Page 81 of Shattered Hearts

Sitting at the table, I ruffle through the notes I took the day we interviewed Jason Bellamy. I didn’t ask him who his employment agency was, and I wonder if he uses one that specializes in the medical field and if Ingrid’s employment agency is the same one. That kind of coincidence would be crazy,since King’s Crossing has a population of over three million people, but it would be just the kind of coincidence we need to break this case apart.

I’m musing over the chances of that happening when Zarah stumbles into the kitchen. I’m sitting in the dark, but my laptop gives off enough light to reflect the little packet she’s holding in her hand. I’m instantly hard, and I’m insanely pleased she’s relaxed enough to initiate sex, especially since two hours ago I did nothing less than attack her in her sleep.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be awake,” I whisper.

She pads closer, rubbing her eyes. Sexy as sin, her black negligee wrinkled, her hair tousled.

“Were you talking to someone?”

I wince. Yelling at the dude at Unity woke her up after all. “Yeah. Sorry. I was making a couple of phone calls. I didn’t mean to be so loud. The guy was half deaf.”

She straddles my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and settles onto my thighs. “Who were you calling?”

“Checking into some information about Ingrid.”

“Did you find anything?”

“A couple of things, but I don’t want to say what until I dig a little more.”

I cup her face in my hands. She’s so beautiful, the laptop casting her skin in a weird blue glow, but it doesn’t matter. Her eyelids are droopy with sleep, and her lips are swollen from our lovemaking session earlier. I run my hands up her thighs and to her hips. She’s not wearing panties and I hiss in appreciation, gripping her ass, grinding my cock into her cleft.

“Hmm,” she hums against my lips. “Do you want me?”

Pressing my hand against her lower back, I say, “In all the ways that means.”

She leans away and tugs my cock out of my boxers. The tip is shiny, and she runs her fingertips through the pre-cum. “I usedto be scared of semen,” she says, almost idly as she caresses me. “I used to hate the sticky feeling, how it smells, how it tastes, but you’re showing me sex can mean love, that it doesn’t have to be full of violence and anger.”

“A real man doesn’t have to hurt a woman to feel powerful,” I say, trying to stay still and not buck against her hand.

“You’re teaching me that, and it’s something I didn’t understand I was grappling with. When I was in Quiet Meadows, Zane started sleeping with Nathalie. He said he used her for sex for a long time. She couldn’t say no and he liked that she couldn’t. He did whatever he wanted to her.” She swallows.

I don’t know if she wants me to reply, so I don’t, and I wait for her to say what she needs to say.

“I realize now he was using her because he felt powerless. He took control over her to have control over something, someone. Our parents were dead, I was locked up, Ash was leading him around, he thought Stella abandoned him, so he took power where he could.”

“Maybe, but that was wrong, and you know that, right?” Zane used Ash’s prostitution service, and I won’t sit here and listen to her defend him. I’ve seen Zane angry, and I don’t need to be told Nathalie Barton had been on the receiving end of it many, many times.

“Yes. Ash’s jobs were the same. They liked to have power over me because they lacked power elsewhere in their lives. Their businesses, or at home with their wives. Raping me made them feel like men.”

“It made them cowards, Zarah. They didn’t fight for what they needed.”

“I know.”

She scrubs her fingers through my beard, and I lean into her touch. I love the way she accepts me for what I am, how I look. Maybe even enjoys my beard, the tats. I look one way, rough,dangerous, but act the opposite. I’ll protect her with everything I have.

“You don’t need that kind of control to feel like a man. You don’t need to mistreat anyone to feel powerful.”

I capture her wrist. Rourke’s mocking words haunt me, and I can’t let her think I’m perfect. “I haven’t been an angel, either, and I’m no saint. I’ve fucked a woman too hard, kicked the crap out of a druggie or an abusive asshole because I could. Pain and power are on different sides of the same coin, Zarah, and I’ve spent my fair share of change.”

She smiles faintly. “You’d never hurt me.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never hurt anyone at all.”

She nods, but her thoughts have moved on. Only the here and now concerns her, the gentleness in my touch as I hold her in my lap. Her fingers tease my cock and a little spurt of cum drips down the tip. She’s got me heavy and wanting, but she’s on top and she’s calling the shots.

“Can I taste you?”

“You don’t have to.”

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