Chapter Twenty-One #2
Suddenly, Bella was pushing past me and Casey, whispering in Italian. My feet moved, and I followed her, leaving Casey in the small room.
“Bella!” I called after her. She was frantic. Looking right and left, grabbing her hair.
“Cameron!” she cried as she went into the foyer. I ran after her, ignoring the pain in my hip.
“Bella! Wait!”
I rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt.
Jeremy.
My friend stood in black jeans and a gray Henley, pointing his gun directly into Mr. Waller—Cameron’s—face. Bella lunged, but I held her back as she kicked and thrashed against me.
“Let me go! Cam!”
He turned his head to her, keeping both of his bloodied hands in the air. His forehead featured a huge gash, blood trickling down the side of his handsome face. His green eyes found hers, and she stopped moving. Their world was frozen around them.
My eyes moved to Jeremy to find him scanning my body. His jaw was tight with anger, his nostrils flared.
“Hi, Jer,” I whispered.
He didn’t flinch, remaining a hard, angry statue.
“Look at me, darling. It’s going to be okay,” Cameron said to Bella. She broke free of my hold and ran for him. My eyes went to Jer’s gun, and suddenly, I was moving too. I pushed Jer’s arm up, but he didn’t fire.
I twisted my neck to see Bella caged in Cameron’s arms. Jer gently stepped away from me as Casey came into the foyer. That’s when I felt it.
The tension.
Not between the mafia maid and her guard.
Between Casey and Jeremy. The air crackled around us, and I looked between Casey and him. Their gazes were unwavering, and Casey’s chest seemed to rise a little faster than usual. Jer’s features were still hard but his eyes—they were molten—for Casey.
I cleared my throat.
Both couples snapped their attention to me, and for a split second, I thought we were at peace.
The guns pointed at people in the next second determined that was a lie.
Cameron shoved Bella behind him and brought out two huge blades, one in each hand. His eyes darted between the two FBI agents raising their guns at him before looking at me. “They are here for you, ya know?”
I nodded with a sigh. “I know they are, but the one agent I wanted to see isn’t.”
Bella peeked underneath Cameron’s massive arm. “Are we being arrested?”
“Yes,” Jer growled.
“No,” Casey said at the same time.
“Because Kay wouldn’t want that,” I chimed in, sending a small smile of reassurance to Bella.
“James’ orders,” Jer snapped.
“Since when do you listen to orders from my fucking boss?” Casey hissed back at him.
They began bickering harshly at each other. When Casey started spouting off insults at him, he lowered his gun and crossed the space between them.
Oh fuck.
I looked at Cam and Bella, who just looked shocked and confused.
“Uh, guys? You two are supposed to be rescuing me, remember?”
Jer’s shoulders tensed, and then he whirled on me. The hair on the back of my neck stood pin straight. He was pissed. “You don’t look like a girl who wants to be rescued, Hals.”
I lifted my shirt, revealing my fading bruises. “I've been healing. Collin has kept me fed, sheltered, and fucking safe! Don’t you dare assume I'm here because I want to be. I want to be at home. I want to be with James. Now, where the fuck is he?”
Jer was seething at the sight of my wounds while Casey looked solemn. Cam’s eyebrows pinched together.
“Who the fuck did that to you?” Cameron growled.
Yup. I was planning his wedding. He was good guy.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jer barked at him.
“Stop being an asshole, Jer. Kay said we get Haley and her only,” Casey bit off.
“Honey,” he warned. She rolled her eyes. He grabbed her chin, and she smacked him away.
I didn’t think I would be planning their wedding. Casey would kill him before he ever got the chance to propose.
“I’ll get your things, Haley,” Bella said softly as she stepped around her guard. He caught her arm, holding both of his blades in one hand as he looked down at her.
“You got anyone else in Mr. Steven’s house?” he asked the two agents.
“It’s just us,” Casey assured him as she ignored Jer’s glare.
“Two minutes, or I'm coming up there,” Mr. Waller said to Bella. She darted up the stairs, and his eyes met mine. He read my face like an open book. “She’s safe with me.”
I nodded.
Jer and Casey watched the exchange, clearly confused.
Bella came down with a bag of things I didn’t need, but my gut told me to take it. I hugged her goodbye, and as I walked behind Jer and Casey to the boat, I saw the rest of Collin’s men down on the ground.
None of them were dead.
My heart fluttered. That wasn’t Jer’s mercy, but his sister’s.
Kay, the angel of our little family.
Present Day. St. Louis field office.
“Princess.”
I jumped and spun to find him—James—standing by the door. I didn’t hear him come in, but I didn’t care. My heart cried out as my eyes drank him in, and my soul shivered. The man in front of me wasn’t the man I fell in love with.
This man was unmasked.
Unhinged.
His handsome face and fair skin were covered in black scruff.
The bags underneath his eyes told me he hadn’t been sleeping.
His hair was wild, his white shirt untucked and wrinkled, but it was his eyes that made me shiver.
They were darker than I'd ever seen them as he looked at me from head to toe, his jaw tightening.
“James?” I took a step, and he closed his eyes, shutting me out.
“Don’t. Don’t come near me.”
My heart cracked.
His eyes opened. “You don’t want to push me right now,” he rumbled, his deep voice filled with warning.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling with pain.
That did it. He was coming for me with a snarl on his face, slowly, step by step.
“You’re sorry?” he seethed.
I nodded. “I was careless. I should have never left the file out on the counter. I—”
His dark, brutal chuckle cut me off as he came to a stop about two feet from me. I itched to close the distance between us, but I didn’t want to push his limits. All I wanted was his touch. His lips. His love.
But I feared I would never have that again. The man before me wasn’t James.
“Careless…you were fucking stupid, Haley.”
Even though my chin wobbled, I raised it higher. “I was trying to save my friend.”
He leaned back against the table, his hands gripping the metal on either side of him. He crossed his ankles and just stared at me. My eyes dropped to his white shirt, the fabric straining across the valley of muscles, before I dragged my eyes up to his handsome face.
If it were anyone else, the scruff would have been unappealing to me.
But it was James, and he made it look damn good.
“You can go sit in Casey’s office until I finish up. Then we can—”
“What? Like I'm a fucking child in trouble? I’m being sent to the fucking principal’s off—”
His head ticked to the side, his nostrils flaring. “Careful, princess.”
Enraged, I talked over him. “I was kidnapped by sex traffickers, agent. Sending me to the principal’s office won’t do a damn thing for me.”
“Maybe bending you over my fucking knee will,” he shot back, his voice gruff.
I laughed, pain seeping into me. “You don’t even want to be near me right now.”
“Because I'm trying to fucking control myself,” he hissed, unfolding his arms, stopping my laughter all together.
“I don’t want control,” I snapped back at him as a shudder ran through me.
"I wanna fucking punish you,” he snarled as he pulled a remote out and pointed it at the camera in the corner, turning it off.
I backed up until I hit the cool wall behind me as he continued. “I read your medical report. Seeing those words, those descriptions next to your name, was something I never wanted to see, Haley.”
I closed my eyes. “I know you didn’t.”
“Open your pretty eyes,” he commanded as I felt his body heat in front of mine. They opened at his demand. His handsome face was an inch from mine, his hands on both sides of my head, caging me in.
“Are they dead?” he asked. His voice was dangerously low.
I nodded.
“Who killed them?”
“Collin did,” I breathed, my heartrate shooting through the roof.
He pushed off the wall after a minute of silence between us, his back to me, running a hand through his thick, dark locks.
“Talk to me, please,” I begged.
“I'm not in the mood to talk,” he growled, turning back around.
A gasp left me as he pulled me to him, spinning me around before he bent me over the table. I was wearing a pair of Jer’s sweats and a T-shirt from Sullie’s bar. He yanked the pants down to my ankles.
“I am so fucking pissed at you, princess," he clipped, standing behind me.
My breath hitched, as a single tear fell onto the table. “I know.”
“You don’t get to play the hero, Haley. Not when you have something that belongs to me,” he said right before his hand came down on my bare ass.
I cried out. He didn't care.
“You don’t get to fucking leave me with my fucking heart in your hands, Ms. Austen.” His voice was rough, overcome with emotion. Anger. Passion.
His hand came down. Hitting my flesh. Again and again.
He was punishing me, but my lust for him was on overdrive, my pussy soaked. I began to rub my thighs together, seeking out the friction my clit was begging for.
“Don’t”
Whack.
“Ever.”
Whack.
“Leave.”
Whack.
“Me.”
Whack.
“Again.”
He wasn’t mad about the file. He didn’t give a damn about that fucking file.
He was mad I left.
He was hurt.
I hurt him.
His hands pulled me up, spinning me to face him. There was a menacing fire in his dark eyes, but there were also tears on his cheeks, sliding down into his scruff. Before I could utter a word, he sat down in the chair and pulled his hard cock free.
My eyes widened.
“You want my forgiveness? Earn it,” he snarled as he pulled me into his lap, impaling me on his rigid length. My ass stinged from his hand and the blissful pain of his cock stretching my pussy only amplified it.
A guttural moan left me before I whispered his name.