Church.

by Fantome, Stylo

  Nine little burns replaced by one big scar. Something small became something great. I paid for his love in blood.

  Now I want some in return.

  To Be Continued …

  MORE FROM THE AUTHOR

  THE KANE TRILOGY

  “… thanks to Stylo for getting me lost, breaking the rules, and “going there”. This was fresh and dark …” - Penelope Douglas, NY Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Fall Away series and Corrupt

  Degradation

  Separation

  Reparation

  Completion

  Reception

  STANDALONES

  “I could not fault one moment of this story, I devoured every word and every beautiful depraved page. Days later I am still thinking about it and I know that it will be one of those books that will be etched into my soul, I honestly loved it that much.” - I Love Book Love blog

  The Bad Ones

  My Time in the Affair

  Just a Little Junk

  Muscle Memory

  THE MERCENARIES

  Best Laid Plans

  Out of Plans

  The Mercenaries: Boxset

  TWIN ESTATES NOVELS

  “… only one author I know continues to blow my ever-loving mind with the sheer gutsiness and uniqueness of her stories … Stylo Fantôme continues to write with such intelligence and verve … once again, she delivers with a book that is hot sexy escapism at its finest.” - Natasha is a Book Junkie

  Neighbors

  The Neighborhood

  Block Party

  Neighborhood Watch

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There are these movies just give you a sort of haunting, chilling, eerie feeling. Byzantium, The Berlin Syndrome, virtually anything starring Michael Pitt. You watch them and they’re strange and you shouldn’t like them, but you do, and they stay with you for unknown reasons. I’m always chasing that feeling, which is an almost impossible feeling to put into words.

  When I started this book, I wanted a hero who didn’t speak a lot, and I was sort of hoping it would be dark. That was it. I have no clue where Emma came from, she is a force unto herself, with a very loud voice. And it steered away from dark and went well into the realm of eerie. So hey, if it ever becomes a movie, maybe Michael Pitt could have a role in it!

  Lots of people to thank, of course. Thank you Ratula, for a long friendship and a lot of laughs along the way and for always being the first to read my ramblings.

  Big thanks to Jennifer, Nanci, and Rebecca for A LOT of help with this story – it wouldn’t have Church’s chapters (i.e. the best parts of the whole book!) without these ladies. Thanks for late night talks and keeping me sane during this difficult book. And thank you, Barbara, for letting me escape with you ever Thursday into Drag Race.

  Thank you to Najla Qamber Designs for this AMAZING cover! Such a simple idea, and you quite literally spun it into gold, it came out even better than anything I had imagined. And to Champagne Formats, for the paperback interior formatting, you always make an interior that matches the beautiful exterior, you have an incredible eye. Of course, thank you to Give Me Books for handling all my promos and my late requests and always being on the ball.

  ALL my beta readers, who are quite possibly – half of them were new betas this time, which I always feel like introducing new ones makes for a better story. Deanna, Teri, Pam, Paige, Andrea, Alexandra, Ursula, Elizarey, Pavlina, Kolleen, Jennifer E., and Trisha, your notes helped immensely. Thanks for being so thorough and generous with your time.

  Thanks to EVERY blog who has ever supported me, thank you for giving this story a chance and for understanding its weirdness. Thank you for inviting me to signings and allowing me to travel and be a part of this community.

  Thank you especially to all my readers, new ones and long term ones. Thank you for taking a chance on my strange stories and sticking with me through genre changes. Thank you for the laughs and the friendships and the reviews and anything and everything.

  And of course, to Mr. F – thank you for being my rock this year. Thank you for understanding all the work this book took, and for giving me the time and space to do it all, and for taking care of the dogs and for taking me to my favorite place in the entire universe.

  But especially for the puppies.

  SOUNDTRACK

  Songs that I listened to while writing, songs that made me think of the story, and a couple that inspired actual scenes.

  ● Nobody Speak – DJ Shadow ft. Run The Jewels

  ● Black Sheep – Clash at Demonhead

  ● Take Me To Church – Hozier

  ● Church – Fall Out Boy

  ● Believer – Imagine Dragons

  ● Back To You – Selena Gomez

  ● Live Like Legends – Ruelle

  ● Murder By Numbers – The Police

  ● Serial Killer – Lana Del Rey

  ● Make Me Wanna Die – The Pretty Reckless

  ● Ain’t No Sunshine – Terra Lopez

  ● In Love With A Psycho – Kasabian

  Book Two

  Coming in October 2018

  “You’re so hot.”

  Emma clenched her jaw tightly, bearing her teeth, and pushed with all her might.

  She’d never been very strong, though.

  “Yeah, yeah, so I’ve been told,” she grunted. “This isn’t fun anymore. Get off me!”

  “Oh, c’mon, it’s okay,” Casper cooed. Actually cooed. She wanted to vomit. “It’ll make you feel better. I have a healing touch.”

  “I don’t want your healing touch. Get off! Get off me!”

  She was thrashing around in earnest now, just trying to break free of him. But he had all his weight against her, pinning her to wall while his hands roamed any and everywhere. While his lips trailed up and down her neck.

  “Trust me, you’ll love it,” he assured her.

  She started screaming. Not out of fear, though, or because she was upset. It was primal anger and hatred and pure evil pouring out of her now. She bellowed and shook and raged, managed to get an arm free to beat at his shoulders.

  “I’m going to fucking kill you!” she promised. “I’m going to cut you open just so I can see what your insides look like! I’m going to make you feel so much pain, you’ll regret every single fucking girl you ever fucking -”

  She let out another shriek as Casper’s head seemed to sort of explode. She’d squeezed her eyes shut out of reflex as his blood splattered all over face. She could feel the liquid on her lips, so she kept her mouth closed, too.

  Now his body was the one moving around. Twitching and shaking, his fingers clawing at her. Nerve endings making their last stand, realizing life was leaving their host. He let out a grunt, then something that might have been a word, then a sigh before he fell against her.

  Emma finally opened her eyes. He wasn’t quite dead yet, but he certainly wasn’t a threat anymore. Not with a crowbar sticking out the back of his head. She struggled with his weight for a moment, not sure what to do with his not-quite-dead-yet body, then she looked beyond him. Her mouth dropped open and she let go of him. The twitching body fell to the floor, fingers blindly clawing to get away from something that had already happened to them.

  “You,” she breathed, her word a visible puff of air. It was cold in the house. The front door was open. He hadn’t shut it behind him when he’d come in.

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  That voice. That voice. Like an angel. Like the devil. Like everything she’d ever wanted, but could never quite get.

  “Church.”

  He stepped out of the shadows of the hallway.

  It felt like it had been forever since she’d seen him. He was even more imposing in person than he was in her memories. His height making her feel small, his broad shoulders making her feel petite. Those blue, blue eyes, snatching her soul right out of her body.

  Silly girl, can’t snatch away what he already owns.

  �
��You came,” she finally managed to say. He stared at her for a second longer, then looked down at the body at their feet.

  “Of course I did. Almost too late, by the looks of it,” he muttered, kicking at Casper’s leg.

  Seeing the corpse – and it was truly a corpse now – snapped Emma back into reality.

  What the fuck. What in the ever loving fuck. This had been her battle. Her war to fight. Not Church’s. This was something she should’ve done on her own, and he’d just swooped in and stolen it from her. Nothing from him this whole time, and then suddenly bam, he’s there and he’s stealing her moments.

  Same shit, different day.

  “What the fuck did you do!?” she shouted. Her outburst seemed to surprise him a little.

  “What the fuck do you think I did?” he asked calmly while he pulled off his gloves.

  “You killed him!” she continued. He nodded and dropped into a crouch, looking closely at the blood pouring out of the head wound he’d created.

  “I certainly did. Pity.”

  “You didn’t want to?”

  “Not like this,” he sighed, poking at the crowbar. It made a sickening squelching sound and for a moment Emma really thought she was going to vomit. “I wanted to see his face when it happened. I wanted to see him … suffer.”

  Ah, yes. Always about Church. His ultimate fantasy, to make someone fear him. To torture them. To end them.

  “This isn’t okay!” she shrieked, startling him again. He stood upright. “You don’t just get to do this!”

  “Excuse me? Have you already forgotten everything I worked so hard to teach you?” he chuckled. “I get to do anything I want.”

  Emma stepped across the body. She slipped in the blood, but didn’t let it deter her. She shoved Church hard in the chest.

  “Not anymore, you asshole! You lost that privilege! This was my moment, and you just took it!”

  Now he looked angry.

  “And what do you propose I should’ve done, Emma? Just let him rape you? Sit in a corner and politely watch while he fucks you? Someone had to do something.”

  “Maybe I had a fucking plan, Church!”

  “I give less than zero fucks about your plans, Emma. Your plans involved him touching you. Unacceptable. So I put an end to your plan. It was fucked, anyway. You were in over your head.”

  “You know, I don’t care for this attitude,” she growled. “I’m not that same little girl Emma, hanging on your every word. You broke her, so now you have to deal with this version.”

  “I don’t have to deal with shit,” he responded, stepping up close to her. “And this version is just as broken as the last.”

  It was too much. So much time had passed between them, so many fucked up moments. And now tonight.

  Worst of all, she knew he was right. She had been in over her head. The night had not been going as planned, and she had been well on her way to getting raped.

  But she didn’t want him riding in like some white knight, saving her. She didn’t want anyone to save her, except herself. He wouldn’t be able to understand that, at least not yet.

  So now the evening was ruined and both their dreams were a half realized bloody mess on the floor, and she couldn’t even process her feelings about seeing him again because she was just fucking angry.

  Emma stumbled away from the mess, and she was thankful when she didn’t hear his footsteps following. She walked up to the front door and slammed it shut, then she stomped back down the hallway, refusing to look at him as she went.

  When she got to the bathroom, she shrugged out of her heavy jacket and kicked off her shoes, but she didn’t bother with anything else. She was a mess, so what would be the point? She turned on the shower and stepped under the spray, still wearing all her clothes.

  The water turned pink at first, then a beautiful rusty red, swirling around her socks. She stared down at it for a moment, then lifted her face to the spray, keeping her eyes shut tight. Letting the water wash every thought and feeling and emotion, stripping her down to her core.

  He came for me. He knew where to find me. It was all real. We don’t need words. We don’t need anything. We’re connected. Connected in every single way possible, now.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d started crying, but when the shower curtain was ripped down, she didn’t try to hide her sobs.

  “Would you like me to tell you how I know you’re still broken?” Church asked in a gentle voice.

  “Yes,” she whispered, staring at him while he let his jacket slide to the floor.

  “If you weren’t broken anymore, then I wouldn’t be able to love you the way I do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she managed to ask, her voice barely above a breath. Her hope barely sparking back to life. His boots were unlaced and kicked aside.

  “It means in order for us to fit together, we already have to be in pieces. My pieces can’t exactly fit if you don’t have any edges. If you’re already whole.”

  He spoke to her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. As if it made sense, and she was silly for not realizing it on her own. He was slowly stepping into the tub, overwhelming her with his presence once again. Reminding her of every moment they’d ever shared together.

  What a beautiful jagged edge he is.

  His mouth fell and she caught it and it tasted better than any of her memories. He speared his hands into her hair, holding her head at the perfect angle, tracing his tongue along her molars. She moaned and the water rained down on them and blood swirled around the drain.

  “I missed you,” she sobbed, pulling back from him so she could touch his face. Confirm that he was real.

  “Not as much as I missed you,” he groaned, his hands squeezing her ass before picking her up. “God, I’ve never missed someone before. What an awful feeling.”

  “And I didn’t think you would come, I couldn’t be sure you’d know,” she babbled, kissing along the side of his jaw while he stumbled out of the tub.

  “How could you ever doubt me, Emma?” he groaned as she bit down on his ear lobe.

  “I don’t know. I’m … crazy. Broken. I don’t work well without my other half,” she managed a reply.

  They fell across the hall, landing hard against a wall. He managed to get them upright, but she stayed leaning back and she pulled her soaking wet sweater over her head.

  “I know,” he breathed. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  There was a bedroom just a couple doors down the hall. Maybe ten feet away, if that. But she couldn’t take her mouth away from his long enough to tell him. He took a couple steps towards it, but then dropped to his knees.

  Too far. It was simply too far way. After all the time they’d spent apart, any distance was too much.

  “You finally did it,” she gasped when he ripped her t-shirt down the middle. He moaned when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. “You did what you’d always wanted.”

  “No,” he replied, yanking his own sweater over his head. Her hands immediately found their way beneath his undershirt, smoothing across firm muscles and taut skin. “No, this is what I’ve always wanted.”

  One hand was down the front of her pants, two fingers already thrusting inside her. She cried out at the intrusion, bucked her hips and slid across the floor on her wet clothing. He caught her, though, because of course he would. He’d always catch her.

  Everything turned into a frenzy. A fight to get to that place they’d both felt happy in, even if only for a moment. Her pants were jerked on and pulled away, sending her sideways across the hall with her efforts. Church’s pants were shoved and pushed down his hips, but that was as far as they got.

  Her hands balled into fists against his chest, clutching at his t-shirt. She screamed as he drilled inside her, demanding entrance to the only home he’d ever known. To the only place he’d ever been barred entry to.

  And as they fucked and cried and remembered each other and made love in the only way they knew how,
the pool of blood slowly crept out of the living room and into the other end of the hall.

  The Kane Series

  DEGRADATION

  Available Now

  Tatum plucked at her shirt in a nervous manner. She had tucked it into a tight pencil skirt and even put on a pair of sling back stilettos. If someone had personally requested her, she wanted to make an effort to look nice. She had blown out her hair and put curls in the ends, and toned down her make up. Even she had to admit it, she looked presentable.

  For once.

  Men in expensive business suits began to file into the conference room and she stood still, giving a polite smile to everyone who entered. A team of lawyers was meeting with their client. Six chairs were lined up on one side of a long table, with just a single chair on the other side.

  Tate had been positioned at the back of the room, next to a sideboard filled with goodies and coffee and water. She fussed about, straightening napkins and setting up the glasses. When all six chairs were filled on the one side, she stared at their backs, wondering who the big shot was that got to stare them all down. The person who would be facing her. A door at the back of the room swung open and her breath caught in her threat.

  Holy. Shit.

  Jameson Kane strode into the room, only offering a curt smile to his lawyers. His eyes flashed to her for just a second, then he looked back. His smile became genuine and he tipped his head towards her, almost like a bow.

  She gaped back at him, positive that her mouth was hanging open. What was he doing there!? Had he known she would be there? Had he been the one to request her? Impossible, he didn’t know what temp agency she worked for – but what would be the chances? She hadn’t seen him in seven years, and now twice in two days.

  Tate felt like swallowing her tongue.

  “Gentlemen,” Jameson began, seating himself across from the lawyers. “Thanks for meeting with me today. Would anyone care for any coffee? Water? The lovely Ms. O’Shea will be helping us today.” He gestured towards Tate, but no one turned around. Several people asked for coffee. Jameson asked for water, his smile still in place. It was almost a smirk. Like he knew something she didn’t.

  She began to grind her teeth.