49. Too good to be true – Atticus
49
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
ATTICUS
S omething shifts in the bed, and I jerk awake.
My eyes take a second to adjust to the early morning light filtering through my bedroom door from upstairs, but when they do, I relax back into the mattress.
Aurora lets out a small sigh as she settles back to sleep on her stomach next to me. Her arms are pulled in tight, but her right leg is free of the covers she stole in the night.
I follow the line of it up to where it vanishes, and my cock stiffens.
She’s the picture of perfect ruin. Her hair is a mess of tangles that fall to cover most of her face. Her lips are swollen and slightly parted. Her mascara blackens the delicate skin around her eyes. And there, just below and to the right of her chin, is the mark I left on her neck, like a splatter of red paint on an unblemished alabaster canvas.
Fuck, my cock vividly remembers the feel of being buried so deep inside of her sweet pussy that she could barely catch her breath. It throbs between my legs, hungry for a second helping of Trouble.
She took me so well, too.
Carefully, I reach over and push the tangles of hair from her face, but she stirs at my touch and I snatch my hand back.
Get control of yourself.
She sighs into the pillow, falling back into a dead sleep.
I tear my eyes from her. I’m not about to watch her sleep like some kind of pussy-whipped fiction-book hero.
The buzzing of my phone snaps me out of it and has me dragging my eyes away from her again. Fuck . I should get that.
Slowly, so I don’t wake her, I slink from the bed to where I kicked off my pants. If it’s Eli and Sev and I don’t answer the call, I’ll never hear the goddamned end of it.
And what if something happened? We almost always pop into a motel or truck stop somewhere on the way home to get a few hours of sleep after visits with Julian, but usually, I’d have heard from them to let me know they were on their way back by now.
If I wasn’t so fucking distracted last night, I’d have already called them to see where the hell they were at.
I swipe my jeans from the floor and pull my phone out. There’s a text there from them sent close to four hours ago that says they’re on their way, but it’s not vibrating.
The fuck?
I search the area, trying to locate the source of the sound. Across the room, Aurora’s cell vibrates insistently against the wooden leg of my dresser. I peer at Aurora, but the noise hasn’t woken her, and I decide it’s a testament to my outstanding abilities in bed that she stays asleep.
I pick it up to silence it just as the call is taken to voicemail and abruptly ended. The caller ID says it was Chris.
Chris.
My mind rushes to locate the information associated with the name.
She had a text thread with him.
But it was nothing exciting , I tell myself, then frown, remembering.
Nothing concerning other than the fact that there were a number of deleted messages that I’ve been unable to recover. But Aurora had deleted messages in several other conversations, too. Not just with this guy.
The line of thinking doesn’t make me feel any better.
My cock softens as my mind pulls all the necessary blood flow to work the problem.
No . It’s not a problem.
I’ll just ask her who it is when she wakes up.
I’m in the process of setting her phone atop the dresser when it buzzes again in my hand.
I wish I could say I hesitated before looking at the message that flashes across the screen, but I don’t. I bring it closer.
My ears ring as I read the single sentence.
Chris: Did you get in?
My mouth is dry, and the blood in my veins freezes to ice.
I look at her again, facing away from me, asleep in my bed.
Who is this?
Did you get in?
Did she get in where?
Here?
My grip on her cell tightens enough that I’m shocked the glass doesn’t crack. I flick the screen up to open the conversation, but it attempts to use Face ID, fails, then requires a PIN code. I don’t know it, but I still have her phone mirrored on my desktop.
I tug my jeans on and am up the stairs before I even have them zipped all the way up.
My body hums with latent energy, and I can’t hear a fucking thing over the buzzing drone in my ears. I had to take a piss a few seconds ago, but that urge is gone now, replaced with an ugly flutter in the pit of my stomach that tells me something is very fucking wrong.
How could I be such an idiot ?
I shake my head hard, trying to rattle it back to rights, but the spike of testosterone raging in my blood is poisoning every thought with worst-case scenarios. Twisting her— twisting me —until I don’t recognize our shapes anymore.
Chill . I need to fucking chill.
I shove my chair out of the way when I get to my office, slamming Aurora’s cell down on the desk to fire up my monitor. My hands shake as they fly over the keys, bringing up the application that mirrors her phone. I haven’t looked at it in days. Why?
Why haven’t I looked at it in days?
My teeth grind as I click through to her messages and bring up the conversation with Chris.
I see the message he just sent, but the text before it is one I’ve already seen and dismissed as inconsequential. Besides, it was sent a while before she even came here. So either there’s more deleted messages I’m missing, or this is in response to something else. Something they discussed before she came here?
A phone call, maybe?
I click over to her call log, but don’t see anything from him in recent calls.
There are a few unknown number calls, though. I run the numbers through Google and two other less legal search engines and come up with nothing. I could call them, but I’m not sure I want to hear whatever is on the other end. And if Aurora is…
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I growl through my teeth and slap my hand to the side of my head like I can dislodge the thought, but it’s already there. Already spreading seeds and growing roots.
If Aurora isn’t who she says she is, I don’t want to give her or anyone else the heads-up that I know.
Always keep the upper hand, Julian used to say. Don’t show your cards.
I fucking told myself this was a bad idea, that I shouldn’t let her get close. Shouldn’t trust what I don’t know.
But I let her in anyway.
No. No, I didn’t. It was just sex. She said it herself, she still thought I was a dick. It was just…just fucking. Just fucking.
I didn’t let her in.
I don’t let people in.
Think!
What could she have to gain from…
Everything slows to a crawl as it dawns on me and I sink heavily into the chair, dropping my face into my hands.
Of course.
He planted her here.
I laugh hollowly, bristling when my skin suddenly feels too tight over my bones and my world starts to spin and spiral.
Ambrose planted her right in my path. Just like he planted himself among us eight years ago. I didn’t see what he was then and we all paid the price for that mistake. It’s not one I’ll ever make again.
I push the heels of my palms into my eye sockets and mutter a curse under my breath. Fuck, I knew it seemed too good to be true.
From the goddamned start, I thought it. A girl who matched the description Ambrose put out a couple of months ago, alone in the mountains with a single suitcase and nowhere to go. No one who would miss her.
He knew I’d jump at the chance to use her. That we’d walk right into his hands if she sang the right lyrics to lead us there. Like the pied piper and her rats, hypnotized by false promises and an alluring song.
I could see Eli falling for that. Maybe even Seven. But me?
How did I not even consider this as a possibility?
I fucking slept next to her last night? Slept. I was entirely at her mercy for at least six hours. She could’ve done anything to me.
God, and the girl can shoot, too. She ‘saved’ Eli in Paris. Who was the poor sop that Ambrose sacrificed to make sure we would fully put our trust in her? He probably didn’t even know the guy’s last name.
He’s sacrificed more and worse to get what he wants.
Fucking hell. Is he ‘Chris’?
I rack my brain, discovering and discarding and forming new connections with every potential threat.
I should’ve seen all the red flags for exactly what they were. I should’ve listened to my gut.
It makes me sick thinking that she’s still in my bed. That I had my cock in her just hours ago. Probably right where Ambrose wanted her. What did he promise her? Money? Art ?
What was the going rate to seduce every last one of us?
FUCK!
I gag as I shove away the emotions trying to expand in my head like hot air. In my chest like toxic fumes.
My thoughts jar and race. Crash and burn.
Confirm. The word crackles in my mind with the whisper of radio static, and I’m back in uniform with a gun and blood on my hands.
Yes. I need to confirm.
Not wasting another second, I make three calls, barking down the line as I call in three favors I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Information is power and I am about to take back every ounce of it that she stole from me.
By the time I’m through, I’m panting. Pacing. Waging war against the dark thoughts trying to creep in like shadows at the edges of my vision.
Not again. I won’t let it happen again.
I just have to wait. They’ll get back to me soon and then I’ll know what I need to know.
Who ‘Chris’ is.
Where Aurora really came from and whether she has any tangible ties to Ambrose.
If my buddy Angelo from sniper training still has that tech contact, I should also be able to recover every message Aurora ever fucking deleted from this phone.
I just have to wait .
I stop pacing, remembering the time.
Damn.
The guys will be back soon. Within hours.
I can’t…
I can’t fucking watch them go all googly-eyed over her. I can’t give her the opportunity to sink her claws into them any deeper than she already has. I need to protect them. Protect us . That’s my job. The last promise I made to Florence.
And I don’t intend to break it.
I failed them once. I won’t fucking fail them again .
Flexing my jaw, I let the rage move freely in my blood, carrying me like a voyeur through a nightmare as I unlock my safe and take out the M18.
The fury floats me on a red cloud through the eerie silence of the cabin and down the stairs. It enters the bedroom and locks the door behind it, and I let it take control.