Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  I dove beneath the end of his tee, raking my nails up his deeply delineated abdomen around to his back, scratching so hard I knew I was breaking his skin.

  Priest roared. Head tipped back to the sky like a wolf howling to his moon, he roared and fucked me, displacing a hand from the ground to my throat so he could choke me lightly. My vision sparked with white and black like static, but I didn’t want to change the channel. I wanted that pressure in my head to break open and explode. I wanted the pain in my well-used, recently virgin pussy to fracture around him.

  Vaguely, I was aware of the depth of my depravity, fucking like an animal in a graveyard. Vaguely, I wondered if I might be smote down by God.

  Resolutely, I decided if I died there and then while impaled on Priest’s long, ruthless cock, I’d die a happy sinner and live forever content in hell.

  Those eyes you picture following you in the night, dark and feral, stalking you from the shadows? Those were the eyes looming above me now. The eyes of a predator pinning down its prey and taking his fill of the spoils. He fucked me with all the vigor of victory and the almost lazy arrogance of someone who was used to winning.

  “Gonna come in this pretty, tight cunt,” Priest threatened as if his words didn’t bring me an inch closer to death.

  I understood now why the French called it that, a little death.

  It was fitting I was already in a grave of our own making.

  “Gonna fill you up with cum so it leaks outta ya for days,” Priest continued, his eyes glazed and darker than the night around us. “Your poor, swollen cunt is gonna ache after this, and the only thing that can fix it is me slidin’ right back, isn’t that right, Bea?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, head flopping from side to side, mud in my hair, snow in my eyes, my entire body focused only on the one central point inside my pussy he continued to drive against. “Yes, yes, Priest. Oh, my God, I love this. I-I love sinning like this with you.”

  “Say it,” he ordered coldly, his words lashing harder than the wind against my face. His hand squeezed briefly too tight around my neck. “Wanna hear that sweet voice speak filth for me.”

  “I want your cum,” I promised him, too far gone to feel the embarrassment I might normally have been overcome with. Instead, the words felt sweet as Fuzzy Peaches on my tongue. Sweet and elemental as snow. “I want you to come deep inside me. I want to feel you own me.”

  That was it.

  For both of us.

  The sound of Priest, usually so silent and taciturn, overtaken by desire, growling and grunting with it as he fucked me so hard into the dirt, snapped the elastic band holding me together and both of us went spiralling.

  Wheeling.

  Falling.

  All of it in the dark, in the cold, the two of us the only two beings for miles. The air around us steamed, gentle curls of hot air dissipating into the sky.

  We breathed each other, mouths open, foreheads aligned. I could see Priest’s gaze, but it was all in shadow.

  “You may be a killer,” I said softly, risking the ruination of our intimacy by pushing for more. It was in my nature to delve deeper into someone’s psyche. I could no more stop myself from pressing than I could from loving erotically charged pain. “But you aren’t heartless.”

  My hand moved from his hair, over the crescent moon of his cheek, down his neck to rest on the steady, hard beat of his heart.

  “If you own me, doesn’t that mean I own you?” I meant it as a question, but the cast of my voice made it a plea.

  The quality of his stillness changed then. It solidified like water into ice, rain into the snow now thick in the air all around us, settling into a thin blanket over his back and hair.

  I thought I’d lost him. Closing my eyes, I steeled myself for rejection, even knowing it would obliterate me.

  “The only thing I can give you is my darkness, my desire, and the endless hunger I feel for you in my gut.”

  My lids popped open to see Priest staring at me solemnly, so sombre and acute with something like self-hatred it felt like we were in a confessional.

  “Okay,” I said immediately, letting the joy ricocheting inside me burst across my face. He blinked as if into the sun. “Okay, then.”

  He kissed me then, a hard stamp of lips against lips, and it felt like an official seal on our declaration. I wasn’t sure if we were dating or not, if this meant we could have sleepovers and go on dates—all the rituals of courting—but I didn’t care. Priest wasn’t a normal man, and I was discovering I was nowhere close to a normal woman.

  It felt good to acknowledge my otherness. I was happy to live in the shadows so long as I could hold his hand.

  As long as I belonged to the reaper of The Fallen, I was in heaven.

  Priest

  The feel of my bike between my thighs, the icy tug of wind in my unbound hair, and the endless scope of road to ride before me were three of my favourite damn things about my decidedly ascetic lifestyle. I couldn’t concentrate on any of them at the moment. Not with Bea pressed to my back, not knowing she was wearing nothing underneath that little skirt. I’d left her so wet, so full of my cum, I knew it must’ve been leaking all over the leather seat of my bike. My cock was an iron bar in my jeans as I thought of how she was baptising it with her sweet fucking honey.

  The entire ride was a battle. I regretted driving back to the farm to swap out her car for my Harley. It was her idea as much as mine, and now I knew why. The feel of her was a distraction I couldn’t shake.

  I intended to drop her off at her house, search it before she went in, then wait outside until some other brother arrived to safeguard her. She wanted to spend a night in her own bed, which was fair, but there was no way in hell I’d leave her without at least two of my most capable brothers as her guards.

  Even then, I had no doubt I’d end up back at her little pink house later that night to stand sentry in the shadows myself.

  But I needed space.

  Suddenly, just existing in the same place as her, knowledge that had once brought me some kind of fucked-up solace, was too much to bear. My skin itched and burned the way it had years ago when I’d been scarred and torn and branded. All the old wounds of my flesh and mind were festering, blistering, and I knew they’d pop horrifically into open sores if I stayed a moment more with my angelic girl with the dirty mind.

  But, but, but….

  The refrain haunted my thoughts.

  Memories of the night flashed through my brain each time I repeated the caveat.

  Alone in a graveyard with a dead man and a killer, Bea had offered her hand in a way that implied she was willing to follow me wherever I went, and the courage of that action made the breath catch in my throat.

  “Come,” she’d said, ethereal in the moonlight, voice as sweet as some singing angel. “Show me who you really are, only ever alone. Let me follow you into the dark.”

  That this was Bea Lafayette, the sweet girl who led Bible studies and wore ridiculous pink bows in her hair, the girl who had studied me for years the way some monks dedicated their lives to the study of religion, the girl who seemed to know just exactly how fucked up I was. That this was her.

  It rocked me.

  Fucking rocked me.

  I’d blinked because that was the only thing my body knew what to do as I attempted to process the sheer, over-fucking-whelming beauty of this girl and her trust.

  I blinked, and I breathed.

  Bea waited, patient as a saint.

  In truth, I was in conflict with myself. I already considered her mine in a way I’d never be able to shake. It was scarred into my skin, my muscle and bone. I felt her possession of my body and whatever soul I might’ve retained just as I felt her like my obsession was something omnipotent, fateful and huge. I couldn’t cut this feeling out of me neatly with a good blade and sheer will. It was too late for that, too inconceivable of me to even want to mire myself from such a miraculous thing.

  Because her love was a miracle. I knew t
hat, and I didn’t even believe in such things. The love of a woman like Bea, like the women some of my brothers had been lucky enough to find, was a miracle. I’d just never believed in that for myself.

  Miracles were for the good.

  What did a damned man do when he was graced with one? If he had even a fucking ounce of goodness, he would turn and run from her, free her of his ominous presence and his death-dealing ways.

  Oh, but there was not even an ounce of that in me.

  Not even a fucking molecule.

  I was all bad, and unfortunately or not for Bea, I was all hers.

  If another man wanted her, I would kill him. I didn’t care why or how or even if Bea would hate me for it. She was mine until my last breath. And if I had to die for her, protecting her from the savages like me who wanted to own her light, then so be it. I couldn’t think of a better fucking way to go. Even after that, I’d haunt her until she joined me in whatever afterlife there might be.

  So why did I feel this trembling hesitation like some virgin on his wedding night? Why did I feel so recalcitrant in the face of her obvious love and years-long devotion?

  Why was I afraid?

  This slip of a girl with hair like moonlight and eyes a wide and unbeguiling blue somehow had the capacity to terrify me when no one ever had before. Not even the demons that haunted my past had held me so much in a fearful thrall.

  I felt as though I was desperate for something I wasn’t ready––might not ever be ready––to find.

  And that little Bea Lafayette was offering it to me on a silver fucking platter.

  “Priest?”

  I blinked, realizing we’d pulled into her driveway and that I’d been driving on autopilot. Bea was stroking her hands down my abs, tracing the boxed muscles with her delicate fingers in a way that made me want to fuck her on the back of my bike. Instead, I froze, unable to withstand such tenderness.

  “Goin’ in to check out the place, then callin’ in Wrath and Bat to stand guard with you tonight,” I told her, deciding it was best to lay out the rules from the get-go.

  For such a sweet girl, Bea could be damn tenacious.

  As if to prove my thought, she swung off the bike to face me and fisted her hands on her hips. She looked adorable in her muddy peacoat and destroyed girly shoes with her hair all dirty and tousled around her face.

  I frowned, because before that moment, I’d never called anyone or anything “adorable” in my entire life. I hadn’t even known what it meant until I saw Bea standing there like an indignant little girl about to stomp her foot even as my cum ran down her thigh.

  “You are absolutely not doing that, Priest McKenna,” she warned me with narrowed eyes. “You just fucked me nine ways from Sunday in the middle of a cemetery.” She blushed fiercely but forged on. I wanted to lick the pink in her cheeks. “My pussy still aches from you. I think you owe it to me to at least come inside for a bit.”

  I scowled, feeling like a bear caught in a trap. If I had to, I knew I’d gnaw off my own leg to escape. “Not gonna fuckin’ cuddle you or some shit.”

  Bea rolled her eyes dramatically. “Like you’d even know how. I don’t need tenderness. I just need you. Now, get off that bike and come inside. I’m freezing, and I can’t wait to see Sampson and Delilah.”

  With a flip of that long mane, she turned on her heel and practically skipped up the walk to her door. Amusement moved through my chest and maybe even a little awe.

  No one talked to me like that. All sass and teasing.

  Usually, people took one of two tones when speaking to me: awe and fear.

  Bea wasn’t afraid of me, not at all, not despite my best efforts. There was awe there, though, in the way she muttered my name like a prayer when I was deep inside her, in the way she paid homage to my body like it was some religious artifact.

  I didn’t want to get off my bike almost as much as I wanted to follow her inside.

  The latter impulse won.

  I gritted my teeth, swung off my Harley, and stalked after her. My hand stopped hers as she went to turn the knob.

  “You got your knife handy?” I grunted.

  She bit the slightly bruised lower curve of her mouth. Bruised from my kisses. I wrenched my eyes away with serious fucking effort.

  “Yes.”

  I nodded curtly. “Stay here, stay vigilant. Gonna check out the house.”

  One of the biker babes who’d been coming by to feed the cat and check on the bird had left a lamp on in the living room and the lights on in the kitchen. The locks on the front and back doors didn’t appear to be tampered with, and there was no sign of an intruder otherwise.

  It was officially safe for me to leave her in the house and wait outside in the cold dark like I always did until someone else could take over watching her.

  “All clear,” I told Bea when she snuck her head inside around the door. “Get in here.”

  She beamed at me as if searching the house for her was some kinda heroic deed. Then I watched her actually skip into her house and sing out for Sampson, who I hadn’t spotted at all in the house on my run-through.

  A minute later, the old one-eyed albino cat swaggered out from the hall, tail high as he meandered over for love from his woman. He stopped mid-step when he caught sight of me and then deliberately turned farther away from me as he continued on his way to Bea.

  “Cat’s got good taste,” I grunted, lingering in the doorway because some bizarre conviction told me if I ventured farther into the pink and white space, it would infect me even more with this sense of wrongness I felt gnawing inside me.

  Bea tipped her gaze up through her long lashes as she crouched to pet Sampson. “He does. It takes him a while to warm up to people because he was abused as a kitten, but when he decides you’re worth it, he’s all sweetness.”

  I raised a brow, face cold. “That supposed to be some kinda metaphor?”

  Her wide-eyed blink was all innocence. “I don’t know what you mean. Now, I’m frozen. Why don’t we have some hot chocolate to warm up?”

  The suggestion exploded out of her and ended with a little giggle. She stood, moving into the kitchen without waiting for confirmation from me.

  Hot chocolate.

  I’d never had that shit in my entire life, and I doubted I’d like it. Sweets were not a staple of my diet. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything sweet, discounting the sugary, sticky juices spilling from Bea’s pink pussy.

  I licked my lips unconsciously.

  “Not gonna drink that shit,” I called to her, staying in place at the door.

  “I make it with those little marshmallows,” she refuted as if that made some kinda difference.

  She was visible from the open concept kitchen but not clearly from where I stood. I moved closer, drawn to her even as she hummed a Christmas tune under her breath. It was only late November, and she already had a box of seasonal decorations labeled in her neat, curling script out beside the coffee table. Of course, Bea loved Christmas. She loved any reason to celebrate life and be grateful for those things she loved in such abundance.

  Which included me.

  The soles of my feet itched, my hands clammy and twitching where they were fisted at my sides. I felt agitated by some electric current that stretched between the two of us, crackling in the air, fizzing in my blood. I needed to unplug. I needed space, space, space.

  Yet I didn’t take it. Instead, I moved into the living room to get a better look at it and Bea beyond in the kitchen, shaking her hips as she stirred something on the stove. Her bird, Delilah, was on her shoulder, taken from the large cage in the corner. Together, they cooed softly to each other.

  How the fuck had I ended up obsessed with this girl?

  She was something out of a fairy tale. The only role I should have played in her life was as the villain, but somehow, she’d cast me as the hero. How fucked up was that?

  “Why the names?” I asked, surprised by my own question.

&n
bsp; I wasn’t curious by nature and definitely not intrusive. But I wanted every inch of Bea’s body and mind to be owned by me. I wanted to be able to answer any question about her better even than she could. Not to lord my knowledge over her, but to find some kind of fucked-up comfort in it. I wanted to hold everything Bea was to me like a blanket when I was inevitably alone again, in the dark and in the cold of my own necessary solitude.

  Bea stopped messing about in the kitchen long enough to shoot me a surprised, happy little smile. She reached a finger up to stroke the dove’s white head gingerly, and the bird, lucky bitch, leaned into the stroking eagerly.

  “They were sinners in the Bible,” she explained as she went back to warming milk on the stovetop. “But I think they were misunderstood. Sometimes, it seems like we only get one version of a story in the Bible, and I’ve always wondered about Sampson and Delilah, if they had their own voices, what kind of story they might tell.”

  “Always tryin’ to make shit romantic,” I muttered, staring down that one-eyed cat as he swished his bushy tail and glared at me from the coffee table. “Nothin’ romantic in tragedy.”

  “I’m surprised you would even say that. Tragedy denotes an injustice to their lives. I thought you were more a ‘whatever happens, happens’ kinda man,” she said, lightly teasing, but also obviously keen to uncover more of my personality.

  Warning bells clanged in my ears, but I couldn’t resist her pull, gravitational as it was. It took enough effort to remain in the living room while she did whatever the fuck she was doing in the kitchen.

  I wanted my hands on her.

  I wanted us close enough, always, to breathe the very same breath.

  My hands fisted with need. I forced them to unfurl, staring at the mottled scars and tattoos on my flesh. Ugly hands for ugly deeds.

  But the way Bea had anointed them with her lips, kissing them like a vassal at the hand of his liege, as if they were worthy and somehow beautiful…

  I shook my head so hard my neck cramped.

  “You okay?” she called softly.

  No, no, no.

  I felt like I was coming apart at the fucking seams. I needed to get out, get out, get out!