Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Cain
She comes to me in darkness, as I knew she would.
I watch from the window as Celeste parks her car at the edge of my property, far enough from the cabin that someone driving by wouldn't notice it.
Smart girl.
She's learning to think like someone with secrets.
Midnight was the time I gave her, and she's prompt—another sign that she's already mine.
The uncertain don't arrive on time; they hesitate, circle, debate.
But Celeste walks straight to my door like she's coming home.
She doesn't knock.
Uses the key I gave her, and lets herself in.
The confidence of that action sends heat through my blood.
"I'm here," she says to the seemingly empty cabin.
I step out from the shadows of the hallway. "I knew you would be."
She's dressed all in black—jeans, blouse, leather jacket.
Her dark hair is loose, and there's something different about her face.
Resolution, maybe.
Or recognition of what this moment means.
"You said you had something to show me about my father."
"I do." I move toward her slowly, giving her time to back away. She doesn't. "But first, you need to understand that what you're about to see will change how you view him. There's no going back."
"There's already no going back." She touches her bruised lips, where I marked her. "Show me."
I lead her to my library—not the main room where my common books are displayed, but the locked room behind it.
My private collection.
First editions, rare manuscripts, and things that shouldn't exist.
Like the files I've spread across the oak desk.
"How did you get these?" she asks, looking at the police department files, the ones stamped SEALED.
"There are benefits to being overlooked. People forget I exist, leave things unlocked, speak freely when they think no one's listening." I hand her the first file. "This is from seven years ago."
She opens it, reads. Her face pales. "This is Jake. He was accused of sexual assault. The girl was seventeen."
"Yes. She withdrew the complaint after a conversation with your father."
"No." But she's still reading, seeing the truth in black and white. "It says here Dad convinced her it would ruin her life to pursue charges. That Jake was young, made a mistake, had a bright future."
"Keep reading."
The second file is from five years ago.
Another complaint against Jake, this one from a woman who worked at the department.
Inappropriate touching, comments, showing up at her home uninvited.
"She was transferred to another county," Celeste says quietly. "Given a glowing recommendation by my father."
"Rather than deal with the problem, he relocated it."
The third file is from last year.
A domestic violence call where Jake was the responding officer.
The woman later complained that Jake had propositioned her, suggested she could pay for his silence in other ways.
"Investigation closed," Celeste reads. "Insufficient evidence. Investigating officer: Sheriff Sterling."
She sets down the files with shaking hands. "He knew. He knew what Jake was, and he protected him."
"Your father isn't evil," I say carefully. "He's weak. He believes in loyalty, in protecting his own, in second chances. He can't reconcile the Jake he thinks he knows with the Jake who does these things, so he chooses not to see."
"But you see."
"I see everything. It's my gift and my curse." I move closer to her. "Your father is hunting me for removing threats he refused to acknowledge. The irony isn't lost on me."
She turns to face me fully. "Is this supposed to make me hate him?"
"It's supposed to make you understand that the line between good and evil isn't where you think it is. Your father, the good sheriff, has enabled a predator for years. I, the killer he hunts, have stopped more predators than he ever has."
"Why show me this? Why now?"
"Because you need to know who you're choosing. If you stay with me tonight, you're not just choosing a killer over a cop. You're choosing truth over comfortable lies. You're choosing to see the world as it really is."
She's quiet for a long moment, staring at the files. Then she laughs, dark and bitter. "All these years, I've been writing about moral complexity, about good people doing bad things and bad people doing good things. And I never realized I was living in it."
"We're all living in it. Most people just refuse to see."
She looks up at me, and there's something new in her eyes.
Not innocence lost—she never really had that.
But illusions shattered.
The last of her restraints falling away.
"My father protected Jake, and Jake tried to assault me." Her voice is steady, cold. "If you hadn't been watching, if you hadn't stopped him..."
"But I did stop him."
"Yes." She steps closer. "You did. You've been protecting me from the start. Even before I knew you existed."
"I protect what's mine."
"Am I?" She's close enough now that I can smell her shampoo, feel the heat from her body. "Yours?"
"You've been mine since you wrote your first book. Since you created a character who kills for love and made him sympathetic. You were calling for me without knowing it."
"And you answered."
"I always answer you."
She reaches up, traces the scar through my eyebrow. "I'm not running anymore. Not from the truth, not from you. I came here tonight knowing what you are, what you've done. What you'll keep doing."
"And?"
"And I choose you anyway. I choose you because of it." Her hand moves to my chest. "I've spent my whole life writing about darkness from the outside, observing it from a safe distance. I'm done being safe."
"Celeste—"
"No." She cuts me off. "No warnings about how dangerous you are. No chances for me to change my mind. I know what I'm choosing. Who I'm choosing." She rises on her toes, her mouth near my ear. "I'm choosing my monster."
The control I've maintained shatters.
I crush her against me, my mouth claiming hers with none of the restraint from before.
This isn't like our first kiss—it's a claiming.
She responds with just as much need, her nails digging into my shoulders, pulling me closer.
"The library," she breathes against my mouth. "I want you in the library, surrounded by all these stories about death and love and the thin line between them."
I lift her onto the desk, files scattering to the floor.
Evidence of her father's failures carpeting the ground beneath us.
Fitting that we'll consummate this while standing on the ruins of her old life.
"Are you sure?" I ask one last time, my hands framing her face.
"I've never been more sure of anything." She pulls me down for another kiss. "Make me yours in every way."
My fingers tangle in her dark brown hair, the subtle burgundy strands catching the dim library light as I yank her head back, exposing the pale column of her throat.
She gasps, her pale green eyes—almost golden in the low glow—locking onto my pale grey ones with raw hunger.
At 5'5", she fits perfectly against my 6'4" frame, her slim body arching into my muscular chest as I press between her thighs.
I bite down on her neck, hard enough to mark, sucking until a bruise blooms under her skin.
Her hands claw at my black sweater, pulling it up to rake nails over the ridges of my abs, tracing the scars from years of survival.
"Cain," she moans, voice thick with need.
I rip her leather jacket open, buttons popping free, and shove it off her shoulders.
Underneath, her black blouse clings to her average curves, nipples already hard peaks against the fabric.
I tear the blouse apart, exposing her pale breasts, full lips parting in a sharp inhale.
My mouth descends, latching onto one nipple, teeth grazing as I suck hard, tongue flicking the sensitive bud.
She bucks against me, her Doc Martens scraping the desk edge.
"More," she demands, fingers fumbling with my belt.
I let her, watching her expressive hands—those that gesture wildly when she talks—tremble as she frees my cock.
It springs out, thick and hard, veins pulsing.
Her pale green eyes, nearly black from arousal, widen before she wraps her hand around the base, stroking firmly, thumb circling the head slick with pre-cum.
I growl, shoving her jeans down her thighs, bunching the fabric at her ankles.
No panties—bold choice.
Her pussy is bare, lips swollen and wet, clit peeking out.
I slide two scarred fingers along her slit, coating them in her juices before plunging inside.
She cries out, walls clenching tight around the intrusion, hot and slick.
I pump them deep, curling to hit that spot that makes her thighs quake, my thumb grinding her clit.
"Fuck, you're soaked," I rasp, free hand pinning her wrist above her head.
Her tiny scar through her eyebrow furrows as she bites her full lower lip, concentrating on the building pressure.
"For you," she pants, releasing my cock to grip the desk edge. "Always for you."
I withdraw my fingers, bringing them to her mouth.
She sucks them clean, tongue swirling, eyes never leaving mine. The sight snaps something primal in me.
I notch my cock at her entrance, the broad head pressing against her folds.
With one brutal thrust, I bury myself to the hilt, her pussy stretching around my girth, gripping like a vice.
She screams, back bowing, nails digging into my shoulders through the sweater.
I don't give her time to adjust—pounding into her with relentless force, desk creaking under us.
Each slam drives deeper, balls slapping her ass, her juices coating my shaft.
Her legs wrap around my waist, heels digging into my back, pulling me impossibly closer.
"Harder," she begs, voice breaking.
I oblige, one hand wrapping around her throat—not choking, but holding, feeling her pulse race under my scarred palm.
The silver scar on my eyebrow twitches as I lean down, capturing her mouth in a bruising kiss, tongues battling as I fuck her raw.
Sweat slicks our skin, her pale body flushing pink under my assault.
I release her throat to pinch her nipples, twisting until she whimpers into my mouth.
Her walls flutter, tightening—close.