Captivate me a dark capt.., p.19
Captivate Me: A Dark Captive Romance, page 19
His eyes fall shut and he shudders. “Yeah. You fucking are.” His gaze is on me again, and he brushes my hair behind my ear. “Forgive me?”
“Trust me?”
He tips his forehead against mine and presses my hand to his heart. “With my fucking life.”
“Then I forgive you.”
We stay like that, embracing until he finally pulls away to draw the curtains while I crawl under the covers.
“We should buy this house. When it’s safe. Make it our own,” I tell him.
Beau grins, slipping under the covers with me. “Yeah? What would you change?”
“First, I’d get blackout curtains.”
He presses his lips to my bare shoulder. “Mmm.” The word hums deliciously along my skin. “Then we’d never have to leave the bed.”
“Except to take baths.” When he raises an eyebrow, I add, “Together.”
He nods like that’s better. “And we’d order all our food and have it delivered right to our room.”
“And I can paint on the walls.”
“Perfect.” He catches my jaw and kisses me, tongue prying me wide to claim me. Claim what’s his. I moan and melt beneath him.
His mouth moves across every inch of my body, sucking, licking, nibbling. This time feels different. Like a prayer. Worship.
I’m no longer just the princess in the basement he can’t resist—I’m the woman he wants. The woman he’s scared to lose.
I’m scared to lose him too.
But I push those thoughts aside when his tongue lands between my legs. His strokes are long, luxuriating. This time, he’s giving me pleasure, not wringing it from me.
When my thighs start to shake, he grips them hard, his fingers sinking into my flesh. I’m no longer skin and bone. Gone are the stick-straight legs that made Mother happy, that made me beautiful in her eyes.
Now, I have thighs that touch. And the way Beau is massaging them, it’s safe to say he loves them too.
For the first time in maybe my whole life, I love my body. I love the way I feel in it. Especially the way Beau makes me feel in it.
When he sucks on my clit, I drop my head back and groan, pulling at his hair that was made for this. He hums his approval, and the vibration makes me hiss. Wetness pools between my legs, and when he slides a finger in, it’s his turn to groan.
He keeps licking and sucking, gradually pumping his finger inside me harder and harder as I get closer to the edge. When I finally go over, heart hammering wildly, he doesn’t back off. He keeps eating me, not done with me yet.
I’m soaked, the sound of his tongue penetrating me turning obscene. He fucks me with his tongue while his thumb rubs at my clit, and when pleasure barrels through me again, it’s so sweet, my eyes water.
By the time he straightens, I’m a limp, whimpering, wet mess beneath him, but it’s not like last time. Not making me come over and over so I regret leaving. This time is fully for my pleasure. To show me how much he wants me here, in this bed. With him.
His gray eyes are intense, trained on mine as he leans over me. “I would walk on glass for you. Rip anyone limb from limb for looking at you wrong. Protect you. Worship you. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. You want a new art studio? I’ll build it. You want to come seven times a day? I’ll be on my knees before you. I’m yours, princess. Every inch of me. My entire black and tarnished soul is yours.”
A tear slips down my cheek. “And mine is yours.”
Just before he slips inside me, he breathes, “I love you.”
Then he slides in to the hilt.
I gasp, clutching at him. When I got here, he didn’t seem like somebody who was capable of falling in love. He was little more than a beast, terrifying and merciless. Unfeeling.
He’s nothing like I thought he was.
But sometimes, I do enjoy the beast.
Like now. When he slams inside me, driving pleasure through every inch of my body.
“Did you say you love me?” I gasp.
He rams inside me again, both of us moaning. “Yes.”
He loves me. Beau Grayson loves me.
“I love you too.”
His lips curve up in a cocky smirk. “I know, princess.”
Then he fucks me harder and faster than he ever has, making the pleasure in my limbs build like a song to its crescendo, until I come so hard, my vision goes dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THEO
“Thank you for coming in today, Mr. St. James.” Officer Garcia shuffles papers together in a file, opening up her notebook and grabbing her pen like we’re in a business meeting, not an interrogation room.
When the police called this time, Dad insisted on sending my lawyer with me. Mrs. Lockwood is the second-best lawyer in the state of North Carolina after me.
She looks like she can’t be older than thirty-five, but her lips are pursed and one glance is enough to tell you she means business.
Officer Garcia folds her hands together on the table in front of her. “I’m just going to get right to it. We asked you to come down today because we don’t believe you’ve told us everything about your relationship with Miss van Buren.”
Mrs. Lockwood crosses her legs and sighs. “Please ask my client whatever direct questions you have. We don’t have time to waste, and neither do you. A girl is missing.”
Garcia shoots a glance at my lawyer. Obviously wishing it was just the two of us again. “At the time of Miss van Buren’s disappearance, were you still in a relationship?”
Shit. I rub my palms against my jeans, suddenly sweaty like I’ve stepped in a sauna.
There’s no point in lying anymore. She wouldn’t be asking if she didn’t already know the truth. “Uh. No.”
Garcia nods once. Lockwood shifts uncomfortably. Dad must not have told her this bombshell was coming. I couldn’t have predicted this either.
“Right. So did your affair with Miss Sinclair begin before or after your ex-girlfriend went missing?”
The words drop in the room like a rock, silencing all of us. Both women’s eyes are on me. Garcia’s accusatory; Lockwood’s horrified. She didn’t expect to have the rug pulled out from under her today.
Neither did I.
My chest constricts, air struggling to reach my lungs. How did they find out about me and Cass? Did we slip when we thought no one was watching?
“Don’t bother trying to deny it,” Garcia says simply. “We know about your relationship.”
Lockwood holds up a hand. “Hang on. What could Theo’s relationship with Miss Sinclair possibly have to do with Miss van Buren?”
Garcia scowls at her. “You know as well as I do that we have to look at everyone close to Miss van Buren and their potential motives.”
“Motives for what? My client had nothing to do with his girlfriend’s disappearance. He’s an honor student, a scholar, a division-one athlete—”
“Yes, we’re well aware of your client’s many accomplishments,” Garcia deadpans. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t cheat on Miss van Buren or harm her in some way to be with another woman.”
“I didn’t cheat on her.” Both their eyes flash to me, at the rough edge to my voice. I pull in a deep breath to calm myself. “Noelle and I broke up the afternoon she went missing. Cass and I didn’t get together until weeks after.”
Garcia’s eyes narrow. “So you mean to tell me that you and Miss van Buren broke up the same day she was reported missing? Even though you’ve been claiming since her disappearance to be her boyfriend. Is that correct?”
Now I know why my father wanted me to keep quiet. She’s already looking at me like I’m guilty.
I glance to Lockwood for guidance, to get me out of this line of questioning, but she stays silent. “Yes.”
Officer Garcia leans back, arms folded. “Did your breakup stem from your feelings for Miss Sinclair?”
“Who made these allegations?” Lockwood cuts in.
“Two of her sorority sisters, close friends, came forward with the information.”
Addison and Piper. Fuck. I thought they were oblivious to us. We must’ve screwed up. Slipped when we thought we were being discreet.
Except the only people who know about the breakup are me, Noelle, Dad, and Cass.
Cass.
No. She wouldn’t have told them. Not after my father’s warning. Not after we agreed to keep it to ourselves until Noelle came home.
“So hearsay.” Lockwood rolls her eyes and stands. “Congratulations, Officer. You have nothing. My client and I will be leaving now.”
But by the way my lawyer guides me out the door, nails digging into my back, they have something. A whole shitload of it.
CASSIE
After class, I head right for the baseball field to cheer for Theo at practice. He’s had to ice his leg today, so we didn’t get to meet up for lunch and we haven’t gotten to see each other since yesterday.
Addison and Piper grabbed lunch without me. They’ve been avoiding me since I admitted the truth about me and Theo—they think I’m the shitty friend who’s choosing Theo over Noelle. That I’ve placed my trust in the wrong person. The guilty person.
But I know Theo. He had nothing to do with Noelle’s disappearance.
Gray clouds move in fast from the west, carrying with them the threat of rain. The guys will play anyway, even in a torrential downpour. Then Theo and I can peel off our soaked clothes in the back of his Audi and fuck each other warm again.
A few of the baseball players pass me on their way to the field. I search their faces for—
“Cass.”
I whirl, a huge grin on my face, ready to throw my arms around him.
Theo’s features are grim. Stony. My stomach gives a sickening churn. “We need to talk.”
He pulls me back toward the locker rooms, away from the meandering line of his teammates heading for the baseball diamond, and leans against the wall, arms crossed and eyes anywhere but on me.
“What’s going on?”
“You told Addison and Piper we’re together. And about the breakup.”
My mouth goes dry. I try to swallow down the lump in my throat, but I can’t. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to, but I told them Colin is the guy I’ve been seeing and they confronted him in public, and I didn’t have a choice—”
“Why did you have to tell them anything?” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Dad was right. This makes us look bad. Everyone always suspects the ex, and now they know we’re sleeping together.” Finally, his gaze lands on me, and I regret ever wishing it would. I’ve never seen this look in his eyes before. I don’t recognize him. “The police questioned me and basically accused me of being involved.”
Fuck. So the news has reached the police.
I grab Theo’s hand, desperate not to let him pull away from me too. I never meant for Theo to get wrapped up in all of this. He doesn’t deserve the suspicion, the interrogations. “No one who actually knows you would ever believe you’d be capable of hurting anybody.”
He isn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes are on the field, where his coach is shouting instructions. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? They don’t know me. And they’re going to waste time looking at me, trying to pull answers out of me I don’t have, and Noelle will still be missing.”
The gray clouds have completely blotted out the sun now, and a raindrop hits my cheek. “We’ll figure this out together.” My voice cracks. “I love you, Theo. I’m . . . I’m in love with you.”
My heart has never hammered this hard in my life. Any second, it’ll burst. Unless I hear those words from Theo’s mouth.
When he pulls his hand from my grasp, I know I won’t.
The rejection hurts worse than when he asked my best friend to homecoming. When he asked her to be his girlfriend instead of me.
A new, deeper wound to replace that old scar.
He keeps his eyes on his cleats. “I fucking love you too, Cass. A lot.” Hearing his admission aloud makes my chest squeeze painfully when I know there’s a but coming. “I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. But I trusted you, and you broke that trust. I didn’t want anything getting in the way of finding Noelle, and this has turned into a huge mess. I think we need to take a break for a while. Until she’s back. She’s our friend, and she’s one of the best people I know. We need to focus on her right now. That’s what we should’ve been doing all along.”
He’s breaking up with me. I finally got Theo St. James, in secret, in the shadows, and now I’m losing him before I even got a chance to call him my boyfriend. We didn’t get a first date. We didn’t get to meet each other’s parents during an awkward group dinner or take cute selfies to post on our Instagrams or disgust our friends with how much we love each other.
I barely got him, and I’ve already lost him.
He turns to leave, and at the sight of his back to me, at the sight of him walking away from me for the last time, I break.
“Noelle isn’t one of the best people you know,” I call. “She killed Hunter.”
CHAPTER FORTY
NOELLE
Beau left his phone on the kitchen island. I sent him to the grocery store with a special request for the marshmallows my father would sneak me when Mother had me on yet another diet before a shoot or a pageant.
Of course Beau has a passcode on his phone. I guess his birthday. Nope. Then the usual string of numbers—1-2-3-4, 1-1-1-1, 0-0-0-0. None of them work.
I’m stumped. I can always wait for him to get home and—
Wait.
I type in 1-2-2-8. My birthday.
The screen unlocks.
I smile. Did he change his passcode to my birthday before or after he brought me here? Before or after we fell in love? I don’t care. I’m just glad he did.
I go to Instagram first. My mother has been living on social media, posting daily updates about how I’m still missing, they’re searching for me, and our family isn’t involved in my disappearance. My heart lodges in my throat. I watched her send my friends off with my car and my dog, but maybe it’s not what I assumed. Maybe they really are still searching for me. Maybe they do miss me.
The comments are a mix of people who know her and support her and strangers who blame her. Who claim it’s suspicious that we had a fight the same night I went missing.
I clutch the phone hard in my hand, the metal digging into my flesh. She hasn’t been the perfect mother. I can’t say she’s even always been a good mother. But she’d never do what they’re accusing her of, and I hate that I’m hiding out here with Beau while they’re hurling these disgusting accusations at her.
My friends are still posting the occasional selfie with me, but the posts have become increasingly infrequent, interspersed more and more with their everyday lives.
Except for Cassie. She hasn’t posted at all in a week, and she’s turned off comments. I freeze. Why?
I go to TikTok and find Cassie’s profile. Her follower count has jumped up from a few hundred to over two hundred thousand. Holy shit. Before I went missing, she hadn’t posted any videos at all. But now she has countless videos, all of them about me.
One of her pinned videos includes her face and a picture of the two of us in the background, the words: Help me find my best friend in big letters beneath our feet. This one has five hundred thousand views. Video after video of her asking people to help spread the word.
The comments on her most recent videos are scathing, everyone tearing her apart with the usual slurs. Whore, slut, bitch.
U literally became famous bc of your missing bff and u go and fuck her bf?
So I guess she and Theo are officially together now, and everyone hates them for it. Guilt washes over me. No one would give a shit about them dating if I wasn’t a missing person. They shouldn’t be publicly bashed for falling in love.
I need to go home. Right everything. Tell everyone the truth. Or at least, some version of the truth so I don’t lose Beau in the process.
His phone buzzes in my hand. The text is about a car insurance payment, and I try to swipe it away but accidentally click. I backtrack to his messages and spot an unsaved number at the top.
You’ll get the rest of your money when they find her body.
My heart stops.
I click on the message and scroll up.
Is it done?
You need to plant the body soon.
Let me know when she’s dead.
These were sent two days after Beau took me. There’s only one she these messages could be referring to.
Whoever this is, they’re asking if Beau killed me. If he planted my body.
Someone else knew Beau was bringing me here to kill me.
They paid him to do it.
Heart pounding in my ears, I stare at the string of numbers that almost looks familiar. The same area code as mine and Beau’s. They must be from Westbrook.
I search the number on Instagram. In the seconds it takes for the app to load, my stomach churns so violently, I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.
A girl pops up with a bright, smiling face.
Cassie.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CASSIE
I’d been suspicious of the van Burens since Noelle’s father claimed Michael took a joyride in their Bentley. I’d been to the van Burens’ house enough times to know Michael wasn’t the kind of guy who stole his boss’s expensive sports car, even for a night. He was an honest, hardworking man who broke his back—almost literally—saving up for an expensive private investigator who could track down his son.
He certainly wasn’t the kind of man who’d hit someone with a car and leave them to die on the side of the road.
Noelle pretended to be a good friend, sticking by my side through Hunter’s funeral and the weeks of depression that followed. But she could never meet my eyes when I talked about him.
