She told me that she wanted to keep the tube in at least until tomorrow morning, just to be on the safe side. I'd agreed, but not because I wanted to. My brain was scrambled, but not so much that I didn't know that I wasn't really in a place to make any real decisions. So I'd trusted her judgment.
Then she'd told me why half my body felt like it was on fire.
Because it had been.
She'd listed off my injuries in a matter-of-fact manner, but she hadn't been cold about it, just professional. She'd told me of all the things I had to look forward to over the course of the next few months. What it would mean for the rest of my future.
Without the army.
She hadn't needed to tell me that part. I wasn't stupid. I knew these were career-ending injuries.
After all I'd been through, there were two things that had saved my life and the army had been one of them. I didn't know what I was going to do if I couldn't be a soldier.
Except I wasn't even sure I needed to think that far ahead.
The doctor was optimistic about my chances for survival, but there was caution in her voice. I wasn't medically trained, but I knew enough to know that it was far too early to tell for sure that I was going to make it.
And I wasn't sure I wanted to.
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to push the darkness away.
Not the darkness that came with drug-induced sleep, but rather a different kind. The kind I'd experienced a few times before in my life, but not in a long time. I didn't want to go back there.
I had to think of something else.
Focus.
One detail, then the next. That was the way to do it.
Fuck, my arm hurt.
No, I wasn’t a detail to focus on, no matter how true it was. Because if I thought about how much it hurt, then I'd start thinking about what was wrong with it and what that meant for my future...
Home.
Philadelphia, not the base. I'd been at different bases and stationed all over the world. But none of those were ever home.
Even with all the bad memories Philadelphia held, it was familiar. It was home.
I tried picturing the different parts of it in my mind.
The graffitied buildings and rusty basketball hoops of my childhood.
The cobbled streets and small shops of Germantown.
When I'd been there last, I'd walked for hours, imprinting the images in my mind.
The various shapes and kinds of fish marking the sidewalk and buildings in Fishtown.
The rainbow flags that showed the transition into another neighborhood.
The trains that ran from one end of the city to the other.
Local theater. Historical monuments. The Liberty Bell. The famous steps that everyone wanted to run.
Hell, I'd run them more than once.
I wondered if I'd ever be able to run them again. If my lungs would heal enough to let me run like that again.
And there I was again, back to the pain.
I couldn't think about Zed or my men, or the base, because then I'd be thinking about my life without any of those things.
If I didn't have the army, what did I have?
The girl from the other night? What was her name? Naomi? Nancy? Nance. Right. She'd been fun, but that wasn't a relationship.
I didn't have someone to sit by my bed. No family. I was sure Zed would come by as soon as he was able, but it wasn't like he had some nine-to-five job. He'd come when he could, but that was only until he was shipped out again. And we were friends, but he wasn't family. I trusted him to have my back, but I wasn't his responsibility.
I didn't want to be anyone's responsibility.
Fuck it all!
How the hell had it come to this? I'd survived a hell of a lot, and this was how it was going to end?
But maybe this was how it was supposed to end.
The fragments of my dreams and memories from when I was first injured came to me, reminded me of what I'd been thinking during that foggy haze of time. That I deserved this.
Mea culpa.
Was this just karma's way of fucking me over like I deserved?
I didn't doubt it.
A flash of movement caught the corner of my eye and I tried to turn my head to see, but the stupid tube prevented it. It was unnerving, not being able to see, not being able to protect myself.
But I didn't need to protect myself.
No one could hurt me here.
Movement again, coming closer this time. I waited for it to come into my line of sight.
For a moment, I hoped it was her, the brunette. Nori.
She'd sat next to me. Held my hand. I'd heard the doctor talking to her when I first woke up and it sounded like she'd been here with me quite a bit.
I wondered why.
I didn't know her.
I was sure I didn't.
I wasn't one of those men who went through women so fast and so loose that he couldn't even remember their faces. And I knew I'd remember hers. It wasn't just because she was pretty either. I remembered how she'd kept telling me to hold on, kept encouraging me.
The fact that she'd done that for a complete stranger intrigued me.
Hell, she was pretty much the only thing that intrigued me at the moment.
Then the person who'd come into the room stepped close enough that I could see who it was. My heart twisted, suddenly too full of emotions.
Tall, muscular despite his age. Dark brown hair streaked with white. Emerald eyes that looked sadder than they had in a long time.
“Oh, kid. What'd you do now?” The old man shook his head as he pulled up a chair.
Father Doron O'Toole. The closest thing to family I had.
My throat felt like it was tightening around the tube, and my eyes stung. I appreciated the fact that he was here, but I didn't want him to see me like this. Weak. Helpless.
Destroyed.
I motioned with my right hand. We'd been pretty much sticking with the 'blink once for yes, twice for no' line of communication, but this wasn't something I wanted to play a guessing game with. I'd had one thought repeating over and over in my head since I'd woken up. I'd tried to push it away, tried to think of something else, but now that he was here, I needed to tell him.
After a moment, he saw what I was doing and found a pad of paper and a pen. He set it on my bed and put the pen in my hand. It took a moment before my fingers could grip it correctly, and even then, I knew my handwriting was shit. It didn't matter though, as long as it was legible.
When I held it up for Father O'Toole to read, I knew I'd managed at least that much.
Four words.
Four shaky words.
I want to die.
Continues in Dom X Vol. 2. Grab the complete 5 book Box Set of Dom X now. On SALE for a limited time. CLICK HERE to download the complete Box Set and keep reading.
Unlawful Attraction - Volume One
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Belmonte Publishing LLC
Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC.
Chapter One
Dena
The woman in the mirror looked back at me with pale gray eyes that matched the suit. It was a good suit, one I wore when I needed to look at least close to my twenty-six years, or when I wanted to look my best. Since today was my last day at Webster & Steinberg, it was my only choice.
I couldn't believe it was finally here. I’d gone through the follow-ups with my biggest clients and handled the ones who needed to be gently handed off to the woman who’d fill my shoes. They'd all been sorry to see me go, but not as sorry as my boss. I'd be the fourth lawyer she lost in a little over a year. The other three had been friends of mine, and their absence here made leaving a bit
easier.
I thoroughly expected to get through the day without anyone really noticing and I'd managed it up until a few minutes ago when my co-workers had sprung a surprise going-away party for me. Surprise because I wasn't really that close with any of them. Without Leslie, Carrie and Krissy here, I'd mostly kept to myself. I wasn't shy or a snob, but I liked to focus on my work, and they'd been the only ones who'd ever really managed to keep me from being a total workaholic.
The bathroom door swung open and I leaned forward to finish checking my make-up. I hadn't cried because I didn't do that, but I had gotten a bit teary and I wanted to make sure nothing had run.
Emma smiled at me as she came in. “Don't think for one moment we're going to let you hide in here.”
I gave her a small smile. “I thought for once you guys wouldn't make a big deal of things.”
“You’re such a sweet kid, believing in fairy tales.” She winked at me before disappearing into one of the stalls.
I laughed and affably called her a bitch before stepping back from the counter. With my white blonde hair chopped into a short pixie-cut and my petite frame, I looked years younger than I was, which meant I spent plenty of time being referred to as a 'kid.' Instead of letting it bother me, I usually took advantage of people underestimating me.
“By the way, Dena, one of the partners came down to tell you good-bye. Better get out there,” she added.
Sighing, I pushed away from the sink. “Why would they want to do that?” I'd already said good-bye to my boss, Mimi. She wasn't a named partner, but rumor had it she would be by the end of the year.
Emma answered my question, “Probably because you know exactly when to go for the balls and exactly how hard to squeeze. You’ll be missed. For your ability to squeeze balls if nothing else.”
I rolled my eyes as I turned toward the door.
Another hour and I’d be done. I both dreaded and anticipated the moment. I’d miss the stability, the familiarity of Webster & Steinberg, but at the same time, I’d been preparing for the step I was about to take for what felt like my entire life.
As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom, scents of food assailed me from the break room. My belly started to rumble almost immediately. They’d kept me running all day, so when I hadn't been finishing up with my clients, I'd been handling busy work or running errands, even making calls that generally the interns would've handled. I hadn't thought anything of it since I'd known I couldn't take on anything new.
Now I saw they’d kept me busy so I wouldn’t figure out what they were up to. It also meant I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch. Most people thought that since I was barely five feet and maybe a hundred pounds that I didn't eat much. That wasn't the case, and I was seriously hungry.
As I stepped into the break room, the decorations hit me all over again. The entire room was done up in streamers, and on the far wall there was a sign with bars that read Put ‘em away, Dena! Behind the bars, it showed the scruffy, tired face of a man glaring sullenly at the camera.
Two weeks ago, I’d accepted a position as an assistant district attorney. I wouldn’t be arguing the big cases or anything. Not for a while yet, but at least I had the ever important foot in the door. Once I'd proven myself, I'd get to start on the big stuff.
“Are you excited?”
At the question, I looked over at Lori Martin, the attorney the firm had hired to take my clients. Since Leslie had left a couple months back, I carried too heavy a load to just shunt my cases off onto others in the firm. The divorce business was booming.
Smiling at Lori, I nodded. “I am.”
For as long as I could remember, this was all I ever wanted to do. Some little girls grew up dreaming about being a nurse, a doctor, a teacher. Not me.
A friend of mine from high school had majored in archaeology. That had been her dream ever since she’d been a kid. Working in the garden with her mom one year, she’d found a bone and in her child’s mind, it had been a bone from some rare, undiscovered dinosaur. In reality, it'd been a dog’s hind leg, but that hadn’t mattered in the long run. It sparked her interest and she'd gone for it.
I’d always wanted to be a lawyer. A prosecutor, to be specific. Working at Webster & Steinberg had only been a stepping stone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have some fun little story about why I'd decided I wanted to put bad guys away. My desire had come from tragedy.
Late one night, more than twenty years ago, sirens had woken me. I’d crawled into bed with my parents and gone back to sleep. As a child, that wailing sound had been common enough in my neighborhood.
The next morning, both of my parents had been unusually quiet. My father had gone to work like usual, but Mom stayed home with me. When I asked her why my sitter hadn't come yet, she told me my sitter had gone away. I persisted, but all she'd say was that Miss Jenny was gone and I'd understand when I was older.
The problem was, I'd always been a precocious child, too nosy for my own good, and I discovered the truth myself a couple of days later when I'd seen a newspaper with a picture of Jenny.
Mom had come in when I'd been sounding out the headline.
She’d tried to take the paper away, but I’d already figured out enough of the words to ask the question.
What’s dead, Mama?
My mother had softened the blow as much as she could, but how could anything about murder be soft to a four year-old? I'd understood sick and old, but I'd known Miss Jenny hadn't been either one of those.
Mom told me that the man who'd killed Miss Jenny had been a different kind of sick and that he hadn't meant it. My childish mind had accepted that, but I'd come back to her explanation years later when the older sister of a boy in my class had been murdered. At twelve, I'd been old enough to read the stories in the newspapers and online. And I'd been old enough to research when I recognized the name of the man's previous victim.
Jennifer Kyle.
That’s when I'd found out that Jenny's killer had been an ex who'd beaten her before. That he'd been arrested with her blood still on him, but a defense attorney had found a loophole that had let the murderer go free. Free to kill my classmate's sister.
That was when I'd decided what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be the one who made the bad guys go to jail.
Soon, I'd be doing it. Very soon.
Looking over at Lori, I nodded again. “Yes. I’m very excited.”
* * *
My excitement must've been showing on my face when I walked into Club Privé that night. My friends were already waiting for me at our regular table, Carrie's and Krissy's men at their sides. Carrie and her extremely rich and hot fiancé, Gavin Manning, ran the club together and they were almost sickeningly in love. Not that Krissy and her equally gorgeous and wealthy man, DeVon, were any better. They both lived on the West Coast, but DeVon was rich enough that he and Krissy came to visit as often as possible.
I hugged Leslie first as she stood to push out my chair. Krissy was next, and then I was in Carrie's arms for a quick, but heartfelt embrace.
I didn’t have a chance for anything more than that, though.
Carrie's eyes narrowed as she released me. “You’re up to something. It's written all over your face, Dena. Tell us. What is it? Tell us.”
Krissy leaned forward a little bit, her expression speculative.
Shit. I'd forgotten how intuitive the two of them could be. Even Leslie was looking at me with suspicion, and she usually let me alone.
“You're right, Carrie,” Krissy agreed, nodding sagely. “You’re up to something, Dena. I know that smirk. What's going on?”
I reached for the glass of water in front of me and took a sip, trying to buy time. I didn't want to just blurt it out. These three women were my best friends, the closest things I'd ever had to sisters. They would understand why this was so important to me.
In those brief seconds, Krissy took over, falling easily into her usual role within the group. Her dark eyes glinted as she proppe
d her elbow on the table. Chin in hand, she asked, “Did you meet a guy? Say you met a guy. Tall and blond, or dark and mysterious?”
“Both?” Leslie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. At least with her there, I wasn't the only single one.
With a snort, I glanced over as a woman stopped by to check on our drinks. I put my order in before answering, “No. I didn't meet a guy.” Mentally, I added, I wish.
I’d hooked up with a couple men off and on over the past year, but none of them had been worth more than one night. A part of me wanted what Krissy and Carrie had, but it wasn't as easy for me as it was for them.
I wasn't exactly blaming myself for my single state, but I had certain...quirks that made it hard for anything long-term. Club Privé, ideally, should've made it easier, but in reality, it hadn’t.
There were plenty of good-looking guys – and hell, I wasn’t so shallow that the man had to be a ten. Other things mattered besides washboard abs and a face that looked like he’d been carved by the very hands of Michelangelo. I did want somebody I was physically attracted to, but somebody who made me laugh and somebody who got me did a hell of a lot more than a pretty face.
And that was where everything got fucked up.
Club Privé was a sex club, and one that catered to the bdsm lifestyle. Except most of the guys who came here already had it in their head what they wanted from a sub, and I didn't fit that role. Oh, I might've looked the part, but there weren't a lot of men who had what it took to dominate a switch. And that's what I was.
Some of the time, I loved being in control in the bedroom, but there a lot of times I needed something else. It freed something inside me, gave me a place where I could just let go and know that I'd be taken care of. But it'd been way too long since I’d had that.
The men who saw that I could also dominate took it as a challenge, something to work out of me, especially the men who got off on humiliation as a way to top their partner. I didn't judge the ones who were into that, but it wasn't my kink. Sub or Dom, I enjoyed the control part of things. A little rough play wasn't bad, but the whole punishment / humiliation part of things wasn't what I wanted.