by W Winters
I’m not smart enough though.
With the sound of running water getting louder as I approach, I creep quietly to his master bath.
The water’s so loud I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. That’s what I tell myself.
Thump, my heart doesn’t want to be here. Thump, it wants me to stop. I test the doorknob, and it’s not locked. Something inside of me screams not to take this step. Not to go forward. It’s the wrong time, I’m not ready for it. I can feel it trying to pull me away.
But I’m already turning the knob and with a creak, I push the door open.
I catch sight of his clothes on the floor first; he’s still hidden from view from where I’m standing. The mix of bright and dark red splotches and smears wraps a vise around my lungs.
I can’t breathe, but I still move forward.
Blood. There’s blood on his shirt. That’s blood, isn’t it? Fear wriggles its way deeper inside of me, like a parasite taking over.
“Jase,” I barely speak his name while taking a small step forward. My gaze moves from the blood on his clothes piled on the tile floor, to his naked body seated on the edge of the tub. He’s covered with the way he’s sitting, and his head’s lowered, hanging heavy in front of him. I’m not sure he heard me the way he’s sitting there. Like he’s stunned, like his mind is elsewhere, lost in another place or another time.
Despair is crippling and I swallow hard. My trembling fingers reach out to pick up his shirt, wanting to believe it’s not blood. There’s not a mark on his skin, no cuts or bruises that are fresh. The cut I gave him is scabbed over.
The warmth of the air flows around me as I step closer and lift the shirt off the floor. It can’t be blood, Jase isn’t injured. Jase is fine.
But it looks like it. I don’t understand. There’s so much blood, in different patterns. Smeared and stained into the undershirt. I still don’t want to believe it. I wish it would be anything else. My head spins as I grip the shirt tighter, staring at it as if it’ll change, it’ll go back to being clean if only I look at it the right way. But it’s blood. There’s so much blood, my hands are wet with it.
“Bethany.” Jase’s voice catches me off guard and I scream, pulling the shirt into my chest out of instinct before shoving it away when I realize I’ve pressed the bloody clothes to my own.
I could throw up with the revolting disgust and fear that sink into my bones. The blood is on me.
“Whose blood is that?” The question tumbles from me as I take a step backward and Jase stands up tall. My hands grip the doorway and my fingers leave a trail of blood.
There’s a look in his eyes I will never forget when my gaze finally reaches his.
A darkness I haven’t seen before and the fear that accompanies it is all-consuming.
In sharp spikes, the chills take over and I take another step back. Out of the bathroom and away from him.
That piece of my soul that was warning me before… it wasn’t about the blood, it was about Jase. I know it to be true when he takes another step forward, so much larger than mine with his hands raised and he tells me to calm down.
If I could speak, I’d tell him he’s crazy to think I should calm down. If I could speak, I’d scream at him, demanding he tell me what he’s done.
But I can’t. Every syllable catches in the back of my throat in a way that feels like I’m choking.
“Let me get a shower and we can talk,” Jase states calmly, the savage look in his eyes just barely dimming.
My head shakes, all on its lonesome and I turn and run. As fast as I can, I run away from him.
“Fuck,” I hear him mutter as I bolt to the door, sweeping myself around it and crashing into the hall wall. I don’t stop running, even though I don’t hear him behind me.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. My heart pounds faster than my heels, ushering me away.
As I reach the door, I hear him call out. With my hand on the scanner, I turn around to see him with a pair of sweats, walking toward me, not running.
Maybe he thought that would keep me from leaving. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t be threatened or I wouldn’t be scared.
But he was wrong.
So fucking wrong. The second I swing the door open, I hear him scream my name and start running. I slam the door closed knowing he’ll have to use the scanner too. It’s another second I have ahead of him. Only seconds.
Run!
I scramble to my car and to find my keys. With terror raging through me at Jase getting his hands on me and forcing me back inside, at not knowing what he’ll do to me or what he’s capable of, I shove the gear into drive and reverse out of the driveway. I’m senselessly speeding away with the sight of him swinging the door open the moment my car hits the gate. Crashing it open and denting the hood of my car.
Even as I scream, I keep my foot on the gas, not caring about the damage, just needing to leave as quickly as possible.
I need to run and never stop.
Run far away and not look back.
The car jostles as I go over a curb and then another, my tires screaming as I race out of the long drive and backroads to get to the busy streets.
My gaze spends too long in the rearview, waiting for his car to show. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t keep me from tearing down the road.
My grip is hot, my pulse fast. I need to get the fuck out of here.
It’s only once I’ve gotten onto the main road and I’m minutes away from my home that I let myself think of anything other than the need to go faster.
How could I love him? How could I want to love him?
Thoughts run wild in my mind, fighting with each other to be heard. There’s a pounding in my temple and I don’t even realize when I’ve run the red light until a car beeps their horn at me.
Fuck! I have to veer to the right to miss hitting the SUV. A wave of heat flows over my skin, far too hot as my tires squeal and I barely keep my car on the road.
That doesn’t stop me. I keep going. I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I need to go faster. I need to get away.
With my chest heaving, I catch sight of the blood. Oh my God, the blood.
I need to get it off. I need to get this off. Bile climbs up my throat and I have to swallow it as I pull into my driveway. It’s a reckless turn but I don’t care. I need to get inside and get this off.
Get this blood off of me. Get Jase Cross off of me.
It’s all I can think about as I slam the door shut to my car and run to the porch. The gust of cold air brings with it the white mist of an incoming storm tonight.
My hands are still shaking as I search for my key and that’s what I’m staring at when I hear Officer Walsh’s voice. “Bethany?”
The surprise and shock make me scream and drop my keys. They bang as they hit the ground and I stay perfectly still.
“Fuck.” The word is spoken faintly as I stare back at him on the other end of my porch as he gets up from the chair. Like he was waiting for me.
I know my expression is one of fear and guilt, a doe-eyed woman caught in the act of something awful and I can’t change it as our gazes lock.
“Is that blood?” he asks, standing straighter, but with his hand behind him as my feet turn to stone and refuse to move.
“No,” I lie and his head tilts as his hand pushes his coat back and his fingers rest on his gun.
“I didn’t do anything,” I spill the words out, pleading with him to understand. My pulse rages and I can barely stand up straight. Fuck, no. How did this happen?
“Tell me everything. I can help you,” he urges, but it doesn’t sound sincere.
“You have to believe me. It’s not me. I didn’t do anything.”
“Tell me whose blood that is.”
“I don’t know,” I practically shriek.
“It is blood then?” he questions. Immediately, I feel caught. I feel trapped. The bite of the air creeps in, cracking the heat that’s consumed me.
My lips part, but instead of giving him wo
rds, all I can do is swallow as my vision becomes dizzy.
“Tell me everything, Bethany; what happened?” His question comes out harder this time and he takes a step forward. I instinctively take a step back and my back hits the wall of the house.
With a trembling voice I whisper, begging him to let me go. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I don’t know.”
My inhale is ragged as he takes another step closer and I have nowhere to go.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this.” Pulling out the cuffs from behind his back, he tells me, “Bethany Fawn, you’re under arrest.”
Jase and Bethany’s book concludes in … A Single Touch. Their final book.
There are many moving parts in this world. If you haven’t read Carter’s saga, starting with Merciless, I highly suggest you do that now. His story is just as intense and a tale that will stay with me forever. I hope these words stay with you as well. Keep reading for a sneak peek!
Here’s to love stories keeping our hearts beating.
The timeline of the Sinful Obsessions world is as follows:
Sebastian’s story: A Kiss to Tell
Daniel’s story: Possessive
Carter’s story: The Merciless Series (Merciless, Heartless, Breathless , Endless )
Jase’s story: A Single Glance, A Single Kiss & A Single Touch
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Sneak Peek at Merciless
From USA Today bestselling author W Winters comes a heart-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat gripping, romantic suspense.
I should’ve known she would ruin me the moment I saw her.
Women like her are made to destroy men like me.
I couldn’t resist her though.
Given to me to start a war; I was too eager to accept.
But I didn’t know what she’d do to me. That she would change everything.
She sees through me in a way no one else ever has.
Her innocence and vulnerability make me weak for her and I hate it.
I know better than to give in to temptation.
A ruthless man doesn’t let a soul close to him.
A cold-hearted man doesn’t risk anything for anyone.
A powerful man with a beautiful woman at his mercy … he doesn’t fall for her.
Chapter 1
Carter
War is coming.
It’s something I’ve known for over two years.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
My jaw ticks in time with the skin over my knuckles turning white as my fist clenches tighter. The tension in my stiff shoulders rises and I have to remind myself to breathe in deep and let the strain of it all go away.
Tick. Tock. It’s the only sound echoing off the walls of my office and with each passing of the pendulum the anger grows.
It’s always like this before I go to a meet. This one in particular sends a thrill through my blood, the adrenaline pumping harder with each passing minute.
My gaze moves from the grandfather clock in my office to the shelves next to it and then beneath them to the box made of mahogany and steel. It’s only three feet deep and tall and six feet long. It blends into the right wall of my office, surrounded by polished bookshelves that carry an aroma of old books.
I paid more than I should have simply to put on display. All any of this is a façade. People’s perceptions are their reality. And so I paint the picture they need to see so I can use them as I see fit. The expensive books and paintings, polished furniture made of rare wood… All of it is bullshit.
Except for the box. The story that came with it will stay with me forever. In all of the years, it’s the one of the few memories that I can pin point as a defining moment. The box never leaves me.
The words from the man who gave it to me are still as clear as is the memory of his pale green eyes, glassed over as he told me his story.
About how it kept him safe when he was a child. He told me how his mother had shoved him in it to protect him.
I swallow thickly, feeling my throat tighten and the cord in my neck strain with the memory. He painted the picture so well.
He told me how he clung to his mother seeing how panicked she was. But he did as he was told, he stayed quiet in the safe box and could only listen while the men murdered his mother.
It was the story he gave me with the box he offered to barter for his life. And it reminded me of my own mother telling me goodbye before she passed.
Yes, his story was touching, but the defining moment is when I put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger regardless.
He tried to steal from me and then pay me with a box as if the money he laundered was a debt or a loan. William was good at stealing, at telling stories, but the fucker was a dumb prick.
I didn’t get to where I am by playing nicely and being weak. That day I took the box that saved him as a reminder of who I was. Who I needed to be.
I made sure that box has been within my sight for every meeting I’ve had in this office. It’s a reminder for me so I can stare at it in this god forsaken room as I make deal after deal with criminal after criminal and collect wealth and power like the dusty old books on these shelves.
It cost me a fortune to get this office exactly how I wanted. But if it were to burn down, I could buy it all over again.
Everything except for that box.
“You really think they’re going through with it?” I hear Daniel, my brother, before I see him. The memories fade in an instant and my heart beat races faster than the tick tock of that fucking clock.
It takes a second for me to be conscious of my facial expression, to relax it and let go of the anger before I can raise my gaze to his.
“With the war and the deal? You think he’ll go through with it?” he clarifies.
A small huff leaves me, accompanied by a smirk, “He wants this more than anything else,” I answer him.
Daniel stalks into the room slowly, the heavy door to my office closing with a soft kick of his heel before he comes to stand across from me.
“And you’re sure you want to be right in the middle of it?”
I lick my lower lip and stand from my desk, stretching as I do and turning my gaze to the window in my office. I can hear Daniel walking around the desk as I lean against it and cross my arms.
“We won’t be in the middle of it. It’ll be the two of them, our territory is close, but we can stay back.”
“Bullshit. He wants you to fight with him and he’s going to start this war tonight and you know it.”
I nod slowly, the smell of Romano’s cigars filling my lungs at the memory of him.
“There’s still time to call it off,” Daniel says and it makes my brow pinch and place a crease on my forehead. He can’t be that naïve.
It’s the first time I’ve really looked at him since he’s been back. He spent years away. And every fucking day I fought for what we have. He’s gone soft. Or maybe it’s Addison that’s turned him into the man standing in front of me.
“This war has to happen.” My words are final and the tone is one not to be questioned. I may have grown this business on fear and anger. Each step forward followed by the hollow sound of a body dropping behind me, but that’s not how it started. Y can’t build an empire with blood stained hands and not expect death to follow you.
His dark eyes narrow as he pushes off the desk and moves closer to the window, his gaze flickering between me and the meticulously maintained garden stories below us.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” his voice is low and I barely hear it. He doesn’t look back at me and a chill flows down my arms and the b
ack of my neck as I take in his stern expression.
It takes me back years ago. Back to when we had a choice and chose wrong.
When whether or not we wanted to go through with it meant something.
“There are men to the left of us,” I tell him as I step forward and close the distance between us. “There are men to the right. There is no possible outcome where we don’t pick a side.”
He nods once and slides his thumb across the stubble on his chin before looking back at me. “And the girl?” he asks me, his eyes piercing into mine and reminding me that both of us survived, both of us fought, and each of us has a tragic path that led us to where we are today.
“Aria?” I dare to speak her name and the sound of my smooth voice seems to linger in the space between us. I don’t wait for him to acknowledge me, or her rather.
“She has no choice.” My voice tightens as I say the words.
Clearing my throat, I lean my palms against the window, feeling the frigid fall beneath my hands and leaning forward to see Addison beneath us, Daniel’s Addison. “What do you think they would have done to Addison if they’d succeeded in taking her?”
His jaw hardens but he doesn’t answer my question. Instead he replies, “We don’t know who it was who tried to take her from me.”
I shrug as if it’s semantics and not at all relevant. “Still. Women aren’t meant to be touched, but they went for Addison first.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” Daniel says with indignation in his tone.