Deadly (7 page)

“I know, I know, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry. Damn you’re going to have a black eye. Ryan’s going to flip,” she worries, anxiety clogging her throat. “He’s going to kill me for this isn’t he?”

I spin and hold my hand to her chest to stop her barrelling into me. She startles and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Ryan can’t know what happened here,” I demand. Her brows crash together while her eyes assess my injury.

“You look like shit Cereus, he will see the huge bruise and swell coming up under your eye.”

This is a nightmare.

“We just tell him I swam too close to the surfers and a board clipped me.”

Her mouth drops open and then closes and a smile replaces the tears. “Oh shit, that’s such a great excuse!” She beams. Before she can get around me, I grab her under the chin so she can see into my eyes when I speak next.

“You ever put me in a situation like that again and it won’t be Ryan killing you.”

Her gulp tells me I’ve made myself clear.

ONE MONTH AGO

The air around me always appeared to buzz with energy whenever it was getting close to the times I would meet up with Blake. I can’t help the small amount of joy I feel when we meet up, and I hold the answers to the only thing I know is constantly on his mind. How is Cereus?

I was under no illusion that if he wanted to, he could track us down at one of our locations. No matter how careful I was he was still a fucking genius when it came to computers and hacking networks like bank accounts, CCTV cameras and anything else he would need to pin us down. But ignorance was bliss in this circumstance, he was still the law and we were still criminals. Not that that would stop him from protecting his daughter; that was the entire reason she was with me because he allowed it. It made my insides squeeze at the thought he has some power over me but he knew no matter what he did, Cereus’ heart was entwined with my own. She loved me and wanted to be with me. If he knew she’d taken in a stray he would no doubt be proud and think that made her human but it doesn’t, she used Georgina as a weapon against me to spite me for not giving her what she craved from my body. I would give her anything, including that, but I enjoyed the way she needed it so bad from me, and withholding gave me back some of the power she takes daily from me… from me loving her.

Looking at my watch it dawns on me that she’s not back from her swim yet. She is only away from me for short bursts of time, it’s as if being apart from me for too long is physically painful. She crashes and needs me to pick her up, and vice versa. That’s why going away was bittersweet. I missed her, unlike anything I ever knew existed. My chest constricts at the thought of the hours I’ll be away from her tonight. At least this thing with Georgie would mean she wouldn’t be alone tonight. And I’d be there before she woke, holding her like I always did when I returned.

The side door opens and they both walk in. Georgie startles when she sees me waiting and begins fidgeting with her bikini string. She’s gone pale which considering she douses herself in enough fake tan to create her own army of Oompa-Loompas is saying something.

“What did you do?” I growl at her, making her eyes grow impossibly wide. I should staple her eyelids to her eyebrows.

“What? Nothing … What?” she stumbles out. Was she dropped on her head as a child or what? The ground eats up the distance between us. I grab her by the throat and toss her out of the way, she was standing in front of Cereus like the queens guard… did she think I wouldn’t know something was wrong?

What a stunning creature my Cereus was. She was still in her one-piece which was odd, usually she would wear sweats and a tee to and from the water but she wasn’t even carrying her clothes, she had a towel in her hand but nothing else. Her head was down, her hair hanging in her face. Reaching out I tilt her head back by lifting her chin with my finger and swiping her hair away with my other hand. The red haze comes over me like a storm cloud. Her green eyes shine bright. Marring her perfect soft skin is a dirty bruise. Swelling is causing her eye to close.

Who fucking touched her? Someone is going to die today.

Her hands grab mine and squeeze. “It’s nothing Ryan, honest. I came up under someone’s surfboard.”

“What?” The rage is so hard to control once it takes over, no matter how much I’ve taught myself self-restraint.

She scrunches her nose. “It was a stupid accident, no one’s to blame.”

“Who was the surfer, what did he look like?” I demand. I don’t care if she thinks it was an accident, those surfing fucks shouldn’t be that far in where swimmers are.

Her arms wrap around me, enveloping me in her scent, in her comfort, making the anger start to ebb. “I just feel dumb, let’s not dwell on it, okay? You’re going away tonight, let’s feed you before you go.”

“You hate cooking,” I point out.

She pulls back and pokes a finger in my chest. “I didn’t say anything about me cooking, let’s order.”

I wait for Cereus to leave the room before I corner Georgina. “If anything happens to Cereus when you’re with her, I hold you responsible. So be a good girl and don’t try and encourage Cereus to go partying or some shit tonight because I’m away.”

She’s shaking her head before I’ve even finished talking. “I won’t, I promise.”

She tries to walk by me but I pin her head to the wall with one hand, holding her by the back of the neck. Her face thuds a little and a gasp escapes her lips. “That means no parties here either.”

Her heavy panting tells me she’s more turned on than afraid right now. Damn, were all the women in heat around me? I know I’m good looking but I could practically see the wet trial down her leg she was so desperate for it. What would Cereus think about her little ‘friend’ wanting to fuck me so bad she was gyrating against the wall at just being near me?

“I won’t have anyone here, I promise.”

“One more thing,” I growl.

“What is it? I’ll do anything you ask,” she pleads. No wonder Jack kept her around.

I yank her head back so I can talk directly into her ear. “Any bruises or marks Cereus comes home with when out with you,” I slam her face forward into the wall and relish the crunch and sight of blood from her nose busting. “You get the same. If I find out she’s lying about how she got that bruise, it won’t be good for you or her.”

She’s crying and I know it’s going to alert Cereus so I smother her mouth with my hand. “Now go get cleaned up and stop your sniffling.”

She rushes to escape me but stops in the doorway, her eyes rise from the floor to look over at me but she can’t keep contact. She knows she’s inferior to me. “Would you hurt Cereus?” she asks, confusion altering her voice. She must realise I don’t understand why she would even ask that. “You said we both would be sorry,” she clarifies.

“I just meant Cereus would feel bad when she found your rotting corpse.”

She’s gone quick as lightening. She was insane for even asking the question, I didn’t like the fact she did, and did she think her and Cereus were similar? Did she not know that she was temporary and soon my Cereus would outgrow her?

He never kept me waiting. It didn’t matter if I arrived early, Blake always beat me here.

“Eager to see me, big brother?” I ask, approaching him as he stands against his car in the motel parking lot. “You could have gone inside.” I gesture to the same room he always checks us into.

“I like to see you coming. So there are no surprises.”

“Like what?” I tease.

“Oh I have enough scars from you to never have my back to you, little brother.”

An involuntary ‘Ha!’ erupts from my chest. “Touché,” I concede, snatching the keys from his grasp and going ahead of him.

The motel room is rank as fuck. I wouldn’t let a dog live here, probably because I hate dogs and would kill it but that’s not the point. These type of places were infections waiting to happen. If a deadly virus was ever to break out and infect the world it would start here. There was a damp smell emanating from the bathroom.

“Couldn’t you splash out on something a bit more fancy?” I ask.

“This is less conspicuous,” he defends and I can’t help but laugh.

“Really? Because we don’t look like the kind of men who would stay in a dive like this, neither of us is carrying luggage apart from a brown envelope. Motels are crime magnets and all officers of the law, i.e. you, know that.”

“A hotel has cameras, this shit hole doesn’t so you want to shut up about the accommodation and get this over with?”

I walk the layout of the room, one queen size bed with shit brown colored bedding dominates the area, there’s a beaten down table with two chairs under the window where Blake plants his ass.

“This is happening a lot more than I thought it would, why do you need new identities so soon after the last ones?”

I study him for a few silent beats, the strain around his eyes apparent; he really hated being around me. “Is it because of our past or the fact Cereus chose me that makes this so hard on you?” I ask him, not expecting an answer, I just like pissing him off.

“It’s the fact that it’s been six months and you already need a whole new life, which leads me to believe you’re fleeing from something and that makes me more than a little uneasy. You turn up without Cereus again and that concerns me.” He stands and comes over to me. “Where is she?”

“Where she wants to be, waiting for me to return to her.”

“Why don’t you bring her with you? Afraid her seeing me might make her want to come home?”

Aww poor Blake, he was reaching and was way off the mark.

“I hate to disappoint you… oh wait… I love to disappoint you.” I smirk as the first hit connects with my jaw. “That’s a new record Brother, usually you’ve poured the first tumbler of liquor before punching me.”

He paces the floor and then sits back down. “Is it her?” He can’t look at me, instead he’s studying the table in front of him like it has the answers to the universe.

“Do you know this place is more than likely riddled with bed bugs and you could take them home with you without even knowing?”

He looks up exasperated. “I don’t give a damn about fucking bed bugs Ryan.”

I quirk a brow. “Well you should, male bed bugs are sadistic rapists. They don’t have a cock, they have a stabbing tool which they use to stab female bed bugs in the gut. Entomologists call this ‘traumatic insemination.’ In actual fact the female bed bugs actually become less reproductive when repeatedly subjected to these violent stabbings, who would have thought such brutality is in the smallest of beings?”