Chapter 5
NATHAN
Ighosted my fingertips over his skin, barely caressing his heated flesh. There was an itch under my skin to take him, claim him, mark him. To make him mine and never let him go.
My little bird.
But I had to be careful not to wake him as I pulled my clothes back on from the night before. In the end, the disguise to get into the wedding hadn’t been necessary, but I couldn’t find it in me to care that I had killed an innocent man for nothing.
There wasn’t much at all in this world that I cared about.
Except him.
My little bird.
In the light of the day, I thought maybe I’d have some clarity. But, if anything, I felt more unsure than ever. It wasn’t something I was used to feeling. Feelings, in general, weren’t something I was used to dealing with too often.
When I’d woken with Aiden’s body wrapped around me, my first thought was about how I would do anything for him, anything to protect him, anything to keep him. That he was mine and I was never going to let him go.
Not again.
And those feelings had only grown and intensified as I’d wandered around his room, looking through his things before I had finally gotten dressed and decided I needed to get out.
I didn’t need to get caught. Not that I didn’t think I could distract him with my dick. But I had other things I needed to take care of before I could focus on Aiden.
The obsession I had with him was unnerving. It tingled along my nerves, setting me on fire. I was used to feeling this way with my victims. It was how they all made me feel.
When I found them, there was something about them that tugged at me. An inner voice that told me they were mine and only they could calm the beast that raged within me. I felt that same obsession with Aiden, to know him, to possess him.
But it was different this time in ways I didn’t understand. He shouldn’t have been different. There was only one way this could end, and that was with me bathing in his blood.
So, why does the idea of killing him make me sick?
With the need to know more driving me, I kept my eyes on him as I moved around the room and made my way to where he’d discarded his clothes.
Reaching into his pocket, I pulled out his wallet and flipped through the contents.
It was pretty standard. Some business cards, a debit card, a couple credit cards.
His driver’s license slid out of the protective sleeve easily enough and I snapped a picture of the front and back.
After I put his wallet back, I searched his other pockets, including his suit jacket, and my heart beat in triple time when I saw his badge.
Of course, I’d heard him and Duncan mention it the night before.
But I refused to let myself think about it too hard.
There was a slight tremble to my hand that made me frown as I took a picture of the badge as well, just in case.
After I put everything back, I moved over and I stood next to the bed, watching his prone body cling to the pillow I’d shoved in his arms to take my place.
I tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
I’d never hesitated when I found someone before.
I took what I wanted and there was nothing, and no one, to stop me.
My hand reached out and stopped just above him. I wanted to run my hands down his scars, wanted to worship them and revel in their beauty.
He was a work of art. Perfection.
I’d crossed a line with him the night before and I was still surprised he hadn’t kicked me out after he came. When I’d had my arm wrapped around him, holding his life in my hands, nothing could have compared to the rush I’d felt. It had been a high like no other.
Why did I let go?
Anyone else would have been dead. I still couldn’t figure out why I hesitated and left him alive.
I continued to stare at him as I tried to work the puzzle out. There was something about this man that I couldn’t take his life. And it almost pissed me off. I liked things a certain way and I never deviated from how I did things.
Until Aiden Cooper came into my life.
I moved my hand up and softly stroked the messy tendrils of his silky hair. The act had me puzzled. I wasn’t an overly touchy person. I didn’t usually do affection, at all. Yet I could barely resist the urge to touch him.
Before I was able to move back, Aiden stirred under my hand. When his eyes fluttered, I knew I needed to get out of there before I did something stupid—or rather, something even stupider than I already did.
With a quiet sigh, I let my index finger graze over his smooth cheek one last time before I silently slipped out the door before he realized how close he had come to death, more than once.
When I reached the elevator at the end of the hall, I pressed the button and waited while I tried to come up with a new game plan. Nothing had gone down the way I had intended the night before.
Duncan was still alive. He was a loose thread I couldn’t risk leaving alive. It was an itch under my skin that I couldn’t scratch. The compulsion and desire I needed to quell while I was in public, until I could find a new way to get to him.
Now that he’d seen me with Aiden, he wouldn’t let me near him to seduce him to be able to get to him that way. I didn’t like when I needed to go to my victims because it made things appear less random. They were harder to explain away. But I would do what I had to do.
But first things first, I needed to get the fuck out of that hotel. I’d already spent too much time there and could be associated with too many people connected to it.
When the doors opened to the elevator, I dashed inside and pressed the button to close the door before anyone could get the idea to come along and try to get in with me.
It was the slowest ride down to the lobby.
It was a novelty, being so impatient. Usually, I was calm and cool under pressure, but too many things had gone off script.
I needed to find a way to get things back on track.
The doors finally opened and I let out a breath of relief as I stepped into the lobby and quickened my steps as I neared the doors. My freedom was only a few feet away.
At the desk, there was a group of employees huddled around, talking in excited, hushed whispers. My steps faltered as I tried to hear what they were saying, but my eyes never left the prize in front of me.
“Excuse me! Sir!”
Ah. Fuck.
My steps slowed and my back went rigid, shoulders squaring. I wasn’t sure what the desk clerk was frantically calling after me about, but I was sure I didn’t give a fuck about it. I cast a mournful glance at the door before I turned to glare at the man a few feet away.
“Yes?” My voice dripped with annoyance and boredom, which was hopefully a clear indicator that I wanted whatever this interaction was to hurry up and be done with.
He glanced around, his hands wringing in front of him. The look in his eyes was as if he’d seen a ghost, but I lived with ghosts every day.
“Um… I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t leave the hotel right now.”
I scoffed. That was when I noticed a few other guests were milling around the lobby.
“Why the hell not?”
The man, who looked like he was barely a day over eighteen, flinched at the demanding tone, but I was beyond caring. Whatever drama was going on at the hotel, it wasn’t my drama and I wasn’t about to get roped into it. I had my own shit to deal with.
My brows furrowed as I scowled and tried to figure out what was going on. But the sirens off in the distance that were quickly getting closer were a disturbing clue.
There was no reason to panic, and I didn’t. The racing of my heart was natural, even if it wasn’t a reaction I was accustomed to.
I wonder if Aiden has been woken up with the call yet.
A soft gasp from in front of me had me quirking a brow at one of the women behind the desk. It was obvious she knew who I was. I hoped I could use that to my advantage.
“Can I help you?” I offered her an easy, almost flirtatious smile that made her blush and giggle.
She bit her lip and offered me a coy smile that turned my stomach. “You’re Nathan Turner.”
I shrugged. “Guilty. How do you know who I am, sweetheart?”
“I’m a business major at Cardell,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been trying to get your office to arrange an interview for one of my classes, but they keep pushing me off.”
She let out a sigh and bit her lip, looking away, as though she second-guessed saying that.
I frowned at the thought of my secretary not setting something up and made a mental note to address it. “I’m really sorry about that. I had no idea or I would have said to make sure they got you on my books.”
My skin itched. The cops were getting closer, but I had to play my cards right. So, I pulled out my wallet and grabbed one of my business cards. With one of the pens from the desk, I wrote my private line on the back and handed it over to the girl.
“Here. That’s my private line. If you call that, you’ll get me. No Julie gatekeeping the phone and my appointment book.”
She stared down at the card in my outstretched hand like it was something precious, or maybe a snake about to strike. Her hand shook as she reached out and clutched it.
“Are you sure?” Her voice sounded so reverent, as if I were offering her something holy instead of a business card.
“I am,” I told her with a reassuring smile.
Looking back at the doors, I let out a sigh. “Only problem is, if I’m late for this meeting I have to get to, then I may not even be worth interviewing for your class.”
The clerk looked at her with wide eyes, shaking his head. He was smart, maybe too smart.
“Amanda,” he hissed.
She straightened her shoulders and motioned for me to follow her. “Jeremiah, we pride ourselves on guest discretion. Especially our high-end guests.”
We didn’t stick around to hear what Jeremiah was stuttering as we made our way to a side hall and Amanda let me out an emergency exit whose alarm was broken.
I slid out the door with a nod of thanks before I walked the two blocks to my car and sank into my seat, closing my eyes when I finally shut the door behind me.
The drive home was quick in the pre-dawn hours, with the light of day just starting to peek out. I’d let my mind drift back to Aiden and the way he’d reacted to me the night before.
It was jarring, to be thinking about something besides my next victim, especially when I had someone on my radar.
I was halfway home when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it out and swore when I saw Christian’s name on my caller ID.
“What?” I bit out as I tried to rein in my frustration. It wasn’t his fault I’d had to leave my little bird and it left me feeling all kinds of wrong.
“Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he teased with a chuckle.
I let out a grumble but didn’t say anything. If only he knew how wrong he was, because everything had been right, or at least it had, until I realized I couldn’t kill Aiden and then had to leave.
Part of me knew I should have felt unsatisfied because I hadn’t made the kill I’d intended to make the night before. Even though there had been a different body I’d left behind.
But I felt oddly sated. Even though I hadn’t killed him, either of them, there had been a thrill in knowing I had Aiden’s life in my hands.
Briefly, I wondered if it was possible for that to be enough.
Maybe not forever, but what if having that sort of power over someone was enough to keep the urge to kill at bay?
I shook my head. It was too early for such introspection. Especially when I had my project foreman on the phone.
“Nothing that has anything to do with my bed is any of your concern, Christian. What did you need, besides to annoy me?”
Last year, I made the mistake of sleeping with the other man.
While I hadn’t had an urge to kill him, I definitely shouldn’t have listened to the urges telling me it would be a good idea to fuck him.
Sure, he’d been willing to do all the dirty and nasty things I wanted, but it also left things a little messy since he worked for me.
“We have a problem at the house on Collins Ave. Need you to come by and figure out what we should do.”
I let out a sigh and my head fell back as I let out a groan of frustration. I didn’t want to figure out what should be done. That was what I hired people like Christian for, so things could get fixed and resolved while involving me as little as possible.
The anonymity was what worked for me. People didn’t need to know who I was.
While I had over a dozen shell corporations that handled the financial and legal records of the thirty or so properties I owned, I had little to do with them publicly.
This way, if I ever needed to use a property for any of my extracurricular activities, there was no tying me to the property.
While Christian didn’t know the sort of man Nathan Turner really was, he did know he preferred to be more of a recluse and live high up in his castle away from people.
But as the person who I trusted the most to oversee all the property renovations, he also knew I was the owner of the properties.
It might have been careless, having one person know that much about me, but I couldn’t bring myself to trust even more people with what I needed done.
Christian didn’t ask questions, especially about my personal life, even when he was dying to know something. And he knew even when I was fucking him that it didn’t make him entitled to ask questions. Which was why I had let him live.
“Fuck. Give me a half hour to get there.” I knew I should have stopped at home first to change so I wouldn’t be showing up in the same suit I’d worn the day before, but there wasn’t anyone I was going to run into who would have seen me there.
Plus, I needed to deal with whatever it was Christian needed help with so I could get back home and pour a glass of bourbon and make a plan to get to Duncan.
And find out all I could about Aiden Cooper.
I could already feel the itching starting under my skin and knew it was going to be a hell of a day.
Fuck my life.