Lies & Lullabies (7 page)

I opened my mouth, swirling my tongue around his fingers.

“Do you know what that is, Sugar?” He leaned forward, nearly kissing me. “A prediction.” Curling his finger, he wiped the moisture from the corner of my eyes.
 

If I could speak, I had nothing to say. My orgasm thrashed my nerves, inundating my brain with white noise and the senseless.

 
He pressed his finger to my lips, amused. “Since you speak in monetary amounts, how much do you need to feel comfortable with our arrangement?” He removed his finger from my mouth and waited for an answer.

My eyes widened in alert, and I couldn’t contain my shock. I pressed my lips together, sealing my mouth.

“Speak freely.”

“What’s your game, Catch? This isn’t
Pretty Woman
.”

“I’m not even close to an Edward Lewis, and we both know you’re no Vivian. If you think you won’t fall in love with me, you’re wrong. You won’t be able to help yourself.
 

"Give me time with you, and then when you’re safe, I’ll give the future—whatever it may be—of your dreams.”

If I said yes, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d be fucked in a way I wouldn’t necessarily like. It could’ve been argued my life was fucked now, but there were worse fates.
 

“Do you want to be my pimp?” I questioned. “I think you saw with Temple how I feel about pimps.”

“The bruises on your body tell me how
he
felt about it, and soon he’s going to know exactly how I feel about what he’s done to you.” He slipped his hand underneath my head, grasping a good amount of hair. He lifted my head up and turned it toward him. “Name your price.”

I sat up on my elbows, pulling myself close enough to him to feel the temperature of his exhale on my face. “What if I wanted a million dollars?”

“Aim higher, Sugar.”

Was he kidding me? “Are you fucking crazy? Girls like me come a dime a dozen. You can pick any woman from the street and get the same thing. Why are you singling me out?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and the modicum of a human I saw in him disappeared in front of my eyes. “You’re wrong.” He slid off the bed, rearranging my towel to cover me up as he did. “The dime a dozen women would be more open to what I’m offering.” With his back to me, I became mesmerized. The tattoo extended along his back. A larger than life raven whose wings appeared to be part of the scene of the cold dark forest on his chest took up the entirety of his back.
 

He redressed so quickly, it took less than a few blinks.
 

The jacket belonging to Catch was left draped over the back of the chair at the writing desk. “The suite is yours for the night,” he said on his way to the exit.

-5-

M
R
. & M
RS
.

Thud!
 

Unable to decipher if I was dreaming, and not able to immediately place my surroundings, I groggily slipped out of bed, tumbling on my own steps. The time on the alarm clock nestled on the bedside table blared an hour and thirty minutes into the beginning of Sunday.
 

The thumping at the door reverberated inside the room. “Housekeeping,” a woman’s voice called out sweetly from the other side of the door.

Pulling on my shirt—turned stiff and rigid after a hand-washing last night—and faux leather pants previously washed down with a rag, I staggered toward the door. I looked through the peephole. Only a woman’s face, pressed too closely to the door, was visible.

“I’m fine. I don’t need any towels,” I shouted through the door at her.

“The mister who booked the suite ordered breakfast for you.”

Since she failed to mention Catch’s name and it was an odd time for breakfast, I turned around, ready to slide back into bed. The soft beep of the door’s digitally triggered lock resounded. The door swung open, as much as the metal safety lock would allow.

A large metal cutter slid through the door, snapping the metal in half. It sharply swayed back the instant I tried to run, hitting me in the back of my head, leaving me disoriented. My hair was grabbed before I regained my bearings, and I was dragged to the bed.

 
The bed groaned, the springs rebelled and bounced my body around. The bodies of at least four men weighed on me. A bitter tasting cloth was stuffed inside my mouth.

“I followed you and that crazy fucking psycho who killed my man dead by shooting him up the ass,” Temple uttered. “I waited for him to leave before he got his fingers in you. You will work that goddamn corner for me, you bitch. And I don’t care about what the rumors say about your father. He doesn’t give a shit about you if he lets you hang around Sun Valley. I’m going to beat the pretty off you until you’re nothing but an ugly whore with a pussy.”

“Hey, Temple, man. I thought we were going to scare her. What about what—”

“I don’t give a shit,” Temple spat at one of his cronies. “My man is dead. Fuck it all.”
 

I lurched forward, hitting a soft part of Temple’s face that crunched under the force. Blood clouded Temple’s Cupid’s bow. Embers of anger ignited in his eyes. Blood and curses were spat from his mouth.
 

My face tightened with a grin as I chuckled at him.

“Fucking bitch.” A blow to the side of my stomach came fast at my body, sending torturous signals throughout my torso.
 

A harsh and heavy knock was the only thing that stopped Temple from landing his fist on another part of me. “Manager. We received a call about a disturbance.” The deep and hoarse baritone voice rang familiar.
 

“Get rid of the fucker,” Temple hissed.

A slam forced a hush over the room. A sound similar to an arrow whizzing by my head increased in volume. One by one, the men holding me down became feather light.
 

“Hey, man, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Temple’s voice shook with abject fear. “Let’s just—”

Soft popping sounds silenced whatever Temple had to say.

“Sugar?” A gentle grip of my shoulders and a familiar voice soothed me.

“Catch?”

“Stay conscious. Open your eyes and stay awake. You have a head injury.”

I fingered the bump at the back of my head. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Did they hurt you anywhere else?”

I circled my hand over my stomach.

“Stay put,” he ordered, his words fading. “I’ll come back for you.”

I blinked away the blindness taking over my view, catching sight of a few bodies strewn across the room. “Sure, Catch. I’ll just stay here with the rotting dead bodies while you do whatever it was you were going to do.”

“Sugar?”

I thought I had responded, but as the darkness closed in, I knew I hadn’t kept my promise to stay awake.

*
 
*
 
*
 
*
 
*
 
*

A jolt of pain reminded me I was still alive. My head pounded like I’d been on a long bender without an end. The last I recalled, Temple threatened me…then everything turned a darker shade until nothing could be seen or heard.
 

The bright sun pouring in from the window stung my eyes. The sheets clung to the parts of my exposed limbs, stuck as though they were drenched in adhesive. I ran my fingers along the bed linens and came up with blood.
 

I rolled over and grimaced, sensing the pain Temple left me with from last night. Cold metal pressed against my hand, my fingers were wound around a thin metal piece. I lifted up my arm, examining a gun that didn’t belong to me.
 

I looked to the right and flew back into bed. Temple was on his back; a bullet wound was right between his eyes. Chunks of brain and skull fragments were splayed out on the pillow beneath him. Another pillow was on his chest. Something had created a burn hole clear through it.
 

I scanned the room for something to cover the blood decorating me. I tripped over the unknown, falling to the floor. A man faced me; his ghastly face hardly resembled a human for the welts and knots distorting his features. He wasn’t breathing.
 

I scrambled to my feet, trembling at the sight of the dead men who rushed into the room last night and the woman who disguised her voice to get me to open the door.

The gun rattled in my trembling hands, filling the room with a soft clinking noise. My gaze scattered around the room, searching for a clue that it was a nightmare I’d awaken from in the morning. I plucked Catch’s jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it over myself, hoping it would cover my blood-stained clothes. It fell halfway down my thighs and covered my hands.
 

My shoes weren’t anywhere to be found. I slipped the pumps from the woman’s feet; they fit me well enough to stay on, but the high height hindered my ability to walk properly. I tried to remember what I was told about how to walk correctly in heels.
Was it heel toe, or toe heel?

I padded into the bathroom, struggling to adjust to the high heel height juxtaposed with my sore ankle and slipped a few times. I ran the faucet and with frenzied motions used my fingers to clean away the blood on my exposed skin. Glancing in the mirror, I silently assured myself everything would be okay once I left.

Putting the gun in the back of the band of my pants, I headed out the door.
 

I looked both ways down the wide corridor to survey the hall for guests. Satisfied to find myself alone, I crept along the right side of the hotel corridor and tiptoed toward the elevator. Standing only five feet from freedom, I tried to relax.
 

The doors to the elevator opened and provided me with a glimpse of a person in the elevator. Panic strained my breaths, depleting my throat of much needed moisture to swallow.

I checked behind my path, finding nowhere to immediately escape unseen.
 

The doors had retracted completely, uncovering a man, fresh-faced and newly dressed in a clean white T-shirt and slim-fitting dark blue jeans: Catch. He appeared to have thoughts heavily weighing on his mind as he stared at the floor leading away from the elevator.
 

Rubbing the back of his head and dislodging his damp, dark hair from its style, he stepped out of the car. He paused, standing frozen when his gaze slowly lifted upward, scanning over my body, and settled on my face.
 

The click of a suite door beside me threw me into alarm.

His long legs made one stride forward. He grabbed my shoulders and ushered me to the right, pressing me against the door of a room diagonally across from the elevator shaft. He rested his forearm above my head and leaned into me, shielding me from the view of the new visitor. He smelled of clean cotton and cologne.

“I told you to stay put,” he hissed. The look in his eyes directed me to be quiet.
 

I played along and grabbed either sides of his shirt. I could barely maintain a grip with my unsteady hands.

His eyes angled to the right.
 

A man tootling down the hall, stopped at our position.

Catch immediately turned back to me and closed his eyes. His soft, dewy lips captured my mouth with a teasing caress. Already on edge with my heart beating at a painful, rapid pace, it was made worse by an unexpected kiss. He drenched my senses, tipping the scale away from fear.
 

His mouth kicked the desire into high gear by showing no mercy and rearranged my insides. I couldn’t breathe freely much less react on my own accord and push him away.
 

My lips responded, kissing him back, nipping at his mouth and clenching his bottom lip between them. He slipped slightly, the arm above my head rested on top of it. His hand clasped my neck, his thumb rubbed against the delicate and sensitive skin, eliciting shudders from deep within my core. I warped the material of his shirt as I fought to find stable ground.
 

The man beside us cleared his throat. “They have rooms available. Get one. No one wants to see that.” The ding of the elevator and the sound of the doors served as the signal.
 

Catch delayed in removing his lips, so firmly planted against mine it elicited a smacking sound.

Blinking out of my reverie, my senses came flooding back to me. “Was that really fucking necessary?” I shrunk away from him and slipped out of his trap.
 

A spark of mirth alighted in his eyes. “I was trying to ease your fears. Your reaction…wasn’t expected. And true to your nature, you’re going to pretend you didn’t enjoy it.”

“Really convenient”—I brushed my hands down my pants as I collected myself, cognizant of where we were and what had occurred—“you showing up last night.”

“Had I not, you would’ve been beaten until you became Temple’s whore. He wasn’t dead when you fell unconscious, he had quite a few things to say about his plans for you and me. Needless to say, he won’t ever get the chance to fulfill them.”

“It wouldn’t have happened,” I snapped. “I would die before I became anyone’s bottom bitch.”