19. Eli #2
I fuck her in a frenzy, her blood like a shot of fire burning me from within. Seeing my initials carved into her skin does something to me and I don’t hold back.
It was only two days ago that Freya was lost to us and the need to remind her of who she belongs to pulses through me.
I draw her earlobe between my teeth and nip at her.
“Mine,” I growl. “You can go as dark as you fucking like, Freya. Pull as many knives on me as you want. Draw my blood and fucking bathe in it but it won’t change a thing.
You are mine, Freya. No matter what you do.
No matter how dark you go. You. Are. Mine.
” I punctuate each of my final words with my hips, pumping into her as deep and hard as I can.
I pinch her clit between my fingers and she falls over the edge, screaming my name.
It’s still not enough though and I carry her into the shower, twisting the knob so warm water cascades over us as I take her once more against the tiles.
I pull out when I’m finally drained and watch my seed spill from between Freya’s swollen pussy.
I run my fingers through her lower lips, smearing my cum over her skin and playing with her clit till she loops her hands around the back of my neck.
“Eli,” she moans, resting her head against the wall. “Too much.”
“Hush, kitten. I say when it’s too much.”
Her cunt is hot under my fingers and the water runs over her breasts like silk, her crisscross scars glistening in the light. When I ease two fingers inside of her and curl them towards me her breath hitches and she falls into me, pressing her forehead to my chest.
Pink water falls in droplets from the fine cuts I made on her shoulder and I feel myself growing hard again at the sight. My chest expands, pride and possessiveness swirling inside of me.
I thought I lost the ability to feel like this. I thought the only things that could keep the numbness at bay were adrenaline highs and reckless decisions, but Freya has pure unbridled life flowing through my veins with a single touch. A single look.
I love this woman with every breath, every incessant beat of my heart. I love her light and I love her dark. And I love the way I can make her come apart.
She rises on tiptoes and her fingers curl around my hair and dig into the nape of my neck as her cunt squeezes tight around my fingers. Her release shudders out of her and I keep rolling circles over her clit, dragging the aftershocks out until she’s limp in my arms.
Lost to her pleasure, she floats in a daze as I wash her body and carry her out of the shower.
I wrap her in a towel and sit her on the counter by the sink as I tend to both our cuts.
The bleeding has stopped which means I don’t have to cover my mark up with a band-aid.
Thank fuck . I plan to stare at my initials on her skin all night long.
Freya’s still sleepy and sated when I lay her down on the bed, but her hand grips my wrist as I stand up. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me in here.”
I bend over and press a kiss to her lips. “I’m not going anywhere, kitten.”
The tension falls from her shoulders, and she turns onto her side to face me once I’ve slipped under the covers.
I hook my leg over hers and pull her hips against mine. I think she’s fallen asleep but then her fingers come up to my chest, tracing the ‘f’ she cut over my heart.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she whispers.
“Baby, in case you hadn’t noticed, pain’s kind of my thing. You can cut me any day.”
Freya pinches her bottom lip with her teeth. She’s quiet for a moment. I can see the thoughts flickering behind her eyes, but I force myself to give her time and eventually she says them out loud.
“I always thought I was like my mother. I didn’t know her, but I knew that half of me came from her and that must be the good half.
If I could just be like her then I wouldn’t be like him.
But Zach, he’s not my father’s son. So if the genes on my mother’s side made him and my father’s genes made my father, then what does that mean for me? ”
I press my hand over her fingers, flattening them against my chest. “It means genetics mean fuck all.”
“Except they don’t though, do they?”
I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth. “If Zach got his psychopathic genes from anyone, he got them from Jeremiah, not your mother. His father runs a fucking cult remember.”
She drops her gaze and stares at my chest. “I pulled a knife on you. I cut you.”
“Freya, you didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to,” I remind her, but she’s not listening to me.
“I used to hate what my father made me do. I never enjoyed cutting those women, not once, but now my first instinct is to grab a knife? Before it was just self-defense but lately there are all these thoughts fighting in my brain and I just get so fucking angry and I—” She curls her hand into a fist and squeezes her eyes shut.
“I’m scared. I’m scared of what I might do. ”
I let go of her hand and lift her chin with the edge of my fingers. “Hey, look at me.”
She opens her eyes, and I tuck her damp hair behind her ear.
“You’ve got a shit ton of trauma, Freya, half of which you’ve only just remembered, and you’re trying to work through it all while also chasing serial killers. Something would be wrong if you hadn’t gone a little dark.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I hold her against me and settle back into the pillows. “Did I ever tell you about my first kill?”
Freya shakes her head.
“His name was Tom Richter. I was twenty.” My body goes cold like it always does whenever I think of that day.
“This guy was holding up a bank. Just a small branch, they probably didn’t even have that much money.
Found out afterwards the guy was desperate.
His kid was sick, and he couldn’t afford the treatment. ”
“Shit,” Freya curses softly.
“Yeah. He took one of the tellers hostage. There must have been thirty cops out front. I should have known the second he stepped outside what he was going to do.”
Freya runs her thumb back and forth over my heart.
“He shot the teller and then turned the gun on us. Just let fire, didn’t stop till I put a bullet in his head. Suicide by cop.” I swallow. “I’ll never forget the look on his face. Something happens when someone makes the decision to die. The eyes go empty, like the soul’s already gone.”
I shake the images from my head and turn to look at Freya.
“I hate that day, but I don’t regret killing him.
If anything, I regret not shooting sooner.
Three people died that day.” I stare into Freya’s eyes, so unlike Tom’s, so deep with life.
“It’s okay to be a little dark, Freya. It doesn’t make you evil. It doesn’t make you like your father.”
“Were you okay? After?”
My chest aches. “Not for a while. I saw a shrink though and that helped.”
Freya reaches out and I resist the urge to purr like a fucking cat as she rakes her fingers through my hair. She catches a lock between her thumb and forefinger and brings it forward, fiddling with the dirty blond strands.
“Carmen made me see a therapist.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Did they say I’m right and that really I’m the genius not Jude?”
Her lip twitches. “He said he thinks I run away from the things that scare me. Even the good things.”
Smart man.
Freya sighs. “I thought I was protecting you by leaving but maybe he’s right. Maybe it was easier to leave before I lost you. But I guess I ended up losing you anyway.”
I brush my thumb over her cheek. “You haven’t lost us. I’m right here.”
She hums a sound of disbelief. “What about the others?”
My lips curl up at the edges in a sad smile because it’s hard to believe Freya still doesn’t understand how much we’re all fucking obsessed with her.
“You’ve got Oz wrapped around your little finger.
River will calm down in time and Jude, Jude spent his whole life being left behind and undervalued.
He just needs to know you want him as much as he wants you. ”
“I do,” she insists.
“I know.” I trace my finger behind her ear over the dagger inked into her skin. “I saw the tattoo.”
“AJ did it for me,” she says. “They traced what was left of Jude’s design and I remembered the rest.”
“He’ll love it.”
Freya nods, some of her confidence returning.
I drop my hand to her shoulder, gently stroking the thin ridges of my initials.
She sucks in a breath, her eyes widening as her thighs squeeze together. “Will River be mad you cut me?”
“If Jude gets to have his drawing tattooed on you and River gets to lock a tracking bracelet around your wrist, then I sure as fuck get to leave my mark too.”
“Aww, you’re all so romantic,” she teases. “Maybe Oz will be normal and get me jewelry. You know, the sans tracker type.”
I slip my hand under the covers and squeeze her ass. “Go to sleep, Freya or I’ll tell River you were being a brat.”
Her mouth opens on a yawn and her eyes flutter closed. “He won’t believe you. I never misbehave.”
I snort. “Sure, kitten. Sure.” I roll onto my back, bringing Freya with me so her head rests on my chest, right over where she cut me. It hurts a little, but I like the reminder that she’s here, in my arms. That this time, we’re not letting her go.