Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  Getting off the stool carefully, he went over to where she'd left his business card on the makeup counter. Taking his pen out, he wrote two words on the back and then looked at all the bags. He knew exactly which duffel was hers. Out of the pink-and-purple Ed Hardys and the Gucci and the two identical Harajuku Lovers…there was a plain black one with not so much as a Nike logo on it.

  After tucking the card inside that one, he strode for the door, his shoulders aching, his right hand starting to pound, his ribs sending him a sharp shooter every time he took a breath. The real shitkicker, though, was the headache between his temples that had nothing to do with the fight. He always had one after…whatever the hell that was.

  Out in the hall, he looked both ways and saw no sign of Marie-Terese.

  For a moment, the compulsion to find her struck strong and hot, but when Jim took his arm, he put his faith in the other man's rationality and allowed himself to be led over to the rear exit of the club. “Wait here.”

  Jim knocked on the manager's door, and when the guy came out, there was another round of thank-yous and then Vin found himself breathing cold, clear air. Christ…what a night.

  Chapter 15

  In the club's parking lot, Vin walked through rows of cars, but he wasn't tracking much…at least not until he caught sight of the guy with the mustache and glasses who'd witnessed the fight from the head of the corridor. Fortunately, as they all passed each other, the man ducked his eyes like he didn't want any trouble and continued pulling on his parka, like he'd gone out to a car to get the thing.

  When they got to the truck, Vin slid into the passenger seat and carefully rubbed his aching face.

  Letting his head fall back, he despised the spinning, twirling tangle of pain that was making his skull scream. And the headache got even worse as it dawned on him that whereas he was headed back home, Marie-Terese had returned to work. Which meant she was with other men at this very moment, giving them—

  He had to stop going there before he went totally mad.

  Looking out the window, he watched streetlights flare and fade as Jim took lefts and rights and stopped at intersections on the way to the Commodore.

  When they rolled to a halt in front of the high-rise, Vin released the seat belt and popped the door open. He had no idea whether Devina was going to be at the duplex or whether she'd have headed over to the place she still kept in the old meatpacking district of Caldie.

  As he hoped she wasn't in his bed, he felt like a bastard.

  “Thanks,” he said to Jim as he stepped out. Before he shut the door, he leaned in. “Life is too frickin' crazy sometimes, it really is…You never know what's going to happen, do you.”

  “You got that right.” The guy ran his rough hand through his hair. “Listen, go be with your woman. Make up with her, okay?”

  Vin frowned as something dawned on him. “Is this it? For you and me? Are we done now?”

  Jim exhaled like he was disappointed his relationship advice was being ignored. “No, not hardly.”

  “Why won't you just tell me what you want?”

  Jim just braced his forearm on the top of his steering wheel and stared across the seat. In the silence, his pale blue eyes seemed ancient. “I told you why I'm here. Go be nice to Devina and then get some sleep before you fall on your ass.”

  Vin shook his head. “Drive safe.”

  “I will.”

  The truck took off and Vin went up the graduated steps to the Commodore's lobby entrance. With the swipe of a pass card, he opened one of the doors and walked into the marble lobby. Over at the sign-in desk, the older, overnight security guard glanced up, caught a look at Vin's puss, and dropped the pen he was holding.

  Guess the swelling was kicking in. Which would explain why one of Vin's eyes was having trouble blinking.

  “Mr. diPietro…are you—”

  “Hope you have a quiet night,” Vin said as he strode to the elevator doors.

  “Thank…you.”

  On the way up the building, Vin got a good gander at what the security guard had gone penless over. In the darkened mirrors of the elevator, he stared at his busted nose and the scratch on his cheek and the beginnings of the shiner he was going to have in the morning—

  All at once, his face started to pound with the beat of his heart. Which made him wonder if he hadn't seen his reflection whether it would have stayed quiet.

  Up on the twenty-eighth floor, he stepped out into the hall and got his key ready. While he worked the lock, he had the sense that his life had taken a beating tonight along with that college kid. Everything felt off. Dislocated.

  He hoped it wasn't the start of a trend.

  Vin opened his door, took a listen, and got hit with a whole lot of exhaustion. There was no security alarm to deactivate, and from the second floor, he could hear the television mumbling: She was home. Waiting for him.

  Shutting himself in, he turned the lock, engaged the alarm, and eased back against the wall. When he could stand it, he looked up the marble staircase and watched the blue flicker of whatever show was on.

  It sounded like an old movie, some kind of Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire flying-hoof special. Guess he had to go up and face the music, so to speak.

  As forties-era standards rippled out of the bedroom, he pictured Devina propped up on the Frette pillowcases, wearing one of her wispy chiffon nightgowns. When he walked in, she would be shocked at his face and would try to nurse him—and she'd want to apologize for bailing from the club in the same way she'd made up for being unreachable the night before.

  Or she would try to. He didn't feel like having sex tonight.

  At least…not with her.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  Damn him to hell, but he wanted to drive right back to that club, but not to try to rehab Marie-Terese's opinion of him. He wanted to pull out five hundred dollars and buy some time with her. He wanted to kiss her and pull her against his body and run his hands up the insides of her thighs. He wanted his tongue in her mouth and his chest against her breasts and he wanted her gasping and wet. He wanted her to let him take her.

  The fantasy got him instantly hard—but it didn't last, neither the hot images nor the erection.

  What killed the fantasy was the memory of her in that fleece. She'd been so small. So…fragile. Not an object to be bought, but a woman in a brutal business, leveraging her body for cash.

  No, he didn't want to be with her like that.

  As the raw mechanics of the way she earned her money tackled him, Vin thought, of course she was in danger. Look at what had happened tonight. Men couldn't be trusted when their cocks were involved, and he himself was guilty of that kind of penile thinking. Just now, for example.

  Desperate for a drink, Vin headed for the bar in the living room. Devina had turned the lights off, but the electric fireplace was on and the flames flickered around the walls, turning them liquid and making the shadows move like they were tracking his stride through the room.

  With his fucked-up punching hand, he poured himself a bourbon, and as he drank it, his lip hurt on one side.

  Looking around, he measured everything he had bought with money he'd made, and in the shifting illumination it seemed to melt around him, the wallpaper dripping off in oozing sheets, the shelves sagging, the books and the paintings morphing into Dali-esque figments of their normal selves.

  Amidst the distortion, his eyes went to the ceiling and he imagined Devina up above him.

  She was just one more thing he'd purchased, wasn't she: He paid for her with clothes and travel and jewelry and spending money.

  And he'd bought that diamond yesterday not because wanted her to have the stone as a token of love—it was just one more part of an ongoing transaction.

  The fact was, he'd never told Devina he loved her…not because he was emotionally repressed, but because he didn't feel that way about her.

  Vin shook his head until his brain sloshed around enough so that the room returned to normal.
Tossing back the rest of the bourbon, he performed a refill. Which he drank. 'Nother refill. 'Nother polish-off. More of the pouring.

  He had no idea how long he stood in front of the bar drinking on his feet, but he was able to measure the way the level in the bottle dropped. And after four inches, he decided to just finish what was in the thing, and took the Woodford Reserve with him over to the couch that faced the view.

  Staring out over the city, he got really fucking drunk. Saturated. Plowed. Messed the fuck up until he couldn't feel his legs or his arms and he had to let his head fall back against the pillow because he couldn't hold it up anymore.

  Sometime later, Devina appeared naked behind him, her reflection in the glass looming in the archway of the living room.

  Through the haze of his numbed-out state, he realized that there was something wrong about her…about the way she moved, about the way she smelled.

  He tried to lift his head to see more clearly, but it was as if the damn thing were Velcroed to the back of the sofa, and though he strained until his breath jammed in his throat, he got nowhere.

  As the room degraded once more, everything looking like a bad acid trip, he was powerless. Frozen. Both alive and dead.

  Devina didn't stay behind him.

  She moved around the couch, and his eyes stretched wide as she came in front of him. Her body was decayed, her hands twisted into claws, her face nothing but a skull with strips of gray flesh hanging from the cheeks and chin. Trapped inside his paralyzed body, he struggled to get away, but there was nothing he could do as she approached.

  “You made the bargain, Vin,” she said in a dark voice. “You got what you wanted and a deal is a deal. You can't go back on it.”

  He tried to shake his head, tried to speak. He didn't want her anymore. Not in his house, not in his life. Something had changed when he'd seen Marie-Terese, or maybe it was Jim Heron—although why that guy would matter he hadn't a clue. But whatever the cause, he knew he didn't want Devina.

  Not in her beautiful form and certainly not in this one.

  “Yes, you do, Vin.” Her horrible voice wasn't just in his ears; it vibrated through his body. “You asked me to come to you and I gave you what you wanted and more. You made a bargain and you've taken everything I brought into your life, you've eaten it, drank it, fucked it—I'm responsible for it all and you owe me.”

  Up close, she didn't have eyes, just raw sockets that were black holes. And yet she saw him. Just as Jim had said, she saw right into him.

  “You have what you wanted, including me. And there is a price and a payment for everything. My price…is you and me together forever.”

  Devina mounted him, putting a skeletal knee on each side of his thighs, planting her horrible, shredded palms on his shoulders. The stench of her rotten flesh clawed into his sinuses, and the hard edges of her bones cut into him. Ugly hands went for his fly and he shrank back inside his skin.

  No…no, he didn't want this. He didn't want her.

  As Vin struggled to open his mouth and couldn't budge his jaw, she smiled, her waxy lips parting from teeth anchored by black gums. “You're mine, Vin. And I always take what is mine.”

  Devina sprang his cock, which was hard with terror, and stood it up between her parted legs. He didn't want this. He didn't want her. No…

  “Too late, Vincent. It's time for me to claim you, not just in this world but the next.” With that, she took him, her decomposing body encompassing his, fisting his flesh in a cold, scratching grip.

  The only thing that moved on him, apart from her, was his tears. They ran down his cheeks and onto his throat, getting absorbed by the collar of his shirt. Caged under her, taken against his will, he tried to scream, tried to get a—

  “Vin! Vin—wake up!”

  His eyes flashed open. Devina was right in front of him, her beautiful face drawn in panicked lines, her elegant hands reaching out to him.

  “No!” he hollered. Yanking her out of the way, he lunged to his feet and overshot his mark, falling face-first into the carpet, landing as his glass did with a hard bounce.

  “Vin…?”

  He jacked himself onto his back and brought his hands up to fight her off—

  Except she wasn't coming after him anymore. Devina was sprawled on the couch where he had been, her glossy hair on the cushions he'd been leaning against, her perfect pale skin set off by an ivory satin nightgown. Her eyes were as his had been, wide, terrified, confused.

  As he panted, he clutched his pounding chest and tried to decipher what was real.

  “Your face,” she said eventually. “God…your shirt. What happened?”

  Who was she? he asked himself. The dream or…what he saw now?

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered, covering the base of her throat with her hand.

  Vin glanced down at his fly. It was closed and his belt was done up, his cock soft in his boxer briefs. Glancing around the room, he found everything was as it always appeared, in perfect, luxurious order, the flames from the fire setting the scene off to gorgeous effect.

  “Shit…” he groaned.

  Devina sat up slowly, like she was afraid of spooking him again. Staring down at the liquor bottle on the floor next to the couch, she said, “You're drunk.”

  True enough. Dead drunk. To the point where he wasn't sure he could stand…to the point where he could start to hallucinate…to the point that maybe none of that had just happened. Which would be a blessing.

  Yeah, the idea that it was all nothing but a bourbon-fueled nightmare calmed him more than any amount of deep breathing.

  With a surge, he went to stand up, but his balance was shot, so he lurched around and slammed into the wall.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  He held up his hand to stop her. “No, stay…” Away. “I'm all right. I'm cool.” Vin collected himself and, when he'd steadied out, he searched her face. All he saw was love and concern and confusion. Hurt, too. She appeared to be nothing other than a spectacularly attractive woman who cared about the man she was looking at. “I'm going to go to bed,” he said.

  Vin headed out of the room, and she followed him upstairs in silence. As he tried not to feel stalked, he reminded himself that she wasn't the problem. He was.

  When he came to the doorway to the master bath, he said, “Gimme a minute.”

  After shutting himself in, he turned on the shower, took off his clothes, and got under the hot water. He couldn't feel the spray, even on his busted face, and took it as evidence that however drunk he thought he was, he should be a little more generous in his assessment.

  When he stepped out, Devina was waiting with a towel for him. He didn't let her dry him off, even though she no doubt would have done a better job, and he put a pair of pajama bottoms on even though he normally slept naked.

  They settled into bed, side by side but not touching, the television's flickering like that of a fireplace with blue flames. In a moment of madness, he wondered if the walls were going to melt up here, too, but no. They stayed the same.

  On the TV, Fred and Ginger were dancing around, her gown swinging wide, his tails doing the same.

  Either Vin hadn't been out for very long or this was a marathon on whatever channel she'd chosen.

  “Won't you tell me what happened?” Devina said.

  “Just a bar fight.”

  “Not with Jim, I hope?”

  “He was on my side.”

  “Oh. Good.” Silence. Then, “Do you need to go to the doctor?”

  “No.”

  More silence. “Vin…what were you dreaming about?”

  “Let's go to sleep.”

  When she reached for the remote to turn the TV off, he said, “Leave it on.”

  “You never sleep with the television on.”

  Vin frowned as he watched Fred and Ginger moving in sync, their eyes locked as if they couldn't bear to look away. “Tonight's different.”

  Chapter 16

  Pou
nding on his door woke Jim up the next morning.

  Even though he'd been dead asleep, he was instantly conscious…and pointing the muzzle of a forty across the studio. With the blinds drawn across the big window in the front and the two small ones down over the kitchen sink, he had no idea who it could be.

  And considering his past, it might not be a friend.

  Dog, who was tucked in beside him, lifted his head and let out a ripple of inquiry. “Not a clue who it is,” Jim said, throwing the covers off and going buck naked to the far side of the front drapes. Parting them ever so slightly, he saw the M6 parked in his driveway. “Vin?” he called out. “Yeah,” came the muffled response. “Hold on.”

  Jim put the gun back in the holster that hung on the bedpost and pulled on a pair of boxers. When he opened his door, Vin diPietro was standing on the other side, looking like a hot mess. Although he'd had a wash and a shave and changed into rich-guy casual clothes, his face was bruised and his expression was grim as hell.

  “You see the news yet?” he said.

  “No.” Jim backed up so the guy could come in. “How'd you find me?”

  “Chuck told me where you lived. I would have called, but he didn't have your number.” Vin went to the television and turned the thing on. As he flipped through the channels, Dog went over and gave him a sniffing.

  Guy must have passed, because the animal sat on his loafer.

  “Shit…I can't find it…it was all over the local news,” Vin muttered.

  Jim glanced at the digital clock by his bed. Seven seventeen. The alarm should have gone off at six, but he'd obviously forgotten to set the thing. “What's on the news?”

  At that moment, the Todayshow turned it over to a local update, and the Caldwell station's almost beautiful announcer looked into the camera with gravity.

  “The dead bodies of two young men that were found in the eighteen hundred block of Tenth Street early this morning have been identified as Brian Winslow and Robert Gnomes, both aged twenty-one.” Pictures of the college meatheads he and Vin had taken care of flashed on the screen to the right of the blonde's head. “The two were the apparent victims of gunshot wounds, their bodies found by a fellow clubgoer about four o'clock this morning. According to a CPD spokeswoman, the pair were roommates at SUNY Caldwell and were last seen headed out to the Iron Mask, a local hot spot. No suspects have been named as yet.” The camera angle changed and she turned into the new lens. “In other news, another peanut-butter recall has been…”