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“Never.” River grasped her hand and laced their fingers together. “Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed for us to do that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Sadie laughed. “It was the most amazing thing ever. I mean, now that I know I’m not going to be slit open with a dagger.”
“And this is one of the reasons I love you.” River chuckled, turning up the music to an older song they both liked.
Sadie stared out the window, humming softly to the melody as he drove them home. The rest of the party had gone well, and she’d awkwardly chatted with Coral’s fashion team. One designer had pitched a horror fashion line, but Coral denied it with a flick of the wrist, saying she would possibly consider something on the gothic side though.
Once they arrived home, Sadie tossed her purse on the counter. “You can take a shower first. I’m going to work on my screenplay for a bit since, you know, I now have good inspiration.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned.
“I want to read what bloody goodness you come up with after I finish.” He waggled his brows.
“Tut, tut.” She laughed, ticking her finger in the air. “Only after I complete it.”
“So secretive.” River tickled her beneath the ribs, making her laugh harder before he headed into the bathroom. Sadie relaxed in a chair at the dinner table and opened her notebook. She wrote down bloody soup but debated on whether to make the liquid real body fluids. Later she would revisit that scenario. She jotted more things down about betrayal and surprise, then added a few lines of dialogue.
Sadie was about halfway into the scene when the bathroom door opened, and River swaggered into the living room littered with his art supplies, wearing only a towel around his narrow hips. “I’m going to continue where I left off at the party before the sacrifice,” he purred, his voice deep, seductive, as he approached her.
With a grin, she set her notes aside and folded her arms across her chest. “Go on then. Do your best, my vicious dream.”
A few beads of water ran down River’s taut chest as he swept a wet lock of dark hair behind his ear. “I’ve come to take your soul,” he cooed.
“Oh really?” She laughed, then leaned forward, giving him a daring look as she whispered, “Where are you taking it?”
“I suppose you’ll find out.” He scooped her up from the chair and cradled her close, his nose nudging hers. “You deserve a break.”
“I just started, but...” She tilted her head to the side as if mulling it over. “Only if you confess how you would reap my soul.”
“All in due time, my sweet nightmare.” River couldn’t hold his serious expression, a smile breaking free while carrying her into their room and laying her on the bed. His expression turned serious once more as he trailed his finger between her breasts, directly to her heart. “Straight through here is how you would die. Even in my wicked state, I want your heart to be mine.”
“My choice mirrors yours.” Sadie pretended to hold a dagger and pierced the invisible blade into his heart. She then skimmed her hands up his bare chest to cup his face. “I love you,” she murmured.
“I could hear you say those words for all eternity.” He crawled on top of her, caging her in, and she bit her lip in anticipation. “After the fright I caused earlier, tell me how you want to be ravished tonight.”
Sadie’s eyes fell to the blue smudge marks she’d left behind on his chest and cheeks. “You’ll be covered in blue makeup, and so will the bed.”
“Fuck the bed being clean.” He smirked, his eyes hooded. “And I want to get dirty with you.”
“Are you—”
River cut off her words with his mouth, tasting of honey, and she easily gave in to his delicious touch. His tongue flicked the seam of her lips, prying them open, then tangled with hers as his skilled hands hiked up the skirt of her costume. He slowly drew her panties down her legs, teasing them both, before he left her mouth to trail kisses up her inner thigh.
“I love you. Don’t ever forget that.” He lifted her legs over his shoulders and pulled her closer to his mouth. She moaned in pleasure as he stroked that delectable tongue of his up her center.
Chapter Two
“Write the tale, my sweet nightmare.”
The trees’ limbs whispered as they rustled and sang, their low hum spilling through the air like a gentle lullaby.
Sadie squeezed her eyes shut, imagining the trees were filled with blood, traveling through their veins. A heart beat at their center as their lungs pumped beneath their barked flesh. A swarm of colorful insects cloaked the entirety of the woods, guiding her along a path to where giant monstrous forms, with obsidian flesh that glittered like diamonds, reigned. Bloody crowns rested atop their heads, their smiles holding razor-sharp crimson teeth.
She flicked open her lids and jotted down a few sentences inside her notebook—the inspiration still flowed through her, courtesy of the party from the evening before. For most of the night afterward, she’d been awake with River, his mouth on hers, her tongue tasting his salty skin, the paint from her costume smearing everything.
A gust of wind blew, rattling the trees. It was fall, but by the green color of the leaves, and the lack of coolness, it didn’t seem much different than summer. Not like when she and River had gone to Salem the year before, catching glimpses of the beautiful autumn foliage. She wanted to visit the area again—it was the perfect time of year for them both to gather eerie inspiration there.
Sadie brushed a tendril of chestnut-colored hair from her face and peered around the woods, watching the branches dance with the warm breeze. “And the skin of the trees turned into human flesh, the insects drifting to their branches and becoming their leaves. The monsters crouched at their trunks, waiting.” Sadie grinned, adding another sentence to a possible scene, hoping it wouldn’t become erased words. For the past few weeks, her focus had been on the short stories for anthologies and magazine articles to bring in a pitiful amount of money, but finally, the itch was there—the drive—aching to spill out a screenplay. The trick last night at the party was the very kick she’d needed to get her act into gear.
A craving thrummed inside Sadie’s rib cage, thirsting for at least one screenplay to be turned into a film, to be watched, loved, hated, anything. Just as long as her characters could be given the breath of life.
