by Imogen Wells
When we pull up to the house, I start having second thoughts. I have no idea if Rick is here, plus it’s just gone 1am, so I know he’s not likely to appreciate me turning up on his doorstep at this ungodly hour.
“Hey, lady, you getting out or what?”
Looking back to the taxi driver, who has one hand on the passenger seat and looking right at me.
“I’m going. Give a girl a minute would you.” I pay him his fare, and exit the car, watching as he pulls away.
I walk up the path to the front door just as I hear a car coming down the street behind me. Not giving it another thought, I ring the bell and bang on the door. If I’m going to get bawled out, may as well go all the way, right?
Footsteps sound on the other side of the door at the same time a car door shuts and pounding feet come from behind me. The door opens to reveal Rick in a pair of pyjama bottoms and t-shirt, feet bare and hair tousled. His bleary eyes a dead giveaway that I’ve woken him.
“Jamie. What is it? What’s happened?” Rick asks, opening the door further to let me in. Seb arrives just as I step over the threshold. “Seb? What the hell is going on? What are you both doing here? If you’ve come for round two in my guest room, you can leave right now.”
I blush. Like, no shit full on blush. I feel like my dad just caught me screwing a guy in his house.
Seb steps up behind me. “How’s your foot?” I ask him.
Rick looks between us and notes the serious looks on both our faces. “You better come in. Whatever this is it better be important.”
Fifteen
Jamie
Rick leads us through the house to the kitchen. He doesn’t bother asking if we want drinks, instead goes ahead and puts the kettle on, pulling cups from the cupboard.
Seb and I take seats at opposite ends of the breakfast bar, avoiding eye contact and looking everywhere else but each other.
Rick joins us, carrying over the tea and sitting in the middle like some kind of mediator. Silence descends like an oppressive cloud, and I shift in my seat uncomfortably.
“Rick, I’m sorry—”
“We’re sorry—”
Seb and I say at the same time. It immediately gets my back up that he’s talking for me. I snap my eyes to him before saying, “This whore can speak for herself, thanks.” There’s a sharp inhale of breath from Rick at my words as he snaps his gaze to Seb.
“Okay. Would one of you like to tell me what on earth is going on here.” He looks between the two of us. Neither of us eager to speak as I sit and chew the inside of my cheek, and Seb rubs his hands up and down his thighs. Realising that we aren’t going to answer, Rick singles Seb out for interrogation first. “Seb, what’s going on here?”
With one last rub of his hands down his thighs, he lifts his hands and places them on the counter in front of him.
“I was at Tempest.” That’s it. No other words or explanation as if those four little words answer all Rick’s questions.
When I look to Rick, I can see that Seb’s short answer was in fact all Rick needed to know.
Feeling like I’m completely out of the loop, I say, “And? What’s does that mean? I’ve been told I’m not to go there again.” I throw Seb the dirtiest look, turning my nose up at his audacity to tell me where I can and can’t go. “And let’s not forget, the guy who owns the place now thinks I’m some whore Seb is currently at home fucking. One of you want to tell me what it is I’m missing because saying ‘I was at Tempest’ seems like the key to Pandora’s box and I missed the opening of it.”
Rick and Seb share a look, and I catch the back end of Seb shaking his head at Rick.
“I can’t tell you why Seb was there, but all you need to know is that it’s probably best if you stay away from there for a while.”
“You know what, fine. It’s not like I’m a member and can go there anytime I want anyway. I’ll just go back to Rosco’s.” I hear a low growl coming from Seb’s direction, and when I look over, I see his nostrils are flaring like a dragon about to breath fire. It’s something I’ve noticed he does when he’s angry. And when he’s turned on too. I cross my legs as a bolt of lust shoots through me, and my heart beats faster, tiny little flutters that tingle through my body at the mental image of him braced above me as he slams into me. The fact that I can be turned on by him even when I’m mad— well, it just makes me madder. “Something you want to say, Seb?”
He holds his hands up and shakes his head, but I can see him biting his tongue, desperate to say something.
“Jamie,” Rick says, and I turn to him. “Is there something else worrying you? Did something happen?”
“No, not at all because being called a whore, getting mugged and threatened are just another day in the life of Jamie Morgan.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I suck in a breath, and I can almost see the little hands stretching and clawing at the words as I try to pull them back down into the depths of my gut.
“What do you mean threatened?” Seb asks, a dangerous edge to his voice. It’s the same voice he uses in the bedroom, but up until the other night, I’ve never heard him use it outside.
This is a new side to Seb, and a far cry from the cocky womaniser I first met. It unnerves me a little, and I don’t know how to handle this version of him. My body on the other hand? Yeah.
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” I shrug, rising from my seat wanting to escape and evade further questions. “It’s late, so I’m going to go now. I’m sorry for waking you.” I try to leave, but a hand on my arm and Rick calling my name has me halting.
My shoulders drop, and I close my eyes in defeat. Why I thought either of them would drop it is beyond me. Opening my eyes, I pull my arm away from Seb’s touch and look at Rick.
“Seb, give us a minute, please,” Rick says, eyes on mine the whole time, and I hold my breath waiting for Seb’s reaction.
“Not gonna—”
“Now.”
It’s one word, but that one word holds more authority than I’ve ever heard before. This is Rick the soldier, the leader and alpha male. They may not be in the army anymore, but there’s no doubt who holds the authority here. I hold Rick’s gaze as I hear a muttered curse beside me. When the heat from a body seers my back, I know Seb is standing right there.
“I will find out what’s going on. One way or another, you can count on it.” He brushes my back as he steps past me, but I keep my chin raised and mouth shut in response. A door slams somewhere in the house, and I know he’s hasn’t left completely. I also know he’s not wrong about finding out what’s going on.
Loyalty is important to me, just like I know it is to Rick, Seb and Blue. Rick’s loyalty will lie with his friends first, as it should, and I don’t begrudge him that. I admire it.
I slowly step back to my seat, sitting and taking a large gulp of, the now cold, tea.
“How did you know there was something more?” I’m not really interested in the answer, it seems Rick doesn’t miss much, and although I don’t know what gave me away before I opened my stupid mouth, I’m just trying to delay the inevitable.
“I didn’t. Not really. It was just a feeling. Seems to me that I was right.” Rick picks my cup up. “You want a fresh one or do you need something a little stronger for this conversation?” he asks.
I let out a laugh. “You got a brewery hidden away somewhere in this place?” I joke flatly. “Nah, I’m good, thanks.” Rick places the cups in the sink, and I watch as he pulls a bottle of Jack from the top cupboard with two shot glasses before joining me back at the breakfast bar. He pours a measure into each glass, pushing mine towards me.
“Before we start, you need to know that I won’t lie or keep secrets from my friends, my men, but I will protect them. And by that, I mean if it requires me to be discreet about what you tell me, then I can and I will do that, until I feel they need to know.”
I nod before downing my shot. The burn is good and just what I didn’t know I needed. Seems to me Rick knows a lot more, about many
things, than he lets on. The woman that finally catches his eye is going to be one lucky bitch but have her work cut out for her.
Seeing no other way to do this, and not wanting to explain verbally, I pull my phone from my pocket, unlocking it and sliding it to him.
“Open the last message I was sent.”
I grab the bottle of Jack and pour us both another one. I’ve never been one to be embarrassed about my body or about how free I am with it, but lately that’s changed. I down the shot while Rick scrolls through the pictures. Each one is a very graphic snapshot of that night.
“Okay. These were sent on Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone about them? Gone to the police with them?” I screw my nose up at the suggestion, and Rick doesn’t miss my reaction. “What?”
I sigh, long and deep, before explaining what happened at the station. “I received these after leaving the station, but honestly, I think it was a coincidence. I mean, Jasper didn’t seem happy that I broke things off with him, but how did he—Oh shit!”
“Jamie?”
I jump up from my seat and begin pacing the room. “Oh my God. How did I not see the connection before? I can’t believe I was so stupid.” I continue my pacing, biting the inside of my cheek, mumbling incoherently until Rick stops me.
“Hey,” Rick grabs my shoulders. “What connection? What’s going on?”
I drop my head into my hands, shaking my head. “No. No. No. It doesn’t make sense, Rick.” Rick guides me back to my seat and pours me another drink, shoving it into my hand. I knock it back, swiping my hand across my mouth. “Jasper is friends with one of the guys in the pictures. His name is Noah, but I don’t know any more about him.”
“How long ago was this night, Jamie?”
“Urm…maybe three weeks ago, I think.”
“And when did you meet Jasper?”
“The next evening. He was at the hospital after a stabbing victim was brought in and intervened when the patient got a little handsy with me. The guy, he knew who I was by name and knew who my dad was too.” Rick frowns. “Do you think it’s all connected? Don’t get me wrong, I believe in coincidences, but this is a little too big of a coincidence even for me,” I say, tilting my head and raising my brows.
“I don’t know yet. What I do know is that you need to tell Seb about this.”
“What? No! Why?” The pitch of my voice rises several octaves above normal, and I begin shaking my head emphatically. “You told me it was need to know, and he does not need to know about this,” I grit out, jamming my pointed finger into the counter.
“You need to tell him, Jamie.”
“Why? Because we fucked a couple of times, now I need to tell him everything that happens in my life? I don’t think so, Rick. This has absolutely nothing to do with Seb Roberts, and if you tell him behind my back, we’re done.”
“He doesn’t need to tell me behind your back because you’re going to tell me everything yourself.”
I spin on my stool, to find Seb leaning against the door frame on the other side of the kitchen. Arms folded across his chest, brow drawn down and eyes dark and menacing.
“I’m not telling you jack shit!” I spin back round, locking eyes with Rick’s penetrating gaze. “No.” I state, folding my arms across my body as I hear Seb grunt behind me. Rick continues to stare right at me, eyes like a chisel chipping away at my defiant denial until I snap. “You know what? Fine. He wants to know and you’re so desperate to tell him, you go right ahead, but count me out for this conversation.” I jump down from the stool and storm from the room.
Sixteen
Seb
I watch as Jamie leaves the room before levelling my sights on Rick and moving to sit in her vacated seat. It’s still warm from her pert little arse, and I can’t help the image that snaps into my mind. I shuffle awkwardly as I sit, trying to calm my dick down. Now is not the time for a hard on. But my dick likes her when she’s pissed at me. Pretty sure my dick likes her all the fucking time.
“So, how much did you hear?”
“Some of it.” I pour myself a glass of the good stuff. As I go to take a sip, I see Rick watching me. Doing the whole death stare shit he just did on Jamie. I would say that I’m at an advantage since I’ve known him for years, but that would be a big fat fucking lie. The bastard gets me and Blue every damn time. And Jamie too now. I lift my middle finger before taking a sip of JD. “Fuck you, man. You know I heard it all. Look don’t go getting self-fucking-righteous on me. You know I would have found out one way or another,” I say at the look of irritation on Rick’s face. “Pass me the phone,” I tell him, pointing to Jamie’s mobile she left on the counter.
Rick scrubs a hand down his face. “That’s not necessary, and besides, it’s locked anyway.”
“Like that’s ever stopped me before.” I hold my hand out and wait for Rick to give it to me. He knows full well I can get into it. What he doesn’t know is that I know Jamie’s passcode.
He lets out a sigh before sliding the phone my way. I pick it up and in two seconds, I’m looking at pictures that make my blood heat. My muscles tense, and as I scroll through, my jaw grinds so hard I’m surprised I don’t break a damn tooth. My fingers tingle with the need to get my hands on these arseholes and ring their necks for filming her. At least that’s what I tell myself. Nothing to do with touching what’s mine. Because she’s not mine is she.
I stop on the picture of her snorting coke from the stomach of one of them, zooming in, I see the colour is slightly distorted there. The lines of coke are jagged and almost appear to have been drawn on. To the naked eye and without a closer look, someone seeing this would assume this image to be real. And though it doesn’t matter how much I wish the whole image were fake, it’s obvious that except for the drug taking, the rest is very much real.
“Fuck!”
“I did tell you that you didn’t need to see them, but wo—”
“No, although yeah, I wish I hadn’t seen this shit. But this guy,” I turn the phone round to show Rick the guy. “I saw him at Tempest. This is the Noah bloke Jamie mentioned, and I’ll give you three guesses who he was with?”
“Jasper,” Rick says, and I nod. “Son of a bitch.”
I close out of the texts, locking the screen and dropping it back down on the counter, not wanting to see anymore. “We can run it through facial recognition and see if we get a hit?”
Rick snatches the phone up from the counter. “Let’s do it.”
I follow Rick down the hall to his office, where we scan the picture and wait for the results.
I sit the other side of Rick’s desk, knee bouncing impatiently. “Do you think this has to do with what’s going on with Dominic?”
Rick is tapping away at his keyboard, a look of intense concentration on his face.
“I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up. The message mentions Dominic, but the threat is directed at Jamie herself, not her dad. There’s no connection between Dom and Jasper from what I can see, so I think for now we just have to assume that they are separate.”
I nod in agreement, but my gut tells me there’s more to this than what we have at the moment. It’s not outside the realms of possibility that whoever is threatening Jamie, is also the person threatening Dom, but so far, the evidence suggests that Jasper is behind these pictures as the classic jilted lover.
After I first saw Jamie with him at Rosco’s, I did some snooping. Alex didn’t seem to like him very much, and while I put most of it down to the fact he’s in to her, I wanted to check him out for myself. Other than the death of his wife in a shooting at a club last year, his record is clean. What I have access to anyway. It also doesn’t rule out the possibility he’s dirty.
“Bingo. Noah James Huntingdon, ex-army. Did two tours in Iraq before leaving.”
“I say we pay him a little visit.”
“No. We watch and wait first. You already have a job to do, and for now Jamie is safe. I’
ll see what I can dig up on our detective friend with my guy at the station. I’m going to call Ryder and set up a meeting with Dom too. There’s more to this than what he’s told us, and we need to find out if the two are connected. We need to be extremely careful how we play it because there’s a possibility Jamie will go looking for answers herself, and if, it’s a big if, but if they’re connected, then we need to have all the facts.
“Now, it’s late and you two idiots woke me up, so I’m going to try and get some more sleep. I suggest you do the same.”
“Yeah, I will soon. Night, arsehole.” Rick lets out a laugh and cuffs me round the head as he leaves. Bastard is always doing that.
Five minutes later, I find myself down in Rick’s gym, pounding the fuck out of his punch bag. There was no way I was getting any sleep. I didn’t bother strapping my hands, and now my knuckles are red and sore from going at it so hard.
I don’t hear her as she enters the room, but I sure as hell know she’s there as the scent of her wraps around me. It’s like it gravitates towards me, enveloping me, blinding me of all rational thought.
“You want to try that with someone that hits back?” Her voice washes over me, raising every hair on my body. And something else too. I ignore the growing tent in my trousers, turning my head towards her.
She’s changed out of her dress and is now wearing a pair of Rick’s joggers and a t-shirt that swamps her. She’s tied the t-shirt in a knot at the side, and a small sliver of her toned stomach is visible, and one shoulder is bare as it hangs off her. Fuck. I hang onto the punch bag, keeping my body turned away so she can’t see how turned on I am. I’m not sure I’m doing a good job as her eyes glint with mischief and desire.
“Sure. No holds barred.” My body lights up at the thought of tussling with her, but I shove it down as I push off the bag. I stalk towards her, locked onto to those forest green eyes of hers. “You think you can handle me, Firefly?” I say as I reach her, standing over her small frame.