Ilook across at her as she fastens her seatbelt and smile. Leaving this dust bowl without her was never an option, but I can’t describe the sheer relief I feel at having her sitting here in my car after agreeing to come back to New York.
“Shall we hit the road?” she says as she kicks off her sandals and puts her feet up on the dash, ensuring I get an incredible view of her tanned legs in her denim mini.
“Do you need to go to your place on the way?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “There’s nothing there I need.”
“Good,” I breathe a sigh of relief. Stopping by her place could have been an opportunity for her to run. “But before we set off, I need to do something.” Taking my cell out of my pocket, I dial Liam’s number. A few seconds later, his face fills the screen.
“You got some good news, bro?” he says when he answers.
“I sure have,” I grin at him as I turn the phone so he can see my passenger.
“Jessie!” he shouts. “Please tell me you’re coming home?”
I watch the blush creep across her cheeks as she smiles. “Yeah,” she says with a shrug. “If you’re all okay with that?”
“Okay with it? Fuck, baby, we miss you like crazy,” he chuckles. I shift over in my seat so both Jessie and I can see the screen. “Mikey!” Liam shouts and a few seconds later my other younger brother’s face appears on the screen too.
“Red!” he grins. “What the fuck have you done to your hair?”
“It will grow out,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
“It better. So, you coming home?”
“Yes,” she laughs.
“Great. Get your asses on a plane right now and we’ll be waiting for you at the airport,” Mikey says and Liam nods in agreement.
Jessie looks across at me, biting her lower lip in a way that makes me want to bite every part of her body, and I wink at her. “Actually, we’re going to drive back,” I say.
“What?” Liam groans.
“Fuck, no!” Mikey shouts.
“I can’t just leave the car here–” I say.
“It’s just a car. We’ll have someone pick it up,” Liam interrupts me.
“Jessie. You want to fly, right?” Mikey asks. “You don’t want to spend three days in a car with Conor, do you?”
“Three?” I shake my head and glance sideways at Jessie, and she grins at me. “More like five?”
“Yeah. I’d say five,” she nods in agreement.
“No!” the twins shout in unison. “You got to get your asses back here right now. Conor, you know what a pain in the ass Shane is when he’s in a bad mood. Please don’t subject us to more of his moodiness than is necessary,” Mikey adds.
I sense Jessie bristle at the mention of Shane’s name. I slide my hand over her thigh and squeeze gently as Mikey and Liam go on grumbling. “Boys,” I shout in order to be heard over their grumbling. “Let me show you something.” I tilt the phone down so they can see Jessie’s gorgeous legs in her tiny skirt and my hand sliding between them. They both groan and growl in appreciation and I laugh as I lean back in my seat and turn the phone back to me. “Now, can you honestly tell me that if either of you were in my shoes, you would be doing anything but driving back to New York – very slowly?”
They both frown at me and voice their disapproval, and Jessie chuckles in her seat beside me.
“You got four days, Conor!” Liam snaps. “And then we’ll be coming to get our girl ourselves.”
I nod. “Deal. Now say goodbye to Jessie, and she’ll call you later tonight when we stop at a motel.”
As I turn the screen again, I watch while Jessie waves and blows them a kiss. “See you soon, boys.”
“See you in four days,” I wink at my brothers before ending the call. “You sure you’re okay with driving home to New York?” I ask her as I put the car into drive.
“Four days on the road with you? Staying at cheap roadside motels every night?” she bites on her lip again as though she’s deep in thought and my cock twitches at the sight. “I’m sure I can handle that.”
I pull the car out of the parking lot and raise an eyebrow at her. “Hmm. But can I, Angel?”
“Well, I can’t wait to find out, big guy,” she smiles at me.
“Me neither.”
We hit the road as soon as I ended the call to Liam and Mikey and I’ve been driving for six hours by the time we stop at a motel.
“You want me to drive us a little further?” Jessie asks.
I roll my neck, making it crack. “No. I’m beat. Besides, I need food. Man cannot survive on candy alone.” I wink at her. I asked her to get some snacks when we stopped for gas earlier and she bought candy, and more candy. “Besides, by the time we’ve eaten, it will be late. We can set off again early in the morning.”
“Okay,” she climbs out of the car and takes her backpack from the back seat. “Shall we see if they have a room first?”
“Sure.”
Ten minutes later, I open the door to our motel room. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s clean. Jessie walks inside and flops down into the middle of the large bed and my cock stirs to attention. Suddenly, I feel like a horny teenager. When we had sex in that basement earlier, it was incredible. But it was rushed and frantic. The fulfilling of a carnal need. And the thought of spending the entire night with her, naked and in that bed, makes me nervous and excited and I don’t think I have ever felt like this in my whole life about the prospect of spending the night with a woman.
She looks up at me, her blue eyes dark with desire, and I have to drag my eyes away from her as my stomach growls and reminds me I need food — like now.
“Come on. Let’s go eat?” I drop my bag on the carpet and hold my hand out to her.
“That place next to the motel looks like it does takeout,” she says as she stretches her legs and yawns. “I don’t want to go out. Let’s lay on the bed, watch tv and eat until we can’t move?”
I stare at her as I consider her offer. I could go for takeout. It would probably be quicker too. “Okay.” I run a hand over my jaw. “What do you fancy?”
“A big dirty burger,” she grins. “And a coke.”
“Dirty burger and a coke,” I nod. “I’ll be back in fifteen.”
I open the door with the bag of takeout in my hand, and the first thing I notice is that Jessie isn’t lying on the bed. I step inside. She’s not in the room.
“Jessie!” I shout as I head to the bathroom, but the door is open and I already know instinctively that she’s not in there. My heart drops through my chest. The first opportunity she got, she ditched me. How the fuck does this girl keep making a fool out of me?
“Fuck!” I shout, punching the bathroom door and putting a hole right through it, just as I hear voices outside.
The door opens, and Jessie is standing there with an old lady with gray hair. “Here he is. I’m sure Conor will be able to sort it for you,” Jessie says as she smiles at me.
“What?” I can’t help but frown as the adrenaline is still thundering around my body.
“This is Barbara from down the hall. She can’t get the faucet to turn on and there is no-one on the desk. I tried, but it’s stuck fast. You think you can take a look?”
I take a deep breath and will my heart to stop racing. “Yeah. Course,” I say walking out of the room and along the corridor behind Jessie and Barbara.
A few minutes later, I’ve fixed the stuck faucet and Jessie and I walk back to our room after Barbara insists that I take a packet of M&M’s for my trouble. As soon as the door is closed behind us, I pull her into my arms. “Don’t disappear on me like that again, Angel,” I warn her.
“I’m sorry. But she knocked, and she needed help. I was only a few minutes.”
“I thought you’d gone, Jessie. Or something had happened to you.” I swallow the emotion that wells up into my throat.
“I’m not going anywhere, big guy,” she smiles at me and I press a kiss on her forehead.
“Good. Now let’s eat before I fucking pass out.”
We finally sit down at the small table and Jessie takes the food out of the bag. It smells incredible and my stomach growls in agreement. We eat in silence for a few moments, and I can sense the tension growing in the small room. She looks across at me and I know the question is coming.
“What happened after I left?”
“We didn’t kill him,” I tell her. “When you left, I don’t know, maybe we got distracted. Your father–”
“He’s not my father,” she interrupts me.
“Alexei got out of there. Him and a couple of his men.”
“And the rest?”
“Dead. He basically used them as human shields. Didn’t you know he was still alive?”
She shakes her head. “No. I ran here and then I haven’t even opened a laptop or been online at all. I didn’t even have a smartphone. I wanted to leave it all behind. I thought perhaps if I tried to be this completely different person, he would never find me.”
I finish my burger and wipe my hands on a napkin. “You really didn’t want anyone to find you? You’d rather have stayed in Arizona?”
“Well, I thought so. But then you showed up, and I now all I can think about is how much I’ve left behind. And how much Alexei Ivanov has already taken from me. Not just my family, but the new family I’d found too,” she says as tears form in her eyes.
I reach out and place my hand over hers. “Your new family is still right here, Angel.”
“Some of you are,” she sniffs.
I lean back in the chair. Shane! She worries so much about what he thinks of her, but then we all do. He is the head of the family, after all. My brothers and I can’t stand to disappoint him, and it seems that Jessie feels exactly the same. I wish I could help her understand him a little more, then she would see how much she means to him. But it’s something she needs to figure out on her own.
She wipes her eyes and pushes her chair back, leaving her half-eaten burger on the table. “Thanks for dinner. I’m going to grab a quick shower. I feel sticky,” she says, bending to give me a kiss on the cheek.
I watch her walking away, contemplating following her in there, but I get the sense she wants to be alone.
