On the outside, I was cool. As cool as I’d been the times I’d been the one throwing the threats. Nine times out of ten, that’s exactly what they were—threats. Nothing more. Except for the extreme psychopaths and sadists—and there were far less in the underground than people imagined—no one actually wanted to exert force, no matter the form.
But I was the furthest thing from cool. Because that one time out of ten was enough to cry bad odds when Jolie was involved. Even as a kid shaking under the hand of Headmaster Stark, I’d never been this scared. Never felt this helpless. Never felt this on the verge of unleashing whatever beast lived locked up inside me.
They could do whatever they wanted to me. They could break me into a million impossible-to-identify pieces. But if they hurt one hair on Jolie’s head…
I wasn’t sure there was a word for the kind of fear-rage that inspired.
“He makes a point.” The weaponized grin had been put away, but Bishop was still terrifying knowing it was in his pocket. “Lot of hassle, and probably not necessary. Especially since we’ve already been paid.”
He considered a minute, then nodded to the money counter. “Put the drive back in the case.” The goon did as he was told, then Bishop once again shut the lid. This time he entered the code locking the contents in place.
“You’re letting us take it?” Rule number one in negotiating was not to sound unsure, and I’d fucking failed big time. It seemed too unlikely that we’d leave with the case. It still seemed unlikely that we’d leave at all.
“I am.” Bishop took the case by the handle and stretched his arm forth, inviting me to take it.
I stretched my hand out, carefully, sure it was a trick.
It was.
As soon as my fingers were close to touching it, he pulled it back, out of reach. “But first, if we’re going to let you two go, we have to be sure you aren’t cops. I’m sure you understand. Ross, strip the lady. Check for a wire.”
Without being told, like well-rehearsed choreography, one of the other men stepped in, pointing his gun so that Ross could pocket his and pull at Jolie’s coat.
Renewed rage mingled with adrenaline-fueled panic surged through my veins. “Don’t you fucking dare touch her!”
I rushed forward, only to be seized by two men, one at each arm.
And since Ross didn’t take orders from me, he threw her removed coat to the floor and reached for the hem of her sweater.
“Please, don’t.” Jolie trembled, her arms folded across her chest as though that could ward him off. “Please. At least let me do it myself. I can show you I’m not wearing a wire.”
That wasn’t much better, but at least she wouldn’t have their wretched hands on her.
“No can do,” Ross said, immediately squashing that idea. “Who knows? You might have something hiding beneath all your clothes.”
The way he said it made it very clear that Ross knew exactly what was under her clothes, and that was exactly what he planned to get his hands on.
“Don’t fucking touch her!” I fought against the men holding me, almost breaking free before my arm was wrenched painfully behind my back.
Bishop chuckled, clearly amused. “You really are attached to her, aren’t you? Maybe you should give her that ring she’s after.”
I flailed again, already planning Bishop’s death. I’d slit his throat as soon as I finished ending Ross with a bullet between the eyes.
“You know what? I get it. I got a lady I like too. Cut it, Ross. Entertaining as this is, we should probably be respectful to Beasley’s man if we want to do business with him again.”
Ross hadn’t gotten far with the sweater, thank God, and he stepped away immediately without arguing.
I didn’t have time to examine whether or not I could trust this change of heart before he showed me that I couldn’t.
“We do need to be sure she’s not wearing a wire, though.” Bishop almost sounded apologetic about it. “So I’m willing to let you conduct the search yourself.”
“She’s not wearing a goddamned wire,” I said.
He ignored me. “Ross, bring the lady here so Cade can show us his woman’s clean.”
I didn’t even blanch at the acknowledgment that he’d caught my name. I was too concerned with her, with what I was being asked to do to her.
Not asked. Told. There was no option for me to say no.
It was a game. That much was obvious. If it had been unacceptable for Jolie to undress herself, it should have been unacceptable for me to do it in her place. The whole thing was just some asshole power trip.
And it didn’t matter. In this scenario, she and I held none of the power.
It was almost like being back in high school.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, when Ross brought Jolie in front of me. “I’m going to have to.”
“I know.” Her throat sounded clogged with tears. “It’s okay. It’s my fault.”
It was her fault, but I felt responsible too. For no good reason, except that I would have to do this to her. My insides were an aluminum can under the stamp of a foot. I was sure I looked misshapen on the outside, like everyone in the room could tell that I’d been sufficiently crushed. It was impossible that it wasn’t obvious. I was pretty sure that was the entire point.
After a series of warnings, my arms were released. I cupped her cheek with my hand, a comforting gesture that likely held little weight considering our predicament.
“Nothing funny,” Ross warned, pulling his gun back out. Now there were two pointed at us, and the men who’d held me only feet away, ready to grab me again if necessary.
Taking a deep breath, I took the edge of her sweater in my hands and gently pulled it over her head. She reached her arms out to help me, and I wanted to kiss her for that—for being cooperative. For trusting me. For realizing there was no other choice.
Those weren’t the only reasons I wanted to kiss her.
I could admit that here, under these circumstances, when that desire that had seemed so overwhelmingly frightening hours before suddenly felt like the least terrifying emotion I’d had all day. I threw her sweater to the floor and moved to the button on her jeans, promising myself that, if we made it through this, I would deal with this feeling head-on. I would even look forward to it.
I had the denim pushed down her thighs before I remembered her boots. I knelt down on the ground before her, wondering if later, when I could laugh about this, I’d find the humor in the fact that I’d been right when I’d worried she’d have me on my knees soon enough.
This hadn’t been quite what I’d envisioned when the thought had crossed my mind, and then again, wasn’t it exactly what I should have expected? Because this was where I’d always been drawn to. Because she’d always been my master and I a groveling servant at her feet who would lay down my life for hers if required.
I prayed it was only her clothes that would be asked for. I knew I’d give everything I owned if it wasn’t.
After her boots, I removed her socks. Then her jeans came off, and she was standing in the chilly room wearing nothing but her bra and the damn cotton panties that had teased me all week.
I stood up, rubbing my hands along her goosebump-riddled arms.
“See. No wire.” I didn’t take my gaze off hers, conscious that she was half naked and that I was the only one still looking at her eyes.
“Need to see inside her bra,” Bishop insisted. I knew he would, but I had to try.
“Need to see that pussy too,” Ross said, his pants already tenting.
I bit the insides of my cheeks until I tasted blood.
“It’s okay,” she said again, trying to comfort me. But her eyes were spilling, and I knew that as strong as she was trying to be, she was the one who needed the comfort.
“Pretend it’s just you and me.” I spoke softly, but not too quietly, knowing it wasn’t wise to appear like we were plotting something. I reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra. “Just you and
me, back at the hotel.”
She nodded, her focus pinned right on me so I could count each and every tear that trickled down her cheek.
“We’re alone,” I continued as I pulled the straps down her arms, “and this moment is ours. We’ve waited so long for this. I’ve waited so long. And now we’ve reached the place where it’s impossible to wait any longer.”
Her bra was off, her breasts fully exposed to a room full of leering men.
They were there, but they weren’t. We were in our own bubble, she and I, and as naked as she was, I was on the verge of baring more.
That seemed about right. That seemed exactly right.
“It feels like I’m underwater with you,” I said as I tugged her panties past her hips, my fingers trembling as they brushed against her skin. “And there’s a very good chance that I’m gonna drown. But sink or swim, baby. I’m holding on to you this time for dear life.”
And now she was completely stripped.
And the way her face crumpled, the way her eyes remained only on mine—I was pretty sure she knew I was stripped too.
“Look at that. No wire,” Ross said, amusement in his tone, a blunt reminder that her vulnerability was much more real than mine.
Instinctively, I moved to cover her as well as I could.
“Maybe we need to examine her a little more closely,” someone else said.
Fortunately for him, before I could knock the man’s eyes out, consequences be damned, Bishop had tired of the game. He went back to the desk, his back turned to me as he perched again on the edge. “Let her get dressed. Take your case, Cade, and get the fuck out of here. You’ve already wasted more of my night than I’d planned.”
He was done with me, done with us, demonstrating with his quick readiness to move on that this whole charade had been nothing but a show of power. He hadn’t even bothered to check me.
But I wasn’t going to challenge him.
While Jolie pulled on her underwear, I retrieved her coat. She put her jeans on, then let me put her boots on her feet, not bothering with socks, while she pulled the sweater over her head. When she just had her coat to deal with, I crossed to grab the case.
“Beasley knows where to find me if he needs anything else.” Bishop didn’t look up as he delivered his parting words. “But also make sure he knows that any trouble that comes down from poking into this is his and his alone.”
I didn’t bother with a response. Grabbing the briefcase, I took Jolie’s hand in the other and pulled her with me out of the room, down the stairs, and into the night, racing as though we could outrun any trouble that followed.
Wondering if she was as aware as I was that everything had changed.
Twenty-Five
We didn’t stop moving until we were getting into a cab.
I’d been shaken, and even now, sure that we’d left with our lives, I felt precariously held together. As much as I wanted to discover what was on the hard drive—if there was anything at all—I couldn’t deal with Donovan until I’d had some time to unwind.
Knowing he’d be anxious, I sent him a quick text.
Got the case. I’ll meet up with you in the morning.
His reply came instantly. I can meet you at the hotel in thirty.
Not tonight, D.
He’d know better not to push me, but I turned off my phone all the same.
“I didn’t think it through,” Jolie said when I’d pocketed my cell. “The taxi stopped at a light, and I saw you on the sidewalk, and I just...I just got out and followed you.”
“We don’t need to do this right now.”
She went on as if I hadn’t said anything. “I knew you didn’t need my help. But I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving you alone. Not again.”
I closed my eyes, a blanket of exhaustion covering me. I didn’t have strength in me to deal with these words. I didn’t feel equipped to keep the flicker of hope from turning into a full-fledged flame. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She didn’t say anything after that, simply stared out the window, her expression unreadable, and it wasn’t until we were halfway to our destination that it occurred to me that I’d been an asshole. Too much of an asshole. And if I’d learned anything from today, it was that I didn’t actually want to be that with her.
“Hey, Jol? Are you okay?” My fingers were still threaded in hers, which I only just noticed, and now that I had, it was impossible not to be completely aware of it.
She turned her face from the window and blinked a few times, as though she were struggling to put me in focus. “Yeah. I think I am.” She glanced down at our clasped hands, and when her eyes returned to the glass, I almost thought I caught a smile on her lips.
We stayed silent for the rest of the ride, our hands linked, until we got to the hotel, and I had to free myself to manage my wallet. Outside of the cab, I reached for her again, automatically. Like I’d done it a hundred times before.
She gave me her hand, but while I continued walking toward the hotel doors, she stopped, pulling me back toward her.
“Cade.” Her expression was earnest, and I sensed an urgency in her, as though she feared that whatever she had to say couldn’t be said once we passed from the cold night to the warmth of the lobby.
Or maybe she feared this truce we’d come to wouldn’t last past the threshold of the doors.
To be honest, I feared that too.
But not as much as I feared what she was about to say. “Don’t,” I warned.
She held me tighter, grabbing my wrist with her other hand, and though I could easily pull free, I felt caught. Like a water pipe tangled in tree roots. A hard thing, hollow on the inside, unable to escape from this living intrusion.
Stay hard, I willed myself. Stay hollow.
“I didn’t want—”
“Don’t!” It was harsher this time. A threat.
“I didn’t want you to leave me,” she said, bulldozing through the words before I could cut her off again.
I stared at her, trying very hard to be that hard, hollow thing, knowing that she wasn’t talking about tonight. Knowing these words could change everything if I let them. Everything.
And fuck if that didn’t make me want to hit something.
Because no. She couldn’t do this. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t disappear for seventeen years and then show up all vulnerable and soft and unchanged and then try to change the narrative that she herself had written. A narrative that had made me what I was now. Cold and rigid and empty.
She had no right.
I yanked my hand away from her, knowing a physical escape wouldn’t do any good. It didn’t even matter that she followed as I stormed through the hotel doors, or that she would be in the suite with me upstairs. I could put a thousand miles between us, and I still wouldn’t have outrun this.
Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
I walked through the lobby with long strides that her shorter legs couldn’t match. When she caught up with me waiting for the elevator, I ignored her, as though she were some random woman with no ties to me other than the fact that she was in my vicinity.
She gave me my space, quietly occupying the opposite side of the car, allowing me to ignore her existence, though it was possible she was reciprocating. And if she was, fine. I didn’t care. I watched the numbers for each floor light as we went up, up, up, and focused on forcing every bit of consciousness into that one action so that there weren’t any brain cells left for caring. Or analyzing or recalibrating. Or wondering what would happen if I stopped running. Stopped trying to escape. Stopped searching for closure.
I didn’t wait for her to exit first when we reached our floor, ignoring the male rules of etiquette and stomping to our suite so far ahead of her that the door had almost closed behind me when she caught it and pushed in.
And when she did, as soon as I heard the movement of air as the door swept open, I dropped the case and turned, crossing toward her, so that by the time it did click close
d, I had already taken her in my arms.
“You’re going to wreck me all over again,” I said before crashing my lips against hers, which wasn’t really true because she’d already wrecked me all over again, and now I was pretty sure she was doing the opposite—putting me together. Finding jagged pieces of me that had seemed to have no place for so long, and matching them with uneven pieces of her. Fitting us perfectly together with her presence. And her patience. And her lips.
God, her lips.
Kissing her was both familiar and new. A dance I’d forgotten. I anticipated the tilt of her head, the flick of her tongue. The soft sigh in the back of her throat as I became more aggressive.
If she’d been surprised by my attack, she only showed eagerness and urgency that matched my own. She tasted like want and mint. Like that candy that I loved years ago that they didn’t make anymore. She tasted like refuge and peace, and kissing her was like going home.
Which was surreal considering that I’d never thought I’d go home again.
I wasn’t sure who started pushing at clothing first, but both our coats fell to the floor quickly. Her hands slipped under my sweater, her palms hot against my bare chest as she kissed along my neck.
I returned the favor, savoring the salty taste of her skin and marveling at her rapid pulse underneath my tongue. It beat in tandem with the bass drum at the center of my torso, and part of me wanted to bite into her flesh and rip at her artery as if that would end this connection that existed between us. That twisted, perverted bond that should never have been born.
But that was only a very small part of me. The bigger part wanted to endure the fate of our bond, would enjoy it even if it destroyed me.
With one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, I slid the other down over her ass and squeezed the plump curve. She was rounder here than she’d been when we were young, and I loved it. I wanted to learn this change. Wanted to memorize the new landscape of her body. I squeezed again, harder. Then, angry at the barrier of her jeans, I swatted her with my palm.
Wild Rebel Page 18
