Chapter 48
SERENITY
A school of tiny fish flick their tails and zoom away as our kayak musically cleaves the water into a rippling V and nestles its side against the jetty pylon. The ducks are here, curious as to what we are doing. I steady the kayak to let Hailey climb the short ladder.
“Sorry! No food yet, guys,” she tells the three ducks courageous enough to swim in closer.
As I climb up, they give me the once-over, too.
My tracking ankle bracelet rattles on the metal of the ladder.
In the distance, pine trees on the opposite bank of the lake make a perfectly beautiful backdrop.
I’m sure there will be observers, somewhere over there with sniper scopes or similar.
We are never going to be allowed to run free, but I refuse to let that ruin this.
The water is clear enough that I can see the swirl of the ducks’ webbed feet under the surface.
“Have you been thinking about yesterday like I have?” she asks as I heave the kayak out of the water and onto the jetty beside us.
“Yes.” The memorial dinner for Esau was like a rowdy wake.
Wine, whisky, song, and all that.
About twenty of his friends from Revenant showed up, as well as us Weirdos.
Everyone agreed he’d have loved it. I didn’t know him well enough to have an opinion, but it was fun.
No family were there. Not that anyone else is allowed in yet.
It’s only been a week since the choppers arrived, and already they’ve reinforced the base they’re building on the outskirts of town.
“Granted, I might not have had the same thoughts as you.” I take off her baseball cap and ruffle the top of her head.
Hailey grabs my hand with both of hers and cups it between them. “Let’s sit down.”
She walks to the seat, and I sit beside her, letting her keep my hand on her thigh. Her bronze-colored exercise shorts have ridden up, and her skin is warm.
I smooth my hand over her leg. “I have a fetish for touching you, girl.”
“Same here.” She slides closer and snuggles against my side. “You smell good and that seems almost a breaking of the laws of physics.”
Damn, she’s sweet the way she does that—snuggles in. Sweet and pretty, and I am so horny.
We haven’t had sex for a week, and I know she knows why but it is agonizing to see her ass in the shower and not do anything.
“So,” she murmurs sleepily after few minutes. “Did you hear the gossip from Rasmus?”
“No? What’s he been saying? He’s working for the institute to repair weaknesses in their firewalls, or something? Which is all very good and helpful to them, but we should be playing devil’s advocate and watching them, or as much as we can.”
“I agree.” She lightly slaps my thigh in time with those words.
“And if he keeps that job, Rasmus is on the inside. He said the place is buzzing over the whole alternate timeline slash world thing. They’re building new buildings, bringing in scientists, and he says that’s a bigger deal than you being possible. Frankenstructs and all.”
“I’m not surprised. I heard from Molly that it’s why they managed to call in intervention. She kinda said it in circles, with roundabouts and all. That woman knows how to obfuscate.”
“Obfuss what? Wash your dirty mouth out with soap, sir!” She laughs, and I poke her in the ribs. Which only makes her squeal and laugh some more, so I wrestle her back into place at my side. “You know, I figure they’re sleeper agents from another country.”
“The tea?” I grin down at her.
“The tea.” She taps her nose. “Dead giveaway. Secret MI6 agents, is my guess.”
For a while, I sit in silence. “No one is ever going to really say. Or not to us. What I was thinking more about is what is happening with Esau’s body? He’s not been buried, not been cremated. His body is still there.” We both know where there is. The institute.
“They agreed to getting consent before using anyone’s body.”
“And if he has no family?” Am I okay with that? “They made me without asking. I’m never going to trust them one hundred percent.”
“Yeah. I know. Aren’t we supposed to be being cheerful here? Oh my god, Squiggle Cat!”
After a week of absence, our favorite not-feline waltzes up the jetty, tail swaying.
He…it nuzzles into both of our legs and gets patted thoroughly, sends us a piercing stare, then wanders to the edge of the jetty, and sits to study the ducks.
A moment later he hops down off the jetty and vanishes.
Into the kayak, I assume. To sleep there?
If he starts paddling away, I’m not stopping him.
“The sheriff…” I say slowly.
“I saw him yesterday. He still has the mark, still acts weird. Maybe we should ask him to join the Weirdos?”
“Hell no.”
I’ll be watching him too. Has he copied my situation? Left half the brain intact so he, or it, can learn from the human that used to be the sheriff? Argh. Life is too short to worry about the small stuff. And the sheriff is small stuff in Revenant.
She explores my wrist, my severed wrist, with her fingers and says, “It’s healed fine.”
“It does look fine.” Head bent over it, she delicately traces her stitches around my wrist—done in doubled-up red embroidery cotton. “Melody’s were neater.”
“I heal no matter what, so long as the flesh is approximately in the right place.” I stroke her hair, enjoying the softness.
Hailey sighs and slips her hand along my thigh, sneaks it over to where my cock is already pulsing due to all this closeness.
“Girrrl,” I warn her.
It’s a mock warning because I’ve already decided it’s time.
I found books on psychology, on therapy, on anything that seemed helpful.
Anything to tame what I call my demon self.
If I could, I would’ve tried an actual psychologist, but that would be stretching the limits. I’d probably scare them to death.
I practiced while she was asleep, over and over, until I’m sure I can trust myself. The demon can sit at the back of my head and be good. Or be evil and stew. In some ways, the background thoughts seem to add fire to my desires.
“I want us to try again. I’ve been thinking, and you know I trust you.” She tilts back her head and meets my gaze. “You said you had a method, a way to make yourself safe to be with? So, should we?”
She leans down with her left hand and unclips her sheathed knife from her leg.
The knife rests across her palms like an offering. That tactical knife is not a toy. What does she intend to do?
“I trust you with this and any other weapon you might choose.” She unsheathes it and reverses her hand on the hilt, holds it so the point is on her breastbone. The blade is like an arrow ready to pierce her heart.
The drumbeat begins, thudding louder, urging me to use it on her.
Instead, I employ what I have learned to rein in the urgent drumbeat and push it to the rear, relegate it to where it should be—in the basement of my forbidden desires.
I no longer try to deny these thoughts; I acknowledge them and leave them simmering.
Reading up on psychology and sitting cross-legged on the bed, night after night, studying her semi-naked body, imagining my wildest fantasies, and saying no to the bad ones, I realized it’s always been within me—not the demon but this moral compass. I was merely afraid of myself.
Like it or not, he, that killer, is now also me.
But I can win.
I take the knife from her hands, let the weight and sharpness of it fan those flames, then I place it on the seat.
“Stop trying to make me do this before I say I will. I was about to fuck your brains out today anyway. But this?” I tap the knife where it lies on my other side. “It was unnecessary. You need punishing.” I smile to soften this. This is for fun. Fear is not something I want to play with. Or not yet.
“I do?” Her eyes are wide.
“Yes.” I stand and heave her to her feet, then sit myself down again. “Take off those shorts and lie over my lap.” I pat my thigh and wait.
If those observers are out there, they’re going to get an eyeful.
Her tongue sneaks out and pokes at her lip, but then she obeys and kicks off her shoes, then partially undresses, baring herself below the waist before lying down over me. Her plump ass is exactly where I want it.
That she wriggles in place, her pussy grinding a little on my cock, is calculated to arouse me. So, I pinch her inner thigh and hold her down.
“Ow!”
“Be still.”
When I cup one ass cheek, dragging the fullness of it away from the cleft, her ass hole and her pussy peek out.
My toes curl in my boots. The knife, my demon whispers.
Exhaling, I begin to spank her and deliver ten slow smacks.
The crisp slaps echo in the stillness of the lake.
The reddening of her skin takes a moment to occur, and I draw slow circles on her and sigh.
I delve deeper, brushing along her swelling lips, listening to her small noises.
She still wriggles, but only because I provoke her. I tease her entrance with my fingertips, amused by how the glistening line of wetness grows thicker and a dribble escapes her.
She lets out a small moan as I plunge one finger inside her.
Those simmering feral desires are stirring, and I decide to let them have some say in this.
I pick up the knife.
“Be still while I do this. Very still.” I place the hilt of the knife at her cunt entrance and slowly worm it about, inserting it between her lips. Shallow at first. It easily slides in, though her cunt muscles squeeze rhythmically as I pump the hilt in and out.
Fuck me though. The obscene presence of a knife blade sticking from her while she gasps and squeezes her thighs inward… It’s the perfect aphrodisiac. My cock strains against my pants cloth, especially when she rocks a little and presses on my erection.
“I should fuck you here, on the bench. I can’t spank you anymore like this, can I?” I chuckle. “I need a photo.”
“Mmm. Please? Not the photo!”
I lean over and bite her ass for the first time since…since what feels like forever. She squeaks as my teeth dig deep but stays where I told her to.
“Another, please, and I will.” I start to fuck her with the knife hilt, sure that somewhere, across the lake, someone else is jacking off to this. I stop dead, lean in to speak to her ear. “You know I love you, right?”
Her groan is of the exasperated variety. “Yes!”
I give her one pump, and again I stop with it inside her to the limit, with the guard on the knife hilt pressed flat to her cunt. “You’re sure? And what about you?” I muse as I pop the knife from her. “Do you love me?”
Another groan. “Why? What did I do? Yes, Kail Stone, I love you, and if you don’t do something…”
At which point I toss the knife behind the seat, haul myself out from under her, and drag her off the end until she’s bent over it.
Then I unzip and lean over her and ram inside in one breathtaking thrust. Her head jerks up, her back arches, and she fumbles to grab the sides of the seat.
When she looks back at me her mouth is a gaping O.
I drive in hard again, just to see her eyes slam shut and that mouth stay wide and open, as the shock of my cock taking her overwhelms her mind with desire.
The seat shifts on the jetty, squeaking as I plow my pretty woman in fits and starts, wildly and with abandon, then slow as a shunting, mile-long train. I do this until she’s sobbing for me to let her come.
The shine of the blade where it lies attracts my eye as I continue fuck her brains out. It can stay there while I play. Finally, she locks up into the spasms of a climax, and I ram in another few thrusts, groaning as my balls empty into her.
I stay inside her while she winds down and figures out how to breathe properly, stroking her before rolling her over and lying behind her on the seat so we can spoon together. Beyond, the lake waits as it has forever, quietly serene and shining with the late pinkness of dying sunlight.
As if the universe knows how to play a joke, I feel the familiar shaking of the world, then a ripple in my awareness that does not echo on the lake’s surface, and a warbling sound that descends the frequencies.
When I prop myself up on one arm, Hailey raises her head.
“What was that?” she asks.
“The Large Hadron Collider doing a boost, or so I was told. The last time I felt it, it was the day I came through to your world.”
On the far side of the lake a dog trots over to the bank and sees us and gives a gruff bark that carries across the water, as if to ask how to get to us. A German Shepherd, possibly. It’s too far to be sure.
“And what is that animal?” She points at the dog.
She doesn’t know what a dog is?
I’ve only seen cats here, haven’t I?
Oh fuck.
“This might be a surprise,” I begin. I snuggle back down behind her, wrap my arm across below her breasts, and kiss her nape. “That thing is a…”
Keep reading for a sample from Prey, a spicy stoneshifter monster romance.