Page 62 of Poisoned Pawn
Once the fire is burning fully, I head back to the house. I need to get cleaned up and burn my joggers and the t-shirt Star was wearing. There’s no sign of Roxanne and Maddox, and the trail of blood on the grass is gone.
Voices reach me from inside as I near the door, but I can’t hear anything audible enough to make sense of what they’re talking about. The second I open the door and step inside, their conversation ends, all eyes turning to me.
“Where’s Star?” I ask.
“Taking a shower,” Roxanne says with a nod upstairs.
I’ve barely put one foot on the stairs when Roxanne stops me.
“Carter, or should I call you Jack…” She leaves the words hanging knowing she’ll get a reaction from me. But I’m not surprised. There’s no way they could have found me unless they knew my real name.
I turn and face her, Maddox and Zak standing like sentinels behind her. “Jack is dead. Just like Star did with Anastasia, I buried that person a long time ago.”
Her wide eyes and sharp intake of breath tell me I’ve shocked her.
“She told you?”
“Not exactly. Let’s get this out the way now. Someone hired me to kill Star, that’s why I was at the house the night she was attacked. And that means I knew who she was, knew her real name. It’s not hard to find information on someone in my world—ourworld.” She understands my words.
“Does she know?”
“What that I was hired to kill her, or that I know what happened to her? Either way the answer is the same. She fucking knows.”
“But you knew each other before that night?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know it was her until the hit came through.”
I don’t need to spell it out. Something shifts in her eyes as she understands that I never had any intention of killing Star. Something I didn’t know myself until I saw her again. Saw that she was in danger.
“Are we done with the inquisition? I have shit to do before we leave.”
“For now, but—”
“When we get back to Manchester, we’ll talk,” I tell her, then I jog upstairs and straight to my room.
I hear a phone ring as I close the door behind me and Roxanne answering it, but all thoughts about who it is vanish the second my eyes land on Star. She’s standing in the middle of my room, shock splayed across her face at my sudden entrance, in nothing but a towel.
Water glistens on her damp tanned skin, and my dick hardens instantly.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she says, relief washing through her. “I need something to wear,” she adds as I close the space between us.
“Nah, I think”—I hook a finger in the top of her towel, loosening it— “I much prefer you like this,” I finish, the towel falling open and pooling at her feet as it drops from her body.
I reach out and run a finger down her cheek, tracing the now invisible track of her tears from earlier. I don’t stop when I reach her chin. Instead, I continue down her neck as I lean in and follow its path with a trail of kisses before wrapping my hand around her throat, tilting her head back.
“I don’t think walking around naked is a good idea,” she whimpers as I tighten my hold on her neck and cup her breast with my other hand, lifting it to my mouth and swirling my tongue over her nipple.
“Sounds like a fan-fucking-tastic idea to me,” I growl before sucking on her nipple.
“Sounds…ahhhh…like the start of a massacre to me.” She grips the sides of my face and gently draws me away from her breast. “I wouldn’t want anyone else’s eyes on me.”
“Fuck no!” I growl. “This is mine. All fucking mine,” I tell her possessively.
A knock at the door stops this from escalating any further, and I curse the interruption.
“Star, Carter, we need to go,” comes Roxanne’s voice from the other side.
Star hurries to wrap the discarded towel around her before opening the door.