11. Are You Dreaming of Me?
11
Are You Dreaming of Me?
Theron
Although my search for Ever’s heart was at the top of my priority list, I had other patients who’d been waiting for months or even years, in fact, for me to find suitable donors for a variety of organs. Tonight I was standing outside of a bar in Lawrence, where a man who’d beaten his last girlfriend half to death with his own hands was now double-fisting tallboys and screaming at a Bruins game.
This was the most dangerous part of the job — the hunt. But equally as exhilarating.
My methods were meticulous, and varied. Trawling reports of murder, domestic violence, and manslaughter cases, bail bonds and hospital admittance. I even had Tabitha frequent the local women’s shelters. Once I found someone depraved enough to deserve my scalpel, I accessed their medical records to ensure they had a clean bill of health. That was, unfortunately, where so many of my cases had to be dropped - those who treated the world and everyone in it like shit tended to treat themselves like shit as well. But luckily for me, William McFinn was a lowlife piece of shit who drank like a fish, yet had never touched a pack of cigarettes in his life.
It was his lungs that I wanted.
A long-time waitlist patient suffering from pulmonary hypertension had almost given up hope when he was told how far down the organ transplant list he was. An IT engineer who worked from home to be the sole provider for himself and his elderly parents he cared for, he worried about how they would get on after his death. He was preparing for the worst when I found him, and offered to take him on as a patient so long as he could follow my rules.
“They’re going to blow it this year anyway, Mikey! I’ll see you tomorrow,” I heard William shout from inside the bar. Through the slightly ajar door I watched as he fumbled with his car keys. He was a scrawny man, body weak from years of sitting at a desk and filing tax returns for the state.
Tabitha had dropped me off here a few hours ago in one of our unmarked cars, and was now parked down the road and waiting for my signal. Each hunt was different, as many of my targets lived in crowded conditions, which meant taking them from their homes was going to draw attention. William here was no different, so he needed to be captured before he drove back to his home.
I pushed off the wall I’d been leaning against, flicking the unsmoked butt of a cigarette to the ground and twisting it beneath my heel. I was lucky tonight — William’s car was at the far end of the lot under a broken streetlamp, where no one would see me sliding behind the wheel with him slumped over in the passenger seat.
A needle filled with Thiopental was capped in my pocket, and by the size of my hunt I knew it’d be more than enough to make him lose consciousness with a single circulation through the brain. Thiopental induced unconsciousness rapidly, and when administered in a high enough dosage — could function as a lethal injection. Unnecessary in my line of work, as I needed my marks alive when I relieved them of their organs.
William had had one too many this evening, and didn’t hear my footsteps as I swept up behind him in the dark, brandishing the syringe and carefully injecting its contents into the side of his neck. He struggled for only a moment before slumping against the driver’s side door. I caught his keys before they hit the pavement. Pushing him across into the passenger’s side of his truck, I drove out of the lot and sent a text to Tabitha to meet me near a park and ride. We’d leave his car there, but take his wallet and valuables to make it appear more akin to a robbery. Everything else he had on him would burn with his body.
I looked over at his slumped figure, regularly pressing my fingers to his pulse to ensure his lungs were still getting enough oxygen. “Tonight’s the night, William, where I exalt you of your sins and give your body to someone who deserves it.”
Tabitha was a rather young woman for her profession of choice, hailing from an affluent family in Connecticut with ties to the Pentagon. Her father was in the office of the Surgeon General, but it was never her desire to enter politics or make a name for herself in that area. Her predisposition for violence had caught my father and I’s attention, and when she was dishonorably discharged from her medical unit in the Air Force for breaking the arm of a MP who happened to be alone with her in the bunkhouse. We knew she was a candidate for the job.
Her steel-blue eyes glanced up at me through the rearview mirror as I checked my mark’s vitals in the back of the SUV. We were heading towards my medical facility on the west side of Boston, outfitted from an old mill building my father had purchased before I was born.
“Something on your mind, Tabitha?” I asked, releasing the bulb of the blood pressure cuff. She was usually the silent type, but her lingering eyes told me there was more to her glances this evening.
“Your father called me.”
I paused for a moment before packing away my stethoscope, not looking back up at her. He’d tried calling me every day the last week, leaving long-winded messages about how I was jeopardizing everything we’d built together and this was a mistake. He’d even made some poorly thought out threats - that I knew he’d never commit to — such as pulling my name from his will. He knew that, unlike my brothers, I had enough money of my own to not be bothered by such triviality, so he was clearly running out of ideas.
Tabitha sighed, an uncommon show of emotion from my assistant who usually acted more akin to a robot than a person. It was one of the reasons I liked her. “He’s concerned about the girl.”
“She’s not his to be concerned about,” I snapped , and watched her blonde brows shoot upward in surprise. I tried to maintain indifference around Tabitha, as she did with me. It worked for us. There were very few times that I ever allowed my mask to falter, but I could feel the edges of it curling back.
“But is she a concern ? You’re hunting something for her,” she said, matter of fact. “You’ve never taken on a patient who you’ve made a personal relationship with.”
“I haven’t had personal relationships,” I muttered.
Tabitha hummed to herself, turning down the private road that led to our facility. She barely paused outside of the tall gate which opened smoothly as she pressed the remote. The driveway up to the old mill was as familiar as my heartbeat, we’d made this drive together countless times, hunting together for years now.
“You’re the boss,” she murmured. “I trust you to make the right decision where the business is mantle.”
I felt my neck flush with anger. “And if this isn’t about the mantle? Why can’t I do something for myself? My father believes one woman will be the ruination of his life’s work,” I scoffed.
By now we were inside the covered garage, and Tabitha threw the car into park, in her seat to stare at me. She was a rather pretty woman, in an Ice-Queen sort of way. Her high, sharp cheekbones were striking on a face splattered with delicate freckles. She could have walked a runway, and no one would bat an eye. Instead she spent her nights with a serial killer who harvested organs from the scum of the earth. Our kind were a different sort of animal, bred from and thriving in darkness. We had just enough good in us to know how to direct our bloodlust in a way that could be helpful towards society.
“Your work is important, not only to the people we’re treating but to controlling your urges, Theron. You need the hospital, and an obsession - like the one you have for this woman — could topple years of restraint. Can you tell me honestly that your intentions are suddenly pure?”
My jaw clenched, but I knew what she was saying was true. If something went wrong with Ever, it could crumble the psyche that I’d spent my entire life building. Suppressed urges had already started to arise, but I didn’t want to hunt Ever. Not like I hunted my marks. Yes, I wanted to own her pain, but also her pleasure. Any and all emotions that I could coax from her, and I refused to believe that was a bad thing.
“I have everything under control, Tabitha. If my father calls again, tell him I’ll only respond if he has an apology waiting for me.”
She rolled her eyes and snorted. “You’d sooner receive a proclamation of love from me than get Orlo Hawthorne to admit he was wrong.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “I wouldn’t dare to expect such a thing. From either of you.”
* * *
I stepped out of the shower, watching swirls of crimson and pink drain away behind me. I usually felt satiated after a harvest, but the rush felt dull compared to my thoughts of Ever. Nothing could take the edge off the way she did. Just imagining her touch made my muscles flex and my body ache in anticipation. I was restless without her, and saw her eyes when I closed mine. I’d checked on her location the moment I exited the operating room and was pleased to see she was still in her apartment, hopefully resting after her night in the ER. I needed to see her though, and after the scare she gave me. I found myself craving her more than ever.
The transplant went just as planned, and our patient was settled in a recovery room while Tabitha monitored his health. He’d be in our care for another week before he was able to return home, and in the meantime, I’d arranged for home care to be provided for his elderly parents. My father’s extreme diligence kept our circle small, meaning that only one donor and one mark could be treated at a time. After the organs were harvested, the remains were incinerated.
Our donor surprised me and was also able to provide two kidneys that were being picked up for transport today to another black market operation. My grandfather had arranged certain services like this over the years, knowing that time was our enemy when harvesting. After finding a reputable source that operated just as ours did in New York, an alliance was forged.
It was late afternoon by the time I’d driven away from the facility, leaving Tabitha with her duties and a new novel by her favorite author. She would monitor our patients from the other side of a one-way mirror and be masked when entering their rooms to collect vitals. It was a monotonous and round-the-clock job that she performed, and I wondered how my grandfather had ever done it on his own.
I drove home and took the T to Ever’s, becoming more anxious the closer I grew to her. I’d tried calling her on my way over, but she didn’t answer, and I wondered if she’d taken the sleeping pills her doctor had prescribed for her. They could be potent, especially for someone with underlying conditions.
Climbing up the stairs to her apartment, no one batted an eye. I’d chosen an oversized raincoat to go over my sweater, hating the way the winter weather bowed to spring. We’d suffer typhoon-like downpours for the next three months before the summer heat had us missing the snow.
Standing outside her door I tried calling her, hearing the phone ringing from inside the apartment. A vague sense of worry tainted my excitement as my mind ran through a litany of morbid reasons why she wouldn’t be answering. She’d claimed she didn’t have ill-intent when falling asleep outside the hospital, but should I really take her word for it?
I pulled out the spare key I’d taken from her and unlocked the door, slowly opening it as the phone went to voicemail. Her curly brown hair fell around her head, an arm thrown over her eyes as she lay on the tattered futon in the studio apartment. I gently closed the door behind me, shrugging off my jacket and boots before I approached her chest. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her gentle rise and fall and the bottle of Eszopiclone on the coffee table. She was in a deep sleep.
I knelt beside her, taking in every feature. She looked every bit the sleeping angel. Awake, her expression was usually pained, guarded, or angry. If she was looking in my direction, nose wrinkled and brows furrowed she seemed as if she was trying to read my thoughts. It was nice to see her at rest, free from pain. She had high, full cheekbones and smooth skin that I imagined would be olive — when not grown pale from her sickness. I fantasized that with a little sun, her nose could be splashed with delicate freckles and her hair would have strips of caramel running through it. I wanted to see her healthy. Full of life.
She was splayed out on the small bed in an oversized hoodie and underwear, her long legs tangled around a blanket she’d kicked off at some point. I could see the scattering of white, raised scars that lined her upper thighs, and my fingers delicately traced them. She’d carried so much guilt and shame within herself for far too long and with no one giving a damn if she was dead or alive. My hand swept down her leg, and there was a lightning-like charge under my fingertips where I touched her. I could spend my entire life watching her sleep, and I’d be fulfilled. Content.
“My beautiful, Ever,” I whispered when my palm reached her knee. She didn’t even stir as I allowed myself to grip her thigh and imagine them crushing my head. I’d gladly suffocate beneath her.
I pushed myself up onto the futon, bringing her legs to rest on my lap before she mumbled and stretched. I sat very still, watching her arms lift above her head and exposing her delicate blue underwear. Through the thin material, I could see the outline of her lips, taunting me deliciously with a streak of moisture.
“Fuck,” I groaned, leaning towards her. “Are you dreaming of me, little rabbit?”
Ever sighed sleepily, her nose nestling into her hair. I couldn’t restrain myself from pressing my thumb through the cotton and stroking upward. Her arousal could be smelt in the air around us, musky and sweet. I brought my thumb back to my lips and tasted her, groaning at the delicate flavor. My poor little rabbit had felt so overwhelmed, so full of rage and pain for months that I only wanted to help ease her tension.
My fingers rested on her pelvis while my thumb massaged lazy circles around her responsive bundle of nerves. Her hips bucked languidly below me, urging me to continue my worship of her body, and I obliged. Ever’s eyes remained closed, but her lips parted slowly, and a groan escaped her pretty little mouth. I wanted to capture her lips in a kiss, feeling her breath mingling with my own, but I wanted her to be awake. When I kissed her, I needed to feel my hunger for her be returned.
Ever was soaking through her cotton panties, my thumb dipping lower and outlining her entrance that was begging to be filled. I wouldn’t fuck her yet, but my little rabbit deserved an orgasm. She was too precious and too needy to be left wanting. All the blood drained from my head and into my cock, making my head spin.
I hooked the edge of her underwear with a finger and pulled them gently off, stuffing them into my pocket before studying the beauty like her pussy was a Monet in a private exhibit. She was delicate and blush-colored like her lips. I leaned down, draping one of her legs over my shoulder as I inhaled her arousal. Ever was fragrant like a flower, honeysuckle dripping from her like ambrosia and making her glisten.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath as I dipped my head and pressed a gentle kiss to her clit. She pressed upward in return as I smiled between her legs. She wanted this. She needed this. I blew softly on her swollen center, and she started to breathe rapidly, biting into her bottom lip. She still had one arm thrown over her eyes, her chest rising with every groan.
“Ummmuhh,” she moaned breathlessly.
My tongue caressed her wet slit, dragging upwards and coaxing a full-body shudder from her. God, she was so sweet and responsive that I could savor her for hours. An eternity between her legs wouldn’t be enough. I continued to lap and suck her gorgeous, pink pussy while she bucked against my lips.
When she let out a moan, “Theron . . .Ummuh.” I froze.
Looking up, I thought maybe she had awoken, but her face was still hidden in the crook of her arm, and her breathing was unchanged. She had actually moaned my name. She was dreaming of me doing this to her. She wanted me . Ever knew that I was the only one who could bring her pleasure. I just had to convince her waking self to let me love her the way she deserves.
My cock was straining against my jeans, begging to be released, if only for a moment. I unzipped and pulled my throbbing member free of its confines, fisting it in my hand while the other went back to massaging Ever’s pulsing clit. I started to stroke myself, rubbing my thumb over the pearlescent precum that had formed on the head of my cock. I took that bead of cum and swept it over her glistening cunt, hungering to have her filled with it. I knew she was on birth control, and I was by no means wanting a child, but a carnal need in me yearned to have her swollen with my baby. Something that was ours . I ached to see my cum dripping from her cunt like icing.
“My Ever,” I growled as the pearl of cum fell between her lips. “My forever.”
I was in a state of bliss, even if it was just to see her dripping with a mixture of our cum, legs quivering as she had my name on her lips. I needed her to chant it like a prayer.
Theron.
Theron.
Theron.