“Really? You hardly ate.”
How would he know? He’d hardly looked at her.
She swallowed the defensive retort. “How was the trip?” This was the first time they’d been alone today.
“The trip was boring enough not to talk about.”
She turned to look out the window, biting the inside of her cheek as her nails dug into her curled fists.
Breathe.
Lungs and eyes burning, she needed air to help breathe through the rejection.
She opened the window an inch. The cool wind rushed in. Enough to ease the tightness in her chest. Enough to whip her hair as if caught in a storm.
Enough for her silent scream to be swallowed by the roaring white noise of it.
She was too brittle for this tonight, too ready to break. She had gotten her wish; Jerricho had made her feel. He’d scraped her raw. The world seemed sharp, every nuance painfully accentuated.
Tonight, Killian felt toxic. Suddenly she didn’t want to be with him.
The car turned into their driveway and rolled to a stop outside the house.
“Are you going down to the boathouse?” Killian asked as he opened the car door on her side. After the dismissive coldness of the evening, the chivalrous gesture grated. A lie of attention.
“No. Not tonight.” Tonight was not a good night for her to be with any of the men.
Everything was still too fresh, and she was fragile.
“I’m going to bed.” Her voice cracked. The thing with Killian was that nothing slipped by unnoticed, even when it seemed as if he wasn’t paying attention, especially when it seemed as if he wasn’t. She held her breath, praying he didn’t snag her unraveling.
With quick strides, they were at the front door. Almost inside. Her control slipping …
“Is that so?” He breathed down her neck.
“Disappointed?” She whirled on him. “Upset you’re going to miss your little personal peep show?”
Killian held his hands up in surrender, eyes narrowing, but his pupils were blown with interest.
Dammit.
She’d come at him like a dog in a corner, like a lover bleeding guilt.
Careless and stupid.
Yanking the door open, she almost fell into the house. Heart thumping, legs wanting to run, she strode toward the stairs and the sanctuary of her room. She could feel him circling, closing in behind her—the predator had smelled blood.
“What did he do, Scar?”
“Nothing.” Her steps quickened. “I’m tired, Killian. I’m going to bed.” She’d made it to the stairs. In her flat shoes, she took more than one step at a time.
She knew he was right there, even though he didn’t make a noise; his heat blasted up against her back.
“What did Black do?” The low growl crawled on her neck.
Finally, she reached her bedroom, and her relief was palpable.
Her hand readied to turn the handle of the bedroom door as Killian’s hands shot out on either side of her. He braced against it, caught and caged her between wood and stone. “What. Did. He. Do?”
So close. A noise of frustration escaped her lips.
She couldn’t talk about it. Not when he’d been so distant from her tonight. Not when she felt so messed up. Not in anger.
Closing her eyes and gathering strength, she turned the handle and swung the door wide open. Striding across the room to the bathroom, she kicked off her shoes.
She needed to feel the carpet. Needed to feel the ground.
Needed the reminder of the bastinado.
The solace of Jerricho.
Killian’s arm stopped her.
Grabbing her around the waist, he yanked her back into his chest.
“What’s with the flats, Scar? You never wear flats when we go out. You’re a high heels girl.” His voice was low and dangerous as he purred into her ear.
No longer distracted, she had all his attention.
“Nothing.” She pushed at his arm. “I’m just tired.” She twisted her head to sneer at him. “It’s exhausting, all the fucking.”
“Oh yeah?”
It bounced off him; she was the only one who hurt.
“I just want to be left alone.” She gave up and sank into him.
Instead of letting her go, he picked her up, draped her over his shoulder like a rag doll and walked to the bed.
“Dammit, Killian.” She thumped against his back. “Put me down.”
He let go, unceremoniously dropping her on the mattress.
She lashed out with her foot to kick him. With his fast reflexes, he caught and held her ankle. She struggled and momentarily got free, then tried to kick him again, but this time he caught her foot with a tight grip as his thumb pressed up into the arch of her foot and hit the tender flesh.
She cried out, an agonized whimper.
“Sweet Jesus.”
She froze at his words.
He looked at her foot again and then dropped it as if he’d been bitten.
“What the fuck did he do, Scar?” But she knew he’d figured it out, the shoes, her reaction—it had nothing to do with his misplaced finger.
“Nothing I didn’t want.” Her rabbit heart thumped in her chest.
“You want this?”
“Yes.”
And him.
She wanted Jerricho.
There was no more denying.
***
Killian stepped back from the bed reeling.
Christ, he’d been in the room with them and he hadn’t noticed. This was no longer about feeling good.
Bastinado was not a gesture; it was a fucking declaration … on both sides.
He’d had that same sick feeling the day he’d opened the ransom package. The world was slipping out of his hands.
Eli had phoned the night before to tell him the trail on Romeo had gone cold. And now this … Scar falling in deep with another man.
Did she even realize?
When was she going to tell him? Was she going to tell him?
“This is what you wanted. You hired him, Killian, not me.”
So fucking wrong. This was not what he wanted.
He laughed, forced and pained.
“You sound so guilty, Scar.”
He’d felt something different about her all evening, but he’d never guessed. He’d put it down to his own mood.
Blindsided.
They were always the killer blows. The ones you never saw coming, which always felled you to your knees.
“I can’t …” He moved back and started pacing next to the bed. “Not like this.”
They couldn’t end like this.
“Not what? Killian, you’re scaring me.” Thick, silent tears ran down her cheeks.
He looked around, lost … searching. He grabbed her bag and whisked out her phone.
“What are you doing?” She didn’t stop him. He didn’t answer.
His thumb swiped across the screen, looking for Black’s number.
He was going to kill the bastard.
“What are you going to do, Killian?” She sounded scared.
His eyes flicked up to meet her gaze, his look hard. There was no moving him.
The phone rang, the call connected.
“No. It’s not Scarlet.” He didn’t like the relief in the Black’s tone when the man thought it had been his wife. “We’re going to the boxing tomorrow night. Just you and me.”
He spoke into the phone as he watched her. She’d gone so still, he could barely see her breathing.
“You misunderstood, Black. I wasn’t asking.” His smile felt feral.
He wasn’t listening to Black’s response. No was not an option. He stood there just watching her. Watching her face crumble. The voice on the other end drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.
“Be ready at seven. A car will pick you up.” He hung up and dropped the phone on the bed next to her.
Silence hung between them as he considered their situation. He cle
nched his jaw and ground his teeth.
“What are you going to do?” She sounded hoarse. Scared.
“Just talk.”
She was shaking her head sadly, slowly, as if she didn’t believe him, couldn’t believe him.
“What are you going to say?” Fresh tears were brimming over.
“That’s between Black and me.”
“He’s different from Daniel.”
He laughed bitterly. “You don’t say.”
A cloak of cold distance started to slide over him. He needed to fight it, needed to stay connected. This was the point of no return. He knew that, even if his compass was broken.
“Please, Killian, don’t hurt him … please.”
Her teeth were actually chattering. It made him think of his mother on the floor as she watched his father. Gut churning, he felt suddenly ill.
He kept his expression the same.
“He gives me something … I need him.”
She loved him. Did she even know?
“He’s good for me. Please don’t hurt him. Just don’t hurt him. Promise me.”
She was begging. He’d reduced her to begging.
The cold in his blood was no longer for her, the loathing turned inward as it started to cannibalize him.
Twenty
Jerricho walked through the garden from the boathouse. It was almost seven o’clock; the car would soon be here. He’d fucked up. The invitation to boxing wasn’t because Killian liked his company. Maybe that knowledge should’ve been eating at him, but his thoughts were too distracted.
Scarlet had avoided him for two days.
In the moment of the bastinado, Scarlet had joined to him in a way that was spiritual, a breathtaking union of sadism and masochism that moved him in ways day-to-day life couldn’t.
After the bath, he’d laid her on the bed and drank the water from her skin. A slow worship of tender kisses and gentle sex until crying in his arms, she’d come again and again and again. An orgasm for every one he’d edged and denied her. She’d clung to him like he couldn’t get deep enough inside her.
But reflection could be confronting—kink was often a wrestle between reason and soul.
He should’ve eased her into it, even if in the moment it had felt right. Even if she had been ready for it, maybe even wanted it.
He’d opened the door and now she was hiding.
Was it because he’d shown his darker nature?
Or hers?
Either way, the rejection felt raw. A scab pulled off an old wound.
After their closeness, he felt keenly estranged.
She’d been home today.
He’d seen her looking down at the boathouse from her window. He’d gone up to the house, but the knock on her locked bedroom door had been ignored.
He’d phoned. He’d messaged.
All unanswered.
He’d let them get complicated, made it personal.
He’d fucked up.
Jerricho walked through the house and out the front door. Passing through, that’s all he was doing in the Baileys’ life. Just passing through.
Right on time, the black Mercedes came up the drive.
He slowly exhaled; it was time to get his head back into triage. Time to work the problems. Killian. Money. Dado. He had to find a way to make his next payment.
He stepped off the porch onto the gravel just as the front door to the house swung open.
Scarlet. Hair and nightgown in disarray as if getting out of bed had been an insurmountable task.
She looked beautiful.
He stood there midway between destiny and desire.
“Jerricho.” She sounded raw. “I’m sorry, so sor—”
He didn’t want to hear her regret.
He didn’t want her to be married. He didn’t want to be on the run.
Before she finished speaking, he was in front of her, grabbing her and pulling her against him. A rush of victory as she didn’t push him away, then a sweeter rush as he brushed his lips against hers and she moaned into his mouth.
He pulled back to slow down, to look at her. He needed to capture this moment.
Her hand trembled as she reached up to feel his lips. Tentative fingertips traced the shape of them. The innocence of her touch unraveled as she pushed his yielding flesh and forced her way in.
He stood there, letting her explore his mouth, her eyes shining with some sense of wonder, as if discovering him for the first time. The moment tinged with a new longing.
Unable to wait any longer to kiss her, he tugged her fingers from his mouth.
As if in protest, she reached out, caught his hair, and roughly pulled him down toward her.
For the smallest second, he resisted, the same internal battle playing out as if he didn’t already know the war had been won.
The sense of falling.
Onto her. Into her.
Her lips parted on the barest of contact, a warm, wet welcome as she took him in on the softest sigh. Hungry and wanting.
There was nothing hesitant in his kiss. He kissed her as if she was familiar. As if he knew her taste.
He kissed her as if she was his home.
***
The boxing stadium smelled like stale air, sweat and liniment rub. Jerricho started walking down toward the front of the ring, but Killian stopped him.
“You can’t see the footwork from the floor seats. At the big fights people who buy ringside tickets just want to be noticed. Best view is slightly raised, ring center.” He gestured to a row to the left. “When a man’s going to hit you, you need to watch his whole body.”
Bodies talk.
Killian ushered them to a spot of his choosing and sent Joel to fetch a round drinks.
Jerricho sat and took in the atmosphere. Big, beautiful chandeliers hung down, illuminating the crowd. A show of money—the food, the bottles of champagne, the fashion—and it wasn’t just the women who were beautiful.
He glanced at Killian’s profile in his periphery. The man sat contemplatively, watching the ring. A pre-match fight entertained the crowd.
Jerricho leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs; the casual ease was all show. While the silence didn’t bother him, Killian’s mood had him on guard. The back of his neck prickled with the crawling of a thousand spiders.
The dull thudding of gloves on flesh pulled his attention into the ring—a muffled violence covered with a thin veil of civility. The tension of a similar brutality strained between him and his host, it had been a long time simmering.
He watched the boxers’ footwork in the ring, the grace at which they danced around each other. There was a beauty to the art of war. A poetry to dominating and conquering.
The driver arrived with the drinks and Killian drew a slow sip of the whiskey. When he spoke, he was still watching the ring. “You’re a smart man, Black. Want to tell me why you’re here tonight?”
Jerricho watched the boxer in the red shorts get caught up on the ropes. The fighter’s elbows tucked in, gloves shielding his face as his body braced against the assault of uppercuts.
“The bastinado.”
Killian nodded. “I hired you on the understanding you would dominate, not torture my wife.”
“I think the term torture is overstating.” It was exactly that in several countries, but he’d never hit her with the intent to harm. He’d been extremely careful, leaving her feet tender but not bruised.
Killian snorted his disagreement.
“The way I see it, Killian, the difference between you and me, is I only hurt Scarlet on the outside—”
Killian’s head whipped round to look at him for the first time that night. “Here’s where you should stop talking.”
The hard edge of violence in the man’s eyes warned that Jerricho was walking a very, very thin line. Despite the ring, where he sat had become the most dangerous place in the room. He watched Killian’s jaw clench and unclench then clench again as the man wrestled to regain his self-control.<
br />
“She’ll never leave me. You have to know that.”
Killian didn’t have to bluff; Jerricho believed him. Even as he sat there with lips that were still swollen from Scarlet’s kiss … he believed him.
Jerricho looked away. He was a smart man, so why the fuck was he thinking about another man’s wife?
The bell rang. A thin blonde in a bikini walked around the ring holding up the number four.
“Do you know how I made my first million?” Killian asked.
Jerricho shook his head.
“I won it at the tables. I took ten thousand to Vegas and I came home with seven and a half million. People think winning is a skill. It’s not. It’s balls and luck. You’ve got no control over luck. Everybody’s has the same luck. So what it really comes down to are balls.” Killian took another sip of his drink. “Balls to play and balls to walk away.”
“I don’t gamble.” Jerricho lifted his own drink to his lips. The vodka burned as he swallowed.
Killian laughed dryly. “We’re all gamblers, Black.”
“No. I’m just doing what you hired me to do. What Scarlet wants me to do.”
“Dominate yes. Claim no.”
“I don’t see it like that.” It was arguable who had done the claiming, and who had been claimed.
“I’ll tell you how I see it. I see you’ve broken faith, and I have to address that.”
Jerricho’s muscles tensed, as he braced himself for what came next. They were getting down to what the night was about.
“I promised you one hundred thousand dollars to sleep with my wife. I’m willing to pay you tonight—”
Killian was paying him off, telling him to walk away. Tonight.
“—except why would I pay you all of it when we’re only halfway through the forty days?”
Jerricho shook his head; men like Dado and Killian were all the fucking same.
“You’re only going to pay me half,” he said it more to himself.
There should have been some relief to get any money, but instead, there was a hollow disappointment. He wasn’t sure if it was losing the money … or the girl.
Killian shrugged. “If you want it all, you have to earn it.”
“How?”
Maybe he’d read it wrong, maybe Killian wasn’t telling him to go.
Killian gestured toward the boxing ring with his chin. “A bet. Just between you and me for the fifty.”
Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) Page 15