Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

“She’s got that guy with her. They are holed up in some high rise.” I white knuckled the wheel to my truck as Lucy whimpered next to me. “It’s locked up tight, Laz. There’s no way for me to get in.”

“Then you fucking find a way, Derek!” Lucy turned to me with wide eyes and let out a shriek as I jumped a curb and made a beeline for her apartment. It had been a long night of running supply, and I felt a crash coming.

“No can do, Laz. I’m telling you, brother, they both have armed guards too.”

I gathered my conclusion. “Cedric.”

“Yeah. He’s got a hawk eye on them both. New security on all fronts. He’s not fucking around.”

That piece of shit always had a hard-on for Taylor. It wasn’t news, and I was sure he would lay his life on the line for her. I would make damn sure he lost it because of her. But tight security meant they were scared. It also meant it would be a fuck of a lot harder to get the job done once the time came.

“I just don’t know how were going to get past some of this shit.”

“Figure it the fuck out.”

“I’m on it, man.”

I hung up just as I took a parking spot in Lucy’s complex. Lucy opened her door and began to cry in a pathetic attempt to gain my sympathy. I walked the path that led to her apartment with her hot on my heels. She didn’t bother to wait until we were safely behind it to start her begging. “Please, Laz, I’m sick. Please, just give me one hit.”

I picked up my pipe from her table, lit it, and inhaled before I blew a cloud of smoke in her face. “And what are you going to do for me?”

Her skin was ripe with new scabs, and she was pale and filthy. Her faded red hair was matted on the top of her head.

Her lips trembled as she scratched at her arms. “I feel like I’m dying.”

“You look like it too.” I smiled down at the almighty Lucy Hardin. The girl voted most likely to succeed. The prom queen and pride of Dyer. She was ruined, and she deserved it. Her mouth was the reason my son was no longer with his mother or me.

“Please, Laz, I’ll do anything.” She moved toward me in an attempt at seduction. I rolled my eyes as my phone buzzed in my pocket. She ran her hand down my chest. “Tell me what you want.” My spine pricked as she lowered her head and dropped to her knees, rubbing my dick through my jeans. “I can be anything you want.” She pulled the button free of my jeans and released my cock. She licked the underside of my length and gripped the head as she began to pump, her eyes down. “I can be her.”

I ripped my body away as she went down on all fours. I gripped her hair and pulled it back as I looked down at her. “You can be who?”

“Taylor. I can be Taylor.” I bent over, level with her face. “You don’t even come close.” I yanked at her head with a fistful of her disgusting locks and dragged her down the hall as she screamed for me to stop. Inside her bathroom, she shrieked as I kept her in my fist while I turned on the scalding water and discarded her in the shower.

Lucy screamed as the boiling water hit her flesh. “Take a shower, you fucking reek. And don’t ever say that goddamned name again. Don’t ever compare yourself to her!”

Lucy stood and quickly tempered the water and stripped. Just before I made my way out of the door, she spoke.

“Everybody knows you still love her.” I moved toward her with a raised hand. Wide-eyed, she cowered in the corner.

I pulled my hand away as fear raced through her. “Not so high on the hog, now, are you, Lucy?”

“You’re a monster, and you will burn in hell, Lazarus Walker. Mark my words!”

“This is hell. Your hell.” I slammed the door and heard her cries behind it.

“I said I’m sorry! Please, Laz, please just let me go!”

I rolled my eyes as she pleaded for me to stop. I would have to cut her loose sooner or later for my own benefit. Even for an addict, she was high maintenance. I’d held her at gunpoint with a rehearsed script when she called her parents, and it seemed like enough. They were socialites in a town without Joneses to keep up with, and they would eventually require her presence at some bullshit benefit to better the shithole they reigned over. She was becoming more of a liability, and though I’d instilled enough fear in her to keep her quiet and enough meth to make her the slave I needed her to be, it could still backfire. The Hardins had enough money and connections with the Feds to chase me across state lines. But for the moment, I held the cards, and I had to play my hand just right.

I inhaled a stream of smoke again as I checked my phone.

Amber: Can we talk?

I dialed her number, and she picked up on the first ring.

“Laz, we are close to a court date

“When?”