Chapter 5
ADELINE's POV
A hand covered my mouth from the back and I froze, my heart dropped to my stomach.
It was dead of the night and Jacob was sleeping, and now there was an intruder in our house. What do I do? I thought in pure dread.
I had woken up after I heard a noise from my daughter - Jacob's daughter, from his ex-girlfriend- Amanda's room.
After seeing that she was only asleep talking, I was about to go to my room when I heard some noise in the kitchen.
I went down to inquire and here I was.
"Shhh. Adeline, we don't want to wake up our dear child" he warned.
Ashe Lockwood.
Slowly he let go of my mouth and in rage I turned around, his beautiful face coming into view, my hand flying in all places and my hand flying to his face.
"How dare you" I whispered.
"You just broke my heart baby" he smiled and cleaned his mouth where blood seeped from his broken lip.
I figured that I had hit him too hard. I was left-handed, and my ring was on my left hand. That might have been the cause of the damage.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I hissed, curling my hands into fists, only to abate the shaking.
My whole body has begun to vibrate from anger and fear.
But also from something else. Something so disturbing, I refuse to put a name to it.
He didn't answer, but he did grin. A slow, sinful twist of his lips that sent sparks skittering down my spine.
He was in my house in the dead of the night, and I was only in my sheer night gown, naked underneath and my nipples peaking out.
With deliberation, his tongue darts out and licks his bottom lip.
My eyes zero in on the movement. The act primal. Animalistic. And fucking terrifying.
My heart started to claw its way up my throat.
Swallowing it back down, I narrowed my eyes and opened my mouth to yell at him some more or call for help.
I had not decided on the step to take, but my brain chose the latter and was about to act on it.
Before I could, he took a single step back.
I can see it, he's giving me a once-over eyes, zeroing in on my nipples. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of watching me cover my breasts, so I let him watch, but then he turns abruptly and walks away to my fridge.
Languidly opening and searching for something like it was his house.
Just like that.
"Adeline. You know why I'm here. I'm getting bored by that question" he said.
"You don't own me. Stop stalking me". I said, my fists still in a ball, my voice still in a whisper and anger still in my veins.
The cap of the bottle he was unscrewing stopped.
"You're mine Adeline", he repeated his usual choice of words he used whenever we met.
"I'm not. I'm not one of your many girls that you can control and manipulate Ashe". I said to him angrily. I looked into his history of dating and boy, oh, boy.
One of them was in a mental hospital, a very beautiful model.
"Are you jealous of them?" He raised a brow and asked. As he raised his head to drink the water, the light in the hallway reflected on his nose pin and it glittered.
I imagined how much that tiny piece would cost.
"The fuck would I be?" I said sharply, coming back to the present.
At one point during my snooping, I was because, man, those girls were drop-dead gorgeous.
He had eyes for big things, and now he had abandoned the bottle of water and was coming close to me, but I noticed one thing.
His eyes had darkened, and they looked ... deadly.
"I could put you in a place you'd live comfortably for the rest of your life or brand my name on you or put a collar the size of my hand on your neck so everyone who sees you will know you're off limits, and you'd just be my pretty Adeline ready to obey whatever her master says. Wouldn't you like that, Addy?" He asked me in a very sultry and low voice.
I instantly felt my nipples harden and tingle.
"No. I'll never be yours". It tastes like a lie on my lips, mainly because I knew I wanted this man again.
His eyes narrowed and my heart dropped, my eyes traveled to the stairs and back to him. He noticed it.
"And that is because of Jacob?" he asked.
"Yes. I have a fiancée I'm in love with and ready to start a family with," he said.
Not a single word was spoken. Not an explanation offered. Not even a crazy confession of how he wants us to be together or some shit.
Nothing.
He simply nodded once and curtly.
I stood there and watched his retreating form, going back to whatever portal from Hell he crawled out of. I stared until he stopped.
"That will be taken care of", he turned to face me again.
"Taken care of how? You're going to kill him?" I cut him off, disgust curling my lip and fear taking through my body.
Fear not for myself but for Jake.
"If need be," he shrugged.
"Stop this, I don't like what you're doing" I said.
"You don't have to like it, baby. All you have to do is say yes and at one point your reply isn't going to matter anymore." He said nodding towards the stairs I looked at to drive his point home.
I walked to him with a snarl, "If you come close to Jake or my children, I swear I'll kill you", I warned him and grabbed his shirt.
"Get out" I said, turned and wanted to walk away from him to carry a knife and threaten him with it.
But I don't make it far in my steps before his hand snaps out, capturing the back of my neck and whipping me back around, directly into his chest.
"I fucking love it when you run" he said fiercely.
My stomach was directly on his crotch, I felt his hardness and my widened.
"Do you feel what you do to me?" He asked, breathing heavily. "I fucking want you, Adeline."
I inhaled sharply, my eyes dilating as he seized the back of my head with one hand and fisting my hair in it and grabbed my delectable ass with the other, pushing me up against his body.
Why I was not pushing him away I had no idea.
"Will you be my last meal, baby?" He said gruffly, and I felt his voice reverberate deep inside of me.
My mouth parts and my breathing hitches.
"Look at those warm honey pools in your eyes, wide and swollen with emotion. Shock. Awe." He said every word after a short beat.
"Desire" he added, and I was completely frozen.
He leaned in close, his mouth hovering a mere inch from mine.
"Hands off her Ashton", Jacob yelled loudly from the stairs, stopping the mistake that was about to happen.
I hastily pushed Ashe away from me and rushed from his side.
"Hello Brother" Ashe said loudly, although there was no longer that warmth of fondness in his eyes.
He looked very cold and angry now, likewise Jacob.
I had never seen both of them like this before.
"Today I brought my gun" Jacob said.
What did he mean? I thought in alarm.
Ashe pulled his own from the back of his pants and aimed it at Jacob from the kitchen.
"We took the same training, you know we won't miss. How about we kill ourselves now? End this whole family feud", Ashe said, and my heart beat loudly.
My eyes darted between both of the men.
"Daddy what's going on?" Andre's voice comes out of nowhere and I gasped in shock.
My children didn't need to see this.
As if on cue, the two men put their guns away quickly.
"Hey son, Daddy is just having a chat with this stranger" Jacob said, his eyes never leaving Ashe but the guns of both men were nowhere to be found now.
Ashton stood stoic, eyes fixed on Andre, Jacob forgotten.
His eyes came to me and back to Andre, and repeated the same thing again.
I could smell the internal turmoil he was having.
He wanted something so bad that he would do anything for it but he could not have it without a fight and creating a havoc in front of his son was not a good first impression.
It was already bad that he had intruded in the dead of the night any other thing he did would escalate the whole tension going on.
Quickly I walked to Andre at the other end of the kitchen and stepped in front of my son, blocking him from Ashe's view and I could hear him groan.
"Not one step Ashe" Jacob warned and I imagined that he had advanced but Jacob was holding him back.
"Hey baby Daddy is just having a chat with this man, come on let's go back to bed" I said to him and picked him up.
"Is he causing trouble" Andre asked with a sleepy voice, I prayed he would not remember this tomorrow.
"Nothing Super hero Daddy can't handle" I said gently rubbing his hair.
"Go back to sleep Dre, I'll come check on you after he leaves" Jacob said and I turned in time to see Ashe's nose flaring and his jaw moving harshly.
"Come on baby" I said ad left the both of them together, praying one did not kill another.
My son did not need to know anything about the life his fathers lived or lives.
And I was going to fight tooth and nail to protect him from it.
As I walked upstairs, my head reeled with the realization that I have not picked a side in all that was happening.
There was still a flicker of something I felt for Ashe, the same thing I felt the very first day I saw him.
That flicker never quenched and it burned a little every time I saw him.
I was doomed between my feeling for two brothers.