Chapter 16 Cooper #2
“It’s so beautiful,” he says, snickering.
“I hate you so much,” I say, as my heart flutters in my chest.
“Yeah, how much? Enough to fuck me to pieces?”
The raw, vulgar question hangs in the superheated air between us, a stark contrast to the poetic horror behind us. It’s so perfectly, disgustingly him that my fear and adrenaline transmute into a resounding bulge in my pants.
The cave is filled with skulls, the ashes of a monster, and the only thing left burning is the look in his eyes.
"Right here?" I challenge, my voice husky, gesturing to the cave floor at our feet.
He closes the distance in one swift stride, his hand cupping my nape, his forehead resting against mine. His skin is fever-hot from the fire.
"Right here," he confirms, his voice a low growl that vibrates through my very bones down to my toes. "I want to feel the Earth shake beneath you while I take you apart."
A full-body shiver wracks me. It’s the most terrifying and most wanted proposition of my life—getting fucked at a murder scene, surrounded by dozens of lifeless eyes.
"Then stop talking and start breaking me, you psychotic bastard," I breathe, and the feral grin he gives me is the last thing I see before his mouth crashes onto mine.
I surrender to his lips, his teeth ripping mine slightly causing the sharp, metallic taste of blood to bloom between us, a dark sacrament in this temple of death.
I submit to it, to him, my hands fisting against his torso, pulling him closer. The skulls watch, their empty sockets a silent, judging audience to our damnation—but hopefully it offers them a thrill to their forlorn ending.
He breaks away to allow a breath, his forehead resting against mine, our sweat mixing as our pulses beat in sync.
“See what you do to me, my little mouse?” he rasps, his voice shredded with a desire that feels as dangerous as the Siren’s song. “You make me forget where we are. You make me forget who I am.”
“Good,” I breathe back, my own voice trembling with a terrifying, exhilarating power. “Maybe you need forgetting. Maybe the great Reed Quinn need to be broken, too.”
His eyes flash, a cyclone of anger and arousal. He grips my chin, his thumb pressing on my jugular. “You think you can break me?”
“I think I’m the only one who’s ever gotten close enough to try,” I say, the words hanging in the heated, corpse-scented air.
His thumb presses harder against my jugular, an intimate pressure that makes my heart shudder in response. A dark chuckle rumbles in his chest.
“Clever boy,” he whispers, his breath steaming against my cheek. “You see the crack in my armor and you can’t help but push. You want to see what bleeds.”
“I want to see what’s real,” I counter, my voice growing in confidence, fueled by the dizzying high of his proximity and the macabre setting. “Not the doctor. Not the killer. Just you.”
For a single, suspended second, the storm in his eyes pause. The anger and arousal coalesce into something raw and unnervingly vulnerable. Then it’s gone in an instant. Just as quickly as it appeared, but I saw it. I felt it.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Be careful what you wish for, Cooper. The real me doesn’t play by any rules or ethical guidelines.” He releases his hold of my jugular, his hand trailing down to grip my hip, pulling me flush against him. “The real me would never let you go.”
The promise in his words is more enchanting than any fairytale ever could be. Would he consume me? Lock me up in a tower?
“Who says I want to play by the rules?” I murmur, tilting my head to expose the column of my throat.
He releases a sharp, incredulous laugh, the sound echoing off the grinning skulls. “God, you’re perfect.”
He says it like a curse, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Words of redemption. Of making me worthwhile. His gaze drops to my throat, making my heart stop.
This is it, the thought screams in my head, a frantic, giddy counterpoint to the deathly silence of the cave. This is the moment the real Reed either kisses me or kills me, and God, please, let it be both.
His eyes are black pools of unsullied, pure lust, and they’re fixed on the frantic pulse thrumming beneath my jaw. I can feel it—a wild heartbeat, trapped against my skin. He sees it. He owns it. Will he rip it out?
He’s not a doctor in this moment; he’s a connoisseur of life, and my pulse is the finest vintage he might ever devour.
Do it, I silently plead, my breath gasping. Press your thumb down just a little harder. Let me feel the edge of oblivion in your touch. Show me how close I can get without breaking.
Or tear through my skin, and bring me back to life. Oh God, what a dream.
His hand, still gripping my hip, tenses. I can feel the power radiating in the tremors of his fingers, the barely leashed restraint. He’s fighting himself—for me.
That’s right, I think, tilting my chin up further in an act of pure, suicidal defiance. Look at what you’ve created. Look at the monster you’ve allowed to run rampant. I’m not your prey anymore. I’m your equal. I’m your ruin.
He lets out a sharp, pent-up breath that swoons across my lips. His hand seizes a death-grip on my rear. “I’ll put you in your place, little mouse.”
I whimper as he shoves me to the ground, my head rushing with pangs of euphoria.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Is all I can think as he strips my jeans, the desperate pants of my breath filling the air.
His hands rips off my parka, my shirt, leaving me exposed to his desire.
He growls with a furious hunger, frantically stripping his pants down to his knees and collapsing on top of me. He shoves my face in the cold floor of the cave, his lips brushing my ear. “Is this what you wanted? To be fucked while surrounded by death?”
I nod my head for a resounding yes, my cock pulsing with joy against the slick floor.
Fuck me like you did before. Like you want to consume me. Like you want to shred me to pieces of flesh for the crows.
He spits a fat wad of saliva, and then enters with his tongue, the girth forcing its way inside my pink flesh.
I moan out in a desperate pitch, shaking my cheeks. I need more. Break for me. Let go. I’m not made of glass. I’m filled with darkness, just like you. I can take. I want to take it.
His hands shake as he eats my ass and I whimper like a dam about to break. I stretch my fingers out to reach a skull for something to grip onto, my fingers sliding through the sockets.
A free hand slides down my back, down to the curve of my hip, his grip possessive, almost painful—yet so sweet. A shiver trembles though my frame from sheer pleasure.
Yes. Like that. Show me I’m yours. Prove it. Let me feel the bruises tomorrow and remember that is the real you.
He pulls back, letting out a deep, warm exhale that whiffs up my spinal column.
I turn my neck to look back at the beautiful predator behind me, his cock gigantic and pulsing with beads of precum.
His abs are flexed and popping out in the dim amber light.
Our eyes meet, but I don’t show fear or hesitation, I offer a hunger to match his own, a void just as deep.
You see? I scream at him silently with my gaze, my heart pounding. You see now? I’m not your little mouse. I’m your mirror. I’m your match made in hell.
A low growl rumbles in his chest, a feral sound that sends shockwaves through me. It’s the most ravishing thing I’ve ever heard. “You’re going to take it like my own personal slut.”
“I can take it, Reed. The real you. Don’t hold back,” I quip, bracing for impact.
His control shatters, as he launches himself forward, splitting me mercilessly.
I shriek, a sound born from pain and glee, as he continues his barbaric advance, paving his way inside. He draws in a feisty breath as his hand meets my mouth, silencing my shrieks.
I taste his fingers, licking up the salt and death.
Yes, yes, yes. The predator has been gloriously unleashed.
His cock pounds in and out, a brutal rhythm that would normally make me scream for the heavens. I embrace him. Embrace the ferocity. The Pain. The unrelenting pleasure.
This is what I need. I need more.
“Faster. Harder,” I muffle out. “Break me.”
He growls in response, slamming in and out of my ass. It feels like he’s gutting me from the inside with a dull dagger that is massaging my prostate.
His hand grapples onto my hair, pulling my torso upward and his cock impossibly deeper, my own prick shoots a burst at the motion. It feels like I’m being raptured. Delivered to the gates of heaven.
My body goes limp as I completely submit, his force delightfully overpowering.
This is what it feels like to be wanted by a force of nature. This is what it means to be the eye of his storm.
He bites down on my nape, sending a blissful shiver through my vertebrae, grinding his teeth ever-so-slightly. I can feel his pulse race against mine.
Yes. Mark me. Let me bear the evidence of your possession. Let me carry the ghost of your teeth on my skin tomorrow.
“Cooper,” he groans. “You are mine. And only mine. Forever.”
His words are a decree to my ears. Not a question, but a fact as if it’s a law of science.
“Yes, I understand,” I moan, as he thrusts, his balls slapping against my crease.
“Mine,” he growls, pulling my hair taut against the roots.
“Yours,” I gasp, the word a surrender and a triumph all at once.
Somehow, his pace hastens, the furious slap of our skin growing against the cave walls, the empty sockets watching us in sync as the Siren lays in a pit of her ashes. I whimper as my balls feel like they might burst.
“Reed, I’m gonna—”
“Not before I fill you to the brim,” he growls, his cock unleashing an avalanche of cum inside. I accept every spurt of his splendid seed, relaxing my ass the waves fill me up.
As I savor the sensation of his seizing cock, my dick spurts fat, oozing loads across the cave floor. A monumental release that I’ve never felt before.
I moan out at the aftershock. “Oh God.”
“Are you sure you aren’t an angel, sent to deceive me?” he chuckles, his cock swimming inside.
“Wouldn’t that be rich,” I bite back, my voice spent, “an angel sent to uncorrupt a demon?”
“My little mouse has teeth,” he chuckles, a sound that’s like dark cacao velvet. “But the real question is, what do we do with this cave?”
A grin spreads across my face, knowing exactly what will scratch his itch. “We could redecorate. Add some ambience. Perhaps a chandelier composed of her remaining teeth? I hear skulls are making a comeback in interior design.”
Reed nudges a nearby femur, scarred by a few teeth marks. “Yeah, I suppose we could. Think of it as our first project together. A murder-cave fixer upper. Nothing says we’re a couple like joint home renovation involving some bones,” he chuckles his arm enveloping me.
I snort, completely unfazed. “I think we should start with the kitchen first.”
I rethink my words. Of course we would start with the kitchen.
Every happy home needs one. I can picture it with vivid clarity: Reed, brooding intensely in a blood-splattered apron, meticulously sharpening his knives while a pot of something dubiously scarlet bubbles on the stovetop.
Me, perched on the white granite countertop, reading aloud from a leather-bound copy of: Forensic Toxicology for the Modern Homemaker.
We could have dinner parties, my thoughts continue, spiraling into glorious darkness.
Invite his sister Candace, and the rest of the Quinns—besides his grouchy father.
She could bring a charcuterie board arranged as a skeleton, cold cuts and all.
We would argue over whether the salami ribcage is anatomically correct.
Reed’s arm wraps around me, tethering me to his dark reality.
I guess our shared dark reality, now. This isn’t a normal future that I dreamed of as child, but shared delusion—a beautifully crafted insanity built for two.
We won’t have a white picket fence; we would have one made of reinforced steel and topped with razor wire.
Our vows would include clauses for disposing of biological evidence.
And the holidays, I muse, almost giddy. Instead of stringing lights, we would hang tasteful garlands of wolfsbane and nightshade.
We would get a tree and decorate it with teeth and our favorite scalpels.
We would be the couple that the neighbors whisper about, the ones who never take out the trash but whose garden is unnaturally vibrant.
I can already hear them asking, what fertilizer do you use?
I accidentally let out a giggle from my fantasy, Reed’s eyes popping with curiosity.
“What are you so silly about?”
“A future,” I say. “One where the HOA is terrified of us and our rose bushes are the envy of the neighborhood.”
He chuckles, a smile rising like a dark sunrise. “But first, we have to leave Alaska before we can conquer suburbia.”
We both rise from the cool ground, our bodies steaming with heat. We suit up in our clothes, kissing the cave goodbye.
Sayonara, you psycho, I say telepathically to the ashes of the Siren.
“I guess it’ll be a good tourist trap. Or a wicked haunted cave for Halloween,” I jest as our feet crunch across the snow, the wind slapping our faces.
Reed’s hand finds mine, his grip sure and solid. His touch is no longer a threat of death, but a tether to a future—one painted in shades of midnight and blood, lit by the flicker of a fireplaces in a home where the curtains are black and the bushes grow tall.
“We’ll have to get a dog,” he says, his voice low. “One that looks deceptively sweet but has a bite that can sever the femoral.”
I laugh, the sound far too bright for the dark wilderness around us. “Only if I get to name it.”
“Anything but Fluffy,” he deadpans, and the look he gives me is so full of dark joy that my heart stutters.
“Can’t promise that, golden retrievers are awfully fluffy sometimes.”
Hope feels different than I thought it would. It’s not a bright, blinding light at the end of a tunnel. It’s the comfortable weight of a shovel in my hands and the certainty of the man at my side, both promising a future we will build ourselves, one well-deserved grave at a time.