Choked in Love

Serial Killer Meet Cute

Hazel

I never really considered what I’d be doing the first time I met a serial killer but if I had, it wouldn’t have been dancing around my bedroom in nothing but my nightshirt. And yet here I am, headphones on, singing along to Taylor Swift like I’m getting over a breakup.

The long hours and intense job are also to blame for me dancing around the house at two in the morning.

It’s less carefree and more turn the music up loud to drown the world out.

My shift today was brutal and dancing it out is pretty much the only way I’ll be able to get to sleep without being haunted by the frightened whispers of yet another rape victim.

I love my job, I do, but I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.

So, can you blame me for having the music too loud to hear the siren?

And really, shouldn’t the psychiatric prison have a more updated signal to alert those of us stupid enough to live within a five-mile radius that one of their prisoners has escaped?

A text message maybe? We interrupt your regularly scheduled solo dance party to tell you a highly dangerous and clinically insane prisoner has escaped from Drayford Secure Psychiatric Facility.

Please lock all your doors and windows and remain inside.

Yeah, that’s what’s running through my head when I spin around to find a truly and unfairly stunning man leaning beside my open window.

His arms are crossed over his gray top and, yep, I’m ninety percent sure he’s holding back a laugh.

His lip twitches as I pull off my headphones and stumble back. “Please,” he says. “Don’t stop on my account.”

The alarm blares in the distance and my mind stumbles, slowly putting together the whining siren and the gray prison uniform the guy is wearing. Side note: no one should look that good in prison get up.

My mind shouts at me that this man is dangerous and eventually my body gets the message.

I reach behind me, grabbing whatever I can off my bedside table and brandishing it in front of me. “Stay back.”

My intruder brings his palm to the slight shadow covering his jaw and it takes me a moment to realize he’s trying not to laugh.

“You know, in most home invasions the homeowner’s weapon ends up being used against them.” Light plays in his pale blue eyes and it’s not till I follow his amused gaze to the weapon I’m holding that I realize why.

My weapon of choice? A vibrator wand. The overly attractive prison escapee can go ahead and kill me now.

The tips of my ears burn, and it takes everything in me not to close my eyes and die of embarrassment. At least that way he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of murdering me. “I mean it,” I say, for some reason sticking to my guns and not lowering the damn vibrator.

He smirks. “So do I.”

I run back over his words and now my cheeks are burning too as a series of highly inappropriate images of this man using my vibrator on me flurry through my mind.

Now I do drop it, holding my hands up instead. I talk people down for a living, I can get myself out of this situation.

“Look,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that my heart is beating in my throat. I’m sure that’s nothing to worry about, right? Hearts are supposed to beat like they’re on speed.

I screw up my face and try again. “Okay, there are no doubt dozens of people looking for you right now, which means you probably want to get as far away from here as possible.”

The guy nods, his black curls tumbling over his forehead. “Right. Except there are dozens of people looking for me right now.”

I wince. “So the chances of you climbing back out of that window and pretending this never happened…?”

Amusement quirks his lips. “Pretty slim.”

Fuck.

“Any chance you were wrongly incarcerated?” Hey, a girl’s gotta ask. Working the job I do I know it happens far, far too often.

“Again, pretty slim.”

Okay, Hazel, you can do this. There are people waiting on the other end of three digits for exactly this situation.

Well, maybe not exactly. Can’t say I’ve ever taken a call from a woman in her night shirt wielding a vibrator wand at a serial killer who could quite literally be the cover model for Vogue.

Inside Look: This season’s Serial Killer Chic – How to style your hair so all the girls swoon when you break into their house.

I draw in a breath and try to shut off the tirade of thoughts spiraling through my mind.

The criminal, I remind myself, is still leaning against my bedroom wall, his hands chilling inside his pockets as he watches me with a tilt to his head.

My gaze drops to where my phone rests in the middle of my bed. One fast lunge and I’d have it.

I look back up and serial killer dude’s eyes taper as he notes the phone. He doesn’t move but I see the muscles under his shirt tense, the tendons in his neck coiling. His hands are still in his pockets.

Fuck it. I throw myself onto the bed, my arm outstretched as I reach for my phone.

My fingertips graze the charm covered case before it’s swiped from my grasp.

I bounce once on the mattress and then I’m flying, my hands clasping the strong forearm clamped around my stomach as he plucks me off the bed and spins us around.

I blink, catching my breath and trying to process what just happened while serial killer dude turns my phone over in his free hand. It’s protected in its lilac croc case, cupcake and ice cream charms decorating the back.

“Cute.” The phone disappears and I feel him tuck it away somewhere. His lips dust the shell of my ear. “Probably best for me to hang onto this for now, don’t you think?”

A shiver cascades over me. I’m only just five foot and the tips of my toes barely brush the fluffy white rug beneath us. Rock solid muscles press against my back as he holds me, and I’d tell myself I’m shivering because I’m scared but I’m bad at lying.

I read once that anxiety kills arousal, so make it make sense that fear heightens it. Or maybe that’s just me.

Welcome to blind date, your options are A: a stand-up guy who always holds the door open for you. B: a single dad with a great credit score. Or C: a serial killer who breaks into your house in the middle of the night.

No. I refuse to be attracted to this motherfucker. I wriggle in his grasp. “Let me go.”

“If I do that, what are the chances that you’ll stay put and not make a run for it?”

I close my eyes, a headache gathering at the base of my skull. I should tell him I’ll do whatever he wants so long as he doesn’t hurt me but like I said, I’m a bad liar. “Pretty slim,” I whisper.

His soft laugh tumbles against the back of my neck and I curse myself for clipping my hair up.

He spins us around again and I grip his arm, digging my nails into the dusting of brown hair there. He lets me go but before I can run anywhere, he captures my hips and backs me up against the wall.

“Sit.” Sharp eyes bore into me, a darkness hidden there belied by his goofy smile and boyish charm.

I gulp, my throat barren. Slowly, I let my knees buckle, lowering myself to the floor.

“Stay,” he orders, gazing down at me with a look I can’t quite read.

When I don’t try to move, he steps away and takes a seat across the room from me, his back against my bedroom door.

My room isn’t big. There’s only the width of the bed plus a couple of extra feet between us.

He sits crisscross apple sauce and that boyish side to him springs back to life. Except he’s not a boy and now he’s farther into the room, the glow from the ceiling light hits his face and I realize I know who he is.

Not know know but know of. In the way that everyone in Seattle knows of him because the man sitting across from me is the infamous Vigilante Choker.

His mugshot was plastered all over the news for weeks late last year because he walked into the local police station and confessed to seven murders.

They had no idea any of the crimes were even connected. He would have never been caught if he hadn’t turned himself in.

I vaguely remember hearing he went for the insanity plea and ended up being sent to Drayford, but to be honest I stopped paying much attention.

I hear enough about this sort of stuff at work and I didn’t think it was super relevant to me.

Funnily enough, it didn’t occur to past me that the Vigilante Choker would break out and take refuge in my bedroom.

Past me and I will have words though, because right now, I’m wishing I knew more about him.

He watches me from across the room, his head tilted at that slight angle again.

I decide the least I can do is return the favor.

I drag my gaze over him, taking in his black curls and the way they flop over cropped sides. His nose is strong, at perfect alignment with the sharp jaw line that graces his face.

The gray shirt makes his skin look like alabaster. The wide sleeves are short, letting me admire his muscled arms and the veins on his hands. He has a tattoo between his thumb and forefinger. An artistic skull with illustrated flowers. It’s only then I remember how he kills his victims.

Strangulation. He wraps those hands around their throat and squeezes until they choke.

Beads of sweat prick the back of my neck, and I scold myself for checking him out. I’ve barely even looked at a guy since the car crash of a relationship I had with my ex, but apparently dangerous men do it for me. I wet my cracked lips and stare at the bedroom door he’s blocking.

“So, what happens now?”

He shrugs. “We kill time?”

I glare at him and he smirks like a kid caught stealing candy.

“Bad choice of words?”

“I hate that you’re enjoying this.”

He shrugs. “You’re a lot more entertaining than the company I’ve been keeping the last few months.”

I skewer him with a look. “I’m so thrilled I’m more enjoyable than convicted felons.”

He presses a smile between his lips.

My pulse thrums in my throat. I should be terrified, and I am, but I’m also deadly curious. “Why did you escape?” I ask. It makes no sense, why turn himself in if he was just going to break out?

He leans back and links his fingers together against his stomach. “What’s your name?”