Blood Enchantment (33 page)

~ 12 ~

He punishes me tenderly. Each kiss erases the hurt of his words. A man could never speak an apology as perfect as the one he makes with his mouth.

Mick drops my hands, and they grip his tailor-made suit, crumpling the shoulders without mercy as the kettle sings. With a casual slap, Mick hits the kettle off the burner. It skitters across the surface, screaming its anger at the rough treatment, as he plunders my mouth.

His body begs to take mine, his every hard line against my soft ones. I forget again, my body melding to his as though it's always been meant to.

Then my cell alarm chimes.

Once, twice.

Three times. I lift my head. My early alert before work.

“Let it go,” he says, kissing me into oblivion. Our tongues twine in an intimate dance.

I almost do. Then I think of Mom. The sinful selling of my morals needs to continue for her to live.

She has less than a handful of years to exist, but they have to be on my terms. A state home is not part of the plan.

I gently push Mick away. His lips are slightly swollen, and I can't imagine what mine must look like.
No collagen needed for these babies
. My sarcasm doesn’t make a dent in my grief.

“What?” Mick asks.

“I have a second job... That's my alarm...”

Don't ask.

Mick smiles, his sexiness lighting him from the inside. “I know what you do, Faren. It's fine.” His fingers bite into my hips, a fraction away from a location too intimate for anything but consummating what we've begun.

My stomach drops. “You do?”

He nods. “I know you're a physical therapist. I know about your mom.”

The air in my lungs freezes into shards of glass that cut me from the inside. Only Kiki knows about my mom. Now Mr. Perfect Billionaire knows.

“I think you should leave.” It creeps me out that he's stalking me, checking my background. It’s a small relief he doesn't know about
that job.

Guilt.

I assume he knows I was attacked by my psychotic stepfather and saved by my mom. Who was beaten into a coma by fists that know no mercy.

Double guilt.

I’m not interested in being somebody's pity case. I have enough pity.

I want to forget.

Can Mick distract me?
I roll my lip into my teeth.

His eyes track the movement. He leans down and touches my mangled lip with his own. “I want you.”

“It's not enough,” I say.

Mick puts his hands on either side of my head, caging me, and cocks his head to study me with hard-edged eyes. “I thought you didn't want a relationship? Think of what I can give you. Think of what we can have.”

I think those thoughts until it repeats in an endless loop. It's all I think of lately. It's all I can. “You know more about me than anyone else, Mick. You've seen to that.” I can't keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“I don't know everything.” He's so close I taste his breath, yearn for it. “I want to know more. All.”

He moves aside the strip of dress across my breast and presses his mouth to my nipple in a possessive suckle. A thread of connection I didn't realize existed that tethers my breast to my core begins, and a slow ache steals my will. I arch into his lips and moan.

How can I stand anyone else doing this to me?

He lifts his head, wraps my full breast in his palm, and squeezes just shy of true pain. I begin to pant.

“Do you like this, Faren?”

I can only nod as I step away to deny myself. By the look on his face, I deny Mick as well.

“I can't talk you into staying?” he asks, his voice so low I strain to catch it.

“No, you won't be deflowering me tonight, Mr. McKenna.” That came out harsher than I meant it to.

Mick's expression darkens. “I apologized for my presumptions about you. That wasn't fair.”

His eyes follow me as I walk to the door, hyper-aware of his gaze on my body.

I whirl around to face him, so close to the knob I can touch it.

“I know. And I already told you I'm not into rich men.”

His lips twitch as though he's amused, and I want to impale him with my stiletto. Speaking of which… “Do you have my shoe?” I ask.

A shit-eating grin lights up his entire face. “I do indeed. Why do you think I came by?”

Another chink in my armor forms.
Because you want to see me
. I hoped. Of course, Mick dashes that all to hell.

He strides to the front of my apartment, and there by the door, a fancy silver high heel mocks me. I don't wait for any more indecision. I yank the door open and sweep my palm out.

“Why are you being so difficult? We both know what we want—what we need.” Mick asks against my cheek as his hands grip my shoulders.

“Why do you assume we'll end up together?” I counter.

“I assume nothing,” he says.

My brows arch as his hands heat my bare shoulders. He pulls me to him, and I'm so sure he'll kiss me that I close my eyes, holding in my sigh. But it moves out of me unbidden, like an invitation.

Mick doesn't kiss me. “I know it.”

He walks out, leaving me standing there holding the door.

My lips are swollen from his kisses. Every patch of my skin burns from the memory of his touch and my desperate want of it again.

I slam the door and stalk to my vanity table.

Time to put on my face for strangers.

*

I arrive promptly, the bronze dress a perfect complement to my coloring. I know how it looks in all lighting. Kiki encouraged me to pay attention to detail, and I stay the course.

Hardest path of my life.

I strut inside, not feeling like myself after Mick's frontal assault. I haven't felt alive in so long that I feel as if I'm dying piece by piece as I move deeper into the underbelly of the newest venue.

I walk with a false seduction toward the knot of men like I always do, but a man I've never seen intercepts me.

“Miss Faren?” He cocks a brow in question.

I nod, glancing nervously about me.

“You’re the auction tonight,” he says.

I blink stupidly, and he smiles, all teeth and condescension. A rolling hot lump moves through me.

“Here's how it works,” he begins, taking my elbow as he scans my outfit. He gives a slight nod of approval, and I adjust my mask. “You go behind those curtains there”—he indicates ceiling-to-floor velvet drapes in a deep scarlet. “and come out when the bell chimes. Walk the entire length of the floor, come to that center, spin.” He does a little pirouette, and I fight a surge of nausea through sheer grit. “Then continue back from where you entered.”

I’m a piece of flesh to be chosen by one of the men tonight. A random dancer selected like a prize, my humanity forgotten in the discarded pile of hundreds before me.

“Faren,” he gives me a significant look, “the winner might pay quite a bit to have you crawl onto his lap.”

I cast my eyes at my feet so he doesn't see the sick anger swimming in them. “How much?” I ask to the ground.

“I have seen some prices go as high as ten.”

I meet his eyes, so filled with greed I can't make out the color. He takes my silence for acceptance.

“Good.” He smiles at me, and I just stare. He moves nearer and I fight not to move away.

“Now move that hot ass to the stage.”

I feel him leer at said ass as I move away. I don't blink so the tears won't fall.

~ 13 ~

The lights are too bright for me to see the shadowed faces of the men.

I make out the white bidding paddles easily. I step onto the stage, and the curtains whisper open. The velvet makes a sinister slithering sound as it drags across the floor, widening the crack I look through.

I stroll across the mock stage, and the whispers stop.

I turn, and I feel the eye-molestation of the all-male crowd.

I walk back and try not to cave to my desire to run and never stop.

The curtains close, and the shouts and bidding begin.

The horrible auctioneer goes on and on as I wait for the winner in the cramped space between the hall and the stage.

Finally the gavel sounds, the stern echo final and unforgiving.

A security guard comes for me as if I would run off and leave the money.

I think about it.

In the end, I hear the amount the winner promised. I walk down the hall to the room I always dance in. Different building, same rooms. All with peeling, elegant wallpaper like memories of a time when there was hope. The rooms weep their sins all around me.

I move through the door and walk to the damning chair.

I don't turn when the door opens and shuts behind me. I wait until the unknown man makes the first comment. That’s what I always do.

Then his voice paralyzes me, my every nerve ending singing with adrenaline.

I can't turn. I'm rooted to the spot. My heart beats a jagged rhythm of fear.

“Well hello, Faren,” he says, and I turn.

It's better to face the nightmare than hide from the monster underneath my bed.

My hands grip the back of the chair, the only safeguard between us.

“I've been waiting for this for a long time,” my stepfather says like the predator he is.

My mother’s murderer.

“I know.”

I see the tunnel of my escape narrow to a pinpoint of light.

Then disappear.

Instead of thoughts of escape, I have only one thought. It fills my mind, pressing every empty space in my skull until I think it'll explode.

As despair chokes me, I think only of him.

Mick.

#

THE TOKEN

A Token Series Novella

New York Times
Bestselling author

MARATA EROS

All Rights are Reserved.

Copyright © 2013-14 Marata Eros

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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~ 1 ~

Stepfather

“You can take off your mask, Faren.” He smirks, confident now that I’m cornered. I can't help but notice there’s only one exit.

I force myself to breathe deeply and ignore his request.
Security is right outside
.

The police have been looking for Ronald Bunce for four years. I bet they'll make it a national holiday when I tell them he's alive and kicking- right here.

If I can.

It's Ronnie. I try never to think of my mom as ever having been married to him. She's still Tannin Mitchell to me. I can vaguely remember my parents, James and Tannin. A time of normalcy, family dinners, movies, and ballet recitals. When daddy died, I lost the anchor in my life. I was cast adrift.

So was my mom. Not for long though, as she was caught in the current that was Ronnie.

Sadistic and manipulative, he knew all the right buttons to push to capture her. By the time Mom knew what kind of man hid behind his mask, it was too late.

Now he looks at me, with my own mask firmly in place, and I don't know how to escape.

“How's your mom, whore?” He smiles, and rage fills me.

I'm so angry I want to cry from the sheer frustration of not fulfilling what your mind pleads for me to do.

I covertly pick up a glass dildo as Ronnie slinks closer. His slight belly and stocky frame belies what he was in his former life: a star wrestler.

My day's come.

I know how strong he is, middle-aged but not finished. My palms slick against the sex toy's smooth surface as it goes slimy with my fear and I almost drop it. I watch his eyes flick to my hand. My bad one twitches and he grins.

“That's the one I fucked up, right?” he asks softly.

I shake my head, moving backward, hoping I can make a run for it as he circles me around the chair.

“You can't get away, Faren. Your stupid mother only delayed the inevitable.”

My mother was dying a slow and miserable death because of him.

I notice that I had picked up something else as well. I fling the lightweight box of condoms at the wall opposite of where we stand, and Ronnie glances back as the foil-wrapped goodies cascade to the floor in a rainbow of plastic squares. I bolt for the door.

My bad hand circles the knob while my right clutches the phallus.

A strong arm winds around my waist like a snake, and I'm airborne.

I want Mick so badly I can't think. Somehow, I know he would save me.

But Mick's not here, and as my stepfather spins me around, he slams me against the door. My head thwacks the unforgiving wood.

He hisses, “This is going to be my way—all the way. You got that?”

I nod as I slur, “Your way... with a caveat.” I'm not always wise with my words, but I don't want to die before I must. I don't want to spend what life I have left this way—with him.

My head lolls to the side as his eyes narrow. He shakes me, and I wince as my head makes contact with the door again. I briefly wonder where security is.

Are they ignoring my safety because this excuse for a man paid over ten thousand dollars for a dance with me?

I know the expectation of more hangs between us.

No amount of money is worth letting Ronnie see through what he’d meant to four years ago. If he does, my mom's sacrifice will be in vain.

“Stop with the fancy words, girl. They're not enough to save you.”

His rank breath belies the artifice of a suit that cost half of what I make in a month. My hand cramps as I struggle like a drowning person through vertigo and nausea.

“Caveat?” He jerks his chin back, making a low grunt in the back of his throat. “Caveat my ass.”

“Yes,” I whisper in a low hiss, smacking the dildo onto the side of his head with the last of my energy. Even I know he rang my bell with the head-to-door attack.

Ronnie staggers back, his expensive suit like a costume to hide the fiend beneath. I slump against the door and shake my head. The room swims in streamers of color, and I let the toy drop.

A fine fissure, like a delicate spider web, spreads from the point of contact at its smooth tip. Ronnie falls to his hands and knees like a stunned and enraged bull.

I see cufflinks appear out of the sleeves of his suit, and I stumble toward him, insulted beyond reason that Ronnie has anything beautiful. I plant my feet, my bad hand shaking so badly it's doing its own dance. I ignore it and sweep my foot into his face.

A spray of blood arcs, splattering all over the rich upholstery of the chair I would have danced on. He rolls over as his blood dots every surface within three feet of him.

“You bitch!” he wails through his broken nose.

I look at my foot, already turning black and blue. The top took the brunt of the force.

As he fights for air through his shattered nose, I close my right hand around the cufflink and tear it off his sleeve. His eyes bulge, and I see my death in them.

As he tries to stand, I back up to the door. My bad hand reaches out for the knob. I glance behind me.

His eyes are on me. His blood drips all over his expensive white shirt, now dulling to rust. Ronnie's fists clench as he moves toward me.

I bat at the knob again, and my fingers ignore my command. I'm panicking so much that I forgot to use my good hand.

I transfer my cufflink trophy to my left hand, jerk the knob with my right, and swing the door open.

I almost stop when I see that pandemonium reigns supreme.

But it's not safe to pause when the devil's at your door. I feel his breath on my neck as I fling myself over the threshold into the pack of screaming and running people.

I know why the security guards weren't at my door.

They're on their knees. Cuffs like fine jewelry slip onto the wrists of the men who may have guarded me from Ronnie.

A cop looks up and meets my eyes. His gaze narrows, and he shouts to a free cop, “There's one of them.”

I turn and run, expecting to see Ronnie with open arms, his shirt stained from my high heeled move.

But he's gone.

And so am I. I scatter to the back entrance and leap down the stairs. My head is on fire, my temples pounding. My sense of balance feels as if it's permanently gone. I grip the cold metal handrail, smack the paddle handle of the emergency exit, the alarm shrieks, and I jog into the night.

I take a right at an alley I know then a left. I hop on one foot and ditch the heels in a trash can. I get caught in the reflective headlights of a cat, indignant and hissing when I disturb his hunt for a midnight snack.

I really run then, pouring on the speed as my bare feet slap sidewalks full of dirt, gum, and eighty years of pedestrian traffic. I see First Street as my lungs burn.

I think of nothing but getting to my apartment.

I run to the main door of my building, slapping my palms against it and fumble with the security number for the coded lock. I jerk it open and run inside, feel the cool hex tiles on my bare feet and look down. My foot is a nightmare of red. A large bruise forms with a deep knot of color in the center.

From a nose.

I shut the door and pray that I lost the cop. My forehead feels hot against the metal door. My heartbeat slows, and my bad hand stops shaking.

But not my body. It trembles, proof of my adrenaline drying in a fine sheen against my skin.

I hope the freight elevator works tonight, because if it doesn't, I might sleep right where I am.

A small mirror with flaking paint hangs crooked to the right of the elevator, separating the stairs from the fine mesh of the metal elevator doors. I catch sight of my face. Relief pours through me.

The mask.

I never took it off. The cops don't know who I am.

With a quaking hand I remove it, and reveal my gaze to the mirror. It's me in there somewhere and I give the girl in the reflection a sad little smile.

I faced my worst fear tonight and survived. My anonymity is still intact.

I leave the mask on the shabby table just beneath the mirror. Probably meant to hold something while a person adjusts their tie.

Or cufflinks.

I slowly open my left hand. Uncooperative in battle but faithful in this. I turn my palm up and peel my thumb away. My stepfather's cufflink glitters at me, solid gold with a small diamond in the center. Tears blind me as my bad hand holds onto that tangible evidence of my success.

It’s a token of my survival. Maybe I'm like the cat I met at the dumpster. Nine lives. I could use one about now.

I move through the elevator doors and close them with a clank. I shut my eyes as the elevator moves to the fifth floor. The soft rocking motion lulls me as I move closer to my haven of solitude.

The bell chimes when the elevator arrives at my floor, and I walk the short distance to my apartment door.

Opening it with my right hand, I shove the door open and close it behind me, turning to latch it.

I lean against the familiar surface. Finally safe. Not for always but for today.

I turn and see Jared McKenna sitting on my couch, long legs stretched out.

His face changes to a look of concern when he takes in my disheveled clothing.

Or it could be my wide, shocked eyes.

“Faren,” Mick says, unfolding from the couch.

I watch his big body move, and I can't hold my emotions in check anymore.

I know it's wrong to use him like he wants to use me. I should be ashamed but all I feel is relief.

“What happened?” Mick asks, those dark eyes raking down my torn dress to my dirty, shoeless feet. His expression darkens. “Who hurt you?”

I meet his eyes, and they're full of protection.

For me. My bottom lip trembles from the aftershock of the night, his concern, my revelations.

He takes my hands and my left isn't prepared. The gold cuff link rolls out onto the floor with a clatter of metal against wood. Mick's eyes sweep to the trinket.

He scoops it up and holds it in front of my face. “Who. Is. He?” he asks with quiet menace. Not directed at me, but the phantom attacker.

My mouth parts, and his eyes move to my lips. “Nobody,” I reply.

It's the truest lie I've ever told.