CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jess
“S nooping?” Rush picks up a book and flips through it.
The book’s some heavy thing, on the shelf near the door, but his gaze, it’s on me.
He waits, snaps it shut, and slides it away. “Jessie?”
For a moment I can’t speak. Or think.
It doesn’t help he’s even hotter with his hair still shower damp. It doesn’t help he’s fucked me and I want more.
And it certainly doesn’t help my equilibrium’s a total mess because of how he did what he did.
My hand starts to shake and those fucking tears prick and burn against my eyes again.
It’s enough to hate him, it really is.
Hate him for how he licked and kissed me so intimately. He did that to my asshole, too.
I’ve had boring sex. Good sex. Bad sex.
I’ve dominated the hell out of a guy and made him go to absolute town on me and not given him anything in return except that thrill of having a girl top him. Hell, I enjoyed the fuck out of Rush tying me up.
But when he touched me, licked and kissed me, cleaned me with his tongue, I… It shattered something inside and I felt open, so exposed. I was his in every way. Just for that moment.
I’m not sure what to do about it.
Maybe more than me not knowing how to react to his questions right now.
There are a million and one excuses, there always are and I should have had one at the ready. But he…
He throws me sideways.
I look at the crap in my hands. Notes about books, one of them’s a shopping list that looks like girly writing—Rose?
I try to breathe.
“Curious,” I say, finally settling on something general.
“You’re curious so you think it’s okay to just go through people’s things?” he asks. “About Nikolai? Rose? The mansion?”
“Curious about you.”
The moment I say that, I realize I mean it.
But the look he gives me is one of tired disbelief. Then, it melts into nothing, the shallow charm of Rush the fuck boy, the charm with seemingly nothing behind it because that’s what most of the girls he meets expect.
And I’m hit with a strange feeling that zig zags in my stomach.
Fuck boy’s a prop, a shield like my make-up and rings and attitude.
I want to ask, and the words are there, but I’ve got a mission with my brother’s life on the line. Information, that’s what they want, or they’ll burn me down too.
Shit, I’m probably wrong about Rush, only I can’t shake the rightness of my sudden thoughts.
“In this library where I hardly come?”
“Yes,” I say, glad to grasp the lifeboat of snark. “Because I’m such a fan of yours I know every single place you go. Should have known you can’t read.”
“You’d be surprised by how good my reading skills are.”
The zigging and zagging inside stops and plummets like a frozen anvil. He’s not talking about books.
He means me.
I lift my chin, putting the papers back, and go to rise, but he shakes his head and gives me a small shove with his foot, so I fall on my ass.
“Didn’t say you could get up.” He watches me, the smooth fuck boy charm mask firmly in place, but his eyes…they glitter and spark with something much more compelling. “And I think you are a fan. You hate it, but you’re a fan.”
He crouches down, running fingers along the curve of my cheek.
“And you don’t know what to do, am I right, Jessie?”
I go to say something but no words come, and he traces the shape of my mouth. His touch is electric and heat pools deep between my thighs.
“Yeah,” he says softly, “I am. I’m so fucking right. You hate it even as you want it. You like spending time with me, clothes on, definitely clothes off. You fucking loved the pounding I gave you and the dirty talk, didn’t you?
“Maybe you hit on the things I like.”
“Being gangbanged? Fisted? Sure, maybe. But if you do like it, and I’m not one to judge, that shit meant nothing. When I touched you, it meant something, didn’t it? For a bit I thought, fuck…I thought maybe I went too far. And in a way I did, because you can’t stand someone being nice, someone being gentle, someone getting so intimate with you they ate you out after we both came. And you know why I did that?”
“To try and prove you’re above me?”
Rush sighs, and takes my cheeks, urging me forward, my mouth close to his, and there’s something so compelling about this naked Rush I go. His breath’s warm and my mouth waters for his kiss, his tongue.
“Nah, I’m taller than you, I’m already above you.”
A small sound escapes me. “Ass.”
“I did it because I like you, Jess. Right from when you decided to punch me in the face with your brand of flirt. I did it because I wanted to. I want to do all the things with you.”
He closes the gap and the bastard kisses me. I melt. I can’t help it. I melt into him and annoyance surges with the softness he creates in me. I shove him and climb on him as he hits the floor.
Rush grabs my hair, pulls my head back and licks my neck.
“So,” he says as he sucks on my lobe, “wanna go to town and feast?”
“I thought you said feast?”
Dante’s sitting next to me on the kitchen island and we both look at the bowl of bright yellow sauce-covered pasta. He meows and it sounds so disdainful that I’m inclined to agree.
Rush has no qualms about digging into his bowl and there are at least eight bowls, two pots and a pile of utensils littering the bench he leans against.
I’m not sure how he managed to use all of that for box mac and cheese, but I guess it’s a skill.
I want to be mad, I do. For everything he said, for how he saw through me, but I’m taking this time to breathe, to uncoil the tension in me from the ideas that burst into my fucking stupid head when he said feast.
Not sex.
Box mac and cheese.
Dante looks at Rush and lets out a loud meow.
“This is a feast.” There’s a tiny smile, a flash that’s gone in an instant. “Contraband and delicious.”
“Are you five?”
He sets his bowl down and opens the fridge, pulling out a few glass containers and putting them all back apart from the one with a chicken breast. “My contraband food taste buds are probably six. Nikolai’s a monster, make no mistake. He forbids shit like this. Everything is made from scratch.”
“Oh, poor you.”
“I know.” He tears up a good portion of the chicken, and Dante leaps off the counter onto the floor, somehow managing to purr and exude worry at the same time. “Here you go, spawn of feline Satan.”
He puts the chicken in the ceramic bowl marked Dante and scratches his ears. Dante doesn’t react, his face is buried in his bowl.
“Was that his?”
“Nikolai can make more of his boring chicken. I mean, have you seen the juices and fresh veg in here?” He shakes his head and shudders.
“Oh yeah, so wrong.” I poke a pasta elbow. “What is he thinking?”
“He’s a man of so-called refined tastes.”
I look at him. “Like Rose?”
“Trust, we’ve shared more than one packet of contraband shit.” Then he smiles and puts his empty bowl down on the floor for the cat, who sniffs it and then licks a little of the cheese sauce still in there. “Like your damned master.”
Dante meows.
“What does your cousin say to that?” Because I somehow can’t see them getting away with that and Nikolai not knowing.
My phone sits heavily in my back pocket. I don’t think much gets past Nikolai Wilder. Which means I have to be careful. Very careful.
“Not a word. But…” He comes over and slides his palms over my thighs, the warmth of his touch spreading deep beneath my skin. “At first it was Mia with the mac and cheese. I was…fuck, I don’t know. Seven? Anyway, I was upset over something, so I got a box of magic.”
“Of course. Spoiled.”
He smiles, dipping his head as his palms slip over the denim. It feels so fucking good in ways no touch should feel.
“Maybe, and it’s always been quality. So I think Mia didn’t just find it, but got it, at least. I think it was her because he’s been about me growing up right, you know? But then, after the first time we had box mac and cheese and some other junk, all of a sudden the contraband upped its game. Organic. The best of the best. This shit?” He nods at the blue box. “I got that.”
He can’t see it.
But I can.
Mia’s got a mind of her own, at least, from what little I’ve seen, but like every single other person here—every person who isn’t Rose or Rush—she obeys her king.
Nikolai is king.
A respected one.
And one who made sure the golden prince got his contraband. Quality, but the things he liked.
Maybe it takes an outsider, one with no stakes in his game—because I don’t, no matter how good he feels or how fascinating he is, no matter how I might be trapped by circumstance. His game is nothing to me.
Delivering to the Ten64 is.
But…as an outsider, I see things. About him, about all of them. I get structure. Life growing up in institutional walls means I’ve learned to observe, pick up on small things.
I can see him as a kid, a brat, maybe…no. No, I mean, of course he was a brat. But I mean, I recognize him.
He didn’t have parents. His cousin, a bona fide killer and mafia king, raised him.
Not having your parents can fuck a kid up. Not me and Jack…Brutus got the short end of it all, but I’m fine. I know that, but…
I don’t care.
He grew up in luxury, with a whole mansion dedicated to his whims. And he’s my enemy.
Not an enemy in the regular sense. We’re not hating each other. We spark, and he’s a whole lot of fun, with an unexpected dominating edge that likes to appear to keep things in the world of interest.
But we are enemies.
His family, the Smiths—whoever they are, and I need to find out—have power, and that power stands between me and my brother’s safety.
We’re enemies.
Because to save Jack, I’ll have to betray him.
Unless I see a way out, and I don’t.
Not one that’s a Disney fairytale for everyone.
Someone has to be the big bad wolf, the giant, the evil whoever.
I need to win.
So he’s my enemy.
Yeah. One I fucked.
And one I want to fuck again.
Rush takes my bowl and sets it down, then he pulls me forward deftly, parting my thighs and bringing me flush against him, where he stirs.
It makes me throb.
Little sparks ripple through me.
“Jessie…” His voice is soft, eyes unreadable and hot. That sexy mouth curving at the edges. “You’re like a good girl trying desperately to be bad, aren’t you?”
“I am bad.”
“You’re really not. I know bad, and you’re not it.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth, his tongue flicking there, and I have to fight to stop the moan escaping.
Rush grips the hair just above my undercut and tugs, bringing my chin up, exposing my throat, which he feathers the softest kisses that come with an exquisitely light scrape of teeth. It shoots straight to my clit and makes my pussy wet. Wetter .
He takes my mouth in a long, slow kiss and it delves deep, right down into sex and breathless moments, a kiss that makes things flutter and beat inside. It makes me surge into him as I kiss him back.
Rush lifts his head, our breath mingling, the hand in my hair tightening like the one on my hip. I try to catch his mouth again, but all he does is skim a kiss and his tongue over my lips before he looks at me, our foreheads almost touching.
“Still interested in snooping?”
He kisses me again, a deeper kiss, harder, just the right amount of carnal pleasure to make me whimper.
Fuck boy doesn’t even begin to describe what he is.
A master.
A connoisseur.
Glorious.
I could come, and come hard, just from his mouth on mine.
“Rush?”
Everything slams down hard.
The cool, dark tones of Nikolai, ones that have no room for affection, or seem to, wash over us. Slam against me.
I’d think he was completely invulnerable if I hadn’t heard him and Rose in their sex games before they moved.
Because even coated in nasty sex and defilement, that special brand of domination I admire, I heard that other cadence, the warm one, the secret one. Just for her.
I grip the bench to stop the shaking.
That’s how Rush kisses. Not the domination, though he does like to dominate the way I do, but the warm, secret layers. He kisses with those.
Fuck, it’s a wonder girls aren’t camped outside.
And I’ll stab any one of them if they ever come near him. He’s—
I stop.
What?
Mine?
Hardly.
“I’m busy, dude.” He turns to his cousin who’s behind me. Then he gives a sheepish look. “Nikolai.”
“So I see. My office, now.”
Rush squeezes my thigh. “We’re not done. Wait here.”
When he goes, I push off the counter and pick up his bowl from the floor when the scent of morning roses surrounds me.
Red shoes appear and I look up. Rose is stunning in her fitted dress of red flowing silk, her dark hair in long waves down her back, secured by a black, glittery comb.
And around her slender throat…
Oh boy.
I know a collar of ownership when I see one, but I’ve never seen one so gorgeous, slender, and deceptively simple. I’m betting it matches her comb.
What would Rush look like with one around his throat? Not all girly, but in black leather and silver? No, he’d never let me collar him like that.
Maybe something on his wrist, like a more Rush version of a punk wrist collar—
Or something on me? I’d want leather, silk, silver. Something thick, tight around my throat and—
What the actual fuck am I thinking?
My hand starts to shake.
And I don’t think Rose misses that. “You look like you’re healing up.”
“I am.”
I begin to rinse the dishes and stack the dishwasher. I’m going to have to clean because Rush seems to have a special talent for mess when it comes to cooking. Not that I’d call box mac and cheese cooking.
Rose puts the lid on the organic local milk and puts it away.
“Lucky we’re going out. I think Nikolai had plans for that chicken breast.”
Dante meows.
“Not for you, little Nicky.”
I almost laugh. Is she calling him that because of the old Adam Sandler movie, or because of her husband?
Her gaze hits me and the warmth cools slightly as she takes some of the chicken and feeds it to the cat.
“Rush really likes you,” she says quietly.
“I saved his life and he’s a fu—” I stop.
But what I was about to say doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Maybe you did, and maybe you being here has something to do with the gang that owns your bar. I don’t know. That isn’t where my business interests lie.”
“And where’s that?”
“I’ve turned my—a place I own—into a woman-run business that offers ways out of bad situations for women.”
Somehow I manage not to roll my eyes. “A halfway house.”
“No.” She scoots in and washes the chicken off her fingers, drying her hands on the tea towel. “There’s enough of those I support. This is for women in our world.”
“We don’t inhabit the same world,” I mutter, looking for the dishwasher detergent.
Rose goes and opens a cabinet next to the dishwasher. It’s fully stocked with everything you need for dishes and countertops, and of course, the dishwasher itself. I’m betting there’s one dedicated to the floors, one to the stove and oven.
“The same world. The underbelly. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Because of my tattoos? My—”
“My husband’s covered in tattoos, and I’m betting he came from a rougher beginning than yours. But it isn’t a competition. Women get caught up in this world and, unlike other parts, it’s even harder to get out, when stripping leads to prostitution and more. Or being a toy for vile men. For their viewing pleasure. Raped, beaten, humiliated and used over and over.”
She stops.
My blood turns cold.
Unexpectedly, I want to hug this glamorous, beautiful woman whose innocence doesn’t veil her eyes.
“It’s that I want to stop, those women I want to help, and if they want to take care of the men who do things to them?”
I close my eyes, squeezing the sponge I picked up.
“You’ll help bury the bodies?” I ask.
“What bodies?” The tone in her voice makes a reluctant smile form. I could like her, a lot. “So if you need help, tell me or Rush.”
I swallow that down. Not her husband.
“I’m good.”
She doesn’t seem to hear me.
“And Rush? He’s not what you think. He might look like a…what were you going to call him? A fuck boy?” She laughs stiffly. “But that’s only because you’re not looking closely.”
I drop a dishwasher detergent cube in the right place, set the machine and close the door. Then I turn to her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Hurt him, you hurt Nikolai, and that’s bad, but to be honest with you, it’ll be me—I’ll be the one to destroy you. Rush is family, and he’s worthwhile. He likes you. If you’re here to fuck with him, go. And don’t look back.”
With that warning, she leaves as Rush and Nikolai appear. Her husband is stunning. The three-piece suit has red pinstripes and his silk shirt matches her dress.
They’re mouth droppingly gorgeous.
I can see that.
But really, they don’t hold my interest.
Rush does. That shining blond hair, the marks from my mouth on his throat, the long look that makes all my insides smolder.
Put him in a suit and you’d have to scrape me from the floor.
Nothing at all might be even better.
I want a cock ring with his name on it. Oh, imagine fucking him with that on, through him coming and me riding him into my own oblivion.
There’s a slow horror that creeps over me.
When I snap out of my erotic fantasy, we’re alone; Rose and Nikolai have gone. And I’m staring at him like he’s an ice cream sundae I’ve saved all month for.
“Hey, Jessie,” he says, waltzing up to me, spinning me in his arms and stopping so I’m pinned against the fridge. He nibbles a path along my collarbone. Then, he looks up. “Where were we?”
“I was cleaning up your mess.”
“I’d have done that.”
“You mean you would make Mia do it,” I say, forcing myself to pull free of him. He lets me go. It’s not disappointment pricking my skin, it’s not at all.
Rush laughs and pulls me once more against him, this time walking me backward through the kitchen. “Fuck no. She’d beat me up. Or worse, tell Nikolai.”
I need to get away because he climbs inside me and undoes me from there, and it’s not fair, no matter how much my idiotic body craves it. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Good idea.” His eyes light up. “You wanna scrub my back first? Or should I soap up your pretty puppies?”
“Pretty—” I try to shake him off, but he pulls me flush against him.
“Kidding.” He kisses my throat and heat sinks deep. “I’d never call your tits puppies. So. Wrong.”
“Let go, Rush.”
He does. A little. But the glitter in his gaze says he’s not done. “You know if you’re curious about me, you should snoop in my rooms. What do you say? I can put on some sexy music, pour some drinks…”
“I’m having a shower and going to bed.”
“Bed?” he calls as I walk off. “It’s not even seven p.m. Wuss!”
H e’s right. I’m a wuss.
I need to untangle the warning from Rose. I think it was a warning. I mean yes, there was the obvious warning, but it was more than that. Like she seemed to think I could hurt Rush in an emotional way.
So ridiculous.
I take deep breaths and pull out some clothes. I need…I need information. And I need more than a photo of my brother. I need to speak to him.
I kick off my shoes and go into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Then, I call Epic, which is the stupidest gang name ever. He’ll be in the loop, and he’s the one who got Jack into their gang and me on the periphery until I decided I didn’t want to join. I should have known they allowed me to work for them and not be a member to use when the time came, like now.
“What?”
“Epic?”
“You fucking naked? I hear a shower. Kinky, girl.” He laughs and the music behind him tells me he’s out, but not at Bunny’s.
“Where are you?”
“Fuck, girl, get your shit together and get the information they want. Dirt on Smith and Wilder that’ll bring them down. Dirt that’ll turn allies into enemies.”
“I’m in the Wilder mansion but—”
“What about the piece Wilder’s fucking?”
“His wife?” I ask, hand clenching as I slide down the wall to the tile. Is it…heated? “That’s not the way to go. Look him up.”
“The big boss says that shit is just PR. He’s a fucking dude. Not us.”
I unclench my hand and rub my eyes. Epic isn’t evil, for a gang member, but he knows things and he’s loyal to the Ten. “Is Brutus there?”
He falls silent.
“E-Epic?”
“Brutus is alive, girl, but he fucked up. Tried to steal some shit and get it on with T-Wall’s girl. Dead man unless you get us what we want.”
“I need to know he’s alive.”
“I’ll call you when I can.”
And the phone goes dead.
I almost—almost—smash it. Instead, I rip off my clothes and take a long, hot shower. Afterward, I dry off and put on full war paint. Eyes, dark red lips. Shadow. The works. I look good. I look like a dominatrix no one should ever fucking mess with.
I look armored up.
I shove some shaping mousse in my hair then decide to go full on black leather, heels, and thigh highs.
When I push open the door, I falter, dropping my towel.
My clothes are gone.
All of them.
And…oh, fuck me.
My door opens and Rush steps in. “Nice. Maybe you should wear that.”
My pussy throbs. Hard.
I let him have his fill as I think about slicing off his dick. But no, it’s too pretty to do that. I’ll just slice his throat when I’ve had enough.
“Murdery. Nice,” he says. “Real nice.”
“Is that the only word you know, Rush?”
“Murdery?”
“Not a word. Nice.”
“It fits.” Then he holds something out. It’s powder blue with pink and green…flowers…on it. I stare at him.
“What’s that?”
“You’re curious, so we’re having drinks and I’m going to satiate your curiosity. I’m sick of being nice Rush.” He flashes a dark smile on the word nice. “So if you want some pretty words from me, and a soft touch, put this on and come to me. And, when you do, you’ll do everything I say.”
With that he tosses the dress at me and says, “You have five minutes. You know where my room is. Do not make me come looking for you.”
He leaves.
“Fucking asshole.”
I search the room, but all my stuff’s gone. Just the dress. I pull it on angrily, and it’s worse than I thought.
Spaghetti straps and a pretty fitted bodice that’s a little too small so my breasts swell up. It flares at the hips and swirls around my ankles.
It’s horrible.
It’s girly and sweet and fresh and for a girl who he dates, not me. I’d never wear something like this in a million years.
I look around for something to use on him, but he was thorough. So I rip off the bottom frill of the dress. It still flows, it’s still girly, but now it ends above my ankles.
Wrapping the material around my hand I stomp off, heading down the stairs and not up to his suite.
There’s a living room that has a bar, so I go there and pour myself a drink.
I’m about to drink it when he finds me. “This isn’t my room.”
“Fuck you, Rush.”
“Oh, Jessie. That’s not how you talk to me.”
I come at him, ready to wrap the material around his throat, maybe his hands, whatever I can reach to tie him up, but he’s faster.
Bigger.
Stronger.
Ready.
He spins me around and clips something thick around my neck. My hands go to it. Leather, from the bottom of my throat to near my chin. And a chain clinks.
He pulls and I stumble back.
“Is…Is this a dog collar?”
“Special fucking delivery, Jessie.”
“When—”
“Yesterday.” He pulls me so I’m against him and anger and lust claw at me. He bites my ear. “You didn’t play nice, pretty little baby Jess.”
“I’m not playing nice with you.” I pull forward, and he lets me go, to a point. The chain goes taut. I turn, narrow my eyes. The material I ripped off the skirt dangles and Rush smiles.
“Nice or not, you’re playing.”
“This,” I snarl, “is war.”
He snatches the material from me.
“Bring it the fuck on.”