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“What?” Sirius could almost see the wheels turning in her head.

  “Do you still love her?”

  “Penny?”

  Denby arched one brow and looked less than impressed. “Is that her name?”

  “Yes.” Did it matter to Denby? Sirius hoped it did because it would mean all feeling for him wasn’t gone.

  “Do you love her?”

  “I only love one person.”

  “And she’s named after a coin apparently,” Denby muttered as she got into the car.

  Sirius smiled and said nothing. Oh yeah, Denby Dumaresq still loves me.

  Chapter Eight

  “Is she still with Sirius Tate?” Joseph Armstrong, known to those who followed his cause as Jacobson, looked at one of his grey suited minions. He liked that they all looked the same. As individuals they meant nothing to him. As a collective mass who obeyed his every demand?

  Priceless. That the bastard son of Jacob Armstrong and his teenage whore of a mother had risen to such mighty heights? Justice.

  “Yes,” the man answered, his eyes, watchful with a trace of fear in them as he spoke to his leader. “Tate’s a deserter to the cause.”

  Simpleton. As much as it would suit his own purposes, nothing was ever black or white. Shades of gray were always present, disrupting plans. “Is he?” Jacobson decided to play with the man’s mind for a while. Placing doubt in the minds of the ardent, true believers was enjoyable to him. As a young boy he liked pulling the wings off flies. His followers were akin to that.

  The man looked confused. “What are you saying?”

  Whatever the hell I like. “Not everyone wears a gray suit and sits in meetings.”

  “Are you saying Tate’s still one of us?”

  “Yes.” Jacobson wondered what it would be like to have a follower stand up to him. Tate had. He reluctantly admired him for that.

  He looked agog. “Really?”

  “No but I want my daughter to believe that. Her spirit needs to be crushed.” God knows I’ve tried everything else to bring Denby to her knees. His daughter was the most willful woman, after her mother, he had ever met. Redheads. Always trouble. No amount of punishment or imprisonment had broken her spirit. If only she had been a boy. He could have channeled a son into the right way.

  The man looked relieved. “And Tate?”

  Jacobson wasn’t surprised he looked less stressed. These people could only think in one standard direction. Throw in a variable and they ceased to function. It was that which made them good followers. “Oh, he needs to be crushed for walking away.” No one walked away from him. They limped or crawled, broken and bleeding and wishing they have never chosen the path they had.

  “How do we do that?”

  Jacobson smiled. There was no ‘we’. There was no ‘us.’ It was ‘them’ and ‘him.’ That’s the way he liked it. “I’ll be using a woman called Penny Harper. She’s his ex-lover.”

  “What can a mere woman do?” the man sneered.

  That was the problem mankind faced. They had always misjudged the power of womankind. It had allowed females to rise in power to a rate that meant they had to be crushed fast and hard. It had been messy and annoying and yes, enjoyable, seeing so many women torn down under his auspices.

  “You’d be surprised. Why do you think we’re fighting so hard to subjugate them? They’re much stronger than we give them credit for. They can play with our emotions and bring us to our knees if we let them.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk this way before.”

  Because you do not and will not ever know me. “A wise man always knows their enemies.”

  “So this woman—”

  “Is back in town and on the payroll.” It had taken him a while to track her down. She had been whoring around from man to man. The last one had been reluctant to give her up. To make him less reluctant, Jacobson employed some large bikers with tattoos and chains to ‘persuade’ him. Pain was always a great incentive.

  “She can bring Tate to his knees?”

  “If not her, then her son can.” Jacobson smiled at the thought. Some men were quite obsessive about knowing their children. He personally knew more than enough about Denby and liked nothing about her. She was a thorn in his side that needed removing.

  “Son?”

  “Yes, it’s going to be fun to watch.” He heard the quiet knock on the door. “Ah, and here she is.

  You can go now.” This man didn’t need to know any more than he had already been told. The man looked like he was about to object but changed his mind and left.

  A blonde woman passed by him and the door closed. She was tall and slim, with a long waterfall of shiny, straight blonde hair falling to hers hips. Penny Harper looked at Jacobson. “Do you have my money?”

  He wasn’t offended at the lack of greeting. This was business after all and he suspected she was in some pain after his visit last night. The vision was still in his mind of her tied on the bed while he had man after man mount, come inside her, and then leave for the next man to take his place. At last twenty had ridden her. Maybe more. Jacobson had done it to let her know she was and always would be a whore and he expected nothing more from her. He had sat and watched the whole proceedings, letting her know he knew. Jacobson didn’t touch her. He liked his women chaste.

  Deflowering appealed to him.

  “Yes, as discussed. You’ll get half now and half later.” He smiled as she put her hand out.

  “Avarice is so attractive in woman.” Once more he took in the recently healed cut marks to the inside of her forearms arms. That she abused herself in such a painful way interested him.

  Vulnerability was an asset to exploit. “Where’s the child?” He would give her the money when he was ready and not because she demanded it.

  “I have to hire the brat by the hour. I’m not made of money you know. He’ll be ready when he needs to be,” Penny told him, her voice cool with distain.

  Jacobson looked at her. She had a trashy surface charm that was undoubtedly what attracted Tate but below that she was hard and quite ugly. That made her useful as people like her were expendable.

  “You still plan to pretend its Tate’s kid?”

  “Yes.” She was to pretend she never had the abortion because she’d had a fit of the guilts, and for that, he would pay her more than she was worth. But it was necessary to bring Denby down. He wanted her crushed and needy with nowhere to turn.

  “Think he’ll buy it?”

  “Yes because he’s one of those noble men who believe in doing the right thing and for some reason he loved you.”

  Penny shrugged. “And that’ll hurt your daughter?”

  “That’s not something for you to worry about.” He was annoyed he had let that slip. It was unlike him. But he had and that’s why he had scheduled the previous night’s entertainment with all those men. It had been to exert his control over her.

  And yes, it was to hurt his daughter. He felt nothing for Denby. Not for one day since her birth.

  She wasn’t a boy. He was bitter about that and blamed Shanelle, his wife, after the birth. His wife had turned on him when he had mentioned the child’s sex was a disappointment and they would have to keep trying until they got it right. She had been enraged and rebelled. Typical redhead. He had beaten her up. She tried to leave several times with Denby but he always had them dragged back to be punished. He quite enjoyed whipping his wife’s pale, white curvaceous body until she was bleeding and crying for him to stop. And he did. When it suited him. While he didn’t want the girl child, it was the fact that Shanelle never asked if she could take Denby that enraged him. He was in charge. He had made that clear from the start of their relationship. At first, his wife had thought it charming and exciting to do the bidding of a dominant male. Later she didn’t. When she finally left, leaving the child behind, he wasn’t surprised. She was just like his mother.

  But it had surprised him momentarily to see his mother in the flesh when she was trying to escape him seve
ral weeks ago. He had ordered his followers to abduct her and take her to their headquarters. He had wanted to see the woman who had abandoned him. It had taken him a while to get to that point. For years he refused to do so, choosing to vent his anger on the image he had in his mind of a spoilt slut of a teenager who gave him up without a care. Frances Beaton was much more spry than he expected at seventy years of age. Unlike him. He was still limping from the gunshot wound to his ass Tuck Morris had inflicted on him when he had his mother cornered and vulnerable.

  He was another on his list he planned to destroy. “So many to destroy, so little time,” Jacobson murmured to himself.

  When he had been old enough to understand, his father, Jacob Armstrong, a bitter man, had told him his mother had run out on him because she didn’t care about him and if she did, she would have stuck around. ‘ But whores never do, son.’ His father railed so much against his mother, blaming her for everything, that his son began to believe it. She was the reason he wasn’t picked for the football team, why he had no friends and why his teachers hated him and gave him bad marks. His father’s bitterness became his own. It was all her fault. If she had stayed, he would have been successful.

  Years later when he was older and richer, due to some insider trading, a little bit of theft, a lot of blackmail and a good deal of suspect property deals, he tracked Frances Beaton down and had her followed. She was working as nurse. She had never been a doctor despite her work at the clinic helping the down and outs. Seemingly that was her goal in life. Helping the weak and needy and ignoring the son she had abandoned. It was just another reason to hate her more and want to push his way back into her life at the worst possible time for her, making her life miserable. As for his father? He rarely spoke to the old man.

  Then there was Shanelle. His errant, bitch of a wife. At that moment, he had no idea where she was and he could care even less. He had no interest in tracking her down. The minute his daughter had begun asking for her mother he told Denby if she asked for her again, she would be beaten.

  Denby kept asking and he kept hitting her. If he was stuck with a daughter, then she would behave as he required her to. The fact she was almost a dead ringer to her mother made it easier to dole out the punishment to control her. He knew her daughter had been searching for mother. He suspected Shanelle had been looking for Denby. Every so often enquiries came through and he quashed so Denby never found out. When you had money you could do what you liked to whomever you wanted to. Despite every punishment he inflicted on Denby, she bounced back and refused to accept defeat. “Annoying little bitch.”

  Jacobson looked at Penny. Yes, harlots were much easier to deal with. He would use her to screw over Tate and Denby. Perfect.

  Chapter Nine

  They were nine hours from Cairns when they stopped in Mackay. They had driven nonstop, apart from the odd restroom and snack breaks. The topics of conversation had been many and varied as it had always been between them. That was one of the many things Denby had missed about Sirius.

  Unlike most men, he was able to jump from conversation to conversation, following along with her without missing a beat.

  Mackay was an average sized town that had seen a boom due to fly-in, fly-out jobs created by the rise in the mining sector. It had been hard to find a place to stay as most were booked out.

  Eventually they found a small motel right under the airport flight path. Denby was too tried to care about that. “I could sleep on a barbed wire fence,” she muttered as she flopped onto the double bed in the room they had taken for the night.

  “I wish you’d told me. It would’ve been cheaper to sleep on barbed wire,” Sirius quipped as he dropped the car keys down on a bench.

  Money. He had it. She didn’t. Denby felt guilty. She had been the one who wanted to go. “I should pay.” Problem was, she wasn’t sure how.

  “It’s okay, Denby,” he assured her as he sat down on the bed beside her.

  “I pay my way.”

  “As I do I. Added to that, I chose to come.” He lay back on the bedspread. “Arrrggghh, that feels good.”

  She sat up. Him lying beside her was making Denby feel stuff she didn’t want to feel. Memories of a hard, warm body tight against hers made tense up. Sex right now would be totally inconvenient.

  Great, but awkward, with her irrational need to still feel pissed off at him. It was hard to keep that up when he was being so nice. “Well, I’ll buy dinner.” She reached for her duffle bag and scrabbled through her meager belongings to find her purse. “Or not.” She was broke but for three dollars, ten cents, a busted packet of mints and some ants who had managed to find their way in for the mints.

  “Denby,” Sirius murmured to her.

  “What?” She turned to see his eyes closed. He had to be knackered after driving for so long.

  “While I’ve always loved your independence it’s okay for either a man or a woman to depend on the other. It doesn’t mean one is less than the other.”

  Of course he was right. “I’m just used to looking after myself.” She dropped the bag on the floor.

  Flee while you have the chance, ants. Everything deserved to be free.

  “I know and I don’t expect anything from you.”

  “Oh.” She felt weirdly disappointed that he wasn’t so overcome by lust he wouldn’t want to jump her bones then and there. Not that he has to. It’s not like I want sex or anything.

  Sirius opened his eyes and smiled. “No, your virtue is safe.”

  “Right.” Disappointment slammed into her. Okay, maybe I do want sex. Spending so much time with him in the car had made her start to remember stuff she thought she had squashed down.

  “Disappointed?” He tilted his head and looked at her with interest.

  “No. Yeah. I don’t know.” He was a bastard. She hated him. He did wrong by her. Yet I want him.

  How confusing is that?

  “Need sex?”

  “It’s just being with you again—”

  “Feels right?”

  “Sorta. Anyway forget it.” There was no way she was going to ask for sex.

  “Nope, I can’t now.” Sirius kept his gaze locked on her eyes. “Sex is handy to have with someone you already know as there are no ties or expectations.”

  “I suppose.” Handy? Jeez, hardly romantic.

  “And you could still consider me a bastard afterwards.” He grinned at her.

  Lordy, he’s lovely when he smiles. “I was angry when I said that.”

  “I know.”

  Denby blew out a breath and contemplated her options. It was just sex. They had done it before.

  It’d be no big deal if they did it again. Right? “So, I suppose we could—”

  “Yeah, we could.”

  “You don’t sound that excited.” Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I’ll just use my fingers and memory later in the shower.

  “Are you kidding me?” Sirius picked up her hand and placed it on his crotch. “I’ve had a hard on since the millisecond I saw you.”

  “Wow!” He was hard. And all for me. It’d be a shame to waste it. Denby licked her lips. She couldn’t believe how horny she was. But this was Sirius and he was hard. It was a no brains required situation. “No strings attached right?” Her fingers hovered above the metal tag of his zipper.

  “Right.”

  “And later we’ll act like nothing happened.”

  “If you say so, darling.”

  “I do say so.” Denby liked that she sounded in control of what she knew would rapidly become an out of control situation. She pulled the zipper down. His dick jumped out. Ahh…niiice. She remembered Sirius never wore underpants. Back then she thought it was sexy. Now? It still was but things had changed. She was different. Stronger. More confident. She knew what she wanted and she told herself this time it was just about wanting dick and satisfaction. Nothing more. She had been gifted with the opportunity to have it and the man without any consequences. At least that’s what I’ll keep t
elling myself. She stroked the flesh, her gaze locking on his. “Sirius—”

  “Denby?” He half sat up, reaching out to her.

  She pushed him back down. “None of this means anything, right?”

  “Again, if you say so.”

  “I do.” Denby stood up kicked off her boots, jeans and panties. Normally she would have showered before having sex but these were not normal times. Opportunities had to be taken when presented to you.

  Sirius chuckled. “You’re in charge of what happens between us.”

  If only it was as easy as that. Emotions had a habit of screwing up the most rigid of plans. Worry about that later, woman. Take. Give. Move on. She climbed back on the bed, placing a knee either side of his body and straddling his hips, the wet core of her directly above his dick. If she was honest, she’d been wet with need the minute she’d seen Sirius again. Foreplay? Never necessary with the right man. “Good. We never mention it again.” If she said it enough she would believe it.

  His hands gripped her hips. “Come on down, Denby darling.”

  And she did. It was the most delicious sensation having his hard shaft fill her once more. She closed her eyes and savored the moment.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just thinking,” Feeling. Needing. Wanting.

  “I thought we weren’t going to do that.”

  Denby opened her eyes and placed her palms down on his chest. It would be so easy to kiss him.

  She loved the taste of his mouth in hers. What could one little kiss hurt? She dropped her head down.

  “Are you going to kiss me? Do we have to forget kissing as well?” Sirius said, as his arms wrapped around her waist pulling Denby against him.

  Would that be possible? “Um—” But then his mouth was on hers and no other justification was required. She gasped against his lips. It was almost like up until this moment she had forgotten how to breathe. “Oh God…” She gave into what she was feeling, kissing his lips with slow, sucking kisses as their tongues touched and teased. Her hips undulated back and forth, riding the dick buried deep within her.