Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy 3)

“Come now,” Javier said. “Sharing a bed with me isn’t that bad. You’ve been doing it for the last week. Is the inevitable sex too distracting?”

I grinded my teeth together but didn’t say a word.

Suddenly he dropped to the ground on top of me, flipping me over so I was on my back, pinning both of my arms to the ground, his face just inches from mine. Wild strands of his hair partially obscured his feverish eyes.

“I’ll scream,” I said hoarsely, fear pulsing through my veins.

He grinned. “You know I love that.”

Then he lowered his lips to mine, his warm and salty taste engulfing me. I did my best to keep my lips shut, to wriggle my mouth out of the way.

“Oh, angel,” he murmured near my lips. “Stop the act. We both know you want this.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I grunted, “or I will make you pay.”

He chuckled and lifted his head, peering down at me curiously, still keeping a death grip on my arms. “You’re not thinking straight. You’ve got everything backwards, you know?”

“I’m thinking just fine.” I stared right back at him, refusing to be intimidated, even though he was straddling me on the floor of our hotel room. “You’re backwards.”

He gave a subtle shake of his head. “How quickly you change your tune, how easily you are manipulated. You think that just because Camden came for you that it means he knows what’s best for you?”

“I know what’s best,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You don’t,” he said, “and you never did. You keep trying to be good, to be this person that you’re not, and you think the minute someone tries to convince you, tells you something that you want to hear, that they must speak the truth.” He ran his fingers down the side of my face, gently at first before pressing them in harder near my mouth. “So beautiful, so naïve. You know, even though he is here it doesn’t mean you’re obligated to be with him. It doesn’t mean you owe him anything. You never asked him to come after you.” He traced my rigid lips with his forefinger. “It isn’t too late, you know. I can forgive your lies, your … lack of loyalty. I can forget that you ever conspired with him. We can do this, just the two of us.”

“Do what?” I asked once he removed his finger.

His smile was lopsided. It would have looked cute on anyone else, but the depravation in his eyes soiled it. “Rule the world. Don’t you remember? I’ll be the king and you’ll be my queen.” He leaned in closer and closed his eyes, whispering, “Travis is in our reach. We are so close now. You are so close to getting your revenge.”

“No,” I said. “I only want Gus back. You can have Travis.”

His eyes fluttered even though they were shut, as if he were having trouble comprehending what I was saying. “Of course, your Gus. And your mother too, I suppose.”

I swallowed with effort, stifled again by the memory of seeing her at the party. “Yes, my mother. I’m just here for them. That’s the only reason I’m going after Travis.”

He opened his eyes, narrowing them slightly. “I figured as much. You know, you’ll change your mind when you see Travis again. And I’ll be the one handing you the gun to finish the job. Then you’ll have your people back. And then, with his blood on your hands, you’ll finally have your peace. Don’t forget what you were prepared to do earlier. Don’t pretend like you weren’t going to drop that poison into his meal. Don’t act like you weren’t fully prepared to kill the very man that ruined our lives.”

“Our lives?”

He blinked a few times. “Your pain has been my pain.”

“I call bullshit on that.”

“And I call bullshit on you. You know what you mean to me, angel. You know the lengths that I’ll go to, all to make sure you get justice.”

I took in a deep breath, so conscious of how close his face was to mine, so mindful of his lips that looked ready to come crashing onto mine again. I had to say what I needed to say and had to say it right. Being straight was the only way out.

“Javier. I appreciate you saving us. And I do want to get your sister someplace safe. And if you can really help me get Gus back, then I owe you everything in the world. But what we shared, what we had, is over. It was over the moment I found out your true intentions. It was over the moment I realized I was being manipulated like some fucking puppet on a string. And it was over when I realized you and I are as toxic as the poison you put in my necklace. That has always been the truth and that will never change. The us that was is gone. This is the new us. We can help each other and if we can’t, then we shouldn’t be in each other’s lives. If you’re going to have your own agenda and your own plan other than helping me get to Gus, then we should part ways, right now, tonight, and never look back at each other. Never look for each. Move on and forget. Do you understand?”

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my lips, in my fingers. I had no idea how he was going to take this.

He stared at me stone-faced, as if he didn’t even hear me. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and looked up at the ceiling. “I think I understand. Yes, I think I hear you.” He cleared his throat and straightened up, still straddling me but at least my face was free from his lips and grasp. His eyes still focused upward and he said, “Angel, angel, angel,” while shaking his head back and forth. “I thought I knew you. I only knew the … fetus … compared to the woman you could be.” He looked at my sharply. “What a fucking disappointment you are.”

Then he quickly got up and marched over to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. I sat up, rubbing at my face. He hadn’t hurt me but his touch still lingered like aftertaste. The thing was, a part of me still wanted that revenge on Travis. But now that it was his idea, I wasn’t about to give him credit. Javier had the advantage when it came to tricks, to contacts, to the plan. But I felt like I had the emotional upper hand. I didn’t know how long it would last and I didn’t know what kind of man it would make him – this would be the second time I’d spurned him after all. He was a loose cannon, a wild card and it was the moment I underestimated him that he’d totally pull the rug out from under us.

I thought back to Camden, wondering if he was in his room or outside the door like he’d said. It hurt like hell that he’d asked me to stay with Javier. I wanted Camden to be protective, to be my shield, especially now when I needed him the most. Instead, he was distant and becoming more distant by the moment. I knew he’d never let anything happen to me, that he would do his best to make sure I was alive, that he’d help me get Gus back, that he’d return me to California all in one piece. I just didn’t know how deep his wounds went either. When he was gone, Javier had been the person I relied on, whether that was a smart decision or not. But now with Camden in the picture, I felt myself naturally gravitate toward him.

Screw Javier and what he thought of my nature. My real nature, my real self, wanted that person to believe in me, to see the good, ignore the bad, and make me feel like I had a future. Camden was my future – though now that he was closer than ever, I felt that future being taken away from me. All because I made a foolish mistake. All because I had no faith.

The fact was, when I really looked at it, when I really searched deep inside, I was still in love with Camden. It was a love I had to bury for the last few weeks, a love I thought I could never have, that I’d never deserve. But I felt it, hidden underneath the layers, like the center of the sun. It was blinding when you had a glimpse of it but it was enough that you knew it was there, shining down on you. I’d let myself get burned if I could.

Yet now that everything had changed between us, that he knew I’d been with Javier, that I’d been sleeping with him … I wasn’t sure how we could recover from that. I could argue my side until I was blue in the face, keep telling him it never meant anything. But he wouldn’t believe that and even I knew that was a bit of a lie, because Javier did mean something. Just for those moments where I could fool myself into thinking it meant more than it did, it still meant something. That was what I was having the hardest time wrapping my head around. How could I ever explain that my body got what it needed at the time but my heart was fooled? That my heart had always belonged to him, even if just the memory of a man I never thought would come for me. What man would ever understand that? Camden was noble but he was still a man with insecurities like everyone else. He’d go out of his way to make sure I was okay but I was afraid he’d never let his own heart get over it. I was so fucking afraid that he’d never let himself love me again.

I felt shredded up inside and my own heart was afraid to repair itself.

I sighed and looked down at my dress. It was dirty, brown from mud, and I quickly shimmied out of it and into a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt I brought out of one of the spare bags from the trunk before Javier came out of the bathroom. I was tempted to go out to Camden, but even then I wouldn’t know what to say. And, he was right. Someone had to make sure that Javier wasn’t about to screw us over, especially now that I’d slighted him. He was extra volatile.

I was sitting cross-legged on the makeshift bed when Javier came out of the bathroom, ruffling his now wet hair, with a towel. A shower would have been nice considering I had dried patches of dirt on my arms but I’d get by without it. I couldn’t risk leaving Javier alone right now.

“You’re still here?” he asked, tossing the towel across the room. He walked barefoot, just a towel around his waist, to the bed. “I would have thought you’d left after what you’d said to me.”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with me,” I told him, turning my head away before he dropped his towel like I knew he would.

“Or perhaps you’re the one stuck with me,” he said. He climbed in under the shawl-like blanket I’d left on the bed and rolled over to his side.

“You’re not going to turn off the light?” I asked.

He laughed quietly, facing the wall. “Believe me, angel, you don’t want to see what comes out in the dark.”

I gradually lay back down, keeping my arms close to my chest. Within moments he was snoring and I did my best to stay awake. Even with the light on, it wasn’t too long before I fell asleep.

I was awakened the next morning by Camden’s warm and strong hands on my face. I smiled into his touch, still half-asleep and delirious with dreams.

“See, she’s alive,” Javier’s voice broke through the clouds. I blinked a few times and looked beyond Camden’s chiseled face. Javier was standing behind Camden’s crouched body, fully clothed and ready to face the day.

“Then why is she on the floor?” Camden asked, looking behind him in annoyance.

Javier turned around and left my vision. “Because she wanted to sleep there.”

Camden looked back at me, shaking his head as Javier left the room. “Asshole. Like he couldn’t have taken the floor himself.” But I could tell he was relieved that I hadn’t shared Javier’s bed. I was relieved too. I fell asleep and slept all the way through the night. I was still exhausted and groggy-headed, though, but I felt more prepared to face the day, to face North America’s largest metropolis, Mexico City.