“Mm, focus, or we won’t get anything done today,” she says in a husky tone.
“Can’t help it,” I rasp against her neck. “I resisted everything for so long, but it’s like putting a starving man in front of a buffet.”
Her lips meet mine in a lazy kiss that has my arms banding around her waist. “Come on.” She speaks against my mouth. “Lay it all out.”
“I want to lay you out.”
Her shoulders shake with her laugh. “Later.”
“Fine.”
Releasing a calming breath to encourage my erection to go down, I adjust her so she’s not teasing me with every tiny move, settling a hand on her hip. She grabs the coffees and offers me one while I gesture to the laptop.
“I always knew that the accident was faked,” I start. “I was with my dad when he checked the car, it was only a day or two before. They weren’t supposed to go out that night, but they’d been arguing about something. I tried to listen, but they dropped it when they saw me trying to sneak down the steps. It wasn’t until I started to dig into everything to connect the pieces that things didn’t line up and I started to get suspicious of the circumstances surrounding their deaths.”
“Why do you think they had those samples hidden at your house? Is that what they were arguing about?”
“I don’t know. The best guess I have is they were trying to protect their patent. My working theory is Jacqueline must have gotten there first and the company rewarded her for it by appointing her CEO. It’s quite the promotion.”
She nods with a troubled look. “We went out to dinner to celebrate her promotion that same night. It wasn’t announced publicly, but she already knew.”
That’s news to me. I nod slowly, swallowing. She puts down her coffee cup and laces her fingers with mine.
“When I started looking into Nexus Lab to find answers connecting back to my parents, I found something weird that gave me the first clue something wasn’t right. The previous CEO just disappeared off the face of the earth. Officially he took early retirement about twenty years too early—he was in line for Forbes 40 under 40. It’s like someone got rid of him in order for Jacqueline to take the position, jumping straight from R&D to the top. It was the same when I looked into your dad with a miraculous promotion. I’ve been trying to follow the money to trace it back to what happened and how my parents ended up dead because of it.”
Maisy listens attentively, asking questions for clarity as I take her through what I’ve gathered. I let her in on what I was doing at the restaurant the other night before school ended, bribing a waiter to give me a stolen employee ID badge, which led to finding the remote shipping facility Nexus Lab uses when I accessed the employee's schedule. I show her photos Colton enhanced for me that I took discreetly at the warehouse. I’m only slightly surprised when she doesn’t shy away from the facts I’ve found that paint her parents in the worst light.
“Someone else was supposed to become the chief,” I explain. “He was in the process of taking the position when suddenly your dad was sworn in. Your dad’s been known to take bribes and has maintained a corrupt office as chief. He was who showed up at that meeting we staked out. I think it’s because he already knew how to play dirty that someone put him in that position of power.”
She sits up. “I know. I brought stuff that might help fill in the blanks. I copied the computer at the house before I skipped out. And the police report from the accident, although some of it is redacted.”
My brows jump up. Colt assured me he’d wiped most of the important things from the system so that I could dig before someone covered their tracks more than they had. “How did you get that?”
“My friend Connor. He knew about some of Dad’s corrupt ways and used that knowledge to squeeze it out of him to get information on you, or he was going to expose Dad as a bribable cop.”
I’m starting to get why Colt has taken such a liking to Connor Bishop. The two of them are practically cut from the same cloth.
“So Richard really gave it up?”
“I guess. I don’t think Dad thought anyone would look too closely at a closed case accident report, or maybe he thought it would be more suspect to withhold it like he was trying to hide something. My dad’s signature is all over it, though, even on the night of the accident when he had an alibi because we were out to dinner.”
“That’s the problem I have. I can’t prove their involvement without proof of payment or something more concrete. The alibis put them in the clear.”
“As smart as the alibis are, there are still holes. It didn’t make sense why pages were missing. Why hide things when it’s supposed to be an accident? It’s what first made me suspect his involvement in covering it up because it was closed so fast.” Her brow creases and she looks at the laptop. “But this explains why Mom was always so uptight and a total bitch to me. She didn’t want to risk anything casting doubt on her if it threatened her power. They’ve both changed, but she’s so different from when I was little.”
Frowning, I pull her closer, tucking her hair behind her ear and brushing my fingers down her cheek. I used to resent her for growing up with her parents and her brother, but I can’t imagine how much Jacqueline and Richard’s greed has poisoned their relationship with Holden and Maisy. I don’t see the woman who was sweet to me when I was a kid anywhere in the soulless woman she is now.
“Do you think my parents actually killed them, or were they the ones who covered it up?”
I’ve asked myself that same question over and over. “I don’t know. I just know they were involved somehow.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I hate that they could hurt you.”
“It’s not your fault.” I know that now and I don’t want it to weigh on her.
Opening up to tell her this feels like I’m in a twilight zone. It’s not just that I’ve let very few people know the full story—only Colton knows the full extent. But sharing it with her makes it feel like I have someone I can lean on. I bump my nose beneath her ear and squeeze her tight in an embrace.
“The truth is coming out,” I murmur. “One way or another.”
She makes a soft sound in agreement, turning to kiss me.
“I also brought these,” Maisy says, getting up to rustle through her bag at the foot of the bed. She comes back with a stack of magazines and perches in my lap.
It’s the science journal I’ve been looking up online. I lift a brow.
“A friend of mine, his parents run that medical research clinic in town. He got them for me.”
“You have helpful friends. I should’ve gone after them instead of you.”
She smacks my chest and puts the stack of magazines on the table. “Maybe I can scope out the company if I play it like I’m stopping by to see my mom? She had an important meeting on the calendar that she’s spent a month preparing for. Maybe I’ll convince the guard to let me wait in her office since I’m her daughter. I can snoop around and see if I can get us more.”
“Let’s find out.” I adjust her in my lap, reaching around to switch windows on the laptop. My brows furrow at the map. “That’s weird. I have tracking on her phone, but she’s not there.”
Maisy’s brows dip. “She’s really strict about her work hours, she should be there.”
“Hang on.”
I type a few keys to trigger the tracing Colton hooked me up with. It takes a minute for the scanner to pinpoint her signal, but once it does we both lean in. The address she’s at isn’t anywhere near where she should be, on the opposite side of town in the middle of nowhere. It’s not far from the shipping warehouse I snooped around at, but further off from the rest of the shipping district.
“Switch to street view on Google maps,” she suggests. “I want to see where she is.”
I plug in the address and Maisy tilts her head as we take a virtual tour. It’s another warehouse, this one much shadier looking than the shipping facility. The tin siding is covered in rust and the roof looks in dis
repair.
“Wait. Go back, I recognize that logo.”
“This?”
I navigate back to the front of the building. On a rolling bay door in faded, peeling letters is SynCom.
“SynCom,” Maisy says in a dull tone. “Fox, that logo is on her paychecks.”
“What? Why wouldn’t Nexus Lab be the ones paying her?”
“They are. It’s done through this, I think. I was with her once at the bank and she had me hold a stack with this stamped on it.”
“There must be some kind of investor or something that owns Nexus Lab privately. I’ll find out if this SynCom is a holdings company and see what this means.”
“We make a good team.” She beams at me.
I rub my mouth. “I should’ve been working with you instead of against you this whole time. I would’ve gotten more answers sooner.”
“I told you at that party, jerk,” she teases, elbowing me. “We could’ve been doing so much this year—kissing and kicking ass—instead of wasting all this time.”
I hum at the memory of my wild daisy at that house party. That first taste was everything. “Did you keep those pants?”
“Maybe.” She blushes. “I was going to throw them out because they’re stained, but…”
A slow grin stretches across my face. The tight leggings she has on now are similar, hugging her legs in a deep green color. Only a thin barrier separates her ass from my lap.
Cupping her face, I draw her in for a kiss that quickly turns dirty as our tongues glide together. She twists her flexible body to reach me, ending up straddling my lap and grinding on me. I groan against her lips.
“There’s something we didn’t get to do yesterday and I can’t hold out any longer.”
Her lids are heavy. “Do your worst.”
The echo of the last time she said that to me when I cornered her in the girls’ bathroom sounds in my head. I hoist her into my arms and carry her to the bed, dropping her down hard enough to bounce. She stretches, lifting her arms over her head. With a wicked grin, I crawl over her and kiss my way down her neck, over her hard nipples, biting them through her cropped shirt to earn a cry. I continue lower, licking into her exposed belly button on my way to her waistband.
Peering up, I take in the incredible sight of her propped up on her elbows, watching me. “I’m going to taste your pussy.”
“Yes,” she whispers, her knees falling open to allow me room to settle between her legs.
A hunger that’s nearly feral overtakes me as soon as I hook my fingers in the waistband of her snug yoga pants. I yank them down with rough tugs and fling them behind me while she giggles. Smacking the outside of her thigh to quiet her, I use my grip to pull her leg open for me. Once again she’s not wearing any underwear. My mouth waters as I sink to my elbows between her thighs.
The first swipe of my tongue over Maisy’s wet folds makes me groan and dive in for a second taste. It’s better than I imagined when I pictured doing this for the first time. She arches off the bed with a high-pitched cry as my tongue drives her wild. I grab her hips and find every way to make her pant and moan. When I slide two fingers into her, she clenches around me, gripping me with her tight heat, making me want to drive my cock into her right now.
“Oh, fuck!” Maisy hooks a leg over my shoulder, hips bucking as she rides my fingers and my face. “I’m so close!”
I growl against her slick and swollen folds, sucking and licking until she clenches her thighs around my head with a hoarse cry. I don’t stop. I keep feasting on her like I have to savor every single taste, curling my fingers inside her and pumping them. At first she tries to get away, only to let her legs drop open while pushing her pussy against me, coming undone again. I force orgasm after orgasm out of her until she’s trembling.
“I need you,” she begs. “Please, I need you right now. Don’t keep me waiting anymore. We’ve wasted too much time on waiting.”
I still don’t stop, not until I’m good and ready to take my mouth off her. Maybe it’s to put off what I have to tell her for a few minutes more. Her begging turns into a delirious litany. When I do sit back, my face is a mess. I pull my fingers free and make sure she watches as I lick them clean.
“I want you inside me,” she whispers, her gaze full of liquid heat. “Right now. I need your cock filling me up.”
My heart clenches and my stomach dips.
“I—”
I break off, running my gaze over her body. It’s not like I was waiting specifically for her, but I didn’t go out of my way to do it either.
The truth of my love for her hits me right in the chest.
She’s the only one I’ve ever cared for, the only one I’ve pictured doing this with. I swallow thickly. The times I’ve been with girls have been far and very few between, and even then it never felt right to do more than get them off with our clothes mostly on. Meeting her gaze, I lay my secret on the table.
“I haven’t… There was only ever you. It was always you, Maisy.”
Twenty-Five
Maisy
My heart sits in my throat as the deep aching need intensifies between my legs. I never thought… He’s always been so dominant the few times we’ve hooked up, I didn’t even think he wasn’t experienced.
Leaning up to cup Fox’s jaw, I smile. “It’s okay. I want you. You just made me come like four times. You can’t do it wrong, just do what feels good.”
Relief melts the lines of tension that I’m not judging him for never having sex before. That kind of stuff doesn’t matter to me, it’s all society pressure anyway. He crashes our mouths together in a wild kiss. We wind up in a tangle of limbs as we peel out of the rest of our clothes.
A huff leaves him when I push him back to study his inked chest. The tattoo of the ocean is amazing, the intricate waves rolling and rippling along his muscles, stretching across his heart and down his arm in a half sleeve. Hidden amongst the details is a second tattoo, this one a crow wearing a crown perched on a skull with its wings spread. My lips part as I trace it with my fingertips. A hoarse noise vibrates in his throat as I touch the ink I’ve been dying to see.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I told you I missed the ocean, too.”
Grinning, I steal another kiss. His powerful thighs drive me crazy as I trap one between my legs. I have half a mind to rub my clit against his thigh until I come again, but I want to feel him inside me.
Fox breaks the kiss and curses under his breath, glancing at his discarded jeans with a dismayed look. “I don’t have a condom. The guys…they used to tease me and slip one into my wallet, but I got rid of the last one when it expired.”
A laugh rolls through me. “Good. Don’t use expired condoms. That’s as bad as being unprepared.”
He grunts, pulling away. I lock my arms around his neck and keep him in place, with his cock gliding along my folds.
“I have a contraceptive hormonal implant and I’m clean.”
My cheeks burn hot with the admission. I’m not ashamed or anything, because I own my body, but the implant wasn’t my first pick for birth control. Mom didn’t want to risk any kind of scandal, including teen pregnancy. Always controlling me in one way or another. As soon as I was old enough, she made me ask the doctor about it and signed off her permission.
I force her and the awful sensation crawling up my throat from my mind and bring myself back into the present. “We’re good to go.”
Fox licks his lips, desire flaring in his gaze at the prospect of having me bare. “Are you sure? I’ve only touched you, but—”
I cover his mouth and smile. “I’m sure.”
He studies me for a beat, then lowers himself over me, wrapping me in strong arms as he tortures the sensitive skin on the side of my neck. I moan as we rock together, his dick rubbing my clit instead of slipping inside. I open my legs wider in the hope he’ll fuck me sometime this century, but I’m fine with doing this at his pace.
“Have you ever…?” The que
stion is rumbled into my flushed skin.
I bite my lip, partly wishing I could tell him this was my first time, too. But I can’t change the past and I don’t regret that I’ve had sex before.
“Yeah. Last year during a yoga intensive retreat.” I run my fingers through his hair when he shifts to peer at me through dark lashes. “It was fun, but that was all.”
He tenses, shoulders flexing as he holds me tighter. “I kind of want to kill him for—”
“She isn’t important right now,” I stress, keeping my expression open. I’ve only come out to Thea and a tiny flutter moves through me.
Fox stills, blinking. “She? You’re—”
“Bi, yes. But what matters is that I’m with who I want to be with right now.” My fingers tighten in his messy hair at the back of his head. “Who I’ve always wanted to be with. You.”
The relaxed, open smile he gives me pierces into my heart. It feels good that he accepts who I am just as much as I accept everything about him. “I’m going to fuck you now, Maisy Daisy.”
A hot blush creeps up my neck, heating my cheeks at the nickname. I tuck my lips between my teeth and nod. He skims a hand up my leg and adjusts our position so I’m straddling him. When he lines up and presses inside, he watches my face as I sink down his length. The concentration in his expression makes my chest expand. He fills me inch by inch and I tip my head back, parting my lips.
“Good?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, circling my hips. “So good.”
“Thank fuck,” he mutters, the concentration clearing as he thrusts up. “God, you feel incredible.”
Fox holds onto my thighs as I move above him. I watch the emotions play out on his face, my breathing becoming strained as arousal pours over me from the way his blue eyes darken with pleasure. He groans and thrusts sharper while I ride him. He keeps the pace slow and careful. As good as it feels, I need more.
Savage Wilder: Dark New Adult High School Bully Romance (Sinners and Saints Book 4) Page 21