And then, I died

by Sage, May

  If any of this was news to her, she hid her surprise well.

  “Be that as it may, I'd like you to try. You've already identified your triggers, and you've got very efficient methods to control them... until you don’t. In my opinion, you are overdue for a little bit of chaos in your life.”

  Chapter 4:

  Smashed

  Mornings had never been her thing and, consequently, she avoided committing to appointments before twelve… however, Annabel had raised a very good point: her life was perfectly arranged in order to limit aggravations.

  Wasn’t it what everyone did? Schedule things to their convenience?

  Nevertheless, Beth was irritated to have to concede that fact. It made her sound like a bore as well as a control freak.

  Determined to prove herself capable of adapting, she accepted the slot Maria Trench, head of the linguistic department at her old university, had managed to squeeze her into at eight thirty.

  She wasn’t off to a great start.

  After snoozing her alarm twice, Beth despaired at the time displayed on the screen of her sleek new Slate Industries phone. She had under an hour to shower, get presentable, eat, drink caffeine to become somewhat akin to a human being, and get to the campus.

  Totally doable.

  Her optimism faded when the faint music and the sound of water running made her aware that her shower was occupied.

  There were two bathrooms in her apartment; one squeezed between the library and William's room, and a larger one next to the gym.

  It would have been logical and somewhat gracious if the man had stuck to the room next to his, yet for some unfathomable reason, he used the other one.

  Beth, under strict doctor’s order, was determined to be pleasant; therefore, instead of knocking until he got out, as she was tempted to do, she went to drink her latte, gather her files in a handbag, and prepare her clothes.

  It wasn't as effortless as she would have once found it.

  There was a time – over a decade ago, back when they still called her Eliza – she would have actually had some pleasure in selecting a dress, matching it with shoes and accessories.

  Eliza had been long murdered and buried by Beth, though.

  The wardrobe in front of her was a relic of those days. She rarely opened it now, generally sticking to the chest of drawers full of cotton and denim.

  The clothes hanged in there were more than likely outdated, but they had kept well; George wouldn't have had his granddaughter wear anything than the very best quality, after all. Never mind that he had been millions in debt.

  Finally digging out a green skater dress long enough to reach her knees, with sleeves and not too low a neckline, she picked a slim belt and a pair of Mary-Janes with an ease she put down to practice.

  She'd wasted almost ten minutes, yet when she got back to her bathroom, she could still hear the shower going. That idiot was going to use up all the hot water.

  This time, she knocked.

  “Are you going to be long? I need to get ready.”

  “I'm almost there,” he yelled over his surprising choice of music.

  She wouldn't have pegged him as a refined sort of man; Blues, definitely. Classic? Perhaps. But Imagine Dragons?

  Minutes passed; two, at first, then another one.

  When the alarm signalling she should be leaving rang, she knocked again, harder this time.

  “Will,” she surprised herself with the use of the nickname – no doubt, Annabel's influence. “I really need the bathroom.”

  “There is another one.”

  She gaped, speechless. Seriously? Was he actually telling her to go use his bathroom?

  Before becoming withdrawn, defensive, inhibited, she'd been anything but, and this enraging man had managed to bring back to the surface the obtrusive girl who had to bend over backwards at home – the one who didn't accept no for an answer from anyone but George Carver.

  For a brief instant, Beth considered backing out, letting him win this round. Surely, it was better than to engage the man she lived with? Then, she visualized him: confident, beautiful, and dismissive as he'd ordered her around, fully expecting her to comply. You're staying. He'd always shrug her off if she let him.

  And just like that, Beth was gone. It was Eliza who turned the knob, pushed the door and got in.

  William was certainly a sight to behold: bare, wet and hard absolutely everywhere, from his shoulders, his defined abs, to the tip of the shaft he was holding in one hand.

  Oh. That was why he had been taking his time.

  There were a limited number of options before her. She could have high tailed it out of there; carried on staring at his – considerable – assets while attempting to impersonate an open-mouthed carp.

  Instead, she chose to win.

  She barely acknowledged the blush as she strolled toward him, meeting his hooded gaze head on.

  She opened the shower door, pretending not to feel the arctic stream of water biting her skin, and brushed past him as she bent down to retrieve her shower gel, doing her best not to betray the fact that every ounce of her flesh was on fire.

  Beth was quite satisfied by his expression of absolute shock; but it wasn't enough. She wasn't on top yet. They both knew that this shower was superior by far, with its powerful multiple jets, the underfloor heating… And he was reducing her to using the boring one; more to the point, she was yet again doing exactly what he wanted.

  So she turned around, just as she was ready to go.

  “I'd join you,” she told him in her sultriest voice, “but I like it hot.”

  And with a wink, she closed the door.

  Elizabeth was delighted with herself for about three minutes, then, falling down from her high, felt absolutely mortified.

  Fuck. What the hell had she been thinking?

  The rest aside, her little game had forced a matter she would never have consciously sought an answer to. The question she never asked herself had received a resounding answer when she’d met those eyes. They had been ravenous, dangerous, and completely transparent.

  He wanted her. The attraction really was reciprocated.

  She had no idea what to make of that. In one hand, she felt a tiny bit smug, but also confused. He’d never made a move on her – not even just now. Was he taken? Or was it only a spontaneous you-would-do-while-I’m-this-hard sort of pull?

  She found that she didn’t like either possibility. It shouldn’t matter though.

  “It doesn’t,” she told her mirror.

  The face she was staring at didn’t seem to believe a word of it.

  8:01.

  She firmly pushed him away from her mind and returned to the task at hand.

  After the minimal ablutions, Beth worked on her makeup, carefully applying a little bronze, some blush and eye-liner, before considering her lips.

  She hadn't gone with anything bolder than transparent gloss for years, yet she knew what suited her best; as sure as Victoria would always be found wearing a bold red, she, with the darker complexion inherited from her mother's Mediterranean roots, was most striking in one colour.

  Striking was exactly what she'd avoided in the recent years, but to what end? Men still looked at her. Actually, they had more confidence, because they imagined her to be an unpolished girl, an easy target possibly vulnerable to their charm.

  Quieting the timid voice which had ruled her life for so long, she grabbed her long forgone Envoutante and painted her lips pourpre.

  •

  It had become apparent after he'd awaken that first day that the girl who'd broken into the house didn't present an immediate a threat to his life.

  That fine day of March, at the close of the fifth week of cohabitation, he concluded that he had been lured into a false sense of security.

  The memory of Elizabeth Star Carver, her dark nipples standing to attention under a wet t-shirt and the tiniest, sexiest, most ridiculous pair of PJ shorts were very close to driving him to madness. She'd b
een sent to kill him, one painful masturbation at the time.

  Every curve he hadn't ever seen under her dull wardrobe was on display. She didn't have much of a breast compared his usual conquests, but the cup was a perfect, firm handful. Her slim waist matched to a pair of luscious hips and that butt made for a lethal combination.

  He mentally went through every prime number he recalled, attempting to banish the vision of the surprisingly voluptuous ass as she bent down next to him, so close she almost brushed his dick. Her legs were so long he would only have had to push her shorts aside and dive into her heat...

  What she was putting him through was wrong on so many levels, but for some bizarre reason, he had gone for more.

  He'd made himself come in a few short pumps and ran out of the shower to meet her and demand an explanation – or an intercourse, whichever came first – but he hadn't been able to demand much when she'd walked out of her room.

  She wore a conservative dress, her hair was majestically plated over her shoulder, yet somehow she was sex personified; what her clothes didn't say, her long lashes and luscious purple lips suggested.

  Who was this girl? Certainly not the pretty but invisible, silent roommate he'd gotten used to, nor the girl who had gone into a panic attack three days prior.

  Something had happened to her to transform her into the sensual goddess he couldn't – wouldn't – resist.

  “You're playing with fire,” he warned her, taking one involuntary step forward.

  She'd only smiled before running out of the door.

  Liam wasn't in the habit to lose, but as she’d got right under his skin with so little effort, he should have been embarrassed; he had to hand her the victory.

  He had repetitively pushed, dismissing her wishes in her own house because up until then, she’d allowed it. She’d let him stop her music to watch his movie, open the blinds she liked to close, keep his shoes on instead of wearing slippers indoors. He had, very deliberately, thrived to coax a response out of her, but Beth had been passive, indifferent, absent, up until today.

  The shower thing, ironically, hadn’t been on purpose. Liam, under his predicament, hadn’t had sex since January. The quality time under cold waters was an unfortunate side effect of the see-but-don’t-touch policy they had at home.

  But it had done the trick. Anger was the very first actual emotion she’d ever betrayed and it was glorious. She was glorious.

  Damn. Knowing that it hadn’t been seduction nearly as much as a lesson, he should have bowed down and moved on.

  He couldn’t.

  During the morning informal get-together, he thought of her ass as John said he'd nailed his assignment. When he passed the receptionist, whose enormous rack was all but on display under her silk shirt, he bit his lip, imagining nipping at a very different pair of breast.

  It was fast becoming an unhealthy obsession, but he understood it; he wasn't accustomed to being toyed with. She could have offered herself naked on his bed without gaining so much attention. The stunt she'd pulled? He'd be putty in her palm, begging for more.

  “What could you be smiling about, boss?”

  Jack just loved it, evidently.

  While they'd become as friendly as a man and the guy who paid him could over the last months, Liam would have eaten his own arm rather than sharing the events of the shower. The latest development aside, Jack still had matter to gloat: he had caught Liam’s attraction from the beginning, when it had been nothing more than a reluctant admiration, and had relished in Beth's indifference.

  If he realized the unexpected progression, he'd never let it go.

  “Your mother,” Liam replied, shamelessly resorting to third grade insults.

  “You know, I wonder if she's gay. I mean, I'm sure some girls don't fancy you; but then, they fancy me.”

  Jack, muscular from head to toes, was a man's man; the type of guy who saw no problem in rolling out of bed, putting on a pair of jeans, grabbing the first t-shirt in the dark before going out.

  Liam had his suits and shoes made to his measurements, chose the tie conveying the right message depending on his meetings. He shaved every weekday and never scheduled a meeting after three, as some stubble grew visible on his jaw around that time. He was painfully conscious of the fact that his actions as well as his image were reflective on the company he had built from his sweat.

  Women love them both so, arrogant as it sounded, Jack had a point.

  He didn't, however, need the image that hypothesis called to his mind: Beth in that damn tank top, riding the mouth of some bared chest brunette under the curtains hanging off her bed. Victoria. Beth and Vick...

  Damn. That boner wasn't going to disappear anytime soon.

  “Or maybe she isn't into blonds.”

  They were both fair, although Jack's hair was much lighter than the dirty blond locks Liam tamed by combing them back and neatly parting them on the left side.

  That one similarity had helped when people had started asking about the bodyguard; he'd introduced him as dear old cousin Jackson from his mother’s side who no one knew much about, and explained that he'd taken him on as a driver.

  “As there is only so much waiting in a car one can do without being tempted to kill oneself, I normally stick around and help out at the office,” Jack had told the paper who'd done a piece called William Blake Slate – the man behind the machine. Because that was imaginative.

  “Who she's into is irrelevant, Holt. I'm not interested, she isn't interested. End of story.”

  That was partially true.

  Would he give up about a quarter of Slate Inc to bend her over the kitchen counter and mindlessly pound into her? Probably. But the afterwards wouldn't be worth the hassle.

  His mind travelled to December, only three month ago.

  Going to Sin was compulsory for those in his position; it was the one place to be, the one club influential, successful, youthful people belonged to. Jace Warden, who had overseen his finance for close to a decade and continued to do so – although he occasionally deemed it necessary to remind him that the CEO of Warden and Colt Bank wasn't a freaking accountant – hadn't blinked before writing off the membership fee as a business expense; half of the deals he'd made had been finalised around the gorgeous, eerie waitresses in corsets and a round of drinks.

  Sin was also necessary for another reason altogether. It was vital that he only entertained ladies in similar situations as his: prosperous, self-reliant, and private women who wouldn't run to the papers about a bit of fun. The members of Sin usually fit the bill.

  He hadn't been on the prowl that night; however, Victoria had been sending him that look.

  They were always going to happen at some point; they'd danced around their attractions since the day Charles had introduced them years ago, but both had been unwilling to risk it. In Liam's view, his closer acquaintances were altogether off limits, for fear of their expectations.

  There were ways to make sex utterly impersonal, though, and Victoria's solution was one of the most pleasing: she'd invited her friend Anne to join them.

  Anne was another brunette in a smart, conservative beige dress down to her knees. Underneath, she had been wearing suspenders, stockings and nothing else.

  They'd practically run to book one of the few exorbitant suites upstairs, and spent the entire night feasting on each other’s bodies.

  It took a very special kind of woman to walk away from than and retain a friendship the next day.

  From her character as well as her reputation, Liam had known he could count on Victoria to be detached about sex. Even then, he had teased her until she screamed and used the very handy toys she’d had in her bag for hours, but he'd kept his dick out of the equation, reserving it for Anne's pleasure. He would most probably have caved if she'd insisted, but thankfully she hadn't.

  Although he had yet to decide what to make of Beth – especially after this morning – he would have sworn that she just wasn't that girl, unfortunately.
r />   He was entirely lost in that train of thoughts when Jack yelled a curse, before brutally swerving the car.

  Fuck was right.

  A black Sedan without plate was driving towards them at full speed, intending to meet them head on.

  Worse yet: there didn't seem to be a driver behind the wheel, which meant no one would hesitate.

  “Head down, prepare for the impact.”

  At that word, his head hit his knees as the other vehicle annihilated the side of his car.

  Chapter 5:

  Commitment

  “What do you mean, the hospital?”

  The like of William Slate didn't go to the hospital until they'd had a stroke after overworking themselves for sixty-seven years. They may pop by when their Stepford wives sprouted out their spawns, but that was about it.

  Beth had decided to take a run. A very necessary run; she needed to stay in shape. That run had somehow led her to the building Knight Tech shared with Slate Inc at eight thirty, after her flatmate hadn't made it home.

  He normally was back by seven and, while she refused to call herself worried, the change in his routine had been... unsettling.

  Fine, she was worried, but simply because the man had taken to informing her of his schedule before leaving.

  Dramatic changes of routine, in her experience, weren't good news.

  While mildly alarmed, she had expected something along the line of a flat tire resulting in a detour to the garage.

  “I'm his emergency contact,” Charles said, “and they've called to say he's been... in an accident of sorts.”

  Beth knew this tone but her friend knew that look.

  There were times when she let it go.

  Her job consisted in violating some people's privacy; she had heard enough secrets to quench her curiosity for a few lifetimes and, as a result, wasn't particularly intrusive.