Jewels And Panties: (Book 1-15) Billionaire Romance Series

by Brooke Kinsley

  Despite the misery, the fear of death in the air, the smell of torturous heartache all around us, Lincoln managed to smile, a slight curl of his lips just for me.

  "That's my girl," he said.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  For the second time, the sound of gunfire echoed through my skull but there was no shock, no fear, no reason to be afraid. It was over.

  The bullet penetrated Craig's head between his eyes, a perfect red circle forming at the bridge of his nose. The look in his still open eyes told me that he saw it coming. There was pure fear in his face with an expression that revealed a thousand regrets.

  For a split second, after the gun fired, he remained awake and aware of everything. Even though he was dying, even though he knew there was nothing but darkness and hopefully hell waiting for him, he managed to swivel those petrified eyes of his in his sockets so that as the life drained from him, he was looking right at me.

  I didn't know if he was expecting me to cryor if he hoped that at the last minute I would beg for him to be saved, but as I watched the blood pool out the back of his head, I felt nothing but relief.

  For the most fleeting of moments, I thought I saw him glare at me with a look of sheer betrayal. Then his pupils shrunk and he was gone.

  For a long while, the three of us just stood and looked down at him. Lincoln wiped the gun down with the sleeve of his jacket then dropped it to the floor. It landed with a clunk beside the body and he kicked it toward Craig's hand.

  "Fuck him," he said.

  Berger was still clutching his broken hand and frowning.

  "Bastard," he said either at his hand or at Craig or at the whole disastrous situation that had unfolded in front of him. "Won't be long until the cops are here," he said. "I mean... You know what I mean."

  "We need to leave," said Lincoln.

  He pulled off his coat and wrapped it around me. I reveled in the smell of his cologne mixed with sweat. Without thinking, I thrust my hands into the pockets to warm them and felt a small velvet box, but before I could look at it, a creak came from upstairs and we all flinched.

  "Mom," I said. "She... came back."

  Lincoln and Berger glanced to one another.

  "Your mom?"

  I nodded.

  Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. There were neighbors out in the street.

  Rubberneckers, I thought. They were always the worst. They’d be out there on their phones waiting for the drama.

  "Come on," said Lincoln. “It has to be now.”

  Berger was already hurrying up the stairs calling for mom.

  "Where do we go?" I asked as I clung to Lincoln.

  He kissed me hard and when he pulled away I saw there were tears in his eyes.

  "Far away from here," he said. "As far away as possible."

  The sirens came closer. I could hear them round the corner at the end of the road.

  "The back door," I said and pointed toward the kitchen. "It'll take us out to an alley that cuts through the neighborhood."

  Berger emerged at the top of the stairs carrying mom like a limp ragdoll.

  “I got her,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.”

  The four of us limped out into the garden, exhausted but energized with adrenaline.

  There was no knowing where we were going to go but I didn’t care. Lincoln slipped his hand into mine and I pulled him toward the alleyway.

  Wherever we were going, I knew I was going to be safe.

  Forbidden Lust

  Jewels And Panties Series

  Book Eleven

  Brooke Kinsley

  © 2017 All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses per law

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  "Erotica is literature designed to be read with one hand...”-Brooke Kinsley

  Description

  LINCOLN

  Sunshine and cocktails.Endless nights and nothing to worry about.

  After fleeing Normont, we headed south of the border looking for refuge.

  And I was sure we found it.

  In a villa on the edge of town where no one knew a thing about us, I was certain we were safe.

  But word travels fast and we soon discover that we’re not as anonymous as we thought.

  Then the devil appears in the form of a gorgeous vixen named Lolita.

  She’s as much trouble as she is beautiful and she has her sights set on me.

  As well as my money.

  Just when I think things are going to be perfect, a forbidden moment turns into the worst night of my life and soon my life is spiraling out of control.

  Just one night, just one mistake and my life is turned upside down.

  Just a split second of forbidden lust and our world is torn apart.

  Chapter One

  ETTA

  We rested on the edge of the pool. It glittered like liquid emeralds with fireflies dancing on the chlorine scented surface.

  It was late in the evening but still hot, the sun scorching my toes as my feet dangled off the edge of the sun lounger. I lay back and looked up at the sky, the clouds turning orange at the edges where the sun began to sink into the horizon.

  The leaves from the palm trees swayed in the balmy breeze as though dancing to a silent rhythm. I watched them for a moment and wondered how long it had been since I’d felt the cold of the northern states.

  “Top up?”

  Behind me, mom was standing with a cocktail pitcher. The ice cubes in the bottom tinkled against the glass.

  “No thanks,” I said although it was already too late.

  She poured a luminous, blue cocktail into my glass. I’d done nothing but drink since I’d arrived and the novelty was wearing off. I was starting to see the appeal of a healthy meal and a good night’s sleep. But I knew I’d never sleep properly again.

  “You need to get some meat back on your bones,” said mom.

  “Alcohol’s not going to help with that,” I said and looked up at her.

  She was already sinking her top lip into her cocktail, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. Her tan was growing deeper by the day but so were the lines around her eyes. I knew she wasn’t sleeping either.

  “Slow down, mom. How many glasses have you had?”

  She swallowed the last of it and set it down with a wobble in her step.

  “Just a couple,” she said, her words beginning to slur as she reached for the pitcher.

  I took it from her limp fingers and walked over to the pool, pouring the contents over the side until the blue merged with the chlorine green of the water.

  “Hey!” she raged.

  “Go to bed, mom.”

  Before she could reach for the pitcher and fill it back up, I threw it into the water until it floated away with the fast melting ice cubes.

  “I said go to bed.”

  Her balance wavered for a moment as she placed a hand on her hip.

  “I don’t need to go to-“

  “Just go.”

  She sighed and walked past the sun lounger, swiping my glass off the table as she walked by. I flinched as it landed on the terracotta tiles, the pieces scattering all the way over to me.

  “Mom!”

  She stormed inside. I could hear her hitting things as she made her way upstairs, her shrill, angry voice bouncing down through the floors. Then Lincoln’s concerned voice joined hers. A second later, he emerged on the veranda and blew out a long exhale from his puffed chee
ks before brushing a hand through his hair.

  “Is she okay?” he asked. “I mean, don’t answer that. Stupid question.”

  He noticed the pitcher floating in the pool and the smashed glass at my seat.

  “It’s not going well, is it?”

  “It’s going fine,” I said. “Better than…”

  Than being in that house with Craig, I thought.

  “It’s just going to take some getting used to.Being here, far away from home.Far away from any sense of normality. It’serm… been tough on her.”

  “I can see that.”

  But he couldn’t really.

  Mom and I had bonded in a way that no mother and child should. We’d been tied up in that room, tortured, terrified for our lives. She’d witnessed things done to her daughter that no parent should and I could see with every passing day that she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that she was powerless to do anything.

  Like any mother, she’d blamed herself, said that she should have been able to save me, protect me but I’d never assume her that burden.

  “Stop blaming yourself,” I told her a hundred times.

  But she’d only blame herself more, drink some more, cry some more…

  Now she was merely existing, struggling through each day as it came, living on nothing but gin and tears.

  “Etta…” he moved to hold me and I flinched. I didn’t know why I flinched. It’s not like I wanted to but…. I just wasn’t ready to be touched. “Etta… You know there are so many things I want to talk about.”

  I knew what was on his mind. It had been on my mind since I escaped that house, our house. It was my home once but now it was another death house, another Waters’ House.

  It was hot outside but I found myself shivering. I pulled my shawl around my shoulder and watched the empty pitcher bob along the top of the pool, a green iridescent glow glinting off the handle. It was beautiful in a way, how it looked so sad and alone, just floating… Just existing.

  “Etta….”

  “I know what you want to talk about.”

  He shuffled from foot to foot, followed my gaze out toward the pool then sat on the nearest lounger. In the distance, beyond the palm trees where the tarmac gave way to the luscious white sands, Lincoln’s private jet lay on the runway.

  It looked so alien on the landscape, so slick and modern compared to the ancient village we were now living in.

  “San Lucrezia…” I said to myself.

  I needed to remind myself where we were. It was so unreal. A few weeks ago we were in Normont. Been there my whole life but now we spent our days beneath the scorching sun that bleached everything it touched including my hair. It was almost auburn, the deep brown it had always been now fading along with the memories of my past life.

  “It’s our home now,” said Lincoln from behind me.

  There was a sense of tragic resignation in his voice like he really didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t quite identify what he was grieving. Was it his work at the hospital? His lab? That goddamn creepy house on the mountain? Or was it just normality?

  No, it couldn’t be, I thought. His life was never normal.

  “It’s our home now,” I repeated.

  But unlike him, I was relieved.

  “Did he leave this morning?” I asked, my mind moving onto the fourth member of our party of fugitives.

  “Berger left last night,” said Lincoln. “He wanted to say goodbye but didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Of course you weren’t.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept. Since we arrived, each day had merged into the next. Time wasn’t what it used to be.

  “They’ll kill him if he gets back,” I said. “They’ll either put him in jail, kill him, or both. Chief O’Neill won’t want him back in Normont.”

  “He says he’s in love,” said Lincoln as though that explained everything. “Or at least he wants to be.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He shrugged in response.

  “Weird guy.”

  “Berger’s weird?” I laughed. “Of all the people I’ve met recently he isn’t what I’d call weird.”

  Lincoln laughed too. It was good to see him smile and a little flurry of warmth fluttered across my stomach. His eyes danced in the warm light and he reached over to the table where mom’s cigarettes lay. He plucked one from the pack and lit it.

  “Hey, you’re supposed to be a doctor. Smoking kills, remember?”

  He raised his eyebrows and gave me a deadpan look.

  “After everything we’ve been through, a little cigarette won’t do me any harm.”

  “Suit yourself, but just so you know, my grandpa had lung cancer because he smoked. He called them coffin nails but still, he never quit.”

  “Huh, coffin nails. I like that.”

  Lincoln drew in a lungful of smoke, his fingers awkwardly pinched on the edge of the cigarette. Smoking didn’t suit him.

  “Lung cancer is a painful death,” he said as he blew out smoke, grimaced at the bitter taste then flicked the cigarette into the pool.

  It drifted away toward the pitcher, like a tiny castaway swimming toward a rescue vessel.

  “Oh, he didn’t die of lung cancer,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “He was hit by a car.”

  He held my gaze for a moment as though he wasn’t sure if I was joking or not, then gradually, the sides of his mouth began to curl up.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  He burst out laughing, his voice coming from somewhere deep down in his gut until he began to splutter.

  “I guess he could have smoked all the coffin nails he wanted then.”

  “I suppose so,” I growled, not appreciating him finding humor in my pawpaw’s death. “But I really loved my grandpa.”

  He stopped laughing and straightened up.

  “Sorry, I’m sure you did.”

  He pursed his lips and looked back out toward the airstrip. The sun was setting fast, its coppery light kissing the top of his jet.

  “So Berger’s abandoned us,” I said.

  Lincoln frowned and crossed his arms.

  “You think he abandoned us? He came down here, didn’t he? Stayed with us and stopped us all going crazy.”

  “Yeah, he did it’s just that…”

  “Just what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “It’s nothing!”

  He now crossed his legs too so that he glared up at me with his limbs all tangled up, his body closed off from me along with his feelings.

  “It’s just that I wanted him to stay,” I admitted.

  He was still staring at me, his face giving nothing away.

  “And why is that?” he asked, a hint of accusation giving his words a peculiar lilt.

  “Just because… It’s been the four of down here. A family of sorts, right? We were like a family of runaways. Four was the perfect number. Now it’ll be weird…”

  “Oh, now it’ll be weird!”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Why are you being so awkward?”

  A chill was descending in the air. Down here the days were hot but the nights could be bitter and unforgiving with the sea air rustling through the leaves on the shoreline, whispering secrets from the ocean.

  “I’m not being awkward,” said Lincoln, his body still all twisted up.

  “You’re angry with me,” I said. “Why? Didn’t you want Berger to stay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then…”

  I was exhausted and hungry. Upstairs, I could see the light in mom’s room flicker on. Her silhouette drifted by the window, her body nothing but a shadow behind the silk curtains.

  “You wanted him to stay because you wanted to fuck him,” he said.

  At first, his words didn’t register in my
head. They seemed to float on the breeze, coming from somewhere out of sight.

  “Wh-what did you say?”

  “You heard me,” said Lincoln as he rose to his feet. “You wanted to fuck him.”

  All I could do was stare dumbstruck.

  “You’re not… serious, are you?”

  Now it was my turn to wonder if he was joking or not but the intensity in his eyes was telling me he was dead certain.

  “You think I wanted to be with Berger!” I gasped.

  His eyes were still locked on me, dark and brooding.

  “You don’t really think that, do you? You can’t!”

  He took a step forward and I took one back.

  “After all we’ve been through!” I cried. “After all that time I spent in that fucking house waiting for you to save me! You think I’d want anyone else? You think I’d want him?”

  He strode over to me and I stumbled back until my feet were hanging off the edge of the pool.

  “Everyone wants to fuck him,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “You’re crazy,” was all I could say. “You’re crazy to think I would be unfaithful to you.”

  He thrust a hand into his pocket, his fingers fidgeting with something beneath the thin fabric of his pants.

  “Huh… I’m crazy…” he said, his eyes so dark they seemed almost hollow.

  Above us, the sky was turning indigo as the stars began to poke glittering holes in the velvet night.

  “I’m crazy…”

  Suddenly, he began to look weak. Over the last few weeks, we had all started to recover and the two of us began to resemble our previous selves once again. There was some added color to our cheeks, some added sparkle to our eyes but now, as I looked into his face, it was as though we were back in front of Craig’s body with nothing but danger and chaos surrounding us.

  He looked haunted. His eyes like smashed in windows that barely concealed the emptiness of the derelict house within.

  “Lincoln… Please… I don’t want to argue. I know you’re still upset, still mad and you’re saying things you don’t mean but-“

  “I mean what I said,” he said. “I saw the way you looked at him.”