Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Waves crashing against the cliffs obscure enough of the noise at the trail to put me on high alert. But the prickling anticipation isn’t quite enough to make me actually afraid, so I sit on the edge of the rocks in as stable a place as I can find with my heels tapping back against stone.
I could get used to being here, I think to myself. There are plenty of little lights dotted along the land on the far side of the water, signaling where big mansions and smaller, modest cottages sit. Though even those modest cottages cost seven figures, I’m sure.
Tilting my head back, I stare up at the moon that’s edging closer to being full.
It’s cold tonight, even for March, but I only give a slight shiver.
I prefer the cold. Even after being trapped in a barn at night for a few years of my childhood, I still find I prefer the cold weather and being out in it. That, and—
I don’t know what exactly makes me realize it. I barely move, and I don’t give any indication that I realize there’s someone else here, except to let my hand rest on the box cutter in my pocket.
“I knew you were here,” I call out at last, my voice carrying over the sound of the waves below. “That night. I knew, but I just couldn’t see you. Stupid of me, I guess. But I had other things on my mind.”
“Like your friend. She was crashing around the trail on the way back to the car. Crying, whispering. Apologizing.” The stranger snorts, his voice decidedly masculine even though he barely speaks loudly enough for me to hear him.
“I could’ve killed her and dragged her body away before you ever knew about it. ”
A shiver ripples down my spine, and it clicks into place in my head that he is definitely not a police officer or detective here to arrest me.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t worse.
I easily push to my feet and turn, not loving that my back is to the open water as I look at him in the moonlight.
Wearing all black, his pale skin seems to almost glow under the moon, and I survey him from his messy, jet-black hair to his easy posture and the way he stands completely relaxed with his arms folded loosely.
He’s not afraid of me, but maybe he doesn’t have a reason to be. I can fix that, I decide, and edge toward the woods to give myself a bit of leeway so I don’t get rushed off the damn cliff and into the same water as Alan.
“That’s not very nice of you,” I remark, shoving my hands in my pockets like I’m cold. “She didn’t do anything to you.” I tilt my head. “Though I didn’t either. So I’m not sure why—”
“You did,” the man interrupts, his dark eyes glittering under his brows. “Oh, but you did, Sierra Morwen—”
“Tova,” I’m quick to interrupt, just as he did to me. “You don’t get to use my real name. Especially when I don’t know yours.”
The man smiles slowly, the expression never reaching his eyes.
“You don’t disappoint at all, you know that?
Fine. Tova, then, for now.” He stops speaking, and I swear he’s surveying me, as if finding things on my face that I can’t hide or don’t know exist. “I’m Larkin,” he adds after a few moments.
“That’s all you get from me, because you don’t deserve more. ”
I don’t deserve more?
I have to work to swallow back the frustration burning up my throat like claws, and my fingers brush the box cutter in my pocket.
Somehow he must notice, because his eyes flick to the pockets of my hoodie before landing on my face again, goading and unimpressed.
“Really?” he asks. “Oh, that’s so predictable of you.
I take it back. I’m a little disappointed.
Is it really so easy to rile you up? Is that why you killed your roommate’s boyfriend? ”
“How do you know who he is? Why do you care?” I demand, keeping my words calm and steady.
Determined not to let him provoke a real reaction out of me.
I certainly won’t let him make me sloppy.
I’ve been around enough problematic men in my life to handle the situation without breaking down, and I watch his face for any sign of a reaction.
The fact Larkin gives me almost nothing is impressive rather than intimidating.
He feels like a challenge.
He feels like a threat.
“Oh, Tova, Tova…” Larkin takes a step forward, then one to the side. He circles me at enough of a distance that there’s no decision to be made on my part, though I shift to mirror him so I’m never unable to see his face and hands. “It’s cute that you really don’t know what you took from me.”
My eyes narrow, and my head tilts slightly, confusing in every angle of my body as I move. “I don’t even know you. How could I have taken anything at all? And how do you have the video fr-from back then?” I demand.
His smile widens, though it isn’t friendly. The wolfish grin feels like a hunter’s promise, and he stops suddenly to tilt his head in a way to mirror mine. “That’s the whole point.” He enunciates each word. “That was what you took. Did you even know him, darling?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Answer the question.”
I hold his gaze for a few moments before looking away to gaze at the trees, though I keep him in my peripheral vision enough to know what he’s doing.
“No,” I admit at last. “I didn’t. I was having a hard time that night.
He made it worse. I’m not sorry,” I’m quick to add, in a frustrated tone that’s not my usual one.
“Do you know what he was, Larkin?” I test his name on my tongue, finding that I like the way it tastes. “Do you know what he wanted?”
“Yes.”
His answer stretches between us, and I hold his eyes, searching for any kind of reaction he may unwittingly give. But, apparently, he’s better than that. Larkin just fucking watches me with a glint in his dark eyes that’s mostly from the moon instead of his feelings.
“He was mine.”
“Kinky. You got a thing for pedophiles?” With anyone else, I’d hold my tongue to avoid offending them. I know I’m being abrasive, but right now, I couldn’t give a damn.
He snorts and rolls his eyes in a very long-suffering way, taking his time to get his point across. “No, silly girl.” The diminutive pet name becomes something else on his tongue that has me gripping the box cutter more tightly in my hand and has my toes curling in my sneakers.
I’m not afraid of him.
He lights up something else in me that I can’t—won’t—name even under penalty of torture or death. It isn’t affection. Certainly not that. But it isn’t fear, or trepidation, or even caution.
“He was mine to kill that night.” Without warning, he rounds on me.
Even as I drag the box cutter free, Larkin strikes, quick as a snake, prying it from my fingers using a combination of pressure points and deftness.
I give a soft gasp, no more than a frustrated intake of breath, before he slams me hard against the tree at my back, knocking the wind out of me.
“Weeks and weeks of planning,” Larkin croons.
“Only for you to ruin it. I had a plan. He was going to be my first.” Long-forgotten rage simmers in his words as he leans into me, and he doesn’t flinch as my nails bite into his wrist as the hand around my throat that tightens until I truly can’t draw in air.
“Let—” I try to say something, to threaten him, but the words won’t come out. My heart gives a few panicked, rapid flutters, and Larkin’s smile turns darker. Crueler.
“What was that?” he hisses. “Say again?” But his fingers tighten just a little bit more, as if to make sure I can’t get out the words.
As soon as my vision starts to blur at the edges, I stomp down on his foot as hard as I can, and my hand slips free from his wrist to go to his throat instead.
But I’m not playing the long game to choke him out.
I don’t need to see him whine and writhe, and I doubt I’d win that game with the head start he has.
Instead my nails dig into the sides of his pale, smooth throat where ink crawls up from the edge of his jacket. I feel him swallow, and I ram my hand into his Adam’s apple hard enough that he gasps, and his grip on my throat loosens just enough that I’m able to slip free of him.
“Maybe you need practice,” I sneer, with my hand massaging my own neck. I pant in the chilly air, making my abused lungs burn. “Don’t you think that’s kind of pathetic?”
“You tell me,” he replies, his voice a little hoarse.
“You’re the one trying to piggyback off my work up here.
” When my face falls, he snorts and steps forward, leaping on my surprise with another scoff.
“What? You think I’m stupid? You didn’t pick this place for any other reason than I put my last project up here. ”
His last project?
My eyes narrow, and I glance at the water like I’ll find the answers there. “You’re bluffing,” I challenge finally. “You think I’ll believe some whining, grudge holding—”
He’s so fast that it feels unfair. I try to slip away but he tackles me to the ground, my back hitting the rocky ground hard closer to the water. The ocean roars in my ears and I shove my hands between us, trying to roll him off of me.
Preferably right off the fucking cliff.
“Get off of me!” I snarl, voice softer than I intend.
“Whiny? Nah. Grudge-holding?” Larkin stops to consider that after he slams my hands down into the ground above my head.
He transfers my wrists to one hand and reaches for my neck again, though either by accident or design, his thumb finds my lower lip and he grips my jaw hard enough to make my bones ache.
“Absolutely you little fucking monster.” His words end in a snarl after I find the pad of his thumb and bite, my teeth sinking into flesh and muscle. Larkin hisses out a sound that doesn’t sound quite like pain, and he jerks down suddenly, simultaneously ripping his thumb free.
Somehow, due to some fuckup of physics or maybe it’s intentional on his part, as I surge upward to bite at him again, he inclines his head just so our mouths slide together.
It isn’t a kiss.
It could never be that.
It’s a fight of teeth, of bloody lips, of soft curses and snarls swallowed between us. It’s my teeth in his bottom lip, biting down until I taste blood, and him attacking my tongue until flesh parts under his canines.
I cry out at the sharpness of the pain. When I try to sit up further, Larkin snarls out a feral, predatory sound and uses his free hand to grip my throat and slam me back to the rocks.
“I’m not done with you yet, little monster,” he purrs. “You’re not getting up until I let you. If I let you. You took my first from me.”
“Seems like you did fine without him.” I bare bloody teeth and he does the same, showing me our combined blood on his lips and teeth.
“I don’t know why you’re still pissed about this—” His grip tightens and I realize he’s going to do something quickly enough to worm a leg between us.
In his surprise I kick him off of me, sending him onto his side.
But instead of scrambling to my feet, I pounce, never once getting off my knees as I straddle him with my fingers wrapped around his pale, pretty throat with its spiraling ink. So much of me wants to peel away his shirt to see the designs underneath, but somehow, I hold myself back. This time.
“You underestimate me,” I taunt, pressing his chin back so he realizes just how close to the edge of the cliff he is.
Panting with exertion, I grab at his hand not held by my knee, shoving it down to the rocky earth and pinning it there with my fingers tangled with his.
“I took your first? I’ll take your fucking life next. ”
That makes him laugh. A true, amused laugh that sends a shiver down my spine at its intent.
“Oh, silly girl,” Larkin purrs. “You’re not going to take anything else from me.
” Without warning he rolls his hips upward, pressing his lower body between my thighs.
“But I’m going to take everything from you. ”
He barely seems to notice my tightening fingers or my nails biting into his hand. He rocks his body into me, making it impossible for me to pin him further, and I’m forced to finally stumble to my feet, jerking away from him as I do.
“You can try,” I offer, finding my box cutter nearby on the ground and grabbing it. With the distance between us, I’m able to slide the blade free of its casing, holding it ready at my side. “I invite you to try. But I’m not going to end up as one of your projects hanging in the woods.”
I have to bite my tongue not to compliment his work or ask him my questions on who else he’s killed, or his exact body count. I refuse to seem like I admire him in any way.
His chuckle makes me sneer, though he doesn’t try to follow me this time. He stands up and brushes off his dark jeans, before looking back over his shoulder at the water of the bay below. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we? But Tova?”
I stop, already half turned to make my escape back down the trail.
“I won’t make you one of my projects.” As I watch, he runs a finger along his bloody lip before sliding the digit into his mouth to lick it clean.
“I’ll do much worse than that. I promise.