“Shouldn’t we know everything about one another? I mean, what happens if I get caught the minute we’re inside Enzo’s home and someone asks me about a birthmark or tattoo on your body?” My fingers unclasped his belt buckle.
He had a lot of tattoos on his arms. Where else did he have tattoos?
“That isn’t going to happen,” Jayden said, his voice rough and deep. He raised an eyebrow at me.
“And how do you know that?” I hadn’t let go of him yet. “You’re throwing me into danger. The least you can do is make sure that I’m fully prepared.”
His lips descended hard and fast on mine, surprising me.
With one hand on his belt buckle, my other hand traveled up into his hair, pulling him closer and tighter against my body.
Everything inside of me ached with need.
I’d never felt this desperate before.
A moan spilled out past my lips as we kissed and he yanked me harder, closer, tighter.
There was a roughness to him that I’d never experienced.
I longed for more. I liked it a lot.
Jayden pulled back. “Fuck,” he muttered and took another step away from me like I’d burned him.
He was hot and cold.
What the hell was going on with him?
“Who is Lexa Clarke?” I asked again, this time louder with more insistence.
Is that why he stopped anything further from happening between us?
Was he in love with another woman?
I waited for Jayden to elaborate on why he wanted me to sneak around his boss’s complex.
The heat and fire that he had beyond his gaze turned dark.
“She is my niece.”
The weight of his words hit me like a ton of bricks. That was the last answer that I had expected.
“What?” I said, unsure I heard him correctly.
“Lexa is my niece. About eighteen months ago, I received a call that my brother and his family were in a horrible car accident. He’d taken the family off-roading on a camping trip, and their SUV had gone over the edge of a cliff. Lexa was the only survivor. According to the police report, she had been outside of the vehicle and had directed her father around the sharp turn when the tire hit a soft spot and slipped off the ledge of the road.”
“Oh my gosh.” I lifted my hand to my lips and covered my mouth for a brief moment.
Jayden ran a hand through his hair. “If that wasn’t horrible enough, she never made it to Breckenridge. The police considered her a runaway as did DCFS. I did some investigating on my own though and tracked her whereabouts to a human trafficking ring that operated just outside of where she’d gone missing.”
I slumped back onto the mattress. “That’s terrible.” That poor girl had lost her family and then was held against her will, with men probably doing horrible things to her.
Jayden’s expression remained grim. “It is. She’s just a child, barely fifteen. I haven’t been able to track her any further than Enzo Ricci. Every trail leads directly to him. Hell, for all I know, she’s already been bought and sold, but I can’t give up. I won’t give up. I refuse to leave her behind.”
His eyes were glassy, his pupils dark like two saucers. He exhaled a heavy breath as he paced the length of the apartment.
His place was small for someone who could afford to pay me two grand a week in cash. It was clear he was trying to keep a low profile. Working at the bar was probably a side gig to keep suspicions down.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked.