Page 84 of Such A Bad Girl

THEO

My eyes widened as Jill approached me with a pair of scissors.

Harlan had left and I still had no idea what else we were waiting for.

Jill had the gun in her other hand and laid it on the bed as she hovered over me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.

“Whatever the fuck I want,” she quipped, grabbing my t-shirt and pulling it taut against my skin. When she started cutting into it, starting at the bottom hem, my abs contracted, trying to get away from her haphazard slicing.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

“I’d make you strip, but I know you’d just try to overpower me. So, I’ll just cut your clothes off while you’re still tied up.”

“This is assault.”

“Don’t forget kidnapping. And you’re a murderer,” she said, with a careless shrug, as she pulled my shirt open now that she’d cut a line straight down the front. She stared down at my chest and abs, a little gasp of pleasure escaping her lips.

“Jill, this is fucking sick, you know that?”

“Shut up,” she said. “You show everyone in the temple all your bits. Are you being shy now?”

“How do you know about the temple?”

“You really are clueless, Theo,” she said, running a fingertip down my chest. “I’ve been there countless times. I wear a disguise each time. Used a fake identity to get the membership. You really should vet people better. Rian’s in charge of that, right? Yeah, all I did was flirt with him a little, show a little thigh, and he was distracted enough to approve me on the spot with the promise of a little action in the temple later that night.”

She shrugged again, her finger traveling below my navel.

“It was fun,” she said. “Quite a set up you’ve all got there. I saw you there one night. I tried to get your attention, but you only had eyes for another woman there. It took me a while to figure out that it was Everleigh. You’ve been pining for her all these years, haven’t you? I saw you stop her from being with other partners. You’ve always been selfish, haven’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I was appalled she’d been in the temple, and I was furious at Rian. But I was furious even more at myself for not double checking everything. The three of us were equally responsible for what went on there. We’d all failed.

She reached for the fly of my Levi’s, her fingertips brushing against the skin of my lower abdomen as she popped it open.

My stomach churned at her touch.

When she began to reach inside, I almost wretched.

“Jill, wait!”

She froze, looking up at me.

“I know I fucked up,” I said in a rush. “The truth is, I was into you. I remember that night. I know I blew you off. I meant to come back, I did. I made a promise to West that I’d watch over Everleigh and I heard Avett state his intentions and couldn’t let him hurt her. I promise I’m not a bad guy. What kind of man would I have been to let that slide? You said you were in love with me. You saw back then I was a good guy or you wouldn’t have wanted to be with me, right?”

She squinted at my words, her eyes searching mine.

“You have no idea how it felt to be abandoned like that, Theo!”

To my relief, she jumped up and started ranting again, her fingers and her scissors nowhere near my groin.

“I do, Jill, I’m so sorry,” I said, flashing her my most charming smile and hoping like hell I was creating enough of a delay for Rian and West to find me.

Chapter Sixty

EVERLEIGH

West paced around my living room.