They ended up at a bar on Bourbon. Charlie was sloppy drunk, laughing and flirting with everything that moved, all of the ice queen bitch washed away by whiskey and vodka. Once, early in the night, she coaxed EJ onto a stage and they sang some shitty song in a shitty karaoke bar, both of them collapsing into laughter before they got through the first verse.
Jacobs had watched, strangely patient through every bar and every shot, even when they snorted lines of blow with Josh on a dingy apartment balcony, overlooking the street.
Jacobs was never that patient, and he is never gentle. Not like this, waking up in her bed without sex.
Once—
She shoves that thought away violently, and pulls back. He’s watching her, waiting for her attention to swing up to him, and she licks her lips.
He kisses her without warning, his lips soft and she shudders under the caress of his lips and fingers, sliding slow and languid against her bare back.
He doesn’t kiss her like this. Hasn’t since everything changed between them her sophomore year of college.
Which is why she forces herself to lean back, away from him, a hand on his chest.
“You should be furious with me,” she murmurs.
He nods. “I know.” He uses the hand on his chest to pull her closer, so they are flush again, and his dick is rubbing against her through the thin boxer briefs he’s wearing and her panties.
His lips are distracting, tracing over her collarbone, nipping at the soft curve of her neck and earning a low whimper from her. “Why aren’t you?” she pants.
He laughs against her skin, his breath flaring over her breast and she groans, aching for the wet heat of his mouth.
“Who said I wasn’t?” he asks, and pulls her bra down. She moans when he takes her in his mouth, sucking at her nipple with a strong tug that arches her body off the bed. He yanks her panties to the side and his fingers plunge into her.
“You’re wet, Ellie,” he murmurs, and grins up at her.
She could come from that alone. Jacobs against her chest, grinning as he finger fucks her. The orgasm is already building—he’s known for a long fucking time how to play her body and pull pleasure from it like a master.
“Did he get you this wet?” he asks, and his tone is almost conversational as he fucks her lazily. She shudders and bites down on the burning need to beg for more. For the little bit of pressure on her clit to send her over the edge. She whimpers and he pinches her nipple sharply with his free hand. “Did he?” he snaps.
“Was she this wet?” she snarls back, and he laughs. Leans up and licks across her lips.
“Don’t fucking do that, Ellie. You’d love to know how wet she was. How tight. Don’t pretend you don’t.” She whimpers and twitches and his thumb brushes against her clit. She swallows her scream and arches off the bed, so close to coming she can feel it, tears gathering in her eyes.
His lips are against her ear, his scruff rough against her cheek, and he bites her earlobe, hard enough that pain tears through her, chasing the pleasure.
“Did he get you wet, Ellie, or did hearing me fucking her?”
His thumb skims over her clit again and she groans, a long noise that turns into a sob when he pulls away and jerks her hips off the bed, covering her with his lips and licking her pussy. She’s trembling and shaking, her muscles clenching wildly as she comes, and he pushes her orgasm on, pulling it out until she’s writhing, fighting to get away from him.
Finally, when she’s come again and tears are streaming silently from her eyes as she bites her hand to silence her screams, he lets her fall back to the bed and crawls up, fitting himself behind her.
EJ thinks, for just a moment, that he’ll fuck her. But then he doesn’t. He pulls her close, tucking her to him and let’s out a tired sigh.
He won’t apologize. Jacobs doesn’t know how to apologize—or if he does, she’s never heard it. But this—this is the closest he has ever come to that. She twists their fingers together, and stares at their hands—the way his dark skin twined with her own pale hands, so fucking different.
Except they’ve never been that different.
Jacobs has always understood her. Too well.
“I’ve missed this,” he murmurs into her hair, a tiny admission that makes her want to turn to see him. But she doesn’t. She stays still, the way one might when a wild animal is approaching.
So she won’t scare him off.
*
When she wakes later, the sun is shining. The pleasant loose drunk feeling has faded, and the bed is empty. She rolls to her back, and lays there for a long time, listening to the silence of the house and Jacobs’ security team moving around outside. Missing him.
Someday, she’s going to wake up and hate him more than she misses him. But today isn’t that day.
When she’s showered, dressed and pulled her long hair into a wet ponytail, high and bobbing on the top of her head like a cheerleader, she bounces down the stairs in search of Charlie.
The blonde is sitting on the porch, smoking a joint, her big eyes hidden behind huge sunglasses. A tumbler dangles from two fingers, precariously.
EJ rescues the drink and swallows down the whiskey with a little grimace before she drops next to her friend.
“What the hell has you so damn chipper?” Charlie grumps.
“Orgasms,” EJ deadpans.
For a heartbeat, there’s a hesitation from Charlie and then she laughs, and nods, “That’d be why I’m in such a shit mood.”
“What happened to that guy with Josh?”
Charlie shrugs. “Fredrick is a little intense—and not biting. I dropped enough hints.”
That was what annoyed her. Not that she wasn’t getting off, but that a guy had refused her. Not a familiar occurrence with Charlie.
“You and Jacobs are ok?” Charlie asks, extending the joint. EJ takes it and hits the thing lazily, watching the waving trees as she holds it. She coughs a little when she exhales, and rolls her head to the side to look at Charlie. “As ok as we ever are.”
“You two are kinda fucked up, you know.” Charlie says and EJ laughs.
Sometimes, laughing is all you can do. That or sob, and she promised herself years ago that she was done crying over Anthony Jacobs.
“I know,” she says. “But it’s just the way we are.”
“And you still aren’t going to explain that to me, are you?”
Charlie is watching her, a patient, curious look on her face. EJ nods, and hits the joint again. Watches the smoke curling around them as Charlie shifts, curling against her.
“One day, Charlie. Promise.”
They sit in silence for a long time, and Charlie whispers. “Remember what you asked me?”
She does. Of course she does. It’s the question that’s been circling for days. Since before Jacobs arrived and the end of this crazy, illegal adventure slid into sight.
“Do you know?” EJ and she feels more than hears Charlie’s assent. She waits, and finally, when no answer seems forthcoming, she asks, “What do you want?”
“All of this,” comes the whispered confession.
She closes her eyes, and swallows the well of longing and discontent. “We can’t have everything, Charlie. We can’t have what we grew up with, if we leave it all behind.”
“I don’t want to be their pretty doll,” Charlie says savagely.
EJ doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to. Neither of them want to be that. The pretty, perfect, prearranged lives. She shudders and rubs her arms, thinking of her mother, waiting patiently in Charleston for her to agree to all of the insane plans she had concocted.
“Ladies?”
It’s Ziva, the housemaid watching them from the doorway. Familiar contempt is in her eyes, and EJ wonders how long she’s been with Jacobs. How long she’ll survive in his household, if she can’t even maintain a blank face.
Not long.
She wonders, vaguely, if he’s screwed her. Of course he has. It’s why she dislikes them
so much.
“He would like you to join him for lunch,” Ziva says, and the words pull EJ to her feet. She glances back at Charlie. Arches an eyebrow.
With a tiny sigh, the other woman rises, and they push past Ziva, into the house to find Jacobs.
Chapter 13
Jacobs is sitting in the large kitchen, reading something on his phone when they enter the room. Charlie glances around the room. They’ve been in his mansion on the bayou for almost two weeks, and this room is one she hasn’t spent time in—maybe because of how much EJ dislikes the housekeeper. Maybe because neither girl has the first clue what to do with a stove. Either way.
The kitchen is sleekly modern, with a wide wood table in the corner, where Jacobs sits. Ziva has prepared lunch and the girls sit down, eyeing Jacobs.
“Eat, ladies,” he says without looking up.
EJ bristles a little on her side of the table. “What are we doing here, Jacobs?” she asks, sharply.
He taps out something on his phone before he sets it to one side and focuses on the girls. “That’s a very good question, Ella,” he says coolly and EJ flinches, going pale.
“I helped you, at your request. We’ve disposed of the body and, if you both keep your mouths shut, it will never come back on you or me. Wallace Bryce Talbert will be just another missing person, for good.”
He pauses, reaching for the bottle of wine sitting on the table. The girls are quiet and tense as he uncorks it and pours each a glass. Sits back, the corkscrew abandoned next to the green bottle. It gleams too sharp and distracting between them, and Charlie stares at it, focusing on it rather than the tension growing between EJ and Jacobs.
“What do you want from us?” she asks, unable to tolerate it any longer.
Jacobs smiles at her, a sharp thing that makes her stomach pitch unpleasantly, even as heat and want gather in her.
“You’re going home.”
The words drop like tiny bombs, hitting with deadly precision.
“No,” Charlie murmurs, and EJ makes a quiet gasp. Jacobs pauses in the midst of picking up his drink and arches an eyebrow. She shakes her head, and he laughs, incredulous.
“Charlotte, darling, you’ve got a really fucked up view of the situation if you think you get a choice in the matter.”
She swallows down the response burning in her throat, and stares at the table. Because the man who gave her the strongest orgasm of her life is nowhere at this table.
The man staring at her with cold eyes is the same one who terrified her in Charleston, and who EJ moves carefully around.
“You’ll do what I say, because that was the price. I don’t need your help with anything. It’s time to go home and play the part you’ve always had—good girls in suburbia. Forget this happened.” His gaze flicks to EJ and tightens, “Forget my name. Forget my number.”
“You don’t mean that,” she whispers, so soft Charlie almost misses it.
“I do.” He says. Something passes between them, and she pales. Jerks to her feet and stalks out of the room.
The door slamming behind her make Charlie flinch, and Jacobs sigh. He swallows the last of his wine. As he stands and pockets his phone he looks at her. “I like you. And I know EJ is furious. But you are liabilities—both of you. And I’m not willing to kill her. So go home. Don’t give me a reason to change my mind.”
Charlie stares at him, her eyes wide, as he leans down to brush a kiss over her forehead before he stalks out.
Dismissed. Forgotten. Just like that.
They were being sent home, and damn what they wanted. She feels a hysterical giggle working it’s way up her throat.
Hasn’t that always been true, though? Girls like her aren’t asked what they want. She never wanted to nurse her mother through a long, deadly battle with cancer. Never wanted to lie to her father about it and look away politely when she found him with a mistress. She closes her eyes, blocking the memories that will rip her down and suffocate her.
That’s what it is. Not even that she had a bad life. Only that despite how good it was—when she thinks about it being all there is, when she thinks about marrying Tre and living as his philanthropic trophy, trotted out for charity functions and polite conversation, and the boring as fuck vanilla sex—she wants to rip her own skin off, wants to scream and run. She feels like it’s suffocating her, this perfect fucking life.
Jacobs hadn’t asked what she wanted, hadn’t cared that going home made her vaguely nauseous and panicky.
It wasn’t surprising. No one had ever asked.
Part 2:
The Descent
Las Vegas Police Department. Interrogation Room B.
Detective Blackmon: What can you tell me about Paxton Blaincot?
Charlotte Brooks: I told you I wasn’t talking until you tell me where the fuck EJ is.
Blackmon: You aren’t helping yourself by refusing to answer our questions, ma’am.
Brooks: (laughing) You think I give a shit?
Blackmon: You want information on your EJ? You gotta work with me. Tell me about Blaincot. I’ll tell you what we know.
Brooks: You don’t know--. Oh my god. You don’t have EJ. She isn’t here.
(Silence)
Brooks: Fine. You want me to talk. Tell me what you want to know.
Blackmon: Um. Blaincot. Tell me about Paxton Blaincot.
Brooks: You want to know about Pax? (Laughing). Can I get a coffee? Pax—you know he had nothing to do with any of this, right?
Blackmon: I know that Blaincot was the first time you surfaced after going missing from your father’s home. I know that he was a college boyfriend.
Brooks: No. He was a friend. A study buddy. I fucked him once, when I was fighting with Tre, and he had a stupid crush. But he was nothing.
Blackmon: (quietly) The guy was in love with you and you treated him like trash. And you say he was nothing.
Brooks: Do you want to judge me, call me a bitch and a horrible person? Or do you want to know what fucking happened?
Blackmon: Why did you go to Paxton, if you didn’t care about him?
Brooks: We had nowhere else to go.
Blackmon: We?
Brooks: We. EJ and me. (sighs) Bitch. You want the truth, Detective? I was scared. But EJ? She was pissed. And it was her idea.
Chapter 14
EJ is sitting on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. She’s got her feet in it, and her skirt is pulled up and around her thighs. A guard, one of the usually invisible security Jacobs stations around the mansion—is standing under the trees, clearly watching her.
Charlie gives him a disgusted, furious stare as she approaches and he fades back into the trees. She perches on the edge of the fountain, her feet braced against the pebble driveway, and bumps into EJ with one shoulder.
“What do we do?” she asks.
“We listen to him. Jacobs is holding the strings on this one. We don’t get to make demands. Anthony might have helped us get rid of Tre. He might even play mind games and indulge my need to break away from the stupid shit my mother wants. But at the end of the day, he’ll look after himself. And that means when he says we go home, we go and that’s the end of it. We’re done.”
She can feel the tension in her friend, can feel the arguments gathering in her, and she shakes her head. “Don’t. Just. We pack. We go home. You forget me and find a good boy who will make you want to shoot yourself a little less than the others. I get high every weekend and put off the ring and pre-numps for a few more months before Mom locks me down. And we forget this ever happened.”
“I don’t want to,” Charlie says, petulant.
EJ laughs, loud and bitter, the noise ringing off the trees. Stands in the fountain and let’s her skirt all, hanging around her knees in schoolgirl pleats. “What the actual fuck does that have to do with anything?”
She steps out of the fountain, and starts toward the house.
“I’m leaving,” she hears. And freezes. Fear sliding down
her spine like a cold touch.
She twists to look at the other girl. Charlie is still sitting, her long legs bare in tiny ripped jean shorts and a white tank top the billows in the lazy eddies of hot air.
She’s squinting at EJ, her signature sunglasses forgotten on that kitchen table. But her expression is deadly serious and EJ can’t help the incredulous laugh that spills up and over.
“Are you insane? What makes you think you can?”
Fear flicks across her face, and then her lips tighten. “He isn’t holding us here. And I’m not going to do something I hate for the rest of my life.” Her gaze turns mocking. “I didn’t think you were so much of a timid bitch that you would.”
She stands and stalks past EJ, into the house. EJ stands there for a long moment, staring after her friend in shock.
Charlie just called her a timid bitch. What the hell was happening. Jacobs coming out of the house snaps her from her daze and she jerks into motion, taking a few stumbling feet to the wide steps leading up the porch.
“I have to go.” He says, shoving his hands into his pockets and eyeing her with dark eyes. A tiny smile turns his lips. “I’m sorry. I was hoping to spend a little time inside you before you left, but it can’t be helped.”
The words are spinning around her, and she feels dizzy, vaguely. None of this is real.
He’s still talking, something about her flight, and the flunkie who will take them to the airport. His hands are on her, and he tilts her chin up, brushing a kiss over her lips.
“I’ll miss you, Ellie. Make sure Mama sends me updates in the family Christmas card,” he says, and she gasps, tears burning in her eyes. She’s furious, that he has reduced her to this, and that he’s doing this at all.
“Tell herself, you selfish bastard,” she chokes out. Anger flares in his gaze for a moment, his grip bruising for a heartbeat, before he smiles and kisses her again.
And then he’s gone, and she’s left standing on the empty driveway while Marco, his favorite enforcer, drives them away in a black SUV.
Fatal Beauty Page 6
