by Jade Webb
“No, not until you tell me where you are, you little slut.”
I blow out a sigh. “I’m in Lawrence’s bathroom.”
She gasps again. “You are a little slut! Good for you. You finally got some. Now you’ll finally mellow out.”
“I am mellow—”
“Shh! Don’t interrupt. There’s more,” she says, cutting me off. I briefly consider throwing my phone in the toilet, but she obviously has more intel. “Miss Fiona has been busy. Last Wednesday she filed a court order to amend a birth certificate.”
“What does that mean?”
“That, my dear, means that Miss Fiona is looking to change her daughter’s birth certificate in some way that would require a judge’s approval. Meaning she ain’t looking to just change the spelling of Isabel’s name.”
I bite back a quiet gasp. “She’s trying to change the name of the father on Isabel’s birth certificate!”
“Ding! Ding! Two for two! And, believe it or not, I’m saving the best for last.”
“What is it?”
“I got a copy of that court order. And I know who she is petitioning to replace Lawrence as the birth father.”
“Who?”
“So, this one is a real doozy. The name is none other than Peter Monroe.”
I can’t hold back, and I let a loud “shit” escape.
“I know, right? Freaking telenovela!” Eva says on the other end of the line.
“Yael?” I hear Lawrence call my name from the room. “Is everything okay?”
“Shit, I have to go,” I whisper into the phone before ending the call.
“I’m fine,” I shout out as I walk out the door and back into the bedroom. I keep my phone behind my back and drop it onto the pile of clothes on the floor. The sunlight streaming into the bedroom bathes Lawrence in a rich, amber light. And impossibly, he looks even more handsome.
“Everything good?” Lawrence asks as he wipes away the sleep from his eyes.
I force a smile to my face and nod. My heart is breaking at Eva’s news, but I need to do some more investigating before I tell Lawrence. The idea of telling him the love of his life might not biologically be his breaks me in two. “I’m great.”
I reach down and grab my pants off the ground. Before I can slip them on, Lawrence slides out of the bed and pulls me back toward him. I fall against him and he wraps his arms around my waist, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. The sheets barely cover him, and I feel his hard erection hit against my belly. It sends a flurry of memories from last night back to me, and I feel an ache of need, wanting him back inside me again.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.
“I need to get back to my room.”
His eyes dart over to the clock on the nightstand. “It’s only six in the morning. Isabel won’t be up for a few hours. Come back to bed.”
I reluctantly shake my head. “I should get back, take a shower.”
“A shower sounds like a great idea,” he says, before hoisting me over his shoulder and carrying me back into the bathroom. He deposits me in the walk-in, tiled shower, a cocky smile on his face.
I cross my arms and narrow my eyes down at him. “Was that really necessary?”
He cups the back of his head, a bashful expression on his face. “I just don’t want you to leave yet.”
I feel my resolve break and I wrap my arms around him, pulling him close to me. “I’m not going to leave,” I promise. Perching on my toes, I press a soft kiss to his cheek. I wrap my fingers around his arms and kiss a path down his chest. As I reach his belly button, he lets out a sharp exhale and I feel his muscles ripple with tension.
“Yael,” he whispers as I fall to my knees and dot a series of kisses down his shaft. Gripping his thighs to steady me, I lick one long, hot trail from his base all the way to his tip. He sucks in a sharp breath and I take the head of his throbbing cock into my mouth. When I close my lips around him and look up, his eyes are pinched closed as he thrusts his hands through his hair. He looks like he’s in agony, except when he opens his eyes and looks down at me, I can see it’s the exact opposite. He’s in fucking ecstasy.
I use my tongue to moisten his shaft and bring my hands up to stroke him up and down as I continue to bob my head, taking him in deeper. I moan, humming against his hard cock and causing him to release a string of expletives as his hands tunnel through my hair, urging me forward.
“God, Yael,” he continues to groan my name over and over like a prayer. I relax my throat, swirl my tongue, and welcome him deeper inside the recesses of my mouth. I want him to unravel; I want to see him lose himself and know it’s all because of me. And when the taste of him causes me to release a loud moan, Lawrence loses it. Bending down, he lifts me up and carries me into the shower. He tears the shirt off of me and I pull down my panties, kicking them to the side. Both of us now fully naked, he turns me and presses me against the tiled wall as he reaches with his other arm to turn on the shower.
The water streams down over us, soaking us. I wrap my legs around his waist as Lawrence kisses me, his tongue thrusting inside of me, eager to taste every inch of me. He continues to thrust against me, his hard cock sliding between my hot, wet folds.
When I moan, he pulls back. The water streams over him as he looks at me, his emerald eyes piercing into me. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. And when the words leave his mouth, I believe them. Because I can see the truth in his eyes, and I can see that swirling beneath the heated desire is something much more real and raw. The intensity in his stare unnerves me and I clench my eyes closed, too afraid he’ll see my fear and stop. Arching my hips, I tilt toward him when he thrusts again, and he enters me in one quick stroke. I capture his groan with my lips and continue to rock my hips against him, grinding against his hard shaft.
Lawrence’s hand digs into my ass, holding me in place as he thrusts inside of me. The pouring water from the shower drowns out the sound of our moans as he continues to mercilessly, passionately, and completely fuck me.
“You make me so hard,” he whispers before biting my earlobe. “I’ve dreamed about this ever since you walked into my house. God, I wanted to have you then. I wanted to sink myself inside you and feel you squeeze me, feel my cum spill inside of you. I want to be inside of you like this forever. I want your taste on my lips every fucking day.”
I moan at his declarations. Never before have mere words been able to bring me to the precipice of release, but his words fuel something inside of me and I know that I could easily orgasm from the sound of his voice alone. My back continues to slide up and down the slippery tile wall as I chase my own release from the angled pressure of grinding against his hard cock. I dig my nails into Lawrence’s back as I feel my orgasm approach. My breaths grow more and more ragged and when he thrusts inside me again, I fall apart and cry out as my body ripples and shakes as bursts of intense pleasure race down my spine.
Lawrence’s own release comes a moment later with a loud groan and one final, hard thrust, which sends my head knocking back against the tile. Too overcome by my own orgasm, I don’t even feel the pain from my head connecting with the hard tile.
Lawrence wraps his arms around me and brings my feet back down to the ground. My legs feel shaky and weak as I fall back against the tile. Lawrence slips out of me, his cock soaked in the mixture of our joining, and drops his head against the wall next to mine. He grips my hips, pressing his semi-hard cock against me. “Yael, what have you done to me?”
I don’t answer. I’m too scared that if I open my mouth to respond, he’ll be able to see the truth. Not just the secrets I’m keeping about Fiona, Peter, and Isabel, but the secret I’m even more afraid he’ll uncover. That I’m falling in love with him.
31
Yael
“Okay, show it to me again.”
Eva refreshes the window and the court document reappears on the screen. I keep hoping that if I close my eyes hard enough, it will disappear. But it’s not working.
It’s real. Fiona is really trying to replace Lawrence’s name on Isabel’s birth certificate. And the first—and only—piece of evidence submitted with the order is a DNA paternity test that names Peter Monroe as the father.
I cover my face with my hands, and drop my head onto the table, knocking my bag to the floor and sending its contents scattering. “Damnit,” I say as I bend over to pick everything up.
“Babe, it’s okay. I’ve got it.” She drops down to the floor and picks up my phone, and the pile of loose change scattered at our feet.
“Uh, Yael, what do you have here?”
I look down at her, holding the package of Plan B in her hands.
“It’s nothing,” I say, snatching the box and my purse out of her hands.
She drops her mouth, her blue eyes glittering with excitement as she playfully slaps my arm. “You little skank. You slept with him without a condom?”
“Yes,” I respond, rolling my eyes. “Happy?”
“Finally, some good news!” she says. She bites down her lip as she quirks her perfectly shaped brow. “How was it? No condom?”
“None of your business! And we’re both responsible adults, thank you very much,” I tell her. She darts out her tongue and crosses her arms at her chest, staring me down with her hazel eyes. “Okay, it was amazing,” I concede, unable to prevent the smile stretching across my lips.
Her face lights up as she leans in closer. “I’m really happy for you, kid. You deserve it.” She rubs her hand over my arm. “When are you planning on popping those bad boys?”
I shrug. “The pharmacist said to take it with food because it could make me nauseous. But I ran over here as soon as I could. I think I’ll grab a burrito on the way back and take it then.”
“Well that sounds like a fun afternoon,” she says with a smirk.
“But enough about me,” I say. “What am I going to tell Lawrence?”
Eva rubs a comforting hand over my back. As much as she lives for the drama that comes with being a private investigator/hacker, I know it’s hard for her to be the bearer of bad news. Despite all the shit she’s seen, Eva is still, somehow, an eternal optimist. Things like this really make it hard for her to see the glass as half full.
“How am I going to tell him?” I moan into my hands. “This will destroy him. Isabel is his life.”
“I’m sorry, babe,” Eva says, blowing out a long sigh. “Okay, so let’s think. Fiona is going to claim that Peter is the father. Obviously she wants to make some kind of weird, incest family with him. But what’s Peter’s motivation behind all this? What does he get out of claiming Isabel as his daughter?”
I shrug. “I don’t know much about him, other than my very unpleasant interaction with him at the gala. He’s obviously an asshole. And he knows it would piss off Lawrence.”
Eva shakes her head. “That doesn’t feel like enough motive. From what I’ve dug up on him, he doesn’t seem like the type to suddenly want to be a father to a ten-year-old girl.”
“Leverage,” I say, the pieces of the puzzle finally connecting in my head. “Isabel is leverage for him.”
“For Monroe?” Eva asks. Jerking her head back, her eyes widen in shock. “Would he use her to force Lawrence to concede Monroe Industries to him? That seems really dark.”
I shake my head, a prickle of fear winding down my spine. “It’s a billion-dollar company. Lawrence is the favored choice. He needs some kind of advantage. Isabel is Lawrence’s only weak spot. Everyone knows that.”
“Do you think he would hurt her?” Eva asks, her eyes wide with concern.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. If I had to judge his character based on my one interaction with him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the type to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Including hurting a little girl.
Eva doesn’t respond but reaches her hand out to grab mine. As she opens her mouth to speak, my phone loudly chirps and starts vibrating on the table. I look down to see my calendar reminder of Isabel’s karate class in thirty minutes. “Shit! I forgot that Isabel’s class starts in thirty minutes and I promised to take her.”
I jump out of the seat and dig through my bag to pull out the car keys. “Listen, once I drop her off at practice, I’ll call you and we can finish this discussion?”
Eva nods as she stands up from the table. She presses a quick kiss on my cheek and scoots me out the door. I jog down the steps back to my car on the street. It will be tight, but if the traffic is light enough, we can make it to practice in time. Worst-case scenario, she’ll miss a few pushups during her warm up.
Luckily traffic is light, and I call the house ahead to make sure Isabel is ready to go and waiting by the door. When I pop in the gate code and drive up, Isabel is waiting on the steps in her gei, her bag in tow. She runs to the car and we both wave a quick goodbye to Lawrence, who is standing in the doorframe. I had made up a quick excuse this morning to go and see Eva after we had made love again in the shower. I had rushed, too worried that he would be able to see in my eyes that I was holding this gigantic, earth- shattering secret in. Luckily, he had to catch up on some work and I was able to sneak away. I’m not sure how long I can manage to keep this secret, though, and am planning to use my time watching Isabel’s karate class to formulate the best plan that hopefully won’t end up completely destroying him. God, I don’t even know her, but I hate that Fiona is doing this. Lawrence raised Isabel, and now she wants to take her away from him? As much as I didn’t want to judge, I couldn’t help it. This was cruel.
As Isabel jumps into the car, I nuzzle her hair as I quickly reverse out of the driveway. “Sorry I’m running late.”
She rewards me with a large, toothy smile. “It’s okay.”
We don’t even made it a mile from the house when I slow the car at a stop sign and feel the impact of a large vehicle rear-ending us. I fall forward in my seat at the collision and immediately swing around to look at Isabel, sitting in the backseat. “You okay, Isabel?”
She nods and turns to look behind her. “Did we get into a car accident?”
I look into my rearview mirror to see a woman driving behind us in a large black van. She wears oversized sunglasses and is looking down at a phone in her hands. Typical idiot driver paying attention to their phone and ignoring the road.
“Yeah, I think she just wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry. I’ll try to make this quick.”
I pull over to the side of the road and put on my hazard lights. Luckily the other car also follows suit, pulling over behind me. I hope they have insurance, we can exchange our information and both be on our way. I know Isabel has been frustrated at missing her karate lessons last week and has been eager to continue. I lean over to the glove compartment to pull out the registration and insurance paperwork when I hear a loud, impatient tapping on the car window.
“Hold on a sec—” I start to say before I hear the sound of the car door opening and Isabel letting out a shriek. My heart stops in my chest and I jerk my head up to see a woman pulling Isabel out of the car. My hands run to my car door handle as Isabel kicks and flails her arms. But when I try to open my door, there’s a man there, blocking me. A man I recognize in a second. Peter. And when he sees me, and the panic on my face, a sinister smile creeps across his lips. I bang on the window, honk the car horn and scream. He narrows his eyes menacingly at me and quickly opens my door. In his hands, he holds up a large pistol and the minute I see the gun, I stop pressing on the horn and hold my hands up by my head.
“Don’t you even think of making a fucking scene right now,” he warns, his voice low. He gestures with his chin back to the van behind us. “Get in the van. Now.”
I nod and slide out my car. When my feet land on the ground, I feel the cold barrel of Peter’s gun on my lower back. He pushes me forward, forcing me to walk toward the van. There is absolutely nobody around and I keep my head steady as my eyes dart around, desperately trying to formulate an escape plan. But I don’t to take any risk
s, especially ones that would leave me stranded here and them driving away with Isabel. So I comply and when I see Isabel, I scramble inside the van and pull her into my arms. Her body shakes against mine and I rub her arms. “It’s okay, Isabel. It’s going to be okay,” I whisper into her ear.
Within seconds, the driver’s side door slams closed and the van peels out and we’re back on the road. It’s then that I finally notice the woman in the passenger-side seat. She turns to look at us and she removes a dark baseball cap from her head, sending long, flaming red hair spilling over her shoulders. She smiles at Isabel with bright red lips, and when she removes her sunglasses to reveal stunning, clear-crystal blue eyes- I immediately recognize her. Because Isabel has those very same eyes.
So, this must be the infamous Fiona.
“Baby, don’t you want to give your momma a hug?”
Isabel tenses in my arms and I instinctively hold her tighter. Fiona notices and her easy smile drops off her face. She glares at me, her eyes turning a dark, frigid blue before turning back in the seat, crossing her arms at her chest.
I try to keep an eye on the window, trying to figure out where we’re going. But Peter keeps taking back roads and I quickly lose track of where we are. After driving for about forty minutes, he pulls into the parking lot of a small roadside motel. Isabel continues to shake in my arms, but she’s brave and she doesn’t cry. I whisper as quietly I can in her ear to keep calm, and let her know that we’re going to be okay. I don’t have the luxury to panic: I need to be one hundred percent focused. Because it isn’t just my safety: it’s Isabel’s. And I would go to hell and back before I let these assholes hurt a hair on her head.
Once he pulls into a parking spot, Peter turns off the engine and turns to look at Isabel and me.
“You two make a scene and you get a bullet. End of story. You go straight into the room, you don’t look at anyone, you don’t say anything to anyone, and you can live another day. Got it?”