Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  “Do you think or believe that maybe your parents are looking out for your wellbeing? Are you able to put yourself in their shoes? What if this was happening to your daughter?”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’d let her.”

  I smile at my clipboard on my lap. “I guess that’s easy to say because you don’t have kids.”

  “That’s precisely why that was a stupid question, Doc.”

  “Noted.” This kid has spunk. “I’m just saying. When they hire a twenty-year-old driver, they expect him to do his job, not their daughter.”

  This makes her laugh. I smile at her, happy to break the ice, even though she’ll have poured freezing water on the thin ice by our next session. Baby steps.

  She sits up straighter and stares at me. “It’s their fault that it happened. Why leave your daughter alone with a smoking-hot driver who is so close to her age? Why not hire a gnarly old guy with arthritic fingers? I definitely wouldn’t have hooked up with him.”

  You are preaching to the choir. This fifteen-year-old girl has no idea how spot on she is. How many times had I asked myself the same question about my parents’ choice to not only hire Elody, but to leave us alone for months at a time? Then they had the nerve to freak out when something they perceive to be bad happens. Aren’t parents supposed to have some sort of built-in predictor that keeps them on high alert until their children can fend for themselves?

  “I’m serious, Doc. It wouldn’t matter if he was the fifteen-year-old and I was the twenty-year-old. I hate the double standard.”

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. My heart tells me it’s Elody and it takes everything I have not to pull it out and check. My mind drifts to seeing her again.

  I glance up at the time and then Felicity. She is staring at me with disbelieving eyes.

  “Why are you smiling like that? Were you even listening to me?”

  Was I smiling?

  I clear my throat. “Yes, your parents suck, and you want to see your boyfriend.”

  She throws her arms up and leaves them there. “Yes.”

  I sit back in my chair. My mind is on my phone and El. She hasn’t been back in my life for five minutes and I’m already drooling at the thought of seeing her like an idiot. Like a man who learned nothing from the first go around with Elody Acosta. I should change spots with my client, clearly I’m the one who needs professional counseling.

  “Okay, so here is the deal. In the great state of Colorado, there is this thing called the law. The law states that you are a minor, and as such, it is illegal for you to be in a relationship with a twenty-year-old man. Fuck, I’m such a hypocrite. El was twenty-four. “Not only could your parents go to jail...” She actually smiles at the prospect of that. “Wait.” I hold up a finger. “So could James.”

  She folds her arms across her chest in a huff. “My friend Chelsea said that my parents can sign a paper saying that James and I can be together, but they won’t.” she rolls her eyes.

  I shrug. “Okay, but did your friend Chelsea tell you that you have to be seventeen and it’s not to have an adult boyfriend, it’s to have a husband. Are you ready to marry James?”

  She looks at me in shock and shakes her head.

  “Maybe you need to cool it on your parents and yourself. They didn’t create the law, but they have to follow it.”

  She sighs, but visibly softens. All in all it was a great session.

  I give her a big smile. “See you in two weeks?”

  She holds up two fingers and gathers her backpack from the floor.

  “I think I liked it better when you didn’t smile so much, but thanks, Doc,” she says and walks out the door.

  I scoop up my phone and see three messages from Elody, all with my name and a question mark. I scroll to read her original texts.

  It’s me.

  I’m hungry. Thoughts?

  My eyebrows scoot up my forehead as dirty thoughts run through my mind. I type out a reply.

  For food or me? I ask.

  ...uh, both.

  At your service.

  Thanks a Latte in half an hour?

  I can be there in fifteen minutes or less.

  See you then.

  ELODY

  2010

  TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES roll by, but no August. The more the time ticks by, the more time I have to be in my own head. What are we really doing here? Not that the sex isn’t amazing, but we are deluding ourselves if we think that we’ll get the happily ever after. Maybe we will one day, but I can’t see it happening while we’re together.

  Our relationship was doomed from the start. If and when I get married, I want the whole shebang, all the things I never had—in laws and cousins and aunts and uncles. There’s no way August’s parents will accept me in his life. I will always be the woman who took advantage of their son. Actually, the help who took advantage of their son.

  Like a moth to a flame, I can’t resist him now any more than I could then. I glance down at my watch and thirty minutes have gone by. He must have changed his mind. He said he wanted to spend every moment he could with me to get me to change my mind about moving to Florida, and now, he’s changed his. I lean over and pick my purse and coat up from the chair next to me. Just as I’m about to push my chair back, he deposits himself in the seat across from me. I drop my stuff back into the chair and do everything in my power to keep my smile at bay.

  “You’re late.”

  He smiles that lopsided smile that he knows I’ve always adored. Bastard. He’s so damn sexy, there’s still an innocent twinkle in his eye. I love him too much.

  My heart vibrates in my chest, and I set the smile free.

  Still, through my betraying expression, I match his stare in a familiar battle of the wills. It’s a game that we have played before.

  He was always the better player. “You’re forgiven.”

  The waitress comes and takes our order. He pipes up to tell her, but I interrupt him. “Two flat whites and two pumpkin scones, please. Make one of the coffees extra hot.”

  She assesses us. Are we colleagues or related somehow? I narrow my eyes at her. Yeah, I like ’em young.

  She dips her head, nods, and scoots off.

  “I don’t even like pumpkin,” he says threading his fingers together and watching me.

  I shake my head at him and fight a giggle. “Shut up, you love pumpkin.”

  He relaxes in his seat. “I do, and extra-hot coffee. You know me so well.”

  We sit and look at each other for a long moment. I still can’t believe we’re here together after all this time. It really is fate, if I believed in that sort of thing. I really wish I did.

  “I wasn’t that late, by the way,” he says.

  I purse my lips and gaze into his eyes.

  When I don’t say anything, he raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Seriously, I wasn’t. I was watching you through that window.” He turns and points toward a side window. “You’re nervous about seeing me. I watched you fidget with your hair, then your napkin, and then your hair again. Your eyes were darting around like a criminal in a police station.”

  I ball my napkin up an throw it at him, wishing I had something heavier. Then I press my lips together and nod slowly, getting the whole picture. “So you’re not just a stalker...but a psychoanalyzing stalker.”

  He laughs out loud, I know that I could spend the rest of my time on Earth listening to that sound coming out of him.

  As adorably sexy as he is, he knows it. He’s always watched me more than he probably should.

  “What if I don’t like it when you lurk around watching me?”

  “I’d like to tell you that I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum, but I’d be lying. Besides, this collecting on your crimes against me means I can do whatever the hell I want.”

  I shake my head quickly and gawk at him. So, he’s still playing that card? He makes my brain feel soft and fuzzy, like some of my good sense is leaking out through my ear. I grab my napkin,
touch it to my ear, pull it away, and give it an exaggerated visual inspection.

  He narrows his eyes at me in confusion.

  I shrug. “Just checking for brain cells.” I say and place the napkin on the table.

  “Brain cells?” he asks. His smile tells me that he finds me amusing.

  “It’s the only way I can explain us.”

  He places his arms on the table and pierces me with his blue, sharp, intensely beautiful gaze.

  “So you’re saying you’d have to be losing brain cells to be in a relationship with me?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The waitress comes back with our coffee just as he’s about to respond. We wait in silence as she places our drinks and pastry in front of us. A ghost of a smile is on both of our faces. I notice that he has shaved his beard closer. I will have to work just a little harder to pull and tug on it enough to cause him pain. Causing him pain might be my new kink, but he deserves every bit I can give him for making me fall so hard.

  We take sips of our drinks. I’m cautious, he’s daring. How he doesn’t scald his throat is beyond me. Our eyes are glued to each other.

  With all of his intelligence, he must have some idea of how badly this is going to suck for us when it ends. It’ll be like having a huge cut that takes forever to heal, growing heavy scar tissue as a reminder to the heart, body, and soul to avoid any situations that cause pain like that again, then ignoring everything you suffered to tear through the scar and open the wound again.

  We are so screwed.

  When his father kicked me out of his house and threatened my livelihood, it was like foster care all over again. I was never threatened by my foster parents, but the emptiness, the abandonment, the nothingness, was the same. The dark pit and void that thrummed through my body was there, but then it was even worse because I let my guard down and allowed myself to want something with someone who wasn’t even of age to give it to me. Someone loved me for the first time in my life. I was that uprooted plant that should have died, only to be replanted, and a few daring roots sprouted and claimed the ground. I rooted myself to him—a boy.

  I’m staring at August Mitchell, the man, now, and he is laying his heart out for me. I really want what he’s offering. I gave up on wanting a home a long time ago, but he makes me crave one in the deepest parts of my soul. Even as I sit here receiving his adoring stares, hope blossoms and flares bright in my chest. Could this be? He is formidable now.

  There is no one in his life who can force him to do anything now. He’s not a teenager anymore. He could protect me from hurt and pain. I know he could.

  My eyes mist at the thought of it. Heat floods my face, and I have to blow air out of my mouth to keep the tears from spilling out in the middle of this coffee shop.

  A crease appears on his forehead. “Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes,” he says.

  I look around at the patrons. I lean forward and speak in a low voice. “August we’re in a coffee shop.”

  His brows lift, but he doesn’t speak. He pulls a foil wrapper out of his suit pocket and flashes it to me before putting it away.

  I fall back into my seat and glance around the shop again to see if anyone is now staring at us. No one is. Everyone is chatting, pecking away on a keyboard, or reading. I bring my gaze back to him.

  “And what do you mean to do with that?” My face is calm, giving nothing away. I keep my smile at bay. My heart rate is ticking upward, and the new energy that is coursing through me is making it difficult to stay rooted in my seat.

  He smiles in quiet amusement.

  For fucks sake, my panties are soaked.

  He leans forward. “I would like to take you to the bathroom down the hall, slam you against the wall, and fuck your tears away.” He looks down at our small table, his hand brushes across the top of it, and his eyes are back on mine. “Unless, of course, you’d like a more public venue.”

  My eyes pop open and I inhale sharply.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I told you that you don’t get to cry over your choice to leave me. You don’t get to be sorry for what you did. You don’t get to want me. I’m calling all of the shots here, Elody. So, you tell me what I would or wouldn't do.” His eyes cut through me. How can he be so sweet one minute and dark and angry the next? Shit, I really did a job on him.

  We are locked in a stare off again. “You would.” I know he could care less about the people in the café and would fuck me right here in front of them while they enjoy their coffee and bagels.

  “You are such a bully,” I say and break contact first.

  “Bully is such a harsh word. Am I really? The American Psychological Association, of which I am a proud member, describes the act of bullying as a form of aggressive behavior in which someone is intentionally and repeatedly causing another person injury or discomfort. You can google it.” He sits back in his seat proudly and waits for me to respond.

  “Okay, so not a bully. Definitely a stalker, with bully tendencies though. I don’t need to hear a definition of that term. Your picture is next to the word. Your sexy blue eyes stare out from the page.”

  His eyes brighten. “You’re hilarious.”

  “But not wrong.”

  He shakes his head and shrugs. “Not wrong. You’re what I want and I’m methodical about what I want. The catch is that I aim for you to work much harder this time, I’m not the same attention starved sixteen-year-old boy you remember. Now, unless you are rethinking the table, you have one minute to get your ass to the bathroom.”

  He could be home if he finds me worthy. Is that what I want?

  I smile at him. “Look, your riveting psychological babble dried my tears right up. No need for sex in a public place.”

  “Elody. I’m shocked that you’d deny me this fun and excitement. I am so ready.”

  I glance around the café again and swallow hard. I’m secretly turned on at the idea of sex in a public place. The potential of marriage, babies, and sex in public places flashes through my mind.

  I give him the sexiest smile that I can, then pick up my jacket and purse. I don’t look back at him. Two can play at this game. I hold up two fingers, and if he’s as smart as I know he is, he’ll know that he has two minutes to meet me in the bathroom.

  When I open the door, I’m thankful that the bathroom is single-occupant and that I chose a wool skirt. The tights and boots are another story. I place my bag and coat on the hook behind the door and walk to the mirror. My face is splotchy, and I’m flushed and damp. My thighs are slick with steam and moisture. He’s got me hot for sure.

  Sex in a public place—the idea of it is both thrilling and terrifying.

  I don’t have to wait long before the door opens and August slips inside. The typical kindness that is in his eyes when he looks at me is long gone, and something more savage has replaced it. Based on his carnal expression, I’m the appetizer, main course, and dessert, and he hasn’t had a meal in days.

  Fuck me. I take a ragged breath that doesn’t even sound like it came from me.

  He stalks toward me, a gush of throaty air escapes him, and his mouth is on mine. He takes, claims, and owns me. My lips swell as he tugs and pulls and sucks.

  “You taste so fucking good,” he says into my mouth, causing my head to swirl and swim. The mix of his earthy scent mixed with his pheromones is intoxicating. He pulls my shirt from my skirt and lifts it, then his hands move to my breasts. He pinches and squeezes my nipples. I bite my lip.

  How can pain feel this good?

  He frees my one breast then the other as he sucks, licks, and bites them equally. I pant and moan and hold on for the ride. Fuck.

  I reach to the side and turn on the faucet to drown out our sounds.

  He steps away from me and stares. His chest is rising and falling like mine, and our eyes are narrowed into slits. We’re completely drunk on each other.

  “I never got over you,” he says. His sheathed cock is ready and sticking out of his pants.
I drag my eyes away from his beautiful face and stare at his impressive erection, and a nervous laugh bubbles to the surface. All that for me?

  He ignores me. I bring my eyes back to his.

  “I never found a sweet girl my age. How could I ever trust another person when you abandoned me?”

  We have been over this already, but I guess fresh wounds need time. Every time he says it, my heart breaks a little more. If I would have known his father was going to make it seem like I’m the one who decided to leave, I would have gone out of my way to contact him and let him know the truth. I think I would have been strong enough to do that, but I never got the chance.

  My face crumples when I look at him and think of the betrayal he must have felt.

  “I’m sorry.” My face heats more as tears stream down my face. My nose gets stuffy from the tears and sadness.

  He’s at my side at once.

  “No tears.” He cups my face in his hands, and this time his kiss is tender and sweet. His lips whisper softly against mine. “You are mine, Elody Acosta.”

  I feel his hands on my tights, after he hikes up my skirt. Then I feel air, as he tears them with his bare hands. My panties are next.

  “When we’re together, I want you pantyless. I don’t want to have to fight to get to that pussy.”

  I moan when his finger slides along my slit. My head falls back without me telling it to.

  “I plan to fuck you every chance I get,” he whispers into my ear heavily. He bites and nips my lobe.

  I nod fast, unable to control the sensations battling inside. Love, lust, hunger, and fear course through me. Fear might be the strongest emotion.

  “For nine more days,” I breathe.

  He pulls my panties away, brings them to his face, and inhales me deeply. I close my eyes and breathe, overwhelmed by him.

  “Tell me you’re mine.” He backs me up to the sink.

  I shake my head. I can’t do that. I can’t lie. He may have ignored my reminder that I am leaving in nine days, but it’s still true. February 14 is the date. Portia asked me why I would leave on Valentine’s Day, and, I didn’t tell her that days like that are of no significance to me. Why make her sad when it’s just the way things are for me? August and I celebrated Valentine’s Day once when we were together, and that was the one and only time for me.