Page 34

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Fallon

I think I’ve lost my mind.

I sat in the back of the car with my face in my hands, resting my elbows to my knees.

“How did everything get so fucked!” I huffed into my hands.

This year turned into something I never asked for. My mom was dead, and I couldn’t even grieve her five years later. In a matter of weeks, my worldview had been shattered into unfixable pieces.

James, the security guard and driver, squeaked the leather seat as he turned. “Fast food?” His voice was tentative as he spoke, unsure how to help in a situation where I wasn’t in danger, just frustrated.

Knuckles rapped on his window before I could agree to be swept off my feet by a good order of French fries.

Oh no. James rolled down the window enough for me to see who was outside.

“May I speak with Miss Montgomery a moment?”

I shook my head at James.

“The lady said no,” he translated.

He sighed. “Let me in the car, Blondie. We need to chat.”

I leaned back in my seat to cross my arms. “Stop calling me Blondie, and no we don’t.”

“We work together,” he argued.

For the umpteenth time around him, I rolled my eyes, over his antics. “No, we don’t.”

“Well, sure, not as a couple—at least not at the moment. Professionally? Yeah, we do babe.” I didn’t even have to look at him to see his aloof expression with that cocky grin on his face.

Maybe I could start punching men in the face like he did. Could be cathartic.

I turned my head back and firmed my gaze at him through the window. “No.”

“No? Should I go back and tell my grandfather that-“

“James,” I sighed.

He understood and clicked the unlock button on his door. Brent wasted no breaths climbing into the back with me.

The space was too small as he slid in next to me. “Aren’t you staying for cocktail hour?”

“No.”

He smiled and his voice reflected it. “How many times are you going to tell me no, Blondie?”

I smacked his hand away before he could twirl my hair around in his fingers as he did when he toyed with me. “However many I want. Why? You gonna clean me about it?”

Understanding flickered in his face, eyebrows doing their thinking thing before he rubbed the back of his head. “I told you things are complicated .”

“Complicated? Killing people is that complicated?” I scoffed, shifting my body further away from him. “Just fuck off. I am in no mood for you right now.”

What was I in the mood for? A redo on life? My mom to come back from the grave? A burger? A moment of fucking silence, maybe?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose, releasing it out of my mouth. A calming technique my mother used.

It helps release the stress , she said.

He moved to face me, eyes searching my face for something. His expression was far too soft for my comfort. “Blondie,” he breathed, “look at me, please.”

No. I kept my eyes firmly set out of the window, looking at a neatly kept garden bed full of multicolored flowers getting ready to die for the winter. They looked how I felt—droopy and sad.

“Miss Montgomery?” James peered into the backseat.

“Just start driving. You know where to take me,” I replied flatly.

The car ride was silent outside of the low music that circulated and the hum of the engine. I felt Brent’s gaze on me the entire time. James flicked his gaze at us in the back seat a few times along the way.

It was safe to say the drive was awkward. We pulled into the same burger joint I’d asked to be taken to earlier, and I dreaded having any further conversation with Brent.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Go ahead. James, can you get me what I had last time?” I ignored Brent’s gaze.

He looked between us two. “Anything for...?”

Brent gestured vaguely. “Whatever she’s getting. On me.” He tossed his wallet into the front seat, turning his entire body toward me. “Blondie, look at me.”

What would I even say to him? My head hurt and I wanted to throw up again. Life still didn’t feel real enough to comprehend and I hoped to wake up from this nightmare that was my life. Pinching myself wasn’t helping at all.

“I don’t want to.” My voice was small, and my eyes threatened me with tears if I didn’t calm down quickly.

“I understand this is a lot for you, but I need you to let me in so I can help you. There are things we need to talk about so you are aware and can be prepared. The last thing I want is for you to be blindsided again. Our companies work in tandem, and I can protect you.”

Protection . That didn’t feel like a word I was familiar with. Sheltered and ignorant felt more my speed.

“How are you supposed to protect me when it feels like everyone else is ready to jump at me with claws? Before I was even aware of what I inherited, other people were miles ahead to take what I had. You can’t undo years of dominos falling.”

James cut the tension with two bags of food. My savior. The smell improved my nausea, and I didn’t even realize that my stomach was as hungry as it was. Eating was hard after all the shit hitting the fan. And that body on the ground...

“Miss Montgomery?”

My eyes refocused on James staring at me with a fatherly type of concern. The only other person who looked at me like that was Kelly. She got concerned when I didn’t act like myself—lately that was a lot of the time. She didn’t know what to make of my headspace. When I lacked a normal appetite, she tried to get me to eat or watch a movie. Despite her trying to help me, I couldn’t help but feel strange around her–she acted odd lately.

Homework felt too weird to complete when I was dealing with people recklessly killing each other and snitching to their handlers.

“Are you alright?”

He was still there in the front seat trying to hand me my portion of the food order. I wanted to take it, but my hands wouldn’t move. My stomach didn’t feel quite right again.

The door opened automatically. My body knew what it needed to do. I was on the side of the car dry heaving again. Throwing up was becoming normal and I was sure I needed medication of some sort for the mental breakdowns that felt never-ending.

James was there. Brent was there. Someone was holding my hair and rubbing my back. Tears flowed freely and I couldn’t throw up no matter how desperately I wanted to. It was all stomach acid and spit. God, it hurt.

“I think I’m hungry now.”

––––––––

M y bed was cozy as James went on about basic business topics and how to read certain documents. He knew I wasn’t paying much attention, but he also knew that I needed some form of distraction for my aching and broken mind.

I threw my food up when I got home. Brent and Kelly chatted about who knows what when I passed out from throwing up. James sat with the other guy outside for a bit while I was taking a disassociation induced nap.

“... to find financial irregularities.”

Like I said, I wasn’t paying much attention.

“Can you repeat that last statement?” I was staring at the ceiling, lost in my own thoughts.

“Learning to understand quarterly reports and the balance sheets will help if you are looking to find financial irregularities.”

“Has anyone been keeping track of those documents? I think I want the name of the person who handles reports like these. They may be connected to the people who had a hand in trying to destroy my mother’s legacy.”

He looked surprised almost. Like the documents he talked about were in the hands of someone capable. But, from what I’ve learned lately, no one was to be trusted. My guard would be up and strong around everyone who wasn’t me.

“Mr. Evans would have the name of anyone handling finances. It may be more than one person and if you’re correct in your assumptions, it would be tearing down the company leadership and putting it back together. A feat in itself outside of keeping daily operations going.”

If the financial portion of the company was being handled by those wanting to do us dirty, I didn’t want to know who else was inside the walls that had sledgehammers waiting to tear down the walls. Another worry to add to the list.

I sighed and resigned myself to not getting distracted like I needed to be. “I think our tutoring session is over. This has been enlightening, and you’ve helped me tremendously, but I’m getting overwhelmed again and I don’t think I have another dry heaving session in me tonight.”

A sad smile came over his face. Since being assigned to me, I think he started understanding how horribly ignorant I was. It was like seeing someone transferred into an alternate reality—and that reality was a horror movie—and watching them flounder until the killer finally stabbed them to death. “I understand. I’ll let Mr. Vaughn know.”

“Brent or Augustus?”

“The one patiently waiting for you to let him in.”

Oh, don’t tell me that James was going soft for Brent now. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

“Then I’ll let you kick him out yourself. He won’t leave if I tell him to.”

He was right. Brent was stubborn and wouldn’t leave if I told him to either.

Not two seconds after James left, Brent was leaning in my doorway. “Feeling any better? I bought some anti-nausea meds while you were out cold.” He shook the bottle at me.

I held my hand out for them, silently agreeing to let him in to hand them to me.

“No sour words for me?”

“I think someone who deals with the financial documents has been working to undermine the company and help take it from me.” He deserved to have his questions ignored—we had bigger problems to deal with.

He laid next to me. “Then I’ll find out who it is and deal with them. You need a solid night of sleep.”

So casual. He offered to kill someone just like that and told me to kick back and relax like I asked him to take out the trash bin for collection day. It’s like it didn’t register that it was killing someone for him—it was just a simple bag of trash going out to the curb.

“You’ll find them all in one night and solve my problems within twelve hours?”

”I would do it in ten minutes if you asked me to.”

I scoffed. “That’s a little unrealistic, don’t you think?”

Next to me, he trailed his fingers up and down my arm. When he got this close, he was always so touchy. I couldn’t think of a time when he was this close that he wasn’t trying to connect his fingers to my skin in some way.

He flipped onto his side and played with my hair. “For you? Never.”

“What else did you need to tell me?”

He kissed my head. “It can wait a few more hours.”

I turned to face him, too tired to fight. Food wasn’t staying down, and my brain was tired. “Why are you here?”

“Because you don’t seem to have any other friends.” Why he always needed to poke fun would never make sense—the situation we were in didn’t need shitty jokes.

“What makes you think you’re my friend?”

The dim light made him look softer than he was. Shadows were cast in just the right places that he looked comfortable for a change. His eyes were trained on my face that made me question if I looked like a complete wreck and his thumb stroked my cheek in soft swipes. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

“Good.”

“Why’re you asking so many questions?”

Because I can’t make sense of anything around me. Because he appeared in my life out of nowhere and I couldn’t understand why. Because my brain was going in a million different directions, and I needed to be distracted.

“So, you’ll answer them. How come we were assigned together?”

“Fate, probably.” His eyes looked sleepy even though I knew he was wide awake.

“Are you taking over your company soon too?”

He sighed and kissed my forehead. “I don’t know. Sometimes he has plans that I’m not aware of and have to fly by the seat of my pants.”

“How long have you been killing people for?”

“What made you think its someone in your finance department?”

A lot of things did. The letters that were signed making her my guardian and forging my name took legal people to handle. Staging a hostile takeover would mean making deals that required money. If that was the route being taken, based on my—limited—knowledge, it would be a perfect coup set up to make a few unseen tweaks to steal it from under me.

How would she take over if I became the legal owner now, though? We needed to work quickly and have the succession begin immediately.

I sighed and leaned into him more, letting him wrap his arms around me. While it felt nice, I shouldn’t have gotten used to things like him touching or holding me. Sex wasn’t going to breach its way into my mind. “A lot of things. It made sense when I thought about it.”

“What else are you thinking about?”

“That we should keep our relationship strictly business.”

“This is considered a business conversation,” he countered, leaning into me more. He wasn’t planning on letting me go any time soon.

I had to rip the band aid off. “I don’t want a romantic relationship with you.”

“That’s too bad.”

“What about Sloane?” She was still deep in the back of my mind, her threats making me wonder how far she would go because of Brent. She threatened me twice in one night. If she knew earlier, that means her skank comment at the game was directed at me specifically.

From what I gathered, her family had the same power as any other of the leaders in the elite world. They organized people together—meaning they could organize them apart.

“Don’t worry about her. In fact, don’t say her name ever again. I want to forget she exists for just two seconds.”

The more I wondered, the more I worried. If connections meant everything to her, securing a relationship with him secured a lot for her. The money, the power, the weird bragging rights she wanted to have so badly. I didn’t want to be mixed up in something else when threats from every other angle loomed over my head. She had the power to try to kill me—or try to push me somewhere.

Like with Alexander. If she pushed me that way, what was in it for her?

“She claims to be your girlfriend and threatened me. How could I not be concerned? My company is slipping away from me when I barely know how to read a damned budget report. Not to mention the weird threats and ominous messages I get.”

His eyes shot fully open. “Why did you not think to tell me?”

“I told Kelly. She said she was going to sleuth about. It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does after today. Blondie, whatever you think you want to do, you’re not going to get rid of me. Our fates are tied together, and they have been since we were born. Your mother tied her company to my grandfather’s ship. That means that you and I will always be tied together.”

I regretted speaking. “I don’t want to be tied to you!”

“I want to be tied up with you forever. If I sink to the bottom of the ocean, it better be because you dragged me there yourself. Drown me, Blondie, because I don’t want it any other way.”

My heart rate sped up and he knew it. He knew when my body reacted to him because he reveled in it. My body betrayed me every time—I just preferred to blame him for it.

“You barely even know me.”

“Then give me more of you.”

“I...can’t.”

He played with my hair again, kissing the side of my face and pulling his body closer. The pull between us was purely lust. No way I would like someone like him. A killer. A ruthless man trained by someone who clung to the top via illegal means.

“Then let me find it.” His hands moved to my body, spreading across my stomach and gripping my sides.

“You won’t,” I breathed. His scent overwhelmed me and sent me somewhere else. The back of his bike. On the porch smoking. In the diner eating food. In my bed where he—

Our lips met and I knew it was another mistake. For him, it was just sex. For me, it would have to just be a distraction. Because after tonight I would need to cut any and all romantic ties.

We were assigned to work together. Just business. Nothing beyond that could happen.

“We can’t, Brent. Our comp—”

He covered my mouth with his hand and shushed me. “None of these words need to come out of your mouth. The only thing I want to hear is you moaning my name and forgetting everything else, let me be a terrible distraction. Your terrible decision.”

Just a terrible decision between business partners.

Before I knew it, our clothes were off, and he was on top of me again. His hands trailed down my body with the confidence of the secret knowledge he had about my body. Those hands have been here before.

And before that, his small touches were memorizing my skin.

“There’s people here,” I whispered.

“I don’t care. Everyone will know that you’re mine eventually.”

His mouth trailed down my chest and toward my navel, placing kisses on every inch like he hadn’t seen my body in decades.

“But–”

“Then you better be quiet.”

With a desperate quickness, he gripped my legs again to settle in between my thighs.

“Brent.”

“Blondie, my sweet, sweet Blondie.” He bit down softly on the inside of my thigh. “I could eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

My back did that automatic arching thing again, drowning out the sounds my mind made. The outside world felt far away, but in our little bubble, it wasn’t far away. It just faded into the distance to keep me sheltered from how it broke me down piece by piece. He found each piece and kissed them.

“We can’t.”

“We can. Don’t worry about anything outside of this room. You’re here with me, and I’m a hell of a lot scarier.” He sank a finger into me, watching for my reaction.

If things could only be as simple as sex .

When he knew he found the right spot, he added a second finger, pushing into me with slow and steady movements. I felt myself relaxing and grinding my hips into his rhythm.

“That’s it. Just like this?”

He knew it was. He just wanted to hear me say it. “Yes,” I breathed. “Just like that.”

Keeping the pace, he growled with need before clasping his mouth onto my clit. He sucked and he licked until my eyes rolled back into my head and I just about shouted his name.

I gripped the sheets around me, hoping I could hold on for dear life as the orgasm built up inside me. “Fuck,” I groaned. It was right there, and he was hitting it over, and over, and over...

My orgasm quickly overwhelmed me, sending shockwaves through me. A rush of relaxation and ecstasy ran through me. He took that as a sign of victory and kept going, urging my spasming body to take just a little bit more.

At this rate, he seemed to be down there for more of his enjoyment than mine. “Have I ever told you how delicious you are?”

“Probably twice already.” I was panting and my mind wasn’t formulating words or thoughts properly. His tactics on distracting me might have been working.

He chuckled, skimming his lips over my skin. Each time they made contact was a jolt of electricity to my already sensitive body. “I’ll have to keep reminding you.”

Crawling up to meet my eyes, his mouth never left my skin. He caressed every part of me like he’d never see it again. Like it was his last meal before execution. Skin to skin, his body and hands were glued to me.

I felt relaxed enough to melt into the bed.

“Blondie?”

“Yeah?”

“Have I ever told you how soft your skin is?”

I scoffed at him. The niceties were getting ridiculous. “Is this just a compliment session or something?”

Fingers trailed up my stomach and circled around my nipples, giving me a shiver down my spine. “It could be if you want it to be. I would worship your feet if you’d let me.”

This guy was something else. Every time I thought I would know what he’d do or say, he did or said something that made me question what the hell was rolling through his mind.

“Uh. No feet stuff. Unless it’s strictly a foot massage with no sexual undertones.”

He kissed me. Soft and slow. “Whatever you want,” he whispered into my mouth.

My hands found his body this time. Feeling the muscles in his arms to his shoulders as I held on lest I slip away from this moment. He had muscles in all the right places and his physique could make a blind woman swoon.

I pushed him over and climbed on top. “I want something like this.”

“Be on top, then. Use me however you’d like to, Blondie. I’m all yours.” He gripped my hips, guiding me closer and closer.

There was no hesitation this time. I guided his cock right where I wanted it to go, sliding it inside me. Since that first time, I got curious about more. A needed distraction. Something simple.

It was simple to have sex with him. Maybe later it wouldn’t be. For now, it was.

I controlled the pace from above him, letting his cock slide in and out how I wanted it. The full feeling when he was deep inside had me begging for more.

“Just like that,” he cooed. “Look at you on top of me. Such a beautiful sight.”

Our lips met when I leaned over, him taking over the thrusting and holding onto my hips as he kept up the pace. “You feel so good,” I mumbled in between kisses.

The pace quickened and he was pounding inside of me quicker, faster. My God, it was so good I never wanted it to end. I wanted to be wrapped up in this bedroom forever just letting him fuck me over and over again. Being drunk on this feeling could last forever.

He swiped my hair away from my face to look into the depths of my soul while he was inside of me. His eyes were a pool of intensity with our bodies connected. I’d never seen him look so serious, so calm, and yet so at ease in the same moment. It was like he was enjoying it so much more than I was.

Slamming into me again, his hands gripped tighter. “Where do you want it?”

“Want what?” He was already inside of me, there was perfect.

He grunted, his hands holding even tighter. Kisses furious. “Where do you want me to come, Blondie. Tell me.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I’m about to come inside you.”

Another new feeling. He was pulsing inside of me for the first time and my sensitivity level was maxed out. We both moaned while he came, and I knew it would be the end of me. The end of everything. A few times of sex with him had become addicting.

Too addictive for me to let it keep happening. A distraction was nice, but this couldn’t continue. We were business partners, and this complicated an already messy situation.

Plus, my bodyguard probably just heard me have sex. That’s awesome.

Brent kissed me again, not wanting to let go. He held onto me as I laid on his chest, his heartbeat started slowing down to a normal rhythm. We laid like that for too long because my eyes threatened to close on me for the night.

“Brent?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you should go.”

He held on tighter. “I don’t want to.”

Sleep would have been easy to drift off to with him, but I couldn’t let this go any farther. My heart needed to be guarded. Sleeping with him was a mistake, I wanted it to be as simple as liking a man and deciding to go all the way, but that’s not where I was.

Our companies were linked and that made whatever we were doing complicated enough. Couple that with the current climate of a situation? A ticking time bomb. We still had to figure out who was behind the series of creepy texts and if Alexander would be back with a vengeance. All of that was far too complicated if I got dragged into anything to do with Brent outside of a professional relationship.

He didn’t seem to believe me when I told him I wanted him to go, but he left without a fuss—bad sign. Something told me he would give me the win for now but that he’d be back and with a vengeance. Nothing would reaaallly keep him away for long. He would be back.

The door shut behind him and tears freely flowed. The distraction wasn’t enough to keep my spiraling mental state away.

Or my bout of nausea.

My phone buzzed and I was too sick to look at who it was. It was probably Brent, and I had no energy to deal with that.

So, I threw up until I fell asleep on the bathroom floor.