Dream Chaser - SETTING Read online

  The previous parties I’d been to at her pad had ended in Corinne laying out an expansive breakfast for stragglers, of which there were several, including me, and I hadn’t left until nearly 10:00 in the morning.

  True, it was 3:30 in the morning now, but all the lights were on.

  As I was sitting in my car, I saw the front door open, Corinne silhouetted in the light coming from the house behind her, and she was giving me a beckoning gesture.

  Okay.

  Weird.

  She was a friendly person and I hadn’t seen her as a Domme (I didn’t do the multi-player gig), but even though I RSVPed earlier that day, it seemed strange that she was waiting on me.

  Being hostess and participant, even with only a few guests left, I couldn’t imagine why she was looking out for me.

  Maybe it was because she’d scoped out the new Doms and she thought one of them would suit me.

  On this thought, suddenly, I wanted to put the car in reverse and go.

  This wasn’t right.

  Because it wasn’t Boone.

  And that thought was just plain stupid.

  He wasn’t mine.

  He would never be mine.

  And after that morning, I wasn’t even sure I liked him.

  And he was less and less sure he liked me (buh).

  What I knew, though, was I no longer felt like getting laid.

  I didn’t feel like socializing either, going in for a drink, getting looked over.

  This was a bad idea.

  I didn’t even know what’d I’d been thinking.

  But there was no getting out of it now. I’d RSVPed, Corinne saw me and was waving me in.

  It’d be rude not to go in for a drink.

  I’d do that, then I could go home to my vibrator and later, get my ass to a kickboxing class and work the rest of it out of my system.

  I got out and walked up the winding flagstone walkway.

  “Hey there, I think I texted this, but had a shift at the club, that’s why I’m so late,” I greeted when I got close.

  Corinne opened the door further, and I wondered if she’d done her thing with whoever she’d chosen, because she was not in her normal, classy, form-fitting dress and heels. She was in lounge pants, a tank and a fashionable, zip-up sports hoodie, with bare feet.

  “Not a problem,” she muttered, looking down at her toes.

  Weird again.

  Doms, and Dommes, were all about eye contact.

  It was a sub who often wasn’t allowed to look their Dom in the eye, depending on their instructions.

  Though, Corinne had a rule that her common space was free space. Getting-to-know-you space. You slipped into your scene only when you were in her play space.

  I stopped in her foyer with its enormous chandelier, looked into her brightly lit, humongous, but vacant great room, and turned in confusion as she closed and locked the door.

  It was when she caught my eyes, a chill trailed down my spine, and she whispered, “I’m sorry. He’s a client you don’t say no to.”

  “What?” I whispered back.

  And that was when I felt a cold press of steel against my temple.

  My eyeballs shifted left and I saw the gun.

  My first inclination was to freeze, which I did.

  The second was to run, which I did not.

  What was happening?

  “He’s in here and he’s waiting,” the man holding the gun stated.

  “He…who?” I forced out.

  He (thankfully) took the gun from my skin and used it to indicate a direction.

  I looked in that direction.

  There were double doors that had always been closed when Corinne had parties.

  Now they were open.

  “Let’s go, he’s been waiting a long time,” the man said.

  I looked to him, glanced at Corinne in a way I hoped made her mess herself, wondering if Pepper was right about this life, it was filled with all sorts of losers and I should be done with it.

  Then on lead feet, I moved toward the double doors, not knowing, or wanting to know, what lay beyond.

  I mean, had I been looked over by these assholes and was now going to be sold into slavery, disappeared, never to see the kids again, my mom, my brother, my posse, Smithie…

  Boone?

  Was I going to be forced to be some kind of drug mule?

  I mean, the possibilities were endless and the ones that ran through my head in those moments I walked across Corinne’s stately foyer were all unfun.

  Until I hit the double doors and saw a man who was called Cisco sitting in one of two accent chairs in a semi-circular alcove in what was definitely a luxe home office.

  He stood and smiled at me like we were old friends who ran into each other on the street.

  Instead of what we were.

  A couple months ago, he’d kidnapped me, Evie, Pepper and Hattie.

  And some time before that, he’d killed a cop.

  So we were not friends.

  We were nothing.

  At all.

  “We meet again,” he declared expansively.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Come in and sit.” He gestured to Corinne’s accent chair that was opposite his like he’d picked it out himself.

  “I don’t—”

  “Kathryn, come and sit down. It’s late. I’m tired. And the longer I’m here, which has so far been a long fuckin’ time, the more exposed I feel, and I’m not likin’ that.”

  Cop killer, kidnapper, bad guy Cisco not liking something, I didn’t know, I didn’t have a lot of experience with fugitives at large, but I reckoned that was a bad thing.

  I didn’t seem in immediate danger he was going to bust a cap in my ass, or elsewhere, so I moved in.

  I stopped and twisted when his henchman closed the double doors behind me with said henchman on the other side.

  “Kathryn, you’ve been dancing. You gotta be tired. Come. Sit down,” he invited.

  I looked back to him, then walked cautiously his way and sat down.

  He sat down too.

  “You look well,” Cisco noted.

  “Uh…thanks,” I replied.

  I did not tell him he looked well.

  There were, I imagined, a number of women who would find someone attractive who looked villainous and pugnacious. And he had a good body. Not to mention, he was tall.

  I just wasn’t one of those women.

  “I like your lipstick,” he noted.

  Ugh.

  “Again, thanks,” I mumbled.

  “I’ve been in hiding,” he shared.

  “Yes, I imagined,” I muttered, considering the cops had his gun, with his prints, a weapon that he used to kill another cop.

  I would hide too, if I did something so hideous, and the cops, literally, had the smoking gun.

  “How’s Evan?” he asked.

  Oh shit.

  I forgot he had a crush on Evie.

  Was that what this was about?

  “Uh…good. Happy. All moved in and loved up with Mag. Starting school in a couple of weeks. Gonna get her degree. So she’s real good. Better than ever.”

  He tipped his dark head to the side. “You like this Mag guy for her?”

  “Yeah.” I bobbed my head. “Totally. Great guy. He loves her a lot. Shows it. Protective. Takes good care of her.”

  “Mm,” he hummed, slouching back in his chair, putting his elbows on the arms, linking his fingers in front of him, appearing like an overgrown, sulking child.

  “I…uh, am I here so you could ask after Evie?”

  His focus had dimmed, but my question made his attention sharpen on me.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “And I wanted you to tell her I said hey.”

  I sat there, immobile, and stared at the man.

  Corinne had somehow faked a BDSM party that I foolishly RSVPed to. I was here. It was closing in on four o’clock in the morning. I’d had the single worst day of at least my la
st five years of life (maybe ten). And some fugitive from justice crime lord arranged all this just so he could use me to tell my girlfriend he said hey?

  “You know, it’d be a big favor, especially to Evie, and I hope you take no offense,” I began. “I hope you get this is coming from a sister looking out for her sister, but she’s happy. She’s had a shitty life. And now she’s happy. Honest to goodness, day in, day out happy. So it’d be cool if you let her have that happy without messing it up.”

  My speech about Evie being happy didn’t make Cisco happy.

  But he didn’t comment on that.

  He said, “That’s another reason you’re here. I wanted to share with you, so you’d share with others, that I didn’t do what you…and she…think I did.”

  I said nothing to that.

  “In fact, Evan isn’t the only reason you’re here. I have another message for you to deliver.”

  Okay, how did I become this guy’s messenger girl?

  I mean, seriously.

  I thought I’d already had a bad day.

  But this whole scene was a new definition of a bad freaking day.

  “Listen, Cisco—”

  “Please, call me Brett,” he allowed.

  I didn’t want to call him anything.

  I shifted in my seat, uncertain how to play this.

  He was seemingly mellow.

  The henchman with the gun was behind the double doors.

  But I didn’t want to upset that applecart because he was a man who’d order someone to guide a woman into a room with a gun to her head, and I wasn’t the only one in our tribe who’d had that happen to her. He’d had a minion do it to Pepper during our kidnapping.

  What I wanted was to get the hell out of here, do it still breathing, and get home, lock myself in, pull out my Taser and consider, after the day I had, moving to Maine before I fell asleep, Taser clenched in my hand.

  “You were gonna say something,” Cisco prompted.

  “I’ve had a bad day.”

  I watched his head tick and I knew why.

  My voice was suddenly strange in a way I’d never heard it be before.

  Small.

  Defeated.

  “Like, a really bad day,” I told him.

  “Kathryn—”

  “Ryn,” I whispered.

  Was I going insane, or did his eyes just warm?

  Something about the fact that I couldn’t deny it, his eyes had just warmed, made me blather on.

  “My brother’s a raging, uncontrolled alcoholic. With two kids. Two kids I adore. And I found out today his ex is a swindler who’s been fleecing me for years, making her kids eat Cap’n Crunch and running out of food and laying it on thick so I’d take them shopping for clothes, while she’s off using the money I gave her to have massages.”

  “Jesus,” he said, sounding stunned as well as annoyed.

  “I know, right?” I replied. “And I liked her. She wasn’t just my niece and nephew’s mom. She was a friend. I’ve known her for years. I can’t say she’s like a sister, because she’s been having a pity party for a while now, and it’s been getting aggravating. But I care about her. And now that I confronted her with the whole fleecing-me thing, she’s threatening that she won’t let me see the kids anymore.”

  I leaned forward in my chair, put my hand to my chest and kept blabbing, laying all my shit on this felonious dude who’d had one of his men put a gun to my head.

  But I guessed when you had to get it out, it didn’t matter who you were getting it out to.

  “And those are my babies.” I banged on my chest. “With Ang checked out like she’s been, I’ve been like a mom to them.” I leaned back. “Well, one of three moms, my mom and Ang’s mom have helped. But still.”

  “You learned that today?” he asked.

  “Yeah, and I found all this out because this guy I like was looking into it because he’s kinda, sorta a friend, when I want him to be more than a friend and I want that in a big way. You know what I’m saying?”

  He nodded. “Mm-hmm. I know.”

  “But I was stupid, and I said no when he asked me out, so he moved on and got himself another woman, but he threw down with me today and he’s pissed I got pissed that he was investigating my brother’s ex. But I wasn’t really pissed. I was shocked and hurt at Angelica, and you know, kind of mad he gave up so easily and went off and found someone else. I took all that out on him, so we had words and he pretty much told me he doesn’t like me anymore.”

  “Going easy here, girl, but if he wanted you, he wouldn’t have given up after asking you out only once.”

  “He actually did it three times.”

  Cisco/Brett’s brows shot up. “And you shot him down three times?”

  I made an eek! face.

  “I assume you know that wasn’t smart,” he muttered.

  “Well, you know,” I threw out my hands, “what am I supposed to do? He’s perfect. He’s handsome and he’s got a good job and he swings the way I don’t swing, if you know Corinne, you get what I’m sayin’.”

  One nod. “I get what you’re sayin’.”

  “And he’s super sweet to Evie and Lottie and what do I do with that, hunh?”

  “At this juncture I’ll remind you I got a dick, not a vagina, so my answer is bound to be wrong, but I’d start with saying yes when he asks you to go out with him.”

  Had he lost his mind?

  “You don’t get it,” I huffed, looking away, crossing my arms on my chest and slouching in my own chair.

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  I sighed.

  “All this happened today?” he asked again.

  I looked to him. “Yeah, though I hadn’t gotten to the part where I had to do my stripping shift and then I got bamboozled into a semi-kidnapping.”

  “You haven’t been kidnapped,” he said flatly.

  “I had a gun held to my head.”

  “I really gotta tell the boys to stop doin’ that shit to you girls,” he mumbled.

  “Brett!” I snapped. “Seriously?”

  “They get overzealous. I think they’ve seen too many movies.”

  “Am I free to leave?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Sure, though I’d prefer you didn’t since we got more conversating to do.”

  “But if I left, no one would shoot me.”

  He pushed out an exasperated breath on his “Hell no.”

  “Then yeah, it’s time for a training sesh with the boys because guns may seem like accessories to you, but to those of us not in the life, they’re scary as shit.”

  He inclined his head. “Point taken.”

  “And I’m kinda tired and I realized when I got here that I shouldn’t come because I’m into this guy and we haven’t even kissed and he’s still ruined me for all other guys so I just want to go home and freak out I had a gun held to my head, then go to sleep. In other words, my sharing time is over. It’s your turn.”

  “I did not kill Tony Crowley.”

  Well, hell.

  I sat still and said quietly, “That’s not a lot of words, but that’s a lot of sharing, Brett.”

  “It’s important that’s understood.”

  “Who’s Tony Crowley?”

  “The cop who was investigating the filth in the Denver PD who got capped because he was getting close to somebody and whoever capped him stole my gun to do it. A gun that naturally, as it was mine, had my prints on it. I’ve been framed.”

  Well…

  Hell.

  “You didn’t kill that police officer that everyone thinks you killed?”

  “I did not.”

  “You were framed.”

  “I was.”

  “And you’re saying it was another cop, a dirty one, who killed this Crowley guy.”

  “I am.”

  “Holy shit, Brett,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “You know, they’re totally not gonna believe you,” I shared.

&n
bsp; “I do know this. That’s why you have to relay this information to Hawk Delgado so he can look into this shit and get me outta hiding. It’s not like I have an office I can’t sit my ass in because I’ve been forced underground, but bein’ smoke is hindering my ability to earn, and I’m not down with that.”

  “I don’t know if you know this, but it’s my understanding Delgado’s two best buds are cops. And I’m not tight with the guy at all, but you kidnapped one of his boys’ girlfriends. I haven’t been around him a lot, but he seems to like his boys. So he hasn’t shared, but I’d hazard a guess Hawk isn’t your biggest fan.”

  “His business has interfered with mine on a more frequent basis than I’d like so I’m not his biggest fan either,” Brett returned. “But there’s a snake in the grass at the DPD. And when that’s the way, everyone gets bit in the ass.”

  At this point, he leaned toward me, putting his elbows to his knees and tipping his head back to keep contact with my eyes.

  “And, Ryn, darlin’, I would be sure to remind him, his two best buds who are cops got a seat right smack in the middle of that garden party.”

  Well…

  Fuck.

  Chapter Three

  Catch You Later

  Ryn

  I sat on my bed in the early morning dawn, Taser in my hand, and after getting the fifth “I’m sorry” text from Corinne that I did not reply to, I blocked her ass.

  Then I checked my bedside clock, my phone clock, and I did this for the fifty-millionth time.

  When it hit six (bedside clock first), and it was finally only semi-rude to do what I was going to do next, I went to contacts, scrolled down to Danny Magnusson and hit GO.

  His deep voice was sleepy, and I felt a tinge of envy at the fact it was also all kinds of sexy, when Mag answered, “Ryn, hey. Everything cool?”

  “Cisco semi-kidnapped me again last night,” I blurted.

  There was zero sleepy, but a whole load more sexy, when he demanded low, “Talk to me.”

  “Well, see…”

  I trailed off because, shit.

  I couldn’t tell him I was headed out to a sex party.

  Dammit.

  I tried again.

  “Okay, well, I was going to see friends after work last night and apparently one of my friends is legal counsel for Brett so when he said he wanted to chat, she set me up to chat.”