Cold-Blooded Beautiful

by Christine Zolendz

  I had no clue. I couldn’t think straight. I had no…I mean…David was cheating on me and I had no idea what to do. For the first time in my life, I was clueless.

  I was damn sure to print out everything I found.

  And copy all his files onto my flash drives.

  Both of my flash drives.

  It was like signing my own death certificate.

  Three hours later, I walked out of his office, sick to my stomach, feeling the very first fluttery butterflies of the small life that had been growing inside me for the last four and a half months. I hid everything in my computer bag, emailed everything to myself, and walked out into the brilliant light of the August summer sun. Moist heat melted over my body, instantly sticking my clothes to my skin. My stomach rolled and fluttered. Placing a free hand over it, I hummed a small lullaby to the child within. With trembling legs and a feverish mind, I completed a couple of errands that were on the criminally insane side of the law. I would not let David get away with what I found, not with cheating on me, and not with whatever pharmaceutical hood he was pulling over the hospital’s eyes. I mean, this was my father’s hospital. My father was the president and those papers were falsified. God only knew what that was all about. Then I vomited for the rest of the day, hovering over my bathroom sink, wishing I had the physical strength to pack my bags. Maybe after a little nap. I had plenty of time to pack a bag and leave.

  But all that wasn’t the bad part. No, not yet. That was just the beginning of my nightmares. I should have left then. Through the stomach rolling, vomiting, and exhaustion, I should have just gotten up and hailed a cab to a hotel. I should have just disappeared and never turned back.

  Nobody would have died then.

  Chapter 1

  It was a humbling experience to know and love her. She made everything I’d ever thought as my truth, something that I could transform into, and something better that I could live with on the inside.

  Samantha was still asleep. Loose cinnamon colored hair splayed out across the feathered pillows as she curled herself around my body. She lay bare, save for the thick gray comforter she’d tangled her body in. I wanted to wake her and talk. I wanted her to tell me the story of her past, the one she had run from, the one that led her to this desolate town, the one for whom I had the whole bloody Sherriff’s department and hospital fake her death. It was terror that stopped me from waking her and demanding more answers. Not my terror, not my fear; hers. For all the strength and courage she possessed, I knew that whatever had happened between her husband, David and her, was some sort of darkness that had slowly spread inside her, completely paralyzing her.

  I knew everyone had a past. I knew she wasn’t some bright-eyed virgin when I met her. She was a thirty-two year old woman who was one of New York City’s most renowned trauma surgeons, who spent six years overseas putting back the pieces of our broken soldiers. This woman was tough, brave, and I just wanted, no…fuck, I needed to know how one piece of shit of a man, made her give up everything and run. I mean, the man made her give up her career. She was a surgeon, and I knew she loved it. I saw her save my brother’s life when he was gunned down in his bar. I watched her eyes light up when her trained fingertips slid over his broken flesh, and like some sort of magic, stopped his blood from flowing out of his body. Why would she leave all that behind?

  She curled tighter beside me, nuzzling her face deeper into the soft folds of the blankets. A faint glint of light fell through the open curtains, as the sun began to break over the horizon. It landed softly along the smooth skin of her arm, making her ivory skin look as if she was cast in stone, and her beautiful skin that whispered her scent to me, the soft, smooth, ivory flesh that touched me like no other. Despite the gentle rays of sun brightening on her, she somehow radiated light from within. For months now, she’d been bloody illuminating my darkness, shedding light on my demons who lurked and hunkered down, drooling and growling in the corners of my messed up mind. I wanted to skim my fingers across her skin and wake her, make her tell me all her fears. I wanted to destroy them, rip them to small confetti sized pieces, send them out to sea, and feed my savage demons with them.

  I knew everything else about her, except for those fears, and that heavy weight of horror she’d carried around. I knew the way she took her coffee was different for each flavor she chose. Regular coffee was black, but hazelnut, you add sugar. Her choice of favorite color changed each day with her mood. Gray was for when she was sad, purple when she was happy. I knew she loved her new job at the hospital where she’d been working for the last few months, but I questioned if it was challenging enough for her. I didn’t get why she wasn’t put on the trauma team.

  I wanted to shake her awake and make her tell me everything.

  I wanted to bloody know why she wasn’t taken to be part of the trauma team at the hospital in town. I had the right to know too, since my damn money was what funded their psychiatric wing for the last 10 years, and again, my money that helped build their suicide prevention campaign. I wanted to know why, as the best trauma surgeon in New York City, she wasn’t given the head trauma position at the hospital. Especially, since I specifically asked that she be interviewed for the position. She still held all her credentials, still held all her licenses, just under a different name.

  Annnd, because I’m a mean dick, I poked her with my figures. What? Don’t give me that face, she’s used to my Kade-ness. You should be too. Come on, it’s me, Mr. Dark and intriguing with a side of fucked up. Yeah, I’m pretty much priceless.

  She shifted against me as her eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” she sighed, lifting her head up off the pillows.

  Her hair spilled around her shoulders, and the comforter slid beneath her breasts. Rose tipped nipples teased out at me, and immediately, I was lost in the thought of my mouth around one, nipping at it softly with my teeth. I watched, captivated, as they trembled when she giggled at the way I was looking at her. “You look hungry, Kade.”

  She was right. And all my questions vanished. The answers could wait. Tasting her flesh was more important.

  “Starving,” I whispered, lapping my tongue around a nipple, as it hardened and puckered tightly between my lips. Head tipping back, she arched her body closer to me and sighed. My mouth slipped slowly from her breasts and traveled along her silky neck up to her lips. Her hands quickly slipped my shorts off and wrapped tightly around my suddenly throbbing cock. She was just as hungry as I was.

  I wanted her so desperately that moment, I could already hear the sounds of her moans when she’s falling apart around me. I could smell her arousal, and it was fucking making me salivate. “You make me want to devour you.” I shifted over to the side and flipped her onto her stomach, straddling her calves.

  She giggled her laugh into the blankets, muting its music.

  From the soft nape of her neck, to the dimples of her lower back, I trailed the tip of my tongue. Delicately, I bit into the flesh of her hip, as I slowly skimmed my fingertips down her back.

  “That’s just…Kade, oh, God,” she squirmed underneath me. I ravaged her body with my tongue, my lips, and the rough pads of my fingers, not stopping until her thighs quivered with need, and her breathing panted with thick anticipation.

  She arched her back and moaned when I slipped my fingers into the wet flesh between her thighs. With the other hand, I threaded my fingers through her hair, and gently pulled her head back to see her eyes. “Please, Kade. I need you,” she whispered softly, through parted lips.

  Lowering my mouth to her warmth, I ran my tongue along the edges where my fingers slowly pushed and pulled inside her. No one should taste that good. Sinful. Delicious. Someone needed to bottle that shit.

  Muscles pulsed and wept against my fingers, as I took her to the edge, then stilled my efforts and withdrew, sliding wet fingers along her thighs and up her sides. Pressing myself against her, my hard tight skin to her damp wet flesh.

  “Fuck me,” her voice trembled.

  My fa
vorite words.

  I sunk into her slowly, pulling the back of her thighs flush against the skin of my hips. “Fuck, Sam. Your body does wicked things to my cock.” Her muscles fluttered and pulsed around me, as I moved inside her with slow, hard thrusts.

  She whimpered and fisted the sheets above her head, as her muscles trembled and thickened around me. The sight of her, my Samantha, bent over in front of me, sheathing me in her warmth, was almost unbearably breathtaking, and every roll and plunge of my shaft, flooded me with a burning heat that coiled from somewhere deep in my darkness. Restraining myself to slow, steady thrusts, I let my eyes travel her perfection, taking in every detail that was only mine to see. The arch of her spine, the exquisite dimples over her lower back, and the scars I tried each day to erase with my kisses. Lowering my mouth to her skin and my hands around to the front, I let my fingers play a rhythm to match her breathing. She drove her back against me, slipping and sliding along the edge with me, over and over, until the pressure building became too much, until the intensity became too strong, and she whimpered, “Kade...don’t stop…oh, God…” Her muscles twitched and tightened, convulsing around me so tightly that I could barely hold on to her hips. I thrust faster and harder to match the sound of her cries, and spilled myself inside her until both of us collapsed against the warm sheets beneath us. I would melt inside her if I could, fade into her flesh, asphyxiate in her bloodstream, and drown in her heat.

  Yes, I know. You think I’m all foam, no beer. Certifiable. Hat-full-of-asshole-crazy.

  You think I need some sort of bloody help, yeah? An intervention? Yes, I absolutely do, but don’t bother with one, because I’d only end up killing you.

  For the last few months, my life was full of everything, full of Samantha. It was good. My life consisted of:

  1. Writing

  2. Waking up to Sam

  3. Laughing

  4. Spending time with Dylan

  5. Sex with Sam

  6. Lots of fucking sex with Sam

  7. Laughing and having lots of amazing fucking sex with Sam

  It was pure heaven, and I wasn’t leaving heaven any bloody time soon, I was getting a house built there and moving the fuck in. I mean, come on, go and reread 2, 5, 6 and 7. Samantha was now my primary coping mechanism. Her touch, her voice, hell just her smile, helped me to stave off turning in my house for four padded walls and a straightjacket. Until I met Sam, my life was tragic to say the least, with my demons always casting shadows over me, clawing and scratching at my door. In my youth I had been touched by violence, that bloody shit changes you. Violence destroys. After it strikes and runs, it continues to devour you. People touched by it spend the rest of their lives like a mouse in a maze, desperate for a bloody way out. Sam was my way out.

  Months of shared glances and soft touches. Evading secrets and living in our little darkness, hot breaths and hungry furious caresses, frenzied kisses, ripping off one another’s clothes with no words between us, just touches and teeth and tongues. Smells, tastes, and the sounds of warm wet skin, touching, kissing, and fucking each time like it would be our last. Never getting enough of each other, whispers and needs, sweat and filth; trying desperately to calm the demons that possessed us both. And her demons, well, they played very well with mine, and when we were together, neither of us had to babysit them, they went off on their own, leaving us be.

  It’s never been like this before, not for me, not with any other woman. The things I felt about Sam should probably be bloody illegal in most states, not that I’d care, because I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop how I felt, I can’t stop how I feel; I won’t. Ever.

  I fought so hard to keep her out of my mind when we first met, but she slipped in like soft vapors of mist, and seeped into my skin, her soul burrowing into my chest, taking such a complete hold of it that I felt it would not work without her. My heart, the half-dead organ it was, was bruised from the bloody hand that she held it in. I had told her I was falling in love with her, a few moments before my body claimed hers for the first time months ago, the utmost bloody disgusting cliché for a writer, but I did it. It was pure deception. Because I wasn’t falling, I had plummeted the minute I saw her, and have been lying at her feet ever since.

  I left her to sleep, my beautiful sanity, my literal Doctor Frankenstein, who’d brought me back to life. Without her, I turn cold and harsh, mute and inhuman, like the stone sculptures that decorate the ancient world that’s been long lost.

  I got dressed in the shadows of my bedroom, our bedroom, since I refused to let her leave and find her own place. It was too dangerous anyway. I know that her ex thinks she’s dead, but I couldn’t concentrate or breathe right when I know she’s alone, and the people whom I suspect have tried to kill her are still out there. I’ve even gone to the extreme of moving my brother, Dylan, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, here with me, with us. Jen and Samantha were on the run together, but now they’re safe, I’ve made sure of it. We had gone to the Sheriff’s Department together, Samantha and I, and she gave all the evidence she found on her ex’s computer over to them, who in turn handed it to the New York City Police Department.

  Because of the severity of domestic abuse she told them about (and let’s be honest, my exuberant donation to the department), they staged an accident and her death. They even sent a request for her dental records so we’d have them on hand for the accident, helping us with every little detail. For two months, she stayed in an undisclosed location, as she was questioned at length about what she knew. Me, I was told nothing, of course. I couldn’t even see her. I could only write letters to her. But did that stop me from stalking the shit out of her, fuck no. I’d bump into her at different places, slipping notes in her pockets. Yeah, I even creeped myself out there for a bit, but Sam, she bloody loved it.

  She filled out a New York State name change petition and a name change order, and she was now Samantha Tucseedo. She changed her social security number and had requested all the documents to be sealed, because of her fear of domestic violence, she didn’t speak much about it, kept it all from me. For a while, before we faked the accident, she had to prove she needed protection from him to seal all the records. I was left out of it all. She didn’t want me to know any of the details. Yet, they had been given all the details and were building their case against David and Samantha’s father, for whatever part he was guilty for, but that was their job. My job was to keep her safe, and that’s what I’d been doing for the last few months.

  I knew I’d been extreme, I knew what I felt, the paranoia was irrational, but Samantha understood where I was coming from. She understood my distrust in people, my violent tendencies, and she accepted me without pause. She’d even let me install a cell tracker on her phone so I’d always know she was safe if I needed too. Don’t get all your feminist panties in a twist yet; it was Samantha’s idea. See what I mean? She bloody accepted me.

  Look, I don’t know how much you know about me, but I’m not…bloody right. I’m trying my best to be, but it’s bloody hard with everything I’ve been through. So don’t judge. Not unless you were ever on the receiving side of a barrel of a gun with the trigger pulled.

  Leaving her a note about getting some errands done, I walked out into the icy winter morning and climbed into my truck. Sam didn’t have to be at the clinic for another two hours, so I figured I’d let her sleep and get my chance to speak to the hospital’s president about the trauma unit position, and see if there was some sort of misunderstanding. Yes, I know, I’m pushy. I’m also arrogant, selfish, mean, and pretty much clinically fucked in the head, so whatever. You try debating it with my demons. They usually don’t let you get a word in edgewise.

  For some odd reason, my truck smelled like some sort of citrusy sandalwood scent. For a fleeting second, I wondered what weird tasting coffee Sam might have found in town and brought back home in my truck, but I just opened the windows to the crisp cold air and started the twenty-five minute drive to the hospital. It was too citrusy to be
a coffee anyway, sort of smelled like shitty perfume. It was probably Jen; she had horrible taste in things, just look at my brother.

  Zipping through the roads, I drove as fast as I could get the truck to move, knowing Sam was probably just getting herself ready to make her own trek to the hospital for her shift. It took me less time to drive there, and double the time to find the head of the place. The one I’d been playing tag with for the last four weeks to talk to her about all this bloody shit.

  Within the hour, I was literally cornering the president, Doctor Janet Luger, in her office, me standing there, arms crossed over my chest like a damn street thug. I’m bloody positive I wasn’t a very friendly sight, but she looked worse for wear than I did. I hadn’t seen a doctor wear a white lab coat in years, yet, there she stood, Doctor Luger with the coat buttoned tight up to her wrinkled neck, wearing a thick layered inch of caked on make-up that threatened to crack off in tiny crumbs down the front of her uniform. Her skin had a strange orange hue to it, like she’d just come from the Jersey Shore. With one tiny paper-thin skinned finger, she slowly pushed a pair of bright red-framed glasses up along the bridge of her nose.

  “Kade Grayson, what do I owe this pleasure?” she chuckled, leaning her bottom on the edge of her desk. Small delicate hands gestured for me to take a seat in front of her on one of the leather hospital chairs. They were vomit-green and made me cringe when my body touched down on them.

  She knew damn bloody well why I was here.

  “You know I’m here about Samantha. Janet, I thought she’d he a perfect shoe-in for the head of the trauma team. She is perfect for it. You and I have spoke about this numerous times, and I just don’t understand why you would refuse to give her the position after everything I’ve told you. I don’t get it, the best trauma surgeon you could ask for is working downstairs in your family clinic. It’s a waste of good resources.”