Page 27 of Cruel Charming Psychos (Necessary Evils 2)

I turn my head to the left, staring out the window. “Are you seriously trying to fuck me right now?”

“No… Maybe.” He sighs as he rolls off me and onto his side.

“I don’t know why you even came here.”

He grabs me by the side of the face and turns me to face him. “Because I care about you and I’m worried about you.”

“You think I’m crazy, so what is there to worry about?”

“You’re the mother of my child. I would do anything to protect you.”

“I’m going to be honest, I kind of miss the days when we were at each other’s throats. Things were simpler then.” I remove his hand from my face and kick my feet off the edge of the bed as I sit up. And then the thing that I’ve been avoiding comes out like word vomit. “Your father is going to pay for this.”

He groans loudly. “Addison, I’m telling you to let this go. Whatever you think you know, you don’t know. And if what you think is actually true, then it’s better to just leave it alone. Why would you want to poke at the bear if you think that bear is capable of having his enemies murdered?”

I look down to him. “Asher didn’t deserve to die.”

“No, he didn’t.” He climbs past me and onto his feet. “I understand that the two of you had a special bond, and you’re trying to make sense of the fact that he is gone. I promise that I can understand where you are coming from, because I’ve been down that road myself and I’m not just talking about Carter. You will do anything to assign blame, even without evidence, because you think it will help you move on from the grief, but it won’t. It will only fester.”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to talk about this, and I don’t want to have sex, so if you can’t agree with that, then you can go sleep on the couch.”

“It’s not even seven.”

“I’m tired, so just let me sleep.”

“Fine,” he relents and waits for me to roll back onto the bed. He joins me at my side as we both stare at the ceiling fan that’s not moving.

My eyes grow heavier by the second, but I’m too afraid to close my eyes. There’s a sense of impending doom, and I almost welcome it. And then the world goes black.

And Nick’s hand dances underneath my shirt until he’s grabbing my breasts with a firm hand. I don’t fight him. Instead, I just surrender to him. It’s not like it’s the worst thing in the world, either. He has the ability to make me forget the world, even if it’s only for short moments at a time. I lean back into his touch.

And then he’s on top of me. Both of us are naked and I can’t remember exactly when the clothes came off. And then he pushes into me, not stopping until he reaches the hilt. There’s no foreplay. There’s no getting used to his thickness. He thrusts with the intensity of a soldier at war. I grab him by the back, my fingers digging into his skin. He extends his arms to raise his head and when I look up, it’s not Nick.

It's Carter, fucking me with reckless abandon.

I let out a blood-curdling scream just before my eyes flash open, and I’m looking out the window of the bedroom. I try to steady my breathing, but when I look down to see Nick’s hand cradled around my stomach, I find some semblance of peace.

ChapterThirteen

ADDISON

I have more in my luggage than what I came to North Carolina with. I grabbed everything I could fit into my duffle bag. It’s mostly just clothes, but I slipped the photograph of Asher and me on the Ferris wheel into my bag when Nick wasn’t looking. Now, I’m just hoping that my carry-on bag isn’t searched at security. It’s not like Nick should care, and by all accounts, he hasn’t seemed to care yet. More than ever though, I need Nick to believe that I’m one-hundred percent loyal to him because the only way I’m going to be able to fulfill my mission of revenge is to stay close to Nick.

We make our way through the airport. It’s not even ten in the morning yet, but he has already downed his first whiskey and coke. I’m a whiskey girl and want nothing more than to down a few shots, but I can’t do that in Nick’s presence.

My feet are tired as we round the corridor into the terminal where our plane has just landed. Even though I went to bed before the sun had even set, I couldn’t find it in me to fall back to sleep after the dream I had about Carter. You’re not supposed to drink caffeine when you’re pregnant, but I’m very close to downing a gallon of iced coffee.

“Hold on,” Nick says, coming to a halt. “I’m going to grab another drink.”

“This early?”

He shrugs. “I told you that I’m a nervous flier.”

“You didn’t drink on the way to Carolina.”

“There were other things on my mind.”

“Like what?”

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