by R. K. Lilley
PAST
SCARLETT
Hollywood parties were the worst. I hated them, had relegated them to one of the more miserable parts of networking in tinsel town. A necessary evil that had to be borne with a big fake smile and plenty of liquor.
This one was being thrown in one of the trendy new clubs in Hollywood. It was a big space, surprisingly well-lit for a den of iniquity, and it was full to the brim with people I needed to meet.
I was still taking it all in, scoping out the best place to mingle/network. My bored eyes swept across the room for maybe the third time as I tried decide where I wanted to spend my energy and charm, when they landed on a pair of cold eyes that I had not expected to see again.
Eyes that were more familiar even than my own.
I froze, drink halfway to my parted lips.
No. Oh no, please. Not now. I haven't had a moment to pull myself together. It's not fair. He's not allowed to see me first, to catch my initial reaction.
Because it would surely be the most telling.
I blinked, recovered, then took a long drink.
It had been well over a year since I'd seen him, and the things that had occurred since our last parting and now . . . I couldn't even stand to glance at him across a crowded room.
But some part of me, the lovesick, pathetic part that I'd have cut out of myself if it were possible, rejoiced at the sight of him.
And the way he looked then, it was something to behold.
There was a woman clinging to him, a beautiful black-haired woman, and as I studied her, I realized it was an actress. No one terribly famous, more of an up and comer who was talked about often in the industry of late. Her name was dropped in a lot of gossip rags for potential roles, but nothing she'd done had panned out in a big way yet.
Still, she was certainly more famous than I was. No contest. And he'd come here with her. It was clearly the most hurtful scenario he could dream up.
Well, close to. Tiffany would have been the most hurtful, obviously.
Always.
The actress was, of course, young and lovely, wearing a clingy, red Versace dress I could remember ogling in this month's Italian Vogue. She was fashionable and beautiful and would likely be the next 'it' girl, and Dante barely seemed to notice that one of her perky little tits was trying to permanently meld itself into his bicep.
Of course the too good-looking for his own good Durant heir could have any woman he set his sights on. I'd never had any doubts about that.
His eyes were on me, his body stiff, his fists clenched as he watched me like we were the only two people in the room, and just the sight of me had stopped him in his tracks.
I smiled. Maybe there was some fun yet to be had in this misery trip down our fucked up memory lane.
I could do this. I could suffer through this pain if it was for the sake of making him suffer with me.
Ah, love. Isn't it grand?
I finished my drink and tore my eyes from his, seeking my date for the night.
Justin was a screenwriter who had developed a pretty devoted crush on me when I'd first moved to town. He got me into all of the parties I hated to attend but could never say no to. In exchange I'd been stringing him along rather relentlessly.
I spotted him doing a line off the bar a scant ten feet away. He was still wiping his nose when I finally caught his eye. I called him over with a crook of my finger.
He blinked a few times, swallowed hard, and came to me looking hopeful enough to stir some pity in me.
Not enough. But some.
He was very cute, tallish and trim, but muscular, with nerdy glasses that only seemed to add to his boyish handsomeness.
"Darling, something's come up," I purred at him, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and moving our faces close. "I've got to run."
He looked confused, but didn't ask questions and didn't try to stop me. He was my favorite kind of man, the kind that let me do whatever the hell I wanted without protesting. He was just happy to be along for the ride.
Until, of course, I left him on the side of the road, as I inevitably would.
I pressed my chest to his and gave him a brief, warm kiss. It stirred nothing in me.
Hardly anything did these days.
It was a show, no more, but I could tell as I pulled away that he'd taken something from it that he shouldn't have.
I'd given him hope.
"When will I see you again?" he asked me.
I wanted to pat him on the head, the poor guy, but I just pursed my lips and shrugged. "Who knows? I'll text you sometime. Or you can call me when there's another good party."
I walked away from him and headed straight for my real target.
It was pure misery to walk toward Dante, to make my body move closer to him instead of away, but at least there was some gratifying thrill to be had in the way he looked at me. That little kiss had done the trick, taken him from incensed ex-lover to enraged mess.
Perhaps I'd win this round after all.
His date had stepped away, to network no doubt, and so it was easy to move right up to him. I strutted close, not stopping until I was a mere foot away, going straight for the kill.
He was here to mess with me, so I'd mess right back.
And I happened to be better at making messes than he was, if I did say so myself.
I looked up into his face, letting every bit of the spite, the pure, concentrated hatred in my eyes pour out to him.
"If I were you, I'd stay far away from me," Dante warned.
The way his voice quavered, the weakness in him, the unchecked violence in every line of his body, was nothing but blood in the water.
I stepped closer with a smile. "You're not me." It was that simple and that devastating. We were not one anymore.
We were two. Two very separate people now with little to connect us.
And it was all his fault.
I was not done making him pay for that.
Not even close.
He was almost panting as I brushed my body against his. "Your date is not going to be happy about this." His voice was a low rumble, his eyes aimed over my head, at Justin, I presumed.
"No, he won't be. He wants me, can you tell? He's been obsessed with me for a while now and seeing me with you will only add to it. But I'm too curious to pass this up. What are you doing here? Are you really going to try to tell me that this is a coincidence?"
"Yes," he lied, not even trying to convince me, his voice too full of raw emotion. "I'm dating an actress, and she wanted me to come to one of her Hollywood parties. That's the only reason I'm here." He said it robotically, as though he'd rehearsed the phrase, but his delivery ruined it all.
I saw right through him.
I believed that he was dating that actress, and I believed he'd been invited here. What I did not believe was that he hadn't known or suspected that I'd be here.
What I did not believe was that he hadn't come here for me.
"Did you bring your own car?" I asked him, my smile now mischievous bordering on malevolent. "I rode with my date, so either he takes me home or someone else does." I was daring him to tell me no.
I wanted, needed to see if he even had it in him.
I wanted to wound myself on that knowledge, to use the sharp finality of it to cut myself free.
But alas, he did not, which was why I would never be free.
He didn't even answer, just grabbed my wrist and started moving, leaving his date and mine to watch on in baffled affront.
We were in his car driving furiously away before I spoke again. "Where are you taking me?" I asked him.
His eyes were wild, his hands clenching the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. "Does it matter?" he finally asked.
I touched a hand to his leg and his thigh muscle jerked in agitation. "Take me somewhere outside. Somewhere with a view. I want to watch the sunset while you're inside of me."
I studied his face intently while I said it, saw him flinch then harden. "I didn't
come here for this," he uttered softly.
"Well, then you're a fool. What did you come here for?"
His mouth twisted so bitterly that I had to look away. "To see you. Just to look at you and see if there was still any part of you left that I recognized."
My head snapped back and I leaned toward him, grabbing him crudely. "I found something of you that I recognize. The only part of you that I miss seems to be about the same."
He tore my hand off him, flinging it away. "How could you?" His voice was wretched with agony as he finally got to the point, to the ugly, rotten root of it all. "How could you?"
I felt nothing but fury at his pain. I was too wrapped up in my own. "How could I? How could I? How could you? How could you?"
He was shaking his head, over and over. "You don't understand. You don't know anything."
"I know you were engaged to fucking Tiffany, and that's all I ever need to know for the rest of my fucking life. You wanted to break me? Well, you did it, and today is your lucky day, because now you get to fuck what's left. Are you happy?"
His face was flushed, his eyes blinking so rapidly that I thought for a moment that he was going to cry. "Jesus. How did it come to this? Jesus. How did we end up like this?"
"If you don't know then nobody does, because you fucking brought us here."
"I know, angel," he whispered. "But believe me, I am not happy. If it makes you feel better, you can be sure that I will never be happy again."
It was something. A few drops of cool water to dampen the inferno that lived inside of me.
He had thrown me away, but at least he could never move on from me, not completely. He was no more capable of that than I was.
It wasn't long before he pulled the car deep onto the shoulder and put it in park. He'd taken me to a spot that fit what I'd described. He'd found me a nice view and a bit of privacy. Despite his animosity, he'd accommodated me.
I thought it was a tell of how I still affected him.
It was enough, for the moment.
He didn't move, though, didn't even take his hands off the steering wheel.
It didn't matter. I opened my door, stepped out of the car, slammed it shut, and walked around the front of it slowly, my movements sinuous, seductive. I made my way to his side, leaning over the hood, bracing my hands as I leveled my gaze on him through the windshield.
I watched his gorgeous, sinister mouth as he shaped a curse and then my name, the sight making me smile. Not a happy smile. There was no joy to be found in this. It was the opposite.
This was about killing anything inside of me that was capable of that emotion. Stomping it to death under my vicious, spiteful heel, then grinding it unrecognizable with my sharpest stilettos.
It was nothing new. I'd been at this for a while and doing a stand up job of it, if I did say so myself.
His door opened and the sound of his cursing matched the words his lips shaped.
It was music to my ears.
"I hope you brought condoms," I interrupted his rather creative diatribe, tone as abrasive as I could manage. "You aren't getting inside of me without."
The cursing stopped, and his silence was somehow much more hostile than even that had been.
The last time we'd had each other, no protection had been necessary, and the significance was not lost on either of us.
The difference between then and now was more brutally apparent than ever, and if he thought his bitterness could match my own when it came to this, this particularly, he had a lot to learn.
Finally he answered with a choked, "I brought some."
I flashed my teeth at him in my most sadistic/masochistic grin, "Well, then. Wrap it up, lover. I don't have all night."
He didn't even try to kiss me at first. I was so relieved that I didn't question it.
Instead he moved behind me, and I braced my hands against the car as I listened to the bittersweet sounds of him getting us both ready.
The rustle of my dress as he pushed it up to my waist. The whisper of my panties coming down. A zipper being undone, the crinkle of a foil wrapper, the snap of a rubber rolling into place.
I squirmed as I listened, but didn't move to help. I didn't want to look at him. Feeling him would be more than enough. Too much, on its own.
He seemed to agree, butting up against my entrance with no foreplay at all.
Good.
I was wet enough for him to ease inside of me. Just the idea of this hate sex did that to me.
Still, the size and suddenness of him was almost painful at first.
I welcomed the discomfort, leaning down to press my cheek hard against the hot metal of his car as he invaded me. I hadn't wanted this to feel good. That was not the point of this.
He pressed a hand to the small of my back as he started to move heavily, his breath ragged as he pounded his rage straight into me with succinct, brutal thrusts.
The brutality I welcomed. Every savage plunge in and out, every jarring contact of my hipbones against heated metal, every rough slide of my nipples against my thin dress as they rubbed into the hood of the car, my cheekbone digging in until I was sure it would bruise, my nails scoring into his perfect paint job with enough zeal to break them.
All of it only added to my perverse pleasure in the damaging exchange.
Hate sex at its finest.
Unfortunately, it was stimulating enough to get me off and fast. I told myself it was the booze that'd primed me so quickly for it, but of course I knew better.
I tried to hold back, bit my lip and tensed up, but each forceful plunge in, every perfect drag out, all of the sounds he was making, the helpless moans escaping him with every desperate movement, were too much for me.
I came, fast and sudden, letting out an anguished cry.
He cursed, thrusting harder, faster, again, again, again, and started to come, calling out my name as though he had the right.
After, I just lay there for the longest time, eyes wide open, staring out at the night with Dante draped heavily against my back, still inside of me, his mouth close to my ear.
I listened to the familiar pants of his breath as they went from jagged and wild to soft and even while we slowly recovered from the destructive encounter.
Eventually he spoke, "You didn't even look at the sunset. You kept your head down the entire time."
I shuddered. The bastard's casual, almost amused tone got to me.
His release had helped him get his temper in hand, which had not been the point.
"Get off of me," I snarled at him.
He didn't listen. Instead he brushed my hair to the side and started kissing my neck, his lips tender, devastating, as they began to move down to my nape, then along my shoulder.
"Time's up, lover," I made my tremulous voice as hard as I could manage. "I need to get back to my date."
He didn't like that. In fact, he stiffened and straightened, sliding out of me with a decisive swiftness that made me gasp.
Good. His rage was back, which had been my intent.
I wanted, expected, needed him to get off me then, to go away, to never touch me again.
But of course that was not what he did. Not even close.
His big, strong, familiar, despised hands turned me over onto my back.
As my torso was exposed, my body instinctively started to curl in on itself.
He wasn't having it. He pinned my shoulders, moving his hips between my thighs before I could muster up the energy to maneuver away.
His chest pressed to my breasts right as his lips took mine.
My hands, of their own volition, began to tug at his tie, seeking skin even while I gasped out a ragged, "Don't kiss me."
Please, I almost said, almost begged for that one small mercy.
But it would have been pointless, precious pride spent for nothing, because there was no mercy in him, not today.
He kissed me with the same fevered longing that he always had. The same despairing hope.
The same
passionate reverence.
Like nothing had changed. Like we hadn't destroyed each other and ourselves with determined, spiteful abandon since our last parting.
I let him have me again, and this time it was, much, much worse.
More than fucking or release. More than hate sex.
More than masochism or revenge.
It was the give and take that only occurs when the heart is involved.
When the heart isn't yours to give, because it already belongs to someone else.
Because it always fucking did.
I barely got his tie off, his shirt open, as he tugged the scant top of my dress down, dragging the thin straps off my shoulders.
He took me face to face, mouth to mouth, bare chest to bare chest.
It was smoother this time. With more finesse. This was not merely him consuming me. It was not just his body partaking of mine. This time he seduced as much as he owned.
It lasted longer. And felt better.
There was more pleasure to be had within his expert, knowing touch.
There was more delight to endure under his relentless, familiar body.
There was more torment to suffer from his unstoppable, merciless lips.
The first time had been more than enough to mess with my head for the foreseeable future, but the second time ruined me.
Utterly. Completely.
If I'd built up any believable delusions that I could move forward from this, from him, he'd just blown them all to little, twitching, unrecoverable bits.
Was there some piece of my heart left intact inside of my miserable chest before that encounter?
Some tiny fragment of my soul?
I couldn't remember.
But I felt like nothing when he finished with me. Whatever had been left, he'd just carelessly taken.
There was some trivial bit of comfort to be taken in the fact that he seemed to be as affected. He couldn't muster up the energy for a casual one-liner after that round. Instead, when he caught his breath, he wrenched out of me, staggering away, his devastated eyes making a connection with mine for a few horrible beats before he strode off, heading opposite of the road, straightening his clothes as he took some crucial moments to compose himself, giving me his back.
It was a mistake on his part, because I recovered faster, or at least, I got my act together quickly enough to make the first move.