Page 479 of The Tempted

Lethal Temptations

By

Prologue

“I’m getting out of here,” Riggs said, throwing a few crisp bills on the bar. I nodded, a delayed reaction to his departure, and lifted the shot glass to my lips, welcoming the smooth poison down my throat. Unsatisfied and insatiable I flicked the empty glass across the bar.

“Another, boss?” the bartender asked.

I shook my head, pushing back my stool and slowly rose to my feet. The alcohol wasn’t making me numb like it usually did and the methadone doesn’t bring me to the state of oblivion I crave. I tried not to take anything today. I tried to be better than yesterday and the day before that.

But once a junkie always a junkie.

And I make no apologies for it.

This is who I am, or what is left of who I used to be, depending on who you ask.

I feel her innocent eyes on me, burning a hole into my back, setting my black heart on fire. I won’t turn around, I won’t even acknowledge her because I have enough demons and don’t need those dark, sad eyes haunting me anymore than they already do.

I told myself I was just coming to the bar to make sure she was safe.

I wanted to see her one more time.

I got what I wanted.

I walked into the crowded bar and found her amongst a sea people. Her face stood out and those eyes of hers… they were almost as black as the leather on my back and held me captive. It was impossible to turn away. She laughed and when she laughed she lit up the whole room.

Fuck, she lit up the whole world.

Turned on the lights and drew me out of the darkness I’ve been wallowing in.

Some people think I have a death wish, that I’m on a mission to end this nightmare I call life, and maybe for a while I thought they were right. A part of me wanted to join Christine, to see her one last time and make right all the wrong I did to her. But when I nearly died, my body didn’t succumb to the darkness and fought against it. Jimmy Gold pumped me with enough drugs to kill me two times over but it was Reina, my president’s girlfriend that made me realize I wanted to live and I wanted to live for those dark eyes that she had pinned on me.

Leather.

Lace.

Me.

Her.

A temptation so lethal, neither of us would survive.

Maybe I had a death wish after all.

I stumbled into the bathroom, locking the door behind me, before I turned around and glanced at myself in the dirty mirror. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I wonder why she ever looked at me in the first place. Someone as innocent and pure as her doesn’t belong with a poisonous bastard like me.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a plastic baggie filled with five Xanax pills and slapped the bag onto the counter. I diverted my eyes back to the mirror, glaring at the piece of shit staring back at me.

“Fuck you,” I growled, hanging onto the feeling of self-loathing, welcoming it and encouraging it to overcome me as I slammed my fist against the baggie on the counter. I pounded it over and over again, crushing the pills until they turned to dust. Then I emptied the contents onto the counter, not giving a fuck how dirty and disgusting the bathroom was because, all that mattered was getting my fix.

I was in the zone, anxious for the high that hopefully will come and wash away my thoughts ofher.

She is my savior and my assassin.

The one that keeps me from ending it.

And yet, right now I’m slowly killing myself trying to escape the thoughts of her.

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