Fracture (Blood & Roses #2)

by Callie Hart

  Just stab them? My mouth falls open. “I don’t go around stabbing people!”

  “Got a gun?”

  “No!”

  “Then you can’t really shoot them instead, can you?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose between index finger and thumb, slumping down to sit on the closed toilet lid. “Zeth, can you please just get back here as soon as possible. Please.”

  “Anyone would think you needed me,” he says in a low, silky tone. I have shivers again. All over my body.

  “I don’t!”

  “Well I need you.” The tenor of his voice slips into a vocal range I’ve never really heard before, so low and rough that my whole body starts to burn. “Next time I see you, I’m introducing you to a few friends from the bag. I’m getting fucking hard just thinking about it. Fuck. There’s one toy in that bag that I think you like almost as much as I do.”

  He’s talking about the knife; I know he is. I swallow thickly, shaking my head, trying to push all memories of the last time he used it on me out of my mind. He makes that really hard when he continues talking.

  “I wanna slide my hands up those thighs, Sloane. I wanna tear your clothes from your body and make you tremble. I want to dig my fingers and my teeth into your skin and make you scream my name. You want that, too, huh?” he says.

  Cold sweat pushes out of my pores, making my skin prickle. I’m a visual person. Say something to me and I instantly imagine it inside my head—and at this exact moment in time I find myself visualizing Zeth’s impressively big cock straining against his jeans, just begging to be let out to play. I clear my throat, closing my eyes. “That’s not exactly a practical thing to want right now.”

  “What about me screams practical to you?” His voice dips in volume again, so that it’s almost a whisper. It has a flustering effect on me. “Where are you right now?” he asks.

  “In the bathroom.”

  “Anyone else in there with you?”

  The question seems like a sensible one. A question you would ask if you were discussing mob bosses, being followed and stabbing people to death. I duck my head, looking underneath the stall dividers. No feet. No one standing at the washbasins, either. “No. No one else,” I confirm.

  But with his next words, it’s painfully obvious Zeth isn’t concerned about people overhearing information about his boss or his boss’s henchmen. “Good. Put your hand down your pants for me, angry girl.”

  “What?”

  “Do it. Put your right hand down your pants for me. I want to hear you come.”

  “I am not masturbating in a public bathroom, buddy! You’re crazy if you think I’m doing that.” There I go with the whole buddy thing again. So stupid. Zeth makes a pleasant growling sound on the other end of the phone. “I’m not asking, Sloane. I’m telling. Touch. Yourself. Now.”

  “No!”

  Zeth seems unprepared for my refusal. “Would you be saying no to me if I was standing in front of you?”

  I think on that for a second, imagining it playing out in my head. If he were standing in front of me in this toilet cubicle, I’d do pretty much anything he told me to. I hate admitting that to myself. I don’t say anything, which makes him chuckle. “I’ll make you a deal,” he breathes heavily down the phone. “If you slip your hand down those prissy blue scrubs of yours and you’re not already wet for me then you can hang up the phone.”

  He just loves doing this, I can tell—turning my own body against me. But not this time. I huff into the handset, smug that I’m about to prove him wrong. I could just tell him I’ve done it and laugh haughtily as I hang up, but I know on some level that won’t work. He’d know. So I do it. “Fine!” My hand slides down beneath my scrubs, but over the top of my panties—no need to go too far. The smile falls off my face when I realize I’m not only wet for him as he knew I would be, but I’ve soaked all the way through the thin cotton of my underwear.

  “Middle finger first, Sloane,” Zeth rasps into the phone. He doesn’t even ask if he won our deal. He just knows he has. The bastard. I screw my eyes tightly shut, kicking myself.

  “I don’t have time. I have patients to see.”

  “You’re catering to my patience right now,” he informs me darkly. “I wanna hear it in your voice, Sloane. I wanna hear every single agonizing second that you’re toying with yourself, wishing that your fingers were my cock.”

  “You’re very full of yourself, you know that?” I say. My breathlessness doesn’t do much to make me sound confident, though. And he just tuts down the phone.

  “Use your middle finger. Slide it inside yourself and tell me that’s not exactly what you’re thinking. Wishing for. My dick slamming into you. Do it now, Sloane.”

  I want to laugh. I want to hang up the phone and slip it into my pocket, and I want to go on my rounds and forget about this stupid demand he’s making of me. But I also want to do it. Zeth doesn’t say anything further, but I can hear his laden, heavy breathing still on the line. I spend thirty seconds battling with myself, and then I just snap. Like I did back in his richly decorated apartment, he’s trying to make me come to this decision by myself. To make me see it’s actually what I want. I already know it’s what I want, so why am I fighting against it?

  That Pippa-sounding voice whispers in my ear. Because you don’t know him. And what you do know is terrifying. But it’s the last two years of my life that have been terrifying. At least I know for a certainty what…who he is. I make my mind up. I slip my panties to one side and press my finger into the very center of myself, gasping quietly. I’m so wet, so turned on. I can’t ever remember feeling this way when I’ve done this in the past. But technically I’m not alone now—Zeth might as well be guiding my hand with his own.

  “Good girl,” he tells me. He must have heard me gasp, or he’s using some sort of that strange psychic power that he’s thus far kept hidden. “Is your clit swollen?”

  I shut my eyes, trying not to feel absolutely lost and embarrassed. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”

  “Rub it for me.” I do. I work my fingers back and forth over the slick flesh between my legs, doing my utmost to keep my breathing even. “Does it feel good?”

  “Uh-huh.” I swallow a mouthful of oxygen as a ripple of heat shivers up my spine, traveling up over my ears and onto my face. My lips are tingling like crazy. I bite the lower one to try and get a handle on the sensation but it only makes it worse. I can’t help it; I sigh deeply.

  “That’s it. Don’t hold your breath, angry girl.” Zeth’s deeply resonating voice is hypnotic now, working into my subconscious. It feels like a physical presence in itself, sending shooting relays of pleasure around my body. “Take your shirt off.”

  I blink past the demand and stop what I’m doing to comply, pushing all thought of objection out of my head. No point now. I yank off my scrubs top and my tee underneath, letting the clothes drop to the floor between my legs. It’s not cold but I still shiver as I shrug out of my bra straps. My nipples are already tightly drawn buds, so sensitive the still air against them almost hurts.

  “Squeeze your breasts. Imagine my hands,” Zeth orders. “My mouth.”

  That’s not something I do when I’m on my own. I never really have. I always reasoned that it wouldn’t be the same as a guy doing it, but now when I lightly trace my fingertips across the goose-bumped skin of my breasts, I am imagining him. I can practically feel the heat of his breath as he stoops to suck one nipple and then the other into his mouth. My own breath catches again.

  “Good. That’s right,” he encourages me. “Put me on speakerphone. You’re gonna need two hands for this.”

  I fumble with the phone, hitting the speaker icon and setting the phone down on top of the pile of clothes at my feet. I’m already too lost to think about what I’m doing. I’m using my own discretion now, touching and stroking where I see fit. I’m panting, too. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if I tried.

  “Now. Slide your fingers inside.” Zeth’s voice sounds
almost as hazy as mine. Rougher than normal, and that’s saying something. I obey him immediately, slipping first my middle and then my index finger into my pussy. I inhale sharply, the pressure feeling warm and tight and strangely blissful. The forbidden pitch of his words work their magic over me when he then commands, “Fuck yourself for me, Sloane. Do it. Fuck yourself hard.”

  I oblige him, finally unable to prevent the moans and soft gasping that escapes my mouth as I work my fingers inside myself, imagining the weight of him on top of me, his rock-hard cock pulsing in and out of me, the sublime burn of his rough stubble on my sensitive skin. He breathes words into the phone, growling and hissing out his approval as I get louder and louder. I can barely hear what he’s saying though, and soon a tightening, fizzing sensation grips hold of me. It happens suddenly. An unstoppable wall of heat that crashes through me like whitewater smashing into the wall of a dam. Rising upward and at the same time dragging me down with it.

  “Holy…FUCK!” The words rip out of me like a plea for help. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, up and down, up and down.

  Zeth’s lazy, amused laughter echoes around the narrow cubicle. “Sounds like you enjoyed that, angry girl.”

  “Fuck you,” I tell him, only half meaning it.

  And then I hear something that makes me freeze in place: a toilet flush. Zeth is silent for a moment and then he says, “Let me guess. That wasn’t you.”

  I sit upright, leaning forward, slapping my hands over my mouth. Zeth just starts laughing. I snatch up the phone and hit the big red end call button, feeling all my blood rush to my cheeks.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  A stall door opens, not the one right next to me but the one on the very end, and the sound of a tap being turned on fills the bathroom. Whoever it is hurriedly washes their hands and then rushes out of the bathroom. I grab up my clothes and dress myself frantically—I need to find out who the hell that was! No, no, no, no, NO! Fuck. Fuck!!

  I hastily wash my own hands, and then dash out of the bathroom, chest still heaving, more from horror and shock now than the orgasm I just experienced—the one that registered a nine point two on the Richter scale. The corridor is bustling with nurses, doctors and members of the public. Members of the fucking public! I don’t know what’s worse, the thought of a colleague having just heard that or the poor, unsuspecting family member of one of my patients. My horror becomes absolute when Oliver Massey saunters down the hallway toward me, grinning. He holds up his palm, grinning at me. Without thinking I respond, raising my own hand to give him a high five as he passes. He raises an eyebrow at me as he continues right on by.

  “Scrubs are inside out, Romera,” he points out, winking. “What have you been up to?”

  It can’t have been Oliver. There’s no way it could have been him. It was the women’s bathroom for crying out loud. The rest of the day goes by with me feeling flushed and distinctly like I just got caught with my pants down. And my shirt off. While being instructed to do rather graphic things to myself.

  I want to smack Zeth so hard my palms tingle with need for the rest of my shift. When it’s finally time for me to clock off, I find Lacey asleep in the on-call room where I left her, swaddled in blankets. She doesn’t look like she’s moved at all since this morning. She blinks groggily at me when I wake her and we leave St. Peter’s via the rear exit, firstly to avoid the curious eyes of the nursing staff, secondly so I don’t run into Oliver again (just in case), and thirdly so I can try and sneak the Volvo out of the lot without being seen by any mysterious black cars with tinted windows.

  Everything goes off without a hitch. No nursing staff, no Oliver and miraculously no black car. It isn’t even parked outside the coffee place anymore, which makes me feel kind of foolish. Maybe whoever it was this morning just happened to be going the same way as us and felt like stopping off quickly for a coffee on the way to work. Both Lacey and I watch carefully all the way home, though, just to make sure.

  I park the car and we head inside. I make sure all the windows and doors are triple locked just as a precautionary measure. The action brings to mind Zeth snooping around the place, inspecting every square inch to make sure it measured up to his idea of secure. He probably already knew he was bringing Lacey here to dump her on my doorstep, and wanted to make sure she would be safe. The thought plummets me into an irrationally sour mood.

  “I’m too tired to cook. You’re just gonna have to make do with takeout.” I clip out the words sharply, hurling them over my shoulder at the girl following behind me, and I immediately regret it. A shutter comes down across her already wary features.

  “It’s okay,” she says mechanically. “I can cook.”

  “No. Shit, no, I’m—I’m sorry, Lace. I’ve just had a really long day.” I blow out a long breath, scratching at my forehead. I haven’t had a roommate since college and even then I didn’t do all that well living with other people. This situation is especially awkward because of Lacey’s fragility. I’m terrible for being shitty with her because of him, though. Because, if I’m startlingly honest with myself, I am jealous of the bizarre relationship they share.

  “I don’t want you to cook. I really do just want takeout. Is that okay?”

  She nods, hanging her head and making her way to the breakfast bar where she seems to have found a place for herself where she feels inconspicuous. I rifle out the vast array of home delivery menus—I eat crap most nights—and I let her pick. She chooses Chinese food, selects what she wants and to my amazement orders the meals for us, too, providing my address without even having to ask for it. I crack open a bottle of wine, much needed, and offer her a glass. She shrugs her shoulders in a why the hell not? kind of motion and we settle on the couch, the TV playing quietly in the background while we wait for our dinner to arrive.

  I’m still struggling with the bitter taste in my mouth despite the delicious red wine, though. I decide to get it the hell over with and find out once and for all what on earth is going on with them. “So…” I begin. The best place to start when broaching a topic without a decent segue. “I know you told Pippa you didn’t know why you liked being with Zeth so much, but I thought—”

  Lacey quickly brings the wine glass up to hide most of her face, holding it with two hands. She chugs at the wine, way too fast. Her eyes are watering considerably when she lowers the vessel. With a guarded look in her eye, she peers at me sideways. From her reaction, I was actually going to let the matter drop, but she chooses to speak of her own accord. “I found him,” she says simply. “I was looking for him for a long time, and I found him.”

  Well that’s a confusing statement if ever I’ve heard one. “Found him, like you were looking for ‘the one?’ Like, your soul mate?” I say the words so awkwardly I almost roll my eyes at myself. I sound like an online dating site. Hell. Maybe they met on an online dating website.

  Lacey’s face becomes a picture of puzzlement. “What? No. No.” She shakes her head violently from side to side. “My first foster family told me about him. Told me that he was living north of Los Angeles with his uncle. They said when I was old enough, I could go and live with him.”

  “Why the hell would they say that?”

  Lacey puckers her mouth, clearly considering what to tell me. How much she should reveal. Her pale eyes narrow, roving from my eyes to my mouth to my nose and then back to my eyes again. She draws her arms tight to her body, apparently having made up her mind. “He’s older than me. My older brother. I traveled all over Los Angeles trying to find him when I finally…when I finally got away from Gregory. But he wasn’t there.” She absently chews her thumbnail, staring into space. Meanwhile, I sit with my hand over my mouth once more, trying to let the information sink in. Sister. She’s his sister? “I found his uncle, though.” She carries on, ignoring my stupefied look. “My uncle, too, I suppose. He said Zeth had moved to New York, so I went there. Turned out Zeth hadn’t actually moved to New York so much as been arrested and put away there. I did
n’t know what to do then, so I left and came here. I’d found out his boss lived in Seattle and Zeth would come back here at some point, so I decided to wait. And then there he was one day.”

  I can’t really believe it. They are like night and day, one so tall and dark, the other tiny and colorless, like a soft gust of wind. Lacey drinks more wine, while I run my finger back and forth across the rim, trying to make the pieces fit. “And so you approached him and told him you were his sister?” I ask.

  She looks at me, surprised. “No.”

  “He already knew?”

  Another shake of the head. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know we’re related.”

  “So how did you end up living with him, then?” This is getting more confusing by the second. The small girl gives me a careful smile.

  “It was raining. I’d been trying to figure out how to introduce myself for hours, sitting outside his place. It was raining and I was soaked through. I thought he’d probably let me come in and dry off at least once he found out we were brother and sister, but I just couldn’t find a way to word it right in my head. I passed out from the cold. He found me on his doorstep, nearly tripped over me as he was going out somewhere. He was dressed in this smart tux. He still picked me up and took me inside, getting soaked in the process. He asked what the fuck I was doing outside his place. Did I know him? I said yes. Yeah, I did. But then I was stuck again. I still couldn’t figure out what to say to make it make sense. He asked me if I’d fucked him and I said no. He asked if I was gonna tell him how the fuck I knew him then, and I said, yeah. At some point. When I’d worked up to it. And then that was that.”

  “And then that was that?” Incredulous, I shuffle closer to the girl. “You just said you’d get around to telling him, and you’ve been living with him ever since?”

  She nods, like this is completely normal.