Page 66 of Sins of Seduction
Can you feel me?
I’m in the whispers of
The darkness you think is yours
You cannot bend me to your will
But I’ll break you to mine.
Pretty little Raven
Can you feel me
Closing in?
That light caress across your neck
Is tipped in a poison there is no cure for.
Pretty little Raven
Your time in the garden is almost up
Soon I’ll find out
Just how well you bleed.
Raven looked up at Brenda from between her legs. The woman had just climaxed all on Raven’s tongue, heightening the intoxication already pumping through Raven’s veins. This had been a random hookup. Raven drowning her sorrows out in a bottle of tequila until Brenda with her red hair had promised a better distraction and so far, she was right.
There was no pain from Lea’s death here. No heart pining away for a man who could never accept who she is. There was just numbness and the tangy taste of a stranger she would never see again after tonight.
That one night had turned into two, but it hadn’t surpassed the second night. They both were just looking for an itch to scratch, and Raven had been thankful that Brenda hadn’t expected much in the way of conversations—she was just there to fuck and be on her merry way. Raven had used her to block out the pain she had been forced to feel after burying Lea and pushing Jax out of her life again because he had been a stark reminder of the things she couldn’t have.
“So we have two victims that you’ve been intimate with along with the messages left behind. Any idea what they might mean?” Greyson asked, and Raven shook her head.
She didn’t understand any of it. All her mind had been able to gather was that whoever this was would target Jax again if these messages were indeed for her.
“Oh, wait.” Raven remembered the note she had gotten when she went to clean Lush. She had completely forgotten about it in the mishap with Danielle and then her mind had been on other things.
She grabbed her phone, wondering if she stuffed it behind her phone case. She couldn’t remember what she did once Danielle left or even how long she stayed at Lush afterward. She’d been on auto pilot.
Raven winced when a throbbing pain pierced her skull. The pain shot down to under her eyelids and then to her jaw. Another migraine was coming, and she cursed thinking she might have to hit the emergency room again. She wasn’t sure she could wait for her appointment in a couple of days.
Raven saw the lavender piece of paper behind her phone case and quickly removed it, handing it to Greyson. Sitting here now she wished she had been more proactive about what was going on, but she hadn’t wanted to believe any of this had anything to do with her.
Denial was a heavy drug.
She wanted to believe this was just a random coincidence, something she had been caught up in, but now she could no longer ignore it.
“I found this when I went back to Lush after you guys gave me the okay to go in. It was in my office that you guys destroyed by the way. It fell out of one of my folders, and before you ask,” she waved a hand in front of her face to stop the question she saw Greyson getting ready to ask. “I was dealing with a lot. It was the anniversary of my ex’s death. My mind….” Raven paused, hating how weak and broken her voice sounded. She could hear the pain Lea had always evoked in her, and she wondered why it hadn’t lessen after all this time. “I forgot about her this year, and when I remembered, the grief was too much to shoulder.”
Greyson nodded, but before he could speak, the door to the interrogation room swung open and an angry Diane Mena stood in the doorway. Her eyes narrowed further on Greyson as she walked into the room slamming the door behind her. “I know you’re not talking to my client without me present, and you,” she turned to face Raven, “know better.” Raven swallowed the laugh that tried to escape. Diane Mena was scary when she wanted to be.
“It’s fine, Diane. There has been another murder, and I just handed Greyson a note I found in Lush’s office.”
“Who has access to your office?” Greyson questioned, not looking at anyone. He had been engrossed in the notes in front of him. Raven could tell something either clicked or didn’t make sense going by the pinch in his eyebrows.
“Just me and my assistant. I don’t let anyone else up there unless it’s to do work, like electrical and stuff, but either me or Danielle is always present.”
