The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone

by D H Sidebottom

  I swallowed as I took a final pull of his deliciousness, his masculine aroma, his unique soul pacifying love and his potent adoration. “Can we do this and be unemotional? Be together without being together?” I asked with a hard tone, reminding him what would happen if all three of us came together as one.

  “No” he said bluntly, “But do you want to be detached, Ava?”

  “We have to be, Kade, for Mason’s sake as much as ours. It can’t be done without emotion, without sentimentality. I love Mason, Kade, so God damn much that it hurts; it kills me to hurt him and I won’t ever do that to him again.”

  He smiled slyly, his lips twisting on one side as he leaned into me, his lips brushing mine and bringing a tiny moan from me, “Ask him Ava, ask him what he wants.”

  “I have” I rasped as I closed my eyes and pushed my head away, denying the urge to just kiss the man that had taunted my dreams, my life for so long.

  “And what, what did he want?” he breathed as his lips wisped over the hypersensitive area below my ear.

  “You” I answered and smiled in victory at Kade’s growl, “He wants you. He wants to fuck you into hell and back. He wants you to screw me brutally whilst his cock sinks so deep inside you it feels like he owns every inch of you.”

  I placed a chaste kiss on his neck and pulled away, dipping under his arm as I left him stood palming the wall. I paused as I gripped the handle and turned back to him, “The thing I asked for?”

  He rotated his head slowly to look at me. I smiled when I caught the bright twinkle in his bright blue eyes, the fun and amusement that had attracted me to him in the first place flashing back at me. “I’ll be in touch, sweetheart.”

  “As I’m sure Mason will be.” I winked as I exited and closed the door softly behind me.

  I grasped at the wall for support, fighting to pull myself together as I waited for the elevator. Why wouldn’t my desire, my yearning for Kade ever fade? Would I forever be tortured with the need for him, would it ever get easier to resist him? I didn’t know what the pull was between us but it was always there, always paining and persecuting both of us.

  I wouldn’t admit it openly but Mason was right, I did still love Kade. I had always loved him, nowhere near what I felt for Mason. Mason was my life, my soul and my entirety but Kade—Kade was the forbidden, the illicit pleasure, and the outlawed gratification that hounded me. He made me feral with want and greedy with self-satisfaction, my selfish body demanding its fulfilment and indulgence.

  I shook my head and jiggled my body, releasing the pent up energy as I prepared myself to make the second visitation of the day that I needed to make. This one being much harder, knowing what I had to say to Courtney would either push the breach wider or hopefully see the crack heal. I loved the bones of my friend and my ache at her loss made my heart falter. I needed her as much as I needed Mason. She was my rock, my bounce board and my spirit’s sister and I was prepared to be honest enough to restore the bond between us.

  I just hoped she would feel the same.

  * * *

  I pushed open the door to her nail parlour. The scent and fumes of masses of nail polish and other shit used to manicure hit me and I blinked as I looked around the room for Courtney.

  She was stood behind a counter, her head buried in what looked like a large diary as another girl smiled at me, “Hey, Ava.”

  I returned her bright smile as I noticed Courtney’s head pop up. Her eyes fixed on me and I could see her anger as well as her slight regret but she pulled in a breath as I approached. “Hi” I said quietly as I noticed her stiffen when I drew close.

  To be honest, it ached my heart but also bubbled my gut with anger. I hadn’t done anything wrong, it wasn’t me who had gone with her ex, someone she knew still mattered a lot to me.

  “Can we talk?” I asked softly, not wanting to alert her clients and her staff to our problems.

  “No” she answered bluntly as she dropped her face back to the book in front of her and exaggeratedly scanned the page.

  “Please, Courtney.”

  She continued to ignore me and I leaned onto the counter, “Fine, I need my nails doing then.”

  Her brow lifted as she slowly raised her head to stare at me, “You—you want a manicure?”

  I nodded as I begged wordlessly for her to give in; I knew the look on her face was surprise. I was the last person who ever had their nails done, hell; I didn’t even have nails, just stumps of chewed cuticles and dead skin. “Yeah, I think it’s about time I looked after them now. Mason thinks they’re mank so . . .”

  She huffed loudly before pointing to a table and I scurried over before she changed her mind.

  She plonked heavily into the chair opposite me as she nodded her head, gesturing for me to prop my hands on the small velvet cloth she placed in front of me. “How are you?” I asked as I bit the bullet and dove straight in, needing as much time as possible to win her round.

  She shrugged as she wiped some weird stuff over my finger ends but didn’t answer. I nodded as though she had replied and ventured on, “The twins miss you.”

  Her eyes flicked up to mine as a small smile curled her lips, “I miss them too.”

  She continued with the hopeless task of fixing my stumps as I persevered, “I miss you.”

  She scoffed and I sighed, “Look Courtney, I’m sorry okay, you just shocked me, that’s all.”

  Her eyes shot to mine as she proper glared, her temper finally rising at me and I knew it was coming, but it was needed, essential for us to move forward. “You hurt me, Ava. For over ten years I have been there for you, dragged you up time and time again; supported you through each of your crazy notions and stupid ideas. Hell, your relationship with Mason provided more drama than a west end musical, but I was there, right beside you to pull you through.”

  I nodded as tears pooled in both our eyes, and fuck, she was right, she had always been there and where had I been when she needed me . . . nowhere near.

  “I know. . . .”

  “I fucking needed you, Ava. I needed my best mate when my lover told me I was just a fuck and that he still loved my best friend.”

  My eyes widened with her revelation and I closed my eyes in guilt as I pictured Kade and mine’s tryst this morning. “Oh Jesus, Courtney, I . . .”

  She shook her head and sighed heavily, “Don’t, it’s not that much of a huge sorrow.”

  “What? But I thought you said you loved him.” I swallowed in confusion as I lifted my hand to rub over my face. Courtney caught my palm before I managed to smear the gooey tonic crap currently moisturising my nails all over me.

  She rolled her lips and sat back into her chair as she fixed her sad eyes on mine, “I . . . Oh, I dunno Ava. It’s all a mess, but it’s true what they say, you don’t realise what you’ve got until it’s gone. I miss Greg, God I love him, Ava, so fucking much and I . . . What the fuck have I done?”

  I scrambled off the chair and swiftly moved round to her when her face crumbled and her tears fell rapidly, washing her thick mascara over her cheeks and smudging the smoothness of her foundation. “Hey, talk to him.”

  She shook her head, “I can’t Ava, he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you, he’s a mess too. He’s permanently pissed, always itching for a fight; he loves you Courtney; you know he does.”

  “I know he loves me Ava, but what I’ve done is . . .”

  “A mistake. A mistake repairable if you both want it enough.”

  She sighed and gestured for me to sit back down so she could start gluing twelve inch false nails over my real ones. I stared at the length of the bright pink monsters and cringed. I would never be able to eat again, or write, or fasten buttons or hell, even wipe my bits and pieces. “Holy hell Courtney, how long?” I scoffed in amazement as I continued to watch my fingers turn into claws.

  “Sexy as fuck Ava, Mason will love them, I promise.”

  “Uhh Courtney,” I leaned towards her with my eyebrows in my ha
irline as she leaned into me so she could hear my whisper. “You know what Mason’s fetish is, don’t you.”

  She nodded then her eyes widened before a wicked smile lifted her lips quite cruelly and I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Ouch” she mouthed as she winked.

  We both started laughing until we were rolling with tears, “Do you not like my husband?” I choked out as I pictured Mason’s face when I next slid my finger in his backside.

  “Well there’s one thing,” she chuckled. “You won’t miss his prostate with those beasts.”

  “No, I’ll probably stroke his tonsils as well.”

  We were laughing so hard we missed the approach of the six inch tart heels that housed a fuck whore.

  “Well, well, care to share the fun?” A high pitched drone broke the happy atmosphere.

  Courtney groaned as I looked up at Rebecca and smiled sweetly, “We were just discussing your arse, Rebecca.”

  Her evil smile faltered slightly as her teeth sank lightly into her bottom lip but she pulled it back together just as quick. “Funny Ava, at least my arse is good enough to be discussed.”

  “Good enough to be dis-gusted you mean.”

  Her eyes hardened on me and I could feel the ice of her soul freezing her heart from where I sat. “You think you’re so clever don’t you Ava, Little Miss Mafia Queen. Well, let me tell you something . . . you are just a fill in, just a fad until he realises what he’s missing in me.”

  Courtney looked at me with an amused expression as I tried to control the laughter, “A fill in? A fad? For eight years, Rebecca? That’s one fuck of a fad.”

  Her lips twisted with cruelty as she leaned closer, “Are you sure it has been eight years, Ava?”

  Okay, now I’d had enough. She was pissing me off big style and my anger surged with her insinuation.

  I shot upright and pointed in her face. I had completely forgotten about the new spur attached to the end of my finger, gaining me another two inch of coverage as I thrust the nylon sliver of a weapon into her cold eyeball. A shrill squeal left her throat as she lifted the heel of her hand to her eye as Courtney spat out a gust of laughter, “Oops, watch the new nails, Ava.”

  I swallowed back my own laughter as I gripped the bitch by the hair and yanked her ear to my mouth, “You know one day Rebecca, you’re gonna have one hell of an accident and it’s gonna be mortifying when your shattered legs won’t open wide enough for the next dick to get between them.”

  I dragged her through the shop, Courtney’s clients and staff gawping at us as Rebecca’s heels squeaked across the polished floor behind us.

  Courtney ran in front of me and opened the shop door before I threw Rebecca out. She stumbled onto the pavement as people bumped into each other so they didn’t trample her. Shame.

  “Oh and by the way, that wasn’t a threat, it was a promise,” I hissed at her as she screwed her palm further into her bleeding eyeball. “And I’d get that checked if I were you, looks nasty.”

  I turned and entered back into the salon as Courtney slammed the door behind me. “God, I hate that bitch” I snarled as my fists clenched, my fury nowhere near sated as I drove my new nails into my palm and relished at the pain, the sting taking my attention and calming my heart back to its normal pace.

  “Ava . . .” Courtney said with a slight grimace.

  “Don’t” I said with a shake of my head. I knew what was currently flittering around her head. It was the same thought that was bouncing around my mind. “She’s just winding me up . . . Good God, when is that bitch ever gonna be out of my life?”

  Courtney scoffed as she led me back to the treatment table, “Well Mason didn’t help when he employed her again at Allure.”

  I nodded in agreement as I took a long inhalation and worked my way up to what I had to say. She looked at me with a slight pull on her brow as though she sensed my discomfort, “Out with it, babe.”

  My lips lifted instinctively on one side as her familiarity with my body language heartened me. “We need to talk about Kade.”

  She sighed as she proceeded to buff my nails, “Why? It’s over between me and him, Ava.”

  “But it isn’t between him and me.” I gulped as her wide bright eyes locked onto mine, the worry and unease ringing alarm bells in her head.

  “Jesus, Ava, do you never learn?”

  I shuffled my chair further towards her and dropped my voice to a whisper. I didn’t want my private life, never mind my sex life, reverberating around the room. The women who attended Courtney’s nail parlour were the type to spread the gossip faster than a whore spread her legs. “Mason wants a threesome.” I revealed openly. Mine and Courtney’s relationship was brutally open; we could tell each other anything; we shared everything . . . even our sex life at times, regularly indulging in foursomes with our men.

  She paused for a long moment, her eyes as wide as her mouth whilst her fingers halted over mine, “Okayyy, and Kade? What does he want?”

  “The same” I whispered, “I wanted to tell you before it happens. But I don’t want to hurt you Courtney, if you still have a thing for him, I will make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Her tongue curled around the edge of her lips as she frowned in thought, “But do you think that’s wise after what Kade revealed to me? He still loves you, Ava.”

  I nodded faintly as I lowered my eyes to my hands, regarding my fake nails as though they were the crown jewels, “And I do him.”

  She groaned and palmed her face, her head shaking marginally as she gulped heavy breaths to ride the curse she wanted to throw at me, “For fuck’s sake, babe. Do you thrive on it?”

  “On what?” I asked with slight indignation at her tone as I lifted my gaze back to her.

  “Drama, Ava,” she shook her head and shrugged as if defeated. “Hey, it’s not my life. As long as you all know what you’re getting yourselves into.”

  “I don’t think they do. Mason’s so damn hot for Kade and Kade’s so fucking desperate to get back into me that they’re not looking at the whole picture.”

  She sucked her teeth but a small sexy smile materialised and her eyes twinkled mischievously, “I’d love to look at the whole picture Ava, you wanna do another DVD?”

  I slapped her arm but laughed, “You dirty ho, but yeah, I agree, it is something I’m eager to go with. Both Mason and Kade get me hotter than hell and both together . . . Jesus, Courtney.”

  She winked and giggled with me as we each pictured the two stunning men, naked and hard, their impressive muscles and magnificent bodies on display just for me; both of them attending to my every want and desire as they brought me to a new level of ecstasy.

  Christ!!

  “Don’t forget it’s our anniversary party Saturday night; make sure you’re there hun” I informed her as I rose from the chair to leave and passed her my debit card.

  She nodded but her worried eyes gave away her nervousness. “Is Greg going?”

  “Yep” I nodded to her, “But then that’s a good thing, give you both a chance to talk.”

  She snorted but didn’t respond as she ran my card through the system. Her face tightened as she pulled a frown and removed my card from the machine and slipped it back in. “There’s something wrong with your card, babe. It’s declined it twice.”

  “What?” I examined the card as if that would make it work before I popped it back in the card reader and tried again. It declined it again. “What the hell?” I grumbled as I passed her my credit card.

  “This one’s fine, just your debit card that’s the problem. You skint babe?” she joked, knowing my bank account was far from empty.

  “I’ll ring the bank when I get home” I moaned with the idea of sat listening to Cliff bloody Richard for forty minutes whilst I was put on hold.

  Courtney followed me outside as I left the salon and pulled me into a hug before pulling out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one. “What? Since when have you smoked?”

  “Since my life hit the gutte
r” she replied with regret.

  I shook my head at her in disapproval but didn’t comment further as I kissed her goodbye and walked towards where my car was parked.

  I heard the pop before the white hot pain hit. The blazing tearing sensation in my side splintered my mind at the same time as the agony seared through my brain and took my consciousness.

  Chapter 33

  Mason

  I DROVE MY hands through my hair in distress for the hundredth time in the last three hours. This was fucking torture; listening to Courtney’s distraught sobs as my heart shattered and my world disintegrated. Greg crouched beside her, his hand in hers as he held his wife tight in the worst three hours of her life.

  Watching the terror on Nate’s face as his best friend and my wife lay on a fucking soiled tin table in a grubby theatre in a dingy fucking hospital was as torturous as listening to Courtney fall apart.

  The only consolation was that Mary Thornton, Gary’s mother, was operating on Ava and my mother was keeping me up to date; her consultancy in this hospital allowing her access to information quickly.

  Whoever drove that bullet through my wife was going to die so horrifically and so excruciatingly that they would be begging me to finish them as they watched their own blood trickle drop by drop from their mangled body until the very last drop stained my hands.

  “Where the hell were you?” I roared at Wes as he came through the hospital waiting room door out of breath.

  My fingers curled around his neck severely as I pinned him to the wall, his feet elevated inches off the floor as I fought to restrain myself from killing the bastard.

  He tried to speak but all that came forth was a strangled choke. “Mase let him go” Greg urged as he wrapped his fingers over mine and tried to prise them open.

  “Where were you?” I asked again as Greg continued his efforts to disengage my hands from Wes’s throat.

  I relented slightly and loosened my death grip but retained my hold on him. “She told me to go, she visited Courtney and said she would be okay” Wes exposed as his eyes bulged and his body struggled under me.