by Lake, Keri
“You had everything to do with it.” I pushed harder, my muscles steeled. “He didn’t just wrong me, he annihilated me. And there you were, stroking his cock, smiling beside him all the while.”
“All you saw was a smile, then. You should’ve looked deeper. So what? I’m your revenge? Your ticket to hurting him?” She sneered. “Guess what? He doesn’t give a shit about me. He never did. So, go ahead, Nick. Kill me.” She lifted her head away from the wall, only inches from my face. “Snap my fucking throat, if that’s what you plan to do. You’d be doing him and me a favor.”
Her body pulsed with tension, the tremble beating against me, through me, inside of me. Anger. Hate.
So much hate.
With one quick twist of my hands, I could’ve snapped her neck, been done with the whole plan and exited my miserable fucking existence on the wings of a bullet to my skull.
Instead, I slammed my lips against hers. Loving the struggle of her body trying to push me away. Hating the fact that her lips tasted like sweet salvation, beckoning me to whatever web of deception she’d been weaving since I’d taken her. Her delicious smell pervaded my senses—water on the flames burning inside of me, steaming up my mind.
Three years.
The last time I’d devoured a woman’s lips was three years ago, and that had been out of love. Kissing Aubree was something else entirely. Not gentle or tender. I kissed her violently, with all the fury locked inside of me, our frantic breaths clashing with one another.
Her moan vibrated inside my skull, as her hands clenched to fists, trying to break free from my grasp.
She opened her mouth wider, dragged my lip between her teeth, and bit me.
Aggression surged through my body and rattled the cage of something dark inside of me.
I wanted more. More pain. More rage. I wanted to tear into her while cursing her name. Purge myself of the hate until it was spent.
I broke the kiss, breaths heaving, as I glared down at her. “What do you know about Brightmoor?” I rasped.
“I don’t know anything about Brightmoor,” she gritted out.
Lies. “Yeah? Then, why did you have the fucking blueprints tucked in your purse? Devil’s Night plans safe and sound, beside your goddamn lipstick and compact.”
Her chest rose and fell as I kept her captive against the wall, her stare deadpan. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” I pressed harder, lips to her ear. “I fucking hate liars,” I whispered, inciting a shudder in her that brought a smile to my face. “Why did you have the chip?”
“I stole it.”
“You stole it.” I wanted to laugh at the stupidity of such a thought, but my voice lacked any ounce of humor or inflection. “I don’t think you did, Pistol Lips. I think he gave it to you. His little pet.”
“I fucking hate you.” Venom laced her words as she stared back at me, those golden eyes blazing with vehemence.
I licked my lips and glanced down at her pert breasts, and smiled. Squeezing her captured wrists with one hand, I reached up under her dress, only grazing the patch of lace that kept my finger from being inside of her, knowing everything she was too stubborn to admit.
Her lids turned heavy, as drunken eyes riveted on my lips.
“Tell me how much you hate me.”
“Don’t,” she warned, and I caught the scrape of her tongue across her teeth.
Grabbing a handful of hair, I tugged her head back until her neck stretched taut, and like a creature of night, I wanted to bite down into that supple flesh and rip her throat out. Dragging my tongue along her shoulder, I made my way to the base of her neck and bit her collarbone. She let out a gasp and I released her wrists. Lust blazed through my veins, when her fingers tangled in my hair and her leg curled around my hip, drawing me against her.
“You know what, Aubree? I fucking hate you, too, but goddamn … you taste so good.”
Hell was having her skin against mine and craving her so badly I wanted to crawl out of my own body.
I needed more. Needed to twist her around, tear away her panties, and slam into her with the wrath of a thousand nights of pain. She needed to feel my rage and madness, what kept me teetering on the edge for three long years.
Yanking the front of her dress popped both revoltingly beautiful tits from their confines, and when my tongue found her nipple, her nails dug into my scalp. I reached up into her dress, rubbed a finger across her wet pussy, then bunched up the thin fabric of her panties and tore them away.
“You’re a rotten bastard, Nick, but you … fuck!” She squirmed, as my finger curved higher, nailing the sweet spot.
Gripping tight to her ass, I pressed her against the front of my jeans, where my starving dick nearly blasted through the zipper to get to her.
With a quick spin, I had her facing away, cheek to wall, and without a word, she angled her ass high and smacked her palms flat on either side of her.
I dug my fingers into the soft, supple flesh of her hips, and buried my nose in her hair, inhaling the faint smell of her perfume.
Arched into me, ass grinding in a slow, hypnotic wave against my already-hardened dick, she released a seductive purr that hit my spine like a tuning fork. Her long brown hair spilled in fountains that would look beautiful caught in my fist.
She had no idea what she’d unleashed. No going back. I had one objective in mind, and I didn’t think she realized I was already halfway there.
Knotting my fingers in her hair, I tugged her head back and put my mouth to her ear. “What do you want, Aubree? You want me to pin you to this wall and fuck you senseless?”
“I’m already senseless if I’ve let you go this far.”
“An answer. Now. Do you want this?” I cinched her hair tighter. “Just know, if you choose to be fucked, there’s no going back.”
“Do it.”
“Do it? You wanted this all along, didn’t you? You wanted me damn near groveling for a piece of you, so you could dig your claws in like every other bastard you’ve manipulated, that it?” I licked the shell of her ear. “Guess what? I’m going to fuck you, Aubree. But this isn’t about you besting me in your little game. In the end, I still walk away.”
I lifted her dress and everything inside of me came to a screeching halt.
On the lower part of her back, just above her ass, a wide, angry scar spelled out one word. WHORE.
Through heaving breaths, I stared down at the ugliness that’d been branded on her for life. Repulsive, cruel branding, like fucking cattle. I’d almost hate-fucked a woman who’d clearly been a victim of hate herself, and my stomach sank at the thought. Because the reality stared back at me, in five sharply carved, maliciously-seared letters, completely crumbling the fantasy I’d conjured where Aubree Culling was as much a villain as her husband.
I brushed my thumb lightly across the raised flesh, and her body planked.
She flattened herself against the wall and pushed her dress down her hips, covering it. “Don’t. Don’t fucking touch me,” she whispered on a shaky breath.
“He did this to you?”
“He did everything to me.” Her arms lifted to either side of her face, and she buried her head between them. “Please leave me alone.”
“Tell me the truth. How did you get that chip?”
“I told you the truth. I fucking stole it. Now leave me alone!”
I believed her. Five fucking letters sliced into her back suddenly had me seeing the woman in a different light, and for the first time, I believed she stole that vital information from the man who’d obviously betrayed her.
My throat went dry, my field of vision narrowing with the blackness seeping in from the edges. Slamming the heel of my hand against my skull, I stumbled back, catching myself against the wall, before I strode from her room, closing the door behind me.
From the other side, I heard her quiet sobs, and it occurred to me, even after the kidnapping, chaining her to the bed, threatening to kill her, that was the first time I�
�d heard the woman cry at all. Real crying, not the fake shit she’d pulled to swindle sympathy from me.
The pain I could hear then was real.
Rubbing the back of my head, I dialed Alec’s cell and made my way to the kitchen, where I rifled through cupboards for whiskey.
No answer.
I hurled the burner phone against the wall, where it crumbled to the floor in small pieces, and pounded my fist into the tiles.
The game was changing before my very eyes and I had no clue what to do next.
A switch had been flipped.
Scars came in different flavors. The selfish variety, like the one on her wrist, spoke of a different kind of struggle. Maybe she had problems, but everyone had problems.
The one on her back was something else entirely.
Every scar told a story, but it was the ones we didn’t want others to see that told a truth. Aubree’s truth had been etched into fine markings on her back, written with the clarity of someone who’d taken his time. Only a sadistic bastard could’ve done something like that.
In it, I saw something I didn’t want to see. Something painful. Broken. Something I hadn’t anticipated uncloaking when I’d lifted her dress. Something that no longer made her my toy. I saw Aubree Culling as a human being. A scarred, ravaged human being who probably needed more than what I’d offered her in silence when I walked out the door.
My stomach twisting in knots, I rifled through cupboards. Where the fuck was my whiskey?
In one blink, Aubree had turned from a vector for revenge, an object of hate, to a curiosity. What had she done to deserve the wrath of an evil man? No matter how much I tried to rearrange the variables in my head, the answer to that question made her proportionately good. The opposite of Michael Culling.
Three years. For three years, I’d watched her on TV, as I’d followed the Cullings from one event to the next, plotting, building my rationale for committing the ultimate act of revenge. In that time, how had I managed to overlook a very obvious truth? Aubree was a victim, too.
Not a monster. Not some Stepford bitch. A victim.
No. The label didn’t sound right inside my head.
I found the fifth of whiskey, twisted the cap off, and pounded a double to straighten the words clanging against my skull. Aubree Culling and victim didn’t belong in the same sentence, any more than Michael Culling and saint gelled together. Yet, I’d witnessed that fact, seen firsthand how wrong I’d been. How could I kill a woman who’d clearly been abused? How could I inflict my pain and suffering on her, when she’d bled from similar wounds and carried as many scars?
With every argument, the visual of WHORE flashed through my head and smashed each pathetic excuse into a million pieces of bullshit.
Maybe she’d asked for it.
Bullshit.
Maybe she’d lied to my face, by admitting that he’d been the one to inflict that kind of torment.
Bullshit.
I didn’t have to be a therapist to see the shame in her eyes. The hate and humiliation. The human being buried beneath some fucking twisted veneer, upon which, I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface.
I was wrong. Alec was wrong. We’d been so focused on Michael Culling that we’d failed to see the truth behind those fake smiles. The glaring, irrefutable fact—that Aubree wasn’t some political princess.
She was the abused maiden, locked in the tower. And I’d made her out to be a monster.
Jesus, what had I become over the last three years?
I stand at the window, looking out at the city below as I hold my newborn son in my arms. I hate this apartment, but at night, with him, it’s beautiful. It’s home.
“That’s the kind of sight that makes ovaries drop.”
I turn to see Lena leaned against the doorframe, in one of my T-shirts that hangs down to her knees.
“You better stop, or before you know it, you’ll be holding two.”
I lift an arm, holding Jay in the crook of my elbow. “Plenty of room.”
Crossing the floor, she nestles herself into my shoulder. “Just as long as you have a place for me.”
“Always.”
She glides a thumb down our son’s temple. “I can’t believe how much he sleeps. All those horror stories of sleepless nights.”
“Think he takes after his mom.” I laugh when she playfully slaps my ass.
Resting her head against my chest, she cradles his head in her palm and plants a kiss to his cheek. “I hope he takes after his dad.” Her face lifts to mine. “Promise me, no matter what—through the struggles, the lows, the highs, pain and happiness that’s ahead of us— whatever comes of these dreams we’re building now, promise me you’ll never change who you are inside, Nick.” She grips my nape and kisses me. “You’re a good man. And I couldn’t have chosen a better father for our son.”
I stared down at the swirling amber liquor before tipping it back. I hated what I’d become. Thief. Kidnapper. Killer. Bastard.
She’d have hated me, too.
What now? I couldn’t let Aubree go. Not yet. I wouldn’t send her back to the butcher who’d carved her back, but I couldn’t set her free, either. She played a role in it all, but the plan would need to be modified, because no way in hell I could hurt a woman who’d been victimized by the same bastard to whom I’d planned to feed a bullet.
I wouldn’t be killing her in the end, but I’d sure as hell be killing her husband. Unfortunately, Aubree still had to play the pawn.
In the meantime, there was something I owed her.
21
Aubree
I slid to the floor beside my bed and buried my face in the covers. As if a dam had broken inside of me, the tears flowed without restraint, without any signs of stopping, and I succumbed to the encroaching tide that demolished all the perfectly stacked compartments inside of me.
It was my fault. I knew the scar was there, and that the stature I’d been given the last five years would have been staring him in the face if he’d slammed into my body, taking from me what I’d have been perfectly willing to give, had it meant freedom in the end. Perhaps a part of me wanted to blow whatever Barbie Doll image he’d conjured in his head right out of the water. I wanted to give him the smallest glimpse of my secrets.
I hadn’t counted on him attempting to breach my defenses. He’d made it clear in the last few days that he’d no intentions of knowing about me or trying to humanize me in any way. I was a caged animal—a stolen prize, from which he hoped to gain.
It was why he’d worn the gloves the first day. Touching skin meant touching the soul, connecting with another person in a way that couldn’t be made pure and chaste again.
In truth, I’d wanted him in that moment. Not just for my freedom. His kiss had surged with passion and anger, fervor and fury, and I’d wanted to be trapped inside that violent storm of confusion. I’d wanted it to crash over me, consume me, and drag me to the depths of whatever darkness it’d recede, because at least in those moments of trying to catch my breath, I’d feel alive. For once, I’d feel a reason to fight my way back.
Michael must have hurt him, too, somehow. I could sense it, feel it seeping into my bones when his fingers had dug into my flesh. In that, we shared a connection. Perhaps Nick and I were opposites in life, as he said, but in pain, we were the same.
Two broken halves, with jagged edges that seemed to fit together in some messed up way.
To hell with the fact that I was a married woman. My husband broke his vows to honor and protect the moment he laid a hand on me, so fuck him. I’d spent seven years locked in a prison of pain, devoid of emotion, and for once, it felt good to feel something. I couldn’t say it was entirely lust, because an undercurrent of ferocity had laced every action—mine and his. In that intensity, though, I’d felt a certain passion, a hunger that I’d never experienced with Michael—or any man, for that matter.
In one moment of weakness, of unabashed bliss, I’d surrendered to the exquisite destruction of N
ick’s kiss. My fingers traced my lips, remembering the feel of his mouth on mine.
How easily I’d have given him more. A thought that scared the shit out of me.
After all, the man was like a finely crafted blade—lean, beautiful and dangerous enough to cut me to the bone, if I wasn’t careful.
22
Nick
Slipping on my coat, I reached inside the pocket and tossed Blue a treat on my way toward the staircase. While descending, I dialed Lauren’s number, wishing I didn’t have to ask her for a favor. I had to do something right, though. Something I should’ve done the first night.
I drove along East Grand Boulevard until I reached the old abandoned church-turned-hostel. Always hated the idea of Lauren living in such a shit place on the shit side of town, but she claimed she liked it, enjoyed being around other kids her age, and always made a point to remind me that it was better than living on the streets. My intent wasn’t to preach, or try to control her—hell, at nineteen, she had her shit together better than I did at twenty-eight. Just didn’t want her to become another statistic on the streets, and some of the kids she hung out with seemed to be well on their way to that life.
I knocked on the door, tensing at the sound of laughter on the other side. The door swung open to Lauren, hair in disarray, wearing pajama pants and a thin tank top. Behind her, a slightly older-looking Asian girl, in the same slumber party attire, stood holding a cigarette and looking me up and down.
“Nick!” Lauren’s face bloomed with a smile, and she slammed into my chest with a hug. Christ, I hated coming to her after trying to cut ties, but maybe it could be the promised visit—even if I was the asshole who planned to task her with a favor.
“Mmm, who’s he?” The Asian woman blew smoke to the side.
“Was just about to ask the same question.” I sniffed, crossing my arms as Lauren pulled away.
“Jade, this is Nick, my brother from another mother. Nick, this is my girlfriend, Jade.”
