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of had recently been away. Who the hell else would Sweet Pea be talking about? “Since I haven’t seen any of my female friends today, I’ll go with no.”
Sweet Pea sighed with a hint of annoyance. The woman had a huge heart, even if she was a bit naïve. And she usually had almost unlimited patience . . . unless orgasm depravation was involved. Other than that, he could think of very few subjects that pushed her beyond her usual placid smile. “Okay, what pop culture reference am I missing?”
“It’s all over TMZ. Mystery Mullins arrived in Dallas last night.”
Axel dismissed the gossip at first. She’d been a beautiful girl when he’d rescued her, and he was glad that he’d been able to prevent someone from snuffing out her bright light. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words after their awkward night in Cerro Gordo. So it wasn’t as if he expected her to look him up for a meal or a drink just because she’d jetted to the city.
A drink. Hold up there . . . Mentally, he tripped over the thought again. Then his world tilted.
A beauty with fake hair, hiding her real eye color, and masking her face behind a shit ton of cosmetics had picked him up in a bar, seeming as if she couldn’t wait to be with him. Why would someone go out of their way to proposition him, yet hide everything about herself?
Suddenly, Axel thought he had the answer.
“Did TMZ post any pictures of her?” he barked.
“Yeah, and video, too.”
Axel raced back to his bedroom and shoved the door open. Fuck, the place still smelled like the sex he’d had with her, and that made him hard all over again. He hadn’t been done with the woman. Once more wouldn’t have been enough. Probably not even a hundred times more. He’d been dying to restrain her, spank her, explore every inch of her skin, clamp her nipples, and hear her scream for him again.
If she’d been Mystery Mullins, then his desire for more didn’t surprise him at all.
He grabbed his tablet off his nightstand and quickly surfed to TMZ. Tapping his toe while the site took its sweet time loading, he let out a mental string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
“She looks great. I’d love to have her boobs. And her hips,” Sweet Pea lamented. “She looks like a woman, not a girl still waiting for puberty.”
“You’re small but mighty. Don’t demean yourself, Misty. We’ve had this conversation.”
“And you’ve given me the spanking to go with it. I know . . .” She sighed. “But when you see her, you’ll know what I mean. I almost didn’t recognize her, but she looks stunning.”
About that time, the website popped up. Front and center, he caught a still photo of Mystery wearing the same wig and clothes she had when he’d first seen her at the bar. In this picture, she held the hand of an older man who hovered protectively. The caption snagged Axel’s attention. It sent his temper—and his desire to get his hands on her again—soaring.
MULLINS IN DALLAS FOR MYSTERY LOVER?
He scanned the accompanying “story.” Blah, blah, blah . . . Staying at the Hotel Crescent Court.
Bingo!
Had she really run from his bed as if her ass was on fire so she could crawl into this man’s? The thought chilled him to the core. No way. No fucking way. Axel didn’t question why he felt possessive. He hadn’t thought of Mystery except fleetingly in years. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Days might be more accurate. She was never too far from his thoughts, but he hadn’t succumbed to the urge to look her up and reminisce about old times, even if he’d wondered more than once what would have happened if he’d taken her up on her unspoken offer in the desert. Right now, he’d love to remind her exactly who had given her the pleasure that had urged her to leave half-moon marks from her nails deep in his back as he fucked her again.
“Is that her boyfriend?” he growled at Sweet Pea.
“I don’t think so. Let me . . .” His friend and submissive tapped away on the keyboard he heard in the background. “Nothing on Google about a boyfriend since she briefly dated one of those British boy-band dudes, but that was a good year ago, according to what I can find.”
If she’d finally returned to the U.S. to see this other man she posed with in the photos tonight, why would she have picked him up in a bar earlier today? Curiosity? Had she hoped to scratch the itch lurking under her skin since that night in the ghost town? Axel wasn’t sure what rolled around in the seductive Hollywood princess’s head, but he vowed to get to the bottom of it—and get another taste of her. He’d turned her down at nineteen, despite how badly he’d wanted her, because she’d been young, traumatized, and out of her element. Now that he knew she was all woman who could take every inch of the hard dick he had for her?
It was so on.
He went in search of his shoes. “I have to go.”
“What? Now? I’d hoped we could . . . you know, hang out tonight.”
In other words, she wanted him to scene with her. Their schedules hadn’t matched up since Thorpe’s birthday weeks ago. It had been far longer than that since she’d asked for sex. Lately, he’d sensed the pressure cooker of her emotions churning, building. It wouldn’t be much longer now until she caved to her turmoil and asked him to unravel her.
“When was the last time you cried, Misty?”
She hesitated. “I tried.”
“Good to hear it. Answer the question.”
Sighing, she hemmed and hawed, then gave in. “It’s been a while.”
Exactly as he suspected. With a grim press of his lips, Axel shoved on his shoes and went in search of his keys, then stormed into the garage, pressing the button to lift the door.
“We’ll have to talk about this tomorrow. Because, yes, I’ve seen Mystery. And I need to go ask her some pointed questions right now. Will you be all right?”
“I will.” But she sounded disappointed. “Callie has been having morning sickness, so she’s laying low. She invited me over for some movies tonight.”
Axel would feel better if Sweet Pea stayed with the other woman—and under Thorpe’s and Sean’s watchful eyes. “Do that. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
The second he hung up, he scrolled through the other contacts on his phone, wondering who the hell could help him with this last hurdle . . . He knew in which hotel he’d find Mystery but that information would only take him so far.
Finally, he found just the number he was looking for. The man answered on the first ring. “Your dime. Shoot.”
“Hey, Stone,” he greeted Jack Cole’s new super-hacker, particularly glad the man was one of few words. “I need a favor. Can you dig through a specific hotel’s guest records and give me a room number?”
“Technically, it’s illegal.” Stone sounded as if that amused him, too.
“It’s also pretty damn important.” Because there was zero way Axel intended to let Mystery slide out of his life again without finding out just why the hell she’d fucked him and run off. He had his suspicions, but he wanted to make her say them aloud, to his face—while he was buried deep inside her.
“What’s it worth to you?”
So they were bartering today, huh? It made sense. He and Stone were hardly bosom buddies. In fact, he’d only met the guy a handful of times while trying to help Kata’s brother, Joaquin, save his bride-to-be, Bailey.
“What do you want?”
“You have something exclusive with that hot little thing everyone calls Sweet Pea?”
Axel recoiled in surprise. He hadn’t even been aware that Stone and Misty had met, much less that the man had a hard-on for her.
“Nope. Never have. I’m a friend doing her a favor. That’s it. But I’ll warn you now, if you just want to fuck and chuck, she’s not your girl.”
Stone chuckled. “Okay. Understood. Agree to set up a meet-and-greet between us, and I’ll find out whatever you want to know. Hell, I’ll give you the target’s blood type and what they like for breakfast.”
As he backed out of the driveway in neutral, Axel paused. Sweet Pea was emotion
ally fragile, and he wasn’t sure if Stone had any interest in her beyond sexual. It was on the tip of his tongue to spill some of the girl’s secrets. He didn’t. She’d resent the shit out of him for it. In fact, it had taken months of talking and a lot of trust-building between them before she’d divulged anything about her past. He’d sworn to keep her secrets, some of which even Thorpe, her boss and mentor, didn’t know.
“I’ll do it,” he told Stone finally. “But I can’t promise she’ll have any interest. If you hurt her, I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“I’ve been duly warned. I want to see her this week.”
“I can make it happen tomorrow.”
“Even better.” Satisfaction rang from Stone’s voice. “What do you want me to find out?”
“Mystery Mullins is staying at the Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas. I want her room number.”
Stone didn’t sound surprised—or as if he even cared. “Give me a few. I’ll have it. Any chance she’s staying there under an assumed name?”
“Yeah. She probably checked in yesterday. That’s all I’ve got.”
“It should be enough,” Stone said.
Axel breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll call you in fifteen.”
“I’ll have an answer even sooner, but whatever floats your boat.”
Before he could say anything else, Stone hung up. Axel debated the wisdom of introducing the brash man to shy little Misty, but she should branch out. She needed a man who made her feel something other than safe. Axel knew it wasn’t him.
Starting and revving his bike, he tore out of the driveway and headed into the night. He could think himself to death about why Mystery had hidden her identity to trick him into bed. It either had a lot to do with a bottle of tequila, a ghost town, and his rejection . . . or she’d wanted to see how the trailer half fucked.
As soon as he arrived, he parked his motorcycle. If he had his way, he’d be staying far longer than ten minutes.
Inside the lobby, he pulled out his phone. Again, Stone answered almost immediately.
“What do you have for me?” Axel asked.
“You’ll like this. She’s registered as Elise Rattlebottom. I searched the name. She’s the lead character in Mystery’s series of novels.”
Axel remembered reading when she’d signed her first publishing deal four years ago. At least he understood the name she’d given him at the bar now. “Rattlebottom?”
“Yeah. She’s a vegan cat burglar from London who hates her name. She steals precious items from their current keepers and returns them to the rightful owner. You know, rare dogs, paintings stolen from Jews by the Nazis—that kind of stuff. The character is known by the alias Robin Plunder.”
Despite his annoyance, he grinned at that. “Room number?”
Stone rattled it off, then didn’t wait a second before barking a question back at him. “What time tomorrow?”
“Plan on six at Club Dominion. I’ll let you know if there’s a change.”
Axel hung up before the man could comment or protest, then stepped into the elevator.
Time to unravel his Mystery.
Chapter Eight
SHAKING from head to toe, Mystery snatched up her phone to call Heath. She shouldn’t be alone now, not after someone had just sneaked into her room. He would handle hotel security and the police. She would try to calm her father and keep her fears in check.
Because it looked as if her past was coming back to haunt her. Once upon a time, whoever had paid for her abduction had wanted her for something terrible, maybe even deadly. God forbid if they wanted her again, this time to finish what they’d started.
Mystery punched in her security code to unlock the phone, then flipped through her recent calls. She’d just spotted Heath’s number when someone began pounding on her door.
With a shriek, she dropped the phone and lurched back against the wall. “Who is it?”
She cursed her trembling voice, her racing thoughts. Maybe room service had merely arrived. Maybe the hotel management intended to check on her after the incident in the lobby. Or maybe someone lethal had come to finish her off.
“Open the damn door,” a man growled on the other side.
Yeah, after some psycho had forced his way into her room and left her a threatening photo, she wasn’t inclined to comply. “Go away.”
“Like hell. Open up.”
“I’m calling the police,” she shouted.
“Damn it, I need to talk to you, Mystery.”
Something about his voice cut through her panic and sparked her memory. It was familiar, evoked safety. It wasn’t Heath, but . . .
Axel?
With relief flooding through her veins, she darted to the door and peeked through the peephole. Sure enough, there stood the mountain of a man who’d once rescued her. The man she’d seduced earlier. He would understand the threat she’d just received.
With shaking hands, she pressed down on the lever and opened the door. The sight of him in her portal, a huge sentry keeping out all the bad, rushed over her.
It was probably stupid, but she didn’t care. Mystery threw herself into his arms. “Thank God you’re here.”
Axel propelled her back into the room. The door slammed behind them. He reared back, wearing a thunderously furious expression.
“What the fuck kind of games are you playing with me, princess? You disguise yourself to seduce me, tell me a bunch of lies, then the bed is barely cold before you’re gone—”
She wrenched free and ran to the desk, retrieving the picture. “This just happened.”
When she thrust it at him, he grabbed it but didn’t look, just scowled. She trembled. As he studied her, his anger melted into concern. “You’re afraid. Of me?”
“No,” she assured. “Look at the picture, front and back.”
He gritted his teeth at her, then jerked his gaze down to the photo in his hand. After a long stare, he flipped it over. His glower of epic proportions turned to absolute ice.
“Tell me how you got this,” he demanded.
She drew in a shaking breath, the voice in her head screaming that she needed to keep herself together. “I left your house and came back here. Once in my room, I hopped in the shower. When I got out, I found this.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t here before then? That someone didn’t bring it in while you were out of the room?”
“P-positive,” she assured. “My phone was on that desk, so I texted my father before the shower to tell him I was all right and to sleep well. When I came out, I’d planned to send Heath a text—”
“Who is that? The man I saw on TMZ holding your hand in the lobby?”
Mystery recoiled. Anger seethed from him when he asked the question.
She swallowed. “Yeah. He’s my driver and bodyguard. My father hired him shortly after we moved to London. He’s been with me since.”
“Does he have a key to your room?”
“No. We don’t have . . . I mean, he’s not, like, my lover or boyfriend or anything. He has no reason—”
“If I were your bodyguard, I would have a key to your room, regardless of our relationship—which we’re going to discuss eventually. Right now, we need to be clear that whoever left you this picture knows about your abduction. Maybe he was even in on it.”
“Or responsible for it. I’d already thought of that.”
“Have you swept the room?”
