Blood sluices from the sudden gap in his flesh, but it's just a surface wound. As soon as I press down, his life will end and then … maybe I can start mine?
“Luke, don't!” I pause and sit up, but just a little. I'm still grinning like a crazy person, like a demon. “A life drenched in blood isn't any life at all.” I hear Audra trying to quiet Robbie down. “Killing that man won't bring Aliyah back.” I know she's right, but do I really care? I let my mind drift back to Clarice, to Mark, to the other men I've killed. All but Clarice's death satisfied the demons, but for how long? How much would've been enough? There never was going to be enough, and I knew that. My demons are melancholy and loss; they can't be cured. “Luke, look at me.”
“He raped you,” I say aloud, voicing my worst fear. My father raped me and sowed the seeds that Lloyd later watered, turning me into a monster. I don't want Robbie to become a monster.
“No, he didn't.” I hear footsteps on the dirt and then Robbie is there, collapsing to the ground beside me with Audra right behind her. She holds out her arms. “Just these cuts,” she promises, locking her robin egg blue eyes onto mine. In them, I see life and beauty and an innocence that isn't born, but made. “Some surface wounds and a bump to the head.”
“He killed Aliyah.” I look back at Lloyd and feel a warmness on my cheeks. I am fucking crying again. Me. Lucas Carter.
No. No. Wait. Luke. Luke is crying and it doesn't even fucking matter. I don't care. I still have to kill this man. I have to.
“He mutilated the love of my life and he shot her and he left her for dead in a shallow fucking grave!” I raise the knife above my head, my arm muscles tensing. I feel like a caricature of my former self, a villain in a movie or maybe just an anti-hero who has to make a choice. I thought, possibly, that my choice was Audra or Robbie, but I realize right then that that's not it at all. I have to decide what path I want to walk, if I want to try to start over or if I want to jog so deep down this path that I'll never find my way out.
“Luke, I like you,” Robbie says, repeating her words from before. “And I don't know about you,” she leans in and presses her soft lips to my cheek, “but I think we could work on that rose bush together, that we could find love.”
“She didn't just die. Aliyah suffered.” My words are quiet and hollow. Beneath me, Lloyd groans and struggles, but just barely. Whatever I decide now, the man isn't escaping this without a little suffering himself. “And I'm too dangerous, Robbie. I can't be fixed.”
“Who says I want to fix you?” she whispers. “I like you just the way you are, Luke, demons and all.” Robbie's words are young and ridiculously cheesy, but maybe that's okay? Maybe it's okay to be naïve. In fact, maybe it's better to be naïve than it is to be bitter and broken?
I start to lower the knife and as I do, it slips from my fingers and bounces off Lloyd's chest onto the dry packed dirt of the campsite. It's the last time I ever touch it.
“Come on, Luke. Come with me.” Robbie holds out her hand and I reach for it, my fingers curling around hers. The gentle softness of her spirit washes over me as I start to rise, to let go, to walk away.
“Son of a bitch,” Lloyd gurgles with his blood drenched lips. He rolls towards Robbie as I get to my feet and start to tug her up with me. A flash of silver catches my attention. Blood splatters the ground near my feet, and the sound of wicked laughter can be heard for miles.
I end up spending time in jail. Not, surprisingly, for murder or accessory to murder or anything murder related, but for prostitution. That's right. Prostitution.
My sentence is actually quite steep and based on testimony from Mr. Braxton and Audra Holiday mostly. I serve two months, but that's okay because I'm not a felon or worse … a sex offender. The first thing I might be, but the second is so anathema to who I am that I wonder, if I had given Robbie a chance, would I have been labeled as such? She might've been a decade younger than me, but in my two months in jail, she's all I could think about.
Dredging up the story of my career was the only way to keep me off the hook for having any part in Clarice's murder and the appearance of Lloyd Owens, and also to explain the existence of her DNA on some of my personal items. Audra Holiday, well, she was much luckier.
Not necessarily in getting away with Clarice's murder, but for Lloyd's.
As I sit in the passenger seat of her Mini Cooper on my way home from the prison, I can't stop thinking about that day, about the blood hitting my feet and staining the ground. I have this strangely vivid image of the red mixing with the dirt and creating these round globules. Ah, the wonders of adhesion. My redheaded friend didn't need to explain herself away, as she wasn't visited with a search warrant, but she is very lucky that the judge believed lethal force was necessary in her defense of Robbie at the rest stop.
I put my head in my hands and try to breathe. It's been a long two months. Every day I've thought about Roberta Carrell, the way the blade struck her chest, the color of her blood against her gray T-shirt. I see Audra's gun firing at the side of Lloyd's head, his brains splattering Robbie as she collapsed with a look of surprise on her beautiful features. And at night, sometimes I wake up sweating with the sound of Audra's laughter echoing around my nightmares.
“I paid your mortgage, your car payment, utility bills. I cleaned out your fridge and mowed your fucking lawn, so … you owe me dinner or something,” Audra says as she turns down our street and my heart starts to beat fiercely in my chest. The engagement ring was in my possession when I was arrested, so I clutch it tight inside my pocket now, wondering what, if anything, I'm going to do with it. “Are you listening?”
“Maybe,” I whisper, but all I can do is stare out the windshield and focus on taking oxygen into my lungs. Lloyd is dead. My career as a master of the taboo is essentially over, at least for now. I don't know if I'll be able to carry on my business with a parole officer breathing down my neck. But … I feel okay with that. My demons have been quiet, as if they're waiting. I still have a choice to make, but if Robbie isn't around to help me make it, what will I do? Will there be any other option than to simply wake them up and continue where I left off?
“And you promised if I kept your roses alive while you were gone, you'd give me the numbers of all your clients. It's at least worth a try to see if they'll hire me. I'm not that into girls, but I'd make it work.” Audra grins and elbows me, but I don't smirk or snarl or even look at her. I'm too focused on my house, once my sanctuary away from the world, now …
My gaze immediately snaps to Robbie's house.
It gets harder to breathe.
“Lucas, it'll be okay. It's going to be okay.”
But Audra can't possibly know that. Besides, a woman that dark doesn't really understand. Hell, maybe none of us really ever do. Happiness is so fleeting. You have it one minute, and it's gone the next.
As we pull into the driveway, I feel my muscles tighten and my hands begin to shake. Robbie. I can't do this without Robbie.
Fortunately I don't have to.
She's sitting on the steps of my porch, newly released from the hospital, with a smile on her pretty face. While I was incarcerated, Robbie finished up her last few weeks of high school. She's officially an adult, thrust into the real world to learn to fend for herself. But that doesn't matter because … if she'll have me, I choose her. This path. It's the much harder choice of the two, but I owe it to myself, to Aliyah, to Roberta Carrell, to try.
Audra drops me off, plants a kiss on my cheek that sears, but fails to bring my demons screaming to the surface.
“If you ever change your mind, let me know.” I smile at her offer and climb from the car, pausing on the driveway while Audra pulls away and disappears down the street to her yellow house.
Neither Robbie nor I move.
“It's been awhile,” she says, attempting to be nonchalant, but her voice is thick with unshed tears.
“Just awhile,” I repeat, my voice calm, as if I'm still Lucas Carter and not Luke. I study Robbi
e's dark brown hair, cut short during her hospital stay. She wrote me letters but never included a picture. From what I recall of her words, handwritten in ink on scented stationary, she wanted me to see for myself. We didn't exchange phone calls, and I never wrote back. This is the first Robbie has heard from me since the day Lloyd kidnapped her.
Robbie looks away, and I see a small tear drip down her cheek. It smears her eyeliner and mascara as it trails down to her pale pink lips, softly parted and waiting between a sigh and a breath for me to say something else. My gaze travels over Robbie's red cotton dress with the cap sleeves and the sweetheart neckline. The lacy skirt leaves tantalizing hints of her peach ripe skin showing and hardens my dick in an instant.
Well, now, who I am fooling? Emotionally, I might be linking myself closer to Luke, learning from his mistakes and his hopes and his dreams, but sexually, I'm still Lucas Carter. And I revel in the fucking taboo.
“I missed you,” I tell Robbie, drawing her bright blue eyes back to mine. When she stands up on her shiny black heels, she stumbles a little and I move to catch her, striding across the driveway like I can't wait a single second longer. And maybe I can't? Maybe I shouldn't have to?
I wrap an arm around Robbie's waist and pull her close, sliding her body up against mine, chest to chest, as she balances on the step and looks me in the face.
“Why didn't you write back to me?” she asks, her voice joyful but unsure.
“I wanted to be certain,” I admit, my gaze dipping to the gentle sweep of her clavicle bone. I want to kiss it, and fuck her, and show her all the nasty tricks in my massive tome of sexual techniques, but I just stand there instead and pull my eyes up to hers. “And I wanted you to be certain. These things, relationships, and love, they're not ever easy. They're hard. And they suck.” I hiss the word out and take a deep breath, lifting my chin and finding myself terribly glad that I had Audra take my suit to be tailored while I was incarcerated. “I won't ever be a fairytale prince, and times will be hard on occasion. I might die. You might die. The world could end.”
“But it doesn't matter,” Robbie says as I crush her to me and lift her up, so that her heels are dangling a half inch off the porch step. “It doesn't matter,” she says again as our lips brush close, “because I'm next to you and you're next to me. Nothing else should matter.”
I give Robbie a soft but hungry kiss, tasting her and letting her feel the stiff bulge in my pants. All around us, crickets wake up for the evening and start to sing, and I give Robbie – my chance, my choice, my path – I give her a fairytale kiss that's as pure and innocent as she is.
And then I get ready to show her the dark side of the sheets.
But first … I can't let Robbie give up everything for me.
“What's your father think of you coming over here?” I ask and she smiles, kissing me again and letting me set her back on her feet. Robbie glances over my shoulder and gives a little wave. I don't look, but I can just imagine her dad standing there and glaring at me.
“You saved me, Luke. That's all he needs to know.”
“I got you into that situation in the first place.”
Robbie shakes her head and then leans her cheek against my chest.
“Doesn't matter. Everything happens for a reason. Let me be yours.”
I brush my lips over Robbie's throat, tasting the sweet softness of her skin. My own flesh ripples with excitement, and I'm struck with the nearly uncomfortable urge to come in my pants. It's been two months since I've been with a woman – my longest record of abstinence in a decade. And finding a place in prison to masturbate, undisturbed? Not the easiest task. I feel like a hot air balloon, about to catch fire and plunge to the earth. It would be worth it, all wrapped up in Robbie like this.
I keep my hands firmly in place on her back and restrict myself to necking like a pair of, well, teenagers, until Robbie's dad gets fed up and disappears back inside his house.
“He's gone,” she whispers to me, and I lift her up, swinging her into my arms like she was meant to be there. Now, I don't know if I believe in meant to be or fate or anything of that ridiculous sort, but I do know this: I'm going to give Robbie everything, and I mean everything, that I've got left in me. “I should probably at least try to get back before midnight.”
“Not going to happen,” I respond as I do a balancing act to get my key out of my pocket and unlock the door. True to her word, Audra Holiday cleaned up my place after the police were done ransacking it and kept it up to my obsessive level of perfection. I guess I do owe her dinner.
When I set Robbie on the floor and put the keys back into my pocket, I feel the engagement ring brush against my fingers. I'm not ready to give it to Robbie yet, but maybe someday.
I smile and the expression is downright wicked.
I check out Robbie's ass as she turns and pushes the door closed, putting the locks into place and leaning her forehead against the wood. While I was in prison, I had free healthcare – how ridiculous is that? – and I was able to get that STI test I'd been putting off. Clean. I'm clean, and Robbie's clean, and now we can be downright fucking dirty.
“You know how I knew I wanted to be with you, Luke?”
“How's that?”
Robbie turns around and comes towards me slowly, placing her palms on my chest. I reach up and wrap my fingers around hers, savoring the strange peace of the moment. This type of situation is so foreign to me, so outside of my comfort zone. But I like it. Anyway, nobody ever said I wasn't adventurous.
“Because when you were gone, I realized how my life might look if I never saw you again.”
“Was it bleak?” I joke, letting the corner of my lip curl up into a half-smile. Robbie shakes her head and starts pulling me towards my bedroom. I plant my feet firmly and pull her back against me. We will get to the bedroom – eventually – but we're going to work our way there. Slowly. Oh so slowly.
“No. Because it wasn't. Because it was college and boys and love and loss. It was new experiences and break-ups and tests and then it was life. It was a house and kids and a hamster.”
“A hamster?” My chest bubbles with laughter, real laughter, the kind that can only be paired as an opposite to pain. I've had the pain and the suffering, so now I'm going to at least try for the other side. So far, it seems like we're off to a good start. “That doesn't sound excruciating.”
“It's not, and that's why I knew then that I really did like you. And not just as a crush or a fling or anything like that.” Robbie runs her tongue over her lips, captivating me, reminding me that my cock has also agreed to this union and let's be honest – he is still a wonderful judge of character. “I like you because you're not safe and easy, because every moment might not be tinged with sparkles and glitter. I like you, Luke, because you're you.” Robbie raises her hands up in surrender. “Not that I'm the first woman to bet my life on a dangerous man … ”
“You're just one of the lucky few, I guess.” I push Robbie against the wall with my body. “And do you know how I decided I wanted to be with you?”
“Spin the bottle?” she asks as I press my mouth to her throat and she squirms under my touch.
“Because when I thought about losing you, I was afraid. Terrified, even.” I lift my head and look her straight in the face. “To be afraid, you have to have something worth keeping. You're worth keeping, Robbie.” She smiles at me and mumbles something about how maybe I am really a romantic at heart, but I cut her off with another kiss. This one isn't a fairytale press of lips like the ones outside. This is a full-blown, drop the panties, and treat the burns, Lucas Carter fucking kiss.
I nibble Robbie's lower lip and work my way down, running my tongue over her clavicle bone and pausing at the rise of cleavage that peaks above her red dress. When she tries to speak, I shush her with a finger to the lips, pulling back long enough to throw off my coat and shirt. I leave my tie in place and smile when she wraps her fingers around it and pulls me close.
We kiss again, and I le
t my fingers find her newly shortened hair, teasing the ends as I brush my fingertips down Robbie's neck and find the zipper of her dress.
“You're smooth, Lucas Carter,” she tells me with a sharp intake of breath. I push the sleeves over her shoulders and the dress ends up in a pool of red on the floor. “Almost too smooth.” Robbie grabs onto my arms suddenly, just as I'm taken aback by the lingerie underneath her outfit. A black teddy and thigh highs? My goodness. Her cheeks flame as she looks up at me and bats those perfect eyelashes. The worst part is, I don't even know that she's aware that she's doing it. “How do I look?” she asks, swallowing hard. “Audra and I … we've become sort of … friends.” Robbie looks away and bites at her lip again. “She picked it out.”
This time, when I laugh, the sound echoes throughout the entire house. As it should. As I hope it always will.
“It looks,” I tell her as I sweep Robbie into my arms for another kiss. My cock is straining against my pants and driving me crazy. There are a lot of things we should probably talk about – like my upcoming career change – but they'll have to wait. Right now, I'm going to ravage this girl on my new chocolate colored Italian silk couch. “Ridiculously filthy. Just the way I like it.” I kiss Robbie's forehead and then swing her back into my arms for our short trip to the living room. I put her down on the cushions and crawl between her perfect thighs, leaning in close to her to whisper, “just the way I like you.”
Books by C.M. Stunich
The Seven Wicked Series
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Houses Novels
The House of Gray and Graves
The House of Hands and Hearts and Hair
The House of Sticks and Bones
Taboo Unchained Page 28