“Hayden.”
There was something in Jake’s voice that snapped me out of my depressing daydream. His head jerked back, and his eyes went wide with shock. He exhaled a soft laugh before rolling off of me and onto his back. Blood pumped steadily from a hole in his side.
I scrambled over to him. “No! No, no, no.”
He’d been shot.
Jake had taken a bullet meant for me.
I looked to Reid, suddenly incapable of being in charge. “Do we put pressure on it? What do we do?” I was hysterical.
Reid quickly stripped out of his t-shirt and held it against Jake’s ribs. “He’s losing a lot of blood. We need to get him to a hospital now.”
Jake’s eyes fluttered closed and I shook his arm frantically. “You stay awake—do you hear me? Don’t you dare close your eyes, Jake! Not now!” Tears coursed down my cheeks and fell onto his blood-soaked shirt.
He opened his mouth, frantically trying to speak, but nothing came out. He was dying all because he’d chosen to jump in front of me.
Jake groaned and gestured for me to come closer with shaking hands. I knelt down and cupped his cheek in my hand, using my fingers to wipe at the tears on his face. “I’m here, babe. I’m here. This is all my fault—”
His hand bumped against my arm, but I continued vomiting up words, “I’m going to fix this. The doctors will get you all fixed up. You’ll see.”
He made another small sound of protest and began fumbling with the front pocket of his jeans. I laid a hand on his arm to still his movements.
“Stop struggling. Just stay calm. We’re going to get you help, okay?” I continued blubbering, unsure of how we were going to keep him alive until we found a hospital.
With a clenched jaw, he thrust a pen into my hand before growling, “Change…it.”
Change?
Oh my god.
Confusion gave way to clarity and I snatched the pen before searching the room for a blank surface. The closest object happened to be Reid’s back and I didn’t hesitate.
“What are you doing, Hayden? We need to get him out of here!” he snapped while keeping pressure on the wound.
It made me seriously consider placing the bullet somewhere else.
Emily fired a shot as she was taken to the ground. The bullet shattered the window, but surprisingly, everyone escaped unscathed.
Please work, I silently begged.
The window exploded behind us as I knelt over Jake again and cupped his cheek again. “Jake, open your eyes. Stay with me.”
He forced out through clenched teeth, “Sweetheart, she didn’t hit me, but your knee is embedded in my balls.”
I moved off of him with a shaky laugh and swiped the back of my hand across my damp face. “You prick. You almost gave me a heart attack. I thought that was it.”
Reid pointed at Jake’s shirt dumbly and I looked down, noting that any evidence he’d been shot had suddenly evaporated.
“How? Why? How?” he stuttered. “But, you—”
Jake rolled to his side and sat up with a groan. “Sorry about your jaw, man. No hard feelings?”
Reid took his extended hand while still frowning at the floor. “Was that… was that magic?”
I forced the sob in my throat back and sighed, “We have to turn Emily over to the cops. She needs to get help.”
I almost lost him.
I was still going to lose him.
“That’s gonna be a problem,” Max noted in a flat voice. “I kinda broke her neck.”
Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. “You what? Why? We didn’t even question her yet.”
Max looked down at Emily’s body and shrugged. “I turned her head and her body didn’t follow. That’s more on her. Am I taking care of pretty boy in the corner too?”
Reid’s shoulders curled forward, and his hands trembled as he shook his head. Any second now he was going to piss his pants and cry.
“He’s fine, Max.” One look at Jake and I completely fell apart. “Can you take me home?”
Twenty-Three
“You solved the entire case, Hayden. It was right in front of my face the entire time, but I missed it.” Jake poured a second glass of whiskey from the bottle in front of him.
It had been in front of us the entire time. Eddie had been conversing with Emily inside the dumpster, giving her information under the misguided notion that he was Moses and she was the voice of God. In his drug-addled mind, God had taken the form of a trash bin, instead of a burning bush.
Jake looked wretched and had been quiet since we left the cabin. Max assured us that he’d remove any evidence that we’d been there and, against my better judgment, I left Reid to help him.
I had to bite down on my lip to keep from asking Jake about what we’d done last night. I needed to know that it meant something, but the investigation was over.
There was nothing keeping him here now.
So, I turned my rose quartz ring in a slow circle around my finger and stayed silent. I’d gotten the ending I always wanted—the woman solved the mystery on her own. But what good was it when she was going to lose it all in the end?
Everything until him had been two-dimensional.
Fiction.
He was the realest thing I’d ever experienced, but it was temporary. Shakespeare himself couldn’t have written a greater tragedy.
The list of things we weren’t talking about had grown until there was nothing left between us but silence. It wasn’t even five o’clock, yet Jake was sitting across from me, drinking like it was his last night on earth.
Maybe it was.
“I know you’ve got something on your mind. Just say it, Hayden.”
I bit my lip. So much of what Emily had claimed was based on the delusions in her head, but I had to know for sure. “The email from Rachel, the one where they turned me down, you didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I saw the email pulled up on your laptop when you locked yourself in the bedroom and I used it to my advantage. What else?”
His tone was rough, and I hesitated.
“C’mon, tell me,” he said, softer this time.
“Emily said that you and Addison couldn’t stand each other, but I kept forcing you together and I know she wasn’t fictional or whatever, but—”
“You wanna know if what I told you that night was true.”
I nodded and slid my hands underneath my thighs to keep them from shaking. “It’s stupid. You don’t have to answer.”
Jake pinched the bridge of his nose and stared down into his glass of whiskey. “What do you want me to do, Hayden? You want the truth, here’s the truth. Addison was a colleague. Did we hate each other? No.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “But, you weren’t going to marry her?”
His head shot up and he glared at me. “No.”
I should’ve left it at that, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Why did you lie to me?”
He stood up and walked over to the balcony door. “I wanted to hurt you like you’d hurt me. Are you happy now? I’m a dick.”
“Jake.” I limped over to him and took his hands in mine. “Stop. We both said and did a lot of things.”
He squeezed my fingers. “You know what happened to me that night on the balcony. You know and you’ve been keeping it from me. You know how it all ends, don’t you?”
I bit down on my lip until the copper tang of blood coated my tongue and nodded fiercely. Yeah, I knew. I knew when his lips were mashed up against my jaw. I knew when he rocked into me and my inhales were timed perfectly to his and it was like we were one person.
I knew exactly how this was going to end and I dove headfirst off the cliff anyway. His eyes rested on the bottle again, debating the pros and cons of getting drunk.
I wanted a drink… an edible… anything to take the edge off, but my stomach was in knots. Anything I ingested was liable to come right back out, so I stayed sobe
r and oh so painfully aware of it all.
I took a deep breath. “I was going to surprise you. I’ll be finished tonight and then you’ll be free of me.” My voice cracked, but I forced myself to smile.
He nodded and walked back over to the table to drain the remainder of his glass before calmly pouring another. “What if you didn’t finish tonight? What if you put it off until tomorrow morning?”
You are calm. You are centered. You are balanced…
You are hopelessly in love with him.
I grabbed his glass and took a swig, letting the whiskey burn away the emotions trying to bubble up to the surface. “Why? Did you get attached to the couch?”
Joking was safer than the truth, which was that I wanted him to stay because he’d fallen for me as hard as I’d fallen for him.
He stared down at his hands. “Maybe I want one more night with you. What would you say to that?”
My world, which had been close to spinning off its axis, slowed at his words. One night. An alternate ending.
“Okay,” I whispered. I knew the rocks were sharp and likely to cut me to ribbons, but I was prepared to swan dive off of the ledge one more time.
Jake pushed away from the table, rattling the whiskey bottle from the force. His eyes had gone feral and he stared at me like he had that night in the hotel, like I was something he wanted to possess.
He easily plucked me out of the chair and carried me down the hall. One arm gently cradled my head while the other was tucked under my knees. I turned my face into his chest so that he wouldn’t see the tears.
He laid me back against the comforter and paused to look me over. Last night, the dark had hidden so much, but the snow-filled sky this afternoon wasn’t as kind. I tried to look away, but his hand moved down to my chin, holding me in place.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.”
I wished that I hadn’t spent so much time fighting him. We could’ve been doing this the entire time. Then maybe I would’ve been ready for him to leave by the time the book was finished.
“I’m fine,” I insisted with a watery smile.
He grasped the hem of my In the event of an emergency, place cat here t-shirt and pulled it over my head. Another tear slipped free and he bent his head to kiss it as it made a trail down my face. His finger brushed down my chest and settled between the swell of my breasts.
“You’re fine?” he asked before roughly yanking my sweatpants down.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest to alleviate the ache and nodded. “Yep. Fine.”
He pressed another kiss to my cheek and then my jaw before thrusting up against my panties. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer, earning myself a low growl in response.
His eyes were a dark shade of amber as he stripped off his sweater, never once looking away. It was too much, but every time I tried to turn my head, his finger hooked under my chin, drawing my gaze back to his.
My thoughts blurred into one as his tongue dipped into my mouth and his hands found the clasp of my bra. Jake dropped onto his forearms to take my breasts into his mouth, one at a time, until my moans turned into incoherent sobs.
He moved his hand up and tightened it against my throat, pushing me down into the mattress. He wasn’t cutting off my air supply. He could break me if he wanted to though, and somehow, knowing that he would never hurt me made me even wetter.
I moaned against his lips when his fingers slipped under the elastic band of my panties and dug my fingernails into the sheets. I was wild with lust and I arched my hips up into the palm of his hand in frustration.
Touch me.
Fuck me.
Mark me like you swore you would.
His hand left my throat and joined the other between my legs. The thin material ripped under his grip and he grinned triumphantly before tearing the lace off of me completely.
“You’re soaked, babe.” Jake said something else after, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t English, which was weird because he didn’t know any other languages.
He stroked and kissed along my body until I was thrumming with desire. This wasn’t farewell sex. If anything, it just reinforced my belief that I was going to die alone as a crazy cat lady because no one would ever measure up to him.
He lowered his mouth down between my thighs and I wanted to clench them together; to hold him hostage until he agreed to stay.
Instead, I braced my forearms on the mattress and watched as Jake worshiped my body. His fingers moved in and out of me steadily and when he caught me staring, he lowered his mouth again. With his eyes on mine, he sucked my clit into his mouth and my vision swam.
“Jake,” I moaned.
I wasn’t on the bed anymore. I was floating somewhere up in the atmosphere; maybe on a cloud.
I saw us as a couple; arguing over counter space while we got ready in the morning. He’d brush his teeth with a towel slung low around his waist and I’d start wearing makeup every day just so that I’d have an excuse to be in there with him. I’d tease him in just my bra and panties and our argument would end with us making love up against the wall.
Jake was waiting with his cock in his hand when I finally came back down to earth. “I thought you were fading on me,” he smirked.
Marry me.
Choose me.
I can make you so much happier than a book.
His mouth moved back over mine impatiently before he ripped a foil packet from the nightstand and rolled it on. His lips tasted like me and I wondered how long it would be before they tasted like someone else.
Would he be able to go back to the guy he was before?
Jake ground his teeth together as he sank into me. I clenched around him and he let out a low groan. “You don’t play fair, Ms. Michaels.”
I let my body bear down on him again before breathlessly exclaiming, “I don’t know what you mean, Detective.”
He exhaled something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh before rolling his hips forward to pin me in place. “Brat.”
We moved together like we’d been doing it for years. His hand wrapped around my hair, tethering me and just when I thought that there was no way to top the last orgasm, he’d shift my legs and get deeper.
“You fit me perfectly, baby,” he murmured against the top of my head. I tightened around him and he growled, “You like that? How about this? The thought of anyone else having you like this makes me feel fucking insane—”
“Jake,” I warned as my body climbed higher again.
He dragged a finger through the wetness and pressed it lightly against the one hole he hadn’t investigated. I should’ve tensed up, but the pressure against raw nerve endings had me bearing down on him for all I was worth. I needed it. I needed it all.
“Come, baby. Come all over my cock—I wanna feel you.”
I came with a whimpered groan, but he didn’t slow down and just like a roller coaster, I moved up the track again. As the next orgasm hit, his finger pushed in fully, past the tight ring of muscle and I shook as waves of pleasure washed over me.
His finger and cock worked out a rhythm that managed to wring orgasm after orgasm from my body until I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.
“I’m sorry, Hayden,” he panted. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I didn’t have to ask what he was sorry for. I already knew. He was going to leave tomorrow morning. It wasn’t a question for him.
I ignored his apologies and pushed against his chest. “I want to be on top.”
If it was all going to come crashing down tomorrow, I needed to be in control one last time. His finger slipped out and he rolled onto his back, pulling me across his massive body as if I was weightless.
I exhaled slowly as my body sank down, adjusting to the new angle. Jake thrust his hips up with a grin. “We didn’t try this yoga pose last night. I damn near came just watching you do it though. Will you ever know how it’s fucked with my head seeing how flexible you are?”
&
nbsp; Inexplicably, another tear broke free and I looked away from him toward the ceiling. I couldn’t take much more of this. There’d be nothing left of me by the time we were done.
“Use me,” I panted. “Use me to make yourself—” My skin prickled as another orgasm ripped through my body and I dug my nails into his chest to brace myself.
Jake caught my meaning and reluctantly moved his hands from my breasts to my hips, forcing my body to move at his speed. My head fell back as his cock moved deeper and faster inside of me before he tightened his hold and groaned his own release.
I lowered myself and placed my head against his chest, our heartbeats still fighting against each other. I’d solved two cases but was still no closer to wrapping up my feelings for Jake.
My panting turned to silent sobs and I soaked his chest in tears. He tightened his arms around me, his fingers stroking down my spine. Until now, I never knew that a heart could break without making a sound.
I decided that if I stayed awake, then maybe I could convince him to stay. Unfortunately, the events of the day had left me exhausted and despite my best efforts in fighting it, I drifted off to sleep in his arms.
I looked at the blinking cursor on the screen and then back up at him. “It’s, uh, ready. Jessa’s in her apartment, waiting on the results of the autopsy. When the phone rings, that’s your cue to knock on the door, okay?”
My voice was scratchy, and my eyes were puffy from crying in secret. I’d sobbed against the tiles of the shower until it felt like my chest would crack open from the pain and then again while putting on clothes in my closet. Pretty much anytime he wasn’t in the room, I was weeping.
Instead of his normal tree-like posture, Jake had been slouched over all morning. “So, just like that? It’s fixed?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and smiled. I only hoped he hadn’t noticed my watery eyes or quivering chin. “Yep,” I squeaked. “Just like that. You got your life back.”
His jaw clenched and he straightened. “Look, Hayden, I just need to say one—”
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