Beauty and the Dark Read online

  “McDonalds?”

  He pulls a face. “You do realize that I’m a doctor and cannot condone eating stuff that is molecularly closer to plastic than food?”

  I grin. “I’d still like to try it.”

  “You’ve never been to a McDonalds?” he asks incredulously.

  “No.” I don’t tell him that most of my life I was locked up in a brothel. “My sister and her husband always seem to end up in nice restaurants so I’ve never had the opportunity to try it.”

  He stares at me oddly.

  “What?” I ask defensively.

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ve a better idea though. A friend of mine has a no nonsense burger place. I’ll take you there and if after your first bite you don’t like it, we’ll walk to the McDonalds down the road and order one of their unhappy meals for you.”

  “Deal,” I say with a big smile.

  “Come on,” he says, lightly laying his hand on the small of my back. He leads me towards a monster of a black Lamborghini.

  I laugh. “Are you sure this thing won’t bite?”

  He holds the door open for me. “The car doesn’t bite, I do,” he teases, glancing sideways at me.

  I feel my face flaming. He’s flirting with me. No one has ever flirted with me. Ever. I don’t even know what to do. I slip into the car, he closes the door, and goes around the back towards the driver’s seat. I look around me curiously. I’m in Jack’s car.

  The interior is all leather and black trim. The coldness of the leather seat seeps through my jeans and bites into my skin. Once he gets in the air becomes charged with a crackling tension. A whiff of his cologne hits my nostrils. Clean and fresh with a hint of spice, maybe cloves or saffron. I breathe it in and feel my chest tighten. I don’t know why he has this effect on me. It is extremely unsettling.

  The car roars into life and my eyes slide over to watch his hands. They are large and rough. There are scars on his knuckles. They are not how I imagined the hands of a plastic surgeon would be, but a working man.

  I let my eyes slide up his arm and towards his neck, to where his straight black hair lies, as if inviting a woman to rake her hands through it. Before he catches me staring I turn away from the sight. I gaze blindly out of the window. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I know I can never have a man like him so I should stop fantasizing about him. It is pointless and I’ll just end up getting my heart broken.

  It is only a short drive before we arrive at our destination. He parks the car on a single yellow.

  “Won’t you get a ticket?”

  He winks. “Nobody around here would dare give me a ticket.”

  “Why not?”

  “They all come to my free surgery day, and they know I’ll ruin their health forever, if they do.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I don’t know. My car is very precious to me,” he teases.

  We walk to a small burger bar called Earl’s Burgers.

  Even before Jack has closed the door a gruff voice bellows from the open kitchen, “In the name of Jaysus it’s Jackfuckin’Irish.” Seconds later a grinning man with close cropped bright red hair and tattoos crawling up his skinny neck vaults over the serving counter and comes over to us. He claps Jack on the back enthusiastically. “Hey dude.”

  “Alright there, bud,” Jack says.

  The man’s pale blue eyes slide over to me. “And who’s this beauty, Junior?”

  “Sofia, Paddy. Paddy, Sofia,” Jack introduces.

  He leans forward and takes my hand in his. His hands are rough and hot. “And how come she’s hanging out with the likes of you?”

  “She’s helping out at Kids Rule,” Jack explains shortly.

  Paddy’s eyes warm up. “Aww … you’re a darling, sweetheart.”

  “Watch it, mate,” Jack warns, and there is an underlying ring of steel to his voice that causes even Paddy to jump dramatically.

  He raises both hands and takes a long step back.

  “Ach, Jack. Don’t bite my head off just because your bachelor days are numbered.”

  I flush to the roots of my hair.

  “Jesus, will you leave it?” Jack swears.

  Paddy laughs, hits him heartily on the back, and leads us to our table.

  “Don’t mind him,” Jack says tightly. “He drank his IQ down to room temperature.”

  Unconcerned with the insult, Paddy laughs garrulously. “He wants three babies,” he calls out, holding up three fingers while walking backwards. Then, he jumps back over the counter and lands back in the kitchen.

  “Well. He’s a fun guy,” I say casually.

  Jack scowls. “God knows what’s got into him. He’s not usually so … fun.”

  I grin. “I like him.”

  He loses the scowl. “Paddy’s all right, I guess.”

  A curvy waitress in a tight pink T-shirt and a pair of pink stretch-jeans comes to our table. She hands me a menu.

  “All right Jack?” she says, giving him a bright pink smile.

  His lips twitch in greeting. “Hello, Shannon.”

  I order the Bacon Cheese Big Murphy Burger with chips and a Coke.

  “The usual with a side of coleslaw and sweet potato fries,” Jack tells the girl.

  “Right you are,” Shannon says and, taking the menu from me, sashays away.

  I pull my eyes away from her departing back, she really does have an amazing figure, and find Jack staring at me. His look is so intense it practically takes my breath away.

  “So you’re a plastic surgeon,” I say nervously.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “It must be fun playing God with other people’s faces and bodies.”

  He shrugs. “It’s just a job.”

  “Just a job? Don’t you like it?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Really? So why did you become one?”

  “It’s less hypocritical.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a long story, Sofia.”

  I lean forward. “I like long stories.”

  The waitress comes back with two cans of Coke and two glass tumblers.

  “Well, I didn’t start off wanting to suck fat out of people who are too lazy to get on a treadmill and inject fat into self-obsessed celebrities’ faces. When I was young I was an idealist. I wanted to cure the world. I was going to do big things, you know, make a difference.”

  He stops and frowns.

  “Anyway, something happened in my life, and I didn’t want to live in England anymore so I joined Doctors Without Borders and they sent me to Africa.”

  “Oh, wow, Africa!” I interrupt.

  For a second he looks bleak. “Yeah, Africa.”

  “It must have been amazing.”

  He looks at me expressionlessly. “Africa destroyed me.”

  “Why?’ I ask, shocked.

  He drinks his Coke straight from the can. “I realized that there was no way to change the world. Not only is the whole damn system parasitical in nature, it’s been deliberately set up to be that way, and little ole me was not going to change it. In fact, my very existence was making the system run. I was actually a cog in a well-oiled machine that was ruthlessly exploiting the poor and the oppressed so that some over-fed capitalist somewhere in the West could make another buck he didn’t need.”

  I gaze at him curiously. “What do you mean?”

  He sighs. I can see this is a topic that depresses him. “As a doctor you become the unwitting tool of Big Pharma manufacturers who are busy offloading their out-of-date vaccines and medicines at cut prices. They wanted me to inject poison into those kids.”

  “Could you not complain to someone?” I ask, aghast.

  “The politicians are bought so they turn a blind eye, and the think tanks and government officials stay silent to further their own agendas.”

  “I can’t hardly believe that is going on.” What am I saying? Look at the cycle of corruption that kept me enslaved. It was polit
icians who were my biggest customers.

  “It was going on while I was there. It’s hard to imagine it is no longer going on. The profits are too big.”

  “So you left?”

  “Not immediately. Even then I thought I could make a difference. I began a campaign of educating the people. In Africa life is cheap. A few bullets. One to the chest and a couple to the stomach. I was very badly wounded and would have died if Blake had not sent in an army to find me and fly me out.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “When I came back it was the same shit all over again. Representatives of big pharma constantly in my office pushing the most expensive drugs on me. Basically bribing me with kickback to prescribe those as often as possible. It made me sick and ashamed of the code I had undertaken. Our motto was no longer First Do No Harm, it was Keep Them Sick While You Fill Your Pockets.”

  He leans back in his chair and I see the scars of his past alive in his eyes.

  “Anyway, after that I decided I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. The most fitting job for me was to become a plastic surgeon. At least I wouldn’t be pretending to be doing something important. I’d simply be tickling someone’s neurosis and filling my pockets at the same time.”

  Fourteen

  Jack

  “This looks big enough to feed five,” she says when her food arrives. I watch the childlike pleasure on her face and suddenly blood is rushing to my ears. Mine. This one is mine. The sentiment is barbaric, but it will not be denied and roots itself in my being.

  “What?” she asks, her eyes so big and bright, her lush lips parting.

  What the fuck? She’s like an angel from heaven come to tempt me. As I watch, her tongue comes out, wetting her bottom lip. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. Shit. I’m in so much trouble.

  “Dig in,” I tell her, my voice hoarse.

  She takes a bite, her movements self-conscious. Juice runs down the side of her mouth and her tongue comes out to lick it away, and it takes everything I’ve got not to lean forward and taste her mouth. I’m going to be lying in my cold bed stroking myself to release tonight. She is looking at me innocently.

  “Is it good?” I ask with a tight smile. “Or do we need to walk down the road to McDonalds?”

  She shakes her head and smiles happily. “No, this is heaven.”

  “Excellent,” I say, and even though I have zero appetite I take a bite out of my burger. “Tell me about you?” I invite.

  She swallows and shrugs delicately. “There’s not much to tell,” she says hesitantly. “I live with my sister, her husband and their daughter.”

  I nod. “Do you work?”

  She shakes her head and the light catches her eyes and they glow like warmed honey with bits of gold pollen. Beautiful. I gaze at her and she blushes.

  “What do you do with your time?” I ask. I need to stop behaving like a teenager.

  She picks up a chip, dips it restlessly a few times in ketchup, leaves it at the side of her plate, and picks up her glass of Coke. Without drinking from it she puts it back down.

  “I know it must seem as if I’d have a whole load of time and be bored all day, but in fact, it’s not so. I have my sister, my niece, and my puppy, and the days just fly. Before I know it, it’s already bedtime.”

  I take another bite and try to imagine her life, and just cannot. It seems so different, so alien. Living in the tower of a castle. Spending every day with her sister, a baby, and a puppy.

  “Do you guys go out a lot?” I ask curiously.

  She laughs nervously. “No, rarely. I’m a homebody, I don’t like leaving the castle grounds.’ She wipes her mouth and quickly deflects the question back to me. “What about you? Do you go out a lot?”

  “Uh, my apartment is basically just a place I go to sleep at night.” I don’t tell her that half the time I don’t even go home to sleep.

  “Oh,” she murmurs. “How completely different we are. I can’t imagine only returning home to sleep. I guess I’m a bit of a loner. I prefer to spend a lot of time on my own.”

  “Don’t you like people?”

  “It’s not that I don’t like people. I find it hard to connect with them. They are not like animals or children, are they? Often they say one thing when they mean another.”

  “It’s very easy to understand people, Sofia. Just bear in mind that 99.99% of the time people are completely motivated by selfish needs. If there is nothing to be gained from their relationship with you they won’t be around.”

  She bites her lip. “So you know that they are around you for personal gain and you don’t mind?”

  I grin. “I’m around them for personal gain too.”

  She stares at me. “What do you hope to gain from me?”

  Just like that my dick pops into wood. “You? I want you,” I say through gritted teeth.

  Her cheeks flame. “I … I can’t have a relationship with anybody.”

  She looks so fearful I feel like I should be protecting her from myself. “Why not?”

  Her chin trembles and her long lashes sweep down. “It’s a long story.”

  “I like long stories.”

  She tries to smile, but it comes out like a grimace. “You won’t like this one.”

  I know she wants me too, but something is holding her back. I reach my hand out to take hers in mine and she jumps as if I have electrocuted her. Looking deep into her eyes I take her hand back into mine and let my thumb stroke it. Her skin is pure silk. She swallows hard.

  “I … You’ll be disappointed,” she stammers.

  “Why would I be disappointed?”

  “I’m not what you think I am?”

  “What do you think I think you are?”

  “You think I’m normal. I’m not.”

  I smile bitterly. “Neither am I.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m damaged goods.” She pauses, her eyes pained. “I’m not … mentally right.”

  I grip her hand hard. “You’ll do fine, just as you are, Sofia.”

  Her eyes swim with tears and she blinks them away. “You don’t understand. I can’t be with you, Jack. I can’t be with anyone.” She stands up suddenly. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  I stand too. “Let me pay the bill first and I’ll take you back.”

  “No, I’ll just take a taxi,” she says looking around us nervously. I would lay money on the table that she has never taken a taxi before and she’s scared shitless.

  “No you fucking won’t. I brought you here and I’ll take you back.”

  “Okay, okay,” she says, hugging herself. Her face is pale and pinched.

  I throw some money on the table and we walk out of the restaurant together while Paddy, the fool, irritatingly shouts, “Three babies. He wants three babies.”

  We walk in silence towards Lambo and I help her into the car before I get into my seat. She turns towards me. “Thank you for the meal.”

  I glance at her. Her hands are clutched into little fists on her lap. “You hardly ate anything, but it was a pleasure, nevertheless.”

  She stares down at her hands in abject misery.

  “Hey, relax. It’ll be all right,” I tell her.

  “I’m sorry.” The sound is torn out of her throat.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m having you anyway.”

  Her face jerks up, eyes are glassy, the pupils large. She looks like a scared rabbit, wanting to bolt away. “What did you say?” she gasps.

  “What do I look like to you? A fucking quitter. If at first you don’t succeed just give up and go away? I’ll have you yet, Sofia Seagull,” I growl.

  “We can’t. You can’t. I mean, I can’t.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I definitely can and will have you.”

  We lapse into a tight, long silence from the moment I gun the car and join the traffic until we arrive at her home. I turn towards her and she presses her palms to her pale cheeks.

  “I really like you, Jack. Can’t w
e just be friends?”

  “Friends?” My voice comes out like a sneer. “Yeah sure. We can be friends when you’re under me.”

  Her lips tremble. “Now you’re angry with me.”

  I bite back the frustration clawing inside me and keep my voice even. “I’m not angry with you. I know you want me as much as I do, but you’ve arbitrarily decided that we shouldn’t be lovers. I want you, Sofia. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “No, you don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t understand. There is not one single thing that can stop me from having you. Not you. Not your mental state. Nothing.”

  She opens her mouth to protest, and at that unsuspecting moment I pull her into my arms and capture her mouth. The second our lips touch is pure magic. Her scent intoxicates me. Drives me wild and makes my soul tremble with need. My tongue pushes out and her mouth opens like a fucking flower. So innocent. No barriers. It’s soft and warm inside. I hook her tongue and suck it and moaning she melts against me. The sound makes my cock throb.

  With every cell in my body alive I suck her quivering tongue. It’s like putting your hand into a socket. The intensity of the desire is a shock to my system. I don’t think my heart has beat so fast for a girl since I was a teenager.

  My hands reach into her sweater and … suddenly she tears her mouth away. Pressing her back against the door, she stares up at me. She is panting hard and her eyes are bright. Our first kiss and I had to steal it, but stolen stuff is always sweeter. I’m so fuckin’ hard I hurt. I pull in a lungful of air, but it is heady with her scent, and it just makes me want to bury my face between her legs.

  “Why did you do that?” she gasps.

  I drag my fingers through my hair. “Because I wanted to.”

  “You think you want me, but I’m not what you think I am.”

  I frown. What kind of cat and mouse game is she playing? “So what are you then?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Fucking hell, Sofia. We’re not kids here. I’m going to find out one way or another. Just fucking tell me,” I growl with a mixture of exasperation and frustration.

  She makes a cry like that of a trapped animal in pain. In a flash she hits the door handle and almost falls out of the door. I lunge to catch her, but she dashes into the night.