Unfortunately, I got home unscathed.

I ran right to my computer, opened a new document, and thoughtlessly titled it Green-Eyed Woman.  My blood and soul poured through my fingers as they moved across the keyboard, raw and angry, chilling.  The setting is a dinner party in a small quaint mobile home.  Sprays and splashes of red wine and blood crashed violently against its cream colored walls as the massacre begins.  The beautiful girl stared with wide green eyes as the world turned crimson around her, but she’s not scared.  She’s fearless.  Blood dripped from my fingertips as her pure unscathed lips touched mine, pulling the hate and anger away from my soul.

Pure unadulterated raw sex emerged from the pages.  Erotic touches, words, and violence twisted together to form an epic story of horrific proportions, with a sick tangled web of obsession and passion.

I had never been afraid of anything in my life with the exception of one violent day from my youth, which completely changed the person I was then, to the empty shell, I was today.  Since that day, I’ve kept everyone and everything away from me so I don’t hurt anyone with my wrath and my belligerence.  But this girl, this woman, she was slowly captivating me, slipping the fear, the hate, and the rage away from me with her mysterious poise and calmness in my world.

When the sun rose over the evergreens that surrounded my home, I had over fifty thousand words to my next book.  I didn’t stop either, I couldn’t.  My muse would not shut the fuck up.  The obsession consumed me for days.  The girl, I knew would be an obsession for longer.  I wanted to scrape the words I’ve written off the white of the screen, grab them tightly in my hand and smash them against her face.  Have her feel my words against her flesh, smear them into her pores, and have them seep into her skin.

I needed to see her again.  I needed her to hate me and to stay far away from me, because I wanted to consume her completely.

Chapter 5

Empty wine bottles and burgundy bottom stained glasses littered the trailer.  Fran had tried to be a gentleman and attempted to help me clean after Dylan’s birthday dinner last night, but we didn’t get too far.  From the moment Bree and Dylan slipped out of the door to sleep back at Dylan’s place, Fran’s hands were all over me.

When his lips met mine, I felt like I was watching myself from a distance, trying to find some sort of feelings or something…some glimmer of want.  But all I could think of was the life I’d run away from.  How I thought I’d be able to delude myself into thinking that I could possibly date a man after what I’d been through was laughable to me.  My body tensed up, a small whimper escaped from my mouth and I simply pushed myself away from Fran’s pawing limbs.  My past was going to haunt my every kiss from now on, wasn’t it?  Every time another man places his lips or hands on me, I’m going to cringe and wonder what it is he really wants to take from me, aren’t I?

I did my best to compose myself and offered a silly excuse about getting to know one another better and cleaning, I had to clean.  Fran, the gentlemen he was, understood and helped clean a bit, but I just called it a night, and when he gently asked me, I agreed to another date out of guilt.

After he left, I had another miserable night of sleep, tossing and turning, nightmares pecking at my grey matter.  Nightmares about blood and fists, hospital ceilings, dark shadows on city streets and moonless desert nights listening to explosions like music in the air.  Nightmares about my brother.  Nightmares about Kade and the way his dangerous eyes watched me during dinner, and the way I liked it.

At eight in the morning, right in the middle of gulping coffee straight from the coffee pot, my phone buzzed and I groaned out loud.  “I’m cleaning it up.  I don’t need help, go back and snuggle with your Bucket of Yum, and relax,” I laughed into the phone, not even bothering with any hellos.

Bree sighed on the other end and whispered, “The guilt is killing me.”

“This isn’t about the cleaning, huh?” I asked, knowing full well it had everything to do with not cleaning.

She whimpered into the phone.

“My brother loved you more than anything, Jen.  He’d want to see you move on and be happy.  Michael’s been gone over a year and you deserve a little bit of fun and happiness.  Please, just enjoy yourself.”  I laughed loudly, “I mean don’t enjoy yourself, enjoy Dylan.  Go.  Have fun.  And sex.  Have lots of hot, dirty, nasty sex.”

“I know you’re right, but…God, I have felt numb for so long.  My body just shut down when he died, and now with Dylan I feel alive again.”  She sobbed quietly into the phone and sniffled.  “But, I feel like I’m cheating on Michael,” she whispered.

“Honey, you’re not going to be able to have a future with anyone if you keep yourself in the past.  What you and Michael had was beautiful, but he’s gone and you need to let yourself live.  You never know what’s going to happen, just be happy and live for you, live for today.  I’m not asking you to forget him, just let some other people in, that’s all.”

“Michael and Dylan would have been friends.  Great friends,” she whispered.

“And, I bet he wouldn’t be able to pick a better guy for you to date,” I said.

“You always say just what I need to hear.  I’m glad we stayed close because I wouldn’t have been able to deal with losing Michael without you.  I would have been all fucking alone.”

“You’re like my sister.  No, you are my sister, look at what you did for me.  You ran away with me!  You wouldn’t let me do any of this alone,” I replied.

“I couldn’t, because you didn’t leave me.  You’re the only family I have,” she sniffed softly.

“I love you, sweets.  I really do, and you deserve to be happy.  Dylan makes you smile again.  He’s a nice guy.  Go and enjoy yourself for a little while.  I’m not telling you to marry the guy, just have fun.  No excuses; continue with your love fest please.”

“Shut up,” she laughed.  “I’ll be by later to get my bag for work. I forgot it last night.  Love you and thanks, Sam…for everything.”

Hanging up, I smiled at the state of chaos in the trailer.  “Prepare to be cleaned, O-C-fucking-D style,” I laughed out loud, swallowing back the last remnants of coffee from the bottom of the pot.

 So, dressed in only my sleepwear, which consisted of a tiny black tank top that ended above my navel and a tight pair of boy shorts, I armed myself with a pair of latex gloves, broke out the bleach, my iPod and speakers.

An hour later, the pungent smell of bleach and lemons filled the air and the place was literally sparkling.  All of the dishes were washed, everything that was ever touched by human hands was disinfected and I felt brand new.  I threw my gloves off and looked around.  The only thing left to clean was the floors, one last time, so I raised the volume of the music and mopped to the beat of Raise Your Glass by Pink.  Dancing around, I sang the words into the mop handle and tried to bust out some moves like I watched the girls do on stage at the bar.  In front of the stove, I did one of those sexy stripper stomps in my white beat up chucks on my tippy toes, pretending they were stilettos.  When I got to the couch, I flipped my hair around, squatted down into one of those spread eagle moves and slid myself back up, laughing, shaking my backside and spinning around the mop.

“Um…Lainey,” Bree’s voice stammered, pulling my eyes up to hers at the door.  She’d caught me doing a hell of a lot worse, so I felt no shame. Hell, we usually giggled and practiced these moves together.  However, when I saw who was standing next to her, my stomach dropped and I yelped out a squeal of mortification.