by Gemma James
He removed his fingers and kissed me, his tongue battling mine, eating up my cries. I came undone, broke into pieces as my release poured from me, dampening the bedding on the last cresting wave.
He sank his teeth into my shoulder and smothered his own grunt of completion. By the time we both crashed, our limbs tangled in a sweaty mess, darkness had fallen over the room. He rolled to his back, taking me with him, and the moon filtering through the window illuminated our entwined bodies in the shadow of night. The lack of light didn’t feel suffocating, and the walls weren’t caving in like they had while locked in that cell. I placed my head on his chest and draped a leg over his, content to just be.
To doze.
To feel safe for the first time in forever.
“Why do you love me?” he asked, pulling me from the allure of sleep.
I opened my eyes and lazily traced a finger over his tattoo, following the dark tribal design toward his belly button. His muscles quivered under my touch, and one glance at his cock gave away his renewed desire. “What kind of question is that?”
“The kind of question I want an answer to.”
I stalled my hand just below his belly button, and his sharp intake of breath thrilled me.
“I don’t know why. Maybe it started out as a crush, like you said on the island.” I lifted my head, and his fingers tunneled through my hair. “When I finally told you about Zach, you wanted to fight for me. You weren’t disgusted or running away. You wanted to kill him for me. No one has ever cared that much. That’s what I love about you. I love you for your strength, because I have none. I love you for the way you make me feel, because I feel nothing when I’m not with you.”
“You’re not weak. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.” He tugged me closer by the hair, his clutch a deep burn in my scalp, and brought my mouth to his.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips, “for wanting to make me hurt in the best ways possible.”
“I’ve never said it, Alex.”
“Said what?” My heart raced so fast, I thought my chest would rip in two.
“That I love you.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Because I wasn’t sure that’s what it was.”
“But now you know?”
“Yeah,” he said, his lips teasing mine for an instant before he pulled away enough to incinerate me with the heat in his eyes. “When you became more important to me than my own life, that’s when I knew. And it makes no fucking sense because I have so few memories of the two of us together.”
“Love doesn’t have to make sense. It just is. Something pulled us together. Maybe it was the darkness in each of us. Does it really matter?”
“No, sweetheart. It doesn’t fucking matter. C’mere.” He hoisted me on top of him and spread my thighs until I straddled his cock. “I’ll never get enough of you. Ride me, baby. Fucking ride me.”
19. CANDID
Rafe
“Did ya fuck her?”
I stood in the living room entrance and folded my arms. Other than the light from the stove, darkness shrouded the room. Jax sat in the chair, shoulders hunched and the bottle of booze gripped in his hands, hanging between his knees. He’d blown through way too much of that shit already.
I stomped toward him, my bare feet vibrating the hardwood, and yanked the bottle from his hands. “You’ve had enough.”
“Prob’ly so.” He lifted an arm, dangled it like a zombie, and jabbed a finger in the air. “So did ya?”
“That’s none of your business.” Instead of dumping the vodka down the drain, I plopped onto the futon and took a swig.
“You used to share shit with me,” he said. “You used to be my friend.”
I took another drink before setting the bottle on the floor with a loud thud. “Explain to me how a ‘friend’ sells you out to his psycho father to be killed?”
“I wasn’t gonna let you die.”
“Well that just makes it all better. Is this the part where we pretend you didn’t let them torture Alex?”
Jax shrugged. “Girl’s got kahunas. I knew she could handle it.”
I squeezed my hands into fists, and it took everything in my power not to launch the few feet between us and throttle his pathetic neck. “She shouldn’t have to handle anything. Aren’t you at least a little sorry for what you did?”
“Yeah I’m fucking sorry.” Jax bolted to his feet and veered sideways. He shot an arm out and steadied himself on the arm of the chair. “I didn’t know she’d been abused. I didn’t know shit because you didn’t tell me any of it.”
“I didn’t remember any of it, until she told me.” We were on a conversation merry-go-round.
“I’m talking about the island, before you lost your memory.” He flopped back into the chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “She changed you, man.” He raised his eyes and deep lines wrinkled his forehead. “You went from a fucking hard ass to a fucking pussy.”
“Why are you mad at me? What am I missing, Jax?”
He let out a cold, bitter laugh. “You’ve gotten up close and personal with my family. Mom’s dead, the old man will be dead if I can help it, my sister is—” His voice cracked. “You’re all I got left.”
Shit. Something about his tone tunneled beneath my anger. He didn’t resemble a man. He looked like a lost little boy—the same boy who’d experienced a childhood of hell down in that tunnel.
“I’m listening. You got something to say, well say it. Tell me how all of this went down.”
“Give me the bottle first.” He reached across the coffee table, his leg knocking into the wood.
I almost fought him about the booze, but fuck, he was a grown man. If he wanted to get shit-faced, who was I to tell him he couldn’t? Especially after all the shit we’d been through. I grasped the bottle by the neck and passed it to him. Besides, I needed to keep him talking.
He wrapped his mouth around the opening and tossed his head back, gulping down a long swig of the burning liquid. Wiping his lips with the back of a hand, he shoved the bottle between his legs and settled into the chair again.
“Me and Cleft got busted for sex trafficking. That’s why I was serving time.”
“Did I know this?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t talk about my fucked up family. Nikki was the first person who pulled it out of me, and that’s just because I got stupid drunk after you got shot.” He blinked rapidly. “She didn’t fucking believe me, so I thought, no harm, no foul.” He dragged another drink from the bottle, liquid sloshing as he tipped it. “Guess she thought twice about it after the island went up in smoke. I got her killed. That’s on me.”
Nikki’s death burned in my gut like an ember, threatening to flare into an inferno if I gave it the chance. I ground my teeth together, refusing to fall to pieces until after Perrone paid for what he’d done.
“That still doesn’t tell me why your father took us, why he was out for my blood. They said I did something in prison. What happened? Just be straight with me. I can handle it.”
“I was planning to take the whole organization down. Cleft’s dad was already on the inside. He figured something was up, so he tried to kill me before I could talk. You stopped him.”
“Wait a second…I beat the crap out of your uncle, so your family goes psycho on me for it? That doesn’t make any sense.”
He buried his head in his hands. “Can we not do this now? You really don’t wanna hear this, trust me.”
“Spit it out, Jax.”
He raised his head. “You’ve had memory problems before. The infirmary docs thought it was from the concussions.”
I sifted through my memories of my fighting days, but I couldn’t recall more than two occasions where I’d had a concussion. I’d been cleared both times. “What concussions?”
“Guards were running a fight club. You were their favorite bet. Dude, it was brutal. You took some nasty beatings.”
“I partici
pated in unsanctioned fighting in there?” That didn’t sound like me.
“Didn’t have much choice.” Jax rubbed his chin. “Guards used Cleft and his crew as enforcement. The rapes weren’t stopping until you started fighting.”
Holy fuck. No wonder I didn’t want to remember any of this.
“That still doesn’t explain why Perrone wanted me dead. C’mon, he’s out for revenge because of a prison fight? What aren’t you telling me?”
He sighed. “You thought it was a fight. Like I said—memory problems. Fuck, Rafe, you didn’t want to remember.”
“What are you saying?” But the implication dropped to the bottom of my stomach and formed a ball of dread. Some part of me, buried deep inside, already knew.
“You didn’t beat the shit out of my uncle. You choked him to death.”
I’d known what he was going to say, but those words banded around my chest anyway. I sucked in a breath, let it out in the space of five seconds. I’d had my hands around Alex’s throat, tempted as fuck to steal her air while I fucked her.
What had I done?
“You had my back in there,” Jax said. “You fucking saved my ass, man.”
“But you sold me out.”
“I did it for Tawny.”
“Who’s Tawny?” I asked, thinking back to our conversation in my cellar before all of this went down. “Is she the one that got away?
“Come again?”
“In my cellar, you said you had to let someone go.”
“Tawny’s my sister.” He reached for the vodka again, and his gaze landed somewhere over my shoulder. “I was talking about you.”
I blinked, fucking dumbfounded. Speechless.
“Yeah…” he said, letting out a breath that ruffled his hair. “You never did catch on about that. It’s not that I’m averse to women—”
“Just their touch.” That much, I remembered, and it still stunned me that I knew it, despite most everything else remaining a huge gaping blank.
“My old man tried fixing me when I was a teenager…”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more, but I remained quiet and waited for him to unload.
“He forced a few of the slaves on me. This one…shit, I’ll never forget her. Sick bastard forced anal, and she was a fucking virgin.” He shuddered. “I didn’t actively participate, just laid there like a pathetic wuss while they forced her onto my dick.” He gritted his teeth, his whole face hardening in remembered horror. “It fucking hurt her like hell, but that didn’t stop me from coming in her ass. I’ve never heard anyone scream the way she did. Sometimes, I swear I hear her still.” He lifted the bottle to his lips again.
My gaze fell to his bare feet. The guy had been through some shit. “What happened to your sister?”
“My uncle wasn’t the only one who knew something was up. Old man sold her after I went to prison. He suspected I was gonna turn state’s evidence.” Jax chewed on his lip. “He’s dangled her location over my head ever since. Everything I’ve done…fuck man. It was you or my sister, and the only way he’d let me back into the underground was if I helped bring you in.”
“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “What kind of bastard sells his own daughter? And why the fuck would you want back in?”
“I needed to find her. He keeps records of every girl he’s sold. I had to believe he’d done the same with Tawny.” A scowl darkened his face. “Cleft was her handler. He actually liked Tawny, protected her against the clients and their filthy wandering hands, but when it comes down to orders from the boss, they all scuttle.”
“That why you killed him?”
“He had it coming.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Did you find what you needed down there?” If he had, at least all of this wouldn’t have been for nothing.
“No. I’m guessing he’s keeping the info somewhere in the mansion. Her file wasn’t in the office with the others. That was my next step—finding a window of opportunity to search the estate—but after Nikki…” He dropped his head into his hands. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
I wasn’t about to tell him he was off the hook for Nikki’s death. Some part of me still blamed him, would probably always blame him, but I could understand the spot he’d been in.
He lifted his head. “There’s more, Rafe.” He paused long enough to rub his palms down his face. “Nikki has…had a son.”
“I know.”
His eyes widened.
“After what happened in that room, it came back to me. I don’t remember details, just that she had a son and he’s mine. You don’t think he’d hurt an innocent kid?” Even as the words left my mouth, I realized how ridiculous they sounded. Perrone had ruined his son and sold his daughter into sexual slavery. The man was the devil.
“He doesn’t know he’s yours,” he said. “I checked on Will after Nikki—”
“Will?” I asked, my heart pounding an erratic rhythm in my chest.
“The kid’s name.”
“My middle name.”
He nodded. “He’s with Nikki’s parents.”
I rose and paced the length of the futon, both hands pulling at my hair. “Your bastard father is gonna pay for all of this. We’ve gotta bring him down.” Perrone had ruined so many lives, including the lives of his children. But he’d fucked up by killing Nikki. He’d fucked up by bringing Alex into it.
He’d messed with the wrong motherfucker.
20. LEGACIES
Alex
As I pulled the rolls from the oven, I blatantly eavesdropped on the tense conversation coming from the living room. Rafe and Jax had turned the television on low, but their voices rose above the white noise of the news.
“This is seriously whacked,” Jax said. “It’s risky, might even get us killed…but it could work.”
“Assuming he hasn’t already cleared the tunnel.”
“Doubtful. He thinks he’s invincible.” Jax scowled. “He’s got so many guys in his pocket, I’m surprised he has room for anything else. But that does present a problem. We can’t call in the cops to catch those assholes when they leave the tunnel.”
Rafe jerked his hand out. “Give me your cell.”
“What?”
“Your cell,” he said. “I know you have one.”
Jax dug into his pocket. “Who’re you calling?”
“Lyle Fucking Lewis. You said Nik’s body is out there somewhere in the woods, right?”
“They’ve got a dumping spot, but I don’t know where it is.”
“Lyle was going to marry Nikki. I don’t trust him to spit right, but he’s always had a weak spot for her. Hopefully he’ll be good for something besides wasting space in the sheriff’s station.”
“You’re twisted, man, calling in your enemy as the cavalry.”
“I don’t see what choice we have. There’s no telling how many cops your father has on his payroll, but I doubt he’s got the sheriff of Dante’s Pass in his fucking pocket. And like I said, Lyle has a personal stake in this—he just doesn’t know it yet.”
Rafe dialed information before stepping outside to make the call.
Chili simmered on the stovetop. Cook dinner, he’d said. He had a monster to take down and slaves to free.
How was this our life?
My belly in knots, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach the food, so I dished up two bowls and carried them to the table. “Food’s ready.”
Jax scraped a chair across the floor and sat down. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and pulled out a pocketknife to slice it. My attention lingered on that knife, on the blade slicing through the proverbial forbidden fruit.
I envied that apple.
Rafe entered the room, startling me from my fixation on the knife, though the image stuck to my brain like crazy glue. He joined Jax at the table.
“You get him on the phone?”
Sliding the cell across the table, Rafe nodded.
“That must have been an interesting co
nversation.”
“Kept it short and anonymous. I told him I had info on Nikki, and if he wanted to know more, he’d better wait for a call tomorrow and have some of his guys ready ‘cause something’s going down.” Rafe absently pulled the bowl of chili closer. “Trust me. He’ll be on his toes waiting.”
I set the rolls on the table, and a chill traveled down my spine at the mention of Nikki. She’d been Rafe’s girlfriend at one point, and now she was dead.
Because of my lie.
I went to move away, but Rafe grabbed my arm.
“Aren’t you eating?” His gaze swerved between the food and me.
“I’m not hungry.”
Shaking his head, Jax let out a low whistle. “She’s anorexic, man.”
“What?” Rafe bolted upright, and I shrank back, pulling from his grasp. His expression softened, and he reached out a hand. “C’mere. I’m not gonna hurt you. I was just caught off guard and…”
“Angry with me.”
He grabbed me around the waist and sat back down, planting my ass on his lap. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“I didn’t,” I said, but Jax snorted. I shot him a glare. “You think you know all about me, but you don’t.”
He held his hands up. “If you say so.”
I returned my attention to Rafe. “After what happened with Zach, my dad admitted he’d manipulated me into believing I had a problem with anorexia. Some people stress-eat. I do the opposite.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To protect Zach, I guess. He made me think I was sick so he could shut me away in a treatment center.”
Rafe pushed his bowl away. “I’m not eating until you do. How’s that for manipulation?”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“Your father is an ass. He probably did play you, but that doesn’t change the fact that you need to eat. You’re not starving yourself under my watch.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve said that before, haven’t I?”