by Sykes, Julia
She wasn’t the only one who had been going stir crazy being trapped in my apartment, but being outdoors would be bittersweet for her in a way that I could barely imagine. I had the option of coming and going as I pleased; I could get outside any time I wanted to. But for the last ten days, she had been living with the knowledge that she would never leave my shitty little apartment ever again.
Keeping her locked up might have been kinder. Now I was showing her just what she was missing, reminding her of the freedoms that were now denied her. If she was going to enjoy the world outside of my apartment, it would always have to be under my supervision. And while I had no problem with the idea of keeping her close at all times, I knew that being faced with this new painful facet of her reality must be difficult for her.
The last thing I wanted to do was cause her more pain, but I would try anything that might make her happier in her life with me.
The worry that I had made a major mistake in bringing her here melted when she reached for my hand, lacing her fingers though mine. I was momentarily dumbfounded, stunned by her willing touch and her sweet smile.
“Come on,” she said warmly, tugging at my hand to lead me where she wanted to go. “Let’s go on the carousel.”
“Seriously?” I asked, surprised. Claudia didn’t strike me as the type to enjoy something so childish. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
Even though I felt like I knew her on an intimate, essential level, I still had a lot to learn about her. Maybe this was the kind of thing she did for fun. Or maybe it was the kind of thing that she never allowed herself to indulge in. The thought that this might be another sign that I was helping her drop the weight of her emotional walls pleased me immensely.
“Come on, old man,” she said, her eyes sparkling, taunting me. “What are you, scared?”
I chuckled, amused by her efforts to tease me. “I know you’re trying to manipulate me, woman,” I informed her, letting her know that she wasn’t going to get anything past me. “But I’ll bite.”
“Thanks.” The unadulterated joy in her wide smile made my stomach do a little flip. Bringing her here hadn’t been a mistake. For once, I had managed to do something right.
Her excitement was almost child-like as I paid the admission fee, and I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure that she knew joy like this every day. Looking at her now, I could see the woman she was meant to be, who she might have been if life hadn’t kicked her in the gut so many times.
“You’re really excited, aren’t you?” I asked her, smiling. Her answering grin was wide, and there was a hopeful light in her eyes. Was she also coming to see how much better her life could be now than it had been before if she just allowed it to be?
I couldn’t stop staring at her as we got on the ride. The way that her dress was pushed halfway up her thigh when she mounted one of the carousel horses made my mouth water. After long days and nights of wondering, fantasizing, I now knew what that dress concealed. I couldn’t wait to become even more intimately familiar with her body in the future. Our first fuck had been almost frenzied as my long-denied lust drove me to claim her. But now I had all the time I needed to thoroughly learn every inch of her.
“Ready?” I asked her, the excitement in my voice having nothing to do with the fact that the ride was about to start.
“Yep,” she said happily, her legs swinging back and forth as though her body couldn’t contain her newfound joy.
The world spun slowly as the carousel began to move. I allowed it to blur around me, my vision focusing on her, the only solid thing in my world. She wasn’t looking back at me, but I didn’t mind. Seeing her pure happiness gave me hope that she would come to care for me as deeply as I did for her.
She had been in my life for only a short time, but she had changed everything. Since my mother had died, I had just been existing. The easy companionship that I shared with Bradley and the flashes of pleasure that I got from fucking had sustained me. But now I was coming back to life. Hell, I had never even been alive before her.
My father had used pain and terror to shape me into what I was. But what I was wasn’t who I was, and Claudia was helping me to see that.
Something flashed in her eyes, and she shot me a worried, almost anguished look. Just as I reached out to comfort her, she swung down off of her horse and leapt from the ride. My heart squeezed as I saw her stumble, worried that she had hurt herself.
But concern was driven away by panic when she started to run.
“Claudia!” I shouted her name as I flung myself from the ride. Instinct drove me to close the distance between us, not out of fear that she would reveal me as her kidnapper, but out of fear of losing her.
“Claudia!” I could feel dozens of eyes on me as I tore after her. We were making a scene. This wasn’t good. Not for either of us. If she revealed my crimes against her, she was as good as dead. And I wouldn’t be able to protect her from my enemies if I was locked up in jail.
It was time to come clean. I was going to have to tell her everything. Until she understood that I was doing what was best for her, she would fight what she felt for me.
But what I had to tell her about myself might make her recoil in horror. How could someone so good ever be content to lie in the arms of a monster?
I had closed the distance between us. My grip was almost cruel as my hand closed around her upper arm, putting an end to her flight.
“Claudia!” I half-shouted her name, my anger claiming me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She spun to face me, and the depths of the despair in her shining eyes made my heart ache. “Getting away from you!” She shrieked.
My fingers tightened around her. “I can’t let you leave me, Claudia,” I said harshly, knowing that the truth in those words had nothing to do with her safety from my fellow mobsters. “You know that. Stop fighting me.” It was an order.
She jerked against me, seething. The challenge in her eyes told me that she was intent on defying me.
“Never,” she hissed, the word a fierce promise. “I will never stop fighting you, Sean. I will never stop trying to get away from you.”
Her defiance goaded the predator in me, and my first instinct was to break her of her rebelliousness, to take her in hand and force her to obey when I ordered her to remain meekly by my side. But the sight of her desperate tears kept that insane part of me at bay.
“If you care about me at all…” She heaved in a ragged breath, fighting back sobs. “If you feel anything like what I…” She trailed off, and I burned for her to finish that statement. It was the first time that she had confessed to having feelings for me.
“Please,” she begged. “I need my life back. I need myself back. I don’t know who I am when I’m with you. I don’t like who I am when I’m with you.”
Her words tore at me more cruelly than any knife ever could. I had thought that she was embracing her new life, learning that the happiness she had denied herself for so long was within reach.
But that was just a sick, twisted lie that I had told myself in order to justify my selfishness. Of course being trapped with me was hell for her. It didn’t matter that I could make her laugh or that I could set her body on fire. It didn’t even matter that we were both broken. Recognizing that someone is just as fucked up as you are isn’t reason enough to spend your life with them.
She might have been unhappy before she met me, but she clearly found that cold isolation preferable to being my possession. I couldn’t bear to see the hatred that would grow in her eyes with every passing day that I kept her.
My hand dropped from her arm, releasing her.
“Go.” I forced the word out.
Her eyes widened in shock, and her mouth fell open slightly. The sight of her parted lips tormented me, reminding me of just how good they felt against my own. I longed to tangle my fingers in her hair and plunder her mouth, to feel those lips open for me once again as she offered herself to me.
&n
bsp; I forced away the fantasy before I was driven to act it out. My fists clenched at my sides with the effort of holding myself back.
“Go.” The word was a harsh demand this time. “Before I change my mind.”
For once, her obedience gave me no pleasure. She turned sharply and walked away from me without a backward glance.
All of my muscles coiled with the effort of resisting the nearly all-consuming impulse to chase her down and trap her in my arms. I was going to have to endure the agony of resisting the urge to hold her every day. I would watch her, check in on her to ensure her safety. Even though she had rejected me, I would never let anyone hurt her.
But being able to see her and not being allowed to touch her was going to be torture. Even though I might walk free, I was always going to be chained to her.
I had wanted so desperately for her to be my salvation, but she had ruined me.
The End
Get Claudia’s side of the story in Impossible: The Original Trilogy
Want more of the Impossible series? The first book in the new spin-off series is now available! Check out this excerpt from
Savior (An Impossible Novel, #1)
*Please note that this excerpt will contain spoilers for Impossible: The Original Trilogy (Monster, Traitor, and Avenger)*
Prologue
Clayton
The whisky’s burn was soothing as it slid down my throat, a harsh bite that morphed into a warm wave, flowing through me until the heat pooled in my stomach. I closed my eyes as I savored the smoky aftertaste that lingered in my mouth. Damn. I’d forgotten just how good a decent whisky could be. I was not without addictions – strong predilections for coffee and runner’s high were definitely among my vices – but the buzz of alcohol wasn’t something that I often sought. But today I sure could use a drink.
Claudia Ellers had called me this afternoon to give me the good news: Sean Reynolds had just asked her to marry him. And of course she had said yes. And I was going to be her best man. I had never been able to deny her anything, so when she asked I answered “yes” in a falsely bright voice. I grimaced and took another draw of the amber liquid.
I was happy for them. Really I was. A blind man could see that they were perfect for one another. And although I had my reservations about Sean’s past, it was obvious that he loved her more fiercely than anything else in the world.
The only problem was that I was in love with her too.
I had fallen for her while she was gathering information on Sean and the Westies for the FBI, a task that I had assigned her. She had been so brave and so beautiful and so damaged. Everything in me screamed at me to help her, to take care of her. And then she had looked at me with those striking grey eyes, and I could see a growing trust there that tugged at my heartstrings.
But I had never had a shot in hell. Claudia’s heart had already belonged to Sean on the day that I met her, even if she didn’t realize it herself at the time. I had been promptly friendzoned.
Now I considered Claudia one of my closest friends, and I had grown to respect Sean as well. But I couldn’t shake my feelings for her. Hell, I hadn’t felt this strongly about any woman since Jen, and I had dated her in my junior year of college.
I knocked back the rest of the glass at the thought of Jen. That was nine years ago. Nine years and what had happened with Jen still haunted me. I hadn’t been with anyone seriously since then. But I had my job, my mission. My work with the FBI was important. More important than my love life.
Unfortunately, things were going to shit at work. While we were swiftly rounding up what was left of the Westies, we still weren’t ready to move in on the Latin Kings. And now they were swarming into the territories that the Westies had stolen from them with a vengeance. They had taken back all of Brooklyn and were even moving into Manhattan, taking over Hell’s Kitchen, which had formerly been the heart of the Westies’ territory. Javier Santiago, our man on the inside, was doing all that he could to gather the information that we needed to convict the ringleaders of the gang, but the process was immensely more complicated than it had been with the Westies. The Latin Kings were divided into “tribes,” and they could be just as contentious with one another as they were with rival gangs. To make matters impossibly worse, each of the tribes was now heavily recruiting in order to control their increased territory, and they were becoming bolder in their crimes as the violence escalated beyond what the NYPD’s and FBI’s resources could handle. It seemed that one of our greatest victories – bringing about the downfall of the notorious Westies – had also been one of our biggest blunders. No one had realized the shitstorm we were about to kick up.
I grimaced again and flagged down the bartender for a fresh drink.
“I’ll have what he’s having.”
There was a hint of laughter in the woman’s melodic voice. I turned on my barstool to find myself looking at one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her long, straight platinum-blonde hair fell around her delicately boned face like a silvery wave, and her pale skin seemed to shine with some inner glow. Her eyes were striking: a light, crystalline green ringed with indigo. Those eyes were looking at me expectantly.
“What?”
I cursed myself for an idiot as soon as the word left my mouth. Could I be any less composed? I clenched my jaw to keep my mouth from hanging open in awe.
Her hand reached out to touch my glass, and her fingers lightly brushed against mine as she did so. Even the slight contact sent a jolt running up my arm that then went thrumming deeper through my body.
“What’s your drink?” She asked, her voice a bit throatier than it had been when she had first spoken.
“Oh. Um…”
Shit, Vaughn, string two goddamn words together!
“Glenfiddich, neat.”
Small lines appeared in her flawless skin as her brow furrowed slightly. “What’s that?”
I could understand her confusion. This wasn’t the kind of bar where you ordered a nice scotch. It was where you came to pound cheap liquor so that you got drunk fast. It was a dive, but I had been in the neighborhood working a case. Some poor kid had just been recruited by the Kings, and I had been keeping an eye on him while we decided what to do. I had chosen to stay in the area for a drink because, given the bar’s location, it wasn’t likely that I would run into anyone that I knew there. I was in a brooding mood, and I hadn’t wanted to inflict that on anyone. Well, I had been. All of my dark thoughts – as well as most of my sense – had been knocked out of me as soon as this gorgeous woman had spoken to me.
“Scotch whisky,” I explained.
She gave me a small, slightly mocking smile, showing her perfect white teeth. There was a playful light in her remarkable eyes, and I found myself entranced.
“Never mind then, Mr. Fancypants,” she said, releasing me from the magnetic hold of her eyes in order to address the bartender. “We’ll have two shots of tequila, please.” She glanced over at me, looking me up and down. I had the feeling that I was being measured up, and I wasn’t at all sure if I was going to meet whatever standard this woman had set. Her gaze fell on my suit before flicking back up to my eyes. “Is Cuervo good enough for you, Fancypants?” She asked.
I hated tequila, but I nodded. She smiled at me broadly, and I could feel my own expression widening into a grin.
Chapter 1
Rose
It was a simple fact of my life that I didn’t have the time or the emotional energy for a relationship. But I could make some time for the blonde hottie sitting alone at the bar. I mentally checked my calendar. Yep, I definitely had one night to give this prime piece of man candy. In fact, he was just the fix I needed. A few shots of tequila and several long hours of this man inside me would provide the escape that I craved. My eyes roved over him for the hundredth time, and I wondered if he was kinky. A slightly predatory smile spread across my face. If he wasn’t now, he would be by morning. Based on his physical appearance, it wouldn’t be too difficult to �
��convert” him. It wouldn’t be my first time.
His well-fitted black suit – and the obviously strong body that it concealed – radiated a sense of authority. His strong, clean-shaven jaw and carefully styled dark blonde hair told me that he was a meticulous person, carefully controlled. He had all of the hallmarks of a man who liked power. And I definitely liked a man who wanted to be in control.
But it was the intrigued spark in his electric blue eyes that captivated me most. When we touched, a fire stirred in their cerulean depths that spoke of desire, a sexual hunger. It reflected my own voracious needs. They had driven me here tonight, and they had most definitely been further stoked by this man.
He wasn’t the type of guy that I usually found in Big Jim’s Tavern, my go-to neighborhood dive bar. I had come here looking for a tattooed, brawling bad boy. Someone who took what he wanted and then got the hell out of dodge after he got it. The last thing I wanted was a guy who would hang around in the morning.
I couldn’t get a read on this stranger in that regard. The Fancypants types tended to at least pretend to be gentlemen. They would ask for your number and claim that they would call you. Sometimes, they even asked you on a date. Of course, the number of times that they followed up on the offer were few. But occasionally… Occasionally I had made the mistake of taking home a Stage 5 Clinger. Getting rid of one of them was messy. And it often involved some cruel words before it was over.
I definitely didn’t want that. I already knew that I was a cheap slut. My mom had told me often enough that I didn’t need any reminding.
Better to fuck my way into sweet oblivion than find happiness in the sting of a needle, I reassured myself. Sure, sometimes I did a little coke or E to loosen up at a party, but I was horrified at the idea of doing anything harder. I had seen what had happened to Greg. No way did I want to end up like my kid brother.
