by Stella Rhys
“Hey.” His voice was still scratchy, as if he’d only woken up minutes ago. The sound of it made me long to be in bed with him.
“Morning, losers,” Sawyer greeted us jovially. “How we feeling?”
“It’s not exactly morning anymore,” I laughed, glancing at my phone, “but I feel fine.”
“Well, I feel like crap,” Sloane pouted. “And I’m so tired of this place. Don’t you boys ever go anywhere besides here and Buccieri?”
Sawyer blinked. “Not really, no.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Sloane grumbled, ever the grouch when hung over or sick. I glanced at Jake, exchanging a little laugh as she continued to lament over the menu. “This isn’t what I want. I don’t want any of this. I want a burger. Or a bagel. I don’t want a croustillant. Did I even say that right? Oh, who fuckin’ cares.”
“Shit, she’s cursing,” Sawyer said seriously, knowing well that Sloane only swore when truly enraged. Heaving a sigh, he nodded out the door. “Well, if you’re really upset, go outside and get a bagel.”
“By myself?” Sloane asked, aghast.
“Yes, Princess. Or you know what – Jake will take you.”
Jake lifted an eyebrow. “I will?” He turned to look at Sloane, whose tantrum had her tossing a menu on the floor with boredom. “Yeah, okay, I will,” he nodded, flashing me a quizzical look before sliding out of the booth. I watched him go, feeling a little wary myself as he left me alone with Sawyer. Somehow, I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say.
“Pretty bad hangover?” I asked when he didn’t break the silence first.
“Not my worst,” he laughed, scanning the menu. “So, you remember anything from last night?” he asked after a beat of silence.
“The important things,” I replied.
Finally, Sawyer looked up, a serious look in his dark eyes. “Yeah. I don’t know if you know or if you figured it out but I saw you and Jake kissing at the game.” I had suspected as much but I swallowed hard, my eyes dropping into my lap. “But I’m not saying this to shame you, Lara. I doubt you remember, but I said something to you last night at the bar – ”
“That if something was going on between me and Jake, you’d be behind it.”
“Yes.”
I looked up at him, wrenching my hands under the table. “Why would you be behind it?” I asked, despite not really wanting the answer. I remembered what he’d drunkenly said on the yacht in Ibiza, right before Jackson proposed. “I know a lot of things. Things that you’d wanna know.” I always assumed he was talking about Gabrielle since he’d seen them that night, but suddenly, sitting alone with him, I feared that there was something more. After all, he had said that he knew “things,” which was plural. Or maybe you’re just being crazy, I told myself. “Listen, I know you know about Gabrielle,” I blurted, unable to take the suspense. “Dane told me you were there. But is there something else you know beyond that?” I asked, hating the desperate tone in my voice.
Sawyer ran a heavy hand over his stubble. There was a long pause before he answered, “Yes.”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head with mounting fury. Of course. Of course there was something else with Jackson. There always was and I’d simply found out too late. “What is it, Sawyer?” I asked, opening my eyes to find myself staring through tears.
Sawyer took a deep breath, rubbing his face with both hands. “I wanted to tell you but I wasn’t sure if it was true and I had to make sure before I made an accusation that could ruin someone’s – ”
“Sawyer. I know. It’s fine. Just tell me, please,” I said hastily, my heart beating faster as Sawyer’s lip began to curl with disgust. He pressed his fist against his mouth, as if needing to suppress his anger in order to speak. When he finally did, instant fear burned in my chest.
“You know the man who broke into your apartment?”
I stared. A cold sweat prickled my skin. “Yes,” I said, my voice dead, hollow. I waited for Sawyer to continue but he didn’t, once again choking back revulsion. “Sawyer, what about him? Who is he?” I pleaded for an answer but when he finally opened his mouth to speak, it snapped back shut, his fingers curling into a fist.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered to himself as he stared past me.
Turning around, I expected to see Jake and Sloane but instead, I saw a stunning brunette in an impossibly short dress – joined by him.
Dane Fucking McNulty.
“No fucking way. Holy shit!” he clapped, his volume startling the adjacent tables. “Look at you two. Like fuckin’ deer in headlights,” he laughed, his grey eyes twinkling with true excitement as he strolled to us. “Sawyer.” Dane slapped a heavy hand onto his shoulder. “I don’t know if I should congratulate you or punch you in the fuckin’ head, you fuckin’ dog.”
“Get your hand off of me,” Sawyer flung him away. Dane held his hands up, feigning hurt.
“Really, dude? I was actually going to say good job on growing some balls and doing what you said you’d do that night we saw Jackson and Gabby together.” As Sawyer’s face reddened, Dane turned to me with mock sympathy. “Not to bring Gabby up again. I know it’s a sore subject. But I’m guessing it’s what made this coupling happen, right?” He pointed back and forth between us before looking at me. “By the way, I couldn’t be happier to know that you’re the cheating type.”
“This isn’t what you think it is, Dane,” I bit back. “I’m sure your sick mind disagrees but there is such thing as a non-sexual encounter.”
A slow grin spread Dane’s lips. “Goddamn, I’ve heard about that sharp tongue,” he murmured, eyeing between my mouth. He turned to Sawyer. “How was it, brother? As good as Jackson says?” When no words came out from between Sawyer’s gritted teeth, Dane returned to me. “You know, Jax brags a lot about you, sweetheart. Lots of stories but my personal favorite is the one about the time I went into his office to discuss some shit but you stayed kneeling under his desk and kept sucking on his dick like such a good little – ”
Sawyer jumped to his feet. “Listen, it’s time for you to shut your fucking mouth,” he hissed, inches from Dane’s face. “Don’t talk to me like that and don’t talk to her at all. This isn’t what you think it is but I don’t owe you an explanation so why don’t you walk the fuck away and go have lunch with that poor girl over there who doesn’t know what kind of disgusting fucking prick you are,” he muttered, walking forward and forcing Dane back. Dane only sneered.
“Fuck, you guys are such a drag these days. You, Jackson, all of you,” he shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll make things exciting for you guys again. I have a feeling Jax would love to hear about his fiancé fucking one of his oldest friends.”
Sawyer’s jaw twitched but he swallowed whatever words were on the tip of his tongue. Glaring, he watched Dane till he was seated across the restaurant. Then, he grabbed Jake and Sloane’s coat and nodded out the door. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
That night, I sat violently shaking in the hot bath Jake had drawn for me in his soaking tub. It had taken some coaxing but I’d finally gotten Sawyer to finish what he had begun telling me at Broome Street Kitchen. He said it all quickly before Jake or Sloane could return, and what he revealed made me so instantly sick that my knees buckled. His arms had caught me before I hit the floor but a part of me wished that he’d just let go. I wanted to fall. I wanted to crash and shatter into a million pieces.
It had been a suspicion of mine but now I knew – everything I ever had with Jackson had been a lie. I had no idea who he was. All I knew was that he was a master manipulator – someone who knew exactly how to get his way, no matter how much money or many connections it took. Some way, somehow, he found a way to bend life in is favor.
And when it came to keeping me, he’d do just about anything.
“Say the word, Lara, and I’ll kick Dane’s fuckin’ ass,” Jake said, leaning against the basin sin
k. I hadn’t told him what Sawyer had revealed about Jackson. I was afraid of his reaction. After all, I needed to confront my fiancé. I couldn’t risk Jake beating him to death, so I went ahead and let him believe that it was Dane who had rattled me.
“Don’t kick his ass, he’s not worth it,” I murmured.
“If you’re worried about Jackson thinking that you’ve been having an affair with Sawyer, he has no reason to believe Dane.”
“I’m not worried about Jackson,” I muttered.
“Why not?”
I lifted my blank gaze at Jake. “Because I’m leaving him tomorrow.”
Jake stared with surprise. “What?”
“I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t take the lies. He has all these skeletons in the closet and I’m finding them one by one and I’m not even close to finished, I know it. And it makes me realize that he’s not the person I fell in love with anymore. Maybe he never was. You said yourself that he keeps changing more and more into someone like Dane. Someone with no morals or conscience or regard for anything but his image and his pleasure. I don’t even know if he loves me. All he loves is the fact that everyone else loves me – that I make him someone to be jealous of. I mean he’s told you about me over the years. What did he ever say? Did he ever tell you stories about me? About the things I believed in, the things that I loved? You didn’t know any details about me. Where I came from. About my parents and how I had a sister who ran away. Because I’m sure all Jackson ever told you about was how good I looked in a dress, or how Sawyer couldn’t take his eyes off of me one night, or how I charmed his investors at a dinner and won him new business. I’m not the love of his life – I’m just a prize that he refuses to let go of because he knows other people might want me. So I’m done.” Taking in a deep, shaky breath, I gathered my composure. “I’m telling him tomorrow when he gets back from Boston. I already took the ring off,” I said, nodding at the floor where I’d tossed the massive diamond. As Jake looked in disbelief, I unplugged the drain with my foot and watched the water in the tub sink away, gurgling and choking on its way down.
“Where are you going to go?” Jake finally asked.
“Anywhere but there.”
“You can always stay here,” he said. I looked up at him, hugging my legs to my chest, my hair only wet at the ends. He gazed at me with a kindness so pure I felt my lip trembling. “Or we can keep you in Manhattan,” he offered lightly. “I have a warehouse apartment in the Lower East Side. It’s not furnished yet but if you want to stay in the city, we can decorate it for you. Customize it, make it your haven.”
I blinked back the tears I felt coming. “No. I don’t want that.”
Jake nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll give you what you want, Lara. Once you know what it is, just tell me and I’ll make it happen.”
“I know what it is,” I said. Rising to my feet, I stepped out of the tub and went to Jake, feeling his shallow breath as I slid my hands up his abs. “I want to be wherever you are,” I murmured, looking at my hands on his chest. “I know you’re not going to stay here for long. Not with how it’s been with Jackson. Once the hotel opens, you’re going to leave. And I know you always go somewhere far away and make a life there, so when you do that, I want to go too,” I exhaled, my growing excitement snatching my breath. “And I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to me. I want us to do what we’re doing now for however long it lasts for. All I want is to do that wherever you go. So you can show me how to start over.”
Once I was done, I looked up at Jake, fearing his reaction. He wasn’t quite smiling but I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen from him yet. Relief. I breathed easy as he took my hands and brought them to his lips, kissing my fingertips before leaning down to kiss me.
“I’ll make that happen for you,” he said softly. “For us. I need to feel you somewhere besides here. Somewhere where it’s just us so I don’t have to worry or even think about anything besides you.”
I closed my eyes, a wave of happiness crashing through me, washing me anew. “Thank you,” I whispered, kissing Jake deeply as his strong hands formed around my naked waist. I could already feel it – his touch bringing me somewhere else. To a place where the chaos didn’t exist.
On his bed, he took his time trailing his lips over every inch of my body. Between kisses to my stomach, my breasts, he shed his shirt and his jeans. Naked against me, I felt his warmth, moaning at every touch of his skin on mine. I arched my back into him as his hot mouth teased my breasts. They were sensitive, heavy with arousal and every last stroke of his tongue and fingertips was like pure bliss. He felt like a drug. The exact remedy that I needed.
“I want to make you feel nothing but good, Lara,” he murmured.
“Yes. Please,” I panted, delirious. I raised my hips for him when I felt his breath between my legs. “Oh God.” My fists pulsed around his sheets as his tongue drew hot, wet circles over my clit. The cries that spilled my lips were an emotional release. I needed this. I needed Jake. I felt nothing but good when his body was pressed against mine and in this moment, I needed that feeling more than anything in the world.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned deep against me as he felt my muscles tighten. Sliding his hands under my ass, he lifted me higher for his mouth, spiraling me into ecstasy as he slid his tongue inside my pussy. I cried toward the ceiling, my walls tightening around him as he tunneled deeper than I ever thought possible.
“Jake, I’m going to come,” I gasped, my stomach was taut, my body trembling as he brought every inch of me to a screaming orgasm.
That night, while we lay in bed, we talked about all the places in the world that I dreamt of seeing. Before finally drifting off to sleep, we did what I always hated – his flesh pulsing inside me, we made love. It was the only way to describe it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, I returned to Jackson’s apartment to find him sitting in silence on the stairs.
He was hunched forward, already staring at me with a wolf-like expression. Frozen, I briefly considered walking back out. But then I remembered that I was there for a reason. I was there to return my ring and to tell him that it would be my last time stepping foot in his duplex.
But the rage in his blazing eyes and rigid torso told me he had something to say as well. And after my run-in with Dane yesterday, I sensed that I knew what it was. I watched a sneer form on his lips as he began to speak. “I take it you’re coming from Sawyer’s?” Jackson said, his calm voice contradicting everything about the way he looked.
I tossed my purse on the floor. “No,” I answered, walking in neat steps to the kitchen counter, dropping my ring on the metal surface with a hard clack.
The sound brought Jackson flying to his feet. His sheer speed made me stumble backward in shock. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, snatching the ring off the table. “You think you’re going to cheat on me with fucking Sawyer and then fucking leave me? After everything, you want to humiliate me like that?”
“After everything?” I had to laugh in his face. “Oh, you mean how you hid the fact that you fucked your stepsister, cheated on me with Gabrielle and then hired a criminal to attack me in our own home?” My eyes were wild as I watched Jackson back down for a second. “Yes, I know about that,” the words seeped from my throat with revulsion. “I know that the son of a bitch who came in here and acted like he was going to fucking rape me was someone you fucking hired off of Dane McNulty. I mean do you actually feel good about that, Jackson? You manipulated me into loving you again by having a strange man put his hands on me and toss me around and put me through the worst trauma of my life!”
Jackson’s jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth gnashing against each other. “It wasn’t supposed to get that far. If you hadn’t seen his face, he wouldn’t have – ”
“I don’t care, Jackson! You hired a dangerous man to not only scare me but hurt me. I couldn’t sleep for a month after that. I still wake up with night
mares about that night and you know what, it’d probably happen every night if it weren’t for the fact that you’re constantly giving me new things to fucking wake up crying over.”
Jackson walked into me, a snarl on his face. “I love you, Lara.”
“You have a twisted way of showing it, then,” I hissed. But no matter how much I pushed him away, he came back.
“I told you the deal. I told you not to sleep with anyone I knew,” he muttered. “And the fact that it was Sawyer? I’ve watched you two flirt for years and I never said a word because I thought it was stupid. Harmless. But the second you get the chance, you go to house and suck his dick and let him fuck you however he – ”
“Oh my God, are you hearing yourself?” I gasped. “Surprise, Jackson, it wasn’t Sawyer. I know you go to Dane McNulty for a lot of shady shit but his word on who I fucked is completely wrong.”
“Funny, you sure believed him when he said that I slept with Gabrielle two years ago.”
“Sawyer saw you too so don’t even try to compare that,” I laughed bitterly, pushing past Jackson and storming up the stairs. I’d thought that when I left, there’d be nothing for me to pack as everything would remind me of Jackson, but there was in fact one thing left that I desperately needed. Ignoring Jackson’s footsteps, I paced into the bedroom and into my closet. When I emerged, he stood there, his frosty eyes locked on my passport.
“And where do you think you’re going?” he asked with an eerie calm.
“Away. You can sleep with whoever the hell you want now.”
Jackson’s strides quickened as he trailed me down the hall. “What, you need to run off with Sloane again?”
