Hate Fuck: part two (5 page)

I bee-line for the bar, because I could use some liquid courage for whatever this is, and for ignoring the uncomfortable tension seething my way from Cole’s corner of the room.

Right away, my mother is in my face, and against my will, my eyes dart around her to find his face.

I don’t know why I do. He’s obviously pissed at me.

I get it. I’m so useless when it comes to this society stuff.

“Did you give a quote to the campus paper detailing that you’re not close to your family because you’re trying to be an upstanding citizen?” My mother’s voice is shrill. Migraine-inducing. Completely un-maternal.
 

“That sounds like something I’d say
inside my head
, but no. I know better than to talk to anyone.” I barely even have any friends who would know that about me. I just started an internship at this employment agency and got all excited when this girl Taryn asked me to have lunch with her. I’m an island of silence, because of my family. I shake my head and repeat the denial. “Definitely didn’t say that.”

My father rises, a smirk on his face. “It doesn’t matter, Amy.” My mother stiffens. She hates that he calls her that. Amelia Dashford Reid doesn’t do nicknames. “It’s just some socialist kid trying to make trouble before the unveiling of the Reid Steyner Center next week.”

That’s something Cole and his group of evil minions managed to do. A month after my father narrowly missed being charged with murder, they’ve orchestrated a major donation to the business school that will see a think tank named after my father’s company.

It makes me sick.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t have anything to do with the article my sister must be tapping against her knee. Taylor doesn’t willingly read anything—unless it’s about herself.

After another short yelling match that one of the other Horus Group guys—Jason—deflects into a more productive conversation about something else I don’t care about, I head outside for some fresh air. I need to clear my head.
 

I want to convince myself to run screaming and never look back, but that leaves Alison all alone with them. And I love my baby sister. I’m willing to do
anything
to protect her.

It’s dusk, a lovely summer evening that I’d enjoy if I didn’t have to go back in with the vultures soon.
 

And if I were alone. Because when I look up again, Cole is a few yards away.

Watching me.

For a second, his gaze is hot and dangerous. Like he sees me as a woman, and the cold anger from earlier is gone.

“Ms. Reid?” And just like that, bam, he’s back to being a suit.
 

My sisters all have first names. Me? To Cole Parker I’ll always be
Ms. Reid
. Held at arm’s length like
I’m
the problem.

I’m a twenty-three year old intern at a disability employment agency. Between me and Cole “No Comment Motherfucker” Parker, I’m not the problematic one.
 

I live in a small two-bedroom apartment and refuse to touch my trust fund. I volunteer at a food bank, and in my spare time, I spend too much time on Ravelry. I’m pretty sure Cole spends his spare time cage match fighting and seducing the wives of Washington’s most powerful men. We are nothing alike.

If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll start to feel true.

“What is it, Mr. Parker?”

His eyes glitter for a second. “That went off the rails back there. We wanted to ask you if you’d attend the dedication ceremony with your father.”

“I work during the day.”

“Yes, I understand congratulations are in order on your internship. The dedication is at the end of the day. I’m sure your manager—”

My eyes narrow and I cut him off. “I’m sure you also understand I don’t want to ask for any special favors or treatment. I work until five every day. If it’s after that, I can come, yes. It takes me about thirty minutes to get to campus on the Metro.”

“Tag or Wilson could pick you up.” He shifts his gaze over my shoulder, looking out at the rolling lawn.

“Not you?” I don’t even realize I asked that out loud, because he doesn’t respond. He just stares over my shoulder. But then I hear the question, like on a weird delay, bouncing around in the air between us, and I try to take it back. Because mortifying—even before he ignored it. “Never mind. I don’t need a ride. I prefer to find my own way.”

“I know.” He flicks his gaze back to my face, and I regret wishing for it, because his attention, hot and piercing, burns me from the inside out.

“Someone inside has the details?” I edge toward the door. “Because I need to go.”
Right now
. I can’t handle being alone on a patio with this man. What was I thinking, asking if he’d be the one to pick me up?

If Cole Parker ever showed up at my office, I’d kick him in the shins and run as fast as I could in the other direction.

“Yes.” His eyelids drop and his lips part, drawing my attention to them. Perfectly carved from granite. Perfectly surrounded by rough five o’clock shadow that makes me shiver at the mere thought of it scraping along my skin, because the man is built for sin.

And I’m so secretly fascinated by him. By the promise of his hard, muscled body, and wicked mind. By his reputation. Whispers of his prowess have reached even me, hiding as far as I can from Washington society.

“Hailey,” he says as I turn. And later, I’ll wonder why he doesn’t just let me go. No…later, I’ll wonder why he doesn’t haul me into the shadows and kiss me until I’m begging for more, because in hindsight, it’s what we both want.

But he just shakes his head. “Don’t come to the dedication if you don’t want to.”

I hold his gaze, letting him singe me. Just a little. “It’s okay. I’ll be there. It’s the right thing to do.”

— —
 

God.

I shake off the memory and pace across my living room. I’d shoved that conversation away, forgetting it under a pile of dislike and resentment, because when I went to the dedication and Cole wasn’t there…I was pissed. I’d felt tricked.
 

That was nothing.

Now it’s so much worse. Now I’ve had him, in my body and heart and mind. And I still feel like everything between us is lopsided.

Cole has all the power. All the knowledge and control.

He could destroy me.

Because after everything that’s happened, after walking away, all I want is another moment with that hot, burnt-amber gaze on me.

—
six—
 

Cole

Our work is done. Tonight the Metropolitan Police will be making arrests—good ones that will stick, with loads of legitimate, legally obtained evidence—in the murder of Anabeth Fletcher.

A man named Andre Beauchamp was the money. Shadowy money, and Wilson and I don’t think the buck stopped with him, but it’s what we’ve got for now. Two hired men led us to him, and all three were arrested.

I’m glad.

I’m also fucking tired.

After a while, beating people up gets old.

Especially when the adrenaline rush can’t be worked out with a good, hard fuck, which is exactly the wrong thought to have while I’m in the shower.

I tip my head back, letting the hot water hit the bruise forming on my jaw. That asshole’s head was made of fucking bricks.

Wincing, I grab the ice pack from the tile shelf and hold it in place as I turn and put my back under the steady stream.

My preferred therapy: hot, cold, and beer. I’ve already finished one bottle, and the next is sitting next to the other ice pack. I came into the shower fully prepared to stay here for a while.

But now I’ve thought of fucking, which makes me think of Hailey.

I should feel like an asshole for taking her against my office door. I just want to do it again.

Too bad she’s off-limits right now. It’s better for her if she’s insulated from this bullshit, although I’ve wanted to go to her, every single night.

I take my cock in hand, already throbbing at the memory of sliding into her without any barriers.

That was fucked up, that I didn’t even think about a condom. I’d been so sure she was going to tell me stop, and when she didn’t, I lost my mind. Standard operating procedure for me and the delicious Ms. Reid.

It’s all her soft curves and endless sweet skin.
No, it was the thought of never having her again
. I needed to claim her, to mark her as mine. It wasn’t enough to say it. To see in her eyes that she’d heard me.
Mine
.
 

When this is all over—when I’ve fulfilled my promise to Jason, and closed the case that made me take on Morgan Reid as a client in the first place—I’m taking Hailey away from all of this. Finding that private beach we can surf and fuck and laugh on. Not a care in this world except for each other.

Hailey in a bikini. In nothing at all, just the world’s softest sand pressed to her hips and breasts and ass. I squeeze my eyes tight, holding on to that fantasy as my orgasm builds. I’m squeezing my dick hard enough it might hurt if I didn’t need that tightness.

Laughing. Her modestly covering her breasts as she stumbles through the surf, me chasing her. Grabbing her and rolling together in the waves until I find my place between her legs. Hard against soft. Tough against sweet.
 

That’s the part that turns me on the most about her. More than how sexy she is, it’s her fucking sweetness. I’ve never had anyone like Hailey in my life before.
You don’t have her now, asshole
. No, right now I’ve let her go, but I’m still watching her. Still aware of her, constantly.

She’s alone right now, in the bed I want to be in more than I want my next breath. In the morning she’ll get up and go to work. In a few days, she’ll have her Vanity Fair interview, and I should be there with her, but I can’t be.

One day, I’ll be good enough for her. One day, I’ll be able to be in the same room with her and not threaten the fragile goodness she’s constructed around her.

I jerk myself more roughly now, so close to release. Regret morphs to something less-definable, leaving an angry edge on the usually simple
feelsfuckinggood
of masturbating. There’s nothing simple about my fantasy of Hailey. Nothing easy or possible about getting the woman of my dreams alone, safe, and all mine on a beach in Hawaii. Fuck, I can’t even have her in an apartment in Washington for more than a few hours.

And even that was perfect. Hailey begging me for more. Fucking her face. Spanking her pussy.
Fuck me
. I need her. Need to spread her legs wide and feast on her wet, swollen cunt. Drive deep and blow my load inside her.

Fuuuuuck
.
 

I fall forward, wincing as my palm slams against the shower wall, some of the cuts on my hand screaming in protest. With my other hand, I slow my strokes, milking my cock as the last spurts fall to the drain below.

With fantasies like that, I need to stay as far away from Hailey Reid as I can get, for as long as I can.

We both know it won’t be forever. I’m not that strong.

—
seven—
 

Hailey

I didn’t have any doubt that something would slam Cole and me back together.

I just assumed it would be another mistake. Another scandal in my family.

Not something even darker. Totally random. And utterly terrifying.

— —
 

Two weeks after Cole was arrested, the Metropolitan Police Major Case unit executed a raid on a condo near The Hill and arrested two men for the murder of Anabeth Fletcher, and at the same time, a simultaneous warrant was being served in Virginia on a third man, whose name never made it to the papers.

I was dying to ask Wilson about it.

I didn’t.

Not when he came over the next day to do my prep for the Vanity Fair interview, and not three days later when he showed up twenty minutes before the reporter in case I had any last minute questions.

Instead, I made him knit me a scarf.

“You’re getting pretty good at that.” I peer over his shoulder. Only two dropped stitches that row. “You can give that to Jason for his birthday.”

“I don’t know when Jason’s birthday is.”

“Seriously?”

“Correction. I don’t
care
when Jason’s birthday is.”

“How about Cole’s birthday?” I’m not sure why I bring that up. I walked away. I don’t care about him.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
 

“June tenth.”

I freeze. Somehow Cole having an actual birthday—a date on which he was born, once helpless and small and probably very cute—makes him more human. “How do you know that off the top of your head, but not Jason’s?”

He ducks his big, blond head and stares at his knitting.

“Wilson?”

“I thought you might want to know. I can also tell you his favorite foods, total net worth, and the results of his last physical.”

In broad strokes, I think I know the answer to the last point. I don’t care about the middle one. But the first… “Uhm, okay. What kind of food does he like?”

Wilson twists his head and looks at me. “If I tell you, can I stop knitting?”

“Nope. It’s going to impress the reporter, and if I’m lucky, distract her. The ladies love a man who’s good with his hands. Maybe if
you’re
lucky she’ll want to nip the interview short and drag you back to her hotel room.”

“I think she’s married.”

“Too bad for you.”

“Too bad for
you
.” He shoves the world’s ugliest scarf attempt back into my knitting basket. “Why did you agree to this interview if you don’t want to do it?”

Because I don’t like to be selfish. “I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.”

“Pretty sure ‘my life isn’t for public consumption’ is a perfectly acceptable reason.” He stands, filling the space beside me, and for a second I think he’s going to hug me. That would be weird, but he doesn’t. Instead he skirts around me and pulls his computer out of his backpack. “Do you remember what I told you the other day?”

“From her previous stories, you think she really wants the hint of taboo. She’s going to keep coming back to Taylor and the Vice President.” I nod. I can do this. “But instead I’m going to give her the estranged sister story.”