Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5) (2 page)

“I’m getting out of here,” Riggs said, throwing a few crisp bills on the bar. I nodded, a delayed reaction to his departure, and lifted the shot glass to my lips, welcoming the smooth poison down my throat. Unsatisfied and insatiable I flicked the empty glass across the bar.

“Another, boss?” the bartender asked.

I shook my head, pushing back my stool and slowly rose to my feet. The alcohol wasn’t making me numb like it usually did and the methadone doesn’t bring me to the state of oblivion I crave. I tried not to take anything today. I tried to be better than yesterday and the day before that.

But once a junkie always a junkie.

And I make no apologies for it.

This is who I am, or what is left of who I used to be, depending on who you ask.

I feel her innocent eyes on me, burning a hole into my back, setting my black heart on fire. I won’t turn around, I won’t even acknowledge her because I have enough demons and don’t need those dark, sad eyes haunting me anymore than they already do.

I told myself I was just coming to the bar to make sure she was safe.

I wanted to see her one more time.

I got what I wanted.

I walked into the crowded bar and found her amongst a sea people.  Her face stood out and those eyes of hers… they were almost as black as the leather on my back and held me captive. It was impossible to turn away. She laughed and when she laughed she lit up the whole room.

Fuck, she lit up the whole world.

Turned on the lights and drew me out of the darkness I’ve been wallowing in.

Some people think I have a death wish, that I’m on a mission to end this nightmare I call life, and maybe for a while I thought they were right. A part of me wanted to join Christine, to see her one last time and make right all the wrong I did to her. But when I nearly died, my body didn’t succumb to the darkness and fought against it. Jimmy Gold pumped me with enough drugs to kill me two times over but it was Reina, my president’s girlfriend that made me realize I wanted to live and I wanted to live for those dark eyes that were pinned on me.

Leather.

Lace.

Me.

Her.

A temptation so lethal, neither of us would survive.

Maybe I had a death wish after all.

I stumbled into the bathroom, locking the door behind me, before I turned around and glanced at myself in the dirty mirror. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I wonder why she ever looked at me in the first place. Someone as innocent and pure as her doesn’t belong with a poisonous bastard like me.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a plastic baggie filled with five Xanax pills and slapped the bag onto the counter. I diverted my eyes back to the mirror, glaring at the piece of shit staring back at me.

“Fuck you,” I growled, hanging onto the feeling of self-loathing, welcoming it and encouraging it to overcome me as I slammed my fist against the baggie on the counter. I pounded it over and over again, crushing the pills until they turned to dust. Then I emptied the contents onto the counter, not giving a fuck how dirty and disgusting the bathroom was because, all that mattered was getting my fix.

I was in the zone, anxious for the high that hopefully will come and wash away my thoughts of
her
.

She is my savior and my assassin.

The one that keeps me from ending it.

And yet, right now I’m slowly killing myself trying to escape the thoughts of her.

Lacey Parrish. Jack’s daughter. His fucking nineteen-year-old daughter who wasn’t even legally allowed to order a fucking drink so why the fuck was she in some bar.

I fought long and hard not to see her as a fucking woman, not to take what I so badly wanted. But like everything else in my life…I take and I take until there is nothing left.

She was so innocent, so pure, so untouchable and untainted.

I’m the filth that took her innocence, who touched her and tainted her.

But it wasn’t enough.

I kept going back for more.

I rolled the twenty-dollar bill, leaned over the counter dragging the bill across the powder and snorted the drugs up my fucking nose.

One rip.

Another.

Three rips later, I licked my finger tips and swiped them across the counter top, before popping my fingers into my mouth and sucking any residue of the pills from my skin.

No waste.

A true junkie.

I sniffled, wiping the excess powder from my nose before I turned around and unlocked the door, waiting for the numbness to inebriate me as I stepped out of the bathroom, colliding with the soft body I used to worship and call mine.

I stared into her sad eyes, knowing I was the reason she looked broken, just a shell of the girl she was before I touched her.

I ruined her just like I ruined Christine.

Everything I touch I destroy.

“How long are you going to pretend I don’t exist?” She finally asked, her voice just an octave above a whisper.

Pretend she doesn’t exist? She’s the only fucking thing that exists in my head. She’s the face I see when I wake, when I lay my head down and when I pass the fuck out from whatever poison I consume trying to forget that she
does
exist.

I shoved my hands into my pockets, took a step closer to her, the scent of her worked its way through my raw nostrils, more intoxicating than any drug I could ever snort or shoot through my veins. I leaned closer, closing my eyes and got high off her.

My sweet Lace.

So damn pretty.

So fucking innocent in all this.

“Until you disappear once and for all,” I said, opened my eyes and glared at her.

Go away Lacey.

One day maybe you’ll know why I did it.

Why I broke your heart and killed my soul.

I pushed past her, leaving her alone in the hallway, knowing my words were the reason her eyes were full of tears.

Cry.

Hate me.

I’m no good for you.

Run.

I ordered another shot, made it a double, and knocked it back. I placed the empty glass on the bar and from the corner of my eye I watched as she took her date’s hand and begged him to leave.

Thatta’ girl.

Get the fuck out of here.

“This one’s on the house,” the bartender offered, sliding me a refill.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“The bill is on the table,” someone said from behind me, causing me to glance over my shoulder and look at the kid holding Lacey’s hand.

Treat her good.

She didn’t look at me, keeping her back towards me as she followed him out the door and disappeared like I asked her too.

She should only know I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about her, that she’d never fucking disappear because
she
owned
me
.

Every moment we shared haunts me.

Starting with that first night when her hands trembled as she reached for my body and the way I took hers. The tears she cried that night and the words I wounded her with.

That was just the first night where lines were crossed but, there were a shitload more incidents I wreaked havoc on Lacey. But that night? That was the night I claimed her. In my dark world of self-destruction and mayhem, I selfishly took Lacey, branded her mine, and I continued to brand her and mark her with my actions and my words.

And then I fucking fell in love with her.

Don’t think for one second that the few words I said to her tonight wasn’t a mark, purposely branding her, scarring her, ruining her for any other man. Others piss on their territory, I destroy mine. For every track mark on my arms, she has a matching one scarring her heart.

Lacey was still mine and always will be.

Even when she gets over me and thinks she’s giving herself to someone else.

She’ll still be mine.

And any man who ever loves her will know who she belongs to. She won’t be able to give them all of her because I’ve taken most of her and I’ll never give it back.

I can’t have her but no one else can either.

I’m a selfish motherfucker.

A greedy son-of-a-bitch.

I’m a junkie and when drugs no longer do it for me I’ll get high on pain and suffering. My own.

Hers.

And all the faceless men that will one day try to take her from me.

I finished my drink, paid my tab and walked over to the nomads hanging around the pool table, a new group of brother’s that were patched into our charter of the Satan’s Knights. My eyes zeroed in on Stryker’s as his peered back at me questioningly, trying to figure me out. The poor bastard had no idea what he signed up for. None of them did. I said my goodbyes and made my way out of the bar, letting the cool breeze blow over me as I walked towards the parking lot.

I could feel the high start to work me over as I strode to my bike and thought the drugs were finally kicking in but it wasn’t the manufactured shit that called to me.

It was her.

Her voice.

Her cries.

I closed my eyes as they consumed me, pulling me away from my surroundings and into a world where only she existed.

“Get off of me! Please! Someone help!”

So real.

I opened my eyes.

“Fucking bitch. Get the fuck back here!”

So fucking real.

My eyes drifted across the lot to where the sounds were coming from and the sobering image of my Lacey struggling to crawl out of a car, screaming into the dark parking lot for someone to help her.

Fuck no.

Hell motherfucking no.

I felt my fists clench at my sides, my breath quicken and my heart rocket against my chest cavity as my boots pounded the tar of the parking lot. I reached the driver’s side of the car, yanked opened the door and reached for the cocksucker leaning over the console, pulling Lacey’s hair. His fucking pants were around his ankles and his dick was hard when I pulled him off her and slammed him against the side of the car.

“What the fuck?” he sneered.

“Motherfucker, you know what
no
means? Huh?” I shouted as my fist collided with his jaw. The adrenaline soaring in my veins as I pummeled his face with my fist.

“No, stop!” He cried. “Shit, I’m sorry! Help!”

I grabbed him by his ears and threw him onto the ground, wedging my boot between his legs, crushing his balls.

“Blackie!” Lacey shouted.

“C’mon motherfucker, cry for me. Cry like the bitch you are,” I demanded, grabbing his hair and slammed his skull against the pavement.

“CRY!” I shouted, lifting him by the ears and crashed his head against the ground again.

“WEEP MOTHERFUCKER!”

Blood poured from his mouth, his nose and the back of his head as his eyes stared back at me wide with terror. I tugged his face close to mine, his blood dripping onto my hands as I leaned close and looked into his eyes that were half closed.

“Open your fucking eyes. Look at me!” I ordered.

“Blackie, the cops are coming! Please stop!” Lacey shrieked from somewhere behind me.

“Blackie man, you need to get the fuck out of here. Let’s go,” Stryker called.

Voices surrounded me, yelling at me, warning me, but I ignored them all.

“LOOK AT ME!” I shouted, yanking on his ears until he struggled to meet my gaze.

“You see this face? Remember it. I’m the one who fucking did this to you,” I hissed, before slamming the back of his head against the ground.

The voices faded.

The sirens faded.

All I heard was the sound of bones shattering and the cries of a man dying.

Someone grabbed me from behind, pulling me off him and yanked my hands behind my back. I tore my eyes away from the body on the floor and took in my surroundings as I felt the cold metal tighten around my wrists.

“Dominic Petra, you are under arrest,” Officer Brantley’s voice sounded in my ear. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney…”

He continued to read me my rights as my eyes locked with Lacey’s.

Dark and dull, wrecked and ruined. My beautiful innocent Lacey tainted by my selfish sadistic ways, stared back at me. I watched the tears fall down her cheeks, each droplet another mark. Those tears were as much mine as everything else about her was.

Mine.

Always mine.

Leather.

Lace.

Me.

Her.

So fucking tempting.

So fucking lethal.

Chapter One

7 Months ago

I’m a masochist, a man who gets off on inflicting pain on himself. I’m my own worst enemy. I’ve fucked myself more times than any rival club or gangbanger ever could. I had a shaky past with drugs, been trading one fucking addiction for another since I was a rebellious teenager. So when I offered to be the drug man in an operation Jack Parrish the president of the Satan’s Knights orchestrated with a psychotic gangster, I knew I was sealing my own fate.

“I might not have him where I want him but there’s one advantage I have over him, over you, over everyone in this goddamn club. I know drugs, man. I know their worth and their consequence. I know how to make them desirable and I know how to make them your enemy. I will have Jimmy Gold high on my promise before he or his streets are high on the product.”