Marked (Marked #3) (3 page)

“God, I needed this.” Her moan…fuck. Low and sultry, the sound of her pleasure made me hard as fuck. Like granite, smooth and slick against her heated flesh, rubbing itself into her lower back and leaving a trail of pre-come while my hands focused on lathering her front.

I’d tossed the washcloth Esther had bought for her in the trash the moment we’d stepped inside the small shower. Wasn’t needed. My hands were more than enough to take care of her needs.

“I needed you.” Truth. My truth. Maya was the only thing that mattered to me, and the fear that had gripped me that night—seeing her unconscious—nearly killed me. Drove me past what was considered sane by society. Blood and revenge was all I had wanted, and still do, but now I have to be thankful and enjoy our connection.

A shift, a small swivel of her hips, and her ass ground against me. “Need you now.”

“Son of a bitch, Maya.” A resounding thwack reverberated inside the bathroom as my palm connected with the all-white tiled wall. “Behave.” It was meant as a warning, one she didn’t adhere to. No, instead she pushed back again. Harder this time. Too much and not enough. She was a goddamned vision standing there beneath the water. Wet. Rivulets of water cascading down her body, tempting me.

Without preamble, no warning, I cupped her hot little pussy in my hand and added the tiniest bit of pressure.

“Please, baby. Just help me forget.” Yes, the words were whimpered while my one hand massaged her, but it was the last part spoken that made me pause. Bitty wasn’t ready for the physical
more
aspect of our relationship. It was the emotional that needed to be nurtured.

I would not hurt her by being a selfish asshole.

“Not like this.” She tensed, her body going rigid in my arms. There was a small hiss of discomfort that escaped her lips while she attempted to push me away. I was having none of that, and with both hands wrapped around her midsection, I nestled her body against my own. “Bitty, stop. Listen to me before going off—”

“Is it because I look like shit?” Now, that right there pissed me off. My cock had been hard—leaking against her back, fucking ready to find his home between her thighs.

“Don’t.” Thundering, my harsh tone made her stop her persistent attempt to pull herself out of my arms. “Turn around.” My demand was met with defiance and a tiny sniff. And fuck me if my annoyance didn’t evaporate in that instance. “Please, Maya. I need you to look at me.”

Wiping her hand over her face, Bitty took a moment to compose herself and then turned to look at me. “What?”

“Enough.” I gave a harsh nip to her bottom lip that caused her to whimper. “If I could fuck you right now, I would.” Pressing up against her, I let her feel all of me. Natural reaction whenever she was near. I burned for her. “You feel that.”

“Yes.” A hiss. A goddamned plea for more was what I heard in that one word.

“Don’t ever question my desire for you. You are all I see. All I need to be happy in this crazy, fucked-up world. You…you stubborn, hard-headed, beautiful woman, are my happiness.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I—”

“Understand.”

At my interjection, she gave me a timid smile and then turned back around. “Can you help me wash my back?”

Nothing else was said while I attended to her needs. Our bodies naked and wet, they brushed against the other. Reconnected with soft, innocent touches—enjoyed the feel of the other.

We needed that.

To just be.

For me, it was knowing that at that moment, she was safe. Healing. That her body and mind would get past this and I’d be there along the way, every step, because I loved her that damned much.

More than my own life.

“Hey, Miranda,” I called out when I reached the nurses’ station. “She’s back in bed and starving. Is it okay for her to eat outside food? Maya’s asking for homemade chicken noodle and a turkey club sandwich.”

Laughing, she nodded. “Yeah, she’s not on a special diet. And to be honest, that sounds amazing right about now.” Subtle she was not.

“Are you hungry, Miranda?” I’d be more than happy to get her something too.

Blushing, she nodded and came to stand next to me. “I could eat.”

Bumping my shoulder with hers, I smiled down at her. “You got it. Let me call it in and have one of our friends pick it up.”

“Let me know what I owe—”

“My treat.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I didn’t let her. “Not up for discussion.”

With that, I turned around and made my way back to Maya’s room. We were still waiting for her doctor to come speak with her; I was ready to get her the fuck out of this place and back home. Feelings she shared with me.

I’d just turned the corner toward her room when I was stopped short. What I saw made every molecular cell in my body burn white hot. Anger consumed me. It was overwhelming. Hands shaking and body coiled tight, I rushed forward and grabbed their hand, pulling them back harshly without a care for their safety. I wanted blood.

A loud thud reverberated throughout the empty hallway, followed closely by a cry of pain. “Son of a bitch.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Brian’s eyes widened and his throat bobbed harshly as he swallowed. Ashen, scared, and beat the hell up. Black and blue, his face was swollen, as if he too had met the end of that wooden bat. Not that it would deter me from fucking him up, but he looked like utter crap. “Answer me, you piece of shit.”

“I came to talk to Maya.” Voice low, he pushed himself off the opposite wall and made to move away from me. Dumbass. Before he could take three steps, I’d pushed him up against the wall again, this time with my forearm pressing down on his neck. Hard. Made it impossible for him to move or breathe.

Weak, his hands pushed against my body in desperation. Nails dug into my skin. I didn’t flinch or move; instead, I pulled him off a bit and with my hand now on his throat, slammed him. His head snapped back and cracked the drywall.

“Help—” he tried to scream, but I tightened my hold on his throat, cutting off his cry for help. For a moment, a singular second, I felt remorse as his eyes rolled back into his head. But, just as it came, it went. My eyes looked toward Maya’s door, and the picture of her unconscious form lying on that hospital bed flashed before my eyes.

Her injuries.             

Her pain.

Her fear.

Brian could die for all I cared.

“You have balls showing up here.” Nose to nose, I spoke low. Tone deadly.

He visibly paled, but like the idiot he was, he continued to push my buttons. “She let you touch her. Maya was mine.”

I laughed, hard—a maniacal sound that reverberated throughout the empty hall. He flinched. “Maya will never be yours, you dumb son of a bitch. Even if I wasn’t in the picture, she wouldn’t look at you. You aren’t man enough to handle her. Give her what she needs.”

“Money is all I need.”

Still chuckling, I pulled the arm not around his neck back and then forward quickly. Dead on his nose, it broke. Blood gushed and splattered us both. Brian’s mouth opened to scream, but only managed a weak whimper.

“Keep your money and put it toward your medical bills.”

“I’ll sue you.” A broken whisper that caused me to snort.

“Be my guest…” I taunted while adding pressure “…but first, let me help you with your case.”

Without another word, I fisted his shirt in my hands and pulled him toward the stairs. He tripped, but I kept on walking, dragging him behind me.

“Let me go,” Brian begged while trying to hold onto the small rail on the wall. Feet digging into the floor, he pulled back and for a second broke free. Shit only pissed me off.

Brian turned around to make a run for it, but the one thing he didn’t count on happened: he tripped over his untied shoe laces. I didn’t move a muscle as I watched him go down onto the cold linoleum floor. Hands out to break his fall, he hit the floor like dead weight. Didn’t move. Just lay there.

Fucking waste of space.

“Get the fuck up.” At my command he turned over and lay on his back, cradling his right hand, the same who one that took the brunt of impact. He’d get no sympathy from me.

Looking up at me, he bared his teeth and spat, “I can’t…fuck!”

“Then let me help you.” With both hands, I yanked him up by his outstretched shirt. His body was unstable, as if one more solid blow would knock him the fuck out. Still, I felt nothing while I watched him stumble forward and hit the wall right inside the stairwell, his shoulder cushioning the impact.

“Please stop,” Brian pled while holding the uninjured hand up. “I’ll leave.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I all but snarled, teeth bared. “Did you stop harassing her all the times she told you no? That she wasn’t fucking interested?” With each word that left my lips I walked forward, forcing Brian to walk down those steps on his own. I didn’t want to have to carry his ass down these stairs and out of the hospital. “Did you and Janice stop when Maya lay on that ground…unconscious?”

“It’s because of me she didn’t kill her!” he suddenly roared, and rushed forward. His body crashed into mine. I stumbled back out of surprise, and my back hit the railing behind me. “Janice was crazed. Lost her touch with reality, but I realized this a moment too late. I tried to drive off before she could attack Maya, but the bitch hit me with the bottom of the bat…” Brian used the momentum to try and take a swing at me, his good arm cocked back, but before he could release, I’d countered and sent him flying down the first flight. The impact of his body landing on the cold concrete floor knocked the wind out of him.

My foot hit the next step, and the door on the next floor down opened with a loud bang. “That’s enough, Talan.”
What the fuck was this prick doing here?
Just what I needed; the asshole that had it out for me finding me beating the snot out of Brian—more than enough reason to arrest me without giving a shit that the real criminal laid by his feet.

“No offense, Detective Gulver,” I spoke as calmly as I could, “but it will never be enough. He—”

“I know.”

My eyes snapped to his and glared. “What do you mean you know?”

Instead of answering my question, Gulver bent down and checked Brian’s pulse. The silence stretched. It was only after a minute or two that he looked back up toward me, and with his eyes on mine, he called out on his radio for help.

The satisfied look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know; I was fucked.

Taking another step down, I took a seat on the landing above me while Gulver instructed the operator through his radio that he had a suspect in custody and an injured man. Since we were at the hospital an ambulance wouldn’t be needed, but ER personnel needed to be sent to this stairwell.

Brian moaned suddenly and turned on his side. “Motherfuck.”

“You are fucked,” Gulver added before turning to me with a small smile on his face. “It’s time you and I took a small drive over to my precinct.”

“Were you following me?” I had to ask; the entire situation reeked of foul play. Wrong. How did he find us in that stairwell in such a huge hospital? And why the fuck hadn’t he tried to stop me before I’d fucked up Brian?

Slumping back against my seat I waited, all the while holding back the small smile that wanted to break out. Brian had to be pulled out of the hospital stairwell by some EMS guys that had just left another patient in the ER a few minutes prior. Delirious and groaning, he complained while the men lifted and placed him on a stretcher that awaited him just outside the door. The man was a pussy.

He watched me from the corner of his eye, his right hand tightening on the wheel. “I was wrong about you.”

“Okay.” Then silence overtook the cab of the patrol car. I waited with patience, but Gulver continued to remain quiet, almost pensive. Problem was that I didn’t have the desire in me to wait him out. Adrenaline still circled throughout my nervous system, body coiled tight and ready to explode at the drop of a hat.

“You’re still amped up.” It wasn’t a question, more like an accurate observation. In return, I gave him a quick nod and looked back out of the passenger side window. Every few minutes I’d open and close my fists, stretching the fingers out in hopes of expelling some of the pent-up energy.

Gulver waited me out. Still silent.

I’d give the prick beside me one thing; he didn’t make me sit in the back like a common criminal. No. This time around there was respect and trust, though he was still tight-lipped on the why.

“Are you going to answer my question?” I prodded after another few minutes of silence. We were still about ten minutes away from the police station, and I needed more than an
I was wrong.

He took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “To be honest with you, Talan, I didn’t trust you—won’t deny that I judged the man before I understood the dynamics inside of your girlfriend’s hospital room.” With the hand not holding the steering wheel, Gulver lowered the volume on his radio until it crackled in the background on a low hum. “Day in and day out over the years, I’ve seen it all.” His tone of voice was void of all emotion. Cold. In a way I understood, the things they saw and dealt with would make anyone immune. It was the only way that they could be efficient and think logically; emotions held no place in his line of work. “Sadly, more than once, I’ve witnessed the victim’s spouse or boyfriend be the cause of their physical pain.”

“What changed?”

He let out a low sigh. “The stairwell changed everything.”

“Explain.” Yes, my tone was terse, but I had a feeling he’d been following me and that didn’t sit well with me.

This time he snorted while making a right turn. “Are you always so direct?” I just watched him with a raised brow. “Something about the way you hovered…protected Ms. Owens from us had me on edge. Like you were forbidding her from talking.”

“That wasn’t it at all,” I hissed out, hand coming down on the vinyl of his dashboard. “You and Martinez waltzed into her room demanding and giving me shit. And you are damn right I protect my girl. Look at what happened…if I would’ve driven her to school that morning as I wanted, none of this would’ve happened. They could have…”

“Hey,” Gulver called out, pulling me back to the present. “She’s okay, and we have a suspect now in custody. We have the video from the crime scene and an ID on both involved. After we speak to Maya, and of course you will be in the room—”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “If you had a positive ID, then why did it seem in that hospital room as if you were ready to arrest me? Did you think I had something to do with this?”

“We have to rule out every possible lead. Nothing personal, but on the video’s audio the woman who attacked Maya—”

“Janice.”

“Janice?” he asked, while stopping at the light before the precinct. Gulver turned toward me with a calculating look in his eyes. I’m sure this was his “don’t fuck with me” face, but it didn’t faze me. “Why are you so sure that she’s the woman on tape?”

“That’s her name, and clearly you have selective memory.” My tone was now harsh, anger rising within me again. “Maya explained to the both of you that she’d told me, or did you forget?”

“No, I didn’t.” His radio crackled, and then a call from an operator came in asking for available units needed in a case of hit and run. Gulver spoke into his end and explained he was at the station and nowhere near the scene before turning back to me. “I’ll need all this information recorded for the investigation when we get in.”

“Understood.”

“And calm down, Talan. You’re here to help with the case, not as a suspect.” Turning back around, he took his foot off the brake and pressed forward. Another right after a block down, and we were there. “I do not doubt you, but I have to ask.” Nodding, I turned my head and looked out the window. Gulver pulled into a parking spot a little ways from the entrance and killed the engine. “Let’s get inside and start piecing this together.”

“The faster the better, but first, let me call in a lunch order for Maya and her nurse…forgot to do so with all the bullshit that went down.” Pulling the phone from my back pocket, I swiped my finger across the screen and pulled up Mathew’s number. Four rings, and it went to voicemail.

Fuck.

Then I called Esther since she was coming up after a short shift at the shop. No answer.

“Everything okay?”

“No one’s picking up.” We exited the car and walked through the empty entrance, down a hall, and toward what I assumed was his desk.

“Would you like something to drink, or would you rather start?” No sooner had those words left his lips when my phone chimed. Looking down, I opened my messenger and then froze. Maya’s name was on the screen.

What the fuck? You promised. ~ Bitty

“That’s the face of a scared man.” Gulver snickered beside me. Instead of answering, I showed him the phone, and he grimaced and gave me a pat on the back. “Let’s get this down and you back with Ms. Owens.”

“Sounds good.” My fingers flew over the screen’s keyboard.

I’m sorry. ~ Talan.

Two words.  That’s it. And I meant them not in the traditional sense. I was sorry for worrying her and breaking my promise, but I would never apologize for giving Brian what he deserved. Heaven help him if he was to ever cross my path again, because death would be the only way to assuage my ire.

“Let’s begin.” We each took a seat across from each other and waited while his laptop booted up. After a few minutes, he pulled the video and freeze-frame of Janice’s face. “Do you know this woman?”

“Yes. That’s Janice Moore.” My eyes scrutinized every inch of her picture on-screen. From what I could tell, it looked like this was before the attack—one foot in the car and a hand on the door’s frame. You could see a grainy shot of the bat that she held in the other hand partly hidden by the door.
Fucking bitch
. I’ve never hated anyone more than I did her.

“How did you two know each other?”

“She was an old employee of mine; ran my reception area and appointment books. We were cool, slept together once, and she became obsessed. I ignored it for the most part before my girlfriend—I owed no one an explanation at that moment in time. Since then the boundary has been cut and dry. No more tolerating to keep the peace.”

Sitting back in his chair, Gulver took a sip from a water bottle that had been placed atop his desk. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say she didn’t take it well.” Not a question on the matter, and my silence confirmed it. “How long ago was she fired, and what was the reason why?”

Taking the other bottle on his desk, I twisted the lid and took a drink of my own. “Few months back. It was a few weeks before Memorial Day, to be exact. I remember because it was on that holiday that the other shop owner, the one I’d asked to hire her, warned me about a conversation they overheard her having.”

Gulver raised his hand in a stop motion. “Let me get all this down.” Once he was ready, he waved me on. “A conversation?”

Straining my neck, it cracked, the audible pop relieving me from a tiny bit of the tension I carried in my shoulders these days. “Yeah, they were worried. Told me that she seemed gone; here, but not at the same time. She’d been looking for someone out for hire to harm Maya while at school. My guess is that she found no one and got desperate.”

“Desperate how?” he asked, his hand flying across the keys on his computer.

“Because Maya’s blood is literally on her hands now…” The sight of my Bitty in that hospital bed, unconscious, crossed through my mind and embedded itself within my blood. If it was the last thing I did on this earth, I would avenge her. Suddenly my hands became wet; the plastic bottle held within my grasp was mangled.

Detective Gulver reached forward and took the now empty bottle from me. “Do you need a minute?”

Shaking my head, I sat back and let out a long breath. “I’m fine.”

“At the very least, I can say that you are both stubborn.” It worked; I chuckled and relaxed a tiny bit. “The way that Ms. Owens snarled at me in your defense…yeah, she is feisty.”

“And I wouldn’t change a hair on her head.” A genuine smile overtook my face then. Bitty was my every fucking thing. “Now that you know how whipped I am, let’s finish this so my girl can kill me once I get back.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Carry on.”

“As I had been saying…from what my friends had overheard, Janice didn’t want to be involved directly. No. She’d wanted to come to me clean and pretend to be worried for Maya. Be there for me, and worm her way back into my bed. Something that would never fucking happen. I wouldn’t touch her with someone else’s dick.”

“There’s a lot of animosity there.”

“If she died today, I would feel nothing. Not an ounce of sympathy for her.”