Chapter 10
Quill
Present Day
I’m going to have to be more careful.
She saw me last night. I just couldn’t help but leave the closet and walk toward her. The same something about her that makes me want to strangle her with my bare hands makes me want to own her.
Her life. Her death. Her cunt.
The gravitational pull toward her is insane. Even as I’m telling myself I need to stay back and observe silently from the bedroom closet, I just can’t fucking help it.
My feet take one step, then another, even as big warning signs flash before my eyes. I tighten the hoodie around my mask, making sure it fits snugly on my face.
I hope she didn’t recognize me.
She couldn’t have, right? She would have said something. I disguised my voice, and I was wearing the same full mask as now.
No, she didn’t recognize me.
She merely let me fuck her throat and then her pussy with my gun, because she’s a fucking whore. She’s made that very clear.
I hate her, and I wish she were dead to me. I wish she were dead, period.
I wish I had the strength to follow through on the urge I used to struggle against.
But when my hand lifts on the sleeping form sprawled out in bed, it’s not to strangle her. Not even to strike her. It’s to capture a tendril of her curly red hair and push it back over her ear.
I don’t know if many people would find her beautiful. I never had. I always thought she looked like an insect. But I guess it’s one of those optical illusion things. You rub your eyes and suddenly the darkness holds the shape. It’s not a face, it’s a vase.
It’s not an insect, it’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
I can’t seem to get back to viewing her like an insect, no matter how hard I rub my eyes.
The comforter has slipped from her just enough that I see the green Christmas onesie she’s wearing.
I nearly groan from how stupid it looks.
She went back to her house the second Officer Jones gave her the green light, and the first thing she did was put on that fucking Christmas onesie with actual pom-poms on the tree? What is she, twelve?
It was funny though, how quickly she gathered the very few belongings she’d brought over to the hotel, and high-tailed it out of there. Most people would do anything to stay at the penthouse suite. And I had reserved it for a week. It cost me seventy grand, too.
But I guess she didn’t feel safe there. She was right to be scared.
She was wrong, though, to think she was safe here. She’s not safe anywhere.
I edge closer to the bed, the sight of her making my mouth water, regardless of her stupid onesie, or the glasses that are still perched awry on her nose, or the trail of drool dripping out of her mouth, or the book half-hiding her chest. She clearly fell asleep reading.
I sit down next to her, wincing as the mattress dips more than I’d expected, and she moans and shifts to her side.
I take the book away gently, shut it, and put it on her bedside table.
I pull off her glasses and place them on the table too.
Then I wipe the little trail of drool with my finger, and taste it.
She still tastes so fucking good.
One of her hands is clamped over her pussy through the fabric of her onesie, and I know it’s not the book she’s reading that made her masturbate loudly in the house her parents just died in, while I was watching from the closet.
I don’t think anyone ever orgasmed from reading Agatha Christie.
“Naughty girl,” I breathe in her ear.
Now that she’s asleep, helpless and beautiful, I can’t seem to bring myself to call her a whore. I can pretend, just for an evening, that she’s just as worthy of my love as I thought she was back in senior year of high school.
She isn’t. She fucking isn’t. She ruined it all and destroyed my life.
But as long as I don’t hear her chirpy voice or see her green-blue eyes blinking at me from behind her stupid round glasses, I can pretend.
I drag a finger down the side of her face, then against her neck, feeling her pulse. It would take so little effort to stop it permanently, and today feels like the worst day of my life, because I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m incapable of it.
I hate myself, I really hate myself for what I do next.
Lowering myself over her, I brush my lips to hers.
At once, she moans, and I edge backward, my heart racing.
Fuck. Is she awake?
“Quill...” she moans. “Please... Quill...”
She’s dreaming. That’s what it is. Just a dream. But I’m only human, and I latch onto those words that tell me her body is aching for mine. Just like mine is aching for hers.
No matter how much we hate each other’s guts.
She’s twisting around in the bedsheets now, her fingers digging into the fabric keeping them from her crotch. She looks frantic, her mouth forming a desperate, silent plea, that I can easily guess the meaning of.
But she’s sleeping.
I hesitate, my heart still beating hard. I have no qualms to shoot a man dead, but this is something else.
I may have fucked her with my gun, but only because I could tell she wanted it. I wouldn’t have gone so far if she hadn’t spoken the words that confirmed it.
Now, as I stare at her sleeping, I’m pretty sure she wants it too.
And yet...
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I force myself to resist my twisted temptation.
Instead, I stop at unzipping her onesie, my eyes taking in her creamy breasts, my breath hot on her stiff nipples. She moans and arches toward me, and I wonder if she’s dreaming of what happened earlier.
Is that what she orgasmed to?
I can’t tell if I’m hoping so or if the thought makes me furious.
She didn’t know it was me. She allowed a stranger to touch her. To fuck her. To make her come.
She should’ve chosen the bullet. Instead, she spread her legs like the whore she is.
And yet, now... she’s calling my name.
I can’t tell if I want to kiss her again, or strangle her.
No. Easy. Don’t wake her. Stay calm.
Huffing out ragged breaths against her chest, I watch her bring her fingers to her mound, tense with the thought that those should be my fingers. But instead of touching her, I watch.
She moans again, louder than ever, her index finger searching for her clit.
She’s so fucking wet. Bet she still tastes good down there, too.
She’s so frustrated she’s practically crying, writhing around, unable to make herself come, her mind a prison to whatever filthy dream she’s lost in.
“Quill...” she groans again.
Without thinking, I snake an arm around her upper body, heavy against the hair spread out around her like a halo, in a position that feels far too much like a hug. My mouth is inches away from her stiff nipple, and it’s all I can do not to run my tongue over it.
Her fingers are clamped against her pussy, unable to bring her release. I know if she were awake, she’d be telling me to hurry the hell up and fuck her. That is, if we were back in high school and the past three years hadn’t happened.
My bossy little cricket.
I grit my teeth at the sappy nickname I gave her the first time she came all over my face, chirping exactly like a cricket. Then I go back to watching, the shadow of a smirk on my face, as she gives up at last, whimpering loudly, her entire core clamping from her frustrated need.
Good. She’s suffering. I want her to suffer.
But the sight of her coming all over my gun was too intense. It reawakened everything. It made me wish it was my cock she was drenching with her cum, instead of my gun.
But I’m good at repressing my urges. After all, she’s still alive and kicking, isn’t she?
Exasperation causes me to grab her fingers roughly and bring them to my mouth. Damnit. If she were any less of a heavy sleeper, that would definitely have awakened her.
Luckily, she’s still asleep, even snoring lightly, as I suck her fingers in, tasting her juices. Just as delicious as ever.
It’s hard to leave them. It’s hard to get up and stuff her breasts back into the hideous onesie.
I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gotten so close. I should have stayed in the closet. But I guess there was no harm done. She’s sleeping as deeply as ever. She’ll never know.
I turn around quietly, cross the room, and put my hand over the doorknob, preparing to turn it, when I hear a rustling of bedsheets.
Then the sound of her sleepy voice.
“Quill?”
Fuck.