Colour Series Box Set (14 page)

“Come, come for me now little princess.”

Oh and she does. A responsive little thing this as I feel her orgasm taking her over the edge, I pull out and come all over her sweet little ass. I needed that release that raw feeling of control and pleasure. I let her face go when I am sure she will shut up. I pull her skirt down over her cum covered ass and open the garage door. I leave her standing there as I zip up and enter my study from the door inside the garage. The driver will take her home. I love the look on her face as she realises I just used her. I used her sweet body for myself and she liked it. Slut.

I enter the house from the garage into my study, it used to be the TV lounge but I couldn’t face working in Mick’s office so I claimed this space and I like that I can come in here from the garage. My new artwork is still bleeding through my shirt and I can feel it is wet on my shoulder and down the right side of my back. I think Robin got a little carried away today.

I am instantly overwhelmed by the smell of food, good food, and real food home cooked food. She is cooking. I don’t want to disturb her so I stay in the study as long as I can. I remove my offending shirt and sit at my desk, I open a few emails and reply before I just can’t wait anymore my stomach is rumbling with hunger at the aromas coming from the kitchen beyond my door. I haven’t eaten since my breakfast with Callum this morning and I’m starving.

I open the door quietly and walk out into the kitchen, Lauri doesn’t see me, she’s dancing and flipping pancakes. I think the music is so loud nothing could disturb her. I lean on the island and watch her, she’s amazing in the kitchen. She’s oblivious to what just went on in the garage. The thought makes me smile a little, I needed that. I feel almost like me again.

I remember watching her cook at culinary school and my smile grows even bigger. She hasn’t lost all of herself after all.

The smells coming from my under-utilised kitchen are amazing and I wonder where she found anything to cook at all. She’s sipping on a glass of our estate wine, it’s not terrible and we actually make some money from it. Her lips are perfect on the edge of the glass as she swallows blood coloured wine I can almost see it flow down her throat the way she tilts her head back to get the last drop. My smile doesn’t disappear as I watch her wiggle and dance while she cooks with her heart out. She still hasn’t noticed me yet and I’m enjoying this side of her immensely. I see her clothed body moving as if it isn’t broken at all and I am amazed at how strong she really is.

Busted. Her eyes meet mine as she drops a pancake on the floor. She just smiles and retrieves it before tossing it in the open dustbin. I cannot wipe the smile off my face and I don’t want too. She’s amazing.

She pours more batter in her pan not bothered by my presence at all and simply carries on her cooking. There’s no point in talking, the music is too loud to hear anything else so I just stand and watch her for a while longer. Her fluid movements and absolute confidence are so polar opposite to the woman that splintered into a thousand pieces on my bedroom floor only hours ago. I’m drawn to the woman dancing around my kitchen with a pan in her hand. I walk around the island to join her, maybe I can help. Who am I kidding, help I can’t cook for shit she said so herself. But somehow I want to be closer. As soon as I enter her bubble though she stiffens and stops dancing, I have ruined her moment I am an idiot. She turns the music soft enough to be able to talk.

“Can I help?” I stupidly ask not knowing what else to say, she bursts out laughing the same belly laughter as the day she arrived it’s a truly beautiful sound. She just shakes her head at me. I guess I can’t help then. I laugh with her and lean against the sink. “No I am almost done; Rowan then we can sit and eat some real food.”

She has noticed my shirtlessness now and has her eyes glued to my tattoos and chest. She shakes her head finding my eyes again, “Go sit, I will bring the food now, you are home earlier than I thought you would be, but the pasta’s ready.” She motions to the small table under the windows that is set with glasses and all.

I walk over and sit down without taking my eyes off her for a second. I expected to find her where I left her this morning; she seemed to be beyond repair when I saw her last night.

I feel a bit naked without a shirt but I cannot get myself to leave her and go get one. I hope she can’t smell the sex on me, because I can still smell Barbie. Her sickly sweet perfume hangs onto me clawing to my skin. I want a shower but I want food more. My stomach protests its emptiness again loudly this time. Her eyes shoot up to me and she giggles. I am so hungry.

Ellia brings two plates piled with pasta to the table and sits opposite me. The smell of the amazing fresh sauce fills my nostrils and I am suddenly even more ravenous. I pour wine in both our glasses.

“God this smells so good I am starving. Thank you. You know you look pretty amazing when you cook.” Her eyes are all over my body and not on my eyes again. I can see her scanning every inch of art. I cough to get her attention. This woman is making me self-conscious and it’s confusing me.

“Sorry, it’s a pleasure I just thought since you can’t cook I’d better before we both actually starve to death.” Her eyes wonder again as I laugh at her response. I can’t wait any longer and I take a fork full of the steaming hot pasta and begin eating. It’s so good, oh god I really can’t cook. This is amazing. She still hasn’t had a bite when I realize she is still staring. Her hazel eyes are glued to me, her face is searching for answers on my skin somehow, she twists her hair between her fingers then tucks it behind her ear. I have to make her stop. I feel strange, this is creepy.

“Should I … um ... Go put a shirt on maybe so you can eat this amazing food you cooked us?” She blushes bright red, I want so bad to laugh at her right now but I am enjoying how uncomfortable I make her. She takes a bite of food and ignores me at little. But I see her brain ticking over in those stunning hazel eyes.

“Do they hurt?” she asks after swallowing her food. “I mean I know they hurt but how bad? Are those flaming red edges new ones? Is that where you were all day?” She fires her questions one after another not giving me a chance to answer till she has spewed them all out. She clearly hasn’t had anyone to talk to in a while her conversational skills are a bit wild.

“Yes, they’re new, yes that’s where I was amongst other places and yes they hurt. Nothing like any of the hurt you have felt but it’s a pain I have come to enjoy. Almost crave really.” I can see her contemplating each answer carefully. No response on the matter though I told her what she wanted to know now she is done talking. I almost wish she left the music on this is just uncomfortable. I go back to shovelling the amazing pasta down my throat to avoid the awkwardness of it all. I’m not a people person but this is just weird. I’m not used to sharing my space, my meal times or my home with anyone.

We both eat our plates clean, a testament to just how bad my cooking really is. I get up to clear our plates and she follows me to the kitchen and starts to put the pancakes and applesauce onto plates for us and sits back down crossing her one leg underneath her. I could get used to this kind of dinner, bad conversation aside. I sit down and take a bite of the dessert it’s like heaven! She clearly enjoys it too because she didn’t even wait for me to sit before she tucked into hers.

“I love pancakes, this is fucking amazing thank you so much.” I mumble in between bites of the cinnamon heaven on my plate.

“Crepes, they are crepes. And it’s a pleasure. Thank you for not killing me, I mean for everything ... shit. Sorry.” She’s all flustered and confused, and embarrassed all of a sudden she blushes and averts her eyes from my mine.

She needs to work on her brain mouth filter too.

She gets up and leaves the kitchen taking her plate with her to her room, walking quickly down the passage as if she would run if I weren’t watching her. I decide not to follow her instead, I finish eating and clean the kitchen. I sort of fired my maid before Ellia arrived as explaining a crazy prisoner would have been difficult so now I have to keep the place in order. I guess I can get a new one now.

I smile; she was totally eying my chest out. Her eyes betray her all the time and I can almost see her thoughts in them. She never asked what the tattoos meant, that’s normally the first question anyone asks. She never asked.

My shoulder and side burn like all hell now. It’s this pain - the stinging scalding of my skin that lasts days after - that I crave. It reminds me of what I am. I’m a bad man. Robin’s art doesn’t change that it just makes it easier for me to look in the mirror every day but I’m still me underneath it, ugly murderous me.

I don’t let her retreat bother me; I know she needs time to sort things out in her mind. I will go talk to her later on. For now, I turn the music up and wash the dishes. The meal was so good and cooking seemed to ease her pain somehow. I better fucking do some groceries. Maybe I will let her go in her new car she may enjoy getting out the house.

I get lost in the music, the chores, the burn on my skin and just forget for a while that yesterday I murdered two young boys and less than an hour ago I was fucking a car sales lady in my garage. Also that Lauri Spillane is in my spare room and she cooked me fucking dinner, I ate dinner with a woman.

The smell of the dead horses from yesterday is in my head again-erasing the good food we just ate. I finish the dishes and go upstairs to the gym to run. I run till every inch of my body burns and every muscle is wound up like a spring I run to try get some of the ugly out of my mind. I am wound up after that, but I think I can keep my mind in check to actually talk to her, but first a shower. It’s going to sting like a mother fucker but I need it I am sweaty as hell and I smell of sex and Barbie and blood. It’s a bit disgusting actually.

I traipse back down to my room and get in the shower. The steam clouds the whole room and I close my eyes, it’s not her scars I see but her eyes. Her eyes do something to me that I don’t understand. The water is burning the fresh tattoos and feeding more of the pain that I crave. I can’t get her eyes out of my head no matter what I do, so I just wash my hair and get out. I forgo a shirt again as it will just stick and hurt my raw skin. I slip on a pair of sweat pants and head to her room. I want to tell her my idea I want to help her and I really think she started to help herself today.

I knock on her door but open before she can answer I don’t really care I am going in anyways. She gets a fright at my sudden intrusion jumping like scared rabbit. I walk right in and sit on her sofa facing her on the bed she is reading a book she found in the kitchen some cooking book. She puts it down and looks at me, waiting for me to explain my invading her space.

I clear my throat a little. I am nervous, what the fuck is happening to me, I am losing my shit, in fact I think I have lost it all together.

“I want to talk too, I want to talk about last night and why I ran away but I really want to discuss the future with you. That’s if you are ready to talk to me Ellia?”

Her eyes meet mine and they tell me she is scared, not scared terrified. I can feel the fear oozing off her from where I sit. In my job, I see fear all the time, people are afraid of me, afraid of death and dying. I can sense her fear. Her short sharp breaths, I can see her pulse in the vein on her neck and she is wiping her sweaty palms on the bed cover. I need to put her at ease so we can actually talk like adults.

“You don’t need to be afraid of me or scared of me Ellia.” Dammit she looks even more afraid I need to try not sound like the monster I am.

“I won’t hurt you.” I try too hard to sound sweet and it just sounds forced and strange.

Unless you want me too? Where did that come from I think my brain has a short circuit at the moment the number of really inappropriate thoughts crossing my mind is ridiculous.

I see her shoulders relax a little and she opens her mouth to speak a few times before she actually says a word.

“Okay Rowan, let’s talk.” she says quietly tugging her sleeves down over her hands and making a point not to look me in the eye, she is terrified of me.

“But I won’t show you again, you saw, my god and it killed me once I will never show you again, so don’t ask me and goddammit don’t tell me to. In fact last night is off limits we can discuss anything else, I know why you ran and it’s nothing we need to discuss.”

Tell her to? I realize now that’s what I did in my rage induced madness I told her to show me I never asked, I commanded it and she could not say no. He has her mind so broken she won’t refuse an instruction she will obey no questions asked. Now I really feel like an asshole.

“I realize I can’t fix you, I also know that you think this was not my fault but I will blame myself always. This is what I think. Ellia’s dead I killed her she has a death certificate and she no longer exists, yes you are alive but you are not her and if we are honest you never were. You can be anyone you like now. I like Lauri Spillane, the girl who shamelessly flirted with me as teenager the person you were before Mick died and your life turned to shit. You were always her underneath and maybe if you can learn to live as her you can live, I can’t fix you, no, but I can help you live, actually live. I cannot take it away but I can help you turn it into something new and worth living for. You are not meant to die, not yet anyway.”

I don’t even take a breath in between or I won’t get it out. I need her to want to live again. I cannot erase those scars but I can maybe heal her heart and mind a little, just enough so she can live.

“You can stay here; it’s your home too. I’ll be here for you if you want me to and I will leave you alone if that’s what you want. I will give a new identity and your money and a set of house keys and you can come and go, you are not a prisoner you are free to live. I want you to live. Your car is in the garage and you are free to do anything you want.”

Her face lifts and while I see the tears descend her cheeks I can also see that she has heard me and she is at least considering what I have said. Her body’s a little softer and more relaxed she isn’t clenching her jaw quite so tightly, her mouth is curling up at the edges, hinting at a smile now. I throw the house keys and car keys on the coffee table showing her I really mean it. She is free.