Up in Smoke (Kisses and Crimes Book 2) Read online

  NATALIE E. WRYE

  Copyright © 2017 by Natalie E. Wrye.

  This novel is an original work. It is a fictional writing, a work entirely derived from the author’s imagination. All characters and events are entirely fictional and not based in fact, nor based on any real person(s) living or deceased. Any resemblance or similarity to any real person(s), alive or dead, or event is purely and clearly coincidental. This book contains adult language and in some instances coarse language and, due to its content, should not be viewed by children.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without the written permission of the author (except for the use of brief quotations in a book review).

  Cover Design:

  Nicole Williams, Vivid Dreams Book Design

  http://www.vividdreamsbookdesign.com

  Table of Contents

  CONTACTING ME

  ABOUT

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  HOT CHILD IN THE CITY

  SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

  LIKE A MOTH TO A FLAME

  NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE

  BAPTISM BY FIRE

  FIRE IN THE HOLE

  AN OLD FLAME

  FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  BURNING DESIRE

  HOLY SMOKES

  WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE

  CRASH AND BURN

  THE SMOKING GUN

  FANNING THE FLAMES

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  BURNING THE BRIDGES

  FAHRENHEIT 451

  EPILOGUE

  TO THE READER

  * * *

  FOOL’S GOLD

  ABOUT

  PROLOGUE

  BLINDSIDED

  STRANGE DEVOTION

  STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED

  * * *

  AN ADDITIONAL NOTE

  CONTACTING ME

  UP IN SMOKE is a Sexy Action Suspense and the second stand-alone in the Kisses and Crimes series.

  If you love lowering your inhibitions and letting your hair down for a wild ride, this book is for you.

  And if you’re looking for more Kisses and Crimes, then you’ll LOVE the first in this series.

  FOOL’S GOLD is #KissesandCrimesONE and is available on Amazon now.

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  If you’d like a look at my other books on Amazon or Goodreads, please feel free to stop by! Please feel free to leave a review while you’re there, too!

  If you’d like to chat me up any time, g’head and e-mail me at [email protected] OR leave a comment on NatalieWrye.com OR on my Facebook.

  ABOUT

  Rules were made to be broken. Until I broke the wrong ones…

  ***

  Jackson Reed knew the only thing harder than his head was the insatiable one between his legs.

  Sandwiched somewhere between following the law and his own instincts, he made up his own rules in the game of “private investigations”: his sacred version of the Holy Trinity.

  Sex.

  Career.

  And more sex.

  He towed the delicate line between the “three” until Penelope Castalano—a former flame he equated to the plague—re-enters his life…and obliterates it.

  Fresh from Paris, his best friend’s attorney broke the only deal they’d ever made, sauntering back onto the Manhattan scene at a costume party with more to hide than just her face.

  And now one fugitive best friend and two broken promises will ignite a new Holy Trinity in Jackson’s hazardous life.

  Caught in the midst of a government coverup that compromises everything he’s ever cared for, Jackson will discover that certain scandals never die.

  Only their victims do.

  And he’d better make damn sure that he and Penelope aren’t next…

  PROLOGUE

  JACKSON

  There were very few things in life I hated more than myself at the moment.

  Peas. Peas used to be number one.

  I hated them ever since I was kid, and when my mother tried to make me eat them, I tried to sneak them under the table to the dog.

  Didn’t work much, though. He hated them, too.

  I hated cats. Abhorred the fuck out them, actually, and when my high school girlfriend had once left me alone with her cat, Katie, while she made a store run, I’d been this close to launching the little scratching bitch out of the window.

  Katie the cat, of course. Not, you know… my high school girlfriend. In fact, the girlfriend ended up launching me in the end.

  But still… there used to be things I hated. Things that ticked high up on the “Fuck-you-meter,” and currently…?

  I was sitting at number one. I was one big fucking mash of peas-cat-Katie-ness.

  All because I couldn’t stop staring at her. Touching her.

  And it wasn’t that she wasn’t hot as hell to look at...because she was. It was because every time I looked at her, I saw him. I saw the man whose life we ruined.

  I saw the face of the man we’d murdered.

  In all actuality, I’d seen him often. At the grocery store. On the street. At the local bookshop and at the corner café.

  He had the face of the “everyman.” He was immortalized by what we had done to him. His presence was sprinkled across my daily life, seared into the fabric of every interaction I had with the woman who I truly blamed for all of this.

  The one woman who I’d thought I’d never have to see again.

  Until now.

  And now, at this very second, the only thing I can see… is her.

  Her bare legs. Her long neck. Her peach-colored hair and even peachier skin.

  Nothing has changed in the four years since I’ve seen her. Nothing. She’s just as fucking gorgeous as she was when I’d last left her, and if I hadn’t just smelled her, touched her… kissed her, I’d think that it was all a dream.

  I’d think that she was a dream. Or a nightmare come back to haunt me just one last time.

  Actually seeing her again wasn’t in my plans, but here she was.

  My one inexplicable temptation.

  She was always pure sin. Swathed in innocence. Decadent and guileless all at the same time. Somewhere, somehow, I knew it had to be illegal to look the way she does, talk the way she does, feel the way she does.

  There had to be something in the law against it. Not that I’d ever been good with the law. Not even when I was enforcing it…

  I didn’t like carrying a badge, following rules wasn’t exactly second nature to me, and the only place I liked using handcuffs was in the bedroom.

  I had the scratches on my bedposts to prove it.

  There were certain things you couldn’t do with a badge. Handcuffing innocent people was supposed to be one of them. But I’d handcuffed her anyway.

  I’d made her mine for five days. But she will only remain mine for the next five minutes…

  And though I know I’ll never see her again, though I’ll never run my fingers through that red hair or tug that flippant mouth of hers to mine like I used to, I have no regrets.

  I was going to close this chapter of my life and keep what we had in this No-Tell Motel a secret because when you really think about it…

  Isn’t that exactly what you’re supposed to do?

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  TWO MONTHS LA
TER

  JACKSON REED

  If my life were a playbook, doing what I was doing at that very moment would have been “Don’t #1.”

  I leaned back, trying to shift positions.

  The leather cushion of my car’s interior seat sighed as I readjusted my head, and I realized, as I shifted for comfort, that of all the places to receive head, I could have done a whole lot better…

  But I could have done a hell of a lot worse.

  Still, that wasn’t my problem.

  My problem was that I wasn’t good at waiting…

  Two months ago, I could have started screwing in the Hyatt, fucked as I flew past the Hudson River on a helicopter, and ended the night on a yacht with my cock in a mouth… or two.

  The world had been my playground. That’s how it had always been.

  But it had changed. And I don’t know when or where the change began.

  Maybe it had spun off its axis halfway from my London office to New York.

  Or maybe it had taken a wrong turn past Priscilla, the bubbly Brit with the fake tits, or maybe the world had abandoned me, lost some steam around the time of Cordelia, the flight attendant without a stitch of hair anywhere.

  Or maybe the change was purely mental.

  Business had dried up since the last time I saw my best friend, Bishop. My career had gone flaccid, along with other things, and as my business stalled, so had my goddamned sex life.

  My playbook—the one I used to run my life, to set up my next moves and maneuvers—didn’t seem to be working anymore, and I was treading on unchartered territory.

  I wouldn’t exactly call myself a proper ref or pro when it came to this life shit, but it was official.

  I was calling it.

  My cock was broken.

  And it was never more evident as it was in the front seat of my Audi, as I was getting head from my ex-client, Rebecca Hutchinson—a certified blow-job artist if I’d ever seen one.

  She was trying her best… and despite her licking and sucking, despite the slurping and tugging and teeth grazing and whatever twisty tornado maneuver she was pulling with her tongue, I couldn’t get off.

  My dick, along with Rebecca’s tongue… was definitely on a downward spiral.

  I groaned, leaning further back, and she mistook my frustration for unfettered pleasure. Rebecca licked my tip and rolled her tongue around it, smiling up at me with a grin that was meant to seduce.

  She pushed a platinum lock of hair behind her ear.

  “You’re stronger than I thought. No man has been able to resist that trick.”

  I wondered how many men she was talking about, but I didn’t ask. Frankly? I didn’t give a literal fuck…

  But I did give a fuck that I couldn’t literally “give a fuck” and for that reason, I wanted to beat my head against the steering wheel.

  This was supposed to be my way of passing the time while I waited for the phone call—the phone call that would inevitably turn things all around again… or send them shooting back to Hell.

  My secretary, Mable, told me to look at the silver lining. I told her “Screw the silver lining and its goddamned playbook.”

  I had the “Sex, Money and Career” playbook and if that didn’t see me through tonight, then nothing would.

  I was already doing one bang-up job of ruining at least one of its major tenets as I sat there with my dick out. I grit my teeth, trying to concentrate on an orgasm that wouldn’t come.

  I took a deep breath, looked at Rebecca and bluffed.

  “Have to come better than that…” I said. No pun intended.

  And with that, her head dipped, her mouth gripped, and the woman stretched over my passenger seat returned to swallowing my cock, taking my length deeper, massaging the underside of me with her tongue.

  And I felt nothing.

  I was on auto-pilot, going through the motions, barely able to keep it up until I did the one thing I warned myself not to do… for eight weeks…

  I thought of her… and was instantly steel.

  I threw my head back and moaned. A real moan. A shudder worked its way below my waist, and it was the first pure sensation I’d felt all night.

  I gripped the back of Becky the Blower’s head.

  In my mind, her pink lips turned red. I closed my eyes and the fake tan on her glossy skin became paler—peachy.

  The bubblegum scent of her sickly sweet perfume thickened into a bouquet of lavender, and before I knew it, the shiny strands between my fingers were no longer blonde… but red.

  Crimson-colored wisps of hair slid through my fingers as her lips slid along the length of my hardness, and I was closer to finding the climax I was looking for.

  I thought of a name that wasn’t Rebecca’s and did my damnedest to hold it in.

  And that’s when my phone rang.

  I reached for my pocket, pulling out my phone. My cock was still between Rebecca’s lips when I answered the call.

  I had no time for niceties. With anyone.

  I gripped my cell. “Yeah…? Alright… Alright, perfect. See you in a bit.”

  With ease, my guest for the night detached quickly from my dick. She pulled away, and the fantasy I’d been having of another woman faded when I looked into her face.

  Disappointed, my ex-client straightened, adjusting her low-hanging top before layering another coat of lipstick along her glossy lips.

  She gave me a look and pouted.

  “You’re not sticking around?” she cooed.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “No, love, and if you saw where I was going, you wouldn’t want to stick around either. This is business. Not pleasure.”

  She ran a finger between my legs.

  “Can’t it be both?”

  “In my world?” I looked over, zipping my cock back in. “Never. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the business of your pleasure.” I touched her chin. “You sure do one hell of a job.”

  I got Rebecca out of my car as quickly as I could, and within twenty minutes (and roughly the same amount of blocks), I was replacing her with someone else.

  On the corner of frustration and Carnegie Hill, my new passenger and I set up camp on the less busy side of the street. I threw my Audi’s gear in park.

  My impatience, solidified and strengthened over the hours of waiting, hit me harder than my dick managed to become that night, and the anticipation pulsed beneath my breast like a steady heartbeat, fanning a blush beneath my collar that was like a living flame.

  This is what I was waiting all night for…

  She was here.

  Every nerve-ending in my body said so.

  A sleek, black town car on the other side of the road slowly pulled up to the restaurant. With dimmed windows, large and opaque, I couldn’t see the person in the back seat.

  But I knew someone was there. I could feel it.

  Glancing past the vehicle, I could see the face of every patron inside the elegant eatery. They ignored the car. The people on the streets ignored the car.

  Of course they all did. This was Manhattan.

  What was another expensive car on another expensive street? Nothing abnormal. Nothing out of the ordinary. The night was beautiful. The car was even more beautiful. In fact, the scene in front of the restaurant was so conventional that it was scary.

  Wealth was customary on this side of town—commonplace.

  Everything about this Upper East Side street was business as usual. Everything… except the woman that had just stepped out onto it.

  The driver slipped out of the car. With a few quick steps, he was at the back door, opening it. He glanced inside with a smile, and she exited. She sauntered out, and I couldn’t help myself as I sat there and stared.

  Some women had walks that were made for watching.

  Mrs. Langley was definitely one of them.

  Brunette, sporting a red-lipstick lined pout, the woman who had just placed a high heel out onto the greyed sidewalk had a swi
tch in her hips that was fit for a model.

  I assumed she had been one.

  Tall, thin, tits that sat nearly to her chin, she was all style and sophistication in a navy-colored backless number.

  She was “the woman of the hour,” the reason I’d skipped dinner with Rebecca.

  And she was my assignment.

  A recipe for disaster… or success, depending on how you looked at it. I was looking at her. And all I saw were dollar signs.

  Now I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And there he was. Right on time. The second part of my assignment.

  The husband.

  He pulled up in a Mercedes Benz just as shiny and black as the wife’s town car. The way men of his age, caliber and wealth were apt to do. And so I watched him.

  I honed in on him as he, the exalted doctor, kissed the beautiful brunette on her powdered cheek. He was just as sophisticated as she was in his finely pinstriped suit, and when she took his arm to head inside, they seemed the perfect couple.

  They would be the perfect couple… if they were the ones actually married to one another.

  As I already knew by the time I arrived there that night, Mrs. Doctor Harrison was at home with the kids. And the doctor?

  Well, he was the dutiful husband. The problem was… he was being the dutiful husband to someone else’s wife.

  The two of them walked inside the open-windowed restaurant, and I grabbed the black bag that I had stuffed into the center console of my car. I slowly shook the contents out into my lap.

  “We do it now?” Jeff asked from the passenger seat.

  “No. Not right now.”

  “But it’s the perfect…”