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“I had some business to deal with. Did you get everything you need?” He finally gets up, taking the laptop from my hand, his fingertips brushing mine.
“Yeah, I did. Thisbusinessof yours, wouldn’t have anything to do with the guy you were torturing down in the cellar, would it?” His head snaps up, eyes locking with mine. “You forget what I did for a living, Zak?” He stares at me for a couple more seconds before turning away and placing the laptop on a desk along the back wall.
“Nah, I didn’t forget, Rox. You don’t seem surprised?” he asks, keeping his back to me.
I step a little closer. “I’m not. I didn’t forget what you do or who you are, Zak. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” What he doesn’t know and what I’m ashamed to admit is that watching him today, seeing him causing pain to someone that hurt him and Maddox, turned me on. I should be disgusted with myself. It goes against everything a cop should stand for, everything I stand for and have been taught. It’s not how you get justice, not in my world.
He spins around, and I see fury in his eyes, and something else that I’m not quite sure of. “I don’t need you to like it. It is what it is. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
And now it’s my turn feel the flames of fury lick up my skin as I fold my arms across my body. “Really? And what is my job, huh? Because so far, all the two of you have done is barge your way back into my life and fucking ruin it, Zak.” His wince is so slight that had I blinked I’d have missed it, but I don’t miss his sigh.
“You can be pissed all you want, but you had a choice.”
“A choice? Blackmail doesn’t come with choices, Zak. It comes with bad or fucked. There was no option that didn’t end my career, my life. One I worked fucking hard to achieve, and you fucking know it. So, don’t give me some bullshit about choice.” I wave my hand dismissively at him.
“You didn’t have to quit, Rox. That’s not what we asked of you.”
“Do you honestly believe that I would have compromised my integrity, dishonoured all my hard work by staying on the job only for you and your brother to bring it all down around me? You’re fucking delusional if you do. And it shows how little you know me, but then that’s not surprising is it?”
“Yet, you were happy enough to discredit yourself. For what, Rox? Your integrity?”
“Yes, actually. I’d rather burn down my own career than give you and Maddox the satisfaction of destroying me a second time.” The words burn on the way out because they’re a lie. They will destroy me again, and it seems that I’m prepared to let them. What a fucking joke. But one thing I do know is that I won’t go down easy.
Zak sighs, and there’s a small spark of remorse on his face for a fraction of a second. “I get it, you’re pissed, you don’t trust us, and I don’t blame you. You’ll get your answers, but for now, you just need to do as Maddox asks. I know how hard that is for you.” There’s humour in his voice, and I see the twitch of his lips as he tries to hold back a smile. “That’s something that hasn’t changed,” he adds a little forlornly.
I know that if I ask the next obvious questions—where the fuck were you? Why did you leave me? I’m going to be forced to face a truth I’m just not sure I’m completely ready for. While I’ve been contemplating my response, Zak has picked a pair of trousers and a shirt from his wardrobe.
It seems my moment to ask has passed for now as he disappears into the en-suite and emerges two minutes later dressed much as he was this morning, except his shirt is buttoned this time. He grabs socks from his chest of drawers and sits on the edge of the bed to put them on.
His clothing style is such a damn contradiction, and nothing like he wore when we were kids. But I guess back then he didn’t have the money, none of us did.
The air is thick with so many things unsaid that the next words from my lips make me cringe internally, and I mentally slap myself as they leave my mouth.
“Hot date?”
He rises from where he’s sitting, stepping toward me and stopping a mere breath from my face, which due to the significant height difference has me looking at his muscular chest and shoulders. I have to crane my neck to look at his face, and when I do, he’s wearing a smirk.
“And if it was?” He leans down, his breath hot against my neck as he whispers, “Would you be jealous, Rox?” His voice is almost a rasp as it rumbles up his throat and vibrates across my ear.
“Would you want me to be,” I reply, turning my face a fraction so that my lips are almost touching his cheek. And the word vomit just keeps fucking coming. Why can’t I seem to control my emotions or my body around him? Earlier in the shop, I had to contain the need to strip there and then and get myself off, and I was still flushed when I finally grew a pair and stepped outside. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bloody shy, embarrassed, unsettled around anybody in my entire life. I’m not usually so easily rattled, and it freaks me the fuck out. Everything about this whole situation was a bad idea from the outset. I knew it then and I know it now, so why didn’t I tell them to fuck off and do their worst? Surely, nothing could be as bad as this right now.
He chuckles in my ear, and I jump as his hands grip my waist, pulling my hips toward him as he slips his leg between mine. “I’m not a man you should tease, Rox.” He pulls his face back, locking eyes with me, and I go to speak, but his finger on my lips stops me. “Be very careful of your next words because your body doesn’t lie, and I can feel the heat from your pussy and beat of your heart.” As if to prove his point, he uses his grip on my hips to keep me in place as he rubs his thigh against my core. The friction it creates through the thin material of my joggers forces a moan from me, making my lips part, and he doesn’t miss the opportunity to slip his finger between them. I’m lost to the feel of his muscular thigh between my legs and the roughness of his finger as my tongue involuntarily swirls around the tip.
A short cough behind me snaps me out of the lusty haze Zak’s managed to pull me into, and I push away from him. He releases me, and I stumble back a step, knocking into a hard wall of muscle. I spin around and come face to face with Maddox who has his arms folded across his chest and a pissed off scowl on his face.
He raises an eyebrow to Zak over my shoulder before his eyes come back to me.
“Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”
“Er…yeah, hard pass,” I say, finally finding my voice and trying to step around him, but it’s like trying to sidestep Everest.
I feel heat at my back a second before Zak whispers, “Be a good girl, Rox.” His hand brushes over my arse as he steps past and disappears downstairs, and I mentally curse the fucker for leaving me here, somewhat vulnerable, to deal with the pissed of man mountain in front of me.
I go to move around Maddox again, but he blocks me, going a step further as a meaty hand slams against the wall that’s now behind me.
“Don’t push me, Roxanne. I need to be somewhere, and you’re coming with me.”
All the anger and hate I feel for him and Zak eclipses the buzz from moments ago. “Listen up, and real good this time. I don’t take orders from you or anyone else, and I’m certainly not going anywhere with you until you give me some answers. Got it, big guy? Now move the fuck out of my way. Please,” I say with a hyperbolic grin.
