Come Back To Me

Chapter 7

Seven

Riley

Half asleep, I stumble to the kitchen, and when the sleep is fully blinked from my eyes, a sight unfolds in front of me that I’d never thought I’d see again. Looking back at me, Gareth smiles with his teeth. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

My breaths catch. “Hey.”

“Rest okay?” He shuffles a few inches to the side, opening the oven to pull out a pan of golden biscuits.

I rub at my eyes, blinking them wider. He’s really here. It’s him. He was always more of a morning person, waking up before me and bringing me breakfast in bed. “Yeah. I think so.”

The chair scrapes against the floor as I pull it out, and I lower myself onto it, scooting closer to the table.

“Good. Because you’ll never rest that well again.”

“What?” I say taken back, peering up at the back of his head. Slowly turning around his eyes turn black and his smile is dripping with venom, teeth black. His hair is soaked in blood, the skin hangs from his face, and maggots crawl out of the food he has plated in his hand.

“I said, you’ll never rest that well again. Not peacefully at least.”

He steps closer, left eye popping out of the socket and oozing something yellow. The putrid smell has my nose curling, and when I try to get up, he slams me back down. His fingers wrap around my neck and he says, “It’s almost time.”

“Almost time,” I repeat without meaning to.

“Soon,” he grits out. “Very, very soon.”

I sit up in my dark room, eyes flashing open and heart threatening to escape my chest. Cold sensations crawl inside me, and I press my back to the headboard, clenching my fists around the sheets. “It wasn’t real . . . it was a dream.”

I reach for the lamp, my arm going still as music starts playing. “With You,” by Ill Nino blares from the speakers of the record player in the living room.

“Hello.” Each letter slowly rolls off my tongue.

Growing louder, the song continues to play.

My throat tightens, and prickly sensations scatter through me as I slowly toss the covers to the side.

Right as my hesitant steps reach the dark hall, the song skips.

The part where he sings about staying forever with the other person replays over and over.

It doesn’t stop until I reach the source of where the music’s coming from.

Guiding the lever to the resting area, I hit the stop button and then shut it off.

The silence I’m left with is more eerie than the music. My eyes dart around the room, stopping once they reach the couch where I laid out Gareth’s clothes. They’re gone. Chest rising and falling heavily, I run my fingers over the bare cushions. Could it be? Did it work?

Soon.

The words from the recent nightmare echo in my ear. My heart feels like it’s sticking to my chest with every beat. “Gareth,” I whisper.

Music plays again. It’s the same song from before, the instruments pounding in my ears as if they’re right in the room with me.

“Dance with me,” I swear I hear someone say between low laughs.

My body twists, neck straining to look in several areas at once.

I’m met with dark corners and empty chairs.

Shadows move along the walls, and the song skips again at a different part this time—where the singer says he wishes he was inside the other person.

It plays on a loop, and my head spins so fast my knees nearly buckle.

“Gareth, if you’re here, show yourself,” I yell.

I wait and wait. Then I fall back on the couch to wait some more as the repeating words bounce against the walls. No one is here but me. No one I can see at least.

“Something’s been following you,” I remember the Wiccan shop owner saying. Is he here now? Is this part of the process? He knew about the song. It was like he was speaking to me through it . . . or maybe Gareth was the one behind whatever was happening in this moment.

In my dream he felt so real. He was as beautiful as ever before . . . before turning into something horrific and wretched. “Gareth,” I say to no one, eyes dropping to my feet as I swallow the thickness in my throat.

I’m met with silence minutes later. No music. No voices in my head or whispers mixing with the wind outside. Only a loud, painful quiet that has me jumping from the couch to turn on the record again. It starts from the end, playing backwards and I step back, eyes widening.

“Someone’s here,” I say.

“Someone’s here,” a voice repeats and the music skips to random parts before shutting off again.

With shallow breaths, I walk backwards and grab at my chest. Fear curls in my stomach, growing into a large heavy boulder.

It weighs me down, making it hard for me to move when a cold gust of air goes through me.

It was like a force crossed through one side of my body to reach the other.

My neck cranes and my gaze follows to where a small beam of light is streaming from.

My room. Feeling as if a rope is wrapped around my chest and making it so I’m nearly being choked with each breath, I slowly approach the ajar door.

I don’t remember closing it behind me. Not even a little.

There’s no need to when you’re in a house all alone. Am I still here alone?

With a heavy hand on the door, it creaks open, and I breathe a sigh of relief when no one is anywhere my eyes land.

The bed is empty. The lounge chair in the corner only has a pillow resting back on it.

No one is in any of the corners. The water sprays against the tub, steam leaking through the open doorway of the bathroom.

I don’t go inside. Instead, I sit at the edge of the bed and watch a figure moving quickly through the small slit. It’s hard to make out who they are, or what they are, but something is definitely there. I’m not alone. I want to smile and be happy but there’s a plummeting sensation in my gut.

Something’s wrong about whatever is in the shower. He’s humming. The metal rings from the shower curtain screech against the rod, and all I can do is sit here. The song filling the quiet doesn’t sound familiar. Tapping joins in with the soft hums and my eyes zone in on where it’s all coming from.

When the water stops, I turn off the lamp and crawl under the covers the way I normally did when Gareth came home late.

I close my eyes, pressing my face to the pillow and pretending to be asleep.

A click of a light switch tells me he’s about to exit, then the door makes a noise as he opens it wider.

He’s still humming. Drawers open and close.

A cool breeze sweeps over my neck and arms when the blanket is lifted behind me.

Bed dipping, the room goes quiet again. All except for his and my breaths. His are steadier, and mine sound like they’re coming from a drowning man recently pulled from the water. A heavy hand rests on my hip, the feel of the person’s cold skin traveling through the thin material of my sleep pants.

“Hi, baby,” Gareth’s voice says but it comes out dreamlike. It’s almost as if I’m still sleeping. Eyes watering, I turn around and all I can make out in the dark is his silhouette and shining eyes.

Lifting my hand, I caress his cold cheek. His skin . . . it’s rough and he could use a shave. Other than that, nothing feels out of the ordinary. That’s not until my eyes adjust to the dark and the pair looking back at me is unrecognizable. His stare is hard and unblinking.

“Gareth,” I say.

His lips sweep over mine. He smells of his spicy soap and coconut shampoo. A tinge of dirt and other earthy scents roll off him. A tongue forces its way past my lips and I welcome the entrance, my heart tripping over itself.

His cool breaths skip along my tongue and dive in closer, his tongue plunging deeper for more.

So greedy, his nails dig into my hip, and he slams his stiff cock against my cloth covered erection.

He moves forward and back in a slow rhythm before stepping up his thrusts.

“So warm,” he says before twisting his tongue around mine.

His devouring mouth and thrashing cock send an electric shock through me.

Tingles twirl along my spin and I arch my body toward his, our moans mixing.

“Need more warm.” His sharp nails cut at the material of my pants, ripping slashes at the side.

He claws at them some more and they shred around my body.

I look down, wishing I could see all the wet spots his slit leaves on my thigh.

A nail slices down the center of my lace panties, ripping large gashes while lightly slicing my skin.

I wince, breaths cutting at my throat from coming too quickly. “Wait.” My fists slam at his hard chest. “Gareth, wait.”

“Feels too good to wait.” His hips slam harder against mine, and he lines our cocks together, fingers tightening their grip with each pump of his hand.

My skin stings the more he presses to my fresh wound.

His precum mixes with mine, feeling stickier than usual, and a sharp pain pricks at me as his nail tears at my flesh again.

I don’t expect my pleasure to heighten with how bad I’m hurting.

The ache dulls as our swollen heads brush together, and he tugs down the front of my shirt to suck one of my nipples into his mouth.

He bites down hard, and I scream through clenched teeth, my skin vibrating with every nerve ending he hits. He sucks lightly at my sensitive nipple and laps at the center before biting me again.

“Stop. You’re hurting me.” My cock stays hard and he nips at my shoulder, his teeth taking a sliver of skin when he moves his face back to mine. His tongue tastes of my blood when he claims my mouth again.

“More,” he growls, grabbing at my hair and forcing my head back as he licks the red drops from my collarbone.

Scooting back a little, he pins me in place with a paralyzing gaze and forces me to my stomach.

When I try to lift, he slams my head down and tears away the rest of my underwear.

His teeth cut at the back of my shirt and I’m completely naked in a matter of seconds.

Tears well at my eyes and I try to wiggle away.

My muscles ache the more his weight presses to them, and panic chokes me right before my screams are muffled by the pillow.

I shake my head, mouth full of cotton from the pillowcase and throat sore from my failed attempts at trying to get a single word out.

“Nnno,” I’m finally able to say. Gareth wouldn’t do this. He’d never do this.

Was this a mistake? I promised the spirit helping me to bring my husband back that I’d give him anything he wanted, but didn’t fully think my words through as they came flying past my lips.

My teeth clamp together, frustrated sounds spilling from me, and I squirm from side to side. “Please. Stop.”

He spreads my cheeks apart and spit falls from his mouth to my entrance. “Mmm,” he says, sliding a finger into me. He twists, darting in and out before adding a second digit. My teeth tug at the pillowcase, nails biting at the sheets as his fingers press bruises into my lower back.

A third finger enters me, and I squeeze around the thick intrusion, my breaths coming out in pants. “Not like this,” I breathe out. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“But it is exactly how it’s supposed to be.” His words are like venom in my ears as he plunges his cock inside me halfway. He rocks his hips, stretching me more before sliding in deeper. Before he can fully bottom out, he pulls out and slams in harder, heading straight for home.

He makes animalistic sounds and soon mine match his, my hips rolling back to mimic his rhythm.

A cry rips through me. I want to fight some more but taking it is so much easier, and it feels better too.

The more I remain still, the less he makes me suffer for moving.

Especially when he punches at my sweet spot, his fat head rubbing me in all the places that have me lighting up like a fucking jack-o’-lantern.

“Oh,” I say, grinding my hips against the bed and writhing between the waves of pleasure rolling at me from different directions. Arousal curls inside me but there’s also a nauseated feeling crawling up my throat. I feel sick and . . . and healed.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but it is.

I was warned something could go wrong, and it could be worse, right?

It could always be worse. Gareth found his way back to me and that’s what’s most important.

Whether it’s really him or if there’s even a single trace left, my heart wants to believe what my brain is selling.

It’s Gareth. He’s only changed a little.

Everyone changes with time. He came to find me when he woke up.

Not him. Not Arkansas. His first thought was our home. His first thought was needing me.

I need him too, so I become more compliant, my body aching everywhere while also feeling like it’s lifting off the bed and into the fucking stars. They’re all around us, shining bright and so blinding, everything bleeds together.

“So good,” he says. “So, so good. You’re delicious.

This sweet hole is everything.” His movements are punishing, shoving me harder into the bed, and my balls constrict.

Part of me is screaming in protest while the other is drowning in a pleasure so intense I feel like I’ve died and come back to life too.

“So sweet,” he says, kissing my back. “As sweet as you look like you’d be.

” His deep voice vertebrates through the air, lips smiling at my back, and with two more pumps of his hips, he’s coming inside me.

It’s warm and cold, filling me to the brim.

There’s so much of it and so much of him as he falls to the side, yanking me into his embrace.

His fingers trail through the mess on my stomach and he traces shapes with it into my skin.

He lifts his hand and makes sucking noises.

My cock jumps, nearly on board for round two.

I’m bleeding, covered in cuts and bruises, but my body is craving more.

How does this make sense? None of this does.

Neither is me wanting to run away while also wanting to tuck my skin under his.

This man . . . this thing sounds nothing like Gareth.

Not after saying hi and calling me baby.

Even then, only the voice was the same. Gareth called me his sweetheart and pumpkin bear.

Not baby. Never baby. It doesn’t matter.

It’s too late to turn back now. The man burying his face in my neck and licking up more of my release is my husband now, and I am his baby.