Combust (A Hotter Than Hell Novel Book 6)

by Holly S. Roberts

  I approach the mirror with trepidation and slowly turn to see what he’s done to my back. The plastic wrap covers it all. I contort myself around so my fingernail slides under the tape but stop. I won’t be able to get the bandage back on properly. He’ll be pissed and I need him to believe he’s subdued me. As it stands the design looks like a bunch of ugly nothing at this point from the smeared image I can only partially see in the mirror.

  Washing my hair in the sink is nearly orgasmic. I use the only brush I can find to untangle the rat’s nest it’s become. The brush smells like him. My heart races when I realize his musky scent is transferring to my hair. I’m afraid of him. That’s it. There is no other reason for my heartrate to increase purely from his scent. I hate him. The litany goes through my head again… I. Hate. Him.

  I scrub every inch of uncovered skin. With my hair and body clean, I feel like a new person. I pick up the blanket, but it smells retched, so I drop it to the floor and instead wrap the towel I’ve been using around myself. The towel’s large enough to cover me from chest to ankle. I’m not sure what else to do now. I open the door and he’s standing in the doorway to the bedroom. I don’t even notice the T-shirt in his hand until he walks closer and hands it to me.

  “Put it on and remember it’s a privilege.” He leaves me alone, but I go back into the bathroom and close the door. The shirt is soft cotton and way too big. The good part is it lands mid-thigh, and I don’t feel as naked. I pick up the blanket and fold it so I can take it to him back in the kitchen. If it’s the only blanket I’ll get, I’ll put up with the stink.

  The bacon is sizzling when I enter the kitchen. He now has eggs cooking and my stomach growls loudly, which makes him look over at me. He points to the table and I hold up the blanket. He nods and I walk to the table with the blanket held tightly in front of me. There’s a tug and I turn. He removes the material from my arms and walks to the back of the kitchen, opens a door, and tosses the blanket inside. It must be a laundry room.

  Two minutes later he places a plate in front of me and takes the chair at my side. There’s a napkin with the plate, but I don’t use it until after I’ve eaten my first piece of bacon. It’s heavenly. He watches as I unfurl the napkin, place it on my lap, and dig into the rest of my breakfast.

  We don’t talk while eating and the silence is hard for me. Quiet always meant pain in my life. Anger causes silence and I always dreaded that I did something wrong or did everything right and my brother was still pissed off. After our father died, my brother only got worse with his torments. No, I won’t think about my Diego right now. I stop eating long enough to take a drink of juice and control myself.

  “Austin,” the man across from me says gruffly.

  It takes a minute for me to realize he’s given me his name. He doesn’t look like an Austin, and I wonder if it’s a nickname. Something flares in my memory over hearing the name before. My brother spoke it when I entered his office not long ago. His mouth clamped shut when he saw me and I knew I’d pay for it later. I was only in there to tell him and his friends that dinner was ready. The black eye I wore for the next week was my punishment for overhearing something I shouldn’t have. Not telling him dinner was ready would have gained me the same punishment.

  A phone rings somewhere else in the house, and then Austin takes out his cell phone. He glances at the screen and then at me. “I need to handle something, so we need to get you back downstairs.”

  I don’t want to go back. I push the empty plate away abruptly. “Take me quick or I’ll fight it. I don’t want to go back down there.” He stands and takes my arm firmly in his grasp and leads me to the stairs. I shake harder and harder as we descend.

  I truly hate the dark.

  Chapter Seven

  Austin

  When I’m inking her skin, I enter another zone where the normal world is dreamlike. My entire focus centers on the flesh beneath my fingers. Tattooing has always been my escape. With her, it’s different in so many ways—the softness of her skin, the shiver that occasionally passes along her back and shoulders, and the timbre of her voice. The dark swirls of my past infiltrate her skin just like the ink. But unlike the ink, she absorbs the darkness and turns it light. She’s playing havoc with my thoughts and this isn’t a good thing. She isn’t as malleable as she lets on.

  It was stupid to allow her upstairs. I didn’t give it thought when the words spilled from my mouth. It’s something about her that I can’t put my finger on. It felt right to have her walking around my home. Not that she was able to explore, but her presence reminded me of the way Cindy filled a room and made me feel welcome.

  Melina complied so beautifully with my orders and I’ll probably do it again. And yes, it will be stupid. She’ll eventually try to escape, and she’ll ruin the privilege, but it will be fun waiting for the inevitable. Thinking of the consequences for her actions sends a thrill through me. The joys of punishment won’t be denied.

  My mind moves to the sight of her walking from the bathroom with wet hair and a towel wrapped around her. The drops of water sliding down her bare shoulders made me notice the sexual woman for the first time. Not as my captive or Fernandez’s sister but the beautiful woman she is. My cock actually twitched. Does that make me human? She was only a means to an end, and now there’s something more.

  While I inked her flesh and she told her stories, my thoughts remained cold. We’ve all had it fucking hard in this life. I’m not even sure I believe what she’s told me. She wants to escape and twist me around her finger, so I do something stupid. Like let her go upstairs.

  Seeing her in my shirt, her long legs barely covered, and water sliding from her hair onto my shirt left me reeling. The firm set of her jaw when she offers a fake smile leaves my mouth dry. When I sat down next to her, she smelled like fucking flowers and I wondered if she found something of Cindy’s that I failed to box. I’ve never particularly been attracted to a specific type of woman other than their willingness to partner with me. There’s something about Melina that sets a spark off that culminates at my dick.

  Then we have my name. It’s not really important, but I would have provided it before she returns to her brother. I want him to know who’s coming for him. I want him to wonder what I’ll do next. Even the smallest fondness for his sister isn’t in my plans. Cindy would have liked her, though. Cindy wouldn’t approve of what I’m doing. She knew I killed, but killing never came into her home, at least not until the night she died.

  If Victor hadn’t sent me on a task that day, it wouldn’t have happened. The guards were drugged and one died while the others were hospitalized, Andreas included. The cleaning service came that day but was closely monitored by trusted staff. It finally boiled down to a new guard. He gave up Fernandez after I removed several of his fingers and he died swiftly after he talked. I watched the life fade from his hazel eyes with enjoyment but it still wasn’t enough. I won’t rest until I wipe Fernandez from the face of the earth.

  Should I leave Melina out of my revenge? I shake off the thought. Whatever the hell she’s doing to me won’t work. I’ll take care of business and enjoy it even more when it’s time to slit her brother’s throat. I’m not Moon or Victor and I relish doing my own dirty work. I was never engineered to lead. I was born to kill.

  The phone call earlier was Andreas and he has an immediate problem that needs my unique skills. I’ll use those skills to blow off steam. Someone stole from our last gun shipment and it’s time to serve justice.

  I double check the lock on the basement door and rest my hand on the hard wood. Something about knowing she’s chained downstairs and she’ll be here when I return sends a burst of energy straight to my cock.

  A few minutes later, I drive through the gate and nod into dark glass at the two guards posted. They won’t enter the main house, but I like knowing she’s not totally alone. And where that thought came from I have no fucking clue. I snap down on any sentimental bullshit fermenting in my brain. She’s revenge, only rev
enge.

  I pull up at our main warehouse after a thirty-minute drive through the older part of the city down by the port. A train whistles in the distance when I exit the black SUV and warm air slides over my skin. “Boss,” someone says when I enter. The name still feels strange.

  The muted light inside envelopes me. I own several blocks of warehouses courtesy of my inheritance from Victor. This is where we conduct the legitimate side of our import-export business. We also have prime real estate in northern Cal., where we harvest marijuana for the new legal trade in the state. Victor apparently stepped on Fernandez’s toes while setting up the grow farms.

  I head to the back of the warehouse, through a door, and into a small section where Andreas waits with the man I came to see. Usually we handle this type of thing at the homestead, a small house in the middle of nowhere. Today I didn’t want to take time to mess around so we’ll handle it here.

  “No, no, no, I beg you,” the man tied to the chair yells when he sees me. Victor’s dead and this scum thought he could fuck with me. He’s wrong and everyone in the organization will know it soon enough too. I want the names of anyone who helped him and the longer it takes to get the names the better. In the long run, he’ll die and his death won’t be pretty. Well, maybe it will be. I love the cold finality of death; its coppery smell induces the best high. Ignoring the man in front of me, my mind imagines my fingers circling Melina’s throat and squeezing until her eyes grow smoky and begin to fade. Killing her would be so easy. I could easily send her dead body back with my art seared into her skin. She’d make a lovely corpse.

  The vision snaps away at another yell from our hostage. I casually shrug out of my jacket and one of my men takes it. I roll up my sleeves and ignore the crying man. My fucked up mind now focuses on the coming beauty of death. I place a rubber smock over my clothes and pick up the pruning shears. This will end far too quickly.

  I’m careful about the blood as I begin systematically removing his fingers. The plastic tarp beneath him flows red and his screams are deafening. I’m tempted to cut out his tongue even without the information I came for. Only two fingers remain on his left hand when he starts talking. Diego Fernandez has his fingers where they don’t belong and those fingers will come off one by one too. The bullet I place between the man’s eyes cuts off his final scream. I look at the three men standing in the warehouse with a dispassionate stare. This is my business now and I’ll respond exactly as Victor would. Death is a gift. The men in my world respect that. They know Victor held me on a tight leash and I don’t want them to see all of the monster quite yet.

  Without a word, I wash my hands in a small sink, remove the rubber apron, roll down my sleeves, and place my jacket back on. I casually pull my shades over my eyes and walk from the warehouse, leaving the men to dispose of the body. A strange feeling settles over me when I think of what waits at home. I need my art. Too bad Melina won’t be happy with two sessions in a day. Not that I care. The image of her controlling her anger and pretending how compliant she is almost makes me smile. The excitement running through me makes the wait nearly bearable.

  I snap on the light and head downstairs within minutes of walking into the house. Melina sleeps curled into the clean blanket I gave her before locking her down here. She looks peaceful and I’m able to stare without her surly eyes daring me to do something wicked. I sit on the cement and study her. I like her full lips, which are hard to take my eyes away from. Instead of the pinched look, in sleep they’re rosy red and lush. And like she knows my thoughts, her tongue sweeps out and licks across her cherry lips, leaving a wet trail behind. I’m concentrating on her mouth when her eyes snap open. She squints into the bright overhead light and pulls the blanket closer. Her lips once more press into a firm line.

  “Take the shirt off,” I tell her with a sweep of my hand. Her pinched lips compress further and I almost laugh. What the hell comes over me when I’m with her? Maybe I’ve needed a play thing down in the basement all along.

  Excitement courses through my veins when I unlock the chain from her ankle. Her skin is cool to the touch and I start to think that maybe one blanket isn’t enough. It’s so unlike me to give a fuck, so I shake off the thought. She’s unsure of what’s happening, but I wait patiently as she decides to comply. Not that she has a choice.

  She stands up unaided and her trembling fingers slide to the bottom of the shirt hesitantly. The small gasps of air she takes add to the excitement. Her sleepy eyes grow hard and the pissed off look I relish returns. If she’s embarrassed, she doesn’t show it. How many men fall for her prissy act? She tugs the shirt up and tosses it aside. She stands before me in all her glory—angry, vulnerable, though she doesn’t want me to know that, and defiant. Her body makes my dick twitch in a pleasant way. The prostitutes I use know the score and I pay well. Melina would run screaming if she knew what I want to do to her skinny ass.

  “Like what you see?” she taunts when I don’t look away.

  “Ink,” I say because she needs my fucking brand on every inch of her skin. She walks to the bed minus the blanket with her shoulders thrown back and a slight sway to her ass. I can’t wait to see her like this after I finish the piece and it heals.

  Killing the man at the warehouse has left me wired. I settle onto the chair ready to work off a bit of the adrenaline. She slides onto the bed with her back up and makes herself comfortable. After I’ve prepared the equipment, I glide my hand across her velvet skin before removing the plastic wrap. The colors are perfect and the design is taking shape. Just the thought of the finished product makes my cock harden again. She’s a means to an end, I remind myself. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the sight of her. My sociopathic lack of empathy seems to be missing where she’s concerned. I’ll enjoy this feeling while it lasts and dissect it after she’s gone.

  Her throaty voice takes over the room within minutes of me starting. I’ve been waiting. Hell, craving the next story. The first year I came here, Cindy read me books, trying to pretend I was a normal child. Even when she finally lost hope that I could be normal, she never treated me like a killer. She never feared me. Melina is much like that. She’s afraid but she doesn’t show it. I admire her tenacity and must remind myself again that I can’t keep her.

  “When I was sixteen, my brother beat me so bad I was hospitalized. With my brother’s guard watching me closely, I had to make up a story for the doctors and nurses about being assaulted in a parking lot. My nose still has a small knot from that beating.” I back off the needle when she lifts her hand to her nose and rubs it. I also need a moment to control the odd anger coursing through my veins. “Diego attacked me because he was informed I was talking to a guy in front of the high school. The boy was in one of my classes and wanted to know if he could copy my notes. My brother’s men were always watching and I knew it would be bad for the kid.”

  Her voice trails off. Violence for the sake of violence has never been my thing. I need a reason. Talking to a boy at sixteen is not a reason. She lowers her arm and I allow the buzz of the machine to calm me as I return to inking her back. Her voice isn’t doing the trick today. I can’t fucking care that she’s been abused. This is not part of my plan. I sink further into the swirls and lines of the ink, searching for my peace.

  “He’s been saving me for one of his men,” she tosses out with a laugh. It’s not a pleasant sound. “Saving his virgin sister for the highest bidder. He has no idea that I took care of that little problem once I recuperated from the injuries he gave me.” Her shoulders shake slightly with a short burst of genuine laughter causing me to lift the needle for a few seconds. “I lost my virginity in a janitor’s closet back behind the bleachers in the gym. It was painful.” She makes a strange sound. “Actually it was terrible.” She shrugs and I pull back again. I should reprimand her but I don’t want her to stop talking. I need to know more about her brother, I tell myself. “Taking matters into my own hands was also empowering. When my brother finds out, he’ll kill me. I
always thought ruining his plans would make the experience better somehow.” She hesitates and when she speaks again her voice is harsher, “You’ve taken that from me. My brother will never believe you kept your hands off my body. He’ll find joy in killing me and he’ll make it take hours.”

  I roll her words around in my head after she falls silent. I don’t like the idea of her brother touching her. The image of his hands on her flashes inside my brain and makes me want to kill someone. These thoughts need to stop. I inhale slowly and clear my head so I can continue working. Another hour passes before I finish the section I’m working on. I guide a silent Melina back to the wall and secure her foot. I leave the basement without a word and shut off the light.

  I won’t go back until tomorrow.

  I can’t allow her to draw me closer until I’m able to resist.

  Chapter Eight

  Melina

  My back hurts. Hell, my entire body hurts. The stone floor is hard, cold, and uncomfortable. All I do is sleep in the darkness or lay with my eyes open staring at nothing. Even exercise is no longer helping. The slow tendrils of insanity threaten me. I don’t know how much longer I can handle the boredom of living in the dark with limited mobility. Now I only want to scream. If I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.

  The door opens above the stairs and I wait for the light to go on, but it doesn’t happen. Austin carries down a tray with a penlight providing direction. He rests the tray on the cement and leaves without a word. On the tray is another small flashlight. I click it on before his light clears the basement.