2. Juliet #2
Lex’s head dips and his mouth covers mine, halting my words.
My lips part in surprise and give him just enough room to dive into me.
His tongue slips past and curls into my mouth, testing and teasing and stroking along my own.
Sparks dance up and down my spine. My body sways into him, reminded of all the times he gave us pleasure.
Just as soon as I give in to the kiss, he ends it and pulls away. I will not whimper , I order myself, and I don’t—but it’s not easy. Lex presses his forehead to mine, his hands moving up until he cups my neck. Both of his palms are hot, burning into my skin as he breathes against my lips.
So close and yet so far. I lick my bottom lip, tasting him there.
“There’s more I have to tell you,” he whispers. “So many secrets, baby, but I promise—I swear to you—I will tell you everything.”
My pulse skyrockets. More? What more could there be? I part my lips to demand he tell me now, but he murmurs something soft, his thumbs stroking either side of my throat.
“Shhhh, no, baby, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothes me. “Don’t panic. Everything will be okay, I’ll make it okay.”
“Just tell me, Lex,” I practically beg. I can’t stand not knowing.
Lex blows out a breath and I smell something on his breath. Menthol? Was he smoking before he came back?
“I’ve met with your father,” he begins. I jolt and try to back up, to look at his face, but once more, he presses closer and hushes me. His hands never leave my throat, closing around me like a collar of sorts, keeping me pinned against him.
“It’s harder than you might think to stalk someone long-term,” he continues. “It requires money and resources and my aunt Gemma doesn’t have much of either—I had to make my own.”
“What does that have to do with my dad?”
“I’ll get there,” he assures me.
His fingers trail over my throbbing pulse and I press my thighs together.
“It started with cheap cameras and a lot of walking to the other side of town, but there were days I couldn’t see you.
Weeks would go by and I’d be going insane because I didn’t know what you were doing, who you were with, if you even remembered me.
After you moved schools, we never saw each other.
We went to different parks. We had different friends. I… missed you.”
The crack forming in my chest aches with the words, but I don’t say anything. If I want answers, I need to learn to keep my lips shut and let him give them.
“I eventually moved into building computers out of parts. Pawn shops throw out a lot of junk and so do the second-hand stores. Gio and Nolan would go dumpster diving with me on the weekends—there was less supervision when all of the adults were working or otherwise occupied. Computers opened up a whole new world. I could find things. I could find information.”
My breath saws in and out of my chest as he keeps talking.
“It took me a while to name what I’d started doing—hacking.
Slipping into other people’s accounts and finding out all of their dirty little secrets.
I was nervous about leading people back to me or my aunt, so I never focused on anywhere too close by.
The jobs started small and eventually, they got bigger. ”
“Lex?”
He releases a slow breath as if the sound of his name is both heady and painful. “Yes, baby?”
“Are you… I mean…” I know they’re criminals—no one who hangs with Darrio Vargas can be anything but a criminal.
I’d merely assumed, for so long, though, that they were little more than small-time drug dealers.
Weed and maybe prescription pills. But what Lex is telling me is something more, it’s far bigger than small-town crime. “Are you in danger?”
Lex releases a laugh and the sound goes straight to my cunt. I tighten all over. What the fuck? Before I can really investigate my own body’s responses, Lex replies.
“Not at the moment, baby,” he says. “But I have been in the past and I could be in the future. I’ve gotten information for some bad people, but I’ve kept my identity secure and hidden behind a pseudonym.”
“A pseudonym?” I ask. “What do you call yourself?”
The rumble from his chest is yet another sign of his amusement. My lashes flutter against my cheeks as my breath comes a bit faster. The sound makes the inside of my stomach clench down tight.
“Can you guess?”
I blink my eyes open and frown at him as he lifts his head and grins down at me. In an instant, I know.
“Scorpion King?” I ask.
He nods. “Well, just the Scorpion,” he admits. His head tilts as he gazes down at me. “Only Nolan and Gio know that about me.”
I frown at him. “How… do you do that?”
“Do what?” he asks.
“When you came back and you found that room,” I say. “I was so fucking pissed at you. I wanted to—” I cut myself off, not sure if I should even admit the direction my own thoughts had gone.
Lex nudges my chin with his fingers, reminding me he’s still there. “Go on, baby, say it. I’m a big boy, I can take your anger.”
“I wanted to fucking kill you.”
His lips twitch. “There’d be no better way to die.”
That’s… sick. Wrong. I shake my head, trying to clear the images that pop up that are everything but disgusted.
“I…” Words dry up and my throat closes around the realization that I almost put forth into the world. The reality that no one has ever looked at me the way Lex is now.
My mother hated that I didn’t love everything she did. From my hair to the classes I took at school, she wanted to choose them all, to make sure they were appropriate for a Donovan. Not once did she ever acknowledge that I was anything more than my last name.
It makes a girl wonder… is what Lex did so bad? Is it really unforgivable?
A phone rings, jolting me out of my head, and Lex frowns as he digs into his pocket and withdraws his cell phone. He offers me a grimace. “It’s Nolan,” he says by way of explanation as he presses the green button and answers the phone.
He listens for a moment and then his frown deepens.
I start to step back, only to stop as he drops a hand to my waist and pulls me harder into him.
The hard ridge of his cock presses against my belly, making me realize that our nearness isn’t just affecting me.
Despite that fact, however, Lex’s brow creases as he listens to whatever Nolan says on the other end of the line.
“She’s with me,” Lex finally says. An answer to a question I couldn’t hear, I assume. “We’re— You what?” Surprise and then anger clouds Lex’s expression and his fingers dig into me, as if he needs something to hold on to maintain his control. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
I watch Lex’s face as his features shift, changing and growing more and more dark with each passing second. “We can handle this on our own, she—” Lex stops and this time, I can hear Nolan’s reply.
“This isn’t up for debate,” Nolan snaps.
“It’s done. We’re on our way back now and, Lex, you should get used to the idea.
He’s your uncle and even if you don’t want anything to do with him, this is bigger than us now.
If you want her protected the way I know you do, you know we’ll have to do things we don’t want to. ”
“Fine.” Lex bites the word out. “See you when you get here.”
He ends the call and for a brief moment, the two of us are still and silent. Then, Lex drops his phone to the floor and closes his arms around me, drawing me into his body and holding me until air is squeezed from my lungs.
“Lex?”
He doesn’t respond, but when I nudge him and whisper a suggestion that we move to the bed, he drags me backwards and collapses onto the side of the mattress without any further prompting.
I’m hauled into his lap and he bows his head, pressing his face into my throat as he drags in breath after harsh breath.
Hesitantly, I reach up, my hands drifting into the long locks of dark hair flopping over his forehead.
Soft and slightly curled, I dig my fingers into his scalp.
The responding moan of satisfaction is all the encouragement I need.
I massage and scratch and move my hands through the thick mass of dark strands, brushing them towards the back of his head and away from the sharp angles of his face.
When he glances up at me from beneath charcoal-colored lashes, the look in his eyes promises to ruin me.
Maybe I’m already ruined.