Trudging to Callie’s small bathroom, Thorpe heaved the man into her empty tub. Sean’s head hit the porcelain with a little thump.
“That’s going to leave a mark.” Axel stood in the doorway with a considering stare.
“Oops.” Thorpe smiled tightly and reached for the faucet. “Aren’t you supposed to be busy?”
“Already done. I rushed back. This is more entertaining.” With a bark of laughter, Axel considered Sean again. “If you’re going to splash cold water on him, be careful. I was a medic in the military. He could go into shock. I’ve seen it happen once after a few idiots drank too much tequila on leave, then tried to wake one another up.”
“Well, I only need this one alive for about two minutes. Then . . .” Thorpe shrugged.
“You have a really ruthless side, boss.” Axel smiled. “I like it.”
“I try.” Thorpe flipped the faucet on in Callie’s shower, blasting ridiculously cold water all over Sean, soaking his skin.
He came up sputtering, wiping water from his eyes and glaring. “What the f**k! Are you out of your mind?”
Well, well. Isn’t that interesting? No Scottish accent . . . The leopard was finally showing his true spots.
“Not at all,” Thorpe growled, then grabbed the back of Sean’s head by his wet hair.
“Get your bloody hands off me.”
And the accent is back. Thorpe rolled his eyes.
“Drop the act. I know you’re not Scottish. And I know you’re not a traveling businessman.”
Sean reared back. “I’ve no idea what you’re talkin’ about. I’m from Edinburgh. I moved to Florida a few years back—”
“Shut the f**k up.”
“I’d do what he says, if I were you,” Axel suggested. “He’s in a really bad mood.”
Sean’s blue stare zipped around the room. “Where’s Callie?”
“Well, that’s what I want to ask you since you were the last person to see her before she fled.”
***
WITH a ripe curse, Sean jerked away from Thorpe’s brutal hold and stood, turning off the freezing shower. He shook off the excess water like a dog, snickering when Thorpe and Axel both protested. Then they just looked angrier.
Well, f**k. Two against one, and I’m buck naked. The odds weren’t good. How did Thorpe know he wasn’t a Scottish businessman? And what else did he know?
Later. His sluggish brain was just now processing what Thorpe had declared.
His heart froze, then began pounding like a damn jackhammer.
“Fled?” He added the lilt, refusing to break cover, even if panic grated his insides. “How did you let her slip past you?”
Thorpe rolled his eyes. “I’ll explain the meaning of ‘the jig is up’ when Callie is back home safely. I’m asking how she slipped past you. After all, you were in the same room with her.”
Sean weighed his words carefully, trying to reconstruct the evening in his head, then he played the part of Kirkpatrick, as he had for months. “The lass must have drugged the wine she gave me. I don’t recall much. Then she . . .”
He let out a ragged breath. The part where Callie had swallowed down his c**k and sucked him dry, all with such a sad look in her eyes, was crystal clear.
“What?”
“That’s between Callie and me, a private matter between a Master and his sub.”
Axel leaned out the door, then came back dangling Callie’s collar on one finger. “I don’t think she’s your sub anymore. She took this off before she shimmied out the window.”