Sick Remedies (Pretty Lies, Ugly Truths Duet Book 2) Read online

  My fingers twisted in the duvet beneath us, sweat gathered on my nape. Moans erupted from me uncontrollably. His lips came to the side of my neck, biting down hard enough that I squealed.

  He suckled the sting away, breathing softly in my ear, “Come for me.”

  As if waiting for his command, my muscles locked as another orgasm spread through me like an inferno. Pleasure pervaded from my head to my toes.

  I was just barely aware of his cock jerking as my pussy contracted around it, milking him dry. He waited like a gentleman until I had a spick of bearings again before pulling out, leaving me sore and full of his come.

  Keeping his hold on my hair, he used it to control my pile of boneless limbs. I ignored the sting at my scalp as he turned me around, accepting his carnal kiss.

  He tugged my head back after a minute and forced me down to where his cock still jutted away from his body. It was covered in my come and juices, the barbell glistening.

  “Clean it off,” he commanded, his voice gritty.

  I licked my lips, staring into his eyes as I sucked him into my mouth.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  RHYS

  I watched her sleep like I had many times before, toying with a strand of her silky brown hair. She was beautiful all the time, but when she was sleeping, all her defenses down and without worry, there weren’t enough words. She had this this same carefree spirit when I was inside her, wanting nothing but to come.

  Unfortunately, we couldn’t fuck our way through life or this situation. Besides, the night before had left my dick chafed and two-toned. I wouldn’t be any good in that department for at least twelve hours.

  Rising from my crouching position beside the bed, I placed a kiss on her cheek, and left her sleeping.

  In the hall, the sound of laughter, and the television carried from downstairs. I pulled my cell out and checked my notifications as I walked. I had a shit load of things to handle now that I was home--paperwork, securing the next set of jobs for us to do.

  I saved the text from Mr. Thanatos for last, opening it on my way down the steps.

  J: 48

  J: The best I can do.

  Forty-eight hours? He was full of shit. He could do much better, he was simply impatient. I pocketed the phone and headed for the kitchen.

  “Morning,” Angel greeted when I walked in, her attention trained on the pancakes in front of her.

  Evie sat at the island, her signature mug in her hands. Tripp was beside her with the morning paper. There was only one person missing, but at least he fucking lived here.

  “None of you are homesick?”

  “Wow. A guy gets a wife, and suddenly we’re not important anymore,” Evie quipped.

  “Oh, shit. You told her?” Tripp asked, lowering the paper.

  “Later. Did you get what I needed?”

  “Ya, I left it in the car.”

  “Go get it.” I walked over to the fridge and grabbed the carton of OJ. “Has anyone seen Callum yet?”

  “I’m here,” his voice came from beneath an archway.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “If its about Em, do whatever you need to.”

  Half the room paused. Tripp with his ass halfway off the stool he’d been sitting in, and Angel with a pancake mid-flip.

  I guess no one expected that response other than Evie and me.

  “But you like her,” Angel protested.

  “I’ve liked a lot of girls. None of them stick.”

  “Okay, but you really like her,” Evie piped up. “And before you come back with some dipshit remark, it’s been obvious since she showed up at the lodge.”

  “See.” Angel pointed to Evie with one bold red, manicured nail. “If that evil bitch says its true, then it’s true.”

  “Women read too much into things. Haven’t you been single for the past three years?” he directed at Angel, going for the OJ I’d just put back in the fridge. “And Evie’s got a fiancé none of us ever see.”

  Both girls turned and looked at him with matching glares.

  “That’s my cue to get the fucks out of here,” Tripp muttered, exiting the kitchen through the rear French doors.

  “My man is the one always busting his ass for us behind the scenes.” Evie snapped. “Be a little grateful.”

  I watched the three of them banter, sipping down my orange juice. Callum engaged accordingly, but I could tell he was somewhat distracted. Emery must have gotten under his skin the other night. He’d tell me about it when he was ready. I wasn’t going to pry.

  Tripp returned with the items I’d asked him to grab, coming to stand beside me. He was a big motherfucker, tall and beefy. His tats and long hair gave people a certain impression about him. He could be a vicious machine when need be, but with us he was a giant teddy-bear, a fucking genius too.

  I drained down the rest of my OJ, and then rolled my shoulders. “We have forty-eight hours to get Jericho his proto-type.”

  That was enough to end their bickering.

  “Did you talk to Nova about it?” Angel asked.

  “Did it sound like they were talking last night?” Tripp questioned rhetorically.

  “That’s usually how I communicate too,” Callum joked.

  “Because you’re sadly all fuck-boy and no brains.” Evie rolled her eyes at him. “Do you think she’ll tell you where it is?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t give you a for sure answer. Nova is Nova. She doesn’t trust me, but she also knows now that it was never her fathers to begin with.”

  “But ya’ll did stuff,” Angel objected.

  “I know my dicks miraculous, but it isn’t a miracle worker.”

  “T-M-I.” She curled her lip in disgust.

  “You need to stop confusing fucking with feelings,” Callum scoffed.

  “Aw, Dashiell. Did the country bumpkin hurt your feelings?” Evie prodded; a wicked smile splashed across her face.

  Callum gave her a look cold enough to freeze hell over. Calling him by his middle name was one of the quickest ways to irritate him.

  “Enough. Whether Nova talks or not, we have a timetable and its ticking down with every second we waste on bullshit.”

  “Exactly,” Tripp agreed. “If J lets this be a free for all we might as well load the AKs up right now.”

  “That can’t happen. Nova would be an even bigger target just by her association with our scumbag donor, which would make us all targets because we’d obviously protect her,” Evie said, surprising all of us by claiming her sister outright for once.

  “She’s right. And we gotta take the lumpsum J’s offering. That’s a fat stack of money for those at the bottom of the chain. We have no idea what kind of deranged assholes would come crawling out of the woodwork for it,” Tripp said.

  “So, what do we do?” Angel asked, looking to me for a solution.

  “I’ll ask her one more time and if she won’t talk…there’s only one other option.”

  “We use her best-friend,” Callum finished.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NOVA

  I hoped someday when I looked back on my life, I would be able to understand why certain things had to happen. Not in a why me? sort of way, but an ah, that makes sense now! kinda way.

  This was the first thing I thought when I woke alone. And then, as I lay there in that big cushy bed, I realized that for the first time since all of this started, I had some clarity on what was going on and a chance to ponder all of it without interruption.

  The past few weeks had been a roller-coaster ride, but the last twenty-four hours? I needed an entire bottle of Tequila for breakfast.

  Pushing the duvet off me, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stretched. I wasn’t sure where Rhys had gone off to, but I was ready to leave the room. I dressed in a simple ice-cream sundress—sans panties--and left my hair down in its usual style.

  In the hall, the plush carpet was swapped for cool marble. I looked left and right, wondering how many people lived in
such a big space. The ceilings were taller than the church back in Legacy Falls. I thought I’d seen ‘mansions’ before, this place made them look like simple split-levels.

  Hearing voices from below, I followed the sound of them, careful not to touch any of the walls. I refused to be that one person who left their grubby ass finger-prints behind. I kept an eye out for the guards Rhys has been spoken of the night before, but I didn’t see any.

  Maybe they weren’t allowed in the house? Descending a swirled staircase, as I neared the bottom, I was able to pick-out who’s voice belonged to who. None of them were Emery’s. It almost sounded as if they were arguing. Rhys spoke over them and they all stopped.

  “We have forty-eight hours to get Jericho his proto-type.”

  I could only assume that was a reference to the flash-drive. I moved off to the side of the hall, or whatever I was standing in, keeping my breathing quiet.

  “Did you talk to Nova about it?” Angel asked.

  “Did it sound like they were talking last night?” Tripp questioned sarcastically.

  My cheeks heated. I hadn’t considered how loud we were.

  “That’s usually how I communicate too,” Callum joked.

  Gross.

  Someone called him a fuck-boy, Evie if my memory served me correctly, the Jessica Rabbit replica. I’d had little interactions with her, and when I did, I got the feeling she wasn’t a fan of mine.

  When their voices lowered in volume; I crept a little closer, missing some of the conversation.

  “I can’t give you a for sure answer. Nova is Nova. She doesn’t trust me, but she also knows now that it was never her fathers to begin with.”

  I listened a little longer, shaking my head at Rhys’ comment about his dick. Men and their egos. By their standards, they all had Godzilla cocks.

  “That can’t happen. Nova would be an even bigger target just by her association with our scumbag donor, which would make us all targets because we’d obviously protect her.”

  Did she just refer to Dad as our donor?

  They continued speaking, but I remained stuck on that one sentence. My brain scrambled to find a logical excuse for her choice of words. Maybe she meant in general?

  Deep down I already knew the truth, but there was a disconnect between my mind acknowledging, and my heart accepting. This was Dad. He didn’t know shit about loyalty. I found it to be incredibly sad, the way he used people. Including me. Rhys question had steered me towards that realization. It hurt. It branded me with a new scar to go atop the old ones.

  I took a step back, and then another, spinning around with the intention of retreating up the stairs until someone mentioned a best friend. Em.

  She was one person in this entire situation that didn’t deserve what was happening. All because of a goddamn piece of plastic.

  I knew what I needed to do, what was right for me and everyone else involved. I couldn’t keep running or denying the inevitable. Hadn’t I done enough of that? These people didn’t want to hurt me, they were willing to risk their lives without even knowing who I was. Would Dad have done the same?

  The answer was simple.

  No. Dad was a selfish piece of shit that I continued to love and fight for even though he didn’t deserve it. And none of what I had done would make him love me back.

  Had he wanted to keep me safe, he never would have left his demons behind for me to tame. Taking a breath, I pivoted easily on the dark marble floor, and resumed my trek to where the voices were coming from.

  I rounded a corner and stepped into a kitchen straight out of a magazine spread, placing myself in a very unwanted limelight. Every head swiveled towards me.

  It was enough to make me want to run and hide. I focused on Rhys, but not so much so that I trapped myself in his steel eyed prison.

  “You don’t have to use Em. Correction, you will tell me exactly what you’re going to do with her once I tell you where you can find this stupid piece of plastic everyone is killing themselves for.”

  Evie was the first to respond. “She can’t go back to Legacy Falls.”

  “Why can’t she?”

  “Because she’s dead. And so are you,” Rhys replied.

  For a moment I thought he was joking, because clearly, I was still alive. No one laughed. He was serious.

  “What the heck? How did we die?”

  “You didn’t hear about all the home invasions?” Callum asked. “Your house was targeted. I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

  I could tell he wasn’t sorry it all.

  “But there aren’t any bodies?” The statement came out as a question.

  “That’s all simple logistics. I took care of it,” Tripp answered this time, sounding quite proud of himself.

  Oh, my god. I started to laugh, unable to believe this shitshow was my life. “So, now what? Who are we?”

  “Em can be whoever she wants. She can go somewhere new and start over, as long as its not here or there,” Callum replied.

  I glared at him. “Why can’t we stay together?”

  Angel made a point of busying herself with a massive number of pancakes.

  “Is this really the life you want for her?” Evie asked, her voice soft. I looked over at her, not seeing any of the utter disdain she’d shown me the first few times we saw one another.

  Was this girl actually my sister? She couldn’t have been much older than me, which meant…

  Nope. I couldn’t go there yet.

  I shook my head in response to her question. “No. But I’m also not going to make that choice for her. No one should be able to do that. It’s her life that’s been derailed, she should have a say in what happens with it from here on out.”

  “I…actually agree with that,” she said, addressing the rest of the room.

  “Where is she, anyway? Is she okay?” I eyed the five of them suspiciously.

  “She had the same kind of night you did,” Callum replied with an infuriating smirk.

  I was glad I’d decided not to go look for her. I kinda already had figured that would be the case. She and I had unfortunately fallen for a pair of beautiful psychotic assholes with excellent dick.

  It was a maddening cycle.

  “Hey.” With one-word Rhys summoned my full attention to him.

  I turned my head, my breath catching as he walked towards me.

  He cupped my chin and lifted my gaze to his, setting off a flurry of treacherous butterflies in my stomach. Lord help me. When would this stop happening?

  “She’s going to be safe. I promise.”

  “You shouldn’t have considered using her in the first place,” I retorted. “And back to this whole, I’m dead thing. What about my house? My grandfather’s store?”

  “Aside from sentimental drivel, you don’t even like that house,” Rhett said.

  I wondered how he knew that when I’d never mentioned that to him. Sometimes, it was a little disconcerting how much well he knew me.

  “Okay, true. But what about the store?”

  “Its insulting you assume I haven’t taken care of all this yet. The store now belongs to a lovely married couple with my family’s surname.”

  “You gave it away?”

  “No,” he replied bluntly, shutting down any further discussion on the topic.

  I was tempted to push the issue, but I wasn’t keen on having a dramatic showdown in front of an audience. He’d better not have done some major asshole power-move.

  “How do you even manage to get all this accomplished?”

  “That’s for me to know, and you to enjoy the perks of.” He toyed with my lower lip, keeping my head still when I attempted to look away.

  “Now--.”

  “The flash-drive is buried beneath the planter beside my Mom’s grave,” I blurted it out before I could lose my nerve or the courage that compelled me to march in here.

  If Em was safe, I was safe, and it would stop us from being hunted down like dogs and the people surrounding me safe, w
hoever the flash-drive had been stole from could gladly have it back.

  So, there.

  I did it.

  This wasn’t my problem anymore.

  Sorry, Dad.

  I felt somewhat liberated by what I’d done. It was like letting someone drive, and finally taking control of the wheel again. Only now, I had no idea which way to steer.

  I’d retreated to the confines of Rhys’ room, as they all prepared to do whatever it was, they needed to with the flash-drive.

  I needed to talk to Emery. I needed to find out who I was supposed to be now that the old me was dead. And then I needed to figure out what my next step was. With Rhys, since he obviously had no intention of letting me go.

  Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. The bedroom door swung open, and Rhys slipped in, shutting it behind him.

  “You left.”

  “I didn’t think I was needed. I gave you what you wanted.” I eyed the thick folder he was carrying in his hands.

  “Pier Fifty-Seven.”

  “Pier Fifty-Seven?…The restaurant?”

  “You were there on vacation two years ago.”

  Oookay. “Yeah…with my mom and dad.”

  I side-eyed him. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I was there too. We all were. Your dad didn’t know that, though. That’s how we found out about you.”

  “His dirty secret,” I repeated what he’d called me.

  “Yeah, but if it’s any consolation, he was more of a father to you than he ever was to Evie. Her mom was his high-school sweetheart. She left him when she found out about you, but we didn’t know that until later.”

  Ouch. I couldn’t fathom finding out the man I loved had another family stashed away in some rinky-dink town.

  “Did my mom know?”

  He shrugged, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “I can’t say for sure. I never met her.”

  I smiled. “She would have lost her mind over you.”

  “No pun intended?”

  I was momentarily shocked. “You are such an asshole. That was so distasteful.” I smacked his arm, laughing. “Anyways, so you saw me at the restaurant?”

  “The pier, actually.”

  I thought back to that night, the memory not that hard to recall. “Oh, my god.” Heat spread from the back of my neck to the tips of my ears. “Noooo.” I covered my face and flopped over.