Page 1 of Wicked Ends
Prologue
Arianna
I woke with a start,cold air cutting through the dream I’d been lost in. Sweat slicked my skin, and I shivered at the drop in temperature. I blinked blearily across the room at the window.Damn it. Maine wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to keep the window wide open at night. My Californian blood couldn’t take it.
I slid out of the bed and padded across the floor to the window. The motel parking lot was nearly empty. The local conference that had filled the place up was long over, and the Night Owl was back to its usual state of sleepy quarter occupancy.
I pulled the window shut and shivered again.
Wait, didn’t I close it before bed?
A creeping awareness worked over me, and suddenly I knew.
I wasn’t alone.
I whirled around just as he moved.
One second, I was standing in front of the window, gripping the ledge, and the next, I was being thrown onto the bed, fear choking me. A heavy body landed on top of mine, straddling my hips, and when my hands flew up in defense, they were effortlessly captured and pinned ruthlessly to the bed.
“Got you, birthday girl. Looks like I win this one.”
My attacker’s gaze traced over my face and down my neck to my body, held prisoner beneath his.
“You know, I’ve thought a lot about what to do with you, the woman who crossed me. People don’t cross me and get away with it. It doesn’t happen… I don’t allow it to happen. So, the real question is: What am I going to do with you now? And will anyone miss you when you’re gone?”
Fuck.I had no doubt that he was telling the truth. He held my future in his hands, and we both knew it.
“Mr. Bailey—” I tried to keep the fear and excitement coiled deep in my belly at bay.
“Call me Marcus, Professor… like you did the night we met, or better still…” He leaned in and ran his nose up the side of my cheek, breathing in the smell of my skin. “Scream it.”
Arianna
A tritone: The devil’s interval
If there wereany place I’d never imagined ringing in my twenty-fifth birthday, it was this one. A run-down dive bar off the highway, bursting at the seams on a Friday night. The jukebox was loud and rocking, the counter was sticky, and there was a rowdy energy in the air that nearly made me forget that I was eating my self-proclaimed “birthday burger” alone.
Always alone.
A slick pass in the game on the TV above me caught my attention. The star forward of the opposing team scored a goal. Burgers and hockey. If I tried hard, I could pretend I was fifteen years old and at my grandparents’ place. Sinking into my memories was a comfort, until it wasn’t.
I ate and watched the game. All the booths were filled, so I was stuck at the bar. Eating alone had never felt that comfortable,but the noise in The Clutch made me less self-conscious. No one was observing me here; of that, I felt sure.
For one thing, there were more than enough beautiful women around, playing pool in Daisy Dukes and hanging all over their leather-clad lovers. Women with big hair, red nails, and buckets more self-confidence than me. Good for them. The last thing I needed was attention. I’d spent my life without it—no, that wasn’t quite true. I’d never experienced the good kind of attention, only the kind that got me into trouble, and I was already in enough trouble as it was.
I didn’t need any more.
I finished my burger and sucked the sauce off my fingers one at a time, lamenting the absence of napkins at the bar. I pushed my plate back and finally took a glance around.
There was a new bartender standing a few feet away, and his eyes were fixed on me. Heat suffused my cheeks.
Christ, did he just watch me polish off a huge burger and lick my fingers clean?
My solo status felt like a neon sign over my head. Also, eating in public was something I’d always been a little self-conscious about. When you’d grown up hearing about how big-boned you were, observations that graduated into fat and lazy to boot, it tended to give a girl a few insecurities.
However, I’d promised myself, when I’d stared into my little niece’s eyes one day and she’d asked me why her daddy called her piggy, that I’d get over that particular insecurity and stand the fuck up for myself more often. That resolution had earned me a black eye later that night, but I still didn’t regret it, and I never would.
“Damn, I swear, I got tired of the goddamn cheeseburger here years ago, but you—you make it look good.” The bartender smirked at me.
