Chapter Twenty-Nine Carnie Rides #2
The smile on his lips grows as he marks my throat with his mouth, “Truth?” He rumbles in a deep voice that makes lightning strike my core.
“Please.”
My voice comes out more needy than I expected, but I think that was all I really wanted from Alistair. Was the truth, answers, something that proved this was more than some sex fest. That I was something more to him than the invisible poor girl who was an easy lay.
“I’ve got some things to take care of tonight but I need to taste you first. Wanted to get my head right. And I need to ask you something,” He starts,
“What body wash do you use?” He asks, inhaling me like I’m the finest strain of cocaine he could acquire.
I can’t help the laugh that escapes my mouth, “What?”
“What is that smell on you all the time. It’s like fucking flowers.”
The way he traces the veins in my neck with the tip of his nose makes me shiver in his arms.
“It’s ugh,” I stumble distracted as his hands fall on my hip bones, rubbing circles into them, “Olay. Black currant and orchid. I think.”
A mental note is made to keep using that scent as we stand there, hands reaching for exposed skin, tugging each other closer, short breaths, gentle moans as we work each other up.
I loved this. I wanted this to be enough, but as my head falls back against the wall, my brain makes it impossible for me to concentrate. What does he mean by something to take care of? What is he going to do?
This couldn’t be enough for me. I needed more. I needed answers.
I wanted to be selfish because I wanted all of Alistair. Not just pieces.
Pressing my hands into his chest and pushing lightly, putting a gap between the two of us, “Alistair, wait—” I start, swallowing the nerves in my throat,
“What are you going to take care of tonight?”
I make the mistake of connecting my eyes to his. Dark, rich, bitter brown eyes that remind me of fresh earth after a heavy rain. So dark they are inky, almost black full of depths I can’t even understand.
The lust that tinted them begins to lose its luster and I know he understands what I’m asking.
“Don’t.” He says, shaking his head, “Don’t do this right now.”
“Is it about Rose? Are you going to the police about what we found on that flash drive, you’re gonna turn Mr. West in? Is that what you are going to do?”
His hands retract from my body, “It’s taken care of.”
“How? Did you tell someone?” I push, “I need to know that something is being done, there are probably hundreds of missing girls out there. This is the evidence people need to solve unsolved kidnappings! You have to say something.” It had been buzzing in the back of my mind since I saw the video.
“You aren’t a part of this. You did your job and now it’s being handled. That’s all you need to know.”
I furrow my eyebrows, “That’s all I need to know? Are you fucking kidding me? I broke into a safe for you! I could’ve been expelled, hell, arrested! I deserve to know!”
The way he steps away from me, like I’ve made him sick has this sharp pain moving across my chest, the way jellyfish wrap their tentacles around your body before shocking you, I can already feel the burn.
“No, you broke into a safe because I blackmailed you. Don’t act like you’ve done me any favors, Briar.”
“Are you serious?” I spit out, a harsh laugh following, “That’s how you’re going to be about this?”
“What did you expect? We start fucking and I owe you an explanation to everything I do?”
I flinch at how harsh his tone is, how harsh his words are.
“I don’t owe you anything. If you’re looking for a boyfriend who is gonna call you pretty and tell you you’re the reason he believes in love, you are in for a rude awakening cause that’s not me.
This,” He waves his finger between the two of us, “is sex. That’s it, just sex.
Don’t try to convince yourself it’s anything more. ”
I thought the moment my heart broke it would be this loud crashing sound in my chest. That it would make a commotion like smashing glass onto the floor.
It didn’t. Instead it was this silent moment of mourning as the pieces fell apart. There shouldn’t have been a reason I was so affected by this.
Why should I?
Alistair Caldwell is bad news. He is trouble. He tormented me. He is involved in murders and sex rings. There is nothing redeemable about him.
But there was a brief time between the wrath, between the hate, that he was my bad news. My trouble.
I thought, stupidly, I was special. I mean he tattooed me didn’t he? Marked me for the entire fucking world to see?
This dull ache begins to radiate all throughout my body. Hearing him say that aloud stings even if I knew that was how he felt about it on the inside.
But this is Alistair. He probably tattoos every girl he fucks just to see the conquest. To show he owns everything he touches.
It was my mistake for thinking a snake would ever change his stripes.
“It’s easier for you, isn’t it?” I say, “For me to hate you?”My eyes are stinging, but I am refusing to let a single tear fall for him. He doesn’t get those.
He scoffs, shaking his head, “I don’t want you to feel anything towards me. That would make it easier.”
“You’d rather me hate you, than open up. Than to explain why you’re such an asshole all the time! It’s why you won’t tell me about your family, isn’t it? They made you like this didn’t they?”
“I don’t tell you because it’s not your damn business. Stop trying to get more from me! I’m not going to sit here and tell you about how my mommy and daddy don’t love me while you pet my head. Leave it the fuck alone.”
“You’re just scared.” I counter, “You know that if you tell me, if you let me in,” I poke his chest with my finger, “I’ll understand why you did the things you’ve done. I won’t have a reason to hate you anymore, and for some reason you don’t want that.”
Pure, unbridled anger contorts his face, “Because you should hate me, Briar! I’m not a person you should like. I’m not someone you should be friends with,” He stalks towards me, eyes blazing into me as my body stumbles back at his sudden movement,
“I am not a good person. I hurt people. I enjoy hurting them, and guess what? I’m enjoying hurting you. I fucking love taking pleasure in hurting you, Little Thief.”
The words fire off into my chest like bullets. Cracking the shield I’d built over my heart.
I don’t move, still standing stiff as a board staring up at him with a blank look. Trying to search for the light inside of his eyes. Searching for something I think died a long time ago.
Something that may not even exist.
“What did they do to you?” I croak, shaking my head in disbelief.
That was it then. I was just a puppet he could play with, just someone to toy with and manipulate. I didn’t mean anything. It was all just a part of his fucking game.
“Hey, lover boy! You done? We need to head out.” Rook’s voice is a saving grace, giving me an excuse to get out of this conversation. Away from Alistair’s eyes.
Wrapping my arms around myself, ready to curl up in my dorm room with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, I started walking back up towards the noise of the carnival.
I shouldn’t hurt this much. I shouldn’t feel like this, I think as I pull my phone out of my pocket to shoot a text to Lyra.
Midway through typing the word, Where, a sweet smell filled my senses and I could feel the softness of cloth pressed into my nose.
Then, the world went black.