Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series (34 page)

“I told you we needed two people,” I say to Anna, my voice as emotionless as a rock. “Now Firefuck looks like an even bigger hero. I’ll never get Stephanie back.”

Her hands slide around me and I don’t have the will to shake them off. “Get her back?” She laughs and even that sound has a beautifully husky accent. “Oh, Jerome darling, didn’t you hear what she said to you? You don’t want that wretched girl back, darling. You want to punish her, remember?”

Yes. That’s right. I remember now.

I also remember Stephanie looking in the camera, telling me that she hated me. She said she would haunt my dreams. I nearly laughed at that. She already does.

“Darling, look at me.” Anna walks around the chair and straddles my lap. She runs her hands through my hair and I close my eyes as goosebumps rise on my arms. I open them and look into her remarkably blue ones. “I know this has been difficult for you. I can make it easy if you will stick with the plan.”

The plan. Money. Power. Control.

I shut my eyes. I’ve never felt so powerless. I open them and look at Anna again. She was supposed to make all of this better.

Confess to Mistress Anna.

I stumbled on the website not long ago. The words. Her eyes. She mesmerized me. I clicked the video and this beautiful woman appeared. She said, “Does your life feel out of control? Does the weight of the world feel like its pressing on your shoulders? Are you tired of making all the decisions and not getting any of the credit?” The camera panned back and she stood up, exposing the long silk robe she was wearing. “Are you exhausted from not having people take you seriously? From the struggle of life?” The ice blonde woman walked close to the camera, so close I could only see her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was lower. Sultry. Her erotic accent so appealing. “Have you been bad? Do you have bad thoughts? Not sure what to do with your life?” The camera had panned back again, revealing her smile. “Confess to me. Confess to Mistress Anna and I’ll set you free.”

I watched the video over and over and over. Each time her words resonated more deeply. Each time she reached further into my soul. I
had
been having bad thoughts.
Very
bad.

Life hadn’t been going the way I’d wanted it to go. My girlfriend had broken up with me. My software had made me rich, but I had no one to share it with. I had no friends. No one to listen to me. No one who cared. I couldn’t sleep because the nightmares came when I closed my eyes. They lingered when I opened them. It seemed everyone was against me. Even my co-workers had started looking at me funny.

I wanted a friend, no… I
needed
a friend.

With a click of the mouse, I paid for and made my first appointment with Anna. Best thousand dollars I’d ever spent.

“Jerome, darling,” Anna purrs in my ear, bringing me back to the present. “I’m sorry about your friend. You’re right, I should have listened to you and had Christopher go with Abram.” She pouts. “Can you ever forgive me for not listening to you?”

Her teeth sink into my ear, nearly bringing blood. I don’t wince. I don’t react. I allow the pain to flow through me and wake me up. Anna taught me that—the power of pain. I wanted to teach it to Stephanie. Teach her how to harness sensation and really live. But…Stephanie never understood. Never really got it. She’s way too attached to the traditional rules of the world. I should be glad she’s out of my life. But… I’m not. Why did she have to fuck the firefighter? So soon after our breakup? I wanted her to suffer the way I did.

That was my confession…
I want to make my girlfriend suffer for hurting me.

I confessed to Anna on that first night we were together. The second best night of my life. I confessed to messing with Stephanie’s grades and her phone. How her bitch of a friend, Beth, had gotten a little taste of my wrath as well. Anna said those were all the pranks of a boy.

Anna helped me see how I could use my gifts with technology to make Stephanie really pay. She knew someone who knew someone, and with my money, I could hire anyone I wanted to make it happen. Anna’s the one who suggested the cameras, the videos. The payday.

“You can become very wealthy, Jerome. Much wealthier than the paltry millions you currently have.” Anna could see the big picture, and she was right.

By that time, I’d already lost my job. The bastards at ComNet had bought out my contract. I ‘wasn’t a good fit’, the fucking asshole president, Andrew Cross, told me at the dinner
I paid for
. Anna helped me pay him back too. I can’t help but snicker as I remember his wife’s reaction to getting his sex tape in the mail. The fucker hadn’t been able to say no to Anna when she’d approached him at a tech conference. He’ll lose half his shit in divorce court; maybe more.

The thought of money makes my head hurt. I’ve already blown through two-thirds of my cash. New house. New car. All the toys I’ve ever wanted. I go to strip clubs and stuff hundred dollar bills into the girls’ g-strings. I reach up and touch the diamonds hanging around Anna’s neck—a hundred grand in one visit to the jewelry store. The staff at that store treated me like a king.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d been watching Beth and Stephanie sitting on the stupid blue couch in Beth’s apartment, eating tacos and drinking some type of beer. They were laughing and talking about a date Stephanie had gone on with the fuckwad fireman. I had been so pissed as I listened to her tell Beth the details of having sex on the firedick’s Harley.

Anna came up behind me, massaging my shoulders while I watched. “The two girls are very pretty, aren’t they?” she’d said.

I gritted my teeth and grunted a non-answer.

Anna’s hands had moved up to my temples and rubbed soothing circles next to my eyes. “One is so dark and one so fair. They contrast against each other very well, don’t you think?”

I’d grunted again.

“I know several, uh, investors who would be very interested in the pair,” Anna said as casually as if she was discussing the weather. I turned to look at her and she grinned. “The two of them together would fetch a very substantial price. Especially the blonde. She’s gotten… famous.”

It took me a ridiculously long time to realize what she was saying. She wanted to sell Beth and Stephanie to the highest bidder? That would certainly get the bitches out of my hair and perhaps solve my current cash flow problem. “How much?” I’d asked, curious. Visions of the yacht I’d been itching to buy were in my head.

Anna’s eyes flicked to the computer screen and then back to me. “Quarter million each. Minimum. Maybe more for your ex. She’s become quite popular.”

I’d turned back to the computer, my mouth hanging open. Half a million dollars for two girls? No way. I watched the girls continue to laugh; Stephanie falling back on the couch, her hands on her stomach. “I think I could really be falling in love,” Stephanie had said. On the screen, Beth squealed and flung herself at her friend.

Watching the two of them, rage infused me. Love? There is no such thing as love. There’s only the fear of losing someone you can’t control.

“How do you know about all this?” I asked Anna, turning back around to look her in the eye.

She gave me a little wink. “How do you think I got all this?” she’d said, waving her hand around her penthouse on the strip. “Do you really think I could afford this luxury just by whipping bad little boys?”

That’s how it all started… a prank, a website, now this. Anna promised me I could fuck with Stephanie and her boyfriend some more before we picked her and Beth up for their overseas trip. Tonight was supposed to only have been for fun… a prank… a little scare to keep the two lovebirds on their toes.

Now Abram was dead; the fireman killed him. Well, not exactly, but Abram is dead nonetheless.

“I want the fireman to suffer,” I say to Anna as if I order a hit every day. I lift my hand to trace her lower lip with my thumb.

She pulls my shirt from my pants and pushes it over my head. “He would fetch a very high price too, you know.” She smiles and unbuckles my belt.

I imagine the hulking man held in some rich man’s dungeon, becoming a play toy to his every deviant whim. Debased every day. Broken. I like that idea a great deal.

“Will he be as easy as the girls?” I hiss out the last word as Anna wraps her hand around my cock.

“Darling.” She smiles and sinks to her knees. “Leave everything to me.”

Chapter 5 - Steph

It’s three in the morning before we’re able to leave my apartment and head over to Ken’s place to get some sleep. I’m going to have to move now, there’s no way around it. I thought I was creeped out by having the cameras found in the walls and my privacy invaded. A dead guy on the floor means game over. If I could afford it, I would never go back to even collect my belongings.

I’m worried about Ken, about how all of this has affected him, but he seems to be doing okay. I start to laugh as I inventory all of our injuries. His outnumber mine by a long shot.

“What’s so funny?” he asks as he plops down on his couch. He groans as he leans his head back against the cushion.

Looking at him, I laugh harder, even when the force of it hurts my ribs. He has a bandaged leg, a black eye, a cut lip and the skin on his knuckles look raw and red. He has carpet burns on both of his knees as well as an elbow and a big white bandage hanging from his ear. Bruises ranging from deep purple to pale yellow are speckled across his legs and arms.

“You. Us. We look like we’ve just survived a tornado.”

He barks out a laugh and pats the seat beside him. He doesn’t have to pat it twice; I curl up next to his warmth. “Baby, we’ve survived a tornado, a hurricane and an earthquake. We might look worse for wear, but I’m pretty damn proud of us.”

I look up at him. “I’m pretty proud of us too. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go through this nightmare with.”

He leans down and kisses me so softly our lips almost don’t touch. He rubs his nose across mine and my heart flutters in my chest. I remember him telling me he loved me when we both thought our lives were on the line. He doesn’t have to say it again. Right here, right now, his love for me is shining in his eyes. It’s like sinking into a warm bath.

“You ready for bed?”

I nod. “Maybe a shower first? I’d like to get the nastiness of this night off me if that’s possible.” I wish I could wash it out of my mind as easily.

He begins to move, but I press him down with a hand on his chest. “Let me get something to cover up the bandage on your leg.” I head to the kitchen to grab some plastic wrap, then I tend to him while his fingers run up and down my spine.

“I like it when you play nurse.”

I smile. “Maybe someday I won’t have to play nurse so often.”

He lifts my chin so I will look him in the eye. “Do you think we’ll still like each other when we’re not being adrenaline rushed every few hours?” he asks and pushes my hair back from my face.

I trail my fingers up his leg and cup him through his shorts. “I’ll just have to find ways to make your heart beat faster more often.”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “I like the way you think.”

Standing up, I reach out a hand to help pull him up from the couch. When he’s standing, I turn to lead him to the bathroom, but he tugs me to his chest.

“I need to tell you something. Not while a gun is being pointed at us. Not during sex. Just standing here, being normal.”

He places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me backward. Then leans down until our faces are inches away from each other.

I swallow. I try to breathe, but I can’t.

“I love you, Stephanie,” he says. A long exhale of breath follows his words.

I touch his face, tracing my fingertips across his eyebrows and around the curve of his face. My eyes burn and my throat clogs with emotion. Long moments pass before I’m able to say the words my heart is screaming. “I love you too. So much.”

He kisses me then, a rough joining of our lips. The kiss softens and then deepens again, our tongues licking into each other’s mouths. He begins walking me backwards toward his bathroom, breaking away long enough to turn on the water and pull his t-shirt over his head. Then he’s back, his mouth against mine, his fingers pushing my cardigan off my shoulders until it falls to the floor, then the straps of my tank top are pushed down my arms.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says as his thumbs slip into the waistband of my shorts and pushes them down my legs. “Not just the sex or physical attraction. Or this ass.” He takes a big handful in his hands and squeezes. “Not just the crazy shit we’re dealing with either.” He dips his head down and touches his mouth to mine again. His tongue traces my lower lip before pulling it into his mouth to suck. He grazes it with his teeth before slowly pulling away.

He nuzzles his nose at my ear and says, “I can’t stop thinking about the way you laugh and how it makes your eyes grow even greener when you do. I can’t stop thinking about how you fit against me so perfectly.” He pulls me against him and my body melts into his. “See. We’re like puzzle pieces, we’ve both been searching for home.” He laughs against my hair. “I didn’t even know I was looking.”

I hold onto him, my fingers digging into his back. He’s right, his every valley was created for my curve. This is a different side to him, so romantic. A deep well of words that soothe my soul.

Desire spikes within me and the hair on my arms stand up while goosebumps travel across my skin. I feel my nipples tighten and my belly relax and contract. I’ve never needed someone so much. Not sex. Words. He’s making love to me with words. I feel them caress my skin, sink into my pores.

Opening the shower door, he pulls me in with him, hot water raining down and around us. He hisses as the water burns across his cuts and scrapes. I cup my hand around his injured ear to keep the worse of the spray from hurting him.

“That’s another thing I love about you,” he says. “It’s like you know exactly what I need the moment I need it. Do you know how sexy that is? To be known by another person so well?”

I stay quiet, but nod and pull his head down, needing to taste him again. His tongue invades and curls together with mine. His erection presses hard into my belly. I turn us until his head is no longer under the direct spray. I reach for the shampoo in the rack and pour some into my palm, rubbing my hands together. I rub my fingers through his hair and he moans, closing his eyes to consume the pleasure.