Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  And then I hear him. Laz. “Hello, Blaze.” His voice is low and dripping with smoothness, just behind me.

  My hand flies to my chest and I scream, “OH, MY GOD!” I turn, see Laz standing tall above me, looking down at me. And I’m suddenly uneasy...

  He’s smiling, widely. Like a vampire smiles. Like we’re best of friends. BFFs.

  “Laz.”

  I wonder if it hurts to smile that widely.

  He puts his hands out to me. “Blaze, I just wanted to come by—”

  I step back. “Laz, what are you doing here?”

  He takes a step forward. “I just wanted to come by and see you. Just to say hello.”

  His hands touch my arms. “Laz!” I wriggle away.

  He stands still. “Oh, come on, Blaze. For God’s sake, we fucked once upon a time.” He’s still smiling.

  “Laz.” I look around. The street is empty. Totally, and completely, empty. Old slush mars the sidewalks. The fresh snow that fell earlier wasn’t enough to whiten it again. “How did you know where I was staying?”

  His smile jerks a little, twitches... “Oh, Blaze, y’know...”

  “No. No. I don’t—”

  He takes another step forward. I take a step back. My heel catches on a chink in the sidewalk and I almost fall. He lunges forward and “saves me,” preventing me from falling! But now he’s also touching me! And I start to struggle with my arms away from him but now his grip is tight and—

  “Laz, let me go. Let me go!”

  Laz is big, quite big. And muscular. And tall. I’m not a “frail little girl” and I’ll put up a fight if he tries something funny, but this is only gonna go one way if he gets frisky. And it’s not gonna end good for me.

  “Laz!”

  “Blaze! Look! I was hoping to talk to you over coffee! I was hoping to tell you how I feel for you—”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “—while we sat and drank cappuccinos like civilized people—”

  “Your grip is tight! Let me go!”

  “—but obviously”—his voice is getting louder now, a real bellow!—“YOU DON’T CARE FOR ME BUT—”

  I start fighting, wriggling. I’m about to scream and then—slam!—his mouth is smothering me and my back is—dunk!—against the wall. The “dunk” sound was the back of my head hitting the building’s wall. I see stars, bright white stars...

  And there’s a hand, a hand moving down my skin, lower, lower... Oh, my God. Oh, my God...

  “You’re mine, Blaze! You’re mine and I’ll have you—”

  Another hand smothers my mouth. I try to scream, but the screams are muffled—

  He pushes harder so that I can taste the salt of his palm. It feels like he’ll push my teeth in! My head grinds against the wall.

  Laz’s eyes are dark, angry. And red, very red. I smell the booze on his lips, hard liquor.

  And that other hand...the one tugging with my pants and—

  Oh, my, God. I can’t believe this is happening to me!

  I start to fight! To struggle! Laz slams my head against the wall again and—

  I’m fading, seeing stars, fading, fading, fading...

  Somewhere ethereal, I feel my body moving, like I’m being lifted slowly off the wall, dragged. I’m not out for the count, but almost. And my head. Explosions. Supernova explosions of pain fire down my neck... Moisture, warm, down my neck as well—

  “Hey! Asshole!”

  Is that Skate’s voice? Oh my God, that’s Skate’s voice! Could it be?

  By now my eyes are shut, I’m just waiting for Laz to backhand me or throw me against the ground and kick me.

  I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m reacting. I’m afraid. I’d like to tell you I’m a tough chick and that I don’t take shit from men, but the evidence on that is against me right now. I’m “in a pickle” as Laz’s people would put it.

  Skate, now sounding like he’s running. “Hey— Shit, Blaze, is that you!?”

  I find my voice. Through the delirium and the mist, I find my voice! “Skate, get him off me! Skate! SKATE!” And my screams are shrill, like arrows, like spears.

  Like deadly gunshots.

  I open my eyes. I’m looking at the back of Laz’s head! His hands are still gripping me firmly. I hear Skate running on the icy sidewalk. I see my chance while Laz is distracted! I lift my knee up, look down and see his Oxford shoes, focus on the left one, take a quick peek at the booties I decided to wear, close one eye to focus...

  Skate’s paces are closer.

  And from the corner of my eye I catch Laz turning his head to look back at me, his head in a position so that he can see Skate’s gigantic, bald-headed, snake-tattooed form lunging for him from his left, and me, on his right, now smiling—an evil, foreboding smile, a knowing smile, the smile of a fortune-teller who can tell that in the near future, one foot-stomp away, there’s going to be a crunch, and a howl, and a damn good feeling of pleasure for one Blaze Ryleigh.

  And in this eternal moment—Laz’s eyes now turning to face me, a similar look of foreboding knowledge on his countenance—thoughts slash through my mind, but especially one thought: It’s a thought of someone trying to take from me what belongs to me, of trying to take my happiness, my security, my joy, my peace, my inner motherfuckin sanctity.

  I’m thinking of Tatiana Watkins.

  I’m thinking of “The Universe.”

  I’m thinking of my heel coming down on Laz’s toe.

  And then it does.

  With a crack.

  And he screams.

  I slam my heeled bootie down on one sorry ass motherfucker’s fancy-ass foot with a crushing snap of a sound, followed by a deep and agonizing bellow—in slow motion now, everyone—that plays out like this: “N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-!” I do it again, and I twist. Crush! And then, to add injury to more injury, there’s a skiddunking THWACK to the jaw from Skate’s fist, spittle with blood spewing out of the corner of Laz’s mouth and flying in a wide, spinning arc, my boot still firmly planted in the fissure of his shattered toes, grinding, turning, Don’t You Fuck with Me and My Own, You Asshole, hurting him.

  I lift my foot, wondering if Laz hadn’t momentarily been held up in suspension by me, because the moment I do it, he falls over. Skate, still mid-swing, slips and lands on top of him—crack!

  And then it’s over.

  -3-

  We call nine-one-one, wait for the ambulance to arrive (he’s got a broken arm from when Skate landed on him, two shiners, maybe a missing tooth.) When the ambulance arrives, we leave him.

  Before they cart him away, Laz looks up at me and says through bloody teeth, “Blaze, I’m sorry.”

  I don’t respond, thinking of that hand and where it was going...

  I turn around from him. We’re not gonna be friends anymore, Laz.

  The ambulance door shuts closed.

  They ride off.

  Skate and I are left standing there, looking at the ambulance’s red lights coloring the splotches of white of the fallen snow. I remember the back of my head, move my fingers behind it and see that it’s cut. Not too deeply, but deeply enough to sting when I touch it.

  I look up at Skate, stick my non-bloody hand out to him. “Thanks, bro.”

  He smiles, shakes my hand. “What the fuck was that all about, Blaze? Who was that guy?”

  I see an opportunity in waiting. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours... “Skate, tell you what, why don’t me and you go upstairs and have a little chat. I’ll tell you all about it, and then I want you to tell me all about something else. OK?”

  Skate looks confused. “Uhm, s—sure, ok. Whatever. What do you want me to tell you about?”

  I put my hand on his shoulder, turn him toward the door to Vikki’s building. “Oh, Skate, m’boy, we got a lot to talk about. And something tells me you already know what it is.”

  I feel Skate hesitate, sudden recognition dawning on him.

  I keep my hand firm on his shoulder, keep edging h
im forward.

  He tags along.

  We’re gonna talk about Vikki, Skate. We’re gonna talk about my best friend, Vikki.

  Gotcha!

  NINETEEN

  KNOCK KNOCK

  -1-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  January second, middle of the night.

  The dream takes me like a captive for ransom. I feel its hands around my waist while my legs kick and scream and fight back at its shins. It’s inexorable, unstoppable. Unrelenting in its slow, confident movements to snatch my mind, put it in a cage, and then start its deadly play.

  The dream sneaks up on my skin, smoke on a stage, and swallows me whole, covers me, tightens my lungs, and blindfolds me.

  Somewhere, in the conscious part of my mind, that part which knows this is a dream but which isn’t sure, that part of the mind that is still outside the cage but not for long, I catch myself having the thought: This is going to be a bad one. This is going to be a very bad dream...

  But the thought fades. It’s smothered by hot, sexual lips, and more heat, between my legs, on my thighs. Heat, heat, heat... Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes...

  ...lips kissing lips...tongues touching. The thought, Oh, yes, oh yes, I’m going to explode, and this is good, this is oh so good...

  ...hot hands...and my body yearning, moaning...“oh, yeah. Oh, yeah”...

  It’s a house song, old skool; that repetitive, erotic sound of, “Oh, yeah, uh-huh” and a beat, and then, “Oh, yeah, uh-huh,” and a beat, “Oh, yeah, uh-huh”...

  ...hot breaths...

  And now I’m aware of my hands, reaching up and around the neck of the man who’s kissing me. In my dream, in my mind, in that dark cage that has me captive right now, I realize this is Laz, and that all the male sexiness of him is in full force here.

  In my dream the thoughts coalesce around one stable point, one central idea that makes this all OK: We had a good time, yes, yes.

  It’s as if Laz and I are talking...but we’re not, we’re kissing, and his hand is sliding up my hot leg and the center of my legs feels sultry and moist and my entire body is hot and I need to twist and move and... “Oh, yeah, uh-huh.”

  And then the beat, which is now a heavy breath.

  “Oh, yeah...”

  And in this sexual conversation that Laz and I are having, I’m understanding that this is OK, and that Deck would understand, and that’s oh so fine because your hand is moving up my leg and now you’re sliding your middle finger into my drenched and...

  ...It’s so hot. When I breathe it’s hot. It’s like flames and...

  “Oh, yeah...”

  And the beat.

  I hear myself say “Oh, yeah” in the “real world,” the awake world, which only makes the Cage World, the dream world, seem even more real, because now I’m not only imagining “Oh, yeah,” I’m actually hearing it...

  ...and Laz and I are on a bed, I think, because I can’t see the rest of the room but I can feel him smothering me and his hard body all over me and, Oh, Laz, you’ve always been so sexy. So, we never hit it off. So what? We fucked well, didn’t we? We had a good run, didn’t we? It was never love, Laz. You knew that, I knew that. We fucked each other. We had sex. That’s OK. But I came to like you. It was never love, never would be. But I enjoyed being with you. I enjoyed how you respected when I didn’t want to go all the way because of my own dark past. You never asked why, never questioned, never got upset about it.

  But, oh, my, when we did go all the way...

  Well...

  Heat. There’s heat. I hear breaths. I feel that finger but I also feel something else, a burgeoning feeling, an impending explosion...

  “Oh, my God I need to come, baby.”

  ...but then, Laz, what happened to you? You hurt me the other day, you know that? Your hand. That hand... Oh, my God, that horrible, unwelcomed hand and its pressing fingertips! You really hurt me. You actually hurt...my feelings. And I know you and I never spoke about feelings...

  ...He feels good, so good. His tongue’s on my lips but also down there, at the same time. And kissing my lips is like kissing me down there, thoughts getting jumbled, getting mixed. This is Laz, but what I feel for him is what I feel for Deck. So maybe I love Laz, but this is Deck, and I love the way Laz’s tongue is licking my...

  “Oh, G-o-o-o-o-o-o-d...”

  ...It’s OK, baby, I tell him. So you hurt me. Fine. Fine. Oh, yeah. Lick me some more there. Oh, yeah. Your tongue is so hot on me now. It’s like FIRE, honey! Oh, Declan, you get me so horny. You’re the only one who gets me horny like this. Oh, God, yes! This must be you because no one ever does it for me like you do...

  And then the scene changes, as if looking at it through a peephole. There’s Laz (not Deck) above me, but it feels like Deck, but it’s not.

  ...and there’s need, so much pressurized need...

  And then there’s something else...

  A figure...

  A person...

  An entity...

  A woman.

  In the corner.

  I’m just vaguely aware of her / it / him. It’s in a robe, has golden hair. The robe is thick scarlet, the face is covered, and there’s smoke...

  “Oh, yeah, uh-huh.”

  And the beat.

  And Laz is all over me now.

  ...and I think he’s entered me because I feel it, feel it building. Oh my God yes, there is a fullness inside me and I’m being driven into so magically, rocking with every thrust and I put my hand against your head and feel the love you give me while you ride me, thrusting and pushing with every force you have, my baby. Oh, your eyes, so dark, so sexy, so beautiful. You feel like Declan, my baby. You look like Laz but you feel like my—

  “Oh, yeah.”

  It burns, it rises. It moves up and—

  “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah, uh-huh.” The beat. The beat. The beat! “Oh, yeah. Oh, baby, I love you, I love you! And who’s this? Oh, it’s a woman. A woman looking down at me from a hoody? She has blond hair but her face is dark...”

  I feel the thrust, the push, my entire body rocking and rolling and...

  “Oh my God I’m going to come...”

  But I’m looking at the dark face of the woman as I say that. And somewhere I realize this is Tatiana Watkins. I just know it. And the person riding me is really Deck, even though I think it’s Laz. But it is Deck, because it’s how I feel about the man inside me, lifting my pelvis with every thrust against me, that tells me who it is.

  Yes, yes, it’s you, Deck. It’s you.

  I’m still looking up at the woman, the hidden face in the hooded cloak, but I move my hands down and feel Declan’s head. And somehow this fits, in my dream, that his head is down there but also that his manhood is down there.

  But the woman, her shadow-face is looking down at me, watching me getting fucked for God’s sake! “No, no, Tatiana, you need to let me do this alone. With Deck. You need to get out of here. Please don’t watch me...”

  It feels like I’m on a boat, tumbling back and forth with every thrust and push of Declan’s cock inside me.

  It’s beautiful, it’s romantic, it’s me and him.

  And it’s her...

  I hear a cackle, a laugh, an echoing laughter that’s evil and knowing.

  He continues. I beg her more. “Tatiana, you need to go away. You need to leave us! This isn’t for you to see—”

  I feel the orgasm forming. I feel... “Oh my God this is so uncomfortable because I’m gonna come! I know it! I can’t stop it now! Please, go away!”

  The man who is Declan gives one final, magnificent, impaling shove into me. I’m lifted off this bed. I hear his roar, growling like some animal gone feral. My own scream, of pleasure, of exquisite explosion, sits locked in my throat.

  It’s going to be beautiful, I think.

  And just before it bashes me, I feel her hand on my face, caressing me only once, starting at the top of my brow, and moving down over my cheek, slowly, slowly...

  And in t
his infinite moment of limbo, the moment where Deck has satisfied himself and I’m still hanging, as if being levitated on some stage by some dark wizard, I wait, and crave that fucking orgasm...

  ...and her cold hand, like the hand of some dead being, keeps moving down, now at my lips, my chin. It touches my breast, this female’s cold hand...

  Suddenly I don’t want the orgasm! No! I don’t want it! Forget it! I don’t need it! It feels wrong. This feels wrong!

  Tatiana’s cloak-covered face moves in closer to me, as if moving down to kiss me. All I see is blackness, and a red hood, and I feel her cold hand on my skin. Now lower than my breasts...

  Her dark face moves even closer. A shadow. I see her mouth opening. A white mist forms in it. She breathes out.

  And it’s cold, so cold, so frigid and freezing...

  And with the breath, as the mist enters my nose and mouth and I breathe it in, comes the sudden, unmistakable, and blindingly clear thought: A thought so certain, so sharp in its lucidity, that it seems almost divine.

  And that thought is: She is going to eat me.

  Right here.

  Right now.

  While I’m coming, and Deck’s tongue is on my private parts...and her hand is moving down to join it.

  ...

  I wake up feeling sick.

  -2-

  Declan’s problem is that he takes everything on himself, always carrying the world’s burdens on his shoulders. Which is probably why he didn’t have me call up Frank Lerrington’s wife myself and slip her the unsavory news that her husband of however many years is probably sticking it to his secretary.

  That hadn’t been my bright idea. It was Trev’s, and Deck told me about it. He said he wanted to do it himself when he got back. But I decide to go ahead and do it myself because the sooner this gets dealt with the better. That dream I had...cannot repeat itself.

  Besides, women respond better to women. Especially when the news is bad.

  Mrs. Lerrington’s number isn’t publicly listed. Once, when I needed to get an address for Xavier, I found out that Vikki’s dad (Mr. Nightclub Extraordinaire of Brighton Beach) kept a list of all dealers’ home addresses and telephone numbers so he could make sure they stayed away from his clubs. Over the years, I’ve discovered he keeps other “lists.” I decide to try my luck.