Don't Hate Me (Club Pétale), page 27
It wasn’t their fault, we made sure to layer unwanted clothes and other flammable items doused with gas around to help give the fire a fighting chance.
“But now there is nothing stopping you from getting something bigger, better than before,” I said. I could already see it in my head. A beautiful, sparling house overlooking the ocean. One that was ours and ours alone.
A smile played on her lips.
“And who will pay for that now that I’m out of a job?” she asked. The teasing tone in her words caused my chest to warm.
“You know very fucking well I would buy you a Manhattan penthouse if you wanted,” I said with a huff.
And I fucking would. I planned to spend every last fucking dime I had on her until she was living like a queen. I planned to make up for every lost moment. Every time she had to go without. I planned to give her the life she never dreamed possible.
She let me pull her through the crowd. More people from the buildings next to ours had shown up, all of them looking up at the fire with a horrified look on their faces.
Just wait till they see what’s next.
“One more place,” I said. “One more thing to do, and we are out of here.”
We only got a few blocks away before the second explosion went off. Blake didn’t even falter in her steps as we left the area.
Pain shot up my arm as my hand came into contact with Jonson’s face.
He hadn’t been expecting the greeting and lost his balance, falling to the floor and looking up at me with a searing look on his face.
“Whoa, whoa,” Avery said, her hands coming to my arms and forcing them down to my side. For once she was acting like the nice guy? I almost scoffed aloud. “Jonson is here to help us. Let’s not go burning this bridge, okay?”
Her tone was warning me that I overstepped, but I didn’t care. He was the reason this whole thing started. The reason Russell couldn’t leave her alone.
Because of him, Blake had been on the run for far too long. If he had just done his job, he would have never come back.
I threw the USB Blake gave me at him. It was insane how such a small, overlooked object held all the information needed to bring down one of the most dangerous groups in the states.
“Russell and Alec Crowe,” I said, my tone deadly. “There is more than enough on them here to open a case against them. So tell me why the fuck they found Tiffany?”
His eyes widened before he shot toward Blake, who had been hidden behind me.
He acted like he didn’t know her when he came in. I would have been impressed by his willingness to keep the secret if I hadn’t been so angry.
“Tiffany, I am so sorry,” he said. I hated how sincere it sounded. “Trust me when I say I tried my best to do what I could with the information.”
“Well it wasn’t enough, was it?” I asked. “What the fuck happened?”
I wanted to hurt him. Him and anyone else who had put Blake into this position.
She had been through so much and yet after all those years in hiding, she still couldn’t have gotten a break?
I didn’t even want to think of what would happen if I hadn’t shown up when I did.
“I’m not all-powerful,” Jonson snapped at me. “Especially back then, I had little pull and worked off of favors. Alec’s group is so intertwined with the FBI that every time I tried to get a case going, it would lead nowhere.”
If I wasn’t so pissed on Blake’s behalf, I would have pitied the man.
He may have been able to pull some strings for Avery and Blake, but every single job that I had given him had been a bust.
I mean, how hard was it to frame someone? On top of that, Blake’s file had good evidence. Evidence that would cause enough swirl to at least get a case open.
“So he’s been paying people off, is that it?” I asked, my fingers twitching to grip the gun at my side.
“They owe him,” Jonson spat. “They’ve owed him for years.” His gaze shot to Tiffany. “I truly am sorry. I have been trying.”
Blake walked a few steps forward, her hand coming to rest on my arm. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Without him, I never would have left Russell in the first place.”
Avery helped Jonson stand, a small smile on her face. The smile made her look more feral than comforting. He gave her a glare, but it was halfhearted.
Well, it would seem that Avery was getting on the agent’s good side.
For a moment, I wished I could be like her. She was so good at putting on a mask that she would get just about anyone to trust her.
I had been able to use some sort of a mask for my jobs, but more often than not, the mask crumbled when I got too angry.
Like now.
Blake stepped past me, causing my hand to snap out to grab her wrist. She sent me a small smile before tugging her hand out of my hold.
She looked up at Jonson with an even wider smile.
“Thank you, for everything,” she said. “I wanted to give this to you—” She bent down to pick up the USB and place it in his hands. “To see if there is anything else you can do.”
Her kindness to him caused a bitter jealousy to rise in me. He had failed on so many levels, so why would she be so nice to him?
“I can try, but nothing is guaranteed,” he said with a frown. “Do you need a newer placement? I could try and get you something further away?”
“She won’t need it,” I hissed. The way both Avery and Blake looked back at me caused my face to heat.
“We are leaving,” she told Jonson. “This is also my goodbye. I apologize for her harshness. It’s been a stressful couple of months and well, she doesn’t really know how to interact with people.”
I don’t know how to interact with people?
“I can interact with people just fine,” I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest.
“When you’re going to kill them,” Avery said, her eyes twinkling. “Were you going to tell me too, or were you just gonna disappear on your best friend?”
“We are not friends,” I muttered under my breath.
She crossed the space between us to throw her arms around me. The action caused me to stiffen.
I could name the people on one hand that I’d ever let get close enough to touch me like this, and Avery wasn’t one of them.
“Good luck,” she whispered. “Come visit once in a while, hmm?”
“What are you—”
“There is a seaside town called Port Townsend on the West Coast,” she said. “You can thank me after you find what you’re looking for.”
She pulled away, leaving me stunned. How the fuck could she read my next move? No one should have been able to guess it, but her?
“It’s not—”
She put a finger to her lips, motioning for me to keep my mouth shut.
“How?” I asked. She gave me a wink.
“That’s what friends do, no?”
I couldn’t help but smile at her. Friends, I guess.
My eyes drifted toward Jonson and Blake, both who were looking at our display with open disbelief.
“Sorry,” I said, offering Jonson a strained smile. “I will be indebted to you if you could help out.”
He looked down at the USB with a sigh.
“I don’t think I’ll live through another one of your favors,” he said, then turned to Blake. “Good luck out there okay?”
She gave him a tight nod. “I’ll try to do well with the life you gave me.”
If I didn’t know any better, I would say the FBI agent had tears in his eyes.
Blake
Is this… what freedom feels like?
Cool air filtered through the windows. The scent of the sea was floating through the car and teasing my nose. The sun overhead caused my skin to heat up and my face to flush.
But goddamn, did it feel good.
I couldn’t remember the last time I let myself feel like this. Or the last time I stuck my hand out the window as we were racing down the highway.
The feeling of the salty air coating my skin and the fresh air filling my lungs was addicting.
Low music was playing in the background, and Quinn was humming along to it under her breath.
I cast my gaze toward her, taking in the side of her I had never seen before.
She was wearing a loose tank top, the straps of her sports bra showing through the large armholes. She wore loose black shorts. Her hair was in its normal shaggy mullet, but the side had been touched up by a random barber we found on the drive up.
One hand was gripping the wheel, the other out the window, feeling the wind flow between her fingertips.
I couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop reveling in the fact that we had left everything behind to… do what exactly? To start a new life? To live happily ever after?
Was that even possible for people like us?
It shouldn’t be. We were…monsters. Both of us killing people without any hesitation or care for what happened after. There shouldn’t be any chance in hell that we deserve a happy life after this.
All my life, I had been taught that people go to hell for even lesser crimes. Crimes they couldn’t even help at times.
But for us, we deserved whatever hell we were going to.
She turned to me, a smile already spreading across her lips. The sun shone against her skin and lit up her striking blue eyes. Without warning, she gave me a wink before turning back to the road.
My skin heated immediately.
Maybe if it was with her… hell wouldn’t be so bad.
We could build our own little life there, ignoring the demons that threatened our nightmares and caused us to lie awake at night, questioning it all.
“Do you love me?” I asked her.
She seemed startled by this question. Her smile dropped, and her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She closed it with a pout before attempting to speak again.
I don’t know why I asked that. Why I couldn’t have just let us live in the moment.
Because a part of you wants her to say yes. A part of you wants to complete the fantasy and get your happily ever after.
And because there was no one I would rather be loved by more than her. I couldn’t imagine a life without her.
Before her, whenever I looked into the future, I would see a dark, blurry image that gave me no idea what was waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.
But with her… I could see a future for us. I could see the time we spent on the beach together, laying on the warm sand and splashing her with water while she glared at me, only to get me back twice as fast.
I could see us getting our own place together, one that looked over the city. One that was small, with only enough space for the two of us, but it would be ours, and because of that, it would be perfect.
I could see us traveling the world together. She showed me bits and pieces of her life that no other person had been privy to before.
I wanted it. I wanted it so badly that it hurt.
But I was scared.
Scared of what it meant. Scared because with one wrong move, it would all blow up in our faces and we would have no time to react.
“I have never loved anyone,” she admitted. Her face twisted into a grimace. “Maybe my handler once when I was a child, but the type of love you’re talking about… I don’t know what it feels like, so it’s hard to say.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her words.
“I don’t think you would give up your entire world just to give up on killing a target if it was not for love,” I said. “Tell me what you feel when you’re around me.”
“Frustration,” she said without missing a beat. This caused my smile to drop.
“Excuse me?” I asked with a shaky laugh.
“Frustration because ever since I saw you, I found myself unable to stay away,” she said. “Frustration because I can’t be near you without touching you. Frustration because whenever I think about someone who hurt you, all I see is red. Frustration because not once did I try to think of any way out of this except for killing you. Frustration because all I want is to possess you. Make it so I never have to go a day without seeing you again. Make it so you never have to worry about a thing in your fucking life. Frustrating because I feel so powerless to it all.”
My heart pounded in my chest. Heat expanded in my chest so violently it threatened to burst. I swallowed thickly, unable to fight against the barrage of emotions her words evoked in me.
“It may be a little twisted,” I said after clearing the knot in my throat. “But I think you do love me. In a way. A completely unhealthy way, but…”
“Then I love you,” she said, her gaze snapping toward mine. Her face was serious as she looked over at me. So serious, in fact, that it caused my heart to stop. “I love you, Blake.”
“You can’t just say it like that. You have to mean it,” I murmured. My face and the back of my neck were unbearably hot.
“I mean it,” she said, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “And you don’t have to say it back, yet. We will have plenty of time for me to force it out of you as I bend you over the hood of the car and fuck that cunt of yours until you’re screaming to the world how much you love me.”
Oh my god. I regret ever introducing this type of talk to Quinn. How is it that for someone so inexperienced, she was able to make my pussy throb with just a few sentences?
I was suddenly looking forward to whenever we stopped next.
“I knew it,” I whispered in awe as I looked out at the ever-expanding ocean in front of us.
The air was even cooler there, hitting my face with each gust of wind and calming the redness the sun had left.
The beach was utterly desolate. We were the only two inhabitants.
The sea was strong, but not like it was that night when it swallowed Russell whole.
Being in front of the sea now was… calming.
I took a deep breath, letting the fresh air fill my lungs.
“Just a small break,” she said, sending me a smile. “We will be on the road until late for another two days going west before we can fully rest. There won’t be another chance to see the sea for some time.”
“No stopping at all?” I asked, turning to face her and walking backward to the ocean. She followed me closely, her eyes darting to and from the ocean as we approached.
“There’s a discreet motel between here and where we need to be by tomorrow. I’ll stop there for a few hours, but then we have to head out.”
I hummed and kicked off my shoes. The rocky floor was slightly warm against my toes, but the cool air chased the warmth away.
“If you go in there, I’m not coming after you,” she said, her voice lowering.
I cocked a brow at her and took a big step back, letting the waves brush over my feet. I gasped at the coldness the sea. It was like a shock to my system.
Similar to when my dom used pain when I was so deep in a pleasure filled haze that I couldn’t think straight. It caused my head to clear and a smile to play at my lips.
“You scared of the ocean?” I asked.
“No,” she shot back, her voice turning dangerous.
I sent her a smile before grabbing her hand and pulling her closer to me.
“Sure, you aren’t.”
She stopped right before the line of the waves, her face morphing into a deep scowl.
When she didn’t come right away, I leaned down, cupping the water in my hand, and threw it at her.
She ground her teeth together, her jaw clenching.
“You think that will make me chase you?” she asked, her voice tense.
“I think it will make you fear the water less,” I said and splashed another bit at her. “At least while you’re with me.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” she huffed and took a step closer, but just before the wave hit her foot, she inched away.
I hit her with another bit of water, and this time she didn’t think twice about charging in after me.
I couldn’t stop the squeal that slipped from my lips at the suddenness of her movements.
I tried to splash water on her as I made my escape, but she was too fast. She used both hands, leaned down, and splashed me straight in the face with water.
I coughed, trying to expel the little bit that got into my mouth. My world spun, and in an instant, I was on my back, water crashing around me. I closed my eyes on impact and squeezed them shut for fear.
Quinn’s laugh reached my ears, causing my eyes to spring open.
She was above me, her hair dripping with water. The sun was shining behind her, illuminating her face and that drop-dead gorgeous smile that spread across her face.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her smile so widely before. It was breathtaking.
The normal sullen and serious look on her face quite literally melted away, showing a cheek-aching smile paired with laughter that stemmed deep from her chest.
I wanted to commit it to memory. I wanted it to shine bright and force all the bad memories back, so I was just left with this single awe-inspiring moment.
The waves leaked into my clothing bringing sand with it, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her face to mine.
“Maybe I won’t be so afraid of it anymore,” she murmured against my lips before deepening the kiss.
Her hand slipped into my shirt, the warmness of her skin feeling akin to a burn against the coldness of mine.
I arched into her, needing to feel more of her body against mine. This time was different with her.
Time moves slowly.
Our movements were unhurried.
We took pleasure in each other without fear that it was going to end at any moment.
It was the type of connection and experience that I had yearned for since Russell personally locked the shackles on my ankles.
She freed me.
And no matter how fucked up it was that I was shackling myself to her as soon as I got a taste of freedom, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
