CHAPTER NINE
I Want More – KALEO
The elevator ride down was silent. Painfully silent. Karson was obviously still pissed about the whole thing. I was not troubling myself with that. I was sending texts to Zoe and Yasmin to let them know I was going to get our girl.
I left Jay out of it. Mentioning his name to them would invite trouble. Better to wait until Stella was stateside and once again in love. They would be less trigger happy and less likely to ruin Jay’s—and in turn Karson’s—lives. These alpha males were hell-bent on protecting us when they had no idea how much we protected them.
Karson made it clear that he was not happy with the silence, not happy about me ignoring his male fury when we got out of the elevator.
“What the fuck was that?” Karson hissed, pushing me against the wall. His eyes were wild. Furious.
I had quite a bit of my own fury, so I matched his stare. “That was me fighting for my friend. Because your friend is a real fucking dick.”
I was happy that Jay was going to do the grand gesture thing, but I was not back on his team. Not yet.
“He’s not my friend,” Karson shot back. “He is one of the most dangerous men in the city. I owe my life to him. And you made me face up against him, prepared to kill him if I had to.”
“Well, you didn’t have to, did you?” I snapped back. “Plus, I didn’t need you to step in for me. I had it handled.”
Karson’s eyes bulged. “You had it handled?” he ran his hands through his hair, his frustration obvious. He shook his head. “Jesus fucking Christ, Wren. I get that you’re used to walking into any situation and walking out again with a great story, but it doesn’t work that way in my world. If I’m not there to protect you, you might not walk out again. And what the fuck am I supposed to do then?”
My stomach did a little flip, but I was still pissed, so I ignored it. “I am capable of protecting myself,” I argued, hands flying to my hips. “I know you think I’m vapid and naïve and do things without thinking, but I was well aware of what I was doing in there.” I pointed vaguely upward. “And I apologize if that put you in a bad position with your boss, truly. But someone needed to do that for Stella. I would do anything for her. I would run into a burning house to save her. As it was, I didn’t have to. I got us a trip to New Zealand where, hopefully, my friend’s broken heart will be repaired.”
Karson was still glaring at me, but the glare had changed somehow. Softened.
“I fuckin’ love you,” he growled.
Growled.
I blinked at him.
Did he really just say those three words, the three words I knew he felt but he’d never simply said out loud in all of his alpha male declarations about his feelings? Yes, he did. He just growled them with a glare on his face.
Because he was Karson.
And he wasn’t fucking done.
“I do not think you are vapid or naïve,” he grunted. “You’re not to say that shit again. I think you’re stubborn, infuriating, that you are so fucking loyal that you will do anything for the people you care about, regardless of the dangers it poses to you.” He was gripping my neck now.
The silence thrummed between us, both of us refusing to break the stare, refusing to back down.
I didn’t know who broke it first. It didn’t really matter. Our mouths clashed, kissing each other angrily, hungrily. Karson’s hands pushed up my skirt, ripping at my panties. I tore at his clothes with the same primal intensity. My fury had been channeled into something else entirely, and I felt like an animal.
The second I freed him from his belt, he lifted me, surging into me in the next fluid movement. Our mouths found each other once more as he fucked me brutally against the wall.
We were packing to go to New Zealand.
To see Stella.
Jay was going to see Stella, and he’d demanded we go with him.
Normally, especially considering my current feelings for the man, I would not get on a plane and cross the world just because a man had ordered me to. I’d learned my lesson on that one. It was a sticky situation to get out of and required waking up a few senators to call in some favors to get me back from Qatar.
But I complied because Jay, this dark demon of a human, was afraid of what awaited him at the bottom of the world. He was afraid that Stella was going to reject him—as was her right after the way he treated her. So he wanted me, presumably, to be there to make her feel comfortable, to speak on his behalf. Which I wasn’t going to do. I was going because I missed my friend, and because I was a hopeless romantic who wanted to see her happy. If she was all about taking Jay back, great. If she’d met some hunky Kiwi and decided to have his babies, equally great. But I knew my friend. Her heart was Jay’s, and her heart was not fickle.
Jay also, from what I could gather, did not have any close friends. Nor did Karson. He didn’t have buddies over for the game, didn’t go on boys’ trips. They were besties, in a badass criminal type way, but besties just the same. And Jay wanted his buddy with him in case things went south.
It was cute.