Holding her gaze, I said simply, “I want to be with you.”
Her eyes darkened.
Those contacts—I wanted them off. I wanted to see the beautiful eyes that she’d been hiding from the world. They bewitched Edmund. I almost couldn’t blame him. She never knew the power she had. She thought she was a nobody, but she was the somebody everyone wanted.
Justin claimed her first. That was his mistake. I would’ve taken her, no matter who might have tried to stop me. But I held her now. I was claiming her now. I didn’t think I could give her up, not anymore—not after holding her or touching her and not after I would be inside her.
My thumb rested on her bottom lip.
She gasped from the touch, her eyes clinging to mine, and she nodded. She swallowed and then murmured, “I want you, too.”
I stood back from the wall, holding her to me, and I carried her to the bedroom.
Setting her down onto the bed, she rose to her knees. We paused for a split second. I needed to make sure this was what she wanted. I didn’t know what she was searching for, but her eyes were raking mine. She was looking inside me, maybe for the same reason.
I was there. I was on board. I more than wanted this.
Lifting a hand, I cupped the side of her face to make sure she felt the same.
It appeared. Any of her hesitation slid away, and in its place was the same need that was inside of me. I couldn’t wait any longer after that.
I became lost in her touch as my mouth bent down to hers. Her scent, how soft her skin was, how she felt beneath me while writhing for more—it would all become burned in my memory. I never wanted to forget this.
I was hers. Whether she realized it or not, I was giving all of myself to her right now.
As I slid inside her, I watched how she reveled in the sensations. I’d thought she would close her eyes, but she didn’t. She looked up at me. There were no walls between us. I let mine down.
I was a bad guy. I had done bad things but never to her. I wanted her to know that. She was the exception. She was the one, the only one, my soul would uphold above all else.
When she found out how bad of a guy I was, I only hoped she wouldn’t leave me. Though, if she did, I wouldn’t stop her.
Being with Kian changed everything.
My fingers curled into my thigh. After last night, I couldn’t leave him. I had so many emotions about being with him, but they’d have to be processed later. All I knew was that I couldn’t go away or hide anymore. That meant I would have to fight. And that meant I would have to face this storm on my own two feet, but Kian’s team wasn’t my team. I needed my own—Erica and Wanker.
I glanced down at Kian, who was sleeping next to me. His delicious long body was curved slightly toward me. The sheet snuck down, so it was barely covering his hips, and his arm was lifted, lying on the pillow, cushioning his head.
Holy crap. He’s gorgeous.
In the early morning, light was starting to creep through the window. The curtains were pulled shut but not completely. A small crack allowed the light through. It wasn’t a lot. It was still too early in the morning, but it was enough where I could see his arm tattoos. His arm was full of them. The arm that had been resting on my own arm was lying on the bed now between us.
I moved a little bit as I made a mental note to ask him about the meanings behind his tattoos, each and every one of them. A tribal tattoo merged with a wolf. A gun was pointed toward his hand.
Kian wouldn’t have those tattoos unless they meant something deeper, and one day—My eyes jerked to his lips. I was suddenly hungry to hear their meanings. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to understand everything about him. But first, I started edging off the bed. I had a friend whom I hoped would still be my friend.
A hand caught mine right before I slipped from the bed. I glanced back.
Kian’s eyes were open, and he was watching me. A small grin lifted his lip as he asked, “Where are you going?”
Oh, boy. Even right there—with how he was watching me, all dark and deadly—that ache that was only for him was acting up again.
I cleared my throat, cooling my loins, and grabbed the bedsheet that had been kicked into a ball at the bottom of the bed. I wrapped it around me, making sure my girls were nice and tight, before I stood. “Uh…”
I needed a lie.
I saw my phone was flashing from a text. After grabbing it, I read it out loud, “Everything is out of your apartment. Call me for storage information. Your key was slipped underneath the hotel door. Snark.”
“That went off without a hitch.” Kian sat up. His flat stomach bending seamlessly, his muscles gliding underneath his skin.
I averted my eyes. “Yeah.” That wasn’t helping my getaway at all.
“Where were you going to go when I woke up? Tell the truth,” he said.
I looked back at him and saw the knowing look from him. “I have to go make things right with Erica.” I needed to know if she hated me or if I could trust her. I couldn’t turn my back on her until I knew for sure. “We’ve been friends for the past two years. I have to try.”
His eyebrow lifted as his hand rubbed at his jaw. “Now?” He started to get up and glanced at the clock.
It was 5:24 in the morning.
My head bobbed up and down. “Yep. No time like the present.”
His grin went up a notch. “You want to get there before my team arrives?”
“Yeah.” I nodded again.
He stood and reached for his jeans. “Okay. Hold on. I’m coming with you.” He disappeared into the bathroom but popped his head back out a second later. His eyes pinned me down. “Do not leave. I mean it.”
I’d intended to, but I shrugged, looking away. “Yeah, no problem. Of course.”
He went back into the bathroom, and his voice called out, over the sound of running water, “I mean it. Everyone’s out there. They know your face. They’re going to be looking for you. I can maneuver around people. I can get you to your roommate without them knowing.”
Fuck.
His words brought the real world back to me. It fell at my feet with a resounding boom. I crossed my arms over my chest, holding the bedsheet even tighter, while thinking of the media storm that would be camped out in front of my apartment building.
“You were kinda stalkerish, hanging out in the shadows before. How did you get to my building’s roof?”
He came back out a moment later, his jeans on and his hair was slightly wet, like he’d wrung his hands through it a few times. Flicking a hand through the strands, he let them dry in a mess, even though I had to admit it was a sexy mess.
Going to the closet, he said over his shoulder, “Through the main door.”
My eyes went down his back, watching his muscles shifting, as he turned the light on and reached for a shirt. Yep, my hormones were not listening to me. He came back out with a black shirt and pulled it on. As the material fell against his body, I saw it was a perfect fit. He reached inside the closet again and pulled out a few more pieces of clothing.
He placed them onto the bed. “You’re going to have to blend like I do.”
My loins were all about blending. “Huh?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t have any parlor tricks. It’s still a little dark, so that means we can dress in dark clothing. Put the white shirt on underneath the sweatshirt. You can pull off the sweatshirt if it’s light outside when we leave.”
Going to a dresser, he pulled out a white baseball cap and a dark one. He held up the black one. “You wear this underneath your hood and pull both of them down. When we leave”—he held up the white cap—“you put this one on. And shades. You always have to wear sunglasses.”
“We’ll still get recognized.”
He shook his head, a slow grin tugging at the corners of those dangerous lips. “Trust me.”
I did, and that was how I found myself in the passenger seat of a black sedan, wearing a press badge and watching an entire ar
my of media camped out across the street from my building. If we ran inside, they’d see us. We were screwed.
“How are we getting in there?”
Kian pulled out his phone and started typing on it. “The press are people, just like you and me, but when they have to work, they’re not paying attention. So”—he held up his phone—“we’re going to give them something to report.” As he said that, his thumb hit the Send button on his phone. “Now, we sit and wait.”
It’d already been thirty minutes. And we continued to wait again.
“Kian.” What had he done?
Then, I saw it. A pizza delivery car pulled around the block and headed for the media. I frowned, thinking he would go to my building, but he didn’t. He parked right in front of the closest media teams and started walking to them. Kian’s phone buzzed, and at the same time, a frenzy came over them. Cameras that had been pointing at my building were whipped around. Reporters took their places in front of them, studying their phones for a moment. And in the midst of it, a second, a third, and then a fourth food delivery car descended before the media. All of the drivers were walking around, delivering food to surprised media crew.
Whatever happened, I knew Kian had something to do with it. For one second, we got an opening.
Kian said under his breath, “Now.”
Moving as if we were synced together, we got out of his sedan, quietly closed the doors, and went to the front door of my building. On the drive to my apartment, Kian said we’d be using the front door. They wouldn’t be expecting it. As I inserted my key and the door opened for us, they weren’t. No one yelled. No cameras were flashing pictures. There wasn’t a stampede coming from across the street for us.
We took the stairs, hurrying upstairs with only the scuffle of our shoes sounding from us. When we got to my floor, Kian stopped me before going through the door. “You ready for this?”
My heart was racing. I should’ve been out of breath, but I wasn’t. I was on an adrenaline high. We were about to sneak into my apartment old apartment, and somehow, I was going to talk this out with Erica. That was my hope.
It might’ve been a grandiose one, but when I’d woken up next to Kian this morning, I had to try. I just had to. Being with him last night did something to me. It changed me somehow. My outlook on life wasn’t in hiding anymore. I didn’t care if the nation was going to hate me or blame me or crucify me. They did it before, and I survived, and that was when I had no one. I had people this time. Or I hoped I did. I had a roommate. I had a friend who was obsessed with my roommate, and Jake…well, I didn’t know where he fit in, but I used to love him.
Well…
Maybe friendship was a lofty goal with him.
Either way, I needed to talk to Erica face-to-face, and I needed to apologize for lying all these years. And the running-away part wasn’t good either.
Thinking about it all, about talking it out with Erica, my hand reached for Kian’s. It fit perfectly, and I squeezed. “I’m ready.” I remembered his phone when he reached for the hallway door. “Wait, what did you text before? To make the reporters react like that?”
A smooth low chuckle was my reward as he opened the door. “I had Cal send a credible anonymous tip that we were seen at the train station.”
The train station?
But it didn’t matter.
Kian opened the door, and he pulled me right behind him. When we got to my apartment, it was my turn. I sent a small prayer up that Erica hadn’t changed the locks in the last few hours, and was rewarded when my key went in, unlocking the door.
She hadn’t.
Two major roadblocks down. One more to go.
I would have to wake up Erica without causing—
As we slipped inside, she was up and at the patio door. The curtains were pulled, but she was peeking out. When she heard the door open, she twisted around, and a bloodcurdling scream came out of her throat.
Kian reacted before me.
He rushed forward, clamping a hand over her mouth. His other hand caught the back of her head, holding her in place so that she wouldn’t fall backward from the sudden pressure against her face. As he quieted her, I shut the door and locked it. I rushed to her.
Her eyes were wide and straining, looking up at Kian, but they got even bigger when I came over. Her eyes were glued to my sweatshirt’s hood, and I realized she didn’t know who we were. I was lifting a finger to my mouth, about to tell her, when another problem happened.
Two doors opened at the same time, and two more bodies hurled themselves into the living room. Wanker came from Erica’s room. Jake came from mine. He stopped and took in the scene in one second, his gaze skimming over me and landing on Kian, who was still holding Erica. A snarl formed over Jake’s mouth.
I saw it happening and tried to stop Jake. I held my hands in the air and stepped toward him. “No, Jake—”
“Get away from her!” He lunged at Kian and started to shove him against the wall.
Kian reversed the hold. He stepped aside, letting Jake’s body move past him, and then Jake slammed into the wall instead. He was stunned for a moment.
I raised my voice. “Stop! It’s me.”
They all turned to me.
No one reacted.
I cursed. It was my disguise. Ripping off my sunglasses, I pulled the cap and hood from my head and let them see me. “It’s me. It’s Jo.”
I turned around, my arms held out, so all of them could see me. Wanker was still standing in Erica’s doorway.
“Holy—” Erica started.
Jake finished for her, “Fuck.” He glared at Kian in silence, still being held up against the wall.
I said to Kian, “He’s fine. Let him go.”
He stepped back. His hand loosened its hold on Jake, and as it started to fall away, Jake shoved it away, snorting.
“So, this is Kian Maston.” He looked Kian up and down, his snarl returning to his mouth. “The infamous murderer. Great to meet you.”
I ignored Jake, and so did everyone else.
Instead, I looked back at Erica. When she realized it was me, hurt flashed in her eyes before she lowered her head.
“Erica?” I stepped toward her.
Her head snapped back up. “Stay away from me.” She was seething.
“Erica,” I started again.
“Get out.” She pointed to the door. “A team of federal agents took all your stuff. There’s nothing left for you here. Go.”
I moved forward a second step. I wasn’t going anywhere. “You’re here. My friends are here.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her nostrils flared. “The friends who you ran from.” She threw a dark look in Kian’s direction and said, “And the ones he came to save you from. Yeah, your friends, huh?”
Kian took off his sunglasses, cap, and hood as well. “I didn’t come to take her from you. I came to get her away from the media.”
The hostility level in her gaze dimmed just a bit, but she bit back, “I am the media.”
“Not anymore.” Kian pointed out the windows. “You’re the story.”
Erica’s lips flattened together. She didn’t have a response to that.
I looked at all of them. “I’m sorry I ran from the party. The media made my life hell, and I’m sorry that I had to keep—”
An alert from Jake’s phone went off. He checked it, hit a button on his phone, and stuffed it back into his pocket. He said to Erica, “It was her again.”
Erica cursed under her breath, raking her hands through her hair. “She won’t leave it alone.”
“Who?” I asked, my head skirting from Jake to Erica and back again. “Who texted you just now?”
“Oh, right.” Jake gave me a glaring look. “’Cause we’re friends still? That means, I owe you an answer.” The glare turned to ice as his eyes switched to Kian. “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, Jo.”
“Jordan.”
We all looked at Erica.
She folded her arms over her chest, her c
hin rising in a