“Cason.” I look at him with an eyebrow raised.
“What? It’s dark.” He shrugs his shoulders.
Chicken shit.
Jade rolls her eyes and pulls her phone out. She turns on the flashlight feature and begins the descent down. Cason and I take out our phones and follow her down closely. The steps are old and creaky. The further down we go, the more it feels like a horror movie—the basement is always where all the fucked up shit happens.
It’s cold and damp, and I get chills as soon as we reach the bottom of the stairs. Cason veers off to the left into a room that is awkwardly placed in the center of the space. A light switches on and moments later, he reappears in the doorway.
“It’s a nasty bathroom. Looks like it was added recently, and it wasn’t done well.” He wrinkles his nose and I nod my head towards the opening to a larger room where Jade has already started searching. I don’t like her going in alone.
We walk into the room, and I shine my light around. There’s a cot on the ground in the corner, but that’s it. The cement block walls are bare, and the floor is basic concrete. A small, single stream of light filters in through a tiny window at the top of the wall.
“Someone was sleeping down here,” Cason says as he stares down at the cot. He avoids saying what we’re both thinking—that it was probably Fallon.
“Jesse.” Jade’s scared voice has me frozen in place. Any hope I still had is quickly fading. “I think Fallon was sleeping down here.”
“What do you mean Jade? Why do you think that?” I say slowly. My pulse picks up speed as I hold my breath.
“Because this is her phone.” Jade holds up a smashed phone into the beam of light from my own. There is no mistaking the cream and gold case, or the gold glitter that glistens off the light. I reach for it and turn it over in my hand. I gave her this case a few weeks ago. She didn’t have one and she was always dropping her phone.
It’s almost ridiculous that something so small can have such a huge impact. But just like that, my world has come crashing down around me.
Fallon was here.
“Fuck!” I scream. I throw the broken phone at the wall and watch it shatter completely. It falls to the ground, each piece clattering against the cold cement floor. I look for anything else within reach. The need for destruction runs through my veins. I grab onto the side of the cot and flip it against the wall. “FUCK!”
Cason and Jade stand silently by while I rage, making my mark on the walls and window. While I let every piece of my soul break as I roar out my agony.
She was here . . . and I wasn’t.
“Are you sleeping?” he whispers into my ear. He slowly drags his knuckle down my side, taking the sheet with it and allowing the cold air to hit my naked body.
“No, not anymore,” I say. With a giggle, I roll over to face him. I’m greeted with the sight of his sexy ruffled hair, a few days stubble on his chin, and his lazy grin. I bring my hand up to his face and lightly rub my hand through his stubble. It’s rough, kind of like him. I close my eyes as I nuzzle close to him and breathe in his scent. His natural woodsy smell fills my senses. It’s home. My only home.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks as he smirks, his greedy hand slowly making its way further south.
“Are you?” I ask.
He leans in, bringing his lips to mine as his fingers glide right over my sweet spot and find their way inside of me, making me moan against his lips. His hands start moving in a rhythm that makes me squirm in his arms.
“I always enjoy myself when you do that,” he tells me as he peers down at me with hooded eyes. He brings his thumb up to my core to drive me wild. “When I know the pleasure you’re feeling right now is because of me.”
He brings his lips to mine for a quick kiss, and then to my chin, and throat. He slowly makes his way down my body as his fingers steadily pump into me. His mouth is so close that I ache for it. I need him to release the tension he’s built up.
He blows on my clit, making me moan. I want him, I need him. Now.
A door slams, and all thoughts of being in bed with Jesse fade away. Disappointment washes over me when I realize that the ache between my legs and Jesse’s scent are gone. Instead, all I smell is dirty bathroom, confirming before I even open my eyes that I’m still handcuffed to a towel bar in my own personal hell and still sitting on the top of the toilet tank where I’d perched to try to get comfortable while my hands were still bound. I must have dozed off.
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes. I try to bring Jesse’s scent to the forefront of my mind but the sound of something crashing keeps me from reaching my happy place. The door to the bathroom flies open, and I can feel Marcus’s gaze on me as he stands in the doorway. I peek through one eye at him and sigh.
“What now?” I ask as I sit up to look at him. I’m bored of his games. “Someone told you no again?”
“I saw your boy. He broke into the house today. With his sister and that cousin of his,” Marcus snarls. “Jax led them right to it. Too bad for them though, because they didn’t find you.”
This perks me up instantly. Jesse found the house? A little bit of hope trickles into my soul.
Jesse. Found. The.
