The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (14 page)

“I am.” My voice shook with emotion.
Why did I tell him this? Why am I even dignifying him with a conversation at all?

“But…no one ever caught you?”

I shook my head slowly, keeping my gaze on him. “They took me out in the middle of no where to do it. I think they planned to beat me real bad and leave me there, maybe even kill me.” I touched my cheek, remembering how it had caved in under one of their fists. “I never heard if anyone found them.”

Rhett shook his head as if completely shocked by all of it. I expected him to berate me, to be sickened, to call the police—any or all of those, but he didn’t. “Why would you want to go back to that life? To a place where you have to kill to survive?”

I snorted. “That’s life, Rhett.”

“It’s not life, Faye.”

“You’re not going to call the police and tell them? Turn me in?” I hissed.

“Someone hurt you, Faye.” He clenched his fists. “Those fuckers deserved what you gave them.” He looked directly into my eyes and for a moment I saw the guy I once knew. The guy I thought I could love back when I was just a teenager.

The screech of tires made me jump, ending the moment. I glanced over to see a sleek black car idling right in front of where Rhett and I sat. Dread immediately set in. Horrible suffocating dread that only intensified the ache in my bones and in my head. I stabbed my cigarette out on the curb and forced myself to my feet in spite of my protesting limbs.

“Dad?” Rhett stood up next to me looking confused as Taylor climbed out of the car.

Today the devil had his hair slicked back, a white dress shirt hugged his muscular torso. His tailored pants were black and ironed perfectly. His shoes were shinier than Rhett’s hair.

Taylor’s gaze jumped between Rhett and I. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I knew what he was thinking. I knew what he saw when he looked at the two of us. He saw my betrayal. He saw his property in the arms of his own son. And he hated that. He seethed at the very idea. Jealousy ripped him apart from the inside out. No one else could see it. No one else knew but me. Because I knew him better than anyone. Even better than my own mother.

That jealousy ate at him like a disease, destroying him until he was nothing but a monster. A monster I was about to go home with. The monster who had brutalized me until I was unable to have children anymore. I was about to willingly climb in the vehicle with him for some fucking drugs. And even though I knew what I was in for. My feet still carried me toward the car. Toward Taylor.

I walked right up to him and threw my arms around him because I knew it was what he wanted, what he expected. And I knew he would give me what
I
wanted if I played by his rules. “Thank you for coming to get me, daddy.” The words rolled off my tongue the same as they had all my life, but the bitter, sour taste they left behind was more potent this time around.

“You called Dad?” Rhett still seemed confused when I let go of Taylor and turned around.

I nodded and opened my mouth to speak, but Taylor cut me off. “She’s coming home.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “For good.”

I didn’t miss the way he said it. The permanence in his words. But I could already feel it. Taste it. I rubbed my nose. The bump I would get. The pure, perfect coke. It would be worth it. It would stop the ache in my bones. It would end the pain. It would be enough.

It had to be.

FOUR

“Tell me about them.”

I stared at Taylor while he lounged on the couch in front of me. The white couch. The one in his house where I had begged Rhett to fuck me all those years ago.

“About who?” I stood awkwardly in front of him. We had just gotten there a few minutes before. The ride had been silent, empty, like so many things in my life.

“The men you’ve fucked since you left.”

I narrowed my gaze. “You promised me some coke.”

He nodded and rubbed his fingers against his smooth chin. “I did.” His blue eyes traveled up and down my body, sparkling with malice and want.

“So give it to me.” My voice trembled and I hated how desperate I sounded.

“Not just yet.” A smile curved his lips. “I want to hear about the men you fucked when you ran away from me.”

Does he know I’m a prostitute?
That thought made me nervous. Yesterday I was certain that he didn’t, but now I wasn’t sure.
What will he do to me if he knows about the hundreds of men that have been inside me? He tortured me when he found out that I wanted to sleep with someone else—and I hadn’t even done it.

“What men?”

“Don’t play stupid, Faye baby.” He stood up and walked around me.

My skin prickled as my nerves stood on end.

“There weren’t any other men.” The lie slipped off my tongue easily.

He chuckled. It was that sickening sound that I remembered from so long ago when his tastes turned dark. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve been gone for three years and you’re such a lusty little thing.” He trailed a finger along the exposed flesh at my waist below my black top. “You’re the kind of girl that needs to be fucked every day,” he whispered in my ear. “Someone had to fill my void.”

I shook my head. “No one could take your place.” It fed his ego, but it was also the truth. No one could be what Taylor was to me. No one could take my virginity again. No one could take the things took from me. At the same time, no one could give me the things he gave me either. I pushed the thought away not wanting to consider the good that came out of mine and Taylor’s relationship. The pleasure. The hours I spent orgasming in his mouth and on his cock.

He stopped right in front of me, brushing his fingers against my cheek. I wanted to jerk away from them and lean into them all at once. “Don’t lie to me!” The anger in his voice was a polar opposite to the gentleness of his hand.

I flinched. “I’m not lying,” I whispered.

“Then where have you been?”

My mind flittered to a hundred different scenarios. “I stayed with my friend…Macy…” I pulled the first name that came to me off the top of my head, “and her mom. But then my friend moved to live with her dad because her mom was hooked on coke…” I trailed off, letting him connect the dots to my fake story.

Some internal war took place in his eyes before he stepped back from me, dropping his hand. He ran it over his dark hair and looked away from me for a moment. “Do you remember when I took you to Cancún?” I closed my eyes and looked away from him. I didn’t want to think about that time. “Do you remember, Faye?”

His words demanded an answer. “Yes.” I nodded.

“It was the best time of my life,” he said so quietly I jerked my gaze up to his—shocked that he would say such a thing. It had been just before the end of my freshman year in high school. I was fourteen, almost fifteen. It was just weeks before Rhett came home for that faithful summer that changed everything. “I’d wanted to get you away from here on our own. Just the two of us. Your mother hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted us alone. Did you know that?”

I chewed on my lips. I knew well enough.

“She didn’t want to share me with you. Not really. She never wanted it. But I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Did you know that, Faye?” I bit down on my lips harder, not wanting to answer. “Did you know that you were the reason I married her?”

I blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

He smirked at me. “How could you not know? You were the only reason I even approached her that day in the mall when we met.”

I wracked my brain for memory of the meeting, but couldn’t recall it.

“You were so perfect.” He reached out and brushed his fingers through my hair. “So young. You were looking in at the kittens in the pet shop window and telling her all the pros of why you should have a kitten. You told her that you would clean up after it. You would care for it. You would give it everything it ever wanted. You would make it happy.” He brushed his hand against my lips. “It made me hard just thinking of everything you were promising to give.”

“Taylor…”

“Don’t fucking call me that, Faye!” His chest heaved, his face reddened. “And I got you. It took months of dating, of pining, of fucking your mother and promising her the world. She married me and then I told her what I wanted. I think she knew all along. How could she not? How could she not see the longing in my eyes when I looked at you?”

“I was a little girl.” I shook my head wanting to deny everything he was saying.

“It didn’t matter, Faye. Don’t you see that? I’m not some monster that preys on little children.” He gripped my chin forcing me to look up at him. “You were the first and only person I ever felt this way toward. It was an instant attraction. It wasn’t because you were a child. That had nothing to do with it.” His eyes were frantic bouncing around my face. “I felt a connection with you like I’d never felt with anyone else. I knew you were meant to be mine. And
only
mine.” He shook his head. “But enough of that. Do you remember the trip, Faye, to Cancún? Your mother didn’t want us to go, but she didn’t have a choice. You had been mine for years and you were practically a woman. Your body was lean. Your breasts fuller, bigger.” He let his hand drop to my chest, palming one of the globes. “You were the most beautiful creature I had ever seen when you laid on that beach in your little two piece. Do you remember how we made love on that sand? Do you remember how you rode my cock?”

I stared up into Taylor’s eyes and remembered. I hadn’t thought about that trip in a long time. About those five days I laid on the beach with him. About the way I laughed at his jokes. About how he bought me anything I wanted. About the way he fucked me everywhere. In the limo, in our penthouse suite, on the beach, in the water. Everywhere.
He
was everywhere. Inside me. On me. He was a part of me.

He’d taken me because he was afraid. He was scared that I was pulling away from him. It was around the time I realized what we had together wasn’t natural. It was wrong. But that trip to Cancun changed those thoughts. I was his and he was mine in those moments. We belonged together. He said those words to me over and over and by the end of that week I believed him.

“I remember,” I whispered.

“But then we came home and Rhett did too. And then everything changed.” Hate reflected back to me in his eyes.

“I was just a kid, Taylor. I didn’t know what I wanted.” I said the words defensively, but they were true none-the-less. The trip with Taylor had been exhilarating, but Rhett being at home and Taylor not touching me for the time brought new clarity to my life. It made me realize that I wanted so much more.

“But you were mine. You’ve always been mine!” He gripped my arm and forced me onto the couch and loomed over me. “And then you left.” The words came out hollow, like they gutted him.

“I left because you hurt me. Both of you hurt me,” I said, referring to my mom.

“Do you know how long I looked for you?” He raked his hands at my top forcing it down until my tits burst free. He circled the hard tips with deft fingers and with all my might I tried to resist the way it made me feel. The tingling it sent to my core. “Did you know that I looked everywhere for you? Do you know how heartbroken I was?” He pinched one nipple hard and I let out a moan of protest. “Do you know, Faye?”

“No!” I shrieked, shirking away from his touch.

“I know you don’t.” He let go and leaned down, circling his tongue over the throbbing bud, soothing it, bringing back all the good feelings I wanted to squash. “Which is why I’m going to show you.”

He rose to his full height, his knees planted on either side of my waist. The look in his eyes was familiar. It promised many things. It promised pain. It promised retribution. It promised all the things I had run away from—as if I had never left.

“Tell me about them. About
him
,” Taylor whispered in my ear. “I know you fucked him.” He’d taken off his clothes and torn mine away when I didn’t remove them fast enough. He hovered over me now, his thick cock pressed against my belly.

“I didn’t fuck anyone.”

“I know you fucked Rhett. I saw the way he looked at you today—the day of the funeral.”

“What kind of look is that?”