Bait

by Jade West

  My eyes open wide and hers are right there. I grip her around the throat and pound her pussy harder to punish her.

  Tears spring as I watch. Her glassy eyes don’t waver.

  “Hurting?” I growl.

  She nods.

  “Tell me to stop.”

  She shakes her head.

  I taste her tears before they’ve spilled. I slam my cock in all the way and the screams again.

  And then I hitch myself up to change angle. She cries out as the pressure changes.

  She’s hissing like a wildcat as my piercings grind the right spot. Just like Mariana did.

  The similarities end right there.

  My black swan’s eyes are full of sweet dark soul. Full of tenderness along with pain.

  I release my grip from her throat and drop my full weight onto hers. Her fingers spring to my face and brush my jawbone as though I’m a thing of wonder.

  “Come,” I growl. “Show your monster how much you like it.”

  She moves her hands to my bare ass. Her fingers are as chilled as my skin. She squeezes hard, then raises her legs, grunting as she takes what she needs.

  “Good girl,” I hiss. “Show me.”

  She must be fucking exhausted, but she’s still going strong. Her feet must be killing her as they thrash against my legs.

  When she comes undone it’s explosive. She’s louder than I expected, screaming at the moon as she goes.

  I don’t do anything to quieten her. There’s no one for fucking miles.

  I wouldn’t care if there was.

  I don’t even wait for her to catch her breath. She’s still panting as I tear myself out of her. Her mouth is open in a scream when I scramble up and fill it with cock.

  It won’t fit. It never does.

  Not until I hook my fingers in her teeth and open her wide for me.

  She splutters as I push my way in. Her throat bulges as I make her take it.

  Her tongue feels so fucking hot against my piercings. Her eyes look so pretty as they strain.

  I unload straight down her throat, cursing and straining. I leave nothing but a thick string of cum and spit between us when I’m done.

  Fuck.

  The beast calms.

  The red mist starts to clear.

  The ravaged girl underneath me rolls over. She winces as she tries to rise to her knees.

  She’s fucked.

  Battered, bruised, exhausted.

  Freezing cold.

  She shivers without my body heat, her teeth chattering as she stares at me.

  I tug my jeans back up and rise to my feet.

  She rearranges her dress to cover her tits. I wish she wouldn’t.

  She scrambles but falters. I see the pain in her eyes as she struggles for balance on sore legs.

  It’s the easiest thing in the world to scoop her up off her feet.

  She doesn’t say a word as I hold her, just wraps her arms around my shoulders and presses her face to my neck.

  This is all kinds of fucked up.

  The way my heart pangs is all fucking kinds of fucked up.

  The way I carry her so carefully, defies every rule of crazy.

  But I can’t let her go.

  Eighteen

  When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

  George Eliot

  Abigail

  My monster carries me so tenderly. Securely, even over rough ground.

  His shoulders are firm, his breath even. His grip is strong and steady, his body heat divine.

  I’m aching. Exhausted. Sated beyond anything I’ve ever known.

  My feet hang limp all the way back to his truck, my face buried into his neck for the warmth.

  I can still taste him. My throat is raw with the memory of his intrusion. My pussy, too.

  I can’t bear the thought of another bumpy ride in the footwell, but he opens the front passenger door and drops me onto the seat before I even protest. I can barely rest my feet on the floor they’re so sore.

  I buckle myself in as he heads around to the driver’s side. I have no idea what to say as he turns the key in the ignition.

  I wonder if he meant it – taking what he wants whenever he wants it. I wonder if this is a thing now.

  As fucked up as I am right now, I want nothing more than this to be a thing.

  He turns on the heater and reverses up the lane. He turns at the top and we speed away.

  I take the opportunity to look at him again in the darkness as we go. His features are so strong. So brutally rugged.

  He’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Being close to him makes my skin prickle.

  I wonder what he looks like under his clothes. I wonder if I’ll ever find out.

  I can feel the giddiness now, building up under the adrenaline. I’m as high as a kite, a few stupid jokes away from laughing until tears roll.

  And yet I feel so lonely.

  I’ve never wanted someone’s touch so badly as I want his right now.

  He drives and I watch.

  He stares out of the window and I stare right at him.

  I’m sad when signs for Hereford appear in the road. My heart is pained when I recognise the streets passing by. We’re back in the city centre so quickly, parking up in a loading bay just down the street from my front door.

  I wonder if he was here earlier. I look up at my living room window and the open curtains. He could have been spying on me for hours.

  I feel like such a wimp as I contemplate having to put my feet back on solid ground. They’re freezing and sore. Grazed to all living shit from the feel of it.

  I grit my teeth as I swing the car door open, bracing myself for the impact for dropping down onto the tarmac. But he blocks my exit before I can move.

  The closeness of him takes my breath as he reaches past me to flick on the interior light.

  I flinch as I see the state of myself in the glow.

  I’m filthy. Caked in mud and bits of hedgerow.

  I’ve torn a toenail. I’ve scratches all over my ankles. The soles of my feet look like they’ve spent an hour on an industrial sander.

  I’m still staring at them as he reaches into the glovebox. The packet of wipes rustles in his fingers as he pulls one free. He props his foot on the sill and lifts mine up over his knee. I stare dumb as he works the wipe over my skin.

  I flinch as it stings, but he doesn’t stop.

  “I didn’t expect you to run so fast,” he says. “I’d have let you wear shoes.”

  I shrug. “Guess I surprised you.”

  His eyes meet mine. “Guess you did.”

  He’s surprising me too, but I don’t tell him that.

  I watch him wipe my foot until the wipe is filthy and he pulls out another. I love the way his fingers can be so tender after being so rough.

  I love the way the ink patterns look on his skin.

  He switches my clean foot for my dirty one. I should point out that they’ll be filthy again before I reach my apartment, but I don’t want him to stop.

  “You need to put these in a hot bath,” he tells me.

  I smile as I tell him I only have a shower. A small one at that.

  His eyes are dark on mine. “A bowl then.”

  I nod.

  I figure he’s just putting the wipes away when he reaches back to the glovebox.

  My eyes widen when I recognise my shoes.

  “You found them.”

  “One of them was under a truck,” he says.

  I don’t know why I’m smiling so hard to see them again, but I am.

  I don’t know why I have the urge to brush my thumb across his jaw when he slips one onto my foot and buckles it up so gently.

  Walking on these is going to be marginally better at best to walking barefoot, and that’s being optimistic. I don’t want to tell him that, though.

  He fastens up the other and I thank him. His eyes burn me as I grab my handbag
from under the seat.

  “First floor, right?” he asks and I nod. He glances across to the building and points at my window. “Yours?”

  “My living room.”

  He looks from my feet to the communal entrance. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”

  He holds out his arms to help me, but I don’t move a muscle. I’m frozen like a fool, floundering at the kindness of such a brutal stranger.

  His dark eyes are dirty. Amused.

  “Even a monster can be a gentleman,” he says.

  I think of Stephen back home. His slick ways. His posh suits. His cocky smile.

  And I guess it’s true enough that a monster really can be a gentleman.

  After all, I already learned the hard way that a gentleman really can be a monster.

  Phoenix

  I feel like a prize asshole as I help Abigail up to her apartment.

  Her feet were a wreck and they’re barely any better now. She’ll be sore on them for days.

  The rest of her probably won’t feel all that great, either.

  She’s elegant even in pain. There’s a finesse about the way she limps. A beauty in the grace of movement.

  She ran like a nymph, her hair streaming like a siren.

  She is a siren.

  I’m still holding her as she digs her keys from her handbag and pushes the door open. I step inside without hesitation, closing the door behind us as she gets the light.

  Her place is small, neat, organised.

  Barren.

  It surprises me.

  “I haven’t long moved in,” she says, as though she’s embarrassed.

  She’s been on the electoral roll for months and I know it. There’s a sadness in her eyes that doesn’t go unnoticed.

  She lowers herself onto the sofa but I don’t join her. I’m not sure I should even be in here. Unsure I’m even welcome.

  “You promised you’d delete your profile,” I remind her, and she smiles.

  “I didn’t think I’d be so desperate for a repeat performance.”

  “And how about now? Are you still so desperate to go again?”

  Her eyes sparkle. “Maybe not right this second.”

  It makes me smile. “A rain check, I think. See how you feel in a few days.”

  She shakes her head. “No rain check necessary. I want to go again.”

  My demons are fucking joyous.

  And so am I.

  “You’ll delete your profile like you promised,” I tell her, then hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

  She looks up at me curiously, but hands it straight over from her bag.

  She doesn’t have a lock code. Her backdrop is the factory default.

  I suspect that hasn’t always been the case.

  I log into my work GPS portal and download the logistics app to her handset. She stares up at me but doesn’t say a word. I set the app to update in real time, just as I do with the drivers’ PDAs. I’ll feed data straight through to my phone.

  I clear the browser listing showing my company login. The app still stands.

  I hold my own handset up. “Your phone will talk to mine,” I tell her. “I’ll know where you are in real time. Nowhere to hide. You have your phone, I’ll be able to find you.” I pause. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  She takes her phone back from me. “Anytime?” she asks. “So you’ll just what? Show up?”

  “Written notice kind of ruins the chase, don’t you think?”

  “And if I want to get hold of you?” She drops her gaze. “I guess you’ll be the one getting hold of me, right?”

  “Maybe when you least expect it.”

  Her breath is shallow. Her eyes soft.

  I have to get out of here before I lose the power to walk away.

  I slip my phone back in my pocket. “I’ll see myself out.”

  “Wait,” she says, but I don’t. She doesn’t follow me, not in those heels. “I don’t even know your name.”

  And that’s how it’s going to stay.

  I take one last look around the place before I leave, taking in the layout – the window positions, the small kitchen table, the bathroom off to the right. I assign it all to memory in a heartbeat and then I make my move for the exit.

  Then I see it, the bowl on the counter. Coins. A couple of charity badges.

  And a spare key.

  I turn it over in my hand.

  Definitely for the front door.

  I slip it into my pocket.

  And then I get the hell out of there.

  Nineteen

  I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

  Pietro Aretino

  Phoenix

  I’ve got her front door key in my pocket, the scent of her pussy on my fingers, and a storm of shit to work out at home.

  The sword of unanswered questions hangs by a dangerously fine cord over my head, but tonight I’m charged enough to stare right up at it. No fear.

  There is no whisky bottle on the coffee table when I let myself back in. No ashtray waiting to disturb my peace of mind.

  Instead, there’s Serena, huddled asleep in the armchair, her long hair trailing over the arm. Her knees are held to her chest, her chin resting on top. She looks precariously peaceful, one tiny move and she’d topple.

  I forget how small she is, my little sister. I forget how Jake and I used to be so fucking protective over the little girl with big dark eyes, even if she was full enough of spit and fury to ward off demons herself.

  If only she could ward off mine. Hell, she’s tried – trapped between two bulls baying for each other’s blood, even though it’s the same fucking blood in their veins.

  I prop myself in the doorway, just to be there awhile. I collect my thoughts until she stirs.

  She starts as she sees me there. “I was waiting up for you. What time is it?”

  “Late,” I tell her. “Why aren’t you upstairs? You do still have a bed.”

  She looks away. “We can’t go on just pretending everything is normal, Leo.”

  She’s right about that.

  Her eyes meet mine. “We need to talk… about Jake…”

  “Fuck Jake,” I say.

  “I said some awful things, Leo. Awful. But I said the truth… we don’t know…”

  I shoot her a glare. “You think I’m too chicken shit to let him see my son? You think this is some shitty excuse for denial because I’m too scared to face the truth?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Is it?”

  I shake my head and smile at the ridiculousness of all this. “Jake’s a fucking mess, Serena. He’s a drunk who can’t keep his shit together.” I glare at her. “He hates me too fucking much to keep a lid on his crap. His bitterness is toxic to everyone, not least himself. Cam sure as hell doesn’t need Jake’s fucking baggage, he’s got enough of his own.”

  “But you can’t do this…” she whispers. “He’ll never cope if you stop him seeing Cam.”

  “I never fucking started letting him see Cam.”

  She shrugs again. “He’s my brother, yours too.”

  “I know who he is, and I don’t like it one bit.”

  I see her clock the mud on my clothes. “Where did you go tonight?”

  I wave her question aside. “Doesn’t matter.”

  And she loses her shit, just like that. “And this is where the problem is. So many secrets. So many lies. We’re sinking, all of us. Jake looks like death, you’re so tightly wound, I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “You know me,” I tell her. “You know Cam, too.”

  “And Jake… I know Jake… I know how much he loved her…”

  I knock my head back against the doorframe. “Jesus Christ, Serena.”

  And we’re there again. Arguing over the fucking L word. Arguing over a woman who’s long in the fucking ground, lost to us all.

  “He’ll never let it go,” she
carries on. “If you stop him seeing Cam, it’ll send him over the edge… it’s the last he’s got… the last piece of…”

  “Her,” I finish. “And I don’t give a fuck, Serena, I swear. He’s my boy. I’m the one who tucks him into bed at night. I’m the one who picks him up when he scrapes his knees. I’m the one who’d kill to keep him safe.” My eyes are wild but I don’t care. “And I will kill to keep him safe. Whoever he needs keeping safe from.”

  It’s her turn to slam her head backwards. “Fucking hell, Leo. Where will this ever end?”

  I don’t have an answer, so I don’t give her one.

  “I love you,” she continues. “Enough to give you the truth, even though it feels like shit, and I’m telling you now, this is a bad road. We’re all on a bad road.” She sighs, then gets up from the chair. “I can’t choose you or him, but I can choose Cam. Please let me come back home for him.”

  “You want to move back in here? With us? Abandon poor, sad Jake?”

  She bites her thumbnail. “You haven’t really left me a choice, have you?”

  She’s got a point. “And you’ll stop the secret fucking visits?”

  She shrugs. “If that’s what it takes. You and Jake will have to sort the rest out for yourselves. I’m done.”

  “He’s not Jake’s boy,” I say again. “I know it.”

  “We’re talking about Mariana, Leo. None of us know anything.”

  That makes me smile. “Ain’t that the fucking truth of it.”

  She closes the distance between us. I’m tense as she wraps her arms around my waist. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry the truth was so brutal.”

  “I’m sorry you felt you had to.”

  She nods.

  I kiss the top of her head.

  I watch her head upstairs to bed, back where she belongs.

  And then I message my fucking brother.

  Abigail

  Something has lifted inside. Even as I wince, walking wounded, through my Sunday, I feel it.

  My pain is all external, my outlook sunnier than I’ve known it in months.

  I feel… good.

  Excited.

  Hopeful.

  Even a little optimistic.