Chapter Twelve
Jett
The side of my fist is going to bruise at this point.
“Come on, Charlie, let me in,” I plead once more against her door.
“Go away,” she says. I’m starting to think she recorded herself saying this and left it by the door.
“You heard Jimmy. I can’t leave.”
“I don’t care. You’re a lying asshole. Go away.”
“Please trust me and let me in.”
“No.”
Fuck. This is a waste of time. I need to get in there and find out what she knows. If Jimmy is telling the truth, Charlie has the money. I need to get it before Jimmy does. How I’m going to do that without having to tell Charlie everything, I have no idea.
“What the hell are you doing?” Whit asks, taking the last step and standing in front of her door.
“Um,” I point with my thumb to Charlie’s door. “Just picking her up for a date.”
“No, he isn’t! He’s a lying asshole.”
“Can’t you come up with another name!” I shout back. I’ve been called a lying asshole at least thirty times in the last hour.
“Bastard!” she shouts. Touché.
“What did you do?” Whit asks, hands on her hips.
“Nothing.”
Whit opens her mouth to say something, but Charlie beats her to it.
“Liar!”
“Okay, let’s go inside my place, shall we?” Whit’s death stare doesn’t give me much of a choice, but still, I take my chances and hold my ground. If Charlie tries to slip out, I need to be here to go with her.
“I’ll just stay right here, thanks,” I say and raise my hand to knock once more, but Whit steps in front of the door.
“Get inside my apartment, or so help me, Jett, I will go full Mom on your ass.” She points over my shoulder and I groan.
My eyes narrow, accepting this challenge. I don’t last long, although I only budge because having my girlfriend and my sister hate me at the same time isn’t the best idea.
Whit’s door slams behind us.
“What’s going on? Don’t lie to me,” she says.
I shake my head and keep my mouth shut.
“Okay, you’re starting to piss me off,” Whit says. “What’s going on?” The rise of anger in her voice is clear.
No matter how much I shake my head, the outcome is still the same.
“Things are so fucking messed up right now,” I tell her, gripping the back of my neck and pacing between the living room and kitchen. “So, so fucked up.” I open her front door to peek in the hall.
“Jett, talk to me. There isn’t anything—”
“She’s her sister!” I whisper yell, pointing to Charlie’s door as I close my sister’s. Whit flinches.
“Who is whose sister?” she asks, holding up her hands like she’s just been caught touching something she shouldn’t.
I take a seat on the couch, then stand, then sit again.
“Jett, I can’t help you if you don’t give me more details.”
“Charlie is Charlotte.”
“So, Charlie is a nickname.”
“Charlotte as in, she just so happens to be the younger sister of Kenzie Campbell, the woman who is dead because of me.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
I finally take a seat on the arm of the couch.
Whit rushes to my side, her arms around me and rubbing my shoulder. “Jett, you are not the reason she died. It was not your fault. You can’t go back to thinking this way.”
“If I would have never approached Kenzie, she’d still be here.”
“She agreed to help you, Jett. You didn’t force her. It’s not your fault.”
I drop my head into my hands as I shake it to disagree with her.
“I still took her away from her. I’m the reason she has no sister.”
“Jett, you have got to stop blaming yourself. I can only tell you so many times. Charlie won’t see it the way you do.”
I sit up straight and look at my sister with wide eyes.
Holy fuck.
“How am I going to tell her? She’s not going to ever want to speak to me again or even see me once I tell her.”
“That’s not true.”
“Fuck. Telling her this would ruin her.”
Maybe I don’t have to tell her. No. Even I’m not that stupid. I have to tell her.
“You can’t not tell her, Jett.”
“She won’t listen to me. I know she won’t. She’ll never forgive me, Whit.”
“You don’t know that.”
I nod. But I do. That woman has a heart bigger than most out there. If I tell her I’m the reason her sister is gone, it won’t matter her heart’s size, that’s it for us. I also know that not telling her is the worst thing I could ever do. That, and now I’m supposed to watch her and she’s involved, and shit, my emotions are tangled in this mess. Fuck. Not to mention the fact that I wanted to protect her from getting spun into my job and now she’s smack dab in the middle. There is no way I’m letting those guys near her. I’ve got to find a way to fix this, keep her safe, and not get killed in the end.
“How did you figure this out, anyway?” Whit asks.
I don’t even have time to talk myself out of the glare I hit her with.
“Does this have anything to do with your job?”
I shrug her hand off my shoulder and move away from her.
“Whit, I can’t talk to you about that, and you already know this.”
“Jett,” she snaps. “You are in way over your head.” Her voice is firm as she stands in front of me with her hand on her hips.
“You don’t think I know that?” I snap back.
“I’m sure you do, but now you really have to talk to Charlie, and you need to tell her everything.”
A car door slams outside, causing me to spring from my seat to the window.
It’s not her.
“I can’t,” I say and move for the front door.
“She deserves better than this, Jett. Either you tell her or I will.”
My hand freezes on the doorknob as I turn around. Did I hear her right?
She nods quickly. “I swear I’ll do it. You may want to ruin your life by keeping secrets, but you don’t get to make that choice for her.”
I’m not making a choice for her. I’m trying to keep her safe!
I want to scream those exact words, but I can’t. I can’t bring anyone else into this shit.
“I have to talk to her,” I say ignoring my sister’s warning.
“I’m serious, Jett!” are the last words I hear before I close the door behind me.
She doesn’t understand. No one understands, and the only woman who could can’t find out the truth. Not yet. Not until I know she is safe.
Charlie
The next time he knocks on my door, I’m throwing my shoe at it, and the time after that, I’m opening the door and throwing the other shoe at his face. I won’t stop until he’s gone.
How could I think I could trust him? Anyone. How did I think I could actually meet a guy who wasn’t up to some sort of scandal? It’s in our family’s DNA, I swear.
He knocks.
I toss my brown ankle boot.
“Charlie, please,” he says against the door.
“Just leave, Jett.”
“We need to talk about this.”
Clearly talking through the door isn’t helping. I yank it open and he falls inside my entryway, barely catching his footing before he falls to his knees.
“There is nothing to talk about Jett. You betrayed me.”
“I betrayed you?” he asks, rising. He closes my door and I turn for the living room in a huff.
“How do you think I felt when you walked through that door?” he asks.
“Oh, like you didn’t know it’d be me.”
“I didn’t, but I’d love to know how the hell you know a guy like Jimmy.”
“How the hell do you know a guy like Jimmy?” I ask, ignoring his question.
Jett groans and rolls his eyes. I do the same thing when he finally looks at me.
“I swore I’d never get involved with another guy selling drugs and guess where I am?”
“Charlie, it isn’t like that.” He reaches for my hand. I twist and move away from him.
“I saw you sitting there with him. You can’t talk your way out of this.”
“You sat with him, too,” Jett argues. “Tell me, why does he think you are his key piece to his money?”
“Oh my god, is that why you’ve been so into me? Was this all a game to you to get me to tell you where the money is?”
“You have it?” His eyes widen, and the grin on his face is unstoppable.
“Unbelievable! I was fooled.”
“No, you weren’t fooled, Charlie. Everything I feel for you is real. But so is this situation we are in. You have to trust me. I’m not the bad guy.”
“Says the guy who was in the same booth with the man who wants to kill me.”
“I won’t let him do that.”
“You won’t be able to stop him. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I know enough,” he says. “And I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The soft look in his eyes, for once, has me thinking before I speak. Jimmy is good at manipulating people. What if I’m not the only one? What if Jett is just another pawn in his game?
“Tell me why I should trust you,” I say.
He sighs and his chin drops to his chest. “I can’t.”
I nod. “You should go. I can’t—”
“Hey,” he says. He places his finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I am the last person you need to worry about. I am crazy about you, Charlie Campbell, and everything that comes with you.”
Jett’s lips crash against mine, and I’m pretty sure what should be a gentle moment is ruined by the animal way I wrap my arms around him and kiss him harder.
For what? One more moment to pretend my life isn’t a mess. To pretend for one more moment that I met this great guy who might actually really like me. I should push him away. Slap him. Something. Anything. But I can’t.
His hands hold steady at my hips, gripping tighter as he settles down onto the couch. His affection at this moment meets my core and causes our lips to move faster.
“Holy fuck, Charlie.”
“Don’t stop kissing me,” I say, pulling his lips back to mine.
He wraps his arms around me and lifts, switching our position to where he's now on top of me. I hitch my legs higher as he skims his hands over them, moving up until the touch my stomach. I breathe in deeply as one hand makes it way to my breast. He tickles the lining of my bra before reaching back to unhook it. Then his hand is there, covering my right breast and squeezing gently. I couldn’t control the moan that comes from inside me even if I wanted to.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers, his lips now making a trail over my cheeks, neck, and all the way till he can lift my shirt and cover my nipple. He sucks hard, and I buck my hips against him.
My hands make quick work of their own, stripping my shirt over my head and shimmying off my bra before I tug the back of his shirt. He sits up only to pull it off before his lips move back to one nipple while his hand massages the other.
I wiggle to let him know not to stop, but also to sneak my hand between us. I unbutton his jeans and slide my hand down until I have him in my hand.
He pulls away from my breast to groan. It’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. I keep working him, my hand moving up and down as he kisses my core. He scoots out of my reach when his mouth meets the top of my shorts.
I look down at the same time he looks up. A wicked grin takes over his mouth. With one jerk my shorts and panties are headed to the floor.
His tongue swipes against my center, causing my hips to rise. He moves an arm over my abdomen to hold me down as he licks faster and deeper.
“Jesus, Jett.” I can barely make out the words between trying to catch my breath.
With every stroke, I lose more and more control. I cry out when everything goes black and my entire body glosses over with a humming vibe.
By the time I’ve brought myself back to the moment, Jett has stripped bare of the remainder of his clothes and is gliding a condom over himself. His gaze drifts up to mine. He smiles and captures my mouth with his own. He nudges my legs farther apart as he positions himself over me.
He slides in slow. His kiss stalls as he takes in a deep breath. He pulls his hips back and as he pushes in again, he takes my lips back against his.
I lift my hips to meet each thrust. The movement makes him work faster and harder and harder until he grabs my hips, switching up back to where I’m on top. As I settle down onto him, the groan he releases could be mistaken for a growl.
“Fuck, Charlie.”
His words prompt me to move faster, and I do, until we are both crying out with our release.
I slow to a stop and begin to crawl off of him so he can take care of business, but he stops me.
“Don’t move,” he says. “I’m not ready to let go of you.”
His arms hold tight around me. I hug him back.
I’ve been hurt more times than I want to admit, and the idea of Jett being another one of those people, eats me up inside.
I snuggle into him and take a deep breath.
I’m sick of starting over, and with Jett … if only he could’ve been the guy I needed him to be, I wouldn’t have to.