An Eye For An Eye (The Club #11)

by M. C. Cerny

  An Eye

  For

  An Eye

  ~

  M.C. Cerny

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book.

  Copyright © 2015

  Edited by P. Adams

  Cover Design by Sprinkles On Top Studios

  Formatting by M.C. Cerny

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  First Edition:

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cerny, M.C.

  An Eye For An Eye/M.C. Cerny – 1st ed.

  If you would like to read more from The Club series, please click on the link below:

  The Club Website

  Lorand Duvall returned to Karim, Texas to complete unfinished business. His work as an assassin is simple and unemotional. The perfect job for a broken man. Unfortunately, he forgot that the heart has other ideas, including the reason he left Karim to begin with.

  Blinded in an accident, Jude Noire lives a secluded life. With the loss of her sight, she is left vulnerable depending on her remaining senses and those close to her to keep her safe.

  At The Club, there are three rules:

  1. Keep your mouth shut.

  2. Keep your mouth shut.

  3. Keep your mouth shut.

  Some seek vengeance while others seek truth. Contracts must be satisfied and desires explored leaving both Lorand and Jude with a vested interest in all The Club has to offer, because both are seeking…an Eye for an Eye.

  An EYE For An EYE

  M.C. Cerny

  One

  JUDE

  “Who’s there?” My breath shook with awareness that sent tingles up my spine. My hands grasped sheets and reached out instinctively into darkness. My chest felt pressure as my heart pounded in anticipation.

  Two months this time.

  Sixty days since the last time.

  The scent awakened me, a sharp tang, faintly metal and covered by musk and male. His presence inside the house was felt long before he made himself known to me in my darkly isolating world. Frustration built quickly as did my hope. How dare he do this–again.

  My body reacted before my mind had a chance to catch up and warn myself how much this was a bad idea. Skin tightened, and my body flushed. I’d never felt such heat course through my body. It was like a bowl of melted vanilla ice cream, a pool of something syrupy sweet on a hot day, yet never touched or tasted as I disintegrated in his arms. It was always that way, my traitorous body primed for him, and his buzzed with energy that found me wherever I went like a heat seeking missile.

  He was danger personified and my greatest mystery. I didn’t know his identity and that alone should have terrified me. I never once heard his voice, but I recognized his other attributes. On the rare occasion he came close enough to let me touch him…I let my hands explore every part of him I could reach. The small depression in his spine between his head and neck always bore a fresh dampness only a shower could bring. My fingers would curl, and my middle finger slipped against his skin to rub the spot earning me an appreciative groan, but nothing else.

  Metallic might have been a better way to describe the coolness of his aura. My world was devoid of most colors, but there had been a time I would have seen him as cool blues and polished silvers. I imagined us both as two damaged souls dancing a dangerous thrust and parry. Perhaps that’s why he sought me out. Maybe that’s why I let him come to me in the darkness of my world. We were two parts of the puzzle, neither complete without the other.

  Robbed of my sight left the rest of my heightened senses overloaded and rapid firing when he visited me, but unable to identify him. He came sporadically, always in the dead of night. My sleep cycles were already disturbed by my blindness. No medication helped regulate my circadian rhythm, except to make me more disorientated than usual with a bout of vertigo making me wish I was on a roller coaster. I’d given up on medicine fixing me anyway. He became the pleasant expectation taunting me.

  People would think I was crazy having some stranger in my house. Part of me did think I often treaded on the border of insanity as alone as I was with only him, uninvited as he was into my world. He left me on the brink of pleasure and unsatisfied out of some fucked up sense of honor. I was as much at fault for my state as he was, but I continued to let him touch me even if briefly.

  I hated him.

  I was so achingly alone.

  But…part of me wanted him more.

  Weeks, months even would pass, between the times I…felt him. The first time, an entire year had gone by before I felt his presence again. I swore he was in my house that day, standing there watching me. It was another week after that before he made his presence known. I had no name, nothing to go by except for his nocturnal visits to my home and the alluring scent of danger he filled me with. The excitement I would never seek out on my own because of my…limitations.

  “Hello?” Tonight, my sleep disorder kept me unsettled. I tossed and turned as rest eluded me. On a sigh, my arms stretched searching. I grabbed for the silky robe I had place over the chair next to my bed steadying myself to take another step. Slipping it on, the liquid fabric covered my nightgown, belting it at my waist in a sloppy bow.

  I had a feeling he would come. Primping, I visited the spa in town and got my usual waxing and polishing. The esthetician was a new girl and she wasn’t particularly gentle in her application, my skin felt raw exposed as it was. I could never manage a razor shaving my delicate parts with limited vision inside a slippery shower stall. I wasn’t stupid or particularly vain, but a girl needs to know her business is taken care of properly.

  Still no voices replied to mine, just the sound of my door opening and clicking shut. Smiling, I called out to him. “I know you’re here. I can…feel you.” It was dumb to say, but when the other person refused to give you a verbal acknowledgement you either begin to believe it’s a specter or that you’re actually going insane.

  “Answering is the polite thing to do,” I grumbled to myself. “As if you were ever polite.” Shuffling carefully through the door of my bedroom on bare feet, my toes chilled. Texas could get bitter cold at night, even if you could cook eggs on the pavement during the day. I saw it once as a little girl. A nice trick science teachers demonstrated on the playground. Science…now there was a memory better left to the dark recesses of my mind.

  I swayed with dizziness and closed my eyes against the hazy blur. Clenching my fists for a moment, I collected myself; reorienting to my home’s layout and what I might say to him next. My sight was a mostly colorless world of dark blurred shapes in limited light and virtually nothing under the glaring sun cause by chemical burns and cataracts.

  The accident.

  Pain.

  Things I needed to make peace with.

  Clutching the door frame, I moved into the hallway each step in nervous anticipation. Would he touch me? Where would he start? I imagined his fingers trailing down my arm feather soft starting at my shoulder. A chill
that began in my toes traveled up my body in a full shake jerking me against the wall causing me to bump my shoulder. Would I tell him no when he got too close to crossing the line grazing my skin with his rough finger tips? How long would he leave me for this time? Was his leaving meant to punish or protect me?

  A clatter from the kitchen forced me to turn my head listening, half-smiling and waiting, honing in on the sounds before heading in a different direction down the hall. Smirking, I guessed my guest didn’t like the dark either...or the kitchen pan I left on the floor in his obvious path. He deserved it, after all what’s good for me is good for him. I clutched my arms around my stomach, a shiver racing down my spine.

  A sniff of the air and I knew he was there, front and center. I took a step forward anyway bumping into hard flesh to whisper coyly. “Miss me?” A low huff of his minted breath was the only acknowledgement he gave me before his large calloused hand cupped my cheek tenderly and dry lips grazed my skin. I loved this weirdly twisted thing we had. His thumb caressed my lower lip pulling it down. Opening my mouth, I let my tongue slip out and lick his thick digit twirling around salted skin.

  He pulled back and I taunted him saying, “Do it.” Grunting, he pushed his finger between my lips. I sucked his thumb succumbing to the taste of his skin which boiled my blood hotter. I wanted to start with his lips on mine and finish with his cock deep within so badly it physically hurt this dance we were doing. I’d never been with anyone before, but I’d read enough and giggled with high school girlfriends before everything had changed. I knew enough to make it work and standing here in limbo did nothing for my fragile psyche.

  His arm snaked around me, and pulled me into his embrace a bit roughly, his back now against the wall. This dance was erotic, a private show for two. I imagined spotlights on us as we gyrated together. Chances where if I saw him in person, I might run screaming in terror, knowing there was something utterly dark about him, so over the top alpha and barely reigned in. Why else would he visit me like this?

  Something about my blindness made me brave and a little stupid. I skirted tumultuous ground as my mystery man guided me back against the wall softly this time. He pressed me against the solid surface as one hand buffered me gently and the other pushed my arms up above my head briefly. I whimpered as he grunted. I swear he said something like, “so soft,” but no words came from him, just the exhalation of his breath tickling my flesh. He pressed his hard body against my hips lining me up to his shape. Each encounter over the past three years was further down the rabbit hole of oblivion, the kind that damages your soul.

  “Who are you?” I asked him as he released my arms. I clutch his buttoned dress shirt to hold myself steady. My fingertips circled the small buttons and his head hung down, lips grazing my hand at his top button around his thick neck. His fingers clutched my robe pulling it taught to expose my shoulder letting his head rest there in the crook of my neck. His lips touched me briefly again and I felt the soft fuzzy stubble of his shaved head. I wiggled rubbing my core against him and he shifted lips pulling at my neck like I’m his last feast. If he were a vampire I’d willingly let him suck me dry if only to end this misery I lived in.

  My questions seemed to agitate him on good nights and flat out piss him off on others. “What do you want from me?” I should think it was obvious when his hand slipped between the folds of my robe to cup my breast. Perspiration slicked my skin with goosebumps.

  He entrances me unfairly with his touch, the one sense of mine magnified the most and it’s damn unfair. “Why do you visit me like this?” His large hand is hot, and his thumb caressed my nipple in a circular motion playfully over the silk. I want his hand to move lower and stroke me but he doesn’t. There is gentleness in his firm grasp that waylays my fears. I wish that he would say something–anything. Each visit he silently asks for more liberties with my body that I’m all too willing to give. I was close to the breaking point of throwing myself on his mercy to take me, take me hard and cease this ache within me.

  “Why are you h-here?” The last is said on a half strangled moan as his hand slips inside my parted nightgown, fingers rubbing against my nipple, skin on skin this time, pinching the puckered mound until an electric zing of pain melds with pleasure down to my center. Desire begins a slow boil and threatens to bloom like a flourishing night orchid. He has incinerated my defenses and turned me into an incoherent mess.

  Slipping my leg between his, I rub my knee up his leg, and down the front of his pants against a distinct ridge. The dress slacks are smooth fabric, fine wool maybe? Definitely not denim. A chuckle erupted within me, and I found it funny he dressed in a suit as usual. A button and slim zipper are all that keep me from touching him. My hand slid up to grab his thickly muscled arm squeezing appreciatively. His cock is large, long and rigid inside his pants as I pressed against him, that devilish wandering hand of his slipped down to my ass, bunching silky fabric to cup bare skin, lifting me up to meet him. Fingers traced my bare bottom and slipped between us roaming upwards touching the hot skin of my bare mound. His fingers wander further back to forbidden territory momentarily and I’m clenching inside tight as a pulled elastic band. Grunting is the only response he gives me.

  I need more.

  Taking a deep breath, I held back the tear that wanted to fall from my tightly shut eyes. “T-tell me your name, something about you to make this real for me….” And with that, he abruptly stops leaving me panting and cold. My core is drenched between my thighs which slickly rub together, chaffing me with disappointment against my newly waxed pussy lips. I am aching, my legs shaking like a new born foal. His head moved into the crook of my shoulder with heavy breaths resting as he released his hold on me. What the hell is wrong with him? With me?

  “Why? Why won’t you give me something?” His hands cupped my face and he exhaled a heavy breath. Angrily, I punched against his chest and he firmly holds my hands together with one of his easily overpowering me.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Panicked that he’s leaving, tears pricked under my eyelids, useless flaps of skin that failed to protect me any more than the heaving ribs around my damaged heart. It feels like no one in my life wants me for me, there’s some catch I don’t understand. Frantically, I reach out towards him when he takes my flailing arms and folds them around my middle, pushing me back gently until I’m flush imprisoned against the cold wall. He steps away from me and my body freezes from rejection. I’m not wanted. I shrink back into myself, keeping my arms securely over my stomach. Being this vulnerable leaves me nauseated and bone weak.

  “Get out. Just get the fuck out and leave me alone. Stop coming back here if you’re not man enough to follow through.” Fury bubbled over and snarling my request seems to do the job, because he does exactly as I asked of him. I should move on with my life, forget him all together.

  Slowly as if regretfully, he waited until my body holds steady on my own. Reaching an arm back behind me, almost doubled over from the physical pain of rejection, I grappled the wall for stability and re-tied my robe shutting him out.

  Why is he still here?

  With my fabric armor back in place, I’m screaming now sliding down the wall pathetically. “I said get out!” His footsteps are almost silent except for the squeak of his dress shoes on my tile floor. The loss of his physical heat is the only indication that the distance between us increases. My ears hone in on his retreat and acutely hear him pausing.

  “Don’t come back here again!” Reaching around the floor, my fingers found purchase around the handle of the pan and I throw it letting it clang against tile. Finally, he moves locking the door when he goes. I should get the locks changed, but he’d just break them open like the first time.

  I sat in my cold little kitchen slumped against the wall wondering why the hell I stayed practically locked up inside my little house in Karim, Texas. I didn’t owe this fucking town a thing and swayed a little drunkenly from being aroused and left unsatisfied. Crawling now, hands grasped for
the chair pulling me up to sit down at my table. My rear hit the seat with a thump, letting my hand feel around the smooth wooden surface until I touched the small velvet box. I pulled it towards me and opened the lid carefully.

  My fingers find the pendant inside and pull it out with the chain. It feels oddly shaped, a triangle I think, three points, but ribbed with jewels peppering the front of it. I have no idea what the design is. Bastard bought me jewelry. He denies me any connection beyond my faulty sight and then gives me gifts I can’t even appreciate. My fingers rub over the design and giving in I clasp the chain clumsily around my neck letting the necklace fall between my breasts. This is why I stay in Karim. I’m afraid if I leave, he won’t be able to find me–because as much as it hurts, it feels good to be seen by someone who doesn’t outright pity me.

  Two

  LORAND

  “Get out. Just get the fuck out and leave me alone. Stop coming back here if you’re not man enough to follow through.” Her words cut me with the truth. If she only knew the truth…a strange thing at best. I’m not worthy of her.

  Jude is beautiful in spite of the faintest of scars that mar the edges of her temples. Tiny interspersed ridges that are barely noticeable unless you get within centimeters of her face. The matching scars are from a chemical burn and caustic fumes that stole the sight from her pretty brown eyes. The day it happened plays over and over in my mind like a wicked movie, I can’t seem to stop the reel...

  She’s busy chatting with her girlfriends sitting at the lunch table. A seat once familiar to me and one in which I sat in years earlier when attending my education here in Karim. I hadn’t noticed her much then given I was older. Pompous uniforms, starched oxford shirts and dark pants for the boys. Plaid skirts often rolled up shorter and tall knee high socks for the girls that wetted every young boy’s fantasies.