It was probably a waste of time, making the trip uptown. There were no police cars outside the monolith of a house, but that wasn't surprising. I was sure they'd set everything up in case a ransom call came in, but I knew the cops all thought that Isadora was just out doing what most rich twenty-somethings in New York City did and that she'd stagger home, drunk and /or high at some point.
Fifth Avenue was quieter than I could remember seeing it in quite some time and I had to wonder if maybe Ash had waved his magic wand made of green bills and somehow managed to clear the city street.
The idea amused me for some reason.
Maybe because I could actually picture Ashford Lang striding into some crowded and dim city official’s office and shaking a fist of bills in his face. See this? I’m Ashford Fucking Lang and I’m having a bad day. Make everybody go away.
Not that it would work in the real world, but he was arrogant enough to think he could control everything and everybody. I wouldn't have put anything past him.
I control things.
His voice was a hot, raw echo in the back of my memory and I had to suppress a shudder.
I still felt his hands on me.
His cock inside me.
His mouth on me.
Oh, hell.
That mouth.
Even as much as I regretted last night, I regretted not having more. Like having him completely sober so that he couldn't blame what happened on lowered inhibitions. I regretted not having him completely naked and stretched out under me as I learned his body. Then me under him as he learned mine. I regretted not having had more time.
“Stop it,” I told myself as I mounted the steps.
For once, nobody was there to open the door. I really hoped that didn't mean Ash had fired the entire staff. Isadora had told me that Doug had been with her family since she was a child and he'd been the one who'd stayed with her after her parents died while Ash had been on his way from college.
I told myself it wasn’t a big deal to let myself in. I had a key. Isadora had given me one and told me that I could pretty much come and go as I pleased. I shook my head. Far too naïve and trusting.
There had been one thing she'd said though. If you do let yourself in, make sure you either find me in my wing or stay in the main area up front, Toni, okay? Don't go in the west wing. That's pretty much all my brother's.
She'd made a joke about Beauty and the Beast. I’d countered with one about Bluebeard and she’d laughed, a surprisingly loud and bawdy laugh that hadn’t seemed to fit the elegant and sweet woman.
I could see now that her joke had been much more appropriate for her brother.
Slipping into the house, I locked the door behind me and quickly moved to disarm the system. The last thing I needed was for the alarm to go off and the cops to show up.
As the beeps hushed, my skin prickled. As a soon-to-be psychiatrist, I knew all about instinct and the sorts of primal things that our species had retained despite all of our civilizing.
It was that part of me that reacted when I heard the low, guttural moan. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I couldn't even tell if it was a sound of pain, but it was enough to tell me that something was happening.
Chapter 5
Ash
I was a coward.
I had a hell of a lot of character flaws, but I had to admit that one surprised me. I'd always considered my way of dealing with sex and women as being smart, the right thing to do since I wasn't interested in a relationship. Now, I saw it for what it really was.
I was a coward for sneaking away from Toni the way I did every other woman. I was worse, actually, because those other women had known what they were getting into.
I'd been wondering what in the hell I'd gotten myself into and how I could ever face Toni again when I'd been saved by the bell…more or less.
Toni had gotten a phone call, and judging by the grimace on her face, she'd seemed to think it was important, so rather than doing the polite thing and waiting to see if she wanted to talk, I used it as a chance to get the hell out of Brooklyn.
If I'd thought that thinking clearer would be any easier once I was away from her, away from the magic of her touch or the power of her eyes, then I was clearly an idiot.
I doubted she would've disagreed with that assessment.
All day, I tasted her kisses.
Instead of the pounding headache, I had a pounding cockache, brought on by residual memories of the way she’d stared at me, daring me to try to control her.
Damn, I wanted to control her.
And it pissed me off that I couldn't.
What was worse, the more I thought about her, the hotter I got, the more on edge I got.
And then my mood did a violent slide in the other direction as I recalled…Iz.
She was still missing.
Not that it mattered to the cops.
There was a set period of time she had to be missing, I'd been told. Forty-eight hours.
It had been less than twenty-four.
I was going to kill someone if I had to wait another day for them to get off their asses and do something.
“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” I was talking to the Police Commissioner, but even his title wasn't enough to make me keep my voice down. “I’m telling you that my sister is missing. You’re the NYPD. What, you don’t investigate missing persons’ cases anymore, Dyson?”
I stared hard at my computer screen.
The man who stared back at me over the monitor was a white-haired man with the distinguished sort of features that commanded authority. That wasn’t why I’d backed him or why I still supported him though. He backed up his promises with real action.
Yet I wasn’t seeing any sign of that here.
“You’re not listening to me, Ashford. Now…listen…” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth. “I understand why you’re so angry, but before you tear me a new one, try to remember what I had to go through about this time last year.”
His jaw went tight, and I looked away. A year ago, his daughter had been gunned down in what was nothing more than a petty act of revenge. She’d only been fourteen. They still didn't have enough proof to arrest the guy who did it.
“But you need to understand, there are certain things that tie our hands for now. Isadora is an adult. She hasn’t been missing for forty-eight hours. Trust me, we are keeping our eye out, but until we cross that deadline…”
“With kids, they say the first twenty-four hours or whatever…those are the golden hours. So why is it different with adults?”
“Because adults can, and do, just…leave.”
I hammered at him for another few minutes and then hung up. I had other names on my list. Powerful names who I'd gotten to know through my business transactions…and some through my more…private life. I didn't make any other calls though.
It wasn’t doing any good.
I had my own security out in force, combing the streets for her. I'd sent them out almost immediately after I'd talked to Doug. And actually, I'd gotten proof that the cops were looking for her. Just not officially. One of my men had run into a contact of his own the force and it turned out they were both doing the same thing. Looking for Isadora. My guy had texted me to let me know.
Tearing the city apart and threatening all the contacts I had – contacts I might need soon – wasn’t going to serve any purpose.
I needed to focus.
Needed to think.
But I wouldn’t be able to do that until I got rid of some of the energy, the anger inside me. There was only one way I knew to do that.