All of Nothing

by Vania Rheault

Whispering, she said, “Do what you want.”

  Jax’s mouth crushed down onto hers.

  He was out of his mind. Out of his mind with lust. Out of his mind with rage, he even wanted to touch her.

  She’d captivated him from the moment she walked up the aisle, and he couldn’t do anything but think about having her.

  Jax didn’t even know her name, and he was too far gone to care now. She tasted of the whiskey she’d downed, like a dying woman who’d finally found salvation. Unless she had a tolerance as high as his, she was drunk. Jax shouldn’t be trusting her to tell him what he could do, but she’d said yes, and that’s all his cock wanted to hear.

  He tore his lips from hers and greedily kissed his way down her neck to the tops of her breasts. He lapped at her skin and smiled in satisfaction as she shivered.

  Pulling the dress from her body, his lips followed, trailing down her stomach.

  Jax pulled her tattered panties from her hips and leaving the dress in a pool on the floor, hoisted her onto the window’s ledge.

  The dress made a convenient padding for his knees. He knelt, and Jax spread her thighs apart, surprised she groomed herself in that way. He lowered his head and delicately licked her, running a finger along her opening, finding her wet, inviting.

  “Jax,” she panted, and forked her fingers through his hair.

  Spellbound by her musky scent, for a moment he wondered how she knew his name, but he pushed the insignificant thought aside, sliding his fingers into her.

  The tip of his tongue focused on her clit, teasing her, and he brought her to climax, her muscles clenching around his fingers, come dripping from her opening.

  He wanted his cock there now.

  Jax pulled his fingers from her as she moaned, and he kissed her, wanting her to taste herself on his lips.

  “Turn around.”

  She complied, using one of his forearms to steady herself as she still wore Gwen’s white satin pumps.

  Pressing her against the window that looked into the garden of the church, Jax undid his dress pants and slid them down just enough to push his cock inside her, not giving a fuck about birth control or sexually transmitted diseases. All he wanted was release.

  They fit together as if God had made them for each other. But as Jax fought for control, gripping her hips, he knew finding someone who would tolerate him for the rest of his life was a child’s bedtime prayer at best.

  His sandpaper to her silk, he came after several vicious thrusts, leaving a part of himself behind.

  Bracing his hands against the window, he spooned her, and fought for breath. “Did I hurt you?”

  The standard question. He asked it every time. Not that he cared about the answer. All the women he’d ever screwed told him no, anyway, and “Gwen” was no exception.

  “Good. Get dressed. I’ll have my driver drop you wherever you need to go.”

  He tucked his limp cock still oozing with come into his briefs and zipped his pants.

  She didn’t turn around, and for that, Jax was grateful. He couldn’t look into her eyes now.

  Jax left her alone and closed the door behind him.

  The buzz of the whiskey was gone.

  Raven didn’t feel any different than she always did when something like this happened.

  Shame. Remorse. Guilt.

  There was something about sex, something dirty when love wasn’t involved, and the feeling it gave her made her skin crawl.

  But the fact that he’d gotten her off, and that way, surprised her, perhaps softened those feelings. Such an intimate act, eating her out. He hadn’t been rough with his fingers either, had simply wanted to give her pleasure. At least, that’s what she assumed, since he hadn’t gone out of his way to be cruel, as he so very easily could have. Raven hadn’t experienced civility in a long time.

  She bent to the floor and searched for her panties in the puddle of satin. While she dressed, Raven hoped that Jax would just leave her. Even if it meant she’d given herself to him for nothing. She didn’t want to see him again.

  Jax wasn’t in the hallway waiting for her, and unbidden disappointment filled the pit in her stomach. In her mind, she’d already spent that two thousand dollars on rehab. New clothes.

  Another chance.

  She should have known not to trust someone like that. Someone who already had it all and didn’t care about the people he’d had to step on to get there.

  Raven put the vacuum away after giving the Sunday School room a quick once-over. Jax might not have her fired, and it would behoove her to still try her best to keep her job at the small church.

  When she let herself outside, a limo sat next to the curb, and Jax leaned against it, his ankles crossed, a frown puckering his lips.

  “Get in.”

  The whiskey slithered in her gut.

  He’d waited for her.

  “Get in,” he repeated, opening the limo’s door.

  She could run. He’d never chase after her. He’d let her go and never think about her again. But she slid across the black leather seat.

  Tinted windows.

  Raven pushed herself against the door, giving him space on the long bench.

  “Where do you live?”

  “What?” she asked, twisting to look at him.

  There wasn’t a strand of hair out of place, and his hazel eyes glued her to the seat with an impatient glare. His tux, though he’d just finished screwing her, remained immaculate. Even the flower pinned to his lapel that matched the bouquet she’d carried still looked fresh, untouched.

  He looked like a model in a bridal catalogue.

  Cold.

  “The driver cannot drive unless he has some direction in which to go.”

  Raven had taken three buses to make it to the church from the part of the city where she could find a bed at night. Shelters, a dark corner of an abandoned building. A church pew. She kept what little she owned in a storage cabinet at her friend Elle’s beauty salon. It was housed in one of the few remaining storefronts on Z Avenue. But she couldn’t ask Jax to bring her there.

  She’d never admit she didn’t have a permanent place to stay.

  She named a rundown plaza two miles from Elle’s salon. It was close enough to Z Avenue she could find a place to stay before the beds filled up, but far enough away Jax would never know her actual whereabouts.

  With a curl to his lip, Jax repeated the address to the driver, who looked at them in the rearview mirror.

  Raven sagged in relief when Jax didn’t close the partition that separated driver from passenger.

  The bus ride to that part of town took better than two hours. Raven had to change busses, and wait through several stops to pick up more passengers, to make it to the church she cleaned three times a week, but the limo driver found the plaza in less than forty-five minutes.

  Jax didn’t say anything the entire way.

  The limo idled at the curb, and Jax made it evident the way he cleared his throat he wanted her gone.

  “The money . . .” she tried, timidly, afraid of what he would do.

  He slid across the bench, leaned around her, and opened the door.

  With a vicious shove, he pushed her out of the limo, and she fell to the ground, bashing her hip against the cracked and crumbling curb.

  “What the hell?” she cried and kicked the limo’s wheel with the bottom of her shoe.

  Rage made tears burn her eyes, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry again. She’d shown him weakness once, and that was once too many.

  Jax pulled his wallet from his pocket and counted out the cash.

  He flung the wad of bills at her, and they fluttered in the wind.

  Desperate not to lose one dollar, Raven scrambled on her hands and knees frantically chasing after the money as it blew down the sidewalk.

  “Never try to find me. Ever. You’ll never get one more penny out of me.”

  Jax slammed the limo’s door shut, and as Raven clutched the
last bill she’d managed to keep from flying away, the limo disappeared down the rundown city street.

  She leaned against the chain-link fence that enclosed the plaza’s parking lot.

  Dandelions and burrs grew in with the sparse grass.

  Greasy pizza scents floated to her from across the parking lot, making her stomach growl.

  She still wore the plain gold band Jax had slipped onto her finger during the ceremony.

  In one last act of fury, she flung the gold ring into the street where it skittered across the road and stopped by a pile of fast food garbage.

  He’d never even asked her name.

  Chapter 2

  THREE YEARS LATER

  “What do you mean, I’m already married?”

  Jax leaned back in his chair and angrily swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “A . . . Pastor Clark . . . filed a marriage certificate on June 21, 2015 with your name on it. Are you saying this is incorrect?” a bored voice asked.

  Fingernails clicking on a keyboard carried through the phone, and the tap tap tap grated on Jax’s already frayed nerves.

  “Yes, it’s incorrect!” Jax said through clenched teeth. He had to be polite to this woman or she would hang up on him, and then when he called back, he would have to wait on hold for another half an hour. “No, it’s not incorrect. There was a wedding, but . . .” His words faded as the implication finally sank in. “Who was the bride?” he whispered.

  Tap tap tap.

  “It says here her name is Raven Grey. I have to admit, sir, it isn’t often we have a groom who does not know to whom he married.”

  “It was a mistake.”

  Jax closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about the homeless waif since he’d shoved her from his limo in a cloud of cash and expletives. He’d been so appalled and ashamed he’d touched her in the church that all he could think about on the ride to that rundown plaza was getting rid of her just as quickly as he could.

  He hadn’t let the tears that gathered in her eyes, or the way she’d demeaned herself, crawling after the bills like a little beggar girl as they blew along the cracked sidewalk, affect him.

  There were reasons people called him heartless.

  “Be that as it may, Mr. Brooks, a Raven Grey signed a marriage certificate that was filed by a Pastor Clark of Our Lord and Savior Baptist Church. Perhaps, since you didn’t know you were married,” Jax caught a hint of sarcasm in the woman’s voice, “you could file for an annulment. In most cases, annulments are more easily granted, providing your situation qualifies.”

  Jax leaned forward. An annulment sounded faster.

  Lucia would not be pleased with this recent turn of events, and he suppressed a sigh at the thought of the tantrum this information would cause.

  An annulment would wipe out the entire marriage. As if it never existed.

  “What are the circumstances for an annulment?” Jax asked, catching the eye of his brother, Erik, who lounged on Jax’s black leather couch with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and one dark blond eyebrow raised in question.

  “One moment please,” the woman said, tapping on the keyboard. “If either party married under duress . . .”

  Jax had been under duress, but he didn’t think that was the kind she was referring to.

  “. . . if either party was mentally unable to consent to marriage, if either party was coerced by force, if either party was underaged, if either party lacked the physical capability to consummate the marriage . . .”

  Jax sighed. If he wouldn’t have put his hands on her, that would have been his ticket out of this mess.

  “But, unfortunately, Mr. Brooks, the time limit has expired on an annulment. I am sorry to say that an annulment can only take place up to one year after the marriage, and three years have gone by. I apologize for thinking it was an option for you. I misspoke.”

  Of course she would get his hopes up, only to have his best option taken away.

  A divorce could get messy, but he assumed Raven wouldn’t know what her entitlements were, and she would just sign on the dotted line as easily as she had the first time around.

  Raven.

  A peculiar name for a woman.

  “Mr. Brooks? Are you still there?”

  Jax jerked at the woman’s voice. Now that the courthouse clerk was of no use to him, he’d forgotten about her. “Thank you for your time,” he mumbled, and clicked off his phone, dropping it onto his desk like it’d turned into a fireball.

  “What was that all about?” Erik asked, resting one ankle on his knee and nestling into the couch.

  Jax wished he could be more like his brother. Erik had such an easy-going way about him, and women flocked to him. Even Raven had seen what a sincere and true person Erik was, and the scared little mouse had actually appeared at ease in his presence.

  So unlike when she was with Jax.

  But most women treated Jax such as that—even Lucia remained wary, like prey being stalked by a cat, sometimes lashing out in fear and anger, and that was after being in a relationship with him for two years.

  “It appears Raven has signed her real name to our marriage certificate, even though I distinctly remember telling her not to.”

  She had known it was all a sham. What in devil’s hell made her sign her real name?

  Erik clucked. “It was all such a whirlwind for her, to be sure. How did you expect her to do anything but? You put her on the spot that way, and then, if I recall, Mother came barging in for a look at the bride. You’re lucky the girl had any wits about her at all, and that she didn’t collapse in a glob of jelly on her way up the aisle.”

  Jax pinned his brother with a frosty stare. “Is that why you walked with her?”

  Erik barely smiled; he was used to his brother’s barbs.

  “I hardly think you can look at me that way. In fact, you should thank me. For all you know, I was the only thing that made her stay.”

  Not the way she chased after that money.

  Jax pushed away from his desk in disgust and poured himself a drink. He rather liked having the small bar in his office—it was a throwback to the old days where drinking had been a natural part of the work day. In his world, it still was.

  “I had that part of it covered.”

  “Oh, yes,” Erik said drolly, also standing, slipping his cigarette behind an ear, and tugging the hem of his suit jacket down, smoothing the lapels. “She told me you were bribing and blackmailing her. Desperate times and desperate measures, and all, I’m sure.”

  Jax handed him a low ball of scotch. “Why don’t you just say what you want to say and get it over with. You’ve never been so pussy-footed before.”

  Erik took a sip of the scotch and regarded Jax over the rim of the crystal. After pausing for a lot longer than Jax would have given anyone else, Erik said, “I just think you could have given her a little more courtesy, is all. You saw her. It was evident the kid was down on her luck. But did you cut her a break? No. You blackmailed her into helping you.”

  “It worked, didn’t it? No one was the wiser.”

  It had worked, too. Jax had gone to the reception full of apologies. Gwen had fallen ill, but everyone was welcome to stay for the catered dinner and for the monstrous chocolate ganache cake Gwen had ordered. But as a loving husband, he would stay by his wife’s side in case she needed anything.

  What he’d actually done was go to the honeymoon suite and drink away his disappointment. He’d really given in to the hope Gwen was different.

  But she hadn’t been. No woman in her right mind would marry a man with a heart of ice.

  “You’re missing the point.” Erik set his glass on the bar, and again, dangled his unlit cigarette from his lips.

  “The point is, I got what I wanted.”

  “Jax, the accident was years ago.”

  Jax pursed his lips. “How many times have I told you, don’t talk about that.”

  “I think you need to start. Your life would
be different if you could forgive yourself.”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you,” Jax rasped.

  Erik heaved a sigh. “What is your next step, then? You can’t apply for a marriage license to marry Lucia if you’re married to Raven.”

  Jax bit back a retort. Rarely did he like the obvious pointed out to him. “Find her. Get her signature. She can sign her name easily enough.”

  “You could treat her like a person, Jax,” Erik said, turning toward the door.

  “So could you,” Jax bit out, though the thought of Erik and Raven together made him grit his teeth.

  With his hand on the doorknob, Erik said, “Maybe I will. Maybe I will.”

  Finding Raven was easier said than done, and Jax pounded his fists on his desk in frustration. A girl named Raven Grey attended a Timber Creek High School, and the grainy yearbook photo looked similar to the woman he’d unintentionally married, but there were no dates of graduation. She dropped off the school’s website her junior year, when she would have been seventeen, and no hits on her using various search engines after that time.

  The timeframe made bile rise in his throat, and Jax swallowed it back.

  Three years after the accident.

  To complicate matters further, Grey was a common last name, and the white pages online filled several computer screens full of possible matches that could be Raven’s family.

  He thought briefly of tracking down her social security number, but even if he had it, what good would it do? If the woman didn’t have a credit card, or a bank account, if she didn’t drive and didn’t have a driver’s license, having her number wouldn’t help.

  She didn’t pay bills.

  A search for a cell phone number hadn’t popped.

  No record of work.

  Nothing.

  Frowning, he searched the obituaries.

  But nothing for her obituary surfaced, either, and Jax sat back in his seat, stymied.

  He’d married a ghost.

  Only, she wasn’t.

  She was alive. He was married to her.

  He needed a divorce.

  There was only one thing he could do.