“Have a seat,” he orders, gesturing to my couch.
I do and rub my neck where his hand was just around. It stings. Every breath that I suck in burns, and my pulse still races. I didn’t really think he was gonna kill me. Although, I did think I was gonna pass out. He proved his point. He’s a guy you want on your side; a man who isn’t afraid to put his hands on a woman or kill. I could use him to find Tiffany.
He turns and walks over to my little kitchen area. He opens the freezer first and pulls out the tray of ice. Then he starts to open drawers searching for something.
I find myself falling back down into the couch, but I watch him intently. I watch how small he makes my already tiny kitchen look. I swallow nervously as I think of the fact that he knows where I live. He knows I have a gun, and he knows that I have three locks on my front door. How easily he followed me. Does the guy who took Tiffany know where we live? Had he been following her? “Do you think the man who was with Tiffany in the video knows where we live?” I ask him, thankful that my voice is coming back now.
His body freezes as he looks down into a drawer. The only thing that moves are his eyes as he looks up at me through long, thick dark eyelashes. A shiver runs through me at how intense they look. He slams whatever drawer he was looking in shut. He looks away from me to crack the ice and pours it into a Ziploc baggie that he found. He then grabs a dishtowel off the counter and walks back over to me. He wraps the bag of ice in the cloth and comes to stand over me.
He places the ice pack to my face, and I hiss from the pain. “It’s a possibility,” he says honestly, and it does nothing to alleviate my concern. “Hold this on your face. It will help with the swelling.” His eyes search mine as he speaks the next words. “But you have a gun, right? You’ll be safe.” And with that, he gets up and goes into my bathroom.
Ouch! His words sting worse than the cut on my face. He proved himself, all right. I’m weak and worthless up against him. He’s powerful and in control. I would say typical man, but I’ve only known one other man like him. And if given the chance, he wouldn’t remove his hand from around my throat until after I was dead.
“I get it,” I say softly.
“Get what?” he asks from my bathroom, the only room that has a door on it.
“That I’m weak. That I might die trying to find her.” I lower my eyes to the floor in shame. I’m willing to die for her. She would be worth my life because, without her, I would have nothing.
“Who is Robert?” he asks, ignoring my statement. But then again, he didn’t need to say anything. He already proved it with his hands.
I frown but find myself answering. “He’s my ex.”
“Could he be any help to where your friend might be?”
I shake my head. “No. We’ve been broken up for three months now,” I say.
He comes back with a cotton ball, Neosporin, and alcohol. “You need to clean it,” he orders as he holds it out to me.
I look up at him and sigh. “I’m fine.”
He tosses the stuff onto the couch and then he reaches the hem of his black hoodie and pulls it up and over his head. His white button-down shirt pulls up from the waistband of his jeans in the process, and I see his abs flex in front of me as he stands eye level. I lick my lips. He tosses his hoodie onto the floor, and he kneels in front of me.
I take a deep breath and look away from him. “You okay?” he asks.
I just nod. He takes the stuff in his hands, puts the alcohol on the cotton ball, and then dabs it on my face. I pull away and hiss in a breath at the sting.
His right hand reaches out and cups the side of my face as his left comes up, and he touches the cut again. This time, when I go to pull away, he holds it in place. “It stings,” I admit, sounding like a child.
I look into his dark eyes. They had looked almost black in the parking lot of Seven Deadly Sins, and then again when he looked down at me after attacking the guy outside my apartment. But this close, with the lights of my apartment, they look like a dark brown with a hint of gold in them. I’ve never seen anything like them before. They look away from mine to look down at the cut on my face, and I can’t help but look over his face. He has some stubble along his jawline. It’s as if he just forgot to shave today. And I swallow nervously as I look at his hard chest peeking out from between the two buttons undone on his shirt.
“You have to clean it,” comes his deep voice, and I ignore the way I like his hand on my face. Especially considering a moment ago, it was wrapped around my throat.
“Why?” I can’t help but ask.
“Because of infection,” he answers not bothering to look back up at me.
“No. Why are you trying to kill me one moment and help me the next?” I ask.
His eyes look up at mine and then they go to my neck. I watch something in his jaw tic, and he sucks a deep breath as if he remembers his hand wrapped around it. I have a feeling he liked it. “I’ve been helping you,” he states.
“By trying to choke me to death?” I can’t help but ask. Why do I care? Just let him. He’s all you got.
A slow and sexy smirk spreads across his face. “If I wanted you dead, you would be,” he says matter-of-factly.
I swallow nervously as my eyes widen at his words. “So I hear,” I say softly.
He pulls the cotton ball away from my face and grabs the Neosporin. He squeezes some onto his finger and then places his attention back on my face. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“So you’re saying you haven’t killed anyone?” I ask as he spreads the Neosporin over my cut.
He rubs what’s left on his finger on his jeans and then grabs a Band-Aid. I refrain from rolling my eyes that he’s even putting one on. He places it on and then looks back at me. “Not today.” His eyes search mine, and I flinch when he lifts his hand unexpectedly and pushes a strand of brown hair behind my ear. He smiles at me. His brown eyes shine, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Am I a game to him? Does he see me as easy prey ‘cause he knows I’m alone? “But then again”—he shrugs—“the day just started five hours ago.” I can’t tell if he’s serious or joking.
His words don’t ease this nagging feeling in my gut that says to run from him. That his help is gonna do more harm than good in my search for Tiffany. “Brecken …” I lick my lips nervously, all of a sudden feeling too close to him.
He places his fists on the couch, on either side of me, and stands as he leans into me, making me press my back into the back of the couch as he hovers over me. “Skye …” He whispers my name, and my breath catches in my throat as I stare up at his gorgeous face.
“You should leave.” I whisper the words, and they make me sound like he’s affecting me as if he has me right where he wants me. God, I hope that’s not dead.
He lifts his left hand up off the couch and wraps it around my neck. I arch my back causing my ass to come up off the couch as I suck in a breath. He lowers his head down to mine, placing his mouth next to my ear. He smells like heaven. “Be careful who you trust, Skye. Not all men would walk away when you willingly allow them the opportunity to take advantage of you.”
He pulls back, and his hand stays a few seconds as his eyes look into mine, and my pulse races. Then he lets go, bends down, and grabs his hoodie before walking out of my door.
What the fuck was that?
CHAPTER SIX
BRECKEN
“Hello?” Miller answers as I look up to the window of her apartment from my Range Rover in the parking lot.
“I need you to meet me back at the club,” I say.
He sighs heavily and then he yawns. “Okay. Be right there.” I hang up as I sit in my Range Rover in the parking lot of her apartment complex. My cock is hard, and my head is full of nothing but dirty thoughts of her. The way she licked her lips, the way her eyes looked at me as if she was trying to figure out just what I wanted from her. If I had told her what was really on my mind, she would have run away screaming, and that’s not what I w
ant at the moment. I told her I would help her find her friend, and I want her to believe that.
She needs time to process what is happening anyway, as do I. What can I do to help her? What can I do to keep her from getting too deep in this mess? Most guys who do what I do—sell drugs—would have never shown her their footage. Would have never followed her and helped her when another man tried to attack her. They either would have turned the other way or would have taken advantage of her situation. Lucky for her, I’m not like other guys. The feel of my hard cock in my pants reminds me that that’s pretty much what I just did. I used the fact that she was in a bad situation to prove to her I was the better man. I took her life in my hands to prove she needed me. All I did was take advantage of her.
I start my Range Rover and head back to Seven Deadly Sins. I need to delete the footage from the other night when her friend went missing. She told me that she already went to the cops, so they’ll be at my club next, wanting to know what I know. I can’t have any evidence to prove that she was there. I’ll help her out, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help the police when they start asking questions.
I pull back into the parking lot of Seven Deadly Sins and see Miller’s car in the parking lot.
I need him to watch the footage with me. I need to let him in on what I am doing, just in case he remembers anything from that night or he recognizes them.
“What’s up, boss?” he asks as I get out of my car.
“I need you to look at some footage with me,” I say. Miller is a good guy. He’s been with us since the beginning. He is also one of my and Case’s best friends. I trust him just as much as I trust Case.
We make our way up to the office, and I pull up the camera footage. “Do you know this man or woman?” I push play, and he watches intently. You can even see him standing off to the side, looking at IDs. Once it’s done, he looks up at me.
“Is this a trick question?”
I frown. “Why would you think it’s a trick question?” I ask confused.
“That’s Tiffany,” he says pointing at the screen where I have Tiffany and the guy paused as they get into the limo.
“I know that,” I say slowly. “But how do you know that?” He doesn’t answer, and I say, “You know her.”
He nods. “We’ve hooked up a few times.” I fall down into my seat and let out a sigh. “What is going on, Brecken?”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’m not sure. About four, maybe five months ago.”
Well, fuck! That’s not gonna help me, but it also means that the cops won’t see him as a suspect.
“Are you going to fill me in here? Or do you want me to guess?” He sits back in his seat. “Because I’m pretty tired.” He looks down at his watch. The sun should be up within the next thirty minutes. “It may take me a while to get it right…”
“Do you know her best friend, Skye?” I ask.
“I met her a couple of times when they came in here.”
I sit up. “They come in here often?” Skye didn’t mention that, and I hadn’t recognized her.
“Tiffany would come in here a lot. She didn’t always come with Skye. I never hung out with them outside of here except when Tiffany would come over after the club closed. We would do our thing, and then she would leave.”
Still not anything that could help me. “Well, Skye came in here tonight. She had told our bartender she needed to talk to me. I told him I didn’t have time for her. I didn’t even know who she was. Then when I was walking out to my vehicle after closing, she was waiting for me in the parking lot.” His dark brows rise. “She told me that she wanted to see our footage from last night.”
“Why?”
I point at the screen that is still paused. “She’s looking for Tiffany. She has gone missing. This is the last time she has been seen.”
He sits there and stares at me for a long time. “Missing? How does she know she’s actually missing?”
“They live together, and she never came home. Skye knew she was coming here. I guess she went to the police last night and tried to file a missing person report, but they wouldn’t let her because it wasn’t over twenty-four hours. And her cell goes straight to voicemail.”
His eyes widen for the briefest second. “Did she tell the police about this?” He points at the computer.
I shake my head. “She hasn’t. Yet. She came here after the police wouldn’t help her. We watched the tape, and there, she was leaving with a man Skye didn’t recognize.”
“Damn.” He sighs.
“Yeah. I have to delete this footage, but I wanted you to see it. You obviously know what Tiffany looks like, but if you see the man in here, I need you to tell me. Do you need to watch it again?” Not like it’s really gonna help us—the guy knew we had cameras and avoided looking into them.
He shakes his head, and I reach over and delete all footage from Friday night. “So you’re going to help Skye?” he asks. His voice tells me he’s not so sure I should do it.
“Yes. I’m going to help her. No one else is.”
He sits up and looks me in the eyes. “I’ll help too.”
SKYE
I sit at a table seated for two as I look out the glass window to the streets of Chicago. I watch as the women try to hold down their skirts as the wind fights to push them back up. I watch an elderly man as he moves slowly across the street. A black car slams on its brakes and comes to an abrupt stop to keep from hitting the old man, and I hold my breath as I see that he doesn’t even notice he was just about to be a hood ornament. A younger woman in blue jeans and white t-shirt runs up next to him and grabs his hand. I smile as he stumbles from the contact. Once he realizes that she wants to help him across the street, he smiles and pats her arm.
I watch as the blonde walks into the coffee shop, and she gives the man a hug before she walks toward me. “Well, hello there, lifesaver,” I say as I stand from my seat.
The woman in the jeans and white t-shirt, the same person who happens to be my best friend, opens her arms wide to give me a hug. “You know me. Always helping others.”
“Uh-huh,” I say as I hug her. We laugh as she pulls away and sits down in front of me.
“I might have even let him cop a feel,” she says with a careless shrug.
I throw my head back laughing. “Of course, you did.”
She reaches out and grabs the cup of coffee I had waiting on her. She takes a sip and then smiles up at me. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long,” I say, but it’s been like thirty minutes.
“Thanks for ordering me coffee.”
I wave a hand in the air to say no big deal. It’s probably cold by now anyway. “So what’s going on in your day?” I ask her. “How’s work going?” She had to go in today, but I had the day off. I had messaged her wanting to do lunch because I hate staying at the apartment.
“It’s going great,” she says simply, but I see the big smile spread across her face as she lifts the coffee mug to her lips.
“What are you not telling me?” I say, narrowing my eyes on her.
She waves a hand at me. “Nothing. It’s just going really well.”
“Since when is a day of work at the diner going really well?” I ask suspiciously.
She laughs nervously and then shrugs. “I might have met someone,” she says with a smile.
“Really?” I ask surprised. “Who is he?” I ask. “Is he someone who comes in often?”
She shakes her head. “No. He just came in today.”
“Well, who is he?” I demand with a smile.
She shakes his head. “I can’t tell you,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Why not?” I ask confused.
She looks around as if someone may be watching us. Listening to us. When she seems satisfied, she leans in. I lean in as well. “He’s married.”
I open my eyes and sit up. I let out a sigh when I find myself in our apartment. The dream gives
me an uneasy feeling. That was a couple of months ago. She never mentioned the guy again, but now, I wonder if she had seen him outside of the diner? Had he ever came back in there? Had she slept with him and his wife found out? So many questions.
I lie back down on the couch with my blanket and my phone on my chest. It reads a little after ten am. I was so tired after Brecken left that I passed out. Now that I’m awake and once again alone, I hate that Brecken left. At the time, I wanted him to leave, but now that I’m all alone, I’m lonely. Which is crazy, right? I don’t know that man, and I’m sure as hell scared of him. But even with his hand around my throat, I still felt safer than I do now. My friend is still missing. And I have no idea what happened to the man Brecken beat downstairs. Will he come to my apartment? Will he be pissed at Brecken or me?
I run a hand over my face and let out a sigh. Just calm down, Skye. You’re still alive. I feel that if someone wanted me dead, they would have done it in the middle of the night. When I finally went to sleep, it was already daylight. Now, I feel like every memory that I have of Tiffany and me brings up new reasons why someone would want to take her. But none of them adds up to what I saw on the surveillance cameras at Seven Deadly Sins. If a man’s wife wanted Tiffany dead for sleeping with her husband, then she would do it herself. Not send a man in an expensive suit and limo. Unless he was the married man …
I look around our quiet apartment and swallow around the knot in my throat. I was going to tell her that I wanted to move. That I thought it was time for us to move on to another city, that this one was starting to suffocate me. The nightmares. The memories from my past that I want to get rid of only stay away for so long until I’m drowning in them and can’t breathe.
I sit up and run a hand through my hair. I wanna be ready for her when we find her. I wanna be ready when she walks in through that door, so we can turn around and walk out.
Tossing the blanket off, I get up and walk over to our bed that we’ve pushed up against the wall behind the couch. I go over to it and open the sliding door that they consider a closet. I start pulling things out and placing them on the bed as I remember us moving into this place.
Obsession (Seven Deadly Sins Book 2) Page 8
