by Stella Rhys
And when it came to me, he’d do just about anything.
“Say the word, Lara, and I’ll kick Dane’s fuckin’ ass,” Jake said, leaning against the basin sink. I hadn’t told him what Sawyer had revealed. I was afraid of his reaction. After all, I needed to confront Jackson. I couldn’t risk Jake beating him to death. So I went ahead and let Jake believe that it was Dane who had rattled me. It wasn’t totally untrue. He was the one who gave Jackson the sick idea in the first place.
“Don’t kick his ass, he’s not worth it,” I murmured.
“If you’re worried about Jackson, he has no reason to believe Dane,” Jake said between his teeth.
“I’m not worried about Jackson,” I muttered. I lifted my blank gaze at him. “I’m going to leave him tomorrow.”
Jake stared with surprise. “What?”
“I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take the lies. He has all these skeletons in the closet and I’m finding them one by one and I’m not even close to finished, I know it. So I’m done. I’m leaving him. I already took the ring off,” I said, nodding at the floor where I’d tossed the massive diamond. As Jake looked in disbelief, I unplugged the drain with my foot and watched the water in the tub sink away, gurgling and choking on its way down.
“Where are you going to go?” Jake asked softly.
“Anywhere but there.”
“You can always stay here.”
I looked up at him, hugging my legs to my chest, my hair only wet at the ends. Jake gazed at me with a kindness so pure I felt my lip trembling.
“Or we can keep you in Manhattan,” he offered lightly. “I have a warehouse apartment in the Lower East Side. It’s not furnished yet but if you want to stay in the city, we can decorate it for you. Customize it, make it your haven.”
“No.” I blinked back the tears I felt coming. “I don’t want that.”
Jake nodded. “I’ll give you what you want, Lara. Once you know what it is, I’ll make it happen.”
“I know what it is,” I said. Jake tilted his head at me. Rising to my feet, I stepped out of the tub and went to him. I felt his shallow breath as I slid my hands up his abs. “I want to be where you are,” I murmured, looking at my hands on his chest. “I know you’re not going to stay here for long. Not with how it’s been with Jackson. And I know you always go somewhere far away and make a life there, so when you do that, I want to go too,” I exhaled, my growing excitement snatching my breath. “And I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to me. I want us to do what we’re doing now for however long it lasts for. And I just want to do it there. Wherever you go. I want you to show me how to start over.”
Once I was done, I looked up at Jake, fearing his reaction. He wasn’t quite smiling but I saw was a joy in his eyes that I’d never seen before. I breathed easy as he took my hands and brought them to his lips, kissing my fingertips before leaning down to kiss me.
“We’ll make that happen,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes, feeling already new. “Thank you, Jacob,” I whispered, kissing him deeply as his strong hands formed around my naked waist. I could already feel it – his touch bringing me somewhere else. To a place where the chaos didn’t exist.
On his bed, he took his time trailing his lips over every inch of my body. Between kisses to my stomach, my breasts, he shed his shirt and his jeans. Every stroke of his tongue and fingertips along my skin was supernatural bliss. It was the drug, the remedy I needed, and so much more.
“I want you to feel nothing but good,” he murmured.
“Yes, please, I want you to,” I panted, delirious. I raised my hips for him when I felt his breath between my legs. Yes, please, I want to feel it. My fists pulsed around his sheets as his tongue drew hot, wet circles over my clit. The cries that spilled my lips were an emotional release. I needed Jake. I felt nothing but good when his body was pressed against mine, and I needed that feeling more than anything in the world.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned deep against me as he felt me tighten, ready to come. Sliding his hands under my ass, he lifted me higher for his mouth, spiraling me into ecstasy as he slid his tongue inside my pussy.
“Jake, oh God,” I cried desperately, my stomach taut and my body trembling as he brought every inch of me to orgasm.
That night, we lay in bed, awake and then asleep, over and over. I could feel the same energy running through both our bodies. Before finally drifting off, we did what I always hated – his flesh pulsing inside me, our eyes locked, we made love. It was the only way to describe it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, I returned to Jackson’s apartment to find him sitting on the stairs next to the kitchen, hunched forward, already staring at me with a wolf-like expression. I froze, considering walking back out before I remembered that I was there for a reason. I was there to return my ring and to tell Jackson that it would be my last time stepping foot in his duplex.
But the contained rage in eyes and rigid torso told me he had something to say as well. And after my run-in with Dane yesterday, I sensed that I knew what it was. I felt a sneer form on my lips before he could even start to speak.
“I take it you’re coming from Sawyer’s?” Jackson said evenly, his calm voice contradicting everything about the way he looked.
I tossed my purse on the floor. “No,” I answered, walking in neat steps to the kitchen counter, dropping my ring on the metal surface with a hard clack.
The sound brought Jackson flying to his feet. His sheer speed made me stumble backward in shock.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, snatching the ring off the table. “You think you’re going to cheat on me with fucking Sawyer and then fucking leave me? After everything, you want to fucking humiliate me like that?”
“After everything?” I had to laugh in his face. “Oh, you mean how you hid the fact that you fucked your stepsister, cheated on me with Gabrielle and then fucking hired a criminal to attack me in our own home?” My eyes were blazing as I watched Jackson back down for a second. “Yes, I know about that,” the words seeped from the very bottom of my throat with revulsion. “I know that the son of a bitch who came in here and acted like he was going to fucking rape me was someone you fucking hired off of Dane fucking McNulty. I mean do you actually feel good about that, Jackson? You manipulated me into loving you again by having a strange man put his hands on me and toss me around and put me through the worst trauma of my fucking life!”
Jackson’s jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth gnashing against each other. “It wasn’t supposed to get that far. If you hadn’t seen his face, he wouldn’t have – ”
“I don’t care, Jackson! I don’t care. You hired a dangerous man to not only scare me but hurt me. I couldn’t sleep for a month after that incident. I still wake up with nightmares about that night and you know what, it’d probably happen every night if it weren’t for the fact that you’re constantly giving me new things to fucking wake up crying over.”
Jackson walked into me, a snarl on his face. “I love you, Lara.”
“You have a fucking twisted way of showing it, then,” I hissed. But no matter how much I pushed him away, he came back.
“I told you the deal. I told you not to sleep with anyone I knew,” he muttered. “And the fact that it was Sawyer? I’ve watched you two flirt for years and I never said a word because I thought it was stupid. Harmless. But the second you get the chance, you go to house and suck his dick and let him fuck you however the fuck he wants – ”
“Are you hearing yourself?” I gasped. “Surprise, Jackson, it wasn’t Sawyer. I know you go to Dane McNulty for a lot of shady shit but his word on who I fucked is completely wrong.”
“Funny, you sure believed him when he said that I fucked Gabrielle two years ago.”
“Sawyer saw you too so don’t even try to compare that,” I laughed bitterly, pushing past Jackson and storming up the stairs. I’d thought that there’d be nothing for me to pack as everything would remind
me of Jackson, but there was in fact one thing left that I desperately needed.
Ignoring Jackson’s footsteps, I paced into the bedroom and into my closet. When I emerged, Jackson stood there, his frosty eyes locked on my passport.
“And where do you think you’re going?” he asked with an eerie calm.
“Away. You can sleep with whoever the hell you want now.”
Jackson’s strides quickened as he trailed me down the hall. “What, you need to run off with Sloane again?”
“No, I need to leave New York and never come back.”
My sentence barely finished before Jackson was in front of me, eyes wild. “You’re not leaving me, Lara. The world already knows we’re getting married.”
“So what? This isn’t about your ego, Jackson, or your friends finding out that I left you. It’s about the fact that you’re as good as a fucking criminal and I’ll never for a second want to spend the rest of my life with you again,” I hissed. But when I stepped to pass him, he blocked me.
“I want you, Lara. I don’t want anyone else. I gave you that ring, I announced to the world that you were mine. We’re going to get married, and that’s that.”
I’d never laughed with fury before but this moment was as good as any for that first. “No, Jackson. We’re not getting married and we never will. So on top of being a despicable monster, I guess you’re fucking insane if you really think you can tell me what to do.”
With that, I pushed past him and down the stairs, traveling faster than I ever had in a pair of heels heels. Shoving my passport into my purse, I made a beeline for the door. But as I waited for the elevator, I could hear Jackson returning calmly from upstairs. My back turned, I heard his footsteps – one by one, slow and ominous as they returned to me in no rush at all.
“Here,” he said, a sneer in his voice.
I heard the whoosh of something flying through the air. Following that came the sound of something hard and something soft dropping onto the floor. I told myself not to turn around but with dread pitting in my stomach, I spun on my heel.
When I saw it, my knees gave out. My nails scratched hardwood as my stomach lurched forward, my heartbeat thumping harder and harder till my insides rattled.
It was my shirt spattered in Gabrielle’s dried blood. Beside it was a little jump drive.
“It has her voicemail in it,” Jackson said casually, hands in his pockets as he looked down at the shirt, the jump drive, and me. “I had it in a safe.”
The room spun as I looked up at him. “Why did you do this?”
“I could ask you the same,” he said. “You think I’m the one with secrets but since the night that you saw me watching my little video with Gabrielle, you’ve been… rash. Unpredictable. Do you have any idea how much you scared me when you came back covered in her blood? As far as I knew, you’d never been in a fight in your life. So what was I supposed to think? The fact that she was missing the next day was just… unreal to me. I mean how was I supposed to know what you were going to do next?” Jackson asked, tilting his head with exaggerated curiosity.
I crawled to my feet and backed up two steps. “You know I didn’t kill her.”
“Well, I have this shirt and that voicemail. And if I want, I can get security footage from our building. They’ll just dial is back to the night Gabby went missing and see you coming in a bloody mess.” Jackson’s eyes flicked to my passport. “The fact that you want to flee the country right now is practically the cherry on top of all this. Unless you want to live running from authorities for the rest of your life, I’d suggest you stay right fucking here where you belong.” Ambling over, Jackson tilted his head and cupped my chin, his ice blue eyes studying mine with amusement. “What do you think now, babe? Do you still want to leave?”
I hated myself. I hated myself for Gabby and for the fact that Jackson had rendered me speechless, immobile.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jackson murmured, tipping my face up and pressing his rough lips against mine. When I shrunk away, he pressed me against the door. “Don’t be upset, baby,” he said gently, running his thumb over my cheek to wipe a tear. “Everything will be fine again soon. We’re always going to be everyone’s favorite couple. Jackson and Lara.”
To Be Continued…
TOO FAR GONE (Book #2) Available May 21
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