Chapter 12 Cooper
Cooper
“Thanks Bucks,” I say, as we step down the stairs of the private jet. The view of snowcapped Chugach mountains fills the distant horizon. “Wow, Alaska is beautiful.”
“Beautiful and dangerous,” Reed says in a casual affair, as if he dismembered a spine for his morning workout and threw some cartilage in his smoothie, while he hauls the luggage down the steps.
I breathe in a breath of the fresh, crisp air, my lungs almost spasming at the purity, while my stomach growls.
Reed’s ears perk up, “Hungry?”
“Fucking starving.”
“For another kill?” he asks, a mischievous grin forming between his lips.
“Maybe some food first,” I laugh, although the thought of taking another life does sound fulfilling.
To snatch that life from their body. To end her lullabies of the forest. I wouldn’t mind if she was killing molesters or used car salesmen, but innocent hunters?
Taking them away from their children and wives without a second thought, no can do, Miss Wannabe Broadway.
You are going to pay for your sins.
Unless you enchant us first.
The rental car pulls up, a black Audi, fit for a prime minister and equipped with studded tires raking against the pavement.
Reed takes the keys from the driver, popping the trunk and throwing our luggage in the back while I slide into the front seat. “So do you always fly private?” I ask.
“Typically,” he smirks. “Keeps the authorities from tracking us too closely. It might be suspicious if a corpse shows up every time a Quinn takes a holiday from Wolfston.”
“Fair enough,” I murmur, my eyes peeled on a Boeing 747 taking flight.
Reed drives us off the runway into Anchorage, the streets covered with a light powder as snowflakes slowly fall to the ground. “How about some Hawaiian Sashimi?”
“Raw fish?” I ask, my stomach churning at the thought.
“What’s wrong? Afraid of some raw flesh?” he quips.
“No, not at all…,” I mutter, trying to hide the disgust on my face.
“Excellent, I know the place for some fresh tuna.”
“Mmmmm… delicious,” I manage to make out.
Reed’s mouth twitches like he can see me biting my molars. “You’ll love it. They’ll slice it up in front of you if ask nicely. Sometimes a little blood will seep out with a frozen worm.”
“Wow,” I say, staring out at the frostbitten branches. “Nothing screams romantic homicide like parasitic food poisoning.”
He chuckles, the sound feral enough to run to my groin and dream of a whole different way we could be enjoying ourselves. “You need to broaden your palate, Cooper. You can’t savor life if you're afraid of a little pink flesh.”
“I’m not afraid of raw flesh,” I argue. “I just prefer it stays outside of my mouth. You know—where it belongs.”
“You don’t want my flesh in your mouth?” Reed taunts, licking his lips and raising his brows.
I swallow the gulp in my throat, as blood rushes to my cheeks. “Not with that attitude.”
“Oh, really? You think you have choice in the matter?” he says, leaving his mouth open.
The air thickens in the SUV, my head swimming with lustful thoughts, of everything he could do with that tongue. What he could open with it and plow through. My cock spasms against my zipper, straining uncomfortably against the denim.
God, make the first move already. Own me. Claim me.
I swear I can see a bulb rise near his seatbelt, popping up like a beautiful tulip, but his eyes are focused on the wintery roads.
“So is this the part where you officially kidnap me and bury me in the ground?” I ask, cutting through the tension.
“Kidnap you? Cooper, please. That would imply that you are being taken somewhere against your will.”
“Oh right, silly me,” I muster, heat crawling up my neck. “You’re more of a consensual abduction sort of guy.”
He chuckles out of amusement. “I think mutual surrender would be a more accurate term.”
My pulse throbs against my Adam’s apple. “You mean Stockholm Syndrome?”
“Only if I’m bad at it.”
I’m torn between laughing and begging for him to spread me in the backseat, the darkness is beginning to settle in.
The only light would be from the city streetlights.
The car would shake of course, but we are just tourists, visiting for a sweet murder and maybe a fishing excursion.
What could be the worst consequences if we are caught?
“You’re really studying my knuckles,” he says, voice as crisp as the air.
“Just assessing the odds of survival,” I lie, my voice trapped somewhere between a moan and a snicker. My brain imagining what he could do with those long, girthy fingers.
“Don’t flatter yourself. If I wanted you dead, you’d be fertilizer for the carrots already.”
“Romantic, Reed,” I deadpan, rolling my eyes.
“I thought you liked a bit of foreplay with a body count,” he chuckles, his hand grappling my inner thigh.
“Only if I’m alive to enjoy it,” I mutter, sparks lighting up from his touch.
He cracks a smile as his fingers rub close to my prick, sending my nervous system haywire. “Then I guess I’ll have to keep you breathing—for now.”
I try to think of something to say, but my mind is shooting blanks, flooded with desire. For more. For more of him. For a kill.
“You’re distracted…,” he says, in a soft tone.
“You have your palm on my femoral artery,” I choke out. “It’s hard to focus when my blood pressure is trying to escape through my zipper.”
Reed chuckles, raising his eyebrows. “Then I suppose I’m doing my job.”
I gasp, trying to catch my breath. “Your job? What are you, a traveling menace?”
He smirks, with his knuckles tight on the steering wheel. “Moonlighting as a cardiologist. Clearly your heart needed a stress test.”
“Congratulations. It’s failing spectacularly,” I rasp, the blush blooming in my cheeks.
His lips quirk, as if he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “I’d attempt to resuscitate you, but we’d never make it to dinner.”
“Oh no,” I say, trying to sound casual while my brain races on full mayhem mode. “Wouldn’t want to be late for my last meal.”
“You act like you aren’t enjoying this.”
On the contrary, I’ve never relished a car ride on the way to carnage more in my entire life. This is what I need. Purpose. The ridiculousness. The light-heartedness paired with his attempt to appear stoic.
“Please,” I scoff. “I’m having the time of my life trying to remember how to breathe while you test the tensile strength of my cardiac fibers.”
His hand squeezes my thigh, inches from my crease. “Careful, the way you are blushing, you might melt all the snow outside.”
“I’m not blushing, I’m just having a hot flash,” I mutter.
He purrs in mock sympathy. “Early onset menopause. Tragic. Happens to the best of my victims.”
I bite back a grin. “You’re hilarious. Do they teach you that brand of bedside manner in murder camp or med school?”
Before he can answer, he slams on the brakes, a white beamer pulls out from a coffee hut, cutting us off. Reed throws up his hands in fury. “What the fuck! They didn’t even stop before almost crashing into us.”
“It’s okay, maybe they didn’t see us,” I say as the driver rolls down her window to offer us the middle finger.
“Oh, it’s fucking on,” Reed seethes, his eyes empowered with an anger I’ve never seen before.
He guns the engine, approaching with inches of the white BMW, honking his horn.
The other driver blares their horn repeatedly, as if they are trying to fate their date with death.
Oh fuck. She’s messing with the wrong psychopath tonight.
His jaw tightens, his forehead veins popping out of his skin. “You almost killed us, and you flip me off?” he growls, his words dripping with venom.
“Reed, maybe let it go,” I say, almost amused at his temper. He’s handsome as hell when he’s boiling with fury.
“No, no. You don’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter and drive off with your lavender latte like nothing happened.”
The BMW speeds up, tires kicking slush, and Reed follows within hairs of her bumper. The rear window sports a sticker that says: ‘Be Kind’.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Reed mutters, his laugh deranged and maniacal. “Be Kind. Says the woman who just tried to run us into our graves.”
“She’s probably having a bad day,” I say, gripping the armrest as if it’s life or death.
“Well her day is about to get a lot worse,” he chuckles, gunning the car again, the SUV roaring like the flames in his pupils.
Then I see an orange school bus ahead, the lights slashing, the stop sign stick out. “Reed—school bus!”
He slams on the brakes, my neck cracking, while the BMW swerves around, knocking off the bus’s stick. A kid’s face peeks from the bus door, a wide, buttered-with-panic expression that would have been cute in literally any other context.
Time slows down to a turtle’s sprint as the BMW races off in the distance. The driver is cursing, the kid is crying. The bus shakes as the students clamor in chaos all while little flecks of snow fall gracefully from the sky.
“Their lucky day…,” he growls, “that I have half a conscience.”
His knuckles are pale, strewn around the steering wheel as if he’s holding back. For me? Or for the kids?
The engine idles, growling in sync with the beat of his forehead veins.
I can see the restraint in his face, the tension in his forearms, the twitching of one eyebrow.
The tremendous effort that it takes for him not to follow that car, drag the driver out by their soul, and make them understand what it feels like to take their last breath.
And God is he handsome when he’s consumed with rage.
I should be freaked out, maybe pissing my pants, but all I can do is watch the way his teeth grind, accentuating his sharp jawline.
The manner in which his eyes burn with rage and passion—for justice.
But somehow he can control it. Like a revolver itching to empty its chamber, but held back with some dark force from the heavens.
Most people explode and lose themselves in anger, yet somehow he decompresses, takes a deep breath to overcome his instinct.