by Izzy Sweet
Taking her by the hand, I lead her out of the office.
Stopping as soon as we’re out of earshot, I say, “Take care of our boy. Make sure Adam isn’t boring him to death.”
Pressing her tight against the wall, I kiss her hard and fast. “We need to talk tonight.”
Letting her go, I usher her over to Adam’s office. Yeah, the little fucking kid has an office of his own. Lucifer has been interviewing people lately to become his secretary. Can’t fucking believe it myself.
Beth walks ahead of me, and in the dress she’s wearing right now, I admire the regal bearing she has to her step. She’s regaining who she once was, or maybe who she’ll be. What happened to her has changed her, I can see it. Most of it probably not for the better. No one comes out of something like that unharmed, but she’s not letting the bad make her crumble, letting it bring her down in a hole of despair. She’s trying to take the fight back to the ones who hurt her and her friends. She’s also trying to keep Charlie safe.
Safe like a real mother would do.
Once she’s settled in, I head back to Simon’s office to face the music.
As soon as I walk in, I ask, “So what do we not know?”
“Far more than I would like to admit at the current moment,” Simon says, and I can see that it almost pains him to admit it.
“Yeah, what I walked into wasn’t a mom-and-pop type of setup. Too much security and high-end shit going on.”
“We’re you able to see anything beyond the auction?”
“Not much. I could see a couple of the buyers, but that was it. Never saw anyone besides my handler.”
“We figured as much.”
“Johnathan,” Lucifer begins, and I can tell I’m in trouble. “Senator Norton has been asking around for his daughter. He’s even come to me for aid in the matter.”
Right to the fucking heart of the problem.
“Tough shit. She goes to him she’s as good as dead.”
“She’s not the only one whose parents are anxious to hear some news,” Simon says.
“Yeah, well, one’s dead. What happened to the other two?”
“Successfully picked up, though there’s a body count now,” Andrew says, and I can hear the grimace in his words.
“What kind of count?”
“James and Peter, it seems, took exception to the men they took the girls from. Both dead, and so are their security teams. They’ve disappeared off the radar for now, but I can imagine it’s going to come back that two buyers ended up dead after the auction. The Russians are going to be curious.”
Fuck.
“And the dead one?” I ask.
“No sign of a body so far.”
“What about the pig feeding thing Beth told us?”
“Could be where the bodies were dealt with…” Simon mutters. He doesn’t like things like this, he wants hard facts and cold corpses. He wants to be able to count things up perfectly.
“She was the real estate guy’s girl, right?” I ask.
“Yes. He’s not going to sit any longer on this issue, either. He’s personally come to us and asked for any information we can get.”
“I’ll be speaking with him, Simon,” Lucifer says.
“Are you going to give him the details?”
“Of a sort, but I’ll offer to personally deal with the matter. That will keep him in line… At least with us. It will also help form a better bond when it comes to the Senator trying to push his way into the matter.”
“You need to turn the girl over to us, Johnathan,” Simon says coolly as he looks to Andrew and Lucifer.
Raising his hands, Andrew grunts, “Leave my ass out of this.”
Fucking shithead.
“Johnathan… This is going to pose problems if you don’t,” Lucifer chimes in.
“Don’t give a shit. You didn’t either, and neither did you, Andrew, when it came to finding your wives.”
“That…” Lucifer starts to say, and his cold eyes warm with mirth as it dawns on him. “Is true.”
“Same thing floats here. I bought her, I keep her. Her father can suck my hairy ass for all I care.”
Standing up from the chair, I finish with, “Think of it this way… We can keep her as a good way of keeping him in line. He wouldn’t dare push you too hard. He can’t have any of his darker connections come to light, can he? It would be a good deal for us to have a senator, or maybe even something larger, in our pocket for a rainy day.”
“Point taken,” Lucifer nods his head, and he’s being far too understanding of this.
It’s giving me the creeps.
“What’s happening with the other two girls?” I ask. Beth’s going to want to know.
“They will be returned to their families, and the families will be made aware of the work we did to get them back.”
More people that will be beholden to Lucifer. Owing the devil himself a fucking favor is not an easy burden to bear.
“I’m going to take Beth and Charlie home. Need to get the house set up for having a family in it.”
15
Beth
The drive back to Johnathan’s house is tense and quiet. There are too many things between us, too many words that need to be said, but can’t be in front of Charlie.
I have absolutely no clue what was discussed after I was asked to leave the room, but when Johnathan finally did come to fetch Charlie and me, he looked stiff, like something is bothering him.
He’s been glaring at the road the entire drive back. His big hands gripping and squeezing the steering wheel in a death grip.
Now that he knows what happened to me, is he going to give me back?
I don’t know why, but that possibility makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s one thing to want to get away, to escape his prison.
It’s another thing completely to be tossed out on my ass.
I want to stay with him because I want to be with Charlie, I convince myself.
It’s not that I want to stay with the man who told me he bought me and owns me now. No, it can’t be that. It can’t.
That would be insanity.
We’re from two different worlds. Even if for one crazy moment I wanted it to, it could never work out between us.
Despite what happened in his bed last night. Despite what his touch does to me. Despite the way he looks at me like he fucking needs me.
We might as well be two completely different species.
We’re two opposites that were never meant to attract.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, his deep, rumbling voice breaking the tense silence.
I start to shake my head, but my stomach speaks up in protest, growling in hunger.
That stiffness in his body just melts away. And when he looks over at me, his eyes softening, my heart does a little flip-flop.
I must have finally cracked. That’s the only explanation for my reaction to him.
“How about you? Do you like pizza, Charlie?” he asks.
Charlie seems to perk up, sitting up straighter in his seat as he answers Johnathan’s question. “Yes.”
“What kind of pizza do you like, little buddy?” Johnathan asks as he makes the final turn onto the street he lives on.
“Pepperoni,” Charlie smiles.
Johnathan hits the little button on his visor and the garage door starts to roll up. “Pepperoni pizza it is.”
Johnathan parks and we exit the car. I linger by my door, waiting for Charlie to get out. Once he does, I can’t help but smile as he steps up to me and slips his hand into mine.
That is until he turns to Johnathan and holds out his other hand.
At first, Johnathan just stares at Charlie’s hand as if he doesn’t understand what the boy wants, but then a slow smile creeps across his lips. Walking up to Charlie, he ruffles his hair affectionately before covering his little hand with his much bigger one.
And at this moment, something has changed. The dynamic has shifted, and it’s all thanks to Charlie
.
I can’t exactly be angry or throw a childish tantrum because Charlie is reaching out to Johnathan for the same kind of protection and affection that he gets from me. Nor can I drop his hand or pull away.
So I have no choice but to follow along as Johnathan leads us into the house, the three of us hand in hand, like we’re some kind of fucked up family.
“What do you think of this room?” Johnathan asks, shoving his open laptop into my face.
I blink down at the picture of a blue living room displayed on the screen.
“It’s nice, I guess….” I say hesitantly, not sure if this is somehow a trick question.
Johnathan scowls and yanks the laptop back.
Balancing the computer on his lap, he grabs his bottle of beer and throws his head back, drinking deeply from it.
I turn back to the Star Wars Lego set spread out on the dining room table that I’m helping Charlie build.
Johnathan sets his bottle back down with a clink. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Purple,” I respond right away as I struggle to separate two pieces I locked together incorrectly.
“Purple?” Johnathan scoffs. He reaches for his beer again and mutters quietly, “I’m not living in no damn purple living room.”
“Wait? What?” Did I just hear him right?
“What’s your second favorite color?”
“I don’t know… I guess red…” I frown at him, and then curse at the two Legos as I bend the tip of my nail painfully back.
Shoving my finger in my mouth, I try to suck the pain away until Johnathan’s eyes light up with heat.
With a blush, I pull my finger out and wipe it off on the skirt of my dress.
“Brown it is,” Johnathan grunts, and then jams a button on his laptop with a flourish.
“What’s going to be brown?” I ask, not sure if I really want to know or not.
“Our new living room,” Johnathan answers with a satisfied smirk.
“You mean your new living room,” I correct him, waving my stuck Legos at him.
Both of his brows slide up and he gives me a look that pretty much says: Really, Beth? You’re going to say that in front of the kid?
I open and close my mouth, struggling to find the words that correctly explain what I mean but in way that won’t freak Charlie out.
“What’s your favorite color, buddy?” Johnathan asks, angling his laptop towards Charlie now. “Any characters that you like? Star Wars? Spider-man? This… Minecrap.”
“It’s Minecraft,” Charlie says with a smile, gently correcting him.
“Ah, sorry about that,” Johnathan squints at the screen. “Minecraft,” he drawls out correctly, earning him another smile. “So you like it?”
Charlie eagerly bobs his head up and down.
“You want your room like this?” Johnathan leans closer to Charlie so he can better see what he’s looking at.
Charlie nearly shoves his little nose into the screen. “Yeah!”
Johnathan jams the button again. “Done.”
Charlie leans back with a beaming smile on his face, and I’m torn between ruining the moment or just letting it be.
Maybe I should speak up more. Maybe all this pretending that something really fucked up isn’t going on is just going to hurt Charlie more in the end.
As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, Johnathan’s eyes narrow and swing to me.
I chew on my lip, staring back at him. How long can we go on like this? How long can we avoid the giant fucking elephant in the room?
Johnathan breaks eye contact first, glancing back down at his screen. “Our new stuff should be here tomorrow.”
Glancing back up, his eyes meet mine again and my heart starts to race. Oh god, he’s really doing this. He’s going all in on this farce.
Snapping the laptop shut, Johnathan sets it on the table and downs the rest of his beer. “Time for bed, buddy,” he says, rising from his chair.
“Aw, but I’m not tired,” Charlie protests and immediately tries to hide a yawn.
Johnathan chuckles and ruffles his hair. “Yeah, sure you’re not.”
Reluctantly, Charlie sets the fighter jet he’s been working all night on down and stands. “Will you tell me a bedtime story?” he asks hopefully, turning his big blue eyes on me.
I force a smile for his sake and nod my head. “Of course. How about the story of the brave little prince, the beautiful princess, and the big, mean bear?”
“Big mean bear, eh?” Johnathan grumbles, forcing me to come up short as I walk into the living room.
I spent over thirty minutes dragging Charlie’s bedtime story out, and another thirty minutes more lying beside him while he slept before I worked up the nerve to face Johnathan down.
I had every intention of starting this confrontation off with the upper hand. I was prepared to point out every single detail of this situation that is fucked up and wrong.
But one look at him and I’ve completely forgotten all the shit I want to say.
Johnathan’s eyes drag up and down over my body, and shamefully I feel myself warming. I squeeze my knees together to stop the throb that’s building in my core, but the movement only reminds me that I’m still a little tender and sore. And that tenderness reminds me of what we did last night and this morning.
Fuck, I just can’t win here.
Johnathan sets down the beer he’s been nursing. “Come here,” he says and pats his lap. “We need to talk.”
I don’t know what to do without Charlie here to act as my shield. With him around, it’s so much easier to pretend that being near Johnathan doesn’t affect me. So much easier to turn everything off.
But with just the two of us here, alone in the room, there’s nothing to dampen the attraction I feel for him.
No one to stop him from taking what he wants.
“Come here,” he repeats, his voice deepening.
I approach the couch slowly while trying to keep my breathing under control. I need to confront him, but every instinct inside my body is screaming for me to flee.
Stopping a whole cushion away from him, I sit down.
“No,” he says gruffly and pats his lap again. “Plant your sexy little ass right here.”
He can’t be serious.
“I’m not a child…” I protest.
“Then stop fucking acting like it,” he growls.
I open my mouth to tell him off, but before I even get the words out of my brain and past my lips, he’s reaching over and grabbing me.
He drops me on his lap and wraps his arm around my waist to keep me from being able to get up.
“What the fuck, Johnathan?” I squeak and try to stand up.
“Sit still,” he says, the hard bicep in his arm tightening around me and pulling me back down. “So we can talk.”
I take a deep breath and push it out through my nose. This is not at all how I expected this conversation to go.
“This is ridiculous,” I say through clenched teeth.
I haven’t even aired any of my grievances yet and he’s already managed to make me feel powerless and small.
“You’re fuckin’ telling me,” he agrees, and reaches over, picking up his beer.
On impulse, and maybe even a little bit of pettiness, I snatch the beer out of his hand and tip my head back to chug it down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Johnathan’s amused reaction while I finish his beer off.
“Feel better?” he asks with a smirk.
“No,” I answer as I peel the now empty bottle away from my mouth.
He takes the bottle from my hand and sets it off to the side, and as soon as he turns back to me I regret finishing it off.
Now there’s nothing to stop him from touching me with both of his hands.
“Did Charlie have a hard time falling asleep?” he rumbles, and reaches up to brush a strand of hair out of my face.
The movement is so tender, so damn sweet and unexpected, I fr
eeze in place.
His eyes soften as he stares down at me.
I shake my head, partly to answer him and partly to shake him off.
He frowns and drops his hand, settling it on my thigh now. His big fingers wrap around me and give a gentle squeeze. “Then what took so long?”
“The story,” I lie.
“That must have been quite a story.”
I squirm uncomfortably. “It was.”
He nods his head slowly, and I have to look away because the way he’s staring at me is making me feel incredibly uneasy. I almost wish he’d get angry or pissed about something. This gentleness is completely throwing me off my guard.
“So how did it end?” he asks, grabbing my chin and gently turning my face back to him.
I lick my lips nervously and something clenches inside me as his eyes light up. All of a sudden, I’m very aware that I’m sitting on his lap. Very aware of every little part of me that’s touching him. My thighs against his thighs. His heat leeching into me.
“The brave prince and the beautiful princess vanquished the big, mean bear and lived happily ever after.”
“That’s too bad,” he sighs, and his thumb strokes my cheek.
“How’s that? He was the bad guy…”
He smiles and I still, realizing I was just starting to lean into his touch.
“Maybe the big, mean bear was misunderstood.”
I start to roll my eyes and his grip on my chin hardens.
“Maybe the big, mean bear was ready for more from life. Maybe he wanted the brave prince and the beautiful princess because he wanted something of his own.”
It’s clear now that we’re no longer talking about the story I told and we’re talking about Johnathan himself.
I don’t know what to say, other than, “This could never work.”
“Why not?” he growls, his brows pulling down and his lips forming an angry scowl.
There’s a million reasons… hell, make that a gazillion reasons that this whole situation is doomed to fail.
And the first reason is because, “Charlie needs to be returned his family.”
“His parents are dead,” he states coldly.
“I know,” I sigh. “But he has to have other family out there. Grandma and Grandpa. Aunts, uncles, cousins…”