Beauty and the Dark (7 page)

Jack

“T
his looks big enough to feed five,” she says when her food arrives. I watch the childlike pleasure on her face and suddenly blood is rushing to my ears.
Mine. This one is mine.
The sentiment is barbaric, but it will not be denied and roots itself in my being.

“What?” she asks, her eyes so big and bright, her lush lips parting. 

What the fuck? She’s like an angel from heaven come to tempt me. As I watch, her tongue comes out, wetting her bottom lip. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. Shit. I’m in so much trouble.

“Dig in,” I tell her, my voice hoarse.

She takes a bite, her movements self-conscious. Juice runs down the side of her mouth and her tongue comes out to lick it away, and it takes everything I’ve got not to lean forward and taste her mouth. I’m going to be lying in my cold bed stroking myself to release tonight. She is looking at me innocently.

“Is it good?” I ask with a tight smile. “Or do we need to walk down the road to McDonalds?”

She shakes her head and smiles happily. “No, this is heaven.”

“Excellent,” I say, and even though I have zero appetite I take a bite out of my burger. “Tell me about you?” I invite.

She swallows and shrugs delicately. “There’s not much to tell,” she says hesitantly. “I live with my sister, her husband and their daughter.”

I nod. “Do you work?”

She shakes her head and the light catches her eyes and they glow like warmed honey with bits of gold pollen. Beautiful. I gaze at her and she blushes.

“What do you do with your time?” I ask. I need to stop behaving like a teenager.

She picks up a chip, dips it restlessly a few times in ketchup, leaves it at the side of her plate, and picks up her glass of Coke. Without drinking from it she puts it back down.

“I know it must seem as if I’d have a whole load of time and be bored all day, but in fact, it’s not so. I have my sister, my niece, and my puppy, and the days just fly. Before I know it, it’s already bedtime.”

I take another bite and try to imagine her life, and just cannot. It seems so different, so alien. Living in the tower of a castle. Spending every day with her sister, a baby, and a puppy.

“Do you guys go out a lot?” I ask curiously.

She laughs nervously. “No, rarely. I’m a homebody, I don’t like leaving the castle grounds.’ She wipes her mouth and quickly deflects the question back to me. “What about you? Do you go out a lot?”

“Uh, my apartment is basically just a place I go to sleep at night.” I don’t tell her that half the time I don’t even go home to sleep.

“Oh,” she murmurs. “How completely different we are. I can’t imagine only returning home to sleep. I guess I’m a bit of a loner. I prefer to spend a lot of time on my own.”

“Don’t you like people?”

“It’s not that I don’t like people. I find it hard to connect with them. They are not like animals or children, are they? Often they say one thing when they mean another.”

“It’s very easy to understand people, Sofia. Just bear in mind that 99.99% of the time people are completely motivated by selfish needs. If there is nothing to be gained from their relationship with you they won’t be around.”

She bites her lip. “So you know that they are around you for personal gain and you don’t mind?”

I grin. “I’m around them for personal gain too.”

She stares at me. “What do you hope to gain from me?”

Just like that my dick pops into wood. “You? I want you,” I say through gritted teeth.

Her cheeks flame. “I … I can’t have a relationship with anybody.”

She looks so fearful I feel like I should be protecting her from myself. “Why not?”

Her chin trembles and her long lashes sweep down. “It’s a long story.”

“I like long stories.”

She tries to smile, but it comes out like a grimace. “You won’t like this one.”

I know she wants me too, but something is holding her back. I reach my hand out to take hers in mine and she jumps as if I have electrocuted her. Looking deep into her eyes I take her hand back into mine and let my thumb stroke it. Her skin is pure silk. She swallows hard.

“I … You’ll be disappointed,” she stammers.

“Why would I be disappointed?”

“I’m not what you think I am?”

“What do you think I think you are?”

“You think I’m normal. I’m not.”

I smile bitterly. “Neither am I.”

She shakes her head. “I’m damaged goods.” She pauses, her eyes pained. “I’m not … mentally right.”

I grip her hand hard. “You’ll do fine, just as you are, Sofia.”

Her eyes swim with tears and she blinks them away. “You don’t understand. I can’t be with you, Jack. I can’t be with anyone.” She stands up suddenly. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

I stand too. “Let me pay the bill first and I’ll take you back.”

“No, I’ll just take a taxi,” she says looking around us nervously. I would lay money on the table that she has never taken a taxi before and she’s scared shitless.

“No you fucking won’t. I brought you here and I’ll take you back.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, hugging herself. Her face is pale and pinched.

I throw some money on the table and we walk out of the restaurant together while Paddy, the fool, irritatingly shouts, “Three babies. He wants three babies.”

We walk in silence towards Lambo and I help her into the car before I get into my seat. She turns towards me. “Thank you for the meal.”

I glance at her. Her hands are clutched into little fists on her lap. “You hardly ate anything, but it was a pleasure, nevertheless.”

She stares down at her hands in abject misery.

“Hey, relax. It’ll be all right,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry.” The sound is torn out of her throat.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m having you anyway.”

Her face jerks up, eyes are glassy, the pupils large. She looks like a scared rabbit, wanting to bolt away. “What did you say?” she gasps.

“What do I look like to you? A fucking quitter. If at first you don’t succeed just give up and go away? I’ll have you yet, Sofia Seagull,” I growl.

“We can’t. You can’t. I mean, I can’t.”

“I don’t know about you, but I definitely can and will have you.”

We lapse into a tight, long silence from the moment I gun the car and join the traffic until we arrive at her home. I turn towards her and she presses her palms to her pale cheeks.

“I really like you, Jack. Can’t we just be friends?”

“Friends?” My voice comes out like a sneer. “Yeah sure. We can be friends when you’re under me.”

Her lips tremble. “Now you’re angry with me.”

I bite back the frustration clawing inside me and keep my voice even. “I’m not angry with you. I know you want me as much as I do, but you’ve arbitrarily decided that we shouldn’t be lovers. I want you, Sofia. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“No,
you
don’t understand. There is not one single thing that can stop me from having you. Not you. Not your mental state. Nothing.”

She opens her mouth to protest, and at that unsuspecting moment I pull her into my arms and capture her mouth. The second our lips touch is pure magic. Her scent intoxicates me. Drives me wild and makes my soul tremble with need. My tongue pushes out and her mouth opens like a fucking flower. So innocent. No barriers. It’s soft and warm inside. I hook her tongue and suck it and moaning she melts against me. The sound makes my cock throb.

With every cell in my body alive I suck her quivering tongue. It’s like putting your hand into a socket. The intensity of the desire is a shock to my system. I don’t think my heart has beat so fast for a girl since I was a teenager.

My hands reach into her sweater and … suddenly she tears her mouth away. Pressing her back against the door, she stares up at me. She is panting hard and her eyes are bright. Our first kiss and I had to steal it, but stolen stuff is always sweeter. I’m so fuckin’ hard I hurt. I pull in a lungful of air, but it is heady with her scent, and it just makes me want to bury my face between her legs.

“Why did you do that?” she gasps.

I drag my fingers through my hair. “Because I wanted to.”

“You think you want me, but I’m not what you think I am.”

I frown. What kind of cat and mouse game is she playing? “So what are you then?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Fucking hell, Sofia. We’re not kids here. I’m going to find out one way or another. Just fucking tell me,” I growl with a mixture of exasperation and frustration.

She makes a cry like that of a trapped animal in pain. In a flash she hits the door handle and almost falls out of the door. I lunge to catch her, but she dashes into the night.

Breathing hard, I watch her run like the devil himself is after her. She wrenches open the entrance door and disappears into the building. There’s a tightness in my chest. I reach forward and pull the passenger door shut. Then my foot slams on the accelerator pad and I speed away.

She’ll be mine come hell or high water.

Sofia

Y
ou can tell everything from a kiss and Jack Irish’s kiss broke me in two.  His body told me what his mouth wouldn’t. He wants me with the kind of desperation I have never seen in a man. I tasted from the fountain of his need. And his need was vast. Like he wants to lose himself in me. I know I have to stay away from him.

I smile at the guard and walk quickly to the lift. Inside the lift I take deep, calming breaths and try to stop my body from trembling. When I get to the apartment it is silent. The nanny and Irina have still not arrived.

“Is that you, Sofia,” Lena shouts from her bathroom.

I clear my throat. “Yeah, it’s me,” I reply.

“Come and tell me what happened then?”

I go into her bathroom and perch at the corner of her bath. She is leaning her head back and the room is full of fragrant scents. For a few seconds the steam prevents her from seeing my expression. When she does see it she sits up.

“He kissed you,” she says in shock.

“Yes,” I whisper, touching my swollen mouth.

She looks at me carefully. “Are you all right?”

The question confuses me. “Yes, I think so.”

She stands, and with water and soap suds dripping off her beautiful body, she comes to where I am sitting and kneels in front of me. “It’s okay to be frightened,” she whispers.

My throat closes over so I can’t even speak. I just nod as tears begin to run down my face.

Her wet hand reaches out and smears my cheeks. I catch her hand. “I am very frightened.” My voice is low and hoarse.

“I know. But I’m here and I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.”

“He doesn’t know about me. About the past.”

“Of course not, but you’ll take it step by step.”

“He wanted us to go out so I told him I was mentally unstable today.”

Her head jerks back. “Why on earth did you tell him that? I’m more mentally unstable than you.”

“That’s not true, Lena. Sometimes I feel as if I’m skating on the very brink of an abyss. One wrong move and I could fall in.”

She stares at me, horrified. “That’s not true.”

“It’s true. You and Guy do everything for me. I don’t know what I’d be if I had to live alone.”

“Well, you will eventually. Step by step. Actually, I was going to suggest that sometimes you can stay here in the apartment alone. I’ll go back with Guy, and you can go out with Fiona, or one of the other girls at the center for a drink or a meal in the evening. In the morning you can do some shopping before you come back home.” She smiles hopefully. “Would you like that?”

I nod.

“Good. Now, what did Jack say when you told him you’re mentally unstable?”

“He said he didn’t care.”

Her eyes flash with promise. “I like Jack. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, but even good guys don’t want a prostitute for a girlfri-.”

Lena slaps her hand on my mouth so suddenly it makes my body jerk backwards. She looks at me with fierce eyes. “Don’t even let me hear you say that again. What happened to you was not your fault. You were just a child. You didn’t choose that life. What happened to you could have just as easily happened to me.”

I speak through the hand clamped on my mouth. “But it didn’t happen to you. It happened to me.” My voice breaks on me.

Lena wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly. “Oh, Sofia, Sofia. I’m soooo sorry. What I wouldn’t do to take your pain away,” she cries.

While we are wrapped around each other it occurs to me that I am hurting her. The person I love most in the world. I’m the older sister. It is me who should be taking care of her. I lift my hand and gently stroke her hair. “I have forgotten most of it now,’ I lie. ‘Soon it will all be gone.”

My sister starts sobbing. “You were always an angel. Always. Of all of us you were always the kindest and most gentle.”

“Don’t cry, Lena. It’ll be fine.”

She leans away from me and looks into my eyes. “You’re still young. You’ve got to grab life with both hands. The cake, the shoes, the man.”

I smile through my tears.

“You have to believe me that your past won’t matter a damn to the man who loves you.”

I think of the brand on my back and know that it will matter. Valdislav’s greatest sexual turn-on was to watch videos of other men fucking me while he rammed into me from the back. He let his eyes alternate between the TV screen and the sight of his name burnt into my back. But what other man is going to want to see Valdislav’s mark on his girlfriend’s back while he’s having sex with her?

“Did you hear what I said?” Lena asks.

“Maybe it’s because he’s moving too fast.” Feeling disloyal to Jack and confused, I cover my face with my hands. “It’s not just him. I lose my head when I’m with him too. I think I need more time to process how I am feeling.”

“Then take more time. There’s no rush. It’s not a race.”

I nod.

“You take as much time as you want, okay?”

I nod again. No need to trouble her with my worries.