by Jewel E. Ann
Had she been able to predict such an act of sheer evilness, she would have purchased batteries for her electric pillar candles. Instead, she waited in the dark, knees bent to one side, hands laced behind her head. She wore a dragonfly shower cap, blue nitrile gloves, and a mustache molded from Sticky Tac. On the inside of the trunk lid was a sticky note with sloppy I-wrote-it-in-the-dark handwriting that read:
I’m going to let Jones hump your $300 pillow and play tug of war w your socks when U R DEAD!
“Ahhh! Oh my gosh!” A woman’s voice screeched.
Jessica felt like a vampire with the bright light frying her cornea—a deaf vampire thanks to the shrill pierce of Felicity’s scream. Everything came into focus a little at a time. The note still stuck to the inside of the lid, the horrified, yet confused look on Felicity’s face as she seemed to be reading it, and then the Holy Grail.
Jessica smiled as she sat up, pulling the mustache from her lip. “Hel-lo, Thelma.” She snatched the dangling keys from Felicity’s hand and hopped out. “Get in.” She slammed the trunk and slid in the driver’s seat. Yep. Just as she imagined: better than sex.
“Thelma?” Felicity questioned as she hesitantly got in the other side.
“Thelma and Louise. But don’t worry, we won’t drive it off a cliff or anything … at least not today.” Jessica tossed the gloves and shower cap in the backseat. “Buckle up. Once I start the engine we’ll need to be spinning the tires out of here. Oh … and keep an eye out the back window to say goodbye to Luke. In less than ten seconds he’ll be on your porch having a heart attack or possibly a stroke.”
“What’s going on?”
Jessica loved that without knowing a single detail, Felicity buckled up. Of course the skinny-dipping mom would be all in. It was wrong for Jessica to have doubted her for a single moment. She moved the seat up, stomped on the clutch, and turned the key. The seductive rumble of the engine, finally under her control, made it hard to focus, but she needed to get out of there because the timer had started.
She backed out of the drive, shoved it into first, and waited, one hand white knuckled on the steering wheel, the other fisting the round black ball of the gear shift.
“There they are. Blow your boys a kiss, Felicity.”
And she did because Felicity Jones was one. Cool. Chick.
Jessica tattooed the concrete with the back tires as she squealed out of the drive. She took a mental picture of Luke’s reflection in the rearview mirror: slumped shoulders, hand over his chest, slightly bent at the waist, mouth agape.
Priceless.
“I think the joke is supposed to be on Luke, but then again, he sent me out to get the ink, knowing you were in the trunk. And you were wearing a shower cap, gloves, and a mustache so … I’m confused.”
“Let’s just say your son would rather me ride in the trunk than sit in the driver’s seat. No offense to you of course, but he may have control issues, and I’m usually not all judgmental that way because I like control too but—”
“So you didn’t voluntarily get in the trunk? He drove home with you in there?”
“Correct. I’m not going to lie and when I say this I’m speaking to my partner in crime, Thelma, not Luke’s mom.” Jessica grinned. “When he first shoved me in the trunk I didn’t try to fight him. It caught me off guard, but I honestly thought he was trying to do something kinky with me.”
Felicity laughed to the point of a girlish giggle. “So what did you do when you realized he was locking you inside?”
“Started plotting his death.”
“Oh my goodness, he’s his father through and through.”
“Tom? No way.” She shook her head.
Felicity nodded. “Yes, he is. Tom used to be a control freak when we first started dating. It didn’t help that I was pregnant.”
“Wait, you were pregnant when you started dating.”
“Basically. Has Luke not told you that we conceived him on our first date?”
Jessica’s jaw dropped then closed into a grin, eyes wide. “No.”
“Yes. And now what I’m going to say is being said to Louise, not Luke’s girlfriend.”
“God, I love you. Go on.” Louise laughed.
“Luke doesn’t know this and I’m quite certain he wouldn’t be treating this car like his most prized possession if he knew that his conception took place in this very back seat.”
“Oh my God … Oh my God … Oh. My. God. Do you have any idea what you have given me?”
“No.” Felicity shook her head. “I’ve given you nothing. Thelma told her partner in crime, Louise, about the first time she had sex.”
“Aahh!” Jessica veered off the road onto the shoulder, coming to a stop. She couldn’t focus on driving anymore. “Don’t you dare try to silence me with some secrecy oath, especially since you just added the crème de la crème to the juiciest little secret I’ve ever known—you didn’t just conceive Luke. You. Lost. Your. Virginity … in this very car. Luke’s baby.”
Dying. Jessica died a little inside. It would be the most painful secret ever to keep, and as much as she’d come to love his mom … she just couldn’t guarantee that the day wouldn’t come that she would need that ammunition to win a war.
“Seriously, we should like … bronze the back seat and never allow anyone to sit back there again.”
Felicity looked over her shoulder and smiled as if she were replaying the memories in her mind. Jessica found it sweet and romantic. Luke would have had his head out the door hurling his last meal.
“Do you think about having children someday?”
The conversation took a whiplash turn.
Jillian pulled back onto the road. Running the GTO through the gears made her feel in control and eased her nerves.
“Sometimes. I didn’t used to so much before I met Luke. And when I did, it was more like mourning something I would never have.”
“You were his patient?”
Of course she didn’t know for sure. Luke would never break that confidentiality … except with her parents. Traitor.
“I was. I’m not now. Well…” she shrugged “…not officially. He’s brilliant, he really is, but I’m an extra special, pardon my French, fucked-up case. I’m not sure anyone could ‘cure’ me. I want to believe I’m better, but I’m afraid I’m better with Luke, not necessarily because of him. He’s even said it himself. If tomorrow he were to just disappear from my life, I wonder if the woman I’ve become with him would still exist, or if I would slip back to the woman I was before him.”
“Can I ask who you were before him?”
Jessica huffed a small laugh. “I’d tell Thelma I was a monster, but I think that might frighten Luke’s mom so I will tell her that I was simply a woman afraid of herself. A woman who longed for this exact moment in time, but never felt worthy of a future beyond work and physical exhaustion.”
They continued to drive. Jessica knew Felicity needed to get back for the guests who were staying at their bed and breakfast, but Felicity never said a word. She let Jessica have her drive, her moment of quietude with the comfort of knowing she wasn’t alone. Jessica loved the same thing about Luke. They could be together and feel the closeness without the need to fill the space with words. They could spend hours in bed or on the couch at night with her on her laptop studying and him reading or working on a crossword puzzle. Sometimes they’d share a flirty smile, but it was never awkward or boring.
Only in complete silence can the whisper of true love be heard.
Felicity rested her hand on Jessica’s arm as they pulled into the drive over an hour after leaving Luke in a world of dismay. “My son is a smart boy.”
Jessica stared at Felicity’s hand on her arm. “I don’t think his brain is responsible for us being together.”
“That’s why I said he’s a smart boy. He’s following his heart.”
Jessica looked up at Felicity’s loving smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
*
L
uke and Tom were out back chopping wood. Jessica gazed out the window to determine if Luke was mad or if the pained expression on his face was from physical exertion.
“Tom’s always smiling.”
Felicity started cleaning potatoes for dinner. “Most of the time, yes.”
“Chopping wood is not easy work, but Tom is sweating with a smile on his face.”
“He loves working. If he ever stops that’s how we’ll know he’s dead.”
“Can I help you with dinner?”
“You could go ask Tom if he’s grilling or if I’m broiling tonight.”
Jessica could do that. It didn’t require any preparation or actual cooking. “No problem. Of course I risk getting the ax for the grand theft auto.”
“Send them my way. I’ve got your back, Louise.”
Jillian walked around the side of the house. “Hey, baby boy,” she rubbed Jones’s ears after he ran to her, alerting the father-son-lumberjack duo of her arrival.
“Hey, Mario.” Tom smiled or continued smiling.
“Tom Jones.” She grinned, not yet risking a glance at Luke. “Felicity wants to know if it’s grilling or broiling tonight.”
He nodded and handed her his ax. “Here. I’ll go talk with her. Don’t kill each other.”
She watched Tom walk toward the house then turned to face Luke. It was an eerily weird stare off. She wasn’t mad at him anymore, but she also didn’t feel remorseful for what she had done. His face seemed expressionless as well.
“I was going to let you drive her.”
Jessica nodded. “I know … that’s the vibe I got from the trunk earlier.”
“You know I just put new tires on her.”
Another somber nod. “I know … that’s why I was a little surprised she didn’t grip the driveway better.”
“Did you let my mom drive too?”
“No, she didn’t ask, and I didn’t know when I’d get to drive her again so I was a little selfish.” She pulled the insulated flannel shirt she’d grabbed from the garage around her body tighter as a cool gust of wind made her shiver.
Luke nodded with a slow inhale. “Smell that?”
She rolled her eyes up, nose scrunched. “Smoke?”
“My dad’s up front grilling.”
“O-kay …”
Luke motioned toward the shed with his head. “We’ve got time for a quickie in the shed before dinner.”
Both of their grins grew as they dropped their axes on the ground. Bodies and mouths crashed together while attempting to hobble as one to the shed without stumbling.
Once inside, they wrestled with each other’s pants, not caring that they both were in flannel tops. The immediate need was for him to be inside her.
“Oh dear God …” Her head fell back against the wall as he lifted her against it and thrust into her with one desperate move. He felt warm, and hard, and deliciously filling inside her. She made claim to his hair, using it for support as his hands dug into the muscled flesh of her ass moving her up and down.
“I adore you,” he moaned into her neck as she closed her eyes.
Jessica rested her cheek on his head. “My God … you give me life.”
Chapter Thirty
Knight
If Mrs. Baker didn’t die soon, Ryn would leave Jackson. He felt certain of it. There was only so much nervous energy he could release in the form of sex before possibly scaring her off completely. She nearly died when he implied the intention of putting his dick in her mouth instead of her pussy—vagina—because she made the assumption he meant her ass, not her mouth.
When he told her to get on her knees, he saw relief wash over her face. He watched her mouth “thank God” to herself before happily accepting his cock. Although she sucked him like a champ, even swallowing every last drop, she expressed her preference to that over having it shot on her face or breasts. Jackson couldn’t help but feel a jab of disappointment that her ass was off limits—in her words “forever.” Nothing ruins a good blowjob quite like an anal sex ban.
Jackson: Where are you?
Jillian: Texas
Jackson: I have to remove someone.
Jillian: I’m on my way home. DON’T DO ANYTHING!
Jackson: Don’t come home. It might not be safe for you here.
Jillian: Who? Why?
Jackson: One of my students.
Jillian: God you’re sensitive about that damn piano.
Jackson: She knows your name. I never told her your name.
Jillian: Maybe one of your other students did.
Jackson: I always refer to you as my “sister.” Period.
Jillian: It’s not enough.
Jackson: I followed her. She wears a wig and dresses in expensive clothes, but lives in a shack and she lied about her husband being dead or maybe ever having one.
Jillian: Still not enough. I’m coming home.
Jackson: It will be too late.
His phone vibrated with a call. Sliding the mother of his unborn children from his chest, he slipped out of her bed. He’d taken her to dinner as an apology for his recent neurotic behavior. Ryn had thought it was a reward for the blowjob. That worked too.
Afterward he’d insisted on staying the night with her, which earned him the hairy eyeball. She couldn’t imagine why he’d want to stay if they weren’t going to have sex. The tears in her eyes didn’t go unnoticed when he told her how lonely his body felt at night when it wasn’t wrapped in hers.
As he stepped into the hall, Gunner greeted him with a stern look and low growl that said he’d be having his conversation with Jillian right there and not an inch farther.
“Yes?”
“McGraw’s been supplying all of AJ’s pharmaceutical needs. Do you need me to have him send you a mild sedative or maybe an antipsychotic?”
“I’m not paranoid.” He was, but not all paranoid people were crazy. “Meredith Baker is not who she says she is. She’s a puppet, she has to be. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it sooner. She slips up all the time. I followed her to her house, practically riding her fucking bumper and she didn’t notice me. Whoever hired her can’t be much smarter, but if it’s the same person who’s been texting you, then they’re managing to stay one step ahead and that makes me—”
“Nervous? Paranoid?”
“I’m not wrong about this.”
“And if you are then you’ve committed murder without just cause. What if you didn’t have G.A.I.L behind you, ready to swoop in and clean up your mess? Would you risk life in prison on her knowing my name and wearing a wig? For Christ’s sake, do you know how many women would rather wear Gucci and look the part than have food on the table or a roof over their heads?”
Gunner stared at Jackson as if he had the same questions as Jillian.
“I can’t just do nothing.”
“For now you can. Besides if you kill her you’ll never know who she’s working for.”
“I’d get it out of her first.”
“How?”
Jackson clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes at Gunner, who would not give him an inch of space past Ryn’s bedroom door.
“I have my ways.”
Jillian didn’t have to say anything. He could feel her anger. It was thick in the painful silence between them.
“I’m coming home.”
“I can handle this.”
“With a fucking knife?”
“Jill?” Jackson heard AJ call her name in the background.
“It works.” He winced as he said it. Just because Claire had died after being tortured with a knife didn’t mean it still wasn’t a very persuasive tactic.
“Where’s Ryn?”
“In the bedroom.”
“Go look at her perfect skin and imagine some heartless, soulless heathen making forty-four slashes into it based on some fucked-up assumption. Goodnight, Jack-ass.”
“Jill—” He sighed. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Women are stubborn.”
Gunner tilted his head.<
br />
“Stick to humping pillows, buddy.”
“Jackson?”
He turned just as Ryn cracked open the bedroom door, eyes squinted, blond hair matted, large white T-shirt barely covering her sexy legs.
“Are you … talking to Gunner?”
“I, uh, am.”
“It’s after midnight.”
“Yes. We never get to talk—man to … man’s best friend.”
She nodded toward his phone fisted in his hand. “Gunner doesn’t text.”
He stepped back in the room, forcing her retreat to the bed. “I was talking to Jillian.”
Ryn slid under the covers. Jackson followed, spooning her back to his chest.
“How’s AJ?”
“Alive.”
She grunted. “Thanks for that elaborate answer.”
“They’re in Texas.”
“Texas?” Ryn turned in his arms as if he would have a different answer if she faced him.
“Yes. He wants her to help him die.”
“He said that?”
Jackson smirked then rolled onto his back, tucking Ryn under his arm. “No. But that’s what he’s doing. She’s too blind and kind to see it. And even if she suspects it, she’s too stubborn to give up on him. Surrendering has never been easy for her.”
“Are they coming home?”
He pursed his lips to the side and nodded. “Something tells me we’ll be seeing her or them sooner rather than later.”
“Jackson?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I tell you something and will you promise not to get mad or make me feel bad or irresponsible or reckless?”
“You’re pregnant?”
“What?” She sat up resting on her elbow, giving him a scrunched-face expression. “I’m having my period.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t convinced if that’s what it was for sure since a few days ago you accused me of trying to ‘break your vagina.’”
She jabbed him in the side with her fist. He chuckled.
“It’s not funny. A few times I wondered if you were going to rip me straight up the middle in two. You’ve been weird … even kind of angry. That’s it … it’s felt like angry sex. Not even sex at times, more like just effing.”
