Heart of Darkness - A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Novel Read online

  Maddy: I think I have a hard time with that. I don’t know how to be kind but at the same time not let people take advantage of me!

  It was another sentence that could have easily been written by me.

  Zack: I just err on the side of not being too kind ;)

  I hit enter and stared hard at the winking face. I had avoided it till now. I couldn’t flirt to save my life but whatever, I was all the way in here, and she was all the way out there. Nothing would come of it, so why not? In a way, she was the perfect girlfriend already. She didn’t expect anniversary gifts, she had no choice but to give me my space, and if she got mad at me, well, I was already in jail, right? How much more wrong could I get?

  Maddy: I don’t believe it for a second :) I bet you’re just one of those big sweethearts on the inside. The fact that you like animals proves it

  Zack: speaking of which, how is the old brood?

  Maddy: they’re good. The chickens are molting in the heat these days but they’re happy. I think Gingko is on her last legs though

  The cursor blinked idly at me from the screen. It had been months and months of this. Easy, pleasant conversation.

  Madeleine Bright had become a sweet spot in my bitter, incarcerated days. Every morning we’d meet at 7am sharp for a chat, and sometimes, she’d leave me an email that I could read in case one of the cats or dogs needed her and she wasn’t able to make it for 7am. And the clunky old machines in Blantyre House Correctional Facility’s only ‘computer lab’ became a strange confession booth for me, and from out that void her and I somehow forged a gentle friendship.

  She never judged me. Never asked me awkward questions. She was just touchingly, delicately female… a respite each day from the dirty concrete floors, and the clank of steel bar gates slamming shut, and from all the young men smoking furiously because if they didn’t, their hands would soon find their way into fists instead. She was my rest from the drudgery of each day that looked exactly like the one before it.

  She told me about her animals and her work. At first, she had assumed I was a vet as well. I had laughed and told her ‘not that kind of vet!’ and she had felt so embarrassed.

  It was pretty cute, our running joke.

  She never even asked where I had been stationed, or anything else. I was glad. I certainly didn’t need to talk about any of that again. In fact, I would rather have listened forever to how she had to trick the cats into taking their medicine by hiding it inside cheese, or how people called her a crazy cat lady when she was only 28, or about nothing at all.

  We did other stuff, though.

  Once a week, she’d send me a picture. The first had been of her posing at a friend’s wedding, done up and smiling in heels inside a flowered arch. The one after that I liked better. She looked good au natural, with her wavy brown hair loose and snaking over her breasts. It made me think of fairy tales, her hair. She had a big, easy smile; a spray of freckles and a kind of goofy uneasiness about her that made you want to just hold her.

  The first time she sent me a sexy one, she asked, “is this OK?” I had stared long and hard at that picture, and the cursor had blinked for ages, like it was blinking now.

  It was a grainy selfie, and in it she was kneeling on her bed and peering nervously up at her phone. She was in a pink lacy number, but angling herself to conceal as much of her ample body as possible.

  She definitely wasn’t a slender woman. She was all circles and arcs, and the freckles on her collarbones faded out down towards very large, pillowy breasts. Her hair looked kind of girlish and wild. She was so white on her belly and thighs she was nearly translucent.

  All my exes had been thin. Tall and big, but thin. She was the opposite… small and fluffy.

  “It’s more than OK,” I had answered, and soon she sent me more, one picture a week, each one going a little further than the one before it.

  Admittedly, I had screwed every one of my exes within days of meeting them. I was a third date or bail kind of guy, back then. Younger, stupider me might not have seen the point of all of all this chatting and emailing and back and forth. I was never gonna fuck the woman, so why bother, right? And yet I did bother. Somehow, she never stopped seeming interesting. Every week, the prospect of a single, static image of Madeleine Bright posing in her bathroom mirror, or modelling a new bra or whatever… every week was a thrill for me.

  Maddy: Aren’t you wondering what this week’s picture is?

  I smiled. I watched as a little icon appeared and the painfully slow Internet connection got to work pulling it from out of the ether.

  I opened it.

  She was completely naked.

  I threw a glance over my shoulder and then leaned in closer, trying to hide the screen with my thankfully large body.

  I didn’t know where to put my eyes. Her hair was loose and wet, and she was standing in front of her shower. Even with a background of tacky cartoon ducks on the shower curtain, she looked like a queen. She was playing at being sassy, but the most endearing thing about the picture was how fragile she really looked. How shy.

  Despite her coy posture, her breasts were full and low. Dark nipples. The curve of her flanks dipped dramatically at her tight little waist and swelled out again into two substantial hips. The hair at the V above her thighs was sparse, but of the same carefree, light brown as on her head. She was beautiful. Beaded with water and buffed pink and a little coy and completely, utterly beautiful.

  I was instantly hard.

  Fuck.

  Maddy: Well? Haven’t had a heart attack have you? Please excuse the wee bit of extra holiday padding :D

  I really hated that. Why couldn’t she see how gorgeous she was? She was almost 30, why was she acting like an insecure teenager, fussing about her weight like that?

  Zack: …

  Zack: You know I have to go out in public now? Standing up right now is going to be …a little awkward

  Maddy: Oh…? :p

  Zack: You know, it sounds like you’re almost proud of yourself

  Maddy: I am a little! I like the idea of you getting all hot and bothered on my account

  Zack: You’re evil!

  Maddy: Don’t say that :) I could always send you a picture of Ginkgo next time if you prefer

  Zack: Now hang on just a second. Gingko is a good-looking ferret. Nobody could ever say otherwise. But I much prefer your beautiful body

  I watched the cursor blink. It had been a long, long time since I had flirted with anyone. A long time since I …well, let’s just say that the last time I had to try and hide a raging erection was sometime in grade school. And wondering whether any of this was turning her on was making the situation much worse.

  Maddy: It’s almost 8. You’ll have to go soon

  Zack: Yeah. Damn. Same time tomorrow?

  Maddy: Of course

  Zack: I loved the picture. Thank you

  As I hit enter, her avatar blinked red and she went offline. The computer was just a computer again. And I was back in jail.

  I swallowed down the lump in my throat. What the hell was I doing?

  Relax, idiot. She knows you’re not getting out any time soon, so you can’t possibly be leading her on, you’re fine, you’re not doing anything wrong here…

  The guards unlocked for me and I made my way out into the hall, shuffled quickly to the bathrooms, slammed a stall door shut and leaned against the wall to catch my breath.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to piece together the picture again. The yellow cartoon ducks on the shower curtain. The wet tendrils of hair curling over her naked shoulders. The way the water had beaded into droplets on the swell of her thighs, like she was a peach in morning dew...

  With one furious movement I yanked down my trousers, my rock hard cock bouncing free. I threw back my head and squeezed a rough hand over the shaft, stroking out the delicious sensations I had tried to hide just a moment before. My trousers slipped halfway down my legs and goosebumps shot through me. I teased myself to the
brink, pinning down her plump, freshly showered image in my mind, breath coming in jags.

  I pictured her soft little body bent double, me sunk deep between those pretty legs, burrowing all the way into her sweet body.

  I stroked.

  I pictured that long, Maid Marion hair pulled tight in one fist while my other fist gripped hard round her neat little waist.

  I stroked faster.

  I pictured her shy, puffy little lips struggling to close around me, and her dainty eyebrows quivering as she slid her mouth all the way to the base of my cock. I pictured other things, too. Dark things…

  “Eh, fuckhead, clear out man, I gotta go.”

  I clenched down and shuddered silently, my balls tightening under me.

  “Occupied,” I hissed.

  “Zack? Is that you? Come on, your dick can wait, I’m desperate here.”

  I slammed my other hand into a fist. Fucking Roger Blunt, my cellmate and closest friend in this dump, although ‘friend’ wasn’t the exact word I’d be tempted to use for him this very moment.

  “Fuck off, dude! I’m busy,” I spat and inched myself closer to coming. Her image was rapidly dissolving.

  “Hurry the fuck up! Anyway man, congrats on the hearing.” His voice echoed large all over the dingy tiled bathroom walls.

  “What?” I mumbled. The edge of my orgasm was retreating away from me. All that was left of her beautiful soft, wet body was the top of her creamy thigh. Real life was crackling in at the edges. I tried to hold on to the image. To her warm, welcoming smile. I was about to explode.

  “Oh, you didn’t know? A bunch of us. It’s the day of judgment, man. Praise Jesus. This Wednesday.”

  A hearing. I couldn’t believe my ears. Her pretty, bashful face came flooding back in full, taking over my whole awareness. Her smile was everywhere, and soon, into my shaking hands, I came one hard, thundering orgasm, my entire body tightening and sending sputters of white over my gripping hands. I growled under my breath. A hearing? It was almost too good to be true.

  “Are you still fucking jerking it in there, man? Get out, I gotta take a dump.”

  Chapter Three – Madeleine

  It’s not particularly profound but here’s my revelation: lots of interesting things in life start with shit.

  Just hear me out.

  I had been rudely woken up that morning by a situation I had faced many, many times before. You see, sometimes I’d agree to board a recovering cat or dog at my home for a few days because there simply wasn’t room for them at the clinic. Sometimes, the dog or cat in question would be ill, scared, or both… and I’d invariably wake up to some sort of disaster.

  This morning, a bad-tempered maine coon mix had done a few panicked laps round and round my living room, all the while shitting herself and pulling out the stitches I had laboriously put in the day before. The result was that I awoke to a house smeared with sickly brown stains over my sofa and carpets, and found her cowering behind some pot plants she had knocked over. The litter box, however, was pristine.

  Everyone thinks they’re an ‘animal lover’. But as a vet I’ve quickly learnt that very few people actually do love animals. Not really. And when I woke to the smell and the chaos that morning, I could barely convince myself that I even loved them.

  But I dutifully got to clean everything up. I looked over my shoulder and saw the dial gliding past 7 o’clock. Damn. I’d have to miss my regular chat with Zack. The other animals were upset and I’d need time to disinfect her wound again and re-stitch it. I’d probably get into work late, too.

  Still in my pajamas, I ran a bucket of piping hot soapy water, threw the sofa cushion covers into the wash and got to work with a spray bottle of stain remover. Still groggy and on my hands and knees, I tried to maintain composure.

  Be compassionate, Madeleine, they’re just animals.

  But the more I scrubbed, the angrier I got. Other women my age were out there having fun. Or they were married and thinking about baby showers or wedding color schemes. And here I was, wearing faded pajamas and cleaning up cat shit. And not for the first time, either.

  I worked angrily, pulling the stiff brush bristles over the stains again and again, till the froth came up high. The animals in the house could sense my irritation, and had all skedaddled, except the maine coon who hid behind my destroyed pot plants and scowled at me.

  Then my phone rang.

  “Crap,” I hissed and flung the brush into the bucket, sending spuds flying. Drying one gloved hand on my pajama bottoms, I swiped at my phone and answered without seeing who it was.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other side was immediately familiar.

  “Maddy? Maddy, is that you? Maddy, I’ve been thinking so hard about things… can we talk, baby? I hope you’ll just hear me out…”

  It was Alex.

  My ex.

  My difficult, emotionally unavailable, lying, manipulative, selfish-in-bed asshole of an ex.

  Be compassionate, Maddy.

  “Hey, Alex, what’s up?”

  “Oh nothing, it’s just, man… I’ve had the craziest night. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through. I had this dream the other night about you, and it was crazy, do you mind if I tell you about it quickly? I know you think this is crazy, but will you hear me out for a second?”

  This was Alex’s game. Alex’s difficult, emotionally unavailable, lying, manipulative, selfish-in-bed asshole game.

  He only ever wanted what he didn’t have, so just about the only time he was kind and sweet to me was when we were completely broken up and he was trying to earn my forgiveness for being such a dick. And then I’d forgive him. And then he’d go right back to being a dick again. Then I’d break up with him. Then he’d realize how badly he wanted me.

  The last few times he had called, he just wanted to tell me all about how much he’d grown, how much learning he’d done …and about how I owed it to him to give him another chance.

  “Alex …I’m just a little busy at the moment, can I call you back some other time?”

  “Well, yeah, sure, I guess …it’s just that this is important, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, it’s important. I hope you’re well. But I can’t talk right this instant.” Out the corner of my eye I could make out the maine coon dashing away from her hiding place.

  “Well, why not? What are you doing?”

  God, I did not feel like this right now.

  My eyes turned to follow the maine coon and make sure she wasn’t getting into any more trouble, and I instantly caught sight of little Jasper clawing his way into the jumbo-sized bag of cat food. One of the dogs must have chewed a hole in it and now Jasper was dangling from that hole, little feet two inches off the ground, his head buried deep inside the bag, eating away at the food that was for all the cats that lived here and meant to last me till the end of the month.

  I dashed over and tried to pry him loose, wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder, accidentally smearing his black fur with soap bubbles from my other hand.

  “Jasper! Get out of there!”

  He twisted around, scratched my hands and dashed off, just in time for me to see the maine coon squatting down in the living room corner, preparing for another assault on my beleaguered carpet.

  “Hey! No!” I yelled and raced over to shoo her away, but not before she released another jet of yellow-brown cat shit behind her. The putrid smell filled the air.

  “Maddy? Maddy? Not being rude or anything but you could try to take this a little more seriously… Are you even listening to me right now?”

  “Alex, I’ll call you back…” I started saying, glad that at least the maine coon had run outside. Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Jimbo, one of the bigger dogs, came blundering though the house, curious about the fuss and accidentally tripping over the soapy water bucket, sending it spilling over the carpet. I nearly exploded.

  Then something happened. My ultimate shit morning was now c
oming to a head.

  I ripped off my wet glove and flung it to the ground, gathered my strength and yelled into the phone.

  “Alex, stop calling me. I don’t care. We’re broken up and you should stop calling me. Goodbye!”

  I could hear his protests as I hung up. Almost instantly my fingers dashed over the screen and I called Annie, and got her voicemail.

  “Annie, it’s Maddy. I’m sorry but I can no longer hold your cat for you. It’s been months and if you don’t take him today, I’m dropping him off at St. Clara’s. I’m sorry but I’m not running a charity here,” I said angrily, then ended the call and tossed my phone onto the couch.

  Heart still pumping I padded right through the wet carpet, in my socks, and went into the kitchen with Jimbo looking on dumbfounded. I heard my phone ping.

  Fuck them all.

  Give people an inch and they’ll take it all, and shit on it, and wonder why you aren’t grateful for the privilege. Well, I was getting sick of it.

  I stood for a moment in the kitchen. I was a cat lady. And this was a cat lady’s house. Instead of interesting gourmet goodies and wine and pretty china, my kitchen was filled with dog and cat medicine and bags of food and disintegrating chew toys. Instead of waking up in a slinky negligee in the arms of a man who adored me, I woke to the stench of cat shit and a house full of sick and dying animals that took and took and never gave me anything in return.

  So, I decided that just for today, I was done. I turned on my heel and walked out of the kitchen again. I couldn’t have had more than $200 in my bank account at that moment, but I would have gladly paid that all to a cleaning company for the joy of not having to be in that house that morning. I stripped off my clothing and threw it onto the ground, then headed to the bathroom.