14. Miles #2
"Fine," she says, “Miles, I don’t know what's happening, but I’m a Crawford, I’ll fight, I'll scream, and I’ll kill if I have to.”
I stare at her for a moment. I know my sister can fight; we taught her to. But this isn’t about fighting, this is about making sure she doesn’t have to see the ugly side of life and hate herself.
“And I pray I stop anything coming before they do.” She gives me a small smile and walks away to go to her friends.
I watch her go and track the signal on my phone, which is already live, and already logging her position in real time to the encrypted partition running on my system at home.
The burner phone in my inside pocket connects to the same channel, untraceable, and not linked to anything with my name on it.
If anything flags on the network while I'm here tonight, I'll know before anyone else does.
I put the phone away and go find Mason. I find him straight away, he’s by the drinks, of course. He’s already made three new friends in the time it took me to handle Lileah, which is approximately his average. He hands me a beer.
"You look like you've just had a serious conversation," he says.
"I'm fine." I look around for Lileah and Sadie.
"Right. Harte did well. I’m working out how many girls I can get on their knees tonight.” Idiot, he’s always thinking about his dick.
I scan the garden again. Lileah is with her friends, Declan is there with them, so if anything is out of place at least I know he’s there, and then I find my girl.
She’s wearing the red bikini under a swimsuit cover-up; her hair is down and damp at the ends where she's already been in the water. She's with Juno and Maya, and the three of them are at the far edge of the pool.
Then she looks up.
Not at me, but at the party in general. It’s a slow scan of the space, she’s clearly looking for someone without wanting to look like she’s looking. Her eyes move across the crowd, across the patio, across the group where I'm standing with Mason.
Her eyes move past me, and then they move back again.
It’s only for a fraction of a second, then she looks back to Juno, back to the story she was telling, and she's laughing again like the scan never happened.
She's looking for Ghost.
The realization lands with a warmth I don't examine too closely. She's standing at a party surrounded by people having a genuinely good time and she's scanning the room for someone whose face she doesn't know, yet she sees me every day.
I take a sip of my beer and stay exactly where I am.
Mason pulls me into a conversation with two people from business school, something about a bet, and about a pool table.
I contribute enough to pass as present while the other part of my attention stays fixed on the far edge of the pool.
Sadie has moved closer to the water now.
Juno says something and she laughs again, that full laugh where her head tips back slightly.
I watch her for thirty minutes without moving toward her, then Mason pulls me onto the makeshift dance floor at some point, a cleared section of patio.
There's a girl. She has dark hair, an easy smile, and has been nearby for the last twenty minutes in the way that means she's been deciding something. She closes the remaining distance on the dance floor and I let her, because this is useful. It’s cover, context, and a reason to be in the middle of the party rather than standing at its edge looking like exactly what I am.
She dances well. I'm present enough, engaged enough, the performance convincing enough that Mason doesn't look twice. Across the pool Sadie's eyes find the dance floor.
Then they find me.
For a moment she just looks. She’s taking it all in, taking me in, the dark-haired girl, and the closeness of the dance floor. Something moves across her face which she rearranges quickly, which is very interesting. Then she looks away.
Juno says something in her ear. Sadie shakes her head. I can't hear what she says, but I can read the shape of it from here.
The girl in front of me says something which I don't catch. I bring my attention back to where it's supposed to be, the party.
"Sorry," I say. "What?"
She repeats it. I answer. She laughs.
Across the pool Sadie's eyes come back to me on the dance floor. This time she doesn't look away as fast. She holds it for a second longer.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I already know who it is before I look, because I see Sadie with her phone.
But I don’t look at my phone, because then she’ll know it’s me.
I wait. I wait until she’s not looking at me.
Five minutes, it’s taken her five minutes to look away from me and walk away so she can’t see me.
Sadie
I've been looking for you.
I reply quickly.
Miles.
I know. I've been watching you look.
Putting my phone away quickly, I look over to her and her friends. She looks at her phone and smiles.
Cain was right. It’s always best to be patient.
The party has been going on for a while, and the music is louder and more chaotic now.
I slip away from the main area, duck into one of the pool house bathrooms, and change fast. A black shirt, black mask that covers my face, and a voice modulator tucked against my throat. When I step back out, I quickly move to the dark parts of the garden so no one can see me.
I wait for her to move. She will move. I know she will. I spot her walking along the quieter side of the garden, away from the main lights, the red bikini glowing under the string of lights. She looks perfect.
I move quickly to that side of the house, and in one fast movement, my hand clamps over her mouth as I pull her off the path and slam her back against the ivy-covered wall. Her body jolts in shock. Her wide eyes stare up at me through the shadows. I press my body into hers, pinning her there.
“Looking for someone?” I ask, my voice low and distorted exactly like it was on the phone.
She nods against my palm, breathing fast and shallow through her nose.
I keep my hand firmly over her mouth and lean in closer, my other hand sliding down her waist, feeling the warm, damp skin of her hip.
“You look so fucking beautiful tonight, baby,” I murmur against her ear. “This tiny red bikini… every man here wants to fuck you. But this body is mine.”
She trembles. I press my thigh between her legs, and she instinctively rocks against it.
“If I touch you right now,” I whisper, voice rough, “will you be wet for me?”
She nods immediately, almost desperately, grinding her hips forward again. The movement makes me smile beneath the mask.
“Are you giving me permission to touch you, baby?”
Her eyes search what she can see of my face, which isn’t a lot, even my eyes are covered in a thin material there. Then, slowly, she nods.
I lean in until my lips brush the shell of her ear.
“Good girl. I’m going to make you come on my fingers while the party keeps going. And you’re going to stay quiet for me aren’t you, baby?”
My hand slips under the waistband of her bikini bottoms. She’s soaked, dripping down my fingers the second I touch her. I groan low in my throat as I circle her clit, then slide two fingers deep inside her tight pussy. She gasps against my palm, her body arching into me.
“That’s it,” I breathe. “So fucking wet for me. You love this, don’t you? Love knowing I could do anything to you right now.”
I curl my fingers, stroking that spot inside her while my thumb works her clit in tight, relentless circles.
Her hips jerk against my hand. Her moans are muffled by my palm, hot and desperate against my skin.
I fuck her harder with my fingers, pressing my body flush against hers so she can feel how hard I am.
“Come for me, baby,” I growl into her ear. “Right here. Right now. Give it to me.”
Her whole body tenses. Then she shatters, her thighs clamping around my hand, her pussy pulsing hard around my fingers as she comes with a broken, muffled cry. I keep stroking her through it, drawing it out until her legs shake and she’s whimpering against my hand.
When she finally starts to come down, I slowly pull my fingers out and lift my mask just enough to bring them to my mouth. I suck them clean, my eyes locked on hers, savoring the taste of her.
“Even better than I imagined, baby,” I murmur.
Before she can speak, distant voices cut through the garden.
“Sadie! Where are you?”
Her head jerks toward the sound. In that split second, I step back into the shadows and disappear between the hedges, my heart hammering, and my cock painfully hard against my zipper.
I need to cool down. Fast.
I head straight back to the pool house and change quickly. Then, running out, I jump into the pool, joining my brothers, and letting the cold shock hit my body. It doesn’t help much. Not when I can still taste her. Not when I know how perfectly she came for me.
I could have gone home to shower, but if I’m not here, she’ll soon know it’s me, and I’m not ready for her to know yet.
She comes out from behind the house smiling, and I just watch her for a moment. She’s fucking beautiful.
She’s never going to forget tonight, and I’m only getting started.
My watch starts vibrating on my wrist, fuck. I look at it quickly. I tell Mason I have to go, and get out of the pool, grab my things and look at my phone to see what my system has picked up.
Another video. I shake my head and leave, not waiting to open it out here, because I need to find something to stop them.