Wicked Love

it’s vacant.
This street is relatively quiet, and I notice several houses across the street also have boarded up windows which explains why. I shiver as a cold breeze blows, and rub my arms to warm them up. There’s almost no traffic, and the leaves have all vacated the trees, scraping against the pavement when the wind kicks up causing them to scatter. It’s totally creepy, and the street lighting is almost non-existent.
I glance at my phone to see how many minutes have gone by since I called. It’s been ten minutes and there’s no text notification yet that my driver, Manny, is even en route.
“Fuck,” I say aloud.
No sooner than the word escapes my lips a gloved hand reaches around from behind and covers my mouth. My scream is muffled, and then I feel something hard come down on my head. The pain is only a flash before my world goes black.

14


The Thing About Krew
The thing about Krew is that he understands the pain and torment I’m feeling after our session. The answers I found. The questions I still have. And the pieces of this sick puzzle starting to fit together.
He’s sitting so close to me right now, his right arm placed over my shoulders. I’m not sure why. I didn’t fall apart. But his comfort is welcome. The truth has taken a load off, but I understand now why my mind was determined not to allow those memories to surface.
“How are you feeling, Princess?” he asks softly, his warm hand moves to caress my cheek as he gazes down at me.
I shrug. “I’m okay. You know, it’s kind of like when you have a stomach bug. You get that feeling of nausea, the churning in your gut, the roiling of your stomach, and then the salivating starts. You try your damndest not to puke; you keep swallowing back the bile, and fight the gag reflex, thinking it’s just too gross to give in to it. But then you let go; and it actually feels good to get it out of your system. You wonder why you fought it so much.”
He gives me a smile. “Great analogy, Carson, notwithstanding the fact I’ve totally lost my appetite now for Chinese.”
“Chinese?” I ask, sitting up, “Where’d that come from?”
He chuckles, as he withdraws himself from my side and stands up. He stretches, languidly, and I can’t help but admire his muscles. “It’s been several hours. Aren’t you getting hungry? I was going to order some Chinese for delivery, how about it?”
It’s then I notice that I am in fact, famished. Apparently the purging of those memories has served to burn a lot of internal energy. Besides that, I’m a sucker for Chinese.
“Sesame Chicken and a side of Crab Rangoon,” I reply with a smile.
“Ah, a girl after my own heart,” Krew remarks, grabbing his cell.
“I’m going to visit the loo,” I say heading out the door. “And Krew, thanks.”
When I return to his comfort room, I see he’s taken a bottle of chilled Chardonnay from the small refrigerator and filled two wine glasses. “Thought you might enjoy a little wine before dinner,” he says, handing me one. “To purging the past,” he says, raising his glass up for a toast.
“And breaking up the sex trafficking ring,” I reply, tapping my glass against his, and taking a sip.
Krew doesn’t do the same. As I lower my glass, I see he’s staring at me with a distinct frown marring his handsome face. “Uh no,” he says, placing his glass on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“No?” I ask in confusion.
“Actually, hell no,” he says firmly. “You almost died at the hands of whoever those thugs were that attacked you that night. This is something you need to turn over to the police to investigate. You need to stay out of it, and not go near those places knowing what you know now, Carson.”
Okkaay . . . so when did Krew become my alpha keeper?
I take another sip of wine, so as to not blurt out what I’d just thought to myself. After all, Krew has been a key factor in bringing this to light, and pulling stake-out duty with me. I can't get all rude with him at this point. I simply need to point out the obvious in a nice, polite way.
“Umm . . . Krew,” I start, “I appreciate all you’ve done to help me, I really do, but this is my business to handle. Of course the authorities should be brought in, when I have more to give them, that is. At this point, it’s simply my word against whose? Shelby Parker’s?”
He drains his glass of wine in one long swallow. If I didn’t know better, I might think he’s getting pissed. “That’s the name you give to the police. And her address we now have. They can take it from there. You don’t need to play detective here, Princess.”
“That’s nothing,” I snap, “I need to talk to her, to get the full story. There’s a reason she dropped out of school. She knows the identities of who calls the shots in this thing. If the police call on her, she’ll clam up because there’s no proof. But if I talk to her, there’s a better chance she’ll give up some information.”
He’s about to argue with me about it when the front buzzer rings. “That’s our food. We’ll talk about this when I get back.”
He isn’t kidding about that. All through dinner, Krew lectures me. But it does no good. My mind is made up to talk to Shelby. I have her address and I’ll go by myself if I have to, I inform him. And that’s when he gives in.
“I’m not letting you go there by yourself. Promise you’ll wait until I can go with you,” he finally concedes.
“If you insist,” I tease, knowing that nobody ‘lets or doesn’t let’ Carson Matthews do what she sets her mind to do.


15


Fine Art
Knowing that