Chapter 4 #3
Confusion flickers across Harper’s face as I pull back.
And then realization. For a moment, I wonder if I should have shared this sooner.
How can I expect her to let me in when I haven’t done the same?
But her expression smooths, like she’s grateful that I’m opening the door.
I think I even catch the flicker of a dark smile in her eyes.
“I know you saw the list in my scrapbook of the people I killed to avenge my brother’s death.
But Marc Beaumont was not the first man I murdered.
” I slide out to the tip of my erection.
“Marcus Urkhart was, and he was just eighteen years old.”
I grip tighter to her head and glide in all the way, but it’s not just me pushing.
It’s Harper sucking, her cheeks hollowing, saliva glistening on her lips.
I start a slow cadence of motion that begins at her lips and ends at the back of her throat.
I relish every whimper and moan she makes, every swirl of her tongue over the tip when I nearly pull free of her mouth.
“My little brother, Billy, had a stutter growing up,” I say to the rhythm of my thrusts.
“And Marcus tormented him for it. Even long after it was gone. Though Marcus was a senior like me and they were never in the same class, Marcus found a way to bully my brother. In the hallway. In the bathroom. Walking home.”
I thrust hard with the confession of one of my biggest regrets—and Harper takes the intrusion with a loud and shameless moan.
“Marcus was particularly cruel to Billy for a few weeks after one of his other favorite people to bully moved to a new town. And I knew that. But I wasn’t thinking about the risks. If I had been, I would’ve walked Billy home that day, and maybe none of this darkness would have consumed me.”
I shudder, but not with the memories, or the guilt. It’s pleasure that overtakes me now, binding around the pain until it dulls. A groan rumbles in my chest as Harper lavishes the crown with attention before taking me deep into her mouth.
“Billy was supposed to go to soccer practice before dinner one day,” I continue, pressing my eyes closed as growing euphoria ripples through me.
“We lived in such a small town, and it’s not like Billy was a little kid—he was fourteen and rode his bike to friends’ houses by himself all the time.
” Harper hums around my flesh. A shiver races across my skin.
“My parents were still at work, and I thought I was hot shit with my new driver’s license, so I offered to take him to practice.
When he didn’t come home right after school, I just .
. . didn’t think anything of it. Not until he was going to be late and didn’t answer his phone. ”
The pleasure rolling through me is so discordant with the horror of memory.
But somehow, in the embrace of Harper’s warmth, they slot together, as though she soothes the wounds that never heal.
“I remember the dread that descended on me when my calls went unanswered. I took the keys to my mom’s car, sat in the driver’s seat, and used the Find My Phone app to locate Billy’s cell.
It was only a few blocks away. In an alley.
Between a recycling bin and a closed garage.
When I got there, it was right beneath Billy’s hand, covered in his blood. ”
I pause, Harper’s lips fixed around my erection as I force my rage beneath rapture.
“I could tell he’d fought back by the wounds on his knuckles and forearm.
But the gushing head wound was severe. Whoever hit him clearly thought he wouldn’t make it and dragged him into the shadows to die.
Except, he didn’t. Billy was still in a coma when I deduced what the police wouldn’t,” I continued.
“I saw Marcus two days later at school with a black eye. The way he looked at me . . . I just knew. Marcus was the one who’d attacked my brother.
I decided right there in the hallway that I was going to kill him.
There wasn’t a single reservation in my mind. ”
I close my eyes, and Harper purrs a long note of approval that vibrates through my erection. This is what she wants. What she needs from me. Not just my wretched sins and raw confessions. She wants me to find bliss in darkness.
And I do.
My pace quickens, just a little. My hand becomes a fist in her long, dark hair.
I try to keep my strokes measured as I fuck her mouth, but my restraint is unraveling with every second that passes.
Her little whimpers of need and her notes of pleasure—Harper keeps me going, begging without words.
When I open my eyes and look down, her focus is fused to my face even though tears stream past her lashes and her cheeks are ruddy with effort.
“I went on the state sex offender registry,” I grit out.
“I searched our zip code, and brought up the photo and address of the nearest piece of shit pedo I could find. Some guy named Clinton Taff. It was so fucking easy to break into his apartment when he was gone and steal just enough evidence that would link him to my crime.”
And Christ, that surge of adrenaline as I left his unit and ran down the five flights of stairs was intoxicating.
It swells in me now, coursing through my body as I glide across Harper’s tongue.
I fuck her mouth like she was right there with me.
I would have claimed her in the stairwell of Taff’s apartment complex with a bag of his belongings clutched in my hand.
I would have put her on her knees and soaked up every ounce of pleasure.
She would have consumed me, looking up at me just as she’s doing now.
Not with judgment, or terror, or revulsion. But with acceptance.
“It took me only a day to find and steal from Taff. And I killed Marcus the next. He was dead before Billy even woke up in the hospital.”
I tip my head back and moan, pleasure threatening to overtake me, my pace increasing.
But Harper must think I’m about to come before I’ve finished my tale, because she closes her mouth just enough over my erection so that her incisors grate on my length in warning.
When my eyes snap back to hers, she levels me with a merciless glare.
And I can read everything she wants to say in its mercury depths.
Don’t fade out on me, Nolan. I need this as much as you do.
I swallow, trying to quell the orgasm that’s ready to break over me. Harper growls a sharp note of reprimand, a warning to not come until the story is done. She tilts her head at just the right angle to take me even deeper then gives the slightest nod. Tell me everything.
A single thought rips through me. I would die for this woman.
My grip tightens on her hair, and I lose control.
“I followed him after school,” I grit out as I piston into her mouth.
Her lips firm around my cock and she moans, pleading for more.
“I caught him right in the same alley that I found Billy in. Snuck up behind him. Put him in a headlock. He wasn’t so tough then.
” Another sound of approval from Harper, this note in a dark tone.
“He was crying, begging me to let him go. Promised he’d never do it again.
” Electricity fizzes at the base of my spine.
My balls tighten. “I said, ‘I’m here to make sure of that.’ And then I fucking squeezed. ”
Euphoria hits my veins as the first ropes of cum spill into her throat.
I relive those moments as I pour into her.
The sticky heat of Marcus’s straining throat against my arm.
The twitch of his muscles. The weakness in his limbs when he slipped into unconsciousness.
The last hiss of air when I was sure he was dead and let him drop to the ground.
I planted my stolen evidence that would connect Clinton Taff to Marcus Urkhart, took one final look at the justice I’d delivered, and then I walked away.
There was no guilt. No remorse. Only satisfaction. Just like I feel now.
My heartbeat surges in my ears, dampening the sound of Harper’s contented hum as the final drops of cum pulse over her tongue.
Her damp lashes clump together, her hair knotted in my loosening grip.
Her lips are swollen around my cock. She’s a mess.
A fucking beautiful, fierce, otherworldly goddess of a mess.
I pull free, sweat slicked across my skin, my body still shuddering with the aftershocks of my orgasm. And then I drop to my knees, gently bringing my forehead to her shoulder. I feel unburdened by a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying. And relieved, when she leans her head against mine.
“I was there when Billy woke up a few days later. I made him promise not to tell anyone that it was Marcus who attacked him and to give them Taff’s description instead.
Just like he made me promise to be a better man,” I whisper.
A sting builds at the back of my throat.
In my eyes. At first, it’s unexpected, and I think maybe I do feel a measure of regret for the things I’ve done.
But that’s not it. “I knew something must be wrong with me when I felt no remorse for killing Marcus. But I wanted to be the kind of person Billy could look up to. And for a long time, I tried. I’m just . . . not a good man.”
“You’re right,” Harper says, leaning more pressure against me. “A good man would rely on someone else to deliver punishment. A good man would accept the fate of his loved ones in favor of the rules of society.”
Harper presses a kiss to my neck, then leans away, forcing me to meet her gaze.
“You embrace your sins,” she says, “and you demand that others face theirs. You deliver justice with your own two hands. You break the rules when they trap us. You defy fate. You save the people you love, and when you can’t, you avenge them.”
Harper leans forward, pressing her forehead to mine. And still I see the determination in her eyes, shining in the shadows.
“You are a villain, Nolan Rhodes,” she says. “And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”