“Come here,” he says, lifting me up with him as he stands. When he pulls out of me, I feel so empty that I let out a small whine. The sound makes him sniff out a laugh. “Tell me again, Crowne. I’m already getting hard again from hearing it the first time.”
His mouth collides with mine, and he kisses me like it’s the one thing he’s been waiting to hear. “I said, tell me again,” he says, smiling against my lips, both of us breathless all over again. With one hand framing my face and the other wrapping around me, I start to say it again but pause.
Because I feel his wrapped hand along my back. When I shift to look at it, a blood spot is visible along the center and red streaks down his forearm. He watches me as I run my fingers along the material. The things we just came from, the mess we left behind, all of it comes back into focus.
“I love you, but we need to get you to a hospital,” I say, sniffing out an unbelieving laugh. “I just made you fuck me and?—”
“Believe me, you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.” He tips my chin up. “Look at me, Crowne.”
I look up into his eyes as mine water, and I can’t help but smile.
“I did exactly what you wanted, what I wanted, and what you needed. Now, we’re going to get this stitched up, and then we’regoing to come back here and I’m going to fuck your mouth and this delicious pussy again, and then you’re going to fall asleep in my arms after you tell me you love me over and over.” He kisses my lips. “And we’re going to keep doing that, because I’m here. I’ve got you, Crowne. No matter what.”
I tilt back, running my fingers along his scruff and into his hair as I look up at the man who has been so much more than what I ever thought I would have. Julian Colton went from a charmingly beautiful stranger to my personal fantasy, my protector, and now this.
“And I’ve got you. No matter what.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Wyn
Five days later,Sheriff Fury came looking for Dr. Reed Andrews who had been reported missing. A professor who didn’t show up for classes had set off enough warning bells that eventually made it to the Rumor County Sheriff’s Department. After all, this wasn’t the first time a professor at the university had disappeared. It is the first time, however, that I know for a fact that a missing professor wouldn’t be returning.
Fury asked that I come down to the sheriff’s station for a statement about the last time I saw my colleague, and if I knew his whereabouts. My mother had told me to be as honest as I wanted, so that’s what I did. Birdie reported the aggressive nature of some of the wildlife that had been residing in the riveraround The Whispering Fool to animal control, but all of the dust settled without much repercussion.
Without a body there isn’t a crime. That was when the rumors started. My home is a town named after its ugly little super power—rumors that muddied the waters and caused a sense of confusion. It was rather brilliant when I finally saw it for what it was. Little lies and embellished truths that made people talk instead of look. I knew where the rumors started and how they caught fire. This time, they swirled around a young professor with a gambling addiction. There was another about the predatory teacher being arrested across state lines, making it the FBI’s problem. My favorite one was the conspiracy story about how Reed had killed Stan Billings and then got away with it.
I’m not a liar. I told as much of the truth as I could. He drank some whiskey, said some shitty things, there was an altercation, accusations, and then we left. Whatever happened later, he would need to ask around somewhere else. I’m positive my mother and Birdie had answers, but they’re Crownes, so nobody would ever know what happened unless they wanted that to be the case. When I walked out of Fury’s office, Andi sat waiting, along with two other women, one wearing a sorority sweatshirt and the other with university sweatpants.
There were plenty of people to shoulder some of the damage in all of this—the university, the sheriff’s department, and anyone else who knew and didn’t make enough noise to stop it from happening. I left the sheriff’s station feeling a sense of pride, knowing that something’s finally been done to put a stop to it. Something that felt more like what was due instead of what was accepted. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me, other than a Crowne.
A few days after I walked out of the sheriff’s station, I submitted my formal letter of resignation to the head of mydepartment, officially ending my time and tenure as professor of organic chemistry.
“Do I want to know?” Jo asks as she sketches in her notebook. I stop mid-pour and remember what my mom and Birdie’s wishes were. If my sisters are ever going to find out the things our mother and grandmother have done, it would come from them.
“I find it incredibly convenient that a sexual predator just disappears the moment he’s about to be found out,” Stevie says, clapping her hands together after she runs it across the workbench.
My sisters are smart. They know something had happened with Reed. Stevie’s been putting pieces together about his involvement with the sexual assault allegations that had been barely reported at the university. But outside of Julian’s stitched-up and bandaged hand, there isn’t much of a trace of that night.
“Slipped with one of my files and really got myself good,” he said to Jo.
Julian clued me in later that my mother and grandmother had plans for Reed. They had plenty of eyes on him while he’d been at The Whispering Fool. The pillars of security, Gina and Gail, clocked him in every time he walked through those doors. I don’t think they thought he’d be ballsy enough to do anything in plain sight at my family’s bar like that, but I suppose that’s the fucked-up thing about sociopathic sexual predators—they have no rules. It made sense that his punishment hadn’t either. I was the variable they didn’t expect. After they learned the part he played in my kidnapping, it just confirmed that the role Birdie and Lu Crowne play in our small town isn’t simply justified, it’s necessary.
“You know you can always bribe me to come over when you’re feeding me, but this,” Stevie says when I don’t respond toher suspicions, looking at the massive spread I nervously cooked early this morning. “It’s hella early to be drinking, Wynnie. Do we need to have a talk about healthy consumption?”
Jo throws a crinkled-up paper at her. I think she knows I want to talk about the distillery, since I clued them in about that much, considering there hasn’t been any time this past week to spend together. But I’m not sure she has any idea what I’m about to ask of them.
“What?” Stevie barks out a laugh. “We’re inside of a very dirty distillery at ten-thirty in the morning on a weekday, it feels like it should be said.”
“I quit,” I tell them.
Jo sits up and puts the notepad down. Stevie glances at her with wide eyes, then back at me, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I wasn’t happy with going back and doing what I had done before.” I look down at the flight of glasses I’ve poured and the names that I’ve scribbled next to them. “And this place, making whiskey, running a distillery, it feels like what I should’ve been doing all along.”
Taking a breath, I look at two of the most important people in my life, the women who make me remember what it’s like not to be alone. “I have a business idea, and I wanted to run it past you two before I really dug into it. Or even mention it to Mom and Birdie.”
They both glance at the other again. For once, my sisters are silent, and it almost makes me laugh.
