Mostly, though, my thoughts kept turning to Jax. I longed for him to chase after me, which I knew was completely irrational. I wished it had been him sitting there beside me instead of this guy, who in all honesty would never really be enough of anything for me.
How could anyone be enough after the taste I had gotten of Jax? What was it about Jax that mesmerized me beyond reason, anyway? I realized the guy beside me was still talking, but I had no idea what he had said. Feeling guilty and a little embarrassed, I laughed, hoping it was the appropriate response to whatever it was he had said.
When he snaked his arms around me, I realized it was not the appropriate response. Then his lips were on my neck, and I was disgusted. And trapped. Dear heavens, what have I done, I thought, wishing desperately that I could find a way out of this.
And that was the moment that Jax materialized like a white knight. The look on his face was murderous, and I almost feared he was angry with me.
Shit.
But before I knew it, the guy was gone, and Jax had taken his place next to me, the murderous expression having left when the guy did. Did Jax notice how I inhaled him, a mixture of his shower gel and a delicious, heady scent that was unique to him alone?
“I’ve heard your wishes, and I’ve had a lot of time in the last few weeks to think about them. I would not be sitting here right now, on the opposite side of the world, with you, if I didn’t want to give this an honest shot,” he had said.
But I was vulnerable and scared. I wanted to trust him, but it wasn’t my nature. It was funny how my nature went right out the window when his eyes drank me in like that, though. Especially when his hand reached for mine as we walked back to our room in the lodge, our fingers intertwined as our bodies had been just one night before. Would my resistance hold?
The great thing about delusions was that a person could remain happily oblivious to their existence for as long as it suited her.
When we got back to the room, Jax ordered room service, since neither of us had eaten dinner. Once he hung up the room phone, he looked over to where I was seated in a chair by the unlit fireplace. He walked over to me and took my hand, pulling me up from the chair. He sat and pulled me into his lap with his arms circled around me.
I looked into his eyes as so many things I wanted to say began circling in my mind. “Jax, I don’t know if I can do this,” I murmured.
“Do what?” he asked.
I thought for a moment as he watched me in silence. “Survive you,” I whispered in answer.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” he whispered back before kissing me in his signature, soft, and sensual way that had me melting, pouring my heart right into him if ever there was a way.
He stood, still holding me in his arms as he carried me next to the spacious bed. He put me down so that I was standing, leaning against him. My pulse quickened, and I felt that delicious aching building from within me. He removed my jeans and pulled my sweater over my head, leaving me in nothing but bra and panties on top of the white duvet. Every touch left me longing for another.
My hands went to his stomach, lifting his shirt. His hands covered mine, not allowing me to remove the fabric that was all that stood in the way between me and his delicious body. I looked up at him with a sad and questioning expression.
Jax laughed as his hands moved to my hair, brushing his fingers through it and sending a tingling pleasure through my entire body. “One of us has to answer the door for room service,” he said.
I groaned. “Just cancel it. Who needs food, anyway,” I teased, but lay back onto the bed, beckoning him to follow.
He growled deeply from his chest as he moved over me. “God. You’re. So. Sexy,” he said between kisses that he pressed to the skin of my stomach, each word inching upward, until the last had his face between my breasts.
It was exhilarating and heart-breaking, all at once, and the weight of it crushed me like the weight of his body. How could I ever let this go?
He shifted to where he straddled my body across my stomach, knees bent with his legs under him to bare some of his weight. His hands caressed my skin and slid beneath the silky fabric of my bra as he cupped both of my breasts, kneading them, massaging, and pressing his thumbs over each hardened nipple.
My breathing quickened as my body soaked in every ounce of pleasure brought about by his touch. He pushed the bra up, exposing my breasts, and he brought his mouth down, taking in the creamy flesh.
I tensed as I heard the rapping at the door that the room service had arrived. I groaned in frustration at the interruption, and Jax chuckled as he pulled the fabric of my bra back over my breasts.
He slid off me and off of the bed as he padded to the door. He opened it just a crack and stood blocking anyone’s view from the door into the room as he took our tray of food.
Once back in the room with the door closed, he sat the food on a table and came back to join me on the bed, sitting on the edge.
“Would you like to eat?” he asked, looking down at me from where he sat.
I wanted to protest, but the smell of spices had my stomach burning as though it was eating itself from the inside out. “I guess I could eat,” I admitted, sitting up.
I went to my clothes and pulled on a robe before sitting down with him at the table to share a fine meal of fish and chips.
To be continued, I thought, fantasizing about what the night before me had in store.
FOURTEEN
Invasion
Returning from our trip was like saying goodbye to a dear friend. The remainder of our time had been spent touring the land by helicopter, shopping in the local shops, and finding the best dining spots New Zealand had to offer. On the last night, Jax and I hardly slept, making the most of our private room and luxurious bed.
The flight back had taken even longer than the flight there, but we passed the time quickly between napping and reminiscing on the new memories we had all made. We talked about things that stood out for us about New Zealand, our favorite foods there, and plans to take another trip again soon.
The one topic we didn’t broach was the life we were going home to. Maybe we were afraid of what going back to reality might mean, or maybe it was just me. I couldn’t help but wonder, but I couldn’t bear to ask, for fear that I might not want to know the answer.
We arrived back in Dallas late in the evening on Sunday night. Jax had a driver there to pick us all up, and they went to drop Jada and me off at our apartment before heading home themselves.
Once we parked outside our building, the guys helped us carry our luggage inside and up to the twelfth floor. Jada and I led the way, but once we reached the door to our apartment, a cold chill ran through me as I noticed our door cracked open with the frame splintered in pieces as though it had been kicked in.
I froze in terror as my fear gripped me by the throat and held me hostage. My arm reflexively shot up in front of Jada, shielding her and preventing her from moving any further.
“What’s going on?” Jax asked, his face turning serious, as he dropped my luggage and came to my side.
I was unable to speak to answer. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the door as I inched back, away from the apartment.
Ezra came around Jada and herded us down the hall toward the elevator. “You’re not going in there until we check things out,” he ordered.
Jax brought his phone to his ear. “I need you to get up here. Twelfth floor, now.” He pressed the End Call button and turned to see the three of us watching him. “Holden is on his way up. I want to be prepared when we walk through that door.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Jada asked as she clung to my arm.
As soon as she mentioned police, my thoughts immediately went to Grayson. Could he have been the one who did this? If he found where I worked, I was pretty sure he could find where we lived now. I had never been afraid of him while we were together, but that night of the charity event he had seemed different. The way he had gripped my arm seemed
forceful, and the way he’d lurked in the background watching me was creepy and desperate.
“No, don’t call the cops,” I blurted. Everyone turned to look at me and I felt the need to explain but didn’t want to voice my real thoughts just yet. “Let’s just see what we find first.” I noticed Jax as his eyes narrowed at me like he wanted to ask a question that he kept to himself for the moment.
It only took Holden a minute or two to arrive at our floor, and I recognized him as the driver who’d transported us from the airport. It didn’t escape my notice that his hand was pressed flatly against his hip where a gun might be holstered out of sight. This sent a new wave of fear through me, and I felt the tears begin to well up in my eyes that I fought to hold back.
Holden moved to push the door open with the back of his left hand, a gun now visibly held in his right that he pointed to the ceiling. His trigger finger pressed to the side of the gun instead of on the trigger itself. When Jax followed, I had to cover a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out.
I shook my head. “No! Jax,” I cried as I started toward him, wanting to hold him back from going in, fearful of what could happen if someone was still in there. He wasn’t armed like Holden was. I felt someone’s hands gripping my shoulders from behind me, pulling me back, and I realized it was Ezra.
“Perla, wait. They know what they’re doing. Let them check it out,” he instructed in a calm voice.
I said nothing, but the tears began spilling over and down my face. Jada came to hug me again and we stood there together, clenching one another closely in silence as we watched from down the hallway with bated breath.
After what felt like hours, Jax finally poked his head out of the door and called to us. “Whoever was here is gone, but they left a hell of a mess,” he said.
We took this as our cue to enter and found the place had been completely ransacked. Broken glass and various knick-knacks were scattered across the floor. Clothes were strewn about. Furniture had been moved out of place, and the entertainment center that once held our television was toppled over.
Our bedrooms were just as scattered. I just couldn’t believe my eyes at what I was seeing, and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a flashback, standing in my parents’ home when I was sixteen years old after having been told that my parents had been murdered in a home invasion. I could hear a woman sobbing in hysterics, and until Jax rushed over to me, held me, and tried to comfort me, I didn’t realize the sobs were coming from me.
I felt Jax take me into his arms, lifting me up and carrying me out of the apartment. It almost felt safe being wrapped up by him, or at least as safe as I could feel with a looming, anonymous threat. It was a temporary comfort in the least.
Ezra, Jada, and Holden followed us down to the lobby where Jax sat me on an out-of-the-way, damask print, black and white sofa in a little nook off to the side of the entryway. When my breathing slowed and the panic attack began to subside, I was able to notice the pained look in Jax’s face. He looked helpless, like he wanted to do something but didn’t know what.
He stroked the sides of my face, calming me further as he stood in front of me. Looking up at him, I watched as the resolve took over and he began to take charge of the situation.
“Will you be okay sitting here while Holden and I speak with the night clerk?” he asked.
I nodded my affirmation. He and Holden set off to the desk where Alex sat, engrossed in a magazine. Jada stood next to me and pressed a hand to my shoulder. Thank goodness she had Ezra here, because I don’t know how I would have maintained my older-sibling duty to be strong for her in his absence this time.
I sat with my knees pressed to my chest on the lobby sofa as I watched Jax and Holden speaking with Alex at the desk. I observed Alex’s worried look as his eyes shifted from the two men, to Jada and me, and back to them. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but I could see the worry growing in Alex the longer they spoke.
How could this be happening? The timing was suspect for so many reasons, not the least of which was the moment I let my guard down and let Jax in, against my better judgment. It had been too good to be true to think I could be happy with a man I was so attracted to, so blissfully happy with for one small moment in time. Reality was an iron fist that came crashing down on me, pounding me, bruising me, leaving me in a wilted mess where I sat.
I looked over at my sister, who leaned in to the comfort of her adoring and protective partner. I was thankful that Jada had not become so jaded as me, that she couldn’t or wouldn’t allow herself the comfort she needed. Now, when I looked at Jax, all I could feel was fear.
Could it have been Grayson? It was possible, but I couldn’t be sure. Whoever was doing this to us, it felt a little too familiar for my liking. Detective Turner was sure they had found the man who had murdered my parents, but had they? So many what-ifs were running through my head, I didn’t know which ones to latch onto, so they all kept circling around.
Jax hurried back over to us, leaving Holden at the desk with Alex. I stood to meet him and hear what he had learned as Jada and Ezra moved to stand behind me. I folded my arms across my chest, holding tightly to my body and subconsciously creating a barrier between myself and the rest of the world, preventing Jax from pulling me into him. His hands reached out for me and he took hold of each of my arms.
“Perla, Alex mentioned that a man in uniform stopped by here Thursday night asking which apartment you lived in. He wouldn’t give his name and wasn’t wearing a nametag that Alex could see. It could be a coincidence, but we aren’t taking any chances. Holden is working on reviewing surveillance.” He ducked his head down to draw my eye contact. “Do you think this is something your ex is capable of doing?” he asked.
At the mention of a man in uniform, I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Maybe it had been Grayson, as I had initially thought. Was he really capable of this? It was possible that if he heard I had gone on a romantic getaway with another man, it could have set him off, but was he really capable of breaking and entering? Destruction of property? I began to question how well you can really ever know a person, and this made me fear letting Jax in even more.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head with uncertainty in answer to his question. “If you would have asked me five months ago, I wouldn’t have thought so, but now I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t want you staying here alone tonight,” Jax declared. “Do you have somewhere else to go, or will you come home with me?”
“I… We can call Uncle Dante,” I murmured as I loosened my grip around myself and went in search of my phone.
“Uncle Dante is out of town,” Jada interjected. “He would have left earlier tonight for an on-site tech job one of the teams was working on for a client this week.” She looked to me to see what direction I might go with that information.
I looked at Jada, then back to Jax. I was put on the spot, which seemed to be a recurring theme in this bunch, but really, what else was I going to do? I sure as hell wasn’t going back up into my apartment as it was, at least not tonight. There was no way I would be able to get any sleep in that place in the condition it was in, and I had to be at work first thing that following morning.
Was it really a good idea to stay with Jax, though, when my instincts were telling me to distance myself from him now that this had happened? Maybe it was irrational, but my fears had been ingrained in me for so long that something like this might happen. Lo and behold, no sooner had I let Jax and all his wealth into my life that this happened.
Until I knew for sure who had done this, the whole ordeal was making me feel justified in my beliefs that I needed to stay as far away from the world of the upper class as possible. Maybe it was Grayson, or maybe it was some karmic twist that was waiting in the lurches.
But the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t really feel I had much of a choice at this point. With Uncle Dante being gone, what other choice did I have? I sighed, cracking under the pressure of everyone�
�s stares. “Okay. I’ll go with you,” I acquiesced.
* * *
It had taken a while, but things were finally starting to get back to normal. In an effort to avoid Jax, I had thrown myself into work, especially on the Beasley case that Vandergild was giving me more responsibility on. I worked a lot of late nights and lunch hours, trying to keep from running into Jax unexpectedly. My glutes and calves had never looked better from taking the stairs instead of the elevator, to and from the seventeenth floor every day.
Not that Jax was giving up. No, that man was a force to be reckoned with. He had arranged, through Ezra, to buy out the owner of my apartment building, which I thought was absurd. It was hard to complain, though, when he had beefed up the security in the building, ten-fold.
They had scoured the surveillance footage of the building for the time we were gone. The only thing we were able to tell for sure was that it had, in fact, been Grayson who had stopped by asking about me that Thursday evening. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell who actually broke into our apartment, which we believed happened sometime on Saturday. Whoever it was somehow knew how to get around the security cameras and stay hidden in the blind spots. They had done their homework.
Under new ownership, the management had installed more security cameras, a double entry to get in the door to both the front and rear entrances, and more security staff throughout the building to watch the comings and goings. They were vetting all third-party vendors and staff prior to allowing any deliveries to the building, and even then, the delivery men and women were not allowed past a certain checkpoint. In-house maintenance was hired to handle any service issues as needed. They had even run background checks on all existing employees to make sure they all made the cut.
All in all, it did go a long way in making us feel safer in our own place. For that, I was so thankful to Jax. This made it hard to keep him at a distance, because I could tell he was trying so hard, and it was all for me.
Tragedy and Desire: An Adult Romance Page 15
