Chapter 77
Rose rests silently in the passenger seat of the blacked out Rolls-Royce Phantom as I navigate us back to our place from the funeral home.
Her dark curls blow in the warm island breeze coming through the open sunroof, eyelashes fluttering as she dozes peacefully.
She’s been a silent unwavering support, offering aid wherever it’s needed, despite her immense dislike for Shantel.
I don’t know what I did to get blessed with a woman like her. Rose’s selflessness renders me speechless every time I witness it.
Bucky and Kyle left with Bucky’s parents, Mark and Patricia, offering to drive them back to the hotel.
Bucky’s been living at the warehouse since I procured it a few years ago, now he’s taken up residence at Bleakcrest. His parents are under the impression he lives with Kyle in a modest two bedroom apartment, hence the hotel.
I put them up in the suite. They lost their daughter, they shouldn’t have to worry about cost. I’ve covered everything: flights, hotel, and all other expenses.
The near week between Shantel’s death and cremation, gave my team time to say their goodbyes and pay their respects. Monica and Ashley stepping forth to attend the cremation, vowing to uphold Shantel’s farce as a women’s personal trainer to the very end.
Rose’s hesitancy to attend the memorial was justified, given she didn’t like her very much. But she was there for me and my friends. Even so much as taking care of the catering and all other necessary arrangements.
Bucky pushed for the full-panel toxicology report, even though the initial one didn’t show anything alarming.
The results should be in any day now. Technically, you can’t have a body cremated during an investigation.
However, I greased the wheels, moving the process along quicker than normal to not raise suspicions with Bucky’s grieving parents.
Whatever the test shows, won’t change the fact that their daughter is gone.
Shantel’s cause of death was ruled as a myocardial infarction, aided by the stress on her heart from excessive exercise and overexertion. Bucky’s the only one adamant it was foul play.
Pulling onto the private paved road that leads home, I squeeze Rose’s knee gently, rousing her from the short nap. She bolts up like a startled animal, and I apologize. “We’re home, baby.”
Slumping back against the seat, she snips, “Scare me half to death, why don’t you?”
“Sorry,” I offer again. She looks so fucking pretty, eyes wide and sparkling with traces of fear.
Her flushed cheeks huff out a heavy breath as she fluffs her hair in an attempt to compose herself.
“For future reference, how should I wake you?” Reaching up, I press the button for the garage door opener, eyes never leaving hers.
“Start by not grabbing me so hard I think we’re about to crash.”
“I barely touched you.”
“Tell that to the bruises I’m going to have.”
“I thought you liked wearing my marks,” I coo, wiggling my eyebrows.
I slide the car into its usual spot, right next to Kyle’s street bike, as the garage door closes behind us, snuffing out the light.
“Shut up,” she grumbles, trying to appear grouchy, but the upturn at the corner of her beckoning lips brands her a liar.
I kill the engine, leaning over the centre console as the darkness surrounds us. Her hushed breathing is the only sound to be heard as I feather my lips over hers. “Make me,” I taunt, nipping at her bottom lip.
She moves into me, fingers trailing up my arms, lips hovering a hairsbreadth away from mine.
Like a rocket, I launch myself away from her and out the door of the car. Moving quickly through the garage to the adjoining door to the house.
Rose’s passenger side door opens. “Are you serious?” she hollers from inside the vehicle.
My laugh is audible as I slide the key into the lock, open the door, and slip inside. Leaving her behind to stew evermore in that boiling pot of rage.
Her annoyed mumbling increases in volume as I wait, tucked into the shadows of the large mudroom, concealed by Kyle’s mass amount of riding gear.
The Phantom’s door closes, and I listen as her heels clack against the concrete. The house door swings open, slamming into the wall as she cusses me out.
Her filthy fucking mouth is about to be stuffed so full of my dick, she won’t be able to talk right for a week.
“Where are you, asshat?” she calls out. “Think it’s funny to get me going then fuck off?”
The pressure beneath my ribs starts to hurt from holding in the laugh that wants to belt out of me.
“Make me, he says.” Rose mutters to herself as her fingers find the zipper at the side of her proper-looking, black, knee-length dress.
“Oh, I’ll fucking make him all right. Just let me find a gag.
” The zipper descends, and she pulls the garment over her head, dropping it to the floor as her ebony curls cascade down around her.
“Ripley,” she sing-songs. The sound winds around my willing body, almost coaxing me from the hiding spot. Her alluring form in those black lacy things sends my mind spiralling as I debate dropping to my knees and crawling for forgiveness.
She moves slowly down the hall looking for me, heels softly click-clacking against hardwood as I slip my dress shoes off. Quietly, I strip off my black button up and dress pants. In just my boxers and Stegosaurus socks, I follow her at a safe distance.
She dips into our bedroom, and I press my back up against the wall outside the door. Listening closely, I know she walks through the space to the ensuite, probably wondering where the hell I disappeared to in a matter of seconds.
Emerging from the bathroom, she mutters a string of things I can’t make out.
Rose’s steps get louder as she unknowingly makes her way back to me, ratcheting up the throbbing in my cock and the blood thundering through my veins.
As she approaches the door, I step out, blocking her path.
A dick-tingling shriek escapes her lips, and I scoop her up over my shoulder.
Leisurely, I stroll back into our room, moving to my side of the bed as her fists lay into my back. “Put me down, you behemoth!”
“Never.”
Bending down, I hover the threat of dropping her, and she clings to me. A smile pulls at my mouth as I slide the drawer of my side table open. The cuffs are missing from their usual spot, and I bet the woman suctioned onto me like an octopus has something to do with it.
My eyes travel across the mattress to her nightstand, unease awakening from somewhere deep within me. A feeling I’m unaccustomed to feeling while in her presence.
“Rose?”
“What?” she snaps, arm reaching up to try and leverage her body against mine.
“Where are your flowers?” Immediately, she stills. My concern secures its roots, growing at a violent pace, as my amygdala works overtime.
“What flowers?”
“The dried-up purple ones.”
“Oh, those? I threw them out the other day. They were pretty much dust.” She chuffs a half-hearted laugh and it prickles along the nape of my neck.
I try to remember when I last saw them, but pinpointing a date is next to impossible. I’ve been in such an exhausted haze this past week from helping Bucky and his family with the Celebration of Life, and the investigation my friend’s demanding that no one knows about except Kyle and I.
The flowers were on her side table when we returned from Maple Jacks.
I remember thinking I should toss them while she was in the shower for over an hour.
She probably would’ve been pissed at me for it, but we were heading to Bleakcrest, if she wanted to get new, fresh ones, she could have.
However, she didn’t look at them upon our arrival, didn’t spare them a single glance.
After that, I don’t know when they vanished from their designated spot.
Why wouldn’t she pick new ones to replace the others?
“Hellooooo?” Her voice calls me back. “Why do you care about the flowers? You were the one trying to throw them out not that long ago.”
“Yeah, and you wouldn’t let me.”
“So? I wasn’t ready then.”
“Ready for what?”
“Put me down,” she sternly demands.
“Uhh, I don’t fucking think so.”
“Ripley…” her voice is a feral growl, awakening an erotic thirst alongside the anxiety.
“No, Rose. Tell me right fucking now or I swear on my life, I will get it from you one way or another.”
That dead look in her eyes haunts me every moment not occupied by the warmth of my brother’s blood on my hands, my fingers slipping between the severed pieces of his neck.
The way she ripped the flowers from the ground, and held onto them like a fucking lifeline in a storm, should have alarmed me.
It didn’t though. She’d just been through hell and deserved a little beauty.
Maybe Chelsea’s favourite colour was purple.
Hell, it could have been her preferred flower.
I didn’t know, and was too mindfucked to care.
I was just happy we were both alive and heading home.
“I’d like to see you fucking try,” she mutters.
Just like that, I snap. Everything I know about her engulfs me like a goddamn avalanche. She’s about to see a whole other side of me. The monster she’s been begging me to unleash for fucking weeks.
I turn on a dime. Banding my arm around the back of her thighs as I stride out of the room.
“Rip? Where are we going?”
Her harsh voice is barely a whisper as I battle my thoughts.
She wouldn’t dare leave me. Not after all we’d just been through.
Not even if we found her sister bloated and hanging from a tree, would she abandon me.
No fucking way on this planet, or any other, would I let her.
She’s been mine since that first day, and she will remain mine until my dying fucking breath.
Reefing open the basement stairs, we quickly descend. “Ripley!” she screams, the shrill sound reverberating off the narrow hallway walls.
I don’t dare respond for fear of what may come out. I’m so far past the point of anguish induced rage, I’m liable to say a bunch of shit I don’t fucking mean just to make her feel half of the pain eviscerating me.