by A. Zavarelli
Something had shifted in me when I first saw Birdie. Somehow, over time, she’d become my new addiction. Stalking her, picking her apart… these were the only things that ever felt better than my own destructive urges. She made my head a war zone of emotions. I didn’t like to feel, but she made me feel. Obsession, resentment, frustration. I just wanted to stay numb. Empty. Balanced.
I debated on a shower, but instead, I found myself opening up the bathroom drawer to retrieve my favorite pair of Birdie’s panties. I wrapped the black lace around my dick and leaned against the counter. Sucking in a breath, I closed my eyes and tried not to think of anyone or anything. I needed to clear the scattered thoughts in my mind and find a release. But all I saw was her.
Threads of a different fabrication spun through my mind. Her warm body arched against the cool brick in the alleyway, the hem of her dress wrapped around her hips. The honeyed skin of her thighs parted, luring me to the heaven between them. I wedged my hips into that space, drugging myself on her hypnotic sweetness. My thumb slipped beneath the silky fabric that curved against her breasts, drawing each piece aside until she was exposed to me. I wanted to drag her soft, full tits over my face and into my mouth. I wanted to feel them bouncing beneath her as I thrust into her like a savage. I pinched her nipple, and she yelped. She never fucking listened. I told her as much when my palm echoed off the arc of her ass. But even in my dreams, Birdie fucked my mind. Her lips curled into one of her sex-kitten smiles as she tilted her head, exposing the eyes that would inevitably bring me to my knees. She was proud of herself for getting to me this way. My palm slipped between her thighs, desperate for confirmation that I wasn’t the only one infected with this insanity. Sticky warmth coated my fingers. Everything I wanted and nothing I needed.
Fuck.
Pressure expanded inside my fist, the muscles along my spine rigid with tension. It was wrong, but I gripped harder, faster, fisting my cock as I imagined her pussy wrapped around me, milking the poison from my body and greedily accepting it in hers.
The release was explosive, spurting all over her panties and my knuckles as I collapsed against the counter. Exhaustion and disgust settled into my bones as I came back down to reality. How many times had I told myself I wasn’t going to do that again? I wasn’t going to think of her. She was too pure for a devil like me. I would corrupt her. Taint her. Ruin her. Depravity was the only way to describe this fixation.
She could never be mine.
“HEY, STRANGER.” A FEMININE VOICE filtered across the shop floor.
I poked my head out from the engine I’d been working on for the past week, my lips pinching together when I found Kylie standing there. “What are you doing here?”
For a split second, she looked wounded by my words, but she recovered quickly. Kylie knew I had an unspoken rule about my shop. Everyone in my life understood that. I had a system, and everything had its place. Even the guys who worked for me knew better than to touch my shit or step foot on my side of the shop. When I came here, it was to work, not socialize, and I’d never brought a woman here just to hang out on the sidelines. But I wasn’t about to remind Kylie of that because I already felt like an asshole every time I’d seen her lately. This time was no exception. What I couldn’t figure out was why she continued to hang around.
Our agreement was as simple as it could get, and Kylie knew the score. I wasn’t capable of emotional shit, and she knew from the beginning exactly what I needed from her. We’d stayed in that lane for a couple of years now, and I’d paid her well for her time. But things had been stagnant for a while now, and I assumed that was the reason for her visit today.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks.” She nudged the tire of the truck with her sneaker. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay with you.”
I yanked the grease rag from my back pocket and wiped off my hands. “I’m good.”
Kylie didn’t buy the bullshit I was selling, and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me lately, but I’d been a cranky son of a bitch. I hadn’t called her recently because the last few times we’d met, I’d recognized the war in her eyes. She wanted to fix me, and she’d held out hope that if she just kept doing what I asked, I’d eventually have some sort of mythical breakthrough. It would disappoint her to know that day would never come.
She glanced around the shop, noting it was empty, and then her voice lowered. “Have you been doling it out yourself, Ace?”
When I didn’t answer, she stepped closer. Her entire face had shifted into one that I recognized. She was a different person now than when she first walked through the door.
“Do you want some pain?” Her voice dipped an octave.
On autopilot, I nodded, even if it wasn’t what I needed. The pain hadn’t been providing the relief it used to. I had a different fix in mind now, and it involved blue eyes and long tan legs. Regardless, I was too numb to turn it down. I couldn’t watch Birdie every second of every day, and for now, maybe this would temper some of my frustration.
Without making a production of it, Kylie drew back her palm and slapped me across the face as hard as she could. Once, twice, three times… but I felt nothing.
“Take off your shirt,” she instructed. “And give me your belt.”
Robotically, I removed my shirt and belt, and handed them to her before I turned around, bracing myself against one of the shop trucks. Over the past two years, she’d never refused my escalating levels of depravity. I’d been burned, cut, whipped, and throttled in every way a man could request. My only limit was that I would never kneel. Not for her. Not for anyone.
The belt snapped across my back, searing the skin and bringing memories back to life. I closed my eyes and accepted the pain unflinchingly.
Get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness, demon. Kneel into the fiery coals of hell while you accept the lashes of righteousness against your flesh. Feed the soil the poison in your blood and let it soak into the earth. Prove you have a soul to save.
Kylie counted out the lashes, just as I’d instructed her to do in the beginning. I wanted blood. Proof of life. And she gave it to me in rivers down my back. But when she finished, I could see the shame in her eyes.
She was tired of this, and I didn’t blame her. It was sadistic. Something most people could never understand. Lucian tried to explain that to me when I left prison a free man, but it didn’t change the fact that pain was all I’d ever known.
Kylie cleaned up my wounds with a first-aid kit and handed back my shirt. Her mood was somber in contrast to the disposition she’d arrived in. Time was up, and she knew it.
“Will you be at the clubhouse this weekend?” she asked.
I considered the question before my phone buzzed, distracting me. A glance at the screen confirmed it was Gypsy. Over the past year, Birdie’s sister had become a fixture in Lucian’s life and mine by default. I opened the message, my jaw working as I read her text.
Gypsy: I need to talk to you about Birdie.
“Ace?”
I blinked and looked up, irritated with myself. I’d completely forgotten Kylie was still here. I was officially an asshole.
“Sorry,” I muttered, shoving the phone back into my pocket.
“I asked if you were going to be around the clubhouse this weekend,” she reminded me.
“Right.” I shifted. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
She hesitated, waiting for me to say something else. When I didn’t, she took it upon herself. “I could drop by to check your wounds. I’m off this weekend.”
I was on the verge of asking her if that was such a good idea, but instead, I just shrugged. “If you want to.”
She smiled and shook her head at my boorish attitude. “Don’t sound so excited, Ace. You’re liable to give a girl a complex.”
My lips tightened, and I nodded. “You know you don’t have to keep coming around and checking up on me—”
“I know what this is,” she interjected. “And I k
I nodded, but honestly, I wasn’t sure anymore. Kylie was a beautiful woman who had her shit together—a good job, a house, and a well-adjusted mental state. She never asked me for anything, but lately, I’d been wondering if she wanted more. She always showed up to this one-sided clusterfuck, never complaining that I couldn’t give her anything in return. I didn’t have the emotional capacity for a relationship, and this was as close as it could ever get for me. She knew it, but I didn’t know if she’d accepted it. Kylie deserved to spend her time with someone who could give her everything she wanted. Someone who would go meet her folks and watch movies with her and go out to dinner or whatever the fuck it was normal people did together.
“All right.” She shrugged. “Well, I guess I should probably go and let you get back to work.”
“Okay.”
She hesitated, and I didn’t know why, but she smiled. “See you this weekend, Ace.”
Gypsy sank onto the couch in the house she shared with Lucian, her face heavy with exhaustion. It didn’t seem like that long had passed since she’d accepted the terms of Lucian’s deal, but a year had already come and gone. She’d fallen into compliance, and then she’d fallen for Lucian. I’d watched them together, mystified by the transformation that had taken place between them. It wasn’t something I could relate to or understand, but it was proof that through all the shit life could throw at a person, good things did happen sometimes.
Now Gypsy was heavily pregnant, struggling to fight off tears as she looked up at me through bleary eyes. When she requested to speak with me about her sister, I had a notion this was coming. Birdie would never admit or accept that she wasn’t safe here. And while Lucian was busy holding on to everything by a thread, Gypsy was preparing to be a mother. That only left one solution, and it was the one I’d been trying my best to avoid.
“I don’t know you all that well,” Gypsy began. “But I feel like, after everything, I can trust you, and I really hope that’s true.”
“As long as you’re Lucian’s wife, you have my loyalty.”
Those words weren’t uttered lightly. I was nothing more than a voiceless man when he found me rotting away in a prison cell. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I would spend my life behind bars, caged like a beast. It was the only way I knew before he came along, talking about truth and justice. He’d read about my case and claimed he wanted to help me. I didn’t trust him at first. I didn’t want to believe there was any other life for me. But that crazy attorney saw something in me nobody else could. And he kept coming back, talking to me, treating me like a human, until he cracked me wide open and rattled my secrets free. He paved the way to freedom and showed me what life could be. I owed him everything, and when it came down to it, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him.
Gypsy looked up at me, and her entire body trembled under the burden of her emotions. Whatever she was about to say, she hated herself for it. But it was unjustified. During the time I’d known her, I’d come to understand that Gypsy was fiercely protective of the people she loved. And more than anything, that included her younger sister, Birdie. She’d go to war for her. And in fact, she had signed away her life for her. But she was fucking tired, and it had never been more obvious than at this moment. She’d had the weight of the world on her shoulders for far too long. Trying to raise a rebellious wild child like Birdie when Gypsy wasn’t even grown herself. They’d been treading water together for a long time, but Gypsy was drowning.
“I’ve tried to think of other options.” She wiped at the corner of her eyes. “I tried to talk to her myself. She doesn’t listen. She’s reckless, and she puts herself at risk. She still refuses to leave even though it’s the best thing for her.”
“Leaving won’t solve her problems. Birdie still has a lot of growing up to do.”
“I know.” She dipped her head forward in defeat.
I walked over to the window, my head throbbing with the reality of what needed to happen. Gypsy couldn’t come right out and say it, and I wouldn’t make her. I knew what I was doing when I came here. I knew exactly how this situation would unfold, and like a fool, I came anyway.
“I can take care of her,” I said. “Keep her safe. She probably won’t like it.”
Gypsy’s voice wavered when she answered. “Can you give me your word that you’ll never hurt her?”
Every muscle fiber in my body pinched tighter. She couldn’t have known how those words would affect me. My whole life, people had made assumptions about me, and I learned a long time ago to disregard their opinions. But the thought of anyone hurting Birdie was different. It darkened my vision and turned me into a savage. For months, I’d been watching her. Compulsively examining every aspect of her life, I’d searched for threats around every corner. But every time I fed this sickness inside me, I wondered if it was really me she needed protection from.
“I’m not a good man, Gypsy.” I sighed. “I have a low tolerance for spoiled brats—”
“She isn’t—”
My eyes narrowed. “She is. And I get it. She had a rough fucking go of it, but you’ve been trying to overcompensate for everything that ever happened to her, and that isn’t working anymore, is it?”
Gypsy leaned forward like a mama bear ready to protect her cub. “It’s easy for you to say, but we did the best we could.”
“And if that hasn’t worked out by now, maybe it’s time for a new approach.”
We stared at each other in a silent war of wills. I was tempted to walk out and wash my hands of the whole situation, but I couldn’t. From the moment I first saw Birdie, she was a tragedy I couldn’t avoid. She needed guidance. Direction. A firm hand. And I wasn’t up to the job, but I wasn’t ready to relinquish it to anyone else either.
“She can live at the compound with me,” I grunted. “But if you want me to do this, that means you have to let me take the wheel here. I can’t have you trying to interfere every time she calls crying about a rule she doesn’t like.”
“I get that,” Gypsy conceded. “I wouldn’t do that. Birdie needs structure. She needs rules.”
“She needs a hell of a lot more than that,” I murmured.
“You can’t let any of the men at the compound touch her,” she blurted. “I mean it.”
“That’s not going to fucking happen,” I snarled and then shook my head. The viciousness of my assurance surprised me, but Gypsy seemed pleased with my response.
“Can you have your guys keep an eye on her for a few more days?” she requested. “Just until the baby is born. And then…” Her head dipped, and her eyes began to water. “Then you can take her.”
“THIS IS IT, JOE.” I threw the paper bag full of cash onto the motel table. “I’m out.”
He draped his scrawny frame back against the chair, narrowing his dark eyes as he looked over me. I’d witnessed that same lusty gaze many times before, but it was all for show. I knew from firsthand experience he preferred girls in a much younger demographic.
Not only had this sick bastard participated in destroying my childhood, but he’d also come back to haunt me after a chance encounter in a casino. Over the past year, he’d bled me out of well over a hundred thousand, and if I didn’t put a stop to it now, it was never going to end.
“You’re out when I say you’re out.” He sniffed the way coke addicts often did. “You’ve got a lot of balls coming in here and trying to tell me—”
“There’s a detective in Vegas.” I met his eyes dead on as I played the only card I had. “He’s been asking a lot of questions about me. About Ricky. I’m out of fucking time, and I can’t keep doing this unless you want me to lead him straight back to you.”
Joe scratched at his nose as he seemed to consider my words. His pupils were nearly black, and his leg bounced up and down so fast it was giving me heart palpitations. I didn’t know what to expect. This threat could work in my favor if he was smart, but it wasn’t likely.
Without warning, he shot up and wrapped his fingers around my throat. “Are you fucking with me, bitch?”
“I’m not.” I clawed at his hand, digging my nails into the dirty flesh. “Get off me.”
His grip was unyielding, and he didn’t relent even after I drew blood. “Maybe I should go ask your sister, huh?”
“You could try.” My voice filled with venom. “But her husband would shoot you dead before you ever opened your mouth.”
He shoved me away, and I stumbled backward, clutching at my tender throat. Joe paced the floor, dragging a hand through his greasy hair. He didn’t like what I’d come to tell him, and I already knew if I wasn’t scoring him cash, I was no longer of use. But I didn’t come here to beg. I’d already made contingency plans. The private investigator I hired in California had provided some rather telling evidence of Joe’s current business dealings. Enough for a couple of felonies, at least. I just hoped it would be enough to motivate him.
“I need the video and the pictures,” I said. “I’ve given you the money. I’ve done what you asked.”
“And you’ll keep doing what I fucking ask,” he turned and spat. “You get the tape when I say you’ve paid your dues and not a second sooner. In the meantime, I have plenty of other ways to put you to work. With a body like that, I could charge a nice premium.”
“It’s not going to happen,” I snarled. “You think what happened to Ricky was bad? I’ll do you worse than I ever did him.”
He came at me again, slamming me into the wall and cutting off my air supply with his forearm. I dug my nails into his skin, but his grip was undoubtedly homicidal this time.
“How about I just fucking kill you right here and be done with it?”
I didn’t doubt he was capable of it. I’d planned for it, but I wasn’t prepared for his superhuman strength. The darkness in his eyes proved there was no reasoning with the devil. He was my worst nightmare, reincarnated.
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