Hating Beauty (The Vegas Titans Series Book 6) (13 page)

But would an animal help me look
for Keto? Would an animal feel conviction like this? Would an animal question
themselves, or regret their past wrongs?

I don’t know his story, he hasn’t
told me. So I can’t comfort him. I can only wait to see if he’ll be guilty of
hurting me, too.

“She’s not there, though,” I say.
“She’s not in any of the books. She must be alive.”

Knox nods and turns back around,
his face showing no trace of emotion.

“Then I’ll make sure you find her
before Breslin catches us,” he says quietly, a statement of fact. “Or before
you have to leave. I will help you find your sister if it’s the only good thing
I ever do.”

It’s the first and only promise
he’s ever made me. I tuck it away silently, a treasure.

Then I spread my hands in the air.
“But where do we look? I have no more secret clues up my sleeve. Planned
Parenthood was a dead end. Death was a dead end. If she is alive, she could be
anywhere.”

Knox shakes his head and sits down
again, leaning toward me intently.

“Wait,” he says. “Planned
Parenthood wasn’t a dead end. It was clear they recognized her alias.
Otherwise, why would they have told you they had the files when you called and
then denied it in person? The only possible explanations I can think of are
that they either knew she was dead, or they knew they were supposed to pretend
she had never existed. And now we know she’s still alive.”

I nod. “Yes, but so what? That doesn’t help us find her now.
Dead end.”

Knox’s eyes light up. “What if she had an appointment but
never showed up - just disappeared - and then Breslin leaned on them to erase
the records? What if someone helped her escape? What if someone in Breslin’s
staff knew about this stuff going on, and ran interference? Someone might have
smuggled her out to a safe house.”

“A guardian angel?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my
voice. “That’s likely. And even if that were possible, that still doesn’t help
us know where she might have gone.”

Knox shakes his head. “Yes, yes it does. Because I bet I
know who it was. I bet I know the guardian angel. And I bet I know the safe
house. It just hit me.”

There’s a knock on the door and Lopez reappears.

“Cole,” he says, “Look at this.”

Lopez tosses a rolled up paper onto Knox’s lap. Knox unrolls
it, revealing it to be The New York Times. Dominating the front page is a picture
of Jasper Breslin, escorted by police through a crowd of reporters. Over the
image is the headline: “Jasper Breslin Scandal Breaks—Illicit Sex, Drugs, and
Organized Crime.”

“Shit,” Knox hisses. “He’ll be out on bail by nightfall.”

“Yeah,” Lopez grunts. “Listen. I don’t
know you worked for him or had anything to do with this, I never met your
friend Miss White, and I didn’t give you these.”

He tosses something else at Knox.
Knox catches it deftly then turns his palm open, examining it. It’s a set of
car keys.

“You better get the hell out of New York,” Lopez grunts.

He melts away down the hall,
leaving the door open behind him.

Chapter Eighteen

Rusudan Tsetsilia Dadiana

Hours of open road now stand between us and everything I
have ever known of America; the skyscrapers and grit of New York City have been
replaced by fields and farms, and even that has faded into the pitch black of
deep night. I don’t really know where we are. The last sign I remember said
Pennsylvania, but that was hours ago.

It is my first road-trip really,
and perhaps it is not really a good example of this very American tradition.
Knox has tried to keep it light, playing old rock and roll music and telling me
sarcastic versions of local history as we pass through bizarrely named towns,
but even his banter hasn’t made me forget why we are driving. It hasn’t made me
forget Breslin, Keto, and the clock ticking away.

Knox has been behind the wheel the
whole time, refusing to let me take a shift, refusing to tell me where we are
going, or how long it will take. He is on a mission now, but since his mission
is to help me with my mission, I do not complain.

He is like a cipher beside me. Ever
since I saw him crying in the police station he has been as impenetrable as
stone: blocking every attempt of my questions with more jokes, sarcasm, and
silence. Is he afraid to talk about himself? Does he regret letting me see so
much? I want to ask him so many things. I want to know everything about him.

But he won’t let me in.

He may call me Mystery Girl, but
actually, he is my Mystery Man.

Why does your guilt drive you to
help me?

What are you running from? What
kind of man are you, really?

Are you truly here with me, or
will you disappear as soon as your penance is paid? Is this all just an
accident that we are working together, a twist of fate? Am I only an
inconvenience to you?

Do you know that I want you to stay?

His face looks tired but determined in the dim light from
the dashboard. I study him silently. He is still very young, and almost
stupidly handsome. The kind of All-American man teenage girls buy posters of
and have crushes on. The effortlessly charming alpha male with a mind-blowing
body and smoldering eyes, but there’s more to him than that. I can see the
beginnings of laugh lines around his eyes. It’s a sign of kindness, of optimism,
and a good nature. But he hides those parts of himself so carefully. I have
seen him so many times use his humor as a shield, laughing and shrugging important
things aside as if everything in life was a joke. Pretending. Always a witty
response, always a skillful dodge of intimacy.

This doesn’t come naturally. He has
practiced this cavalier attitude of his. It is a way to protect his heart.

I wonder, when he looks at me, is it as easy for him to see
through my masks?

Can he tell that my carefully organized protections and
defenses have failed?

“What do you think,” he yawns, interrupting my thoughts.
“Wanna stop at that motel? It’s almost 3am, I don’t know if I can drive any
more tonight, and we are pretty close. Might as well get a little sleep and
head over in the morning when everybody’s awake.”

“
We are pretty close.”
Keto might be close. I should
want to go to her now; I should want to skip sleep and rush to the ending of my
life’s work, the fulfillment of my mission.

But once my mission is finished, my time with Knox might be
finished too.

“Alright, let’s stop,” I agree.

He pulls the car off the highway
and into the parking lot of a tiny roadside inn. I wait in the car while he
checks in to a room, and then I follow him inside.

When I see there are two beds, I actually
laugh out loud. It strikes me as hilarious: we’ve had sex, spent hours
handcuffed together, fled for our lives all day, and now he is the one person
on earth who knows all of my intimate, carefully guarded secrets. But he
doesn’t want to sleep in the same bed with me?

“What is this for?” I ask, tapping
one of the beds with my thigh. I give him my best come-hither look. “Are you trying
to get away from me?”

Knox chuckles. “Just wanted to make
sure you were comfortable.”

Without thinking, I turn and find myself launching into his
arms. He catches me instinctively, like a reflex, his muscles closing around me
like a pleasant imprisonment. I like his strength, his size. I like that he
makes me feel contained. I like that I know he is strong enough to hurt me, and
that he chooses tenderness instead.

My body is pressed against him, and
I feel his arms closing around my back loosely, as if he is afraid to hold me
too tight. I didn’t mean to be so forward, so aggressive, but there’s no
backing down now. My hips strain toward his, my arms twining around his neck
like a vine.

“Now I am comfortable,” I whisper. “Thank you very much for
your concern.”

I press my lips into his with a sigh, feeling an odd mixture
of relief and rightness when his tense shoulders finally soften and he angles
his head gently, kissing me back.

“I could definitely use more of
that myself,” he murmurs. “Very, very comfortable. Better than comfortable.”

“There’s more where that came
from,” I promise.

“Thank god.”

His hands spread across my back,
pulling me in tighter, as he claims my lips again. He tastes delicious, as
intoxicating as wine, and my head is already spinning with the pleasure of his
touch. It feels so right, so bizarrely right, when he holds me.

How can that be so? How can he feel
so right when there is nothing sure, nothing normal about any of this?

This is not the time to think. Not
now, with his firm body pressing up against mine, with the hunger burning in
every drop of my blood. I want him. I want him now. And as he kisses me, I know
he wants me too.

No, not want—need. I need him.

It doesn’t have to make sense. There doesn’t have to be a
reason. I just know that somewhere through the madness of this day, my feelings
for him have journeyed from one place to an entirely different conclusion. It
started with lust, but now the longing is deeper. Now I need him inside me,
filling me up, making me stronger and more alive from the inside out.

I want to make love.

My fingers roll his t-shirt up and he lets me lift it off
over his head, tossing it on the floor. He mirrors my action, lifting my dress
until it slides off completely. Now our bare stomachs are pressed together and
he is undoing my bra until I am free, my breasts crushed into his chest. His
skin is warm, and I can feel his heart hammering through his ribcage.

“Come here,” he groans.

His strong hands lift me by my
thighs, wrapping my legs around him, as he carries me over to the bed. I can
feel that his arms are trembling with how much he wants me and it fills me with
hope. It feels like it’s been forever, much too long since our last coupling,
and it soothes my pride to know he too has been yearning for me. That his body
is hungry.

God, one kiss was enough to make my
body already wet and aching for him.

“Take me, Knox,” I beg. “Quickly. I
can’t wait. I want you. I want you inside me. Now.”

“Oh god, yes, baby, please. I need
you.”

This time, there is no banter. There is no silliness. I can
feel that his need for me is as serious as mine for him.

He works himself out of his jeans
quickly, pulls my underwear off, grabs my hips and thrusts himself into me in
one primal act of dominance. His dick is hard and long and feels like heaven. The
impact is like a homecoming, like fireworks.

“Yes,” I moan. “Oh god!”

“Oh, baby.”

“Oh, yes! Knox, yes. Again. More.”

We are together again. It’s right,
so very right, the way he fills me to overflowing, the way his weight presses
me, the way his skin smells. His touch is tender and wild at the same time, his
pulsing thrusts urgent as he rocks his hard cock deeper and deeper into my body.

“Oh god!”

Our lips cling and part, my nails
dig into his back. He is crushing me and resurrecting me with each thrust.

“Yes! Yes, Knox! Make me yours.”

My body molds to him as he rocks
his hips against me, taking possession.

“God you’re perfect,” he moans.
“You’re everything.”

Faster. Harder. More.

I know I can never have enough.

His body, his cock, his love. I
want it all. I moan and cling to him, sweat breaking out on my skin as he works
my body relentlessly toward climax. We are gasping in tandem: straining,
laughing, whispering, and burning. The memory of this will smolder in me
forever: his hands on my breasts, his cock in my body, his tongue pleasuring
and pillaging my mouth. He’s beautiful. He’s everything I want. And right now,
he is mine.

“I’m gonna cum, baby. I’m gonna cum.”

His voice is strangled, wild, his
rhythm stunning.

And then we are trembling,
shouting, and exploding together. Climaxing as one, the fire and heat bursting
through my body, and making my heart thunder in my own ears.

“Yes!”

Knox’s whole body is shaking, his
face is euphoric, his eyes drilling into mine with wonder and hunger and
passion, something deep and primal under the surface. We stare at each other as
we writhe in pleasure, hardly believing that such sensation exists. Hardly
believing it’s real.

“Oh, baby. Yeah girl.”

Even once the first fire of orgasm
fades and our trembling grows calmer, he doesn’t pull out. He holds me against
him tightly, and kisses me until I can’t breathe. Then I bury my face in his
neck, smiling, satisfied, as I run my fingers through his hair. I can feel him
in every pore of my body, in every thought in my mind. And I know why.

I have to tell him. I have to say
it. I can’t hold it in any more.

“You are like my guardian angel,” I
whisper. “You came out of nowhere to help me when I needed you most, to touch
me when I was loneliest, to be my partner: a dark angel, a dangerous angel, but
my angel nonetheless. I love you, Knox. I know it’s crazy, but it’s true. I
love you.”

For a long moment he is still, and
I wonder if he has fallen asleep. Perhaps that is better. Perhaps I shouldn’t
have said it. Perhaps I am a fool.

“Knox? Did you hear what I said?”

But then he moves. His lips trace
over the crown of my head to my mouth, his kiss filling me again, his hand
covering and squeezing my breast, pinching my nipple with his fingers, sending
another spiral of agonizing pleasure through my body. His touch is heavy,
rougher this time, and I feel him slide his cock out as his touch changes to a
fierce embrace, squeezing my body to him tenderly. He kisses my cheek, my neck,
my shoulder. He clings to me like a life preserver.

“Shhh,” he whispers. “I heard you,
baby. I heard you. You’re so beautiful. I don’t deserve it. Now let’s get some
sleep.”

The disappointment is crushing and
instant. Those are not the words I longed for. It is not what I wanted to hear.

But it tells me everything I need
to know.