So she dragged her nails back down his chest slowly, letting her fire-red manicure trickle over every dip and curve of his strong chest, through the soaked hair at the deep V on his hips and down to the column that still twitched for her touch.
This time she didn’t tease him, taking the head, purple and aching for her, under her fingers.
Gage sucked in a breath.
She bit her bottom lip, looking at him from under her lowered lashes as his eyes fluttered closed. The hold he had on the paddle loosened. He appeared seconds from dropping it in the water, unable to dedicate a single shred of his strength and attention to anything with the feel of her hand on his dick.
Her playful eyes fell to his hardness. She soaked her palm in the sticky dot of precum glistening from the tip, loving the way it had its own unique texture. Loving that she could still feel his sticky arousal soaking her hand, even though it was already damp from the ocean water. She spread that arousal down his shaft, driven by the strangled moans that parted his plush lips. She stroked him all the way to the base, letting the trimmed hair there tickle her hand before she drew a strong tug back up.
The water lapping onto the board, combined with the slickness of his desire, aided her loving tugs, making them come nice and smooth. She tightened her grip and jerked him, keeping her strokes in perfect unison with the moans, cries, and pants tearing up his throat, louder by the second. When he clutched the paddleboard on either side and leaned back, his weight nearly capsized it, but not even that was enough to pull him from the place she’d taken him to. Veda picked up her pace, massaging him just the way she knew he liked, slow and then fast, rubbing the head with the palm of her hand every time she made it to the pulsating tip, his most sensitive point, the point that always made him come in minutes if she devoted all of her attention to it.
And as she lifted one leg from the ocean, water splashing down from her calves as she did, and set it on top of the board, followed by the other, she did give that sensitive tip all her attention. She clapped her thighs together and leaned forward, sucking the head of his dick between her lips.
His moans moved to strangled grunts. Veda had half a mind to stop just long enough to warn him not to drop the paddleboard, leaving them stranded in the water.
She did no such thing, however, because she was just as gone as he was. Just as taken by the beautiful sounds leaving his mouth, the fact that she was the only woman alive who could take him to that place, and the amazing feeling it sent shooting through her body like a rocket. Needing that sound like she needed air to breathe, she flicked her tongue on the underside of the tip while keeping the rest of it sealed between her lips like a lollipop, encircling the base of his shaft with both hands while rotating them in opposite directions.
She smiled at the jerk of his hips, pushing the tip deeper into her mouth, the shaft against her tongue. She drank him in until he hit the back of her throat, her eyes fluttering against the gentle gag reflex his massive dick tried to elicit. She powered through, too desperate to see and hear him come. Bobbing her head up and down, her smile spread around his hardness even as he buried his hand in her hair and tugged, warning her. She didn’t stop bobbing until the warmth of his load hit the back of her throat, and then she returned to the tip, locking it between her lips and sucking with all her might, feeling her cheeks go into suction cups as she took every warm shot into her throat, every unconscious tug of her hair, every uncontrollable thrust of his hips.
She dug her fingers into his thighs, taking it all, looking up at him from under her hooded eyelashes, only releasing his dick from her mouth when he’d stopped jerking, stopped moaning, and allowed his lips to clap shut so he could swallow back the moisture that had accumulated in his mouth.
“Mmmm….” She continued stroking his dick under a much gentler touch, watching as it grew soft once more between his thighs. She met his eyes while playfully sticking her tongue out. “All gone, baby.”
His abs constricted with each heaving breath as he watched her. He just sat there for several moments, gasping in awe.
“You were right,” he finally managed to croak, hand still buried in her air. “Let’s not go home.” He shook his head, smiling softly. “Ever.”
Veda smiled back at him.
She wanted that more than anything. To run away from home, from the world, and never look back. If Gage was by her side, she could do it without even blinking.
But then it hit her.
Jax Murphy.
The photos he had that proved she was The Shadow Rock Chopper.
Amazingly, Coco and Jake also entered her mind. Her friends.
Friends.
It was a word whose power she always seemed to underestimate until she found herself in moments like that one, facing it head-to-head.
Jake had put his job on the line to protect Veda. Too many times to count.
And Coco. Coco looked at her like a mentor. A big sister. She was almost an adult but still such a child. So raw, so innocent, so in need of strength and guidance.
Veda couldn’t leave her friends.
She couldn’t leave Shadow Rock.
Not yet.
Not when her disappearance would leave them bearing the brunt of problems she’d created for herself. Not when her downfall could very well mean theirs as well.
Not until she finished destroying the ten animals who’d destroyed her ten years before, on that sleepy island called Shadow Rock.
19
Veda hadn’t realized how stressed she was, and the sheer amount of anxiety that her life gave her on a day-to-day basis until the ship had docked in Shadow Rock.
The moment she’d stepped through the hospital doors again, the rumbling in her stomach, which had been absent for the entire cruise, returned with a vengeance.
Perhaps she didn’t love her job as much as she’d previously imagined.
Or perhaps she just hated the man she was approaching, smiling from his favorite place nestled behind the bushes in the courtyard garden so much that it was making it hard for her to see the good in anything.
Dark clouds rolled overhead, blocking the sun and making the roses look darker than Veda had ever seen them. She felt her top lip curling as she grew closer to Jax Murphy’s smiling face.
When she was close enough, she shoved the pill bottle in her hand against his chest as hard as she could.
Not only was he not hurt, but his smile grew.
“Here’s your fucking pills,” she spat. “Two hundred milligrams.”
“Now is that any way to greet your friend?” Jax asked, accepting the pills with a faux frown on his face—a frown that was doing a piss-poor job of overpowering the smile shining on his lips and in his eyes.
Veda turned away with a scoff. Their third official exchange since Jax had blackmailed her with those photos and she still hadn’t figured out a way to get him out of her life. At least not anything that didn’t involve killing him. Jake had come up with dozens of colorful ways to end that miserable bastard’s life, but some part of Veda still couldn’t fathom it.
Being a killer.
“See you Wednesday?” he spoke to her retreating back.
Veda rolled her eyes, pretending not to hear him.
“Hey, Veda, can I ask you something?”
She didn’t know what stopped her. What made her turn on her heel. What made her meet his eyes across the grass while crossing her arms tight. She glared at him.
He played the bottle of oxy between his fingers, his hideous smile ever present. “How do you do it?”
“How do I do what, Jax?” she demanded, already fresh out of patience just looking at his grinning face. He had about two seconds to get on with it before she removed herself from his toxic presence completely.
He squinted with a shrug. “How do you find the stomach to date Gage Blackwater?”
If her mind had been telling her to walk away before, it was screaming for it now, somehow very aware of the dangerous place this conversa
tion had the potential of going.
She wanted to turn. To move. To run. To escape.
But her feet wouldn’t let her. “Why wouldn’t I have the stomach?”
“Todd and Eugene are two of his closest friends.”
“I guess you would know since you spent all of high school sucking up to them. Even when they gave you their ass to kiss.”
His smile grew, cutting his eyes at her. “You know he was there that night, right?”
Veda blinked rapidly. Her feet shuffled. Her heartbeat tripled tenfold and she felt her hairline growing damp. “Of course I know he was at the party that night. It was his house.” Her eyes began to dance back and forth, going wider by the second. She sputtered and then let her horrified eyes lay on his. “That’s what you meant… that Gage was at the party? Not on the balcony.” She took a deep breath and heard it trembling, never able to control the visceral reaction her body had to Jax whenever she was in his presence, sick to her absolute stomach at the very idea that Gage could ever make her feel the way this man was making her feel right then. “Not on the balcony….” She cut a look at him. “Right?” The moment the question left her lips, Veda’s knees nearly buckled under her.
His grin grew coy, eyes playful.
“He wasn’t on the balcony,” Veda’s voice rose, eyes watering. “Say it.”
His eyebrows rose higher.
Veda stamped her foot in the grass, unaware that tears had filled her eyes until the first one jetted down her cheek and wet the toe of her sneaker. “Say it!”
Jax slid the pill bottle into his pocket, looking pleased with himself as he adjusted his camera bag on his shoulder. “No,” he started. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Her chest heaved and she slapped the tears off her cheeks, her teeth softly chattering. “Because you haven’t already tortured me enough?”
He began to back away from her. “Wow.” He chuckled, pointing at her. “And here I was… thinking I’d already played my last trump card.”
A shot of sadness encased Veda from head to toe. She’d just given him more ammo. Now he didn’t just have the photos to hang over her head, but the truth about whether or not Gage was ten as well. She’d rather be caught by the police than learn that Gage was ten. She’d rather lose her job. She’d rather be confined to a jail cell for the rest of her life.
She’d rather be dead.
And Jax knew it.
He bit his bottom lip around his smile. “I do happen to know whether or not Gage was on the balcony that night, Veda. But I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it just yet. You’ve been very rude to me these last few days during our exchanges. We haven’t exactly fostered a relationship of trust, you and I. I honestly wouldn’t feel comfortable spilling my heart out to you just yet. Maybe we could press the reset button on our relationship and, one day, I might find it in my heart to open up.”
“I hate you… more than anything.”
“Now that is no way to get on my good side. What a terrible way to start our new relationship.”
Veda’s watery eyes narrowed, hating that she’d even asked him about Gage. Hating that she’d asked him for anything at all. That even after Gage had taken her on a beautiful four-day excursion where they’d made love day and night, somewhere, deep down, she still hadn’t been able to stop herself from asking.
She turned to walk away.
His voice rang in from behind her. “You know, Veda, we’re not that different, you and I!”
She lifted her middle finger high in the air, making sure he could see it over her shoulder.
His laughter poisoned her ears and she began speed-walking, desperate to get away from the disgusting sound.
——
After an entire day at the hospital, with the unnerving conversation she’d had with Jax rolling through her head, causing her so much stress it was a wonder she hadn’t killed one of her patients in her distraction, Veda was in no mood to play Suzy Homemaker.
Thankfully, she had a boyfriend who was happy to do it for her.
“When Hope told me she was vegan, I thought that was the same as vegetarian,” Gage said from the kitchen, busy spooning the vegan dinner he’d prepared onto three plates on the island. “Turns out they’re not the same. At all. I’m really learning a lot being unemployed, baby.”
Veda humphed from her seat at the kitchen table, her knees bobbing and feet tapping wildly against the floor. She bit the tip of her nail and tried to derail her thoughts, but it was a lost cause. It had been all day.
“How do you find the stomach to date Gage Blackwater?”
Veda cut a look into the kitchen where Gage was in the midst of cleaning the rest of the dirty pots and pans. The dining table was already set for Hope, who was supposed to arrive at any minute.
Veda couldn’t stop her stomach from rolling as she watched him straightening up the kitchen. Either he was oblivious to her probing eyes or used to them, letting her drink in his baby blue button-down shirt, tucked into charcoal slacks, cinched to his slim hips with a black belt.
She blinked when Gage said something to her. “Huh? Did you say something?”
He chuckled from the kitchen. “Why do I have a feeling our dinner guest is going to be feeling very neglected tonight?”
She waved a hand through the air. “The rich boy in you would never let that happen. You’re going to break your back keeping the conversation alive and the drinks flowing. I could just as soon not be here at all and Hope would still have the time of her fucking life.”
Gage smiled proudly at her pseudo-compliment, and both their eyes flew to the foyer when the doorbell rang out.
“I got it,” Veda said, standing.
Gage circled the island and raced over to her, placing a hand on the small of her back while leading her to the foyer. “No, we’ve got it. The man and wife should both greet the guest at the door.”
“Or the man and wife could just hire a butler.”
“Have you forgotten so quickly that the man and wife no longer have a multi-million-dollar trust fund at their disposal?”
“How could I forget? I still have nightmares about being the reason they don’t.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “My mother is the reason, and everyone knows it. She needs to learn a little humility. A little grace. She needs to understand that she can’t mold the world to her liking at every turn.”
Veda watched the slow frown growing on his face. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Look how fast my Suzy Homemaker is being replaced with some seething, angry man.”
“I’m good.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Excited to see you with an old friend and hear all the embarrassing secrets.”
“Well, Hope has plenty of those.”
And she didn’t intend to let Hope leave that night until she promised not to divulge Veda’s most horrifying secret of all.
She and Gage climbed the foyer steps together and he straightened his clothes, making sure they were perfect—which they were, of course—before throwing open the front door.
Veda didn’t know what she was expecting when she saw Hope on the other side of that door, but whatever feeling jetted through her, making her skin warm and her eyes water, was one that she hadn’t been prepared for. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the heartfelt laugh that bubbled up from her stomach and tickled her throat.
Hope covered her mouth as well, but her hazel eyes betrayed the smile she tried to conceal under her heavily tattooed hand. Black nail polish was chipping away on almost all her nails. The tattoo on the back of her hand reminded Veda of the artwork Indian women had painted on before they were married. That ink stretched all the way down Hope’s arm—both arms, in fact. Both were fully visible in a fitted black tank top, cropped just short enough to show a hint of her tight belly button. The dark color made her pale skin scream out, even more than the colorful tattoos that left so little of it visible.
As always, a wad of gum stayed
trapped between Hope’s full pink lips, and she wasn’t shy about chomping it to bits until the sound of it smacking under her teeth and tongue rang out into the air. She was just as skinny as Veda remembered as well. No ass at all in her skintight black jeans, with long svelte legs that stretched all the way down to a pair of calf-high combat boots. Her dark brown hair was longer than Veda remembered but still wavy, winding all the way down to the swell of her plump breasts.
Hope still buried her naturally gorgeous features under the darkest eyeliner, mascara, and eye shadow she could find, topped by a deep purple lipstick that made her look post-mortem.
Nope, Hope hadn’t changed. Not one little bit.
And Veda wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The nostrils of Hope’s straight nose flared as emotion took hold of her. Behind her, the moon sat high in the dark sky, and the sound of the crashing waves at the bottom of the cliff snuck into the doorway and filled the foyer.
Hope was the first to break the barrier, rocketing through the doorway with her arms wide open, hands pulled into fists.
Veda raced into her open arms, not realizing she’d been holding back a small cry until she found herself releasing it into the crook of Hope’s tattooed neck.
“Holy fuckin’ shit, it really is you,” Hope said, speaking around her gum.
Veda embraced her, locking her hands around Hope’s waist with a tightness that threatened to never let go.
“Way to disappear from this miserable island and never look the fuck back,” Hope said, turning her smiling head into Veda’s neck as well. “I’d be lying if I said I blamed you. God knows I’d have been out of here on the first train running if I had half the fuckin’ brains you did.” She pulled back but held onto Veda’s arms.
Purr (Revenge Book 3) Page 14