Page 108 of Caution to the Wind

I sat on the idlin’ bike in the deep shadows outside the pitifully low lights in the Purgatory parkin’ lot and watched as Jiang got out of his Mercedes and walked up the stairs to the second level. He lit a cigarette before he knocked at number 7, and when the door was opened, he was yanked inside urgently.

The way one might haul a lover into one’s arms after a long separation.

Acid had boiled in my stomach and surged up my throat, threatenin’ to choke me. Jiang had once had a male lover, but what the fuck did that matter? I knew brothers in my own club that’d fucked around with men a time or two but still considered themselves straight. Maybe Jiang was somewhere in the middle of the sexual spectrum, and why the hell wouldn’t he want Mei if he was into women?

She was…

Fuck. The truth was she was fuckin’ immaculate. So beautifully constructed that even after years of distance, my fingers still itched to pick up a pencil, a pen, or a piece of charcoal and work out the fine details of her face on paper or canvas.

The idea of Jiang stainin’ it with his criminal, blood-stained fingers enraged me even more than the idea that Mei might’ve eschewed my sacrifice to remain in contact with the triad.

But why?

I didn’t give a fuck who Mei slept with. She was a grown-ass woman with no relationship to me other than bein’ friends with my daughter.

And it wasn’t likeIwanted to touch her. Even if I had, it would have been hypocritical to write off Jiang as too blood-drenched and criminal when I’d been killin’ insurgents and then other criminals for decades now.

Still, the rage burned bright and brighter still as I sat in the dark and stared at the closed door to her room for forty minutes while she entertained the Vanguard of the Seven Song triad. I tried not to let my imagination get away from me, but it was a losin’ battle, given I made my livin’ as an artist.

By the time Jiang appeared in the door, lingerin’ for a moment as if he was reluctant to leave, I was thrummin’ with fury.

How dare she?I thought on repeat.How dare she do this?

As if I had a right to judge. As if I was the same man lookin’ out for her back in the day or, worse, a new man with a strange and horrifyin’ interest in who she might take as a lover.

I convinced myself I was just angry at another betrayal as Jiang pulled out of the parkin’ lot, so minutes later, I stalked on foot over the asphalt and up those peelin’ pink stairs. Took them two at a time, my blood pumpin’ from more than just exertion. By the time I was knockin’ at her door, I was mad with emotion.

So mad, it was like I was possessed by another man.

One so filled with hate and confusion that he couldn’t think straight or see clearly.

That same man, more monster really, tussled with Mei when she refused to be fuckin’ honest or straightforward with her answer. Pinned her against the door when she was bein’ too squirrely. Fixed his teeth in her neck ’cause the long, pale column was too temptin’. Sucked marks into her flesh ’cause it was too clean. Ravaged her breasts ’cause suddenly reason was a foreign concept, and all that was left was body urges and violent, repressed desires.

I fucked her like I hated her. Usin’ her. Tryin’ to forget exactly who it was I was drivin’ my dick into, only she kept remindin’ me in a myriad of inescapable ways. That goddamn cherry blossom scent. The absurdly silky texture of that raven-wing hair. The strong muscles in the small, lean body offset by the new discovery of curves, the plumpness of her ass totally palmed in each hand, and the slight but pretty swell of her white, red-tipped tits.

I was lost in a toxic cloud of rage and lust, everythin’ tinged pink like the motel around us. If someone’d asked for my name and address, I would’ve blanked, only capable of gruntin’.

It would’ve been possible, maybe, to blame my ferocious animal response on the fact that I hadn’t fucked since before The Prophet’s assault on my daughter.

It would’ve been possible to blame the rage on the fact that Mei had used and abandoned me eight years ago, and the wound had never healed, festerin’ and oozin’ for near on a decade without closure to stitch it closed.

But none of those excuses mattered.

The truth that only served to fuel my fury even as I let myself loose on her body was that I wanted her.

Plain. Simple.

I wanted to bury myself inside her. Wanted to tame all that wild, reckless energy with my cock and a strong hand on her throat, her tits, her sweet little ass. Wanted to stamp my possession on every inch of that black-inked, white-washed skin ’til she glowed with colour from my lips and teeth and brutal hands.

It wasn’t about anger, not really, unless it was anger with myself for capitulatin’ to this dangerous degree of lust. It seemed, when I was balls deep in that snug, delicious cunt, that I’d found nirvana, and I’d never get enough.

It scared me through to my fuckin’ bones, so after I’d lost half my soul to my climax, I’d flung her away like a discarded bit of trash, washed my hands on her panties like she disgusted me, and left her wet, swollen, beautiful as all the best kinds of sin on that horrible pink bed.

She hadn’t noticed that I’d pocketed that red scrap of lace.

Her eyes were squeezed shut when I noticed a piece of loose art paper at the base of the bed and crumpled it up along with the underwear to be secreted away in my jeans for later.

Eventually, it was the urge to see what was penned on that paper that stopped me from ridin’ aimlessly through the night.