Crystal Jake: The Complete EDEN Series Box Set

ELEVEN

Jake

I park my car and sit inside it for a while. My pulse is too erratic. I feel too jumbled and unsettled. I need to calm myself. I get out of the car, lock it and cross the road. It’s an old square building in a shitty area. She shouldn’t be living here. I make a mental note to move her into better digs in the next couple of weeks. I go up to the door and ring her bell. She answers almost immediately.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s me.’

There is a pause and then the buzzer sounds. I push the door open and enter. The walls are white, the floor is smooth concrete. It’s basic but clean enough. Her flat is on the first floor. I take the steps two at a time. She opens the door before I can ring the bell. Her face is scrubbed clean of make-up and her mouth looks swollen and red. She is wearing an old flannel dressing gown. There is a faint bruise on her throat. I feel a stab of unease. I did that.

‘Melanie is asleep,’ she explains in a hushed voice.

I reach out to touch the bluish mark on her throat and she flinches away.

‘Come in,’ she says, and starts walking toward the sitting room to cover her involuntary movement away from me.

I follow her silently. The room has two sofas, a glass-topped coffee table. A biscuit tin is on it. She sits at the edge of a sofa. I don’t sit. I am too wired. I stand over her.

‘Are you all right?’

She nods.

‘Why didn’t you answer my calls?’

She doesn’t look at me. Just shrugs.

I get down on my haunches and look directly into her eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’

I see her eyes go to my lip. It is still red and swollen.

‘I don’t think we should see each other anymore,’ she whispers hoarsely.

Every cell in my body rejects that statement, but my face remains calm, my voice cool. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I behave like an animal when I am with you.’

I take her hands in mine. She tries to pull away, but I don’t allow her to. ‘We will behave like animals until we no longer need to,’ I tell her calmly. It is also my most persuasive voice.

She stares at me with those strangely beautiful eyes of hers. And God! I just want to rip her dowdy clothes off and fuck her right there on that cheap couch. That’s the real truth. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to reassure her that it’s all going to be OK. I just want to fuck her senseless. Because when she is around I lose all control. I become a beast.

‘Love shouldn’t be like this. It should be beautiful.’

I don’t let myself react. I don’t let her see that she has unconsciously called what we have love. But it is a heady head rush.

‘Let’s take it step by step then. Let’s get to know each other. Let’s go out to dinner tonight,’ I murmur.

‘I can’t tonight. I’m working.’ Her voice is dull and matter-of-fact.

I feel the hot ball of jealousy slam into my gut. I try to control myself, but I can’t. I stand up and stride away from her. My hands clench. ‘You’re not going to work tonight.’

‘I have to. Brianna has me down for today and tomorrow. We can go out the day after.’

She has absolutely no idea. ‘You’re not working in Eden again, Lily.’

Her head snaps up. She rises to her feet. ‘What? I need that job.’

‘I can’t let you take your clothes off for other men. Even the thought kills me.’

‘That’s not fair. I have debts to pay.’

I walk up to her. ‘What debts?’

She looks up at me. ‘I don’t want you to pay my debts for me.’

‘What debts, Lily?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘Everything about you is my business.’

‘I’m not ready to talk about it. Just leave it, please. It’s personal.’

I frown at this new complication. What the fuck is she involved in? I don’t show her my horror or the horrible thoughts that are running through my head. ‘I don’t want my woman chased by debt collectors,’ I counter reasonably.

‘Please, Jake. Leave it. All this is too soon. Just give me some space, please.’

‘Space? Is that what you want from me?’

I see a flash of something fierce in her eyes. No, she doesn’t want space. She wants to tear my clothes off too. I grab her by the forearms and take her mouth. Sweet. Soft. The taste of her sends me wild. It is as if last night never happened. It is as if I have still not had her yet. The yearning for her rages insides me.

I force open her mouth and she wraps her smooth tongue around mine and sucks hard as if she is feeding on me. She presses her stomach into my fully erect dick, wanting it. I feel myself beginning to lose myself to her.

There is a sound nearby and with a gasp she pulls violently away from me. I feel as if some part of me has been torn away. Her housemate puts a hand up. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just on my way to the kitchen.’

I spare her half a glance before my attention returns to Lily.

She is holding a shaking hand against her mouth. ‘You’d better go,’ she says. She looks white and alone and so troubled that all I want to do is hold her in my arms, but I know it will be the wrong thing to do.

‘I’ll pick you up at seven tonight.’

She nods and I walk out of her flat and call Brianna.

TWELVE

Lily

I get out of the shower and choose my underwear carefully: expensive, lace and net. The heat wave has not let up and it is so hot and humid I put my hair up and wear a white dress that leaves my back bare. I slip on strappy heels and for some reason, perhaps because I have never seen my lips look so plump and swollen, I paint my lips crimson. They dominate my face and make me think of the female monkeys whose butts turn bright red when they are in heat and ready to mate.

The doorbell rings at five minutes to seven.

I open the door and see emerald fire kindle in his eyes.

‘Jesus,’ he exclaims softly, and strokes my cheek with his knuckle. He is wearing a dark red shirt, two buttons undone, the red crystal chain visible when he moves, and black trousers with knife edge creases in them. His shoes are mahogany colored.

He looks like a gangster and leads me to a ridiculously souped-up Range Rover with massive wheels and a row of headlights on the top. I raise my eyebrows and he smiles, guileless as a child. ‘People expect gypsies to have such things. Get in. It’s fun.’

I seriously doubt him but as it happens it is fun and a laugh to be so high up.

He takes me to the fancy, oak-paneled, Michelin-starred restaurant Hibiscus. Wine bottles gleam from their silver buckets. Inside it doesn’t smell of food, but the perfume of Mayfair fat cats. The staff are discreet and faultless in their superlative attention. There are complimentary cocktails, small delicacies and copious amounts of sour bread. The menu is intriguing.

‘What will you have?’ I ask Jake.

‘The roasted suckling pig spread with warm Irish sea urchins.’

‘I’ve never had sea urchins before. Are they good?’

‘They are an acquired taste. They have a dirty, sexy flavor,’ he murmurs, his eyes dropping to my mouth.

There it is again, the sweet ache for him. I avoid his gaze. ‘I’m having the yellow fin tuna with roasted artichokes and Herefordshire pine tree foam.’

He makes a face. ‘Ugh… I can’t eat foam. It reminds me of cat sick.’

But it is not the fo

am, but the raw sea urchins on sweet potato that are sick making. I almost have to spit out the mineral-like concoction Jake slips into my mouth. He laughs at the expression on my face.

When Jake laughs he becomes a different person. He is no longer a hard-assed, cold-eyed criminal. Fancy that—he becomes stunning. I stare at him, surprised at how carefree, handsome, and young he suddenly seems. A voice full of disquiet whispers up my bare arms, tingling and raising the hairs, ‘You will fall for him… You will… You will.’

I shift in my chair, my appetite lost. Unease like a drop of castor oil slides down my throat.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’

It turns out that neither of us has much of an appetite after all. We skip dessert. No coffee. The little chocolate petits fours lie uneaten. Jake pays and we are back in the car. The night air is cool. It ruffles his hair. The music is loud, the beat insistent. I shift restlessly on the fragrant leather seat, my guts warm and tight.

When we get inside the sandstone foyer and into his elegant living room, Jake lights candles. I drape myself on a pristine white rug on the floor.

‘Want a drink?’

‘Nope.’

He walks over to the polished bar filled with downlights and pours himself a good measure of whiskey. He chucks it down his throat and goes to sit on a low white couch. It has claw feet. For a while he lies back and stares at me. I look up at him, unmoving. His eyes are shiny with the flames from the candles. His skin is dark and seems very beautiful, almost as if he is carved from wood. I think of the spicy scent of his cock. Of taking him in my mouth. My thighs part.

‘Come here,’ he orders softly.

I get onto my hands and knees and crawl toward him. Toward his erection, craving it. I rest my chin on the white couch between his spread legs. He releases my hair with gentle fingers and runs his hands through it. His hands move down my naked back and pull the small zipper down. My dress withers away.