Caught (Prequel to Hawk) (Sex and Bullets) (6 page)

Shit.

He seems to realize, too, and he glances up at my face, brows drawing together. “Oh fuck. Tell me you’re on the pill.”

“I am.” It’s the truth. “And I’m clean.”

The question hangs in the air between us.
What about you?

“I’m clean, too.” He sighs and flops on his back. “Got tested this week. I wanted to ditch the condoms, but hadn’t thought to do it so soon.”

My heart trips. “Ditch them?”

All possible reasons flash through my mind and my heart is hammering.

He turns his head toward me. “I’m only fucking you, babe. No other girl.”

“But you said…”

“No feelings. No relationship.” He puts a hand down, searching for mine. Clasps it. “But sex… yeah, I want that with you. For as long as this lasts.”

“Me too,” I hear myself saying as if from a distance, and oh God… What am I doing?

Chapter Five

“So, your man, he’s hot.” Dorothy is chewing on a chocolate cookie and pretending to be studying. She’s got her laptop open and her notebook, but she’s watching music videos instead. “Not like the guys asking me out.”

“Hawk?”

“That’s the one. Was there another? When are you seeing him again?”

I press my lips together and pretend, in my turn, to be engrossed in the statistics book I’m supposed to be reading.

“Laylay.”

“Hm?”

“Hasn’t he called you since last week?”

Actually, it’s been ten days. I did text him once, a few days ago, but he didn’t reply. I’m totally out of my element here. No clue what I’m supposed to do. After all, we’re not together. Although we’ve been meeting for three months now, in hotels and places owned by friends of his, I can’t demand to see him. Don’t even dare ask what he’s doing when he’s not with me.

He said he’s not sleeping with other girls, and I have to trust him. Checking the internet every day isn’t healthy.

I do it, of course. Haven’t found any incriminating evidence, though. No pics of him with girls, no gossip.

That means nothing, of course, since there’s no evidence about him being with me, either.

Which leads me to question my sanity for letting him inside me without a condom every time. I just… want him. Like crazy.

Stupid, Layla.

Then again… he’s taking a risk with me, too. And I doubt he stalks me on the internet, like I am doing. Like I’ve been refusing to do this past week.

No more stalking for me.

“Layla. Is everything okay?” Dorothy is staring at me.

Whoops.
“Yeah, sorry. No, he hasn’t called me.”

“Maybe it’s because of what’s been going on with his friend?”

“Friend?”

“This Jordan guy. Like, he totally vanished from the face of the earth two years ago and Hawk has traveled to Mexico based on rumors that he went there.”

You kidding me?
I stop checking the internet for six days and I miss this? In Mexico. P
robably drinking tequila with some chick in a pool.

Damn.

***

“See you in an hour, babe,” Hawk says, and I disconnect the call, lying back on my bed.

I put down my phone and stare at the far wall of my bedroom. I should be happy he’s back from Mexico and calling me to meet up. We have fun together, if nothing else, and my body is already tingling when I think of him. Of how he makes me feel.

How he makes me come.

But God, I wish I had a real boyfriend sometimes. Someone I can share real stuff with. Someone I can call in the middle of the night to talk about my fears, and hopes, someone who will cuddle me and make me hot chocolate when I feel blue.

“What you need,” Dorothy says, wandering into my room, “is new lingerie. Tall, Blond and Sexy will appreciate it.” She sinks down on the bed beside me. “I overheard your call. That a problem? “

“Nope. No problem.”

“Then why the long face?”

“You know why.”

Dorothy’s expression softens. “Is that about what the doc told you?”

I nod and put my socked feet on the wall.

“It’s going to be fine, sweetie,” she says.

And I don’t see how. “You’re right.”

“Besides, you said Hawk isn’t the guy you want to spend your life with.”

I said that.

She copies my pose—lying on her back, putting her socked feet on the wall. Her socks have tiny dinosaurs on them. “He’s a playboy millionaire and not interested in relationships. You want a guy who will understand you, and think long-term with you.”

But all this doesn’t change what the doc said and how my life will never be the same. “I hate this.”

“There are options in life, Laylay. Don’t overthink this. And look at it on the bright side. No need to take the pill anymore!”

“Yay me,” I mumble, and my eyes burn.

“Oh baby girl.” Dorothy turns and throws an arm over me. Her dark eyes are inches from mine. “Don’t let this get you down. We will go and see more specialists, okay? And I was kidding about the pill. I mean, use protection, right? Always.”

I nod again, because she’s right. I’m just still in shock. “Hawk and I, we’re exclusive. At least, he says we are.”

“Okay then. Chin up. I love you, girl.”

“Love you, too.” I sniffle. “Marry me, Dodo? You’re the best.”

She snorts. “Go and have hot sex with your man. Hot sex is like going to the spa. It will make you feel better.”

God, yeah.
Sadly, though, I doubt it will be enough… Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m changing. I’m over Chance, have been for a while, I know I’m not frigid in bed, I know I love sex… and I want more. More from a guy than that.

And that’s exactly what sexy, handsome, rich and distant Jamie Hawk Fleming can’t give me.

***

His tall shape astride the motorcycle is by now familiar. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks, though, and it feels both like yesterday and months since I last met him.

Since I last took in his beautiful face, his strong body that I am so intimate with. In my mind’s eye, I see every ridge of muscle, every drop of ink on his skin.

My own body clenches with desire just from the sight of him waiting, just from the memory. I’m primed for him. It’s an automatic response.

No idea why my heart leaps, too, as if excited. This is a carnal thing, I remind myself. Purely sexual. We’re having fun. I’m learning what turns me on, what makes me come.

He turns me on.

Shaking my head at myself, I walk over to him and his gaze on me sends heat into my cheeks—like every single time.

“God, I missed that blush,” he says, his voice so low it’s practically a growl, and I reach up to touch his face.

His golden stubble is more pronounced. His hair is longer, falling in his eyes.

“So… Mexico, huh?” His stubble is softer now, as it’s turning into a short beard. “Did you find your friend?”

A shadow passes behind his bright eyes. “Nope. But I’ll find him. He’s hiding.”

“Why?”

One of his broad shoulders rolls in a shrug. “Sometimes having money makes life fucking hard. More dangerous.” He’s silent for a moment, regarding me. “I know how this sounds. Being poor is much harder, I know. And dangerous in other, more subtle ways. But money means bullets.”

I frown. “But why?”

I don’t want anything happening to Hawk. A shiver shakes me at the thought.

“The why doesn’t matter.” He leans his cheek into my hand and gives me a puppy look. “I missed you, babe.”

“It’s Layla,” I say, pulling my hand away. Sometimes he acts all sweet and snuggly, and I need to put some distance between us, because I want this.

I want to be like that with him. Like a couple.

But that’s not us, and I love his darker side, I remind myself. I love the hard, hot sex and his floggers and paddles and all the ways he loses control with me.

Hawk isn’t cuddly. He’s not boyfriend material, no matter how much I want to think he is. He’s kept true to his initial promise.

So when he pulls a small box from one of his leather jacket pockets, I don’t know what to think. Surely… Nah.

No.

No way.

And I’m right. Taking the box in my trembling hands, unable to read anything on his handsome, smirking face, I open it to find a fine bracelet inside.

It looks silver, but of course the inscription inside the box lets me know it’s platinum. It’s made up of several flat, fine chains that shimmer under the street lights.

“Like it?” he asks.

“It looks like…” I wet my lips, glance up at him.

“The strips of my flogger,” he supplies the answer, looking smug.

“Why?” Strange question to ask when given a platinum bracelet that has to cost a fortune, I know, but why would he buy me anything? I’m just his fuckbuddy.

“To always remind you that you like it.” His gaze dips to my cleavage, darkening. “That you beg for it. For me.”

“I don’t beg for you.” I scoff, getting scared, all too aware he might have seen through me, realized I feel more for him that I’d ever admit, even to myself. “It’s just sex.”

“Yeah.” He turns his face away. “Yeah, it is. Damn good sex, though.” From the side, I watch his mouth tilt up in a smirk. “And now you’ll wear my flogger on your wrist.”

“Maybe.”

He faces me again. “You will, Doll. Because in the bedroom you’re mine.”

***

I mull over his words as he drives me to yet another boutique hotel. I swear, we must have tried them all over the past few months.

In the bedroom you’re mine.

You’ll wear my flogger on your wrist.

He’s marking me. Like a lion, marking his females.

But why? He doesn’t need to do that. Not him. Not with me. He can literally have any girl he likes.

Unless he really does like me that much, which is… insanity. If he did like me, he’d have asked me out. He’d try to be a boyfriend for me, not someone I see when he’s in town, not someone I only see at night and have sex with in random hotel rooms.

I finger the bracelet as we enter the hotel. It hangs heavy on my wrist. Definitely expensive stuff. Should I give it back?

It almost feels like he’s paying me for sex.

Although when he turns to me and smiles, when he takes my hand and lifts it to his warm lips, that thought flees. He’s never treated me badly. Never implied I’m cheap.

“You look more gorgeous than ever,” he whispers.

See?
Makes it so difficult to be angry with him. Difficult to hate him when he’s only giving me pleasure. Difficult to send away.

As Dorothy put it a few days ago, why send away a man who can make you come so hard you see stars? She claims that the mere mention of his name makes me moan.

She’s lying, of course. She can’t know that. I only do that when she’s not around.

Soon enough we’re inside a luxurious room, and he grins at me as he tugs me toward the bathroom. He’s playful, and I’d much rather have his more intense, forceful side tonight.

He lets go of my hand to plug the huge bathtub and turns on the water. He winks at me over his shoulder. “I’ve traveled a lot. Wanna wash me clean?”

Despite my anxious turn of thoughts, the image is enough to make me throb between my legs. “No water for washing in Mexico?”

“I tried drowning in tequila,” he mutters, and I’m not sure he’s joking. “Didn’t work out so well.”

“Miss your friend, huh?”

“Damn right. I’m worried about him.” He drags me close, then starts undressing me. “Missed you, too.”

“You can’t,” I whisper.

“Can’t what?”