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  Christian stepped closer. “If you’re serious about the options, a two-hour trip would be better if she were in the trunk. I have blankets and plastic back there.”

  For just such an occasion, I thought.

  Good capos were always prepared.

  It was kind of like the Boy Scout motto for killers.

  “I honestly,” Mason began, looking again into the back seat, “don’t give a shit if you drag her with tow chains. Just get her back there. We need to get Mrs. Murray back for medical treatment ASAP.”

  “We’ll meet you there after we do a little wrapping,” Romero said.

  “No dragging,” I said to both men as Mason walked away, hoping they recognized Mason’s poor attempt at sarcasm or dark humor.

  The capos nodded.

  As we approached the truck, Mason asked, “Are you...good?”

  “Fuck no. But my wife is alive. For that, I’m thankful and ready to pay a debt.”

  “A debt?”

  “Every second she was missing, I offered to trade my soul for that news.”

  “No, man, I know what it’s like to lose your humanity—”

  My steps stopped. “I know what Sparrow said. We’re getting Lorna whatever help and attention she needs. We’ll get her back to Chicago, and then...”

  “We will kill the sons of bitches that took her and Araneae,” Mason finished. “We can do that without giving in to the dark. I’m telling you it’s a shitty place. Once you give in, it’s fucking hard to come back. Take it from me.”

  My head shook. “Spare me the details. I have a wife to avenge, with or without you.”

  “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

  When we reached the truck, Laurel was in the front seat and Lorna was wrapped in the blanket, lying across the back seat. Near her head was a second smaller blanket. “Is it okay if I move her?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Laurel replied, peering over the front seat. “You can lift her head to your lap. Put the other blanket under her head. I want to keep her as warm as possible.”

  I did as Laurel instructed, sliding onto the seat and gently lifting Lorna’s head. She didn’t utter a sound as I covered my drenched jean-clad leg with the second blanket and cautiously lowered her head.

  Laurel smiled as Mason started the engine. “That’s great,” she said. “Now you can monitor her breathing and pulse as we drive.”

  “What if she wakes?”

  “I gave her something to help her sleep. It’s best for healing.”

  As the sky continued to fill with flashes of lightning, rain fell, winds blew, and thunder roared. For the first time in days, I had a small sense of purpose and power. My wife was alive. I had her beautiful body beneath my protective grasp. It was more than that; the poisonous venom that had settled in my veins was no longer foreign. In the short amount of time it had been present, it had taken up residence, giving me focus.

  My wife would heal.

  My wife would live.

  Others would die...a slow and torturous death.

  The feeling of impotence that accompanied the kidnapping was gone. In its place, dark reigned, and while other people could accompany me on this quest, as I gently stroked Lorna’s tangled red locks, I vowed that I would prevail or die trying.

  Reid

  Four days later

  I stared up at the ceiling, my vision accustomed to the dimness of our bedroom. The red numbers glowing from the bedside stand read a little after two. That would be two in the morning. Beyond the blinds, through the windows, and above the Chicago light pollution, the sky was dark.

  For the last two hours I held my wife close to my chest. Her petite body melded perfectly to mine, her soft ass pushing against my semi-erection that with her proximity refused to disappear. Its presence didn’t matter—as far as I was concerned, sex was off the table for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her or that she hadn’t expressed desire for us to be as one—I did and so had she. The reason for our current state of abstinence was my concern for her comfort.

  I refused to cause her any more pain.

  Lorna’s recent nightmare vied with my myriad of thoughts. She imagined her mother, describing her as she was—is. It was that revelation that had my mind in knots. I should talk to Mason, but I refused to leave her side as long as she slept. Slumber had been difficult for her since she woke from her ordeal. While she claimed her memories were nonexistent, the dream she described told me that they were very near the surface. And then there were the signs she didn’t know she was exhibiting.

  I watched her as she startled at the sound of a wake-up alarm or a timer in the kitchen. I saw the way she jumped when a knock came to our door or hesitated before entering a dark room.

  With my arms surrounding Lorna, I was her shield, her protection from future danger. If that would allow her to rest, I would stay by her side for hours on end.

  The familiarity of our bedroom, the one we’d shared for nearly a decade, combined with the way her breathing came in steady breaths could lull me into a false sense of ordinary as if this were any other night, and with simply closing my eyes, I could join her in peaceful slumber. It was as if I could forget that her world had been annihilated and her sense of safety demolished.

  I couldn’t.

  I wouldn’t.

  While there were minutes I’d fallen asleep, each time I woke to Lorna’s gasps or cries, and I berated myself for letting her down. Again.

  My plans for revenge were growing. Such as a flickering spark, as I stared into the night, my thoughts added fuel to my need to destroy. At Lorna’s side was my only connection to humanity, the piece I’d clung to since we found her on Mason’s land. It was a small slice because when I was out of her presence, the dark thoughts inside of me flourished, festering beneath my skin.

  Another check of the clock let me know only fifteen minutes had passed.

  Similar to Araneae Sparrow, Lorna’s memories of the last two weeks were gone to her conscious mind.

  Not gone, Laurel explained.

  The recollections were masked, hidden away in an unmarked location within her brain. According to Laurel, erasing memories completely was rare. Instead, they were stored in a difficult-to-access location covered by either a true traumatic occurrence or a chemically induced cloak. The formula that Laurel had been working to recreate strived for the result she saw in Araneae and Lorna. Whatever drug was given to Mason many years ago had succeeded in concealing all of his memories. It worked until the right trigger removed the veil and brought back the memories.

  Each time Lorna moved or made a noise in her sleep, my pulse raced, ready to comfort her from a nightmare or soothe her back to slumber.

  I worried: what other memories like those of Nancy Pierce would come to her while she was asleep?

  Laurel explained that the unconscious mind was unhindered by conscious thoughts. Though I longed to ease myself out of our warm cocoon to further my plans to avenge my wife and check on programs running a floor below, I wouldn’t. My desire to be with Lorna was the only reason that those things could wait. As I’d said, she was my only tether to the light.

  My thoughts raced in circles, similar to cars on a racetrack. Spinning and spinning, yet never going anywhere. I blinked my eyes, taking only a moment to savor my wife’s body against mine.

  I woke with a start, sitting upward and trying to orient my thoughts. No longer moving on the track, my thoughts were in a spiral. Darkness still shadowed our room. The clock now read 5:37.

  Lorna. My hand went to the empty space on the bed beside me.

  Missing.

  My heart pounded against my chest.

  “Lorna,” I called as I threw back the covers. My pulse continued the race as my thoughts sped out of control. “Lorna.” My volume rose.

  How was she gone?

  Did someone take her?

  I tried to reassure myself that no one could access the tower.

  My circulation echoed i
n my ears until the sound of running water came into range, urging me toward the attached bathroom. Without hesitation, I reached for the handle and pushed the door inward.

  A warm fog of steam hung in the air.

  How long had she been in the shower?

  Lorna hadn’t noticed my entrance or heard the door as she stood unmoving under the falling spray. Her naked body revealed a canvas of grotesque art—evidence of her abuse. Yet as I looked upon her, I saw beyond her bruises, cuts, and insect bites. My dick hardened beneath my boxer briefs as her curves glistened a shade of pink in the hot water.

  As I stepped closer, more than the falling water could be heard. Lorna’s soft cries came into range. I now saw the way she trembled, her eyes closed as tears added to the shower’s spray.

  Without further thought, I reached for the handle on the shower door and pulled it open.

  All at once, Lorna spun toward me, her green eyes opening in surprise. Her hands came upward to cover herself before she sighed. “Reid.”

  Even my name was laced with her sadness.

  Still wearing the underwear I’d worn to bed, I stepped inside the stall, closing the door behind me. The sweet scents of soap and shampoo filled my senses. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

  More tears flowed down her cheeks as she nodded and took a step toward me. Pushing herself close, her small breasts flattened against my chest. She fit perfectly under my chin as I again wrapped my arms around her and water continued to fall.

  “Shh,” I soothed. “How long have you been awake? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  Her forehead fell against my chest as she shook her head. In my grasp, her body trembled as more tears combined with the shower on my skin. I turned us away, shielding her with my body from the hot spray.

  Gently, I ran my large hands over her back, down her spine, and over her tight round ass. “Did you have another dream?”

  When she didn’t answer, I tenderly palmed her cheeks and lifted her face upward. Her gaze flickered to mine before her eyes again closed. Bending, I brought my lips to hers. Like Viagra, as our lips connected and her soft, naked body molded to me, my circulation redirected, hardening my dick.

  She looked down, seeing my confined erection before glancing up and grinning. “You’re supposed to take those off before you get in the shower.”

  “I’m supposed to be with my wife when she needs me.”

  Her nostrils flared as she took a ragged breath. “I need you, Reid.”

  My head shook as another part of my body replied in the affirmative.

  Slipping from my grasp, Lorna knelt before me upon the wet tile and reached for the waistband of my boxer briefs.

  “Lorna.”

  She didn’t speak as she pulled the silk boxers down over my hips and down my thighs until my dick sprang free and my boxers were nothing more than a wet pile of fabric on the shower’s floor. Her green eyes, veiled with lashes, peered upward as her two small hands took me in her grasp, running her grip up and down over my stretching skin.

  Her touch was electricity to my nervous system. Synapses sparked like rapid gunfire throughout my body, one after another. My dick grew painfully hard as her tongue lapped my pre-come-covered tip.

  I reached out to the tiled wall as words of rebuke came to mind. They were there, telling her no, telling her that she needed rest, but the words couldn’t or wouldn’t roll from my tongue.

  My breathing labored as her lips parted, and she took me into her warm mouth.

  “Fuck, Lorna.”

  Deeper and deeper she took my length. Her lips were firm, her mouth warm, and her tongue tantalizing. Her fingers of one hand wrapped around my base, pumping me, while the other reached for my balls.

  “Oh fu-c-k.” I elongated the word. It had been so long since we’d been together. She was at the ranch without me and then...

  A pop filled the stall as I took a step back. “Stop.”

  Lorna

  The hole in my chest, the one that I couldn’t identify but was similar to the hole in my memories, ached as I tried to make sense of what was happening and why Reid had told me to stop. My thoughts had been consumed with pleasing and tasting my husband as my core tightened and moistened. And like the flip of a light switch, that was now gone. Everything was gone.

  When I looked up, my husband was offering me his hand.

  It wasn’t his hand I wanted.

  It was the massive cock that seconds before I’d had between my lips. I wanted it for more than sexual pleasure, though I knew my husband was capable. It was the closeness that I longed for. When I’d awakened in his arms, I yearned to turn to him and find bliss in our unity.

  Reid wasn’t always present when I woke. Often, he was down on 2, doing what he did. But when he was present, it was an unspoken invitation. Sometimes he’d wake me. Other times, I’d wake him. However, since I woke from whatever happened, he’d made it clear that sex was off the table.

  When I entered the bathroom, his reasoning was as crystal clear as my reflection.

  Who would want to make love to a woman as truly disfigured as me?

  Who would want to fuck someone so damaged?

  “Lorna,” Reid offered with his hand still extended.

  Instead of placing my hand in his palm, I acted like the child I’d never been allowed to be. I sat upon the wet shower floor, scooting back to the wall and drawing my knees to my chest. Wallowing in his rejection, I surrounded my legs with my arms and laid my chin on my knees.

  “Lorna, come on,” Reid said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “Fuck you, Reid.”

  I refused to look up, yet I felt his reaction. I saw it in the way his steps staggered in the swirling water. Though I wondered how I had any left, more tears came, prickling my sore eyes. There must be a bottomless pit somewhere inside me. Not a pit. There was a black hole where memories disappeared and emotions bubbled like a witch’s cauldron.

  Reid took a step toward me as I pulled my legs closer to my chest. It was as he reached for the shower’s handle to turn off the water that I spoke again, “Leave the water on and get the fuck out. I’m not done.”

  Bending his knees, my husband crouched by my legs. His still-erect cock bounced before me. When I still didn’t look up, Reid took my chin and lifted it until our gazes met. If he was trying for compassion, he failed. His cold, emotionless words were simply a directive. “Your shower is done. You’re getting out.”

  If daggers could be sent through eyes, I was sending them. “Fuck you.”

  “Oh, sweetheart” —his tone deepened— “I want that so fucking bad it hurts.”

  I blinked, releasing the tears on my lashes as I shook my head still in his grasp. “Obviously not.”

  Reid released my chin. As his legs straightened, his muscular thighs flexed. With his eyes fixed on me, he reached for his length, wrapping his long fingers around his erection. I sucked in a breath as he moved his hand up and down, pleasuring himself, doing what I had wanted to do.

  His tenor deepened as his volume rose, his intonation slowing. “You don’t think I want you, sweetheart?”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his hand, the way it moved and how his large cock twitched as it grew unbelievably larger. Under the spray of the shower and his manipulation, veins came to life beneath his stretched, velvety skin.

  Reid’s hand moved faster. “I want inside your tight cunt more than I want anything else.”

  My tongue darted to my lips as droplets of come glistened from the slit at the tip.

  “But I won’t hurt you.” His hand continued its movement. “You want to make me come. Fine. I’ll come and then we can be done.”

  “Fuck you. Get out. You don’t want me. If you can get yourself off, so can I.”

  His hand stopped.

  Once again, I laid my forehead upon my knees. “If you wanted me, you wouldn’t have stopped me from—”

  My body rose as he grasped my arm, pulling me to my feet until I was sandwiched b
etween the wall and him. The water continued streaming toward us from the side. Still grasping my arms, this mountain of man pinned me in place. While his cock prodded my stomach, it was his handsome face that had my attention. Emotions swirled in his dark eyes that I couldn’t fully identify. There was lust and desire but also hurt and even anger.

  The shower spray glistened on his skin as the muscles on the sides of his face tightened underneath his morning beard growth.

  “You don’t understand,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Though my arms ached in his hold, I held his stare. “No. You’re wrong. I understand. I get it. I’m ugly. You can’t stand to look at me, and you sure as hell don’t want me.”

  He thrust his hard cock against me. “Does it feel like I don’t want you?”

  “So you’re punishing me? You’re keeping sex from me because of what happened? Do you blame me for being taken?”

  His answer came quick and loud, echoing through the shower stall. “No. I blame me.”

  The hole in my chest ached. “Reid, it’s not—”

  He pressed himself against me. “When you were there” —he tilted his chin toward the shower floor— “it felt so fucking good. I started to forget...”

  “That’s what I want. I want to forget.”

  His head shook. “I can’t. And it makes me so goddamned mad. Lorna, I’m so fucking angry that someone took you, touched you, hurt you...I can’t control it and if I let loose...”

  Bending my pinned arm, I found his captive cock wedged between us. I moved my hand over the smooth skin. “Make me forget, Reid. Fuck me. Fuck me with all that anger. Or make love to me. Consume me so that all of my thoughts are filled with you, and for a time I will stop thinking about what I can’t remember.”

  His wide chest moved with deep breaths as tendons pulled tight in his neck.

  “Use me,” I said, “Let me use you. I can take whatever you have because I know you love me.”

  “Once I start...”

  I moved my hand faster as the cock in my grasp turned to steel. “I’ll beg if that’s what you want.”