AN: Sorry this one took a while, but at least it's long, right? And just to warn folks, there's a bit of smut in here, so be careful what you read. It's not really very graphic, but if it ain't your thing, just skip between the 2 page breaks in the middle of the chap and you'll fly right over it.
He had to admit, even though Shella was a real tightass, she knew how to pick a club. He figured it was the stripper in her. She'd worked enough places, she could probably tell the difference between the ones that were class and the ones that were trash before she paid the cover and walked in the door.
He'd followed her when she went out that night, in accordance with Jack's plan. Apparently his girl had gotten her end of the deal done; given the bitch direct orders all week that she should go out on Friday night while Jack and Riddick where shacked up in some hotel somewhere out in the boonies.
When he really took the time to think about it, he figured that finding Jack had been just about the best present he ever could've gotten on that particular job. What luck that he had Jack B. Badd doing the dirty work in cleaning up the former Con-X... And he had a feeling like the girl might just get it done all on her own. She seemed like the type that always finished what she started...
Conte had decided that he could learn to like that in a woman.
So, as he'd been told to, he followed Riddick's whip-holder like a shadow. Never far away, yet never attracting anyone's notice. He watched as more than one man approached her that evening, offering to buy her a drink as she sat tall and pretty at the bar, taking in the scene. Each one struck out swinging, a specticle Dom found impossibly entertaining.
The girl was spoiled.
She had a man at her disposal so powerful that other male specimens paled in comparison. The only thing that would tempt her at that point was a reminder that there were parts of Riddick missing, parts that some guys still had... The Seka had kept Rick obediently anchored at Shella's side, but it had also stripped the man of his style, of his attitude, of the sense of danger that had once hung about him. Hell, for all he knew the ex-stripper might find the loss trivial; but it was a loss, nonetheless...
When Dominic Conte swaggered over to Shella's side, his head held high, his shades in place, the spoiled princess perked up and paid attention.
He used one of his more classic smirks on her, cocking his head just a bit to the side almost expectantly, like their meeting had all been planned. It had...as a matter of fact...Shelly just didn't know it yet. "You looking to have fun with new people?" he asked, using the words that Jack should've been quoting to the woman all week.
A strange, detached smile touched Shella's lips. "Yeah, I am. Hey, aren't you Jack's boyfriend?" she asked, her brow creasing just a bit with curiosity.
Dom sauntered over, very smoothly taking a seat on the barstool next to her. "Actually, I was just thinking about Jack," he began. "I was thinking that she's a fun girl to hang around with, but it would be nice to spend some time with a real woman for once, ya know?"
Shella nodded a bit, smiling almost wickedly. "So, basically you're saying that she doesn't do it for you," she said, sounding like the idea of that amused her plenty.
Conte smirked. "After I saw you, how could any girl in high school 'do it' for me?" he asked, cocking one eyebrow slightly in both challenge and invitation.
When Riddick's girlfriend returned the wicked look, he knew that he'd hooked her. The only thing left to do was reel her in...and he had plenty of experience doing just that...
Almost as soon as she'd led him into her bedroom Shella practically threw herself at him. She seemed to have been waiting for the opportunity, and seeing as it had come at last, she took full advantage. She tried to kiss him, but Conte shoved her away, causing her to stumble backward several feet before regaining her balance. He walked after her, his jaw set, and grabbed her upper body, forcibly spinning her around and shoving her up against the wall. They'd both had a lot to drink that night. Dom had chugged most of a fifth in far too short an amount of time just before they'd left the bar. But in spite of his efforts, his damn overactive metabolism was causing the desired effects to fade, quickly.
He tried to convince himself that he was steady on his feet, taking up a stance that held his boots approximately shoulder-width apart as he roughly forced Shella to bend forward and brace herself against the wall before he lifted her skirt in the back, hitching the silky material up around her waist. Funny that a woman who considered herself taken hadn't bothered to wear any underwear while cruising the bars alone...
Still holding her skirt up so he could enjoy the view, Dom took a moment to deal with his own pants, using an almost business-like efficiency to get them out of his way with one hand. Shelly groaned with pleasure when he suddenly grabbed her hips, literally manhandling her into position and taking her without any foreplay. When she moaned a second time, he almost cringed, hating the sound. If it was up to the animal inside him, she'd be screaming, begging him to stop.
It didn't faze him much at all that he was leaving bruises everywhere he touched...especially where his fingertips were digging into the flesh of her hips and ass as he squeezed tighter and tighter. Fucking was a tool, being a pirate had taught him that. At times he used it as a break from the mundane. Sometimes he let it serve as a stress reliever. And more often than anyone would ever guess, he used it to show some hardass bitch who was boss...
Back in the day there had been more than one woman he'd Rogered at the Rail, just like he was doing to Shella at that very instant. Sometimes it was during a ship raid, sometimes it was on his own time. No matter when or where he did it, not one of the girls he'd done it to had withstood it very long before they ended up on their knees in submission. That was what he wanted then and always...to break a girl's spirit, completely dominate her. There was nothing he loved more than playing rough.
If he did Jack, it wouldn't be like that. She would be for pleasure. He'd take his time, face her while he did it, look her in the eyes. He needed Jack to be with it, she'd be useless if he broke her.
"Oh, God, Dom, you're so good..." Shella panted out loud after a while.
Before he could catch himself, his control slipped...just a bit. He almost never talked during sex, but just that once, the thing on his mind slipped out anyway. "Tell me I'm better than Rick," he ground out coldly, never pausing from his gut-wrenching pace.
A small shriek came from the ex-stripper, and then another moan. "Yes, you're better. You're a hundred times better!" she attested in earnest.
"Why, cause you're drugging him with some kind of fucking dope?" he snapped angrily, mostly under the control of the beast he was allowing to run wild. For once he was letting his true colors show through, and if Shella had been able to see his face, she would've been the first person in a long time to see just how ugly he could get inside.
"No," she groaned. "Because you play hardball."
The beast snarled at that answer before getting thrown back in its cage, the door slammed shut behind it. It ranted and raged, attacking bars that would not bend before it. But all its efforts to regain control were in vein. His other half had completely shut off all emotion, stopped any feeling from registering. Dom gritted his teeth, forcing his insides to become stone once again as he biti back the urge to just sit back for the ride and let everything slide right along on the road to hell. He couldn't do that, he couldn't let go, not yet... God, he was frustrated, but not yet...
He was going to have to settle for merely getting his payback that night. Four times over, at least. For messing with him, delaying his plans, he'd get Shella back. She owed him big time. Wasn't it just his luck, though, that she happened to like it just as rough as he did?
He'd have to fix that somehow, make it work somehow... He was good at that kind of thing. The devils sitting on each of his shoulders were already working in tandem, whispering an almost constant string of evil ideas into his ears. He could hear them individually, and yet both at the same time, so it seemed like there were whispers all around him... His thoughts were coming so fast they were piling up on top of each other, one beginning before another had the chance to end.
If you strangle her, she'll stop moaning so loud...
If you slip a knife into her gut, she'll scream for real...
If you bite her harder, Riddick'll know she's been with another man. A real man...
How long do you think you can keep me locked up, Domy boy?
You don't have the strength to stop me...
You never did...
Never will...
You're weak...
Let me make you strong...
"Fuck! Shut the fuck up!" he shouted, putting the heel of one palm to his forehead and almost wincing in pain, squeezing his eyes shut tight.
Thinking he meant her, Shella immediately ceased making noise of any kind for all of ten seconds before the relentless churning of Dom's hips pushed her over the edge, and then the whole world crashed down around her until she wasn't aware of anything.
Not even her own screams.
He woke up near dawn with a mild headache in a bed that didn't smell like his own. Mostly because it wasn't his own. He was the stranger in it. It bothered him more than he liked, that he was the mutt about to run out the back door just as soon as the big dog got home. But still, his mission was accomplished for the most part, wasn't it? For the moment anyway...
His arm was asleep. Mostly because dumb blonde Shella was lying on it. Stupid bitch. Had her head resting on his chest and everything.
Don't the two of us just make a fine pair? he thought, disgusted for reasons that he was having trouble putting a finger on.
It wasn't typical for anything as pathetic as a woman to get under his skin. He was a regular 'bed um to your liking then leave um before dawn, no strings attached' sort of average Joe. But Shella had actually managed to penetrate his thick hide. She irked him mercilessly, had done so for months, made complications where there would be none if he only had to work his mark...
Shit, his mark? Wasn't he supposed to be pumping the bitch for information right about then? Was he even sober enough for that sort of shit?
Pfft, sober? Since when are YOU not sober, Conte? Too fucking sober if you ask me...
Wasn't that the truth.
"Mm, hey," she whispered, having woken up at last. Dom let his eyes fall shut again, almost wishing that when he opened them she'd be gone.
He opened them. There she was, looking up at him with full-on afterglow. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She smirked at him, wrinkling her nose a little. "How old are you?" she asked, propping her head up on one arm and allowing the fingertips on her opposite hand to trail teasingly over his lower belly. The taunt muscles in his stomach jumped in response. In spite of catching a couple hours of sleep his body was wound far too tight, as was typical for him after a night of heavy drinking. And besides that, the expression she was considering him with was one of wry amusement.
Dom didn't like the idea that he amused her one bit.
"Seventeen. You know, Jack's age," he replied lowly, letting his voice drop to its usual pitch, the comfortable tone he rarely used when playing his part around Jack. He rubbed his eyes harder than necessary, causing him to see small explosions of spots on his vision.
She took a moment to think about that, looking down at his abs and smiling peacefully. She looked almost like an angel when she did that, he realized. And more like a stereotypical innocent school girl than Jack ever did. Strange the sort of things that a little mind control could bring out of a person... He wondered if perhaps under different circumstances, Shella wouldn't have ended up the doomed slutty bitch that she'd turned out to be in her current life.
"I've never seen a guy with so much muscle who was so pale," she commented lightly, tracing over some of the softer curvature of his abdomen. "Most men who are vein enough to keep their bodies looking as good as yours take the time to bronze up, make everything really stand out."
Dom let his right arm settle behind his head so it would be easier to look down at her. He snorted almost haughtily. "I ain't no Rick Costello, lady. I've done hard time. My days of being a carefree child playing in the sun ended when I got tossed in the slammer back when I was eight years old. I didn't get out of Juvy until I was twelve, and then I spent some three years in the depths of deep space before I did a stint in a max security. For the last ten years, not counting when I was in prison, I haven't spent more than a few weeks planet side at a time. A couple of months, tops. Not really long enough to get a tan, if ya know what I mean.
"Stayin' ain't my style. The only thing I'm real good at is leavin'," he said with more spite than he meant to, and with more honesty as well.
"No family?" she asked softly, almost catching him off guard with those soft blue eyes and the tone of concern.
Dom didn't look at her, instead he chose to turn his gaze to the arm he slowly raised into his field of vision, taking a moment to examine one of the nastiest scars he had that he was actually able to see without having to crane in his neck in all kinds of crazy directions to see it in a mirror. Before he knew it, Shella had reached out to touch the tender skin of his forearm, tracing along the straight line that extended from his wrist all the way down to the inside of his elbow.
"Who did that to you?" she asked, seemingly fascinated by its presence on him.
"No one, I did it to myself. It was a really stupid thing..." he trailed off absently, getting lost in the swirling vortex of his past.
"You tried to kill yourself? In prison?" she opined.
Dom shook his head as his eyes slowly glassed over. "It was a promise that I made while I was in prison. Where I came from, they believed that if a man broke a pact based on his lifeblood, than that man would be struck down by the gods and sentenced to death. I remember that my father took his religion very seriously, and when my mother called me just before she was killed...she told me he was dead and made me swear a blood oath to her. I think she made me do it because she thought my word wasn't good enough. I couldn't just say that I meant it, I had to bleed for it. She didn't know who I'd grown up to be cause she hadn't seen me since I was a kid, and she probably knew that she'd lost me. I wasn't her son anymore...he'd died... That was the last time I talked to her..."
Shella lowered her head so it was resting on the broad expanse of his chest, listening intently to his story. "So, what was your promise?" she asked, her liquid blue eyes considering him carefully.
Conte let his arm fall heavily back onto the bed as he tilted his head back, turned his gaze to the ceiling. "She made me promise that when I got out of Juvy, I'd find my brat of a little sister and take care of her," he stated, no real vehemence in his tone. In spite of his words, he didn't sound like he regretted the occurrence in the slightest.
"Did you?" she asked after a moment, her voice almost shaky, like she was on the edge of tears.
He nodded. "Yeah, I found her. Had to haul her ungrateful ass around with me until I could set her up with a family that would actually take her. Dumb kid cried when I left her there. She was always too stupid to see how good she had it. I went to Juvy slam, she still had our parents for four years until they were killed. I had to go on the run as an undersized pre-teen ex-con, she got to set up shop in a middleclass suburban neighborhood with a park at each end of the street and pool in her backyard. And get this; when I left, she begged me to take her with me. God, she was retarded..." he growled softly, obviously still aggravated by some part of the memories he had of the girl.
"Don't you miss her if she's the only family you have left?" Shella asked, softly stroking his chest.
"Hell no," he asserted testily, almost rolling his eyes at the absurdity of the idea. "I was never happier than I was when I finally got that monkey off my back. Jesus Christ. I was better at being a badass kid in a dog-eat-dog world than I ever was at being a babysitter. Besides, that fucking bitch was the reason why I ended up in the slammer in the first place. I would've left her to die too, if my ma hadn't guilt tripped me into going after her."
Shella sat up abruptly, gathering the sheet around herself before slapping him hard across the face. "Bastard," she hissed, getting up and making her way to the bathroom where she slammed the door behind her.
He could hear her quiet sobs in the next room as he somberly got dressed. He'd struck a nerve, pushed her buttons, manipulated her. He didn't feel any regret for doing any of that, it was all part of the plan. She was on her knees in pain, just like he'd intended. No, the part he found unsettling had nothing to do with Shella at all. Seka influenced or not, she was a cold hard bitch who deserved whatever she got. And for hurting her, he'd have to watch his back. But fortunately for Dom, that was his second best talent...right after leaving.
The reason why he felt so down all of a sudden? That was due to the memories he'd dredged up. Believe it or not, there'd been a time when he hadn't known all the rules of the game yet, hadn't known how to turn down the flame and let his blood run through him like ice water. He hadn't always had the control that he'd had to force upon himself over the years, building layer upon layer of his walls, filling in any and every crack that might cause him to stumble. And back in that time, when he hadn't quite been so jaded, so experienced, hadn't been half as twisted...there had been a girl who'd latched onto him as her protector and for a brief period of time she'd forced upon him the conscience he hadn't been born with.
He'd let her stay with him until her calming influence and good intentions nearly got them both killed. Then he'd been forced to dump her off as soon as possible with a human family that promised to take care of her.
Lasia had only been eight or so at the time. She hadn't understood why he had to leave her. It wasn't like he'd bothered to try to explain it to her, because he'd known there wasn't a chance in the universe that he would've ever been able to make her get why he had to abandon her. It wouldn't have been possible to explain that her mere presence in his life had dulled his brain, his wits, even his senses. She'd compromised his ability to survive. He'd had no choice but to say good-bye and be done with her, keeping his pact with their mother while insuring that they would each have the best chance to go on living.
Yes, he'd gone to prison for her. Yes, there had been a time he'd hated her for it. But in the end, he wouldn't have made it so long if it hadn't been for her... He wouldn't have known how to fight everyday for his life. How to struggle and kick, rip and tear, until he was the only man left standing.
If he hadn't gone to prison for her, they both would've died as children, because he wouldn't have had the strength to keep them alive.
As he was walking out the front door of Riddick's house, lighting up a cigarette as he walked, all he could think was that if he had the ability to burn the image of that teary-eyed eight year old girl out of his memory, he would've done it a long time ago...
As far as he was concerned, Lasia Conte was dead. And soulless beast that he'd become, Dom honestly didn't care.
