Voyeur by Candace Wondrak

Chapter Ten – Carter

 

 

Zoey Marbella was infuriating. I had no idea what Roman saw in her. For one thing, it was so hard to look past the blindingly pink hair. Pink was so not my color. I was more of a black kind of guy, dark colors for everyone all the fucking time. Pink was too girly, too innocent, too stupid of a color.

And her attitude. It was ever-present. Zoey always had something to say, and if, on the rare occasion, she didn’t, she made sure to wear an expression on her face that drove me mad.

Seriously. What the absolute fuck did Roman see in her? Why was he going crazy to make sure he had her and no one else came sniffing around her? It was fucking ridiculous I had to babysit her when he didn’t need me. Me, babysit a girl who should be nothing more than one of the hoes in the club.

But she wasn’t. He fucking bought the club to control her, to be able to dictate when she worked and, by extension, who got to get an eyeful of her each time she strutted her stuff around the Dollhouse. That day she danced on the stage? It had been her last dance, and it had driven him absolutely bonkers.

Roman wasn’t the kind of guy to let any old woman affect him like that. What the hell was it about her that drew him in so much? She had a pretty face, sure, and her pussy was nice and tight, but come on. That wasn’t worth losing your shit over.

I’d gotten hungry, so I’d fished a new box of cereal out of her cabinet in the kitchen area and plopped myself down on the couch, sitting there in the silence as the sun started to come up. Zoey had been asleep in bed, but she’d started to toss a bit, began breathing harder in her sleep. I watched as her cheeks had grown flushed and her legs had moved beneath the sheets.

Hence why we were here now, her blue eyes glaring at me while I shrugged her off. “I might not be Roman, but when he’s not with you, you treat me like you would treat him,” I told her, chewing more cereal, otherwise I might just storm over to that bed and make her see the error of her ways.

Roman wouldn’t like that. I knew he didn’t want me touching her unless he was near. He was just a control freak like that, but I supposed him being a total control freak got him to where he was today, and where he was was where I hoped to be myself in ten or so years.

I owed that man my life, really. He was the only man I would die for with no hesitation whatsoever. If he didn’t want me touching her, then I wouldn’t. That wasn’t to say it wouldn’t be difficult, but I would manage.

“And why would I do that?” Zoey asked, jutting out her bottom lip in a pout. Her pink hair was a little messy after a night’s sleep, her expression one that could kill. I bet she would, if given the chance. I didn’t think little miss pink liked me all too much.

Join the fucking club. I wasn’t here to be liked. I was only here because Roman told me to be.

“Because I can make your life fucking miserable,” I told her, setting the cereal box aside on the sofa. I rested my arms on my knees after uncrossing my legs, leaning forward as I glared at her. It wasn’t like I wanted to kill everyone I met; Zoey was just… she was absolutely infuriating, flouncing the rules Roman had given her on multiple occasions. If he wanted someone who would follow his rules, he should dispose of her and find someone else.

She was too… annoying. Too rash and combative, too noncompliant and just irritating, exasperating in every single fucking way. Why couldn’t Roman see that?

But, again, it wasn’t my place to question him, so I didn’t. I kept all that bottled up inside. Nothing bad would happen from that, right? Whatever. I didn’t fucking care. I also didn’t think this thing, whatever it was, would last much longer. Roman had never zeroed in on anyone like this before, and there had been plenty of new girls at the Dollhouse for him to immediately sink his fangs into.

Zoey had been the first, and I didn’t doubt she wouldn’t be the last.

At least, I hoped she wouldn’t be the last. If she was the final girl, if Roman never cut her loose and she was always in our lives, I… well, I didn’t know what the fuck I’d do. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of being tied down to such a rambunctious brat.

And the pink hair. Ugh.

Zoey sat up, letting the blanket fall down, revealing she wore no top, not even a damned bra. Her tits just hung out, big and round and, you know, there. What the fuck else was I supposed to do besides stare at them? I might hate her, but her body was something else.

“How can you make my life miserable?” She glared at me, those eyes narrowed and totally unimpressed. Such defiance for someone who was always hungry and willing to take my cock when Roman was around.

Would she take it now, knowing Roman wasn’t here? I would never… but I’d be a liar if I said the thought didn’t cross my mind.

“I don’t like you,” she stated with a shrug of her shoulders and a bouncing of her tits. “So why would anything you do make my life miserable? Look around, buddy, it’s not exactly a great life anyways.”

I did not like being told that, for whatever reason. I was allowed not to like her, but she wasn’t allowed to claim the same. Come the fuck on. You didn’t thirst for someone’s dick if you hated their guts, not completely.

Hmm. I guess, if that was true, technically the same could be said for me aching for her pussy, but that wasn’t the point.

What was the point? I didn’t fucking know; I lost my train of thought staring at those tits.

“You could always go back to your old life,” I suggested, kind of wishing she would just drop everything and go. Granted, Roman would hunt her down and drag her screaming ass back here, but that was beside the point. Maybe he’d realize how much she wasn’t worth it and finally let her go—or make me take care of her in another way. The permanent way.

Zoey tossed the blankets off her, sliding out of her bed, letting me view the fact that she wore absolutely nothing, every part of her body on display as she got to her feet and stretched, being sexy on purpose, probably. The bitch. “I have nothing to go back to,” she said, shrugging. “So, for now, I guess we’re stuck with each other, you creep.” She said nothing else, swaying her hips almost too much as she sauntered to the bathroom.

I watched her go, feeling my heart start to beat a little faster. That, and my dick twitch in my pants. How the hell was I supposed to look at that naked body and not want to ram myself into it? With a sigh, I got out my phone, texting Roman.

Your girl is trying my patience, I said, hitting send before getting to my feet and putting the box of cereal away, ignoring the slight ache in my balls. Roman was never a man to sleep in, even when he stayed up all night. If anyone else would be awake right now, it was him.

I stood in the kitchen, waiting for a response, staring at my phone as if it held the answers. Fuck it all to hell. I said Zoey meant nothing, that she annoyed the fuck out of me, but then why couldn’t I get that pink-haired head out of my brain? Don’t tell me Roman’s obsession with her rubbed off on me; I wasn’t the kind of man who ever focused on one girl before. That just wasn’t me.

When my ears heard the shower turn on, I had to fight my thoughts, to keep them away from how that naked body of hers would look underneath the showerhead. All soapy, wet and steamy…

My phone screen lit up, Roman’s response: What is she doing?

Arguing with me. I told her to treat me like she would you, but she wasn’t having any of it.

It was but a moment before he said, What is she doing now?

Showering, I said, still fighting my mind, trying not to picture what she looked like in there, all sudsed up. I thought about whipping my dick out and rubbing one out right here, but I didn’t know how long she’d be in there, and I’d be damned if she caught me doing that. She’d probably get the wrong idea, probably think I actually liked her or something equally as stupid.

Roman told me, Call me when she’s out.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket, wondering what the hell he had up his sleeve. My feet, in spite of my mind struggling against it, drew me towards the bathroom door. She’d shut it, and I bet she’d locked it, but it was just a regular door handle, something you only had to fiddle with a little bit to unlock.

Would going in there be too much? Really, I wouldn’t be touching her, so I wouldn’t be going against what Roman wanted. I’d just be watching her, making sure she didn’t do anything stupid. Yeah, I mean, that wasn’t wrong. Roman wanted her to behave, so me watching her shower was a part of making sure she was a good girl.

I had the door handle unlocked within a moment, pushing inside and instantly seeing her behind a clear shower curtain. Zoey was in the middle of shampooing her hair, turning to glare at me. When our eyes locked, she frowned.

“Dude,” she said, “I know you might not realize it, but there is a thing called privacy—you should learn it and give me some, because this is a little much.” As she spoke, she rinsed out her hair, reaching for her poufy thing and a tube of body wash next.

“Well,” I said, both my hands in my pockets as I leaned my shoulder on the doorframe, blocking her only exit out, should she try to hurry up and run past me, “with how you act around me, I figured it was better to watch, just to make sure you weren’t doing anything stupid in here.” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Seeing her lather up her body made my dick hard, but that didn’t stop me from watching her. And, where Zoey was concerned, it seemed like she spent an excess amount of time scrubbing her tits.

“Of course,” Zoey said, giving me a roll of her eyes. “You’ll watch me shower just to make sure I’m not doing anything bad in here.” She began to rinse off her body, using her hands along with the water to get the suds off. Watching those hands run down her body, watching them cup her own breasts… she was hot and she knew it.

God, she irritated me so much. So fucking much, it was unreal.

I also irritated myself with how attracted I was to her. I shouldn’t want her this badly. It was annoying.

“I don’t know what you think of me,” Zoey went on, reaching down between her legs and running her fingers along her slit, “but I’m a good girl.” That hand remained between her legs a bit too long to simply be rinsing off the folds near her cunt. She had to be touching herself. She had to be doing it to see what I would do.

Right now the only thing I could do was watch.

I did manage to say, “Are you?” As I asked it, I doubted Zoey was ever a good girl. She’d given nothing but problems to Roman, and she would continue to do so for as long as she could. I bet when she was younger she played the good girl card but was always the wild one deep down. Now was just her time to let that wildness loose.

She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, slowly withdrawing her hand from between her legs. She turned off the water, pulling the curtain aside to give me an eyeful of her wet, naked body. “I’m a very good girl,” Zoey purred out, reaching for a towel, measured in stepping out of the tub and tying that towel around her chest, thereby blocking my view of her form. “You’re the one who came into my apartment while I was sleeping. If anyone’s bad, it’s you, Carter.”

I watched as she stepped closer to me, her pink hair dripping wet. Zoey lifted her chin, the color of her eyes boring into me as she let a slow grin crawl across her face. Those lips of hers… they were awfully tempting.

“You’re the naughty one,” Zoey whispered, giving me a slow, sly smirk that, in spite of myself, made my lower gut harden. Without another word, she pushed past me, exiting the bathroom and rounding the corner to where her bed was.

Roman’s words rang through my head as I trailed after her, reaching a hand into my pocket, my fingers running over the phone screen. I found Zoey standing in front of her dresser, pulling out whatever it was she would wear after she dropped that towel.

When she turned to face me, her clothes for the day laying across the bed, I pulled out my phone and dialed Roman. Roman must’ve been waiting for the call, for it only rang once before he answered: “Put me on speaker.”

I did, and then I locked gazes with Zoey.

“Zoey,” Roman’s voice came from the phone, and I watched her back straighten. It was almost funny, how different she acted when Roman was in the picture. Like she knew she had to behave for him; but for me? She could be a pain in my ass.

Oh, no. That wasn’t how this was going to go.

I took a certain type of smug satisfaction watching her reaction change, seeing the flicker of disbelief in her gaze, as if she could not believe I’d spoken to Roman about her misbehavior. Clearly, I was not above running and tattling on her, especially not when she looked so stunned as she realized it.

“Carter tells me you’ve been giving him an attitude,” Roman went on, and though she was attentive, Zoey frowned, those blue eyes of hers glancing up at me, rightfully accusatory in every single way. “When I’m not there, you are to treat Carter like you would me, and that includes not being an obstinate brat.”

Being an obstinate brat seemed to be Zoey’s specialty, one she did not appear willing to give up, if the glare she currently gave me said anything. Zoey’s lips, however, stayed shut. She knew she’d already fucked up; anything else she might’ve said in this moment would only push her further up the scale.

Roman’s harsh voice called out to me next, “Carter, I give you the permission to punish her however you like, just let me listen.”

At that, I’d be a liar if I said my body didn’t ache immediately. Truthfully, there was only one way I wanted to punish her, and that was showing her just how hard she’d made me while tempting me and teasing me.

“I—” Zoey started to say something, but I strode around her bed, slamming a hand against her mouth as I pushed her against the wall between her dresser and her bedframe.

“I believe it’s my turn to shine now,” I whispered, reaching to set the phone down on top of the dresser. An unreasonable excitement coursed through me; I couldn’t say why, but I was more than a little enthusiastic to have her.

To take her against the wall, while Roman listened.

While Roman listened. Not watched. It would be a first.

With a smirk, I kept my hand on her mouth, stopping her from saying anything else. With my other, I yanked the towel off her body, letting it fall to the floor in a heap. My already-erect cock jerked a bit in my pants as I let my gaze take its time in traveling along her.

Okay, fine. The pink hair might not be my thing, but the rest of her? The rest of her was utterly fucking perfect. Pink aside, I could see why Roman wanted her to belong to him. Zoey was slender but curvy, with perfect round tits. Even the giant tattoo on her side made my mouth water with a hunger only she could fill.

Her eyes narrowed at me, her full lips thinning into a line under my hand. Zoey said nothing, for she knew anything she could possibly say would only be heard by Roman; and I sincerely doubted whatever she would say would be something he’d like to hear.

If I had to bet? I’d say she wanted to tell me to fuck off or the old-fashioned fuck you. Either way, the word fuck was appropriate, for that was what I was about to do to her, what had been on my mind ever since she’d gotten up and shown me just how naked she was under those sheets.

The smirk on my face faded as I flipped her to her back, releasing my hold on her mouth to turn her. She stood with her hands on the wall, her palms flat, as if she could brace herself for what was about to come. The curve of her ass drew my gaze for a few moments, and I stared at it while working at my own belt and pants. I wasn’t going to get naked; just shed enough to get the job done.

To get Zoey fucked, in other words. To fuck her so hard and so fast she would have nothing smart to say after. No snarky comebacks. No hateful eyes. Nothing but a quivering body and the heat that surely gathered between her legs.

Once I was out, I positioned myself behind her, licking my fingers before reaching between her and finding her opening, running those same fingers along her. Zoey let out a gasp, and I knew why. She was already wet, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what the hell she’d been dreaming about before I woke her up.

Me? Roman? The both of us?

Or was it that fucking ex Roman had looked into?

I couldn’t say why, but the thought of it possibly being someone else made me feel a certain kind of irate. If I had a say, Zoey wouldn’t dare think about anyone else. Not anyone from her past, and not anyone other than me or Roman ever again.

Hmm. All right, fine. Maybe I was a little possessive over her, too.

A ragged breath left me when I grabbed the base of my cock and guided myself in, pushing my dick up into her cunt, its tight, wet walls taking me in easily. Zoey let out a muffled cry, her entire body pushed against the wall when I filled her up.

With the phone resting on the dresser in arm’s reach, with Roman listening in on the line, I did what I did best: I fucked her. I fucked Zoey Marbella so rough and so hard I couldn’t think straight. The only thing I wanted was my release, and I wanted it inside of her. I wanted to dirty up this clean body, to remind her how much she melted when my cock was rammed inside her.

We both breathed hard, Zoey’s body caught between the wall and a hard place: my cock. My arms encircled her on the wall, my head leaning down as I grunted with each thrust. I wanted her to hear me, to know, without a doubt, it was me. Me, and me alone. No Roman this time. Just her and me, and a lesson she won’t soon forget.

Even when Roman wasn’t here, she wasn’t safe from me. All I had to do was talk to Roman, tell him how bad she was behaving, and he’d surely let me take her.

The thought… it was almost too tempting, just like she was.

I couldn’t even say what it was about her. I had no idea why she drove me crazy, but she did. Was this what Roman felt when he thought about her, when he saw her bent over and taking my dick? How the fuck did he function every day, with thoughts of her trapped inside his head?

I didn’t do relationships or anything stupid like that. The only thing I cared about was getting my dick wet. Or, at least, that had always been the case before now. Now, I… fuck.

My eyelids squeezed shut as I slammed into her hard, causing her to cry out. I could feel the swelling of my balls, the sweet, hot release that was soon to come, and I let out a growl when it came, when the pleasure released from me in an almost violent way. My body tensed behind hers, my chest pushing her harder against the wall as my cock spewed deep inside that tight pussy.

Though the last thing I wanted to do was pull out of her, it was exactly what I did, and as I did so, as I reached down and put myself away, Roman’s voice came on the phone: “Good. Now, Carter, don’t let her clean herself up.”

Still breathing hard, I said, “Will do, boss. Anything else?”

“No.” And then he hung up, leaving me to deal with her.

I took my time in moving to the sofa, sitting there with my knees spread apart, my eyes glued to her backside. Her skin had become flushed during the fuck session, a bit sweaty. My cock still ached with a need, but I held myself back, glaring at her.

Zoey tried to turn around, tried to move from her position on the wall, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Ah, ah,” I said. “Don’t move.”

She set both hands flat upon the wall again, throwing a glare at me over her shoulder. “He said not to clean off your cum—not that I couldn’t move—”

“True,” I relented, “but I’m telling you not to move. I want you to stand there and feel it dribbling down your thighs, and when it dries, I want you to realize that you don’t just belong to Roman. You’re mine, too.”

Zoey groaned, fully annoyed with me, but she did as she was told. If she didn’t, she knew I could always whip out my phone again and give Roman another call. She stood there, leaning against the wall, freshly fucked, with my cum dribbling down her inner thighs like the little slut she was.

My slut. Roman’s slut. Ours.

Oh, yeah. That would never get old.

 

The days passed in a blur. Time itself was an odd one when you weren’t really paying attention to it. I made it out like I hated every single day I had to babysit Zoey, but in reality, I didn’t. That didn’t stop me from putting up a front, though, from telling Roman I’d rather do literally anything else.

Whether or not he believed me or whether it was simply fate, but one night he needed my help on a job, so I had to leave Zoey and take my place at his side once again.

That had been three hours ago, and now Roman and I were back at his place. I had some explaining to do, apparently, if the bullet in my arm was any indication.

Roman took me to the room where he kept all of his medical supplies. He sat me on the chair in the middle of the room, glowering. A bit of blood splattered on his cheek, staining the white undershirt of his suit, but he didn’t care. He simply stormed to the glass cabinets in the corner of the room, got out a metal tray, along with anything else he might need.

Me? I simply sat there, biting back the pain, wondering why the fuck I’d been so careless. You didn’t deal in shady business, in blackmail and family business when your mind just wasn’t in it.

And it wasn’t. Why? Because I’d been thinking of Zoey, as stupid as it was.

“Your shirt,” Roman muttered as he got out tiny metal pliers and disinfectant.

I winced as I worked to unbutton my shirt, soon enough pulling it off my chest and my arm, exposing the red hole in my upper bicep. I could still move my arm, so it didn’t hit anything too important, but it would take a while to heal, and if he needed me again, I’d be useless.

Although, I’d been damned near useless tonight. It was like Roman had brought a knife to a gunfight instead of the nine-millimeter he normally used.

Fuck. I really fucked up.

He rolled a stool beside me, fixing my arm to the armrest with a tight leather strap to my elbow. You know, so my body didn’t jerk when he was digging around inside it, trying to find and pull out the bullet.

The man who shot me was dead now, but that was beside the point. I should never have gotten shot to begin with.

Roman’s dark eyes were on the metal instrument he’d shortly use to dig into my arm and pull it out with. He was in the process of sterilizing it before he grabbed a clean rag and dumped a whole bunch of the fluid onto it, pressing it against my arm. It stung like a motherfucker, but I did my best not to let the pain show.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Roman asked. “You’ve never been so careless before, Carter.” His jaw tensed, a vein in his forehead throbbing, pulsing as he added, “You could’ve died tonight because you were so stupid.”

“I know,” I muttered. It wasn’t like I was happy about it myself. Almost dying was not on my agenda anytime soon, let alone ever. If there was one man I never wanted to disappoint, it was Roman. I literally owed him everything; without him, I was nothing, so the least I could do was have a clear head when he needed me on jobs.

“What we do is dangerous,” Roman spoke, tossing down the towel, which was now stained with my blood, before grabbing the surgical tweezers he’d use to dig in and grab the bullet. It was a weird thing, to feel metal caught inside of you, almost worse than the pain itself—a foreign object lodged inside your body that most definitely should not be there. “When you work for the mob, you need to always have a level head, and tonight, Carter, you acted like you were fifteen again.”

I said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He was right. Roman was always right.

Searing hot agony blew through me when he dug the metal tweezers inside the small hole in search of the bullet, and I ground my teeth in order to keep myself from wincing. The muscles in my arm were spasming uncontrollably; it was a good thing he’d tied it down.

“Where was your mind?” Roman hissed, eyes zeroed in on my arm as he worked. “What the fuck were you thinking about?”

I didn’t want to tell him, but I knew if I kept quiet, he might start to think I would forever be useless on jobs, and that wasn’t something I wanted to be. No, I wasn’t helpless or inept; I had been training to follow in Roman’s footsteps for the last ten years now. This wasn’t my first rodeo, and yet I’d gone into it like a blind man.

So I told him. I told him the truth, because he’d find out eventually—that, or he’d draw his own conclusions about where my mind was at. If there was one man whose trust I never wanted to lose, it was his.

“I was thinking about her,” I muttered. When I spoke it, his dark eyes lifted from the wound in my arm, the metal in his hands freezing as we met stares.

Zoey. I had been thinking about Zoey, and it could’ve cost me my life.

I mean, what the fuck?

Roman said nothing for a while, returning his focus on finding the bullet. It was a few minutes later when the red-stained bullet was dropped on the metal tray near his feet, pulled out of my body as carefully as it could possibly be without going to a hospital.

Bullet wounds were something that had to be reported to the police, and though there were some members of the local law enforcement that were in our pocket, not all of them were. It was always best to avoid them whenever possible.

“You need to learn to separate your private life from your work life,” Roman chided me, sounding almost like a parent—or, at least, how I imagined a parent would, in a situation like this. Roman was only ten years older than me, not much considering everything, but he’d seen a lot more of the world than I had, he’d done more, experienced more. He knew what he was talking about.

I nodded, turning away as he started to stitch me up and slap a bandage on the wound. My arm would be sore for a while; it was my shooting arm, too.

Goddamn it all to hell, I think… I think, in spite of everything, I liked her.

I liked the fucking pink-haired girl.

I liked Zoey Marbella.