She laughed quietly, licking a trail up my back, onto my neck, awakening every single one of those three thousand thoughts. “Tell me all your thoughts.”
“I thought about…you waking up beside me.” I did, I’d thought about Jade every second of every day since I saw her zip tied to the chair. “I thought about…the way you say my name. The way your lips lift in a smile when you give me your attitude.”
She listened intently, gifting me the tiniest kisses.
“I thought about you in my life. In my bed, in my shower, in my kitchen. I thought about…you being where I was.” Jade’s delicate fingers traced my jaw, both of us breathing in and out together. “I thought about…how fucked up this is. How much I fucked up when…when I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When I couldn’t stop wanting you. When I knew this whole fucking plan was going down the drain, and I…” I lifted and turned, dragging Jade onto my chest, feasting my eyes on her. “And I thought about this.” My hand found the nape of her neck and my fingers tangled in her soft hair. “You on top of me.”
I was going to tell her. Tell her what she forbade me from saying on the beach. I looked into her eyes, knowing that it might scare her, but I opened my mouth anyway. “I—”
But the consecutive ding of my phone beside us interrupted the moment. It was a barrage of messages, one after another. We both turned to it, seeing the name on the screen.
The name that had become a real menace. The name that was attached to me like a leech, sucking the blood out of me.
I reached for the phone and unlocked it, the reality of it all hitting us both. Gianna sent a screenshot from an Instagram account. Knox’s Instagram account. He was with Jade on his yacht, both smiling and hugging, looking like a happy couple. The caption read:If anyone has any information about my beautiful missing girlfriend, PLEASE DM me!!! Come home,mon amour! I miss you so much! You're the love of my life!??????
Beneath it was Gianna getting the last word in:
Giana:I know who your whore is. You're fucked.
23
Honey On My Tongue
Jade
In his arms, I became someone else. Someone more like myself. Alex was slow and deliberate. He gave me the space and time to think and to decide. The space to take my power back, andfuck,did that work like magic.
Men didn’t know that their biggest strength—their biggest superpower—was making a woman feel safe. And with Alex, I felt bulletproof.
But Gianna possessed something stronger than bullets. She held all the power to rip our world apart. Refusing to climb off Alex’s chest, I stared at the photo of me and Xavier on his phone. Xavier used a photo of us when we first started dating.The love of his life.What a delusional clown.
Slowly, I slid off Alex and grabbed the phone, rereading her text. The bitch did recognize me. She put it all together quickly, which meant that she either knew Xavier or maybe had been to one of his parties. He loved to throw extravagant, over-the-top parties whereeveryonewas invited.I’ve seen you somewhere before. At some party, with someone else. Another man.
Yes, she looked like the type who might show up.
“Fucking will have to wait,” I said, passing the phone back to Alex and slumping down on the bed, letting the dread wash over me. I closed my eyes and just sighed, disappearing into that inevitable dark feeling.
We were fucked.
If Gianna told Xavier where we were, he would tell my father, and this place would be swarming with federal agents by lunchtime.
“Not too long, though,” Alex’s deep voice sounded right in my ear, his hand sliding on my stomach. “We have to leave right now, but Iamgoing to fuck you as soon as I can.”
Even during thiscalamity, he was a tether. I watched the way he climbed off the bed and turned around to look for something.
He was naked.Naked.I’d thought about him naked, many,manytimes, but living through it was different. My soul shook inside me at the sight. He towered in the room, the tattoos on his back moving with every pull of his muscles, and somehow, this man wasnakedin front of me.
He turned back to me and my eyes inevitably jumped to… Fuck. I stared. He was definitely well hung. Definitely a shower but also…a grower. Because I had sucked his cock and I remembered how I struggled to shove him down my throat.
“What?” He got my attention and my eyes jumped to his, realizing that I had been checking him out without shame. “You like to watch?” He threw my question back at me, and yeah. Yeah, I did.
“I like to watch you.”
Alex spent exactly seven minutes packing up. He grabbed some of my and his clothes, a few water bottles, my favorite snacks, and then asked, “Anything else you’d like to take?”
I stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. I didn’t want to leave. This had become the coziest and most joyful place I’d ever lived in.
Instead of dwelling on it, I shook my head and placed my hand in his, following him out of the house and ignoring that sinking feeling inside me. Once outside, he barked something at Maksim and opened my car door before getting in himself and absolutely flooring it out of there.