Chapter 18 #2
“You bloomed into what you were always meant to be; a depraved, fucked-up little thing who takes what doesn’t belong to her and causes other monsters to fall in love.”
Wait…what? The words don’t make sense. I stare at him, baffled, though I can barely see the glint of his eyes as my mouth tries to form words. Larkin grins at my confusion, and his grip tightens almost painfully on my jaw.
“That’s right,” he chuckles. “Though I don’t know how you can’t tell, I’ll spell it out for you.
I’m obsessed with you, silly girl.” Suddenly he kisses me, though that doesn’t feel like a proper word for it.
This time, it’s mostly teeth and aggression.
He bites and claims, leaving wounds and marks on my lower lip, my tongue, and finally the line of my jaw before he’s satisfied enough that he pulls away.
When I try to move or fight back, Larkin grabs my wrists in the hand that had been gripping my face, slamming them onto the sofa above my head and making me cry out in discomfort and surprise.
“You’re mine, Sierra.” He leans back just enough to meet my eyes, and I feel like I’m drowning in his brown-black gaze.
“You will always be mine. Until the day you kill me, or the day we die together.” Larkin doesn’t let me answer.
He kisses me again and again, biting new marks into my skin as his touch and tongue wander further down, like he’s on a mission to leave his mark on every inch of skin he can reach.
No matter how long that might take.
Watching Larkin cook feels…domestic. It feels almost illegal somehow, to see a serial killing psychopath putter around in the kitchen making macaroni and cheese from scratch, of all things.
Chewing a nail, my eyes never leave his, and I can’t stop thinking about the sting and ache of all the bites and scratches he left on my pale skin.
As if he can feel my gaze, Larkin, now dressed in a long-sleeved tee, glances at me. I’m back in my shirt as well, though he gave me a pair of sweatpants from his closet and a zip-up hoodie in lieu of the rest of clothes, which are currently still in the burn pile by the door.
Rest in peace, favorite leggings, I sigh internally to myself, just as a bowl of mac and cheese is slid in front of me.
“Feels very, uh, traditional of you to cook,” I venture, picking up the fork he laid down beside the bowl.
“A guy’s gotta eat,” Larkin chuckles, leaning on the kitchen island across from me instead of sitting. He likes to hover, I’ve noticed, and I can’t say I blame him. He doesn’t wait for me, and stabs a big bite from his bowl, watching me as he eats.
Feeling rude, I take a bite as well, eyebrows jumping upward toward my bangs. “Holy shit,” I mumble, covering my full mouth. “This is literally the best macaroni I’ve ever had in my life.”
“Figured it would be.” Confidence shines in his gaze as he takes another bite of protein-based noodles and cheese, inadvertently achieving a damn impressive cheese pull in the process. “I know what I’m doing, silly girl.”
“You’re uh, not going to keep calling me Sierra, right?” I ask, unable to get the whisper of it out of my mind. The way he said it made me feel something other than disgust and betrayal, but I’m not sure I’m ready to face that yet.
Larkin chuckles, his grin widening. “Why not? You didn’t seem to mind it on the couch…Sierra.” I swear he can see the internal shivers the name brings, no matter that I try to hide my reaction with a roll of my eyes.
“Because it’s not what I use anymore.”
“Too bad.”
We eat in relative silence after that, though when he offers me macaroni to take home with me, I can’t help cracking another seven jokes about his domestic kitchen skills, all of which earn me eye rolls.
By the time he’s parked outside my apartment building, however, a different kind of silence has settled in around me.
Music plays comfortably in the car, which I’m finally getting to sit in for the first time rather than being tossed in the trunk, and I can’t help occasionally sneaking glances at Larkin.
His hand still rests on the console between us, like it did the entire drive, tempting me to take it. But his words still ring in my ears, and the subtle threatening promise about being stuck with him until I kill him, or we die together.
That should probably terrify me, I remind myself, as my hand comes up to stroke gently along his. A sigh leaves me, prompting him to look my way without a word. His hand flips over on the console, fingers curling against my own.
“Next time, you can’t say it’s an accident or self-defense,” Larkin tells me, breaking the silence.
“What?” The words catch me off guard and I blink up at him stupidly.
He grins at my cluelessness. “Next time you kill someone. Don’t try to tell me you won’t, because you will. But next time?”
He brings my hand to his face, and I expect him to kiss the back of my hand. Instead, he bites down on my ring finger, causing me to arch in my seat and grip the door as the pain streaks up my arm.
“Ow! Fuck, Larkin, that’s too hard!”
He only chuckles and stays biting me for a few seconds longer, to prove a point, before releasing me.
“Next time it happens, I’ll be there too,” he assures me. “And I won’t let you make an excuse or turn it into something it isn’t.” At last he kisses my finger where he bit me, then drops my hand entirely.
“You’re a monster, silly girl. And you can only deny that for so long.”