Dark Desires (Dark Romance Boxed Set)

by Cerys du Lys

  “Spike,” he said, still looking at me, “you need to take care of Julia while I’m gone. And you need to make sure that we stay on schedule with Red.”

  Take care of Julia. My face flushed. “Cain, I don’t need—”

  “You’re my old lady. Someone has to make sure you’re safe.”

  It was odd how he could be so concerned about my safety one moment, and utter threats in my ear in another. He didn’t really care about me; he just wanted to keep his possessions whole.

  “He’s right, Julia. I’ll keep her safe, brother.”

  Sensing that the meeting was over, I stood up to leave but Cain pulled me into his arms again.

  “Remember who you belong to,” he hissed into my ear.

  How could I forget?

  SPIKE

  I strolled into the clubhouse behind Julia, who raised her hand in greeting to all the members. They smiled back at the beautiful woman. It hadn’t taken them long to warm up to her because she brought so much money into the club. She gained the guys’ respect, but they still looked at me like I was a kid.

  For only being a member for a few months, I was rising fast. Too fast. Crash appointed me acting Vice President to fill in while Cain was gone. I could feel the greedy resentment of the guys surrounding me. Hell, if they wanted the job, they could have it.

  Max, who held a grudging respect for me, lifted his head and nodded as I walked in. Pike and River, two of Cain’s lackeys, eye-fucked me from across the bar. I returned the look with interest. They were two boneheads who followed Cain around the club, thugs gravitating towards a man who could teach them more refined forms of cruelty.

  “Spike! Spike!”

  A blonde haired boy dove into my knees as I walked in the club. He clutched my leg and grinned toothily. I liked him. He was my little buddy.

  “Tommy-boy! What’s up?” I smiled at the boisterous toddler and ruffled his hair.

  “Nothin.’”

  “Wanna see magic tricks?”

  I dug a quarter out of my pocket and made it bounce across my knuckles, and then it disappeared. Tommy’s blue eyes watched with fascination, and then I pulled the quarter from out of his ear. I laughed at his stunned face and pressed the quarter into his tiny hand.

  “It’s magic?”

  “Yeap.”

  One of the club whores made a beeline for me and grabbed the toddler’s hand. “Tommy!” She gave me an apologetic look as she tugged him away.

  Smiling, I waved goodbye to the boy and grinned at Julia, who hung by the pool table. I leaned against the bar next to Crash. For once, he didn’t have a drink in his hands.

  “Crash, I’d like to call up a meeting to talk to everyone.”

  He nodded and yelled over the noise in the club to meet in the boardroom. The Dragons followed us inside and I sat down at Crash’s left, feeling unusually anxious with their eyes on me.

  “Hey, guys. I just wanted to say a couple things before we start the day. I’m going to be filling in for Cain for a few weeks as VP. This is still his ship and I intend to keep it running just the way he wants so that when he gets back, he won’t chop my head off.”

  I smiled, expecting laughter, but the members remained stony-faced.

  “Cain has become a reckless, unreliable VP,” Crash interjected. “He’s high on Red half the time—it’s only a matter before he screws up and gets himself killed. For that reason, I want Spike to remain VP after Cain gets back.”

  Bile raised in my throat. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He looked at me solemnly. “If everything goes well, I want you to be Vice President.”

  “This should be a club vote,” I said angrily. Not only did I have no interest in keeping Cain’s position, but also I was pretty sure that he would take it as a betrayal.

  He vouched for me to become a member. Suddenly, Julia’s dire warnings against Cain rang in my head.

  The club was undecided on the matter and Crash slammed his gavel. “We’ll bring it up again at another time.”

  Dragons stood up and left the office, some of them shooting me dark looks.

  River gnashed his foul teeth my way and Pike, another one of Cain’s men leered across the table. The hair raised on the back of my neck. Wolves were circling around me, waiting for me to stumble.

  How am I supposed to keep those psychos in check?

  I grabbed Crash’s arm as he stood to leave. “Are you trying to get me killed?” I asked when everyone left.

  He rolled his eyes. “They might grumble and complain, but they’ll get over it. I know you’ll do a great job.”

  “It’s not them I’m worried about.”

  He scoffed. “I can handle Cain.”

  My eyes widened at the confidence in his voice. Cain was like a trained wolf. Crash didn’t realize that once wolves had a taste of freedom, they would never go back to begging for scraps at the table.

  You can’t handle him. No one can.

  Except maybe Julia.

  Just the thought of her made me warm.

  There were a million things for me to do, but all I wanted to do was hang out with her. Visiting Cain in jail had shaken her and I knew that she wanted to be free of him. Well, I had the power now, but I would feel like a worthless son of a bitch if I used it. She was into me and I was definitely into her, but I couldn’t just—steal my brother’s old lady. How would that look?

  Still my feet walked towards her as if I had no control over my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I stopped myself from kissing her at Cain’s apartment, how it felt to have her hands playing with my hair. From the moment I met her, I knew that she was the most stunning, gorgeous woman I would ever meet.

  “Spike?”

  Her low voice caught me off guard. She was always doing that, tripping me up. I fixed a grin on my face.

  “Yes, angel?”

  Careful, Spike.

  Her somber face lightened a bit. “What’s going on? What am I doing today?”

  I frowned. “I don’t think you should hustle for a while. You’ve already hit most of the bars around town and word’s going to get out about you. You’re a bit hard to forget.”

  She blew out her cheeks. “Yeah. Usually I’d drive out ten, twenty miles every day to hit new places.”

  “I have some pretty boring errands to run. You could spend the day with me, if you want.”

  Still blue from yesterday, she nodded, unsmiling. “Sure.”

  I’ll get you to smile before the day’s over.

  * * *

  Heaviness filled my chest like lead, despite the pretty girl walking beside me. The sun was out, and it made her hair gleam like molten gold. The bouquet of flowers hung limp in my hands as we walked through a grassy knoll, where tombstones sat on the ground like flat rocks. I inhaled sharply when I saw the big tombstone up ahead and Julia took my hand. Another painful feeling tugged inside my chest. She was warm, reassuring. I plucked out a flower from the bouquet and gave it to her. She raised the pink rose to her lips and inhaled.

  We stopped.

  DEBORAH AND JAMES McCONNELLY. BELOVED MOTHER AND FATHER.

  I regarded my parents’ graves, my eyes rereading the text over and over. Why did I let them write that? There was not a single line about who they really were.

  Just a one-lined cliché: Beloved mother and father.

  It said nothing about their personalities. My dad used to run around the house in his underwear and chase me.

  He was always a crazy bastard, I thought with fondness. Mom was less of a jokester, but she did little things like hang paper fish over my bed when I was asleep.

  “These are your folks?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my smile straining. It was a long time ago, but the pain was still there like an old muscle wound, still smarting. “It was a gang initiation.” Fucking pointless deaths.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her voice was so low that I could barely hear it. I nodded, my eyes unfocused. I saw them low
ering the two coffins into a giant hole, and Crash’s hand squeezing my shoulder, almost painfully. He told me not to cry, to be a strong man, even if I had no family left.

  My uncles were always in and out of jail, and my grandparents died long ago. I was forced through the system, and I was owned by various people I didn’t really care for. Crash did what he could. He helped a boy get vengeance and asked for nothing in return. He couldn’t adopt me because he already had a boy—Cain, who kept his hands full.

  I’ll never forget the pain of that day.

  That day, I swore to myself that I would never care about anyone ever again.

  I gently laid the bouquet over their graves. Within a few hours, the Californian sun would bake them dry. Despair momentarily squeezed my chest. What was the point of it? Mom and Dad weren’t there to see them. The flowers died when they were cut, only to dry out in a few hours, losing everything that made them beautiful.

  “C’mon,” I told Julia, tugging her hand.

  We sat under the shade of an oak tree so close we were almost touching, but not quite. The rolling hills gleamed in the sun like spun gold. I tried to soak in the beauty of it all.

  Julia spun the rose in her fingers, the waxy, green leaves shining in the sun.

  “Have you ever lost anyone you loved?”

  She gave me an apologetic smile. “Not really, to be honest. The MC killed my husband, but I never really cried about it. I felt relieved to be free of all that pressure.” A nervous laugh left her throat. “I sound like a heartless bitch.”

  My insides twisted. “I forgot about that. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know Crash at all.”

  I ripped blades of grass and tossed them compulsively. “I know we’re a bunch of marauding, godless bastards, but I thought there would be more. Killing innocent people wasn’t what I signed up for. It’s just fucked.”

  Julia leaned back on her elbows, her hair flying around her face, brushing over her black tank top. She was an enigma. Most girls were easy to peg. Her? Impossible.

  “What do you want, Julia?”

  Her head turned towards me with a lost expression on her face. “That’s the first time anyone’s ever asked me that.” She shook her head. “I want a hit.”

  “I don’t mean right now. I mean, in the future.”

  “I don’t know.” Her lips parted as she thought about it. “I want to know what it’s like to be loved. Every man I’ve met has always wanted something from me.”

  Even in jeans and a tank top, Julia was stunning. She was a magnet for any guy. My eyes kept darting to the strip of flesh under her tank top and I felt like a bastard for ogling her. I ripped out a huge chunk of grass.

  “You’ll never get that with Cain.”

  What do I want? All I could come up with was the girl next to me. I want to be the one who makes her laugh. But at the same time, my insides froze. I didn’t want another person to care about. It’s too late for that.

  She looked away. “I know. That’s why I’ve decided that I don’t care anymore. I have nothing to live for except for my next hit.”

  Whoa.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  Her head slumped against the tree, her blue eyes dead to the world. “I do.”

  I hated the way her eyes looked. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting.

  “We’re going to make you happy again.”

  I stood up and took her hand. She grabbed it and stood up, falling into my chest slightly as she stumbled. She gave me that small, secretive smile that I saw so often, and for once she looked lighter.

  * * *

  Where should I take her? What does she like?

  I ended up driving into the parking lot of a bowling place. A neon sign flashed weakly in the bright sun—

  “—Disco Bowl?” Her voice lifted as she removed her sunglasses, looking at me strangely.

  I grinned sheepishly. “I figured that bowling would be a nice change.”

  Julia smiled. “Sure. Let’s go bowling.”

  Great, now she thinks you’re an idiot.

  We walked to the building, where a group of teenagers loitered outside. She slipped her arm through mine and my heart fluttered when I opened the door for her. She unhooked herself from me and walked inside.

  I blinked as I walked over the shitty carpet, my eyes momentarily stunned by the epileptic display of lights. There were strobe lights, lasers, and even a fog machine. The floor vibrated with house music. I felt like I was going to get a seizure if I kept my eyes open.

  “This is like Vegas.”

  I could tell it was totally not her thing. Hell, it wasn’t mine either, but she bellied up to the counter where a pimple-faced boy stood.

  “We’ll do one game. Two rentals.”

  We took our shoe rentals and picked a lane far away from other people.

  “You ready to get your ass kicked, Spike?”

  I gave her a chuckle. “Girl, you may have some talent with pool—”

  “Some talent?” she interjected, looking scandalized. “I kicked your ass.”

  “Only because I let you.” I gave her a cheerful smile as she glowered at me under her curtain of hair.

  She sat up when she finished tying her shoes. “You’ll regret those words.”

  I laughed and her lips twitched somewhat, thoroughly enjoying our banter. “Anyway, I like a girl who can kick my ass.”

  Her cheeks bloomed at that response and I bit the inside of my own cheek. She belonged to Cain, but she didn’t want him. My stomach roiled when I thought about how badly she had been treated during all these months—right under my nose.

  Cain talked and laughed with me as if nothing was wrong, and the whole time he was beating on his woman? Not fucking cool.

  I didn’t care who he was. There were lines none of us crossed, it was practically club creed.

  Occasionally, he was known to step outside of the line, but this was a gigantic leap over it. I couldn’t understand how he could mistreat a woman. Especially one like her.

  Julia gave me a puzzled look as she picked bowling balls from the rack and tested them. I smiled to hide the darkness brewing in my head, which pounded with the ridiculous music. What is this, a club?

  She approached me with a small smirk and suddenly she bent close to me, invading my space as she typed in her name for the screen. Her tank top slid up on her back, exposing soft skin.

  I wanted to wrap my hands around her waist and pull her onto my lap, and feel her lips under mine like that one time at the pool hall. At the time, I was a bit tipsy but somehow she made me feel drunk off my ass with that little peck. It was a taste. A tease. I wanted more. Then I felt like an asshole for wanting her at all, and the cycle would repeat.

  She turned around and took a glittering, pink bowling ball as she approached the lane. For a moment, it was safe for my eyes to stare at her ass, which begged to be slapped.

  I need to get laid. I can’t be around her when I’m like this.

  The lights flashed over her body like a kaleidoscope and then a fog machine belched colored smoke all over the lanes and I wondered how the hell she could see anything. Still, she hit seven out of the nine.

  She stalked over and squeezed my shoulders, making my heart jump.

  “Your turn,” she whispered in my ear.

  I tried to shake off her magnetism and the circular thoughts running in my head.

  I can’t make a move on her, I thought desperately. Not until I’ve dealt with Cain.

  But we had such a good time and for a moment, the weight dragging her down all the time lightened, and her eyes were brighter. She was beating the shit out of me. Julia clapped her hands together when she won and threw her hands around my neck with an ecstatic laugh.

  She was way too close. My hands held her tiny waist and I tried to ignore the feeling of her tits mashed against my chest. She beamed at me as if I was her old man and her eyes shined with happiness.

  “Than
k you, Spike. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “O—of what?”

  “This.”

  Her face moved in before I could think. She kissed the corner of my mouth, as if she wanted to go all the way but was too afraid to commit completely. All my resolve crumbled, I turned my head to catch her lips, but she slipped from my arms.

  I wanted to grab her. My whole body tingled and my heart thudded against my chest like a fucking gong. Part of me was angry with her for toying with me.

  The happiness that brightened her face dimmed as she stepped away from me, like she did something wrong, and my anger faded away.

  * * *

  Balling my hands into fists, I entered the common area with nondescript tables and chairs, looking for his ominous face among the crowd of losers. His gaze struck me across the room like a knife and I wondered if he could tell how I felt about his girl.

  No way he knows.

  Guilt.

  Cain looked marginally better from last week. His eyes were clear from the lack of Red, but he developed a facial tick and his fingers drummed restlessly on the table.

  “Where’s Julia?” he barked as soon as I sat down.

  “How are you, Spike? Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to visit my sorry ass.”

  He glowered. Clearly, jail time hadn’t introduced a sense of humor. “Why should I thank you for doing your job? I’m still Vice President.”

  Inwardly, I grimaced. I still had not told him about Crash’s threat to have me replace Cain as VP. I hoped I wouldn’t have to.

  “Julia—well, she’s part of the reason why I’m here. I know what you’ve been doing to her.”

  I waited for his eyes to lower, for him to show me some sign of remorse or guilt or something. Instead, the bastard smiled at me.

  He smiled at me.

  It took everything in me not to reach across the table and throttle him.

  “I don’t see what’s so fucking funny. Treating your woman like your personal punching bag is just sick.”

  His mouth twisted.

  “What’s funny is that you think you’re somehow better than me.” Those pale eyes drew me in as he leaned closer. “You’ve murdered innocents. Climb down your fucking high horse. We are not so different, you and I.”