“Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.”
E.E. Cummings
Tragically
Flawed
A.M. Hargrove
Chapter One
Caught In The Act
Present Day
Riviera Bleu Benson stomped up the steps of the almost-completed multimillion dollar home. She jammed her master key into the lock and opened the door. What she really wanted to do was slam the huge, beautifully hand-hewn door as hard as she could, but she refrained. Marsha Sue Flannery, who Riviera indirectly worked for, had put her in a severely foul mood. Known as the interior designer to Beaver Creek’s rich and famous, Marsha Sue was a mean and spiteful bitch.
“You’re behind on all your homes. You’d better pick it up or else.”
“Or else what, Marsha Sue? Are you gonna fire me?”
“Ha ha. Very funny, Riviera. You know I can’t do that. I will, however, tell all my clients that they can’t move into their new homes because their painter is a slack-ass.”
“Marsha Sue, that’s a blatant lie and you know it.”
“Not the way I see it. So get off your slack ass and get to work.” Marsha Sue ended the call without giving Riviera a chance to respond.
Riviera wanted to scream. She worked like a dog and Marsha Sue damn well knew it. She huffed as she twisted her way through the massive house, eventually entering the room where she was creating her masterpiece, a ceiling trompe l’oeil. It created the illusion of a domed chamber with a three-dimensional clouded blue sky above it.
Reaching into her pocket for her iPod, she found nothing but an empty space. Damn! What else could go wrong today?
Examining her work, she prepared her paints and brushes when she thought she heard a voice calling her name.
“Riviera.” The voice was deep, soft, and husky.
It startled her. No one was supposed to be there. The house was empty, and not quite finished. The general contractor, Benjamin Shandon, or Shan as he preferred to be called, had some final touches to complete, but they wouldn’t be done until Riviera had finished all her painting. Perhaps she was imagining things.
Bending down to grab her supplies, her name reached her ears again. This time, she knew she wasn’t mistaken. It was a man’s sexy voice.
Who would be calling her and in that tone of voice? Did someone hear her come in and did they need her? She walked down the hall and looked into each room.
When she reached the fifth room, the door was half open. She stuck her head in. Initially stunned, she then became mesmerized at the vision before her. Quietly pushing the door open, she inched her way in.
Shan was stretched out on a rollaway bed, shirtless with his tight jeans open and unzipped. Riviera always thought him to be dark and appealing, but this stepped it up to an unprecedented level.
Thick, chocolate-brown hair that held a few lightened streaks from the summer sun fanned out across the pillow. Onyx lashes formed crescents against his tawny cheeks. Sculpted cheekbones rose high upon his face, creating slight hollows beneath them. But those lips, full Cupid’s bow lips, were slightly parted as his breath rushed in and out in short bursts.
Her eyes inched lower and she drank in his cut torso and abs that narrowed to a chiseled V. Riviera’s eyes wanted to linger but didn’t dare because something else, something primal, drew them farther down his spectacular anatomy.
In his gorgeous hand was an amazing erection, which he was stroking up and down, up and down. Riviera felt like she was looking at that proverbial train wreck, knowing she should get the heck out of there, but at the same time, she was incapable of wrenching her eyes off such a carnal image. Because of her troubled past, she’d never responded to a man’s body before, but the sight of him aroused her unlike anything she’d ever known. Flames spread across her, scorching every inch of her body. Her belly instantly tightened as the muscles of her sex clenched. Her nipples hardened into precious pearls and demanded to be sucked like something she’d only read about in her romance novels. Every cell, every molecule in her body squeezed and tensed as her blood heated and her pulse raced. She burned and ached with a need so strong, she wanted to slip her hand down the front of her jeans and rub herself to match the rhythm of the man she was so intently watching.
Her eyes inched back up to revisit the abs that rippled with his every breath. As she consumed the sight before her, she noticed his unoccupied arm was raised over his head, and on his triceps was a striking tattoo of fiery flames. While looking at his beautiful ink, she felt the heat of those very flames licking her scorched skin. Riviera had to fist her hands, for she wanted to reach over and brush her fingers and tongue across the etchings.
While she wondered what he would taste like, that very same arm drifted down, stopping to allow his hand to pinch his pebbled nipple. When he moaned, Riviera nearly whimpered at the sight and sound. His hand didn’t remain there for long—it had a different goal in mind. It landed between his legs, beneath his heaviness while the other hand increased its tempo. Riviera swallowed, but it was with great difficulty, as her throat thickened with desire.
Suddenly, he croaked out her name again, “Ah, Riviera. Yes. Oh God, yes.” Her eyes zeroed in on his hand as he worked himself, and then she saw his body tense, right before his orgasm hit.
She gasped, sucked in her breath, and nearly came with him. As she did, her hand flew to her mouth. It was too late, though; she looked at his face and found herself staring into a set of ice-blue eyes. Whether he was startled, he gave no sign. Those icy blues simply drilled into hers, piercing her clear to her clenched toes.
As he scrutinized her, he tucked himself in his jeans and zipped his pants, breathing hard while he continued to stare.
Not knowing what to say or do, she stood there like a fool. “Oh fuck!” she whispered. She wanted to run but she couldn’t, because her legs had turned into noodles and one step in either direction would send her straight into a make-out session with the hardwood floor.
Riviera’s cheeks burned and she knew she must do something, so she stared at her shoes and moved her hands to the wall behind her. Feeling her way along, she was able to make her clumsy exit. Once her feet hit the hall, she scurried back to the room she was painting, shaking like a leaf in a summer storm. Sweat beaded on her brow and upper lip. She wiped a sleeve over her face.
“What the hell was I thinking? Why did you just stand there and watch?” she asked aloud.
Then another thought, an even more dangerous one, occurred to her. Why the hell was he calling out her name when he was doing that?
Suddenly, her head swam with the enormity of what happened. Falling to her knees, she dropped her head in a child’s pose. Was Shan some kind of pervert who she needed to stay clear of? Her history with men had her trust level at a negative one thousand. Seeing him perform that act, although it was clearly the most erotic thing she’d ever seen, had just pushed it down another thousand.
“What the double hell do I do now?” she asked herself.
*****
Shan had been so damn exhausted, he couldn’t think straight. If he didn’t get a few hours’ sleep, he was going to injure himself or someone else. Neither of those was an option, so he ducked into the closest place he could find—one of his projects under construction in the Bachelor Gulch area near Beaver Creek. With only a few things left to be done on this one, he should be able to get a few hours of undisturbed shut-eye.
He kept a rollaway bed in some of his homes for this very reason. Since the wildfires had roared through this area two years ago, he’d been working like a madman. Twenty-hour days were not uncommon. Today, he was approaching that mark. Simply put, that was placing him in the danger zone. One of his lead managers had pulled
him aside and told him he was removing him from the job. When that happened, Shan took it seriously.
It was about two in the morning when he went to sleep. Ever since he’d met her, he couldn’t get Riviera off his mind. Shan didn’t mix with women very well. They were too demanding and liked to sink their claws in too deeply. That wasn’t his style. He was too damn busy for their ridiculous needs. But if he were really honest with himself, those weren’t the real reasons. It boiled down to that huge wall he’d erected around himself. No one was ever going to get through that. Shan would never allow it. The loss he’d experienced ran so deep, he’d never put himself in a vulnerable position again. It was probably for the best, he thought. Most of the time he was a monumental prick and what decent woman would want to be around a moody SOB like him anyway?
Reflecting back upon his past, he hadn’t always been such a jerk. In fact, he’d been one of the nice guys, teased by his friends for being too respectful sometimes. But that was before the fires hit and turned his life upside down. Even now, more than two years later, the pain still crushed him like a sledgehammer.
As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out. Riviera visited him in his dreams quite a bit. Recently the dreams had become overtly erotic. He wanted her, but he wasn’t going to push her. Shan wasn’t used to having to chase women; he was used to pushing them away.
Riviera, however, was the rule breaker for him. Everything about her was different. Uneducated, untrained, un-society … she was nothing like the people he was used to associating with. Perhaps that’s why she intrigued him so.
Shan was sure of one thing: she was utterly beautiful in a most uncommon way. Tall and curvy, the girl had bits of ink in noticeable areas—the underside of her forearm and the back of her neck. Every now and then, she’d change the color of her medium-brown hair so it would be lightly tinted or streaked with pale blue or purple. Not bright colors everywhere, just hints here and there, so the sun would catch them. Her eyes were a golden brown, warm like honey, except when she was pissed off. Then you could almost see sparks shooting out of them.
She didn’t smile or laugh easily, so Shan had set out to change that. The way she held her mouth when she did let one of her rare grins escape let him know she must’ve been self-conscious of her chipped front tooth. But Shan only thought it made her look sexier. Her smile could light up the town and charge up his package like nothing else ever had, except for her damn body. Shit, she had a rack on her and an ass to match that would melt the fuck out of the polar ice cap. Talk about global warming.
But the scars she tried to hide—those made his blood run cold as he wondered how she got them. Did she suffer much from them? Were they caused by some terrible accident or from something worse that he didn’t want to think about? It was hard not to notice them scattered all over her arms and legs. Shan wanted to ask about them but didn’t. He knew there was something dark about her past she was hiding. It was shadowed in her eyes.
Now he was lying on that damn rollaway bed, just having zipped his dick back up in his jeans, watching her back out of the room.
What the fuck, Shan? Couldn’t you at least have your wet dreams and fantasies of her and jack off in the privacy of your own damn home?
His thoughts pinged all over the place. How the hell was he going to apologize for this? Christ, now the girl would never have a thing to do with him. Ever. And who the hell could blame her? He’d just acted like the biggest creeper around. Who the fuck did that kind of stuff?
Pervs you read about, that’s who.
Jumping out of bed, he threw on a T-shirt and realized he was still a mess, covered in the aftermath of his orgasm.
“Ah fuck,” he said out loud.
He needed to get his ass home so he could shower and clear his head. Should he apologize first? What the hell would he say?
Jeez, Riviera, I’m really sorry you saw me jerking off while calling out your name.
Yeah, right. That would make a great impression … just like his volcanic dick just had.
Avoidance. He decided that would work best. Maybe she’d rather not discuss it and in maybe two thousand years, they’d both forget it ever happened.
He wished that nagging voice in the back of his mind would shut the hell up—he really didn’t need to be reminded about how badly he’d just screwed up.
Chapter Two
T.K.O
Six Months Ago
Riviera tried to lay stone still, pretending to be asleep. Her heart thudded as she battled to get her breathing under control. At that moment, she hovered on the edge of hyperventilation. She prayed to God and anyone else who might hear her to please keep him from hurting her. She heard him stumbling around in the kitchen after he’d slammed the door. Three thirty in the morning, and no doubt he was drunk out of his mind. Unfortunately for her, that was when he was the most brutal.
Maybe tonight he would let her off easy. When he was this plastered, though, he had great difficulty in the erection department, and then he always blamed her. A shudder rolled through her, followed by a surge of intense nausea.
The sound of glass shattering followed by his curses made her flinch. “Fucking piece of shit. Riviera, get your lazy ass in here right now and clean up this mess!” he bellowed.
She was really in for it now. Trembling, she slid out of bed and immediately pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt. She didn’t even pause to wonder how bad the beating or rape would be. Jasper had done all kinds of unimaginable things to her, so she was long past being shocked anymore.
When she entered the kitchen, the crazed look in his eyes warned her something awful was about to happen. Indeed, this was going to be a very bad night.
Looking at the floor, she noticed pieces of broken glass scattered about. He must’ve knocked the crystal vase off the counter. A broken beer bottle and the contents of such puddled around the glass.
“Clean this shit up now!” he slurred.
She moved to grab the roll of paper towels and never saw the blow coming. He swung his fist so hard, he knocked her back into the doorway she had just walked through. Pain exploded in her face, radiating up into her skull and down her neck.
His fist had connected with the front left side of her face. An eruption of blinding lights morphing into a burst of brilliant stars quickly followed. It was strange, she thought, how oddly beautiful those stars could be. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her ass trying to clear her muddled head. He unsteadily stomped toward her.
The metallic taste of blood filled Riviera’s mouth from her lip, now split wide open. She didn’t have time to worry about that. She needed to move but was so damn dizzy, the room tilted sideways.
Scooting like a crab on all fours, her feeble stab at escape lasted about three seconds before he hauled her up with one hand fisted around her shirt. Jasper was a big guy—huge, in fact. Six foot three inches of muscle, and mean as hell from all the steroids he used, he was the local gym rat who prided himself on his ability to bench press three hundred pounds. Riviera weighed one thirty soaking wet. When he got in a rage such as this, she often wondered if he’d kill her.
Ramming his liquored-up face into hers, he breathed, “Just where the fuck do you think you’re going, bitch?”
She dared not look him in the eye. Being bold was not a good idea at a time like this. “Nowhere, Jasper. I was going to clean up the mess like you asked,” she rasped, her voice tangled and trembling.
“Damn fucking right, you are. But you’re gonna do something else first. Get rid of those piece-of-shit clothes you’re wearing.”
“Please, Jasper, let me get that mess cleaned up first.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized her mistake.
A meaty paw grabbed her around the neck and squeezed until her air supply was gone. Her chest burned as she choked and tried to kick her legs, but he was so strong, he simply laughed at her weakness.
“Don’t you backtalk me, you stupid slut. I’ll teach you, you hear?”
He flung her aside and she hit the floor like a lead ball. As she lay there, sucking that necessity of life into her lungs, he crouched down next to her. “If you won’t strip, I’ll do it for you.” Pulling out a knife, he ripped into her clothes. She whimpered once, when the knife “accidentally” slipped and sliced into her throat, slashing from her neck down to her breast.
“Shut up, you fucking whore!” he yelled as he whacked her across the face. For the second time that night, she saw stars. He left her for a minute, but came back with a roll of duct tape. Jerking off a strip, he stretched it over her mouth and ground it onto her face. She felt her teeth tear into the fleshy insides of her cheeks. Then he smirked, “Scream all you want now.”
Chills ran up and down her spine as icy needles pierced her skin, making her wonder what price she would pay this time. Kicking and scissoring her legs, she tried to get him off her but failed. He punched her in the face again, turning everything gray and fuzzy. Her ability to struggle vanished in a snap, but now she had to fight to maintain consciousness. She was cognizant of when the rape began, not so much because of the pain, but because of his disgusting grunts next to her ear and the smell of his fetid breath as it fanned across her face.
When his animalistic sounds ceased, he collapsed on top of her, nearly crushing her with his weight. Then he was silent and completely still.
Riviera knew he’d passed out. Pulling herself together, she had to find the power to push his enormous dead weight off her. She was suffocating. Squirming enough to get her hands between them, she started shoving … and wiggling and pushing. Finally, with a burst of energy from deep within, she rolled him off her. Sitting up, she tried to gently pull the duct tape off. It was impossible because her lip was split and the tape had adhered to her open flesh.
Gritting her teeth against the stinging pain, she tugged until it came free and gulped in as much precious air as her lungs could hold. When her breathing evened out, she rolled to her knees and dragged herself to the shower. Before she could even make it to the tub, she threw up several times. After the nausea passed, she stood and rinsed off her face. Catching her reflection in the mirror, fat salty drops shoved past her lids. Riviera hated when she cried because she only had her own stupid self to blame for this predicament.
Tragically Flawed Page 1
