Twelve of Roses: A Dark Standalone

by Natalie Bennett

  “I thought you wanted to be friends?”

  “You don’t seem like you want that.”

  He walked towards me slowly. The way he moved was almost predatory, and his dark eyes never left mine. He was throwing me off my game a little bit. I wasn’t sure if I particularly liked that or not.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, watching him move in a little closer.

  If I told him to throw me down and fuck me in the dirt, would he do it?

  Sadly, he didn’t look the type.

  Why was it so hard to find a guy that would boss me around? I had this insane fantasy of being dominated, pinned down helplessly as a man fucked and fought me.

  I sank my teeth into my lower lip, picturing Max doing just that. I wasn’t a whore, but I would love for a man to treat me like one. Especially a man that looked like him—a stranger that looked like him.

  “Do you want to fuck me, Max?” I cocked my head to the side and studied him.

  “I want to do a lot of things to you,” he responded flippantly, coming close enough that I could reach out and barely touch him, but not any farther. We stood there, staring at one another, the sexual tension rising by the second. The attraction we so clearly had for one another was unexplainable.

  Two people that didn’t know each other shouldn’t look at one other the way we were. Stepping forward, bringing us chest to chest, I looked up at him and grinned.

  “So, what are you waiting for?”

  The question had barely fallen from my lips before he was lifting me up and forcing my legs around his waist, walking us backward.

  His mouth found mine right as my ass landed on the cool, smooth metal of the Toyota’s hood. The liquor on his lips made me want him so much more. The sweet taste urged me on, adding fuel to an already dangerous fire.

  I opened my mouth, letting his tongue slip inside, feeling it tangle with mine. He shoved my dress up around my hips. His large hands squeezed my thighs, travelling down to my underwear. When his fingers glided over the scar on my inner thigh, he paused momentarily.

  Before he could ruin the moment and ask what it was, I grabbed hold of his shirt, pulling him flush against me. Someone could walk outside and see us at any minute, and I couldn’t care less. There wasn’t anything wrong with being an exhibitionist.

  Max pulled slightly away from me, making quick work of his slacks, letting me see he was commando underneath. I swear on everything unholy, I almost wept tears of joy at the sight of his cock. Thank the gene gods he wasn’t a short dick man. Though I already knew he wouldn’t be, it didn’t hurt to have the proof.

  He gave me a predatory grin, surprising me by grabbing hold of my ankles and flipping me onto my stomach, causing a soft ‘oomph’ to leave my mouth. I quickly spread my legs, bracing my palms on the car.

  “Is this okay?” he checked, pulling my underwear to the side, already pressing the bulbous head of his cock against me.

  Instead of giving him a response, I reached between my legs and used two fingers to spread my pussy open for him.

  “I’m ready for you,” I damn near purred like a porn star. It didn’t take much foreplay to make me wet when all I’d been doing was fantasizing about sex the last few months.

  “You’re a dirty girl, Rose,” he murmured. There was the crinkle of a foil wrapper, and then he was gripping my hips, easing himself inside me.

  A soft hiss slipped through my lips from the burn of his intrusion, morphing into a moan when he pulled out and thrust back in.

  “Damn,” he sighed, squeezing my hips a little tighter.

  “Harder,” I breathed, pushing back as he came forward.

  Something was muttered beneath his breath, and then my face was pushed into the Toyota’s hood.

  Max gathered my hair in one hand, bracing a muscular arm by the side of my head. He kept my cheek pressed against the cool metal as he did exactly as I requested.

  His thrusts were hard but measured. He kept a tight reign of control on himself. I thought we were going to fuck the car out of its parking space with the way we were rocking the vehicle back and forth.

  The only thing stopping the people inside Gooskis from hearing my moans was the soft rock music drowning them out. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood, groaning in frustration, struggling to take him deeper.

  I wanted him to pull out and fuck my ass without mercy. I almost begged for him to call me dirty again. None of that left my mouth, though. I accepted what he was willing to give me, forcing myself to let it be enough.

  I didn’t want to scare him off.

  I would force myself to go along with whatever this was. More than anything, though, I wanted to be told I was a good girl while he choked the life from my body.

  What I needed him to do was lie like Con would. To punish me for being rotten to the core. I wasn’t a good girl—not even a little bit.

  Chapter Six

  Present

  How could she let a stranger touch what was mine? Let them fuck her like a cheap whore in a parking lot? Her body belonged to me. I’d marked her so she would never forget that.

  It didn’t really matter, I suppose. She was nothing without me. I took pride in that. No one could ever truly satisfy her besides me. He couldn’t fuck her as good as I did.

  What had just happened was proof enough of that. The soft moans pouring from her mouth should have been unintelligible screams. She should have begged for it to end while simultaneously spreading her legs, eager for more. Maxwell needed to grab her hair like he wanted to detach it from her skull.

  His hands should have wrapped around her fucking throat until it was bruised.

  If I shut my eyes, I could allow myself to feel her again. Pulling my dick out of my jeans, I grabbed the base of it and began to stroke up and down, picturing her bent over her car. She was tight, just like I remembered—like I knew she would be after all these years.

  I pumped up and down, hearing her breathy little moans in my head growing louder and louder, until I was coming like a schoolboy in the front seat of my truck. I stared down at my flaccid cock with a frown.

  Pulling open the glove box, I cleaned myself up with a pair of her pink underwear, picturing all the beautiful ways I was going to punish her this time.

  Part of me wanted to snap her goddamn neck—like I had Rose number four.

  Another part of me wanted to gut her like a fucking pig and listen to her scream as her insides fell onto the floor.

  That’s what I did to Rose number seven.

  I would do none of those things, naturally. I was just venting right now. Who wouldn’t? I’d waited on her for years, and this was how she wanted our reunion to be?

  She was my number twelve.

  I needed her like the world needed the sun.

  I was going to have to remind her why I was perfect for her. Get her to remember why it was she needed me, too.

  Then, I’d make her beg for my forgiveness.

  My girl being with someone else felt like there was a chainsaw running inside me, tearing me apart from the inside out, brutalizing what was left of the heart that only beat for her.

  She was gone now, taking the long drive home. Usually, I camped outside her house or chilled in a spare bedroom. She was never any the wiser after all this time. Tonight had changed things. Now I had to get her attention. She needed to know she wasn’t free of me.

  I hopped out of my truck and made my way across the parking lot.

  I walked back into the shitty bar, surveying the room for options, and my eyes landed on a woman in the back corner.

  She was already intoxicated, which made my job ten times easier. When her green eyes met mine, she stared for a second before a shy smile spread across her face. This was going to be easier than I thought.

  Pushing the rim of my ball cap down, I gave Aimee a quick grin and slid into a booth. I wasn’t going to approach the woman; she would approach me. Without me having to ask, Aimee brought me a beer, then quickly scuttled off.
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br />   It was all a waiting game after that. Kinda reminded me of the good old days. Rose would lure people in by making them think they were going to score. She’d take them to our special place and allow them to get oh so close before I came in.

  We had a lot of fun together.

  The look of surprise, anger, and fear that played out on someone’s face when they realized they had been set up was priceless. But the real fun began after that.

  Psychological torture was a beautiful fucking thing. The sex after the kills…that was incomparable. Even if I sometimes had to forcibly take it.

  I knew she missed it, that sometimes she couldn’t help waking up desperate to indulge her darker desires. It was all because of me. I made her a junkie for all things depraved. I created the beautiful monster hidden away beneath her sunny façade.

  I remembered the first night she sought me out like it was yesterday. It all began with a dare, and from then on, we were intertwined as one.

  This new Rose was a fraud.

  This town was her cowardly way of running from what she did and who she really was.

  We would be an incredible team once she paid her dues.

  But she had to suffer first. I had to make her understand that her actions had consequences.

  Watching my first chosen victim rise from her booth and walk towards me, I smiled, knowing I was that much closer to getting what I came here for.

  Chapter Seven

  Life had a very funny way of sweeping the rug out from underneath me. All my problems began because of Vicky goddamn Burrows.

  She was a consistently bullheaded girl who just wouldn’t quit. She started coming by every damn day with her friend Julie. My grandfather was over the moon about this new development. He thought they were ‘good’ girls like me.

  Super bad judgment on his end. Not that I could blame him. I thought they were regular girls, too. Darcy, on the other hand, had warned me from the start. She warned me the very day I set foot in their house for the last time.

  “There’s something off about that family.”

  “Off how?”

  “I don’t know. I just always had this gut feeling about them. Be careful, okay?”

  I chalked it up to her being a little paranoid. There wasn’t much I could do about it once Grandpa accepted Vicky’s invite to a girl’s night in on my behalf.

  Things hadn’t been going too badly since I’d arrived. I’d say I was enjoying myself, if it weren’t for Julie. She was the reason I had a cup of Jack Daniels in my hand after promising Grandpa I wouldn’t drink.

  There was nothing like some liquid courage to ease tension.

  We were in the Burrows’ den, playing some good old-fashioned truth or dare, and things were getting intense. There were four of us all together. Vicky and Julie sat on one side of the coffee table; Molly (a girl from my PE class) sat beside me on the other.

  “Truth or dare, Barbie doll?” Julie slurred in my direction with an ugly curl of the lip.

  I eyed her, wondering what her problem was. This chick was either a mean drunk, or a fake sober bitch. She’d been trying to rile me up since I’d gotten there.

  “Truth,” I shrugged, refusing to let the evil wench dare me into a fucked-up situation. Everyone knows you can’t recant on a dare. If she told me to drink lighter fluid, I would have to do it. Then, I’d spit it in her face and light her ass on fire.

  She grinned wickedly and leaned closer to me, the stench of alcohol on her breath blowing right into my face. “Is it true you watched your parents die?”

  “What kind of question is that!?” Vicky objected before I could respond, outraged on my behalf.

  It was official: Julie was Lilith in the flesh—a demonic blonde with giant tits. I stared at her, waiting for her to take it back, but she never did. What happened to my parents wasn’t a secret in Ponty-Poole.

  This was my father’s hometown. News of his passing had spread like wildfire.

  Did I watch him and my mother die? Not exactly. My mother managed to wrap her Subaru around a tree, trying to avoid a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Accidents happen all the time. I knew that. But everything that could have gone wrong in this scenario did.

  Her shoulder restraint didn’t lock up like it was supposed to, launching her face-first through the windshield.

  My father died on impact. His head took a fatal hit, and he just slumped in his seat. I remember crying for him to do something, stuck in the backseat with a jammed seatbelt of all things, not yet realizing he was gone.

  Three hours.

  That’s how long I sat with their dead bodies until a passerby finally noticed the truck.

  As for the drunk driver? He never stopped, never came to check on us, and he didn’t get any help. I later found out he died shortly after that night, so justice was never served.

  My mother lived through a full thirty minutes of pure agony, fading in and out of consciousness. I could see her blood dribbling down the windshield and tiny bits of glass embedded in her skin.

  I tried to comfort her as best I could. I soothed her with lies, for both her benefit and mine, knowing she wasn’t going to be okay. Tears streamed down my face and my heart crumbled in my chest. I felt those same tears burning behind my eyelids now.

  What kind of asshole asks a question like that? It was so hard living without them that I hardly mentioned their names.

  Their death seemed to have been the catalyst of some screwed-up curse.

  It was another reason I didn’t like getting close to people. Death was always dancing over my shoulder, her skeletal hands constantly reaching for someone I cared about.

  “You don’t have to answer that. Please ignore her. She’s a stupid slut.” Vicky squeezed my hand, offering me a pained smile before shooting Julie a murderous glare.

  “I’ll ask you something different,” she chirped a second later, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Okay.” I forced a smile, burying the pain like I always did, desperate to move away from the topic.

  When her question came, I was once again caught off guard. I really should have expected it. Vicky had been hinting at it for the last two months and had never received an answer.

  “Soooo, Rose. Do you or don’t you have a thing for Con?” Vicky asked, a little too loudly.

  All three of them stared at me, eagerly waiting for an answer. Darcy was the only person who knew I had a minor obsession with the guy, but that was between us. Shifting on my knees where I knelt on the floor, I tried to think of a way to answer.

  “Your boyfriend?”

  “My what?” Vicky sputtered, drops of liquor flying from her mouth.

  “I thought…never mind,” I rushed out.

  Why did I say that?

  Me and Darcy had spoken on the phone for hours about our suspicions, but they were just that. Darcy had a theory that all the Burrows were adopted, which could be true, but I’d never seen a parental figure at the Burrow household.

  The entire situation was odd to me.

  Vicky was clearly black. Con and Justin weren’t. I wasn’t a medical genius or anything, but I was quite sure one man’s sperm couldn’t make such a drastic switch in ethnicities. Not only that, but there was a weird bond between the three—and it wasn’t remotely brother or sisterly.

  “God, Rose. Gross,” Vicky sputtered with a laugh, offering no explanation for the obvious.

  “So?” Julie questioned, leaning towards me, blowing a breath of alcohol into my face.

  “I want a dare,” I blurted out abruptly.

  Vicky’s face lit up like a star on top of a Christmas tree. I knew right then that I’d screwed up.

  “She chose dare—no take backs!” Julie sang. I had the strongest urge to deck her in the face.

  “I dare you to go upstairs to Con’s room and get a kiss. On the lips.”

  Pure mortification immediately began to set in. I couldn’t do that.

  “Isn’t that a little childish? A kiss on the lips
?” I attempted to coolly play it off, quirking a brow at her.

  “I dare you,” she said again, her voice taking on an annoyingly high pitch.

  Molly shifted in obvious discomfort, shooting me a look that seemed to say, you don’t have to do that.

  The four of us sat around staring at one another for a few minutes before I finally decided.

  Screw it.

  Snatching the Jack Daniels out of her hands, I gulped more than a decent bit down, ignoring the way my throat burned and my eyes watered. Wiping my mouth with the back of my palm, I gave the bottle back and stood up.

  “A dare’s a dare.” I had no idea if I said that for their benefit or mine.

  Wandering out of the room before I lost my nerve, I made my way up the dark stairway to the upper level. It was like walking a plank for judgment day. I’d either be shoved overboard and devoured by sharks or get to rejoice because I survived.

  Five Finger Death Punch’s ‘Wrong Side Of Heaven’ spilled down the long hall from behind Con’s door. I knew exactly which room was his, and with every step I took towards it, my heart beat a little faster.

  Once I reached it, I slowly raised my fist to knock and then dropped it back down to my side again. My stomach was inundated with fluttering.

  Was I really doing this?

  Me and Con didn’t talk all that much. In fact, the last few weeks, while I was growing closer to Vicky, he hadn’t really been around.

  Perhaps that was for the best, though. I shouldn’t have thought about him the way I did.

  I definitely shouldn’t have been outside his bedroom door, tipsy, considering doing something I couldn’t take back.

  He was meant to be an unattainable fantasy I craved from afar—like a good dream you wouldn’t dare wake yourself up from for fear of never dreaming it again.

  So why was I going to poke the beast?

  Well, that’s human nature, isn’t it? To want what we can’t have. To crave what’s bad for us. There’s something about the forbidden that makes it irrevocably desirable.

  Before I could think about the ramifications my actions could cause—or force myself to care—the large white door swung open, and I took a step back.