Caught in the Storm (16 page)

“Are you going to be able to do this?” Lexi ran her hand up and down Kat’s arm.

“Yes,” she nodded, “I’ll be fine. I can do this.”

“I don’t know if this helps or not, but it was your typical run of the mill charity event. Nothing unusual has happened,” Noah said as he peeled his mask off and tossed it on the chair.

“Let’s get this over with.” Kat started walking toward the door. She wanted to get this night behind her. She never thought that she’d be looking forward to being locked behind the walls of Noah’s beach house.

She turned around and waited for Jackson to catch up. She narrowed her eyes at him while he spoke quietly to Noah. Once he was done, she didn’t wait for him but opened the door and headed toward the elevator.

Jackson quickly caught up with her and grabbed her hand, leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “Babe, we’re supposed to be Noah and Lexi, you know, all happy and a baby on the way. Chill.”

Kat knew he was right; she had to get her head in the game, as he would say. She didn’t say anything but leaned into him the way Lexi always did with Noah. It felt both weird and right doing the same with Jackson. They had spent a lot of time mimicking them, almost to the point where it had become second nature.

Once they were in the elevator, she pulled away from him slightly but was quickly spun back against the wall, her mouth devoured by a man who seemed he hadn’t drunk from her lips in too long. She couldn’t help herself; she melted into him, as much as she could with the fake belly between them. She was a moth to his flame. How had she ever thought she could keep away from him once they found each other again? It was ridiculous. Moaning, she pulled him tighter toward her, opening up for him so his tongue could battle hers.

She vaguely heard the ding of the elevator door opening and a gasp, but before she knew it, Jackson was slamming his hand over the buttons, never taking his mouth from hers. Feeling the elevator begin its descent again, she spread her legs further apart, and he instantly thrust between them, his hardness nestled against her throbbing pussy. Grinding against him, she was so completely lost and it wasn’t until Jackson pulled away from her, she realized they were on the ground floor, the doors wide open for everyone to see them going at it like a couple of horny teenagers.

Her face instantly turned red as cameras flashed, taking pictures of them. She tried to gather as much dignity as she could muster as they walked out of the elevator and into the ballroom. She could feel Jackson laughing beside her. “This isn’t funny,” she hissed at him.

“Oh, yes, yes it is.” He leaned in close to her. “They think we are Noah and Lexi.”

Kat covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. A small laugh escaped her lips, followed by another, until they both were almost crying in each other’s arms from laughing so hard. Finally, she calmed down enough to say, “I’m going to owe her big time.”

“Yeah, you are.” He pulled her onto the dance floor.

“What about you? You’ll owe Noah.”

“Mr. Last Man Standing? Hell no, he’s good. In fact, I’m willing to bet he’ll laugh too. It’s you who’s going to have a hard time with Lexi.”

“Shit.”

“You said it. Now come here, I want to feel you move in my arms while I think about what I’m going to do to you the next time we’re alone.”

As they danced across the floor, she started out completely lost in him. When someone would bump her, she’d quickly look around, wondering if Jeremy was there. Once she started looking around, she couldn’t stop. Behind every male mask, she thought it was him. There were a couple of times men tried to cut in, but Jackson would just shake his head and dance them away.

Kat’s hand became tighter and tighter. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. Everything started spinning around; she missed a step and Jackson quickly righted her before she could fall.

“Come on; let’s go sit down for a bit.”

“No, I’ll be fine. Besides someone might come up to you to talk. This is better. Let’s just take it a little slower.”

When they started to dance again, a couple stopped right in front of them. Locking eyes with the man behind the mask, she felt like she knew those eyes. Those eyes that had haunted her dreams for years.

Just as Kat started to step closer to Jackson, the lights went out. Everything went pitch black. The backup emergency lights didn’t come on.

Jeremy made his way closer and closer to Alexia. If he could just touch her, smell her, some of this tension would leave him, and he’d be able to concentrate on killing her. He absently danced with some woman in a light blue dress, working his way to his angel.

There, there she was, so beautiful even with that vile man’s spawn growing inside of her. As he danced by her, he breathed in deeply, ahh… her scent, how he had missed it. In fact, it had been so long he wasn’t sure if he was remembering it correctly. No matter. She was his.

Moving so he was blocking their path, he stood face to face with Alexia. Staring deeply into her eyes, his cock strained at the seams of his pants. He let go of the woman he had been dancing with and turned towards Alexia. The fates were with him and the lights went out as be plunged his knife deep into her belly twisting it and almost came at the feel of blood flowing over his hand.

She couldn’t believe her luck. There she was, dancing with Jeremy; the man she spent months tracking down and planning on how to kill him. It was so close; in fact, it was time. She set her plan in motion.

Kat bent at the waist, the pain surprised her. Clutching her belly she felt something warm flow over her fingers and she felt the hilt of the knife protruding from her belly. Suddenly someone grabbed her, putting their hand over her mouth and pulling her away from Jackson.

“Kat?” Jackson said. When she didn’t answer, he called out for her louder and louder until he was screaming her name. He tried to reach out for her but couldn’t find her. There was nowhere to go and nothing to see. She was right there.

The panic built until he felt it clutch around his heart, squeezing the life out of it.

All of a sudden, the lights came back on. They could only have been off for no more than five minutes. He frantically looked around, desperate to find her. He ran around the room searching before finally reaching the dinner tables, here he grabbed a chair to search from above for Kat. But she was nowhere to be found. She was missing. He was supposed to protect her and now she was gone.

She smiled to herself that her plans were going as intended. As she walked toward the waiting cab, she shifted her body in order to keep the apparently drunk person, upright. Soon, very soon everything she’d done would all be worthwhile.

They all stood around the presidential suite in a state of shock. The security team was searching the hotel for any sign of Jeremy; so far, there had been nothing. They knew he had to be behind it, especially since Kat was pretty certain she had come face to face with him before the lights went out, and had the cut on her stomach to prove it.

“You should lie down,” Kat said to Lexi.

“No, I’m fine. And hello, I think you are the one who should be laying down. Actually, I’m hoping they will tell us we can go home soon. I just want to be in my own bed.” She sighed and reached her hand out so Noah would stop pacing and hold her hand.

“Soon, my love, soon.” He kissed the inside of her wrist.

“Jackson, will you sit down? You’re going to wear the floor out pacing like that, plus you’re making me dizzy,” Lexi said.

“No, I will not sit down,” Jackson growled. “This is fucking bullshit.”

“Jackson,” Noah warned.

“Come on, it is bullshit and if it had been your wife who had been taken away and you couldn’t find her, you’d be pissed too.” Jackson walked over to Noah.

Noah poked Jackson in the chest. “You don’t think I’m upset about what happened to Kat? You don’t think I wasn’t sitting up here worried about her? That Lexi wasn’t? This isn’t all about you big boy; we’re all in this together.”

Kat ran over and got between the two of them. “I’m fine. It’s over. Now stop it.”

Jackson growled at her. “It’s not over. It will never be fucking over until that mother fucking asshole is dead.” He spun around and punched the wall, leaving a hole in the plaster.