by W Winters
The knife travels down my collarbone carefully, meticulously, leaving a chill in the air that dares me to shiver as the sharp knife glides lower, down to the small mounds of my breasts. It’s so cold when he’s not hovering over me. The icy bite of the air alone has never brought pleasure, but knowing what’s to come, the draft is nearly an aphrodisiac.
All the heat I need is buried between my legs, waiting for him to move the knife lower, bringing with it his hands, his breath… his lips.
The desire stirs deep in my belly, then lower still. With my legs spread just slightly, my thighs remain touching at the very top, closest to my most bared asset. The temperature in the room is low, low enough to turn my nipples to hardened peaks. Sometimes he drags the tip of his knife up to the top of my nipples, teasing me, and when he does this time, I let my head fall back, feeling the pleasure build inside of me. The smallest touches bring the largest thrills.
He tortures me just like this; he has for weeks. At one point, it did feel like suffering, but I crave it now. Every piece of it. I only feel lust when I think about being at his mercy.
“I love you naked on this bench.” Jase’s deep voice is so low, I barely hear him. But I feel his warm breath along my belly as he moves his tongue to run right where the blade has just been.
He does this first every time, teasing me with the knife, shaving any trace of hair before moving on. He always takes his time, and part of me thinks it’s because he doesn’t want this to end either. Once the flames have all flickered out and darkness sets in, and the loud click of the locks in the barren room signal it’s over, that’s when reality comes rushing back.
The war. The drugs. All of the lies that leave a tangled web for me to get lost in.
I don’t want any of it.
I want to swallow, the need is there, but I know to wait until the blade is lifted, leaving me cold and begging for it back on my skin. Teasing me. It’s only once he pulls it back that I dare to swallow the lump in my throat and turn my head on the thick wooden bench to look at him.
Jase Cross.
My enemy. And yet, the only person I trust.
Fear used to consume me in these moments, but as the rough rope digs into my wrists, not an ounce of it exists. His dark eyes flicker, mirroring the flames of the fireplace lining the back wall of the room.
My gaze lingers as he swallows too, highlighting the stubble that travels from his throat up to his sharp jawline. That dip in his neck begs me to kiss him. Right there, right in that dip, as if he’s vulnerable there.
With broad shoulders and a smoldering look in his dark eyes, Jase is a man born to be powerful. His muscles rippling in the fire’s light as he looks down at me force my heart to flicker as well.
The gold flecks in his irises spark, and I’m lost in a trance. So much so that I freely admit what I never have before as I say, “I love it too.”
I swear I see the hint of a smile tugging the corners of his lips up, but it’s gone before I’m certain.
I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have given him more power than he already has.
Jase Cross will be my downfall.
Jase
One month earlier
* * *
It’s a sloppy mistake. I never make a mistake like this. Never. Yet, staring at the bit of blood still drying on my oxfords, I know I’ve made a mistake that could have cost me everything.
And it’s all because of her. She’s a distraction. A distraction I can’t afford.
The thick laces run along my fingertips as I untie them, and as I do, a bit of blood stains my fingers. Pausing, I contemplate everything that could have happened if I hadn’t seen it just now. I rub the blood between my fingers, then wipe it off with a napkin from my desk. Carefully, I slip off my shoes, shoving the napkin inside of one before grabbing a new pair from behind my desk and putting them on.
The pair with evidence of my latest venture will meet the incinerator before I leave my bar, The Red Room, tonight. Where all evidence is meant to be left.
“What do you think?” Seth asks me, and I turn my attention back to him. Back to the monitors.
She’s gorgeous. That’s what I think. With deep hazel eyes filled with a wild fire and full lips I’d silence easily with my own, even if she’s screaming on the security footage, she’s nothing but stunning.
Her anger is beautiful.
The bar and crowd would normally take my attention away from her, but I was there that night and I only saw her. The patrons from last week get in the way of seeing her clearly on the security footage though. I can barely make out her curves… but I do. Even if I can’t fully see them here, I remember them. I remember everything about her.
If I hadn’t been with my brother at the time and in a situation I couldn’t leave, I would have been the one to go to her. Instead, I had Seth throw her out. No one was to harm her, which isn’t the best example to set, but I wanted to tempt her to come back. I needed to see her again. If for nothing more than to serve as a beautiful distraction.
Running my thumb over the fleshy pads of my fingertips, I lean back in the chair, crossing my ankles under my desk and letting my gaze roam over every bit of her as he leads her out.
My voice is low, but calm as I comment, “She’s different here than she is in the file.”
“Anger will do that. She lost her fucking mind coming into your bar talking about calling the cops.”
Although my lips kick up into an asymmetric smile, a heaviness weighs down on me. There’s too much shit going on right now for us to handle any more trouble.
She’s a mistake waiting to happen. A delicate disaster in the making.
“How many days ago was this?” I ask, not remembering since the days have melded together in the hell that this past week was.
“Eight days; she hasn’t come back.”
“What do you want me to do?” Seth asks when I don’t respond.
“Show me the footage again.”
He’s my head of security at The Red Room, and over the years I’ve come to trust him. Although, not enough to tell him what I really want from her. How seeing her defy the unspoken rules of this world, seeing her slander my name, curse it and dare me to do anything to stop her… I’m harder than I’ve been in a long fucking time.
“She’s irate about her sister,” Seth murmurs as the screen rewinds, then plays the footage of her parking her car, storming into the place, and demanding answers from a barkeep who doesn’t know shit.
None of them could have given her the answer she wants.
I recognize every movement. The sharpness of her stride, the way her throat tenses before she even says a damn thing. I bet she can feel each of her words sitting on the tip of her tongue, threatening to silence her before she’s even begun.
Even still, I find her beautiful. There is beauty in everything about what she did and how she feels.
“She lost her fucking mind,” he mutters, watching along with me.
Seth is missing something though, because he doesn’t know what I know. He doesn’t see it like I do.
She’s not just angry; she’s lonely. And more than that, she’s scared.
I know all about that.
The days go by so slowly when you’re lonely. They drag on and bring you with them, exaggerating each second, each tick of the clock and making you wonder what it’s all worth.
I can’t deny the ambition, the desire for more. There’s always more. More money, more power, more to conquer. And with it more enemies and more distrust.
It’s a predictable life, even amidst the chaos.
“I can understand why she’s looking for someone to blame.” I pause to move my gaze from the screen to Seth, and wait for him to look back at me. “But why us?” I ask him, emphasizing each word.
He shakes his head as he skims through the file he’s holding, an autopsy report and photographs of a body catching my eye in particular, although you can barely tell that’s what she was after washin
g up on shore. Dental records were needed to identify her, the poor woman.
“She thinks you and your brothers are responsible.”
“No shit,” I answer him, waiting for his attention before adding, “but why would she think that?”
Again he shakes his head. “There’s nothing here that would lead her to that conclusion. We didn’t touch the girl. Her sister wasn’t a threat to anything that we know of.”
My fingers rap on the desk as I think about Jennifer, the girl who died so tragically. I met her once, and I can imagine she got into far more trouble than she could handle.
“I’ll figure it out, Boss,” Seth tells me and I immediately answer, “Don’t go to her.”
His brow raises, but he’s quick to fix the display of shock. “Of course,” he replies.
“I’m arranging to see her shortly. Dig up everything you can on her and on her sister’s death.”
“Will do,” Seth says as he slips the papers back into the folder and then glances at the monitors once again. The paused image of Beth shows her leaning across the bar midscream, demanding answers. Answers I don’t have for her. Answers she may never get.
“The other reason I wanted to see you… I have those papers you wanted,” Seth says, interrupting my thoughts.
“What papers?”
“The ones about your brother.”
My brother.
There’s always someone to fight. Someone to blame.
It never stops.
Bethany
Bethany
People mourn differently. My mother would turn in her grave if she knew I went to work last night instead of going to my sister’s funeral. My sister, Jennifer, was the only family I had left.
And instead of watching Jenny be put in the ground, beside my mother who’s been there for a decade, I worked.
Yes, my mother would turn in her grave if she knew.
But that’s because my mother had never been able to stand on her own two feet whenever there was a loss, or any day of the week, really. Let alone take on a sixteen-hour shift to avoid the burial of a loved one. The last loved one I had.
As I let out a flat sigh, remembering how she used to handle things, I watch my warm breath turn to fog. It’s not even late, but the sun has set and the dark winter night feels appropriate if nothing else.
The laughter coming from inside my house doesn’t though.
My heart twists with a pain I loathe. Laughter. On a night like tonight.
Gripping the door handle a little harder than I need to, I prepare myself for what’s on the other side.
Distant relatives chattering in the corner, and the smell of every casserole known to man invade my senses.
The warmth is welcoming as I close the door behind me without looking, only staring straight ahead.
Even as I lean my back against the cold door, no one sees me. No one stops their unremarkable conversations to spare me a glance. Bottles clink to my right and I turn just in time to see a group of my sister’s friends toasting as they throw back whatever clear liquor is in their glasses. My glasses.
With a deep breath, I push off the door. Focusing on the sound of my coat rustling as I pull it off, I barely make eye contact with an aunt I haven’t seen in years.
“My poor dear,” she says, and I notice how her lips purse even while she’s speaking. With a wine glass held away from her, she gives me a one-armed hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
Everyone is so, so sorry.
Offering her a weak smile, and somehow not voicing every angry thought that threatens to strangle me, I answer back, “Thank you.”
Her gaze drifts down to my boots, still covered with a light dusting of snow and then travels back up to my eyes. “Did you just get done with work?”
I lie. “Yes. Did the scrubs give it away?” The small joke eases the tension as she grips my shoulder. This isn’t the first time I’ve ventured to the bar before coming home. Although, this is the first time the house isn’t empty. And it’s the first time I’ve felt I truly needed a drink. I need something to numb… all of this.
“Would you like a drink?” she offers me and then tells a group of people I’ve never met goodbye as they make their way out of my house.
“How about some red wine. A nightcap, since it’s almost over?”
It’s. Is she referring to the evening? Or the wake?
The tight smile on my face widens and I tell her, “I’d like that.” My gaze wanders to the living room and I spitefully think that I’d like the four-year-old rummaging through the drawer of my coffee table to get out. They can all get out.
That thin smile still lingers on my lips when she brings me a glass and I nod a thanks, although I don’t drink it. Not because I don’t need one, but purely out of spite.
“Did the caterers bring everything?” I ask her politely, nodding a hello at a few family members who offer a pathetic wave in return. My mother was the black sheep of the family. Because of that, I couldn’t name half of the people in here even though I recognize their faces. She got a divorce when my dad skipped out on us, and the family essentially divorced her for not “trying harder” in her marriage.
So the majority of the people here, I’ve met only once or twice… usually at funerals.
“They did,” Aunt Margaret answers and I’m quick to add, “I’m glad everyone could come.”
I hate lies, but tonight they slip through my lips so easily. Even as the emotions make my throat swell up when I see the same group of girls doing another round of shots.
Maybe it makes me a hypocrite, seeing as how I just came from drowning myself in vodka and Red Bull at the bar down the street, Barcode. I tend to swing by after a lot of hard shifts, but that particular group doesn’t need any more drugs added in the mix.
“The funeral was beautiful.” My aunt’s words bring a numbness that travels down my throat and the false expression I’m wearing slips, but I force the smile back on my face when she looks up at me.
I take a sip of cheap Cabernet and let the anger simmer.
Beautiful.
What a dreadful word for a funeral.
For the funeral of a woman not yet thirty. A woman who none of these people spoke to. A woman I tried so desperately to save, because at one point in my life, she was my hero.
The glass hits the buffet a little harder than I wanted.
“Sorry I didn’t make it. I’m glad it went well.” My voice is tight.
“It was really kind of you to pay for everything… I know there’s nothing in the estate or…” she says, but her voice drifts off, and I nearly scream at her. I nearly scream at all of them.
Why are they doing this? Why put on a front as if they cared? They didn’t come to visit any of the times she was in the hospital. They didn’t pay a cent for anything but their gas to attend the funeral and come here. And whatever those fucking casseroles cost. All the while I know they were gossiping, wondering about everything Jenny had done to land herself in an early grave.
They’re from uptown New York and all they do is brag on social media about all their charity events. All their expensive dresses and glasses of champagne, put on full display every weekend for the charity that they so generously donated to.
I’m sure that would have been so much better.
Or maybe this alternative is their charity for the weekend. Coming to this fucking wake for a woman they didn’t care about.
I could scream at myself as well; why open my door to these people? Why tell my aunt the reception could be held here? Was I still in shock when I agreed? Or was I just that fucking stupid?
They didn’t see what happened to her. How she morphed into a person I didn’t recognize. How my sister got sucked down a black hole that led to her destruction, and not a single one of them cared to take notice.
Yet they can comment on how beautiful her funeral was.
How lovely of them.
“Oh dear,” my aunt says as she hugs me with both ar
ms this time and I let her. The anger isn’t waning, but it’s not for them. I know it’s not.
I’m sorry they didn’t get to see those moments of her that shined through. The bits of Jenny that I’ll have forever and they’ll never know. I feel sorry for them. But her? My sister? I’m so fucking angry she left me here alone.
Everyone mourns differently.
The thought sends a peaceful note to ring through my blood as I hear footsteps approach. My aunt doesn’t pull away, and I find myself slightly pushing her to one side and picking up a cocktail napkin to dry under my eyes.
“Hey, Beth.” Miranda, a twentysomething string bean of a girl with big blue eyes and thick, dark brown hair, approaches. Even as she stands in front of me, she sways. The liquor is getting to her.
“Do you guys have a ride home?” I ask her, wanting to get that answer before she says anything else.
She blinks slowly, and the apprehension turns into hurt. She shifts her tiny weight from one foot to the other. Her nervousness shows as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, swallowing thickly and nodding. “Yeah,” she croaks and her gaze drops to the floor as she bites the inside of her cheek. “Sorry about last time,” she barely whispers before looking me in the eyes. “We’ve got a ride this time.”
It’s when she sniffles that I notice how pink her cheeks are – tearstained pink – not from drinking. Fuck, regret is a spiked ball that threatens to choke me as I swallow.
“I just don’t want you guys getting into another accident, you know?” I get out the words quickly in a single breath, and pick up that glass of wine, downing it as Aunt Margaret turns her back on this conversation, leaving us for more… proper things maybe.
Miranda’s quiet, looking particularly remorseful.
I don’t mention how the accident was in front of my house, five fucking feet from where they were parked. Miranda passed out after getting drunk with Jenny and some other people nearby. Her foot stayed on the gas and revved her car into mine, pushing both cars into my neighbor’s car until mine hit a tree. She could have killed them all. All four of them in the car, high and drunk and not caring about the consequences. Consequences for more than just them.