“And who is this Antony? He’s the guy you had Gabe text in Alec’s car. You don’t seem the type to trust a boyfriend, especially one you’re sleeping around on.”
“Fuck you, Noah. He’s my…” I search for the right word to describe him. ‘Bodyguard’ doesn’t cut it, and ‘enforcer’ is just going raise questions with Noah I’m not answering. Finally, I settle on something that approaches the truth. “…cousin.”
“Your cousin who’s somehow going to sort out a fucking shooter? What is he, a mob boss?”
I smile. Time to change the subject. “Did you know my father didn’t even tell me about this panic room?” Yet another secret they kept from me. “If this guy came to the house while Daddy was away on business, I’d have been fucked.”
There’s a dark tone in Noah’s voice. “Knowing what I do about your old man, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“I found this one day when I was searching for something new to read. I pulled that book off the shelf and this door swung open. I pushed all the buttons and figured it all out.” I kick the steel cabinet behind me. “There are guns in here, but I don’t know how to use them.”
Another lie.
“Who knew your weird obsession with Ancient Rome would save our asses.” Noah’s words strain against the darkness. “Can I use your magical phone to make a call? I was supposed to meet Eli. I was already late, but I thought I’d try to talk to you first. I thought if I could get answers I could tell him… something to cheer him up. Joke’s on me.”
A panicked thought hits me. “Do you think he’d try to come here? What if he was outside when they started shooting—”
Noah shakes his head. Strands of his hair flick against my skin, leaving lines of fire like the welts of a whip. “He’s somewhere safe. There’s a place Eli and I go when we need… peace or some shit. We’ve been using it since… well, since you left. Our families don’t know about it. That’s where he is now.”
I hand him the receiver. “Call him. But I don’t want him anywhere near the house until Antony’s cleared the place.”
Noah takes the phone. He cups his hand over the receiver. “Eli? I’m me… I’m not going to be able to make it back. Yeah, I’m with her right now, but it’s…”
As he relates what happened, I hear Eli swearing on the other end. I lean my back against the cool steel and try to calm my pattering heart. Noah sucks all the air out of this metal cupboard.
He said he came to talk about Eli, and something else. So what’s the other thing?
Noah hangs up the phone. “Eli and Gabriel are coming. They’ll hang back until we give them the okay. Gabriel’s bringing pizza because apparently that’s what you need after you’ve just been shot at. What do we do now?”
I wipe a bead of sweat from my cheek. How did it get so hot in here? “We wait. Antony will call.”
“I don’t suppose your dad put a gaming console in here?” Noah runs his fingers along the walls. “A movie screen, a magnetic chess board, anything?”
“You want to play magnetic chess with me?” My chest feels tight, and I’m not sure if it has anything to do with the confined space.
“You haven’t made any other suggestions,” Noah fires back.
“How about you tell me the other reason you came to talk to me? The real reason?”
Noah leans forward, his nose touching mine. His inky, shadowed scent folds around me. All our rage and hatred fills the space, and there is no room to breathe anything except Noah fucking Marlowe.
“I know your secret, Mackenzie Malloy. I know you killed—”
I don’t let him finish the sentence. I do the only thing I can think of to do. I launch myself at him, pressing my lips to his. I expect him to push me away, but the darkness calls to him too because he rises up to meet me, his mouth slashing against mine with cruel, delicious need.
Noah plants his hands on either side of my face, trapping me against the cool steel as he grinds his cock into me. I grab him roughly, pull him closer, try to climb inside his skin.
Who am I? Last night I lost my virginity to his friend, and now here I am kissing Noah Marlowe like I’m daring him to break me.
Noah tosses off my top and paws at my breast. This isn’t Gabriel’s careful, languid pace. We’re wild, frenzied. Noah twists my nipple so hard it sends a shockwave through my body, straight to my clit. I throw my head back and moan. Thank fuck the gunman stalking the house can’t hear us through the steel walls.
He unzips his jeans and mine. I step out of them and wrap my legs around him, pulling him close, lining him up to plunge inside me. A brief thought enters my head that I don’t have a condom, but then Noah’s cock is inside me and I can’t think.
Noah grunts as he takes my weight, his hands resting under my ass as he grinds against me, driving me into the wall with his hatred. He crushes his mouth to mine, and he drives inside me like he can fuck the pain from his soul. It’s so different from Gabriel and so, so fucking good.
He’s grinding against my clit, and my orgasm builds inside me like a well about to spill over. Noah’s teeth glide over my shoulder, and I hate the way he’s undoing me. He’s the only one who could have figured out my secret – the only one with a darkness as deep as my own.
I want to undo him.
I want to see perfect Noah Marlowe come apart at the seams.
I want a puddle of Noah goo on the floor of this panic room.
I press my finger to his lips, letting him suck on it, letting him roll it around on his tongue. Then I withdraw it.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Noah growls against my ear as I reach behind him.
“This.” I smile against his lips as I shove my finger into his ass.
Noah’s body clenches at the intrusion, but he’s close, too close to be angry. As I work my finger deeper inside him, he practically impales me through with the force of his thrusts. I work my finger in and out, in and out. The splendid twist of his face as he falls over the edge carries me over too.
We explode together – a fury of rage and darkness unleashed on the world. When I surface, Noah’s still pressed against me, his forehead slick with sweat as it rests against mine.
“Fuck,” he mutters, over and over again. “Fuck. Fuck...Fuck.”
“Mew.”
I laugh as two yellow eyes peer at us through the darkness, wider than I’ve ever seen them. “I think we traumatized Queen Boudica.”
“I bet she didn’t know her mama’s a deviant bitch. I’m going to get you for that.” Noah fights for my grip, wrapping his fingers around my wrist to trap my hand above my head. He attacks my mouth again, and I’m ready for it, ready to do battle with his man until he succumbs to me.
Noah yanks my waist, flipping me around like I weigh nothing. I splay my fingers against the wall, and he reaches between my legs to curl his fingers inside me, pumping me and rubbing circles on my clit until my legs turn to jelly. He grinds against me, and he’s already hard again. “I bet your dad never intended his panic room to be used like this,” he growls in my ear as he pumps me faster, and I’m so close, so fucking close. “You’re not his perfect little girl anymore.”
“You like that, don’t you?” I growl back at him, knowing if I make him angry he’ll go even harder. “You like fucking Howard Malloy’s daughter fast and dirty in his house. You like that I—”
Brrrrrrring.
Fuck!
Noah slams his fist into the wall. His back crashes against the panic room door as he flings himself away from me. My whole body trembles like someone just threw a bucket of ice water over me.
What the fuck am I doing?
Brrrrrrring.
I pick up the receiver and jam it to my ear.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Claws.” It’s Antony, and he’s got that smirk in his voice like he knows exactly what I’ve been up to.
I suck in a breath, trying to force my heart rate back to normal. Beside me, Queen Boudica swipes at No
ah’s bare ass as he tries to bend his huge frame to pull on his pants. “Quit being a smartass and tell me what you’ve got.”
“Nothing, I’m sorry. The bastard got clean away.”
“Did you see who it was? Who are they working for? Did Alec send them?” I close my eyes. “Is it Brutus?”
“I can’t say. I’m going to follow up with my networks, see if anyone’s claiming this, but I’m stumped. I took care of Brutus, and I’m not sure this is your Pretty Boy’s work. Putting out a hit? That’s a bit extreme.”
“It’s got to be Brutus.” My blood runs cold. I don’t have to ask. The world I ran from, they’ve found me again.
Antony clicks his tongue. “Calm down, Claws. Honestly, this doesn’t seem like Ole Brutey Boy, either. This was messy. If you’re going to gun down someone on their front steps, you don’t spray bullets all over the place. This isn’t a professional hit with a sniper rifle – this guy’s a cowboy who can’t shoot for shit. It could be someone trying to get in good with Brutus by taking you out. Let me find out. In the meantime, we’ll step up security. We’ll keep you safe.”
Aware Noah’s listening to every word, I don’t ask questions, even though I have a million swirling around. “He’s gone now?”
“Long gone. And I’ve found Tiberius. He’s out cold, but he’ll be okay. How they snuck up on him I can’t figure. Oh, and your two loverboys arrived. We’re all out front if you wanna let us in.”
I set the phone back in its cradle. Noah stares at me with those dagger eyes, the ones that slice right through me.
“You wanna explain what the fuck’s going on?” he growls.
“Nope.” I flick open a panel on the wall and slam my palm onto a button. With a wheeze, the door springs open. Noah topples out and lands on his back on the rug. Queen Boudica bounds out and pounces on his chest.
I tug on my clothes and leave Noah pinned by the cuteness to unlock the front door. There’s no broken glass and only a couple of chipped tiles. Daddy’s security measures get an A+ from me.
I never knew why a house needed to be bulletproof until this morning.
I fling open the front door. Antony stands there with Tiberius, who’s locked Eli in a chokehold. Gabriel stands off to the side, smoking a joint with a stack of pizzas in his hands.
“Help me, you bastard,” Eli snaps at Gabriel.
“Why? Watching you struggle is so much more amusing.” Gabriel opens the top box and pulls out a french fry. “I wish I brought popcorn.”
“You can let Eli go,” I say. “I told you, he’s on the safe list.”
Antony shook his head. “He’s the one who’s been watching you through your windows. Sounds like crazed shooter behavior to me.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“You know that for a fact?” Antony must’ve noticed the look on my face because he nods to Tiberius, who drops Eli.
Eli glances between us. “Mackenzie, what’s going on? What happened to you?”
“Why’s your shirt on inside out?” Gabriel adds.
I look down. Fuck. “Some psycho shot at us. Noah and Queen Boudica and I hid in the panic room. We’re all fine.”
“Panic room? Like in the Sandra Bullock film?” Gabriel looks interested. “I want to see, especially if it’s a magical panic room that makes your clothes fall off.”
Eli looks so wounded I want to throttle Gabe. Instead, I hide my flaming cheeks as I throw the door open. “You’d better come in, and make it snappy. If the shooter’s still out there, I don’t want him getting all trigger happy again.”
The four of them traipse into the foyer just as Noah comes around the corner with Queen Boudica wrapped around his neck, purring away.
“Hey, Marlowe. Your fly’s undone.” Gabriel’s mouth is all mischief as he slaps Noah on the back. I wonder how fucking clueless it’s possible to be, but when Gabriel turns back to me I see the fear in his eyes.
Eli falls in step beside me. His gaze flickers all around, taking in the gilded modern art, the weird furniture, the clear plastic chairs mixed with the bedazzled lampshades. Or maybe he’s trying to avoid my gaze. “This place…” he breathes. “It looks exactly as I remember it.”
“Not exactly.” I fling open the door to the ballroom.
Eli makes a choking sound. I gotta admit, looking at it like this, as if I was one of them seeing it for the first time, it’s a lot.
The ballroom is my place. It’s the only room in the house I’ve ever tried to make mine. And it’s so large that it’s accommodated a number of my interests over the years. In one corner is an absolute mountain of history books I ordered online, because academic publishers apparently have never heard of ebooks. I’ve stacked them into a sort of fort and placed a mountain of blankets inside for Queen Boudica. The marble floorboards have a maze of painted lines from when I drew my own basketball court. I’ve used old furniture and dragged up gear from the basement gym to create my own workout space, and I spent six months testing all the sofas in the house before dragging the comfiest in here. I’ve got a wine fridge and drinks cart, an arts-and-crafts corner, a big-screen TV, a knife-tossing range (and several porcelain dolls with their eyes stabbed out), a cat jungle-gym that reaches the tip of the vaulted ceiling and—
“Is that a… a skate ramp?” Noah chokes out.
“I went through a skating phase.” I flop down on the sofa. It used to live in one of the upstairs drawing rooms. Antony and I used it as a sled to slide down the stairs, and then relocated it here. It sags a bit in the center as Noah sits down. “I’m afraid I have no staff, so if you want a drink you need to get it yourself.”
“I’m gonna need one.” Gabriel hugs the drinks cart. Eli perches gingerly on the edge of the book fort while Gabe shakes and pours. He hands around six fancy-looking cocktails. Eli rests his feet on the cover of a book on Greek vase painting and stares at it like it will eat his soul. Queen Boudica bounds over to him and nudges his hand. Eli strokes her, and the tension in his shoulders eases a fraction.
“Well, well, well.” Antony’s ice-blue eyes dart from Gabe, to Noah, to Eli. Nothing escapes him. “The rockstar, the arch-nemesis, the stalker.”
“Arch-nemesis?” Noah tugs on his collar. He won’t look at me. Or Eli, for that matter.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Gabriel downs his drink in one gulp and reaches for Eli’s while holding his other hand out for Antony to shake. “And you are?”
“I’m Claws’ cousin, Antony. And this is Tiberius.”
“You’re the guy who was in my house.” Eli leaps up, his hands clenched in fists. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Tiberius cracks his knuckles as he advances on Eli. His face twists into a maniacal smile. “You want to see how many chicks you’ll pull with your nose sticking out your ass, pretty boy?”
“I wouldn’t fight him if I were you,” Antony says. “Sit your ass down, Stalker Boy. You should’ve learned by now what happens if you keep Claws waiting.”
“Claws?” Gabriel nods at me. “Nice nickname, better than Mac. It suits you, Claws.”
“It’s just a dumb name from when we were kids,” I mutter. I know what’s coming. The big questions. The questions that will destroy everything.
I glance at Antony, trying to convey through eye movement and grimacing that we have to rescue this situation somehow. The guys cannot find out the truth. But Antony sits beside his prizefighter on the ramp, swinging his feet and smoothing the lapels of his fancy suit like he hasn’t a care in the world. I can’t read him, and I can’t count on him to come to my rescue here. I’m the one who bought the guys into this mess. I let them get close.
“You’re Mackenzie’s cousin? From the Long Island Malloys?” Eli glares at Antony. “I don’t remember Mackenzie ever mentioning you.”
“I’m from the Malloys up your ass,” Antony shoots back. Gabriel sniggers. Eli’s drink has disappeared.
Eli turns to me. The raw hurt in his eyes fucking burns. I swallow a
s my chest constricts. There’s even less air in this ballroom than when I was trapped in that tiny panic room. “Mackenzie, can you explain what’s going on here?”
“Eli, I know you’re pissed, but shut up a second.” Noah grips his glass so hard his knuckles turn white. He runs his fingers through his hair but forgets he’s holding the glass, and ends up tossing sticky alcohol across the rug. “Can’t you see Mackenzie’s upset? Someone shot at us.”
Gabriel grabs his friend’s shoulder and shakes him. “Who are you and what have you done with Noah Marlowe?”
“What I’ve done is bring this whole fucking mess down on our heads,” Noah says.
What?
I open my mouth to protest, but Antony’s eyes flick to me. I snap my jaw shut.
“What the fuck, man?” Eli yells. The Southern twang creeps into his voice. That’s not good.
Noah’s fingers rake through his hair, again and again, until the bit at the back he soaked in alcohol stuck out like a reverse unicorn horn. “The pieces didn’t fit together until now, but… it’s what I came to talk to Mackenzie about. When I got home on Friday night, my dad was in his receiving room, having a conversation with Brentwood.”
“Who’s Brentwood?” I ask. Antony leans forward, interested. He knows that name, which can’t be a good thing.
From the way Eli’s face has gone all pale and weird, I suspect he knows this Brentwood, too.
“Let’s just say he’s known to do a few favors for the richer families in Emerald Beach.” Noah shuffles his feet. “The kind of favors where certain people disappear and Brentwood adds another wing to his mansion.”
“He’s an assassin?” What the fuck? Why is Noah’s father, Senator Marlowe, talking to an assassin?
Okay, that’s fucked.
I guess I’m not the only one with secrets in this room.
Noah nods. “Look, my father and Brentwood have some legitimate business dealings, so I never thought much of their acquaintance before, but… the last time that guy came to our house was shortly after we lost our case against the Malloys, and then Mackenzie and her family disappeared. Yesterday he was there again, and today someone shot at Mackenzie.”
My Stolen Life: a high school bully romance (Stonehurst Prep Book 1) Page 23