Fracture (Blood & Roses #2) Read online

  Well, holy shit. I wasn’t expecting that. A reprimand. Some sternly worded, poorly veiled threat. Anything but a compliment, followed by a reassurance. I open my mouth, but infuriatingly I can’t think of anything to say. Zeth puts the thin length of rope down on the table and slowly shrugs out of his jacket. I catch sight of the impressive bulge pressing against his jeans, begging to be set free and I can’t help my reaction. I blush.

  “Angry one minute, coy the next…you’re confusing yourself, Sloane.” He steps into me, placing his hands on my hips. His grip is strong and masterful. “You should just go with one emotion. I find turned on is usually useful ’round about now. If you’re not with me on that one, then I can go.”

  He’s been pushy and demanding ever since he walked through the door half an hour ago, so I’m not used to this sudden glimmer of compromise within him. A meet-me-halfway, secret side of him that I think he’d prefer to keep hidden away.

  The tension that’s been drawing me tighter than a bow slackens a little at the knowledge that it is there, somewhere, hiding within him. Buried beneath ten layers of shit-kicking concrete, but still…

  I’m feeling brave, so I do something really crazy: I reach out, take hold of his hand and guide his fingers between my legs. The evidence of my lust is right there for him to judge with his fingertips.

  He blinks quickly, enough for me to think I’ve caught him off guard, and then he moves his fingers, humming deeply. “Mmmm. I see. Point taken.”

  My body is jittery, impatient, demanding more than the teasing friction he is applying to my clit. He’s doing it on purpose, only giving me enough to make me crave more.

  “Sit on the table,” he commands.

  I do it without question.

  “Good girl. Now open your legs.”

  I do that, too. And then Zeth drops to his knees right there in my open-plan kitchen and begins to trace his tongue lazily up the inside of my thigh.

  Let me tell you this: you may think you have been horny before. You may think you have been ready to beg, to plead, to straight up murder to feel someone inside you, but until you’ve had this…until Zeth Mayfair is on his knees for you…

  He looks up at me, eyes still hooded and promising forbidden things.

  “I’m gonna do this. And then you’re gonna do something for me, Sloane.” He doesn’t give me an opportunity to agree to the deal (am I even being asked?). He grabs hold of my hips, pulls me forward, and buries his tongue into the slick heat of my pussy. I’m so ready for him. I feel wanton, totally gripped by my need to drive my hips forward so he can gain better access. He laves at me, drawing his tongue upward slowly and flicking the tip across the charged bud of nerves.

  During our encounters thus far, I’ve fought an inner battle. One that has prevented me from really letting go. From embracing the situation and enjoying it fully. That had a lot to do with fear, which admittedly still remains. But being afraid is overrated. I don’t want that anymore. I want to own this. To let it consume and overpower me and wipe everything—all the pain, all the worry, all the regret and guilt—from my mind. I bury my hands in Zeth’s hair and I moan. It’s a wild, unfamiliar and carnal sound.

  Gonna be cringing over that when you replay this later, my subconscious whispers.

  “Fuck you,” I whisper right back. With my thighs clamped firmly over his ears, I doubt very much that Zeth heard me. Thank God. I’m not even in control of my body anymore. It’s liberating handing over the reins to a side of myself I haven’t yet become acquainted with. My hips grind into Zeth’s face.

  He snarls, digging his fingers into my skin, growling into me as he works me over in the best possible way. I fight back when he pulls away, not wanting his attentions to deviate from my sweet spot, but he slaps my thigh so hard my eyes sting. The pain demands an instant reaction. I drop my legs apart, panting for breath. Zeth’s chest is heaving, too. And he’s wearing that wicked smirk again. Holy fuck, I don’t care if he’s dangerous. I don’t care if he’s an axe murderer. I’m never letting him leave this house.

  “Got any ice?”

  “What?”

  “Frozen water,” he rumbles. “You got any?”

  I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Uh, yeah, I think so?”

  Straightening, he crosses the room to the freezer and practically pulls the door off its hinges. I’m still sitting there with my legs wide open, struggling for breath, propping myself up on my elbows when he comes back. There’s a mischievous glimmer sparkling in his eye. “Never had you pegged for a freezer pop kinda girl,” he says. My stomach lurches. Oh. Shit. I have a thousand of the things stashed in my freezer. Bubblegum flavor—a shade of blue that scientists will probably reveal gave people all over the world cancer in ten years’ time. They’re my guilty treat. And now Zeth is producing one of them from behind his back.

  “Oh boy, you should put that—”

  “I know exactly where I’m putting it, Sloane.” I can see in his expression that this is way better than the ice cube he had planned.

  Fuck!

  “I don’t know how I feel about that, Zeth.”

  “I’m gonna make you feel good about it,” he says, nodding his head, as though that alone is enough to change my mind. I’m still shaking my head when he drops back down on his knees and presses the offending article against the tender flesh I’ve left exposed to him.

  My brain demands that I close my legs and escape from the painfully cold sensation assaulting the most delicate part of me. “Motherfucker!” I try to kick out at him, but Zeth grabs hold of my ankle, his eyebrows dipping together.

  “Sloane.” That reprimand again. “You want me to use the rope?”

  I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, biting down on it. Screw this. I should just get up and kick his ass out. It’s all well and good when he’s doing questionable things that might scare seven shades of shit out of me, so long as they excite me at the same time. But this is just uncomfortable. And sticky!

  Zeth’s a smart guy—he watches all this play out on my face. “Risk it,” he advises me, tightening his hold on my ankle. I hear what he’s really saying, though—trust me—and that changes everything. He hasn’t asked me for that before. I’ve given him my trust a few times, unwisely I’m sure, but he’s never asked anything of me. It feels like a development of some sort. I’m not sure how; it just does.

  “Okay…fine.”

  He gives me a single nod, stern and grim, which is kind of ridiculous since he’s holding a florescent blue freezer pop in his hand. He gently traces it down the center of me, watching my shivering reaction with a kind of smug appreciation. Then he dips forward and licks at me, still piercing me with his eyes. The change from cold to burning hot has my muscles jumping uncontrollably.

  “Shit!”

  Again, he repeats the same thing. Cold then hot. Cold then hot. The pleasure smashes into me over and over, never letting up. Eventually the cold becomes just as pleasurable as the hot, and my hips are rocking again.

  “Your tongue’s blue,” I groan.

  Zeth arches an eyebrow at me. “So’s your pussy.” He traces the frozen treat downwards, and hovers a moment over my opening.

  I know what he’s going to do and I am not on board. I am so not on board. But I’m also too late. He pushes it inside me, growling a warning as I try to squirm away…

  It’s the coldest fucking thing ever. And then it’s not. The blistering sensation of the biting chill quickly turns to heat—the strangest sensation. A burning, stinging warmth that feels—I hate to admit it—feels good. I gasp as Zeth draws it slowly out again, and then does something that fuses out the wiring in my brain. He slides it into his mouth, a low rumble of approval echoing from his chest as he wraps his full lips around the thing and sucks. I’ve never been so jealous of a freezer pop in all my life.

  “Mmmmm. Bubblegum and Sloane. Best combination,” he purrs.

  Oh. My. Fucking… I can’t think straight.

  Zeth rises up
my body like a hungry predator, eyes filled with fire. I shy back from him until I’m lying flat on the table and he’s on all fours hovering over me. The freezer pop makes its way from his mouth to mine—he gingerly rubs it over my lips until I open my mouth and then he slides it inside. The flavor is sweet and sugary, an explosion of chemical goodness. Then he reclaims it again, sucking it, tasting it himself, like he can taste my mouth on it, too. He places it down on the table next to my head and considers me for a moment, his breathing ragged and hard.

  “Time for the rope, angry girl.”

  I haven’t forgotten about the rope. Its presence has been that of an angry snake coiled on the corner of the table—a danger that I’ve tried not to provoke. To say it worries me is an understatement, but I made my decision earlier: I’m done being afraid. He picks it up and I brace, readying myself for the panic of being completely vulnerable. This isn’t going to be like before when he restrained me, tying me to the bed. This will be hands behind back, ankles knotted together. Who knows? Maybe he’ll hogtie me. Sweat prickles in a nervous rash across my skin, and Zeth hesitates. He stops altogether.

  Why is he stopping?

  He doesn’t say a word. He jumps down and yanks his shirt over his head in that careless way men do, and then he’s looming at the end of table like some rough-hewn monolith, only he is made out of tightly packed muscle instead of stone. He unbuckles his belt, gets rid of his shoes, rips off his jeans in the space of ten seconds flat, and then there he is…standing naked in front of me. His cock is rigid and hard, the tip level with his naval. I’ve seen quite a few penises through my training and later through my work, but I’ve never been possessed with the urge to toy with one before. In fact I’d always thought they looked quite gross. But Zeth? No, not Zeth. He is magnificence personified. I realize I’m staring at him. The intensity with which he stares right back is unnerving and confronting, and yet I can’t look away. I don’t want to.

  “Stand up.”

  I barely trust my legs to do it, and yet they somehow manage. A thousand scenarios run through my head—is he going to bend me over the table and fuck me? Is he going to grab that knife from the kitchen again? Is he going to blindfold me and do unspeakable things that I can’t even begin to imagine? But he doesn’t do any of that.

  He snatches me into his arms and hoists me up so that I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist. And then he slams me up against the wall, pain jangling through my nerve endings like jarring, discordant piano chords.

  “Ah!”

  He doesn’t waste any time; he’s inside me. He thrusts inside me so hard that my eyes water.

  “Ah!” I cry out louder this time, and Zeth grunts, too, straining with the effort of pile driving into me. Hands grasping hold of my hips one second, pulling firmly on my hair, tipping my head back the next, he exposes my neck and grazes his teeth across the sensitive skin of my collar bone. The mix of pleasure and pain is dizzying. I’m pulled into his fever, allowing the fire sparking inside me to run riot. I gouge my fingernails into his back, enjoying the way his muscles tense against the pain.

  “Bad girl,” Zeth snarls. But he doesn’t tell me to stop. If anything, he seems to push back against the pain. I grab hold of a fistful of his hair and jerk his head back just as he did to me a moment ago, and suddenly I can see the look on his face. He’s a man possessed, eaten up by his need. For me? This dark, brooding, sexy as hell man wants me? Shit. I don’t know how that could possibly be, but I see it there plain as day.

  Zeth slams himself into me over and over, our eyes now locked together. Something…something is passing between us. With each and every thrust, it feels like I’m drawing closer to something, being pulled in like a boat toward shore. He reaches down between our bodies and starts to stroke my clit, applying a pressure that shows he means business. He wants to make me come. I’m ready to do that—I want to do it for him.

  As the pleasure builds to hurricane Zeth proportions inside me, I feel like…I want to do something I know is stupid. I lean forward and do it anyway before I can stop myself. My lips meet Zeth’s, crash down on his as he pummels me against the wall, and for one blissful moment I’m in heaven. His lips on mine, full and sweet and tasting like bubblegum and sex. The most divine thing I’ve ever experienced. And then I’m coming.

  Involuntarily my head kicks back, smacking into the wall behind me as a surge of pure fire ignites through my body. I see stars, from both the pain of cracking my head on plaster and the orgasm that explodes through me. Zeth comes at the same time, roaring out his climax just as he did back at his apartment. His fingers dig into my skin again as his movements slow, until they stop altogether; he breathes heavily, mouth open, pressed against my neck for a long moment before he lets go of my thighs and slips out of me. A warm, wet sensation rushes out of me and I realize to my horror that he didn’t wear a condom.

  Suddenly, the high that I’m floating on pops and fizzles and I come crashing back down to earth with a startling thump. Zeth pulls away from me and turns around, gifting me with a glorious view of his perfect ass. He buries his hands in his hair. He’s freaking out, too.

  I wrap my arms around my naked body, suddenly not so okay with being on show. “It’s…it’s okay,” I murmur. I have to put his mind at rest, even if the next sentence out of my mouth is going to sound incredibly cliché. My voice is still low and nervous as I say, “I’ll get the morning after pill. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  He drops his hands to his sides, turning around slowly. His face is a mask of conflicted anger.

  “Never do that again,” he says. He shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Don’t ever fucking kiss me again.”

  This Newan woman said to come by her office at two but that's not gonna fly. She asked Sloane to come, but since she's working, this prissy shrink will have found someone else to chaperone our little meeting, if only to prove a point to Sloane—this guy is not someone you should be spending time with. She's probably right, but it’s still pissed me off. She doesn’t know what I’ve done so far to keep her friend fucking safe. I’m glad Sloane couldn’t come, anyway. After screwing her brains out against the wall yesterday, I’ve been in a foul mood. I shouldn’t have put down that rope. I should have tied her up and done whatever I damn well wanted to her, used her like I’ve done with every single other person I’ve fucked. And yet, I saw that look of hesitation on her face and I changed my mind. It’s not that I couldn’t have done it; I definitely could have done it and I would have enjoyed it more than any normal person would. It was just that I didn’t want her to feel like that. And then she’d ruined everything by kissing me and I’d lost my shit and stormed out. Seeing her is the last thing I need right now. So yeah, it’s a good thing she’s at work and not sitting next to me outside Pippa Newan’s practice.

  I show up at midday. The building overlooks Greenlake Park. The place is a rainbow of autumnal colors—red, orange, russet, green. Leaves are banked in great, heaped mountains, ready to be collected around the trunks of the trees. Families walk their dogs; mothers push their kids on the swings. A couple strolls slowly together, arms linked, thick coats drawn tight. Steam rises off the coffee cups they sip from. This is not the ghetto. Sloane tried to make her friend out to be some kind of fucking saint for taking on felons as her patient list. This looks like suburban highlife, though. If I were to be as judgmental as Pippa is, I'd assume she's getting rich and fat from the government subsidy she's given to deal with these motherfuckers, and the parolees are probably fuming about the arrangement ’cause they have to ride the number sixteen to this bullshit neighborhood, only to have it rubbed in their faces that they’re never going to be able to afford an apartment on this block. Kind of a pretty big fuck you.

  I hover outside the building, watching the entrance, smoking my cigarette. I know this place is going to have a security entrance, probably with a concierge that doubles as heavy muscle should the clientele get a little rowdy when the goo
d doc refuses to refill their Valium scripts. I finish that smoke, light another one. The cold sinks through my leather jacket and settles in my bones. After a while I get up and pace as I smoke, always watching the door. Even though I’m paying attention I still nearly miss my chance when it comes.

  A kid, twenty, twenty-one, low jeans barely hanging off his ass, ball cap peak to the back, jogs up the stairs. I flick the butt, a shower of sparks spiraling upward as I dash to make it to him. I take the steps three at a time. The kid's finger is on the buzzer when I grab him by the scruff of the neck.

  “I’m your uncle,” I snarl. He spins, ready to swing, face contorted into a snarl of his own, but when he sees me properly he pulls back a little.

  “What you want? You ain’t my uncle, man.” It's not my size that makes him back the fuck down, even though I am bigger than the little punk. It’s the look in my eyes. The don't-think-I-won’t-kill-you-if-you-put-a-foot-wrong-here look.

  “Right now, I’m your uncle. When we walk inside this building and go up the stairs, I’m still your fucking uncle. When we get up to the office, you’re gone. I’d better not see you for fucking dust.”

  The kid hears the warning in my voice, but I’ll give him credit where credit’s due. He stands his ground. “I gotta see this shrink, dog. I miss my appointment, I’m going inside and that ain’t happening. For real.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure you’re square with the good doctor.”

  “Hello?” The crackly voice that bursts out of the speaker in the wall is that of a young woman. I glare at the kid, making sure he reads how much trouble he’ll be in if he fucks up this next part. He casts me a filthy look and shrugs.

  “Yo, it’s Antonio. I gotta see Doc Newan.”

  “Hi, Antonio! Come on up.”

  The door buzzes and a catch unlocks somewhere. Antonio opens the door and we walk inside—the mountain of a man waiting for us on the other side is the unfriendly type. He’s ex-military. I can smell jarhead a mile off. He’s a smart fucker, too. He knows something’s off as soon as he lays eyes on me.