WRECKED: GODS OF CHAOS MC, BOOK FOUR (18 page)

And yet, somehow, he was right here, the first person inside of me, just as it was always meant to be. As far as I was concerned, he was all I needed. He was all I’d ever need.

I wrapped my thighs around his hips, holding on tightly as he hammered into me, his breath ragged and shallow, his short hard strokes shooting electric shocks through my body.

Soon, we were lost, our bodies moving together like one, until we cried out together, our voices and our souls emerging together until there was no difference between the two. The sound of the waves crashing around us became the music to our song and his mouth landed on mine again as he exploded inside of me, his kiss possessive and demanding as he claimed my body with his.

Wreck

“I can’t believe we have this whole place to ourselves,” I said, throwing my arm around Vanessa and pulling her close to my side.

“It’s magical,” she whispered. “I’ll never forget it.”

I smiled down at her, leaning my head down and kissing her gently.

“Me, either, babe,” I replied. “Never in a million years could I forget this.”

We walked barefoot along the edge of the shore, our jeans rolled up as the waves slithered over our feet.

“I want to go in,” Vanessa said, smiling up at me, her eyes shining with the blissful awe of a child.

“It’s absolutely freezing,” I replied, laughing. “Go for it, but I doubt you’ll last long.”

“Come with me!” she demanded, grabbing my hand and pulling me deeper into the rippling waves. I bit my tongue as the ice-cold Northwestern Pacific ocean lapped it’s icicle tongue at my feet. I’d just done one of the most masculine things I’d ever done - made love to a woman in a fucking cave! - and I wasn’t about to scream like a little school girl about the cold water, but goddamn was it fucking freezing.

It didn’t seem to be bothering Vanessa much at all, though. She yelped at first, but she kept walking - slowly and tentatively until she was up to her knees in the salty waves. The strength of the current made our bodies sway and we held hands to keep upright.

“You okay?” I asked, looking down at her and laughing at her. She was so happy, so fucking beautiful and she looked even more ravishing with those swollen lips and sparkling eyes from our adventure in the cave. The only thing I would have changed was that stupid fucking red wig she was wearing. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get her somewhere completely private and alone so I could rip it off of her and sink my hands into her long, blonde hair and take her again.

“Yeah,” she nodded, her face growing serious. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” I said. We walked a little farther into the water and she turned to me with such determination, it stopped me in my tracks.

“Wreck, I gotta tell you something.”

Her eyes darkened as she looked up at me.

“Okay,” I shrugged.

“It’s…um…,” she paused, biting her lip, “it’s serious.”

“Vanessa, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” I said. She looked extremely uncomfortable and nervous and all I wanted to do was remove that look from her face and make her smile again. I pulled her into my arms, holding her close to my chest.

“I have to tell you,” she said, her voice low and muffled. The waves rolled around our knees and she pulled back, looking up into my eyes again. “It’s important.”

“Okay, babe,” I said. “You can tell me anything. It’s up to you.”

“Well,” she said, her voice so low I almost couldn’t hear her over the roar of the ocean. She looked past me and I followed her gaze. Another couple had walked down the path leading to the beach and were walking past us. She waited for them to get farther away before beginning again. “You going to be a little shocked, so I just want you to brace yourself.”

“Babe, there’s not much you can say that will offend me or shock me. Seriously,” I said, smiling down at her. “I know that fucker put you through hell, Vanessa. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” Anger began rushing through my veins, just as it did every time I thought of Randolph and everything he’d done to her, everything he’d taken away from her.

“It’s true, he did,” she said, nodding. “But this isn’t about him. Well, not really…” her voice trailed off.

“It’s okay, babe,” I said, kissing her forehead and caressing her arms. I took a deep breath, determined to be patient and understanding, despite the fact that I was pretty fucking sure my ankles were frostbitten at this point. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s not what Royce did to me that I want to tell you about. It’s what he didn’t do…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my toes sinking deep into the sand below to keep myself from falling over.

“He didn’t kill me.” Her whisper was so light, I cocked my head and asked her to repeat herself.

“He didn’t kill me,” she said again, her eyes searching mine.

“Right,” I said. “Of course he didn’t, you’re right here, babe.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, sighing. “This is coming out all wrong.”

“Vanessa, I don’t understand.”

She looked deeply into my eyes, staring silently, demandingly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Don’t you see me? Don’t you know?” she asked.

“Babe, look I see you, of course I do. But I’m no mind reader. In fact, I can be really fucking thick sometimes. You’re gonna need to spell it out.” By now, I could have had my feet chomped off by a fucking shark and I wouldn’t have felt it. I was growing colder by the second and I just wanted her to spit it out.

“It’s me,” she whispered, her eyes shining with tears. “It’s me, Jesse.”

I blinked in confusion, my mind spinning.

“How did you know my name?” I asked. “I don’t remember telling you.” I rarely told anyone my name anymore. But maybe I’d told her. I did a lot of things I didn’t remember these days.

“It’s me, Jesse,” she insisted again.
“Frankie.
”

My heart stopped, my mind skipping like a scratched record.

“What did you say?” I asked, absolutely certain I hadn’t told her anything about Frankie.

“It’s me - Frankie,” her lips curled up in a half smile and my stomach turned.

“Who told you about Frankie?”

God, it hurt just to say her name - not even the the numbing water could take away that pain.

“Did Riot tell you about her?” I insisted, making a mental note to kick his ass.

What a mother fucker,
I thought. He needed to mind his own business, but no…he was always meddling, always ‘looking into things’…he’d grilled me about Frankie a week after I’d arrived, trying to fucking psychoanalyze me and shit. And now he’d run his mouth off about Frankie to Vanessa? That was the last straw. Frankie was fucking sacred.

Vanessa’s eyes were wild, tears streaming down her face. For fuck’s sake. Is this some jealous girl thing? I was so fucking confused.

“Look, I don’t know what Riot told you,” I told her. “But Frankie was a long time ago. She’s gone.”

“No!” she cried, her voice rising even though it was quivering. “Goddammit, Jesse! Don’t you see? Don’t you see me?
I’m Frankie!
”

“You’re what?!” I shook my head in bewilderment. “Who?” This was a mistake. This was all a big fucking mistake. Coming here. Getting mixed up with her. Fucking her in the goddamned cave. She’d just been through hell and I was fucking with her?
What the fuck was wrong with me?!

“Look, Vanessa, I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” I said, surprised by my own shaking voice. Something was wrong, so fucking wrong, and all I wanted to do was run away.

“Stop it, Jesse! It’s me!” Vanessa screamed over the waves, the wind picking up around us and blowing the red locks of her wig around her face. “I’m Frankie! I didn’t fucking die! It’s me!”

“What are you saying?” I said, waves of fear gripping my heart. I’d let go of her hands long ago, standing there with my jaw open, my eyes wide, my feet so fucking cold it had spread all the way to my gut, penetrating deep into my bones until every cell in my body was dead. I stared at her silently, the world spinning around me as every part of me succumbed to the sweet deadly embrace of the waves. They lapped around my body like a taunting monster, it’s tentacles heckling me, tempting me, laughing at me, until it had gripped my heart like a vice, squeezing until it was dead too.

“I don’t know who you are,” I said, my voice a million miles away from the tsunami in my head. “But,” I stopped, my hand reaching out and snaking around her bicep, squeezing firmly as I looked into her eyes. My gaze raked over her face, and I shook my head. “Don’t ever fucking say her name again. Do you understand me?”

“But, Jesse —,”

“Wreck!” I growled, squeezing her arm again, staring into her eyes. “Jesse’s dead. And so is Frankie.”

I let go of her and turned away. I had to get away before I squeezed harder. Before I screamed at her, before I totally and completely fucking broke down.

Who did she fucking think she was? Was she playing some kind of game?

Nothing made sense. I shook my head, looking down at the bottom of my soaked jeans. The water was all the way up to my crotch, way deeper than I’d realized. I turned my head to look back at Vanessa and screamed her name as I saw the wave two feet behind her.

“Vanessa!”

Our eyes locked together and time stopped. The water reflected in her eyes, creating a shimmering blue like I’d only seen once before, on a cold night, under the stars of a dark Oregon sky.

“Frankie!?”
I whispered.

The crash of reality was more stunning than the crash of the ten foot wave that engulfed us. I realized in an instant that everything I’d ever cared about, everything I’d ever gained and then lost, had been found again and yet ripped away once more, all in the same fucking cruel moment.

A hint of a smile found its way to my lips as the crystal blue of her eyes turned into the crystal blue water that swirled around us like air, blanketing us under its heavy weight - robbing us of our past, our present, our air…our lives.

I smiled because I’d found her. No matter who she was. Because in that last lightening-strike of a moment, nothing mattered but that.

We tumbled through the waves, our limbs dancing gracefully, weightlessly, uncontrollably in the churning violence of the ocean’s whim. We sank farther and farther away from the surface, her red wig floating up and away from her head towards the light above us.

Royce

“You’d better have some news for me!” I growled at Travis. I was seething in anger that he hadn’t found Vanessa yet. I knew the longer she was gone, the farther away she was getting.

“Sorry, boss, she just vanished into thin fucking air!”

“She’s a fucking human, asshole, not a goddamned bubble!” I closed the distance between us, grabbing the collar of his shirt in my hand and pulling him close. “You’ve got till tomorrow! You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, nodding firmly.

“You sure, Travis?”

“Yes,” he said, tearing his eyes away from mine.

“Look at me!” I barked. “If she’s not back in this fucking house in twenty-four hours, what’s going to happen to you?”

“You’re going to fire me,” he said, raising his eyes to mine.

“Wrong,” I said, lowering my voice and bringing my face millimeters away from his. “I’m going to fucking kill you. Am I clear?”

He raised his chin, took a deep breath and nodded again.

“Crystal.”

“Good,” I snapped, releasing his shirt and shoving him away from me.

“Now, why the fuck are you here?”

“It’s about the party, sir.”

“What about it? And why do you care? I’ll worry about the fucking party, you just concentrate on not getting yourself killed.”

“Well, sir, I’ve been given some information —,” he began.

“Does this information involve Vanessa’s whereabouts?” I interrupted. I was so sick of his fucking incompetence. If he’d done his job, she wouldn’t be missing.

“No, it’s —.”

“— then get the fuck out of my face!” I roared, my blood boiling. He jumped and hurried out of the room, leaving me alone with my rage. Nobody had ever betrayed me this way, and Vanessa was going to have hell to pay when I found her. If I let her live - which I hadn’t decided on yet — she was going to learn a very big lesson.

You don’t fuck with Royce Randolph and get away with it.

She was mine. I’d claimed her long ago, body and soul, and there was no way she was getting away. I shuddered to think about who she was with, what she was doing - who she was letting touch her face -
my
face. The thought made me sick to my stomach. She was the one thing I had that was pure in my life.

All my business dealings were the twisted, fucked-up results of fraud and corruption. Everyone around me were fucking sharks, only looking out for their own pleasure and power and wealth. That included me, without a doubt. I was just as bad, if not worse, than everyone else, and I never held any disillusions about that. But Vanessa was the one thing in my life that was good. She wasn’t corrupted. She wasn’t a liar or a thief or a fucking con artist. She was innocent and genuine.

Sure, she hated my fucking guts, but that didn’t make her less clean.

Possessing her, in some fucked up way, made me feel less dirty. It made being in my own skin a little more bearable. It made me hate myself just a tiny little bit less. Vanessa’s existence in my life helped me sleep through the night.

The fact that I hadn’t tainted her, that I hadn’t ruined her, redeemed me.

All those other people I’d fucked over? Not just the business deals, but all the people. I’d conned people out of millions of dollars, but I knew most people would think the most harm I was doing was probably to those girls. The ones at the parties. The ones I kept on my island.

But I knew that wasn’t true. Those girls were paid handsomely for their services. I wasn’t forcing them to do anything they didn’t want to do.

But I couldn’t help but think they were still dirty.

Not like my Vanessa. My pure, perfect, untouched beauty.