Fatal Beauty (6 page)

Chapter 12

There is something warm and hard pressed
against her and her head pounds.

She squint and winces, her eyes closing
tight against the too bright sun streaming in.
  

The warm pressure against her back
moves, pulling her farther back into it.

"It's too early to wake up, Ellie.”
It’s the Ellie. What he always called her when he let his guard down. Despite
all of her anger and the pounding in her head. Despite the reasons why she
should
 
push him away and all the ways
she fears him, hearing Jacobs’ voice, sleep rough and warm in
 
her ear, makes her melt against him.

She squirms around, putting her back to
the sun and blinking at him. It never does any good for her to see him like
this. Sleep rumpled, a peaceful look on his face, stubble on his jaw that she
wants to rub against. Without letting herself think about it, she reaches for
him, burrowing into his chest, holding onto his shoulder. He pulls her closer
with one arm, tossing a leg over her hips. Soft lips brush against her hair and
she has to blink hard to push down the idiotic tears that want for rise.
 

She inhales the scent that clings to him
and wrinkles her nose at the smell of smoke and stale alcohol. Slowly, the
night filters back.

They ended up at a bar on Bourbon.
Charlie was sloppy drunk, laughing and flirting with everything that moved, all
of the ice queen bitch washed away by whiskey and vodka. Once, early in the
night, she coaxed EJ onto a stage and they sang some shitty song in a shitty
karaoke bar, both of them collapsing into laughter before they got through the
first verse.

Jacobs had watched, strangely patient
through every bar and every shot, even when they snorted lines of blow with
Josh on a dingy apartment balcony, overlooking the street.

Jacobs was never that patient, and he is
never gentle. Not like this, waking up in her bed without sex.

Once—

She shoves that thought away violently, and pulls back. He’s
watching her, waiting for her attention to swing up to him, and she licks her
lips.

He kisses her without warning, his lips soft and she shudders
under the caress of his lips and fingers, sliding slow and languid against her
bare back.

He doesn’t kiss her like this. Hasn’t since everything changed
between them her sophomore year of college.

Which is why she forces herself to lean back, away from him, a
hand on his chest.

“You should be furious with me,” she murmurs.

He nods. “I know.” He uses the hand on his chest to pull her
closer, so they are flush again, and his dick is rubbing against her through
the thin boxer briefs he’s wearing and her panties.

His lips are distracting, tracing over her collarbone, nipping at
the soft curve of her neck and earning a low whimper from her. “Why aren’t
you?” she pants.

He laughs against her skin, his breath flaring over her breast and
she groans, aching for the wet heat of his mouth.

“Who said I wasn’t?” he asks, and pulls her bra down. She moans
when he takes her in his mouth, sucking at her nipple with a strong tug that
arches her body off the bed. He yanks her panties to the side and his fingers
plunge into her.

“You’re wet, Ellie,” he murmurs, and grins up at her.

She could come from that alone. Jacobs against her chest, grinning
as
he
finger fucks her. The orgasm is already
building—he’s known for a long fucking time how to play her body and pull
pleasure from it like a master.

“Did he get you this wet?” he asks, and his tone is almost
conversational as he fucks her lazily. She shudders and bites down on the
burning need to beg for more. For the little bit of pressure on her clit to send
her over the edge. She whimpers and he pinches her nipple sharply with his free
hand. “Did he?” he snaps.

“Was she this wet?” she snarls back, and he laughs. Leans up and
licks across her lips.

“Don’t fucking do that,
Ellie.
You’d love
to know how wet she was. How tight. Don’t pretend you don’t.” She whimpers and
twitches and his thumb brushes against her clit. She swallows her scream and
arches off the bed, so close to coming she can feel it, tears gathering in her
eyes.

His lips are against her ear, his scruff rough against her cheek,
and he bites her earlobe, hard enough that pain tears through her, chasing the
pleasure.

“Did he get you wet, Ellie, or did hearing me fucking her?”

His thumb skims over her clit again and she groans, a long noise
that turns into a sob when he pulls away and jerks her hips off the bed,
covering her with his lips and licking her pussy. She’s trembling and shaking,
her muscles clenching wildly as she comes, and he pushes her orgasm on, pulling
it out until she’s writhing, fighting to get away from him.

Finally, when she’s come again and tears are streaming silently
from her eyes as she bites her hand to silence her screams, he lets her fall
back to the bed and crawls up, fitting himself behind her.

EJ thinks, for just a moment, that he’ll fuck her. But then he
doesn’t. He pulls her close, tucking her to him and let’s out a tired sigh.

He won’t apologize. Jacobs doesn’t know how to apologize—or if he does,
she’s never heard it. But this—this is the closest he has ever come to that.
She twists their fingers together, and stares at their hands—the way his dark
skin twined with her own pale hands, so fucking different.

Except they’ve never been that different.

Jacobs has always understood her. Too well.

“I’ve missed this,” he murmurs into her hair, a tiny admission
that makes her want to turn to see him. But she doesn’t. She stays still, the
way one might when a wild animal is approaching.

So she won’t scare him off.

*

When she wakes later, the sun is shining. The pleasant loose drunk
feeling has faded, and the bed is empty. She rolls to her back, and lays there
for a long time, listening to the silence of the house and Jacobs’ security
team moving around outside. Missing him.

Someday, she’s going to wake up and hate him more than she misses
him. But today isn’t that day.

When she’s showered, dressed and pulled her long hair into a wet
ponytail, high and bobbing on the top of her head like a cheerleader, she
bounces down the stairs in search of Charlie.

The blonde is sitting on the porch, smoking a joint, her big eyes
hidden behind huge sunglasses. A tumbler dangles from two fingers,
precariously.

EJ rescues the drink and swallows down the whiskey with a little
grimace before she drops next to her friend.

“What the hell has you so damn chipper?” Charlie grumps.

“Orgasms,” EJ deadpans.

For a heartbeat, there’s a hesitation from Charlie and then she
laughs, and nods, “That’d be why I’m in such a shit mood.”

“What happened to that guy with Josh?”

Charlie shrugs. “Fredrick is a little intense—and not biting. I
dropped enough hints.”

That was what annoyed her. Not that she wasn’t getting off, but
that a guy had refused her. Not a familiar occurrence with Charlie.

“You and Jacobs are ok?” Charlie asks, extending the joint. EJ
takes it and hits the thing lazily, watching the waving trees as she holds it.
She coughs a little when she exhales, and rolls her head to the side to look at
Charlie. “As ok as we ever are.”

“You two are
kinda
fucked up, you know.”
Charlie says and EJ laughs.

Sometimes, laughing is all you can do. That or sob, and she
promised herself years ago that she was done crying over Anthony Jacobs.

“I know,” she says. “But it’s just the way we are.”

“And you still aren’t going to explain that to me, are you?”

Charlie is watching her, a patient, curious look on her face. EJ
nods, and hits the joint again. Watches the smoke curling around them as
Charlie shifts, curling against her.

“One day, Charlie. Promise.”

They sit in silence for a long time, and Charlie whispers.
“Remember what you asked me?”

She does. Of course she does. It’s the question that’s been
circling for days. Since before Jacobs arrived and the end of this crazy, illegal
adventure slid into sight.

“Do you know?” EJ and she feels more than hears Charlie’s assent.
She waits, and finally, when no answer seems forthcoming, she asks, “What do
you want?”

“All of this,” comes the whispered confession.

She closes her eyes, and swallows the well of longing and
discontent. “We can’t have everything, Charlie. We can’t have what we grew up
with, if we leave it all behind.”

“I don’t want to be their pretty doll,” Charlie says savagely.

EJ doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to. Neither of them want to
be that. The pretty, perfect, prearranged lives. She shudders and rubs her
arms, thinking of her mother, waiting patiently in Charleston for her to agree
to all of the insane plans she had concocted.

“Ladies?”

It’s
Ziva
, the housemaid watching them
from the doorway. Familiar contempt is in her eyes, and EJ wonders how long
she’s been with Jacobs. How long she’ll survive in his household, if she can’t
even maintain a blank face.

Not long.

She wonders, vaguely, if he’s screwed her. Of course he has. It’s
why she dislikes them so much.

“He would like you to join him for lunch,”
Ziva
says, and the words pull EJ to her feet. She glances back at Charlie. Arches an
eyebrow.

With a tiny sigh, the other woman rises, and they push past
Ziva
, into the house to find Jacobs.

Chapter 13

Jacobs is sitting in the large kitchen, reading something on his
phone when they enter the room. Charlie glances around the room. They’ve been
in his mansion on the bayou for almost two weeks, and this room is one she
hasn’t spent time in—maybe because of how much EJ dislikes the housekeeper.
Maybe because neither girl has the first clue what to do with a stove. Either
way.

The kitchen is sleekly modern, with a wide wood table in the
corner, where Jacobs sits.
Ziva
has prepared lunch
and the girls sit down, eyeing Jacobs.

“Eat, ladies,” he says without looking up.

EJ bristles a little on her side of the table. “What are we doing
here, Jacobs?” she asks, sharply.

He taps out something on his phone before he sets it to one side
and focuses on the girls. “That’s a very good question, Ella,” he says coolly
and EJ flinches, going pale.

“I helped you, at your request. We’ve disposed of the body and, if
you both keep your mouths shut, it will never come back on you or me. Wallace
Bryce Talbert will be just another missing person, for good.”

He pauses, reaching for the bottle of wine sitting on the table.
The girls are quiet and tense as he uncorks it and pours each a glass. Sits
back, the corkscrew abandoned next to the green bottle. It gleams too sharp and
distracting between them, and Charlie stares at it, focusing on it rather than
the tension growing between EJ and Jacobs.

“What do you want from us?” she asks, unable to tolerate it any
longer.

Jacobs
smiles at her, a sharp
thing that makes her stomach pitch unpleasantly, even as heat and want gather
in her.

“You’re going home.”

The words drop like tiny bombs, hitting with deadly precision.

“No,” Charlie murmurs, and EJ makes a quiet gasp. Jacobs pauses in
the midst of picking up his drink and arches an eyebrow. She shakes her head,
and he laughs, incredulous.

“Charlotte, darling, you’ve got a really fucked up view of the
situation if you think you get a choice in the matter.”

She swallows down the response burning in her throat, and stares
at the table. Because the man who gave her the strongest orgasm of her life is
nowhere at this table.

The man staring at her with cold eyes is the same one who
terrified her in Charleston, and who EJ moves carefully around.

“You’ll do what I say, because that was the price. I don’t need
your help with anything. It’s time to go home and play the part you’ve always
had—good girls in suburbia. Forget this happened.” His gaze flicks to EJ and
tightens, “Forget my name. Forget my number.”

“You don’t mean that,” she whispers, so soft Charlie almost misses
it.

“I do.” He says. Something passes between them, and she pales.
Jerks to her feet and stalks out of the room.

The door slamming behind her make Charlie flinch, and Jacobs sigh.
He swallows the last of his wine. As he stands and pockets his phone he looks
at her. “I like you. And I know EJ is furious. But you are liabilities—both of
you. And I’m not willing to kill her. So go home. Don’t give me a reason to
change my mind.”

Charlie stares at him, her eyes wide, as he leans down to brush a
kiss over her forehead before he stalks out.

Dismissed. Forgotten. Just like that.

They were being sent home, and damn what they wanted. She feels a
hysterical giggle working
it’s
way up her throat.

Hasn’t that always been true, though? Girls like her aren’t asked
what they
want
. She never wanted to
nurse her mother through a long, deadly battle with cancer. Never wanted to lie
to her father about it and look away politely when she found him with a
mistress. She closes her eyes, blocking the memories that will rip her down and
suffocate her.

That’s what it is. Not even that she had a bad life. Only that
despite how good it was—when she thinks about it being all there is, when she
thinks about marrying Tre and living as his philanthropic trophy, trotted out
for charity functions and polite conversation, and the boring as fuck vanilla
sex—she wants to rip her own skin off, wants to scream and run. She feels like
it’s suffocating her, this perfect fucking life.

Jacobs hadn’t asked what she wanted, hadn’t cared that going home
made her vaguely nauseous and panicky.

It wasn’t surprising. No one had ever asked.