“I believe you.”
Shocked, I throw my arms around him and hug him so tightly I fear I may hurt him, but then he lets out a noise telling me otherwise.
“Thank you.”
His body trembles as he hugs me back just as tightly. Then he sighs and pulls away. I’m not ready to let go, so I hold on more tightly.
He reaches back behind his neck and pulls my hands apart then pushes me back. “I need you to sit down.”
When our eyes meet, the emotion I felt in his embrace isn’t shared through his eyes. He’s angry again.
“I am,” I say nervously.
He lifts me by the hips and sets me on the bed. Then he stands up and begins to pace. He does it long enough that I know…I know this is too much for him. I know what’s going to happen next.
He stops pacing and turns toward me. “I believe you, Lo. I do. But I can’t do this.”
“Jason, please,” I plead.
“I can’t think of any way to do this other than demand you go to the police. You and I are not good together.”
“We are,” I sob out.
“You don’t trust me enough to tell me what the hell is going on, and I don’t trust you at all after this shit.”
I cover my face and silently sob. “I didn’t want you to get into trouble.”
“That’s not your fucking call!”
I look up at him. “Yes, it is! It’s the only way I could protect you!”
“You have no clue what you’re doing, who you’re messing with.”
“I’ve been watching them, online, in newspaper articles, and on the news for years. Now I have been following them for three months.”
“And still, you don’t have it narrowed down.” He shakes his head. “You were just going to what, kill three people?”
“Yes.” I nod furiously. “Yes, and then they could rest peacefully. Then I wouldn’t feel like I should be dead, too. Then I would be free to embrace everything you make me feel. All the good things, Jason.”
He sighs as he walks closer to me.
“I just want to be able to be with you and be happy without”—I strangle back a sob—“without disappointing them.”
He kneels in front of me and looks up. “You are making this so difficult.”
“You’re gonna ask me to leave, aren’t you?” I whisper.
“I’m gonna make you promise me, without hiding behind the bullshit of being her, that you will let your man do what your man is best at: taking care of you. I can fucking promise you no one can do it better. No one.”
Him saying “your man,” emphasizing it not once but twice, makes me smile through the tears.
“But if you can’t promise me, Lo, then yes, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave because I can’t ever be in the position to be so angry with you that I want to work it out with my fists. If I ever touched a hair on your head, I would not allow myself another breath.”
I shrug and shake my head. “If I could let it go, I would.”
“You made a promise to them; I get it. Justice. I understand, Lo. Your word is gold, right?”
I nod.
“Then give it to me or keep this up and walk out the door.” He stands and steps back. “If you walk, understand you’re killing two people’s chances at a life neither one has known before and never will again.”
“I promise,” I say quietly.
“I can’t hear you, angel,” he says, allowing his emotion to flow into his words.
I stand up and walk toward him. My toes touching his, I look up into his eyes. “I. Promise.”
“Thank God.” He wraps his arms around me securely, protectively, and possessively. “Thank God.”
We hold each other for a long time until we are interrupted by two meowing cats.
Jason steps back and lifts my chin. “I promise you, I will find out.”
“How?”
“Angel, I have their work lives at my fingertips. I can look to see when they traveled, where they ate—hell, I can probably find out when they shit.” He winks. “I hate my fucking job, but right now, I love it. Process of elimination, Lo. No need for me to kill three if only one did it.”
My eyes widen. “You can’t kill them.”
“One person is slated for heaven, the other for hell. Nothing can change that. So yes, I can, and if that’s what my angel needs in order to keep making me happy and allowing me to do the same, that’s exactly what I will do.”
“Jason,” I whisper and look down.
“Don’t you see, Lo? You mean a lot to me.”
“Promise me you won’t.”
“I promise you that, if that’s what needs to be done, I will make sure you know before I slink off behind your back and do it. If one of them needs to die, I’ll make sure you know before I do it.”
“And if I ask you not to? If I tell you I need to be the one to do it?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But, Lo, we’re together on this and every other fucking thing we do except work. Feel me?”
“Then the same holds true for you.” I look up at him. “If you’re gonna take the day off that I have off and run to the gym—”
He laughs with his whole body, and it is the most beautiful sound my ears have ever heard. “You jealous of the gym, angel?”
“Maybe I am,” I say, pretending to be annoyed.
“Good, you can start going with me.”
“Yeah?” I ask, trying not to smile.
“Hell yes.” He smiles back.
Chapter 22
Jason
Taking Lo to the gym is one of the worst ideas I have ever had. My focus is shit. I watch her on the elliptical or the treadmill, and my dick twitches. I watch her hit the bag, and I want to bury myself in her from behind. I watch her jump rope, her tits bouncing up and down, and all I picture is her riding my cock. I need them in my hands.
I see her look up at me as I am staring while I spar with Brock. The fucker jabs me with a left, knocking me down, and I’m pissed.
“You need to focus, fool. Either that or you aren’t going to be ready for the fight in ten days.” He barks out a laugh as I get up off my ass and swiftly uppercut him.
He falls back into the ropes, and I laugh.
“You don’t have to worry about me in a fight.”
He shakes it off and pushes off the ropes. Then I am all focus and fury.
My fight-or-flight response has been in training for years. It took a long time to get used to immediately striking back, but it’s like second nature now. I taught my father that lesson when I turned sixteen, and then I walked out the fucking door.
I lived and breathed the gym after that, and I cut off all ties with the bastard. But then he came to collect me, using my mother as an excuse to lure me back. She was sick, he lied. I bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Sick my ass. She was no different than before; only now my polished ass knew what a pill popper, alcoholic, drug addict looked like when they weren’t bathed, pampered, and clothed in designer duds. One week on the street was all it took to open my eyes to her issues. Worthless excuse for a mother.
After I left her room, I walked down the stairs, and there stood my father, Waters, and a couple other businessmen. The two I didn’t know held my arms back while Waters sat down, drinking scotch, and watched as my father proceeded to beat the shit out of me for taking off.
I learned a lesson that day. My father isn’t the only piece of shit out there. The world is full of them. In order to beat them, you have to become them, and I did.
“Ease the fuck up, man!” Brock’s voice booms, snapping me back to the moment.
“Shit.” I step back, seeing blood running from his nose. “My bad.”
He rolls his eyes. “I should have known better. Break.”
I nod then look away. She’s watching me. She saw me lose control. Fuck!
She sighs and walks toward me. The girl should be running the other way, yet she’s walking toward me.
“You okay?”
I shake my head, but say, “Yeah.”
“What were you thinking about?” she asks softly.
I can’t answer.
She takes my hand. “I understand it’s hard to talk about everything, but remember our promise?”
“Of course I do.” I sit down on the bench and bring her down on my lap. “He’s been calling, leaving messages, pissing me off. Then Brock sucker punched me.”
“Stupid man,” she whispers, taking the towel and rubbing it over my sweat-drenched head.
“Brock is a good guy, angel. I lost control. It should scare the hell out of you.” I close my eyes.
“I’d never hit you,” she whispers, and I open my eyes. She smirks and leans in. “I may be a bit crazy, but I’m not stupid.”
I stand up and set her feet on the floor. Then I take her hand and walk quickly into the locker room, locking the door behind me.
“What are you doing?”
“I need inside,” I answer, turning her around so she faces me, then walking her back toward the row of lockers.
“There are people,” she whispers as her back hits the dark wooden doors.
“There is you”—I hook the waistband of her shorts with my thumbs and pull them down—“and me.”
I drop to my knees, and she looks down. “You can’t.”
“I thought you weren’t a stupid girl,” I reply, licking my lips.
“I’ve been sweating.” She gasps as I lean in and lick the outside of her pussy. “Jason—”
“You smell so good: all female, all Lo, all mine.” I lift her knee and pull one foot out of her shorts before getting the shorts off that leg and throwing it over my shoulder.
“Oh, God,” she cries as I pull her hips toward me and push my face hard against her. “Jason.”
I lick her hard, the way she likes it, parting those soft, fuzzy lips. I rub my nose down her opening, and her hands fist in my damp hair as she cries out.
Egged on by her noises, I grip her hips and shove my tongue deep inside of her. I feel her soft, wet, velvet walls clench around my tongue, and I fuck her faster with it. Her body tenses. I need her closer.
I pull back and pant, “Hold the handles on the fucking lockers and don’t let go.”
As soon as she complies, I lift her other leg and push her back against the lockers as I fuck her hard with my tongue. She loses all control and drops her hands from their grip.
I can’t get enough of her: her taste, her smell, her moans, her cries. I lick her harshly, driving my tongue in, curling it up, tasting and tormenting her, praising my angel’s sweet, hot, slick pussy. My reward is when her hands fist in my hair, and she rides my face, grinding her hips, taking what I give her and begging with her body for more.
“Yes, yes. Oh, Jason, yes.” She stiffens, her cunt strangling my tongue, and her juices soak my face.
I grip her to keep her in place and turn so I can lay her on the bench. I shove down my shorts and push her quaking body up so I can slide onto the bench. I then rub my cock up and down her slit. She is glistening, swollen. Her clit peeks out from its hood, and I can’t help tapping it with my aching cock.
“Please,” she begs softly.
“Please what, angel?” I ask, tapping it again.
“I want you,” she moans.
“You want my cock inside of your pussy?”
“Yes,” she whimpers.
“Tell me,” I growl.
“I want your cock inside of me. I want you to fuck me. I want your come.”
Restraint gone, I slam into her and hiss. “You want my come?”
“Yes. Of course, yes. I want everything.”
“I’m gonna come so hard for you,” I say as I grip her hips and slide her up and down the bench. Her pussy glides down easily on me. “So fucking wet.”
“For you,” she cries. “Always for you.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
I need in deeper. I want to be buried inside her. I want to come so hard in her it makes her body tremble under me.
I stand, still connected, lifting her, and plunge in deep, hard, fast. Her pussy walls contract, and my balls are so tight they almost ache.
“I’m gonna come so hard for you.”
“Yes. Oh, please, Jason, please.”
My dick thrashes inside of her as hot liquid fires hard into her, unloading everything I have…for her.
—
She lies in our bed, exhausted from her workout and from the pounding I gave her at the gym and then again at home. I can’t get enough.
I lie next to her, equally as drained, and push her hair off her face. “You wanna go again?”
I see her thighs clench and can’t help chuckling.
“Did I wear you out?”
“I’ll give you anything you want, but can you allow me ten minutes of rest?” Her smile is a sweet plea.
My phone rings, and I nod at her as I reach toward the nightstand and grab it.
Without looking, I answer, “Hello.”
“You either stop avoiding me or I come over there and question you and that little”—he pauses—“lunatic you’re fucking.”
“I have no fucking clue what you are talking about, Father, but you watch your fucking tone when you—”
“The letters!” he bellows.
“What the hell are you talking about? What fucking letters?” I look over at Lo. Her eyes are wide. She looks terrified, and my stomach is in knots.
“I warn you, Jason, if you try to get revenge on me using that little bitch’s tragedy, you are going to find yourself in a situation that I will not be able to, nor would I, help you out of.”
“What fucking letters?” I repeat, staring directly at her.
“Don’t you lie to me!”
“I never have,” I tell him honestly. “You are barking up the wrong fucking tree. Good night.” I hang up the phone and look at her, asking the question I already know the answer to. “You know anything about letters?”
She cries herself to sleep on my lap after I calm her down. Now she is afraid again. She’s afraid because she thinks they will come after both of us. I don’t doubt they will, but they can’t get to her here. I know it. I have explained it, and I think she believes it. Regardless, tomorrow, Brock will be outside this building while I’m at work, looking for answers.
I want to pull my hair out.
Apparently, a few prominent members of the city council all received the same fucked-up letter.
As I scour the Internet to find anything I can on the three people Lo thinks may have killed her family, I have an angel on my lap, a tablet in my hand, and two cats at my feet. Women are a pain in the ass.
Three of the six have already been ruled out. As for the last three, well, I have serious doubts it’s Adrian. Charlotte could be it, but the woman never has a hair out of place; therefore, I don’t see her leaving a crime scene like the one that was the Boschs’ home.
Now Waters is a whole different story. I have known the man my whole life. He’s as much of a son of a bitch as my own father. Is he capable of killing? Without a doubt.
Then again, so am I.
She is still asleep when I get up to leave for work. Work comes early. No gym today. I have to act quickly to get any information I can before they start covering their asses.
These letters obviously have them all on edge if they called my father. What do they all know? What are they all covering up?
My mind and body are wound tight. I can’t seem to get to the bottom of this. Sure, there were funds missing, but I can’t find the paper trail attaching anyone specific to the money yet.
I can rule out Adrian’s and Charlotte’s involvement. Both were out of town and that gives them a solid alibi. It’s documented travel, receipts received, and if I look deep enough, I know I could probably find more. But I don’t have time.
Waters, on the other hand, has nothing
saying he was in town or out.
What I do manage to pull up gives me a partial insurance plan against retaliation as I dig more. I look into the finances from over five years ago, trying to find what Lo’s dad may have stumbled upon. In the end, I can’t prove murder, but I am able to download a year’s worth of his work onto a thumb drive. Thanks to my time rooming with a hacker in college, I can do this without leaving a trace behind.
—
When I walk into the apartment later, she stands at the counter. She forces a smile, but then her lip quivers.
I hold up the thumb drive and give her a reassuring smile. “Things are going to be okay. Two of the three were out of town. I’m not saying they are not guilty of something, but their hands are clean of this.”
She walks up and hugs me around the waist. “I’m so sorry.”
“Angel, I’m sorry you went through what you did. I’m so sorry, but let me ask you something.” I tip her chin up. “Did you feel safe today?”
“Yes, I did. But I was terrified for you. I put you in danger. I never meant—”
“You felt safe today in my home—our home.” I pull away and look down at her. “I have insurance, angel. We’re good. Nothing is going to happen. It’s almost guaranteed.”
With both of our minds on trying to figure out this unsolved case, neither of us say much or eat much for dinner. As bedtime comes, I hold her as she sleeps. I can’t shake the feeling that my father and the rest are more worried about the damn paper trail than being brought up on murder charges. It should make me feel damn good, but it doesn’t.
If they are not guilty of this, if I can prove they didn’t have shit to do with it, my girl, my angel, will be looking over her shoulder forever. She will never be free or whole.
My chest tightens at the thought. I look down and kiss her head. She will have me, though. I will be her protection, and I will gladly take her as she is…more than gladly.
Chapter 23
Lo
It’s the weekend, and Jason is asleep next to me. I watch him. He has been going over and over my dad’s work, and he knows now there is a discrepancy, but he doesn’t know how it led to such a brutal massacre.
He has become obsessed. Between work and my problems, the only time he isn’t inside his head is when he is inside me. I feel useless unless I am under him. The selfish girl in me loves it.
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