Chapter 25
Cullan
I tear off my mask and claim her lips. The chase has made me hard as iron in my pants, and I reach up Elena’s dress and drag her underwear down her legs. We sink down onto the grass together, kissing each other breathlessly.
Her pussy is wet and swollen, and her head tips back with a cry as she enjoys the feel of my leather gloved fingers caressing her clit and then sinking inside her.
“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” she cries, unbuttoning her dress and pulling it open so she can tug it up over her head, and in the next second, she discards her bra as well.
My woman is the most beautiful sight spread open on the grass in the moonlight.
She gets to work on my shirt and pants while I thrust my fingers into her sex.
I’m craving her tight grip like oxygen. When she’s pushed my shirt from my shoulders and my pants down my thighs, she caresses my shaft.
Still wearing the mask over my face, I push her flat onto her back and thrust my cock inside her, groaning at the feel of her stretching around me.
There’s no time for finesse, only urgency for both of us as I fuck her hard and deep.
“You’re all I’ve thought about,” she whimpers, clutching my shoulders. “I need you so much, I need you…” She trails off with a cry, her breathing growing faster and more ragged.
I watch her through the eye holes as her slender neck arches for me, and she tightens around me with a scream. I’ve never heard a more beautiful scream. A moment later, I follow her over the edge, tumbling headlong into pleasure between her thighs.
As my head hangs low over her, I catch my breath. Elena reaches up and gently pushes the mask back and caresses my face. “My handsome killer.”
I turn my head and kiss her palm. “My beautiful murderer.”
Elena smiles up at me.
I gently ease out of her and lay beside her in the grass. She pillows her head on my bicep, and I admire her tousled hair and hot cheeks. But as her afterglow fades, her eyes are troubled.
I caress her cheek. “There’s something wrong. You look afraid.”
“The police have you on CCTV. The press has given you a nickname. If you don’t stop killing, you’re going to be taken from me,” she whispers, fear silvering her blue eyes.
“Has this been on your mind the whole time I was gone?”
She nods. “I was so afraid you’d never come back. I felt half dead while I was waiting for you.”
“You love this black-hearted killer that much?”
She presses her hand to my chest. “Your heart isn’t black. The parts that love me are more precious than gold.”
“That’s all of my heart, darlin’.” I reach for the red mask and hold it up before my face. For years, decades, I dreamed of becoming my true self by wearing this mask, but maybe that was just another way of pretending to be happy.
With Elena, I am truly happy.
“I was so frustrated for a long time,” I murmur, gazing into the mask’s empty eye holes. “Tired of lying. Filled with dark urges that I dared not explore. Since I met you, I haven’t felt ashamed. Alone. I don’t need to hide my face. So I don’t think I need this mask anymore.”
I toss it aside and take Elena in my arms.
“Are you sure you can give up killing just like that?” she asks me.
“I can’t promise that I won’t kill again, but only for professional reasons. Sometimes violence is necessary in my line of work.”
She gives me a baffled look. “Home security? ”
I stare at her in shock.
The blood turns to ice in my veins.
I did tell her, didn’t I?
Wait, did I not fucking tell her?
Elena and I talked for a long time about who I am.
Can I have really missed out the most important part?
We talked about my killings and her killings, but we didn’t discuss my work, which is what I was afraid of telling her in the first place.
It was the number one thing keeping me up at night for weeks.
I rub my brow with my fingers. “Oh, my fucking Christ. I forgot you didn’t know. I had so much to confess that it was missed.”
“Confess what? Cullan, what are you talking about?”
I take both of her hands in mine and look deep into her eyes. “Elena, I don’t like poker. In fact, I hate it.”
Her blue eyes are very big and very worried. “Then why did you go to so many poker games?”
“I didn’t. I lied.”
“What were you doing all those nights when I was babysitting Rosie? You didn’t become the Red Mask Killer until weeks after I met you.” Her voice is high and shrill with fear.
“For years, decades , I’ve hidden what I really do, and then I met you and suddenly I was completely off the leash I’d tied around my own neck.
I indulged every dark part of my soul. I’ve done so many unhinged things that when it was time for me to confess everything, I forgot the very first thing I should have told you.
The crimes that I’ve been committing for years. ”
“What crimes?” she insists, gripping my shoulders and looking really scared now.
“I break into houses. People hire me to steal from other criminals.”
Elena flops onto her back and gazes at the moon. “Is that all? I thought you were going to confess you’re a spy or a demon or something.”
I grin at Elena. Is this the magic of meeting your person, that suddenly every fear that you were impossible to love is gone?
I scoop her into my arms and hold her tight. “I love you so much. Do you know that? So fucking much.”
Elena smiles and twines her arms around my neck. “I love you, too. Can we go home now? Vivienne and Tyrant have been wonderful, but I want it to be just the three of us again.”
“Oh, hell yes. Let’s go home, darlin’.”
Hand in hand, we walk out of Tyrant’s maze and into our new life.
On the drive home, I tell Elena that she doesn’t need to worry about anyone finding her aunts’ bodies.
If all goes to plan, the police will eventually open a missing persons case, which will immediately go cold, and the pair will eventually be declared legally dead.
That miserable part of Elena’s life will be closed forever.
I don’t mention the other thing that preoccupied me while I was away. It’s too early for that, and I don’t want to get Elena’s hopes up only to crush them.
Less than an hour after leaving Tyrant’s maze, I’m nestled on the sofa with Elena and my daughter in my arms, smiling and kissing them both as Elena tells me everything the two of them have been doing while I was gone.
Rosie follows the conversation and adds in excited words every now and then like “birds” and “Tyra” and “Huck.”
“It sounds like you had a wonderful time. I wish I’d been there, but I know that there will be many wonderful times ahead of us.” My hand seeks and cups her belly, cradling the tiny lift within her.
Elena looks up at me with a gasp. “I finally feel it.”
I glance at my hand, confused because she’s too early to be showing. “What do you feel?”
“Like I’m pregnant. Like I’m having your baby. It hasn’t seemed real while we were parted. How is this my life? I can’t believe I get to be this happy.”
Tears gather on her lashes, and the tip of her nose turns pink. She looks so cute that I cradle her against me, kissing her silky hair over and over.
Elena looks from Rosie to my hand on her belly and to my face. In a choked voice, she says, “This is what I’ve always wanted. We’re not normal and good, but I tried to be normal and good for so long, and it only brought me pain. You and Rosie and our little one are my family.”
“That we are. Not normal and good, but strange, loving, and wicked.” I kiss her lips over and over, and caress her belly. “And all mine.”