AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Raven
I can’t take my eyes off Baxter while he works. I sit on one of his smooth stainless-steel benches – the one that affords me the best view without messing up his equipment – I vow to watch it all. When he started, I was worried that I’d have to force myself to sit through it, to like it, for him. But when he got to work and Cordelia’s screams of pain mingled with the crescendos of his powerful classical music, I found myself loving every minute of it.
For hours he’s been carving up Cordelia’s flesh. I’ve seen him remove fingers and toes, use pliers and blades. Even a meat cleaver. He’s removed teeth and nails. Even used a blowtorch numerous times. I would have loved that if it weren’t for the smell.
My favourite was when he used a paintbrush to spatter acid over her skin. The sizzling could be heard over the delicate choral track playing at the time. I realised that his playlist and his method are intrinsically tied, the tool he uses always perfectly matching the symphony playing.
Watching him work, I see him for the artist that he is. Precise, exacting, a perfectionist. It doesn’t matter that his tools are blades, his canvas is flesh, and his paint is blood. He’s every bit as talented and worthy of praise as the overpaid works of toffs that people stick on their walls. At least Baxter works with feeling.
Not to mention how damn sexy he looks doing it. I expected him to strip off or wear a boiler suit or something. At the very least to remove his pristine white shirt. But of course he doesn’t. How silly of me to expect anything so pedestrian of him. He has rolled his sleeves up, but that’s his only allowance to acknowledge how hard he’s working. Obviously he’s a little dirty, but nothing even close to what I was expecting. I think it’s nothing short of miraculous. We get dirtier in the bedroom.
Although there is something about tweed pants, rolled shirt sleeves and braces that makes me weak at the knees. My nipples are pebbled thanks in part to the cool air from the AC, but largely from watching Baxter wield his blade with ruthless efficiency and precision. It’s fucking hot.
And it probably shouldn’t be. But after everything I’ve been through, I’m absolutely done with thinking, feeling and behaving how I ‘ought’. I’m done with it all. Especially expectations. Baxter fucking Branson carving up Cuntdelia as a wedding gift to me, to our entire family, is the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed, not to mention the fucking sexiest. So if I want to sit on an ice cold slab of metal and drip my arousal all over it, I damn well will, and no one is going to make me feel bad about it.
“You okay, goddess?” Baxter asks, wiping sweat from his brow and glancing up at me. I have no idea how he manages to stay so clean, especially when he likes to make such a mess in the bedroom.
I decide he needs dirtying up a little.
I jump down off the bench and stalk towards him, my gaze heated and full of intent.
“I told you it would be a long night,” he says unapologetically. There’s a real gleam of excitement and joy in his eyes. He loves this. His work. Torturing and killing people. It suits him. He looks happier than I’ve ever seen him — including when I plunged a knife into his thigh.
“It’s perfect,” I say, kissing him. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m dirty.” He pulls away, trying to keep his bloodstained hands off me, but I don’t let him go far.
“That’s funny, I was just thinking about how clean you look.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I came over to see if I could tempt you to dirty up a bit.”
His gaze darkens to a blazing black and I shiver in anticipation, excited this time.
“You’ve been tempting me since the day we met, goddess.”
He wraps me in his arms and I feel the warm blood seep through my dress. After hours of sitting on a cold metal slab, the warmth is actually welcome.
I ignore the sobbing, pleading wrench of a woman on the bench behind me, and focus solely on Baxter. Looping my arms around his neck, I jump and wrap my legs around his waist, giving him no choice but to catch me. His hands palm my ass under my dress and I swear I’m so turned on that my scent even overpowers the perfume of blood and imminent death on the air.
“You’re fucking divine,” he murmurs reverently, and I can’t hold back a moment longer. My control snaps and I launch myself at him, kissing him with everything I have, pouring everything I feel, all that I owe him, all that I am, into my kiss. He takes everything I give him and gives it right back until I’m a panting, trembling mess in his arms.
“Please,” I beg, breaking away just to breathe.
“I’m not done here.”
“Just take a little break. I can’t wait. I love watching you work.”
He grins at me, truly happy that I’ve said that, and I can tell he knows how much I mean it.
“I don’t have all night,” he warns.
“Trust me, I won’t take long,” I promise.
In two short strides he’s crossed back to the table where Cordelia is strapped. At this point, given the feeble state of her, I think the restraints are pointless. He perches me on the edge of the metal table, next to her legs, and gets me to lean back. I have to grip the other side of the table’s edge, meaning my arms cross over her legs, but I don’t care. At this point she isn’t even human to me. If she ever was.
