CHAPTER 28 #2
She rode me harder, her wetness coating my dick.
The slick sound of her pussy against my skin was driving me wild. “That’s it, pretty baby,” I rasped, hips bucking to meet her as the bed frame creaked. “Show me how much you want me.”
Her fingers raked my chest, scraping over ink and muscle as sparks raced down my spine. She quickened her pace as her hands roamed my skin, tracing my abs, pinching my nipples, then gripping my shoulders, fingertips digging deep. Pleasure coiled tight in my gut, heat surging with every grind.
I thrusted up, hard, and she cried out, her hair whipping as she arched back, her breasts heaving.
“Fucking hell,” I groaned. “Your pussy’s choking my cock, it’s so fucking tight.” My fingers gripped her hips, guiding her faster. Her hand slid to my throat, fingers light but firm as her thumb pressed against my pulse.
“Feel that?” I panted as my dick slammed into her.
“Every inch, baby. That’s me inside you, stretching you open, owning you.”
Her walls fluttered, a fresh gush of slick coating me, and I drove deeper, hips snapping, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing.
“Feel how hard you make me?” I moaned. “This cock’s yours, but this pussy? Mine.”
Her breath hitched, lips brushing my jaw.
And then her voice dropped to a chilling hiss that sent ice straight through my dick. “I told you I watch you when you sleep.”
The words slithered out, sharp and eerie, her eyes glinting strangely.
Her smile twisted, still hers but wrong, lips curling too wide, fingers tightening on my throat, just enough to prickle my skin.
Her hips slowed, deliberate and torturous, her pussy still gripping me, but her gaze felt like it was peeling me open.
My hands froze on her hips, my chest heaving, confusion spiking through the pleasure. I tilted my head, staring up at her as she hovered above me. Her eyes were suddenly unblinking, boring into me with an intensity that wasn’t human, wasn’t my Ophelia.
“Ophelia?” I whispered, my dick still hard inside her, but the air shifted, heavy, wrong, her smile a slash of something too knowing.
I jolted upright, gasping, my cock pulsing against my briefs.
For one disoriented second, I thought I was still dreaming.
Until I saw her.
Emma.
Standing over my fucking bed.
Her pale eyes gleamed in the shadows, round and wide and so unblinking it made my skin crawl. Her mouth curved into a smile that was too wide for her face, teeth flashing like a row of knives.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
The scream ripped out of me before I could stop it. Not a tough-guy shout. Not a football player’s roar. No—this was a banshee shriek, cracking so high I was pretty sure dogs in the next county heard it.
Emma didn’t flinch. Didn’t even twitch. Just tilted her head, her brown hair somehow not moving with it.
“He’s awake,” she sang in a lilting, nursery-rhyme voice. “My Matty’s awake. He screamed because he’s so happy to see me.”
“What the actual—fuck—Emma?!” I scrambled backward, sheets tangling around my legs, until my skull smacked into the headboard. Pain flared, but I didn’t care. My heart was jackhammering, my skin crawling, and my dick—once alive in the dream—was now curled up somewhere in witness protection.
She rocked slightly on her toes, the way kids did when humming to themselves. “You were sweating. Moaning. Gasping. I wanted to see.”
“Okay. No.” I clutched the sheet tighter over my lap, like that would save me. “That was a dream, alright? You can’t—you can’t just stand there watching me sleep like some possessed doll!”
Her grin twitched, stretching wider. “I love watching you sleep.” She sighed. “You breathe differently when you dream, slow at first, then it catches, like you can sense your death coming.”
“Nope,” I said quickly, voice shaking. “We’re not doing this. We are not doing this.”
Emma stepped closer, her bare feet whispering against the floor.
She leaned down until her face hovered inches above mine.
Her breath smelled like iced milk. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but if iced milk had a smell, it was like that.
Her eyes were wide, pupils blown, and still—still—she didn’t blink.
I whimpered. Actually whimpered.
“Blink,” I croaked. “For the love of God, just blink once.”
Her smile sharpened. “But then I can’t see you, Matthew.”
I slapped both hands over my eyes. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. I’m still asleep. This is a night terror.”
Her voice slid under my hands, singsong and sweet. “Not a dream. I’m real. Real. Real.”
I peeked through my fingers.
She was still there.
Of course she was.
But she was drifting away from the bed. Not leaving—oh no, that would’ve been too easy. She started wandering around my room.
My room.
Touching my things.
Her fingers traced the edge of my charging phone. “It lights up every few minutes,” she murmured. “Little ghosts trying to reach you before I do.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s not a normal observation, Emma!”
She drifted to the desk where my playbook lay open, notes scrawled in my handwriting from team meetings. She bent over and trailed a finger down one of the diagrams.
“X’s and O’s,” she sang. “Like kisses. Like bones.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s a cover two, not—” I cut myself off, dragging my hands down my face. “Why am I explaining football to you right now?!”
She ignored me, her eyes glittering as she picked up my shoulder pads from where it leaned against the wall. She cradled it in her arms like it was a baby.
“Armor,” she whispered, rocking it gently. “My Matty’s armor. Heavy and strong. But not enough.”
I dragged my knees up to my chest, still clutching the sheet. “Stop rocking my equipment like it’s Rosemary’s baby!”
Her head snapped toward me, and my stomach dropped.
“Babies cry,” she said flatly. Then, slowly, her grin returned. “You cry, too, Matty.”
“I do not—” My voice cracked again. “I do not cry.”
Her singsong cut me off. “Matty screamed. Matty whimpered. Matty—”
“Stop keeping a running commentary!” I shouted.
But she only giggled. High-pitched, melodic, and absolutely chilling.
Then she wandered to my dresser. Her pale hand traced over my trophies—the all-American plaques, the gold figures frozen mid-leap. She picked one up, tilting it toward the dim light, her reflection bending across the metal.
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Those trophies had always meant a lot to me, and now I was going to have to sanitize them about a million times to ever be able to touch them again.
In fact, my whole room was going to need to be fumigated.
“Shiny,” she whispered. “Shiny like your eyes when you beg.”
I slapped my palm to my forehead. “I don’t beg, Emma.”
“You begged in your sleep,” she said simply, still rocking the trophy. “Ophelia’s name. Ophelia’s lips. Ophelia’s body.”
I made a sound halfway between a groan and another scream. “This is it. This is how I die. Death by…whatever you are. The coroner’s gonna be like, ‘Cause of death: creepy girl who doesn’t blink.’”
Emma set the trophy down with care. Then she drifted to my laundry basket.
“No,” I barked, pointing. “Do not touch that.”
She ignored me, plucking one of my practice shirts from the pile. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes for the first time since she appeared.
And just like that, the sight was so much worse than her not blinking.
“Oh, fuck me,” I whispered.
Her eyes snapped open again, back to wide…and unblinking. “Sweat. Grass. Fear.” She smiled. “Delicious.”
I gagged and shot off the bed so fast the sheet tangled around my legs, nearly toppling me. “Okay. Nope! We’re done here. Get out. Get out of my room before I call—I don’t even know who. Ghostbusters. The FBI. Somebody!”
Emma’s smile never wavered. “You wouldn’t call.”
“I would.”
“You wouldn’t.”
I froze, chest heaving.
Her grin tilted higher. “Because you like it.”
My eyes bugged out of my head. “Like it?!”
“You like being watched. You like being wanted. And nobody wants like I do.”
My knees almost buckled.
The door slammed open with a bang that rattled the wall.
“Matty, I’m coming. Don’t go into the light!” Jace barreled in, shirtless in sweats, his long blonde hair sticking up like he’d run through a hurricane. His brown eyes were wild as he looked around.
He saw Emma and stopped dead.
“Oh…hell no.”
“Yes!” I shrieked, tripping over the sheet still tangled around my legs. “Hell yes. She’s just standing there! Not blinking! Look at her!”
Emma turned her head slowly, too slowly, like a doll on a rusted hinge. Her grin widened when her eyes landed on Jace.
“Two boys,” she crooned in that high, singsong tone. “Two loud boys. Rabbits.”
Jace’s jaw dropped. “Did…did she just call us rabbits?”
“Yes!” I snapped, pointing frantically. “The bad kind of rabbits!”
Jace blinked at me. “There’s a bad kind of rabbit?”
“Not the point!”
Emma rocked forward on her toes, humming. “Scared little rabbits. Hop, hop, hop. Eyes wide. Screams loud.”
“Do something!” Jace hissed, flattening himself against the wall.
“Do what?!” I snapped. “Tackle her?!”
“Yes!”
Emma giggled.
“On second thought, don’t do that. Because I think she wants you to do that,” Jace choked out.
Emma swayed toward the bed again, her eyes unblinking. “Matty screams. Matty cries. Matty dies.”
Jace’s face went pale. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I think I’ve seen enough.”
He grabbed the first thing within reach—a half-empty bottle of blue Gatorade—and flung it at her chest.
It splashed across her shirt.
She looked down. Then up. Then smiled wider. “Refreshing.”
Jace’s hands shot into his hair. “Okay. Plan B.” He spun, snatched the silver chain off his neck, and brandished it. “Begone, demon!”
That obviously didn’t work, either.
Emma drifted toward my dresser again, stopping at the photo of me and Ophelia. She picked it up, tilting her head at the glass.
“Pretty girl,” she crooned. “But she blinks. She sleeps. She doesn’t watch.”
“Put that down!” I shouted, lunging forward. “Don’t touch her!”
Emma giggled, tracing Ophelia’s face with her fingertip. “I could watch her, too. While she sleeps. Would you like that, Matty?”
“What the fuck?” I bellowed.
Jace threw his hands up. “Okay, I’m out. You’re on your own.”
“Don’t you dare leave me!” I shrieked.
“I already tried Gatorade and demon banishment. What else can I do?”
Before I could move, Riley burst in like a woman on a mission, hair wild, eyes blazing, holding a fire extinguisher that looked way too big for her.
“What the hell is—” I started, but she’d already pulled the pin.
A white cloud exploded across the room with a roar, coating everything—bed, trophies, me—in a choking frost. Emma shrieked, staggering backward as foam hit her full in the face.
“Get out of my house!” Riley screamed, spraying again for good measure.
Emma screamed louder this time, stumbling for the door, arms flailing, her pale figure disappearing into the hallway in a haze of cold mist.
Silence fell, the hiss of the extinguisher dying out.
Riley stood there panting, extinguisher still hissing in her grip, white residue clinging to her hair and lashes.
For a moment, none of us moved.
Then Jace took one slow, reverent step forward. “My hero,” he breathed with wide eyes, his voice dripping with awe. “Fuck, that makes me so hot.”
Before Riley could even blink, he scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder, her shocked yelp muffled against his back.
“You’re going to have to clean up on your own,” he said as he strode out of the room. “I gotta give this little legend what she deserves.”
“Thank you!” I called after them, still coughing through the lingering haze.
I heard his bedroom door shut with a dramatic thud, Riley’s muffled giggles echoing through the walls.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the foam-covered room, my pulse still sprinting.
I had no idea what the hell had just happened, but I did know one thing…Ophelia had never come over last night.
Before I could do anything about that…my phone rang.
I grabbed it without thinking. “Yeah?”
“Matthew,” my mom’s voice came through, tight and trembling. “It’s your dad. He’s in the hospital. You need to come—now.”
The room tilted, the cold chemical air suddenly too thin to breathe.
I froze, dread washing through me in a slow, suffocating wave. “I’ll be right there,” I said quietly.