Chapter 47
In Grady’s bedroom, investigators found over forty pencil sketches hidden beneath his mattress, all depicting women in varying states of undress and injury. The violence was a fundamental part of his fantasy. He needed them bleeding before he could want them.
—Inside the Mind of a Teen Monster: The Boy Next Door Killer by Amanda O’Reilly
I turn to Nico and keep my back teeth gently clenched as I say, “Do you want the axe or the scalpel?”
Not even a smile.
“I mean, we could try to throw them up, but I don’t think I can,” I say. “My stomach’s so empty I’m pretty sure it’s started digesting itself.”
Still no reaction.
I lean over to Nico’s ear, cupping my hand over my mouth like a shield and pushing the key through my lips.
The key drops into my palm.
“You ready to Howard and Louise this?” I whisper, closing my fingers tightly around the key. It’s warm and slick with spit.
Nico keeps his voice low. “I can think of worse ways to go than dismemberment.”
I laugh so hard I snort. “You can?”
His mouth quirks as he stares out at all three doors along the walls, ready for any threats that could come out of them.
I reach for Nico and press the key into his palm.
I feel the muscles in his hand tense as he registers what I just gave him.
He doesn’t change his face at all, but his grip tightens around my fingers in a firm squeeze.
He leans in close to my ear and whispers, “Angry girl.”
I glow under his approval. He carefully deposits the key into his pocket, keeping his hands there to avoid suspicion. My hand throbs, sending bolts of pain up my arm, but I’m starting to get used to it the way you get used to a headache.
We sit there.
And we wait.
I wait for the Game Master’s voice to come through, frustrated with yet another disruption to his trials and tell us we have to start hacking away at each other, but there’s nothing. I don’t know what to make of nothing. When Morrow’s talking, at least we can guess what he’s thinking.
I try to hear the scratching I could earlier, reaching for that tugging sensation, but I catch nothing.
Minutes crawl by. Nico and I say nothing, only sit next to each other in heavy silence as we watch the numbers tick down.
The timer hits zero with a final beep. I stare at the door, waiting for it to swing open, but it doesn’t move.
“Why isn’t he coming?” I whisper, my voice barely carrying. “Do you think he’s spent too much time inside the host?”
“I don’t know,” Nico says. “It’s possible we need to go further. Do something to piss him off.”
“More than not participating in the trial?” I ask.
Nico nods. He shifts down until he’s lying flat on the ground, and beckons me to join him.
I lie down facing him with my head on his bicep, and he pulls me against him.
His arms wrap around me, tucking me into the curve of his body like we did when we slept, and I burrow into the warmth radiating off him.
It’s not enough to stop the shivering, but it’s something.
“Eden,” Nico mumbles into the top of my head. “Come here.”
I tilt my head up, confused. We’re already as close as two people can get while still technically being separate humans. Our fingers are entwined. Our ankles are hooked together.
“I am here,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “But closer.”
I inch closer until my chest is flush with his. His hand moves to the back of my head, his fingers curling into my hair.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Giving him something to be angry about,” he whispers, the smell of mint filling the tiny space between us. “Angry enough to come down here.”
Oh.
Oh.
My heart thumps in anticipation. “I don’t want him to watch this.”
“Me neither,” he says. “But you just focus on me, okay?”
He drags his thumb over my cheekbone until my entire body hums.
“Just follow my lead,” he mumbles against my lips. “You tell me if you want me to stop.”
He props himself up on one elbow so his face is above mine.
Performing for the cameras feels gross, but with him above me, it feels like only him and me in the entire world.
I can practically feel the camera on us as he leans down, so slowly I think he might change his mind.
Our noses graze. Our breaths mingle. My lips part.
His lips just barely skim over mine, but even that whisper of contact sends a shudder rushing through me. I turn my head to catch his mouth more.
He gasps against me, but I breathe him in and kiss him again, firmer. I can practically hear the rifling of papers in filing cabinets in his head as he catalogs every sensation.
“Eden,” he groans against my mouth.
“Don’t think,” I say. “Just feel.”
I part my lips, running my tongue along the seam of his lips, urging him to let me in.
“Please,” I beg.
That’s all it takes.
His lips move against me with a desperation that gives me a full-body shiver, like every nerve ending woke up and just remembered what it means to feel good.
He’s clumsy. His mouth crushes mine. I can feel the hesitation in the way his mouth moves, like he’s not quite sure what to do.
But I can show him.
I deepen the kiss, my tongue stroking against his, urging him to let go of his control. He makes this broken sound as his hand winds in my hair, fingers threading through the tangled strands, while the other pulls me closer against the hard line of his body.
I scrape my teeth across his bottom lip. The salty tang of blood hits my tongue, and I immediately jerk away.
Shit.
“I’m sorry,” I say, opening my eyes to examine the largest cut in his lower lip, the one he got from the Game Master smashing his face into the van window. A tiny amount of blood trickles out of it, mixing with his saliva. “I didn’t mean to—”
He makes a frustrated growling sound and brings my mouth back to his before I can finish, parting his lips to mumble, “So worth it.”
He kisses me like the pain doesn’t exist, like it’s not even reaching him, and after a couple of seconds of hesitation, I kiss him back the same way.
I can feel every ridge of muscle pressed against me, can feel how strong he is even in his gentlest touches, can feel the heat of his skin burning through the remaining fabric between us.
I pull his hips toward me, and they bend forward.
I nudge his chin, and he tilts his head up.
He melts into me like he’s turned into Play-Doh that I can mold into any shape I want.
His mouth lifts from mine. I’m about to protest the loss when his lips find the corner of my mouth. Then my jaw.
“What are you doing?” I ask, out of breath.
He grins—a slow, wicked curve. “Enjoying.”
He nips kisses all the way along my jaw. My fingers dig into his shoulder, nails biting into his jacket, and when he reaches the spot just below my ear, I make a humming sound. Something Dylan would have made fun of me for, but I want Nico to hear how much I want him.
Nico picks his head up to look at me with heavy-lidded eyes, and holy hell, the sight nearly stops my heart.
His hair is mussed from my fingers. His lips are swollen and red, and his usually pale eyes are almost black, pupils blown wide and open like pools of inky water I want to jump into.
He looks like I’ve undone him with just my mouth.
The power of that realization makes me feel drunk.
“That sound you just made,” he says, “will be the death of me.”
I’m blushing so hard I can feel it in my ears, but I’m not embarrassed. I feel like I’m glowing under his gaze.
“I want you to make it again.” He punctuates his words with kisses. “I want to make it my ringtone.”
It’s so unexpected that I laugh. “That would make team trips in the van awkward.”
“I don’t care.”
He kisses that same spot again. I laugh again, but the sound is quickly cut off when he pulls the tender skin between his teeth and bites down, tugging hard enough to make me groan.
Oh my God—
He claims my mouth with his. His tongue plunges deep, tangling with my own, searching like he’s trying to taste every inch of me. I can feel his heart hammering against his ribs where our chests are pressed together.
He rolls over me fully and props onto both elbows so he can hold my face in both hands.
We’re all teeth and tongue and breathless gasps.
I can’t get close enough. Can’t get enough of the taste of him, or the feeling of his hands in my hair.
He kisses me with a hunger I’ve never experienced before, like I’m the only thing that can stop him from starving, like he wants me as much as I want him.
I’m afraid he’ll disappear if I stop touching him for even one second.
Nico pulls away, dropping his forehead against mine.
“I…” His voice comes out rough. “Just need a second.”
I don’t push. My hand rests against his chest as I catch my breath, feeling his heart thump against my palm. Billy took everything from him, even this.
I slowly realize that he’s never had a single good memory of this.
He’s never gotten to choose this for himself, never got to have a kiss that was actually his.
Only violence and fear, and Billy’s hands on girls who didn’t want him.
But I want him, and I’m going to make sure he knows it.
I’m going to give him so many good memories that the bad ones don’t stand a chance.
I bring his hand up to my lips, pressing a kiss to the inside of his palm.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I kiss the top of his hand, all languid and long, then grin up at him. “Enjoying.”
One more to the bridge of his nose, and on the scar running up his temple. Nico shudders.
“I can’t believe I get to touch you.” I nip at his earlobe, and he tenses under me. “It feels like a dream. I’ve been obsessed with you since you smiled at me in that parking lot and made me forget how to form sentences.”
“You weren’t obsessed with me,” Nico says. “You punched me in the face.”
“But then I saw you were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen,” I say. “I felt kind of bad for punching you then.”
“Because you don’t punch hot people?”
“Because,” I say, laughing, “I didn’t think I’d get a chance with you if I was the girl who punched you in the face.”
He laughs, all rough and surprised like he wasn’t expecting to have found something funny. I make a silent promise to myself that I’m going to make him laugh so many times that he stops ever being surprised at his own laugh.
“Are you kidding?” he asks. “I was done for the second you swung at me.”
A tiny part of my brain is screaming that people don’t just say things like that to me, that I’m not the kind of person that someone like Nico goes for, but my brain can shut the hell up. I’m not going to let it take this from me.
His hands slide to my waist and he’s rolling us over again, lifting me until I’m lying on top of him.
“Much better,” he says, closing his eyes and pulling me back down to him.
His tongue sweeps against mine, and I’m drowning, actually drowning in the taste of him. He’s sucking and biting and marking me, and the heat flooding my system is burning me alive. Good. Let me burn. Let me combust right here because at least I’ll go out feeling something other than empty.
Because this is the best kiss I’ve ever had. I’d thought nothing could ever top the kitchen, but in the kitchen, I kissed him without knowing if he wanted me back. Now I know, and that knowledge makes this a thousand times better.
As much as I don’t want to accept it, I know there is a possibility we won’t get much time.
Given where we are, there may never be another opportunity for me to kiss Nico like this, and for the first time in my life, I really understand how strongly Elphaba must have felt when she swore to make every last moment with Fiyero last.
All the men I’ve been with kissed me like they were taking something, squeezing every drop of their own pleasure from me until they’d had enough, but Nico kisses with intention.
I can tell he’s choosing every movement, just as he chooses every word, and he’s not taking anything from me at all.
He kisses like he’s trying to remember me, exactly how I am, and if he’s slow enough, or pays close enough attention, then he can keep the kiss with him.
He pulls me closer until there’s no space left between us, until I can feel every line of his body pressed against mine. I arch my hips into him, and the air snags in my throat when I feel the hard length of him pushing into my hip bone.
I go limp and rigid all at once. I grind against him, and the friction makes him groan into my mouth. I pull his bottom lip between my teeth as my hand slides down his chest, lower and lower until my palm presses against his length through the fabric.
He tears his mouth away from mine with a sharp curse. “What are you—”
I capture his words with my mouth, stroking him through the material. He pulses under my touch.
“Fuck,” he mumbles. “I can’t—we can’t—”
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”
He shakes his head and drags me back to him so fast I giggle.
He moves against my hand, betraying how much his body wants this even if his brain is trying to be logical.
I grip him harder. The desperate sound he makes goes straight between my legs, my thighs clenching around nothing.
His fingers slide under my jacket and spread over my stomach.
I can feel him losing the battle against his self-control with every labored breath, every involuntary thrust of his hips into my palm.
I love that I can make him lose control.
Love that I’m the one turning his brain to static, because he does the exact same thing to me.
My hand strokes him with more pressure. He breaks our kiss and buries his face into the soft part of my neck.
“Eden, I can’t—” But his hips are moving against me, seeking more friction, more pressure, more of anything I’m willing to give him.
“You can.” I kiss his temple, and he turns his face back up to look at me. “I got you.”
Because I do. Because he’s mine. In this moment, he’s completely and utterly mine, and I am his, and nothing else exists except the way he raises his lips to meet mine, the way he’s shuddering under me, the way he’s saying my name like he’s making a wish, the way his entire world has narrowed down to his hand on me and—
The door scrapes open.