I want to punch the idiot. Break the hand he touched her with, but before that can happen, he catches my eyes and pales, stumbling in his haste to get away.
Then, I’m five steps from her and pause as my rage turns into an inferno of lust. My hunger renews as the soft scent of cherry blossoms infiltrates my senses, and I bite back a groan. It’s all her. The temptation and want and this lust that has me throbbing—beads of pre-come already rolling down the tip and shaft.
It’s also why I take the remaining steps and bend to place my lips next to her ear. Why I revel in the way she shivers for me. “What’s your name, love?”
The next morning I awake to her weight on my chest. To the same hunger that propelled me to take her—to manipulate this doll to my liking for hours on end—until she finally cried out in defeat.
Spent and exhausted, Aurora fell on top of me and didn’t move. Not even when I placed her beside me so I could clean up, and then came back with a washcloth to wipe the evidence of my hunger from her inner thighs. Thighs that now bear perfect little marks in the shape of my fingertips, light purple and spread about—from her upper legs to those supple hips—that stand out against her lightly tanned skin.
They are the perfect reminder of the pleasure I gave her. Of what she willingly gave to me.
I also recognize that there’s no sense of panic in me.
We didn’t use a condom. There hadn’t been anything to dispose of, and yet, I don’t have a single worry about what could be or the what ifs. My mind is at ease for once. Calm.
A foreign feeling, but I’m not questioning it either as her words from last night come back to the forefront; a mumbled confession as I pushed her against the door after slamming it closed and taking possession of her sweet mouth in a kiss. It was a promise. A plea for me not to stop.
I’m clean and on the pill. Christ...you’re so...I-I haven’t been with anyone in over a year since my last breakup.
And I gave in after my own reassurance of being clean. Over and over.
“Why my pub, Gem?” At my question, she lets out a cute sigh and snuggles closer, burrowing her nose into the crook of my neck. The sensation tickles, but I don’t want to move her. Take away the sweet warmth of her pussy so close to my cock.
If anything, I want to bury myself deep within those walls once more. Hear her screams.
“Casper,” she whimpers low in her slumber, lips skimming across my skin in an unconscious taunt. I’m hard—throbbing—as I press my length against her bare leg over my hip. It’s a dangerous position for her. Too easy for me.
All I need to do is move a little lower and...
I’m interrupted by the obnoxious ringing of my mobile atop my nightstand; it’s loud within the silence of the room and I worry it’ll wake her up, however, she doesn’t so much as stir.
Gem is definitely a heavy sleeper, I muse; a low chuckle vibrates through my chest as the device rings three times and then goes to voicemail. There’s a beep that follows, a few seconds of silence, and then the blasted tone blares again, causing my amusement to cease.
The person on the other end is a persistent arsehole.
I also know why he’s calling. What he’s waiting on.
Life or death; it’s a delicate balance that I control with a flick of a finger. With the sharp edge of my blade.
It’s mine to decide—to take their last breath—and I close my eyes for just a second. Just a little longer, and those two deep breaths give me a moment to take in her softness and how at ease I feel with her near.
And with that ease comes another dose of reality:
The thought of getting rid of her hasn’t crossed my mind once.
It’s the opposite. Something I don’t quite understand yet, but I want her here.
She’s a reprieve. She’s not just a fuck that I can ignore after.
Aurora is someone I want to see again. Have again.
My phone beeps then with an incoming text and I carefully move Gem, settling her against the space I vacate. It’s selfish of me to want her here with the kind of business I run, but I’m greedy if nothing else. Hold no remorse over it. Something about this woman has caught my attention, holding it captive while making me crave more.
Of her. Of us.
Of the explosion I barely got a taste of last night. Those hours weren’t enough.
Leaning over her slumbering form, I press my lips to hers while inhaling the scent of sex and cherry blossoms that still lingers on her skin. It soothes me. A seduction, and I’m more than tempted to crawl back onto the bed and part those legs so I can explore her heat once more, but I don’t.
Instead, I whisper soon against the pillowy flesh of her mouth, nipping her bottom lip a final time before backing away. We’re not done. And it’s the bloody truth.
Naked and rock hard, I grab my phone and send off a quick text to the cock-blocker without reading his message. He will know what it means. What I expect.
Twenty. ~Jameson
Just as soon as he received it, three dots appear on my screen. However, I don’t wait to read his confirmation. I’m already walking across the room and into my closet to pick out something to wear. And it takes less than three minutes to do so, grabbing a pair of denim trousers and a simple black vest without underwear.
I don’t like them.
The guest bath I’ll use is downstairs and as I exit the room, I pause to look over at a slumbering Gem one last time. To take in how tiny and decadent she looks. To acknowledge how her allure, the pull, is just as strong as it was last night.
Complications can be fun.
And a complication she is.
The second the door closes, there’s a shift in me. Raw and ireful energy. With each step I take down the stairs—away from her temptation—I welcome the change that courses through my body.
The space between us brings back the cruel animal in me. The devil beneath the facade of a saint.
The real me.
Entering the bathroom, my eyes shift toward the large mirror and I take in my expression for a second. Gone is the smile I had for her. Gone is my relaxed state. What looks back at me is a killer.
I’m a handsome face with a cruel smile.
Green eyes that seem to glow in the lighting of this room.
Muscles that coil as I remember the two hours before noticing her:
The final report from the dock where the theft took place.
The surveillance photos of that night.
The proof of who sold the merchandise. Who bought it.
My men had forty-eight hours to gather every last bit of evidence on the betrayer and buyer. Whose name is attached. Every bloody fucking detail sits atop my desk inside the pub where I met Aurora.
“Blessed be the wicked,” I tell my reflection and then walk toward the shower, turning the setting to my liking. Steam builds rather quickly within the grey and white bathroom, the water coming down from four showerheads with various pressure settings as I step inside. It cascades down my back, but I feel no relief, nothing but a craving for retribution that grows with each tick of the clock.
I don’t linger as I’d like to. I don’t jerk off to take the edge off my hunger for her, like I need to.
Instead, my neck stiffens further as the weight of this family finds its rightful place: back on my shoulders. I stretch it from side to side, causing a loud pop to ring throughout the shower, and yet, the tension doesn’t lessen. If anything, it becomes more pronounced. Aggravated by the blatant disrespect to those I care about.
Nothing happens in London without my knowledge. Without my approval.
And yet, someone decided to play God for the day and stole from me.
It’s an insult. A slap to the face. They put an innocent in danger.
I’m also calculating. Taking into consideration her sleeping form upstairs.
Because she will know the truth. She will run. Something inevitable, and it fucks with my already vexed mood.
“Why are you real
ly in London, Gem?” I mutter low, making my way out of the bathroom once dressed. My manor in the Kensington area is sacred and always protected. And while it’s Sunday and my staff has the day off, I have three guards and my two male boxers—outside these walls—to keep those who are curiously stupid, out.
These men will lay down their lives for me. Are loyal. Hold no qualms about shooting first.
They also know to never enter without permission, so when a knock comes as I head toward my office on the opposite end of the house, I make them wait. Family or not—my men or not—it doesn’t matter.
It’s a rule taken straight from my own version of the ten commandments:
In this world, I am their King.
The one responsible for their fate.
A male shadow looms through the frosted glass of the front door. “Oi, you in there, bro?” Another knock sounds, a bit harder this time, and I walk over, pulling the front door open so my guest can come inside.
“Don’t make another sound,” I spit out, eyes narrowing at the man who looks a lot like me, just six years younger than my thirty-two. “My office, and no deviations.”
“Rough night, mate?” my cousin, Callum, jokes while raising a brow. His lips are quirked up at the corner, a shitty smirk that all the men in my family seem to have. “That pretty little thing not—”
“Don’t.” That’s all I say, and the amusement drops from his face. In this moment I’m not family, I’m his boss. He eyes me for a second but doesn’t comment. Instead, he nods and walks off in the direction of my home office, entering, while my eyes shift briefly toward another room at the top of the stairs.
Last night I gave in to her temptation and let the game of Russian Roulette take its natural course, however, today is different. I don’t regret Gem, my time with her, but that must all take a back seat for now as I walk in a minute after Callum.
Even if I have to chase, she’ll be my reward after.
The space is large and holds an air of old luxury that intimidates most that enter. The interior furniture is a mixture of dark and natural tones, wall-to-wall built-in bookcases to the left, and a large desk in an imported teak wood that sits center stage. The walls are painted in a deep royal blue with one white stripe at the center of each.
Rare Gothic paintings litter my walls—expensive and found throughout the black market—that depict the depraved curiosity people have with death. Demons, blood, and sexual deviancy stare back at you no matter where you sit, and it makes even the most decorated killers uncomfortable.
Then, there is a collection of weapons on display. Old and new. My favorites, and a few cruel contraptions from the medieval ages with purposes that reek of horror.
Some are loaded. Some no longer work. Some still hold a few dried drops of blood from their last kill.
And right there in the middle of it all sits someone I trust with my life. Waiting. Callum has questions, but he won’t ask. Instead, he cracks his somewhat bruised knuckles.
“Did he give you that much of a fight?” I ask, tilting my head in the direction of his hands as I pause beside the chair next to his.
“Nah. That’s just the consequence of fighting a spider,” he says, holding two fingers together to show me its size. “Bloody thing kept running.”
“What kind?” The phone in my pocket buzzes with an alert and I pull it out, swiping my finger across the screen. It’s the motion-detection camera near the stairs and it shows Aurora stumbling down still half asleep, wearing my vest. Looking for me.
From the screen, I watch Gem continue down and catch glimpses of her from different angles. There are so many directions she could head, but as if pulled by an invisible string, her steps come closer across the foyer, and it’s that camera with her face in my line of sight that I focus on.
“Daddy long-legs.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I bark out a laugh to help guide Gem. Walking around the desk to take a seat, I place the phone against my computer monitor so only I can see. That’s it, sweetheart. A little bit more. “Let me guess…you gave the wall a bunch of fives to kill it?”
“It was an instinctual reaction.” No shame for his stupidity. Instead, he shrugs while stretching his hand out. “Caught the bloke on the third punch. Not that bad.”
“And Otto?” Because while his story is entertaining, it’s unimportant. That, and this will kill two birds with one stone. “Where’s the cunt now?”
“Taking a nap near the Eye. I transferred him before coming here.”
“Good.” Most people don’t pay attention to their surroundings, especially those that are vacationing. A tourist destination is the perfect way to mask the danger that lurks. You blend in. No one looks at you twice. No one asks questions as they imbibe the spirits you serve.
This business is overlooked on the daily as just another pub. A large two-story building with a roof-top establishment, a kitchen down below, and a hidden floor beneath where no one is allowed without my presence. And I like it that way. To hide in plain sight.
Every single one of my endeavors is the same way.
“Have you decided yet?” he asks then, pushing his hair back from his face. While mine is the same dirty blond color, his is long enough to keep in a bun. “Because what that son of a bitch did doesn’t deserve your mercy.”
“Is that your suggestion?” From my periphery I see a shadow loom near the still open door. There’s no going back. “That he die?”
“Yes, but you know I’ll follow your lead, cousin.”
“I know.” Reaching over, I open the top drawer to my right while looking at him to avoid the temptation of seeking her out. My favorite toys in the world lay there; two steel karambits with silver handles given to me on my sixteenth birthday by my grandfather. They’re both engraved with my name on the curved, four-inch blade; a sleek and deadly design that lets me get close enough to feel the flesh give way beneath my assault.
Taking one out, I slip one finger through the circular end and the rest around the handle tightly. The weight feels good in my hold. Like an extension of me.
“Are we—”
“He pays in blood.” There’s a low gasp from just outside the door, so low that Callum misses it but I don’t. I also don’t miss how she rushes away and up my stairs to probably get dressed and then flee. That’s okay, though…
I won’t allow her to get far.
Not after how good she felt beneath my fingertips. How right we were.
She was tantalizing. Delicious. A cock-hardening manifestation of femininity that will try and slip through my fingers but won’t get far.
I will chase.
We’re not over.
3
“WHAT THE HELL is wrong with me?” I ask myself for the hundredth time, rushing up a stranger’s staircase with my torn dress in hand—stumbling in my haste to find anything to wear and leave. To get the hell away from someone I have no business being near, much less sleeping with.
I let his smile last night lower my inhibitions. Let the feel of his fingertips skimming my arm guide me closer.
A mistake. Monumental.
Christ, I’m an idiot.
Fear and lust and desire still linger over my skin. I feel him. His touch.
And I hate how I love it. How I crave him again. How even after I heard him sentence someone to death, I want more.
Of his danger. Of how he made me come alive last night.
Of the pleasure...
But I can’t. Casper Jameson is something that can never be. He’s the physical embodiment of what I’ll always run from.
“Get it together and focus, Aurora.” His room is in my line of sight and I enter, running inside while I avoid looking at his bed, a large, king-sized monstrosity with an almost black wooden frame and headboard. It’s regal. The lines are sexy, and it sits in the center of the room with soft white sheets strewn about.
It’s the mess we made. Where he took me over and over again for hours on end.
Where I let him.
My thighs clench, the slight sting of pain making me look down and lift the seam of his shirt that smells just like him—woodsy with a hint of whiskey—that I found lying over a large chair in the corner of the room. It’s a white Oxford that fits me like a dress, and it also made me blind to the marks he’s left behind.
His fingertips. His touch.
It’s more proof of my idiocy. A map of his desire.
“It’s a one-night stand and nothing more.” I repeat these words three times, taking in deep breaths as my heart accelerates. As my hands begin to shake. “Get in and get out.”
My head whips from side to side, searching for anything else I can wear because his shirt, without panties, won’t do. He tore them from me last night, leaving them unwearable. That, and I don’t have the time to search them out.
I need to get far enough to call a cab before he comes up. Finds out where the hell I am.
That’s when I take in an armoire on the left wall. It’s large, a piece from the same line as his bed frame, and should have what I need. At least, I hope.
Walking over the sheet I let fall off my body when I went looking for him, I reach the large piece in a few steps. I’m on autopilot as I open the first two drawers and find plain undershirts. The one below has some gym clothes, and so on. Each one is full to the brim with things that don’t fit my much smaller frame, and I toss everything onto the floor before noticing a pair of basketball shorts that I think will be a bit tight on him.
“These will have to do.” Slipping them up my hips, I realize immediately just how wrong I am and almost laugh. Almost. They’re huge, and I’m running out of time. He could come up at any minute and see the mess I’m making.
Tying the strings of the shorts as tightly as I can, I roll the waist twice and then test them by shaking my hips from side to side a few times. They fall a bit, but not enough that I will become bottomless as I walk. Good enough.
Covet (Beautiful Sinner Series Book 2) Page 2
