by T. L Smith
Marcus helps those demons go away.
I’m becoming reliant on him.
I’m not sure how that makes me feel.
I love him, but I’ve pushed those feelings down because he’s right. Love brings nothing but pain.
Leaving work, a man is leaning against my car. I should have gone an hour ago when Martin left. But tonight I’m not seeing Marcus because he’s working, therefore I stayed back to finish up some things so I can leave early tomorrow.
My feet slow down when I notice who it is. Dave stands next to my car with a smile on his face as I get closer.
“Rochelle, right?” He straightens. I nod.
“Martin’s left if you’re after him. But I can give him a message if you like.”
“Oh no, no message required. I actually came to see you.”
“Me?” I ask, confused.
“Yes. I wanted to know if you would go on a date with me?”
“Oh,” I shake my head. “Sorry. No. I’m seeing someone.”
“Yes, Marcus, right?” He smirks at my shocked face. “I know things, but I could give you more than a man who works at a crematorium.”
I’m sure he can, like the creeps for one.
Trying to step around him, a smile creeps up on his face, and I want to get away, I don’t want to be near him. Looking around, there’s no one in the area. It’s after five and everyone has finished for the day. Damn it! I stupidly stayed back.
“I usually go for blondes, but there’s something about you,” he says, his head dropping to the side, assessing me. “I wonder what it is. I wonder if I’ll know once I’m buried inside of you.” My eyes go wide at his words, and I thread the keys resting in my hand through my fingers.
“You need to leave,” is all I can manage to say.
Dave shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t think I do.”
“You do. You need to leave,” I reiterate, not backing down. Men like this bastard like having power, but he doesn’t know me, doesn’t know I will fight to my last dying breath. I’ve had a shit year, so this guy can’t make my life any worse.
Lights shine brightly and we both turn, then he looks back to me and smirks.
“I guess I will be off. Oh, and Rochelle… Tanika wasn’t sweet, but I bet you will be.”
Oh my God, his words make me freeze, and in doing so, it gives him enough time to step up to me, his hand coming up to my neck, locking tightly around it.
He licks my face and breathes heavily on me. “See, I knew you were going to be sweet.”
A horn honks not far from us, and he lets go of my throat, backing away until he steps into a black car right behind mine.
The minute his car is gone, I get in my car and call Marcus, but he doesn’t answer. I swear and start driving to his place. He has to be there, right? Because as I drive to his, I bypass his work and he isn’t there. My hands shake as I drive, and tears are streaming down my face.
What did he mean?
What did he mean…
He couldn’t have been the guy.
Could he?
Stepping on the gas, I speed up and pull into his driveway. We didn’t arrange to see each other tonight, but right now I need him. I need him more than I’ve needed anyone for a long time.
I’ve been so numb. So numb, that right now I feel like I’m being slammed with all the emotions at once. And not one of them is good.
Pulling up at his house, I see he’s not here. Where is he? Why isn’t he here? I know he isn’t a social man.
I call him again—there’s no answer.
Hitting the steering wheel, I try to think of where else he could be. I should drive home, but I don’t want to be by myself right now.
Pulling back out, I go to the one place I was told never to go to again. I don’t stop on the way, and when I pull up to the front of the gigantic gates, which let me in, I spot his truck straight away. Taking only my keys with me, I walk in. It’s not a party like the last few times I’ve been here, it’s tamer, quieter. There’re a few people sitting at a bar, Blaze not being one of them.
I look around for Marcus, and don’t see him.
Harper spots me and waves me over.
“Oh God, you’re here,” she says in a tone that doesn’t sound happy. But I’m not in the mood to dive into that right now, because I need to find Marcus.
“Yeah, look, I don’t want to stay. I need to find Marcus. He isn’t answering his phone.”
“I know where he is.”
Turning around, I see her, that same stupid-ass blonde. I don’t even care what her name is.
“Where is he?” I ask, almost desperately.
She pulls the door open completely and it reveals she’s naked. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Her eyebrows raise in question.
“Yes.”
She steps out and points in. Stepping up closer to her, but not inside the room, I see him. He’s asleep on the bed with no shirt on and a sheet covering his bottom half. I look up to her and know straight away she’s won.
“He was in the mood, so was I. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She did, of course, and she meant it because she’s a cunt like that.
“You fucked him?” I ask, looking incredulously where he’s lying asleep. Not a sound comes from him. Marcus looks so peaceful, so fucking beautiful. I hate him and love him all at once.
He’s made me numb.
Or perhaps death has.
And those two? They are like twins.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
Is it because of him?
“Come on, sweetheart, you do have eyes, right?”
My angry eyes fly to her, the blonde bitch. I want to pull her hair out, but I won’t. I won’t stoop to her level. Stepping away, a hand touches me, and I pull away.
“Rochelle,” Harper says, as I turn to leave.
I run to my car and see Blaze standing at the entrance, watching me. Putting my car in reverse, I leave as fast as I can. My eyes fill with water as I head straight to my sister’s house. It’s the last place I can go to. My mother will ask too many questions, and I need to be with someone. Being alone right now isn’t an option.
Wiping at my eyes, I manage to drive to Kat’s house, which isn’t too far from mine. And when I get out she comes over with Annabelle on her hip.
“Roch?”
“Can I stay tonight?”
“Yes. Of course.”
I walk past Kat into her house. She’s in the middle of cooking so she passes me Annabelle and I sit with her, playing on the floor.
“Do you plan to tell me why you’re here and not with Marcus?”
“No.”
“Okay. Did you guys have a fight?”
“No,” I answer truthfully, pressing buttons on Annabelle’s fake phone, which makes all kinds of whirring and dinging noises.
“How is it going with you two then?”
“Fine,” I answer.
“Lord, Rochelle, tell me more. You’ve been so checked-out since Tan died. No one can talk to you without you giving them short, snippy words, and no one knows what to say to you.”
“That’s fine.”
“Do you talk to him?” she asks.
I lean over and cover Annabelle’s ears before I answer her, “We fuck.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she says, then I smile and kiss Annabelle’s cheek. “You love him though, right?”
“I think so.”
“You either do or you don’t.”
“I love who he is with me. He helps me when he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”
“He lets you be silent,” she says, as I look up to her. “I can tell straight away he isn’t a man to push you for answers, or to give them.” Kat’s right about Marcus, he lets me be. “He would push you if he loved you. He would want you to be okay.”
“I am okay.”
“Why are you here, Rochelle?” She holds up her hands. “Not that I don’t want you he
re. I do. I really, really do. But I won’t be like Marcus because I need to know.”
“A man came to my work today, he grabbed my throat and scared me. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Oh my God, how can you just say that so blasé.” Kat shakes her head. “I’m calling the cops. You need to report this.” And that’s exactly what she does.
A man in uniform arrives quite quickly, and I recognize him. He coughs when he sees me and tells me he’s sorry for my loss. Yet again. Then I give him all the information and he leaves. Kat has put Annabelle to bed, so it’s just us now.
“Does Marcus know?”
“Know what?”
Her hand slaps my leg, and she pinches the skin as hard as she can. She’s frustrated with me.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You feel that.”
“I feel everything,” I scream at her. “I felt it the worst when Grandma and Grandpa died,” I say to her, my voice still loud. “I felt it when his lips touched me, and I knew I was falling in love with a man who couldn’t love me back, but I fell anyway.” Taking a deep breath, I continue, “Then I felt it even worse… hell, it ripped my soul out… when she jumped. When I watched my best friend dive off a bridge because her demons were too big to handle. How do you think that felt?” I scream. Pushing her hand away, I stand. “And I feel it in the way he touches me, as if I’m his everything. So that’s what I’m doing, letting myself get lost in the way he touches me. Letting myself lose myself in him. Because the pain… the pain of everything else is too much for me to bear.”
“Rochelle, you need to end this. I don’t know who you’re becoming with him. You need to end it.”
My phone rings, and I see his name come up on the screen, so I answer, “Hello.”
“I’m home now. You were looking for me?”
“I’m coming over.” I hang up and stand.
“You aren’t staying?” Kat asks.
“No, I need him.”
“No, no you don’t. You need you.”
“No, right now I need him,” I say, walking out and going straight to him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Marcus
When she turns up, I’m expecting a war. Harper told me what Misha did, and I know things will be a battle, but Rochelle does the exact opposite. She falls into my arms, wrapping herself around me and starts tearing at my clothes. Hands are going everywhere, and I try to stop her, but she’s on a mission. I don’t see her every night, and when I do, we hardly speak. I like it like that. I like that words aren’t needed as much anymore, and I also realize how selfish that is of me.
But I will take what I can from her.
Because soon she will crack, and when she does, I’ll have to set her free. A woman like her shouldn’t be tied to me. She has so much good, and I have none.
“Rochelle,” I say, pulling her back. Her eyes flash with hurt before they’re covered again in need.
“Since when do you call me that?” I’ve said it a few times, but she hasn’t been paying much attention to what I say.
“What do you need?” I ask her.
She pushes up against me. “You. I just need you,” she says, stepping back and removing her own clothing. I watch as she steps out of her skirt, leaving on her heels, so she can reach me. I’ve always liked her height, but with heels on she’s closer to my head, making our kisses perfect.
She is perfect.
I am not.
Picking her up under her ass, I walk with her. Rochelle’s kisses don’t stop, and her hands won’t stop roaming my body. I’m hard and I want in her, but first I need to take her to the only place I haven’t had her—the pool. Stepping in, she stops what she’s doing as the cold water hits her, and I stop on the step, depositing her on it. Stepping farther in, so my feet touch the ground, my chest is all that’s exposed.
“The pool?” she asks.
Rochelle comes out here in the mornings sometimes to watch me swim, or late at night when I can’t sleep and need the exertion of a good swim to exhaust me. She’s fallen asleep multiple times on those lounge chairs.
“Do you plan to tell me the real reason you came looking for me?”
Surprise flashes on her face, and she slides forward until she wraps her sweet little body around mine. Her ass on the step brings her to the perfect position for me to slide into her when she is wrapped around me, and I do just that. Her head drops back, but her hands stay glued to me.
“No. Not at all,” she says. It’s then I notice marks on her neck. My hand touches the bruises, and she flinches but doesn’t stop moving, sliding up and down my cock. Rochelle leans forward, her head coming into the crook of my neck, so I can no longer see her bruises, and she holds onto me tightly.
I grip on, lifting her and letting her move. She needs this more than I do right now. Usually, it’s me needy with lust for her, but tonight it’s all about her.
“You can have me,” I tell her.
She shifts her hand to cover my mouth and doesn’t stop moving. I can see her eyes vividly now, and hurt is evident in them, as she leans forward and bites her hand that covers my mouth as she comes. Then she slides off of me, and slides backward, putting distance between us.
“I can’t really have you, though, can I?” Rochelle stands and walks back to the house, closing the door behind her. Getting out quickly, I follow her. She’s already in my bed when I step into the room, her eyes are open as she lays there.
“What?” I ask her.
“I had another man’s hands around my throat today. He told me I would taste sweeter than Tanika. How would he know that?”
I freeze at her words. What the fuck!
“Rochelle.”
“Why are you calling me that?” Her eyebrows are pinched together.
“It’s your name.”
“Not for you, it isn’t.” And she’s right, but I don’t tell her that.
“Do you know this man?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“How?”
Rochelle moves and pulls the blanket up to her chin. “He’s a client. A private one of Martin’s who I bumped into.” She pauses. “I don’t want to talk about this. I want to go to sleep.”
“I have to work tonight, Rochelle.”
“I’ll just go to sleep, then.” And she does, turning to give me her back and closing her eyes.
Walking out of the bedroom, I get dressed and go straight back to Blaze.
“Rochelle knows who he is,” I tell him.
Blaze pauses his hand, which is up some girl’s skirt, and turns to me. “What?”
“He threatened Rochelle. Told her she would taste sweeter than Tanika.”
Blaze stands fast, the girl on his lap falling to the floor.
“Who the fuck is he?” he growls.
I smirk. “We’re about to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rochelle
Marcus doesn’t come back, and my sleep is awful. On and off I doze, never falling into a deep sleep. Those frightening eyes of Dave’s stare at me, scare me, and then there’s the dreams which consume me of that bastard touching her, of him hurting her.
When I pull myself out of bed, I feel worse than when I climbed into it. And Marcus isn’t here to help me.
I should have said something to him last night, about the blonde. But I realized I needed him more than knowing what happened between them. So, I took him to remind him he has me, and I lost myself in his touch as I always do.
I love him based on kisses and lies.
Climbing out of his bed, I go into his closet, it’s neat just like everything else in his house. He’s always so clean. Everything’s always so perfect. My hands grip on a neat pile of clothes, and I tear them down, tearing and ripping until it’s not so perfect anymore. Not everything can be perfect. Sometimes you have to tear things down to build them back up.
“Do you plan on redecorating my whole room?” I jump, startled by his voice, and turn to fin
d him and Blaze standing in the doorway. All I have on is a tank top and panties, but I don’t care.
“Maybe,” I say, looking between them.
“We have someone we want you to meet,” Blaze says, then walks away.
Marcus continues to stand there, eyeing me. “You need to get dressed first and tie your hair up in a bun.”
“Why?”
“Do the hair first, so it doesn’t get on anything.”
I sigh and do as he says—I’m on autopilot. A part of me knows the old me wouldn’t take orders from Marcus like this, but I can’t help myself. Once my hair’s in a bun, I reach for my clothes, pulling them on.
“Is there a reason you were tearing my closet apart?”
It’s been months now, months since we’ve been together, and I haven’t asked for more.
He hasn’t offered it either.
We are stagnant, going nowhere fast.
“No,” I lie.
“Okay,” he says, taking my answer as he usually does. There are times when he questions me, but it’s never for too long, and then he gives up or doesn’t care. I don’t know which one is worse.
“Follow me.”
We head downstairs, then out the back. We cross through some of his land before I see an old shed standing tall. Marcus doesn’t stop or look behind as he opens the door, holding it open for me to pass through.
Stepping inside, the floor is white and clean. So extremely clean it’s scary. Looking up, I see a chair. The chair reminds me of one you go and sit on at the dentist’s office. But it’s what is in that chair that makes me take a step backward until I hit a hard body.
“Rochelle.”
There he goes again. Using my name. Why doesn’t he call me pretty girl anymore?
“What….” The words get stuck in my throat, and I am unable to move.
“I told you not to bring her in here,” Blaze says while shaking his head. “She should have left.” His angry eyes meet mine.
Looking back to Marcus, his face is blank, as if it’s normal to have a man gagged, and tied to a chair so he can’t move.
“Do you want to leave?” Marcus asks.
