The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (22 page)

But the hate didn’t come. A blindingly handsome smile came instead. “I didn’t expect honesty.”

“You know?”

“Only because he needed help with filing some paperwork for the hospital you were admitted too.” The smile never left his lips. “I’ve been a working lawyer a good five years longer than Rhett.”

I stared up at him dumbfounded.
He knows what I am, and yet he is still treating me like a lady?

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“Oh that was so fun! Y’all’s turn!”

Sarah’s voice made me jump and I turned to see her rosy, smiling face.

“Oh, no—”

But then Rhett was standing in front of me holding out his hand.

“You mean, me and—”

“Yes,” he answered, his gaze unwavering on my face, his hand steady before me. It was the most he had spoken to me since I’d gotten out a week ago.

I wanted to question him, but somehow I didn’t. Somehow I placed my hand in his and allowed him to lead me to the dance floor. I didn’t want to feel the warm tingles that spread up my arm at his touch. I couldn’t remember feeling it when we touched before, and quickly amounted it to the cocaine. And for the first moment all night, I didn’t crave a bump, so long as I could feel the flutter of excitement along my skin.

He took both of my hands in his as we reached the dance floor. People were scattered around us already dancing to the new slow tune.

“Have you ever two-stepped before?”

I stared at him with what I knew was a blank stare.

A smile curved at the corners of his lips. “I’ll teach you. Here.” He moved closer, until our chests were almost touching, dropping one hand to my lower back. “Let me lead, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly nervous. I hadn’t considered that dancing would be difficult. Sarah and Rhett had made it look easy.

“You’ll go two steps forward and then one back.” I followed him, moving clumsily, practically tripping over my own feet. “Careful. Just follow me.” He pulled me tighter against him, the valley of my hips pressing into one of his. “Feel my hip? Follow it.”

My breathing shallowed as I looked up at him. I’d never been this close to him before. Only in moments of hate, where it swirled around us mingling with the lust that was so thick it seemed to choke us. Never like this, dressed in expensive clothing with smiling couples twirling around us. I thought it was only his hate that could make me feel that way. My time in the hospital made me certain of it. I had convinced myself that I had thrived on Rhett’s hate the way I had thrived on Taylor’s. It gave me purpose, meaning.

But there was no hate here now. Nothing malicious between us. His gaze met mine, his green eyes sparkling with a joy I hadn’t expected. But it wasn’t just joy, there was something more there. Something I couldn’t grasp. I tripped over my own foot before I could figure out what it was and went stumbling forward. Rhett stopped me before I hit the floor and for a moment we were stuck there in an odd limbo with his arms around my back, me looking up at him.

Bubbles of laughter escaped my lips. It was just my luck that I would go and trip just when I was having one of those moments. The moments that stay with you forever. The ones you look back and think about how perfect they are. How you wouldn’t change a single thing about them.

A smile broke out across his face as he righted me. I thought that would be it, that I was too much of hazard as a dance partner. But Rhett’s hand found my waist again and the other clasped one of my hands.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” He chuckled and something inside me melted, making tears spring to my eyes. It was silly, what did I have to cry for? I managed to hold them back by focusing on our movements and trying not trip again. This time I was successful and we were moving among the crowd like a normal pair of dancers, albeit sloppy ones.

With each passing moment I was certain I clung to him harder. I knew the song would end, but I didn’t want it to.

“I’m glad you came,” he whispered into my ear. A shiver traced down my spine.

I could only nod. I didn’t have words. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t been home all week. Why he hadn’t so much as looked at me until today. Why he gave Sarah all the credit for the way I looked. Didn’t he think I was pretty because I was me? Not because Sarah had added a little to me, but because I was Faye. But I didn’t say any of those things. I just looked up at him with wonder.

He didn’t say anything else to me, but he did sing along. The soft melody of the country song floating around us. The lyrics whispered into my hair. And I let myself pretend that this was my reality. That he didn’t have Sarah waiting for him less than a hundred feet away. And it was magical. Those few moments where it was just the two of us.

But then it was over. It wasn’t the song that ended. It wasn’t me tripping on my feet again. It was a voice. A hand. It touched my arm. The voice, a deep tenor I knew better than anyone’s.

“Mind if I cut in?”

And then I was looking up at him. The moment, the precious perfect moment, shattered, destroyed, ripped to shreds… by Taylor.

EIGHT

“Dad? You’re not supposed to be here.”

Rhett’s voice was far away. All I could see was Taylor. I could feel him. His hand on my arm, his gaze penetrating mine.

“I just want a dance.”

“That wasn’t part of the agreement. We agreed you would give Faye time. It’s only been a week.”

“Will you dance with me, Faye baby?” And then I saw it. It wasn’t the hate. It was something else. Love. I knew it better than I knew my own reflection, which wasn’t hard to believe these days. Taylor had looked at me like this more times than he had looked at me with hate, but I’d grown used to the hate. It had been years since he looked at me like this. Even in the month I spent with him I hadn’t seen this love. It was the kind that made my heart skip a beat. It was the look that made me give in to him all those years ago. The look that made me fall into our twisted love.

“Yes.” The word was breathless and awkward on my lips.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. Dad, you need to leave.” Rhett was suddenly between us and I couldn’t see Taylor’s face anymore, but I needed it. I needed to see it. Him. I needed to see that love. It was the only true love I knew. If I could have it back to the way it was before, I would take it. In that moment I would give anything for it.

“No, Rhett. I’ll dance with him.” Somehow I said the words without shouting them, without screaming them into his back.

“You’re sure?”

But I had already stepped around him and placed my hand into Taylor’s. He was already leading me away with Rhett grumbling behind us. But I didn’t listen. The love was there, back in those eyes. I hadn’t seen it in so long, I wasn’t sure that it was real. We started moving to the music, his hand on my back, the other holding one of mine. The stance was the same as what Rhett and I had done. But it was different. I didn’t feel the warm overwhelming tingles.

“I missed you, Faye baby.”

We moved to the music and he trailed his hand down my arm, fingering the angry red scar.

“Why, Faye baby, why did you do this?” The ache in his voice made something twist inside me.

“I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

“Deal with what? I loved you. I still love you.”

Though I could see the love in his eyes, his words sounded flat and I didn’t trust them. The desperation for his love was suddenly squashed as reality came back to me. The reason for the scar. I hadn’t forgotten, but I had been blinded by the familiar comfort he used to provide.

“I shouldn’t be here.” I stopped moving and tried to step back from him, but he wouldn’t let me go.

“Shhh, don’t say that. Don’t. You don’t mean it.”

“I do.” But I didn’t try to move away again. I just stood there limply.

“I’ve been so lost,” he said after several moments. His eyes grew misty and far away. “I didn’t know what to do after they took you away. They took you and I was forbidden to see you.”

“I was in a mental hospital. No one was allowed to see me,” I said, moving my feet again, letting him lead me.

“I could have gotten around it. Gotten you out of there. But I couldn’t. Because of Rhett. He took legal action against me. Filed a restraining order where I couldn’t come see you, not without being put in jail.”

I sucked in a breath. “What? But—”

“He’s jealous.” Taylor’s words were bitter and I saw it. That hate. It swam to surface through the misty love. It pressed through the barrier with force, drowning everything else out. “He wants you for himself. He always has. I saw the way he looked at you.” Taylor’s gaze pierced mine. “The way he held you.”

“It’s nothing like that, Taylor. He wants me to get better.”

A cold laugh escaped his lips, causing the people dancing near us to glance our way. “Get better? No. He’s selfish. He just wants you on his terms. He only put you in that psychiatric hospital to get you away from me. That’s the only reason. It has nothing do with your health or getting you better. He wants to fuck you.” He rubbed his hand up and down on my back. “Or has he already?”

“No.” Panic multiplied under my skin. I shouldn’t be here.
How did I get here?
Why did I agree to this?
My earlier reasoning surfaced and the ridiculousness immersed me in fear.

“But you still want him to.”

“No.” I tried to step back but he held on to me tighter, his fingers biting into my back and hand. “You can’t run, Faye baby. Not tonight.” He leaned in closer, his face right against my ear. “Not ever.”

Dread slammed into me, dragging me down in it’s suffocating waves. I was back there. With Taylor standing over me. I’d barely been home two days after the abortion he and my mother had forced me to have. I hadn’t stopped bleeding since then. There was too much blood. And I was light-headed and cold. I was going to die. I knew it. I knew I was. But I didn’t care. All I wanted was my baby. The baby whose movement had given me the feeling of butterfly wings. Tiny kicking feet.
My baby.

They waited too long and a good doctor wouldn’t take me. Wouldn’t perform the abortion they wanted me to have so badly. The man who did it hurt me. He took my baby and more. Ripped me apart until there was nothing left of me. Until I was at home bleeding too much blood.

They argued over me. Yelling at one another. My mother’s voice was like a screech at the end of my bed. I didn’t know what they were saying. I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t want to make it out. They were monsters. The only two people in life that I had believed loved me, but they didn’t. They relished in their torture and they laughed as my baby was murdered.
My baby.

But then there was weight on the bed and I looked up to see Taylor looming over me. My mother pushed at his chest, still screeching, the sound blistering my ears. Was she trying to stop him? Trying to save me? But it was too late. I was already dying. Bleeding out. My baby dead and gone. She hadn’t tried to save me all those other times. The times she watched him torture me. Cut me open and fuck me until I was begging for him to stop. She didn’t try to save me then. So why was she trying now? Because I was dying? Because she realized that this was all wrong?

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have it in me. She couldn’t stop him. And he was inside me. But it didn’t hurt. Not like the other times. He fucked me hard, but I didn’t feel it. I was numb. Lost somewhere in darkness. He fucked my limp and dying body while my mother screeched, while she clawed at his chest.

“You’re killing her! You’re killing her!”

That’s what she was saying. Over and over. He was bleeding from her nails. It dripped down his chest, but he didn’t seem to care. And I hoped for death in that moment as I looked into his eyes. I prayed it would come and be over soon.

“No.” I jerked away from him, pushing the horrors away. I hadn’t thought about that night in a long time. I had hidden it away. I hadn’t even told George about it. It was too fucked up. Too much.

And then I was running, hurrying through the dancing couples around me. My face was wet, but I didn’t swipe at the tears. I didn’t care that they blurred my vision. I just wanted away. Away from Taylor. Away from the past.

Somehow I found my way to the women’s restroom and I pushed the door open, revealing the small dim room with two stalls and a single sink. It was empty and I pushed myself into the biggest stall, slamming the door and locking it.

The tears came harder, pouring down my face in waves. The screeching was there playing over and over in my ears still.

“You’re killing her! You’re killing her! You’re killing her!”

“No!” I shouted back. “No!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to relive it. Not again. Once was enough. But then I could see it. Taylor grunting, finishing inside me and pulling out. There was so much blood on him, it was as if he’d been to the butcher. It coated his dick, his thighs. It was everywhere. My blood.

“No!”

“You’re killing her!”

I clawed at my ears. “Stop! Just stop, please!” I shouted.

The slam of the bathroom door startled me, but there was no relief in the sight that greeted me. Taylor stood over me. His dark hair smoothed back. His eyes filled with familiar sickening hate. Had I really craved that hate earlier? Had I really wanted it?