Stone
I take her to a motel on the outskirts of town. If I had my way, we’d go even further, but she refuses to let me leave the city entirely without her brother. She talks to him on speakerphone the whole way to the motel, and while I’m not surprised that he tells her to come with me, I am shocked how well he’s taking this whole thing. It’s almost like he expects to come out of this okay.
The kid has more balls than I thought, apparently. In his shoes, I’d be a hell of a lot more panicked about facing my potential doom in a few days.
Three days left. Three days to keep Skye safe, to waylay Rich somehow. I’m already drafting explanations in my head—I can tell him that she escaped when I tried to get her, or I can just go AWOL myself and hope he doesn’t track us both down.
Except…
I can’t do that, not quite yet. Not with what he’s got hanging over me. I clench my fists around the steering wheel as we maneuver into the parking lot of the rundown motel. Gravel parking lot, shabby gray exterior, porch sagging off the first-floor rooms. This place is perfect for lying low.
“Ugh,” Skye pipes up beside me, with a squint in the direction of the office, whose Vacancy sign has burned out completely. “Looks like lice and bed bugs it is.”
“They don’t ask questions and they accept cash,” I point out. “So like the exterior or not, this is our kind of joint.”
I pay at the front counter, alone, the baseball cap on my head pulled down low over my eyes. The cashier doesn’t even wink an eye. He assigns us, at my request, to a room around the back, along the tree-lined rear parking lot. There’s only one line of approach, and it’s visible from the dingy window across from a small desk inside our room. I perch at the desk and train one eye on the window, trying not to watch Skye too closely as she self-consciously unpacks her things, her back turned toward me.
I can’t stop seeing her the way she looked in her apartment earlier, first in the clinging towel she had on when I burst through the door and then in nothing. It was a bitter reminder of everything I’ve been missing.
She’s close now. So close I can smell her. It’s driving me crazy to sit this close to her, to watch her bend over her open suitcase, and not just catch her hips in my hands, push her forward over that bed and claim her right here.
My cock twitches in my jeans, hardening at the thought, and I force myself, through sheer willpower, to turn back to the window and study the parking lot again. Don’t think about her. Don’t look at her.
A few minutes pass, until I’m aware of a growing silence in the room. No sounds of zippers or rustling bags or closets and drawers being opened and shut. When I finally turn around, Skye is sitting on the edge of her bed, watching me through lidded eyes. At first glance, her expression is full of open longing, which catches me by surprise.
But I must have imagined it, because a blink later, she sees me looking back at her, and the anger pours back into her face.
“What?” she asks, her voice jarring in the tight quarters. I’ve never heard her tone so laced with disgust.
It makes my stomach churn to think about what I’m doing to her right now. But it churns worse at the thought of what Rich would be doing to her instead, if he’d been the one to get to her first. I’ve seen the way he treats the guys he holds hostage, starving them, beating them for information. And I’ve seen the way he treats women in general— the hookers at his club are little more than his own personal fuck-holes. I can’t imagine what he’d do to a woman like Skye.
Or rather, I can. All too well. My fists clench and unclench in my lap at the very thought.
She notices. “Why are you mad at me?” She lifts an eyebrow, watching my hands.
I spread them flat against my knees forcefully. “I’m not mad at you, Skye. Never.” I grind my teeth together until they sound like they’re about to crack. “Just this situation. Rich. Myself.”
“What’s he going to do to you when you don’t bring me to him?” she asks softly. When I look at her again, some of the anger has drained and the concern bubbles beneath it.
It’s more than I deserve. “Doesn’t matter.” I shrug.
“Yes it does.” She pulls her knees up onto the bed and hugs them, resting her chin on top. “What’s he going to do?”
She looks so vulnerable right now, so innocent, in a way I’ve noticed before but never really thought too hard about. She’s never dealt with something like this before, and I love that about her. I also love how straightforwardly she’s handling it all, even though she must be scared out of her mind.
Her and her brother both. They’re built of stronger stuff than I’d have imagined.
I take a deep breath. Really confront the question at the forefront of my mind. What will Rich do if he finds out I betrayed him? “He’s going to hurt me the only way he has left,” I tell her. “The one thing he’s been able to hold over me, to use to keep me working for him all this time.”
“Your brother?” She tilts her head to one side, studying me, like she’s trying to figure me out. When I jerk my head just slightly—because I don’t even think Rich is aware I have a brother—she asks, “The rest of your family?”
I feel the veins in my neck go taut. I can’t think about that right now. “It’s not going to happen, though,” I say. “I’m going to go in later today. Tell him you gave me the slip and talk him into just meeting Ian on Monday without getting you involved. It’ll be fine.”
“You’re leaving me alone?” Her arms tighten around her knees, and for the first time since I first broke into her apartment and surprised her, real fear flickers across her face.
I lean forward, across the gap between the desk and the bed. We’re only a couple feet apart now. I expect her to shy away, but she doesn’t. She sits still and watches me approach with huge, reproachful eyes. “Only for a little while. Only while I sort things out, and then I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“How do I know this all wasn’t a setup?” she whispers. “How do I know you didn’t just bring me here so they can come pick me up when you’re gone? What if you’re leaving to go bring Rich here and—”