Chapter 7
Dolly
M y lips curl into a smile as I stare down at my prey.
“‘Will you walk into my parlor? said the Spider to the Fly.’” I tilt my head and reach out to tear his ski mask off.
Years of controlling my features save me from gasping.
He’s beautiful. Even lying on the ground, I can tell he’s tall and well built.
His dark-brown hair begs my fingers to run through the silky-looking strands, while thick lashes line eyes that match the color of his hair.
Light stubble edges a firm jaw, and his full lips make me want to test their softness.
The grainy pictures Eric found before they shut down the compound’s computers didn’t do The Carver justice. Not one bit.
“I suppose I’m the fly in this scenario?” Sinister asks in a husky voice. He lifts his head, but I smack my hand against his forehead and push it back down. Little sparks dance across my skin, and I wipe it against my thigh as my brow creases. What was that?
“It took you long enough,” I murmur, pressing the knife closer to his Adam’s apple. “I was expecting you at least a week ago. ”
His eyebrows climb to his hairline. “Mmm. Well played, little stalker. You’ve trapped your fly in your web. What will you do now?”
“I suppose that dep—” I shriek as he knocks my knife away and spins us around so he’s on top. He presses himself into the cradle of my thighs, his hard length brushing against me. My mouth dries as I blink up at him, unused to the feeling of heat pooling in my core.
After the systemic abuse I suffered most of my life, I never dreamed I’d be in a position where I’d find myself wondering what a man tasted like.
I’ve never had consensual sex, and besides my occasional yearnings for companionship—generally after seeing my guardian angels with their men—I never thought it was something I’d even want.
But I do now. How would it be to kiss someone for the first time? To actually invite someone’s touch, to give myself to someone because I wanted to, not because I’m forced?
“If you keep looking at me like that, we’re going to have a very different kind of conversation.
One that starts with me peeling that silky nightie off you and ending with you coming all over my cock.
” His words spike a fever inside me, and my heart speeds up.
Sinister groans and presses his forehead against mine.
“Fuck. I can smell your desire, little stalker.”
We stare into each other’s eyes as our breaths mingle. Something hot and electric passes between us, and my hips lift of their own volition, grinding against him.
“Dolly,” I whisper before turning my head away. I can’t keep staring into his eyes. It’s as if he’s drawing me toward an abyss, one I might not come out of the same if I were to let go and jump into it.
“Dolly?” Sinister repeats, pressing his palms against the floor and lifting himself off me just enough to see me clearly. I immediately miss his heat and the way his body feels against mine.
What? No, I don’t. Distance is good. Yep. Good.
“My name.”
Sinister brushes a knuckle over my cheek, the small contact breaking something inside me.
I can’t do this. I can’t let anyone see the disaster I am inside.
Shoving his hand, I squirm out from under him and scramble away.
I can only imagine what I look like to him: small, trembling, pressed against the wall like a cornered animal.
But that’s what I am now, what they made me.
Sinister growls and leaps to his feet in a fluid movement that shouldn’t be hot but is. He grabs my arm, pulls me to my feet, and cuffs my neck with his hand. I whimper, and he freezes before a sly grin spreads across his face.
“Oh, Dolly, I think you’re going to be the ruin of me,” he whispers before brushing his lips against mine in a breath of a kiss.
My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and he groans again, pushing his face against my neck and breathing harshly.
A part of me wants him to slam inside me and show me what sex should be.
Another part of me wants to run screaming into the night, putting as much distance between us as possible. The thought of him chasing after me makes my knees buckle.
“Fuck it,” he mutters. His powerful arms close around me and haul me against him. His lips crash against mine, and my entire body lights up like the Fourth of July. I tangle my fingers in his hair, tugging on the strands as his tongue forces its way into my mouth.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Sinister invades every one of my senses, dominating my body in a way that leaves me dizzy and wanting more.
My legs wrap around his waist, and my pussy clenches, desperate to be filled by him.
He slams me against the wall and rips my nightie over my head, leaving me wearing nothing but thin cotton panties.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says against the column of my neck, pressing fervent kisses downward until he sucks a nipple into his mouth.
My back arches as I cry out, pressing his head tighter to me.
He sucks as much of my tit into his mouth as possible, using his teeth to scrape along my delicate flesh.
Each touch burns like I’m on fire, and I finally understand what all the songs were talking about. Sinister pulls me away from the wall and settles me on the mattress, his large hands that wield knives and take lives surprisingly gentle as they pull my panties down my legs.
“Open for me, little stalker,” he says, and I obey. Lust blazes in his eyes, but it doesn’t scare me, not like it used to at Grammy Lockwood’s. He touches me like I’m worth caring about, making tears spring to my eyes.
He freezes and sits back on his knees. “Tell me to stop, and I will.” I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and nod. He doesn’t realize the meaning of my tears, and now isn’t the time to tell him.
If I ever tell him.
How do you tell a man that you were raped repeatedly by numerous men?
That you stopped fighting after the first year because you learned it didn’t matter.
No amount of screaming stopped them, and it only earned me beatings or extended stays in solitary—a minuscule closet Grammy would lock me in for days at a time.
I shove the thoughts away into a little box and lock it up tight when Sinister strips out of his clothes. He has broad shoulders and chest, a narrow waist, and a delicious V that points to his thick cock. A tattoo of a bird rests over his heart, but the rest of his skin is unadorned.
A little voice in my head pipes up, asking if I’m really about to sleep with someone I just met. I tell it to shut up. I’ve never had anything solely for myself, and even if this lasts only one night, it’s something I can hold close when loneliness sets in.
Sinister kneels on the mattress and spreads my legs wider.
I drop my head back and let my eyes fall closed, my hands twisting into the blanket.
And then nearly jump out of my skin at the first touch of his warm tongue along my slit.
He chuckles and places a large hand on my stomach, holding me down.
No one could accuse Sinister of not knowing what he’s doing.
The man zeros in on my clit like it contains a homing device, making my breath catch in my throat and my arousal leak down my legs.
He hums his approval, lapping it up like it’s the finest wine.
His hand presses tighter on my stomach when I writhe beneath him, trying to escape his hold.
“Please, Sinister,” I beg as the pleasure tightens in my core. He chuckles and slides a finger inside me. My walls clamp down on it, and I let out a moan of frustration. It’s not enough. I need more.
“Tell me what you need, little stalker,” he says, his gaze jumping from my face to my breasts, then down to where his finger joins me.
“More. Fuck. Please!” He presses a second finger in and curls them. I shriek, my back coming off the bed at the powerful sensation.
“So fucking responsive,” Sinister says, working his fingers over the sensitive bundle of nerves while this thumb rubs my clit. “Scream my name when you come, Dolly. I want all of Arcadia to know you’re mine.”
I’m mine. I should protest his audacity at claiming me like a caveman, but the thought vanishes when my orgasm tears through me with a force that leaves me blind and gasping.
I soar out into space and scream his name to the universe, my body fully onboard with the idea of belonging to this dangerous man, even if my mind isn’t.
Yet.
“Yes, that’s it. Such a good girl.” Sinister pulls my legs farther apart and slams deep inside me. My mouth opens on a silent scream before he crushes his mouth to mine. All I can taste is him. All I can think of is him. All I can smell is him.
My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer as he pounds into me. He murmurs nonsense in my ear, telling me things like you’re such a good girl and you’re so fucking wet for me, baby.
“I’m going to come so deep inside you, little stalker. Going to fill you up with my cum until it spills out of this pretty pussy and leaks down your legs,” Sinister says. Drops of sweat fall from his face to mine, mingling together.
“Please,” I whine, his dirty talk making me wetter. The room fills with the sounds of our harsh breaths and bodies coming together in a frantic race to cross the finish line. My nerves sing as the pleasure ramps up a second time, and a grin tears across Sinister’s face, giving him a savage look.
“Yes, come for me, Dolly. I need you to shatter around my cock when I release inside you.” He shoves his hand between us and pinches my clit, while biting down on my nipple at the same time.
My back bows when my orgasm claims me, and Sinister follows a moment later.
He stays inside me, rocking in and out, staring down at where our bodies join.
When he meets my eyes, my mouth dries at the possessive look in them.
“You shouldn’t have allowed me to do that, little stalker.
Now that I’ve had you, I’m never letting you go. ”
My fingertips trace over his tattoo as I cuddle into Sinister’s side. I’m…happy, I think. Content, at the very least. They aren’t emotions I’m overly familiar with, but I’m not going to dwell on them overmuch.
My body is sated, my mind is still a little numb from the orgasms, and I’m too lazy to do anything but bask in the feeling of safety being in his arms brings.
I shouldn’t feel like this, not so quickly.
But there’s something about Sinister that makes me trust him—and not because he knows how to wring pleasure from me when I never fathomed it was possible.
It’s an innate feeling, something residing so deep inside me I can’t identify it. But it’s there, all the same.
“Tell me the story about this,” I murmur, tapping on his tattoo. He shifts beneath my head, his pecs flexing as he turns to place a chaste kiss on my sweat-dampened forehead.
“It’s for my sister,” he replies, his hand coming up to take mine in his. He tangles our fingers together before going silent again.
“Sister?” I ask, wanting to keep him talking. I want to learn more about him.
“Foster sister, to be more precise. She was killed fourteen years ago, and I got the tattoo to remind me of her. She’s the reason I became The Carver. I wanted to get revenge on the men that hurt her.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I tighten my fingers around his. “I’m so sorry, Sinister. Why a bird, though?”
“It’s a wren. Her name was?—”
My veins fill with ice water, and I yank myself away from him.
Backing away from the bed, I stumble over my feet as I shake my head.
“No.” Sinister jumps up and advances toward me, his face wreathed in confusion.
I put my hands up and retreat until my back crashes into the wall. “It’s impossible. You—you’re dead.”
Why does my chest hurt? I glance down at it, and my body staggers as black spots dance around my vision. My hands cover my heart as images from the past slam into my mind. I raise my head and reach my arm toward my dead brother—the boy whose body I watched Richard throw into the river.
“Sin?”