Chapter 30
30
“ Y ou’re jealous?” Of all the reactions I would’ve anticipated from him, that wasn’t one of them.
“I don’t get jealous,” he said in a hollow voice.
“If you don’t want my husband touching me, how is that not jealousy?”
He jumped up from the chair and paced like I’d seen him do on the hidden camera in his office that day. “I don’t want him touching you because you don’t want him touching you.”
“What happened to insignificant sex not mattering? You want all your clients to touch you all the time?”
He stopped and pinned me with a stare. “This goes beyond that. You look like a ghost, Juliet.”
Protectiveness might break me right now.
If I leaned on him, I was afraid I might just crumble.
He was quiet for a long moment. Then his hands were on my shoulders, his touch soft and reassuring like he was soothing a spooked horse. “What’s going on with you? Something isn’t right.”
I shrugged out of his touch and reached for another bottle of gin. “You just started shit with my husband in front of everyone.”
“He was hurting you,” he said in a voice that worried me. He sounded ready to murder King. If he found out the full extent of it, he might get reckless.
I needed to change the subject, and there were questions I needed him to answer. “That thing you said to my father…the hatred you have for him…what’s the history between you?”
He swiped a hand over his mouth, looking uncharacteristically out of his element. “Years ago, when I was first starting my club, I arranged a liaison for your mother. A liaison that turned into something more. She fell in love with one of my escorts, and your father found out. He had them both killed and made it look like an accident. He’s been on a mission to destroy my club ever since.”
I waited for the outraged shock to set in, but it never came. Somehow, I’d known my father had had been involved in my mother’s death.
“Did you have my brother killed?” I said so softly, it was almost a whisper.
He blinked. “No.”
His look of sympathy robbed me of breath. Suddenly, it all unraveled in my brain. “It was King. The three million dollars. The TW you wrote on the sticky note was Thor, wasn’t it?”
Reaper jerked his chin in a nod. “I didn’t know that’s what it was for until later, when King picked up Thor’s guy right after your wedding. Thor admitted the whole thing.”
King had paid Thor three million dollars, with the final installment being delivered immediately after my brother’s death. I was disgusted with myself for not seeing it before.
I sat on the bed, not sure my knees would hold me up. “I married my brother’s killer. I bet he did it to back my father into a corner so he could swoop in and save the day. He loves nothing more than a fucked-up game.”
I didn’t have time to spiral into grief again. There were only two days left of the auction, two days when I was safe. Then he’d find a way to make me pay for what I’d done.
I wanted to rip out his entrails like the leopard had done to the biker.
Reaper’s hands returned gently to my shoulders. “I know that look, darling. Don’t walk down that road alone.”
“You have to go,” I said, checking the locks on the door. “He’ll have someone watching my door, and knowing him, someone will be patrolling outside at some point tonight.”
“The guard on the grounds is…occupied at the moment.” He paused. “Can I sleep here?”
I wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his bare chest. “I don’t want you taking that risk for me.”
He kissed my forehead. “You’d be doing me a favor, Juliet.” He sighed heavily. “I’m tired. I’m tired, and I’m not in a headspace to fuck anyone, and if I sleep in my room, any number of people are going to come calling through the night.”
“Can’t you ignore them?”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “It’s cute that you think they all knock. According to Grim, there’s someone in my bed right now, someone whose needs I don’t have the energy for. He’ll take it personally if I kick him out, and I don’t have the energy for the fallout of that either.”
He looked genuinely exhausted.
It was so unlike him to be vulnerable that I wanted to snuggle him in the blankets and shield him from it all. “Stay with me, then. I promise not to try to fuck you…”
Warmth flooded his eyes. “Mmm…definitely don’t have the energy for greedy little brats tonight.” He crossed to the sitting area and pulled the extra cushions to make a line down the middle of the bed. “Don’t get any ideas.”
He pulled his cloak off and tossed it over a chair along with his gloves and jewelry. I tried not to stare. I really did. But his every movement was an invitation. He caught me looking as he pulled his last ring off, and the corners of his mouth lifted. “I mean it. No sex.”
He unbuckled his belt and tugged it out of the belt loops with a quick jerk. I flinched so violently, he froze.
I stood there for a second, mortified, then laughed shakily. “Sorry, you scared me. Thought you were about to get kinky with that belt.”
He didn’t laugh. He just stared at me like he was assembling a puzzle in his mind. He took a step towards me, then stopped himself and raked a hand through his hair. “Juliet, has he hit you?”
I turned around. I couldn’t bear to look at him as I lied. “A few times. Not often.”
He approached me slowly, giving me every chance to stop him before he hugged me from behind.
Two tears spilled from my eyes and dropped onto his arms. “I don’t want you to look at me differently. Don’t want you to think I’m a victim or be scared to touch me.”
He nuzzled the side of my neck, then lowered himself to his knees in front of me, holding the backs of my thighs. “I won’t look at you differently if you don’t look at me differently once you know I was in an abusive relationship too. And no one pushed me into mine. I stayed because it’s hard to leave, and it’s hard to ask for help, and goddamn can trauma be like quicksand.”
I studied him, trying to imagine how someone so strong and self-possessed could’ve ended up in a situation like mine.
As though he were reading my mind, he said, “It’s not your fault, and being stronger wouldn’t have helped. It can happen to anyone.”
I gave him a watery laugh despite the tears that continued to tumble down my cheeks. “I expected you to lose your shit if you found out…Thank you…for understanding.”
He smiled and squeezed my thighs gently. “Don’t think for a second that my first impulse isn’t to murder the bastard with my bare hands. But he can wait. Taking care of you comes first.”
I put my hands on top of his on the backs of my thighs. “I got myself into this, and it’s on me to get myself out of it. I won’t have anyone else getting hurt because of me.”
He rested his forehead on my stomach. “That’s the trauma talking, Juliet. Let me in. Trust me to make that call for myself.”
A new stream of tears rolled down my cheeks as I remembered the sounds of the leopard tearing Josh apart because of me. “What if he hurts you?”
He stood and stroked his thumbs across my cheeks tenderly, like he could wipe the memories away. “Darling, he already has. Every mark on you, every flinch, every tear you’ve shed, every moment you’ve felt alone.” The expression on his face shifted from tender to fierce. “You’re not alone.”
“I saw his face tonight. He’ll never let me go. I have to kill him.”
“You don’t have to do that, my darling. I’ll do it. Or, hell, Grim will gladly do it.”
“He’s too well protected. Tell me you wouldn’t have done it already if you could have. He’s mine…and I have to do it before we leave the auction.”
He shook his head sadly. “You can’t harm another attendee. There are no exceptions. Not even for you.”
“Unless he hurts me first.”
He stepped away, and for seconds that stretched for an age, he just stared at me. Then he turned away and crouched like he needed to explode but didn’t want to scare me. I stood silently as he processed, raking a hand through his hair again before he stood up and met my eyes. “You’re going to deliberately provoke him, try to make him hurt you here so you can kill him without consequences.” I was surprised his back teeth weren’t ground to dust with the way his jaw muscle was working.
I inhaled deeply and released it. “Can you help me without putting anyone at the club at risk?”
He barked a laugh. “Styx about lost her mind that I let you go back the night of the party. She’s barely spoken to me since. Which means Az has been storming around because she’s equally pissed at him. Ophelia muttered something that sounded an awful lot like ‘ sniveling coward’ the last time she saw me. Grim is the only one who hasn’t said anything, but he left the newspaper wedding feature on my desk with a knife through Kevin’s face…so I think his feelings are pretty clear.”
He looked thoughtful. “I think we all knew instinctively that it wasn’t right. I was trying not to force your hand. If I’d had any idea… I’m sorry I let you go back.”
I made it to him in two steps and gave him the kiss I’d been dying for since my wedding day. He slanted his mouth over mine, reminding me that King hadn’t taken this from me. I still ached for this man and what he could make me feel.
He tilted my chin up to deepen the kiss, parting my lips with his tongue. When he pulled away, I was breathless.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I wasn’t ready to tell you. I’m still not sure I want the others to know.”
He wiped the last of the tears from under my eyes with his thumbs. “We’re all close friends with trauma, darling. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Reaper knocked the wall of pillows off the bed. “No funny business if you don’t want it, but at least let me hold you.”
He helped me to get my dress off, then he finished taking his clothes off and we both climbed under the covers naked. He tucked my back against his body, curling around me with his warmth. “You’re safe now, Juliet. We’ll talk about your plan in the morning, but you’re never going back to him. Someone from Petite Mort will stay with you even when I have to be at the auction.”
It was clear he wasn’t happy about my plan to deal with King, but he wasn’t pushing me. It could wait until the morning. I needed something else from him more.
“Hmmm, speaking of petite mort …” I said, rolling over and nudging at him to do the same. I drew a rectangular sort of shape on his back. “This is your throne at your next party. And this is me bent over the arm of your throne—naked, of course.” The muscles on his back flexed as I touched him.
“And what was that?” he asked in a growly voice.
“My pussy dripping because you’ve fingered me while everyone watches. And now here’s your cock, and here’s me sucking on it, choking as I try to make you feel good.”
He flipped me over so I was facing away from him again, and his hard cock pressed against my ass. He tucked it between my legs, not quite pushing it inside me, but nudging at my entrance.
Instead of fucking me, he traced a shape on my back. “This is you at my primal party the day after tomorrow. Will you be predator or prey?”
I squirmed as he tickled my back. “Definitely predator…” His cock was thick and hard between my legs, but he still hadn’t put it inside me.
“In that case, this is you sitting on my face after hunting me down. And this is me licking that sweet cunt until you beg me to fill you up. And this…” He shoved inside me with one long, slow thrust. “This is you riding my cock until you scream my name, making sure everyone knows who you belong to.”
I cried out, somewhere between a moan and a sob, when he gripped my hips and thrust into me faster. He lowered one hand to the apex of my thighs and coaxed the sweetest release from me, like he managed to unravel all my fear and tension with his body. Then he sunk deeper and held himself there as he came, growling, “ Mine .”
I nuzzled my head into his shoulder, feeling so safe and content, but there was a thought I couldn’t let go of. “I’ve spent the last few months scraping for dirt on King, looking for ways to sabotage him or hold leverage over him. I think I figured out what he does on his island…and it’s awful shit. Like hunting people as big game. Should I just be giving the cops the evidence I have and letting them take him down?”
Reaper cursed against my neck. “He’s too wealthy and too well protected. Even if it worked, it would leave you exposed. We need his allies to be afraid. And that piece of shit needs to die.”
His phone went off, and he grabbed it. The deep breath he exhaled told me it wasn’t good news. “King just added a last-minute item to the auction.”
I tilted his phone so I could see.
The Bryson Blue Dress.