I followed her story like she knew I would. I followed her to the Blue Clover because we belong together.
And I’ve waited long enough.
While she was unveiling the horror story of her life to the world, unearthing dead girls from the soil of her childhood home, I was pretty diligent myself, setting up false leads across the country. Dropping little breadcrumbs to keep the FBI task force busy.
We’ll come back to that later.
Right now, I’m famished. Starved to taste what I’ve been denying myself for far too long.
London pushes close to my ear. “You’re hungry,” she whispers. “I can feel your need.”
Jaw clenched, I grab the skimpy material of her skirt and bunch it in my fists. I find her eyes—those bottomless browns shimmering with gold—before I take her mouth. I groan into the kiss, the taste of her a drug injected into my deprived system.
The music returns with a roaring crash to my senses. I’m drunk on her and swaying beneath her spell. Only one other indulgence compares to this sublime feeling, and I’m unable to deny myself any longer. I break away and turn her around to face the club.
Securing my hands to her hips, I guide her back against my chest. My eyes shutter as she snakes an arm around my neck, welding her body along mine.
I dip my head low and whisper, “Choose.”
Enticing me isn’t enough. London thinks she’s going to poke the beast with no repercussions… If she’s ready to bring the manhunt to an end, then she’s ready to take lives.
I feel the excited quake roll over her body. “You don’t think I’m ready.”
“I think if I’ve come all this way, placing myself right in the path of bloodhounds, you’re going to prove it.”
“Didn’t I prove it when I dunked a fiend in a tank of acid?” Her words seethe with righteous anger.
I smile at the memory of our first kill. “Your hands still look clean,” I say in a low, rough tone. “I want to see them filthy. I want to see themred.”
Her body responds to my challenge with a hard shiver. Then her hips rock into me, daring me all the same. London and I have been battling for control since I first entered her therapy room. If she only realized just how much control she has over me, the fucking damage she could do.
“This isn’t your selection process,” she says, a tremble lacing her voice. “It’s too impulsive.”
“No…it’s new. It’s us. This isourselection process, love.” And it’s goddamn sexy as hell. I drag my hand up her thigh, her thin, little skirt nearly ripping under my palm. “You’ve been selecting your victims for a long time, London.” I guide her head with my cheek, our eyes scanning the crowd. “Trust your instincts.”
Like a radar, my soul recognizes other black souls. I can spot them in a crowd. Zeroing in on that indefinable thing that makes us alike. Same.
Killers.
London has also this ability. It’s what makes her so damn good at her job. Sensing the dark thread woven through a killer’s psyche. Pulling that thread until it unravels. Fraying the end until she has him wrapped around her finger.
She’s an artist.
I take her hand in mine, running my thumb over her finger as I seek the groove marks that wrap her flesh. They’re deeper now, as though she’s spent hours twisting her little string around and around, tightening it until her finger throbbed.
My jaw flexes. Our time apart hasn’t just been torturous for me.
Her shoulders tense. “Some things never change.” She presses back, sending a thrill through my whole being.
I slip a hand beneath her skirt, and her thighs squeeze together as I roam up her inner thigh. She rolls her head across my chest, entranced. As London grinds against me, setting my senses aflame, I tease her panties aside, seeking the proof of her arousal.
Her stimulation is evident in her heated flesh—her soaked panties. “Fuck,” I groan harshly, my teeth gritting against the need to take her.
Self-control is what has kept me hidden this long.
Another reason I had to leave London cuffed to the trap as my lair blazed into the early morning sky.
She makes me fucking reckless.
