CHAPTER SIX
Jess
E verything aches. Like every-fucking-thing. From my right foot’s little toe that I swear to the Valkyries themselves was stomped on by an overweight elephant to my damn eyelashes.
How do eyelashes hurt?
I’ve had hangovers, but nothing quite like this.
I breathe in and go still.
The air doesn’t smell like my crap studio that smells like freaking stale oil and yesterday’s fries, courtesy of the fast foot joint that lives below me in Queenstown’s BoHo strip. The smell that’s cheap food and cheaper liquor and mid-priced hookers.
The drugs are overpriced in BoHo, but that’s the same everywhere. It just depends where the deal’s happening that dictates exactly how much the inflation’s going to be.
I know. I used to sell back when I ran with the Devil’s Demons. Not so much the Sirens, but—I stop, breathe in, trying to get my head together.
The room.
It isn’t mine.
The scent’s clean, like sun-drenched grapefruit and the zesty herbaceous lift of verbena with a hint of floral and soft spice.
And roses.
I go still.
I’m not alone.
“You can open your eyes, I know you’re awake,” says the kind of voice that’s sweet over steel, innocence enhanced by violence. “The drugs wore off about an hour ago. We had to keep you in an induced…sleep because you kept ripping your stitches.”
I open my eyes and turn slowly. She’s gorgeous.
The big dark eyes, perfect skin, red lips and long dark hair in waves.
Rosalind, that’s her name.
Nikolai Wilder’s wife.
The biggest bad around.
He owns Queenstown.
Things snap to attention inside me. The bar, the fight, me shoving my nose where it doesn’t belong and where—the hot slice of pain.
That fuck Chris must’ve nicked an artery, or something. I drag in a breath. “I don’t remember much.” Like getting here.
“I’m Rose,” she says.
“Jess—” I stop. Of course she knows that. “What happened?”
“Apparently it was a bar fight,” she says.
I wince as my side seems to catch and pull. “Bad?”
“You’ll live. Gave Rush a scare.”
Rush.
The name moves through me, cool water over blistering skin. Soothing, somehow, when it shouldn’t be anything at all.
He’s just a guy. A flirt on legs with a dick. Rich. Someone who needed a fucking girl to save him.
My thoughts twist.
No, he isn’t that. He might be prime fuck boy material and unable to keep his dick where it belongs, in his pants—I know fuck boys when I see them—but he’s not weak. I saw that. He fought. And—events rush me, spinning me off my feet. Which is quite the fucking feat considering I’m flat on my back.
“Yeah, he can take care of himself.” I try to sit up. I know I can do it, but it’s going to hurt.
I’m no stranger to pain.
A soft hand touches my shoulder. “You need to rest. Here.”
And like fucking Nightingale herself, Rose who smells like a rose hands me two tablets and water with a metal straw in a gorgeous hand-painted glass.
Oh Jesus. I don’t know what to do with chicks like her. She’s everything I’m not. Probably the root cause of Rush’s need to conquer beauties everywhere. Like that rich girl who was so wrong for him. I wince, shifting my thoughts from things such as blond Rush fucking females all over place.
Why my head’s on sex is beyond me. I don’t know what drives him to flirt like it’s air, and, hazarding an educated guess, fuck any female like it’s his job. The fact he doesn’t have this ex-beauty queen?
Or maybe he’s just fucking good at sex.
Shit. I don’t care.
Sure he’s gorgeous.
Sure I’m not even in his league, a place I don’t even want to be, but… I take the pills and swallow. I know regular over the counter painkillers when I see them.
“When can I go?”
“Not until my husband gets some things straight. You’re on Wilder turf.”
Wilder turf? Try the heavily-guarded mansion and grounds. The compound. The one no one gets in or out of without the crime lord knowing.
So if this Nikolai wants to talk to me—it has to be talk and not code for murder since I saved his nephew—what does that make me? A fucking prisoner?
“I was working and then…Rush got jumped so I helped and got stabbed.”
Rose nods a small smile on her face as I swear to all that’s unholy a cat meows. But I don’t see one and she fusses over me and it’s enough to make me scream.
She’s what? A year or so older than me? I don’t know her age, but she’s maybe late twenties. She looks younger, like that softness innocence gives her shaves years off her age, but I know Rose has been married to Nikolai Wilder about seven or so years. Marriages of one of the most eligible bachelors, a dangerous, powerful one, is news.
“Nikolai wants to speak to you.” I go to throw the covers off, but a flash of fire hits her eyes. “Not now. When you feel better, obviously.”
“And how am I going to find him? Is he like the prison guard?”
Her mouth twists like she’s fighting a smile, but Rose stands. “You’re not a prisoner.” She pauses. “Yet.”
I jerk a little. “Yet?”
“Nikolai’s words.” And she goes a little dreamy. “There was some swearing, but I edited that out.”
“So, you do what he says?”
Rose leans in. “Not always, but it’s not a smart move to fuck with my husband because he’ll fuck you over right back and he doesn’t play. He’s bigger, meaner and more dangerous than you can even begin to imagine.”
I look at her. “It sounds like I’m a prisoner.”
“It sounds like it is what it is. You’re in his inner sanctum. He brought in the very best to take care of you, and, when you’re feeling better, he wants to talk. That’s it.”
I nod, drink the water down and put the glass on the bedside table. “So I should do this now.”
“When you’re up to it.”
“How will I find him?”
Rose smiles but those eyes are watchful, intelligent and she’s most definitely more than she seems.
“There’s someone outside your room, always; they’ll take you down when you’re ready. Rest in the meantime. There’s the ensuite through that door if you need the bathroom or want a shower—” she points to the right “—and someone will be up with some clothes, but there’s a robe and more PJs. Take your time. I’ll check on you later with some food.”
And then she leaves, a soft sway to her hips in her tailored suit that, even though it’s not something I’d ever fucking wear, I know it’s to die for.
Poor fucking choice of words.
There’s finding information on the Wilder family for interested parties, there’s even finding a way into their world and then there’s being in the belly of the damn beast. I was asked to do the first, they’ll take the second, and the third? Pure fucking danger. Still, saving Rush, getting stabbed, it’s gotta account for something.
But I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I feel the stitches, and they’re professional, I can tell that from the small, neat bites that hold the wound together. Beyond that…I don’t get stabbed nearly often enough—at all—to know what kind sutures they are or how long they’re to be in.
Slowly I sit up, and wince. I swing out of bed, feet touching the cool smoothness of wood. My stomach lurches but I stand.
No way am I not going to get this over and done with. I need to call Brutus, aka Jack, my brother.
That’s if I can get home to my burner.
That’s if they let him speak.
Goddamn Jack.
Goddamn everything.
The low-grade live wire of fury I keep under wraps about that situation’s enough to energize me into moving.
The first few steps are the worst, but the pulling starts to lessen or I get used to it by the time I reach the bathroom.
I stop dead.
Oh. Fuck.
“I got hit by a Mack truck and lived to tell the tale. News at nine.”
Man, ignoring the serious bedhead going on with my hair, the saturated red shade does nothing to improve the pallor of my skin. It does nothing to diminish the bruises, dark and yellowing at the edges on my cheek, right below my right eye.
I strip down to panties and a sports bra. The curse of big tits on a small frame and ugly comfortable undergarments for them is the least of my issues today.
The line of stitches is neat and done in almost a zigzag, left of my lower abs. It seems to be healing nicely. And the bouquet of bruises everywhere? I look like a victim of domestic abuse.
“Fuck this shit.”
I find an unopened toothbrush and pull it free and quickly brush my teeth and then I strip down, turn on the shower and wash.
And it feels good. So damn good to slough off the invisible dirt clinging, to wash my hair, to let the heat beat down on me.
The products are top of the line, not flashy, and not over-scented. Just…clean smelling, like fresh sheets on a line in the sun. The merest hint of citrus.
Unlike my ivory soap and whatever cheap ass shampoo’s on sale when I need it, there aren’t any strong or fake scents like the shampoo often has. The reason I switched from body wash to soap.
When I get out, I reach for the towel and go still.
Underwear sits on the vanity.
Fury flashes through my veins. Hot, nothing low-grade about it.
Someone came in here?
Fuck me.
I dry off quickly then yank on the panties and pull on the robe, because I think the time to head down and get the hell out of dodge is now. Opening the door, there are clothes on the bed and the fury spikes higher.
There’s a thickness to the air, something that tells me I’m not alone, right as he speaks.
“Brought you some new gear.”
Everything in me sparks high, out of control. The soothe of his name is at odds with the way his voice moves over me, making my stomach churn, my pussy clench and my skin shiver like he’s running fingers along my spine.
“Rush.”
He’s leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, like a total perv. I ignore what that thought does to me—it’s not something the thought of a perv waiting to pounce should do to a girl—and I rake my gaze over him.
“Jess the little stabby rabbit.” His thumbs are hooked on the belt loops of his dark blue jeans, the thick boots sexier than they should be, but hey, I’m a fucking sucker for thick, skull breaking and motorcycle riding boots.
Not that he’d know what to do with them.
His sweater is almost a midnight blue, and his blond hair gleams.
Nope. I don’t like him. No matter what the lady parts might think. I learned long ago they have zero sense.
“Not,” I say, “my name.”
“Jess the stabbed rabbit?” We stare at each other and oh, fuck is he gorgeous, even as a flirty smile that has about a hundred red flags attached to it plays with his mouth. Because that smile is practiced. His stance is, too. He knows how he affects women and probably, like Bluebeard, has a collection of them, but instead of dead wives, discarded women who’s come hard on his cock.
Then I frown up at him. “And I’m not a rabbit, fuck boy.”
“Hmm…” He moves, sliding a hand along my cheek and down to my throat and somehow, he has me against the wall.
I want to kick him. “What are you doing?”
Rush leans in, blue eyes dancing and he slides a hand into the robe, just under my unbound breasts.
“Trying to work out if fuck boy’s a compliment or insult.”
“Insult.”
“You say that, but it sounds like a compliment.” His fingers trace the stitches, then he moves, along the tattoo of lacy and vicious butterflies, bees, dragonflies and fireflies that dance over my lower abdomen.
And I could have him touching me all night, all day, long. They’re fingers of magic, sending a sparkling, bubbly heat through my skin where they stroke like the softest wing.
Fuck that.
I slap his hand away and I take him by the front of his soft cashmere sweater and slam him into the wall.
He lets me.
I’m strong, but so is he. The slight widening of his eyes tells me women don’t get handsy with him. Shit. He’s probably so vanilla he doesn’t know what a sub is. I like taking control. And right then, the surge of electric eroticism flares.
I wonder if he’d let me tie him up…
Stop. Now.
But he’s not looking at my face, he’s looking at my body, my tattooed tits with the hard nipples, the cotton panties that are dampening—not that he can see that.
“Compliment me away, Jessie. I’ll compliment you right back.”
“I don’t need any.”
“You’re fucking gorgeous. Look at you. The bruises I could do without.” He traces the big one, then moves up to the one on my breast. “But this sight, yeah, it’s nice.” Again, amusement glitters. “We’re not in the bar, so maybe you want to play.”
“I don’t play.” I slide my hand down over him and grab his dick.
It’s big.
Thick.
My knees wobble. “I take.”
“So,” he says, “do I. But playtime is fun. I’ll show you.”
I don’t expect it. That’s the only explanation. One minute I’m holding his cock and the next my back’s hard against the wall. His thigh slides between mine, and up so he’s against the heat and wetness there.
He leans down. “See? Play time.”
“I’m not here to play, your cousin wants to see me.”
“Nikolai’s off limits.”
“Jealous?”
He laughs and though his lips are near mine he doesn’t kiss, doesn’t touch, doesn’t taste. “It’s Rose you need to watch out for. Not me.”
There’s something in that, more than what it just says out in the open. But before I can play his game and ask, he flips me again. Firm, not rough and it makes me rethink the vanilla.
My front’s pressed against the wall and he’s there, pushed up against me.
That thought just dissipates as his mouth comes down on my nape and short circuit’s my brain.
And without warning, I spasm in an orgasm, right as he sinks his teeth in.