Entombed In Sin (Graveyard Games Duet #2)

17. Knox

17

KNOX

T he coffee reaches every part of my soul and wakes me up, causing my body to tingle pleasantly. Or maybe it’s all the sugar I’ve poured into it. Either way, I needed this.

“We should make having breakfast delivered here every morning part of our routine. You know, like an employee benefit or some shit. We can write it off as an expense. Maybe then I’d be down here with all you morning people more often,” I tell Starr Girl as I kick my feet up on the desk in the office down in Bright Starr. “Hell, I’ll even be the one to place the order the night before.”

“I think that’s up to Thatcher,” Beatrix murmurs as she uses the company laptop to read over the morning’s emails from vendors and clients. While she works, she picks at a blueberry muffin, eating small bites like a bird.

I snort. “Thatcher can shove it. If we want breakfast like this, we’ll just do it. And if he wants food, he’ll just go along with it.”

“I bought it this morning—this isn’t company money. Thatcher laid out a budget?—”

“Budget-smudget,” I cut her off. “Thatcher can readjust the numbers.”

A reserved, sweet smile curves the corners of her mouth as she works. “Then you can be the one to bring it up to him.”

I study her face. Last night, her smiles were the biggest I’ve seen her wear. The shy young woman with a somber energy has a wild side I thoroughly enjoyed. She said she didn’t forgive me, but there doesn’t appear to be any animosity lingering between us now or any hostility in her expression. That’s got to be a good sign, right?

“You know, we can go out again tonight,” I offer, then suck down the rest of my coffee. I groan as the warmth of it seeps into me. “We didn’t get you a kill.”

She glances up at me, her eyelashes fluttering as she studies my face.

“I didn’t know if you’d be up to going out again so soon,” she says.

I wave a hand dismissively. “Trust me, nights are my thing. Well, no, that’s not true. Killing is my thing. But being out at night is a close second. I want to make sure the slate between us is clean and that we’re good.”

Pushing the laptop away from her, Starr Girl leans back in her seat and meets my gaze. “May I ask you something?”

I place my empty cup on the desk and throw my arms out wide. “I’m an open book. Ask away.”

Starr Girl doesn’t voice her question right away. Instead, she folds her hands into her lap and looks down to stare at them. I lean back in my seat. My shoulders and legs feel heavy today. Maybe we shouldn’t go out to kill tonight. If I’m not at my best, the tables could turn and a night of fun could quickly go in another direction. The victims could fight back and win. Or worse, they can escape to finger me later for the crime. I will not be going to jail. I can’t imagine a life that consists of bar soap, a five thread count for sheets, and a bunk bed situation. I’d rather take death.

“Why did you go looking for Thatcher and Sagan after they tried to kill you?”

I blink rapidly, surprised at the turn of the conversation. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me. I think I would’ve been terrified to even leave the house after surviving that,” she admits softly. Her eyes travel over my face. “I would never be comfortable sharing the same room as my potential murderer.”

Recalling how she reacted to me the other day when I walked into the preparation room with my apology breakfast in tow, I’m not surprised to hear this. Then again…

“But fucking your stalker is totally sane, right?” I point out with a laugh. Starr Girl ducks her head with embarrassment. With a sigh, I add, “Those two are like black holes. Dangerous and magnetic. I couldn’t not gravitate toward them.”

I can remember that night so clearly. I let greed dictate my moves that evening. There was a wad of cash in my car, I had a full tank of gas, and I’d just gotten laid. I didn’t need to slip between the twins and that horsey-looking girl they’d targeted, but there was just something about them that called to me. I wanted their attention. When I got it, it couldn’t have felt more right. They listened to everything I had to say and were careful how they touched me… It was perfect. I didn’t even realize I was in danger until they struck.

With a sigh, I continue, “When I survived their attack, I realized how much power and control they had over their lives and other people’s. I wanted that. I wanted all of the control, just like they had. Now I have it, and it’s a thrill. It’s especially fun when I can drag the macho, alpha assholes in close before I strike.”

Last night, I’d managed to lure four guys into that dark alley after me. I didn't even need to go to that party. They’d been on their way home to their fraternity house when I sauntered up to them, flirted and taunted until I got the desired reaction. Fuck, that was a heady fucking feeling, getting under their skin. I’d been hard as a rock the entire time.

Then again, I’d been hard all evening as I savored Starr Girl’s attention.

“Are you talking about the type of guys that remind you of Greg?” she asks.

Her innocent question leaves me breathless. This is what I get for being vulnerable: it leaves me open for unsuspecting questions like these. I swallow thickly as I try to push down the need to get defensive.

“Yeah,” I respond, but the word is hard to say. It’s almost slurred, like my mouth doesn’t want to confirm it. “I guess.”

“He’s the reason you don’t like touch, isn’t it?” she presses.

My stomach knots. I open my mouth to confirm her question, but my jaw feels like it’s a million pounds. I frown. I try again, but it won’t open. What’s more, my tongue feels incapable of moving. Alarm is a chill that runs down my spine. What the fuck? I try to reach up, but my hand won’t move either. The only thing that does move is the sudden drop of my head as I lose the ability to keep it up.

“Sorry. I know we were having a moment,” Starr Girl says softly, “but maybe we can pick up where we left off when the drugs wear off.”

Drugs? She fucking drugged me? Fuck, fuck! Panic barrels through me. My heart races as the blood drains from my face. Why the fuck is this happening? When did she have the chance to do this?

My heart slams frantically against the inside of my chest. I was being nice to her, and I’m rewarded like this ? I’m going to murder her when I can move again. How fucking dare she! In my head, I scream in rage. I fight against the heavy weight that’s immobilized me. But nothing moves. Not a pinky, not a toe.

“You want my forgiveness, Knox, but here’s the thing; before there can be a ‘clean slate’, I want my pound of flesh. I’m owed it. From now on, I won’t let you, or anyone else, hurt me again. I put it in your coffee before I called you in here,” she explains as she walks around the desk. “The drug will keep you paralyzed for about an hour, maybe a little longer, but it’ll wear off and you’ll be fine afterward.”

I can see her shoes out of the corner of my eye as she stops beside me. Her fingers slip under my chin to turn and tilt my head up to face her. I make sure she can feel my rage as I meet her gaze. She frowns and the skin between her brows puckers.

“Telling you not to be scared is probably stupid,” she says softly. “The point of this is to scare you, after all. I want you to know how I felt when I woke up buried in a coffin. I was trapped down there and now you’re… well, you're trapped in your own body, unable to do anything about it. Just like how I was unable to do anything about my situation.”

She doesn’t smile or gloat. Her words are spoken with a solemnity that speaks of the pain I’d caused her and the determination to see this through. It’s because of this that some of my anger fades. This isn’t her being malicious. Not really, at least. This is about punishing me. Something I agreed to. In fact, if I recall, I gave her permission to do whatever she wanted. I may not like this situation, but I kind of put myself in it.

Fuck.

Next time, there are going to be rules.

“Usually, when I used this stuff in the past, I mixed a sedative with it to make sure my mother could sleep through her withdrawal process,” Starr Girl says, disgust momentarily twisting her pretty features. “You’ll be awake, though. I wanted you to be aware of what I’m going to do.”

My stomach twists uncomfortably. What is she going to do to me? Maybe I underestimated her. Maybe Beatrix’s quiet, demure demeanor lulled me into a sense of security, leading me to agree to her punishment. I certainly wouldn’t have given the twins free range. I know what they’re capable of and despite knowing they won’t kill me, during some of their punishments, I’ve been known to beg for death.

Not that they would ever listen to any stipulations I’d lay down. That’s why I follow their rules in the first place.

Starr Girl’s fingers slide from my chin up to pinch my jaw open. I’d wince if I could. Her other hand comes up, and she throws something in my mouth before she helps me shut my jaw. What’s this? There’s now a chalky pill sitting on my tongue. Or was sitting on my tongue. Beatrix tilts my head back and strokes her hand down my throat, coaxing me to swallow. When it’s gone, she lets go of me.

“And that… Well, I don't know exactly what that is, but the man who gave it to me on the way to the bathroom last night at the club said it would make me feel really good,” she admits with a shrug. “I’m sure it’s ecstasy. My roommate in college said the same thing when she would pop her pills before going out.”

Fuck . Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

I’m going to trip while being unable to move? God, this is going to be a nightmare. This can go so wrong. Fuck, I hope whatever she gave me before doesn’t mix poorly with this. My stomach plummets as the pill works its way down my throat.

She steps away with a tight smile. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a cot to roll you into the preparation room. What I want to do can’t be done in here.”

As she turns and hurries out of the room, I scream behind my sealed lips.

Ten minutes later, I’m under the bright fluorescent lighting in the preparation room.

My anger and trepidation has started to ebb away. I can feel it leaking out of me like fluid from a punctured IV bag. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m too in awe at the bright colors floating like bubbles over my head, or because I trust that Starr Girl isn’t going to kill me. One hour, that’s what she said. I can deal with anything for an hour. I can do this. My confidence in my ability to handle almost anything heightens.

Or maybe it’s just the drugs working their magic.

I can hear Starr Girl moving around the room. Her footsteps are soft taps against the linoleum floor. She hums a tune I don’t recognize, but inwardly I smile at the soft melody. There’s a rustling of objects being moved and then the sound of something rolling toward me. A few of the bubbles over my head pop and it suddenly rains pinks and teals, greens and yellows splatter onto my face. It tickles my cheeks. If I could laugh, I would.

Starr Girl leans over me, blocking the view of the colors. She gives me a tentative smile.

“Ever since I saw you, I thought you were pretty, Knox. Pretty enough to be on my wall over there,” she waves her hand just out of my line of vision.

Her wall of death is really nice. My face would certainly make it better. The thought of a massive poster of my face between the other corpses makes me want to laugh. The sound is trapped behind my lips. Beatrix frowns, clearly unable to decipher the noise I’m making.

“I want you on my wall, but you’re not my pretty. This—” she waves a hand over my face, “—isn’t my doing. So I’m going to make you deathly beautiful.”

She turns and starts to move something around beside me. A second later, she’s leaning over me and cutting my shirt off my body. My heart pauses for half a beat in fear. She’s going to get me naked? For what? The fear disappears as my shirt falls away and the cool air warms my heated skin.

Oh, my skin can breathe. Good. It felt stifled.

“You left me naked down in that coffin, so now you get to be naked while I work.” Starr Girl gives me a pointed look I kind of deserve. “Be glad I’m not forcing you to masturbate.”

“I just wanted to see you freak out. I didn’t ask for you to touch yourself,” I want to tell her. Too bad my lips are sealed.

I stare at her profile while she cuts off my pants. She’s lucky these aren’t my favorite ones. They’re a bit too tight to conceal a knife, so I don’t wear them often. They’re too tight even for underwear, which is why I’m not wearing any. As they fall away, she gets a good look at my dick. I watch her face, waiting for a reaction. I don’t realize I’m waiting for more than that until she immediately looks away and my stomach unknots.

Wait… She’s not going to touch me? Not even look ? I should be relieved she’s not going to castrate me, or ogle my amazing cock, or touch me. It would be the appropriate reaction. So why the hell do indignation and disbelief takeover?

Look at me , I urge with my eyes as Starr Girl puts the scissors down. Look at my dick, check out the jewelry there! It’s there for a reason, woman. Now look!

Starr Girl doesn’t even take a peek at my dick. As fucked up as this situation is, she seems to have some sort of moral code where drugging me and stripping me naked is ok but ogling my cock is too far.

Fucking moral code. Who the hell wants to carry one of those around? Besides accidentally leaving her in the ground longer than intended, I don’t think I’ve felt guilty for doing anything. The world and I don’t owe each other shit.

My gaze drifts back up, and those fun little colorful bubbles reappear, drifting over my head. Being offended at Starr Girl’s non-interest falls away as a pleasant wave of peace rolls through me.

There’s movement and suddenly Beatrix is climbing up onto the table with me. She straddles my naked body and settles carefully at my waist. She smiles down at me. It’s sweet and full of excitement.

“Sorry, I can work better at this angle. I don’t do this with the dead because it feels disrespectful, but since you’re alive, it’s a little less weird.” She shakes her head, as if the explanation isn’t necessary. “Anyway, because there's no body warmth in my usual clients, we have to use a special type of makeup. I’m going to see if I can still work with it on you.”

With that, she bends down over me and reaches forward. Inwardly, I flinch. Fuck, this is it. She’s going to touch me. My throat squeezes shut, and I suck in a deep breath to hold in my lungs. If I could wince or jerk away, I would.

The contact is light. Carefully, her fingertips brush across my forehead as she moves a strand of hair out of the way. The breath I’m holding expels only so I can suck in a fresh lungful of air in surprise. Starr Girl’s touch is both soothing and electric. How unexpected. Her gaze goes thoughtful as she runs the back of her hand down my cheek next. Our eyes meet as she pauses for a moment.

Keep going , I mentally urge. My face is a safe zone, so pain doesn’t follow when the twins touch me here. Their touch doesn’t feel like this, though. Beatrix is careful and gentle. She’s not demanding and or forceful like they would be. It’s a strangely nice change of pace.

Starr Girl’s gaze drops away from my eyes as her fingertips slide over my lips and then travel the length of my neck before she pulls away. In her touch’s wake, a tingling of warmth follows. Am I vibrating? It kind of feels like it. Warmth gathers beneath my skin and blood rushes to my face. The colorful bubbles behind Starr Girl’s head grow bigger, some randomly popping and showering us both with vivid colors. I giggle as the colors splatter around us. The sound causes her to smile. Apparently, a giggle is clearer to understand than a laugh.

“You know, I’ve never been in control before, of anyone or thing,” she says as she sits up and grabs a brush and makeup palette. She picks a color from the palette and dusts the bristles over it. She leans down and brushes it across my face. “This is… weird. I kind of like it. I wonder if this is how you three feel when you kill people. In charge, wholly in control…” Her voice trails off as she smiles while she works.

She’s not wrong. Always having the upper hand, knowing you’re about to steal someone’s life, is a power trip. Especially if they don’t see it coming.

“This is fun,” she says after a moment. “You’re like my doll. My perfect, pretty little doll.”

Her words do something funny to my gut. It twists, but not painfully. They also stir something in my chest. Is that pride bubbling up? No. Maybe… Is that stupid? Probably. What’s weirder is that I’m enjoying this. I could probably sit here all day, even without the drugs, being doted upon. Shower me with attention and compliments, and I’m a happy camper, apparently.

“You have the prettiest freckles. They’re hard to see from far away, but like this they’re visible. You know, freckles are supposed to be a sign of…”

Beatrix’s lips move, curving into a smile as she speaks. Her voice is pretty, but her words lose meaning as she continues. They blend together, becoming unintelligible. But that’s ok, because there’s something more interesting at play. In her face, lights and shadows are flickering beneath the skin. Both creep into her eyes and pulsate like a lightning storm on fast forward. It’s mesmerizing. Somehow, it enhances her natural beauty.

So focused on the strange occurrence, I don’t see her hand until it’s too late.

It lands in the middle of my chest as she leans forward and brushes the makeup down the bridge of my nose. For one millisecond, time freezes.

I’m not ready for the internal eruption that follows.

Beatrix might as well have shot a firework directly into my ribcage. My body can’t jerk as the explosion that rocks my insides sends my mind reeling through time and space, but I can moan as the blast is followed by a pleasure so intense the fabric of reality shifts, bringing Starr Girl to the very center of it. My dick seems to be unaffected by the paralytic drug. It stiffens behind Beatrix, who’s unaware of the effect her touch is having on me. My body riots, aching for more. My mind, on the other hand, seems conflicted. I want this undeniable pleasure to never end but… she’s touching me. How is this possible without pain?

Beatrix freezes, surprised by the sound. But she doesn’t move her hand. Her palm radiates heat so surprisingly exquisite that I almost question if I’ve been made from ice with how I seem to melt beneath it. Her brows relax as a small smile splays across her lips.

“It must be the drugs kicking in,” she mutters to herself, then gets back to decorating my face with a brush.

Deliberately, her hand slides up to the base of my neck and then back to where it had originally come to rest. The feeling of pleasure intensifies. I choke on another moan, and my nerves fizzle with delight.

“Do you like that, Pretty Doll?” Beatrix asks with a giggle.

She moves her hand again, this time stroking it down my abdomen, then back up to the middle of my chest. There, she rubs a singular circle before bringing it to a halt. Oh god… it feels so damn good. Shit . Sparklers are going off beneath my flesh. How fucked up is it that I kind of want Beatrix to stab me with a scalpel and cut me open so I can watch the intense display burst from my chest cavity?

She places the brushes aside and pulls out mascara. Carefully, she coats my lashes.

“Such pretty eyes,” she murmurs, taking great care not to stab in my eyeball. An effort I appreciate. A blush creeps up into my cheeks at her compliment.

Starr Girl caps the mascara and places it with the rest of the makeup beside her. She lifts a polaroid camera up next and a flash of light momentarily blinds me. A second later, a square film prints out. She grabs it and waves it in the air.

“We’ll let that develop and then I’ll put it on the wall with the others,” she mutters as she puts the film and camera down on the table, out of sight beside me.

Wait ! I struggle to open my mouth to demand that she let me see it. Have I turned out as pretty as the corpses on her wall? Unfortunately, my mouth refuses to cooperate.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, leaning over me. One hand comes down to brace herself on the table beside me. She gets so close that our noses almost touch and the tips of her braids tickle my collarbones. “I never had dolls growing up. One of my stepfathers would buy them for me, but to get them he’d make me…” The tips of her braids tickle my skin as she gently shakes her head, dispelling the past. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I would hide, and that meant no dolls for me. But I’m glad I don’t have anything to compare you to. You’re the best doll a girl could ask for, Knox.”

With that, she reaches forward with both hands and runs her fingers through my hair. Her nails rake against my scalp, and I groan behind my lips with how good it feels. My eyes roll into the back of my head as she repeats the motion.

“You like that, Pretty Doll?” she teases. Her hands come to rest on my chest where another explosion of pleasure overpowers nearly all other senses. I cry out again, as best I can. “Of course you do. You deserve to be adored. If I had friends, I would show my doll off to them. They’d be so jealous.”

Damn right I deserve it. I’m the prettiest fucking doll there is. I beam up at Beatrix as her words really sink in. She means them. I can feel the truth in them.

“People were jealous of me last night,” she continues. “Can you believe that? I don’t think anyone has ever wished to be me before, but I saw how people were looking at you on the dance floor. They couldn’t keep their eyes off you.”

Something about her words irks me, but before I can place why, all thoughts are ripped away as her hands slide over my chest again. This time, she doesn’t stop as she explores my body. Her hands slide over my shoulders, then her fingers trace the veins in my forearm.

“How can veins be considered attractive?” Starr Girl asks softly, each one with a featherlight touch. “There must be something wrong with me.”

She might as well be using a branding iron rather than her fingers. Except instead of leaving burn marks, her soul is reaching out and weaving itself with mine—connecting the two of us. I’m extremely aware of how her thighs are tightening around me. I groan louder. Is this turning her on? Damn it. Just the thought of her taking so much enjoyment while playing with my body sends a shiver of absolute pleasure through me. I choke under the intensity and groan with frustration as the throbbing of my dick becomes painful. It’s a very centralized pain that is starting to become too intense to ignore.

I swallow hard. I thought I could last an hour under any conditions. I lived with the Hunt twins, for Christ’s sake! There’s nothing worse than the things we put each other through. The torment is a testament to our devotion to one another.

Yet now, under Beatrix’s tightening thighs, heavy breathing, and agonizingly sweet hands, I think I may have found a limit I might not survive. I’d underestimated Beatrix Starr. Now I’m on the precipice of losing my sanity, or what little I have of it.

Touché , Starr Girl. To -fucking- ché .