Burn (Bayonet Scars #5)

Across the room, the woman loses her panties. Her fake tits don’t move, and her too-perfect-to-be-natural tanned skin shows no awkward lines where she’s paler. She’s the perfect size in every respect, has the perfect face with perfect lips for sucking dick. The way she walks toward me is perfect, too. And I hate everything about her.

I want Mindy’s natural breasts that I’ve never even touched. I want her tan lines and pale skin and her scars—everything that I see but can’t feel. Every single one of her scars belongs to me now. She won’t admit it, but I own them. All of her damage and her history are on my shoulders for me to take care of for her. To make sure they don’t hurt her any more than they already have.

Kaz places her hands over my cut and drags them down to the buckle of my belt. She pulls at the aged leather and slowly pulls it out of my belt loops. I look up to Mindy to find her locking the door and taking a seat on the bar stool there by the light. She gives me a head nod that I guess is meant to reassure me. I don’t feel reassured or confident. I feel like a scared child who fears that anything they do is going to get them into trouble. There are no safe choices.

“Show me how good you’ll be to me,” Mindy says. Her voice drags, making me wonder what she’s feeling right now, if anything, or if she’s totally numbed everything out.

I allow the woman to slide my cut off my shoulders. She catches it before it hits the ground and tosses it to Mindy. I don’t let anybody handle my cut like that. I feel the frustration ease in my muscles when Mindy gives it a little sniff and then slides it on over her shirt. She should look ridiculous, sitting there with my cut draped over her shoulders—she swims in it. But she looks up at me in a sultry gaze that makes my jeans tight. She holds the worn leather between her hands, wrapping herself in it. She takes another sniff, and it’s like she’s bathing herself in me.

The blonde woman yanks my white shirt out of my jeans and runs her hands across my lower abdomen. She pops the top button of my jeans open and drags down my zipper. Before she can move any further, I lift her chin so that she’s forced to look at me, and I say, “There is only one way this can work. You stay silent. I don’t care how you feel. You say nothing. There are only two people in this room—me and her. You are nothing to me. Don’t touch me, don’t try to kiss me, and don’t you dare fucking speak to me. Do you understand?”

She nods her head and removes her hands from my jeans and stands compliantly. Beside us is a chaise lounge with an inclined head rest. I take a step back and keep my eyes focused on Mindy. Not so deep in my soul I fear that she’s not going to want me to do this and that she’s going to freak out once it starts. Or worse, she’ll feel nothing. But I know better than to try to push her and force her into something she’s not ready for.

“Lie down, baby,” I say, staring into my girl’s brown eyes. She nods again as the woman complies. Stalling, I slowly take my white shirt off and toss it aside. Mindy’s eyes travel over my naked chest, slowly surveying the tattoos and scars she’s never seen before. “You like what you see?”

“Yes,” Mindy says. She forces the word out on a ragged breath as she drags her index finger over the FORSAKEN patch of my cut. Directly beneath the patch is her pert breast and what I fucking hope is an erect nipple. I want to see them, taste them, feel them. But not yet. Maybe not ever.

I keep eye contact with her the whole time. Mechanically, I roll the condom on and fuck the faceless woman slowly and patiently—two things I didn’t know I could be capable of. I try to make it good enough for her that she enjoys herself. I don’t want Mindy getting the wrong impression, but every time the woman beneath me responds to my touch, my stomach rolls.

The longer it goes on and the more graphic the scene gets, the less Mindy’s looking at anything in particular. She stares at me, not in my eyes, but through my eyes. I hate how long it takes me to get to where I need to be, but when I am, I focus myself enough to talk.

“This could be you, Melinda. And it wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t be scary. We could have this together. Tell me you could want this,” I say through gritted teeth as I do my best to fight off my orgasm.

“I might want it,” Mindy says. The woman beneath me arches her back and moans. I’m certainly not touching her anywhere I need to, but a quick look at her confirms that she’s touching herself, rubbing small circles over her clit. Her insolence annoys me, and I find myself choking her as I pound into her more quickly, fiercely. I’m enraged with Kaz for making it about her when this is about Mindy. My hands around Kaz’s neck sets off a chain reaction, and I come immediately.

There’s a light in Mindy’s eyes now that wasn’t there before. She chews at her bottom lip and lowers her eyes. So quietly I almost miss it, she says, “I could want that, too.”





Chapter 10



My arms are stretched out in front of me and my focus on-point as I unload the clip of bullets into a distant redwood. It’s all I can do to distract myself from what I really want to focus on.