Chapter 15
The fucking rain came down like needles, soaking my cigarette before I could even finish the drag, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Shiloh learned where the cameras were, and now he was dodging every single one.
I tried to follow his movements, but he may as well have stuck gum on them.
I was blind to his reaction to my little gift.
His father, being a convicted serial killer in Kentucky, was an interesting twist I hadn’t seen coming. What did make sense, though, was why Shiloh fought so hard to keep from falling into the darkness. A darkness I could feel as if it were circling him like mist.
He’d shown me that void, little moments when his deep blue eyes weren’t the warm, dopey pools he tried to portray.
They mirrored my own, not in color, but in the cold clarity. I wanted to taste his skin when he was pulled into that void. I needed to understand why another killer tasted so fucking delicious to me.
But Shiloh isn’t a killer, is he?
He almost killed the woman in the woods, but just when I thought he’d snap her neck, he let the bitch run off.
The amount of strength to stop yourself from killing had to be greater than even my own comprehension.
He called me weak before, and it frayed the edges of my nerves to understand why he thought that.
I disagreed.
He was the weak one.
Always running, never allowing himself to accept what he wanted, whether that was spilling someone’s blood or…
Me.
I was leaning against a stone pillar of my idiot family’s estate, my hair was plastered to my skull from the fucking downpour. There was a peace in watching the smoke curl from my mouth and disappear into the storm.
So much of my life was filled with noise: work, my family, and even my own thoughts. The rain and the thunder’s rumble were enough to drown out the whispers.
It reminded me of the storm I saw every time Shiloh got close enough for me to unveil the layers of lies he hid behind.
As if my thoughts summoned him, I heard his heavy, wet footsteps on the asphalt, searching in the rain for something or someone.
Me.
The sound of his boots pounding across wet gravel wasn’t subtle. Hell, he was hunting me, even though he didn’t have the stomach for the kill.
The way he had growled in the rain could have signified I’d be his first. He was strung so tight, like a bow about to crack from lack of release.
I could smell it, that mix of panic and rage, with the crisp scent of the rain. It made my blood fucking sing, and my dick apparently enjoyed his anger just as much.
I didn’t bother moving when he came charging at me, his hands shoving at my chest. He smashed me back into the wall so hard I bit my lip on impact, and the blaze in my head made singing little birdies appear as they flew around my fucking face.
“Where the fuck did you get it, Carrington?” His voice was fucking raw, cracked open by my love note.
No wonder he had hidden from me. Daddy, having been mentioned clearly, gutted him. He may have hated his dad, but I couldn’t knock his taste in tobacco. The Turkish scent was perfect in my lungs.
Shiloh’s blue eyes were wild and bloodshot, locked on mine like he wanted to watch me convulse on the ground.
Good Boy. Let me see the fire, Sunshine. Make me bleed for you.
“The photo, Carrington—where did you find it? How the fuck do you know about my father?”
Oh, so not daddy after all. But father.
Father was a cold term. One used when you wanted to detach yourself. I knew because it’s the only term I used when I was referring or speaking to my asshole sperm donor. There was bad blood here, and my sleuth job had been amateur, admittedly on last-minute notice.
The fury in my Sunshine tasted good in the air, sweet and spicy, better than the cigarette.
I let him shove me again, throwing my body back into the textured brick. He only snarled for now. But I was curious to see what his father really meant to him.
Right now, I could see the anger. That much was damn obvious.
His fists bunched into my shirt, his face so close the water droplets soaking him connected with mine. He glared at the replica of what his father smoked and ripped it from my hand, throwing it to the wet ground.
I frowned.
Dammit. Those tasted good, and that was my last one since I had smoked the whole pack under his window.
“Now, that’s just rude. What’s got your balls in a vice, Sunshine? Are you pissy because your old man is in the slammer? Or maybe because, according to the internet, you put him there.”
Slam.
My body already ached from my own abuse of the gym, and this ping pong routine was starting to piss me off. I grabbed his wrists, still locked on mine, and pushed forward. With him so riled up, we were matching in strength and were at a stalemate. I didn’t move back, but he didn’t either.
“You’re so cute when you’re angry.”
My foot slipped on the goddamn wet ground, and he took advantage, smashing me to the ground and dropping on top of my body.
We fought like two dogs thrown in a cage, nothing but pure instinct.
I made him bleed for me, busting his lip with my head, and he punched me in the fucking nose. Round and round we fought. Positions switched, and more blood was spilled between the two of us. He had me pinned to the ground, my body protesting from the soreness.
“You don’t get to come into my fucking life and rip it apart at the seams, Carrington!”
Punch.
“You don’t get to lay some fucking claim to me!”
Whump.
“I don’t belong to you!”
Crack.
“I’m not some fucking prey you can toy with!”
Whack.
I felt my head slam back into the hard, unforgiving pavement, and my vision went wonky for a second.
“You think you know me. You demand that I show you the darkness. Fine. Here it is.”
He had my throat in both his hands, and the angle didn’t allow me to get my hand under his, to break the grip.
“You will leave me the fuck alone. If you don’t, you will see the darkness. Because I will fucking kill you, Care Bear. Don’t make me fucking kill you.”
His words clicked, and I snapped, twisting him, slamming his back into the stone ground so hard the impact shuddered through me.
My lips curled against his rain-soaked cheek, watching his dazed expression. The puddle we were in was speckled with blood, and now my own dripped down onto Shiloh’s face.
“You think you get to demand anything from me?” I growled, my voice low and ragged, dangerous, while threading straight into the crack of thunder above us. “I don’t answer to you, Baby Boy. You answer to me.”
He tried to shove back, tried to buck out from under my weight, but I had him caged. The adrenaline slicing through me was enough to combat his anger.
My hips locked his in place, my hands pinned his wrists against the cold stone. His wet hair clung to his forehead, his lips trembling between fury and something else, as my blood dripped down, combined with the water droplets, and rolled right into his mouth.
“Fuck you,” he spat in my face, that mingled concoction coating my own tongue.
His tone lost some of its bite. It was hoarse now…thin.
I laughed, letting the vibration travel to him, sharp and cutting. “I will fuck your ass until you fucking bleed my come, Sunshine.”
Before he could spit another word at me, I leaned down, smashing my mouth to his—hard, brutal, and fucking bruising. His teeth clashed against mine, while his lips split under the force of my own. He tasted like secrets and sin. He struggled underneath me.
This was different than before. Taking his body was something he could accept, but kissing him?
I could see a new fight raging more than the brutal storm around us.
His fight only made me hungrier. I bit down harder on his lips, claiming and fucking devouring his mouth, until I could feel his groan catch in my throat.
He couldn’t catch his breath, and neither could I.
“Fuck—you taste so good. Give me your darkness, Baby. I need it, Shiloh.”
His body was fire against mine, even soaked to the bone in the cold rain.
Little by little, his mouth opened further to mine.
Second by second, his thrashing slowed, and I could feel him kiss me back.
The intensity of something as stupid as a kiss was bewildering.
But I couldn’t breathe. I was addicted to the push and pull of Shiloh’s control, giving him just enough of my lips to keep him fighting.
But now he wasn’t fighting to break away from me.
He was struggling to reach me further, bending his body to mine, pushing the kiss deeper. This felt too hot…too…warm.
It made more than just my dick ache. I felt a strange pull in my chest. The sensation was alarming.
I broke the kiss in a ragged pant.
Dragging my mouth along his jaw, nipping down the column of his throat until he jerked against me, and his thick cock pressed harder into his pajama pants.
My free hand slid from his wrist, down his chest, tracing the trembling line of his stomach and all his delicious, fucking abs.
Why the hell did I want to touch him in every way possible? I hated the feeling of touch, but with my little Sunshine, I couldn’t get enough of his skin, his body, his moans, and his resistance.
“No,” he snapped, trying to wriggle free again. “Don’t touch my—”
“Shut up.” My tone snapped like a whip, and my palm forced his hips still against the ground, as I shoved my hand lower, letting my fingertips linger across the hard line pressing against my dick. He gasped as he twisted his head away.
“Don’t run away this time. Let me in, or it will fucking hurt. I am going to enjoy this either way, Sunshine. Are you?”
He was panicked, only understanding my meaning when I fought to flip his body over on the ground. His chest now pressed hard into the stone, and he looked like a fucking beached whale trying to get away from my hold. I was too heavy for him to toss me off, and he wore himself down in our fight.