16. CHAPTER TWELVE
Inside Jillian’s silent apartment on Monday afternoon, I breathe in her scent. A scent that awakens the beast inside me. A scent I want all for myself.
All weekend with Linc, the thrill of L.A., dropping fifty G’s on killer threads, and being surrounded by hot girls in the clubs he dragged me to, I never stopped thinking of Jillian.
No one got me remotely excited. This has never happened to me before. I spent all weekend obsessing over this woman. And checking the City Sinners app to make sure the BLOCK was still in place.
The drive back last night, alone in the desert with my thoughts, hammered at my conscience over what is right and what is wrong.
Cormac is at Dunbar Valley, a training and torture camp. Ireland isn’t handing him over to Daniel fucking Vance for these so-called new drug charges.
I should have packed everything up and gotten on a plane to go home.
But noooooooooo…
Here the fuck I am, planting cameras in Jillian’s apartment.
It’s in the event something goes haywire on the app and she chats up some creep who wants to hurt her. Someone she might invite into her apartment. I need to watch this woman.
I’d taken a ring of her spare keys the other night. Had a set made for me, and put the others back. When I’m not despising myself for what I’m doing, excitement hums under my skin because I don’t get to do shit like this anymore.
Before Da retired, we worked the streets for him, Kier, Rior, Lach, and I. Balor was always tucked up in a command center honing his hacking skills. Even spent time in Russia and Hong Kong.
A picture on Jillian’s fireplace mantle draws a smile from me. Based on the cap and gown, it’s her graduation picture. From the background, I’m guessing she went to UNLV. I’m proud of my Harvard degree, but I didn’t want to go there, or be a lawyer. My da sent me. None of us had a choice. Our roles in the family were dictated by the order of our birth.
At one time, I thought I’d be Enforcer. Lachlan didn’t want the job and Ma had nearly convinced Da to let him follow his own path.
Then tragedy struck. And it made him into the fierce warrior he is today. I couldn’t compete with that. No matter how I tried.
Our da loves us, but we never said no to him. When the letter came from Harvard to attend, they packed my stuff and moved me off to Boston.
I turn slowly, taking in every inch of Jillian’s place. It’s nice. The thrill of peeling back these layers of her life satisfy me to no end.
From a knapsack, I take out the set of miniature cameras and install one in each room, hiding them in lamps, the lip of a dresser, all out of plain sight. Then I check my phone to make sure they’re positioned right, that I can see every angle in each room. The motion sensor will snap the cameras on so I’ll be alerted when she’s moving around.
Stepping onto the balcony, I notice she shares a railing with the condo next door. Ideally, concrete walls separate apartment balconies. There’s one to the right because she has a corner unit.
“Fuck,” I mutter, getting on my phone and looking up who owns the apartment on the left.
Whoever the hell lives there can just climb over the damn thing.
Finding the condo on a real estate app, I save the link and send it to myself. Something to look into later. But I’ll take an impression of the door lock before I leave to get a key made.
Inside Jillian’s bedroom, the bed stops my heart, seeing it’s still unmade.
“Are you sloppy, sparkles?”
Why do I find that fucking adorable?
“Are these the same sheets you let me fuck you on? Where I slipped my finger in your arse and made you bleed on my cock?”
The dents in her pillow draw my legs forward until I’m buried in the softness, inhaling that coconut scent. It nearly brings me to my knees.
This thrill is uncensored. I can see any part of her I want.
Staring further into the room, I hiss as the darkest thoughts whisper through me like the devil’s temptation. I close my eyes. Am I that bad? Am I already so far gone about this woman that I have to go through her underwear drawer?
Her deepest scent…
Fuck…
My feet move, accepting I am this guy now. At least this isn’t who I am all the time. A smile builds on my mouth that Jillian, only my sparkly diamond, has ever bewitched me to act like this.
Which reminds me… I have to put a tracker on her car because I need to know where she is at all times.
I will be back here sinking my dick into her pussy again, surrounded by her scent. Fucking her that one time isn’t enough.
A tall chest in the corner reminds me of one in my sister’s childhood bedroom. She called it a lingerie chest.
And…yes.
This one is filled with lingerie.
Lace bras, lace panties. Some cotton ones. Anything will look sexy on that round, juicy arse.
A color sits in the forefront of my mind.
Lavendar. The color of the panties she wore the night I fucked her. They’re not here.
Scanning around, I don’t see clean, folded clothes.
No…
I head to her bathroom and spot a hamper.
Heart pounding, throat tight, I lift the lid, and reaching past more cotton numbers I see…
Fuck…
I fist the panty I peeled off her Friday night.
With a harsh swallow, terror rushes through my veins as something takes over me. Something dark and wicked. A force I can’t control.
It’s locked me in.
I’m fucking hooked.
This thrill, holding these panties changes everything.
I catch my reflection. Standing here in a black leather jacket, dark navy cargo pants, and a deep blue Henley, all for stealth, I don’t look like the polished lawyer in expensive suits people see every day in my office.
This is the feral side of me.
A side I didn’t know existed.
A side this woman brought out of me. Why her?
Shaking, I inhale the scent of her panties, and I nearly collapse. A visceral blow to my system digs its way under my skin.
“You are so fucking mine, Jillian.”