Page 7 of Gilded Kisses

Please go. Please go. Please go.I silently send my words to them.

When I surface and dare open my eyes again they are gone. Wisps of a fantasy that no longer exists.

The grip in my hair forces me to do a one-eighty on the ball of my heel. Evil fills my vision.

“I thought you loved me.” Never in all my life did I think he would go to such lengths to ruin me.

“Who are you?” I hear myself ask, fearing the answer before it fully leaves my lips.

“If that filth touches you again, I’ll end all of you.”

Murder glitters in the depths of his eyes.

“I won’t stop until I see your blood on my hands. I swear this truth on my life. You will never let them touch what belongs to me. Swear it! Let me hear you!”

I felt nothing for years after those words fell from my lips.

I guess you could say I survived that night. But my heart? It died in the bloodied grass at my feet.

Two

Aster, six years later

My life is far more than a disaster zone. No amount of yellow caution tape can cover the craptastic damage love has done to my life. All love stories do not start the same way. Flowers, fireworks and sultry nights between the sheets. I think we can agree that mine sure the hell didn’t turn out that way. The hole in my heart burns as though a poisoned dagger lives in my chest rent free.

I take in a steady breath and let it out to the count of three, but the electricity skittering up my bare arms is hard to ignore.

I’m cursed.

I mentally play with the syllables of the tarnished word.

I’d like to call bullshit, but the proof of my wrecked love for the wrong men is evident from my broken heart. The lump of extinguished coal beats, but refuses to pump anything more than cold blood through my veins most days.

I wince. My heart clenches. I’m not sure how many more bruises it can take before it just gives out.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as not to draw attention to myself.

I want to be the dictionary definition of what a dutiful daughter should be to my father, but my heart and body don’t give a shit what my brain thinks.

I cling to the shadows deep inside The Gilded Key Society and watch as my darkest secrets sip bourbon.

It took a hot minute, but I finally found them.

They’re facing the stage where three masked fully exposed men grind against their shared woman. It’s a beautiful sight, but my godfathers are not watching the decadent show of skin on skin. Heady music pushes sensual tension into the artificially cooled atmosphere.

But my men don’t seem affected by the scent of sex or the heavy sighs filtering through the room. They almost look bored.

Between them is a low table with a bottle, glass and nothing else. No other women or seats for dates, I notice with a sense of relief. I don’t think I could take seeing them with another woman, though I know they have every right to seek their pleasures. And if there is any place you can fulfill your fantasies, the luxurious, decadent Gilded Key Society is it.

Set deep inside the marshlands, tens of miles from the noise of New Orleans sits the massive sex club only the elite pertain to. It’s the perfect place to lose yourself in a night of sinful decadence. In here it’s not so much who you are, rather how much you can pay. Membership starts at a crisp six million and only goes up from there. I did a little digging, but I wasted little time getting my ass to New Orleans once I found them. I also heard there’s a special key to get in the place, but I didn’t pay themembership fee nor did I get a pretty little key. It’s nice to have a few connections. At least my last name works for something.

Anxiety clutches at my stomach. Despite wanting to run to them and beg for them to love me again, I cling to the darkness a little longer and watch. All I have to do is work up the nerve to go to them, but I can’t just yet. All the time away from them has left me almost numb. Seeing them again has caused a wildfire in my nerves. Before I can go to them, I have to stop shaking.

I huff a quiet laugh into the glass of white wine I’ve been sipping all night. I know better than to ask for prayers when I am a sinner at heart, yet I send up my silent whispers and hope someone will take pity on me.

I just need one night with them. I need to know what I feel for them is real despite the time apart.

This fire—this aching burn—is a kind of insatiable barrage of heat against my senses that erodes my control until all I can do is think, dream and fantasize about them. I will do anything for it to stop, but I don’t know what it takes to purge all these emotions. Believe me, I’ve tried everything to no avail. Nothing and no one can extinguish the flames.