Cado (9 page)

I had no idea how much time had passed. I wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that it’d been either five minutes or five hours. I was reasonably sure it hadn’t been days since I was only a tad hungry.
Mmmm…I could go for a big slice of pizza right about now.
My stomach rumbled in agreement.
Or maybe a dish of fettuccini alfredo from Pasta Perfecto
.

Whispers wafted through the air, softly at first, and then the voices became more insistent. They stole my attention from everything else. Had they just begun or were they what Lucian had wanted me to listen for all along? Despite not wanting to hear the whispers just to spite Lucian, I couldn’t help tune in…pretty much because I had nothing else to do.

The voices spoke a foreign sounding language, one that I’ve never heard before. As they continued to waft through the air, louder and louder, I suddenly understood them, as if they switched to English, although I knew they hadn’t.

“Come to me, my love,” a male voice commanded.

“No. This cannot be. You tricked me,” a panicked female voice responded.

“Yes, I did.” The man came into focus, like I was watching a scene unfold on TV or in a movie. Two people stood in an open field. The man, if I could call him that, had his back to me. He was bare-chested, some kind of material wrapped around his waist, leaving his legs and feet exposed as well. His golden hair shone brightly in the sun. But what caught my attention was the massive black wings protruding from his muscular back. They flexed restlessly, the feathers shining almost purple in the bright day. “None of it matters now.” He extended his arm, offering his hand, his wings tightening close to his body.

As the wings moved out of the way, I was able to see the woman for the first time, who was standing facing him. Long dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. A gossamer dress clung to her slender, yet powerful form. Her dark eyes were wide as she stared at the man. Pure white wings whipped out from behind her. “It matters still.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re not like them. You’re like me.” His voice softened. “I love you.”

“If you love me then you will leave me.” She dropped to her knees, her wings trailing on the ground. “We can never be. Not now. Not when you’ve become this.”

“I don’t accept that. I’ll never let you go.”

The woman raised her pale face up to meet the man’s gaze. “You have no choice.” Steel determination replaced the anguish in her.

“No, my love, it is you who doesn’t have a choice.”

I blinked away the scene, anger pulsing through my veins. I still wasn’t sure what I’d just witnessed but it’d invoked a primal kind of rage within me. “Lucian!” I roared. “Lucian! I want out of here now!” I was met with only more silence. I didn’t want to see whatever it was that he wanted to show me. I had a feeling that the vision I’d just seen was only the beginning. The idea panicked me. I didn’t want to know. Whatever it was—I just didn’t want to know. I wasn’t meant to know. It was just something that I sensed.
I can’t know.
My gut roiled and I bent over, retching. “I can’t…I can’t…” I mumbled to myself. My head throbbed in time with my pulse. Sweat trickled down my temples.

Light blazed on suddenly. Spots danced in front of my eyes for a millisecond—the millisecond before I focused in on Lucian standing before me. I clutched at his leg, opening my mouth to both curse him and beg.

“You’ve seen enough…for now.” Lucian scooping me up in his arms was the last thing I remembered before I was swept away into oblivion.

I couldn’t get the image of the man and woman in the field out of my mind. It was as if it was burned not only into my memory but into my retinas—imprinted into my very being. It meant something—something I wasn’t willing to face. I pushed the fleshy part of my palms into my eyes, rubbing. I groaned as I struggled to sit up. When I finally peeled my eyelids open I scrambled to my feet in bewilderment. I’d expected to either be in the pitch-black chamber of torture or back in the holding cell at the prison. I was in neither place. I was in a narrow dark alleyway. The nearby street lamp had burned out and the only illumination came from some windows high up in one of the buildings.

“What the fuck?” I muttered to myself. I clutched at the nearby wall and tried not to upchuck. The aroma in the alley was pungent and much more putrid than from just rotting garbage and the smell of urine. It stunk like decay, the kind of decay I’d come to associate with rotting corpses. I had no desire to stick around to discover the source of the not so delectable aroma. I hurried towards the street, stumbling over my own feet. I hit the pavement hard, my knees taking the brunt of the impact and my hands burning from being laid open on the cement sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ! Tiffany!” I immediately recognized the voice. It was none other than Officer Moretti.
Of course.
Lately, if it wasn’t him then it was Lucian serving as the constant thorn in my side. Heavy boots thumped the ground as he hastened to my side. He tugged me to my feet before I had the chance to do it myself.

“Where the hell did you come from?” he asked, his gaze sliding over me with concern.

Not making eye contact with him I glanced back over my shoulder at the alley I’d just escaped from. “I don’t know.” It was the truth. I had no idea where I’d been, not really. I also had no idea how I would explain anything that had recently happened to me to someone like him.

“You disappeared from your cell. It was still locked. No one had any idea what happened to you. The theory is—well—” He tipped my chin up towards him. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

My nostrils flared as I gazed up into his deep brown depths. I was in the kind of trouble that no one would either understand or be able to help me with. “How long was I missing this time?” At least this time I had a memory of where I’d been. Lucian claimed I’d been with him the first time I’d gone missing as well. So why didn’t I remember anything from then? It petrified me to think about all that had transpired between Lucian and me in those missing days.

“A week.”

I swore under my breath. A week. That couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t be. There was no way I could have gone that long without food or water…or hell, without a bathroom. My mind was reeling. I raised myself up onto my tiptoes and slid my hands around Moretti’s neck. I was suddenly overwhelmed with need for him. It hit me out of nowhere… Or just the need to forget the fucked up situation I’d been thrown into because of Lucian. What better way to forget it all than to lose myself in the oblivion of sex?

Moretti gripped my shoulders and pushed me away from him. “What are you doing?” he rasped. His breathing was coming out in short little spurts and his pupils were dilated to only leave a small ring of color.

My lips twisted up into a smirk. He wanted me. He wanted me and I would have him. “Take me somewhere. I need you.” I hated feeling powerless, it was something I strived to never have to deal with in my life, and Lucian was making me feel completely out of control. I needed to take charge, even if it was over something like my sex life.

Uncertainty waffled in Moretti’s gaze. I could practically see the war that was waging inside of him. I’d just have to give him a little bit more of a nudge. I stepped into him and blatantly cupped his hard cock through his pants. He strung together a beautiful sentence filled with obscenities before he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to still me. “What do you think you’re doing? You’ve been missing. I could lose my job. I—”

I squeezed him gently, grinning as he pulsed under my palm. “You can take me back down to the station…after.”

“After,” he mumbled as if in a daze. I was weakening his resolve. It was beyond obvious.

“Yes, after.”

Moretti’s free hand snaked into my hair and he yanked my neck back. “I already know I’m going to regret this.” He ran his teeth down my neck before nibbling lightly on my shoulder. I groaned in pleasure. He broke away from me abruptly, then before I could question what he’d do next—I found myself being propelled towards his car. He ushered me into the front seat and we sped off without so much as another word.

As we raced to our destination I couldn’t help but think about what Lucian had said about being jealous, about him not wanting me to fuck anyone else. I hoped he’d have a good seat for the show because he was about to learn that nobody controlled me and nobody owned me.

“What the fuck is your first name anyways?” I grunted out against Moretti’s mouth. I figured I should at least know the name of the man I was about to fuck, even if I’d soon forget it. Maybe I could call it out when I came.

He muttered something unintelligible at me as he nipped at my bottom lip. I grabbed his hair and peeled him away from me, meeting his lust-laden eyes. “I want to know your name, Moretti.”

He smirked. “You just said my name.” He dipped his head down to kiss me again but I pulled away from him.

I sauntered further into his apartment. It was simple, clean…but definitely a bachelor pad. The living room had a huge flat screen and an overstuffed leather recliner. Looked like he didn’t get much company. I unclasped my bra and let it drop to the ground without looking back at Moretti. I shimmied out of my pants so that I was standing in just a tiny black thong. The rest of my clothes were strewn about in the entranceway, where we’d already been getting hot and heavy.

I sat in the recliner, placing my feet on the armrests. “Mmm…comfy.” Moretti ran his hand down his face and groaned. He was bare-chested but his pants were still on. I’d quite enjoyed licking his six-pack abs against his front door but wanted to see more of him. “Strip for me,” I said as I trailed my hand down my stomach and into my panties. “Please.”

As he unbuttoned his pants, I began to circle my clit, masturbating to the sight of him. A soft moan escaped from me when his rock hard cock sprang free from his boxers. I bit my lower lip and imagined what he would taste like. “Come here,” I demanded, my voice husky.

Moretti’s gaze was locked on the movement of my hand. He dropped down in front of the chair and tore my panties from my body. He sucked my clit into his mouth and I arched up in pleasure. He lapped at me another few moments bringing me on the verge of an orgasm before he rose up and grasped my thighs. His thick cock pushed at my slick entrance and I groaned, needing him inside of me…yesterday.

“I’m clean,” he muttered, breaking the moment.

“Yeah. Good. Just fucking fuck me.” I was clean too, and on the pill. I didn’t really want to think about anything else. The whole point to this entire experience was to
not
think. I wasn’t about to completely shatter the moment.

Moretti shoved into me in one quick motion. I cried out as he began to pound into me.
Yes, this is exactly what I need. A quick fuck to make me forget for a little while
.  He buried his face in my neck while holding my legs in position on the chair. It only took a few more pumps before I fell off into bliss—screaming the entire way. I didn’t care who heard, or maybe I did—maybe I wanted Lucian to hear. Maybe I really was putting on a bit of a show…just in case.

My orgasm seemed to trigger Moretti’s, and he groaned as he released inside of me. He hadn’t even had a chance to catch his breath yet when I broke the silence. “Guess you do fuck strippers. And quite well I might add.”

Moretti’s hot breath blew against my neck as he sat up and pulled away from me. Regret was etched into his features, deep and dark. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

I smiled at him, remaining motionless with my legs still spread. I could feel his cum leaking from me down onto his chair. It was kind of a fuck you to him in a way. “But it did.” Men like him were pathetic. They denied themselves things because of what other people thought. The worst part… Men like him didn’t even know what they were doing.

I finally stood and began pulling my clothes back on. “Guess you probably want to take me down to the station now. Being that it’s
after
and all.” I paused while I examined my torn thong. “Unless you want to go another round first?”