20. Rook
“Get in.”Placing Summer on her feet, I ripped open the car door.
I’d relentlessly sabotaged every man in every way possible, still managing to stay in the shadows, but as soon as I’d seen the last minute addition to her schedule, that she was meeting with Tucker, I’d lost my ever-fucking-loving mind.
With just the thought that she would fall for him.
Hell was going to fucking freeze over before I let that happen.
“What are you doing?” She stood there, defiant. “You have no right to interfere with my life.”
“I do.” I barked, trapping her between me and her car. I wanted to force her into it and away from the man I despised. To bend her to my will because goddamn it, the woman was driving me insane. “All the repairs to Darkmoor? The food, the?—”
“I didn’t ask you to do all that,” she grit out. “I would’ve?—”
“And paying for your sister’s internship?”
Her lips parted in surprised. “You? That was?—”
“Go home, Summer.”
“Why?” She glanced behind me. At the building, towards Tucker’s apartment. Was she thinking about him? The beast inside me seethed. She exhaled a breath, “I liked him. He?—”
“Tucker Maxwell isn’t what he appears.”
“He’s handsome. And he was nice to me.”
“And is that what you want, Summer?” I asked drolly, “Nice?”
“You’re insane!” she threw out her arms, “Why do you even care? It’s like you just want to torture me.”
“Torture?” I growled, as if my careful attention was painful for her. “What do you know about torture? You have no idea what suffering truly is.”
“I know what it’s like to lose my mother, right before my very eyes. To having just stood the—” Her mouth slammed shut, her teeth clattering with the violence of it. Then she stared out across the parking lot, towards the row of willow trees lining the courtyard. Biting down on sinfully sensuous lips that drove me to insanity. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And you do?”
“I know our history is drenched in the suffering of others,” she backtracked out of her personal life, “Our society was founded on it.”
“Was? You speak as if it’s in the past. As if you believe things haven’t changed.”
“But…isn’t…I don’t—” she glared at me, indignant, “I know that.”
“Then tell me, if you’re so smart.” I growled, my frustration growing.
Why couldn’t she just do what I asked, for once?
The woman was unorganized, messy, and chaotic. All the things that I loathed.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about her?
I’d left a meeting with an informant to come here.
Even now, my fingers tingled with the need to feel her skin under my fingers, to fist them in her hair, to wrap them around her throat and trap her so that I could taste her luscious lips.
Goddamn it, the woman was fucking temptation from hell.
I’d agreed on the way over that I would stay in control.
I wouldn’t touch her.
I wouldn’t bend her over my knee and spank her for meeting with my enemy. Then?—
Stop. I cut through my thoughts.
I had rules for a reason—to stay in control.
I was getting closer to meeting with Maxon. Closer to my revenge on Saul.
And yet, my mind kept wandering to the little innocent creature before me. Driving me to distraction.
That’s why I couldn’t touch her. Because then, I might give in to temptation.
I would lose control of myself.
I’d made a promise—I wasn’t going to touch her—and I would keep it.
I stepped back, putting some distance between us. Focus.
“No answer?” I asked.
“To what exactly?”
“You said you knew things haven’t changed. But they have changed. In one significant way.”
“How?”
“You tell me. You said you understood.” She fucking didn’t. And I needed her to see it. To know the truth. That she wasn’t safe in this world.
“Slavery ended in 1865, but I know they still didn’t follow the law. They continued to keep slaves up until World War II. Made them work in factories without pay.”
”That”s nice, but you sound like you’re reciting something from a history class,” I sneered. ”I expected much more from you, little bunny. More than dates and facts. Give me something deeper, Summer. Show me you have a brain behind all this beauty. That you can actually think for yourself.”
“You jerk,” she grit out.
I shrugged, knowing I wasn’t being fair to her.
The answer was easy for me because I already knew the truth.
And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from pushing her, and treating her like shit in the meantime because I… well because I needed her contempt, as much as I needed to taste her.
Because if she hated me, she would run, far, far away from me.
I wasn’t sure how long I could resist her temptation.
And if I ever captured my little bunny, I was never letting her go.
“Well?” I asked.
”Depends. What years?”
”Take your pick, Summer.” I was growing frustrated. ”Take any of them and compare it to today. There is only one distinct difference. What is it?”
“Well, we don’t actually have slaves any longer.”
”Good answer, but you”re still wrong.”
“Fuck you, Rook.” She clenched her hands into fists at her side, a spark of anger in her eyes. It made her blue eyes shine brighter. “You obviously have an answer you’re looking for. Stop playing games and just tell me.”
”Secrecy, little bunny.” I bopped her in the nose, intentionally provoking her further. “Public hangings, dismemberment, witch burnings—these gruesome scenes all played out openly. Now, fortified walls, wired fences, and guards replace the spectacle. Their power intensifies when the world ignores these realities.”
“Who is this ‘they’?”
“Who do you think?”
“I don’t friggin know, the police. Prosecutors.”
“They’re nice little toys but, in reality, they’re nothing.”
“Then who?”
“Men who dispense punishment like mints. Wicked souls deriving pleasure from others” suffering. They wield absolute power in this world. And everyone else—high court judges, politicians, cardinals, and even popes—all yield to that force.”
“What exactly are you saying?” she asked. “You keep hinting at some danger, but you’re not actually?—”
I gripped her chin, my frustration boiling over. “This, all this,” the space where my fingers touched her skin buzzed, “is what I’ve been trying to keep you from. A hidden world exists, right under your nose, and information is the currency of that world.”
“What does that even mean? How does that affect me?”
“Survival in that world—our world, right here in Greybone Island—requires living in the shadows. Information is power. The more they know about you, the more they can use it against you. But you’re here, flaunting yourself about the place. With your innocent face and all your secrets all out in the open, for everyone to see. ”
“Secrets,” Her face paled, her throat bobbing, some kind of realization washing over her. “So the Magnolia?—”
“Shhh,” Cutting her off, I jerked her to me, pressing her face into my chest. My eyes roamed the parking lot, up towards Tucker’s apartment, where there was a movement in his window. A soft swishing of his curtains.
Could’ve been his air conditioning.
Or him, spying on us.
I saw no other eyes on us but still felt a prickle at my back.
One never knew when the Magnolia was watching.
And yet, the smell of her shampoo filled my nose and I closed my eyes, breathing it in, distracted. My fingers sunk into her hair. A buzzing filled my chest.
I hadn’t meant to do this.
No touching.
And yet, the heat blossoming through me was too strong of a temptation to resist. How long had it been since I’d held someone like this? Not fucking but just…holding. Touching.
She was so soft against me. So warm. So sweet. Too innocent.
“I have to tell Callie. Benson,” she said, her fingers digging into the lapels of my suit, her knuckles white, her face nuzzled into my chest. I cinched my fingers tighter, strands of white silk fisted, clutching, gripping. Unable to let her go.
“You will tell no one. No one can be trusted.”
“I can’t just…” Pulling back. Sinless eyes staring up at me. “There are some good people on this earth. Some people worth fighting for.”
So. Fucking. Naive.
“No one,” I growled out, annoyed now that I’d opened my mouth, “People can’t be trusted.”
“They can. I can trust my sister. Benson. He’d move the world for me.”
“And has he?”
“Has he what?”
“What has Benson done for you lately?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she growled.
“Oh I understand. It”s the people closest to us who hurt the most. We show them our vulnerabilities, our most sensitive parts, and then they use that information to hurt us. They slide in their knives, even while our hearts are still beating for them.”
Eyes wide, she stared at me. “You can’t honestly believe that.”
“I don’t need to only believe it. It’s etched into my skin and onto the black and granite of my heart. I trust no one.”
“I feel sorry for you.” She shook her head, sadness filling her gaze, the kind that made anger billow. I didn’t need her pity.
“Don’t be naive. This world will chew you up and spit you out,” I growled, pushing her away.
“That’s how I am,” she argued. “I would do anything for the people I love.”
“Then at least do it with your eyes open. Wake up, girl.” I shook my head, disappointed, “I can’t help you anymore.”
“I never asked for your help!”
“And yet, I gave it.”
“Don’t you see, I can’t walk away?”
“Have they already caught you in their trap, little bunny? Showed you some pretty, shiny objects that you value more than our life? Or is it Tucker?” I spit out with disgust. “Did he promise to fill that pretty little pussy with his rich, shiny dick?”
Pain ricocheted across my cheek, her slap making my head snap to the side.
“Go away Rook. I never want to see you again.”
“Gladly,” I spread my arms out and bowed, then took a step back and away from her. “I will gladly never see your face again.” With a cold sneer, I turned. Stepping away from the stubborn woman who drove me nuts.
The woman who created a whirlwind of chaos and destruction, when everything else had been still and silent.
The woman who drove me to the edge of insanity, until I was standing on the edge of the cliff with no landing in sight.
Another step, and another, and another, until the world under me began to shake.
Because fuck it if I was tempted to jump over that edge.
To dive into her chaos. Extend my legs and soar, right off the edge, hands outwards and face upwards towards the sun.
It was driving me to madness, the constant thinking about her and wondering what she was up to.
The smells that reminded me of her, seeing her in every woman that walked past me.
It was danger of the highest kind.
I couldn”t afford the distraction, and yet, I couldn”t pull myself away.
I wanted to sever the umbilical cord of connection between us with a serrated edge knife. At the same time, I was compelled to wrap an arm around her waist and drag her into me, stealing a kiss from her that I knew I would never forget.
Unable to stop myself, I turned and, like a prisoner being dragged behind a horse, I ran to her.
Pulling her up and into me, her on her tiptoes and leaning against my chest.
And I bit down on those lips.
Those fucking lips I couldn’t stop staring at. The fucking lips that made me want to devour her like the beast that I was.
A soft moan escaped her.
And then I was kissing her. Wrapping my arms around her, pulling her up and into me, clutching her as if my life depended on it. Feeling her soft, so fucking soft, lips against mine.
The world tilted and shifted on its access, the darkness inside me filling me up, then burning straight through me.
“Tell me to stop,” I groaned.
“Never,” she whispered.
Sunlight burst forward.
Heat.
Summer.
Always fucking Summer.
I kissed her like the world would fucking end if I didn’t.
Fingers gripping my shirt, her hands around my neck, her body pressed to mine, a soft murmur of need that made my knees weak, my body ache, and my dick throb.
Sharp pain. Her fingers clawed at my neck, reminding me of…
Of my oath. Fuck. My oath.
My blood oath.
I swore on my life.
To protect, no matter the cost.
Even at the cost of my heart.
I jerked back, chest heaving, staring into the lust and heat in her half-lidded eyes and I…
I couldn’t—I couldn’t. I had to…
The image of Douglass’ disappointed look.
He would kill me.
Agony filled me.
Fuck.
Fuck!
“No,” I growled, “stop this.”
“But!” Her lips parted, red shame crawling up her cheeks, anger quickly swallowing the lust in her eyes. “You’re the one who kissed me.”
“Gullible little bunny,” I sneered.
“Fuck you, Rook.”
“That’s what you keep saying, but I don’t see you spreading those legs.”
“That’s not what I want.” She balked, and I smiled, wiping where my lip was still burning from her kiss.
“You’re right, Summer. If you won’t leave, then go back to Tucker. He’ll protect you. Marry you. And you can have a nice little house on the bay with a nice, white picket fence, two point five children, and a nice dog.” Pulling down her lower lip, I pressed one last kiss, whispering against them, “But don’t be deceived, little bunny. You’re not safe here.”