Nothing but Darkness (Darkness Series Book 1)

by Maria Ann Green

  “I’m so sorry, Mel.” I reach across the expanse of space between us, hesitantly, to touch her hands. As soon as I do, she opens her palm to grasp my hand tightly. Hers are softer than any woman’s hands I’ve ever held, and they’re warm.

  “I just had to tell someone.” She squeezes my hand in an effort to show me she trusts me. She didn’t tell a girlfriend. She told someone she knew would understand. She told someone who doesn’t believe much in the idea of love.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Honestly?” Again she looks nervous.

  “Of course.” I smile to coax the next confession out of her.

  “I’m going to have the baby, and after that I’m either going to leave him, or I’m going to cheat on him.”

  “Fuck me.” Seriously, I need a new word.

  “Well, that’s the idea.”

  ****

  A loud knock on the glass next to my open door brings me out of my memory.

  “Lunch?” Jason’s loud voice sounds almost as if he’s yelling in comparison to the silence that surrounded me moments before.

  “Sure, give me an hour? I need to finish a few things first.” I don’t mention it isn’t work I need to finish.

  “Sounds good.” He walks loudly down to the copier.

  After he’s left, I allow myself to remember the rest of the night. I still need to finish processing.

  ****

  “Wait…what are you saying, Amelia?”

  I know what she said, and I know what it should mean, but the idea just doesn’t make sense in my head. She can’t have meant what it sounded like. I heard wrong. I must have.

  “I’m saying, if you’re interested, I want to have an affair with you.”

  Her words sound clinical. They aren’t sexy. She doesn’t coat them in emotion or pleading. She’s making a simple proposition, inquiring if I’m interested. She knows me better than I thought she did. Amelia is more emotional than this instinctively, and she’s suppressing it to appeal to me.

  Fucking brilliant.

  “And if I say no?” I need to know everything she’s thinking.

  “If you say no, then we’ll never talk about this again. I won’t say a word, and I trust you won’t either. I’ll leave Jason a while after baby number four is born, and we will all live our lives as if this night never happened.”

  My eyes are wide, I know, but I can’t get them to close at all. My lips are pressed into a thin line, and I can feel the creases pressed into the skin of my forehead.

  “If you say yes, then until I leave Jason we will have as much sex as you can handle. Then I’ll still get a divorce down the road.” She fidgets, but continues. “And Jason will still never know. The only detail that changes is you.”

  Me.

  “You decide if you’re in or out. Either way, I can’t stay with him, Aidan. It’s going to end one way or another. You can’t prevent it, and it won’t hurt Jason any less if you say no to me. The ball’s in your court.”

  “Can I take a couple days to think about it?”

  I want to say yes. Fucking fuck, I want to say yes and screw her brains out on this table right now, but I need to think this through. Jason is my best friend, one of my only true friends. But what Mel said makes a lot of sense, too. Will this complicate my new hobby? Surely not. I need to think about this from every angle.

  I need time.

  “Of course.” Thankfully, she’s willing to give it to me.

  Her smile is radiant, and she squeezes my hand once more before letting it go. As I pull away reluctantly, she traces her finger down the length of my palm. The touch sends a shiver throughout my entire body.

  “I promise I won’t say anything regardless of what I decide.”

  How could I?

  “Thank you, and I trust you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Let’s have some food?”

  “Absolutely, I’m starving.” Amelia’s eyes twinkle as she looks at me.

  How the hell did I get here? What a complicated clusterfuck.

  Fuck me.

  It’s been two days and I still haven’t decided. I know I need to. Soon. But I’m still baffled, and that’s making it incredibly hard to think about what I want to do. I’ve given myself a deadline of tomorrow night to let her know if I’m in or out.

  In the meantime, I need to start scratching my own itch. I want to do my dirty deed again. I’m ready for it. All I need is a playmate and a plan. So, basically everything. Tonight I’ll come up with one or the other, get it started, and tomorrow I’ll think about what to do (or not do) with Amelia. One thing at a time, I guess.

  Somehow I think my best ideas come when I just stop trying to come up with an answer, when I relax. I don’t know why, but they do. So I let my mind wander, stopping the pressure on myself.

  I hop into the shower once I get home from an Eva-free day at work. Lunch with Jason went fine. I’m feeling less and less guilty when I’m with him as he talks about Amelia. But when he mentions anything sexual about her, my feelings of jealous rage get more pronounced. Everything is give and take, meaning I have to find the balance I’m happy to live with.

  As the hot water pounds into my skin, I think about what my next murderous move should be. Though planning has worked fine for me so far, maybe this time I should be more spontaneous with the actual method of killing. Just bring a hoard of tools and pick at random whichever catches my fancy in the moment.

  Yes. That’s tantalizing.

  I’m on a roll, because suddenly I’ve got the next piece, too. I look up just to make sure a light bulb hasn’t materialized above my head with this outpouring of ideas. I’m going to pick up a hitchhiker, sedate or subdue her, bring her into the woods, and have so much fun.

  I sigh. My life is just perfect. So perfect.

  ****

  At work on Wednesday, Eva stomps by me without a greeting. I’m surprised she can walk so heavily on heels so thin without breaking her ankle. Guess she does remember my rejection, and she still isn’t too happy about it. Her choice to ignore me doesn’t cause any heartbreak. Oh well, I’ll let her cool down some, and then I’ll kill her with kindness to get back in her good graces.

  Jason and I keep ourselves busy on a newly assigned project from an adjacent department. We have no reason to interact with Eva, which is good for us. Every time I see her walk by the conference room Jason and I are holed up in, she looks angrier. Her interactions with others in the office look awkward as she snaps at everyone.

  What a cunt.

  People are going to assume she’s on the rag, and maybe she is, but I doubt it’s the only thing causing her bitchiness. She doesn’t handle rejection well at all.

  Just after lunchtime I watch out of the corner of my eye as she prepares to enter her pitch meeting. She stands outside the doors adjusting her blouse, then her skirt, and going back to fix both once more. She’s nervous. And she should be, because if I’m right they’re going to fucking hate every single one of her ideas.

  Finally, she enters the office after almost five minutes of incessant fidgeting.

  “They’re gonna eat her alive.” I don’t mean to mumble it out loud but nonetheless it pops out from my mouth, and Jason cocks his head to the side.

  “What’d you say?” His eyes dart from me to the doors Eva just walked through.

  “Oh, nothing.” I smile with an evil squint to my eyes. “Nothing at all.”

  Not even fifteen minutes after she walked into the office, Eva is walking back out. Her pitch should’ve taken at least an hour. Interesting. Maybe that means she fell hard on her ass.

  She walks quickly past our conference room, manages to glare at me while passing, and heads straight past her office to the shitty old elevator. It would just make my day if it fell to the lobby floor, crushing her inside.

  No less than two minutes later, my phone pings with an incoming email.

  “I never should’ve added work’s email to my phone.” I
sigh loud and exaggeratedly as I pull it out of my pocket.

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Mel flips the hell out when it goes off at home. She says work is for work and home is for home. The two shouldn’t mix.” Smart woman. “But she doesn’t get it since home is her place of work. What’s it say?” Jason leans toward my phone to read as I do.

  From: Management

  To: Everyone

  Subject: Half day

  To Eva’s team,

  Eva will be out the rest of the afternoon. If you have any questions please feel free to contact any of the other departments’ supervisors. Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Management

  “Hmmmm.” I struggle to keep the laughter absent from my voice.

  “Two days in a row. She must’ve caught something nasty.”

  “Yeah, probably.” After Jason turns away, I roll my eyes. Sick my ass.

  Sometimes I wonder if he actually is as clueless as he plays at.

  ****

  Leaving work, I know tonight I need to finally make my decision about Mel’s proposition. I’m fairly sure what I want to tell her, but I need to be positive.

  As the days have worn on since she asked, I’ve slowly leaned toward my answer. I’m not sure why it took me so long to give in to it. I know I’ve already started down a selfish road with my new hobby, and though I never want to lose Jason as a friend, he’ll never find out I want to try Amelia on for size. If I’m getting exactly what I want in the realm of carnage and animalistic desires, why not in the sexual realm as well?

  Let’s face it, her body is amazing, and I’d regret it looking back if I missed the opportunity to get my dick inside her hot, wet slit. Okay, so it’s decided. I’m going to agree to have an affair with Jason’s wife.

  Fucking hell.

  I pull out my phone and wipe the perspiration accumulating on my forehead at the hairline. As my fingers shake I type in my one-word answer and hit send to Amelia’s phone number. It’s funny I’m nervous about this when I didn’t bat an eye at the idea of the waitress.

  Yes is all I send.

  Early Thursday morning I hit “door close” desperately as I stand inside the elevator. Eva’s walking across the lobby, but the fucking piece of shit won’t react in time to my frantic punching of the likely broken button.

  They need to fix this monstrosity, because it just fucked me.

  “Good morning. Feeling better today?” All I get is crickets, and it’s making me uncomfortable. So I add, “Since you left sick yesterday, I mean.” Better to play nice.

  “I am.” Her tone is cold, curt.

  She’s still pissed.

  We ride the rest of the slow ascent in silence. It’s a horribly awkward, pregnant silence. The tension’s palpable. I wish I could just smack some sense into her. It would be so much easier if I could just say, “Hey, I think you’re hot, but frankly you’re a bitch. And you’re my boss. I’m sure a short-lived affair together isn’t worth losing my job over.” But I have a feeling that wouldn’t go over any better than my gentler letdown. She just wants to be mad, and there’s nothing I can do about it other than ride it out.

  As the doors finally jerk open on our floor, Eva pushes me aside to exit first as if she’s in a class above mine. Looking around to make sure no one’s near enough to hear her, she utters in a nasty tone, “See you at the meeting, asshole.”

  Well, that wasn’t nice.

  Instead of further jeopardizing my standing, I decide to take the high road. “Can’t wait. Let me know if you need anything at all, I’d be happy to help.” She doesn’t answer. She just whisks away, shaking her head more than her ass down the hallway.

  I need to resist all urges to push her buttons. It’s too easy.

  ****

  As odd as it sounds, ten minutes before the department meeting I’m getting excited. I know, who wants to sit in a boring meeting when it goes way too long about information we already know and barely care about? But maybe something will be said about Eva’s pitch, and, if so, I bet it won’t be good.

  Oh god, maybe she’ll quit.

  I stand up and crack my knuckles loudly. The anticipation alone will make it better than a normal boring meeting.

  I lean my head into Jason’s office and knock on the outer frame.

  “You ready?”

  “Oh crap, that’s now isn’t it?” He rushes to save whatever he’s doing and stow away his papers until later.

  “How do you forget every month?”

  “I don’t know. You’d think I’d learn. Time just gets away from me.”

  “You just work too hard.”

  We walk toward the largest conference room on our floor, and halfway there are joined by several colleagues. Sarah is short and slight with mousy brown hair, but she’s funny. I think she lost her filter several marriages ago. She’s only in her mid-thirties and on her fourth husband. Ben is taller than both Jason and me, but he’s the dullest man you’ll ever meet. I swear he thinks skipping rocks should be a competitive sport. Last to join us outside the conference room is Lisa. She’s forgettable. She’s average height, average build, and average looking. She doesn’t talk a lot. Sometimes I forget she works here.

  “So what was up with Eva’s disappearing act yesterday?” Sarah whispers louder than I would, considering the bitch herself could walk into the room at any moment.

  “Shhh, dummy.” Thank you, Jason.

  “I bet we find out sooner rather than later.” I just have to fuel the fire, at least when I can.

  “What do you know?” Sarah’s definitely a gossip, and I’ve piqued her interest.

  “I’m not totally sure. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

  Keep her intrigued enough to keep an eye on Eva.

  “You’re bad.”

  She swipes her hand toward me, scolding me for being naughty. I just smile and nod.

  I’m glad I didn’t say anything else because Eva storms in then, just before her two superiors. And as more stragglers wander in, the group is all ready to start. Eva sits in the chair farthest away from me instead of opting for the head of the table as she usually does. Maybe she’ll knock herself down a few pegs as a result of my politer than necessary decline.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” Frank, the senior most person here and VP of the company, rarely comes to our meetings. He’s here today, though.

  The next most senior attendee, Dan, usually runs the show, but not today. Dan looks content to take a backseat, while in contrast Frank’s features are pinched as if he smells something foul.

  The meeting drones on without much to note for a while, but then things start to spice up. When Eva opens her mouth to begin she gets no more out than, “Yes,” before Frank cuts her off with his own continued ramblings. I try so hard not to smile, but when I catch Sarah’s eye and she’s covered her own smirk with her papers, the corners of my mouth spite me, turning up.

  Unfortunately, Eva looks to me when I still have laughter written on my face. She glares, and I swear, though I hate the saying, if looks could kill I’d be dead in my chair. I think I may have seen a spark or two of flames behind her pupils. I wonder if that’s how I look just before I collect a donation from a playmate.

  Fire in the eyes.

  Frank continues on, and on, and on. It’s hard to remain focused. When he asks for updates from everyone he starts with Dan, but then surprisingly, instead of Eva, next he asks me.

  “Aidan, how’s everything going in your world?” I don’t miss a beat in my readiness to reply, and I make sure not to look shocked.

  “Everything’s good. I’ve been ahead on most of—” before I can finish my sentence Eva decides she can’t contain her frustration any longer.

  “Well, Frank, our department has been a well-oiled machine, as usual. Everyone works so hard under my guidance. Well…almost everyone.” Eva has the nerve to look pointedly at me for her last comment. Oh fuck no. I work harder than anyone else here.

 
“Right,” is all Frank says in response. He’s not having her attitude either.

  Dan looks to me again with apologetic eyes and in a gentle tone adds, “I’m sorry, Aidan, I believe it was your turn to speak.”

  Ha.

  I finish my short little spiel as waves of excitement and pleasure wash over me. The grin I wear is plastered tightly across my face. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who has seen her shitty ways now. Frank and Dan remain attentive to me throughout.

  Fuck that evil bitch.

  When I finish, I watch Eva make an even bigger mistake next. “Fucker.”

  Her mumble is louder than she probably intended, because out of my peripheral vision I see Dan’s eyes pop wide, and I hear Frank scribble notes before moving onto the rest of the updates around the room. She looks unaware that anyone heard her.

  Everyone else’s statements are received without comment by Eva, and it’s clear I was her only target. Dan and Frank speed through the rest of the meeting without letting her talk again.

  Dan jokes, “Class dismissed,” and everyone stands.

  Though rustling papers and shuffling bodies make background noise, it isn’t enough to drown out Frank’s request to Eva. “Please meet me in my office in thirty minutes.”

  Eva makes no reply to Frank.

  She appears completely surprised, which is so stupid after the obvious spectacle she’s made in the last hour. Frank walks away before her body language morphs from stunned to enraged. She stands in the middle of the double doorway and we all have to maneuver around her.

  I’m the second to last out, followed by Jason. When I think I’ve cleared her I feel a sudden tug on the back of my blazer. Then I hear a rip.

  No fucking way.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Eva’s words are a hiss.

  “Why don’t you cool down, Eva?” Jason sounds surprisingly assertive as he stands beside me in camaraderie.

  “Stay out of this, Jason. It has nothing to do with you.” In an unladylike fashion, Eva spits with her last few words.