Tease Me (Teased and Broken Book 1) (2 page)

“It was probably just his social media person,” Brett dismissed.

I shook my head and flicked the remote so Thornton’s deep throaty rumble filled the room.

Brett straightened sharply, looking annoyed, then he whirled around in his seat to stare at Thornton’s beautiful face filling the screen. “What a ridiculously good looking man,” he muttered.

I smiled a little at that.

“He called me a tease,” I went on carefully, a little turned on by the jealousy that was clouding my beautiful Brett’s face now. Other than derision, it was the first real emotion I had seen from him.

“That’s because you
are
a tease, Elena,” Bret laughed harshly. “And one day, it’s going to get you into trouble.”

“He wants me to tease him every day of December.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Brett set his spoon down, and considered me with his fingers pressed together, his chin resting atop in thoughtful repose.
 

I shrugged. “I don’t expect he was serious.”

“Did they find his last wife?” Brett smirked at me.

I shivered involuntarily. The sunlight was bathing me in warmth, and yet my fiancé’s words may as well have stuffed ice in my veins.
 

“No, but Thorn had nothing to do with that.”
Shit
. My voice wobbled a little - I sounded
anything
but convinced. Rumor was that he had sacrificed her to the devil.

“Well he is still under suspicion. Besides, isn’t he into some heavy shit? Satanic worship?”

“Everyone has hobbies,” I smiled.

“Well, his are pretty fucked up.” His lips turned down into a pout.“You called him ‘Thorn.’ You on a first name basis with Cellrager now?

“Are you jealous?” I teased, delighted.
 

He sighed, reaching across the table for my hands. He took them in his, and squeezed them gently. “I love you, El,” he began.

Uh oh. Shit. No! I didn’t like the look in his eyes, the sorrow in his beautiful face.
 

“But I need to go away for a while,” he said quietly.

“What?”

 
“I need some perspective. It’s hard to get it here.” I felt my mouth open and close. My eyes were starting to fill with tears.

His hands shook on mine.

“I’m sorry. I just need … some space from us for a while. I can’t create. You suffocate me, El. What we’ve regressed to is fucking killing me right now.”

“Are you seriously calling off our engagement right now?” I freaked out.

Brett’s gaze dropped. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice hollow. “No.” He let out a sigh, and released my hands, as his own sped into his hair. “I want to marry the fuck out of you.”

Brett was really leaving me. I was struck speechless for a moment. The world was ending. There were no words.
 

I simply stared at him, my bottom lip wobbling.

He was staring at it.

I came around to his side of the table, pulling him to his feet, and embracing him fiercely. “We can fix this, Brett. I love you. You are my only,” I breathed.

“We both know that’s not true for either of us,” he groaned against my hair. Disturbingly, his muscular arms remained at his sides and made no move to touch me.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked as he backed away from me. I wasn’t letting him go so easily without reminding him of what we shared. I sidled up to him, and pressed my body flush against his, wrapping my hands around his warm neck and pulling his face roughly down to mine. I rubbed gently up and down his body as I did this, and claimed his trembling mouth. He did not respond at first, and then he was moaning and kissing me back.
 

I slid my hand between his legs, and ran it up and down over the bulge in his sweats while deepening the kiss. But then I dared to peek at him through my lashes, and saw his brown eyes were wide open and staring into nothing.
 

My heart went cold.

He was just reacting.
 

He was numb.
 

This was so humiliating. I felt helpless. Powerless. I had not felt this way around Brett for a while.
 

“You should stop, El,” his voice was pleading. “Before we both do something we might regret.”

“Like this!” I whirled around, and rubbed my ass over his shaft, pulling his head down over my shoulder to my lips.

He didn’t struggle and we kissed each other long and hard.
 

Then was a flash of energy and movement as he slammed me against the table where we had been seated moments before, and he bent me over it. “Yes,” he breathed. “
That
.”

His hand ran up alongside the inside of my thigh, his long artistic fingers pulling my panties aside and rubbing lightly all over my ass. “You are so beautiful, El,” he sighed regretfully. “The finest ass.” He cupped my right cheek and squeezed, his erection pressing against my left.
 

My heart was pounding. What would he do? Had I convinced him to stay?

“Just a moment,” he whispered against my neck, and I felt myself stiffen.

Then the heat and press of his body left mine, and I heard a door open, and as my heart and pussy fell to the floor in dejection, I heard the thrum of his stupid Jeep.

He was gone.

My beautiful Brett was gone.

Thornton’s face glowered at mine on the TV screen. “I have never met one who has more than one spirit,” he drawled, eyes flashing. “Do tell me, Elena, how do you manage it?”

Three

“So he just left you?” Aaron, my agent and one of my best friends asked again as we huddled in the darkest corner of the only decent bar in Ashby – Revolver. The black and silver decor suited me just fine.
 

“Yes,” I said flatly. Answering the question for the millionth time didn’t help make it seem any more real. It was getting annoying.

“Nothing before he left? No ass fucking?”

I laughed at that. “We only do that on special occasions,” I reproached.

“Leaving
you
is sort of an occasion; actually it is more an unspeakable event,” Aaron mused, his generous lips quirked into a sympathetic smile as he considered me over his glass of red. I wanted to sleep tonight so I had asked him to order the biggest, baddest, boldest red wine he could find. Red wine always made me sleep.
 

I handed over a note Brett had painted and left on the easel of his studio, before he had left me bent over our kitchen table bare-assed. Fucker. Asshole. I hated him so much right now.

“He tries to explain it in this.”

Aaron’s puffy fingers flashed over the note. “Does the man not know how to leave you a text message?”

“He’s an artist,” I sighed. “I guess this was
easier.
”

“There is nothing easy about leaving you, Elena,” Aaron disagreed, and quickly scanned the contents of the note painted and smudged in blue paint. I peered over his shoulder and reread the horrendous piece of shit.

El -
 

I am sorry. I really am. I tried so hard. I did. But be honest now, things haven’t been right between us for a while.

I want to marry the fuck out of you.

I mean this.

But I have an important exhibit coming up and I need complete focus.
 

Where we are right now, this awful indifferent place is distracting. I can’t create for the distance between us.
 

Just let me get these pieces done alone for the show.

A break will be good for us.

To be clear, I am not leaving you.

We’ve just made the pause that has been hanging over us official.

I love you so much, my Enchantress.

Brett xxx

I had smiled wryly at the mention of ‘enchantress’. Brett and I had researched my family history after my Grandmother had died and left me with a well-worn dog eared spell book, and discovered that I had come from a line of witches, some of whom had been tragically burned at the stake in the Salem witch trials. The bodacious babes of this line of ladies had become known as ‘enchantresses’ because their energy suckered folk in to do their every bidding. I had a natural charisma, I admit. Folk were drawn to me, and described an energy and magnetism that captivated them. They couldn’t help but want to know me, and want me in their lives.
 

It had worked a treat for my book sales, with some jealous authors ranting from the sidelines accusing me of some kind of witchcraft and sorcery for how I had seemed to explode on the scene out of nowhere to become an overnight success.

Of course it appeared that way. But in truth, it had been a lot of hard fucking work and spectacular almost-falls off the cliff of giving up. No. Success had not been easy.
 

Men, however, always had been.

 
“Well, that is just a confusing mess,” Aaron groaned, pressing the note into my hand.
 

“I know,” I agreed, despairing and taking a long gulp of my red wine. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Nothing,” Aaron advised. “With the exception of writing your little heart out because that tends to keep me in a job.”

I sniggered and fished my phone out of my bag when it beeped. I had expected a message from Brett.

I froze.

It was from Thornton Darko.

Well ?

I blushed, feeling my eyes widen. Shit. I forgot I had agreed to tease him. Every single day of December.

Right.
 

I was turning up nothing.

“Who’s that?” Aaron asked, steel-grey eyes flashing their concern at the effect hearing from Mr. Cellrager himself appeared to have had on me. I was freaking the fuck out right now. I bit my lip.
 

“I met someone last night,” I confessed.

“How perfectly timed with Brett now out of the picture,” my agent enthused as he topped up my glass with more of the red elixir of bliss.
 

“Brett is still very much in the picture,” I disagreed.

“Sure… I believe you.” Aaron’s round face flushed red.
 

“What is it?” I asked in alarm.

“You won’t tell Daniel will you if I order us a cheese platter. He’s got me on a diet again.”

I rolled my eyes at Aaron’s lack of self control, and felt a twinge of sympathy for his partner, the long-suffering Daniel, a gorgeous model who prided himself on maintaining his perfect body while Aaron regularly insisted on trashing his. He had dieted, only to put all the weight back on again, and then some. I was so used to the constant inflation and deflation of my bestie, it had become a running joke. Still, I knew Aaron felt terrible about it, so I dared not laugh at his predicament. I was a bitch, sure, but not that much of a bitch.
 

Aaron’s chubby fingers moved over the buttons of his vest that was straining around his girth, and bit his lip as a storm cloud rushed in over his flushed face. “He said I’m too fat to fuck at the moment.”

“Wow!” My brows rose. “Got you on bread and water now? This sounds serious.” I plucked the menu from him. “Then you are definitely not going to order a cheese platter, my friend.”

He nodded.
 

“Hey,” I said gently. “You all right buddy?”

Aaron burst into tears, running a hand over his bald head. He had at the too young age of twenty five started losing his glorious hair, and had just decided to shave it all off than deal with its deterioration. His mantra the year he did this had been ‘impermanence’. Still, the look suited him; then again, he had a gorgeous face that made any hair style look good (and he’d had many tragic hair styles over the time I knew him).
 

He sobbed quietly against my shoulder. “I really am afraid he is going to leave me this time.”

“Then what are you going to do about it?”

“I haven’t committed carbocide yet.” he sighed. “But it is imminent.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Let’s go for a walk. Drink up. We’ll grab a traveller at the mini mart on the way, and we’ll walk down to the pier like old times.”

“Ugh,” Aaron complained, leaning back from me, and wiping his tears away on the back of his hand. “That sounds truly terrible. Too much effort. I hate your walks, you long-legged freak.”

I smirked. I was only slightly taller than average, but my killer heels just tended to give the illusion of epic, ass-kicking height.
 

“But thanks,” he went on more quietly. “Daniel is worth it, Elena. He is the most caring, attentive man. He puts up with a lot of shit from me. I can’t think of anyone else who has his patience.”

“Walk we shall, then,” I declared, and stole a glance back down at my phone.

“Who did you meet?” Aaron asked. “Sorry, before I lost my shit you were about to talk about that, yeah?”

“Thornton Darko,” I answered automatically. Fuck. I slapped my forehead with my hand. Really? Why did I say that? I was hopeless for confessing and divulging all in my best friend. I guess I wasn’t going to stop now.

“That heavy metal dude right from Cellrager?” Aaron asked. “Wow! Daniel crushed on him for ages. He met him once, by the way. The man is…” Aaron’s voice fell away. “Wait? He’s in LA in that stupid castle he built that looks like something Dracula would live in? Didn’t realize Mr. Death tears was in our neck of the woods, little old seaside shanty Ashby.”

“He isn’t,” I groaned. “I got drunk last night and left a message on his Facebook page, and then, well…” I hedged.

“Well?” Aaron pressed, I could see his hand twitching, the little shit was so about to go for my phone.

I held onto it even more tightly. “We just got to talking. He is rather charming. He called me a tease.”

“Well,” Aaron sniggered. “He ain’t wrong there.”

I punched my friend’s shoulder playfully. “I proposed to tease him every day this month and he could let me know how I did at the end?”

“What if you do well?” Aaron asked, looking concerned.

“I get his demon seed,” I smirked.

“And bad?”
 

“I get sacrificed to the devil. Isn’t that what they thought happened to his wife?”