Page 48 of Crushed
CHAPTER 15
Scarlett
I had always been an early riser; an impale-the-worm-before-it-startles-awake mentality. It was part of my job to be alert and ready for anything. But working at the Dahlia District was a perspective shift. I actually started to yearn for the nights, that time period when I would see Cormac. Now that we were seeing each other, Cormac didn’t leave until just before closing, which meant I didn’t go to my bedroom in the Greenhouse until well past the time he left.
I told myself it was because I hated sitting around, waiting for something to happen. That as long as I was around Cormac, I was working, I was on the job. But the truth was that I wanted Cormac. I liked being around him. He was a puzzle that I wanted to figure out, and not because of work.
The next night, I put on a bright green sports bra and shorts with my signature red lipstick and tucked my blond hair into a low ponytail, then sat at the bar and waited for him. My internal gauge of Cormac’s good to evil range was leaning towards the middle now. Yes, he had likely blackmailed plenty of people, not just Issac. And yes, maybe he sometimes did something worse, though I had no proof. But if Cormac had a past full of pain and death, then maybe it meant something. Maybe the world wasn’t as easy to read as I thought.
Maybe I knew where he was coming from. If I had never let go of the pain from my parents’ death, then I would be determined to ruin lives too.
But that didn’t excuse him from his crimes. And eliminating him meant I might finally get some closure on what actually happened to my parents. He was still a target.
When he arrived, he went past me and sat in the lounge, observing from the same booth as usual. I suspected he liked making me come to him. Maybe it was another test, to make sure that I wanted to do this. Another way to fuck with my head.
A fitted, dark gray suit clung to his shoulders and chest. A vest buttoned underneath the jacket. His green eyes were haunting, as if a glimmer of a joke was fading behind them. He was beautiful; there was no denying that.
But like I said, that didn’t mean he was free from me.
He motioned beside him, and I took a seat. A glass of red wine waited next to his scotch. I took a sip.
“Decadence Revelry is coming soon,” he said.
“Property and owner,” I said. Cormac nodded. “How far along are we in the training?”
“So, so.” A smirk flitted across his mouth. “But you’re eager to learn. To please.”
A flush rippled through my body. How was it that a man like him could make me feel like this, full of shame and desire, with a few simple words?
All right. I could use these emotions to my advantage. I had to stay focused.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“I have an idea planned,” he said. He gestured towards the door to the Terrariums. “No water this time. Something different.”
The tension eased in my chest, but I still clutched my fingers together, ready for whatever was coming.
“I may be in control,” Cormac said, “but it’s up to you to participate. If you back out, it ends. It’s as simple as that.”
I glanced around, watching the different servers approach their club members. Iris was talking to one of the staff members, a security guard I had seen floating around before, and Teagen was tuning her instrument on stage. What would they do in this situation? Cormac had drowned me; he could have killed me. No sane person would agree to do anything with him, ever again.
But hehadn’tkilled me. He had shown me that I could thrive. And I couldn’t deny the passion I had felt afterward, to lunge into his arms and accept everything he wanted to give.
“Let’s do it,” I said. I followed him to the Terrariums, and once we were inside of one of the plainer private rooms, I settled into a seat, unsure of what to expect. He sat across from me, his hands folded in his lap.
“Total power exchange can take many forms,” he said. “But within every TPE dynamic is one thing: trust. Trust that the property will do as commanded. Trust that the owner will always care for the property’s condition in the end. The owner will see to it that his property isn’t destroyed.”
The words were carefully chosen, highlighting the transitory nature. It gave the owner the opportunity to tamper with the property as he or she saw fit, as long as they were protected in the end. Cormac’s shoulders were pulled back, his chest out, as if posturing for dominance over the room. I had always felt dominant too; seducing targets into death traps made me swell with power. So to be with a man who made me small, was different. I couldn’t help but part my legs and wait for his touch.
I wasn’t a stranger to sex; it was often part of the assignments. But nothing had come close to the way Cormac made me feel. As if he could crush me like a little pill, lick me up, and give me life.
He reached into his jacket’s pocket and pulled out two tablets. A flat white pill with crossbones stamped on the top. I had seen it before, a form of Ecstasy.
He dropped one into his mouth, then handed me the other. I stared at it in my palm, wrinkling my brows. The stark white color was eerie against my skin, as if already bestowing the impact it would have on me. On us.
“Take it,” he said.
It didn’t scare me that I was taking a drug from Cormac. Despite my better interests, I knew he wouldn’t give me something that would kill me. He would have done it already. It helped, too, that he worked in pharmaceuticals. Even if he dealt with the business operations, it comforted me that whatever form of Ecstasy this was,hefelt comfortable taking it too.
