Page 5 of Crossed By the Stars
When the elevator opened, I was surprised to find two bodyguards at Jada’s front door—a man and a woman team I’d seen before, usually in passing as they picked Jada up or waited for her outside a restaurant. Normally, they looked serious but not unfriendly. Today, their glower was sour and surly, which raised the warning bells Dawson’s phone call had already started jangling.
“She’s not seeing anyone,” the man said.
The bells grew louder. Jada rarely turned down visitors. She was a social creature by nature, a being who shined fierce and bright when she had an audience. Usually, the more the merrier. Even though she’d slowed down some since the debacle in New London?since being shot and almost dying?she was still a queen at heart. A queen who needed a court.
“I’m not leaving until I see her, so buzz her and let her know I’m here,” I said casually but firmly. Then, I leaned on the wall opposite them, took out my phone, and thumbed through a social media account I didn’t really care about—one I hadn’t been on in weeks, if not months. My personal assistant, Cara, kept it alive on my behalf.
The door opened, and from under my lashes, I saw the female bodyguard duck inside. She wasn’t gone long before she came back and held the door open, saying, “She’s in the office.”
“Thank you.” I slid past the duo and headed down the hall to the space Jada called an office but looked nothing like her. Even the bright colors strewn about couldn’t soften the cold and uninviting place. It was all ice while Jada was all fire.
Just as I went to grab the doorknob, Jada’s primary bodyguard came out. Rana was a striking Indian woman who, according to Cillian, wasn’t to be underestimated. He’d seen her take down a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound weightlifter while barely breaking a sweat.
“Rana,” I acknowledged her.
She was frowning and as grim as the two at the door. “Dax.”
She swayed down the hall, tapping a pen against a notebook. Nervous energy for someone who was normally calm and unruffled.
The bells kept getting louder.
When I stepped into the room, all thought and breath left me. I’d tried to prepare myself to see her, but Jada knocked me for a loop like she had every single time we’d ever been in a room together. Today, she looked exactly the high-powered businesswoman she’d turned herself into. A slim, gray A-line skirt nestled across her hips, and a bright blue silk top outlined her breasts. Her legs were amplified by stilettos?her signature item?that brought her slight frame almost to my shoulder.
The outfit accentuated every small, firm curve and tempted me to bite them. To taste the fruit I’d barely nibbled at. To crush those bright-pink lips against my mouth and make her mine in a way she hadn’t really ever been, regardless of the handful of kisses we’d shared or the one and only time we’d found ourselves naked in a bed together.
Like me, she was flawlessly put together. It was required of us when cameras turned in our direction the moment we left our homes. The paparazzi giddily watched, waiting to catch us at our worst instead of our best.
But the longer I stared at Jada, the more I also saw the truth. Beyond the perfectly pressed outfit and carefully done makeup, she was exhausted. Her lush, dark lashes were unable to hide the tired that screamed from her soul.
I hadn’t seen her this worn out in several years. Since she’d given up the all-night parties, alcohol, and drugs the members of our social circle were known for. Since she’d become Violet and Dawson’s business partner and had an actual cause to plow her energy into. If her security team hadn’t been wound up, I might have thought she’d gone on a bender, but it was clear there was more going on than just a relapse into old ways.
“Armaud, what did I do to bring you to my doorstep?” she asked, voice light, all tease. It called to me, sinking into my veins. But behind the mocking, I could hear what she wasn’t saying: I was there at a bad time.
“You have plans today?” I asked.
She snorted. “I have plans every day. I was due at theVioletteoffices two hours ago.”
She leaned so that her butt was against the desk. She neatly crossed one leg over the other, drawing my eyes up the length of them to where the skirt ended. What I wouldn’t give to drag my hands under it. To tuck her up against me. To take her on that desk.
It was ridiculous the thoughts that flew through me whenever I saw her. I enjoyed making love to women. Slow and sensual, fierce and strong, but rarely fast. I relished taking my time, turning minutes into hours, and prolonging the pleasure for both of us. Sex was a euphoric release to be controlled and savored. Except, my body didn’t agree when it came to Jada Mori. Never had one woman consumed me the way she always had. Never.
Jada
PAPER LOVE
“Oh, I know that boy's gonna rip me up.
'Cause he ain't that nice, he won't do right,
He'll leave a nasty cut.”
Performed by Allie X
Written by Mclaughlin / Hughes / Pimental
Dax Armaud was sin personified standinginfront of me. He looked like he’d stepped out of an ad forÉclair,his father’s company, which was probably the point if I knew Dax at all. His dark hair was done up, looking slightly mussed, and a thin, barely-there beard coated his chin and cheeks. Just enough bristle to know it would be rough between my thighs, which sent silent thrills through my body. When I met his eyes, they glimmered at me?a message of desire blended with a warning to stay away.
He was at least a foot taller than me when I was barefoot, and even in my heels, he was still a tower of lean strength. He had muscles, deeply cut ones, but they didn’t add bulk to his frame the way it did some men. Instead, it added to the cover-model feel that his apparel usually screamed, like the blue-and-gray suit he had on today did.
