Deadly (2 page)

Nothing is how it was supposed to be. I don’t want to talk, explain.

…Remember

“Just tell him Cereus, it doesn’t matter now anyhow, does it?”

My eyes trail up the body of the man I adore more than anything. His dark probing eyes see straight through me and command a reaction like no other person can. My soul tethered and owned by his, my dark, beautiful enigma. How did I ever survive life before you?

His warm palm cups my cheek and I crumble into it, seeking, yearning for his comfort. It’s not so often granted, no matter how much he knows I crave it.

I move the damp hair from my face so I can see more clearly. The room is cold and depressing, the metal chairs hard beneath my butt.

Didn’t they think people would be more cooperative if they were more welcoming?

“They don’t want you comfortable, sweet Cereus,” Ryan whispers.

“So your driving licence says you’re Kirsty Jones but can you tell me who Georgina Yates is and why you have her licence?” He’s holding up her driving licence. Hmmm, I’d forgot I had that.

“Always taking souvenirs,” Ryan tuts, shaking his head at me.

Kirsty Jones. How many names have I had now?

I look over to the man asking me questions and then to the man beside him whose eyes are boring into my own. Am I a suspect in a case the other fat idiot has no evidence of, because the man beside him, the man staring at me with such sadness in his heavy lidded eyes wouldn’t allow there to be any?

I scan the familiarities in his features from the man I once knew. The small lines creasing around his eyes are new, but overall his appearance is so familiar, yet so distant.

…Another lifetime.

“Kirsty, can you answer the question? Who is Georgina Yates?” The useless dick asks again. How am I freezing to death and yet there’s sweat beading and dripping from his forehead.

Because they pulled you out of a cold lake and his body is four times the size of yours and it’s trying to burn off all those doughnuts.

I smirk at my inner bitch, I liked her a lot. Why does he care so much about Georgina anyway?

“So many names, so many people it’s hard to remember them all, you know.” I muse, smiling wickedly. I’ve never really thought about it before but it’s quite a scary thought… what sinister thoughts can lurk behind a smile, especially mine.

Ryan’s dark rumbling laugh sends energy through my veins causing a shiver, and he knows it too, knows what he does to me. The glint in his eyes make them shine like glossy black sapphires.

“Don’t tease the man, my sweet Cereus. Remember.

It’s why you’re here.”

I do remember her, of course I do. She was someone we actually both liked, which was rare and something Ryan would never admit to if I spoke those thoughts aloud. I can hear Ryan’s reply in my head, “I don’t like anyone Cereus but you and me.”

Maybe “like” is a strong word, tolerated would be a better term. I liked her and he tolerated her, and in the end he was right about her not being like us, no one is. She was the reason I was here.

...She ruined everything

My mind wanders back to the night I brought her back to the cosy villa Ryan had rented for us right off the beachfront.

We had done so much travelling; Ryan was showing me the world and every inch of it was dark and consuming. The powerful intensity from being by his side could be compared to none, he was it for me, and I worshipped him. I fed on the remedy of his allure willingly. He gave me everything but him completely and my body ached along with my heart for him to fully devour me.

He offered me a life that I could be free in, a life where no one but us two mattered.

Normal people will never know just how magical, how beautiful the darkness can be.

And then everything changed and nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Why couldn’t I just listen to him… why did he have to bring out the monster in me?

Georgina freaking Yates, why did I ever have to meet you?

4 MONTHS EARLIER

Have you ever had a dream so vivid, when you awoke from it your heartbeat was still racing and the tears that leaked freely in the dream world dampened your cheek in the physical world?

I have been having a lot of dreams like that of late.

Happy ones where I would wake up smiling.

Dark ones where I would wake up and question my own cravings for death.

And sad ones, where the tears still flowed even when I woke. Today I’d woken with an appetite.

Ryan was going to help me in ways I’d never really thought about before. Art was always an outlet for me and with each dream came a new sketch, a new face haunting me. Why was everything so muddled?

Why were my dreams so intense, so consuming?

Why wasn’t I more like Ryan?

He said we were the same.

“Another bad dream?” His voice carries from a darker corner of the room where he would occasionally sit and watch me sleep. The shine from the window highlights his silhouette, and to anyone else it would be frightening to wake up with the devil sat with one leg perched up, the ankle resting on his knee and his hands gripping the armrests. Dark, alluring eyes devouring you, imagining all the worst kinds of sin, and yet to me it was a comfort.

His voice was almost accusing, the tone deep and pointed, sending a shiver to race throughout my body.

My demons plaguing my sleeping hours made me angry, made me feel inferior to be with him; I know I was disappointing him…

Shut them up…keep them locked in your head…

“Do your demons not drown you, Ryan?” I ask, already knowing the answer…
nothing could drown him
.

“I am my demons, and I know how to swim.”

His reply was one I expected from him and how I longed to feel that way about mine. The way he spoke it was so confident, he was so comfortable with who he was. I thought I was where I belonged so why was I so disturbed by ghosts when I closed my eyes at night?

Things were so good for a while; I was painting more than just Ryan, more than just Hannah and Tom dying in a pool of blood. I’d been painting the landscape and architecture of all the beautiful places he had shown me over the three years we’d been travelling together. Ryan filled the void inside me and in a small way I believed I did the same for him. Sometimes when my demons troubled my dreams I felt a burden to him. He was so comfortable in the dark, within himself, that I was jealous of his freedom and longed for him to help free me of them.

“Teach me,” I begged.

His domineering presence in the room caused the air to heat around me, he was a force so strong even the air around him appeared to tremble.

That’s just your quivering thighs.

My mind was like a washing machine set on a spin cycle. I could never stop the turbulence in there lately.

Focusing solely on him, I will the storm inside to calm.

“Until you accept who you actually are, you’ll never be free of those dreams Cereus.” His leg unfolds, dropping to the floor where he leans forward to pick something up at his feet. He holds up a sketch I did yesterday, it’s of a girl I’d met briefly at the beach a couple of days before. Thinking of her brings turmoil and annoyance to the surface. She was wearing a string bikini and she mocked me for my one piece in front of a crowd of men she was with. I rarely ever ventured out to do normal things like going down to the beach but I wanted to swim in the ocean. I liked swimming; it was freeing and helped soothe the madness inside.

It wasn’t the fact she was trying to be a bitch in front of men, I didn’t care what they thought of me. It was the fact she had the cheek to even approach me just to be a bitch. It was like looking in the face of Hannah all that time ago.

Some people are so insecure about themselves that they need to target others.

She was found dead the next day on the very sand she mocked me from.

… She deserved to die

“Until I accept who I am? What does that even mean?” I ask, confusion worrying my brow.

When he rises to his feet it makes me startle and shift on the bed. He comes striding towards me and I have to hold my breath until he’s hovering over me, his shadow wrapping itself around me.

Sucking in a deep pull of his scent my body becomes on high alert, my nipples peaking. He knows how I feel about him, and although it’s perversion in the eyes of ‘normal’ people…we were so much more than normal. Ryan was anything but normal, he was a king amongst men to me. A dark king forged from sin and he carried that aura around with him like a cloak, dousing him in a warning.

Beware the devil walks among you.

Only I didn’t see it as a warning, I saw it as an invitation.

The pad of his thumb combs over my brow and then swipes down my cheek to rest under my chin, digging into the skin slightly, commanding me to rise to my knees.

His lips move over mine, barely touching but I can feel them as if he pressed down hard. They are hot and soft. His rumbling groan vibrates against them making my lips tickle. I never wanted the feeling to end; I could stay just like this, me breathing him and him breathing me, forever.

“I’m going to take you out tonight, I want to show you something.”

I needed him to shut up and stop teasing me. To just give me what I needed already, morals wasn’t something we cared about so why he kept me wound up tight with sexual need was just cruel.

He is cruel, it’s part of the reason you love him.

His presence fell away from me as he backed away towards the door. I couldn’t even wait for him to leave, if he could tease so could I. Dropping back down to the bed with a huff, I slip my hand straight into my panties and swirl the wetness there against my clit. A moan leaves my lips and I scan the doorway to find him leaning against the frame with a smirk on his face. Once again holding up the drawing, he taps it with his hand.

“This has to stop. What would I do if they took you away from me?” Even from across the room I can see the droop of his eyes and the frown lines marring his brow, he was genuinely worried about me being taken away.

They can’t, I’m yours, and you are mine… we belong together.

“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything, what do you think I did, do you think I killed her? One of the guys she was with probably did it. He came over to me and told me she was a bitch afterwards. Roberto or something his name was.” I inhale in a rush. I just spew out words, which I know sound way too defensive. She was in my dreams… there with Tom, Hannah and other faces who have no names. Did I kill her? Did I kill them all? …No, I wouldn’t, I’d remember doing something like that… wouldn’t I?