Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
BLAIRE
“It’s okay to remember.”
Remember.
Remember.
There was something about that word. Something just out of reach.
My hands were sticky. Why were my hands sticky?
I blinked, once, twice. Winder stood in front of me, gripping my shoulders like I was the only thing keeping him upright. “Winder.”
He smiled, a soft, broken thing. “Yeah, baby.”
That smile told me I had been dreaming, and not the good kind of dream. I tore my gaze away from his eyes, looking down at my sticky hands, at the blood that covered them.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Here was the truth, laid out for me without any drugs to numb the pain.
This was real. I had made someone bleed.
And all those times before, I had made someone bleed, too. I had killed them.
“Oh.” My voice was quiet, too quiet for my liking, and my breath was coming too quick.
“It’s okay. Breathe for me. Just focus on your breathing.” Winder rubbed my shoulders, and I clung to the sensation, closing my eyes. “None of this changes anything. None of it. I am still in your corner. I’m still here.”
Whoever I hurt was still in the room, and Winder was trying to distract me from it. I could only hide from the truth for so long, before it came back to haunt me. I opened my eyes and pulled out his grasp.
Leon was slumped in the bathtub, surrounded by a puddle of his blood.
“Oh,” I repeated. While the unsettled sensation of acknowledging I was a murderer sat in my stomach like a ton of bricks, I didn’t feel sad for Leon.
If he knew who I was, and Winder was nervous about this Conrad person, Leon was a liability. But logic didn’t make the emotions disappear.
I slumped to the floor, the tile cold against my bare legs. A slash of blood covered my thigh, what looked like a smeared handprint. Leon must have tried to fight back. Shit.
The worst part was having no recollection of doing it. Zero. I went to bed at night, and woke up someone else, with someone else’s memories.
“Fuck. Fuck!” I wailed, pulling at my hair.
“Give me the knife,” Winder demanded, slamming the door behind him.
“Why?” I looked up at him from the floor, desperate for him to tell me I was dreaming.
“First, so you don’t hurt yourself. Second, because he’s still alive. And unless you want someone else to find him like this, I have to finish the job.” Winder held his hand out. “Knife, Blaire.”
He was going to finish killing someone for me. He was about to involve himself in a situation he didn’t need to, and put himself in danger for me. I shook my head, getting to my knees. “I’ll do it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to let you do it. Let me do it for you.”
I glared, trying to get a grasp on my breathing so I could get to my feet. “Stop trying to fucking protect me, Winder. You can’t save me from this. You can’t protect me from myself.”
Ignoring his hand, I stood, a bit wobbly. Winder sighed and shrugged, and I pushed past him to Leon, still sprawled in the bathtub.
My grip on the knife was so tight it hurt, as I watched the light slowly fading from my victim’s predatory eyes.
Winder was right. He was close to death, but not close enough not to be a liability.
My hand shook as I raised it. I closed my eyes, trying to call to that part of myself I kept so hidden, the part I tried so hard to ignore.
Right as I brought my hand down, Winder grabbed my wrist.
His voice was quiet in my ear, sending a shiver through my body. “I can’t protect you from everything, no. I couldn’t protect you in the past. But I can do this for you. Let me carry some of the weight.”
I let him take the knife from me, let him turn me away from the scene. It didn’t stop me from hearing the knife sink into Leon’s flesh, though, and it didn’t stop me from hearing that last desperate gasp for air.
I did this.
I did this.
I did all of this.
I wrapped my arms around my body as if I could hold myself together, stop myself from falling apart. If only it were that easy.
Winder wrapped his arms around me, somehow knowing I wasn’t enough on my own.
“It was all real,” I mumbled. “Every single one of my dreams. They were real. I knew it, and yet seeing it…”
“It’s completely different,” Winder agreed. “And you’re right. The chances are high that your dreams are real. I don’t know if they’re flashbacks or blackouts. I don’t know if you’re seeing what happened before, or if it’s happening now. That’s where I went yesterday. I’m trying to figure it out.”
I was done. My body attempted to sag to the floor, Winder holding me up. “I’m a killer, Winder.”
“You did what you had to do to survive.”
I pushed away from him, whipping around. “And what puts my survival above someone else’s? Why does someone have to die so I can live?”
Winder stayed quiet for a moment, while I stewed in my fury, then tipped his head toward Leon’s lifeless body.
“You want to know about the man in the bathtub? Let me tell you a story about him. About how he has a taste for women who would never look twice at him. So he’s learned how to get them hooked on what he can offer them instead.
Starts them off with the easy stuff, laced with the addictive shit.
And before you know it, they’re coming back for more, unable to reach the high they did with someone else’s product.
He gets them addicted, then uses their addiction to his advantage.
He uses them up, until there’s nothing left of them, and starts the process over. ”
I thought back to the woman slumped on his lap, the way she didn’t even seem to be there. She was nothing more than a shell.
“Tell me, Blaire. Is that a man who deserves to live over you? Because you’re right.
He would’ve told Conrad, if he hadn’t already.
He was a liability to your safety, to your survival.
Take a hard look at him, and tell me he deserved to live instead of you.
” Winder crossed his arms, and his snake jumped with the movement.
“I can’t,” I murmured. “I want to. I want to tell you that you’re wrong more than anything. But I can’t.”
“Good girl.”
I wanted to drop to my knees at those words, do whatever it took for Winder to say them again. But I was covered in blood, and the bathroom floor wasn’t any better. “What do we do?”
“First we dispose of the body. Then we find Conrad.” Winder’s voice was matter-of-fact, like he had done this before, and it meant nothing to him. He could’ve been discussing dinner plans, or taking out the garbage.
Which I guess in a way, we were.
I swallowed, wiping my hands on Winder’s shirt. I didn’t want to know if they were wet with sweat or blood. “Okay. Do we bury him?”
Winder pursed his lips, looking from the body to me, and back again. “Sinking him in the river might be our best option. Leon is pretty well known for stirring up shit in my circles. No one will question him going missing, and less will question if he’s dredged up in the river.”
“River. Right.” My fingers were shaking. I tapped them on my side, like it would hide the movements from Winder.
He pinned me immediately, and his face softened. “Blaire. I can handle this myself, if you want to get cleaned up and go back to bed.”
“No, no. I can do this. I can…” I sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady my useless lungs. “I need to. I can’t run away from this.”
Winder stepped closer, running a finger along my jaw. “Are you sure you’re okay? Be honest with me.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “But I have to be. I don’t have a choice anymore. My body feels like it’s trying to turn itself inside out, and my heart is running a marathon it hasn’t trained for, and there’s no fucking air in this fucking bathroom!”
“First things first, you’re going to breathe for me. Can you do that? In and out.”
I did my best to focus on my breathing, even while it felt like everything was going to crumble around me.
Winder picked me up, and set me on the small vanity. “Next, we’re going to try something different to get you to stay on this planet.” His hands gripped my thighs, pushing the T-shirt up higher, and my eyes went wide.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed, sucking in another breath. “There’s a dead body right there, and you’re thinking about getting off?”
It felt so wrong, but when Winder sank to his knees in front of me and pressed a kiss against my hip, I couldn’t find it in me to stop him.
“I’m not thinking about getting me off. I’m thinking about getting you off.
” Winder pushed the shirt higher, leaving me completely bared to him.
My breath was coming quicker, but it didn’t feel like it was from the anxiety.
“You were the calmest I’ve ever seen you last night.
You want to be a stubborn ass and help me, great, but you’re no use to me if you’re an anxious mess.
So let me help you, and then you can help me. ”
“But…but…” I gasped as Winder licked around to my inner thigh. “He’s right there.”
Winder popped his head up, smirking. “Blaire, I don’t think he cares, and our options are kind of limited. If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. Just say the word.”
His finger slipped along my skin, and my legs opened for him without much thought. An ache grew between my legs, and I didn’t know if I was surprised or not to realize how deep my craving for Winder went.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I whispered. “Please, Winder.”
He slid his hands over my skin, digging his fingers into my thighs. “Stop thinking.”
I was about to protest when he lowered his mouth onto my clit, sucking greedily.
My desire for Winder apparently knew no bounds.
His tongue split me in two, fucking me, licking me, making me cry out for him and the release his mouth promised.
I gripped the countertop for dear life, as if that could save me from my impending orgasm, or Winder’s wicked tongue.
I was desperate for more, for release, not even thinking about where we were, or who was beside us. I only cared about Winder.
Until he pulled back, teasing me with his fingers. He licked his lips, which nearly made me come right then and there. “You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted, even covered in blood.”
“Winder,” I protested, even as my hips rocked into his fingers, trying to find their release.
“You’re twisted, baby, you know that?” He flicked his tongue out to torment my clit, and I moaned deeply, pleasure ricocheting throughout my core. “There’s a dead body next to you, and all you care about is how good I’m going to make you feel with my tongue.”
“Uhmmm…” Whatever protest I intended came out as a jumble of a sentence. Pleasure was beginning to flood my body, overtaking any kind of reasonable thinking. If he didn’t make me come soon, I was going to make him fuck me right here on the bathroom floor.
“You kinda like it, don’t you?” he murmured, his words casting a spell on me, his breath tickling me as he drove me closer to my orgasm.
“It’s okay to admit. I like it, too. I like how powerful you look, covered in blood.
It made me hard right then. Maybe that makes me twisted.
Maybe that makes me the sanest man alive.
All I know is that I’m going to worship your pretty little pussy until you come all over my face, and you’re going to thank me and beg me for more. ”
He didn’t give me a chance to protest, licking and sucking all over again. I dropped the counter top, grabbing his hair and forcing him against me. I was so close, and I was going to lose my goddamn mind if I didn’t come right this second.
My orgasm tore through me, powerful and quick. I saw stars, calling out for both a God I didn’t believe in and Winder interchangeably.
Winder licked me softly, making me tremble against him. “You come so good for me, baby. Tell me, has anyone ever made you come the way I do?”
I shook my head. “Maybe I am twisted, because I can’t remember the last time I was that turned on.”
“Violence does that to people. I think everyone forgets how interchangeable violence and desire are. They’re both rooted in desperation.”
I had never considered it like that before, but Winder’s words made perfect sense. Push a person too far, and they went one way or the other. Winder and I just happened to go both ways at the same time.
Slipping off the counter, I slumped into Winder’s arms, and he smiled up at me. “Better?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Unfortunately I don’t think I can keep you around me all the time to help me with my anxiety. I feel like the general public might frown upon orgasms as an anxiety fix.”
“Never say never.” Winder helped me to my feet. “But before we trademark anything, we have a small problem to deal with.”
Apparently orgasms were good for forgetting anxiety attacks and dead bodies.