Kaleidoscope Read online

  She leaned over the side of the couch she was sitting by and into me before she continued.

  “He’s into you and, just sayin’, he’s into you because of all that you got goin’ on. Don’t lose that because of who he is, how he is, or that he can give it to you like you like it. Don’t lose it for you. And don’t lose it because, you do, you might lose him.”

  Fear gripped my insides as my mind reeled back wondering if, even at this early juncture, that was already happening.

  “Krys, you’re freaking her out,” Faye murmured.

  She totally was.

  “Good,” Krystal stated as she sat back. “She’ll have a mind to all this and not let it happen.”

  “You’ll be fine. Deck will be fine. Krys is just a little cynical,” Lauren told me. “Don’t worry, Emme.”

  Too late. I was worried.

  So worried, I was immensely relieved when I heard my cell phone ring in the kitchen and that meant I had an excuse to mumble my apologies and hurry out of the room.

  Unfortunately, I was so intent on taking the call I took it even though the display said “Unidentified Number.”

  “Hello?”

  “Em.”

  Oh no. It was Dane.

  I said nothing.

  “I… Em… do you know where I am?”

  “I know where you are,” I whispered.

  “I figured you did. They said they have your ring.”

  My ring?

  It wasn’t my ring. I didn’t even want it to be my ring when I didn’t know it was a stolen ring. But it being a stolen ring, it was never my ring.

  I again said nothing but I did start fuming.

  He said something.

  “This is my one call. I’ve been waiting to make it so I didn’t wake you or something. I… things aren’t good and I fucked up with that ring. I fucked up with a lot. I know you’re probably freaked but I need to talk to you. Babe, please, can you come down to the station? I can have visitors.”

  He wanted me to come to the police station where he was incarcerated and have a chat?

  Was he insane?

  “Today, I was going to break up with you,” I informed him.

  “Shit,” he whispered.

  He knew it.

  He didn’t like it.

  And, I guessed, if he wasn’t currently residing in lockup, he would have tried to talk me out of it.

  “So, no. I can’t come down to the station because we were done and now we are so totally done, we’ve redefined the word done.”

  “Em, this is fucked up. They don’t have it right. I mean they do, parts of it, but other parts—”

  I interrupted him, “Please don’t call me again, Dane.”

  “Emme, honey—”

  “Ever.”

  Then I hung up.

  I stood there staring at my phone in my hand trying to figure out what I was feeling.

  Outside of feeling totally stupid that I said yes to a date, continued to date and let that man in my bed, I realized I didn’t feel much of anything else. Other than the fact I was relieved I didn’t have to break up with him face-to-face and could do it over the phone during his one phone call after being arrested.

  That was weird, insane and made me feel creepy.

  But at least it was done.

  “Emme?”

  I turned my head and saw Faye standing there, watching me closely.

  “Hey,” I replied. “You need more tea?”

  “Who was that?” she asked, still watching me closely.

  “No one,” I answered. “Tea?” I dipped my head to the mug she was still carrying.

  She got closer. “Chace can’t say much but I kinda know what’s going on.”

  I didn’t speak.

  She continued, “That, well, we all, since the kitchen is right off the living room, we all heard it so I know that wasn’t no one.”

  They all heard it because they were all listening. Not a surprise or annoying. I figured that was law for girl posses.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s over. I’m good.”

  She got even closer and her crystal blue eyes (that were seriously pretty) didn’t leave mine.

  “He’s calling,” she said quietly, maybe so the other girls wouldn’t hear, maybe seeing to my state of mind. “You should tell Deck.”

  No way. Jacob got bossily serious about Dane and didn’t want to discuss him anymore. I was just getting to know him as Jacob, the man who gave me orgasms during sex, but I knew enough to know he’d lose his mind if he knew Dane used his one phone call to call me.

  Not to mention, Krystal was right. I was my own woman who’d taken care of myself for a long time. This wasn’t a big deal. I could deal with the little deal it was, and I didn’t need to drag Jacob into an issue with my recently ex-boyfriend he didn’t like to talk about.

  “Really, Faye,” I told her. “It’s all good.”

  She got even closer, reached out and took my hand.

  “Okay, this is going to seem weird. I don’t know you, but those women in there, I know their stories and I have my own. I know that things happen. And some of them aren’t good things. And I know the men attached to those women, what kind of men they are, having one myself. And last, I know Deck. I know the way I saw him holding you and looking at you when we walked up to your house. I know in the time I’ve known him I’ve never seen him look or hold another woman like that.”

  That felt really, really good. Like, blow my mind, make me want to run around singing and dancing, or better, finding Jacob and kissing him hard kind of good.

  She kept talking.

  “So I know two things. One, it’s important he knows everything that might be going down around you just on the off chance it might turn bad so he can stop it from doing that before it starts. And two, a man calls his woman, it is not good to keep it from him, because that’s sure to turn bad.”

  It was then I was seeing the wisdom of doing what I could to amass a girl posse who knew how to deal with “uber-alphas” because they could share their wisdom.

  And because it felt nice she cared enough to take the time to advise me.

  But bottom line, she wasn’t wrong.

  This county had seen serial killers, innocent men being framed for murders and women being buried alive.

  Heck, the guy who owned the yard before Dad had murdered a bunch of people and successfully conspired to murder another guy. If town lore could be believed, Nina and Max were involved in this in a bad way, with Nina nearly being a victim and Max rescuing her seconds before that happened. Though, I’d never asked Max about it, seeing as, “So, is it true your ex-friend, the ex–lumberyard owner almost killed your wife?” wasn’t idle chitchat.

  Now a gang of thieves that were worse than your average everyday thieves had run amuck throughout the county. And I’d been dating one. One who called me from jail after getting arrested for running amuck.

  Perhaps I should tell Jacob that Dane had called.

  “I’ll go tell Jacob,” I decided.

  “Good thinking,” Faye replied on a smile and a hand squeeze.

  I squeezed her hand back and realized this might be my shot at having genuine, real, true friends close to home (and a lot of them, shocker!). They’d given all the signs and even if I was the latecomer, they still were letting me in.

  I liked that.

  I let her hand go, put the phone down, walked through my house and up two flights of stairs to the opening that led to my attic.

  There were stairs folded down. There were also two dozen huge rolls of insulation lining the hall. And at the end of the hall, a massive pile of old insulation that didn’t look nice, fluffy, pink and clean like the new stuff.

  I actually felt my heating bills decreasing, and the warmth wash through me that Jacob was doing that for me, as I called up the stairs, “Jacob? Honey?”

  “Yeah?” he called back.

  “Can I talk to you a sec?”

  “Can it wait a
minute, babe?”

  “Well, not really!” I yelled.

  Five seconds passed and I saw his head appear in the opening, leather-gloved fingers curling around the side.

  It was then I noted, even just seeing his head and fingers encased in work gloves, or maybe because his fingers were encased in work gloves, Jacob Decker was all kinds of hot.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Can you come down?”

  His eyes moved over my face.

  Then his head disappeared but his whole body appeared as he climbed down the ladder.

  There it was. Proof. Jacob Decker was all kinds of hot and it wasn’t about the work gloves.

  He had magnificent thighs. They were thick. Pure muscle.

  This was a good thought to hold on to (and a good visual to have) while I waited and watched him reach the bottom and turn to me.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Dane used his one phone call to call me,” I answered.

  After I said that, I took a step back.

  This was because his face turned to stone but his hazel eyes started glittering in a way that freaked me right out. It was a look I’d never seen. It was weirdly sexy. It was also totally scary.

  Then he thundered, “Chace!”

  “Honey—” I whispered but he didn’t reply or even look at me.

  His head was tipped to the opening to the attic.

  Chace’s head appeared there.

  “Jesus, what’s happening?” Chace asked upon one look at his friend.

  Jacob was yanking off his gloves as he said, “Come down. We need to take a ride to the station. McFarland used his one call to phone Emme and I need him in a room where I can explain that Emme ceased to exist for him the minute his fuckin’ fingers dipped in the print ink.”

  Chace said nothing but his head disappeared. I heard him talking to the guys as his body appeared and he moved down the ladder.

  Just to say, he had nice thighs too.

  I didn’t think on that too hard. I moved to Jacob and put my hand on his chest.

  His eyes tipped down to me.

  Still glittering.

  “Really, I made my point on the phone,” I told him.

  “And I’ll make my point in person,” he told me.

  “Ja—”

  His hand came up and cupped my jaw and his face filled my vision.

  His voice was scary when he stated, “Emme. No. Get this and get it now. No. I know this guy. You dated him for four months and you don’t know this guy. But I know this guy. And he needs to get my point in person. Yeah?”

  My first thought after this pronouncement was, What would Faye do?

  And I decided by his scary-glittery eyes, his stony face and his even scarier voice that Faye would advise I just nod and agree, “Yeah.”

  So that was what I did.

  He nodded back, stepped back and dropped his hand from my jaw.

  Chace broke into our exchange by saying (also in a hard, kind of scary voice), “Let’s go.”

  There it was. I was right to stand down. Even Chace thought this was important enough to get this done and get it done now, whatever it was.

  “Well, uh… good luck,” I said, looking from Jacob to Chace.

  Chace was scowling at me, but at my words, he smiled a smile that fortunately reached his eyes.

  Jacob’s hand came back to my jaw, his fingers dug in and I was compelled to roll up to my toes, which was good seeing as that meant his head had less distance to go when his mouth landed hard on mine. The kiss was closed mouthed, short, but undeniably angry.

  Even so, it still felt good.

  He lifted away and muttered, “Be back soon, babe.”

  I nodded.

  He dropped his hand and moved away.

  Chace moved in. “Boys’ll keep working.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “Thanks.”

  Chace jerked up his chin and moved away.

  I sighed, tipped my head back and called, “Anyone need anything?”

  “Beer!” was shouted back in a deep voice I didn’t recognize. But then again, I’d only been briefly introduced before Jacob put them all to work.

  “Fuck, Deke, it’s barely eleven,” another deep voice said.

  So that was Deke.

  “I sweat, anytime I sweat, I do it drinkin’ beer,” Deke returned.

  “Beer it is!” I shouted, thinking that wasn’t a bad way to go about life.

  I hustled downstairs, got a bunch of beers and a bunch of bottled waters.

  Then I went back to the girls and hoped that Jacob was not soon going to wipe the floor with Dane in an interrogation room at the Gnaw Bone police station and thus be fingerprinted just like Dane.

  The girls knew this was my fear and further proved their genuineness when they had a mind to it and a mind to taking my mind off it.

  So yeah.

  Girl posse.

  Maybe not so bad.

  Chapter Nine

  Harvey

  Nine and a half hours later…

  Oh God, this was…

  Oh God.

  “Jacob,” I whimpered, taking my hand from between my legs where I’d split my fingers to feel where I was taking his big, wide, rock-hard cock and darted it to lay my palm flat on the headboard to steady my jerking body that was on all fours, taking his thrusts.

  This was extreme.

  Too much.

  But somehow, I wanted more.

  “Hand back between your legs, Emme,” Jacob, powering in behind me, grunted.

  “I can’t,” I panted.

  A second later, I felt him bend over me.

  He wrapped an arm around my ribs and hauled me up, impaled on his cock.

  Oh God. Fabulous.

  His forearm stayed around my ribs but he lifted a hand up to cup a breast, his finger and thumb found my nipple and rolled just as his other hand plunged between my legs. His middle finger found me, pressed hard and circled.

  My head fell back to his shoulder. I turned it, pressed my forehead into his neck and moaned.

  “Fuck. Strawberries,” Jacob murmured against my temple. His finger between my legs started twitching and his fingers at my nipple started pulling. My hips jerked, I felt my sex clench tight around his cock and he groaned, “Hurry, honey, need to move in that pussy.”

  Oh God.

  Too much.

  “This is… this isn’t right…” I whispered.

  “It is. Hurry, Emme.”

  Another pull, more twitching.

  Oh God!

  “Hurry, Emme.”

  “Jacob… I can’t… this is… I’m gonna—”

  I didn’t finish when my hands flew to his as it ripped through me, huge, leaving me raw.

  Jacob bent forward, pushing me down. I felt his hand between my shoulder blades so I was cheek to the pillow, both his hands went to my hips, hauling me back as he drove in and I took him, still coming, being devoured by a climax.

  I opened my eyes, hands clutching his pillow at the sides of my head and felt his thrusts, the power of his body, the fullness of his invasion, and it came back.

  I slid my hand out under the pillow, pressing it against the headboard, rearing back.

  “Fuck. Fuck,” Jacob growled and proved what I thought was impossible—his ability to fuck me harder than he already was, because he did it.

  My head jerked back, my hips tipped up and I cried out as it tore through me yet again.

  “Keep givin’ me that,” Jacob grunted, slamming in again and again. “Give me that, Emme.”

  “Honey,” I breathed, still coming, then I listened as he grunted then groaned through thrusts that were no less powerful but no longer had rhythm. They were out of control—he was out of control—and it was fantastic.

  He’d found it.

  I’d given it to him at the same time he’d taken it.

  I loved this. I loved that I gave that to Jacob.

  I also loved knowing it wasn’t me who didn’
t know what I was doing.

  I’d just been with two guys who didn’t know what they were doing.

  I knew it was leaving him when he planted himself inside and stayed there, not moving, hands gripping my hips, pads of his fingers digging in and there was something about being connected to him like that, held by him like that, no movement, just that.

  All that he had was his. My sex. My hips. My body on its knees before him. Just his.

  I was Jacob’s.

  I shivered.

  Jacob pulled out. I felt his lips trail across the small of my back as his fingertips drifted down the side of my thigh before he leaned over me.

  “Now, baby, you curl up under the covers,” he said gently in my ear. “But, want you to know, there’ll come a time, later, when you’re used to me, I’ll leave you like this. You’ll stay like this. So when I come back, I can get under you and eat that wet you give me.”

  That sounded decadent and thrilling and it kind of scared me, but I wanted to do it now.

  “Drop and curl up for me, Emme.”

  I fell to my side and curled up.

  Jacob yanked the covers out from under me and pulled them over me. He slid my hair off my neck, kissed my jaw and I felt the bed move as he exited it.

  When he disappeared in his bathroom (that would be fabulous bathroom, massive sunken Jacuzzi tub, the room also decorated in creams and blacks with the rich addition of midnight blues), I tore my eyes from their avid contemplation of watching his muscles move while he walked and spied the kaleidoscope sitting on the carved wooden box on his nightstand.

  Even as this sight warmed me, knowing and seeing the proof Jacob kept me close, I didn’t want my mind to go where I felt right then it was taking me. I was sated. I’d come twice. Hard. And I was naked in Jacob Decker’s bed, he was Jacob and he was also a man who could make me come while making love to me (twice).

  But seeing the kaleidoscope I gave Jacob so close at hand, my mind went there.

  I was happy to live my life disconnected.

  Until that day I handed that kaleidoscope to Jacob.

  I’d seen it in a shop and thought it was stunning.

  I didn’t know what drove me to go back and get it when I heard what happened with Jacob and Elsbeth. I just went, found out from a mutual acquaintance where he was staying and took it to him.

  Once I knocked on that hotel room door, he didn’t make me wait. I knew he saw me through the peephole and didn’t have to think about it before opening it to me.