End Game (Games Thriller Series) (14 page)

“Oddly enough
, it doesn’t,” Eric answered. “But why are they after her?”

“Sharon Whitman put a contract out on your mother.”

“Why?” Eric asked and Chris opened the door to the apartment.

“Tom left her,” Chris said and headed into the master suite where Chris laid the suitcases on the bed and took the kids
’ bag from Eric. “I only have one other room, do you mind sleeping on the couch tonight? I’ll have the kids sleep on the floor for the rest of the stay but I don’t want to disturb them, they’ve had a rough night.”

“Wasn’t that a king size bed in the guest room?” Eric pointed over his shoulder.

Chris nodded.

“There’s enough room for me with the boys in there,” he said.

Chris laughed. “You obviously have never slept in a bed with them. They are small but man can they take up space.”

Eric smiled and nodded. “I’ll brave it with my little brothers.” He dropped his bag in the room and brought Emily’s into the room on the other side of the hall, depositing it onto the bed and then they headed into the living room where Emily and Jessica were talking.

“I still don’t get why she would do that?” Eric asked, resuming the conversation again as he plopped himself in the chair and looked around the apartment. They had never been here before.

Chris exchanged a look with Jessica.

“She’s been blackmailing him since we split,” Jessica said and both Emily and Eric looked over at her.

“How?” t
hey asked in unison.

“With your mother’s life,” Chris said as he walked behind where Jessica was sitting and put his hands on her shoulders.

Darkness crept into Eric’s eyes. “You could kill her right now.”

“All in good time.” He smiled in return and Jessica stiffened under his hands.

Jessica flashed back to a place ten years ago when he had said those same words. All hell broke loose after that and she shivered. He almost died then and she didn’t ever want him that close to death again.

He bent down and whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry about that. Things have changed drastically since then.” He kissed her cheek and looked back at Eric and Emily, straightening his back. “I’m marrying your mother. Then I’ll deal with this situation. In my own way. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long night.” He kissed Jessica’s cheek and headed to the master bathroom to wash the sweat and smell of death from his skin.

The warm water cascaded over his aching body, loosening the knots that had set ever since the warning call. A cold draft grazed his skin when she opened the shower door and stepped in with him.

“Ty,” she whispered, and ran her hands over his back.

Heat spread from her touch, encompassing him and he turned his head, letting a playful smile surface. “Beg.”

“No.” She smiled and cocked her head. “You beg.”

He chuckled, their game turning, morphing into more fiery foreplay. “You want me to beg?”

“Yes.”

His lips trailed from her earlobe, down the line of her neck. “Please, Jess; please tell me you want me. Please tell me you love me. Please tell me what I need to hear.” Each word, each phrase punctuated with a swipe of his tongue on her skin. He lingered on her breasts, whispering please between each suckle; his hands caressed her skin, making their way between her legs, blazing the trail for his lips.

He licked her pussy and her hand threaded into his hair.

“Oh God,” she breathed and leaned against the tiled wall, wrapping a leg across his back.

“Please cum for me,” he said. “I want to taste you tonight.”

His words, his tone, the pleading in his voice, the sensuous revolutions of his tongue, all combined into the elixir she needed and she cried out with the power of the orgasm gripping her, his mouth slurping the slickness of her pussy mixed with the warm water raining down her body. Tremors flowed through her and she bit her lip, stifling the moan that welled in her chest. “Oh God, Ty!”

His gaze traveled up her body to hers and he smiled, his demeanor taking the dominant role again as he stood, kissing her stomach, chest and neck before his lips found hers. “Beg for me,” he commanded and covered her mouth with a powerful kiss.

She pushed him back against the far side of the shower, the need for him overriding every other emotion inside her. But the game still had to be played out and she panted against him, her tongue twirling with his, her heart pounding, fueled with desire. She stroked his hard cock with her hands and he groaned, squeezing her ass, pulling her closer. Breaking the kiss, she stared into his smoldering eyes and licked her lips. “Please Ty, please, I need you. I want you to make love to me.”

He crushed her mouth with his, squeezing her against him and turning the water off. His lips never once left hers and he picked her up, stepping out of the shower and laid her gently on the bathroom floor, sliding into her with a thrust of his hips.

He pulled away from her lips and shook his head, spraying water all across the room, smiling. “Smoldering yet?”

“Oh yeah.” She grinned up at him. “From the moment I said your name. I swear that’s your instant aphrodisiac.”

“You have absolutely no idea how powerful hearing you say that is.” He slowly arched into her, grinding his hips to hers, and her body responded, shuddering with the strength of another orgasm, her pussy gripping him, the muscles coaxing him closer to his own release. “And
you
are my aphrodisiac.” He continued his slow pace and leaned down, grazing his lips over hers and laughed softly as he moved his lips to her neckline, running his tongue from her collarbone to her earlobe. “I love you,” he whispered and gently bit her earlobe. “Do you love me?” he asked, grazing her lips and moving to her other earlobe.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Say it.” He looked into her eyes, the heat level inside him almost unbearable.

“I love you!” The words accompanied another wave and she arched off the floor, her eyes rolling back in her head and her nails digging into his shoulders. “Oh
God, I love you!”

He squeezed his eyes closed; coming with such force that Jessica came again on the heels of her dissipating orgasm. Collapsing on her, he whispered in her ear, “I’ll love you for all eternity.” He wrapped his arms around her and rolled so she wouldn’t have to lie on the hard floor any longer.

Jessica propped her chin on her fist and looked at him.

He laid with his head back, one arm wrapped around her and the other out wide on the floor and his eyes were closed. “I am so tired.”

“It’s been a long day,” she whispered and put her head on his chest. The slow strong beat of his heart nearly lulling her to sleep.

“Bed
. Hang on,” he said and exercised a different kind of strength. His jaw tightened and eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated and after a moment, his body lifted off the ground with her on top. Her gasp brought a smile to his lips but he didn’t say a word until they safely set down on the bed. “I didn’t want to get up.”

He wrapped both arms around her and turned his head toward the bureau. The drawer opened and a pair of boxers floated to the bed. Chris reached out and took them in his hand. He winked at her and her suitcase opened and a nightgown floated over to her. She sat up on him, raising her arms and laughed as the silk slipped over her skin. She rolled onto her back and he pulled on the boxers without sitting up.

He blew her a kiss and passed out from exhaustion.

* * * *

Jessica curled up in the crook of his arm and did the same. Her last coherent thought was
show off
’ and then she drifted into the dark void of exhausted sleep.

Jessica woke up in the same position she had fallen asleep and glanced over at the clock. “Holy shit,” she said and sat up straight. It was close to
1:30 in the afternoon. Chris didn’t even stir, he was out cold.

The bedroom door remained closed
, which meant the boys hadn’t come in to wake them like usual. She slipped out of bed and opened the closet looking for something in the way of a bathrobe. Finding nothing, she grabbed one of Chris’s chambray shirts and slipped it on over her nightgown, heading out of the bedroom.

Quiet blanketed the apartment, eerie and silent and she opened the guest room where the boys slept. Empty and so was Emily’s room. She crossed through the undisturbed living room and pushed the door to the kitchen open, expecting to find the kids around the table eating lunch. Again, empty and a she turned around, scanning the room again.

Fear snuck under her skin and her heart reacted, throbbing in her throat as she made her way back to the bedroom.

She stopped in the doorway. The neatly made bed and absence of luggage set her heart into overdrive. Chris wasn’t there. No one was.

Panic bit at her heels, she turned, running at that sluggish speed that accompanies nightmares, the entry way elongated to a seeming impossible distance, and she ran, barreling through the front door and stumbling to the elevator.

“Come on, come on, come on.” She shifted from toe to toe impatiently and when the doors whooshed open, she shot inside, stabbing the button for the top garage level.

The doors slid open revealing an empty spot where the Hummer had been and Chris laying face down on the pavement with a knife in his back and his legs crushed to a pulp.

“Ty!” Jessica screamed.

* * * *

Hands shook her. “Jessie!” His voice broke through the veil of sleep and she blinked. Her eyes fluttering open to the dark room.

“You were having a nightmare,” he whispered and she threw her arms around him, still shaking from her dream. “Frank again?”

“No. I woke up and everyone was gone and you, you, you. . .” She couldn’t say it.

“I was what?”

She clung to him like a frightened child. “You were dead.”

“I don’t plan on dying any time soon babe.” He stroked her hair, whispering “Shh,” and rocking her until her tremors subsided.

Jessica glanced at the clock; it was two in the morning. She had only been asleep for two hours and she closed her eyes, snuggling into him and sniffling, wiping the tears away.

“Love you,” he whispered and drifted back to sleep.

The morning came sooner than Jessica wanted and she woke as Tommy climbed into the bed next to her.

“Hi, Mommy,” he whispered.

Chris snored lightly in her ear and he still had his arms wrapped around her.

“Hi, baby.” She smiled at Tommy, the nightmare a distant memory.

“CJ snores like Daddy,” Tommy said and crawled under the covers
. He immediately closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep in the protective grasp of his mother.

Jessica glanced over at the clock and it read a little after eight. “Chris?”

“Hmmm?” he mumbled without opening his eyes.

“Do you mind if I go for a jog?”

Chris opened his eyes and glanced at Jessica and Tommy beyond her. “I think it’s safe, especially if you’re all bundled up,” he whispered with a voice scratchy from sleep.

Jessica slid her arm from underneath her son and slipped out of Chris’s grip, giving him a little peck on the cheek. She rummaged through her suitcase, hoping she hadn’t forgotten exercise clothes in the mayhem of packing last night and was pleased to see that her brain had been functioning after all. She slid on a pair of silk long johns and a matching top and then pulled on a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt and headed into the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. As she went back into the bedroom, she debated on a winter hat and decided in the interest of security to put one on as well as pair of light gloves. She slid her jogging shoes on and walked over to the side of the bed, looking down at Chris and Tommy
who were now both sound asleep. She leaned over and kissed his lips anyway and quietly left the apartment.

Chapter 21

Jessica slid her sunglasses on and slipped her earphones in as she walked out of the lobby and crossed the road to enter
Central Park. She switched her music player on and began running slowly through the jogging paths thinking about everything that had happened last night. She didn’t notice the shadow jogging behind her until his hand landed on her shoulder. Jessica reacted quickly and violently, knocking him down with a spin kick that Chris taught her.

“Jess!”

His familiar voice stopped her in her tracks and she spun around, watching as Tom stood, holding his ribs and staring warily at her. He picked up his baseball cap and slid it back on backward, like he always did when they were married. “Hell of a spin kick you got there.”

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “The premiere’s Friday and I didn’t have any where else to go. Besides, I figured he’d bring you here. I just assumed he still had a place in the city somewhere.”

Jessica nodded and began jogging again. Tom caught up to her.

“And I figured you would go jogging.”

Jessica glanced over at him. “You look a little better than the last time I saw you.”

“I haven’t had a drink since then. It’s been tough, though.”

“I’d kill for one right about now.”

“Why, something happen last night?”

Jessica let out a small laugh. “Oh, yeah,” she said and kept jogging.

He reached out and stopped her. “What?”

“Sharon put a contract out all right,” she said and yanked her arm away from him. Anger welled up in her for the first time since the assassin walked into the studio. “Chris let one live.” She started running again. “The rest, well, they didn’t get the chance to hurt anyone. My kids saw what Chris did. And my four
-year-old kept watch while Chris went to get Emily and Eric.”

“I’m sorry.” He kept pace with her.

Jessica looked over at him. “My
four-year-old
,” she said and sped up.

“Which one?” Tom asked.

“CJ,” she answered. “Chris’s son. I told you, he has more power inside him than Chris, Eric, and me combined.” Jessica let out a little laugh. “And he is on pace to be a genius just like his father.”

Tom’s eyebrows scrunched together and he cocked his head to the side looking more like an inquisitive puppy than a forty-year-old man.

She glanced over and caught his look. “Ty was a member of Mensa.”

“And Tommy?”

She looked over at him again. “He is sweet.” She smiled, refraining from saying ‘like his father’.

“Are you sure he doesn’t have any abilities?”

Jessica shook her head. “He hasn’t shown any signs at this point.”

Tom quietly jogged with her. “Can I see him?”

Jessica didn’t answer him right away; she kept running as she thought about it. “Someday.”

“When?”

“When it’s safe,” she answered, shutting him down completely and then a thought crossed her mind making her tense up. Jessica looked around them and over her shoulder. She couldn’t see anyone following them and relaxed a fraction.

“What are you doing?” Tom asked
, watching her.

“Making sure we haven’t been followed. Being with you could be my death sentence.”

Tom slowed to a stop. “Shit.” He turned, tracing his jogging route in the direction he had come.

Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. She had felt the turmoil in him when she said he could be her death sentence and was glad that he made the decision to leave her alone. Until this blew over, she couldn’t associate with him, otherwise she’d put her entire family in danger. The only exception to that was the premiere, where she would confront
Sharon in front of the world. She smiled at the thought and kept running.

She kept going until she passed in front of the Plaza Hotel and stopped. Her face went pale
; she hadn’t been back in this particular spot for just under five years and she shivered remembering the last time she was at the hotel.

“I had the same reaction,” Tom said, making her jump. He was sitting on the bench behind her trying to get his breath. “That was the last time I stayed at the Plaza until Sunday night.”

Jessica put her foot on the bench next to where he sat and tightened her shoelaces. She switched feet and did the same with the other one and glanced over at him. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” He tried to sound innocent as her eyes bore into him.

“I’m getting married tomorrow, Tom.”

“But you aren’t married yet.” He stood up and stretched.

“That doesn’t matter,” she shot back and stretched her legs on the bench without looking at him.

“Yes it does
, Jess. You shouldn’t be marrying a killer.”

“Look
...” She spun toward him. “I love him.”

“You loved me
, too,” he pointed out. “That didn’t seem to stop you from being with him when we were married.”

Jessica glared at him and began to run down the path that led straight through the park back toward the apartment.

He took off after her, bolting by her and stopping a ways ahead of her, waiting for her to catch up. He started jogging a few paced ahead of her until they were in an extremely secluded spot in the park. He turned and took her in his arms, kissing her.

Jessica struggled against his tight grasp. “Tom, stop,” she said from under his lips, inadvertently giving his tongue access to her mouth.

“Uh-u,” he replied without taking his mouth from hers, his tongue tasting the line of her lips.

“Let her go,” Chris growled from behind them, his voice low and dangerous.

Tom’s head whipped around and his eyes locked with Chris’s. His arms shot from Jessica, holding them out as he took a step away from her and she ran into Chris’s arms.

“Don’t hurt him,” Jessica whispered, diffusing the fury radiating from Chris.

“I should have known you would try something stupid. You led them right to her, you dumb son of a bitch.”

“Who?”

“The fucking assassins your wife sicked on us.” He glanced down at her. “I had a funny feeling and decided to follow you; it’s a good thing too.” He raised his sharp glare in Tom’s direction. “But don’t worry;
those
assholes won’t get a second chance.” His teeth clenched and he pointed at Tom. “And if you
ever
touch her again, you will find yourself in the hereafter just like the bastards who keep trying to kill her. Now get the hell away from us.” He turned and led her away.

* * * *

Tom stared until they disappeared from view, the frosty air chilling him to the bone as much as Chris’s words had.

Assassins?

Here?

Shit.

He backtracked toward the Plaza again, trying to slough off the devastation encompassing his heart, but the pressure continued. She hadn’t kissed back, and that leveled him, crushing any hope of ever holding her in his arms again. Chris was right, he had really lost this game and he craved the numbness that came from drinking. He shuffled back to the hotel, throwing himself face first on the bed in despair.

“Did you think she would really pick you?”

Her voice set off a volcanic eruption of fury and Tom’s head shot up, his eyes narrowing at his quarry. “Get out! Before I kill you.” He pushed himself up and started toward her.

“I saw her tying her shoes while you sat on the bench next to her. What a pathetic loser, you ran after her just like the sick puppy you are and based on how you look now, she shot you down,”
Sharon taunted and pointed her index finger in his direction. “Because of you, she’s dead.”

Tom bit his tongue knowing she was wrong because Jessica had the most extraordinary guardian angel this side of heaven. He went into gear, putting on the best acting job he had done in years and let his eyes tear up. “You bitch.” He let the pain ring clear in his voice. “You fucking bitch,” he screamed and took a step toward her, his hands balling into fists.

“I would hold that temper in check unless you want to go to jail.”

He raised his eyebrow. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“If you leave me, I will release this letter to the police.” She handed him a copy. “I have the original tucked away in a safe place.

He took it from her and scanned it, the frigid air outside was nothing compared to what slithered over his skin and he tightened his jaw against a shiver. His eyes rose from the confession letter penned in his own handwriting to her smug smiling face and lost control. Fury struck in the form of a cracking backhand and Sharon crumpled to the floor.

Sharon laughed from her vantage point on the floor, her hand covering the bright red splotch on her cheek. “You being a drunk was a real benefit at times.”

He clenched and unclenched his hand and looked at her and back at the letter, slowly crumpling it and dropping it to the floor. “What makes you think that makes a difference now?” He reached down and took her by the throat, squeezing as he picked her up.

“If I die, her entire family dies.”

He released her and stepped back. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh yes I would and I’ve got another lovely confession letter for that as well,” she said, rubbing her neck with her hand.

Rage narrowed his field of vision, coloring the edges fiery red and he lashed out, striking her with his full weight behind the punch, connecting with the tender skin of her cheek, just below her right eye. She sailed backward, tripping over the edge of the bed and falling to the floor and he followed, grabbing a handful of her shirt and slamming her into the wall. “There are far worse things than dying,” he growled. “Far worse.” He tossed her across the room and stormed out.

Tom walked into the hotel bar still in his jogging outfit and sat at the beautiful mahogany bar, ordering a scotch straight up. “Keep ‘em coming,” he said to the bartender and put a couple hundred-dollar bills down on the surface.

“It’s a little early,” the bartender said.

Tom laughed. “I’d say it’s about time.” He downed the scotch and pushed the glass back to be refilled. Two hours later, he stumbled to his room and passed out on the bed oblivious to anything around him.