Carnage by Sarah Bailey
Thirty Seven
Scarlett
Waking up having spent the night in Prescott’s bed, curled up against the man himself was an experience in of itself. I’d never slept next to a man before, especially not one who knew my body as intimately as he did. His body heat radiated off him, keeping me warm and cosy beneath his covers. And I hadn’t dreamt. The haunting nightmares didn’t plague me. His presence kept them at bay.
Peeking my head out of the covers, I looked up at Prescott who was fast asleep. The morning sun dappled across his face, highlighting all the curves and edges. His dark blonde hair was rumpled from sleep. A hand rested on his chest, right over his heart, as it rose and fell at a steady pace. The other was curled around me in a manner I could only describe as possessive.
The man was undeniably attractive in every sense of the word. He was built to beguile and lure the unsuspecting in. The perfect male specimen. And yet there was a peacefulness to him in slumber I’m sure few ever had the opportunity to witness. Like his perfect mask slipped away and the deadly man underneath was finally visible.
And what a man he is.
The way he’d looked at me last night as if I was something precious to him. No matter the way he spoke to me or treated me, his blue gaze gave him away. It spoke of secrets kept, desires hidden and loss, soul-destroying loss. I had no idea what it meant, but a part of me broke inside for him. The part of me that had started to care for Prescott.
I knew I shouldn’t. He was my enemy. Somehow, the lines between friend and foe blurred until I could barely see them.
Why does it feel like I’ve known you forever? Why does my heart yearn for you? Why am I falling under your spell with so little resistance?
I didn’t know how to stop my descent into madness. Into the trap he’d laid so expertly. And at this point, I had no idea if I even wanted to. All I knew was I wanted to stay in this bed with him, away from the world outside. Savour this stolen moment where I didn’t have to guard my secrets and lie to him.
Without thinking about it, I pressed a kiss to his chest and placed my hand over his. My head settled in the crook of his shoulder, my eyes drawn to his features, wanting to document each and every one to keep as a memento of the first time I’d felt safe and secure in years.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered into his skin, a tear slipping from my eye. “I can’t hurt you even though I know you’re going to hurt me.”
The words were fucking damning. They wrecked me. The guilt overwhelmed my being. My hand around Prescott’s tightened. I didn’t want to wake him and allow him to see me like this but fuck if the pain in my chest didn’t half burn with its intensity.
I wanted to scream and rage at my parents for putting me in this position. They’d sent me to destroy the Horsemen. To tear them apart. To bring them their heads. And instead, the Horsemen had infected me.
I had no idea who I was. Who this woman inside me had become, or who she wanted to be. The real Scarlett was locked away behind a wall of bulletproof glass. No matter how many times I smashed my fists against it in desperation to unlock my secrets, it never cracked. There was no chink in its armour. The wall remained an impenetrable force in my brain. And I hated everything about it.
I’d been so overwhelmed by the sex with Prescott last night, my words about wanting the truth came spilling out without me thinking about it. Without me considering what it meant to reveal to him that I’d had flashes of the past seeping into my head. They had to be real. There couldn’t be any other explanation for the vivid nature of the memories. But why did being around these men cause them? It was a question I hadn’t yet found an answer to.
“Little lamb.”
His melodic voice brushed across my ears. Opening my eyes, which I’d closed when my tears slipped out, I found Prescott’s blue ones staring down at me.
“Hey.”
He slid his hand from underneath mine and brushed away the tear leaking from my eye. The skin below me was damp. I hadn’t realised I’d started crying in earnest. Prescott didn’t say another word. He merely leant closer and pressed a kiss to my hair and cupped my face with his large palm as if to tell me it was okay. That I could cry and he wouldn’t belittle me for it.
I gulped down a breath of air, my heart aching with the tender care the man was showing me. A side of him I didn’t know existed until the day in his office when he’d fucked me on his desk.
“I don’t understand you,” I whispered. “Any of you, but right now, especially not you, Pres. How can you be so cruel with one hand and give me so much care with the other?”
He wasn’t going to answer me. I knew it. But the words came out anyway. They made me sound so fucking broken. And I was. Inside held a mess of conflicting feelings, emotions, and guilt.
A sob left my lips, the dam breaking and opening up the void in my chest. Prescott turned on his side and tucked me up against his chest, stroking my back and letting me cry on him. Allowing me to fall apart in his arms as the stress of the past few weeks with these men bore down on me.
“Shh, sweetness,” he whispered into my hair as he pressed his face into it. “I’ve got you.”
His words only made me cry harder. I clutched him to me as if my life depended on being close to this man who was slowly destroying me from the inside out.
Who knew how long we stayed like that, me lost in misery and him taking care of me. It was only when a loud noise blared next to us, I realised today was Friday and we had work. Prescott shifted, reaching over to turn off his alarm. He settled back down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
“Feel better, my little lamb?”
I nodded.
“Thank you,” I mumbled into his skin.
He reached up and pulled my face away from his chest. Both his big palms cupped my cheeks, and he wiped the tears from under my eyes with his thumbs. The softness of his expression rendered me utterly damned for this man. I couldn’t destroy Prescott for my parents. Not when he’d let me purge my emotions on his chest. Not when he made me feel safe.
“Let me make you breakfast, hmm? Then I’m giving you the day off. Drake can just deal without you.”
“Are you sure about that?” I sniffled.
“He can’t fire me.”
I snorted and shoved at his chest.
“He can fire me.”
“But he won’t. Not if I have something to do with it.”
I didn’t want to create conflict between him and Drake. I imagined there might already be given Prescott had skipped out on the awards ceremony for me.
“As sweet as that is, Pres, I think I need to be here, though I have nothing to wear. I’ll just nip home for a change of clothes even if it means I’m late.”
He smiled.
“You can’t get out of breakfast.”
I gave him a nod. As if I would turn down his offer when he’d been so nice to me this morning.
He let me go and slid out of bed, stretching. I tried not to drool over his beautiful, very naked form. He went around the bed, picking up our clothes and straightening them out. I watched him take his tux over to hidden wardrobes in one of the walls. He hung up the items. Everything was so neat and had its exact place. Next to the wardrobe was another hidden door, which he opened and disappeared into.
I slipped out of his covers and padded over to it, stopping in the doorway. The secret bathroom had a large rainfall shower. It was decorated in slate grey tiles with pale green accents in the towels and toiletry holders. Prescott had turned the shower on. He glanced back at me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Are you joining me?”
He stepped behind the glass separating the rest of the bathroom from the shower without waiting for a response. The water cascaded down his body, making my mouth water. My feet carried me into the room, around the glass, and then I was wrapping myself around his back, my fingers running along the grooves of his stomach. The water hit me, washing away all evidence of my tears. He didn’t say a word, merely pulled me around to his front and grabbed the shower gel.
He didn’t allow us to linger in the shower after he’d washed me and then himself. Afterwards, he dried me with a fluffy towel and tucked me up in his giant dressing gown. My hair was damp, but I couldn’t do much about that. I sat on the end of his bed, watching him dress for the day in a dark grey suit with a waistcoat and a dark blue tie. The man moved with liquid grace. The whole experience of seeing him ready himself for his day was a treat for me in a lot of ways. It was the first time I’d had such intimacies with a man.
He styled his hair before coming over and pulling me up. Prescott clasped my hand in his and we left the room. I could hear the sound of voices spilling up from the floor below as we got nearer to the stairs. It made me falter in my steps. Prescott glanced at me with concern in his eyes.
“Are you sure about this?” I whispered. “Aren’t they going to be mad that I’m here?”
He gave me a wink.
“If they are, fuck ‘em.”
I swallowed when we descended the stairs together. Prescott didn’t let go of my hand, even as the voices stopped. When I looked over, Drake and Francis stood in the kitchen with mugs in their hands and West standing by the windows, his hand up against the glass as he stared out at the skyline. Francis’ eyes narrowed as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Drake remained expressionless and I’m not sure West had even registered we were there. The last time I’d seen that damn man was when he stuck his hand up my dress and forced me to come in a room full of people. My face grew hot at the memory.
“Morning,” Prescott said with a sunny smile on his face, which I’m pretty sure pissed Francis off, judging by the way his face soured.
Prescott made me sit down at the dining table, stroking my shoulder and giving me a wink before he wandered over to the kitchen.
“Did we win?” he asked as he opened the fridge, clearly not caring about what my appearance had caused. I could feel the disapproval radiating off Drake in waves, not to mention the irritation from Francis.
“Yes, which you would have known if you’d been there,” Francis said through gritted teeth.
Prescott merely shrugged as he pulled out some items from the fridge and set them on the counter next to him.
“I’m sure you handled it just fine without me.”
Francis’ scowl only deepened.
“It’s your fucking—”
“Francis,” Drake said, cutting him off. “Enough.”
His voice sent a chill down my spine. The absolute command and control in it silencing the entire room. West turned his head, looking at the others with a raised eyebrow. Then he spied me sitting there. A slow smile curved along his lips, making me grip the dressing gown tie in fear of what he would do. Shoving off the window, he stalked over to me. I swallowed hard when he approached my back and leant over me, placing his palms on the table in front of me.
“Hello, Scarlett,” he murmured in my ear. “Fancy seeing you here.”
I clenched my jaw shut, trying not to show how much he terrified the shit out of me. Especially after what he did last night.
“Did you not get enough from me, hmm? Or did Pres take it easy on you?”
Prescott had not taken it easy on me at all. I had a bruise on my shoulder from his teeth. He marked me as his, claiming my whole damn soul and binding me to him. It’d felt like that to me anyway. I had no idea of how Prescott felt about it, as he didn’t exactly voice his feelings aloud.
The fact West had decided to taunt me in front of the rest of them irritated me. Instead of doing what I should have, which was to remain silent, I turned my head up towards him and met his amber eyes.
“If you must know, I begged for his dick, which is more than I’ve ever done for you.”
As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them. The way West’s eyes flashed had me shrinking back. And the silence echoing around the room told me the rest of them had heard me.
Do you ever learn? Do not antagonise the psychopath who thinks you’re his.
“Is that so?”
The deadly calm of his voice made me tremble. Every part of me screamed to run very, very far away from this man. I was trapped between his arms and the table. And his vicious smile made my heart pound so hard the beat of it rang in my ears. He leant closer, his face right up in mine.
“You say that,” he told me, his voice low and full of deadly violence. “But mark my words, you’ll be singing to a very different tune soon.”
His hand left the table and he curled a lock of my wet hair around his finger. For a moment I thought he might stop, but he tugged on it hard, making me yelp.
“And by soon, I really mean right now.”
I barely had a chance to take a breath when he ripped me out of my seat, slammed me against the table, and winded me. His hand curled around my neck as he pressed my face into the wood. The man leant over me, his breath dusting across my cheek.
“I should fuck that attitude out of you, Scar,” he whispered. “I should teach you a fucking lesson in front of him.”
The next thing I knew, he’d stabbed a knife into the table right by my face, making me flinch. His fist clenched around it, the tattoo of two bloody axes stark against his skin.
“But I have a feeling Drake and Frankie might have something to say about that… so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get on your knees and apologise to me or I will make you bleed out all over this table whilst I fuck you into a stupor.”
