39. CHAPTER 34
AXL
It’s around six-thirty in the morning. I wasn’t about to wait another second to get my girl. The man at David Carter’s gate wasn’t going to let me in, but I told him I was Saylor’s boyfriend and she wanted me to meet her.
He bought it, and that’s just another reason she isn’t safe with anyone but me. I didn’t even have to pull my gun on the idiot.
I park in the circle drive and walk to the front door. I don’t bother ringing the bell. I pound on it with my fist. Anyone nearby is going to fucking hear it. If someone doesn’t answer soon, I’ll kick it in.
It takes a couple minutes before one of the housekeepers finally opens the door. She looks terrified.
“I’m here for Saylor.”
“Sir, it’s early and—”
“I didn’t ask what time it was. Take me to my girlfriend’s room or get out of my way.”
I’ve never called her my girlfriend before.
It seems cheesy as fuck when the woman’s already mine.
The only label she needs is my name on her body.
I’m going to let her tattoo her name on mine too.
I’m covered in ink already, but she can pick where it goes.
She can cover my entire chest if she wants.
The woman is still staring at me, unsure what to do.
“I just need to see her. Her phone died, and she wanted me to pick her up.” I try to even out my voice so she’s more inclined to do as I ask. “You might recognize me. I was here for dinner before she moved in with me.”
I don’t know how much she knows about our world, but I don’t think explaining how Talons and Doves work is going to help my case. I go to reach for my gun, preparing to do this the hard way, but she motions for me to enter the house.
She leads me upstairs and to the hallway on the right, and we stop at the last door. “This is her room, sir.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying not to snap at her. “I’ve got it from here.”
The maid still doesn’t look certain, but she walks away. I don’t care if she alerts the entire house I’m here. I’ll make this fucking quick and carry Saylor out on my shoulder.
I don’t knock. I turn the handle and push it open.
Saylor’s in the bed. She’s curled on her side with her knees pulled up and her hair matted to her face. The sheets are twisted around her, and she’s naked with her vibrator in her hand. I brush my fingers along her cheek. Her mascara is streaked down her face, and her skin is pale and damp.
What in the actual fuck happened to my girl?
“Saylor.” I grip her shoulders and shake her. “Wake up.”
She doesn’t respond. Her body hangs in my hands, and her eyes stay closed. I shake her harder.
“Saylor. Wake the fuck up.”
Her eyelids flutter and then open halfway. Her pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any color left. She stares at me, but I don’t think she’s seeing me. She’s somewhere else.
I pull the sheet back. Her shirt is pushed up, and she doesn’t have any panties on. The vibrator falls from her hand onto the mattress.
Then I notice the small plastic bag on the nightstand next to her phone. There are two pills left inside. I pick it up to look at them closer.
She took fucking drugs. Goddamn it. I know she and Kynlee do them every now and then, and I never fucking liked it. I don’t want something worse to happen to her.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Saylor?” I toss the bag onto the bed and crouch in front of her face. “How many did you take, baby?”
Her lips part, but the sound that comes out isn’t a word. It’s closer to a whimper. Her hand reaches for me, and her fingers brush my jaw. She squints at my face, and I watch her try to focus.
“Axl?” Her voice is raw and cracked. The sound makes my chest tighten.
“Yeah, it’s me.” I push the hair off her face. “Why did you come to your parent’s house? Why the fuck are you taking drugs?”
Her eyes snap open wider, and then her nostrils flare, and her eyes narrow into slits.
“Get the fuck away from me.” She shoves my chest hard enough that I have to catch myself on the nightstand. I didn’t expect that reaction. “Get out of my room, Axl.”
What the fuck?
“Saylor—”
“I said get the fuck out!” She grabs the pillow behind her and throws it at my face. I knock it away, and it falls to the floor. She’s already reaching for whatever else she can find. The vibrator goes next. It bounces off my shoulder.
“Would you fucking stop—”
“You fucked her, you asshole! In our bed!” She’s screaming now. Her voice cracks, and she’s pulling the sheet around her body and backing herself against the headboard. “I saw you. Don’t you dare stand there and pull your king bullshit on me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I step toward her, and she rips out the plug to the lamp and throws it at me.
The base clips my arm when I knock it away, and the bulb shatters on the floor behind me.
“The last time I was in our room was this morning to shower and before that was when I kissed you goodbye. You haven’t responded to a single one of my messages. ”
“Liar.” Her chest is heaving, and she’s shaking. “You told me there was no arrangement, and I believed you. And then I walked in and saw you—”
“Sayl?” Her fucking brother calls out from behind me. “Are you okay?”
I turn to face him. “Go the fuck away, Justin.”
“You’re the one that needs to leave. She doesn’t want to see you after what you fucking did to her. Now get the fuck out.”
I cross the room in two strides and shove him back through the doorway. Then I slam the door shut, turn the lock, and put my back against it. “If you come through this door, Justin, you’re not walking back out alive.”
He kicks the door, but he knows I’m not kidding.
I focus on Saylor and her wild eyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hard for her.
But I always am. And her naked, angry body makes me want to tie her up and sink my teeth into her soft skin.
“I didn’t fuck Tracy. I wasn’t there. You can ask the guys.
You can go ask each one of the Sinclairs if you want. I was with them all day and night.”
“Then who the fuck was wearing your mask and fucking her in our bed, Axl?” She pulls the sheet tighter around herself. “Because I didn’t imagine it. Justin was with me. He saw it too.”
“Why was Justin with you in our suite?”
“Because he walked me back after we went on our walk. And when I opened the door, there you were with your mask on, fucking her.” Her voice breaks on the last word, but she doesn’t cry.
She’s too angry to cry. “So Justin brought me home. Because at least my brother gives enough of a shit about me to get me out of there.”
I stare at her. My brain is running through every piece of what she just said. Someone was in our suite wearing my mask. Someone fucked Tracy in our bed while Saylor watched. Justin was there to play the hero and drive her to the Carter house.
None of this sits right with me. I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I already have some ideas of what happened. But first, I have to get her out of her father’s house and back where I can keep her safe.
“I’m going to figure out who was in our room,” I tell her. “But I need you to hear me. I wasn’t there. I never fucked Tracy. I’m never going to fuck Tracy. And you’re coming back home with me right fucking now.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and then winces from how tender she still is from the piercings. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I laugh. “You seem to have completely forgotten who the fuck I am, baby. I don’t lie to you. I’m not lying to you about where I was. I’m not lying to you about who I have and haven’t fucked. And I’m not lying when I say that you’re leaving this house with me no matter what I have to do.”
I hold my hands up and step closer to her.
I kneel in front of the bed so I’m at eye level with her.
“You’re dehydrated. You’re crashing off whatever the fuck you took.
I don’t give a shit if you’re mad at me.
You can be mad at me all the way back to our suite, where you live, with me.
But you’re done taking that shit, and you’re not staying here. ”
Tears form in the corners of her eyes, and her bottom lip trembles. “I don’t know how to unsee that. And I had the most awful nightmare that felt more like I was remembering something. I don’t know what to think or what’s real.”
I cup her cheek in my hand, catching the tears that fall, and she doesn’t move away. “I’m what’s real, little heathen. I would never fuck anyone but you. My father could put a gun to my head and I wouldn’t fuck Tracy.”
She stares up at me. “But you’re supposed to marry her.”
“I’m not marrying Tracy. Don’t make me tell you that again, little heathen. What my father wants and what my father is going to get aren’t the same thing. And I’m going to take care of it.”
She wipes her face with the back of her hand and looks away from me. “I need clothes,” she says quietly.
One of my hoodies is on the floor. I grab that and then rummage through her drawers to find her a tank top, a pair of shorts, and a thong. “Come here, baby.”
She moves to the edge of the bed, and I kneel to slide her panties up her legs and then her shorts. She lifts her arms, and I pull off the shirt she was wearing and then slide the tank onto her body, followed by the hoodie.
I help her to her feet and start looking for her shoes. Her room is destroyed from all the things she tossed at me.
“I called for you.” She says it so quietly I almost miss it.
I turn around. She’s standing next to the bed in my hoodie, barefoot on the carpet with mascara streaks dried on her cheeks. She’s still so fucking gorgeous. “What do you mean, Saylor?”
“Last night. I was high and had one of my nightmares. This one felt different. And I still wanted you even though I thought you had fucked someone else. I feel like something has to be wrong with me.”
I grab her phone off the nightstand and the baggie. The pills go in my pocket. She’s never touching this shit again. I don’t care if that makes me even more of controlling asshole than I already am.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “I’m going to figure this shit out today.”
She nods, but her mind seems elsewhere. I’m going to make her give me every detail about these nightmares of hers. Because something is haunting my girl, and I don’t believe in coincidences.
“Was your father here last night?”
“I think so. But I didn’t see him. Why?”
“Just curious.” He’s not the man she thinks he is, and I’m going to have to find the right time to tell her that. I don’t want her alone with him. “Let’s get out of here.”
She slides her feet into the pair of flip-flops I found, and then I take her hand. I unlock the bedroom door and pull it open. The hallway is empty. I expected Justin to be waiting outside. I plan to have a conversation with him later too, once I get a look at the footage from my cameras.
Because someone tried to take Saylor from me. Someone tried to break her. They’re going to pay for every bit of pain they caused her, and then they’re fucking dead.