Chapter Twenty-Four
I throw around the idea of taking her to the beach manor her family has owned for generations, but I know it’s a bad move. I can’t risk anyone seeing us. A motorcycle ride is a risk, but our faces are covered, and I needed it just as much as she did. However, the disappointment of letting her down has nothing on the impact of her words.
I just want to show you my favorite place.
Me. She wants to show me, and while I don’t feel worthy of such a feeling from her, it’s a fucking honor. And it’s got my emotions out of whack. I’ve tried to kill this woman twice, she was nearly assaulted on my watch, and I violently murdered my partner in front of her.
And she still wants me.
She clings to me as I take off down a side road, knowing it leads to a lookout point unfamiliar to most—and on private property that I own. I’ve never built anything there, but when it came up for sale, I had to have it. Just for the fucking lookout.
Emma clings to me as we bounce down the gravel driveway to the gate. I punch in the code, and it opens. I’m sure she’s wondering where we’re going, and while I can’t risk taking her to her favorite place, I can show her mine. I follow the driveway out of sight from the road, and park at the end of it.
I cut the engine and put the kickstand down before removing my helmet entirely. I wait for her to do the same, but she hesitates. I leave her there, carefully climbing off. I take in the sight of her there on my bike in her tight fucking jeans and white T-shirt. She looks like my version of heaven…
And I suddenly need her.
I reach under her chin from behind her. She startles but relaxes as I unsnap the strap, loosen it, and then remove her helmet. Her breath catches as my free hand glides down her thigh.
“Where are we?” She tips her head back to look up at me.
“Somewhere no one will see us,” I rasp as I lean down over her, resting my forehead on her shoulder and breathing in the scent of her. I set the helmet on the ground beside us. My lips find the flesh of her neck and I kiss her.
And she freezes. “Luca… I don’t…”
“I’ll make him go away,” I murmur into her. “Just give me a chance.”
“For a man who had no manners when we first met, you suddenly have a lot of them.” She says it teasingly, but it doesn’t hide the nerves in her voice.
“Would you rather me be the big bad wolf? You wanna run?” My fingers glide to front of her jeans, unsnapping them.
“No, no running,” she breathes out. “Just make him go away.”
Oh fuck. Her words send the thrill of a challenge through my body, and I unzip the denim. “No one will ever have you like I do,” I growl into her neck as my fingers dive beneath the black lace. I bought every fucking scrap of the clothing she has on, and I feel powerful as I reach her center.
A whimper leaves her lips as I slide between her, coating my fingers with her arousal. I know she wasn’t wet when Manny touched her—if he even made it all the way where I am. But because he tried, this is going to be my final fuck you. I dive a finger inside of her.
“Ooh,” Emma erupts, tipping her back against my shoulder as I fuck her with my fingers. My other hand slips under her shirt and then bra, squeezing her breast.
“That’s it, Little Red,” I groan as her hips move in rhythm with my hand. “Come for me.”
Pleasure contorts her expression, but instead of closing her eyes, she latches onto mine, her chest heaving. I know I’ve already burned him out of her mind at the moment, but I’ll do whatever it fucking takes to keep it this way—to make her forget any fucking man she’s ever been with.
I’ll spend the rest of my life fucking Jared out of her system. I’ll put the life back in her eyes. I’ll deal with her shit moods, her shutdowns, and whatever the fuck else she throws at me. I’d never have chosen someone else like her husband did, even if she hated me. She could spew the vilest words at me, and I’d take it from her. I’ll take it all for her.
And as Emma Marie Nightingale screams my name and pulses around my fingers, I know it’s over for me. There’ll never be another Emma in my fucking life. I’ll die for this woman.
And the revelation damn near brings me to my knees.
I tilt my head and kiss her upside down, my lips tasting the hint of sweat and sweetness on her mouth. She kisses me back with fervor, like she did the first time I kissed her in the darkness of the basement.
But I’ll never put her in the basement again.
“I have something I want to show you,” I say as I pull away. “It won’t take long.”
“Is this your place?” she asks, her voice still sultry with from the moment we just had.
I nod as I help her off the bike. She zips her pants and re-buttons them, and for some reason, the sight is something out of a wet fantasy I never knew I had. My cock strains, against my jeans, but I want her to see my spot first.
“I bought this place when Victor passed away,” I tell her, leading the way to the trailhead. “The thirty-seven acres came up for sale, and I was feeling reckless, I guess,” I laugh at the irony. I’m not sure how real estate compares to murder, but whatever.
“So why buy it?” Her brows furrow as she looks around. “It’s nothing but woods-and hills,” she adds as we start the ascent.
“Yeah, I know, but I used it as a distraction. I didn’t feel like going out and getting hammered or sleeping with a bunch of women who I didn’t care if I lived or died.”
“Detachment at its finest.”
“Okay, judge and juror,” I quip back to her, making her smile. “Anyway, this place was advertised with some kind of lookout, but it wasn’t shown in any pictures. And while I might be a monster, I still have human curiosity.”
“Pretty sure that curiosity is why I’m not dead,” Emma says.
I stop on the trail and turn to face her. “How do you know that?”
She shrugs. “You were curious about me, and I don’t know why—but I could tell. I thought maybe you just tortured your victims…”
“You seemed broken,” I say, digging back to the memories of the first time I laid my eyes on her in the flesh. “I had seen a million pictures of you, but then when I finally really saw you, I was just… curious. You were flawed and flawless at the same time.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment,” Emma mutters, her eyes dropping.
I step toward her and grab her chin, forcing her eyes up. “You’re the only fucking person in this entire universe I have intended to kill and failed. It was the deadpanned stare the night I came after you that hooked me—and the outburst at your ex. It was the way you looked so fucking dead inside, but you came to life when I had you in my grip. And I wanted more. Of you. I wanted all of you.”
Emma bites down on her lip as I release her chin. I don’t give her a chance to say anything, because I don’t want to know her reaction to the way I just bared my soul. It’s foreign and uncomfortable, but also relieving. She knows, and maybe at some point, I’ll tell her that she’s more powerful than me—that she could destroy me faster than I’ve ever killed anyone, and I’m terrified of what will happen at the end of her stay.
But not today.
I’ll hold onto that information for a while longer.
“What’s with the mask you wear?” Emma asks, breaking the silence as we scramble upwards.
“You not like it?”
“I mean, in a creepy kidnapper kind of way, I guess it’s okay.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “It’s more comfortable than a ski mask, honestly, and I don’t like to take chances of someone seeing my face.”
“Hmm,” she hums from behind me as we break out of the tree line. I grab her hand, pulling her toward the rocks—and the view. “Wow,” she says as we make it to the lookout point, a jagged rock overhanging a ledge. “This is gorgeous.”
Rugged hills overlay in the distance, giving the illusion of rolling waves of timber. I don’t know if it’s an uncommon view, or really anything to be drooling over, but it brings minor peace to the chaos of my mind. And probably the only reason I didn’t go off on a spree of public violence.
“What does this place mean to you?” Emma grabs my forearm, and I turn to meet her inquisitive gaze, the freckles splashed across her face in the prettiest way. She so fucking gorgeous she makes my chest ache.
And this place has nothing on her.
“This spot is just a refuge from the shitstorm life I live,” I finally tell her, once again being vulnerable—mostly. I don’t know if I like it, but when she looks at me the way she is, it doesn’t matter what I like. She’ll get what she wants from me. Everything that I think she can handle, anyway. There are some secrets I still have to keep.
Like where I go when I need to lose control.
“Maybe if I’d found a place like this, I’d have bounced back faster,” she says, ripping her eyes from mine and casting her gaze out across the trees. It draws me from my thoughts. “I just locked myself away in the darkness and grief, and never came out.”
“It’s easier to do that.” I wrap an arm around her waist, cradling her from behind. “It’s always easier to drown than tread water.”
“Yeah, but I think my mom would be pissed if she knew that I let myself drown for years. She never wanted that for me.”
I breathe in the scent of her hair as it tickles my chin. “Maybe, but what does Emma Nightingale actually want from life?”
She grows quiet, and I give her time to answer, though I feel as though I’m on the edge of my fucking seat. “I always wanted a life like the one I had growing up—but without notoriety and wealth. I hate the upper crust parties, comparison, and fake friends. I wanted to raise my future kids by the ocean, and in a world where they don’t have to wonder if last year’s dress will still suffice for this year’s party.”
I nod, but I’m hung on one thing that came out of her mouth.
Kids.
However, the buzzing in my pocket breaks my attention, and I pull out my phone, seeing a message from Jude.
He knows.