Catching Sin, page 15
“So, you’ve . . . belonged to him since you were sixteen? Since he walked into that bathroom and claimed you as his own.”
I swallow hard, the thought as revolting and sick as his tone suggests. I hate how quick he was to figure it all out. “Yes.” I close my eyes, too terrified to watch his reaction. I don’t want Maddox to think less of me. To think I’m stupid and weak for allowing myself and Justin to fall under Anthony Conti’s control. In my defense, I was young and alone and scared Justin and I were going to end up in foster care. I didn’t see evil when I looked into his dark eyes that day. I saw a way out of our horrible situation, and I took it. Still, it’s hard to regret it now. Justin’s elated smile as he held up his A+ springs into my mind.
We fall silent once more. I don’t mention Justin; he’s never asked me about siblings.
“What do you think?” he finally goes for. “Should we hop in the pool?”
I smile so big all my teeth show. “In our clothes?”
His gaze finally, freaking finally, meets mine. “You afraid?” His eyes drop to my thin black blouse and I feel my nipples salute him. I shouldn’t like the idea of being wet in an empty pool with Maddox, my boss, as much as I do. I didn’t tell him I was stealing intel for the enemy. I’m duplicitous to the worst degree and I should not interact more with him than necessary for work. It’s wrong. But it feels so good I don’t know how to stop.
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“I won’t let you drown.”
“Prove it.” I jump in without a second thought, coasting back until I’m nearly in the center of the pool.
“Fuck,” I hear him hiss before he dives in from a sitting position, swimming over to me as my movements start to falter.
I really can’t swim. That wasn’t a lie. Swimming lessons are for rich kids who have access to pools or live by the ocean. I was neither. He swims over to me quickly, grabbing me around the waist and hoisting me up over the break of the water. “Are you trying to die?”
“Maybe I just wanted you to save me.”
He grins up at me and the way my heart flutters in my chest tells me I’m more than in trouble. This crush, this thing I have for him . . . it’s turning into something real. My wet hair brushes across his face as he hoists me up. Rivulets of water run down his cheeks and my breath stalls at just how handsome he is. I grip his shoulders, holding on tight.
“My hero.”
“No, baby,” he says, his blues locking on mine, so eerily calm, his full lips holding not a hint of a smile. “You don’t need me to save you. You’ve been fighting your own battles over and over again. It’s about time you start owning that.”
My throat thickens and I’m desperate to move, to squirm out of his arms and get away. Instead, I stare at him, paralyzed. Was I saving myself all this time? Have I been saving Justin? Is that what this burn in my stomach is? Fire? Grit? Determination?
Maybe, he’s right. Maybe I don’t need a savior. Maybe I just need myself. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting him. Does it?
Seventeen
MADDOX
* * *
The worst part about living in Nevada? It’s a landlocked state. No ocean. Hell, it’s a fucking desert climate, so there’s not much water other than the fake-ass features in front of the casinos. I didn’t grow up in Australia or California. I grew up in Georgia, and beaches on the east coast aren’t particularly known for their surfing. Plus, I’m six-six if I’m an inch, and broad, which means my center of gravity is decently fucked. Not all that conducive for surfing.
But that didn’t stop me from trying.
Didn’t stop me from loving the hell out of waking up at five a.m. on weekends and making the thirty-minute drive from Savannah to Little Tybee Island to hit the waves with my wetsuit and board. It was the only place I couldn’t think. The only place that eliminated everything beyond basic survival instincts. You couldn’t hear past the roar of the water and you couldn’t see past the wave while trying not to drown.
I lost my virginity on that beach.
I got drunk and stoned for the first time there, too.
It’s where I first told a girl I loved her. And meant it.
And even though I wasn’t going to be doing any surfing, that beach is where I was headed the night my entire life changed in the worst possible way.
Exactly eleven years ago today.
It’s why I’m still sitting in my office under the bullshit pretense of doing work, even though it’s close to six-thirty now. I can’t go home. I can’t be alone with myself or my thoughts. Visions of that night flash through my head, one after the other like a taunting masochistic collage. They’re always there. Always lurking in the background. And no matter how many things I’ve done, how many people, women, I’ve saved, there is no righting my wrong.
And I no longer have a place to go to remove my ability to think. Hence why I’m still here.
Spinning around in my chair, I face the window. I’m restless, overly edgy, and incapable of sitting still for too long. The sky is echoing my mood—stormy, dark, hateful. I want to stand up and smash my head against the glass. I want to feel it shatter and cut me open. I want to punch it. Punch something so hard until the earthquake of emotion inside me settles back down into a manageable rumble.
My phone chirps from my pocket and I take a few extra moments to reach for it, too busy watching the lines of tears streak down my windows and the flashes of lightning erupt across the sky.
Jake.
The considerate bastard gave me a wide berth all day.
Go home or come over or go to the gym. But leave the fucking office.
Or, if you’d rather go hunting to burn the energy, I’m with you. Whatever you want.
A half-hearted grin crawls up the corner of my lips. I know he’s with me. To say we have each other’s back is an understatement. Ours is the level of trust that’s earned in battle and happens when you believe the man next to you would risk his life for yours and knows you’d do the same for him without hesitation. Our friendship is a brotherhood. And though we only served for two years together before Jake was shot in the shoulder, it was enough for us. Not that I go around sharing my shit freely. Jake’s the only one who knows my dark truth, and that’s simply because I got shitfaced one night in Afghanistan and told him.
Hunting. He’s not talking about deer, either. He’s talking about running recon. Gaining intel. He’s talking about Conti. As much as that’s a necessity, now more than ever, I’m too distracted tonight to focus on that. I don’t reply. I don’t have to.
Last year he wrongly assumed smothering me in human interactions was the way to keep me from ending up face down in a bottle. I think he learned his lesson this year.
Before I became the COO, I was a dealer, a bouncer, the head of casino floor security—Brian’s current job. And as I sit here in my executive office, staring out my corporate window and wearing a three-thousand-dollar suit that makes me feel more like a monkey than a man, I wish I could return to that. I don’t feel powerful in suits like these. I don’t need them to earn respect or intimidate. I don’t need them to negotiate a deal or prove I can roll with the big boys. And they sure as shit don’t hide my particular brand of crazy. At least not today.
“I’m going home now,” Isabel murmurs from where she’s hovering at my door. She should have left over an hour ago. Honestly, I didn’t realize she was still here, or I would have told her to go.
“Have a good night.”
“Do you need me to do anything before I go?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
Isabel. I want so many things from you.
“Nope.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay then.”
I don’t bother turning around to face her, but I note her heavy sigh and sweet scent that is uniquely hers. It’s not perfume. It’s just Isabel. Her warmth hits my back even from across the room. The moment she leaves, everything wonderfully distracting that came with her does as well.
I think I frightened Isabel.
She’s been silently lurking all day, sitting at her desk and quietly doing her work, only communicating with me via text or email, even though I was directly across the hall from her.
Isabel. My Starshine. She called me her hero. She might hate me when this is all over and done, but the way she looked at me when she said that . . .
She’s the one girl I can’t fall for and the one girl I can’t stay away from.
“Fuck this.”
I already spent two hours in the gym this morning, and honestly, all I want to do is eat a shit-ton of greasy food, drink some really expensive tequila, and watch mindless sports. Alone. That actually sounds like a pretty damn good pity party to me.
Dialing up takeout from my favorite barbeque place, I order one of almost everything from the menu. That’s going to take a while given the size of the order, so I head downstairs to my favorite bar, Valaria’s. It’s where Jake and Fiona used to work together, and if I wasn’t so into being alone, I’d probably sit at the bar and do my thing here. It’s Wednesday or some shit, but I swear, this place is always crowded, even in February during a crazy ass storm in the middle of the week.
Walking behind the bar, I snag a full bottle of Gran Patron from the top shelf. “I’m taking this,” I tell Diamond, one of the bartenders. I drop three hundred dollars on the counter and walk out. She can keep the change for herself. I don’t even care.
I set the bottle on my passenger seat, start up my Jeep, make sure the top is up, and then pull out of the garage. Heading south on Las Vegas Boulevard during rush hour is a nightmare on a good day. In the middle of a rain storm is ten times worse. My wipers are barely keeping up.
As I creep along, suddenly, everything stops.
My car. My patience. The world.
Because there, sitting at the bus stop in the thunder, lightning, and rain, blatantly being harassed by a gang of assholes coated in tattoos and a death wish, is Isabel. There are three of them and she’s sitting with her legs crossed, arms folded, no longer wearing the pretty black sheath dress she had on today. Nope. She’s wearing a black blouse of some kind, with her black leather pants and black boots. Her hair is down and wet and sticking to her body—as are her clothes—and she’s yelling something at them that I can’t hear. I’m going to kill them all because one of them just touched her arm.
These assholes picked the wrong girl on the wrong fucking day.
I’m out of the car before I even get my next heartbeat. Horns honk, blaring their aggravation behind me since I’m now parked in the middle of the right lane. I don’t care. I hardly notice, except the punks at the bus stop do. Their pinheads all swivel at once in the direction of the orchestra of sound. That’s when they spot me. One of them smiles tauntingly, as if to say, “game on.” One takes a step back, his expression filled with uneasiness as he glances to his friends for their next move. The last one shifts to stand in front of Isabel, as if marking his territory and protecting his property from the psycho headed their way.
“Get in the car, Starshine,” I bark, not wanting to use her real name and give these goons anymore bait. She moves to stand, but the guy in front of her pushes her back down.
Fucking idiot.
“Sorry there, friend,” the guy says smugly. “But we saw her first.”
I don’t stop until I’ve reached him. I wrap my hands around his neck, lifting him off the ground and slamming him back into the plastic barrier, his head bouncing off an advertisement for Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage. I give his neck a good squeeze and he makes an extremely satisfying gurgling sound as his feet dangle from the ground, thrashing back and forth, attempting to kick me. He grips my wrists, his minimal fingernails digging into my flesh. The small zing of pain drives me on. He’s smaller than me. They all are. Then again, so are most people.
The stupid ass is still smiling like he has the upper hand. Some people really don’t know when to cut their losses and run. He puffs out a breath and I catch the rancid stench of beer. They’re drunk. Fantastic. I squeeze again to let him know I mean business and his smile begins to falter. His bug eyes widen into genuine fear like I might actually strangle him to death in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard. Again, fucking idiot.
One of his friends comes up to my side, grabbing hold of my wrist, trying to pry his friend’s neck free. My eyes cleave a path of murder in his direction and the coward steps back, throwing his hands up in surrender. They could have weapons. Knives or guns. But somehow, I doubt it. Their tattoos are custom, not prison. Their clothes are designer, not second-hand. The diamonds in the ears of the asshole I have strung up are real. And they’re too scared and stupid to be made men. They’re rich boys with too much time and money, with too much arrogance and zero repercussions for their evil deeds. My bet is that they’re tourists, here for a good time and thinking all girls in this town are easy prey.
“Come on, man!” one of the dude-bros yells, pulling back on my shoulders and getting nowhere with his attempts to disengage me from his friend. “Let him go. No harm, no foul, right? We were just having some fun.” He’s yelling because his friend is turning redder and can’t speak or breathe much past his constricted trachea.
“I’m going to tell you this once,” I spit in his face. “You don’t touch women who say no. You don’t harass women who say no. You don’t look at women who fucking. Say. No. It’s not a joke. It’s not having some fun. And it most definitely doesn’t make you more of a man.” I release him before he passes out and step back. The guy falls to the ground in a heap, clutching his neck and coughing as he sucks in air. His friends aren’t smiling anymore. They’re standing back, giving me a wide berth, jumpy that I’ll unleash my crazy on them next.
Isabel is staring at me with an indiscernible expression, half in the rain, half under the protective barrier of the bus stop, her arms wrapped around her chest as if staving off the cold and wet. She’s soaked and quiet and so pretty my chest hurts.
“If I ever see any of you near her again, I won’t be so forgiving. I live on this Strip. I own this motherfucking Strip. Don’t come back.”
I turn around, take Isabel’s hand and walk her to the passenger side of my Jeep. Opening the door for her, I grab my expensive bottle of tequila and help her in. Her eyes find mine as I shut the door. I feel her following me as I round the car, set the bottle in the backseat and get in. I feel her eyes on me as I buckle my seatbelt and throw the Jeep back into drive. And when I glance in her direction and find her practically leaning against the door, it occurs to me that I might have scared her.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” I ask, trying for soft and unintimidating. “I’m sorry I don’t have a towel,” I continue when she doesn’t answer. I turn up the heat, pointing the vents in her direction because she has to be cold. She’s soaked through. Her backpack on her lap is in no better shape. I let out a harsh growl. “Why were you taking the bus? Don’t you have a car?” I already know she doesn’t and it’s driving me up a wall that I didn’t consider that before.
Lightning flashes across the sky, followed by a loud crack of thunder. It’s only pissing me off further. Why the fuck was she out in this? We’re slowly crawling along the Strip. All I wanted tonight was to get my food and take a few shots and watch some basketball. Now she’s here. And now I can barely breathe I’m so fired up.
She doesn’t answer me. Fucking answer me! “Why don’t you have a car, Isabel?”
“They’re expensive, Maddox.”
She’s taunting me. Her mocking tone is taunting me, and once again, I want to spank her ass red. No one makes me as crazy as this woman does, and I love it as much as it drives me wild. I shake my head. Conti, whatever the hell he is to her, is a billionaire and he lets her take the bus? “I’m going to give you access to a company car.”
“No, you’re not. I don’t want your charity.”
Christ. This girl. This beautiful, stubborn girl. I wonder if that’s why Conti never gave her a car. I wonder if she makes him as nuts as she makes me. I run a hand through my hair, shaking off the remaining drops of water that linger on my short ends.
“Next time it’s raining or it’s late or dark, you’re going to drive a company car home or I’m giving you a ride myself.” She opens her mouth, no doubt to protest, but I cut her off. “Don’t argue with me on this. It’s non-negotiable.”
“Last I checked I’m a grown woman fully capable of making her own decisions. You’re my boss. That doesn’t give you the right to dictate how I do things.”
We’re back to this shit now? “Isabel, I swear to God.” I turn to look at her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not someone to fight with today. It’s for your safety and my sanity and that’s the fucking end of it.” She huffs out a breath, but she’s smiling. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because you’re cute when you’re angry.”
“Cute?” I puff out incredulously. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me cute before.”
“That’s because they’re afraid of you.”
“And you’re not?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head at me, that smile spreading into something whole and uninhibited and unbelievably sexy. “Not even a little.”
“Good.” That’s the extent of my super brain power right now. That smile, man. Jesus.
“This is not the way to my apartment.”
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to take her home. I know I should. I know I should give her as much distance as I can, especially outside the office. I’m infatuated with her ass—and all her other parts—and man enough to admit it to myself. That raw truth doesn’t make it easier to manage. If anything, it makes it harder. But it’s been a really shitty day and I’m suddenly not so anxious to go home and eat all that food and drink all that alcohol and watch all that basketball alone. “I ordered a lot of really good barbeque and I bought that bottle of expensive tequila in the back. Any interest in sharing them with me?”
