“You do what I say, Countess. I told you I want your pussy again and I don’t like to repeat myself. Now take my cock and put it in your cunt.”
So I did. I lifted my leg and grabbed the base of his cock, feeling those metal balls beneath my fingers, and found my entrance and lowered myself on his thick cock, so sore I wanted to cry, my pussy unfamiliar with the amount of rigor, but his seductive voice made it impossible for me to say no. So I rocked on his cock, holding onto his chest, while he fingered my ass with one hand and gripped my breast with the other. I rode that pain-pleasure that I’ve only ever felt with him and let him explode inside me. Then I let him pull out of me and eat my pussy before he fed me his cum, and I swallowed. I swallowed greedily when he commanded me to do so. It was nasty and intense, God help me, because I don’t regret it.
I don’t regret the danger, the roughness of being with him. He’s addictive, and it’s euphoric. The way he can’t seem to stop.His intensity matches mine, and I want him with the same level of urgency. It’s as if our time is running out. Like once the sun comes up, this thing we’ve done will come to light, evaporate, and fade away, and we go back to avoiding each other. I could chalk it up to good sex, no, I mentally correct myself, great sex. The wreckage of my body can testify to never having had sex like this before. I don’t recognize myself. The greedy slutty behavior isn’t me.Isn’t it, though?A voice taunts. Haven’t I wanted to fuck this man since I met him? I block out the judgmental voice.
The unvarnished truth is that I should be running for the hills, but I’m not. I gave complete submission to a man who for all intents and purposes confessed to being a killer. Well, he never said he killed them. He told me the bodies in the forest were his, but the man is a wordsmith. He’s the most secretive man I’ve ever met, but his words felt like a confirmation that he was the one who put the bodies there. More than that, I didn’t want to think about it. Not the fact that their hands and heads were gone. I hug myself watching him. I fucked a man all night who killed two people, three if you count the manslaughter charge Sophia mentioned weeks ago.
Can I leave? Should I leave? Will he let me leave? I had an inkling of what kind of man he was, and now, I’m not sure. Am I in danger? He chased me down like a criminal.
I know what he sounds like right before he comes. I know the flavor of his skin, his mouth, and the feel of his fingers in my ass, but that’s all I know. I have no clue if he sees me as some sort of threat now that I know about dead bodies, rotting in a forest. His forest. Christ. I’m way out of my depth here. The most I’ve come to being involved in a crime is shoplifting lipstick. Kingsley and I dared each other to steal when we were 16 from a drug store. She kept hers, but I snuck and put my back a few days later, unable to live with the guilt.
But I don’t want to put this back on the shelf. I want to keep him. Hide him away in my room and take him out and covet my prize. I want this all to myself, at least for now. Suspended reality with Stone. Stefan Hayes is beyond belief. I want to stay in this cabin, in this bed. I want to feel him fucking me again. I want his tongue all over my body the way it was last night. Is this some sort of Stockholm syndrome shit? Christ, I don’t know. Even if I leave, I don’t know which way to go.
I turn on the water until just a trickle comes out, too nervous that I’ll wake him and he’ll turn those mysterious eyes on me, and I beg him to let me stay. I rinse my face as quietly as possible and wash out my mouth. I sniff my armpits. Not bad. I open his medicine cabinet, moving slowly, praying it doesn’t creak, and spot only a brown bottle of some unknown liquid and Q-tips. There is also a first aid kit. No extra toothbrushes or sample deodorant. I guess I should be thankful since it probably means he doesn’t have guests. Who are you kidding, Cam? He could have a box of toothbrushes and extra deodorant somewhere else. You have no clue. Jealousy burns inside me that he might have other women who come here, other women who he fucks that way he fucked me, other women who sleep over and stare in this very vanity mirror and think about him fucking them again.Just the way you are.
Shit. You need to focus on something else, Cam. I shake off emotions. I have no business feeling about a man who has made zero promises.
Something catches my eye from beyond the small bathroom window. I peer through the glass, spotting graves. There is a gravestone at the edge of a dark clearing. It’s big like my mother’s gravestone. Weeds and ivy shroud the tombstone. It looks abandoned, neglected. It breaks my heart seeing it.
For years, I cleaned my mother’s grave with Maria. Then, when she retired, I went alone. I haven’t been there in a longtime. Too long. Her birthday is coming up, and I need to visit. There’s an impulse to clean this one. I wonder if Stone knows who they are.
I head back into the room to find that he’s still asleep. I tip down the stairs and slip out of the door. The grass is covered in dew, chilly on my toes, but I don’t stop, the gravestones in my line of vision. The trek up the hill makes me pause and take in the surroundings. The stillness of the forest feels soothing rather than eerie, like it did when Stone chased me.
Stopping at the edge of the tombstone, I kneel on the cold, wet ground and trace the words. The gravestone is much newer than I thought when I saw it through the window. I assumed it would be older with the design. Some long-lost person from the past. But the Stone is newer. There are two angels etched at the top of the gray Stone. One is holding the smaller one. Mother and child? The epitaph is only a message. I think it’s written in Latin, but I could be wrong. There are no names and just one date. 2012. Thirteen years ago. “Who are you?” I whisper, wondering why the names are not carved into the Stone. It’s unusual. There is nothing. No hint at their personality. Their role in someone’s life. The impulse is there to know, but first the grave needs to be cleaned. I dig my fingernails in the dirt, pulling, yanking at the widespread weeds. Some of the roots are stubborn, but soon I have a satisfying pile of branches, leaves, and roots. I wish I had some flowers to leave behind. Looking up, I scan the edge of the forest for any color. It’s no longer Spring, but there may still be some flowers blooming.
Chapter 56
“What are you doing?”
The scream leaves my mouth instantly, and I fall back on my hands as I turn. He’s there again. Looking just like he did in that forest. Haunted. Like a specter coming to claim a soul. “Fuck! You scared me.”
Once my heart rate returns to normal, it starts speeding up for another reason entirely. Tracking my eyes down, I lick my lips. His pants are unbuttoned. His chest and feet are bare. He watches me with those dark eyes, and my body reacts helplessly, heating, craving his touch. His abs and chest are my favorite, covered in all those gorgeous tattoos that I have yet to fully examine. Dusting off my soil-stained hands, I stand shakily. My feet and knees are a mess, covered in twigs and dirt. “I found this gravestone, and it was covered in weeds. I hated seeing it that way, and I wanted to clean it up.”
Stone looks behind me at the gravestone, then back at me, before stepping forward and picking up my hand. He turns it over in his hands. There are thick lines of dirt underneath my fingernails. Most of them are chipped and ragged from where Iclawed at the soil to remove the stubborn roots buried deep in the soil.
“You used your bare hands.”
Shrugging, I turn my fingers toward me. “I’m used to it. Manicures don’t survive my art. And it needed to be done.” Turning back, I kneel again and pat down the disturbed soil. “I wonder who they are? The marker looks fairly new.”
“It’s my sister and niece.”
I glance up at him, and shock leaves me mute. “Your sister? Niece?”
He drops his hands and then kneels with one leg. “Ivory and Angel. Angel was my niece." His fingers trace the smaller angel carved in the stone.
“How old was she—when she died?”
“Four.”
He says it with such bitterness, a tone full of anger. Chills rack my body. Four years old. So small. So helpless.
“What happened to them?”
“They were murdered.”
My chest aches hearing those three words. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like to have your sister and niece removed from the earth in such a violent way. I want to ask him more, but he doesn’t seem to want to share anything else. “They’re buried together?”
“Yes.”
