covering for a woman who, nine times out of ten, would have chosen a bottle of gin over her own son. But what was he supposed to do? Turn his mother in to the authorities? Go into the foster system and be parentless? Unlike Jess, he didn’t have an older sibling to step up and become his legal guardian.

He shook his head, tossing the almost-empty bowl of soup back onto the nightstand. Fuck. Turning his mother in was exactly what he should have done. He had been a total and utter coward. A young coward, yeah, but even as he got older, even now that he was a grown man and knew his mistake, he never took steps to right that wrong. Not to mention that he was also the world’s biggest hypocrite, serving as Portland, Maine’s lead detective.

And now he had lost Jessie for good because of it.

Which was precisely what should have happened, because she deserved better than him. Her very life depended on finding someone better than him.

“So, Jessica . . . why don’t you tell me what you think you know?” Elliot’s eyes glistened, ripe with authority in a smug way that Jess just freakin’ hated. It elicited anger and a frustration deeper than she cared to examine.

“Let’s see,” she said, and dropped the handle of the suitcase she’d found in the back of Cass’s guest closet, kicking it out of her way. “I know that my sister was involved in drugs. Not doing them herself, but distributing. It was pretty obvious when I started putting the pieces of her life together. I know that the two of you started as some sort of master-apprentice, dominant-submissive relationship before you fell in love. I know that the masquerade parties are some sort of front to get the drugs transported out of my house through the hidden tunnels in the basement and that you were the man who began these parties.” She paused for emphasis, and stopped pacing, standing in front of him. His breath was shallow and he smelled like a mix between coffee and whiskey. Grabbing his cup, she took a drink of his spiked coffee and then thrust it back into his hands. “And I know that I fucking go by Jess. Not Jessica.”

“That’s a lot you think you know.”

Jess jerked her head toward the luggage, not breaking eye contact. “Why don’t you have a look?”

He gave her a curious glance before bending and lifting the suitcase, dropping it on a side table. He carefully unzipped it with a tenderness that reminded Jess of unzipping the back of a silk dress.

Elliot inhaled sharply as he flipped the suitcase open. Inside were stacks of cash from Cassandra’s floorboards and her fake passport.

“That’s how I know,” Jess sneered. “Now, can you stop treating me like a child?”

“Did you touch these?”

“What?”

“Did. You. Touch. These?”

“Yes, I—”

“Did you wear gloves?”

Jess gulped and suddenly she felt like she was back to being a chastised little girl. Just as she thought she was gaining some traction with this man. “No. But, I mean, I found them. I haven’t done anythi—”

“Shit,” Elliot grunted, running both of his hands through his inky hair.

“What the hell are you freaking out about? None of this is even mine.”

Elliot’s eyebrows jumped as he shot her a fiery look. “You think that matters?” His voice was gruff and he rushed to the window, scanning the parking lot below before pulling the blinds closed. “You think that innocence ever matters in times like these? You believe your friend Zooey to be innocent, right?”

Jess nodded slowly, her throat burning.

“And did the cops care that the evidence didn’t quite line up?”

Jess didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. They both knew the truth.

“You need a place to hide this money,” said Elliot.

“Cass had it all in the house—”

“Not a literal hiding place. A place to invest. Tie the money up in a way that won’t raise any flags when and if they search your financials. It’s what Cass should have done initially. I should have helped her.”

Jess backed away from him and the cash. Her stomach turned like she had a loaded gun pointed directly at her chest. “You can’t actually think I plan to keep this money? I’m . . .