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“Take care of her, even when she doesn’t want you to.” His stare met mine. “You’re the only one who can.” He pushed from the wall he’d been up against and jerked his head toward the opposite side of the house. “I’m gonna go out my window. But, uh, come see me before I have to head out. There’s something I need to show you.”
“If you’re gonna shoot me, do it now.”
A full laugh burst from his chest, forcing a smile across my face. “Man, you should’ve offered that a few days ago. I might’ve taken you up on it.”
“I would’ve dodged it.”
“You bastard,” he said on a softer laugh, and then his face sobered. “Come see me.”
I nodded and waited until I heard the window in his old room open and shut before I moved soundlessly through the house toward the girl who’d buried herself in my heart sometime between her wild laughs and baiting words.
She was waiting on the end of the bed, legs crossed beneath her, eyes wary.
I stopped in the doorframe and leaned against it, taking her in and studying every little thing about her.
Her full lips and slender throat. Her enticing curves that fit perfectly against my body, like how her darkness seemed to fit with mine. Her wide eyes that could turn seductive and mischievous in an instant.
The way she looked so fragile and strong at the same time.
How soft her face looked when she wasn’t wearing makeup.
And that everything—all of her—was mine.
“He told me to get as close to you as necessary until I gained your trust . . .”
Her earlier words had my stomach wrenching and my pulse dipping before I was able to level it out again.
“How do I know if it was real?”
Jessica’s shoulders sagged and face twisted. “Didn’t it feel real?”
“Lily felt real.”
Her mouth opened and she hunched forward, like my comparison had been a physical blow.
Her confessions had been too.
“What happens when you realize I was nothing but a job?” I asked.
For a long time, she didn’t move and didn’t speak. It looked like she couldn’t.
When she did, her voice was strained—quiet—and her stare didn’t move from a spot on the floor. “I believed him about my mom, but I always mocked everything else he said. He gave me rules and warnings about not listening to him because he owned me, and it made me want to defy him even more.”
It was an immediate reaction now.
The darkness that flooded me whenever it was mentioned how Mickey thought he owned the girl on that bed.
She was mine.
Pull her closer. Keep her safe, safe, safe.
I rolled my head, pushing away that thick feeling of dark need that stirred in my mind.
“I proved I could take things from you, and I looked for the flash drive, but by then I was already in so much trouble with you,” she went on. “The last night I did anything for him at all was the first night I kissed you. When I followed you to The Jack, it was because I couldn’t make myself stay away. Not that he knew that. Not that I wanted to admit that, even then.”
“What rules?” I asked.
“There were a lot. But with you? I wasn’t supposed to touch you or let you touch me. I was supposed to seduce you, and keep you wanting me until I had you where I needed you. But I hated you.” Her eyes finally lifted to meet mine. “I hated you for how you looked at me with disgust. I hated you for being a man. And I hated you for being the first person I wanted and craved. I’ve loathed and wanted to scream when men have touched me.” She paused again. “But I need your touch like I need oxygen.”
