His statement leaves foolish tears in my eyes. This whole thing is supposed to be about the loss of self-control and self-interest. It’s supposed to be about personal gratification. He and I are supposed to be terrible people for doing it. I’m not supposed to care about him and feel this connection.
Mac turns to a dry board with pictures and writing all over it, all of it related to the murders of the pimps. He picks up a Sharpie. “You said you have info on the case?”
“I do.” I sum up my adventures over the last few days, telling him the same story I told Sebastian, just with a lot less craft involved. But when he turns to look at me, I cringe.
“You went to the roadhouse where you knew the Toltecs would be?” he says, sounding appalled.
The anger in his voice dissolves the fluttery feeling in my tummy as if someone has dumped a bucket of ice water over my libido. His glare makes me shrink back. In my seat. “I wanted to make certain before I came to you.”
“Certain about what?”
“I don’t know! That they exist. That they seem like terrible people.”
Mac throws the Sharpie across the room and goes to stand by the window. In the glass, I see his face contorted into a knot. He’s breathing roughly. It really frightens me.
“I’m not a child, you know,” I tell him defensively. “I can take care of myself just fine.”
Not exactly the truth, but he’s made me angry and I need to lash out at something.
He takes several moments to get his temper under control. In the course of it, he puts his hand on the cold black glass and spreads his fingers so I can see his wedding band. The silence between us is thick. “You could have gotten hurt. Gotten killed. And it would have been my fault. Did you even think about that? You could have died because I gave you that file, and that would have been on me. I would have had to carry that for the rest of my fucking life!”
He swallows hard. I can tell by the pain in his face that this is hard for him. I’ve been hard on him. What we’ve created here between us is hard on him.
I get up and move to fill the space behind him. I want to comfort him, but there is always that fear. A small woman standing near a large, angry man…
His dark eyes glitter before narrowing to piercing black jewels.
“Don’t be angry with me,” I say.
He turns around and looks at me with an emotion I can’t translate. Lust. Fear. The light of a passing car passes across the window outside, making him look white and ghost-like for a moment.
“God almighty,” he gasps. “I look at you…at the languid, effortless beauty of you…and all I can think about is touching you. I can’t seem to think beyond you.”
His words make my heart surge. After being told by my father that he doesn’t love me—that he has never loved me—and by countless others that I’m dirty and evil and everything you can imagine (and a few things you can’t), I need this. I need him. I reach up and touch his cheek. He closes his eyes and seems to revel in my mouth. Then I slowly undo the buttons of his shirt. The sight of that smooth, dark wall of muscle nearly undoes me.
Mac suddenly loosens his necktie. “My place. My rules.”
He grabs me by both wrists. His hands are large and corded and capable of great violence, I think. He twists me around so the front of my body is pressed to the wall, and he holds me there as though I’m a dangerous criminal, his one hand spanning both my wrists. His other goes to the side of my head and turns it gently.
His mouth captures mine. His tastes hot and meaty like a hunter and, in seconds, it is all I can do to control myself. The way he sucks at my mouth makes me make these soft, kitten-like noises, and that drives Mac crazy. Soon enough, he’s responding with a long, low, throaty growl while he produces a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt.
“Mistress, do you trust me?” he asks.
I tell him the truth. “Yes.”
Christ, I’ve never felt so out of control—except, perhaps, with Nick.
He slides the handcuffs over my wrists and secures them snugly, but not so tightly that they chafe. I can tell he knows how to do this. They jingle as he turns me around, grabs the front of my jacket and pulls it apart and down my arms. The sleeves catch on the handcuffs. They can go no farther. Then he does the same to my white cook’s shirt, tearing it open so violently I start.
He looks me up and down as if he’s mesmerized by the sight of me in just my boring grey, racerback sports bra. It’s not a pretty, sexy bra—it’s my work bra—but he doesn’t seem to care. Putting one big hand on my hip, he drags me against him, the gesture rough and primal. I stumble. He then rubs the front of his hard, lean body against me, a distinctively possessive gesture, while he dips his head and nips none too gently at the side of my throat.
“Ohh,” I say as he kisses and tortures me.
“I’m not hurting you?”
“Perhaps if you try harder…”
“You really are something,” he says, leaning back.
“Your station. Your rules. I’ll do whatever you want me to do tonight. You need only command me.”
I know he wants—needs—to hear those words. The alpha male in him needs to hear them.
“Fuck!” he roars as he drags me to the sofa and forces me to kneel on it.
He hesitates, breathing hard through his lust. I can tell he is waiting for me to object. I gave him permission to do anything he wants to me, but I’m still the one in charge of things. Topping from the bottom, as it were. But instead of punishing him, I give Mac a demure look over one shoulder.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful I can barely control myself,” he gasps.
“Don’t,” I command him. “Do what you want. Whatever you want.”
Mac’s eyes gleam with a wild light as he moved into position behind me. “Don’t move,” he says. “And don’t come.” He pushes me down into the cushions and shifts his body so I’m pinned under his weight. The room is suddenly filled with breathy, intimate sounds and the jingle of the cuffs as he covers me. Unexpectedly, he leans down to kiss me on the side of the face. It’s a strangely sentimental and sweet gesture.
I moan and wriggle a little beneath him.
He grunts in response, then sits back to shrug off his shirt. His body is incredibly hard, but his skin soft. It feels like silk stretched over stone as he presses it—and the sizable erection in his trousers—against my back. Reaching around, he grabs my breasts and squeezes them so hard, I let out a little cry of surprise. His muscles ripple as he strokes and squeezes me, letting me feel his raw strength.
“Harder,” I encourage him.”You can hurt me a little if you like.”
He squeezes my flesh even harder and I moan and twist in his cuffs.
Leaning down, he kisses the back of my neck.
I get pictures in my head of the things he wants to do to me. Things he has been thinking about all day. All week. Things he’s wanted to do his whole life—if only he had the right partner. “Yes,” I say when he lets me up a moment to breathe. “I want to do those things, too. Punish me, Mac. Consume me.”
“Who the hell are you?” he demands—not in confusion, but in elation. His hands, shaking with desire, undo my white cook trousers, and he pulls them and my boy shorts down my legs. He then bends his head to kiss and lick me between the legs. I sigh at the roughness of his cheek tickling me and buck my hips up a little.
I spread my legs, hoping he’ll relieve me of his terrible, endless wanting, but instead of quickly taking me the way I want, he works his slow way back up my spine. I shiver all over. “Mistress,” he says. His sweet eyes seethe with lustful need. “My sweet Mistress.”
He kisses me again, hard, and I want to cry out with need and frustration.
Mac grunts. Unexpectedly, he slaps my ass—hard. The sound of flesh on flesh echoes around the room, and the sting seems to go right through me and to my nether parts, making me wetter than ever.
He immediately regrets it. “I’m s-sorry.” His voice t
rembles as if he can’t believe what he’s done. “I—”
I moan in response. “Don’t apologize. And don’t hit me like some little girl.” I lower my head while arching my back. “Harder.”
He does as I command him. This time, he puts more confidence into it.
When Nick and I were together, we enjoyed a little light BDSM. Nothing too serious because, like Mac, I knew Nick didn’t enjoy inflicting pain on his lover—even to get her off. Mac is much the same way. He increases his force with each blow, but he keeps asking me if that’s okay—and, once, if he hurt me. I love how concerned he is.
“Take me,” I finally command. I’m ready at last.
He obeys. Within seconds, I’m mewling while he enters me and tenderly kisses my ear as if to make up for the impacts. “Christ, you’re such a sweet little bitch,” he says, and I’m surprised by the ferocity in his voice. “I could fuck you all night.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and jerks me upright on my knees while we couple, whispering, “Fuck, you’re tight. Fuck, I love you.”
“More,” I moan. “Give me more.”
He starts working my body in a slow, erotic rhythm. It makes me groan, gasp, and almost scream. His big hand slides up my body, keeping me up on shaky knees as we both finish with cries of pleasure that make me fear someone working late will look in out of worry. A delightful electricity fills us both.
He smells so good, like vanilla and sex. He bites the side of my neck as we shudder and twitch and the cuffs snap around my wrists as we finish. After he’s let me out of the cuffs, I turn and grip the mantel of Mac’s head, burying my face affectionately in his neck while we both slowly work on catching our breaths and coming down from our high.
And I’m really afraid. Really terrified as I touch his precious bite mark with soft, loving fingertips. Because I think I might love this man.
28
WHEN I get back to the shop, it’s late and there are police cars from three different precincts parked outside, as well as an ambulance with flashing lights at the curb. My earlier good feelings evaporate at the sight and I hit the brakes so hard, I nearly rear-end the SUV in front of me that’s slowed down to watch the cops crawling all over my shop.
With a curse, I pull to the opposite side of the street—it’s the only place to park at the moment—and kill the engine and leap from the jeep. I have a bad moment of déjà vu as I cross the street. I once came home to cops crawling all over the side-by-side I was renting with my friend Tiffany back in Blackwater. When I walked in, I learned Tiffany had been murdered. And the cops thought I had done it.
My heart won’t stop vibrating inside me as I approach the shop. And yet, the closer I get, the slower I walk, so it feels like a long time before I reach the sidewalk. By then, everything is moving through a surreal curtain of syrup. A cop standing by the open, smashed door turns toward me and says something about not entering. He is holding out his hand to stop me, but I duck under it—being smaller than he is, it isn’t difficult—and run into the shop.
Christ. Everything is broken around me. Glass and candy are scattered across the floor in a glittering avalanche. The glass cabinets have been shattered with a blunt-force weapon of some kind—probably by the aluminum baseball bat lying on the floor. The display window is broken. Sebastian’s little chocolate circus—stale and inedible but still beautiful—is lying in broken pieces across the floor. My shoes crunch over my life’s work as I race in slow motion toward the prep room. I pass the ward on the wall and see someone has spray-painted a rough outline of a roaring jaguar head over it.
My brain registers that detail, in particular. The paint is red but seems to be melting away on the wall as my own ward re-claims the space. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the spray can lying on the floor. The Toltecs attacked the shop and the ward—and the ward fought back.
I stop in the doorway of the prep room and just take in the sight before me.
It’s the only room that looks untouched. Someone has knocked one of the standing mixers down, and some ledgers are lying on the floor, but that’s it. It might even have been an accident. Maybe one of the cops bumbling around the small space.
No, the real horror is what is lying on the floor in front of me, bleeding into the cracks of the tiles.
I stare at Sebastian’s bloodied, lifeless face staring up at me. His eyes are wide open and his mouth gaping in a soundless scream. His hands are wrapped tightly around the handle of a knife protruding from the center of his chest. Blood has drooled out of the corner of his mouth and made a small pool there. There is another, larger, one underneath him.
He can’t scream. So I do it for him. I scream loud and long and, yes, hysterically, even as the cops drag me back.
29
I’M SITTING on the back of an ambulance while an EMT takes my blood pressure and asks me my name, the year, and who is the president of the United States.
Annoyed, I throw off the blanket they gave me. “I’m all right!” I shout, getting up. “I’m all right now!”
The EMT, a remarkably burly, middle-aged man with a thick beard and carrot hair, doesn’t try to stop me. I figure I must look pretty scary at the moment. Well, I feel scary. The initial blow has left me all hollowed-out, but now it’s quickly filling up with rage.
Rage for what happened to my friend. Rage at those who did it to him.
Beaten and stabbed. That’s what the police have told me. They have eyewitnesses that say several Latino men walked into the shop about an hour ago—angry, tough-looking dudes. A few minutes later, there was shouting and the sounds of breaking glass. Sheri from the Laundromat went to investigate as the suspects were charging out of the shop. She immediately called the police.
As Sheri comes over to comfort me, I try not to choke up. While I was making love with Mac at the police station, my best friend was being beaten and stabbed to death on the floor of our shop. Intellectually, I know it’s not my fault. I knew Sebastian lived a dangerous life long before me, and I’m sure he’s been in and out of a lot of scrapes. But I also know it was the Toltecs. As Sheri describes what she saw, I realize Tupoc lead the charge. I also know they were here because of me. They waited until I was out of the shop to do this because they wanted to send a message:
I’m not tough. I’m not invincible. I’m just meat to them.
And they are right. They know I will blame myself because, technically, it is my fault.
After the EMT clears me, I go back into the shop. I must be putting out some seriously weird vibes because the police officers crawling over the place don’t try to stop me as I make my way to the prep room. Sebastian is gone. His body has been loaded into the coroner’s van outside. But as I stand there, staring down at the bloodstains on the floor, a housefly lands directly on my nose.
I raise my hand to swat at it when I realize it’s waving one tiny leg at me.
Witchy! Witchy…you cunt…look at me!
The voice in my head is frantic. I realize, belatedly, that I’ve been hearing it for the last few minutes or so. I just haven’t been able to pay any attention past the horror I’ve been feeling.
“Seb—!” I stop myself and glance around. As soon as the officer in the room leaves, I hold out my hand and the fly lands in my palm. “Sebastian?”
Took you long enough! Where in bloody hell have you been?
“I thought you were dead!”
The fly cocks his head. No fucking shit, Sherlock.
“What happened?”
Those cockers got me good, but I think I got out in time before they could really damage me.
“Got out? You mean you jumped into…this?”
The fly waves its legs frantically. I can’t stay like this! If I don’t get back to my body soon, it will die for good and I’ll… He glances all around. Where in hell did they take it?
I look around the room, hoping no one notices me talking to a housefly. “I think it’s in the coroner’s van,” I whisper.
R
ight. They’re going to take me to the morgue. Put me in one of those refrigerator units.
“Yeah. That’s what usually happens.”
This is bad. If I get too cold, I won’t be able to get back in. Take me to the van!
His voice is so frantic, I nearly panic on the spot. I don’t want to tell him I’m not sure if I can pull that off without being noticed and stopped. The coroner’s van is parked right out front, under a streetlamp.
That very moment, a new cop steps into the room, a black woman.
I gently clench my hand over Sebastian, ignoring his cries of protest in my head. “Officer?” I say, raising my free hand to get her attention.
She turns to look at me. Her face is stern but kind. “Sweetheart, what are you still doing in here?”
I move toward her. “I want to see my friend, Sebastian.”
She shakes her head sadly and rests her hands on her gun belt. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard, but I can’t allow that.”
“Please…officer,” I plead. “I just want to see him one last time before they take him away.”
“’Fraid not, sweetheart.” He voice drops an octave. “No one gets into the meat wagon after it’s full…” She hesitates. “No offense.”
I open my mouth, unsure how I’ll convince her to let me see Sebastian’s body.
Bugger this! Sebastian says in my head.
Seconds later, the lady cop staggers backward as if she’s been violently pushed by an unseen force. She nearly collides with the workbench behind her before she finds her balance. I instinctively reach out to help steady her. Her head is down, but when she looks up, I can easily tell something is wrong.
The expression on her face is completely different—less kind. And her eyes are blue. Sebastian’s eyes. She looks like she is going to be sick as she clutches her head. “Never gonna get used to this shite!” the lady copy shouts in a distinctive Cockney accent.
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