Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hayes
Margo: Veronica is here.
I stared at the text on my screen, frozen in time, while Jake walked us through the last two remaining safe houses operated by Gordon at the head of the conference table.
“Mitchell?” Gray called.
I blinked, brows snapped together. My chest started to heave as my fingers tightened around the screen. Another text came in from Ash.
Ash: Veronica is here. Margo is handling her, but you need to know—Dela sent your ex here, man.
“Excuse me,” I muttered, rising from my seat. I left the room, ignoring the questions being called out to my back. I dialed Dela and planted the phone to my ear as I moved down to my office, shoulders tight.
“Hello?” she answered on the second ring.
“I’m only going to ask you this once, and Dela, I swear to God, you better answer me,” I clipped, opening my office door.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a panic.
I stopped behind my desk and looked up at the painting on my wall. “Did you send my ex to Portland?”
I listened to her huff and utter out incoherent words of disbelief with a hand on my hip, glaring at the painting. “I thought—I thought you and Veronica were just on a break because you moved to Portland.”
A harsh laugh left me. “That's what she told you, sis?”
“Well, yes. She came to me, distraught over the distance, and I told her that surprising you with a romantic weekend might be what you both need.”
“You have to stop trying to fix me,” I whispered, venom in my words. “It isn’t your job to fix what our father broke, Dela.”
“I—”
“Veronica and I aren’t together. We broke up nearly two years ago when I came home from a fucking work trip to find her in my bed with another man,” I deadpanned, delivering the heavy blow to her without a care or thought about the damage it would cause.
“If you would take just even half a fucking second to honor my boundaries, perhaps I would’ve told you.
But you don’t have a shred of respect for me, the pain Dad caused me, or the healing I still have to do. ”
A wretched sound left my little sister, cutting me deep. “I—”
“Instead of chasing the family Dad destroyed, how about you focus on building yours, huh?”
“Hayes—”
“My girlfriend came into my apartment to find my ex in my bedroom,” I growled.
“Girlfriend? You have—”
“You would’ve known that too if you weren’t too busy trying to suffocate me with the past, Dela.”
“Please let me speak!” she cried.
“No,” I replied, grabbing my keys. “I need to go fix the damage you fucking caused. I’ll call you when I’m ready. Until then. Do not call me. We clear on that?”
There was a long pause. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I hung up, met Gray in the hall, debriefed him, and headed to my Margo.
Ten minutes later, the elevator doors dinged open and I prowled down the hallway.
The heavy, lingering scent of Veronica’s perfume was in the air, and hatred spread through my body like the plague.
I felt violated, betrayed by my own sister, but I couldn’t focus on the sting of that.
Right now, I needed to make sure Margo was okay.
I opened my front door, dropped my keys, and called her name.
“She’s in the shower,” Ash drawled as I came into the living area, finding him on the couch, tablet in his lap, the highlights from the last Seahawks game on my TV.
My eyes scanned the apartment, searching for any signs of Veronica, anything she might’ve left as a part of her sick game.
“Already swept over the place,” Ash told me, looking up from his screen. “You’re good.”
Shoulders relaxing, I nodded before pinching the bridge of my nose. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
“Veronica is at the airport.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
Ash gave me a smirk.
“You put a fucking tracker on her?” I pushed, stepping forward.
“Absolutely, I did,” he replied, confident. “There’s no fucking way I was letting her leave without it. She has no business being here.”
“And when she finds that little tracker and elects to sue Red Snake?”
“Then she’ll have to explain to the judge why she lied about who she was to your doorman and broke into your apartment.”
I heard the shower shut off and my head turned in that direction.
Ash, being Ash, took the silent hint. “I’m off,” he said, letting out an exasperated groan as he rose up from my couch. “You need to replace that, by the way. It’s a fucking rock.”
I glared at him, thinking about Margo’s green couch, hating the fact it was growing on me. It was definitely better than the black leather one Ash was currently grumbling about.
“Get out,” I ordered, jerking my head to the front door.
“I’m gone.”
When I came into the bathroom, Margo’s jasmine scent invaded me.
I welcomed it with open arms, the fresh scent stilling the panic and anger in my soul.
The steam clung to the mirror and glass door of the shower.
I stayed by the door, watching her through the humidity as she stepped out with my white towel wrapped around herself.
Her hips were too wide for it, leaving a sliver of her tattooed skin revealed.
She didn’t look at me as she said, “Veronica is exactly what I expected.”
I folded my arms over my chest, my shoulder hitting the doorjamb, remaining quiet as she crossed the bathroom and leaned over the countertop, wiping the fog off the mirror.
Her face was completely healed, her dark hair clinging to her neck and back, mossy eyes bright.
Despite the afternoon she’d had, her body was relaxed, her tone calm.
“She’s the dream girl,” she finally whispered, looking over her shoulder at me. “Perfect.”
My jaw tightened, my throat working. Veronica wasn’t a dream to me, she’d been a placeholder, and in the end, she was a nightmare.
“Did you love her?”
My answer was firm, grounded in nothing but the truth. “No.”
She nodded and reached for her moisturizer. “I figured as much,” she mumbled.
I pushed off the wall and came to stand behind her. She lifted her head, finding my eyes in the mirror as I brought my hand to her butterfly. She lifted her chin, watching as I traced the outline of the delicate wing.
“I don’t want perfection anymore,” I whispered.
“She’s the perfect woman.”
My hand covered her throat in a possessive hold as the other gently unwrapped the towel.
As it fell into a heap around her ankles, my upper lip curled, a low groan rumbling from my chest. “There’s no such thing as perfection, Margo Bennett.
” I wrapped my arm around her soft middle, my thumbs stroking the wet skin by her rib cage.
My eyes scanned the length of her tattooed curves, memorizing every color, stretch mark, and freckle atop her pale skin.
I put my cheek against her side of her wet head, meeting her eyes again as her cheeks reddened.
“Though, after knowing you for only five seconds, my soul knew you were the closest thing I’d find to perfection in this life.
” Her lips parted, her hands going to my forearm.
The touch alone grounded me, making me forget about the bullshit with Gordon and the FBI.
“I was just too stubborn to admit it to myself,” I finally confessed, my fingers flexing at her throat.
“You and I are both stubborn, it seems,” she breathed.
I smiled and brushed my lips against her temple. “First step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.”
She shivered. “So did you just pull my towel away for me to freeze?”
“Always spouting shit off at me,” I murmured, bringing my hand up to her breast, cupping it possessively.
“Did you expect anything less?” she rasped, her head falling back to my shoulder.
I pinched her nipple. “Not from you, no.”
She whimpered, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth.
My eyes went back to the mirror. I watched in awe as she brought her knees together, squirming against me as I manipulated her sensitive, dark pink bud. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” I murmured. “You plague the majority of my thoughts.”
She moaned my name and arched her back, pressing her ass against the hard bulge of my jeans. I released her breast, tightened my hold on her throat, and dropped my hand to the apex of her thighs.
“Spread, Temper,” I commanded roughly.
She didn’t, panting as her nails dug into the skin of my arm. She turned her head, staring at me with those damning eyes. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she countered, licking her lips.
I kissed her, pulled back, and begged. “I had a hell of a day, beautiful. Please let me have what I need.”
“And what do you need?” she purred.
I groaned, loving the power play we’d discovered together. “I need to get lost in you. Please, baby. Let me have you.”
She brought her hand up to the one at her throat and tapped twice.
I released her immediately. Over the last month, we’d been discussing our boundaries in the bedroom, discovering what we loved and what we didn’t.
We both loved control, giving and taking it.
She also wanted to explore more breath play with me.
When my hand was on her throat, she only needed to tap it twice and I would release her.
I would also never bind her hands if I was choking her.
She turned to face me, glanced down at my jeans, and smirked before grabbing my hand.
She led me through the bedroom, her body jiggling and bouncing with each step, and my cock wept at the sight.
She stopped in front of the couch, guided me to sit down, and tortured me as she undid my pants.
When she climbed onto my lap, I was on the brink of insanity.
I let my head fall back, feeling her warmth, the weight of her pinning me down where she wanted me.
As my eyes closed, she put her hand on my throat.
“I want control,” she told me, her voice thick with lust.
“You have it,” I pushed out through my teeth as she wrapped her hand around my cock, lining the tip up to her core.
“Hands at your sides,” she ordered.
“God, you’re a fucking brat,” I clipped, jaw jumping.