Lycan Contempt

Chapter One

“I thought you loved me, Connie. Were al those late night, whispered promises al bulshit?” Anger and hurt burned through Kish’s chest as he waited for an answer from the woman he’d falen in love with over a year ago, the woman he thought had falen in love with him.

Her flawlessly painted red lips—lips he’d kissed more times than he could count—puckered up in a pout that could rival Marilyn Monroe’s. Now that pout, the one she’d frequently used on him to get her way, had no effect on him other than pissing him off even more than he already was. She must have finaly figured that out since her mouth turned down into a scowl.

“Don’t be so overdramatic, Kishy.” She glided to him. Gliding was the only way to describe the obviously practiced, overexaggerated sway of her slim hips. When she reached up and ran her fingers down the undamaged side of his face, longing danced in her eyes. Kish knew exactly what she was thinking because he’d seen that look many times before.

She wished that the right side of his face matched the left. But it didn’t, and he’d been dumb enough to believe that she had seen past his imperfection. God, he was a fucking fool. Once again, he’d handed his heart to a woman who didn’t deserve it, a woman that like al the others at the start of the relationship, had insisted that the scars didn’t matter when they realy did. He looked her up and down.

She was perfect in every way—perfect lips, perfect body, perfect black hair that fel into perfect waves around her perfect oval face. Too bad the inside didn’t match the outside. Too bad he hadn’t seen her for what she realy was—a shalow, uncaring, selfish bitch—until now.

“How many times have I told you not to cal my Kishy?” He curled his lip at her.

The endearment he’d let her get by with because he loved her and thought she’d loved him now made him feel like a dog getting its fur stroked the wrong way—irritated as hel and ready to snap.

Anger quickly marred her beautiful features.

“Come on. You had to know that one day it would come to this.” She shrugged as she turned and walked across the room. “Don’t get me wrong. You are gorgeous, but no matter how I feel about you, I can’t make everyone else overlook your little imperfection.”

“What the fuck does it matter what everyone else thinks?”

She laughed a tinkle of a giggle that scraped over his raw nerves as effectively as fingernails on a chalkboard. He ground his teeth together.

“You know what kind of crowd I run with.” She sat in front of the vanity in the bedroom they’d shared for the past several months.

“Oh yes. Yes. I do know that.”

Rich snobs who thought they were better than everyone else whose main goal in life was to party as hard as possible while schmoozing with others whom they deemed to be good enough to be within their presence. People who thought they were flawless in every way even when they were sniffing cocaine and drinking enough alcohol to keep ten bars in business.

Why had he been gulible enough to believe Connie was different?

He glanced at the bed. The rumpled silk sheets made his stomach churn. Less than two hours ago, they’d made love in that bed, and now she was giving him the fuck-off speech. The fact that their lovemaking had obviously been a one-for-the-road didn’t help his boiling temper, didn’t do anything but rub salt in the wound she gashed deeper into his heart with every careless word from her once-kissable mouth.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Kishy.” She unscrewed the mascara and began applying it thickly to her fake eyelashes.

Kish squeezed his hands into fists until his knuckles cracked. He ached to punch a hole in the wal, but he’d never let her see how much she was tearing him apart. He’d never give her the satisfaction.

“I thought since you were rich, I could convince people to overlook the scars, but some simply insist upon perfection.”

“So because a few of your bitchy, tight-ass friends don’t like my scars, you’re going to dump me? It’s that easy for you after al we’ve been through?”

Connie shrugged. “Look.” She set the mascara down and eyed him in the mirror. “I thought you might be a refreshing change from the usual guys I date. You’re great and al, but it’s time for me to move on.”

“In other words, our relationship was some sick experiment of yours.” He forced the words through clenched teeth. “You never gave one shit about me.

Everything that you ever said to me was a fucking lie.”

She sighed. “No. I meant when I said you were good in bed.” She gazed at his crotch and licked her lips. “That is one thing I wil definitely miss about you.

You have the tools to satisfy me, but that can’t account for everything, unfortunately.”

It amazed him that in less than five minutes, every ounce of desire he once had for this woman drained out of him as quickly as floodwater from an opened dam. How could she sit there nonchalantly primping and dumping him as if he were nothing more than an annoying fly she was shooing away?

A tick started in his jaw that matched each heartbeat. “I cannot believe I thought I loved you.”

This was the last time he’d trust his heart to a woman.

She giggled again. “Oh. I’m easy to love. Men fal in love with me al of the time.”

“Yeah? Wel thank God you know how to conceal that shalow bitch that lives inside you, or I’m sure you wouldn’t find so many men dropping at your feet.”

“Don’t get so riled, Kishy. I’m no worse than anyone else. I have to look out for myself, you know.”

“You mean you are no worse than the selfish, twatfucks you hang out with? Because I have to tel you, no normal person is capable of the conniving, unfeeling, manipulative nature you’ve shown me tonight.”

She laughed at him again, and for the first time in his life, he wanted to hit a woman. But he’d never do such a thing, no matter how much she deserved it.

Men hitting women was unacceptable.

“Who wants to be normal? It’s so boring.” She sighed as she put down the mascara and picked up a tube of lipstick. “Come on. You’re a man. Men tel women lies about how they feel al of the time. This situation is no different. It’s just reversed.”

Her indifference to the situation was glaringly obvious by the way she brushed off his insults as if they were nothing. That only proved to piss him off more if that was even possible. He raked his fingers through his hair, contemplating tearing it out. The predator that lurked inside him snarled and howled to be free.

“Yes. I am a man, but I would never use a woman like you used me. Honesty and integrity are two things I pride myself on having.” He squeezed his fists tighter. “And who the hel would want to be a normal, caring person with a heart?” He blew out a breath in agitation. “Um, me.”

Why the fuck hadn’t he learned by now? This was not the first time a woman had decided she couldn’t be with a man who was scarred, but he’d make damn sure she was the last. Never again.

He walked to the closet, scrounged around in the bottom before finding his duffel bag—the one he’d brought with him when he moved in with Connie a few months back. He went around the room gathering his clothes. After stuffing the bag ful, he zipped it then started for the door.

“Not even going to say good-bye, Kishy?” Connie said as she continued putting on the layers of makeup she insisted upon wearing before stepping one toe out of the condo.

“Yeah. If you find that I’ve left anything behind, burn it. And have a wonderful fucking life.”

Without another word, he left the bedroom, went down the stairs, got his leather jacket out of the coat closet, puled it on, zipped it, then left out the front door. He headed straight for the motorcycle parked in the drive—the one thing he’d refused to give up for Connie even though she’d been adamant about not liking it—and secured the bag to it. He fished his sunglasses from the front leather pocket, pushed them on, straddled the bike, fired it up, backed out onto the road, and drove away without a second glance.

His life with Connie—with any woman—was over.

From this day on, he vowed the only contact he’d have with women would be strictly for sexual gratification. His heart was off-limits for good.

He smiled as the cold bit into him. No one else would be caught dead riding a motorcycle in the wintertime, but the cold wasn’t a problem. His elevated body temperature kept him nice and toasty.

That was one of the perks about being a lycan.

Snow? That was another thing altogether. Even he wasn’t dumb enough to ride his bike in the snow.

He had a house about six hours north in the deep woods of Wisconsin. He’d left it when he moved in with Connie. Thank God he’d had enough sense to hire someone to look after it while he was gone. He’d wanted to take Connie there several times, but each time he’d mentioned it, she’d scrunch her nose up and say she wasn’t a woodsy-type girl. That should have been his first clue that a relationship with her would never work for the long haul.

Even if the long haul would have been a span of twenty years or less because he didn’t age like a human and Connie wasn’t his mate. He couldn’t turn her into a lycan, and she along with everyone else they knew would eventualy become suspicious of his youthful looks when age started to bear its mark on them while he remained unaffected by the ticking of time.

He laughed into the wind whipping his hair, but the sound was drowned out by the loud purr of the motorcycle. To think he’d been ready to spend that many years with her. He reached up and adjusted his sunglasses. You are a complete idiot indeed, Kish.

A complete idiot.