21. Lex
LEX
N o new information . I growl as frustration pounds through my head in the same way an impending headache might at the email waiting for me in my inbox. I’ve checked every single day for weeks and still there’s nothing in regard to Juliet’s mother. No sign of the woman—in or outside of the States.
If she’s gone underground in another country, she’s done a damn good job. The dark web has outliers everywhere all around the world. There should be something by now, but every time I check, it’s the same damn response.
Nothing.
Nada.
Zip.
Fucking. Ghost.
I lean back in my seat, cracking my knuckles as I stare at the illuminated screen before me.
There’s too much to do and not enough hours in the day, which is why I’d decided to skip school today.
Never in my life did I think I’d be annoyed by what I do for my brothers, but it’s become that way. School. Football. Working for Darrio.
As if the bastard senses my annoyance, my phone chirps and I glance at where it rests to the side of my keyboard. A text from Gio comes through, highlighted on the lock screen for a brief moment before I snatch it up and read the rest of the message.
GIO: Dropping PG off. Shit happened at school. Heading to practice. Talk later.
PG? It takes me a moment to decipher Gio’s text before I remember what he calls her. Prep Girl. I roll my eyes. What a ridiculous name. Juliet is no prep girl. Not anymore. Then the rest of the message hits me.
Shit happened? What happened? Is she safe?
Is she okay? It would be pointless trying to drag the information out of Gio if he’s heading to practice, so I send him a quick text back letting him know I’ll take care of her when I hear hard knocking on the front door.
I switch my screens to the outside cameras close to the carriage house and realize that Gio didn’t mean he was dropping her off later—but right now . Asshole.
I’m up and out of my chair and heading towards the front door of the carriage house before I ever hit send on the text. When I unlock the door and it swings inward, Juliet doesn’t even bother to offer me a greeting as she storms inside and heads for the kitchen.
“I should get you your own key,” I tell her absently as she begins rifling through the cabinets and drawers.
She doesn’t respond as she pulls out a small glass and a bottle of vodka from the cupboard.
Her hair is in a messy array, her clothes wrinkled, and obvious frustration in every barely restrained movement of her body.
I blink as she dumps a good amount into the glass and then takes a long swig.
Then, I wince as she screws up her face.
Yeah, the shit I got ain’t nothing fancy.
It’s practically cheap gut rot from the sewers, but she keeps drinking.
“What the hell happened today?” I ask, sure there must be a reason for her obvious unsettled behavior.
Glaring at me over the rim of her glass, Juliet finishes off the last of what she poured for herself before answering. “Megan attacked me today,” she practically snarls.
I go still. “ What? ”
Unaware of my rising fury, Juliet rolls her eyes and pours herself more of the vodka with a grimace before shoving the bottle back into its place. “Yeah, she convinced a few of the girls on the volleyball team to help her out—though I didn’t find that out ’til after the fact.”
My eyes scan her face, noting a few new bruises and marks on her arms, her neck, and peeking out from the collar of her shirt and jacket.
Her hand shakes a bit as she lifts the drink back to her lips.
I move across the short distance, gripping her wrist and stopping the movement before she can make it.
Her eyes widen and Juliet looks up at me. “It’s been a long day, Lex,” she mutters. “I need the drink.”
“What did they do to you?” I demand.
She rolls her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter, I plan to get even anyway.”
“I’ll help.” It’s not so much of an offer as it is an oath.
Her crystalline gaze lands on me and hardens into ice. “No.”
“No?” My frown dips into a scowl. “What do you mean ‘no’? They fucking hurt you. That’s not allowed.” Even if Nolan hadn’t already laid claim to her ass as one of us, this wouldn’t be accepted.
Megan White has already become an issue, but this blatant attack on someone we claim—on Juliet—is far more than disrespect. It’s a call for war.
“That’s right.” Juliet lowers the glass back to the counter and then reaches over with her free hand, taking my wrist between her fingers. “I said ‘no’.”
“She—”
“Will get what’s coming to her.”
I stare down at the woman before me. Juliet isn’t tall, but neither is she petite.
Objectively, she’s of average height and weight, but next to me, she seems so fragile.
Maybe it’s because I have my father’s proportions—over six feet, wide build, and athletic frame.
She only comes up to my shoulders and it forces her to tip her head back so she can stare at me.
My hand remains on her wrist. “She hurt you.” I say the words again as if I need to remind myself that Megan’s actions have signed her death warrant. I’d kill for this woman. I’d do unspeakable things for her.
“She didn’t do shit,” Juliet replies. “She tried and she failed.”
My gaze lands on a dark bruise that’s just beneath her chin. I reach up and press my thumb into her jaw. She doesn’t flinch because, of course not. Juliet doesn’t show her pain. She’s like me in that way—she hides everything because she doesn’t believe anyone cares if she’s hurt or not.
I do.
Leaning down, I press my mouth to that tiny bruise. Her sharp inhalation is music in my ears. “I want to kill anyone that would even think of putting their hands on you without permission,” I whisper against her skin.
Juliet releases the glass she still has clutched in one hand on the counter.
I can’t know what she’s thinking as her arms come up and encircle me, but I want to.
I’ve never wanted anything so badly as I do to find myself inside of her mind, to wrap myself up in her and never leave.
I want everything—her thoughts, her sorrows, her hate, her pain.
Nuzzling against her, I press her back against the counter and cage her in.
Her body molds to mine. Her groin is pressed to the front of me, breasts against my chest. Her scent fills my nostrils.
My hands move down and find her hips. I lift her and she goes easily, legs parting as she wraps them around me, clinging.
Juliet tips her head back and I lift her until our mouths connect. Her tongue invades, sliding against mine—tentative at first and then harder, demanding. She kisses me like she wants to eat me alive and I shudder under the onslaught of pure, unfiltered lust that assails my insides.
For years I’ve dreamed of having her this way, of having her any way I wanted.
I couldn’t have ever imagined what it would feel like to let her have me, to know she desires me the same way.
I could disappear into her forever and I would be content to stop existing if it meant I would never be separated from her.
Juliet pulls back, panting for breath. “Alex…”
My cock throbs in my pants at her old nickname for me. It’s been so long since anyone called me that. It was only ever her. Now, it feels like we’ve come full circle.
“If you don’t want me to track her down and slit her throat, I suggest you make it clear that you’re going to take care of the issue,” I whisper, and despite the light volume of my words, I mean every single one.
Megan White attacked what is mine and the need to stomp her into the dirt is riding me hard. The only thing keeping me in place is this woman wrapped around me.
Juliet’s lips quirk at my words as if she’s amused by them.
Her eyes glitter with something dangerous and happy.
I blink. Happy? My head drifts back and I take in her expression more fully.
Yes, I realize. She’s happy in this moment.
Her expression is open and it reveals more than I think even she knows. My heart hammers against my rib cage.
“You’re not allowed to hit a woman,” Juliet murmurs, her hand cupping my cheek and trailing down. A shiver cascades down my spine as her short, blunt nails scrape lightly against the stubble there.
“I don’t give a fuck.” I bend a bit more, pressing her lower back into the edge of the counter as her body is shoved more insistently against my own by the movement. “I’ll slaughter a hundred women if it makes you smile at me like that.”
She laughs, the sound echoing off the ceiling and walls. “I wouldn’t like you touching that many women even if it was to kill them.”
“I’d wear gloves,” I say absently, and she laughs again.
“No,” Juliet says with a light shake of her head. “I want to take care of this. I need to take care of it myself.”
And I get it. I know exactly why she says as much—Juliet needs to prove not just to us and the rest of Silverwood, but to herself as well, that she’s not someone that needs protecting.
That she is strong enough to stand on her own.
She doesn’t stand behind us, she isn’t shielded by us. She is one of us .
“Baby…” A groan rumbles up my throat as her cunt brushes against my rock-hard cock. The clothing that keeps us separated is agony. I can practically feel the heat of her burning through me. I shift my hips, grinding into her.
“Do you want something, Alex?” More scraping from her nails as her hands drift up to my head and burrow into my hair. Gooseflesh rises up all over my body and I shudder under her ministrations.
Fuck me, but I whimper at the question. Needy. Pulsing with hunger for her. “You,” I say. “I want you.”
She presses a chaste kiss to the corner of my mouth. I turn my head quickly, trying to capture her lips with mine, but it’s too late. She pulls back and grins. Devious little sadist.
“I want to fuck you.” I pant, feeling out of breath. It’s like I just ran ten miles in under ten minutes when the reality is I’ve spent all day in my damned office. Adrenaline races through me as I meet her eyes.
Juliet shifts her expression and glances over my shoulder. “Perhaps you should take me somewhere I want to be fucked.”
The second the words escape her lips, I’m on the move.
I heft her higher up my body and swing around.
She latches on to me, arms going around my shoulders as the counter disappears from her back and she has nothing to hold me to her but my strength.
I carry her out of the shoebox of a kitchen, past the living room, and down the hall.
When we reach the bedroom, I carefully deposit her onto the black silk sheets. Her eyes are glittering dangerously. I go to my knees and she stops me with a foot on my shoulder. Her sneaker digs into the muscle there.
“Ah, ah, not yet.”
A growl rises in my throat and she arches a brow. I stifle it. A thought occurs to me and I turn my head in the direction of my closet. It’s been a long time since I opened that box, but maybe…
“Are you getting distracted?” Juliet’s question brings me back around and I shake my head.
“No, but I have… something for you.”
“For me?” Her brow furrows. “What is it?”
Something I made a long time ago when she was just a memory, just a girl I followed and tracked through cameras and pictures. Just an unattainable hope and dream. Not living flesh and blood before me—in my bed.
“I can show you,” I say, rising back to my feet.
Juliet peers back at me, curiosity tipping her head. My throat opens and closes as I swallow roughly. Will she accept it? I wonder. Will she accept me?
I don’t know, but I won’t know until I give it to her.
I move towards the closet. Each step that carries me away from her tightens around my throat like a noose.
I lost God a long time ago. I stopped believing in some magical man in the sky looking out for me when my father broke my jaw for the third time and my mother just cried and tried to make excuses.
Now, though, I step into the small wardrobe area and bend down to find the dust-covered box I put there my freshman year when Silverwood Public had an actual shop class teacher who knew what he was doing—a man who worked with more than just wood and metal machines.
I blow the layer of grime off and lift the top.
Nestled in an old t-shirt that I’d long since grown out of is the circle of leather I’d spent hours, days, slaving over. At the time, I didn’t know why I’d made it. The teacher had asked me if it was for a dog I had at home. I couldn’t tell him the truth.
I’m her beast to tame. Her animal to keep. Her protector. Now and forever. If only she’ll keep me.