Chapter 6
Sera
Barely five seconds after I get home from work, someone knocks on my front door. Three sharp raps, cutting through the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant whisper of Shadow Daddy’s presence in the vents, then the pipes, then the walls.
It’s definitely not James, who only knocks once loudly. Red Hands making a bold comeback, even with the private investigator Detective Eddie hired to keep eyes on me parked right out front?
Doubtful.
Holding my breath, I cross to the door. The porch light is off because it’s still broken.
Through the peephole, Eddie stands under the weak moonlight, his broody bad-boy face carved in sharp planes of shadow.
His posture is rigid, shoulders locked, his emotions contained like a pressure cooker about to blow its lid through sheer, clamped-down will.
I unlock the door and open it.
“We need to talk.” He steps inside, the scent of crisp leaves and cold night air clinging to his black leather jacket.
He scans the dim hallway for Shadow Daddy, or anyone else he deems a threat, and then turns his intense gaze on me. Strands of his dark hair flop over one blue eye as he regards me.
I shut the door behind him with a controlled click. “It’s after midnight. I’m about to go to bed.”
“You’re up now.” His gaze flicks over me and snags on the mark on my neck. “This won’t wait.”
I lean against the door, crossing my arms. The movement pulls my thin cotton work shirt tight across my chest.
His eyes track it for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my face.
“So talk, then,” I tell him.
He takes a breath. “This whole thing with James.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What whole thing with James, Eddie?”
“Playing with fire. Letting him drag you into his…chaos.“ He spits the word. “The cameras? Doesn’t that bother you? Breaking into this guy Devlin’s house tonight? Planting evidence? Christ, Sera. I’m a detective. I can’t know this shit is happening.”
“Men get away for beating their wives and girlfriends all the time. We’re making sure this one pays.”
“By becoming judge, jury, and…what? Executioner?” His jaw tightens. “You think James will stop at planting evidence? Because it sure as hell sounds like he gave you Farley’s severed hand as some kind of fucked-up gift.”
I think of Rick’s dead body in the Gas N’ Go bathroom. James’s hands, slick with blood, gripping my hips. The raw, primal claim of it. The way the violence had bled into the sex, becoming indistinguishable.
“James gets results,” I say. “He’ll do what I say. He’s already proven his loyalty.”
“Loyalty?“ Eddie steps closer and rakes his hair out of his eyes. The contained fury radiates off him like a physical heat. “He’s a predator, Sera. He wraps it up in devotion, in protection, but he’ll consume you. Drag you down into the dark with him. I did some digging, and “James” doesn’t even exist. He’s smoke.
He’s covering for only himself, and he’s using you. ”
He’s close now. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, the tight lines around his mouth.
Close enough to feel the anger vibrating through him.
His words sting. Not because they’re entirely wrong.
Because they scrape against the part of me that craves the dark James offers, the part that’s already stained.
“Do you really think you’re using him?“ Eddie presses, his voice low and urgent. “You think you’re in control? He’s playing you, Sera. Using your pain, your rage, to justify his own violence. And you’re letting him. You’re becoming…”
“Becoming what, Detective?” My voice is a whisper, sharp as a razor. “One of them? One of the bad guys?”
The words hang in the air, an accusation and a confirmation all at once.
Something flickers in his eyes. Fear? For me? Or for himself?
“Yes,” he answers.
I push off the door, and one step brings me flush against him. His body is tense, coiled, and radiating heat.
“You keep telling yourself you’re trying to save me,” I murmur, my breath against his lips. “The noble detective, fighting the good fight. Protecting the innocent.” I lift my hand, not quite touching his chest. “But you’re lying.”
His breath hitches. His eyes are locked on mine, blue pools reflecting the dim hallway light and something deeper, hungrier.
“You’re not here to save me, Eddie.” My voice drops lower, colder. “You’re here to watch. To see how far I’ll go. How deep I’ll burn.” I brush my fingertip over the center of his chest. “You’re waiting for permission, waiting to see if I’ll let you touch the flames.”
His control frays. I see it in the pulse jumping in his throat, in the way his hands clench at his sides. He’s not backing away. He’s leaning in, drawn to the inferno he claims to fear.
“Is that what you want?” I ask, tilting my head. “To burn with me?”
His answer is in the ragged pull of his breath, in the heat pouring off him. His gaze drops to my mouth.
The test is set.
I close the final inch.
I crash my mouth against his, a demand that’s brutal, hungry, fueled by the tension humming between us. He groans low in his throat, a sound of surrender and need. His hands grip my hips, hauling me tighter against him.
The kiss deepens, turning savage. Our teeth clash. Our tongues duel. It’s less intimacy than combat, a struggle for dominance waged with lips and breath and bruising force.
I break the kiss first, pulling back just enough to see the dazed hunger in his eyes. His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the gold flecks. His lips are swollen, damp from mine. I trace the lower one with my thumb.
“Outside,” I command, my voice husky with intent.
My shadow daddy is behaving himself, a gathering darkness in the hallway that’s always watching, but outside is my and the detective’s spot. The place I can prove to him how dark he can go.
And I know he craves that darkness because he’s the one leading me through the front door. The rough wood of the railing bites into my lower back as he pushes me against it. His body cages me in, his heat emanating from underneath his clothes.
“Don’t worry,” he growls. “I sent the private investigator home.”
I laugh. “Like I care.”
His mouth finds mine again, desperate now. His hands are everywhere, tangling in my hair, skimming down my sides, gripping my ass to grind me against the hard ridge of his erection straining against his jeans.
The friction is electric, a jolt straight to my core. I arch into him, a silent demand.
He gets the message. His fingers reach for the button of my work pants.
The zipper rasps down, and cold night air hits my skin.
His hand slides beneath the thin fabric of my panties, finding me wet and needy.
He groans again, the sound raw, and his fingers stroke, circle, press deep, everything I need him to do and do well.
Pleasure coils, sharp and urgent.
I gasp against his mouth, grab his wide shoulders, and wrap my legs around his hips, locking my ankles behind his back. “Fuck me.”
He tears at his own jeans, shoving them down just enough. His cock springs free, thick and ready in his hand. He lines himself up. His eyes meet mine, bright, questioning, seeking permission even now after we’ve fucked every night since that first night.
My answer is a sharp bite on his lower lip.
He thrusts.
Deep, hard, and filling me in one stroke. The stretch is delicious, the friction perfect because he shoved my panties to the side, and the bunched fabric rubs against my clit.
He sets a punishing rhythm immediately, his hips snapping against mine, driving deep and withdrawing only to slam back home.
Each thrust jolts me against the unyielding wood railing, the bite of it grounding me even as he threatens to unravel me.
His hands grip my ass, his fingers digging in, lifting me slightly to take him deeper, to mold me to the brutal angle he wants.
His name tears from my throat. He buries his face in my neck, his breath hot and ragged against my skin.
He fucks me with a focused intensity, like he’s trying to exorcise his own demons by driving them into me.
His hands grip my ass, lifting me, adjusting the angle, driving deeper and harder.
Each thrust, each resulting stroke from panties over my clit, pushes a choked sound from me.
Pleasure builds, a relentless pressure coiling tighter and tighter.
I claw my hands up under his jacket, my nails digging into his back.
“Sera…” he growls in response, a curse on his lips. His hips snap against mine, brutal and perfect. “Fuck…”
He sounds wrecked already.
One hand slides up my spine, tangles in my hair, fisting it.
He tilts my head back, exposing my throat.
His mouth descends, and his lips, teeth, and tongue claim the pulse point, the column of my neck.
He sucks hard, leaving a brand I know will bloom purple by morning next to Shadow Daddy’s. A claim staked in bruised flesh.
The sharp sting mingles with the deep ache of him inside me, the relentless pressure building low in my belly.
Pleasure coils, tight and urgent. I’m close, so close.
The darkness, the rough wood, the cool air, the desperate, possessive fury of his thrusts overwhelms me.
I tilt my hips, taking him deeper, grinding against both him and the rub of my panties.
His thrusts become more erratic, harder, deeper, hitting that spot inside me with unerring accuracy that makes me cry out.
The sound is swallowed by the night, by his mouth crashing against mine again.
The kiss is messy, desperate, flavored with shared breath and the coppery tang of blood—his lip, where I bit him.
He breaks the kiss, panting, his forehead pressed to mine. His eyes are wild blue pools reflecting the weak moonlight and something unleashed.
“Look at me,” he rasps.
I force my eyes open and meet his burning gaze. I see the war inside him—duty, decency, the law he serves, all crumbling under the weight of the raw, violent need I’ve pulled from his core. The need for me. For this darkness.
Seeing it shatters my own control. The coil snaps.
Pleasure explodes, tearing through me in relentless waves.
My body convulses around him, milking him, pulling him deeper into the vortex.
My back arches off the railing, a silent scream locked in my throat as the world dissolves into pure, shattering sensation.
The Mind in my court sure can fuck.
He follows moments later. His body locks, a guttural groan tearing from his throat as he buries himself deep and pulses inside me, filling me with not only his cum, but his surrender.
He collapses against me and kisses me roughly, his weight pinning me to the railing. We stay like that, still joined and tangled, the only sounds our harsh breaths, the frantic hammering of our hearts, and the distant rustle of dead leaves.
Slowly, the world bleeds back. The cool night air raises goose bumps on my overheated skin. The rough wood is a dull ache against my back.
Eddie leans away, and his eyes are dazed, unfocused, the gold almost swallowed by the black. He looks at me like I’m a revelation and a damnation rolled into one. Something he both fears and worships.
He pulls out slowly, the loss a sudden emptiness, and steps back, shoving himself back into his jeans.
When we finish dressing, the dazed hunger is gone, replaced by a bleak, hollow understanding, a chasm opened up inside him that he doesn’t know how to bridge.
“You’re going to destroy him,” he says finally.
His voice is low, rough, scraped raw by the violence of our fucking.
I tilt my head. “Which one?”
His jaw clenches as he looks away, out into the dark yard. The silence stretches, thick with the weight of what just happened. What he just surrendered to. What he just became. What I made him.
I turn and catch my reflection in the dark windowpane, and moonlight catches the smeared remains of my lipstick. My eyes are dark, fathomless pools that look utterly demonic and terrifying.
I smile at my reflection, at the woman looking back. The liar. The manipulator. The weapon honed on the whetstone of humanity’s rot.
The queen ruling her court of monsters.