Claimed Darker by Em Brown

Chapter 51

BRIDGET

Present

My heart plummets when I see who’s walked in. I’m finished. I should have fought harder when I had the chance. So they’re going to finish me off together. First, Darren got the chance to fuck me one last time. And now my time is up. What do I do? What can I do?

But Darren looks surprised to see JD. He asks, “How’d you know I was here?”

“Travis,” JD replies. “I can’t believe you shot my guy in the leg.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t aim higher. What are you doing here?”

JD looks over at me. I’m toast. I’m tied to a chair with no way to protect myself.

“Wanted to see that you really found her,” JD answers. “After all this time.”

Darren seems a little annoyed. “Yeah?”

JD takes out his gun. “I’m sorry. I gotta do this.”

“Wait!” I cry. “All this time, I haven’t said anything, haven’t done anything. And I don’t have any plans to. I just want to live in peace.”

Darren goes from looking at JD with confusion to looking at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I look at the both of them. “Please! I don’t want any trouble. I have every reason to keep your secret.”

It’s a big risk letting them know that I know, but playing dumb probably won’t get me further, especially if they figure out I’m lying.

“What secret?” Darren demands.

“Amy found out,” JD replies. “She said she wouldn’t tell anyone if we could just be together again, but I couldn’t take that chance.”

Darren thinks for a moment before saying, “The gas leak. It wasn’t an accident.”

So Darren didn’t know about or sanction JD’s plans? I hadn’t been sure. I figured anything was possible. But if he wasn’t in on JD’s homicide attempt, maybe he doesn’t have any intentions to kill me?

JD looks over at me. “Now I gotta finish the job.”

“Put the gun down. Bridget doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“You heard her. She knows. Amy must have told her.”

“Put the gun down.”

“I’ve got no choice, bro.”

JD aims the gun at me. I scream at the top of my lungs. Maybe someone will hear me. It’s probably a long shot, but I’m out of options.

Darren slams JD into the wall. The gun clatters to the floor.

“What the—!” JD grunts. “Are you crazy?”

“Get the hell out of here!” Darren snarls.

JD looks at him in bewilderment. “What? You need to fuck her some more before I kill her? Fine. Go ahead.”

But instead of leaving, he reaches for the gun. Darren tackles him out of the way, sending JD flying in my direction.

Darren picks up the gun and raises it. My panic, which spiked higher than it’s ever been, starts to decrease, but it’s short-lived.

JD stares at Darren in disbelief. “You wouldn’t dare. Bro, you realize it’s her or me.”

Darren lowers the gun. “I said to get the hell out of here.”

JD spots the switchblade on the floor. Grabbing it, he scrambles to his feet and leaps toward me.

I lurch to the side and tumble to the floor, taking the chair with me, hoping to throw his target.

The gun goes off. Not once. But three times. Blood splatters over me. I’m frozen, half expecting to feel cold steel go through my body. But I hear a loud thump and the clatter of the knife against the floor.

After seconds—or eons; I can’t tell—I open my eyes to see JD prone on the floor, shot three times in the chest.

Darren quickly unties me from the chair and pulls me away from JD. I collapse into his arms, my body shaking violently as if I have hypothermia. Darren holds me close, and his embrace is the only thing keeping me from falling into hysterics.

Marshall comes running down the stairs. “I heard shots—”

He stops when he sees JD’s motionless body.

“We’ll talk later,” Darren tells him.

Marshall nods.

Darren scoops me up and carries me up the stairs. The house we’re in is foreign to me, but I don’t think I’d notice even if the place was familiar. My mind’s capacity to process anything is limited.

Once inside the bathroom, Darren wordlessly removes my clothes and sets me in the bathtub. He turns on the water and, kneeling by the tub, proceeds to wash me. I’m still shaking. I feel his searching gaze on me, but it takes some time before the shock to my system finally fades a little.

Do I dare hope that I’m no longer in imminent danger or should I still make a run for it? Do I dare trust Darren?

He saved my life once, though he never acknowledged that’s what he’d intended. But now I’m sure he did. Because he’s done it again. And by…shooting his own cousin. Someone he grew up with. Someone who was like a brother to him.

I turn to look at him. His eyes are no longer full of anger. But what must he be going through? Does he realize what he’s done?

“You knew all along?” he asks me.

“I knew that Amy knew,” I say, trying to pick my words carefully. “She overheard him on some call.”

Darren lowers and shakes his head. “Fucking JD. Fuck fucking JD.”

I hear the anguish in his voice, the pain. I want to put my arms around him.

He looks up and pins me with his stare. “Is that why you left? You were running away?”

I nod.

“Should I believe you?”

“Yes!” I insist. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because you’ve been lying to me all this time.”

“What? What do you mean?”

His jaw has a firm and tight set. “You think I don’t know, Bridge?”

I falter. Is he referring to Ethan?

“You weren’t ever going to tell me, were you?”

I look down at the water, and to my surprise, my voice doesn’t quiver. “I thought you were going to do to me…I thought I would end up like Amy if I didn’t run and hide.”

The anger returns. “You thought I’d kill you?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what people in a triad do!”

Darren sits down next to the tub, silent in thought. I hug my knees to my chest.

“I thought I could keep that world separate from you,” he says. “But now you’ve seen—experienced—the worst.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Fuck me.”

We sit in silence for several minutes. The water is now tepid. I get up as Darren grabs a towel and wraps me in it. Needing to feel close to him, I step into his arms and rest my head on his chest. He sits on the side of the tub and pulls me onto his lap.

“I wish you had come to me,” he says.

“How could I? I didn’t know if you were in on it, what you were capable of. And, well, I wasn’t sure how much you really wanted to be with me.”

I feel bad saying that now. It sounds almost petty after what he did to save my life. For the second time. I had come to believe that maybe the first time was a fluke, like Darren had intimated at times. But now I believe he had intended to shield me from the bullets.

Darren looks angry, but I think it’s at himself because he says, “I’m sorry. About Tatiana and Kimberly and…”

“Mei Ling,” I supply. I shouldn’t bring this up, but I can’t resist. “Did you end up sleeping with her?”

He gives me a strange look. “What makes you think that? The pic Kimberly showed you?”

“The text you sent me by mistake. In Chinese. Intended for Mei Ling. Asking her to come to your hotel room.”

He looks at me as if I’m talking in a foreign language. “That’s not possible. I never sent her a text.”

I look into his eyes and see sorrow, anguish, desperation, even fear. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“I can see why you left me,” he sighs. “Were you never going to tell me about our son?”

“Never,” I admit. “I didn’t want Ethan to know that his father was a gangster.”

Darren winces, and we fall back into silence. But it feels good to be back in his arms. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it.

“Let’s get you some clothes,” he says.

In the bedroom, he finds a t-shirt and drawstring shorts, both his. It’s a far cry from what I was wearing before, but I know I’ll prefer it. I accept the clothes from him.

Noticing that the fabric around his arm is soaked in blood, I say, “You should have that looked at.”

“Yeah, some lady who likes to throw drinks in people’s faces decided to stab me this time instead.”

It’s my turn to wince, but I lift my chin defiantly. “You deserved it.”

His gaze darkens. “I deserved a lot worse.”

“What…what were you going to do with me, anyway?”

He looks away. “I don’t know. Use you. Make you realize what a mistake it was to walk out on me.”

“What are you going to do now?”

He turns to hold my gaze. “Reunite you with your son.”

I think for several beats before saying, “Our son.”

Darren looks as if he might cry. His eyes overflow with…love.

Before I can look deeper, his mouth crushes mine. Cupping my face with both hands, he smothers me with the same longing and desperation that currently fills me. I lose myself in the kiss, momentarily forgetting all that’s happened and what may come.

The bath towel slides off my body while Darren takes the clothes out of my hands before sweeping me into his arms. His lips still locked with mine, he lays me down and covers my body with his. Despite what my body’s been through, the soreness in my ass from that butt plug, the sensitivity of my nipples from the clamps, I still have an appetite for Darren. I believe I always will.

He kisses me all over, from the area behind my ear to my neck, along my collar, over my belly and down to my pelvis. Spreading my legs, he goes for my clit, gently teasing it with his tongue, the caress a poignant contrast to the hard fucking I endured before. My body relishes the sweetness of it but gradually yearns for more. I gasp in delight as he sucks on the pleasure bud. I thread my fingers through his hair. He sucks harder.

“Can I come, sir?” I remember to ask.

He continues to suck and lick, varying the rhythm and pressure, driving me crazy because I think I’m about to come several different times. I tighten my grasp of his hair.

Wanting my climax when he hits a good spot, I say, “Right there, right there! Please let me come.”

There’s no way I can’t not come, but since he hasn’t said anything, I try to hold off until I can’t. My body erupts. Rapture floods me. My clit throbs, my pussy pulses.

While I lie bathed in pleasure, Darren sheds his pants. He lies atop me and kisses my throat before pressing himself into me. I welcome his cock. The fullness draws attention to how everything feels down there, including the rawness of my rectum, but I don’t care. I want this connection.

I wrap my legs around him and undulat my hips, encouraging his penetration. He sinks deeper. His expression is a mix of emotions, but he’s never looked more beautiful to me. He kisses my forehead, my temple, and eventually my mouth. As his ardor rises, he kissed me harder. His mouth claims mine over and over.

Part of me would be content for this to last forever, but I’m greedy for another orgasm. I clasp his cock and grind my pelvis against him. I don’t ask for permission this time. I don’t need to.

He gropes a breast and encases the nipple with his mouth. That sends me over the edge and into euphoria. I feel the faint release of my breast milk before the spasms take over. I come loudly, not caring who might be around to hear.

I tremble against Darren as he thrusts faster, seeking his own release. He scoops an arm beneath one of my legs and raises it higher, changing the angle of penetration so that he can go deeper. His perspiration drips onto me, and I see blood trickling from under his makeshift bandage. I take in as much of him as I can, from the hardness inside me to the sound of his roar and grunts as he reaches his climax. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. I don’t want to let go.

Aunt Coretta is a pretty devout Baptist, and my grandmother went to church more often than not. I started leaning agnostic sometime around middle school, and I can’t remember the last time I prayed.

But as I lay entwined with Darren, hearing the rapid beat of his heart next to mine, I say a silent prayer for us.