Chapter 9
Nine
Riley
Scratching at my chest, my eyes blink open and I wince at the sting.
My skin doesn’t feel right; it’s loose and shredded beneath my fingers.
He bit me again. Another small chunk is missing from my body, this time below my nipple.
Cupping myself where the pain is, I sit up in bed, and I’m the only one in the room like yesterday morning.
Panic sets in when I remember how I found him in the basement.
I quickly get to my feet and slip on my robe, grabbing a small towel to press to my wound as I rush into the kitchen.
My feet come to halt as my eyes land on a singing and dancing Gareth.
His skin is more radiant than yesterday, holding a glow it once did when he was alive.
“Morning,” he chirps.
“What ya doing?”
“You cooked for us yesterday, so I thought I’d cook for us today. You missed lunch and dinner. Can’t let that happen again.”
“I was really tired, I guess.” I press harder to my chest and his gaze falls to my massaging fingers.
“I’ll help you get that cleaned and sewn up after I’m done here.” He flips the sausage patties and cracks eggs into a pan, acting like this is all the most normal thing in the world. He’s eating me. One piece at a time. And he what . . . thinks cooking me breakfast is going to help make it better?
“You keep biting me. What happens if you do it until there’s nothing left?”
He goes still, hand clenching around the spatula. “I know. I’m sorry. You taste really good and . . . and I was hungry. I’ll make sure to eat enough before we go to bed next time.”
“Go to bed? Do you sleep too?”
He rolls his head, cracking his neck, and goes back to pushing at the food.
“Yeah. Not as much or as long as you, but I sleep. Then I wake up with a stirring in my stomach and can’t always control my hunger when it strikes me that hard.
Like I said, I’ll make sure to eat enough from here on out.
I’ll never take too much from you. I promise.
” He smiles back at me. It makes me uneasy but also causes butterflies in my stomach. How’s that possible?
Finishing up cooking, he goes back to singing, and I clean up in the guest bathroom.
Only ten minutes pass until he joins me, kissing my shoulder as he gets the first aid kit out from the bottom cabinet.
Gareth used to be a nurse, and whoever is inside his body now helping it move has gained all his skills.
He sterilizes the wound and stitches it up without any trouble.
It makes it easy to believe this is my husband again.
He smiles at me in between tending to me with such careful hands and then presses a kiss to the gauze once done.
Those eyes remain empty, though. Empty and uneasy.
“Good as new. We’ll just make sure to keep it clean and it should heal in no time.”
“Yeah . . . right. Hey,” I say, changing the subject. “Have you gained any new memories from Gareth?”
“I am Gareth,” he purrs, tossing the trash in the black bin.
I roll my eyes. “Look . . . you can cut the whole charade.”
“What charade?” His brow furrows and he straightens his stance. Walking closer to the sink, he turns on the water and washes his hands.
“You know what I mean . . . you said it yourself. You’re not really him.”
“That’s not what I said.” He rubs soap between his palms. “I said I am him and I’m also not.”
I scoot forward and back on the toilet lid. “But you’re mostly not, right?”
“It’s complicated. Neither one of us can be here without the other and . . . the longer we both co-exist, the more we become one.”
“So does this mean you can tell me who Arkansas is now?”
“Unfortunately, no. Apparently you can suffer amnesia in death too. I mean, it sounds familiar. Like I think I’ve been there before.”
“Yeah. You’ve been there for travel nursing a few times. It’s one of the few locations you agreed to return to since it isn’t that far.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, that’s right. I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore, though,” he muses.
“No . . . but I do have to eventually return to work.”
“At the dental office, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You like it there.” He’s not asking but recalling what his brain knows.
“I do. I enjoy what I do, and my hours aren’t bad. I get weekends off.”
“More time for me.” He grins, leaning back on the sink and drying his hands off on the front of his pajama pants. Fuck, he looks good in them. I love when he wears plaid anything.
His eyes fall on mine and they darken. “Is there something you’re wanting, sweetheart, that you’re feeling too shy to ask for?”
My breaths pick up and I spread my legs, the rope around my robe loosening.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He drops onto his knees in front of me, pushing his way between my thighs as he runs a palm down the upper side of my cock.
He licks at my tip, sucking at my precum before swallowing me all the way down.
So much cold wraps around me. It’s like parts of my body are being dipped in ice but then a molten sensation takes hold too.
The two feelings fighting for dominance.
Those blue eyes are as icy as his tongue.
They’re heavy on mine and he smiles around me, bobbing his head.
I arch my hips forward, opening my legs wider, and my hands fall to his hair.
I tangle my fingers in the silky strands.
They were so dull before . . . before he ate the mailman.
It’ll wear off soon, I suppose, and he’ll have to do it again.
Does taking some of me delay the inevitable, because if so, maybe I can spare some more.
Whatever keeps him from hurting others. This is my fault and should be my karma—only mine.
My thoughts scramble as his tongue runs over all my bulging veins, my cock throbbing the more his throat constricts around me.
Whimpering, heat pools in my stomach and I fuck forward, watching his eyes water as he gags on me some more.
Fuck, it feels good. I forgot how good this was.
Getting off was the last thing I thought of after I lost him, but bringing him back has also brought me back.
An electric current runs through me and sparks zip along my spine as I come shaking. He swallows as much as he can and licks at any missed drops. Humming with each swipe of his tongue over his lips, he leans forward to kiss my tip and then each of my knees.
“Stay there. I’ll get that cleaned up too.
No stitches this time, luckily.” He winks, patting my thigh as he stretches his hand out to the counter to grab more gauze.
I look down, horrified at the falling red drops.
They’re running down my cock from several lacerations.
They’re deep bites, but my skin is mostly still intact. He’s right; I don’t need stitches.
“You need to eat again.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Wouldn’t hurt, but I’d probably still bite you a little. I like making you feel good while tasting you in every way I can. Your blood tastes so good mixed with your cum.”
My body buzzes, and I jolt when the cold, wet towel strokes over my skin. “Sorry. I should have used warm water. I don’t always think of these things until after I do them. I’ll try harder. Consideration doesn’t come easily to me anymore.”
In this moment it really does feel like I’m having this conversation with Gareth. Only Gareth. I cup his face and smile a little. “It’s okay. I can help you too. We can figure it all out together.”
“Yeah.” He bandages my bites once they’re no longer bleeding and uses my knees to pull himself up enough to kiss my lips. “Together.”
The doorbell rings and something changes in his eyes. They go from almost soft to hard and cold again. “I can get that.”
I grab at his shirt collar. “No. You’re not supposed to be alive, remember?”
“What if they want to come inside?”
I bite the inside of my cheeks, staring over his shoulder when a fist starts slamming against the door. “Then you’ll go to the basement.”
He gives me an annoyed glare. “So, you want to hide me forever? What about when you get invited to places? I have to sit here and wait for you to return? What about when men flirt with you and show you how much better it is to be out there with them than being in here with me?”
My chest dips, breaths sticking to the back of my throat.
“I won’t. Gareth, I wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to bring you back if I was planning to eventually run off with someone else.
” My fingers brush over his lips. “And I don’t always have to go wherever I’m invited, or stay long when I do.
I don’t care to go anywhere you aren’t anyway.
” That was true once and still mostly is, except I have thought about finding a place to hide for whenever he scares me too much.
Something I never had to worry about before.
I promise to never take too much from you.
The words were at least kind of sweet while also causing my skin to run cold.
“You’re right. That was silly of me to think that.” He backs away, returning fully to his feet, and looks behind him. “I’ll be in the basement. Knock on the door when you’re done.”
“Okay. Is . . . did you ever clean up your mess?”
He stands taller, nodding. “Yeah, I did. You don’t have to worry about slipping on anything down there again.”
The person at the door gets more impatient with their pounding and he gives me a sheepish look. “You go ahead and get that before they break the door down, and I’ll go make sure I eat enough. Then maybe we can finish decorating the house together. The place could use more ghosts and zombies.”
I laugh, closing my robe and getting to my feet. “Okay. Sounds like a plan. We can watch some scary movies too. How about Pet Sematary?”
He lets out a groan. “Any movie but that one.”
“Okay fine, Warm Bodies.”