Page 45 of Remnants
Pushing the door the rest of the way open, I stride toward the bar where I’m most likely to find Ethan. He looks up from where he’s mopping the floor, his smile lighting up his face when he sees me. Then he notices the others, and it falls slightly. It’s still there, still polite, but not as warm as it had been for me.
Probably because of Kellan’s and Dane’s attitudes the last time we were here.
I offer him a genuine smile, hoping to keep his attention away from them. I can pass along this message on my own to avoid any…unpleasant remarks the others might share with him. None of their attitude is his fault; it’s mine. I’d rather keep the conversation we had outside between us for my own sake as well as Ethan’s.
“Hi,” I greet a bit awkwardly. Here I am, showing up again with an entourage that has doubled in size. I can only imagine what Ethan’s thinking. “Sorry to show up without notice, but I need to talk to you about something. It’s important.”
He pulls his gaze from the others, his warm smile returning when he focuses back on me. “Yeah, of course. Do you want to go sit?” He motions to the booths in the back, then reaches for me.
I don’t know how I know that Jackson’s acted—call it instinct, intuition, whatever—but I see the knife out of the corner of my eye flying toward Ethan’s extended hand, and I knock his hand aside right before it hits its mark. The knife strikes the floor with athunk, burying halfway deep.
“What the—” Ethan starts, turning to look where it came from.
Aiden’s frowning while Kellan and Dane smirk unapologetically.
“Excuse me.” I turn and storm up to Jackson, grabbing his handand dragging him to the back hallway until we’re in Elias’s office. It’s the only office I know, and he’s not here, so hopefully he won’t mind.
Closing the door behind us, I whirl on Jack. “What was that?! That wasn’t even a warning shot. You were actually going to hit him. For what? For touching me? He’s afriend, Jack. We don’t stab friends.”
Jackson smiles, but it’s cold and sharp as ice. The bloodlust of last night is still there, lurking in the shadows of his eyes and cruelty in his smile. I’d held him back, but how long had I expected that to last? “I don’t do warnings anymore.” He steps closer, and I step back. The violent maelstrom of repressed energy falls off him in waves. My heart flutters wildly in my chest as he closes in on me. “People learn faster this way.”
Another step.
My back hits the door.
His hands follow, slapping the door either side of me and caging me in. He lowers his face to my ear, his breath heating my neck and sending a thrill of danger through me. “Hold my leash, little one. Hold it tight,” he warns softly, his voice coated in darkness. “There is no more patience, no morewait and seewhen it comes to you. I’m one breath away from lighting the world on fire. I don’t need it. Everyone can burn if it means you’ll be safe.”
His words heat my blood, lighting a fire in me. I breathe in the cooler air around us, hoping to stay level-headed even as his monster calls to mine. “That’d be a dull world, with no one and nothing else in it,” I tease on a low murmur.
“Not for me. You’re all I want. All I need. Let them burn.”
“Jack,” I chastise on an exhale as if he’s stolen the oxygen from my lungs.
I can feel the violence buzzing in him, vibrating beneath his skin and seeking an outlet. He’d lost himself in a killing frenzy last night, but there’s more to it than that. He’s been off since I woke up in the hospital; something not quite right about his silence. Something dark raging in the depths of his stare.
It could be any number of things, now that I think about it. My father getting the better of us by infiltrating the bunker. Him kidnapping and then hurting Dane and me. Gordon dying before I could get my retribution.
Last night probably opened the door to that rage, giving himself a taste of what he wanted without fully satiating that desire.
Now, it feels like something as small as a sneeze would unleash him on the world.
“Hold my leash.”
I push him back enough that he raises his head to look at me, trapping me in his stare. His eyes are such a deep blue. Dark and dangerous like the unexplored depths of the ocean, dragging you down if you don’t keep swimming for your life.
I reach for one of his hands, and without hesitation, he gives it to me, allowing me to guide it down my front. Down, down. Touching my abdomen and following the skin further beneath my clothes, down to my core. His fingers twitch, bumping against my cunt as I withdraw my own hand to shift my clothes and widen my legs to grant him more access.
He slides a finger in, then two when he feels how wet I am already. I groan when they sink deeper, clutching at his arm to both encourage him more and for my own sake. Our eyes stay locked, and it seems like he’s hardly breathing until the moan bursts from my lips. Only then does he draw a visible, shaky breath, and it feels like I’ve made the first step to sating the monster in him.
I wrap my hand around his nape, drawing him closer until our foreheads press together and our noses touch. The air between us thickens. His fingers push in and out, stroking my inner walls with measured intensity that has me desperate for more. My hips jerk, thrusting against him to seek that friction as I cling to his neck and arm. Stroke. Stroke. Faster. Faster. More.More.
“Hold my leash.”
Wait!
I snatch his hand, halting him before I find my release. I’m gasping for air, my body on absolutefire, but I move his hand to his lips in an unspoken request. Jackson takes his fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean with his eyes on mine, and my thighs clench.
Yes.
