Chapter Four
Gage
Fuck, she’s perfect.
Carefree, living life on her whims and letting nothing stand in her way. Jillian Hart couldn’t be more perfect if I designed her myself. The fire blazing inside her threatens to scorch everything in her path, and I plan on burning like the damned.
She moves with the music, dancing and laughing with the group she’s with. She doesn’t shy away from being the center of attention, not once. She embraces it, feeds on it. My eyes touch every part of her beautiful body, admiring the art of her. When our eyes meet, dark satisfaction brews deep inside me.
Absolute perfection.
Finally, being touched by the weight of her stare, feeling the focus of her attention after all this time, was worth the wait. After five long months, she sees me—because I let her.
Jillian Hart has been mine a lot longer than the debt she owes me, whether she knows it or not. But she’ll learn. She’ll see that there’s no escaping me, no amount of money that can sever our connection. There is no other option—I’m an omen of the inevitable.
Jill will love me, crave me, breathe me. She’ll feel me rooted so deeply inside her she won’t know where her soul ends and mine begins. She’ll be for me.
Just like I am for her.
Until then, I’ll watch her and enjoy the way her bombshell body moves with the music. I’ll take pleasure in knowing she sees me.
“She sees you watching her,” Anders comments, though his eyes have barely strayed from Jill’s blonde friend all night. I’ve had my eyes on her for months, always just staying out of sight. But not anymore—it’s time I make my plans a reality.
“I know.” I lean back against the sofa, ignoring the flashing red lights and the thrumming bass of the music. Tilting my head, I let my beer dangle between my legs as I watch her.
She arches her back and shakes her juicy ass to the beat next to her best friend, Lana. Lana’s interesting enough—it’s not painful to watch her with my Jill—especially with the company she keeps. The man dancing up against Lana’s back with his hands on her waist, Christos Alexandris, is a war criminal and arms dealer with connections to the mob both here in Chicago and in New York. I don’t give a single fuck if Lana’s dating him seriously or not, as long as he—and his mess—doesn’t touch Jill.
“You’re staring again,” Anders says. I never stopped. He knows that. I could sit here for the rest of the night without moving an inch, just watching her breathe, and not regret a single second.
“So are you,” I point out. He can’t seem to tear his dark eyes away from the blonde.
“They’re both fucking hot.” He takes a swig of his beer, rolling his bulky shoulders and settling back on the couch to get comfortable. He’s attracted to Jill, but I don’t give a shit about that. I don’t fault him for recognizing how stunning she is, and I don’t mind other men looking. I want them to look—to admire, and desire—to witness how brightly she burns. But they won’t touch.
I don’t share.
Anders knows exactly who Jill is to me—he’s known all along. He knows what kind of a man I am.
He was with me the first night I saw her. She’d been on a night out at another club, Helix, with Lana and her brother Tommy. Anders and my other best friend, Messer, had dragged me out for my birthday that night to celebrate my 30th. That’s when I saw her.
One of the bookies her idiot brother owed money to had tried to hassle him on the dance floor, but there she was, coming to her brother’s rescue. She’d verbally cut the goon at the knees, and he’d left in a huff. I’d seen the violence in her eyes, a shadowed soul just longing to be recognized and set free. Then she’d gone right back to dancing like nothing had ever happened. That was all I needed to see.
Happy birthday to me.
I took my present and never looked back. Following her home was easy. She never even glanced over her shoulder—I’ll have to spank her for that later. Her apartment is on the ground floor, something that both thrilled and infuriated me—she’s not safe there.
Every moment I spent watching her was infectious—thrumming through my veins until she consumed me entirely. Every detail I learned about her was a hit of a drug that became my lifeline.
Jill has her own demons, twisted and beautiful. Her darkness calls to mine, and I like that—I’m going to use it. I’ll pull all of her shadows to the surface, warping them around us until I’m the only one she sees.
“What’s her name?” Anders asks, trying to act casual when I know he’s not. His darkness might not be as visible as mine, but it’s there. We’re opposite sides of the same coin.
“That’s Lana Love,” I respond, glancing over at him. His jaw is set as he gazes at her, and I know he’s clocked how the Greek man’s hands are all over her.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, reminding me that I have other responsibilities outside of the club. It’s a text from my employee Stevie.
Stevie: Are you ever planning on coming back to the shop, or can I start redecorating now? This place could use a big splash of color. I’m thinking yellow.
My thumbs fly across the screen, typing out a message before pressing send.
Me: I’ll be in tomorrow morning. Touch a paintbrush, and you’re fired.
Her response is almost immediate.
Stevie: Yeah, right. And leave this place to be run by tweedle-dee, tweedle-dumbass, and tweedle-asshat? I don’t think so.
She’s not wrong. Firing her would mean having to leave my tattoo business in the hands of a bunch of shitheads. And I’ll be dead and buried before I let anyone taint my reputation as a tattoo artist.
I’m not just a tattoo artist, I’m an ink master. My business, Stained Heart Tattoos, is the best there is. Over the last twelve years, I’ve been perfecting my craft and building a portfolio of clientele that NDAs keep me from talking about. People from all over the world come to me for their tattoos. No one comes even close to what I can do with a tattoo gun. Half of the tattoos that cover my body were done by me, and they’re damn good.
Tattooing was also my introduction into the world of high-stake poker. One of my clients invited me to a game, and that was it. I’ve sat along side the world’s most wealthy and powerful people with a drink in one hand and the winning cards in the other. After a few years, I don’t just know everyone there is to know in the gambling world—I run it. Anders and I host some of the most exclusive games in the country with pots worth millions. And that success is only growing.
My eyes lift back to find Jill. She’s accepting another glass of champagne from her server. When she does a twirl, her sexy little dress flares out, and I catch a glimpse of the sweet spot where her ass cheeks meet her thick thighs. I can’t wait to get my hands and mouth on her.
She’s got a body a man could sink into and get lost in.
She stays out with Lana and her date until almost three in the morning—drinking, dancing, and laughing. When they decide to call it a night, Lana goes back to her criminal’s hotel room and Jill orders a car for a ride home. I know she’s not listening for the rumbling engine of my custom black Thunder Stroke as she walks up the steps of her apartment building.
I sit on my bike to watch and wait. After a few minutes, the light turns on in her living room. Her blinds are drawn almost all the way, but a decent gap in the curtains allows me to track her.
She dumps her phone and bag on the counter before she fumbles around in the kitchen to chug a glass of water. After she’s drained the glass, she turns off the lights, and her bedroom light turns on a few seconds later. Eventually, the apartment goes dark. I wait for several minutes before I climb off my motorcycle.
The latch on the gate leading to the alley along the side of her building clicks open easily once I remove the padlock with the key on my key ring. The first time I came here, there’d been nothing to stop someone from opening the gate.
Darkness cloaks the side of the building as I walk to the set of French doors that lead into her apartment. Lifting the keyring in my hand, I slide the correct key into the lock and it clicks open without issue. It’s an older building, so the door sticks when I push it open and the floorboards creak under my weight.
Quiet stillness fills the apartment. The only light is the faint glow from the streetlight filtering through the small opening in the curtains. I don’t need light. I know every inch of this apartment—the small sectional sofa in the living room to my left with the black and white checkered throw blanket, the circular coffee table that always has some sort of half-finished drink perched on it. Three pairs of high heels are scattered between the living room and kitchen, and a bag of her work outfits is lying haphazardly on the floor next to the door to her bedroom.
My girl is messy. She likes her place to look, feel, and smell like her. Every once in a while, she’ll get on a tear and clean the place spotless, but that usually only lasts a few hours before her sexy bras are slung over the back of the couch, and her Red Bull cans and half-drunk coffee cups are cluttering the coffee table again.
I know that the ice maker on the fridge doesn’t work, the silverware drawer gets jammed if you don’t use the handle properly, and the ceiling fan in the living room clicks when the blades start to collect too much dust. I know this place as if it were my own. I’ve spent almost as many nights here in the last five months.
The first thing I do is head to the kitchen and grab a chilled bottle of water from the fridge and a couple Ibuprofen from the cabinet above the sink. The only sound in the bedroom when I enter are the two fans Jill keeps going at all times.
I walk over to the nightstand and place the water and pills next to the lamp. Standing next to the bed, I gaze down at the woman sleeping soundly. Jill lies sprawled in the sheets wearing only an oversized band tee, laying on her stomach and hugging the pillows with one shapely leg hitched up to reveal her little black lace panties.
She’s so still—she always is when she sleeps. As soon as her head hits the pillow, she’s completely dead to the world. I could start singing and jumping on the bed, and her eyelids wouldn’t even flutter. Sleep is the only time she’s still and silent. Peaceful—like the calm before the storm.
Because with Jill, there’s always a storm brewing.
Walking backward four steps, I lower onto the chair at her vanity. My eyes trace the glorious curves of her—the way her back dips, how her plump, gorgeous ass leads to round hips, thick thighs, and shapely long legs.
I have plans for that ass, those hips, and those legs. I have plans for every sinful inch of her.
She sleeps sprawled in the center of her king-sized bed until there’s no room for anyone else—we’ll have to fix that. Soon, I’ll be in that bed with her, and she’ll be the first thing I see when I open my eyes in the morning. I’ll sleep feeling every beat of her heart.
I sit and watch her breathe, shift, and sigh for hours. Just like I have most nights since I first saw her. And just like all those nights, she’ll sleep soundly until one of her many blaring alarms wakes her up to an empty room with no idea I was ever here.
I can picture how her hair will look when she sits up in bed, the grogginess in her voice while she mutters to herself about how she’s ‘never drinking again’ as she searches the apartment for wherever she left her phone. But I know better.
Because I know Jill.
I know her past, I own her present, and I am her future.