Chapter Twenty-Eight
Theo
“Chick vein alert,” James says as I watch June’s location on my phone. She’s half an hour away. Thirty minutes has never felt so long.
“Weren’t you going to the gym?” I ask.
“‘Bout to leave.” He sits across from me, shaking the bottle full of his pre-workout. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
He pops the top off his drink and raises an eyebrow. “Is it the friend? Because I’m going to have to veto that one moving in too.”
“Fuck off, James.”
“And here I thought things were going well. I mean, I just heard you call a girl to ask her when she’d be back. Every day you fall more.”
“I’m not falling.”
“T.”
“J.”
“You’ve been off all day. It’s giving me whiplash.”
I don’t cognitively think about saying it, but the words come anyway. “She went to see Amber.”
James pauses mid-drink and slowly lowers his bottle. “What?”
“She figured out Amber is in Cottonwood, and she went there this morning.” She turned off her location on her phone, but I had James put a tracker in Sadie’s car over two weeks ago, assuming June would try to escape with her friend after a Taco Tuesday.
She was sitting in the parking lot for an hour before driving away.
“Why do you care? You already told her about Amber, didn’t you?”
“That doesn’t mean I want the two… hanging out.”
“Worried Amber is going to scare June away?”
I shake my head, clicking my phone back on to watch June’s dot head in my direction. “I guess I just… thought we were past this.”
“She’s an obsessive serial killer. Of course she had to verify the story. Loathe as I am to admit it, she’s a decent person. She’s driven by a need for justice. That drive wasn’t going to shut off because someone told her justice was already done. She had to see it for herself.”
“I know.” I’ve gone over this a hundred times in my head the last few hours.
I’ve opened her contact on my phone a dozen times to call her.
I considered calling Cottonwood. I convinced myself it was fine, that talking to Amber didn’t push her to disappear.
Or try to kill me again. I watched her location as she went from store to store and pictured her telling Sadie the truth, begging for help escaping me.
I’ve gone back and forth about confronting her about it when she gets back.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I called her. By her voice and words, everything is okay between us. But I won’t fully relax until she’s here, writhing beneath me.
“She’s also not an idiot. She probably saw right through Amber’s bullshit,” James says. I nod, and he stands, slapping my shoulder. “Stop brooding. If you two can get past attempted murder, you can survive meeting the exes.”
“Sure,” I mutter. A moment later, I hear the door open and shut, then the rumbling of his bike.
When June is ten minutes away, I pull myself off the couch and head to the kitchen to start the marinade to soak the pork in, pop the cork off a bottle of wine, and am pouring the glasses when the front door opens.
June strolls in alone. She sets a handful of shopping bags on the dining room table, finds me in the kitchen, and smiles.
That’s a good sign.
“Wine?” she asks, raising her eyebrows and toeing off her shoes. “Are we celebrating something?”
I shrug. “You’ve been here for eighteen days. That seems like enough to celebrate.”
“Only eighteen?” She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Feels like a lot longer than that.”
She crosses the room and accepts the offered glass of wine. Watching her bring the rim to her lips and swallow a sip of the red liquid has my mouth going dry. Then her tongue darts out to capture a drop from her bottom lip and my cock twitches in interest.
“We’ve come a long way.”
“Does that mean I’m off the hook?” I ask, sipping my own wine.
She tsks and shakes her head. “I still have twelve days to make that decision.”
I set down my glass and step forward, my feet positioned on either side of hers. My hands land on the counter so I’m caging her in. Her breath hitches, and she holds the wine closer to her chest as she looks up at me.
“And I have twelve days to make the reaper beg for mercy.” I kick her feet apart and grip the back of her neck, keeping her head in place.
She gasps, and I pluck the glass from her hand.
“Open your mouth.” I wait for her lips to part, then pour half the glass of wine past her lips.
A bit dribbles from the corners. “Swallow.” Her throat moves as she obeys, and I lean down, licking the trail of wine up her throat to the corner of her lips.
Lingering an inch over her lips, I set her glass on the counter behind her.
With my now empty hand, I pop open her pants and push under her underwear.
“Come on, you can get wetter than that,” I whisper, my breath brushing her lips.
She shudders and pushes her hips into my hand.
I dip my fingers into her pussy, coating them before returning them to her clit.
Her eyes shut, and she grips my shirt, holding on tight as I rub and pinch and fuck her with my fingers.
She lets out a breathy moan and presses her forehead to my chin.
When she’s nearing her orgasm, I pull my fingers free.
Her eyes pop open, and before she can complain, I shove my fingers into her mouth.
“Clean them, little reaper.”
She scowls, even as her tongue slips between the digits.
She licks every inch, then tries to yank her head back, but doesn’t get far since I’m still holding the back of her neck.
I press her tongue down and slide my fingers deeper in until she gags.
Only then do I pull them free and let her go.
She sags against the counter and glares at me.
“What was that?” she asks.
I retrieve my wine and say after a drink, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She crosses her arms, pouting. It’s so cute that I look forward to causing it several more times tonight. I lean against the counter across from her and peer at her over my glass.
“Are you going to tell me about your day?”
“I did on the phone. It was fun. We went to a few stores. I bought a couple of books I’ve been wanting to read.”
“Is that what you got at the new boutique?”
“If you want to see what I got at the new boutique, you can’t leave me with lady blue balls.”
I chuckle and almost decide to give her what she wants. But she hasn’t earned that yet. “How is Sadie?”
Her face is blank for a moment before she remembers the story she fed me about Sadie’s bad date. “She’s okay. The day was good for her.”
Fuck, I can’t do this anymore. “Even the hour of waiting while you talked to my ex-girlfriend?”
“Shit,” she mutters, running her hands through her hair and scratching her scalp. “I knew it. Fuck.” She crosses her arms again. “How on earth did you find out?”
“We’ve established that you’re not the only one who's good at stalking. But that’s not the point. Are we going to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You snuck into a rehab facility to interrogate my ex, who you used to think I abused then murdered, and you think that’s not something we should talk about?”
“Clearly, you didn’t kill her, so that’s settled, and we can move on.” She starts to move, and I extend a leg to block her.
“If I need to tie you down to force you to talk to me, I will.”
“It’s not a big deal. She’s angry and hurt and scared. I get it. She blames you for everything that went wrong in her life, but I know you didn’t hurt her. Not like that, anyway.”
“And?”
“And she’s a traumatized kid getting the help she needs. That’s it.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s it?”
She lets out a frustrated huff, then deflates and meets my eyes again. She nods and says, seriously, “Yes. I just had to check on her, okay? But that’s all.”
I believe her. I don’t know what that says about me or means for us, but I believe her. I know looking Amber in the eyes was something she needed to do.
“You could’ve told me. I would’ve taken you.”
She shakes her head. “I had to go myself.”
“Next time, just tell me where you’re going.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to always know where I am. That’s a sign of a controlling relationship, you know.”
I smirk. “Are you saying this is a relationship?”
She frowns and rolls her eyes, then walks away.
“Where are you going?”
“To shower!” she calls over her shoulder. “Alone!”
Feeling lighter, I return to the couch, slowly sipping the wine.
I’m checking Valor’s records from the Saints of Purgatory’s meetings and correspondences with outside organizations, reports on our latest jobs, suggestions for future jobs, and updates on the South Five, when I get a message.
I click the name on the top of my screen and smile, typing out a response.
Then I drop my phone and head to the bathroom to bring my little reaper to the edge again.
~
We watch Die Hard 2 while our dinner cooks, finishing half the bottle of wine.
After dinner, I get on my knees between June’s legs and feast on her for dessert, letting her reach the crest over and over but never quite falling.
The third Die Hard has just started when she climbs off the couch to go to the bathroom and comes back wearing a thin pair of black panties and a lacy black corset with attached garters.
My cock is instantly hard.
“The new boutique had the cutest selection,” she says, voice low and seductive. “I thought you’d like this one.”
“Goddamn, little reaper.” I glance at the clock, see it’s nearly eight-thirty, and thank whatever freaky god likes to watch people fucking.
She circles the couch, stops in front of me, and leans down, giving me a perfect view of her ass. “Well?”
Quickly, I stand, pick her up, and carry her to her bedroom, where I drop her on the bed.
“Why are we in here?” she asks.
I pull the furry leather handcuffs I put in my back pocket earlier and make quick work of securing her arms behind her back. “Because only I’m allowed to fuck you in my bed.”
“What does that mean?”
Right on time, the front door opens. June’s eyes go wide when I yell, “We’re in here!”
I keep my attention firmly on my little reaper so I can watch her expression turn from horrified to shocked to nervous but interested when Luna walks into the bedroom.
“Hey, killer,” she says, voice dripping with mischief. “Ready to have some fun?”