Fortitude (Heart of Stone) (12 page)

I pulled out of his hold and snatched up my bag. “Go get
high and fuck your whore. We are done!”

I shrivelled in my skin as various gasps echoed around
the room, several pairs of eyes followed me out but only one voice ricocheted
off the walls.

“AVA!”

The doors closed behind me as I stepped out into the
night air. A bright red Ferrari pulled up at the bottom of the hotel steps, the
brakes squealing loudly.

“I need to fuck and get high!” I told Steed when I
climbed in and he pulled away.

“I can grant the first but no way do you get the second.”

“Then fuck you, take me home.”

He shook his head but drove.

I forgot about the coke when Steed tied me to his bed,
removed the skin from my backside with his belt and fucked the anger right out
of me.

She laughed when she fell off the bed and rolled across
the rug until she came to rest against the dresser. She looked over her
shoulder and smiled at me, her pretty brown eyes twinkling in delight.

“You know,” she sighed as she rolled onto her back, her
firm tits pointing straight up, a sign that she’d done a job on them. “It’s
just you and me now, Mason.”

I frowned at her as I reached over and lit the joint we’d
both been sharing before we’d fucked. “Eh?”

She leaned over and removed the smoke from me and took a
long drag on it. “Us, just me and you. Who needs anyone else?” She crawled over
to me and perched her elbows on the edge of the bed. “I always knew you would
come back to me.”

“Eh?”

She laughed and nudged me, “Just how much have you had? I
said I knew one day it would be me and you again, both of us together like it
should have been.”

I stared at her and cocked my head. “Bec, we’re not back
together.”

She pulled her perfectly groomed eyebrows together and
squinted at me, “Umm yeah, we are. What’s this then?”

I laughed at her, “It’s called
fucking
, and you of
all people should know that.”

Both her eyes widened on me as she fell back onto her
bottom, “And what does that mean?”

I sighed and shook my head at her, “Oh Christ, did you
think because I fuck you that I want you in my life?”

She swallowed heavily and I grit my teeth as she paled
and stared at me. Her whole expression crumbled as she wet her lips with her
tongue. “I thought…”

She jolted when I snatched the ashtray from the drawers
beside me and threw it against the wall. “For fucks sake. You need to stop
this, Bec. I don’t love you, I will never love you. You’re just a hot cunt.
That’s it, that’s all it’s ever been with me and you. Fucking, screwing,
shagging… call it what you want but you need to realise that I don’t – want –
you!”

Her eyes lowered to the floor as she nodded. She pulled
her clothes from beneath the bed and slowly dressed herself. She didn’t look at
me again until she pulled open the bedroom door.

“You know,” she said quietly as she paused in the
doorway. “All I ever did was love you. I would never leave you. However much
you hurt me, however much I hurt myself, cancer or no cancer… I love you too
much to hurt you. Think about that when you’re next comparing me to your wife,
who incidentally didn’t bat an eyelash when she kicked you to the curb.”

My heart ruptured in my chest when the front door closed
and her final words brought a truth. However much Rebecca annoyed me, she was
right. Her love and faith in me had never wavered in nearly thirty years. She
had been there through everything. She had taken my shit, she had faced up to
each and every single word I hurt her with and she had held firm. She had never
ran, she had never once intentionally hurt me, and she had never turned her
back on me, no matter how much I hurt her.

But I didn’t love her. I knew that, and she needed to
know that. She would never be what I wanted and I could never be what she
wanted. She didn’t own my heart, she didn’t even hold a fragment of it. It
belonged to my wife, every single part of it.

I reached under the bed and slid out the tray. Chopping a
line, my gaze slid to the two wedding rings on the dresser where I’d placed
them earlier after returning.

I sighed and pushed the tray back to its original place.
I’d never get her back by hanging onto the coke, she had seen it in me as soon
as I had looked at her.

But fuck, I missed her so much. My whole body was
incomplete, just a half of what it should be. My soul wept daily, my heart
struggled to even beat and my world was now just a corner in the shadows of
existence.

Cancer wasn’t just a disease that ate its host. It was an
illness that ravaged everyone in its circle, it was a sickness that corrupted
each heart it touched and it was a virus that infected the strongest of people,
taking their willpower and breaking it down bit by bit until all that was left
was a corpse, a ghost of a life that was once full and happy.

It killed the soul.

***

“Do you have the latest surveillance from Ava’s?” I asked
Kade as I walked into his office in NSC the next day.

He tilted his head and stared at me, “Umm, I haven’t
managed to go through it.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll do it. Just wanna see if there’s
any more suspicious cars and look for anything that doesn’t seem right. It’s
bad enough she spotted the internal cams, thank god she didn’t disable the
exterior ones. Does the stupid woman not realise I’m doing this for her own
good?”

He continued to stare at me, his face tight as he licked
his lips nervously. “What?” I asked when his behaviour sprung warning bells.

“Nothing,” he smiled and downloaded all the CCTV from
Ava’s before handing me the small USB. “Are you still on for tonight?”

I nodded before walking out the door. “Yeah, I’ll meet
you in the Panther about 8?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and smiled before answering his phone
that had been ringing for the last five minutes. “Eight!”

I smiled to myself as I left the building. It was to be a
good night. Firstly watching my little warrior pour drinks, then an hour or two
with Kade in one of the privates.

Perfect.

***

I frowned as I watched Steed walk down Ava’s path. I
watched as he left, then returned later that night. I could see the house
lights from the cottage reflected in Steed’s car windows, each time they
flicked on and each time they flicked off.

I cocked my head when he arrived at 8pm wearing jeans and
a blue t-shirt then left at 10am wearing jeans and a green top.

My blood started to simmer when I watched the reflection
from Ava’s bedroom in Steed’s car window. My throat started to twitch when I
zoomed in and adjusted the focus in the car window. My fingers locked into
fists as I viewed Ava stand in the bedroom window and Steed come to stand
behind her. My jaw locked when I watched Steed slide his arms around my wife,
tilt her head back and kiss her passionately.

My wrath snapped when I watched him slide a hand down her
body, slip it into her dressing gown then nudge her legs apart.

And my laptop was launched across the room when I watched
him bend her over the window ledge, smack her arse then drag her back into the
room.

The scream echoed off my bedroom wall, bouncing around
until it rebounded back at me.

“More?” Steed asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes,” I panted as a fire lit my veins and my pussy
throbbed in need. “Hurt me, damn it.”

The belt cracked my tender skin, blazing the flesh of my
buttocks until the numbness took over the pain. He rained another three slashes
across my arse, each time his mouth blowing tenderly across the scorch.

He slipped a finger inside me and I came instantly,
growling out his name as he finger fucked me hard and almost painfully. His
mouth dipped between my legs so he could devour my cum, his tongue lapping
noisily at me as his fists wrapped the cotton of my vest into his fingers.

I groaned loudly when he opened my ass cheeks and reamed
my anus with his tongue, preparing me for how he liked to take me. “Your pretty
little ass is throbbing, Ava. Does it want my cock?”

I nodded, barely able to talk with the thousand
sensations running through my body. “Yes,” I managed to mutter.

“Hard?”

“Fuck yes!” I begged, “Hard, please.”

His damp body slid over my back until his mouth rested
behind my ear. “Do you want releasing?”

I shook my head. “No, leave them on.”

He kissed a section of skin behind my ear as he slid his
hands over my cuffs, “You like being restrained for me, don’t you. Reminds you
just how fucking dirty you are.”

I closed my eyes as nausea threatened to ruin things. I
nodded to him, he had no idea, but it’s all I deserved now, being held and
fucked like the monster I was.

His palm struck my bottom again, reigniting the pain from
the belt before his cock slid into my ass. “Fuck!” Steed hissed as he pushed in
deeper.

The burn at no lubrication made me shudder but I relished
in it as I sunk my teeth into the pillow. My body pressed deeper into the
mattress as Steed screwed me with his usual fury and anger. He was feral, his
drives into me painful but oh so good. His erotic moans heightened my lust as I
rocked my hips in rhythm with his thrusts.

His fingers dug into my shoulders as he held me down and
took me like an animal, completely mounting me to grant him a deeper assault.
His onslaught became frenzied as we both soared towards orgasm, our grunts and
groans as loud as the flesh slapping in the silence.

Everything seemed to slow down but at once speed up when
a loud crack resounded in the room. Steed wheezed as his weight disappeared
from my back and another thud filled the air around us.

Steed’s grunts of pain were killing me as I struggled
with my bonds, the handcuffs tearing at my wrists as I tried desperately to
free myself and help him when Mason lavished strike after strike on him.

“MASON!” I screamed, knowing he was far into his madness
to acknowledge me. “You’re gonna kill him!”

I pulled harder at the headboard, tears streaming my face
when Steed became too quiet but Mason’s foray of abuse continued. “Mason,” I
sobbed as I yanked and rattled my cuffs. “Please stop, please.”

I froze when he was suddenly pressed against my back, his
breath heavy on the side of my face as his dense pants tickled the short hair
above my ear.

“I told you, Ava.” He growled. “I told you, when I found
out who it was that he was mine.”

“You bastard!” I cried as I continued to fight against my
restraints.

His hand slid around the side of my face. “How could
you?” he whispered as he trailed his fingers down the side of my neck and he
pressed his palm into the groove of my spine as he traced every single ridge of
my backbone.

“Steed has nothing to do with you. Call an ambulance,
Mason.”

He ignored me, his hands still voyaging over my body
until he brushed them softly over my sore bare buttocks. “I wasn’t talking
about Steed, I was talking about this.” He swept his fingers gently over the
belt marks. “Your beautiful body Ava, how could you devastate it like this?”

“It’s already damaged Mason, what’s another few marks?”

I gasped when my arms twisted and he flipped me over. He
stared at me, his eyes dark but tender as he looked at me. I shook my head
furiously when he seized the edge of my vest. “Please don’t,” I begged when he
started to roll it up.

I fought with him, my body flipping around as he
straddled me and held me down. “Mason,” I sobbed, “Please don’t do this.”

He kept his eyes trained on me as he rolled it higher
until the material was tucked under my chin. I squeezed my eyes closed so I
couldn’t see the horror on his face. My weeps were loud and crippling as they
took my breath from me and ate at my soul.

A long keening sound erupted from me when I felt Mason’s
soft kiss across my chest, his tender lips worshipping the scars where my
breasts used to be. He trailed over the wounds with his tongue, a choked sound
echoing from him as he maintained his torturous idolisation.

His hands slid up to my face as he cupped my cheeks and
brought his mouth to mine. We both sobbed as soon as his lips touched mine with
the most gentlest of kisses he had ever delivered, his love, adoration and
heartache profound and powerful as he caressed my soul.

“My love,” he whispered against me as he continued to
brush my mouth with an abundance of tiny kisses.

Steed groaned from the floor beside the bed, snapping me
from my two minutes of insanity. “Mason, you need to phone an ambulance.”

He narrowed his eyes on me as his fury once more
surfaced. “Does he mean that much to you?”

“Mason…”

His teeth clashed together when his jaw tightened and he
flung himself off me, his glare burning through my soul. He bent over me
quickly, making me flinch but he shook his head, grasped both of my wrists in
his hand then wrenched hard. The force of his pull broke the wooden headboard
and freed my hands.

“If he means that much to you, phone them yourself.” He
barked before he stormed from the room.

“Mason!” I shouted but he’d gone, the door banging loudly
behind him.

“Fuck!” Steed moaned. “Gimme a hand.”

I sighed and grabbed the key for the cuffs from the
bedside table with my fingers before dropping them beside him. “Let me out of
these and I will.”

He tried to look at me through each puffy eye, “You
okay?”