Delirium (Captive Love: Forced Proximity Standalones #4)

Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

JAMES

I stormed through the mud, not caring how much dirt and grime spread across my pants. Stomping through the rainforest eased my anger, the red-hot fury demanding control, but only slightly. The worst part was I didn’t even know if I was angry at myself, or at them .

I promised Nash I wouldn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t one to double cross an agreement, no matter who I’d made it with, so the guilt sat thick in my stomach, a bitter, acidic reminder of my failures.

My father liked to remind me of those, whenever he thought I was getting too full of myself. An A mark on a test wasn’t an A+. Making the football team was all well and good, but was I the starting quarterback? No. So maybe I should just sit down and stop talking until I had something truly worthwhile to say.

A failure. That’s all I was. I did my best to cover up the scuffs and scratches of my life in fine clothes, manners, and money, but they lingered there just the same. A constant reminder I was nothing but the name I had been born into, not even something I earned.

No wonder Scarlett looked at me with disgust and wanted nothing to do with me. And as much as I hated to admit it, the thought she did so absolutely killed me.

Because if I had thought listening to her moan and cry out Camp’s name was terrible, it was absolutely nothing compared to watching her with both of them.

Fuck’s sake. The way her back arched when Camp bent his head to suck her nipple was seared into my brain until my dying days. God, I had no chance with her—there had possibly been a chance early on, before we found ourselves on opposite sides of the fence—but my odds had fallen to approximately 0.00% when I threw Nash under the bus.

I had just been so angry . I was so jealous . A thousand emotions rolled around in my chest and I had nowhere to put them. I couldn’t be the one touching her. I couldn’t be the one running my fingers across her pebbling nipples, slipping my finger into her tight pussy. I wasn’t the one who watched her while she wrapped her perfect pink lips around my cock, stroking her hair as she took me deeper and deeper, and fuck !

My cock throbbed, painfully hard. I learned a long time ago that feelings didn’t do anyone any favors. Today confirmed any doubts I might have had.

My brain had been completely rewired, cycling over and over the thoughts of Scarlett, dark hair splayed out around her while she trembled through her orgasm.

It should’ve been me. The thought ricocheted through me, quick as lightning.

It should’ve been, but that chance was long gone now. Nash’s face had never looked more broken, and while I saw the shock written all over Scarlett and Camp’s faces, I also saw the deeper emotion—the one that said I was in the wrong for announcing it.

The Carpe Diem was in my sights. I hadn’t needed a compass or Nash to find my way back to the boat, because sheer anger had been enough to guide me. Once I was up the gangplank and back on board, I quickly locked myself in my cabin, tossing my useless satchel to the ground. My mission was probably useless on all fronts now, because I doubted Nash would be willing to take me anywhere at this point.

My only saving grace was that it was still the wrong weather to head back upstream, so moving downstream was really the only option unless Nash wanted to waste all his fuel getting rid of me. As angry as he was, I knew he wouldn’t leave me on the riverbank to starve to death or to become dinner for some other starving animal.

This was the rainforest after all. Eat or be eaten.

The sweat still dripped off my neck, and suddenly was all too aware of my uncomfortable shirt. I unbuttoned it as fast as my fingers would allow me, seams popping as I tossed the soaked fabric to the floor.

“Fuck!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

My angry screams echoed out my open window and down the river, the only response a smattering of chirping birds, as if they thought my pain was funny.

I’d fucking show them funny when I ate them all for dinner. Eat or be eaten my fucking ass.

I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to figure out what to do. The others would be back eventually, and God only knew what state they would be in when they arrived. If I was going to plan my next move, it needed to be done sooner rather than later.

On the off-chance Nash did decide to leave me for dead on the side of the river, I piled my clothes back into the bag I’d brought. If I was lucky, he’d at least take me as far as the city, and as pissed as I was at Clancy currently, I’d be able to figure out a way home from there. Otherwise, I’d just keep my head down the rest of the ride, ignore the happy couple—throuple?—and hope they ignored me in return.

My cock strained against my pants, demanding attention. I needed to ignore the desperation clawing at my stomach, because all it did was bring back the reminders of Scarlett, her blue eyes locking with mine for a brief moment, telling me things I could only hope to hear whispered from her lips.

I knew what Nash thought. That I always got what I wanted. He was right. There wasn’t a lot in this world you couldn’t get with either a recognizable name or a lot of money, and I just happened to have both. Or, at least I used to. But neither of those things impressed Scarlett anyway.

I was officially miserable. I was alone in this world—finally, truly alone—watching everyone else build relationships and move on with their lives while I remained in the mud, slowly drowning in my filth.

Voices filtered in through my still-open window, and I strained to hear them. No one sounded angry. They didn’t even sound sad . Huh . Maybe I didn’t know people as well as I thought I did.

I rolled my last shirt, crammed it into the bag, and set it down next to my satchel. There. At least I was prepared no matter what came next.

When the knock on my door arrived, I was expecting it. Here it was. My judgment day. I’d meet it head on, of course. I’d meet it like a man, and own up to my actions, even if I knew they were the wrong ones. At the end of the day, I hadn’t lied. I knew why Nash ran. When we couldn’t find him the next day, Tommy told the whole story to my father, who in turn told me. And while seeing Nash as a killer hadn’t ever entered my mind, it also wasn’t completely out there, either. The guy was big, and despite his joyful personality, if you didn’t know him, you’d be terrified of him, too. There was a reason my father pegged him to work for us.

While I had prepared myself for the knock, I wasn’t prepared for the voice that followed.

Scarlett’s tone was light but firm. “I know you’re in there, James. You might as well open the door.”

There was a chance this was even worse than I’d originally anticipated. I wasn’t sure I could stand Scarlett looking at me with shame and disappointment. That look had been bad enough from my father. But Scarlett…I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from her looking at me with disapproval.

She was right, though. She knew I was in here. Ignoring her was childish and petty. Being wrong was one thing, being immature was another altogether.

I stared down at my bare chest. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen me like this before. The memory of our stolen moment in the hallway was imprinted on my brain, but now I wondered if we had different memories of the same few minutes.

I opened the door to find Scarlett standing on the other side, a completely blank expression on her face. Either she really didn’t care, or she was a much better liar than I’d originally thought.

She walked in and closed the door, leaning against the chipped wood with crossed arms. “So.”

“So,” I repeated, unsure if my mouth was capable of forming any other words.

“Did you want to try and explain what happened back there, or should I just assume you take no fault, and talk at you instead of with you?” Scarlett drummed her fingers against her arm. I took note of the steady beat she tapped, avoiding her eyes entirely.

That was, until her words sank in. I snapped my gaze up to her steely one. “You think you know me well enough to just assume I’m not going to take accountability for my actions?”

“I mean…” She raised a brow, studying me. “I’m willing to admit it might very well just be selective perception, but you’re not exactly helping yourself out here.”

I scoffed. “What is there left to help out? Nash hates me. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be living out in the middle of the goddamn jungle, away from everything and everyone he ever knew. Camp’s already made up his mind about me. And you?”

“Me?” She dropped her arms, stepping away from the door. I didn’t miss the annoyance that flickered in her eyes. “What about me, James? Tell me.”

I furrowed my brow. “Don’t act like you’re shocked. You’ve made it pretty damn clear you can’t stand to be around me. There’s been a few moments here and there, where I thought otherwise, and then I realized I was goddamn delusional for thinking so. You’ve disliked me since I expressed a concern for having a fucking criminal on the boat—which, for the record, I still stand by. But obviously you have no issues with criminals, do you?”

As I waited for her reply, my chest heaved as I struggled to catch my breath, the air as thick as a sauna.

Scarlett looked up at me. I knew exactly what she was doing. “Don’t fucking analyze me, Scarlett. That shit is annoying. If you have something to say, just say it. I’m not your science experiment. Tell me you hate me, and let’s move on. We don’t have to be friends.”

Except when she spoke, the words that left her mouth shocked me. “Does it bother you that I might hate you?”

I glared at the small, dark-haired beauty in front of me, the words spewing from my mouth before I could stop them. “Of course it fucking bothers me. How could it not bother me thinking someone like you hates me?”

She took another step forward. The air between us pulsed, thrumming with an unspoken energy. “I didn’t think someone like you was bothered by the opinion of people they considered beneath them.”

My words, twisted and thrown back at me, created a life raft I couldn’t hope to reach before I drowned. The near boiling-point anger simmered, giving way to a raw honesty. “I don’t know what someone like me looks like anymore.”

“Powerful. Intelligent. Quick. Persuasive. Forceful.” Scarlett ticked the words off on her fingers, keeping her eyes on me. “Selfish. Hesitant. Fragile.”

“You think you know me,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You think you can label me like you’ve labelled the rest, but you can’t, Scarlett.”

She didn’t respond to my rebuttal but cocked her head toward the deck. “Nash told us everything after you left. He’s not mad at you. He’s hurt, but he’s not mad. I think it was almost cathartic for him to tell the whole story. I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world for you two to talk.”

I frowned. “So he can kick me off the boat?”

Scarlett laughed quietly. “He’s not going to kick you off the boat. Really, can you imagine him kicking anyone off the boat?”

She turned to leave, but I grabbed her wrist before she could. She looked at me with surprise, and for a brief second I wondered what I was doing. “And you?”

“And me, what?” she asked.

“Are you mad at me?” My voice was nearly a whisper, hating what I was becoming, what she was doing to me, calling out my flaws one by one, and yet not once judging me for them.

“I don’t think that’s the question you really want to ask me.” She shook her head, her still damp hair swinging. “So the answer I’ll give you is no, I don’t hate you, James. I think we’re more similar than you think. Because I think it’s slowly driving you mad that you don’t hate me .”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I rasped, the honest to God truth. I’d been spiraling for a long time before I set foot on the boat, and now it felt like my entire world had been turned upside-down. There was more I wanted to say, more confessions I wanted to express, more truths I wanted to give to her. But how did you put into words that nothing felt real anymore? That you weren’t sure all of this wasn’t a dream?

“I know,” she whispered.

For a moment, we connected, not on opposite sides of the fence, but on the same side, trying to make sense of the fucked up world we occupied. For a second. Two. Three.

Then Scarlett pulled away, opening the door. She looked back at me with a glance that told me she saw through my facade all too well. “Talk to Nash. Oh, and James?”

“Yes?” I hated the hope that strung through my voice, taut and expecting.

She smiled at me. A true, genuine smile, one that could light up the world on the day the sun stopped shining. “Nash doesn’t live in the jungle. He lives in the rainforest.”

Fucking hell. I knew there was a reason I found the sun annoying.