Chapter 6

Emberlyn:

I was laying on the edge of the bed in the guest room naked, my breast and pussy exposed to the elements while some clean, soft grey sweater and fitted jeans, somehow exactly my size, were lying next to me.

I was counting.

I had orgasm four times in less than twenty-four hours.

I pressed my fingers to my pussy. They were still red and slightly swollen. Touching it reminded me of the sensation of having him inside me, pounding away. I was already getting a little wet just thinking about it.

The problem wasn't the number. The problem was that I'd stopped being embarrassed somewhere between the second and third time, and by the fourth I'd been practically begging for him to use his dick and teach me all sorts of lessons.

Reaching for him. Saying his name over and over like a prayer. I was losing my mind.

I put the sweater on and stood up. The mirror on the wall showed my hair was tied back in a braid. The clothes I borrowed fit well. There was a hickey on my neck just below my collarbone, where his mouth had been a bit too long.

I looked like someone who'd spent the night in a man's penthouse getting her brains fucked out.

I did because I had.

I picked up my jacket from the chair and walked out of the room before I could think more about what I was wearing.

He was already downstairs. He had on a coat and was holding his car keys like he'd scheduled this in a calendar and I was running two minutes behind.

"I can take the subway," I said immediately.

"I know." He said and turned toward the front door.

I followed him like a lost slutty puppy with a leash he controlled.

The car was really sleek and black. The driver did not look at me or Jaxon, who got in after me and the door closed, sealing us inside with the smell of expensive leather and his cologne, which I was starting to suspect was chemically designed to dismantle my better judgment.

I pushed myself against the window and looked outside as the city looped around us.

"Turn around."

His voice was quiet, almost conversational. The kind of voice that didn't expect to be disobeyed.

I turned.

He was already putting his hand into the pocket of his coat. He had something between his fingers. I opened my mouth to speak but his hand went to my shoulder. He turned me back to the window gently. Then I felt something cool and heavy go around my neck. It was a chain. His fingers were moving slowly at the back of my neck putting the clasp in place.

His lips followed one slow press of warmth against the nape of my neck, then his hands travelled down my body, fondled my breast over the jacket. I folded my legs as I felt my pussy pool.

“Not here” he said and then nothing.

When I found myself, my hand lifted before I could stop it, fingertips finding the pendant. It was small.

Smooth at some edges but rough at others. It was strange, like something made from a material I had never seen before.. It was beautiful, in a way that I could not quite understand.

I turned to face him feeling a bit ashamed.

"I cannot take this."

"I know you think that."

"Jaxon, "

"I'm not asking you if you want it." His grey eyes stared at mine without blinking.

"I'm giving it to you."

The silence that followed felt heavy. I bit my lips while looking out the window again. My fingers still touched the pendant.

I tried hard to ignore the voice in my head that was listing all my choices from the last forty-eight hours. It was going through them one by one with notes.

You slept with him at the club. Then again in the shower. Then twice more in ways you're not ready to itemize. And now you're sitting in his car wearing his jewelry and the worst part — the genuinely catastrophic part is that you're not even upset. All this while your sister is hospitalized, you are such a slut!

I pressed my hand flat against my knee and shut the voice down.

"Last night," I said, keeping my eyes on the passing street.

"How did you find me?"

"I was already coming."

I turned to look at him then.

"What do you mean you were already on your way? I didn't tell anyone where I was headed."

"I know." He didn't say more.

He just stared at me with that look on his face like he was wearing a mask that made him unreadable. He didn't give anything away unless he wanted to.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I was coming to pick you up Emberlyn." His voice got a little softer when he said my name.

"That's the answer."

"Why?"

He turned to look out the window taking his sweet time to answer as the city went by outside.

"Because I want you to be mine, Emberlyn."

The words were quiet but hit hard like a door opened suddenly into a room I didn't know was there. I stared at his face, his hard jaw. He said it like it was a fact he already accepted.

"Jaxon." I kept my voice even.

"What happened between us at the club that was one night. It wasn't, "

"I know what it was." He turned back to me.

"And I know what I want it to become."

"Which is."

"My personal Stripper" The ghost of something crossed his face.

"You. In my bed. When I want you there."

I blinked. "That's, "

"In exchange," he continued, like I hadn't started a sentence,

"you'll have everything you need. Everything Mila needs. No clubs. No double shifts. No more nights where you're running out of a bathroom praying someone reaches you in time."

The mention of last night's alley dropped into my chest like a stone.

"You're describing an arrangement," I said carefully.

"I'm describing what I want." His eyes didn't leave mine.

"Give it a chance."

My mouth opened and then closed. I had twelve responses to that, none of them clean. Part of me wanted to tell him exactly where he could put his arrangement.

The part that had counted orgasms this morning.

"I, "

"We have arrived." The driver's voice came through the partition, smooth and unbothered.

I looked up and saw the hospital outside the window, all glass and grey concrete. I felt like our conversation had stopped suddenly like a thread that breaks when you pull it hard.

I grabbed my jacket, opened the door and stepped out. The noise of the city came in filling the space where his voice had been. I turned around for a second.

"Thank you for the ride, " I said.

He looked at me and said nothing rather, he just watched me as I walked away.

My fingers touched the pendant at my throat before I even got to the hospital entrance. They wrapped around it like it was something I did all the time like the pendant already belonged there. Then I let go of it on purpose and pushed through the hospital doors.

The ward was down the corridor to the left. The walls pale and the lights very bright. I counted the doors because I always do that. Mila's room was the one, on the right.

The ward was down the left corridor. Pale walls, fluorescent light, the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. I counted the doors out of habit. Mila's was the fourth on the right.

I pushed it open.

The bed was empty.

Not made or waiting. Empty. The pillow still carried the impression of her head. The little cup of water I'd left was still on the bedside table. But Mila was gone.

My heart dropped.

Is Mila gone?

I was already panicking, thinking the worst.

If Mila had gone while I was busying fucking someone I just met, I would forever hate myself.

I rushed out and caught the first nurse I could find in the corridor, my hand gripping her arm harder than I meant to.

"Excuse me, the patient in room four, Mila Vale, where is she? What happened, where did they take her?"

"Miss Vale?" The nurse's face softened into something professional and calm, which somehow made it worse.

"Your sister's ward was changed this morning."

I stared at her.

"Changed to where?"