DEFENSE Read online

  I fumbled with her bra hook, struggling to find the catch. It was an act I’d once gotten down to a T, and no longer being able to do it made me lose my patience. I ripped it off. Shantelle gasped with arousal, her eyes widening and the pupils turning into black pools of desire.

  “You’d better pay for that, prick,” she said, grinning.

  Oh, it was like that, was it? She wanted to feel like I was using her. She got off on being at the whim and mercy of a powerful guy. Fine. I could play that game.

  I reached out and grabbed my wallet from the table. I pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and dangled it in front of her. She went to take it, but I moved it out the way.

  “Once you’ve earned it,” I said.

  Her legs tightened around me in response, thrilled and aroused by my loutish behavior. I wanted to get inside her head more than I did her cunt, work out what the hell made her tick. Why did it get her off, feeling like she was being bought, feeling like sex was some kind of exchange? But no, Shantelle wasn’t the sort of woman who wanted to be psychoanalyzed. She just wanted a hard fuck and the ability to gloat the next day, and I was going to give it to her.

  I grabbed a condom and rolled it along my cock.

  “No foreplay?” she said.

  “You think you deserve it?” I sneered.

  She gasped and murmured, “God, you’re a fucking dickhead.”

  I shoved her hands down against the pillow. “And you’re a fucking whore.”

  I entered her, hard, all the way. She was wet, so wet and ready. I was pleased that I’d gotten her to such a state of arousal, but being inside of someone again was making me feel strange. It didn’t feel like being inside of Catherine. Her gasps and moans didn’t sound like Catherine’s, either.

  “Yes, baby, fuck me hard,” she cried.

  “Shhh,” I said, knowing that if I closed my eyes I could pretend it was my wife I was fucking and not some girl I’d found in a bar.

  “Don’t tell me to be quiet,” Shantelle said.

  “If you want me to fuck you hard,” I warned, “you need to shut up.”

  She grinned and pressed her lips together. I rewarded her by plunging my cock as far into her as I could. I fucked her hard, just like she wanted. I’d never fucked Catherine like this, like she didn’t mean anything to me at all, but part of me was giving way to the pleasure. A little bit of me was starting to enjoy the way my bed rocked with the power of each of my thrusts, and the way her body inched up the mattress until her head was right up against the headboard, bent at an uncomfortable angle. I knew that if I wanted to I could keep fucking her even if it meant her head smacking against the hardwood, but I had to draw the line there, though just the thought made a sensation of power course through me.

  I inched down the mattress, dragging Shantelle down with me. She sat up and wrapped her legs around my waist, angling me deeper inside of her. I moaned with pleasure, relieved at last to find myself letting go of all my pent-up emotion. I grabbed her ass hard with my fingers, kneading it in the way she’d enjoyed before.

  “Use your nails,” she gasped in my ear.

  So I did. I scratched her body, up and down her sexy back, knowing I was leaving marks on her beautiful, unblemished skin, knowing she wanted me to, enjoying the knowledge that I was hurting her just a little bit.

  We turned around, and I pulled her up into my lap, flopping back against the bed. Time for her to do the work.

  She began to bounce, fast, making her neat little boobs jiggle all over the place. Her hair was sticking to the sweat on her neck and forehead. It was starting to curl at the edges. Her skin was turning pinker. She was panting hard, like she was running a marathon.

  I was gripped by a sudden anxiety. I grabbed her by the shoulders, make her stop mid-bounce.

  “How old are you?” I demanded.

  She laughed then grinned mischievously. “How old do you want me to be?”

  “Stop fucking around,” I barked, and this time I wasn’t acting. My fear was real, and she could feel it; and just like before, she loved it.

  “I’m twenty-one,” she said, throwing me that deadpan look of hers. “Wanna see some ID?”

  “No,” I replied, realizing how much of a lunatic I was sounding.

  I was paranoid. Of course I was; I had good reason to be. But I wanted to put that aside just for one hour, just so I could enjoy the company of a gorgeous woman without acting like a freak. I’d been getting there before. I was letting myself unwind, letting myself enjoy using this girl for my own pleasure. I could do it again.

  “Want to tie me up?” Shantelle said.

  She must have thought I wasn’t enjoying myself. True, I wasn’t exactly screaming like her, but I was, from a physical perspective, having a thoroughly good time. It was just my brain that wouldn’t disengage.

  “Do you like to be tied up?” I said.

  “I love it,” she gasped, as though the mere thought was going to tip her into a climax.

  “Okay then,” I said. “I guess we could…try a little bondage.”

  I wrenched the laces from my trainers and wrapped them around her wrists.

  “Tighter,” she said. “I like it tight.”

  I wrenched them together and she gasped, the noise somewhere between pleasure and pain.

  “Now do whatever you want to me,” she said seductively.

  I gazed at her naked body, at her bound hands. She was completely at my mercy. If I could just relax and let it go, if I could just accept that nothing bad was going to happen, then maybe, just maybe, I would be able to climax tonight.

  I flipped Shantelle over so she was lying facedown, her arms stretched above her. Her hair was splayed across the sheets, reminding me of the woman I wished I was fucking but wasn’t.

  I pulled Shantelle gently by the hips so I could get a better angle, then entered her from behind, hard, fast, all the way up to the hilt. She cried out and tipped her head back, making the dark mane of hair tumble down her shoulders. I groaned, the power from being the one in control going to my head.

  “Harder,” she demanded, and I did as she commanded.

  The bed groaned, its creaks and protests matched by Shantelle’s growls and cries. I couldn’t help but feel like we were animals, two beasts in the wild, with me as the alpha male and her at my mercy. We certainly sounded like animals. And I was moving like a creature without conscience, like my emotions had been disconnected and all I could do was feel.

  The harder I thrust into Shantelle, the more the bed rocked, and soon the tables on either side were rocking, too, spilling their contents onto the floor. A wine glass smashed, sending shards across the wooden floor. Something about the destruction seemed even more arousing to me. The power—to bring pleasure, cause pain—was all mine.

  I looked at Shantelle’s mane of black hair and without even thinking, reached out and twisted my fingers into it, yanking back her head. She moaned as though delirious with pleasure. I ran the fingers of my spare hand down her bare neck, wrapping them around her throat.

  “Yes…” she groaned.

  I was riding her so fast now, and the pleasure was so immense, that my body was moving on instinct. All I wanted was to come inside of her.

  I squeezed my fingers around her neck, and in that moment I felt the muscles inside her vagina begin to pulsate as she was gripped by an orgasm. I rode the wave of her pulsation, listening to the incredible sounds she was making as I thrust in time to them. As they began to slow, I let go of her neck and hair, and she flopped forward on the bed.

  “That was insane,” she murmured.

  “Can I finish?” I said into her ear.

  “After that orgasm, you can do anything you want to me….”

  I picked up the pace again, my body knowing immediately what to do. This wasn’t like sex I’d ever had before. There was no emotion, just pleasure. I pushed myself in and out of her, grunting with each thrust. I gritted my teeth and plunged in as far I could go, my hands tight on her
hips. Finally my orgasm exploded out of me.

  Then I heard my own voice, as though coming from a million miles away, scream out a name I hadn’t let leave my lips for a long time.

  “Catherine!”

  That was it. It was over. All at once the pleasure seeped out of me, leaving me feeling cold, empty, and guilty.

  I fell back on the bed beside Shantelle, my heart racing, not from the mind-blowing orgasm I’d had, but from the name that had burst from my mouth as I’d experienced it.

  Shantelle looked over at me, her eyebrow cocked.

  “Did you just cheat on your missus or something?” she said.

  “No,” I muttered gruffly, turning my face from her.

  “I don’t care if you did,” she said, and something about her naivety, her coldness, left me feeling dirty and disgusted with myself.

  “You should care,” I said, standing. “I’m going to clean up.”

  “What, no snuggling?” she said with a laugh.

  When I didn’t respond, Shantelle sighed and pulled herself up to sitting. Her hands were still bound as she fumbled with a cigarette packet and lighter. I felt no desire to help her. I could see the red fingermarks on her neck, and it scared me to think that I’d done that to her. Not just that I’d done it, but that I’d enjoyed it. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t that guy, and I didn’t want to become him.

  With Catherine, the afterglow had been my favorite bit. We would hold each other, whisper sweet nothings, listen to the thud of one another's heartbeats, feel the echoes of the pleasure we’d given each other. But I didn’t want to hold Shantelle. I didn’t even want to look at her. She was a stranger who I’d invited into my bed, and that made me vulnerable.

  I turned and paced into the en-suite bathroom, then grabbed the side of the sink to steady myself. I tried to breathe, to calm myself down. Of course the first time I had sex after Catherine was going to be strange, I thought, trying to reassure myself. I tried to remind myself it was okay to seek pleasure, in the same way my therapist had told me it was okay to smile again, and to laugh. But I couldn’t help but feel like I’d just cheated on my dead wife, and in the weirdest, shallowest way I could have.

  “I’m getting another drink,” I heard Shantelle shout from the bedroom.

  “Sure, do what you want,” I called back.

  My hands were shaking. I began washing them, trying to get the smell of the woman who wasn’t my wife from my skin. I discarded the condom, then went back into the bedroom and stripped the sheets.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” I muttered as I bundled them into my arms.

  Why had I done it in our bed? I should have taken Shantelle to a hotel room where Catherine’s ghost wouldn’t have been lingering over my shoulder.

  I put some jeans on, then went into the kitchen and shoved the laundry into the washing machine. Shantelle was standing naked on the balcony, wind blowing through her hair. She was holding a drink between her bound hands. I went out to her side and took the drink from her, then untied the laces.

  “Can you leave now please?” I asked.

  As soon as her hands were free, she took her drink back.

  “That’s not very polite,” she said, taking a sip.

  “I know,” I replied. “But I…I just need to be alone right now. Please.”

  All at once Shantelle turned on me, her eyes blazing with anger.

  “You’re not joking, are you?” she barked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry…”

  All at once, her demeanor changed.

  “You fucking men are all the same,” she growled. “I haven’t even got my clothes back on yet and you’re turfing me out!”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I know I’m being a jerk. It’s just, I—”

  “Have a girlfriend or wife already?” she finished for me venomously. “And have only just now decided to grow a conscience?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said.

  Shantelle let out a disgusted noise, clearly thinking it was, in fact, like that. She downed her whisky then threw the glass onto the ground. It smashed against the slabs.

  “Look,” I said, starting to lose my patience. “I didn’t mean to make you pissed, okay? Can you just leave quietly?”

  “I’m sick of men like you,” Shantelle cried. “Quietly? You want me to scream when it suits you then shut the fuck up when it suits you, too?” She got close to me, her pointer finger raised.

  “You’re drunk,” I said. “You should go home.”

  She narrowed her eyes then went to barge past me. But as she went, she stood on a piece of the whisky glass she’d smashed and winced in pain. Blood began pooling around her foot as she ducked down and grabbed it.

  “Shit,” I said. “Let me get something for that.”

  “I don’t need anything from you!” she shouted, pushing me away, leaving bloody traces on my bare chest.

  I stepped back, growing increasingly irritated. I was about to go back into the house to fetch her a towel when she reared up. But she moved too fast and stumbled. Suddenly, she veered over the side of the balcony, careening down to the ground. Her scream pierced the air as she fell.

  The oxygen left my lungs in a rush. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t believe that she’d fallen.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look down. Instead I ran out of my flat and down the stairs. As I raced two steps at a time, I kept replaying the moment over and over in my head, willing it not to be real, praying that the hedges below had broken her fall, desperately hoping that she’d not just lost her life.

  I burst into the foyer.

  “Mr Wrexler?” the security guard said, leaping up and looking alarmed by my near-naked state.

  “A girl,” I stammered. “She’s fallen. Call an ambulance.”

  The guard immediately grabbed his phone and dialed 911.

  As I slammed my palms into the double glass doors that led outside, I bumped straight into two police officers—a man and a woman. They looked me up and down.

  “Where are you going in a hurry?” the man said, blocking my path.

  “A woman’s fallen!” I stammered, trying to pass them. I gestured to the bushes to my right, where Shantelle would be. “I have to help her!”

  Frigid cold air made me shudder. The male police officer held me back and the woman stepped backward, craning her neck, looking at something I couldn’t see.

  “Have you been drinking, sir?” the male officer said.

  “Yes. A bit. I’m not drunk. What about Shantelle?” My voice was growing desperate now.

  The female officer was talking into her walkie-talkie, and as she did, her eyes roved across the blood smears on my chest.

  “We have a one-eight-seven,” she said, never taking her eyes off me.

  “What’s that?” I demanded. I tried to look past them, to see whether Shantelle was okay or not. “Shantelle!” I shouted. There was no response.

  The radio on the female officer’s shoulder crackled. She answered in a hushed voice, then looked at me. “I’d like you to come with us, sir. We just have a few questions to ask you.”

  “But what about Shantelle?” I stammered. “I have to help her.”

  The male officer placed his hand on my shoulder. “There’s no helping her,” he said.

  Just then, neighbors who’d been alerted to the noise began filing out of their apartments. Someone screamed, the noise bloodcurdlingly shrill.

  Dazed, I let the officers lead me away to their car. As I looked behind me, I saw a pool of bright red blood radiating from the place where Shantelle’s broken body lay in a contorted mess on the sidewalk.

  Chapter Three

  Katie

  I hadn’t been as nervous about a case since my very first. The Washington, DC police station was hardly a formidable building—dusty red brick walls, neat hedges, an American flag flapping in the wind—but as I climbed up the steps and buzzed to be let in, my heart was racing.

  It was 2 a.m. An auburn-haired
detective came to the door and allowed me through.

  “Katie Scott, attorney at Newland & Rook,” I said, holding out my hand to shake hers.

  She was bleary eyed, clearly nearing the end of what had been a stressful shift.

  “I’m on the Harrison Wrexler case,” I added.

  She nodded and waved me through. I noted that she hadn’t bothered to introduce herself in return.

  “The coffee machine’s there,” she said as she plonked herself back behind the desk. “Help yourself. We don’t do table service.” She smiled thinly.

  The place was humming with activity. Detectives strode in and out, doors slammed from deep inside the building, and someone was cursing in the distance.

  I stood there awkwardly, my hands clasped tightly to the handle of my briefcase.

  “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I think there’s been a miscommunication somewhere. I’m on the Harrison Wrexler case. My boss should be here to meet me. Galiema Rook.”

  The woman raised one of her over-plucked auburn eyebrows. “No Galiema here, Miss Scott. I think you’re on your own.”

  She handed something to me across the desk. It was an access pass. The photo was the same one used on the Newland & Rook website, where I was two years younger and a hell of a lot perkier. The photo never failed to embarrass me—thanks to the layer of baby fat I’d not yet shed at that age—and I wished in that moment I wasn’t going to come face to face with the most handsome man in the world with my hideous twenty-four-year-old face hanging around my neck on a lanyard.

  “You been here before?” the auburn-haired officer said. “Or do you need me to show you the way?”

  Just then the main doors opened and two police officers burst in, manhandling a guy through the entrance. The auburn-haired officer stood up.

  “Sorry, kid, I have to help with this.”

  She ran off to assist the officers, leaving me standing there, at a loss.

  “I guess in that case, I’ve been here before,” I muttered under my breath, and swiped my way through the first security door.