(Blood and Bone, #1) Blood and Bone (5 page)

I close my mouth. He’s completely right. He lowers his face, replacing his finger on my mouth with his lips. The kiss is soft and sweet but it changes quickly, becoming something more.

His hands lower from cupping my face to my body, pulling me in and under him. I don’t think of another thing, beyond the caressing and sucking that starts so delicately and builds into a passionate frenzy. The way he moves when he’s inside me, rocking me gently, makes me want to gyrate faster, speeding things up.

But I don’t.

He controls the movement; he makes love to me. He worships at the altar that is my body, touching everywhere, kissing every inch,
and bringing me to such heights that I forget all about my brief lapse in sanity.

He finishes with several great thrusts, pushing into me with force and disparity. I love it when he finishes and loses his constant grip on control. It’s momentary and beautiful. I always watch.

I am the luckiest unlucky girl alive.

I am alive, and that’s what I need to focus on.

4. CRAZY CAT LADY

E
verything feels more normal in the morning air. Of course he’s gone, leaving only a dent in the pillow and a satisfied feeling in my soul, and other places, to prove he was ever here at all. I love it when we make love. It’s always soft and gentle, and yet somehow thorough in a way that ticks all my boxes.

He knows the boxes better than I do, so he controls the movements and the love we make.

I get dressed, not showering like I normally would. I leave the smell of him to linger on my skin. I love the smell of his body rubbed against mine.

The walk to work feels like a new day. Everything feels fresh and clean, making the cold, dank air a comfort in some bizarre way.

Angie grins when she sees me. “Someone had her a naughty night. Look at the sexy mess ya are.”

“Shut up.”

She winks. “Just tell me he made you supper and picked the wine and held you so tightly you couldn’t even breathe.”

My cheeks flush but I nod, giving her the fantasy of my perfection.

“Ya lucky bitch.” She sighs and leans across the massive wooden counter. “What I would give for a doctor like yours.”

There is nothing to add. I am the luckiest girl in the world and we both know it.

A woman comes in the store as I’m going through the morning start on the register. She gives Angie and me a shy smile. “I’m looking for a dress for a party tonight.”

Angie walks to her, leading her to the dresses for dinner parties and charming her with the Scottish accent.

It’s amusing to watch her in action. She is smooth and funny, and suddenly you’re wearing something you swear isn’t you, and yet with her you’re comfortable.

I know this shy woman’s pain. The mail lady walks in, always in a hurry with a fast smile and faster hands. She drops it with a nod and a wave and is back out the front door. The silly and relaxed grin on my face departs when I see the newspaper.

Ronald Armstrong is dead. The police are looking for clues as to how it happened but don’t mention how he died.

They don’t mention his name, either. He is a man, a random man, who is dead. The picture is hazy and funny looking. It doesn’t improve on his overbite or skinny face. But I would know him anywhere, unless he too has a clone out there who has died unfortunately. His jowls and skinny face might haunt me the remaining years of my life.

Ronald Armstrong is dead, and I don’t know how I feel about it all. I feel detached, yet like I should be feeling something for the man I never knew.

Angie and the woman come to the counter, carrying a dress and a wrap. Her eyes dart to the newspaper, lighting up like she’s heard the tale or recognized the story. “Grisly, isn’t it? The news said he was
found down in Denny Blaine Park. He was on the beach, stabbed a hundred times or something.”

My stomach drops. “That’s terrible.” I walk to the far side of the room, pretending to sleeve the clothes so they look tidy. But inside I am panicking.

I don’t even know why.

I didn’t know the man.

The woman leaves, smiling and happy about her purchase, as Angie opens the door for the deliveryman bringing the boxes of new inventory for us to hang and display.

She and the driver of the delivery truck get on like old friends. But I ignore them, desperately trying to sort the emotions I don’t understand or completely feel.

There is something buried beneath the layers of things I cannot find in my head and heart that bothers me dearly about the random death of a perfect stranger.

“Oh, look at this one, Jane. It’s so you. Have a go with it.” She holds up a dark-red dress made of a satin-like fabric. It’s deep and intense. I don’t fight her on it but walk mindlessly to the dress she’s holding up and take it, sliding the soft fabric between my fingertips.

I carry it to the changing room like a zombie, peeling off my sweater and slacks. In the mirror there is a flash of something beyond my pale-pink underwear and bra. Something of a history is there, beyond the scars and the red lines. It’s a road map I suddenly need—crave.

I run my hands down the scar on my ribs, savoring the knobby feel of the ropey scar. The stitch marks on the sides are faint, but when I touch them I see something, a face. It’s a man I don’t know, not at all. He’s shaking his dark hair, touching the scars with his thick fingers, but I don’t shy away from the touch. The image might as well be a movie I’ve seen once. It’s hazy and lost in a mist I won’t ever wade through, not completely.

I drag the dress on, robotically. Angie was right—it’s perfect for me. My long dark hair shines in contrast to the deep crimson of the dress. My small breasts are pert and perky, giving me the respectable amount of cleavage a proper lady wears. The creamy pallor of my skin is the exact color needed to wear a dress like this one. Too tanned or dark and you would bring out the orange in the red. But I am ghostly white, so the red stands strong. My oddly colored blue eyes and long lashes seem black under the bright lights, as if my pupils are the only things in my eyes.

I would look pretty, beautiful actually, if I could get past the frightened expression on my face. But it’s fixed there, stunned and stuck.

“Let us have a look. Ya can’t go putting it on and not show.”

A small grin cracks my face, lighting up my looks a bit. I step out from the changing room, spinning for Angie to see. She clasps her hands to her ruddy face. “Oh, now. Och. Ya look like that actress Julie Roberts in
Pretty Woman
. Ya recall the hooker movie? Ya have to know that one.”

“Julia Roberts,” I mutter, correcting her but not recalling the movie even if somehow the actress’s name slips from my lips.

“That’s right—Julia, of course it is. Such a pretty girl. Where’s she got to these days? Ya never see her anymore in films. Must be aging something fierce and hiding away.”

I chuckle. “I don’t know.” I don’t even know how I got her name out of the mud that is my mind. I can’t even recall her face or if she looks like me.

“Well, we will have to put that in the window, what with the Christmas parties starting soon. Ya should get this one for Derek’s.”

I nod blankly. “It’s nearly Christmas party time again?”

“Don’t get me started on how fast the days are going. I’m nearly single again and almost forty. It’s depressing.” She turns and stalks back to the front of the store, leaving me to wallow in the puddle of my emotions.

The remainder of the day involves high-pitch squealing from Angie as she unpacks the inventory as though she has never seen it before, regardless of the fact she went to the shows and picked all the dresses, and me pretending to work.

When I get home I Google
Samantha Barnes, Ronald Armstrong, and Berkeley
, almost desperate to come across a photo of them together. There are many of him but none of her. The images of him are tags from Facebook and other social media. Samantha has none. Her name tags several other people with the same name.

It drives me to Google the thing I have avoided since I got home. The death. The murder is all over the news.

The pictures show a white van, several police, a scene taped off near some bushes, and a body bag.

The sight of it makes me ill just as Derek comes in the door with food. He puts it down on the stove, grinning at me. “I got Indian.”

I close the laptop and walk into the kitchen, trying desperately not to let the death of someone I didn’t know make me crazy.

He pauses, seeing the look on my face, which he reads like a book regularly. “What?”

“The man who called me Samantha Barnes was murdered in a park.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Ronald Armstrong—he was killed in the park. He’s the murder victim on the news.”

Derek leans on the counter, running his hands through his dark-blond hair. “Jane, what are you talking about?” His eyes fill with worry. I hate it when he looks at me that way.

“Remember, I told you how there was a case of mistaken identity with Samantha Barnes? The dead man is the one who mistook me for her. And now he’s dead.”

His eyes narrow. “Baby, he’s dead, but it doesn’t have a single thing to do with you. The correlation is probably between him and
being at the park at night. Maybe he was into drugs. It was Denny Blaine Park, wasn’t it? That’s a dark park at night.”

“I know. I didn’t mean I caused it.” I don’t know why I said it that way. I don’t know why Ronald has affected me the way he has.

Derek smiles wide. I can see mocking thoughts roaming his head just by the grin on his face. But he doesn’t entertain them. He abandons the bags, walks to me, and scoops me up. My legs wrap around his waist as his hands cup my ass cheeks. When our lips meet, my eyes close and everything else is blocked out. I run my hands up his neck into his hair, gripping it.

Something comes over me.

He tries to carry me to the bed to pay homage at the temple, but I grab the door frame, swinging him toward the couch. I struggle from his arms, pushing him onto the couch when I touch the carpet. I lift my shirt off, yank my pants down and kick them across the room, and climb onto his lap. He looks confused but I ignore it.

My fingers savagely pull his shirt off, forcing him to work with me, and position his head to kiss along my neck. Abruptly, I sit up, admiring him. His perfection is overwhelming. He’s sculpted and hard in every place a man ought to be. I slide my hands over him as I rain kisses down his chest and abs. When I go to kneel between his legs, my knees dropping to the carpet, his lips part. A devilish amount of power surges through me as I undo his jeans and drag them down. He inhales sharply, still confused, maybe.

When I take him in my mouth there is a familiarity to this that’s frightening. I know I don’t remember ever doing this in three years. He leads the way. He controls the tempo. He runs the dance floor.

But there is a strange sensation inside me that resembles a memory, and it’s positive I have done this before.

I slide my hand up his shaft as I work my mouth down, massaging with my tongue. His hands grip the couch, desperate and
disoriented in the pleasure and unexpectedness of his loss of control. I can tell when he’s lost in the sucking and touching because he starts moving with me, grinding the way I do when he plays with me. Knowing I’m about to rock his world in another way, I suck one last time before sitting back.

He looks up, flashing an expression I have never seen. His beauty has become tragic and pained. He looks uncomfortable and angry, and all of it turns me on more.

I climb up his body, sitting back on his rigid cock. I’m soaked from sucking him off and being in charge, so while the entry is rushed it’s still perfect. Even I gasp, tilting my head back as I slide down his shaft.

The frenzy of bliss and powerlessness hits him, bringing him to life in a frightening way. He leans forward, gripping my hips with vigor, and forcing me to ride him the way he wants.

I let him go for a few moments, enjoying the feel of his punishing thrusts, matched with my rotating hips.

Then I push him back, shaking my head. There’s a look on my face that I don’t know if I have ever made. The flame in my stare is lighting my whole body on fire. I continue to ride him the way my body wants, circling my hips and sliding up and down at the pace that’s perfect for me. He fills me in a way I don’t think he ever has. It’s too much if I sit the wrong way, but the pain of it becomes pleasure somehow.

Everything builds quickly, becoming part of the too much as an orgasm rips through me. The room blurs as the waves of pleasure shake me to the core. A bead of sweat trickles down my cheek as I stop, realizing we have both finished.

The room is silent, apart from our ragged breaths.

The air is heady with the spent frustrations and lusty rage.

The confusion is thick in us both.

He looks wounded or angry still but in a satiated sort of way.
I can see that the anger is empty of power. I have sucked every last drop of that from him. He doesn’t say a thing, just stands, lifting me with him. His cock slips from me as he walks to the bathroom, carrying me to the shower.