Page 13

James

T apping the code to the private elevatorthatwould take me up toJackson’s penthouse, I clenched my jaw, Willow’s taste still lingering on my tongue.

Why the fuck had I kissed her? I couldn’t stand seeing Billie upset,thinking I wasn’t being true to our deal, and I’d thought one simple kiss would be tolerable.

So why the fuck did I kiss her, not once, but twice in the back of thecar?

I lost control.Thatwas why. I needed to taste her again. For amoment, I wasn’t thinking. I was acting purely on primal need. I needed to feel the way Willow submitted to me when my mouth was on hers.

Needed to feel her want me, instead of being the statue she usuallywas when I fucked her.

ButthenI made the mistake of looking at her while I was inside her.Seeing the way her face twisted in pleasure as I pounded into her wet pussy. She’d never been wet for me before, and the feeling of her slickness drove me in-fucking-sane.

It was only when she moaned my namethatreality crashed into meat lightning force, reminding methatWillow was meant to be nothing to me. A means to an end.

Ifthatwas the case though, why couldn’t I stop thinking about thehurt written all over her when she got out of the car? And why did the urge to go home and spend the night buried in her cunt feel all-consuming?

I needed space. I’d only been home a few days from the last contract,but my home was no longer my peaceful sanctuary anymore, not when she was there. Not when I could so easily let myself drown in her.

Now I knew why recovering alcoholics refused to have booze in theirhouse. They knew it was there, hiding in a cupboard, waiting to infect their veins. Once they started thinking about it, they could never get it out of their heads, until they eventually caved, and allowed themselves to be suckered into the poison.

Space away from her was all I needed. Which was why I’d ended upsneaking into Jackson’s apartment. Despite my five calls to him while Marco drove me to his apartment block, the asshole didn’t answer, but as I crept into his darkened apartment, the reason became obvious.

From behind his closed bedroom door, two women squealed,followed by Jackson’s dark laugh, and a command for one of the women to eat the other’s pussy.

In days gone by, I would have delighted in going into the room andgiving Jackson a helping hand. But with Willow’s juices still coating my cock, along with the image of her throwing her head back as she rode me seared into my brain, I couldn’t bring myself to go anywhere near the bedroom.

Instead, I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a glass off Jackson’smini-bar and poured myself a generous shot. Taking a seat on his leather couch, I waited in the dark, my mind consumed with the mouse.

Fuck, what was it about herthathad me so damn obsessed? I’dnever met anyone like her before. Quiet and submissive, obeying my every command without hesitation.

She was perfect.

The women I’d met over the years were always so desperate. Soneedy and demanding, and it never took long for me to grow bored of them.

But the mouse? I couldn’t see myself ever growing tired of watching theway she would gracefully walk toward me, ready to heed my commands. She was everything I had wanted. But I didn’t want these weird feelings she stirred up inside of me.

Lost in thought, it didn’t registerthatthe groans and pants fromJackson’s room had fallen quiet.

“Jesus! You scared the shit out of me,”Jackson shrieked, havingturned the light on to find me sitting on his couch, his hand flying up to clutch his bare chest.

I swallowed a mouthful of whiskey, not giving a fuckthathe wasbutt-naked, his cock swinging free. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him naked before.

“What the fuck are you doing here, asshole? I’m busy,”he huffed,grabbing a throw off the back of the couch and wrapping it around his waist.

“Can I stay with you for a couple of nights?”I replied, not wanting totell him the real reason I was there;thatif I went home, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep away from Willow.

His brows rose.“Yeah, course. Is everything okay?”

I took another mouthful of my drink, this time larger than the onebefore.“Yep.”

Jackson sighed, his shoulders slumping as his gaze darted to hisbedroom door where, undoubtedly, two gorgeous women were waiting for him.

He swiped a glass off the bar before pouring himself a shot ofwhiskey and took a seat next to me. For a few minutes, the two of us sat in silence, nursing our drinks, the only sound echoing through the apartment was the ticking of Jackson’s enormous wall clock.

“You know, there’s nothing wrong with admittingthatyou’redeveloping feelings for her. No one is going to think any less of you. It’s not a weakness,”he said, breaking into my thoughts.

“I’m not,”I growled in reply.

“Sure. But from the minute you got back home from your trip toPeartree House, you’ve been different. Sullen. Less tolerant of everything. Isthata coincidence?”

I sighed in resignation knowing Jackson wouldn’t drop it.“I don’tknow what it is about her. I can’t get her out of my head.”

“And that’s a bad thing, why?”

“You know why,”I snapped, downing the rest of my drink andslamming the glass on the table.

“Because of Shona? Dude,thatwas years ago.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw, the way it always did whenever someonementioned Shona.

My first and only love.

The girl I thought I would marry and grow old with.

Until she betrayed me.

I’d never felt pain like it when she left, and I’d vowed never to fall foranyone again. The pain wasn’t worth it.

“Yeah, well. Whoever said time heals all wounds was talking bullshit.”

It wasn’tthatI hadn’t gotten over Shona, I had. And it wasn’t becauseshe left methatthe memories of our relationship haunted me. It was the reason why .

My father never approved of Shona. As one of the current boardmembers of Legion, he was of the opinionthathis heir should marry a girl connected to the society.

Over the years, I’d lost count of the number of times he’d tried toarrange for me to date a daughter from one of the higher-ranking families of Legion, Cleo included, which went down like a lead balloon.

I’d always resisted. Mainly because it was one of the few things Icould do to piss my father off and show he didn’t control me, but also because most of the women he set me up with fell into the category of being spoiled, needy, and demanding.

Shona wasn’t from Legion. In his eyes, she was a nobody, likeWillow. She’d come from a poor family, her father was a window cleaner, and her mom was a dinner lady. I met her when we were both eighteen at a house party, and while Jackson was off fucking her cousin, Shona and I spent the night talking. We hit it off immediately, and before the night was over, I knew she was it for me.

Legion rules dictatedthatI couldn’t disclose my links to the societyor what skills I brought to the organization until the member was legally married to the non-member. There was no such thing as divorce among Legion, so as soon as Shona and I said‘I do’, and she was wearing my ring, I was going to tell her, knowing she could never leave my ass.

I planned to propose to her on her twentieth birthday when, out of theblue, she broke up with me, refusing to tell me why. A day later, I heard she was leaving town. I’d raced to her house to convince her to stay, butthatwas when she told me she knew the truth.

ThatI was a murderer.

A heartless killer who covered his hands in blood in exchange formoney.

She said she hated me.ThatI disgusted her, and she neverwanted to see me again. The worst part was, she was right. I was a murderer, and I would never change. I enjoyed watching the light dim in my target’s eyes as they took their final breaths.

Laterthatnight as I drowned my sorrows, my father confessedthathe’d paid her five million dollars to get the fuck out of my life. He laughed as he told me how she didn’tevenpause to consider his offer.Thatit was never about the blood I had on my hands, all she wanted was the check he dangled in her face.

I guess I should have expected it from my father, he had made hisfeelings toward me marrying Shona clear from the minute I told him what I planned to do. But Shona? I thought what we had was real,thatno matter what, nothing could tear us apart.

It turned out five million dollars could.

I could never decide what hurt more. The fact my father had paid herthe money, or the factthatshe had taken it. It didn’treallymatter, they’d both broken my heart and my trust.

A week after she left town, Shona was killed. A robbery gone wrongaccording to police reports. I had my own theories, certainthatLegion was behind her death.

“This is different,”Jackson said, pulling me out of my trip downmemory lane.“You’re married to Willow, you can’t divorce her, and he can't pay her to do a runner…“he said, trailing off as if the reason why I was so fucking morose hadjustdawned on him.“But if she was to meet her fate in an unfortunate set of circumstances, there isn’t a single thing you could do.”

I downed the remainder of my whiskey and poured myself anothershot, not replying because he’djusthit the nail on the head.

Rules statedthata member of Legion could marry someone fromoutside the organization, but their new spouse would never be accepted into the society based solely on marriage, meaning they weren’t protected by the same rules Legion were.

So the rule,‘ A Legion member will not injure or maim a fellow memberunless there is good reason to’ , would never apply to Willow. She would be fair game to anyone who wanted to hurt her.

It was exceptionally rare for a spouse of a Legion member to be killedby a Legion member, but my father was a different breed. He’d use anything in his power to try to control my life.

“Fuck,”Jackson sighed, falling silent next to me.

He could say that again.

Fury swirled underneath my skin. At my father. At Willow.

At myself.

“What are you going to do?”Jackson asked, pouring me a shot ofwhiskey.

“I don’t know,”I replied, staring at the amber liquid.

Thatwas the problem. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I neededan heir, but the more time I spent around Willow, the more obsessed I became. The more obsessed I became, the more I knew it would hurt when my father inevitably removed her from my life.

And for some reason, I knew if I lost Willow, it would hurt more thanwhat it had done when Shona left me.