The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (6 page)

I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, not physically at least.

“Are you really going to cut it up?”

I jumped, the sound of Rhett’s voice shattering the silent room. He stood in the doorway of his bedroom.

“What the fuck? Have you been in there the whole time?”

A sinister smile spread across his lips as he motioned behind his bedroom door. I faintly remembered it being halfway open. “I have.” He moved slowly into the kitchen his gaze never leaving mine.

“You left with Sarah.”

He shook his head. “She went to grab take-out for us. I knew better than to trust a whore.”

His words gored me. “You don’t get to treat me like this.” My heart pounded loud in my ears, the thrill of fear, mingled with the coke, pumping through my veins.

“Treat you like what?” He held out his hands. He stood only a few feet away now. “Bring you into my house, care for you, buy you clothes? I didn’t have to do those things, Faye.” He paused and dropped his arms. “I didn’t have to do a damn thing for you. I could have left you out there on the street. Left you to rot. Your mother’s dead. She wouldn’t have known the damn difference.”

“So why didn’t you, huh?” I clutched the knife like it was a lifeline. The fresh high in my system made me jumpy.

“Because she loved you. She wanted better for you. I wouldn’t dishonor her memory by letting you rot on the fucking street.” He didn’t yell the words, but he might as well have, with the way they reverberated in my head.

“You don’t know me anymore.”

He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Anymore? You were just a dumb little kid when I last saw you. Now is no different. You’re nineteen years old and you’ve probably had sex with more men than the number of times I’ve taken a shit in my lifetime. You’re a homeless prostitute. There isn’t anything else to know.”

“Fuck you, Rhett.” I grabbed the poster, ready to slice it into a million pieces, to destroy it like he did my heart, but he was quicker, snatching it out of my hand.

I watched him unroll it. He stared down at himself as if it was some sort of miracle. “It’s funny that you chose this to destroy.” He glanced up at me. “Why?” He seemed genuinely curious.

I shrugged.

“Don’t just shrug,” he said heatedly. “Tell me why you picked this.”

“What’s there to tell? I’m just a homeless prostitute. I don’t have morals or reasons, apparently.”

Rhett rolled the poster back up and set it on the counter. He still wore the clothes he’d been wearing all day, his shirt hugging his muscular chest, the jeans loose, but tight in all the right places. Unbidden, moisture pooled in my core.

“Tell me.”

“Because I know what it means to you.” I spit the words at him. “I knew it would hurt you.”

A ruthless look spread across his face. “And that’s what you want, huh? To hurt me?”

I smiled, showing all my teeth. “You get what you give, Rhetty baby.” I thought that would do it, that it would set him off, but it didn’t. He just stood there looking down at me, a million questions in his eyes.

“Why do you do this?” He took a step toward me, but I didn’t move.

“Do what?” I tried to sound firm, but I was certain I failed. The woodsy notes of his cologne infiltrated my senses, making my head swim with lust.

“You’ve been here hardly twenty-four hours and you’ve turned everything upside down.” He spoke the words quietly and with less force. His gaze searched my face.

“You drug me away from
my
life.” Why couldn’t he see that he wasn’t the only one who’d had their life turned on its end?

“Just shut up about your life for a second. Quit acting like you’re proud of what you do,” he sneered. I hated that sound, that condescending drawl.

“Quit trying to act like you’re better than me,” I hissed.

“I
am
better than you.” He took a threatening step forward, his chest bumping mine, at the same time snatching the knife out my hand. I let him. He pushed it away from us. It slid down the counter.

I narrowed my eyes, desperately trying not to focus on my hardened nipples. “Oh, yeah? Fine. Maybe you are better than me.” I knew the look on my face had to be smug. “So tell me, Rhett, how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” he growled.

I leaned in, letting my chest press harder against his, hard enough where I knew he could feel my throbbing nipples. “How does it feel to want me? A prostitute. Your own fucking sister.” I smiled sinfully. “How does it feel to want to fuck me, someone so beneath you?”

I barely got the words out before he snapped. I saw it there in his eyes, as if he had no control. His palm slammed into the side of my face, like a brick, knocking the air from my lips and sending pain shattering across my skull. Before I could react, cry out, or even think, his hand was gripping my chin and his lips were mashing against mine. I stumbled backward and he followed me, pressing me against the sink. His hard body was flush against mine, his thick, pulsing cock knifing my stomach. A sexual need washed over my body. I would have lost my balance had Rhett not been pressing into me.

He forced my lips open with his tongue demanding entrance. I opened my mouth, letting him in. The sensation of his tongue dueling with mine sent a moan rushing from my lips. I wanted to take the sound back, but it was too late, lost somewhere between where I began and he ended. A rough hand snaked into my hair, tugging at the strands. Molten heat flooded my already damp panties. I gripped his sinewy waist, letting my nails dig into his skin. Nothing had ever felt so right. Nothing. Not even the fucking coke I snorted less than ten minutes ago. I’d imagined what it would be like to kiss him for years. What his lips would be like against mine. I knew it would be good, so good. But I didn’t think it would be like this, an all-consuming perfection that devoured every inch of me.

It wasn’t often that men kissed me, and the ones that did, didn’t do it like this. Not with the artful precision that Rhett was using. Or maybe they did, but all I could think about was the money that was going to land in my hand as soon as the ordeal was over. I didn’t want their kisses. Not like this.

A phone started ringing somewhere in the apartment, but I ignored the annoying noise. The tinkering sound seemed to go on forever, background music in our heated interlude. With his free hand he traced the outline of my collarbone before letting his fingers dip lower to the curve of one of my breasts. His mouth was ravenous on me, but his fingers were slow, deliberate. How he could do both at once befuddled my overwhelmed brain. It didn’t matter, as long as he didn’t stop. His fingers traced lower, circling around my nipple, but not touching it.

Fuck, please touch it, please.

A loud knock at the door nearly made me jump out of my skin, like a cold bucket of ice was poured over my head. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He stood there in front of me, his lips damp from our kiss. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. He stared at me as if I wasn’t real, like I was some sort of bad dream.

“Rhett!” Sarah called through the door, followed by more pounding.

Neither of us moved. It was like we were stuck in some sort of weird limbo. His gaze fell to my cheek, which started throbbing in full force. A dark look swallowed everything on his face, the wonder, the surprise, the lust. It ate it all up and replaced it with that mask of hate he wore so well.

“You disgust me,” he spat at me as he backpedaled toward the door.

“Rhett! I’ve been calling, I can’t carry all the food up. I need help,” Sarah whined through the door.

I smiled cruelly, embracing the increased burning from the movement. “No, I don’t.” He may not have wanted me back then, back when I was just a silly little girl with a crush. But he wanted me now.

He could deny it. He could pretend that I was no one. Just some whore of a sister, but I wasn’t. Rhett Hale was my brother. He lived in his own perfect little world, with his perfect little girlfriend. But I knew better. He wanted more. More than this stiff boring apartment, more than the bland simple things that made him feel safe. He wanted something wild. Something better. Something dirty. Filthy.

He wants me.

She would let it go

One day

When the moon glowed with unshed tears

And the world was a different place.
 

ONE

I didn’t know what made me more nervous—the fact that I was about to see my mom’s dead body or that I was about to see
him
. Her husband, Rhett’s father. He was the reason I stood outside the doors of my mother’s funeral wearing an outfit I could never afford, an outfit that tried to cover up the truth. That I, Faye Turner, was a homeless prostitute. A dirty, filthy whore.

My hand shook as I pressed the cigarette to my lips. I wasn’t ready for this.

Will I ever be ready?
No. My body already ached even though I’d taken a bump of cocaine less than twenty minutes ago. I was almost out. Only one hit left of the little package I’d paid for with a rough face-fucking.

Rhett, my step-brother and his girlfriend Sarah had already gone inside, leaving me out here alone with my thoughts, my trembling hands, and my cigarette.

I inhaled deeply taking the warm smoke inside my lungs, letting it fill me up.
Maybe if I breathe in deep enough it will carry me away?
I looked up at the pale blue sky. Maybe I could float to the moon and make my home in a crater. I almost giggled at the idea.

“Can I bum a smoke?” The voice to my left startled me, making me jump and I nearly lost my balance. I knew that voice. It was the same one that had haunted my thoughts for the past three years. I stumbled back a few steps and looked up into the face I promised myself I would never see again.

Taylor Hale, my step-dad, stared down at me, his blue eyes familiar, so full of lust they made my skin prickle. His brown hair had more gray in it than the last time I saw him. His face a little more lined. But he was still the same man. Still tall and broad, towering over me.

“You’re my good girl.”
Words whispered from years ago echoed in my mind. I shook my head and dropped my half-smoked cigarette on the ground.

Taylor bent down and picked it up. “Here, ma’am. You dropped this.” He took a step toward me, the cigarette poised between his fingers. I stared at it like it was infected with poison.

“Just stay away from me while I’m here,” I said, regaining my voice. My palm itched to reach in my purse and extract the switchblade inside.

“Stay away from you?” His eyes twinkled with their familiar fire. “I don’t think we’ve met.” He held out his hand to me, as if I would really take it. As if he didn’t remember the way he damaged me. The way his fingertips caressed my body until even I couldn’t deny their pleasure.
Seven years of raping me and he doesn’t remember who I am?

To anyone else he was a kind, attractive, business tycoon with a big heart. Everyone loved him. I used to love him too. But I knew the dark twisted parts of him. The parts no one else would ever know. “Don’t play this shit with me Taylor. Don’t act like you don’t know who I am.” I took a step closer to him, even though the movement made my skin crawl. “Just remember I’m not a little girl anymore. I will gut you if you try anything.”

He smirked. It was that all-knowing, superior smirk I knew too well. Even three years couldn’t erase it from my memory. “I missed you, Faye baby.”

My stomach clenched at the use of his pet name. I could remember when he used to moan it in my ear when he came inside me. I bit the inside of my cheek.

His blue eyes raked up and down my body. “Your hair is longer.” His hand snaked out and toyed with the end of my braid.

“Don’t touch me, Taylor.” I jerked back, but he followed me, leaning in. The scent of aftershave and Gain laundry detergent toyed with my senses.

“I always liked it better when you called me daddy.”

I shuddered.

The door to the funeral home opened, revealing Rhett clad in a black suit. His presence was like a balm to my frazzled emotions. “Faye,” he paused his gaze jumping from me to his father, who was now taking a drag on my dropped cigarette. “Dad? I was wondering where you were.” He looked back at me. “The service is going to start soon.” His words were emotionless. It was the same monotone sound he’d been using since he kissed me in his kitchen two days ago. For me that kiss changed everything. I’d been waiting for it for the last four years, hell, all my life. But it only seemed to make him angrier, the mask of hate he wore more firmly in place. Just thinking about the kiss made my heart flutter, and that was saying something considering Taylor, the devil, stood mere feet away from me.