Strike ( Book 4: Stronger Series )

31. Recover

I woke up feeling like total fucking shit as if I had run several triathlons or something. My feet hurt, my arms and shoulders were sore, my abs somewhat uncomfortable, and there was a deep throb between my legs. Fuck, I didn't want to move. What the fuck happened yesterday?

I tried to piece the puzzled memory of yesterday together, coming up with flashes of faces, voices, sounds ... touch. Darren yelling at me. Oh fuck.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!

The ecstasy! Flashes of the guards telling me I might have accidentally ingested it when I thought I was actually taking aspirin. How the fuck had that happened? How had those pills ended up in my bag? It had to have been deliberate. No way was that an accident. How many pills had been in that bottle? What if I'd accidentally overdosed and died? Fuck! Too many questions and too many blank spaces in my head. What had I said and done then? How much did Darren know?

I felt myself begin to tremble as I pulled the silk sheets up to my shoulders, cowering into my pillow at the idea of having to face him today. What if I said something revealing? Something I didn't mean? Shit!

"Jaden, are you awake?"

Fuck! I'm not ready!

Darren's voice was soft, his footsteps even yet hurried as I continued to bury my face in my pillow, trying to hide my tears.

"Hey," he said gently as he sat down on the bed beside me. His fingers moved to the hair shielding my face from him, carefully tucking the strands behind my ear. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," was the only thing I could come up with.

"For what?"

"For yesterday. For whatever stupid act I probably did while drugged out of my mind."

He chuckled. Actually chuckled. That didn't settle my anxiety at all.

"What stupid act do you remember from yesterday?"

I tried hard to think back to what I could remember, bits and pieces of barely anything.

"I remember taking the pill. Then running? A struggle. Then swinging from something I think. Somewhere high. I think I remember hearing a gunshot. And then the soreness I'm feeling down there tells me we had a lot of sex."

Darren nodded with that sexy knowing smile I loved and hated, the one that only antagonized the knots in my stomach.

"Yes, you had a lot of energy yesterday. You ran on the treadmill for about an hour. Beat the shit out of some of your guards when they tried to pull you off it. And then spun around on that stripper pole for a good half hour and refused to come down."

I jolted in bed, my hands covering the gasp that escaped my mouth in absolute horror.

"I climbed the stripper pole?"

"Mhmm," he said with a nod. "You were actually pretty good at it."

"I didn't try to take off my clothes, did I?"

Darren's eyes narrowed for a moment, but the glare didn't last. "Thankfully, no. Otherwise, I would have had to kill everyone on the yacht. But you did put on quite a show for my guards. Surprisingly, there was only one casualty last night."

"Oh, my God," I murmured as I buried my face into my pillow again. I could add another guard to my tally of manipulated kills via Darren. Except this one was actually accidental.

Darren pulled my shoulders up to lift my face out of the pillow and rested my head in his lap as he reclined against the headboard. His hand moved to run his fingers through my hair, and I felt myself instantly begin to calm. Fuck, I loved it when he did that.

"Did I do anything else?" I dared to ask. "Say anything else?"

"Nothing you need to worry about. That was the worst of it. Although I've never seen you so animated in bed before. You were a fucking insatiable animal last night. Can't say I can complain about that."

"You're welcome?" I replied, unconcerned if I fucked his brains out. At least one good thing had come of last night.

"How are you feeling now?"

I shrugged. "I feel kind of depressed actually. Like I could spend the day crying if I wanted to."

"That's normal. Ecstasy causes a persistent increase of serotonin, which keeps your serotonin receptors active and your mood euphoric," he began. "But eventually, your serotonin neurons can't make the serotonin fast enough to replace the loss, so once the X leaves your body, less serotonin is released so fewer serotonin receptors are activated, which ultimately leads to your depression."

"You sound like a science professor," I mumbled.

"I know my drugs."

"Of course, you do."

Depressed as I was, I was content enough to just lay there for a while and let Darren play with my hair. These were the tender moments I wished I could have more of, moments when he was gentle, sincere, loving. I often wondered if he enjoyed these peaceful moments or if he just suffered through them for me.

"We've arrived at our next destination," he said, breaking the silence between us.

"Bienvenue en France," I whispered in French.

"On va baiser toute la nuit à Nice," Darren replied in perfect French, his voice much too seductive for that to have been anything but something dirty. But I ignored it and turned in his lap so I could face him.

"What about Nice?" That much I had caught.

He smiled at that and moved to push the hair that had fallen over my face out of the way. "Don't worry about it. I want you to just relax today. Get your workout in if you can, watch some comedies, take a swim, play with Camaro, whatever. Just take it easy today, and we'll explore Nice tomorrow, deal?"

"Deal."

"Good girl. All right, get up and get dressed. Your breakfast will be out on the upper deck."

"Okay, thanks," I said as I rose and moved toward the closet, hiding my wincing as I moved. But I remembered something as Darren headed for the door.

"Darren," I called gently, watching as he turned toward me. "Did you find out how that bottle ended up in my bag?"

Darren hesitated for a moment, his jaw clenching as his eyes displayed the regret I was looking for. "Regina," he finally stated definitively. "Right after she was escorted from the reception."

What a fucking surprise.

I kept my poker face on, not wanting to antagonize with the fact that I was right that she was a threat to me. Understanding dawned on me that Regina could have actually been trying to kill me, considering she had the right motivation. Was that an intentional attempt, or was she just hoping to fuck with me?

"What happens now?" I asked.

"You never see her again," he replied darkly and left the room, ending the conversation.

I stood there, wondering what that meant. Would Regina be punished for what she did? Was that why I would never see her again? Or was she just being kept away from me? Would there be any consequences at all? Was Darren now pissed at Matt? The idea that Regina hated me that much for things that were beyond my control had me slipping back into that dark, depressive state, and I wasn't going to let her do that to me again.

Fuck her.

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