Brianne's Secret

  Brianne’s Secret

  New Pleasures Book 6

  M. S. Parker

  Belmonte Publishing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Contents

  Reading Order

  Free Prequel

  1. Clay

  2. Tess

  3. Clay

  4. Tess

  5. Clay

  6. Tess

  7. Clay

  8. Tess

  9. Clay

  10. Tess

  11. Clay

  12. Tess

  13. Clay

  14. Tess

  15. Clay

  16. Tess

  17. Tess

  18. Clay

  19. Tess

  20. Clay

  21. Tess

  22. Tess

  23. Clay

  24. Tess

  25. Clay

  26. Tess

  27. Clay

  28. Tess

  29. Clay

  30. Tess

  31. Clay

  32. Tess

  33. Clay

  34. Tess

  Epilogue

  Preview: Forbidden Pleasures

  About the Author

  Reading Order

  Thank you so much for reading Brianne’s Secret, the final book of Clay’s story. I highly recommend reading the complete series in this order:

  Jenna and Rylan

  Forbidden Pleasures

  His Pleasures

  Dark Pleasures

  More Pleasures

  Pure Pleasures

  Jenna and Rylan Complete Box Set

  Rona and Jalen

  1. Claimed by Him

  2. Played by Him

  3. Saved by Him

  Clay and Tess

  4. Finding Brianne

  5. Saving Tess

  6. Brianne’s Secret

  Free Prequel

  Get an exclusive prequel to the New Pleasures series! Click Here to subscribe to my newsletter and start reading the exclusive 50 pages prequel – NOT available anywhere else.

  One

  Clay

  I didn’t consider myself even close to middle-aged, and I always thought I’d had decent recovery time, even after I’d turned thirty, but when it came to Tess Gardener, my cock was as insatiable as the rest of me. Even though I’d come not more than two minutes ago, I was already starting to get hard again.

  We helped each other wash in silence, hands slipping over slick, wet skin in a choreography made to entice. I was tempted to bend my head and take one of those tight, butterscotch-colored nipples into my mouth, tease it until Tess begged for relief. I could almost hear the soft, sexy sounds she made when she was aroused. I’d spent years imagining what it would be like to take Tess Gardener to bed, and now that I had, I knew that my imagination hadn’t even come close to doing her justice.

  Even better than learning her sex sounds was the knowledge that I was the only one who’d heard them. When she’d told me she was a virgin, a primal, possessive part of me had wanted to tell her that I’d not only be her first, but her last.

  That urge struck me again as I massaged conditioner into her scalp. Her dark brown curls were silk under my fingers, and I closed my eyes as I remembered what it had been like to see them spread across my pillow.

  Well, not my pillow because we weren’t at my place – or even in our country – but the sentiment stayed the same. Or at least it should have. My gut clenched as I thought of what it would be like to see her in my actual bed. Back in Denver. In the sad little apartment I’d rented. I still had half my things in boxes and spent more time at the office than I did home.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she said as she turned toward me.

  The hard tips of her nipples brushed against my stomach, just below my breastbone, and my cock twitched in response. I was tempted to pick her up, put her back against the shower wall, and fuck her until neither one of us could walk, but as much as I wanted to take her hard and fast, I wanted something else more.

  I wanted her writhing, mindless with ecstasy, unable to think or speak or do anything but feel until she couldn’t bear it. I wanted her screaming my name until her throat was raw and everyone in the entire hotel knew that she was mine.

  Because she was mine.

  She’d been mine since before that first kiss sixteen years ago. Mine before I’d seen her dancing and realized that I wanted my friend to be something else. Mine from the moment the two of us had met, from the moment of my birth. We’d been made for each other, and the perfect way our bodies fit together was proof of that fact.

  She needed to know all of it, but not yet. Not until I made her come with my mouth, my fingers, my cock. Not until the two of us were spent and sated, lying together on the narrow hotel bed. Only then would I say the three words that had always been meant for her–

  “Taylor MacIntosh!”

  The shout pulled me out of my dream, but my brain was still too sleep-addled to figure out what was going on aside from the fact that Tess had just yelled another man’s name. On the heels of that thought came a pain in my chest and the realization that she’d hit me. Not a hit like she was pissed at me. More like her hand had just flailed out.

  I mumbled something about giving me a minute, but when she grabbed my arm, I knew I needed to pay attention right away. I pushed myself up and reached over to flick on the light.

  “Brianne is Taylor MacIntosh, the person you were sent down here to find.”

  Right. That’s why I knew the name. It felt like a million years had passed since Ray had given me the assignment, and almost as long since Brianne had told me about her alias.

  “I know.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Brianne told me.”

  Tess’s face fell. I quickly explained what I’d learned about Brianne and her connection to the Secretary of State’s sister-in-law. Instead of easing Tess back into relaxation, my words seemed to spark something inside her. Her indigo eyes were lit with that fire I liked so much, and I was tempted to pull her into my arms and kiss her until that fire turned to one of a different kind.

  Then she told me about the informant she’d met the day she’d gone missing and what he’d told her about the cartel’s involvement with their local government while our own government was aware of it all. The sheer amount of information my brain tried to process during her explanation made my head hurt.

  “I need to talk to Brianne.”

  It wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning, but the two of us quickly got dressed and headed over to the room Brianne was sharing with her former-lover now-friend Sylvia Nuez. I didn’t know what Tess was thinking her older sister would have to add to what the informant had said, or what she expected any of us to do about it, but I followed her. I’d follow her anywhere.

  “She’s not here.”

  My attention snapped to Sylvia.

  Tess’s face paled. “What do you mean she’s not here?”

  This had to be a bad joke. Sylvia couldn’t be saying what it sounded like she was saying. A misunderstanding, then, if not a joke.

  But Sylvia confirmed it. Brianne wasn’t in the hotel room. Sylvia motioned for us to come in, but we all knew it wasn’t so we could verify that she was telling the truth. Sylvia wouldn’t have lied about this. Still, I couldn’t help looking around when we went inside, as if Brianne was simply hiding somewhere, playing a joke on us.

&nb
sp; “I would’ve called you…” Sylvia’s voice trailed off as she sank onto the end of the bed. “Did something happen?”

  The story spilled out of Tess as she paced, her words as frantic as her movements. I wished I could embrace her and take that energy away, let her rest. She deserved to rest. But there wasn’t anything I could do. She was focused, and if I’d learned anything since we’d reconnected, it was that she wouldn’t let go of something when she’d homed in on it.

  It was what made her a damn good reporter.

  “I’ve heard those rumors before,” Sylvia said. “That the cartel had people higher up than just the cops, and not just here. It isn’t out of the question that they’d have people in the United States as well. Maybe even in the government.”

  “You think that informant gave her something real?” I asked.

  Sylvia’s expression was somber as she regarded me. “I think Brianne was hiding a lot more than any of us realized.”

  Tess looked at me, her eyes wide with concern. “We have to find Brianne, and we have to find out what’s going on, because this is getting…crazy.”

  “Any idea of where we can start looking for her?” I asked.

  Tess shook her head. “But I think you can help with that.”

  “Me?” I blinked at her. “Just because Bri and I spent the last couple weeks together looking for you doesn’t mean I know her well enough to figure out where she might have gone.”

  “I’m not thinking personal connections,” Tess said, pushing her hair back from her face with both hands. “I think it’s time to start looking higher. I don’t think Brianne’s story about the alias is the whole truth. And I don’t think you were sent down here just to find a missing girlfriend.”

  The answer dawned on me. “You want me to call Ray.”

  “I think he’s more likely to have answers than anyone else.” She looked over at Sylvia. “We’ll head back to our room so you can go back to sleep.”

  “I want to help,” Sylvia said.

  Tess offered the smallest of smiles. “Thank you. Let us do some legwork, and if you think of anything that could help us figure out where Brianne is, call me.”

  “You aren’t worried that something happened to her?” Sylvia asked. “Like it did before?”

  It was a valid question, and one that I definitely wasn’t qualified to answer. I looked to Tess the same as Sylvia did, and it took almost a full minute for us to get an answer.

  “I’m starting to wonder if what happened to Brianne before was something that happened to her, or something that she instigated in some way,” Tess said quietly. “She’s keeping secrets, and I think they might’ve finally caught up to her.”

  Two

  Tess

  My gut said that Brianne had left the hotel under her own power, and that it had something to do with whatever had brought her down to Costa Rica in the first place. My gut, however, wouldn’t help me find my sister. I needed actual solid facts for that.

  The first thing I needed to do was check a few other possible contacts, starting with the person I wanted to talk to the least right now. Or ever.

  My old phone was gone, probably smashed to bits during the car accident that had stolen two weeks of my life, but I didn’t need my contact information to dial my mother’s number, not even from Costa Rica.

  “Hello?” Milly Gardener’s voice was blunted, but it was difficult to tell if it was just the connection or if I had caught her sleeping.

  “Mom, it’s Tess.” I rubbed my forehead, the beginnings of a headache already starting. This one I couldn’t completely blame on my mother. It seemed like from the moment I’d arrived in Costa Rica, I hadn’t caught a break. Sure, I’d been able to find Brianne and get her away from the cartel once, but with all the other insanity going on, I was prone to chalk it up to sheer dumb luck.

  “Tess? Hi, sweetie. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for a few days.”

  Brianne and Clay must not have told her what’d happened to me. Smart move. She only called me a couple times a month as it was, but if she’d known something had happened to me, she might’ve hopped a plane, and that would’ve made things worse.

  “I’m still in Costa Rica and I lost my phone.” When it came to being honest with my mother, ‘the whole truth’ wasn’t always the best option. “Have you heard from Brianne today?”

  “Today? No. I talked to her earlier this week though. Shouldn’t she be in Costa Rica with you? I mean, that is where you found her, right? She didn’t say anything about going somewhere else. Did Red Care move the group to another location?”

  “Mom…” I jumped in before she could go any further on that tangent. “I just wanted to check in because I hadn’t talked to you in a while. I figured I’d ask if you’d talked to Brianne today while I was on the phone.”

  I didn’t worry that Mom would ask why, if I’d called to check in with her, my first question had been about Brianne. Over the years, I’d become a master of knowing how to distract my mother.

  “Everything here is fine,” she said, the tone of her statement making it clear that everything was not fine, and I was supposed to inquire further.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course,” Mom went on. “Why wouldn’t it be fine? I mean, it’s not the end of the world that your cousin, Mia, is having her third baby and I’m no closer to being a grandma than I was ten years ago.”

  She was closer to having grandkids than she realized.

  The thought popped into my head and heat flooded my face. I’d never talked to Mom about sex, so she didn’t know that, until recently, I’d been a virgin. I wasn’t about to apprise her of the change in my status, or the fact that I was pretty sure I was falling in love with the guy who’d de-virginized me.

  Besides, Clay and I had been careful. No point in risking a baby if we were going our separate ways as soon as we got back to the US.

  As Mom continued to talk about Mia’s handsome husband and beautiful little boys, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have a child of my own. I knew myself well enough to know that, even though I didn’t visualize the father in my head, there was only one person I could see having a child with. Only one person I’d ever imagined having a family with. When I’d walked away from Clay years ago, I’d told myself that I was walking away from that entire future.

  A lump formed in my throat, making it almost impossible to speak. Just because he and I had reconnected didn’t mean that future was reachable.

  “I have to go, Mom,” I cut her off mid-sentence. “Let me know if you hear from Bri.”

  I hung up before she could say anything else. Closing my eyes, I leaned against the wall, then slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I pulled my legs up and rested my forehead on my knees. Every inch of me was exhausted, wrung out physically, mentally, and emotionally. Brianne couldn’t have picked a worse time to go MIA.

  Except…

  The thought suddenly occurred to me. Maybe that was the point. She’d purposefully chosen to leave at a time when I’d been vulnerable but not in any danger. I could almost follow her logic. Clay would make sure I got back home safely and would promise to find Brianne. Maybe he’d look for a week or two, but he had to get back to his own job. His career meant too much to him to risk it for someone who didn’t want to be found. And Bri would think the same of me, that I’d put my own career ahead of finding her.

  “Dammit, Bri!”

  I didn’t hear the lock on the door click, but the sound of feet shuffling against the worn carpet was enough to let me know I was no longer alone in the room. Clay had a key, which meant it was most likely him. If it wasn’t, I didn’t think I could muster enough energy to care.

  “Milly hasn’t heard from her?” Clay asked as he lowered himself to the floor next to me.

  I shook my head. “It was a long shot anyway. Bri had to know I’d call Mom, and there’d be no reason for Mom to lie to me, not if Brianne was in real danger.” My mouth twisted
into a parody of a smile. “Her protecting me wouldn’t ever come at my sister’s expense. Nor should it.”

  Clay’s fingers curved over the back of my neck, his thumb kneading the muscles at the base of my skull. Some of the tension in my body eased, but the relief was only physical. The anger and fear warring for dominance didn’t even pause. This was worse than before, and it took me a minute to realize why. When I’d originally come down to Costa Rica, I’d known only that Brianne was with Red Care and hadn’t talked to my mom in a while. I’d thoroughly expected to talk to someone at Red Care and be told that cell service was down or something similar. I’d meet with Bri, then head home, calling Mom as soon as I was able. Even when it’d become clear that Brianne was missing, I’d only been mildly anxious, assuming her group had simply gotten lost.

  Now, I knew the dangers of being here, both the ones we’d stirred up and the ones that came with being in a foreign country alone. Brianne might’ve been a soldier, but she was still only one person. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration that she’d only just recovered from injuries inflicted during her time as a captive.

  Then again, she had managed to take out quite a few members of the drug cartel who had kidnapped Sylvia. Who knew what other tricks my sister had up her sleeves.