Sweet Seduction Sabotage (8 page)

I screeched at the top of my lungs, screamed at him to let me go, thumped and kicked and scratched anything I could reach. And received a fist to the jaw that shut me up pretty quickly. Then watched my life flash before my eyes as he dragged me across the street, making cars skid to a halt and horns blast and more yelling and screaming ensue.

The world turned a little hazy, but I could have sworn a series of black SUVs screeched to a stop blocking our path. I was crying. Kelly Quayle doesn't cry, but I allowed myself some slack, because Kane had moved his grip from my work shirt to my hair and was threatening to scalp me alive.

I'd always known he was a little on edge, a little highly strung. The few times I'd stood him up lately he'd ranted and raved and slammed the phone down before the conversation was done. But by the time I saw him again he was his same old self. Car crazy, muscles bulging, obsessed with making me come several times before him. He could be generous, but I was beginning to see that generosity in his fucking was more a display of his own prowess.

Look at me, I can make you scream for more and more, over and over again, better than anyone else.

He wasn't. Better than anyone else, that is. He was my go-to guy when I needed to really
feel
. And that feeling had nothing to do with orgasms.

Sirens started getting louder in the distance, but we'd stopped in the middle of High Street. I could see what had to be Kane's car just beyond a large four wheel drive, blocking the road. The car I thought was Kane's, was the most ostentatious in the street, a Mustang or something like that. American at the very least, and in Kane's eyes the epitome of muscle car.

Kane jerked me around, scraping my knees over the tarseal on the road, tearing my trousers, grazing my skin underneath. I clenched my teeth, my hands trying to hold on to what hair they could, to avoid having it all torn out at the roots. I couldn't see clearly, the tears made my vision waver, but I could feel.

Fuck, I wanted to be able to feel, but I'd gladly go back to numb right now.

"Kane. Is that your name?" a voice said off to the side. "Just loosen your hold on the girl. Kelly's hurting."

Kane swung us both to face the voice - a voice that seemed vaguely familiar - lost his balance and then came down hard on my calf with his knee.

I screamed, someone yelled, booted feet stomped and suddenly the grip on my hair was gone. I collapsed to the road, panting, crying, an absolute wreck, but was instantly lifted up into someone's arms and carried away from the scene. Doors swung open, voices rang out, lights flashed overhead, but I was losing it. Someone was still screaming, and it took me a while to realise it was me.

This
was my life?
This
is what I had become?

The screaming stopped, but the tears still silently trickled down my cheeks, until I lost all consciousness and thankfully passed out, asleep.

Someone was crying and it wasn't me.

My head hurt. My knees hurt. The back of my right calf hurt.

My heart hurt.

Not because I'd loved him, but just because.

"Genevieve, sweetheart," I heard Dominic say. "Kelly will be fine. We'll have a talk with her and find out what's been going on."

The sniffing and crying had been Gen. I peeked out between almost closed lids and noticed we were in Gen's office at Sweet Seduction. Me on the sofa, Gen on the desk chair, Dominic crouched before her, running his hands up and down her thighs where she sat. No one else. Just us three.

I opened my eyes fully and watched them, they didn't notice; Dom too concerned for Gen, Gen too blubbery.

"I knew something was going on. Why didn't she say she was having trouble with Kane?" Gen said through multiple hiccups.

"I'm not entirely sure it's just Kane, sweetheart," Dom replied softly, hitting the nail on the head.

"Wh...what do you mean?" she stuttered and sniffed.

"Well, it looks like she was letting Dan go, as well as Kane. Her timing wasn't the best though, I must say. Who stacks one dumpee after another at her place of work?"

"Don't judge her," Gen accused, firmly. I would have smiled if my lips could have moved.

Dominic sighed. "You know I'm not. Kelly is Kelly. I get that. But when she upsets you, I get upset too."

When she upsets you
. Oh, and now my heart was broken.

Gen.

"So, she's gotten rid of Dan and Kane, and one of the others. Who?" Gen finally asked, after she'd sniffed through Dom's admission.

"Matt," I said, wearily.

Both sets of eyes swung towards me. I didn't move, my body ached and I just didn't have it in me to sit upright.

"Are you OK?" Gen asked, and then growled at herself. "I mean, can I get you anything? For the pain. You're grazed and you know, he pulled on your hair."

My hand went to my head and Dom reached out and squeezed Gen's knee, effectively breaking her run-away mouth moment.

I guess this was it. Gen had been hurt by my problems, even though I'd been trying to keep them from her. I wasn't good at sharing, and this was extremely painful stuff. But she's my best friend and deserved some answers. Besides, from the look on Dom's face, I was sure I wouldn't get far with a simple, "I'm fine."

I rolled into a sitting position and grimaced, my hand massaging my head.

"The prick almost pulled my hair out," I said, a little despairingly.

"He's been arrested for assault. Ryan Pierce is out in the store, waiting to take a statement," Dom said.

Oh, great. This just gets better and better. The cops.

"OK," I managed.

"Do you want me to get him now?" Dom asked, lawyer voice in full swing. "Or would you like to tell us what's going on?"

I looked at him and then at a teary eyed Genevieve, and realised there was no way he'd be leaving her alone in my care any time soon. What I had to say, would have to be said in front of him too.

Crap. I rubbed both hands over my face, dreading my next words.

"I've been thinking," I said, not making eye contact. The first words out of my mouth, and they're a deflection. Not the honest truth.

I let a long breath of air out and straightened my back. This was harder than I'd ever imagined.
And my imagination had been pretty damn vivid.

No one said anything for several moments, the silence like a lead weight around my neck, pulling me down. I reached up and rubbed my nape distractedly, as if that would make any of this easier.

"I didn't mean for you to get upset, Gen. I'm sorry," I whispered. "I was trying to keep you out of my fucked up mess."

"That's not what best friends are for, Kelly," she pointed out quietly.

My eyes reluctantly came up to hers. Beautiful, familiar blue stared back at me, not a hint of derision or recrimination in the soft hue.

I started crying.

You'd think I'd have done enough of that when Kane went all loco just before. But
no
, big heaving sobs of air, suffocating snot and a copious amount of pathetic tears. Gen was beside me in an instant, Dominic blending into the wall and not saying a thing. Her arms wrapped around me, pressing my face into her chest as I bawled.

She didn't say a word, just held me while I fell apart. Rocked us slightly, and brushed her hand through my hair. It took minutes, maybe as many as five or ten, for me to finally suck in a breath of air and not cry it back out again afterwards.

We sat silently for a couple more and then she said, "My mum always says, a problem shared is a problem halved. Talk to me, Kel."

"I can't," I said, the tears suddenly back again.

"Why not?"

"Because it's bad." And although I know Gen has seen me at my worst, knows the lifestyle I have chosen to live, she would never have thought Friday night could have happened. That I could get so drunk I'd forget a few hours and then wake up in some semi-stranger's bed.

I have rules. Gen knows about them. When you share your body, share the love like I have done, you have to have rules.

I broke every god damned one on Friday. And now I was in meltdown, frantically trying to stop the destruction I could see ahead.

"There can be nothing so bad that you can't come back from it, Kelly," Gen said softly into my ear. If she was trying to keep Dominic out of it, she was failing. He would have heard every word. But I appreciated the attempt.

"I'm trying," I snivelled. "That's why I'm getting rid of my guys. Starting over. Finding out who I am."

"And that's bad?" she asked, tentatively.

I laughed, it wasn't pretty.

"I'm beginning to think that I'll be just as fucked up when they're gone, as I was before."

"You're not fucked up, Kelly," she said, and I knew it was an automatic argument.

"Oh, I'm fairly sure I am," I countered.

"No," she said firmly, like she had to Dom when she thought he'd judged me. "You're a product of your upbringing, coping the only way you can. And you've seen you need to change, and you're doing something about it. Small steps, Kelly. It starts with just one."

I sucked in a slow breath of air and pulled back from her, running a hand over my puffy, no doubt red and blotchy, face.

"Something happened," I said, voice still a whisper. "If it hadn't I might have just kept going as I was. But it made me think,
really
think, and you know what? I don't like who I am."

"Oh, Kel," Gen whispered.

"It's been a long time coming, hasn't it?" I gave her a pertinent look.

"It never bothered me. The way you conduct your sex life." I cringed. Even as my best friend, someone who knew me better than most, it didn't sound right coming from her lips. "What bothers me is if you're not happy."

And that was it, wasn't it? For months, like Dan had said, I haven't been happy. I've been clinging to the old sensations of feeling something, anything, but that black. Testing the limits, stretching the rules, pushing my boundaries as much as I could. No wonder I went home with video-shop-guy.

My hook-ups had all been about sex and nothing else.

I was doing the right thing. Cutting off all of my guys. Three down, two to go. And Spike would simply offer a shrug, give me a peck on the cheek, and say, "Keep it real, dude," as he walked out the door.

Drew would...

I didn't know what Drew would do. He'd never asked for more than I had given, but lately he'd been giving me more. Protecting me from myself; no cameras. Turning up whenever I was about to self-destruct with one of my other four. Offering soft touches, sweet kisses, and tender caresses right from the start.

I knew I needed to get rid of
all
my stable in order to have a clean slate and find myself.

But getting rid of Drew would be hard. I'd already acknowledged I'd miss him; miss his steady grey eyes. I realised now it was more than that.

I would miss Drew Kline.

We'd not really gotten to know each other well, we rarely said more than a few words - and they tended to be directions; faster, harder, there, and more - but somehow Drew had always seen through to the inside. Seen the truth I'd hidden behind the party-girl.

I'd thought he was sabotaging my dates, turning each night into his because he didn't want to share anymore.

I wondered now if that was the case at all.

If anyone was sabotaging anything, it was me sabotaging my life.

But I had to clear the decks, go solo, find myself. It would hurt. But I didn't know how else to redeem myself, how else to figure out the mess inside.

Black or red?

I wasn't red anymore.

I didn't want to be black.

What did that leave?

Grey
, my mind offered, and I snorted a sound of disgust. As if. I was screwed up, romantic notions had no place in my head right now.

"I'm trying to make it to happy, Gen," I finally said.

"You'll make it," she replied softly from my side. "We'll make sure you make it." She flicked a glance at Dom. He nodded immediately, one short bob of his head.

"Thanks, guys. I guess I had better see Detective Pierce."

Dominic stood up and headed toward the door, then stopped, fingers wrapped around the handle.

"Um," he said, a very un-Dominic-like statement. He ran a hand behind his neck, rubbing. He looked awkward. "Drew Kline is also waiting to see you." He pierced me with his blue-blue eyes. "Is there a reason why one of my best friends is personally invested in seeing that you're all right?"

"Dominic!" Gen exclaimed.

I sighed. "Show the Detective in first, then I'll deal with Drew."

He hesitated, Gen glared. Then with a shrug of his shoulders he walked out the door.

Drew. Just what the hell was he up to now?

"Do you want me to go?" Gen asked, breaking into my musings.

I shook my head. "Nah. Stay while I talk to Pierce, but when I deal with Drew, it might be best if you go."

She bit her lip, contemplating something. Then, "Why
is
Drew waiting to see you?"

After everything that had happened, and everything that I'd just opened up about, admitting Drew was one of my stable seemed a small thing to do. This was Gen. My best friend. She'd proven how much she cared and how little she judged just now.

But I was going to end it with Drew. Probably today. She'd never have to know. Dominic would never have to hear about it. Drew and I could attend the same events and pretend we didn't know each other's body intimately. It would be simpler that way.

But when I opened my mouth to misdirect, to tell her he was offering me legal advice about something or other, the words wouldn't form. I'd kept Drew a secret for so long. Part of the thrill was sneaking around behind everyone's back. If I was honest with myself, that still excited me. So much so, that for a moment I wondered if I could keep him. Just him. If no one knew about us, then I could almost pretend I wasn't really doing anything illicit at all.

My mouth opened and then snapped closed. I sucked in a breath of air, thought how ridiculous I must look, and then Gen beat me to it.

"You look like a guppy," she said. "If you don't want to talk about Drew and whatever is going on, fine. Just say so. But consider this. If you want to start over, make yourself into someone else from scratch, then all you have to do is do it. Take the leap, grab it with both fists. Own it. Just because you're questioning your life right now, does not mean you aren't still Kelly Quayle. The Kelly Quayle I see behind the swinging hips and sexy smiles. You live life to the max, Kels. I know this has all gotten out of hand and scared the crap out of you, but please be careful what you cull from your life. Your attitude, your ability to have fun and let go. Your take no prisoners, say it how it is style. Talk about Drew. Don't talk about Drew. But pick one and own it. And please, don't start worrying about what people will think now. Who gives a fuck. This is your life, no one else's. Just make it the life you
want
to live."

Wow. For a Genevieve verbal diarrhoea moment that was quite insightful. I struggled to take everything I could from the words. But there were so many, and all of them had a point, and right now I was simply too raw to face the truth between the lines.

Luckily, or not, I was saved the effort when Ryan Pierce walked through the door.

"Kelly. Genevieve," he said, with a nod of his head. Getting right down to business.

There wasn't anywhere for him to sit, Gen's office wasn't that large, so he leaned his baulk back against the closed door, pulling a pad and pen from his jacket pocket.

"How are you?" he asked, directing the question to me.

"A little shocked," I admitted.

"Has he done anything like this in the past?"