"Do you know what made him leave?"
"He was done, I think."
"He finished on you?"
I nodded jerkily.
"Where did he finish on you? Where did his cum go?"
I shuddered.
"Turn around and show me, as best as you can, where his semen went."
I did it fast, pointing from my rear all the way up my back, where I'd felt it and seen it when I'd taken my clothes off.
"All on your clothing? Or some on your skin?"
"S-s-s-skin t-t-t-t-too."
"And you got a good look at him? I remember you said that. But nothing you just told me indicates that you were looking at anything but the ground."
"When he g-got up and started running, I stood. I was dizzy, but I saw him. I recognized him. He's the homeless guy that always hangs out by the river, at the bridge right by the middle school. I thought he was harmless before, he usually just ignores everyone that passes him, but I guess I'd never encountered him alone. I usually walk to school with a friend of mine."
"Okay. So you got a good look at him running away. Did you see his face?"
"Yes. He looked back at me as he was running. It was definitely the same guy that's usually hanging out there. I've probably seen him on the way home from school, camped out by the river, a hundred times."
"Okay. I think we're done for now. You did a good job today, sweet girl. We're going to find this guy. I promise."
I was so relieved I started crying harder.
He seemed to take that as an invitation to pull me into his chest, embracing me.
It was almost comforting. The size and shape of him, so big and hard, reminded me of Dante.
But this was not Dante. This was a middle-aged cop who I knew I couldn't trust.
Was he going to leave soon? Please, please leave soon.
I tried to pull away, but he held me fast. I started to struggle, and he let me know how strong he was by bear-hugging so hard that I couldn't move.
If only I could stop crying, maybe he'd leave.
"Hey now," he murmured into my hair. "You're safe here, sweet girl. I'm just trying to help you. Just cooperate, okay? And know this: You can tell me anything. I know you're a good girl, right? I can see that, and I want you to know that if you have any questions about what happened to you, you can always come to me, with anything, okay?"
"I just want to be alone," I gasped into his chest.
"Okay. Okay, I get it. But you call me if you need anything, okay?"
I agreed to, just to get him to leave.
When he was finally gone I stood shaking at the door, twisting the bolt, again and again, to be sure it was locked.
I may have been in shock. I didn't feel right. I wasn't sure what to do.
I felt dirtier, more raw than I had even after the attack. Somehow, this had felt like even more of a violation.
I took a shower and rubbed my skin until it burned.
What had just happened hadn't been normal procedure. I knew that, of course, but what could I do about it?
Who could I tell? The police? He was, sadly, the nicest one I'd met so far.
I knew absolutely that I could not tell Dante. He was a maniac when it came to that sort of thing. He'd fight anybody. He didn't give a damn. Cop or not. Adult or not, he'd go after this creep and end up in jail. I was certain of it.
It took a few days, but I worked up the nerve to call his partner, Detective Flynn, to try to tell her how he'd acted toward me, but she quickly put me in my place.
She was not inclined to believe anything I had to say, in fact she wanted to give me an earful.
She told me in no uncertain terms that I was nothing but a troublemaker, just like my mother, who she enjoyed informing me, spite in every word, had stolen her boyfriend from her in high school and was still feeling the sting of it.
Just my luck.
And who else did that leave? The sheriff? One of the other cops? It was just a list of people that hated me, that thought I was trash, people who had become absolutely convinced a long time ago that I was the problem.
I thought that interview was the worst of it, and the worst had been bad enough.
But the blows just kept coming.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire."
~Charles Bukowski
PRESENT
DANTE
What was I doing here?
I didn't have a good answer to that question. Not even for myself.
Certainly I had no hope. No more than I ever did.
But mostly, I couldn't help myself.
I could not stay away.
She was the siren that called men to their destruction, and I was the first and most eager to answer that deadly call.
Every fucking time.
Always there was a debate in my mind when I did this, when I gave in and went to her again.
Was this heaven or hell?
I'd never been able to answer that question, and that was the whole fucking problem.
It was both.
I'd pulled strings to gain access to her trailer while she was on set. I'd done so promising I was just leaving her a gift and then I was supposed to go.
I didn't do that. I set her gift on the small table then promptly sprawled out on her sofa, loosening my tie, kicking off my shoes.
She had to have a break at some point. I had time. I'd wait.
I was dozing when the door opened some time later. I sat up with a start.
It was her, and for some reason she didn't call security on me.
Instead, she stepped in and closed the door behind her.
I took her in, let her presence wash over me, my eyes devouring her in nonconsecutive bites; her face, her legs, her hands, her lips, her feet, her eyes, her shoulders, her ankles, her chest, her neck, my eyes darting all over her like she might disappear.
Nothing I'd ever seen could touch her. She was as ravishing as she was unattainable.
So heartbreakingly lovely that I ached with it.
A familiar, gnawing pang started throbbing in my gut, and I let the pain wash over me for a moment, indulged in it.
There'd been changes since the last photos I'd seen of her. She'd colored her hair, for the part no doubt, lightened it up just a touch, but enough so that gold streaks overtook and dominated the color, making her some deep, tawny version of blonde.
She was dressed simply, outfitted for whatever scene she'd been doing in a soft white button up blouse tucked into a high-waisted, well-fitted light gray skirt. It was an almost conservative ensemble, until you took in the shoes. They were glittering ivory platform stilettos with a peep toe, and she wore them like a weapon.
I'd have bet money she'd made friends with the wardrobe person, that she'd had at least some say in those man-eater heels.
My eyes shot up to her face as her luscious mouth turned up mockingly at the corners, her fingers going to the front of her blouse, fingering the top button.
Without a word, she started to undress.
"Scarlett." Two syllables. Utter devastation.
She undid one button, and then the next, revealing silky cleavage, a lacy white bra.
"I didn't come here for this," I told her, trying my best to sound convincing.
We always said our lines, played our parts, but that didn't mean I wasn't sincere.
The problem was, no matter my intentions, when it came to her, I did not have one measly ounce of self-control.
She smiled and it was so vicious that it made me flinch. "Once again, you're a fool. What did you come here for then?" She asked the familiar question with an unfamiliar something in her voice.
Something soft, or did I just want to hear that?
Something forgiving? No, certainly I must have been imagining that.
"I wanted to ask you a question."
She'd finished unbuttoning her shirt and shrugged it off nonchalantly. Without pausing her fingers went to
the front clasp of her bra, snapping it open.
My jaw went slack, my mind blank. I may have drooled.
"What was the question?" she asked, sounding so annoyed that I knew she must have asked it several times before I heard it.
But seriously, what did she expect? She was topless now, playing with her incomparable breasts while she spoke. Of course she knew what she was doing. The amused glint in her eye told me that she was messing with me and she loved the results.
And even knowing she was toying with me, even knowing she thought it was all a battle, a game of war, none of that calmed my reaction to her. None of it quelled my undying desperation for her. It never had.
Just the opposite.
Panting, I answered, "I can't concentrate on anything when you do that."
She bit her lip, her brows drawing together in a fake coy expression that I fucking ate up with a spoon. Slowly, teasingly, she inched out of her skirt. "Is this better for your concentration? What did you come here for, lover? What was your question?"
She continued to strip, so slow and languid that I could hardly stand it.
But of course that was the point. She knew what she was doing to me. She always had, at least in this.
I tugged at my collar, outright sweating now. "Jesus, you're merciless."
Her expression did something at that, something vulnerable and twisted, her smile deepening and hardening, turning both more brittle and more real. "You have no fucking idea. Now ask your question."
She was naked now, wearing nothing but her fuck me heels. Jesus, this woman and her shoe-porn would be the end of me.
I tried to ask it. I really did, but before I could get a word out, she was straddling me, every inch of her perfect, bare skin suddenly within reach of my eager hands.
Lust charged through me like a ram. I felt the sharp, sweet ache of it deep in my loins, desire so thick and acute it'd turned painful.
I'm sure she thought I would touch her breasts, her hips, her ass, her cunt, some part of her outrageously beautiful body that she'd so generously draped over mine.
I did not. Both of my trembling hands went up to cup her perfect, oh so beloved face. My voice was somehow steadier than my hands as I asked her my question. "Do you love me at least as much as you hate me?"
That was all I needed, just that small aching bit for me.
Had I kept even some tiny piece of her love?
It made me wretched to ask and worry at her answer. Even so, I had to know.
But there was no mercy in her, not today.
She smiled, a gentle smile that made me tense up more than any of her venomous ones had.
I knew her. Knew the hatred she carried around inside of her. I was familiar with it. I'd studied every angle of it. Every harsh plane, every bitter hollow, every rough edge. Like everything about her, that hatred was only at home with extremes.
I knew where it began, what made it thrive, and why it had decided to focus so squarely on me.
I owned my part of it, my share of the blame, but that didn't make it easy, or even okay. It was simply a fact of life that I'd had to accept along with many others.
While I bided my time.
But the smile she gave me then, that one particularly, one almost as gentle as it was condemning, Jesus, I knew in an instant that it meant something had changed.
And I was terrified.
"I'll answer that," she said in a voice so throaty and resonant it could choke your soul. "I will. But not yet. First, I have a question of my own."
I was shaking my head before she'd even finished.
No. No. No.
There was something too meaningful in her eyes as they raked over my face, like a switch had been flipped, one that should not, could not, be turned on.
But she knew me too well, knew how to weaken me, what strategy to use to gut me the fastest.
Her mouth was my undoing, her lips my own personal heaven and hell. They were a weapon she used seldom but unrepentantly, and they were all the more potent for it.
I was a slave to those lips, a willing lamb to slaughter, and when she pressed them to mine, I was already past the point of all resistance.
I forgot my question, forgot hers, forgot everything but the simple joy of reveling in her—my weakness and my strength, my purpose and my distraction, my redemption and my undoing.
I couldn't even believe I was here with her, that she hadn't had me kicked out the second she found my drunken ass in her trailer. Instead she was straddling me naked, leaning over me as she kissed and kissed me, unbuttoning my shirt, pushing it aside to rub her naked breasts against my bare chest how she knew I loved.
She completely ignored the chain around my neck and the small objects that hung from it.
I was only relieved by that. She usually took exception to it.
But I would never take it off.
I returned her kiss with fierce abandon, not even trying to hold back.
When she spoke, it took a while for me to register her words, even as sharp as they were.
"What have you done to us, Dante?" she breathed into my mouth. "What have you done?"
I froze.
No. No. No. This could not happen.
Could not.
I was tense, ready for the next blow, the next unanswerable question, but it didn't come.
As though she thought she'd said enough, she didn't ask it.
Instead she kissed me again, her hands as busy as her tongue. She kneaded at my abs, working her wicked hands lower, undoing my slacks, freeing me.
She kept moving, poising herself over me, rubbing her wet sex against my cock in a way that she knew made me lose half my brain cells.
At least half.
She gave my lip one last drugging bite and pulled back to glance down at our bodies.
My head fell back, and I couldn't keep in an involuntary shudder.
I was half convinced she was just teasing me, that she'd leave me like this, high and dry (she'd done it before), but that was not what she did.
With excruciating slowness and utmost care, she impaled herself on me.
We didn't speak for a time, well, nothing coherent was said, at least, just a lot of calling out names and speaking to God.
And begging. There was definitely some begging going on.
I'll let you guess which one of us that was.
I lay back on my elbows, fists clenched, and watched through heavy lids as she rode me, languidly and thoroughly, all the while wondering if this was just some wonderful, torturous dream.
I didn't touch her, didn't trust myself to put my hands on her and not just come instantly. I didn't want this to be quick.
I wanted it to last. It was a fact that there was nothing else I'd rather be doing, for as long as I could possibly get away with doing it.
My head fell back again, eyes closing as pleasure washed over me in acutely heavy waves. I was so close, but trying my damnedest not to embarrass myself.
I wasn't succeeding, about a thrust away from losing the battle, when her voice broke through to me.
"What have you done, Dante?" Her voice was as silky as it was deadly. "What lies have you told? Where do they even begin?"
Every muscle in my body tensed.
She leaned forward and kissed me. Her mouth and her movements had almost made me forget her questions, or at least had me back to ignoring them, when she spoke again. "What have you been keeping from me?" came out between kisses.
I froze and almost pushed her off me, almost fled. But there was no running from this, or her. Not anymore.
Also, she started moving again, in earnest now, working herself on my length with quick, jerky motions that were guaranteed to get me off and fast.
I groaned out a protest. She was distracting me from her words on purpose, using a very sound method to switch my attention, and at first, I fought it.
But not for long. Not for more than a few seconds, if I were honest.
She knew what she was
doing.
I jackknifed up, bear-hugging her to me as I started to come, pistoning my hips against her, face buried in her neck, as I let myself go.
I was still jerking inside of her, mid ejaculation, when she whispered against my ear, her voice filled with gentle malice, "What secrets are you holding trapped in that manipulative brain of yours?"
It was a sobering enough question that it probably should have stopped me in my tracks, if it were possible.
It probably wasn't. I kept her crushed against me as I rubbed out every last twitch.
Even with a heavy dose of trepidation mixed in, it was glorious.
She had to wriggle against me for a time before I'd let her loose. When I finally did, she shoved her hands against my shoulders, pushing away from me, drawing me out of her with one long, decisive pull.
I couldn't help it, I tilted my head down to watch.
I shuddered as I noticed the evidence of our passion on her thighs.
It was a sight to behold, if you're animal enough to like that sort of thing.
I certainly am.
She moved away from me without another word, striding naked into the bathroom.
I collapsed back on the couch, feeling exhaustion creep over me. I didn't even have the wherewithal to be worried just then. I was nothing but spent.
It seemed I blinked and she was out of the bathroom and dressed again, looking like she hadn't just rocked my world on her lunch break.
I rallied myself enough to speak up when I realized she was just going to leave. "Wait," I said weakly, barely keeping my eyes open. "You didn't answer my question.
She paused, eyeing me with spectacular detachment. "Did you answer any of mine? Goodbye, Dante. Don't be here when I come back."
"Can you wake me up at the soonest possible moment?" I murmured at the empty trailer about a second before I passed out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love."
~William Shakespeare
PAST
SCARLETT
Weeks went by and there was no progress in the police investigation. No arrests were made.