Queen of Hearts

by Jami Denise

  From that point, we were a fumbling mess, hands everywhere, lips and tongues kissing, sucking, and licking. I wanted his hands everywhere, on every inch of me. There would be plenty of time in the morning to deal with regret and humiliation. I was horny, wet and hot for him in every way. A switch had flipped inside me, and I wanted him. No matter what.

  “I can’t believe you ripped this dress,” I groaned as his mouth found my throat. “I just bought this.”

  “I’ll buy you ten more,” he said as he continued to suck my skin between his lips. “I don’t like it anyway.”

  I let out a laugh. “Really? I think the look on your face when you saw me said otherwise.”

  My mouth was out of control. I couldn’t believe I was flirting with him. It was ridiculous, and more importantly, dangerous. Flirting, touching, kissing... I was walking a fine line of utter stupidity.

  “I was looking at you.” He pulled back, his lips swollen and pink, his eyes glossy. “I always look at you, Janie. I don’t give a shit what you wear.”

  “Don’t be sweet. Don’t try charming me right now. Just—go with this, or I need to leave.”

  The muscles in his jaw ticked as he looked at me, and suddenly, I was being lifted and carried into the other room.

  Once we were in the back of the suite, he laid me on the bed and covered my body with his. His kisses were deeper, harder. His hands were less careful, and his hips ground against mine painfully. He was angry, but I wasn’t going to be wooed by him. Never again. He said he was selfish before, and I was being selfish with him then. I wanted him, needed to be with him even, but I wasn’t giving up what I’d so carefully hidden away. I wouldn’t allow him to take my feelings and destroy them again. He could fuck me, but that’s where I drew the line.

  I heard before I felt the dress I wore being ripped from my body. There wasn’t much to it in the first place, but it still pissed me off. He’d essentially trapped me in his suite with no way of escape, unless I wanted to leave in the flesh. Once again, he was a step ahead. Between the wine and his hands, I was screwed.

  I pushed my hands up the back of his T-shirt, feeling the strength in his back and the smooth hardness of his muscles. I remembered his tattoo, and how much it intrigued me. I also noticed he’d gotten more work done. There were some designs sneaking out from underneath the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Take it off,” he said.

  I complied, pushing it over his back and then his shoulders. He bowed his head so I could pull it over his head. Once it was gone and his arms were free, his hand went straight between my legs, pushing my panties to the side.

  His fingers were quick, the low moan that escaped his lips desperate. I could barely catch my breath feeling him there. I was so worked up, so sensitive. Nothing felt the way he did. No one could make me feel the things he did.

  “Did that little boy touch you like this?” He hissed the words in my ear. Hateful and ugly. Oh yeah, he was definitely pissed.

  “Shut up,” I spat.

  He curled his finger, hitting me deeper, and rubbed my clit with his thumb. I was floating, right on the brink of falling apart. He just wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.

  “Was he sweet, Jayne? Did he love you? Love you like this?”

  His lips trailed along my neck and down my chest. He pulled one nipple into his mouth and tugged at the other with his free hand. Again, I was surrounded—he was everywhere. There was no room to think. It was one of the reasons things with him were always so intense. He consumed me completely.

  “Don’t talk, please.”

  He was stirring things up inside of me. Sloshing my feelings around, jarring my fucking heart. It was obvious to both of us that there was still something there, something raw and overwhelming. I wasn’t ready to talk about Jackson. It wasn’t right, and it made me feel like a monster. I was still confused, hovering around bad decisions and where my mind wanted to go. My heart was where it belonged—it knew it and so did he. But my mind? It was sensible. It wanted me to stop.

  He stopped touching me between my legs and reached up to grab my hair in his fist, forcing me to look at him. “Answer me. Tell me why you left me. Why would you give him what you deny me? Why did he make you happy, and you won’t allow me the chance?”

  I raised my knee to get him off me. Things were spiraling downward fast. The quick, dirty roll in the hay that I was looking forward to was not looking good. The talk I wanted was long forgotten, and in its place, we were onto topics I would rather have left untouched.

  I was fucked.

  Figuratively.

  “Are you going to fuck me, or give me a guilt trip?”

  He pressed me back against the mattress with his body and leaned down so his nose was against mine. He smiled, dark and menacing as he spoke.

  “Oh, I’m going to fuck you. And then I’m going to make love to you. Over and over again until you pull that stick out of your ass.”

  “Don’t pull that love bullshit. If you loved me, you’d tell me where your father is. You’d tell me what the hell is going on and what you and Vince are up to. You wouldn’t treat me like I didn’t matter!”

  He pulled my bottom lip between his teeth and bit down, hard, as he grinded his hips between my legs.

  “I’ll tell you what you need to know. Now, take off my pants.”

  “You fucking do it!”

  My lip was sore, so I pulled it into my mouth and sucked down as I glared at him. It was hot, I had to admit. The whole angry sex with him thing was hot. If I thought the tender Flynn had been amazing, the angry, bitter Flynn was ten times more delicious.

  He slid to the side of me and lay on his back so he could slip his jeans off. He was mumbling under his breath and glaring at me as he did so, and the look on his face was nothing short of spectacular.

  I knew it was going to be ballistic. My insides clenched at the thought of him taking me with everything he had. I wanted it. I wanted tooth and nail, power and pain. Immediately, he was over me once his clothes were gone, and without another word, he plunged inside of me.

  Every cell of my body knew this was right, that being with him was nothing short of heaven. Why did things have to be that way? Why couldn’t he have been the knight in shining armor, or at the very least, not a goddamn liar? I clung to his back and wrapped my legs around his thighs as he thrust his hips, let a silent prayer roll around in my head, begging for him to be what I needed.

  I was that far gone, apparently.

  He was relentless and fierce, each pump of his hips leading to his pelvis brushing against my clit. He braced himself above me, peering down at me like I was his prey. There was an ominous look in his eye that held so many secrets and so much pain. Pain I’d caused, and pain he’d caused himself.

  “You don’t want to talk about your boyfriend,” he sneered. “Come on, Jayne. He fuck you like this?”

  “Don’t talk about it,” I cried out as the onslaught of my climax waned. I was on the edge, and each stupid remark caused it to fade. I just wanted to take what he was giving. I didn’t want to expose myself to his questions—not when I was so vulnerable with him inside me.

  “Make sure you pull out,” I said suddenly. My eyes caught his, and the grin on his face made me buck against him to get loose. “Flynn! You didn’t wear a condom!”

  I never—ever—went without a condom. It just reinforced that being with him was a bad idea. I lost my damn mind every time I was near him.

  “I mean it. Pull. Out.”

  He reached underneath us, lifting me closer, and sat back on his heels so that I was on his lap. Holding me against his chest, he let his tongue run over the shell of my ear and then whispered.

  “Don’t worry, Jayne. When I get you pregnant, you’ll be wearing my fucking ring.”

  Like a hot trigger, I fell apart. As my body shook, he held me. I don’t know what it was about his words that set me off. It was the vehemence in his voice, the confidence in what he believed. I didn’t want to get pregn
ant—not then, maybe ever—but I’d thought about family a lot while I was away, and hearing him voice his wishes elicited a desire in me.

  Like I said—I lost my damn mind around him.

  His hips slowed as he allowed me to come down, and with each upward thrust, he kissed me a little softer and a little sweeter. It felt so damn good the way his tongue teased my lips. His hands soothed my back as I grinded against him in time with his motions. It was never ending, and I wanted it to last forever. I had no idea what was going to happen once I left that room, and I was leaving that room once we were done. I couldn’t pretend we were all good. We hadn’t accomplished anything other than shedding our clothes.

  When my breathing was more even, he flipped us so that I was back against the mattress with him on top of me. I think we both understood that there was nothing more to say. There were no words to describe what was going on between us. In that regard, nothing had changed. Our whole dynamic was the same—if anything, it was better. More intense. I didn’t know what it meant.

  I could feel him getting closer. Sweat dripped from his forehead, down his nose, and fell onto my chest. He looked stronger, bigger. I watched the muscles in his arms work as he held himself up, the thick coils stretching underneath his skin and tensing with every move he made. He was an asshole, but God, was he beautiful.

  My hands moved over his shoulders so I could feel them. I rubbed the muscles of his chest and felt the raised tissue just below his collarbone.

  The gunshot.

  Tears sprung to my eyes, and there was no making them go away. I couldn’t hide them from him as I ran my fingers over the marred skin. I was back in that moment with all the confusion and fear and defeat. I was watching him lay there, dying, and I was listening to Vince whisper last words. My heart was breaking all over again, and it brought everything back to light.

  The reason I left. The reason I never wanted to come back.

  I felt him tense, and then he was there, coming inside me despite my protests, holding me down with his body and his eyes, and there was nothing I could do but feel.

  His breath was warm and heavy in my ear as he collapsed on top of me, the weight of his body trapping me. I let my legs fall to the side but kept my hold on him with my arms around his back. I wasn’t ready to let go of him or what we had when we were like that. I was angry with myself for falling into bed with him so easily, and angry that he still didn’t respect me enough to fill me in on what ultimately affected my entire life.

  We were at a stalemate. Nothing had changed.

  He wanted a whore, and I was dumb enough to open my legs.

  Flynn rolled away, and I felt the wetness run down my leg as he slid out of me. My body shook with silent tears as I turned onto my side and pressed my head into the pillow. I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of seeing anything else from me.

  He slid in behind me, pulling me back against him with one arm around my middle, and pulled the blanket over both of us. I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t sleep in his arms and act like what had just happened was nothing more than make-up sex. It was a mistake. Plain and simple.

  “I need to go home, Flynn. I need to call Vince to bring me something to wear so I can go.”

  His arm squeezed me, and his other hand reached up to grab a handful of my hair. His lips pressed against my ear. “You’re a cold-hearted bitch. You’re not going anywhere until we talk.”

  I gasped.

  “You have a lot of nerve saying that to me.”

  The palm of his hand spread across my belly, and he nuzzled my cheek with his. “I love you, Jayne. You don’t get to leave me again. We’re right. This is right.”

  “It’s fucked up,” I whispered. My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what I want.”

  “Are you staying?” he asked.

  “Tonight?”

  I turned in his arms and pushed back so I could see him better. His face was still flushed and his hair fell into his eyes. Reaching up, I pushed it away from his brow and watched the tenderness fill his eyes.

  “Why did you come back here? Why now?”

  I closed my eyes. I wasn’t even sure how to answer that.

  “I need to know what happened to my dad. You can call him a piece of shit all you want, but he was all I had, Flynn. Your father had him killed, and I want to know why. There’s more to all of this than debt. My dad owed everyone.”

  He smiled a sad smile and ran his finger down my face. “My smart girl.”

  “I deserve to know. You and Vince can’t play games with me forever. It’s not fair. I spent a lot of time trying to fix things inside of me, and I can’t put everything together without knowing why my dad had to die—not when I did everything I could to save him. I can’t live with that failure.”

  “You didn’t come back to me? For this?”

  I turned, looked up into his eyes, and shook my head. “No,” I said softly. “I was happy there. I wanted to start over.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Just go to sleep, Janie.”

  The next morning, I slipped out while he slept. It was hardly the most graceful walk of shame I’d ever performed, but I’d been walking that walk since before I got my driver’s license. I made it work.

  SIXTEEN

  I managed to avoid Flynn for the next few days. I’d checked out and into two different hotels to stay off his radar, and I’d ignored all his calls. I wasn’t sure what to say to him or how to act. I knew exactly where he stood, and it was in a giant pile of denial. Just like most men, he thought that giving me a little bit of dick would render a girl stupid. I wasn’t ready to forgive him. Not completely, and definitely not without full disclosure.

  That didn’t mean that I didn’t want him. If anything, I wanted him more. Sadly, he was right. I was cold-hearted, and that wasn’t something I could just thaw out after just one night of great sex.

  I’d been surprised when I got a call from Ellie, my pseudo-stepmother, to meet for lunch. I hadn’t seen her since getting back in town, and I felt bad. She hadn’t been entirely happy that I’d come back. I think she’d hoped that I would move on and find a better life somewhere else. She had regrets, and I know she didn’t want me to continue living in the shadow of my dad.

  So when she called and asked if I could meet her that afternoon, I was worried. Just the tone of her voice put me on edge. She could be a little dramatic and motherly, and most times, I adored that about her, but hearing the stress and panic in her voice was just too much.

  I was still raw and emotional. I flip-flopped constantly between embracing my life in Vegas and bailing out for good. There was that pull to run back to Jackson and beg his forgiveness, but an even stronger pull to just give in to Flynn and deal with the repercussions of that decision. If anything, he was a challenge and my life would never be boring, and that’s where the majority of my thoughts went. A life with Flynn would be exciting and explosive. The love and the hate and definitely the physical.

  He was my match in every way.

  But, I was stubborn, and damn it, I would make him fight for it. He couldn’t hand me cash to buy my trust, and I was ready to see what lengths he would go to gain that trust back.

  He already had my heart, something I’d known all along. Jackson taught me a thing or two about unconditional love, and I wanted to give that to Flynn, and I really wanted it back. It would take time to weed out the bullshit between us.

  ~~***~~

  I met Ellie in a small coffee shop a short drive out of town. She was already sitting in a vinyl booth waiting when I arrived, and just seeing her face again gave me a sense of relief.

  “Ellie,” I said, smiling. I leaned down and kissed her soft, weathered cheek and took a seat across from her. “How are you?”

  She frowned and narrowed her eyes. “Darling, you have always been a pain in my ass, but I love you. I have to say, though, you really know how to piss people off!”

  I was taken aback by her tone. “What’s going on, E
llie? Is someone bothering you? Did something happen?”

  I was suddenly filled with dread. If Doyle set his sights on Ellie in retaliation for my actions or those of his son’s, I would kill them all. She was innocent and precious to me. She’d stepped in, knowing it was dangerous and stupid, but she’d done it anyway. For me. She’d do anything for me.

  “No, Janie. I’m worried about you. Here.”

  She thrust an envelope across the table at me, and I held it up as one would hold a ticking bomb.

  “What is it?”

  She huffed. “Hell if I know. It was delivered to my room along with directions for me to give it to you. Discreetly.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was probably from Flynn. More of his ridiculous memos and nonsense. I laughed.

  “It’s probably from Flynn.”

  She let out a low groan, reached across the table, and grabbed my hand.

  “Have you learned nothing? They killed your father, Jayne. You are in way over your head here. You’re no master criminal, baby. You’re a call girl. I don’t say this to be cruel; you know that I would never judge you. I never have. This is about your safety. Flynn is as dangerous as his father. You need to be careful.”

  She was worried sick, and it hurt to hear the words coming from her mouth. I knew she meant it when she said she didn’t judge me. She really didn’t. But I was puzzled by her concern with Flynn. Was he an asshole? Completely. But dangerous? Not the way she assumed. He would break my heart, but physically hurt me? Never. I knew that to be a fact.

  “Ellie, trust me. Flynn is not anything like his father. He isn’t exactly a good man, but he’s not dangerous—especially not to me.”

  She shook her head and sat back. “You’ll do what you want. You always have, but I have a bad feeling about this. How in the world did they find me? Doesn’t it bother you that they came to me?”

  I gave her a small smile. “No, Ellie. It doesn’t surprise me. I don’t have very many people in my life. It wouldn’t be hard to put two and two together. You were with my dad a long time. Everyone knows we’re connected. You were like a mother to me.”