by West, Sinden
“What did she blackmail you with?”
He squeezed his eyes closed for moment before opening them again. “She threatened to tell him that the boys are mine. It’s the perfect evidence.”
“Are they?”
“I don’t fucking know. She’s never had them tested. She lies about everything. She twists everything around. If Luca gets to her first, she’ll get what she deserves, but…”
“But he’ll find out about you and you’re scared of your brother.”
His eyes shot up to me. “Wouldn’t you be? You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s crazy. Absolutely fucking nuts. Violence is like his drug. And when you piss him off, you won’t know. You won’t know until your guard is down and then he’ll‒”
He threw his glass across the room. It smashed into the wall and shattered. “That,” he continued, “is what he’ll fucking do to you…to me.” His shoulders sagged down in defeat. “Andrea’s a psychopath. That’s why they got on so well. Every day was a fight. A challenge. The excitement never died.” He gave a mocking laugh. “That’s what psycho love is.”
I listened as he rambled on. Killing Luca’s former wife in a humane fashion as Antony wished…If I got caught, that would officially put me on Luca’s shit list, and that was somewhere that only a crazy person would want to be.
“Will you do it?” he was asking. “You won’t tell him. I know you won’t. You’re my friend. Will you do it?” His forehead was creased and his voice was tinged with desperation.
“Let me think on it. Go to bed. Go see your woman.” I turned on my heel and left the room.
When I got home, Rachel stirred. She opened her eyes to look straight at me and her hands reached for me, stroking down along my chest and over my abs, to rest at my groin.
Instantly, I hardened and she smiled smugly. “You missed me,” she murmured, lightly stroking along the length of my cock.
“Are you talking to me or my dick?” I asked gruffly.
“Your penis is kinder than you…and better company.” Her face broke into a smile as she laughed at her own humor. Laughter escaped me as well, much to my surprise. Those moments, where she could be charming and funny, were few and far between. They made me feel like we were two completely different people.
She continued to stroke me, gently at first, and then she wrapped her hand around my throbbing cock and worked me while I just lay there. I didn’t close my eyes once, just staring at her as her eyes never left my face while her hand increased in speed.
Finally, I let out a groan as I exploded into her palm and onto my stomach, a hot and sticky mess.
She was still watching me with a soft smile upon her face. “You like?”
“I like.” I reached for her, pulling her down against me and holding her tightly. She didn’t care about the mess, and she fell back asleep like that, bound to me.
“Is this psycho love?” I murmured, thinking of Antony’s words, but if she heard, she didn’t stir.
The next morning, I had her slick with sweat as she held up her fists and tried to punch me.
“Harder. You punch like a girl.” That angered her enough that she swung wide and I easily grabbed her wrist and pinned that arm behind her back. She glared up at me until I let her go. “You’re not concentrating. And don’t forget, you can kick as well.”
She ripped off the boxing gloves and let them fall to the gym floor.
“Giving up already?”
She just answered by giving me the finger before walking over to the treadmill. “Maybe I should join a real gym where I can spar with other people who aren’t as…lethal.” She started to jog on the treadmill, her hair bouncing around her.
“Nah. They won’t teach you to fight dirty like I will.” I picked up her gloves and hung then back in their spot.
“Who wants to fight dirty? Why can’t I just carry a gun like you do?”
“Because anyone could take it from you. That’s why. Plus you’d probably shoot yourself in the foot with it.”
She shot me a dirty look. I sighed. “You’re not always going to have a gun at your side. Not when you get out of the shower or any other time that you’re vulnerable. You need to be able to handle yourself.” I paused, then continued. “The night I took you, you didn’t even see me coming. You were staring up at the sky like you were on drugs, even though you were in the middle of an alleyway, some place where any one could trap you and take you. You were the perfect victim.”
She gave me a withering smile. “Wow. I’m so lucky that you were the monster that took me. It could have been so much worse.”
“Yeah,” I told her straight. “It could have been a hell of a lot worse.”
Her smile dropped and she brought the treadmill to a standstill. She kept her eyes firmly on me, waiting.
“What? I’m not going to apologize again. I’ve already done that. Yeah, I stood by and let him brutalize you, but I can’t do anything to change that.” I shrugged and walked from the room, ready to be away from her judging eyes.
“Asshole!” I heard her call. I kept walking, not looking back.
My cell phone vibrated and I pulled it out. It was my contact up north. Luca’s ex, Andrea, was staying put. I was sure that I’d fucked it up and scared her off, but she had balls; that was for sure. Apparently, life was staying as normal for her and her sons. I slid my phone back into my pocket. I had to make a fucking decision. Did I take her out and risk Luca finding out about it? For special people, he liked to do the dirty work himself, and it sounded like this Andrea was very special to him.
Or I didn’t do it, but that would make me look weak and scared, and that sure as hell wasn’t the case.
I heard footsteps behind me as Rachel headed for the shower. She didn’t utter a word to me. Slowly, I found my hand tightening on my phone, my knuckles whitening.
She complicated everything. Before, if I pissed someone off, it would be only me that they would come after. But now, there was her.
My heart started thumping at the thought of her naked in Luca’s bed‒tiny and helpless against his muscle.
I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes. She would survive the best she could. That was what she was trained to do. Hell, maybe she’d even manipulate him into thinking that she loved him…
I punched the wall and felt no pain. The hole gaped at me, like a mouth laughing. Blood stained my knuckles.
Later, she never mentioned the hole in the wall. I cooked dinner and then we ate in silence. The only sound was the occasional clink of the cutlery on the dinner plates.
“I found your mother.”
She didn’t pause and kept chewing until she swallowed, before reaching for her wine glass and taking a small sip. “What are you going to do?” Her voice was so smooth and calm. Damn, when had she learned to be like that? I liked when she was irrational, because then you knew that she spoke the truth and that her words weren’t trapped in a thick web of lies and deception.
“What do you want me to do?”
She didn’t look at me. Her eyes were everywhere but on me. I reached across the table and took hold of her chin to force her to look me in the eye. “What do you want me to do, Rachel?”
I couldn’t read the look in her eyes as she stayed quiet. “You once asked me to kill her.”
Gently, she pushed my hand away from her face and I let her. “Yes, yes I did.”
She went back to eating, just like I had never spoken. I waited a minute before returning to my own meal.
But my words did affect her. She drank more like the information that I had given her had seeped into her skull, perhaps through the nasty scar that was hidden by her hair. That was there because of me, because someone wanted revenge on me. If Rachel had never met me, her only scars would be in the inside‒on her heart, in her brain, in every fucking artery that ran through her and kept pumping the blood that made her live.
I cleaned up and she still sat at the table, drinking until the bottle was gone.
I was at the sink when she came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist and leaning her head against my back where my scars were hidden by my t-shirt.
I stopped breathing for a second and stayed very still.
“Fuck me,” she murmured, sounding tired. Slowly, her arms unwrapped from around me and went to the bottom of my t-shirt. She began pulling it up, over my stomach and higher. I raised my arms and let her pull it over my head. A coolness hit me and my nipples hardened. Her hands were at my belt, loosening it and pulling down my jeans, and then my underwear. Kneeling down below, she let free each of my ankles from being trapped in the denim and cotton, and like a puppet, I let her. When she had finally achieved her task, she threw them away from us to the far side of the kitchen and I stood in front of her, completely nude.
Slowly, she rose to her feet, pulling on my hips to force me to face her. My penis rose up hard between us but she didn’t touch it. Her eyes were on my face. “Fuck me,” she repeated, her words so succinct for how drunk she was.
I smiled slightly. “You’re not naked yet.” I reached out and brushed a lock of hair from her shoulder gently, before I reached for the bottom of her dress. She pushed my hand away.
“No, I want to be dressed. I want you naked and I want me dressed.” Her own hands went beneath the skirt of her dress and pulled down her panties to her knees. “Fuck me now, fuck me like this,” she ordered, her eyes were hard and her jaw jutted out with determination. I waited a few beats before picking her up and placing her on the stone countertop, pushing the skirt up to the tops of her thighs before touching her between her legs. She wasn’t that wet yet and I began to massage her clit, tracing circles the way that I knew would drive her wild, but she pushed my hand away angrily.
“No, not that. Just fuck me.” Her eyes were blazing now with anger.
“You’re not wet enough yet.”
“So fucking what? Why would you care about that?” Her hand went to my throat, circling it and pressing hard. “Don’t pretend to be a nice guy, Aaron. Don’t pretend to care. Don’t pretend with me. I know what you are. You’re fucking evil dressed up in a pretty package, except for the ugly scars on your back. They let everyone know what you are so you can’t hide.” Her teeth were bared and her words tight. She let go of my throat and slammed her palm into my cheek. I didn’t flinch or react. “Just fuck me!”
The anger rose slowly, mingled with lust as my cheek stung. I waited just a moment, looking into her eyes and seeing nothing akin to regret there, and that was when I sprang into action.
I shoved into her, not caring about her delicate flesh ripping or bruising. I pushed into her as far as I could go and she gave a grunt‒there was still no regret there. In fact, her legs came around me to keep me in her and I fucked her hard, almost forgetting that there was a person there, and not just that pussy that was warm and more inviting than the shell of the person who owned it.
Her nails curved into my back, cutting and releasing her rage. She bit my shoulder and with the pain that she caused, I just fucked her even harder, closer and closer to cumming‒
“No!” Her hands pushed at my chest and for a second I thought about not letting her win, about staying in the warmth, but I pulled instead, taking a step back, frustrated as fuck. She slid down from the counter top, grabbing my hand as she fell to her knees. “Down. Down on the floor.” She yanked me down with her. “I want to fuck on the floor,” she said in a near frenzy. “I’m on top.” She pushed and pushed, and finally I allowed her to get me down on the hard floor. Instantly, she was on top of me, putting me back inside of her where I belonged. Her hand encircled my throat once more as she began to move. I lifted my hands to touch her, then thought better of it and lay them at my side.
She had the body of a goddess, everything about her was beautiful from the long pale hair, to the curve of her hips and the fullness of her breasts. But the exception was her eyes‒even with her rage dominating her, they were cold and reminded me of my dream. I closed my eyes for a second and she squeezed my throat harder. “Look at me,” she rasped as she moved up and down on my cock. “Look at me while I fuck you.” Her voice was deep and my eyes flicked open as she increased her speed. She collapsed down to rest her head against my chest as she ground against me, harder and harder. I felt her saliva on my chest and heard her moan. Even with her restricting hand on my throat, I felt close to cumming again, with everything in me rising higher and higher, even as I lay trapped beneath her, my cock belonging to her…
She gave a throaty, deep moan…the terrible sound from my nightmares…as she came, and that forced me to cum at the same time. Remembering the terror from the dream mixed with the exquisite heat that she surrounded me with, I came hard, exploding into her as she shook against me.
When we had both finished, she still lay with her head on my chest, and I felt a wetness. That was when I realized that she was crying.
I didn’t move. Her hand moved from my throat to tuck into her chest as she quietly began to shake with silent tears that dripped onto me. I stayed as still as stone. My hands twitched to touch her, but I let them be.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there. It could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty. Eventually, she sat up, wiping at her face before crawling along the floor to where her discarded panties lay. Her hands curled into them before she struggled to put them on, pulling down the skirt of her dress to be respectable once more.
“I’m going to take a bath,” she muttered, not even to me really. It was as if she’d forgotten that I was there. I lay still as she walked off, not moving until I heard the door close and the sound of water running.
I didn’t bother to dress. Naked, I walked to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a drink. Closing my eyes, I downed it quickly. Maybe it was a mistake telling her about her mother but it was something that was always there, lingering. She was too emotional. She felt too much, and the essence of her mother was always hovering over her, unseen but thick and suffocating. Love and hate were always closely entwined, or so I’d been told. My feelings for my father had always been of hate and resentment and now that he was dead, I only had a sense of cold whenever he crossed my mind on those rare occasions. It was important not to give pathetic assholes too much thought. If he was still alive now, I wouldn’t have even bothered killing him. He wasn’t worth my time, or a bullet, or the time it took to clean blood from a knife…
And my mother…I wouldn’t see her either. I’d have her put somewhere, like a nice apartment overlooking the sea, a different sea to this one though, where she was safe but where I didn’t have to see her.
I placed the glass down gently on the wood of the cabinet and caught sight of my reflection in the glass panelling‒cold eyes, black hair, grim mouth. For a moment I let my lips curve up into a smile and show white teeth. The change was dramatic. This smiling man was a guy that people wanted to know, wanted to fuck and wanted to please.
I let my mouth drop.
That guy wasn’t me.
After I cleaned up downstairs, I started up the stairs. She was still in the bath and hadn’t bothered to put her hair up. It floated in strands around her as she stared at the wall in front of her. Kneeling beside her, I took the bar of soap and began to drag it over her back to leave a trail of suds. As I moved around the front to wash her chest, her hand reached out and grabbed mine with an iron grip, curling her nails into my arm. I waited for her to say something but when she didn’t, I leaned in close to her ear.
“Are you really being this pathetic and weak about your mother?”
She twisted her head to face me with anger in her eyes. “I’m not weak, Aaron. You should know that by now.” Her words were tight with menace.
I just grinned at her. “I know. Now stop acting like it.” I kissed her unmoving mouth before pulling away from her to fetch the towel from the rail. I held it up as she stepped out of the bath and wrapped it around her dripping figure. As she took hold of the top of the towel to keep i
t in place, she looked up at me.
“You can’t understand. Do you know how hard it is to be with someone who doesn’t…care about anything? Who doesn’t feel anything?”
She kept her eyes on me, and I could have told her something to comfort her, but I didn’t see the point.
“You’re wrong, Rachel. I feel plenty. However, I don’t believe in wasting my time on stupid shit. It only holds you back.” I sounded harsh but she didn’t flinch.
“What’s the point?” she asked in a voice tinged with sadness.
“What do you mean?” From in the bedroom, I heard my phone sound but I ignored it.
“You have money, a beautiful house, a great car…but you take joy in nothing. What’s the point of it then?”
I stared at her for a moment, then I flashed her the grin‒the smile that belonged to the guy everyone likes. “You’re wrong. Again. I take joy in my car. It’s great to drive.”
She scowled and pushed past me into the bedroom.
Laughing, I followed her in, watching her as she grabbed her robe while I stretched out on the bed and reached for the phone from the nightstand.
I stopped laughing. The text was from Luca. I was being summoned, like a dog.
“I’ve gotta go.” I climbed off of the bed and slipped the phone into my pocket. “Don’t wait up.” I slapped her on the ass as I walked past her toward the door.
“Aaron?”
I paused in the doorway.
“You’re empty. Your eyes are empty. Your heart is empty.” There was bitterness in her tone; even resentment, maybe.
I waited a beat before slowly turning to face her. “It doesn’t matter to me, not one single bit. Think what you like.”
Chapter Nine
