by Keri Lake
I want to ask him if it’d be worth the public finding out he’s a sexual sadist who enjoys hogtying women and flogging them.
Another member at the opposite end of the room, a senator from Massachusetts, shakes his head, having removed his mask, as well. “Boyd is sloppy. The scandal involving the girl was an absolute mess. Not worth the risk, in my opinion.” His thing is cutting subjects with razors. He once left over a hundred cuts on a man who sought out the collective.
“Years ago,” the older man beside me volleys back. “I doubt anyone but stiff political competition would even remember.”
The senator sneers and waves his hand in dismissal. “The man couldn’t get elected to an ass wiping committee, let alone the senate.”
Bored with their arguments, I turn my attention back to Friedrich. “My vote is no. And if you don’t need anything more from me, I’d like to be excused.”
“If that’s your wish. Though, I would strongly advise you to make the effort of attending more of our meetings. Important matters are discussed that affect you.”
“I’ll have the next one added to my calendar.” I push up from my chair and straighten my coat.
“Very good.” Friedrich sighs, sitting back in his chair. “In the meantime, I’ll request more information regarding Mr. Boyd.”
Eased back in my office chair, I sip my liquor, staring across the room as the elevator dings and Isa steps out. I don’t know why my pulse quickens at the sight of her, like any second she’ll take off on a dead run and make me chase her.
As she edges closer, I don’t take my eyes off her. Couldn’t if I wanted to.
“You changed out of your dress.” I drink in the beauty of her in a simple T-shirt stretched over supple breasts, and tight leggings that hug her toned calves. My mind rewinds back to earlier in the night, when I had my face buried between her thighs, while her moans echoed all around me.
“It was uncomfortable.” Something is different about her, the way she doesn’t volley some smartass remark and hasn’t met my gaze once since walking into the room.
“What’s wrong?”
Her brows flicker, and she winds her fingers in the hem of her shirt. “You had Rand fetch me.”
“And?”
“And … it just felt a little … strange. After what happened in the courtyard tonight.”
“You’d have preferred I come myself.”
“Would’ve felt more personal. Less like a business transaction.”
I polish off the rest of my drink, setting the glass down on the coaster, and rise up from my chair. Dragging a finger over the smooth mahogany wood, I round my desk and come to a stop only inches away from her. The twitch of her shoulder, the quick rise and fall of her chest, the steady diversion of her gaze--small cues I notice that tell me she’s nervous around me all of a sudden.
Reaching out a hand, I brush my knuckles down her cheek and catch the subtle tilt of her head away from my touch. “Something else is troubling you.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Bullshit. You took my mother back to her room. What happened then?”
“Nothing.”
I curl my fingers around her fragile jaw and guide her eyes to mine. “What happened?”
Her throat bobs with a swallow. “Nothing happened. We ran into Nell at the elevator, and both of us helped your mother to bed.”
“And where exactly was Nell when my mother entered the masquerade without any clothes?”
“She took a smoke break.”
“How convenient. And how is my mother now?”
Eyes hidden beneath the long dark lashes, she nibbles on her bottom lip that I want to take between my teeth while I hold her pinned to the floor. Something was exchanged between her and Nell, this much is obvious to me. Earlier in the night, she practically begged me to fuck her, and now, she can’t even look at me. “Why didn’t you ask me about her right away?”
“You think I’m cold, and that I don’t give a shit.”
“I’m just trying to understand, is all.”
“Understand this.” I tip my head to gain her attention, and when she meets my gaze with those puppy dog eyes, it takes an incredible amount of control not to act on my desires. “There are few that I trust as a general rule. But I knew she was in good hands with you.”
A flicker of a smile dances across her face, but I’m not sure I’ve broken down whatever shield she managed to construct in the last couple of hours. Still grasping her jaw, I lean forward and take those lips, setting my other hand to the crown of her head as I tilt her chin up. The taste of mint toothpaste greets my tongue as I prod past her teeth.
I slide my hands down her back to her ass, and squeeze just enough to make her squeak against my lips. Traveling further down to her thighs, I lift her up, never breaking the kiss, while I wrap her legs around me and carry her around my desk. The chair catches me as I lower the two of us onto it. Reaching up her shirt, I run my hands over her belly, and up toward her breasts, while I devour the flavor that lingers on her lips.
Straddled over my thighs, she pushes against my chest, pulling her lips from mine, and breathes hard between us. Quiet for a moment, she shakes her head. “I’m sorry for this, but I have to know. I have to ask. What really happened to your son?”
As soon as the question tumbles out, my suspicions about Nell are confirmed. It isn’t the first time the woman has attempted to scare off one of the staff here with her little conspiracy theories. We let her off with a warning the last time, on the grounds that it’s not easy hiring help with the Blackthorne reputation looming over this place. She’s not the first to try and piece together what happened to my son, and won’t be the last, it seems, as much as I hoped otherwise with Isa.
With a light nudge, I back her off my thighs, and she clambers to her feet, standing before me.
“You want to know if I killed my son.”
“If I offended you, I didn’t mean ... I’m just trying to--“
“I want to show you something.” I lean forward and open the largest of three drawers on my desk. The moment I slide it out, the familiar pangs of agony punch at my chest. Held within, are pictures and drawings, a few crayons, and Roark’s favorite toys. The last remnants of my son that I gathered and stored away, keeping them for myself. I’ve never shown anyone my collection. Never gave a shit what anyone thought about me.
Isa kneels down beside the drawer and reaches in for a picture that I can’t bear to look at right now. He was two and a half years old, and my mother had snapped a picture of us, as I’d just tossed him into the air and caught him. Roark’s face was bunched with laughter, his tiny hands plastered at my cheeks as I held him up for a kiss.
“I’ll admit, I didn’t start out the best father. I hate myself every day for that. But he’s the only thing in this world that I learned how to love.” As if I’ve torn open an old wound, my chest aches with the admission, and I frown to keep the familiar anger from rising to the surface. I don’t owe her any of this, but without it, I’m still the monster. The Devil of Bonesalt who murdered his wife and son. At least now she knows, even the devil was capable of love once.
Eyes brimming with sadness, she sets the picture back into the drawer and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. Lucian, I’m so sorry.”
Words that fail to breach my disappointment. All my life, I’ve battled rumor and fairy tales, if not of my father’s infidelity, then my mother’s flirtations. The accusations about my son and wife are something I have to live with for the rest of my life.
It’s fucking exhausting.
“I know now what first drew me to you.” The familiar jab of pain strikes my temples, and I screw my eyes shut, trying to ignore the agonizing distraction. “You were different. You didn’t cower like I was some kind of murdering monster. You looked me in the eyes when you spoke to me, like you saw right past all this shit.” I gesture to my face where the disgusting vestiges remain, and shake my head. “But you are just like them. Just lik
e everyone else who feeds into the bullshit lies.”
“I’m not, Lucian, I swear.”
Another stab of pain is lightning behind my eyelids, and I breathe hard through my nose, mentally counting to ten, just like when I was a kid, waiting for the chasing thunder. “Get out.”
“Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”
“Get out!” The anger comes too fast, pounding against my skull, and I slam the heels of my hands against my temples. Breathing. Keep breathing.
One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand …
Like needles piercing the bone, the jagged edges of pain skate over my brain, throbbing and pulsing against the back of my eyes, until the incessant pounding finally slows. The waves of agony settle to a placid calm once more, and I open my eyes to find Isa is no longer there.
Breathing hard through my nose, I let the misery fall away. When I stand up from the chair, vertigo sets in, and I stumble back, letting the soft leather catch my fall.
With a trembling hand, I run my fingers over my forehead and close my eyes on the dizzying blur of the room.
“She’s pretty.” The melodic sound of a thick French accent ripples down my spine, and I blink awake to find Solange knelt down between my splayed thighs. Her nails rake across my trousers, and she pushes up to her knees, resting her belly against my groin. “Does she excite you, young master?”
She comes to me sometimes, when I’m stressed. I know she’s not real, even if she feels real. Sounds real. Smells real.
“Yes,” I answer, watching her unlatch my trousers, the wily smile showing off her one crooked tooth.
“She makes you hard, I see.” Massaging the ache between my thighs has me grinding my teeth, and when she gives a light squeeze, my thighs come up off the chair as I let out a growl of frustration. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s young. Delicious. And there is nothing more exciting than the forbidden fruit.” With her hand shoved down inside my trousers, she slides her palm up my shaft over the thin, silky fabric of my boxer briefs. “Pretend I’m her. Take me any way you want, Lucian.”
I set my hand over hers to make it stop. “No.”
“You know the rules,” she breathes, her voice louder inside my head. “You can’t have both of us.”
“Then, leave.”
A shocked expression meets my gaze, as if she’s just been slapped. “You would send me away? Why?”
“Lucian?” At the quiet pitch of Isa’s voice, I freeze, opening my eyes to find my own hand down inside my pants, Solange nowhere in sight. “I’m sorry.” Fingers fidgeting where she keeps her hands crossed in front of her, Isa’s standing in the middle of my office again. “I know you said to leave, but … who were you talking to? A second ago?”
There’s an uncertainty in her voice, one I know very well. It’s come in other forms from various people--strange looks, avoidance, and in the worst cases, has resulted in more treatments and drugs.
“Why are you still here?” I slide my hand out of my pants and twist my chair to face her.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Gaze cast from mine, she clears her throat. “Who’s Solange?”
Christ, I don’t even remember having said her name, at all. “No one.”
Still not bothering to look at me, she nods. “I see that. But you were talking to her anyway.”
“And you wouldn’t have seen anything, if you’d have left as I asked.”
Warm gray eyes finally lift to mine, the stubborn glint behind them telling me she doesn’t intend to let this go.
The question isn’t should I tell her, because at this point, anything I tell her will sound the same. It doesn’t matter who Solange is to me. What matters is that Isa will have yet another reason to stay away from me.
Yet, maybe it’s better that way.
“What do you want, Isa? To know if I’m crazy? The Mad Son everyone claims I am? The answer is yes. But then, that was never really a secret, was it?”
Feet still glued to the same spot, she shakes her head. “I never believed the rumors. It was your mother who told me about the hallucinations of your friend. Jude?”
Leave it to my mother to perpetuate the very rumors she feared back then. I stare back at Isa, my throat suddenly dry and parched, and I reach for the decanter to pour myself another drink.
“She told me he died when you were very young,” she adds, finally taking a step closer.
Gaze buried in the liquor, I lick my lips, the scent of the bourbon already puckering my tongue, while an image of Jude’s face comes to mind. “It used to be the mere mention of him would incite flashbacks. That awful sound of his screams over the crashing of waves. The look of fear in his eyes when he reached out for me, as the waves swept him to sea. I’d end up blacking out. Don’t even know how long.” I finally take a sip from my glass, letting warm liquid slide down my throat. “If not for the pictures I have from when we were young, I’d wonder if he was ever even real.”
“Why do you say that?”
A quiet chuckle escapes me as I swirl my drink. “I don’t think you want down that rabbit hole, Isa. It’s dark, and there is no bottom.”
“Try me.” The resolution in her eyes is remarkably attractive somehow. Almost fearless.
“All right. Solange was … an affliction of a different sort. Unlike Jude, she never actually existed. Yet, she taught me things that, to this day, are very real for me.” I study her reaction for a moment, waiting for that familiar flicker of disbelief.
Instead, the intensity of her stare speaks of intrigue. Fucking intrigue.
“What kinds of things?”
Forget that I just told her I dreamed an imaginary woman who taught me things, she wants to know what.
“An appreciation for the line that separates life and death.”
“The reason you seek out an adrenaline rush.” It’s not a question from her, but rather my unspoken confession.
“Yes. She taught me breath play and knives.”
If I could crack open her skull right now, I’d probably hear the blare of a warning, telling her to run.
“You still see her? This Solange?”
“Only when my head is in a messed up place.”
She looks away, still fidgeting. “I put you in that place. When I asked about your son.”
I don’t answer that. “This is why I warned you to stay away. Welcome to my crazy.”
“Your mother said she tried to help you.”
With a snort of laughter, I tip my glass for another sip of liquor, needing the buzz, all of a sudden. “Yes, she tried to help me. By putting me in a place that sought to cure my sexual deviances. The only thing they managed to cure was my desire to live.”
Frowning, she shakes her head and crosses her arms. “I don’t care. I don’t care that you have hallucinations. I don’t care that you like knives, and whatever else they considered to be crazy. None of that matters to me.”
What the ever-loving hell is wrong with this girl?
“While I appreciate your sentiments, this is the universe telling you to walk away.” I polish off the rest of my drink and set the glass on my desk. “Heed the warning.”
She lurches toward me, but stops herself. “I don’t give a damn what the universe, or anyone else, thinks. I make my own decisions.”
Her tenacity is something else. If I wasn’t so caught up in the humiliation of her having seen one of my little episodes, I’d take her against my desk right now. “Leave. You’ll be grateful I spared you the heartache later.”
“What heartache?”
“Of knowing I’m the kind of selfish bastard who will fuck you before I push you over a cliff.” I don’t want to do this, but this girl is as stubborn as they come. The truth is, I don’t have the courage to watch her fall apart, when she realizes that Blackthornes aren’t designed to whisper sweet words and fall in love. We annihilate, and revel in the aftermat
h of destruction. My mother is a fine example of that. My father could’ve left her, but the sadistic bastard got off on watching her slow death. The whole purpose of Schadenfreude is to prove that level of bastardry is genetic, and it’s clear I’ve not been spared, so why would I subject Isa to that? A teenager who has her whole life ahead of her. A whole slew of broken hearts and true love.
“So, what happened in the courtyard earlier …”
“Was fun.”
“Fun.” The lack of humor in her voice is telling of the rage and confusion that must be clamoring inside of her.
I want nothing more than to sweep her off her feet like the white knight she’s probably dreamed about since she was a little girl, but to what end? So she can be as miserable as my mother? As miserable as Amelia was? Like a bird trapped inside a box with no holes to breathe.
Gaze lowered, she shakes her head. “I don’t get you, Lucian. I want to, but I don’t.”
“You’re not the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”
“So you … you want nothing to do with me.”
That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I answer with more lies. “I want to do a number of things to you, but that’s all, I’m afraid.”
“And what if I was okay with that?”
This girl. This excruciatingly beautiful, exotic girl who has my dick ready to tear through the zipper right now.
“I’d think you were a very foolish girl.”
Lips pressed together, she nods. “Well … you’re not the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.” She finally backs herself toward the door. “For the record? Aside from the mishap with your mother, tonight was the best night of my life,” she says, and she spins around toward the elevator.
Every muscle in my body is wound tight, listening to the evidence of her retreat. The ding of the elevator. The sniffles. The sliding of the doors. My opportunity to have her slipping out of my grasp.
The moment she’s gone, I pour myself another drink, hand trembling with fury.
This is my curse. The legacy my father left behind, of mindless sex and misery.
I raise the glass for a sip, teeth grinding inside my skull, but slam it against the desktop so the liquid splashes out onto the wood.