Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“Yeah. It hurts.”
“Brody! Are you ready to go home?” Autumn bounced into the room. She came to a stop as she saw Ethan, moving closer to where the Fox was lurking.
“Oh, hi, Mr. Stone. I didn’t know there was anyone still here,” Autumn said.
“Call me Stone or Ethan,” he told her.
“Stop flirting with my girl, Stone,” the Fox warned in a low voice.
Ethan tensed. Holy. Fuck. “I wasn’t. I was just talking to her.”
“Daddy!” Autumn chided. “Stop scaring Mr. Stone. He’s a very nice man.”
A very nice man?
Stone grimaced. Damned by faint praise. He would rather be sexy. Dangerous. Gorgeous.
Nice?
No, he wasn’t nice.
The Fox grunted. “First, he touches my Pup, then he flirts with my Bunny. You don’t want to breathe for much longer, huh, Stone?”
Ethan closed his eyes. Why? Why him? Right now, he could’ve been at the club with a sub on her knees, getting ready to suck him off.
Although, for some reason that was becoming less and less appealing. He’d been going to the club for years and he’d always found the club a good mood stabilizer.
No matter what else was going on in his life, the club was his constant. Where he felt in control.
But he now found himself . . . disinterested.
Indifferent.
He was the guy everyone came to with their problems.
Mr. Fixer. With all the answers.
If he didn’t have something to keep him grounded . . .
Fuck. He was worrying about nothing. Maybe he just had ‘Dom block.’ Like writer’s block.
Yeah. That’s all this was.
A temporary issue that would hopefully go away soon.
Perhaps after a vacation.
Opening his eyes, he spotted Brody glaring at something to the side and behind him.
Not something.
Someone.
The Fox.
“Fox, we’ve talked about this,” Brody chided. “You can’t scare our friends.”
“Brody is right,” Autumn said. “We have to be nice to our friends or they won’t want to be our friends anymore.”
“Of course they will,” the Fox drawled. “I’ll make them.”
Dear Lord.
He wondered if they ever intended to have children.
Just imaging the Fox with a child gave him chills.
A baby.
A girl baby.
Holy. Heck.
Parent-teacher conferences would be a nightmare.
Play dates would be a minefield.
He fought off that terrifying thought.
“Papa,” Brody said.
“Fine, Pup,” the Fox said gruffly. “I’ll let your friend leave. But no flirting with my babies, Stone.”
Ethan didn’t bother to protest that he hadn’t been flirting in the first place. He just breathed out a sigh of relief as they left.
Then he sat in Brody’s chair.
Yeah, he definitely needed a vacation.
2
“Morning everyone.” Ink walked into the meeting room at Callahan Security. Brody strode in behind him, looking slightly dishevelled with his hair standing up on end. His T-shirt had a fox’s face on it. Above the fox was the word, ‘No’, while underneath was the word, ‘Given.’
No fox given.
Clever.
Ethan was sitting at the large table. Across from him sat Seth Blue. He’d worked with Seth for years. The other man was solid. If a bit too happy. It was odd.
“Morning,” Seth said cheerfully. “Love the shirt, Brody.”
“Um, thanks.” Brody tugged at it self-consciously.
Ethan didn’t say anything, just nodded in greeting. He was feeling grouchy this morning.
Something about his run-in last night with the Fox had irritated him.
Maybe because a killer assassin has two people who love him, and you have no one.
Ouch. His inner voice was being a real bastard this morning.
“We have a new client,” Ink said, getting straight to the point.
Brody sat with his laptop and connected it to the projector.
“And this client is important because he’s an old friend of mine,” Ink added.
Brody brought up an image of . . .
“Is that Rhodes Ripley?” Seth asked in surprise.
“Yep.”
“He was amazing in that last Luther Kiley movie,” Brody said. “Do you know he does his own stunts?”
Ink nodded. “Yeah, Rip is a good guy. Duke and I went to high school with him and his twin sister, Cate.”
“What’s going on? Does he have a stalker or something?” Ethan asked. That was the logical explanation. Rhodes Ripley was famous for his role as Luther Kiley, an ex-Special Forces turned mercenary hero.
“Looks like it,” Ink replied. “He’s received a series of letters. Each one gets progressively more intense.”
Ethan looked at the images on the projector screen. His eyebrows rose as one letter stated they wanted to slip into Ripley’s room and wake him up with their mouth around his cock.
Another stated they would happily be his fucktoy, to be used however he wanted.
“Some of these letters are explicit.” Seth asked. “That last one goes into a lot of detail about what they want to do to Rip.”
“Yeah. Rip’s agent finally brought the letters to his attention after that one. They reported them to the police, but they don’t have any leads on whoever has been sending the mail yet. No fingerprints, no return address.”
“So your friend called you?” Seth asked.
“Only because of what occurred last night.” Ink started pacing. “Someone attempted to enter his property.”