“Mmm…” She released the head of his cock from her mouth, a string of his pre-cum creating a bridge between her lips and his dick as if his body wasn’t yet ready for her departure. She moved her strokes to the head and broke the string of moisture, lifting her eyes up to his.
He cupped her jaw, a slave to those big brown eyes as he leaned down and stole a soft kiss.
“Do you feel better?” she whispered.
He answered with his next kiss, letting his tongue slip gently between her lips to make it clear.
“I love you, Gage. I don’t want to fight before our first date night.”
“I love you…” His gentle touch circled her neck and cupped the back of it, silently begging for more of her mouth. “I’m not mad.”
A sigh of relief from her gorgeous lips, and then his dick was between them once more.
His head fell back, and his hips pumped again, the first moan of many racing up his throat as he felt his orgasm building with a quickness that existed only for her.
A power that would never exist for another woman again because he would never again love another woman as deeply as he loved her.
He couldn’t wait for their date later that night, so he could show her just how deep his love really ran.
—
“Heeey, Linc.”
Still trying to forget about that insufferable anesthesiologist who flat refused to mind her own business, Linc gave the leggy nurse passing him a cursory glance and forced a smile.
Minutes later he was at the window of the hospital pharmacy. The pharmacy tech sat in a rolly chair behind thick, bulletproof glass with shelves of medication stacked from floor to ceiling behind him.
Tall and thin, the pharmacy tech didn’t look a day over twenty.
Linc waited to be noticed, finally accepting that this kid had no plans of looking up from the cell phone his eyes were riveted to. The tech jammed his thumbs onto the screen of his phone, the line between his eyebrows sharp. He was probably playing a video game and losing.
Linc pretended not to hear the sultry good morning directed at him from behind while tapping his knuckles on the glass window. The tech didn’t even flinch at the knock, telling Linc that he’d been perfectly aware someone was watching and waiting for him.
Chest falling in a deep sigh, the tech took his sweet time lifting his bored blue eyes up to the glass.
The moment he caught sight of Linc, the tech shot out of his seat. The resignation in his eyes vanished, replaced with a light so bright it nearly made his blue eyes turn gray. He smiled wide and tilted his head, causing his blonde hair, shaved deep on the sides and long on top, to swoop over to one eye like a long bang. He sauntered over to the glass and pressed a button, causing the microphone built into the window to backfire.
Linc winced, waiting for the unbearable sound to die down.
“Well, good morning, Detective Hill,” the tech purred, letting each word drag as his smile continued to bloom. He wagged his body back and forth.
Linc’s eyes fell to the nametag on his white lab coat. “Good morning, Jake.”
“What ever can I do for you?” Jake sucked his bottom lip. He leaned forward, nearly pressing his forehead to the glass as his eyes traveled Linc’s body.
“I have a victim who was drugged last night. I need an itemized list of any hospital employee, over the last two months, who’s been administered…” Linc paused long enough to finger a paper from his pocket, squinting at the words he’d scribbled earlier that day. “Sodium… thiopen…”
“Sodium thiopental,” Jake finished. “We move a hundred billion of those a day. An itemized list would take—”
“I need it by tomorrow. All hundred billion.”
“And if I say no…?” Jake suckled his bottom lip again, letting it fall from his smiling teeth with a plop. He pressed his wrists together and held them out to Linc. “Will you handcuff me and throw away the key?”
“I’ll come back in eight hours and speak to the—conceivably more professional—lab tech who works the night shift instead.”
Jake seemed in the midst of reiterating that an itemized list in 24 hours was impossible, but his eyes fell to Linc’s lips, and all he could do was smile wider. “Well, in that case… I guess I have to do exactly what you tell me. Don’t I, Detective Hill?” He moaned out a laugh. “Tomorrow it is, then.”
“Thank you.” Linc moved away from the glass, shaking his head.
Further down the hall, Sam stepped out of Eugene Masterson’s room. She nodded when she caught sight of Linc.
“Any news on what the hell that kid was beside himself about?” she asked as Linc came to a stop in front of her.
“Drove off before I could get to him, but I got a look at his plates.”
“Good. Eugene is still foggy from the drug he was injected with. The answers he’s giving now and the answers he gave earlier don’t correlate. We might have to leave him until tomorrow when he’s more lucid.”
“Let’s get down to the station and run this guy’s plates,” Linc said. “Might be nothing, but…”
Sam nodded. “Let’s get it.”
They began down the hallway, side-by-side.
Linc slowed when the elevator dinged open in front of them, and Veda stepped off. She turned in their direction and faltered when she saw him. Chuckling softly, she cradled a chart to her chest and resumed down the hallway.
Unable to tear his eyes from her, Linc nodded behind him as he and Veda passed each other.
“He’s all yours, doctor.” He said doctor with a mocking tone.
Veda raised her eyebrows. “Aw, thanks so much, detective.”
They both smirked, neither acknowledging the soft brush of their arms as they breezed past each other and continued in the opposite directions.
—
“Koooong,” Veda sang, reentering Eugene’s room while snapping on latex gloves.
Eugene shot her a poisonous look. Half of his body still hung over the side of the bed, in too much pain to move. His venomous expression grew bored in seconds.
Veda poked her lips out and approached the anesthesia tools the nurses had set up on the tray table next to the bed. She ripped open the plastic casing surrounding the syringe.
Freezing in mid-prep, she thought back to the syringe she’d dropped the night before—thanks to the gorilla-grip the ape sitting before her had placed around her neck.
Her eyes lifted to Eugene.
Now that she knew a full investigation was underway, she knew the police had surely found the syringe. Was there any way they could trace it back to her? She’d worn gloves so they couldn’t lift her prints, and her entire body had been covered from head to toe.
She found herself shooting back to Lincoln Hill in the courtyard. The confidence in his voice when he’d said they were going to catch this guy.
Had Veda unconsciously left behind evidence that would put her behind bars forever? End her career before it had even begun? And, even worse, allow all these animals to walk free? To never pay the price for what they’d done?
The anger squeezed her heart. It burned her eyes. It overpowered the worry of getting caught.
Filling the syringe with a little more of the numbing agent than necessary, she glowered at Eugene.
“Isn’t that what they call you?” she asked. “Kong?”
It was certainly the name his friends had all been shouting, ten years ago, every second he’d been inside her.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Haven’t been called that name since high school.” He tried to push himself up on the bed to get more comfortable, but couldn’t get leverage. The side of his body hanging off the bed left him with nowhere to plant his hand. “Can I get a little help?”
Veda set down the syringe. Sauntering over to the bed, she gave the sweetest smile she could manage to a face that had ruined her life.
Taking hold of his hip, she made sure to place her hand squarely over his inguinal ligament. It was a muscle that connec
ted directly to his scrotum, and it had enough nerve endings to put an elephant on its knees from sheer pain alone. Eugene’s current state would make that pain almost unbearable.
Digging the palm of her hand into that ligament, she shoved—hard. She anticipated the guttural scream that flew from his lips as she hurled him to the middle of the bed. He collapsed onto his side with his back to her, and his screams moved to weeps.
A love song played in her heart, warming it up like a Cinnabon on a cold winter’s night. She reveled in the incredible pain she knew he was in.
When he tossed her a furious look over his shoulder, she managed to wipe the gleaming smile from her face. The shooting pain had made his forehead break out in a cold sweat, and his chubby cheeks hot like fire.
He’d had those same fat cheeks in high school.
Veda turned back to the tray table. Her grin emerged again, proving itself impossible to fight under the music of his torment. She snatched up the syringe she’d just opened and turned back to him, approaching the foot of the bed.
She took the hem of his hospital gown under her fingers, trying to lift the fabric.
Eugene clapped his hand down, stopping her from exposing his genitals.
Veda raised her eyebrows. “For a guy named Kong, you sure do scare easily.”
Eugene’s eyes narrowed, but he kept tight hold of his gown, nearly gluing it to his thighs.
Veda remembered how she’d held her dress down the exact same way, ten years ago. She remembered the tears filling her eyes as she’d begged. Screamed. Pled. She remembered his fat palm striking her cheek with such violence she felt like her eyeballs had flown from their sockets. How he’d forced her over the white stone railing and torn the hem of her dress up over her hips. All while whispering that she wouldn’t have worn such a slutty outfit if she wasn’t ready to be fucked, laying on her back as he whispered those lewd words into her ear while entering her from behind.
And, just like that, Veda’s smile vanished. She tightened her hold on the hem of his gown, doing everything she could not to shove that needle straight up his anal cavity, just to give him a true taste of his own medicine.
“Trust me, sweetheart.” She heard the new shake to her voice. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Judging from the night before, this man had nothing to see at all. Veda took a moment to mourn his fiancée’s pussy. She was going to spend the rest of her life fucking the kind of baby dick even an embryo would be embarrassed by.
Swallowing thickly, Eugene released the hold on his gown, allowing her to lift the hem and reveal his scrotum. He spoke through clenched teeth, presumably in anticipation of the needle in her hand. “I hope you and those detectives know better than to listen to that punk kid who just ran out of here.”
Veda paused, surprised that he was bringing it up. “How do you know him?”
“I don’t.” He sighed. “He’s a junkie.”
“But you told the police it might’ve been him who attacked you last night…” She shrugged. “So, you must know him, right?”
Eugene’s jaw tightened. He seemed to have realized that it was a good idea to shut up.
“You called him a punk. A junkie.” Veda shrugged. “Seems intense. Personal, for some random guy you don’t know.”
“Like I said, he’s an addict. He’s an addict. I’m wealthy. He’s a bum. I’m successful.”
It took everything Veda had not to curl her lip and roll her eyes.
Eugene shifted. “I’m everything he wishes he was. Everything he’ll never be. Of course he’s resentful. Of course he’d come here spewing erroneous accusations. That little white rock enslaving him only aggravates his misplaced anger more. Gives him the urge to attack. Instead of working to get clean and bring his own miserable life out of the trenches, he sets out to destroy those who are worlds above him.”
Two minutes ago, Eugene hadn’t known who that kid was. Now that same kid was resentful? Vengeful? Trying to destroy him? A slave to the little white rock?
Eugene had just made it clear that, unlike most rich boys in Shadow Rock, he was a terrible liar. He didn’t know how to shut his mouth. Not even when he knew, somewhere in the back of his arrogant mind that it was in his best interest. He was too convinced of his own greatness. He truly believed he was smarter than everyone else.
Veda knew she should let it go. Let him believe his own hype. But her tongue couldn’t allow it.
“But… He called you a ‘predator.’” She couldn’t help but wonder why that kid was an addict. What kind of emotional turmoil he was attempting to bury. “That’s a pretty strong word. Doesn’t usually come out of nowhere.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have no idea. He’s probably high right now. Won’t even remember what happened in here a few hours from now.”
“Got it.” Veda went back to work, moving his gown away completely. She whistled at the sight awaiting her. “Looks like this guy got you pretty good, huh?” She smiled brightly up at him, sneaking her syringe down under his gown. “This might sting, just a bit.”
She thrust the needle in violently.
Once again, his sniveling wail was harmonious, like school kids caroling at her door on Christmas morning.
After she’d filled his balls to the hilt with enough numbing agent to keep him out of commission for days, she sauntered to the other end of the room, tossing the dirty needle into the sharps waste bin.
Eugene’s moans of discomfort only eased her for a moment.
Then, it was back.
The darkness.
The sickness.
A stab to the nuts wouldn’t be enough.
Screw Shadow Rock PD.
Screw her judgmental co-workers.
Screw Lincoln Hill.
She winced. Well, maybe not screw Lincoln Hill. He was the reason she was alive to enjoy the musical sound of Eugene’s screams after all. Even if he was on a mission to put her behind bars before she had a chance to finish what she’d come back to Shadow Rock to do.
She needed Eugene to know what real agony was. The kind that stuck around for years, not just destroying its host, but anything and everything it loved. Reaping unapologetic havoc until nothing else remained.
She couldn’t shake the fact that he’d probably hurt that poor kid. Had he hurt that kid the same way he’d hurt her? In the pit of her gut Veda knew the answer, and because of that, she knew she wasn’t done with Eugene Masterson. Not by a long shot.
She made her way to the sink, and just as she turned on the water to wash her hands, she stepped on something hard.
She froze, warm water still trickling down her hands, and her eyes fell to the floor.
She lifted her foot.
And there it was.
A gold police badge, gleaming up at her, peeking out from under the countertop.
Veda finished washing her hands and bent down to pick it up. The chain it hung from sang out into the air. She knew instantly it was Lincoln Hill’s, assuming he’d dropped it in the middle of his scuffle with that kid.
The sensible corner of her mind told her to call the police. To turn that damn thing in immediately.
But the unsound corner of her mind was instantly struck with an idea. An idea that made a small grin pick up the corner of her lips.
She hadn’t listened to the sensible part of her mind in ten long years.
No reason to start today.
9
“Hill, what the fuck are you doing?”
Linc jolted at the sound of Captain Leonard Fox’s voice over his shoulder, instantly clicking out of the window he had opened on his computer. He swiveled in his rolling chair and looked up at the captain with a smile. It was mid-morning, and the police precinct in downtown Shadow Rock was already in full swing.
Captain Fox was not amused or fooled by the false smile on Linc’s face. He shook his head, pot-marked face pulled taut as he pointed at Linc’s computer. “Absolutely not. Re-open the screen you just closed.”
Linc hesit
ated.
Fox’s thinning black hair was combed back, highlighting his serious, aging brown eyes. His thin lips drew into a hard line. “Now.”
Cursing under his breath, Linc turned back to his computer. Grumbling, he pulled up the screen.
“Why are you looking into a case that was sealed and expunged six years ago?” Fox leaned closer, taking his time to read the screen. “A case against Eugene Masterson… that was sealed and expunged six years ago?”
With a heavy sigh, Linc swiveled his chair back around to Fox. He spread his legs, planted them wide and tilted his head to the side while clasping his hands in his lap, preparing himself for the pummeling. “Listen…”
“No, you listen.” Fox lowered his voice, brows pulling. “Now, I’ve put my ass on the line for you, time and time again, Hill, but I swear to you I’m done. I have a wife and kids that need to eat. I’m done putting my head on the chopping block because you don’t know how to let go.”
Linc’s shoulders collapsed. He spun his wedding ring in circles around his finger. “This has nothing to do with Lisa.”
“The fuck it doesn’t. Everything—everything you do…” Fox lowered his voice when he caught the attention of a few officers milling around the precinct. “Everything you do has something to do with Lisa, even though you’ve been expressly forbidden into looking into her closed—closed—case, for three years now.”
Linc licked his lips. He took a moment before he said something that could cost him his job. He avoided Fox’s eyes, seeing the pitiful look Sam—who’d been smart enough to remain at her desk—was shooting him from across the room.
He could feel his voice trying to shake, but was thankful when he was able to control it. “A kid charged into Eugene’s room this morning, calling him a predator.” He motioned to the screen. “Come to find out, that same kid named Eugene in a missing person case involving his younger sister, six years ago.”
“So, in less than twenty-four hours, you’ve turned Eugene, our victim, into Eugene, our suspect. In a case that doesn’t exist?”
“It does exist.” Linc pointed to the screen. “It was expunged and sealed, yes, but it exists, Cap.”
Tingle (Revenge Book 2) Page 8