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It was wrong.
I didn’t care.
I was in love with a man who was not my lover, and soon we would leave this place.
Together. I’d convince him that Jason needed to come with us. That he needed protecting from Dornan, the man who would surely mould him into a beast if given half a chance.
We were leaving.
And we were never coming back.
* * *
‘Hey,’ John said, snapping a finger in front of my face. God, he was fucking beautiful, with his dirty blond hair, tanned skin and those brilliant blue eyes that looked just like the ocean we were standing before. With his tight black T-shirt and dark denim jeans, he looked casual. Add the steel-toed boots and the biker tattoos that covered his arms and neck, and he looked lethal. Casually lethal. That was my John.
‘Will you miss Dornan?’ John repeated. His question wasn’t born from jealousy, or insecurity. He seemed genuinely . . . curious.
‘I miss him already,’ I said, shrugging. It was so bright, and I could already feel my skin start to prickle under the Californian sun. I’d spent so long indoors over the years as the cartel’s captive that my skin didn’t know what to do when I was allowed out into direct sun. ‘I miss the person he used to be. Don’t you?’
John nodded, running his tongue along his teeth, seemingly deep in thought himself.
‘Will you miss Caroline?’ I asked softly, my stomach squeezing painfully at the mention of John’s crazy wife.
Yes, I was fucking not one, but two married men, one by choice, the other through necessity. I was not a good person. I was just trying to survive, stay one step ahead, and I was so fucking tired of it all.
John shook his head. ‘Caroline was already an addict when I met her. I never got to know her well enough away from the drugs to be able to miss her.’ He paused for a moment, the lines around his eyes creasing as he frowned. ‘My wife and I are basically strangers who share a child.’
I thought back to the countless times I’d seen John’s wife stumbling down the hallways of the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse, high as a kite, sometimes with a thin trail of blood still fresh on her arm from where she’d injected the heroin. I’d seen her in all kinds of trouble – a couple of overdoses, plenty of times when she’d plain forget that she was naked from the waist down as she wandered around.
I’d seen the shame in John’s eyes every time she did something to embarrass herself. I knew the shame wasn’t for him, it was for their daughter, Juliette.
I hated Caroline bitterly, not because I was in love with her husband, but because she had everything I’d ever wanted and yet she spent her life cruising about in a drug-addled haze, because she couldn’t cope with the fact that she was somebody’s mother, or wife. She’d been a nurse, once, and I’m pretty sure she’d started on pain pills before she graduated to smack.
When we left and made a run for it we were taking John’s daughter, but we were categorically not taking his wife. A part of me selfishly hoped Dornan would kill her once we left. She deserved it more than Stephanie had.
I swallowed thickly, a sense of impending doom settling upon me like a plague of ants crawling over every inch of my skin. I glanced at John, and we both knew what I was thinking.
‘We can’t take him,’ John said firmly. ‘They will hunt us to the ends of the earth if we take their blood.’
We both watched Jason, down on the sand, as he spoke to Juliette beside him. They were sitting now, him hugging his knees and her crosslegged, her eyes only for him. Something squeezed painfully in my chest as I watched Jase and Juliette, knowing the destruction that lay ahead. Because even if we pulled this off, even if we managed to get away and make a run from the Gypsy Brothers, we’d be running forever. For the rest of our lives, we would be looking over our shoulders and sleeping in shifts to make sure we didn’t all wake up dead, courtesy of Dornan and his family.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. ‘We have to take him,’ I countered. ‘Or I will never forgive myself. Or you.’
‘You’re going to be the death of me, woman,’ John sighed, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offering one to me. I took it, because I needed something to do with my hands, and since we were in public I couldn’t be using those hands to unbutton his jeans and squeeze his cock.
Even though that was what I’d really, really prefer to be doing. If we didn’t have these kids with us, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from dragging John into a back alley, dropping to my knees, and sucking his cock until he came down my throat. John might have been the tender lover, the man who took his time, but it seemed we didn’t have an abundance of time as of late. It was hard to be gentle when you didn’t know if somebody was waiting around the corner to blow your brains out at any given moment. It was impossible to slow down and enjoy each other when we were both trapped in a constant vortex of crushing reality – that we might die very horrifically, very soon. And, despite the impending doom that floated around us like a choking fog, we both still found it impossible to keep our hands off each other. Which was kind of hard, in a crowd of tourists and locals alike, all getting their fix on a sunny day while we tried not to give in to carnal desire and go screw in the backseat of John’s car.
Lucky we had these kids with us then, because if anyone we knew ever saw me do that with John, we’d both end up with our heads sawn off and hung over a freeway overpass as punishment.
I happened to like my head very much. John’s, too. So we never let ourselves be tempted anywhere remotely public.
‘Those jeans look good on you,’ I said, glancing at him. Something to break the malaise, because otherwise we’d talk in circles and never come to a decision one way or the other.
‘Your skirt, too,’ he replied, looking straight ahead as he lit his cigarette. ‘It’d look better off, though. You wearing underwear?’
I felt my nipples stiffen to hard peaks as I took the lighter from his outstretched fingers and held the flame to my own cigarette, wishing he was doing it for me. Along with my tank top, I was wearing a loose black skirt that sat just above my knees. ‘Not today,’ I murmured.
John shook his head, turning away so he could readjust his jeans as subtly as possible. ‘Goddamn it,’ he swore, holding his smoke between his teeth as he used two hands to fumble with the waistband of his jeans.
