Chapter One

Boston - September, 2009

What catches my eye first?

I want to say it’s the full red lips, but it’s the dead look in her eyes. I lick my lips, it’s unconsciously done. I don’t like doing things involuntarily, but I have an overwhelming desire and filthy want to hear her scream… LOUD. I want to see the dead leave her eyes as they light up for me.

My hands nearly leap at my buckle but I force them to stay. Everything is forced to remain motionless. Let her make the moves and reveal herself to me.

She sits on the floor on her knees, arching her back perfectly. She is so well trained that even her reflex muscles are under her control. I don’t like that. I like the dead look; she has no control over that.

My gaze narrows, again something happening on its own. “Were you forced to come?” I ask softly.

She shakes her head, lowering her face slightly. She knows better than to answer me while looking at me. “No sir.” Too perfect for me. I need her damage to be real.

“Do you like this, or is it something you have to do?”

She licks her red lips, nods, and whispers with a soft accent “I want it whether I like it or not, sir.”

It’s a good answer—a great answer. Her enunciation is perfect. I can almost feel her answer across the dimly-lit room. It's the first honest thing she has done in my presence.

The fire crackles loudly, distracting us and making it warmer in the room. My pants are constricting but I don’t want to rush it.

“Touch the railing at the top of the bed; don’t move your hands.”

She jumps up, stands on her tiptoes, and grips the railing. Her long, dark fingers curl around the wood, desperately textbook. Her skin is remarkable. She’s pale for an African American, more mocha but still flawless. Her ass sticks out just the right amount. Just enough that when my belt hits it, I’ll be able to see the red welts.

I push her long, thick, caramel-colored hair to the side and trail a finger down her straight spine to the top of her ass crack. Her body is already trembling from maintaining the stance but she doesn’t move at all. I lean in, brushing my lips against her neck. She’s warm and smells of honey. Thoughts try to force their way into my mind. Thoughts I don’t want. I want it to go exactly as I planned. It has to be the same routine, otherwise I can’t do it. It won’t free me if it’s not perfect. But my body has needs that are normal things for a man, even though I’m not a normal man. I lose the battle; she is too beautiful and I want it too badly.

I just want to be free of the noise.

I drop to my knees, no doubt scaring her. She's here to lose the control, not the other way around. I run my face against her soft thigh, closing my eyes.

I run my hands up her thighs, inserting a finger into her wet folds. I keep my eyes closed and imagine it’s my cock sliding in and out of her. In that second, I slip from the rails of my plan and a thousand fleeting thoughts fill my mind. My hand pumps wildly. I feel like a conductor of a symphony. My eyes are closed, but I can feel the music of her body surrounding me. She’s about to reach the crescendo, when I stop.

I regain the control.

My hand drops to my side. She’s writhing. She doesn’t know she’s the one in control and I’ve lost it. I can only hope I've bluffed well enough.

I get back up, pulling the belt from my pants as I stand. Her head falls back when I make contact the first time. She cries out as the red welt forms across her skin. I reach out instinctively, running my fingertip along the ridge it’s made in her skin. I’m so far from my normal plan that I don’t think I can get back on track. I’m going in blindly, without a strategy. I whip until I almost orgasm and her legs nearly buckle. She takes it like a true champion of the forum.

I’m about to be generous with my fingers when I see a glistening trail down her inner thigh. Anger crosses my face as I step directly behind her and run a hand between her thighs, whispering into her ear, “Did you orgasm before I told you to?”

She whimpers. Her ass is raw and her lips are swollen. She is weak from standing with her hands in the air for so long, while on her tiptoes.

I shove her down on the bed, undoing my pants all the way. My cock jumps at the excitement as I enter her. She’s sopping wet. It’s too much for us both. I push in too hard and too fast. She screams instantly, clenching around me, gripping me like a fist would.

A sound escapes my lips. I hate that. I shove her down harder and fuck her harder until I’m nearly blind with ecstasy. I finish and leave the room. I hate how weak she made me—how I let her overwhelm me.

She was too perfect.

I wanted to smear her lipstick with my cock; I had a plan.

Instead, I pace the kitchen, waiting for her to leave. When I hear the door to the room squeak, I turn my back on that side of the house.

“Happy Christmas,” she says softly with her sweet English accent.

The ding of the elevator makes me sick, but I force myself to get lost in the view of the city. The moving cars look like streams of light from the height I’m at.

My heart never raced the way I needed it to. I wasn’t scared of her fragility or breaking her.

My orgasm never took it all away.

I don’t feel empty of it. It’s still there, filling me up. The fuzzy white noise that cuts me off from my body and makes it so I can't feel anything. My legs and arms get thick with it, detached.

I run a hand along the scar on my arm, remembering how I believed that I could bleed it out of me. The cut was ecstasy but the trickle of it leaving my body was more than I needed. It was perfection. The thickness left with the blood.

I shake my head, old habits. As much as I fucking hate her, Jane was right, I need the new habits. The kinds that make it feel like the thickness is leaving without anyone coming so close to death. I shudder at the thought of the places they'll put you, when they think you long for death. I don’t hate it as much as I hate that it was Jane who showed me how to do it.

I push away the thought and pull my phone from my pocket, sending a text.

‘I need to blow off steam.’

‘B there in 2’

I sigh, ‘Stuart, be is a word, B is a letter. Can you see the difference or have I hit you in the head too many times?’

‘LOL, don’t be a dick. I’ll c u in 2!’

I shudder and walk to the shower. I clean and change as fast as possible. When I have it inside of me, everything is intense and needs to be immediate. I strip the room and pack the bag. Leaving the apartment, I decide to take the stairs. It's best to not poke the things that live inside of me with confinement, not when I am already too close to losing it.

The annoying man at the front desk greets me in the lobby, “Good evening, Sir.”

I ignore him and storm through the doors. When I get to the Tahoe, Stuart opens the back door giving me an odd look, “You alright?”

I shake my head, walking around him and climb in the front passenger seat, “I don’t think so.” I toss the bag in the back seat.

He nods and closes the door. He glances at me when he climbs in, “You hired me to be your driver.”

I give him a smirk, “So drive.”

He laughs, “To the gym?”

I nod, “I need to stop at the office first.”

He knows why. He doesn’t need to talk about it. He doesn’t need me to admit anything. I love that about him.

When you're crazy, people always want you to admit it, as if owning up to seeing the giant elephant in the room will make it go away.

Stuart is one of the few people in my world that needs nothing from me, but the room to let our elephants roam free, unidentified.

The first time I met him he was paying people to beat the hell out of him; he was just past childhood. Stuart has a pain tolerance like no one. He is a beast for agony and suffering. His passion for pain is worse than my own. He never wants to hurt others though, except in a fight. His pain is his own and he doesn’t need to take anyone down with him.

He is the only person in the whole world I admire. I wish I could let others hurt me and not feel the need to hurt them too.

Jane has theories about why I don’t give a shit.

I glance out the window, muttering, “The weather is turning to hell. Winter in Boston is not my favorite, but someone has to work I guess.”

“Your mom and dad gone?”

I nod, “They are.”

“My goal in life is to be a snowbird like them. Dang, that’s where it’s at.”

I smile, looking over at him, “One day. Me and you, snowbirds.”

He nudges my shoulder, “Bachelors till we die, bro!”

I laugh as he pulls into the office parking lot. It's a sad reality Stuart and I could never bring another person into our room filled with bad things.

I nod, "Be back in two minutes," and jump out, grabbing the bag to run inside. The incinerator of the older building makes fast work of the bag and its filthy contents.

My legs try to leave the building but my brain thinks ‘just check’… my brain is a workaholic. It believes that if I stuff myself into work, I don’t have to look at anything inside of me. My brain is a smart guy.

I switch the light on in my office and notice a parcel on my desk. I cut it open, not paying attention until I see the crimson droplets landing on the box. Reaching for a tissue, more droplets fall onto my papers.

“Shit.”

I wrap my finger with tissues and start blotting up the blood from the splotches on one of the pieces of paper.

Glancing casually at the paper, I see it. Instantly, my mouth goes completely dry. I can’t feel my feet. I’m scared to touch the paper or the words on it—the names. The blood has landed directly on her name.

Is it real?

Is it a hallucination?

I shudder as I back away, just one step. Just the one single step I need to get control of my heart. Dizziness and memories wrestle over control. The dizziness wins, I take a knee. I see her there, her small face looking at mine. Her dead eyes.

God help me, the hallucinations are back. I'm seeing it again. I shake my head and take deep breaths. It's then I realize, I have never seen the name combined the way it is. Perhaps it is not a hallucination. Either way, I can’t get my breath. It’s impossible, and yet, so unlikely it has to be real. There can’t possibly be anyone named Emalyn Spicer in the whole world, and if there were, her name would not land on my desk where I would bleed upon it.