With Visions of Red (Broken Bonds, #1)

by Trisha Wolfe

Only he’s every bit as tempting now. With his fitted gray thermal outlining the leanly chiseled definition of his body…and a shock of straight black hair falling haphazardly over one of his eyes, tempting me to brush it aside, so there’s no obstruction as I gaze into his pale blue irises. God, but I haven’t been tempted in a long damn time.

A slow smile twists his lips. And in that split second where he could out me in front of Quinn, as his eyes subtly shift to acknowledge the detective beside me, I watch a decision being made. Then he fixes me with another purposeful, intent stare-off.

“Detectives,” the bartender says, nodding his head once in greeting. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, since I was at work that night. But my time is yours.” He says this last part direc...

My two lives do not intersect into one another. Ever. Mentally, I’m very efficient at keeping them separated, and one does not affect the other. I remind myself of this as he gestures to the kitchen area and I follow him toward a marble-top island.

“Your name.” He demands this as though I’ve kept this piece of information from him on purpose. Maybe I have. Had he asked me Saturday night, or any other night I’ve seen him at the club, I would’ve lied. Given him a fake.

He licks his lips, like he’s preparing to taste my name, then, “Sadie.” It rolls off his tongue like a whispered prayer. The desire to close my eyes and be lost in that sound alarms me, and I press my palms to the counter to ground myself. It’s the same reaction I had as his words caressed me at the club, the same draw to his deep timbre—inviting, arousing, tempting. But

“I gave you my word, Sadie. I won’t touch you until you ask.” My eyes stay locked on his disarming gaze while I lower the pen to the page. My stomach clenches, and I’m not sure if it’s nerves or what, but an ache thrums through me. Hot and vicious.

“I wonder which is closer to the real you, Sadie? The little, tight dresses you wear so sexy, or this baggy outfit meant to hide behind. Two very different looks, two very different intentions…but both offer some form of control and power for you.”

What the hell. Is this guy really trying to profile me? I’m the master of mind games—but if he wants to play, I can give him the room to hang himself.

His knowing smile tilts his lips into a crooked grin. “Well, first you have to gather the facts.” He glances back at the notebook on the counter. “And if you’re up for that, then I’m all over giving you what you need.”

Head games. I might be damn good at them, but that doesn’t mean I like them. And I sure don’t like losing my footing in a case.

I pick up my notebook, but before I close it, curiosity demands I first glance down: Meet me tonight. The rope room. Wear red. Then below the note, his number.

Obsession. It starts with a spark. A flicker. At the strike of a match. Lying dormant in most of us, obsession feasts on the fumes, breathes in the smoky scent, curling around and in on itself. Building. We pet it, nurse it into existence. It is ours. All ours. A coveted perfection.

But, oh—for that brief moment the relief is divine. “No! No! Please—” Her bare feet kick out at me as she writhes, twisting and struggling against the rope binds.

Suffering. It’s an aphrodisiac. My eyes roll into the back of my head as I reach out and touch her trembling body. I am but a slave to obsession. Owning that is freedom, and soon my love will know that freedom, too.

But first… I slide my zipper down. Her whimpers and pleas for mercy only heighten my desire. In order to gain control over the beast, I must possess her. Overpower her. Control demands it of me. As her sobs fill the air, my thrusts decimate her fragility.

There’s always sadness at the end. Not remorse; rather a farewell to a beloved toy.

My chest constricts, and I’m suddenly in a black, chilly basement. No windows. No way out. I’m turning and leaving before the smells can pull me under…but a man steps in front of my path.

Anger bubbles up in my chest, lava-hot. This was my reprieve. My secret. The place where I could disappear and allow the haunted demon inside me to roam. Taste a little freedom before I buried her again in the daylight. Now that one shelter has been stripped away.

So I sit and watch. Able to harness some sort of surrogate connection through voyeurism. I didn’t start out this way…I was made. Fashioned into an untouchable creature out of horror and pain.

Resigned, I sit back down. So he’s watched me, analyzed me. So he’s figured out my defect. That’s not a very difficult thing to do in my case. It doesn’t give him the right to lord it over me.

It’s difficult enough having to battle these confusing, erotic impulses while staring at crime scene photos…this was the one place I felt safe. Hidden. Where I could free those demons that I keep buried so far down. Now, Colton’s gone and shone a light on them, and he’s feeding off my pain.

But even as I’m thinking this, building a case against him, breaking him down and stripping him bare to reveal his malevolent intentions, a small voice inside my head starts to sing. A tiny clarity that whispers truth.

As he runs the rope over the model’s skin, causing her to quiver with need, this whisper grows into a chorus. His gaze penetrates me, his voice a ligh...

I feel a tear fall from my eye. She’s so beautiful, in all her freedom, and somewhere deep within me longs desperately to feel that. And when my eyes meet Colton’s again, I can’t hide. He sees it. He sees me.

And separating play from need… Well, that’s why I’ve asked Sadie here.

As I move toward her, I twine a thin link of rope around my hand, subconsciously toying, a part of me.

“I don’t have to speak, either,” I tell her, allowing the rope to be my hands. I can touch her in a way that won’t set off her inner alarm. If she’ll let me.

I know something dark is haunting her. I saw it long before now; when she gazed at the stage in the voyeur room. The wanting, the yearning…but also the fear. It’s what first drew me to her. Some horror lurks deep within my goddess, and I need so badly to bring that to the surface. To show her she’s in control of it—that she’s its master.

She pushes her wig out of her eyes, and God, do I want to strip her of that false identity. Reveal her beauty to her. “I’m a monster,” she says. Her admission startles me for a second, but I refuse to let her believe this. “No,” I say, testing the space between us, moving an inch closer. Her eyes reach mine. “No, you’re a goddess.”

As she stands, she looks down at me. “My dungeon master opened my eyes long ago, Colton. I am who I am.”

Maybe I gave away too much. Maybe she saw the truth in my eyes just then. Maybe she now knows. She will be mine.

The remembered bite of blade carving skin and bone has been a constant ache beneath my breastbone—but it’s a distant ache. Removed.

Colton’s words ripped the scab away…and now I’m forced to see the wound that never scarred over. You’re a lucky girl, Sadie. He missed.

No, my captor didn’t miss. He hit his target dead on. He wasn’t attempting to take my life, but he made sure I died that day. That his torment would ensue long past my physical suffering. That I would never forget. And I haven’t. I never left that basement.

This is too dangerous. I should listen to that voice, the one screaming inside my head to keep him away. Whatever he can offer me, whatever freedom, isn’t worth the price both of us will pay. As much as he sees me…I’m not glass. He can’t see everything.

I push my car door open and wince as my stilettos crunch gravel beneath their soles. Glancing down at my red dress and cringing at the clashing shoulder holster, I bite my lip. But it’s too late to wish I’d changed now. Quinn is never going to stop giving me shit about this dress.

Regardless of my discomfort, this is not about me. When I got the message that another murder had been reported a few blocks from The Lair, I had to come right away. So I tug off the burgundy wig and stuff it into my bag as I round the stream of yellow tape toward the front porch of the small house.

Despite my best effort to focus on the facts in their own element, my mind is already linking this case to the previous. Both women apparently lived alone and were attacked in their own homes. Both were tortured throughout the night and killed in the early morning hours.

But there are glaring differences setting this crime apart from the other. The living room is wrecked. As if the victim put up a fierce struggle, or the assailant was enraged. Probably both.

Which denotes impulse. Very different from the meticulously planned attack on the previous victim, where she was subdued without a fight.

To the untrained eye, the pose looks like a sign of remorse—but he didn’t cover her; he left her nude and degraded. It feels more like mockery than regret.

That’s the only thing similar to the previous vic—everything else screams sadistic rage.

And once the M.E. cleans the body, I’m sure she’ll find the color of bruising consistent with hours of torture.

This is the same offender, no doubt. Look at her. Some sadistic shit is out there, stalking and preying on these women.”

“I don’t know, but…it’s the deviation in MO that suggests this is a different offender. Massive overkill. Not at all like the first vic.” “From what I can see, no defensive wounds, either,” he adds.

Quinn and I rarely agree—rarely bounce theories off each other so in sync. It says a lot about these cases that we’re working together instead of against each other.

“But then we have to wonder, if it is the same offender, why he didn’t blitz the first victim—which style fits his true MO? He plans the attacks ahead of time, but the first time he subdued the vic without a struggle. The apartment was in order; he wasn’t enraged. He was patient and precise. The first vic was also dressed, whereas this one didn’t get his royal treatment.”

“And this vic doesn’t match the victimology so far,” Quinn adds. “First vic had brown hair, she has blond.” He nods down at the body. “Body type is different, too. Petite verses tall and curvy.” “It’s possible he doesn’t have a type…just needs a surrogate to complete his fantasy.”

As we enter the bedroom, the sight knocks the air from my lungs. A red dress is laid out across the foot of the bed.