AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Breaking the kiss, she pants out, “We shouldn’t be doing th… ahh.” Her words cut off on a cry as I curl my fingers inside her, and despite what her mouth wanted to say, her body is saying the opposite. Her hands move to my belt, pausing as my phone begins vibrating in my pocket again.
“Fuck,” I curse, resting my forehead against hers. It cuts off before starting up again, telling me it’s important.
“Sex toys already? How presumptuous of you,” she says with a laugh, but the sparkle in her eyes, tells me she wouldn’t be complaining if it was.
My response is scissoring my fingers inside her, causing the smirk to drop from her lips and become a parted sigh before letting them slip from her heat and pulling my phone free.
The glare she gives me has a laugh breaking free, but it’s stopped short when the fire alarm blares out through the hotel.
“For now, we need to get out of here, but we’ll continue this later.” I take a quick look at my phone to see three missed calls from Ryder and two email notifications. With no time to do anything about them, I shove the phone back in my pocket and grab Jess’ hand, pulling her behind me.
“Presumptuous bastard just got added to the list of your flaws,” she mutters as we step from the corridor into the foyer, which is packed with people hurrying to get outside.
Scanning the crowd, I don’t see Cam or Ryder anywhere, so with a grip on Jess’ hand, we head for the exit.
Twenty-One
Jess
Rick tows me along behind him as we squeeze through the crowd.
“There is no need to panic. Please make your way to the exit calmly and safely,” shouts a member of hotel staff.
However, when smoke begins to pour into the foyer, calmly and safely is replaced with panic and chaos as people surge forward, desperate to escape.
Rick’s grip tightens as I stumble in my heels, but a second later, his hand is ripped away from mine when a man barges his way between us. Caught in a surge of people, I’m carried away from Rick as I watch him pushing against the flow of the crowd to get back to me.
“Jess. Jess.” I hear him calling as I’m pulled further away.
I spot a gap in the crowd and quickly duck down and slip through, coming out to the left of the main doors.
Visibility becomes poor as smoke continues to billow into the foyer, and even from up the stairs now. Using an arm to protect my mouth and nose from the smoke, I remain where I am as the crowd thins out, waiting for the last minute before slipping through the doors.
Outside, the street is filled with over a hundred people, and I can hear sirens in the distance. Above it all, I hear Rick calling my name again.
“Jess! Jessica!”
I follow the sound, moving between couples and groups of people as they speculate about what happened.
“Jess!”
Then I hear a name that steals the breath from my lungs.
“Sully! Where the fuck are you?”
I stop dead, waiting for the call to come again, spinning on the spot as I try to locate the person calling.
“Sully!” The call comes from my left, and I turn that way, pushing and shoving my way through people, several of whom make their annoyance known with a colourful array of names thrown at my back.
I continue to hear the name called, and following it blindly, I step round a fire engine. My name rings out over the hurried sounds of firemen and police attempting to secure the building and move everyone away just as I see Rick up ahead and Ryder behind him calling out to him.
Only he’s not calling out Rick’s name, but the name of the man my brother was with when he died, Sully.
I watch in shock as Ryder reaches Rick, and they exchange a man-hug.
I’m too far away to hear their conversation, but as Rick turns back this way, his eyes land on mine. I see relief cross his face, but all I see is the man my brother considered a friend, a brother. And the man who was the last person to see Christian alive.
My vision blurs as nausea rolls through me, creating a boulder sized knot in my stomach, and I rest a hand on the fire engine to steady myself.
