Beth Kery Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE - TWELVE YEARS LATER

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PRAISE FOR WICKED BURN

  “A passionate, soul-stirring novel . . . Pick up a copy of this unforgettable, sensually irresistible romance and find out why Ms. Kery is one of today’s rising stars of romance.”—Romance Junkies

  “Scorching hot! . . . A must read . . . An author to watch!”

  —Wild on Books

  “Kery gives readers beautifully written prose.”—Romantic Times

  “Unexpected heat turns into a Wicked Burn in this tempting story by Beth Kery.”—Romance Reviews Today

  “A poignant contemporary romance . . . Beth Kery provides a deep, angst-laden tale filled with real characters wanting much more out of life, but lessons learned have led to settling for much less.”—Genre Go Round

  Berkley Sensation Titles by Beth Kery

  WICKED BURN

  DARING TIME

  Berkley Heat Titles by Beth Kery

  SWEET RESTRAINT

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Beth Kery.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / July 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kery, Beth.

  Sweet restraint / Beth Kery.—Berkley trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08209-6

  I. Title.

  PS3611.E79S84 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2008055382

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  PROLOGUE

  His mouth flattened in contempt when he picked the second lock on the back-door basement entrance with ease. He’d seen it dozens of times before so he didn’t know why the evidence of Huey Mays’s cockiness should surprise him. How someone could live by a code of intimidation, corruption, and violence and yet never imagine that crime might waltz through his own back door remained an enigma to him.

  Maybe it was just as simple as the fact that there was no need to imagine evil “out there” when it resided right here in your cozy little home.

  He went utterly still when he heard the sound of footsteps above him. Light, quick . . . undoubtedly the tread of a woman. His nostrils flared as he stared up, an image of her flashing into his mind as clear and vivid as if he possessed X-ray vision and could see straight through the ceiling.

  He’d planned his mission carefully, but he hadn’t expected her to still be awake. He’d have to occupy himself down here until she slept.

  He surveyed the room in which he found himself. Mays had decorated his basement lair to resemble one of the many Chicago sports bars that he and his flock of followers patronized. Three large flat-screen televisions were arranged at varying angles. He could see the room fairly easily with the help of three glowing beer signs that hung over the back of the bar. The red and blue neon cast lurid light on two pinups of nude platinum blondes, one of whom was bending over, her oiled, glistening bare ass beckoning an invitation to one and all.

  He walked silently past the mahogany pool table. A quick glance behind the bar told him that it was fully stocked with premium liquor. He had no doubt that if he opened the humidor on the lower shelf it would contain the finest Cubans.

  For a moment he stood behind the bar and looked out over the tacky playground. He slid a finger through a residue of white dust along the mahogany ledge and placed it to his tongue.

  Nothing but the best for Huey Mays—the most expensive cocaine, booze, cars, tickets to high-profile sporting events . . .

  Women.

  His gaze flickered toward the ceiling again before he continued his inspection. He examined several photos of coaches and players for the Chicago Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs, and White Sox, most of them signed with personal messages to Mays.

  He tried to open the wooden cabinet beneath the shrine of sports photos but the doors were locked. It took him three times as long to pick the lock on the cabinet as it had the back door. He got a clear glimpse into Huey Mays’s priorities when the lock finally gave.

  His eyes fell first on a large dildo, then several sets of handcuffs, a flogger, two paddles, and several ball gags. Some of the large assortment of sex toys had been unwrapped and previously used while other items were still in their original packaging.

  He started to reach for a sleek mini-camcorder sitting next to several video cassettes but picked up a stack of photos instead. His hand remained steady as he shuffled through the photos portraying two blondes with large breasts being flogged and then sodomized by Huey and a brown-haired, wiry man he immediately recognized.

  He paused at one photo and examined Huey’s face. It was twisted and red with a mixture of lust and what appeared to be undisguised fury. He gripped the woman’s long hair in one hand, his body poised to plunge forward in what promised to be a harsh jolt of flesh against flesh.

  He wasn’t wearing a condom.

  From the two women’s overly dramatic expressions of redlipsticked, wide
-mouthed ecstasy directed toward the camera while they both took it in the ass at once, they’d been agreeable to the sport.

  And more than likely paid well for it.

  He put the photos back where he’d found them and refastened the lock.

  The lurid images flashed across his brain as he stood. Just because she hadn’t been in the photos didn’t mean she hadn’t been there. Who’d been taking the photos, for instance? The incendiary thought caused a wave of nausea to sweep through his gut.

  His gaze flickered upward. As if she’d grown restless due to his thoughts of her, she moved again upstairs.

  She wouldn’t be entangled in Huey’s sleazy web.

  Chances are that she was, though. He had enough experience at this point in his life to know anything was possible. The woman upstairs had slammed that lesson home to him hardest of all.

  But she couldn’t be.

  Fuck. How could she not be?

  The sound of a shower being turned on penetrated his bitter ambivalence. His hand pressed to the package inside the breast pocket of his jacket. His chest seemed to burn beneath it.

  A litany of curses and insults paraded across his consciousness, every one of them aimed at himself . . . at his immense stupidity. Despite his mental self-flogging, he didn’t head for the back door like he should have if he’d possessed even a single working neural pathway in his brain. Instead he waited for the sound of the shower door closing and ascended the stairs silently.

  He’d come here with a mission and he’d complete it. Maybe it’d give him some peace of mind.

  Maybe.

  But he doubted it.

  The upstairs of the prairie-style home was in direct opposition to the tacky basement. It would have been convenient to say that her character reigned upstairs while her husband’s ruled below, but the only trace he caught of her was the elegance and simplicity of the décor. Otherwise he might have been in any handsome, historical Hyde Park home.

  The original maple floors had been lovingly restored. They gleamed in the dim light from the living room and a room down the hallway to the right. High ceilings, original crown molding, and graceful archways bespoke an era of elegance and attention to the smallest architectural detail. The furnishings were eclectic, but tastefully chosen—a mixture of antiques and modern furniture with clean, sophisticated lines.

  He frowned in puzzlement. The walls were bare . . . the credenza, mantel, and tables free of sculpture. No art.

  Once he entered the hallway his nose caught the odor of damp clay. He paused, his gaze cast hungrily toward the partially opened bathroom door eight feet in front of him on the right.

  Nevertheless, he stepped into the room on the left, his stance wary. He knew for a fact that Huey Mays was out of town, but Mays was a dangerous man. He wouldn’t put anything past him.

  Sure enough the room was her studio. The small twelve-by-twelve-foot room had no windows. It looked as if it were originally meant to serve as some sort of large closet or utility room. She must use the bathroom across the hall where she showered presently for the water she required for her sculpture.

  The sculpture that she’d been working on stood on a table, wetted down and covered in plastic. He stared at an array of ma quettes set out on the floor and on a bench—her working models for larger pieces. His forehead crinkled in bemusement when his gaze landed on one portraying a young man sitting on a bench, his longish hair covering one eye as he leaned over and read a book with almost tangible intensity.

  He started toward her work in progress when he heard the sound of water splashing against the tub extra hard, like she’d just squeezed the moisture out of her hair.

  His outstretched hand jerked back.

  He silently stalked farther down the hallway to the entrance of the bathroom. She hadn’t closed the door all the way. He might have denied himself the opportunity to look at her art but he wouldn’t deny himself a glimpse of her body.

  Why should he, goddamn it? She owed him that . . . and a hell of a lot more.

  He placed his fingertips on the door. It silently opened a few more inches. The shower was situated on the opposite wall from the door. Steam clung to the glass but he saw her nonetheless. She was turned in profile, her head back, eyes closed as water streamed down her face, neck, breasts, and belly.

  His body went rigid—a fixed flame.

  A minute later he located the hidden jewelry box in her underwear drawer. The leather box hadn’t been stashed amid her fine silk and satin lingerie. No, instead she’d hidden her jewelry among her everyday underwear—worn cotton briefs and exercise bras.

  He smiled coldly at that fact. Perhaps she had some inkling about the true nature of the glittering pieces of paste Huey gave her as gifts.

  The large emerald sparkled and winked at him as he held it up in the stream of his flashlight. He held up the facsimile next to it.

  “Pretty little fake,” he whispered into the darkness.

  He pocketed the glittering lump of paste and placed the exquisite gem with the trapped fires into her jewelry box.

  Then he exited Laura’s life just as silently as he’d entered.

  CHAPTER ONE

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  Theman sitting in the driver’s seat of the car parked in an abandoned parking lot near the Cal-Sag Channel was a keg of dynamite about to blow. In fact Randall Moody had come here on this cold January Chicago night to ensure that he did. He wanted to be the one to toss the igniting match in his own good time, however, and he didn’t want to be anywhere near the explosion when it occurred.

  He cautiously tapped twice on the car window.

  “What the hell? How’d you find me?” Huey Mays asked after he’d peered through the window and unlocked the car door. Moody got into the passenger seat. His nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “Smells like a distillery in here.” He glared repressively at Mays when he saw the other man had drawn his gun when he heard the knocking on the window, but didn’t tell him to put it away. He planned on Huey using that gun sometime soon, after all. Huey’d need it handy.

  Moody shivered uncontrollably for a moment, cursing his aching joints and aging body. Dammit, Huey Mays’s life was about to come to an end. What he wouldn’t give to have his younger, more virile body, even though Mays had wasted much of his health on alcohol, drugs, and multiple daily doses of rich, fatty foods. Moody was pushing sixty but he worked out at his health club vigilantly and was fastidious about what he drank and ate. He considered aging a weakness, but what he despised even more was Huey’s lack of discipline and tendency to wallow in his carnal nature.

  “One of the patrolmen saw your car out here,” Moody replied, his tone smooth and warm, carrying no hint of the bitter resentment he felt. There was no reason to elaborate further. Mays knew as well as anyone Moody had one of the best information networks in the city. If something significant was going down in Chicago, chances are Randall Moody knew about it. Thirty-five years in the Chicago Police Department and carefully established contacts in both government and the underworld had seen to that.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Huey muttered. His hands moved nervously along his thighs as he wiped the sweat off his palms, but Moody was glad to see he merely placed his gun in his lap instead of putting it away. “You’ve gotta help me get out of this mess. The feds are breathing down my back to name names, you know.”

  “I told you they would. I also told you why it wouldn’t be in your best interest to do so,” Moody said calmly.

  “They say it’ll reduce my sentence to almost nothing.”

  “Almost nothing? Your best scenario—best, mind you—would be five years in federal lockup. Might as well say an eternity when it comes to you, Huey. Have you thought about what that’d be like? No cocktail available every time you get nervous. No cocaine to give you a nice jolt.” Moody slowly removed his leather gloves and stacked them neatly on his black cashmere overcoat. He inspected his well-manicured nails. “And, of course . . .
you’ll be on the receiving end instead of the instigator in the type of sex you prefer—”

  “There’s not a chance in hell!” Huey shouted. His eyes looked bloodshot and wild. Moody was pleased to see he looked like a man who stood right on the edge.

  “And the fact of the matter remains, Huey. Any benefit you receive from pointing fingers will be very short-lived. It’s time you took responsibility for your own actions.”

  “Nothing?” Huey entreated gruffly. “There’s nothing you can do for me?”

  “Your fate is in your own hands, I’m afraid,” Moody said, his gaze flickering down to the gun in Huey’s lap.

  “I should have gotten rid of Shane Dominic years ago.”

  “When the time is right, Dominic will be taken care of, I assure you of that.”

  “Or better yet, we should have just whacked her back then.”

  “Your wife is a lovely woman. We aren’t such monsters that we kill something so delicate and rare,” Moody remonstrated.

  “Better you would have married the bitch, then.” Huey’s smile resembled a snarl as he stared blankly out the front window, obviously picturing something much more pleasant in his mind than the black winter’s night. “I got her good, though. Both her and that asshole Dominic.”

  Moody shook his head sadly and reached for the handle on the passenger door. “This is your chance, Huey, to show your wife she married a strong man, a disciplined man. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of the opportunity while you still possess not only your freedom and your honor, but your manhood. Don’t let Shane Dominic take that away from you as well.”

  Moody patted Huey’s knee in a gesture of paternal encouragement before he exited the car.