by W Winters
Wow doesn’t do it justice.
“The fireplace is real. It’s from a castle in Ireland,” he says as he walks to it on the other side of the room while my fingers trail down a set of old books with red covers. “Not like the glass one in the other room.”
“Fireplaces seem to be your thing,” I speak without really thinking about the words as my gaze drifts from one shelf to the next. “You like to read?” He nods. “And collect weapons?” I tilt my head at the knives on display. The bottoms of the blades have rust that extends to the handles.
“Yes,” he answers and reaches out to gently caress my hip as I lean against him. The more I touch him, the more he touches me. Tit for tat, like all things with us.
“Where’s your desk?” I ask, noting how it looks like a combination of a sitting room and office. “There should be a desk in here.” The room has a primitive air to it, dark and cavernous with a large rug on the floor and walls covered with shelves.
“My office is at the bar. Not here. This is just for me.” I lift my fingers from the books at his last comment until he adds, “And you, if you like it. You can come in here whenever you’d like.”
I can imagine listening to the crackles of the fire as I turn the pages of The Coverless Book. “I think I’d enjoy that.”
“Good, let me show you the rest.”
Today is apparently the day Jase forces me to go on a tour. Between the gym, the cigar room and the billiard room, all three of which look entirely unused and are outfitted with as much dark polished wood as they are wealth, I’m not sure what Jase does as a hobby.
The only room he truly seems to enjoy is the office that’s not an office… and the fire room. Which I’ve already explored with him.
“I love that you call it a fire room,” I comment as we pass it, feeling my cheeks heat.
“What would you call it?” he questions and I change the subject before I find myself wanting to go inside of it – the wooden bench room - rather than hear him tell me more stories. It’s the intellectual side of him I need to feel safe. Although his touch is just as addictive.
“You said you didn’t used to use this gym,” I comment, nodding my head toward the last door we passed on the left. The equipment looks virtually brand new.
“I didn’t, but lately the other gym has… The women seem to like the main gym.”
“The women?” My eyebrow raises on its own.
“Chloe, Addison, Aria, they live in the estate with us. You’ll meet them soon, I think.”
I don’t anticipate the pressure that overwhelms me at the thought. As we walk down the hall toward the foyer which leads to the door separating this wing from the rest of the estate, I drag my fingertips along the wall. All the while thinking how close he must be to his brothers since they live together. Only a hall away.
“So they… they get how it is?” I ask him, watching my feet and wondering if they feel the same way as I do. “Chloe, Addison and…”
“And Aria. Yes. They grew up in this life. They aren’t like you.” I can’t explain why it hurts so much to hear him say it like that. Not like me.
“They’re your brothers’ girlfriends?” I’m quick to keep up the conversation and not let on how I’m feeling.
“No. Declan is single. He’s happy being on his own.”
“No one’s really happy being on their own.” I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“You were alone for a long time,” he notes.
“I had my work.”
“That’s still alone.”
“I didn’t say I was happy.” My rebuttal is quick and unfortunate. I’d rather talk about his brothers.
“So one of the three women is…”
It only takes two more steps and a side-eye for Jase to tell me that Chloe is Sebastian’s wife and remind me that I met him in the kitchen the other day.
“Right.” I nod and try to picture his face again, but I can’t. It seems like most of Jase’s family has their own little family. I like that. I don’t know why I do, but it makes me feel safer still. “What about Seth?”
“He doesn’t have a girl… that I know of. I think he has other things in mind,” he answers cryptically.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s been off.”
With a cocked brow, I motion for him to continue.
“He’s seeing someone, that’s obvious enough. I just don’t know who.”
“You could ask him.”
“That’s not the way I go about things.”
“Aren’t you friends?” Of everyone I’ve met, Seth’s the only person I had mentally filed as a friend of Jase.
“I trust him to the point where it would be hard to think…” He doesn’t finish his thought but before I can pry he speaks again. “I don’t really have friends, but I’m friendly with him.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“Push came to shove a few years back, and he was there, in a spot where he could have done a lot of things. Seth could have ended us - me and my brothers - before we really got started… all because I fucked up.” He scratches the back of his neck and even though he’s speaking so casually, his expression is hard and unforgiving.
“What did you do?”
“It was at The Red Room. We’d just opened and I let someone in who I shouldn’t have. I showed him something that no one’s supposed to see.” An ominous tone tinges his last statement.
I whisper, “Are you going to tell me what?”
“A basement where I bring people to…”
“To kill.” I finish the sentence so he doesn’t have to.
“Yes, let’s go with kill.”
“And what happened?”
“The doors were open, the man saw and took off. None of us were armed as a show of faith, which was fucking stupid. Seth was out there in the parking lot, and he saw us running after him.”
“Seth just happened to be there?” I question, not understanding.
“He’d stopped by The Red Room that night, wanting to work with us. We told him no. He came back at just the right time.”
“Why couldn’t you work with him?”
“He was too… he was too big, too set in his ways. He came from a town where he was the person everyone went to. I don’t need someone looking over my shoulder, someone wanting to take command.”
“Too many chefs, so to speak.”
“Something like that. Anyway, that night he saw, and he could have let the fucker take off. He didn’t.”
I’ve been to The Red Room enough to imagine someone bolting from the doors. The forest is close; the highway is even closer. It wouldn’t take much to get away if only you got past the parking lot.
“After helping us take care of the body, he told me, ‘If you change your mind, I’m good at taking direction,’ or something like that.”
“And that convinced you?” I ask him.
“We would have been done if that asshole had gotten out and told the feds what he saw; it turned out that he was undercover. We didn’t have the police back then on our payroll. We didn’t have much protection. Things were harder then and we needed the help. That’s really what it comes down to.”
“So you aren’t friends then. Simply coworkers who rely on each other?”
“He’s more of a friend to Declan. They’re closer than we are.”
It’s quiet as we come to the stairwell and he tells me the upstairs is mostly unfinished. He’s never had a reason to complete it.
Taking my hand, he lets his middle finger trail down the lines in my palm. There’s a hint of charm and flirtation I’m not expecting. One that breaks the tension, scattering it in any and all directions until it’s gone.
“I like touching you,” he says faintly.
Something about the ease he feels around me makes me want to stay by him forever. I’m so aware of it in this moment.
So aware, that it’s frightening. With every breadcrumb of information Jase gives me, I fall deeper in l
ove with him. Even if the pieces are perverse and disturbing… maybe more so because of it. Even if I wake up tonight like I have the past few nights, breathless and covered with a cold sweat, dreaming about the darkness I know is inside of him… even then. The fear is still there, but love is stronger. Which is why I’d fall back asleep next to him, willing my eyelids to shut and show me something sweeter.
“Ask me something,” Jase offers.
The memories of everything that’s happened flicker through my mind as I search for a question, and one is most apparent. A detail I’ve yet to tell him.
“Do you know anyone who wears white sneakers with a red stripe down the sides?”
His brow pulls together as he turns to look at me. “Why?” he asks.
I have to pull my hand away, feeling too hot, yet cold at the same time to tell him.
“When my house was broken into, that’s all I saw from where I was hiding in the cabinet.”
“White sneakers with a red stripe?” he clarifies.
“Right down the center, from front to back on the sides.”
“Why haven’t you told me this sooner? Is it all you saw? You’re sure?” The questions hold an edge to them. Not anger, not resentment, more like an edge of failure and I hate it.
“I’m sorry… I just didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know if you could trust me.” He completes the statement for me and I nod. “I’m sorry,” is all I can say, feeling like I’ve failed him.
With his hand brushing against my jaw, I lean into his touch and close my eyes, reveling in it.
“If I could start our story over and start it differently, I would. I want you to know that.”
There’s so much I’d change if I could. But then I wonder what our story would look like if it hadn’t started so intensely.
“How many women have you done this to?”
“Done what?” he asks.
“Brought back here. Showed off this place to… told your deepest, darkest secrets?”
“None. You’re the only one, cailín tine.” His nickname for me still makes my stomach do little flips in a way that excites me.
“You’ve never called anyone else that?” I tease him and he nips my neck in admonishment while wrapping his hands around my waist and letting them slip lower.
“Never. You’re my only fiery girl.”
He’s so consumed with lust in the moment, but there’s something nagging at me, something that feels off.
“Why don’t I believe you?” My question pulls him out of the moment.
“Because you see my sins, however many of them, and you’ve judged me guilty of them all.” The honesty of it stares back at me from the depths of his dark eyes. “If you’ll lie, you’ll cheat… if you’ll cheat…” He doesn’t continue and I bring my lips to his even though pain etches its way between us. “Even a saint has to start somewhere… I’ll never be a saint though. If I could change for you, change this life, this world, our pasts, I would. But it’s not going to happen. I can’t start our story over.”
I kiss him again, feeling the heat between us, feeling his hard lips soften as I press mine against his. I finally answer him, “I know.” And then remind him, “I’m not asking you to.”
When Jase tries to take me back to his bedroom, I tell him no. Instead I lead him to the plush rug in his office that’s not an office. I ask him to light the fire and I slowly undress, watching both hunger and flames in his eyes once the fire’s ignited.
I pick the knife I want him to use on me and I lie down without a weighted blanket at my feet, without cuffs, without rope this time, although I tell him I miss the rough feeling when it’s all over.
We’re both moths to each other’s flames, ignited by our touch. We’re drawn together, destroyed together. It used to scare me, but there’s no fighting it. Isn’t that what love is?
You can say chemistry was never our problem. Take away the drugs, his brothers, the feeling of loss and betrayal, and all that’s left is the simple truth that’s he’s mine and I’m his. In the most primitive way, we make perfect sense. We’re drawn to one another in a way where nothing else matters. It all fades to a blur when I stare into his eyes.
But that’s where the problem truly lies. He wasn’t meant for my world and I wasn’t meant for his. Everything else matters with him in a world where every step is dangerous, and we should have accounted for that. I’ll never be able to escape Jase Cross or his merciless world.
This attraction will never allow it.
Jase
The light of the fire dances across her skin in the darkness, and the shadows from the flame beckon me to touch her. The sight of the dip in her waist is an image that would start wars. Her breathing is steady in her deep sleep and part of me wants to leave her here, resting on her side on the luxurious rug with the only covers being the warmth of the raging fire. The other part wants to have her again in my bed.
The low hum of a vibration steals my attention. My muscles stretch with a beautiful pain as I pull myself away from Bethany and get my phone. Still naked and still hungry for more of her and the promise of keeping her here, I check my messages.
It’s a text from Seth, just the person I need to speak with.
Anger has a way of destroying the calm, even when Bethany stirs with a feminine sigh in her sleep. Her hand reaches right where I just was and it seals her fate.
I text Seth back. Meet me first thing tomorrow. We have things to discuss.
Bethany
It only takes one deep breath in the massive kitchen and a long stretch of my back to release the tension from last night. Things are better. It feels like a huge step forward, but something’s still holding me back. The nightmares haven’t stopped; they’ve only changed.
Last night, my mother reminded me that everyone I loved would die before me and that it was okay. It’s not the first time I’ve dreamed about being back at the home, with my mother looking me directly in the eyes and telling me what felt like a message from death. The terror gripped me the same way she did all those years ago. It was like I was back there, but not really. We were on my porch and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak either. My sister came to help me, ripping our mother away and yelling at her, screaming at her. It was so unlike her, but somehow I believed it.
When they were done fighting with each other, my sister turned to me and looked me in the eyes. She said my mother was right. They would all die before me.
That’s when I woke up. At 5:00 a.m. in the morning, in an empty bed that held the faint, masculine scent of Jase Cross.
I can walk around pretending I’m not uneasy, but I’ve never been good with pretending.
As my gaze falls to the slick counters and I hear the thump of footsteps getting louder, cuing someone’s incoming arrival, I put away my thoughts of my family, or what used to be family.
Carter’s deep voice reverberates in the expansive space. “Bethany.”
His gaze is narrowed and even harsh. Even the air around him warns me not to mess with the man. Some men are just like that; the feel of danger comes with their strong posture and chiseled jaw.
“Cross,” I answer him tersely with a cocked brow.
I find myself comparing him to Jase, but even though they look alike, Jase is nothing like him. He’s charming and approachable in a way I don’t think I’ll ever find Carter to be.
An asymmetric grin pulls at his lips. “Funny you should call me Cross when you’re with my brother and he’s also a Cross.”
“Suits you though.”
He huffs a short chuckle and lets the smile grow as I pull the fridge door open, searching for a can of Coke or something with caffeine in it. “Something funny?” I ask him.
There’s a case of Dr. Pepper and the hint of a smile appears on my face too. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these and they’re in glass bottles… that makes it even better.
“You aren’t the only one who thinks that.”
“Thin
ks what?” I ask him genuinely, already forgetting what I’d said before as I’m too distracted by my beverage.
“Nothing.” He shrugs it off and goes to the cabinet, pulling out a box of tea bags and a pretty mug with owls on it. I nearly tease him, taunt him for the girly mug, even though I know it must be for his wife. I bite my tongue and stifle the playful thoughts as I prepare to go somewhere else and stay out of Carter’s way. This isn’t my house and he isn’t my family. I’m more than aware of that.
I only get one step away though before Carter speaks with his back to me, putting a mug of water in the microwave. “Spring will be here soon,” he tells me.
Stopping in my tracks, I turn rather than look over my shoulder and wait for him to turn as well. He does slowly, awkwardly even with his broad shoulders.
“Why does your face look like that?” he asks me when he takes in what must be a confused expression.
“Is that your attempt at small talk?”
“People like to talk about the weather, Miss Fawn.”
It’s my turn to let out a huff of a laugh, small and insignificant, but it breaks the tension, one chisel at a time.
“Spring’s my favorite season.”
“It’s Aria’s too. Well,” he continues talking as he retrieves the mug from the now beeping microwave and sets a bag of tea into the cup. “Spring and fall. She said she can’t pick just one.”
It doesn’t pass my notice that his expression softens when he talks about Aria. The recollection softens something inside of me too.
“How long have you and Aria been together?”
“Just a little while.” His answer is… less than informative. Maybe it’s a Cross brothers thing.
“I heard she’s expecting?”
“That’s right.” His grin turns cocky and I half expect him to brag about how it happened on the first try or how his swimmers are so strong. Some macho bullshit like that, but it doesn’t come.
“Congratulations.”
