Problem Child (Jane Doe #2) - Victoria Helen Stone Page 0,61
seen. So sure of yourself. You scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t get enough of you.”
Now I’m positively preening, stretching out in the bed, pointing my toes, arching my back. “Is that right?”
“It’s one hundred percent right. So yes, I’m jealous. But no, I’m not surprised. You’re like a panther, Jane. Wild and gorgeous. And I definitely don’t want you touching other men, but I can’t imagine you being some contented housewife either. That’s not what I’m asking of you. Do you know that?”
“Not really.” I’m slightly irritated that he’s not more jealous, but I’m also thrilled that he knows so much about me . . . and he still wants more. “You’d let me cheat?”
“Would you let me cheat?”
A vision of Luke pumping into some weak replacement flashes through my mind and fills me with murderous rage. He’s mine. He’s really mine, and all my imaginings of letting him go are nonsense. “No.”
“Then no, I wouldn’t let you cheat. Keep it in your pants, Jane.” I snicker that he’s so close to the truth. “But you’re a sexual being. Like, a really sexual being.” He distracts himself with that for a moment and mutters a curse that makes me laugh. “You like it rough sometimes,” he mutters.
“I really do.”
“So when you get home, you tell me what you did, and I’ll make sure you get in big trouble. Will that work?”
I’m grinning so hard now that my cheeks hurt and my whole body aches with immediate arousal. “Is that a promise?”
“Yes. And be careful. It may be more anger than you actually want.”
“That’s impossible, you idiot.”
“You make me feel crazy sometimes. But we’ll think of a safe word.”
“I won’t need it,” I promise. “God, this is so hot.”
His choked laugh sounds edged with pain. “I don’t want to lose you, Jane. I want to keep you. That’s what I’m trying to do. There’s no one else like you out there.”
“That’s true,” I say.
“So are we all made up? Everything’s better?”
“Maybe, but please shut up, Luke. I don’t want to talk about feelings right now.”
“No?”
“No. I want to have sex.”
Always the magic words. And abracadabra, they work.
CHAPTER 16
I wake up at 5:00 a.m. because I fell right to sleep after my intimate talk with Luke. I guess I was worn out from all the excitement.
There are voices and footsteps outside, and I glance out the window to see the atrium teeming with men leaving their rooms. Wow. These people don’t mess around with waiting for sunrise. Now I realize why the breakfast buffet starts before dawn.
But I don’t want thick biscuits and gluey gravy, so I take a quick shower before getting dressed and pulling on my boots. When I check my phone, I find that Little Dog still hasn’t written back, and, frankly, I’m starting to get irritated. That shithead had better be dead somewhere.
Figuring I have all the time in the world, I head out to grab a good breakfast at Sonic, and then I cruise out of town in a line of petroleum workers eager to get to their fracking sites. My little sedan in a parade of big trucks. It makes me feel like a princess.
The sky ahead of me is purplish pink. The sun rises behind the smokestack cloud like I’m entering some sort of futuristic dawn hellscape. I glare at the tower and keep driving toward the small prison town beyond.
Instead of bothering to sneak up on the boys, I pull right up to Little Dog’s mansion on the hill. Assuming a group of twenty-something stoners doesn’t have the common sense to use a lock, I walk straight to the front door. Voilà. It opens on quiet hinges, letting me in to do anything I want.
For a moment I take in the house in darkness, the dank, lingering stench of weed and sickly-sweet hops. The ticking of a grandfather clock in the dining room. The heavy air that tells me they haven’t cracked a window in weeks.
Once my eyes adjust, I move deeper into the house. One guy is passed out on the couch amid a hailstorm of crumpled beer cans, but he’s not the person I’m looking for, so I keep walking. At the first bedroom I crack open the door, but it’s another guy in there and he’s actually managed to score some female companionship. Not Kayla, though. This girl has dark-brown skin and black twists of hair.
I shut that door and continue on through the open doors of