Chapter 13
The featherlight warmth behind me eases me back into consciousness, the dull ache between my legs foreign and oh so sensational.
Last night was like a hallucination. I know it happened, but as it was happening, it didn’t feel like I was there.
It felt like I was someone else, like I was watching from afar as the woman in my place enjoyed herself at the hands of a criminal—a murderer.
I listen to his breath in a steady rhythm and deem it safe to turn and face him.
I’m hit with a sight fit for anyone but me.
His naked body is bare, as is mine, the sheet nowhere to be seen.
I almost reach out to splay my hand over his muscular chest, the various designs of ink decorating the ridges of his pecs and abs, down to the deep V.
My eyes widen as they land between his thighs, his cock thick, hard, and tattooed. I twist my head to read it.
One heart.
Supporting myself with my elbow, I lean down to get a closer look, the next line on the other side.
One love.
I can see more letters peeking out from the base, but before I can read them, his sleepy voice startles me.
“One life,” he says croakily, and I know he’s smiling before I even look at him.
I want to know what it means, but I don’t want him to think I’m interested. He lifts his middle and ring fingers to his nose, and an overwhelming heat creeps up to my face as he inhales.
“How’s your head?” he asks with that lazy smile, and I hate that I want to kiss him and make him hurt at the same time.
“Better.” I don’t thank him because I know he enjoyed it as much as I did. Suddenly hyper aware I’m not wearing any clothes, I shrink into myself. He lifts my chin with his knuckles, his eyes focused on mine, and I can’t look away from the fire in them.
Like a burning building, I watch my resolve weaken the more time I spend with him.
“Don’t ever shy away from me,” he warns, the mirth in his expression now lost. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
I huff a laugh. “I basically begged you last night.”
His fingers grasp my cheeks, causing my lips to pout. His bruising grip brings out a primal need, deep within my core, for him to have his way with me, and I cannot understand how he brings this person out in me.
“There isn’t a single thing wrong with begging, Isla.
” The inflection in his voice when he says my name makes the words on the tip of my tongue obsolete.
He leans in, and I want him to suck my lips into his mouth like he did last night, to feel the sharpness of his teeth on my skin.
“I can show you how intoxicating and addictive it can be to beg.” He brings his lips closer to mine, loosening his grip so they move weightlessly over them.
“Does that mean you will beg for me?” I whisper.
He chuckles, his hand moving south to my neck as he turns us slowly, hovering over me.
“Is that what you want, for me to beg?” he asks, the backs of his fingers brushing over my nipple. Every single nerve ending fires all at once, screaming for a harsher, more passionate version of his touch.
I do. I want him to beg. I want to see him on his knees, his broad shoulders squared back, the yearning in his eyes as he watches me from below.
How can I want that from a man like Malik?
How can I expect him to be that for me?
“You know we can’t be anything more than this, right? It can’t ever end in a happily ever after.”
His features harden, the merciless expression back. “I want you to brand my next words into your mind.”
I listen intently, putting all my focus on his lips instead of his wandering hand, curved over my hip.
“When we dream and wish for a fairytale, it is no longer a choice. There’s no beauty left in a phenomenon like a fairytale when we don’t work for it because it’ll constantly remain out of our reach.”
The calluses on his hand scrape against my bare stomach and up the middle of my breasts before seizing my throat, squeezing until I can’t breathe.
“And men like me would move mountains, end an entire infantry of soldiers in a battlefield, and search every corner of the world for a dream such as the one you speak of.”
Easing his grip, I take in a breath, wishing I could bring my legs together to compensate for his absent touch between them.
“And I’d do it without a lick of sleep, or a drop of water if it was guaranteed.”
I open my mouth to speak, but decide against it. I can’t follow through with anything that could come close to that. No one has ever spoken to me like this—with this much passion and obsession. Only, I wish it were me he was this fixated with.
“To answer your question, Miss Knight,” he whispers, his stubble brushing up against my cheek, the warmth of his breath raising the hair on my neck. “I’m not above begging.”
I feel his absence immediately when he pulls away. I lie on his bed a few moments longer, imagining him on his knees, before I remember I’m meant to be meeting my father today.
“Fuck,” I grumble, shooting up out of bed with a throbbing between my legs. I reach for the sheet, now abandoned on the floor, and cover myself with it. Cringing that I don’t have any clothes here, I try to face the fact that I have to ask Jamie for help.
God, what is he going to think of me when he sees me…here with my client…naked?
The doorbell surprises me, and I strain my ears to hear, hiding myself behind the wall as the visitor’s footsteps echo through the space.
“I’m starting to think she’s not in the UK anymore, Malik,” the man says, emphasising the frustration in his voice. “Stop with this psychotic behaviour and obsession before it fucking kills you,” he implores.
She?
She, who?
“I won’t say it anymore. This is who I am. You’ve known me since Ophidian, Emmett. You’re either with me on this or not.”
“What about Evren?”
There’s a silence, and although I’m a staircase away, I sense the weight of it.
“Evren was our brother,” Emmett says, a small crack in his voice when he says the name. “Did he deserve that?”
“Emmett,” Malik warns.
“No, no, please, let me continue. Let me continue, because you obviously are not fucking hearing me!” he yells with palpable sadness in his tone.
“It’s been thirteen years! She’s not here!
I am! Evren was! Is it not enough for you that we made it out of that fucking hellscape!
? Is it not enough that you have all the money in the world now to get whoever and whatever the fuck you please? ”
“You know why I have to find her!” It’s the first time I hear Malik like this, with pain interwoven into each word he speaks.
“No, I don’t. It’s idiotic to be this wrapped up in someone you hardly even knew, especially…” He pauses to take a breath. “Fuck. Especially when she was the reason you spent years in prison.”
What?
“Why don’t you stop prancing around it and just fucking spit it out? Say what you want to fucking say.”
“I’d give everything for you to find her, man, but it’s just not going to happen. It’s so far out of reach. How much of your life have you lived, huh?”
“I’ve done plenty.”
Emmett laughs with subjugation. “Oh my fucking days, you’ve never even been out of the fucking country!”
I peer around the wall at Emmett, his blond hair slicked back, his clothes clean and cut, expensive jeans coupled with a plain white shirt. Malik is dressed only in briefs, which he must’ve slipped on before going downstairs.
Emmett jabs a finger at Malik’s chest, and it seems threatening until he speaks in a low tone.
“This thing in here is going to have you end up spending the rest of your life behind bars, or I’m going to be left mourning another brother.”
Malik doesn’t answer, and I can’t help but feel like I’m prying. Stepping out, I hold the sheet around me tight, and Emmett looks up, the hurt and fury in his blue eyes tangible when they land on mine.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
A hardness replaces any empathy that was there a moment ago as he turns to Malik.
“You’ll die before you find her, and all of it will have been for nothing.
” He slaps a large, thick envelope onto Malik’s chest. “Don’t forget the living, Malik.
Don’t waste every waking minute obsessing over a fucking ghost.”
He doesn’t spare me another glance as he leaves, slamming the door behind him.
Malik’s jaw ticks, crushing the envelope in his hand by his side.
I wasn’t supposed to be here, to see or hear any of that, and just as I take a step toward the bathroom, he speaks.
“I’ll drive you to your house so you can get dressed before we head out.”
I want to ask who Emmett was referring to, but it isn’t my place, so I don’t. Instead, I let the question gnaw at me from within.
After a hot shower, I put on my ripped jeans, a tight sweetheart neckline shirt that accentuates my breasts and the tattoos on them—also known as the outfit that Judge Gordon doesn’t agree with.
Grabbing my leather jacket and slipping on my favourite black Louboutin heels, I head out my door.
Malik waits in his dark grey Corvette, and as soon as he spots me, he exits, rounding the car to open my door.
“A criminal and a gentleman.”
He smiles for the first time since earlier this morning. “Only one of those is true.”
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one.
” I nestle into the sports seat, and he chuckles, closing my door.
I let my eyes linger on him, on the dark ink on his hands, gliding through the thick strands of his midnight hair as he circles the front of the Corvette, summoning the memory of his hand around my neck from last night.
I rest my head back and wonder how the rest of my day is going to pan out when his door closes, the cologne on his skin compelling and irresistible as he sits beside me. The roar of the engine thunders beneath us like the emotions I keep hidden.
I’m afraid that if I let them out, they’ll spread, multiply, and there’ll be no returning to the person I was.