Ride or Die (Rejects Paradise 4)

I grab Cora and Casey’s empty plates and turn back around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. “I’m just being a good little employee.”

I drop the plates onto the counter beside Colton’s and turn back just in time to see him getting up from the table, his eyes heavily on mine. He stalks forward, and my face drops.

Oh, fuck.

I back up a step, trying and failing not to grin at him, but damn it, it’s too hard.

He takes another step and then another, his pace slowly picking up, and then he breaks out into a sprint, and I take off like a bat out of hell. “NOOOOOO,” I shriek, my scream being muffled by my laughter. I dart around the kitchen counter as he goes the other way.

I stop at one end while he stands at the other, watching me like a lion watching his prey. I brace myself against the counter, more than ready to use it as leverage to propel myself faster. “Whatcha gonna do?” he teases, his grin so powerful and tempting. I should just give myself up and let him have me.

I shake my head, enjoying myself too much to give in like that. “You’ll never catch me.”

“Jade, I’ve already got you right where I want you.”

With that, he dives to the left, and I sprint through the other side of the kitchen. As I pass him on the opposite side of the counter, he launches himself over it, coming down right behind me. I squeal as Mom panics, shouting something about being careful and not running in my condition.

I hardly hear her because when a woman has Colton tearing after her, it’s the only thought circling her mind.

He gains on me quickly, and I aim for the door, knowing I’ll have more luck in the hallway. But as I go to throw myself out of the door, his arms wrap around me and he scoops me right off the floor. Instead of taking me back to the kitchen, he continues down the hallway and up the stairs, not stopping until he’s closing the door behind him and throwing me down on his bed. Exactly where I want to be.

Colton drops down on top of me, catching himself with his elbows so that no part of his body actually touches me, but I can't help flinching anyway. The bruises are still there, though they’re faded enough that I can finally start hiding them with makeup, but just because I can hide them away, doesn’t mean that they hurt any less.

His lips drop to mine, and as his hand falls to my waist, roaming over my skin, I pull back, meeting his eyes. “Wait,” I tell him. “I have to tell you about today.”

His lips come back to mine again. “It can wait.”

I push him back, somehow finding the strength to resist him. “No, trust me, you’re going to want to hear this, and if we wait, you would have wondered why I didn't tell you earlier.”

Colton groans, dropping his forehead to mine. “But I don’t want to talk,” he whines, sounding as though I just asked him to roast his balls over a fire like marshmallows. “I’d rather sink into you.”

“I know,” I tell him, struggling not to laugh at how serious he’s being. I guess even CEO billionaires get a little whiny when they don’t get what they want. “I promise, as soon as we’re done, I’m all yours, however you want me.”

He groans again but can’t deny that the idea of having me anyway he wants is certainly alluring. He finally pulls back and behaves himself. “Okay,” he tells me. “I’ll be patient.”

“Good,” I laugh, struggling to sit up into a position that doesn’t hurt. I meet his eyes and try to figure out the best way to tell him this. “I sort of ran into someone today.”

Colton’s brows furrow, finally being serious. “Who?”

“Your mom.”

“The fuck?” he grunts, pulling back and looking me dead in the eye. “Where the hell did you see her? She wasn’t still sneaking around Bellevue Springs was she?”

I hold back a laugh. “Trust me, you could only hope that’s where I saw her, but no, I saw her bent over a desk with her skirt somewhere up around her head while Mikhail Russo fucked her within an inch of her life.”

His mouth drops, and he seems to turn a little green as he struggles to find the words to say. I raise a brow watching him as he shakes his head, desperate to get rid of the mental image I just supplied.

I lean back against the headboard of his bed, patiently waiting for him to come to terms with the bomb I just dropped right in his lap.

“Umm …” he finally says. “The fuck?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “She’s been screwing Russo, hoping for a payday, but that’s not even the worst part. The reason she came back here was because Russo put her here to keep tabs on me. The good part, though, is now that I’m officially a Wolf, he’s done with your mom and kicked her to the curb.”