23. Cain
Cain
The neon sign at cherries diner flickered overhead, casting a sickly, artificial red glow across the pavement.
I leaned against the rusted trunk of a sedan across the street, lighting a cigar just to watch the smoke drift towards her.
Inside, June was wiping down the counter.
A new job. A “waitress” at a grease-trap diner.
How fucking cute. I watched her tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her movements stiff and exhausted.
She was playing house with a life that didn’t belong to her, trying on a normal existence like a costume that was three sizes too small.
I’d let her keep it for now. I’d let her have her little shifts and her meager tips. We would see just how long I’d allow her to pretend the world was a safe place before I dragged her back to the one I’d built for her.
When she finally pushed through the double doors, the bell chimed—a tiny, cheerful sound that felt like an insult in the heavy night air. She froze for a heartbeat, her eyes scanning the shadows until they landed on me.
I didn’t move. I didn’t hide. I stood there, a dark stain on her horizon, letting the cherry of my cigar glow bright enough for her to see the smirk on my face.
She started walking, her pace fast, her shoes clicking a frantic echo against the concrete. I followed staying close enough for her to hear the heavy tread of my boots, but far enough that she couldn’t call it an assault. It was a haunting, nonetheless, and I wanted her to feel every second of it.
She reached her front door, her hands fumbling with her house key. She didn’t look back until the door was halfway open. She shot me a venomous look, her eyes narrowing into sharp daggers, before she stormed inside and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame.
I stood on the sidewalk and let out a soft, dark chuckle. How cute. She thinks a wooden door can keep out the thing that’s already inside her head.
Back at the manor, the atmosphere was heavy with Julian’s pathetic moping.
Every time I passed the library and saw him staring into the fireplace like some tragic, Victorian lead, I felt the urge to smack him in the back of the head.
He’d broken it off. He’d “freed” her. He’d let his guilt win, and now he was rotting in it.
But I won’t lie—even in the silence of the manor, I’ve missed her. Not her conversation. Her presence. The way the air in a room changes when she walks in, like a storm front moving in over a calm sea.
I love the way I get under her skin. I love the way her pulse jumps when I step too close, that delicious friction between her disgust and her curiosity.
She wants to hate me; she tells herself she does.
But I saw her eyes when she walked into my office.
I saw the way her pupils dilated until the deep blue was swallowed by black.
She hadn’t wanted to look away. She couldn’t. Her body was already whispering truths her mouth wasn’t ready to say. She was terrified of the scene in front of her, but she was starving for it, too. An unquenchable thirst she’s spent her whole life trying to ignore.
I intend to make her look at me that way again. I’ll make her look at me until she forgets Julian all together.
Julian had his turn with his poetry and his gentle hands, and he failed. He let her slip through his fingers because he was too afraid to squeeze. I don’t have that problem.
Now that she’s “free” from my brother, she’s for the taking. And I intend to take every single piece of her..
Mind, body, and soul.
I sat there for God knows how long, a shadow tethered to the curb, waiting for the glow in her window to die.
It didn’t take long. My little working girl was exhausted, her spirit drained by the mundane rhythm of a life that was beneath her.
I could almost feel the moment her head hit the pillow—the instant her consciousness gave in and she slipped deep into a sleep she’d earned, but wouldn’t enjoy.
The air had turned cool, a restless wind whipping through the trees and rattling the dry leaves along the gutter. A dog barked a few streets over, a lonely, echoing sound that only emphasised how quiet this neighbourhood really was at night.
I stood up, my fingers cracking in the silence and crossed the street with quick deliberate steps.
I walked straight to the step, reached under the chipped ceramic pot plant, and pulled out the spare key.
It felt pathetic in my palm—small, cold, and far too easily found.
The door creaked as I let myself inside, but it didn’t matter.
The house was already filled with the laughter of some sitcom—The Golden Girls, by the sound of it.
I walked past the lounge room, my shadow stretching long and predatory across the wall.
June’s grandmother was slumped in her recliner, fast asleep, the television volume turned up way too loud.
I paused for a second, watching the blue light flicker over her wrinkled features.
They really were like prey served up on a silver platter.
So trusting. So dangerously naive. They lived their lives as if the monsters only existed in the movies June liked to watch, never realising one was standing in their hallway, breathing their air.
But June… June was different.
Sometimes I think she wants to invite the monsters inside. She’d seen me following her. She knew I was lurking in the dark, a predator she couldn’t outrun, yet she left that key right where I could find it. In my world, that’s not an oversight. That’s an invitation.
She was daring me to come for her, even if she was too scared to admit it to herself.
I moved up the stairs, my boots silent on the carpeted treads. I took them one by one, shifting my weight with a hunter’s precision just in case she wasn’t as far gone as I thought.
The higher I climbed, the more the air seemed to thicken with the scent of her.
I stepped into the room, the pitch-black shadows swallowing her small frame as I moved deeper into her sanctuary. The only light came from the moon, casting a pale, ghostly glow across the length of her legs. I looked towards the window—the thin curtains were fluttering softly in the breeze.
She’d left it open—another invitation.
She’d done absolutely nothing to keep me out—no locked doors, no latched windows, no defences. It was as if some primal part of her was screaming for me to find her, even while her conscious mind pretended to be afraid.
I reached the side of the bed and stood there, a silent predator in the dark.
She was drowned in an oversized band shirt, her legs tangled outside the blanket, exposing the smooth line of her hip where the fabric had ridden up.
She shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her back with a soft, subconscious sigh that cut through the quiet.
My physical reaction was instantaneous—a sharp, frenzied, thrum of heat that tightened my chest and made my pulse roar in my ears. It wasn’t just desire; it was a territorial hunger so loud it felt like it should wake her up.
Without a hint of hesitation, I reached down. I was as steady as a surgeon as I hooked the hem of the soft cotton and began to lift. Slowly. Methodically.
I watched the fabric retreat, exposing the pale, unmarked skin of her stomach, the dip of her navel, and finally, the heavy, soft weight of her breasts. They were beautiful—perfect—rising and falling with the steady rhythm of a dream I wasn’t part of. Yet.
I leaned over her, my shadow eclipsing her entirely, my breath catching as the scent of her hair filled my nostrils. I wanted to see her eyes open. I wanted to see that dilation again—that moment where her fear and her need became indistinguishable.
She didn’t wake. Not fully. But as I took the weight of her breast into my mouth, her body betrayed the mind that claimed to hate me. Her nipple hardened against my tongue, and a soft, broken moan escaped her lips—a sound of subconscious surrender that tasted better than any lie she’d told me.
Her legs parted, a slow and inviting action that gave me the access I’d been craving since she fell face-first into my office.
I let my hand slide down, my fingers circling the delicate fabric of her underwear.
She twitched under my touch, her breath catching, her body arching, almost instinctively towards the heat of my hand.
I should have felt the weight of Julian’s presence in this room. I was playing with my brother’s favourite toy, treading on the sacred ground he’d been so careful to protect with his poems and his “gentle” boundaries.
But Julian was weak. He was a slave to his heart, drowning in a sea of guilt.
I, on the other hand, knew exactly where the lines were.
My control was concrete, a fortress he’d never be able to build.
I knew when to push and exactly when to stop; I knew when things had gone too far and when they were just beginning to get interesting.
There was no fear of the lines blurring for me. At the end of the day, I still knew what had to be done. I knew the Ritual required her blood, not her love. But as I watched her chest heave and felt her heat through the thin lace, I decided I might as well enjoy her while I can.
I continued the slow torture, my fingers circling the damp lace of her underwear as she arched into me, her breathing fracturing into broken stutters.
She was right on the edge—I could feel the frantic heat of her, the way her muscles coiled like a spring about to snap. I watched her face, mesmerised by the way her features softened in the throes of a dream that was clearly turning into a masterpiece of my own making.
Then, her eyes shot open.
They were wide, frantic pools of blue, reflecting the silver moonlight and the dark silhouette of the man hovering over her. Before she could let out the scream that would wake her grandmother and ruin the sanctity of this haunting, I slammed my hand over her mouth.
“Shhh,” I hissed, my mismatched eyes locking onto hers. “Don’t wake the neighbours, little bird. This is nothing they need to be part of.”
Shock rippled through her, but as the seconds ticked by, the fear started to mutate.
Her hand flew up, smacking my palm away from her mouth, her other hand shoving uselessly against my chest to clear the space between us.
“I don’t want to talk to you, Cain. Get out,” she snapped, her voice a defiant whisper.
I didn’t budge. Instead, I drove my finger firmer against her pussy, pinning her in place and forcing a soft gasp from her throat as the pressure anchored her to the bed.
A dark smirk tugged at my mouth. “Oh, little one… I’m not here to talk. And I could care less about what you have to say—unless it’s how much you want to sit on my cock.”
Before the last word even fully left my lips, I slammed my hand back over her mouth, cutting off any chance she had to reply and smothering her defiance right back down her throat.
I didn’t stop. I kept my hand moving, circling her with a practiced pace that made her pupils dilate until the blue was almost gone.
She didn’t fight me for long. Instead, she let out a shaky breath against my palm, her eyes fluttering shut as she gave in, reached down and placed her hand over mine—guiding me, pressing me harder against her as she chased the peak she was so desperate for.
“We’re going to regret this in the morning,” I muttered, the warning thick and rough in my throat.
She didn’t flinch. “Then give me something worth regretting,” she purred against my palm, her eyes burning into mine. “Keep going.”
She was reaching for it, her body trembling, her head tossing back against the pillow. And then, a sound slipped past her lips. A name, whispered so faintly it was barely a breath of air, but it hit me with the force of a physical blow.
“Julian.”
The word acted like a bucket of ice water over a wildfire.
Rage.
I stopped. Immediately.
I pulled my hand back from her underwear, leaving her suspended at the very edge of the cliff. Her eyes snapped open, clouded with a dazed confusion. She looked at me, heaving for air, her gaze pleading with me to finish what I started—to give her the release her body was screaming for.
But bad girls don’t get to finish. Not when they’re thinking of him.
I slowly slid my hand up her stomach, the friction of my palm harsh against her goose-bumped skin, and pinched her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.
She let out a sharp gasp into my hand, her back arching, her wetness a slick brand on my fingertips that matched the heavy, pulsing ache in my own jeans.
I leaned in until my lips were brushing the shell of her ear, my voice dropping into a lethal crawl.
“Don’t be careless, little bird,” I growled, the vibration of my words enough to make her shiver. “Never make the mistake of thinking I’m him. My brother might be the one who writes you poems, but I’m the one who’s going to write your end.”
I tightened my grip on her, my shadow swallowing her whole.
“He’s the dream, June. I’m the nightmare. And when the time comes, there will be no mistaking who is who. You’ll be screaming my name, and only mine.”