Colour Series Box Set (93 page)

“So let’s go be alone, Mathew, because I like the way this feels.” I slide my hand back there just for a second and he grips me by the wrist and drags me out the front door. He is hard and moves with determination and no consideration for me, I like this. The pavement is uneven and I’m stretched to keep up with him as he strides. His grip is so tight it’s biting into my skin. I see Eiran. He wants to take a step closer. He hates this as much as I love it—his hesitation makes my heart flutter—he wants to stop me, but he can’t. Mathew stops and opens the door of a large SUV and he helps me in before kissing my cheek. I have a fleeting minute where I think I might just be the prey this time; gentleman Mathew has a vicious side and I see that twinkle of darkness in his eyes. I have to cross my legs to try and control the pull he has on my lady parts. I recognise a villain when I see one, and the slightly shy guy from inside was a disguise for the benefit of others.

I like the silent type, I usually keep them around a little longer than the others and Mathew isn’t a college boy, he’s a man. An older man that I plan to enjoy. When we stop at a block of upmarket waterfront apartments just a short way from the bar he turns and speaks for the first time. “I will take you to fetch your car when we are done.” When we are done? What the fuck does he think he gets to decide when I am done? “And when will that be?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. He doesn’t answer me. He just gets out and who comes to open my door, I’m not sure—gentleman or predator? It doesn’t matter because the only part of me that has any sway right now is between my thighs.

The garden apartment on the ground floor is very modern but lived in, I look around taking it in. Nice and easy to clean such smooth surfaces, Eiran will be happy, carpets are always such a bitch. A spaniel barks at me through the glass doors and I smile, I like pets but my dad never allowed me to have one. I think he was worried I would kill it if he did. I got Eiran instead. I’m handed a glass of good whiskey that I don’t plan to drink, I’m far too aware of how easy it would be for a doctor to drug me, I’m a criminal, not a fool. I set the glass and my bag down in a spot where I can get to easily if I need them. Mathew closes the blinds, shutting the dog and the world out before he returns to me, lifting my chin up he kisses me again. This time no one is watching and he has no need to be civil. He bites my lip and I like it too much, I groan in appreciation. Pulling his shirt from his trousers so I can feel his skin, I feel something else I missed earlier—a gun. What sort of a doctor needs a gun? I remind myself of where we live and that everyone actually needs a gun. I push that little alarm that goes off inside my head aside because his hands grabbing my ass and pulling my hair feels so good. Standing between the living room and his kitchen, I let myself feel. Not emotions but the physical touch of him against me. The push and pull of control dragging us back and forth with each touch, bite and kiss. God he was making me forget who I am, he dominated me like no other had ever tried. He was not afraid of a woman with power. I’m usually numb to the charms of men, I choose them young and naive on purpose. This is breaking rules and moving too far from my comfortable predictable patternless pattern. Oh fuck me this feels like heaven. He’s stripping me bare of the control I always have and I like it too much to stop him. “Let’s go, little lady.” He growls pulling himself from me and walking down a small hallway that leads to the lion’s den. I normally give the orders, I don’t know why I just follow him. I’m having a brain malfunction and I really should get out of here but my stupid cunt is begging for him to fuck me and I know that’s exactly what he is going to do when we get to the bedroom. He kicks off his shoes at the door of the master bedroom and while looking at me, unholsters his gun and lays it down on the dresser. Even from where I stand, I can see the safety is off and it’s loaded. His holster falls on the floor where he stands. The doctor is not what he seems. I ignore it because I have a knife in my stockings that I know he has felt already so he knows that I am more than meets the eye. The voices in my head are screaming loudly as he unbuttons his dress shirt and loses his cufflinks. Motherfuck, how can I listen to them when that is in front of me. His friend was not hot, that is hot. That is man, not boy, or young man—man, defined and perfect each muscle sculpted not from gym, but from being active. I’m standing dead still, rooted to the spot as a watch the gentleman transform into something quite different as he disrobes, his smile isn’t seductive—it’s predatory. My plan to hunt has backfired. I will still kill him, maybe not tonight but eventually he will have to go. His pants are loosened and hang on his hips, his chest is on display for me, there’s a slight dusting of hair. Not enough to be gross but not bare like the boys I usually undress. I look past him to the photograph hanging above his bed, a silhouette of a man on the shore with a surf board above his head—he likes the water. The room is clinically neat and nothing else in it has any personality at all. I didn’t notice him stalking closer to me while I was distracted with taking him it all in, until his smell filled my nostrils. “You have far too many clothes on, and I don’t allow shoes on the hardwood floors.” I robotically respond to him by sliding out of my heels and unbuttoning my shirt. I’m waiting for the moment he sees what I hide below the surface. His eyes widen and I see the bad guy in them smiling, his tongue licks his bottom lip and I know I don’t stand a chance of surviving this unchanged. “You are quite the work of art, Avery. I always wondered what you would be hiding under the stiff work clothes.” Fuck he knows me, or of me. I should never ignore the voices. I stiffen at his comment, “Oh, I know who you are, I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw that business card. I never had the pleasure of meeting any of the other bosses before.”

He’s one of
our
doctors, that’s a good and a bad thing. I have nothing to live or die for so I just leave the thoughts behind and for a minute or two I chose to let this happen. “You work for me don’t you, Mathew. I bet your name’s not Mathew.”

“I work for Callum and in here, I don’t work for anyone. In here—” He points around the room. “There is only one boss and it’s me, Avery. Leave that knife next to my gun then get naked on my bed.” His boldness both infuriates and entices me. I slide my skirt down my legs and before I can step out of it, he removes the pretty garter that holds my weapon. My knife is now in his hands. He’s in my personal space, looking into my eyes and I know he sees me. He traces the line down my middle with the blade of my defence all the way from my breast bone to my belly, he stops just before he gets to the part of me that drips for him. Lust is a demon that can leave us all defenceless to our needs. “This is a surprise I must say.” He drags the blade slightly lower to where the artwork licks my cunt. “Did it hurt?” he continues as I nod truthfully, because it hurt like a bitch when I had it done. That grin that says so much is back and he presses the blade a little harder against my skin before he lets out a soft rumble and says, “Not nearly as much as I’m going to hurt it.” His violent words make my insides tense in anticipation. This is the shit you read about in dirty books. This cannot be real. He holds the blade to my throat as he turns me around, reminding me just how very real this is. I’m not in control. I find that thought strangely comforting and freeing. Why should I always have it all together? I want to fall apart, and I want to fall apart with this man, whoever he is. “What’s your real name?” I ask because I have this intimate need to know the real person not the front that I met in the bar. He’s a doctor, that’s the only truth he’s told so far.

“Mathew.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. Mathew is my name.”

“It is not.”

“Avery is your name, you don’t even lie about it, why would I?”

“I can just tell it isn’t who you are.” My sixth sense tingles with a bullshit warning.

“Mathew is my second name. So it’s no lie and I’m not sharing who I am with you, Avery. This isn’t about
you.
This is about the desire dripping between your thighs and a need that I have to shove my cock in you and possess you, so shut the fuck up and just let go.” I hadn’t even realised my death grip on his knife wielding hand. I relax my fingers and drop my arm. “Good girl, go lay down.”
Good girl? Something I was never told, something so simple but so crushing all at once. I was never anyone’s good girl before.

I let it all go, for once I don’t hang onto myself at all. He hurt me, just as he promised he would. His hands smacked me, then brought me to the edge of ecstasy. His teeth tore into my flesh but his mouth made me come until my body felt broken. He hurt me and I loved it, he fucked me until I had tears and it was earth shattering. I lost myself in his torment and found pleasure I never knew existed.

Surrender is so foreign to me. I cannot get my mind to reconcile that I surrendered to him, my body adored it as I came over and over again with his vicious touch. Spent, fucked, and feeling—a place I hate to be. True to his word, he took me back, dropped me at my car and left me there. I sat in my car for a few minutes trying to reconcile what had happened when a loud knock on the window made me grab for my knife. It wasn’t needed as Eiran’s black eyes met mine with pure hate. I lowered the window which I normally wouldn’t do for him, but tonight I am not myself.

“I don’t have to clean up?” He seems bitter.

“I liked this one.” I spit back and start to put the window up.

“You are playing with fire and the devil, Avery. Neither of us should be fucked with.” His threat is evident, he doesn’t like it when I keep them around for any amount of time. He likes it that I kill them because then I’m still his in some stupid childish way. Part of me will always be his, but no part of me wants to be.

“Fuck off, Eiran.” I close the window and start my car. I wonder if he knows the doctor?

I need a stiff drink and my bed before the day starts, I hate this feeling that’s bubbling up from within me and I need to numb it out quickly. Callum will notice it in a second and heaven forbid him or my father see me crumbling. No matter what I do I cannot rid my heart of the thump it makes when Eiran is involved. On the drive home, I realise something in the cavity of my soul. I felt that same fucking dreaded gut churning thump with him, it makes we want to go and kill his dog.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path.

I WATCH. I ALWAYS WATCH.
I want to take, touch and to fuck, but my fear stops me. The memory of the blade slicing the flesh from my bones makes me to scared to do anything more than watch her. I know that someday watching won’t be enough and my willpower will defeat my fear and I will fuck her till she bleeds, but until then I keep watching. I swallow the hurt every time, each new lover is the same pain of the knife she cut me with. It’s not special anymore. I unconsciously trace my scars when I think about it, I’m watching her dance with Callum’s doctor now. I know that will go over like a charm when he finds out. No one will ever be right for her in their eyes, she isn’t allowed to get close to people she is to be a ghost, a public face of the company and a poster child of career criminals. Her hair covers her face as it rests on his shoulder, I’m sure he can feel her breath on his skin as his hands skirt dangerously close to her ass. I can almost feel what it must be like to touch her that way, with tenderness and feral intent. I make no attempt to hide myself tonight, sometimes I do hide just so she feels secure. I know she taunts me on purpose, as if she knows I’m there watching for her. She makes it a theatrical performance. Tonight something is different, he isn’t a young college guy that she can use her looks and power to push over. This is a man, a powerful man with connections and an appetite for women. I have had the pleasure of helping him out a few times, my cleaning services are not exclusive to Avery and her messy love life, it’s more of a company-wide situation. I
need
to go closer. I pay for my drink and go downstairs. The air is still hot even outside and I light a smoke and stand across the street so she can see me watching her. There’s something different in Avery’s demon eyes tonight. I have seen it before though. That’s a dangerous twinkle in the blackness of her soul, she feels something and when she feels someone pays for it, I’m still paying for those few minutes I made her heart beat. That look cost me my fucking soul, the doctor can only hope she kills him quickly.

She’s falling apart. I have watched the last three months as she has gone from fine-tuned killing machine and ruthless business woman to risk taking basket case. Every day, we get closer to Callum’s inevitable death and she gets a little closer to losing herself completely. My sweet Avery is scared. She’s going to shit herself when she realises he’s bringing in reinforcements. She doesn’t share her toys well at all. His brother is going to get right under her skin, I can almost see the nuclear meltdown already. I don’t bother to follow them home after I witness the fierce kiss they shared. I don’t think I can manage more stab wounds tonight. They left her car here so they will have to return for it, or I will get a message to collect it anyway. My curiosity is piqued. I wonder how she’ll handle a man who knows exactly who she is. A man who will take what he wants from her and not care a shit to leave her afterwards. I wish I had the power to leave Avery. I slip into the bar she just left and get a table in the corner so I can see her car where it is parked outside. The doctor’s friend from earlier is chatting up two girls at the bar behind me and I’m surprised at Avery’s choice tonight, he would have been the easy target a quick kill and all the satisfaction she needed. Why on earth did she choose the older man, the dangerous man and not the easy one she always picks. I send Callum a text. It’s the other part of my job to tell him when she does stupid shit.