Chapter Fourteen
Dexter
My trek to an overflowing bar two blocks up from the motel I left Megan at slows when a text message sounds from my jeans pocket. My hands are visibly shaking when I lug out my phone. I nearly killed her. Megan’s pulse was nearly decimated because of me.
Usually, I’d feel no remorse, but even a man as emotionless as me can’t deny the sensation thickening my veins right now. Her denial angered me; it stripped my veins of blood and left me to die.
But that isn’t the reason I nearly strangled her.
I was stuck in a debilitating blackness. I knew where I was and what I was doing, but the person I was doing it to wasn’t the person I saw when my hand curled around Megan’s throat.
I thought Megan was Cleo.
I’m unsure if Megan’s rejection was the catalyst of my breakdown or if it’s the way she is snaking herself beneath my skin, but whatever it was, I’m losing control—and not in a good way.
I could pretend I was teaching Megan a lesson about what happens when something I’m dying to taste is brutally stripped away from me, but then I wouldn’t have let go. I would have killed her.
Perhaps I should have. I should have fucked her like her eyes were begging me to, then killed her. It wouldn’t be the first time things have occurred in that order. I’m sure it won’t be the last. But for somefucked up, annoying the living shit out of mereason, I can’t hurt her.
The more her pulse flatlined, the louder the voices in my head shouted. They weren’t screaming murderous thoughts. They were begging for mercy, pleading for me to give her one last shot.
I’m not a merciful man. If you double-cross me, expect to pay your penance in blood. But Megan didn’t double-cross me; she merely denied me. I don’t know why. I read the thoughts streaming from her eyes; I smelled the erotic scent of her cunt. She wanted me—she still does!
She must be playing a game I don’t participate in. Her loss. Now instead of being bedded by a god, she’ll be fucked by a peasant. If the idea didn’t grate my nerves, I’d laugh. Just the thought of her with another man has me seeing red. It triples the adrenaline surging through my veins and has me actively seeking my next target. I need to work this girl out of my system, and the best way to do that is to put another woman in her place.
As my strides lengthen, I drop my blurry eyes to the screen of my phone to discover who my message is from. It isn’t Nick’s security personnel seeking additional proof Megan is alive; it is a reply to a message I sent nearly an hour ago:
Moose:Vicar exterminated. Send taxidermist.
My dad’s reply is just as short.
Big Bear:Call me. Now.
An additional text quickly follows the first.
Big Bear:It says delivered. Don’t keep me waiting, Son.
I toss a curse word into the night air before hitting a soon-to-be frequently dialed number and pressing my cell to my ear. When he is in game mode, my father’s contact with the outside world is borderline extinct, so his quick reply isn’t a good thing. He is either without a target or reminiscing about an old game. Neither scenario is more appealing than the other.
“You owe me thirty seconds.” My father’s deep chuckle pelts down on me. When I was a child, his laugh scared me. Now, it sparks morbid curiosity. “What happened with Vicar?”
I wait for him to finish shooing people away from him, no doubt women eager to take my mother’s place, before replying, “He hunted without an invitation. My target was not his to contain.”
“Dexter. . . Son.”
I don’t know which greeting agitates me more. He only calls me Dexter when he is disappointed in me. He used “Son” when he wanted to taunt my mother.
“I know hunting was never your thing, but you are well aware of the rules. The game is the target, not your fellow player’s.”
“I wasn’t hunting—”
“It’s her, isn’t it? The pretty blonde you escaped with? Does she remind you of your mother; is that why you’ve taken such an immediate liking to her?”
I’m a little lost on a reply—not the mother part; that is accurate. What did Dr. Nelson call it?Oedipus complex, where a son sees his father as an emotional rival because he sleeps with his mother. It is the part about Megan being blonde. Her hair is a little mousy, but it definitely isn’t light enough to call her a blonde.
I stop combing my internal dictionary for an adequate term to describe Megan’s hair color when my father asks, “She’s younger than your usual toys. How old is she? Sixteen? Seventeen?”
I’m filled with sympathy for Megan’s mute state when my mouth refuses to cooperate with the prompts of my brain. I have no clue what my father is talking about. Megan is immature, but I know for a fact she isn’t a teen. Her cock-stiffening curves could never be confused with someone who is barely a woman.
