PHOENIX AFTER DARK (COLDER THAN JULY FULL STORY
COLDER THAN JULY
For five long years I had been actively searching for him. It wasn’t an easy journey. I had encountered so many false starts, so many let downs, and so many imposters but I never got detoured and never lost faith. I knew I would find him and finally my persistence paid off. I had found the one. Zachary Valentino. That name, that man…he could stir something up in me so strong I could barely breathe. I had almost given up on finding him but the universe works in mysterious ways. We met completely by accident…literally.
He rear ended me one late afternoon and we had been going strong ever since. Months of all day texts, late night phone calls, and hanging out every weekend had led to tonight. Tonight I was finally going to sleep with Zachary. Tonight I was going to tell him what my soul already knew. He was the one.
I could tell that Zach knew something was up. The caresses to my bare thighs, the soft kisses to my exposed shoulders, and nibbling of my ear throughout the movie all indicated that he knew he was going to get some. Everything was ready for us at my home. I would finally get the opportunity to act on the feelings that had been bombarding me since we met six months ago. Some would call me crazy for waiting so long but I had to be sure that he was the one.
The credits rolled across the screen and the dim lights of the theatre were raised. I blinked rapidly to adjust my eyes to the brightness as Zach grabbed my hand. “Let’s go, Summer-Baby.”
I smiled softly. Summer-Baby was the nickname he gave me. My government name was July Evans…as in the month. It was sort of a family tradition. My grandmother was May, mother was June, I was July, and my brother was August.
Taking Zach’s hand, I allowed him to lead me outside the theatre. The chill hit us at once and darkness surrounded us. While others scurried to their cars to get out of the weather I stopped and absorbed it. Something about the night elevated all of my senses and caused my adrenaline to escalate. My stomach burned with anticipation and my heart pounded in my chest. Tonight was the culmination of days, weeks, months, and years of wanting.
Zach led us through the streets to my townhome six blocks away. My heels made a sensual rhythm against the sidewalk and my hips swung in time. This was my runway and the stars were my spotlight. Fifteen minutes later, we stood in my foyer. All the windows were open, allowing the lilac scented breeze to infiltrate the house. The lights were turned off and the moonlight bathed the space in a milky glow. Zach reached to turn on the light but my hands stilled him. I operated better in complete darkness.
Bolder than I had ever been before, I reached for his beautiful caramel face and kissed him deeply. Running my hands under his crisp t-shirt, I felt his quivering flesh against the tips of my fingers. Breaking the kiss, I led us up the stairs and into my bedroom. I stepped away from him and drew open the heavy curtains. I stared out at the millions of stars that dotted the inky black sky. I felt Zach’s arms wrap around me and his lips against the nape of my neck.
"We don’t have to do anything, Summer-Baby. It’s your choice.”
Closing my eyes, I fortified myself. I wasn’t going to back down now. Walking out of his arms, I lowered the straps of my summer dress and let it pool at my feet. I watched lust dance in his eyes as his gaze perused my chocolate frame. The growing arousal in his khaki shorts gave away how much he liked what he saw. My mouth dried up like a puddle in the desert sun when Zach began to strip from his clothing. One thing I couldn’t deny was how fine the man was.
Kicking off my heels, I walked—ran—towards the caramel Adonis and partially satisfied the urge to lay my hands on his hot skin. In a flurry of caresses and kisses we fell to the bed. My bra and panties soon became a distant memory as we struggled to get closer to each other. Zach buried his face in my abundant cleavage and my hands got lost in the silky curls atop his scalp. I reveled in the feeling of his body against mine—became consumed by it—until I remembered I had an agenda to stick to.
Pushing him off of me, I straddled Zach’s trim waist. Reaching into my nightstand, I took out a rope. “Are you up for a little danger?”
“Hell yeah!” his voice boomed, bouncing off the silver painted walls.
A sinister smile graced my face. “Let’s begin.”
Wrapping the rope around each wrist, I looped it continuously through the slates on the headboard until he was completely bound and then repeated the process with his ankles. Once I was finished I stepped back to admire my handiwork. There would be no way he could escape from the painful pleasure I had in store for him.
Starting at the sensitive skin on his ankles, I licked and sucked my way up his frame until he was a shivering, shaking, moaning mess of a man. That was just the way I wanted him. Reaching into the nightstand again, I pulled out a bottle of candied ginger flavored warming oil. The salty taste of Zachary’s skin combined with the spicy sweetness of the oil had my mouth salivating. Dousing my hands in the oil, I massaged him into submission.
Once his muscles were as limp as wet noodles and his dick was as hard as granite I straddled him. We both screamed on impact. It felt like a mountain was growing inside of me and I couldn’t wait to make it my bitch. Zach’s eyes were rolling around in his head as my body swiveled, bucked, and bounced on his. Climax was on the horizon. My nipples were as hard as bullets and I licked and pinched the twin buds until my thighs started to tremble. My orgasm had me feeling like a canoe in the middle of a hurricane—overpowered. Zach screamed my name once then twice and I knew he was close behind me.
Jumping off of him, I applied pressure to the head of his dick. “I’m not ready for you to come yet, Zach.”
“Please, July….”
I slithered up his body until we were face to face. I kissed him lightly. “You’re the one,” I whispered against his damp lips. “You’re the one, you’re the one, you’re the one…”
I kept repeating myself as I once again straddled him and teased his tip until he couldn’t take it anymore.. “Dammit, July let me cum! Please, baby. I’m begging you.”
That one phrase, “I’m begging you,” made something inside of me snap. Every emotion, every thought, and every instinct I had kept bottled up burst free when he uttered those three words. Slamming my body down on his, I worked him up to a fever pitch. I reached into the nightstand as Zach screamed my name over and over again like a lustful prayer.
I stared at his face, the emotions playing on it like a movie on a screen. His eyes were closed tight and his mouth was twisted in a grimace. “You’re begging me?” He nodded in the affirmative. “Did he beg?”
“Huh?”
“Did. He. Beg?” I asked again with ice running through my veins as I continued to milk him.
“What are you talking about, Summer-Baby?”
“Did he beg when you killed him?”
Zach’s eyes swung open and his hips slowed down. I kept up the pace and stared him down. “Who are you?”
“Answer the fucking question! Did he beg when you killed him?”
“I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about. Let me up!”
I squeezed my inner muscles and watched as he winced in pleasure. “I’m talking about my brother, August. When you tortured him for seventy-two hours before finally putting a bullet in his head, did he beg?”
Zach pulled helplessly at his restraints. Tears dripped from my eyes and splashed on his sweat slicked chest. I felt his dick harden even more and the telltale signs of orgasm were upon him. The moment I felt his cream begin to flow I stabbed him in the stomach. His screams of pain filled my heart with a vengeful glee.
For years I had searched for Zachary Valentino, the man who had killed my brother. He had taken him from me because he thought he was someone else. Burying my brother had broken my mother’s heart and she died a few months after August. Unable to live without the woman he loved, my father put a pistol in his mouth a year later and pulled the trigger, leaving me all alone in this cold world. The only thing I had to look forward to—the only thing that kept me going—was the knowledge that one day I would get my revenge on Zachary Valentino.
“July…please…I’m sorry. I feel so bad about him. I thought he was someone else.”
He sounded sincere. Unfortunately, that didn’t matter to me. My frozen heart could not be swayed by the sudden conscious of a serial murderer. “That seems to be something you’re good at when it comes to my family.” I laughed bitterly. “You thought August was the man the Cartel ordered a hit on. You thought I was some docile bitch who was wet in the panties for you. You were wrong both times.”
Once again my knife plunged into his gut. I let all the angst and grief that I had bottled up escape me as I stabbed Zach repeatedly. The squishy sounds of metal against organs filled the air in time with his screams and soon those stopped as well. My body was covered in his sticky blood as the darkness from the outside surrounded me inside and out. Zach’s labored breathing filled the space as I slid off him. I showered and watched the blood drip from my body and flow down the drain in swirly clouds, the red vibrant against the white tiles.
Hopping out of the shower, I walked into the closet and pulled out a suitcase. I quickly threw things into the bags before dressing in a black t-shirt, black jeans, and black sneakers. Rolling my suitcases into the bedroom, I saw Zach’s eyes following me.
“Please,” he whispered.
Leaning my head to the right, I eyed my work. Blood was flowing from him in waves and his chest rattled with each breath. Death was at his doorstep. It would be humane to put him out of his misery, to get it over with. However, I wasn’t humane. I was July—a cold, unfeeling woman whose heart had stopped beating years ago due to the actions of the man lying in the bloodied bed he made.
Grabbing my bags, I left the room with the sounds of his sobs following me. At the bottom of the
stairs I looked around the place I had called “home” for the last couple of months. I couldn’t wait to leave all of this behind. Opening the bottle of kerosene I had set by the very flammable drapes, I poured the contents all around the home. I lit a few candles before setting the drapes ablaze.
Thick black smoke filled the air and I walked out of the townhome and into the darkness. The nip in the air assaulted me. Moving quickly, I jumped in my car and pulled out the driveway at warped speed. I turned on the heat and allowed the warmth to soothe me. The weatherman was right. This was going to be the coldest July in history.
One Month Later
The warm sun caressed my face and the sound of the waves crashing against the beach could be heard in the distance. Normally, this would relax me but that wasn’t going to happen today. Today everything was going to change. In this instant, the ice around my heart began to break free. I never expected it to happen but a part of me was glad that it did.
It had been a month since I killed Zachary—a month in which I took time to recover and to grieve the loss of my family, something that I had never taken the time to do. I left the States for Cuba where I spent my time trying to regain some semblance of normalcy. It was working until today.
Sitting on the deck of my beachside cottage, I stared out into the distance mindlessly. I thought I had been so meticulous with my plan to kill Zachary but I made one mistake. That one mistake was about to rip all the plans I had to shreds. It was a bittersweet feeling. Life as I knew it was over. Looking down at the positive pregnancy test that sat in my lap, only one thought kept looping through my mind. September was coming.
