12. Amal
AMAL
My mind is reeling from that kiss, my heart racing.
When Jet releases me I have to catch my breath.
He carries my duffel and leads me out of the apartment onto the street where Malcom, upon seeing us, climbs out of the SUV and opens the back door.
We cross the street and Jet hands off my duffel before he literally lifts me into the backseat.
I grip his forearms, surprised, and open my mouth to rebel against this manhandling, but he just raises his eyebrows as if to say really so I close it again. He sits me down and gets in beside me.
At least I have the diary with me. He can take everything else, but the diary I can’t replace.
“Hotel?” Malcom asks.
“Yup,” Jet says, and takes out his phone.
I catch Malcom’s eye in the rear-view. He grins.
I get why when I see my own reflection in the window.
Our kiss left a smear of red lipstick alongside my lip.
I wipe away the smudge and turn to Jet. His forehead is furrowed as he types out a furious text.
Cassian, probably. I take in his dark features, the hair that’s normally forced into submission and the stubborn strands that, no matter what, flop over his forehead.
I recall the last time we were together.
It’s been months but I remember it like it was yesterday and in far too much detail.
I’ve thought of it often in the darkest part of the nights when I’ve been alone and unable to sleep.
He’d been shirtless when he’d woken me still sweaty from his workout.
After his shower, I’d thought I was so cool to lay back like I did, crossing my legs ever so slowly, so teasingly.
He’d turned that on its head, gripping my knees and spreading my legs wide to wholly and completely own the moment.
I don’t make love. I fuck.
I think I’m starting to get that.
He leans back in his seat, his long black coat falling open. His legs are spread wide, relaxed, the powerful muscles of his thighs straining the fabric of his slacks. I drag my gaze up over his flat stomach to his chest and broad shoulders. Then to his hands.
My stomach flip flops as I imagine his full weight on me. His cock pushing into me.
What is it going to feel like when he doesn’t stop? When he truly claims me. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time but now, now that it’s my imminent reality, I admit I’m a little scared.
He cracks his neck and I see a sliver of all the ink he hides beneath his black shirts.
The scars the tattoo artist painted over.
He’d wanted me to see. It would have been easy enough to hide them, but he’d wanted me to see and that knowledge I feel not in my stomach, not like when I think about us together in bed, but in my chest.
My heart.
He doesn’t have women at his house.
He doesn’t show anyone his scars. His ink.
But he let me sleep in his bed. And he showed me all of it.
Jet tucks his phone into the breast pocket of his coat, and I glimpse the shadow of bruises on his knuckles. Are those from last night?
Blood stains my hands for you. For. You.
Was someone waiting for me last night? Was it one of the men who’s been threatening me for years?
I’ve had so many text messages, threats, vivid descriptions of exactly what they’re going to do to me when they get their hands on me, that it became weirdly normal.
I’ve never been sure if it’s one person or more.
Every time I blocked one number, a new message popped up from another.
Trying to keep up was like playing whack-a-mole.
Did he really hurt someone, kill someone, for me?
Jet leans forward and reaches into the passenger seat. “You get enough for the boys?” he asks Malcom as he opens the box of pastries and chooses one.
“Yep. I’m going to miss those when we get back to Devil’s Peak.”
“Me too,” Jet says, biting into the cardamom bun.
He makes a low sound of pleasure as he turns his gaze to me while he chews and I can’t help but think how his lips would taste now, sticky sweet with cardamom.
How his mouth will feel on my skin. Between my legs.
Because that kiss, our second ever kiss, it sucked the air from my lungs and made my knees buckle.
Hell, the chaste kiss to seal our vows at the altar had my heart racing.
He takes another big bite and grins like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. He finishes his pastry, licks the stickiness off his fingers and leans toward me.
“Anticipating our wedding night?” he asks.
I smell the sweet scent of cardamom and sugar on his breath. “More like dreading it,” I lie.
He leans back and laughs like it’s so very fucking funny. “I wonder, Little Virgin, if I slipped my hand into your panties,” he starts, setting his hand on my thigh and sliding it up under the skirt of my dress. “If you’re already wet for me.”
I shove his hand away. “Stop it!”
“There’s another thing I’ve been thinking about too,” he says, unperturbed, leaning close to whisper the next part. “I wonder if your pussy will taste as sweet as it smelled when I laid my head on my pillow the night after you had your little sleepover in my bed.”
My face burns. Fuck. I’d forgotten that. I’d slid my fingers between my legs that night in his bed imagining it was him, his fingers, and then for reasons that weren’t quite consciously made, I smeared my come on his pillow. Like I wanted him to smell me when he laid down that night.
I guess he did.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie yet again.
“No need to lie. I liked it. It got me hard,” he says in a loud whisper.
“Oh my God!” My face burns and he slaps his knee, laughing hard. I decide to ignore it because he’s enjoying this too much. “Where are you staying?” I ask, my voice unsteady. It takes all I have to look at him.
“The Balmoral.”
Of course he’s staying at The Balmoral. Dumb question. It’s the most exclusive hotel in Edinburgh. Where else would Jethro Blackstone stay?
He gets another message on his phone and thankfully leaves me alone for the remainder of the drive to the hotel.
Once we get there and Malcom pulls the SUV up to the front entrance, the doorman rushes down the stairs to open the door, a giant umbrella shielding us from the rain that comes down like it will never stop.
Jet climbs out and this time, before he can lift me out, I step out on my own. He shrugs a shoulder and slings my duffel over his shoulder. We hurry up the stairs and into the hotel.
“Mr. Blackstone,” another staff member says. “Welcome back.” He glances at me and nods a respectful greeting like he’s afraid to even look at me. “Shall I take your bag?”
“I got it, Joe.” We walk toward the elevator and Jet turns to me. “Are you hungry?”
I shake my head, my stomach in knots. Although I can’t remember the last time I had a proper meal, there’s no way I’ll be able to eat anything now.
“My bride is anxious,” he says with a wink that makes me flush as red as the doorman even as I glare daggers at Jet. “Reserve my usual table for us for dinner please.”
“Of course, sir.” Joe says and takes a step backward.
“And make sure we’re not disturbed.”
“Understood,” Joe says with a subtlety that makes me want to punch him.
The elevator doors open and Jet and I step inside. Joe leans in, slides his keycard into the slot and pushes the button for the seventh floor. The doors slide closed and my heart races as I stand side-by-side with my husband.
My husband.
While I take in our reflection in the chrome doors, Jet’s phone buzzes. He takes it out, glances at the message and switches it off altogether rather than simply silencing it.
“Cassian?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Severin.”
Once we reach our floor, he gestures for me to step out. I do and he follows me. With a hand at my back, he guides me to his suite, unlocks the door, opens it and steps aside for me to enter first.
I take in the opulence of the beautiful living room as Jet follows me and closes the door behind himself.
A fire is burning low in the fireplace. It’s an actual wood fire.
The room is beautiful. I’ve never been in a hotel room this nice.
Every detail has been carefully chosen. The color scheme is all quiet shades of blue and grey typical to Scottish skies.
Crown molding covers so much of the walls and ceiling, I find myself turning a circle to see it all, that and the view of Old Town from the beautifully draped windows.
“How the other half lives,” I say, looking down at all the people outside running from one building to another as rain pours down.
“Don’t tell me Malek Lombardi slummed it,” he says.
I turn back into the room to find him watching me. “We didn’t exactly take family vacations,” I tell him, my tone wiping any smile off his face because he must realize how true that is.
“How was he? To you and your brother?”
“Absent mostly, thankfully. I mean,” I start, glancing over my shoulder at the scar on his face, the gray patch of hair. “He never tried to kill us so that’s a win, right?”
Jet watches me, no smartass comment for once as I head to the last door.
The bedroom.
My breath catches. The room is every shade of nighttime.
Walls and ceiling painted a deep, rich blue with complementary silk drapes that block any light left outside.
Here, too, a fire burns low in the fireplace.
An antique crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling and, at the focal point, is a king size bed draped in deepest, darkest midnight and on the headboard is an intricate weaving of some king or other, his eyes locking with mine as if he can see.
The door clicks closed and I spin around to see Jet standing tall and watching me, his long black coat nearly brushing the floor. He slides it from his arms and drapes it over the back of a chair. Next comes his holster, the gun still in it.
My heartbeat races as I take him in. Black on black on black, exactly as the devil should be.