Read James: A College Girl Romance Online
Authors: Sheila Grace
James: A College Girl Romance (30 page)
F
ucking hell
. If I had ever felt this bad in my life, I couldn’t remember it. Just being conscious was a fucked up sort of pain. I groaned. Then I felt her hand touch mine, and everything rushed back to me like a kick to the chest.
“
James
? Oh my god, I was so scared—I was so afraid of losing you,” Cass rasped.
I felt her hands touching my face.
“Miss, he just got out of surgery last night. He’s supposed to be sleeping.”
“Whoever you are—leave. Now. I want to be alone with my wife.”
I opened my eyes, and Cass stared at me in shock, like she thought they had removed my vocal cords. Then she laughed.
“Only
you
could be so imperious right after waking up from surgery for a gunshot wound.”
“Kiss me.”
“Like I said—imperious. And I really don’t think I should.”
“Kiss me.”
She hesitated before leaning down and very carefully touching her lips to mine. When I reached around with my right arm and pressed her to me, it was worth the screaming pain in my left side. I let her go, and she sat up, blushing.
“I love that blush.”
Her eyes dropped to my shoulder where the bandaging was. I shook my head as I felt a burning rage boil up.
“I’m sorry, Cass. I never would have believed it if someone had told me Blake would betray me like this. I fucking trusted him with my life—
your
life.”
She touched my forehead.
“It’s not your fault. How could you have known?”
“Because it’s tattooed on my fucking chest—that’s why,” I snarled. “
Pecuniate obediunt omnia
.
All
things obey money.”
“That’s not true. I think even your father understands that. That’s why he didn’t offer
me
money. He knew a more powerful motivator would be to threaten
you
.”
I picked up her hand and brought it to my lips.
“
Puris omnia pura
.”
“All right,” she laughed. “Enough Latin. You need to sleep.”
I shook my head.
“No. I need to talk to Matt. And Ryan. And I don’t want you to leave my sight until I know it’s safe.”
Cass nodded and started to get up. I reached out and took her hand one last time before she stood and started walking for the door. Two seconds after she stepped out, Irving came in, talking into a headset and staring at a screen, as usual. Cass followed behind him and took a seat in a chair in the corner. When I raised my hand, Irving walked over and grabbed it.
“Glad you’re not dead,” he said wryly.
I laughed, but the movement sent another spasm of pain through my chest.
“Matt, I want Jasper Blake buried. I want my father destroyed. And I need Cass protected.”
Irving frowned.
“I just got into the system at the county lockup. When the federal agents I contacted arrived earlier this morning, Blake was gone. I’ve frozen nearly all of your father’s accounts, both domestic and international, but—”
“He has cash and connections,” I finished. “I want agents—who have not been bought and paid for by my father—with Cass for the time being—”
“
What
?” Cass yelped from the corner.
“If there’s a chance Blake tries to finish the job, then I’ll see him dead first. As soon as they’ll discharge me, I need to get back to the house in San Francisco. Matt, can you arrange for Cass to leave the country? Only you, me, and the pilots can know her location.”
“What about you?” Irving asked.
“I want everyone to know where I am.”
If there was anything worse than being laid up in bed, it was being laid up in bed waiting for a formerly trusted friend to come kill me.
I had talked to Bennett before leaving the hospital. I had told him that I finally understood what I hadn’t more than three years ago. I now understood what it was to find the one person who matters more than all others—and then to have someone close to you try to damage that one pure thing you’ve found.
I turned off the security system and waited. I ate whenever it was necessary. I did whatever rehab exercises I could. I slowly began to feel better, but I expected Blake to come for me while I was weak. I listened to status reports from Irving. I slept on and off during the day. And I waited some more.
He came for me after nearly two weeks. At three in the morning, I heard the hum of a motorcycle coming up the drive. Barefoot, I walked across the bedroom through complete darkness and hoisted myself up on the bar I had affixed inside the doorway to the master bedroom.
The front door opened. I could almost hear him breathing for how silent the house had been without Cass to bring it alive. The thought of her running for her life through the Bennett family’s vineyard caused my muscles to tighten as I braced myself between the bar and the wall.
I heard Blake’s nearly silent movement up the stairs, then a pause when the fourteenth stair creaked under his weight. I could feel sweat forming on my brow as I listened to him walk down the hall, opening doors one by one. When he finished his sweep, he walked back to the master bedroom and toed open the door. I watched as he walked to the foot of the bed.
“I almost wish you were going to be around to see what I’m going to do to that little redhead of yours.”
When I heard the popping sound of the silencer and saw the pillows on my bed explode, I released my arms from the wall, yanked the gun from my waistband, and swung down, suspended upside down like a kid on a jungle gym. Just as he swiveled toward me, I squeezed the trigger, causing the room to detonate into a deafening roar after two weeks of almost complete silence. When Blake was lying motionless on the floor, I reached up, grabbed the bar with my free arm, and then dropped to the ground.
Approaching him, I never dropped my aim. At the last second, he rolled, his gun jerking up and aiming for me. I didn’t hesitate. I took the head shot. Then I kicked the gun from his hand and stood staring down at him for several seconds as the adrenaline faded. I retrieved my phone from the table and called the police.
“I’ve just killed an intruder.”
I repeated my address twice, put the phone back on the table, and picked up his gun. I felt no remorse for killing him. Someone who would have brutalized and killed Cass for money. Someone who had just unloaded nearly an entire magazine into what he had thought was my sleeping form. As I walked over and turned on the lamp, I thought about Cass waiting for me. I reached up and touched my chest. It was burning.
“Fuck.”
Blood was seeping through the bandaging. I had torn stitches. I walked to the chair in the corner, sat down, and placed both guns on the table. Then I waited.
I
was sitting on the beach again. If I could have tanned at all, maybe I would have been enjoying myself. Instead, I was staring at the horizon. Waiting.
Matt had sent a few short updates, but I hadn’t heard from James in more than two weeks. The thought of Jasper Blake hurting him was almost more than I could stand.
The chef James employed on the island had called several times to see if I wanted any food prepared. I always turned him down, preferring to eat whatever was stocked in the cupboards.
Digging my toes in the sand, I thought about how I was usually fine on my own, but being here now—in paradise—felt empty. I just wanted to see James again.
I got up and started walking down the beach. I had been walking hours every day; it was the only thing keeping me sane. I understood why James had done what he did—dropping me on an island with little to no contact. Because what would I have done if I had stayed? Gotten a gun and gone after Jasper myself? I didn’t have delusions of super powers. More likely, I would have distracted James and gotten one or both of us killed.
Even though I could be logical about it, I was still racked with guilt. It had been James—not me—who had been shot. He had nearly died protecting me. Suddenly the pain of it dropped me to my knees. I let my hands sink into the sand in front of me as a sob broke through my lips. I realized I would never get enough of him. I could see him every day for the next eighty years, and it wouldn’t be enough.
The sound coming across the water caught me off-guard. At first, I thought I was imagining it. Then it got louder. I swiped at my nose and cheeks with the back of my hand, stumbled to my feet, and turned. I tore off my hat and sunglasses and stared out at the ocean as a boat skimmed across the water.
The rational part of my brain told me that it could be staff bringing supplies to the other side of the island, despite the fact that I had never actually seen a human being on the island since I had been dropped off. The irrational, insanely hopeful side of my brain was ecstatic. I began running, slowed only by the powder-soft sand.
It was like a dream watching the speedboat come up to the dock. I ran faster, but it was like I was moving in slow motion. I was crying, my breath heaving as I watched James jump from the boat and moor it to the dock.
My breath caught. His arm was in a sling. As he began running down the dock, a trickle of fear traveled through me. I was suddenly afraid I was going to wake up, drenched in sweat, and realize it was all a dream.
Then he was in front of me. He swung me up against his chest with his free arm, and his mouth crashed down on mine as I wrapped my legs around his hips. He pulled back.
“Lovely, why are you crying?”
His question made me hiccup, cry, and laugh at the same time.
“Be-because I thought I might never see you again, and it was k-killing me.”
He touched his lips to mine, softly this time.
“You’re the only thing that matters to me. I needed to know you were safe.”
“But I didn’t know if
you
were safe,” I sniffled.
He set me down and tucked me into his side as we walked the rest of the way to the beach.
“What happened to your arm?” I asked even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“It’s nothing. I tore some stitches.”
My eyes widened.
“You tore the stitches in your bullet wound?
How
?”
He stopped and tilted my chin up.
“It’s over now, and all I want to do is enjoy my wife.”
I shook my head as we walked across the sand.
“James, I need to know.”
He paused and then nodded.
“My father is being arraigned on charges of murder-for-hire, and Blake is dead,” he said flatly.
“Dead? Did you … kill him?”
When he nodded again, I took a shaky breath. Then I dropped down to the sand. James sat next to me.
“I’m sorry. He was your friend.”
When I turned to face him, he was staring out at the water.
“He was dead to me the moment he tried to hurt you.”
I picked up his right hand and kissed it.
C
ass came up beside me as I looked out at the moon’s reflection across the water. The breeze lifted her hair, making her look like some flame-haired goddess in the black silk robe she was wearing. She hugged her arms to her chest and looked up at me with a shy smile. I felt a stab of guilt for being distant all day, but I was afraid of pulling her into my darkness.
“This place really is like a dream,” she said softly.
“We don’t have to leave.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Ever?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
My smile faltered as she stared up at me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.
She reached and pressed her hand against my chest, her eyes searching mine. Her touch was burning my skin. I had ached for her every second we had been separated. Now, I was afraid to touch her. I wanted her too much. My need felt desperate, dark, dangerous. I took one of her hands and lifted it to my lips.
“Nothing’s wrong, lovely.”
Cass shook her head.
“Don’t lie to me.”
My good arm snaked around her waist, and I lifted her against my chest as my lips crashed down on hers. When her legs wrapped around me, I bit her lower lip with just enough pressure, waiting hungrily for that sound. Her desperate whimper crashed through me, and it took all my effort to pull back. She slowly opened her eyes.
“I don’t know how it’s possible, but I love you more each moment I’m with you,” I told her. “I can’t get enough of you.”
There were tears in her eyes.
“James. You’re going to hurt your chest.”
“It hurts more not being with you.
I carried her into the bedroom, where I set her at the center of the bed.
“You are so beautiful.”
Looking up at me, she reached out and pressed her palm to my chest.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said firmly.
I pulled the belt of her robe loose and watched it fall open. She shivered as my fingers skated along her collarbone.
“You have no idea how badly I’ve needed you these past two weeks.”
“I think I have some idea,” she said with a sly grin.
She reached out and untied the drawstring on my pants, tugging until they fell to the ground.
“That’s better,” she smiled.
She got up, and I let her maneuver me and push me down until I was sitting at the edge of the bed. I shrugged out of the sling and pulled her toward me. I didn’t let go.
“Cass, I need
you
. Please.”
I dragged her forward until she had no choice but to straddle my legs. My good arm wound around her, and she settled on my thighs. Then I reached up and brushed her lower lip with my thumb before letting my fingers travel over her face, brushing her cheeks, her jaw, and her eyelids as her eyes fluttered closed.
“You’ve made me feel whole for the first time in my life,” I told her softly.
My hand skimmed down, gliding along the smooth skin of her belly. I began to ache as my fingers traced her creamy thighs, and when she opened her eyes, my fingers grazed the tight bud at the apex of her thighs. I caressed the tender flesh over and over until she cried out and her hips rocked forward. My lips fell to her ear.
“Come again for me, Cass.”
Holding her to my chest with one arm, I gripped my shaft and positioned myself right at her entrance. The feel of her pussy sliding against me was almost too much. I took her hips in both hands and slowly rocked her, enjoying every moment of torture as her tight, wet heat enveloped me before I slowly pulled her up and started again.
She shuddered and moaned as she finally sank down until I filled her completely. My control snapped, and I growled her name as I lifted her and then thrust up as I dragged her hips down until we were fully merged. Cass began rocking up and down wildly, her cheeks flushed bright pink. When I took control of the rhythm and dropped my hand between us to tease her clit, her head fell back. I urged her faster as she cried out. Feeling her muscles grip me as she went over the edge, I lifted her and turned with her in my arms until I was over her, pinning her arms above her head. Her eyes opened the moment before I drove into her. Forcing myself to temper my thrusts, I stared down at her, awed by her beauty.
“You’re all I need in this life.”
I fell asleep stroking her soft skin and holding her against my chest. By the time I opened my eyes again, she was gone. And this, I realized, would be my eternal damnation. Every time I woke up and she wasn’t there, I would wonder if I had dreamed this perfect creature, only to lose her. The fear of it punched me in the chest and made it difficult to breathe.
I got up and put on a pair of shorts before walking onto the deck, along the length of the pool, and into to the main house. I found her in the kitchen. She was wearing the black silk robe from the night before, humming off-key as she bent over and peered into the refrigerator. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. She squeaked and turned around, her fingers immediately traveling to the bandaging on my chest.
“Are you okay?” she asked nervously. “Did you tear anything? Should you put the sling back on?”
I took her chin in my fingers and tipped her face toward me as I bent across our height difference to kiss her perfect lips.
“I feel better than I ever have,” I told her honestly.
She smiled.
“Does that mean sex is the perfect anesthetic?”
“It means I love you more than I ever thought possible.”
“Good. Then you’ll forgive me if I make the worst pancakes in the history of the world. Sit down and get ready to pretend my cooking isn’t awful.”
“How about a compromise?”
Cass frowned suspiciously.
“What kind of compromise?”
I bent and kissed the side of her neck before bringing my lips to her ear.
“You let me fuck you on the counter and then I make omelets.”
She shivered.
“James McDevitt, I do believe I’m getting the better deal in this compromise.”
Her breath quickened as I lifted her onto the marble.
“Not possible, Mrs. McDevitt. Every moment I’ve spent with you is the happiest I’ve ever been.”
I was the luckiest bastard to walk the Earth. I didn’t deserve happily ever after, but I had gotten it. My happily ever after was right in front of me, and I wouldn’t take her for granted for a single moment.
Have you read
College Girl
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Want to find out how it all started?
A Note from C. J.
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Books by C. J. Valles
Adult Titles (
18+ only
):
C. J. Valles writing as
Sheila Grace
College Girl (A College Girl Romance)
James (A College Girl Romance)
Young Adult/New Adult Paranormal Romance:
C. J. Valles
For Ever
(The Ever Series, Book 1)
Never
(The Ever Series, Book 2)
Sever
(The Ever Series, Book 3)
Ever
, (The Ever Series, Alternate POV of For Ever)
The Ever Series Complete Boxed Set
C. J. Valles writing as
Alessa James
The Darkly Dreaming Series:
