The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (43 page)

“Cayden? You still work with him?”

He was silent for a moment, unmoving. Studying me like he had a hundred things he wanted to tell me. “I do. I live across the street from him now too.”

“You moved?” This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I couldn’t imagine Rhett anywhere else but inside that stale apartment he and Sarah had called their home. The image of the painting that hung over their bed jumped into my head. A little girl playing dress up in shoes much too big for her. It was ridiculous and weird, but it was the only thing I could imagine when it came to Rhett’s bedroom. That painting that characterized the room he shared with Sarah. The life that was solely theirs together.

“Yes. Not long after…” He cleared his throat and picked his fork up. “Yeah, I lived with him for about a year or so.”

“Really? I didn’t think you guys were that good of friends.”

“We weren’t.” He sighed. “Things changed.”

I tried to imagine Rhett in Cayden and Katie’s space, as their roommate. “Is he still with Katie?”

“Unfortunately.”

I frowned. “I thought they were happy?”

He shrugged, chewing his steak. “They have their moments. I lived with them for a over year and I just don’t see how he does it.”

I spun some pasta around my fork and chewed thoughtfully.

“Does what?”

“Deals with a woman like her…she’s selfish.” He shrugged again. “Her and I weren’t good roommates is all.”

“Why did you move in with them?”

He eyed me. “It’s a long story.”

I stared back with challenge in my eyes. “So tell it.”

Something flashed over his eyes, something vulnerable, before it was gone. “No.”

“Tell me,” I pressed.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Let’s talk about you.”

But I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t the little girl who ran away from things, the girl who let people walk all over her.

“What about me? I placed my elbows on the table and tucked my hands under my chin. “You want to hear about all the men I’ve fucked since you had me pressed up against your truck.”

Rage, that’s what it was. It ripped across his face and slashed through the space between us. The urge to jerk back was there, but I didn’t. I stayed, my chin poised on the back of my hands. There was a tick in his upper cheek. I knew he was gnashing his teeth together behind those perfect full lips. Grinding them against one another in anger. I wanted him to use those teeth on me, those lips. I wanted him to show me just how fucking angry he could be.

What would he say now? What would he do?
I waited in bated breath.

“Waiter!” He signaled his hand in the air, though he never took his eyes off me.

“Yessir?”

“Bring us to go boxes. We’re leaving.”

I blinked in surprise.
What’s going on?
A sinking feeling swamped my chest.

“Is everything okay, sir?”

Rhett finally looked away from me. “Yes, thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

The next few minutes seemed to last forever—the silence between us almost suffocating. Rhett didn’t look at me, but stared off into the restaurant giving me his profile. The waiter came back and put our dinners into the boxes, and he still didn’t look at me. I could feel his anger though, it hadn’t gone away. And I was desperate to see it again when he looked at me. My thighs had gone slippery, making me desperate, needy. I watched as he paid, slipping money out of his wallet with his long fingers. Fingers that had been inside me once upon time years ago.

I wanted that again. His rough fingers on me.

Before I knew it, Rhett was standing. I blinked in surprise. “Let’s go.” He still didn’t look at me.

Anger rushed through my veins and I jumped to my feet. But the alcohol chose that moment to kick in and I wobbled in my heels. Rhett steadied me immediately, his hand touching my elbow. It was just a simple touch, a gesture that anyone would do to keep someone from falling. But it electrified my insides. It took that raging fire and stoked it to something on the verge of explosive.

Somehow I managed to make it outside without combusting. His hand stayed on my elbow, his strong fingers unwavering. The warm night air brushed against my skin, making me shiver.

“Where’s your car?” His voice was emotionless, dead.

My heart ached in my chest. This was it. It was over. After all those years, those moments when I imagined what it would be like to see him again. Rhett. The only man I’d truly and willingly let inside my heart. The anger multiplied underneath my skin.

I pointed at the Toyota, my sweet little blue car that I’d saved up for, forever. Seeing it calmed me.

My heels clacked on the pavement as we moved forward. It echoed in the space around us. The space where his hand was still on my elbow, my skin tingling from his touch.

We stopped at the driver’s side, but he still didn’t drop his hand. I glanced up at him. The parking lights illuminated him, glinting off his dark blond hair.

“So this is it,” I said, and turned toward him. He dropped his hand away, running it through his hair. He ruffled the smooth strands, giving it a disheveled look that made him look more like the Rhett who sat at his kitchen table pouring over bank statements.

“Faye—”

“No.” I shook my head, running my hands up and down my arms. “You don’t get to do that.” I could hear it in his voice, that twist, that turn away from anger to something else. Something bitter that burned me.

He looked at me for the first time since inside the restaurant, but the anger wasn’t gone. It was there, blazing from those green eyes making me boil over. “I don’t get to do what, Faye?” He took a step toward me, backing me up against the side of my car. “I don’t get to be fucking pissed off at hearing you talk about fucking someone else?”

“What difference does it make—who I’ve fucked.”

He bit down on his lips, his jaw popping audibly. I shivered.

“You don’t get it,” he said through clenched teeth.

I wanted those teeth to bite me, to tear into me, to destroy me until I was unrecognizable. I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t want him. He was the one man I couldn’t bring to my bed. The one man I couldn’t keep separate from all the things that made me fucked up. He was a part of those things.

Why can’t you? Why can’t you fuck him and discard him like you do everyone else?

The thought made my skin hotter. Could I do it?

“So show me, Rhett.” I leaned forward until my breasts rubbed against his chest. “Make me see.”

He stared down at me, his breath coming out in pants. My nipples pebbled brushing against his chest. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

I bit down on my plump bottom lip, staring into his eyes. “Don’t I?”

He stood stock still. His angry eyes tracing over my face, running over every inch as if he was memorizing me.

“Fine.” I leaned back against the car, pulling my chest away from his. “I guess I’ll just tell you about those men. You seem to want to hear.”

“Shut up.” His words sliced through the air like a bloody knife.

“There was Rick.” I ignored him. “He was good, his—”

“Shut the fuck up!” He took a step back running his hands through his hair again, making some of the silky pieces stand on end.

“His dick wasn’t huge, just av—”

Rhett’s lips slammed into mine, stopping the words in my throat with the clanging of our teeth. The door handle of my car dug into my back, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. This was what I wanted. This vicious desire that was all-consuming. He buried a hand in my hair, pressing me hard against the car.

His mouth was ravenous on mine, our tongues twisting, dueling. Goosebumps tingled across my body as I clutched him to me, digging my hands into his dress shirt, desperate to bury my nails into his skin.

He pressed his thigh between my legs, my dress split high on one hip letting his thigh slide right in. A moan rushed from my lips at the pressure of him on my cunt. In that moment I throbbed with something venomous. I knew what I was doing. I was tasting that poison. The one that could kill me. The one that would seep into every inch of me until I was sluggish. But I didn’t care. It felt too good.

Rhett.

It was too right. I bucked my hips against his thigh, feeling the thickness of his cock between his legs. I wanted him in my mouth. That big cock. I hadn’t had him inside me. Not there. Memories of what happened between us before threatened to blanket my mind, but I pushed all of that away.

I would have this. I would have Rhett—on my terms.

I pulled back and looked up at him. His eyes were glazed with lust, those dark blonde strands ruffled and so fucking sexy. My cunt throbbed at the sight of him. I had a choice. Right there. I could have ended it. I could have gone home and called Casey or some other guy to fuck. But sometimes it was poison that made someone feel alive. I knew that better than anyone. There were some things that were bad for me, but I wanted them anyway. Things that would kill me eventually if I didn’t let them go. But I could give them up. I’d given up drugs—and him.

I can do it again.

My lips parted, my teeth sinking into the plump flesh of my bottom one. I watched him suck in a breath, as if he were mesmerized. “Come home with me, Rhett.”

SEVEN

His hands were on me. His fingers skimming up and down my thighs as I pulled out the key to get into my apartment. It was as if he couldn’t help himself, as if he was as desperate as me. I fumbled with the keys, the metal objects slipping through my shaky fingers. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like this. Like I would die if I didn’t have someone inside me. Not just anyone.
Him.

“Fuck.” I pressed back into him.

“Unlock the door.” His words were stern, controlled. For a simple moment I wished for control—if I had any, then we wouldn’t be here right now. But that was only for a moment before it was gone. The key slipped into the lock, the door was open and we were inside.

I expected him to follow me in and take me there on my yellow tile floor. That’s what I wanted. I wanted him to fuck me into oblivion. But he didn’t. He let me go once we crossed the threshold. I blinked at him, watching him close the front door with slowly. He didn’t seem rushed or desperate like he had moments before.

I frowned, squeezing my hands together nervously. He didn’t move, but stood feet away, his eyes roving over me from head to toe. Instantly I wished that I could run to the bathroom and check my hair. I could only imagine how it looked after he’d run his fingers through it up against the car. The drive over hadn’t been much better. I’d been a bundle of throbbing nerves, running my fingers through my hair over and over to keep from putting them on him as he drove me home.

It appeared we had come to something. I hadn’t felt it in the parking lot or in the car, but it was in his gaze now—what, I didn’t know exactly. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But I could see the smolder in his green eyes. The same smolder that set my skin on fire, now it brought something hot to the backs of my eyes. I blinked, confused.

He was here. Rhett was here in my apartment surrounded by all of my things. He stood in my kitchen now, my pots and pans hanging on a rack behind him. Just simple, non-stick pans with red on the bottom. I’d saved up and spent a lot of money on them because I was tired of everything sticking to the shitty ones I bought at the thrift store. But now they hung behind him, illuminated by the soft stove light. My pans and Rhett. I didn’t think it would matter. That I would care what he looked like next to my things, but suddenly I did. He hadn’t even been inside for two minutes and something inside me was clogging up, choking me from the inside. The poison.

“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

My eyes jumped up to meet his, the rumble of his voice making me shiver. “You have?”

He nodded slowly, his gaze lingering on my lips. He looked like a jungle cat ready to spring, his posture reflected casualty, but his voice was filled with promise, with anticipation. My cunt throbbed. My heart ached.

No.

I wouldn’t let myself be wrapped up in this. In him. In the way he looked next to my fucking pans.

I took a step forward, pressing my chest against his. A rush of air hissed between his lips and I inhaled it. The air,
him
. I sucked him into my lungs. “I don’t want to stand around.” I ran my hands up his chest, feeling the tight muscles jump beneath my fingertips.

“What do you want?”

“Your cock in my mouth.” I gripped him through the fabric of his pants. His dick, long and thick, pressed hard against my hand.

His lips parted, astonishment blanketing his features. I didn’t wait for his approval before I fell to my knees. The cool tile bit into my skin and I welcomed it, the twinge of pain that made everything real, and not dream-like. The zipper slid down, silent and smooth and the same went for the black boxer-briefs that covered him. His dick sprung forth, long and thick, bigger than I remembered. I didn’t look up at him as I took him into my mouth. It was better that I didn’t. That I didn’t feel more than what this really was. Fucking. I was going to fuck him with my mouth and then I was going to bend over and let him fuck my pussy.