Poison

by West, Jade

  “Please,” she repeated. “I won’t tell Nicola, but you have to come to your senses. Please don’t do this. He fucked you up last time, and you didn’t even have them then… don’t do this… it won’t be fair on anyone. We’ll all be worried sick.”

  Yeah, they would be. Yeah, I was an idiot even considering it.

  I was nodding, even though my heart was a racing mess. I knew I would be risking a step back into more seizures if I pushed my own stresses with games and emotions and crazy sex.

  I knew full well he could fuck up the progress I’d been striving to make for years, and screw up the months of setback and upped meds on lamotrigine even further.

  I knew all of this, but still I couldn’t stop myself craving Lucas Pierce.

  “I know it’s crazy,” I told her. “Don’t worry. I’ll come to my senses. I will.”

  And I truly intended to. I really did.

  I went for a walk past the Neptune fountain in the city centre every lunchtime that week, and threw a coin in the water, like I always had. I urged myself to stay sane and back away from this stupid splurge and put my health and brain and respect for my past ahead of whatever my clit was begging for.

  I threw a coin into the water every day that week and wished that I could forget about Lucas and his depraved filth and gorgeous body.

  But I couldn’t.

  The messages kept coming and I kept firing them back, and the weekend came closer without me daring to talk it through with Vicky again. I pulled out my best underwear from my top drawer and made sure I was shaved to perfection. I dug my toys from under my bed and packed them up in a little black case.

  I thought through all the things I wanted him to do to me, and what difference the past ten years might have made to him. To his body. To his tastes. To his smirk.

  No matter how many times I wrote out a message to back out of the hook up, I never sent it off.

  No matter how many times I wrote out a message to Nicola, forcing myself into the hailstorm of her talking sense into my stupid skull, I never sent that off either.

  It was the sex. The passion. The thrill and the need and the craving of my body for his.

  Fuck that couple in that club that night and the glimmer of lust they’d reminded me existed.

  Somehow, no matter what I did, or thought, or tried to reason with myself, I was a fluttering mess on that Lydney bound train on Saturday morning, with a case packed up with smut and filth and an overnight supply of my epilepsy meds, even though I swore I wouldn’t ever sleep in a bed with him and would be back home that evening.

  No matter what I did, my heart was pounding hard as the train pulled out of Cheltenham station and I sent off the final ping that sealed my doom.

  On my way, I told him.

  I’ll see you soon, he said.

  Any time this lifetime would be too soon, but it was too late for that.

  The train pulled up at the little town station and I stepped out onto the platform, then climbed over the bridge to the other side. I headed out to the front and scanned the car park for a sign of him, but he wasn’t there.

  I cursed my stupidity again as I dropped myself down onto a battered bench with my cases at my feet, cursing the rain on top as it started to spit down from high.

  And then he came for me.

  A truck pulled into the station and my heart did a stutter, before I even knew for sure it was him. Call it instinct.

  He turned around in one of the spaces and drew up in front of me, and down came the passenger window.

  And there he was.

  The man who’d broken my heart into a thousand pieces and left me clutching at the shards.

  I hadn’t seen him in glasses before, but they suited him. He was wearing a suit on a Saturday, and I knew full well it was because he knew I liked them. His smirk was the same smirk that set my clit pulsing. He looked older, but not all that much older.

  His hair was cropped shorter and his beard was longer, but he was still him.

  Holy shit, he was still him. Still him, and still hot as hell, and I was still crazy for him.

  Crazy nervous to match, too. But I wasn’t going to show him that.

  “Hey,” he said, as I climbed in beside him and dumped my stuff in the footwell.

  “Hey,” I said back, and it was there. The same thrum between us.

  The same crazy spark. The same crazy need that set me on fire.

  “Back to yours then?” I asked, hating how my thighs tensed when I met his eyes.

  He shook his head. “Not just yet.”

  And then he started driving.

  Chapter Four

  Lucas

  She didn’t say a word as I drove us to the Hawthorn Inn. I kept casting looks in her direction, but she was staring out of the window, or at her feet. At just about anything but me.

  Yet still, it was there. That undeniable zing that had always been tight between us. It was bubbling deep, from my cock to the thump in my ribs, to spin off filthy thoughts of just what I wanted to do to her.

  They were totally fucking obscene.

  No matter how many times I shot a look her way, I still couldn’t believe she was sitting there beside me. But she was.

  She was undeniably her. Every dirty little bit of her the same dirty little bit of her I’d claimed a thousand times over, and still craved more of.

  She was wearing black, with high heels tapping in the footwell. Her legs were crossed, and I knew her thighs were clenched tight together. It took every scrap of restraint I had not to reach over and slide my hand up between them.

  Her hair was longer, but just as dark. Her lips were painted red and her eyeliner was every bit as dramatic as she’d ever worn it.

  It would be smeared all over her face by the time we were through, and I’d love it. I’d fucking love the way I’d destroy her makeup, and make her pant and scream and beg. I’d leave her a sweating, soaking mess and love the wreck of her. Fuck, all those memories came flooding back and my cock was twitching for it.

  For her.

  She’d love the sweating, soaking wreck I’d make of her too. I’d make sure of that.

  I pulled up in the inn car park, and she finally shot me a look.

  “What’s this place?” she asked, and I gave her a grin.

  “Thought we’d grab some lunch before I plough my cock into you all afternoon. Let me treat you before I claim you.”

  She tried to hold back a smile, but failed.

  Her heels sounded delicious as she paced her way across the gravel. She gave me a thanks as I held the door open for her, then paused as she surveyed the host of empty tables. We were the first ones in for lunch. I gestured to a pew at the far end of the place, opting for distance between us and the range of diners who’d be sure to arrive after us.

  She slipped off her coat and dropped into a seat with self-conscious grace. My eyes were fully on her as I dropped into the one opposite, but hers were focused on the menu.

  The zing was even stronger between us in that place. You could feel it. Alive. Screaming. My body hungry for hers and hers hungry right back, without giving two shits for whatever treats the menu was offering up for us. Still, I played interested in the food as I scanned the listings.

  “I’ll have the chicken salad, please,” she said, and I nodded.

  “Sure thing. Drink?”

  She pouted and sighed. “Orange juice, as per. My choices are crap these days.”

  “Epilepsy, right?”

  She nodded, but cleared her throat, clearly not wanting to engage in the topic.

  I didn’t push her, just gave her a nod right back and headed to the bar. I could feel her eyes on me every second of the way now I wasn’t looking back at her. I pondered what the hell I should say as a conversation starter, while I waited for our drinks. Whether I should burst out a straight up apology and risk an explosion, or skirt every issue and make small talk.

  Maybe I should avoid both and just urge the dirty out of her wit
h a whispered list of filthy promises.

  I opted to scrap all of it, keep mute and see what the fuck she wanted to say to me.

  She answered my question when I dropped her juice on the table.

  “So, life’s been a whirlwind?” she asked. “All good, though?”

  I tipped my head. “A whirlwind about sums it up. You?”

  She sipped her juice. “Things have been pretty crazy.”

  The awkwardness was zinging almost as hard as the lust. She was tight in her posture, guarded in her words, and I felt it. I felt it all.

  She was a fragile magpie behind a thorny barricade. The same feisty little firecracker behind the same pretty lace smile as she’d always been.

  She was still the Anna Blackwell I’d fallen in love with and broken apart as a result of my idiocy.

  I’d be breaking her to pieces again today, but this would be an entirely different performance.

  “Things have changed a lot for me this past decade,” I told her. “I guess that’s universal when you’ve suddenly got a little person that means more to you than you do.”

  It was the wrong conversation starter. She met my eyes in a flash, and there was a coldness to them I wasn’t nearly so used to.

  “Let’s clear this up now,” she said, and leaned in closer. “This is a one off. Sex. An afternoon of crazy filthy fucking and nothing else.”

  “Agreed,” I replied. “Your call. However you want it.”

  Her words were hard. “We need to keep this quiet, because everyone will go mad about it. I don’t want anyone to know I was here, or anyone to know I took your dick all afternoon. I could do without the drama or the backlash, and there would be plenty of it.”

  I laughed a little. “Also agreed. I too could do without the drama or backlash. I get enough of it already.”

  “So, we eat up then go,” she said. “No silly chat, or pretending we give a shit about each other.”

  Those words cut me more than they had any right to.

  “Sure thing. I just thought we could at least do with a hello lunch. It’s been ten years.”

  “Not nearly long enough if I had any sense,” she said, and there was a snap in it. She caught herself and shook her head, waving her hand in some kind of half-assed apology.

  Yet again, I didn’t blame her for any of it. I was still in utter shock she was sitting opposite.

  She looked around the room. “Is this your local? Seems nice.”

  I shrugged and smiled and played at ease.

  “Kind of. I don’t have all that much that’s my local. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

  The food turned up, and she picked at it with her fork. I knew her belly would be fluttering, craving the contact like mine was. I knew she’d be nervous, because I was bristling with a strange nervous anticipation myself, even under the pulse of the pure primal urge to fuck her senseless.

  I’d looked up epilepsy, but the condition seemed to cover a whole spectrum of different symptoms and effects. I was certain Anna would be telling me what she needed to, and the rest of it was her business and nothing to do with me.

  Still, I was curious.

  Curious and concerned. Yet still, I had no right to be.

  I ate my steak and swigged back my red wine, then patted my mouth down with a napkin as she did the same, and we were done. Dessert was out of the question for both of us, and it didn’t need saying. But something else did. Something that wouldn’t keep quiet in me if I tried.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “Seriously, Anna. I’m sorry. For everything that happened. Sorry doesn’t cut it, I know, and I wanted to say it sooner, but –”

  She held a hand up, her lips pitted hard. “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything. I don’t want to talk, or chat, or laugh, or pretend this is anything more than wanting a crazy afternoon where I actually get off for once.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I daren’t.

  “You’ll be getting off a hell of a lot more than once, don’t worry about that,” I told her, and went to pay the bill.

  She was standing with her coat over her arm when I headed back to join her. She gave me a polite thanks, and stepped on ahead of me, and it was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing her and tugging that dress down hard from those pretty pale tits of hers.

  My dick strained in my pants, my mouth watering at the thought of her juicy cunt, but it kept on simmering under the surface. We were silent all over again as I drove us out to my place. The roads turned to lanes, and twisted and climbed, and the tracks were muddy and potholed. She took an audible breath as I pulled off to the right and parked up outside the house. She leaned forward and stared up at the sprawl of it, eyes wide.

  “Wow, this is really something.”

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed and bailed out.

  The place was a converted barn, with ivy growing all over the front of it. The gardens were lawned, but wild, with vegetable plots all up the one side, and the door was heavy wood, and made a loud creak as I pushed it open. I took her cases from the car and dropped them inside while she was still standing on the doorstep.

  “It really is in the middle of nowhere,” she said, and looked around the grounds one final time before stepping over the threshold. There were no neighbours in sight. One of the reasons I’d chosen it in the first place. No neighbours. No noise. No intrusion.

  I called the dogs back as they charged at her, and they listened, but only after they’d managed to bundle her into the kitchen wall and wagged their tails like rudders on speed.

  I’d have let them do it all over again just to hear the slightest hint of the laugh that sounded out of her.

  “Good dogs!” she giggled. “Wow, what cuties!”

  It was her.

  Finally, it was really her in the room along with me.

  “They are amazing!” she laughed when they’d taken my instructions and zipped outside for their toilet break. “Collies?”

  “Bill and Ted,” I said. “They are indeed collies.”

  She stepped on through to the windows at the far end of the room while I held the back door open for the boys. My eyes were on her as she leaned into the sill and scoped out the horizon.

  “This really is quite something,” she told me. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s really beautiful. There are plenty of things that are beautiful right here and now though.”

  The dogs dashed back inside and made their way to their beds without accosting her a second time. I closed the door, and held back a minute, staring at the woman who’d set me alight again as she stared out at the sunshine. I saw her shoulders tighten as I stepped in her direction. I heard her breath catch as she felt me approach.

  “Really, Lucas,” she whispered, and my heart thumped along with my cock, just to hear her say my name. “You’ve got a great place. So different from the city. It’s really amazing out here.”

  “We’d better get started on that really amazing one off afternoon of yours, then,” I said, and my voice was low. So fucking low. So fucking alive.

  She was shuddering before I’d even reached her. Her breaths were shallow before I’d even made contact, my body tight to hers.

  “I’ve really needed this,” she said. “It’s crazy, but I need this.”

  “That makes two of us. Maybe we’re both fucking crazy, or maybe the rest of the world is.”

  “Just a one off,” she whispered.

  “Just a one off.”

  But I didn’t believe that.

  We were already in too fucking deep for that, and we hadn’t even started yet. It was a shitstorm of lightning threatening to zap us both alive. It was a barrage of pain, and regret, and stupid decisions flaring back up to bite.

  It was everything I cursed, and everything I craved, and just about everything that could add salt to the wounds I was trying to heal up around me.

  Trying and failing.

>   Trying and failing at so fucking much these past few months.

  “I mean it,” she said. “It has to be a one off. This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just stupid fun. A stupid way to spend a stupid afternoon, and nothing else. It can’t ever be anything else.”

  She was waffling. Nervous.

  She was edgy as hell as I slipped my hands onto her waist and pressed my mouth up close to her ear.

  “This will never be a stupid way to spend an afternoon,” I told her, and she whimpered as she tipped her head back.

  “Just fuck me, Lucas,” she hissed. “Make this one off worth the absolute insanity and just fucking fuck me.”

  Chapter Five

  Anna

  My whole body was screaming out YES, even as my mind was screaming out NO.

  He was toxic. Poisonous. The fatality of every scrap of my heart when he’d trashed it all to pieces without even looking back. The man who consumed me, promised me the stars, then destroyed me and left me a betrayed mush on the floor, sobbing my guts up and retching myself to sleep at night.

  I hated him.

  I’d sworn I’d always hate him.

  But I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop my clit begging and my heart pounding and my breath quickening. I couldn’t stop myself giving my needy, filthy shards over to the man who knew how to consume them.

  This was me. The real me. The crazy me.

  The me everyone I knew would curse at and tell me I was a stupid bitch for letting loose.

  The me I’d thrown to the side and ignored through ten years of trying to live a cookie cutter life for my own wellbeing.

  And failed.

  I’d failed.

  I was doomed the second I felt his heat at my back. His hands on my waist. His warm breath alive on my neck. His words a whispered hiss at my ear.

  “I’ll do more than fuck you, Anna. I’ll take you so fucking hard, you’ll be a mess for weeks, and you know it. You know full well the things I’ll fucking do to you, that’s why you’re here.”

  Yes. I knew it.

  Yes. That’s why I was there.

  I let out my first desperate little moan as I turned to face him. His mouth was waiting. Open and fierce and wet.