Page 83 of Bared

Trystan bared his teeth before she was done. “Your father is Ardent Cimarron, girl. That is all the world knows, and all they will continue to know, as long as you stay the fuck quiet and let me clean your mess up.”

“My mess?” Her retort burst out as sirens started wailing up the old neighborhood alleys. “You shot him! In a room full of witnesses!”

“No.” Trystan raised a knee and braced an alarmingly casual elbow to it. Jayd would have snickered at his awful quest for the smooth spy look if she was not battling back a new surge of bile. “It was actually your bad bodyguard who pulled the trigger, my little doulée.”

“Do not call me that. I am not your sweet anything.”

“Just as well.” His shrug was too casual. Too confident. “Endearments make things so muddy anyway. Good thing I learned the lesson by observation instead of experience. Your strapping American illuminated so much for me—right before he gunned down the strung-out drug addict who was harassing you.”

“Gros de grawl,” she countered. But he was full of more than shit. He was full of lies. “I was there, damn it. I watched your minions raise their weapons, along with everyone else in the place—”

“Who were all decently into their cups, yes? Which means their testimonies will already be a bit…how do they say it here…infidèle? And since the pub’s security system was inexplicably broken tonight…” As he inserted another unnerving shrug, her crack of trepidation became a chasm of dread. “Well, there is that, along with the fact that bad bodyguard boy is now suspect number one, complete with the smoking gun.”

Her trepidation crumbled. So did her dread. True terror crashed into her senses like a sheared iceberg. As soon as it hit, her tear ducts erupted in scalding protest. But the stinging flood, pushing up from her belly, brought something else with it. The moment the bile hit her throat, she dry heaved to the side. Her vision swam, and she clung to consciousness by the barest of threads. Something waved before her vision. A stack of paper napkins.

“Prispoul.” She wadded the napkins and then hurled them at Trystan. “Use them for the innocent blood you have spilled!”

As he scraped the trash off his face, the bonsun swore beneath his breath. At least that took care of the asinine spy charade, but the price was Trystan’s fresh glower.

“What, in the Creator’s fucking name, is your problem?” He vaulted across the bed, assaulting her personal space with brutal hands on her shoulders. “I have dropped everything to come here, fighting to follow your foolish, reckless tracks. I have even instructed Santelle not to break the news about LaBarre, in hopes that we could—”

“What?” She snapped up her head despite how the horizon itself careened. The effect was not helped by the bonsun’s leering proximity. “That we could what, Mr. Carris? Come to some kind of understanding? Is that your brilliant plan? Because you torched every chance of it ever happening when you shot my father in front of my eyes. And then…what you did to Brick…”

She twisted her lips, fully intending to spit in his face, but the risk was too great of ghost gagging again. Another wall of ice crashed into her head. And chest. And limbs.

“Creator’s mercy,” she whispered. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Brickham. Max…”

Max.

One little word she could not refrain from repeating. The syllable that ripped all remaining veils off Trystan’s composure—revealing all of the ugliness underneath.

“Maaaxxx.” His voice was a gloating croon, but his eyes were affronted fire. Their dark depths moved over her, furious and invasive. “Someone has been getting friendly with her bad bodyguard, hmmm?”

Jayd fought to scoot back. To avert her eyes, surely giving away her truth already. “I—I have no idea what you are talking—”

“The hell you do not,” he snarled. “So tell me. Just how friendly, my princess?”

She pushed with her feet, trying to get farther away. It was never a fair fight. In one lunge, Trystan toppled her over, securing her with his superior weight. Though she kept her thighs pressed together, that resistance was also useless. Trystan pushed her legs apart with a couple of dogged grunts.

Saints and stars, how she yearned to set free the thousand screams that clamored in her chest. But the kimfuk’s gag order was real. She was absolutely sure of it. The man was waiting for any excuse to hurt her, in any way possible. That was why she opted for the opposite. She went completely limp beneath him. Turned herself into an acquiescent doll. She was still and silent, even as he ground his crotch against hers with one message above all others.

“Did he…try things with you, Jayd?” he taunted. “Did he try things…like this?” Though his lips twisted with barely disguised frustration, the heat in his gaze changed. The anger took on a suggestive gleam—in direct proportion to the bulge that abused the crux of her thighs. “Maybe more things than this? With fewer obstacles in the way?”

Jayd slammed her eyes shut. She could do nothing about the tears that seeped out and rolled down her temples, but they were a small expense in exchange for what mattered most: saving the sanctity of her memories with Brickham. That fight became her sanity, anchoring her senses to a beautiful escape even as the monster hooked a finger into the space between her wrists to force her arms over her head.

“Did he do something like this to you, Princess?” the beast asked as he did. “But ohhh, what’s this?” He pulled in a long breath. “Creator’s balls. He did do a few things. I can still smell him on you, Highness Jayd. Oh, wait. Perhaps it should be Highness Slut now?”

She remained still. Said nothing.

And remembered everything.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Sir.

That’s what I’m counting on, Pixie.

“Did he screw you too, darling? Oh, I bet he did—and just like a good Puritan lad, nice and sweet and tidy. Did he ask you for permission to come?”

More, Brickham. Please.