Chapter 2 #3
“You taste like sin, mo anam cara,” he says as he settles heavy between my thighs. “Lift your hips.” Breathless, I comply, and he hooks an arm beneath my lower back, positioning me at the perfect angle to take him.
Unrestrained, Grayson enters me in one forceful thrust, sealing his mouth over mine to swallow my cry. I latch onto his neck, clinging to him as he fills me with deep, powerful thrusts. My thighs quiver from the impact, my breasts ache to feel the abrasive rub of his chest.
“God—fuck, you feel so fucking perfect,” he says on a rough groan.
He grips my hips and slams inside me again, rougher, harder, his kiss stealing air from my lungs. I work at his buttons, desperate to remove all barriers between us, just as he shoves my blouse up to reveal me fully.
Tugging at the collar, I break the kiss as I tear the shirt off his shoulders.
Then I press my palm to his bare chest, feeling his warmth, fingers curling against lean muscle.
My fingertips trace the rough scars across his skin—the number of his kills—and an arousing tremor grips my body as he buries himself deep.
That frantic desperation returns, insatiable. The frenzy consumes us—more, closer, not enough. Never enough.
We fight to get closer, my chest seeking that vital friction. His groan ricochets through me as he grabs my backside and pulls me hard against him, lifting me off the steel.
Legs locked around his trim waist, I undulate my hips, riding him as he braces against the only solid surface to keep us from falling. It feels filthy, and raw, and like fucking perfection.
His fingers dig into my hair to gain a firm grasp as he meets each rock of my hips. “Goddamn, London,” he breathes. “You’re fucking breaking me.”
My body responds to his words, clenching around his cock, my nails raking down his back. “More,” I demand.
Anchoring his forearm around my back, he lifts me off the container as he slams inside me with wild, unhinged thrusts that strip his control.
I muffle my moans against his neck, my teeth finding purchase in his skin, loving the way his pulse throbs against my tongue.
The metallic trace of blood fills my mouth, and I’m not sure if it’s his or mine—if I broke his skin or bit my lip—but it’s enough to send us both over the edge.
“Fuck, London…” he groans, voice scraped raw. “You take me so well—like you were fucking made for me, baby.” His thumb swipes my lip, smearing the blood before he captures my mouth in a brutal kiss.
He lowers his head and bites into the swell of my breast, marking me deeper, as I relinquish a faint cry. We devour each other—a dare to bleed one another dry as fire rushes through our veins.
Pain is the only answer, the only sensation sharp enough to quench a hunger that pleasure alone can’t sate.
As something breaks loose inside him, Grayson hauls me away from the container, his back slamming against a support beam. His thrusts turn feral, unrestrained, driven by something maddening. My hand goes to his neck as I search for his racing heartbeat, and his eyes flare.
“Do it,” he challenges.
I tighten my grip around his throat, and he sinks to the floor, holding me tight as I straddle him, grind against him, fucking him with abandon, his pulse thundering beneath my palm.
Power.
The thrill of taking a life—of owning it—feeling it literally slip through your fingers—
“Ah, fuck… Say you’re mine,” he demands, voice breaking on a rough groan. “Say you’re mine while I fill you, London.”
“You own me, Grayson—all of me is yours.”
His growl vibrates through my chest as his cock hardens and pulses along my inner walls. At the feel of his pending release, I free his throat. His orgasm tears through him, mine crashing over me, violent and consuming as I rock into him.
His heavy breaths fan across my face, his features twisted in the most beautiful display of agony and pleasure. His hands grip my hips, holding me to him, moving me with him, draining every last shudder of release from my body.
I let my head fall against his shoulder, breathless. As his coarse fingertips trace over my spine, I say, “I searched mo anam cara. It means—”
“Soulmate,” he says, an edge of amusement in his tone. “Of course you searched it, mo rúnsearc.”
When I lift my head to meet his eyes, I tilt my chin and cock an eyebrow, my teeth catching on my bottom lip.
His knowing smile steals what’s left of my breath. He drags his thumb down the center of my lips, then swipes a finger across, clearing the last trace of blood. “My secret love,” he whispers before pressing a tender kiss to my mouth.
I kiss him back, as the weight of that endearment carves a hollow in my chest.
Grayson sits braced against the steel beam and the cold, unforgiving floor like the elements don’t touch him, like he’s used to them. Prison may have hardened him, but his tolerance runs deeper.
My fingers find his, tracing from the tips of his nails, across his knuckles, up his rough, callused palms. I touch the scars, smooth and abraded. The tattoos along his arm. The tension still coiled beneath his skin as his breath begins to slow.
My hands slip along his shoulders and onto his chest, mapping the leanly defined muscles, the scars carved deep. I work my way over his body, and he lets me, a reverence in his gaze that spears me.
“Has anyone ever touched you this intimately,” I whisper, a quiver in my voice.
His neck muscles tighten with a hard swallow, and I feel the intensity of it under my palm as I roam up his throat. “Never,” he says, his voice thick.
“I want to know every part of your body,” I say, my fingers coming to rest below his mouth. I sweep my finger across his bottom lip in mimic of his action, feeling the rough stain of blood, loving the soft contrast of his lips, the hunger that surges within me to kiss him.
I move in slowly, capturing his mouth and tasting him lovingly, as if we’re sharing a secret—sharing an insight into each other no one else can access.
As I pull back, I feel the press of his strong hand over my chest, my heart. “It’s beating faster than mine,” he acknowledges. “Does that mean you’re in love with me,” he asks, too genuine to be anything other.
“Do you need to hear me say it?”
“Yes,” he says honestly.
“I’m in love with you, Grayson. I’m not incapable of love, I’ve just never been inspired before. And I don’t want to be separated from you again. I don’t want to be a secret.”
He ponders my answer for a moment, never removing his hand, before he says, “Do you still question whether I’m capable of loving you?”
I glance at the massacre we created together, and he grasps my jaw and forces my gaze back to his. I take his hand in mine, turn it over. Our hands are still covered with traces of blood, it stains our bodies.
“No,” I say, barely above a whisper.
His gaze narrows in question. “But there’s doubt.”
“Only because I understand the mind, how it interprets love.” I meet his gaze. “But yes, I believe you love me—in your own way, and that you’ll try to protect me.”
“Do you believe I could hurt you.”
I can’t hesitate here. “Yes.”
With a deep inhale, he accepts this. We’re not like other couples, arguing to make a point. Some things have to be accepted, especially if we’re unable to change our origins.
He catches me studying his eyes and, delicately, he removes the lenses, revealing the vibrant blue of his irises. My chest tightens.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits.
I lay my hand over his chest, feeling the furious pulse of his beating heart. “I know that, too.”
Love and obsession are so closely linked, the emotions evoked by obsession easily mistaken for love. And when obsession rules our world, we become a slave to its demands.
Grayson has no experience with deep emotion. His response could be volatile.
When physical or psychological pain becomes too severe, the mind and body protect one another—one dulls while the other endures. It’s mercy by design.
But if Grayson were to experience a sudden emotional breakthrough, it would be like a burn victim regaining sensation all at once.
Not a release.
A rupture.
And instead of a merciful death, the mind would shatter.
I shut my eyes against the thought, and Grayson pulls me tighter to him. “I haven’t hunted since I left you that morning.”
His admission catches me off-guard. I drag his arms around me, shielding myself from the chilly air. “But the murders in Brunswick and Minneapolis? The reports said—”
“Seems I have a copycat.”
He says it glibly, but lethal agitation brims beneath his cool exterior. Most serial killers aren’t flattered by an imitator. Rather, it’s an insult.
“Do you know who?”
“No.” He shakes his head lightly. “Not yet. But I will.”
Of course, if Grayson knew who the imitator was, they’d already be eliminated.
“This could further complicate things, or…” I again glance at our victim, only now in a new light. The rapist could serve a bigger purpose. “We need to dispose of the body.”
“I need to,” he emphasizes. “You need to return to your life.”
But I’m already thinking beyond that. My gaze snags on every detail of the warehouse, and I realize it’s not just an abandoned building. It was once a mechanic garage. “This place has far more potential.”
“I love the look on your face right now,” Grayson says as he feathers my hair over my shoulder. “Like someone is about to suffer.”
I tip my head back, locking with his animated gaze. “Is this what it feels like when you design your traps, when everything slides into place and you know it will work?”
“That depends. What do you feel?” His question burns with curiosity. He truly desires to know, to experience what I’m feeling.
“It feels holy—like an epiphany.”
“Epiphany,” he repeats, a calm expression softening the sharp lines of his features. That rare dimple carves his cheek as he smiles. “You were mine, London.”
I fall into him then. Completely. Lost in the blue of his eyes, the softness of his lips, and the red staining our hands. A beautiful and brutal epiphany that could save us, or damn us further, blooms to life right here in the darkness that spawned us.